Ha Long Morning

This morning I woke up in my little cabinet (no, that's not a typo) on board a ship floating peacefully in the Hal Long Bay. Or at least it would have been peaceful were I not lodged directly above the generator. Checking my indiglo timex watch I discovered it was about 4:37am. Perfect.

I gathered my blanket and pillow and climbed out of the stuffy closet of my dorm and up to the breezy top deck, curling up to sleep in one of the deck chairs away from the cocophonous clatter of the engine. From there I drifted in and out of sleep as we floated past the giant limestone fins that jutted out of the emerald green water. The legend of the area tells of a mother dragon and her children descending from heaven and playing in the magnificent caves and coves of the bay. I doesn't take much of imaginative agility to picture the high arching islands as the undulating backbone of a giant submerged sea creature cutting through the surface of the water.

Waking up to this, it was difficult to pinpoint when I actually finished dreaming.