With my wife Nathalie and my two daughters Camille (16) and Justine (21), we spent 4 marvelous weeks in Vietnam.
We arrived on August 5th in the morming in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) and we left Hanoi on the 1st of september in the evening.
Places we went on: Saigon, Long Hai beach, Mekong delta, Da Lat, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Halong bay and Sapa.

First week in Saigon

When we arrived at HCM airport, Lieu and Chi Nha, two sisters of my sister in law were waiting for us.

All the family coached us for the first week and we really enjoyed begining our first travel in Asia in these conditions.

Our first impression was about the weather (warm), the traffic road and the great number of motorbikes.

The first day, we had lunch at their home: home food was really good and copious.

We stayed in a Hotel not far from their home in a non touristic area and this was a good way to discover the real vietnamese life; it was cheap for HCM City but nobody spoke English in this hotel.

Ben Tran market

Ho Chi Min City central post office

Our first Pagoda

In the evening, we where invited at 7pm to go to Solo cafe; when we arrived, everybody had dinner except us and we were a bit embarassed so we invited them.

For the third day, we were invited by Chi Nga to go to Hay Long Beach 130 km far from HCM City.

Anh Hung and me

Chi Nga

On Saturday, we had a day trip to Mekong delta (70 km far from HCM City) always with Lieu and Be. You can't go to south Vietnan without visiting Mekong delta witch is really different from the rest of the country.

2nd Week : Da Lat - Nha Trang - Hoi An

On Sunday, we took a coach to go to Da Lat at 1500 m over the sea.
When we arrived there, it was raining and the temperature was about 20 degree and we really enjoy it because it was so warm in HCM City.
On Monday, we booked a trip around the city and we had a private guide which accompagned us all the day to see a lot of sites around the town.

In front of a waterfall

Another pagoda,

  Da Lat crazy house.

In the evening, we had a walk around the lake

The next day, our guide Quy drove us from Da Lat to Nha Trang.

He left us in a small Hotel 300m from the beach. Ruby Hotel was very cheap (200 000 VND / 11$ / 8E) and the owner, a young women, was very nice with us.

We staid there two nights, visiting 4 islands,

having sun bath and eating sea food.

We where very surprised when we met neighbours from Draveil there.

On thursday night, we went from Nha Trang to Da Nang by train. We thought our ticket was for a sleeping coach but was in a classic coach, only with vietnamese people. The travel was a bit difficult because the air conditioning was out of order.

On Friday morning, we arrived in Hoi An where we met our friend Eliane and all her familly. They were staying there for a full week for a Viet Vo Dao training course we tried one time.

Hoi An is the nicest city from vietnam, with a full area of old chinese style houses.

We vhere lucky to be there just for the Japan/Hoi An festival with a lot of animations.

After Hoi An, we went for 3 days to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam.

a dragon boat on the five parfums river

After Hue, we took the plane to reach Hanoi where we met Georges, a french friend who lives in Hanoi since 15 month.

We stayed a few days in Hanoi

Then we booked a 2 days trip to Halong Bay. The place was very nice and the Sampan clean but people traveling with as were too quiet for us.

We stay 2 more days in Hanoi but the weather was really warm and we were impatient to reach Sapa to get fresh air.

Sapa, our best trip in Vietnam.

We booked a 3 days trip in Sapa from thursday Aug 27th evening to monday Aug 31st

2 nights in a sleeping coach and two nights is Sapa.

On freiday morning, we started our medium treck we a french young couple and our guide Giang, a nice 18 Hmong girl.

We walked for about 12 km down to a valley, crossing rice plantations in terraces.

We where accompanied by Hmong wifes and girl who sold us a lot a traditional things.

The sight was really beautifull and the weather was cool (no rain, sunny days but not too warm).

The first night, we stayed in a home stay in Da Van village.

We had a really marvellous evening with all the people there: Giang and the other guide who received us in the homestay, Christophe and Geraldine, Quentin and Axel, 2 young french who came in Vietnam by the Transiberian and China, Phionna and Annie, 2 nice young wifes from Dublin, Bernard, a 19 year old Australian stayng for 6 month in Hanoi, a young polish guy, 2 funny spanish sister and 2 spanish couples nice but quiet for spanish people.

The food was very good, especially French fries with garlic and fried spring rolls.

After that, we played games, drunk rice alcool, a lot of beer and really enjoyed the evening.

Next morning, i woke up early and i climbed the mountain behind the home stay.

The sight was really beautifull and i made my best photo there.

Then, we had a very good breakfast with crepes and banana fritters (more than 2h to cook it) and started to another village 6 km far in the same valley. Sight and weather were always good and a bus drive us back to our hotel in Sapa.

A good shower, a light visit to Sapa market, dinner and we where in bed at 8pm.

For the third day in Sapa, we went to Cat Cat village and waterfall. After a last tour in the city, we toke the bus to Lao Cai to take the night train to hanoi. We arrived at 5 am and it was really surprising to walk in empty streets.

For our last 2 days, we stayed near our Hotel and made our last shopping before leaving Vietnam.

After that marvelous travel, i needed a full week to recover before beeing efficient at work.