VIETNAM – Halong Bay // Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
The beautiful Halong Bay is the no. 1 tourist magnet in Vietnam, but can be disappointing when done wrong. So here is what to expect from the Halong cruises.
Why Bond was here
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and his Chinese partner Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) try to bring down the media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce). He drowns Chinese and British war ships with his stealth boat off the coast of China – trying to trigger a Third World War. So Bond and Wai Lin travel to Halong Bay to infiltrate Carvers boat and thwart the plan.
But that wasn’t the first time, Bond came to Halong Bay. He was there in “The Man With The Golden Gun” as well. Back then, 007 (Roger Moore) was on the trails of Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee). The hitman operated from a remote island – a map in the movie locates it in the middle of Halong Bay. So Bond came around for a duel.
Bond arrives at Halong Bay
How you gonna get there
That depends – because both in “The Man With The Golden Gun” and “Tomorrow Never Dies” filming didn’t took place in Vietnam at all. The Vietnamese government and the 007 filming crew, well, didn’t get along that good when it came to filming schedules. So the production looked elsewhere and both times came to Thailand. The Halong Bay locations had been staged at Phang Nga Bay at the Andaman Sea.
Read here about our visit to the “fake Halong Bay” in Thailand – including the famous James Bond Island.
But just because filming moved over to Thailand, doesn’t mean, you should skip Vietnam as well. The Halong Bay is unique in its beauty and absolutely worth a visit.
There are two main ways to get into the area.
- The comfortable way – and what most tourists do – is to book a boat tour via Hanoi and spent one or two nights cruising the bay.
- The budget way – good for backpackers – is to grab a local bus to Quang Ninh and then find your way to the cruise port and opt for a ride. Or to get a ride to huge Cat Ba Island and just stay there at a hostel.
We were traveling with our six months old daughter and wanted to get some leisure time – so we took a cruise boat.
Good to know
This is, what most visitors to Halong Bay will do. And rest assured: It will be a crowded, very touristy experience and you have to struggle a bit, to find your own romantic spot in it. Several hundred operators all offer mostly similar tours and enter Halong Bay together. So wherever you look when standing on deck, chances are, a dozen boats are accompanying you.
You can find and compare cruises via halongbaycruises.com or halongbaytours.com, or check out boats via TripAdvisor. Another option is to simple roam the streets of Hanoi. The old town center is packed with travel agencies who offer special deals all the time. A transfer brings you from Hanoi to the bay, then you check-in, board and start the cruise.
Usually you an book a tour for two day, one night – or pimp it up to three days, two nights. This is tricky though: Being on the road from Hanoi and waiting some hours with check-in the actual time on board is not two whole days, but rather just one from noon to noon. Keep that in mind when you hope for a lot of leisure time on board.
Excursions, kayaking and beach visits are included in the package, but as we said before, several other cruises will be around at the touristic spots as well, so it’s always crowded. Better make up your mind ahead, where and when you want to join. You might just find a boat deck for your own in the evening sun, while all others are sweating through a one natural cave that is now filled up with cement stairs for easy access.
Reading about all the hassle and touristy cruises may sound daunting at first. But fear not: Halong Bay still is a natural phenomenon and once your out at sea and let the bizarre islands pass along starboard, you will be fascinated. We soon forgot about all the others and just laid back, imagining that there might just be a Bond villain lair around the next cliffs.
© 2019 Huntingbond (1,3), © 1997 Eighteen Leasing Corp. and Danjaq, LLC. (2)