Lan Ha Bay & Cat Ba Island beside Halong Bay
A visual guide from the Halong Bay travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
Just south of the famous karst field, Lan Ha Bay serves the same drowned-mountain scenery with a fraction of the traffic — hundreds of islets, sandy coves tucked between the cliffs, and cruise routes that feel found rather than followed. Its anchor is Cat Ba Island, the archipelago's one big inhabited island, with a jungle national park, a low-key harbour town and Vietnam's rarest primate in the trees.
Why Cruisers Go South
Lan Ha's calling cards are space and swimming: the karsts shelter small white-sand beaches you can step onto from a kayak, and day boats out of Cat Ba loop past the Dark & Bright lagoon, Monkey Island and working floating fish farms without the conga line of the main bay. Many overnight boats now sail Lan Ha exclusively — the scenery is continuous with Halong's, and only the boat count tells you where the line was drawn.
Cat Ba Basics
Cat Ba town is a working harbour with a strip of guesthouses and seafood restaurants — a budget-friendly base rather than a resort. Rent a scooter for the national park (the Ngu Lam peak trail is a sweaty, worth-it hour) and for Cannon Fort's sunset panorama over both bays. Getting there is straightforward: speedboat or ferry from Hai Phong's Got pier, or boat transfers via Tuan Chau on the Halong side. The critically endangered golden-headed langur survives only here.