IT WAS HA LONG WEEKEND

We got up early Saturday to head to an overnight trip to Halong Bay. the van picked us up at 8 am and we started out on the 4 hour drive to Halong. If you are wondering why this little guy is smiling at me, I was because I kept trying to take his picture with his friend and their.......FULL SIZE COW HOGTIED TO THEIR MOPED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It is crazy how many mopeds there are here and even crazier how much they haul on them. This is the boat, junk, that we will be staying on. Maia got into the spirit in our onboard room with a little straw hat we bought for her.

We cruised out into the bay and got off the boat to check out a cave up in the islands.
The cave was very long and had a lot of stairs up and down. We hiked for over an hour with Maia sleeping on my shoulder and Laurie carrying the 20 pound diaper bag. Charmain would be proud of our workout. Laurie and Maia got a little downtime to just sit on the beach and enjoy the sand.
They are really having fun together. She is a very good little girl, very easy to take care of and so much fun to be around.
It was a beautiful sunset.
And with night came the pitter patter of little feet. Not Maia, not elves or Riendeer, Rats! After midnight you could hear them scurrying around overhead in the walls, everywhere. Needless to say Laurie could not sleep, she had the lights on and surprise she made sure I was awake to keep her company. When she woke up her hair dryer blew a fuse and when I went to find a crew member the first one I saw was carrying a rat on a long pole trap. Not real impressive.

In the morning I took the opportunity to use a kayak and go through to a hidden bay. This was the only way in or out.

There were some interesting rock formations.
The girls were happy to see me when I got back.

We started our cruise back to Ha Long. It was filled with incredible scenery. We enjoyed a nice lunch on board during our cruise back. Laurie was able to buy some pearls for Maia from one of the crew members. We have been picking up little gifts for her that we will give to her on her Gotcha day anniverseries until she is 21.
We made it back to shore. The crew member said Laurie could pay her when we got to shore. When Laurie went to the ladies room the crew member told me to get on the back of a moped with a young girl to go pay. We zipped off to an ATM. It did not work, off we went down the road full of traffic and busses. Our third ATM finally worked. When we got back the others in the van waiting to ride back to Hanoi were not amused with our little delay.

I wish Little Maia was calling for backup. She did well the first part of the 3+ hour ride back, but had a meltdown with about an hour to go. Our fellow passengers were not impressed. We thought she did pretty well considering this was her first time in a carseat.

It was a fun trip and we will certainly never forget it. But we were very happy to get back to our little motel room and rest peacefully.