Day 1:
December 21, 2013: In Shiao-family style, we woke up early to catch a 9:00 am flight from Taipei to Hanoi. Our plan was to spend two days in Hanoi, drive to Halong Bay and spend a night cruising the bay on the junk boat, before finally returning to Hanoi for another half day before heading back to Taipei.
As we learned from our last family vacation in Yunnan, China, our family is not made to function in the cold – in fact, an alarmed Mom described Mei’s fingers and toes as “frozen fish” at one point when we were visiting Tiger Leaping Gorge. The weather forecast in Hanoi promised to be an acceptable 15-20C and sunny, which was an improvement over the never-ending pitter and patter of rain in Taipei.
When we arrived in Hanoi, we found that although it was indeed sunny, it was also enshrouded in a haze-like mist, which we weren’t sure if it was due to poor air quality or fog during this time of year. A driver from our hotel (Serene Hotel), picked us up and drove us to the Old Quarters, where our hotel was located, about an hour away from the Hanoi airport.
The Old Quarters is a fascinating maze crammed with knicknacks, motorcycles and hyper activity from morning until night. Each narrow street sells a different type of good (i.e. coffee/tea, bags, jewelry, etc.) and food stalls dot street fronts and corners, with small stools and tables laid out for people to squat and slurp their noodles, while squeezing next to others doing the same. Each food stall typically sells only one kind of food or snack, whereas proper restaurants offer more of a variety and less questionable hygiene standards. In the mornings, before shops are open for business, market sellers claim a spot in front of storefronts to sell all kinds of fresh produce, ranging from fruits and vegetables to pork. It appears food and market sellers can plop themselves down and sell anywhere – we saw a butcher happily selling fresh meat in front of a shoe store before the store opened each morning. This creative symbiotic relationship works, because the market sellers only sell early in the morning and stores don’t open until 10 or 11, allowing multiple parties to take advantage of the same retail space.
butcher in front of shoe store
Adding to the hustle and bustle of people eating and selling goods, is the chaotic mass of motorcycles, which zoom by every street and intersection. Since there are few traffic lights inside the Old Quarter, crossing the streets is quite hazardous and requires a small dose of careful navigation, and a large dose of bravery. We realized that the trick is to keep on moving forward, and let the motorcycles make way for you – otherwise, crossing the street becomes an impossible task.
motorcycles everywhere!
Serene Hotel was located in a little alley way called Yen Thai – although slightly difficult to find, living in an alley provided a relief from the never-ending traffic noises that is found on the larger roads. It only had about 7 floors and 2 floors per room. On our first night, we stayed on the third floor (301 and 302), but had to move to another floor in subsequent nights since another family needed to stay there. By the end of the trip, we had stayed on the 3rd, 5th and 7th floors! The hotel staff was extremely enthusiastic and gracious. After we arrived, one of the staff members, Emily, suggested that we go to exchange money and then eat “Bun Cha” for lunch around the corner. Changing money at the Old Quarters is interesting, because it is done at a street filled with jewelry vendors. However, if you go up to certain store numbers, the “jewelry store” will pull out a calculator and exchange money with you. If Emily hadn’t told us about them, we would have never had known these were money exchangers! Our lunch was at a local-looking place selling only “Bun Cha”, which is essentially dried rice noodles, a bowl of fried pork meatballs soaked in its own grease, a heaping basket of veggies (basil, parsley, lettuce, etc.) and a bowl of sweetened tangy fish sauce and chopped papaya to dip the meat and veggies in. Vietnamese food is all about DIY – most of the components are laid out separately for each person to combine on their own. Being a “skinny vegetarian” family, each of us attacked the veggie basket and left most of the meat in its bowl. To our surprise and amusement, every time we made a dent in the veggies, someone would come over and toss more leaves into our basket. We later realized that any veggies we couldn’t finish would be returned back to a common pool that is dished out to other tables, so there was no need to be ambitious and finish the entire bowl. As a result, we had a satisfying meal of a bit of noodles, a bite of pork, and a whole lot of mixed greens for lunch =) Classic Shiao-family style again!
Bun Cha
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and braving the streets of Old Quarter. After awhile, we started getting a bit tired, and stumbled across a foot massage parlor, which seemed surprisingly scarce compared to places like Thailand and Indonesia. This massage parlor was mostly catered to Japanese tourists, but was extremely affordable for tired feet, charging $7 USD for 70 mins, so we spent the next 1.5 hours getting our feet massaged.
The last activity of the night was eating dinner at Essence Café, which one of Mei’s friends recommended. The highlight of the meal was the fresh spring rolls, which was wrapped in rice paper that felt like paper, but was edible and included incredibly fresh tasting tofu.
Fresh spring rolls
Day 2:
We woke up bright and early to eat breakfast at the café in the basement of our hotel. The breakfast was complimentary, but we had to choose what we wanted from the menu selection. Some of the things we ordered included Vietnamese French bread, which was like a very airy baguette, croissant that was more bready than flaky, and dad got his daily cucumber & tomato veggie platter with yogurt. We also loved the Vietnamese coffee which had a scent of vanilla and we had multiple helpings of it every day. Dad also discovered a Vietnamese brand of soy sauce that was close to his name!
Vietnamese baguette
Vietnamese croissant
Chin-Su soy sauce!
After breakfast, we were picked up by a van and went to get a few more passengers for a day tour to Hoa Luc, the ancient capital of Vietnam, and Tam Coc, a river area known for its pretty mountains and caves. The car ride was about 2 hours, and we stopped at a rest stop in between. The rest stop seemed to be a common place for people on the same route to stop, and we saw many vans which looked identical to ours. At Hoa Luc, we visited an old temple in the ancient capital, and saw how similar it resembled Chinese-style temples, with many pillars filled with Chinese writing. Lunch at a Vietnamese buffet followed, and then we went on the river cruise, where all of the boaters were paddling with their feet! This was the first time that we saw this style of paddling.
Hoa Luc
Paddling with feet
The river cruise took about 1.5 hours and took us down a meandering river, and through several caves, which was unique and reminded me of the karst mountains in Guilin and Yangshuo. We then returned to our starting point near the restaurant, and went on a 20 min bike ride into the countryside to admire more scenery. At this time, one of the photographers who had taken multiple pictures of our family kept on trying to get dad to buy all of his photos of us in bulk (9 photos total), but dad was being a hard bargainer and he wasn’t able to match our price. Just when we were about to leave, he gave us a last offer and we finally ended up getting the entire pack for about $5USD, which was probably also a triumph for the photographer!
Taken by our entrepreneurial photographer
At night, we were dropped off near the Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi, and had dinner at a café nearby which had surprisingly good pho. We then watched the water puppet show, which is one of the most famous performances in Hanoi. Jie and I kept on trying to figure out how the puppets moved, because there were no strings attached to them. We concluded that it must run on some kind of motor, but we’re still not sure =)
Set of the water puppet show
Day 3: It was time to head to Halong Bay! After a send-off from our enthusiastic hotel staff members, and breakfast consisting of Vietnamese croissants, eggs, yogurt and more Vietnamese coffee, we boarded a car and picked up a few other passengers for a 3.5 hour ride to Halong Bay. Along the way, the road was quite rocky, so everyone was quite relieved to finally make it to the dock. Once we arrived at the dock, we were ushered into a waiting area, where we were grouped with the rest of the people on our boat. Our “junk boat” was called the Dragon Pearl No. 1 and held about 18 passengers and around 8 staff members, including the captain. The junk boat is unique, because they have characteristic red sails, which makes a beautiful picture when the sails are out against the picturesque Halong Bay setting.
Junkboats
Inside of our rooms
The boat reminded Jie and I of our boat in Galapagos, with a deck area on the top to sit outside and soak in the sunshine. Although it was a tad cold during that time of year, sitting out in the open with a stunning view of the bay was definitely a one-of-a-kind experience.
We had lunch outside, and enjoyed the view around us while we enjoyed a 6 course meal, with a good variety of veggies and seafood. After lunch, we sailed and docked at an island with a cave and a beach. We explored the cave, and then spent 45 mins kayaking around the bay. Jie and Mom shared a kayak, while Dad and Mei shared the other one.
It was again, incredible to be enveloped in such amazing natural beauty. The only downside was that the paddles dripped water into the boats, leaving us with wet pants after our ride. We then enjoyed watching the sunset on the beach before heading back on the boat.
Dinner was a pompous occasion. At 7:00 pm sharp, we assembled in the indoor dining area, where our guide spoke a few words before the meal began. He recited 9 courses, and we all clapped for him afterwards. For the first course, the chef brought out a plate of 2 beautifully carved birds that he carved from a (watermelon?) to serve as a plate for the spring rolls. We all applauded and “ooh-ed and ahh-ed” only to find out that he carved a dragon for the next course! The surprises continued, followed by an eagle and finally a sail boat carved from a pumpkin. The guide proudly announced that each creation took the cook more than 2 hours to create. We realized that our cook was more than a chef- he was an artist, too!
Our skinny vegetarian family couldn’t finish the sizzling plate of fried fish, so when the server came to take our almost untouched plate away, the neighboring table with a bunch of Americans asked for it, and we witnessed a single guy finish our entire plate in one go! Dad was pretty amazed. The dinner took about 2 hours, and it was already quite late when we finished. Since it had been a long day, we ended the night and went to bed early. There were some noises coming from other guests who wanted to stay longer and hang out in the common area, and Jie and Mei’s room were right next to it, so Mom and Dad were nice enough to switch with us =)
Day 4: We arose to another beautiful view of the Bay and had breakfast inside since it was still a bit chilly outside in the early morning. The plan was to have breakfast, visit a fishing village and pearl factory, before coming back to check-out, have “brunch” and then head back to the dock to return to Hanoi.
Breakfast was similarly ravish as our other meals, starting off with banana pancakes, and followed by a big plate of fish cakes, eggs, fruit and toast. There was no shortage of food on this trip! We were transported by boats across the water to a fishing village that was quite unique, because the houses were on salt water. There was also a school there and a small market, where mom bought a nice Vietnamese drawing of the local village. We then visited the pearl factory, where all of us were enlightened by how pearls are cultured (it’s amazing how little we know about how things around us are made!).
Finally, we returned back to the boat, checked out, and had another nice platter of food for brunch before we returned back to the dock and were distributed back to buses to return to Hanoi. On the way back, we stopped by a village in the countryside by the rice paddies, where they decided to add in a new activity to the itinerary, which was a traditional water village. Mom, Mei and Dad realized very soon that the story was the same as the puppet show we saw in Hanoi 2 nights ago, and giggled with the 2 phoenixes created an egg again after predicting it would happen. As for Jie, luckily the show was a repeat of the one we saw previously, because she was pretty much unconscious the whole time due to jet lag the first time around!
After we got back to Hanoi, we were invited to Serene’s Hotel Christmas Eve party at 9 p.m. We decided to go eat dinner first, and followed Tien’s friend’s recommendation to eat at [restaurant name], which also had good reviews. The restaurant took awhile to find, but was worth it in the end! Everything was quite delicious, and Mei loved the pho with crabmeat soup and eggs. We also had some cake from a bakery that Mei needed to visit to celebrate good health and being together as a family again. After purchasing some coffee on the “coffee and tea street”, we headed back to our hotel. Although we were tired and a bit reluctant to join in the holiday festivities, we decided to still take part in it, since we had promised we would go – as soon as we reached the hotel, we were enthusiastically pulled into the hotel café by the staff, and handed some reindeer ears to put on. It was party time!! The staffmembers had transformed the entire café with Christmas decorations and party favors.. there was another family there when we entered, and the staff was extremely excited for more people to come. There was even someone dressed as Santa who handed us presents, that turned out to be little stuffed animals on key chains! A few minutes later, other guests showed up at the hotel, and they were also herded into the café by the hotel staff. Boy, were we relieved when we saw more people coming, especially when the lights dimmed and the music turned on! We were rounded up to go dancing in the middle of the room which was made into a dance floor and did a few awkward dance moves, while looking around us. The highlight arrived when one of hotel guests who had arrived by himself suddenly put aside his drink and started boogying! The hotel crew was in an uproar as he bopped around on the dance floor. After more guests tricked in, we felt that we had remained for an acceptable amount of time, and we said goodnight. It was a Christmas eve to remember!
Day 5: After another breakfast, where we noticed that many staff members had disheveled hair, clearly after a night of revelry, we went to the Maosoleum to see Uncle Ho, who lies there today. The visit was surprisingly fast, and we did not have to wait long to get into the Maosoleum. This might have been due to the fact that it was Christmas day, and many people were likely spending time with their families.
Uncle Ho Maosoleum
After touring Uncle Ho’s old residence, we went to the Vietnam women’s museum and learned about the importance of women’s roles in Vietnam. We also too some funny ugly family pics there!
We checked out of our hotel around noon, and went to hunt for food in the Old Quarters. Although we originally wanted to try squatting with some of the locals for our last meal, we settled on proper store that looked local, but seemed more hygienic. We ordered delicious noodles topped with slices of pork, beansprouts and a delicious, tangy sesame sauce. We all agreed this was one of the best meals of the trip.
Great bowl of pork noodles
To top it off, we found a cute coffeeshop near the lake and had one final cup of Vietnamese coffee before heading to the airport to go back to Taipei. Overall, we had another fantastic family trip – but more importantly, I am so lucky and thankful to have a close-knit, healthy and happy family. That is the most important thing that I can hope for in my life!!!
