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grand tours

Ba Be Lake boat trip

Ba Be Lake boat trip

There are two versions of this activity, depending on how long you are staying in Ba Be Lake. The options depend if you are in Ba Be Lake for half a day or all day. The boats take up to 10 passengers and have flat bottoms because even though the lake is 25m deep, the rivers that feed in to it are very shallow indeed and we will be travelling up those to go see the Puong Cave and the Dau Dang Waterfall.

We start both versions at Ba Be Lake boat station at Pac Ngoi Boat Marina, positioned to give us the best trip across the full length of the lake. While crossing the lake we see the limestone mountains and dense forests that are on either side. Out here is so peaceful, we hear the water lapping the bottom of the boat.

Short version - 2 hrs

Our first stop is to the tiny island of Pe Lu (An Ma). This island is near the top of the lake just near the river inlet. We make a stop here to hear of tales of fairies and dragons and the creation story of the island. There is a temple here to honour the memories of the heros of the legend. We stop here for around half hour.

We leave the island to travel up the Nang river to go to the Puong Cave. The cave has a river entrance, so we get dropped off here to explore. There is much to see in the cave, with impressive features, some 50m high in places. There is a formal path to take us around the cave, ending where we started and back to our boat that is waiting for us.

We head back to the river, but continuing onwards. Our tours end is at Buoc Lom where we get picked up by our driver.

Long version - 6 hrs

This one we get to see a lot more. We travel across the lake and only slightly up the Nang River as we are quickly at our first destination - Nam Mau for some trekking! Here we see the beautiful local landscape as there are rice fields in this little valley area. We rejoin the boat of course as we went to see the Puong Cave a little further along the river to the north east.

Arriving at Puong Cave via the river entrance in style. There is much to see in the cave, with impressive features some 50m high in places. There is a formal path to take us around the cave, ending where we started and back to our boat that is waiting for us.

We still have more to see, this time we are going to the Dau Dang Waterfall which is in the other direction on the river. Again a little trekking is involved as the face of the waterfall is 700m from the drop off point. The path is flanked by bamboo and other tress as well as an abundance of plants. The falls themselves are about 30m wide and there are a couple of viewing points to see it from different angles. The falls vary greatly in strength depending on the amount of recent rainfall. Here we can also get Tra Da (cold tea) as well as trying some of the fresh fish caught in the lake. It also makes a perfect stop off for lunch with the views. After we trek back down the same path to rejoin the boat.

This time our next stop is back on Ba Be Lake near the top and is the tiny island of Pe Lu (An Ma). Here we hear of tales of fairies and dragons and the creation story of the island. We also see a temple to honour the memories of the heros of the legend. We can also go swimming here if desired as the afternoons can be quite hot and it is the perfect way to cool - also a lot of fun.

Lastly we take the boat back down the length of the lake to Ba Be Lake boat station at Pac Ngoi Boat Marina. This marks the end of the boat tour and wow it packs in a lot of sights, not to mention time in the boat, enjoying the passage.