Cat Ba - The Mediterranean meets Jurassic Park

Our time on the Island of Cat Ba was a meeting of Mediterranean and Jurassic Patk. We went from our hotel with the seaside walkways and restaurants for people watching to the inland jungle Jurassic Park experience, where you think the wild life might come out at you super sized.  Add to that a rainy mist, and you've got a movie set ready to go.

One of the highlights was setting out on scooters to explore the country side.
A bit of rain, but oh well..... Feel soaked all the time anyway!

First stop was the Hospital Cave. This is a three story engineering masterpiece that was built by the Chinese and used during the American/Vietnam war as a hospital and safe house for the VietCong leaders. This bomb proof hospital and safe house was occupied until 1975 and includes operating rooms, meeting rooms, recovering rooms, a pool for exercise, quick escape routes, training for combat areas  and a social media room to show films.  A fantastic stop and we were told that Ho Cho Minh himself spent a week here.

View from the entrance to the cave out to the valley.

Second floor leading to each of the operating, meeting and recovery rooms. 

Training area to squat and crawl and hide in crevices.

Second destination of the day was the National Park.   260 sq km of diverse ecosystems from subtropical evergreen forests, freshwater swamps, coastal mangroves, small fesh water lakes, coral reefs.... This truly felt like Jurassic Park.  I expected insects to be 100 times their original size as the sounds of critters was almost overwhelming as we hiked to the look out peak.  Man made steps combined with natural rocks were our path way and a very steep slippery and scary final 15 minutes took us to the top..... Mists made things a little creepy and ethereal and unfortunately, I needed a picture to capture what I should have seen.  My bum helped me down as I'm not sure why the nooks
and crannies are easier to navigate going up then coming down.  Especially when wet,

The view that was....

This was the view behind the mist according to the internet.

This was the easy part coming down, just a bit muddy.

Higher up the descent was quite dangerous and steep. No cameras out, just slippery hands holding on to jagged wet rocks.

Absolutely gorgeous greenery.

Brad, true to form, decided we should go a different way home and as he was leading, Anna and I had no choice  but to follow.
Some  amazing scenery, farmland and sea, construction roads and farming back lanes....
But we made it.

The only causality of the day being a butterfly who flew into my face.....
Sigh, the butterfly kiss of death.....

Evening left me in the room and close to the toilet (sorry, only mothers  and nursing friends would listen so I will leave the details out) so Brad and Anna went out for dinner and took in the last of the evening celebrations.

The next day I was still not better (NO, I was not faking it for some alone time!) so I stayed at the hotel while Brad and Anna took a boat tour of Halong Bay including checking out some cool caves via kayak and some small operating fishing villages all on water.  The rock formations are quite spectacular.  Unfortunately the spring mists take away from postcard worthy drama, but it was quite cool all on its own.

Fun kayaking.

Exploring the caves.

Checking out the fishing villages.

Watching a rock climber.... Did a great job, but still ended up with a splash!

Okay landing.

We would definitely come back to this very charming and scenic Island.  The pace is slower, the people are very friendly and it was a nice break from the feel of being scammed in the big city.