We arrived in Hanoi late in the evening. Our accommodation had told us of an issue that meant we needed to stay somewhere else for the first night. Since the new place was further away from the centre than we wanted to be, Creed asked if we could have a scooter to get around for that one day. They agreed, and it was waiting for us on arrival, so we hopped on and drove around the dark and quiet streets for a while, going past the citadel and tomb of Ho Chi Minh, Creed pointing out various places he remembered from when he used to live here, and after a while he pulled up at one of his old favourites bars, where we had a celebratory cocktail overlooking the lake and appreciated finally making it to Vietnam after a very roundabout route and a jam packed week of travelling to get here.

The next week was very chilled. We had two massages each at Creed’s favourite spa, we hit most of his favourite restaurants as well as making good use of the food delivery apps, and we watched a lot of movies. We discovered that the cocktail scene has blown up here, and almost all bars have a 2 for 1 happy hour, so our evenings were mostly spent trying out a couple of these from the long list Creed had compiled. These were very fancy bars, lots of them speakeasies with hidden entrances, and all had great decoration and atmosphere. We were served by famous bartenders, drank award winning cocktails, and at one place were even served oysters for free with our drinks. One night we went to a pub quiz in the expat area and ended up winning, with the prize being a bottle of whisky to take home. It was a very bougie week, and we spent way too much for Asia, but still only averaged about $40 a day each – part of the reason we love Vietnam so much.

We had been slowly making plans for a trip to the north of the country, but after a week still weren’t quite ready to leave Hanoi, so booked a few extra nights. Creed had another massage and I had a nourishing shampoo and facial care treatment. We had an evening brewery hopping to break up the cocktail happy hours. We finally made it to the cinema to see Wicked. We did manage one half day of actual tourism, visiting the Temple of Literature and One Pillar Pagoda.

We then spent around 2 weeks in the north of Vietnam exploring Sapa and Ha Giang, and when we returned we booked another week in Hanoi – it’s a city we both feel incredibly comfortable in, despite its chaos. We had the intention of working online in all the cute coffee shops. That did not happen. We ended up getting into a weird messed up our sleep schedule, being not particularly productive, but also not doing much else. It’s nice to be lazy, and we weren’t in any rush to get anywhere else so it didn’t feel like wasted time. Creed looked up a list of Michelin restaurants and we tried out a few of these – the highlights were fried eel spring rolls, and beef cooked in bamboo. We went back to a couple of our favourite cocktail happy hours and tried a new one. We took a few walks around the lake, and I had a couple of dental appointments. Twice we intended to hire a bike for a day to see some of the artisan villages on the outskirts of the city, but woke up too late and cancelled. Exciting stuff.

Our main topic of conversation during the week was trying to figure out where we wanted to be for Christmas. We decided we wanted to be in an apartment in order to cook our own Christmas dinner, so it made sense to stay in Hanoi. It was a very last minute decision, so we ended up shopping for decorations on Christmas morning itself, but found a bunch of tinsel that we taped to the wall in the shape of a tree, and Santa hats which were subsequently used as stockings for gifts. Creed put together a last minute advent calendar for me full of chocolate bars and sweets. We treated ourselves to a home spa day with a body scrub, face masks and hair mask. We called family, played Christmas themed trivia, and all around had a very pleasant day.

On boxing day we finally did manage to do the bike trip, first visiting the ceramic village. We explored markets of beautiful and intricate vases, figurines and tea sets, all of them so incredibly cheap. Next up was the incense village, where the streets were lined with thousands of sticks of incense, though there weren’t any stalls or workshops to visit. We then made a spontaneous decision to continue further south to Perfume Pagoda, a series of temples built into a mountain accessible only by a boat ride down a river. We were getting further and further from Hanoi, and the countryside was increasingly scenic. We got lucky and another couple showed up wanting a boat at the same time, so we were able to split the cost. It was a leisurely ride on a rowing boat rather than motor boat, so took an hour rather than twenty minutes. The pagoda was a large and pretty complex, which we explored speedily, aware we were short on daylight (sunset is around 5.15 here at this time of year). It then took us an hour to climb the mountain to visit a large dramatic cave converted into a temple with every nook and crevice adorned with icons. By the time we were at the top it was already sunset, which was stunning over the mountains on the horizon. We visited more cave temples and pagodas on the way down the mountain, and it was very dark by the time we got back to the boat. The hour back to the bike was chilly, and we knew it would be even colder while driving – and we had a 2 hour drive back to Hanoi. The last minute addition to the days itinerary added about 5 hours to our total trip time, and resulted in a very unexpected day, but enjoyable nonetheless.

The next day we finally departed Hanoi to continue our travels through Vietnam. It’s us though, so of course we encountered problems. The bus we’d booked turned out to be unavailable, and suddenly all other buses were also unavailable. We eventually found a company not listed on any normal booking sites and booked it for two hours earlier than we’d wanted to leave, but at least we’d be on our way. It was a night bus, so I decided to visit the Hanoi Citadel in the morning, and then met Creed for brunch at a cidery. We then did a tasting at a brewery, and then Creed got one final massage and I got a lash lift. We ordered food to meet us at the bus stop, and departed at 6pm.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!