At around 8 a.m. it was time to catch my open tour bus to Cat Ba Island traveling through the Halong Bay. I choose to organize my trip to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island myself, based on an article I read at Travelfish and decided against those pre-organized 2-3 day cruises on the Halong Bay. If you’re still deciding on how to experience the Halong Bay and how to pick the right cruise, be sure to read this article entitled “How to pick the right Ha Long Bay cruise” at Travelfish.org. I choose the “Doing Ha Long Bay on your own — well worth the effort” option and was very happy with my decision, because I don’t like traveling with other tourists that much. Keep in mind though, that once in a while it’s just necessary to book a tour with other tourist in order to meet great people with whom you can then hook up with and travel along side. And if you’re lucky, these companions can sometime s make the whole trip worth it.
I’m not saying that a pre-organized 2-3 day cruises on the Halong Bay is a bad thing, as there are some very good companies organizing these cruises. It just ultimately comes down to a few questions you should ask yourself beforehand.
- What type of traveler am I? (Am I an independent traveler or do I like traveling with other people?)
- What do I want to experience on this trip?
- Do I want or need a tour guide to show me sights worth visiting?
- How much time do I have for this trip?
Getting back to the bus tour, that was an experience in itself. First of all, it wasn’t really a bus. It was more a minivan in which the tour guide filled every last seat and stashing the our big backpacks in the front. We were literally sardines in a can – and that for 4 hours. I don’t need to mention that I was glad when we all finally arrived at the Halong city to get on a boot to take us to Cat Ba Island. Before heading to Cat Ba Island we stopped at a limestone cave that was very touristy in my opinion. But on most boots traveling on the Halong Bay or to Cat Ba Island you can’t choose where these boots stop.
Just shortly before arriving at Cat Ba Island, our boat got stuck in the shallow waters on the Bay. We had to wait a while for another boat to take us to the Island, because ramming our boat wasn’t successful. Arriving at the pier, we to a bus to Cat Ba city where I booked a hotel for the night.
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