Cat Ba Island, Vietnam — The Nomadic Year

If up till now it has been hotter than hell, and in all this time I’ve been mostly locked in my room ~~working on a new project~~ playing Minecraft (because working on a Tourist Visa is illegal), now that I finally left the room for a 5 days exploration, it rains and temperatures dropped down to 17 degrees Celsius. All I have brought with me is 2 t-shirts, bathing shorts and a really thin raincoat. And whisky. So I’m all geared up for the winter.

The plan is simple: 2 nights on Cat Ba Island and 2-3 nights in Ha Long Bay.

Getting there.

The quickest and cheapest transportation way that I found from Hai Phong to Cat Ba town is using boats, boats, boats.
More precisely, you can take a hydrofoil boat (speed boat) from Ben Binh pier, costing around 180.000 VND, and arrive in Cat Ba town in about 50 minutes.
Apparently these speed boats can be dangerous. Due to the high speeds that these hydrofoil boats can reach, a lot of maritime accidents have occurred in past, few of them with casualties.
The canal seems empty, so I fear not and I embark the speed boat.

—

Hydrofoil Speed Boat from Hai Phong to Cat Ba Island — — the Hydrofoil Speed Boat :))

Cat Ba Town

50 minutes later, Cat Ba Town comes into view.

Cat Ba town's port — — Cat Ba town’s port

Cat Ba town's wharf — — Cat Ba town’s wharf

More photos around Cat Bat town here.

Accommodation

I’ve booked 2 nights at Full Moon Party Hotel, which costed me 14 USD (60 RON = 316.000 VND) per night. I was offered a room at third floor, with private bathroom, and with view to the port, which was not bad at all.

— Sea Room View in Full Moon Party Hotel.

Both the room and bathroom were clean. And the view was pretty nice.
The only unsavory thing that I found about this place is that fucking condom hanging by the hand railing on the balcony! Have you missed it in the photo above? Please, let me highlight it for you below:

You don’t wanna know how I actually discovered it. Gross. Anyways…

All in all, I was happy with this hotel. Not as “happy” as the guys from the upper floor, but still. I recommend.

EDIT: I later discovered this feature of my room:

Pretty “sexy”. And the hotel’s name is “Full Moon Party“. Random condoms hanging around. Uhmm… I think there’s more to this hotel than it meets the eye.