Cat Ba day 1 / Lan Ha Bay

Today we ventured to Lan Ha Bay, the little sibling of the famous Ha Long bay. We decided not to do the latter as we had seen photos of how crowded the stops are and heard it was expensive if you wanted a nice cruise. Instead we to opted to explore Lan Ha Bay, which was once part of Ha Long bay, it's only now divided by territory, so it shares the exact same geological features, just on a smaller scale. Lan Ha Bay has nearly 400 islands and islets, whereas Ha Long has 1500+. Ha Long was declared a world heritage site in 1994 so has been bombarded with tour boats ever since, whereas Lan Ha is still used by locals and fishing communities so us much less crowded and cheaper!
Our boat set off just after 9. There were just 30 of us on the boat, the lower floor had tables to eat around and the upper two decks had an array of seating, deckchairs at the top and comfy seats on the second floor. So there was more than enough room for all of us, and I didn't feel crowded which was nice.
No sooner than sailing for 10 minutes, we were surrounded by striking limestone rocks jutting out for the ocean, covered in lush greenery and trees. Big brown rock eagles circled the many islands, with small fishing boats trawling alongside us and locals collecting snails on small beaches islands provided. It was pretty magical, and reminded me a little of Milford sound in New Zealand. Unfortunately it was overcast so the sky was quite grey and moody, but it made it very atmospheric. We'd also be complaining about the heat during the heatwave so felt wrong to complain about being slightly cold after being so hot for so long!
We cruised for about an hour and a half before we docked and hopped onto land then into kayaks. Not gonna name names but one of us was definitely more adept than the other at kayaking, and did a lot of the directing and paddling 😉 we paddled down stream from the boat, through a cave into a huge sea lagoon surrounded by gorgeous green cliffs. Apparently there's an endangered species of monkey called the Cat Ba langur that lives in the area, so we kept our eyes peeled, scanning the trees, but unfortunately didn't see any. The lagoon was so peaceful, and the scenery absolutely stunning. I could've bobbed around for hours taking in the sounds and sights. We headed back after a nice long loop of the lagoon. Paddling upstream back to the boat was significantly harder than on the way there, but once aboard, we were promised the next stop was lunch!
As the captain took us somewhere nice to eat, the skies grew more and more grey until it absolutely chucked it down. We ate our buffet in the shelter of the downstairs floor as the heavens opened up and thunder echoed around the bay.
We got an hour after food to swim and relax. The rain was absolutely freezing, but once you jumped into the water it was pleasantly warm. It took Kath a little while to build up the courage to jump in, so her lips were blue and shivering before she even started swimming. I did really want to push her in but I don't think she would've ever forgiven me. It was very relaxing swimming in the rain, and I did my best not to look down as the water was very murky, and I get scared swimming in deep water if I think about it too much!
The rain continued to hammer down, but conveniently stopped when we arrived at our next destination. A small fish farm where schools of fish are bred to sell to Cat Ba island and the mainland for consumption. The farm was made up of thin wooden planks crossing over to make small pens where nets held groups of different fish. Some of the fish were so big and beautiful, was quite sad to see them contained to such small spaces, but interesting to see how the locals lived and made money.
We boarded back on the boat and sailed over to our last stop, where the captain dropped the anchor with a view of 'monkey island'. Just an island where a group of monkeys live, but it was nice to watch them in the distance as they ran across the sand.
On the way back to the port, we passed through a fishing village made up of hundreds of the fish farms like the one we had visited. Over 200 families live on these farms, with ferries taking kids to local schools. We saw a surprising amount of dogs and cats too sauntering about on the floating wooden islands. Definitely a completely different way of life!
We got back to our hotel just after 5, and with sunset approaching, there weren't a lot of options for evening activities other than eating and drinking on the island.
There is a very cute puppy who sits outside the hotel, his back leg looks broken and doesn't use it, but greeted us with the happiest tail wag and licked every bit of salt off our legs.
We want to explore the national park on the island tomorrow, but the weather isn't predicted to be very good, so we held off on booking a trekking tour, with the hopes it may clear up.Leggi altro