Cat Ba Island

Today we had a very chilled morning. I forgot to talk about the homestay! The family are super lovely with 2 super shy children, one girl and one boy. The breakfast in the morning is incredible. So first we got fresh Vietnamese coffee then out came salad, omelette and bread. Normally that would be all, but then came out a freshly made doughnut, a cream bun, watermelon, mango and sticky rice! Let's just say we didn't need to have lunch while at this homestay!

In the afternoon we hired a scooter to go to the national park. We drove to the tip of the island, I drove the scooter (Yey I can do it!) and then walked up to a viewpoint. Did I mention its hot?! It was only a 45 minute walk and I felt like I was in a shower and my lungs were going to collapse and it was 4:30pm! It's 88% humidity and 33 degrees here. 😭

In the evening we met up with the guys for dinner and beer hoi. Honestly before I came here I would never choose to drink anything lighter than a Guinness, now having a cold refreshing lager at the end of the day is just what you need!

The next day we had our feast breakfast and started planning for Malaysia. We are flying to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday with Air Asia, who have a 7kg limit for handluggage... Crap... Currently our bags weigh 11-15kg... Looks like we will be wearing everything on the plane 😂 We borrowed some scales and were able to get our bags down to the bare minimum. Hopefully it's OK!!

We then headed out in search of a haircut for both of us. We found a man on the street cutting hair so Will was sorted. The guy was so delicate and detailed with the cut. Will got a makeover, eyebrows shaped, nose hairs trimmed, the works!

Then we found one for me. Haha it was an interesting experience. I do need to remember that it was only a fiver so I was expecting something simple. First he looked at my hair as if he had never seen curly or thick hair before. (He probably hadn't!). Then a girl washed my hair as if there was no tomorrow, throwing shampoo everywhere including down my ears. Then he sat me on the chair and began to cut. Well to be honest this was the OK bit. After the cut they washed my hair again or should I say she scraped my scalp with her sharp claws. I don't really understand why but she just kept scraping and scraping for about 10 minutes!! It was rather painful. Finally she stopped and then the blow drying began. I had 2 people blow drying my hair at once, the guy and the girl that washed my hair. The guy did one side very gently and calmly while the girl was just burning my scalp and pulling my hair out of my head. Again, I just sat and had to remember it's only a fiver... Eventually my hair dried and they began straightening it. They might as well have just pulled my hair straight! The straighteners were pretty cool so they just did a light touch. Actually the end result wasn't too bad for a fiver, but obviously in 88% humidity it lasted about 2 mins before the frizz and curls let loose. So glad to have shorter hair again though!

We then jumped on the bike to watch sunset and meet up with the others in town. I think we got a bit carried away with chatting and drinking beer! We tried a floating bar too which was fun and then quickly drove back for family dinner. We had sashimi with a soy and wasabi dip. We kept making the dip spicier and it just blew our faces off. It was fun 😂 Then we had fish soup, rice with a flax seed crumb, potato and pork and of course plenty of rice wine! As it was our last night we of course had to go back to our local bia hoi place. When we got there he was literally closing the shutters. We knocked and he saw it was us and happily opened up again for us! He was so sweet. 3 more beers and a couple of card games down it was definitely time to let him and us go to bed! Such a fun night.Read more