Vietnam 2017

Days 11&12

The ride on the sleeping bus was really nice, it’s not the comfortablest thing in the world but you can really sleep in it, I can really recommend it. Especially for the price of 25$. You could also fly, if you’re lucky for about 35$, but because you drive in the night you don’t real waste your time on the bus.

When I arrived I went to the hotel I booked a day earlier, it’s a little outside, by foot you would have to walk about an hour to the city centre but because of that it’s pretty cheap, I’m spending about 13$ for three nights. It’s called “V Wander”. The owners are really nice and help you I you have any questions. You can also take a bicycle for free and the rooms are also very clean.
As you can see I ate a last time the noodlesoup with the marinated pork in Hanoi, because it tastes awesome *-* I also drank a lychee iced tea which was really good.

The other noodles you can see are from a restaurant next to my hotel. You can already see the difference between northern food and the food here, the noodles are different and also the greens on the side are others. It tasted anyway very good although it was pretty oily.

For lunch I had some shrimps and frog which I had to grill myself. They were really tasty and grilling by yourself is also fun. I forgot how the place was called but I’ll look it up and edit it. I can really recommend it, it has a big variety of foods you can try and they looked all very good on the menu.

After that I asked the owner where a good café is and he told me about the “Cong Caphe” which was really nice. The service was good and the Vietnamese green tea I drank too.

On the last picture you can see the river in Da Nang at night which looks pretty nice with all the reflecting lights in it 🙂
As far as I noticed on the first night now, there’s a little nightlife going on in Da Nang, but I didn’t find really big party locations or touristic bars, maybe I’ll find them the next days.

Vietnam 2017

Day 10

Today was really the laziest day ever, I just walked around the old quarters, planned my trip to Da Nang, ate something, and chilled at home. I’m going to Da Nang with a night bus, I booked it in the hotel and it costed me 25$. The cheapest flights I found online were for about 35$ so it’s a little cheaper like that, I’ll write if it’s also comfortable or if it’s maybe worth it to fly.
It started to rain in the afternoon and I was still a little tired from the long night yesterday so I went to the hotel and chilled a bit. In the evening I went again to the two bars and partied with the same girls I met yesterday. It was pretty fun and it was my last night here so why not^^ This time I didn’t stay this long though, just until 2am because I have to check out tomorrow at 11am.
But if you want to go to Hanoi to party you’ll have no problems finding a bar that you like, the night life here is so huge and you can meet so many nice people. Also many other tourists with which you can exchange your stories and give each other recommendations for everything, so it’s pretty helpful to go in a bar for a little chat. But maybe you’ll have some problems with the music, most of the bars and clubs all play this more or less trash techno music, which I have no problem hearing it, but if you hear it for 4-5h it can get a little annoying^^ but anyways you can also find bars who play another kind of music, you just have to look a little harder^^
The food I ate were a tofu noodle soup for breakfast which was pretty good, a iced lemon tea to cool down from this awesome hot weather *-* The tea was cheap, just 10.000 VND, you can find stands selling them all around the lake with the red bridge I wrote about earlier. For lunch I had this South Vietnamese beef noodles at a place called “Bun Bo Nam Bo” which is pretty famous for them and they really tastet great, pretty sweet but still great. And for ‘Dinner’ I had a grilled pork stick from the street.
I also found out why the Vietnamese people like my long hairs so much and why they don’t grow their hair apart from the obvious fact that it’s pretty hot with so much hair on your head in this country^^ Because it’s so hot here they also sweat a lot and this makes their scalp very itchy. It’s also said that Asians have more sweat glands than the westerns so that’s maybe also a point why their heads gets easier itchy than mine.

Vietnam 2017

Day 9

After a week back home I finally flew back to Hanoi. The flight was very good and this time i really had no problems with my visa or anything. The food was pretty good this time and besides that, nothing eventful happened during my travel back to Vietnam.

Because the other hostel I stayed was full I had to look for a free one. My travel guide had also a list with good hostels in Hanoi in it so I started to go to them and ask if they have anything free. I’m now at the May De Ville Hotel in a six-bed dorm with 4 other peoples. The price is very good, 6$ a night and the rooms are really clean, I think they get cleaned daily. The bathroom is as you can see in your room but besides the unfortunate acoustics and the fact that the walls are made of glass it’s alright, it’s also pretty clean and everything works.

At the evening I got the best fried squids I ever had and went after that to two bars I promised I would come around when I’m back in Hanoi, it was a pretty nice first day back here and the night went way longer than expected^^

Vietnam 2017

Day 8

Too lazy to write everything a 4th time down, somehow Tumblr managed it to fail the upload of the post I wrote freaking three times…I also wiped my phone because I already had 10gb of Pictures^^ so sadly I can’t show you any food I ate that day. It was fried tofu and sausage, pineapple, …

Vietnam 2017

Day 7

At about 6:45 I arrived in Lao Cai. From there we went with the bus to the village Sa Pa which is in the hills. Alone the way to the village is awesome you have such a nice view on the rice terraces *-* The nearer you get the foggier it gets, at least at this time of the year. It’s freaking foggier than in silent hill, no kidding look at the pics. When I was there I went to a nice hotel recommend from the travel guide I bought, the Green Village Hotel. I sadly forgot to take pictures of the interior but it’s alright, the room was pretty small, just enough space to fit three beds inside and a little bit of space to walk. The bathroom is inside the room and was okay, not the cleanest but really not gross or anything. The beds even have heating blankets which you can plug in to warm up your bed. This is really good because up there in the mountains it’s really pretty cold. The village itself is very pretty even though I didn’t see so much because of all this fog^^ The Hmong, which is the folk that lives there, specialized themselves on giving tracking tours through the hills. They all walk through the village and ask you if you want to book a tour with them, sometimes they are a little obtrusive but they’re still nice and don’t get mad at you if you say no to them. They also shout at every corner asking if you want to buy weed or opium from them xD. I ate some stir fried noodles with chicken but somehow I had not that much appetite… After that I went to a tourist center and booked a bus back to Hanoi, I went back to my hotel, canceled my booking (I still had to pay the first night but it’s understandable). There works a Polish guy who speaks pretty good English and helps you with everything you need. At 3:30 pm I went to the place I booked the bus, I drank green tea with honey and ginger, the ginger was pretty strong in it but it was perfect for the cold weather there. Then one of the employees drove me with a motorcycle to the place where the bus waited for me. It cost nothing. The bus seats were damn high class, almost better than in the plane! You had so much space for your feet. The bus drive is 100k cheaper than the train ride ( bus 300k and train 400k) and even was faster, I would recommend the bus now over the train, although such a sleep train is a nice experience. I was at 9:30pm back in Hanoi, I checked in to the Hanoi Backpackers hostel again and went out to eat something, I ate again the fried rice with chicken next to the hostel. There I met some American guys with which I then went to a pool bar and we talked about this and that a little, it was a pretty nice evening.

Vietnam 2017

Embassys are bullshit

Why are there embassys when they open at 8 am and close three hours later?! I thought embassys are there that you can contact them when you have an emergency. Luckily mine is not really that big of a problem and I can handle it without the embassy, but nevertheless, dafuq embassys? At least stay …