Floating Fishing Villages of Halong Bay
A visual guide from the Halong Bay travel guide — see all posters in Visual Guides.
For generations, whole communities lived entirely on the water in Halong Bay — houses on timber-and-pontoon floats, floating classrooms, dogs pacing the decks, fish fattening in net pens below the living room. Most families were resettled ashore in the 2010s, but villages like Cua Van and Vung Vieng remain, part working fishery and part living museum, and visiting one by rowed sampan is the bay's quietest, most human hour.
Visiting by Sampan
Cruises transfer you to flat bamboo sampans rowed — almost always by local women — through the anchored houses and under low karst arches, close enough to watch fish being hand-fed in the pens. Cua Van, the largest village, keeps a floating cultural centre explaining the old water-borne life; Vung Vieng, out in quieter Bai Tu Long, pairs the row-through with a working pearl farm where technicians seed oysters in front of you.
A Way of Life in Transition
Be clear-eyed about what you are seeing: since the resettlement programme moved most households to the mainland, the villages survive as a blend of genuine aquaculture and managed heritage, with fewer full-time residents each year. It still rewards the visit — the rowing is organised through local cooperatives that employ former villagers, the silence between the karsts is absolute, and the photographs of teal water, wooden hulls and mountain walls need no filter.