Chào buổi sáng Việt Nam!
Good Morning Vietnam!
For me, Ha Long Bay was not what I had pictured. I had imagined it as incredibly beautiful but quite small. When I arrived it was giant. It was so breathtaking beyond belief and I wish that I had a week to just explore and relax! Before our awesome boat cruise, we struggled a bit to get there!
Disclaimer: What my friends and I did I do not recommend doing, I will give you some suggestions of a better plan in the second half of this blog post.
We flew into Hanoi from Da Nang (Hoi An) since Hanoi was the closest place to Ha Long Bay with an Airport. Then we were told that you could take a bus straight from the airport down to Ha Long Bay. This was not the case. We had to take a Grab (the Vietnamese Uber) 40 minutes to the bus station that serviced to Ha Long Bay. When arriving at the bus stop all the taxis rushed to the car trying to give us a good deal to take us down there themselves. We pushed through and got inside the station. Bought our ticket, walked outside and the line of buses was didn’t make our life easy finding which one to get on. Someone told us but when we started driving, the bus was going north rather than south which made us nervous. After driving an hour north picking up people along the way we finally were headed south and hoping we were on the right bus. The supposed 3 hour bus ride took about 5 and when we got there we were still 30 min away from the Airbnb we had book for the next 2 nights so we had to take another Grab.
Sadly our Airbnb host spoke no english and the place we were staying was full of security that also didn’t speak english and was highly confused why three girls with large backpacks were hanging in the lobby. After two hours of trying to contact our host and walking to other building for help and being told we were in the wrong place multiple times we finally got into our Airbnb which was gorgeous. It had an amazing view of Ha long bay despite the hassle of getting there. We finally got settled at 9 pm and had to book our tour for the next day.
We booked a tour through trip advisor. There are a billion tours of Ha Long Bay and they offer so many different things from one day to multiple nights to getaway islands caves or monkey parks. They have a wide variety of prices as well. Since we were just there one day and on a budget, we booked one for about $50 that included lunch, kayaking, a hike, beach time, and a huge cave tour. It was really awesome but getting to the marina and finding our group was a bit hard.
Overall, I loved Ha Long Bay but I do not recommend going and staying there on your own. There was a small strip of shops but not really much and the main market was closed while we were there. Plus getting there was a huge pain. I recommend staying in Hanoi and choosing a tour that provides transportation from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay and back. You will have no trouble finding this for when I was looking there were many tours that offered this and some that had an option to pick up in Hanoi or meet in Ha Long Bay. Along with this is one day is not enough for you, I suggest finding a tour that is a few nights on the water. It will be well worth it. I also would recommend going to the island of Cat Ba if you would like to stay in the area for a longer period of time. It is just as amazing and gives views of Ha Long Bay yet it has more to do in the area you will be staying with gorgeous water a-crossed the main street and benches to hang out on.
I hope that Ha Long Bay goes smoothly and you are able to take in the amazing scenery because it is truly wonderful!
See You Soon
Hẹn sớm gặp lại
xoxo Gina