Beach, bus, boat, bus, bus

Today wasn't so eventful. We had a bus booked for 3pm to take us to Hué so we went to find a beach for the morning. There are three beaches around Cat Ba town. We walked to one and weren't very impressed so walked a few minutes to the next one along. There were resorts on the beach front, little huts and sunloungers, but there weren't many people around so we had half of the beach to ourselves. The waves were huge! It would have been a perfect place to bodyboard. 

We got a bus which took us through the island to a port where a speed boat was waiting. It only took 20 minutes on the speed boat to get to Hai Phong, Vietnam's third biggest city. Unfortunately, we had to wait about an hour at Hai Phong port for a bus to take us to the bus station but while we waited we talked to some Americans and some Germans. 

When we got to Hai Phong centre it was quite nice. A garden and river ran through the middle of the main street for a few kilometres. We had just under an hour to get some tea so we ventured along with two German guys and found some street food. It was Pho Bo (loads of accents are needed) which is noodle soup with pork and spring onions and fresh parsley. We also added some chilli sauce to give it a bit of spice. It was delicious, one of the nicest things I've eaten in Vietnam so far and only 30,000 dong which is less than a pound. I'm a little too afraid to try all of the street food as I don't want to get sick, especially with the amount of sleeper buses we're going to be taking, but I think I should be a little more adventurous. 

Back at the bus station we got on our sleeper bus (the beds are the perfect size for me, although a little narrow, but far too small for Matt) and prepared for a lovely 16 hours to Hué.