Day 24: Rest day in Hanoi

Wednesday, 11/13/2024

Alarm went off at 6:00am, but no reason to be up this early, so back to bed till 8:00am.

Showered and dressed and then gathered up the dirty laundry to take downstairs. Dropped it at the front desk then sat down for breakfast.  Not much to choose from, but enough to curb morning hunger.

Read a bit while eating and then ended up in a conversation with some people at a table next to me for a few minutes.

Went back to the room for a bit after finishing breakfast.  Checked out the view out the bathroom window and let in some cool breeze for a bit.

View from the hotel at the street below.

I then went down to talk with hotel staff, who I think is the hotel owner, about excursion options.

We went over several options for a Ha Long Bay cruise which I had already planned to do and finally found a nice 1-night cruise option that had 1 cabin left.  Most of the companies we tried were fully booked, go guess I should have booked this earlier.

The cruise was on a decent boat, though bit larger than I would have preferred, and did stop at the cave on one of the islands which was one of my main goals in the area.

I will get picked up at the hotel in the morning, driven to the coast, then will board the boat. Will then cruise out for a few stops, overnight in the bay.  In the morning will then visit the cave before returning to shore. Then will get ride back to Hanoi and the hotel.  Trip lasts about 30 hours in total.

For my last day here, I booked an excursion down to an area south of Hanoi called Nimh Binh.  This scenic area will include a visit to the first capital of Vietnam, a river cave adventure, and a hike up a mountain.  It will last a full day including the travel time to and from.

I also booked a car to take me to the airport on Sunday to catch my flight back home.

After paying for all that and getting the pickup times for each, I went out to walk around a bit and visit a store I had seen during my first time in Hanoi that sold art that looked interesting.

The pieces were similar to what I had seen elsewhere, but this time the quality did not seem as nice and the cost was far more than I had seen in other places.  The cat related stuff that I recalled was not very impressive now compared to what I had already bought and seen in other locations.  In the end I chose not to buy anymore art.

However, the shop did have several sleeves filled with various stamps from Vietnam and other countries, mostly on themes of animals, dinosaurs, transport, and space.

I found several that I was interested in, but they were a bit costly, so I narrowed it down to those I was most interested in.  Based on my past searches online and factoring time and shipping, I figured the price was still better than tracking all the stamps down on eBay or some other site.  I bought 4 sleeves which cost me about $50.

Stamps. 3 sets from Vietnam, 1 from Hungary.

I then walked over to the other hotel I had stayed at the first time to get a photo of the exterior since I forgot to do that, and I had been trying to photograph all the places I stayed on the trip.  I then returned to my hotel as it was getting hot and humid out and traffic was quite heavy as well.

I took a short nap, 30-40 minutes, and decided to go get lunch as it was already after 1:00pm.

I walked around for a bit in area I had not been in before to see what was there, looking maybe for a Mexican place as I had yet to try Mexican food here, or a good banh mi sandwich shop.

I eventually found a nice little burger joint (Wicked Burger) right next to that banh mi shop I enjoyed last time I was here, so sat there and had a really good burger and loaded fries.

Little burger place on one of the pedestrian streets, very good!

I wrote up the journal while I ate and watched people again.

Thinking I will just hang out at the hotel today as I have walked around the area enough times to see anything worth seeing.

I had thought about grabbing a taxi over to a large temple north of the downtown area which was cheap to get in at only $1, but just not that excited to go do that now.

I could also sit in the lobby of the hotel where the internet works better and start writing reviews for several of the other places I have visited.

I did wander around a bit, taking a longer route back to the hotel, just to see if anything interesting was around.

Strange looking Pegasus outside local temple!

View inside one of the many street temples in area.

In the end I did sit and write reviews, but did so from the room as the internet was playing nice today.  I only reviewed the really awesome places or hotels and restaurants that really stood out.  I would have also reviewed any really bad places, but thankfully have not had any.

There were several restaurants that I would never recall the name of anyway, and many of the hotels were not good or bad, and I just did not feel like reviewing those that did not stand out in any fashion.  Those places I will not review.

I will try to be more active on reviewing places in real time going forward instead of waiting days or weeks to do so.

Later in the afternoon I decided I wanted to get out, so found a really cool temple around 3km (2 miles) walk from where I was, up near the large lake in the center of town.  Figured I could get some cool photos and a good walk.  

The walk was long, and traffic was crazy as the schools were getting out, and things were picking up for the evening rush hour as well.  I did walk by an interesting café that was housed in an old street trolley, but it was not open for business at this time.  Actually went by 2 of them, but the one was not as easy to photograph.

Coffee shop in a trolley.

Once I reached the lake it was an impressive view as the sun was starting to set and creating that red glow you get in places with higher air pollution.  With the water of the lake, it made some nice photos.

The pagoda at the temple was not as tall as other photos made it seem, but was still cool to see.  I did not go inside the temple grounds as it did not appear to be open at this time.  But I was able to get plenty of photos from outside the temple walls that I really liked.

Tran Quoc Pagoda

Tran Quoc Pagoda and surrounding island.

I then walked back using a different route.  Nothing else really that interesting.  Another Hanoi sign, an old tower, and at one point a large amount of gym equipment that was just along a park that seemed to be free to use by anyone. What a neat idea.

Open air gym that can be used by anyone, cool concept.

Another I Love Hanoi sign.

As I neared the hotel my feet were in lots of pain though.  As my socks were in the laundry I was wearing the shoes without them, did not think it would be that bad, but thinking this was not a bright idea now.  Pretty sure I will have a few good-sized blisters when I take them off later

I stopped for dinner at a small Mexican place (Xupito Bar) I had noted several times, thinking I was finally in the mood to try it out.  I had the nachos and they were pretty good and fairly priced.

The place has a small number of seats inside and a few tables out on the street on one of the main beer streets that will close down in the evenings and have really heavy foot traffic.  It was already quite busy, so I sat there and drank another Coke and watched people for a while.

I then headed back to the hotel to see if my laundry was done.  It was ready, so was able to go up and put things away.  Not sure if I will do anything else tonight as I have to be ready to go at 7:45am in the morning for my ride to Ha Long Bay.

I had thought about checking out this club down the road, but when I walked by earlier it looked closed up and there was sign on the door, which I could not read.  Might not be open anymore.

I decided to go out and check one more time as it was now past the opening hour, but it was still closed up, so guessing out of business, or closed for some other reason.  Not important enough to get the sign translated.

I walked around the block again just to see what was going on, and had the luck to find a little kitty sitting in front of a temple.  I walked over and called to it and came over for pets and rubbing on my legs.  The little one would not stop moving so was hard to photograph.

Sweet little kitty.

I then returned to the hotel and my room.

Thinking I will just read till tired and go to bed.

Goodnight!