Cat Ba is an island located south of Halong Bay. We read about it on Juju and Coco’s blog, a couple of friends who completed an eight months Asian trip in 2016.
Our first impressions were not really good: we took a private speed-boat to reach the island as we missed the public ferry, then a bus to Cat Ba Town (despite being said that there was no bus but only taxis) to finally arrive in a crappy hotel room. Ok, here I must say I kind of look for it by booking one of the cheapest rooms in Cat Ba Town. Elena would certainly not have made this mistake, but one could argue the room had a splendid view on the Lan Ha bay! 😉

Anyway, it did not kill us, we just decided to stay one less night. Besides, the hotel staff was friendly and served tasty banana pancakes for breakfast.
On the next two days, we did a motorbike tour around the island (as a warm-up for the Ha Giang motorbike loop we had planned to do) and a guided day hike in the Cat Ba National Park. Both were worth it!