Rare Adventures

Category: Vietnam

In 2026 we spent a month exploring and having in Vietnam, with a little hop over to Cambodia while we were there

These are the stories from our trip

Exploring Sapa and unexpected victory celebrations

With Hanoi completed it was time to head off on our adventures around the north. First stop was Sapa for the trek and the trip up to the Fansipan peak on the longest cable car in the world, but first we had to get to Sapa.

We considered the train, as it would have meant going through Train Street, but when we mentioned it, the locals thought we were mad. It takes much longer than the bus and involved a taxi from the station up to Sapa, and apart from that it is booked weeks in advance to it wasn’t an option.

The coach to Sapa was our first experience of their travel system and it is unbelievably good. Half the route is by motorway, after which you end up back on their slow old roads and the long windy route up to Sapa.

The coach was amazing, generally referred to as VIP, it was like being on a business class flight, the seats were huge reclining seats and loads of leg room. As a person of 6 foot with long legs, I notice such things and these buses are fabulous.

After sea level and claustrophobic heat in Hanoi, Sapa is in the northern mountains at about 1500m above sea level and the change is immediately noticeable, it was raining and noticeably cooler,

The other thing that you immediately notice is that is steep, in every direction, when you leave your accommodation, it is steep. You will also quickly discover that it is really and lively at night.

There has been a huge investment in Sapa to build it as a tourist centre. Much off the tourist infrastructure has been built in the last 15 years, so you are not visiting a historic centre in any way. The investment to exploit Fansipan mountain infrastructure has been incredible, to the extent that the train runs right into the centre of the town is built into a shopping mall and apartment block for the privileged.

The other unexpected factor was that how busy it was, there were crowds everywhere. The entire town was gridlocked, our bus dumped us outside of the town and told us to get a taxi. We then discovered that we had arrived in the middle of huge event to celebrate the Vietnamese victory over the US 50 years ago. A huge stage was built in the central park area, with a huge celebration that dominated the days we were there.

We watched the celebrations involving singers and dancers with video screens behind them, it then dawned on us that the videos were images of bombing during the war and glorifying the power of their military. In such a fun loving country, with lots of people celebrating and having a good time, it was a real culture shock to have the full force of the Communist Party machine in our faces. It’s their country and we enjoyed the celebrations but it was a wake up call about the reality.

Sapa itself is a real mountain town that is busy establishing itself as the trekking centre of the north, and the commercial development reflects this. There is a steep, busy main street that is full of shops selling trekking gear. This was very handy as I had come equipped with no suitable clothing for heavy rain or cold temperatures, so I had an excuse to stock up with new T shirts, fleece and a puffer jacket, none of which I wore after the 3 days in Sapa.

There is more to Sapa than the big park and one shopping street. There is a lovely lake around at the top of the town around which there are bars and restaurants and I suspect that if the war victory celebrations, then the area around this lake would have been much busier.

Lots of people we met were staying in homestays outside of the town and used Grab taxis to get in, there was cheaper accommodation was either further up the hill or further down it. it wasn’t expensive, so we stayed at the grand looking Lacassa Hotel 500m from the centre, it seemed to be the legacy of the French occupation period, or rather a relic. Its grand appearance wasn’t matched by the internal décor, but to be fair it was being redecorated and presumably it will be a lot nicer when it has finished. There was an amazing mural on the walls on the walls of the staircase.

We did a couple of trips, firstly we did the tour of Cat Cat village, Moan Park and Fansipan mountain. A major reason for the trip was to trek through the rice fields, which was a bit of a disaster. We will cover both in later blogs.

22/06/2026
Unforgettable Jeep Tour Experience in Hanoi

Having done the walking tour of Hanoi, it still felt that we still needed something else to complete the trip. On the way to Halong Bay, we shared a minibus with a mum and daughter who claimed to be Portuguese and from Porto, (where we went last year), but with strangely Russian accents.

Their story unraveled pretty quickly, but it was very interesting that they didn’t want to admit to being Russian, not that it made any difference to us, they were just nice people. They told us about the Jeep Tour and how much fun it was, so as we had a spare evening, we booked ourselves on to the tour.

Evening was a good choice, as Hanoi is hot and steamy so to have the tour at dusk was great as it was a bit cooler and we could really enjoy the Vietnamese love of bright lights. We booked our tour with Back Street Tours and were picked up about 4pm by our guide, DuyVu.

Duyvu was excellent, very knowledgeable and lots of fun to have around.

The jeep was the real deal, really rough and ready, bouncing around along the road and a great vehicle for negotiating the holes in the road. We were lucky that we didn’t have any rain, so the top was down and we really felt part of Hanoi, and scooters and bikes buzzed past us on both sides as we made our way through the traffic.

The Jeep is a 6 seater so we had a couple of companions, this time from Israel. With the war in Iran charging ahead and Israel being hit by rockets, it all felt too raw to discuss, so we focused on football instead, normally.

First stop was the Long Bien Bridge, a crazy long train bridge over the Red River and an introduction to the quirky Vietnamese sense of humour, in the little café at the station, they were using the casing shells from bombs as flowerpots and light holders!

We then popped into Train Street, this was the new one that they are “developing”. The one in the Old Quarter seems to be so overwhelmed by tourists that they needed another one. So, they have given the people in another street where the train runs permission to turn their front rooms and courtyards into bars. When the train is gone apparently it all changes back.

Next stop was the B52 War Museum, DuyVu our guide was full of information about the war and clearly very proud of his countries achievement, having survived being at war with the most powerful country on earth and coming out as winners, I’m sure tours of Iran will have a similar theme in years to come.

Many of the relics form an open air park, or playground, so we saw kids happily clambering over fragments of B52 bombers having a fine time.

We then headed for the backstreets of West Lake and a tour of the alley ways where people lived, often alongside their scooters. The intensity of their living spaces was amazing, crammed into miles of little lanes, you certainly wouldn’t want to fall out with your neighbours or have an up and coming trumpet player living next door!

By now, it was getting dark, so we went on a long open top tour around the city. This part of the trip was great because it filled in a lot of gaps. The trip took us around the government buildings, most of which were twinkling with bright lights.

Then on to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, this is quite a tourist attraction to see his body at rest. I have to be honest, standing for hours in a queue to solemnly walk past his body didn’t really tickle our fancy so I was happy to have seen it, that was enough.

The trip then took us through as shopping district with some of the most famous and expensive designer brands that were the real deal, a total contrast to the shops of the Old Quarter. One had the ask the question, who in Vietnam could possibly afford to go shopping in these places, unless of course there was a ruling elite or had very wealthy tourists!

The last stop was the Hidden Gems café for dinner. This was a great little place tucked into an alleyway, as always. I love the Vietnamese innovations, all the furniture was made out of bits of scrapped motorbikes and scooters, which were turned into tables and chairs.

After great food and more egg coffee, conversation with our Israeli pals about who would win the English Premier League, it was time to head back to the Old Quarter in the Jeep and to say goodbye to everyone.

Thanks to DuyVu and Back Street Tours for a great evening.

18/06/2026
Hanoi Travel Tips: From Train Street to Egg Coffee

Once you have settled in Hanoi and adjusted to the crazy pace of traffic, the intense humidity and probably got wet, it is time to have a look around. When you start to wander the streets, it will quickly dawn on you that the whole place is a labyrinth and within a couple of minutes you will be lost and looking for Google Maps to get you out of trouble.

Our starting point for these situations is to find a guided walking tour so that you get your bearings and then maybe a bus or something so you see the sights. One of the big attractions that everyone goes to is Train Street, you don’t need a guide to find it and it is a lot of fun, so we ticked that box on the first evening, which got us off to a flying start.

You do, however, need to be aware that there are TWO Train Streets. There is the original one which is packed with travellers and lined with cafes and bars, and there is a second one that is building up but isn’t as popular yet.

We went to both; they are both fun and you can have a pint of their local (expensive) craft beer and enjoy being nearly crushed by a train. Safety is impressive, when they hear the train horn, bar owners appear blowing whistles and basically everyone gets out the way of the train, the alternative is to die or be seriously injured by the aforesaid train. Self-preservation is at the core of Vietnamese safety culture.

Beer Street was another essential drop off point on our first night. This is the hub of the backpacker community with strings of music bars spread around a block. I think this is the local authorities cunning plan to keep beery Westerners together in one place, and be prepared for Karaoke, it is almost their national pastime.

To avoid wandering aimlessly in the heat, we booked a walking tour for the next morning with these guys. It was very cheap, only costing $5, and that is because the guide is a volunteer. They are normally students aspiring to become guides, it is their way of learning their trade and improving their English. This worked well for us, our guide was quite inexperienced but we had a nice morning with her, visiting the French cathedral in the centre of town (bit boring), and then walking to the Hoem Kiem Lake.

The lake is famous for its giant turtles, which are now extinct as the last one died in 2018, the bodies of the last two are held in the Jade Temple, which sits on an island accessed by the Huc bridge. It is a really cool place and really gives out a good vibe about the history of Vietnam and its various gods and ancient dynasties.

Our guide then took us through back streets and winding staircases to her favourite little bar, where we were introduced to the wonders of Vietnamese Egg Coffee, which sounds revolting but it is really rather wonderful, and there is also a Salt Coffee which is equally as good.

The guide was very flexible and was happy to take us anywhere, but the problem was, we had no idea what we wanted to do, which was why we had a guide. So eventually we settled on visiting the French Prison, but it might have been more helpful if there had been an itinerary to be honest.

The French Prison was a particularly dark and daunting place. It turns out the Vietnamese are not easy to concur, in fact they fought of Genghis Khan 3 times, not to mention a long list of Chinese dynasties that followed.

The French bit off a bit more than they could chew back in the day, with lots of uprisings going on at regular intervals. They took a very European approach; they built a prison and threw all the troublemakers in jail. The tour of the prison is quite a blood curdling experience showing the miserable conditions the French imposed on their prisoners, male and female, it is amazing what humans can cope with.

One of the most poignant displays related to the history of the US bombing of Hanoi. The prison was used to house the US aircrews that were shot down, there were plenty of propaganda pictures of the crews having a lovely time which was clearly nonsense, but the pictures of the devastation caused by the bombing were deeply moving.

The key message to the world is that carpet bombing doesn’t work, you cannot conquer countries from the air, and that you can’t defeat a religion or a philosophy, in this case Communism. So, 50 years on, the message is still there, Afghans, Syrians and Libyans survived blitzes from the air.

In 2025 we have an active war in the Middle East where the US is trying, once again, to defeat one of the most dogged and hard core philosophies from the air. Just look at history, the weapons change but the outcomes don’t.

When it was all finished, we tipped our guide, said goodbye and felt in need of a cooling off. Inexplicably, we tried to walk the 15 minutes back to our hotel using Apple Maps, 45 minutes later, very hot, and still lost, we changed to Google Maps and found our way back to the hotel and slumped into the pool with an ice cold beer.

Basically, a walking tour of Hanoi is very hard work. On this visit we didn’t get to see the political buildings and designer shops as they weren’t of much interest to us, The other big attraction is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, once again, not of much interest to us.

15/06/2026
Exploring Vietnam – 3 surprises

We are just back from our adventure in Vietnam, a truly wonderful experience and one that I will remember for the rest of my life. There are millions of words out there about all the things you can do on a trip to the country, and I will be adding to them over the coming weeks as I pull together the blogs about the places we visited.

Vietnam is a country in the midst of a modernisation revolution, on the one hand it has a become a massive manufacturing sector that most of us know for sports shoe brands, it even has its own car industry. Whilst on the other hand when you venture out into the countryside the rural communities are subsistence farmers, living off their land and selling goods at local markets. So not only it is exciting and vibrant, but it is also a place of contradictions, between the claustrophobia of Hanoi to the peace and tranquility of the mountains.

I thought I would start with 3 things that I did really expect when we were doing our planning, and hopefully these will really help you with your plans.

Vietnamese money

Their currency is an absolute nightmare, you can have a wallet full of paper money and not have enough to pay for a coffee, the notes come in lots of different denominations with the biggest being 500,000 dongs, and the smallest is on 500 dongs. Even worse, they all look quite similar, so it is possible to get into a horrible mess.

What makes it a little more difficult is that for all modernisation in Vietnam, they haven’t really moved towards credit cards, which are rarely accepted, so you don’t have the simple alternative to just tap and go. It is very much a cash economy and they use a payment system between themselves that involves a QR code and WhatsApp, which looked fraught with danger!

So, before you go, try to get some basic understanding of the notes and how they work, as everyone, young and old, are confused by the currency.

Tourism industry

You are probably planning to go because you have seen beautiful images of the limestone peaks around the north, or the twinkling lanterns in Hoi An. After I had been there a months it dawned me that this is a massive part of their national strategy and there has been enormous investment over the last 20 years to move the country from a back packers destination to a perfect destination for adventurers of every age, with massive influx of visitors from Japan and Korea in particular.

It is not a coincidence that the buses on the major tourist routes are modern sleeper buses or VIP coaches that are like travelling business class on a flight, these haven’t arrived by coincident. Hotels are all high quality, including the hostels, and as you move around the main centres you find endless trips and attractions on Tripadvisor. After a while the penny drops that these are all quite recent developments, whether it’s the Fansipan cable car in Sapa or Bana Hills near Da Nang, most things have been built in the last 15 years.

Where the Vietnamese have been super clever has been how the exploit their stunning landscape by creating things that make for brilliant Instagram or Facebook holiday photos, whether it is Train Street in Hanoi or you have to climb a mountain in Nim Binh, there is always the Instagram shot ready made.

Vietnamese food

I love Asian food and was really looking forward to this aspect of the trip, but I have to be honest and say that a lot of their food is quite bland. Breakfast might include a croissant, but it wouldn’t taste of anything because it didn’t have the sweet coating, similarly with other meals, we found ourselves reaching for the Soya Sauce to give it some kick as they sauces didn’t have much flavour. It is a far cry from the food you find in Thailand or even your local Chinese takeaway.

I think it is because they don’t use sugar and salt in the way Westerners use it.

Finally, you can’t but love the Vietnamese people. They are so much fun to be around, they are primarily a kind and polite race. To be honest, I’m not sure race is the right word because there are so many different ethnic groupings and something like 50 different local languages still in use. Around Sapa alone there are at least 5 different languages spoken in the villages around that region, as well as Vietnamese, and increasingly, English.

They are fiercely proud of their heritage and happily talk about beating three super powers, the Americans in the Vietnam war, before that they fought off the Chinese and even Genghis Khan couldn’t defeat the Vietnamese warlords, so they might be fun, but don’t truck with them.

Hope that provides you with a few hints to plan your holiday.

01/06/2026