Mini-cruise around Ha Long Bay
Days 5–6.
There are plenty of small tour operators in Hanoi selling cruises to tourists. One evening, we spontaneously decide to try a two-day cruise through Ha Long Bay on a cruise ship.
The next morning, a bus picks us up right from our hotel.
To keep passengers from getting on the wrong bus at rest stops along the way, everyone is given some very heavily branded badges.
At one of these stops, I decide to have some fun and run up the down escalator.
It’s October back home, but here the trees are in bloom.
As we approach the coast, we notice widespread destruction everywhere. It turns out that Typhoon Yagi had struck the area only recently. The damage was estimated to be among the worst in Vietnam’s history.
If you watch the video above with the sound on, you can hear a loud sneeze at the end. It unlocked a funny memory: there were some Chinese passengers on the bus, and one of them kept sneezing loudly the entire way. I have no idea why you need to know this, but his constant sneezing annoyed me so much that I decided to write about it in my diary.
The bus drops us off near the pier, where there are covered waiting areas for passengers.
Waiting.
Boarding the ship begins with a dragon dance performance.
In the second video, you can see that the dragon is operated by two performers: one controls the head, while the other is the back half. That unlocked a school memory. The only time I ever appeared in a school play was back in sixth or seventh grade. I played the back half of a horse. So here I am in Vietnam, feeling a strange sense of kinship with the back half of a dragon. 🥹
We chose a cabin with large windows on the second deck.
I’m just chilling on the balcony as we cruise toward our first stop.
Ha Long Bay is home to nearly 2,000 islands and islets. Most of them are rocky limestone formations. They were created over millions of years as rain, groundwater, and the sea slowly dissolved the limestone, carving out cracks and caves. Later, rising sea levels flooded the landscape, leaving hundreds of isolated rock towers seemingly growing straight out of the water. Geologically, this landscape is known as a drowned tower karst.
The atmosphere is relaxing.
I came up with the idea of spending this little cruise trying every local beer I could find. By the end, the collection looked like this:
About an hour later, we transfer to a smaller boat and head to our first stop.
Boats of all sizes are making their way alongside us. I have a feeling it’s going to be crowded.
Once we’re on shore and make our way a little higher up, that feeling turns into certainty: this place is going to be packed.
The first stop on the cruise is the Surprise Cave (Sung Sot Cave). By the time we reach the entrance, that certainty has turned into a fact: there are a lot of people.
If we’re being nerdy about it, caves and cave tours are all built from pretty much the same ingredients. Alright, let’s nerd out for a minute.
We’re standing inside a karst cave. At one point in its history, it was completely flooded, with water flowing through it. Those currents carved the cave ceiling into a cool honeycomb-like pattern known as scallops.
Up close, it looks a bit like concrete. :-)
Later, as the seabed gradually rose, the caves drained. Water dripping from the ceiling began forming stalactites (the icicle-like formations hanging from above) and stalagmites (the tower-like formations growing up from the floor). When a stalactite and a stalagmite eventually meet, they form a column known as a stalagnate.
There are also plenty of rock formations in all sorts of bizarre shapes.
Then come the legends tied to the cave. Every single time. No exceptions. This one is linked to the legend of Gióng, one of Vietnam’s mythical heroes.
You’ll usually come across formations that are said to resemble something and carry symbolic meaning. This cave had one too—a symbol of fertility.
Near the exit, there are formations that look like the dangling legs of people sitting on the rocky ledge above.
Surprise Cave is one of the largest caves in Ha Long Bay. I can confirm—it really is huge.
So, here’s the standard cave-tour checklist:
— scallops;
— stalactites, stalagmites, and stalagnates;
— bizarre rock formations;
— formations that are said to resemble something;
— legends;
We head back to the boat.
The internet works everywhere.
The last time I traveled around Vietnam was 12 years ago. The internet had already been invented, but it wasn’t everywhere yet. These days, even while traveling, you stay connected to your usual stream of information. You never really get that feeling of stepping away from your everyday social circle, the constant flow of news, and everything else that’s going on.
We set sail.
For some reason, they took us to a beach. It was crowded. And… it was just a beach. This stop felt completely unnecessary.
We drop anchor in one of the bays for the night. We watch the sunset from the ship. Sunsets are always beautiful! (It’s a shame Google Photos compressed the videos from this trip.)
Before dinner, anyone interested can join a spring roll–making class.
The instructor tells us that making spring rolls is women’s work, and that every girl needs to know how to make them if she wants to get married.
Dinner consists of several courses. A couple is sitting next to us, and the guy keeps complaining that the portions are too small and take too long to arrive.
In the evening, the host performs a few songs himself.
The atmosphere is fun, unusual, and kind of weird.
Sunrise.
Except for dinner, all the other meals are served buffet-style. At those, you can actually eat pretty well.
I notice the schedule for the entire mini-cruise. It turns out that, in reality, this isn't a two-day cruise at all—at best, it's a 24-hour one.
There's only one activity left: kayaking among the rocky islands.
Relax.
Beautiful and calming.
We notice a cool play of light on the rocks.
We definitely have to film this!
About 40 minutes later, we head back to the ship.
We sail back.
I'm deliberately leaving these long videos in, even though nothing happens in them, because this is exactly the atmosphere I want to capture. Moving across the water. Drifting past the rocks. Nothing happens.
Although, if you look closely, there’s plenty of action.
A piece of styrofoam floats by.
A ship passes nearby.
As we approach the pier, the host offers to arrange a taxi for us. He says it’s hard to find one to the airport right now.
I agree, even though a voice in my head is saying, “You’ve traveled enough to know this smells like a tourist scam.” But no matter how many times you’ve said, “That’s the last time I let someone take me for a ride as a tourist—it won’t happen again,” sooner or later, you get taken for a ride again. 😅
The guide arranges a taxi from town to the airport. The driver turns out to be his brother. At this point, all signs point to a scam. The fare is 700,000 Vietnamese dong, or about $30.
The amount isn’t large, of course, and the story wouldn’t be worth telling if it didn’t have an unexpected continuation.
We already have tickets to Da Lat. We arrive at the airport and suddenly decide to go back to Hanoi instead. Somehow, the city managed to draw us in with its atmosphere. We can’t get a refund on the tickets—they’re with a low-cost airline, and there’s only about an hour left before departure. So we write them off, call a taxi back into town, and plan to continue to Hanoi by bus.
The Uber fare turns out to be 88,000 dong, or about $3.50.
And then the taxi story gets a sequel: the same driver who took us from the pier into town shows up. To his credit, he doesn’t look embarrassed in the slightest.
***
Recommendations for what a mini-cruise should be like:
- Skip the cave visit.
- Get rid of the beach visit for good.
- Keep only the part where the ship sails among the islands. That alone is almost entirely enough for relaxing, taking in the scenery, and doing nothing.
- Extend the cruise by at least one full day.
- Kayaking can stay as one of the activities.
- Maybe add snorkeling for anyone interested.
I strongly recommend reducing the density of activities and impressions. It lets you experience what actually matters more deeply. In this case, that means truly feeling Ha Long Bay itself, with its rocky islands.
***
From there, we take a bus to Hanoi. It greets us with the familiar hum of mopeds.
To be continued...
5‒6 October 2024