Oops, about a month behind on the blog, so doing a bit catch up here before I forget everything.
We took a much more bearable (if still 12hr) sleeper bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An, and ended up spending 5 or 6 nights there. Hoi An is a beautiful Ex-french-colonial type town and from what we saw, well geared for an older, more affluent breed of tourist. Even so we really enjoyed it. The food especially was better than we had found up until now, and Bia hơi was widely available at 14p per glass - not bad! The town is largely devoted to tailor shops, so I ended up getting a suit & shirt made, and Cath got a jacket and coat. Hopefully these will arrive in the UK in a few months! One thing I didn't realise about Hoi An is it has a beach, which elevated in my mind from a place worth visiting to an awesome destination. We were a able to rent a motorbike for $4 a day and found a quiet part of the beach. There are some photos of Hội An here.
Next on route was Hue, where we stopped off before another 14hr bus to Hanoi. The feeling of arriving exhausted in a new city at 7am was now getting familiar. We found Hanoi to be an awesome bustling maze of activity, and found it easy to get hold of delicious, cheap vietnamese food unlike the watered-down pseudo-vietnamese tourist food peddled in so many other places. One thing we learned: if a place only sells chicken noodle soup, you can expect they know how to make a damn good chicken noodle soup! Our first visit to Hanoi however was only 24 hours long though as we the next day we went to Halong Bay for a 2 night boat trip.
Halong Bay is awesome! It was the best thing I did when visiting in 2007 so we went back with the same tour company I'd used before. Apart from stopping off at some pretty busy tourist spots in the bay, it was great. Just such a stunning place (and the boat was really comfortable too). We took a few hundred photos I think but I'll try and choose a few of them to go on here at some point.
On returning from Halong Bay our second visit to Hanoi was even shorter (like 5 hours) because we were booked on the sleeper train to Sapa. Sapa (or Sa Pa technically) is up in the mountains, so is a bit cooler than the coast we had been travelling along until then. The landscape was of incredible terraced rice fields, rolling with the shape of the hills. It was beautiful. We also took a 'trek' through the countryside to a few villages where they attempt to sell things to tourists. It seems to me that walking-for-fun is an entirely foreign concept in this part of the world, so it is called 'trekking' whether it lasts 30 minutes, or a week. Anyway Sapa was a pretty and peaceful place to spend a few nights before getting the sleeper train back to Hanoi.
Our third and last visit to Hanoi was the longest at 36 hours. We arrived even earlier than usual this time at 5am and had to sit on the street for a while waiting for the hotel to open. I never realised the city slept, but it does, and we were able to watch it wake up at 6-7am as peoples houses were opened up, their motorbikes/tables/barbeques etc unloaded onto the pavement and the family business whatever that might be starts up for the day. I put a few photos of the activity here. Our last night in Hanoi was lubricated by some more Bia Hoi and ended with terrible attempt at a pepperoni pizza. The next day we just hung around in dread until 5pm and the impending 20-30 hour bus trip to Laos!
We took a much more bearable (if still 12hr) sleeper bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An, and ended up spending 5 or 6 nights there. Hoi An is a beautiful Ex-french-colonial type town and from what we saw, well geared for an older, more affluent breed of tourist. Even so we really enjoyed it. The food especially was better than we had found up until now, and Bia hơi was widely available at 14p per glass - not bad! The town is largely devoted to tailor shops, so I ended up getting a suit & shirt made, and Cath got a jacket and coat. Hopefully these will arrive in the UK in a few months! One thing I didn't realise about Hoi An is it has a beach, which elevated in my mind from a place worth visiting to an awesome destination. We were a able to rent a motorbike for $4 a day and found a quiet part of the beach. There are some photos of Hội An here.
Next on route was Hue, where we stopped off before another 14hr bus to Hanoi. The feeling of arriving exhausted in a new city at 7am was now getting familiar. We found Hanoi to be an awesome bustling maze of activity, and found it easy to get hold of delicious, cheap vietnamese food unlike the watered-down pseudo-vietnamese tourist food peddled in so many other places. One thing we learned: if a place only sells chicken noodle soup, you can expect they know how to make a damn good chicken noodle soup! Our first visit to Hanoi however was only 24 hours long though as we the next day we went to Halong Bay for a 2 night boat trip.
Halong Bay is awesome! It was the best thing I did when visiting in 2007 so we went back with the same tour company I'd used before. Apart from stopping off at some pretty busy tourist spots in the bay, it was great. Just such a stunning place (and the boat was really comfortable too). We took a few hundred photos I think but I'll try and choose a few of them to go on here at some point.
On returning from Halong Bay our second visit to Hanoi was even shorter (like 5 hours) because we were booked on the sleeper train to Sapa. Sapa (or Sa Pa technically) is up in the mountains, so is a bit cooler than the coast we had been travelling along until then. The landscape was of incredible terraced rice fields, rolling with the shape of the hills. It was beautiful. We also took a 'trek' through the countryside to a few villages where they attempt to sell things to tourists. It seems to me that walking-for-fun is an entirely foreign concept in this part of the world, so it is called 'trekking' whether it lasts 30 minutes, or a week. Anyway Sapa was a pretty and peaceful place to spend a few nights before getting the sleeper train back to Hanoi.
Our third and last visit to Hanoi was the longest at 36 hours. We arrived even earlier than usual this time at 5am and had to sit on the street for a while waiting for the hotel to open. I never realised the city slept, but it does, and we were able to watch it wake up at 6-7am as peoples houses were opened up, their motorbikes/tables/barbeques etc unloaded onto the pavement and the family business whatever that might be starts up for the day. I put a few photos of the activity here. Our last night in Hanoi was lubricated by some more Bia Hoi and ended with terrible attempt at a pepperoni pizza. The next day we just hung around in dread until 5pm and the impending 20-30 hour bus trip to Laos!
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