Field Trip: Hạ Long Bay
Arguably the most famous travel destination in Việt Nam, Hạ Long Bay is a spectacular collection of over 1,600 small islands in the Gulf of Tonkin, tall monolithic limestone karsts.
Due to their vertical nature, these islands do not naturally have many beaches to walk around on, but Vietnamese have lived around these islands for hundreds of years on boats and floating platforms. Now, many islands with points of interest are tourist destinations which see thousands of visitors per day. Small, licensed cruise ships offer 1-day or overnight cruises. These cruises usually drop you off for an hour-long visit at several different islands. Overnight cruises are much more expensive, but offer additional activities (cooking classes at night, yoga in the morning) and six hours of daylight in the morning to enjoy activities before the swarm of day cruises arrive at noon.
Day trips from Ha Noi start with a 3 hour shuttle east past the port of Hải Phòng.
Hang Luồn: "Slip Through" Cave
Taking a canoe or a larger boat paddled by a local guide, you must duck to slip under this low cave opening in a sheer cliff face. On the other side, you come out into a completely enclosed secret cove. Apparently, you can sometimes see monkeys playing in the trees in the mornings, but we didn't when we were there.
The rowers don't speak English, but we ingratiated ourselves with trying our limited Vietnamese on him, and he took our picture while occasionally resting at letting our boat drift in the peaceful waters.
Đảo Titop: Titov Island
In the 1960s, Russian Cosmonaut Gherman Titov - the 2nd man to orbit the Earth - visited Viet Nam, and Ho Chi Minh took him to relax on the implausible white sand beach on this island. The island was later named after him.
If you are not inclined to sip an (only slightly) overpriced beer or sugarcane juice, or coconut water straight from an unrefrigerated coconut, you can climb 500 steps or so to the top of the island's limestone peak for a stunning 360 view of hundreds of islands (and tourist vessels). But you really only have time to do one of these things, because after an hour the vessel that brought you here will need to head out again.
Hang Sửng Sốt: Surprise Cave
The same forces of erosion that wore the exteriors of these jagged limestone rocks down also created thousands of caves of all sizes in them. Visitors to Surprise Cave must first climb a few hundred stairs to enter the caves at a high altitude.
Despite the high expectations set by this cave's name, I was still utterly surprised with how massive this cave was. And the sun's rays piercing down into the main cave with its warmer man-made lighting made for a blue glow like something out of a fairy tale. This is a must-see spot on any tour to Ha Long Bay, and a perfect climax to our journey.
On the cruise back to the mainland, a performer entertained us on a percussion instrument of tuned bones like a xylophone, a local folk instrument not unlike something you'd see in Pacific island cultures.
We took this trip on a major Vietnamese holiday and our guide told us it was as busy as Ha Long Bay gets. A visit to Ha Long Bay is unfortunately always going to involve crowds of other tourists. And I'm sad to say that the impact to the environment was noticeable, there was a lot of trash in the water outside of the bay and the famously clear waters of the bay are now fairly murky in some places. But the beauty of the place is unmistakable and I would recommend a cheap day-trip to anyone visiting northern Viet Nam.