By far the best of this trip.
I had my first 'freedom' experience, driving for hours on my rented Yamaha Nuevo (or something) on empty roads surrounded by non-stop amazing scenery (and on my motorbike day had the best weather of the 4 days I have spent there: no rain and about 17C).
Main activity of the day (besides contributing to the global CO2 content): drive to Cat Ba national park and climb to the viewpoint (ehm, 225m is still enough to transform me into a walking shower). Great, felt it was just me, myself and I hiking in the forest, excellent... Obviously I had no maps nor directions on how to get there so let's follow the nose when the first trail junction pops up, and then once more at the 2nd, 3rd... Needless to say, hopelessly lost after 1 hour...Well, finding my way back down to the entrance of the park was not the issue but my mind was set on this viewpoint. And then, out of nowhere a flock of 30 tour-tourists + guide coming from Halong Bay appear out of nowhere. Great, tag along to the 'summit', wait until they are gone and the 'mountain' is again mine and mine alone. So after enjoying 15' of private viewpointness I went back as well, to see the flock sitting at the most expensive joint (just at the start of the trail)... Nope, I am free so I will go for coffee at the entrance of the park where my bike is parked. Could not help myself, I waited until most of the flock was back in the tourbus to roar my Yamaha and speed off, just in front of them.
Anyway, the park is in the middle of the island so might as well go all the way to the other side...Not much to see there but on the way back an old guy walking on the side of the road made some gestures to stop. And before I realized it he jumped on the back wanting a lift to the nearby village. I was a real Xe om for 10 minutes.
The day after did the 'mandatory' boat tour for the karst landscape (similar scenery as on the island but the 'mountains' appear as thousands of little islands) to Lan Ha bay. This is basically the same thing the flock was doing, they just leave from Halong Bay. The nice thing is there were only 6 (including me) tourists on the boat, not 30+ as the ones booked via a tour in Hanoi or something. And of these 6, 2 Canadians I have met before in Hoi An and Dong Hoi... the world is small
And besides a great motorbike day + ok-tour-day I enjoyed genuine home cooking for the first time in Vietnam..made by the people of my hostel. Home cooking is not the same as the standard food served on street stalls and restaurants (and this is especially true for Cat Ba where food in general is way too tourist oriented). The guy of my hostel was so thrilled I helped him with a computer problem the night before he invited me for lunch (mind you, they have a menu for their guests)...best fish I have ever had, so much better than the $6 tuna I had the day before in a restaurant. I actually stayed one day more than anticipated, just because the people of this place were so sweet.
I had my first 'freedom' experience, driving for hours on my rented Yamaha Nuevo (or something) on empty roads surrounded by non-stop amazing scenery (and on my motorbike day had the best weather of the 4 days I have spent there: no rain and about 17C).
Main activity of the day (besides contributing to the global CO2 content): drive to Cat Ba national park and climb to the viewpoint (ehm, 225m is still enough to transform me into a walking shower). Great, felt it was just me, myself and I hiking in the forest, excellent... Obviously I had no maps nor directions on how to get there so let's follow the nose when the first trail junction pops up, and then once more at the 2nd, 3rd... Needless to say, hopelessly lost after 1 hour...Well, finding my way back down to the entrance of the park was not the issue but my mind was set on this viewpoint. And then, out of nowhere a flock of 30 tour-tourists + guide coming from Halong Bay appear out of nowhere. Great, tag along to the 'summit', wait until they are gone and the 'mountain' is again mine and mine alone. So after enjoying 15' of private viewpointness I went back as well, to see the flock sitting at the most expensive joint (just at the start of the trail)... Nope, I am free so I will go for coffee at the entrance of the park where my bike is parked. Could not help myself, I waited until most of the flock was back in the tourbus to roar my Yamaha and speed off, just in front of them.
Anyway, the park is in the middle of the island so might as well go all the way to the other side...Not much to see there but on the way back an old guy walking on the side of the road made some gestures to stop. And before I realized it he jumped on the back wanting a lift to the nearby village. I was a real Xe om for 10 minutes.
The day after did the 'mandatory' boat tour for the karst landscape (similar scenery as on the island but the 'mountains' appear as thousands of little islands) to Lan Ha bay. This is basically the same thing the flock was doing, they just leave from Halong Bay. The nice thing is there were only 6 (including me) tourists on the boat, not 30+ as the ones booked via a tour in Hanoi or something. And of these 6, 2 Canadians I have met before in Hoi An and Dong Hoi... the world is small
And besides a great motorbike day + ok-tour-day I enjoyed genuine home cooking for the first time in Vietnam..made by the people of my hostel. Home cooking is not the same as the standard food served on street stalls and restaurants (and this is especially true for Cat Ba where food in general is way too tourist oriented). The guy of my hostel was so thrilled I helped him with a computer problem the night before he invited me for lunch (mind you, they have a menu for their guests)...best fish I have ever had, so much better than the $6 tuna I had the day before in a restaurant. I actually stayed one day more than anticipated, just because the people of this place were so sweet.
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