The Magical Ha Long Bay

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Now I know you’re all going to be sick of hearing this from me by now, but the places I am visiting are honestly getting better and better as I go along. Just when you think you’ve seen the best of a country, something else even better pops up out of know where… its crazy!!

…. And Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is no exception to this rule. It is truly a magic place that everyone must visit at some point. In fact a great 2 week trip to Vietnam for anyone who is interested would simply be to fly into Hanoi, go do a Ha Long Bay trip, head down to Hoi An and then onto Phu Quoc Island for some R’n’R.

Anyway I was lucky enough to find a great 3 day ( 2 night) live aboard cruise on Ha Long Bay that started and finished out of Hanoi. It certainly wasn’t the cheapest trip going around but I took a punt and went for it anyway. I had been having a really shitty week due to some other issues back home (not related to my trip) and decided I needed a few days away from the backpacker scene. Besides I had also met up with Carla again a few days earlier and after Vietnam we were heading in totally different directions. So we agreed it was a good excuse to splash out a bit and enjoy one last adventure together.

Now the weather wasn’t that great as you will see in some of the pictures but it really didn’t matter. In fact in my opinion it kind of added to the mystery of the place as we had a fair bit of low hanging cloud and fog for the first couple of days.

Ha Long bay itself is a made up of hundreds of large and small islands with steep granite cliffs towering out of the water vertically. This gives the water a beautiful emerald colour and makes for some great cruising on old traditional Chinese junk boats.

Our trip started with a 3 hour mini bus ride from Hanoi out to Ha Long Bay. Then we had a short boat ride out to our ship which was moored about 500m offshore. Unlike a lot of the other smaller ships docked on the jetty we were told our boat was too big to come into shore (which sounded good to us) hence the taxi boat out to it.
When we got on board we certainly weren’t disappointed and the ship certainly was big. It was also new and very well appointed… Bose sound system and all! Within minutes of being on board they served up the first of many great meals which happened to be a big seafood banquet.

Once on board the only thing you had to pay for was alcohol but thanks to Carla’s quick thinking back at the dock she smuggled a large bottle of rum on board so we were set… for the night at least! We were also lucky to have a great group and made special friends with one guy in particular from California who we dubbed “Mr President”.
As it turns out he was a bit of a performer and later on that night when the karaoke came out it was all on. He had us all in stiches for hours… I am also proud to say I managed my first karaoke experience… fuelled of-course by the rum. From memory (and its limited) I managed to knock out “Johnny Be Good” and the theme from ‘Ghost Busters’.. oh and one point I think Carla and I did a very funny (and drunk) duet of “I got you babe”, Sunny and Cher style… I guess you had to be there.

Day two was a little slower and involved some more cruising and nice climb to a peak in the national park and then a night on a private island in beach bungalows. Day three was basically the cruise home which took about 4 hours.

One of the highlights was the caves we went into on the first day (sorry but I can’t remember the name). You will see I got some great shots and there’s one photo in particular which is interesting to say the least. I picked up something very strange in the photo that we didn’t notice whilst we were there… you’ll see which one I mean if you look closely ( I also enlarged a part of it too!). I must admit it kind of freaked us out after we found it that night. I went looking through my other pictures and found several more like it.. all from different angles too… spooky spooky!!

Anyway Ha Long Bay gets the big tick from me. There’s also an option to do a one night tour but personally the two day is so much better. You get to do a lot more and go further into the bay. Also some of the pics are a bit silly I know, but I included them cos it gives you a better idea of the fun we had on board.

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