Chinese New Year means just one thing for a western expat - an extended weekend for travels! This one we had planned months in advance as we had six, slightly older, travelling buddies with us this time. With our sights on Vietnam, we decided on Hanoi and onto Halong Bay.
With our parents having the luxury of additional time, they head of earlier and Neil and I flew into Hanoi to meet them on the Saturday afternoon Vietnam Airlines flight to Hanoi. Having heard mixed reviews about the airline, I went in indifferent, but was pleasantly surprised. Service was lovely, the plane although old was spacious and the food was really tasty (shocking for airplane food, I know), also, yes we actually got food on the flight – hello luxury airline!
Some, 8 years ago, I travelled to Hanoi and my impression of it then wasn't positive. Having travelled from the south up, I had found the Hanoiese people rude and abrupt, and could definitely sense their lack of acceptance for the westerners speaking English. This time I was going in with a blank slate, hoping to replace that memory with a better one.
Getting through immigration was relatively straight forward, particularly as British citizens no longer need a visa and then we went to hunt down a taxi to take us to our hotel. Here we struggled. We approached a few taxis, advising of our hotel, and whilst they were happy to take us, they were asking for $30 USD, which is double the normal rate. Eventually we took a shared mini bus, which charged $10 for the both of us. There weren’t many people on the bus and we reached our hotel in around 40minutes. Win.
Our hotel, Golden Sun Suites, was located right in the centre of Old Town Hanoi right by Hoàn Kiếm Lake, which was perfect as it meant we were walking distance to everywhere. The hotel itself was lovely, pretty basic in terms of the rooms, but the staff went out of their way to accommodate us. With a requirement for four rooms, they ensured we were as close together as possible, although with only three rooms per floor this meant we were spread over two floors. After dropping our luggage to our rooms, we head straight out to find somewhere to dine.
In our drive into town, we had noticed that a lot of shops and restaurants appeared to be closed, due to it being Tet New Year, and there was some concern we wouldn’t be able to find somewhere local to eat. After wandering around the lake and the side alleys for around half an hour, and being met with many “sorry we have stopped serving” comments (dude it was 8pm…) we finally stumbled upon a restaurant called Aubergine.
Gross, I hate aubergine, except this time I didn’t. The food was actually super impressive and the house special was my favourite! Service was so so but we couldn’t complain about the food and it all came so quickly that we were honestly in and out of there in approximately 45 minutes! We wandered around the side streets for a while and spent a lot of time shopping for random Under Armour clothing (Neil’s latest obsession), before we decided to call it a night in preparation for our early start and the main event the next day - Halong Bay.
I had booked our Halong Bay trip with Indochina Junk (Swan Cruises) and was impressed with a) their on-going communication before the trip and b) the logistics of the trip itself. They collected us from the hotel at our allocated time, and after picking up a few additional passengers, we began our 4 hour drive to Halong City. The journey was nothing to write home about, our hostess Jenny “call me J-Lo” nattered away whilst most of us slept and then woke everyone up by announcing that we had arrived, 20 minutes too early – Come on Jen, surely you know sleep is a precious commodity.
Once we reached the port, we had to go to the office to settle our balances for the cruise. Disaster struck when the card terminal didn’t appear to be working (the guy was having some serious issues replacing the receipt paper) and after 20 minutes or so of trying it was decided we would pay via the terminal on the boat. Note to all: take cash, it’s just that much easier. Whilst we were busy doing that, every other person was huddled around the router attempting to connect to the wifi, which didn’t appear to be working – something quite peaceful about being unable to connect to the internet and forced to see your surroundings and acknowledge the people around you.
We then hopped onto a small boat, which took us to our big boat.
From the outside, it was clear this was definitely one of the older ships, it had a more weathered look with true character. Stepping onto the boat was like stepping back in time, antique wood features greeted us everywhere, and quite simply the main dining room was beautiful.
This cruise was filled with many more activities than the booze cruise version I had gone on 8 years ago. We ate a delicious lunch, where they catered amazingly for the vegetarians, and then we head out to kayak around the bay. Now picture this, four 50+ (some 60+) adults going kayaking for the first time… EVER. Real test of couple coordination if I ever saw one! Obviously with our youth (me) and muscle (Neil) we left everyone eating our dust, or should I say, salt water splash. But they gave us a great run for our money, and came out of it the other side, saying it had been one of their favourite experiences of the whole holiday! Now who said exercise couldn’t be fun?! It helped that we were gliding past some incredible natural formation and got to the secluded beach in time to see the sunset (and boy do I love a sunset). We could have swum, but the water was actually freeeeeeeezing! So cold in fact that I almost smacked Neil with my paddle for all his oar splashing which kept catching the back of my neck!
We then made our way back to the big boat, where we freshened up and head to the deck for a little lesson on how to make North Vietnamese spring rolls (note: this IS different to South Vietnamese spring rolls). Then we had the opportunity to make our own, the skill was in the folding – and the chef had to go around and judge the best spring roll – the owner was due a HaLong beer on the house (or should I say on the boat?!)
Those of you who know us well, know that Neil and I are super competitive and more so with each other. There was however, 14 other people we were also competing with in this circumstance. Proud to say we got 1st AND 2nd place… and that is us beating our Indian mothers on making food – honestly one of our proudest moments. Now I’ll leave you to guess who came first from the two of us, but let’s just say, first was only won because there was a casual compliment dropped when the chef was making his judging round. After the excitement of winning the competition, we were shown how to make flowers from vegetables. Yes, turning a tomato into a rose or a radish into a lily, you know, one of life’s most required skills.
It was time to eat the fruits of our labour, together with a 6-course meal the chef had made for us. The particularly impressive item were the prawns. The chef drowned them in alcohol and then set them alight before covering them with a lid and steam shooting out form all sides. When the lid was removed, out came the prawns, a completely different colour and fully cooked - It was pretty impressive!
Having had been an early start, a productive day and awareness of another early start, we all head to our rooms shortly after dinner. The cabins were pretty basic, but for one night, all that was required. Comfortable bed – check, clean bathroom – check!
At 6am the next morning, Tai Chi was our activity. Needless to say Neil and I slept through this portion, but our travel buddies were literally up at the crack of dawn, on the deck practicing some Tai Chi moves, which they continued to do the remainder of the day, at the service stop, in public, with no care about who was watching. Oh to be old and carefree!
Our last Ha Long activity was visiting a secluded cave. I wasn’t expecting too much to be completely honest, but when we got inside I was blown away. Honestly, the whole of Ha Long is a great example of how unique and beautiful this world really is. After gawping at the cave for 20 minutes or so, we head back onto the boat to pack and head back to the port, before our long journey back to Hanoi.
We had one last evening left in Hanoi and then an early flight back to Singapore, so we did the most talked about thing in the city when we reached back that evening – the Water Puppet Show. So I had heard mixed things about the show, but at $8 SGD a ticket, we thought we would give it a shot, especially as it would probably be something the family would love. The show was all in Vietnamese, but not ridiculously difficult to follow, although had I understood precisely what was happening I probably would have enjoyed it better. There was one scene with some dragons, which I found particularly impressive, but after a little while the singing and the swaying puppets began to wear thin. As a 45minute show, I think it could have done with being perhaps just 30minutes. I’m glad we saw it as we were there but gutted we ended up rushing our dinner for it.
Speaking of dinner – everyone had been craving pizza (obviously, I mean who comes to Asia and doesn’t crave Italian) so we found an authentic Italian restaurant called Mediterraneo. Owned by a genuine Italian guy, who made some great recommendations, I don’t think I’d seen everyone so content with their food! Pizza, pasta and smiles all round, we ate relatively quickly and head off.
Following the show, we decided to have a wander about and do a light bit of shopping. A new brand obsession meant we spent a lot of time pouring over clothing, across various market style shops and then some time seeking out the perfect piece of art to take home in remembrance of our time in Hanoi.
All in all my impression of Hanoi didn’t change hugely from the first time I was there, but we did come across less Hanoiese people, and those that we met were incredibly helpful and polite. As a city, there isn’t a huge amount to do in, but as a stop over on the way to Ha Long Bay or Sapa it’s perfect!
The next morning we made our way home to sunny Singapore – with a nice little upgrade for the parents. You should have seen the grins on those faces! The only thing we didn’t get to do was try egg coffee – so I guess we will have to find that on our next trip to another part of Vietnam!
