How to spend a day in Laos and Vietnam

Luang Prabang, the magical city on the banks of the Mekong, showed us another side of Asia, with warm people, deep spirituality, unspoiled traditions, nature in its purest form and a lot of peace. The plane that was going to take us to Hanoi took off in the afternoon, so we left our luggage at the reception and set off on foot to see a few temples. The first temple we reached was the closest to where we were staying, Wat Pa Phai – Bamboo Forest Monastery, built around 1645. A relatively small but beautiful temple, with many traditional Laotian ornaments. With one eye on the silver jewelry shops and the other on the terraces that attracted me with freshly squeezed mango juices, I arrived at the National Museum of Luang Prabang, an imposing building, which houses a very beautiful temple and a garden with flowers and dreamy trees. We left there at lunchtime and stopped at the Wat Mai temple. We were already melting from the heat, when the lady selling tickets called us to cool off near the fan in the courtyard. We entered the temple, took a few quick pictures, because I had planned to climb Mount Phousi, a hill famous for the spectacular sunsets it offers and for the panoramic view you have over the city. To do this you have to climb 355 steps, of course, I climbed alone, and the view was spectacular. Thus ended the last day in Luang Prabang. We were preparing for a new adventure in Vietnam. Again flying by propeller plane, this time I also saw the pilot and co-pilot who did not seem to be more than 20 years old. They are happy people, their age helps, and I always hoped that their experience in flying was greater than my fear of planes and turbulence, which was abundant 🙂 We landed in Hanoi in the evening, bought SIM cards, met the driver who would take us to the hotel, and within minutes, we were in the hustle and bustle of the city. Excited by the seemingly chaotic pulse of the city, we arrived at the hotel we had booked and sat relaxed in front of the reception, waiting for the Vietnamese door opener 🙂 When, what to see? There was a small misunderstanding between Booking and the hotel and… they had no more rooms available. However, they were extremely nice and immediately booked us into a neighboring hotel, which had the same standards, and even showed us to our room. We weren't upset, it was very good in the new location, and anyway, we only stayed there for one night. A few minutes later we went down to eat, and that was the moment when we realized that the Vietnamese are very welcoming and kind. The lady at the reception immediately approached us, without us asking her anything, she gave us a map of the city on which she marked a few points of interest. We explained that we would only be staying one night in Hanoi and that we would like to see some of the city…as much as possible at 8 pm. In addition, we really wanted to eat something specific to Vietnam. Don't think about dogs or rats, I didn't think about that either 🙂 She gave us some directions and now the hard part began, in order to get to eat the best soup in Hanoi, we had to pass the test of crossing the streets in Vietnam and walking on the sidewalk without bumping into people who were eating peacefully at improvised tables :-) For us, who were used to waiting patiently for the traffic light to turn green and then crossing to the other side, it turned out to be a bit of a mess. There were scooters even on the sidewalk, and drivers didn't stop at pedestrian crossings. Then I remembered that I had read somewhere on the internet that if you want to cross a street anywhere in Vietnam, you have to sneak between the scooters and not stop at all until you get to the other side, no matter how hard it may seem. I applied the method and saw that it worked. It was even more fun because when we saw a street with only a few dozen scooters, which meant it was freer, we would commit to crossing even if we had nothing to do on the other side 🙂 The Vietnamese Pho soup was worth our slalom among the drivers in Hanoi. It was already late, and we were just leaving to discover the city. As we walked along the sidewalks among scooters, small chairs and tables with food, we realized that for the locals the evening was just beginning. The moment we arrived at Hoan Kiem Lake, we knew that this was where we would spend the evening: lights and lasers that were fascinatingly reflected in the water, trees that "stood about to fall" into the lake, thousands of flowers that danced gracefully in the breeze, all accompanied by discreet chords of Vietnamese music. In the middle of the night, the park around the lake was full of relaxed people, who had rented mats, ate fruit bought from street vendors and admired the colors beautifully reflected in the water in the lake. It was very hot, so we bought ourselves a cold beer and integrated ourselves into the local atmosphere for 2-3 hours, and a little after midnight people started to go home, leaving the chairs free for the next day. We also ended the evening, ready for the unique experience the next day that I had wanted since seeing the movie Avatar: Ha Long Bay.