Floating Mountains in Ha Long Bay

After spending a chilly few days in the northern Vietnam mountains, we head to some islands off the coast. This leg of the trip has everything: Geology! Boats! Smaller boats! Caves! Monkeys! Bikes! A puppy! A lap cat! Even fish between toes!

Tuesday, April 1st - To Cat Ba Island

I love geography, so a map seems like a great way to start off this post. We decided to make Cat Ba Island one of our stops as a jumping off point to see the famous islands in Ha Long Bay. In the map below, the large landmass in the middle is Cat Ba Island and Ha Long Bay is to the northwest, containing 1,969 small islands. These monolithic structures are known as karst towers. The features are a result of 500 million years of geologic evolution from a single rock layer uplifted by tectonic activity, then subject to marine erosion and sea flooding.

To get to the island, we booked a series of vehicles (van, bus, bus, ferry, bus) with a company called Good Morning Cat Ba. This got got us a sleeper bus to Hanoi then a normal tourist bus the rest of the fourish hours to the island, and ended up being 11.5 hours from door to door. It was long, but nice that we didn't have to worry about missing any of our connections.

The final bus drops us off down the street from the hotel we stayed at, called the Cat Ba Wonder Hotel. Our room is comically small (barely larger than the queen bed), but we're only staying here a single night before our three day, two night "cruise", so it will do just fine.

Wednesday, April 2nd - Lan Ha and Ha Long Bays

After breakfast provided at the hotel (fried rice, eggs made to order, bacon cooked on sight, dragon fruit, mango, coconut cake), we walked ten minutes to the office of Cat Ba Ventures, the tour company we booked the cruise through. It feels sort of strange calling this excursion a cruise, but I'm not really sure why since we were eating and sleeping on the boat. Maybe because I associate cruises with water slides and excessive drinking and the goal of this journey was to see nature instead. Anyway, each part of the experience ends up being great and I'd strongly recommend booking with this company! We had a tour guide with us for each leg of this excursion, and each one was knowledgeable and charming.

Our first tour guide is Hang. "Like 'hangover' but without the 'over'" he explains. Hang is awesome and promises he'll show us some magic tricks later (he does). We take a bus to a harbor on the east side of the island, opposite the direction we came in from. We get on what I still feel like was a big boat, big enough for the 12 or so of us to go to the top deck, sit, and have a beer while we watch the beautiful surroundings roll by on our journey out into Lan Ha Bay. We are sitting above a larger room where we'll later each lunch after some siteseeing. Hang explains how it's better to go this way into the bays since it's less crowded, with many tourists taking day trips to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi via Ha Long Town.

Our boat slides over the smooth water between stone monoliths, cliffs rising steeply with tangles of jungle clinging like seaweed to the arched backs of recently-surfaced giants. Eventually we come around some bends to a floating village, home to fisherman and fish farmers. Modest houses float on pontoons beside fishing boats and docks, criss-crossing planks demarcating the underwater pens of fish grown to be sold and eaten. Hang tells us that life is hard for the people here, but they stay anyway, living their lives the way their families always have. There has been an effort by the Vietnamese government to remove some of these villages and relocate the inhabitants inland where school is more accessible to the children (without hours of paddling) and where there is more shelter from storms. The village in front of us and two others across the bays are the only remaining sanctioned floating villages here, now part of the UNESCO world heritgae site and home to about 2,000 inhabitants.

On the far edge of the village, we see a free standing fish farm much larger than any between the houses in the village. Hang tells us it's the largest fish farm in the bays. Our boat docks, announced by two dogs running the matrix of planks. These dogs are on the clock! Their jobs are to keep the birds away. Hang talks to some folks sitting in one of the floating huts attached to this makeshift island, is handed a bucket, and heads back to us. He walks us along the planks between the pools, each of which I can now see hangs a net below the surface to keep the farmed fish in. Hang tells us about many of the fish we can see, feeding them smaller fish from his bucket. Some of these fish are the size of large dogs, especially this family's "lucky fish" that they keep for it's whole natural life, and will eventually bury on a beach.

After some more very carefully placed steps around these big fish (all the while wondering how often tourists fall off these walkways that seem like they are a few planks too narrow, all the while bobbing with the styrofoam blocks they're attached to), we go back onto our boat for lunch as we head off to our next destination. We sit with a couple from New York City, Yoon and Sharang, who are here for some friends' wedding and decided to extend their trip. After lunch, we board our main boat and learn that they're the only other folks from our group doing a two night trip. The day so far has been spent in Lan Ha Bay, so now we set off for Ha Long Bay!

On the big boat, we get our things into our room, change into our swim suits then head back to the top deck to jump off and swim for a bit before kayaking. Once it's time for kayaking, we each get a dry bag and a headlamp because part of the kayaking is to explore some sea caves. We go into three caves connecting lagoons on either side of the islands. Since the islands are made of limestone, there are stalagtites hanging from the ceilings. They feel like the classic kind of cave any self-respecting pirate would feel good about stashing their booty in. One of the caves is only accessible at low tide, which it newly is, but the ceiling of the cave is so low that we still have to lean all the way back in our kayaks to actually fit through.

Outside one of the caves, we are lucky enough to see a group of golden-headed langurs. This is quite the treat because these monkeys are very rare to see! This species is critically endangered, with an estimated population size of less than 70 individuals. The group we saw was at least five monkeys, but maybe up to 10. That means we saw almost 10% of their entire population. One of those moments that felt exciting but heavy at the same time. They had a baby with them, which was cute to see. Trying to take a picture of them made me feel a bit like a Bigfoot hunter, but I promise there are at least two visible in this picture! You can see them sitting together in the center of the photo.

Going back to the boat after kayaking, I got a picture that shows our home for the next two days pretty well. It's a big boat! The dining room, kitchen, and viewing platform are are on the top deck, and the rooms are on the deck below. There were at least 6 rooms.

Once we're all back on the boat, we set off for our final destination for the night and watch the sunset from the viewing deck. People file in and out to shower and hang out in their rooms before dinner, then we all eat together with a nice family style spread. Lots of dishes on the table: rice, some kind of fish, fish cakes, shrimp, beef and onions, tofu, potatoes, bean sprouts, fried cheese sticks, fried sweet potatoes, and watermelon. By this time, we already have a pretty good idea of the people we're sharing the boat with, but this solidifies it. A couple people from France, two couple from Germany, a group of four Italians, the four of us from the US, and a couple that met at an international school who are now doing long distance between Japan and the UK! Everyone appears to be in their late twenties/early thirties. Everyone is very nice and there are lots of fun conversations over dinner!

After we eat, Hang takes us to the front of the ship on the lower/cabin deck where the crew set up a big light during dinner. Hang gives a few of us some rods & shows us how to fish for squids that are attracted to the lights. Most people hang out here for 15 or so minutes until only the determined remain.

During this same time, a few of us split off into the dining room where Hang starts doing some magic tricks. He starts with a trick where he picks someone & tells them to come up with a few personal questions. After the chosen one (victim?) asks each question, Hang writes down his answer on a piece of paper, showing one other person. I got to be this lucky person, so I have some ideas about how the trick works, but I'll never tell! The questions were pretty personal so it's definitely an impressive trick. I can't remember the questions the first person asked, but Kaila went second and here are three of her four questions she asked (we couldn't remember the fourth):

• What is my mom's name?
• What is my favorite desert?
• What is my favorite color?

The only question Hang got wrong was the favorite color, but he had a pretty convincing argument for why Kaila's favorite color should be blue instead of green.

Hang followed this trick with some equally impressive card tricks. He even asked if any of us had our own deck of cards for him to show us tricks with (in case we were suspicious of his) and proceeded to continue to impress us by telling us the cards on either side of my deck of cards after some of us take turns cutting it in different places. Once we had been sufficiently impressed, it was time to go to bed.

The cables of the day were a bit different today! Rather than power/internet cables, they are cables for the cable car spanning from the mainland to Cat Ba Island! I didn't even realize this until I talked with some of the other folks on our tour.

Thursday, April 3rd - Viet Hai village

The next day started with this wonderful view from our room!

During the group breakfast (crepes, eggs, and fruit), the Japanese boyfriend of the long distance relationship is the only one of the two to join. Part of the way through the meal, Hang brings him some medicine, and he asks the table if they are familiar with it (can't remember the name of the drug, but it ends up being a similar drug to ibuprofen common in Europe). Turns out his English girlfriend isn't feeling too well. The Italian guys all seem immediately locked in and start peppering him with questions, and it's revealed that all four of them are doctors! This is a surprise to most of us at the table because they have seemed pretty unserious, drinking beers and smoking cigarettes much of the previous day. The shock must be apparent because the goofiest of the four responds to our surprise with a "mask off" motion that gets some good laughs.

After breakfast, Hang informs Kaila, me, and our two new American friends that we will be splitting off from the rest of the group since we have a different itinerary for our three day tour. We say our goodbyes and a speedboat picks us up to take us back to Cat Ba Island. Once we get to the harbor, we get off the boat with our new tour guide for the day, Viet. He gets us some bicycle rentals, and tells us we'll be riding out to a small village called Viet Hai where we'll park our bikes. Then we'll start our hike up to Navy Peak, the highest peak on the island and the site of an old radar station, left over from the war with the US.

We park our bikes at a place in the village that I'm not really sure what to call. It's an open air restaurant with many dining tables, but there are also a couple fish ponds with seating around them, apparently the kind of fish that nibble the dead skin off your feet. We're intrigued, but are only there long enough to meet the residing dog, puppy, and cat before we set off down a narrow dirt road that runs beside this operation. After a few minutes of this, we take a branching trail and start climbing. The hike itself is only a couple miles long and described as "easy", though it is quite the scramble! We are in the jungle, and the air is drier than expected, but the intense sunlight makes up for that. Vines span the trees growing on either side of the path, and we pass in and out of rocky patches where we climb over sharp and crumbling limestone. There are bundles of cables running along the path that Viet tells us has something to do with the cell antennas that now cling to the aging radar station. We duck under these carefully, as the cables are occasionally joined by a bright yellow "DANGER" sign featuring a serious looking skull...

But we make it to the top! The radar station is built into the mountain, so we can walk out onto the roof and use it as a viewing platform. The view is stunning, many of the bay's the islands rendered minuscule and frozen in place by water an icy turquoise.

We carefully hike back down, successfully avoiding contact with too-sharp rocks and potentially uninsulated cables. When we reach the dirt road, Viet asks us if we'd like to head back to the village restaurant/foot fish operation or extend the hike to see an old French colonial property a few minutes up the road. The property is tucked away at the end of the valley. The grandchildren of the Vietnamese folks that served the previous French inhabitants now own the property, part of which they live in and part they rent out short term, in aggreement with the government that they will not build any new structures on what is now Cat Ba National Park land. Literally grandfathered in!

We enter the property through a gate and walk onto the lovely grounds rich with gardens and flowering trees. Butterflies float with petals on the breeze. We approach a couple central houses and see a few smaller habitations fanning outwards, each matching the gate with red tiled roofs curling up at each corner. The houses have large porches that merge with internal spaces of the houses, with beatiful lattices of woodwork spanning the space between thick wooden columns. Circular and rectangular windows are strewn across white plastered walls.

After some time wandering the property (even getting to see the inside of some of the buildings!), we walk back to the village for some lunch at the restaurant. We have a spread of omelets, fried spring rolls, potatoes, pork with veggies, and some sweet and salty roasted peanuts. We must have hiked and eaten fast, because afterwards Viet tells us we still have some time before we need to head back to the boat. He tells us to enjoy some "puppy, cat, and fish time". The cat is very social, and lets us hold him on our laps while he accepts some pets. The dogs are sweet too, the puppy equally interested in getting pets from us as he is in gnawing on various body parts of the older dog, who seems only partially amused by this.

Eventually we make our way to the fish ponds. None of the four of us has ever tried this kind of a spa treatment before. We sit on some low plastic chairs around the edge of the pond and slowly take our time removing our shoes and socks. We nervously laugh and guess at what this might feel like, expecting the fish to tickle, but none of us fully prepared for the sensation we are about to experience. After dipping in out feet, each of us immediately pull out our feet at the fishes' first tastes, needing to mentally fortify ourselves a bit more before going back in. It's a bit of an iterative process: sticking in our feet, enduring some amount of fish tickling, this time before we couldn't take the sensation any longer and would have to withdraw our feet slowly lengthening after each new dip in. Eventually we were able to come to terms with the feeling, and can leave our feet in the water.

During this time, the cat has been sitting in a chair beside us while the dogs play with each other off to the side. We're probably sitting in the chairs for 10 or 15 minutes when the puppy decides he's interested in the cat. He walks up on the raised concrete lip of the pond, about 8 inches wide, and trots over to the front of the chair the cat is on. The cat looks annoyed, but holds his ground. Kaila says out loud "The puppy is going to fall in," at which point the cat shifts his weight, which must scare the puppy, because he jumps back a bit, loses his footing (pawing?), AND FALLS INTO THE WATER. The puppy is immediately panicking as he struggles to stay on the surface. The fish scatter, but return quickly to investigate the new commotion. Sharang, our hero, valiantly reaches in & scoops out the pup, setting him on the tile. He shakes off, then runs across the floor, slipping comically every few bounds and knocking into tables and chairs. We all laugh and applaud Sharang, then spend a few more minutes in the pond before drying off our feet, getting back on our bikes, and heading back to the harbor.

We take a speedboat back to our big boat, leaving Viet behind. He tells us our next guide is still out kayaking with the new batch of guests that boarded our boat while we were hiking. We go & shower, then head to the viewing deck to read & wait for the new folks to rejoin. Our new tour guide is Ben, a nice guy from the Central Highlands. He likes karaoke and tells us that he is Maroon 6. This new group turns out to be older than the last group, with two couples traveling together from England, and pretty much everyone else from France or Germany. We have another shared dinner together (similar spread to the previous night), but mostly chat with Yoon and Sharang as this new group keeps much more to themselves.

The cables of the day are from the village we biked through on our way to the hike!

Friday, April 4th - Some kayaking and back to the mainland

The following day, after some coffee on the viewing deck, we have another crepe and fruit breakfast as we head off to the kayaking spot the previous group checked out while we were hiking. We start with a 100 meter long cave that feels even more like a place to stash a treasure chest. This opens up to a lagoon that's only accessible by boat through this cave! It's connected to two more enclosed lagoons, each accessible by another cave. We go through one of the caves, and open up to a huge lagoon! As we paddle towards the middle, we pass a long jellyfish! It's the size of a small cantoloupe and it's tendrils stretch out a foot and a half. We call out to the others to come check it out, then paddle 10 or 15 minutes to the center of the lagoon, scanning the water and jungle along the banks as we do for more wildlife. We head back to the main lagoon, and the tide is too low to paddle through the next cave, so Ben suggests we get out of our kayak and walk through the cave. This is cool to do as we can spend some more time in this more narrow cave, careful not to step on any of the sea urchins we see along the way. The lagoon on the other side is much smaller, but bright blue! We look around for more critters, then head back to the first lagoon to regroup and head back out the long cave.

After the lagoons, Ben has another place to show us. Since he's the only one of us with just a single person paddling their kayak, he shows us his secret weapon: a motorized propeller he can flip down from his kayak! He leads us to a swimming beach! It's pretty chilly, so only a few folks actully swim. Others hang out on rocks on the beach, and I decide to search the tide pools in some of the rocks for critters. I mostly found snails, but I also see a sea slug that looks like a big turd!

After kayaking, we go back to the boat to shower and pack while we head back to Cat Ba Island. We get back to the island around 3 pm, and after some discussion, we decide not to spend another night in Cat Ba Town since it's pretty small and we already spent a night there. We book a bus to Ninh Binh, a city to the south, that will get us there in about six hours.

The cables today are some more of the high density cables in Cat Ba Town!

Thanks for reading!