Halong Bay - Vietnam's #1 tourist attraction. This is the place all tourist guides will tell you to visit if you have only 2 days to spend in Vietnam. And guess what - all tourists buy those tourists books! The result, 99,000 out of the 100,000 tourists that visited Vietnam when we did, were all coming to Halong Bay. The port were 100 boats sail every day to the bay was crowded, wrong, over-crowded, with thousands of tourists. The exotic trip in the bay was a live of dozens of ships following one another n the same exact trail. The cave we stopped to see "on the way" to our first bay, turned to be on the way of few thousand other tourists that same day. And the most annoying thing of all was that the "dedicated" crew on our ship, after getting over-paid for this touristy cruise, had the idea that all those loads of money we paid were, well, already paid hence - in their pockets. The only real reason to move their asses around the boat was to get some MORE MONEY. Be it over priced drinks (and simply bottles of water are definitely among the pricey drinks), to sealing money if they only could.
It is true that the thousands of Islands in Halong Bay are indeed amazing natural gift. But make no mistake - it is not waiting there for you to discover, it is rather like the black mountain ride in Disneyland. You wait for hours in the queue, and then get a 90-seconds ride together with loads of other tourists.
For me personally, it was too little reward for too much expectation (and money).
But then again, I can write a "V" in my check list now...
For more pictures from Halong Bay and the rest of Vietnam, click here.
1 comment:
Looking very commercial with so many boats when we were there but still, it is very magical and pretty. Enjoyed every minutes spent there especially when we visited the cave.
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