Hanoi, Cat Ba Island and Sapa

For the next period of our trip we met up with our favourite travel buddies, Alec and Sian from Melbourne, and their two gorgeous kids: Jonty (2.5y) and Darcy (7.5 months). We have travelled with them once per year for the past 5 years, and its always a surreal but really fun thing to meet up at random places around the world. This time the reunion happened in a Starbucks in Hanoi City, waiting for our Airbnb check-in to be ready 😊

We spent our first 3 days exploring Hanoi, including an outing to the famous Train Street. This is a very narrow alley lined with houses and cafes, through which a train track leads. Hundreds of tourists crowd into the cafes on both sides of the track, then once the train approaches a whistle blows and everybody has to press themselves against the walls as the train rumbles past mere centimetres in front of you. Whilst both kids got a bit of a fright from the noise of the passing train, Jonty (an enthusiastic train spotter to begin with) afterwards could not stop talking about “MY train came TUUUUUUUUUT, really noisy!” for the remainder of our trip. 😊 Even for us adults, it was super close, and super loud, but a very cool experience to see a 500m train charging through an inner city alley.

We also went to see the famous Hanoi water-puppet-show, which turned out to be quite magical and very entertaining for both adults and kids. We ate lots of banh mi and wandered around the night market. The days were spent on the playground and in the indoor swimming pool of our building.

Then we travelled down to the island of Cat Ba in Lan Ha Bay, which is just below the famous Halong Bay. Cat Ba Town itself turned out to be rather touristy and not as nice as we had expected, but there were some lovely beaches for Darcy`s first time at the beach and Jonty had the best time riding around on the electric open-sided little buses that drive you around the island.

One day Alec, Hadleigh, Jonty and I went for a day hike to a small peak in the middle of the island. The hike went through jungly dense forest up some very steep steps, Alec carrying the heavy kid carrier backpack, and we were all soaked through by the time we made it to the top. But a sense of achievement and a great view as well as a celebratory ice cream afterwards made up for it.

Another daytrip was a boat ride around the beautiful Lan Ha and Halong Bay. The day was a little overcast but the gorgeous limestone karsts jotting out of the water still managed to impress. We went for a swim off the boat (Jonty needed some convincing but really enjoyed it in the end), Darcy made friends with a lovely little Indian girl on the boat, Hadleigh and I went for a kayak outing to see lengur monkeys , and everybody had a great time.

A funny thing we noticed very quickly is that the Vietnamese seem to ADORE kids. Especially babies, we regularly had strangers on the street, shop attendants, hotel staff etc come up and just pick up Darcy, give her cuddles, play with her and take photos and videos of her. What would seem inappropriate and maybe even creepy in the west was just a very genuine sweet interaction here and Darcy (and also Jonty) handled it amazingly to be approached by so many strangers.

After our time at the beach, we headed inland to the mountains and rice terrasses of Sapa. We all managed to somehow survive the 8h car transfer with a lot of tag-teaming in terms of kids entertaining, putting them to sleep in the car etc. Once in Sapa we attempted to go for a small hike around the rice terrasses, we were quickly accosted by a big group of local Hmong women, following us closely the entire way in the hopes of selling us some of their souvenirs at the end. This was on the one hand slightly amusing but also made for a rather unrelaxed hiking experience.

What turned out to be a big hit, especially for Jonty, was a trip up to Fansipan mountain because it involved 2 different cogwheel train rides and a cable car ride. The top was shrouded in clouds but that actually gave the whole area a kind of mystical feel which suited it quite nicely. Because the weather was not great during our time in Sapa, we spent most of our time going to cafés, playing with the kids and playing boardgames during naptime.

Unfortunately the 2 weeks together came to an end too quickly and it was already time again to part ways. We are already looking forward to and planning our next trip together.

(Credits: some of the photos on this blog were taken by Sian Rozario on her phone)