17th – 18th April 2017
As we drove past the Halong Bay harbour, all of us inside the minibus craned our necks to see if we could spot the boat we would be on. There were a lot of boats; some looked very luxurious, others barely seaworthy. What would ours be like? As ever in life, you get what you pay for. We had plumped for a tour with a price somewhere in the midrange; as a result, our boat looked slightly above average but we were very happy with it.
Halong Bay is on the “must see” list of a trip to Vietnam. It’s almost always the image used on brochures for the country, and we were excited to be there!
Our tour guide was Frankie, a Vietnamese who had been running these cruises on Halong Bay for almost 10 years. It kind of showed; although a nice guy he did seem rather jaded by his job. To be fair I think I would feel the same if I’d been doing the exact same thing over and over again for that amount of time. He only really perked up when he got his guitar out. He clearly enjoyed having a captive audience (quite literally, unless you wanted to jump overboard). The songs he played were mainly Vietnamese, and almost all of them sounded a bit like ‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles. He did play one western song during our cruise; ‘Hotel California’, by The Eagles.
We had lunch whilst we sailed out of the harbour. Behind us, a small armada of boats followed. I’d been told before about the large number of tourist boats that are on the bay, but we were still surprised by how many there were.
Out luck was in; the notoriously unpredictable Halong Bay weather was really good. Frankie had a brainwave; if it was ok with us, we would change the itinerary and go to the beach on the first day rather than the second, whilst the sun was shining. We all agreed.
When we got to the beach, it appeared Frankie hadn’t been the only one to come up with this cunning plan; the beach was quite crowded. We decided to climb to the peak of the island first, then came down to have a swim after. We both braved the water and enjoyed the experience despite the large number of people.
Later in the day, we went to a pearl farm to see how oysters are artificially inseminated to make pearls. After a vague explanation, we were then allowed into the shop, where eager sales assistants hoped we would buy something. With absolutely zero interest in purchasing anything, I spent the next 15 minutes trying to find the most expensive piece in the shop. I found a necklace worth 300 million Vietnamese Dong (about £10,000). I’m sure it would have looked lovely on Em, but it wasn’t in our budget.
After dinner, the final activity of the day was squid fishing. Although I think most people (including me) were dubious of our chances of landing a squid, within 5 minutes a Uruguayan guy had caught one. This however proved to be something of a false dawn, as he was the only one to catch anything.
Once we had got bored of trying to catch the squid, we went onto the top deck and had a few drinks as the night drew in. The lights of all the boats floating between the silhouettes of the island was quite stunning, and we were again reminded of how lucky we were to be doing this trip.
After a good night’s sleep, we started the morning with some tai chi before breakfast. It was a bit cramped and I was a bit worried about falling over or clobbering someone with one of my clumsy flailing limbs; it’s fair to say I didn’t feel much zen. I couldn’t help but notice lots of people on the other boats were doing the same; I guess that once one tour operator offered tai chi the others had followed suit, rather than give a competitor an edge.
After breakfast we visited a cave whose name translates into “Surprise Cave”, allegedly because the beauty of the cave will surprise you. Hmmm. It was ok. I was definitely surprised by the number of people in the cave; we had to shuffle forward at a snail’s pace as we went around the walkway taking in the views.
As we sailed back to the harbour, I had the time to reflect on our trip. Emma absolutely loved it; I was just a little less enthusiastic about it.
We had been warned that visiting Halong Bay would be a very “touristy” experience. I have mentioned in a previous blog that I don’t like people complaining that certain places/activities are too “touristy”. I have no problem with doing touristy things; just because it’s touristy, doesn’t mean it’s rubbish. Some of the best things we’ve done have been the big tourist attractions. Also, I am happy to call myself a tourist, rather than a “traveller”. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is anyway.
However, my relaxed attitude on this matter was severely tested in the cave (and to a lesser extent, on the beach). The sheer number of people made it quite difficult to really enjoy those parts. I know there are some operators that offer trips past Halong to Bai Tu Long Bay or Cat Ba which is supposedly far quieter; for those people heading here, they might be a better bet.
Overall though, there is no doubt that Halong Bay is beautiful and even though there were a huge number of boats sailing around with is, that doesn’t detract from what is quite incredible scenery. It fully deserves its ‘Natural Wonder’ and UNESCO listing, and we would still say it is an essential trip if you make it out to Vietnam!
(Posted by Ben)
Emma & Ben... Far From Home 