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geography
Where?
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a popular travel destination, located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. Administratively, the bay belongs to Hạ Long City, Cẩm Phả town, and part of Van Don District.
What? The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. Ha Long Bay is a center of a larger zone which includes Bái Tử Long bay to the northeast, and Cát Bà islands to the southwest. These larger zones share similar geological, geographical, geomorphological, climate, and cultural characters.
Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km2, including 1,960 islets, most of which are limestone. The core of the bay has an area of 334 km2 with a high density of 775 islets. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate. The geo-diversity of the environment in the area has created biodiversity, including a tropical evergreen biosystem, oceanic and sea shore biosystem. Ha Long Bay is home to 14 endemic floral species and 60 endemic faunal species.
The vast majority of tourists visit Ha Long Bay on a pre-purchased tour from Hanoi. Prices are extremely variable depending on the quality of the boat, crew, food and additional activities. The cheaper the tour, the more basic the amenities. Virtually all hostels and hotels in Hanoi offer tours to Ha Long Bay. You can usually judge the level of professionalism of the tour based on that of the hotel itself. As most hotels do not run their own tours, but serve as a proxy for tour companies, it will usually be cheaper to go to an actual tourist company location and deal with them directly. As a rough guide, a two night three day tour for US$80 should get you at a minimum: - one night aboard a deluxe imperial junk (i.e. better than the standard boat and much better than the el cheapo options) with decent sized amounts of food and enough lounges on the deck for everyone.
- one night at a 4 star hotel on Cat Ba island, again with more than enough food.
- a decent English speaking guide.
- lots of activities: cave visits, kayaking, swimming, island stopovers (to climb Titov mountain, bike ride amongst rice paddies and see monkeys).
Some operators charge for the kayaking or the boat to see the caves so check if they are included for free when buying tickets. A few tour companies include a helicopter trip as part of their package, with departures from Gia Lam Airport in Hanoi. Kayaking is great fun - find a secluded bay and soak in the amazing surroundings. The water is lovely and refreshing when the sun is out, but extremely salty. For about $50 you will get good backpacker standard of activities and accommodation. However the amount of food you are served may not be enough and snacks are highly advised. You can buy beer on board but at an inflated price, typically $2 or 40,000 dong for a large bottle of Tiger and if you bring your own beer or buy it off a floating "shop", you will be charged to open it on the boat, typically 10,000 dong per bottle. If you are discreet though you might get away with drinking your own beer. Large bottles of water and drink cans typically cost 30,000 dong on board. Bottles of water are also subject to a 10,000 dong bring on board charge. So keep and drink your own soft drinks in your room and you will avoid this charge (which you can refuse to pay if you weren't told about before boarding). Some operators give you a drink with your meal and then ask you to pay after you drank it. Check first. Beware of upper rooms at the rear end of a boat. They might be directly above the generator, so the noise might keep you awake at night and you may even get a slight smell of diesel. It seems that things often don't go exactly to plan on the cheaper tours. You might wish to get the mobile phone number of the agent you book with and ask if its OK to phone them if certain things don't go to plan. Mobile reception is surprisingly good in Ha Long Bay.
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