I forgot how much fun it is to ride around tropical Asian islands on the back of a motorbike with Anson. Yesterday that's much of what we did: went joyriding to explore the island. We also hung out the on beach for awhile, and visited "Hospital Cave," and Fort Cannon.
Hospital cave is a three floor hospital and hiding spot constructed by the VC to hide from US bombers and keep their higher-ups safe during the war. It was pretty incredible; it had a cinema, pool, exercise room, operating room... The third and top floor of the hospital opened up to the natural cave and was one huge atrium. The tour guide, some guy who lives across the street, was one of the highlights. He did his best to pop out from behind corners dressed as a VC soldier to try to scare you. We did one more military type tour after that; Fort Cannon. It was a anti-aircraft station built atop one of the highest peaks on the island. It was alright, probably would've been a lot better if the old dudes sitting around playing cards actually did their job and curated the place. All in all, it was a good view with some rusty old cannons.
Today we hiked in Cat Ba National Park (got drenched with sweat), had a picnic lunch on the beach and then kayaked to two small beaches on a smaller island not far from Cat Ba, at which we were the only people until a boat with a few French tourists showed up. Both beaches had amazing views looking outward but were littered with trash. Luckily, I am married to a man who turns a pile of litter into heaps of fun. We played catch with a long-lost mini soccer ball, baseball with bamboo sicks and a styrofoam ball, used huge bamboo sticks as floating devices, and skipped rocks. I felt like we should pick up a bunch of the litter, but we had nowhere to put it and we wouldn't have even made a dent so it seemed futile.... literring is a definite problem here. Also, unfortunately we had a camera mishap (aka it inexplicably stopped working) just after we started the hike this morning so we are unable to show you pictures of any of it. Big bummer. Hopefully we can get it working again soon and then we can load pictures from yesterday, at least (we don't have any from today).
Cat Ba is seriously the weirdest place I have ever been. The island itself is gorgeous, surrounded by green karst peaks (you should check out some pictures online). However, it is like someone had big dreams of this place being a huge tourist destination and invested in it as such, but these dreams never quite panned out. I mean, part of it is that we aren't here during a particularly busy time and don't get me wrong, there are several tourists here anyway, just not nearly as many as they are set up for. There is restaurant after restaurant - huge ones - filled with a multitude of plastic chairs and tables but no one eating at any of them. I am certain that even if the hotels here were booked to capacity, it still wouldn't be enough people to fill all the restaurants. And even if somehow one did fill up, I am sure they wouldn't be able to handle the volume. Then there are like 8 floating restaurants in the bay with big neon lights but we haven't seen a soul eating at any of them. Vendor after vendor in town is selling the exact same things: packaged ice cream, sugar cane juice and stir fried noodles but not having very good luck. It's like someone had a successful idea once so a bunch of other people copied it instead of coming up with a new idea and now none of them are successful. Plus the food here is terrible. Don't get me wrong, we are still having a blast and luckily there are still a few local Bia Hois (the beer stands, with $0.33 draft beer on the island!) with decent snack food - Vietnamese sausages and boiled peanuts - but I am pretty sure Anson and I have both dropped a couple pounds during our short stay here. Tomorrow we head to Hue, the supposed food capital of Vietnam, which I really hope is true because we will certainly have the appetites to support it!
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