jasonmolinari

Well, we just got back from our 14 day trip on Saturday, and wow. What a trip. What a really amazing experience.
I'll start by saying that the travel agent who set it all up was fantastic. Everything was perfect, and as promised. The agency is All Asia Travel, www.allasiatravel.com and Ms. Chi is great to deal with. She is on Yahoo Messenger every day and answers emails well within 24 hours, usually MUCH less. I was worried about using a company across the world, and sending money, but i'm really glad I did.

I'm going to write as I think of issues which were brought up or which i asked about...in no particular order.

So, here is my schedule. I was told my many folks here it was too busy, but personally i didn't think so. Sure, i didn't get to see everything in each city, but i got a very good overview of all of them, and had enough free time to do what we wanted. I don't like sitting around, i like to be busy all day, so this schedule worked for us.

Day 1 - arrive hanoi
Day 2 - tour Hanoi
Day 3 - tour hanoi morning, go to Halong Bay afternoon
Day 4 - 4 hours Halong bay cruise, go back to Hanoi afternoon
Day 5 - early (6am) flight to Hue, and tour Hue all day
Day 6 - morning tour of Hue, drive to Hoi An
Day 7 - Hoi An
Day 8 - 8am flight to HCMC
Day 9 - free day in HCMC
day 10 - Mekong river trip
Day 11 - 11:40am flight to Seam Reap, afternoon tour of temples
Day 12 - tour of temples
Day 13 - 6pm flight back to Hanoi
Day 14 - free in Hanoi until 11:40pm flight back to US

It sounds busy, and it was, but we never felt rushed. In fact, we were kind of bored in Hoi An, it was just too touristy and commercial. Our favorite city was probably Hue, then Hanoi, then Hoi An, and HCMC last, as it was too busy, and just like many other big cities.

One of the issues i was told about my itinerary was that we'd spend our whole time in the airports. This wasn't the case. For domestics flights we arrived at the airport 1 hours ahead of time, and it was plenty, for international, 2 hours. We spent little precious time in the airports sine we traveled at times when we wouldn't be touring anyhow (6am, 8am, 6pm). Flights were all with Vietnam airlines, which were perfectly on time, clean and great. We even left Seam Reap 20 minutes EARLY. Take that delta!

We had different guides in each of the north, center, south and Seam Reap, and all were great, especially Mr. Thai in the center, and Mr. Smey in Cambodia (who knew of Ponheary, so that was kind of funny). Our cambodian guide took us to the temples in the order and at the times to best avoid the crowds. He was great, and spoke great English.

Vietnam is an amazing place. this was probably my favorite vacation. The people are wonderful. The food is unbelievable (50% of the reason why I went), and easy to find. We ate everything. Street stalls, markets, restaurants, and never got sick. Ate everything, greens, cooked, raw, lettuce, herbs...no problems at all. The only thing we avoided was the ice.

I'll also mention that we were on a pepto prophylactic regimen. 2 pepto caplets, 4 times a day for the whole time. We had no black tongue or any issues whatsoever. I don't know if our lack of issues with the food and TD was thanks to this or not, since we didn't have a control person not taking the pepto

Mosquitoes were only a problem in Hue and Hoi An. We used about 1/3 of 1 6oz. bottle of Sawyer repellent between the 2 of us, applying to to arms, neck and face.

We carried antibacterial hand wipes to wipe chopsticks and spoon in the street stalls, which didn't seem to be too odd, since people were wiping their chopsticks with the so called napkins, when they were available. (what's up with no napkins! )

Our favorite restaurants were:
Hanoi - Chim Xao/Chim Sao
Hue - Lac Thien
Hoi An - Quan Nhan
HCMC - Quan 94
Seam Reap - Khamer Kitchen, but all food was rather mediocre, nothing compared to Vietnam

The hotels we stayed in were great too. They were:

Hanoi: Zephyr Hotel. The location of this was super, right infront of the south side of Hoan Kiem lake. Rooms were smallish, and rather worn, but who could argue with the location!
Ha Long Bay - Ha Long Spring. Great hotel, nice location. The beds are hard as rocks
Hue - Green Hotel. BEAUTIFUL resort like hotel, but not close to the fun stuff. About a 30 minute walk across the bridge.
Hoi An - Vinh Hung Riverside resort. Very nice rooms, pretty good location (Hoi An is small anyhow).
HCMC - Rex Suite. Very nice. Great location
Seam Reap - Soma Devi Angkor. Fantastic hotel, great location, amazing pool.

Luggage wasn't an issue. It never got lost and came out very fast. Hand luggage, fortunately was never weighed, or i would have always been over the 7KG limit. Especially comeing abck from Cambodia with a big stone Buddah head!

ATMs, in HCMC and Hanoi especially, were EVERYWHERE. Literally ever 300 feet you could find one. And in case you care, my ING account didn't charge any fees at all for their use, and nor did the banks in Vietnam.

We did all the usual tourist stuff in all the cities, so i won't list them. My wife and I both preferred the outside beauty and sights in the cities, over the museums. I think museums are too lifeless and static. I like looking at sights outside, which may be why i loved Hue so much , with its amazing imperial palaces.

Taking cabs was generally pretty easy. We tried to stay away from cabs that used a cell phone number (09), and had no problems with metered cabs. Many drivers didn't speak any english, so make sure you take a card from your hotel with you, and a written address of where you want to go.

Weather was good. No rain anywhere, but onyl sunny in Cambodia after about 9:30am, and in Hue and Hoi An. Hanoi was gray and cloudy..shame, HCMC was pretty cloudy. But overall nice. Unfortunately Halong Bay was cloudy making the experience nice, but not as nice as it could have been.
Oh, while i'm thinking of Ha Long Bay, one thing that angered us really quite a lot was how we got taken. On our boat ride one of the crew brought a tray with 4 bottles of wine, and showed them to me, implying i pick one. I did, assuming it was included with the trip, as that was what it was made to seem. Well, it wasn't, we got a $34 bill for a bottle of wine we barely touched. We learned our lesson from that, but it's a pretty crappy thing to pull on unsuspecting tourists, and i feel our guide should have warned us. (our other guides did warn us of similar things).


I'll stop now before getting too long. If you want to see my detailed itinerary let me know, and i can email it to you, or if you want any more information on anything ask..and I'll try to answer

I would go back to Vietnam in a second, it really was a beautiful place, and about as different from the US as you can imagine. It was not what i expected at all, in neither a good nor bad way, just not what i expected. I loved it, and so did my wife.

A big thank you to all the people on this board who helped me out with my many questions.

Kathie

It sounds like you had a great trip! Do post more on particular highlights as you think of them.

You didn't have a lot of time in Siem Reap. Did you feel you had enough time for your level of interest in the temples? Anyplace you wished you had more time?

I thought it was interesting that you got bored in Hoi An - it seems to be a place that people either love or hate!

jasonmolinari

Kathie, we saw a lot of temples in Seam Reap,and for me, it was probably enough. I guess it could have been spread our over 1 more day so we didn't see as many every day.
We saw the main temples, and by the end of day 3 our brains were hurting and we were getting a little "templed out". I think one couldn't see all the temples in a week's worth of touring...so it is up to each person as to how much they want to see.
Our favorite temples were Bayon and Angkor Wat. Bayon is amazing.

I think i wish i had more time in Hue. We only had 1 day, but it was our favorite place, and didn't have a lot of time to just walk around. Obviously we could have stayed longer everywhere (except Hoi An ), but we felt what we spent was sufficient to see everything well.

The water puppet show was my wife's favorite "activity/sight", and i agree it was great.

Personally my favorite was endlessly walking through the market's food sections...i could have done that all day.

The tour up the Mekong was also really a lot of fun.

For me, the food was the highlight of the trip, as well as watching and walking in the streets and through Vietnamese daily life. I'm sure i'll think of more stuff as i sort through my 1100 pictures!

Kathie

Thanks. It's interesting to hear that you wished for more time in Hue. It's a place I haven't been to yet, but it's long been on my list.

You are so right that you can't see all the temples at Angkor in a week. We were there a week, and certainly didn't see all of them!

I'll look forward to more from you.

jasonmolinari

Hue was beautiful. The palaces and tombs of the old emperors. Really incredible sights!

Femi

Sorry you had to learn the hard way that alcohol is almost never included in the price of the tour.

The one time (on Safari) that alcohol was included, we found out later that applied only to certain brands. So members of our party were still charged a hefty fee.
One of those things I guess.

Glad you had a good time.

mishkah

Could you tell us more about you did in/loved about Hue? I'm headed there week after next and would love hearing your thoughts on it in more detail! (Selfish, aren't I?!)

jasonmolinari

Mishkah, sure. We did the usual tourist stuff. We visited the forbidden city and royal citadel. The tombs of Tu Duc and Khai Dinh.
Also took a 45 minute boat ride up the perfume river to a really nice pagoda (Thien Mu) and a temple where monks currently study.

All of these were spectacular. The carvings, engravings, and mosaics were beautiful. Our guide was great at explaining the really interesting history.

For dinner we went to Lac Thien, which is pretty famous for its bottle opener which they give to every group who eats there. The owners are super nice. Make sure you go to the correct one, not the one that copied their name (sounds similar but spelled differently) and claims to be the one which was written up in all the books.

For lunch we ate a no-name restaurant on the street behind the Green Hotel, which served Nam Lui...so good.

nhulberg

As to the preceding discussion of Siem Reap and the temples, we were there for 2 1/2 days. It was certainly enough...maybe a bit too long. I think we saw six or seven temples. After the third one, it gets a bit redundant. True, each is different, but it all becomes a blur. Glad we went, but we could have cut it back a bit.

Yes, Angkor Wat and Banyon are among the best. There are literally hundreds of temples in the area. After a while your temples are throbbing...er...head is throbbing.

jasonmolinari

I agree with nhulberg. I guess it depends how interested you are in temples, and over what period of time you see them.

alison

thank you so much as I'm taking almost the identical trip -- but with a few more days. I am interested in where you went on your one-day Mekong delta trip as we are probably only going to have time for that, rather than the 2-day, one night trip recommended by most people who post on this site and TA.
Also, very interested in your comments about Hue/Hoi An as we are trying to figure out how many nights in each place. Seems like we could fill a few days in Hoi An with going to countryside, cooking school, etc.
thank you again!

jasonmolinari

We drop to My Tho, and took one of the 500 tourist boats up the river. They then stopped on the biggest island, i think it is called Dragon Island, and we had fruits and watched a short music performance. Walked for about 10 minutes to our small river boat, which paddled us for 20 or so minutes through the narrow canals, back to our bigger boat.
We then went up the river to the coconut candy making area, stopped there for some honey tea, some candies and relax for a short while. Then went back. It was a lot of fun. I think the 2 day trip goes to Can Tho, which is way down the river,and you can see the market and other stuff.

As far as Hue / Hoi An. We didn't like Hoi An much. It is basically shop after shop after shop of trinkets and clothing. If you want to have clothes made you need at least 2 days, but if you don't i think 1 day is enough. But that is my opinion.
Hue was awesome from what we say. Palaces, tombs, and fantastic food!

SusanInToronto

This was fun to read. We're seriously thinking of a trip to Vietnam next year (early 2009) and I'm starting to do some reading about it. We'd probably have 3 weeks and my husband is really interested in going to Hue. Thanks for posting

mcl1

It is great to read your report. We leave Tuesday for Vietnam and Cambodia. We too are staying at the Green Hotel so I was interestd to read it is 1/2 hour walk to the fun stuff. Did you walk it or take a taxi? Is the Lac Thien restaurant also a 1/2 hour walk away? Can't say I know Pepto caplets. Are they PeptoBismal(sp?) caplets you get in the local drugstore? Thanks for your reply and any other tidbits you think of to share. We are very excited about the trip and have learned so much on this site.