Our 12 Day Travel Plan

Having realised how much I rely on and appreciate tips from other travellers, I’ve decided to share some useful info I picked up during my recent travels in Vietnam. If I visit somewhere that you would like some more travel info on please don’t hesitate to contact me, or ask for me to share a post detailing travel prices, vegan places to eat, etc.

Deciding where and how to travel while my mum and step-dad (Ian) came to visit was quite a difficult task. With so many amazing places to see in Vietnam our options were plentiful, but with not a huge amount of time (12 days) and without using motorbikes to get there we were limited in how much we were able to see.

So how did we decide? Once they had confirmed they would prefer not to travel by motorbike (and I had politely advised that hiring a car here was a terrible idea), public transport was the obvious choice. The next step was to try to allow them to see as many different things as possible, to experience some of the more traditional travel methods, but not to spend all our time travelling.

Eventually we decided our destinations. Starting in Hanoi I thought it would be great if they could see some other places away from the north. Hue offered some insight into Vietnamese history with the Imperial City. Danang is very different from Hanoi, with a more metropolitan feel and a hint of modern European influence. Hoi An is both a seaside and a river town, and though it is becoming a bigger tourist hotspot every day it offers some great history of its own, as well as a picturesque evening view with gently lit lanterns highlighting the Ancient Town at night. Our final destination would be Cat Ba Island, the gateway to the famous beauty of Halong Bay.

Knowing Ian’s love of trains, and some of the amazing views to be enjoyed travelling this way, I knew that was a must at some point along the way. How much to travel via train was the question. Initially I had thought we could travel all the way from Hanoi to Danang and back in this way – travelling during the daytime to enjoy the scenery on the journey south, at night on the way back to save time. As I went to online to book this however, it dawned on me it may not be the best use of time, and that the night train back would probably result in a poor night’s sleep and so less activity the following day.

Eventually, we finally had our plans drafted out having found a sensible mix between fastest journey times and cheapest ways to travel. We would take a plane from Hanoi to Hue, then a train from Hue to Danang, followed by a local bus to Hoi An. A few days later we would travel back to Danang and return to Hanoi via plane, before catching a bus and boat out to Cat Ba Island.

All prices below at in Vietnamese dong (VND), to give you an idea of value:

• £1 equals approximately 30,000VND
• $1 equals 24,000VND

Here are a few handy travel hints for these journeys:

• Book at the train station, not online. It’s considerably cheaper than the Vietnam Train website!

• The public bus (number 1) from Danang to Hoi An is very easy to catch and is around 25,000 VND As with all public buses here you have to be ready to jump on as they don’t like to hang about! Once on, you can enjoy a good half hour – hour (depending where you catch the bus from) of people-watching as you speed along. Google Maps has a great feature in that you can click on small blue bus stop icons which will tell you which buses stop there. If you click on a particular bus it will show you the route it takes.

• Take a Grab not a taxi – unless your bartering skills are second-to-none. We arrived at Hoi An bus station and from here the cheapest taxi rate was 90,000VND per person, a Grab was 90,000VND in total!

Getting to Cat Ba:

• The cheapest option I am aware of to get to Cat Ba from Hanoi is via bicycle and public boat, the second cheapest (and more common!) being motorbike and public boat. On this occasion, for a stress free and time saving journey, we opted for a bus-boat package to Cat Ba Island from Hanoi. After some review searching Cat Ba Express appeared to be one of the most reliable companies and it did not disappoint. They were punctual, friendly, offered a half-way toilet break, and even some refreshments. This is currently around 350,000VND one way or 600,000VND return.

Vegan Food:

As a vegan it can be a bit of a battle finding interesting food on the road. Whenever I’m in a new place and looking for somewhere that provides vegan food I find one of the best ways to discover them is simply by typing ‘vegan food near me’ into Google. In Vietnam ‘Ăn Chay’ means vegetarian, so you’re likely to come across some traditional Vietnamese options if you hunt down signs with this written on.

Here are some interesting places we tried along the way (they’re not the cheapest options, but they were darned tasty!).

Hue – we found a great place called ‘The Nook’ a Vietnamese/Western fusion.

Hoi An – ‘The Fisherman’ vegan restaurant is at An Bang beach. It has some great seating looking out over the sea and even a couple of swings to chill on! They made smoothie bowls so good I’m still dreaming of them one month on…

Cat Ba Island – try ‘Casa Bonita’ for some fresh veggies and a variety of vegan options. ‘Quiri Pub’ has a limited selection for vegans, but the food and cocktails definitely make it worthwhile as does the chance to occasionally see the owner practising his flairing (the art of juggling barware) skills out the front of the restaurant.