A day at Lan Ha Bay - Vietnam rock climbing

Have you ever done the rock climbing? And deep water soloing?
Well, never have I. But Cat Ba island seems to be the place to do it. With a great advertising from the SLOPONY guys I did not stand a chance to refuse them. I stayed at Noble House hotel, which was as far from being noble as one can imagine ;). Anyway the good point was that on the second floor the Slo Pony guys had their office and whole floor was occupied with adventurers, backpackers and tourists looking to have active time at Cat Ba.

 

Vietnam rock climbing with Slopony



There were 5 of us on the boat plus the driver and one Slo Pony guide.

 And no other boats around us. Amazing views, good weather, great company - perfect ingredients for happy holidays. I gave it a go two times, and I did 5 meters and then jump into the water. The hardest part was the jumping into water from the height. Did you know that jumping from 10-15 m can hurt you really badly and if you go above 20 meters you can even get killed?

I did not know that each single island in the bay has a name, usually related to its shape. Or the species living on it. Cruising around and just looking around was an experience on its own. There is a lot of floating houses/villages to watch as well. There are dogs and cats living there, never touching a solid ground. Can you imagine that? I have heard that some people do as well...

There is one especially famous island there, called the Monkey Island, because of the monkeys, daa! It is well recognised by tourists and advertised a lot in the area. However the fun from watching the local monkeys can be easily spoilt, as the monkey are said to be very mean. And so you should not come close or let them come to you as most probably you will loose your hat/camera/sun glasses in the best case, and in the worst case you can get attacked and hurt. I did not think of this place as particularly attractive and I did not go. But thanks to hospitality of Slo Pony crew, and low season resulting in more flexibility and more time from the local guides, we went to see the other monkeys.

There was one quite large island there, where a local unique species of monkeys lived. Those monkeys are unique to this island only and you can never see them anywhere else in the world. Having said that we were also told that it is very rare that people get to see them, as there is few of them left and they are very shy. for instance, our guide who spent there 3 months already, has never seen the monkeys yet. She started to believe that it was just a story made up to mess up with her... because being there for 3 months and almost day to day, and never seeing the monkeys.. seemed a bit.. unlucky.. you have to admit.

Anyway we stayed by the island for some time to do kayaking and some more rock climbing (DEEP WATER SOLOING which is a proper name for it). And while being there the monkey family emerged.. it was such an amazing experience to watch them climbing and running around the trees, there were also baby monkey with them.. after 10 minutes they all disappeared on the other side...and that was it!

We took a lot of pictures and the guide told us that her friend is conducting a study about the monkeys to try to count them and get to know them better. We promised to share the photos for scientific reasons :).

You are probably wondering why the post is titled Lan Ha and not the famous Ha Long, aren't you? Well it is part of the same water area and part of the same Unesco inheritage, the only difference is that Lan Ha is smaller and on the other side of the Cat Ba island. Ha Long bay is the main spot and it is always crowded. Lan Ha on the other hand can be busy at times, but can be very quiet outside of the main seazon. And that was perfect for me. I enjoyed the empty waters with just some local fisherman boats and no tourists jumping on top of one another. What more can you want? I certainly did not want more than the quiet time and good weather ;).

Want to know more about the Cat Ba itself? Well, let me put is this way. The town and the local people were giving me the most horrific experience from whole the Vietnam so far. The town is overdeveloped in such a way that they killed any sense of natural beauty. You have a big concrete hotels getting into your view. You have local people who are willing to rob you, cheat and massivly overcharge or ignore you in the best case. The local banks do not exchange other currency than American dollars. The dry cleaners are going to rob your nickers. The local guides are going to take you on a boat trip and steal from your bags when you are not looking. The money exchange on the street will give you a great headache. Be prepared for a serious rip-off, plus they will ask you to pay for the taxi to deliver you the money without saying that you have to pay for it in a first place. And on the day after, if you stay there for more than one day, they will chase you on the street saying that they made mistake the other day and you should give them back some exchange money becayse the calculation was not correct...

But in all this I did enjoy the experience. Mainly thanks to the international staff of the adventure agency and the rock climbers that were there with me. Great people and great stories.
You can also get a very decent see food for a reasonable price. If you get lucky you can watch a local wedding party :) Or go dining on one of the floating restaurants.

I have not discovered the local national park of Cat Ba. My decision was to spent a day on the water and then some lazy hours on beautiful beaches, before heading back towards Hanoi...

Special thanks to Ruth Davies from Slo Pony team. It was one of the best experiences because of her openess and hospitility. And I am sure she must have pre-arranged the monkeys for us!