Luon cave Halong Bay

Luon cave is located in the northeast of Bo Hon Island and more than 1km away from Sung Sot Cave. This is one of the most famous places in Halong Bay to travelers in recent years. In front of the grotto is Con Rua Islet, and the Sky Gate is on the right. Here the cliffs stretch vertically out of the pure blue and smooth water. Everything painted an amazing vivid picture.

If you love kayaking, you shouldn’t miss Luon Cave because of the round lake with emerald water hiding inside the cave. The lake is surrounded by luxuriant trees and high dangerous limestone walls. Thus, you can only get inside the cave via a natural gate with a lot of beautiful stalactites on the ceilings. That is also the reason why local people call this place as Luon Cave (means Tunnel Cave). The gate has 4-meter-wide, 100-meter-long, and about from 2.5 to 4-meter-high depending on the tide level. Looking at the arched entrance, you can easily realize that weathering process still occur here, water still drop off slowly from the stone.

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 After passing the pretty gate, you will see great scenery with cycads, ferns and benjamin’s fig trees shade the landscape and many orchids hang their sweet-scented flowers. If you're lucky, you will have chance to contemplate and take pictures of beautiful golden monkeys jigging up and down on the trees around the cliffs. Of courses, they are so lovely and friendly with tourists. Below the calm emerald water’s surface in lake, there is a vibrant life of many species like shrimp, fish, crab and cuttlefish, etc.

Luon cave Halong Bay

The size of mouth’s grotto isn’t enough for cruising. However, you can either reach easily the cave’ inside by kayak or by small boats rowed by local people and need to spend about 20 minutes for return route. You will be instructed to wear life jackets according to the provisions of Management’s Ha Long Bay in order to ensure tourist’s safety.

Luon Cave (Tunnel Cave) possesses beautiful scenery, great values of geology and paleontology so that we can do sightseeing or research, etc. It’s hard to find anywhere else in Ha Long Bay being as amazing as Luon cave which is the mingling of a number of factors: the mountain’s size and form, the color of the water and the clouds.

Cat Ba National Park

Cat Ba Island is one the popular attraction for traveler when they join Halong Bay tours. Usually tourist spend one night overnight on cruise and one night overnight in Cat Ba Hotel. Cat Ba island is one of the largest island, belong to Hai Phong city with an area of 280 km2, included Cat Ba National park, complex of beautiful bay, Cat Ba center town.
Cat Ba Island view from the peak of National Park

Cat Ba island has a variety of natural ecosystems with limestone, forest, beach, cave… Original Cat Ba is the place of fisherman. They live in Cat Ba town and floating villages around the island. Today Cat Ba become one of famous attraction for tourist.  Tourist arrive here and join many activities on the island: Trekking through Cat Ba National Park, Biking through village with mountain landscape, kayaking to explore the bay, swimming in natural beach… Vietnam travel
There three beaches in Cat Ba island: Cat Co beach I, Cat Co beach II, Cat Co beach III

Cat Ba National Park founded in 1986, covered an area of 98 km2 with 109 km2 of land area and 52 km2 of sea.  There are 1,561 species of flora from 186 families, 406 species of trees. There are 279 species of fauna, included 53 manual species. 160 bird species, 274 species of insect. There are 178 coral, 900 fish, especially Cat Ba island is a home land of langurs, it going to disappear in the world. Today there are only 68 langur in the National Park.

There are 68 langurs left in Cat Ba National park

Cat Ba National Park

Tourist is easy to get to Cat Ba island when they join Halong Bay tours. Halong Bay cruise will drop you in Gia Luan or Beo tourist wharf then take the shuttle bus to Cat Ba town. Optional from Hanoi ( 160 km to Cat Ba ) tourist will take bus and drive to Hai Phong (50 km to Cat Ba island )city then transferred by ferry to Cat Ba town ( not recommended for tourist, It take long time to get to Cat Ba island. Drive to Halong City then join boat trip to Cat Ba island. You will be enjoyable with Halong Bay view) Huong Hai Sealife Halong bay
Cat Ba National Park has various types of animals, trees, insect, fishes...

Cat Ba island welcome 350,000 tourists every year. There various type of services in Cat Ba island: hotel form 3 star hotel to 5 star hotel or resort in Cat Ba island, driving motor or biking to explore Cat Ba island, kayaking to explore the bay, drinking some beer in the bar, joining massage services. Food in Cat Ba is perfect with various of seafood.

Halong seafood

Visiting Ha Long Bay will provide you a chance to enjoy the beauty of one of World’s Natural Heritage but aside from this, you will also be impressed by a variety of tasty seafood that will melt even the hardest of appetites. It is said that seafood in Halong Bay cruise is more delicious than the other coastal places in Vietnam. This comment is true as many rock islands and coral reefs in Ha Long Ba provide nutrients to make seafood in the cliffs and coral reefs tasty and abundant in species. 5 places to enjoy seafood in Halong Bay

Counting on economic conditions and the convenience of the trip, you can try many ways to enjoy Halong seafood by yourself. Here is one way which most residents in Ha Long Bay usually enjoy and offer their guests.

Halong seafood

If you visit Ha Long, I can invite you to my house or a restaurant in Bai Chay, or visit  “snail supermarket” in Cai Dam or simply go around Ha Long for its well-known places like Huong Duyen restaurant in Tran Hung Dao Street or Cai Xa Cong in Ha Tu ward. You can even enjoy seafood on the tourist boats….. Some appetizers like hotpot an appealing and delicious way of enjoying seafood are also available for taste testing. Varieties of oysters, snails, crabs, squid, shrimp, fishes that are baked, boiled, fried or steamed will make your mouth watery. These kinds should be prepared in a moderate amount to enjoy many other local dishes. Next, some typical sour but inviting soups can be served like mussel or fish soup together and some other dishes like barnacle cooked with bamboo shoot, “Bong Thua” with kohlrabi, or squid or cuttlefish with celery leaves and fresh garlic are always available. Finally, rice can be enjoyed with a sunny fried mackerel. If you need vegetable dishes, water spinach or collard greens sauted with garlic are ready to serve. If hotpot is chosen, seafood choice relies on your favorite. Moreover, hotpot soup has the kind of sour taste   made from tamarind, star fruits, tomato and many kinds of green vegetables such as water spinach, broccoli, fresh onions, celery, cauliflower, tofu ….can be served. Rice noodles or instant noodles can be ordered at the end of meal. Visit Halong with Travel to Vietnam

One kind of drink that can be considered as a particular specialty of Ha Long is Ruou Ngan (a kind of local seafood like clam dipped in wine), which is quite suitable to serve with seafood. There are three ways of making Ruou Ngan; the first one is  shelling out 3 live intestines of Ngan and putting them into a big cup and then chopsticks in opposite directions are used with trashed hands to poke, hold down and hit until guts get soon crushed finely, dilate and turn into dark red. White wine is poured into it and a glass of fresh rosy wine suddenly appears in front of us. Another way to make, Ngan which is not too old or too young is to tie cleaned shells to boil, then shell out for putting 2 or 3 guts and their water into the cup, depending on drinkers’ taste. Wine is poured into it and chopsticks are used to gently poke two sides and make their liver bladder rupture. As a result, we can enjoy a light pink or bluish glass of wine depending on the way of cooking Ngan. The third way is putting from 3 to 5 bowels into a small aluminum pot, then pouring wine and boiling again. Finally, a hot drink is ready to serve.

Ruou Ngan tastes tangy and slightly salty when tried for the first time, but then its fragrance effuses at the tip of tongue and suddenly makes our body incredibly warm. This kind of alcohol can be addicted if used regularly.