Halong Bay, Vietnam(Part I)

New7Wonders of Nature campaign was held from year 2007 to 2011, and Halong Bay is one of the 7 winners, others are Jeju Island(visited in year 2012), Iguazu Waterfall, Amazon Rainforest and River, Puerto Princessa Underground River, Komodo Island and Table Mountain.
Fyi, I will share the beauty of Halong Bay in 2 separate blogposts noh….
WHY? Hmm, just simply don’t want share it with you all in one go. blek~

So, lets sail through this wonderful place with Go!Mitty pictures…….(ai ai Captain!)

Halong Bay which literally means “descending dragon bay" has an area of around 1,553 km².Even though I never been to Guilin, but I know both of this tourist spots share the common beauty which are their limestone karsts. Ok, less talk, more pictures pls~~

The weather was slightly overcast, that’s why the pictures taken with this dummy Fujika camera was gloomy. Anyway, it still show the beauty of Halong Bay, right? 好像薄纱后的美女~ I keep on wondering how the mother of nature makes all these limestone karsts and isles appear in the middle of sea? Hmmm, it suits the title, wonder of nature.

Cruises in Halong Bay

There is 2 types of cruises in Halong Bay, which are overnight cruise and daytrip cruise. Then overnight cruise is divided into 2 days 1 night trip and 3 days 2 nights trip. The round trip to Halong City takes about 7 hours, so I HIGHLY recommend you to overnight on boat even though nothing much to do at night.(just sleep noh~). The cruise range from budget to luxury kind, which generally the smaller size cruise has the cheaper rate, and the details you can find it online. If you are lazy and is ok with budget cruise, just book Halong Christina Cruise.

As there are 300+ cruises operating, so is fun to see the cruises with different designs passed by us.

From top
First: Fantasea Deluxe Cruise
Second: Indochina Sails
Third:Halong Dragon Cruise

From top
First: Paradise Luxury
Second: Halong Emotion CruiseChio i-don’t-know-its-name cruise

Local "cruise"So, this is how the local earn for their living.

Surprising Cave(Hang Sung Sot)

The cave is found by French in 1901 and it is the tourist spot that 99.1% confirm-in-the-itinerary because it is the most magnificent, amazing and surprising cave in this bay. It was so magnificent, amazing and surprising that Go!Mitty sprained her crunchy ankle here. How embarassing!!! I sat on the staircase in pain after the fall, with several cute handsome boys asking “Are you okay~?”

Stop the silly stories and explore this cave.

Fyi, we need to do little hiking to get into the cave.

                                   The first chamber once we stepped into the cave is pretty small.

But this is not the prettiest part.

                                                         I love the wave like ceiling. Nice!

This is the surprising part.Colored and proper lighting of the caves made the
stalagmites and stalactites more attractive.Tortoise like rock where the head is biting bank notes.
Tour guide told us that, touching the tortoise head can bring good luck.
No wonder, the head so smooth.
Don’t need use sunsilk
Ain’t it looks like a waterfall.

You will be welcome by this wonderful view once you come out from the cave:Berry berry nice~~~Spotted 2 pairs of rocky legs

So our Surprising Cave tour comes to an end.

Kayak

This is another activity which is confirm-in-the-itinerary. Our kayak fee is included in the money we paid for Christina cruise. Do take note whether kayak fee is included in your Halong Bay tour payment.  

We kayak for around 30minutes at the floating village.

So, I end my first part of Halong Bay post here.
Next: Titop Island!(MUST GO!)


Roll roll roll your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Merily merily merily merily,
Life is but a dream

Halong Christina Cruise

So, overnight in Halong Bay on the cruise is the must-do things when we purchased the flight tickets. I planned to stay on the Halong Dragon cruise(which was highly recommended in Cari Forum), while Emily from BB Hanoi Hostel, suggested to overnight on Fantasea cruise. After doing multiple surveys, I decided to take the Halong Christina Cruise because it will drop us at Titop Island(will tell you more on why I am so obsess with this island in next next post).

This is the itinerary of 2 days 1 night stay with Halong Christina Cruise:
Day 1: Ha Noi – Ha Long- Bai tu Long- Sung sot-TiTopEnglish tour guide pick up at hotel to Halong bay(HLB), it takes 3 hours and a half to reach HLB you have a short break on the half way.
Get on Cristina Suite Cruise,  then having lunch. Visit Sung Sot cave( surprising  Cave) which is one of the most  beautiful and largest caves of Ha Long bay. then kayaking around Floating Village.
After that the boat takes you to Titop Island. At night we learn to make Vietnamese spring roll. Overnight on the boat.
Day 2: Halong _ Me Cung Grotto -Pearl Farm
Visit Pearl store. C/out room then keep contemplating sightseeing of  the bay on the way back to Ha Long harbour, bus take you back to Ha Noi..
Tour finished.

You can visit Christina Cruise’s website at HERE.

The tour bus picked us up at hotel at 8am.

The distance between Hanoi and Halong Bay is about 150km, but it took about 4 hours plus for us to reach the harbour because of the poor road condition and we stopped by for a 30minutes break.

These are the 1 day trip cruises.
These are the overnight cruises.

Previously the boats in Halong Bay are painted with brown and black color, but new policy was made and started from May 2012, all boats are to paint with white color.Go!Mitty thinks that brown color boats are more attractive. LOL.

We hopped onto a small boat, which will then bring us to Christina Cruise. There are 2 types of Christina Cruise, the 9 and 11 cabin cruise, and we overnight on the 9 cabin Christina Cruise.

Hello and Welcome on-board to Christina Cruise.

My parents and I stayed in the only triple room on boat.
Clean and cosy room.
The hot air shower and air-cond are not available all the time.
Only available from 6pm onwards if not mistaken.Twin roomSundeck.
Is nice to sit here in the night, with a can of beer
and a bunch of friends to chat with.

Oh ya, would like to share about foods in Kalong Christina Cruise. We enjoyed our every single meals onboard, because we ate to the fullest with the 8 dishes served with every meals. nom nom nom.

These are some of the dishes being served. Simple dishes but the taste is omg-yummy!

Drinks from outside(except plain water) are not allowed to bring on board, if you are thirsty and craving for can drinks/beer, buy them from the staffs and pay for them at rate which is slightly higher than you bought in town.

At night, we had this Vietnamese spring roll learning class. The staff mixed the ingredients for us and we wrapped up the spring roll.

After taking the dinner, we spent our night at the sundeck and of course we had a nice sleep on the cruise.

Woke up early on the second day and snapped this.
Peaceful morning.

Next post:
Captain, lets sail into Halong Bay

PS: All the hotel reviews in my blog are not sponsored, I just write out to share my experience. So, if you appreciate my review/s, please click on the adverts available on the top, so that I can have more income to travel and share all these wonderful experience with you. Tq.

BB Hanoi Hostel

Chinese New Year celebration officially comes to an end. Wish my readers a good Horse year ahead!
So, I update my blog with a review of BB Hanoi Hostel before I fly to HK.

After I purchased the air ticket to Hanoi, I google and dig useful Hanoi travel information from Cari forum as usual, at first was planning to book Hanoi Guest House or Rising Star Dragon Hotel as recommended by the travellers in Cari forum, then my mother told me that she booked the first night accommodation at BB Hanoi Hostel through Agoda.

Then, after going through the positive reviews in Trip Advisor and Agoda page, we decided to stay and take tour packages from BB Hanoi Hostel throughout our trip. So, I am the one in charge of contacting the hostel and our deals are inclusive of:

1) Stay in Family Room at USD29/night, inclusive of breakfast and extra bed.
2) 2D1N Halong Bay Christina Suite Cruise at USD85/pax
3) 2D1N Mai Chau stay at tilt house at USD60/pax
4) Free airport transfer to hostel

Besides the good feedbacks in Trip Advisor, the way Tony(manager of BB Hanoi Hostel) communicate with me in the emails, makes me and my mum secure with the booking. From the words, we felt that Tony and his staffs are friendly and willing to help. And, in real, they are!

Took the early flight.
Fluffy clouds that looks like cotton candy

16 seated car(free airport transport from BB Hanoi Hostel)The front look of hostel.Reception counter and tour information desk at the lobby.
Tony will sit at here and introduce the tour packages to his customers.
We love to sit at the lobby to online and had our supper with Hanoi Beer.The small place for us to take breakfast

Room

BB Hanoi Hostel is a tall, narrow building(just like other buildings in Vietnam) with 6 floors and each floor have 3 rooms.

There is a lift in BB Hanoi Hostel.
So don’t worry if you are staying in the highest floor.Our family room with 1 single bed and 1 double bed.
The mattresses are quite firm, but we still slept soundly.The bathroom that equipped with toiletries.

BB Hanoi Hostel is located at the Old Quarters of Hanoi town. Walking distance to the night market, Hoan Kien Lake and Water Puppet Theatre. So my advice is, if you want to be near to all the tourist spots in Hanoi, stay in Old Quarters. Accurately, stay in BB Hanoi Hostel.

I felt like I was travelling from home to another home, Tony and all his staffs welcome us with big hands and a warm smile when we check in, when we back from our Halong Bay and Mai Chau trip. I sprained my right ankle on Day 2 in Halong Bay, then once I back to hostel, Tony brought me to the pharmacy store next door to buy the Salonpas patch. His staff also get us a few packs of green tea(nice one!) at cheaper price.

The group picture with Tony
Thanks for the great hospitality!

Check out more of BB Hanoi Hostel at http://www.bbhanoihostel.com/

One more thing,
Must try out this wantan mee soup just 2 doors next to BB Hanoi Hostel
And this fried chicken (stall outside the hostel). Daebak!

PS: All the hotel reviews in my blog are not sponsored, I just write out to share my experience. So, if you appreciate my review/s, please click on the adverts available on the top, so that I can have more income to travel and share all these wonderful experience with you. Tq.