12-29-10: Hanoi to Cat Ba Town

Clothes and clean room, thanks Phu Hoa GH!
Wake up and leave by 6:15
Flag a taxi, $2 fare, fair!
Wait with the other tourists and become one pack - all heading to cat
ba on a bus-boat-bus ticket, bread and noodle soup while we waited
Bus, screaming kid
Dropped off, told another bus will pick us up, will it?
Yes! Second bus takes us to a boat
Boat takes us to an island and another bus
Bus takes us to cat ba -- what a trip!
Lots of touts "give me just one minute"
Find a family eating instead of a hotel, woman walks us past more
touts, to the hotel proper
Only people there, back wall is a wall of rock from the mountain,
ocean view, $6/night -- cheapest room yet
Leave passport?! Ok...fuck what have we done? Will we get them back??
Market, very authentic, too authentic?
Shrimp pho - good, work on numbers more
Tour harbor, lots of boats and birds of prey (kites)
Home and pass out for hours!
Dinner, walk the strip twice, everything is about the same, lots of
live seafood in tanks out front
Settle for the "recommended by lonely planet" place, bamboo cafe: five
bia Ha nois, veggie spring rolls, veggie noodles and fried squid
(tried to order sea snails, but the owner said they weren't good
riight now so she didn't buy them)
Good meal, look for a night cap since we weren't near being tired -
crappy bar, no westerners - seemed unfriendly to us, tried to order
nuts, but wouldn't serve us, only packaged weird nut things, bad mood
bc bad service, sandwich? Never came. We left, at least we only spent
35,000 d 1.75$ us on such a terrible experience.