sea kayaking in Cambodia or Vietnam

[Emily badger]

Does anybody know anything about sea kayaking in Cambodia or Vietnam? I've found links to kayaking in Vietnam but all only through organised tours, I haven't found anywhere we can rent kayaks ourselves (and nothing on Cambodia at all). Any info gratefully recieved.

[greenjim]

Hi Emily,

Ha Long Bay is the main sea kayaking destination in Vietnam, having not been there I cannot offer any advice, although I have heard it's well worth the visit, with a seasoned kayaking base.

I was however in Cambodia a couple of years ago and spent a bit of time in and around Sihanoukville before heading a short way up the coast to Koh Chang in Thailand, where we did a small amount of sea kayaking and sailing.

I personally wasn't too enamoured with the cambodian coastline. It's also a country that's recovering from a pretty awful recent history, so infrastructure and commercial tourism is still in it's infancy compared to Thailand and Vietnam. The Cambodians recognise this and are pretty hungry for your dollars to compensate.

If you're looking for a bit of adventure and can figure a way of getting boats out there, then it may be the way too go. There is I believe a marine park off shore and a number of islands but I wouldn't rule out safety issues such as piracy and your VHF probably wont be much use either:)

Koh Chang on the other hand is much more up to speed, the islands in the Gulf of Thailand are a little less visited than in the South (Krabbi, Koh Samui etc) and there are plenty of kayaks for rent. You could quite feasibly do a multi day trip between four or five islands around Koh Chang.

I'm sure you'll have fun whichever part you choose.

Jim

[Mark R]

http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/foru ... hp?t=14841

(numerous other threads also pop up if you do a search)

[Chris W]

Thanks Mark.

www.handspan.com don't (so far as I remember) offer kayak hire BUT they'll tailor an itinerary to suit your wishes. If, instead of doing the advertised 2/3 day tours, you wanted to set up your own 5-10 day long distance trip, they'd do it.

Chris W.

[fraser of wessex]

...any new information out there on Cambodia?

cheers

Fraser

[GEOFF S]

I'd second the suggestion for the Koh Chang area - the islands to the south like Koh Wai and Koh Mak struck me as a great place to paddle, though at the time we visited I only saw those big plastic SOT's for hire.

[mick m]

Thanks Mark.

http://www.handspan.com don't (so far as I remember) offer kayak hire BUT they'll tailor an itinerary to suit your wishes. If, instead of doing the advertised 2/3 day tours, you wanted to set up your own 5-10 day long distance trip, they'd do it.

Chris W.

Good morning, I love Vietnam for a travel destination, 1st trip over ther I yoused handspan, you need to push the gides , or thay will be lasy ! I am looking at geting back ther in 2012 , for a proper expodition , last year I did a reky along the coast from about Hoyan up to a bit befor Katba , its mostly sand and surf mile after mile.
the Mecon looks interesting but a lot of trafic, I think the risk of being run down is high.
Im looking at a trip from Katba island up to the chinese border.
to this end I had a 3 pice boat made , but iv found it hard to travel with, the pices are still big , and it prone to damage in airports , and I think with the madnes of vietnam you wold sune get fed up with looking after all the kit . Iv now gon for a fethercraft , one back pack and one boat in a bag will mean I can travel more relaxed through vietnam, thers a lot of traveling to get to whear you put in.
ther are no maps of the coast, and it is aligal for foreners to have them , the only maps I found wher old french ones , and not realy good. googal erth is the GO , even GPS can get you into trubel so be mindful when yousing it.
Handspan have good kit comperd to others and if your planing a proper trip make shore you corispond with the owners , or you may get fobed of in the to hard to do box
anuther interesting thing, ther are pirats in the southern regins, but the guvernment do not admit ther presence, I lernt this from a cupelof dive charter operators I talked to when serching for maps .
Last trip I spent a lot of time paddeling native boats , also a good way to see the real vietnam .
I wold be interested if others are planing a trip over ther in 2012

[fraser of wessex]

Well,

Have now been sea kayaking in Vietnam and it is a great place to go. Myself and Alison went with an outfit called Blue Swimmer http://blueswimmersailing.com/Kayaking.aspx based on Cat Ba Island. We would recommend them as they created a very good customised package for us with guide. Paddling out of Cat Ba is probably a better place than Halong Bay as it is equally attractive but a lot less busy and touristy. We stayed on Monkey Island http://www.monkeyislandresort.com/ and did day trips which was booked by Blue Swimmer as part of the package. This wasn't the usual place that they used and filled up with travellers on their Halong Bay tour each night. Food was quite average and not a patch on food elsewhere on our trip.

Two half days and two full days kayaking with some cycling and hiking in the national park thrown in for good measure. If you look at the photos on the Blue Swimmer website you'll get a good idea of the fabulous scenery that's out there. Caves to paddle through (some quite low, long and with a tide running through them), floating villages to visit and thousands of island to paddle to and round.

We didn't go with Handspan or to Halong Bay as we had heard first hand that Halong Bay is full of tourist junks and Handspan change itineraries depending on who turns up for their tours. Beware of booking kayaking from a junk as you may end up with a lot of time on a junk a very little (1 hour) actually kayakin. Halong City and the other cities along the coast are best avoided. Noisy, busy and polluted.

Blueswimmer guide was good, and the boats were adequate for the paddling involved. Most of the area is protected from the open sea and only once did we change plans due to the size of the swell and the wind. Make sure that they provide hatches for the boats!

We went mid December and the weather was generally overcast with temperatures about 17C which is normal for that time of year. Perfect kayaking weather, but a bit more sun would have been nice.

You can get to Cat Ba directly from Hanoi by bus - you can buy a through ticket that costs 10% of the cost of a transfer. Any hotel will arrange it for you. Watch out for the thieving taxi drivers with their meters that 'run like a horse...'. It would be possible for you to organise the trip yourself and hire boats from blueswimmer without a guide, however with the guide you get a chance to drop into his cousin's house and fishfarm in one of the floating villages and he does know where to go and when (though seemed to be a bit ropey on whether there would be enough room to get through the 100m tunnel at a certain state of the tide......)

Overall a great trip and three days was a good time to do, though a further few days with camping among some of the islands would be a good thing to do.

[Weesoots]

We were in Vietnam in 2009 for x1 month & was unable to find any travel operators to hire Kayaks/canoes independently. We used Handspan Travel operators in Halong Bay. Found their overall service to be excellant but as previously mentioned the kayaking lasted for 90 minutes & was very much contained within a small bay. The Junk boat was not at all crowded like other tour operators and the food was fantastic. It was considerable more expensive than other tour operators but we also had a night in a 4star hotel which was a welcome break for us.We used x5 different tour operators during our trip in Vietnam for outdoor activities & found Handspan to be best.
Also spend x3weeks in Cambodia and we were unable to find any tour operators offering any form of Kayaking or canoeing. If you find time to go to Lao you'll find lots of white water sports which I found to be excellant. Alike Vietnam all tour operators can be organised through your accomodation but do shop around.