Cat Ba Panorama Travel, Hai Phong, Vietnam

5fernbetty 5:00 PM Jan 4, 2020

Excellent day cruise
I was collected from my hostel at 8.15 and taken to the boat on a clean and comfortable bus. My tour guide Luen greeted me at my hostel and showed me into the bus. He was super friendly and spoke great English. After a quick bus ride we were at the cruise boat. The d’Charme is a new boat and it was lovely. The dining area has lovely clean wooden floors and they keep them that way by asking everyone to take their shoes off. Luen introduced himself, gave us all a bottle of complimentary water and went over our itinerary for the day. We then went up to the second deck to enjoy the views as we headed off on our cruise. The views were breathtaking. Truely stunning. We got off the boat and were taken by electric car into the village to collect our bikes. After a short flat bicycle ride we arrived at a local woman’s home. she had made different types of rice wine and we learned about them and were allowed to try them. Luen told us some really interesting history about cat ba, Ha long bay and how they got their names. We then took another short flat bike ride and arrived at an area where we could put our feet in the river and the fish come up and nibble them if we wanted to. We then rode back to our electric car to be taken back to the boat where we were given lunch. The lunch buffet was phenomenal. So many beautiful local dishes were brought out to us one by one in an almost never ending banquet. They catered very well to the vegan, vegetarian and allergic people in our group. The boat was anchored for lunch which was lovely. It was great to sit still and take in the views. Well, almost still-we were on a boat!! We then headed to some caves and tunnels that we went kayaking through. We all went into double kayaks and no one was left alone. I was the odd numbered person and Luen shared a kayak with me. It was lovely to get into the water and see the islands close up! We then headed to an area where we could swim. I jumped off the boat and into the fresh water. It was so refreshing! We were able to go snorkelling at the point. We then returned to the boat to relax before our sunset party on return to cat ba. As a solo traveller I would highly recommend this trip. There were a mixture of groups, couples and solo travellers in my group and it was a great environment to make friends. I really enjoyed the whole day and would recommend it highly to anyone visiting catba!

5Fmwei 5:00 PM Oct 11, 2022

Great day out
My friend and I did the Lan Ha Bay tour with Ryan. Ryan was a great tour guide, spoke amazing English and as a local knew so much about the bay and the area. The weather was perfect and as a small group of only 14 meant we all got to know each other and had a great time. Would highly recommend doing this tour, it's much quieter than Halong Bay but just as beautiful.