Fabulista Goes Down: The Town.

Another day with nothing on the itinerary. Things are getting desperate and people are getting exasperated around this island.

You know it’s sad when people start playing with their food to entertain themselves - even if we did get two eggs with three yolks - really!

I decided to go exploring around town and that’s not as ambitious as it sounds. This is an island fishing village with one town center the size of a residential estate. But I did try to venture as far as I possibly could and did manage to find many gems in the tiny village that seems ambitious and willing to try and improve itself.

The house of Anthony Hung - Vidal Sassoon of Cat Ba Island; I assume.

One man operated petrol kiosk.

Ma petite maison est belle, non?

Status symbol? You have probably made it when you can have your own house with a permanent motor(bike) way.

Future Ambition? Development of a full island community resort in Cat Ba.

A scenic fishing pond in the middle of a fishing island.

Tuyet Beo and Cat Tien (pictures above) are two of the floating restaurants in Cat Ba. It's different from the ones found in the far south of Asia (e.g. kelongs in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia). These floating restaurants are modeled after their floating fishing villages - they are literally clusters floating houses; residences buoyed on flotillas made of plastic drums. This means that they are more susceptible to the ravages of the tides and the waves.

I was really looking forward to an experience on one of the restaurants (Tuyet Beo comes highly recommended by the locals, by the way). Unfortunately for me, two things happened - seasick traveling partners and electrical failure on the floating restaurant.

Sigh...