The bus journey to Hanoi didn’t end up being that great, more crazy driving, slamming on brakes and swerving all over the road during the night i was pretty sure this was going to be it but again somehow you arrive in one piece. Once we had finally arrived after 15 hours we walked into the cities old quarter and checked into the Elizabeth Hotel which by coincidence was the hotel we had been touted for in Hue. $12 a night, a great room with AC and free all you could eat breakfast. As you expect with a capital city the place was buzzing and the traffic was crazy, millions of motorbikes. I am not going to talk much about Hanoi because it is going to be used as a transport hub a few times before we actually stay and explore the city for a couple of days.
Still being late planners, it had been a while since we had a day of planning what to do next. Halong Bay was a definite and we were going to head into the mountains to visit Sapa but instead we decided to visit Ninh Binh after Halong Bay. We decided to see the rice paddies of Ninh Binh instead of the mountains of Sapa after already visiting Dalat and it would save us two nights on a train, time was getting pretty tight as our Vietnam visa was due to run out in a week.
Not being fans of booking tours we booked Halong Bay at the hotel but made it difficult for ourselves. We ended up booking a one day & one night at Cat Ba Island instead of the overnight on the boat as we had had enough of sleeping on boats. We then asked them to leave us in Cat Ba for 2 days so we could explore on our own and spend a couple of days out on the bay before being transferred back to Hanoi. We tried to organise our own tour and we got it for the same price. This left us with one night in Hanoi before Halong where we had some good food at The Ladybird Restaurant a lonely planet recommendation. Here we also sampled Halida Draught Beer.
HALIDA DRAUGHT, LAGER BEER, VIETNAM, 5% ABV
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| Halida Draught Beer |
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South East Asia Brewery Ltd was established in 1993 and is a joint venture with the Carlsberg Brewery and Viet Ha Brewery located in Hanoi the Vietnamese Capital.
Halida is one of the largest local brewers, especially in North Vietnam where it can be found in most retail outlets as well as on board the Vietnam National Airline. It is renowned for its distinctive taste, due to an old unique Vietnamese recipe. It is also successfully exported to markets in the UK, Japan, Singapore, France and the United States.
On my personal sample the beer is delivered in 20 litre kegs. The Halida Draught is a medium yellow colour with an average white frothy head that quickly settles. The aroma is moderately malty with toasted bread and even vegetables mixed with what I can describe only as rubber.
The Flavour is sweet and the vegetables are back in taste but thankfully not the rubber. It is light to medium bodied with a soft carbonation. It is quite watery and oily in texture. Not the nicest draught lager but is always served chilled from a mobile serving unit which is quite cool and having a good temperature saves the beer. It is drinkable if served cold and we have not had to say that for a while. You just need to be quite quick on the intake because as the beer sits the beer seriously struggles and you will probably find yourself not finishing your glass, never a good sign. Maybe stick to the bottled version.
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| Halida Mobile Cooler Draught Unit |
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Being FA Cup final day we headed to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel to watch the game live and watched Manchester United seal the premier league title. We had a great night and a giggle with Chris & Maive a couple from Brighton swapping traveller stories over a few Bia Ha Noi and Hanoi Beer’s.
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| F.A Cup Final night with Chris & Maive at The Hanoi Backpackers |
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BIA HA NOI, PALE LAGER, VIETNAM, 4.2% ABV, 450ML BTL
Bia Ha Noi is brewed by Habeco (Hanoi Alcohol Beer & Beverage Company) in Hanoi and the brewery has been established since 1890. Bia Ha Noi is the flagship product of beer in Hanoi with the annual production being 70% of the total beer output.
The liquid poured a clear pale straw colour with a thick white head. The aroma was dictated with wheat, yeast and a little rice or maize. The taste was actually very interesting with an initial hit of nice malty sweetness (honey like) followed with some earthy, herbal/spices and finished with some slight bitter hops. A light mouth feel with medium carbonation and even though a little grainy quite smooth, a pretty good middle of the road blonde lager.
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| Bia Ha Noi |
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HANOI BEER, LAGER STYLE, VIETNAM, 5.1% ABV, 330ML BTL
Hanoi Beer is another product brewed by the Hanoi Alcohol Beer & Beverage Company. The object of this beer was consumption in a certain market, that being hotels and restaurants. The thoughts behind this being the higher alcohol content compared with a number of competitors, maybe safer to enjoy during a dining experience. Habeco class this bottled lager as their Premium product that is consistent for consumers.
The Hanoi Beer turned out to be a little different from its sibling. The beer still poured with a pale straw colour and looked good with a nice full white head that lasted. The aroma consisted of sweet grains but with some mild citrus. The taste is malty sweet with lemony citrus but does finish with a doughy/breaded taste and a bitter hoppy kick. A little overpowering with flavour, which is not always a negative point. It just lacks a balance between sweet and bitter. Not really sure what it would like to be, a sweet smooth lager or a hoppy/bitter pilsner style. OK but preferred the Bia Ha Noi personally. Only my thoughts!
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| Hanoi Beer |
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A few beers consumed but not too many as we had Halong Bay the next day. We were on the same bus as two German guys we had met in Hue, Thomas and Marvin who would be on the same trip. On the way to the port at Halong City we had the usual stop where you could buy random stuff like giant paints & pots, how you would get these on the boat I will never know. The heavens were pouring with rain and we thought our luck was out expecting Halong Bay to disappear in the midst. The port was packed with hundreds of boats and tourists heading out onto the bay at the same time. Once on board and at sea it’s amazing how the traffic vanishes and everyone seems to go in different directions. Finally on the water the boat was great where we served lunch in the restaurant. It’s a shame we didn’t have a boat like this with Perama Tours for New Year in Flores. After lunch we went onto the top deck where you could chill on sun loungers and chairs with fellow travellers.
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| Arriving at Halong City Port |
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| Nearly time to board |
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| As we set sail Halong Bay appears from the mist |
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The weather was still dull as we anchored to visit the huge famous cave. The giant cave was set inside the limestone rocked islands that you visualise of Halong Bay and walking inside the cave was like nothing you had ever seen. We couldn’t believe our luck when we came out of the cave and the sun was shining with blue skies, perfect.
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| Arriving in an enclosed bay to visit the cave |
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| Inside Cave was breathtaking |
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| Taking in the Cave |
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| View over the bay when we were back out in the open air |
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| Somebody kind enough to take a snap of us instead of a long arm shot we usually revert to... |
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We set sail for the afternoon surrounded by the most amazing scenery. Halong Bay is truly spectacular and you couldn’t help but take hundreds of photographs. It was a great afternoon chilling on deck in the sunshine enjoying a Bia Hanoi while chatting and mingling with the other guests. Some great people on board from all over the world including a lovely Columbian and Argentina Guy where Kate loaded up on travellers tips for when we get to South America.
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| Spectacular Halong Bay |
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| You just want to take pictures of everything |
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| Another one... |
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| Kicking back on deck. Great group |
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| Beer Time |
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| Authentic Vietnamese Beer with a truly authentic Vietnamese backdrop |
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| Kate loading up on tips about Argentina for when we get there. Hand drawn map the works |
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The tour guide and crew on deck were great, they weren’t in your face and were happy gambling below deck for the afternoon.
Again sailing through Halong Bay was just breathtaking we were so happy and it exceeded our expectations. As well as staring at the thousands of volcanic islands we were able to visit a floating village and got to swim in the bay jumping off deck into the refreshing waters. I didn’t realise how high it was until it was too late but at least this time unlike Flores, the boats toilets weren’t being emptied at the same time!!!
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| The Floating Village |
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| This is how the locals on the water live day in day out. Quite remarkable! |
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| Jesus I didn't think it was this high... |
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| Amazing Day, Amazing Place had by all especially us... |
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| One more snap of Halong Bay before we hit Cat Ba Island |
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Not sure what to expect we arrived at Cat Ba Island as the sun was setting. We said our goodbyes to half the group who were sleeping on the boat that night and travelled with the other half to our arranged hotel, the Sunflower 2 in Cat Ba Town.
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| Sunflower Two Hotel Cat Ba Island |
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The journey on the bus took us through the heart of the island and it was just beautiful. We were happy we had organised to stay on the island for two days and would definitely be getting scooters to explore.
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| The Heart of Cat Ba Island |
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On our first evening on the island we enjoyed our free dinner at the hotel with the South American guys and a lovely French couple. Some interesting tales and my head was spinning trying to listen to English, French and Spanish being spoken at the same time. The hotel was a little out of town and we had a walk down to explore the sea front after dinner, having a beer at Noble’s and taking in the sights of the Vietnamese holiday makers. You could see the busy promenade with floating restaurants and children hiring mini cyclos and mini electric cars. It had a Vietnamese Blackpool vibe but in a good way.
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| The Sea Front at Cat Ba Town |
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| Floating Restaurants in the Bay |
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| The Holiday Kids on Motorised Bikes & Cars |
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Again with breakfast included (just a bread roll, no good for the others as they were trekking that day ) we said what we thought would be our last goodbyes before we checked out and moved hotels to the Vien Dong hotel on the seafront. It was time for our 2 free days of exploring the island. The new hotel was great and our room had views overlooking the bay and they organised a scooter for us for the day. Once we hired the scooters the heavens opened & we couldn’t believe our luck, we are not that confident yet at riding in downpours but we checked out the nice little coved beaches, Cat Co 1,2 and 3 in the rain. We stopped to take a snap but the security guard wanted us to pay him the same amount as what we had paid the hotel to rent the bike for the day to look after our bike. When we said we didn’t want to park we just wanted to stop, take a picture and leave, he seemed very angry that we didn’t want to park so Kate jumped off the bike, took a quick picture and off we went with a salute.
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| The New Gaff... |
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| Awesome View from our Room |
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| Out on the Scooter. Laughing as security goes mental for not paying him to park our vehicle |
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| Cat Co 1 |
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| Fuel done its time to hit the road |
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The sunshine made an appearance shortly after and with being a small island with only two main roads we managed to whizz around and see everything we wanted to. The rain didn’t ruin our day.
Riding around Cat Ba Island was awesome, thrilling and breathtaking. There were winding coastal roads, inland countryside, villages, national park & the hospital cave which again was more genius design by the Vietnamese during the war. We stopped and had a coffee after our visit to the cave with a local farmer and his family before reaching the northern coast of the island where we descended down to the ferry port where we had got off the boat the day before. To our surprise we saw the French couple and the South American guys waiting at the port, they were meant to be long gone. Not very happy and no idea whether a boat was coming for them they had been abandoned at the port by their tour guide. This was their part of the trip to sleep on the boat for the night. We had one of the tour guides numbers as we were worried something like this might happen to us in a couple of days so they called him and he wasn’t much help. Knowing that we were heading back to town we raced the hour long journey through the Jurassic Park scenery and stopped back at the tour hotel to let them know what was happening as it was starting to get dark. With the language barriers it was quite difficult to explain what was happening but we got there in the end, it seemed a breakdown in communication had left them stranded. The guy wanted to pick them up from the port and bring them back to the hotel but they had no knowledge of this and they also wanted to spend the night on the boat which is what they had paid for. Maybe not the greatest tour operator, fingers crossed they get sorted and we don’t get stranded to in a couple of days. With little else we could do we left it in the tour operators hands hoping our friends made it onto a boat.
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| Time to explore the Island in one speedy afternoon... |
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| Fantastic Ocean Roads |
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| Climbing into the National Park |
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| The Secret Hospital Cave |
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| Genius Design from the American War |
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| A once functioning Hospital built high inside the cliffs |
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| Small door on the left is the exit from inside the cliff and the hidden Vietnam War Hospital |
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| Time for a brew with some local farmers. A friendly bunch even though the little ones were running around pointing toy guns at us... |
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| Back on the Scooter lots to see and many Km's to cover |
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| Fantastic Scenary |
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| It was like riding through Jurassic Park |
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| A local out walking in what seemed like the wilderness |
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| Great day exploring. Heading back as the Sun-Sets. Just Gorgeous |
Having finished another amazing day exploring on scooters we headed out into the night to find somewhere for dinner. We had seen the floating restaurants from our balcony and they had had rave reviews in the guidebook so we decided to check them out. Collared straight away as we crossed the road there was no menus on offer and no matter how many times we tried we couldn’t get a feeling for the prices. We said we were on a budget and asked if they had any meals on offer for our price range and they informed us that they had so we set sail out to the restaurants in a little boat. When we arrived at the restaurant it was all fresh seafood nets that hung from the decking which was really nice. We asked for a menu but it had no prices and they seemed to make up the price of each dish. A standard dish probably cost about £10 with nothing cheaper, we had told them we wouldn’t be able to afford this when we were on the main land and had to get a lift back to shore. This hadn’t quite worked out as planned and the motor boat wasn’t coming back anytime soon which meant that the poor guy had to row us back which took forever. We did feel bad but we had been very honest about what we could afford. They pressure you to get there and then hope you stay because you feel a bit stuck. It would be a nice place for a meal if you spend £30 a night on a meal but to us this is a 3 day budget.
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| Onboard heading out to the Floating Restaurant |
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| The Restaurant we just need a menu to find out prices now! |
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| The fresh fish nets |
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| Not quite working out our tout prepares to row us back to the mainland |
This left us with some cheap local food and an early night following our eventful day. From the balcony we did however get to see tourist’s drag racing tandem bicycles down the main stretch which was amusing.
With our final day on Cat Ba Island for once we didn’t have to get up for anything and had a lie in. We decided to head to Cat Co beach 1 to spend a day relaxing on the beach. It was a beautiful little cove looking out over Halong Bay and it was pretty much deserted for most of the day.
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| Cat Co Beach 1 |
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| A day of Relaxation looking out over Halong Bay |
We had had a great trip out to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island but it was time to head back to Hanoi in the morning but not before visiting Noble House to try a Thang Long Larger brewed by Halida.
THANG LONG (HALIDA), LAGER STYLE, VIETNAM, 4.5% ABV, 450ML BTL
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| Noble House. A great setting for a new beer |
Thang Long Premium Lager is brewed by Halida (South East Asia Brewery Ltd) and it was first introduced in 2009. The beer is brewed with malted barley; hops yeast and water the quintessential ingredients but no rice. It was brewed in order to welcome and celebrate the 1000 year anniversary of the City of Hanoi. Everything about the beer is designed from the modern technology used to the quite attractive and distinct bottle and labelling design.
The label is cut at an angle with the image of a Flying Dragon and this along with lines cut into the bottle is to make sure the labelling is not damaged while being transported.
The beer poured a nice deep golden colour with a lasting creamy white head. The beer has medium carbonation and the aroma was of malt, hops, cereal with a hint of green apples. It had a medium mouth feel that was crisp and zingy and it was very flavoursome. The liquid when tasting had a nice fresh malty sweetness with refreshing fruit flavours that finished with a nice bout of hoppy bitterness an impressive Vietnamese lager that I am happy to call a Premium lager while drinking in this beer market. Maybe even my favourite beer of Vietnam so far. The 450ml bottles are quite overpowering for individual drinkers. Personally I think a 330ml bottle would work better but the culture is all about sharing with family and friends.
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| Thang Long Premium Lager |
All packed up we checked out early & headed back to Sunflower 2 Hotel for a 7.30am pick up and day 2 of our tour. The next couple of hours turned out to be quite stressful and chaotic because the new tour guide was going to leave us stranded because he didn’t believe we had a ticket to get back, it’s a good job we photocopied our ticket because the original is handed over as you start the tour. One thing we have learnt on tours is keep hold of your ticket or have a back up copy. In Vietnam we got the impression that they didn’t care too much for tourists. Halong Bay in particular was very chaotic. Luckily we had an amazing time with only one little hiccup but a number of people had a very different experience as the organisation isn’t great. We found out that our friends from the port made it onto a boat for the night but slept on deck and in the staff quarters. Not what they had paid for but at least they got back onto the bay.
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| The bus we nearly didn't board being washed for our Cat Ba exit |
In the end we made it back onto the same boat that had brought us to the island and with clear skies had an amazing final sail through the bay back to Halong City on the mainland. We had a quick transfer onto our bus to Hanoi with a quick stop for lunch; we were back in the city for early evening. We checked back into the Elizabeth Hotel and got organised for heading south to Ninh Binh the following morning. Hanoi used as a transport hub for the second and final time.
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| Fairwell Cat Ba |
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| Sailing through the Bay |
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| Halong Bay. An Amazing few days & we might just get back to Hanoi, Bonus... |
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