April 6th, 2010

After 7am Tai Chi on the boat’s deck, a rather bland breakfast, and a phone call with Victoria who is having a wonderful time, we set out kayaks with Lam and our new Greek friends to return to the floating school. This time school was in session! Lam spoke with one of the teachers and arranged for the 4 kids to come in to one of the two classrooms to “teach” the kids some English words! The visit was wonderful!! Our kids took turns writing a word on the blackboard accompanied by a picture and then saying the word. Boat, fish, cat, dog were repeated numerous times by the students, aged 8-12, who then taught our kids the same words in Vietnamese! Then it was time for some singing! Our kids sang the Alphabet song, “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Take Me Out to the Ball Game!” The Vietnamese kids sang some songs too and they all had a great time! Bill did his barking dog sound and the kids thought that was so amusing!

As all this was going on, we were looking at the students’ workbooks. Most incredible were the penmanship books. These children write like calligraphers! I bet they wouldn’t charge five dollars an envelope for wedding invitations!! We also saw the math workbooks which included multiplication and geometry. It seems like only the basics are taught, but they are taught well. Sadly, education ends after primary school. Sadder still, the children at the other, smaller floating villages receive no education.

As were ready to get back in to our kayaks, the students were being “dismissed” from school. This involved two or three students jumping in to their family row boats and heading home to their floating house! No parents, no safety measures, and no sign-outs! What a difference from where we live!!

We headed back to The Valentine for lunch and cruised to another area where we kayaked again, this time through some caves! We learned that Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 1969 land masses were created 275 million years ago when there was tectonic movement of the sediment made from shells, clay and coral. (I think I’ve got that right!) Then after the ice age, the glaciers melted, creating the water in the bay. The water in the bay is only 25 feet at the deepest point The beauty of the bay and the mystical quality the formations create, is quite amazing. The only disappointment was that the water is quite dirty, due to the floating villages. This did not keep the kids from swimming in it on numerous occasions, much to the dismay of us parents!!

We returned to our boat, had muched needed showers and the adults all had massages from a sweet, but very strong Vietnamese woman. $30 for 45 minutes!! Not bad! The kids played cards until another multi-course dinner! Hudson and I are going to bed now. I think that Bill has opted to stay up with Dimitri to watch “The Quiet American”!