Exotic Trip in Vietnam (Kayaking in Bio-luminescent plankton)

I bet that when you think of Vietnam, you will think about Halong Bay or Ho Chi Minh. My trip will be different than the others. This trip started with my feeling that where else in Vietnam should be an adventure and peaceful place at the same time. I started by looking for an interesting activity on many Vietnam tour website but none of them has a local tour at a reasonable price so I found that Airbnb has a new function call "Experience" which you can choose to join 1-day tour or a few days tours with real local and I think the price is reasonable (I did not get any sponsor from Airbnb).

This is how I started this trip. Let's start the review part.

My trip began with Hai Phong City. I woke up from the hotel after flew to this city last night and had breakfast with Vietnamese beef noodle.

Around 10 AM. The driver that my guide from Airbnb hired arrive the hotel to pick me and my friends up to Cat ba Island.

As you can see from the map Cat Ba is a Big Island near the famous "Ha Long Bay" at the upper part of the map but much less crowded.

The driver took us to the port and gave us the ticket to embark on a ferry boat.

It can contain around 4 big buses on the boat! There was also a local coffee shop on the boat where you can have some snacks or coffee.

It's not a very comfortable ferry but it is convenience that the tour provided you everything since you stepped out of the hotel. After you arrived at the Cat Ba island, the private van is waiting for you. Finally, I met my guide who is the host from Airbnb.

Then he took us to the final ferry boat.......Sorry, but you may look at the wrong boat.

This is our boat. Lol! But it is not bad at all because my group is only 3 people so it made sense to be this size.

Meanwhile, our guide took us to the final destination (Not a movie. lol), you can enjoy the very beautiful scenery in this area. The water was turquoise and clean. However, I still can spot some plastics T_T (Cry) I feel like our world is getting worse and worse. We need to do something to protect our world.

After we arrived, we took a golf car to the hotel. I really enjoy the view on the island because of the water is very clear and everywhere is just trees, sea, mountain and sky.

The hotel locates in the middle of the mountains!! Guide told us that this village was built from the fisherman that need to find a place to live during Monsoon season. This village is very small, around 100 people live here.

I really love this place. Imagine that you live in the middle of nowhere and the mountain is around to protect you with nice farm there and clean air. Anyway, the hotel still has the internet. Haha. You still can use social media but I suggest you to enjoy nature here. If not, it means that you just change a place for using your phone. No point to travel across the world.

Here is our lunch. Fried noodle.

After finished, our guide took us into the jungle for trekking.

Can you see that little crab? I don't know that they live in the jungle.

Here is an abandoned resort. The owner left it but still has people to take care it.

Gardeners still live here and plants trees. Even goat (not ghost) also here.

A canal on the way to a cave. You need hiking shoes or boots to walk in this kind of jungle.

We continued our journey to the cave. A lot of bats, the guide said refugees lived her e during war. I think it must be very torture to live here like weeks.

Let's walked back. Along the way, I found this fruit but the guide said that it is dangerous. So sad that I cannot try, it looks delicious. :(

Very tired but fun. Let's had a rest. We slept for a few hours and then had dinner.

We met some new friends from Australia, German, and Sweden. We had some conversation and found out that this place is popular in German now. Their friends spread this nice experience among friends. So it became popular.