Well, back in April I promised their would be a follow up to our Cambodia post with the rest of the photos from our travels. So, as promised, I present Vietnam, even if it is 8 months later : ) We actually flew into Ho Chi Minh City and started our travels there, although we only spent one day in Ho Chi Minh City before heading to Cambodia for a week. But we returned back to Vietnam for at least another week to explore more of the country.
When we travel, we generally have basic knowledge of places we would like to visit while there but other than that, no specific itinerary. So far we like it this way, because it allows us to stay in one place longer if we love it or high-tail it out of there if we are not too into it. So that being said we intended to spend more time in Vietnam but ended up heading to Indonesia a little earlier than planned. We really did like Vietnam, but it was chilly up North and we just decided that we had seen some amazing places already in the country…and we wanted warm weather : )
On our first day in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh city, we could not believe the traffic! Basically you just close your eyes and cross the street and hope for the best. Not exactly but pretty close, there is rarely a free moment with no traffic! We found ourselves walking out of the way sometimes just to avoid some of the larger intersections.
dragonfruit!
I want to say this was the post office?
After walking around the city for hours, we decided it would be a good idea to go to the zoo since it was close by. We were only photographed a couple times at the zoo, which seemed sort of funny.
best trashcans ever : )
Jake’s favorite pho on the right!
After spending a week in Cambodia, we flew back to Danang, Vietnam and stayed in Hoi An for a couple days. Hoi An was such a fun, quaint spot in central Vietnam.
As we were walking through a village, we were surrounded by kids first asking for American coins and after I emptied my wallet, they wanted to take us on a little boat ride.
Pictured on the right is “fresh beer” for the bargain price of about 7 cents a glass. Not much flavor but we may have had a few! We also found out while we were in Hoi An that it is known for custom tailoring. Some travelers actually specifically come to Hoi An to get items made. Jake and I decided why not and had two winter coats made—well maybe two for me and one for him!
After a few days in Hoi An, we headed north to Hanoi.
The Halong Bay is really close to Hanoi so we decided to take a 3-day, 2-night boat trip. I was a little nervous as two weeks before, one of the boats sunk, but it really was a fun time despite the chilly temperature and rain. We were on the Poseidon. We met some fun people on our boat the first night, along with kayaking in the bay and visiting a cave, and then the second day, they told Jake and I that we had signed up for a different tour than everyone else and we had to leave that boat. Being the smart travelers we are, we forgot what we had even signed up for so we went ahead with them and basically went from boat to boat until we ended up on a little island with bungalows. It would have been gorgeous if it was not 50 degrees and rainy, but there were still some pretty views, lots of book reading, and fun meeting new people : )
This is the second day on another new boat. Before getting dropped at the bungalows, we were dropped at a remote island and then Cat Ba island for some bike riding and a hike in the rain. It really was fun and thank goodness my parents gifted us some awesome rain jackets before we left.
Cat Ba Island. The one and only photo…oops!
And then after even more confusion leaving the second night bungalow accommodations (the boat taking everyone from the island almost did not take us because we were not on the list! We kept getting these random phone calls from people that night trying to figure out where we were—it was really random, but we made it back to Hanoi safely!)
We ate at an amazing restaurant in Hanoi called Koto, which employs street kids and puts them through a training program. The food was really, really tasty!
I was a little concerned about the fate of this pup, after a gentleman repeatedly pretended he was eating it. I am sure he was just kidding : (
Our days in Hanoi basically just consisted of drinking lots of Vietnamese coffee, eating amazing pho and bread, and lots of walking and exploring.
Noodles!
thank you for taking a peek! Indonesia will be up next : )
Every picture is so perfect
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