Cat Ba; Day 3-- Halong/Lan Ha Bay

We have been accused before of over-using the adjectives “amazing” and “awesome”, which is unfortunate because there really are no other words to describe Halong Bay. Our final day on Cat Ba Island was spent aboard a boat cruising through Lan Ha Bay and onwards to Ha Long Bay. The journey took us all day, departing at 8am and not returning until 5pm and was jammed packed with adventures. Our ride through Lan Ha Bay was absolutely beautiful and yes, AMAZING :) The clouds were thick that day and the numerous islands in the distance were coated in a white/grey mist that made the whole bay look majestic and prehistoric. We past through fishing villages, made up of small houses afloat on rafts made of styrofoam boxes and bamboo poles. It seemed as though each raft had at least one or two dogs clambering along the narrow walkways of bamboo shafts and twine connecting the large nets, meant to keep the catch alive before taking it in to the village to sell. We shivered atop of our boat, amazed that people were able to sustain themselves out there during the winter.

Freezing on the top of the boat

Daydreaming about pants and a dry, warm jacket

Fishing village

Lan Ha Bay

Halong Bay

After passing through the fishing villages, we found ourselves floating alone amidst hundreds of islands of karst limestone; each island home to thousands of trees, bushes, birds and insects. After dropping off about half of the people on our boat to go kayaking we continued on our journey to venture through a 3 room cave on the side of an island. The first room we entered was well lit and spacious, when we reached the back wall we found ourselves rather disappointed, feeling as though the cave was rather plain, however behind us our guide shouted for us to watch our heads and continue onward. We bent down to find a little opening on the back wall, we squatted and crawled through the opening to find another beautiful cave overlooking a small lake on the island. As we explored around this second cave, we found yet another opening and our guide once again motioned us through. The last room of the cave was pitch black, thankfully we had flashlights on our phones to light the way. We saw beautiful pillars shining in the darkness as our lights flickered over them, the salt from millions of years of water trickling through the cave lingering there as a testament to times gone by. Unfortunately for us, we also encountered quite a few cave dwelling creatures, we'd prefer to have gone without. Our guide kept explaining lucky we were, and yet 'lucky' was far from our minds. Two large cave spiders the size of your hand crawled along the walls and pillars of the cave, while a bat slept on the celling (despite our guides continuous attempts to wake it). As we were about to depart from the cave Mackenzie fearfully spotted what appeared to be the largest spider known to man. As the whole group quickly spotted their lights on the creature, we finally agreed with our guide, and felt lucky to see that it was just a crab.

Inland lake

Inside the cave

Cave spider. It may look small in the picture but that's because no one was brave enough to get close to take a picture...this is from about 10ft away. Literally the size of your hand!

Huge stalactites

Once we departed from the cave we returned to the boat and ventured off to pick up those we left behind to kayak, and to feast on a family style lunch together. After lunch we set out on our own kayaking adventure. Mackenzie and Caitlin took a kayak together, while Sam went solo. We paddled away from the safety of our boat, toward a tunnel cave to explore the other side. Even though it was quite a journey, once we passed through the cave the scenery was absolutely beautiful. Sadly our phone died and we weren't able to capture the gorgeous backdrop of our kayaking experience, but trust us, it was a once in a life time experience! The cove was completely untouched and the loudest sound you could hear was the chirping of birds and the occasional howl of a monkey. We saw tons of fish of all shapes, sizes and colors, coral, sea urchins, and some oddly shaped rocks that Cait mistook for turtles :)

Entering the cave tunnel

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Our experience was somewhat marred by the intense oil sheen that covered the mouth of the cove and the tons of dead fish that bobbed around our paddles as we entered. Thankfully, not all the wildlife was affected but from what we've seen, it's only a matter of time before tourism has an extremely detrimental effect on the habitat of Halong Bay. We had mixed feelings about being there because as it stands, the boat tours around Halong Bay seem to perpetuate these negative effects. Since Cat Ba's only real industries are fishing and tourism (and because we learned that there is not a single English teacher on the island), we thought that it would be really cool to be able to come back to set up an English school that focus' on environmental awareness and eco-tourism, as well as the English language!