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Shoppers Paradise - Hoi An, Vietnam

While traveling abroad I had heard a lot of stories of being able to get suits tailor made in Asia for dirt cheap.  Nobody ever mentioned a city by the name of Hoi An when they were talking about suits, but I can tell you from first hand experience that this is the place in SE Asia to get your suit made.  They have shoe stores, coat stores, suit stores, and basically anything else you can image that can be sown together types of stores.  I have never seen a little town like this where even budget travelers were spending money on getting clothes made for themselves.

      

After I had checked into my guest house, I decided to walk around the streets of Hoi An.  It is not a very big city so I was able to walk around the side streets, and get to the market from my guest house (which was on the edge of town) in about 15 minutes.  Like every other Asian town, every shop owner up and down every street was trying to get me to come into their store to buy something from them.  I had to kindly turn down a lot of stores until I found one that I decided looked like my spot.  How did I decide you might be wondering...like every other decision I had made along my trip concerning where to eat/grab a drink:  if there are a lot of people in one store/restaurant then I should eat there since it seems like it is a popular place. 

So I went into a store called Phuong Huy (Happy Dragon).  The store is located right by the market in Hoi An so it is very easy to find.  I walked by the store, and there was about 6 customers trying on their finished suits.  I had found my tailor!  They had 3 women working in the store.  I walked up the stairs into the store, and it had fabric of every color and texture lining the walls.  They had a couple of manikins with suits on right by some mirrors and a dressing room in the back. 

Ha Long Bay in the morning - Video of the Week

The video of the week is from Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.  I was traveling with Howard, Sven, Zoey, Jen, and Kelly through Asia and we spent 2 days and one night in these islands.  It is very easy to get there.  While you are staying in Hanoi you can book at trip at your hotel or local travel agency.  You do not need to pre-book this trip before you get to Vietnam.  We woke up at 6 am in order to kayak through the Bay.  I was just waking up and able to capture this video...You have to make a stop in Ha Long Bay if you are in Northern Vietnam.  It is an amazing place...

Hanoi, Vietnam - Kangaroo Hotel

While I was traveling through SE Asia I had met a group of 5 people that I had traveled with for about 3 weeks.  Half of the group arrived in Hanoi 1 day before the rest of us.  The first group of people that arrived in Hanoi emailed us that they were staying in the Kangaroo Hotel in the historic Old Quarter.  So when Howard and I arrived in Hanoi we headed from the airport in a taxi to the hotel.  For any traveler looking for an area to stay in around Hanoi I would suggest the Old Quarter.

The rooms are really cheap.  The prices depend on how many people you have per room. The rooms cost $3, $6, $8 or $10 US dollars per night.  My room was pretty simple, but seemed to be pretty clean.  The highlight of the  hotel was that there was free internet!  I was so used to going to internet cafes and having to pay that it was cool just to walk down to the lobby and use it without leaving the hotel!  There was also a television in my room!  I wasn't used to watching t.v., and so when I got back from "Beer Junction" I felt like I was magnitized to it.  They had some programs in english so it I really didn't care what was on t.v.!

Each morning the staff  cooks breakfast for you too.  They cook eggs or toast for you.  Then you can choose either tea or coffee.  They have a little kitchen on the bottom floor with 2 tables.  It is small, but it feels like you are eating in a family's kitchen.

There is also a travel agency that is run out of the lobby of the hotel.  This travel agency lines up trips to Sapa (on the Vietnam/China boarder), Ha Long Bay, and bus tickets/train tickets to go to the South of Vietnam.  We all booked a trip through them to get to Ha Long Bay, and I also bought a bus ticket from Hanoi to Saigon that included 3 stops along the way (Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang).  They also can assist you in getting your Visa's to enter China, Laos, or Cambodia.

When we booked the trip to Ha Long Bay, the Kangaroo Hotel had a bus pick us up at 7am.  The cool thing was that they let us leave our backpacks at the hotel while we took the 3 day trip.  When we got back to the hotel we were a little dirty and needed a shower.  We were all leaving that night to another city, and they let us (5 of us) use a room and shower to get ready to leave for free!  They were very nice to let us do that! 

Contact information for the hotel

Kangaroo Hotel

71 Hang Luoc Street, Hoan Kiem- Hanoi

Tel: 84-4 8258044

email: [email protected]

Beer Junction - Hanoi, Vietnam

One of the first sites that I saw in Hanoi, Vietnam was Beer Junction (Bia Hoi Junction).  I arrived in Hanoi at about 5pm, and checked into my hotel in the historic Old Quarter.  When I checked in at the hotel I saw a girl named Zoey, that I had traveled through Laos with, and she told me the rest of our friends were down at Beer Junction.  So my friend Howard and I headed straight there to find out what this place was all about.

We hired 2 taxi's (a motorcycle) to take us there.  It took about 3 minutes to get there, and when we arrived it was comedy.  Beer Junction is located off a main street in a little neighborhood.  There is 4 corners where traffic is coming and going.  On each corner there are these "shop" owners that have set up these little plastic chairs and little tables in the street right off of the corners.  These chairs and tables were so small that it was almost like they were made for kids.  While you are sitting there there are motorcycles and cars passing right by me, but I never felt like they were going to hit me.

Sven, Jen, and Kelly, had saved us a seat at their table.  They had been drinking for awhile and told us a little bit about Hanoi since we had just arrived.  I couldn't believe how much a beer was.  It was 2000 Dong.  This turned out to be 10 cents (US) a beer.  And for my friends that were from England it was 5 Pence a beer.  I had no problem buying a round for my friends and everybody else that was hanging out around there.   

Howard and I almost couldn't drink a beer, because we had just come from Songkran (Thai New Year).  We had partied for about 4 straight days and needed a day off.  But since we hadn't see our friends four about a week we decided to hang out for awhile.

The funny part about Beer Junction is that the police come by to patrol the area.  When the cops show up, the store owners make you get up out of your chair and they take your seat and table and bring them back off the street and into their store.   The police just want to make sure you are not in t he street and they will fine the store owners if you are.  As soon as they start leaving the owners put the chairs and tables back down for you to sit in.

Beer Junction is a great place to hang out and meet other travelers from all over the world!  I would highly suggest hitting this up at least one night while you are in Hanoi!

Nha Trang, Vietnam - The beach

Nha Trang is located in the southern half of Vietnam.  I left Hoi An on a bus at 6.30 pm, and didn't arrive in Nha Trang until 7am.  I got onto the bus and saw my friend Paola that I meet on the way from Hanoi to Hue.  It was pretty cool to travel to the next city with somebody that I knew.  It took about 13 hours from Hoi An to Nha Trang, but in reality the trip could be a lot shorter if we didn't stop.  Every bus trip the driver stops at a "restaurant" which is somebody's house that has a restaurant with some tables.  Usually we'll drive about 4 hours before stopping.  We ended up stopping at this restaurant for 45 minutes.  After sleeping on and off the whole night we finally arrived in Nha Trang.

The first place we stopped was at the start of the city and called My Hoa (don't stay there).  The bus driver stopped and somebody from this hotel got on and said that they had rooms available for cheap and that it was a new hotel.  What they didn't tell us is that it is about a 25 minute walk to where the center of town was.  Paola and I ended up getting off the bus and putting a deposit down on the room.  Paola was meeting another girl named Natalie (who it turned out was on the slow boat with me in Laos) in Nha Trang, but they didn't have a meeting place.  So Paola and I walked to the center of town and back and couldn't find her.  We walked for about an hour round trip and were sweating so bad!  We had made a big mistake by not staying in the center of town.   You live and learn! (The next stop the bus makes is in the center of town at the bus stop where all the hotels and restaurants are located.  My advice is to get off at the bus stop and then stay in the center of town!). 

 

Ho Chi Minh Trail

When traveling throughout Vietnam it is hard to escape the fact that this country was divided by the North and South during the Vietnam War during the 1960's and early 70's.  The Ho Chi Minh trail was a path that started in Northern Vietnam.  This trail also included parts of the bordering countries Laos and Cambodia.  This trail was first created for the trading of goods, and later turned into a route that enabled supplies to be easy transported by troops from the North to the South.  You can travel the Trail by truck, foot, and bicycle.  The trail has paths that are above ground and underground.   These tunnels can be complex in some parts, and can include sleeping areas, maternity rooms, and bomb shelters.  There are two places in Vietnam that you can experience walking through the underground tunnels.  You can do this on a tour through the DMZ and then also right outside the southern city of Saigon.  The Ho Chi Minh trail is a must see on your visit to Vietnam!