Ha Long Bay Cruises

Joining a 2-day, 1-night Ha Long Bay cruise is a good option for first-time visitors. Such journeys enable you to discover the bay's various islets, beaches, villages, and grottoes at a more relaxed pace. These cruises also often feature stops for swimming, fishing, snorkelling, kayaking, and trekking. If you're not a fan of outdoor activities, you can simply relax and admire the stunning scenery. 

Ha Long Bay cruises vary depending on the season and weather. One of the most popular stops in Halong Bay is Cat Ba Island. It features floating villages, hotels, restaurants, and bars that are set against a backdrop of lush mountains. The island is also home to endangered animals, such as Cat Ba langurs, southern serows, black giant squirrels, and civet cats.

There are other notable islands in Ha Long Bay besides Cat Ba Island. Dau Be Island is another island listed on most Ha Long Bay cruises, located 28 km from Bai Chay Port. It's a prominent swimming and diving spot with a rich coral system, deep grottoes, and 6 inland lakes. You can only visit the caves by rowing your boat in at low tide. You can spot golden monkeys and flying squirrels here as well.

Bo Hon Island is where you can find Halong Bay’s most famous caves. Sung Sot, Trinh Nu and Trong Cave are set against a backdrop of mountains, cliffs, and lush forest. Accessible within a 2-hour boat ride from Bai Chay Port, it’s widely regarded as Halong Bay’s natural park. Plenty of cycads, orchids, and banyan trees grow here. It's also home to wild monkeys, deer, and chamois.

Other smaller islands in Ha Long Bay include Ti Top Island, about 8 km southeast of Bai Chay Port. The islet was named in 1962 after a visit from former Soviet Union astronaut, Gherman Titov. The beach is its main draw, where visitors can enjoy swim or lounge on the sandbank. High-end resorts, hotels, restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops are set along Ti Top Beach. Take the 400-step stairway to the peak of Ti Top Island to enjoy a panoramic view of Ha Long Bay.   

For more than 5,000 years, these islands are home to locals living mainly on agriculture and fishing. Ha Long Bay now houses just a few fishing villages, namely Cong Dam, Cua Van, Viet Hai, and Vung Vieng. From these villages, travellers can also join kayak tours, visit a pearl farm, try fishing with local fishermen, or simply observe their daily lives.

The main attractions in Ha Long Bay are its limestone caves and grottoes, which no trip to the bay is complete without. Most are home to stalactites and stalagmites that are over 2 million years old. Dau Go Cave is one of the most visited caves in the bay. You can see stalactites and stalagmites that are 20 metres tall. An English-speaking guide leads you through a 90-step stairway to get to the cave. It has 3 main sections that are illuminated with natural and artificial lighting. There are formations in the shapes of people, animals, and objects. At the end of Dau Go Cave is a small pond with clear water. Locals claim that fairies use the pond to descend to Earth.

Trinh Nu, also known as 'Virgin Cave', has a statue of a woman. It's said that she was turned into stone after her death, having been unable to return home after being forced to marry an old mandarin. Local legend states that she escaped from him because her father could not pay a debt. When fishermen found her body, they buried her and built a small shrine inside the grotto.  

Sung Sot Cave has 2 chambers with a square-shaped outer chamber and a 30-metre-tall limestone ceiling. Set within Bo Hon Island, its inner chamber formations resemble sentries conversing with one another. There’s another formation in the middle of the chamber that looks like a general surveying his troops.  

The Kissing Rocks islets are undoubtedly the symbols of Ha Long Bay. The 2 rocks resemble a rooster and a hen facing each other. Locals believe they symbolise eternal love as they've been in Halong Bay for thousands of years.