Hey, everyone! I’ve spent the last week(ish) in and around Cát Bà island on the east side of northern Vietnam. My plans got delayed slightly due to ANOTHER typhoon but I ended up being able to do everything I’d planned to: including a visit to the Hạ Long – Cát Bà Archipelago.

A few housekeeping things:

1) If you’re interested in my art, have a look at my merchandise on RedBubble!
2) If wanting to read my first novel, Eclipse Me, you can find the link here.

Cát Bà Town

After escaping Cao Bằng, I made it to Cát Bà. Before coming to Vietnam, I was planning on going to Hạ Long Bay, but I heard it is majorly overcrowded with tourists, boats, garbage in the water, etc. I found out online that Cát Bà had its own bay, Lan Hạ Bay, and it was part of the same UNESCO-recognized archipelago. Less crowds, less boats in the water, less pollution. Alright, count me in.

I decided to have a couple nights in Cát Bà Town itself. The town was cute but was overshadowed by a massive construction project happening along the bay. Once upon a time, all of the accommodations along the main street had wonderful sunset views. That is not the case anymore! They are now blocked by what will eventually be hotels.

The staff member at the homestay, Dung, was very friendly and gave me recommendations for an oyster spot just a couple doors down. I don’t have much experience with oysters to be honest, but these grilled oysters (with butter and garlic) were DAMN good. I think I went there three times in four days haha. Coconut ice cream was also a thing in Cát Bà Town. I had it for dessert a couple times.

I originally planned to only stay in Cát Bà Town for two nights but extended it to four when I heard the typhoon was coming through. The boat tours were shut down (obviously) and so I had to wait out the weather once again. I had considered doing other things around the island but in the end I took the time to relax and enjoy having electricity/air conditioning again.

I did go on a nearby trail that hugged against a limestone cliff. That area had lovely sunset views and this was my first taste of the archipelago system.

I also went on another hike in town that once upon a time had a nice view of the bay but now just looked at the construction. BOO! The hike up was totally grown over with weeds. I had all sorts of “stickers” attached to me by the time I got down. I was also afraid of a snake bite since the area had so much foliage concealing the ground.

I spent one day visiting multiple different tour operators, trying to pick the best one. I originally thought I’d do a 3D2N cruise but one tour company convinced me otherwise, saying that the third day wasn’t too much – mostly kayaking around a lagoon in the morning and then heading back. Because kayaking was already on the menu other days, I figured I would get my fill. Boy, did I.

I ended up going with that company, mostly because they were going to drop me off at Việt Hải Village at the end of the cruise, where I would then stay for two nights.

The morning before my trip, rains from the typhoon came through Cát Bà Town. I woke up throughout the night, worried that the town would flood and I wouldn’t be able to go on the tour. Yet, when I awoke, the rain had stopped. I had partly cloudy skies awaiting me, which cleared up even more throughout the day. I couldn’t have asked for better weather.

Cát Bà Archipelago

Even from the early hours of the tour, I felt I was being shuffled around too much. I got to the tour office, was put in a van, driven for two minutes, then dropped off at ANOTHER tour office. Got on another van, got to the marina. Wait while the tour guide corralled the main group together. I had heard the tour had ten bedrooms, so I figured there would only be ten of us on board. What I didn’t account for was that they would lump day trippers in with the overnighters, and then send the day trippers back on another boat at the end of the day.

We started off on a junk boat… the company’s logo on the boat was different than the company I’d booked with. Was this a bait and switch operation? The boat was small and crowded. There were maybe 25 of us. Early on, the guide announced the itinerary for the day and mentioned we would be stopping at Việt Hải Village. This caused me alarm because I thought we were supposed to be going the next day. I ended up talking to him and we went through the itinerary to make sure it matched what I had signed up for. It appeared to, but I still had my doubts. Would I be getting to Việt Hải the next day or not?! (I did.)

To be honest, I was in a bit of a sour mood because of all the running around, the cramped space, the uncertainty about the tour plans, etc.

We cruised along Lan Hạ Bay and I enjoyed taking in the views. It reminded me of the islands in Alaska near Seward.

The boat navigated through different arteries of the bay and eventually took us to our first spot, where we went kayaking. We put on life vests and climbed into our kayaks. I was paired with Martin, a day tripper from the Netherlands who ended up being kind of bro-y and annoying. He was a bit of a showboat which got on my nerves. (Examples: when we were bringing back our kayaks, he just completely jumped out of the kayak, putting me off balance. He also kept rowing really fast and then kept ramming into other peoples’ kayaks. Other things later in the day, too. Get a grip, dude!)

We kayaked through a cave under one of the karst formations and were taken to a beautiful, secluded lagoon surrounded by mountains and trees. And here, we were able to see the rare Cát Bà langurs rustling in the trees. They were very far away and because I was on the kayak, I hadn’t brought my camera with me. Apparently, there are only about 100 Cát Bà langurs left in the world. Incredibly rare, so I feel lucky I was able to see them, even from a distance! They are darkly colored monkeys but they don a white mohawk. Cool dudes – look them up.

After our kayaking session, we got back on the boat and were taken to Việt Hải Village after lunch. Arriving at the port, we were each given bicycles. We road along the terrain. It felt nice to be on a bicycle. And there were so many BUTTERFLIES! Vietnam is truly Land of the Butterflies. They are everywhere – but nowhere quite as much as Việt Hải Village. I’ve been astounded by the amount of butterflies here. I’ve never seen such a cluster of them, not even in butterfly gardens.

We had to cycle up a somewhat steep hill but then were able to enjoy the rush as we sped down the other side. Maybe twenty minutes later, we arrived at the village. Our main stop? A fish massage.

(P.S. At the fish massage place, there was the option to take shots of… mangrove cat snake booze?)

I had literally no idea what a fish massage was. What it ended up being was a pool of water filled with little fish who were hungry to feast off the dead skin on my feet. I hesitantly dipped my feet in and instantly started cackling. I could not stifle my laughs – it was too ticklish, damn it! I laughed hysterically for what must have been two minutes until I was finally able to calm down. I let those fish work on my feet because DAMN did I know they needed it! And they did. My feet are very soft now haha. I was sitting next to two Israeli girls who struck up a conversation with me. I hung out with them and the other two Israelis in the group later in the evening. Really nice people!

After the fish massage, we returned to the port. This time, we had another boat waiting for us. This one looked quite deluxe. I thought, there’s no chance in hell that this is our overnight boat… right?

As luck would have it, it WAS our overnight boat. I was shown to my room and I could not believe it. The room had air conditioning, working electrical outlets, a window with nothing obstructing the view, and a full-sized bed. WIN! I was so excited. I have really been living it up accommodation-wise in Vietnam. I haven’t been in a dorm room yet haha. And honestly, I don’t plan to. It’s too affordable to have private accommodation here.

Finally, the day-trippers left. Bye, Felicia!

Our overnight crew was much smaller. Four Israelis, me, two French brothers, and I think seven other French people, of which five were a family. Lots of French.

We had some time to enjoy before the sun was setting. I swam in the bay for a while, then hung out on one of the decks, chatting with a guide. Later, as the sun began dipping lower, I went to the top of the boat and watched the setting sun.

While it had been a beautiful day, I had hoped we would have cruised longer around the bay itself. We killed a lot of time at the village, having lunch, kayaking. I had always thought these cruises were scenic cruises and it was less activities and more about admiring the beauty of the bay. There were so many unique formations, I wanted to see more of them. ALTHOUGH, I supposed that it would become monotonous after a certain point, hence the activities.

We ended up having dinner around 7pm. Once it was dark, we went on our second kayaking adventure of the day. Our guide, Chili, took us to a spot in the bay where we could see bioluminescent plankton. I didn’t bring my camera so I wasn’t able to take photos, but I will share what it looks like.

The photo shown is from Hobart, Tasmania. In Tasmania, the bioluminescence was much brighter. I could see it as the waves lapped up onto shore. In Lan Hạ Bay, because it was a full moon and also not the best season for it, the plankton wasn’t quite as bright. Still amazing, though! I am always happy to look at bioluminescence.

After maybe thirty minutes, we returned back to the boat. B, our other guide, pulled out fishing rods and gave us the opportunity to do night fishing for squid. One of the guys caught like seven squid. I tried for a second but I don’t like to fish. It was sad to see the squid slowly dying so I walked away to look at the stars.

The full moon rose over the water. Two of the Israelis and I were talking about all sorts of things – Israel, America, politics, travel, etc. It was a great conversation. The other two Israelis had to be taken back to a nearby “floating homestay”. I was beginning to realize that the tour was a LOT of shuffling around. Lots of movement. I would absolutely have preferred it if I was on one boat with the same group the entire time. It felt very apparent that the organizers are basically trying to just move bodies around from place to place.

While I had made it to Lan Hạ Bay, and it was certainly beautiful, it was also pretty polluted. LOTS of garbage in the water. I think this likely had to do with the recent typhoon and the effects of flooding (and then all the garbage tossed out floating down the river and out to sea) but still. Sad that such a gorgeous area could become so corrupted by garbage, oil from the boats, etc.

Eventually, I retired to my bed for the evening.

Lan Hạ Bay to Việt Hải Village

In the morning, I thought we would be leaving first thing. Instead, we had somewhat of a lazy morning. I was eager to explore more of the bay. After breakfast, we were taken to another spot in Lan Hạ to… guess what? GO KAYAKING. Again. Haha. To be fair, I suppose there isn’t much to do. From what I understand, snorkeling isn’t much of an option, the beaches are rocky… so swimming and kayaking are sort of THE THINGS to do.

This kayaking session was much the same as the day before. We went through a cave, arrived at another lagoon. I kept my eyes peeled for a closer sighting of langurs but no such luck. Oh, well. My arms were getting tired from all the kayaking.

Eventually, we returned to the boat. The entire cruise, I was anticipating we would be crossing the boundary from Lan Hạ into Hạ Long Bay, but it never ended up happening. It did say it would on the itinerary but I would check GoogleMaps now and again, and it never did officially cross over. FALSE ADVERTISING! We stayed in the bay for some time, where day trippers were brought on board and taken kayaking as well. We then moved onto a different boat. I keep saying it, but MOVING BODIES was very apparent to me. The organization is a bit impressive – I don’t know how they keep track of so many people going from one place to the next, on various different tour packages, etc. But also, I don’t want my trip to be based on waiting for people to board or disembark the boat, etc. Anyway. I’m venting. It was a lovely time in many ways but also somehow disappointing too. But it is a very popular tourist attraction, so I get it.

One of our last activities of the day was visiting a fish farm. It is government-owned and apparently for conservation. I don’t know how it works exactly. The fish can’t be sold but it seems like they also don’t release them into the wild. So there are just these gigantic grouper fish in a small, square-shaped net, waiting to be fed by tourists all day long. Probably my least favorite stop along the tour lol. Some of the grouper were literally massive though.

And from there, we kayaked to a beach. My arms were jelly at that point and it was hard to keep up the momentum. Luckily, B and I were kayaking together and he told me to just rest my arms for a bit.

We killed time at the beach before our final boat picked us up. It took me to Việt Hải Village, where I said goodbye to the only remaining guests from the group – the two Frenchies doing a three day tour.

I thought I would arrive much earlier, but it was already 4.30pm by the time I got to the village. I had wanted to explore that afternoon but because of my late arrival, I didn’t do much of anything. I checked in, was invited to join dinner at the homestay, had a shower, and relaxed.

During dinner, I ended up meeting two fellow gays from London. They mentioned they were hiking to Navy Peak the following morning and I instantly asked if I could join them. I had intended to hike Navy Peak as well but I had heard it was challenging. Because I didn’t know what the terrain would be like, I figured safety in numbers was a safer bet. They said I could, which was nice. Sam and Jason are in Vietnam for 17 days but they seemed very intrigued by my “travel lifestyle.” They had a lot of questions for me which I was happy to answer.

We ended up playing a card game with other homestay guests. Around 9pm, we all returned to our rooms. I decided I wanted to go on a night walk, though, because Cát Bà is supposed to have a decent amount of wildlife.

I ended up seeing a few stick bugs, a very interesting caterpillar, and a couple geckos. No snakes, though. Boo!

I did actually see someone drive by on a motorbike, though, who had a very bright headtorch. He was scanning the trees for wildlife. I should have stopped him and asked if I could join him – it’s so rare to meet others that are interested in night walks. Although, I hear Vietnam and Thailand are both good spots for that. Maybe I will meet up with like-minded individuals in the next few months.

Navy Peak

I woke up naturally to the sunlight filtering through the window and went downstairs for a yummy breakfast of mango pancakes. Around 8.30, Sam and Jason joined me. After applying sunscreen and bugspray, we began our journey up Navy Peak. I was prepared for the possibility of leeches since there had been heavy rainfall a few days prior but we lucked out. THANKFULLY.

Arriving at the national park entrance, we were met by muddy terrain immediately. Lots of butterflies, too, though. I managed to somehow not soak my shoes. Sam and Jason were dealt a different fate, unfortunately.

The hike up was maybe an hour and a half. It would have been shorter, but we took our time and enjoyed breaks along the way. It was basically uphill, uphill, uphill with hardly any flat sections. We had to scramble over boulders from time to time, but otherwise it was fine.

We saw a few lizards but otherwise, no wildlife really. Jason claimed to see a snake but when I asked, “WHERE” and he pointed to the area, I could not see it. Sam joked that he was hallucinating it. I wondered if maybe it had been a skink instead – I’d seen some skinks later that day and to the untrained eye, they do have similar features.

Eventually, we arrived at the top. Soaked in sweat after hiking through the humid jungle, we were met by a cool breeze and a beautiful overlook of both Lan Hạ and Hạ Long Bay. It was neat to observe the area from a higher elevation. Where I’d been amongst the bay the day prior, I now was able to look at it from above. How cool! Of course, pictures don’t do it justice. To the eye, it was very stunning. I kept peering out.

We also were able to see the village that we had hiked up from way, way, way below us. I tell you, this hour-long trail was really steep. We covered a lot of ground! I think it was about 900 feet. I stretched out my legs beforehand, so didn’t suffer any knee pain for the most part.

We met up with a few other hikers at the top and chatted for maybe ten minutes. Then Jason, Sam, and I started our descent. Descents are always harder for me. I don’t know why, but my knees just HATE it. I ended up making it down fine, though, thankfully.

The others wanted to stop back to the hostel for a shower but I figured there was no point to shower when I wanted to hike another section of the national park, too. We parted ways. I had fried noodles at a nearby shop and then ventured out again.

I had THOUGHT the other section of the park was going to be flat the whole way through, but I was wrong. The first section was. It was very narrow, though, which isn’t my favorite thing. I like to be able to see where I’m stepping and have some space between myself and the plant life around me. Again, when you can’t see the trail clearly or if it’s very narrow, it would be very easy to accidentally step on a snake’s tail and have it bite you. No, thanks!

There were plenty of butterflies on this trail, too. I couldn’t believe how many. Really incredible stuff.

My first stop along the trail was an “Ancient Village” which is apparently an old fishing that is about 100 years old. There were so many butterflies fluttering about, creating such a lovely atmosphere. And then, WAIT, could it BE?! A mangrove cat snake slithered quietly along one of the buildings. It quickly got lost in the bush, but not before a quick photo of its scales and a glimpse of its face.

I had to backtrack to continue onto another section of the trail which led to a “bat cave”. I’m not sure exactly how deep the cave system went. I stuck to the main area and was able to see a number of bats clinging to the ceiling of the cave. A few of them fluttered about restlessly. Probably because I shone a light on them. Sorry, guys!

Returning to the trail, my last destination of the day was meant to be Frog Pond. I was trudging through more mud. I had to push through plants on either side of me. The trail was incredibly narrow. Ants were falling off leaves and onto my arms. Better ants than leeches, right?

Unfortunately, the trail began to ascend. I figured it would be quick – a frog pond had to be at lower elevation, right? I was really hoping to get there, thinking it would be a great spot to see snakes. What eats frogs? Snakes! So surely, they’d be hanging out around the pond.

Well, I never did find out what was awaiting me at the frog pond. The trail kept raising at such an elevation, I felt I was back on the Navy Peak trail. I wanted to keep going but my body was also telling me, “I can’t do another summit today.” I was almost at the top of the ascent but I had a feeling I would have to descend all the way back down to get to the frog pond, then do the reverse on my way back. Even though I’d had lunch, I think my body had burned and sweated more calories than I’d consumed throughout the day. I was fading.

Reluctantly, I made the descent back towards the village. Once I’d reached flat ground, I crossed a stream and was blessed with another snake sighting. Yay! This snake was moving throughout the trees and it was moving FAST. He was on a mission, y’all! I kept trying to snap a photo but it was moving with such rapidness throughout the trees, I had a really hard time getting an in-focus shot of its face. I don’t think I ever managed to get a truly decent, in-focus shot. Alas. I believe it is a bronzeback.

At one point it lost its grip and about 9/10ths of its body fell off the tree branch. It reminded me of those old cartoons. I was like, OOP! Eventually, I lost it as it slithered through denser bush.

Sam and Jason went on a lighter hike that afternoon and they said they’d seen a snake, too. Cát Bà National Park really seems like a good spot for snakes!

When I returned to my hostel, I was officially DONE walking for a few hours. I immediately took a shower and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.

After dinner, I did go for a little night walk. It seemed like all of the neighborhood dogs were gunning for me. I decided to go in a different direction than the night before and I passed by tons of dogs. At certain points, I had five of them following me. I had to go “HEY!” and kick out my leg multiple times to keep them from getting too close, which agitated them further. I must have passed 30 dogs in 15min. I somehow managed to escape unscathed. Phew! They do not like strangers.

Miscellaneous

I touched base with Siu from my Cao Bằng homestay and unfortunately, with the typhoon that came through while I was in Cát Bà… her home flooded again. She said the water rose 3x as high as it had when I was there. I cannot believe that. So absolutely devastating.

I caught up with a LOT of people during my time in Cát Bà – and even managed to have a video chat with Abby, Yvonne, and Jasper. After three years, Jasper has just finished his time working at Novotel. He is moving to Auckland for university and before doing so, he’s doing a road trip around the South and North Island. Of the four of us, he is the first to arrive and last to leave Queenstown. It is the end of an era!

Reflections

Well, I’m super glad I made it to Cát Bà in the end. From relaxation and rainy days in Cát Bà Town, to the beauty of Lan Hạ Bay and the Hạ Long – Cát Bà Archipelago, the rural vibes of Việt Hải Village… it has been a pretty good week – especially compared to the chaos of last week’s flood in Cao Bằng.

From here, I will be going to Ninh Binh which is situated about three hours south on the mainland. There are a number of things I intend to check out there.

While I have about a month left in Vietnam, it feels like that isn’t even enough time. Like Indonesia, I wish I had yet another month to spend here. But alas.

Until next time, sending you all my love. x