What’s Up and What’s Down in Ha Long Bay

 Upon reflection this is where I am at:

UPS

The service.  Couldn’t fault it.

The FOOD - every 4 course meal of the whole trip was amazing

The private beach and the walk in through the cave

Surprisingly, the cooking lesson.  Our guide was actually a real person and quite funny.

Very little in the way of birdlife?  Not sure why.

The beauty and strangeness of it all.  No wonder King Kong was filmed there.

DOWNS

No access to the water, water everywhere and not a way to swim (from the boat)

The staff member who Sepa got put out with by putting water on the floor from her sneakers (hahahaha, it was actually pretty funny.  Be cranky all you like, we have dealt with much better angry sulking)

Sadly, the rubbish in the water.  That was a real downer.  All that one use plastic!  Ban it!

That is about it really.  It was very interesting and I am glad I have been there, but that was enough.  I don’t need to see every single one of those 1969 (accurate now) rocks sticking out of the ocean.  So few are inhabited and I can see why because they are steep and rocky and looming, with shear faces and very few beaches or places to land a boat.  

I can also see why it is UNESCO listed, but they need to do some serious thinking about how they are going to clean the place up.  Up until now I understood the pollution in the ocean on a theoretical basis, but having seen it I am shocked about what it looks like in reality.

This picture is not storage for a fishing village, it is the flotsam and jetsam of stuff washed into a little cave.  This is about mid tide.  Very confronting.