hanoi, luang prabang, siem reap trip report

Great start. We too look for the cheapest flight option even if it's not the most direct. The visa idea sounds great. So does the cooking class. No penalty.

We have that Asiana flight from Seoul to Hanoi. Sounds like it was ok? Is the Seoul airport pretty easy to navigate? In Hanoi, did you use taxi or did you walk? How were distances - old quarter to Quan an Ngon and old quarter to tourist sites? Do you have more details on the cooking class? - I have not really found one that is convenient but yours might work - need a website or e-mail or street address. We will be there in about 3-1/2 weeks.

after 5 nights in hanoi (a little on the long side, but since we were recovering from the jet lag, it worked out fine), we were off for luang prabang.

we booked our flights on a website called smartfares.com. it ended up being booked through asiana. so our flight was on vietnam airlines, supposed to be direct from hanoi to luang prabang. when we got to the airport, it turned out that the flight was cancelled, & we were changed to the flight on the next day. but somehow, we weren't notified (even by email). thankfully vietnam airlines were very helpful & re-routed us through vientiane & then on to luang prabang on laos airlines. so we only lost about 5 hours instead of a whole day.

got our laos visas on arrival in the airport. just a note - they only take cash, no credit card. and then we discovered that the atm's weren't working. this was friday - we were finally able to get some money by sunday afternoon. luckily we still had dollars, we just didn't want to end up using all of them. & we unfortunately didn't have tons extra with us.

in luang prabang we stayed in the lotus villa hotel. very cute, & under $100 per night. it was very close to the popular tamarind restaurant. where we had dinner our first night for the friday night fish barbeque. very good! they only took cash, so be prepared if you go for dinner.

our next day we had booked an overnight elephant trip through all laos travel. it was GREAT! we did a trek to the tad se waterfalls, then stayed at the mahout lodge. it ended up only being the 2 of us plus our guide. the trek we did was 4 - 5 hours, & we hiked through a couple of different villages. this was really nice - they weren't set up for tourists at all, so nobody was trying to sell anything, we just got to see how people live.

the mahout lodge was really cute. stilted log cabin rooms. we had a group dinner with the other people who were doing overnight trips.

the next morning we got to ride the elephants bareback - on their necks, from the place where they sleep & into the water to wash them. it was so fun! then after breakfast we got to ride on the elephants again (but in a basket on their backs). we had the option for kayaking also, but we decided not too, & just headed back to town.

the rest of our time in luang prabang, we just walked around town - went to most of the wats, the museum, & took a tuk tuk out to the kuang xi waterfalls.

we had lunch one afternoon at the indian place on the main street, it was pretty good. otherwise we just picked randomly. nothing stood out too much.

as for shopping, we bought everything from the night market. i loved the handmade slippers that they had, so we got a couple pairs of those. we also found some handpainted t shirts that we cute & cheap, so got a couple of those too.

then we were off for siem reap - through bangkok!

in siem reap, we stayed at the palm village. it's not on the main strip of town -- it's about 3 km away. which was fine with us. we paid $40 a night. the hotel is individual cabins - all cute, & complete with tv. there was also a very nice pool at the hotel, which we took full advantage of.

for the temples, we had Dara & Ponheary as guides. we did 3 days of temples. but i'm not going to lie -- after the second day, i was getting templed out. they were both great guides, & we have some great pics thanks to them one of the best parts was going to the temples at "off times". the opposite of what guide books recommend, so they were much less crowded, & we were able to see things & get pics without other people in them. it was also really interesting to hear about their lives, through all the turmoil that cambodia has been through. you can't get that kind of insight or feeling from a book.

on our last day of temple time, we went to angkor wat to see sunrise. beautiful. i highly recommend doing that.

there weren't any places in siem reap where we ate that i would highly recommend. we did have lunch at our hotel a couple of times. it was pretty good, & more importantly, we wanted to spend some time at the pool during our afternoon breaks.

all the shopping we did in cambodia was also at the market. we checked out angkor artisans, but it was just more expensive than we preferred. & we did not buy anything from the kids at the temple -- if they don't make money, then they'll get sent to school instead of having to peddle at the temples.

our last night we did a tonle sap river dinner cruise. the website looked much nicer than the cruise itself. the food was a buffet, but wasn't that impressive. & then we both ended up having some GI issues on our flight home.

it was a wonderful vacation!!

craig -

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g293924-d1024343-r14507413-Old_Hanoi_Restaurant_Cooking_Class-Hanoi.html

that's the trip advisor link for old hanoi. we enjoyed the class very much. our instructor was so cute! & it was a fun way to spend half a day.

the flight wasn't bad. we didn't have much time in the seoul airport on the way to hanoi, but our return flight went siem reap to seoul - where we had a 10 hr layover. asiana has it's own lounge area, even if you're flying coach. we discovered this just b/c we were checking if there happened to be a flight we could go standby on. & they gave us each a voucher that was worth about $8 for lunch in there lounge area (did not work in other airport restaurants). the area also had showers that were free, & you could pay for a shower kit. some nice leather reclined seats that were great for napping, & multiple computers with internet access that were all free. actually one of the nicest airports i've been in.

our hotel was a very easy walk to the water puppet theater, & that side of hoan kiem lake. we mostly walked. we had a hard time finding Quan an Ngon while we were walking around -- we just kept getting turned around on our map, so b/c we were so hungry at that point, we just took a cab. we used cabs a couple of times -- once b/c it started raining while we were walking, the others just to get us to our starting point - ho chi min, etc. then we would walk from there. but we also walk more than some people prefer to. i would say we walked 4 - 5 miles a day on average.

craig -

to clarify, we did the class at old hanoi on ma may street. i looked at trip advisor again - & they say that there are a couple of them.

http://www.oldhanoi.com/

Ared! Hey, this is the couple that stayed with you at Lotus Villa and we had dinner together at Tamarind. Cool trip report! We got back to Arizona after a short stay in Bangkok after Laos. I'm STILL sick, just getting over that bug. I was on the wrong meds, what I had was a resistant strain. Yikes! It was nice meeting you guys. Take care. Christine and Mark

I'm enjoying your trip report!

Just for future readers, what your hotel arranged for you was a pre-arranged visa. Visa on arrival means something else (that you can just show up and get a visa - not possible in VN).

thanks for the report...

Thanks for the report.

I have a question re:tat kuang si waterfall. According to lonely planet, the trail leads to a pristine swimming hole which is usually private except for thousands of butterflies. That sounds so wonderful. Did u see the butterflies? Dip in the hole?

I am going to hide a boat to take me back and forth, but don't want to miss the butterflies and the swimming hole for sure. Wondering how far is this swimming hole from the river?

Soory for the typo. I mean I am going to hire a boat not hide a boat.

i mean sorry not soory.

Christine -
it was good meeting you guys too. hope that you enjoyed your last couple of days in bangkok, & that being sick didn't put too much of a damper on the end of your vacation. glad you're on the right meds now!

mohan -
there were areas around the kuang si waterfall to swim, but we decided not to. unfortunately, we didn't see tons of butterflies while we were there. i'm not sure about taking a boat there - most people we talked to did the tut tut.

i thought since i looked at so many people's photos to try to plan our trip, i would post the link to ours.

http://picasaweb.google.com/akewalra/HanoiLuangPrabangSiemReap?authkey=Gv1sRgCOTf2PyAl9mtwAE&feat=directlink

fantastic pictures, thanks

Nice Pictures - thanks for sharing!

I loved your photos -- thanks.

great photos, and you look like you were really having fun!

thanks for the report.
Lcuy

love your pictures, although now causing me a dilema as i want to go to LP, Hanoi and SR!!!!!

I'm planning a trip to Cambodia and Laos tentatively for next Feb.23-March 13. I haven't worked out the exact itinerary yet, but was wondering how hot Laos was this time of year? In looking at weather web sites it seems that Feb. is the hottest month of the year. Was there much rain? I have some flexibility of when we go, anytime from early Feb. to late March (as long as I can get the FF seats) and could change the dates if the weather is bad.

I was wondering what the ballpark price is for a duvet?

No April is pretty much the hottest month. There was a bit of rain at the end of March this year, but not too bad. End of April is the start of the wet season.
There was hardly any rain in february; I had to water the garden every day.

we got our duvet with matching pillowcases for about $50. there were cheaper options out there, but i didn't care for those as much.

just a word on Duvets. We were in Chiang Mai last year, and I bought a lovely duvet and matching pillow covers, colored ruby red and cream borders. When I got them home and put them on the bed, the red color bled into the cream, and also onto the underlying pillows and quilt. It did not come out with any cleaning product,and I ended throwing the duvet, pillow covers, pillows and quilt out. So, buyer BEWARE!!

Question about routing - our plan: use Bangkok as the gateway, go to Cambodia, then Laos, then Vietnam (Hanoi, then south thru Dalat). Depart HCMC back to Bangkok. Make sense? Thx.