I'm feeling much better after 2 days of antibiotics and a bit of rest 😀, which was a good thing as I wouldn't have managed 19 hours of travelling otherwise. To get to Cat ba island we took an overnight train from Hue to Hanoi (14 hours) - each compartment had 4 bunk beds but we were lucky that it wasn't a busy train and we had the compartment to ourselves! We got off the train and jumped into a taxi at 5am and raced across Hanoi to the bus station to catch our bus connection to Haiphong (2hours). The bus dropped us at Haiphong harbour where we caught a fast boat to Cat ba (45 mins over flat seas 😊) We then got another bus across Cat ba island to the main town and gateway to Lan Ha bay. We were so glad to arrive at our hotel and eager to explore the beautiful Cat ba island. We headed out and arranged our plans for the next few days, one day kayaking (at last!!) around the karst islands (limestone pinnacles) of Lan Ha bay and a days trek through the national park. We had read that it would be northern Vietnam's winter, as it was for most other countries we have visited, making it just about bearable for us, but it was actually much cooler and the island was very quiet.
An early start the next day we were picked up by 2 motorbikes for a short ride to the other side of the island to launch our kayaks. Luckily it turned out to be just us 2 and a really sweet local guy called 'Minh' who could speak pretty good English. We had a kayak each (most around here are either sit on tops or double kayaks) and Minh started off by saying just practice going right and left - even though we had said we kayak at home and think he was surprised when we got in and moved away from the pier saying 'Oh, you're more professional than I thought'.....Well, I wouldn't say we were professional, but we ironically ended up giving him a few pointers about manoeuvring! We started off paddling around the floating fish farm village, the boats were lovely and colourful, but the reality of this was the rubbish in the sea 😞 Almost each little place had a dog or 2 which surprised us and when we asked Minh if they get chance to go to land to run around he said no - which explained the crazy barking at us as we passed - and I think they use them as guard dogs. Anyway, we carried on and it was beautiful and peaceful - no ugly cruise ships or noisy junk boats 😊 which was why we chose to explore the water off Cat Ba instead of the busier and much more touristy Halong Bay. As we pulled up to our last stop Sarah asked if Minh was happy for her to roll. He was quite surprised and asked if he could record her! After a successful roll we pulled the kayaks ashore and we both went in for a chilly swim - not for too long! We were both pretty tired at the end of the day but it had been 1 of our best - amazing! 😀
The following day there were 4 of us for the trek and our guide; Phuoc. We took the public bus to the start of the trek stopping off on route at the hospital caves. A hospital built over 3 floors with 17 rooms in a cave. It was pretty impressive, it even had an operating theatre and exercise pool, but not a place or time I would want to have been nursing. It was built during the American war and was also used as a safe house by government leaders, it was never found by the Americans and never damaged by bombs. We started the trek on flat ground but were soon heading up hill and doing a lot of scrambling up and down over steep sections of loose boulders and rocks. Some areas were quite dangerous as the rocks were loose and falling would have resulted in broken bones, it didn't help that neither of us had any confidence in our 'guide'. After 5 hours of exhausting trekking we made it to our lunch stop in a pretty village nestled in the mountains. After a break and an interesting chat with our trekking companions on American politics we jumped on bikes and peddled the last 5km to the boat harbour. The bikes were mountains bikes but hadn't been looked after, sarahs chain came off, gears got stuck and Olga hit a pot hole and skidded off her bike. We eventually made it to the harbour and took the boat through the karst islands around to the other side of the island and back to where we started. It was an exhausting day, but good to get out and moving after all the travelling, think we have been spoilt with all the beautiful scenery we have seen in the last 3 months and didn't find the trek overly impressive, but it was pretty, we were also surprised by how little wildlife there was.
The following day we caught our bus, boat and another bus back to Hanoi where our adventures in South East Asia will soon end!!!!!!
