Woke up to another gorgeous day, absolutely boiling hot in bed though. Took money out and tried to post some of Sophie's stuff back, but post office people very unhelpful (didn't have a box she could use), couldn't even get an empty box from a shop! Waited to get picked up for the boat to cat ba with Ryan and josh, taxi arrived hour late, then sat in the boat station for an hour or so.
Great day from here on...
Boat ride for 3 hours, sat in sun on top deck with beers, taken to crazy busy cave. Continued on boat through ha long bay, in glorious sunshine. Arrived at cat ba (opposite side of island to the town). No bus though, road was flooded, so got a bike taxi to flooded part then waded 200m through, water up to chest, bag on head! Such good fun, got to other side to bus for argument over who had and who hadn't paid!! We had already luckily, so no probably for us, and finally headed off to town.
So in all 7ish hours to get 35km (ha long to cat bar)!! but all good now, settled into 3 double bed room with R and J, out for beer and food shortly.
The interesting thing about Vietnam is the need to do lots of currency conversions in the head, GDP (as out baseline) USD & VND. Lots of mental calculations must be done!