Cat ba national park review and travel guide

Cat ba national park is beautiful place and most attraction to go when you traveling Cat Ba Island. Numerous of activities exploring the nature will certainly leave unforgettable impression to tourists in mind when one setting foot here.

The park is located approximately 30 kilometres east of Hai Phong, covering about 263 square kilometres and comprising 173 square kilometres of land and 90 square kilometres of inshore water. This park has many different ecosystems: mangrove forests, limestone forests, and coral reef.

There is a diverse fauna and flora system in Cat Ba archipelago with 2,320 fauna and flora species, in which there are 60 especially rare species on the endangered Vietnamese Red List. The Cat Ba langur resident in the park is listed as a critically endangered primate and only resides in Vietnam. Cat Ba National Park is also renowned because of the archeological research that revealed that maybe humans have lived in these islands for more than 6,000 years.

How to go Cat ba national park from Cat ba town ?

The park is far away from town 14 km, you can go by car or motorbike. Most people hire a motorbike from Cat Ba town and then drive there, you can stop and see a lot of beautiful view from high place to the sea thought the way. For car it takes about 30 minutes and 40~50 minutes to get there by motorbike, the road is easy to go not a lot of traffic there.

Trekking to the viewpoint

In Cat Ba national park you can trekking to top of mountain to get to the view point. To start trekking there you need to buy a ticket, it cost about 45.000 VND. Don’t expect a map because they don’t provide one. You will have to make do with the Cat Ba National park’s sign boards.

I don’t know if you can really call the trek to the view point a trek. It is a series of steps that takes you up to the top. It’s very easy but it does require stamina. Don’t forget to carry water. The heat can get exhausting and you will want to stay hydrated!

The final leg of the journey requires a simple and easy climb but you do need to use your hands to maintain your balance. This was the most difficult part of the trek and it is only a small stretch of a few meters so don’t get discouraged. Most people stop and are willing to give a helping hand wherever required.

One interesting thing that I noticed was that everyone kept telling you that you were almost there. Don’t give up. It was the little motivation that I needed to keep going. Needless to say, on my way down I made sure that I passed the good deed on.