Kayaking on HaLong B with kids

I don't have kids: but here's my input. When I went kayaking, I found that without much experience, and with a moderate degree of fitness, I found it quite tiring to keep up with some of the others who were obviously better at it than I was. However, you don't HAVE to keep up: you are pretty free to go where you want. If, as we did, you anchor near some interesting rock formations, you can just paddle your kayak over to have a bit of a look at them, and take it slowly. You can pretty much set your own pace. There usually aren't strong currents or waves to worry about, so just don't go too far away from the boat in an initial burst of enthusiam ...

You wont take it for long time, a hour only for each day. You can get the longer time for paddling , book the private junk, the crew can join with them, tell where to go, that would be much better. It is so calm bay, your kids can manage it, i think so
Have good trip soon

Longsapa

I was at Halong Bay a week ago and there was a family with a 12 year old kayaking and no problem. She was paired up with her dad. The guide is in a kayak with the group and they really don't take you anyway too rough. If it's really too rough they don't kayak. I've never kayaked before and really enjoyed it.

Thanks all posters:) Your answers are very encouraging. We'll also try a bit of kyaking on our home town river (Melbourne's Yarrra) before we book.

We did Halong Bay on Santa Maria, their agent is Columbus Tours. We booked through our hotel (Vietanh). We took out 2 daughters 8 & 9 kayaking. The kayaks were doubles and had good life jackets. They even supplied dry bags for your camera, but it was so calm I ended up just clipping my camera pouch to the life jacket.

We went for about 2 hours, which was enough for the kids. We went through a tunnel in the side of an island into an interior type lake. Kids had a ball. The boat people were originally recommending sending the kids to the floating school while we were kayaking but they are goos swimmers and so we didn't see any risk. Guide was cool and understanding of the kids.

Andrew

hi flaggycreek - what is floating school? Does that mean that we could arrange for our 3 year old to be looked after if we wanted to go kayaking with our 2 older children?

Out in Halong Bay there is a collection of floating houses where our boat pulled up at an island with a cave, not sure the name of the cave. Our guide said no one is allowed to live on the islands (except Cat Ba) so there is a floating village. One of the floating houses is a school and our kids could have gone there while we went kayaking. Our guides were very trustworthy and this would not have been a problem but since they are good swimmers and have done a little kayaking we asked to take them with us. My wife and I got a double kayak each and put one kid with each of us. The floating houses are made on 44 gallon drums, no guard rails etc. Maybe make the call on the day whether you are happy to leave the 3yo depending on what you see and your impression of the staff. Our staff were great and leaving the kids with them would have been ok also it would be possible to take the 3 yo kayaking. One family put a young child (6 yo) in the front of the kayak with no paddle and was ok.
Enjoy
Andrew

thanks flaggycreek - I'd thought kayaking would have been out of the question for us - but like you say we may be able to wait and see at the time.....

We returned from Halong Bay on Thursday after a 3 day kayaking on Halong Bay arranged through Handspan Tours. We did not have any kids but the party before us did and said they had no problems. The pace was quite slow but the scenery was fabulous. We also went to the hill tribes (Mai Chau) and the Cuc Phuong National Park - we enjoyed every minute. Check their web site www.handspan.com
Apparently there are 'other' handspans.
I used this forum to decide on which operator.