Halong Bay

by Becca Smith

 

Many people only associate Vietnam with the largely unpopular and horrific war on communism in the 1960’s. However, Vietnam is a largely safe country now, with amazing things to offer to tourists from around the world. Among these is Halong Bay, UNESCO World Heritage Site that is one of the 28 finalists to be one of the next 7 world wonders. And besides all that, it is one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Most tourists love going to see the cave where a scene was filmed in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies was filmed, which to be honest have never seen so I cannot describe exactly what scene it is.

We spent almost all of our time in Halong Bay on Cat Ba Island. We rented motorbikes - which I unsuccessfully tried to learn how to drive & had to ride on the back the whole time. We took the bikes to the national park on the island where we hiked up one of the highest peaks on the island so that we could see the beauty of Cat Ba Island from above. Then we went to the hospital cave , which was one of the natural caves on the island that had been constructed into a secret hospital for the Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. We explored all the different hospital rooms, and the main room that used to be used as a cinema and was even complete with a swimming pool. 

The only way for most tourists to get around Halong bay is by booking a tour and I would recommend booking your Halong Bay tour before you get there to avoid the hassle there. Most of these tours will take visitors a bus to the bay where a tour boat is waiting.

These are huge slow moving boats that go around the bay through all the different islands. I lounged on a lawn chair on the deck of the boat marveling as we passed these huge limestone rocks, and contemplated how I had no idea before how it felt to be in the middle of something so truly amazing.  

Most tours offered one night sleeping on the boat in the middle of the bay. And you can sit on the deck, sipping on a drink, and watching the sunset over all the cliffs after a day of jumping off the boat to swim among the colossal rocks or kayaking into the caves, which of course I missed out on because we decided to spend all of our time seeing everything on Cat Ba Island, but I would recommend to anyone to take up the opportunity to sleep in the bay.