Over the last four weeks we’ve posted a blog post every day while traveling through Vietnam. If you’ve read through them, you probably noticed we used slight variations on movie titles. Starting with the post Good morning, Vietnam all posts are inspired by (or completely ripped off) a movie title.
Category: Vietnam
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How to spend the last day of your holiday in Hanoi? I’m going to tell you how!
Since we’ve spent a few days in Hanoi already it wasn’t easy to find something we really want to do today. But there’s one thing we just haven’t found ’till this morning in Hanoi: accurate street food. Of course we’ve seen a few vendors but that only could have been the tip of the iceberg. So the ambition was clear. But where to get street food in Hanoi? Not the stuff tourists get but the real one the locals eat. The one without the menu in English, the one you have absolutely no idea what you’re gonna eat.
Ha Long Bay or the legend of the descending dragon - there are many different versions of the legend how Ha Long Bay was formed. So I’m going to tell the one I like best:
According to a legend centuries ago, gods sent a dragon mother and her children to protect the local fishermen. Once upon a time pirates attacked the bay and it’s residents. The celestial dragon mother and her children spitted fire balls against the invaders. These fire balls fell down and turned into the islands. Of course the dragons won the battle and they decided to live in the bay. The mother dragon descended on the place now named Ha Long, while the children settled in Bai Tu Long.
First of all, sorry about the delayed post. Since it wasn’t quite finished before we left for our boat trip and we barely had any internet connectivity on the boat, I’m now posting it from our bus ride back home to Hanoi. There will be another post today though to make up for it.
After a month of traveling through Vietnam it is time to look back and reflect on it. This will be a bit of a longer post, so bear with me.
Today we just wasted time waiting for our laundry because of a misunderstanding. We understood we’ll have to retrieve our laundry at 2.00 pm but in fact the guy from the laundry service meant 7.00 pm. So we’ve been waiting until 2 o’clock just to get the information to be too early. So we went to town in the afternoon to visit the Vietnamese Women’s Museum. On three floors this museum highlights the participation of women in Vietnam’s history especially their role in military conflicts and the family. Their role in the family was actually the most interesting thing for me. There are huge differences depending on the tribe from patriarchal to matriarchal everything can be found. According to the family system the groom’s or the bride’s family has to pay a marriage portion - apart from some silver or copper jewellery mostly practical things like animals or tools. Most of the other information we got I’ve already read in the travel guide. Summing up the museum was worth it to visit. Every description is given in English and French as well and there are many nice photos and traditional dresses, jewellery and tools from the minority tribes.
The ride home is barely worth mentioning. The roads were fast in the beginning and have gone back to a near crawl once we came closer to Hanoi. The driving was also becoming more and more belligerent as the traffic picked up. As we’re participating in this madness it becomes increasingly clear that it’s probably time to stop all of this. I guess we picked up some bad habits in the last few weeks which will probably take at least 5 minutes in Switzerland to get rid of again. And some completely unfounded hate for cars…
This morning it was hard to get up. The beds were probably the most comfortable ones we had since we started our trip. Nevertheless we left the hotel at half past seven. Since we lapsed 1000km again we had to do our third oil change. This time we asked them to grease our chains as well. Actually I wonder why we even had to ask to do so. For a mechanic the look of our bikes must be horrible. Everything is just dirty. Nevertheless they greased the chains and did the oil change quickly.
Originally we wanted to follow parts of the Borders and Back-Roads tour from the excellent Vietnam Coracle. After some discussion yesterday we decided to take the road to Lao Cai and decide where exactly we’d want to go from there.
The road was a pretty good driving road for the most part with some excellent turns. The traffic was okay-ish but with the occasional truck or bus blocking our way. It was over pretty quickly though and we arrived at Lao Cai.
This week started with a horribly bitter coffee. I think they meant well but they killed us with kindness by filling the drip filter with at least four tablespoons of coffee powder. Nevertheless we were woken up for sure to start our today’s trip after eight.
The forecast wasn’t that good but the weather stayed surprisingly sunny the whole day. Lucky us it turned to a outstanding tour. Passing the rice fields in the valleys and coffee plantations at the mountainsides we’ve seen many small minority villages again. Most of the mountain tribes Montagnards people don’t live from the wet rice cultivation as the other Vietnamese people do. They live from mixed farming, stock-breeding as well as nomadic cropping, often by fire clearance. The bigger villages we’ve seen are a mix between Montagnards and Vietnamese people which are settled by government to connect the mountain region to the rest of the country. Last but not least because of the natural resources of the north. As a result the Montagnards have become a minority in their territory as well.
06:30, the alarm rings. As always, we’re both awake already. The sun rises around 5:30 at this time of year over Vietnam, so this is quite normal if you leave the blinds open during the night. We paid our stay and left the hotel through the basement where we parked our motorcycles.
After leaving Nghia Lo the sat nav told us to follow QL32 for 133km. Even though that does not sound like much, with the slow speed on Vietnamese roads and the stops this ride took us over 4 hours.
After a quite noisy evening - the US couple finally decided to leave because of the slow wireless network - we finally had some sleep. Because of the humidity our clothes were still moist. Next time we’re going to tumble dry them. However we left Hanoi at about 7.30 am.
The first two hours on the road were just to let Hanoi and its agglomeration behind us. We’re quite skilled now driving in the cities traffic. Let’s say we lost our fear but will never loose the respect.
The first night at our Hanoi home base was a pretty long one. We slept in until past 8 and started the day by making some coffee. We’re getting better at brewing our Vietnamese coffees every time we try…
We left the house at 11:30 and took a cab to the old town. Nearly 30 minutes of taxi driving cost a bit less than 4 CHF in total. After arriving in the old town we checked out another local brewery called Pasteur Street Brewing Company. The beers were okay, but not worthy of the 4.7 rating it got on Google Maps. The imperial stout called El Vietnamo tasted too much of ethanol for our liking.
The day our motorbikes decorate the living room… But let me start at the beginning. Attended by two dogs we ate our first English breakfast here in Vietnam. Untoasted toast, sausages and a fried egg was not that meal we expected to have but OK. We would have preferred to get one of the dogs cooked Vietnamese style.
After heaving breakfast we jumped in our still wet clothes. The problem of water resistant shoes seems to be in the time they need to get dry. So we were a bit freezing the fist hour on the road. Shortly after Mai Chau we had to go over a pass. I don’t know the name of the pass but foggy pass would fit perfectly. We just followed a truck seeing about 20 meters ahead. The pass was too steep for many overloaded trucks’ brakes. We’ve seen them smouldering.
This morning we decided to do another test of our footwear. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. The feet didn’t feel worse after 5 hours through the rain than after 5 minutes. The downside? They were already dripping 30 seconds after the start.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a very brief abstract of our day. We started at 8 from our hotel. It was raining. We stopped at 11 for a coffee and a bit later for lunch. It was raining. We arrived at our new hotel at 3 in the afternoon. It was pouring.
Today Vietnam tested our patience. Though other people rated our hotel with five stars because of the delicious breakfast they just serve some instant noodles as Phở. Nevertheless we started early to make some kilometers to reach Ha Long Bay in three to four days. The weather was cloudy and the temperature comfortable. The first 100 km today have been the quickest until now. The streets were broad and there was almost no traffic. The valleys and mountains we passed weren’t as steep and narrow as they’ve been yesterday. We rode through giant rice fields and many villages. At about ten we already arrived in Hoa Thanh where we fist wanted to stay for one night.
Today is easily described in two words: asphalt perfection. Or rather, concrete perfection. We started at 8:00 sharp in Khe Sanh and arrived in Son Trach at 16:00. Between us and our destination were thousands of turns, no traffic, jungle on both sides and views which could be taken directly from a movie.
It was quite hard to get woken up by the alarm clock this morning. The morning after this super evening on the villa’s roof having a few beers and guitar plays. Though we had our breakfast at seven and I got a real cà phê sữa again.
So we left the beautiful Riverside Villa and it’s great staff at about eight o’clock. The rain from the evening yesterday didn’t have an influence on today’s temperature - it was already warm.
Today was a very lazy day. We started by eating breakfast at the hotel. We had eggs and a baguette as well as a coffee, although the coffee was certainly not in our top 5.
After breakfast we went out to do some local sightseeing. There are a lot of local tombs around the town which are supposedly worth seeing. We left the house to see the tomb of the King Thieu Tri in the morning. It turned out to be a wast of our time. The tomb was off the main road, behind a school. It was being guarded by a few cows and a barking dog. It had a few stone figures in front of it, but the tomb itself was badly maintained.
For today we planned to do the Đèo Hải Vân (ocean cloud pass). We’ve seen this pass in Top Gear’s Vietnam special. Hrm…there’s actually not so much to say about this pass - especially not for Swiss people. First we had to overtake a few trucks. After that we enjoyed a few serpentines before we abruptly realized that the mass of buses on the parking means we’ve just arrived on top of the pass.
As we learned in the past few days, it’s always best when traveling through Vietnam to leave early in the morning. So that’s exactly what we ignored this morning. We woke up at around 6:30 and hung around the hotel until nearly 10. Perfect timing if you like to sweat a lot…
We left the hotel, took our bikes and left the city towards the Son Tra Mountain, also know as Monkey Mountain. It was a beautiful climb towards the top, sometimes overlooking the city but most of the time with a beautiful view over the sea. On our way up we skipped the temple and some of the nicer spots planning to do them on the way down instead.
Weather report: 27˚C (feels like 32˚C), overcast. Night 23˚C.
First of all we won’t hold back following anecdote:
We always park our bikes with first gear. Yesterday we realized this is a perfect “lock” in Vietnam. Someone from our last hotel in Hoi An tried to move our bikes. After a few unsuccessful tries he noticed he had to change gear to neutral. He tried without pulling the clutch. Carefully (to avoid losing face) we explained him how this works. Vietnamese motorbikes can be shifted without clutch.
Weather report: 29˚C (feels like 33˚C), overcast. Night 22˚C.
The alarm clock went off at 7:30 but we were both already awake. I actually got up a bit past 6:30 already. We packed some stuff and went downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant to eat some breakfast. Before going I was told to expect eggs for breakfast every day, but this was actually the first time so far. Two sunny side up eggs in a very hot cast iron pan and a baguette. We also had our obligatory coffee with that.
Weather report: 31˚C (feels like 34˚C), overcast. Night 20˚C.
For today we planned to follow the Ho Chi Minh road. This highway is one of the most important connections between the north and the south of of Vietnam. Because the Ho Chi Minh road cuts through extremely mountainous area with steep hills and only few gas stations, most heavy traffic avoids this road. For us this was reason enough to choose it.
Weather report: 39˚C (feels like 42˚C), sunny. Night 22˚C.
The idea was very simple: Ride to Pleiku, but take the longer, more interesting road. Sounds good? Boy, did we underestimate this day…
Let me start from the beginning though. Normally we try to leave at around 7 in the morning, since it’s a lot colder then. This allows us to lay down the first 200km without a heat stroke. This however was not possible. It’s been a week since we started and we only brought clothes for 7 days, so we had to use the laundry service at the hotel. While waiting we had another one of the excellent Ca Phé Dén (black coffee), this time sweetened. I never drink sweetened coffee, but it was actually surprisingly good. The clothes were returned at 9 so we started at around half past 9 with temperatures like 33˚C already.
Weather report: 39˚C, sunny. Night 22˚C.
With dogs barking, at least one cock shouting and the morning traffic woke me before the alarm clock. That’s why I was able to capture this incredible morning mood. Up to now we’ve never had a blue hour, neither in the mornings nor in the evenings. It’s always kind of foggy.
At about eight o’clock we left our hotel and were kind of glad to let it behind us. It’s not just because it wasn’t clean (we know, we are spoiled in Switzerland), but the room was always full of smoke from the street and the quarter behind the hotel. We skipped the coffee and hit the road in direction of Buon Ma Thuot.
Weather report: 36˚C, sunny
We started our morning at around 6 with a coffee (which turned out not to be on par with the rest of the food). We wanted to hit the road as early as possible and actually managed to leave the premises before 7. Our newly installed smart phone holder enabled us to find our way out of Bao Loc without any stops at all. I still have no idea how we managed without this addition for so long…
Weather report: 39˚C, mostly sunny
Today we started our day early with a chilled coffee and some pho (a Vietnamese noodle soup). We wanted to reach Bao Loc in time to see something from the city and to visit the silk and tee productions around. Quoc, our host from the Spirit Garden Lodge, suggested to take a back road. So we did. After a few minutes we had to pass a narrow bridge and from this moment on, we met a completely different Vietnam. Almost no traffic but many farms, cattle, corn fields and tee plantations.
The humidity and temperature here are killing our notebook as it seems. It started crashing every few minutes. If we’re not posting tomorrow it’s not because we don’t care, but because our notebook completely died on us. This is also why I’m going to keep this post on the short side… Sorry about that.
We started our day with a very nice pho and a black coffee at the beautiful Spirit Garden Guesthouse. According to a Canadian tourist we met yesterday it’s one of the top places to stay in vietnam. It seems like it’s going to be downhill from now on.
Today we tried to get familiar with the vietnamese taffic. But let me start at the beginning… After a rich breakfast - we tasted a “pho” (soup with beef and rice noodles) we’ve been ready to start our trip. Almost ready. Let’s say I didn’t want to separate from the bathroom. About half an hour later we definitely startet. We packed our motorbikes and drove back to the motorcycle rental station, since we forgot to buy the rain ponchos. It’s supposedly really hard to get ponchos for european people which are taller than 1.6m.
After an early evening yesterday we got some pretty good sleep. I think we’re already over the jet lag on the first day…
We started the new morning a bit after eight with one of the best breakfast buffet’s I’ve ever seen. There were separate buffets for cereals, fish & cold cuts, some main courses including purple coconut flavoured rice, one with eggs and omelettes as well as one with bread and biscuits.
After ten months waiting to get the trip startet - yesterday was the day we dropped our luggage and started from Zürich to Bankok. Without any delay we changed plane in Bankok and finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. Even our luggage found its way to Vietnam.
The cab to our hotel, a british colonial style hotel, was quiet quick and cost us only VND 220'000 (about 9.50 CHF) for 20mins of driving. To round up our day we went for a little walk through HCN - also known as Saigon - to find a nice place to get some streetfood.