After having breakfast at the hotel, we rented a motor bike for $5 from the hotel itself to explore Catba island. It’s possible to take a day/ night cruise from Catba, but since we didn’t have that much time, we decided on exploring the island itself. We literally covered whole of Catba on the motorbike. Riding motorbike at > 60kmph on well maintained roads with hardly any traffic – a dream come true for anyone who has endured traffic in Bangalore.
We came back to hotel, checked out, kept our luggage at the security. We continued to explore the island, this time in the other direction. We drove until the end of the road. Excellent roads, some places were scarcely inhabited with forests on both sides and no gps.
Next we took the entry pass to Catba national park. The cost includes for Trung Trang cave also which is 1 km apart from here and has a separate entrance. The trek is around 1 hour, intense trek up the forest to see the entire island from above.
It was around 3.10 pm by the time we were out of the cave. There was 1 more cave left but we had to catch the bus at 3.30 pm. There are limited buses leaving the island and at 3.30 pm, the last bus leaves. To add, we didn’t get any time for a lunch, just an icecream down the trek.
Our return was slightly different, it included 2 buses and 1 speedboat. So catba hotel to harbour, we were on bus 1. Then we carried out luggage onto a speedboat. On the other side, there was bus 2 which would take us to Hanoi.
At one of the stops, we grabbed a bite to eat. Bus 2 played Mr Bean throughout. We passed Haiphong on the way, a well developed city with lots of business buildings. It rained for a while.
We reached Hanoi at around 7 pm. We were the first to be dropped. We checked into the same Hanoi Boutique hotel who remembered us. We went out to have dinner at Xoi Yen restaurant, an affordable authentic place.
On the way back, we sat near the red bridge and did a video for a child’s assignment on women empowerment.