Vietnam Day Nine: Halong Bay

We had an early checkout this morning to catch our transport back to the airport for our seaplane ride to Halong Bay. But not before getting our parting gift and waters for our trip from the hotel. I have seriously never had such attention and service from a hotel before! We were only allowed 7 kg's of luggage so we packed for our overnight cruise in our backpacks and checked our suitcases in a locker at the airport. Our seaplane was smaller than I expected when I saw it in person! Our captain was from Australia and his copilot was from Vietnam. All my fears were amplified when the captain had to tell his copilot step by step which buttons to push and what switches to turn on. Pulling out the flying cheat sheet manual every few minutes didn't do anything to ease our fears. It was louder and bumpier than a commercial flight but fun to fly lower where we got to see much of north Vietnam before arriving at the bay. Flying over and around Halong Bay gave us a real appreciation of the magnitude of the limestone rock formations the dot the bay. And despite reading his manual during landing, we arrived safely. We were shuttled to three different lounges while waiting to board our cruise. You know what that means...three different "welcome" drinks! We were a little surprised to see our "triple" room. Basically we need to step on Layton's bed to get in or out of our bed. The worse part is how many springs you can feel in Layton's mattress! Our bed is great though! It's a king size bed and the softest mattress we have had yet! They served us lunch just after pulling out of the marina. Then we had a little bit of free time to relax (and sweat) on the upper deck before going kayaking around the floating village. Scott and Layton went in one kayak and I was in another with a lady from Australia. She didn't know how to kayak. Let's just say zig zagging to your destination is not the most efficient route. We were in a group of 10 people total on our boat, the other two families are both from Melbourne Australia. Scott bought a couple items from the floating sales lady that came up to our boat.  Mainly cause I told him to! I wanted the photo op and I like supporting these hard working ladies. We also had a cooking demonstration on how to make fried spring rolls and rose garnishes out of tomatoes. One thing we found very interesting was visiting a floating oyster farm. We had no idea that they made little round balls from the inside of the oyster shells to impregnate the oysters to create a pearl! We got to watch this pearl surgery in action! Dinner was amazing! Best meal we had all week. A yummy pumpkin soup and sea bass and the first real dessert since we got here - a mango custard. Usually dessert is just fruit. Layton tried squid fishing off the back of the boat at night with a bright light and a rod but didn't get any bites.