The last night of our tour was an overnight cruise on the famous Halong Bay. We had two nice cabins, each with a small balcony. Plus a light up spa bath and fancy meals, it was definitely a step up from our usual standard of accommodation!

Our activities included a kayak into a karst island – like we did in Phuket – but way more crowded. Imagine a scene where dozens of people who have never kayaked before are dumped into kayaks with zero instruction and all swarm to a 15m wide cave entrance. Then add some boats (for those who didn’t want to kayak / get wet). It was chaos. We barely managed to avoid getting hit in the head several times, M got T-boned twice in under a minute by the same kayak and I saw one kayak go straight into the cave wall. Once through the entrance, we quickly paddled to the far side for safety and some peace and quiet!

One of the few pictures I took, looking back to the cave entrance:

After this joy, the kids and I decided to head back to our boat while M went to see a limestone cave. In retrospect, we should have persisted, as the cave was quiet spectacular and absolutely massive, so the crowds were much less noticeable.

As you might imagine, boat drinks were not included and reasonably pricey compared to the shore. But we did get an entrepreneurial seller come over to the balcony at one point. I am not sure of her prices as I wasn’t keen to bargain, but surely they’d be cheaper (and more variety) than on the boat?!

Sunset on the boat was lovely and we had cocktails on the roof. You just have to try to ignore the blaring music – for some reason every boat, including ours, decides to play loud pop music before dinner, even if it’s clearly not the vibe. There’s a load of boats in the same area and sound travels well over water. Kudos to the last boat who was still partying at 10pm to ‘Sweet Caroline’.

The next morning we hiked up to a viewpoint, along with many others. The stairs weren’t very wide, which meant there was just enough space for a single file going up and down. It was a nice view, but way too crowded for my liking.

I can’t recommend Halong Bay – it’s just too over-touristed to be enjoyable. There are alternatives, such as Bai Tu Long Bay, which might’ve been quieter, but logistics were tricky, especially as we want to combine out tour with Ninh Binh. Even a two night boat tour of the bay might be better as you’d be distanced more from the shore and crowds.