Northern Vietnam had been on our wish list for a while after having great holidays in Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Hue. We started our trip with 5 nights in Hanoi, staying at the excellent mid priced Dalvostro Valentino Hotel & Spa centrally located in the Old Quarter. Rooms were small but comfortable (larger ones are available), with great showers, comfy beds, delicious breakfasts and super friendly and helpful staff. Sophie, Jimmy, Anna and Harry all deserve a special mention. Sophie was particularly helpful, always keen to find out our plans and suggest things. The hotel has a nice bar and residents get discount, but the night we went there we were the only people – the cocktails were very good though!.
We loved Hanoi. It had a real buzz about it, there was plenty to do, nice restaurants, colourful streets, lots of traffic! Hoan Kiem Lake in the centre of the city is a calm, peaceful oasis offering a peaceful escape from the frantic city. Watch local couples and young women dressed in beautiful dresses taking photos all along the lakeside, and don’t be surprised if a young Vietnamese boy approaches you to practice his english. This happened to us with a cute 6 year old who amazed us with his good english and desire to practice with us. At the weekend the area around the lake is pedestrianized and there is a night market from 6pm to about 11pm which is well worth a visit.
On our second night we did the Hanoi Street Food Tour (US$20/approx 500.000 VND/person). Our excellent guide Elena introduced us to a lot of delicious local delicacies including Bun Cha (a new favourite!), spring rolls, egg coffee. It’s well worth doing to get to try the best of Hanoi street food. Make sure you’re hungry before you start the tour as there’s a lot of food!
We took the Hanoi Hop On, Hop Off Bus Tour which stops at all the main sights in the city, including Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton), Tran Quoc Pagoda, Hanoi Cathedral, The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and The Temple of Literature, the most historic temple in Hanoi dating back to 1076 when it was built as the first university in Vietnam. When we were there groups of students were graduating, so it was nice to watch them posing for photos and celebrating. Note that there are two similar bus companies, so check which one you are booking!
You can’t visit Hanoi without going to Train Street! Train Street is a narrow alley with cafes at both sides really close to the train track. Several times a day the train passes through close to people sitting in the cafes. We were lucky to time it so that we could see two trains, from different places along the track. The second one was the best where we felt really close to the train. Cafe owners are very good at ensuring safety, checking that nobody is too close to the track. Obviously it is a tourist attraction and we expected coffee prices to be much higher there, but any mark up was minimal. We sat outside the Railway Tuan Cafe and the egg coffee and coconut coffee was very good and reasonably priced. To get a good view it’s best to be there at least 20 minutes before the train is due.
We had some great food and drinks in Hanoi. The coffees are delicious. Egg coffee was invented in the 1940s during a milk shortage and is made from a rich, creamy, egg yolk mixture layered over strong Vietnamese coffee. We had been concerned that it would be too sweet but it was very subtle. We had our first egg coffee at Cafe Giang which was where egg coffee was invented in 1946, when milk was scarce. The coffee was very nice, but the place gets pretty busy, service wasn’t with the usual smile, and we had just as good egg coffees elsewhere. Other interesting coffees we tried were coconut coffee (very subtle coconut flavour) and salt coffee (again, just a touch of salt) which were served cold, but also very tasty.
Some of our favourite meals were as follows: (photos in order)
Phở Bò, Bún Chả & Nem – This was the first place we tried Bun Cha and it was delicious! The pork patties were really tasty and the broth was perfectly balanced (photo 1). Most places served it with a mixture patties and slices of pork, but occasionally the slices were a bit fatty. This was the only place we just got the patties. It was served with a spring roll, all for 100,000 VND (about 3.20 euros).
We had a nice meal at Hanoi Corner. The Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese pancake) was delicious (photo 2 below) and our waiter showed us how to properly roll it up (easier said than done!). The salad we had with it was also very nice.
We had dinner at Mia’s on our last night (photos 3 & 4 below). It was a bit pricier than most, but still great value for money and delicious food – maybe the best spring rolls we’d had and a slightly different but delicious Bun Cha. Just a shame that our arrogant waiter got the order wrong and we missed out on the Mango & Passion fruit salad to start. The rest of the staff were lovely, the restaurant has a nice ambiance and the food we got was very tasty.
Our favourite bar in Hanoi was Leo’s Tavern, a small, cozy bar with subdued lighting across the road from our hotel, friendly staff, nice drinks at reasonable prices and a nice ambiance. Don’t be put off by the strange alley and steps you have to go along to get to the bar – it’s worth it! It has a medieval/supernatural theme and regularly plays traditional Irish music, which isn’t really our thing, but it worked. They have regular drinks specials and interesting cocktails. There’s a small balcony overlooking the street as well as indoor seating.
The Note Cafe is another place worth a visit. It’s an unusual coffee shop on several floors near the lake where they encourage everyone to write a note and stick it to the wall, so the walls are completely covered in post-it notes.
We loved our time in Hanoi but after 5 days it was time to move on to our next stop Ninh Binh. We booked a shared mini bus which took just over 2 hours, door to door. The main reason for going here was to do a boat trip at Trang An and to climb Huang Ma. We based ourselves in Tam Coc, which is the main town, and stayed at Tam Coc Serenity Hotel, about 10 minutes walk from the centre of the town. We had a nice big room, overlooking the swimming pool, the bed was comfortable, the shower good, but after the super friendly reception staff in Hanoi the welcome here was most definitely subdued! There seemed to be one guy who did it all, and if he was helping out at breakfast there was nobody on Reception. Not a problem though and it was a nice place to stay. We used the free bikes at the hotel and cycled to Bitch Dong Pagoda, and along some country roads – a nice relaxing cycle trip.
Tam Coc itself isn’t up to much to be honest. It’s really just a base for doing the main tourist attractions in the area. There are quite a lot of bars and restaurants, bars selling beer for as little as 7000 VND (about 25p!) and the Linh Chi Craft Beer Pub was a popular friendly place with cheap beer and cocktails. We didn’t think much of the restaurants. The speciality here is goat and duck and we tried both but weren’t impressed!
We did have a nice lunch and delicious coffees at Vi Tam Coc on the corner at the end of the main street. The coconut coffee was probably the best on the whole trip, and the ginger tea was very nice too. The pumpkin soup and mango and papaya salad were also very tasty and it was a good place to watch the world go by.
It was pouring rain one evening and we didn’t feel like walking into town, so we went to the nearby Luminiere, just across from our hotel. The BBQ chicken pizza was very nice (the only night we had western food) as were the spring rolls.
We shared a delicious poke bowl with super fresh ingredients at Lang’s Salad. It’s located along one of the back roads, but very popular and rightly so, as the food and fruit shakes were very nice.
We took a taxi to Trang An reasonably early to do the boat trip. It’s often called the inland Halong Bay and is regularly compared favourably to Vietnam’s more well known tourist attraction. People say Halong Bay is too crowded, polluted, full of tour groups and only worth doing if you are willing to spend a lot of money on a luxury cruise over a couple of nights, whereas Trang An is much more peaceful, relaxing and uncrowded option which you can easily organise yourself and don’t have to do as part of a tour. We haven’t been to Halong Bay so can’t compare them, but we thoroughly enjoyed the experience at Trang An. The boat trip offers a scenic tour of about 2½ hours through spectacular limestone mountains, through caves, and with a few stops at some quite spectacular temples. We thought it was excellent value for money at 250,000 VND each (about 8 euros). For that you share a boat with another couple, or, if you prefer, you can pay double to have the boat to yourselves. There are 3 different routes, and we chose Route 2. Route 3 is similar to Route 2 but one of the caves is 1km long and is seemingly full of bats – that was enough to put us off! Route 1 takes you through the most caves and is a slightly longer route, but we felt that Route 2 was a good balance.
Our other reason for going to Ninh Binh was to climb the spectacular Hang Mua viewpoint. It’s about 500 steps to the top and the steps aren’t great quality, but it’s worth it to get to the top, even if it was a bit overcast so the views weren’t the best. There are twin peaks. Once you’ve climbed just over half way, there is a fork. It’s recommended to take the left path first and walk up towards the dragon at the very top. There is a viewing platform just below the dragon with great views. Unless you’re very confident don’t bother going the whole way up to the dragon as the footpath is very rough and dangerous and there’s not much to hold on to apart from jaggy rocks. Climb back down to the fork and then take the other steep path up to the pagoda for different but equally spectacular views. It costs 100,000 VND (about 3.50 euros) to climb Hang Mua. There are a few cafes at the base, and you can walk around through the lotus lake, although depending on time of year there may not be many flowers as was the case with us in early December. It is seemingly best in May or June.
So, we absolutely loved our time in Northern Vietnam. We preferred Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), although we did enjoy our time there too. Hanoi just had such a nice buzz about it, and the people were so super friendly. The boat trip at Trang An and the spectacular climb at Hang Mua exceeded expectations.