We came to Ha Long to see the famous 3,000, or maybe even 6,000 islands. For this, you need to buy a tour ticket. Touts are selling them everywhere, boats leave periodically, there are hundreds of them. So look around, haggle, and ye shall find. The pleasure costs 20-50 bucks for a 2-4 hour trip. We paid something like 25 per person for 3 hours. Make sure to ask if the tour includes a visit to the cave (it almost always does). The cave isn't included in the price, but you can live with that, since the ticket costs somewhere around 2 bucks.
Ha Long also has a supermarket, so you don't have to overpay hustlers for soda. They have a fridge in there, canned coffee, and an endless amount of all sorts of grub like ice cream, dried fruits, plain sweet potato chips, nuts, and other Asian joys of life.
Judging by the picture, bamboo and carrot. Tastes a bit weird, but at least it comes with a spoon, and a lid
Some kind of fruit jelly for kids, it sucks
An already familiar tea brand, but this one is apple-flavored. Basic
A cruise ship
A little boat
Another one, with a vegetable garden on the roof
Here are the famous islands
Another boat, two-masted though
Local female tourists
There's quite a bit of traffic in the bay
And corresponding emissions too
Fancy flower pots
A bench with a pattern, nice one
An artsy trash can, in the shape of a penguin
I barely took any photos of the cave itself, my camera ain't really cut out for it
The path is neat, with little posts, because of the crowds of tourists
Blooming and smelling nice
The rules
From the rules we learn that the cave is called AU GO, and that it is beautiful and famous.
Let's preserve Ha Long for future generations!
A barge
These are fishing co-ops on the water, catching toxic fish
The look of the water doesn't inspire confidence
Considering the unbelievable number of diesel boats, eating seafood from Ha Long Bay on a regular basis isn't exactly great for your health. Plus, in keeping with socialist tradition, there are probably factories all around dumping wonderful toxic waste with heavy metals, and no UNESCO is gonna help here.
I wouldn't live here
A point of interest
As we were sailing past, a sailor sitting next to me took a 200 thousand bill out of his wallet and showed it to me. I was so surprised I snatched the bill right out of his hands, and he didn't even mind much, even though it's almost 10 dollars. Why did he do that, you ask? Here is why.
I had to give the bill back, but the memory of a good man remains
Here we docked to see how the fishermen live
The sign proudly says something like: "Man and bamboo — a legendary fishing cooperative".
Seafood lives in the compartments, soon to be served on the table
I ate one like this, as you remember
But not these ones
Everything in Vietnam is mass-scale
A floating shop
There's no escape from vendors even on the water. As you can imagine, in Ha Long it's exactly the same as in Sa Pa — no peace from the touts.
Everything is very colorful and exotic
More seafood
Dumping it
The islands are beautiful
As for the caves, they are beautiful, illuminated with multi-colored lights, and packed with people inside. Someone might say that multi-colored is too cheesy, that it should be nice and minimalist, just white or yellow. I think it's fine as is — because if you make it minimalist here, then you could demand the same in other areas too, and most people don't approve of modern approaches to art and would suffer. For the most part I don't care, I'm patient, I can watch and listen to absolute hardcore trash. Over the years, though, I feel like doing it less and less. Anyway — the islands themselves are beautiful, but not so much that you absolutely have to go see them. The cave, however, leaves a very strong impression, highly recommend.
