Cat Ba And Halong Bay - Great Adventures With Great Company

„Welcome to the bus to Cat Ba!“ That’s what one of the guides said when we had all taken our seats in the center of Hanoi and were ready to go to the island in the East of the capital. Some two hours later, we found ourselves at the ferry terminal and after quite a short boat cruise, we had arrived on the island. Our bus dropped us off at our hostel which was certainly one of the best ones I’ve stayed at in Asia. A nice pool, surrounded by grass, good meals, big dorms – such a great place 🙂As I said in my last post, I had gone there with Jane, Andi, Mathilde and Matti, and after ordering some food, we decided to refresh ourselves in the pool. We had lunch then and afterwards did some workouts – certainly not a bad idea since I had been a bit lazy during the last few weeks 😜 When it was just starting to get dark, we decided to go to the “city center” to have dinner there. But first, we had to get money from an ATM which was a bit tricky as there is only one reliable ATM on the entire island so there was quite a queue in front of it 😀 Anyway, we all managed to get some money and eventually ended up in a big and crowded restaurant and we had to wait for our food for a long long time. So long that in the end, we got a big drinking bucket for free. Yay 😅 We killed the time with some little games and after everyone had finally received and eaten their meals, we went back to the hostel before going to bed quite early as we had big plans for the next day.

After a good bit of sleeping, we all met at reception to organize our trip for the day. Our plan was to hire some scooters and cruise around the island. We even invented a name for our squad: the scooter chicks! 😂 So after everyone had taken their seat, we were ready to go! Jane and Andi had never been on a scooter before but that wasn’t a problem at all. They learned quickly 😉 First, we went to a nice viewpoint on top of a hill. We saw the sea and a lot of smaller islands. And some goats 🙂 After that we decided to go for a hike in a national park. Unfortunately we hadn’t been expecting to be hiking too much and had only taken our jandals with us so it was a bit tricky to do the hike. Especially because it led up a hill and the climb was quite steep. In the end, we all made it though and it was really worth it. We got rewarded with an amazing view of the surrounding mountains and forests. I just had a small accident when I slipped, lost one of my jandals and hit a steep rock with one of my toes which immediately started bleeding. But luckily, another nice tourist had a plaster with her so I got some excellent first aid 😉 My little injury didn’t have any consequences and after going down the hill pretty quickly, we went to the North end of Cat Ba. The ride was really nice and fun and the landscape was enjoyable. We left our scooters at the coast and went down to the sea together. And then there was another accident: Jane slipped when she was going down to the sea and fell into the water! I didn’t see that but the others said it looked funny 😂 Nothing happened to her, so we could all laugh about it. It wasn’t her last accident on that day though 😉 When we left the North end, it was already dark. We didn’t stop at the hostel but headed straight to the city to have dinner there. And then one of the craziest crashes I’ve ever seen happened. To park our scooters next to the street, we had to drive over a small ridge so we had to accelerate a little bit to get over it. But then Jane pulled the throttle a little too hard, so she was literally thrown off her scooter and they both ended up in a small piece of green next to the parking lot. At first everyone was a bit shocked but when we realized that Jane and the scooter had survived everything without the slightest pain, we all started laughing. What a stunt 😂 We had dinner then before going home and spending the rest of the evening at the hostel while playing a drinking game.

For the next day, we had booked a full day tour to Halong Bay. The weather was cloudy but luckily dry and after a few minutes on the bus, we arrived at the ferry terminal and entered our boat which was supposed to get us to the bay. It was really nice to cruise through the bay and see all the mountains on either side. When we had been moving for quite a while, the first activity of our tour was waiting for us: kayaking! 😊 Everyone on the boat took a seat in a two seated kayak – I shared mine with Tom from England - and we were all good to go. Making our way through the beautiful landscape was super enjoyable. We also got to see some caves and I could honestly have stayed in the water for some more time 😉 It was time to get back to the boat after around an hour though and lunch was just waiting for us. It was very tasty and we had a nice chat with an American lady who has been traveling a lot in her life. Before we got to see the next attraction, Monkey Island, we were given the chance to jump off the upper deck and of course, we all took that opportunity 😉 It was about seven or eight meters high and it was a lot of fun 😊 After we had dried ourselves and got back into our clothes, it was time to explore Monkey Island. As the name cleary indicates, that island is well-known for the monkeys living there. And as soon as we got off the boat, we saw a bunch of them playing in a bush and walking along the beach. Our guide had warned us beforehand as these monkeys are apparently very good at stealing things so we had to be a little careful not to get too close to them but luckily, everyone eventually left the island with all their properties 😀 The monkeys are certainly not the only attraction of the island though. There is a small mountain in the middle of the island and we all hiked up there. The climb was far from being easy as it did literally involve some climbing and the path was full of other tourists but once we had all arrived on top of the hill safe and sound, we knew why this viewpoint is so popular. The view we got from the summit was amazing. We saw the bay with a lot of islands in it, and of course, we took a lot of photos 😉 When we had made it back to the beach again, we sat down in a little beach bar and had some beers before we went to the beach watching a handstand competition between Matti and Jane which was funny as Mathilde and I had to judge them 😅 Our time on the island came to an end soon after and we went back to the boat which took us back to the ferry terminal. Before arriving there, we got to see a floating village which was interesting to watch. Once we were back at the hostel, we went to town for dinner. We had some really really good pizza before getting some different beers – Matti and Andi had the idea of creating an Instagram beer rating account 😉 – and going back to the hostel where we relaxed at the pool before checking out the pictures and videos we had taken during the last days. And then something very strange happened to me. While I was sitting in front of my laptop, everything suddenly started turning and all of a sudden, I started to feel really bad. I tried to go to the bathroom but couldn’t keep my balance anymore so I had to sit on the grass and immediately had to throw up. Not very nice 😕 I have no idea why that happened as I had definitely not been drunk. Anyway, fortunately my sickness disappeared as fast as it had come so everything was allright again after a few minutes. I went straight to bed after that incident and after catching some sleep, I didn’t feel sick at all the next morning.

The trip to Halong Bay was the last full day we spent on Cat Ba. My next destination was Ninh Binh, the old Vietnamese capital, while the others wanted to go further to the South. So we only spent some more hours together on the bus and having lunch in Ninh Binh before I was on my own again. In my next blog post, I will let you know what I did during the very last days of my trip. Stay tuned! ✌

Cheers,

Max