Vietnam Revisited

It is just over ten years since we last visited Vietnam. 2003/4 Christmas time to be precise. We'd already spent the previous two Christmases in Vietnam, and travelled both north and south so we weren't planning another visit. In fact we were all set to fly out to Cuba, but Dad passed away on the very same day we were flying out (8/12/03).


However, we had a house full of overseas friends who we'd arranged to house sit for us, so we needed and wanted to go somewhere. So we plumped for Vietnam again as it was easy to plan at short notice and that was our third visit.

So here we are a decade later, older, greyer, and I hope a bit wiser back, in the streets of the Old Quarter, Hanoi. From what we've experienced so far, it hasn't changed too much. Certainly not in any negative ways. Hanoi is still as charming as ever - the people are just as friendly and ready to have a laugh. They are still making their living on the streets, doing everything from fixing shoes, selling beer, cutting hair, frying donuts - you name it and someone's doing it or selling it!

The tourists have changed though.Ten years ago it was mainly backpackers and quite a lot of French tourist groups. Now the Old Quarter appears to be full of gap year students, parents with young children and middle aged, middle class couples (I guess that's us now.......) however, our love affair with Hanoi continues unabated!

We enjoyed a painless 06:30 flight from KL to Hanoi. We are still traveling with only our hand luggage but Air Asia can be quite strict about any excess luggage, so they can make up a few schekles on the $2 airfares, so we stuffed lots of stuff into our pockets! We needn't have worried, as not only did they not bother to weigh our hand luggage, other passengers brought truck loads of gear as hand luggage.

Our plane landed early, passport was smooth sailing and we were ensconced in our hotel by 10:30. The Serene hotel is adorable. It only has14 rooms so the staff greet us profusely by name, every time we appear. Breakfast is enormous and every day a new fruit basket appears in our room. They really can't do enough for us! We even have a desk top computer in our room and super fast Wifi.  

I LOVE boutique hotels - Sheraton Smeraton! I'll say it again...  It seems the less you pay, the more services and service you get!

The lovely staff, at Hotel Serene

We spent our first afternoon in Vietnam, at a bar, overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake, where we had spent many a hour or three on our previous visits. The bar is on the edge of the old quarter overlooking not only the Lake but also a crazy roundabout which everyone drives around in any direction they fancy!

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi

Older, greyer, wiser?

less bikes, more cars, just as crazy

We had a few beers and wines, a lovely dinner and an early night (knackered after getting up at 2.45).

Our first full day we wandered around the Old Quarter, walked over to West Lake, listened to some truly awful karaoke and finished the day with a massage. Well I had a massage - Richie was whisked off to another room and so he tells me - spent the hour fighting off the "happy ending" offer and trying unsuccessfully to hang onto his underpants! We did leave in rather a hurry and with no tip - I might add!

We spent a fun afternoon, drinking beer on a street corner in the Old Quarter. The stools are about 2" above the ground. The beer was twenty five cents a glass!! I'll just repeat that - .25c a glass! Our bill came to $2  - my mind was blown! Richie, as is his way, had great fun chatting to the Vietnamese men, who stop off for a drink, on the way home from work. The Vietnamese love him (so do the Vietnamese massage girls apparently ...hmmmm).

all the .25c beers you can drink

Beer o'clock at beer corner

We paid our respects to Uncle Ho again - but only from a distance this time - mainly because the visiting hours for his Mausoleum are 0830-1030 and the Ajayi's also don't do early mornings - anyway once you've seen dead Uncle Ho, you don't need to see him again .... I don't think he will have improved with time.

Ho Chi Minh memorial

Father of the nation, Uncle Ho 

Changing of the guard

We found a neat little restaurant, called Gecko, for dinner, then it poured with rain, so it was straight home. I've taken to drinking the local Dalat wine - it's really not bad - so we bought a bottle today from a lovely little wine shop near the lake. I lashed out and got the 150,000VD ($7.50 Aud) premium bottle!

I'd remembered that we visited St Joseph's Cathedral before, so we headed back there, as it used to be a good place for coffee and cakies. However, we got royally lost and ended up on the other side of the Lake. We eventually found it and lo and behold - another Gecko restaurant. We sat on the second floor overlooking the street and watched a large group of Spanish women descend on a street vendor. I googled the vendor (Quan Hoc Du) and discovered it was very popular with tourists and locals alike, for their Banh Goi - fried dumplings.

St Josephs Cathedral

yum Banh Goi

So of course down we went and joined the crowd, lowered our butts down to the very very low small stools and enjoyed a beer and some fried Banh Goi with the locals. 

Happy as larry, eating on the street

Just about to tuck in and a giant rat ran past the old lady, next to us and under Riches stool. She screamed and jumped up, Richie screamed and jumped up (he says it was more "WTF") but trust me he screamed like a little girl! and everyone started shouting at once. 

5 minutes later............ it wasn't me screaming at the rat, it was HIM!

The old lady thought it was hilarious - and so did everyone else. The giant rat disappeared into the huge Banyan tree behind us and we all settled back down for our meal. The old lady regaled to all and sundry who walked past with the tale of Richie screaming at the rat!

The Ajayi's First Cruise.
We ummed and ahhhhed as to whether we wanted to do a one or two night trip to Halong Bay. We've never been on a cruise because we are grumpy so and so's and don't like the idea of being stuck in a group.

Heritage listed beautiful Halong Bay

Our cruise liner of choice

So after a lot of deliberation we decided on a one night, slightly more luxuriously priced cruise. We booked through our hotel and it couldn't have been easier. We seem to take the easy options in our old age - I guess we've done the hard yards and have nothing to prove to ourselves any more.

Bus picked us up on time, stopped at about 5 hotels to collect the rest of the group - about 15 in all. The last group - a couple of Pakistani honeymooners were late - which set the tone for the whole trip - we ran a tab on who would always be last and it was always them - possibly they were busy in their cabin!

Our cabin and our premium Dalat wine, only the best for the Ajayi's!

Am I on a cruise? I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!

Several wines later, listening to the party boats across the water

The tour guide Treng, was an absolute delight - really cut our for the job - young, energetic and very patient. Three hour, painless bus ride to Halong Bay, then transferred to our boat for lunch and start of the cruise. The cabin was really nice and we had our own balcony. The drinks were expensive but we'd been clever and bought our bottle of Premium Dalat with us - actually it wasn't too bad a drop.

Views of the cave - it was pretty fabulous....

So following the itinerary - we had lunch, did a tour of a floating pearl farm, came back to the big boat, had a rest, drinks on the sun deck, enjoyed cooking lesson, dinner and the we retired to our balcony for more drinks. The balcony was my favourite part of the cruise. We were surrounded by other boats and were serenaded by some tuneful and not so tuneful  karaoke drifting across the water from the other boats.

Side trip to the pearl farm, accompanied by the sound track of gobbing and hawking from our guide - lovely! 

Caught cooking - worth the cost of the cruise alone!

Look what I made!

Second day we had breakfast at 0700 - not our favourite time of day, tour of the big cave - that was pretty fabulous and back to the boat for lunch. All in all, it was a fun experience but dining at separate tables - like an Agatha Christy seaside mystery, being told when, where and how, and waiting for other people - definitely not my thing. We've always done independent travel - moving, eating and meeting whomever we choose, that's probably why we find packaged holidays or cruises so restrictive. Still we came, we tried......can't say we conquered but we gave it a good shot!

Table for two

Isn't it romantic

So back in Hanoi, we were greeted like long lost family by the ever so delightful staff at The Serene Hotel, settled back into our old room and ready for a nights partying. Ng, our lovely receptionist had recommended we try the famous Vietnamese egg coffee - sounded interesting, if not very nice - so we set off with our trusty map. We've been having endless trouble finding our way around Hanoi this time, I think it's a combination of things - relying on the GPS too much, getting confused about which direction we are facing and having old eyeballs that can't focus properly!

Egg Coffee, surprising delicious, think coffee creme egg...

ummmmm egg coffee

Anyway I put on my reading glasses, took control of the maps and finally found the Egg Coffee place, Fritz Cafe. After a great deal of whirling and beating noises from the kitchen we got our coffees. May I say, they were indeed delicious - sought of like a very rich cappuccino - my new favourite thing - it's made of filter coffee and topped with egg yolk and sweetened condensed milk beaten within an inch of its life. The only thing that would improve it might be a wee drop of whiskey!

After the successful use of the map, we decided just to relax and get lost and see what we could find. Brilliant strategy - we found a tasty little noodle cafe - dried fish noodle soup was all they served and it was lovely - just enough chilli to make your mouth sing but with subtle flavours. 

Famous Pho

We also lucked onto the street corner with the brewery Bia Hoi, a newish tiny micro brewery on the corner of Bat Dan and Duong Thanh. We had previously researched it but had given up any hope of finding it and voila - there it was. 

Micro Brewery, Bat Dan Corner

Had a great evening moving between places on both sides of the street. We ended up knocking back 3 bottles of 300ml Vodka, at $2.50 per bottle, (plus a couple to take aways as well!) roasted pigeon, boiled peanuts and chilli sweetcorn and watched the world go by. We are just loving the street vibe going on, the best part is not knowing exactly what's going on - we just make up our own version of reality!

Take aways

Roasted Pigeon and fried sweet corn for dinner, pigeon wasn't a great success!

Eating sweet corn with chop sticks - expert!

Roasted pigeon with face!

Several vodkas later

and one more for the road

If they start to look attractive..... it's time to go home!

We are about to head of to the train now. Overnight train from Hanoi to Hue. We depart at 7pm and arrive at 7am. We are stocked up on iced coffee, cakies and vodka. Richie assures me it will be a very romantic train ride!