Blogs from Halong Bay, Quang Ninh, Northeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

So, waking up to an apology text message and an offer of $40 for the trip we were happy. This is all we were trying to get it for in the first place! Hindsight's perfect sight I guess. Packing my bits up again we headed to a local store to stock up on a few provisions - anyone would have thought we were gonna be stranded at sea for days on end with the amount of stuff we brought! Anyway we got collected at lunchtime and driven to the port which was only about 5 minutes away. With a large amount of tourists coming and going we stood around for well over an hour while they somehow got it all organised - considering these guys do this everyday you possibly would have thought that they would ... read more

Halong Bay Majestic and mysterious, inspiring and imperious. A Unesco World Heritage Site. That's the description from Lonely Planet and it's not exaggerated. Agus called it stupendous. My description is as Richie would say "Marvellous". Nina thinks spectacularly beautiful and Elsie says "eh..." For the first time we booked a tour from the hostel in Hanoi. We had two choices, a cheaper one called The Lemon Cruise which had all the options we were after or The Cristina Cruise, the expensive luxury option. But when we went to book our lemon it was unavailable, and so our luxury adventure began (sigh ;). Early the next morning at breakfast a guy called Aung, as in (Aung Suu Kyi) started chatting with us, liked the sound of our trip and rushed off to buy a ticket to come ... read more

Breakfast at our Hanoi hotel in their Japanese restaurant. This time we opt for the ramen noodles. We are soon on the bus and headed for Halong Bay, situated east of Hanoi on the ocean. It's a 3 1/2 hour trip. We make two stops along the way. The first is a enormous roadside gift shop catering to tourists. It is a football field-sized store that covers all the types of handicrafts we have seen so far and other besides. As usual, you immediately pick up a shadow, but we are not much interested in shopping. We do pick up some snacks, including cashews. Digression: Vietnam is the worlds's largest producer of cashews. They grow on large trees in red pods. The second stop is alongside a large, beautifully maintained vegetable garden, growing lettuce, onions, herbs ... read more

After spending a month back home seeing family, I headed to Vietnam with some friends. We spent a 16-hour layover in Hong Kong before landing in Hanoi. The first night in Hanoi, I grabbed dinner at a local restaurant. Sitting on stools on the sidewalk, the busy nightlife of Hanoi came alive. After some delicious meats on a skewer with some beer, my buddies and I headed to a local rooftop bar. The next morning I headed to Halong Bay on a private car. The ride took around four hours. After an hour wait at the port, I boarded a ferry to Cat Ba—the biggest island in Halong Bay. The ferry took under an hour and provided the first beautiful views of the rock formations in Halong Bay. The ferry dropped me off t the north ... read more

From Ha Noi we traveled around 130km east to Hạ Long Bay. I was really excited about this trip. When I first researched Viet Nam I came upon the famous images of the limestone karsts and islets perched like pearls in the emerald waters of the bay. The karsts are the big draw, they have been worn down by the sea into pillars and interesting shapes and the water has teased caves and archways into them. I'd wanted to see them for years and had high hopes for the Unesco World Heritage site. Hạ Long Bay is gorgeous even from land but the best way to experience it, we'd been told, was by boat. Tours abound from day trips on rustic fishing boats to luxury week long cruises and everything in-between. Matt booked us a 2 ... read more