Cat Ba Day 3 (Jan. 5, 2015)

Today I didn’t rent a motor scooter. I thought I’d better play it safe and not tempt fate with a bike accident. The man who runs the hostel was also in favour of me renting a mountain bike rather than a scooter, so that says a lot. He said that he sees far too many tourist accidents on the roads because they are very windy and you can’t see until you are right upon another vehicle. Besides that, I haven’t ridden a bike for many years and thought it might be a bad idea. Just because I could in the past, doesn’t mean that I retain those skills to ride in another country. So, a mountain bike it was. A great choice really. I enjoyed pedalling around all day exploring places that were too far to walk to.

Amy and I went for an Egg Coffee first thing this morning, as she’d never tried one and I told her about it she was excited. Well, she wasn’t disappointed and totally loved it. I think now she will also try Egg Coffee at every opportunity as they are all just a little bit different.

Then I took my mountain bike and started to explore the parts of the city that were kind of far to walk to. I saw many neat and different houses, a lovely lake and some other wonderful sights. It was so nice just to ride around with my own thoughts looking at nice scenery with the mountains surrounding me, and the sea in front of me. Very peaceful and serene and I had a great day. 

Cool bar on the ride

Upper income home

Road around the lake

View from across the lake

View from across the lake

Road surrounding the lake

Temple on my ride

Very cool statue on my ride

Then I decided to go to the three beach areas that they have. They are all attached to hotels, so you can’t really take the bike into the beach area, but I rode through them all, including the one I went to yesterday, and looked at each of them. There is a really nice view from the top of the road, before you go down to the water. I sat and watched some boats in a bay when I took another road that I hadn’t previously travelled and enjoyed watching them for quite while.

Burning boat in bay

Boats in the bay

More boats in the bay

My favourite boat in the bay

Hole in limestone rock I was sitting on

Then I thought that since I had a lot of the afternoon left to explore, I would ride to the National Park. I think it’s about 15 Kms away, so off I went. I didn’t realize that the terrain was so hilly and windy, as by the time I got about 10 Kms into the ride, I felt sore in the rear end, and Cleo was complaining. If I hadn’t ridden around so much earlier I think it would have been ok, but now it was a bit much. So, I didn’t get to the park, but did get some amazing views from the heights I did reach and enjoyed doing the ride anyway. On the way back, I stopped in the town and bought some oranges and cute little apple things that I hadn’t tried before. They were lovely, so I took some. The lady allowed me to try them when she realized I didn’t know what they were. I think they’re kind of like crabapples.

View on my way to the National Park

Another view along the way

Fruit I bought

Later on, Amy and I went back to the place I ate last night, to have supper. It was amazing, yet again and she really liked it too. Then we went back to the hostel and chilled out for the evening. We are up early tomorrow to catch a 7:50 am bus back to Hanoi. Then I am getting the night bus tomorrow evening and going to Phong Nka-Ke Bang National Park to see the caves. That will be really cool.
More tomorrow from Hanoi.