Well, the journey from Hanoi to Cat Ba Island was certainly an interesting one. I teamed up with Leah, an American girl I met in the hostel, and we left Hanoi at 10am, taking a three hour bus journey to Haiphong. During this bus journey, the driver felt the need to honk his horn when he passed any other traffic, when he wanted to say thank you, when anything was in his way… This resulted in three hours of listening to a bus horn!

Once in Haiphong, we took a motorbike taxi to the port to catch a boat to Cat Ba Island. As the drivers appeared to have taken us to a different port than the one we had asked for, it took us a while to arrange transport out as we felt everyone approaching us was trying to con us. Of the two options available we chose the cheapest, which was a combination of a bus, then a boat, then a bus. During the ride on the bus from the port I was getting increasingly worried we were not going to be taken to the right place, especially as we spent 20 minutes bouncing down a dirt track road through a shipping yard with no other buses in sight. I was most worried when the bus stopped and all of the locals on board (we were the only tourists) began looking around in confusion, I thought if they were confused or worried I definitely should be! I will never know exactly what happened in that moment, but the bus driver set off again a few minutes later and rounding a corner, we spotted the port in the distance.

Eventually we did arrive on Cat Ba Island, and by some stroke of luck were dropped off right outside Asia Outdoors, the exact place we were heading to.

The island itself is beautiful. We were greeted by a view of many large limestone structures, all small islands surrounding Cat Ba, a blue sea and even some sun in the sky, which was a nice change from the grey skies of Hanoi.

From the moment we stepped off the bus my time on this island has been enjoyable. There is a relaxed atmosphere in the air, the people seem friendly and easy going and the hotel we chose is on the sea front, giving us an amazing view of the harbour.

Thanks to us meeting some of the guys working in Asia Outdoors, our first night on the island involved acro yoga, drinks in a backpackers bar, sneaking into a beach at night and a midnight swim in the sea under the full moon. We had been told there was bioluminescent plankton in the sea, and sure enough, whenever the clouds dampened the brightness of the moon, as we moved our hands around in the water little specks of glowing green kept appearing beneath the surface.

The following day we had a slow start and headed to the beach in the afternoon. There are three great little beaches here, which have been man made to provide sandy beaches for holiday resorts, but that still fit in perfectly with the surroundings. They are all placed within little alcoves, surrounded by limestone walls. Lying on the beach you will hear the sound of fishing boats passing long before you see them, and with a sound similar to a helicopter I would often look to the sky before the sea.

On my second full day here I went on a kayaking trip. This was a great way to see many hidden areas among the islands that you could not see from the shore. There are so many different rock formations, given names such as Three Brothers and Big Ben. During the morning I was part of a group that travelled together, going at as steady pace and enjoying the sights. After lunch on the boat, and a couple of jumps off the top deck, I was heading back out in the kayak with only the guide, as the rest of the group had opted to rock climb. This was great as it meant we could go at a faster pace, we also explored areas that both myself and the guide hadn’t seen before. One beach we came across housed a small temple which was for the use of people living at sea in the fishing villages.

During this trip the guys who ran it invited me to a boat party in the evening, this sounded like a great experience so of course I said yes. On arriving at port where we were to get a speed boat taxi to the boat we found out this was to be an overnight party! Boy did we feel unprepared, but we decided this was too big an opportunity to miss out on and Leah had been saying for days how she wanted to spend a night at sea. So we headed out along a rickety wooden walkway and onto the speed boat. Well this is not quite the kind of thing a westerner first pictures when hearing the word speed boat, it was more a well built raft with seats, a roof and an engine, oh and I wouldn’t say it was that speedy! The night on the boat was a great experience, there is something quite thrilling about waking up on the top deck of a boat, sitting up and looking out at the sea. As I gazed out shoals of tiny fish jumped out and back into the sea. This was how my birthday started.

After we came back to shore I had a slow day, showering, eating, napping and talking to some family back home. In the afternoon we went down to the beach for an hour, we didn’t stay long as we had plans to catch the sunset from a Ho Chi Minh Monument on a hill. Despite us grabbing a motorbike taxi to hurry the journey this didn’t go as planned as we were unable to find the monument. We did however get to experience a less touristy part of the island, this seemed to be a nicer area of town where people were happy to go about their business, not interested in selling to tourists, and with many friendly children who would shout hello as we passed by. My day ended with a walk to get some of the local Vietnamese ice cream from a street vendor. This was a strange mix of a kind of rice pudding and quite a creamy texture to the ice cream.

I can definitely say my time on this island is without a doubt something I will never forget, since arriving we have gone from one exciting and spontaneous moment to the next. Now however, it is time to move on.

I am currently sat in my hotel room, waiting for our transport back to the mainland which leaves at 12:30. Once back in Haiphong we plan to take the sleeper bus down to Dong Hoi and then tomorrow morning take a bus to Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, full of some of the worlds biggest caves.