We arrived at Hanoi airport a little less prepared than we perhaps should have been. The Vietnamese embassies in Canberra and Washington D.C. told us we should arrange visas through them before arriving in Vietnam, but traveling for 12 months through 24 countries (many of which require visas) means we can’t afford to send our passports to various embassies and stay put while we wait to get them back.
An alternative (which the official website strongly advised against) is to organize a pre-approval letter through a Vietnamese agent, then bring that letter, two passport photos and cash to get a visa on arrival, so that was our plan. Running around on our last morning in Malaysia we were only able to arrange odd-sized photos and a pre-approval letter printed on half-used paper, but we had the right amount of US dollars and on arrival that seemed to be all that mattered. We got through immigration in no time.
Having come in late at night and crashed straight away, we didn’t get a chance to experience Hanoi’s famously chaotic downtown until the next morning. Immediately after leaving our hotel we decided that it was the right kind of chaos, with pretty buildings, busy streets, countless vendors and more motorbikes and scooters than you can imagine contributing to a fantastic atmosphere.
An alternative (which the official website strongly advised against) is to organize a pre-approval letter through a Vietnamese agent, then bring that letter, two passport photos and cash to get a visa on arrival, so that was our plan. Running around on our last morning in Malaysia we were only able to arrange odd-sized photos and a pre-approval letter printed on half-used paper, but we had the right amount of US dollars and on arrival that seemed to be all that mattered. We got through immigration in no time.
Having come in late at night and crashed straight away, we didn’t get a chance to experience Hanoi’s famously chaotic downtown until the next morning. Immediately after leaving our hotel we decided that it was the right kind of chaos, with pretty buildings, busy streets, countless vendors and more motorbikes and scooters than you can imagine contributing to a fantastic atmosphere.
The buzz was best at night, when locals and tourists sit on tiny plastic stools that should never be expected to hold an adult’s weight drinking dollar beers facing the street. On Friday night the streets closed to make way for hundreds of market stalls. We discovered on our last night that this all stops at midnight, when huge numbers of police appear from nowhere to make sure street bars are packed up. Locals jumped up quickly and sculled their beers while tourists (like us) who are used to a more relaxed attitude to compliance in other third world countries couldn’t understand why bar owners were so keen to take out half-full beers off us. For us, this was the first of many little reminders that Vietnam was the first communist country we’ve visited.
Hanoi ended up being one of our favorite food cities, as we enjoyed amazing food in a variety of settings. We had a few multi course meals at a very affordable fine dining restaurant, but also did the more modest and more atmospheric street side barbecue. For snacks on the go we started a two-week love affair to the king of all street foods, the Banh Mi (a fresh baguette filled with pate, cucumber, cilantro, carrots and either chicken or pork).
From Hanoi we headed to Vietnam’s most famous tourist attraction, Ha Long Bay. There are now hundreds of boats touring Ha Long Bay offering day, overnight and two night cruises with varying levels of comfort. After doing a lot of research we ended up going with the only company that has access to the much larger Bai Tu Long Bay. Although the price and resulting accommodation was a little extravagant for a backpacker budget (many of our peers would spend a fraction of what we spent on a one night party cruise), it meant we were able to avoid the crowds.
We spent most of our time on the cruise enjoying relatively unspoiled views of the thousands of limestone islands dotted around Bai Tu Long Bay. Each day we jumped in kayaks to get a closer look at some of the islands, and on our last morning we toured a local fishing village.
The main attraction of our cruise was dinner in a candlelit cave, which no other company include in their cruise package. The beautifully romantic setting blew away our very high expectations, and the meal was also fantastic (as was the case with all our other meals back on the boat). To top it off the chef had spent days preparing sculptures of a dragon and a sail boat (among others) from simple vegetables to display on the table.
After returning to Hanoi, we took a flight south to the small town of Dong Hoi to continue our Vietnam adventure. More on that in our next post.