Over the long national day holiday, I planned a 7D6N trip to Vietnam with bae and his fam because long weekends are hard to come by especially when you are working.
Also, since I love my country so much, I would let my country down if I wasted my long weekend rotting in Singapore.
So here’s a short summary of the places we went in Vietnam before I go into the details. We landed in Hanoi airport and directly went to Sa Pa, thereafter we returned to Hanoi to take a 15 hour long overnight train to Danang and visited Hoi An and Ba Na Hills.
Day 1 (Hanoi > Sapa)
We landed in Noi Bai International airport (Hanoi) at about 12pm and waited for our hotel transfer to Sa Pa at 3pm. So you are probably wondering why would I choose such an inconvenient timing for the transfer to arrive… so the thing is since we are travelling in a group of 4 with quite some baggage, I wasn’t sure is the local bus could accommodate our baggage space so I opted for the hotel transfer. When I asked the hotel if they could come and fetch us immediately to Sa Pa once we landed, they insisted that the transfer timing was fixed so yup we had to wait till 3pm.
Fun fact: the transfer from Hanoi to Sa Pa takes 6 hours so since it was such a long ride, it was nice to travel comfortably in a “limo”.
Price of the one-way transfer to Sa Pa for one pax was SGD $32.39 which was quite worth it given that they provided light refreshments and there was good leg room in the van as well.
The airport transfer came right on time and I was pretty amazed at the standard of the service provided actually. I booked 4 VIP seats from the hotel so we got the main 4 seats right in the center of the van. Upon arrival, the driver gave us water and bread and there were charging ports in the van + free wifi. IKR. We stopped along 2 pit stops for toilet breaks on our way to Sa Pa of which there was a pit stop which we were given a free choice of drink each.
Oh did I mention that our journey to Sa Pa was on a two way lane? I highly advise you to keep your eyes closed during the ride cause the way they cut lanes would probably keep your eyes wide open…WITH SHOCK HAHA
We reached out hotel – Eden Boutique Hotel & Spa at about 8pm and that sums up our entire day of travelling. We were famished so once we checked in, we went nearby to grab us some dinner at Dzao Red House. Their grilled salmon with lemon butter and garlic was bomb but the rest of the dishes was meh. Their portions of food in Vietnam is huge…I think it’s a culture thing but wow they are very generous with the rice and noodles we ordered. Did you know that Sa Pa is a town that truly comes alive at night? It was surreal to see such a lively town hidden deep in the mountains…almost like a Jurassic Park moment tbh
Day 2 (Cat Cat Village + Mt. Fansipan)
I booked a tour from Klook for a half day trip to Cat Cat village at SGD $27.49 per pax and the tour started at 8.45am. Btw the sun rises at 5.30am in Vietnam so we got plenty of time to grab some breakfast before starting our trek to Cat Cat Village.
We trekked for about 30mins and arrived at our destination. Along the way, there was plenty of vendors and shops selling ornaments of all sorts and Vietnamese clothing. Ugh I would have bought/rented one for myself if the weather wasn’t so hot -.-
Toured around the village for a good 3 hours before we made our way back. Cat Cat was a pretty nice place to visit with the waterfalls and scenery everywhere. Also, there was a small area were people can watch some traditional Vietnamese performance by some of the Hmong locals there. When it was time to go, my Gopro died and so did I when we had to climb fleets of inclined staircases back out of Cat Cat village.
Thankfully, the tour guide told us that there was a van waiting for us outside to send us back to out hotel. Phew. Wanted some air con in the van but since the drive back was uphill, we simply opened the windows instead. The tour also provided free lunch for attendees at Viet Flower Hotel but the food didn’t really suit our palate so we had a small bite and walked back to our hotel (5 mins away).
Check out our journey to Sa Pa + Cat Cat Village highlights here:
After finishing our lunch, the sky started getting darker and it started raining. We decided to wash up and rest for a while before we visit the famous Mt. Fansipan aka the tallest mountain in Vietnam.
So to get to Mt. Fansipan, we had to buy train+ cable car tickets from Sa Pa station to get to Fansipan Station. The price of each ticket was about SGD$50. The train took 7 mins and the cable car ride up to Mt. Fansipan took up 15 mins. During which it started pouring on our cable car ride. We were literally in the clouds – the entire cable car was covered with fog LOL
Once we reached the peak, it was pouring. Initially, I wanted to sit out the rain and hopefully check out the place once the rain has stopped but the weather report said it might keep raining for a few hours so we bought us some ponchos and braved the cold rainy weather. Yes, its not the best weather to visit but well, we tried to make the best out of it. The area was covered in fog and the rain didn’t make it any better but we could faintly see the statues from afar. There were humongous statues littered throughout area and boyyy were there a shit ton of steps. The fog started to clear, and we could see the statues perfectly afterwards. We spent a good 2 hours here and retreated to ground zero.
Check out the Mt. Fansipan highlights here:
We grabbed dinner at a joint nearby our hotel called “Chicago Pizza” and wow am I impressed with the quality of food they served. Literally everything was good – Mushroom soup, bread, pizza, fried rice, pasta and burger. After which we went back to our hotel and K.Oed for a good 2 hours and by then it was already 9pm. We decided to take a final stroll around town to check out their night scene before we depart for Hanoi next morning.
We saw groups of teenagers gathered in circles playing capteh at night and they were damn good at it. I suppose that’s what they do for recreation but I was still kinda amazed. We grabbed some drinks at one of the cafes – “Ladybird” and I was pleasantly surprised at how good their Ladybird tea tasted. It was a blend of lemongrass, ginger and honey, a good soothing beverage to wash away the fatigue from all the trekking from that day.
Day 3 (Hanoi >Danang)
Grabbed breakfast at our hotel and departed for Hanoi at 7.30am with the same limo that sent us here. Yet another 6 hours ride to Hanoi and the journey seemed a little faster this time perhaps because its much easier to navigate the roads in the morning compared to night time.
We arrived in Hanoi Train Station at 1pm and deposited our luggage at Mango Hotel (right next to the train station). I booked LAMAN EXPRESS for the overnight train to Danang and they instructed me to check-in my train ticket at Mango hotel. I thought since we were already there, we might as well deposit our luggage there for the 6 hours before the train departs. They charged us 50,0000 VND per piece of luggage which was quite affordable anyway. Btw there’s also lockers at the trains station that are distinctly visible so there’s that option too.
We had 6 hours to kill so it was time to explore Hanoi a little. We went to Chops Restaurant which was a burger joint for our lunch and their burgers were pretty good albeit pricey. We visited the Dong Xuan market which was a 10 mins walk away, and it was almost like a wholesale market. They almost have literally everything other than air con LOL. But yup we got some souvenirs from that place and went to get a much needed massage at Vi Spa.
Then, we went to Giang café to try the famous Vietnamese Egg Coffee. The place looked a bit dubious from the outside and the inside, but the coffee was good though. It was creamy and rich which was a unique type of coffee we have never tried before. I personally felt the iced version tasted better maybe cause the weather was really hot. It was time to head back to the train station for our overnight train ride so we did.
We waited for an hour before the staff led us to our cabins in the train for the train ride. When we stepped into our cabin, there were two bunk beds and a table filled with refreshments as well as a personalized letter from LAMAN Express instructing us about the WIFI password etc which was really nice. The toilets were clean and there was a separate basin outside the toilet as well.
Oh, there are no shower facilities on the train but it was alright since it was an air conditioned space anyway. There was also charging ports next to each bed. Honestly, the ride to Danang was surprisingly comfortable and I’m kind of glad we took the premium train tickets for the ride.
When we walked to the front of the train to buy some cup noodles and we literally walked through the different stages of wealth? You have the cabins that are classy and elegant like ours and then you slowly transit into poverty LOL
In fact, in the closest cabin at the front of the train, there were rows of seats with people with no air con just windows and it was damn warm. The train started moving not long after and we could see the street view of the houses along the train tracks as well as the vehicles on the roads waiting for the train to pass. Pretty cool huh.
Check out our Hanoi + train ride to Danang highlights here:
Day 4 (Hanoi>Danang)
When we woke up in the morning, the train passed by small towns, lakes, rice fields and the sea. Yes, we could see the vast sea from our train cabins and the view was to-die-for. One of the train staff kindly winded down one of the cabin windows for us to take videos and pictures of the views so yup I caught the real-life footage of the views without the glass blocking the view.
When we finally arrived in Danang after 15 hours of train ride, it was almost 2pm. We cabbed to our Airbnb in Danang and we were welcomed by our host Trung. He was super helpful and offered to carry our luggage to our room which was on the 4th floor.
Yup, we had to climb the flight of stairs to get to our apartments on the 4th floor. Lucky us. His building was 4 storeys high and there was two bedrooms in each floor. We got the highest one. LOL. He recommended us to eat seafood at a nearby seafood restaurant “Phuoc Thai Restaurant” which was 2 mins away and so we did.
We got to select the seafood from the tanks on display and we ate BBQ clams, BBQ oysters, steamed crabs and steamed fish. Their clams were really good especially with the peanuts and the garlic after they barbecued it. The fish was superb too other than the fact that they didn’t clean the insides of the fish properly. Their cooking style honestly exceeded my expectations. The flower crabs were also really sweet and fresh (didn’t clean the insides of the crabs either) but the taste itself, it’s pretty good I’d say.
The beach was a 10 min walk from our Airbnb so we checked it out before going to the Son Tra night market. When we were at the night market, we could see the Dragon bridge right across the street and upon further research, the Dragon bridge apparently spews fire and water on weekdays at 9pm so we decided to stay till then for the show. At the night market, we saw some really fresh lobsters, clams, octopus and even oysters so we couldn’t help but order them.
Oh, did you know that Danang is a seafood town in Vietnam? They are famous for fresh seafood because they are situated very near the harbor. Damn I should have signed up for a fishing tour. That would have been fun heh.
We shopped for a while and started walking towards the Dragon bridge at 8pm. I noticed that the crowds were starting to gather near the bridge perhaps to get the best view for the performance. There were tables and short chairs lined along the river for people to sit and enjoy the performance but here’s the catch: you must buy the drinks from the vendors to be able to sit in the chairs. So that’s what we did.
True enough, the “Dragon” started spewing fire and afterwards it was spewing water. We sat quite far from the Dragon’s head so we didn’t get drenched or anything but I’d say overall it was little underwhelming, but I guess that’s just me.
Check out our highlights for the day here:
Day 5 (Hoi An)
For our day trip to Hoi An, I arranged a food tour with Hoi An Food Tours at about SGD $50 per pax and I also arranged for transport to the meeting point. The ride to Hoi An was about 30mins from our Airbnb and when we arrived, we waited for quite a while before our guide Emma finally arrived.
Apparently, she wasn’t informed about our reservation, so she had to rush down to meet us from her house. Even though she was late, she told us that the food tour will simply end a little later and also offered us free transport back to our Airbnb once we where done exploring Hoi An.
For the food tour, we tried this breakfast dish called Op la which was a hot plate of gravy with a fried egg, spam and some beef. They eat it together with Bánh mì (a short mini baguette). It tastes super good with the toasted baguette especially when the gravy is very light and non-oily. We went off to try some Gao lao noodles, Vietnamese coffee, Pho noodles, Spring Rolls, Pancakes and dessert.
I think my favorite would be the Op la and the Pho Beef noodles. The beef noodles broth was clear and light and together with the beef, it was a perfect combination. Our guide told us that Vietnamese like to eat their noodles with some sides like basil and ginger, so I tried it and it was not too bad. I kinda liked it. We ended off the food tour with a foot massage at a local massage parlor in Hoi An and our guide bid us goodbye. We hid in the massage parlor for the air con for an hour before leaving for our lantern making session.
Here are some highlights from our food tour at Hoi An:
Upon arriving at the workshop, they offered us some tea and explained to us the history of how Vietnamese lanterns came about. They started asking us to pick out 12 bamboo sticks from the table in from of us and we started making our lanterns. We got to pick out the type of fabrics we wanted for our lanterns (4 pcs each) and started gluing our fabrics to the lantern structure.
Once we were done, we glued the top and bottom bands on to our lanterns to complete the look and we are done! Someone fucked up his choice of fabric and tried to salvage it but it turned out ugly…I mean funny HAHA Oh wells we all know who is the more creative one :p
Our instructor then hung our lanterns on the light bulbs and we got to take some photos with our own creations. We were wondering how to keep our lanterns when our instructor told us to decompress the spring in our lantern and our lantern became a little cylinder that we could pack and bring home easily.
Given that Hoi An is famous for their lanterns, I thought this session was pretty meaningful and I did have a lot of fun making my own lantern. We stayed till dawn to get some nice shots of the riverside with the boats and lanterns before finally making our way back to Danang.
Here are some highlights on our lantern making class at Hoi An:
By the time we were back in Danang, it was about 8pm and we decided to have some clams and beers for supper at the nearby seafood restaurant. I noticed when the locals ate their clams, they simply threw the shells on the floor…in fact they throw everything unwanted on the floor. The staff has to sweep everything aside when they customer leave and boy was there a mess on the floor. I think it’s a culture thing cause the locals looked at us weird when we ate our clams and placed our shells back onto the plate LOL.
Day 6 (Ba Na Hills)
For our day trip to Ba Na Hills, I booked a third party transport from Danang Green for a return trip because the distance to Ba Na Hills from Danang is about 2hrs drive so it would be easier a bus than to Grab. We set off at 7.45am for Ba Na Hills and went to exchange our cable car tickets at the tour agency counter. The cable car ride up was about 15 mins and the weather on top of the mountains was so much more cooling as compared to the scorching heat on ground zero. It was literally heaven and hell.
Our aim was to visit the Golden bridge with the Buddha hands and so we did. And boy, was there a shit ton of tourist on the bridge. I’m not sure if it was the morning crowd but every inch of the bridge was covered with tourists. We literally couldn’t take a photo without having some other soul being in the shot.
We quickly shoved our way through the bridge and took another cable car up to the French village. Once we reached, we went to have our buffet lunch which was included in the cable car tickets package I bought. The buffet was at a restaurant called “Arapang” and they has a good spread of food ranging from salads, Chinese food, to Vietnamese food. Their food quality was good and honestly, I felt it was pretty worth it.
After lunch, we queued for the Alpine High Speed Coaster ride (took us almost 1 hr of queuing) and we also took some amusement rides. We then proceeded to watch the performance at a HUGE open air amphitheater and I am legit impressed with the quality of the performance. They had good story line, a professional dance crew performing, a float that was super well designed for each “tribe” and honestly it’s a lot of hard work to be this synchronized at such a large scale. It was truly phenomenal. Soon, we had to leave because our bus leaves at 3.30pm so we rushed to take the cable car down.
Here are the highlights for Ba Na Hills:
By the time we reached our Airbnb, it was 5pm and we rested for a bit before going for dinner. This time, we went to Ba Thoi Seafood Restaurant. Apparently, they have 3 branches in Danang but we went to the first one. We has steamed prawns with garlic, BBQ clams, steamed fish and oysters. Their prawns was insanely good. Legit. I’m not sure what was the sauce but it gave me a nostalgic taste that I can’t seem to put a finger on. After dinner, we left for some night markets before we finally called it a day.
Here’s a quick video for our dinner at Ba Thoi Restaurant:
Day 7 (Home)
We woke up at 4am to catch the sunrise at My Khe beach and left to get some breakfast at Minh Trang Restaurant. For breakfast, we ordered Bo Ne, similar to Op la but with more beef. The Bo Ne they served was flavorful and yes, the Banh Mi was damn good too. We cabbed back to our Airbnb and rested up before we left for the airport.
Here you go:
Final note
Overall, I’d wanted to stay perhaps a day longer at Sa Pa but we had limited days for the holiday so we kind of rushed through Sa Pa. But I’m glad we took the overnight train to Danang because I really wanted to experience sleeping on the train and enjoying the views that comes with.
For Hoi An, I’ve been wanted to visit this place since forever because I’m intrigued by the fact that they put lanterns on the river and the beautiful streets in this quaint little town. Getting to see it with my own eyes was honestly very surreal for me.
As for Ba Na, I’d love to spend more time there to explore the place because its honestly a well-designed place that caters to the masses and the performances and rides are well beyond my expectation. Some might even say Ba Na Hill is even better than Genting Highlands. I don’t think you can finish exploring the place in one day so maybe I’ll spend a couple more days there if I do happen to visit Ba Na Hills again.
Perhaps August might not be the best month to visit Vietnam because it is damn hot and humid; FYI, I have a sunburnt nose right now. But overall, if the weather wasn’t such a bitch, I think it was quite fulfilling trip with many firsts. So yup, that sums up my trip to Vietnam. With that we traveled to a new country this year. Until next time, Vietnam.
Full video of our Vietnam trip:
P.S Congrats, you made it to the end of this post. HAHA. Here’s link to the full itinerary + cost breakdown for the entire trip. Each person paid about SGD $900 for the 7D6N trip exclusive of the Fansipan cable car tickets. I think it could be even cheaper if not for the premium transport costs. Heh. Cheerios!
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