DCPhotoGal
Photographer and Mom to 2 Princesses
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2011
- Messages
- 482
We just arrived back yesterday from our Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos ABD. I won't do a trip report here because there is already one in progress from this season--although I may do a writeup on my blog later.
I did, however, want to share a little of my overall thoughts about the trip.
First a photo of fellow DISer Tracy and I. We first discovered we were on the same trip here on the DIS boards and then got to spend time together on the trip. Our daughters ended up really getting along and they hope to meet up again this fall.
Ok here's my thoughts for future travelers:
HCMC: Upon arrival we were met *before immigration* and taken straight through a special gate, skipping all of the lines. This felt like a very VIP experience, and it was not as described in the materials we had received from ABD, so we almost missed the guy holding our names.
The Park Hyatt was a nice hotel and we enjoyed our "welcome back" drinks each afternoon, but the hotel and much of the nearby neighborhood was under construction making walking around on your own a little bit of a challenge. The streets are hard to cross and sometimes the motorbikes even drive on the sidewalks, so you have to take a lot of care to navigate your way around. We went to the big market to do some shopping on our day one free day. This was by far the worst shopping experience on the trip and I would recommend saving shopping for later in the trip. Vendors would grab my arm as I tried to walk away and said nasty things about us if we chose not to purchase items from them. The markets in all of the cities later in the trip were much better experiences.
The weather/clothes packing: it was HOT and HUMID and you are outside, not in air conditioning most of the trip. Couple that with the fact that you need to be in "temple-ready" attire most days, which means covered shoulders and pants/skirts to your knees. We sweated more on this trip than we have on any other trip. I usually plan to wear a pair of capris a couple times on a trip, but you sweat so much each time you don't want to put them back on. There were 2 laundry opportunities on the trip and we took advantage of both of them because we hadn't packed as many "temple ready" outfits as we needed. When packing, leave the tank tops, skirts, or shorts behind as you rarely can use them. Pack shirts with sleeves, capri pants (or long shorts for men) and sneakers. Almost every day we were in sneakers and they will get muddy. All Birds sneakers were popular in our group and worked well since they are washable.
Weight limits for suitcases were an issue for some people on our trip. I think the limit was 22kg for the internal flights. We flew Vietnam Airlines, so if you have a Delta FF number, be sure to bring it and you can get additional miles.
Hoi An: The hotel is very nice and we enjoyed the activities here a lot. Again, it was hot and humid the whole time, so that was the only concern and made it a little difficult to enjoy the outside activities. But they do try to use fans and stay in the shade for the open air experiences like the lantern-making and cooking class.
Hanoi: I enjoyed Hanoi as a city much more than HCMC. I was really impressed by how filled up the parks were of people being active. Our schedule here was much different than the itinerary, so it was a challenge to schedule the OYO time. We were trying to meet up with some school friends of my daughter and ended up having to miss the Hanoi Hilton visit to do so. The hotel there is lovely, but this is the only place I got sick. I'm still not sure what I ate or drank, but had some really bad stomach pains/cramps for both days here.
Laos: We really enjoyed the pace of Laos as compared to the big cities in Vietnam. The market here was very pleasant, but don't expect to buy tops--we mostly saw pants and dresses. We didn't see t-shirts again in the markets until Cambodia. The hotel is lovely and we enjoyed the activities. This is when the kids started to get a little "templed-out". We let our girls skip the last optional temple on the last day here and turns out most people did as well. The waterfalls were amazing. The guides recommended sneakers for this and I opted for flip flops because I didn't want to get my sneakers muddy and wet. Tevas or some kind of hiking/water shoes would have been the best option there. There are nippy fish in the water. They didn't bother us too much, but just something to be prepared for.
Cambodia: The hotel here is also great, but much bigger and less "just our group"-feeling than the one in Laos. The markets here were my favorite, and my daughter got a fish pedicure there, too. The t-shirts are pretty much all $2, and the pants $4-5. I loved riding around in the tuk-tuks and wish I would have realized that earlier during our time there. On the last day we had drivers take us around all morning (staying with us at each stop) and it was only $10 about 3 hours. We tipped generously because $10 seemed too little for all of their time.
For our ONO time on the past day we visited the APOPO visitor's center and learned how they are using large rats (ROUS, anyone?) to detected landmines. It was a very interesting visit and I'm glad we went.
Happy to answer any questions anyone has.
I did, however, want to share a little of my overall thoughts about the trip.
First a photo of fellow DISer Tracy and I. We first discovered we were on the same trip here on the DIS boards and then got to spend time together on the trip. Our daughters ended up really getting along and they hope to meet up again this fall.
Ok here's my thoughts for future travelers:
HCMC: Upon arrival we were met *before immigration* and taken straight through a special gate, skipping all of the lines. This felt like a very VIP experience, and it was not as described in the materials we had received from ABD, so we almost missed the guy holding our names.
The Park Hyatt was a nice hotel and we enjoyed our "welcome back" drinks each afternoon, but the hotel and much of the nearby neighborhood was under construction making walking around on your own a little bit of a challenge. The streets are hard to cross and sometimes the motorbikes even drive on the sidewalks, so you have to take a lot of care to navigate your way around. We went to the big market to do some shopping on our day one free day. This was by far the worst shopping experience on the trip and I would recommend saving shopping for later in the trip. Vendors would grab my arm as I tried to walk away and said nasty things about us if we chose not to purchase items from them. The markets in all of the cities later in the trip were much better experiences.
The weather/clothes packing: it was HOT and HUMID and you are outside, not in air conditioning most of the trip. Couple that with the fact that you need to be in "temple-ready" attire most days, which means covered shoulders and pants/skirts to your knees. We sweated more on this trip than we have on any other trip. I usually plan to wear a pair of capris a couple times on a trip, but you sweat so much each time you don't want to put them back on. There were 2 laundry opportunities on the trip and we took advantage of both of them because we hadn't packed as many "temple ready" outfits as we needed. When packing, leave the tank tops, skirts, or shorts behind as you rarely can use them. Pack shirts with sleeves, capri pants (or long shorts for men) and sneakers. Almost every day we were in sneakers and they will get muddy. All Birds sneakers were popular in our group and worked well since they are washable.
Weight limits for suitcases were an issue for some people on our trip. I think the limit was 22kg for the internal flights. We flew Vietnam Airlines, so if you have a Delta FF number, be sure to bring it and you can get additional miles.
Hoi An: The hotel is very nice and we enjoyed the activities here a lot. Again, it was hot and humid the whole time, so that was the only concern and made it a little difficult to enjoy the outside activities. But they do try to use fans and stay in the shade for the open air experiences like the lantern-making and cooking class.
Hanoi: I enjoyed Hanoi as a city much more than HCMC. I was really impressed by how filled up the parks were of people being active. Our schedule here was much different than the itinerary, so it was a challenge to schedule the OYO time. We were trying to meet up with some school friends of my daughter and ended up having to miss the Hanoi Hilton visit to do so. The hotel there is lovely, but this is the only place I got sick. I'm still not sure what I ate or drank, but had some really bad stomach pains/cramps for both days here.
Laos: We really enjoyed the pace of Laos as compared to the big cities in Vietnam. The market here was very pleasant, but don't expect to buy tops--we mostly saw pants and dresses. We didn't see t-shirts again in the markets until Cambodia. The hotel is lovely and we enjoyed the activities. This is when the kids started to get a little "templed-out". We let our girls skip the last optional temple on the last day here and turns out most people did as well. The waterfalls were amazing. The guides recommended sneakers for this and I opted for flip flops because I didn't want to get my sneakers muddy and wet. Tevas or some kind of hiking/water shoes would have been the best option there. There are nippy fish in the water. They didn't bother us too much, but just something to be prepared for.
Cambodia: The hotel here is also great, but much bigger and less "just our group"-feeling than the one in Laos. The markets here were my favorite, and my daughter got a fish pedicure there, too. The t-shirts are pretty much all $2, and the pants $4-5. I loved riding around in the tuk-tuks and wish I would have realized that earlier during our time there. On the last day we had drivers take us around all morning (staying with us at each stop) and it was only $10 about 3 hours. We tipped generously because $10 seemed too little for all of their time.
For our ONO time on the past day we visited the APOPO visitor's center and learned how they are using large rats (ROUS, anyone?) to detected landmines. It was a very interesting visit and I'm glad we went.
Happy to answer any questions anyone has.