Vietnam is an amazing country with rich history and surprisingly diverse geographical terrains and regional cultures. After ages under lockdown due to the Covid-19, we took the opportunity to rush out of our home and headed to Vietnam. We wanted to be among the very first travelers to land into this beautiful country just after its reopening to tourism in May 2022.
Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, welcomed us with an amazing show of scooters vying for every space in the busy traffic on a bright summer day of July 2022. We were taught some vital strategies for crossing the streets in Vietnam which were especially helpful as we could move freely and confidently from one point to another. I couldn’t forget the first moments in the city crossing the streets in the Old Quarter with my eyes closed!
One should definitely plan to learn and master the tricks for crossing the streets in Vietnam in the first few days in the country, else your trip would be more likely not be a smooth experience. They are not to hard to learn at all, it is just that you need to be confident and good calculations before stepping into any gap in the traffic. And it is also vital that these traffic tricks are not applied at home, as one gets run over for certain! Anyway the busy and chaotic traffic in Hanoi made me feel there seemed to have been no Covid lockdown here at all!
July is supposed to be the hottest time of the year but to our surprise the temperatures were just amazingly pleasant to us. Even our tour guide kept on chanting that it was unusually pleasant temperatures this summer!
Our family had three unforgettable full days in Hanoi. The first day was for practice with the traffic, trying street food and a cooking class. The second day was for visits to the city’s tourist highlights. And the third day was for learning about the Vietnamese history and culture. We wanted to get a bit further into Vietnam as our daughter, Tracy, was planning to study international relations and diplomacy after high school. And it turned out that the first day was full of thrill, the second day was fun-filled and the third day was beyond expectations.
When we were planning our family holidays to Vietnam, we consulted a quite few sources for ideas. Most people would spend a couple of days in Hanoi on their tours. We were a bit hesitant at first to have three full days in the capital city of Vietnam. But we finally found that our wishes were a bit different and we were glad to stick to our wishes. It was a lovely time here after all: traffic crossing full of laughter and surprises, cooking class full of pleasant smells and flavors,… But in the end, we felt a bit closer to Vietnam thanks to more acquired knowledge of local Fengshui, of the ancient history as well as the recent history and geopolitics,… The time in Hanoi is to remain with our family for quite some time!
Leaving Hanoi, our family traveled to Halong Bay where thousands of limestone islands stick abruptly out of the emerald water of the Dragon Bay. We spent three days and two nights for this trip and had two full days on the bay. On the second day our family had a private junk for exploring the lesser known area of the bay and for relaxation.
We loved adoring the sunset views of the bay from the top of the Ti Tov Mountain with a pristine sandy beach at the base. We wouldn’t forget the cooking demonstrations on board in late afternoon. And the kayaking in the secret lagoon of Ho Ba Ham was certainly a real treat to our whole family! We would not forget having the whole huge area to ourselves where we could listen to the sound of nature: the sea waves and the breezes...
Leaving Halong Bay we took a flight for Da Nang from where we traveled along a waterfront road with several sandy beaches by the blue ocean to Hoi An Old Port Town. It was for centuries among the busiest international trading ports in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia, and merchants from around the world visited this town for commerce. They would sojourn here for a few months waiting for the winds to sail back home. Hoi An was truly remarkable in architecture and in culture back then. The town itself must have changed so much since its early history, but the amazingly quaint vibe remains!
Our family had a lovely relaxing time in Hoi An for three full days. The highlights were to learn how to make a lantern at a local workshop, a leisurely bicycle trip to the Herbal Village with a hands-on cooking class, a hilarious ride in a basket boat amid the coconut forest, piles of clothes from local tailors, mouth-watering local dishes… and peaceful moments in late afternoons by the riverside sipping chilled drinks!
There are beaches in Hoi An and Da Nang which stretch for several kilometers between these two places. We had a couple of hours walking and relaxing on a beach in Hoi An – the An Bang Beach, and got a brief visit to the Non Nuoc Beach in Da Nang on our way to the airport. I loved the turquoise blue color and felt we might spend more time here next time we come back to Vietnam.
Our late morning flight from Da Nang to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and the connecting flight to the Con Dao Islands were smooth. And we found ourselves on the Con Son Island, the biggest of the Con Dao archipelago, in the afternoon. The islands, which were once considered hell on earth, proved to be a real paradise. We loved the coastal road from the Con Dao Airport to our hotel which was just quiet and which offered so lovely a scene. The blue sea and the white sandy beaches were so quiet, and the only noise we could hear was from sea waves and breezes. The island would be our home for the next three nights.
