Ba Be National Park

THE BOAT TRIP
You will get into a 12 passenger motor boat (800.000 VND, split by the number of people you are). The tour takes around 5 hrs. and you will be most of the time in the boat.
Guesthouse can help you arrange this your for you, as a charter service but make sure to ask for it and NOT the guided tour (full day guided tour is the equivalent, that cost 50USD for solo travel or 20 USD/pp for 4 people).
You will get into the boat in Bo Lu town, near the Ba Be Tourism Center, no later than 10am, better early but not so early, let the sun shine nice before start the trip. Enjoy the ride, just relaxing on the boat is big part of the beauty.

PUONG CAVE
This amazing cave is the must see place in Ba Be, access by the river that gets through the cave, you will dock inside near the entrance, get off and enjoy the darkness, quiet and amazing sound of the thousands bats living there, you can also take the short walk to the exit of the cave for extra sight.

DAU DANG WATERFALL
After leaving the cave to you will go to the other side of the lake, land, eat lunch then take a few minutes walk to the waterfall, not very impressive in my opinion, I think it’s even ok to skip it, but it takes little time (30 mins). If you are in a rush just go to the cave and skip everything else (waterfall, lunch, and temple).

AN MA TEMPLE & PANORAMIC VIEW
On the way back, you will make the last stop to visit this temple, totally normal skip if you have special plans.
From the docking place you can see a bridge, apparently it leads up to a mountain where you can get a panoramic view of the lake, I read it’s the best view of the lake. The normal boat trip does not include the time to climb it (1 hr, they didn’t say if that time was one-way or return) I recommend you try to arrange the trip to include this attraction before booking. The guided tour includes this but they hike down through a different path. They say you need to do the guided to visit this place, just ask how much time you need to go up and down though the same way and tell them to wait for you, skip or make VERY fast the waterfall and temple and it should be ok)

HUA MA CAVE
Very nice cave (entrance fee: 22.000 VND) and very little visited, high chances to be alone inside. Recommended.
You will have to come here by bike (100.000 VND return price by motorbike taxi, including waiting time).
If you do the boat trip make sure to end before 4pm and you have time to visit right after, arrange with the guesthouse or tour agent in Ba Be to combine the tours, so the bikes will be waiting for you when you get off the boat.
This cave should take you less than 2 hrs. including driving time. It’s 800 meters long.

TREKKING
They say its the best way of enjoying Ba Be, I doubt it, I think is the best because you do the boat trip plus the trekking so you see more. It’s 2 days long, you do some trekking, village experience and get the best part of the boat trip: the Puong Cave and back to the An Ma Temple. The Dau Dang Waterfall is also included you visit before the boat trip. Ask to include the trekking to the top of the mountain near the temple before going back. That looks like the southeast trekking route, not on the program description they have. Looks like the normal program is the northwest route, no written info at all about the southeast one, but they will arrange for you if you know exactly what you want.