Coral Garden

My favorite dive so far has been the swim between Coral Garden to the Lakes. Lots of ledges and fish. The Lake we saw (one of the four) looks like a stadium with walls of coral surrounding it. Hopefully, we get to dive the Lakes today.

Pete's taken some great pictures with the big rig. He's figuring out how to use it (top photo is his.) It's my turn with it today - I'm just hoping for a shot or two in focus.



Crab inside a Conch Shell



Anemone

Diving in Grand Turks

View from our balcony


Three Legged Hawksbill Turtle

The pictures from our trip can be found here.

I feel like a poser when we go diving with our "fancy" camera gear. Granted, the cameras inside are pretty old or entry level, but you can't really tell with the massive housing and strobes. I look like I know what I'm doing with all the gear, but I don't. I take a bunch of shots and hope for the best.

Grand Turk

Ed & Pete at the Osprey Beach Hotel.

Providenciales

We didn't spend much time in Provo, but I did get a chance to walk on the beach.

Turks & Caicos

We're back! This time, we're on the road to Turks and Caicos. We'll spend tonight in Providenciales and then take a puddle jumper (*gulp*) to Grand Turk tomorrow. We're taking a bunch of photo equipment, so hopefully we'll get some good underwater pictures.

Hanoi

We're seeing some sights while in Hanoi, but our focus is on food.  Thanks to the Gastronomer, we're finding good restaurants. My favorite so far has been Cha Ca Thang Long where there's only one thing on the menu: Cha Ca. The marinated fish is added along with scallions and dill to a grill pan on the table. You eat it with bun (rice vermicelli), nuoc mam (fish sauce), fresh veggies and peanuts. 

We also went to Wild Rice as a last meal with Spice Roads.  The food and service are impeccable. Standouts in my mind are the Nem Tom Chuoi (shimp and banana fried eggrolls) and the braised eggplant.  Any fried banana dish usually stands out in my mind, and the braised eggplant was perfectly sweet and succulant.

Xoi Xeo at Xoi Yen was another great suggestion from the Gastronomer. You have your choice of one of three xoi (sticky rice) and even more choices of meat to go on top.  Perfect (and cheap) lunch if you're in the Old Quarter.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay

Cave in limestone karst in Ha Long Bay

Fifteen days, 4 UNESCO World Heritage sites, ten hotels, 281 miles on the bike and 15,815 feet of climbing. We have a few more days in Hanoi for eating, sightseeing and shopping, but I feel like the trip is winding down. Looking back, each day of the trip added something new to our perspective of Vietnam. No day was "more of the same," so we've gotten a good first taste of the country's variations in personality and landscapes.  On the other hand, the constant change in hotels was difficult for us. I think our next trip here will focus on the Mekong Delta (we haven't gone there yet), Dalat and Hoi An.  (Note that the last two were places where we had fantastic chocolate croissants.)  We didn't have that much time in Saigon, so we'll probably spend more time there too.

On another note, the cruise to Cat Ba Island and back through Ha Long Bay was excellent. The scenery was lovely, and the incredibly fresh seafood (shrimp, clams, squid and  fish) along with fried taro were just amazing.  On the way to a cave in a limestone karst, the boat stopped at a floating fish farm to buy the ingredients for lunch.

Fish farm where we stopped for lunch ingredients