Cat Dua Island

The boat is nearing a small beach. Green limestone hills rise on both sides, and the water of Lan Hạ Bay is clear. On this beach a troop of monkeys has come down to the sand to meet the visitors.

This is Cát Dứa Island, one of the most unusual stops on a tour of Lan Hạ Bay. Monkey Island is a tourist name for it, and so is its Vietnamese twin, Đảo Khỉ. The official name is Cát Dứa.

The island lies about 2 kilometers east of Cát Bà town. Since July 1, 2025, after an administrative reform, it has belonged to Cát Hải special zone in the city of Hải Phòng. That special unit covers the whole Cát Bà archipelago.

The name Cát Dứa comes from the wild pandanus, a plant of the Pandanus family and not the pineapple people eat. It grows thickly on the island. Cát means a sandy beach, and Dứa here is the wild pandanus. The name Monkey Island belongs to the troop of free-living yellow monkeys.

The island has two beaches. Cát Dứa 1 lies in the north, and more monkeys usually come down to its sand. Cát Dứa 2 lies in the south. A resort of 29 bungalows, built of bamboo, rattan and leaves, stands there, quiet and looking out over a wide, empty sea. The two beaches are about five to ten minutes apart on foot, along a small path beside the limestone.

The monkeys are yellow monkeys, called khỉ vàng in Vietnamese and known to science as Macaca mulatta. After many years of tourism they are used to people. They are still wild animals, living free. They are not pets, and this is not a zoo.

They should not be confused with the Cát Bà langur. That langur is a primate found only on this archipelago, and about 92 remain. It is critically endangered and strictly protected. It lives hidden high on the limestone cliffs of Cát Bà National Park and never comes down to a beach. The yellow monkeys of Cát Dứa are more common and not endangered, and they live right beside the sand where visitors step ashore.

Cát Dứa lies within the Cát Bà World Biosphere Reserve of UNESCO, recognized on December 2, 2004. A biosphere reserve is a UNESCO-recognized area where nature is protected and the people living there keep working the land. Together with the whole archipelago, this is one of the most valuable protected biosphere regions in Vietnam.

Around the island people swim, kayak and snorkel. The water is clearest and the waves gentlest from April to October.

Cát Dứa is not grand like the main island of Cát Bà, and it is not as famous as the big islands of the bay. But it has a character of its own: a small beach, green limestone hills, water clear to the bottom, and a troop of yellow monkeys sitting on the rocks along the shore. They look down at the sea as if they were the true owners of the island.