Ha Long Bay

This is the classic overnight boat trip that a lot of people take when they visit Hanoi.  It’s a 4 hour drive by bus so you need 2 days really to do it.  We had our own boat which was much more luxurious than any of us had imagined.  The cabins were en suite with air conditioning.  One of the big advantages of this tour was that the single supplement was very low but there were a couple of nights where we had to share one of which was on the boat.  The Vietnamese government strictly controls where you can go to in Ha Long Bay so all the tour boats end up in the same place which means it’s a bit like travelling to a big car park.  This was at the beginning of the high season so there were only around 100 boats staying overnight but at its peak you end up with over 500 in the same place.  It doesn’t really give you a great feeling of discovery but it’s still very beautiful.  There were a couple of onshore excursions – a cave and a hill to climb – all done with hundreds of other tourists.  Certain places in Vietnam are definitely suffering from over tourism.  It’s also quite interesting to reflect on what the Vietnamese think foreigners want to see.  The biggest tourist groups are from Asia and they definitely have a different take on this.  Luckily our group was there mainly there for the food and that did live up to our expectations.