June 14th - 16th, 2024 - Cat Ba Island

June 14th, 2024 

Taught school like normal. Napped most of the rest of the day taught kindergarten again in the evening. Harrison and I went to Mya bar and met some students from around the world studying at an English private school in Hai Phong. They had just graduated high school and were out celebrating so we joined them. They were pretty cool, but you could tell they came from money. 

June 15th, 2024

 Harrison and I were supposed to go to Cat Ba today but he was too hung over from the night before. I didn’t mind though. I got to do an adventure on my own and it was really good for my confidence. I started the day by renting a motor bike in Hai Phong and drive it to the ferry to Catch Ba island. I was nervous at first but then I got the hang of it. It costed 300 k for the weekend plus a 500k deposit. Next came driving to the ferry. It was a lot further away than I thought from Hai Phong. I went to where the ferry should have been put that pier was closed. Luckily, I was following some other tourists going to the same place as me and we made it to the right dock. I made a friend on the ferry. He was Vietnamese. He took me for lunch in the middle of nowhere on Cat Ba island. I ate with him and his friends and he paid for everything. He even bought me a coffee. I’m sure I will meet him again as we exchanged numbers. I then went to my hostel called Woodstock. I went to check in and they said to wait an hour. After half an hour they told me they had no room for me. This was a blessing in disguise as there weren’t many foreigners there. Instead I booked a hostel at buffalo hostel instead. What a difference. The vibe was much better and probably 50 foreigners to interact with. I made friends with 2 German girls and a Dutch couple as well. We sat around and chatted. We even played a card game called Toupee. We had a few beer and it was a really nice evening. Then we went to the club in cat ba city. Initially I didn’t want to go but I had fun nonetheless. I wore my motorbike helmet as a joke and the people at the bar laughed.

June 16th, 2024

Woke up this morning and had breakfast at the hostel. I had pancakes eggs and watermelon. We left for the boat trip at 8:30 this morning. First we drove somewhere in Halong bay. We stopped so we could go swimming. If you jumped from the top rung it was a 30 foot drop into the water. It was fun jumping off the top rung, but I’m not a very good at treading water so I had to cling on to someone’s paddle board. After swimming we had lunch. We had chicken stir fry, spring roles, rice and French fries. Then we went kayaking which was really fun. We went through 3 different caves. They were really good. My new friend and I Nadia were paired together in a two man kayak. She’s really sweet. She’s German too which is really cool. We’ve been speaking German back and forth as much as I can understand. It’s been really cool. The heat has been really hot today, but I’m not complaining. I love it. I also met this really nice Dutch couple. They don’t have any accents at all it’s really interesting. It’s sad we will have to say our goodbyes tomorrow but maybe we will meet again someday. To finish off the night I went and watched the Netherlands and Poland play on tv for the European championship. I did it with the Dutch couple I had met. Their names were Pijke and ma sha. Netherland won 2-1 and it was a really good game. I’m happy I went. Time for bed !