Reset search
Vietnam 2023Vietnam 2023
SatelliteEdit route

Vietnam 2023

November 2023
A 21-day adventure by Mackie & Jane Read more
  • 8footprints
  • 1countries
  • 21days
  • 76photos
  • 4videos
  • 15.2kkilometers
  • 12.5kkilometers
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • Vietnam 2023
    1
    113111
    Day 4–5

    First full day!!

    November 10, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Day 1 in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City is crazy. We woke up at like 4:00 am in the Hanoi airport pod hotel, got an early morning airport pho and then boarded our flight to Ho Chi Minh City. We got there at around 8 am and went right to our hotel to drop off our bags. Then we wandered around sweating and trying to not get killed by all the motorcycles. We went to the old post office, book street, the fancy 5 story mall, the café apartments for a couple coffees and had some banh mi. Then we checked in around 2, rested for a bit before going for some amazing pho and a delicious coconut!! We finished the day off at a local craft brewery called Pasteur Street Brewing with surprisingly good beers!!

    Also I got elephant pants!!!    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    3
    Day 5

    Ho Chi Minh City day 2

    November 11, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Today we got up nice and early thanks to the jet lag and got our free hotel breakfast (picture 1) before setting out to the cu chi tunnels. We got a guided tour around what a village would’ve looked like during/before the Vietnam war, and then through some of the tunnels. There’s like 250km of underground tunnel systems in this area several meters underground fully equipped for living in with underground water wells, kitchens, living spaces, command centre as well as booby traps. People lived underground for years during the war and it’s how they kept the Americans out of this area!

    There was also a beautiful temple there to honour the fallen soldiers

    After we got back we set out to go to a restaurant that Jane had chosen but turns out that place is gone so we went to the street food market and had: hu tieu bo kho (amazing beef noodle soup with carrot), salad rolls, bbq squid and this crispy pancake thing. Food was amazing and for dessert we tried a coconut avocado ice cream + a regular coconut ice cream. They put the ice cream in coconut shells and gave us the coconut water in a bottle on the side!

    Another early night as we are still jet lagged and have an early flight in the morning.    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    141
    Day 6

    Hoi An day 1

    November 12, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    6am wake up
    8am flight
    10:00ish arrival, flight had to circle the runway a few times because of heavy rains.

    We immediately found the weather much less hot and humid. Back in Ho Chi Minh even 6am was very hot and humid.

    When we arrived in da nang the Grab we booked (Uber in Vietnam) wasn’t moving for like 15 minutes so people kept heckling us to take their cab instead.

    We ended up cancelling and booking a Vinfast taxi for the hourish drive from da nang to hoi an, which showed up right away.

    We got to our hotel at about 11, dropped off our bags and walked down to the old part of the town. Hoi an is much smaller and calmer than Ho Chi Minh but even so it’s still Vietnam..

    We walked around the old town and found a nice little restaurant and ate: crispy wonton, white rose dumplings, cao lau, and chicken rice (com ga). A lot of the streets there were like alleys so only motorcycles and people could navigate them, and fruit and vegetable vendors had set up all along the sidewalk so basically motorcycles were just honking their way through the crowds.

    We also found a little tea shop and got a little Vietnamese tea and a teacup!

    The main event though.. Hoi An is famous for having the cheapest tailored clothing in the world, we went a little tiny bit crazy and got custom tailored dresses, shirts, 3 pairs of custom made shoes, pants and I got new linen pants and a full suit!! We need to buy a new bag now. We’ll go back tomorrow to try them all on and see if they need any alterations.

    We finally checked in around 4 to our beautiful little 3rd floor walk up on the river, and then went for dinner just down the street.

    I’ll add more pics when I can get them from Jane    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    Day 7

    Hoi An Day 2

    November 13, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ 🌧 25 °C

    Today, the rainy weather changed our itinerary a little bit. Initially, we were gonna go to the Cam Thanh Coconut Village (with the basket boats) but it was thunder storming, so we had to change course. Instead, after our breakfast at the hotel, we went to the Thanh Hà Pottery Village. It’s a ticketed area with a bunch of pottery studios. Included in the ticket price (35k VND or $1.98 CAD), you can go around to the various studios and try making/shaping pottery, as well as receive a free gift from a designated studio. Afterwards, we tried a salt coffee (amazing!!) and Mackie bought some durian to snack on. Then, we headed back to the tailor to try on our new clothes!! We both had some minor adjustments, so we were told to come back a few hours later. We ate some lunch (bao buns and banh mi chào) before heading back to have a midday shower. On the way back, we also got a banana pancake and tried a coconut coffee (my new favourite!!). We then headed back to the market, this time to try on our new shoes. Mackie’s new sneakers fit perfectly, while mine had some adjustments. Afterwards, we went back next door to pick up our clothes, then we set out to buy a new backpack for our new clothes. In between, we went to a tea shop and Mackie got some black tea. We then found ourselves in the more touristy area of Hoi An, with all the boats and lanterns. It was super romantic! We found a restaurant on the riverside and ate at a table outside. We ordered some spring rolls, beef pho and steak and eggs (Viet style, of course). Our dinner was ended abruptly as I noticed a cockroach on the ground (it hid under a girl’s shoe and she had no idea 😵😭). Thankfully it was at the tail end of the meal. We walked back to our hotel and waited for our shoes to be delivered. The shoemaker was so incredibly nice! She came to our hotel yesterday because she had a question, and then offered to deliver our shoes. Not to mention she’s also 6-7 months pregnant!! We’re headed to bed early so we can head out to Da Nang in the morning. It’s almost 9pm, so fingers crossed we’ve finally beat the jet lag!!Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    111
    Day 8

    Da Nang

    November 14, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ 🌧 23 °C

    We got up nice and early, packed up and then got breakfast at the hotel. Then, around 9 we headed out to go to da nang. It was raining pretty much all morning.

    There was one thing we had planned for the day - Ba Na hills. This place is basically a theme park way up in the mountains, with a really long cable ride in.

    The first thing we did up there was enjoy a massive buffet - it was like 3 floors of just like wall to wall food, with just everything - western food, south East Asian food, Korean food, but after that we had to venture out into the rain.

    Now I’m sure the views were stunning but we spent the entire time basically in the clouds, with the heaviest rain either of us have ever experienced. We were basically walking around in several inches of water everywhere, staircases were waterfalls, sometimes it felt like we were trying to breathe underwater, but at some point you just give up trying to keep your birks dry and you just start splashing around in the puddles and honestly it was a fun day even if we were a bit disappointed.

    We finally checked into our hotel at about 4, and we mostly just wanted to warm up and dry off for a bit.

    We got some nice banh mi and fries for dinner    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    Day 9

    Hanoi day 1

    November 15, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Today we had a 7:40am flight from da nang to Hanoi, so we got up around 5:30 and got to Hanoi around 9:30. At the airport we had a quick bowl of pho before our flight

    We booked two back to back tours during the next 5 days through a hostel here called Cheers, basically tonight at 7:30 we’re heading out on a sleeper bus to ha giang.

    So we headed to the hostel to start off, dropped off our bags off there and confirmed the tour booking.

    We then went off exploring Hanoi! We walked around the main lake, stopped in at a really cute second story cafe and had coffees overlooking the busy street and lake.

    For lunch we went to this really fancy pizza place with these crazy pizzas we had one scallop pizza with a lemony cream sauce, and then one half like beef stir fry pizza, half prosciutto arugula with a huge burrata on top.

    After a massive lunch we needed to walk it off a bit, we ended up trying to find the famous train street, and found it after a lot of walking. It’s just train tracks going through an alley very close to the buildings on either side.

    We managed to find it about 40 minutes before the next train was scheduled to go past, they had chairs and temporary tables set up along the tracks and we had some fruit smoothies and spring rolls. At about 3:10 they told us to pay up before security came by, and then around 3:25 they collapsed our tables down and told us to get ready and turn to the side and tuck our legs in towards the wall because the train was about to come.

    We were expecting it to kind of slowly come past but it was this massive train and it just whizzed by! Everyone was cheering as it went. The train came just about a foot away from us (see video).

    Afterwards, we walked back towards the old quarter and roamed around the lake. We still had time to kill, so we went to Uniqlo (one of Jane’s favourite stores). To our surprise there was a coffee shop on the top floor!! I got an iced coffee to try and wake up since we were so tired. Just before going back to the hostel, we stopped and ate a snack at Burger King.

    Then at about 7, we headed back to the hostel, and had to wait for about an hour before we got on the sleeper bus. But finally our 5-day tour is underway!    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    Day 10–12

    Ha Giang Loop

    November 16, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Our 3 day, 2 night motorcycle tour just ended. We went through a little 200km loop in the central north of Vietnam riding on the back of a motorcycle. Each person had their own driver none of whom spoke English and the one tour guide who spoke pretty well for like 12 or 15 of us.

    On the first day we took a sleeper bus from Hanoi at about 9 and got to Ha Giang at around 3am. They let us sleep in a hostel for a few more hours, we got breakfast and then we got assigned to drivers and set off at about 9:30. Our drivers’ names were Mua and Say.

    We started that day in Ha Giang city and ended in a place called Dong Van at about 5. That first day was pretty cloudy and we went up into the mountains fairly high so it got quite chilly! We hadn’t really prepared for the cold so we were both under-dressed that first day. We had hot pot that night with some Australians and some European people and somehow none of them knew how hot pot worked so Jane and I were like teaching them how to do it.

    We were served a little bit of “happy water” a local vodka/moonshine thing out of a plastic pitcher. We later saw many people drying their corn crops out in the sun, and found out that they’re just using the corn to make happy water. No one really eats corn here but there sure are a lot of corn crops.

    On nov 17, the second day, we had a little breakfast of some eggs and bread and cucumber and tomato before setting off again. This day we did about 50km from Dong Van to Yen Minh, stopping at all sorts of view points including the beautiful sky walk and getting a nice big lunch again.

    We got to our home stay that afternoon at around 4 and then after we were shown to our little room, they took us to go swimming at a local waterfall. The water was really cold but very pretty!

    The homestay was like one big wooden house on stilts. There were a bunch of small bedrooms upstairs but the walls didn’t go to the ceiling so it wasn’t private or quiet. We got to rest a little after the waterfall and before dinner at 7.

    They served us a nice family style meal again and we had a couple beers. Once we’d eaten a bit then the drivers started coming around with more happy water, this time in old plastic water bottles, and leading everyone in doing shots, they have a little chant they had us do each time. It seemed fairly tame at first until the tour guide came over and had us do one shot for each different way to say cheers at our table! And then he just had us do a couple more.

    Then there was karaoke for an hour or two but they shut it down pretty promptly at 10:30ish. We were in a village after all, and the karaoke was just in the open air, and very loud.

    Day 3 started our a little rough but not too bad, they served us crepes for breakfast with a little fruit, and again some more beautiful vistas. We stopped in a little town and got to see some ladies making hemp clothing in the traditional way, and plenty more views and then the tour ended at about 3, back at the hostel in Ha Giang. From there we got a bus at about 4 and arrived back in Hanoi at around 10pm!

    Ha Long Bay next!    Read more

  • Vietnam 2023
    Day 13–14

    Ha Long Bay

    November 19, 2023 in Vietnam ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    The famous Ha Long Bay!

    Ok so the night we got back from the Ha Giang Loop, I left my phone on the big bus that took us to Hanoi that night. That bus dropped us about a half an hour away from our hotel, and we took a smaller bus into the city because the roads are small in Hanoi. I only noticed it was missing right when we were about to get off the small bus so we asked the small bus driver who didn’t speak any English what to do and he just gave us a phone number.

    We just went back to the hostel and asked the person working at reception if they could help. He just was very calm and said “I will call them, and when I have the phone in my hands I will come upstairs to your room, you can just go relax”

    Later that night he came upstairs and told us that when the driver wakes up in the morning, they’ll deliver the phone and we’ll just have to pay the driver basically $5.

    Sure enough, the next morning a motorcycle driver came by with my phone at 7:30 just in time to get it charged up for our 8:30 bus to ha long bay!

    The bus ride is about 2 hours from Hanoi, and we stopped at a pearl farm on the way. They showed us how they farm pearls and then tried to sell us some jewelry.

    After that we were at the harbour fairly quickly, waiting for our boat.

    We got on our boat around noon, had lunch pretty much immediately while we exited the harbour and went into the mountainous bay area.

    After lunch we went up to the rooftop to relax a little before we got to the cave - the biggest cave in ha long bay. It was really crowded with tourists but it was a massive cave, like as if the whole island had been hollowed out.

    After that we headed back to the boat, relaxed a little again and then we went to a little island with a beach and a little hike up to a view point. We did the hike and then went for a quick swim around sunset!

    Then it was back to the boat roof to watch the sunset and have a drink. After the sunset, we got dinner again, sat with an older French couple Jane (and to a lesser extent, I) got to speak a bit of French & we got a nice big meal again.

    After dinner there was a “squid fishing activity” which was mostly just holding a fishing rod in the water. The guide pretty much told us upfront we weren’t going to catch anything.

    We went to sleep fairly early that night to get up for the sunrise the next morning! We watched the sunrise, had a quick, early breakfast and then they took us to go for a little kayak.

    Then we went back to the harbour and had a final lunch on the boat.

    The bus back to Hanoi took another couple hours and we were back there by about 6:30. We left our bags with the hostel we had some really good bbq skewers in Hanoi, and then went to the train station that night for our sleeper train to Sapa.

    Even though it was crowded and touristy, this was an absolutely stunning cruise!    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English