KayakCatba.com

This entry told you the trip to Vietnam. The author was traveling to Halong then Catba and doing kayak here.

We had seen many pictures of it in magazines and also watched the reports many times in our favourite chanel : Travel and Living - and longing to see and experience directly the beauty of Halong Bay by ourself.

We missed the opportunity to go to Vietnam last Lebaran because we were quite reluctant to book the flight tickets timely.

So we decided that we had to spend our vaction in Vietnam over new year. Two weeks before X’mas we still could book and secure our flights with quite reasonable fares :
by Valuair for  CGK - SIN - CGK and
by TIgerairways for SIN - Hanoi and Saigon - SIN.

We spent one night in Singapore visiting the new VIVO city in Harbor front and hunting some bargains along the orchard the next day.  J got some pairs of shoes - luckily we could ask a friend to take it back home rite away and did not have to carry them over to Vietnam.

We were picked up in Nobai - Hanoi Airport on new years eve evening and it was real cold around 16 C. We really havent thought about the weather beforehand .. and we were not prepared with the rite clothing !

Our Hotel in the Old Quarter recommended us Little Hanoi restaurant for their Vietnamese speciality. So we went directly there and ordered the fried Tuna and some Pho ( what else ? ). And it was so delicious .. or maybe we were just too hungry ( because we did not get any meal during the flight .. )

Afterward we went toward Hoan Kiem Lake and found that the local crowds were gathered around the open stage by the lake to watch the celebration welcoming the new year. Pitily it was bit too cold for us - that we didn’t really enjoy the count down ceremony and other performances. Instead We headed back directly to our hotel after midnight.

Next morning we were picked up by the small bus to start our trip to Halong Bay. Along the streets the shops were open normally and we did not get any feeling that it was actually new year day ! Quite strange …

We just mentioned that it was high holiday season when we were approaching the Halong City harbor, which was filled with so many tourist buses coming and leaving.

Our group consist of an American couple, an Australian girl, a German student, a French couple,a Canadian guy and a Vietnamese new wed couple on honeymoon. One interesting part to start our cruise was, we have to jump over the other boats with our luggage to get into our boat.

Lunch was not ready yet when we got into our boat so we had to be patient for a while by watching the loading unloading activities on the harbor. And when it finally served we could than enjoy the fresh fried fish, back potatoes, salad, veggies over stir fried meat and rice.

Just not long after the boat started to sail, we were already surrounded by thousands of lime stone islands with various kind of shapes and sizes. Even though it was foggy and we could not have clear sight all over the bay, we stood amazed for some times enjoying the beautiful scenery on the boat roof deck. Until it was getting real cold for us, so that we had to go down to the dining room and continued watching the scenery from inside.

The highlight of the day was when we docked on one island of the Sung Sot ( surprising ) Cave. It was quite a hike to reach the cave opening .. but it was really worthed. The cave was diverted into three areas and filled inside with various sizes and shapes of stalagmites and stalactites .. surprisingly beautiful. It was kept well maintained and clean .. no trash no scratches over the walls whatsoever .. we were overwhelmed by this sight. Wish we could have something like it back home in Indonesia.

We continued our cruise to the floating fisherman village nearby the Catba island, where we stop for the night. Enjoyed our dinner, cooked by the staff and sharing a bottle of wine with our fellow travelers and than went up again to the roof deck - watching the limestone islands reflected over the calm moonlit dark waters of halong bay. It was so peaceful and you got the feeling that you were really out of this world.

We went sleeping on our stateroom below the dining room accompanied by the sound of barking dogs from the fishing village and the sound of small waves hitting the bottom of our boards.
We were waking up by the early sunshine coming into the window - and there we caught the first morning sight ; the groups of birds flying low over the limestone islands - that was so wonderful that we directly praising God for such beautiful scene.

After breakfast we were transferred to the small boat - it was just both of us, because the others were heading back to the harbor. So we had our private boat with guide and staff - what a wonderful privilege. Our guide was preparing a kayak for us and kept reminding us to get back to the boat at 11 am for lunch.

We were so fascinated by the reality that it was kinda “dream come true” for us : kayaking over Halong bay ! So we lost the focus on our direction and than after two hours kayaking by ourselves we could not find the way back to our boat. Got a little bit freaky feeling already because we had left everything on the boat - passports, money, handphones and had actually nothing with us …
Quite uncomfortable though, in the middle of nowhere, we were tired of kayaking and none of the fishermen seemed to understand English to help us. Fortunately we found one tourist boat, where one of the staff could understand English, and they agreed to help us find our boat for some payment - really no free lunch in this world !

We were very grateful to find our boat and all our belonging safe and sound, so that we ate off everything served for lunch starting from the big plate of spring rolls, back fish and chicken and fresh salads.

After the incident we did not have the mood to do the hiking on the monkey island .. so we skipped the program and asked the boat to take us directly to Catba, the biggest island on Halong bay.

Checking into the hotel, having hot bath and showers and than strolling along boulevard across the fishing harbor. Later on we went to the roof top bar in our hotel enjoying the night panorama over the same harbor while sipping the Vietnamese coffee and cocktails before heading for dinner.

The next morning we went back to the boat which took us back to Harbor City. Actually we were still fascinated by the scenery and could not stop shooting the panorama of thousands of interesting limestone shapes along the way with our handy cam.

Lunch was served in Halong City on the restaurant belong to the tour company which also own the boat. It was a big meal with meat, fish, veggies and off course spring rolls ( huh so yummy that i could not have enough of that ). Late in the afternoon we were back in Hanoi old quarter, which totally over crowded with bicyles, motobikes, cars and tourists like us ..

Source: Friendster blog