Today was a day to relax at the resort, do some shopping, then head back to Ha Hoi. Historically Cat Ba’s claim to fame is that during the Vietnam war, they did have a secret cave they turned into a hospital for wounded Viet Cong. Now is it a destination resort for Vietnamese and Chinese primarily.
This is the Sunrise Resort. Really quite nice, Great pool, nice breakfast buffet, and good WiFi!
There was a “pig situation” in town. This guy’s two cages of pigs went flying off of his motorcycle in the middle of the intersection. He, and the pigs, were not happy. As he prepared his bike to put the boxes back on, he had to redistribute “pigweight”, and the only way to do that is move the pigs around from box to box. And the only way to do that is to grab them by the ears, pull them through the wires, them push them into the other box. Very amusing, but very noisy.
I am afraid this is a bit graphic. These jars contained anything that swims or crawls. There is a whole year of Biology 101 in each bottle. Oh, this is some ones dinner tonight.
Here is our motley crew. Our guide, Anh, is second from the left, with the four Aussies on either end, then Eileen the lawyer and Gloria and me in the middle.
From Halong Bay we took a hydrofoil boat to the mainland, then back to Ha Noi by bus. Speaking of the boat, didn’t really see the outside, but the cabin was a bucket of bolts. It had airline type seats, but it must have been like what the old Soviet Union’s Aeroflot planes were like. All broken down and filthy. But……once that boat took off, it moved!! I have never been in a boat that sounded or flew like this thing. Fast, very fast.
We were then dropped off at the train station for our overnight flight up north to Sa Pa.
Here we are with our two bunk mates on the sleeper car. Yes, they are Australian too. Working their way through Vietnam south to north. Nice gals.
Train left the station at 9PM and arrives at 5 tomorrow morning.
