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! 

Hoi An, Vietnam, one of our favorite cities in the world

Phillip and I are nearing the end of our six nights in Hoi An, Vietnam. This has been our third visit here (here in 2018 and 2023) and Hoi An remains a charming location with great people and a very walkable city area with its Old Town a designated UNESCO Word Heritage site. We are so fortunate to be able to stay in contact with Vi and her family, owners of Denovo Spa in Hoi An. Our first order of business here was to visit with them. Their hospitality and generosity know no bounds. They invited us to have lunch with them at the spa, a delicious beef curry that Tracey, Vi's sister-in-law prepared. We were so happy to meet Moon, Tracey's sister who had been traveling during our last visit. 

We didn't spend our entire time visiting with Moon, Tracey, Vi and the rest of the family, we also revisited locations in Hoi An, such as the river at night with its lanterns and brightly decorated boats.

Phillip got a haircut here. The barber did a good job.

Our hotel, the Hoi An Historic Hotel is quite nice with a large room. 

The grounds are extensive with a lot of outdoor seating in the shade. We will stay in this hotel again on our next visit to Hoi An. 

We ate tasty pho and bun cha.

On Monday, June 1, we took an ATV ride into the countryside. Phillip drove the 4-wheeler the entire tour so I could take pictures. It was evident that the 4-wheelers were not taken care of as well as we took care of ours when we had the ranch. 

The ride was still fun as we passed the bovine road maintenance workers.

We had seen the tractors working in the rice paddies, but this time, we saw one parked near the field and could really look at its rear tires, specifically designed for the flooded fields.

Our guide, Hau, took us on paths thru the rice paddies. They were narrow and sometimes rutted causing Phillip to have to work at steering the 4-wheeler so we didn't end up in the water-logged paddies.

We also went thru the jungle where we saw workers harvesting the trees in an area. I didn't catch the name of the trees, but they were harvested after four years of growth to be made into paper. 

Before the tour was complete, we came up behind the truck taking the harvested trees out of the jungle.

Phillip was the most experienced 4-wheeler driver of the group. We were also the oldest participants, so Hau had put us right behind her 4-wheeler. Several times, we had to stop so that the others could catch up with us! During one stop in the jungle, I noticed this guy on a nearby tree.

After a few hours of 4-wheelering, we returned to our starting point for a delicious barbecue lunch.

Moon invited us to her house for dinner on Tuesday. She lives fairly close to Denovo Spa, but she decided it was too far for us to walk so she took Phillip on her motorcycle and I rode with one of the other family members. 

Tracey, Moon, and the other sisters-in-law prepared a delicious meal! We were all stuffed when we finished. Vi sat next to me and kept sneaking more food into my bowl until I started covering it with my hand! They had watermelon, mango, apples, and dragon fruit for dessert. Phillip and I were so honored to be invited to join the family at their home for such a wonderful meal. 

Today, our last full day in Hoi An, we finally made it the 5 km to the beach. Hoi An is on the river that leads to the beach, but not on the beach itself like Danang is. We took a Grab from our hotel to Hoi An's Cua Dai Beach then walked north. 

Hoi An suffered a record-breaking flood last year, a typhoon brought 3.5 meters of water flooding into Hoi An. The beach area, however, also had wind damage. Not everything has been repaired yet at the beach.

We walked about three miles in the sand.

Once we had to leave the beach for a few hundred yards because construction equipment blocked access. The crane that was pounding in piers is visible in this picture.

We caught a Grab back to our hotel from An Bang Beach, considered Hoi An's northern beach even though it isn't close to Old Town. Now, having washed the sand off of us, we are relaxing in the air conditioning before we head out later for our last evening in Hoi An. Tomorrow, we take a car to the Danang Airport, a plane to Hanoi, and an overnight train to Sapa. Sapa is in the northern mountain area of Vietnam, and the daytime temperature is 77 degrees!