Halong Bay: To do, not to do or how to do it

Halong Bay is probably one of the destinations that everyone who comes to Vietnam visits. Accordingly, there are a lot of tourists there and also many travel agencies that offer tours, for example from Hanoi for 1, 2 or 3 days. At first, I was tempted to book through one of these agencies, but then I thought about the crowds of tourists and I lost a bit of interest. Should I just forget about it?

Nevertheless, I decided to go to the bay, but to try to organize it a bit off the beaten path, if possible... So I took the bus to Cat Ba, from where the boats were supposed to take a different route to the bay than from Haiphong, where most tours start. In addition, from Cat Ba you should also be able to visit Lan Ha Bay. My plan was to stay one night in Cat Ba and then take a two-day boat trip to the bay.

In hindsight, I would have liked to stay a few more nights in Cat Ba, because despite the high number of tourists here as well, the atmosphere was very relaxed and there is a lot to experience: The national park, where you can visit caves and go climbing, the cannon fort and various beaches.

On my first afternoon in Cat Ba, I rode a scooter for the first time. I received a brief introduction and driving lesson from one of the other hostel guests and after waiting for a heavy rainfall, I rode together with another German girl who I had met on the bus through the national park and back along the coast, where we saw a great sunset.

The next one and a half days were spent on and in boats. Together with a nice group of Australians, British, Americans, Germans and a Canadian, we spent the days canoeing in hidden lagoons, swimming, eating (super fresh seafood), and having interesting conversations. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sunrise because of the clouds, but while canoeing, we discovered the Cat Ba langurs living on the islands. As it turned out later, this discovery was something very special, as there are only 70 monkeys of this species left.

Back on Cat Ba, I enjoyed a long nap and a relaxed beer with the other guests, before heading to Hanoi the next morning and then on to Ninh Binh.

Halong Bay is one of the destinations in Vietnam that almost everybody visits, who comes to the country. Accordingly, there are a lot of agencies selling either one, two, or several day trips to the bay from Hanoi. So my first impulse was to just go to one of them and book a tour. But the more I thought about it, I disliked the thought of being one of thousands of tourists in the hundreds of boats in the bay.

So should I do it at all? Or was there another way. In the end, I decided to go to Cat Ba on my own and then book a two-day tour through Lan Ha and Halong Bay from there, since the boats there were supposed to take a different route than those from Haiphong.

Looking back, I would have liked to stay on Cat Ba a little longer. It is a very laid back place, I met some great people, and there are a lot of things to do like exploring caves in the national park or going climbing. On my first day on Cat Ba, I rode a scooter for the first time in my life. Together with a German girl I met on the bus to the island, we rode through the national park and back to the town along the coast, where we saw a beautiful sunset. The next day I left for a two-day and one-night trip on a boat. Together with a group of Australians, Americans, British, Germans, and a Canadian girl, we spent the time swimming, kayaking (through caves to hidden lagoons), eating (very fresh seafood), and talking.

Unfortunately, I could not see the sunrise because there were too many clouds. But on our second day, we saw a whole family of Cat Ba Langurs while kayaking. It turned out this was something very special, since there are only 70 of these monkeys left in the bay.

Back on Cat Ba, I enjoyed a nap, a great banana shake, and a couple of beers with some nice and interesting people from Ireland and France. The next morning, it was already time to go back to Hanoi from where I was going to Ninh Binh.