Activity level: 🌶️🌶️
Modes of transportation: 🚣♀️🚢🚐👟
We woke up early and had breakfast, which really hit the spot. After that, we had kayaking in a protected cove where the only entrance was through a cave. Sarah was relieved to know that these kayaks were tandem (though she did much of the paddling). It was kind of funny: the life vests were all US Army branded, so they must have been surplus. They worked great!
We heard everyone whooping and hollering, and weren’t really sure why. We found out afterwards that, similarly to Phi Phi, there were wild monkeys on the island that come near the shoreline because tourists feed them. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any—mostly because we weren’t looking.
Finished with that, we showered, changed, and packed up our stuff (we’re going to have to start keeping track of how many days we had to pack up).
With our rooms cleared out, we went to the top deck to enjoy the views, before heading down to the main dining area for a cooking class.
Our class was rolling fried spring rolls. It was a lot of fun, even if our rolls ended up kind of wonky and non-uniform. We ended up having them for lunch anyway, and they tasted great! We also sat back with the Taiwanese women for lunch, and during conversation, learned that they were 43 and 39, respectively. We were both floored since we had assumed they were in their mid 20s. Sarah got their skincare routine (and it did explain how they were able to travel to as many countries as they had).
We said our goodbyes and traded pictures, then we got off the boat and waited for our bus at a coffee shop. We decided to get an egg coffee, which may have been a mistake. Eric’s stomach started to turn a little, and it felt a little off for the rest of the ride.
Our return bus was luxurious, with full leather seats and lots of room—so at least Eric was suffering in comfort. We ended up blogging a little and sleeping when we could.
Finally, we ended up back to our original hotel. Honestly, we had a debate (both on both sides) about whether we should switch hotels, but the concierge, Brian, was so nice that we decided we couldn’t, despite the cockroaches.
Brian immediately greeted us on the curb and seemed super excited to see us. He had bought flowers for our honeymoon and put us in his nicest room, where he had left a small cake for congratulations. It was so nice, and it made Sarah want to cry.
At this point, Eric wasn’t feeling great, so he pretty much laid in bed and worked on the blog. The hotel people were so nice: they brought Eric an “isotonic drink” which was sort of like Gatorade, and Sarah picked up some medication to try to settle his stomach (they also gave us a 12% beer to help sleep, but we didn’t need any more alcohol…).
It was kind of sad to spend the rest of the day in the hotel, but Sarah at least got to try the beef pho that the concierge had suggested (and it was insanely good).
The concierge was fairly confident Eric would feel better in the morning after all the remedies he gave us. So he helped us book a discounted tour to visit to Ninh Binh, a mountain range often referred to as the “Ha Long Bay on land” for the next day. We also booked our flight to Bangkok for Halloween (a whole day earlier than we had to!) so we could make our flight from Bangkok to Delhi that same night.
Eric took some Diaresq and hoped for the best. We went to bed hoping we would make it to that tour.
Bonus content: one of the Taiwanese friends we made on the boat added Sarah on Instagram. Then we saw this in her profile from the previous night.
The caption in the video according to Google translate says:
“Happy Hour at night. Find a song from Taiwan, the United States, Italy, Vietnam, etc. A song that everyone knows”
“That’s Uncle Psy”
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