Four Days in Hanoi

Phillip and I moved on to the Philippines yesterday, but we spent a most excellent four days in Hanoi after our mountain time in Sapa. We stayed at the same hotel we booked for the past two trips to Hanoi, the Tirant Hotel. The staff is so friendly and accommodating, with two of them remembering us after three years! Each time we’ve been there, they have upgraded our room. This time was no exception as they put us in a suite. 

Every day during our Hanoi stay, we walked around Hoan Kiem Lake, which is less than two blocks from our hotel. Because we visited in June instead of May, the kids weren’t out in the park like before when they had school assignments to practice their English with tourists. The skies were overcast the first two days in Hanoi, so the temperatures were almost pleasant. However, the pictures during the cloudy days don't show how pretty the lake was.

The city still closes the ring street around the lake to traffic on the weekends so families can enjoy the lake. Phillip stood in the middle of the empty streets in the exact spot where he’s seen dance videos made on YouTube by young people. When he didn't start dancing, I just took a picture, not a video of him!  

An hour’s drive into the countryside outside of Hanoi, a cultural show, the Quintessence of Tonkin, is performed by local and professional dancers. We tried to see it when we were in Hanoi in 2023, but a storm made it too dangerous for the performers. We did get to see it on this trip. We arrived early enough to have dinner from food vendors and to watch kids play traditional games. Phillip is watching as the adults have bouncing long sticks that the kids are trying to jump thru.

The show was performed on a lake, with platforms just under the water that the performers used and various set pieces that moved up or in from the side.

Colored lights and lasers were used throughout the show.

Water puppets made an appearance!

One of my favorite parts was when the dancers twirled lighted dragonfly poles.  

Our seats were high, so we had a full view of the lake. During the finale, some of the performers were on the walkway between the seats and the lake. 

We arrived back near our hotel at about 10 pm and decided to join the evening family crowd walking around Hoan Kiem Lake on the closed streets. 

On Sunday, Phillip and I had another cooking class. We made papaya salad, fried spring rolls, and bun cha. Yes, we’ve made all of those in cooking classes before, but each instructor does things a bit differently. Our instructor for this class, Mango, did an excellent job explaining fruits and vegetables at the market. And I’m always amazed to see the tiny baby bananas inside a banana flower:

Two women from Malaysia also took the class. We made our salads first, shredding the green papaya and slicing and dicing the remaining ingredients. The Malaysian women made banana flower salad and we all made the bun cha. 

We sampled our salads as soon as they were made.

Bun cha is traditionally grilled and Mango had Phillip tend to the grilled meat while the other three of us fried the spring rolls. In the upper left of the photo, one of Mango's jackfruit trees is visible. 

And of course, we made more food than the four of us could eat, all of it delicious.

That evening, as it got dark, Phillip and I walked to the next street to the east of the hotel as we knew vendors set up in the street. We walked the six blocks of closed street as they were setting up, but the only thing we bought was a container of fresh jackfruit to snack on. By the time we were halfway back down that street, everyone had set up and was selling their wares: food, clothing, sunglasses, and all kinds of souvenirs.  

On Monday, we bid farewell to the staff at the Tirant Hotel, including the delightful Ms Na. 

Yesterday’s travel day was a long one as we flew from Hanoi to Hong Kong, changed planes, and flew to Cebu. About six hours of actual flight time, but an entire day devoted to travel. We had no problems during the flights and transiting in Hong Kong, although having to go back thru security screening at the Hong Kong airport even though we never left a secure area was a bit of a pain. We are in our last country before we fly home in 15 days.

Sapa: two nights in a mountainside cabin and one night of luxury

On Monday (June 8), we took a Grab car to our second stop in Sapa, a homestay in the mountains. Traveling about 7 km out of town, the trip to the homestay took just over 30 minutes. That calculated out to a travel speed of around 9 mph. The two-lane city street narrowed as we left town to a sometime paved or graveled or mud one-lane road that snaked along the sides of the mountains. 

We had a roundhouse bungalow at the Rock Garden Homestay, a one room, round cabin with a full bathroom built on the side of the mountain. 

Half of the wall was floor to ceiling glass, giving us a view down into the valley. It did take me a few minutes to get used to the panoramic vista and to cross at the foot of the bed to the left side of the room.

 

There were no restaurants around, but the Homestay prepared food to order for their guests and delivered it to our room.

The view was clear when we arrived, but the clouds would form and creep up and down the mountainside.

When we awoke Tuesday morning, the clouds were thick and the view was obscured. 

I planned to walk along the road and see the countryside, but soon after breakfast, it began raining, so we stayed in the roundhouse until the rain cleared in the afternoon. The rain turned the river at the bottom of the mountain brown as streams coming off the mountain and across the lowland fed muddy water into the river.

The road went uphill and downhill from our homestay spot, so we began our walk uphill so that the return would be downhill. We had already walked uphill from our cabin to the road.

We found a vantage point on the road to get a picture of our cabin jutting out the side of the mountain. The Homestay had two round cabins. Ours is the lower, closer one. 

We were amazed at the crops growing on the almost vertical hillside.

Corn was planted on the mountainside. I would not want to be the person to plant it or harvest it!

We saw chickens and chicks checking for bugs in the vegetation.

The following day, we returned to downtown Sapa for one night’s stay in the fanciest hotel in town, the Hotel de la Coupole. A pair of Filipina travel vloggers that Phillip watches stayed there so I booked us one night to check it out. The décor was of the French Indochina era, so it had bold colors and art deco elements.

The swimming pool was the highlight for us. Huge, with designs in the pool tile and statues of swimmers. We did go for a swim, as it was a heated pool. 

The exterior had French elements as well.

Sapa lived up to its nickname as City in the Fog, as this was the view to the mountains from where Phillip was standing on the hotel bridge.

Yesterday, we took a luxury van (only eight passengers, each in a captain’s chair with a massage function) for a 7-hour drive back to Hanoi. The trip was longer than we like for a single travel event, but the driver made two rest stops and the van was comfortable. We had 30 km of mountain passes to go thru when we left Sapa before we got to a main road. Terraced fields the entire way.

We are currently in Hanoi, staying at our favorite hotel here, the Tirant Hotel. As has been the case occasionally, I had booked a room, but upon check-in, we were upgraded to a suite! 

Sapa, the City in the Fog

I did not make up that title; it is on a monument in the town square. We have had pretty decent weather, but we have seen the fog.

Phillip and I took an overnight train from Hanoi to get here. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, but the clanking and clattering of the train on the track was indeed as noisy as reviewers said it would be. 

Phillip slept well enough that he was not tired when we disembarked the train in Lao Cai. Sapa was still an hour away, so I had arranged for a car shuttle. Our driver took a slight detour for us because the Vietnam/China border was just a mile from the train station. This is the border crossing into China, the closest we’ve been to that country.

Our car shuttle was early in the day, around 6:30 am when we left Lao Cai, so we drove in and out of clouds that had not burned off yet as the car went up and down the mountains.

We arrived too early to check in at our hotel, so we walked around Sapa for a bit. We found that town square with a round-a-about whose rules we could not discern other than “if you see an opportunity, take it.” We walked around a lake that could have used a few more benches, but it did have lovely views of the surrounding mountains. 

When we could check into our room, we were pleasantly surprised that we had been given a free upgrade. I booked a standard room, but they gave us a suite!

I’m sitting at that huge desk working on this blog while Phillip sits on the couch. The bedroom also has a wall of windows with a wonderful mountain view. 

We had a cooking class that evening, making bun cha.

The instructors were fine, but I didn’t ask for the recipe as I was not a fan of the flavor of this bun cha, too much fish sauce in the liquid and not enough spice in the meat. We still ate what we made, as it was good, just not great.

Yesterday (Saturday), we went on a full-day motor scooter ride into the mountains and thru several villages, about 60-80 km of motor scooter riding. As has happened frequently on this trip, I did not book a private tour, but because this is the shoulder season here, we were the only people for the tour. Phillip drove and I rode on the back of a 125cc scooter. Our guide, Tao, had his own scooter and went at our pace since it was just us. He took us to mountain overlooks with great views.

We visited two majestic waterfalls, the Silver Waterfall and the Love Waterfall. My favorite part of the Silver Waterfall was that we walked up the stairs to see the falls. Not the actual stairs, just that they were in the beginning of the trek.

The color of the water on the rocks is what caused the locals to call it the Silver Waterfall.

Tao pointed out that the locals were drawn here because cardamom grows wild in the area. These red berries are black cardamom, used in pho and meat dishes. It is different from green cardamom, originating in India, which is used in desserts and curries.

Our second waterfall to visit, the Love Waterfall, was a short ride away.

At this waterfall, we walked down steps, thru a valley, over and along a stream. Steps seem steeper when they are at the end of an activity!

The valley walk near the stream was very well done. Flat stones were very stable to walk on.

The air was moist and the rocks were wet, but I did not feel unstable walking at all.

And we were rewarded by the Love Waterfall, even if we did have to go back up steps after seeing it. 

More overlook stops for pictures

At this one, I got off the motor scooter and waited while Tao and Phillip (grey shirt, red scooter) drove to the middle of this narrow bridge for pictures. Too high and too narrow for me!

We drove thru the Muong Hoa Valley and saw many terraced fields. These are dedicated entirely to rice production.

Others used terracing for production of corn and other vegetables. 

We had a traditional lunch at one of the villages, with lots of food, more than we could eat. 

Phillip and I were tired by the end of the tour, but it had been a really good one, even if many of the roads we drove on were in disrepair. We drove thru that Sapa roundabout twice! We just followed Tao and hoped that other drivers could see that we weren’t locals. 

Tomorrow, we are moving to a homestay in a village for two nights. We will still be in Sapa, but our accommodation will be quite different from this hotel suite!