Koh Chang and Cat Ba – Tet Holiday Island Adventures

Not long after my arrival in Hanoi , Vietnam was celebrating Tet holiday (Lunar New Year). Everything was closing and many people were leaving town for a week. This resulted in two mini adventures I had not expected.

The first, was spending just under a week in Thailand on Koh Chang island. A blissful retreat, escaping the noise and pollution of Hanoi, seeing a bright blue sky once again. My hostel was hidden away at the far end of a family resort. A small, white, wooden panelled house, standing on a rocky outcrop that gave a wonderful panoramic ocean view.

I spent my time relaxing on the beach (though surrounding resorts made this a more commercial experience than I’d hoped) and also went scuba diving for the first time in nearly three years, rekindling my love for the underwater world.

Back in Hanoi, I had only one night before I was setting off once again. This time to Cat Ba island (a place I had visited the first week into my travels and where I spent my 26th birthday). The experience was wholly different from my previous visit.

Part of a very international group (two Vietnamese, a Japanese, a German and myself), we made our way to Haiphong, the closest city to the port, by bicycle. The 100km journey from Hanoi was not thrilling, sharing a long, flat, road with many other vehicles. I was still thoroughly enjoying myself however, part of a cycling convoy for the first time instead of going it alone.

Reaching Haiphong, our first stop was the train station to buy tickets for a couple of days time to take us back to Hanoi. The second stop was food. Something we all quickly realised we were very fond of! Not always the easiest task (even when having someone Vietnamese to negotiate), as we tried to find vegan food with street vendors.

After finding accommodation and showering, we returned on foot into what was a lively city centre, once again in search of food. Seemingly many Vietnamese families who had left Hanoi for the holiday were all celebrating in Haiphong, or at least that was my impression as we walked through the vibrant and crowded square.

After breakfast the following morning (a rice noodle and crispy onion dish I had been introduced to the previous evening), we were back on the bikes and heading the 30km to the ferry.

The further our journey took us, by bike and then by boat, the fresher the air and the more excitement we felt.

On the island we had now just 15km to get to the main town. We stopped for a team picture before beginning, green limestone hills providing our backdrop. Having travelled flat road until this point we would finally be facing some hilly terrain, making for a more challenging and rewarding ride. The only minor issue on my part being that my brakes had begun to be less than fully functional from time to time. Being my first time owning disk brakes I was lucky one of the party had a vague idea how to (temporarily) fix them!

As part of a group, I found some moments that may have felt a little startling alone, instead became funny quirks. Some skittish cows bucking, stomping and finally (after a minute where we thought we may have been their target) running off the road, or rounding a narrow corner to find myself faced with an oncoming bus, after I’d only seconds before contemplated the unsavoury idea of that scenario.

We ate lunch part way, sitting on a family’s doorstep. A strange concept for me, though it did seem not to take them by surprise, nor did they seem to mind, as we made our way off the road and settled down to eat. A scene I struggle to imagine occurring without question or perhaps even suspicion in most of the western world.

Back on the road, it was not long before we crested the final hill and rolled into the town. A strange feeling as I faced the small bit of paving where I’d sat those years ago eating a rice ice cream dessert for my birthday. Feeling all that has passed since that moment and all that has changed. The place felt very much the same, I do not.

Having packed tents I’d imagined we would be staying inside the national park. This was not the case. Looking for somewhere to stay, Chao (the organiser and leader of our little troup) asked the owners of what seemed to be a closed down fairground, bumper cars and all in the yard. Agreeing that we could stay on their land we left them in search of food before returning for the night.

When we did return we were surprised to find that they were offering us a room, mattresses and food, all from the kindness of their hospitable hearts, nothing expected in return. The room, we guessed, was once a karaoke room, walls a mixture of yellow, pink, blue and green, our mattresses spread out on the slightly elevated stage.

We booked a kayak trip for the next day, with a local independent guide I’m not sure how Chao discovered, rather than with a tour company. This resulted in our own private tour, just the five of us plus guide kayaking through the expansive limestone maze that is Halong Bay. We ate dinner within the floating villages, in a shop which does not normally allow tourists on board.

Our plan had been to make our way back to the other side of the island that night, ready for the first ferry the following morning but things changed when one of the party became ill.

In the hope of being able to return home together we stayed another night to give him time to recover. As our train was booked for 9am the following morning, this meant a very early start to get there in time.

My alarm buzzed at 2am and I felt so disoriented when I first tried to stand that I seemed unable to gain any balance. By 3:30am everyone was ready and we set off into darkness, beginning what I feel was one of the most, if not the most, exciting parts of the whole experience.

My lights did not work (they were new and I hadn’t thought to charge them) and two of the other party had not brought lights at all, so we kept in a close knit group, the two with lights taking either end of the group.

The first hill was by far the worst, not even 4am, I was far from awake and warmed up for the moment. Things got easier as we went along, though they also became more eventful. My chain came off, became trapped and if it were not for Chao’s tiny fingers may have caused the end of things! Bags slipped on the back of bikes; my brakes worked less from one hill to the next; another set of lights gave up halfway leading to phone lights held in hands or, in my case, shining through my clear fronted bum bag. Chao left her shoulder bag on the bag of another bike and luckily found it still there when she remembered 10 minutes later, and as we neared the end of our ride we had to sprint away from a lively, aggressive sounding dog!

Despite all of this, somehow we made it. In one piece and in time for the 6am ferry.

From here it was one more 30km back to Haiphong before we could board the train and doze our way back to Hanoi.

We didn’t always all communicate a whole deal, language barriers making this difficult. Yet still, those days created a wonderful sense of camaraderie, jokes and memories for us to share.