Last night Ha told us we could see a beautiful sunrise at 5am. So I woke up then trying to catch it, while steph continued to snooze away. Our boat has been anchored at the same spot we left it the previous night. Once again, makes us feel like the money we paid for was not worth it. Usually on a cruise or other boat trips, you keep on sailing until you reach another destination. Anyhow, I peaked out of our room and saw alan doing the same from his room. We were a bit upset because it was still very dark. Thus, the logical thing to do was go back to bed and snooze for another 20mins. We woke up 20mins and found each other, along with some others, in front of the boat. The sunrise was disappointing. No colors. We've been really unlucky with trying to capture photos of sunrise/set this trip. We only see nice ones when we don't have our cameras. Back to bed we went.
At 7:15am, steph and I decided to get up for breakfast. The plan today was to eat, kayak, sail back, lunch on land, bus 3 hrs, eat dinner, and then head to the airport for our evening flight to bangkok. Yes, a pretty eventful day.
Our breakfast was basic. Eggs, bread, and fruits. Nothing special. Steph and I was on a kayak together. Alan was kind enough to help out one of the mothers with two boys, and kayaked with one of the 12 year old boy...which later he complained he wasn't very helpful. Not only did alex not paddle, he dipped it in the water while alan was paddling, slowing the whole kayak down.
So the whole point of the kayak trip was to find this lagoon that the junk can't get into. We first had to paddle through a narrow opening between two karst mountains. When we reached there, we thought that was the lagoon and were a bit disappointed. It was huge, what's so special about it? And boat/junks can cruise in it, as we were fighting the waves they were creating. Then, we realized we had to do more paddling to get to a cave where we paddle through to reach the lagoon. I have to say, steph and I were doing a pretty good paddling job.
The lagoon was pretty disappointing too. It was way too big, so it felt like we were on the open river. Paddling through the cave was cool, but it was pretty short. We considered swimming in the lagoon, but that's when we saw a huge jellyfish and I said no thanks. To make our own fun we tugged onto alan's kayak and made him pull us for part of the way.
When we got back on the boat we quickly showered then read our books while we sailed back to land. Pretty uneventful. We then hopped on the bus and took our 3 hour journey to hanoi. On the journey I read my book, when genius failed, which is very relevant for today's financial crisis. It's very engrossing.
When we got back to kangaroo cafe, we had dinner before heading to the airport. Steph and I shared a burger, which was delicious since I haven't had one for a long time, and a ham and cheese baguette sandwich. Alan had stir fry chicken with lemon grass and chili sauce. All very satisfying unlike our disappointing boat trip.
To be fair, if we haven't been to guilin and yangshou, the scenery would of been really neat. But the amount of sailing being the same amount as the bus ride made us feel a bit ripped off. The food was good, not great. All-in-all most of the passengers thought the service wasn't great. They didn't try to build the atmosphere for us.
We then took our taxi to the airport. Alan and steph tried to spend the remainder of their dong there and it was a complete rip off. Everything was priced in dollars and the fx rate was 18 dong to 1 USD, vs the market rate of 16.5. Annoying! Alan used the money to buy some beers, while steph just kept it for her next visit. I somehow spent all of mine in town.
Oh - at Hoi an I lost my bank card. Not really sure how but I did. I think it was when I took out my passport my bank card fell out. So it's been a bit annoying, but thank goodness I have my sugar daddy and mommy around, and I have my hsbc card. It's a bit of a pain, but bernice (steph's sister) is joining in nov, so she will bring me my replacement then.
Back to the day, we were at the airport pretty early. So steph and I found ways to amuse ourselves. First we tried to figure out how to change the lock code. Alan figured it out and somehow changed it to another code, but can't figure out what it was. No comment there. I somehow broke steph's cheap china pen and the parts went flying everywhere. Eventually, like 10mins later, we found all the pieces and figured out how to put it together. Yes we were bored.
Our flight to bangkok was pretty short, 1.5 hours, but I managed to sleep the whole way through. We got a metered taxi to bring us to our hotel, which is nice and clean. It's called New Siam II and a triple is around $12 per person/night.
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