“You haven’t been to Vietnam if you haven’t seen Halong Bay!” Hung, our tour guide in Halong Bay.
When we were leaving Luang Prabang for our “24 Hour Bus Ride From Hell,” we ran into the awesome Aussie duo from GetOnAJet, Anita and Rohan. We exchanged information and made plans to meet up in Hanoi and Brian and I were so happy that we all followed through on our promise.
After returning from Sapa, Brian and I were trying to figure out how we wanted to tackle Halong Bay. We had been thinking about some of the overnight stays but kept going back and forth on whether it was worth the time and money.
Thankfully, Anita and Rohan made our decision easy for us and we ended up joining their one day excursion. The night before we met up for dinner where one beer turned into six, and we spent the evening talking about all the ups and downs of travel and how the reality of the real world was starting to sink in for all of us. They are currently fifteen months into an eighteen month trip around the world (update: They successfully traveled for 18 months before heading back home to Australia! Hi guys!). We found so many similarities between our trip, our views, and our ambitions — our chance encounter in Laos truly felt serendipitous.
THIS is what it looked like
Our Halong Bay experience only cost $30 (we booked with Phong Hai 68) including our kayak excursion so none of us had really high hopes, it was more of a something you have to do while in Vietnam excursion. Had the weather been nicer, it may have changed our outlook a bit, but really all these tours are the same and you couldn’t beat the price.
We endured another five hour bus ride, where they crammed more people than seats into a tiny mini bus. The best part was our overly enthusiastic tour guide, Hung. He spent twenty minutes convincing all of us that we were about to have, “the best lunch of our lives! A lunch you will never forget! You know why? Because it will be in Halong Bay!” Someone needs to tell Hung to set expectations low and all will be pleasantly surprised.
After five hours of Brian fighting for legroom with the giant Russian man squeezed in next to him, we boarded our boat and set sail. “The best lunch of our lives,” consisted of a family style seafood spread barely able to feed four adults, let alone the six that were at our table. It was definitely one of those uncomfortable meals were no one wanted to take the last of anything so it all lingered on the plate looking more unappetizing with each passing minute. Finally, we watched as the waiter sadly took it away (yeah right, as soon as the waiter came to take the plates, I grabbed it all from him and piled it on my plate. Waste not!).
Unfortunately the weather really was crap, and the foggy mist we were hoping for (given the lack of sunshine) just turned into a completely dull sky and grey waters. The limestone islands jetting out of the bay were still spectacular and the sheer number of them (over 3,000) was more than I could wrap my head around. The kayaking trip ended up being a complete failure as they put Brian in the front leaving me to steer us around which we all know by now was a complete disaster (and of course turned into an argument). Every time I tried to paddle, water would drip into my sleeves and all the way down my body. We were allotted 20-30 minutes. We were back on the boat in less than five.
These happy people are not us. It’s our friends from Australia, @GetOnAJet
We also visited the Thien Cung Caves which were cool to see except that it felt like we were waiting in line for Indiana Jones at Disneyland (which I honestly would have preferred). It really felt like cows being herded as we were being shuffled up the stairs. If you have issues with personal space, well, this will be a real test. If somehow there were no tourists (and they killed the tacky colored lights everywhere), Thien Cung Caves would have been a top excursion on our list.
I still think Halong Bay shouldn’t be missed, but I strongly advise taking weather into consideration. Brian and I have been so fortunate to have seen so many beautiful parts of the world, that Halong Bay didn’t stand out one way or another. Which leads me to something I’ve been trying to ignore for the last couple of months. It’s a side of travel that sneaks up on you and to be honest, something I was afraid of experiencing. I never want to get to a point where something feels like, “just another historical site.” I never want to take anything for granted. So many people out there to tell you to “just follow your dreams.” Well the reality of it is, not everyone can do that because it isn’t that easy. After visiting Halong Bay I realized that the only reason we went was to tick it off the checklist. It was a great reminder to slow down and reflect on the reasons we took this trip to begin with. There are so many controversial sides to tourism that run through our minds everyday, but we will save the rest for another post.
S+B