Cat Ba Dream Island

28th October 2016

Now we made it. We arrived on vacation.

1. We don't know what day it is anymore and

2. I'm not wearing a watch anymore.

The day began after a very tropical night with a wonderful Vietnamese breakfast by the sea. The "Eggmaker", a friendly Vietnamese assistant cook, made me feel a little sorry for him as he stood all alone at his pan; everything prepared nicely: eggs ready, ham, tomatoes, and herbs chopped; but no one wanted a boiled egg for breakfast. The competition from fried noodles, chicken wings, steaks, rice, various sweet sticky rice variations, vegetables... was too big.

But I promise: Tomorrow I will order the fattest boiled egg that CAT BA has ever seen.

Afterwards, we decided for relaxation on the beach. As I learned today, pleasure and learning inevitably go together - learning without pleasure stiffens, and pleasure without learning dulls the mind. I think we can describe our activities here on the island with the former. I devour my travel reading: "Who am I - and if so, how many"; find out that the book title sprang from the wine in the head, plunge into being and consciousness, and learn about the difficulties when a brain tries to explore a brain. The sun did the rest and heated up my brain.

Out of fear of drying up, we decided to dive into the 24 degrees warm water again to explore the island and learn new things with a "cool" head.

The first stop on our little exploratory tour was the viewpoint of Cannon Fort, from where we had a fantastic panoramic view after a 10-minute drive. We shot the best pictures on the former military base and had ourselves driven to CAT BA TOWN. According to the travel guide, the skyline of CAT BA TOWN resembles that of Hong Kong. Well, I haven't been there yet, so I'll let my friend Jan, who frequents Hong Kong more often, check it out. God forbid, they wrote nonsense.

I inquired at a small street food stall where I can rent a moped - I want to give my "KITTEN" a surprise dinner at sunset.

Great, even though nobody understood English here, a tuktuk biker zoomed by shortly afterwards, took me with him, and left Kerstin sitting on her red plastic stool in a cloud of exhaust fumes and street food steam.

After a 2 Euro investment and in less than 5 minutes, I rescued her on my 3 horsepower machine and drove towards the sun together with her, with our hair blowing in the wind. Klein Hong Kong was quickly explored. At the end of the pass, we discovered a great spot: a view of the sea, incoming fishing boats, and a sun that wanted to fall into the water behind a small island at any moment. The menu looked tempting. This was the place of the happy ones. We ordered FAMILY BBQ Seafood and let ourselves be infected by this good mood and a way of life that is at home here.

This is what a plate from the grill should look like: summer roll, grilled sardines, calamari, oysters, scampi. After everything was devoured, "KITTEN" Kerstin was happy and the memory card greedily devoured the sun and boats, we sped down the mountain on our bike and, to the joy of our landlord, who hadn't asked for an ID or deposit from me, dashed onto the sidewalk and set off on foot to our accommodation.

Upon arrival, we landed at the beach bar. The bartender understood my non-alcohol as more of a lotalcohol, so a cocktail with a lot of alcohol. I still returned it.

A delightful day is coming to an end. The little French children in the neighboring apartment are also coming to rest, a fishing boat ducks home, and the sea sends small waves to the shore. In the meantime, we are packing our things for the next stage, which will take us south on the night train tomorrow.

And it's true, learning with pleasure brings joy.

(Stefan)