Hello everyone, I’m Anna Nguyen. To continue the series of sharing about travel, today I will write about my 3 days and 2 nights journey in Hanoi and Sa Pa. And this is my first day’s schedule in this land. This trip was “fully covered” by my older sister. My sister invited me to go to Sa Pa to play. I thought I wouldn’t go anywhere but could go for free, so I thought again. In the morning she invited me and in the afternoon my sister to book tickets. The next morning, I pulled my suitcase and hit the road. Fast, neat, quick can only be my sister. I remember we took a plane from Hue to Hanoi with Vietnam Airlines. This was also my first time flying, I felt both excited and scared. I remember after we got off the plane, we went to a hotel near Hanoi Cathedral to rest. Because if you want to go to Sa Pa, you must have a bus from Hanoi to Sa Pa town, but that bus only has a trip at 9 pm. So, that day, we went on a tour of Hanoi. The first place we went was Ho’s President mausoleum.

The mausoleum does not charge an entrance fee and visitors are required to comply with requirements such as not wearing clothes that are too short or revealing, not bringing cameras or cell phones with video or photo functions, turning off the phone, Don’t bring food or drink and maintain order in the mausoleum. That day, I don’t remember why we couldn’t go inside, we could only walk around and take pictures outside mausoleum. Then we took Grab to go to the Temple of Literature.

Entrance ticket price is 30,000 VND/person. Temple of Literature belongs to the system of special National Monuments of Vietnam. It has a rich history and culture, the relic site is an attractive destination with many places to visit: Temple of Literature, Van lake, Giam garden, The Great Middle gate, Constellation of Literature pavilion, Attained Talent gate, Khai Thanh Temple and especially the Stelae of Doctors and Well of Heavenly Clarity. The special thing that attracts visitors is that there are 82 stone steles of doctors here. These steles were placed on the backs of turtles and ancient people propagated that if anyone came here and touched the turtle’s head, they would be lucky in the exam.

After that, we went to lunch and returned to the hotel to rest. In the afternoon, we rented a cycle to cycling around the streets. In the evening, we visited the Cathedral and enjoyed the egg coffee specialty. The shop I went to is called Gian coffee, you must definitely visit this shop because the coffee here is delicious. Even though it doesn’t have a view to take photos at all, it attracts a very large number of customers. After drinking coffee, we went to dinner and got in the car to go to Sa Pa town. So ended my first day on the journey to explore Hanoi-Sa Pa. See you in the next sharing post.