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It’s the weekend again and here I am again… 😀 Was trying not to ask but I’ll ask.
Let’s say I am on Cat Ba island and I want to visit the Viet Hai village and a floating village, seems like Cai Beo is most famous.
Let’s say I want to do this independently, not on a tour – I can resort to the tour if I don’t find another suitable option.
1) Would I find someone to hire for the day to boat me and Travel Companion to both places? Do I ask the hotel or do I just turn up at the waterfront? How much would this cost, roughly?
2) This link https://authentiktravel.com/two-must-see-fishing-villages-on-cat-ba-island
seems to suggest I can manage both pretty independently.
For Cai Beo, several websites say that I can take a taxi to the right port (?) and take a boat. But how do I take a boat? Are they there waiting to be hired?
Same for Viet Hai. Do I go to the port and get a guy to take me to the other side? And same on the way back? Or needs pre-arranging?
I have read that there is a public boat but only a couple of times a day so seems inconvenient although it would be great.
I also learnt from another thread here that the trek through the national park is not what I want to do, so that option has been discarded already 🙂
Ideally, I’d do both on the same day but still have enough flexibility on the itinerary to do it differently.
——-
Once I am there, do I just hang out, stroll around? (boat around if the village floats?). I mean, that is pretty much my favourite thing to do in the world, but wondered if there is anything in particular to do other than enjoy the amazingness of being right there, right then.
Also, is it okay to go there and be a nosey tourist, or does it offend the local people in some way? Is there overtourism? Or are they okay and perhaps make a living out of it? (i read in some places that you might be able to buy drinks etc., and maybe there is a small fee at Viet Hai? Or am I confusing it with some other place).
Edited: 2 years ago
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It’s the weekend again and here I am again… 😀 Was trying not to ask but I’ll ask.
Let’s say I am on Cat Ba island and I want to visit the Viet Hai village and a floating village, seems like Cai Beo is most famous.
Let’s say I want to do this independently, not on a tour – I can resort to the tour if I don’t find another suitable option.
1) Would I find someone to hire for the day to boat me and Travel Companion to both places? Do I ask the hotel or do I just turn up at the waterfront? How much would this cost, roughly?
2) This link https://authentiktravel.com/two-must-see-fishing-villages-on-cat-ba-island
seems to suggest I can manage both pretty independently.
For Cai Beo, several websites say that I can take a taxi to the right port (?) and take a boat. But how do I take a boat? Are they there waiting to be hired?
Same for Viet Hai. Do I go to the port and get a guy to take me to the other side? And same on the way back? Or needs pre-arranging?
I have read that there is a public boat but only a couple of times a day so seems inconvenient although it would be great.
I also learnt from another thread here that the trek through the national park is not what I want to do, so that option has been discarded already 🙂
Ideally, I’d do both on the same day but still have enough flexibility on the itinerary to do it differently.
——-
Once I am there, do I just hang out, stroll around? (boat around if the village floats?). I mean, that is pretty much my favourite thing to do in the world, but wondered if there is anything in particular to do other than enjoy the amazingness of being right there, right then.
Also, is it okay to go there and be a nosey tourist, or does it offend the local people in some way? Is there overtourism? Or are they okay and perhaps make a living out of it? (i read in some places that you might be able to buy drinks etc., and maybe there is a small fee at Viet Hai? Or am I confusing it with some other place).
Edited: 2 years ago
I Am Back! 😀
And of course you all want to know if/how it worked out, and hopefully someone with my same question in the future will find my experience useful.
We took the public boat to Viet Hai. 11am, cost 50k each. A few more tourists on it. Scenery so amazing I want to cry from joy thinking back about it.
We hired bikes at the arrival port, as expected it was easy. Also 50k each if I recall.
We had asked our hotel what to do for the way back, the girl said usually there is someone willing to take you back, and if for some reason there wasn’t, we’d contact her and she’d send help (though we then found out that our mobile phones had no reception in the port area, or anywhere that wasn’t the village, so we considered whether to just alert her from the town or take a chance. We took a chance).
It was about 3:30pm when we got back to the port, the guy who took back our bikes asked about going back to Cat Ba (town). 300k for two people, this felt right (the girl at the hotel said we could expect to pay between 250k and 400k so I also had a range, should I need to negotiate. Oh btw on the way to the public ferry in the morning, a lady quoted us 700k and I also think she said one way, though my partner didn’t hear that, anyway I was not interested when the public ferry was there in front of me).
Here comes the fun part: they actually put us on a tour boat :)) One of the tours that takes tourists to see many spots, including the Viet Hai village. Obviously everybody involved in the transaction was in with it. I didn’t mind, as long as I would make it back. There was another couple who also go there at the same time as us, and was put on the same boat.
We had to wait for the tour people to come back, as the boat had just come when we had the transaction above, but I didn’t really mind – there are worse places to sit around, and we didn’t have big plans for the rest of the day. The tour boat also stopped by Monkey Island for sunset so I feel I even got an extra small trip included as a perk.
So I can say it went splendidly!
Both the ferry and the tour boat passed by a floating village as it is very near the ferry port near Cat Ba town. So I also saw one of these (I guess it is Cai Beo, also based on google maps).
In Viet Hai itself, we didn’t do much – the bike ride to it was the star of the day. We had food in a place that we found shockingly overpriced and shockingly boring (I shall spend the next days ranting on this forum about how we couldn’t easily find food in the whole Cat Ba that was not geared to tourists, with the assumptions that said tourists only want flavourless fried rice/noodles). We wanted to go up to the viewpoint on a hill but didn’t have a lot of time not wanting to get back to the port too close to darkness + we really are not hikers and we found it challenging so we turned back.
But the ferry/boat rides and the bike rides were priceless experiences, so we have a great memory of that day.
^ Nice!
I stand corrected
@TKCSA,
There are other places where you can spend the night at a floating villages: The Tam Giang Lagoon just outside of Huế and the Thị Tường Lagoon in Cà Mau, for example.
Cheers,
John
Edited: 2 years ago
I’m afraid I can’t be of much further help on costs, because boat transfers were organised by my host and instead of taking a tour or hiring a boat, we instead used the on-site kayak to paddle ourselves around the fishing village and local karsts – but the fact that was even an option… 😀
But I will say, if it’s in budget then for the type of travel it seems like you want to do, I would strongly recommend the place I stayed, which as far as I can find, is the only place in the entirety of Vietnam where you can actually stay IN a floating fishing village: https://www.booking.com/hotel/vn/lan-ha-floating-homestay.en-gb.html
It’s more expensive than the lower-end ‘mainland’ accommodation, but cheaper than the 5-star luxury hotels, Rooms themselves probably rate 2-3 star, but the location absolutely cannot be beaten, and assuming all rooms are at maximum occupancy there will be a grand total of six people there (my main advice to the host would be to assume that people choosing that kind of stay will want to eat like locals – I had to specifically ask for Nước chấm and chilli sauce at dinner).
As far as overtourism goes, the only tourists we saw were very few indeed and were making a pit stop on their way out to boat tours in the larger bay itself – around Làng Chài village and surrounds itself, basically none. During our 2 – 5pm kayak around the area, we didn’t see a single one, just locals setting out their nets, etc. But I’m 100% positive that there were tons only a kilometre or two away out in the bay. ‘Monkey island’ was theoretically close enough for us to paddle to, except we (rightly) weren’t allowed to go past the main boat traffic lanes.
Hi!
The easiest way to visit the floating village is just by heading down to the harbor. There are loads of locals that want to take you out for a few hours. If you don’t find anyone, just talk to the staff in one of the many floating restaurants there. They will help you out. The floating village is pretty close by, so they would probably want to take you out further. I have made a clip about Cat Ba so you can get a feeling for what it is like at the fishing village. Enjoy the trip!
https://youtu.be/6UR9drzGD6k
Thanks @TKCSA.
2,000,000 VDN is not totally crazy. I wouldn’t spend that alone but with two of us it’s already more doable.
I will figure out if that is what works for me or the tour works.
@John don’t give me ideas… 😉 I am okay with google translate through experience in Vietnam and Thailand. I don’t have that kind of outgoing personality but sometimes I push it because I really really want something and the only way is to ask. It is partly why I do solo travel – have to push myself out of the comfort zone. Well not solo this time but my partner is not that kind of person so it will be on me (also he is a native English speaker and I am not, and I have learnt a few other languages so I have vast experience in trying to make myself understood somehow. I also have experience in giving up :D)
Hi ya, did you come to Cat Ba? Can I help you?
This excerpt from a message from my host may assist in planning:
“For the boat trip, you have the option to join a daily boat tour, which departs at 8:00 AM and returns at 5:00 PM. The cost for this tour is 650,000 VND per person. Alternatively, you can hire a private basket boat for approximately 5 hours at a cost of 2,000,000 VND for the entire boat.”
Now, this is Vietnam, so those prices (especially the latter) may be negotiable.
If your budget is healthy, sure; you can hire a private boat or even a cano or a yatch. 😁
Otherwise, in the low season, you often have to wait so that they can have a certain number of people.
Some groups would have pre-book a boat for themselves.
If your google translate skill is good, along with matching personality, you can approach these groups to ask to join them.
Test your luck. 😀
You might even make some new friends.
Cheers,
John