Elopement/Honeymoon - Vietnam/Angkor Wat
 

Hello! My fiancee and I are eloping in Vietnam this December!! We are very excited and would appreciate any feedback/suggestions regarding our trip. I know it is a pretty ambitious trip but we are not obsessed about seeing museums and temples in its entirety. We love to experience the local life, get in a couple amazing sites, eat great food, and wander about. Also, we are from New York City and found that we really enjoy the countryside/rural portion of our travels. So please keep this in mind when critiquing our itinerary!

Day 1 - Late night arrival in Hanoi

Day 2 - Hanoi, Overnight train to Sapa

Day 3 - Sapa Day 1 - Trek to Cat Cat Village

Day 4 - Sapa Day 2 - Trek/Homestay at Tai Phin

Day 5 - Sapa Day 3 - Lao Chai / Tavan Trek, Overnight train back to Hanoi

Day 6 - Halong Bay - Bhaya Classic 2 day / 1 night cruise

Day 7 - Halong Bay - Return to Hanoi at around 3:15 pm, 6:50 pm flight to Hue

Day 8 - Hue - Boat Tour Perfume River / Imperial City

Day 9 - 10:45 am Train from Hue to Da Nang. Arrive at Hoi An around 2:12 pm. Afternoon/Dinner in Hoi An?

Day 10 - Hoi An - Elopement Ceremony @ The Nam Hai

Day 11 - Hoi An / My Son ????

Day 12 - 10:20 am flight from Da Nang to Angkor Wat

Day 13 - Angkor Wat

Day 14 - Fly from Siem Reap to JFK

Questions

1. Can I do Hue in one day?

2. Travel Hue to Hoi An - Should I take the train to Da Nang & taxi to Hoi An or Taxi from Hue to Hoi An? I am thinking taxi so it will get me into Hoi An earlier and have more time to spend in town.

3. Should I plan to go to My Son on day 11 or just stay in Hoi An since I technically lose a day for the ceremony? I know My Son and Angkor Wat are totally different but should I even bother with My Son if I am going to Angkor Wat?

4. Should I skip Hue to add another day in Angkor Wat?

Thanks in advance for your time and suggestions!

Regards,

Kate

If you want this to be an elopement/honeymoon, you need to slow down or you'll spend all of your time in transit!

It takes three full days just to see the major temples at Angkor. At the very least, cut Hue (or else cut Angkor). You also have no time in Hanoi, a fascinating city.

Pause and think about the most important things you want to do/see/experience on this trip and build your itinerary around those few things.

I do agree with Kathie that if you are on honeymoon, you need to slow down. I think you should cut My Son from your list.

I agree also that you are doing too much traveling. Hanoi is an amazing city and you can easily spend 3 days there. You should at least add a day there. You truly do not have time for Angkor Wat as you will want a minimum of 3 days. Hue is marvelous, but I suggest if you have only one day - hire a car to visit the Pagoda and Royal Tombs - you can get to about 3 of them. Hoi An is also amazing. You will probably want to wander around enjoying the town, but you can decide once you are there if you wish to go to My Son. Save Angkor Wat for another trip when you can really enjoy it. Best wishes for your upcoming marriage.

We are in Siem Reap as I write this, and arrived here from Saigon.

Here's my take:

Hanoi - 3 days would be good.We spent one whole day in the Old Quarter, a morning at the Mausoleum and Temple of Literature, that afternoon in the French Quarter and Hoem Kiem area, and a morning at the Museum of Ethnology, which was outstanding. We also took a cooking class at Hanoi Cooking Centre, which was very good, mostly because of the market tour (although the cooking teachers were great, too).

Hue - yes, you can see everything in one day. We hired motorbike drivers through Hueriders.com. It was a blast (and trust me, our honeymoon is a distant memory!!). For $30 total, we spent 8 hours traveling around - US war bunkers, a fabulous visit to a working monastery the name of which I have forgotten, a couple of the royal tombs (we saw Tu Duc and Kinh Tanh I think), lunch, the citadel and imperial city, Thien Mu Pagoda, and a 17th century bridge (along with a crazy 78-year old woman who speaks no english and pantomimes all the local stuff, like how rice is harvested - she was a hoot). Mr. Dung doesn't speak too much English, but he's really nice, and aims to please. The drivers were great.

Hoi An - we treated that part of our trip as R&R - we stayed at a beach hotel for 3 nights, wandered and ate in town every night. We didn't visit any of the historical sights, just looked at the architecture, ate, had a drink here and there, etc.

Saigon - 1-1/2 days is plenty.

Siem Reap - although I understand what Kathie and everyone says about needing 3 days to see the major temples, we spent two very long days touring the temples yesterday and today, and have decided we've seen enough. They're fantastic, but we've seen 7 places over two days, and don't feel the need to see more. For the record, we did Angkor Wat (least favorite of all, actually), Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, Batay Preang (for sunset), Kbal Spean (an incredible hike to a riverbed with stone carvings), Bantay Srei and Beng Malea.

Hope that helps.

Thank you! I definitely had hesitations about my itinerary and felt exhausted just looking at it. So thank you for your feedback. I cut out Hue altogether which gave us another afternoon/evening in Hanoi and an extra day in Angkor Wat for a total of 2 1/2 days.

sf7307 - Thanks for your feedback! I think if I spent one full day seeing the best of the temples I would be fine and would like to do something off the beaten path on the second day. The hike to Kbal Spean sounds great and I will look into that right now. But, I would love to go to a small village where we can have a unique and local experience instead of another day at the temples.

Glam, before you decide about Angkor, get a copy of Dawn Rooney's book, Angkor: A Guide to Cambodia's Wondrous Temples. This will help you make an informed decision about the temples. People are different in their level of interest in the temples. We loved Angkor and spent a week there. By my count we visited 26 temples and could easily have spent another week. We visited a number of small temples where we were the only visitors. Magical! Our photos are here: www.marlandc.com

If you don't have a lot of interest in the temples, cut Angkor and spend all of your time in VN. Or, if you feel you'd be cheating yourselves with a short stay at Angkor you could plan your next trip around a longer stay there.

If you want a different kind of experience in Siem Reap, take a look at this: www.theplf.org This charity was started by a Fodorite in honor of a survivor of Pol Pot who has made it her life's work to support education for Cambodian children. You can not just visit a village school, you can actually DO something: teach the children a song, provide breakfast, etc.

What a shame that you won't be able to get to Hue. We thought it was one of the highlights of our trip. I understand your desire to get to Siem Reap - it is an amazing place, but I still stand by my first statement that more time is better. Sounds like you are still young and should have plenty of time in the future to return and do it justice along with perhaps other parts of Cambodia which are generally short changed. Why not stay in VN since you will already be there.

I love the Nam Hai, but are you planning on actually getting married in Vietnam? If so, there is quite a bit of documentation required for this, and so you might want to build in time to allow for this. If the hotel is providing the ceremony, they should also be able to provide you with information on the documentation required. But see as an example http://travel.state.gov/law/citizens...nship_766.html which discusses marriage between a US citizen and a Vietnamese citizen, it is my understanding that any marriage performed in Vietnam would have the same paperwork requirements. You probably will have to spend time in HCM or Hoi An as you will need to use a US embassy or consulate to provide authenticated documents. (If you use documents notarized in the US, you will have to have those documents authenticated –generally referred to as an apostile – by the US Secry of State and the Vietnamese embassy in the US. Quite a pain to have to do this. That is why getting documents authenticated at a US embassy or consulate in Vietnam is easier). If you end up getting married in Vietnam, you also should at some point have an official English translation of your wedding license made, as you may need this in the US later on during your marriage.

Given all of the above, while a marriage undertaken in Vietnam will be recognized by US states, it probably is easier, although perhaps less romantic, to get married in the US first and then honeymoon in Vietnam.

Please also bear in mind that December is the rainy season in Hoi An and a good bit of the central coastal areas of Vietnam (Hue, Danang). Take a look at weather websites to make sure you are OK with the amount of rain you may encounter.

I agree the above is a lot of ground to cover in a short time. I also love Hue, but hard to say whether one should go there over Ankor Wat. Both are quite different experiences.

I should have mentioned a couple of other things - first, our trip is 3 weeks total (including 4 days in Hong Kong, starting tomorrow night). We skipped Sapa, and having visited the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi, we are very sorry we didn't have time for that (a future trip, for sure). As for the temples, Kathie is right, everyone is different. I always say "know thyself" as far as travel habits and likes/dislikes go - Kathie and I agree that that goes for how long to spend in a place, how many sites to visit, whether to use a guide, or just a guidebook (she and I prefer the latter), etc. In our experience (this trip), it hasn't been just the sights to see, but the experiences themselves, like the moto-bike in Hue, doing everything by tuk-tuk in Siem Reap (although in hindsight, we wouldn't go as far as Beng Melea in a tuk-tuk, but we did, and got to drive on dirt roads through very rural villages -- getting (and giving) a wave and a smile from every child along the way, and some of the adults, too). The people in Vietnam and Cambodia are incredibly friendly, even though we usually can't do more than smile at each other.

Cicerone - Thank you for all that information! No we do not plan on making our marriage in Vietnam legal. It is too complicated! We will take care of the legal aspect of our marriage when we come back.

I am very concerned about the weather in Hoi An as I only read this recently. Is it really bad? I am not sure if I will be able to make a decision by going to a weather website. Should I seriously reconsider location/venue.... wouldn't want to be rained out!

Take a look at http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/w...a-Nang-Vietnam

They don't show Hoi An, but DaNang is a good indicator. Monsoon rains in Hoi An are Sept - Jan. December isn't the worst of the rains, but there is usually flooding in November.

If rain would mean to you that your wedding was ruined, I'd opt for somewhere else. December weather on the Andaman Sea side of Thailand is lovely.