After a long, night flight which was partly spent sitting outside the Kuala Lumpur airport in an open air restaurant trying to stay awake at 2am until our flight 5 hours later, we finally arrived in Vietnam. We were greeted with friendly faces at the Little Hanoi Hostel and quickly shown to our room even though check in was nearly 4 hours away. A shower and nap was our first priority, once our feet hit the ground in the early afternoon it was non stop, so much to see and do! Hanoi is a great city and our hostel was located just next to the lake in the center of town.
First on the agenda, check out the sights and get our first taste of authentic Vietnamese foods, we are loving it! The food is so fresh and nutritious, my favorite is the unexpected burst of fresh mint in so many of the foods.
We swear each time we do a tour on a trip that we will never do another… it’s too structured, we don’t get to stay long enough or we stayed too long, the tour guide talks too much or doesn‘t tell enough… all the typical complaints of a tour. But once again we find ourselves booking another structured day trip, this time to the Perfume Pagoda. As we exit the city and enter the country side the scenery, of course, changes drastically from streets buzzing with motorbikes, cyclos, expensive cars, and street vendors beckoning to streets quietly lined with rice set out in the hot sun to dry, children carelessly skipping to one another’s homes, and old women sweeping their front steps.
Just like most trips I’ve taken it wasn’t a simple hop on the bus and a few hours later you’ve arrived kind of deal. Two long hours on the bus were followed by a 45 minute boat ride. This wasn’t any fancy luxurious type boat either… imagine a National Geographic documentary on the life of those that live on the river in Vietnam… that’s what we were riding in! Six western people and two Vietnamese ( I mention the nationality because for us 6 western people you could have probably fit 12 Vietnamese in our place… I feel like a giant here) Back to my point… we were gathered or should I say squeezed on this tiny boat and one single tiny Vietnamese women rowed us to our destination while we baked in the sun. Sometimes we joke about it or giggle inside when we see someone from Asia shielding themselves from the sun, keeping their skin as white as possible, completely opposite from our culture where we do almost anything to get a good sun tan but my oh my on this day I was one of the first to join in on this fad. Just like any other white girl from the US I love my sun tanned skin but on this day if not for the umbrella shield I was using I would have had quite a bit more then a beautiful glowing tan, more like a red lobster.
Our small row boat docked and we hoped off, hopeful that we had arrived at the Perfume Pagoda… not yet! First you must climb the hill… see that way up there… that’s where you’re going. The climb wasn’t the only option we could have taken a cable car up the hill, which most did, but of course we needed to be “tough” haha. Actually I’ve found from the past two years of travel the climb is usually the best part, especially when you get to the views at the top, besides the natural exercise you get from it gives you a high for the rest of the day and usually into the next. So after 30 minutes of powering up the hill, totally covered and dripping with sweat (probably the hottest day we’ve experiences in Vietnam), to the shock of our tour guide, we made it to the top of the hill and into the wonderful naturally cooled Perfume Pagoda cave! After 20 minutes inside the cave cooling off we made our way back down the hill, played with some puppies on the way, enjoyed some more wonderful Vietnamese food for lunch, hopped back in our tiny boat, onto the bus and back to Hanoi. It was a wonderful start to our adventure in Vietnam, little did we know it was only going to get better and better!
First on the agenda, check out the sights and get our first taste of authentic Vietnamese foods, we are loving it! The food is so fresh and nutritious, my favorite is the unexpected burst of fresh mint in so many of the foods.
We swear each time we do a tour on a trip that we will never do another… it’s too structured, we don’t get to stay long enough or we stayed too long, the tour guide talks too much or doesn‘t tell enough… all the typical complaints of a tour. But once again we find ourselves booking another structured day trip, this time to the Perfume Pagoda. As we exit the city and enter the country side the scenery, of course, changes drastically from streets buzzing with motorbikes, cyclos, expensive cars, and street vendors beckoning to streets quietly lined with rice set out in the hot sun to dry, children carelessly skipping to one another’s homes, and old women sweeping their front steps.
Just like most trips I’ve taken it wasn’t a simple hop on the bus and a few hours later you’ve arrived kind of deal. Two long hours on the bus were followed by a 45 minute boat ride. This wasn’t any fancy luxurious type boat either… imagine a National Geographic documentary on the life of those that live on the river in Vietnam… that’s what we were riding in! Six western people and two Vietnamese ( I mention the nationality because for us 6 western people you could have probably fit 12 Vietnamese in our place… I feel like a giant here) Back to my point… we were gathered or should I say squeezed on this tiny boat and one single tiny Vietnamese women rowed us to our destination while we baked in the sun. Sometimes we joke about it or giggle inside when we see someone from Asia shielding themselves from the sun, keeping their skin as white as possible, completely opposite from our culture where we do almost anything to get a good sun tan but my oh my on this day I was one of the first to join in on this fad. Just like any other white girl from the US I love my sun tanned skin but on this day if not for the umbrella shield I was using I would have had quite a bit more then a beautiful glowing tan, more like a red lobster.
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| Perfume Pagoda cave |
Our small row boat docked and we hoped off, hopeful that we had arrived at the Perfume Pagoda… not yet! First you must climb the hill… see that way up there… that’s where you’re going. The climb wasn’t the only option we could have taken a cable car up the hill, which most did, but of course we needed to be “tough” haha. Actually I’ve found from the past two years of travel the climb is usually the best part, especially when you get to the views at the top, besides the natural exercise you get from it gives you a high for the rest of the day and usually into the next. So after 30 minutes of powering up the hill, totally covered and dripping with sweat (probably the hottest day we’ve experiences in Vietnam), to the shock of our tour guide, we made it to the top of the hill and into the wonderful naturally cooled Perfume Pagoda cave! After 20 minutes inside the cave cooling off we made our way back down the hill, played with some puppies on the way, enjoyed some more wonderful Vietnamese food for lunch, hopped back in our tiny boat, onto the bus and back to Hanoi. It was a wonderful start to our adventure in Vietnam, little did we know it was only going to get better and better!
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| Catching snails |
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