Cat Ba Island!

After a restful night on the boat, we awoke to a tropical thunderstorm.  It was awesome, and some of the boat captains anchored near us were unprepared.  I watched two boats collided in the wind, and we heard the many windows burst in another boat.  The rain changed plans for the day from a 2-hour bike ride to a visit to Monkey Island.  The following photo shows why it is named Monkey Island, as well as my new best friend.  He(?) is  retrieving the tomato our guide placed in my front pocket.  He was very gentle!

There are two family groups living on Monkey Island.  We were visited by one of them.  The following photo shows the youngest member of the family and its mother.  She got pissed whenever another monkey got close.

Before we left Monkey Island, Sandy and I hung ten (or is that twenty)!

Cat Ba Town is the main area of Cat Ba Island.  We docked over the hill from the town and took a small bus into town.  After the calm of being on the boat, it was a bit of a shock to be in the pandemonium of road travel again.  This photo shows your happy bloggers in front of our hotel near the Cat Ba pier with the Cat Ba harbor in the background.  In addition to being a local tourist destination, Cat Ba is a fishing village.  Those are some of the dozens (hundreds?) of fishing boats in the background.

Surprise, surprise, we found an outstanding roof-top bar that overlooks Cat Ba Harbor from which to watch the sunset.  Here is one of the many photos we took on that roof.