We have had limited opportunities to share any of our experiences due to the long days and limited access to our computer. We will provide details when we return home, but for now we at least wanted to share a few photographs from some of the places that we’ve seen. After a couple of days in Hanoi, Vietnam, we flew to Vientiane, Laos where we spent an afternoon at Buddha Park, which was amazing. Needless to say, the pictures don’t truly do it justice, but here is a brief glimpse into this wonderful site.
Jaws of TeethDifferent Styles of Statues in the ParkA Sense of CalmLooking Over the ParkReclining Buddha
We are one day away from heading to the airport to depart for Vietnam. We have several tours scheduled in order to maximize our time, but also have some time to explore on our own. Needless to say, we are really looking forward to our experiences. It will be a busy trip, but we are looking forward to seeing as much as possible. Here is a brief outline of what we’ll be doing over the next couple of weeks.
Hong Kong Tour – We purposely chose a long layover in Hong Kong and have lined up a 6 hour tour to explore the city. We fly from Hong Kong to Hanoi in the early evening after our tour.
After spending the night in Hanoi, we will have a full day to ourselves to explore the Old Quarter and Sword Lake. There will certainly be plenty of opportunities to enjoy different types of street food and restaurants.
We have the first part of the day to continue to explore Hanoi on our own, but meet a chef in the afternoon where we’ll go to a local market to pick up ingredients and then learn to cook an authentic 5 course Vietnamese meal.
The following day, we fly from Hanoi to Vientiane, Laos where we have an Airbnb. After getting settled, a guide will pick us up to take us to the famous Buddha Park.
After a good night sleep, we will have a guided tour of Vientiane and see a variety of temples and other famous sites.
Our flight back to Hanoi doesn’t leave until the evening on the next day, so we will have a pretty full day to explore Vientiane on our own and make sure that we experience as much of the food and culture as we can.
Having arrived back in Hanoi, things get even busier for our next four days. First we will do a Hao Lu – Tam Coc – Mua Cave Tour. This is a full day tour that features temples, bicycling through the countryside, taking a sampan on the Ngo Dong river, and visiting 3 different caves and seeing panoramic views of the countryside.
The next day we will travel four hours to the marina of Ha Long Bay where we will embark on a two day cruise that features amazing views of the islands as well as exploring more caves in the bay.
After two days exploring Ha Long Bay, we do our final tour in Vietnam and visit Perfume Pagoda. We’ll take another boat ride on a river and see the unique pagoda that is actually inside of a cave.
Finally, we start our return trip where we again have a long layover in Hong Kong and will be spending the night there before finally getting on our long flight back to the United States.
It should be an amazing trip, but as busy as we’ll be our opportunities to post will be limited. We look forward to sharing all of our experiences upon our return.
We are less than two weeks away from our next trip, which will take us to Hanoi, Vietnam and Vientiane, Laos. Obviously we are very excited to visit these two fascinating countries and perhaps a little nervous as well. We’ve mentioned before that we really enjoy pushing our boundaries and seeing places that are truly foreign to our daily lives and this trip should definitely live up to those expectations. We have several tours booked for our time there and can’t wait to emerse ourselves into the local culture as much as possible.
We Can’t Wait to See the Landscapes and Compare it to Other Places We’ve Visited, Like the Amazon JungleExpecting Busy Streets in Hanoi that Might Remind Us of Chennai
In addition to seeing parts of Vietnam and Laos, we also have two long layovers in Hong Kong and have a tour set up for there as well. Just like our trip to India, the travel time is long and we will be making every effort to reduce the consequences of jetlag on our arrival to Asia. The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong is the longest leg of the flight at a little over 15 hours in the air, so we’ll be doing our best to get some rest and be prepared to hit the ground running in Hong Kong.
