HaLong Bay Boat Tour
- Madeleine Knight
- Jun 1, 2017
- 3 min read
One of the highlights of any trip to Northern Vietnam is a stop off in HaLong Bay to admire the beautiful limestone sconces that little this area. With over 3000 Islands, it really is a sight be behold.
On the drive from Hanoi to HaLong the landscape will begin flat and kind of boring to view... But when you start bearing HaLong Bay these huge limestone sconces begin to appear, surrounded by farmland and the odd factory here and there.
The road to HaLong Bay is ok. I've been on worse and I've been on better. It is a Tarmac road, but there are a tonne of pot-holes and drivers who - by Western standards - are on a mission to die today. Vietnamese driving is world renowned for being a little crazy. So the road is easily driven by scooter/motorbike but a car will be a more comfortable way to get there. Hiring either of these is easy from Hanoi, ask at any travel agent or any shop that has 'bike rental' outside. Tours to HaLong Bay organised from Hanoi will also have travel included, usually a minivan, again these are organised through hostels/hotels/travel agents and tend to cost from $20-$100.
Originally we thought about not going out into the bay itself as we spent a day driving around the coastal raods of HaLong Bay and saw plenty of the limestone sconces from shore, exploring local small fishing villages and towns - which was amazing as we were the only foreigners out there but also we were chased by people's dogs a couple of times so be careful if you do choose to do this (though I would 100% recommend it for a unique HaLong Bay experience).
In the end, slightly more for drone footage purposes than anything, we decided to get ourselves on a ship for a few hours.
Tours vary in length from 3hrs to 3days. For me 3 days is unnecessary (after 2 years working on ship)... We went on a 3hr tour that included caves to walk around, which was incredibly touristic and lit up with multicoloured lights. Also half of Vietnam were in there with us and it wasn't even high season, but it really was fascinating to see the staligtites and staligmites none the less. After this we sailed through the sconces which was awesome!
All of this being said, the boat/tour was very basic. As always, the more you spend the more you get and the more luxurious it is. However, we spent $25 for 2 people for a 3hr tour, when the tour operators and travel agents said $20 each for the same thing. How did we manage such a wonderful discount?? We went straight to the marina and took a tour from there, skipping any overpriced tours or agency fees. Just walk into the terminal and there is a big LED screen that has all the tour times and prices on (in English and Vietnamese), choose the one that appeals to you and find someone who works there to point you in the right direction. We went with the first lady to approach us about a tour as we had very little time until they left and didn't have time to ask around. We over paid by about $2.20 each... So it wasn't too much of a loss.
Generally the tours leave around 8am, with the short tours also having a second, later, leaving time in the afternoon too.
The address of the marina is: Nhà Ga Cảng Tàu Tuần Châu, Tuần Châu, Tp. Hạ Long, Quảng Ninh Province, Vietnam
All drone images produced by Vagabonshoe
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One thing I will say is that HaLong Bay is being seriously built up. You can see the older parts of the town of course but a lot of the area along the waterfront is being built up and developed for tourism, with huge areas of new housing and shops in development. Also, out in the bay during your tour, you will be one of around 30 ships of the same size doing varying lengths/variations of the same tour, but you will not be the only ones there, at all, seriously there's a lot of ships. BUT to me it was worth it.
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