February 11, 2010 – Hanoi to Cat Ba Island, Vietnam
Hooray for Vietnam’s public transport system!
We take a taxi, a public bus and a public ferry and we arrive on Cat Ba Island with no hiccups… except for the fact that Cat Ba Island is not what Eric or I expected.
We were looking forward to warm weather so we could enjoy some time on a beach surrounded by beautiful limestone cliffs.
Instead we find Cat Ba is a tourist town in a bad way.
Apparently it used to be a very quiet town. But now it seems to be a victim of its own success as its waterfront is inundated with multi-coloured hotels that block the view of the cliffs. There appears to be no beach and the weather is cold – about 12 degrees – though I guess technically we can’t blame the island for this. Yes, we are Canadian, and yes, we brought our toques, but when you travel to Southeast Asia you don’t expect the temperature to feel like Toronto in late October.
We spend the afternoon and evening walking from one end of tourist lane to the other, hoping to find a silver lining. Since Tet is this weekend and we’re not sure how long we’ll stay here, we book ourselves to go on the “mandatory” boat cruise around Halong Bay for the next day.
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