After a horrid night’s sleep, thanks to a mixture of generator noise and unfamiliar bedding (nothing was really bad, we just had a bit of insomnia keeping us going), we’re roused around 7 by the dastardly squawking of Karin’s blackberry. No, that’s not right, she punches me awake; as I jump up, thinking we’re being raided by pirates or landsharks or something similarly horrible, I realize that it paid off to leave the curtains wide open. As we sit in bed, our entire window front is full of foggy islands gliding by, a ghostly and beautiful bit of scenery. I could deal with this sort of view every day (and night, when a few other boats are visible by their lights in the distance.)
As I write this, I’m sitting on our balcony at the front of the ship; we’ve managed to talk the majordomo into letting us switch rooms when it turned out that al the other passengers left the ship after spending only one night on the cruise. Our new room is equally palatial, even bigger if anything, and has magnificent views on two sides worth of huge windows. This should be great fun — especially if you don’t mind the prospect of a bunch of fishermen pointing and grinning as you take a shower while cruising past their junk. And it’s blissfully free of generator sounds, promising a relaxing night ahead.
We’ve explored some quiet lagoons in kayaks after a great pho breakfast (surprisingly followed by a proper English fry-up that left us a bit stuffed). A bit of confusion ensued as we thought our shipmates were leaving without us, while we would change cabins, but it turns out they were about to enjoy their last half day on an island beach while we benefited from an extra bit of touring. An elderly Dutch gentleman had repeatedly expressed his intention to go swimming; as they brought out a volleyball and started batting it about halfheartedly, we could see a rain squall take shape. Bummer for them.
Unfortunately, after one brilliant dry-ish kayak trip, we were subjected to the same wet misery on our way to check out some “bat caves” (although there were no bats anywhere.) Thankfully, the whole thing was made still good fun by some great company and amazingly fresh, superbly cooked food, bought from the same fishing village we’d visited the day before. We were introduced to our crab and some king prawns that made us feel a bit guilty; I’m not so sure about the concept of meeting your food face to face. That’s why beef’s nice, it grows in refrigerators.
Bizarrely enough, GPS reception is sketchy, but I’m keen to try out all my new camera toys. To my satisfaction, I have a chance to use all the crap I lugged along (and to Karin’s dismay, admittedly I should probably play less, but hey, I’m on holiday). Taking loads of pictures comes naturally, the views are, without exception, breathtaking. It would have been nice to have a day with sunshine, but we’ll live; the fog and clouds shrouding the seemingly endless islands create a mysterious atmosphere reminiscent of a cheesy Chinese souvenir landscape. Every angle brings a new and stunning vista.
Even better, after some disappointment at having the same menu (filet with sauce bordelaise, mysterious shrimp potato balls, and Sapa foie gras, all admittedly pretty good) as the previous night, we reinforced our preference for anything spicy and Vietnamese (they’d been good enough to bring us a plate of fresh chili with each meal, but you try eating that with a filet) and not only did the cook whip up a beautiful collection of non-European dishes, but Tu, our waiter, actually went to the trouble of writing and printing out a special copy of the menu for us. A surly-looking 30something fellow in a suit and sunglasses, probably from what passes for “corporate” with the people who run these boats, turned up and started giving the staff a hard time for not giving us the standard menu, and thought it was somehow hilariously funny when they explained that we’d actually asked for Vietnamese dishes. Go figure.
