Vietnamese legends tell of dragons falling from heaven and raining down jade water on the waters of Ha Long Bay. The areas name in Vietnamese means “descending dragon bay” because of its mythical history. The bay features thousands of ‘karsts’ which are rock pillars that rise out of the water forming tiny islands and docks.
Ha Long Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin, probably known to most Americans during the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The bay is home to fishing boats, tourist cruises and limestone karsts that jut out as pillars of land in the shape of various animals, each karst seems to have its own personality and uniqueness. These karsts look superb at sundown, when the Vietnamese sun in the backdrop casts a shadow behind the karst which projects onto the sea behind it. Chinese and Vietnamese artists find a lot of inspiration in this area, where many works are inspired. Flapping sails in the wind, lone fishermen at dawn, trade ships turtling along the bay without a care in the world and karst silhouettes.
Ha Long Bay is more than 150km long and many of its islands and karsts are uninhabited. Although people do live permanently on the junks and sampan sailboats. Floating villages and fish farms are home to ‘sea gypsies’ who permanently live on the water and who know living on boats permanently more than they do setting foot on land. Cruise ships large and small cater to the tourists looking for trips down the bay. In the wake of a passing cruise ship you’ll smell freshly grilled onboard seafood like Tiger Prawns – some of which is caught minutes earlier on the very boat it was cooked on!
Caves & Grottoes
A popular stopping point for these ships is Cat Ba, the largest island on the bay. The Cat Ba National Park has caves and grottoes to explore, including the multichambered Trung Trang Cave.
Visiting Ha Long Bay
When I visited Vietnam in 2008 and 2010 I used Cheapflights.com.au to find a good route, I think I went with Qatar from Manchester to Doha, transferred at Doha to another Qatar flight to Kuala Lumpur and finally got a flight from KHL to Ho Chi Minh City via Vietnam Airlines. Once in Naam’, to get to Ha Long Bay you can get a train or connecting flight to Hanoi (I recommend exploring both main cities HCMC and Hanoi) and once there, approach the area from Ha Long Town via taxi. They built a new suspension bridge in 2006 that is pretty cool.
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