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Back when I thought we were going to go to Vietnam the first time in 2024, before Scott poked a hole in his spinal canal, I spent a long time going through Instagram posts and guide books and blogs finding all sorts of delicious food places to try and saving them all onto a Google Map. This very much came in handy for this trip because it gave us options when we didn’t know where to eat. We ended up checking off a lot of the ones I had saved in Hanoi.

Scott tried all sorts of different coffees. He had this classic Vietnamese coffee very early in the morning on the street with people on their way to work. It came out of an esky. Rated it 10/10.

(Since our trip was so short, and we had to go straight back to work after getting back, we mostly stayed on Melbourne time, so we were up early a lot.)

Couple of egg coffees. The first time he didn’t know it had two layers so he kind of ate the top part by itself, and thought it was too rich, but then realised there was super strong coffee underneath. The second time he mixed it a bit. He said he liked egg coffee but it was more of a dessert than a drink.

The other drink was one of the most delicious mocktails I have ever had, it was a iced peach tamarind drink, that came with crunchy peanut and toasted coconut bits on top. It was a flavour and texture sensation.

Scott also tried coconut coffee, which he liked, said it wasn’t too sweet, and salt coffee, which wasn’t that salty.

A bowl of beef pho that I added too much chili to, and some stir fried morning glory with garlic.

Bún Cá. Fish noodle soup with two different types of noodles, and a deep fried fish nugget on the side. The soup was loaded with fish chunks. It is funny trying to eat long noodles with chopsticks in front of a strongly blowing fan.

Bún Đậu. This restaurant was hidden away in an alleyway. We weren’t given any menus, just told to sit down, and then about 3 minutes later they brought out this big platter for us with a little ticket saying 80k ($5AUD). Fine with me! It came with all sorts of fried bits, some tofu-y, some fish-y, some meat-y. We bundled the pieces up with herbs and noodles and dunked in the sauce. Delicious. Although as I’m looking this dish up now, I think it is supposed to come with shrimp paste dipping sauce and they didn’t give us that. I guess they decided that whiteys wouldn’t like it. Ah well, still very good without!

Sticky rice with pork and fried shallots. We didn’t really understand how this restaurant worked… in hindsight I think we were supposed to add more toppings.

Our hotel had an expansive breakfast buffet but we didn’t eat there often because there was more delicious stuff to be found outside!

Like Bánh cuốn!! Freshly made rice sheets rolled with pork and mushrooms, generously sprinkled with fried shallots, bundled with herbs, and dunked in nước chấm. Eaten on tiny stools on the side of the street.

We had it twice! The first one was huuuuuge and also came with fatty delicious sausage. The second one was smaller, but cheaper, and we also got a fried egg. Fried shallots are the best.

Bánh mì. Slightly different than Melbourne-style banh mi. It had lettuce and egg, no cucumber, and was more saucey, and they smush the bread in a press at the end. Pretty tasty, especially for a couple of dollars.

We bought a small segment of durian to try. I actually kind of like the smell of durian on the street, but once it gets close to your face it smells wayyyyy worse. It has a real hint of gasoline and bin juice to it. Neither of us liked it at all. I think there are much better creamy things to eat in the world.

Now this is a fruit I can support. I loooooove mangosteen. We bought a kilo of it for about $8 AUD, which seemed very expensive at the time, but we went to the Queen Vic Market the other week and I saw it for $60/kg!!! LOL! The lady selling them picked out all small ones for me, which I thought was rude at first, but then I found out the small ones have less chance of having those big seed segments and she was actually being kind. Delicious.

Big bowl of soup with a crunchy thing to break up and mix in. Don’t remember what that was called.

Bánh Khọt. Lil savoury shrimp pancakes. Wrapped in herbs and dipped in nuoc cham of course. (Everything is dipped in nuoc cham.)

Nộm thịt Bò khô. Dried beef salad. This popular restaurant was very big and busy. But actually I didn’t like this salad that much. Too sweet.

Bún chả. A Hanoi specialty and I understand why. This was my favourite meal of the trip. Delicious fatty pork pieces in a delicious broth. Grab a piece of pork, some pickled vegetables and herbs, some noodles, and shove it in your mouth, delicious sauce dripping down your chin and splattering all over your clothes. Worth doing extra laundry. We also had some epic spring rolls. And all for like $5 or something ridiculous.

We had it again at a different restaurant. This place the pork was even thicker and fattier. Washed down with ice tea. Incredible.

A friend saw that we were in Hanoi on Instagram and sent me a message saying I need to go find this doughnut lady on her behalf, because she still dreams about these (vegan) doughnuts. They did not disappoint. We got two of each: glutinous rice savoury, glutinous rice sweet, sesame, and sugar. They were perfectly crispy on the outside, chewy like mochi on the inside, and had crunchy bits in the middle. Amazing. Also they were ten to fifteen cents each.

Bánh xèo is not popular in Hanoi but I still really wanted to have it so I found one restaurant that specialised in it. We just got the base model, with pork and prawns, and it was huge and delicious. For this one you take a sheet of rice paper, add a piece of crispy rice pancake and some herbs, fold it up, dunk in nuoc cham, and shove in mouth. Crunchy and yum.

One last thing we had to check off our Hanoi Food Bucket List was Bia hơi, a fresh draught beer that they brew up every day without preservatives, and sell for about $0.50 a glass on the street. It is not very strong. Comes with peanuts. I didn’t mind the beer but there was a very annoying American guy there that made the experience kind of annoying.

We didn’t eat at this lady’s shop but I was very impressed by her mise en place.

So much veg prep required every day. Back breaking work.

It looks like we ate so much stuff but most of the time we only ordered one dish at a time and split it, so we could try more things at different places. The fresh vegetables balance out the fried food well and overall it didn’t feel super unhealthy. Luckily we didn’t have any GI problems either.

Writing this post has made me very hungry!! Please forgive me if I made any mistakes with the names. And let me know if you are going to Hanoi and want some specific restaurant details!

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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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Delicious Malaysian food at Pappa Laksa for my birthday. We had Beef Rendang Nasi Lemak, Pappa Special Laksa, Ice Cendol and Teh Tarik. I felt like I was back in Malaysia (besides the price, lol). Now that I’m thinking about this meal again I want to go to the restaurant again.

Happy 15th anniversary! We just went out for a casual lunch after pickleball because the real celebration was coming later (I’ll make another post).

Even though I vowed to drive to the Bendigo Wool Show after our experience last year, Ash convinced me to take the train again, with some modifications. We drove to Southern Cross, made sure to allow more time to find the platform, and crossed our fingers there would be no global technology meltdowns on that particular day. It all worked out, we had a very nice day out in the country and saw lots of cool stuff.

Loved these cute lil amigurumi vegetables!

I bought way more stuff this time haha. The yarn stash is plentiful at the moment. I told Scott to tell me off if I try to buy anything more now. I swear I have plans for all of it!! (Just need to quit my job so I have time to knit all of it…)

Lara invited me to go to the Peninsula Hot Springs with her and her mum. Very glad she suggested we pay a little extra to go on the adults only bathing side because we had a really lovely relaxing day in there, despite the weekend crowds. Our spa lunch was yum as well. We stayed for a long time!! My muscles felt very relaxed after that day.

More Critter Kitchen! It really is a cute and fun game. And pretty unique mechanisms compared to our other games, but not too hard either.

Scott has to get glasses. He hasn’t picked a pair yet. Rosemarie thinks this makes him look like that shooter guy from the last Olympics. I see it.

I had to go into the city to see my allergy doctor, finally a chance to try one of the places on my To Eat map that is only open weekday lunch times. I went to Warkop and had the Beef Brisket Rendang and Pickle sandwich which had way more cheese on it than I was expecting, but was really tasty. I would like to go back to try the Satay Chicken sandwich, but I only need to see the allergy doctor once per year!! Long wait.

Finished these stripey socks for Scott. Self striping yarn is very fun and easy.

The start of a hat for Lauren. The brief was “colourful hat”. Hope he likes it!

I am experimenting with crochet again for a commission project, and while I have managed to get my crojo back, I don’t know if I like how the piece is turning out so I might give up on this project. Need to discuss.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Sally had a crafternoon at her new apartment and cooked us a FEAST!!! There was so much food, and she made pretty much everything lactose free so I could eat it all! My favourite was the lactose free cheesecake. We are truly spoiled. I knitted Lauren’s hat, and Scott ended up playing Magic with da boys.
  • I started using my fitness passport to go to the pool near my work to swim and use the hot tub after work. If I use my imagination, I can pretend I’m back at the Peninsula Hot Springs. :D
  • We went to see Jurassic Park as our July #SMAJ. It was very stupid.
  • Trivia. The usual.
  • Pickleball. The usual.

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Just a quick little post as there’s only like 18 hours left of the trip, but I couldn’t skip posting about my favourite roti of the entire trip!

So we had one night back in Kuala Lumpur before we were flying back to Melbourne. We booked a hotel near the airport rather than bother going back into actual KL. After flying in from Kota Bharu we caught the free airport shuttle to the outlet mall, where I bought a cheap pair of Nikes, and then dropped our bags off at our hotel.

Then we walked around the neighbourhood to find something for dinner. We picked an Malaysian/Indian-ish mamak because it looked like we could get roti again, even at nighttime, a rarity.

The guy in the drinks booth was very funny. He was like TAKE A PICTURE OF ME WHILE I POUR THIS TEA!!! We had a couple more limau ices, delicious.

We tried rojak again, but decided it’s not our favourite. And we got some tandoori chicken that was GREAT. They really know how to cook meat well in Malaysia.

And some roti of course. Plain, and KAYA. They absolutely loaded it with kaya and it was amazing. (Not sure why they still served with daal though.) As a person who never really liked any breakfast spreads, the discovery of kaya has been life changing.

Happy sister.

Another reason we love Malaysia – they use Planta for everything, which is dairy free!

After eating the kaya roti I asked the man if they would be open the next morning, and he said yes because they are open 24 hours a day! So we went back the next morning and had it again for breakfast. :D

Happy Kat.

We went for a quick swim at the hotel and then headed back to KL airport, which is pretty much like a mall itself. We had curry laksa and got bubble teas to take on the plane. Great.

Even my $6 airplane nasi lemak was pretty decent for plane food.

And then Rosemarie and I headed back to Melbourne!

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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.