After another dramatic taxi ride from our hotel which involved us nearly wiping out two scooters and the usual argument over payment, we made it to the bus station for the five-hour trip to Cat Ba Island. This is the view from our hotel room here - bloody expensive at $10/night ;) Cat Ba Island is the largest of the 366 islands spanning 260 square kilometres that comprise the Cat Ba Archipelago, which makes up the southeastern edge of Ha Long Bay - the main attraction of this region. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various shapes and sizes; we'll be doing a tour out there day after tomorrow. Cat Ba Island is one of the only populated islands in Ha Long Bay, with roughly 13,000 inhabitants living in six different communes, and 4,000 more inhabitants living on floating fishing villages off the coast. The majority of the population can be found in Cat Ba Town (where we are staying) which is located at the southern tip of the Island and is the commercial centre on the Island. The weather forecast for tomorrow is a little dodgy but we plan to hire a scooter (and Kristina plans to not burn herself on its exhaust pipe) and explore the island.

The main drag of Cat Ba Town. While reading through various travel forums last night in search of what there is to do on Cat Ba Island, a lot of folk complained about how ugly this town is hehe. I don't think it's ugly but it will pale in comparison to the rest of Ha Long Bay (but that'll be tomorrow's topic). Today we hired another scooter (for $3) to explore the island.

First we headed out to the nearby beaches. Now these were pretty nice, but during the high season they apparently look like something out of a Where's Wally book. At the moment though, it's dead, like the rest of the town, although I hear a lot of locals from the mainland pile out here on weekends.

View from the beaches. There'll be plenty more of this tomorrow.

We then headed inland, and what we'd read about Cat Ba looking like something out of Jurassic Park was spot on.

Cat Ba Island was a strategic look-out point during the Vietnam War (known locally as the "American War") and the earlier French War, and bombing during the wars often forced local residents to hide among the Island's many caves. This is Hospital Cave - an incredible feat of engineering to say the least! This was a secret bomb-proof hospital during the Vietnam War and used as a safe house for Viet Cong leaders. From the exterior it looks like an ordinary cave, but inside is a three-storey maze of corridors and rooms including wash rooms, dining rooms, operating rooms...

...a weapons room of course...

...and a cinema. Yup, a cinema.

Spot the little door. How they managed to construct this is anybody's guess. It was in use until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. And since they were happy to let Kristina in (an American), I guess the secret is out ;)

We made friends with a group of local kids fishing for crabs in a nearby pond. They were very keen to practise what little English they knew.

Then we tore through Cat Ba National Park on the scooter hehe. I'm not sure whether we were allowed to take the scooter in here, but I didn't see anything saying we couldn't (except for maybe the several signs at the entrance written in Vietnamese hehe). Regardless, it was good fun (video here) and the views were amazing. We eventually had to turn back when the pavement became massive rocks. Oh well.

We continued driving right to the other end of the island. It was really misty today so the photos don't do the place justice, but the huge limestone karsts everywhere are bloody impressive!

Kristina took us back to town while I hung off the back taking photos, and we passed no less than about half a dozen football games taking place in the middle of the road. Not much else to do round here for the local youth. Tomorrow we're doing a day trip around Ha Long Bay, talked up by everyone as being nothing short of stunning so here's hoping it's not another misty one.

Welcome to Ha Long Bay! 334 square kilometres, 775 islets of massive limestone karst, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Historical research surveys have shown the presence of prehistoric human beings in this area tens of thousands of years ago. Anyway, we did a day trip throughout the area today, and bugger me was it amazing!

First up - kayaking, and bugger me was it amazing!

There are countless grottos throughout Ha Long Bay, and we checked out one of the more claustrophobic ones.

After a rousing lunch we parked up here and went to see...

...another cave! This must be about our 10th one so far. However, this one was illuminated with paved pathways, as opposed to pitch black with mud and shit that we're more used to encountering.

Then it was time for a swim, and bugger me was it amazing!

And then the fun really began. This is the so-called Monkey Island, and sure enough it has monkeys.

Lots of monkeys. And given the hordes of tourists that come here every day, the monkeys have no fear of humans.

This chick was shitting herself hehe.

I set about making friends with this one...

...and this one set about making friends with my camera - right after I took these shots it launched itself head-first into my lens hahaha! I use a polarising lens filter during the day (cuts glare and gives better contrast and colour saturation) and it's quite reflective, so I assume this little guy could see himself in it hehe.

Kristina gave this little guy a dance.

Pull my finger.

But monkeys will be monkeys. While we were getting the shots above, this Asian chick thought she'd get in on the act with another monkey nearby. But instead of approaching slowly and cautiously, she just bowled on up and so of course the monkey got defensive and attacked her hahaha!

This chick suffered a similar fate for probably the same reason...

...and this chick had her camera and bag stolen by one of them, and man was she pissed!

There he is there up on a roof, wearing her bag hahaha!

And with that we headed back to Cat Ba Island. Ha Long Bay is simply stunning, but those monkeys were the highlight of the day!

After dinner we had drinkies in the Flightless Bird Bar, run by a Kiwi. For the uncultured among you, the Kiwi is a small flightless bird found only in New Zealand (and hence the name of the bar :) And that's it for our time in Cat Ba. Tomorrow we head to Ninh Binh back on the mainland, and priority number one will be finding somewhere that will play the Rugby World Cup final on Sunday. GO THE ALL BLACKS!

Today we caught a bus, a boat, a bus, and another bus for a total trip time of six hours. After the bus, the boat, and the bus we ended up here in Haiphong - Vietnam's third-most populated city, and utter madness.

Our final bus took us the rest of the way to Ninh Binh, where we'll be for the next three days. It was a three-hour trip, and it was right up there with some of the cab rides we had in Egypt in terms of aggressive driving, punishing the horn, and blatantly overtaking into head-on traffic hehe.

Scooters, cars, buses, trucks - it didn't matter what was barrelling down on us in the opposite direction. If folk want to overtake here, they just do it.

In Vietnam they drive on the right-side of the road. Here we were overtaking something in the path of this oncoming green truck, while the white truck was overtaking him hahaha! Somehow we all managed to miss each other though. Good times :) Other highlights of the ride included a scooter passing us with a screaming piglet between the driver legs, and a local chick on the bus vomiting into a plastic bag and then just biffing it out the window.