Halong Bay, Vietnam.  We finally arrived in Halong Bay at 5:30 pm yesterday, about six hours late.  It was quite foggy so we could not really see much before it got dark.  The tour staff were able to get additional tour boats for us to all get a tour of the monoliths today.
We left at 8:15 am for a three hour tour (yes, just like Gilligans's Island!).  It was foggy and the limestone monoliths were rather eerie.  These rock formations jutting from the sea are spectacular.  There are over 1000 of them scattered in a relatively small area and some of them rise 100's of feet.  We also visited a floating seafood market that was located among the monoliths.  The tour was taken on a boat known locally as a "junk boat".  We boarded these directly from our ship by first stepping onto a barge that was tied up to our ship.
There are tens of thousands of people living in the bay on boats, some very small.  They all had laundry hanging somewhere and many had tv antennas!Some families are seldom on land.
This area produces coal, much of which is exported to China and Singapore. We saw many of the coal barges pass by our ship.  Tom does not think the transport meets OSHA and EPA standards and plans to report back to Obama.
Much of rural Vietnam lacks basic sanitation, infrastructure, and education.  In fact there is no requirement for children to go to school.  The Halong Bay area is a major tourist attraction and the communist government has tried to dress it up.  There is a beautiful suspension bridge that has a spectacular computerized light show at night that was near where our ship was anchored.  There are large boats that offer overnight accommodations and we  noted a lot of Asian tourists.
We are off this evening on our way to Hong Kong  for the last segment of our "Grand Voyage".  We have been to the upcoming ports on past cruises but have scheduled tours that will be new for us.  It will be much colder for this last two weeks and we have already packed up the summer clothing.
After a week in Vietnam we have some definite views.  While the government tries to control everything the people mostly do what they can just to survive.  There is no social net such as social security or unemployment.  The people are very much capitalists trying whatever they can to earn money.  Noel wants to come back to shop.  There are definitely some bargains.

Light show on bridge

Looking down on barge that we used to load onto junk boats

Inside cabin of junk

There are 600 junk tour boats for tourists

We needed jackets for the first time on the cruise

Rock formation is supposed to be fighting chickens?

Pulling up to the floating fish market

Some of the available seafood