Sofitel Vietnam

... we thought. Anyway no more on Halong Bay as that will be covered in a separate travel blog entry. While at the Sofitel we were informed, via a information sheet slipped  under the door, that Hanoi was currently battling a Cholera outbreak. That ...

... than Thailand and in general our hotels were always spotless. Cost - As I write from Singapore, I miss the inexpensive aspects of Vietnam.  It's generally cheap.  Even the touristy beach areas have beach side hotels for $25 a night.  ...

Hallo Leute, Wir wollten uns in Nha Trang ein Wenig Luxus gönnen und haben uns zuerst für 2 Nächte in das Hotel Sofitel Vinpearl***** eingebucht. Eine ganz neue riesige Anlage auf einer Insel vor Nha Trang, die vom Festland aus mit der weltweit ...

... recently moved from Brooklyn (home to Gimme Coffee), I was intrigued and struck up a conversation.  Sarah now lives in Dalat, Vietnam studying coffee growing and exportation on a grant from her university.  She was in Saigon for a few days for ...

... took a different route did not arrive in Vietnam.     It was about an hour ride from the airport to the hotel (Sofitel Metropole) in the French District.   After a few hours of sleep Monday morning we met Tim & Colette (friends from ...

... and not much different from the local cabs.  The local cabs on meter should be about US$8 for a trip to Dist 1. Stayed in Sofitel Plaza in Le Duan Blvd.  It was a nice hotel.  Paid using my complimentary Accor voucher.  We manage to ...

... up to the former capital of Hue (pronounced "whey"). Sitting on the Perfume River, the former capital is a province in Central Vietnam some 650kms south of Hanoi. Although a fairly ugly city, Hue is crammed with ruins of 19th Century structures ranging ...

This is our last day in Vietnam.  In the morning we flew from Da Nang back to Hanoi.  This time were we a bit smarter and bargained for a taxi into the city for only USD20 (a bigger van than the first night also).  The driver name Hau ...

... Vietnamese to teach Vietnamese Street Children restaurant skills so that they can obtain future employment in the restaurant industry in Vietnam. The prices are at near cost and food was great with most of the patrons non Vietnamese. (Lunch with several ...

... the night before with Louise, who knew her stuff, so I grabbed one from the same company... or so I thought.  A big problem in Vietnam are poser taxis: cars with a magnet on the door to make it look like a taxi from a well known company.  These ...

... would put Osler-views roads to shame. When we arrived we were welcomed by the same honking and hustling that sums up Vietnam. The village was more a moderate city than village, and any form of colonial appeal it had while under french occupation had ...

... agent that morning who set it up for us. She very kindly advised us to pay cash to avoid a hefty transaction fee. ATMs in Vietnam are quite a recent phenom (apparently ten years ago there were only two in the whole country), and they didn’t seem to ...

... History of Vietnam. It was recently renovated and was quite nice. We then went to the Temple of Literature which is Vietnam's principal Confucian sanctuary. It is also the place of Vietnam's first university which was founded in 1076. Lots of ...

... a nights rent just to get the hell out of there!   The problems with hotels would become a running theme of our Vietnam experience.   Another theme of our time in Vietnam was the totally alien way that you have to cross the road. There's no ...