Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in the Gulf of Tonkin, in the north of Vietnam. It’s famous for its emerald waters and thousands of towering limestone islands topped with rainforests. Despite warnings about over-tourism and pollution at Ha Long Bay, we visited there at the end of 2024. 

As our shuttle approached the coast of Ha Long Bay, I saw smog in all directions, along the coast, and far into the sea. It was depressing and clouded my appreciation of its natural beauty.

the coast at Ha Long Bay

We took a day cruise on the bay. The haze thinned as the ship sailed into the bay, the lime stone islets were clearer. Shortly we got to the famous paired islets fighting cocks, or more romantically named kissing chickens. There were 4 or 5 ships circling the islets really close as we passed by, I could not take a clean picture of them. Later, waiting for the shuttle to return to Hanoi, we were brought to a shopping area, and I saw a painting of the fighting cocks, which looked really nice.

Our ship sailed on.

fighting cocks in the haze with ships circling them

kissing rocks - photoshopped 

a painting of kissing chickens/fighting cocks

In addition to cruise on the bay, we also stopped at Tip-top island (180m in elevation at the summit), we climbed the small mountain and had a great panorama view of the bay in all directions.

tip-top mountain 

view from Tip-top 1

view from Tip-top 2

view from Tip-top 3

beach side of Tip-top

Among the 1969 islets, there are some interesting features on some of the islets. 

One large islet Hang Luon has a lagoon inside it. This was where we kayaked. We entered the lagoon through a cave. It is a beautiful, but small, place to kayak. Since many cruise arrived at the same time, and many people don't know how to paddle, and there were a mixed of kayaks and row boats, it was chaotic there.

Hang Luon

entrance to Hang Luon

Another relatively large islet has a sizable unique cave - a dry cave with wave like ceiling -Sung Sot Cave. We waited near an hour to get into the cave. The cave is big, and has quite a few unique formations - monkey, finger, a heart, dinosaur, and dangling legs at the exit. During the walk, the guide asked the group what is special about the cave, one person identified that the dryness was special, I said the wave ceiling was not seen elsewhere. 

When we got out of the cave, the Sun was setting, we did not see the Sunset. We were however, mesmerized by the evening glow over the Ha Long Bay.

The Ha Long Bay excursion was not bad after all.

a monkey near the top of the stalagmite

a finger?

wave ceiling

a dinosaur skeleton?

A heart shaped hole in the cave

dangling legs

Sung Sot Cave

evening glow over Ha Long Bay

Notes

1. Ha Long Bay means Bay of Descending Dragon (in Chinese下龙湾）

2. Travel guides say that dry season is the best time to visit Ha Long Bay. Because of the pollution, and crowd, it might be better to go there near the end of rainy season or early rainy season.

3. 3 day nights cruise over a large area beyond Ha Long Bay might be good.