Beautiful Halong Bay with Golden Bay Cruises, Vietnam

The UNESCO World Heritage Halong Bay is one of the most famous sites in Vietnam. It’s high up on most travellers list in this country, and rightly so. It’s absolutely stunning! The bay consists of just less than 2,000 limestone islands that often look like they are floating on top of the calm, emerald sea. I was mesmerised by the beauty here!

We spent two nights in Halong Bay with Golden Bay Cruises, which we booked through the Sinh Cafe in Hanoi. The trip was broken up into segments with one night sleeping in a cabin on a boat and another in a hotel room on Cat Ba Island.

Most companies seemed to operate in the same sort of way – this is the general gist:

1 night on boat:

Early morning pick up from Hanoi and board the boat just after midday.
Entire experience spent on one boat at the edge of Halong Bay, next to Titop Island and Surprising Cave, both of which you’ll visit.
Transfer back to the mainland 24 hours later.

2 nights on boat:

Starts the same as the 1 night option, but on day two you’ll be transferred to a boat of daytrippers to cruise around Halong Bay.
Transferred back to original boat late afternoon for night 2.

1 night on boat + 1 night in an island hotel:

Starts the same as the 1 night option, but on day two you’ll be transferred to another boat that will take you further into HLB to get to your island hotel.
On morning two, you’ll be taken back to the boat from night one for the transfer back to mainland.

So that’s the general way it works for these types of trips, it’s all to maximise the money they can make from each cabin boat. As a result we spoke to people doing all three options and I would definitely recommend doing two nights with one in a hotel, as we did.

You’re going to have a great time with either option because it’s Halong Bay and it’s gorgeous. The area where the 1 night option takes you is absolutely beautiful, it really is. But it’s also very busy – boats everywhere from both 1 night options and day trips. If you add another night in a hotel to this, you can go further into the bay as you don’t need to get back to the original boat until day three. So you’ll get to see more, including the floating village, and enjoy the beauty of this area without boat traffic. If you have the time/money to stay even longer, that’s even better! These were just the options that people were doing that we came across. Do yourself a favour and allow for more than just one day or one night in Halong Bay, you won’t regret it! 🙂

Anyway, enough of the technicalities! Here’s what we got up to on the two night trip:

Day One

We arrived at Halong harbour at around midday, following a three-hour minibus transfer. It was a gloriously sunny day – not a cloud in the sky – so we could see the edge of Halong Bay from here! But there was a slight haze on the horizon, which made the hundreds of limestone outcrops looming in the distance look even more mysterious. Very exciting stuff! The haze was non-existent when you got up close though. Cruising through the islands was just breathtaking. I never comprehended before just how many there were or how large the area was. It reminded me of the Milford Sound in New Zealand, but with tropical islands rather than snowy mountains and brilliant green water rather than blue. I think I must have taken about a thousand photographs in that first hour!

The first stop was the Surprising Cave. This consisted of three chambers, the first being fairly small and the third absolutely enormous. It was a pretty cool place with massive stalagmites and stalactites, and a few bats flapping around! It was super busy though, literally hundreds of people shuffling through in single file. It’s a tourist attraction so you just have to accept it for what it is so you can enjoy the true magnificence of the cave. After we left the cave we were able to have a paddle around a small cove in a kayak. We really enjoyed this, but we do love kayaking! It’s such a great way to see a place. Being so low on the water with those limestone cliffs towering above you really does make you feel so small and insignificant, in the best possible way of course ha! We saw a big group of monkeys chasing each other around in the cove too, which was fun! 🙂

Then it was back to the boat to enjoy the last few minutes of daylight before dinner. We missed the sun going down over the islands while we were kayaking, but seeing their silhouettes against the purple and red sky was stunning. Especially from the comfort of our cabin window, so lucky! 🙂 After dinner we watched some poor attempts at squid fishing and had an hour of free beer. Not a bad way to finish a great day!

Day Two

The Vietnamese don’t seem to understand the concept of a lie-in, so we were up before the sun in order to make the 7-7.30am breakfast! I’m not a morning person, but I can’t think of many better ways to start the day than by waking up to the sun rising from behind a Halong Bay island. Absolutely lush! After a lovely breakfast of noodle soup (lol) we were taken over to Titop Island. This is one of the few islands that have been built on and has a cute little beach. We didn’t swim as it was chilly despite the sunshine. But we did climb the 400-odd steps to the lookout at the top of the hill. From here you could see islands as far as the eye can see, in almost every direction. There were quite a lot of people up there, but the view (main pic) was truly spectacular, especially as the sun hadn’t long been up so there was still a pinky, purple tinge to the sky. It’s a view I will never forget!

After this little excursion we were transferred to the boat that would take us to Cat Ba Island, where we were spending night two. As we travelled away from the Titop Island/Surprising Cave area, we saw fewer and fewer boats. A lot of the time all I could see were the beautiful tropical islands we were weaving through. It was so lovely. We travelled through the floating village and stopped off for some more kayaking at a little cove where the villagers farm oysters. There were no other tourists in this spot where we paddled about, it was so peaceful. Until we realised our voices echoed between the mountains surrounding the cove, and had some fun yelling!

Before coming to Halong Bay I’d heard there was a real problem with pollution and rubbish in the waters. But around the village was the only place I saw any of this, and given their basic way of life, with little education or even electricity, it’s hard to be too judgmental. The rest of the bay was actually very clean!

The next stop was Monkey Island, so-named for the many monkeys that roam around the pretty beach! I did have a little paddle but I didn’t get up the courage to plunge completely in. Maybe next time hey! We scrambled up the rocky route to the top of the hill, though, for another stunning view of the islands. The rocks here were very sharp and twisted, I thought they looked volcanic, so it was quite a precarious climb, it was actually like rock climbing in places and quite steep. George’s fear of heights kicked in and he wouldn’t go as far as me, what a wimp! 😉 The 360 degree view from the top was gorgeous and definitely worth the effort.

Some people stopped here to stay on Monkey Island, which is a little more expensive than Cat Ba. For the rest of us it was another ten minutes to get to Cat Ba Island, which is massive. There’s a proper town here with resorts and roads across the island. You could really spend a good few days exploring here! We didn’t arrive until around 2pm so we just had a little wander down to beaches three and two – in that order – via a short coastal walk around the headland. The beaches were really pretty and clean and the walk was lovely. We stopped at a bar on the way back for a nice cold Bia Ha Noi for 50p. I couldn’t quite figure out how we’d managed to end up looking out to sea in a western direction, but we must have because we enjoyed an absolutely dreamy sunset here! A perfect end to our day and (basically anyway) our time in Vietnam.

Day three was basically just a nice slow cruise back to the boat that we started on, where we learned how to make nem – Vietnamese spring rolls – before heading back to the mainland.

We had an absolutely fantastic time on this trip, it was magically stunning from start to finish. The breathtaking beauty of Halong Bay is incredible and I think it would be really difficult to have a bad time here. We were lucky to have sunshine for 90 per cent of the trip, though. It was really great and good value for money at $140 per person. This included all activities and all meals, which were really tasty and you got a lot! You also had several free drinks on night one. On the boat the beers you paid for were $2, a bit more expensive than normal, and they were a bit cheeky to charge more than twice the normal price for bottled water. But there are super cheap bars and shops on Cat Ba Island and you can take a few big bottles of water with you.