There are many difficulties in the claiming of an island in Halong Bay. First and foremost, which one? Spolit for choice does not begin to describe it. Like the nitty question of whether to include an expanse of water in ones claim. Particularly relevant I think for those islands with artful holes through the base. Secondly, what shade of rock is one looking for? As I've said, black, gray, white or tan are all choices though the colours can be difficult to discern in the rain. The issues that particularly caught my mind were, as ever, privacy and, essentially, vegetation and wildlife components. I suspect shape and height may be an area of concern for some, personally I find them all enchanting. A few may have a stony rock shore or even a cave but they would probably be in high demand by sharks of the non- marine variety.
I selected more than one in the end. Spent the morning drawing them from my cabin door as we passed them in the warm grey drizzle. There had been thunder overnight and it was very muggy. Some hardy vietnamese souls ventured onto a nearby artificial beach while we were breakfasting - on eggs and mango juice - but it really was more pleasant to draw via my open cabin door. We chugged back home. It took a good hour to get back to the harbour. Spotted the floating village in the distance along the way, apparently they have a floating school too; there were also two or three tankers moored off Halong City. Disembarked for the trip back to Hanoi. I investigated the sea pearls, purely for intellectual reasons of course. Returned to Hanoi at about 5pm in time for ice cream! Thank goodness as that rescued me from that anticlimactic feeling. I had a 'Flaming' with dark chocolate, passion fruit and what was supposed to be citron. I think next time I'll have the banana split. Also managed to catch The Avengers movie which was a great end to the weekend.
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