Week 9 – Sunday 15th February – Saturday 21st February 2026
Sunday 15th February
We are moving rooms today, hopefully into the correct one that we booked! We spent the night in what they call a ‘suite‘. It looked nice but was terrible. Half the windows had no curtains, there was dodgy plumbing and a bathroom, where the gaps between the walls and the roof were open to you and your neighbours. Not great.
After a reasonable breakfast, we pack up our bags, finish the week 8 blog, and wait in reception. At 2 pm, we are finally given our room. It’s got a good bathroom with a proper shower, at last.
It’s also in a nicer, leafier area of the property. It’s a wooden hut, but done out nice, the power sockets are all in the wrong place, but we will survive! We unpack, have showers and take a walk around the local area and settle down with a salted coffee. Very nice. Things seem to be back on track.
We are both without sunglasses at the moment, we’ve both broken a pair, and H lost her original, favourite ones in Penang, she left them in the back of a cab, Del sat on his! So we decide to go into the main busy town of Duong Dong to see what we can find.
The taxi ride takes us down an unusually huge, wide and long road with no markings, which isn’t strange in itself, as most roads here have no markings and if they do, nobody takes any notice of them, but it’s only when H looks at Google maps that she sees that it’s the old airport’s runway. It has even kept its runway numbers, 8/26. Here is an interesting wiki about the airport for our reader. The traffic seems to work, though in the usual chaotic Vietnamese way, and we’re soon in the town.
It’s business as usual here, Vietnamese street life of food carts and markets selling all sorts of food from fresh herbs to whole chickens.
It’s a big fishing port here on the river, and the huge fishing boats are rafted up.
We find the night market and some sunglasses, hurrah! We can stop squinting!
There is a seafood restaurant in the market right next to the fishing boats, so we stop and decide to dine and have some fried rice, grilled squid and chicken skewers, which are all tasty, if expensive, compared to ‘normal’ Vietnam, but we are in a bit of a tourist trap, which consists mainly of Russians.
We need a few essentials: water and deodorant. Del is starting to kick up a bit now. We find a small supermarket which has a resident kitten running around the aisles and climbing on the shelves, a tiny little thing with a pearl collar, quite tame and chatty.
Monday 16th February
It’s New Year’s Eve here today in Vietnam, in fact, in most of Asia today. They call it Tet in Vietnam.
We are up at 6:30 this morning!!!! We have to be at the hospital for an 8am appointment for H’s 2nd rabies jab. We are first at breakfast, instead of almost the last, then we are off in a cab.
The doctor who said she’d meet us, and to come early, sees us and directs us to A & E. It turns out we didn’t need to get here early after all… We were told that because of the Tet, New Year holiday, there won’t be many people in; however, when we get to A&E, it’s just as busy as a normal day. No 8-hour waits here, though. People are in, seen to, and out…!
H gets her second jab, and the paperwork is filled in. The next one will be in Hanoi on the 21st of February. We are looking for a coffee, so we take a cab to Grand World. It’s all part of the Vinwonders tourist attraction.
It’s all done in that nice fake Italian style here that they like so much. We visited last week at night. It was chaos, people everywhere, noise, and so much colour and light, your eyes and ears hurt. We haven’t seen it by day, and as it’s close to the hospital and we want coffee, we decide that we will have a look.
By day, it’s even more weird, with high-speed gondolas whizzing about with hardly anyone on them, and bright Italian buildings with British red phone boxes (in Italy?) The town is deserted, dead. It’s New Year’s Eve here tonight, so they are preparing for that, with a large area cordoned off as they set up a load of fireworks around the lake.
Back at our garden hut, we sit by one of the pools and read. H goes and gets a couple of bahn mis, the famous Vietnamese sandwich, but on this occasion, they are disappointing, we eat them on our terrace.
Later, we sit by our second pool and read and talk about the future. A long conversation that was!
A few of the local restaurants are shut tonight because of the New Year Holiday, so we take a stroll and decide to go to the family restaurant we went to on Saturday night.
It’s nice there with all the family working in there, and they are always so smiley and friendly.
We have crispy prawns and a BBQ platter of chicken, squid and prawns. It’s delicious and all served by the kids!
They wish us a happy new year and give us bananas and water when we leave?! We end the day with a walk to the very small front where someone is letting off fireworks. It’s a bit different to New Year’s Eve in Kuala Lumpur. We find a temple, most of which is dedicated to fishermen. It’s all very peaceful and serene, quite nice. We stroll back to the hut. We have the intention to stay up until midnight, but decide not to bother. Once you’ve done one New Year’s Eve, you’ve done them all…!
Happy New Year!
Tuesday 17th February
Today is 30 years to the day that we had our first date! Oh, the pain…! It took place at a Chinese restaurant in Manchester while Del was working up there. He met H, who at the time was working for Granada TV, on ‘Stars In Their Eyes’ (who remembers that?) 30 years have gone very quickly.
We are still reeling from the excitement of the fake Italy yesterday, so we sit by the pool and read and generally don’t do much, no places to visit, no taxis, no masses of people and trying to cross the road, we just sit by the pool, read, eat and go for walks.
There is a gym here, but it’s a big disappointment; it’s outside, and everything is rusty. It looks more like a scrapyard than a gym.
For dinner, we try what is considered a nice restaurant in the local area.
It looks impressive, and the reviews look good, but it doesn’t go very well. Del has a watered-down cocktail, a Moscow Mule, which tastes like a ginger beer on ice! For a starter, we have their fresh summer rolls, which are just tasteless. Normally, these things are packed with lots of different herbs, and are very tasty, but not on this occasion, these were just packed with lettuce and shredded carrot! H has a Vietnamese pancake which is supposed to be crispy and again chock full of herbs; however, it’s soggy, limp and tasteless. (It’s actually pancake day today, but we didn’t know that until afterwards.) We pay and leave. Del consoles himself with an ice cream, which is also disappointing. It’s going very well…! A lot of the businesses are shut today as it’s New Year’s Day, so maybe that explains a few things.
Wednesday 18th February
We are a bit tired today, and no gym to get some life into us, so we have a slow morning. The hotel provides a free buggy to the beach, so we have the idea of getting ready and going; however, today, of all days, it’s broken! (We are becoming less impressed with this hotel.) We are considering walking the 20 minutes to the beach, but the heat is stifling, mid to high 30s, so we decide instead to have lunch nearby.
Del has a traditional Vietnamese broth called Pho, and H has a more successful Vietnamese pancake than last night’s. All very tasty. We stroll back to the hotel and elect to just have a lie down in our AC’ed room and read. Del has a bit of work to do, so it works out well.
As the afternoon turns to early evening, the temperature drops, and it’s much better, so we sit by the pool with a drink, chat about the future, again, and swim. There’s not really a lot to do here, which is kind of what we were looking for, but we are finding the hotel is not as comfortable as it should be, or as we had hoped for.
We are not hungry for dinner tonight after our lunch, so instead we go for a cocktail nearby with a side of spring rolls and fried prawns that are just delicious.
Thursday 19th February
Still no working buggy for the beach today, so we will do the 20-minute walk after all. The beach is supposed to be very nice, so we shall see. We set off at about 10am before it gets too hot.
Indeed, the beach is lovely, with comfy sunbeds and palm trees providing the shade. We relax and get an iced coffee and a fresh coconut.
The sunbeds back at the hotel have no cushions, just hard wood or plastic, not very comfortable at all. Not sure if we’ve mentioned it, but we are not impressed with the hotel for a lot of things, uncomfortable sunbeds are just one of them. In fact, we have decided that it’s the worst hotel of the trip and a big disappointment, their website says one thing, but the reality is something else.
We spend a pleasant 3 hours on the beach on the comfortable sunbeds in the shade of some palm trees. It’s lovely. Del has recently got into a new app called NotebookLM. It’s your own AI notebook. You collect sources from the internet or your own documents and stuff them into the app, which you can then chat with. It’s a fabulous learning tool that generates podcasts, slide shows, quizes and flash cards to help you with whatever you are studying or researching. So he puts together a roller coaster knowledge base and generates a quiz all about rollercoasters for H, who is very sceptical about AI.
An hour is spent quizzing her. She’s very good at it. She knows all the fastest and highest coaster, who makes them, types, and so on. What a nerd. After demonstrating her knowledge of global coasters, we head back. It’s hot… Very hot, and we can’t wait to get back to the cool AC room…
Dinner tonight is the good old, tried and tested Streamside family restaurant just down the road from the hotel, which has become a regular eatery. We like it there, you get served by the whole happy, smiley family. They do excellent crispy shrimp and a BBQ, which we enjoy with a glass or two of wine.
Tomorrow we escape, sorry, move on to Hanoi.
Friday 20th February
We are up and about by 9 this morning and on our way to have breakfast, after which we will pack and leave the room at 12. The hotel has kindly arranged for transport to the airport, but what they didn’t tell us is that it is a shared car. When it arrives, it’s all too cramped and cosy. The cases have to be literally kicked and punched in the back of the car, with three of us snuggly squeezed in the back and one in the front, complete with our carry-on bags on our knees.
We politely refuse and book our own cab to the airport, a nice, roomy six-seater with plenty of room. We are not sure if we have mentioned it yet, but we are glad to be getting away from this hotel….!
Our original flight at 13:20 to Hanoi has already been moved to 15:35, and now we find out that it’s been moved again to 17:00. We are on a local carrier called VietJet. They have a bit of a reputation for moving flights, with some people complaining of up to a 9-hour delay. Unfortunately, there is no real regulation here, so the three-hour delay and claiming compensation as you can in Europe doesn’t exist here.
We will have to kill time at the airport, so we have a light lunch, and a rather nice tea and coffee. With all of the horror stories we have heard about our illustious carrier, we are expecting the worst, but despite the delay, the check-in goes well. The flight goes well, we arrive on time, our bags come on the flight with us… What a result. In all, despite the delay, it wasn’t altogether a bad flight. We have another one with them in a few days to Bangkok, let’s see how that one goes.
We are soon on our way in a taxi and on to the hotel. The temperature here is very nice, it’s 8pm in the evening now, and it’s 23 degrees, compared to 30 at this time when we were in Phu Quoc.
The hotel is wonderful…! We are in the Hotel de Lagom. A far cry from our previous accommodation.
We drop the bags in the room and make our way to the rooftop bar. It’s a lovely space with a pool and a proper ‘sit at the bar’ bar, cushions everywhere and comfortable seating. Simple stuff.
We can see the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh is laid. Fabulous. We have a glass of Merlot, some fries and a Bao bun to share – a steamed roll filled with beef, herbs and pickle. Delicious. We toast our safe arrival and are happy to be away from the Herbal Spa Resort.
We get the bill and nearly fall off our barstools. £45.00…!!!! The wine is over £10 a glass – expensive for London, even. For Vietnam, that is an extraordinarily massive sum of money. We look around and realise that it’s empty, we are the only customers on a Friday night in the capital of Vietnam… We laugh about it but decide there and then that although we have had a nice night, we will not be frequenting this bar again…
Back to our lovely room, shower and bed…!
Saturday 21st February
We wake up in our fabulously comfortable room, but have to admit that we didn’t sleep as well as we thought we would. The bed is super comfortable, it’s quiet, but we only got 5 to 6 hours. No matter, we have a busy day ahead of us, so hopefully we will wear ourselves out for tonight!
We have a delicious breakfast. It’s à la carte table service and a buffet with some tinkling piano music in the background. Very civilised compared to last week.
Our priority today is to get H’s third rabies jab booster. There are plenty of vaccination clinics nearby. She has already decided which one it will be, a short walk away.
What we have noticed in Vietnam, in general, is that the pavements are not really for pedestrians. You only have to walk a few feet, and you have to walk around a tree, an electricity sub-station, and some mopeds.
The moped is the main form of transport in Vietnam, and we have seen so many strange things on the back of them, from fridges, trees, luggage and gas bottles.
We arrive at the clinic, which is immaculate and very efficient. No sooner were we in than we were out…! A few questions, some paperwork, and a quick once-over from the doctor, and she is injected with jab number 3 of 5. After being monitored for 30 minutes to ensure all is well, we set off towards Train Street.
Train Street is just what it says. It’s one of the main railway lines into Hanoi central station that is very narrow. The trains run right through the middle of a street that is lined, in some parts, on both sides with cafes and restaurants.
When the trains come through, the tables and chairs are moved back, and the huge trains pass by slowly with less than a foot to spare from your knees. This area sometimes gets shut down due to safety reasons, and there have been accidents, though nothing fatal. It’s staggering how there aren’t more problems, as there are the usual dopey, Instagram-obsessed tourists trying to pose too close as the train arrives.
The cafe owners are very strict and constantly yell and shove people to clear the line. It’s quite an experience having a huge train pass so close to you. We visited here 8 years ago, and it was a lot quieter, so quiet that there were chickens casually picking around on the tracks. Now it’s rammed with so many cafes, restaurants and tourists, of which we are part of!
Back at the hotel, we are desperate to go to the gym after missing a week, because of the rusty outdoor gym at the last hotel (did we mention that?), but H has come over quite dizzy after her jab. It’s one of many side effects you can get, and the side effects increase in intensity with each booster, which is normal. It means the immune system is working. She has a lie down, and then goes nearby for a light lunch while Del does an hour in the gym.
Del has had a good workout, and after a shower, we venture out into Hanoi again.
The temperature out today is much cooler and much easier to walk around in than in Phu Quoc or Saigon. We are visiting a small lake in a built-up area where a B52 crashed after being shot down in 1972 during the Vietnam War.
There’s a bit of fuselage and the wheels sticking out of the water, and it has been left untouched for over 50 years. The other bits of the plane are in the B-52 Victory Museum, which we walk to, after getting a little lost down tiny backstreets where all the locals live.
At the museum, they have laid out the rest of the B52, it’s a huge plane with 8 jet engines, it must have made quite an impact when it crashed.
While we are at the museum, H visits what she has classified as ‘the worst toilet in the world’ and comes out looking visibly traumatised, which lasts for most of the rest of the day!
Quiz of the week. In one of the ladies’ toilet rooms (not even the worst one), H came across this….
Is our reader able to tell us what’s going on here? A man has clearly used the middle one!
We jump in a cab and head to the shopping area.
The traffic here is just manic with mopeds and scooters weaving around each other, cars everywhere and people. How there are no accidents, we will never know. It’s like watching a ballet. We have a few things on our list to buy. We manage to get H a new coat, sunglasses for both of us (again, the last ones fell apart), some caps and sandals for Del. It’s a successful shopping trip, and we celebrate with some very tasty craft beers.
We have always said that one day we will be brave enough to try a Grab bike taxi. Moped taxis are very popular here, but the Saigon traffic has always put us off. We decide that we will try it here in Hanoi, where it is less chaotic, as it’s only about half a mile to the hotel, so how bad can it be?
We both order one separately, the bikes turn up, we put our helmets on, and we’re off. It’s certainly a new perspective on the creative ‘rights of way’ rules and quite fun. We arrive at the hotel in one piece.
Dinner tonight is on Train Street. We sit by the tracks and have a simple Vietnamese dinner, which is very tasty while not one but 2 trains pass by just a foot away from our chicken and fried rice…
Before turning in, we have a look at our rooftop bar. It’s a Saturday night, and it’s empty, nobody there, which is such a shame because it’s a fantastic place, one of the best we have seen, but it’s just so expensive. Before we are tempted, we leg it…!
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