The magical landscape of Halong Bay
After a week working in Hanoi, it was time to officially kickstart our vacation. We splurged and booked ourselves a 5-star Mon Chéri cruise along Halong Bay for 3 days and 2 nights. And my oh my, what an experience it was!
December is a bit of a gamble in terms of weather. December is Vietnam’s winter season so you can expect anything between a sunny and wonderful 28°C or cold and windy 15°C day. We had the cold and windy experience. Nevertheless, we were well prepared and still made the best of it.
The room we got on the cruise was very spacious and included an aircon, balcony, sofa, and well-equipped bathroom with a shower. The cruise ensured we were well fed. We were served with buffets in the morning and a 5 course meal for lunch and dinner. We enjoyed cocktails during happy hour (buy 1, get one free) every evening before dinner and mingled and exchanged stories with some of the other passengers. We met a couple from New Zealand, a Polish couple living in Sweden, an Indian couple living in the UK and sisters that were originally from China, but one was living in the US and the other one living in Hong Kong. So many nationalities on one cruise!
There are a scary number of cruises visible during the day and night travelling up and down and around Halong Bay. Most of these ships have a day boat attached and there also service boats collecting washing, refueling, dropping off supplies and all amongst that, fishing boats alongside locals selling items. The water traffic is insane. However, it remains a tranquil and magical experience. In the evenings, when each ship switches on their lights, it is a beautiful sight. We counted a whopping 30 ships around us that one evening where we had anchored for the night.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site, made up of over 2 000 limestone pillar shaped islands. These islands look very similar to each other in terms of shape, vegetation, and geology. The Vietnamese has named 700 of them, liking to them to shapes of fruits or animals. If you break up the word Halong, Ha stands for descended and Long stands for dragon. History states that enemies who tried to invade Vietnam were known to get lost amongst these islands. The locals were ready and used the high and low tides in their favour to capture their enemies. One of the stories told were that ships were drawn into certain areas in the bay, and when low tide set in, the ship was stuck on planted wooden pegs. It was at this moment that the Vietnamese invaded and destroyed enemy’s ships. Anyways, back to the name. The locals believe it is the dragon that descended and saved the nation against the attacking enemies.
Similar to the itinerary of many other cruises in the vicinity, there were two day excursions that took us out the South-East and North-East of the Cat Ba Island. The island is only 300 square kilometers. Cat Ba is translated to the Island of Women. During the war, the men went out to fight and the woman and children were left behind waiting for their husband’s return. On that island, we were given the opportunity to try rice wine. The locals played around with the flavours too. What we found amusing was that each of these flavours were believed to have medicinal properties. Here are some of them:
- Wildberry rice wine – improves beauty
- Sugarcane rice wine – enhances liver function and reduces jaundice
- Bee rice wine – regulates blood volume in body and reduces harmful cholesterol
- Banana rice wine – cures kidney disease, kidney stones, diabetes, back pain and joint pain
- Corn rice win – stimulant effect on the nervous system
Other activities included kayaking the first day around some of the islands. When we arrived on the South East side of the island, we were given the choice of either cycling or taking an e-cart from the port to the village. We of course opted for the cycling (a short 5km one way). Upon arrival at the village, we were shown how houses were made in the olden times with bamboo and clay mud. We could also place our feet in a huge pool where small fish nibbled off the dead skin. That was a cool experience.
When exploring the North-East side of the Cat Ba island, we were taken by bus early in the morning to walk through the well-lit Trung Trang caves. There were several stalagmites and stalactites. It was surprisingly very hot and humid in the cave.
We would recommend booking your cruise with Vietnam Escape Tours. We worked specifically with Nabii and her service was excellent in terms of communication, confirmation and follow ups. In the travel packet, she included the a pick up from our apartment in Hanoi to the harbour. We experience no hiccups in terms of arrangements whatsoever.
