October 18,

I didn't sleep well last night. I woke at 0300, and couldn't get back to sleep till after 0500. Then awake at 0615. Jeff said he tossed and turned quite a bit. Our bed is very hard, probably as hard as the last bed on the bike tour. But our breakfast was lovely! We were both served five mini crepes with honey and cut mangoes. We also had smallish bananas X3.

The tables had been separated. The three other couples were already eating. Everyone is quiet and pretty much keeping to themselves. They parted table by table, but everyone did some goodbyes and happy journey wishes. We are all going out on excursions, but separately. Ours is a shorter one– option #2 of the five available. It's 600k Dong ($24) for us. The hostess squired me on the bike to the boat landing area, and then went and got Jeff. We had passed the U.K. couple that were walking to their boat. It was not very far and we could have walked also, but our boat was not there yet… and so I was able to watch it come in.

Jeff arrived (our hostess drives her scooter slow), and we took the short, but steep trek down to the boat. We walked across two or three boats to get into ours, and we were off. The Ba Be Lake is not very big, but it is nice to be on a boat. The water is very calm and serene. We pass water bottles floating, at first thinking it to be trash, but then Jeff noticed they had cord of some sort tied on them. They are floats or buoys for either cages or fishing nets/lines, as we noticed they are prettily even spaced. The sky is overcast and hazy, causing the the mountains that come right to the edge of most of the lake, to appear a further distance then they are.

We toddle along in our boat. It has two boards spanning the hull that we sit on. Our driver is way in the back as the boat is longish – it can hold 12 passengers. We continue on passing at least three small islands in the middle, and before we knew it we were at the other end. The driver the young thirty-ish man, skillfully docks, tying up to another boat. We again walk across boats to get to land. As we exit, we are greeted by vendors wanting us to buy whatever they offered… seemed to be mostly tea. We walk the gauntlet, stopping at one to try the tea. It was good but too sugary.
We continued – we had asked but did not understand our driver as to how much time to spend or what to expect. After a couple of minutes we end up at a separate much smaller body of water – a pond it appears. There were two bamboo rafts that you could board it for a photo op for 5,000 Dong (20 cents). We did not need another Instagram moment… good thing Em was not here! LOL!!

We walked back and reboarded our boat. We had seen the other two couples from our hotel here. It is the thing to do here. Anyway, we were motoring back, when the driver pulled over to the island that has the temple, An Ma. We were let out and explored. There was a bigger group of Asians from another boat – they had been doing some Karaoke on their boat when we were all pulling in. Anyway, they were doing offerings at the temple. We walked around the small temple grounds and then back across the walkway to the mainland. We had like three shops to go through here then to the boat. That walkway or floating pier to the island had a fisherman that seemed to be stretching a line using the walkway as a tie-off. We thought that was ingenious!

We came back – as our excursion was over – to our dock. It ended up just taking us 1.5 hours. Jeff paid our driver and we exited the boat. It was fun and relaxing. We walked back and cooled off, showered, and chilled till supper. We had a laid back evening.

Supper was a great, soft, white, flaky fish pan seared; fried chicken; omelet; green beans and garlic; mixed sauteed veggies; French fries; rice; and sliced fresh pineapple. It was yummy, but too much, of course. It was a quiet evening, compared to last night. No one else is here! Went to bed around 2130.