Halong bay was in our mind one of the primary destinations of our trip, such that we diverted our whole itinerary and went to Laos first in order to be able to come back and visit the bay, as the imminent arrival of typhoon Nock-Ten cancelled all trips into the bay for a couple of days. The visit to the bay is quite difficult to do on one's own, so we booked before we left to Laos thru a tour, on a mid-range price boat. This entailed getting picked up at our hotel at 8 in the morning, and then braving the traffic to get out of Hanoi, and then all of the hundreds of other microbuses to get to the bay. The first feeling of cow-shuffling tourism came upon the break on the way to the bay, where around a hundred people were crammed around a staircase waiting to leave a nondescript cement building, that besides a bathroom, had a plethora of souveniers on sale. Upon creeping past the traffic into the wharf, we found even more people crammed in together, and then found that the people on our bus were in fact not the same people we would share our boat with, and that we were shuffled from one group of people to another, until we were one small group of all reshuffled people, the misfit passengers of our boat. After a not so short wait, we were shuffled thru the wharf and then onto a small, kayak filled 'shuttle' that then took us to our boat, which turned out not to be a 'sapphire cruise' as we were shown, but the Papaya boat. Now the boat itself was a welcome surprise; a large bed, a full bathroom that was much nicer than the one in the hotel in Hanoi, lots of wood panelling, and a large welcoming sun deck, with new-looking, comfy dark wicker sunchairs. From the wharf we sailed for a couple hours, with a magestic cave our first destination. Crusing through the bay for those hours was spectacular, seeing hundreds upong hundreds of rocky outcropped islands, covered in lush tropical vegetation. The arrival at the cave was unremarkable, and the caves themselves to begin with seemed the same, and even more, rather unnattractive, given the nature of hundreds of tourists being shuffled off their boats, and up along a set of narrow stairs. The first cave then was unexpectedly lit up like a theme park cavern, and although the lighting scheme did not change, the further parts of the cave where much larger, with much less uniform stalagmites and bubble-shaped limestone celings. A few in fact were deceptively large, and moving at a slightly quicker pace than the masses, the crowds petered out ever so slightly , to allow for some elbow room and unobscured pictures. The next stop was some long-awaited kayaking on the bay. Unfortunately, this would not be from the kayaks transported by the 'shuttle' but instead from a fixed kayak-rental place almost adjacent to the caves. To say the least, the proximity to dozens of large boats and the developed tourist stop of the caves, dashed our expectation of skimming along clear waters, in between isolated islands and going into naturally carved limestone caves. Instead we shared the same set of islands with about 50 other kayaks, and instead paddled over to visit the floating village that had developed around the touristy cave, and had a glimpse of how these people had decided to make a life on top of the water. Given the extreme heat, and the unnatractive prospect of going into the water around the village or near the large boats hastened us to return our kayaks quicker than we would have otherwise, which was shared by most of our boatmates, even though we were never given any indication of how long we could be out on the water. Up next was swimming, which once again, was disappointingly only just 'around the corner' from where we had gone kayaking. At least a bit more convincly clean, a jump off of the second level of the boat into the warm ocean water was a pleasant relief, and despite choosing to float around and not participate in the testosterone contest of jumping off higher and higher points from the boat, the experience was not unrewarding and a rather social one with the rest of our boatmates. Rather disappointingly, we then found the boat would then stay anchored in its current position overnight, and that the following hours leading up to dinner were to spent relaxing on the deck, upon orders from the guide(there was no choice other than to relax). The real highlight of the cruise, came right before a quite enjoyable dinner(as well as a slightly more enjoyable lunch), the colorful sunset over several hundred islands and the bay, which really makes a difference between a rushed, japanese-style one day visit, and an overnight one. After dinner, and a misguided attempt at fishing(with bamboo sticks with plastic lures at the end of some line), there was not much to do but drink, talk and take in the darkness and stillness, that except for Laos has been out of our reach on this trip. After a early rise and a relatively early breakfast, there was a long morning of taking in some sun and lounging around, as our rooms needed to be cleaned for the next set of passengers, and then after about an hour's cruising, some more enforced relaxing and lounging around, as we were by Cat Ba island, but only to pick up, and drop off, passengers who were staying more nights on the island, or taking back those who already had. After this our trip was over, and it was back to the wharf, for more waiting, shuffling around, before finally being loaded onto a microbus and taken to a nearby place for a decent lunch and then a harried(for Vietnamese standards) return to Hanoi. The bay itself is truly magestic, and unparalleled in the world, despite some apparent comparisons to places off the coast of China and Thailand, however it is really puzzling how an area several thousand km in area doesnt lead each boat to its own little separate niche of bay, and instead much like the passengers walking en masse up the stairs of a cave, cruise along in a line, stopping in the same destinations, without fail. We can only imagine what would have befouled us had we taken a cruise at half the price we paid, and can only imagine a more isolated destination for those paying double.