Welcome to Vietnam! (Week 9)

First of all, we are sorry that it has taken us a while to get blog posts up. Vietnam was crazy, with lots of moving and exciting adventures and we rarely had down time to sit and write. But the waiting is over and to all our fans...here are our experiences from our first week in Vietnam!

Excited, and a bit nervous, we landed in the famous city of Hanoi. This vibrant city is bustling with smiling faces, skinny streets, and smells of incredible food. Our first day we only prioritized eating delicious food and surviving crossing the street (the roads in Vietnam are complete mayhem). Corbin’s hand was often black and blue from being squeezed by Tatum’s as we nervously crossed the streets. That evening, we went on a 4 hour food tour where our local guide taught us how to correctly eat the food. One of our favorite dishes was Bun Cha.... a pork and noodle dish that is delicious.

Our next two days were dedicated to history... and boy does Hanoi have a lot of it. We toured Hoa Lo Prison, also known as Hanoi Hilton, which is where the American POW's were held during the Vietnam War (although the Vietnamese call it the American War). We also checked out the Vietnam Military History Museum. It was interesting seeing how the Vietnamese viewed the war and comparing the different points of view and attitudes.

One of the highlights in Hanoi was flying through the city on the back of a motorbike taxi (running red lights in true Vietnamese fashion) and grabbing an egg coffee at train street. Train street is an iconic Vietnamese street complete with power lines, cafes, flower pots, happy locals, and of course a train that runs through every hour or so. We giggled while huddled in a doorway as the train flew by at arms length.

A trip to Vietnam would not be complete without exploring the mountains in the north. We headed to the town of Sapa and started off on a 3 day-2 night trekking adventure. Our 21 year old guide lead us through a beautiful, lush river valley complete with bamboo forests, rice paddies, villages and rural farms. This is were we found out just how afraid of chickens Tatum is! The highlight of our trek was spending the night in a home stay and sharing a meal with three generations of a Vietnamese family. Though we didn’t understand what they were saying and they didn’t understand what we were saying; we still were able to share a few laughs and enjoy some ‘happy water’ (rice moonshine) together.

Our next destination was Ha Long Bay. The trip from Sapa to HaLong Bay included two taxi drives, an overnight train ride, a 5 hour local bus trip and a hour ferry ride. Little did we know but the bus ride did not include bathroom breaks and so we resorted to squatting behind the bus in the weeds. It was one of the more challenging and emotional travel segments of the trip and we were exhausted by the time we arrived to Cat Ba Island.

Floating fishing village in the bay.

The next day all our travel efforts were rewarded by a full day boat tour in the bay. We laid on the upper level of the boat and enjoyed the views of the local floating fishing village, the mountainous islands, and the sea. We enjoyed jumping off the upper deck into the water, exploring different coves in kayaks and wandering around monkey island (ok well only Corbin enjoyed that last one).

Monkey Island is as it sounds... an island full of monkeys. While on a short hike to a viewpoint we encountered cute little monkeys. We quickly found out they are only cute from a distance and were quite aggressive. Tatum being in front of Corbin saw them up close first; she hollered and ran down as Corbin climbed up. He was met with two monkeys shrieking in his face about 2 ft away. Tatum could not climb back down to the beach fast enough. Thankfully, we made it back to the boat without monkey bites, though others on our excursion weren’t so lucky.

Poor quality photo due to Tatum dragging Corbin down the mountain.

That about sums up our first week in Vietnam. Hundreds of miles traveled and three stops conquered in less than a week (with lots of exploring in between). Be sure to check out our next post from Vietnam... it was one of our favorite weeks!

With Love,

Boots Abroad

PS: Did you notice all of the photo collages? hahaha we are finally getting a hang of this whole blogging thing:)

Corbin’s

Highs: Hanoi (the city was amazing as a whole), being in the mountains, Cat Ba excursion

Lows: The begging/pressuring to buy crafts from the local ladies while trekking

Tatum’s

Highs: Train street, trekking through the mountains, sipping on a beer while enjoying the views in HaLong Bay

Lows: Getting thorns in my pants from peeing in the weeds behind the bus, attack of the monkeys...