Asia 2018: Day #0.2 Hanoi

When we visited Vietnam in 2012 we started in the South and ended in the North. It had been a hot and humid three weeks and by the time we got to Hanoi we were fairly tired and worn out. Our hotel on that occasion was across the lake from the Old Quarter so a short excursion followed by a swim or relaxation in air-conditioning was out of the question. Added to that we were unable to get to see Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum.

We really had only one day free in Hanoi that trip and it happened to be on a Sunday – the day the locals come out to pay their respects to Uncle Ho. We had been told that we might get in if we got there early but even then we were facing a 2-3 hour queue. So we didn't hang around.

Time for a Hanoi re-run to catch up on all the bits we missed out on last time, though mainly Uncle Ho and street food. Add in a cooking class at Rose Kitchen (https://rosekitchen.com.vn/#/our-cooking-class), a street food tour on the back of a motorcycle, maybe a stop at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (http://www.vme.org.vn/home/), a lot of sitting on very low plastic chairs drinking beer and eating satays and rice paper rolls, and we might be just about done.

And with a hotel located right in the Old Quarter this time I can always go back for a quiet drink late in the afternoon before heading out for the night. Looking for food, naturally.

Asia 2018: Day #0.1 Itinerary for Asia 2018

Dates:

October 9 – 12 Hanoi

October 12 – 20 Laos

October 20 – 31 Cambodia

November 1 – 4 Saigon

High points:

Half-day cooking courses in Hanoi, Luang Prabang, and Siem Reap

2-days at Angkor Wat, one starting at sunrise and one covering sunset

8-day river cruise down the Mekong from Siem Reap to Saigon with a stop in Phnom Penh

Vietnamese Opera in Saigon 

Flights:

Melbourne → Saigon → Hanoi 

Hanoi → Luang Prabang

Xiengkhouang → Vientiane

Vientiane → Pakse

Pakse → Siem Reap

Saigon → Melbourne

Asia 2018: Day #0 Anti-Clockwise Through 3 Countries

2018 was always going to an Asian holiday year for us. After visiting Europe in 2017 and before going to Ireland, Iceland and France in 2019, Asia beckoned.

Robyn and I took the kids to Vietnam in 2012 and we always felt we had a few more things to do there, specifically in Hanoi. Added to that we had started to get an urge to travel down the Mekong in a river boat of some description. I'm not sure where that one came from; possibly Luke Nguyen's cooking programs on SBS TV, or maybe from somewhere else. In any event we decided early on that we wanted to visit that part of the world, and to travel without the children.

If the Mekong was going to be the centre-piece of the holiday then we needed to get into Cambodia somehow. Angkor Wat was obviously a drawcard so that was added in. And if we were to go to Hanoi and Cambodia we felt should also see Laos in between. I'm sure that Luke Nguyen was a major factor in choosing to do that. He was very enthusiastic about Lao food and about the city of Luang Prabang in particular. Another destination added.

We were then left with the problem of how to fit it all together. We had a choice of starting in Ho Chi Minh City and traveling through to Hanoi via Cambodia and then Laos (what I called the clock-wise solution) or going the other way (anti-clockwise). Starting in Hanoi and passing through Laos and then Cambodia. Either would work and I have a feeling that the only reason we made a decision to start in Hanoi and finish in Ho Chi Minh City was to be able to float down the Mekong rather than fighting our way upstream. Which is, frankly, a rather ridiculous argument as the only work on the river was all going to be done by the boat anyway. But decisions were made and they seemed reasonable at the time so I'm not going to attempt to second guess them now.

The basic idea for this trip started way back but started to firm up about two years ago. In that time Robyn has been able to source a number of local tours, cooking classes, food excursions and the like. She read the reviews of each, discussed and argued about them with me until we came to a mutual agreement about all of the little bits that go together to make this trip. And there are a lot.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that Robyn enjoys the planning of these trips almost as much as the travel experience itself. It certainly takes longer.