A lot has happened since I last posted on the blog. While sitting in the train from Hanoi to Hue in Vietnam, I finally had the time to write about everything we’ve done in the last few months.
First of all Thailand: On the 12th of February, we took a night flight with Air Asia from Denpasar (Bali) via Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand. All went smoothly and we even got a little bit of sleep on the way. On arrival in Chiang Mai, we got a very nice SUV taxi at the airport, which took us to our first hotel in the old town part of the city.
The climate in Thailand was (for me) nicer than Bali. Bali was extremely hot and humid, but in Chiang Mai, it was hot and dry so in effect more comfortable for us. Perfect weather almost all year! We had to do plenty of clothes washing so we couldn’t have arrived at a better time. There is a brand new laundrette just around the corner, where we did all our own washing and drying. For digital nomads, this is a BIG WIN! Just save a few 10 THB coins and off you go! Easy Peasy!
Another tip for travellers is to draw cash in bulk in Thailand as the fee for drawing cash is insanely expensive – yes even at an ATM. It doesn’t matter which bank you use, the ATM/local bank itself charges a mean drawing fee for the favour 🙁
Not many places like to accept bank cards (supermarkets only accept cards for amounts above THB 300), so you literally end up walking around with lots of cash!
Thailand is famous for delicious food so the first night we went straight to the night market to try out some authentic street food. We loved the bbq-meat, the fresh fruit juices, and lovely soups. Compared to Bail, the food is way cheaper and the price of booze is also a bit more modest. Yay!
After spending 10 nights in Chiang Mai, we decided to ‘move’ to a different part of the country called Chiang Rai. We booked tickets out of Chiang Mai on a VIP tour bus (via 12goasia.com). The bus was extremely comfortable and had big leather recliner seats. They looked like a bit like ‘lazyboy-chairs’. Unfortunately for me, the driver took the route through the mountains and made me a bit “car sick”, but all in all, it was a great ride through the countryside.
Chiang Rai itself was not so exciting, but useful as a stopover in order to be closer to the border post into Laos. After some serious research, we managed to find a great company Nagi of Mekong who offers a slow boat cruise down the mighty Mekong River. After we booked, they delivered all the necessary immigration documents and welcome pack, directly to our hotel. What a great service!
We duly completed the paperwork for the border crossing into Laos and made sure we had USD and our passport photos handy. These border posts are quite intimidating, to say the least.
The cruise we booked included a midway overnight stay in tiny little river town called Pakbeng, but being a travel agent, I found another lovely hotel there, which we booked ourselves instead 😉
On 24th Feb, a driver from the cruise company met us early in the morning at our hotel in Chiang Rai and drove us to the border post between Laos and Thailand. We were welcomed by a representative of the company, who helped us check and fill in the last bits of our border & immigration paperwork. We paid our visa fee to the official and we were in Laos! Suly, the lovely tour guide from Nagi Of Mekong was waiting for us on the Laos side and took us to another bus, which in turn took us to the boat down at Huay Xai.
What an incredible experience. The boat cruise went very smoothly with several excursions on the way. The food on the boat was made by the skipper and his wife and at the end of the day, we arrived in Pakbeng. The hotel driver picked us up at the small riverside dock and took us to the hotel. We initially had lots of plans to go out exploring in the little village but they instantly disappeared when we saw how beautiful our hotel was! What a place, what a view! The shower in our room had a stunning river view of the Mekong and we later decided to have dinner at the hotel. We were just about the only guests at the hotel and therefore had truly amazing service.
The following morning the hotel bus took us back to the boat and we continued the cruise further down the Mekong towards Luang Prabang. Just before we got to Luang Prabang, we visited the famous Pak Ou caves and in the early afternoon, we arrived at our destination. We initially only booked 2 nights in Luang Prabang, but soon decided that we loved the place and stayed another 5 nights in the end.
Luang Prabang is a lovely, quaint little town on the Mekong River. In the early morning, you can give the monks alms (rice) as they slowly process through the town. There are a number of Buddhist temples for which the town is famous for.
In the meantime, we did some more research and decided that going to Van Vieng or Vientiane wouldn’t add much more to our Laos experience. Taking into account the horror stories we heard about the bus rides, we decided to take a plane from Luang Prabang to Hanoi to discover Vietnam.
To enter Vietnam you need a visa beforehand, so we bought an online e-visa via the Vietnamese embassy. Within 3 days, our e-visas were approved and we flew to Hanoi on Lao Air (with some more monks) on the 2nd of March.
Coming from the relaxed little town of Luang Prabang, Hanoi was a big shock for us. Thousands of hooting cars and scooters, street stalls, vendors, hustlers, restaurants…Wow…this was a huge difference. It took us a while to get used to the hustle and bustle of the city, but we soon got accustomed to it and visited the prominent military museums in and around Hanoi.
One of the most impressive outings was a visit to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. We waited two hours in a very long queue with thousands of Vietnamese locals, who don’t speak English at all. What an experience! It’s really quite something to see and well worth it! We weren’t allowed to take any photos, so sorry for the short description. Vietnam is a police state and they take security, law and order extremely seriously.
After our stay in Hanoi, we took a three-hour train ride to the next place on our list: Ninh Binh / Tam Coc. I’d read that this is an amazing area for scenic boat rides, so, we decided to go and enjoy a bit of peace and quietness. How wrong could we be? Ninh Binh / Tam Coc turned out to be the weekend getaway for thousands of people from Hanoi. So we started out with a busy train ride and ended up with a chaotic boat ride.
The train ride was actually an incredible experience. We tried to book tickets directly via Vietnam Railways, but they don’t accept foreign credit cards online, so we made a quick visit to the train station. With the help of the Google translator App and some screenshots, we got our tickets in good time. Only later I discovered that Balaou.com does, in fact, accept foreign credit cards and you can even choose your own seat.
The station platforms are not open until a rail official says so. Then everybody suddenly jumps up and boards the train in about 30 seconds. The train itself is divided into four classes of compartments; hard seats, soft seats with aircon, four-berth and six-berth cabins. We chose the soft seats for our 3-hour train trip and we weren’t disappointed at all. The seats were comfy and there was plenty of space for our luggage.
When we arrived in Ninh Binh, we arranged a taxi via the hotel (no Grab in Ninh Binh/Tam Coc) and the driver took us to our little homestay in Tam Coc. It was a lovely little homestay run by a super sweet family. We were able to check in early and explored the lovely local area on foot.
There is a boat trip in Tam Coc itself, but on the internet, they warn you about scammers and boat rowers, who persistently want to sell stuff to you.
The Trang An boat trip is regulated by 1 company and therefore the rowers are not allowed to scam you or squeeze you for money, just don’t plan to go over the weekend.
We initially decided to go on Monday morning to avoid the crowd, but…………
We met 2 Dutch girls at our lunch spot on the Sunday afternoon and they had ample time to do the boat trip. Since you need 4 people on the boat in Trang An, we made a plan to share a boat. On arrival in Trang An, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of local Hanoi visitors standing in the queue.
Hmm, choices…Stand in the queue or come back the next day?
We did the same as in Hanoi (Ho Chi Minh mausoleum) and “bit the bullet” and stayed. The girls didn’t want to stand in the queue and went back to their hotel. Luckily we found a Belgian couple in the line who wanted to share the boat with us. At least we could understand each other as the local Vietnamese don’t speak a word of English.
What a circus. It was beautiful, but next time we’ll go on a Monday morning 🙂
Don’t worry…. a new blog post will follow soon about our adventures in Vietnam!
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