Trekking Cat Ba Island

Trekking Cat Ba Island

Cat Ba, Vietnam, Asia

I woke up this morning after a pretty awful night’s sleep. I didn’t realize that the power had cut out at about 1am, so the A/C turned off and came back on just as a fan. It was roasting in the room. I tried to fix it in the dark, but it turns out the remote was only in Japanese, so I had no idea what any of the buttons did or what it was saying on the screen. That wasn’t cool at all!

We had breakfast at 7am and starting sailing at 7:15am. Dad and I were the only two on this boat that were coming to Cat Ba Island for the day/night, so we had to switch boats to one that was going to Cat Ba. Our cruise line, Heritage Cruises, had another boat in the harbor that was heading that way, so we said our goodbye’s to the passengers on Eclipse and hopped onto the other boat. On this boat we met Jodi and Jasmine, two Canadian girls who are travelling together, and they were also coming to Cat Ba Island. It turns out we were really lucky with the boat we were on because we had so many people to talk to. Jodi and Jasmine had been told that there was a group of six English people on their boat, and then they got on to find out it was a big Korean group who didn’t speak a word of English. They said it was a very quiet night for them.

We were all pretty happy to know that we’d have some friendly company for our day/night on Cat Ba, but that was dashed pretty quickly. When we arrived at Cat Ba, they had the girls get off the boat, and told Dad and I to stay on it. We sat there for about a half hour waiting for a different tour guide to pick us up. We can’t figure out why they wouldn’t have just put us all together, considering we were all going to the same place anyway. Dad and I finally met our next guide, Ben, and got on a very crowded bus full of westerners who were keen to check out Cat Ba.

We drove to Cat Ba National Park and met our trekking guide, Mr Monkey. Not his real name, but we could see why he was called that. He was insane. He was laughing and playing around so much, without speaking a word of English, and I started to think he could actually be a monkey. We hiked to the top of a mountain that was about 2.5km (1.5 miles) to the top, and the view was pretty awesome. There had been quite a bit of rain before we got there, so the trail was very muddy and that made all the rocks really slippery. Going up the mountain was exhausting, but fairly easy. We got to the top and there was a very rickety viewing platform that was about 50ft tall. There was a sign at the bottom saying “Limit 5 People”, so when I got to the top and saw seven already standing on the wooden platform, I decided not to tempt fate and just took some pictures on my way down.

When we were at the top we ran into Jodi and Jasmine again, so it made very little sense to us why we weren’t travelling together, but I guess the tour company’s organizational skills aren’t top notch. We had a lot of nice people in our group too, so it was all good. A group of about ten of us went down the mountain together and it was a much more difficult descent. We took our time and got to the bottom without the help of Mr. Monkey. We had no idea where he went, but when we got to the bottom he was waiting for us. I’m convinced he swung down on the branches.

We got on the bus and drove into Cat Ba Town. Strangely enough, all the people on the bus were not even staying in the same hotel, so we made three stops. The first group got off at Sunflower 2 Hotel (crappy), the next group got out at Sunflower 1 Hotel (decent) and then we were brought to Hung Long Harbour Hotel (really nice!). They were all very close together, but I’m guessing we paid a bit more for our tour, so we had a nicer accommodation than the rest. The hotel is the nicest place we’ve stayed so far and it made all this unorganized-ness worth it.

We rented a couple of scooters for $5 each for the day and went off to explore the island. We checked out a couple of the beaches, went for a quick dip and then realized that there wasn’t really anything else to see. We found another harbor and stopped to take picture and then ran into the group we were hiking with coming back from a trip to Monkey Island. I’m not sure why we were put in a nicer hotel and then missed out on an excursion, but riding around on the bikes was fun anyway. On our way back through town we ran into Jodi and Jasmine another couple of times and planned to meet up later tonight.

Dad and I went back to the hotel for dinner, and then Dad went into town for a massage. I dropped him off at the massage parlor and by the time I got back, the man was there to collect the scooters from me. I had a quick shower and headed back into town to meet Dad for a drink. We ran into Jasmine and Jodi along the main street in Cat Ba Town and went for a drink at the Green Mango. It was a nice little bar where we could sit on the terrace outside and enjoy the peacefulness of the island before heading back to the chaotic streets of Hanoi.

The girls had a deck of cards so we played a game called Signal that was new to all of us except Jasmine. It was a good game and a great night of just relaxing by the harbor. When we were the only people left at the bar, a worker came over and started giving Dad a massage without him even asking. The guy was really good and was smiling and laughing every time he made something crack. When he was finished with Dad he came over to me and started working on me. He cracked everything from my fingers to elbows to neck and ears! It was awesome! We gave him $5 at the end of it for massaging each of us for about 20 minutes, and I don’t think he was expecting any money at all. Just another really nice Vietnamese guy, and this one happened to be named Twot. No joke.

We finished up at the Green Mango and said goodnight to the girls. We’re back at the hotel now and are settled in for a good night’s sleep in this beautiful hotel. Tomorrow we have a long day of travelling in front of us, so I hope I get more rest than I did last night!

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