They say that you shouldn’t meet your idol as it will only disappoint, and the same could be said of your dream destination. We sat on a bus to Cat Ba island with high hopes, feeling a bit despondent about our travelling so far. On paper Cat Ba was sculpted with us in mind, a beautiful tropical island surrounded by a bay that features in every travel magazine, and with an up-and-coming climbing scene. It seemed so perfect that we’d cut out other stops to extend this to 10 days. As the speedboat bounced us across the water, our dreams were ready to be made or shattered.
We’d been travelling for a month when we arrived, and while we were very grateful for the opportunity to travel, some aspects of it were getting us down. We will write more about this in another post, but having not spent more than 5 days anywhere, we were always fresh faced tourists ready to be messed around, and always leaving a town just as we were making friends and working out what we liked most about it. We were feeling lonely, the two of us in a sea of strangers, loud music and neon lights. We were going to spend 10 days in Cat Ba, our longest stop by far, on an island purporting to be the less touristy way to see this part of Vietnam.
As we’d left our last stop of Sapa (if you haven’t already then you can read about it here), we’d heard that a typhoon was building near Hong Kong and was due to hit Cat Ba in 2 or 3 days time. We were scheduled on one of the last boats before the harbours closed, and had to decide whether we committed to being stuck on an island during a typhoon. We decided to take a chance and that being stuck on an exotic island sounded like fun. The usually cloudless skies were looking grey and a little angry as we arrived.
Checking into our hotel, we were advised to have dinner at ‘Yummy 2’, a low budget restaurant nearby. We went there and had a lovely meal at a good price, whilst watching a 4 week old puppy bounding around. We then went for a walk around town. Our dreams of this peaceful town on a tropical island were brought crashing down around us as the reality that we were still in Vietnam hit us in the face. Bars pumping out abrasive music lined the streets, and gaudy neon signs dominated the waterfront. It wasn’t what we’d hoped for, and we arrived back in our beds feeling pretty down. The next morning, as the rain poured down to soak our spirits further, we sat in our hotel room and watched a film, disappointed that our dreams weren’t living out.
Then things changed.
We went back to Yummy’s for dinner, and at the table in front of us was some crazy looking dude with dark curly hair so big it occupied the seats either side of him. He was trying to play with the cute puppy we’d seen the night before, but was being given the cold paw. We managed to charm the puppy away, and he bounded over to us. The crazy looking guy was outraged at the puppy’s betrayal, and told us so before joining us at our table. His name was Fab, he was Australian and it transpired that he was a climbing guide. We quickly became friends, and this extraverted kangaroo dragged us down to a bar. I hadn’t had a beer in at least 6 months, but we were soon sitting with drinks in hand surrounded by all of the island’s climbing and kayaking guides, working for Langur’s Adventures. Since the weather was shutting down their company for a few days, they had some time off together and asked if we wanted to join them climbing in a cave the next day. Absolutely!!
After breakfast and a coffee at our new favourite coffee shop, we were paying a Vietnamese man and his dogs to scrabble through the foliage behind his house to a cave (we scrabbled, not them). Arriving, we found all the Langur’s guys there, and they welcomed us enthusiastically. Edcel, a Filipino who is lying when he claims to be as tall as 5ft, yet can still climb things I can’t dream of, showed us around the cave and introduced us to a few of the team we hadn’t met before. Some Brits, a New Zealander, an Indian, some Vietnamese guys and another Aussie rounded out the group.
We discovered that climbing here is different to what we are used to, the rock has lots of huge holds but is steeply overhanging. We rarely climb on big overhangs at our grade, so were really working the full body strength to get up a handful of climbs here, especially as we’re desperately out of shape! We had a few lessons in our own inadequacies and watched some talented climbers at work.
One of those climbers was Long, a boat driver in Lan Ha bay. Today was his first time climbing on a rope, and he was climbing barefoot as he has always done. His first ever roped climb was a 6a+ (the grade I comfortably climb at the moment) and his second was a 7a+ (substantially harder than I have ever climbed). It transpires that he has grown up climbing on the sea cliffs above water, without a rope, and is phenominally strong.
We returned to our hotel and went for a run down to a little beach nearby. Down there we had our first glimpse of the iconic Lan Ha bay, but with ominous clouds looming above and winds starting to kick up the water.
That evening, Fab informed us that he was going back to the cave the next day. We also discovered Fab’s talent for always having a lady (or victim) on the go, usually being seduced by the excitement of being taken on adventures by a climbing guide. We met him and his unfortunate American target the next day, and had a lot of fun climbing with them, even weaker than we had been the day before.
The typhoon passed unremarkably. We had been expecting chaos and destruction, but aside from a few broken signs and tree branches it was pretty dull. The worst of the storm passed us at night, and as we had a fan and air con in the room we hadn’t even been able to hear the winds.
We’d been in Vietnam so far for 4 weeks, and had managed to avoid riding a scooter. Scooter life in the cities seemed insane, and having never ridden one before we weren’t keen to learn in such a chaotic place, even if little mopeds didn’t require a licence here. In Cat Ba though, it was becoming apparent that we’d miss out on a lot if we stayed foot-borne, and we’d been mercilessly mocked by those around us for walking everywhere. We also saw how empty the road were, so felt far safer. We wanted to go to a new crag called Butterfly Valley and it was a 35min drive, too far to walk. We decided to bite the bullet and scoot!
We hired our scooters from Langur’s Adventures and headed off. This was our first chance to oropey chat to the head Langur, Lizzie. This charismatic young entrepreneur was described by one of her enoloyees as being deeply kind yet like the Mafia in being able to fix any problem by any means. She set Langur’s Adventures up out of the ashes of Asia Outdoors, a company that used to dominate adventure activities in the area before closing. Having been given the keys to the scooter and shown outside, we did have to go back in and ask how to start them. The response was ‘ohhhh’. A few small wobbles and we were fine. We still had to get our heads around the lack of any order to the roads, but if you work on the basis of looking after yourself and disregarding western driving expectations then you’ll be fine. We got to the crag and walked to the rock to find that it was soaking wet. Just as we got back on the bikes it began to pour with rain, so without a visor or raincoat we found ourselves hiding under a very small tree with several locals.
The next day was the biggest reason anyone comes to Cat Ba. While the island is chilled and beautiful, the gem of it’s soul is the bay surrounding it. Lan Ha bay is the sibling of Ha Long bay, together they are some of the world’s most iconic travel destinations. While many people may not be able to name them, if you imagine photos you have seen of tiny islands and sharp cliffs rising out of emerald green waters, scattered with golden beaches, then you are probably thinking of Lan Ha or Ha Long bay. We’d arranged a day of kayaking in the bay with Langur’s Adventures, so at 8am we were on their steps ready to go.
We found that there were just 4 of us on today’s trip, with 2 guides, so we had a good feeling. A bus took us to the port and we jumped on a ‘junk boat’. Thankfully not made of junk, it took us out into the middle of the bay, where we met a small dock floating in the water. We moved from the big junk boat onto 2 person sit-on kayaks, and set off into the beautiful emerald waters.
Our guides for the day were Jacob and Daisy. Both were born Brits, but Jacob moved to New Zealand when he was young and has truly lived the adventure lifestyle. Even while rocking the dreadlocks, tattos and open shirt, he is the least hippy of his siblings, all of whom have broken the mould of their ‘English Rose’ mother.
Daisy studied Adventure Sport Science at uni in Chichester, and has come travelling with her partner (another Jacob). Most of the guides here are travellers like us who have wanted to settle somewhere for a few months and earn a bit of money with some free accomodation.
The trip started through the floating villages. There are thousands of people in the bay who live in floating houses. These very basic houses have electricity through underwater cables, but not much else. Fish farms are normally attached to the side, and rubbish is disposed of into the water. Their produce is collected by boats, so we are told that much of this population has never or rarely been onto land.
We paddled through these villages, seemingly an alien world, so utterly different to anything we’d seen before. A dog would aggressively bark from a house, but was bound by the limits of the pontoon. Apparently many of the people here can’t swim, a life in such beauty but with such limits.
Jacob guided us towards a rock wall, and we glided silently through a low arch. The view opened up into a huge lagoon, and we drifted around it, past the towering cliffs. Ness wanted to jump in for a swim, which was lovely until she had to get back into the kayak. Not her most elegant moment.
The morning continued as we weaved through the huge pillars soaring up from the waters below to the skies above us. We rounded one and saw the junk boat waiting for us, lunch being cooked on the front.
Kayaks tied to tow behind, the boat took us to a nearby beach where it anchored. This beach is owned by ‘Vietnam Backpacker Hostels’, and branded as ‘Castaways Island’. I think it appeals to Brits in their 20s who want to think they’re on ‘Love Island’ (not that I know what Love Island actually involves). They pay a couple of hundred pounds to be taken to this island for 2 nights, where they buy a lot of overpriced alcohol on a sneaky tab, live in open air dorm rooms (no air con) and are offered adventure activities like climbing (but are too drunk to actually do it). Not my idea of paradise! We linked up with 2 guides who were running an (empty) climbing session for the ‘castaways’, and sat down for lunch.
The boat drivers had prepared an incredible spread for us, and we overloaded on fish, spring rolls and all manner of things. We also had some time to chat to the lovely Catalan couple who had been with us for the morning. Sadly they were only doing a half day, so after lunch they headed back to Cat Ba while Jacob and Daisy took us off to a different part of the bay.
After a 40 minute or so ride on the boat through stunning scenery, we arrived at the North of the island, where Lan Ha bay joins the more famous Ha Long bay. The junk boat anchored in a quiet corner and we got back on our kayak to follow our guides.
Away from the busy floating villages and other boats, we paddled around small islands until Jacob guided us ashore in a small cove. Leaving the kayaks, he pointed me to a very small hole in the rock, and I began to crawl through. After a very tight squeeze, I found myself in a surreal alcove surrounded by jagged rocks and stacked stones. We decided that some parts of Ness weren’t going to fit through the hole, so she and the others joined me in the alcove to check out the strange place.
Back in the kayaks, Jacob pointed us towards another island and tasked us to find the lagoon. We followed the walls around and came to a small opening, just big enough for one kayak at a time. Drifting through we found another small bay with imposing cliffs all around. The next stop was a beautiful beach where we swam for 30 minutes, enjoying the peace, tranquility and imagination-defying beauty.
Finally we glid silently into another lagoon, surrounded by jungles cliffs which must have towered 100m above us. This was the best place in the island to see the golden headed Langur monkeys, one of the the rarest monkeys in the world with only about 70 remaining. We sat silently for 20 minutes, all 4 of us hoping for a glimpse, but not a leaf moved… No sign of a monkey.
We paddled back to the junk boat and began the long, wonderful journey back to the island, taking in everything we could. We lounged on top of the boat, watching beauty flow past us. We returned to where we had collected the kayaks, and the boat driver executed a skillful slingshot, turning the boat and releasing the kayaks towed behind for them to glide back to the floating dock.
We returned to the island and Jacob and Daisy took us for a drink nearby, a roadside stall selling freshly brewed beer, brought in each day. It was a chilled end to a great day with these lovely and fascinating people!
The next day we took a scooter out to the centre of the national park, and did a ‘hike’ to the highest point. This apparently challenging hike took us about 40 mins up and 20 mins down, passing ‘hikers’ who seemed to be dying beside the path. The view from the top was beautiful, no ocean in sight but a sea of thick jungle; and the same towers we had seen before emerging from the emerald waters now rose sharply out of rich green forests. We headed quickly back as it was time for something we had eagerly awaited for several weeks.
We no longer felt lonely, surrounded by some wonderful new friends, but it had still been hard being away from friends and family, from familiar and loving faces. One of my best friends, Rob, was in Vietnam on holiday with his partner Mandie, and we had arranged to meet him today before he left for a cruise. We met them at their hotel, went for lunch, then dropped Mandie at the beach before taking Rob to Butterly Valley for some climbing. I have to confess, as ridiculous as it might sound, that as we were chatting on the walk to the crag I was welling up at being able to spend a precious few hours with one of my closest friends.
We had a lot of fun climbing together, then linking up with Mandie again we took them for dinner and drinks at our favourite places, introducing our old friends to new ones. Sadly, Rob is a really bad influence, and wherever he is I know that a tequila shot won’t be far behind. As I bid a wobbly goodbye to him, I knew I needed to be sober for the next day!
DWS is short for Deep Water Soloing, a genre of climbing where you don’t use ropes but rather climb on an overhanging cliff over deep water. Lan Ha and Ha Long bays, with their incredible limestone cliffs jutting out above the water, are probably the most iconic locations in the world for this sport. We’d never done DWS before, and signed up with trepidation, thinking that we couldn’t come here and not give it a try. While I am a slightly stronger climber than Ness (after weddings and injuries we’re both really weak at the moment), I don’t enjoy jumping from height into water, whereas Ness loves it. Unfortunately for me, the better you climb, the higher you go, the further you fall. Completing a route in DWS means falling from the top of the cliff rather than the bottom.
Ness signed us up for an afternoon of DWS with Langur’s for my birthday present, having turned 22 in our first few days on the island. Edcel and Jacob (the Brit rather than the Kiwi) were our guides, and after another amazing lunch on a junk boat harboured in the bay, we set off on a small boat for the cliffs.
They started us easy (a 4+ for those who care), and just one person climbing at a time. We each climbed up to our chosen height and jumped off. I was shaking the whole way up, and when I stood on a ledge readying myself to jump off, I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much. I learned that it was better to fall facing the cliff rather than looking out and having time to process. For me, that first one was the highest I got for the afternoon (about 5 metres up), for everyone else it was the lowest they went! Ness loved it, and on the next two warm up routes went substantially higher. On the other hand, I decided that I could climb far longer and more enjoyably if I climbed up, then down, then up, then down again, to fall in from 3-5 metres.
We moved onto different routes, of a grade that I normally find enjoyably challenging but very achievable (6a+ to 6b), and from the 3m point I was shaking like a leaf, letting go out of fear, far before I was limited by climbing. Ness substantially outclimbed me, aching to be able to jump from as high as possible.
Sitting on this little boat, watching a group of climbers on beautiful rock over the most stunning scenery, was an awesome experience. One of the highlights came after we had finished climbing. Once all of us tourists were burned out, it was the time for our driver Long. You may remember me mentioning Long earlier, when we had first climbed in Cat Ba we met this Vietnamese man who could climb twice as hard as us barefoot. He was our boat pilot today, and had impressed us with how he could manoeuvre a quite substantial boat to perfectly balance against a precise bit of cliff, for someone to climb off before he would back away and collect someone from the water.
If he was at home piloting his boat, it was nothing compared to him on that rock. Having grown up playing here, knowing every hold better than he knows his own hands, he danced across parts of the cliff that would be of interest to professional climbers, doing acrobatic moves at the top of the cliff, probably 15 metres above the water. It was remarkable to see.
We had extended our stay in Cat Ba, but it had to come to an end. After our DWS day we still had another day of climbing and chilling, but our time here was drawing quickly to a close. In no time, we had packed up and were trying to make the most of our last morning. We did a short tour of our favourite cafes, with Fab continuing to school me in chess (as he had been doing for some time now), and spending a bit of time with everyone who had made our stay here so good.
When the time came to get on our bus to Hanoi, we were really gutted. We had arrived here starting to question our travelling and doubting whether we were really happy… We were leaving having had a fantastic few weeks, thanks in part to a beautiful island, but mostly because of an awesome group of people who had welcomed us so openly. It wrenched us to leave, but our visa was expiring and we had to move on.
While in Cat Ba we had learned that we can thrive travelling. We had come to see what many people before us have said, that the art to good travelling is to spend long enough in a place to really get to know the place and the people. While sad to leave, we were refreshed and invigorated to approach our next adventure.
We spent a night back in Hanoi with Asia’s best host, Huong. Not only had she given us a wonderful room for our measly budget, she cancelled plans for her evening to cook dinner for us, and gave us a lift to the bus station.
That was it… we were off out of Vietnam. We had planned to spend a couple of weeks in Laos, but to get there we had to spend 25 hours on a pretty crap bus, or take a very expensive flight. We found that it was far cheaper to fly to Northern Thailand instead, an area that we had expected to skip. After 31 days in Vietnam we got on a plane bound for Chiang Mai, reportedly a traveller’s paradise.
We look forward to sharing our times in Chiang Mai with you, but for now we reflect on how grateful we are to have met such a great group of people in Cat Ba, to have learned so much from them, and that we hope we are able to stay in touch with them in the future.
It’s all about the people.
If you enjoyed reading this post then please check out our blog library here, hopefully you’ll find something else you enjoy.
If you’re thinking of visiting Cat Ba then we’d highly reccomend Langur’s Adventures, links to their website are throughout the post or here.
We intend to write a guide to climbing in Cat Ba, bit in the meantime if you’re interested then check out The Crag.
