New Year in Vietnam

We ended up on New Year's day on a boat, sailing through the mysterious peaks of Ha Long Bay, rising up out of the water silently, through shifting patterns of mist. We were part of a flotilla of wooden junks, built to look old, with wood-pannelled interiours, carved wooden ceilings, benches and tables and little wood-pannelled cabins. We sailed past floating villages, where women rowed out to us in floating shops.

Yesterday we visited a cave, high up on one of the three thousand islands. Hundreds of passengers, vomitted up by scores of boats, crawled like ants up the steep path to the entrance of a cave. I looked down into the cavernous depths of the cave where I saw the whole stream of people swallowed up. The visitors snaked through one vast chamber after another, below huge stalactitic growths, illminated by lurid purple, orange, blue and green lights. Our guide told us that we were in the belly of the dragon, the same dragon who spat out pearls, which became these multitudinous islands.

Last night, after a meal of greasy food, they switched on the karaoke. All the young passengers, everyone except us, drank huge quantities of beer, wine and whisky, then attempted to sing along, eventually giving up and plugging in their ipod to play dreadful music, shrieking with laughter and smoking. We fled to our cabin. there was a triangular gap beside the cabin window and the door rattled. A cold sea breeze blew in. I took off my boots, climbed into bed in all my clothes, stuffed earplugs in, pulled the covers over me and slept like a baby.