Vietnam with Tweens

The enthusiasm on Instagram has encouraged me to dust off this old blog and share some of our Asia trip here! I’m going to break down our adventure into 3 different blog posts, starting with our travels in Vietnam. This trip was planned after I saw $800 flights to Hanoi on the  YVR DEALS page and booked them up without hesitation. Vietnam has always been a “bucket list” destination for me and jumped at the opportunity to explore it with my daughters at an incredibly frugal price.  We flew with Japan Airlines and can confirm that they are worthy of their “Best Economy Airline” designation for 2024.   The service and experience were top of the line. Even the food was great! We also loved the self-serve snack corner, the 2×2 seating arrangement and the extra large seats in Economy.

We left Vancouver at noon on a Saturday and after a short layover in Tokyo we arrived on Sunday night in Hanoi (losing one day to the time change). Our entire trip was 18 hours, and honestly it wasn’t that bad. It felt like the attendants were constantly feeding us and we had lots of onboard options for entertainment.  The kids slept for about 5 hours overall so by the time we arrived in Hanoi at 10pm local time and checked into our hotel we were all ready for a good solid sleep. We woke up the next morning at about 6am and we were all excited to explore the city. The biggest trick to avoiding jet leg is to spend as much time outside with sun as possible. And definitely don’t nap! Pushing through the first day set us up for minimal jet leg. We did continue to go to bed fairly early and wake up around 6am each day for the majority of our vacation, but that worked great with our travel plans. The other biggest “trick” for jet leg is giving everyone in your family grace-remembering that lack of sleep can be hard on even the most seasoned travellers.

I am showing you our entire itinerary with hopes it inspires you to travel to SE Asia. After we booked our flights I just started  planning with watching YouTube videos and reading blog posts. Don’t overthink your researching. I literally typed  “Travelling to Hanoi with kids” and went from there. Every time I saw something interesting  I added it to my travel note on my phone, eventually building an itinerary with my “must dos”.  Even then it’s good to remember  that nothing is really a “must do”- situations happen, kids get tired, parents need a break, or something more exciting pops up. While I did have ideas for each day, we definitely were happy to “go with the flow” if it wasn’t working out.

Friday Evening- Fly to Vancouver 

Saturday- leave at 12:45pm via Japan airlines

Sunday- Arrive in Hanoi 10pm.

We arrived after our long travel day and took a pre-booked transfer to our hotel, Amorita Boutique Hotel in the old Quarter.  I booked our hotels through booking.com which allows you to contact the hosts easily. Every single hotel I booked reached out almost immediately offering their driver service, tours, and they were ready to answer any questions I had. I pre-booked all my transfers this way in order to save time and stress. Pre-booking transfers were more pricy than just taking a Grab (Asian Uber) or using public transport but it offered peace of mind after a long travel day. We chose this hotel because they offered rooms with 3 double beds. It had solid reviews, had a full breakfast and the location was perfect. It was also ridiculously cheap. We could have stayed more luxuriously for honestly not that much more money, but I was set on everyone having their own space for this holiday and wanted to stay on a budget. 20 days away is a lot of time together and having a little extra space (and extra money in the budget) made all the difference.

Monday- A Day in Hanoi

Walked to Ngoc Son Temple (Confucian Temple in the middle of the lake)

Tried Egg Coffee at The Note Coffee Shop

Walked to Hoa Lo Prison Relic

Walked to Train Street for a drink/train-spotting

Took a Rickshaw to the Temple of Literature

Hailed a Grab to go to lunch at Bun Cha Huang Lien (Anthony Bourdain and Obama dined here and made it famous)

Quick  Grab to Imperial Citadel of Thang Long

Took a Grab back to hotel- street vendor shopping & Violet got a haircut(?!)

Dinner at beloved street vendor Banh Mi 25

Fell Asleep by 8pm

It’s worth noting that in my notes I had listed quite a few things we were interested in doing including a military museum and a few different temples. I had no idea how the day would play out with jet leg and how easy it would be to get around with  tired tweens. Turns out it’s SUPER easy to get around Hanoi. Walking was great and simple, Grab cars were under $2 a ride, museums were so inexpensive and street food was plentiful. I would have loved a few more days to explore the city. We also had walked to Ho Chi Min Mausoleum but I was denied entry for wearing shorts. But that wasn’t a big deal and we were very ready for dinner at that point anyway! In my notes I just listed potential ideas of where to go including their opening hours and costs.  We decided that seeing the train street at 11am was priority and kinda based our day around that!

As you can see everything was quite close together in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. I saved locations (restaurants, museums, activities) as favourites in my phone as I planned, and when we arrived I just used maps to get around and see what was close by. Google maps is the best way to plan time in a city and keeps it simple for walking around.

Tuesday- Flight at 8am to Phu Quoc Island.

I knew our family would be ready for some sand and sunshine after a long Edmonton winter so we opted to spend four nights on an island in the gulf of Thailand.  It was easily accessible by multiple flight options a day and has gorgeous  consistently HOT weather.  We arrived to our hotel  Vida Loca Sunset Beach by 10am,  and just enjoyed the infinity swimming pool & beach all day.  We took a Grab to the Night Market and found a nice restaurant on the beach for dinner. It was the perfect day. I chose Vida Loca for its location on Long Beach. It was walkable to many stores and local restaurants, and it wasn’t in the middle of the resort area of the island. We love resorts- but this trip we wanted to stay more local.  This hotel also offered a huge buffet breakfast and a 2 bedroom family room, which was perfect. In hindsight we could have stayed literally anywhere on the island- I had no idea how inexpensive it would be to get around. Literal dollars to go from one end of the island to the other. So many of the mega resorts were isolated and that deterred me from booking- even though they were gorgeous (and pennies on the dollar to what you’d pay in Canada or Mexico).  But we did like our little, simple hotel and throughly enjoyed our time on the island.

 

 

Wednesday- Gondola Ride to Sun World

One of my favourite days ever. The gondola ride was beautiful and the water park was just fantastic. The cost was about $32 a per person and that included all activities on the island- waterslides, roller coaster, surfing, beach sports… nothing was busy and everything was pristine. Absolutely the best thing we did on our trip. We stayed until closing and got back to our hotel in time for dinner.  We found a street vendor selling noodle bowls for $2 each. I read reviews online and so we knew it was good- and it was very tasty! We stopped at a local supermarket and spent way too much time buying snacks and candy. The girls loaded up on unique sodas and drinks for the rest of our stay too. It’s always so much fun going to grocery stores in new places.

 

 

Thursday- Beach Day

I had plans to go to Starfish Beach or Sao Beach, but was quickly outvoted by everyone else who just wanted to hang out at our hotel beach. It WAS really nice, and we were pretty tired from our busy day before, so that made sense.  Mid afternoon we needed a little break from the sun so we hopped in a Grab and went to a local pepper farm, fish sauce factory, and sat down for a nice lunch inland. We finished the day with more relaxing on our beach and another early bedtime.

 

Friday- VinPearl Safari & Gran World Phu Quoc

After a bit of debate I booked the all inclusive package on Klook (a handy travel app that provides discounts on activities  and tours in Asia). This included entrance to the Safari, entrance to the Gran World- including the rides, aquarium, waterpark and evening shows. We held lemurs, fed elephants & giraffes, went on a safari ride,  enjoyed rollercoasters at Vin Wonder,  cooled off at the waterpark for 2 hours, & watched the night show. $72 per person included our food and transportation between the parks. Incredible value and no crowds or line ups! The only thing extra we paid for was food to feed the animals and ice cream/drinks.  I really wanted to balance out visiting temples, hikes and museums with having fun and lots of play. Having kid-friendly days limited any type of complaining on the days where we spent hours in temples.

 

 

Saturday – Left the Island  and travelled to Ninh Binh

We left our beach paradise at 11am and returned to Hanoi. We booked an airport transfer to take us to Ninh Binh, also known as “Halong Bay on Land”.  We stayed in Tam Coc Horizon Bungalow and it ended up being our favourite accommodation of the entire trip. Unbelievable service and attention to detail. Every time we’d come back to our bungalow after sightseeing or even a short walk, they’d deliver cinnamon tea and fresh fruit juice to our room. They also provided hot herbal foot baths every night to soothe our aching feet. We loved the village of Tam Coc and could easily walk to town. There were so many good restaurants along the river to enjoy. This was a really nice place to stay for three nights and we really enjoyed the rice fields and mountain views surrounding us at every turn.  After our arrival to our hotel the kids wanted to go swimming and we enjoyed walking around the area and just taking in the views.

Sunday- Sightseeing Day around Tam Coc/Ninh Binh area

Sites:

Bích Động Pagoda

HOA lu Ancient Temple

Bái Đính Temple

It rained so much this day and that put a damper on our plans. We still were able to see 3 different historical locations even with rain, we enjoyed  learning about Vietnam’s history and the modern Buddhists religion.   I really wanted to hike Hang Múa Temple/Mua Caves but by late afternoon it was just too wet and slippery with the kids. There’s always something for next time, right? We did enjoy  visiting ancient temples with incredible history and walked through beautiful  modern temples.  We walked back into Tam Coc to enjoy another wonderful dinner in town and  some street bubble waffles from a street vendor for dessert. We walked almost 25,000 steps by the end of the day so even in the rain we saw a lot and took in culture.

Monday- Trang An boat ride

This was one of the things that I was looking forward to the most. Absolutely spectacular three hour boat ride through the mountains to different pagodas and historical sites. It’s a UNESCO world heritage site for good reason!  You could do this as a day trip for Hanoi and it would still be well worth the visit. We chose route 3 and the cost was about $13 CND pp.  We spent the rest of the afternoon in town doing a little shopping before heading out to our Cooking Class put on by another hotel.  It was fun and the food we made was awesome- even if we were cringing at the cleanliness of the facility. LOL. It was still a really good experience and the kids LOVED it.

Tuesday- Halong Bay Cruise

We woke up early and took a private transfer to Halong Bay for our Cruise with Peony Cruise Line. I spent too much time deciding on a cruise line that was budget friendly but still elegant and engaging. I think I chose right. The food and boat were both exceptional and the service was wonderful. We enjoyed sitting in the hot tub with mountains going by, kayaking, a cooking class, games, squid fishing, a hike on Cat Ba island through historical caves, buffets, and treats galore.  We were only on the boat for 24 hours but they jam a lot in that time! We could have opted for a 2 night cruise but decided to spend that time in Tam Coc and I’m glad we did. At $800 CND a night on board as a family of 4 with adjoining rooms, it was still a splurge (and one night was enough to get a feel for the Bay).

Wednesday- Go Back to Hanoi

We had a transfer back to Hanoi from Halong Bay and arrived around 2:30pm. We got dropped off at our first Hanoi hotel and they graciously kept our bags while we explored Hanoi some more. Our biggest priority was the water puppet theatre and it lived up to the hype.  It was amazing artistry. The girls really wanted to find a McDonalds to see what different foods they had and they also wanted to do some shopping from the street vendors.  We also wanted to go the coffee shop that created Egg Coffee- the Vietnamese take their coffee very seriously- egg coffee, coconut coffee, traditional Vietnamese (condensed milk) coffee.  They also offered each in hot chocolate form for kids.  Tim really wanted to go to Beer Street to find the .35cent fresh draught beers. It was chaotic and good fun. I really wanted to find a good restaurant for one last authentic meal. We were able to do everything on our list before our flight out of Hanoi at 11:55pm- the red eye to Tokyo.

THE BUDGET:

Cost of our Trip (so far): $6800

*it’s important to note we aren’t “souvenir people” so only brought back a Christmas Tree ornament and  some chopsticks for gifts (we also only had backpacks for luggage so that was a good deterrent for wanting to shop). You could easily spend a significant amount of custom made clothing, “knock off” designer shoes  or authentic silks. Shopping in Vietnam could be fun!*

We loved our ten days in Vietnam and already want to go back. It was definitely not enough time- but when you book seat sale flights you don’t get a lot of choice for dates! Our next trip would definitely include Hoi An, Sapa, My Son, and Da Nang. We would have loved to sneak one more city into this trip, but I prefer spending several nights in a spot if possible- more time to explore plus that way you don’t feel like you’re always packing and travelling. We also only travelled with backpacks so we needed time get laundry done every week as well. It ended up working out really well and I don’t regret anything! So grateful to experience Vietnam with my family and enjoy their beautiful culture and kind, generous people.

Next up…Tokyo…