We had three stays in Hanoi during our time in Vietnam. The first was after getting the overnight train north from Hue and before heading to Sapa, the second was between returning from Sapa and our visit to Halong Bay and our third visit was between returning from Halong Bay and flying to Thailand.
Our first visit was between arriving early in the morning on Monday 4th November and leaving on the train on the night of Wednesday 6th November. The Monday morning got off to a fun start as we haggled with taxi drivers – the hotel had informed us that a taxi from the station to the hotel should cost around 50,000VND (about £1.50) but the first few taxi drivers we approached quoted us 200,000VND! We eventually managed to get a price we were happy with, got to the hotel, checked in and went to sleep. Our main priority for today was get trips to Sapa and Halong Bay organised. After doing our research on trains to Sapa, the hotel were able to help us out by getting the tickets for us – job #1 done! The second job took us longer – we did our research, came up with a couple of options and set off to walk to the office of one of those companies. Unfortunately the address we found online did not correspond with the address of the office (it was on the wrong side of the city!) so we returned to the hotel to try to find an alternative address. With the new address in hand we set off for another walk. It turned out we weren’t paying much attention as we managed to walk right past the road we were looking for! We eventually managed to find the office only to discover they had no space on their cruises until after our Vietnam visa expires. Feeling a bit downbeat that we were not able to book with our first choice, we set off in search of lunch and to come up with an alternative plan. As it happened, the alternative plan presented itself to us when we stumbled across the office of one of the other companies we had been looking at – Handspan. We did some more research while we ate lunch in Yin and Yang, the restaurant attached to the tour office. From the research we decided to enquire more about their trips to Halong Bay. They had one space left for the dates we were looking at and we decided that this was meant to be, so booked it quickly! This was the furthest we had booked ahead since the start of the trip!
With our two main tasks successfully completed we were able to enjoy our second day in Hanoi. We walked from our hotel to the Temple of Literature, via a not-for-profit shop called Craft Link. The Temple of Literature is an amazing serenity in the middle of bustling Hanoi and we enjoyed walking around it without the fear of being known down by a motorcycle! Feeling a bit hungry by now we headed to a nearby not-for-profit restaurant, called Koto, for a smoothie and a slice of cake each. It was then time to head back to the hotel for a quick shower before checking out at 1500. We made use of the computers, as well as the free tea and coffee, for a couple of hours in the hotel lobby before heading out at 1800 to find some dinner. We returned to Yin and Yang, restaurant attached to the Handspan tour office, as we had enjoyed the food the day before. We still had some more time to kill back at the hotel before we took a taxi to the train station to get our train to Sapa. The taxi only cost 43,000VND, and this just confirmed our much the taxi drivers yesterday had tried to overcharge us!
Our second visit to Hanoi started when our train from Sapa pulled in to the station only 20 minutes late at 0500 on Tuesday 12th November. Having been in this position before we were able to argue more with the taxi drivers and eventually managed to get a ride to the hotel for 50,000VND. We hadn’t booked a room for the night before and our room for this evening wasn’t ready yet (unsurprisingly), so we spent a few hours relaxing in the hotel lobby – I even managed to sleep for a couple of hours until Lindsay woke me at 0900 to say that our room was ready. After a quick shower we got into bed to try to catch up with some more sleep. It was 1600 before we managed to head out, returning to Yin Yang for dinner. We weren’t as impressed with the food today and this turned out to be our last visit there. We decided to treat ourselves to a chocolate bar each on the walk back to the hotel – our first since Australia! Having slept for most of the day, we decided to watch some TV before calling it a night. Wednesday started slowly as we enjoyed a lazy morning around the hotel, with a mission to book flights to Chiang Mai for the final country of our Big adventure. This took longer than we expected as we had to book two separate flights – Hanoi to Bangkok and Bangkok to Chiang Mai – and then we had issues paying as some of our cards decided not to work! We got it sorted eventually and by 1300 we were on our way out of the hotel and heading to Koto for lunch. We made a stop at Craft Link, the handicraft shop we discovered on our first visit to Hanoi, on the way to see if there were any souvenirs we fancied. We had an enjoyable lunch at Koto before heading back to the hotel to spend the remainder of the afternoon and evening researching accommodation options for Chiang Mai and working on the blog. This may sound like a lazy day, but the walk from the hotel to Koto is 2km in each direction along chaotic Hanoi streets, we were still quite tired from the overnight train from Sapa and booking the flights and researching Chiang Mai took hours! On Thursday morning we were up early as we departed Hanoi for our three day / two night trip to Halong Bay.
Our third and final visit to Hanoi started when we returned from Halong Bay to the Handspan office around 1700 on Saturday 16th November. We took a taxi back to the hotel, checked in and got the same room as we had last time! We then took advantage of a recommendation from one of the hotel receptionists for where to head for dinner – a restaurant called New Day. It took us 20 minutes to walk there and it looked full, but the waitress managed to find us two seats at a table in the back. It appeared to be a place favoured by the locals and it even had the typical small plastic tables and chairs on the pavement that we saw outside many local restaurants. We shared a starter of spring rolls and had a main dish and drink each. The bill came to 175,000VND (about £5) – probably the cheapest meal we had in Vietnam and the closest we came to eating street food. On the way back to the hotel we walked through the Saturday night market. The streets were closed to traffic but you still had to watch out for motorbikes! Back at the hotel we worked on updating our journals and the blog. On Sunday morning we continued to work on our journals and the blog so we didn’t make it out until 1100, when we set out to get tickets for a water puppet show by the lake. We walked the 1km to the ticket office and were informed that all of the shows today were fully booked, but not too worry as they can add additional seats in the aisle for us to sit in! We booked these seats for the 1530 show and walked 2km to Koto for a milkshake and slice of cake. We still had time before the puppet show started so we walked 2km back to the hotel for a mini siesta before walking back to the theatre. Just before 1500 we left the hotel for to walk the 1km back to the water puppet theatre, arriving just the doors were opened. Once inside we discovered that they were serious about the seats in the aisle, but we did manage to get seats about half way up the aisle – they were better than some of the normal seats in the theatre and we had paid less for them! The show was very interesting and went on for around 50 minutes, after which we headed back to New Day restaurant for dinner. We were earlier than yesterday and, as a consequence, it wasn’t as busy yet. After another delicious, cheap dinner we walked back to the hotel and spent the evening repacking our bags ready for our flights the following day.
The alarm went off at 0500 on Monday morning and Lindsay managed to sleep right through it. Luckily she woke up as I ‘tiptoed’ around the room 20 minutes later! As we had already packed we didn’t have much to do before our taxi picked us up at 0600 for the 50 minute drive to the airport. We had erred on the side of caution when deciding what time to book the taxi for and arrived at the airport before check in had opened. Once the desk had opened, we swiftly checked in and weren’t that surprised when our bad weighed in at the heaviest they have been for the entire trip (especially when you consider the clothes we had made in Hoi An). We then headed through security to find somewhere for breakfast – discovering only one, expensive, option. We ate there and used up most of our remaining Dong on what has been one of the most expensive meals (and worst value) of the entire trip so far! We took a wander around the souvenir shops in the departure hall – all of which seemed to sells exactly the same stuff at the same price – before taking a seat to wait for our flight to be called for boarding.
Photos from Hanoi can be viewed below or at http://photos.andywicks.com/Hanoi
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