16 days in Vietnam

After a decent buffet breakfast at the Asian Ruby 1 Hotel, we were transported to the airport to fly to Hanoi where the touring actually begins. Our hotel in Hanoi was the Star View Hotel, located a 15 minute walk between the Old Quarter and West Lake. Although listed as a 4 star hotel, it is really more like a 3 star hotel. The room was very large, but the bathroom needed updating. The room was spotlessly clean as was every room on this trip. In my travels,one thing I have never accepted and will never accept, is a room that is less than very clean. After checking in to the hotel, we had a short orientation walk around the hotel area. There is not much to see in this area, but it was a good introduction to the noise and motorcycle traffic in Hanoi. For dinner we were taken to the Banana Flower Restaurant where we had the first of many excellent lunches and dinners. The food and service were top notch. We had spring rolls, salad, three dishes-one fish, one pork and one chicken, rice,fruit for dessert and a glass of wine. I would recommend this restaurant. Then back to the hotel to get some rest before our first day of formal touring.

Good start!

Yes, very good.

Thanks for sharing - awaiting the next installment!

Hi Shelly, I'm looking forward to hearing about your adventures in VN.

i'm with you from italy--keep it coming..

We're leaving for Hanoi later this week. Looking forward to reading more!

ms_go, where are you staying in Hanoi?

shelley, we just left Vietnam for Siem Reap (actually our fourth and last day here, off to Hong Kong tomorrow). I'll do a "report" when I get home. Keep yours coming!

sf7307, we're staying at Elegance Ruby (fka #4). We'll be there for a week, with an overnight at Halong bay somewhere in the middle.

Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice to know that others are interested in reading this report.

We were up early for our first day of touring in Hanoi. After a limited and mediocre breakfast, we left for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. When we arrived at 9am there was a long line, mostly of school children, waiting to view Uncle Ho's body. It was fine with me that we did not join the line. I took photos of the imposing mausoleum building, watched the changing of the guard, and moved on to Ho's stilt house complex, where I found the buildings to be infinately more interesting and photographic than the concrete Mausoleum.

We joined the line to view the stilt house complex where there were many good photo ops , not only of the buildings, but also of the children waiting on line. Our guide told us that this is a mandatory visit for children who are members of the Youth Communist Party. We then boarded the bus to visit the Temple of Literature. It was a very interesting visit, viewing the different parts of the complex, seeing the ancient turtle stellae, and enjoying the Chinese style architecture.

By now it was about 12:30 and time for lunch at Dai Viet Restaurant, a seven course tasting menu of very good Vietnamese food. We then returned to the hotel briefly, before leaving for our 3:30 performance of the water puppet show. The show was sold out, so I suggest getting tickets in advance if you want a specific time and seat location. We sat in the 3rd row and could see very well. The puppet show, accompanied by traditional musical instruments, lasts about 45 minutes. This seemed to me to be the right amount of time to prevent bordom. It was nice to see, but certainly wasn't one of the highlights of my trip.

After the show, we were picked up by cyclos, one person per cyclo, and driven through the Old Quarter of Hanoi for about 45 minutes to one hour. The ride was fun, and gave me a good introduction to where things were located in the Old Quarter, as I would be doing a 4 mile walking tour on my own the next day while most of the rest of the group went on an optional tour to a rural village about 20 miles outside of Hanoi.

After the cyclo ride we were taken to Viet Kitchen Spring Restaurant for dinner. The food and service were very good. To give give you an idea of what a typical included lunch or dinner was like I am including the menu for this particular dinner since I found a copy of the menu in my notes-chicken soup, pomelo salad with prawns and pork, chicken in a clay pot, stir fried beef with lemongrass and capsicum, stir fried eggplant with pork sauce, stirfried mixed vegtables, stemed rice, and mango sticky rice for dessert. Every included lunch and dinner was this many courses, and almost every dish was a new preparation (hardly any repeated dishes except for spring rolls). I must say that the food on this trip was usually very good to outstanding, and it became one of the highlights of the trip for me. OAT did a great job of picking restaurants with nice ambience and service. And their choice of the menus was spot on as far as I am concerned. I would recommend ealmost every restaurant that they chose. Actually, their choice of restaurants and menu far surpassed some of my own choices as you will see in future installments.

Eagerly reading...

me too...

For our second full day in Hanoi I planned a walking tour of the Old Quarter which was a combination of the walking tours I found in Fodor's and Lonely Planet guide books. Since DH's back was giving him problems, we took a taxi to the first stop on the tour, the tube house museum , which was about a mile mile south of our hotel.. I asked the front desk of our hotel to call a Mai Linh Taxi. I used only this company and Vinason Taxi when needing cabs and therefore I feel I was not overcharged. All of the cabs we used used meters and the meters seemed to run at a normal and fair speed.The taxi to the tube house was $1.50 for a 10 minute ride-so reasonable that I do not know how they make any money at these rates

On request, we got a guided tour of the tube house which I found quite interesting. The house was a 2 story house with four furnished rooms on each floor. On display in the house were crafts from various rural villages around Hanoi-ie woven baskets, textiles, embroidered paintings, pottery,etc, some antique and some more modern. Also on view were old photos of what Hanoi looked like at the turn of the century. After spending about 45 minutes in the house, we walked to Bach Ma Temple (I am writing from memory as I have misplaced my notes for todays activities. so I hope I get most of the names correct). This is the oldest temple in Hanoi, and we spent time viewing the interior and watching the people come to pray, light incense and leave offerings.

From here we walked south down many narrow streets, watching the street vendors, poking our heads into some of the more interesting stores, and viewing the daily activities. When we got to Hoa Kiem Lake, we crossed over the red bridge to the island and entered the pagoda. After that we took a short walk in the French Quarter where the streets are much wider and more leafy than those in the Old Quarter.

We continued our walk north, back into the Old Quarter viewing silk street, bamboo street and other streets devoted to differing occupation or selling similar kind of goods. All of the streets were very busy, and I took many photos along the way. Our last stop of the day was the big covered market (I can't remember the name), but it sold all kinds of goods-produce, textiles, toys,ect. From there we walked back to the hotel arriving about 6:30.

My intention was to go to Quan An Ngon for dinner that evening, but by the time we showered and rested a bit it was 8 o'clock. Since we were quite tired from our very long day on our feet, and since we had an early wake up call the next morning for our journey to Halong Bay, we decided to stay local rather than take the taxi to Quan An Ngon. Big mistake.

We walked for several blocks around our hotel looking for a restaurant,, but found only street food vendors. Finally we found a decent looking restaurant. Just as we were about to enter, 2 buses pulled up to the restaurant and out poured about 80 people. We knew who would get the good service and be served first, and it wasn't us.

So back we went to the hotel, and took a chance on the hotel restaurant. This was the biggest mistake we made on the whole trip. I won't go into what we ordered. Suffice to say, the food was inedible. I guess I should have expected it because the breakfast was so mediocre. But when you are really, really tired and still a little jet lagged, I guess your judgement isn't so good. At least mine wasn't. So back to the room we went and had some granola bars which we had brought from home, a memorable end to a very long and interesting day.

Obviously, between the bathroom needing updating, the mediocre breakfasts and the inedible dinner, I would definitely say to avoid the Star View Hotel.

Tomorrow it is on to Halong Bay.

if those are the worst mistakes you make, no problem..

is jim feeling any better?

Thanks for asking. Jim's going to physical therapy, so hopefully that will help. Those 30 hour plane rides sure don't help. How are you doing?

Until today the weather had been overcast and in the low 60s, perfect for walking and sightseeing. Today we woke up to a slight drizzle. As we headed toward Halong Bay the rain got heavier and steadier. The 4 hour ride felt very long and was pretty boring aside from seeing some rice paddies with workers planting rice and men tilling the fields with water buffalo..

Several days before we were to leave on our trip, a boat sank on Halong Bay and the authorities shut down overnight cruises for several days. I had decided that if our scheduled overnight cruise became a day cruise, I would just stay in Hanoi for the day rather than do Halong Bay as a day trip. Fortunately I did not have to make this decision as a few days prior to our scheduled cruise, the authorities began allowing overnight cruises. After experiencing the long and boring drive to Halong Bay I agree with most Fodorite's views that Halong Bay should not be done as a day trip.

We arrived about 12pm and were ferried to our newish (built in 2002), beautiful junk, the Hai Au junk. Only our group of 16 were accomodated on the junk. The rooms were smallish, but sparkling clean and modern. We were served a delicious lunch and we began cruising.

Unfortuately the rain had become so hard that we could not sit on the open deck, but I did go to the covered part of the deck to take photos. All of my color photos came out mostly in shades of gray, but it was still beautiful to me and I was glad to be there.

At about 3:30, some of our group went to Surprise Cave for a walk through a large, beautifully developed set of 3 caves. The cave system was probably about .3-.5 miles in length. The walk through the dry cave gave me some much needed excercise after the 4 hour bus ride to Halong Bay.

After the cave trip, we returned to the ship for a demonstration by the chef of how to cut vegtables into flowers. After that we had a very good dinner,, chatted a bit with some of our group, and retired for the night.

The next day I awoke early and went up to the deck to take more photos of the karst scenery which was still enveloped in mist. We cruised for a few more hours, were served a very, very minimal breakfast and left the boat for our long drive back to Hanoi.

When we arrived in Hanoi we were taken to Al Fresco Restaurant, in the French Quarter, for a 3 course lunch. As appetizers I chose the best fried calamari I have ever eaten (and I am from New England)and DH chose excellent barbequed ribs. We chose a grilled chicken breast and french fries as an entree which was just ok., and ice cream for dessert. This was what I needed as I was really hungry because of the limited breakfast.

After lunch we were taken to the Ethnology Musuem where we spent about 2.5 hours viewing crafts,ect on the inside of the museum and houses indicative of various regions of Vietnam on the outside. This was an extremely interesting museum and I suggest if you choose to go, you allow ample time to see all of the exhibits.

We were then taken to the airport for our 8:20 flight to Hue. We arrived at our hotel at about 10pm and as we were hungry again, we went to the rooftop restaurant at 11pm to have a light dinner of stir fried vegtables and a beer.

Enjoying your report. It is a long ride to Halong Bay...the one negative about going there, but worth it for the scenery.

keep it coming

Thanks guys for letting me know that someone is still reading.

The Camellia Hotel in Hue was the best hotel of the trip, a true 4 star hotel. It is located in the new city, about a 5 minute cab ride from the old city and a 10 minute walk to the river. The room was large with dark wooden floors and a small balcony overlooking the city. The bathroom was modern and contained really nice amenities. The breakfast was excellent and varied with both Asian food, including excellent pho and stir fried dishes and western food including an omelette station. (Actually most of the hotels on the tour had an omelette station at breakfast). It was nice to stay at a hotel that was up to my standards so I could recommend it.

After breakfast we visited the Thien Mu pagoda, the citiadel and the forbidden purple city. All were interesting and again I took lots of photos.

For lunch we visited the Dieu Thanh Monastery where we had an excellent vegetarioan meal consisting of 5 or 6 stir fried vegtable dishes. After lunch we had time to have a question and answer session with a 32 year old nun concerning her life as a Buddist nun. The interaction was very enjoyable as she was both informative and charming.

After lunch we returned to the hotel and had a few free hours before leaving for our next adventure. I had intended to hire a car to take me to the Emperor's Tombs, but found I needed some down time and some excersise, so I decided to walk to the river and view the activities along the river bank instead. Although I would have liked to have seen the tombs, I realize that pushing each day to the limit is not a good way for me to enjoy a trip.

At about 4;45 we left the hotel to visit the Minh Tu Orphanage which is supported by the Grand Circle Foundation. There were about 200 children and young adults at the orphanage ranging in age from 6 days old to 24 years old. We spoke to the director and founder of the orphanage about her mission, watched them feed the kids dinner (quite a site to feed 200 hungry children) and sang some songs with the kids. Although it may sound hokey, it actually was quite a moving experience. Although our group brought notebooks and pens to distribute to the kids, many decided to make an additional monetary contribution to the GC Foundation to support the orphanage.

After leaving the orphanage, we went back to town to have dinner at Phuoc Thanh restaurant. We had a delicious meal of crispy pancakes stuffed with veggies, shrimp in garlic sauce, chicken Hue, crispy noodles and veggies. Definately a very good meal.

Tomorrow we depart for Hoi An.

shelley...

Great Report! And, I do believe our paths may have crossed! I was in Vietnam Feb. 28- March 10th with a group of 9 women traveling together. We had lunch one day at Goda in Hoi An and as we sat down there was another table with a group, as that group was leaving we found out they were an OAT tour...could that have been your group? If so, what a small world!

I've been back a week and have barely started sorting through my photos, but eventually I will get around to posting a trip report...in the meantime, I'm enjoying yours very much!

Our paths probably did cross as we had lunch a Goda restaurant on our first day in Hoi An. Wasn't the Vietnamese cuisine fabulous? It has now become my favorite type of ethnic food. Too bad we do not have a really good Vietnamese restaurant close to where I live.

Did you go with a tour group or did you have a travel agent plan the trip for your group?

I too have not gone through my photos. I know that I have many duplicates that will need to be deleted. I took about 1400 photos, so I have some work ahead of me. I am looking forward to reading your trip report.

Shelley,

I was on a group tour, but a friend coordinated all the logistics, hotels, guides, restaurants, and there were just 9 of us, so although a tour, not the typical group tour.

We also spent 2 days in Siem Reap and a week in Thailand...I came home with 2400 pictures! My eyes are going bleary looking at them all!

Shelley - I'm enjoying each installment - please keep 'em coming.

So glad the rain in Halong didn't spoil it for you.

I'm currently planning a trip for myself & friends through Tonkin. So it's been extra fun to follow along.

LCI - hope you'll share your trip & photos, too

still reading and enjoying... no good vietamese food here in tuscany either

But you do have good wine which is probably enhancing your trip.

m-bran-Happy to hear you are enjoying my report. I know you will have a wonderful time in Vietnam. If we had gone independently we would have used Tonkin Travel.

Hi Shelleyk,
I am anxiously awaiting the rest of your trip. We are planning a trip to Vietnam for next November with some friends, so I am reading with definite interest as we plan out the itinerary. We plan to take the train down to Hue and will probably add in a trip up north to Sapa or to the area around the Ban Gioc waterfall, but otherwise lots of similarities. Thanks for all of the details!
Jen

jcasale-Glad you appreciate the details. Sometimes it is difficult to know what details to include and what to leave out. We had wanted to visit Sapa before this tour began, but nixed it because we thought it would be too cold in Feb.

After another wonderful breakfast at Camellia Hotel we left for our transfer to Hoi An. We took the coastal route rather than going over the Hai Van pass which takes longer. The scenery over the pass is supposed to be beautiful, if you can see it. From reading many trip reports, it is often too foggy to see much. The scenery along the coastal route was pleasant and the 3 hours ride passed quickly.

When we arrived in Hoi An, we had lunch at the Goda Restaurant which was very good and checked into our hotel, the Phuoc An Hotel, located about 2 miles outside of town overlooking the river and rice fields. The rooms facing the road are reported to be noisy, but we were given a room to the rear overlooking the rice fields. The room was very nice although I can't remember details.

After a short rest, we drove into town and our guide bought tickets for entrance to several buildings in the ancient part of Hoi An. Included in our tour was the Japanese bridge, the interior of the Tan Ky house, and a Chinese Assembly hall. All were moderately interesting, but I had my own walking tour planned for the next day which I thought was even more intersting.

At 6PM we were taken to the Champa Restaurant in town for a cooking demonstration and dinner. Who knew a Vietnamese female chef could be so funny, a combination of the personality of the soup Nazi on Seinfeld and Gordon Ramsey without cursing. The hour of instruction/entertainment flew by. I helped demonstrate rolling spring rolls and was surprised that they actually looked like something I would eat.

After the demonstration we were served the dishes that the chef had demonstrated making. Everything was very tasty and the service was attentive.

The regular menu at this restaurant is a combination of Vietnmese and Italian, with an emphasis on pizza. I met a family from Australia who had been in Hoi An for 3 months, and the husband said that they like this restaurant so much that they eat here 3 times a week, They had ordered pizza. At about 9pm we returned to the hotel.

pizza in HA?????????????? people give me a hard time... i still love pizza the world around

Bob-I have never given you a hard time about your menu choices. To each his own. But to clarify, our group had a 7 course dinner of Vietnames food including spring rolls, a marinated fish dish cooked in banana leaves, and a roast pork dish. I never did get tired of eating 3 meals a day of Vietnamese food. But if I had, the pizza did look good.

After an early breakfast, we left for the 1.5 hour ride to My Son where we had a guided tour of the Champa ruins and had some free time to wander. The skies were overcast and that was good because it was very warm and there is very little shade.

My Son was very interesting and atmospheric and I really enjoyed being there. Most of the ruins are truly ruins as they were partially destroyed by the bombing during the Tet offensive. But there is enough left to make the trip to the ruins worthwhile, IMO. I got a good idea of what the religious site was like in its heyday 1000 years ago and I took some good photos of the ruins.

It was then back to Hoi An for lunch at the Morning Glory Restaurant. On a trip that consisted of really good food for the most part, this was the best meal of the trip. We had the best fresh spring rolls of the trip as well as several other dishes, All of the food was flavorful without being too hot and the service was terrific.

We passed up an afternoon optional tour with the group to do our own thing in Hoi An.. We took the hotel shuttle into town at 3:30 and returned by taxi (around $2) at 10 in the evening.

First stop in town was the Cargo Club where we had delicous pastry and iced coffee, both excellent. We then walked over to the Secret Garden Restaurant to scope it out and make a reservation for the evening. I had read a lot of recommendations for this restaurant and wanted to make sure we could get a reservation..

We then took a leisurely walk around town, taking photos of what we had missed the previous day, and wound up at the riverfront near the public market. Sinced DH's back was bothering him, I left him sitting on a bench overlooking the river and I went off to view the covered market, which I had read was one of the best in Vietnam. I agree that this and the main market in Dalat are not to be missed sights.

I spent over an hour strolling through the market which had different sections selling produce, flowers, noodles, meat live fish. ect. Observing and photographing life and the daily commercial interaction of people was facinating and fun. I could have spent moret time there as I love viewing and photographing markets, but I wanted to get back to check on DH, who while I was gone was having his own interaction with a local man who was trying to sell him a boat ride on the river. My husband said it was not high pressure. Just a fun interaction between 2 people who speak and understand little of each other's language.

By the time I got back to the river front at 5:30, it was rush hour in Hoi An. Students and workers were arriving at the dock in droves on their bicycles. They were there to take their local ferries back to their island homes. It was amazing to watch the man in charge pack each ferry boat so tightly with people and bicycles that it looked like every inch of space was taken. As one ferry filled up and pulled away from the dock another arrived and the loading process began again. We watched this for quite a while as we found this process amazing and entertaining.

When rush hour was over and darkness was descending the lanterns in Hoi An are lit and wandering the streets with the lanterns glowing is a magical experience. At about 7:30, we strolled over to the Secret Garden eagerly anticipating a great meal.

Unfortuately, the meal was a disappointment. Maybe it was because I had read such great things about the restaurant, but probably it was partially because we had such an outstanding lunch at Morning Glory. In any case we ordered 4 items off the menu and each was very bland. The outdoor setting in the garden was nice, and the service was adequate, but the meal lacked any real flavor. Obviously from my experience, I would say Morning Glory is a much better choice for lunch or dinner in Hoi An..

After dinner we stolled around for a while, hoping that we would become hungry enough for a return trip to the Cargo Club for dessert, but since that did not happen by 9:30, we decided to take a cab back to the hotel as we had a 6am wake up call for our morning flight to Danang.

Correct-Our flight today was to Nha Trang, not Danang. On the way to the airport for our flight, we stopped at China Beach for a photo op.

After arriving in Nha Trang, we were taken to a rural village which specialized in basket weaving, where we had lunch at the village chiefs home and had an opportunity to ask questions of the village chief's wife. The Qand A session was supposed to be with the village chief, but he was called to the district office of the Communist Party to confer with some higher ups about a local matter concerning the village. The Q and A period gave us some insight into the political structure of Vietnam, how the local villages are governed, the types of problems that are endemic to this local village (drugs, alcohol, abuse to name a few) and how the problems are dealt with. This info was eye opening and informative and certainly was not the type of information I could have gleaned had I travelled independently.

After lunch and the Q and A session, we went to several of the homes where whole families from age 6 years to 89 years of age were engaged in basket weaving. We were given a demonstration of the craft from the splitting of the bamboo for the reeds, to the weaving of the baskets, to the final firing of some of the baskets to make them watertight.

At around 5PM we checked into the Summer Hotel in Nha Trang. This was the by far the worst hotel of the trip-mediocre breakfasts and a breakfast dining room that was too small to accomodate us and the other large tour group which arrived at breakfast at the same time we did , one very slow elevator for the whole hotel which did not work at times, and noise from renovations going on within the hotel. To be fair, the hotel did have some positives -a large, very clean room and the hotel's location 2 blocks from the beachfront promenade and a five minute walk to many restaurants and cafes.

The next day we took a boat ride out to an island where just about everyone is a fisherman. We viewed a fish sauce processing set up in someone's home, as well as a local market. After our stroll through the island town, we reboarded our boat and were taken to Mieu island, to a very pretty, private beach club for lunch and several hours of relaxation.. The sea breeze was refreshing and the comfy lounge chairs where just what I needed and I zoned out for several hours of some much needed down time.

For dinner, we decided to go the Sailing Club, a few blocks walk from our hotel. The restaurant has indoor seating as well as outdoor seating, which is what we chose. Dining while watching the huge waves roll ashore was a treat. The ambience was great, but the food was just ok. We ordered cashew chicken in a half pineapple which was bland, and a Vietnamese fish stew which was good, but also could have used more seasoning. The stew was loaded with local fish, shrimp,and clams, had a rich broth and was served over noodles. The 2 dishes along with a large water and beer came to $21.

After dinner, we walked along the seaside promenade for a while before finding a bakery/ coffee shop for chocolate cake. The cake was adequate, but certainly did not compare to the deserts at the Cargo Club in Hoi An.

Tomorrow we drive to Dalat.

Thank you for your great TR. We're going to VN this winter so gathering all the research I can.

You are welcome. Glad to know this TR might be helpful in planning your trip.

I have not had time to finish this TR. The rest of the report will cover 2 wonderful days in Dalat, 2 days in HCMC, which I really enjoyed, and one day in the Mekong Delta.

Hope to get this finished soon.

We were up early, had breakfast and departed Nha Trang for Dalat at 7:30am. Dalat is one place I would not have chosen to visit on a DIY tour because of the logisitics of getting there, but I am happy to have had the opportunity to get there with OAT. After a 4 hour drive on part bad roads, part modern highway, and some scenic mountain views with a stop in a rural village, we arrived in Dalat. Dalat is a mountain village used by residents of HCMC as a respite from the heat. It was used by the French when they occupied VN for the same reason and because of that there is a French influence to some of the architecture in and around Dalat. We stayed at the Dalat Du Parc, a very nice former summer residence

Vietnam is an amazing place to visit and i can get this by reading your forum. It felt nice knowing about each and every place that you have mentioned. So nice of you for sharing your experience and would like to read more and more. It's been a great experience to know all.

sorry-a very nice property. The rooms were very large and recently redone. The lobby was beautiful and the service was excellent. As an added bonus, the breakfasts were wonderful and the croissants and baguettes were delicious.

When we arrived we had a very good lunch at Trong Dong restaurant where the owner said he had the best farm raised venison in Dalat. The venison dish was excellent as well as the other 5 courses we consumed.

Then it was off to the Truc Lam Zen Buddist Pagoda which was a mountain top pagoda reached by cable car. The ride up was fun, the views were excellent, and the pagoda grounds were beautiful, covered in flowers, trees and interesting Chinese influenced buildings. This complex is fairly new, but was still worth seeing if one is in Dalat. It was then back to the hotel to get ready for our home hosted dinner.

The group was divided into 2 with 8 people going to one home and 8 going to the second home. It is an intersting way to see where and how a middle class family lives. The food was not great, and as a matter of fact, some people in our group had stomach problems after this meal. However, the opportunity to interact with the college age nephew of the hostess and listening to his plan/hope of opening a restaurant in Dalat, was very interesting and entertaining and we had a very enjoyable evening.

This is so helpful as we're heading to Vietnam in October.

The next day an agricultural tour of the area (flower growing green houses, silk production facility, etc.) was scheduled for the morning. We passed on this in order to sleep late and go to the central market which my guidebook said is one of the best in VN.

After a delicious breakfast in the hotel restaurant that had a French bistro/cafe feel to it, we asked the front desk to call us a Mai Linh taxi to go to the central market. I had heard such horror stories about inflated cab prices and rip offs in VN that any time I took a cab I made sure it was a Mai Linh cab and that worked out very well. After a short ride we arrived at Dalat central market, and what a fabulous market it was.

Since Dalat is an agricultural area, there were stalls upon stalls of the freshest, most beautifully displayed fruits and vegtables, a fresh fish area where live fish were squirming in and jumping out of large basins, a fresh meat area where women were cutting up and selling meat, a grocery area selling tea, coffee and sundry other items, a flower market, a

and an area that sold fake money and fruit and candy baskets to be used as offerings at temples and shrines. I was facinated with this market and spent several hours here wandering and taking phots. I bought some Dalat grown coffee to take home with me as I found the coffee in VN and in Dalat in particular to be excellent. We spent so much time here, that although I intended to go to the botanical gardens, I found we had run out of time and energy, so we took a cab back to the hotel.

In the afternoon, we were taken to Dalat University, to meet the faculty, students, have a tour of the university and get some face time with the students who wanted to practice their English. After a short talk by the faculty member about the University, each one on our group was assigned to 4 students who gave us a guided tour of the university grounds. Some of these student wanted to become tour guides and wanted feedback on how their communication skills were and asked for any constuctive criticism. I was surprised at how many spoke understandable, though not fluent, Engish.

While walking with the students, they asked me questions about where I lived in the US, about my family, about my religion and how I practiced it, and other personal questions which I freely answered. I asked them the same type of questions and found out about them, where they lived, about there families and religious practices. I think it was as enlightening for me as it was for them, and I founmd this to be a very worthwhile and intersting activity.

After this we were taken to a Lat village. The Lats were the first group to inhabit Dalat, and this is the origin of the name Dalat. We had a short talk about the village, which produced agricultural products, and had a 45 minute show of Lat song and dance by villagers dressed in Lat garb. The show was so good that I asked why they did not make a CD of the songs and sell them as the show ended, but they said they weren't interested in selling things. They just wanted to demonstrate their song, dance and customs which they were very proud of.

After the show we had a delicious dinner at Viet Ngoc Duy restaurant including a hot pot, spring rolls, and stir fry.

Does anyone know why I cant't seem to post my entire post at once? The Fodors reply box only lets me post several paragraphs, and then it wont scroll down so I can contiue my post.

You shouldn't need to scroll, just keep typing. Another alternative is to prepare your post in Word and then copy and paste it into the reply box.

Good writings. Thanks for sharing those wonderful detailed moment.I love traveling but it's pitiful that i often can not recall what exactly happened.

jenniekrag and happytravlr-Glad you are enjoying this report.

sf7307-I can't use word, so I'll just keep typing and hope I don't get "stuck" again.

anhhh-I am writing this from my notes. Otherwise I would never have remembered all of the details. As a matter of fact, because it was not in my notes, I neglected to mention a half hour visit to Crazy House in Dalat.

Crazy House is a hotel, built over many years on a large property, that can best be described as Disneyland and Gaudi brought to Dalat.The interior was made up of several interesting looking, but weirdly laid out hotel rooms. The exterior reminded me of Park Guell in Barcelona. There are stairs to climb and bridges to cross while viewiung the property, making for a very interesting and head shaking experience. I kept thinking, "This is intersting, but I sure wouldn't want to be a gueat here". Fortunately, you don't have to book a room to see it. Just pay $1.50 admission fee and the experience is your.

Saigon
Let me begin by saying we really enjoyed our stay in Saigon, and unlike most others on this board, I would encourage anyone who likes big cities to spend some time here. There is a lot to see and do and I think 1.5-2 days in Saigon could easily be filled.

We had an early morning, short flight from Dalat to Saigon. After we arrived, we had a short city tour including a stop at the post office designed by Eiffel, a beautiful building, both inside and out, . We then spent some time at the War Remnants Museum, which although obviously slanted to the Vietnamese perspective, I found very interesting.

We had a late lunch at Pho Hung, a pho noodle soup shop where we sat at long tables, with mostly locals, and enjoyed our pho, which was probably the best pho on our trip. Interestingly, this restaurant opened 2 branches in the US which are run by relatives. Lucky you , if you live in Arlington, TX. or Portland< OR where the branches are located.

We checked into the Asian Ruby Hotel late in the afternoon, and unlike our first stay at the berginning of the trip, our room for the next 3 nights was well located and quiet, as well as clean and well furnished. The room was located toward the rear of the hotel where the rooms are much quieter than those closer to the street.

The location of the hotel was very good as it was within walking distance of almost everything we wanted to see in Saigon. It is right behind the gorgeous, pink Opera House, and within an easy walk of many restaurants, and good shopping for those that wanted to shop (not us).

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around and getting our barrings as I had a whole day of sightseeing planned for the next day, when the rest of the group was going to the CU Chi tunnels. I was not interested in doing this trip as it would take 4 hours away from what I wanted to see in Saigon Also I was not going to crawl into the tunnels, so I felt my time would be better spent in Saigon.

After an included dinner at the hotel, of several Vietnamese dishes which were very good, we retired early as we had a long day in store for our final full day in Saigon.

I plan to go to Hue this Oct on a surgical mission for 9 days. Then travel solo ( female ) for 7-8 days. I will use many of your suggestions as a guide. I look forward to the rest of your report. Thank you....

What a nice way to give back, Maxine. I'm sure you will enjoy your time in Vietnam. The people are lovely and the country is very interesting. Oct. can be rainy in Hue, so be prepared.

Our second day in Saigon was both interesting and exhausting as we were out and about for about 12 hours, most of it on our feet. After a large and varied breakfast at the hotel, we took a taxi to the Mariamma Hindu Temple. It was about a ten minute ride from the hotel and cost about $2.50. We could have walked to the temple in about 30-45 minutes, but DH's back was still bothering him and we wanted to conserve our energy for the rest of the day.

We spent about 45 minutes at the temple watching the comings and goings of the people who came to pray, burn incense and leave offerings. The temple is very colorful, and reminded me of photos I had seen of of Hindu temples in southern India. It is extremely photographic and I took many photos at this temple. This was a very interesting stop and I highly recommend it with the caveat that there are other Hindu temples in Saigon, so make sure you go to the Marriamma Hindu temple. The previous day we went to a different Hindu temple near our hotel, thinking it was this one. It was not worth spending time there and we left after a few minutes.

From the Mariamma Hindu temple we walked about 10 minutes to the Ben Tha Market, a large covered market selling everything from produce to souvenirs. I bought some coffee and a lacquerware covere3d bowl. The quality of the bowl looked good to me and the price was right.

From there we walked about 20 minutes to the Reunification Palace where we took a one hour guided tour in English. For me, it was interesting and time well spent as I majored in political science and was in college during the Vietnamese War. To see the actual places I had previously read about made this experience and others on this trip very worthwhile and memorable.

Following the tour, we attempted to get a taxi to the Jade Emperor Pagoda. However, none of the drivers knew where it was even though I gave them the address. At least they were honest eniough to communicate this before we got into the taxi.

Anyway, I decided that based on the map in the guidebook we could walk there in less tha an hour. And since the weather was unusually cool for Saigon, about 87 degrees, we decided to see if we could find the temple which sounded like something I would like to see.

It took a little longer to reach than what I anticipated, but we eventually found it after passing Notre Dane cathedral, several interesting neighborhoods, and many schools dismissing students for the day. After reaching the temple, I realized why the taxi drivers did not know the street. The temple is on a tiny little street, off a main intersection (past the zoo). It would have been very diificult to find as it was in a maze of one way streets. If going to this temple, I suggest getting off at the zoo and walking the last 10 or 15 minutes.

It was interesting to see the comings and goings at the temple and the walk to get there was interesting, although tiring. We took a taxi back to the hotel-less than $2.50.

After a quick shower we took a taxi to Quon An Ngon Restaurant. We ordered crispy pancakes filled with mushrooms and shrimp, fried calamari, and prawns on a skewer. These dishes were ok, but certainly not as good as most of the other dishes we had on the trip. We also ordered a roast pork and rice dish that was inedible because the pork looked very rare and undercooked. All of the above with one beer and one water came to about $20. Although it was inexpensive, I felt the quality of the food was not good, and therefore it was not good value for what we spent. Based on my experience, I would rate this branch of Quan An Ngon a miss, although the branch in Hanoi gets better reviews.

We took a taxi back to the hotel. Tomorrow we are off to spend the day on the Mekong River.

Mekong Delta

We had an early breakfast before departing on our 2 hour ride to My Tho. Before arriving at the boat dock in My Tho, we visited a Cao Dai temple located in My Tho. From photos I had seen of the main Cao Dai temple, this temple was a smaller version of the large one. It was painted in bright colors, both inside and outside. Although no service was going on at the time, we were given an explanation of the philosophy of the religion and what the service consists of.
It was a "bonus stop" for me as I was curious about what the Cai Dai temple looked like, but I was not willing to spend the time going to the main temple which is located about 10 miles further than the Cu Chi tunnels.

After our temple visit, we headed for the boat dock to board our private boat. Our local guide was excellent, both informative and entertaining. We spent most of the morning and afternoon sightseeing on the Delta.

It was interesting seeing the river traffic, viewing the stilt houses over the water, and visiting several businesses on the delta islands. Although I had visited the floating market in Thailand and Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, and found both to be interesting, I felt that this day was worthwhile as well, as it gave me a view of the rural life of the Mekong Delta.

We arrived back at the hotel at 4:30, showered and had another very good dinner at Pho Co Restaurant in Saigon. We went to sleep early as we had to leave the hotel at 3:45am for our 6am flight. We flew United-Saigon- Hong Kong-San Francisco-Boston. We made our connection in SF, literally just as they were closing the doors, but we did make it.

All in all, it was a wonderful, varied and interesting trip. Vietnam was never at the top of my travel wish list, but the trip was actually much better than I anticipated.

Shelleyk,

I enjoyed all of your posts - but thanks for adding your reflections on HCMC and the Delta.

Very helpful in trying to sort out what experiences I should include in a first visit to VN planned for later this year.

Thank you!

can't wait for your next trip