Cat Ba & Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

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The island of Cat Ba is the largest island in the world famous Ha Long Bay. Staying there was a vacation from traveling for us. Every now and then we stay a little longer in one place and treat ourselves so that we can recover from the hardships of traveling. ;-) Especially after the two weeks in the north, with sometimes cold temperatures, we were looking forward to something warmer and the sea. The fact that it is a bit more touristy here than in the north didn't bother us. On the contrary, it was nice to meet other backpackers (or people who speak English in general) and exchange ideas with them.

At our accommodation, it was particularly important to us that the beds are comfortable. After all, we had to sleep on rock-hard mattresses for the past two weeks.

The Central Hostel was less than a year old and has a beautiful garden with a pool. Our room was a kind of bungalow right by the pool. Just the right thing to relax.

We also did the obligatory Ha Long Bay tour, during which we sailed through a floating fishing village, jumped off the boat and went swimming, and visited Monkey Island. The visit to the small Monkey Island was the only time when there were too many tourists for us. Of course, 5 large tourist boats arrived at the same time and everyone wanted to climb up the mountain. This resulted in a crazy traffic jam all the way up the steep path. Luckily, we were among the first and immediately found a great spot on one of the peaks. There, we treated ourselves to a summit beer. Going down was much slower (because of the many people, not the beer).

After 4 nights, we had to say goodbye to our newfound friends, the beautiful island, and the beautiful weather. Our next major destination is Ninh Binh.

Text by Oli

Image editing by Rahel