Trip to Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is a place where practically every traveler who comes to Hanoi will go, so you can arrange a trip practically everywhere. Each hotel has a catalog where you can choose from a variety of expensive tours. It mainly offers a 1 or 2 day trip. In my experience, I must say that one-day must be absolute madness, which is not worth doing business, and two-day is on the edge. It is definitely worth choosing three days and really enjoying it.

The road from Hanoi to Ha Long is 170 kilometers so quite a gravel road. It's half a day away before you go to other hotels and get out of town – that's why a day trip is really not worth it. The whole road is run through a relatively lively flat landscape, where the fields alternate with industrial complexes. Only in front of the town do mounds begin, so far mostly partially dismantled into building material. Dozens of ships are alive in the port, everywhere.

There are about 15 tourists per boat. Barges with fruit arrive immediately after boarding, the locals are simply extremely enterprising.

Unfortunately, there is a terrible haze over the sea, so visibility is not very famous. But there is no reason to complain, there is often a completely impenetrable fog, which was unlucky for many travelers before us. Guid tells us that it's nice to see them only after heavy rains, which will clean it up nicely. After a while of sailing, the famous hummocks begin to emerge mystically. It's really beautiful. We approach them in a large peloton of other ships.

At first glance, the area is quite similar to the hummocks in Thailand near Krabi, but there are far more of them and they are much larger. In addition, the haze no longer bothers so much up close.

Fishermen also have their floating town in the bay.

After visiting the fishing village, there is lunch and then an amazing cruise between the lumps. The boats here serve the photographer as a great measure of the enormity of the local rocks

After a longer sightseeing cruise, we arrive at one larger hill, in which there is also a large cave. So we also have a nice speleological insert.

The cave has a huge dome and all formations are beautifully lit. Definitely one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Only those people…

From the cave we set off on a long cruise to the island of Cat Ba. The outlook is still breathtaking

This early evening ride is the best part of the whole trip for me. We take off on the deck and enjoy the beautifully lit clumps. The surface shines from the low sun and in the meantime small fishing boats pass by. Scattered secluded houseboats are scattered between the islands. It has a pretty strong atmosphere here now. In addition, the peloton of boats tore, so I finally don't feel like at a tourist race.

We arrive at Cat Ba, which is the largest island in the entire Halong Bay. The capital of the island, where we will sleep, is exactly on the other side, so we still have about half an hour bus ride on the panoramic road. it looks really beautiful. The island is incredibly rocky. One lump next to another, just this time over the sea. We arrive in Cat Ba town, where there are a lot of tall hotels huddled under even higher mountains. The atmosphere of the old fishing village is long gone.

The end of the day is also luxurious, the sunset is amazing here