Sara and I usually prefer to design our own travel plans, hiring a guide now and then to enhance our appreciation of some area, but not joining large groups to hop on a multi-day bus tour from one spot to another. But we were intrigued when some fellow travelers recommended tours that they had taken. We were especially intrigued by a tour of Vietnam offered by Overseas Adventure Tours (OAT) since we would already be in Southeast Asia in Thailand. And so we signed up for the eighteen-day tour to “Inside Vietnam” and added another five-day extension to visit Cambodia. Our experience was outstanding. We will surely travel with OAT again

What I loved so much about our travel with Overseas Adventure Travel were the daily personal experiences. I will remember these experiences more than the museums or important landmarks we saw. This is 9 of our travel group of 13 on one of the many visits into the countryside visiting with people who lived and worked outside of the cities, learning about their lives. This is also one of many modes of transportation we used - no bus on this road.

What’s great about OAT Tours?

Great Local Guides who know the culture and the terrain.
A Smaller Tour: With a cap at 16, you have lots of room on the bus. Our group was only 13.
Solo Friendly Travel: They save space for solo tourists with no extra charge.
A Well-Designed Itinerary provides a good balance of planned activities and free time.
Multiple nights in each stay – no hotel hopping each day of the trip.
“A Day in the Life” provides opportunities to meet and socialize with locals, to learn about their culture and how they live their lives.

Our Fabulous TEL, Mr. Yo Tran: OAT prefers not to call their tour guides tour guides. Instead, they call them Trip Experience Leaders (TEL for short). Well, no matter what you call him, our TEL, Mr. Yo Tran, was fabulous. He was friendly, warm, and a bit of a jokester. From day one, when he first taught us how to safely cross through traffic in Hanoi, to the end, when he brought his lovely family to meet us at our “Farewell Dinner,” Yo was always helpful and sensitive to our individual needs. Yo became friends with each of us.

Inside Vietnam with OAT: The Itinerary:

5 nights at the Sunway Hotel in Hanoi –> Bus to Halong Bay
1 night on the Bien Ngoc Junk Boat in Halong Bay –> Bus to Hanoi Airport for Flight to Hue
2 nights at the Cherish Hotel, Hue –> Bus to Danang for Coffee & Beach then too Hoi An
3 nights at the Gem Riverside Hotel, Hoi An –> Fly to Nha Trang
2 nights at the Yasaka Nha Trang Hotel –> Bus to Dalat
2 nights at the Sammy Dalat Hotel –> Fly to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City
3 nights at the Huong Sen Hotel Annex, Saigon. “Inside Vietnam” Tour Ends.

In Hanoi and Halong Bay: March 30- April 4

Things we loved about Hanoi: It’s a beautiful city with greenery and trees, even along the busiest streets. The people were warm, welcoming and gracious. We spent many hours walking the streets and always felt safe. As in Thailand, street food is popular here. At small shopfronts along the sidewalk, they sell fresh food of all kinds – noodles in soup, grilled meats, and Banh Mi sandwiches, fruit, tea, — which people either take away or eat right there, sitting on child-sized plastic stools along the sidewalk.

Food: The food in Vietnam was good, even if it didn’t quite compete with what we ate in Thailand. Our Thai friends called it “bland,” but we usually enjoyed it, grateful that it was not so spicy-challenging. Our hotels all included breakfast with a good variety of Vietnamese and American options. Although we were left on our own for some meals, most were provided with a fixed menu of four to six courses at really nice restaurants. I learned to love these fixed menus. With no need to agonize over menu decisions: we could just enjoy each surprise they offered. And we tried all sorts of lovely dishes.

And when we were on our own for dinner, Yo always offered suggestions and even led some of us to his favorite places. For example:

The “Combo Obama”: Great Rice Noodles in Hanoi: Vietnamese people eat a lot of noodles, and for any meal of the day, so there’s a lot of competition for the best noodles. One night Yo took us to one of many non-descript noodle restaurants where we sat upstairs in a crowded room that featured a huge photo of Barak Obama and Anthony Bourdain enjoying their noodles. In 2016, when Obama made an historic presidential visit to Vietnam, he found time to join Bourdain at his favorite Hanoi noodle shop. When we visited, they offered a “Combo Obama” of rice noodles and pork, with a bottle of beer, so that’s what we all ordered. We were not disappointed.

Bún chả at Bún chả Hương Liên, 24 Le Van Huu, Pham Dinh Ho, Hai Ba Trung, Hanoi

Rickshaws Anyone? For one of our evening dinners, Yo arranged for Rickshaws to ride us up through town to our restaurant.

Before our tour began, some of us took a “Hop-On-Hop-Off” bus ride to get a feel for the city. Along the way we passed three different lakes that are right in the city, including Truc Bach Lake where Senator John McCain‘s fighter jet was shot down in 1967. From there, the injured McCain was taken to join other pilot POWs shot down by the Vietnamese in the Hoa Lo Prison.

Hoa Lo Prison, Maison Centrale, in Hanoi, is otherwise known to Americans by the ironic name of the “Hanoi Hilton”: This is where John McCain and other POW pilots were held until the war’s end and negotiations brought them home. But Maison Centrale was significant historically long before the American-Vietnamese War. Today it’s a very moving museum, preserving the prison and its long history. Built in the 1880’s by the French colonizers of “French Indochina,” it was used to house, torture, abuse, and execute political dissenters. When it comes to the American War when the North Vietnamese housed American POW’s here, the museum suggests that American prisoners were treated pretty well, were given medical treatment, and were never abused. So, according to the Vietnamese, they were pretty good to their prisoners, while the Americans did not necessarily tell the same story. Not surprising. Those who win get to write the history, seeing it their own way. Nevertheless, Maison Centrale is well worth a visit.

Water Puppet Master: Most of us had never heard of “Water Puppets” before coming to Vietnam, but it’s a long-established tradition in North Vietnamese culture. So our guide, Yo, led us to the home of a leading water puppet master. The puppets are carved from wood, painted, and lacquered. The master’s home is filled with puppets: he makes them himself and is teaching his son to continue the family tradition. On the third floor of his home, he’s built a water puppet theater with a knee-deep pool. After demonstrating his water puppets in action, the master stepped out from behind his curtains, still wading in the pool, and invited us to play with the puppets.

“A Day in the Life,” a regular feature of an OAT Itinerary, is an opportunity to learn about local culture and see how locals really live. We bused out from Hanoi and boarded a short ferry ride to Thổ Hà village, where we were met by Mr. Viet, the “Chief” of the village. He led us through the village Temple, and then on to his own home where we met his family and tried our hands at making rice paper which we then used to make the spring rolls that we enjoyed for lunch. We enjoyed a great meal, and Yo translated as we chatted about all aspects of village life. We learned about traditional herbal medicine from Mr. Quang, the local doctor who visited. Then Mr. Viet entertained us a bit with his music performed on traditional Vietnamese instruments.

The Land Reform: On another day we visited with Mr. Nam and his wife in Bat Trang village to learn about the “Land Reform” period in North Vietnam. From 1954-56 the communist government took land away from wealthy owners, like Mr. Nam’s family, and even encouraged violence against those who were well off: they were “capitalists,” and therefore assumed to have enjoyed the easy life while others suffered. Mr. Nam and his wife welcomed us warmly and told us how they lost five properties and were persecuted by their neighbors. Only one home, the one we sat in, was eventually returned to them. But happily, they lived through the period, while thousands of others were actually killed.

At one point Mr. and Mrs. Nam seemed to be arguing with each other, creating a real challenge for the translator, our Mr. Yo. But Yo was both kind and effective in keeping peace and helping us appreciate what these people had endured.

The Village for Ceramics. Bat Trang is a small village, but it’s known and celebrated for its ceramic pottery. So, Yo took us to a Ceramic Workshop where we saw the process and even tried to “turn” some pottery ourselves. Believe me, it’s harder than it looks. Then we visited the market where all the ceramics are sold. There were so many beautiful pieces, both small and large, some quite functional and others strictly decorative. At times like this, it’s a good thing that we have no room in our luggage to buy and carry anything more. The temptation is just too great.

Egg Coffee at the “Hidden Gem:” I never knew that Vietnam was a major coffee producer. They produce Arabica, Robusto, and Moka, preferring their java very strong, like their Robusto, often serving it with sweetened, condensed milk. We also discovered some unusual varieties along the way. In Hanoi, Yo guided us to the “Hidden Gem“ to try the Egg Coffee. The Hidden Gem was hard to find – we never would have found it on our own, but it was well worth a visit. The owner decorates with recycled items: lights made from plastic bottles, tables and chairs made from tires, wheels, and saddles of ancient Japanese. All waste is efficiently recycled to create green space. Photos on the wall carry messages such as “Say no to plastics,” or “If you can’t clean your surroundings, then don’t make it dirty”, and “Go Green, Think Green, Drink Green, Eat Green”, etc. It’s a fun space to visit.

So what is Egg Coffee? Atop a strong cup of coffee is a layer of whipped egg yolk with a bit of nutmeg — kind of a combination of coffee and egg nog. Unusual and good for a treat, but not my preferred cup of coffee.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the “Imperial Citadel.”: For the North Vietnamese, Ho Chi Minh is like America’s George Washington, the most important forefather of their nation. His mausoleum is a well-guarded, huge grey cube of a building, and our visit through it to catch a glimpse of the founder’s corpse was carefully watched.

On the day of our visit, many school groups were also there. We just loved it when the young Vietnamese, smiling in their school uniforms, would approach us. They were so happy to greet us and to practice their English, asking us where we came from and what it was like. We really loved chatting with all these charming Vietnamese children. We visited other buildings on the grounds of the Citadel where Ho Chi Minh lived a pretty simple life, and where he and his generals planned their strategies through the war.

The Temple of Literature was the first national university, founded in 1070, by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong as a temple honoring Confucius. Today it’s a lovely park with five courtyards and temple buildings to honor education. During our visit, large groups of students in their robes and graduation finery were happily celebrating the end of another school year. Vietnam takes education very seriously. The country’s literacy rate is among the world’s highest at 95.8% as of 2019. (The USA is around 86%)

Beer Street: Sara, Brian and I visited the center of night life in Hanoi, just known as Beer Street. It’s crowded and fun, as we bounced from one bar to another, sitting on those child-sized plastic stools and sampling the local draft beers – all lagers, unfortunately. Two streets are pedestrianized so most folks sit at stools or tables along the streets. We three enjoyed the early evening just drinking beer and significantly increasing the crowd’s average age.

A Cemetery on the Way: On our bus ride to Halong Bay, we stopped at a cemetery full of the North Vietnamese who died in the “American War.” Yo stopped to speak with a woman laying flowers on a grave there, her husband’s grave, which she has visited monthly since peace arrived and he was buried here. Yo translated as she shared her experiences. One member of our tour, John Snyder is a Vietnam War Veteran, and member of Vietnam Vets Against the War. John spoke movingly, apologizing for what our country did to hers. Responding that those times are long past, she warmly welcomed us to her country. This was just one of many moving experiences on this trip.

Halong Bay: On our last night in the north of Vietnam, we took a long bus ride out to Halong Bay where we spent one overnight aboard a boat. It’s called a “Junk,” but that’s misleading, for the boat was quite nice, the service and the food were excellent and the boat quite comfortable. We even enjoyed Tai Chi in the morning and a demonstration of creativity requiring only fresh fruits, vegetables and a sharp knife.

Halong Bay is gorgeous, filled with islands, huge rocks and small mountains, rising sharply from the water. At one such mountain we stopped to climb 197 steps and explore a large cavern, another popular tourist spot. We wished that we had clear and sunny weather, but the grey skies lend an interesting mistiness to our photos. It was truly a beautiful spot.

On our way back to the Hanoi Airport, we stopped for a second time at Hong Ngoc, a kind of “mall” where you can buy almost anything, from lawn and garden statues to clothing and souvenirs, not to mention a good lunch. The stores are unique in that they have a social initiative in place to provide free vocational training and job creation for people with disabilities. So many of the products sold include embroidery art, clothing, ornamental carving, lacquer, ceramic, gemstones, and jewelry made by the people in the program. Hong Ngoc gives them a place to work and thrive. Sara and I fell in love with the embroidered artwork and bought two pieces that will soon adorn our apartment back in Jersey City. We were also invited to have our pictures taken along with the artwork and the artists who created them. We will surely treasure these reminders of our tour in Vietnam. Oh, and lunch was great too.