Trekking In The Rain on Cat Ba Island - Mmmmm

Feeling The Heat
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We arrived on Cat Ba Island at 7.30am (very early for us) and were taken to our hotel in Cat Ba town around 10-15mins drive away.  Basically Cat Ba town is a long road of small hotels, restaurants and shops and fairly quiet.  All the hotels overlook the fishing port which was really quaint.

We were picked up at 8.30am for a 3 hour 'trek' in the National Park.  We should have seen the dark clouds coming over but we thought there could not be any more rain to fall - how wrong we were!

Finally, one rock got the better of me and I slipped down and gashed my knees

Cat Ba Island
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The 'trek' was more akin to an expedition!  Anyone who knows me, could imagine the look of horror on my face when confronted by the huge rocks we had to climb up.  They were razor sharp and the size of my leg so I had to just about dislocate by hips to climb up each rock!  We finally reached the top after about 1 hour and the view was worth it - amazing 360 degree view of Cat Ba with its vegetation covered limestone peaks.

The journey back down however was interesting.  The rain started to splash on and the rocks just got bigger and bigger and sharper and sharper and Jan got slower and slower - you get the picture.

Jan's battered knees!
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Finally, one rock got the better of me and I slipped down and gashed my knees - both of them, I like to do things in style!  I got a surprise at the amount of blood but it must have been due to the sharpness of the rocks.  Our new friends from Germany Jurgen and Simone were very organised and had their first aid kit with them so I made the rest of the journey down with band aids on both knees - very attractive!

We were so wet by the time we got back to our hotel that we had to dry our passport and money from our money belts and the entire contents of our day bags were drenched!  The spare bed in our hotel room looked like a money laundering unit with travellers cheques and notes laid out to dry.

Our hotel in Cat Ba - notice our clothes hanging from the 5th floor
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After a leisurely afternoon and dinner- spent mainly waiting for our money to dry, we then went out for drinks at the Green Mango Restaurant on Cat Ba town seafront.  Good drinks and good company are a very good mixture and we got a very little drunk.  Needless to say all 6 of us had dodgy heads the next morning on the boat journey back to Halong Town but were cured by lunch time.