Cat Ba Island

So I’m back with another entry and one step closer to finally finishing this blog. Just a forewarning – this post has a LOT OF PICTURES! Writing this entry made me realise just how brilliant the last 5 weeks of my trip was – as some of my favourite parts of my entire time away are coming up in the next few blog posts. I absolutely cannot wait to go back to this part of the world again in a couple of months time, and relieve some of the things I did once again…

Anyway, after a whirlwind few days in Hanoi with some great people I departed the city early in the morning, bound for Cat Ba Island. I’d chosen to visit Cat Ba for a number of reasons. Firstly, a visit to UNESCO World Heritage Site Ha Long Bay is an absolute must of any trip to Northern Vietnam – and Cat Ba Island is the largest island in the bay, making it a great base to explore Ha Long and the neighbouring (and less visited) Lan Ha bays. Secondly, the Island has a huge national park and hundreds of acres of jungle to explore. Lastly, at this point in my trip I felt like getting away from the chaos of South-East Asian towns and cities for a little while – Cat Ba Island just has one small town on it making it a great place to relax for a while.

So, I paid my 210,000VND (about £7) and hopped on a stylish coach from Hanoi to the coastal city of Hai Phong (seriously, the intercity buses in Asia are so much nicer than what we deal with in the UK). I slept for most of the journey and before long we pulled off the main road and headed for the port. The bus journey became a little more interesting when we took another turn and went down an unbelievably bumpy dirt track – offroading in a 60 seater coach, interesting! Thankfully for my spine it was quite a short track and we reached a little jetty where we all crammed on a small ferry to the island.

The boat that took us to the island. It went so fast and kicked up so much spray that sitting near a window meant you’d get absolutely soaked…

The boat journey was pretty unremarkable but soon the mountains of Cat Ba loomed above us, and we docked at some flatlands to the North West, where another coach was waiting to take us the remaining 40mins across the island to Cat Ba Town. As I was exhausted, I didn’t really take much in, so just wandered up a couple of streets until I found my hostel, checked in, and then crashed out for a few hours. That afternoon I set out for a stroll to have a look at the three beaches accessible from the main town – all were horrible, and absolutely rammed. Cat Ba is not famed for the town’s beaches, and for good reason.

A view of the town on the cloudy day I arrived. Not the most photogenic coastal town I’ve seen! Note the floating restaurant in the foreground.

I quickly realised that the town is pretty miserable on the whole – it’s just a functioning cluster of streets all designed with tourism in mind – Cat Ba Island is a massively popular destination for the Vietnamese and Chinese. Still, I had a really enjoyable evening regardless, heading out for some drinks with a couple of people from the dorm, ending up in a karaoke bar until 2am where our company had swelled from three of us to about 20!

Good times in the Karaoke bar

The next day though I woke and headed out on an all-day boat trip around Lan Ha and Ha Long bay. It was absolutely magnificent. We sailed past floating villages, kayaked into lagoons and through caves in the limestone rock faces, ate fresh fish caught that morning by the crew for lunch and all the while were surrounded by one of the most beautiful landscapes in the entire world. The pictures I took don’t come close to doing the place justice – for a better example of what it’s really like just google ‘Ha Long Bay’ and take a look. Anyway, here’s a few I took anyway:

It was cloudy, but still a nice and humid 35 degrees.

Kayaking – we headed through a cave that went right through the rockface on the right and emerged into a beautiful lagoon.

A bit of sunshine

Moving away from Lan Ha Bay and into Ha Long Bay

One of the many floating villages we passed

One of the highlights was stopping off at Monkey Island, named due to the colony of monkeys living there. Here, we swam to shore from the boat and then I set about climbing to the top of the Island where I had an amazing view over the bay. Sadly I couldn’t take my camera or phone from the boat as we had to swim quite far, but the view was truly incredible and well worth the very sketchy climb up over sharp rocks.

Another highlight of the trip included a great secluded beach that we stopped at, and the day was rounded off by the other people on board – we were a mix of all ages and from all around the world, everyone got on great. I’d recommend Ha Long or Lan Ha bay to anyone, it really is absolutely stunning.

Back at the hostel that night I got talking to Aleks, a girl sharing the same dorm as me. We got dinner at a great vegetarian restaurant – ‘Buddha Belly’ – which was probably the best food I had on the island (no surprises that we went back the following three nights, it was that good). The food on Cat Ba is pretty poor (bar the fish) so finding a decent restaurant  was good news.

I woke up early the next day and took a bit of a risk by hiring a motorbike for the day to explore the island properly. It’s astonishingly cheap – just $4 a day to hire, plus about $1.50 in fuel. Having never ridden one before, it was pretty nerve-wracking getting on for the first time and figuring out how to ride the thing. The guy pointed out the throttle, brake and ignition, then disappeared back into the shop and left me to my own devices. Unfortunately, the rental place was situated at the top of a hill so my only option was to point downwards and try to figure it out as I went down the hill. It was a lot ‘heavier’ than I expected (nothing like the motorised bicycle I’d basically been hoping for), so steering was very sketchy at first and I was so scared to use the throttle that the engine cut out halfway down the hill and I had to start it again while going along. Turning the corner at the bottom was a bit sketchy too, but I made it fine and then worked out how to use the throttle.

My bike!

After that, it was honestly fine – incredibly easy to ride and really, really good fun. There wasn’t too much traffic on the island so that wasn’t an issue and the road rules were really easy to get the hang of – basically use the horn every 10 s and follow what everyone else does! I filled up with fuel and then set out to explore the rest of the island, which is basically uninhabited, incredibly peaceful and unbelievably beautiful.

It really looks like you’re in Jurassic Park for most of the time. Everywhere is covered by a dense jungle with peaks towering above you, the road winds in and out and around every corner lies a view that seems to improve upon the last:

I rode for hours, right to the north of the island where the road enters Ha Long Bay and then just……. stops…..

I rode to the west, where the flatlands stretched out with their mangroves and rice paddies…

I went off road, past quarry’s and along the cow-filled coast road….

And rode right up to the Cannon Fort, a Japanese WWII base with astonishing panoramic views over the southern part of the island……

It really was one of the best days of my trip. The sun was shining, I had the breeze rushing past me and keeping me cool; it was great. That night I met up with Aleks again, we got on really well and decided to rent a bike again the next day so we could both go and explore. It was really interesting hearing how she’d been living and studying at Uni in China, Ghana and NY over the past couple of years, I was pretty jealous.

The next day was more of the same, but it was even more fun exploring with a friend riding pillion on the back. We visited the same spots I’d been to the day before, then checked out the incredible ‘Hospital Caves’ – an amazing construction from the American War, where the Vietnamese built an entire hospital inside a cave, which kept it hidden throughout the conflict.

More like a jail than a hospital!

The entrance to the hospital

We then stopped off at the national park, where an hour long hike took us to the top of Ngu Lam Peak – the views from the top were just ridiculous and we spent a good hour up there, taking them in and soaking up the sun.

Chilling on the edge, our hard work in climbing up providing a just reward

Unbelievable views!

We did have one small mishap when we took a wrong turning and were met by an incredibly aggressive guard dog. With thoughts of rabies flashing through our minds we tried to turn the bike around before it bit one of us, but in our panic toppled it. The dust it created made the dog back off long enough for us to get the bike upright, climb back on and drive off, but when it fell over the exhaust pipe had landed on my leg and burned it very badly, leaving a scar which I still have now, 9 months on. Aleks was completely unhurt luckily, and once we’d escaped we enjoyed the drive back into town. Bloody dogs!

That evening, we had another great meal at Buddha Belly and a few drinks at the seafront – one of the nicer spots of the town, with a great sunset view over the mass of floating restaurants and fishing boats that cluster around the town. I was staying in a different hostel that night and leaving the next day, so it was a little sad saying our goodbyes – you meet so many people when backpacking and make so many new friends, so saying goodbye to them so quickly is always pretty hard. Over the course of my trip I made hundreds of friends but probably 4 or 5 really good ones who I’ve stayed in touch with – Aleks was one so hopefully we’ll meet again.

Leaving Cat Ba the next morning, I returned to Hanoi for another night or two via the same bus-boat-bus combo that had taken me there. In Hanoi, I spent the days chilling and wandering the streets with people from the hostel, sampling the street food and sifting through the market stalls. It was another great few days in one of my favourite cities, but before long I was on the road again, headed for the mountain township of Sapa and the might Mount Fansipan, Indochina’s tallest mountain….

Good times in New Zealand

My flights (all 3 of them!) from LA to Christchurch all passed pretty quickly, featuring some incredible views over Fiji and the mountains of the North Island of NZ. When I landed in Christchurch I was met by my old German exchange partner, Josh (and his friend Paul) who have been out here travelling and working since November. It was so great to catch up with him again – we keep in contact and have met up a few times since the exchange, but it’s slightly more surreal when on the other side of the world!

Wonderful views on the approach to Auckland.

Josh and Paul have travelled both islands of NZ extensively in their campervan, and have now settled down for a few months in Ashburton, a small town an hour or so from Christchurch. They’re working in a factory 4 days a week to save up money, and staying at a really cool place in the countryside. I’ve been staying with them the past two days – it’s an amazing place. The owner, Richie, and his family have 7 or 8 boarders staying at a time. They’re all international travellers who are working in the local area, like Josh and Paul. He kindly agreed to let me stay for a few nights and it’s been a great experience. What’s more is that they also have a tonne of animals; 4 dogs (and 8 or 9 puppies!), 3 horses, a cow, 3 sheep, chickens etc… It’s pretty fun meeting all the incredibly friendly animals whilst enjoying a beer with some great friends, in warm weather, under an incredible sunset. That’s literally been the last two evenings, heaven!

The sky here is spectacular, all the time. That’s Josh & Paul’s campervan on the left!

Today we decided to venture into Christchurch, but our trip hit a major pothole (pardon the pun) as we literally hit a major pothole and punctured one of the tires. After walking around and asking in a couple of garages to no success, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d have to phone a roadside assistance company (at great expense to Josh and Paul, no doubt). On our way back to the van, though, we asked inside one more garage and hit gold. The wonderful, wonderful people there leant us the tools to change the tire and even watched to ensure we changed it correctly, all for free! Even better, they organised another tire at a nearby shop at a great price. They were incredibly helpful and asked only that we pay the favour forward in future. What a great motto to live by!

That got us back on our way and we did make it into the centre of Christchurch to have a stroll round. In truth, it wasn’t great, as the city centre is essentially one massive building site at the moment. A huge number of buildings were levelled or damaged beyond repair in the 2011 earthquake, and so Christchurch is definitely still a city in recovery. Even the cathedral suffered massive damage, losing its tower and several walls, and remains in disrepair. It was sad to see the photos of the amazing buildings that occupied the city centre before the earthquake, only to look outside and see either empty space, or the steel framework of a new building where it once stood. Such a huge amount of damage was sustained from a relatively small earthquake, in a very well developed country. It made me think about how terrible the damage must be in third world countries when an even bigger earthquake hits.

Anything but intact. The skyline behind the cathedral is missing several buildings too, which were destroyed in the earthquake.

In all, what we saw of Christchurch was fairly average. However, I’m sure in 5 years or so it will be unrecognisable from the mess it is at the moment and will look a thousand times nicer. There’s still some nice things to do, such as tour the botanical gardens, museums and malls, and so we’ll be returning tomorrow.

One thing I hadn’t thought about was that it’s the height of summer over here (32 degrees today!) and all the New Zealanders are on their summer holidays. This punched me firmly in the wallet this morning when I tried to book a few hostels for the next few days when I arrive in Queenstown – there was only a single room available in the entire city on hostelworld, and that was £50 a night!! No thank you. Fortunately, I’m hopeful that I’ve solved the issue by booking a hostel in Wanaka, a lakeside town about 1 and a half hours from Queenstown. I say hopeful, as I have a bus booked from Christchurch to Queenstown, and so I’m banking on it stopping in Wanaka for my plan to work. I’ll then stay there overnight before catching a bus down to Queenstown the following day, where I’ve booked a hostel for the 3 nights after that. They’re a little on the pricey side at £18 a night, but it’s really an essential cost and I’m just glad I have places to stay now! With any luck I’ll be saving a lot of money camping later in the month so forking out a little extra now isn’t the end of the world. It’s certainly a lot better than paying £50 for one night! The scenery here in New Zealand has been striking so far, but by the sounds of it far better is yet to come.

Just to touch on the couple of days I had in LA too:

Through the bus system I saw a huge variety of places in the cityx and it really surprised me how it lived up to virtually all of the ‘stereotypes’ you think of when you think of the USA/LA. For example:

– Streets in blocks: The entirety of LA is divided up into blocks. It’s astonishing how long some of the roads are (such as Sunset blvd or Hollywood blvd, both tens of miles long) and how long it takes to drive down them. The roads are so huge compared to the UK; most have 3 or four lanes at minimum on both sides, and yet they’re still full of traffic!

I can’t take credit for this photo, sadly. But you can see how long and straight the roads are!

– Houses: 90% of the suburban houses I saw were bungalows, with just a few multi-million pound houses in Beverly Hills having multiple stories. When I think of America I always imagined it to be full of these bungalows and the reality is almost identical. There’s so much space in LA that these houses are fairly large despite only being one storey.

– Every corner of a block has a few shops, stores etc. There are plenty of ‘mini malls’ too. Shops are pretty much guaranteed to be one of the following:
1. A fast food restaurant
2. A payday loans + cheque cashing shop
3. An auto parts store
4. A fast food restaurant
5. A mini (or massive) supermarket
6. A pharmacy (but not like the ones in the UK – these ones are gigantic).
7. A fast food restaurant – it’s seriously concerning just how many there are. You can’t go more than a few metres without seeing a McDonald’s, BK, Wendy’s, Carl’s Jr, In & Out burger or Los Pollos – where are all the normal restaurants?!?!

Good ol’ In ‘n’ Out Burger

Cultural diversity: the area where I was couchsurfing (Panorama City, in the valley) was one of the most ethnically diverse areas of LA, I believe. There were a huge number of Mexican, Asian and South American people living there, which really influenced the surrounding area – it was noticeable how many more ‘taco restaurants’ there were, as well as signs written in Spanish as well as English etc. it certainly made it an interesting and lively place to visit, and the Mexican food was great!

LA.

As I type this I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Los Angeles LAX airport, waiting to board the first (11h 30, to Fiji) of my 3 connecting flights on the way to NZ. The good news is, I have a window seat, so I should be able to see some of the beautiful Fijian coastline when landing in the morning. The bad news is, I missed out on the extra legroom of an aisle seat as, despite being first in line for check in 3 and a half hours before my flight, I wasn’t allowed to check in. I completely forgot that a flight leaving NZ is required for the airline to let you fly, and so my only option was to book one there and then (stupid oversight on my part, really).

After a massive battle with the shocking airport ‘free wifi’, which turned out to be neither free nor usable, I wasted half an hour or so talking to a booking agent who could do absolutely nothing except quote me ridiculous prices. Eventually I caved in and paid for one of the premium wifi services, only for the ‘free wifi’ to miraculously recover and start working! The next challenge was trying to use Virgin Australia’s booking sight – it was laid out so poorly that the ‘terms and conditions’ button overlapped the ‘continue with booking’ button – and so there was no way for me to actually continue my booking as it just took me to a page listing all the t’s & c’s instead. By this time it was 8:30 and the check in queue had grown massively, so with time a little on the short side I just decided to stump up the extra £3 (rip-off, eh?) for a flight with Air New Zealand instead. All booked, I rejoined the check in queue and finally reached the desk for the second time. I was then asked to show the booking confirmation for the flight I just booked, only for my phone to run out of battery and promptly die in my hand. Minus another 20 minutes as I waited for it to turn on again, and queue for the third and final time for check in, and I finally received my boarding passes. Lesson learnt – although the flight I had to book was actually cheaper than the price I was quoted last week. You’ve got to love the strength of the pound and the downturn in the AUD, I guess.

Anyway, that’s the last few hours. The last few days have been far better!

On Monday Luisa and I planned to visit the Griffith Observatory, hike to the Hollywood sign and see a few other sights such as the walk of fame. However, our plans were doomed when we asked a woman for help determining which bus we should catch only for her to usher us on the one which was going the complete opposite direction. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, free wifi and google maps, we realised our mistake after about half an hour of travelling the wrong way. Despite our best intentions of getting to Central Hollywood for 10:30am, we didn’t make it until 1:30pm due to our mistake. The next issue was that we were supposed to meet up with another couchsurfer, Róbert (who we met at the Korean BBQ), however we were an hour and a half late and he’d already gone off home – not because of us, but because he was sick! (Sorry, Róbert).

Finally, we reached the metro station near to the observatory, only to find out the observatory was closed as it was Martin Luther King day, so no shuttle buses were running. We considered walking the extra hour or so up to the observatory grounds anyway (Griffith park is huge, and houses both the observatory and the Hollywood sign – it’s open every day), but felt a drop of rain so scampered back to the metro. Hiking plans abandoned, we doubled back on ourselves again and took the metro to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here our day improved dramatically – we walked the majority of Hollywood Bvld, saw some really famous buildings such as the Chinese Theatre (where more movie premieres have been held than any other theatre), the walk of fame stars, and the celebrity hand and foot prints. After a few hours we decided to visit Universal Studios, the world famous film production studios. Entry to the theme park was $90, which we were never going to pay, but it was a good experience to walk round the ‘Universal City’ – full of shops, references to films and extravagant buildings.

Monday evening we met up with another Couchsurfer, Pieter, who Joseph had previously hosted. It’s really incredible how many people I’ve met through couchsurfing already!

Today, Luisa and I successfully navigated back to the observatory with not a single wrong turn – success! The observatory has some pretty incredible views over the sprawling mass that makes up LA, as well as good hiking trails to the Hollywood sign. We made it halfway along one such trail, before realising how hungry and out-of-time we were so turned back.

Incredible views of LA and the observatory. 

 

 

We hiked a lot closer, honestly! 

More hours on public transport ensued and we eventually made it across the city to the Santa Monica pier. It’s a pretty touristy place, well worth visiting – stretching out into the Pacific and home to restaurants, a fairground and all sorts of shops. Unfortunately, the English weather has followed me over here with cloud everywhere so we were denied what would have been a beautiful beach sunset. Still, it was easy to see just how amazing Santa Monica beach must be in the blazing heat of summer – it’s possibly the widest beach I’ve ever seen with a great location and loads to do.

 

We met Joseph there and just had time for a quick visit to an In ‘n’ Out Burger (a classic) which just about lived up to my expectations having heard rave reviews. Then it was time to say goodbye – I had a brilliant time surfing at Joseph’s place and it was really insightful into what life is like living in LA – vastly different to the UK!

Somehow this has turned essay length – so I’ll call it a day and write a small follow up post soon. Hope you’re all well in Blighty, and see you in New Zealand!

Finally off!

After months of waiting I finally flew out to Los Angeles yesterday afternoon (January 17th). Naturally there was some last minute passport-related drama which could have been disastrous, but luckily mum discovered it under my bed (?!?) and we breathed a huge sigh of relief!

Take off was delayed for pretty much an hour as the plane had to be de-iced, but we actually made up the time and landed before we were scheduled to in LAX. I managed to fit in 4 films on the way and so the time flew by. Norwegian air really impressed me – although they charged for extras such as meals or reserving a seat their service, entertainment, and most importantly legroom was all really good. For half the price the cost of a ticket with a ‘better’ airline (such as BA or Virgin) it was great value for money and highly recommended 🙂

Customs was a breeze luckily having sorted out my visa exemption online – unfortunately one poor guy wasn’t even allowed to board the flight because his final destination was in Canada which is not allowed under the visa waiver programme – just shows how strict the U.S. is with these kinds of things!

Then I was met by my brilliant couchsurfing host Joseph, who very kindly came and picked me up from the airport along with another surfer, Lusia, and his mum who is living with him for a while. For those who don’t know, couchsurfing is a network where you can host and be hosted by other travellers, in a kind of cultural exchange. This is my first time ‘surfing’ and it’s been amazing so far! After dropping out stuff at Joseph’s apartment in the Valley area of LA, we went out to an all you can eat Korean BBQ! There we met two of Joseph’s friends, who also had couchsurfing guests. The food was amazing – a Korean BBQ is essentially a big grill in the middle of the table with all sorts of meat, seafood etc chucked on it to cook and a load of side dishes. For $12 the restaurant brings you as much food as you can possibly eat! This was great for me as I was starving… And I even started to get the hang of chopsticks.

Slowly getting there….

 

 

We then went with a couple of the other couchsurfers for a drive around downtown LA – going past a lot of buildings you recognise from films – and then we walked around the Staples Centre for a bit too (the home of the LA Lakers). By this point I was pretty exhausted having been up for over 24 hours so it was a good feeling getting back and crashing out on the couch 🙂

Joseph has given us loads of insight into what to see in LA – so today Luisa and I are planning to hike to the back of the Hollywood sign, visit the Griffith observatory and do the Hollywood walk of fame. Should be fun!