Breakfast at 7:30 after a good night's sleep in our cute little cabin. Hopped onto a little motorboat again, and off to a tunnel under one of the rock outcrops. Wow! When we got in through the tunnel, we were in a circle of water completely enclosed by Islands. We wondered how we would get out if the Tunnel fell in - guess lots of climbing would be involved.
Back to the junk where we checked out and transferred by climbing over the rail to a smaller junk for the trip to Cat Ba Island. Lunch on the smaller Junk was amazing too - more seafood. I think the fish was the best we've had. Apparently, the fish are farmed - there are cages under the floating houses, and the dogs we see on board are to frighten away pirates.
After lunch, we pulled into the tourist jetty at Cat Ba Harbour (Beo Ben) and transferred to a bus to drive over the mountain to Cat Ba (only a few minutes away) to the Sunflower Hotel, where we are staying for a couple of nights. We're on the 10th floor of the Sunflower, with 4 rooms on each floor. Across the street, we can see a team of workers building extra floors onto a skyscraper. There are 4 men on the roof - 1 taking the bucket of concrete from someone out of sight below inside the building, 2 pouring and trowling and 1 dropping the bucket back down the hole. No OH&S regulations here but amazing to watch.
Off for a walk around town. Watched a hydrofoil come in and unload its cargo, much of it transported on shore by motorcycles and Cat Ba cyclos (which are rather less fancy compared to those in Hanoi). Some of the loads were huge.
Walked on up and over a hill to a beach next to a rather fancy resort. There was a football game in play on the beach. The female staff from the resort - cleaning staff vs kitchen staff. The male staff were the cheer squad. Lots of fun happening! On the beach were beach umbrellas, and there were lockers and swim gear for hire. ($40,000VND to use one shelter with four chairs).
We even found a coffee shop before heading back to our rooms for wine and Pringles before dinner, which was not quite up to the standard we were used to on the Junk, but still okay - more seafood, fish, squid, bean soup, etc
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