Sand in the Sandwiches

And in between my toes, and ears, and even in my asthma inhaler (and therefore my lungs). But when you wake up, the only people on a huge white crescent of a beach, that itchy scratchy feeling just fades away.

All day I had been asking myself why we hadn't taken a tour. Was it because I was too snobbish to join with the fat Americans ("I live here you know")? Or was it because I was scared of not being in control of my own time, or not getting the trip I wanted? We had waited for two and a half hours on the dock, haggling for a boat trip through the maze of jagged karsts that is Halong Bay. We had eaten in a little restaurant by the sea, idyllic until the rats came out. But it was when the people on the tour were piled into an overpriced characterless hotel in Cat Ba Town, while we set off over the hills to the beach that I knew we had won.

We were the only ones braving the beach campsite, sleeping in a little tent, raised from the ground to protect us from snakes; and the only ones eating at the beach restaurant, piles of fresh seafood as the sun set.

Ok, it was cold and damp and sandy, but it was ours.