Cat Ba Island and Halong Bay

Cat Ba Island is near Vietnam’s most famous tourist attraction - Halong Bay. We decided to go to Cat Ba as it’s within reach of Halong Bay but you avoid the swarms of tour groups. Getting to Cat Ba from Hanoi required a surprisingly painless bus-bus-bus-boat-bus combo.

Cat Ba town itself is fairly dreary, but the island is lovely. The weather was a bit disappointing, so we didn’t get any beach or snorkelling time, but we were still able to walk in the national park and motorbike around the island. On our walks through the rainforest we saw dozens of bright butterflies and were surrounded by amazingly loud insects that sounded like chainsaws.

Four dogs joined us for a walk and enjoyed the view from this summit

Of course we also did a day cruise to Halong and Lan Ha bays. We sailed past hundreds of floating homes, where people make a living from aquaculture. Around 13,000 people live on Cat Ba island, and 4,000 more live in the bays surrounding it.

Our Australian guide for the day was great - he took our group to a secluded spot for kayaking which took us through caves that opened up into massive hidden lagoons.

Vietnam is known for having some “interesting” food choices, like in Hanoi where we saw dog being cooked (funnily enough, we weren’t tempted to try it). Although in Cat Ba we did try barbequed wild bird and fertilised duck eggs. The duck egg wasn’t bad exactly, but it’s hard to get past the idea of it.

We’ve got a big day of travel coming up next. Our CouchSurfing host in Hanoi recommended that we head north for a motorbike trip near the Chinese border. After seeing some photos it didn’t take long for us to be convinced! So another bus-boat-bus-bus combo lies ahead, to take us to a small town called Hà Giang. We’re looking forward to riding along the mountainous frontier.

Comments from WordPress

• Lesley 2013-04-25T22:15:12Z

  Hey - glad you are keeping up the frisbee skills. Lxox

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson