09/11. The floating rocks

The boat trip we booked yesterday was on the program today starting at 8 o'clock. We took a bus to a harbor on the other side of the island and from there on a boat to the bays of Cat Ba, which are filled with many islands and rocks. The first meters led us through a floating fishing village. The houses were much smaller than those of the floating villages of Tonlé Sap in Cambodia and were not securely anchored in the ground, but this colorful mixture of houses in front of which fishnets dried and small fishing boats had a special charm, especially since the backdrop with the large rocks was fantastic. It also seemed as if every floating hut had at least one dog, which of course didn't have much exercise, but probably guarded the house while the owner was fishing at sea.

After the fishing village, we stopped at Monkey Island, which is named after the hordes of monkeys that jump around on the beach and in the trees. We climbed to the top of the small island, which was not always pleasant, as there were challenging and complicated climbing passages, and the two of us geniuses were only wearing flip-flops. From the top, however, we had a wonderful view of the neighboring islands and the rock formations scattered over the sea.

View from the top

After surviving the way down, we continued on the boat through the "Floating Rocks," which are often depicted on postcards and calendars. It is often impressive to see the shapes and formations that nature is capable of. Natural wonders are created with nothing but water, wind, and time, of which humans can only dream.

Back on the boat, we had a delicious Vietnamese lunch, which we shared with a French family and realized that our French is not as bad as we always thought and that we can still be understood well when we talk about ourselves and our trip. School must bring something after all...

We continued and after a short time we stopped in a bay that was almost closed and could only be reached through a narrow passage between the rocks. We jumped from our boat into the water and could relax on a small beach and collect souvenirs, because everywhere there were petrified corals and beautiful shells that wanted to be taken home.

Ancient corals

After the swimming session, it slowly got dark and we started the journey back to the harbor. So one last time, we went through the rocky sea around Cat Ba and through the fishing village, which, previously abandoned, now lay in bustling activity in front of us and also ended the tour.

In the evening, we went out to eat with our friends from school and planned our last nine days in Vietnam, which we still have until the flight to Thailand. We have decided to first go to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, and from there take a multi-day tour to Sapa or the surrounding region. However, in order to find something proper, we first have to get to Hanoi, which is why we will continue tomorrow afternoon and leave Cat Ba Island towards Hanoi. We haven't been to a real big city for a long time and are curious to see what the capital of this beautiful country has to offer.