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We had booked a one-day Mekong Delta tour to My Tho and Ben Tre with Delta Adventures. The tour company picked us up at 7:30am from our guesthouse in Saigon on 6.September. After boarding the bus we waited another 30min before we had collected everyone and the tour could begin…

We arrived at the “Vy Khanh Guesthouse” around 2pm on 4. September after taking a 5hour bus from Mui Ne. The guesthouse manager Miss Vy was very welcoming and upon our arrival offered us tea, a great city map and good tips on where to eat, what to see and what to do in the evening…

After an overnight bus ride from Hoi An and a stop over in Nha Trang, we finally arrived in Mui Ne around 2pm on 2.September, the Vietnamese National Day. While we were expecting the streets to be closed and parades of people to be filling the town, we found Mui Ne to be quite deserted. We made our way to the “Mui Ne Hills” hotel built on the top of sand dunes which surround the town. The view of Mui Ne and the beach was amazing from the pool area of our hotel.

Hoi An – A beautiful place!

Our bus from Hue arrived in Hoi An around 1pm on 28.August. Initially, we had booked two nights in the “Phuong Nam Hotel” but upon arriving in Hoi An we quickly decided to extend our stay for another 2 nights.

We left Dong Hoi around 1pm on the 25. August to take a 3hour local  bus to Hue. This was probably one of the worst ideas we could have as we were completely discriminated against by the local bus driver, an experience which has occurred to us frequently in Vietnam.

We took a 10hour overnight train from Ninh Binh to Dong Hoi which arrived early in the morning on the 24th of August. Initially, we had planned to travel to Dong Hoi and then do a day trip to the UNESCO heritage Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park to visit the famous “Phong Nha” and “Paradise” caves. Unfortunately, once we arrived in Dong Hoi we found that all the tours to the national park were completly overpriced.

Despite arriving at the Canh Dieu Hotel in Ninh Binh quite late on the day before, we decided to have an early start on August 23 in order to explore the area. We booked a car with driver at our hotel who took us to the various sites in the area. Our first stop was Tam Coc, a beautiful area covered with limestone carsts and rice fields. It has much in common with Halong Bay except that it is not as touristy. We took a small paddle boat along the river and past the rice fields. (more…)

We woke up early in our “Little Hanoi Hostel 2” on the 21st of August in order to get on the tourist bus which picked us up at our hotel to take us to Halong Bay. The bus was already full as we got on and we were told that we had a 4hour drive (for 175km) ahead of us. After a mandatory tourist stop after about 2hours at a huge warehouse type building which sold a ton of overpriced, cheaply produced tourist stuff, we continued our journey east. (more…)

Our plane from Hong Kong to Hanoi on 18th of August arrived at Hanoi Airport around 9pm. Luckily a complimentary pick up service from our hostel the “Little Hanoi Hostel 2” was waiting to drive us to the city. As it was already quite late at night as we arrived we only went out for a small dinner before heading to bed exhausted by the day. (more…)