🇻🇳 Cat Ba - Climbing and Night Kayaking

Pretending to be an adrenaline junkie

I came to Cat Ba to see some of North Vietnam’s striking coasts. I chose it over the more popular Halong Bay, as Halong apparently is overpacked with tourists. Cat Ba also has easily accessible spots to do deep water soloing (DWS) - rock climbing without safety mechanisms, apart from being able to fall into the water below you.

The island

I wanted to explore the island a little on the first day, but that wasn’t the best experience, as the island has basically become a construction site. I’ve never seen construction this rampant and widespread - everywhere you go on the island, you’re hearing drills and other power tools.

The most striking example of this development was the pier, with either side of it being filled with concrete and topped with soulless, copy-pasted buildings. I researched it as I was curious what’s going on, and this photo exemplifies exactly what I’m talking about, with the top photo showing Cat Ba around two years ago (the said buildings are now on top of the concrete):

A conglomerate called Sun Group is building a bunch of resorts around the island, and apparently expects the number of tourists on the island to quintuple. That left me unable to explore the island too much, so I took it easy. I ended up eating the best vegan pizza of my life, though, in the least likely of places (I got to that state again, where I got a little tired of local food and wanted something different).

I’ve got to respect the rate at which the construction is happening, though. The HS2 could never.

Deep water soloing (DWS)

I did all the activities I mention in this post with Cat Ba Climbing, but there are a few other companies with similar offerings.

There was a group of around 10 people doing DWS, including me. We got the boat out of the main island and got to one of the DWS spots. There aren’t too many such spots on the island, as the water below needs to be deep enough. There was a bit of a flow to the DWS process - the boat would approach the start of a route, a few people would climb onto the rock, the boat would swim off, and everyone who got on the rock would start climbing.

I thought I’d do some incredible climbing here, not having to care much for my safety, but I found the opposite to be true. I found climbing, knowing that I’d need to fall from like 6 meters after I’m done, terrifying. I was also afraid of cheese gratering down the rock (which isn’t so much the case with roped climbing) or landing weirdly in the water and injuring myself. I did a few runs and quickly decided it’s not my thing, but there was no pressure to keep climbing.

Here’s me climbing a bit:

Most of the people in the group loved it, but I found some comfort in the minority that weren’t too fond of this sort of climbing either. Things also didn’t get better with time - my muscles got tired, so my climbing got worse, and things only got harder.

If you’re an adrenaline junkie, I think you’d love DWS. I’m not, and doing DWS very much reminded me of that. In fact, I’ve never experienced such a prolonged adrenaline rush, and I really didn’t like the feeling. It was particularly bad after I fell a bit too much on my front, giving my upper body a slap. My body went pink after, and I got an anxiety-like feeling in my body for a solid hour, without actually feeling anxious. It was a strange feeling and nothing like I’ve ever experienced.

After DWS, we went to a floating homestay and had a tasty family-style dinner. The views were amazing here.

Kayaking in bioluminescent plankton

Bioluminescent plankton is visible in some parts of the world in the summer, including in Cat Ba. The plant emits a bright blue light when disturbed, acting as a defence mechanism by startling predators and attracting larger ones.

Technically, kayaking at night is in a legal grey area in Cat Ba, as too many tourists were getting lost. The local authorities might catch you if you try to kayak away from the coast at night, so to get around that, many organisers get people away from the coast before sunset.

Kayaking at night was really serene, a perfect contrast to DWS. We didn’t see anyone else on the water, apart from one bigger boat. As to the plankton, there were spots where it was particularly prevalent. There, the water would sparkle as we paddled. It looked really cool. It was really hard to catch it on video, but I managed to get a sliver of it in the video below.

After the kayaking, we got a speedboat back and went back to our accommodation. I had trouble sleeping that night as I was still so buzzed from the DWS.

Climbing

The next morning, we got up early to do some outdoor climbing. I’ve never done this before, having only bouldered outside before, and rope climbed inside. To our surprise, the crag was a short walk away from the centre of the town. I know some climbers who would dream of crags this easily accessible.

This time, we had a smaller group - me, two experienced climbers, and one guy who’s only ever bouldered. I paired up with the less experienced guy, who was also really chill - he works for a music label and has a few kids. He’s never belayed before, so we got a quick crash course as I was also pretty rusty.

The crag had some amazing rock formations, which were really fun to climb. The views from high up in the cave were also breathtaking. I didn’t love the fact that my life was in the hands of someone who’s just been taught how to belay 30 minutes prior and had no climbing qualifications, though - even under the supervision of one of the guides and with an auto-locking belay device (grigri), it felt really sketchy. The same goes for the other way around. I was sweating and focusing like crazy, trying not to kill the guy, especially with his kids waiting for him at home. Nothing bad happened in the end, but it was spooky.

I’m tempted to do a course when I’m back home to get properly qualified in belaying and to understand the safety equipment better. Climbing more inside might also help with confidence, as there are a lot of mental blocks that come with roped climbing, despite things being pretty safe.

I left Cat Ba feeling alive and also very grateful to have a few working limbs left.