Vietnam: Hanoi to Hue

On March 1, I arrived in Hanoi. My flight landed in the mid-afternoon and I splurged on a taxi from the airport to my hostel (because the taxi only cost about $12 so I figured it was worth it not to wrangle my suitcase on public transportation). The street my hostel was on was so narrow that the driver dropped me on the main street and waved down an alley and said it was "down there." I had no service on my phone so I ended up asking where it was at another hotel and found my way there eventually. I dumped my stuff and immediately headed out to sightsee.

My first stop was the Tran Quoc Pagoda, the oldest Buddhist temple in Hanoi. It was built in the 6th century, making it more than 1500 years old.

Pagoda gateway

Closer-up of the pagoda, which is filled with buddha statues

Then I walked over to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary and the first president of North Vietnam. People still visit his tomb every morning and leave flowers and offerings for him.

Ho Chi Minh worked to free Vietnam from French colonial rule before he became a communist leader in the north during the Vietnam War. He's still known as "Uncle Ho" and is widely beloved by the Vietnamese people (Although I wouldn't say universally beloved).

Full disclosure that this is a shamelessly stolen photo from Google but I walked by the presidential palace on my way to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and I thought it was breathtaking, but there were armed guards standing out front and a large "No photos" sign so I didn't risk taking my own. I figured this is the next best thing.

Hanoi is known as "Paris of the East," largely because of the French influence in the country and on the architecture, but the quantity and variety of trees combined with the overall atmosphere really reminded me of New Orleans (which obviously also has a large French influence!).

Speaking of a French influence, this is the Hanoi Opera House.

The following day, I had a day trip planned to Ninh Bình, a province in northern Vietnam's Red River Delta. There are many attractions in the Ninh Bình area, including Mua Caves, which is supposedly breathtaking, but it requires a hike up hundreds of steps so naturally that was out for me. So I went to Trang An Grottoes and Bai Dinh Pagoda instead.

On the way from Hanoi to Ninh Bình, our bus got a flat tire so I expected to be off schedule by a few hours but it actually only held us up for maybe 30 minutes. The tour itself was kind of poorly organized because there was one bus for all the people doing a variety of activities in Ninh Bình, so I ended up sitting around a lot waiting for other people to finish whatever they were doing. But it was a lovely day overall and I got to see some beautiful things.

Monk statues at the Bai Dinh Pagoda. There are 500 of them and each one is unique.

Pagoda bell tower

Avalokiteśvara, a god with a thousand arms, depicting the power of all gods

Selfie with the monk statues

Trang An

We got to boat through some caves!

Temple in the water

Gotta love a neon life jacket

I got dropped of back at my hostel that evening around 8:30pm and I went to a restaurant to meet my tour group. I had booked a 20-day guided tour through Vietnam and Cambodia and my official start date was the following day; however, I was joining a smaller leg of a longer tour that included Thailand and Laos so I was meeting people who had already been traveling together for two weeks. Better yet, I was the only late addition so I sort of felt like it was the first day of school when I went to meet them at the restaurant. Thankfully, they turned out to be a really wonderful group and they accepted me as one of them pretty painlessly.

The following day was the first big sightseeing day of my tour, and I started getting to know our local tour guide, Bunny. She told us her Vietnamese name was too hard for Westerners to pronounce so she went by Bunny instead.

Hoàn Kiếm Lake

St. Joseph's Cathedral, the oldest church in Hanoi, opened in 1886.

A diorama of the infamous Hỏa Lò Prison. Originally built by the French to imprison and torture political prisoners during the colonial period, it was later used by the North Vietnamese for U.S. prisoners of war during the Vietnam War.

John McCain was the most famous prisoner held at Hỏa Lò, so they have his uniform on display at the museum. Prisoners sarcastically referred to Hỏa Lò as the Hanoi Hilton due to the miserable conditions. McCain's plane was shot down and they fished him out of Trúc Bạch Lake with two broken arms and a broken leg, and then subsequently crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt. His injuries were so severe, followed by the neglectful treatment by the Vietnamese, that it's a miracle he survived. He was in the prison for five and a half years.

As a side note, I found it extremely interesting to listen to Bunny tell us about the prison. She told us about how the Vietnamese had suffered at the hands of the French, so that when they took over the prison themselves, they treated the American prisoners so well that it was known as the Hanoi Hilton. She told us prisoners were allowed to celebrate Christmas and get letters from their families as examples of how well they were treated. As the only American in my tour group and the oldest one there, it was kind of jarring to watch a bunch of British 20-somethings accept that information without a second thought. Meanwhile, I know that John McCain's treatment in Hanoi left him permanently unable to lift his arms above his head. It also made me wonder what American propaganda I might believe without knowing any better (Because just to be clear, Bunny obviously believed that everything she was telling us was true and was not intentionally sharing propaganda).

In the days when the prison was run by the French, they would imprison mothers and their children together

Recreation of the guillotine used for executions when the prison was run by the French

Prison cells

Prison yard

After our morning of sightseeing, we stopped for lunch. I tried pho for the first time and while the one I had was top-notch, I didn't love it because I'm just not a fan of noodle soups, including ramen. But I'm very glad I tried it. We then walked over to the famous Hanoi train street.

Posing on Hanoi's train street, famous because trains pass so close to the homes and businesses on either side

Trying Vietnamese egg coffee on train street. It sounds unappealing but it turns out the "egg" in question is more like a sweet meringue, so it doesn't feel that different than using cream and sugar. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Vietnam is famous for water puppet shows, and while it was obviously kind of strange, I really enjoyed it since it was so unique.

I went back to train street that evening to watch a train pass through. It really is crazy how close they get!

Hoàn Kiếm Lake at night

Hanoi night market

The following day, we were headed to Hạ Long Bay in northeast Vietnam. We left Hanoi early in the morning and took a bus to the coast, then a ferry to Cat Ba Island, the largest island in Hạ Long Bay. Then we took a bus across the island to the other side, and finally got on a little dinghy to get the last bit to our cruise ship. We were all a little cranky by the time we got there because it had been so much effort, but the cruise ship itself was SO much nicer than I had expected that our spirits brightened up pretty quickly. We were on the cruise ship overnight and got to sail around and experience the beauty of Hạ Long Bay the following day, too.

In Hạ Long Bay

The rooms on the cruise ship surpassed all of our expectations

And we had a balcony off our room! (I wish my feet weren't in both of these photos, in hindsight).

The following morning we went kayaking off the cruise ship

Looks like a postcard!

Our cruise ship (taken through the dirty dinghy window)

The following afternoon, we left the cruise ship behind and did another ferry, bus, ferry, bus to get back to Hanoi and grab our big luggage from the hostel we'd stayed in. We had a quick pizza for dinner and then boarded our overnight sleeper bus to Phong Nha.

Sleeper bus to Phong Nha

We arrived around 4am and thankfully the tour company booked us in a hostel for that night, so we were able to immediately check in and get a few more hours of sleep in an actual bed. When we got up in the morning, a few of us went to a local coffee shop to do a coffee tasting, since Vietnam is a coffee-growing haven. I tried a peanut butter iced coffee and a coconut egg coffee and they were both outstanding.

View from our hostel of the edge of Phong Nha National Park

After the coffee tasting, a group of us went cycling in the countryside. Bunny assured me that the ride would only take like 30 minutes and it was really easy and flat.

Turns out Bunny told a little fib. The ride was closer to an hour and it was very much not flat. The bikes we rented were also in really bad shape and several people's chains fell off or were unusable. My bike was fine but the hourlong ride on a bike seat killed my butt so I gave my bike to someone who had a broken chain and paid for a motorcycle ride back!

We were in Phong Nha primarily because of the national park there. It's the home of the world's largest known cave, which takes days to hike to, but there's a smaller cave that people can explore and swim in on a day trip. Entry wasn't included in our tour and I was admittedly annoyed that we were in a cave town when I personally have no interest in caves (I hold the unfair opinion that if you've seen one cave, you've seen them all). With Bunny's permission, I decided to go rogue and booked myself a day trip to Hue, home of the Imperial City. So while everyone else went to the cave, I left on a bus at 4am, spent the day in Hue, and met up with the tour group at our next destination that night, Hoi An.

When I got off the bus in Hue at 8am, I was immediately greeted by a man with a motorcycle who offered to take me on a tour of the city. He showed me his tour guide license and told me it was a "pay what you want" private tour, so I decided to go for it, since this sojourn was so last minute that I really didn't have time to plan anything. He recommended we go to Lăng Khải Định first, a king's tomb, because it was the furthest away, so we set off. I didn't realize it was so far out of town and it took about 20 minutes to get there, so just as I was beginning to wonder if he was taking me into the countryside to kidnap me, we arrived.

The tomb of Khải Định, the twelfth Emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty of Vietnam. Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty, from 1802-1945, and this tomb was completed in 1933.

Inside the mausoleum is decorated with this incredible porcelain mosaic art. I took this closeup so you can see the detail.

The emperor's final resting place

On the tomb grounds

Closeup of the warrior guardian statues outside the tomb

Thuy Tien lake Abandoned Water Park, which I don't think has any historical significance but it is a cool photo spot

Entrance to the Tomb of Tự Đức, the emperor who "enjoyed the longest reign of any monarch of the Nguyen dynasty, ruling from 1848-1883," according to Wikipedia. The tomb was completed in 1867.

Pavilion on the lotus pond

Cremated remains are in the rectangular structure inside the gate

Other side of the lotus pond

We stopped at "Incense Village," a street lined with incense rollers on either side so the whole street is colorful and smells amazing

Posed on a baby chair

Thiên Mụ Pagoda

This perfect lotus flower was growing on the pagoda grounds

The Ngo Mon Gate, the main entrance to Hue's citadel

Gate leading into the Imperial City

Mieu Temple Complex

Long Galleries of Can Chanh Palace

Gate to the Truong San Residence

The Royal Theatre

That was the the last stop on the tour with my motorcycle driver. I had looked up city tour prices so that I knew how much to give him; most of what I found online was around $30 or so. I decided to give him the equivalent of $25 for driving me around, because I had to pay for entry fees to each of the things we went to, so I thought it was fair. But he yelled at me that I was underpaying him and I basically panicked and gave him $40 instead. So much for the "pay what you want" tour! But honestly I really did get to see so much that even though I definitely got swindled a little bit, I would actually do exactly the same thing again even if I knew better.

I had a late lunch while I waited for my ride from Hue to my next stop, Hoi An. I had booked a shared transfer in an air conditioned minivan this time instead of a crowded public bus so that ride was much smoother and went by very quickly. The stretch between Hue and Hoi An is a famously beautiful scenic drive. I tried to take photos of the beautiful mountains from the van but I deleted them all because none of them came out. But take it from me that it was lovely!