Woooowwww I love this place. What a gorgeous island!! We left Hanoi two days ago and took a bus to a boat to a bus (and with the 5:30am wake up time and 1:30pm arrival at the hostel Cooper and I were both tired and hungry). I had to take a quick cat nap, but by 2:30 we were back on our motorbikes and exploring the island. Unfortunately, our first day was a bit overcast and the poor weather didn’t properly show off the lusciousness of Cat Ba 😦 luckily, yesterday cleared up and oh my goodness what a place!!!

We woke up at our current temporary home, Central Backpackers Hostel, at around 8am, got the hostel breakfast, FaceTimed with our bffaeae Kara B. Fisher, and were off on our bikes to a hike in the middle of the island. It was a quick hike, about an hour up and 30 minutes down, but very steep and your girl was… ugh, quite out of breath. Really humbling. Very nice reminder that I hadn’t exercised since October 23rd (s/o spin – also, dad is that right??? or was my last one on Thursday??) ANYWAY, we worked up a SWEAT let me tell you and when we were done biked around the island for a bit and then got some luuunch 🙂 we both had steamed cabbage (yum) biked around some more, came home and cleaned up before watching an incredible sunset and topping the day off with massages (whoot whoot!) unfortunately, neither of us loved our massages, BUT at $7.50 for an hour, neither of us were really complaining either. We liked our seafood meal so much from the night before, we returned to the same place AND so did our dining neighbors (how funny?! they had been there three times in three days). Great lil seafood spot if you’re ever in Cat Ba island :).

Today we’re packing up and both of us got to talk to family and friends this morning when we woke up (always a highlight – thanks for chatting w me Grammy and Pop and Jenny and Laur and Gray and everyone @ Friendsgiving).

We are heading to Nihn Binh for the day – lots of travel over the next three weeks as we make our way down Vietnam and over to Thailand. Can’t wait to see Lauren in Chiang Mai! 🥰🥰🥰 much love to all

ps. If you get a chance, check out Thatcher’s blog (thatchinnam.com)… specifically, this post about our time in Ha Giang!