Vietnam is increasingly becoming a tourist hot spot as it offers a wide variety of options for every type of traveler - unique landscapes, scrumptious local cuisine to an international array, budget to luxury accommodations, pulsating nightlife to peaceful getaways and a whole bunch of activities.
One would normally assume that everyone travelling to Vietnam will definitely visit Halong Bay which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and easily the most popular tourist attraction in the country with around 6 million visitors per year. Well, we decided to skip it. Why - you ask? Because we believe that we found a better alternative.
We chose to visit Lan Ha Bay which is a part of the larger Halong Bay Region. The Halong Bay region consists of three main areas which are Halong Bay, Lan Ha Bay and Bai Tu Long Bay. The primary reasons for our choice were as follows:
1. Halong Bay gets overcrowded – I don’t like huge crowds and didn’t want to end up among the swamp of people. Lan Ha Bay is much less crowded as it is still catching up in popularity
2. You can cruise wherever you want in Lan Ha Bay – You don’t have this luxury in Halong Bay as the routes for all the ships are fixed. I like the idea of virtually commanding the ship and go where I please
3. You cannot dive / jump into the sea from the ships or even swim wherever you like in Halong bay…now this is a mood killer for someone like me. Lan Ha Bay does not have any such restrictions so jump out from your ships at any time and swim wherever your heart desires
4. Halong Bay tours are slightly more expensive so if you are on a super tight budget then Lan Ha Bay tour is a cheaper option
5. While doing my research, I came across a lot of blogs which mentioned that Lan Ha Bay is prettier than Halong Bay. The concentration of limestone mountains is more in Lan Ha Bay hence the scenery would be more dramatic though there are many more of them in Halong Bay; water is calmer & cleaner so better for swimming & kayaking; many beaches, ravines & lagoons to explore and many floating fishing villages to visit
How to get there
All Lan Ha Bay tours start from Cat Ba island so you need to get there unless you decide to take a 2-3 days tour from Halong city to cover the entire Halong Bay region.
1. Book through one of the reliable tours operators – There are many tour operators that will offer you a day trip from Hanoi. One of the most popular one is Cat Ba Express which will also arrange a pick up from the airport, take you to Hanoi and then put you on an air conditioned bus and then on a ferry to Cat Ba island. Round trip costs around $26 per person or $14 for a one way journey
2. Catch a local bus to Haiphong city and get to the city’s Pha Binh port from here catch ferry to Cat Ba island – You can book the ferry tickets to the Cat Ba pier from www.baolau.com which will cost around $23 per person for a round trip. Do note that there are just 2 ferries that leave at 10 AM and 1 PM every day. In high season there is a ferry at 3 PM as well and one way trip takes around an hour.
3. An alternate option to the above is to book your own cab straight from the airport or Hanoi. This is more expensive but it is the best option if you want to catch the ferry the same day you land or are short on time. It costed us around $65 from the airport (it will be lesser from Hanoi city) and we booked it through www.gettransfer.com
4. The last option, which we learnt about only after we missed our 1 PM ferry, is to go to Dinh Vu port (it was 30 minutes from Pha Binh port) from where you will be transported to Cai Vieng port (30 minutes ride) on Cat Ba Island in a ferry. From there you will be put on a bus to the main town which will take another half an hour. This option costed us $15 per head one way.
Booking a tour
There are quite a few tour operators out of which we selected Cat Ba Smile as they offered a private tour and it was also rated the best on TripAdvisor.
The shared full-day tours (8-9 hours) which start around 8 AM takes about 10-15 people in a boat and charges about $15 per person which includes lunch. We opted for a half day private tour (4-5 hours) for $23 per head which gave us the freedom to begin the tour anytime we wished, decide the pit stops we wanted to make and amount of time we wanted to spend at each place and on each activity. Lunch was not included in the package. Other inclusions are pick up & drop from hotel, kayaking, snorkeling gear and drinking water.
There are many other options to select in your tour like including trip to Halong Bay (can be accommodated only on a full day tour), visiting Viet Hai village and exploring Cat Ba national park. Similarly the activities can also be customized like you can opt for rock climbing, exploring more caves & lagoons on kayaks, fishing and few others. Hence I would recommend one to select a tour operator that can provide the services as per your requirement.
What to expect on the tour
We mostly chilled on our boat while admiring the gorgeous views of Lan Ha Bay. Our first stop was Monkey Island which has a nice golden sand beach but it is most popular for the hike up to the island’s summit simply because of the spectacular view of the bay from there. If you are taking a shared tour then there will be a guide to help you reach the top but that was not the case with us. The hike does have some tricky stretches and one will definitely need to wear proper shoes due to the sharp rocks on the path. It takes around 20 minutes one way and the hike is totally worth the effort.
There is also a shack styled restaurant on the island and pay-and-use toilets which were clean. Not hard to guess - you will definitely get to spot monkeys here.
Next up was a stop at a floating fish farm which was also the starting point for Kayaking. The Halong bay region is said to be the perfect place for beginners who want to kayak as the sea is super calm here. There are some interesting caves and hidden beaches to explore. If you get really lucky, you may just spot the golden / white-headed langur which is a highly endangered species. Unfortunately we couldn't go as I picked up an injury while hiking at Monkey Island. One can have food and drinks here if required. We got to see some huge fishes and one super-sized one though I don’t recollect the species.
After this we simply explored around and asked the ferry operator to stop by a beautiful secluded beach which we spotted but unfortunately it could not be done as the ferry would have got stuck & there were no small boats to take us there like in Monkey Island. While returning we went past Cai Beo fishing village which is said to be the largest fishing village in Asia.
Best time to visit
Best time to go is in the months of March to April and September to November.
We had visited towards the end of December and it’s a little cold this time (max 24 and min 16 degrees centigrade) because of which we could not dare to swim in the inviting waters of Lan Ha Bay. It was also a windy day making us shiver in our summer time clothes (that is all we had packed) while the ferry operator was covered head to toe looking like an Eskimo.
One of the other reasons we chose the Lan Ha bay tour was because we wanted to stay in Cat Ba Island from where all the day trips actually begin. Will write about Cat Ba in my next blog so look out for it.