This morning, we had to take a tourist junk boat ride to Catba Island. We were told to arrive at the boat dock at around 10.00am. We woke up early and had a morning walk around the Halong city near our hostel area. We had beef noodle (10,000d per bowl) for breakfast and also enjoyed a pot of local Vietnamese coffee (30,000d for 3 ) at a road side stall to get a feel of the daily life of the local people and the morning crowd.
After a 3 hour wait at the dock (most tourists were furious for this long delay), our boat finally departed at around 1.00pm for our trip to Catba. The junk boat had three decks - the upper deck had seats for tourists to relax and enjoyed the cool breeze. The middle had long tables and seats, glass windows for viewing and also a place where our lunch would be served. The bottom deck had lockable sleeping cabins for overnight stays.
The foggy weather at this time of the year had made visibility low as our boat moved towards the open sea. We were told tropical storms were quite frequent during the summer months.
At around 2.30pm, lunch was served and we had a great taste of various local Vietnamese cuisine on the boat. We spent most of time on the upper deck to capture a panorama view of various limestone islands as our boat slowly inching its way towards the Catba Island.
It was not possible for us to see the thousands of limestone islands at one go but what we saw so far was enough to appreciate and admire the beauty of this natural wonder of the world in the Gulf of Tonkin. Our tourist boat took us to visit the Dong Thien Cung, a cave which has "cauliflower" limestone growths as well as stalacites and stalagmites; and Loi Vao Tham Quan cave.
At around 6.30pm, our boat arrived at the Catba Island jetty. We had 8-10 tourists chosen to stay on board the boat's cabins and for us, we preferred to stay in the hostel (Giang Sun Hotel) in the Catba fishing village town. We waited for almost an hour for our hotel's van to pick us up. We arrived at the hostel around 7.30pm and joined up the rest for a dinner at the hostel.
After the dinner, we took a stroll to explore the Catba fishing village . There were a few stalls along the main street selling CDs & souvenir items. At the waterfront opposite a jetty , there was a floating restaurant catering for the tourists serving the best seafood in town. Price must be pricey too ! The restaurant had small boats to ferry customers interested in having their meals in the floating restaurant.
At around 10.00pm, we ordered two plate of fried meehoon & noodles at a coffee shop nearby our hostel and we paid 165,000d for this supper meal.
I had posted a number of pictures on this page ie the tourist junk boats, houses built on stilts, the boat people peddling fresh fruit for sales to tourists, grottoes and caves etc. Are the sceneries here quite similar to that of Guilin in Southern China or Krabi in Southern Thailand ? I had been to Guilin in 2005. Both places appeared to have a character of its own in terms of natural beauty !
" Lonely Planet has this to say about Catba Island - Rugged, craggy and jungle-clad Catba, the largest island around Halong Bay, is straight out of Jurassic Park. Catba has a few tiny fishing and farming villages as well as a fast growing town - so include Catba in your travel plan if you are visiting Halong Bay !
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