Although at risk of being 'loved to death' (2 million visitors per year, hundreds of tourist boats everywhere) Halong Bay is very beautiful and is on some UNESCO register as one of the world's most spectacular places. We booked our trip to Halong Bay through the Gia Thinh Hotel in Hanoi, as with the Sapa trip and the sleeper train to Hué. I can’t remember what the individual trips cost, but we paid the Gia Thinh just over $1000 USD for our group of 4, which covered the Sapa trip, the Halong Bay trip and the sleeper train to Hué from Hanoi.
There are hundreds of rounded limestone 'karsts' sticking out of the water everywhere. Legend has it that this spectacular landscape was created by a dragon flailing its tail as it plunged from the heavens towards the sea. 'Ha Long' means 'descending dragon'.
We spent a night on a 'junk' or tourist houseboat (the Canh Buom – we were very happy with the boat and the service), with kayaking, swimming in the bay off the boat, crab and seafood dinner etc. 10 people only in our boat - some French, Australians including one married to a Vietnamese woman, and British. Our guide was a nice young guy whose name was almost unpronounceable but who told us he also had an English name of 'Success' and that this was what we should call him. Seems his parents thought the name might augur well for his future prospects!
We explored some nice caves along the bay and then stayed the next night in a hotel on the tourist island of Cat Ba. They seem to be developing this as a mini Gold Coast, with the great majority of tourists there being Vietnamese or Chinese (China is very close to Halong Bay and there is a new freeway and hydrofoil I think). The place is full of karaoke bars - it was described as having a 'honky-tonk' ambiance in one of the guidebooks! In fact one of the guides informed me (when I was not with my wife and kids) that I could get ‘anything I want’ in Cat Ba!
We explored the island of Cat Ba on foot the next day - most of it apart from the honky tonk section is a national park of some kind with monkeys, jungles etc. We visited a local village for lunch - they let me use one of their motorbikes (for a small fee, same as it would have cost for one of them to take us back as pillion passengers) to ride with Zac back to the boat harbour after that.
I've been mindful on this trip of how lucky we are to be English speakers. While in Vietnam, we have met French, Brazilians, many Dutch and Scandinavians etc who have mostly all had to deal with the Vietnamese in English. I think the current role of English in the world allows us to be very lazy in this regard!
Click here to see our photos from Halong Bay.