Sunday, October 31, 2004
Greetings from Tuan Chau Island
Actually, I am back in Hanoi this morning and then flying back to Saigon in a couple of hours. HaLong Bay, located on the coast about three hours' drive east of the capital, is still an incredibly unspoiled paradise. We stayed at the new au Lac resort on Tuan Chau island. We saw the Miss Vietnam beauty pageant in a huge amiptheater--only drawback was that people sat in everyone else's assigned seats, resulting in pandemonium throughout the first hour of the pageant. Very nice hearing our friend Tran Manh Tuan open the contest with his signature jazz saxaphone riffs. We went to a cavern bigger than Luray back in Virginia and ate crabs on a very binh dan wooden boat.
