Leisure Time at Halong Bay

Located near Northern Vietnam in the South China Sea is a beautiful bay featuring thousands of limestone islands.  The most famous part of this bay is known as Halong Bay. It’s unique geography and pristine setting make it a UNESCO world heritage site.  During our trip back to Vietnam, Megan and I explored Halong Bay and neighboring Cat Ba Island via a cruise with Vega Travel.

Enjoying the scenery on one of our more relaxing vacations.

 Boat Life

We arrived at Halong Bay after a treacherous 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi on 1-lane roads with many narrow accident misses.  Our tour guide and boat team helped us navigate the hectic bay and make the way to our Junk Boat.  One of the cool things about Halong Bay is the number of interesting boats.  There are plenty of authentic Junk Boats operated by tour operators that give the bay an authentic Vietnamese feel.  Each boat has lodging available for guests and staff, as well as a kitchen, a dining room, and a sun bathing deck.  Families and crew live onboard.  They work to make each guest's experience relaxing.  It was a like a mini-cruise ship experience.  Throughout our trip we had excellent views of the numerous limestone islands.  Megan and I enjoyed hanging out with the little kids living on board.  There was a cute 2 year old girl who enjoyed playing with our food and a 5 year old little boy who loved playing soccer with us.       

Panorama of the bay from our boat.

Good friends and food

We also met some interesting travelers from all over the world.  There were couples from Germany, France, Ireland and two other couples from the US.  Although it sounds like a "couples retreat" it wasn't all that bad.  People shared war stories from their travels and tips on what to do and see in the region.  We enjoyed drinking and getting to know the Irish folks Alex and Sarah.  The family from the US was great, they taught us a bunch about Vietnamese food and were real fun to spend time with.  Throughout the cruise we were feed really well.  The food quality was solid and the variety of Asian cuisines was nice.  Some of the highlights were: grilled fish, fried shrimp balls, and spring rolls.  It was impressive how excellent the meals were despite the limitations of a small kitchen and boat supplies.   We also enjoyed attentive and inventive bar service.

Adventures on the Bay

Exploring a cave in Halong Bay.

While on the bay we were able to explore the beautiful sights up close.  We had opportunities to kayak at dusk and dawn.  At dusk we entered a peaceful cove that was inhabited by adventurous monkeys.  We got up close and personal with them as they climbed down the jagged limestone cliffs to check us out.  The setting was movie-like in its serene lush aesthetics.  We also were able to kayak around the floating villages of fish and oyster farms.  It was fascinating to the see the juxtaposition of the gritty shanties next to the beautiful abundance of the bay.  While life may be beautiful for the locals it was certainly not easy.

Many of the limestone islands also had interesting caves.  We toured the largest one and were treated to fascinating sights of geological formations.  Our tour guide was hilariously inventive with the animal shapes he saw in the rocks.  Some of his greatest finds were: a lucky turtle, a dragon, a shark, and kissing chickens.  We hiked to the top of one of the islands to get a great panorama of the Bay. 

Boats in the Bay in the early morning

The gritty boating villages in the Bay.

Cat Ba Island Fever

On the last full day of our trip we visited Cat Ba island which neighbors Halong Bay.  There we biked through the country side and saw farms, jungles, mountains and villages all on the same island.  The highlight for me was channeling my inner Tarzan as I climbed a mountain side using a few footholds and ginormous tree roots.  We spent the night in Cat Ba city which isn't much to blog about.  The rainy weather (really the only bad weather we've had in all our weekend trips) was a bit of a downer but even without it there seemed to be little to do and see during non-peak season. 

Climbing the caves in Cat Ba's jungles, using only
tree branches and rocky make-shift footholds.

On the beach taking a break from kayaking.

Conclusion

Seeing Halong Bay was great.  There was a bit of adventure but the main benefits were good service and seeing one of the most beautiful and unique places in the world.  It is definitely worth the trip.