Our Vietnam Trip Plan

About 2 years ago Mrs L and I were chatting over G&T (as you do) and discovered that we both wanted to take family holidays in Vietnam. We decided that in 2014 we would travel together. We've often camped together so we know we can cope with each other for reasonable periods of time, an important consideration in travelling partners.

In January we settled on the coming school holidays as the time to go (Cuboree is on during the September school holidays!) We both started reading up on places to go and came up with a short list.

Mr J is all grown up now, and has a job and other adult stuff is not coming with us this time, so he is going to look after home and keep it ticking over, feeding the fish and maybe the dog.

Our family are going for a little longer than the L family, as we wanted to do the Mekong Delta.  We locked in dates by finding cheap flights and from there came up with an itinerary that covered all the spots we wanted to go. Then Mrs L and I split the locations between us and each looked for hotels, tours etc in the various locations. We have tried to keep the accommodation in the mid price, central location with a pool, which is pretty high on the list of must haves when you are travelling with kids (and me, for that matter). And this is what we have come up with:

Day 1: Flying Air Asia via Kuala Lumpur to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon)
We chose Air Asia because they were a solid $1500 cheaper than any of the other airlines, and we are prepared to endure cramped space and crappy service to save that much $$

2 nights at Huong Sen Hotel, HCMC
We chose this hotel because it's central, in District 1 and has a swimming pool.

Day 3: Leaving most of our gear in HCMC, we will take the public bus (should be an experience, even buying the tickets will be interesting!) to Can Tho. There's a water park in Can Tho, which might get a visit from us.

2 nights at Nguyen Shack, Can Tho
I chose this because, well, look at it. How cool!! It has no pool, this is a sacrifice but we will cope.
We are going to do their tours too, can't wait!! And at some point, we will get to eat Elephant Fish.... I hope.

Day 5: Public bus (if we can find it and get there by 7am!) to Ben Tre

1 night at Oasis Hotel, Ben Tre (run by a Kiwi)
We decided on Ben Tre as it's a little off the main tourist route, we plan to hire some bikes and explore a bit. Chose the hotel because, pool, enough said.

Day 6: Back to HCMC via bus to meet with the L family, dinner at a BBQ restaurant.... if we can find it.  We have a list of restaurants to try and not enough time to try them all.

1 night back at Huong Sen Hotel in HCMC

Day 7: Fly to Hanoi

2 nights Tirant Hotel, Hanoi
Central, has a roof top pool. I see G&Ts at sunset up here while the kids swim. Although if the weather stays the same as it is right now.....38C with 100% humidity, it might be G&Ts IN the pool!!

We have a tour booked with Hanoi Kids,  an organisation that teaches kids English, they provide tours for free for English speakers to practice their speaking.
In Hanoi the street food is legendary, I'm actually not sure I have enough hours in the single day we have there to eat all the things I want to eat.

Day 9: To Halong Bay, where we board the Prince II junk for a 2 night cruise. We have reserved the entire junk for our two families. This is definitely the splurge of the trip! This is where I get to spend my birthday, sqeeeeeee.

Day 11: We get transferred from the Junk via a small village for a water puppet show, back to the train station in Hanoi.  Then overnight on the King Express to Cai Be, right on the border with China.

Day 12: A 2 day/1 night trek in the hills around Sapa, to see the beautiful scenery, meet the local people, stay in a home stay overnight and get very muddy.... or so I'm told.  For this portion of the journey, you have to travel with a guide, its not allowed to trek without. We have chosen Sapa O'Chau for this, as they run to benefit the local people and run a school for the local children.

Day 13: Back to the overnight train to Hanoi

Day 14: We get back to Hanoi at some hideous time of the morning and will then re-enact the Amazing Race to try to get to Hanoi airport before our flight to Hue leaves without us. Wish us luck!!

3 nights at Pilgrimage Village Resort and Spa
This place is $70 a night per room, seriously, look at it. We added an extra day here just to get dedicated lay by the pool time!!

Day 17: Private car/tour to Hoi An

4 nights at Vinh Hung Riverside Resort
We are splashing out here again, mostly due to there being 4 of us, and we have booked a suite.  It's 5 mins walk to the old town, has a street food vendor thing there every afternoon and has a pool.... with a BAR. Yep.

We have booked a street food tour for our last day here. Nom.

Day 21: Home :(

We have a list of places we'd like to see and things we'd like to do in each place, but we haven't booked anything yet beyond what I've mentioned because it's a pretty full on itinerary and it might be that we feel like laying by the pool rather than touring.