Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia trip report 2013

[lovetotravel]

I was also looking for OYO time in Hanoi. I was thinking on Day 7 where it says rest of the day OYO? I believe you will have lunch and dinner available then.

 

[cschaaf]

On the day you fly to Luang Prabang, it says on your own after checking into the hotel. Any recollection on approx what time that was? Thanks for the info!

I don't remember specific times. It's hard for me to even remember exactly what we did on any given day. I meant to take notes, I just never did.

Here's what I think happened that day (and my wife also thinks the same)

We flew to LP and from the airport, we went to the museum and a temple then off to the hotel. There was some free time there, maybe 1-2 hours (?), then we met for a drive down to the night market - I'd guess it was about 6PM when we got dropped off. It was OYO dinner and free time after that. They arranged some tuk tuks to take us back if we wanted. Some chose to take the tuk tuks back and eat at the hotel. We stayed near the market and went to Manda de Laos and had them call us a tuk tuk when we were done. I'd guess we got to dinner around 7 and probably didn't leave until 8:30 or so.

That's one thing to expect, meals take forever.

Thanks for this update, I was also wondering about that. My daughter is trying to connect with a friend from school in Hanoi and we are trying to figure out when there will be free time to meet up with her. It looked from the itinerary that either of those mornings would work if we opt out of the hotel visit?

I was also looking for OYO time in Hanoi. I was thinking on Day 7 where it says rest of the day OYO? I believe you will have lunch and dinner available then.

Really tough to nail down exact times. The itinerary felt a bit fluid and we weren't given specific times until the day before. If you skip Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton), you will have that time to do something. There was also an option tour of the hotel bunker that would give you additional free time. I believe those were on the same day.

I think Hanoi went something like this:

• Arrive in the evening and have dinner at the hotel (included)
• Next morning went to a coffee shop on the way to the Ho Chi Minh complex, lunch at KOTO. Bus took everyone to Hoa Lo Prison, those that didn't want to tour stayed on and went back to the hotel. There were a few scheduled times to do the hotel bunker tour. Then we took the bus to the water puppet theater. Dinner was on our own after that.
• Next morning was tai chi then breakfast. Electric cart tour, then off to the airport. Lunch was OYO in the airport.

That 'rest of the day OYO' thing isn't valid anymore since they moved around flights. All of the online documentation shows the flights in the mornings. On our trip, our flights were mostly the afternoon prior to what the schedule shows. We had one fewer night in Hoi An (so no BBQ diner on the beach) and an extra night in Siem Reap. We were told this will be the new schedule going forward.

The book was slightly more accurate than the online documents but neither were 100% correct. They will give you an idea of the things you will (probably) do (we didn't go in the mausoleum, the BBQ beach dinner wasn't an option), but doesn't cover everything you will do, nor is it accurate as to when you will be doing them.

There is a descent amount of free time on this trip, but it would be difficult to try to pre-plan how to use it. The largest chunk of mid-day 'free time' on the trip would be that second day in Hanoi and you'd have to skip Hoa Lo and the bunker tour. That probably opens your schedule up from ~1:00 to 5:00 or so.

 

[lovetotravel]

That does make it very tricky to plan anything extra in Hanoi.
Did you enjoy your pretrip to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay and the Indochina cruise? That sounds like a good plan that I didn't consider. Did you fly there from the USA straight as your stopover? Also did you then fly back to HCMC to start the trip?

 

[cschaaf]

That does make it very tricky to plan anything extra in Hanoi.
Did you enjoy your pretrip to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay and the Indochina cruise? That sounds like a good plan that I didn't consider. Did you fly there from the USA straight as your stopover? Also did you then fly back to HCMC to start the trip?

Yeah, not having a set, detailed schedule makes it tougher to try to fit something else in. Being a bit of an over-planner myself, it was a little frustrating, but I get it. I think they want to limit people going off on their own then being late getting back for a group thing.

We loved both Halong Bay and Ninh Binh! They have similarities, but very different feels.

Halong is very touristy and built up. The main road through the town is lined with hotel after hotel that are mostly still being built. I would bet it's at least a mile of almost nothing but hotels next to each other like a strip mall. The bay was crowded with ships. I chose Indochina because they are one of the few that sails Bai Tu Long Bay which is much less crowded. They all sail from the same port - Halong is to the right, Bai Tu is to the left. From our ship, we could look across and see a steady line of ships going to Halong and we saw only a handful near us. We saw more commercial shipping than tour boats, I'd think.

Ninh Binh is sometimes called "The Halong Bay on land". It's less touristy (for foreigners) than Halong, but you can tell it's really starting to get more and more popular.

I explained it a bit earlier in this thread, but our pre-trip got shuffled up a bit, but still worked out. Here is a quick summary of what we ended up with:

• From the US, flew into Hanoi (Tallahassee > Dallas > Tokyo > Hanoi) and got to the hotel late at night.
• Checked out of that hotel and had a free morning.
• Afternoon transportation to Ninh Binh (using Tommy's Service). Checked into a hotel there.
• The next morning, Tommy picked us up and we did the tour we had arranged with him (Trang An boats, Bich Dong Pagoda, lunch, break, then the Dragon Mountain at Mua Caves).
• The next morning, Tommy transferred us to the Halong Cruise Terminal
• We did the afternoon cruise with Indochina
• After the cruise, Indochina transferred us back to the original hotel we used in Hanoi.
• The next morning, we used hotel transportation to get to the airport to fly to HCMC to arrive early on Day 1 of the ABD.
  • Flights were cheap (~$100 or less depending on airline)
  • That also gave us about 3/4 of a free day in HCMC (most of which we seemed to use just waiting for a waiter at lunch)

Both were amazing.

Here are some pictures:
Halong Bay




Ninh Binh

 

[Skylarr29]

I don't remember specific times. It's hard for me to even remember exactly what we did on any given day. I meant to take notes, I just never did.

Here's what I think happened that day (and my wife also thinks the same)

We flew to LP and from the airport, we went to the museum and a temple then off to the hotel. There was some free time there, maybe 1-2 hours (?), then we met for a drive down to the night market - I'd guess it was about 6PM when we got dropped off. It was OYO dinner and free time after that. They arranged some tuk tuks to take us back if we wanted. Some chose to take the tuk tuks back and eat at the hotel. We stayed near the market and went to Manda de Laos and had them call us a tuk tuk when we were done. I'd guess we got to dinner around 7 and probably didn't leave until 8:30 or so.

That's one thing to expect, meals take forever.




Really tough to nail down exact times. The itinerary felt a bit fluid and we weren't given specific times until the day before. If you skip Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton), you will have that time to do something. There was also an option tour of the hotel bunker that would give you additional free time. I believe those were on the same day.

I think Hanoi went something like this:

• Arrive in the evening and have dinner at the hotel (included)
• Next morning went to a coffee shop on the way to the Ho Chi Minh complex, lunch at KOTO. Bus took everyone to Hoa Lo Prison, those that didn't want to tour stayed on and went back to the hotel. There were a few scheduled times to do the hotel bunker tour. Then we took the bus to the water puppet theater. Dinner was on our own after that.
• Next morning was tai chi then breakfast. Electric cart tour, then off to the airport. Lunch was OYO in the airport.

That 'rest of the day OYO' thing isn't valid anymore since they moved around flights. All of the online documentation shows the flights in the mornings. On our trip, our flights were mostly the afternoon prior to what the schedule shows. We had one fewer night in Hoi An (so no BBQ diner on the beach) and an extra night in Siem Reap. We were told this will be the new schedule going forward.

The book was slightly more accurate than the online documents but neither were 100% correct. They will give you an idea of the things you will (probably) do (we didn't go in the mausoleum, the BBQ beach dinner wasn't an option), but doesn't cover everything you will do, nor is it accurate as to when you will be doing them.

There is a descent amount of free time on this trip, but it would be difficult to try to pre-plan how to use it. The largest chunk of mid-day 'free time' on the trip would be that second day in Hanoi and you'd have to skip Hoa Lo and the bunker tour. That probably opens your schedule up from ~1:00 to 5:00 or so.

Thank you for taking the time to write such detailed responses. Much appreciated.

 

[DCPhotoGal]

Just went to United.com to check on flight times and found out that due to a schedule change my flight out of Cambodia won't make it in time for my connection to the US . After 1.5 hours on the phone with United I had to get a refund for that portion and re-book on Singapore Air... less than 48 hours before my trip. Lesson learned: double, triple check your flights for these small carriers!

 

[lovetotravel]

Just went to United.com to check on flight times and found out that due to a schedule change my flight out of Cambodia won't make it in time for my connection to the US . After 1.5 hours on the phone with United I had to get a refund for that portion and re-book on Singapore Air... less than 48 hours before my trip. Lesson learned: double, triple check your flights for these small carriers!

What small carrier was that? Often we book out our flights many months in advance and experience changes even with US airlines as well, American and Delta included. They change planes, connection times, seat assignments, etc.

 

[DCPhotoGal]

What small carrier was that? Often we book out our flights many months in advance and experience changes even with US airlines as well, American and Delta included. They change planes, connection times, seat assignments, etc.

It was Jetstar Asia. Now I'm on Silk Air.

 

[disneyphx]

Oh my, so glad you caught it! We had something similar happen two months out so ended up with a night in Singapore....