Cat Ba Island, Halong Bay

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The next stop on our Vietnamese route was Halong bay. We decided to this differently to the standard tourist tour from Hanoi and instead stayed on Cat Ba island ,the only inhabitable island within the Halong bay NP. Cat Ba was brilliant, really prehistoric looking with mountains and karsts filled with impenetrable jungle, just great! 

The majority of the island is made up of the Cat Ba national park and we had read about a "challenging 18km trek" that cuts right through it so we booked onto one straight away! Although tough in parts the trek was amazing, the forest is so dense still and full of wildlife. Our one wish was to see a Cat Ba langur (they are endemic to the island and there are only 62 left in the wild) but we knew the chances were extremely slim so we didn't hold out much hope. We were waiting however for the slower members of the group to catch up and as they reached us they told us how they had just seen one about 200 metres back! We were livid! We therefore asked the guide if it was ok to leave the group and catch up with them later and sprinted off back the way we had come! We ran to what we estimated to be 200 metres and then began tip-toeing around the forest trying to find it! We had no idea if we were looking in the right place and were about to give up when we heard rustling up above, we followed the noise and then caught a fleeting glimpse as it swung away from us up in the canopy! Amazing! 
The rest of the trek was equally awesome, we found a dead civet, an Asian giant squirrel and lots of great birds and butterflies. After trekking up and over small mountains, The final part of the trek was much flatter and took us to a tiny village for lunch which was delicious. We then followed the village road to meet the sea in order to catch a boat back to Cat Ba town. The boat journey back was like a tour in itself, traveling through the karsts and past the floating fishing villages. It also stopped at 'monkey island' .... An island with (you've guessed it) lots of monkeys! They were really aggressive however and we spent most of the time laughing at people frantically running along the beach with monkeys close at their heels! Overall a fantastic day! 

The rest of our time on Cat Ba was spent exploring the bays and drinking hot chocolate to warm us up! We caught a ride back to Halong City on one of the tourist cruise boats which was really plush and we managed to get a free cooking lesson on board too, we are now spring roll connoisseurs! The boat also went through Halong bay itself, giving us another chance to marvel at the amazing scenery, very very beautiful. 

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