Vietnam
Day 1: Transfer
Hanoi
5 days (good amount of time, could have stayed longer just wondering
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Day 1: Transfer, evening food tour, train street
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Day 2: Walking tour, Hanoi prison, temple of literature, night market
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Day 3: Jeep tour, puppet show, beer alley
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Day 4: Coffee making, shopping
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Day 5: Ring making
HOTEL: Dal Valentino Hotel & Spa - good location in old town, larger room worth th extra $
Favorite restaurant: Hidden gem
Day 1: Transfer
Mandatory coffee before our driver picked us up for 30 min ride to airport for about $10.
Transfer: By Plane from Hue airport. No lines. Priority pass lounge was nice and uncrowded.
Flight was about 15 minutes delayed. (12:15pm - 1:30pm).
Successfully caught a Grab from the Hanoi airport. Little car. Took us about 45 minutes from the airport to our hotel. Our first impressions of Hanoi weren’t great - smoggy, colder, chaotic. And that was true, but over the next few days we grew to love it. More trees and nice spaces due to French influence. Fascinating to see life unfolding on the streets - transporting, selling, cooking, eating, praying, posing, socializing…. We loved touristy Train Street, our open air jeep tour, coffee making class, ring making class, the night market deals, and the craziness of Beer Street. We wished we had a couple more days just to wander around. It felt like there were more hidden gems waiting to be discovered.
Used our free drink voucher and had a beer on the rooftop before we needed to head out for our tour.
Hanoi: Guided Food Tour with Train Street Visit (5pm - 8:30pm)
Just the right amount of food. Full but not stuffed. Tried new dishes - favorites dried pho, coconut ice cream with sticky mango rice.
Highlight of the tour was train street
It was the 15th day of the month according to the lunar calendar so lots of burning offerings being made to ancestors.
HOTEL: Dal Valentino Hotel & Spa (breakfast included). Small clean room. Very small bathroom. Friendly staff. Hotel right in old town. Rooftop view. Bar in basement. Complimentary drink from bar during stay. Two for one happy hour from 4-7pm. Breakfast was crowded our first day and not our favorite. Overall we didn’t like this hotel as much as our other accommodations.
Day 2: Walking tour and night market
We did a free walking tour that we booked on Tripadvisor. Locals sign up to do it as a way to practice their English. Our guide Rosie and her son Brett were great!
We walked around the green lake. It was nice on the weekend as traffic is not allowed.
Stopped at and went inside the Cathedral
Hoa Lo Prison - French treated Vietnamese terribly, while Vietnamese treated Americans much better (according to them)- nicknamed Hanoi Hilton.
More tasty coffee. Egg coffee is like a mini meal.
The Temple of Literature. An oasis in the middle of the city. Lots of graduation celebrations.
Formal pictures taking throughout the temple everywhere we turned.
Cocktails at our hotel bar - Valentino. HH 4pm - 7pm. $9 for two fabulous cocktails (after 15 minute mixing by careful bartender). Loved the vibe!
Dinner Met 4. Food and service were great! Try to get a table on a higher floor in one of the smaller more intimate rooms.
Night market (only Friday - Sunday night) went for several blocks -very crowded.
Day 3: Jeep tour, puppet show, beer alley
Hanoi Jeep tour with Rocky through Hanoi Backstreet Motorbike Tour. Loved traveling through Hanoi in the open jeep. Rocky was great! Loved him sharing stories from his grandparents.
Life in Hanoi is fascinating. How each block has a particular shopping focus. Life is so vibrant on the streets. It is where everything happens - selling, cooking, eating, praying, socializing….
Oldest bridge. Train travels very slow for safety.
Lunch at Hidden Gem. Very limited food menu but wonderful ambiance and the food was good.
Water puppet show. Authentic local entertainment. All in Vietnamese, but could still follow some stories. We bought our tickets directly from the box office. If it is busy buy a few days in advance. Nice not having to pick up tickets as that line was long.
Hanoi Oi Kitchen - super small. Glad we had our hotel call to make a reservation. Good food.
Went to Beer Alley. A bit seedy and pushy. Enjoyed our beer outside …
… until all the bars suddenly freaked out and quickly ushered us from our street side table into standing room only packed inside while they stacked tables and chairs around us. Apparently, police come by through out the night and fine them for expanding their businesses onto the street. As soon as the police passed, they just as quickly put everything right back out - business as usual.
Had a final beer down the road away from the craziness. Love hanging out in the low chairs drinking coffee or beer.
Day 4: Coffee making, shopping, night train to Sapa
Started our day at Notes Coffee. Multiple floors. Have blank notes for you to write messages and paste them on the walls, tables, and everywhere.
Found three The North Face “premium high quality“ fake jackets for $15 each at three different shops. Needed them for Sapa as weather is much colder than Hanoi, and our home stays certainly won’t be heated. Most were willing to bargain, but some clearly weren’t, so had to move along to find the color, style, size and price we wanted. Sizes definitely run small.
Haley got a cool jacket off the sale rack for $7. Didn’t even have to bargain for that deal, although still gave it a shot for the sport of it.
The Bahnmi for lunch. Told us after we paid that it would be 15 minutes, and ended up being closer to 25 minutes. Food was good but we had to wolf it down as we were running late for the next activity.
Coffee making class
Was great and incredibly informative. We have been loving the different coffees, so it was wonderful to get the recipes for egg, salt and coconut coffee as well as the hands on experience. Some surprises in the ingredients.
Took the night train to Sapa. Left on time at 10:40pm. Bunks were very hard. Don’t think we slept a wink. Noisy and jostling ride, but was nice to stretch out on our individual bunks in our private four person room we booked for the three of us.
Fun being on the train going down Train Street. Definitely a different perspective seeing all the tourists ogling our passing train. Top speed of the train was 35 mph in the open countryside. Guess it wouldn’t have been good to get in much before our 6am arrival anyway.
Day 5: Ring making
This day was after we got back from the Ha Giang Loop. We were so happy waking up in Hanoi in a comfortable bed with a proper bathroom. Not that we didn’t love the spectacular Ha Giang area, just missed some comforts. Love wandering the vibrant streets of Hanoi with so much activity and street life. Realized we missed the chaos and hidden gems.
First up was making rings, through Get Your Guide activity. We made beautiful 99.9% silver rings starting with silver clay. We loved being able to fully customize however we wanted, including embedding small “gems”. Definitely not a cookie cutter thing, where everyone basically does the same thing. Our assistant was so patient and helpful to ensure we got what we wanted, but still did it ourselves.
We were absolutely thrilled with the end product. We were able to do different things on each side of the ring, so can rotate to have two rings in one.
Said goodbye to Haley as she headed out for her flight. Amy got her nails done, and Larry even joined in with a first ever pedicure at Aurora Nails. Fabulous!($8 natural manicure, $14 for deep pedicure - really cleaned our heals - added $2 for toenail color polish).
Dinner near our hotel - nothing special, but loved sitting outside watching the world go by.
Walked by the lake. Loved that the streets are closed off during the weekend in the old quarter. Stopped and listened to a band on the street corner before heading up to our room.
