Review on Hanoi trip, Vietnam

**Wrote this during sept 2014 but totally forgot to post. 

Am back from all my trips and my mum is banning me from going overseas!!!! She is worry that I am going to end up with no savings.
Having the "feel" to blog about my Hanoi trip instead of Hongkong now. Actually I don't really like hongkong as it really feel like Singapore. Malls everywhere and food are not cheap too. It's really SHOPPING AND EATING. 


Date,
From 28 June 2014 to 2 July 2014 

With,
Lynna

Stay,

Hanoi Royal view Hotel
Enjoyed our 5D4N stay at Royal View. It is located at the shoe street in Old Quarter, great location. 
Staffs were very helpful and friendly, never fail to greet us and will joke with us.

1 minute walk to Green Tangerine restaurant. 
5 minutes walk to the Hoan Kiem Lake, Cong Caphe Cafe, Thang Long Water Puppet Theater and Supermarket.
Around 10 minutes walk to bars(around Ta Hien), KFC and Nigh Market.

That's all I can remember for now, overall I am satisfied with the hotel and will recommend you to stay there.

The lobby.

Our room for 3 pax.

Chips in the room. (Need to pay)

Buffet style breakfast, not much choices. 

'Shoe' street

Street around the hotel at night.

Map provided by our hotel. (click for larger image)

Must do，

Trishaw ride around Old Quarter
Will recommend you to take the trishaw around Old Quarter on the first day of your trip. Whole journey take around an hour. Helps you to familiarise with the area and best to take it in the day. 

Cost around 70,000VND per person according to a Taiwan Travel show, 50,000VND per pax and 20,000VND for tips. We were being offered 150,000VND for 2 pax and at the end of the trip he tried to charge us 200,000VND but we paid him 160,000VND. Actually that's the price we wanted to give him in the first place. So be careful, ask him to write on a piece of paper or something before you hop onto the trishaw. Saw someone commented that they end up paying 200,000VND per pax. 

Not sure if they will normally drop by at the famous St Joseph's Cathedral Church for you to take photo, but we did request for it before hopping onto the trishaw. 

Book a day tour with Hanoi Free Tour Guide

Booked our day tour through the email and they got back to us within a day. Was given a Chinese speaking guide, Qunyh. She was clear and fluent in Chinese, had great time with her.  Personally think that it's far better than paid tours, as it's a private 1-1 tour. 
The tour is free but do expect to pay for the transport via taxi, entrance fees and meals. We spend less than 50SGD in total.

Our itinerary,

- HCM Mausoleum (Did not went in as its closing when we were there. But do expect LONG queue on weekends!)

- Temple of Literature (Saw a lot of students taking graduation photos!)

- Lunch (Nice restaurant, must try the egg pancake thing.)

- Hao Lo prison (Interesting place)

- Ice cream (The place look like some large garage fill with motor bikes. Love the green bean ice cream! **Must try!)

- Dessert (Some Yogurt dessert place. Taste not bad!)

- Coffee tasting as we wanted to buy some coffee back.

 Traditional Vietnam coffee

Eat or chill along the road side
Do what the locals do! From street stall, cafe to bar, we'll always choose the seats along the road when the weather is fine. Just enjoying the breeze and people watching. 

Sitting along the street.

-Drinking
There's a number of bars around Ta Hien, Ma May and Luong Ngoc Quyen street.

Out of the 5 bars recommended by this website, 1 to 4 are located within the area. If you wanna "club" you may choose to visit the "club" call 'Local' opposite 'Fat Cat bar'. Quite happening over there.

The bar beside 'Local' have live band performing too! But by the time we went there, they were leaving. So we end up at 'Fat Cat' to "people watch people see". Most of the bars close around 12/1pm.

-Visit the Night Market
I don't remember buying anything from the night market. Lots of people, a lot of pushing going on.

-Visit Halong bay
A UNESCO World Heritage Site! Booked our day tour for 40USD at a random shop in Old Quarter.

Watch the water puppet show
I must admit that both of us actually fall asleep for a short while during the show. Not sure if we were drained out from the day tour, or the show is boring, or was annoyed by the people using DSLR throughout the show! It's so irritating when there's sudden flash at the side of your eyes while you're trying to concentrate in the show. They should really ban people from using flash! Another thing is that the entire show is in Vietnamese language, no English subtitle, so it's kind of hard to concentrate when you don't understand what they're talking.

BUT... there's a lot of good comment on the show and its pocket friendly. So why not!

Must eat,

Green Tangerine, a restaurant which offers French food with Vietnamese twist.
Our initial plan was to visit the place for dinner but end up having lunch here. Was glad we chose lunch over dinner as it's quieter in the afternoon, not much customers. Ordered the set lunch which included, a stater, main course and dessert for 305,000VND. Love it!

Refer to the menu here-->http://greentangerinehanoi.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=39&Itemid=13&lang=en

Our drinks, 

Banana smoothie, banana chocolate smoothie and complimentary cocktail.

Starters,

Duck conflit(Thumbs up!) and sliced beef with 2 kinds of chutney.

Main course,

Small pork ribs in oven(Thumbs up!) and Chicken in mango.

Dessert,
Creme Brulee.

Bun Bo Nam Bo, "As the name would suggest, its base is bun noodles (the thin spaghetti-like rice noodles). They’re put in a bowl on top of a bed of fresh lettuce and topped with a mixed stir-fry of beef, bean sprouts and onions. Then a broth is poured over and chopped roasted peanuts and dried shallots are sprinkled over the top. Some fresh local mint leaves make it in there as well.

When it’s served, give it a good stir and, if you like, add some fresh chillies or chilli sauce and a squirt of lime juice. Lap it up with chopsticks and keep a spoon on hand to scoop up the broth."-Travelfish

Coffee

1.Cong Caphe Cafe
There's tons of cafes in Hanoi and my favourite is Cong Caphe cafe!
Been to two outlet, chanced upon the one near our hotel only on the last day!
Miss the coconut condensed milk coffee!! The coconut ice cream on the coffee taste similar to the coconut ice cream we had at chatuchak market in Bangkok.

The outlet behind our hotel, #35a Nguyen Huu Huan

Coffee with Yogurt & sticky rice and Coffee with Coconut &Condensed Milk(Thumbs up!).

 Beef jerky

2.Giang Cafe, Egg coffee
Didn't try the famous egg coffee before leaving Hanoi. So please tell me if it's nice or not!

3.Happy Coffee Bean

Decent coffee but a good place to chill and smoke shisha.

Street food
Sorry, I can't give you any details on the location of all these street food.

1.Chicken noodle(not bad) and Ice lemon tea(Thumbs up!). 

2.Fried Vietnam roll(Thumbs up!), stir fried frog and Ice lemon Tea(Thumbs up!).
This place is beside the famous Happy coffee bean along the street. Forever a lot of locals.

 3.Banh trang tron

The picture below actually show that one of the ingredient in Banh trang tron is 'Dry bee' but we realise that it's actually 'Dry beef' only on the second last day in Hanoi! LOL

4.Dessert
Have no idea what this is all, but it's a dessert for sure. Don't really like the taste but lynna love it!

Kem Trang Tien
Delicious and unique ice cream place! Love the Green bean ice-cream!!






Lastly, this may not be on the "must do list", but if you're a shopaholic like us..
Shopping

Surprisingly, Hanoi actually have quite a number of nice and trendy shops around(Similar to bangkok). Managed to get a few pairs of shoes and Lynna got a number of clothes.






Overall, we had a great time in Hanoi! May be because we went there with low expectation.