Vietnam Part IV- Halong Bay and Tom Coc

Halong Bay was kind of a disappointment. We signed up for a two day, one night tour of the bay where we would actually get to sleep on the boat. I was super excited about the tour and it was one of the main reasons why we came to northern Vietnam. Unfortunately the tour did not go as planned

 It took us half the day to get to the Bay. Halong city is about 4 hours from Hanoi. Once we got to the pier there were hundreds of foreigners all trying to stay together with their guides and board the correct boat. Organized chaos. We finally got on our boat, which was really nice, and enjoyed a lovely Vietnamese lunch. After lunch we were informed that there was a storm moving in and that we wouldn’t be able to sleep on the boat. Bummer. I was really looking forward to waking up on the boat and maybe even watching the sunrise over the bay. So we sailed around the bay for about an hour, enjoying the nice sunny weather before the storm was expected to come in. The bay is actually pretty amazing.  The huge limestone cliffs look like a mountain range coming out of the water. Unfortunately we had to cut our tour short because we needed to dock on Catba Island where we were going to stay the night at a hotel. From the dock it was an hour bus ride around to the other side of the island. Catba island was OK. There was tons of construction going on, and not much to do in the town itself. It was kind of a let down as I was really hoping to enjoy a night on the boat.

The next morning we woke up early, only to find out that it was still cloudy and rainy and that we may not even be able to get back on the boat. Luckily after about an hour it cleared up just enough so we could board the boat and sail back to Halong city before it started down pouring. We were on the boat for about an hour but you couldn’t really see much due to the weather. We arrived back in Halong City and then immediately got back on the bus back to Hanoi. For a two day tour we spent maybe two hours on the boat. We didn’t get to see much of the bay which was pretty disappointing. Oh well. Mai Pen Rai. Can’t control the weather! 

The next day we decided to do another day trip to Hoa Lu temple and Tom Coc. The day started off with a two hour bus ride. We got off and toured the Hoa Lu temple which used to be an ancient capital of Vietnam. After seeing the temple we took an hour long bike ride through the countryside. It was beautiful. The weather was cloudy and foggy but it was actually quite a nice ride. Tom Coc is known as the “Halong Bay on Land”.  The landscape looks similar to that of Halong Bay, with the enormous cliffs, minus the water. We arrived in Tom Coc, had lunch then our group was spilt up and we each boarded a tiny row boat. Our guide took us on a two hour trip down the nearby river which was really beautiful. The guides actually row with their feet! It was crazy. The scenery was gorgeous and overall it was a really nice day trip. It definitely made up our disappointing Halong Bay trip. Glad that we were able to get out of Hanoi for a bit and enjoy the countryside of Vietnam.