After Ninh Binh, we went East instead of North for the first time in order to experience the famous Ha Long bay.  We had heard from other travelers that since we had our own means of transportation that Cat Ba island is actually a much better starting point for a 1 day cruise, so we headed there.  There is no bridge to the island, so we had to take a ferry for 25,000 Dong which was pretty painless.  The drive in was pretty miserable as it was cold and rainy and there were a lot of trucks on the road.  We decided not to stop for lunch and just get there because the last ferry was at 5pm and we wanted to make sure we caught it.

Upon arriving on the island, we quickly realized that it was low season and the town was pretty dead.  The island only has 3000 occupants to begin with, but since it was winter, a lot of the places were closed and there wasn’t much going on.  The tours were still running and so I booked a 1 day boat tour to Ha Long bay for the next day.  I had read a few negative reviews about some of the tour companies and at $14 many of them seemed too cheap.  I had read about this one tour that was $28 but also highly rated.  I met a few travelers trying to figure out similar things so we all decided to do the more expensive one.

That evening I walked around and tried to figure out what there was to do.  We stumbled across the Oasis bar, which did 10,000 Dong draft beers of Larue ($.45).  This was the cheapest beer I have seen in Vietnam so I took full advantage.  I ended up chilling there most of the evening and kept running into travelers who I had run into along the way.  Emily was also in the are and she was hanging out with a guy named Barruch from Israel.  We had a grand old time at the bar and once happy hour was done, I called it quits and went to bed for my 8am tour the next day.

My free hostel breakfast of ham and cheese omlette was delightful and they had juice and fruit as well.  It’s hard to believe these rooms only cost $5 and include a pretty nice free breakfast.  I headed to the tour company pickup spot and we boarded the bus for the boat which would be taking us around for the day.  The boat was pretty big and there ended up being about 20 of us.  We set off for the cruise and things got pretty beautiful pretty quick.  I don’t think the pictures really do it justice as everywhere you look there are beautiful rock formations, beaches and little coves.

The first stop on our journey was a floating fish farm.  They have a lot of these floating homes in the various bays where people farm these pretty big fish and the one we visited even had a homestay opportunity where you could stay with the fisherman on their little floating city.  Was pretty cool.  There was one fish in there that was apparently 3 years old and would fetch a few thousand dollars for a big feast or special occasion.  They also has several dogs on the fishing platform that apparently act as security guards against predatory animals that would eat the fish.

After the fish farm, we headed to a little bay on our own for some swimming.  The weather wasn’t that nice and the water was decently cold, so not many people went in, but I figured it was necessary to get the full experience, so I jumped in.  The water was pretty cold but not terrible and jumping off the top floor of the boat was pretty fun.  Having the waterproof go pro is pretty cool for these types of activities.  After swimming we docked for lunch which we ate in the main part of the boat.  It was really good and there was plenty of it.  When the other tables were done, we also ate the leftovers from their tables.  It was delicious and I was so full after.

Once food was done we pulled anchor and went to a place for some kayaking.  We kayaked through this cave to a hidden lagoon which has a cave in it you are supposed to be able to kayak through.  It was low tide however, so the water level wasn’t high enough to access the cave.  The kayaking was pretty fun and we just relaxed in the lagoon.

After kayaking we continued sailing around the bay and then eventually got to another swimming spot, but in this case it was later in the day and I didn’t feel like getting wet again.  After the second swim, we headed back to the bay to end the day.  For about 20 minutes near the end of the day, the sun came out! which we had not seen in the past several days so that in itself was pretty exciting.  In all we were on the water for about 8 hours in one of the most beautiful bays in the world.

I would say it was a pretty fantastic day!  In review, I’m not sure what would have made our tour almost double the price of some of the other ones.  I think we go further into Ha Long Bay than the others, but honestly the two bays are exactly the same, just one is a part of one town and the other is part of another, the scenery is identical.  It was only a $14 difference so I’m not super worried about it.

As a side note there was this boat i thought was interesting in the harbor, that had a lot of lights on it.  Apparently they lower the lights into the water and the heat and light attract squid and that’s how the fisherman catch squid,

On the tour with us there was a British couple Tom and Ellie who were also motorbiking to Hanoi and we had run into them a few times along the way, there was also some wonderful Germans that we befriended too.  We had a great day and a bunch of the people from the boat decided to head to Oasis bar again for cheap beers.  I snuck away for a 10km run before heading to the bar but joined the crew shortly after.

After hanging out in the bar for a while we noticed that our tour guide Kong was in the bar with a bunch of his friends.  We started hanging out with them, I bought a round and we played pool etc.  They then asked if we wanted to go go to a secret beach and obviously it was a yes.  We jumped on motorbikes and headed to this westerner resort with a really nice beach.  Emily and I started getting read to go swimming but they were like no swimming here…. so we were like OK.  Anyways we ended up just going back downtown and back to the hostel for the end of the evening.

The next day it was time for our last travel day in Vietnam.  We were going to push through the last 140km up to Hanoi.  We were praying for good weather, but unfortunately it was wet and rainy again.