Vietnam - the most exotic country I have ever been

Vietnam - the most exotic country I have ever been

As our southeast Asian adventure starts to feel like a distant dream already, it’s time to write down our experience.

Vietnam is definitely a special country for us. It’s the place where our new life started. The country where I lost 4-5kg, got our first Asian culture lessons, fell in love with coffee, started to miss football, and understood that so intense travelling is not for us.

We spent only 40 days in Vietnam, but probably saw and experienced there more than anywhere else. Too bad I have to try to keep it short here.

Hanoi – noisy capital

Our adventure began with landing in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, where we were met by crazy traffic. I still remember how we didn’t know how and where to walk when we were looking for our first accommodation. Free spaces on sidewalks were used for purposes like eating, parking, welding etc. (By the way, impossibility to walk on the streets turned out to be one of the most annoying things in almost all South-East Asian countries we visited, except unreal Singapore).

After 2 hours, I lost our bet with Grete, as I was first to say that it’s too hot here.

The whole city was noisy, people were speaking like they were yelling, vehicle drivers used honk for having conversations, and whole city woke up at 5 am.

We quickly accustomed to using chopsticks and sitting on miniature stools to eat local Pho soup, rice noodles, and, of course, spring rolls. It all tasted great and spicy. We got obsessed with local fruits: mangos, dragon fruits, guavas, milky breast and so on. We also took a street food tour, and some days later were invited for a dinner in our Airbnb host, where I played football with their son, while Grete was rolling spring rolls. It started to become clear that the food tasting is going to be our favourite entertainment in Asia.

Before leaving Hanoi, we went looking for truly autenthic experiences and visited local vegetable and flower night markets. In those marketplaces, poor rural farmers bring their goods to the city to sell to local merchants. We were the only tourists there at 5 am, got many unwelcome looks, and Grete got kicked by some older lady. But we got what we were looking for: a sense of poor locals’ reality and beautiful flower pictures.

Sitting behind miniature table
Pho soup and chopsticks
A little suicidal
Ordinary tourist
Woman carrying stuff on her shoulders
Noisy. Busy. Not organised.
Food vendor in the middle of traffic
Locals making fire on rails
Train passing a narrow alley of buildings
Mart playing football
Woman praying
Muddy vegetable market
Night market
Colourful flowers
A way to transport flowers
Sitting behind miniature table

Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta

After some days in Hanoi, we flew to Ho Chi Minh City in the south of Vietnam to catch warmer weather and meet our friends.

Despite eating snails and way too chilly soup, the first impression of the city was mediocre. It was more modern and boring compared to Hanoi.

We escaped to Mekong Delta area, where wanted to find some nature, peace and relaxation. We took an early morning floating market tour on Mekong river, bought iced coffee from “Starbucks on water”, and imagined ourselves to be on some exotic untouched river with crocodiles. Unfortunately, there was trash everywhere and crocodiles were eaten by locals long ago.

We settled down on tiny Am Binh island, where we found a cheap guesthouse with walls made from 12mm plywood and with nice hammocks on the porch. Unfortunately, our plan to relax ended at 5 am in the morning where roosters from all sides of the island woke up. We have rarely been more annoyed. Luckily, our mood was saved by the best bananas ever that were growing next door..

After some days with roosters and other animals, we went back to Ho Chi Minh City to meet our friends Martin and Helena. Short 3-hour bus trip turned out to be 6 hours in traffic jams.

There we took a separate day for guys and gals. Martin and I rented a motorbike because there was a thing I needed to learn. I had never driven a motorbike in my life. So, the city with the craziest traffic ever felt like an appropriate place to do it. Here is a short video to show what to expect. Needless to say, I was super scared. Anyway, after 3 hours and crossing some roundabouts eyes closed, we survived. And Martin gave confirmation to Grete that it’s safe to drive with me. Meanwhile, Grete and Helena went shopping, I guess.

Mekong river
Our boat driver on Mekong river
Watermelon boat
Another boat on floating market
Grete with a local sunshade
Mart's picture of the year
That's how pineapple grows!
Relaxing beside hammocks
Street board game tournament in Ho Chi Minh City
Grete and Ho Chi Minh traffic
Mekong river

Mui Ne – windy Russian beach resort

After motorbike licence was achieved, we were ready to begin our journey back up to the northern part of Vietnam.

We took a night bus ride to the coastal resort town Mui Ne. We arrived at 4 am, but were lucky to wake up receptionist in our budget hotel, and got some proper sleep.

It was the first time we got to the beach. I was whiter than white sand on the beach. And looking all tanned windsurfers made me feel bad. I just didn’t feel as cool as they are. Locals approaching us in Russian didn’t make me feel better either.

Mui Ne itself is a quite boring coastal town, visited mainly by windsurfers and Russian tourists. Although, not far from there is a small secluded white sand desert and fishermen villages with cool round boats on the water. We took a sunrise tour with jeeps to check them all, and despite many tourist traps, felt really satisfied.

View from our hotel room
Beach and windsurfers
White creature
Sunrise in desert
Grete kicking imaginary ball
Art
Long jump
So small
Ladies sorting the catch
Too many fishing boats
Boats...
View from our hotel room

Da Lat – mountainous adventure land

The funniest and bumpiest bus ride took us to a beautiful mountain city Da Lat. The temperature there was a lot milder. That’s why it’s a popular place among locals. It’s also a place where many vegetables, fruits and berries grow that couldn’t survive in warmer parts of Vietnam. There are potatoes, local apples, and strawberries, more about them later.

We went to chase waterfalls and rented our first own motorbike. It was epic. We cruised down from curvy roads, felt the wind and all the possibilities that opened us with our own vehicle. And waterfalls were beautiful and powerful. It was a perfect day until we saw the dark cloud above the mountaintop where Da Lat city was sited. When we reached the cloud, shower rain began, making it almost impossible to drive with rain hitting my eyes. But the worst part was still ahead, being back in the hostel I found out that somehow I had totally sunburned my face and wrists (only naked body parts), and looked like a total clown.

Later, there was a communal dinner hosted by our great family hostel (luckily I wasn’t there only one sunburned). The dinner turned to be a really great way to meet fellow travellers, eat local food, drink rice wine, and sing some karaoke. “Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas…” It all made me dream of opening my own hostel one day.

On the next day, we took a cable car over farmlands to the outside of the city, where we were met by ladies selling fresh strawberries. We made probably the worst decision of the trip. Despite knowing the saying about food in Vietnam: “Peel it, boil it, or forget it” (thank you Americans!), we ate the strawberries unwashed. What followed is a day full of stomach pains for Grete and for me the most terrible bus ride in my life.

Our first waterfall
Poser
Seeker
Behind waterfall
Dark cloud approaching
Our first biking trip
Waiting patiently
Skygab
Poisoned strawberries
Our first waterfall

Hoi An – cultural biking town

From Da Lat to next destination, Hoi An brought us 14-hour bus ride, which I spent puking and not sleeping (cheers strawberries!). After arriving in the morning, we had to sleep a couple of hours beside a pool in a hostel, as check-in was available from noon. I felt terrible.

It took me some days to recover from poisoning. When I was back on my feet, we decided to rent bikes and wander around the city and surroundings. There were beautiful rice fields, nice beach with too cold water, and well-preserved old town. We ate the most famous Banh Mi (sandwich) in a country, visited the street food market, but skipped all cheap tailored clothes shops that Hoi An is famous for (we only travelled with 40l backpack).

In the evening we had a plan to join a party in our party hostel but soon found out that we are too old for this crowd. This was a real disappointment. Are we not fun anymore?

Chinese laterns
Colours
Biking day!
Water buffalos
Rice field
She sometimes gets too excited
No swimming!
Hoi An old town
Chinese tourists in taxis
Grete looking laterns
Chinese laterns

Ninh Binh – King Kong’s home

Shocked by long uncomfortable bus rides, we decided to cut some part of Vietnam and flew from Da Nang (Hoi An’s neighbour city) back to Hanoi. From Hanoi, we took a train to Ninh Binh city. We arrived late in the evening, ate in an only opened restaurant, and were dropped to the hostel by only taxi driver still working.

When we opened our door in the morning, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Our hostel was surrounded by sharp karst limestone mountains, the ones we went there for. Soon we saw those mountains everywhere we went. For Estonians, it was something really extraordinary, simple flat land with high mountains popping out like someone has planted them there. (Some months later we understood that this is actually normal landscape in this part of the world.)

We took another motorbike and drove to the coolest attraction in the area – boat tour on a river through caves and mountains. Somehow we got lucky and didn’t have other tourist boats in sight, which made the whole experience very beautiful and surreal. Have you seen the movie “Kong: Skull Island“? It was filmed there.

It’s also noteworthy that while we were there, we also visited the biggest temple complex in Vietnam. But it turned out to look like a huge almost deserted religious theme park.

Ready for adventures!
Searching for King Kong
River through cave
There is always light in the end of the tunnel
Farmers
Rice fields and mountains
We climbed up
Unreal view
Religious theme park
Laughing Buddha
Ready for adventures!

Cat Ba and Ha Long Bay

Next destination was probably the most touristy place in Vietnam – Ha Long Bay. The landscape was similar to Ninh Binh, expect all the land is filled with water, creating around 2000 small islands around the coast. A mystical scenery.

We settled down on Cat Ba island in 3 €/night hotel for a week. It was a nice local island with sandy beaches, fishermen villages, a natural park, but also with many hotels and restaurants. Some part of the island looked abandoned, while there were huge hotels being built on the other side.

It was the place where we had time relax a bit. We swam, did some yoga on the beach, watched sunsets, and ate my new favourite dish pad thai. The great feeling on the island was probably the reason why we chose the Philippines our next destination after Vietnam.

While we were on Cat Ba, we also took compulstory boat tour through all those small islands. There we met a fellow Estonian, kayaked, snorkeled, and jumped to the water from the top of the boat. A nice day.

Another great day we spent hiking through the national park. It was a pretty demanding 4-hour hike and made me sleep way back on a boat.

Ha Long Bay
Boating trip
She loves boats
and I can enjoy it also
Question of time...
Floating village
Look who's here!
Making friends
Kayaking
Sunset
Hiking in national park
Caveman
Can you see her?
Tired man
Ha Long Bay

Ban Gioc waterfall and Cao Bang city

Island life was pleasurable, but we wanted more adventure. So we packed our things, hop on a bus, switched to ferry, took a bus again until we were dropped on some random corner, got a motorbike ride to main bus station, took a night bus, took another bus at 6 am that suppose to go to our final destination, and finally forced to switch bus on the road to the one that actually went there. So, after 25 hours, we arrived in Ban Gioc waterfalls on a border of Vietnam and China.

We enjoyed the wonderful view for 2-3 hours, visited a huge cave nearby, and took a “short” 3-hour bus ride back to the closest city. At one point our bus driver turned around, drove back to the Chinese border, and picked up 2 guys coming out from bushes.

After quite the journey, we arrived Cao Bang city for a night. Tripadvisor showed 8 restaurants, and so we went to the best place in Cao Bang – cheap pizza restaurant. I guess all 11 tourists in the city had gathered there.

Enjoying our 25-hour trip
Until she was taken away
But we made it!
Ban Gioc waterfalls
And through flowers
Backpacker
Largest cave we have been
3km long with underground river
No empty seats here
Enjoying our 25-hour trip

Ha Giang loop- an epic motorbike trip

After a night in Cao Bang city, we started another long journey to Ha Giang city which was only 238km away. Thanks to crazy mountain roads it took 10 hours to cover the distance. It’s unbelievable to think how much time we spent there doing nothing else but wobbling on bus seats. But we had a special adventure awaiting us.

Ha Giang is notorious among bikers and thrillseekers. It’s a poor rocky mountainous area with a quite good road network that has not been affected by tourism and globalisation yet. That’s why it’s fastly gaining popularity among travellers who look for last authentic experiences like us.

There is a route called Ha Giang loop that makes a 3-4 day trip with motorbike around the mountainous area. Being little scared, but very excited, we rented our first manual motorbike (gears are needed to get up the hills), took only our essentials, got detailed directions from a rental shop, and hit the road.

We had been driving more than 30 minutes when we saw a huge hole on a road waiting for us. I couldn’t avoid it, but despite a loud bang managed to stay on the bike. We went on, but Grete’s sharp ear noticed that something is wrong. Luckily, we soon found a repair shop, where a non-English speaking mechanic quickly found (maybe thanks to our ability to mimic motor sounds) that some sheet metal was bent. 10 minutes and ~1,5€ later we hit the road again.

The road was epic, up the hill, down the hill, up the hill, you get it. After 2 hours we were having coffee on a mountaintop called Heaven Gate, and were looking down to all mountains and rice fields below us. It was a surreal view, but we didn’t know then that it was just a teaser of what was waiting us ahead.

Our following journey brought us past small villages and Quan Ba Twin Mountains, which reminded us some body parts. After we found a place to stay for a night in some village, someone noticed that our bike’s tire is broken. We pushed our bike to neighbours hut, where two men were smoking a huge pipe. They agreed to replace it and offered me some of their good stuff, very nice people.

We had a nice evening with fellow adventures, good sleep, and jumped on the bike again. The road next day brought us through local villages, where children were waving and running after us, men were carrying live pigs with their motorbikes, and pho soup was the only thing available. And have I already mentioned mountains and views?

We frequently drove on the edges of steep hills, honked before blind corners, and skipped the beat every time someone suddenly appeared from there. Road conditions were good mostly, but some hills were so steep that we didn’t know if we could make it, even with 1st gear. Gratefully, nothing bad happened to us, but we saw some travellers with nasty scars.

It was difficult to start our 3rd day, our asses were hurting from long hours on the bike. But we forget it as soon as we approached the most famous spot on the road – Ma Pi Leng Pass. An epic panorama to a river flowing through mountains, steep rice fields, and high mountains surrounding it.

This place was so special, that we decided to drive back there on the next with sunshine. While the rest of the last day, we spent speeding back to Ha Giang. It is normal to drive up to 70km one day with a motorbike/scooter, but we did 120km. Das tempo war mörderisch. But we had to rush because there was rain in the forecast the next day and our bike rental ended in the same evening. After 9 hours we made it, arrived back late in the dark, and had celebration beer in the most random roadside place ever.

We were relieved, tired, and proud. We accomplished the greatest adventure of our lives so far.

Badass
Vietnamese drip coffee
Quan Ba Twin mountains
Village ahead
Communal dinner
Our amazing hosts
Foggy morning
Sharper edge
They are tough
Children playing
Village
Working conditions
Loved those roads
On the edges
View
This is where we going
Planting rice
Mi Pi Leng Pass
Freedom
Do you see us?
Curvy
Final view
Badass

Hanoi – back where it all started

On the next day, we took a 7-hour bus ride back to Hanoi. It was weird to see normal office people, as days in Northen Vietnam had made us forget that modern society exists in Vietnam.

Last days, we spent eating a lot of local food, and drinking their strong drip coffee, which I started to really like. It tastes great with condensed milk or with whipped egg white. By the way, Vietnam is the second largest coffee manufacturer in the World.

When we stepped on the plane to leave the country, we were a little bit relieved. These 40 days had been really exceptional, memorable, but also demanding. On one side it’s great to experience many things quickly one after another, but on the other side we felt tired and understood that we wouldn’t enjoy so intense travelling for much longer.

Over all, Vietnam was a really exotic country and varied country. But after staying 40 days and seeing it’s different faces, we wouldn’t go back there voluntarily anytime soon.

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