The caves

With a little time to kill on cat ba island before returning to the main land and back to Hanoi we took a little trip up into the mountains. I decided to brave the main streets and do the scooter taxi. Here in Asia you can pay a few dollars and hop on the back of some guys scooter and they blaze around town like there on fire with you on the back. The place we were headed of to was a cave in the mountains that during the war with America. Inside the cave they had built a large bunker area complete with pool ( square cement box underground) and meeting rooms, hospital rooms and there was even a giant room that was the actually just the large part of the cavern as a theatre inside. It was interesting with a poured cement floor and then stalagmites hanging from the ceiling. When we arrived there was a Vietnamese gentleman there in an old military uniform ready to take us on our tour. Okay so up we go over a little wooden ladder th at I was sure was going to collapse at any moment and then into the main hallway. It was the sort of square cement hallway that you have seen before in all of the old movies. Bare with a few lightbulbs spaced to far apart so that it is mostly dark the entire way. Then as I turned around he guide was grabbing a plastic m16 and saluted very crisp and said in a very official and barely understandable "chreck proint" holy shit I was thinking to myself. This guy has a necklace of human ears someplace behind the counter! But he laughed and waved and returned to giving us the tour. As we made our way from room to room we eventually reached what was a meeting and propaganda room. Our guide once again snaps into a officially crisp and upright position, raising one arm he started chanting " ho chi min, ho chi min" and started singing the official party song. So much for new era modern Vietnam and capitalism. This guy was all about old school communism. After making our way from room to room and through some tough interpretations I figured out that he had been stationed at that place for over ten years as a soldier and fought not only the Americans but Chinese as well. During the stay uncle ho himself had stayed there and lets just say that it left a lasting impression on this fellow. Through the woods and back on the scooter we raced back into town through the forest and past a little place that served dog....... The first time I have seen this yet.