Ha Long Things to Do

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Peter, a Vietnamese now living in Sweden, decided to take a morning swim around our junk and said that the water wasn't that cold. I thought otherwise as the air alone was pretty chilly as it was January and rather grey and overcast. He had to be dragged along the side of the boat like a big fish in order to be able to reach the steps and climb back onboard.

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After visiting the Amazing Caves (Hang Sung Sot), we got back onto the boat and made our way to Ti-Top Island which features a small sandy beach and a small pavilion at its peak which we climbed to for some good views even though it was still overcast and the light was fading fast.

On 22 November 1962, this tiny island had the honour of receiving a visit from astronaut Ghermann Ti Top, a hero of the former Soviet Union, accompanied by Ho Chí Minh. To perpetuate the remembrance of their visit, Uncle Ho named the place Ti Top Island.

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After coming onboard our junk, we set sail and had lunch. We then came to a very busy bay area, full of other tourist junks and came onshore and climbed up some steps in order to visit the so-called "Amazing Caves" (Hang Sung Sot) which were pretty spectacular but not quite as good as ones I'd seen in Guilin in China. The caves are one of the 3 most popular caves in Halong Bay and were discovered by the French in 1901. It has three vast chambers, the second of which contains a pink lit phallic shaped rock, which is regarded as a fertility symbol.

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Halong Bay is an extremely popular destination for tourists who want to, like me, spend a night in the bay on board a junk - a traditional wooden Asian boat that used to be sailing boats but the tourist ones are now powered. We set off from the tourist pier area of Halong City onboard the Sun Cruise - our junk and we got our first views of the amazing Karst limestone scenery. We came to a busy bay area full of other junks that were docking, in fact one of them collided with another! You'll see loads of them dotted around.

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Part of my tour involved a bit of paddling in canoes - the first time I'd been in one since I was in the Cub Scouts! We transferred into canoes and made our way into a small lagoon that you entered under a natural stone bridge where we heard the rustling of trees by monkeys that we couldn't see. We then paddled past floating fishing communities complete with barking dogs back to the boat and then set off for Cat Ba Town and our overnight stay at the Princes Hotel.

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Halong Bay is one of those unmissable natural wonder places that should be on everyone’s list when in Vietnam. The Bay has an area of around 1,553 sq km, including 1,960 islets, most of which are limestone, that form what is called a Karst. Meaning "Bay of the Descending Dragon", it's become a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its geological uniqueness as well as cultural and historical importance - it has been mentioned in poems and verses for centuries. Home to 14 endemic floral species and 60 endemic faunal species, it features cave systems, striking caverns, as well as other geologically interesting formations, such as uniquely shaped massifs.

I had already seen Karst landscapes along the Li River in China, in Vang Vieng and along the Andaman coast of Thailand but Halong Bay beats them all!

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Day 2 started with breakfast on the junk with eggs, loads of toast, fresh fruit, coffee after I slept very well in my cabin. Peter, a Vietnamese now living in Sweden, decided to take a morning swim around the junk and said that the water wasn't that cold. I thought otherwise as the air alone was pretty chilly. Myself and two Dutch women then transferred to the Cat Ba Prince 3 and we made our way to Cat Ba Island to do some trekking and canoeing and to stay on the island overnight. We reached the island and walked to a village called Viet Hai which featured old wooden houses alongside piles of modern bricks that were ready to build new houses. We stopped by a family who were making square 'cakes' for Tet (the Vietnamese lunar New Year celebration) which included pork, rice and egg shaped into a square and wrapped in banana leaves. Cat Ba Island has been made into a National Park due to its abundance of wildlife and topographical features and it was good to trek around just some of it while other tourists had hired bikes to see more of it. Anyway, we visited some old style wooden buildings that looked like temples but were in fact a community centre that some French guy had brought over from the mainland and built here. However, they weren't finished because the government had created the National Park whilst they were being built and so didn't give him permission to finish building them! We then had lunch served to us by a 70-year old woman in the village and headed back to the boat in order to do our canoeing. We transferred into canoes and made our way into a small lagoon that you entered under a natural stone bridge where we heard the rustling of trees by monkeys that we couldn't see. We then paddled past floating fishing communities complete with barking dogs back to the boat and then set off for Cat Ba Town and our overnight stay at the Princes Hotel (see my accommodation tip). We had a nice dinner here and then hit some nightlife in the form of a nightclub before winding down at the Flightless Bird Bar. All-in-all it was a good trip on a lovely boat with some fantastic food and a nice cabin made even more special by the wonderful scenery. The tour cost me US$146 (which included a single supplement) and included everything except drinks which I didn't think was a bad price.

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I took my 3 day/2 night Halong Bay tour with ODC Travel who are based in the Old Quarter in Hanoi. They first picked me up from my hotel in the Old Quarter and then we picked up other people - 15 in total including me, and we made our way out of the city over the Red River. We arrived at the tourist port in Halong City after stopping enroute at a large ceramics factory shop and then transferred onto a small boat which took us to our wooden junk boat called the Sun Cruise (see my accommodation tip). It was a very nice boat and my cabin had two single beds, a/c and a nice modern bathroom complete with WC, shower and hand basin. We first had lunch which was very luxurious of small prawns, potato croquettes, butterfish etc and then set sail past Halong City for Halong Bay. The junk had a lovely open top deck with sun loungers even though it was pretty chilly and overcast as it was January. Anyway, it was from here that we got our first views of the amazing Karst limestone scenery and we came to a busy bay area full of other junks that were docking, in fact one of them collided with another! We came onshore and climbed up some steps in order to visit the so-called "Amazing Caves" (Hang Sung Sot) which were pretty spectacular but not quite as good as ones I'd seen in Guilin in China. We then got back onto the boat and made our way to Ti-Top Island which features a small sandy beach and a small pavilion at its peak which we climbed to for some good views even though it was still overcast and the light was fading fast. We then transferred back onto the junk and had dinner of stuffed crabs, large fresh prawns hanging off the side of a wine glass, edible flower-shaped vegetables and fresh spring rolls on cocktail sticks stuffed in a pineapple. We were then entertained by a father and daughter duo who sang traditional Vietnamese songs and instruments and I then retired to my cabin. Day 2 can be found in my next tip.