Kayak Beautiful Northeast Vietnam

For your first taste of real Hanoi, you will climb into a traditional cyclo (pedicab) for a tour around the streets of the Old Quarter and the colonial part of the city. You will find your-self in the middle of the chaotic traffic of motobikes, cars, bicycles and walkers coming from all directions. The Old Quarter’s residents consist mainly of merchants and  craftmen. Each street is specialized in a kind of trade or craft: the silver smith street, the traditional medecine street, the paper street, the silk street...As you go through these guilds, feel the livelines of this oldest part of 1000-year-old Hanoi.

Your full day visit of the capital of Hanoi  will start with Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, followed by a stroll in the green park and the traditional stilt house where he used to live. Then we will  take you to the Temple of Literature – also known as the first university of Vietnam, where you  will  learn about the educational system in ancient Vietnam and its importance  in defining the country’s culture and values. In the afternoon, you will be introduced to the diversity and richness of the hill tribes at the Ethnology Museum and then visit a pagoda at the end of the day. In the evening, enjoy a traditional water puppet show.

This morning you’ll depart from Hanoi to Ba Be, about a six-hour drive through Thai Nguyen, where you will visit the museum of Ethnic Minorities’ Culture. Upon arrival on Ba Be, take a boat cruise to the village of boatmen  located  on the edge of the lake with a panoramic view of the surrounding cornfields, lake and mountain ranges. Tonight you will stay in a rustic wooden stilt house of local residents, whose evenings are mostly spent around the fire in the main hall of the house. You can either join the family chatting or have your quiet moment over a cup of tea on the veranda overlooking the lake.

Today you will take a nice trek to Tay Vang village (about 7 km) through rice paddy fields, green mountains and peaceful villages of ethnic groups. Upon arrival at the village, continue your hike, following a river up the top to enjoy a beautiful waterfall. Picnic lunch. Return to the local house in the afternoon. Dinner and overnight in a local house.

You will spend the whole day discovering Ba Be Lake and its surroundings by kayak. From Buoc Lom wharf, you will start kayaking down the Nang River, which zigzags through limestone mountains, corn fields and villages. The passage under the vault of Puong cave is particularly impressive. You will arrive at a local restaurant situated on the river bank, close to the Dau Dang waterfall. Visit the falls if you wish, however this site is now very touristy. After lunch, keep kayaking up the Nang River a bit more to reach the lake. Then you can  explore hidden corners of Ba Be Lake and have a swim at some point if you wish. The water is clear and calm, and the vegetation on surrounding karstic mountains is diverse and wild. Head back to the local house towards the end of the day

Today you will have the opportunity to travel on the remote, beautiful roads from Ba Be to Quang Hoa.  A mountainous distric bordering the Chinese border, Quang Hoa is under-visited despite its stunning natural beauty and cultural richness.  Its notable geographic features include limestone mountains, crystal-clear streams and waterfalls. You will have the opportunity to walk down to the valey and have a swim at one of the waterfalls. The scenery around is extraordinarily poetic, as though it came out of a Chinese painting.  

In the morning, continue your discovery of the ethnic minorities in Quang Hoa. Quang Hoa is home to the Tay, Nung, Mong tribes who have each their own customs and costumes. Then depart for Ban Gioc waterfall on a road along which the scenery is so beautiful that you wish you were going on foot. After a picinc lunch, you will visit the gorgeous fall shared by both Vietnam and China. You might even wave the Chinese tourists taking souvenir pictures on the other side. Visit some surrounding villages before returning to Quang Hoa at the end of the afternoon.

Today, you will travel from Quang Ha to Lang Son via Cao Bang on the famous national highway #4, the road running along the borderline with China. During the Indochina war, several important battles occured here. On the way, you will continue to see beautiful landscapes created by rice fields, waterfalls and valleys, as well as villages of Tay and Nung tribes. You will arrive to Lang Son in the afternoon.

In the morning, depart from Lang Son for Ha Long Bay. Upon arrival in Ha Long at around noon, embark on a junk for overnight. After check-in, a fresh seafood lunch will be served while the junk is cruising toward Nui Ngoc, a fishing village. Most of these people were born on a boat and spend their entire life on a boat, going to the land only at special occasions. Recently, floating houses have been created, allowing more activities for their daily life. Our guide will provide you with all the technical instruction and guidelines needed for safe kayaking. Around 3 p.m., start exploring the bay with a visit to Ho Ba Ham – a lagoon with three caves. As the water here is quite clear and shalow, you can even see the sea bottom and its various corals and creatures. You then kayak to visit Ba Men temple, where the custom of worshipping the whale as a god of fishermen still prevails. Return to your mother boat in the late afternoon. Enjoy a seafood dinner and overnight onboard.

Karstic formations usually offer an oustanding diversity of shapes and sizes. Covering 1500 km2, Ha Long bay counts nearly 2000 limestone rocks of 80 to 100 meters high, most covered by low and medium sub-tropical vegetation.  Today, you will spend the whole day exploring other parts of the bay by kayak, the corners unknown to most tourists. Your only companions will be rocks, fishermen, sea birds and occasionally some shy monkeys.. Another wonderful day.

After a morning swim and breakfast on-board, continue on a three-hour kayak trip with several stops on the bay as you head to the harbor. The first stop is at the beach of a small isolated island where you may sunbathe or swim at leisure. The second stop is a fishing village where they breed crab and shrimp. Enjoy lunch on the boat before disembarking on Ha Long harbor and returning to Hanoi..

Free time until transfer to the Hanoi airport for departure.