Okay, I'm back.  On Wednesday, we went to Halong Bay for an overnight stay on a boat.  Halong Bay is a UNESCO site, world heritage place.  When we left Hanoi, the bus took us to see Ho Chi Minh's museum, for lack of a better word.  Very large building.  We had five minutes to hurry off the bus and take pictures.  We were quite a ways from it and it was so hazy that I don't know if my pictures will turn out.  They were changing the guard while we were there.  Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated when he died and have his ashes scattered on mountaintops, but when he died, innnnnnn 19 something, not that long ago, it was decided that he was too important for that so his body was kept in a temperature controlled chamber for two years while they built this monument.  His body is on display in a glass coffin.  Our guide says no one knows if it's a fake body or a real one.

It took us an hour to get out of the city due to traffic.  Stella and I decided that we saw at least 500,000 motorbikes in that time.  And it could be a low estimate since 11 million people live in Hanoi.  It's hard to describe it.  And almost all of the riders have on masks, which is a good thing due to the smog/haze.

We got to Halong Bay that morning and settled in on the boat.  There are 1,969 islands in this bay and they are spectacular.  All different rock formations, shapes and sizes.  After lunch, we stopped and walked through a large cave.  It was a hike but beautiful.  Afterwards, some opted to go swimming but it was almost sunset and when they got to the beach, it was closed.  Three of the group are going kayaking at 6:30 in the morning.  It was great to just sit on the deck and watch the scenery.

We saw some kites (birds) here and that brought up the question that we had not heard or seen any bird life at all.  Our guides comment "they ate them all."  Okay then.  But it is weird that, in this tropical environment, there are no birds.  Lots of white domestic ducks and lots of chickens but nothing else.  The ducks are for eggs.

When we went to bed, we discovered that our feet were higher than our heads.  So we each got up and rearranged our beds so our heads were at the foot.  I'm sure it looked strange but it felt much better.