Luxury Tours and Holidays
Vietnam, Cambodia and China

Ha Long City Guides

Ha Long City is the capital city of Quang Ninh Province where Ha Long Bay is. Ha Long City is just in front of Ha Long Bay. Ha Long City is getting bigger with massive construction sites of new resorts and hotel. While Ha Long Bay is so famous and attractive, Ha Long City does not have much to offer to travellers. The beach is not very nice and it is sometimes not clean at all. The narrow piece of land close to the beach is blocked by new shops and restaurants. It seems that only the Ha Long Night Market is interesting but all the stuffs selling here are from China and bad quality. It is more for looking than buying. There are not many nice café or drink shops for you to enjoy. There are a lot of big and high class hotels in Ha Long City but they are all full of Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese tourists. There is only a small percentage of westerners staying overnight in Ha Long City and of course breakfasts are customized for those tourists only. You can have a beer at some of drink shops right in front of the sea but it can be very crowed in summer holiday (June to September). Those shops offer you a big bottle of tiger beer at 20.000 vnd. You really should stay away from staying overnight in hotels in Ha Long City as it is always full and the price is crazy, especially at the weekends.

The food in Ha Long City is not good at all. There are a lot of local restaurants near Ha Long City Post Office have aquarium with fish, crabs or prawns swimming. It looks so fresh? Yes, of course. Choose the one you like, sit down, wait and when your food comes out, it is not the one you chose. They cook those death ones in the fridge for you. That is totally cheating. I still cannot forget that. The only two restaurants that you can have some food are Phuong Vy restaurant and Green Garden. They are clean and the food is ok. May be you consider of having meals in hotels with ok food at top price.

There are some new restaurants in front of the sea as well. They do look good from outside but I don’t know about the food as I never try before.

Where to stay in Ha Long City? As mentioned, there are plenty of hotels in Ha Long City. The top class ones (4-star only): Saigon Ha Long Hotel, Ha Long Pearl Hotel, Ha Long Grand Hotel or Ha Long Heritage Hotel. (Don’t expect much from these any way. The lower standard hotels: Ha Long Postal Hotels, Ngoc Mai Ha Long Hotel. If you would like to find a bit cheaper hotels in Ha Long City, walk around central Point (Near Ha Long City post office), there are plenty mini hotels and guest houses or you just follow the road up to the hill, there are a lot of hotels up there as well.

My best suggestion is taking two or three-day tours to Ha Long Bay that you will stay overnight on board. That will be much better and you have time to relax and enjoy yourself. There are many travel companies offer wide ranges of price.

Check out these Ha Long Bay Tours Here

See our tours in Vietnam, Cambodia and China Here

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