Hanoi & Surrounds (Ha Long Bay & Ha Giang Loop)

We left the amazing Thailand and entered Vietnam via Hanoi. Vietnam has been on our list for some time as we love the food, it seems as though it has an amazing mix of natural beauty, and the people are renowned for their friendliness and warmth. Hanoi and the surrounding areas was a lovely introduction into Vietnam for us!! The weather was a lot cooler than we had previously experienced, with us not seeing the sun for the first 9 days in Vietnam, but we were lucky that there was no shortage of shopfronts selling knock-off North Face & Patagonia gear.

Hit List

La Beaute Boutique Hotel & Spa. Our accommodation and base whilst in Hanoi. They were very friendly and were so helpful, providing us with a double sided A4 page of places to eat/drink as well as a guide to crossing the road & bartering. Very handy upon arrival into a new country!!!
- Breakfast was included and their Chicken Pho was amazing!!
Cyclo tour & Hanoi Foodie tour – Chantals twin sister organised an awesome day out for us on our first full day in Hanoi/Vietnam, where we had an hour long cyclo tour around the lake, a 5 stop food/eating tour through the old quarter, concluding with a massage. It was a great way to suss out the city and identify places to return to throughout our stay. Specifically, Rice paper roll resto
The Note Café. Featuring heaps on Instagram is this funky café near the lake, which has 3 levels and overlooks the main intersection at the north end of the lake. Coffee is reasonably priced, and at each table they have a plethora of post-it notes for people to leave behind. There are some inspirational, funny, quirky, slightly offensive and downright strange messages for you to peruse during your morning brew.
Egg Coffee. Originating in Hanoi, it was recommended by our accom to try Café Giang in the Old Quarter – it is said that Egg Coffee (which is black coffee topped with a dense mixture of whipped egg yolk whipped, sugar and condensed milk) originated in this café in the 1940s
Train street – I saw this on socials about 10 years ago and it has been somewhere I have wanted to visit and photograph for some time. It was a bit chaotic finding a café to park up at, but once we were seated it wasn’t long until a train rolled past about 50 cm away from our faces.
La Casta cruises. For Chantals 40^th we did an overnight cruise on Ha Long bay. Whilst the weather wasn’t great, the ship and hospitality were amazing. Included on the boat was a heated spa on the back deck, which copped a work out from Finn. After a few birthday drinks we made friends with a Mongolian Tour Group and sang/danced into the evening which was great fun.
Ha Giang Loop. We booked this tour for Camo’s 40^th, and was a 3 day tour through the Northern-most part of Vietnam. We booked through Authentic Ha Giang Loop Bike Tours – with this trip traditionally being done on the back of a motorbike. This would’ve been challenging to say the least with Finn, and having an old open top army jeep was probably the best way to do it, as we were able to spread out (relatively speaking) in the back, take a heap of photos/videos, and stay dry throughout. There were a number of other wonderful people on our tour who were on a motorbike, but I feel that the jeep was the best way to do it!!
- First night we stayed in Dong Van – only 3 km from the Chinese border. We were that close to the border that Chantals watch & phone changed to Chinese time (1 hour back). This was Camos birthday and our awesome guide (Hiew) and driver (sir) took the crew out for a few beers which escalated into a basement karaoke bar session. Karaoke featured throughout the trip (with our driver belting out some backstreet boys at one of our morning coffee stops on the side of the road.)
- The drive on Day 2 from Dong Van to Meo Vac was nothing short of spectacular.
- The scenery throughout the entire road trip in fact – was absolutely stunning.
Hanoi Hilton – it was worthwhile exploring the old prison and learning about the history of not only the Hanoi POW camp, but the history of the prison pre-dating the Vietnam war
Shoe clean – for $2AUD we both got our sneakers cleaned whilst we enjoyed an afternoon juice, and they came up looking brand new!!

Shit List

The incredibly narrow sidewalks of Hanoi old quarter. Once you get used to dodging motorbikes and buses it gets a bit easier, but the first few days with Finn was slightly stressful!!
On our return from Ha Giang, Im not sure how it eventuated but our bus picked up a local for the 5 hour drive to Hanoi. We were seated at the front of the bus and there was a massive mattress style setup where the driver said (via google translate) that Finn could sleep as it was an evening shuttle. The local parked up there, made herself comfortable throwing my bag and jumper behind her and settled in half resting on Finns seat behind me. In so many words I got her to collect my things and neatly place them next to Chantal who was on the other side of said mattress. Not long into the tirp old love decided to get very comfortable and rest her head in Finns lap. Again, but in not so many words I asked her wtf she was doing – and she shrugged it off and tried to get back to sleep. It seemed as though she wasnt picking up on my frustration, so I was very blunt the second time around and she quickly got the point and left Finn in peace for the rest of the trip. This bus trip got more bizarre as we entered Hanoi (about 9pm), as our driver was following google maps which took him down ‘beer street’. Hanoi traffic is fkn nuts as it is, but having the front seat and prime view of a mini bus trying to navigate a narrow street of tables, umbrellas and hundreds of pissed up punters was something else. Throw in some traffic coming the other way, it was pretty impressive!!
In Hanoi, there are themes to streets/aeras in the old quarter – for example if you want knock off designer clothes, there is a certain section of the old quarter, if you want flowers – same, scooter seats, birthday supplies, fruit/veg, bamboo ladders, hardware, beers, tombstones and so on……..you get the picture – but near the street art section in Hanoi (along train line), across the road is probably the loosest section of Hanoi, which is dog meat corner……..Say no more.