{"id":7068,"date":"2026-01-31T11:17:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7068"},"modified":"2026-01-31T11:17:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T11:17:59","slug":"9-ha-long-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=7068","title":{"rendered":"9. HA LONG BAY."},"content":{"rendered":"

Strictly speaking, I think it should be written “H\u0105 Long Bay”.\u00a0 But who’s checking?\u00a0 After several days in fairly dismal, industrial surroundings, the Bay is looking positively enchanting!\u00a0 Our first views of the “mountainous” scenery were superb.<\/p>\n

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I don’t think we had fully realised just how unscenic the river trip had been.\u00a0 Sadly, while the bay we are now entering is enchanting to us, it’s also enchanting to zillions of other cruise boats and day trippers!\u00a0 I counted over 200 before I gave up!<\/p>\n

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There is a channel that seems to be a one way system.\u00a0 But this is Vietnam, so that rule is not universally adhered to!<\/p>\n

There are, apparently, 1,969 islands in the Bay.\u00a0 But that, of course depends on how one defines an island.\u00a0 When is a rock an island?\u00a0 Anyway, suffice it to say that there are lots!\u00a0 And many of them are amazingly dramatic.<\/p>\n

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The islands were formed over a period of 500 million years through a slow process of limestone sedimentation, tectonic uplift, and intense erosion.\u00a0 Tropical rain and fluctuating sea levels carved massive limestone platforms into hundreds of karst towers and caves.\u00a0 The area was finally submerged during the Holocene period (7,000\u201311,000 years ago) to create the iconic, jungle-covered, steep limestone islands seen today.<\/p>\n

In the afternoon we are transferred by small motor boats into a system of marine caves in the archipelago on the north east coast of C\u00e1t B\u00e0, the largest island in the Bay.<\/p>\n

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The caves led into a land-locked “cauldron” open to the skies above.\u00a0 Very pretty!\u00a0 Very unusual!\u00a0 Reunited with our ship, we back-tracked a bit to the north side of the island…<\/p>\n

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… to find a parking space for the night<\/p>\n

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As night falls, and the sun sets, half of the boats (the day-trippers) disappear off home.\u00a0 But that still leaves a lot of holes in the water!<\/p>\n

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The sun rises next morning over a tranquil scene …<\/p>\n

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After breakfast …<\/p>\n

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… served by our two waiters, Duy and Salai…<\/p>\n

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… we re-back-tracked round C\u00e1t B\u00e0 once again.\u00a0 We have a land-based excursion today into the centre of the island.\u00a0 We dropped anchor off Vi\u00eat H\u00e1i and transferred to land by a small local ferry for a three and a half mile electric buggy trip to an inland village.\u00a0 A number of us took the opportunity to make the trip by bicycle.<\/p>\n

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Single-gear rattlers!\u00a0 Luckily there were only a couple of uphill sections! … and, as it turned out, the village was only just over two miles inland!\u00a0 And here we are surprised again at the contrast of the neat vegetable plots …<\/p>\n

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… and the generally untidy old houses.\u00a0 (Although,\u00a0 to be fair, this was more of a showcase village in the middle of a UNESCO site and therefore rather more tidy than usual!)\u00a0 There were trees covered in pomelos, a sort of mega grapefruit, which, in my opinion are nowhere near as nice flavoured as their smaller relations.<\/p>\n

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There were lots of brightly coloured butterflies most of which were too flighty to be photographed …<\/p>\n

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… and there were dozens of hawks (probably some kind of kite) hunting in the fields and shrubs.<\/p>\n

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The road was lined with Areca palms.\u00a0 The source of the famous betel nuts.<\/p>\n

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These nuts are chewed, together with slaked lime and betel leaves, for their stimulant and narcotic effects.\u00a0 However, they are banned in Australia, and have been declared as a group 1 carcinogen to humans.\u00a0 The active ingredient in betel nut, arecoline, is a Schedule 4 poison.\u00a0 Using betel nut with tobacco also increases the risk of developing oral cancers.<\/p>\n

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Back to the dock to re-embark and to re-re-backtrack again round the east side of C\u00e1t B\u00e0.\u00a0 First stop a floating fish-farm.<\/p>\n

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It’s OK darling, they aren’t going to eat you if you fall in … probably …\u00a0 and anyway I’ve got the camera ready!<\/p>\n

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Next stop was a beach party a bit further north round C\u00e1t B\u00e1 at Three-peach island.\u00a0 Cocktails and guitar music (courtesy of Liz) with a proposal for swimming (taken up in a tentative sort of way by one of our team and enthusiastically\u00a0 by several members of the crew).<\/p>\n

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Later that night, the water supply tanker came alongside and refilled our tanks.<\/p>\n

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The whole crew joined us on the main deck for a closing party.\u00a0 Brief speeches of thanks followed by a bit of singing and dancing!<\/p>\n

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And apart from one sleep, that was the end of the cruise.\u00a0 On the final morning\u00a0 after sailing a total of about 775 km, we transferred to docking station 24 and the whole crew came ashore to say goodbye\u00a0 – and to make sure we had left them in peace for a night with no customers on board.<\/p>\n

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I have to say that the ship was excellent, small but excellent.\u00a0 And so was the crew, small but extremely helpful.\u00a0 All of them.\u00a0 The actual cruise, however, for us, perhaps spent rather too much time in the somewhat un-scenic inland waterways.\u00a0 However, this did allow for some extremely interesting excursions.\u00a0 And this enabled us to access the “non-touristic” local towns and villages on the way.\u00a0 Here we got to sample the “real Vietnam” and to experience how the villagers lived and worked under the communist government.\u00a0 Incidentally, a few days after we left Vietnam, the country was holding nation-wide elections.\u00a0 We are still a little unsure how that works when there is only one party to vote for!\u00a0 I’m going to have to check later to see who won!<\/p>\n

On balance, I think we were pleased we did the trip downstream ending in the Bay.\u00a0 \u00a0The best scenic memories (for us) at the end of the tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strictly speaking, I think it should be written “H\u0105 Long Bay”.\u00a0 But who’s checking?\u00a0 After several days in fairly dismal, industrial surroundings, the Bay is looking positively enchanting!\u00a0 Our first views of the “mountainous” scenery were superb. I don’t think… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vietnam-and-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7111,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7068\/revisions\/7111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}