In January, I started my second trip around the world in Vietnam. As I explained before, this is a bit of a different start to a world trip, than before. Instead of saying goodbye and heading off for good at the beginning of the year, I will be taking 3 separate trips by myself first, returning each time to Amsterdam in between. Then, by the middle of this year, Mathijs and I will be starting our trip together. So when packing my bags for Vietnam, it felt a bit odd, leaving but knowing I would be back in about 4 weeks.
Actually, what I wrote just now is not entirely correct: I will be doing most of the 3 separate trips by myself, but not all of it! For the kick-off and the first 2 weeks in Vietnam, my parents and sister were joining me on my travels. Yay! It was our first family trip in years (10? 15?), so definitely a special way to start off 2018!
04.01.-05.01.2018 Amsterdam – Istanbul – Hanoi
A Turkish Airlines flight brought me from Amsterdam to Istanbul, where I met my family to board the long flight together and to start our adventure. The excitement was big when we met at Istanbul airport! The long flight afterwards was a bit exhausting, but I only have positive words for Turkish Airlines. Both flights left on time and arrived ahead of schedule, stewards were nice, seats were good and the in-flight entertainment system would have been nice as well. Would have, because we were all too tired to really test it and soon dozed off.
We arrived in Hanoi a bit tired – sleeping on a flight is never that great in the end. After getting our visa on arrival (having to wait oddly long for the second part of it, compared to everyone else who had been in the line behind us) we were happy to see all our backpacks arriving at the luggage belt the second we reached it. Also, our pick-up service from Hanoi Golden Charm Hotel was eagerly waving his board at us straight after we walked into the arrivals area. Nice! We got some money out of one of the ATMs for a ridiculously high fee (we would spent the next few days trying different ATMs and figuring out citibank and HSBC offer the best deals in terms of fee vs. maximum withdrawal limit), then we were millionaires! 🙂 1 million Vietnamese Dong right now are about 40 Euros.
Our pick-up brought us to the hotel, a drive of about 45 min during which we could already watch the Vietnamese life on the streets. Our hotel turned out to be a great choice! Very central in the old quarter of Hanoi, but not too central either – avoiding the the noisy Bia Hoi corner as well as the party mile along the lake which is set up every weekend apparently. We were welcomed by fresh roses on our bed and the buzzing Vietnamese streets outside, waiting for us. So after freshening up, we headed out for some dinner. The first walk is always a challenge – getting used to the chaos, motorbikes, people everywhere, unusable side-walks etc. I was loving it!! We walked to the Bia Hoi corner, where I had looked up a restaurant for an easy start. Unfortunately we were unable to find it, so in the end opted for one of the plastic chair restaurants in the area. So far so good…
Hawker stall
Street vendor
Plastic chair restaurant experience 🙂
Or not 😉 While everything else had gone perfectly well that day, dinner became a real challenge. We’re all not that adventurous in terms of food, but even for an adventurous eater, the menu probably would have been a challenge. We picked the restaurant because it had pictures on the menu and English translations, but didn’t check the details before sitting down. Learnings of the evening:
- Do not order undefined „meat sticks“.
- Mixed fried rice that on the picture looks like it has just veggies in it, may contain undefinable parts of meat.
- What looks like pieces of tomato, in Vietnam is sometimes meat (still not sure which one).
- Gizzard means stomach of some animal (ok, no news for native English speakers out there!)
- Cheese sticks taste good also in Vietnam.
- A beer can help to flush it all down! Cheers & welcome to Vietnam!
06.01.2018 Hanoi
We started our day with a traditional Pho Ga (chicken noodle soup) for breakfast. Quite tasty, but it won’t become my choice of usual breakfast. After that, our first goal of the day was to get tickets for the water puppet theater which is a traditional puppet show you can watch in Hanoi. We chose the Thang Long Theater, and were able to secure tickets for the same evening still – not the best seats anymore though, so book early if you can. On the way to the theater I took one wrong turn and we ended up getting a bit lost in the old quarter – well, not really lost, but at least walking an extra circle. The thing is, if you get lost here, it doesn’t matter too much. There is just sooo much to see everywhere that just walking around randomly is sightseeing already! There is so much happening everywhere – you are seeing something new wherever you look. Walking around is also a bit of a challenge, since the side-walks (if existing) are typically occupied by little food stalls, vendors, people having family dinners, or used as parking space for motorbikes. Once you get used to navigating through the chaos, it’s lots of fun!
Street vendor
Typical street in the old quarter of Hanoi
Street vendor
Close to the Thang Long Theater, you can find the Temple of the Jade Mountain, located on an island in the Hoan Kiem lake. It’s a cute little temple, but nothing special. We had some fun being asked to practice English with kids though. They were super cute and running my mum and sister through a whole questionnaire they had to fill out with quite philosophical questions, like „How would you summarize your last year in one word?“ etc.
The Huc Bridge
My family & I at The Huc Bridge
Wedding pictures?
Continuing further North through the old quarter, we stopped by Ethnic Travels to pay the balance of our trip to Halong Bay and Bai Tu Long Bay. We then soon reached the Dong Xuan market where it was time for a coffee break at one of the little plastic chair places. Sipping our Vietnamese strong brew, we watched the market life around us. There is nothing that is not being sold on these streets! Tempting fresh fruits, smelly dried fish, fake designer handbags and much more. Anything you need, you will find it at this market or in the streets surrounding it!
Street near Hoang Xiem Lake
Dong Xuan market
Dong Xuan market
Re-energized we continued our tour southwards again, all the way down to St Joseph Cathedral, passing some temples along the way too. It was funny to see a cathedral in such a chaotic Asian city, Christmas decoration all over the place, and even a nativity scene at the square in front of the church.
St Joseph Cathedral
Typical street scene
Pagoda along the way
Looping around the lake in the South, we reached the French Quarter where we had a look at the opera house and some other colonial buildings – which did not impress too much though. The streets were broader in this area, with some side-walks being actually usable – it is the cleaner, more modern and also pricier part of the city (as we discovered when we got hungry). We did end up finding a cheaper restaurant/cafe, and I felt adventurous ordering some Chinese dumplings. They looked nice and I thought, not much that can go wrong with a dessert. Well. Luckily I had ordered a beer as well, which kind of helped trying to flush down the almost un-chewable squishy dumplings. The taste was alright, but the texture… well, let’s just say, I will not order them again. Ever.
Turtle Tower Island at Southern Hoan Kiem Lake
Chinese dumplings
Possibly a little over-motivated we then decided to walk all the way to the Temple of Literature since this walk was suggested in my mum’s guide book – not worth it. A long, dusty walk on a busy street without much to see. The temple itself felt like an oasis of peace afterwards. It was quiet. You could hear the birds chirping. You almost could not hear the sound of the motorbikes anymore. It almost didn’t feel like being in the middle of Hanoi. Our lungs were especially happy for the little green break we provided them. And after seeing lots of life in the streets, it was good to admire some architecture and gardens in between. So we quite enjoyed our time at the temple, looked into every corner before taking a taxi back to near Hoan Kiem lake.
Temple of Literature
Temple of Literature
Temple of Literature
Thinking to save time by taking a taxi vs. walking turned out a little different though… What was supposed to save us time turned into the slowest taxi ride of my life. While typically in Asian countries you feel like showing the taxi driver where the breaks are, this time I felt like I should offer our driver a driving lesson. She was clearly a total beginner, and driving as if it was her second time in a car ever. So we were cruising at 10-15 km/h through the chaos, slowing down in the middle of busy intersections etc. Honestly, it was scary! I was also annoyed because she still took two phone calls while not even being able to drive without an additional distraction. My attempts to speed her up or get her attention were ignored though – she simply didn’t look at or speak to me for the whole ride. We ended up getting off much earlier than intended and walking the rest of the way. Odd experience! Before the theater started, we had time for dinner in one of the nearby restaurants which was significantly better than the day before.
Then it was time for the water puppet theater! I hadn’t quite known what to expect, but whatever expectations I had were clearly surpassed! The show was so much fun, and so nicely done – it was impressive how the artists moved the puppets on wooden sticks under water and how they managed to make them move in funny ways. We laughed a lot and further watched the whole thing fascinated. Tip: If you can, get front row seats (row 1-3) in the center. These are the best! Otherwise, seats on the side are good too, because then you can get up and stand on the side to take pictures in between.
The empty stage before the show
Water puppets!
The artists presenting themselves at the end of the show
After this fun cultural experience, we just wanted to head back to our hotel to catch up on some sleep. No such luck. On the way back we got stuck in a massive crowd since there were some free concerts going on on the main street at the lake – I’ve never been in such a tight crowd of people pushing in all kinds of directions! Very scary, luckily no one panicked – else this could have gone very wrong… Like this our time in Hanoi came to an end, but we knew that we were going to be back later.
Just Booked A Trip 