HALONG BAY TRAVEL GUIDE

Ha Long Bay (also “Halong Bay”) is in northern Vietnam, 170 km (105 mi) east of Hanoi. The bay is famous for its scenic ocean karst topography and is often included in lists of natural wonders of the world.

Understand

“Ha Long” means “Bay of Descending Dragons” though prior to the 19th century this name was not recorded in any document or archive. When mentioning the present-day Quang Ninh Sea or Ha Long Bay, old historical books often referred to them by the names of An Bang, Luc Thuy or Van Don. Not until the late 19th century did the name of Ha Long Bay appear on a French Marine Map. The Hai Phong News, a French newspaper of the time, had an article, Dragon appears on Ha Long Bay, reporting the following story: In 1898 a sub-lieutenant named Lagredin, captaining the Avalanse reported seeing a huge sea snake on Ha Long Bay. This was also witnessed by many of the crews. Thus emerged the European image of the Asian dragon. Whether this appearance of a strange animal looking like a dragon resulted the name of Ha Long Bay is not known.

The Ha Long Bay archipelago is made up of 1,969 islands, both settled and uninhabited. These can be accessed from various ports, though in the special case of Cat Ba you can also arrive either by car, motorbike or bus (via Haiphong) or combined bus/boat (from Hanoi via Halong City).

This unique UNESCO World Heritage Site is a popular place for tourists and it is good to know that large parts of Ha Long Bay are officially protected from development. The islands vary greatly in size and shape as well as structure.

Visitors might want to allow a few days to explore this magical bay as its attractions are extremely numerous.

The official organization which promote Halong Bay and provide help and info on the destination is Discover Halong, the team can be found at.

Islands

·         Ban Sen, a thickly forested, almost uninhabited island reachable by ferries to Quan Lan from Cai Rong.

·         Cat Ba, the home of the endangered cat: Ba langur, a national park, numerous caves and the most popular destination in Ha Long Bay for tourists. It can either accessed by local bus and ferry from Hanoi’s Lương Yên bus station (recommended), by tourist boat from Halong City (a five hour ‘hard sell’ ordeal; this is what the hordes of Hanoi package tourists do), or by local bus or ferry from Haiphong (less scenic).

·         Quan Lạn, a historically significant outlying island with the beginnings of some tourism infrastructure and some beautiful beaches. Reachable by ferry from Cai Rong or also (reportedly) from Halong City.

·         Van Don, a large island that is well inhabited, little visited by tourists and connected by road to the mainland near Cua Ong.

·         Dau Be Island: Visited by commercial cruises to Cat Ba. This is a very popular swimming and diving spot because of its rich coral and deep grottoes with three inland lakes. The grottoes and caves can only be visited by rowing boat at low tide, when access is possible.

·         Dau Go Island: Visited by commercial cruises to Cat Ba. A large and heavily damaged cave plastered with multicoloured lights and concrete.

·         Bo Hon Island: Visited by commercial cruises to Cat Ba. The Virgin Cave (Hang Trinh Nu) is one of the most famous caves in Halong Bay. It is probably best known for its shrine. Accordinng to a legend a beautiful woman committed suicide in the cave, unable to return home after being forced to marry an old Mandarin. Here her body tuned into stone. Another similar legend says this girl escaped from a Mandarin that forced her to marry him because her father could not pay a debt. When fishermen found her body, they buried her here and built a small shrine inside the grotto. Hung Sung Sot Cave is also on this island and has a steep path lined with shady trees. There are two chambers in the cave with a square-shaped outer chamber and a ceiling about 30 metres high. The inner chamber formations look like sentries conversing with one another and another formation, resembling a general surveying his troops, lies in the middle of the chamber. The moving light reflected from the water outside seems to bring these formations to life. Pelican Cave (Hang Bo Nau) is also popular, and many love to take photos of this cave and its spectacular stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

Do

It is said that the perfect way to discover and enjoy the world natural wonder is to jump onto a traditional junk sailing to the far-most corners where there are hidden lagoons, unexploited beaches and exotic grottoes that can be found nowhere else in the world. Reality is a bit different. Ha Long Bay is near the major port of Haiphong and therefore suffers from severe water pollution. It is not uncommon to see piles of rubbish floating in the water and the quality of the water can be dubious for swimming. Added there are no naturally occurring sand beaches where the tours tend to go, you will be told the water is safe for swimming regardless of the fact that ships dump raw human waste into the water and diesel fuel is everywhere. Pregnant women, children or people with weak immune systems should stay out of the water. However, the views and the food on board are reasons alone to venture out.

There are two popular kinds of cruise itineraries in Halong Bay, day cruise and overnight cruise. Day cruises are created for travellers who just have enough time to soak up the atmosphere and take short glimpse over the must-sees of Halong Bay. Though they are quite short, they include visits to tourist attractions and well-cooked seafood dinner, swimming in the emerald water, kayaking to lagoons of the bay. Overnight cruises which are referred to both one night cruises and two night cruise are designed for travellers who have more time. A typical, one night Halong Bay Cruise includes activities such as visits to cave, Islands, Kayaking, funny team building games on beaches, sunset watching with a cocktail party, and night actitvities on board. A a two night cruise consists of all the activities of one night cruise and an extra day of further visits the far, untouched corner of the bay on smaller boat with a beach barbecue. Both one night cruise and two night cruise are inclusive apart from drinks.

Trips can be bought at the port (2 or 3km down west from the tourist strip on Ha Long Road).

Eat

Ngan

Ngan (Vietnamese: Ngán)/ŋaːn1/ (you must say the word in high tone, if you say “ngan” that means one kind of duck). You can find this bivalve molluscs only in Quang Ninh province. It looks like a clam but much bigger, and is claimed to be good for a person’s circulatory system. The locals drink it with wine, or cook in porridge or soup.

Steamed “Tu Hai”

Tu Hai is the speciality of Van Don Island district, some other places call it snail spout. It is a type of shellfish, but it is rare and valuable. You can cook soup or salad with “tu hai” or you can steam or bake it. Steamed “tu hai” is sweet and cool, and is meat mixed with spice. This is the recipe:

·         Choose Tu Hai of a similar size. Soak them in water at 80-90°C for about 3 min.

·         Strain and wash them

·         Dried onion and garlic and fresh onion leaves are cut into small pieces, fried in vegetable oil, then mixed with the “tu hai”

·         Add fish sauce, soup, monosodium glutamate (MSG)

·         Steam for 12-15 min.

Gat Gu

 “Gat Gu” (Vietnamese: Gật gù) cake is similar with steamed rolled rice pancake. It is made from rice flour. When making this kind of cake, the maker have a secret to make it more delicious by adding cold rice.

In Viet Nam, “gat gu” means nodding repeatedly, so that the name of this cake is “gat gu”. There is a custom that when eating Gat Gu cake, each one will nod repeatedly three time before eating to greet their visitors, and visitor also repeat it to show their thanks. “Gat gu” cake is quite special and delicious.

Sa Sung(sandworm)

Sa sung, also known as sandworm, is a typical seafood in Halong. Fresh sandworm stir-fried with celery and leek creates delicious dish. Dried sandworm, turned to dark color, will be grilled or fried. It tastes crunchy and buttery. It is used when drinking alcohol, especially used as seasoning for noodle broth. Sandworm is quite rare and of course really expensive, nearly 4 million VND/1kg

Sam

Another fascinating specialty of Halong is Sam – an Arthropod Crustacean. Sam can be used to make a lot of delicious and strange food. Tiết Canh Sam , Gỏi Sam, Sweet and sour stir-fried, sam egg fried with guise leaves, steamed sam, breaded fried sam, grilled cartilage sam, sam fried with vermicelli… Location: If you want to enjoy delicious sam, Gieng Don or Cao Xanh are good choices.

Ha

Ha belong to the same family with oysters but they are smaller and have scabrous, sharp shells living on the cliffs. Therefore, we must use pointed beak hammer to remove them from the rock, and then break the shell to get the core. Although this step is hard, dishes from Ha are really delicious, especially Ha soup in the hot summer meals, Just 2-3 ounces of Ha with tomatoes, green onions, tamarind of pineapple, you can make a perfect Ha soup bowl without spending too much time. You can also order this dish at the restaurant near Bai Chay.