Take a Halong Bay Cruise, Make Lots of New Friends, Proceed to Travel Vietnam

What do you do when you’ve finally recovered from dengue and after you’ve explored Hanoi’s food scene? Uh, the most touristy yet essential activity in all of Vietnam, of course. A Halong Bay cruise!

Back in the land of hostels and people my age, the first thing I did upon checking into Hanoi’s Central Backpackers Hostel in the Old Quarter was to book a Halong Bay cruise. Literally. I didn’t even go up to my room to drop my bags first. I saw a few other (legit looking) people booking, and I didn’t ask any questions. One night, through the bay, food included. Sign me up! Oh wait, yeah, what does it cost? $92. You take credit cards, right?

Often ranked as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Halong Bay is full of those dramatic limestone karsts that everybody loves to take photos of. There are caves and islands and oh man are there boats. Everywhere. But seriously, it’s still a must do. Even if just for the Insta…

So not really knowing what I’d signed up for, I boarded a 4 (ish) hour bus to the coast. The bus was surprisingly nice compared to what I’d imagined. We napped, we checked out the scenery, and we stopped for a halftime bathroom and snack break on the way there.

When you arrive at the docks, it’s basically a clusterfuck of tourists waiting to board their boats. (And squat toilets only if you have to go when you get there, just FYI. They are actually more like port-a-squat-potties if you want to get specific.) The process is relatively painless though; we filled out a form with our names and gave our passports to our guide and all was handled. We boarded the tender and headed out to our boat, which if I remember correctly was named The Classic Sail.

Our boat was definitely not the nicest on the bay, but I have to say I was VERY impressed with its quality. The dining and bar area, the rooftop deck, and the cabin bedrooms were very much up to par and even managed to look quite nice.

So what exactly did we do on our Halong Bay Cruise?

After allocating rooms, we ate a lunch full of several different dishes (again, impressive for a tiny boat kitchen), and set sail for the first activity: a visit to the Heaven Cave.

Along with hundreds of others, we moseyed through a colorfully lit, giant cave full of stalactites and stalagmites (and I now know how to remember the difference!) listening to several phallic jokes en route. It was pretty amazing to see a cave this humongous, but multi-colored lights and trails of tourists going at a snail’s pace ain’t really my thing.

After we returned to the boat, we took a sail through the dramatic landscape of Halong Bay. Even though it was rather cool and misty, it was still incredibly beautiful and hard to believe that this place actually exists. Gradually, we encountered fewer boats, and the whole group migrated to the top deck to take it all in, with our gratis sangria (the only free alcoholic drink we received, actually) and plates of fruit in hand.

Eventually, we anchored and now it was time for activity numero dos: kayaking! Okay, just no. It was cold out and getting wet would have been miserable… and also I have kayaked to my heart’s content at home (did that sound bitchy enough for you?). Instead, I had a beer and sat on the deck with new friend Nat, the one other rebellious soul.

As for the optional swimming portion of the trip, only the boys partook. It was damn cold. And I really wasn’t planning on showering on this cruise (though I did hear there was hot water).

Dinner was another feast of several options, including prawns, noodles, rice, vegetables, and a whole steamed fish. The quality of food continued to impress, until our attention turned to drinking.

One of our “guides” then attempted to rally everybody in order to teach us all a drinking game, but let’s be honest, we’re all twenty-somethings from around the world and we already know plenty of those.

This is where the cash bar bit turned painful. No, no booze was included in the price. That IS one question I should’ve asked beforehand. There was a happy hour, but only for cocktails, and it was like “buy 3, get 1 free.” Silly. There was a tab (tally mark) system, so you could pay the next day. Dangerous. And you couldn’t drink any booze you brought onboard unless you paid $10 USD and even then, you could only share it with your cabin-mates, a policy made unclear beforehand, much to the disappointment of our new French friends who squabbled uncomfortably with the bartender over this rule. Hey, I didn’t even think of bringing my own alcohol…

We ended the night with several rousing games of Circle of Death/Ring of Fire/Kings/Whatever you call that game in your country and then another game which I’m pretty sure Nat just made up.

The next day, about half of our group departed for the optional Day 2 of the Halong Bay Cruise, which involved a stay on Cat Ba Island. Of course, now that the other half of us had to head back, it was sunny and pretty warm outside. But it did make for a perfect top deck photo shoot.

May I also add that you get a “free” Vietnamese flag T-shirt on this cruise too.

Oh, and as an impromptu activity #3, we had a “cooking class” as we were shipped back to the docks. We all learned how to prepare spring rolls and we each got to roll one. They were then fried up and served to us with lunch just before we departed the boat.

So was it worth it? $92 is a lot of money in Vietnam, you know.

Yet I’d still say absolutely. But not only for the magnificent scenery and the chance to sleep on a boat in the middle of it. The friends I made on this cruise were fantastic and they enhanced my time in Hanoi afterwards (street food, free beer hour, and laughing gas included) and the rest of my time in Vietnam. Everybody on our cruise was legitimately a great human being and several of us ended up traveling together through many cities to the south. I even ended up traveling with Nat and Josie for the rest of Vietnam, which, after being solo for a while, was absolutely wonderful.

So yeah, touristy or not, you’ve gotta do a Halong Bay Cruise.

I stayed at Hanoi Central Backpackers Hostel in the Old Quarter and booked the “party cruise” with them. It’s $89 if you pay in cash, and about $92 with the 3% surcharge if you pay with a card. The hostel itself is also solid and offers two free beer hours on its rooftop bar, with beds for $6 per night.

Hanoi offers MANY options for this cruise (like seriously an overwhelming amount), but if you want to be around people your age I’d suggest booking through a hostel. Also, a day trip is not worth it as the ride from Hanoi to Halong Bay is nearly 4 hours.

Linking Up for Travel Tuesday! 

Anybody else visited Halong Bay… or love sleeping on boats as much as I do?