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OK we only went to Hanoi for six days but I have about 500 pictures I want to show you!! What an interesting and photogenic place.

Scott and I really wanted to go on a trip together (for once!), but could only manage to find six days we could take off at the same time. At first we thought we would go to Cairns or Darwin, but then my friend suggested that we YOLO and go to Vietnam instead. It was the same price to fly direct to Hanoi as it was to Cairns! Plus then we could stay at a really nice hotel and eat delicious things and shop and do whatever we wanted for less than we would have spent in Australia.

After our ten hour flight we arrived in Hanoi in the late afternoon. I organised airport pickup through the hotel ahead of time so it was quite simple to make it to our hotel, right in the middle of the Old Quarter. We dropped our bags and then immediately headed out to explore/find food. I’ll save all the food pics for a separate post.

Hoan Kiem Lake

There used to be a very notable Hanoi building in this spot but they recently tore it down to make a town square area instead.

We had two dinners and then got a massage with the sweet relaxing sounds of a very loud concert being held right outside the window.

The view from the hotel rooftop.

The next day we started to attempt shopping. Scott wanted to buy some mango chips and agreed to buy 500g for like $3. They kept scooping and scooping, it was quite funny.

We went to Dong Xuan Market to look at clothes but found it very overwhelming and none of the clothes were really our style. We found 50 million types of white sneakers, 50 million types of mens leather sandals, 50 million types of frilly skirts, an epic fabric section, lots of kids clothes. We got Scott one pair of shorts but that was it.

We were there right before Vietnam was celebrating 80 years of communism or something like that so there were a lot of patriotic decorations everywhere, and a lot of families dressed up in special Vietnam outfits. (Unless it always looks like this?)

Scooters everywhere. Apparently Hanoi doesn’t even have that many scooters compared to HCM but it still seemed like A LOT. Crossing the street was always interesting.

One thing we knew we wanted to do on our trip was get Scott some glasses. He already knew his prescription so we headed to Glasses Street and checked out a bunch of stores. He ended up getting a pair and some prescription sunglasses too, for significantly cheaper than Australia, and it only took a few hours. He is enjoying the glasses for things like watching football, and driving, but doesn’t like wearing them all the time.

In the evening we went to the Southern Train Street. I didn’t actually take any pictures of the train LOL! Only video. I’m sure you’ve seen it already. But basically you pick a cafe and then they bring you to their seating area where you have some drinks and food and wait for the train to come and then right before it comes through they pack up all the awnings and push everyone back and then the train comes zooming by super close.

We saw two trains go by, one in each direction, faster than I expected, and yes, I smushed a Hanoi beer cap on the track. Tourist trap but also quite fun.

Before the train came through.

The next day we went to the Womens Museum for some culture. It had some interesting parts. I liked the exhibits about the women’s roles in the wars.

More wandering around Hanoi.

Stopping for a cool drink on a tiny stool near a big church.

Scott loves this picture of me trying on shorts in the back of a shop, haha. We bought lots of activewear this trip. And some t-shirts, shoes, and backpacks. Everything was so cheap! I liked when you needed a different size (XL/XXL!!), they would ninja their way up into the ceilings and throw down new packets of the clothes from storage.

I managed to find us a social pickleball session that we could join. It was so fun!! The venue was huge, it must have had 24 courts, and it’s open 24/7. The guys were all super nice and very good at pickleball. We played for about 2.5 hours before we were about to die from dehydration. It was so sweaty! To make it worse, we forgot to bring towels!!! AHH!!

The pickleball place was in a different area of Hanoi that we hadn’t been to yet. It shouldn’t have been a big issue, we easily got a Grab there, and even though we knew there were going to be road closures due to a Practice Parade, the internet said buses would still be running and there was a bus that would bring us straight back to our hotel. However, this was not true, and after much confusion, Scott and I had to separate and take separate scooters back.

This was stressful because:

  1. The scooters are crazy fast, especially the Grab drivers.
  2. Scott didn’t have a Grab account set up so he had to quickly make an account, and then pay in cash.
  3. I realised after we split up that I didn’t have ANY cash on me.
  4. I did have internet though, but Scott didn’t!
  5. We only had one room key and Scott had it.
  6. SO MANY roads were closed.
  7. We can’t speak Vietnamese.
  8. I was still SOOOOOO sweaty from pickleball.

Anyway I hopped on the back of my scooter and clung on for dear life as we zoomed back towards the Old Quarter. We got about 2/3rds of the way back and then had to stop because the Practice Parade was going through. It was incredible, we were all stopped in this massive intersection watching these military vehicles drive by with people waving, and the crowd was cheering a lot, but every minute more and more and more scooters were arriving and pushing forward and squeezing in. Like, tens of thousands of scooters in every direction.

Eventually there would be little breaks in the parade and the police were letting one direction of traffic through at a time, but it was taking a very long time. I was extremely concerned that when our direction was finally going to be allowed to go that it was going to be like a super crowded drag race. But I didn’t have time to find out because eventually my driver got fed up and just squeezed through the barricades and around the police officers and crossed the parade line!!! AHAHAHA it was crazy.

At least then the road wasn’t crowded after that, LOL. He drove me as close as he could to the hotel but then said ROAD CLOSED and I would have to walk the rest of the way. So I walked the last km back to the hotel on my own, feeling mostly safe, but wondering. And also wondering where Scott was and if he was ok and how far behind me he was. The streets were full of families celebrating Vietnam!

I ended up getting back to the hotel about twenty minutes before Scott, but his Grab driver managed to sneak in and drive him all the way back to the hotel! We both tipped our drivers well for this hassle. Finally we could have showers and try to relax after that ordeal!

The next day we went on a Ninh Binh tour, which will have its own post. The traffic near the hotel was terrible on the way back so we hopped out early and ended up walking through Beer Street at night for the first time. Every street looks totally different in day/night/weekday/weekend/dry/raining etc.

I loved this. Sitting on tiny stools on the street at night. Relaxed. Delicious food. This was such a better idea to come here instead of Cairns. :D

We spent our final day wandering around new areas, checking off a few more of the food places I had saved on my food map. This was Ho Tay, or West Lake.

More cool buildings.

It is impressive what these people can carry around on a bicycle! Who needs Ikea when you have a mobile crockery shop! There were lots of ladies selling amazing looking fruit by bike too. One time we were sitting somewhere and a mobile knife guys bike tipped over and Scott had to help him get it back up, he said it was extremely heavy.

We got some custom wooden stamps made. They look great and stamped perfectly when the lady did it but I have not managed to stamp mine successfully yet, lol. Maybe I should watch a Youtube video.

We ventured to another new area to try and get cheap pickleball paddles but the guy wasn’t home (probs playing pickleball tbh) and got caught in a huuuge rain storm. The weather was mostly cooperative for us on the trip but it did seem to like to pour just as we needed to catch a Grab back and the price would surge and the drivers wouldn’t pick up the fare. Instead we bought a cheap poncho and slow walked back on foot.

I paid to get my hair washed on the last day and it was the bestttt. Should have done that earlier!! She basically spent 15 minutes scratching my head and then 15 minutes massaging my head and then afterwards I felt sooo relaxed and my hair was soooo soft. Scott got a foot massage at the same place and this kid came in and played classical guitar while his mum got a massage and it was all so lovely.

Then the final day we had to head back to the airport and fly home! It was a whirlwind 6 days but soooo fun. I feel like we barely even made a dent in Hanoi, there is even more tucked away behind what you can see from the street!

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A busy month, but I mostly only took food pics? Oops.

We went out for gnocchi for my friend Jen’s birthday. Our group took up almost the whole restaurant. I had vegan gnocchi and it was a fun and delicious evening.

One of Scott’s #SMAJs was to take us to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. We walked around a lot and saw lots of stuff, like the elephants, hippos, zebras and gorillas… but we didn’t go on the safari bus! Which is apparently like the best part of the zoo!! Because we didn’t know that it was free!!!

(The key part of SMAJ activities is that Scott is supposed to do all of the planning and research and I just get to show up, so I had not talked about the zoo with anyone ahead of time because I didn’t know we were going.)

So a little bit of a SMAJ fail. We still did have a nice enough time, but maybe didn’t see everything there, and definitely not as close. It did make for some funny conversations at work the next day when they told me that the bus was free. I guess we have to go back some other time.

We went to see the Crash Test Dummies! I thought it was funny when they asked “Who listened to us in the 90s??? Who are the adult children of people that listened to us in the 90s???” (Me.) The dude still has a super low voice. They are one of the few bands that I know most of the words to their songs.

I voted in the Canadian Election. At least I think I did. The envelope has one of those Postage Paid printed stamps… I don’t know how high priority that gets sent through the postal system.

I woke up on a Saturday morning desperate for a cold cut sandwich. So we headed to Saul’s Sandwiches for lunch and had a lil picnic in the sun. It hit the spot.

Damien cooked up an epic Easter lunch for the whole family, with lamb and potatoes, and we all brought salads. Jemma made a delicious carrot cake. I feel spoiled.

Another #SMAJ! This time he took us out to try Burmese food, under recommendation from his new Burmese coworker. We just ordered things that we hadn’t heard of before. Everything we tried was tasty!

We had a very spontaneous afternoon games sess with Michael and Gina. Maybe it’s better to do it this way? Short and sweet and no pressure to clean and prepare everything perfectly. We played Finspan.

KNITTING UPDATES:

I started a pair of fingerless gloves because I wanted to try knitting with mohair, and finished the pair of slightly tweedy ribbed socks. I really like how the mohair looks, and how the socks turned out.

I nearly finished the drab sweatshirt, and then ordered a bunch more wool for a blanket and a cardigan and realised that maybe I am always drab.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between Scott and I, approximately one million medical appointments. There was some concern that my heart was going too slowly but turns out everything is fine, I am just healthy.
  • I went to Hawthorn to watch the Oceania weightlifting comp. Enjoyed how supportive (aka LOUD) the Samoan team is of each other. Nice to catch up with a few of my old weightlifting buddies, but they did not manage to convince me to start weightlifting again.
  • Scott started working!!!!!!!!! He is enjoying the job and they seem really good and organised!
  • We planted 50 bulbs of garlic. If they grow properly, you may receive garlic as part of your Christmas gift.
  • I started going to pickleball drill sessions where we just do drills for two hours. Some might find it boring but it’s been really helpful for me and it’s very physically and mentally challenging. Ana is very strict about technique. I now do 2-3 social sessions a week and one drills session.
  • We went to watch the movie Sinners which I enjoyed quite a bit! I think it was good that I went in blind as well.

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So after Malaysia, Rosemarie came back with me to Melbourne to hang out with us for a couple weeks while Scott was still not allowed to BLT (bend, lift, twist). She is a good sister/sister-in-law.

As usual we tried to cram a million things in so we had to have a group meeting about our goals, and a whiteboard, and a schedule. This is normal family behaviour, right? Rosemarie wanted to see an emu in the wild… unfortunately we didn’t find any of the four-legged variety for her.

We checked out Moomba. Saw some waterskiers and some jetpack people and some skateboarders. Got tacos and horchata from Dingo Ate My Taco.

Piccolina vegan pistachio ice cream. Yum.

We made Nagi’s beef rendang and tried three player Unfair a couple times. Still hate it. Scott sold it after that.

Rose and I drove across town so I could play free pickleball and she could have a swim. Then we went to Girls & Boys ice cream shop, the completely vegan ice cream shop I love. The lady scooping our ice cream told us about her explosive diarrhea. But the ice cream was amazing, as usual.

The next day I dragged Rosemarie to my usual pickleball session where we accidentally dressed the same and confused every single person there. They still have not recovered from this.

We went to the new St Kilda Pier to see penguins for free. They haven’t opened the penguin viewing platforms though so instead you have to cram together at the fence and hope a penguin decides to come out into the open. A few did, but I forgot to put the memory card in my camera so this fantastic phone picture is the only photographic evidence you’ll get.

Rosemarie really wanted to use our new mixer to make a pavlova. It turned out great! We brought it to family dinner at Jemma’s house.

My friend Steph told us about a free archery session we could do for International Ladies Day. It was fun to try a new thing and catch up with Steph (unpictured).

White-plumed Honeyeater
Magpie Goose
A lot of Magpie Geese
Emu

We went on an excursion to Serendip Sanctuary, near Geelong, to try and find Rosemarie an emu in the wild. It’s a lovely state park, with lots of different short walks and bird hides. The emu was technically in an unenclosed area, however I think it does get its food from the park, so not sure if that counts as wild or not. Most of the emus I’ve seen have been in campgrounds though, so I guess that’s just kind of how they get their food.

On the way back we stopped at Tofu Shoten, where we ordered one of everything. This was something like a strawberry mochi red bean deluxe dessert. It had a lot of elements. I liked some parts but not the others. Rose and Scott got things with matcha and coffee and I can’t remember what else. We also bought some biscuits that I really liked, and some savoury tofu for cooking later.

Cookin’ sisters.

Our final project was to make roti at home. The dough was easy enough to make in the mixer, and once we accepted the sheer quantity of Nuttelex we needed to stretch and form and shape and fry the roti, they turned out pretty good. We made plain roti and egg roti, served with a random curry pack we had in the freezer, and then a dessert course of Mars bar roti. Epic meal.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Between each of these activities, we played A LOT of board games. We played Everdell, Orleans, Kingdomino, Wingspan, Unfair, Qwixx, Empire’s End, Drop It, Welcome To, Deep Sea Adventure, Concordia and Crokinole.
  • We did NOT play Finspan because it arrived two hours after Rosemarie left. Womp womp.
  • We took Rose to the footy and we got drenched by ice rain and had to move undercover but still had a good time.
  • Rosemarie helped me fix up the backyard that desperately needed some attention. We did some major lemon tree prunage. Thanks sister.
  • We went to trivia in the boonies with Ash and Charlie and we won!
  • Rose did a bit of work, Scott did a couple job interviews.

All in all, it was an excellent visit and we were sad for her to leave. I wish we could spend time together all the time.

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Prepare yourselves to see a lot of mango smoothies. :D

It was a bit of a journey to get to the Perhentian Islands, but it was seamless. We flew to Kota Bharu, then caught a one hour Grab to Kuala Besut Jetty, and then a half an hour ferry that delivered us right to our accommodation. We got the last two spots on the boat, right at the front with all the bags. This ended up being extremely painful because the boat only seemed to have one speed (very fast), and every slam of the boat onto the waves reverberated up our spinal columns and turned them into dust.

We had three nights booked on the small island, and two nights on the big island.

We ended up arriving at our hotel in Coral Bay way before our room was ready so we went for a swim, checked out the restaurant next door (10 out of 10 mango ice blended), walked to Long Beach on the other side of the island, and swam again.

Ramadan had just started, and it was only the very very beginning of the tourist season there, so probably about 75% of the resorts and restaurants were closed. Options were quite limited at some points but there was still enough open for us to be looked after, with some flexibility. And on the plus side, there was barely anyone around so nothing was busy or crowded.

The customer service at Ombak was really great, like fancy resort style, but our actual room was pretty dingy, so we didn’t spend a lot of time in there. And there was A LOT of mosquitos so you need to have bug spray and cover up as much as possible at night.

Playing games in the resort restaurant area with my emotional support bug spray and my anti mosquito pineapple pants.

The view from our resort.

We booked a full day snorkeling trip for the next day, as this was what we had come to Perhentian Islands for. We went to a bunch of different places and they were all pretty amazing. At one of the places we saw more reef sharks than I have ever seen before, combined. Dozens and dozens of them! Very cool. Another place had huge turtles. One place had sooooooo many anemone with clown fish in every single one. We also saw sting rays, and lots and lots of types of fish.

I don’t have any underwater pictures because my GoPro died on Christmas Island.

We stopped at a beach as well. Rose and I did a game where we had 5 minutes to find the best piece of coral we could. I picked mine because I think it looks like a lizard, and Rose picked a piece of ROCK ON coral.

Back at Amelia Cafe for a pre-dinner snack (and game) because how could we possibly fast from 5:30pm to 7pm while the restaurant people had a break during their DAY LONG fast. Hehe. We had banana Sneakers roti, and mango ice blendeds, of course.

Exploring the much fancier resort next to ours at sunset. (Waiting until we can eat again.)

Then fish BBQ for actual dinner! We tried barracuda and kingfish. It was like $10 for a big piece of fish, rice, potato, salad, and fruit. Loved it, although it did take a very long time to come out.

The next day Rosemarie booked a few dives so I had a solo morning. I went for a walk and found another big monitor lizard. And got eaten alive by mosquitos.

Alone-y lunch back at the local. Delicious nasi goreng and a low mango mango blended.

I saw a lot of support for Palestine all throughout Malaysia. So refreshing.

When Rosemarie got back from diving we went for a little hike up to the windmills. It was hot. I got even more mosquito bites. And you probably shouldn’t go for a hike in a damp full body bathing suit. We got really stinky.

We had fish BBQ for dinner at Amelia Cafe again. I got barramundi and Rosemarie got a whole squid.

The next day Rosemarie did one more dive and I tagged along and snorkeled.

We had one last breakfast at Amelia Cafe before catching a boat taxi to the other island. We had three types of roti. We always had the same waiters looking after us every time we ate there because they get no days off! They were always asking us funny questions. When we told the waiter guys it was our last meal there they wanted to take a picture with us, haha.

Quick and easy boat taxi trip to the other island. The big island is bigger, but has less options on it. Again the service at our hotel was great (complimentary banana bread!), but the entire building felt like it was made out of sponges.

Hammock time. And the view from the big island to Fishermans Village on the small island. We heard a lot of prayers sounds from that mosque, at all times of day.

This was not our best meal. Really missed Amelia Cafe at that point. Probably our fault for going out to eat right before sunset when the staff was probably at their most exhausted and hangry.

The next day we booked a half day snorkel tour that would bring us to a few new locations. It ended up being a private tour with just Rosemarie and I, and our very sun smart boat driver who looked like a ninja.

It was good to go to new snorkel spots but there is probably a reason why they weren’t on the popular tour. Some were a bit choppy and it was a bit harder to see stuff. But it was still great! We didn’t get to see any Napoleon fish unfortunately, even though our ninja guide told us exactly where to look and how many to look for (one, and four, lol).

Post snorkeling mango ice blendeds. These might have been the best ones yet. Look at that height! Look at that shine!

We were hanging out in the hammocks and heard a weird sound that we hadn’t heard before. Went to check it out… MONKEYS! The best!!

Trying out another BBQ joint. This time we split a whole tuna. I asked what type of tuna it was and the man was like “It’s just tuna tuna”. Haha.

One last mango ice blended. The two ladies running this beach restaurant just sat in the shade as much as possible. You want food, you get the menu yourself and come to them, ha. I get it.

And then finally we caught the ferry back to the mainland. This time we were much smarter and sat right at the back of the boat. It was much more comfortable.

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Our next stop was Penang. Mostly for eating, hehe.

We decided to get off our bus early and take the ferry to Penang Island rather than sit in traffic over the bridge because our hotel was right next to the ferry terminal anyway. The ferry felt just like the Seabus in Vancouver!

We went to the Jetty Food Court for dinner the first night in Penang because someone had recommended it, and it looked cool and had tons of different options all in once place… but it was very mid. We had noodles and then walked around and tried to find another place for a second dinner/snack, but ended up in an Indian garment making area that was interesting but not food-filled.

Eventually we found a little roadside place where we could get cool drinks and finally try kaya toast (liked it).

Penang has lots of street art.

The next morning we caught the city bus (Penang has a lot of easy to use buses) around the north of the island to Escape Penang, because I wanted to go on the Worlds Longest Water Slide.

The amusement park actually has 4 Guinness Records:

  1. Longest Tube Water Slide – 1,111 metres – chairlift to the top, takes like 5 minutes to get down, very fun, you can see monkeys from the slide
  2. Longest Zip Coaster – 1,135 metres – absolutely terrifying, do NOT ask for an big push, wanted off the ride after the first 30 seconds, also lasted about 5 minutes, legit thought I was going to fall out the entire time
  3. Longest Tubby Racer – 453.3 metres – still pretty scary, worried about flipping and grating off all of my skin
  4. Largest Tipping Bucket – 28,757 litres – RIDICULOUS, requires several lifeguards to make sure that people don’t actually die when it tips, knocked me back about a meter into the stranger sitting behind me, a funny bonding experience

The park also had other extreme waterslides, like a carpet racer with automatic launching device, an aqualoop, some steep drop slides, a banana shaped slide that launches into the air (with a sign warning of high risk of dislocations). Also a lazy river that had no current and you had to legit paddle a boat with the shortest paddles ever to get around, and a Wipe Out type inflatable course that was fun and hard.

There was even more activities on the dry side of the park, like high ropes and rock climbing, but after our terrifying experience on the Zip Coaster, and sweating our way through the seven sketchy ziplines we decided we’d had enough and headed out.

Overall the park was extremely exhilarating. I’m glad that neither of us hurt ourselves.

We had to wait a long time for a bus on the way back because of a downed power line. By the time we got back to town it was dinner time so again we got off the bus early and headed to the Kimberley Street Food Night Market. We saw a big line for this little cart so we lined up. Turns out it’s a Michelin Guide joint famous for its braised chicken feet. (We didn’t get that… we got some type of koay teow soup.)

There are a bunch of restaurants nearby that will let you bring in outside food as long as you order a drink or a dessert. So we also got some satay skewers from another street vendor and some deliciously refreshing icy desserts. Such a good meal.

The next morning we checked out the jetties near our hotel. They are quite touristy but it’s neat that people live right on them. And I like their concrete bucket piles/footings system.

Then we went back to the night market we were at the night before, but in the morning, so we could try Penang-style laksa. Did you know that laksa is a breakfast food? We also got one of these Chinese meat pastry thingies that was super oily delicious.

We caught a Grab to Penang Hill and took the funicular up to the top. It was very high!

There were monkeys at the top and they were very funny, even though they were totally pests. We greatly enjoyed watching them dig through bins, try stuff, and throw things they didn’t care for.

Another couple of funny monkeys.

It was very hot up there but the view was nice we did a few little hikes. We were strategically picking routes that were mostly downhill, but ended up walking too far down and then we couldn’t get back on the funicular unless we walked way WAY further down, and it ended up being quite a long and tiring and sweaty experience.

On the plus side, we found a different type of monkey at the funicular midstation! So cute!!

Then we caught another Grab to a hipster market and had some kimbap and did a lil’ shopping. I got some cute stickers and Rose bought some socks that have roti on them.

For dinner we had nasi kandar, which is similar to nasi lemak but more curry-y and even more customisable. There were dozens of choices of proteins and vegetables. To be honest we were quite overwhelmed, but the restaurant dude was super helpful and patient with us! We chose a piece of fish and some marinated chicken and then he picked out a bunch of sides for us. It was tasty and the perfect amount of food. I liked seeing what plates the other people built for themselves.

The next morning we were up before sunrise to catch our flight to the East Coast!

Penang was great. So delicious.