Halong Bay is one of the main tourist attractions in Vietnam – it’s the image of the country that you see in the Jetstar ads. Its famous as it’s world heritage listed for the 2000 or so islands that surround the bay. We booked our tour in Hanoi with Handspan travel and left the city at around 8am. It’s a 3hour drive to the bay so you need to make sure you book a tour with a company that has decent transport – especially air-con. Along the way you get to see some of the amazing vietnamese countryside – the paddy fields, the small villages and of course thousands of motorbikes. As it was the weekend Halong Bat was packed with tourists, mainly americans. The harbour contained about 25 to 30 boats and everyone of them was sailing that day. If you prefer the quiet, then a weekday trip would probably be better. We had only booked a day trip as we were short on time but the best thing is to probably book a trip where you spend a night or two on the boat.
Our itinerary was pretty brief, just about 4 to 5 hours sailing and then back to Hanoi. First off, we were taken out to this floating village between a number of islands. It’s a really amazing place with about 100 people living there. They get their food and supplies pretty easily from the mainland so they’re quite happy. We stopped here for lunch and then set out a quick trip around a number of the other islands. As there are around 2000 of them in the area you’re not going to see all of them even in a week so we just did the main ones. We got to stop off at one of the islands and visit one of the caves. You basically go in on one side of the island, spend 30 minutes in the cave and then exit on the other side of the island where your boat is waiting to pick you up. Neat!!
Halong Bay is a beautiful place and it is definitely worth a visit from Hanoi. The day trip is a decent option if you’re stuck on time but you’re probably better off to at least spend one night out on a boat.