Cruising Halong Bay

With more than 3000 islands rising from the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, Halong Bay is one of Vietnam’s most beautiful treasures and a must see for all tourists visiting north Vietnam.

Danny and I decided to book a 3 day/2 night cruise along the bay. We spent the first night in a cabin on the junk boat, and the second night on Cat Ba Island.

To get to Halong Bay from Hanoi, we rode three hours on a shuttle bus. We boarded the “Phoenix” junk boat around noon and were promptly served a lunch of fresh seafood.

Room, top of the boat and dining room…

We walked through Thien Cung Cave, a really big one!

We saw many floating homes…

We went kayaking through along the bay and through caves. Gorgeous!

Video of kayaking through a cave…

We reboarded the boat and were greeted with a glass of wine and fresh fruit. We went up to the top of the boat and watched the sun go down along the bay.

The next morning we were dropped off on Cat Ba Island where we stayed in a hotel for the night. There didn’t seem to be much to do on Cat Ba and it was raining so Danny and I were pretty lazy that day. Danny decided he wanted to get a massage and our hotel suggested another hotel that offered massages. I met Danny back at the hotel an hour later to learn that he had been offered a “Happy Ending” during his massage!!! I was furious and wanted him to show me the woman who massaged him so I could yell at her! Danny talked me out of it, and after I had calmed down I found the incident very funny. When in Asia…

On our last day of the tour we were taken to “Monkey Island” where we saw many funny little monkeys. I am not sure if they were the endangered Cat Ba langur, a golden-haired little monkey that has a punk-rock harido, known to inhabit the island, but they kind of looked like them? The monkeys entertained us for a long time. One little guy was especially silly and put on a show for us. Danny got a little too comfortable and close to one monkey while taking a video and the monkey jumped at him causing all of us to take off running!

Our new friends Sara and Fabien we met on the cruise. Sara is American and Fabien is French…they made quite the pair traveling in Vietnam with their countries combined history of war in Nam!

Halong Bay was breathtakingly beautiful but I was not that impressed with Cat Ba Island.We reboarded the Phoniex Cruiser and were taken bay to Halong City to catch the bus that would return us to Hanoi.

To see photos of Halong Bay CLICK HERE.