Ha Long Bay: The Best of Vietnam and Worst of Tourism

I've never been the type of person that likes being part of a tour group.  I find it too restricting and doing things that you don't want to do.  But tour groups can not be avoided.  It makes some things easier and definitely can be more economical in certain areas and this is definitely the case for Ha Long Bay.  Ha Long Bay is located about 3 1/2 hour drive NE of Hanoi and has been newly minted as one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World."  It's a bay dotted with around 2,000 islands, which beats the Hundred Islands that we visited in the Philippines.  What it also has over the Hundred Islands are a lot more people and a lot more boats.  And this is the downside of tourism.  Good and bad, beautiful places draws a lot of people and you have to deal with the crowds to enjoy the site.  (Yes, I understand that we too add to the crowds and spoiling the beautiful scenery.)

And with so many people, the only way to handle the crowd is to have them join tour groups.  And that is what we did. The options to visit Ha Long Bay are either a day trip, a 2 day/1 night trip, a 3 day/2 night trip, and private boat.  All online guides that Darin and I read recommend the 3 day/2 night option and for $200 USD per person, we booked our tour and we were off.  We were picked up in Hanoi and 3-ish hours later, we were in Ha Long city boarding a boat that will take us to our home for the next two nights.  

The boat that brought us to our "home" on Ha Long Bay

Not our boat, bus similar.  Ours didn't have the fake sails.

On the top deck of our tour boat

And true to form, our first afternoon/evening on the boat is like every bad tour group come to life.  We had 1 hour to kayak and we were all corralled to go to specific areas.  We then went back to the boat and had 10 minutes to gather our stuff to go to Tee Top Island to spend time at the beach.  And the beach was nothing compared to the gorgeous beaches we've been to.  But the view from the top was nice.

 Though we were enjoying the view and the bay, we were dreading our time because we felt very constricted and regimented.  It wasn't very fun and we left comments saying as such.  The start of day 2 was similar to the previous afternoon where we were corralled again to go visit a cave.  After caving in Sagada just a month previous, this was very lackluster and not worth a picture or further comment.

After visiting the cave was when the best of Vietnam showed itself.  Sharing the tour boat with us were 15 other people that only signed up for the 2 day tour.  So we said our good-byes to our fellow passenger and boarded a smaller boat for our 2nd day trip.  And this is why the tour books recommend doing 3 days on a boat in Ha Long Bay.  We got on a boat that can hold 10 people comfortably, yet we were the only ones on the boat.  Our "day trip" boat took us out further in the bay, where we saw 2 other boats at a time carrying no more than 2-4 tourists each.  We were in heaven.  Far far less people and far far far less other boats.  So we were left to our own to enjoy this beautiful piece of nature.  And we had no set agenda.  We could jump off our boat and take a swim, we can kayak for as long as we wanted.  We were even suppose to visit a pearl farm and Cat Ba Island, but we fell asleep on our boat and napped for as long as we wanted.

After a glorious day on our "day trip" boat, we returned to our "home" boat where we met a new batch of tourists on a 2-day trip or the start of their 3-day trip.  And the scheduled time started again.

Don't get me wrong, our "home" boat was still spectacular.  Below is our view from our bedroom and our typical view during meals.  Not too shabby.

So if you come to Vietnam, go to Ha Long Bay.  You haven't really been to Vietnam unless you do.  And if you do go to Ha Long Bay, shell out the cash and eke out the time for the 3-day tour on the boat for both nights.  It will be well worth it and you will find out why so many people flock to this site.