As the sun rises, we are finishing our breakfast on Cat Ba island - omelettes served with a fresh baguette on the side and strong black filtered coffee. Our hotel on the harbour front grants us views of the limestone karsts emerging in the horizon. Fishing boats are just sailing out - round coracles with flat bottoms made of bamboo and the carvel style junk boats which are usually used to ferry around tourists making a short trip of Halong Bay.
We opted to do something different with the famed Halong Bay - which was to linger longer than the standard dash-in-and-out tours arranged in Hanoi but the cost of cruising around on a boat for more than 24 hours was substantially higher than our £30 a day budget. Like most backpackers and tourists, we conferred to the same old cliche - wanting to find ourselves 'off the beaten path'. We also grappled with the mixed reviews of Halong Bay - the scams, constant traffic of likeminded others and the environmental problems - pollution of the waters from the rubbish thrown out at sea. And so we faced the other direction - towards the smaller and lesser frequented sibling - Lan Ha Bay. We stayed for four days, under budget, on the largest of 366 islands in the archipelago - Cat Ba island.
Cat Ba means 'Sandy Women' - and the tale goes that three women of the Tran Dynasty were killed with each of the bodies washing up on three different beaches. Fishermen built temples on each beach in honour of them and so is how the island thus became named. It is preserved by UNESCO, largely for the national park that protects one of the most endangered primate species in the world - the langur monkeys. There are only 68 left in the world and all of them reside here with us on Cat Ba.
The town itself is not pretty, captivating, bustling but its lack of pretence holds a charm in itself. The locals do not overexert themselves in plying for trade, the buildings are hacked and modern. There is a plentitude of beauty to be admired about the island but it is not thrown in your face. A quiet place, to come and go as one pleases, enjoy what one will - just what we needed and glorious warm weather after the constant chill of Sapa.
We hired a motorbike (that I am alive and kicking, Mum, should reassure you that Alex can handle one pretty well) and explored every road on the island. Butterflies float everywhere and in all colours, goats with bells round their necks skirt nervously past, a rocky path takes us between mangrove trees hovering just above the sea level. A smell of pine as we dip beneath trees, a bend of awesome valleys and limestone cliffs around every corner. Holding on to the man I love as the wind rushes through and everywhere.
Cat Ba Island is also steeped in a little history, heavily influenced by both the French Indochina and Vietnam Wars. As a bombing hotspot, there are caves dug into hills that acted as hideouts for the locals and for the Viet Cong soldiers stationed here. We stopped by the Hospital Cave, used all the way up to 1975 - reaching it by climbing a steep ladder made of bamboo and welcomed by large cavernous spaces. Rooms have been carved into the rocks and I was entertained by its echoed recantation of my singing the Who, much to the puzzlement of a couple of German tourists who were also having a look around.
Cannon Fort - a strategic look out point with bunkers and yes, cannons, was where we watched the sunset. This granted us a panorama of the karsts around us and with use of binoculars, a giggle at a few fat nudists on beaches miles away.
The unmissable part of visiting this part of Vietnam is, of course, going out on the water and seeing the limestone karsts up close. With Asia Outdoors, for £16 each, we booked a day's kayaking trip. A pickup by minibus and a motley crew of tourists, mostly ignoring one another, climbed on the boat at the harbour and onto the upper deck to lounge on cushions as the boat weaved around hundreds of little islands dotting Lan Ha Bay.
Around one corner, we were greeted with the sight of floating fishing villages, one of which held the kayaks we were to use. Half of the group separated to go 'deep water soloing' - the term describing one who rock climbs as high as they can go and then, being able to go no further, throwing themselves into the sea. This had looked like fun, but we were being frugal, happy to enjoy ourselves at lower levels.
Alex and I, being as competitive as we are and not at all sportsmanlike (with each other), did not make an agreeable coxless pair on the tandem kayak. This is especially as I, without my hearing aids, had opted to go up front at first and was unable to have any two-way conversation for all of three hours. Grumpy and inhospitable to his attempts to steer, we made way through tunnels, caves and explored lagoons in a dogged effort at a straight line weaving through the water. The American guide with the big beard laboriously showed us how to climb in and out of the kayaks safely in order to swim in the lagoon and Alex managed to capsize it. Twice. He takes the prize for being the only one to do it unaided, but as he says "if you aren't capsizing you aren't trying hard enough." It was slow working back to the boat, with a kayak mostly submerged in water.
After lunch, the groups reversed except for us, choosing to stay on the kayaks. This meant that I was granted with the company of tall, toned and topless men from Bulgaria, Australia, Canada, Italy. And one fat American. Oh, and Alex.
The kayaking was more successful this time around, with my black mood having dissipated and with our tandem now much more in sync with me at the back. We all stilled to watch monkeys chattering on a cliff, rattling trees to send down a scatter of leaves from hundreds of metres high. We climbed out of our kayaks to wade through 'Spider Forest' (thankfully we did not see any) and to climb through sea grass back around the other side to our kayaks. By the time the sun was getting mellow, we were diving off the boat and clunking beers with our newfound friends on the upper deck.
