A journey of land and water transport
Overview
Despite how close Haiphong City and Cat Ba Island are on the map, getting there is not straightforward because you would need to take a mixture of bus / taxi and ferry.
In a nutshell, take bus 16C in Haiphong City to Dong Bai ferry terminal on Cat Hai Island. Then take a ferry to reach Cat Vieng ferry terminal on Cat Ba Island. And then take bus 14 to get to Cat Ba town.
More details as follows.
Take bus 16C in Haiphong to Dong Bai ferry terminal
From Haiphong City, take bus 16C all the way to the last station: Dong Bai ferry terminal. You can refer to the google maps pin to estimate whether the bus is reaching the destination soon.
Bus 16C departs from Thuong Ly bus terminal, here is the Google Maps location.
You can use the location pin to view the bus schedule and route of 16C! As I was staying within town, my nearest bus stop was Trạm Biến Thế Phường Mê Linh. Note that the bus interval is around 30 minutes.
Look out for a pink bus and flag down the bus early! Also, be prepared to hop onto the bus as I recalled that the bus slowed down to a crawl but didn’t stop to board passengers. 😂
The bus ride costs 15k VND, regardless of distance. There would be a bus conductor coming up to you for ticket payment so you don’t have to “stare” blankly at the driver. I generally trust that they don’t overcharge foreigners, but I think it’s still good to know beforehand how much to pay.
The bus will go from Haiphong city and drive along a flyover bridge to Cat Hai island. That is where Dong Bai ferry terminal is located.
Take ferry from Dong Bai to Cat Vieng ferry terminal
Once you alight at the ferry terminal, purchase your ferry ticket for 10k VND. The ticket price differs if you are driving a vehicle.
The ferry would transport you from Dong Bai to Cat Vieng ferry terminal on Cat Ba Island. And the interval is every 30 mins.
Something interesting I noticed was there was a queue for both motorbikes and people on foot, and another queue for larger vehicles such as cars and trucks. So motorbikes = legs? 😅 Also, since the ferry has limited space, some vehicles would have to wait for a few rounds before boarding.
When the gates open to let passengers board, if you are on foot, please let the motorbikes pass first since they are faster. Why risk getting knocked by a vehicle? No rush, your legs will make it!
The ferry ride takes about 30 minutes. And there are food and drinks for sale on board, which I didn’t expect!
Ferry schedule can be found here: https://catbaexpress.com/ticket-and-schedule-of-ferry-from-got-to-cai-vieng.html
Note: On Cat Hai island, there is another ferry terminal: Gót ferry terminal but the ferry service there has terminated earlier this year. As of Oct 2024, I see that ferry terminal was mainly used for tourist bus pickups. I took a boat & coach from Cat Ba back to Hanoi and we switched from speedboat to bus at that location.
Take bus 14 from Cat Vieng ferry terminal to Cat Ba Town
After alighting at Cat Vieng ferry terminal, congrats, you have reached Cat Ba Island! The last stretch is getting to town, where most accommodations and shops are located.
You can take bus 14, which departs from the ferry terminal every 45 mins.
The bus will take roughly 1-1.5 hrs to reach town, and you can alight at the bus stop closest to your accommodation. If you are not sure, just ask your host!
To get from Cat Ba back to Haiphong, simply do the reverse!
Back when I was in Cat Vieng, a taxi driver approached me and 2 other backpackers. He offered a price of 300k VND to drive us to our hostels in town. Since we had to wait another 30 mins for the bus and we found the price per pax reasonable, we decided to take up his offer. It turned out well for me because I had more time to trek Cat Ba National Park in the late afternoon!
Recounting my experience
The night before I set off for Cat Ba, I spent a lot of time researching how to get there via public transport. And the truth was I didn’t manage to find any answer online. At some point, I was skeptical as to whether there was a way, and was even ready to book a day tour from Haiphong to Cat Ba 😐
However, I still decided to try approaching my homestay host for help. And lucky I did!
She opened a website that contained bus info in Haiphong which was in Vietnamese. Despite the English translation, I found the page hard to comprehend. However, I got the main point that I had to take bus 16C and proceeded to ask her where the bus sets off from. From there, I traced the nearest bus stop based on the bus route.
From Google Maps, I knew that the bus would stop at Dong Bai ferry terminal at Cat Hai island. But I wasn’t sure if there was truly a public ferry service available to get to Cat Ba island. Especially since a tour agency had messaged me the previous night that there was no more ferry service this period. (In retrospect, I now know that he was most likely referring to Got ferry terminal.)
While on board the bus, I simply hung onto the “faith” that there will be an operating ferry service to take me to Cat Ba 😂. Anyways, in the event that there wasn’t one, I would just take the bus back to Haiphong city and chill there.
Thankfully, all worked out in the end. I wasn’t dropped off in the middle of nowhere. And I saw people who were also taking the ferry, so I simply followed them to join the queue.
Ending Note
The total journey from Haiphong city to Cat Ba town took roughly 2.5hrs for me. If I took bus 14 to Cat Ba Town instead of taxi for the last stretch, it would probably have taken another 1-1.5hrs. Regardless, I’m really glad I figured out how to get to the island from Haiphong city! 🙌
The lack of information online (in English) to travel between Haiphong and Cat Ba motivated me to write this article, as I hope I can help other travellers. May others be spared from feeling anxious due to continuously researching but to little avail. 🙏
p.s. Read more of my travel stories here!
Thank you for reading! Happy travels!