Political system: communist, single party. The Vietnamese Communist Party has about 3.7 million members, divided into 56,000 cells, or about 5% of the total population

Main religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam

Our 'Wish List'

- see the Ha Long Bay

- cross a street in Hanoi

- take a night train

- see the rice fields of Sapa

- eat Vietnamese dishes!

What to do in (North) Vietnam ?

We stayed 12 days in Vietnam. We would have stayed longer. But 14 nights is the duration of a free visa for French people in Vietnam. With a visa at 60 EUR per person to stay longer, the accounts were quickly made, for 4 with our small budget… too bad.

We arrived by plane on Hanoi, where we stayed 4 days to acclimatize to this new country of Asia. Hanoi is full of charm and deserves to stay there for several days in order to capture the atmosphere. We then went to Sa Pa, in the north for a handful of days and headed south on the island of Cat Ba to explore this famous Ha Long bay for a few days. A circuit thus concentrated on the North Vietnam, itinerant and rather rapid (for us who prefer slow-travel mode) because of this limited visa...

We keep a very good memory of Vietnam, of Vietnamese. Particularly from Hanoi and Sa Pa. Hanoi is full with people, it circulates in all directions. There are millions of scooters, bikes, cars. It honks every 5 seconds. It is polluted and very noisy… but… despite all that, in a very surprising way, it has a crazy charm. There is a very special atmosphere in Hanoi. We could not really understand what it was, but we were absolutely charmed! It's funny because we came from Hong Kong, where the crowd, the pollution and the noise were also omnipresent, but the feeling was completely different ... we never felt good in Hong Kong. We are not sure why. In contrast, we immediately felt very good in Hanoi…

Hanoi

RESUME :

- as said above: Hanoi is noise, pollution, crowds ...

- millions of scooters

- circulation noise, permanently

- a real challenge to cross a street

- disturbing electrical installations…

- an old colorful and decrepit colonial architecture

- street vendors

- life

- smiles

- a special atmosphere that charmed us 😉

Hanoi Old Quarters

TO DO :

- stay at a crossroads and admire the ballet of traffic ... impressive, hypnotic, mind blowing ...

- cross the above-mentioned crossroad !! Mouahahah!

- simply wander through the streets of old Hanoi - the 'Old Quarters', take your time and wander quietly, do not hesitate to embark on the micro alleys, that is all the charm of Hanoi…

- visit the different pagodas and temples of the city center

- Hoan Kiem lake and Ngoc pagoda

- the imperial citadel of Thang Long: a former site of the Vietnamese capital, used as imperial city for dynasties, then as military place during the wars of independence - an important historical and archaeological site.

- the temple of literature: temple dedicated to Confucius and his disciples, with historic buildings, ponds and gardens, places for meditation (be careful to arrive early at the opening to avoid the buses…).

- the women museum : Very well done! with an excellent audio guide - essential !. We really liked it. The children stayed in each room for a very long time to follow all the explanations of the audio guide. A success!

- the Ho Chi Minh place: on a gigantic empty square, austere architecture, with soldiers in ceremonial clothes and changing of the guard ceremony…

- the ethnographic museum: a bit out of the way, but worth it. There is a traditional museum type part, very well done, with many explanations, reconstructions and photos of Vietnamese traditions and habitats. And an outside part with a whole series of traditional Vietnamese houses. Everything is well done and the walk outside is very pleasant. We highly recommend! And in the morning, there was hardly anyone 😉

- the than long water puppet theatre

So it's a big Vietnamese tradition. We saw a lot of these small theaters offering this kind of show. We did the one located in the city center, near the lake. We went during the day to reserve seats for the 5 p.m. show. And we loved it! A combination of naive and colorful puppets, manipulated above a mini pond of water, with traditional musicians and singers. A very good moment. We highly recommend!

TIPS :

- take your courage with both hands to cross a street: get started and ESPECIALLY not change velocity!! They see you from a distance and adapt their speeds according to you: if you accelerate or slow down, you will disturb the millimeter ballet of scooters!

- like almost everywhere in Asia: learn to severely negotiate... yes we are tourists, yes we will pay the tourist price - normal - but by negotiating we can succeed in getting a little less ripped off ... in theory ...

Sa Pa

RESUME :

- Sa Pa is located in the North West of Vietnam.

- You can get there from Hanoi by taking a night train from Ga Ha Noi station in Hanoi (be careful there are several stations in Hanoi!) to Lao Cai. The train takes around 8 hours. The compartments are standard with 4 berths. You have the choice between different companies, but they are all more or less equivalent. We tested Livitrans Express and Fanxipan for example and both were very similar. Either way, the train you will take is an assembly of wagons from these different companies. So you will leave at the same time and arrive at the same time regardless of the company you choose! The night on the train is going very well. It moves, it heckles, it makes noise, it stops at improbable stations, like any night train 😉 The thing is that we arrive very (VERY!) early in Lao Cai: 5h… It is still night upon arrival. And there, the game is to find a driver to bring you to Sa Pa, which is still 1 hour and a half by (sinuous!) drive from Lao Cai .... So don't worry, if you haven't booked a transport (with your hotel for example), you will have a large choice when you arrive! you will be attacked by dozens of drivers. Tip: the road is a mountain road with… curves and turns, yes, normal. So when you see your Vietnamese companions starting to prepare plastic bags, ask yourself: are there any among you who would be sensitive to mountain roads? The morning? Very early? Before any breakfast? After a night on the train ?! We quickly understood who was going to use the so-called plastic bags…😉

- In short, you arrive early and not very fresh so in Sa Pa! Tadaaaa! Well, in our case, it was 7am and everything was in the clouds, so we didn't see much and we waited a bit for the 'Tadaaaa' ... but when it got up ( the next day !!!), we saw that it was magnificent !!

- Sa Pa is a mountain village bordering a superb valley filled with rice fields, forests and traditional villages - it's really very photogenic, for sure. But what absolutely charmed us (in addition to the landscapes) were the women of the Hmong ethnic group, their clothes, the colors of the fabrics, their smiles, their humor, their jokes… we all fell in love I think… we would return to Sa Pa tomorrow just for them! They are wonderful.

TO DO :

- explore the village: typical mountain village, but clearly in the middle of a tourist explosion… it is likely to go very quickly, and the charming 'small' village full of charm is likely to look like a big concrete city soon…

- do not miss the markets in the center where women from surrounding villages come to sell their crafts

- take a walk in the rice fields: you can go there alone - basically it's not complicated, you don't risk getting lost, Sa Pa is clearly visible at the top of its mountain / or you can take a guide. You will have 36 proposals in the street in 5 min for example. We opted for a guide who works with Sa Pa Sisters. We took a day trip to the villages of Lao Chai and Ta van. We had a wonderful time and it was a great experience. We really liked it. Just one advice: if you opt for a walk through the rice fields (where there is hardly anyone) - instead of the pseudo-concrete 'road', and if the guide mentions boots: trust her !! You will NEED boots… 😉 You can rent them in almost all of the shops in Sa Pa before your departure.

- do the Cat Cat visit? so yes ... and no ...

Cat Cat, it is supposedly the traditional village just down the valley from Sa Pa. The idea is to follow a circuit (more or less) marked through small villages, rice fields and forests. This after having paid an entrance fee ... 'To do absolutely' according to all the guides ...

So first thing: we can go there by foot from Sa Pa. Yes it's a small hike, yes it's going up hard on the way back, but you can easily do it. You don't need a taxi to get there.

Second thing: yes, it is a traditional village, but rather the 'Disneyland' version… It's nice, the site is beautiful, we are happy to have seen it … but… but it looks more like Disneyland than anything else ... everything is orchestrated, decorated, arranged to stick as much as possible to the caricatured image of the 'traditional' Vietnamese village... it's beautiful, it's well done, but it leaves a weird feeling quite unpleasant... Well, the Vietnamese love it: you can rent traditional clothes at the start of the tour, dress in pure colorful local clothes - with the Asian umbrella option - and have your photo taken in front of all the traditional reconstructions ... a real success for local tourists… a slight skepticism feeling for us…

Last detail: for arachnophobes, do not look in the trees ...

Cat Ba

RESUME :

The thing with the Ha Long Bay is that when you start to search on internet, where to stay, whether to do a cruise or not, which boat to choose, you quickly realize what sort of tourism industry it is ... your budget is starting to feel bad, and the photos of the bay overcrowded with hundreds of boats (also in the 'traditional Disneyland version') begin to make you doubt seriously ...

After some investigations, we decided to go for another option: target the bay of Lan Ha and not that of Ha Long - basically it's the same, it's just another place in the same area, much less crowded, and much cheaper 😉. We decided to base ourselves on the island of Cat Ba, supposed to be more human-scale and calm than the rest of the region.

We went there quite simply by bus, from Hanoi. A lot of companies offer the route. We did it with Daiichi. Departure 8am from their office (after a night on the train to come back from Sa Pa ... it was sporty! And ... 8am ... well it's in the program ... in fact, we leave when we leave ... and we leave Hanoi when we have collected everyone in the 4 corners of the city…!) - arrival in Cat Ba village around 3pm.

So Cat Ba surprised us. We did not really understand the place actually. The village itself is probably an old seaside resort that must have been successful. There are many tourist facilities, buildings, restaurants ... but everything is either abandoned and completely run down, or ... under construction! The city is therefore like in an 'in between' - in rebirth after long years of abandonment ... the atmosphere is therefore quite confusing in the end.

TO DO :

- wander in the village, on the seafront and observe these curious floating restaurants ...

- go to the central market

- walk to the cannon fort on the heights of Cat Ba: you can walk around and learn a little history of Vietnam with the remains of military installations - and have a panoramic view of the bay with the karst formations. The start of the ride can be done from the center of Cat Ba.

- explore the beaches Cat1, Cat2, Cat3. (yes, the level of inspiration must not have been very high when they gave them a name…). A path starts from the city center and runs along the coast passing through the 3 beaches. It's a pleasant walk with swimming places. When we were there, Cat1 beach was under construction with the building of a huge tourist complex ... the commercials were a little scary ... today, with all this concrete, it must have changed a lot…

- book a tour in Lan Ha bay: most tours offer the same thing: boat tour, Lan Ha bay, floating markets, kayak, beach and swimming, lunch on the boat.

Logements

- in Hanoi, we booked with little anh house: We really liked it. It's charming, very clean, with a nice, neat decoration. A large room with 4 beds, a kitchen and a bathroom. At the end of a dead-end lane, very quiet while located in the center. Very convenient!

- in Sa Pa, we do not recommend our accommodation. The city is in full tourist explosion, there are hotels every 50m, of all categories. One tip: check that the accommodation has heating 😉 : we were there in November, and the nights were quite cool… unfortunately no heating in our room, but electric blankets! 😉

- In Cat Ba, we do not recommend our accommodation either ... But the same: the city is exploding in tourism, there is a large choice of hotels. When we were there, they were under construction almost everywhere…

Restaurants with glutenfree option

In Vietnam, you can eat a lot of street food. There are mini improvised 'restaurants' on the sidewalks every 50m in the old town center, with mini-table and mini-stool 😉 it often smells very good and it's very tempting.

We found 2 places in Hanoi specifically listing gluten-free dishes:

- Hanoi Social Club which offers a good gluten-free chocolate cake

- and a restaurant in a small alley in the center: Tacos Fresh and More who offers gluten-free tacos and tortillas - objectively, it was expensive for Vietnam, but the chef speaks English and knows what gluten and a food allergy are, which we haven't seen often…

Otherwise, we went to various small restaurants in Sa Pa and Cat Ba without problem: you just have to study the menu well, identify the dishes a priori without problem, avoid all that is frying and sauce and chat with the waiters / chefs. As usual: in case of doubt or communication problem: choose the simplest dish without sauce, like white rice and steamed vegetables - not the most exciting, but safe 😉

Notre bilan

OUR SOUVENIR LIST

A place: Sa Pa

A picture: the ballet of scooters in the streets of Hanoi

An animal: spiders from the forests of Sa Pa… .bbbrrrr….

A dish: a Pho soup

A smell: the fries of the 'sidewalk restaurants' in Hanoi

One color: the colors of fabrics from North Vietnam

A noise: the rails of the night train between Hanoi and Lao Cai

Our numbers

Family 2 adults, 2 children (9, 6 - but 7 years birthday in Vietnam !! 😉)

Date of entry: 19.11.2018

Date of departure: 30.11.2018

Number of days: 12

Sites: Hanoi, Sa Pa, Cat Ba

Total budget: 1.200 EUR

Food: 260 EUR

Transport: 310 EUR

Accommodation: 380 EUR

Activities, visits: 210 EUR

Extras, souvenirs: 40 EUR

Average: 25 EUR / day / pers.

A paper guide?

The Lonely Planet is basic and interesting, small and practical. Yes, as usual.

But it remains a VERY traditional guide with lots of unnecessary pages on accommodation and restaurants ... in addition, if you follow his advice you will tend to find yourself in the same place and at the same time as the 500 other tourists in the area who also bought the same guide…

Internet, travel sites and blogs remain safer, with less consensual comments 😉

What we liked

We liked:

- Hanoi

- the water puppet show

- the women's museum

- the ethnographic museum

- the itinerant merchants carrying impressive quantities of everything and anything on bikes ...

- Sa Pa

- the walk in the rice fields

- the women of Sa Pa

- traditional fabrics from North Vietnam

What we didn't like

We didn't like:

- Cat Ba? it's not that we didn't like it actually... it's just that we didn't understand the city ... strange atmosphere ...

Glutenfree logistics

For supermarkets:

So, there is not much in Vietnam that is really gluten-free… you have to read the ingredient lists - when these are translated into an understandable language !! 😉 So prepare to fall back on extremely basic products, rice, fruits and vegetables…

However, we came across a jewel in Hanoi: Ls'Place

Amazing mini-store filled to the ceiling with imported products where we were able to find a whole series of gluten-free products: cereals, flours, cakes, cookies (!!), pasta… incredible! Well, it was super expensive, it cost us an arm, but at least we were able to replenish our gluten-free stocks with products that we knew well 😉

WE RECOMMANDE !

- Hanoi and its atmosphere, Old Quarters

- the Women's Museum and the Ethnographic Museum in Hanoi

- a 'water puppet show'

- Sa Pa, the village, the craft markets and the Hmong women 😉

- take a walk in the rice fields of Sa Pa

- explore Lan Ha Bay from Cat Ba

Our inspirations

general

http://www.routard.com/guide/code_dest/vietnam.htm

http://www.cap-vietnam.com/

http://southeastasiabackpacker.com/

traveling blogs

http://goodmorningvietnam.fr/

https://lesdeclosacados.com/category/vietnam/

http://www.travelystory.com/category/destinations/asie/vietnam/

http://www.sanstalon.com/vietnam-bilan-conseils

https://www.novo-monde.com/vietnam/

gluten free information

http://www.legalnomads.com/gluten-free/vietnam

2 Weeks tour in (North) Vietnam

Unfortunately we only visited part of North Vietnam. Our recommendations therefore only concern this region ... And 12 days, because of the 14 night visa free… 😉

DAYS 1 - 2-3-4: Hanoi

1. stroll through Hanoi, try to capture its special atmosphere in the streets of the 'Old Quarters' + book places for a show of the water puppet theatre

2. women's museum

3. ethnographic museum

4. temple of literature (at the opening), Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, large lake and Tran Quoc pagoda.

Evening of day 4: take a night train to Lao Cai

DAYS 5-6-7: Sa Pa

5. very early arrival in Lao Cai and minibus for Sa Pa - put your luggage at the hotel, wander around the city, the markets, bargain for your hike with a guide for the next day

6. take a hike in the rice fields

7. do the Cat Cat tour (?) / another hike around the city

Evening day 7: take a night train to Lao Cai

DAY 8: train / bus to Cat Ba

- big day of transport with, after the night train from Lao Cai - Hanoi, a 6-7h bus to Cat Ba ...

DAYS 9-10-11: Cat Ba

9. wander around the village of Cat Ba, its local market and take a walk along the 3 beaches + find a boat and a captain to go out on the bay on day 11

10. hike to the cannon fort with the panoramic view of the bay, wander around, go to the beach

11. a day on Lan Ha bay with floating markets, karst landscapes, kayaks and secluded beach ...

DAY 12: return trip to Hanoi

DAY 13: departure

VIETNAM

identitY CARD

Our 'Wish List'

What to do in (North) Vietnam ?

Hanoi

Sa Pa

Cat Ba

Logements

Restaurants with glutenfree option

Notre bilan

Our numbers

A paper guide?

What we liked

What we didn't like

Glutenfree logistics

Our inspirations

2​​ Weeks tour in (North) Vietnam

Lien FLICKR

2 Weeks tour in (North) Vietnam