Never in my life, did I ever think I’d be waking up somewhere as breathtakingly stunning as this. A sunrise view of jungle-topped stone karsts, rising from a mirror of still water. A soundtrack of silence, permeated by distant birds. This 3 day Halong Bay cruise was full of enchanting moments, rendering me entirely speechless and generally filling me with gratitude that places like it even exist- as well as even more curiosity about how life here goes on.
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3 Day Halong Bay Cruise: Contents
- The Journey from Hanoi to Halong Bay
- What is Halong Bay?
- 3 Day Halong Bay Cruise: Day 1
- 3 Day Halong Bay Cruise: Day 2
- 3 Day Halong Bay Cruise: Day 3
3 Day Halong Bay Cruise: What you need to know
- One day in Halong Bay is simply not enough, and the majority of visitors book at least a 1 night, 2 day cruise. This is fine if you’re short on time, however I’m really glad we booked a 3 day Halong Bay cruise (which means 2 nights on board), mainly because we were travelling from Hanoi and the journey takes around four hours. Even when everything is arranged for you, all the changing of transportation is long and so it was great to have a rest day in the middle where we weren’t travelling across the country.
- Spring and autumn are the best times to visit Halong Bay, so March, April, September and October. We visited at the very tail end of April when the temperature was insanely hot and the rainy season was just about to begin (although normally this starts around June.)
- Our cruise ship didn’t have wifi on board, but there data is available in the area. I bought an eSim from Airalo which is cheap and very easy to set up, so that I could stay connected in Vietnam.
- Make sure you bring cash with you, just in case. This goes for wherever you travel in Vietnam.
We booked our 3 day Halong Bay cruise with Venezia Cruises. Check rates and availability here.
From Hanoi to Halong Bay
The first thing that really struck me on our journey to Halong Bay, was the sludge.
There’s no point in me dressing up this experience as any kind of intrepid explorer type activity, because our 3 day Halong Bay cruise was very much Tourist Central Station, please mind the gap. In fact, the first step of our journey from Hanoi to Halong Bay was on an air-conditioned coach with little concertina curtains across the windows. A young Vietnamese man stood by the driver, calling out names and giving instructions accompanied by a timid but earnest nod as he spoke. I got the impression that he’d done this a thousand times before but was still full of conscientious nerves, spurring him on to do a good job. I liked him a lot.
Eventually our coach drew to a halt and we were herded out into the humid air of a little ferry port bustling with gridlocked vehicles and the chaotic clamour of people. The coach was discarded and we clambered onto a passenger ferry, suitcases loaded on after us and stacked in a great big pile in the middle. I held onto mine with one hand in an attempt to stop it rolling away, as we slowly chugged away from the pier and onwards to Cát Bà island.
Considering we were there to visit Halong Bay and its incredible natural stone towers (those are the karsts), the landscape on either side of the water seemed very flat. I actually began to think we were getting conned, in all honesty. The ferry carved a pathway down a narrower waterway and headed towards another, much smaller and quieter ferry station surrounded with foliage. Opposite the jetty was what appeared to be an expansive brown field of sandy sludge, semi-flooded with water. Crouching in the sludge were the silhouettes of people, protected from the sun’s glare in conical hats as they picked things from the wet sand, inspecting them and depositing their finding into nets and containers. If I was an expert on cockle picking I’d say that they were picking cockles, but alas. You can never be too sure when you’re not a pro.
As we walked up the jetty onto more stable land, I glanced down at the thick brown sludge on either side of me and was immediately struck by how far away this whole experience was, from life in England.
Next up was a second coach, across Cát Bà island and its holiday resorts, which seemed almost like the Vietnamese equivalent of Blackpool, its low-rise hotels attracting holiday-makers in droves. The coach stopped a few times to let people off at their resorts, and then we continued on to the last little port of the day, where cars, buses and motorbikes were gathered to wait for a ferry. A little boat took us, and our bags and cases, to the tiny ship sitting just offshore, and our 3 day Halong Bay cruise had officially begun.
The ‘Descending Dragon’ of HaLong Bay
Dragons pop up so frequently in legends across the world, that I’m starting to wonder whether once upon a time, they really did exist. When it comes to Halong Bay, the dragon plays an integral role in its creation. In fact, ‘Ha Long’ translates as ‘descending dragon.’
Legend has it that when Vietnam was invaded by enemies from far far away, the Mother Dragon and her dragon-children arrived on the scene to help defend from the attack. Instead of a traditional fire-breathing defence method, the dragons blew jewels and pearls across the bay, which transformed into thousands upon thousands of stone islands. These pearly islands rose up so closely together that the enemy ships couldn’t pass, and Halong Bay was protected. The Mother Dragon looked around this exquisite piece of the world, and thought it was so downright stunning that she and her children should stay to protect it on a more permanent basis.
The bay is made up of almost 2000 mostly limestone islands of varying sizes and heights, worn away by the sea and ruggedly threaded with jungle vines and foliage, cradling hidden caves and secret slices of white sandy beach. Its water is a characteristic jade green, maybe left over from the Mother Dragon’s creation.
People have lived here in Halong Bay for tens of thousands of years, but at the beginning of the 19th century the first floating fishing villages appeared. Communities of fishermen and women, and their children, lived on the water 365 days a year in huts built on pontoons, earning a living from the fish that they expertly caught (and also farmed). These villages continued to exist amongst the limestone towers of HaLong Bay, until a few years ago when the government launched an initiative to rehouse the villagers on dry land- citing a better quality of life, education, and a reduction of pollution into the bay, as the main reasons for the big move.
Many of the villagers reluctantly moved on to land, but there are still houses and huts that float in the shadows of the mountains, and people continue to make a living from farming fish and pearls here. It’s not hard to spot the floating houses with tiled or tinned roofs, villagers in wellingtons, waterproof trousers and conical hats, still living in teeny-tiny communities and making a living off of the sea.
3 Day HaLong Bay cruise: Day 1
From one ship to another
Never did I ever think I’d leave a cruise ship (that I was working on), and then almost immediately pay my own money to embark on another cruise ship. Especially not considering the fact that by the end of every ship contract, no matter how wonderful the contract has been, I am well and truly itching to disembark. But being a passenger on a Halong Bay cruise is very different to being a crew member on a Caribbean megaship.
For starters, Halong Bay is so sheltered that rough sea is almost unheard of. Which is fabulous for the seasick-prone, like myself. Secondly, there was a grand total of around 16 guests on board our Venezia Cruises vessel; in comparison, the ship I’d just disembarked from had space for around 3,300 passengers and 900 crew members. This was an entirely more personal experience, which mostly reminded me of the set up of an Agatha Christie novel. But luckily nobody died.
Lastly, just simply to be a passenger with an actual window (that opens!!), was the ultimate luxury.
Every passenger cabin on board is decorated in deep reds and blues, with stunning panoramic windows running the length of the room, and the bathrooms are super-spacious. Some of the fittings were a little weathered around the edges, but this is a mid-range option for a Halong Bay cruise, and I was really happy with everything. There was a bar and dining room on the second deck of the ship (with a few outside nooks as well), where we were served a seemingly infinite number of local dishes at each mealtime, and the top deck was completely open, with tables and chairs to chill out or have a drink at, and plenty of sun loungers as well.
What a load of rubbish
Watching the sailaway from the top deck of the ship, I fell in love with this landscape. However, there can be no denying that there’s a serious trash problem in Halong Bay.
And I really do mean, serious.
After lunch on board, we wobbled our way off the boat and into the two-man kayaks that were waiting for us on the water. I’ll be honest- I had no idea what this Halong Bay cruise would entail, and I certainly wasn’t expecting something as activity-filled as it turned out to be- but kayaking through this fairytale landscape was an incredible way to fully immerse ourselves. And ‘fully immersing ourselves’ also meant getting up close and personal with a shocking amount of actual trash.
Plastic bags, crisp packets, beer cans and candy wrappers float like space debris through the seawater. It’s definitely worse in some places than others, but even when there’s a lack of traditional litter the water sometimes appears to be filled with polystyrene. Chunks of drifting, iceberg-like polystyrene, and millions and millions of individual tiny white polystyrene balls, broken-down chunks over time. The food packaging, cans and bottles, were likely from the high influx of tourism to the HaLong Bay area, and the polystyrene is actually from the fishermen who live and work in the bay. But I’ll get onto that later.
From an irritation point, it’s not only ugly to look at, but it gets tiring having to pick plastic bags off of your oars as you attempt to paddle through paradise. Although of course, there are far deeper implications about the impact all this trash is having on the environment.
Our lovely Vietnamese guide led the way (with my pal Polis in his kayak, too), through the pathways and avenues of karsts, past a few beaches which were clearly right in the firing line of incoming trash. He explained that there was more trash than normal at this time of year, because it was a national holiday in Vietnam, and plenty of locals were here to have parties on boats in the area. Personally, I didn’t buy that line. But make of it what you will.
You also might be wondering why none of my pictures really show any of this trash that I’m describing. Well, that’s mainly down to the fact that I picked my moments carefully; I just didn’t take any pictures of any visibly heavily-polluted area, although I slightly regret that now.
We landed as a group on a litter-free sandy beach, and having secured our kayaks so the sea wouldn’t wash them away, we followed our guide to the centre of the island. Reaching it didn’t take long but also wasn’t overly easy, and it involved crawling on our hands and knees underneath a big slab of stone, to surface on the other side in a mass of tightly packed trees. Right in the middle were more smaller rock formations, dotted with cairns that people had left behind, and on the other side was an even tighter crawl to reveal another beach looking out to a wider expanse of emerald-hued sea.
Close encounters of the jellyfish kind
Having read all about the insane levels of trash in Halong Bay, what I’m about to reveal may well shock you. I myself was fairly shocked too: at my very own actions.
After we returned from our afternoon kayaking expedition, we arrived back on the ship and were invited to grab our towels and go for a swim. In the actual sea. The potentially quite heavily polluted sea. Throwing caution to the wind (I’m not even a particularly strong swimmer, and am generally petrified of being out of my depth), I decided you only live once, and slowly crept down the ladder at the side of the pontoon on the back of the ship. Assessing the situation, I deduced that the polystyrene levels here were relatively low.
After a brief pause on the bottom rung, I took a deep breath, and plunged in. It was incredibly hot in Vietnam that April, in fact on that day the temperature was pushing 40ºC, so as much of a health hazard as the water may have been, it was a cooling relief to be fully immersed. I swam around happy as Larry, feeling an enormous sense of accomplishment at my bravery in sliding inelegantly off of a ladder, into the actual Gulf of Tonkin. Go, me! I’m so brave!
Most of our fellow swimmers were back on board, and my pal Chris and I were thinking about heading back on to the boat, when I heard someone on the top deck shout something in our direction. I smiled back up at them and waved, thinking they were taking another picture. “Go me!” I thought again in my little brain, beaming.
“JELLYFISH!!”
Well that was not what I was expecting. Everyone on the top deck was leaning over and pointing towards an area somewhere between the ladder, and me. My heart rate tripled as I tried to keep track of where they were all pointing to; the directions of their pointing, outstretched arms, curving and swooping around madly as they tried to describe the pathway of the glutinous creature. And they weren’t just gesturing about the direction of the jellyfish, but also the size of it- which seemed to be approximately equal to a car tyre.
Not the kind of thing I wanted to be encountering in the water, that’s for sure.
I followed the screamed advice to just float in one spot for a while- a skill which I hadn’t quite mastered until that precise moment- and then jumped out of my skin when my hand brushed a white plastic bag, inflated with water, which looked uncannily like the ginormous white jellyfish I was attempting to dodge. When it was safe, I swam as fast as I could back to the heavenly rungs of the ladder, and flung myself back over the side of the boat with all the elegance of a beached trout. We saw copious numbers of ghostly jellies creeping around these waters from that moment onwards, and I can safely say that I won’t be jumping back into Halong Bay in a hurry.
A food-centric evening on board
Under normal circumstances, I’m a one activity per day kind of a gal, and I regard anything more than that as ‘forced fun,’ i.e. my own personal worst nightmare. However, on a 3 day HaLong Bay cruise, the fun never stops. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Which sounds rather ominous, but once it was booked and paid for (without really knowing what we were getting ourselves in for), I decided to throw caution to the wind and count myself lucky for being alive and in Vietnam at all. It’s just really brilliant to be alive isn’t it?
With barely time to breathe after my close encounter in the sea, I had the speediest shower known to mankind, followed by a twelve minute power nap, and re-surfaced on the top deck of the ship to partake in some cocktail drinking with my pals. It was happy hour, after all. Watching the sun set as we sipped margaritas in the fresh air, I felt truly content, pals. Exhausted, but highly content.
After approximately 45 minutes of downtime, tables were brought out and bowls of fresh ingredients were placed on top of them. Relaxation complete, it was time for another activity: a cooking class. We were going to be making chà gió, or Vietnamese spring rolls.
Heaps of shredded vegetables, herbs and ground meat were arranged (according to our lovely Vietnamese guide’s Blue Peter style demonstration) onto thin rice paper sheets, and then we rolled them up and deep fried them on a portable stove. As soon as they were done, we collectively wolfed them down in two seconds flat.
Glorious.
Directly after that came dinner, which was served in the dining room downstairs. Bowls, plates, and platters full of different local food were brought out, and we all dug in, family-style. To be completely honest, I can’t remember everything we tried, although our guide carefully explained each one to us. At every lunch and dinner we always had several seafood dishes, including shellfish, which were often the best part of the meal for me; which is understandable as in Halong Bay, shellfish dishes are a speciality. I loved the clams, the oysters, and the cha muc, which is fried squid cake.
There were always several meat dishes, in some intriguing sauces, endless bowls of rice, and vegetables cooked in different ways. And considering I’m not a massive meat-eater (I’d even go so far as to say I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to certain meats), I tucked into anything I was presented with in Vietnam, no questions asked, and enjoyed every morsel.
It genuinely could have been horse for all I know, but sometimes ignorance is bliss, isn’t it?
Our guide was a bit disappointed that so many members of the group chose a chilled out evening over karaoke or squid fishing- the designated post-dinner activities- but by 9pm I was good-for-nothing but sitting in peace, alas. By then the sky was completely dark, but moored in the distance across the water were several other little cruise ships and junks. Some of them were quiet and still like us, with lights twinkling in the windows and on strings above deck, and others were clearly there for a party.
‘Young Hearts Run Free’ flittered towards us across the sea from a much swankier-looking ship with disco lights popping at the stern.
3 Day HaLong Bay Cruise: Day 2
The perils of the fish farm
The majority of the other guests on board our little ship were only sailing on a 2 day Halong Bay cruise, so the plan for our second day on board deviated from almost everybody else. This meant that for Chris, Polis, myself, and a lovely Swedish couple, we actually had a much earlier start. Now. Was a crack-of-dawn start what I’d envisaged for my 3 days sailing through the calm waters of Halong Bay? No, not exactly. But I was embracing the moment, wasn’t I!? And I’m thoroughly glad that I did.
Although the day was not without its hair-raising and slightly awkward moments.
Breakfast consumed (a mixture of European and Vietnamese classics- with fresh fruit, salty noodles and rice, fried eggs, pancakes and coffee), the five of us said goodbye to everybody else and made our way onto another boat. We had absolutely no idea what was in store for us, or where we were going, although kayaking had been vaguely mentioned. I was gutted to leave my camera behind on the ship- to avoid losing it in the water- but kind of enjoyed the Magical Mystery Tour vibes of the day.
After about ten minutes of chugging away from the rest of the group and round the corners of the karst towers, I realised we were approaching one of Halong Bay’s many floating fish farms. We’d seen plenty of them from the ship since we boarded. They were mostly crafted out of blocks of polystyrene plastic oil drums, and wooden planks, tied together in grid formations that bobbed up and down gently. A lot of these floating grids had huts sitting somewhere on them, and sitting inside those were mostly male fishermen, hanging out or cooking or chatting away to each other. Sometimes a dog or two would be running across the planks with the fishermen, barking at passing boats. This simple lifestyle was completely alien to me, and as tentative as I was about seeing a fish farm up close, I was also absolutely intrigued by it.
The boat driver ushered us out of the boat, and said he’d be back in a few hours after we’d explored the farm and been kayaking; there was a whole fleet of kayaks tied to the edge of the collection of floating platforms we were stepping on to. To be completely transparent here, I was dubious about the entire shebang. But we were in it now, weren’t we!?
We turned and faced the expanse of the fish farm, which was about the size of a basketball court. The section that we were standing on was relatively big, and at one end was a large hut with a line of washing strung outside, and a covered outdoor seating area, where one of the fishermen sat on a plastic chair picking his teeth. He nodded a ‘hello’ in our direction, and I smiled but immediately felt very strange about being deposited there without being able to properly communicate with him or any of the others.
We made our way to the edge of the large, more solid surface, to begin delicately picking our way along the grid of planks. And finally, I saw what the purpose of the grids actually are. Each square is lined with netting, which keeps large numbers of fish penned in- to stay there until they grow big enough to sell. And some of these fish were hefty beasts, I’m telling you. I was extremely nervous about falling in to one of the fish-pits, and the whole experience of balancing along narrow beams that were wobbling up and down on the sea, seemed most akin to a very bizarre version of Total Wipeout.
(This is a great Youtube video of a Halong Bay fish farm, if you need a visual.)
A boatload of Japanese tourists arrived with cameras at the ready, and began to pour onto the planks with no regard for the fact that there were already people standing in their pathway- with nowhere else to go. I stood on a particularly wobbly section, looking down in terror at an extremely full square of gargantuan fish, and it dawned on me that there were three men coming towards me from one direction and two men from the opposite one. What was I supposed to do, leap across the water to the other side!? Firstly, I would never make it, and secondly the fish could’ve been carnivores for all I knew. My heartbeat basically doubled as I decided the only solution was to walk towards the smaller group, who eventually stopped and let me balance my way around them as if I was on an actual cliff edge. Folks, I was flabbergasted.
Of course, the actual fishermen run and leap gracefully along the grids of fish with not a care in the world; this way of life is in their blood, and the dogs (who are there to protect the farms from poachers) are equally as unfazed.
But on the issue of fish farming in Halong Bay, I felt quite uncomfortable. On the one hand, aquaculture has clearly been the main source of income for many of the bay’s residents for generations, and I think there’s something inherently wrong with turning up in another country and denouncing a collective people’s entire way of life.
However, fish farming here is clearly not without its problems. The industry is clearly adding to the destruction of the environment, with polystyrene, plastic oil drums and fishing nets floating around in far greater numbers than, well, the actual fish. Polystyrene spheres were floating like little space particles in many of the nets, and trash floated on the surface of a couple of them.
But let’s face it, pals: tourism is also contributing to the pollution in Halong Bay. By simply visiting, I’m part of the problem too. There has to be a better way of managing the issue, surely?
Kayaking exhaustion and a private chef
The five of us decided to make our way to the kayaks a little sooner than was probably expected, and we set out paddling away in long strokes in the direction that we were pointed.We had three kayaks: the two Swedish guys in one, Polis in another, and Chris and I in the third. And this time we were on our own; just a bunch of intrepid explorers rowing our way around Halong Bay, adventurer style!
Five years ago, I don’t think I would have even dared to think about doing such a thing. But travel, and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like this, can really have a brilliant effect on a person, you know? The sun was scalding hot, my scalp was burning to a crisp, and I was merrily rowing my way around Ha Long Actual Bay without anyone to even show us the way! It was absolutely glorious I tell ya.
We aimed for a natural bridge in one of the limestone walls ahead of us, and it was low enough that when we rowed beneath its curve, I instinctively ducked. From beneath the shady bridge, we surfaced on the other side into a parallel universe. I’d never been anywhere like it.
The craggy limestone mountains curved around a wide circular expanse of water, crystal clear and vivid turquoise in the sunshine. I put the oars down and we sat in stunned silence, taking in the completely quiet air. It seemed so far removed from civilisation, like going back to a time before humans were around, and I genuinely wouldn’t have been shocked to see a pterodactyl glide over the top of the cliffs, and land on one of the little sandy beaches.
(I say ‘I’ put the oars down as opposed to ‘we’, as it turned out that Chris-who was in the back seat of the kayak- had given up on rowing by that point. He was all about that filming lifestyle, which made for some great footage, so I can’t hold it against him. Though I had wondered why I was struggling so much up until that point.)
After a couple of hours, a failed attempt at locating a decent beach, and an (almost) failed attempt at rowing away from a not-so-decent beach, we were relieved to catch sight of the fish farm and its many kayaks. We carried on with our sweeping strokes, keeping our kayaks tightly hugging the limestone mountains and looking down into the water, to spy the odd discus of a globular jellyfish billowing past. My arms felt like rocks, I was rather sunburnt indeed, and there was a noticeable current moving against us which hadn’t been there before.
But the fact that the day had been kind of a challenge gave me, quite frankly, a humungous sense of achievement.
Kayaks returned, we were picked up in our little boat and off we sailed to a more secluded part of the bay where there wasn’t a single other boat, or human being, to be seen. The only sounds were the gentle lapping of the sea, and our own chatting- about our experiences in Vietnam, and our respective lives. Two Swedes from Stockholm– one of them originally from Iran- a Cypriot, and two English folk, make for interesting kinds of conversations, and my only wish was that I knew some Vietnamese so we could talk with the boat driver as well. We were only really capable of cheers-ing our drinks with him and saying thank you a thousand times for our delicious food.
Once we were moored, it was time for more swimming (which I opted out of because of jellyfish-phobias), and then lunch, and I can quite honestly say that this was one of the best meals of my entire time in Vietnam. Our boat driver doubled as a chef for the five of us, and once he’d stopped driving, he pulled out a little portable stove and a bunch of cooking utensils and got to work, expertly preparing the most sumptuous, mouthwatering combination of flavours ever.
An introduction to squid fishing
We reached the ship just before the new rotation of guests returned from their afternoon of kayaking, and I was glad to have some decent downtime before our second beautiful sunset over Halong Bay. The evening was scheduled in pretty much the same way as our first night on board had been, although for our al fresco cooking class we had a tutorial on gui cuon, which are fresh, not fried, spring rolls. The first time I’d tried Vietnamese food was actually a few years before in Sacramento, and it was great to see the similarities and differences in the real, authentic thing.
And then: it was back to the squid fishing.
Which still wasn’t the kind of thing that floated my boat, but I was curious about their technique, and when we heard “we got one!” yelled out from a lower deck in the darkness, I naturally went to have a peek. I mean, why would you not? A couple of small gelatinous squids lay on the open deck, with saucer-like, reflective eyes staring up like headlights at nighttime.
Squid fishing in Halong Bay takes place at night because that’s when the squids tend to come closer to the surface, attracted to the bright lights of boats breaking through the water. The men on board were showing a family how to hook their artificial bait onto a fishing line, and then slowly lower them into the calm sea to attract the squids. But the bait and ship-light isn’t enough, and in addition they were shining little lights down into the water to lure the unsuspecting creatures closer. It reminded me of crabbing in Cornwall, lowering little rods off of the harbour wall in Padstow to trap the crustaceans.
3 Day HaLong Bay Cruise: Day 3
On day 3 of our HaLong Bay cruise, I woke up, pulled back the curtains, and felt a combination of awe at our surroundings, sadness that today would be our last day, and gratitude to myself for actually booking the trip- which I almost hadn’t done.
A cycle through Cát Bà National Park
The jam-packed itinerary continued to be jam-packed right up until the moment we left, and on the morning of the third day on board, we were told we would be heading to Cát Bà island, to visit a local village. But this village was not right there as soon as we reached dry land, oh no. In order to reach Viet Hai, we would have to cycle through the national park. And this, my friends, was another brilliant day out.
Let me be clear with you, pals: I’m not a keen cyclist, and in cities and towns (in fact, on any road that a car might drive down), I hate cycling. I’m far too nervous about what the traffic around me might do, and tend to grip the handlebars so tightly that I’m surprised I haven’t instantly developed carpal tunnel syndrome. In Copenhagen, where bikes are everywhere, I was terrified, and I almost didn’t even bother with cycling across the Stari Grad Plain in Hvar (although I’m so very glad that I did). But in this instance, I made up my mind that I would be fine- and there clearly wouldn’t be any cars around- and the whole morning was absolutely marvellous.
I even managed to let go of the handlebars occasionally to snap a picture or two.
We rounded a sloping uphill corner past a river, where more local people were harvesting shellfish, and then carried on through the mountain pass and jungle vines, where eventually the mountains and jungle opened up The landscape of Cát Bà National Park is very similar to Halong Bay- except the flat space around the stone mountain towers is grass, not water. In the bay there are dazzling reflections of the world above, but here on land there was swaying grass speckled with pink flowers, tufts of smoke from little tiny fires here and there, and instead of jellyfish, the much more welcome sight of chestnut brown buffalo. We continued on a rough, barely-visible pathway through the fields, and on towards the little village of Viet Hai.
Viet Hai fish massages and snake wine
Around 100 people live in the village, almost all of them part of the fishing industry, in houses arranged mostly along one long road. What a place to live, with wide open fields and a backdrop of jungle and mountains. We passed a pretty pond complete with pink waterlilies in flower on waxy green lily pads, and a chorus of throaty bullfrogs who were hidden in plain sight. I’d only ever heard such resonant ribbits on cartoons before, so it was genuinely a marvel to hear in real life.
English frogs are rather timid in comparison to their Vietnamese counterparts.
Like many rural villages in touristic destinations around the world, the villagers of Viet Hai are beginning to profit from visitors just as much as from the industries that they once depended solely on- if not, more. In this case, where other nationalities of people can come and learn about their way of life, I think that’s a really great thing. (I visited an Embera village in Panama which similarly invited visitors to learn about their culture, and it’s one of the experiences that most stuck with me out of my time there.)
We were welcomed in to a traditional house to learn about how people live in such a rural area of Vietnam, and then taken down to a peaceful little pool where most of the group indulged in a little fish foot massage. Ooh la la. “Fish massage”, I hear you say. Now pals, I will jump into jellyfish-infested waters, I will cycle through mountains in 40ºc heat, and I will kayak into the Great Unknown, all in the name of only-living-once. But having fish snack on my actual feet, is where I must draw the line. And I’m glad I did, as they chomped down a little too hard on one man’s legs and drew blood. (I don’t think that’s common, FYI, but something to be aware of.)
Massage complete, it was on to the wine. But this wasn’t just any wine. This was snake wine.
Ok pals, not just snake wine, although that’s the one that really stuck out, for obvious reasons. There were several large glass bottles lined up on the table in front of us, each filled with rice wine but flavoured differently- with roots, fruit, or in the case of the final bottle, an actual snake, drained of its colour and looking like it had arrived straight from a Hogwarts Potions class. The wine, which is normally at least 40% alcohol, is made from fermented rice, and then infused either just for the fun of it, or for medicinal purposes. In the case of the snake, which was once venomous, the wine it now inhabits is considered an aphrodisiac, and a potential cure for hair loss.
I stuck to the plum wine, which the very twinkly-eyed lady poured for me into a shot glass, chuckling away to herself. It’s strong stuff, but tastes a little like homemade rakija (a Balkan spirit), or Japanese sake. You wouldn’t want to drink too much in one sitting, that’s all I’m saying.
On the subject of snake-consuming, in Vietnam it’s pretty normal to tuck into a snake for dinner, and there are even snake speciality restaurants in the bigger cities (here’s one in Hanoi) if you’re curious. A few days after our 3 day Halong Bay cruise, we would find ourselves trekking through the mountains of Sa Pa, where our lovely local guide Sua informed us that her husband had caught and eaten a snake just the day before, noting that the blood is really good for you.
This drinking of animal blood is a whole different world for me, but in this part of Asia it’s a fairly common delicacy. This is purely anecdotal but our guide on the ship told us that since the pandemic, the numbers of monkeys living in Halong Bay have dwindled fairly drastically. The consensus was that the blood of the monkeys would help to build immunity to the virus, resulting in a trade for monkey blood that hadn’t been there before. He did add that he had never seen any scientific evidence to back up the health benefits of drinking monkey blood, but some people were so scared of the disease that they would give anything a try. Humans are a funny bunch, aren’t we?
This 3 day Halong Bay cruise was one of the highlights of my time in Vietnam, and considering my aversion to ‘forced fun’ that really surprised me- if I’d have seen a full list of everything on offer in such a short space of time beforehand, I genuinely might have been put off. But everything we did was so immersive that I felt like I really had learnt so much about the stunning nature, and the incredible people and culture in Halong Bay. It was a million times better than taking a more ‘chilled out’ approach and simply taking in the views from the ship. It also encouraged me to push myself outside of my comfort zone, and I’m so so glad we took this trip.
The Night Train: Da Nang to Hanoi