Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site since 1994, is famous for its natural beauty. We chose to travel to a small island, Cat Ba, and use this as our base for exploring and seeing the hundreds of limestone islands that make the bay famous.
When we returned to Cat Ba we had to find another place to stay as our original hostel was fully booked that night. This led us to stay in a hostel in the centre of town which picks up our award for Worst Hostel Ever! The room was mouldy and soaking wet. Waking up in the night with a drenched neck and back from the mattress mildew isn’t pleasant.
Thankfully the next day we returned to our original hostel and the Typhoon had changed course so we extended our stay in Cat Ba to enjoy a day lying on the beach and mastering unicorn riding in the pool whilst in glorious sunshine. Just what we needed to dry out from our night in the wet hell hotel.
Sleep: We mainly stayed at Central Backpackers Cat Ba. This is part of the Central Backpackers chain and is an excellent hostel. It is a little far out from town (30 minute walk) but it’s worth it as all the hostels in town get bad reviews. Be careful when booking as a lot of the hostels in town have a similar name, this is the one with the shark logo. You will get to the island by boat and then a bus will take you to the main town – the bus goes right past this hostel so ask the driver if you can be dropped off as it will save you a taxi fare.
Eat: There are two Yummy restaurants (1 & 2) which offer cheap and good local food. We also loved Le Pont Club as it had great food at decent prices, an awesome view and cheapish drinks especially during happy hour.
Do:
- Boat Trip: We booked our trip with Vision Cat Ba and would definitely recommend them – we aren’t the only ones as we heard other people holding them in high regard too. One of our highlights of this tour was that we got to kayak to secret lagoons through tight caves which other companies don’t go to. We are glad we ended up only doing the day trip – staying the night is a lot more expensive and the luxury boat you sleep on didn’t look that much fun. For the day we paid $20/Β£15 each which included snorkeling, kayaking, lunch, tour of Ha Long Bay and floating village tour.
- Beaches: The beaches at Cat Ba are small but nice. Beaches 3 and 2 are quiet whilst 1 is busy and lively.
Amazing mate!!! And you’re both looking well in shape!! Gits ππ did you do any deep water soloing in the bay? Glad you’re still having such an awesome time but gutted you’re missing the British summer π Take care π
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Cheers mate. Oh yes, dreaming of those British summers…not. πππ
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