Cash is King

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In Hanoi, there were ATMs around every corner. This gave us the impression that we would be able to draw cash more easily that originally anticipated. In general, we also have enough cash on hand to get by as we draw the maximum daily allowance each time withdraw, but when you are on an isolated island, you could be caught in a tricky situation.

The only thing on Nam Cat island is Nam Cat Resort. You need to pay 300 000 VND to get off the island (40-minute boat trip) and while on the island you are limited to the food and drink available at the resort prices. Normally this would be fine as you would simply settle your bill using your credit card at the end of the stay. But when the island has poor cell reception and no Wi-Fi, credit cards are not an option.

In an attempt to solve this problem, we caught a boat into Catba Town to draw some cash only to find that all the ATMs were out of order. Together with a handful of Dollars and Euros we have stashed away, we may be able just to cover our bill. As a plan B, we already considering which electronics we have to use for bartering. We will let you know how it turned out.


Update on 19 Feb 2016: The staff from the resort accompanied us to Catba Town on our last day, and the ATMs were back online. So the good news is that we did not need to sell any of our possessions and have travelled on to our next stop in Vietnam.

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