Vietnam Trip 7 days - Hanoi & Halong Bay

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A brilliant start to the year visiting Vietnam and savouring all it had to offer to us! Lot of my friends have been enquiring about this trip after the photos we posted on social network. So, I have decided to share my experience and the itinerary. There are a lot of travel blogs about Vietnam which suggest a breakneck perfunctory trip of Vietnam which I believe doesn’t do justice to the magnificent country. Ideally, we need a minimum of 15 days to cover Vietnam and the whole trip if planned in advance would cost about 50000-60000/person (would be much cheaper for backpackers).  The trip features myself, my sister and my sister in law. A girls-only trip!!! 

Vietnam has always been of interest to me since reading about it in our school history books. Thanks to our NCERT history syllabus, we get more than a cursory introduction to contemporary world history. And since the subject always enthralled me, I used to delve deeper with the help of colourful encyclopaedias on world history and with inputs from my father who was another history buff. So, the idea of a real date with Vietnam had me sprouting wings already. 

Thanks to ever buzzing travel sites, I could do an in-depth research for the trip and narrow down the best options for us. It was also a refresher course on Vietnamese history, culture, and language. There is so much say, that I could probably write a booklet already. Hence, the best way I could find was to go about it in a linear fashion narrating our daily experience: 

Flights and VISA; Vietnam is a traveller’s delight with lots to explore; a complete sensory extravaganza! However, we decided to restrict ourselves to Hanoi and Halong Bay, given that we had limited number of days (six) and finances (not so extravagant!). And since, it was a spur of the moment plan, we couldn’t avail the best of tickets and had to content ourselves with Indigo flights to and from which drained us of INR 20000 (280$) at the onset itself. I recommend advance planning and booking decent international flights[i] with better leg space and comfort and awesome stop overs like Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, etc. Our stop over was in Calcutta and the airport is boring to say the least. We booked our flights to and from Hanoi Airport (Noi Bai International Airport). 

We got the online Visa letter from one of the agencies providing them for 17$/person (there are cheaper options starting from 6 dollars). However, if you could hunt down a proper site, I recommend getting an e-visa for 25$ to avoid additional stamping charges (25$/person) at the airport which we had to shell out, plus an hour long wait for our Visa stamp. 

Vietnam is a free-Wi-Fi nation but we still bought one local sim card (Viettel) with 9 GB data plan for 7$ at the airport itself to avoid a murphy’s law situation later. It gets activated immediately. We shared the hotspot amongst ourselves. We also withdrew 2 Million VND (INR 6100/- or 86 $) for our expenses. I recommend getting a NiYo[ii] (DCB) travel card which offers a zero forex exchange fees. We could swipe our NiYo cards for most payments without any additional bank charges and also withdraw money with just minimal ATM bank charges. 

Please download the Grab [iii] app similar to Uber/Ola. It is a must have app in Vietnam for travel within the country. You can activate it upon arrival at the airport itself.

Stay: We landed on January 3rd in the evening and spent around an hour or so at the airport completing immigration formalities and then booked a Grab taxi to get to our homestay in Old Quarter in Hanoi. We had pre booked our complete stay online through AirBnb. Our Hanoi stay was at the Old QuarterHanoi Homestay[iv] and our Halong Bay stay was at Double P Halong Homestay[v]. Both were amazingly good and ideal for the kind of experience we wanted. Hanoi was all about staying on foot, travel, savouring the local cuisines, sightseeing, lots of shopping, and staying local as much as possible, whereas, Halong was all about being a wide-eyed tourist enjoying the sights and soaking in the touristy splendour and comfort.

Our hosts , Mr. Luan & family ( especially Huy, Luong, & Giang ) at the Hanoi Homestay[vi] had invited us for a welcome dinner upon arrival and we enjoyed their hospitality and met everyone at the homestay along with our fellow guests and had a good chat about Vietnam culture and sights in general. We got to taste healthy Vietnamese everyday dinner which consisted of yummy steamed rice (soul of any meal and I really love this kind of slightly sticky rice), meatballs in sauce, fried tofu in tomato sauce, cabbage salad, vegetable broth loaded with spinach. We savoured all of it with the help of a pair of chopsticks. It was the perfect beginning to our stay. Our fellow guests were from Oregon, USA and we enjoyed an informative chat with them and our homestay student intern Giang on Vietnamese language, food, and culture. We stayed on the fourth floor with no lifts but it was no trouble at all since the rooms were cosy and complete with all our requirements. ( I totally recommend this place!) 

Post the welcome dinner, we decided to head to the night market[vii] at around nine to explore the weekend only market in the middle of Old Quarter [viii]. It was just two lanes away, so we rushed to the spot to find ourselves in the middle of the best damn market with fresh cut fruit vendors, liquid nitrogen spewing sesame balls, and lots and lots of great bargains on clothes, shoes and accessories, and souvenirs.  We roamed around munching, bargaining, and enjoying the Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese music in perfectly pleasant January weather. We roamed around the night market high on freedom and bliss till they began to shut the place down by 11 pm. Thereafter, we spent gallivanting and checking out the local shops in old quarter and made preliminary enquiries regarding their wares. The place is safe for women travellers and the locals are also quite friendly and helpful. 

Day 1. Next morning (January 4th), we energised with a scrumptious and piping-hot breakfast (included in the booking) served at our homestay. We were offered a variety of choices; four types of Bánh mì ( Vietnamese baguette filled with a choice of egg, ham, and vegetables) and Phở or pho (Vietnamese soup consisting of broth, rice noodles (bánh phở), herbs, and meat – usually beef (phở bò), sometimes chicken (phở gà)[ix]. We also got yummy flavoured yogurt and a choice of Vietnamese Coffee. The Instant one was made with a sachet and hot water. I bought a truckload of the G7 sachets later on . They make a mean concoction. We also had Filter coffee which came with condensed milk and we could turn it into iced coffee with a few ice cubes in the same cup. It was a strong cuppa, not for the faint hearted coffee drinkers! I enjoyed the instant, black, and cold versions!

Thereafter, we left for Halong Bay on an eight-seater Limousine Van which our Homestay had arranged for us (17 $ /person for return trip). We could have taken a normal bus but we had big suitcases and chose comfort and luxury over roughing it out that day. Needless to say, it was glamourous and worth it…with a halt at one of the pearl-cultivation retreats which we checked out. The Pearl Shop was too pricey and touristy, but it was enjoyable and informative. We reached Halong in about two and a half hours and the driver waited and made sure that we got to meet our host before taking off. Our Halong Homestay was picture perfect.

To be continued… 
Location: Hanoi, Hoàn Kiếm, Hanoi, Vietnam

Comments

  1. Radz7 February 2020 at 08:31

    Totally waiting for part 2....I love reading travelogues written by my friends....waiting .....💞

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sweet Morphine7 February 2020 at 08:43

    Thank you so much dear...:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown7 February 2020 at 08:52

    Really good travelogue...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pinky Asthana7 February 2020 at 09:54

    Thank u dear, your way of explaining the whole trip is really awesome. I travel the Vietnam through ur words and after reading your article i m keen to go there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anu Maheshwari7 February 2020 at 10:34

    Thank you for your encouraging words...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unknown8 February 2020 at 00:08

    Enjoyed reading, very informative. Looking forward for more.thanks dear

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown11 February 2020 at 00:28

    ����beautifully put into words..

    ReplyDelete
  8. Flyus Travels24 March 2021 at 00:28

    Very interesting, good job and thanks for sharing such a good blog.

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