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Private tailor-made journeys of a life time
Jul 23, 2019
By Vu Linh
It’s understandable to see tourists rushing into buying tickets for Halong Bay, eager to experience the UNESCO wonder the second that they touch down in Vietnam. Many even go as far as to buy tickets for Halong Bay from the harbor that serves it, Tuan Chau, preferring to deal face-to-face with sellers rather than through hotels, third party travel agencies or websites. Despite all geographical evidence to the contrary, the main hub of Halong Bay activity is not in the city of Halong itself, but 160km away in Hanoi, where almost all tour companies and their soon-to-be passengers are based. At the V’Spirit Explorer Blog, we wanted to explain the differences between Hanoi and Halong for the visitors wondering whether or not they should buy Halong Bay tickets from the harbor.
To cut to the chase, the answer is a resounding no, and here’s why:
For those who undertake it, traveling 160km across the country for the potential of a cheaper deal at Halong Bay’s harbor is a bit of a fool’s endeavor. Consider the alternative: a quick phone call or a booking via a website will see you booked onto a Halong Bay cruise, with the cheap addition of a shuttle bus to make the transfer between your hotel and the bay incredibly easy. Your tour guide will even load your luggage onto the bus for you, meaning you barely have to lift a finger in getting from Hanoi to Halong Bay.
Compared to the solo endeavor of heading to Halong Bay’s harbor to buy tickets yourself, there is really no comparison. Intrepid travelers must start with a taxi to Hanoi’s main city or bus stations, followed by bus or train transportation to Halong or Hai Phong City, the two cities in charge of Halong Bay, and ending with a taxi to the harbor. English information about public transport in Vietnam is far from reliable and the cost of such an endeavor is likely to be more than three return shuttle bus transfers.
The beauty of Halong Bay
Once at the harbor with luggage in tow, the next order of business is to find a hotel and stay the night. Unless you left Hanoi at about 4 am or 5 am, you will miss the daily sailing of cruises at around midday, so staying overnight at Tuan Chau harbor might be your only option. Tuan Chau is the largest artificial harbor in the world and is well equipped to host people with hotels, restaurants, and bars, but the vast majority of people coming to Vietnam don’t imagine their perfect holiday to feature any sort of overnight stay at a harbor at all. Adding to that, people looking to buy tickets for Bai Tu Long Bay at the harbor will need to stay overnight at Hon Gai harbor; a grim prospect indeed, one also matched by an overnight stay at Got harbor, serving Lan Ha Bay.
The harbor at Halong Bay
To clamp down on any possibility of underhand dealings, cruise companies contractually forbid their employees to sell tickets at the harbor. Face-to-face transactions in Vietnam are usually done with cash and this has led to quite a bit of corruption in the past; customers are often left with no receipt after paying and no particular guarantee that their ‘ticket’ is even genuine. ‘Rules’ are a little more lax around Vietnam than in most Western countries, so this is still a practice that takes place. For total legitimacy and peace of mind, you should not try to buy your Halong Bay tickets from the harbor.
Halong Bay from above
This might be overkill at this point, but if you need any more convincing that you really shouldn’t buy tickets for Halong Bay at its harbor, then you should know about some of the shady locals that sell low-quality cruises for premium prices. It is all too easy for such characters to spot tourists, arriving fresh out of the taxi, and make their way over to them to introduce them to their “highly reputable” cruise company. After a sales pitch and the quoting of a massively inflated price, potential passengers will walk away, only to find that there are no better deals quoted from anyone else at the bay because of the culture of intimidation that suspicious characters can enforce. Usually, after making it all this way, passengers begrudgingly accept the offer and board their cruise the next day to find a boat that is completely unreflective of the price that they paid for it.
Halong Bay - one of New Seven Wonders of the World
Hopefully, you are more convinced now about the merits of booking your Halong Bay tour from Hanoi. With a host of travel agents as well as the ability to research at your own pace and book online directly from trusted tour companies, there is absolutely no need to buy Halong Bay tickets directly from the harbor. Some customers are understandably nervous about booking these ways, given that there is no face-to-face contact during the entire transaction, but most tour companies are more than happy to dispatch a sales rep to your hotel in order to talk you through the tour and collect your payment.
For booking Halong Bay Cruise, or a vacation in Vietnam please contact us for more information. We are proud to be a relialbe tour agency in Vietnam who has arranged thousands of trips for for travellers with our experience in Vietnam toursim.
