What we did: Fort Cannon, booked day tour for next day, trip planning
Budget: 1200k Dong/$60; Spent: 708k Dong/$34
Patty here.
We rolled out of bed at around
9:30am and grabbed the breakfast we had bargained for the day before. We
negotiated a bundle for the room and breakfast all for $15. It turned out to be
a pretty good deal. We got the room for $10 and breakfast for $5. The price of
breakfast this morning would have been $7. After breakfast we had to ask the
hotel owner to turn the hot water on for us so that we could shower. The hot
water lasts for about 5 mins and then quickly starts cooling so that sucks.
It’s better than no hot water at all I guess.
We got cleaned up and out the door
at 11:30am. First stop was Fort Cannon which is supposed to have one of the
best views in Vietnam. We walked passed an entrance gate on our way up and
further down the path a guy on his motorcycle stopped us saying he had tickets
to get into the war monument/museum at the top. We were a bit confused and
thought maybe he was trying to swindle us. But we soon realized he was
legitimate. And we begrudgingly forked over 100k dong even though our book
indicated it would only cost us 40k for the both of us. It was a steep climb
uphill for about 30 minutes to get to the top and another reminder that we are
no longer in shape. We had to walk
passed a big grumpy dog barking at us and ignore some of the rustling in the
jungly bushes beside us. It was an interesting climb. The weather today was hot
and humid but it felt good to get exercise.
Once we got to the top we realized
we forgot our memory card for our Nikon camera as well as mosquito spray so
that was annoying. The views up there were pretty spectacular. Can’t believe
how many little islands there are just off Cat Ba. Here are a few pictures we
took with the iPhone:
The war monument itself was
interesting. It had signs guiding us through the various sites but other than
that it didn't provide any information on what we were seeing. We saw several
underground tunnels and gun emplacements as well as living quarters for the
soldiers manning the post. The most interesting part was seeing the cannons and statues manning them as they would have in real life. As you
entered the area with the cannons all you could see was the backs of the
soldiers and they looked like real people for a couple seconds which kind of
gave me a spook.
Apparently the bullets could travel 40 km from that point on
the mountain. Further on, we saw several pieces of military equipment and some uniforms
from the Vietnam war. Near the end of
the walk through the museum we arrived at the café which the book highly
recommended. We had been excited to get there and have a nice lunch overlooking
the ocean and the Karst mountains. Sadly it was closed. But there were chairs and tables out and we
grabbed some seats and enjoyed our snickers bars and the view for a bit. On our
way down we saw a helicopter pad used during the war at the very top which is
now just an empty parking lot. Cat Ba Island is pretty quiet these days. With
so few tourists around there’s not much life on the streets of Cat Ba. It’s
kind of dismal actually. It sounds like we just missed the busier season for
them too which ends the first week in December.
Once we got down the mountain we
decided to try and find a tour agency our book recommended called Blue Swimmer.
This took us about an hour up and down hills of streets and we never ended up
finding it. We got back to town tired and hungry. We came across a sign showing
prices of trips back to Hanoi. Well, well, well, we thought, look what we have
here. There was a bus, speed boat, bus combo that took you directly to Hanoi in
about 4 ½ hours for $11.50 per person. We jumped on the chance to buy them and
the guy at the office was super helpful and super nice. We didn’t have the cash
on us to pay for them but he directed us to an ATM so we made our way there.
We took out some cash but got distracted by hunger so we stopped for lunch. We
had a nice meal; 2 yummy soups, vegetable fried rice, chicken spring rolls and
Jeff had beer and I had an Orange Fanta. All this for $8.50.
The rest of the day was pretty
uneventful. We went back to the hotel and hung out there for awhile. We talked
a long time together about lots of things and a couple hours went by. Later we booked a day tour to Cat Ba National
Park and boat trip to Lan Ha Bay for tomorrow. And now here we are in a bar
called “The Flightless Bird”. We can’t help but be reminded of our pet bird
back home, Dan Grossi. This bar was named after him no doubt.
For the rest of the night we’ll
probably just do some trip planning and then get a good night sleep before our
all day tour tomorrow.
Good night!
Patty
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