Hanoi is a lot like Southern Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city, except a lot less touristy and a little less chaotic. I also found there to be a little more of a language barrier in the North. We were dropped off at St. Joseph’s church in the Old Quarter of the city, where a strip of hostels are. We headed right to the very reputable Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. The Backpackers hostel is very trendy, attracts mostly younger travellers, and has reputable tours. Lianne and I booked the Halong Bay boat tour as soon as we got there. We got a two day and one night tour for $78 USD. The tour was a little more pricey than usual, but it included all transportation, food, accommodations, and activities.
We spent the remainder of the day gallivanting around Hanoi. Our first stop was at the Ngoc Son Temple. It wasn’t anything too special, but it had a nice view of the big lake that is in the center of the city. The rest of the day we shopped in the local markets and ate. For dinner, we went to the famous Pho24 chain in Vietnam. I got the famous Pho Bo soup, which is pretty much beef, noodles, beansprouts, and chives in broth. I just can’t get enough of Pho Bo in the Nom! YUM! Since we had woken up at 4am in the morning, we were in bed and fast asleep by 8am…quite the party animals!
We woke up bright and early to catch our bus to Halong Bay. There were about 30 people on our tour and the bus ride took about 3 hours. Our tour boat ended up being way nicer than I expected. The dock looked like a pirate ship and the inside of the boat has a dining area and the bedrooms. Lianne and I were lucky enough to get a double bed…which we decided to call our honeymoon suite.
As soon as we got on the boat, we were told by our Irish tour guide to go buy some beers and start drinking (this was at noon). The people on our tour ended up being a really fun crown. We spent the rest of the day playing drinking games, kayaking, exploring caves and eating delicious food. The best part was we did all of these activities while looking out onto the beautiful limestone rock formations that were scattered throughout the water. I felt like I was on the movie set for Pirates of the Caribbean…so cool! The dinner was prepared by a local Vietnamese family and was absolutely delicious. There was everything you could have wanted – fish, beef, fried chicken, rice, clams, fresh prawns, vegetables, and fruit! At nighttime, the boat turned into a booze cruise. Lets just say, what happens on the boat…stays on the boat.
The next day we pretty much just took in the scenery one last time and had lunch (and continued drinking and belting out love songs at the top of our lungs of course). We arrived back in Hanoi in the late afternoon and then headed to “Snake Village”. I didn’t really know about Snake Village until the boys we had met in Halong Bay told us about it. Its pretty much a street with a bunch of restaurants that have one thing on the menu…snake. First, we paid for 3 snakes since there were 8 of us. It cost each of us about $20 USD each. They then let one of us help cut the snake open with a knife and remove its heart. We decided that the girls would kill the snake and the boys would eat the hearts. Gross! We then had to take one shot of the snake blood and one shot of the snake bile. Since even the idea of it made me gag… I made sure I swallowed it quickly enough that I wouldn’t taste it. The restaurant owners then prepared the snake meat into various dishes. One dishes looked like a humus and was served with bread chips. It really didn’t taste that bad, but just the thought of what I was eating snake turned me right off. There were also what we called “Snake Balls”, “Snake Spring rolls” and “Snake Ribs”. And even better, this very delectable meal was paired with snake wine. It was quite the experience.
The next day, Lianne and I booked a tour to the Perfume Pagoda. To save money, we booked with a travelling agency other than the Backpackers Hostel. We paid $18 instead of $35, for transportation and entrance into the Pagoda. However, we instantly regretted booking the cheaper tour. First, our bus left an hour after it was supposed to and then it broke down. The wheel of the bus almost came right out, but they still managed to say it was a “small problem”. After being stranded in a random Vietnamese village for about two hours, we finally got shuttled into the docking station.
We were paddled into the town by boat. The scenery around us was beautiful. There were hundreds of boats paddling in the same direction and huge mountains surrounded the water stream. Once we got there, we were hit by a little bit of a culture shock. We were the only tourists in the entire village. But that wasn’t the part that shocked us. There were also dead animals, cut open, partially bleeding and hanging on a string at the front of every restaurant. But this wasn’t the normal cow, pig, and chicken kind of animals. No, this was, porcupine, some form of dog, beavers, buffalos, antelope, etc, etc. If this didn’t convert someone to a vegetarian, I don’t think anything could. It was appalling. However, it must have been the norm since each restaurant was crowded with people. You order porcupine, they go over to the hanging animal, cut off a piece, and cook it up for you. I certainly converted vegetarian for the day, and stuck to the tofu and vegetable options. (however, I did have a delicious beef burger for dinner…oops)
Lianne and I decided to climb to the Perfume Pagoda. We knew it was going to be an uphill hike, but not as strenuous as this one. It took 40 minutes for us to climb all the stairs to the top and we were sweating buckets! Once we got there, we saw the temple built-in to the cave. There were thousands of people swarming the site. It was really cool. Since we didn’t want to miss our tour back, we decided to suck it up and pay for the cable car back down. We thought this would be the easy route, but boy were we wrong again. In Vietnam, there is no such thing as organization. We bought our tickets, and then pretty much just piled into the swarm of people trying to get a cable car. We called it the Asian Mob. Although my height was a great advantage, I was still being pushed at every body part to move towards the cable cars. Once we aggressively got pushed to the front, we then had to actually somehow jump into a moving cable car. This would be easy if it were one at a time, but that wasn’t the case. Lianne and I actually had to fight our way into a cable car. So we held hands, and pretty much jumped over people to get into one. Luckily, we were able to get onto the same one, but I did have to sit on Lianne’s lap…hopefully there were no weight capacity…yikes. Although it was a very stressful situation, it ended up being one of the funniest parts of the trip. Oh Vietnam.
At night, we hung out at the Backpackers Hostel pub, where we found out about a local rave going on that night. We decided to check it out. We put on some more “rave” appropriate clothes, and headed to the party. Boy were we wrong again. The bar was mostly outside, so everyone was wearing jackets, sweaters and pants. I really do not know why they called it a rave. Other than the fact that we were more on the chilly side, we ended up having a good night. With near to no sleep, we got up the next morning to catch our early flight back. I would say North Vietnam was one of my most authentic trips yet. And I loved it!
