A gorgeous day for a drive to the waterside! We started off on the highway and hit a pottery town, walked around the grounds where they actually make the pottery in moulds, then drain the clay out when it's dried, which forms the pot.

Once dry, they hand paint each pot with a special glaze which makes the colours become brighter when fired.

This is some of the finished product... lots of colours and sizes, we even had the opportunity to paint some ourselves!

From there, we headed for the water, Halong Bay, where 3000 mountainous islands rise up out of the emerald waters.  Below is a floating island as they call it, which is actually several floating houses. One even had a dog!

Me, on the back of our boat, with the islands in behind. This area is actually a World Heritage Site.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love rocks! Unfortunately I couldn't find one that would fit in my pack, but I managed to take about a million photos!

This one had the most beautiful rock face! I think I have about 20 of it alone!

We stopped at a cave along the way in one of the mountain sides.  Two hundred stairs up, we made our way into the cave and the cool air.  It felt good, and looked incredible! This was the view from about half way through when we came up out of one cave.

This picture really shows the ceiling, carved out by thousands of years of winds, as well as the walls with large rock that has developed over many years.

I found the ceiling just as fascinating as the walls and other rock formations!

Ahhhhhh, and when the sun shines in, stunning! We walked all around these caves, some went fairly deep. What a great place to explore!

Looking back at the stairs we had just climbed...

Once done in the caves, ladies were waiting in boats to sell tourists some goods. This particular boat had fish, both fresh and dried as well as other sea treats.

After the caves a small group of us went out for a little kayak tour. The water was so peaceful, lots of wild life, jumping fish, and in and out of bays and around the islands, it was so neat to see!  We went under a large rock cliff which naturally formed as weak rocks moved in the ocean bed, and strong rock formations remained above, inside this island was about a three acre opening, with rock formations climbing high all around. One one platform off to the side sat a huge family of monkeys, there must have been at least 50! Even weeeeee tiny baby ones! Sooo ridiculously cute! Afterwards we headed back to the boat for a fabulous dinner of many different Viet foods, then to the top deck for an after dinner bevy!   There were several other tourist boats in the bay with us, below is a pic of them, along with the beautiful rock formations and a half moon. Such a nice night!

At dinner, one of the staff was trying to sell us pearls. I didn't buy any, but found this really interesting on how they develop.  Had never had the opportunity to see them before harvest before!

In the morning we headed back to Hanoi, then I spent the afternoon shopping around the market - soooo many neat things to look at and figure out how to pack home! Tonight, an overnight train to Hui, and tomorrow, a new town to explore!

Cheers!