Hanoi
Time to explore Hanoi, both with a guide and on our own. Since our hotel was right in the middle of Hanoi’s Old Quarter, all we had to do was walk out the door and inhale the chaos. The buildings are very narrow and extremely deep – the government taxed property according to its width […]
The Dragon Legend Cruise
And now for the Maritime portion of the trip. We spent two nights aboard the Dragon Legend I, not to be confused with the Dragon Legend II, an identical ship with the same passenger capacity of 46. Mostly Australians and Europeans on our boat. Halong Bay is popular with the Vietnamese because of the numerous […]
Ninh Binh
We never heard of it either. Two big draws–one is the Cuc Phong National Park — thick dense humid jungle which made me wonder if this was the kind of terrain that was a backdrop for the war. We trekked up to a cave where human remains from the Bronze Age had been found — […]
Mai Chau
Singapore then Hanoi – one night stands
The hotel in Singapore, with a beautiful view of the marina, is a very soft landing after a hard journey — hard in the sense that it is 18 hours long. Two movies, two meals, two naps, and still lots of time to spare. More time in Hanoi later in the trip, but last night […]
Polynesian Dance
Big beach picnic, complete with a whole roasted pig, on an uninhabited moto Mon. night, Aug 12 plus entertainment Spectacular sunset. But the highlight was the Polynesian dancing, a part of the culture that hasapparently survived the missionaries. Dance is taken quite seriously and children begin to study when they are quite young. It is […]
Bora Bora
My favorite stop. Check out the video clips at the bottom. The best piece of luck we had was getting closed out of the Bora Bora two tank dive for that forced us to make our own arrangements. Hiroe Dive is a one woman operation with an immaculate small boat and first class bcd’s. Talk […]
Raitea, Ta’aha
Diving in Raiatea yesterday. The island itself had no beaches and the dive operation was good,considering how difficult it would be to organize ten people with gear, etc. The first dive, a reef dive was very nice except that my mask kept fogging up which is quite annoying. Probably because I had to spend so […]
Moorea
Finally, our overwater bungalow which was really fun. The best part was not even the glass window in the floor of the room because the visibility wasn’t great most of the time although it is kind of neat to see these tropical fish swimming beneath you. The best part was the balcony which, facing the […]
French Polynesia
Any trip to French Polynesia begins on the island of Tahiti, a transit stop for us and apparently the rest of the world treats it that way too. It was a place for us to adjust to the new time zone before really starting the travel. But we decided to hire a tour guide and […]