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- Día 12
- miércoles, 21 de mayo de 2025, 10:27
- ☁️ 30 °C
- Altitud: 12 m
VietnamHải Phòng20°44’60” N 106°58’57” E
CatBa!! CatBa!!

The sleeping bus was a surprisingly comfy way to travel through the country. Sometimes I got woken up by honks or a bump in the road, but overall, it was better than expected—and definitely an experience. I had the deepest and best sleep around 4:30 AM, but guess what happened at 4:31? The driver suddenly started shouting, “CAT BA! CAT BA!” and quite literally threw us off the bus.
That’s when things started to get kind of funny. A small bus picked us up and brought us to the ferry terminal in Haiphong. There, the driver took a picture of us and sent us off on the ferry, where we were definitely the only Europeans—surrounded by cages full of hens, barrels of fish, trucks loaded with vegetables and tons of rice, and a bunch of Vietnamese people on scooters.
On the other side, a taxi driver recognized us (probably from the photo) and drove us all the way to our hostel—and we didn’t even have to pay. We definitely didn’t expect that! We arrived at the hostel around 6:30 AM, but check-in wasn’t until 2 PM. After the Ha Giang Loop, all we wanted was a shower. Luckily, the hostel had a pool—thank god!
So there we were at 6:45 AM, swimming in the pool, followed by breakfast at 7. Then we rented motorbikes and, after a little “getting used to it again,” we rode around the island to explore some beaches. Unfortunately, most of them were pretty dirty and full of plastic. On one beach, we saw women opening mussels right on the shore—were they for food? We weren’t sure.
Later, we hiked in the national park, where we met Leopold, a German guy, and a few others we ended up spending the next two days with. During the hike, it got so hot I started sweating in places I didn’t know existed. My light green shirt had turned dark by the end—so it was definitely time to cool off in the pool again and grab a late lunch. We finally got to check into our room—and jackpot! Even though it had been quite cheap, we ended up with a whole room to ourselves, complete with not one, but two beds and a rainforest shower. After all the traveling and sweating, it felt like pure luxury. We spent a few well-deserved hours in our air-conditioned oasis just resting and recharging.
In the evening, we joined Leopold at his hostel for quiz night. Unfortunately, we came in third place (did you know Vietnam is the second-largest coffee exporter in the world? Or that Saigon was once called the Pearl of the East? We didn’t—but now we do).Leer más