Mr & Mrs Wanderlust : Halong Bay, Sensational Scenery when the skies are clear

Halong Bay

In every tour agency, in every street in Hanoi, you will find some place trying to sell you a Halong bay tour. We went to A Travelmate...the place that booked us our Sapa bus and had given us lots of information about Hanoi during our stay there. We went for a 1 night 2 day tour in Halong bay (although in reality its barely 24hrs). Being on a budget we went for a nice boat but with no extra frills. All of the tours are basically the same but the main difference is the boat you end up on. Ours was with APT travel and was supposed to the the golden dragon Junk boat which cost us $95pp. However, on arrival in Halong bay we were upgraded to their mid-range boat which had a free cabin... (which we had been offered at $145 but decided not to go for) so we were pretty happy!

So to get to Halong Bay you take a 4 hour bus with a halfway stop to some crappy crafts place that sells rubbish overpriced coffee. You are all crammed into buses/minivans and there are lots taking the same journey from Hanoi.

So on arrival in Halong Bay you await to board your ship(which again takes time) we were taken by a smaller boat to our ship which was offshore.

As mentioned before the boat we ended up staying on was the Viet beauty by ATP tours. It wasn't too bad, we got a nice double room.

Obviously the one thing we have no control over is the weather and on arrival in Halong bay there was a terrible fog. You could barely see 2 metres in front of yourself let alone any of the infamous rock formations in the sea!

After a speedy hot shower we settled down to lunch which was actually delicious. We were given the run down on the activities for the next 2 days and told to return to that area in 15 mins if we wanted to go the the beach and do some kayaking. This wasn't quite as expected although not through fault of the tour but because of the poor weather. We tried to make the most of it and enjoyed kayaking around the immediate islands following the tour guide as he showed us some of the rocks.

Back on the beach we chilled out for a bit and a big group of people played volleyball and after a little time enjoying the beach and chatting with others, we were taken back to the boat for a shower and dinner. The food was pretty good, and we were able to try squid fishing off the side of the boat, as well as being taught to make Spring rolls. We also had the option of Karaoke, but most on the boat decided to pass on this, we retired off to our cabin for a nice comfy sleep on very still seas.

The next morning we were greeted by a relatively bland breakfast of toast, eggs, and jam. Then it was time to set sail to the Pearl farm where you are shown how pearls are created. Obviously this then leads you into a shop selling the Pearls they are farming. They did show us how they collect the pearls from the Oyster and we were lucky enough to find one even though they only get a return of about 30% of what they farm, and even less are of a saleable standard.

Back to the boat for lunch and a few last photos from the top deck before our bus takes us back to Hanoi.