Hello travelers, we would like to share with you easy and budget friendly way how to get from Hanoi to Cat Ba island. When we asked around the best possible option was to take bus to harbor – boat to island – bus to cat ba city centre. Journey took us around 5 hours. Other and a bit faster option (around 4 hours) is to take a bus to Hai Phong and then speed boat from Ben Binh Hai Phong port to Cat Ba.
Most travelers choose our option as its pretty easy as numbers of agencies sell bus-boat-bus tickets. The prices differs from 12 – 50$ (around 260 000 VND) depends on which agency you choose and whats included. We bought a ticket in Sinh Cafe travel agency for 12$ each including pickup with taxi in hotel (cheapest we could found around center and we can recommend this agency for all Vietnam).
You can also go directly to the Luong Yen bus station and buy a ticket.
Bus station is about 3 km from city center so you will need a taxi (from center it costs around 40 000 VND). It costs 10$ (220 000 VND) but it requires to go to the bus station for ticket and back if you don’t want to take a risk to buy it 1 hour before departure. Our bus was full so we recommend to buy it 1 day in advance to avoid waiting for other bus. We had pick up by taxi from our hotel to Luong Yen bus station.
The bus was OK with air condition and no Vietnamese sitting on the floor 🙂
During the way we stopped few times to pick up some packages and letters. After 3 hours we dropped off and jumped to another bus which took us to the port. I was shocked with such big garbage in port. So sad they can’t keep their country green and be environmentally friendly.
Small boat was waiting on us and after 40 minutes we finally arrived on Cat Ba island.
On Cat Ba island there was another bus which drove us to the other side of island where is Cat Ba downtown. We had perfect new hotel in the city center and just 5 min walk from bus. If you are there we recommend Quynh Trang Hotel with bay view. Manager speaks fluent English and he will help you with everything.
For the way from Cat Ba island to the mainland we can recommend the company Hadeco. Only the locals use this company and tourists were in the different bus. Quality is the same as tourist bus but cheaper 🙂 Bus-boat ticket to Hai Phong cost us 130 000 VND. Overall travel from Hanoi to Cat ba and back is pretty easy and comfortable ride.
Interested in what to do in Cat Ba island please continue here