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Published: April 5th 2012
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Halong Bay
Around 2000 islands and probably at least as many boats! According to my intrepid guide book... Local legend says that long ago when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons descended upon what is now Halong Bay and began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form barriers against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam...
Designated a World Heritage site in 1994, Halong Bay has around two thousand islands that rise from the jade green water of the Gulf of Tonkin. Several of the islands are hollow with enormous caves. We docked and visited a huge cavern called Suprise Cave, so called because when the French discovered it they said; "
Mon dieu! Why, it is a cave!"
On our return from the cave the kids and some of our adults set out on kayaks to explore more closely the surrounding islands. They told me on that on one island monkeys came down from the trees to visit them! I wish had photos of that 😊
Some of you may be
interested in the food? Well on our junk boat for dinner we were served grilled shrimp with salt 'n' pepper and lime to start, followed by something like a very small minced calamari cake with a fabulous dipping sauce and then some rice with chicken and vegetables in a light curry sauce and then... a beautiful whole fish with finely diced peppers and herbs presented under a hand cut carrot net, the waiter (a fellow who had a very dry sense of humour who thought it necessary to tell that I was on my fourth beer!) de-boned it for us and it was the best fish I've ever eaten. I think I'm going to be talking about food a lot on this trip. Yum, yum.
Now I thinks it's time for you all to learn some Vietnamese. Just a couple of words per blog for you to practice at home or at work and of course I'll be expecting you to be able use them appropriately on my return home...
Hello - Sin Chow
Oh my god! - oi choi oi!
It's all about the accents in Vietnam. You know how we have words that sound
the same but are spelled differently? Like; there, they're and their? Well in Vietnam they have words that are spelled the same but sound and certainly mean something quite different. Let me demonstrate.
Pho, when written with different accents can mean three things (that I know of)
Pho - popular broth with herbs, noodles and chicken or beef; pronounced "fer" but don't make the r sound
Pho - street; pronounced "for" with a rising note at the end
Pho - prostitute; pronounced "foe"
Okay, that will do for now 😊 hope it won't take me a week to get the next entry out.
Cheers,
Jo and Hannah
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Pauly
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4th Beer
Just increadible!! Top nosh, cold cool ones and multiple islands to explore in the yakety yaks.. and no sun burn to worry about... How's Hannah enjoying the colourful nosh??