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Thursday : overcast - morning rain
Well it was a pretty good sleep on the train, no snorting, coughing or someone getting up every half an hour to go to the toilet. The mattress was rock hard, but nothing like Fansipan's. Finally we had a good rest on public transport. Well Kim cheated, she took a sleeping pill. It must of played with her sense of smell too, because there were people smoking out in the corridor a lot, and the smoke filled our room every time the addicts lit up a dart. Kim was oblivious to the smoke, sound asleep she was. Usually she is the one that is bothered by smoke first.
We hopped off the train at 5:15am, the train station was teaming with cabbies. We pushed our way through the scabs and started our mission to find an ATM.
ATM out of money awesome. So we had to try and find wifi to see where the next ATM was, and where we were in location to it. Getting slightly lost again, was not part of the plan, but it's a new city. We found wifi than another one of our ATMs and it worked. Then we walked past five more of the same kind. We were in ATM central. No just the centre of Hanoi, we still had to travel across town to the bus. We had a quick breaky at a cafe, then jumped in a cab to take us to the bus station. We would of missed the bus for sure if we walked.
We made the bus by 10 mins. We had another crazy bus driver, we are use to them by now, but still get you shaking your head. The weird thing was the trip itself.
We took a big bus then a small bus to a boat. Once we hit land, we got on another big bus. We just followed other people, and asked if we were going to Cat Ba Island. No one was speaking English or giving any directions. I didn't know where we were for most of the trip. I was so relieved we finally saw a sign saying Cat Ba town 5kms. I still don't understand how the 5 hour journey came together with no issues. We didn't even have a ticket! We only paid 70.000d about $3.50 on the first bus and that's it.
It took us awhile to find a hotel that wasn't taking advantage of the weekend price hike. Apparently people from Hanoi flock here for the weekend, I guess we will see. Everyone was charging $15-$20 for Thursday night then they would bump it up to $30 for the weekend.
We ended up settling for a room. 5th floor big balcony, with nothing but water views. Even had wall tiles in the bathroom that made up a picture of a topless Asian bird laying down on a beach. Alright! Not sure why though??
(I'll put up a photo) all for $12 per night.
Took a shower was badly in need of one, the freshness didn't last too long. It is fairly warm here. Looking forward to doing some swimming. Then we went down for some lunch. The restaurant had a big menu but was limited because most of the items were not available. Maybe because we are on an island? All we got was a bit of a moan out of the waitress, no English available here either. The beers were big though 450ml bottles for 80c each... Grand!
After lunch we had a long walk about town. Getting prices for a tour and hunting for this one tour company in particular. They promised small group tours. We found the shops whereabouts but it was too far for our walking shoes that arvo.
It's a big island much like Phuket in Thailand. Cat Ba town though is just a small strip that follows the bay. With a few roads running off the main drag, leading to other towns and villages.
We ended up booking a Halong Bay tour with the hotel, $19 for the whole day of cruising, caving, kayaking, swimming and lunch! If its a seafood lunch I'll probably steer clear. Sounds like a nice day though, hope that it doesn't rain too much and the boat isn't too packed.
We grabbed a couple of packets of sweet biscuits and donuts from a bakery. The bakeries are different here they are more sweet based. The donuts were a bit thick and hard but the biscuits were perfect. So perfect we didn't even need dinner. we just had more big beers on our balcony.
Looking forward to the cruise tomorrow and hopefully the town doesn't get to busy and loud. it was very nice and quiet today.
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