Vietnam Travel With Bri

Hanoi

I left Cat Ba to meet Brianna in Hanoi (Noi Bai International) for the New Years.  It was the first major city I have visited in Vietnam and it was crazy.  Wild traffic and something going on in every direction.  I thought that new years would be even more so.  In reality, it turned out to be the quietest new years celebration I have ever seen.  New years hit and there seemed to be silent celebrations all around.  Pretty Strange compared to the usual chaos.

We spent our couple days exploring the Old Quarter of Hanoi.  It is made up of various shops and very tight overcrowded streets that make up for some wild traffic.  A fun place to spend a day or so.

The only photo I have of the wild streets.  I wish it could do more justice.

One of the many fakes.  Total rip off of Aquafina, but totally safe to drink.  We saw four different variations of this bottle including the original on this trip.

Bri and a popular bun bo restaurant Anthony Bourdain and Obama visited on an episode of Parts Unknown.  The restaurant was quickly revamped and renamed after his departure.

Bri and a take of Stop and Shop all the way in Vietnam.  Who would have thought.

Egg coffee from the famous Giang Cafe.  A delicious tiramisu like coffee made famous during a milk shortage.

Return to Cat Ba

After our couple days in Hanoi we made our way back to Cat Ba!  It was nice to be back and I had the opportunity to check out a lot of places I did not get to see the first time.  Also, where I first met Jojo and Bee, who I would end up staying with and meeting up Thailand!

Our driver on our way to Moody Beach.  These boats are made of essentially a large basket coated in tar to make it waterproof.  They are very loud and all vary greatly from one another.

Bri climbing on Moody Beach in the bay.

Hey!

Pet wild boar! 

View on top of the cannon fort, an old Vietnam war fort built to help protect the harbor.  Now its a great place for tourists to explore the remains and catch an awesome sunset.

Another sunset view from the cannon fort.

Ninh Binh

From Ca Ba we took a bus directly to Ninh Binh.  An area similar to Yangshuo with many Karst peaks and great views.  Unfortunately for us, it was not the right season and very rainy.  We only had a couple days to explore but we did get a chance to check out Mua Cave!

Taxi ride into camp after a couple motorbike taxis attempted to drive us to a wrong location and have us pay for it.  Definitely the strangest and sketchiest thing that has happened to me so far in South East Asia.

Pretending to climb the top of the Mua Cave peak.  No ropes but don't worry, the ground is only a couple feet away.

First accent! super easy climbing on very stable rock!

Poor picture, but this is the inside of Mua Cave.  If you look closely there is a flooded foot path that was probably once above water level.  We took off our shoes and walked to the end.  I usually love caves but this was pretty creepy.

Da Nang

The end of our Vietnam Trip ended in Da Nang were we visited the beautiful Hai Van pass by motorbike, spent time on the beach and visited Carmelo, a good friend from back home.

Background image of this Blog!  This is a photo at the peak of Hai Van Pass.  You can see our bike on the right and an old military bunker in the distance.  One of my favorite pictures yet.

Another awesome view at the peak of the Hai Van Pass.

We took a trip to Randy's Book Exchange in Hoi An.  This tourist location is located about 40 minutes from Da Nang and the purpose of the trip was to get an e-reader.  I think Randy might be the only one to sell them in all of East Asia.  Not only does he sell e-readers and self printed copies of every best seller, he also claims to have been a drug dealer.  This book was about his crews first arrest of over 400 kilos of cocaine? I wonder.

Bri on the beach!