Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi & Ninh Binh

Vietnam is another country I visited twice. I first went to Ho Chi Minh City for three days in July, then visited Hanoi for six days in August and covered the famous Ha Long bay and Ninh Binh Province at the south east of the capital city.
I am extremely happy that I got to explore this wonderful place where I discovered overwhelmingly beautiful landscapes, learnt more about the country's history and got exposed to an exotic culinary experience.

Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)

During our visit to Saigon, our days were marked by numerous food breaks, to my biggest enjoyment. I went there with Khanh, a Vietnamese friend of mine who is an avid foodie, and my two other girl friends Maya and Julie from France - This time it was more of a culinary trip.

As a teaser for the remaining days in Saigon, Khanh made us have the following food within the first 24 hours of our arrival:  Pho at 2 am, a gigantic breakfast at 11 am, tea time at 1pm, seafood break at 4 pm and another pre-sleep Pho at 3 am. Only that!
Vietnam is a food heaven when you are accompanied by someone who knows what to order. It is a really diverse cuisine, that embraces a mixture of unique flavours: spicy, minty, lemony, salty etc...it was a completely new culinary discovery for me and I absolutely love it.

Overindulgence in Vietnamese food
 

Besides filling our stomachs all day, we of course walked around the city to see the main highlights. We visited the Central Post Office and walked by the Opera house. Two beautiful constructions, built under the French occupation.

We also went to the Independence palace, a very symbolic site where took place the end of the war of Vietnam, and the reunification of the country's northern and southern parts, until then separated by ideological differences consequent to the Cold War.

 

"La grande place" and statue of Ho Chi Minh, affectionately called "Uncle Ho" by the Vietnamese

On many occasions Saigon reminded me of Algeria, both being previous French colonies. From the sculptures that adorn the façade of the Opera House, to the scent of bricks which occupies old structures and the design of tiles, it was interesting to see that both countries share a lot of similarities despite their enormous geographical and cultural gap.

The entrance of the Opera House

Tiles that reminded me of Algeria

 It was also interesting to discover the communist side of Vietnam, the red army and the Vietnamese flags positioned side-by-side in the streets, pictures of Karl Marx and Lenin... I had the impression of being in soviet Russia as I imagined it.

For our second day in Saigon, we went for a Mekong River tour.
The latter tour usually takes 3-4 days but we managed to find a short one just to get a general feel of how it is over there.
After a three hours bus ride, we boarded a traditional boat and navigated on the Mekong to see people going on with their daily lives. Some were doing business, others selling fruits, some washing their clothes in the river or just simply taking naps on the hammocks hanging inside their boats.

As part of our tour on the Mekong, we also went to visit a village where we could try some local honey tea, as well as see how coconut candies and rice papers (which are a prominent part of the Vietnamese cuisine) were made. It was a village made for tourists but interesting to see nonetheless.
Towards the end of the tour we went to see a local vegetable market before heading back to Saigon.

Woman preparing rice paper

Women selling dried fish at the market

 

Hanoi

The country in general and particularly its political capital Hanoi, is buzzing with an incredible number of scooters. Let me tell you that crossing the street is a real challenge, especially if you are new to South East Asia! We would just cross it and pray for people to avoid us. Here is a funny guide worth sharing which I got  from our Backpackers hostel (Click to enlarge) :

 

"Street Wise Hanoi"

I found Hanoi to be more exotic in a sense that it is the Vietnam as you imagine it.

I was fascinated by the city's bustling street culture. One can never get bored by simply walking around; there is always something interested that will catch your attention as a tourist. People getting their hair cut, others dinning on small chairs, some frying food, selling fruits, flip flops, or Lingerie. All of this taking place on the sidewalks.
My friend Maya sums it up perfectly by saying that in Hanoi, if you give someone a square meter, they'll open a business.

For our first day in Hanoi, we did not do much, I was still tired from my volcano trip to Indonesia and my friend Reiko had taken an early flight from Tokyo that day, so we decided to take it easy and save some energy for the coming adventures.

 

7 am the next day, a driver came to pick us up from our hostel, en route for the Ha Long Bay.

We were really excited to finally go see this nature wonder appointed as a UNESCO world heritage , and for our 2 days - 1 night cruise.

It took us about four hours to get from Hanoi to the bay, with a thirty minute stop in the middle.
After getting to the pier, we were escorted to a taxi boat that took us to the one we were spending the night at: "The Oriental Sail".

 

We got into our cabin, then went for a lunch in the common room with ten other guests as the boat was sailing away from the coastline. After having a delicious Vietnamese food, we were told that we were getting to our first destination which was the Sang Sot Caves in 30 min, so I went for a power nap, as a typical Mediterranean that I am.

 

Needless to describe the surprise and excitement I got when I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of the bay. A wonderful view of lush green limestone islands reflecting on the calm water and a beautiful clear sky. A Few second where I felt absolute beatitude and peacefulness, where I forgot every single negative elements in my life.

 

The cabin's view on the bay

The boat then dropped us to the cave, it was quite impressive both for it size and rock formations.

It was huge and almost untouched. The light beams that managed to sneak in, gave it a mysterious feel. It was worth visiting it despite the huge crowd, especially because the reward for climbing up many stairs in order to access it, was that we got to enjoy a panoramic view of the stunning landscape from an elevated platform.

Subsequently, we went to a small beach for a swim, then back to the boat were I experienced another mesmerizing sunset. (This blog is about my favourite trips, so brace yourself, you'll read about sunsets more than once!) the sun positioned itself in a hollow and shyly disappeared behind the stones as I was bombarding him with pictures.

 

 

Good night Ha Long!

 

Ninh Binh

 

We left the bay at noon the next day after a Kayaking session, and were dropped off at a local bus stop to go to Ninh Binh.

We were the only foreigners there, It was as smart move to ask the guide to write us a note in Vietnamese saying that we were looking for the bus to Ninh Binh because no one spoke English.
After buying our tickets we hopped on the bus for four hours, it was really comfortable and air-conditioned.

They played loud traditional Vietnamese music, which was great to discover in the beginning, but which turned to torture after hearing the same CD for the third time. Some locals seemed to really enjoy that nevertheless, they were singing along at the top of their lungs.

Three hours later, following the driver's direction, we got into another van which was quite an experience. It was packed! They made us sit on the floor at the front and let us know when we got to Ninh Binh. In truth this was for me one of the most fun part of my trip to Vietnam.

 

 

We arrived at the hotel in Ninh Binh at around 6 pm, then went for dinner.

Places to dine there are rather scarce, and ordering food can be a hassle due to the language barrier.
As we were trying to guess what was on the menu, a Vietnamese man eating at the neighbouring table showed us his dish and made us try it. This was just an example of the generosity we came across in that area of Vietnam.

 

In order to visit the province, we got two scooter drivers via our guesthouse.

Two old men in their 60s who made our visit so unique with their kindness.
We started the day with a one-hour boat ride along the Tam Coc National Park.
The view was really stunning, we floated along the Ngo Dong River passing through some caves and admired the scenic view dominated by rice fields and imposing limestone mountains.

 

 

We then went to see the Mua Caves which required a tiring trek on the way up.
The caves themselves aren't so beautiful but the view was well worth the 500 stairs. It gets prettier as you go up, rice paddies all over the area surrounding limestone hills. Nothing compared however to the extraordinary view you get once you reach the peak.

 

It was noon, the time for climbing the steps was enough for us to get sunburnt, so we decided it was time to for a break and went for lunch. As we went out of the restaurant we saw our two drivers having tea and eating longans, they called us to their table and shared their fruits with us. We were really touched by their gesture. They did it out of kind-heartedness and hospitality.

 

 

We continued visiting Pagodas and other attractions of Ninh Binh then took the train back to Hanoi the next morning, for our last two days in the country. 

 

Pagoda around Hua Lu Temple

 

 

Back in Hanoi, we went to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum but we couldn't see  his embalmed body because we arrived too late. We then went to a museum on his honour which was in the same complex. We ended our day with a water puppet show which was recommended to us by our guesthouse.

 

 

Ho chi Minh Mausoleum

Water Puppet Show

Vietnam was truly wonderful.
We got lucky to come across very nice people everywhere we went (with a few exceptions naturally!).
I will definitely go back there to visit Sapa in the north which I couldn't cover this time. A Humongous  "cảm ơn" to my friend Khanh and his family who hosted us warmly in Saigon and who took us to places we could have never found if we went there by ourselves!