South east Asia part 3 - Vietnam

Has it been 3 days already since the last footprint. Well here we go 🚀:

Task of day before yesterday:
Getting from Luang Prabang (Laos 🇱🇦) to Cat Ba (Vietnam 🇻🇳)
Task of yesterday: realising we are not in Loas anymore 👀
Task of today: exploring the Island 🏝️

What started out as one of the most relaxed days on this trip so far ended up in a speedboat 🚤 , driving over the south Chinese sea in the dark 🌚, feeling like we did something illegal (which we did not!) 👀
We used our luxurious hotel till the last minute and enjoyed the poolside chairs ☀️. A taxi 🚕 took us to airport 🛫 and even the fact that we had a propeller airplane ✈️ wasn’t to much of a concern.

Immigration into our 31st country Vietnam was no problem (we didn’t even need an ATM).
🏧 Since our first stop in Vietnam was Cat Ba (wich is an Island in the Ha Long Bay) and we landed fairly late (18:30) the hotel organised a transport for us 🙏. The last ferry to cat ba leaves at around 17:00 so they told us they would organise a speedboat for us. So far so good.

What they did not tell us was that the driver (who did not speak English) would get us to the closed and dimly lit ferry terminal, where he would signal with his cellphone flashlight to a guy on a boat who than came to the ferry loading ramp 👻.
We hopped onto the boat and without one word (the “captain” did also not speak English) sped towards the other side. 🚤💨
5mins and some light signals with the headlamp of the captain later we arrived at some harbour where we docked alongside other boats which we needed to climb over in order to get onshore (again a closed, dimly lit ferry terminal). Nobody else was there, no lights, but a hand full of barking dogs 🐕 . Scary. 👀
Good thing we travel light and with backpacks 🎒 , this would have been a real struggle with proper suitcase 🧳 .
A new driver 🚕 was waiting for us and took us to the hotel.
In hindsight this was as smooth and well organised as the hotel had promised, but the part with the boat did feel pretty adventurous.😬

The island is really beautiful once you leave the “city”. Most of it is a nature reserve park which we explored today. Of course there was a viewpoint ⛰️ on top of the mountain and a picturesque little harbour ⛵️ with great views.

Tomorrow we will take a boat trip 🛶through the ha long bay.Read more