North Vietnam

It was only right to start our trip to Hanoi with a pho so straight off the night bus at 7am we headed to Phở Thìn Bờ Hồ for a bowl.
The rest of the trip was also very food orientated:

• Banh cuon, steamed pork and wood ear mushroom rice rolls. The place we ended up at was a true Hanoi experience of chaos as there was no ordering process other than shouting at the waiters to be heard and bagsy-ing plates.
• Bun cha (grilled pork in a sweet soup and rice noodles) and crab spring rolls - they were both 🤌.
• Fried banana - one of the nicest things we ate in Hanoi and also the most elusive as we never found it again 🥲.
• Egg coffee at Cafe Giang, one of the first places to serve it! I
• Stale donuts - I (nina) got scammed into buying these by a street vendor for a v high price, I have a kind heart what can I say..
• Pho tron - dry pho! Very delicious
• Sticky rice with pate, chicken, pork floss, egg and more.
• King roti - light and sweet coffee flavour bun filled with butter 😋
• Lots more pho.

Rounded off with some Bia hois - Hanoi is famous for these local breweries where you can get freshly made beer for 15k dong (50p).
In non-food and drink related activities we went to see the imperial palace and the women's museum which we both found very interesting and inspiring.

We spent two days exploring Ninh Binh which was very scenic and beautiful. Day 1:

• Bich Dong Pagoda - temples within a cave system.
• Mua Cave - lots of stairs and a famous viewpoint - very picturesque!
• We saw loads of restaurants with goose being spit roasted outside so we had that for dinner followed by a few bia hois and some good and bad games of pool.

Day 2:

• Trang An boat tour - a two hour boat tour through some amazing scenery and caves - very impressed by our boat lady who rowed four people for the whole time!

The Ha Giang loop was the best thing we did in Vietnam! We decided to get easy drivers and drove with a group of 8 which was perfect.

The scenery was breathtaking across the whole thing (the pictures don't do it justice) - we got to go high in the mountains up to the border of china, saw rivers, waterfalls and drove through the villages and farm lands of the different ethnic groups that live in the area.

It was also so fun hanging out with our group - John made friends with the drivers through hackey sack and happy water shots.

Another highlight was jumping into a freezing cold waterfall in 5 degree weather - definitely an activity they designed for the hotter months but it was a refreshing start to the day