Our Cat Ba Adventure to Fisherman Village

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live on the water? We learned about traditional Vietnamese fishing culture and floating villages. Four days ago, we set off on an amazing adventure. To start the trip, a taxi picked us up from our Hanoi hotel and drove us 2 ½ hours to a ferry headed to Cat Ba. The boat ride was 20 minutes, the longest ferry I’ve ever been on. It was a nice view from the second storey we could see a cable car built as an alternative to the ferry and get a sense of the vast area we were headed towards. After the boat docked, we got out and back into the car. The last half-hour was beautiful, with scenic views of the mountains and a cool glimpse into the small-town life in Vietnam. The little town we were driving through was Cat Ba, and it was where we would start our adventure. Cat Ba is the largest island of the 367 islands in the Cat Ba Archipelago. A cool thing to know is, that the island was originally named Cac Ba, which meant women's island but we heard that people found this hard to pronounce so they changed the name.



The taxi dropped us off at the tour company’s ‘store’ owned by Mr. Henry - the store is really just a room with a few chairs and table to get prepped for the trip. We were greeted with a welcome drink, tea or water, which seems customary here.  We also met our guide, Mong. The owner of the company used a large map to explain the trip route to us and all the activities we would do - and there were a lot of them! :) We walked with our guide to a dock where a water-taxi was waiting. It took us 15 minutes to boat to the floating fisherman's village.

The fisherman’s village, Cai Beo, is made up of tiny houses, boats, and fish farms. Most of the houses are made of shipping containers or wood. Some are even on boats, and all are floating. All are painted turquoise, a rule from the government. The shipping-container houses have empty plastic barrels underneath to buoy them, and the houses have a long rope that they tie to the surrounding rocks as an anchor. Many of the buildings also have little fish farms. A fish farm is essentially a regular farm, just with fish -with water instead of land, with fish instead of livestock. There are square holes with wood around them and a net suspended in the water. Fish are kept and cared for in the nets, until the family sells -or eats- them.



It was crazy to see all the little houses and fishing boats milling around. Some people were already preparing their day's catch when we arrived, where some were just heading out. The village was very busy, and when we asked our guide how many people lived there, we were floored. Though there may not look to be tons of houses, 400 people live in the Cai Beo village! We stayed in a beautiful wooden floating house on the edge of the village. The people who ran the house were not fishermen, but they did have a small fish farm on the deck. Once we had our bags in the rooms and some things unpacked, we got changed and ready for our first activity- kayaking. 

Another water taxi took our group to a small beach, where we waited for a bigger boat to drop off enough kayaks for our whole group. When we had everything we needed, the adventure began. Me and my dad shared one kayak, my mom and sister took another. The guide had his own. As we paddled, Mong, our guide, told us all about the rocks and scenery we were seeing. The water was a deep green colour, and much warmer than I expected! :) The paddle lasted about 2 hours, and we enjoyed every minute, except when my dad almost tipped our boat!!

Back at the floating homestay, we had time to relax to take in the view and enjoyed a huge dinner with lots of seafood. They made so much food there were at least 5 dishes, tofu, squid, oysters, jelly fish salad, fries and of course, rice. Rice is a staple at every meal, Vietnam is one of the top 5 rice producers in the world. We learned you should always serve 2 scoops, one scoop for the past ancestors and one of the living. 

That night Alex and I shared a bed, which she does not like but we didn't share for long because we there were so many sounds and things going on that she could not sleep, so around 1am Dad came in with me and she went with Mom. It rained very hard that night, everything was wet as we moved around in the night and we had to wake up SUPER early in the morning (6-ish) to get ready for our second day paddling adventure.