My desire to visit Hạ Long Bay was ignited on a rainy Sunday night in 1992. I was sitting in my apartment on the Rue Monsieur, in Paris, when some carefully tossed peanuts tapped against the window.
I pulled back the curtain and there was Guillaume, the projectionist of Le Pagode, the cinema that occupied a Japanese pagoda across the street. He was waving to signal it was safe to sneak in the side door and watch a free movie.
That evening, it was Régis Wargnier’s Indochine, and within a few minutes, I was lost in this larger-than-life drama set in Vietnam. It’s the story of a woman (played by Catherine Deneuve) who falls in love with the same handsome French naval officer that has captivated her daughter.
But what really left me slack-jawed were the panoramas of the Bay of Hạ Long, an archipelago on the country’s northern coast. It comprises nearly 2,000 limestone-covered islands that rear up out of the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.
Eight years later, I made my first trip to Vietnam and discovered there were only two, rather unpleasant ways to experience the bay—either a five-hour boat trip from Hanoi, or an overnight cruise on a low-rent vessel.
I chose the former and spent the day wrapped up like a pork chop in a flimsy cellophane poncho. (To avoid monsoon season, the best months to visit are March, April, September, and October.) Given the driving rain, we couldn’t see much of the islands, but they were magnificent—covered in vegetation, rocky outcroppings, and mist.
Still, it was a relief to return to the lovely Hotel Metropole, in Hanoi, and sink into a lemongrass-scented bath with a snifter of Cognac.
Twenty-five years later, in September, I returned to Hanoi by way of Bangkok. On Vietnam Airlines, even in economy class, the flight attendants were relentlessly polite and served a hot meal. I spent the two-hour journey reading the beautiful in-flight magazine (published in English), which was filled with advertising for luxurious apartment buildings. Vietnam is booming, thanks to its thriving exports of electronics, textiles, and even eggs to Australia and honey to the United States.
Its cities are reflecting this growth. On my last visit, the midsize city of Hạ Long was an unremarkable coal-mining town, but in the intervening decades, its focus has shifted to tourism. Now, with the new 174-room InterContinental Halong Bay Resort, it has its first luxury hotel. And my standard room was just $200 per night.
I realized just what a bargain it was when I entered the lobby at midnight to see a spectacular array of urns filled with autumnal-colored chrysanthemums. Through a picture window, I glimpsed shaggy palm trees lining the man-made, white-sand beach. In the distance, the lanterns of fishing boats glowed through the darkness.
My fifth-floor room was intelligently designed by Bangkok’s P49Deesign studio in soothing shades of ivory, turquoise, azure, and seaweed green. Ornate moldings referenced French-colonial architecture. Best of all were the large soaking tub and windows that revealed spectacular views of the Bay.
Tropical fruit, dim sum, congee, pho—there’s nothing better than a breakfast buffet in a well-run Asian hotel. For lunch and dinner, the hotel has excellent Japanese, Chinese, and French restaurants, but it’s worth venturing off-property to taste the freshly caught crab at Nhà Hàng Hải Sản Đại Dương Vàng 9999.
The following morning, I booked a four-hour bay cruise through the concierge. (Because it was a $2,500 affair, I shared it with a friendly Australian couple.) The excursion included zigzagging around the islands, swimming in the sea, visiting a pearl farm, and an excellent seafood lunch at the farm’s floating restaurant. Its tamarind soup brimming with clams was almost as good as the casserole of baby octopus cooked with tassels of peppercorn.
But it couldn’t compete with the views of the islands. Because we set out so early, we had the bay almost all to ourselves. At eight a.m., we arrived at Sung Sot, a vast series of caverns on Bong Hon Island, where we spent an hour wandering around the stalagmites and stalactites. When we emerged, a sad, pale-blue haze of diesel fumes hung over the sky, and throngs of Chinese tourists with selfie sticks jostled for space on the stone steps of the landing area.
We set off again and, five minutes later, turned a corner to arrive in a tranquil cove of topaz waters. “It’s so beautiful, it almost hurts,” said one of the Australians. Yes, but it hurts so good.
Rooms at the InterContinental Halong Bay Resort begin at $180 per night
Alexander Lobrano is a Writer at Large at AIR MAIL. His latest book is the gastronomic coming-of-age story My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life in Paris
