A big dream and a big world: Vietnam <3

Hey y'all! :)

I'm sorry for not writing for so long, but I just didn't have th time during the past few days. That's due to the fact that we can only stay in Vietnam for 15 days and have a lot to do and see in this short time. So this post will be a little less text and more pictures. ;)

Anyways, we arrived safely in Hanoi on the 25th of November. We were picked up at the airport and brought to our hotel. We stayed in the An Hotel (we had met a Vietnamese Au Pair in Germany and her friend Clark works in that hotel , so he arranged our stay there). Clark was so friendly and helpful and even spoke some German!

On the first evening, we met with a travel agent, Ms. Hoa, with whom we had texted on facebook previously. She had arranged a tour to halong bay and a 2-day trekking tour in Sa Pa for us.

The next day, we were picked up from our hotel by a mini bus. We drove towards halong Bay, and in the middle of the way there, our bus stopped and we were told that, unfortunately, the trip got canceled because of bad weather conditions... so we drove all the way back to Hanoi. Luckily, we have a SIM card here and could text Ms. Hoa right away. she managed to get us on a tour to Sa Pa which left on that evening and told us that we could go to Halong Bay afterwards.

The rest of the day we spent with Clark and a friend of his. We went to the museum of ethnicities, which was really interesting! We learned a lot about the culture and traditions of the Vietnamese people. Afterwards we had dinner on the side of a street. We sat on tiny plastic chairs around a tiny plastic table and had some typical rice noodles with veggies, it was delicious!!

In the evening, we were picked up by a sleeper bus which would bring us to Sa Pa, in the north of Vietnam. The bus ride during the night was pretty ok because the seats were somewhat comfy and we could actually sleep. :D

When we arrived in Sa Pa in the morning, we were dropped off at a hotel where we had breakfast. Then, a young Vietnamese woman, wearing traditional clothes, introduced herself as our tour guide for the next two days. Along with 13 other tourists and some more local young girls and women, we followed her on a muddy trek through the rice fields. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous!!! The mountains surrounding us were so green and covered by rice terraces.

Unfortunately, it had rained the day before and the path was very slippery. Even though the locals helped us a lot, Sofie and I decided to play Domino and slide downhill in the dirt. Our clothes got dirty, by luckily, we didn't hurt ourselves. :)

After an exhausting hike, we arrived in a small village where we had lunch. Then we continued our hike to the next village were our accommodation for the night was located. We stayed in a homestay, run by a local family. It was very nice!

On the next morning, we had breakfast at the homestay before we continued our hike through the rice fields. This time, we didn't walk as much and arrived around 12:30pm in a little village. After we had a very good noodle soup for lunch, we were picked up by a mini bus and brought back to Sa Pa. From there a large sleeper bus took us back to Hanoi.

The trip to Sa Pa was amazing and so worth it! The nature is just gorgeous!! :)

We spent one more night in our hotel in Hanoi, and on the next morning, we left for our cruise in Halong Bay. A mini bus drove us all the way there and luckily, the tour wasn't not canceled like the first time. Yay! ;)

We arrived at the harbour and got onto our cruise ship. It was not very big, it had room for like 30 people. The three of us got the nicest room on the top deck (thanks to our dear Ms. Hoa!!).

First of all, we had a delicious lunch in the board restaurant. Tofu, veggies, rice, fish, meat, salad, and extra for us vegetarians: some weird-looking purple and white balls (later we found out that those were rice cakes XD).

During the lunch, we were already driving through the gorgeous bay with its thousands of little islands. It was so beautiful! I have never seen anything like it before. :)

After enjoying the amazing view on the sun deck, we went with a little boat to one of the islands. There was the so-called "surprising cave". The cave was really nice, but packed with tourists...

Then, we had some time to kayak around the islands, which was a lot of fun!

In the evening, we enjoyed a dinner buffet and watched the lights of the many other cruise ships that had anchored around the same spot.

On our second day in Halong Bay, we had breakfast on the boat and went to a pearl farm afterwards. There, we had a little guided tour in which we learned about the different kinds of oysters and how pearls are farmed. Interesting! (Except for the fact that 85% of the oysters die during the process...)

After visiting the farm, we had lunch and drove back to the harbour where we were picked up by a mini bus to go back to Hanoi.

I liked the trip to Halong Bay even more than the trip to Sa Pa because the scenery was just so breathtaking! I could have spend several days there, just driving through the bay on the boat. <3

We arrived around 6pm in Hanoi, went to the hotel, relaxed a little, and then we met up again with Clark and some of his friends. They were all studying German at the university here in Hanoi, and it was fun to talk in German with them. :) Together, we went to try out some more typical Vietnamese food on the street. During the meal, we told each other about different aspects about German and Vietnamese culture, people, etc. it was so cool!!!

On our last day here in Hanoi, we went with Clark and Ly, one of his friends, to the literature temple. The temple was very nice and filled with young Vietnamese people, dressed in traditional clothes. Our friends told us that those were university graduates who would always come here to take yearbook pictures. And the temple sure does provide a nice background for good pictures! :)

After we finished walking through the campus of the temple, we went to a little restaurant where we (again) ate some typical Vietnamese food. For desert, we went to another little cafe. We had literally no idea what they even had on the menu (everything was in Vietnamese), but luckily our friends translated for us. We decided on sticky rice with a caramel sauce which turned out to be an amazing choice!

We then returned to the hotel, packed our stuff, and said goodbye to our friends. They have made our stay here even better, we were so thankful!!

A taxi brought us to the bus station where we had to wait for some time until the sleeper bus arrived at 9pm. We only had to drive about 1,5 hours to our next destination, Ninh Binh.

There, we took a taxi to get to our homestay in a village called Tam Coc. The homestay was amazing, we had our own room and bathroom, free breakfast and free bike rental. For $7 each!!

On the next morning, we enjoyed a delicious noodle soup for breakfast and then took bikes to drive to the harbour of Tam Coc. There, we got into a tiny boat made of tin. A Vietnamese man sat in the back and paddled us (with his feet!) along the river. The river flowed through a valley that looked a lot like Halong Bay on land. We were surrounded by huge boulders and rice fields, awesome!! On the way, we drove through three little caves and saw many different animals, including pigs, goats, and ducks. The locals drove around in tiny tin-boats as well. Some woman had a range of snacks set up on their boats which they tried to sell to the tourists. Luckily, we were early and didn't see a lot of other tourists. The drive was very peaceful and quite, we loved it! :)

After getting back to the harbour, we rode our bicycles back to the homestay where we had lunch and relaxed a little. Then, we picked up the bikes again to go to the Mua Temple which was about 2km away. The temple was located atop of one of the tallest boulders. We had to climb 459 stairs (we counted) to get there. It was really worth it because we had an amazing view over the valley (from this morning) and over the city Ninh Binh. The temple itself was small, consisting of a hut with a statue inside and a stone dragon on the rocks. It looked really cool though! :) We stayed up there for some time and enjoyed the fantastic view before we climbed down and visited a small cave on the foot of the little mountain. It was nice, not very exciting though.

When we got back to our homestay, we had some time left before we had to go to the bus station. So we used the time to plan, relax, and have dinner.

At 7:30pm a car brought us to the bus station. Our bus to Hoi An departed around 9pm, so we had to wait on the pavement until then.

When the bus arrived, we were glad that we got good seats right away because we had a 16-hour long drive ahead of us. Sounds horrible, but we actually were able to sleep during most of the time, so it wasn't that bad.

We arrived in Hoi An around 1pm the next day. We got out of the bus and got a little shock because it was very humid and hot! (In the north, we had around 10-20 degrees...)

First, we walked to the Cloudy Homestay (we hadn't booked in advance, but luckily, they had three beds left for us), where we unpacked and rested for a while.

Then, we went to an amazing vegetarian local restaurant for lunch. We were in foo heaven and overwhelmed by all the different dishes. ( so far, it proved to be kind of difficult to get vegetarian food here in Vietnam) I had a traditional noodle soup with wonton dumplings, so yummy! :)

After we finished our lunch, we took our bikes and drove toward the city Centre of Hoi An. We parked the bikes, and walked around the old quarter which the city is famous for. The streets were packed with souvenir shops, street food stalls with all kinds of fried delicacies, and tailor shops (another thing Hoi An is famous for).

Originally, we had planned to cross the river and walk around the other half of the old quarter. However, we found out that the streets near the river and the bridge were completely flooded. The ground floors of entire shops and restaurant were underwater, but the locals didn't seem too concerned about it. (Apparently, they face floods very often during the months of October-December.)

Instead of crossing the river, we continued to walk around the city centre and shopped in the local stores. Everything was so neat and inexpensive! If we didn't have to think about space and weight in our backpacks, we would probably have bought a lot more. :D

In the evening, we went to a small restaurant were we ate "Banh Mi", a traditional Vietnamese dish. Banh Mi is actually a baguette with various veggies, optional meat, egg, cheese, and a sauce. Doesn't sound very Vietnamese, however, its existence dates back to the colonial times when the French occupied Vietnam.

On our second day here in Hoi An, we had planned to participate in a free bike tour around the city, run by local college students. Sadly, the tour was cancelled due to the flooding... Since there wasn't a whole lot to do here, we slept in, ate breakfast at our homestay, and went to explore the old quarter again. On the way, we discovered a small market and food hall, where we tried "Mi Quang" and "Banh xeo". (See on the pictures below)

Afterwards, we strolled through the streets and bought some souvenirs. Taddi actually went into a tailor shop and got a jumpsuit. The lady took her measurements and sew the jumpsuit for her in just one hour, so cool!! :)

Before we had to go back to the homestay and pick up our backpacks, we went to the same vegetarian restaurant as yesterday. Sofie and I had a local foods menu with fried wontons, cao lao (a special noodle dish), white rose dumplings, and spring rolls. Delicious!!! :)

Back at the homestay, we grabbed our back packs and our now on the way to the bus station. Our next stop will be Da Lat, a 20-hour drive from here... hope we'll survive that XD.

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Annette