Ha Long Bay: Investigating ‘Disappointing’—Found Rocks and Dragons Instead

Honestly, I hesitated until the last minute about whether to go. Search for it online and the autocomplete suggests “Ha Long Bay disappointing.” Three hours each way by bus from Hanoi—six hours round trip. Guaranteed exhaustion, and getting disappointed on top of that felt like a bad deal.

But walking around Hanoi, I kept seeing dragon motifs everywhere. Apparently, Ha Long Bay is the dragon’s home base. That premise caught my interest a little.

I wasn’t confident I could fill an entire day just staying in Hanoi, so the night before at 6 PM, right before the deadline, I signed up for a tour—almost by process of elimination. As a small act of resistance, I chose the Japanese-language tour, which cost nearly twice as much as the English one. The comfort of meeting Japanese people in a foreign country is real. I didn’t want to be tired. Even if Ha Long Bay disappointed me, I at least wanted to avoid exhaustion.

8 AM, departure from Hanoi. The bus rolled through rural roads as our Vietnamese guide Quyen—fluent in Japanese—delivered lighthearted commentary. “Quyen means ‘power,’ but my wife is definitely the boss at home, so the name doesn’t suit me at all.” Peak Vietnamese humor. Outside the window: poorly paved roads, motorcyclists without helmets, vague countryside scenery.

We got off the bus and boarded a cruise ship. After moving a bit, rock-like islands—or island-like rocks—started crowding in. More than beautiful, they had an unnaturally oppressive presence.

The name “Ha Long” apparently means “descending dragon.” The story goes that when the country faced invasion long ago, a dragon descended from heaven and spewed out massive amounts of gemstones and jade to repel the attackers. Those became these countless rock formations. After the battle ended, the dragon decided to stay here.

The story has a strange plausibility to it. From the ship, the rock formations are intricately tangled—you can’t see ahead. A natural labyrinth that makes you feel how difficult it would be to attack this place. In fact, in the narrow passages, we collided with other boats hard enough to feel genuinely uneasy.

Speaking technically, this is karst topography. Five hundred million years ago it was seafloor, then over 20 million years various geological processes turned it into rock. One of these strange formations even appears on Vietnamese currency. That’s how significant this place is to the nation. During the tour, we walked through a cave. Five hundred million years doesn’t really register. Also, there were a lot of people.

So—is Ha Long Bay a disappointing tourist destination?

The weather was overcast. The water was a greenish-gray, nothing like the emerald green you see on Instagram. Crowded and noisy. Day tours are tightly scheduled—it’s not a leisurely cruise gazing at the sea.

Whether it’s disappointing depends on what you expected. I wasn’t expecting an untouched wilderness or breathtaking scenery, and I didn’t come here believing in dragon legends. I came to satisfy a passive curiosity. The rocks and nature just exist there—they don’t do anything to you. People bring their own interpretations. To some, they’re just rocks. To others, Instagram-worthy scenery. To others still, gemstones spat out by a dragon.

On the way back, while watching the sunset, an older man from our tour bought me a glass of wine. “You should travel as much as you can while you’re young. It becomes experience,” he said. “I hope it’s somehow useful…” I replied.

I’d planned to sleep on the bus ride back, but instead I looked through the photos I’d taken. What was this to me? Whether it was useful or not—I still don’t know.