We’ve visited a fair few beautiful places in the world. Hạ Long Bay is well up there with the most stunning.
This is another of those days when the words in my log are few, the photographs many and really you don’t need many words:
Stunning scenes on Hạ Long Bay, headline picture, above and below.Health & Safety had not got started, let alone gone mad at that grottoInside (above) and outside (below) the grotto
Went on a cruise at Hạ Long Bay on “Yellow Dragon” boat – misty but pleasant – went to “new grotto” [i.e. newly discovered in 1996] – very slippery climb due to mist– went into grotto etc. Super lunch on boat – then long drive back to Hanoi. Overnight in Royal Hotel
Lunch on the boat, me & Thung (above), then return journey to Hanoi pictures (below)
Our two day/one night trip to Hạ Long Bay was incredibly picturesque, with the possible exception of our short stay in Hạ Long itself.
The agency and the guide book had warned us that, at that time, Hạ Long was not well served with Western-standard accommodation.
We chose to stay at the best available at the time, the Hạ Long Hotel, which is depicted above. That picture was the best possible angle one could find of the place.
The hotel, which had probably seen better days even in the early post-war period, had been a favoured haunt of Soviet tourists. The signage and information in all of the rooms was in Vietnamese, French and Russian only. I derived what little instruction we needed from the French versions. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
It’s a shame I didn’t photograph the room, which had a rudimentary look to it. But the biggest shame of all is that I didn’t photograph the refectory-style dining room, with long tables and benches. It reminded me of an austere English public school refectory; or perhaps a well-appointed prison dining hall.
The place was almost completely deserted when we were there in March 1996, giving the “refectory” an especially eerie feel. Had the place been fully occupied, dinner time might have looked more like this:
On looking up our Hạ Long Hotel in the old 1990s guide book and then Googling the address, I am pretty sure that the site is now the rather stunning-looking and very well-reviewed Ha Long Plaza Hotel. It must have had a comprehensive makeover since our visit, for some obscure reason. So I’m guessing that the old dining hall is now lost for ever in the mists of time.
But let us now put all of that to one side and return to the stunningly beautiful journey that was our two day/overnight visit to Hạ Long Bay.
This was one of those picturesque travelling days, for which I wrote few words but for which the pictures can say far more than words ever could.
Breakfast then off to Highway Five towards Haiphong – stopped in Tongs [Hải Dương?] Province for tea and green bean cake – then on to Haiphong for lunch and then looked at communal house (Hang Kenh) and on to Hạ Long Bay via ferries etc.
Haiphong (above) Communal House (below)We got on the above ferry after photographing it, but missed the one belowArrived in Hạ Long at dusk
Stayed in Hạ Long West – took the ferry to Hạ Long East for a walk before dinner and early night
