Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

The previous post in this series is here..

After our vegetarian lunch in Hanoi, we started off towards Ha Long Bay. It was a long drive and our attempts at telling our driver to keep his eyes on the road failed miserably. So we just braced ourselves for a potential accident and tried to look outside the window as much as possible to the side! Apparently the norm here per driver given the traffic. We even called the guy who ran the service and that person said we were with the safest driver in his fleet!

This was a local Electric Vehicle which had some ADAS. So that gave us some consolation even though I didn’t trust the ADAS in this type of traffic. Enough of the car stories..

On the way we saw the west lake and the Pagoda in it. There was no time to visit this Pagoda but we had spent a lot of time in the morning at another temple with the turtles. We prayed en route to the higher powers in that Pagoda to make it to Ha Long.

We made it to Halong bay in 2 hours. The place was empty. No tourists on the waterfront. Apparently the boats had all left for the all day tour of the rock formations and would return around sunset. So we had the place to ourselves. Walked around, took pictures, saw the Dolphin palace which was impressive and we decided to go to the beach side. It was a 20 minute ride and we spent a good 45 minutes in the beach taking pictures and just enjoying the relatively empty beach.

Ha Long bay is really beautiful with the unique rock formations. The views were the same from most places though. We were reasonably sure that our decision to see this from the shore instead of an all day boat ride was a good one given our time constraints. Here are the pics.. yoga first..

At this point we decided not to wait for the sunset. It would take us a lot more than 2 hours in evening traffic to get back. We had not even checked in to our hotel and we wanted to see the night market and old quarter by night. So we told our driver that we can start back with no breaks. He was also happy as we had started early that morning from the airport and it was a long day for him as well. More photos..

it was a good call. We drove past a glorious sunset towards Hanoi and were dropped off at hour hotel a little close to 6:30 PM. We had made it back in exactly 2 hours.

A video highlight of our visit to Ha Long bay

We checked into our room and ventured out towards the market.. that in the next post!

A morning in Hanoi - Thanksgiving 2025 trip

We just got back from a 10 day trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The last part of the trip was planned in January. We knew our friends son was getting married in Phuket and we were going. It was post thanksgiving week given the stars aligned for the kid and his bride to be a week after!

Having put in for the entire week after thanksgiving off, our planner in chief had plenty of time to decide what to do in the run up to the wedding in Phuket. She did change things a few times and came up with a Hanoi-> Angkor Wat -> Chiang Mai -> Phuket plan. 2 days to 2 1/2 days tops for each location. I was asked for a wish list of places to see and apparently my plan would need a month, not to mention underground caves needed permits that were not available. As usual, all I had to do was follow instructions!

One tip before going to anyplace these days. Do not bother looking at facebook feed. Had barely checked in and was waiting at gate when FB told me that Ho Chi Minh city was under water and what we need to do to prep for it. This was not a one off thing. Before we went to any place or as soon as we landed we got the worst negative fake news about each place be it floods, fires, wars, etc. Total BS! Facebook needs to do something about this nonsense soon. or folks should take them to task for this blatant misinformation. At this point these bastards maybe responsible for most wars around the world if they stream this type of fake news and create unnecessary panic. It was good I turned off my wifi and having no international data plan also helped. used the phone pretty much as a video camera for the trip.

There was no direct flight we could find. So we went SFO -> Seoul , Seoul-> Ho Chi Minh city with a very tight connection on Korean air (gladly we made it as did our luggage). We had a 6 hour wait in Ho Chi Minh city and took a taxi to a airport hotel (5 min ride from the airport). We took a shower, had some wagh bakri chai at 3AM local time and took a 45 min power nap, charged phones and were back in the airport to check in bags on a domestic flight in Vietjet to Hanoi.

Given our crazy plan, we had arranged a personal car/driver. The driver was supposed to speak English but he knew 4 words and used google translate. It was painful as he would drive and use his phone which made us really nervous throughout the trip. Our suitcases were in the back of the car and we went straight to sightseeing. The plan was to see the main places.

1. The lake area and the temple with turtles in the middle of the lake in the old quarter

2. Temple of literature built for Confusious

3. drive by Ho Chi Minh memorial

4. One pillar Pagoda

5. drive by the railroad street

The time budget for all this was 4 hours. This was to be followed by a max one hour lunch break and then we were to drive out of the city for 2 hours to HaLong bay in Vietnam traffic.

We actually did everything in spite of a 45 min waste to try and find the entrance to the one pillar pagoda. Our guide was told he cannot park near pagoda entrance. He had also said that given the security check and crowed we would only drive by the memorial. Turns out that the entrance to the pagoda is through the same complex and we had to go through the security check. We walked around all over the place and leaving voicenotes in English for the driver did not help. The cops on the roads had no idea either till we showed them the image of the pagoda. Finally a cop directed in sign language that we had to go through the check to see Pagoda! No English anywhere. These are the most interesting experiences in stretching our communication limits. The highlight of the morning was watching toddlers walk through the temple of literature as part of a school tour. They were sooo cute and adorable!

Here are two sets of pictures from the morning (haven’t edited them either). I am severely jet lagged and writing is post is keeping me awake. It is also refreshing my memory a bit. The heat and humidity, rickshaws, the lake, the agarbathies, the pagodas, the street vendors, the red sickle flags, kind of felt like a cross between Mumbai, Chennai and Cochin all at once.. Hanoi was very clean!!

First photo is an example of the bullshit fake posts that we saw at every location. Truth is dead!

Here is a video highlights reel of the morning..

Was still scared of getting allergies on day 1, so played it safe and ate pizza while san tasted local veggies cuisine. Then we were off to Halong bay!

Will write about that tomorrow..

Labor day 2025: Istanbul, Cappadocia and Amalfi coast trip

One complaint I get from folks who go to the blog to get travel tips is that they have to go post to post backwards. There is no link from day 1 to day 2.. as I write in start to end sequence. My walking buddies suggested that everytime I finish a “series of posts”, there should be a summary post that describes the placed we stayed in, times between locations, etc.. something that they can literally cut and paste for a future itinerary. So for the first time trying that.

Click on the images to see the individual posts..

Day 1: Fly out of SFO to Istanbul. Start Friday afternoon. Reach Saturday afternoon local time in Istanbul airport.

Day 2: Two hours to reach hotel in old Istanbul area from Airport. Check in, change and visit Grand Bazaar, then walk around, see the Grand Cisterns and have dinner outside the Cisterns at a roof top restaurant, walk around the Sultanahmet mosque and square and get back to hotel.

The Grand Bazaar

Day 3: Sunday (Grand Bazaar is closed) All day walking tour of Istanbul with Viator. Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, catwalk at a mall, lunch break on our own, back to hotel, then Topkapi palace, back to hotel, then a night cruise on the Bhosporus strait.

Walking tour..

Topkapi palace

Night cruise

Day 4: Monday : Another morning at Grand Bazzar and walking around, then go to Hammam for 2+ hours, lunch near the Hammam place and back to hotel, pack and leave for Airport. Fly from Istanbul to Nevshehir and a long ride to Cave hotel in Kapadokya (Cappadocia).

Hammam and bye to Istanbul

Day 5 Tuesday: Wake up to see the ballons, then go on an all day Viator tour of Kapadokya. Open air Museum at Goreme, Lover’s hill, Pottery at Avanos, buffet lunch, Imagination point, PInk Valley, underground city of Kaimakli, Pidgeon valley, Uchisar castle, stop for buying Turkish delights, back to Cave hotel. Walking around the Goreme village at night and a dinner in Indian restaurant.

Hot air balloons in Kapadokya

Goreme open air museum

Lover’s hill

Pottery gallery at Avanos

Imagination point and PInk Valley

Kaimakli underground city, Pidgeon valley and Uchisar castle

Day 6 Wednesday: Cancelled Ballon ride. Spend time in the village, drive to Nevshehir airport, fly to Istanbul, wait, fly to Naples (basically entire day in cars, airports), drive from Naples airport to Sorrento hotel.

spending time at cave hotel and off to Naples (all day travel via Istanbul)

Day 7 Thursday: Walking Food tour in Sorrento followed by visiting Church and Cathedral. Back to hotel and walk to the water to spend time in the sea in the public area. Back to hotel, change, visit city center for dinner, followed by sunset viewing.

Sorrento food tour

water time and sunset in Sorrento

Day 8 Friday: Drive to Ercolano to see the buried city of Herculaneum. Then drive to Pompeii to see buried city there, lunch at Pompeii, drive back to Sorrento, short break and Kayaking in sunset in Sorrento.

Buried city of Herculaneum

Pompeii

Kayaking at sunset in Sorrento

Day 9 Saturday: Say bye to Sorrento, load luggage, drive to Positano, spend time seeing vertical village, lunch, then drive to Naples hotel. See the Naples City center, Castle, Galleria Umberto, Via Toledo, ice cream, take out dinner which we had back in hotel with the little one and pack.

Positano Vertical village

An evenings in Naples

Day 10 Sunday: Early morning flight from Naples to Rome and Rome to SFO and back by Sunday late afternoon. Time to recover in time to head back to office Monday!

Had to take five days off instead of 4 as Turkish airlines flight time moved earlier. So had to take off Friday before labor day.

There was something for everyone in the family in this trip. No check in baggage. Managed to pack only clothes (fortunately summer clothes) and do a 9 day trip with a carry on bag each. Did not buy anything that would add to weight. Didn’t take laptops on trip. It was an exercise in luggage frugality. Enjoyed it thoroughly.

Hope this summary post helps you better. If it does drop me a note or let me know on FB and will do this for all future trips.