Kitchen Wench

On Tuesday, the group took a short trip to Halong Bay and Catba Island.  After a 3 hour bus ride to the pier, we took a 3-4 hour boat ride around the bay.  It was very pretty, with  jungle-covered rocks rising out of the pale turquoise water.  They even stopped the boat and some of the group changed into swim suits and dove off the side of the boat. 

After the cruise we landed at Catba Island and stayed there overnight.  This place is a little resort town, but, it’s… well, kind of crummy.  Almost no one else was on the island and they pretty much tried to charge us for every little thing possible, from beach chairs and tables to butter with your bread and milk for your coffee.  Of course it still wasn’t very expensive, but it just feels really chintzy to have the tiniest things be a charge on your dinner bill.

Speaking of motorcycles, a bunch of people rented them today and then proceeded to crash them.  Then–and this is apparently part of a big scam–the rental people tried to exort US money out of the students for some very minor damages to the bikes.  This is a fairly common scam, since they know that most people don’t know how to ride the bikes anyway. 

Another interesting twist included the discovery that the discotheque was owned by the army.  Apparently it’s how they make extra money, but they also have a monopoly on the bar scene on the island.

I know these people are struggling to make money, but frankly it feels pretty lousy to be treated like a walking twenty dollar bill.  It’s also very bad for business–I don’t think I would recommend the place to anyone after our experience. I think most of us were happy to get off the island after only a day.