Well, after all that rain in the center we began to accelerate towards the north and we had a crazy day. Leaving Hue we had 12 hours of night bus to arrive in Ninh Binh in order to visit the beautiful Tam Coc Cave. We did 18km by bike and 2-hour boat. Tam Coc is like Halong Bay, but on earth, with its river passing through the huge rocks surrounded by greenery. Super beautiful!

After visiting the cave we continued our long journey of the day. We caught a local bus on the main street, which theoretically would go where we wanted, and after three hours of travel we were dropped 10 km from our destination. But no worries, just there we found another bus that left us in Haiphong and then we took a taxi to go to the port. To get to where we wanted we still did 1 hour by bus + 30 min by fast boat + 30 min by bus … And finally we arrived on the island of Cat Ba. At 7 pm, after 26 hours of our departure from Hue, we could finally take a shower and rest.

Our goal on getting there was just to be able to do a tour on Ha Long Bay without being in one of those big boats full of tourists. And it was worth all the effort! After 2 days of rest and a motorcycle ride around the island we got a boat with just an English couple, super nice by the way. We spent two days sailing the parts less touristy of the bay, we kayak through caves to get to hidden lagoons, had stunning views of the entire bay, visited a cave and spent a night of pure peace next to a floating fishing village seeing the incredible rocks iluminated by the moonlight throughout the night. Simply sensational! That was the highlight of Vietnam and we did exactly as we wanted.