Kinda a relaxing day today. After a three hour bus ride from Ha Noi ride arrive at Halong Bay. We thought this would be a quaint fishing village, turned out to be a modern city. Indeed their suspension bridge marvels the best in the world.
We board our “junk” for the next two days.
Joining us are only 5 other people. 4 from Australia, all friends. And a gal from Lebanon, Eileen. She is quite a lady. She has more life experience in her little finger then I do in my whole body. She has dual citizenship: Australia and Lebanon, is an attorney and has worked all over the world. Most recently in New York City working for the American Bar Association. Her family lives in Australian, but she is of Lebanese descent, and has worked in most Middle Eastern countries. Her most “exciting” job was working for the British Government for 18 months in Basra and Baghdad Iraq, right after the American invasion!
She was part of a team to requalify Iraqi judges for the new government. Her perception of the war and it’s affects on the Iraqi people cannot be ignored. She saw firsthand how the military and their contractors harassed, beat, imprisoned and killed many Iraqis based on misinformation, ignorance, misunderstanding, fear, or hatred. She was “in the belly of the beast” for a year and a half. She was also involved with legal preparation in London prior to the invasion.
She knew the evidence supporting the US invasion of Iraq that was so convincing to we Americans was indeed a sham. I believe her knowledge of how the war was carried out for the first 18 months was both eye witness and unbiased. She said we made just about every mistake possible, and if we had done our homework prior to the invasion, the outcome would have been much different.Just one person’s perspective, but one I can’t ignore.
Eileen and me at dinner
Back to our holiday! We took the junk out to Vong Vieng Village, a floating village. About 200 residents. They primarily farm fish and oysters for pearls. They have a regular village with families, dogs, the market boat that goes by regularly, a water boat for their fresh water, and we watched a trash boat that was fishing styrofoam and plastic bags out of the water. We watched the 8 kids in their school, next to the bar with the pool table!
There are four floating villages in Halong Bay, the largest has over a thousand people!
Halong Bay is composed of over 3000 islands that rise out of the Gulf of Tonkin. These islands are “limestone karsts”. Some small, many very large and up to 300 meters high.
Tomorrow, a full day of kayaking among the limestone towers.
