HANOI

We landed late into Hanoi City and opted to get a taxi from the airport to our prebooked hostel. I had checked roughly how much we were expected to pay so settled for $16 (it starts getting a bit confusing in this part of the world as duel currency takes effect and one minuet they are telling you the price in American dollars and the next in Dong).

We had done a little bit of research before booking our hostel in Hanoi. We were looking for a party atmosphere and for sure did we get it. We stayed at Hanoi Rocks (rating 6/10) and even when we arrived at 3am we could tell this was going to be a crazy place to spend 3 nights. It was difficult getting back into shared dormitories, it definitely becomes a luxury to have a private room but when you hit big cities there is no choice but to opt for shared rooms – but hey ho, this is what its all about right?

Our first day in Hanoi was pretty much a self orientation day where we walked around, checked out the local markets and took some pics by the lake. The day was pretty much spent strolling around the city and getting our first taste of Vietnamese food. We stopped at a make shift food market just outside Dong Xuan Market and picked though a glass cabinet what we wanted to eat. For both pretty full plates two meals came to 70,000 dong which is about £2.50.

We made it back to our hostel to take advantage of the free beer they offer at 6pm and 10pm. Don’t get me wrong, it was not the nicest beers in the world and I did hear stories of people being really sick after drinking it but when your backpacking you take advantage of the word ‘free’. Around the same time, the hostel comes to life with multiple beer pong and pool games on the go, its hard to not get involved. We spent the evening chatting with fellow travellers and checking out a local restaurant for a quick bite to eat – we got chatting to people who had been in Vietnam a bit longer then us so were taking their advice and guidance on what food we have to try. Pho Bo is a must.

The next day started a little later for obvious reasons so we spent the day planning the rest of our Vietnam trip and heading out to check out the city a bit more. To be honest, we both agreed that there isn’t a whole lot to do in Hanoi and after speaking to other travellers most people see it as a rest stop. So with limited options we went to see a water puppet show. This is quiet a big thing in Vietnam and we ended up seeing a few advertisements throughout the country but once was more then enough. It was strange and confusing and you could probably take the time to have a nap but it killed a few hours before we headed back to the crazy hostel.

Like mature travellers that we are (?!) we decided on an early-ish night as we had a early start the next day. We had booked to do a Ha Long Bay tour which was two days, one night and we left early on the first day. We booked the tour through our hostel and I think most hostels offer similar services for similar prices so its up to you if you want to waste a day trying to save $5. The tour we opted for was called the ‘Cocktail Cruise’. We assumed from the name and from what the lady we were booking it with said, that this was a bit of a party boat with music and drinks.

Once we got onto the boat we were to visit Ha Long Bay on it was clear most people were suffering from a hangover. Even with the loud music blaring the day seemed peaceful enough to take in the amazing sight of Ha Long Bay – it really is beautiful. The tour included all meals, so our first lunch on the boat was served up and we were all pretty impressed. There is something for everyone and they really try to accommodate any dietary requirements.

Our first stop of the day was a little kayaking session through the huge rocks and caves. (Un)Fortunately, they were double kayaks, which meant me and Ryan had to share. I took in the view as Ryan paddled. Once we had returned to our main boat, we pitched up in the middle of the scene and people (voluntarily) jumped off the top of the boat. Ryan managed to jump in and catch a beer that someone had thrown in, that boy has skills.

We were then brought to our own private island for the night. This tiny little bit of beach land on this island held a few buildings to host the 30+ of us. It had a main area where we had dinner – which was amazing by the way, with delicious oysters and shrimp – and also about 5 other dorm buildings. We spent the evening playing various drinking games with a few pool games thrown in for good measure. The evening ended with a chilled bonfire on the beach.

The next morning we were taken on a bit of a hike. This was something me and Ryan weren’t warned about so when our packing list only included flip flops we knew we weren’t going to get far on the hike – we had a go but had to come back half way, defeated! Apparently the view wasn’t too great so it made us feel better. We then headed back to the main island where we were couriered back to Hanoi. We arrived back in Hanoi at around 5pm and we had strategically booked an overnight train that left at 10pm which gave us enough time to grab dinner. Admittedly, it was a Burger King, it has to be done every now and again just to stop yourself from going insane from all the rice and noodles.

We made our way over to the train station to catch our train and after our experience of sleeper trains in India, our expectations were not that high so we were blown away to find our own little cabin with proper sheets, complimentary water and plug sockets. It was lush and we felt like royalty perched up in our little cabin for 15 hours until we arrived at our next destination.

HOI AN

Okay so Hoi An doesn’t have its own train station so we had to get off at Da Nang and make our own way to Hoi An. We managed to share a taxi with some other travellers that were heading in the same directions. It makes the cost so much more appealing.  It was about an hour drive before we arrived at our homestay.

We stayed at Quynh Nhan Homestay (rating 9/10) which was just slightly out of the main centre but this place was near perfect. Our private room was huge with a bathroom bigger then some of the places we have stayed. The hosts were so friendly and it was the first time in our trip that they sat down and went over good things to do in the area, including suggestions of where to eat and what to see.

After we dumped our bags we made the 10 min walk into town. As soon as we go there we knew this was going to be a place we were going to love. It was so beautiful, the small streets and river that ran along side lit up by the hundreds of lanterns that were hanging across the buildings. It was a picture. We strolled through taking it all in, really appreciating where we were especially with the contrast of Hanoi in our minds.

Hoi An is the place to come if you are looking for any sort of tailoring, clothes, shoes, bags, they will literally make anything for you and at a reasonable price. Of course as backpackers that are keen to keep weight down it was more of a window shopping experience but we both would of loved to have something made just for us.

As the night fell on Hoi An the night market comes to life and the lanterns glow becomes even more magical. Even though most stalls have everything we have already seen we take our time feeling more content to just observe. At night it is a common thing to get a boat ride down the canal, I believe its pretty cheap, around £3 for 20 mins. You can also float a paper lantern in the canal for about 10,000 dong (35p) which is suppose to bring good luck – its a nice and cheap thing to do even if its just a tourist gimmick.

Our next day in Hoi An started out with us using the bikes from our homestay which are provided for free to cycle to the local beach. This place just has everything. It’s hot in Vietnam when you are standing still so imagine what its like after a 4 km bike ride. We spent a couple of hours chilling on the beach and making use of the food vendors to grab some lunch before we headed back to our homestay. We had a lazy afternoon before heading back out to the beautiful town to watch it come alive.

Hoi An is slightly strange as the whole centre itself is regarded as the ‘old town’ but there are certain attractions dotted across town that are preserved and you have to buy an admission ticket to go and seen these parts. Be careful though as they do take advantage of tourists and try and charge you just to walk around the old town. We didn’t feel the needs to buy a ticket as we able to admire most places from the outside and escape the stuffy cramped rooms.

Our second day in Hoi An is probably one of my favourites so far. We signed up to do a cooking class – this is something we did in India and both agreed that we will try and do one every now and again to learn new recipes. At first the day started off crap, it was pouring with rain and our bus was late and we were both fed up but as soon as the day started it got so much better.

We started off by taking a tour around the food market, picking up ingredients that we would later cook with. The different smells in the air of fish, meat and vegetables followed us until we boarded a motor boat which took us to smaller round boat powered only by middle aged women and wooden stick. The took us down smaller canals until we arrived at our base for the day. We started off by playing some traditional Vietnamese games and trying our luck at fishing – no luck apparently.

After our morning of activities we were split into groups and taken to our cooking stations where a chef took our class at a really personal level. She would show a quick demonstration and then passed whatever needed doing to us to have a go. It was super hands on and we all had a go at different roles in the kitchen. We made 5 amazing dishes from scratch and enjoyed each as we went. We made an amazing peanut sauce which was used to dip our fresh spring rolls into along with a pork clay pot with steamed rice. Papaya salad with prawn crackers was also a winner. At the end of our class we were each given a recipe booklet so we can try at home. The hardest part is going to be finding all the Vietnamese ingredients!

The cooking class was run by a company called Eco Coconut Tour which we booked through our homestay. I would highly recommend them if you are interested in taking part. It was also really well priced compared to the other ones we looked at.

The next day we decided to take a sunrise tour of My Son ruins which is about an hour and half drive from Hoi An, which meant we needed to be up at 4:30am. We must of been crazy but we did it! It is definitely better to get there first thing, you practically get the whole attraction to yourself. We had a tour guide that brought us round and spoke just enough understandable English to learn what its all about. After a few hours of checking the site out we headed back to the homestay to pack just before check out. We had a whole day to kill and now way of freshening up so the beach was out of the picture.

We went for one last walk around town, checking out different areas we hadn’t seen yet, still just as beautiful. We even discovered a food market hidden inside the bigger market that sold reasonably priced food. We spent the rest of the day held up in a bar with a pool table with Ryan trying to teach me how to play. It was a good way to waste a few hours before we headed back to collect out bags in time to be picked up by our first ever sleeper bus to our next destination. SLEEPER BUS, we must be crazy.

NHA TRANG

So yes, a sleeper bus is as stupid as it sounds. It has reclining chairs that slightly resemble a bed just waaaaay more narrow. You get next to no sleep because for some reason they make a point of making regular stops and fully turning the lights on so there is no escape. We even made a middle of the night food stop, why? I’m not sure. But it was safe to say that when we reached Nha Trang at 6am the next day, we were exhausted. We made our way to our hostel knowing full well check-in isn’t until 2pm. When we got there we struggled with the receptionist and her poor English until she finally let us have a room early. We crashed for a few hours so that we weren’t complete zombies.

We spent our time in Nha Trang just checking out the city. To be honest it didn’t make a great impression on us. There’s not too much to do expect chill on the beach which is good for a day or so but after that you get a bit bored. So as proper tourists we ended up in the cinema (surprise, surprise) to watch Fast and Furious 8 – I still find it funny how all the films are in English with subtitles and for £1.50 a ticket you can’t go wrong.

Nha Trang was a weird place. The whole town is overrun by Russians with a mix of residents and tourists. It was really strange and probably won’t go back. The highlight for Nha Trang was definitely a little restaurant right by our hotel called Lanterns. The place was so busy we had to wait for a table which is rare but well worth the wait. We had a coconut chicken curry and a pork clay pot dish and they were both out of this world. We both agreed some of the best food we had on this trip. We liked it so much we went back the next day to have it again. It was reasonably priced which is a bonus for such a tourist-y area.

We left Nha Trang on another night bus (yes we tortured ourselves again) which was way worse then the first.

HO CHI MIN CITY

We arrived in HCMC 2 hours early at the lovely time of 4am (how does that even happen??) and made our way to our hostel. I had prewarned the hostel (Toi’s Travel Home rating: 7/10) that we would be arriving early but they responded that they would not be able to give us a room until 2pm – great, 10 hours to kill. We were lucky that the hostel doors were open so that we could crash in a little lounge they had. We got a few hours sleep before we headed out to check out the Vietnam War Museum.

It was a really cool museum with tonnes of information and pictures. The outside also displayed tanks and aircrafts that were used during the war. The exhibit also included all the effects that have been an issue since the war like ‘agent orange’. Its crazy to see the long term effects of such a brutal war. You don’t learn very much about the Vietnam war in England so its a great place to visit to really get a feel for the country.

We spent the rest of the day checking out the main market in HCMC and stopped off to have some food at a food court market near by. We were in bed early that night trying to catch up on sleep.

The next day was my birthday (!) and Ryan had already decided that it would be a no expense spared sort of day and with little protest from me we went out for breakfast (something we haven’t really been doing) to a American restaurant. Ryan made it his mission to find somewhere that served pancakes as they are my favvvv. The boy did good and we had a huuuuuge breakfast with a massive stack of pancakes and a milkshake on the side for good measure. It was by far the most expensive meal we had so far of travelling but oh my goodness it was good.

We decided to check out Saigon Zoo. For some reason we always end up at some form of a zoo. A zoo is a zoo no matter where you go but for some reason it was really empty so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Once we had finished looking around we headed back to our hostel to collect our bags as the next treat was that we were going to stay in a fancy hotel for the night. It was such luxury and they were nice enough to upgrade our room because it was my burfffday so we had a whole extra room for a lounge and the biggest bed everrrr. I was so excited there was bath tub I ran one straight away. We made use of all the facilities, the Jacuzzi, sauna and steam room. It was lovely.

For dinner we headed out to, yet a again, a fancy restaurant for cocktails and two course meal (who do we think we are). It was one of the best days so far and a well deserved treat but we wouldn’t get far around the world if we carried on like that so the next day after we took full advantage of the included breakfast we headed back to our hostel for the next two nights.

The next few days were pretty relaxed until we decided to book a day tour down the Mekong River which was pretty fun. We took a motor boat to stop off at a Bee Farm and drank honey tea, we also listened to traditional Vietnamese folk music and saw how they made coconut candy. We then took a row boat down small canals to our stop for lunch. We then made use of the free bikes to check out the island we had visited. I was so happy we got to do the Mekong tour and for what it included it was worth the $12. I would recommend waiting until you are in HCMC to book at tour as when I was looking online for tours they were all double what we paid for the same thing.

This rounded off our trip to Vietnam nicely. It was a mixture of good and bad for us. Yes there is beautiful parts and probably a lot more of them to see but we also felt the full force of a country being ruined by tourism. There were times we were blatantly being ripped off because we were western. The locals are always making jokes that they are charged way cheaper prices then we were. Its hard coming from such a diverse country to feel discriminated against. Its hard to get used to and something I just don’t agree with. For example we visited a really local restaurant (if you can call it that) which are usually cheap street food. The menu was in Vietnamese and a local tried to help us order. We were expecting to have a small bill when it came to paying but we shocked at the total. Especially when the table beside us who clearly had more dishes paid a third of a price for their meal. It was a bad impression to give and hope no one feels like that in England.

We left HCMC by bus which took about 6 hours to reach our stop in Cambodia. We were taken through border control pretty easy paying the $35 visa charge but it was all very simple.