Hanoi & Ha Long Bay, Vietnam - Anturiaethau Siwan a Chris

05 Oct

05Oct

Hanoi - Vietnam

After a stress-free flight from Chiang Mai, we arrived in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, around midday.

First thing we noticed was how busy the roads were around the city. Never ending streams of motorbikes/mopeds weave their way through the streets, often narrowly avoiding collision. Because of this, crossing the road takes some getting used to. There’s rarely any gap in the traffic so you basically have to just step out into the road and make your way across slowly while constantly checking both directions as bikes and cars shoot pass you. Marked crossings (even ones with traffic lights) don’t make anything easier as they seem to be ignored by almost every driver.

Cars and bikes honking their horns is something you hear every now and then in the UK; here you’d be lucky to go 5 seconds without hearing that lovely sound. It is constant.

Once we had dropped our bags of at the hotel, we headed down to the Hoàn Kiếm Lake in the Old Quarter for a little stroll.

It’s a popular area of the city and so was fairly busy. We sat down on a bench to chill out when we were approached by a small group of local uni students who asked if they could chat with us to practise their English. We were happy to help as we had some questions about the city that we wanted to ask too. Afterwards, our new friends took us for ice-cream to say thank you. Free ice cream is the best ice cream.

On the north-eastern edge of the lake is Đền Ngọc Sơn, the Temple of the Jade Mountain. Entry: 30,000 VND (£1).

The temple is made up of a series of small buildings situated on a small island on the lake.

It was nice to have a look around but there wasn’t really a great deal to see.

In then evening, we went to check out the Hang Dao Night Market. It was pretty much the same as the markets in Thailand except that the vendors seemed slightly less pushy.

The following day, we booked a free walking tour to some of the key tourist hot spots of the city. We visited the Hoa Lo Prison, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Temple of Literature. At each place, we learned a little more about Vietnam’s history. Our tour guides were excellent, especially considering this was free!

Once the tour was over, we took a taxi to a little cafe by the lake to sample some egg coffee. Yes, egg. It was surprisingly delicious, even Siwan liked it (sort of). The cafe we had stopped at was called Note Cafe, take a look at the picture to see why.

Later, we attended the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre performance. Tickets: 100,000 VND (around £3.30) each.

I really loved this as it was something a little different. The show is accompanied by live music played on traditional instruments by very skilled musicians. The puppets are operated from behind a black curtain using rods that are hidden beneath the surface of the water - amazing. They were incredibly talented puppeteers! The performance was in Vietnamese (as you would expect) and was based on a traditional tale.

Following a recommendation from the hotel staff, we went to try a Vietnamese fried fish dish called Chà Cá. The fish was fried with dill and spring onion, then mixed at the table with rice noodles, coriander, peanuts and fish sauce with chilli. I ate so much and would do it again! The restaurant was called Chà Cá Thang Long - I recommend :)

That evening, back to the lake for drinks at the bars.

Ha Long Bay

We booked a 2 day 1 night cruise around Ha Long Bay. The bus arrived at our hotel promptly at 7:45am and we drove around 3 and a half hours to the Bay. Our ship was called Silversea Cruise; it was a fairly new one compared to some of the others.