Day 5 - Exploring The Island

It's day 5 and we still aren't quite adjusted to the time difference. Today I woke up around 5 (better than 12am I guess!) we took the morning slow eating breakfast and than laying around watching the movie channel. Around 930 we went and rented motorbikes again. The first stop today was the Cat Ba national park. The park is huge and has a trail that goes to Ngu Lam Peak. The hike was very fast and steep and only took about 20 minutes to reach the top. The views were awesome as expected. 

There's a big watch tower at the peak however it was blocked off 😠...of course I decided to climb up anyway. I got about halfway up and stopped since the tower was so rusted the bolts looked like they were gunna break any minute. 

After the national park we motorbiked all the way to the north pier (the only part of the island we still hadn't seen). The ride was fun with lots of hills and twists and turns but very cold. I was able to get the motorbike going about 55 miles an hour which was super fun and really makes me want to get a motorcycle once I get back. The pier itself wasn't anything special compared to the other. 

On the way back to the main town we stopped at Trung Trung cave. We were able to walk around the entrance but the door to the cave itself was locked. 

After the cave we ate lunch at mr zoom's restaurant. I had beef with rice and pineapple, it was great. After lunch we went back to the hotel to rest. Before dinner I decided to take the motorbike out one last time for fun and stumbled upon a cool shirt hike to the top of this mountain with a viewing deck and statute thing. There was an awesome view of the main strip where our hotel was. 

-Panorama of the view

After hiking back down I drove around the town a little more and decided to go up this hill, however when I tried to make it up the hill the bike stalled and shut off. I started the bike back up and tried again, the bike stalled out again. However this time the bike wouldn't start back up! It had plenty of gas so that wasn't the problem. I ended up having to coast all the way down the hill back to the rental place. They didn't seem to care which was good and they didn't have my name or anything to rent the bike so I figured I was good. After dropping the bike off I went back to the hotel. 

We decided to eat dinner at the restaurant right outside of our hotel. I ordered a hot pot. I wasn't quite sure what is was when I order it but I was cold and hungry and the name was appealing. The hot pot certainly did not disappoint!! It was essentially a large pot heated on the table where the waitress cooked the meat and other ingredients for me and served them to me in a bowl. It was a ton of food and it was awesome!

After dinner we made it back upstairs to our room to watch some more movies and sleep. Tomorrow were going on a cruise and kayaking day trip of lan ha bay!