This morning it was cold in bed. This was a big temperature drop from the low 30s in my whole trip. Now it was low double digits. I had to wear two shirts in bed to keep warm and as the room had no heating, huddled up, and didnt want to get out of bed. As my flight was at midnite tonite I was able to check out but leave my bag with the reception for the day. I asked them about why facebook was blocked, forgetting this was a communist country and that some sites are blocked. They showed me software that lets you get around this and back into the site. Today was my Halong Bay tour. When the minibus arrived I was the last pickup again and had a pull down aisle seat. I was sitting between a chinese family, another chinese man, and a lady from vietnam who lived in HCMC. The chinese group were both friends who work at the shanghai maritime history musuem and spoke very good english. You always hear about the new millionaires in china so wondered if I had just befriended such people, who spoke perfect english, telling me about their travels to Oxford in England. The vietnamese lady from HCMC who also spoke good english told me this was her first time here. We had an obligatory stop at a factory showroom where people only bought from the concession stand but not any of the artwork. This was an unusually long stop as our driver and guide vanished. Then we were back on the road for the 175km total journey. This was to take 4 hours with the slow local traffic. It was cold and overcast but the weather was expected to get better as the day progressed. Also we were told the weather is nicer at Halong Bay than in Hanoi City. When we did get to the harbour it was chaos. All the bus tours were letting off at the same place so it was hard to find out group. Our small guide ran rapidly thru the crowds so we had to chase him so as not to get lost. All the boats were moored just off the harbour. Various boats would rapidly come in and load up passenger and head out. We had to watch for which one he pointed us to. Eventually we were on our boat and out. It was a small wooden galley and they immediately started to serve lunch as we huddled out of the cold. They played musical chairs with us as they arranged us to six per table. I was moved with a dutch couple, a guy from osaka, and a chinese couple. They would slowly bring out each course, which we devoured like piranhas we were so hungry. First was sliced egg, followed by roasted peanuts, and spring rolls. The main course was a fish which we thought we would get one each, as we waited for them to bring more out. No, its one for six people on the table! Even in korea we get a small one each or a table of four share a larger one. Finally there was squid version of rice cake then we were each given a rice bowl. So we ate our rice with peanuts, squid cake, spring rolls, and few pieces of fish. It was not enough food for six people, particularly not for people on a western diet. There were no other food options stranded on a boat and I'm sure people would not have minded paying more for the trip if we got more food. Luckily I had more food with me to get me thru the day or I would have died.