7 Best Things to Do in Ha Long Bay

Cat Ba Island is the most popular destination in Ha Long Bay and every tour company offers a trip to the island. Cat Ba is full of the usual tourist trappings: hotels, restaurants, and bars. Even so, the locals have carried on doing exactly what their ancestors did for generations before – fishing. 

All these features add up to make Cat Ba Island a great destination to see traditional local life while still enjoying the comfort of modern conveniences.

Dau Go Island is known for its large and colourful cave, which has many stalactites and stalagmites. Some of them are more than 20 metres high.

The floating villages and fish farms of Ha Long Bay draw a lot of attention and are among the highlights of any visit. Locals have been living in these floating houses for many generations as fishing is still the villagers' main source of income. 

Some communities in Ha Long Bay offer reasonably priced homestays to visitors, too. If you pass by them on your cruise, don’t be surprised if the boat's onboard chef stops to shop for fresh seafood.

Hung Sung Sot Cave is located on the same island as Virgin Cave and has a steep path lined with shady trees. There are 2 chambers in the cave, with a square-shaped outer chamber and a ceiling about 30 metres high. 

The inner chamber formations look like sentries conversing with one another. Another formation resembling a general surveying his troops lies in the middle of the chamber. The moving light reflected from the water outside seems to bring these formations to life.

The Virgin Cave (known locally as Hang Trinh Nu) is one of the most famous caves in Ha Long Bay. It is probably best known for its shrine. Legend claims that a beautiful woman committed suicide in the cave, unable to return home after being forced to marry an old Mandarin. Her body turned into stone here.

A variation of the legend says that this girl escaped from a Mandarin that forced her to marry him because her father could not pay a debt. When fishermen found her body, they buried her here and built a small shrine inside the grotto.