On day two of our Vietnam trip, we boarded a flight to Hanoi. I was excited to visit as I’d heard lots of positive things.
The temperature was certainly different - not ‘cold’ (given it was winter) but certainly a lot cooler - Michael was pleased.
Our first priority was to locate an egg coffee, which northern Vietnam is famous for. It sounds odd, but the mixture of egg yolk, condensed milk, sugar and coffee is absolutely delicious! Apparently this originated from a milk shortage during the war.
The coffee shop we visited had a nice view over the central lake in Hanoi.
Ho Hoan Kiem Lake is really lovely, it gives you a slight reprieve from all the traffic as you can walk around it without worrying about getting hit by a scooter.
In the middle of the lake is Ngoc Son Temple, which we walked across a little bridge to visit. It features traditional Vietnamese architecture and is dedicated to a famous war hero.
Walking around the Old Town was pretty chaotic, on the one hand there were hidden cafes and cute stores selling coffee and lanterns. One the other hand, there was minimal sidewalks, so you constantly need to watch out for scooters. As such, takes a lot of effort to navigate the city!
We grabbed drinks at a sneaky little rooftop bar and spent some time just watching the traffic madness from above. It is relentless!
For dinner, we were on the hunt for bun cha - a northern Vietnamese dish.
It has a rich, spicy, slightly tomato flavoured broth, rice noodles and charred pork patties and pork belly slices. It’s warm, filling and delicious.
Once again, we sat on tiny plastic stools on the side of the street to eat our dinner. I was really starting to enjoy this style of eating!
We also got some spring rolls because… when in Vietnam!
The following day we headed off to our two night stay in Bai Tu Long Bay. This is the neighbour of the more well know Ha Long Bay - both of which are World Heritage sites known for their limestone formations and blue-green waters.
We had lunch on board (there was an endless stream of dishes) before we cruised to our overnight spot.
We chose to go to Bai Tu Long Bay with Swan Cruises as it’s supposed to be a quieter area and a restricted number of boats are permitted to enter the waters in day. We were in luck - we barely saw another boat.
Our room even included a little balcony, which we made use of!
We then went on a little kayaking trip to a ‘secret beach’ - and it was chilly! Don’t be fooled by the sunshine, it looks lovely but it wasn’t warm out!
It was so amazing to be sleeping on a boat with such a beautiful environment right outside our window!
Our second day at sea involved a little day trip in a smaller boat (I read online that the cruise boats are only permitted to anchor one night at a time, so they have to return to port each day - plus, passengers stay for different lengths of time, so they’ve got to be dropped off).
We visited a cave, which we had to walk through in order to access a secluded beach called Tra Gioi Beach.
In order to access the cave, we were supposed to kayak but after how chilly we had gotten from getting wet the day before, we ended up tipping one of the canoe guys to take us on his raft.
We also saw lots of little floating fisherman’s villages along the way.
We got lucky as only one other pair joined us, so it felt very exclusive being just the four of us touring around (along with a guide and more staff running the boat than passengers on board). We had lunch with the other pair and, one again, the food was endless and delicious! They certainly weren’t under feeding us!
I honestly just enjoyed sitting on the top deck of the boat and admiring the limestone karst landforms tower over us as we passed by them.
Due to our cabins location at the back of the boat, we had our own deck but we were lucky to be woken each morning bright and early by the start of the boat’s engine! Ah, the serenity.
On a final morning we visited a view point that had views out over the bay, and walked through another cave - Thien Canh Son Cave.
I’ll be honest, I had to look up the names of these caves and beaches retrospectively - we were just going with the flow and enjoying being chaperoned around!
We were brought back to the dock, then back to Hanoi in a minivan. It was a long transit day, but worth it to enjoy such an amazing experience!
Back in Hanoi, we sought out some Pho for dinner (pronounced fa in Vietnam). I’m a huge pho fan (especially in the winter) and this did not disappoint.
It seemed like everyone on the cruise, including us, caught a cold that was going around - so we did take a day or two hiatus for touristing to lie in bed watching Netflix in order to recover.
We were lucky as we had a great little Airbnb - it had a really long, somewhat unnerving alleyway entrance though!
Our first day back out and about in Hanoi post-colds was then pretty laid back. We started by visiting The Note Coffee - which has post it notes stuck to every wall / surface available.
We added our own!
Turns out that each weekend the road around Ho Hoan Kiem Lake becomes a walking street (no scooters, yay), so we spent some time wandering around.
Whilst having a break, we were approached by a teacher and some school children and asked if they could practice their English with us. They were really sweet and gave us lollipops and little pipe cleaner flowers as thank you gifts.
As I write this, I’m starting to realise that a lot of our travels revolve around eating… speaking of which, I’d watched a YouTube video that recommended a restaurant called Hidden Gem Cafe. It was a really funky vibe, but not so hidden as it was pretty busy! We ordered a sample platter of banh mi, spring rolls and rainbow noodles. As well as coffee - which has been mind blowingly great so far!
The next day was Christmas Day and what better way to spend it than with a food tour! Yep, I can confirm that much of our travels definitely do revolve around food!
It was supposed to be a group tour - but we were the only two that had booked, so it was just us and a lovely guide!
We had so much incredibly tasty food that I’m not sure where to begin - I might just label each photo!
Bahn mi (a staple)
Fresh spring rolls
Crispy shrimp, fried spring rolls, sweet donuts and salty donuts
I have no idea what this was called, but it came wrapped in a banana leaf - it was a ball of warm sticky rice with meat on the inside.
Also not sure what this was, our guide spoke to a seemingly random woman on the side of the road who proceeded to pull it out of an esky. It was crushed rice, warm, again with some meat on the inside.
Bun cha
Vietnamese donuts - my god, these are amazing!
Egg coffee (dessert)
We also walked through lots of markets and cute little backstreets.
The food tour was amazing - there was so much food and it was all delicious!
After eating half our body weight, we decided to walk some of it off and ventured to the Temple of Literature. It’s dedicated to Confucius (the Chinese philosopher) and was later the site of the first university in Vietnam.
The altars are popular among students praying for good grades and the grounds are often a backdrop for graduation photos.
I’ve included some of the informational signage below.
In the evening we headed to a Water Puppet show - it was kind of fun but kind of bizarre (nowhere near as bizarre as the Robot Restaurant in Japan…). It was all in Vietnamese and kind of told a bunch of little stories. I didn’t take photos of video because the people doing that were blocking everyone’s view and angering the people behind them.
On a bit of a whim, we thought we may as well see if any restaurants were open along Train Street. Signage outside the street said it was closed, and a lot of our google searches indicated the same - turns out the signage was a bit perfunctory. Train Street was definitely open!
It’s pretty wild - tourists and shopkeepers walk all over the train tracks, but as soon as the bell goes (signalling the train is coming) all the staff as quick to usher everyone off the tracks and into their shops. From there, everyone watches in awe as these huge trains pass within less than a metre of the shops and onlookers. It was unreal!
It also had such a fun vibe - there was music playing and people out having drinks. We hung out for a while and watched two trains pass. It felt pretty mad, but fun and unique! It was a great way to spend our final evening in Hanoi.
I had such a great time in Hanoi and on Bai Tu Long Bay - I’d definitely love to spend more time exploring this region.
