Ha Long Bay for backpackers

Ha Long Bay for backpackers
Two night/three day budget tour
Crammed into a jam-packed minivan, o
ur tour commenced with us circling the block a few times to avoid getting ticked by the cops for illegally stopping to pick up some of our passengers, but then we were away and our guide introduced himself. In his quite decent English, he explained that the 160km journey to Ha Long City would take three hours — apparently the slow going was due to the police — not to worry, if there were no cops around, we were assured, our driver would atte
mpt to speed whenever possible.
The trip included a 15-minute stop at a crafts centre set up for victims of Agent Orange and at 11:00 we reached Ha Long City. Once there our guide promptly got into a 15-minute argument with another guide, and we were eventually put into another minivan and driven to the pier at Bai Chay.


The pier was crammed with boats and after standing around for 30 minutes, our guide returned with tickets and we clamoured over three other boats to reach our (obviously badly parked) boat. As our group was generally agile the cross-boat-obstacle-course was no trouble, though there was trouble to come.
Upon booking we were promised a tour of no more than sixteen passengers, and were surprised to find 11 more people piling on to the boat with us — making for a total of 27 people. They were day-trippers, and those travelling to Cat Ba Island. When asked, we were advised that “they don’t count” as a part of our group because they aren’t on our three-day tour. Twenty-seven people on a sma
ll boat made for a tight fit.
Our boat, like many of the budget junks, had a large top-deck which featured hard, wooden sun-loungers that should have had cushions but didn’t. An epidemic problem on budget tours, we later learned. For an hour, we sat and waited to depart, and once underway, lunch appeared. A decidedly mediocre but
edible meal.
We visited one of the floating fishing villages, which was definitely a sight to see and some passengers bought seafood from the villagers — the staff on the boat cooked it up for them at no extra cost.
We stopped off at the Dragon Cave where we walked in file with one hundred other tourists, viewing the stalagmites, the stalactites, and paused to contemplate which was which. The cave was artificially decorated with coloured lights, man-made pools and fountains, and two red lights were fixed to where the ‘eyes’ should be in the rock formation that is said to look like a Dragon. Lovely.
Next was an unappealing beach for swimming and kayaking — there was only one kayak and it was never put in the water. Later we found out it had a leak. No worries — the weather was lousy, and no one wanted to kayak anyway.
Our first night was meant to be onboard, but the boat had somehow become “overbooked” and so we were shuffled into a hotel on Cat Ba Island. The two-star hotel was anything but remarkable and we got an equally mediocre dinner and breakfast. In the morning, we trekked through Cat Ba National Park — a challenging climb through beautiful mangrove forests, though lacking in any exceptional wildlife — we did spot goats though.
Thrown off schedule by being re-routed to the island, it wasn’t until late afternoon that we reboarded for our night at sea, and while we were supposed to stop off to swim, that somehow got lost in the shuffle. Dinner was much the same as the night before.

We cruised around for a while before eventually stopping at one of the three designated spots where tour boats are permitted to anchor. The night on the boat was memorable mostly for sitting on the top deck engaging in long, ranging conversations with other passengers over beers. It was a wonderfully relaxing evening, and the bay is a mysteriously beautiful place to be as the sun sets — despite the sound of karaoke drifting across the bay from some of the other boats.
When we retired, the cabins were clean, if somewhat dilapidated. While one passenger found himself chocking on exhaust fumes in his cabin and had to spend the night on the top deck, we were all kept up by the deafening noise from the cheap Chinese generator.

In the morning, four-pieces of bread and a greasy omelette sustained us through the slow tour back to Ha Long City for the packed minivan back to Hanoi.

How to pick the right Ha Long Bay cruise

The first thing you need to know about Ha Long Bay is that it’s beautiful and well-worth seeing.
The only real question for the traveler in Vietnam is how best to see it and, like many things in Vietnam, things are never as clear a they could be

Travel agents who promise the earth, but fail to deliver combined with travelers whose expectations are totally unrealistic makes for a volatile Ha Long Bay cocktail.
The overwhelming majority of travelers experience a Ha Long Bay cruise via a group tour that begins and ends in Hanoi, where there’s a dizzying variety of tours, with prices ranging from about US$12 a day to $70 and up per person.
Ha Long Bay is cluttered with some 500 licensed junks, and on any given day, up to 300 of them may be plying the waters — that’s basically one boat for every ten ticket offices in Hanoi!
Competition has driven prices down to absurdly low levels and as corner cutting, cheating and bare-faced lies become par for the course so do travelers leaving with a bad taste in their mouth… but it needn’t be that way.
Doing your research and asking the right questions — not just of the travel agent you’re dealing with, but also other travelers you meet along the way — can go a long way to making sure your junk ain’t sunk.
So, how do you know which Ha Long Bay tour is the one for you? We’ll get to that, but first, here’s some background on the site.
Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site — and you’ll be reminded of this several times throughout your tour. UNESCO has picked out 830 World Heritage sites around the world, chosen for their cultural and historical importance, and also for their geological uniqueness. Ha Long Bay offers a little of all three.
It’s not the cliffs themselves that make Ha Long Bay unique, but rather their sheer number. A huge bay, dotted with nearly 2,000 mostly uninhabited limestone cliffs, the breathtaking scenery is very similar to that of the Andaman coast of Thailand, Vang Vieng in Laos and Guilin in China.
Created over millions of years, tectonic forces slowly thrust the limestone above the water-line. During this process waves lapping against the stone carved out a number of vast, striking caverns, as well as other geologically interesting formations, such as tunnel caves and uniquely shaped massifs. Unfortunately the geological forces at work were not too flash in the beach-making department, so most of the beaches tourists are taken to in the bay are man-made with the umbrellas and the sand in which they stand are all shipped in.
Over the ages, Vietnamese fishermen with too much time on their hands began to see shapes in the stone massifs atop many of the islands, and named the islands accordingly — Turtle Island, Human Head Island, Chicken Island and so on. In what constitutes one of the most fascinating cultural features of the area, some of these fisherman still live on the bay today — on floating fishing villages, where houses are set atop barges year round, the inhabitants catching and cultivating fish throughout.
So what is a Ha Long bay cruise like?
The primary purpose of a Ha Long Bay tour is to savour the tranquillity and beauty of the water. But two or three days of utter tranquillity can get a little too tranquil — luckily the natural and cultural endowments of the bay provide activities — in some cases with a heavy helping hand from the Vietnamese government.
They’re slow
Boats ply the waters slowly and take scenic, circuitous routes. They often stop and put down their anchors while the passengers are eating lunch.
You may visit a floating village
Not all tours make a stop at a fishing village — some just cruise by. If you do stop, you’ll be able to view the seafood being farmed, have the opportunity to buy some, and have it prepared for you free-of-charge on the boat.
You’ll get to swim
Every tour stops for a swim at least once a day. Sometimes these swims take place near local fishing villages, leading to jokes and apprehensions about the toilet situation on fishing villages. All tours also include a stop at one of the beaches.
You may get to kayak
All the boats bring kayaks and, weather and tides permitting, stop to let passengers paddle around. Sometimes the opportunity to kayak through one of the tunnel cave systems will present itself. Other times passengers are simply expected to paddle in circles around the boat — not surprisingly the caves and tunnels are far more interesting.
You’ll get to go caving
All tours include at least one cave visit in the price of the tour (admission on your own is 20,000 dong). The two most popular caves are the Dragon Cave and the Surprising Cave. You won’t know beforehand which cave you will see — that decision is made on the boat.
You may sleep over on the bay
Two and three-day tours always offer a night in a cabin. On any given night, about 80 boats are allowed to drop anchor in one of three designated areas — that means each area is filled with 20 to 30 boats. Sometimes they anchor very close to one another, other times they’ll find a more private spot away from other boats.
You may overnight on Cat Ba Island
Most two-day tours offer one night in a two-star hotel on Cat Ba Island. Activities including a hike in Cat Ba National Park, a kayaking trip through some offshore tunnel caves, and/or a lunchtime-visit to a local fish farm, where you catch your own fish before it is prepared for you, are usually offered as a part of the tour.
You’ll be fed and transported
All tours offer three meals a day, starting with lunch on the first day and ending with lunch on the last day. The quality of the meals varies tremendously depending on the price of the tour as does the transport to and from Hanoi.
So, no matter how much or how little you pay, all of the above, at least in theory, will be included in the tour. Judging the differences between tours, then, is not so much a matter of what they do, but how well they do it — and if they actually deliver on what they promise.
To get the skinny on the inner workings of the Ha Long Bay cocktail, we tested out three tours of Ha Long Bay — one budget, one midrange, and a more luxurious option — and had three very different experiences of the same bay — read on to learn how we fared.
source by indochina

How to pick the right Ha Long Bay cruise

The first thing you need to know about Ha Long Bay is that it’s beautiful and well-worth seeing.
The only real question for the traveler in Vietnam is how best to see it and, like many things in Vietnam, things are never as clear a they could be
Travel agents who promise the earth, but fail to deliver combined with travelers whose expectations are totally unrealistic makes for a volatile Ha Long Bay cocktail.
The overwhelming majority of travelers experience a Ha Long Bay cruise via a group tour that begins and ends in Hanoi, where there’s a dizzying variety of tours, with prices ranging from about US$12 a day to $70 and up per person.
Ha Long Bay is cluttered with some 500 licensed junks, and on any given day, up to 300 of them may be plying the waters — that’s basically one boat for every ten ticket offices in Hanoi!
Competition has driven prices down to absurdly low levels and as corner cutting, cheating and bare-faced lies become par for the course so do travelers leaving with a bad taste in their mouth… but it needn’t be that way.
Doing your research and asking the right questions — not just of the travel agent you’re dealing with, but also other travelers you meet along the way — can go a long way to making sure your junk ain’t sunk.
So, how do you know which Ha Long Bay tour is the one for you? We’ll get to that, but first, here’s some background on the site.

Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site — and you’ll be reminded of this several times throughout your tour. UNESCO has picked out 830 World Heritage sites around the world, chosen for their cultural and historical importance, and also for their geological uniqueness. Ha Long Bay offers a little of all three.
It’s not the cliffs themselves that make Ha Long Bay unique, but rather their sheer number. A huge bay, dotted with nearly 2,000 mostly uninhabited limestone cliffs, the breathtaking scenery is very similar to that of the Andaman coast of Thailand, Vang Vieng in Laos and Guilin in China.
Created over millions of years, tectonic forces slowly thrust the limestone above the water-line. During this process waves lapping against the stone carved out a number of vast, striking caverns, as well as other geologically interesting formations, such as tunnel caves and uniquely shaped massifs. Unfortunately the geological forces at work were not too flash in the beach-making department, so most of the beaches tourists are taken to in the bay are man-made with the umbrellas and the sand in which they stand are all shipped in.
Over the ages, Vietnamese fishermen with too much time on their hands began to see shapes in the stone massifs atop many of the islands, and named the islands accordingly — Turtle Island, Human Head Island, Chicken Island and so on. In what constitutes one of the most fascinating cultural features of the area, some of these fisherman still live on the bay today — on floating fishing villages, where houses are set atop barges year round, the inhabitants catching and cultivating fish throughout.
So what is a Ha Long bay cruise like?
The primary purpose of a Ha Long Bay tour is to savour the tranquillity and beauty of the water. But two or three days of utter tranquillity can get a little too tranquil — luckily the natural and cultural endowments of the bay provide activities — in some cases with a heavy helping hand from the Vietnamese government.
They’re slow
Boats ply the waters slowly and take scenic, circuitous routes. They often stop and put down their anchors while the passengers are eating lunch.

You may visit a floating village
Not all tours make a stop at a fishing village — some just cruise by. If you do stop, you’ll be able to view the seafood being farmed, have the opportunity to buy some, and have it prepared for you free-of-charge on the boat.
You’ll get to swim
Every tour stops for a swim at least once a day. Sometimes these swims take place near local fishing villages, leading to jokes and apprehensions about the toilet situation on fishing villages. All tours also include a stop at one of the beaches.
You may get to kayak
All the boats bring kayaks and, weather and tides permitting, stop to let passengers paddle around. Sometimes the opportunity to kayak through one of the tunnel cave systems will present itself. Other times passengers are simply expected to paddle in circles around the boat — not surprisingly the caves and tunnels are far more interesting.
You’ll get to go caving
All tours include at least one cave visit in the price of the tour (admission on your own is 20,000 dong). The two most popular caves are the Dragon Cave and the Surprising Cave. You won’t know beforehand which cave you will see — that decision is made on the boat.

You may sleep over on the bay
Two and three-day tours always offer a night in a cabin. On any given night, about 80 boats are allowed to drop anchor in one of three designated areas — that means each area is filled with 20 to 30 boats. Sometimes they anchor very close to one another, other times they’ll find a more private spot away from other boats.
You may overnight on Cat Ba Island
Most two-day tours offer one night in a two-star hotel on Cat Ba Island. Activities including a hike in Cat Ba National Park, a kayaking trip through some offshore tunnel caves, and/or a lunchtime-visit to a local fish farm, where you catch your own fish before it is prepared for you, are usually offered as a part of the tour.
You’ll be fed and transported
All tours offer three meals a day, starting with lunch on the first day and ending with lunch on the last day. The quality of the meals varies tremendously depending on the price of the tour as does the transport to and from Hanoi.
So, no matter how much or how little you pay, all of the above, at least in theory, will be included in the tour. Judging the differences between tours, then, is not so much a matter of what they do, but how well they do it — and if they actually deliver on what they promise.
To get the skinny on the inner workings of the Ha Long Bay cocktail, we tested out three tours of Ha Long Bay — one budget, one midrange, and a more luxurious option — and had three very different experiences of the same bay — read on to learn how we fared.

Ha Long Bay

Halong bay view

On December 14th 1994, at the 18th session of the World Heritage Commission in Phuket-Thailand, Ha Long Bay was inscribed in the World Heritage List by UNESCO. The decision to recognize Ha Long Bay as a World Heritage area confirmed the exceptional and universal value of its landscape.
For Vietnamese people Ha Long Bay
is not only a great landscape but it is also a sacred and long-standing symbol of the country. In the Vietnamese people’s consciousness the stone islands in Ha Long Bay are not only limestone but biotic. When the Nation was in danger a Mother Dragon and her children descended from the sky to create Ha Long Bay and stayed forever to defend the country
In Vietnamese the bay is called Vinh Ha Long (Where the Dragon Descended to the Sea). The Bay is situated on the northwest coast of the Gulf of Tonkin, near the city of Hong Gai, in Quang Ninh province, in northern Vietnam. It is 102 miles (164 km) southeast of Hanoi. The 580-square-mile (1,500-square-kilometre) area contains some 3,000 rocky and earthen islands, typically in the form of jagged limestone pillars jutting out from the sea, and several caves and grottoes. The system of grottos in the islands of Ha Long Bay are considered heavenly palaces in the world. The most impressive of the grottoes is Hang Dau Go, a huge cave of three chambers, while the Thien Cung Caves are also very impressive.
Visiting travelers can see the impact left by primitive people from the last 20,000 years. Three famous prehistoric cultures continuously developed in this landscape from the late Paleolithic age to the early Metal age. They are the Soi Nhu culture, Cai Beo culture and Ha Long culture.
Taking a tour of the bay is the main activity here; most book a tour at a cafe or hotel in Hanoi. If you want to arrange things independently, be ready for lots of hard sell from touts in Ha Long City. To see a lot, choose a fast boat. If you want a romantic experience but with the risk of getting hardly anywhere, look for one of the old junks. You have to charter the whole boat, but there are usually enough travelers around to make up a party and keep costs down.
The main town in the region is Ha Long City, which is split in two halves, bisected by a very modern bridge over the bay. Bai Chay (the western part) is the more scenic and has the most hotels, restaurants and persistent touts. Hon Gai (the eastern part) is connected to Haiphong by a ferry. Masochists might try seeing the bay on a day-trip from Hanoi. Another option is to travel to Cat Ba Island, where you can arrange a tour of the bay with less hassles.
The name Ha Long Bay is literally translated as “Bay of Descending Dragons.” Prior to the 19th century, this name was not recorded in any document or archive. When mentioning the present-day Quang Ninh Sea or Ha Long Bay, old historical books often referred to them as the seas of Giao Chau, Luc Chau, Luc Thuy, Van Don, Hai Dong or An Bang. Not until in the late 19th century did the name of Ha Long Bay appear on the Bac Bo (Tonkin) Gulf chart or in press articles in French and in Vietnamese.
A legend has been handed down in the local area relating to the name Ha Long Bay, which says: Long ago, in the first founding days, the Viet people were attacked by foreign aggressors. The Jade Emperor sent the Mother Dragon and a herd of Child Dragons to help the Viet fight the invaders. While the enemy vessels were launching massive attacks against the mainland, the dragons descended in flocks from the sky. They spat out innumerable pearls which, in a moment, were changed into innumerable jade stone islands linked together into firm citadels that checked the enemy’s advance and smashed their vessels into pieces. The Viet won at last.
After the invaders were driven out, the Mother Dragon and her Child Dragons did not return to Heaven but stayed on earth, right at the place where the battle occurred. The spot where the Mother Dragon landed was Ha Long, and where the Child Dragons came down was Bai Tu Long. The place where their tails violently wagged was called Long Vi, the present-day Tra Co Peninsula with its soft sandy beach stretching dozens of kilometers.
source by halongbay

Indochina Sails donates to Cua Van School in Halong bay , Vietnam

On 12 March, 2010 the Staff and Management of Indochina Sails made a gift of twenty new desks and chairs, along with a large assortment of school supplies to the students of the Cua Van Floating Primary School. The school is located in the Cua Van Floating Fishing Village and has about 70 students aged from 6 to 14 years old. The village itself is home to about 600 people, who live there permanently, on about 130 floating houses.

Cua Van Primary School in Halong bay, Vietnam

The school is an important part of our daily itinerary. We visit the Fishing Village every afternoon and on days that school is in session our guests are allowed to visit. It is a fascinating experience, as you can see from the pictures. The schoolrooms and equipment are very basic, and the dedicated teachers do a fantastic job with limited resources.

In the past, Indochina Sails has made cash donations for the betterment of the village in general. However, recently, one of our staff suggested; “What if we collect some money ourselves and try to fix up the school somehow to make it better for the kids?”

So, the idea was born. Donations were collected from every member of our staff, and added to that was a donation from the company’s Management Team. We then asked the teachers how best we could use the money to help the students.

Mr. Jerry Bowes, the General Manager of Indochina Sails makes donation in Cua Van Primary School in Halong bay, Vietnam

If any guest coming to Ha Long Bay would like to help the young students of the Primary School we suggest you bring donations such as pens, pencils, markers, crayons or chalk. Also, coloring books for the younger students and notebooks for the older ones. And what kid wouldn’t like some sweets!
Indochina Sails