Friday, December 5, 2008

Cat Ba Day 2: The Cave

While riding around the island on our rented motorbike, Huyen and I saw this sign along the side of a road:

We decided to take a look and pulled onto a skinny path. Literally three seconds after parking our bike this man pulled up behind us on his own bike:

The man told us he was the tour guide for the cave and told us it would cost 15,000 VND each to see the cave. At first I was skeptical that this guy was just ripping us off but soon realized he was legit. We followed him to the entrance of a cave where there was a padlocked door built into the stone. The man pulled out a key and opened the door.

We followed the tour guide into the darkness where he searched and found two flashlights. He handed Huyen a light and kept one for himself. He then began to walk through the cave which was an intricate three story building built by the Chinese during the American-Vietnamese War.

It turns out the building was a secret hospital to treat wounded Vietnamese soldiers. The only thing to compare the cave system to would be the Cu Chi tunnels in the south (you can search my blog for my entry about those). However, this place was very different since it was a legitimate building built inside a mountain and not underground.


Huyen and I hadn't been expected to see what we saw but that's always the best part of just jumping on/in a bike/car/etc. and exploring a city/island/etc. without an itinerary.

2 comments:

Baby Songer said...

making sure you got a hit from bolivia on Google analytics.

Anonymous said...

Wow Huyen's english is getting really good.