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Published: August 8th 2012
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After lots of research and horror stories, we booked a bit of a mid to upper range cruise in Halong bay, the problem with this becoming evident as we got on our nice spacious minibus to Halong Bay. The bus was full of families, older couples and no other English people. Now don't get us wrong, we don't want to spend all our time with other English people, but the language barrier was problematic! When we arrived at Halong bay dock, it was chaos, hundreds of boats all shapes and sizes. Sadly, the government has made the boat owners paint all boats white. As a result of this and the fact that they are constantly forcing the boats into little spaces between other boats, means they are all looking a bit scruffy.
Halong bay is a world heritage site and area of stunning natural beauty. It has over 1500 limestone islands of varying sizes and shapes as well as lots of caves. This coupled with the clear water makes it a bit of a paradise! Unfortunately the effect of tourism is really being felt, there are up to 600 boats on Halong bay at a time, and most are in
the same small areas. This coupled with the standard Vietnamese attitude to looking after the environment (IE. throw it on the ground and when you can't see it anymore its like it didn't exist) means the bay is at times not as clean as you may wish for swimming!
Our boat was one of the bigger ones, about 23 people on board, and although a bit scruffy round the edges, it was fine for what we needed (and no rats!) and actually the shower in our room was one of the most powerful we have had! All the food was included in our price, and this was fantastic! As soon as we got on the boat we were given our first meal. Dish after dish of lovely seafood was put on our table, and the one meat dish out of 7 dishes was accompanied by an omelet for the now not so awkward vegi! It meant we tried things we might not have done previously, squid salads, clams, crab every dish fantastic! I think in 2 days there were only about 4 meat dishes, and each dish came with a vegi friendly alternative, not that it was needed with
so much other great food! For the first day we had been sat at a table with Frenchmen, only one of whom spoke English and two South African's, mother and son. All through lunch we worked hard to make conversation, being given one word answers by everyone, who were not even talking to the people they were with. By the next meal we gave up!
That first day involved a trip to the "amazing cave" which was packed full of people but was truly quite amazing in its size and interesting rocks! Outside was even more interesting, watching all the boats jostling for position to pick up their passengers, scraping along other boats and pulling off big chunks of wood! After this we were taken to a small floating fishing village to do some kayaking, which was fun but not so interesting as it was just kayaking around all the many boats, with all the many other kayaks. We then headed back to the boat, where we moved about 3 minutes away and dropped anchor "for swimming" but also it turned out for the night, with a good 100 other boats in close view. We were very brave and
headed in first for swimming, a big deal for me (Rach) as i find it all a bit scary...no sooner were we in than the crew were shouting jelly fish and telling us to get out...swim over!
After dinner (another fantastic feast of lovely Vietnamese seafood) where we were the only ones on our table drinking, everyone started to wander off. We though everyone was heading to the top deck, which they were to begin with We had a couple of drinks, played some cards and realized we were not going to get much socializing done on this boat. This was reinforced when everyone but us ws back in their cabins by 9.45pm! We held out until 10.30, crazy kids! We were looking forward to the next day, as most of the people on the boat were only doing a one night cruise, so whilst we were out for the day visiting some more distant areas, a new group of passengers would be collected (hopefully some more chatty ones!).
The next day we were put on another boat, along with a family group of 8 from Ilkley. All the kids were 16-20ish, with friends and boyfriends in tow
and then the parents. So glad we stayed that extra day as we saw such beautiful sites. We went kayaking again, but this time, the guide went ahead and led us through lots of caves and into isolated bays where we were the only people and to Monkey island, where we just managed a glimpse of some monkeys jumping through the trees. After that we did some jumping in off the boat and swimming, or should I say James did jumping in (and diving off the top of the boat) and rach just bobbed about. Which was lovely and clean and cool, being off the beaten track. After another lunch feast we did a bit more kayaking and had a little swim from a tiny beach. Unfortunately we are lacking in photo's of all these beautiful coves, for fear of ruining our cameras.
We sat for a while talking to the parents of the group we were with, the kids not really wanting to chat much...this is when we realized how much older we are getting, now we talk to the parents not the teenagers! however they did get some pics of us kayaking and hopefully will send us
them soon!
When we got back to the boat, there were new people there and they were lively. However they were in 2 big groups and French and Italian. Kept themselves to themselves and never really spoke to anyone else. We were sat with a French couple who although very nice, spoke only marginally more English than we speak French, so it was heavy going! However they were more chatty than the people the night before who actually spoke English! Another tame and early night (mostly I think due to the price of drinks...very expensive by Vietnamese standards). There were people coming over in little boats selling drinks but the crew had warned us off buying these and would charge you if they saw you drinking them.
The final day started with a trip on the small boat to a small beach where you could climb up to the top of a hill for a lovely view. Unfortunately our final day was very cloudy and you couldn't see much. So after a very sweaty humid trip up the hill there was not much reward. We had a nice swim to cool off though. Back to the boat for
lunch and a trip back to the dock. Followed by the bus back to Hanoi.
We were a little apprehensive about going to Halong Bay, as we had heard so much about it being too crowded and polluted, and so much about the quality of the boats. However, despite the lack of banter on board, we had a fantastic time and would urge people to still do it. Oriental sails was a good boat! But definitely the second day was a highlight, and if you only stay one night you won't get to see any of that peaceful tranquil beauty, only the same cave and stretch of water as the other hundred boats! However watch out...there are a lot of jellyfish!
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