The title will become clearer during the post!

We decided to fly from Hanoi to Hue even though we had always intended on taking the sleeper train. Why? Because it was nearly the same price and the flight only took 50 minutes compared to the 12 hour train. Yes, we had to pay for a nights accommodation which we didn’t plan for, but the double rooms we are booking are around £12 a night so not too bad at all. The flight was quick and painless, despite being a little confusing. We were traveling with an airline called VietJet airlines, which is Vietnam’s version of Ryan air or Easyjet. We had read some horror stories about the plans being cancelled last minute and the flights being ridiculously delayed, but we were boarded and on our way before schedule. What confused us was that we got onto an Estonia airlines plane. Ok, so maybe Estonia airlines owns Vietjet, but why was the plane not branded correctly. We did a double check of our tickets to make sure we weren’t headed somewhere unexpected. However, all was fine and we got to Hue safetly and quickly.

Once in Hue, we were immediately calmed by the atmosphere. Unlike Hanoi there is a lot of green rice paddies surrounding the city and some of the roads are nearly empty! What was evident pretty quickly was that it might not stay that way forever. There was a lot of fancy villa style properties, as well as large apartment and hotel buildings being built everywhere. The next day our tour guide told us that a lot of the land is being bought by the government for good money, so of course the farmers would sell. It’s a real shame that this lush greenery may not be there in the near future.

We checked into our accommodation which was unfortunately the worst to date. Not because it was dirty, not because it was small or old fashioned, not because of poor breakfast. All of this was amazing. It was the worst because it smelt very very damp. It didn’t bother Simon so much, but I could smell damp everywhere. The bending was damp, the curtains, everything. I think I figured out why though. When we left the property every day they asked us to hand our keys in and they would switch off our electricity. This would turn off the fan, the air conditioner, everything that would dry out the wet room after our showers in the morning. It was a real shame because the property and the people were great. I was so grateful during this stay to have bought some silk sleeping bag liners in Hanoi. It’s like we had sensed the future.

That night we went on an I love Hue tour. I’m going to post a link to the tour here, because it was truly amazing. https://ilovehuetour.com/

We loved our food tour in Hanoi so thought we’d step it up a bit in Hue and do this one on the back of scooters, driven by ladies who worked for the company. We were a small group, only 4 of us, and we had the most fun with our guides. Simon was driven around by the CEO of the company Ms Lien and I had a lovely girl who was studying tourism at the local university called Thu. We chatted all the time we were on the scooter and not once did either Simon or I feel unsafe, despite the crazy driving around us.

Ms Lien has worked tirelessly, at the age of 23, to create a company which is supporting the local community. It is truly inspirational. Please read more about it on the link above and visit if you are ever in Hue or some of the other cities in Vietnam (she has branched out). Her aim is to have companies all around the World. It started with I love Hue, but may end with I love the World!

Our first stop was to a locals only alleyway cafe where we tried a few different ‘cakes’. Now… these were not cakes (as in yum yum chocolate or carrot), but more snacks. The first one we had was pretty nice, it was a jelly like blob made out of rice flour, with dried shrimps and a sweet sauce. The next one was a chewy jelly with a whole shrimp in it… no thank you and the last one was much along the same lines. They guides found it funny that I kept saying ‘This is NOT a cake’. These weren’t our favourites unfortunately, but we gave them a go.

The next stop was to try another ‘cake’, but this one was absolutely delicious. You took some rice paper, put a crunchy ‘cake’ into it, snapped it, filled up the roll with lettuce, papaya and carrot and dipped it in a yummy sauce. Everybody ate all of these as they were so tasty!!!

Throughout the rest of the tour, we drove past the imperial city and took in the atmosphere at night, we ate some Hue noodle soup which was much tastier than the pho we had in Hanoi, we had some Vietnamese BBQ and finally some sweet soup. Sweet soup, or Che Hue, is a dish only found in Hue. It’s hard to tell you exactly what’s in the soup, but it came in layers with ice and you mixed it all up to make a soup. There was definitely condensed milk, banana, different beans, coconut and tapioca in the soup. I think it was OK, Simon struggled with this one. We had a lovely evening and a really great introduction to the city of Hue on this tour and would recommend it to anyone.

Not many photos as we mainly filmed.

The next morning was an early start for a full on day of exploring the history of Hue. As we only had one full day in Hue we booked a tour to take us around the highlights. We paid a little more to be in a group of 12 rather than 40 so that we could learn more from the guide. Turns out on that day there were only 4 of us, so we practically had a private tour all day. We learnt and saw some much.

Our first stop was to Thanh Toan Bridge, a tile-roofed bridge in a small village. Whilst there we walked around the local village of this market and also went into the local museum where an elderly lady showed us how rice is processed. It was really interesting and a great start to the tour.

 

Next we went to the tomb of Minh Mang. Minh Mang was the 2nd Emperor of the Nguyen dynasty. The Vietnamese people believe that he did a lot for them and was an advocate for opposing the French. His final resting place is beautiful. There is a large lake, pagodas, memorials and of course the tomb, which is hidden away so no-one can access it.

Our second tomb was of Khai Dinh the 12th Emperor of the Nguyen dynasty. This emperor had a closer link with the French government and this can be seen in the style of his tomb, which is fare more Westernised. Unfortunately Khai Dinh is not seen as favourably as Minh Mang as he worked with French government, agreeing to raise taxes on Vietnamese peasants and also sent a lot of leaders into exile.

 

We made a quick stop at Nam Giao Esplanade which is where Nguyen Emperors came to oversee sacrificial ceremonies. There wasn’t a lot to see here really.

We had lunch at a local restaurant and it was amazing. The food was incredible for the price we paid for the tour. I still can’t quite believe we had it for free.

The afternoon was spent walking around the Imperial City, which is the home of the last royal dynasty of Vietnam. We spent about 2 hours here looking at the residencies of the Queen Mother (Mother of the King), the temples on site, the site which was the Forbidden Purple Kingdom (residence of the King) and the government buildings. There was a lot of destruction to this site during the Vietnamese war. A lot of the walls and buildings still have bullet holes all over them and the Forbidden Purple Kingdom was completely destroyed. They are hoping to reconstruct all of the buildings over the next 20 years, which would be great.

This is what the palace looked like…

This is what it looks like now…

Our last stop of the day was to Thien Mu Pagoda which, in a city of over 200 pagodas, is the most famous of them all. It was a really stunning structure and we got to see some Monks going about their daily business while we were there. Whilst here I had my first encounter of my shoulder being rubbed by a Vietnamese lady. I did hear this may happen due to my hair colour, but it was the first and only time since that this has happened. Wouldn’t it be interesting to hear that she has since won the lottery? On the subject of my hair colour, I haven’t been approached too much. I think the warnings I received from people about the attention I would receive was quite out of date. The South-East Asian people are now very used to seeing blonde women and men, so it doesn’t faze them that much anymore. I am asked quite frequently though if my hair colour is real. I want to say… look at my eyebrows, but worry they wouldn’t understand… so I stick with a polite nod and a smile.

Real horse hair on the guardians of the Pagoda. 

A replica of the car driven by the famous monk that burnt himself alive in Saigon in 1963. 

We travelled back into the city on a dragon boat cruise down the Perfume River. It was pretty good fun and a bit of a novelty, but the woman and her family on board just kept trying to sell us things. Simon and I shared a beer, but as us and the other couple kept refusing her scarves, t-shirts, magnets, pictures, bags, statues etc. she started to get a little frustrated. This ruined the relaxing feel of the ride a little, as by the time she’d given up we were nearly there.

That evening we walked down into the night market to have a look around. We enjoyed a pot of tea and a coffee (on a Friday night) and took in the atmosphere along the Perfume River. We really liked Hue and was disappointed to hear that a lot of people miss it out. The amount we learnt about Vietnamese history whilst there was unbelievable and our only regret is not having one more day so we could have gone on a tour of the demilitarised zone (DMZ).

 We started our trip to Halong Bay by being collected from our hotel by our tour guide for the next few days, Binh. From day 1 he was helpful, caring and very very informative. We went to the Vega travel office where we paid the remaining balance for the trip and started to meet the people we would be enjoying this cruise with. Our group had 17 people on the first full day and then 19 on the second full day. We still don’t really understand why those 2 people weren’t with us originally, but assume it must have had something to do with the bedrooms on our first boat.

We stopped half way to Halong and had a chance to buy some snacks for the trip and obviously have a toilet stop. All the way there Binh had been telling us about Vietnamese culture and as it was Valentines Day, particularly about Vietnamese marriage custom. It was all really interesting and he kept using us as a comparison as we had been recently married. Weddings in Vietnam are huge events with up to 500 people attending. He showed us some pictures and there were a lot of guests in very casual clothes, which I found pretty odd, but the Bride and Groom were dressed up in either very traditional outfits or, more commonly these days, typical Western white wedding outfits. It didn’t used to be that guests would bring presents to a wedding, but he told us that it’s becoming more common for people to give ‘Happy Money’ to the Bride and Groom. The Bride and Groom then keep a record of exactly how much each person gave them and then give the EXACT same back at their wedding. How odd!!

We learnt on the next leg of the trip about how Halong Bay was formed by legend and also scientifically. Hanoi used to be called Thung Long, which means rising dragon and Ha Long means descending dragon.

‘The legend says that during the old time when the country was newly formed, Vietnamese had to fight against fierce invaders coming from the North through the sea. Feeling sorry for the country, The Jade Emperor sent the Mother Dragon and her children descending on earth to help ancient Vietnamese people defend the country.

While the mighty enemies were attacking the main land, The Mother Dragon and her children suddenly appeared and incinerated the enemies with their divine fire and giant emeralds. The emeralds from the dragon’s mouth were scattered around the battlefield on the sea and formed an invincible defensive wall that left enemy battleship fleet sinking. Thanks to the dragons, the Northern invaders were finally swept away and the peace finally came back the South East Asian country once again. After thousands of years, the wall of emerald turned into island and islets of different sizes and shapes.

After the battle, The Mother Dragon and her children didn’t come back to the heaven, but stayed in the mortal world and turned into human form and help people planting, cropping, raising cattle, reclaiming, and expanding the country.

To remember the help of Mother Dragon and her children, the people live there from generation to generation name the bay where the Mother Dragon descended “Ha Long or Halong” and the bay where her children descended “Bai Tu Long”, which means “Thanks to the Dragon’s children”. This legend is also a part of the general belief that Vietnamese people’s has Dragon’s origins.’ Taken from – http://www.halongbay.info/news/the-legend-of-halong-bay.html

We arrived at the marina and it wasn’t long before we were joining our boat and heading out into the beautiful scenery. We had a super tasty lunch straight away and were taken to our rooms, which were just perfect, with windows overlooking the Bay. We met some lovely people on our tour, namely Paul and his niece Lisa and Annie and Tim. Embarrassingly, these people are all British, but we all just clicked and had a great time. Annie and Tim live just down the road from us in Cornwall which is great and Paul and Lisa in Suffolk. I have no doubt that we will see all of these people again once we get home and there is a good chance we may join Paul for something very exciting in the future (watch this space).

Black kites were everywhere

Later in the afternoon we went kayaking through Bai Tu Long Bay. There are 3 bays in the area, with Halong being the most recognised, but the others are far less touristy and just as beautiful. We kayaked through lagoons and into archways and caves. Eventually we ended up at a lagoon where we saw lots of wild monkeys very very close up. 2 of them were even being super naughty while we were there. It was very relaxing and peaceful there and a really lovely introduction to Halong Bay.

After this we went to ‘surprising’ cave. Named because everyone is pretty surprised by how impressive it is. I still think our most impressive cave has been in Pai, but the way they had lit up this one made it very very beautiful. Our tour guide pointed out some interesting rock formations… see if you can spot any in these photos.

That evening we had a very tasty meal and enjoyed some drinks onboard with our new friends. A lovely way to end the evening. When we decided to go to bed though 1/2 of our group were having a lot of loud fun! Throughout the day the group had definitely become an ‘us’ and ‘them’ situation. They all knew each other already and to this day I still don’t understand why they didn’t go on a Halong party booze cruise. All they wanted to do was drink, moan and make life difficult for the tour guide. Ok, that’s not fair… not all of them did, but it got a little bit tiresome. We had to put our earplugs in that night as they were deciding to wrestle in the communal room above our bedroom and play Lana del Ray super loud on their speaker. How very depressing.

The next morning we were up nice and early for breakfast before our first stop of the day, Ti Top Island. We zoomed up 400 odd stairs to the top to get some stunning panoramic views over the Bay. Our tour guide was completely right that we needed to get up there quickly as by the time we were coming down it was PACKED! We had some spare time on Ti Top before going back to our boat and 4 of us decided to go for a brisk and refreshing swim. Once you were in it was ok, but a little shock to the system getting in.

Once back on the boat we started our transfer to Cat Ba Island, the largest island in Halong Bay. We were going to have a fun filled couple of hours exploring, starting with a bike ride to a local village. Seeing the locals going about their daily business was great and the scenery was breathtaking as we rode through the countryside. There were puppies everywhere in the village and we got to see the school, which only has 3 teachers and a head master. The younger kids are all taught together in the morning and the older kids taught together in the afternoon.

After our bike ride we started a trek through the jungle. Simon pretended to be Tarzan for a while and climbed up some vines into some caves. I decided that if I did that we would have to make a claim on our insurance and I’m not to keen to do that. We then did some rock climbing up to another amazing viewpoint. Simon and I zoomed up and down, which we were pretty proud of ourselves for. We rode back on our bikes to the boat and then enjoyed a lovely late lunch.

Spot my head…

For the rest of the afternoon we anchored near to a floating fishing village. In Halong Bay the fishing villages are banned as they cause litter and other environmental problems, but in this other bay they can still be found. We jumped in some more kayaks and spent a good hour exploring the fishing village and seeing how the locals live and work out here. We saw a woman feeding some of the fish that she was farming and also saw some men putting buckets of sand under the water to grow clams. It was really interesting, but after all the activities of the day we started to get tired and were looking forward to heading back to the boat to relax.

We made it to Cat Ba Island at about 5pm and transferred to our hotel. We had a balcony overlooking the bay and it was BEAUTIFUL. We went out for dinner along the water front and wished a little that we had longer in Cat Ba. However, I think we’d made the right decision to not spend more time there as the weather was a bit overcast and it wasn’t that warm. Next time though!

The next morning we had a breakfast buffet which included Spaghetti Bolognese. Now weird. Obviously, we didn’t eat Spag Bol at 6:30am… that would have been weird. We transferred back to the boat and spent the last day relaxing on the deck, reading and enjoying the beautiful scenery. It had been an amazing trip. Towards the end the ‘other’ half of our group were grating on me a little bit. We were asked to fill out a questionnaire on our experience and one of the girls went off on one about silly things. Needless to say the tour guide didn’t deserve the treatment he’d gotten from some of them. He had recovered 4 items of lost property that they had left on Cat Ba and on the mainland at his own expense, he had dealt with them bringing alcohol onto the boat which wasn’t allowed and endless other things which are difficult to explain on here. He did an amazing job!

We headed back to Hanoi happy that we had chosen wisely with our tour and glad that we had done as much research as we did.

We landed in Hanoi, late in the evening. We were picked up by a taxi organised by our hotel, which made everything very easy. The first thing we noticed on our 45 minute drive from the airport to our hotel in the Old Quarter was that Vietnam was a lot more modern than Laos. The roads were very well developed, there were billboards, new cars, modern buildings and more order. Simon felt that he was going to like it here straight away. Then we hit the main centre of Hanoi and we were exposed to the chaos that was Hanoi scooter traffic. The order evaporated and what we were left with was a population of 8 million people and 5 million scooters driving the wrong way up roads, over taking each other whenever they fancied it and just being generally very dangerous. We have been exposed to chaotic driving and scooter culture a lot in the last 2 months, but this was a shock to the system.

Once we were checked in to our accommodation we needed a quick snack so went for a wander around the Old Quarter towards Hoan Kiem Lake. We learnt a few very important rules about crossing the road.

1. Just go.
2. Don’t stop. You HAVE to keep walking.
3. Do NOT go backwards.
4. Do not change speed.
5. Keep swivelling your head in all directions at all time.

Taking these rules into consideration means you don’t die as the scooters, and occasional car, move around you and take you into consideration. You can hear honking all the time, but when it’s close to you it just means ‘Watch out… I’m near to you!’ It doesn’t mean ‘Move out the way… I’m angry you crossed in front of me’. After a few days we had the knack of crossing the road and were pretty happy we could get about comfortably.

We got some snacks from a street food vendor near the lake and enjoyed the atmosphere with locals riding hover boards, playing kick up ball and spending time together as it was a Saturday night.

The next morning we woke up relatively early as we had to be at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum before 11am. Ho Chi Minh was the first President of Vietnam, taking control after the 13th king of the Nguyan dynasty abdicated and handed rule to him. He was a communist leader and most Vietnamese people we have spoken to hold him in very high esteem after the changes he made to the country. Even though it wasn’t his wish to be, he is preserved in a glass casket in a mausoleum in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We took an uber over to the mausoleum and went through all of the security. As soon as you are through security you have to keep your arms down, keep quite and walk in a line with the other people who are visiting. We saw the changing of the guard outside of the mausoleum and walked through seeing Ho Chi Minh. We were unable to take photos during this part, but received our camera back afterwards so we were able to take pictures outside. His body is sent to Russia to be treated and preserved each year. There is no information about this in the mausoleum or museum though and we had to google it afterwards. He looks very peaceful as though he is sleeping.

After the mausoleum you walk through the Presidential Palace looking at the French architecture of the building, the lake and his personal living quarters. This area was absolutely packed when we got there and we didn’t stop long to look at everything which was a bit of a shame. We only had 45 minutes before they were closing for lunch so we wanted to have a quick look around the museum. This museum was very well put together, but not very informative. What I mean by that is the displays were very appealing to the eye, but I didn’t learn a lot. Many of the areas of the museum said things like ‘This model represents/is symbolic of etc’. As someone who didn’t know a lot in the first place, I didn’t find that style very useful. We left feeling not much more educated and that’s when we slipped up. And I don’t have any idea where there was a giant table in the museum either.

There were a lot of taxi drivers outside of the complex ready to take you where you needed to go. I couldn’t order an uber back as I didn’t have a SIM card yet so unfortunately we had to get a taxi. We found a taxi driver and made him use the meter (we’re not that stupid) having learnt that this is the biggest way that people get scammed in taxis. We made it to our destination and on the way he had locked the door. We didn’t think much of it, but when we got there he was asking for around 8 times what we’d paid in the morning (a ridiculous amount of money). We couldn’t get out of the car so feeling stuck we paid it. Not once did we feel unsafe, but I think it could have gotten dangerous if we hadn’t paid. I think with it being our first day in Vietnam as well, the currency confused us. If you’ve been, you know they work in thousands. Withdraw less than £100 and you’re a millionaire. We learnt our lesson. Ask for a price beforehand or get a taxi ordered by a hotel/tourist attraction instead of using one on the street. I have a Vietnamese SIM now so when possible we will just be using Uber.

Feeling like an idiot we walked to our next destination which was to book in for an evening street food tour that we wanted to take. We went back to our room, regrouped and now feeling better when we realised this was the first incident like this in 5 months, we went to do some other jobs. We got our Vietnamese SIM card and booked in for the water puppet show that evening after our street food tour. We shamefully went to Burger King for lunch, but wasn’t feeling up for negotiating the new food until after our tour.

I have to say the Street Food Tour was AMAZING! It was very highly ranked on Trip Advisor, but it went above and beyond what we expected it to be like. We had a reasonably sized group and our tour guide was a local Hanoian woman who knew the place like the back of her hand. We started our tour by going for some Bun Cha Ta. This was Simon’s favourite dish of the whole night, a broth with rice noodles, mint, chilli, garlic and BBQ pork meatballs. Yummy!!!! We loved this so much we went back the next night! We then tried ‘Sexy salad’ which was green papaya, sliced beef, beef jerky and a chilli and peanuty sauce. This was my favourite. It was so tasty and I could have easily eaten it again straight after.

Throughout the rest of the night we tried 2 different local beers Bia Ha Noi and street beer  (Bia Hoi) as well as an egg coffee, steamed pancakes, a baguette, coconut ice cream and sticky rice, fruit and yoghurt with condensed milk and traditional Vietnamese beer snacks. We were STUFFED by the end of the night but felt like we knew so much more about the local cuisine. Interestingly, she told us how different the food was throughout Vietnam. She said in central Vietnam the food is far spicier and in the south far sweeter. We’ll have to see if that is what we find. We had so much fun with our group and would recommend this to anyone coming into a country with a very different cuisine.

Our last stop of the day was to the Water Puppet show at Thang Long which was near to the Lake in the Old Quarter. I’m not sure I knew what to expect from this show, but we both absolutely loved it. Water puppetry originated in the 11th century from the Red river delta area in the North of Vietnam. The puppets, which are made of wood, are controlled from behind a screen and made to appear to be floating on the water. When the rice paddies would flood villagers would entertain each other with water puppetry. The show was an hour and we were shown traditional folk music as well as 14 different water puppet scenes. This isn’t something to miss and we would recommend everybody experiences this whilst in Vietnam. After a small wander through the night market we headed off to bed to recoup from all the fun.

The next day we went to Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton or Maison Centrale) after a lovely walk along Hoan Kiem Lake.

This prison was used by French colonists to hold Vietnamese political prisoners and later by the Vietnamese to hold American prisoners of war. Most of the prison has been demolished, but a small section now remains as a museum. The majority of the museum focuses on the Vietnamese prisoners that were housed there and at the end gives a very ‘cheery’ account of how well the American POWs were treated during their stay. As we walked around the museum we saw the holding cells where prisoners lived in cramped conditions with leg restraints, we saw isolation cells, death row cells, guillotines and torture equipment. I have to say now, if you’re planning to go, be prepared for some of the parts of the museum. I really did not feel happy walking through the death row cells.

We came away from the museum confused. It was obvious that everyone who spent time there was exposed to inhumane treatment. I also know that it was obviously very biased. I truly believe that the American newspaper articles and photographs selected were selected for one reason only.. they made the prison out to look better than it was. We are looking to find a book that is an account of an American POW so if anyone has any recommendations please let us know.

After this we met up with a Hungarian couple we met the night previously at the Street Food Tour. We went to a well rated restaurant to try some Beef Pho (Beef Noodle Soup). Vietnam is known for its Pho and I’d been dying to try it. It did not disappoint at all. Very tender beef, a tasty broth and of course… noodles.

We then explored The Note, which was a post it note cafe. When you come into the cafe you collect a post it note, write a message on it and stick it to the wall. As you can tell, many people had been there before us and we had a good time reading the post its, writing our own and drinking Vietnamese coffee. Out of the four of us, I was given a post it on my coffee telling me how special I was and never to forget it. I felt very special in that moment.

That evening we met up with our American friends from Thailand and another girl from the food tour for some more Bun Cha Ta. Yum! It was great catching up with everyone, but we had an early start the next day to Halong Bay!!!

After Halong Bay we came back to Hanoi for one more night. We had a lovely meal with Paul and Lisa, who we’d met on the tour and really hope we get to see again once we’re back in the UK. We enjoyed some burgers and nachos, and Simon and I were super naughty and had a slice of cheesecake. WOW it was good!!!

Hanoi was brilliant and I would definitely go back. There is so much more to explore. I think we could have done with 1 or 2 more full days to just walk around the French quarter and visit a few more museums (The woman’s museum and Military museum would have been our choices). We also didn’t make it up to West Lake which we would have liked to have explored. Unfortunately, we do still have a schedule to keep to so I guess we’ll just have to come back again in the future.