Cat Ba

Not a lot to report from Cat Ba Island. I had 5 days of doing absolutely nothing but relax by lazing around on the beach and going to bed early. As a result I'm now darker than my poo after a night on the Guiness!

The beaches are called Cat Co 1, 2 and 3. Cat Co 1 is a bit of a package holiday monstrosity with a massive hotel behind it with the full works, including waterchutes. I avoided it and took the wooden cliffside walkway round to Cat Co 2. It's a little bay with white sand, clear blue sea and a view out on to some of Halong Bay's little islets.

Halong Bay is one of Vietnam's natural wonders. It's a bay (obviously!) with hundreds, or maybe thousands of little islands that burst out of the sea. The effect is a stunning vista but it's impossible to describe really so I'll post a few pics up from the boat trip I took on the way back to the mainland.

The boat took me back to Halong City where I got a bus back to Hanoi and then another overnight bus to Hue in central Vietnam. The bus ticket is an amazing deal, $22 (11 quid!) for an open ticket from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City at the other end of the country. It allows me to stop in Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang and HCMC for as long as I want. I simply ring up the day before I want to leave and they reserve me a seat on the next bus coming through.