Good Evening from a hot and humid Hanoi.

Our trip is coming to a close. I was convinced that after 3 weeks of being on the road, eating out all the time, staying in different beds every few days, that we would be anxious to return home. Quite the opposite. We all wish we could stay longer. We think we should have added one more destination - perhaps Cambodia. Oh well, perhaps our next visit?

We returned home this afternoon from our day in Ha Long Bay. The junk boat cruise was buy yet another highlight of our trip. We stayed on an awesome boat, that had only 5 cabins (and only 4 were occupied). Our cabin was big - a king size bed and a single bed, and four large windows on opposite walls. The junk boat (junk is the pronunciation of the Chinese word, meaning 'wood boat with sails') was very nice, with a crew of 9 (there were 8 guests in all). We had a couple from Australia, a honeymoon couple from the UK, and a single traveler from, of all places, Boston. Come to find out, he planned this trip many months ago, but he works for NESN as sound-engineer for Bruins and Red Sox games. He ended up missing game 7. Ugh.

The boat (Red Dragon Cruises) was beautiful, only out done by the sights and nature. The 1,969 limestone islands of Ha Long Bay are gorgeous. We cruised by a bunch of them, and spent much of our time eating. The food was incredible.

The moment we arrived on the boat on Sunday afternoon (after a terrible 3 1/2 hour drive from Hanoi), we sat down to a 9-course seafood lunch. Yup - 9 courses. Incredible. After lunch, we visited an island that had a wonderful cave. We swam off the beach, went for a 30-minute sea kayak, and did more swimming. We sent Travel Boy with some other guests on the skiff back to the large boat, while Travel Gal and I and the guy from the UK swam the several hundred yards to the boat. Fun. When we got to the boat, we got on board and jumped off the railings into water. Even Travel Boy jumped from the boat and it was pretty high. We continued to sail a bit and ended up in a beautiful cove. We showered, relaxed with drinks, and enjoyed the amazing views and great company. The weather was fantastic - just what we needed. For dinner, we another epic meal, but this time with highly decorated dishes. The chef carved a watermelon into an exact replica of our junk boat. Amazing. As a surprise they brought out flowers and two cakes, one for the honeymooners, and one for Travel Gal and I for our anniversary. It even had writing on it. Very thoughtful. After dinner, we did a little squid fishing, with no luck. We slept great. Weather this morning was cloudy and a bit yucky. We had breakfast at 7a, and visited a floating fishing village. About 200 people live on floating houses in a bay. Their entire lives are spent on the water. Very interesting. We returned to the boat, and had lunch at 10:45a. Yikes, lots of eating. The overall experience ranks up their with all we have done these past 3 weeks.

Tonight, we did a little shopping (bought some more illegal DVDs for 70 cents each), and had a very nice dinner at a traditional Vietnamese restaurant. We also walked around the large lake in the Old Quarter neighborhood - even with ice cream in hand, it was unbearably hot and humid.