Brett and Bernii

After a brief few weeks in Sydney and Brisbane in the new year, we departed Australia to return to Vietnam.

We flew with Singapore Airlines into Ho Chi Minh City, where we spent four nights at 6even (AU$62.25 per night), a guesthouse in the Cafe Apartment building – a popular tourist destination in District 1. The first night and the last night were marred by a lot of loud noise and vuvuzelas as Vietnam played in the semi-final and third-place playoff in the under-23 Asia Cup. It would have been good to join in, but we were very tired and it continued until around 4am.

We then moved to Express by M Village Pham Ngu Lao (AU$60.27 per night), a hotel near Bui Vien walking street. We stayed there for another four nights.

During the days we would revisit some of the good cafes and restaurants that we discovered on previous trips. The afternoon and evenings were usually spent between the Corner Bar on Bui Vien or Bar 5, a busy bar with a good pool table and a happy hour that runs from 2:00pm until 8:30pm every day and cost 170,000VND (about AU$9.24) for free flow draft beers.

We also booked a group food tour with Intrepid Urban Adventures, however we were the only two participants who booked this particular day, so we got a private food tour instead. We sampled some more unusual Vietnamese dishes such as: hủ tiếu bò kho – a hearty and aromatic beef stew with noodles; barbequed duck and papaya salad; bò lá lốt – grilled beef wrapped in betel leaf; and hột vịt lộn – fertilised duck embryos. Everything we tried was delicious!

From Ho Chi Minh City we flew to Da Nang where we returned to An Bang beach for three nights. We again stayed at the fantastic Life Beach Villa (AU$46.79 per night) and spent our evenings at Bungalow Beach Bar.

From An Bang beach, we went to My Khe Beach in Da Nang where we spent three nights at the Nesta Hotel (AU$111.44 per night). It was a fairly fancy hotel that Bernii had stayed in while I was in Nepal. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t ideal for the beach, so we often ended up in the bars.

After three nights by the beach, we moved to the Wink Da Nang Centre hotel (AU$89.45 per night) which we stayed at in February last year. It was conveniently located near Bamboo 2 Bar so we spent three nights there. It was also just around the corner from our favourite banh mi stall. On our last day the weather cleared up, so Bernii went to the beach while I went to the Marble Mountains to explore the caves and pagodas.

We flew from Da Nang to Hanoi where we returned to the Hanoi Plaza Suite Hotel & Spa (AU$74.66 per night) for three nights. We then caught a bus to Ha Long to board the Sunlight Legend – a boat that our friend Chung was working on. We first met Chung ten years ago on a boat trip on Ha Long Bay and arranged to be on his boat for our 3-day 2-night cruise this time. It was fantastic to catch up with him again and see how he has grown. His english has improved a lot and he is now married and has a two-year-old boy.

Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in North-Eastern Vietnam, known for its stunning limestone mountains, inlets and caves. Despite having misty weather, we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise and would absolutely recommend you to visit if you have the chance.

The excursions were very similar to our last trip, and included climbing to the top of Ti Top island, kayaking and swimming in Lan Ha bay, visiting a pearl farm as well as exploring the largest limestone grotto called Sun Sot Cave (aka Surprise Cave). On the second night we had some fun people who joined the cruise and we ended up singing karaoke on the top deck of the boat.

From Ha Long we returned to Hanoi and the Plaza Suite Hotel & Spa where we spent another three nights (AU$105.82 per night for a deluxe room).

During our time in Hanoi, we visited Sixty-Six Coffee – a bar on Train Street that we discovered last year – where we watched the trains go past while enjoying a few beers.

We also did a bar crawl down Phố Tạ Hiện, a street in the Old Quarter more famously known as ‘Beer Street’. We started at the top end of the street and had a drink at any bar that the staff invited us in to. We ended up drinking in 6 bars before we reached Bia Hoi Corner and celebrated with another beer.

We relocated to La Siesta Classic Ma May hotel (AU$95.19 per night) for four nights as there was no availability at Plaza Suite Hotel & Spa.

The Tết festival starts tomorrow and we have already seen some of our favourite restaurants close to allow their staff to travel home to be with their families for the Lunar New Year. I have checked with our favourite nearby bar and fortunately they will remain open during Tết. The rooftop bar at our current hotel is also pretty cool and should be a good place to watch the fireworks.

Tune in to our next post to see our further adventures in northern Vietnam.