2 Days on Cat Ba Island || Vietnam Travel Vlog

Northern Vietnam is full of natural beauty, and one of the most stunning sights in the north is the Cat Ba and Halong Bay region. Dramatic limestone cliffs tower above bright blue waters, making an epic backdrop for boat tours and cultural fishing villages. We had three days to experience this magical landscape, and here's how it went. Good afternoon guys, and welcome to Cat Ba Island. We've just taken about a four or five hour bus ride from Ninh Binh, and we're on this island that's just outside of Halong Bay. And so we're right along the ocean, we're at this beautiful harbor, and there's just these dramatic limestone cliffs, very similar rock features and rock mounds that we had in Ninh Binh, but here they're just jutting out of the ocean. And Halong Bay is another place that I've been wanting to go for such a long time. You just have these dramatic landscapes, and I'm very excited to get out on a boat tomorrow, and we're gonna go on a little cruise that's gonna weave us in and out of some of these bays around Cat Ba Island. And we're just gonna do some kayaking, and you can do some swimming, and you can go through some little caves, and you'll just have these beautiful, beautiful cliffs. And Cat Ba is a little bit more of a laid back island. A lot of people will go to Halong Bay, which is a little bit more of a bigger city, but we've heard that Cat Ba is a little less touristy. You're in this kind of small town on an island, and so it's just very laid back. So this afternoon, we have about an hour and a half until sunset, and right in the middle of the Cat Ba town, we have the Cannon Fort, and it's about a 30-45 minute hike to the top of the hill. So let's walk through town, go up the hill, and I think we're gonna have a really nice sunset tonight, which we haven't seen the sun in a couple days here in Northern Vietnam. So very excited to get some dramatic colors and see some of these cliffs from a higher vantage point. So yeah, let's head up the hill and check it out. For some reason, the access to the top of the Cannon Fort, the major viewpoint, is closed off, but there's also this little trail up to the transmitter tower, which I think won't go as high, but will give similar views. So let's head up here and see if we can get a view of the bay. We have just come up to the transmission tower here, and you have a couple of these abandoned buildings, and we've come to the top of the peak here, and you can look down on the little village of Cat Ba, and then you have a beautiful view of the limestone cliffs off in the ocean this way, and then you can get a little preview of Lan Ha Bay, which is where we'll be taking a boat out tomorrow and checking out some of those fishing villages. But just this beautiful pink-orange hazy sunset. So we're going to hang out here a little bit, enjoy the views, and then head back down, and then tomorrow, we'll be checking out these things on the boat. Good morning, guys. It's our second day here on Cat Ba Island, and it's just about 8 o'clock, and at 8 o'clock, we're going to head down to one of the little ferry terminals and jump on our boat, and we're going out on a day-long boat trip until about 5 p.m., and we're going to go floating through a lot of these islands and check out some of these limestone cliffs up close. We're going to go kayaking, check out some caves, I think there'll be some swim spots, we'll have lunch on the boat, and I'm really looking forward to this. This is one of the activities I've been looking forward to the most in Vietnam, is getting out into some of the bays here. So from Cat Ba, we're going to go out to Lan Ha Bay, and then I think we're going to just touch the southern part of Ha Long Bay. So, yeah, let's head down to the harbor, jump on the boat, and start our tour. We've just gotten onto the boat at the harbor here. We're just starting our cruise through Lan Ha Bay, and we're floating through this little fishing village here, and about 1,200 people live out on these boats, and they harvest the fish and then end up selling them into town. But yeah, just so excited to be on the boat. We have just beautiful weather today, and we're just going to be floating through some of these beautiful islands. So we've just had a beautiful cruise through all of these rocky, jagged islands, and we've been probably on the cruise for about an hour, hour and a half going through here, and now we're stopping at a kayak spot where we can kayak through some of these coves and through some of these rocks. So we have about an hour or so of kayaking, so yeah, let's jump off and kayak around some of these cliffs. All right, guys, we've just come out on the kayak. We're out in Lan Ha Bay here, and we have about an hour to cruise around, explore a little bit on the water, maybe find some caves, and yeah, just enjoy the beauty. So let's kayak. Just kayaked through some caves. It was super cool seeing all the rocks and stalactites, and yeah, just beautiful kayaking around these amazing rocks out here. So we have just been kayaking around this little bay, through some of these rocks, through a couple of caves, and just these beautiful views, very relaxing. We even had a little bit of sunshine out here, and yeah, it's just been really fun. I love kayaking, and just the water, the mountains, everything, it's just been super nice to get out onto the water here. So we are heading back to the boat, and I think we're gonna do lunch next, and then we'll float around the bay a little bit and do a couple more activities, maybe do a couple of swim spots, and check out some beaches. So yeah, let's head back to the boat. We have just had about a 15-20 minute boat ride, and we've made it to this quaint little harbor that we're just kind of surrounded by all of these jagged limestone cliffs, and we're gonna have lunch here. So they're serving us lunch on the bottom of the ship, and then we're gonna hang out here for about an hour or so, and we're gonna do some swimming. People can jump off the boat. There's some little beaches that you can swim off to, but just a beautiful little harbor here just completely surrounded by these rocks. After the last little lunch spot and the swim spot, which was just beautiful, I flew up the drone, got some amazing views of all of the harbors, and from the aerial perspective, you could just see all of these other little coves and beaches that are all throughout the Lantana Bay here. And now we've just taken about an hour boat ride heading back towards the shore, and we're stopping at Monkey Island here for a quick stop to check out some of the monkeys, and we have about half an hour to an hour to hang out and enjoy the beach here. That was Monkey Island, and there's like 20-25 monkeys running around. Some of the guides will give them little bananas, little snacks, but we just have this nice beach here, and then you're looking out back over Lanha Bay, and you have a couple boats floating out there. You have these amazing limestone cliffs and amazing rock formations. So, yeah, we have a little bit more time to just hang out here, enjoy the beach a little bit, then we'll jump back on the boat and probably start heading back to Capba town, and that'll be about the end of the tour. But the boat ride back in, we'll go back past those fishing villages, and it'll just be a beautiful ride back into the town. We have just gotten back from our full day Capba and Lanha Bay tour, and that was just some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen, just floating through all of these limestone cliffs and these beautiful islands, stopping on all these beaches, and then going kayaking, and just Monkey Island. Very cool, very beautiful, so scenic, and yeah, absolutely just an amazing day tour here. So, it's about 5pm, and we've just gotten back, and because Capba was just so beautiful, I don't even know if we'll need to do Halong Bay, because this is exactly what I pictured and expected in Halong Bay, which is floating through this beautiful blue water, going past all of these cliffs and islands, and this tour was only $20 for the whole day, and it included lunch and all of the activities and the excursions and hotel pickups, and so really good value getting out onto the water and seeing some of this epic scenery in Lanha Bay. So, yeah, anyways, there's a chance I might try to get on another boat tomorrow and try to check out some more of the fishing villages that we went through earlier in town and get a little bit more of a look into the fishing villages and some of the fishing industry here. Good afternoon, guys. It is our third and final day here on Capba Island, and yesterday we went out on a boat and we cruised all through Lanha Bay, did a southern portion of Halong Bay, did some swim spots, and right at the beginning of our tour yesterday, right out of the harbor, you go through all of these fishing villages, and I saw them from the drone the first night, and the aerial perspective of all of these fishing farms and nets that are out in this bay were just beautiful. So I want to go back to the harbor this afternoon and see if I can get a little, like, fishing boat or someone to take me out and inspect these fishing villages a little bit more and just see what life is like and how, like, the farming and the fish hatcheries work out in these harbors here. I think that'd be really cool. So let's head down to the harbor and see if we can get a boat out to some of the fishing villages. So I've just come down to the harbor where we launched for our boat trip yesterday, and there's a lot of boat drivers that you can negotiate some prices with, but it'll be about 20 bucks to take a boat out for about an hour, hour and a half. Check out some of the floating markets, check out some of the fishing villages, but right here from the harbor, there's a couple of these little fishing farms that you can just walk out to straight from the mainland. So while we're waiting for some of my friends to show up, let's just walk around and check out a little bit of the fishing industry here. Cool to see one of the little fishing farms right here, and again, if you just want a glimpse of one, there are a few that are accessible just from the harbor here, but I'm pretty excited to get out on a boat and see a little bit more of the life and the villages out on these little floating fishing villages, and I think there's a floating market that we're going to check out. So yeah, let's head to the harbor here. We're going to jump on the boat soon, and we're going to start a little tour around some of the fishing villages. So let's go check it out. It's so amazing that people live out here, and then they have these little fishing farms and nets right in front of their houses. And again, we're just surrounded by these limestone cliffs, so you just get these dramatic landscapes and the local village life. So yeah, let's float through here, and I think we'll be stopping at a fish farm to see them up close. So we've just been cruising around the fishing village here, and it's just really beautiful. We have this misty rain coming through, and then just all of these bright red flags and all of these fishing ships, and we've stopped here at one of the little fishing farms, and And you can see some of the fish here, you can see some squid, and all these boats here. So it's really cool to come out here and see a little bit of how the fish harvesting works on these floating villages out here. Come out here onto one of the little fishing farms that they have here, and you can see them, some of the fish trapped in some of the nets. We saw some guy pull out a squid from here. And then this one has a little bit of a restaurant area where they can cook you some fresh seafood. But we're going to head back on the boat, go on a little bit more of a cruise through the villages here, and then head back to the harbor. We have just gotten back to the harbor, and that was just about an hour, hour and 15 minutes or so. And we just kind of went around a lot of the Caibo fishing village, and most of the tour we were just floating by. But as you were going by, you could see a little bit of the life on some of these little villages, these fishing farms, and then most of the fishing farms have a little house that's attached to it. So it was just really interesting to see the village life on these floating villages out here in Lanha Bay, and just really fascinating to see. And a really cool supplement to yesterday's Lanha Bay tour, where yesterday was a little bit more touristy, and it was a beautiful trip through the harbor. We started through the fishing village, but just cruised right by it, whereas today we got a little bit more of an in-depth look at this fishing village of about 1,200 people, and then stopping at one of the fishing farms just to see how the fish are contained in the nets, and a little bit of the life there. Just really interesting to see that. And then the weather too. Yesterday we just had this beautiful, sunny, blue sky day, and then today we just have these moody, misty mountains rolling through. It just gave it such a different look and feel, and I just love being out on the water here with this dramatic landscape. So yeah, so that's a couple days that you could have on Cat Ba Island here, and originally we were thinking about doing one day in Cat Ba and one day in Halong Bay, but after doing the tour yesterday, it felt that was what I expected Halong Bay to be, was just going through these amazing limestone cliffs and this beautiful coastal bay region. So after that, I don't think we need to do Halong Bay, because we really got that. And then here in Cat Ba, it's a little bit more laid back, a little less touristy, and then just the cultural aspect of the fishing village here really pushes this one to the top for me between the two options. And that about wraps up my northern Vietnam tour of Hanoi, Sapa, Ninh Binh, and Cat Ba Island. And in two days, I'm off to Hong Kong. We're going to be continuing our Asia tour here in Hong Kong, then going up to China, and those are some of the places I am most excited to show you guys here in Asia. So stay tuned for the next couple episodes where I take you to Hong Kong and then up into China, because I'm excited to experience that and show you guys along the way. So yep, see you guys next time.