Ha Long Bay was one of my top picks of places I wanted to go on this trip. If you are unfamiliar with this area, it is off the coast of northern Vietnam and the bay contains about 1,600 tall, jutting, rock islands. Local legend is that a dragon and all her children sacrificed themselves to protect the bay from invaders and all the rocks are the backs of the dragons.
There are only a few ways to actually see it, and most recommendations are to take a tour boat company. With many companies to choose from, we decided to go the authentic route and booked a tour on a wooden Junk boat. Turns out that the wooden ones are now banned because they don’t last nearly as long as steel, so our boat may be one of the last of its kind.
To some degree it was a bit of a Machu Picchu experience in that it was cloudy or rainy for the three days and two nights of our tour, but it wasn’t so bad the whole time that we couldn’t enjoy some of it and in some cases the clouds provided a cool but eerie back drop. Though a bit disappointed that we didn’t have at least one bit of sunshine, we are really glad we got to do it.
Our boat had 10 cabins in it but was only half booked, with our family taking up two rooms. We had a great group of people with us with two other Canadian couples and one Australian couple on board.
Checking out the anchor coming up and the view from their room.
It didn’t take long to understand why the local myths are about the spines of a dragon.
The service on the boat was outstanding. We started out with lunch outside on the deck but only got partway through before rain chased us inside. As a sample of things to come, the lunch was 5 courses long and included a lot of sea food. That was good for me, less ideal for the rest of the family but with so much food brought out, there was enough other plates to keep everyone full.
As we travelled to our first destination, our guide pointed out the fun shaped islands: a Turtle, Santa Claus (because of the big beard, though it looked more like a masked bandit to me), and a Teapot.
Vung Vieng Village
Our first stop was one of the few approved floating villages. We learned how the Vietnam government, NGOs, and USAID had worked together to promote sustainable fishing in the area and to reduce the effect of too many dispersed fishermen coming into the area (and leaving lots of trash behind). Now there are fish farms and pearl farms that drive the economy of these villages with tourism supplementing.
We got a tour of the village in a small boat, similar to Ninh Binh but this time with just the people that are part of our tour.
Beautiful scenery but still a challenging life living on the water. Fresh water and growing fruits and vegetables requires some creative designs.
The Ha Long Bay area is famous for its pearl farming. Combining the tourism and farming aspects together, the village had a jewelry store in the bay where they demonstrated how they grew and seeded the oysters and then of course you could browse their jewelry and buy a pearl that was grown right in the bay.
Cap La and Cong Do
From the village we travelled further East entering the Bai Tu Long Bay area. This is still considered part of the greater Ha Long Bay area, but further east than islands just south of Ha Long Bay city. There are only a few places that the tour boats are allowed to park overnight and between Cap La and Cong Do is one such spot. Travelling there we went through many islands and met up with other boats parking in that area for the night.
Dinners on the boat were well presented. The chef also did some amazing food art.
One of our nights we even got a cooking demonstration and got to make our own appetizer.
Cong Dam
The next day started early with the boat traveling to Cong Dam island while we had breakfast. Once there we set out on tandem kayaks to tour around the islands and get to a beach for lunch. It was a wonderful way to get up and close to some of the rock formations and we even paddled through a school of flying fishing. However, as we were set to cross a wider bay to get to the beach it started to rain (rather than just spit) which put a damper on the experience.
The beach would have been wonderful if it was warm and not raining on and off. There was this little tunnel along the cliff wall where they tried to do lunch to provide a little bit of shelter. It only partially worked as our end of the table still got wet as it dripped off the cliff walls and tunnel ceiling. We all had hot chocolate back on the main boat after lunch to warm back up!
Thien Canh Son Cave
On our last morning we headed out early again to another island. This one had a cave that we could hike to and then explore.
The hike provide some beautiful views.
The cave was larger then I was expecting given the size of the island and it was broken up into a number of chambers.
There was a beach on the Thein Canh Son island where the company had some kayaks stored. We were given the opportunity to go kayaking around the islands in the bay or to stay on the beach. Since it wasn’t raining that morning, we decided to go explore those islands (one shaped like a whale). Only our family decided to go so we had the water to ourselves.
The girls like to explore the nooks and crannies of the islands.
Heading back on the skiff to the main boat after our adventures to return back to port.
Since it wasn’t raining when we got back and not as cold other days, we enjoyed the ride back on the top deck and even got a few games in as we went. Until we got rained out….
Don Son Village
As a little weird add-on to the tour package, on our way back to Hanoi our van stopped in a small village for a water puppet show. In fact, all of us in the van forgot that this was on the itinerary and as the van got off the main road and started wandering all these small side roads, we were starting to wonder where this guy was taking us. We arrived with a “oh yeah, there is this water puppet thing.” It was culturally interesting, but having seen videos of it on the Vietnam Airlines promo video on our inbound flight, this was a bit of a smaller production and didn’t have the same “wow” factor.
It was broken into little skits done to music that told a little story about village life (fishing or planting rice or fending a fox off from the ducks) or local myths (dragons and magical birds). The puppets were controlled by people behind the screen using poles and strings.