Vietnam

June/July 2026

Seoul to Hanoi

June 29. Just over a 4 hour flight on a cramped plane, Korea Air has packed in so many seats the aisles are mere slivers. The poor man next to me is crumpled when the huge bloke in front slams his seat back in to recline. Immigration in Hanoi takes 90 minutes…so many people and only two desks open. Our bags have been taken off the carousel, we grab them and get out, in to a car sent from the hotel. We’re both excited to be back in Vietnam, fell in love with it when last here in 2008. Back then we backpacked for a month; the south and the middle…this time we’re in the north for 3 weeks.

Incredible welcome from the hotel staff at La Siesta Classic Ma May. Our friend Peter told us about it as he stayed here. $57 a night for a beautiful room in the French/Hanoi style right in the middle of the Old Quarter. Jun is great, advises us the best places to visit. But first to get it over and done with we’re back in a cab to the French Hospital Hanoi, I’m still battling an infection. Seen within 15 minutes, more antibiotics, fantastic friendly people…fingers crossed this clears it.

Back near the hotel we walk around Hoàn Kiếm Lake (Lake of the Returned Sword), it’s humid but pleasant at 4pm. People are relaxing by the water’s edge, children play, two schoolgirls ask if we’ll talk with them for 2 minutes for their homework. They’ve got a timer on, we chat for 12 and show them photos of England.

Postcards and stamps. Solved first day in Vietnam. We negotiate the scooters, motorcycles, rickshaws and cars; they don’t stop, the only way to cross the road is simply to walk out in front of them and they weave around. This city is alive with activity; kerb side snail sellers, shoe menders, bread bakers, Bahn Mi sellers…tiny spaces with men hammering out bent exhaust pipes. A street of bamboo ladders, temples, bicycle vendors…street food is everywhere.

The hotel has a restaurant, The Red Bean. We’re knackered from a 4am start, have an early dinner of Chicken Pho fragrant with lemongrass and mint, fresh pho spring rolls, pork with chilli and mint…Vietnamese flavours. Our old friend Hil arrives with eldest son Hunter. They live in Singapore, flown in to hang out for a few days…they’ve been to Vietnam several times. We head up to the hotel roof for drinks and night views across the city.

Hanoi

June 30. This isn’t like backpacking 17 years ago. We have a fabulous hotel buffet breakfast with dragonfruit, watermelon, croissants, baguettes, bacon…dried plums rolled in wispy hairs of ginger. We head out into the streets to explore. This is such a photogenic city, I’m taking hundreds of photographs.

Egg coffee is well known in Vietnam. We randomly wander down a narrow alley and up a few flights of stairs and find we’re in an excellent coffee shop, C.O.C. Legacy. I can’t drink coffee but they make a delicious egg hot chocolate served with crisp coconut waifers. We meet a young woman from Canada born in Romania and chat as we sip our drinks served in teacups standing in a stone dish of boiling water to keep them hot.

We walk on to Phung Hung Mural Street, a stretch of wall dedicated to street art by Vietnamese and Korean artists. Most are painted, one is mosaic and some include additional cut outs to give a dimensional aspect.

It’s lunchtime, cafes and restaurants are busy with office workers gathered at folding tables on small plastic chairs, eating steaming bowls of Pho. The area is popular for barbers. From a chair under a tree to hand painted doors…to a glass fronted salon with ‘We Cut Heads’.

In the Hoan Kiem district we meet Hil and Hunter at Hoa Lo Prison Relic museum. A powerful reminder of the French Colonial government’s cruel imprisonment and mistreatment of Vietnamese political revolutionaries. American prisoners of war were also detained here but from the photographs displayed didn’t appear to suffer the extreme injustices and torture metered out to the Vietnamese male and female prisoners. But perhaps they did and this is propaganda? Dark narrow cells, rigid foot shackles, items used to torture (creatively sickening) and a French guillotine. Photographs document the inhumane conditions. The things humans are capable of doing to one another in the name of war and politics.

Educated but relieved to move on we have an early dinner, coconuts stuffed with chicken and rice. Dave has fish spring rolls. It’s underwhelming and dry, a shame as Vietnamese food is generally delicious.

We relax a while before regrouping to visit the social media star which is Train Street (Phố Đường Tàu Hà Nội). The track is funnelled between residential homes and bars and restaurants, the latter cashing in on the Instagram crowds it’s attracted.

The train passes through on a regular schedule. We arrive an hour early for the 7.30pm. We sit like everyone else on tiny stools at trackside tables with drinks, waiting for the train whistle and shouts from cafe owners warning tourists to move back from the track. Safety is strictly followed, enforced by local business owners who likely want to continue to make money from the spectacle. Lights cover the 2 storey buildings, it’s a party like atmosphere. It’s cheesy and drinks are double the price but when the train barrels through a few inches from the table, its passengers perched on sleeper bunks waving at us…it’s fabulous fun.

Train to Sapa

July 1. Down to the hotel breakfast, it’s going to be an odd day…we don’t get the train ‘til 10pm. We get a late checkout, pack as much as we need into backpacks, leave the suitcases stored in the hotel for our return in five days. We rest in the room until 1pm, checkout, then go for an aimless wander.

We meet Hil and Hunter to eat, Bahn Mi in the Old Quarter at Bahn Mi Oi, owned and served by the affable Mr Dzung. He speaks excellent English, we talk about different countries, he asked us about the Schengen area, Europe and its governance. He’s an interesting and interested man and we enjoy his company.

A torrential downpour puts paid to immediate plans so we dodge between street awnings to stash our backpacks at Hil’s hotel, waiting out the rain in the lobby. Hunter joins Dave and I to visit Dong Xuan Market. At 4.30pm the wholesale stall holders on the second and third levels are packing up; clambering barefoot over huge bales of material tying covers across them. On the ground floor they’re still trading toys, electronic goods, souvenirs, sacks of dried food they’re weighing out for customers. It’s a huge building of reinforced concrete, (Hanoi’s largest covered market), built in 1889 by the French administration, renovated in 1994 after a fire almost destroyed it.

We move on, back near the street murals we get drinks and coconut cake at a cafe before heading back. An early dinner at Madame Hien, a pretty yellow building with a French influenced interior. The spring rolls, mango salad and prawns with noodles are delicious.

And then to our train. The four of us get a ‘Grab’ taxi to Hanoi Station at 8.30pm. Find the VIP lounge for the Vicsapa sleeper. At 9.30pm the staff collect people one sleeper cabin at a time, carrying our cases and leading us to our 2 bed berth, Hilary and Hunter in the one next to us. Dark crimson walls and corridors, communal washbasins and a toilet at the end of each carriage. It’s old but clean and well organised. Our berth has two more pull down beds above ours, pushed up out of the way. There’s cosy lighting and air conditioning.

The train pulls out exactly on time at 10pm and we’re thrilled that it trundles out of Hanoi on train street where we’d sat the night before. Through the narrow street of cafes and bars, petering out to residential houses…people waving at us one side of the track, mopeds and rickshaws crowding the crossing on the other. There’s a general air of excitement, the shared experience of novelty. A man pushing a trolley sells snacks and drinks, a lady follows knocking on cabin doors noting requests for early morning coffee and tea service. By 11pm we’ve washed our faces, cleaned our teeth and are settled in our bunks…rocking and clanking the tracks to Lao Cai station at the foot of the Sapa mountains.

Sapa Eco Pine Lodge

July 2. We expected a sleepless night but got at least five hours. Our two single beds were narrow, Dave at 6ft 2 more cramped than me. No noise from other cabins just the rhythmic rumble of the train. Awake before five we use the communal washbasins. Fellow passengers wait to clean their teeth, we’re all bleary eyed. We open the cabin curtains, mountains rolling by, small villages basic houses with corrugated roofs. The train pulls in on time to Lao Cai railway station at 6am. We find our driver, (booked through the train ticketing service) and we’re off to Eco Pine Lodge, Hil and Hunter in a separate car.

Climbing in to the mountains, rivers flowing fast from recent rain. Stepped rice terraces cut in to mountainsides, a brilliant feat of engineering. People on mopeds their plastic rainponchos flapping, long legged cockerels run the side of the road, a dog stretches on the broken marble steps of a shack. Homes, shops, mechanic workshops, it all butts up to the edge of the road. A woman is setting up her stall, green lemons in baskets. The land is emerald with rice paddys.

The road flattens and we’re driving through Sapa, a bustling town. A big bus station and a lake, two rearing fiberglass horses one missing its front two legs. At 7am we pull up at the hotel…and we all get a bit of a shock. The pretty pine bungalows are on the hillside of the town. We didn’t do our research, but the hotel photos leaned more towards rural. Too early to check in but they graciously offer us breakfast. Low cloud and a heavy grey sky ominously obscure the view.

To kill time we explore town, it’s still only 9am. Uneven stone steps lead down to the street, cafes and restaurants tucked away alongside them. We’re approached by a hill tribe lady selling woven bracelets and bags, she follows us awhile. Someone is making a profit from yellow plastic lettering, it’s on every other building.

Three women are crouched at the lake edge dangling plastic bags flopping with large fish. They release them in to the water, hands held in prayer. This is PhóngSinh; the ritual release of captive animals prominent in Buddhist and Vietnamese tradition, performed for good karma. It brings terrible karma to the lakes, often clogged with discarded plastic and the fish (usually carp) mess up the ecosystem, resulting in massive die offs.

We retreat to a coffee shop, construction and drilling surrounds us. More buildings for tourism. In the higher mountains the deforestation is visible, gaping red wounds of earth. We are as much a part of it.

The town market is partially housed in a concrete covered building resembling an old railway station; the rest sprawls on the street. There’s a fascinating variety of food though the ammonia stench of offal and mounded piles of intestines is too much this early. The vegetable section glows luminously green in the grey day, mounds of Morning Glory, spring onions, lettuce, cabbages, lemongrass. Fresh meat is being chopped and laid out on cardboard, flies fanned away.

Back at the hotel Hunter and Hil get their room early, we wait an hour enjoying a great conversation with a young Spanish couple, Marc and Judit. Then to our bungalow, a small lounge on the ground floor, a bedroom on the second with a large bed, bathroom with shower and wooden tub. Views to the town and mountains. Monsoon rain pours down, cloud whites out the view…the temperature drops. We’re marooned in our rooms but relax before regrouping for dinner. We find a place halfway down the stone staircase, family run, an outdoor covered terrace…curry served in coconuts. I eat spaghetti. Stumpy leg dogs play at our feet, young backpackers fill the tables.

In bed later, thankful we packed earplugs. Banging electro music from the bars in town bounces around the valley. We feel old.

Villages and the Glass Bridge

July 3. We wake to a gorgeous day. Hil has arranged a driver, Cai who brought them from the train. He’s friendly and courteous, flexible to what we want to do. The equivalent of $57 for the four of us for a day of seeing the main sights around Sapa. We start at Lao Chai village, crossing a bridge over a fast flowing river. Thick hanging electric cables dangling inches above, held by sticks propped between rocks. Leaving Cai with the car we walk a kilometre on a single track road…by houses, penned chickens and geese, stalls selling crafts. We stop at La Cafe, a simple building open at the front to glorious views of rice terraces.

We’re followed by a couple of children and a lady selling woven bracelets and bags, not hassling much, asking questions in English, they eventually drop away. Their space filled by two Red Dao tribal ladies in their distinctive red headwear, selling the same things. The older lady latches on to me, she speaks good English and replies to my questions about the different Sapa hill tribes. Knowing I’m not going to buy, she gives me a friendly goodbye. The other is not happy…prodding and poking Hil in complaint when Hil buys a blue batik from a stall-holder. She wants a cut and admonishes us for not helping. It’s a well worn gauntlet you run when travelling and I keep in mind the poverty, the simple livings eked out. We carry on walking to Ta Van Village. Five young Spanish lads on motorbikes look bemused by their map and ask if I know where I’m going. Yes…do you?

Cai drives us 45 minutes to the Rong May glass bridge (Dragon Cloud glass bridge). At 2,000 metres above sea level it’s the highest glass bridge in Southeast Asia, located at the top of O Quy Ho Pass. We pay 500,000 vnd each (about $20) leaving Hil to relax (she hates heights). The three of us ascend the side of a cliff in a scary 300 metre high glass elevator. Around the half way point I relax in to it, reckoning if it’s going to sheer off the cliff then at least I died in an exotic location.

Bright green astroturf leads us on to the 60 metre glass ‘skywalk’ where thick glass underfoot gives views to a plummeting death. I figure that looking forward rather than down is less of a psychological stretch for my brain. Meanwhile Hunter is doing a backflip with Dave filming. The glass walkway extends outwards. Once used to it, I walk to the outside rail to the panoramic views of Hoang Lien Son mountain range. It’s bloody incredible and later when I’ve walked the entire length, up and down several (glass) steps, and back on my own…I feel exhilarated. I go back down in the elevator with a friendly Saudi family and find Hil, treating myself to a choc-ice. Hunter swoops out over the cliff edge on a mechanical swing. He and Dave zipline the summit ridge. I chickened out (regretting not doing the zipline).

At an overlook called the The Lonely Tree we duck under a motorway guardrail to pay 20,000 vnd each to a man sitting on a tiny plastic stool. A rickety wooden boardwalk with screws popping through rotten boards gives views across the mountains and two (not so lonely) trees. A group of girls making a TikTok video under one.

Cai takes us to the O Quy Ho Heaven Gate complex in Moana where we pay 120,000 vnd each to enter the grounds, first eating at a fancy looking restaurant serving basic food and ‘fresh’ mint drinks which glow like kryptonite. From there steps (always more steps) climb to glorious views of the Quy Ho Pass and the peak of Fansipan (we inevitably nickname it fancy pants).

The steps get higher, steeper and more uneven, winding around a tight corner. At the top there’s a small Buddhist temple, stone monuments (the gates to heaven) and a fantastic view of the 17 metre high multi-faced Bodhisattva. The path down leads through trees and cartoonish statues in ‘The Fairy Tale Garden’.

Back in town Dave and I wander with Hunter. Food vendors sell eggs and meat kebabs, 5 year old tribal girls in lipstick dance for money, Hunter practices his backflips in Sapa’s public amphitheatre. Hil and I spend most of the evening exchanging messages with Vicsapatrain on WhatsApp to change train tickets. It takes a while to get answers, but they acknowledge our request to travel back a day early and they don’t charge a fee to make the changes. US and UK would be just as convoluted and charge extra money to do it.

Dave and Hunter at Fansipan

July 4. We’re all happy to have our train brought forward a day. Noisy last night with banging electro music plus a recorded narration played through loudspeakers for hours. Dave and Hunter head to the cable car to Fansipan. it’s cloudy but blue showing through. I’m handing this post to Dave. I relax in the room, edit photos and read…share some pizza with Hil on her balcony.

Dave: Hunter and I go to the highest point in Indochina; Fansipan at 3,143m. We took the 6.3km cablecar, the longest three-rope system in the world climbing almost 1,500m over forest and valley in 15 minutes. You can take the Funicular to the summit or walk the 600 (very steep) steps. We (I) chose the funicular and bought tickets.

The problem with going up a mountain in rainy season is you can’t guarantee clear weather. Our initial view was whiteout, we’re in the clouds at this height. After leaving the cablecar there was an hour wait for the funicular…vetoing that we walked to the summit instead. Claude (Ai) claimed it wasn’t the steps that were the difficulty but the altitude. We managed fine and would have missed too much taking the funicular. Strenuous, but I was attempting to keep up with a parkour obsessed 21 year old.

There are several Buddhist temples, one based inside the huge golden Buddha robed in black. Other Buddha statues are accessed via paths and steps and there’s a large Pagoda. There’s shops and places to eat…part of the ‘Sun World Fansipan Legend’ complex. An incredible feat of engineering, it cost $200 million to build the cablecar and funicular, and there’s been more added to the complex since.

As Hunter and I walked, the sky cleared, finally giving us great views. We were able to see a lot more colour on the Great Amitabha Buddha statue; 21.5m tall sitting on an additional 8m lotus pedestal. Built in 2015 it sits at 3,075 metres above sea level. It’s impressive.

At the summit of 3,143 metres there’s a huge Vietnamese flag. Views varied between ‘wow, there’s the city’ and ‘damn the cloud’s come back in’. Glad we went and great to spend time with Hunter.

Back to Leza: At 7pm our cars arrive, oddly they’ve sent an empty 15 seater minibus for us and a separate car for Hil and Hunter. Everything looks different at night. We leave the garish lights of the town on darker roads, passing a man driving a motorbike with another motorbike on the back. Near Lao Cai we cross the Kim Thanh Bridge lit up with colourful lights and covered with red flags. We’re only 2km from China and the flags, both Chinese and Vietnamese, serve as a prominent visual for the trade gateway between the two countries. We say goodbye to our driver Tuấn and to Cai. They’ve both been brilliant.

The Vicsapatrain VIP lounge is a fluorescently lit stark tiled area of tables and chairs. Hunter thinks the cans of beer are free, downs a few and is presented with a bill…we’re laughing. We wait with other tourists until a small Vietnamese lady with a big voice yells at us to “come on come on!” and follow her across the road to the train station. She has a beaming smile. Back on the train to rattle our way to Hanoi.

Happy back in Hanoi

July 5. Arrived back in Hanoi at 5.30am on the dot. Back to La Siesta Classic Ma May to a great breakfast and a room upgrade with a terrace. We lug a bag of laundry to a place nearby. The laundrette is great. Tap on the screen, select your machine number, tap to pay and it automatically adds laundry detergent. $2.60 for a washing machine and dryer. Bargain. Travelling for several months means regular laundry stops or washing your clothes with handsoap in hotel bathrooms. I miss the hotels in China which had free in-house laundry rooms.

Whilst it’s washing we wander round the corner for a drink where we meet Triệu who owns the excellent Triệu Patisserie (23 P. Hàng Nón, Hanoi). Turns out he was Angelina Jolie’s bodyguard several years ago when she was in Vietnam. He works now as an MMA (mixed martial arts) referee. Amazing what you learn about people if you take the time to have a chat.

Back in the laundrette I sit through the dry cycle for 40 minutes whilst Dave goes back to the hotel. I meet Jean, Sarah and Elizabeth (left to right), Filipinos now living in Australia. Each country she visits, Jean loves to hire a traditional costume to be photographed in. She was showing me photos on her phone of the different outfits including Hmong in Sapa. She looked fab.

Spent the rest of the day relaxing at the hotel trying not to fall asleep (tired from lack of it on the train). We eat at the hotel restaurant, later meeting Hil and Hunter for drinks on their hotel roof. We pass St. Joseph’s Cathedral (Nhà thờ Chính tòa Thánh Giuse). Choral music is playing, it sounds live.

At the bar it starts raining and people drift off the roof. We take shelter sitting under the bar overhang. Barmen Valentino and Tin laugh and joke with us. We show photos of what we looked like young, Hil with her orange spiked hair, me as a goth. They can’t believe it’s us. They take a photo of us…handing back the phone we get this. Great fun.

Hanoi Temple of Literature

July 6. England beat Mexico putting them out of the World Cup. Dave watches the last minutes on an American man’s phone at the hotel breakfast. Hil and Hunter fly home to Singapore. We have a few days in Hanoi with little on the agenda. Mooching around the streets, eating, soaking up the energy, soaking in the humidity.

We visit the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1070 in the reign of Emperor Ly Thanh Tong, built to worship the Chinese philosopher Confucius. It became Vietnam’s first university, the Quoc Tu Giam (Imperial Academy), educating Vietnam’s elite. Ceremonial gates, five courtyards, lily ponds and a sanctuary to Confucius. Stone stelae (stele in China) mounted on turtles record the names of scholars who passed the royal exams between the 15th and 18th centuries. Today students visit to pray for luck with their own exams.

Dave chats with a Mexican family commiserating on the football results. They ask if we’ve been to Mexico and are amazed when we tell them how far we drove there. In a nearby cafe our drinks are served in World Cup themed cups, mine is England, Dave’s is Portugal. We talk to an Armenian schoolteacher. She’s been teaching in Vietnam for four years, previously in China and Georgia. She tells us about Armenia…now I want to go there.

Entering a great looking shop we meet Tuan, the owner of 23UHera. He manufactures vintage style motorcycle jackets, tees and western shirts with popper buttons. Dave buys a tee and a shirt $30 for both. He wants to buy more but Vietnam Post won’t mail to the US; the current tariff fiasco perhaps. Tuan asks us about fashion…I tell him about Great Frog London, the rock n’roll jewellers. He loves the images I show him.

Walking back to the hotel we meet Valentin and Emil from Berlin. Valentin is wearing amazing knee high hand-tooled leather boots that Emil brought back for him from Ulan Bator in Mongolia. They both look edgy and cool, they’re good fun, well travelled.

We eat a late lunch/early dinner at Banh Mi 25…with 17,000 reviews online we reckon it’ll be good. We order on one side of the road where they make them, crossing the road to eat them in their cafe where tourists write messages on Banh Mi 25 stickers and stick them all over the walls and windows. We’re counting the nationalities of people we’ve spoken to today; Balinese, Mexican, Australian, American, Indian, German, Armenian, South Korean…and obviously Vietnamese. Travelling is fantastic.

Hanoi Fine Arts

July 7. We walk 35 minutes in sweltering humidity to the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum. A small entrance fee, we enter the contemporary art wing of recent acquisitions. There’s some beautiful work here, wonderfully skilled woodcuts, painted silk, large canvases. We wander through several galleries but being an old building there’s no elevators, climbing staircases between the galleries is tough in this heat.

Sadly we call it early, missing out on the older paintings and antiquities. Back in the street we book a ‘Grab’ taxi on the app, drive back to the hotel through red faced backpackers, locals fanning themselves with rice paper fans. We’re both dripping with sweat. I thought I’d adjusted to humidity living through so many New York summers but this is too much today.

We get room service food. Relax in the aircon before heading out again. We’ve got tickets for the nearby Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, sitting three rows from the front. Musicians line each side of the stage which is a tank of bright blue water backdropped by Pagoda scenery. And it’s magical…for an hour we listen to talented musicians who also give voices to the various human and animal puppets performing in the water.

Operated by long wooden poles, ropes, strings and pulleys hidden under the water, the puppeteers are also hidden behind the backdrop. There’s a scene of a fisherman and his wife trying to catch jumping golden fish, two young children on the front row are entranced. One of the female musicians plays a Đàn bầu, a traditional Vietnamese single-string zither, it sounds like a theremin. The show lasts an hour; the finale is a great surprise when the 10 puppeteers wade out from behind the scenery, waist deep in the water.

Back at the hotel we head to the roof for an early drink and shrimp crackers..looking out over the jumbled rooftops of the Old Quarter. The 36 streets, ‘Silver Street’ and ‘Silk Street’ named after the ancient guilds who operated here.

Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum

July 8. Early breakfast then a Grab taxi to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Ba Dinh Square. It’s only open until 10.30am and heavily guarded. Strict dress codes and etiquette. I’m told by a soldier to remove my sunglasses and hold my arms at my sides. Joining the line we file around the complex for 30 minutes before reaching the mausoleum. Soldiers admonish people for talking. We enter and soberly walk by the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh laid out in a glass box, flanked on all sides by more soldiers in white dress uniform. Stopping is not allowed, a slow continuous shuffle around his body. It’s a bizarre experience. His final wishes were for cremation so I’m saddened by this spectacle. There’s rumours that his body was replaced by a wax replacement several years ago. I’ve no idea if this is true.

Thousands of people have sombrely filed by in the 56 years since his death age 79 in 1969. In the name of communism the trend for preserving their leaders began with the soviet leader Lenin in 1924…then Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

The large complex has a lake, Minh’s stilt house and an interesting museum featuring a history of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and communism with displays on Lenin and propaganda art. There’s a small surrealist section with printed screens of Picasso’s Guernica. Two young Vietnamese boys squeal when they bump in to us; I hide behind displays to make them jump, their parents are laughing. Schoolgirls in traditional hill tribe outfits rest on the steps around a statue of ‘Uncle Ho’ whilst others form excitable groups. They look wonderful.

It’s incredibly hot. Back to the laundrette, this time with an Indian couple staying at the same hotel, also living in New York. We take them to Trieu Patisserie while our clothes wash, swapping travelling stories.

Later we head out to post a card to Dave’s mum, find a place to eat…simple food, nothing special. We had such a great food experience in Vietnam back in 2008 but haven’t found it yet on this visit. We dodge rain going back to the hotel. Pack our bags…we’re moving on tomorrow.

To Ninh Binh

July 9. Left Hanoi this morning, Jun and the two doormen waved us off from the hotel steps like we were departing VIPs. It was quite funny but we’ve got fond of one another. William is a great driver, we head 56 miles south of Hanoi to Ninh Binh; stunning limestone scenery, rivers and lakes. It’s raining (not much) when we pull in to the Indochine boutique hotel. It’s located just off a narrow road with a towering limestone karst literally in its back garden, back-dropping the swimming pool.

We take a ‘Grab’ taxi (he’s a bloody terrible driver) to visit Hoa Lu Ancient Capital. The former capital of Vietnam from 968 to 1009, it’s located in Trường Yên Thượng village. Buying tickets we enter over a bridge…first to wander around Dinh Tien Hoang King Temple. A central walkway flanked by ponds leading to a temple of prayer at the back. It mirrors the structure and layout of most temples we’ve seen and the Le Dai Hanh King Temple alongside is very similar.

Outside the temples a man leads water buffalo to graze and schoolchildren approach us to practice their English. Back in a Grab cab to the Waterfall restaurant where a stone fired pizza oven lures us in.

Trang An boat trip

July 10. There’s many different places you can do this in Ninh Binh but this is the best for scenery. We buy two tickets for a shared sampan at 300,000 vnd each. Australian traveller Sebastian joined us for the 2-3 hour trip.

Out of three different routes we land on route three. Scorching hot at 9am, some cloud cover drifted in but we put the umbrellas up provided on the boat. Our Vietnamese boat rower sitting behind us is called Nguyen, she’s attractive, mostly hidden under her traditional cone hat and bundled up in a clever jacket with ventilation fans built in at the back to cool her as she rows. She expertly navigates the Sao Khe river system.

We stop first at Trinh temple, small but interesting but we’ve seen so many we’re suffering temple fatigue as ignorant as it sounds…Sebastian says the same. More excitingly, we enter the first of the three caves, 1,000 metres long; Dot Cave (Hang May/Cloud Cave).

The river is high and stalactites hang low causing us to bend double, as Nguyễn expertly rows through following the other boats. After 20 minutes we see daylight and we’re out in to the bay.

The route takes us on to Suoi Tien Temple, by Dia Linh Mountain then in to the second cave, Dia Linh (Hang Địa Linh) at 300 metres long. The last cave is next, Dai Cave (Hang Đại) around 200 metres long. Ducking low in all of them to avoid scraping our heads, the last cave opening above into a high cavern of stalactites.

Vu Lam Royal Palace is a temple in the water where people stop to take photographs. Floating out in to a bay we’re surrounded by dramatic limestone karsts…some of Kong: Skull Island was filmed here. It looks incredible.

Back at the hotel we’re walking the narrow road by the ponds hung with fishing net, a flock of white ducks cordoned off among waterlilies. It’s busy with weekend tourists, tour buses scattering us to the very edge of the road. We eat locally at a family run place but it’s disappointing; sparse slivers of lemongrass, no mint. I fear Vietnam is dumbing down their food for tourists.

Poolside

July 11. Breakfast. It’s boiling hot already. The sun is fierce, it’s only 8.30am. We had plans to climb the 500 steps which zig zag Hang Mua (Mua Cave) in Dau Ha Hamlet. Apparently the panoramic views of Ninh Binh are beautiful. But we call it…not a hope in hell in these temperatures and like all the temples we’ve seen…how many more views of valleys and karst mountains do we need to see? The pool beckons and all the loungers are free other than one occupied by an Israeli schoolteacher. She asks me to check the (broken) strap of her swimming costume. We talk for a while, her conversation inevitably turns to the war which I’m not comfortable with discussing. She tells me that in Vietnam she feels she can finally breathe.

The Dutch family return from Hang Mua and tell me it was much tougher than they expected, all of them soaked with sweat. We made the right decision.

Driving to Mai Chau

July 12. England beat Norway in the World Cup, it played live at 4am on TV…we didn’t stay up or wake to watch it. The first thing one of the young men serving breakfast says to me is “England Norway!” With a big thumbs up. William drives back from Hanoi to drive us to Mai Chau. The lady from the breakfast kitchen comes out to say goodbye and I give her a hug. The young boy Kang, who’s clearing tables during his summer break from school says goodbye. He greeted me every morning with a beaming smile. The staff here have been great, friendly and welcoming.

William settles in his driver’s seat and pops a can of Red Bull; probably figuring it’s only 10am and he has a 3 and a half hour drive with me talking…hah! He’s great company, speaks fluent English, intelligent and interesting. The driving business is his own with several drivers. He educates us about Vietnamese culture, tells us how fast things are changing, traditions being lost, more westernised influences coming in. He doesn’t want his son using a smartphone. We stop en route for coffee at a roadside place run by a family. I veto using the toilet as it’s squat style in the middle of one of their family rooms with people walking through. They’ve got a charcoal grill set up outside grilling meat. The scenery is beautiful; karst mountains, rice terraces.

We’re on Highway 6 and 30 minutes from Mai Chau we pull over at Thung Khe Pass (Đèo Đá Trắng), 1,000 metres above sea level. It’s known as ‘White Rock Pass’ due to loose white limestone which slid covering the slopes, creating an illusion of snow. William tells us that it’s a well known scenic spot but for whatever reason, the mountain no longer looks white…but views across the valley are stunning.

Food sellers are set up shoulder to shoulder cooking pork meat on skewers over charcoal fires, a wire cage of chickens cluck a few inches from the cooking fire they’re destined for. Live snails crawl out of plastic buckets, a common delicacy in Vietnam. The smoke from the fires keeps the mosquitoes away.

We order pork meat skewers, remove our shoes and walk to the back of a bamboo matted shack to eat sitting on the floor, looking out across the mountains. These are the experiences we love when travelling. No other foreign tourists around. I tread carefully on the bamboo, feeling the suspended floor flex and give beneath me.

William leaves us at Mai Chau Eco Lodge. A beautiful room; natural stone walls, a hessian wrapped ceiling…balcony views across rice paddies, attractively tiled floors, a shower over a large wooden bath. We relax on the balcony reading (I’m gripped by Mo Hayder ‘The Treatment’ though it’s cruel and unsettling).

We eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. So many people, we’re surprised…you can’t see all the accommodation as it’s hidden among shrubs and pretty trees. Walking back to our room the night is alive with insects and frogs…the shrill continuous sound of something I can’t identify. We close the door on it all and sleep.

Walking the rice paddies

July 13. At breakfast they make me a cheese omelette. Dragon fruit, pineapple, watermelon, small crepes with honey. I won’t be eating again until dinner. Dave sits by the pool, the flagstones burn in the sun. I read on the balcony in the shade of the palm thatch.

We have hot stone back and shoulder massages in the hotel spa, a pressure point massage of my face and a soft thump on the head (unexpected). The masseuse straddles my back, her knees resting either side of me on the table as she sweeps and kneads with hot stones and oil. A line of heated stones the length of my spine. It’s bliss. 45 minutes for 340,000 vnd and because we’re staying a week they apply a 10% discount…$11.50 (£8) each.

I suggest exploring the villages in the valley, guests are out there on bicycles. It’s in the mid 30s (Celsius) and Dave’s nose is already bright red…we lie on the bed in the aircon. A few hours later Rudolph comes for a walk.

We walk down loads of steps, I swear I’ll dream of steps for the rest of my life. At the bottom exiting the Mai Chau entrance strung with red Vietnamese pennants, then out on a road leading around the rice fields. A network of narrow foot trodden paths lead in to the heart of the fields. They give access to the (mainly) women who are separating young seedlings from closely packed nursery beds and planting them in neat rows in the irrigated mud soaked paddy. They work barefoot, squatting to dig out the seedlings with a simple flat hand-held tool…gently lifting the seedlings and separating them in to bundles. Then bent forward, they work backwards, planting the seedlings. I watch and one of the ladies invites me to join them. I laugh and decline, the sun still so hot at 5pm I’ve put my umbrella up.

We pass the local tourist shops and a kids playground with a huge single swing with a tiny seat, a rickety hand-made mini ferris wheel, a track along which kids are pushed on the back of plastic white horses…and incongruously amongst this inventive play area, a group of rusting bombshells from the war.

Buying large bottles of water from a tiny shop a dog follows us for a while before turning off to walk the paths between the rice paddys.

We eat dinner at the hotel restaurant again, my plate of shrimp and pineapple fried rice is huge, enough to feed three people. Dave’s chicken is wedged between long stalks of charred lemongrass and is delicious. Outside we sit on sun loungers near the pool and watch the dance troupe perform, free entertainment for the hotel guests. The frogs croak in competition with the music; I still haven’t seen one.

Mai Chau doing nothing

July 14. Today: breakfast, pool (I swim, rescuing drowning insects, a futile exercise), a Swedish massage (they dig deep, fingers like steel), sitting on the balcony reading (London Falling/non fiction/reads like a thriller). Like any typical holiday but we never take typical holidays and I’m learning that to relax and do not much at all is actually good for me. Dave’s relieved to finally hear it.

Mai Chau

July 15. Dave’s got a cold. We don’t want to do anything anyway, we’ve had 3 months of seeing so much. We have a conversation about where we’re going to live, but we don’t seem any closer to having a clue. We need a base, just a small place outside a city but not far to access one. He’s got some more work coming up, 3 days a week working remotely so that could be anywhere as long as he’s reporting in on New York hours. Our stuff is packed up in the 9ft x 7ft storage facility in Queens. I don’t care about much of it, I wish we’d given the furniture away…it’s all just ‘stuff’. I never get attached to much, only to people.

I walk out on my own around 4pm, exiting the eco lodge down the steps and out in to the rice paddys. Turning right I wander the narrow roads between homestays and local homes, chickens scratch in the dust. I find the family run shop we bought from before, it’s an older man and he’s grumpy, tries to charge me more. I explain I’ve been before, tell him what I paid and he agrees. I also tell him that I come to them as I’d rather he have the money than the tourist places. He smiles and nods.

Leaving my bag with the lodge security man, I go back out the other direction where the few tourist places are. Simple bamboo constructed shops with palm thatch roofs. I buy a choc-ice and watch whilst the owner’s large dog attempts to walk across the suspended bamboo slats in to the shop. He’s nervous (like me) of crashing through it…it’s bendy and very worn. We laugh together, delighted when he crosses and goes to his owners to be stroked.

I head back, waving at the ladies planting rice. The sun is dropping behind cloud throwing out shafts of light. It’s crazy hot and back at the steps I feel a bit faint and overheated. I sit down to have a breather. The world is overheating. England is almost the same temperature as Vietnam right now and has been for around a week. English summers rarely hovered above 26 degrees when I was a kid.

Dinner in the hotel restaurant again, there isn’t much else around unless we go in to the town. We share a plate of ‘bamboo’ beef stir fried and served in an open bamboo tube. I’m still missing more lemongrass and mint. Right now I’d kill to eat a sausage roll. The other guests have changed over, most stay for two or three nights on a two week trip. We’re staying seven nights; lucky to be travelling longer.

Mai Chau

July 16. England got knocked out of the World Cup by Argentina 2-1. Dave’s coughing and feeling rubbish so I head to breakfast at 8am, bring him a big bowl of fruit, muesli and yoghurt then leave him to eat in bed whilst I go back for a solo breakfast. It’s very busy, lots of new families. I offer to take a photo on his phone for an Israeli man with two daughters. Handing it back he asks if I’m German.

Back on our balcony I read. The shrillest insect in the world kicks off sounding like an alarm, joined by its friend the second shrillest insect in the world. Around 11am a village bar plays loud music which thumps repetitively. Thankfully it stops after 40 minutes. If the tourist developers turn this beautiful valley into Sapa it’ll be heartbreaking.

We spend the day planning our trip to England where we’ll see family and as many friends as possible. We also plan out ideas for Brazil in August, we fly in to Rio from London. Dave’s been texting our Brazilian friend Tulio for advice (he’s based in New York, currently on holiday in Albania). I do some research and find an interesting area called Belo Horizonte. It’s up in the air but we draft some ideas based on when Dave starts work again.

Mai Chau indigenous people

July 17. Unfortunately Dave still has a cold and is coughing. It’s unlucky as there’s places around we’d like to explore but better to have it here where it’s more relaxed than the cities. We finalise our plans for Brazil, eat at the hotel restaurant again. I can’t contemplate how people enjoy all-inclusive resorts and cruises; I couldn’t do it. I’d get bored too quickly.

I take some photos of the irrigation for the rice fields. It’s flatter here than Sapa so the fields are watered by a system of gravity led canals diverting water from mountain springs and river systems. Sluice gates control the water flow. The climate in this area with its predictable rainfall means the farmers can grow two rice crops a year.

I research more about the Mai Chau valley. The largest ethnic minority (I don’t like the phrase but it’s what they refer to them as) is the White Tai (Tai Khao). Known for their bamboo stilt houses, traditional textiles, rice wine and bamboo dances. Our lodge is surrounded by their villages; Pom Coong, Na Phon, Mai Hich. I’m intrigued by their name and discover they are closely related with the Thais; linguistically, specifically the Tai-Kadai family. The roots of the White Tai originated in centuries old migration from Southern China; some adopting Buddhism and resettling as Siamese (now Thailand) the others in the valleys of Laos and northern Vietnam becoming the Thai ethnic minorities White Tai and Black Tai. The White Tai in the valley of villages we’re overlooking, practice their own ancestral rites rather than Buddhism. William was describing this to us when driving us here. I would have liked to photograph these people but I’m also aware that they don’t want to become spectacles for tourists.

Mai Chau last day

July 18. Dave’s getting better. Breakfast where we meet more Israelis, all the Germans and Dutch left, the Irish families with kids moved on…now it’s people from Israel and Vietnamese families. Still lots of kids. We banter with a young Israeli lad over football, he’s wearing a Messi shirt.

Dave catches up on missed pool time, pretty empty until early afternoon. Our second set of neighbours have gone, a Vietnamese family with a little girl replaces them. William the driver texts about our pick up tomorrow. I sit on the balcony watching plants sway in a refreshing breeze.

A last wander around the rice fields, even at 5.30pm it’s sweltering humidity. We bump in to the friendly Israeli family staying at the lodge. They explain the meanings of their Hebrew names; baby Shoham means Onyx, Dad Nevo is a mountain in Jordan and mum Neta means something that has just started growing. Mum (not shown) Dganit is a type of flower or grain.

We walk as far as the road where bars have built bamboo boardwalks out in to the rice fields strung with lights, wooden chairs with a beautiful view. Women are cleaning garlic, chopping chicken, sweeping out their homes. A television plays whilst people sleep on their tiled floor. The road is busy with Vietnamese families visiting for the weekend, riding the 12-seater bright green golf buggies.

At the hotel restaurant we see Xuan who has been waiting on us at breakfast and dinner, always stopping for conversation if not busy. Tonight she tells me she is White Tai and shows me that the uniforms they wear are handmade and all have different patterns. It’s the colours of the H’mong, based on flowers. I note the hand embroidered crosses and the weight of the material, her uniform is heavy like wool. Some of the other women wear lighter weight fabrics. We say goodbye to Xuan and I give her a hug. I’d love to know more about her and her family outside the hotel environment, she’s easy to talk with and interesting.

Back at our room we get things ready for morning. Despite being here for a week I barely unpacked anything, washing the things we wore which dried overnight, simply wearing them again. The hotel dance entertainment starts up. The frogs call for a mate around the pool. The night insects sing.

Back to Hanoi

July 19. One of William’s drivers picks us up at 9.30am, following trucks hauling huge rocks through the mountain pass. We drive through a town in the process of being demolished, tall skinny houses with ornamental balconies teetering like crumbled wedding cakes. Sporadic progress is being made to widen the road. Some buildings remain intact whilst their neighbours are a heap of rubble or partly demolished exposing bedroom walls and curtains flapping in the breeze. It resembles a warscape.

4 hours later we’re back in the energy of Hanoi and the buzz is instant. We’ve missed this city. Jun greets us like we’re returning home, it’s great to see her and the doormen whose names I’ve shamefully forgotten.

We drop our bags and head out…not recalling the name of our favourite Bahn Mi place, (we try to find it online and fail), we end up eating a mediocre one elsewhere. It says pork but it looks like strips of processed meat. To make up for it we go to C.O.C. Legacy Coffee again and Jack, the young man behind the counter, is wearing a Neutral Milk Hotel T-shirt. His mind is blown when I tell him I worked with them in the late 90’s. I encourage him to listen to Olivia Tremor Control too who he’s not familiar with.

A couple in their thirties come in, posing, dressed up. They take a ridiculous amount of selfies, film themselves, he undoes an extra button on his shirt. They are oblivious to the tiny coffee shop they’re sitting in and the other people in here. We haven’t seen this behaviour in Vietnam, I doubt they’re from here.

We’re back wandering the Old Quarter, back to the lake where we’re ‘interviewed’ by more students practising English. They film us, they’re all polite and enthusiastic. In the main square I look up to the giant outdoor screen and in a surreal moment recognise the owner of our favourite Bahn Mi place being interviewed in front of his shop, ‘Bahn Mi Oi’. I burst out laughing..what are the chances considering the hundreds of Bahn mi sellers in Hanoi. If only we’d walked through earlier.

It’s hot and humid again, the night market is opening up but we’ve been to many before. We wander instead back to the hotel and are thrilled to see An is working, we thought we were going to miss saying goodbye.

We enjoy our last night at the rooftop bar. One of the barmen recognises us and brings me a favourite Vietnamese snack…shrimp crackers with sweet chilli sauce. We’ll really miss Vietnam, the vibrancy, the stunning scenery…but especially the people, especially the staff at La Siesta Classic Ma May…and especially Hanoi, one of the greatest cities in the world.