Kayaking through two worlds

After completing most of my exams in the form of essays, lesson designs, or exams in most of my subjects, I decided on a whim last weekend to take a trip to Cat Ba Island.

My former roommate Si raved about this destination, so I had been considering going there for a while.

Now the time had come and after buying the bus tickets, we were on our way.

Early on Thursday morning, the bus started in Hanoi and reached the port city of Haiphong after about two hours. From there, we took a speedboat to the island, from which another bus took us to our accommodations.

On the first day, I set off on foot to explore the spectacular landscape. Located on the edge of the world-famous Halong Bay with its towering karst formations, Cat Ba is a tropical paradise. Although the island is gaining popularity among both local and foreign tourists, it is not as crowded as other holiday destinations in Vietnam. This could be due to the fact that approximately two-thirds of the area is designated as a nature reserve. Tropical rainforests and several endangered species, including the iguana, create an exotic atmosphere not far from the bustling city of Hanoi.

I didn't have any specific plans in mind, but a kayaking tour in the midst of this spectacular landscape was already on my to-do list.

So the next day, I rented a kayak and started my tour. I paddled happily away and enjoyed having water under my keel once again. After about three hours of paddling, I wanted to turn back, but this proved to be more difficult than expected because, as spectacular as this landscape is, it offers few distinct landmarks and resembles a labyrinth. Although I had marked the starting point on Maps on my phone, I couldn't access it because the network coverage, which is sometimes even better than in Germany, is lacking at sea. So the only option left was to navigate the old-fashioned way using the position of the sun. But that didn't work either, as I found myself between the tropics, and as we all learned in geography class, the sun is sometimes directly overhead around noon. With a bit of luck and intuition, I still managed to find my starting point and was relieved to have solid ground under my feet once again.

During my little adventure, I passed many floating fishing villages. Built in sparse wooden huts on pontoons, these fishing families, who belong to the poorest populations in Vietnam, live. Even the most beautiful scenery around their homes does not conceal the glaring ecological and humanitarian problems. The people are not only busy collecting enormous amounts of plastic waste from their fishing nets, but they are also confronted with mass tourism on countless small cruise ships that transport partying tourists and their emissions through nature. I have never experienced such a contrast between "worlds" before, and I felt extremely sad, downcast, and a bit ashamed of the extroverted Western lifestyle of others.

On the last day, I explored the national park with its breathtaking views and visited two caves, one of which even served as a hospital during the Vietnam War. The "Hospital Cave," a bomb-proof bunker, was set up like a museum, and I could well imagine how the sick and injured were treated during the war.

All in all, Cat Ba was definitely worth a trip, although it revealed to me, more than any other place, the problems of a developing country.