Vietnam - Hanoi
8 Days in Vietnam
From April 15 to April 22, 2023, we visited Hanoi in Vietnam.
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Day 1: After landing in Hanoi, we had to go thru customs. We stood in the wrong line at first so it took us over an hour to get thru customs. The line we initially stood in only had three customs workers but maybe 7 or 8 lines, basically a big mess. I later found another line moved faster so we stood in that one and finally got thru to Hanoi. We were picked up at the airport to go to our AirBnB. We settled down at our new home base and the location was a great location to be able to roam around the city but not be in the center of all the traffic. We walked around a little and passed Beer Street where everyone is basically a big mess of people sitting, drinking, and eating. We continued walking to eat at Bun Cha Ta. It was similar to tsukemen, where you dip your noodles into the broth. It was a great first meal in Hanoi. After dinner, we walked around the old quarter a little. There’s a lot of nightlife going on and night markets in the area close to our home base. Everything was basically in walking distance.
Sunday, April 16, 2023
Day 2: Today was our first full day in Hanoi. We slept in and left our rooms at almost 11am. We went to Café Giang for some egg coffee and egg cocoa. It’s a specialty drink in Vietnam and we later learned that Café Giang was the first café to make the egg coffee. They don't serve food, just drinks. After having our drinks, we explored Hanoi Old Quarter a little. We walked all the way down to the lake area. Every weekend, they close the roads by the lake so people are able to walk around and enjoy being outside. We stopped off at Bach Phuong for lunch. It was sooo good. We ate bun bon am bo or beef noodles. We walked around more and even stopped off at the post office to grab some stamps for me. There was an event going on while we were there. I think it was something with Vietnam and France. After walking around a little more, we headed to our home base and rested until our Hanoi Walking Street Food tour with Hanh. We got to try some foods such as banh xeo (crispy pancake), banh mi, banh cuon (steamed pancake), pho ga (chicken noodles/glass noodles), took some shots of ________, Chad and Hanh ate some duck balut, coconut ice cream, and egg coffee/cocoa. It was a nice introduction to some of northern Vietnamese cuisine and everything was so delicious. We also met some cool people on our tour. We were having such a great time that after the tour, went to drink more and we also met this Vietnamese couple who brought us to a high end club. The only way we could get into the club was if we paid for a bottle of alcohol which cost like $100-$200 or more. Chad was about to pay for a bottle when I told him no because that’s a lot of money and we all left. The guys got a couple more beers from another bar down the road and then I called it a night since we had an earlish morning on Monday.
On our food tour, we got to try some foods such as
Banh Xeo (crispy pancake)
Banh Mi
Banh Cuon (steamed pancake)
Pho Ga (chicken noodles/glass noodles)
Took some shots of ________
Some Duck Balut (only Chad and Hanh ate that)
Coconut Ice Cream
Egg Coffee/Cocoa
Monday, April 17, 2023
Day 3: Today we went on a Knife Making Class in Ha Dong Town, a little ways from the old quarter. We went to a village where there are blacksmiths all over the town. It was such a great experience. Our tour guide, Mai, was not the person who helped us make the knives, she was the person who put the tour together and she translated for the lady who helped us make the knives. We shaped the steel part of our knife, cut it out, pounded it down, sharpened it, and even carved the handles. I cannot keep saying how cool of an experience it was. If you’re ever in Hanoi, DO THIS TOUR!!!…or don’t, it’s really up to you. After the knife making class, we headed to Circle K to grab some lunch. We bought a couple manapuas, or banh baos, some noodles, chips, and dumplings. Let me tell you…the Truffle Lay’s Chips are THEEE BOMB! They are so delicious I wish I bought more from Circle K. Anyways…while Chad was eating the banh bao, he bit down on something hard. When he took it out of his mouth, he noticed it was a gold tooth. He initially thought the banh bao had someone else’s tooth in it, but then realized it was his own! He didn’t even know he had a gold tooth. After we finished eating, we headed back to our home base and rested until our Hanoi Cooking Class. We got picked up by Ruby, our cooking teacher, and headed to the market to buy some ingredients to make our dinner. It was a great experience to be able to buy and see the ingredients at the market from the vegetables, spices, and meats and bring it to our table to cook it all. We made a green papaya salad, some bun cha, pho, and egg coffee/cocoa. I highly recommend partaking in a cooking class while visiting Vietnam.
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Day 4: Today was a full day of touring around the Hanoi Old Quarter. We first went to the Tran Quoc Pagoda. This is the oldest Pagoda in the city and many people still go here to pray. We learned a little history about the city from our tour guide Tony. After that, we went to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, and then a place where they do lacquer art with paint, eggshells, or mother of pearl. It was so cool to see the process of the whole thing. Next, we headed to quốc tử giám or the temple of literature. There were a lot of little students in their best graduation uniforms taking pictures. They were so cute. Our next stop was lunch at Thuan’s Cuisine. After lunch, we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We saw where Ho Chi Minh was buried and where he lived and spent a lot of his time when he was president. Then we went to the Hoa Lo Prison to learn more history. It was really interesting to learn what the Vietnamese prisoners had to go thru. This prison even held American militia who were captured during the Vietnam War. Our last stop was the Thang Long Water Puppet Show. We had about an hour until our show started so we decided to stop at Always Cafe, a Harry Potter themed restaurant. They served butter beer and some other Harry Potter inspired drinks. You could even dress up in a Hogwarts robe. I had a butter beer and Chad had a Dark Breath cocktail. We also ordered some food to eat before the puppet show. The food wasn’t that good. I think people just go there for the whole Harry Potter experience. After we finished our drinks, we headed to the puppet show, which I fell asleep at. I was so exhausted from the day’s adventures, but the parts I did watch, were pretty cool. We went back to our home base to rest a little while and then headed out to dinner at the Met Vietnamese Restaurant and Vegan. I was craving pho and it was so good. After that, we went drinking a little and ended up at the Diamond Sky Bar.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Day 5: Today was our free day in Hanoi. We did a little walking around and ate brunch at Hong Hoai’s Restaurant. Chad had Bun Cha but it was different than the Bun Cha’s we’ve previously been eating. I had the Banh Xeo. The food was okay, not the greatest we’ve had on our trip but I finally got to have watermelon juice. Watermelon juice seems to be on a lot of drink menus in this area. After brunch we headed to Dong Xuan Market. There was so much to look at that it was extremely overwhelming. I wanted to find some nice things to wear with my new palazzo pants but there were way to many options that I didn’t know what to chose…so we left without buying anything. For dinner, Chad wanted to eat some seafood…so we ate seafood! It was probably our most expensive meal in Vietnam…but we had crab, cockles, oysters, snails, and even razor clams!
Thursday, April 20, 2023
Day 6: Today we went on an all day trip to Ninh Binh. We went from Hanoi to Hoa Lu, Tam Coc & Mua Cave via boat and bike. It was a long and eventful day. I learned the hard way that Vietnamese language is a difficult language with many different meanings for one word. I messaged our tour guide to pick us up at 21 Hang Dau street not knowing that there were two different pronunciations and spellings for Dau and it depends on the markings of the word. 21 Hàng Đậu was our address but when I typed it as 21 Hang Dau, in English, the tour guide, Sophia, thought our address was 21 Hàng Dầu. So I learned my lesson because our tour guide went to a different address than ours. We had to meet them at the ending point of all the pickups. It was an almost two hour ride from Hanoi to our first spot. The first place we went to was the Hoa Lu Temple. It was a temple worshipping the King Dinh Tien Hoang dynasty. After this, we went on a bike ride. I hadn’t rode a bike since I was a little kid. I didn’t know how to use a bike with the brakes on the handlebars. I fell like 3 or 4 times and I ripped my pants…but I finished! I rode it to the end even though I fell right before the finish line because I didn’t know how to turn. After the bike ride, we had a buffet style lunch and then we rode on some boats on the Tam Coc river. We went thru some caves and the ladies that steered the boats with oars did it with their feet! They would steer the boat with their feet, hold an umbrella with one hand, and fan themselves with their other hand. The cliffs reminded me of Polihale on Kaua‘i. It was a peaceful and relaxing boat ride. After the boat ride, we went on a little hike to see a beautiful view of Ninh Binh. The hike reminded us a little of the Huayna Picchu hike atop of Machu Picchu. Then we headed back into Hanoi. We ate dinner at Bun Cha Huong Lien, where there’s a combo item called Combo Obama. The food was great and we could each have a meal for about $10.
Friday, April 21, 2023
Day 7: Today we were able to go on an Incense Tour to the Quang Phu Cau village. It was a really great experience. Our tour guide, Hung, was extremely informative of the whole process. He and the driver took us to the village and Hung was able to take some great pictures of us with the incense as well as show us some other families in the village. We saw some people weaving, some families making incense, and even met a veteran who thinned out bamboo pieces to sell at the market for weavers. We enjoyed learning about their way of living. If you ever do the incense tour, I suggest getting Hung as your tour guide. When we got back to the city, we ate lunch at Sen Trang An Vietnamese Restaurant. The food was great and different than the food we were eating throughout Hanoi. The food was served family style and everything was delicious. We learned that the owner of this place has an additional job on top of running the restaurant. It takes a lot to run a restaurant. After lunch, we went back to our room to rest. Chad still wasn’t feeling that well so he rested while I went to get a massage at Mido Spa, suggested to us by our tour guide Hanh. It was nice and relaxing for me. After I got back to our place, I relaxed a little but then I got really sick. I became bedridden for the rest of the night until the next morning.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Day 8: Today was our last day in Vietnam. I was still not feeling well. Chad was also a little stuffy so we both stayed in, watched tv, and took naps. We ordered some food from GRAB and stayed in for most of the day. Grab is an app like Uber that also delivers food to you! This app is used in some of the Asian countries. I was feeling a little better in the early evening so we took a nice stroll close to our place. We didn’t have much money left so we just window-shopped. We had some money for Mixue Ice Cream because it was just 10,000 dong, making it only $0.42. These ice cream places are everywhere around the Hanoi Old Quarter. After walking around a little more, we headed back to our AirBnB and called a GRAB to head to the airport. Our flight was at 11:35pm on Nippon Airways to Narita, Japan.
Sunday, April 23, 2023
LAYOVER IN JAPAN: We landed in Narita, Japan at 6:25am from Hanoi, Vietnam. We went thru the customs line, which took about an hour and then we were out searching for something to do and where to go. We dropped our bags off in a locker at the airport and waited in another line for the JR pass. We bought a round-trip ticket on the Narita Express to and from the Tokyo train station. We visited Ramen Street, ate some ramen and then went to Character Street. There were so many cool things to look at from Pokemon to Kirby to Ghibli Studio anime and so much more. I bought my new favorite Spirited Away mug from Character Street. Chad really wanted to eat some sushi so we found a standing sushi restaurant in the train station and headed back to the airport. We were so exhausted from all the travel that we easily took a nap going to and from the Tokyo train station. We ate more sushi at the airport and then we were on our way home.