Day 4 - again, and shortened

F-U blogger for being the worst blog host ever in the history of the world.

Ahem. continued from day 3...

....but by the time we're sleeping it dies down a bit and it's just Mother Natures Rocking Chair. At this point I'm pinching myself to remember I'm here, now. The Southeast Asian breeze and sounds of other boats' pulleys clanging against eachother wakes us up, and it's total peace. The boat gets going, and I have to switch boats to head over to Cat Ba Island for the real start of the adventures.

Cat Ba Island. This is Southeast Asia Idyll Land. It's paradise and flowers and monkeys and palm trees and hummingbirds and mountains and beaches but also very, very rugged. So we take a bus to the start of this National Park to climb up to a tower.

The "trek" was the most insane, dangerous scramble I've ever done or was expecting. Check the pictures, it's almost like being there, haha. Really it's over the ridges up the side to get around to the top and Did You Have a Tetanus Shot? Hope so. Rusted out ladders help you up, sort of. It really is nuts but amazing and the whole DIY spirit of this little hike is special. I hope they never have an accident here because it would be a) a disasterous holy-hell-broke-loose kind of accident and b) would change that DIY spirit factor for sure. But they do need to do something with so many people going up and down these rusted out ladders at the same time...maybe just limit the number of buses in the parking lot? Something. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I learn how to say "I'm looking for monkeys and pythons" though. "Doi din gon khi gon konh" . I didn't see either. Well I did see a few smaller snakes.

Then we board the buses again and traipse up and down the switchbacks over to the harbor, which is where the hotels are. It's a wild ride. I'm at the Holiday View Hotel which is really nice. After a lunch and water (finally) I head for the beach, which is not an easy find, but worth it! I head over with the girls from Singapore and we hang and chat and swim and it's fun. The water is not as blue or clear as the caribbean but it's warm and still totally paradise. Oh and it's raining. Who doesn't love to swim in the rain? Not us. After awhile we're cold so we head back to town and I want banh mi (bang me teehee) and find it and devour it and take a nap. For only an hour! Improvement!

Then it's dinner time which is unfortunately forgettable except for the coffee that puts all coffee to shame except for Alterra's french roast. This is factual. Then our little group of Aussies, Danish, Dutch, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Chinese and me decide we want to go out. So we head to Tiger, a bar for $1 liters of Tiger. yayayayayay. It's all house music and hot people and hot weather and if I had actually died and this was Heaven, so be it.