That's a wrap Vietnam!

Hanoi, possibly the prettiest town in SE Asia. when planning this trip both Annie and I were on the same page and knew we wanted to spend some time here. Located on the coast in between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh- it is known for the Ancient Town, surrounded by bridges and canals. with beautiful country side and many styles of architecture there is tons to do in this town and we did not spend nearly as much time as we could have. Getting there was fairly easy, however I was surprised at how big Vietnam is, I had no idea that to get from Hanoi to Ho An was a 16 hour train ride (very expensive to fly). Overnight train it was. Cost $45 per bed, we rented all 6 beds to make sure we had a berth all to ourselves (best idea ever). The quarters were quite tight, beds were hard, but all in all it was a pretty sweet way to travel. We boarded at 8 pm and arrived at noon the next day.

Not so comfy for Annie with a broken rib, but she managed...

Known for its colourful lanterns and colonial building,full of nooks and crannies,  walking the streets was pure eye candy.
                                                 

one of the many alley cutting through Ancient town

renting bikes is totally the way to get arround, beeautiful country side surrounds ancient city

this was one of the many stunning streets in Ancient Town

We only had a few days and wanted to get tailored made suits. Tailors are every where in Hoi An and we wanted to go with a good one. Our hotel suggested Blue Eyed tailor, not as cheap as what we thought, but very beautiful work and we all walked out with some pretty awesome clothes, (Johnny finally bought a new suit after about 20 years, he was due!). After the terrible weather we had in Ha Long Bay, Annie was ready for some beach time, Hoi An delivered with a pretty decent beach, and wouldn't you know it...the name of it was An Bang:)

Johnny was a little beached out, so while Annie, Anneka and I headed to the beach,  him and Liv took a bike and explored Marble Mountain, caves, temples and Pagodas. He said it was an awesome day and totally worth it to visit.

As lovely as the town is by day, at night it's is even more spectacular.  Everything is lit up and the canal is full of floating lanterns and gondolas. We happened to be there over St Patty's day and could not give up the chance to find an Irish pub and get our "Irish: on.

Some green lanterns for St Patty's day

Sadly after 4 days we had to say good by to Hoi An, definitely could have spent longer here, as touristy as it is, there is still an authentic felling to it, (you just have to get past all the umbrella carrying tourists. 

Mui Ne

Our last stop with Annie on our Vietnam tour was the beach town Mui Nei, Originally the only reason we planned to come was so Annie and Johnny could do some kite surfing, the beach is pretty spectacular but very windy and waves are quite choppy (Vietnam's kite surfing capitol). Not much swimming happening, (thank goodness our hotel had a nice pool). We had wanted to stop in Nha Trang for a few days (suppose to be an awesome beach town), but with Annie still in a crazy amount of pain we wanted to limit the amount of travel so we headed straight to there. Another overnight train and we arrived. 

Annie and her little buddy collecting shells. Much of the beach her has erosion, so not nearly as pretty in some parts 

The best part of Mui Ne is the kite surfing, and this beach was so amazing...

Unless you are kite surfing I would say skip this town, I still had an awesome time, but I was with by best friend and the sun was shining, (what more could you ask for). Nothing much to do here except visit the sand dunes, stop in at the fishing village, a small hike through the "ferry stream" and kite surf...pretty underwhelming place overall.

visiting the sand dunes

The fisherman's village

They call this the Fairy Steam, not sure why, except it does resemble something out of a story

Good bye to Mui Ne and Annie 

Three days later, we got in a a shuttle and drove to Ho Chi Minh City, bittersweet as we were saying goodbye to Annie, I felt like our time together flew by and I did not want it to end....

the view from our balcony

the park across the road from our place

After an amazing sleep in the best AirBnB, (Vinholmes Central Park, a recommendation from fellow travelers), Ho Chi Minh is quite the city, modern and fairly clean, we had packed in tons to do and explored many of the sites. We did a walking tour of the city, stopping at post offices and churches and touring the Saigon Skydeck.

Back Packer street (seems there is one of these in every South East Asian city

 On our last day, Johnny wanted to go on a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels, girls and I opted to stay home.

Pretty tight squeeze

We all really enjoyed our time in Ho Chi Minh, and after a few days we said good bye to Vietnam, what an intoxicating, diverse country with so much to see and do. It's a country bound to make an impact on you no matter where you go.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is a beautiful natural wonder in Northern Vietnam The bay, known for its emerald waters and thousands of towering limestone islands (|there are 1600 of them!), covering an area of 1500 sqm. An absolute must do when in Vietnam. Touring in the bay is done through the hundreds of Junk Boat tours, booking online is not a good idea which was why we waited until we were in Hanoi so we could talk to someone and pick our boat. There are several classes, and none of them are cheap (better deal if you book in person). We went with a mid range and were pleasantly surprised. Our shuttle came to pick us up to take us to our ship

getting an early start, it was 9 am and we were having beers

 Paying attention to weather is key (which we did not do) and you really only need 2 day 1 night tour (we did the 3 day 2 night). It was cool and drizzly almost the entire time we were there, so having 3 days on the boat meant there was a lot of down time. We had a beautiful room that was big enough for all of us with our own luxurious bathroom. The kids were pretty excited as they had never slept on a boat before, so the novelty of it seemed pretty cool.  

The roof of our boat

that is the girls waving hello rom our room. The rooms were actually beautiful inside, much nicer then is seemed from the outside

we drove around for hours and the views were all spectacular- too bad about the weather

Our itinerary was pretty full, they had us going kayaking for a couple of hours in the bay, the rain held off so it was quite lovely. We were all a little bummed the sun wasn't shining, despite the grey, the bay was stunning. 

The second day the sun was trying to peak out and we headed for a day trip to Cat  Ba island. 

National Park in Ha long Bay

When we arrived we picked up bicycles and went for a beautiful ride through the mountains and rice patties to a small town. It was pretty amazing. 

getting off the small boat at CatBa National Park

Here's the part in the story where our trip went downhill (pardon the pun). Annie being the donkey that she is decided to race Johnny on the bikes...flying down a big hill to the non existent finish line, she hit a patch of loose gravel and went flying over the handle bars hitting a scooter. Pretty hard apparently, Johnny said is was ugly. We luckily had an RN on board with us and she suspected Annie had a couple of cracked ribs. She also had some codeine with her, thank goodness, Annie was out of commission for the next couple of days...she was in so much pain, couldn't do much of anything..it was awful. (Note  she is incredibly strong and bounced back wayyyy sooner then anyone expected, no kite surfing for her but at least she was able to enjoy the rest of Vietnam from a standing position :)

we went to a floating fishing market on the way, pretty interesting, very stinky!

That was it for Ha Long Bay- very pretty, definitely glad we went, we all wished the weather cooperated, would have made for a way better trip. Three days two nights, was a little too long, two days would have been perfect. 

So Long Ha Long!