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Month: June 2016 (page 4 of 7)

Essence Hotel, Hanoi review

Impeccable! Extremely polite. Extremely helpful. Their breakfast was great. Their dinner was great. Air-con. Laptop in the room. Quiet room despite being in the middle of mayhem on the streets… there was a beer festival going on and we couldn’t hear any of it.

Right in the middle of everything, so restaurants, shops, buses, taxis, everything was easy!

10 Reb points
😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
(Nout wrong with this place)

Good morning, Vietnam!

This is a breakfast fit for a king in comparison to the previous hotel we were at. A lovely variety of fruit, cakes, and meats.

Essence hotel breakfast

Essence hotel breakfast

We both had the French toast with cinnimon and it was great! Brilliant start to the day, we will need it to survive the hotter temperature here.

First night in Hanoi

After a 45 minute drive from the airport, we arrive right in the middle of it all! The streets are 10 times busier here than in Cambodia. Streets that are the width of a large Europenian car are being walked on, driven through, cycled through, and biked through all at once … with millimeters to spare. It’s impressive. If I was driving I would have been stressed about the damage, but our driver is obviously used to it.

We got out the taxi and were greeted by this. The street was so densely packed with people, the atmosphere was fantastic. Food everywhere, beer everywhere, people everywhere.

Old Quarter - Hanoi

Old Quarter – Hanoi

Our room

Our room

After dumping all our stuff in the room, next on the agenda was dinner. We had a wonder round the streets near our hotel and sat down at one of the many placed that offer food. All the place you can eat or drink at have tiny tables and chairs for you to sit on! We went for Salt & Pepper Chicken (grissle or feet, we are not sure). We tried it, but didnt eat all of it as it was basically like eating cartilidge. Great experience, though.

Chicken

Salt & pepper chicken feet

Our view from our seat

Our view from our seat

The hotel room has a laptop in it. Total Good send, as using my mobile all the time is wearing thin. A previous guest was clearly a connaisseur of the adult material, with such a specific search term to get right to it.

Google search history

Google search history

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Oft.

You know who you are, Dirty blighter!

Brief pit stop in Laos

Took these before we landed.

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Memoire D’Angkor, Siem Reap review

Our hotel was lovely. We were greeted by very friend staff. The most polite people on the planet probably. We were given a very nice mocktail on arrival and the floor manager dealt with is straight away.

He told us about their deals for going to see the temples. Their various options and prices. Very nice experience.

On the other hand, we were not told the Wi-Fi details in full (first-world problem, I just phoned reception), he never told us about anything to do in the city, no restaurants, or shopping, or anything like that. He didn’t tell us were breakfast was.

The air con in our room didn’t work to well, but that is forgivable.

The staff always insist on replacing your towels at slightly inconvenient times. Not a big deal.

That all said, it was a lovely hotel room. Decorated well, clean, and had a balcony.

Breakfast is sub-par. Toaster was broken and nuked one side whilst a wasp farted on the other.

We did have an  egg-shaped suspended chair, so that was a plus!

And this place has a lovely warm pool, too, complete with bar.

Hotel pool

Not expensive to stay in, lovely hotel , but you might find yourself asking a lot of questions about things you should be told about.
7 Reb points
😹😹😹😹😹😹😹
(3 deducted because poor wi-fi at times, breakfast was not good, and air-con was broken)

A parting gift

We check out tomorrow. We came back from dinner and found this in our room:

Sweets

We thank you & will miss you

How lovely! It was coffed in under 2 minutes from the time of discovery.

Abba Cafe

Abba Cafe

Abba Cafe

This restaurant sits at a modest second place behind Georges Rhumerie. Good food. We had a garlic bread and mango salad starters followed by  beef lok lak and beef fried noodles. No complains, very satisfying. As always, the staff were very friendly. And I didn’t have to by bottled water here. They gave you free top ups whenever you needed one.

Our bill came in a little bin

Abba Cafe bill

Abba Cafe bill

Some Cambodian rain

Full list of Vietnam / Cambodia videos can be found here on Youtube

Temple raider 2: Something something

We visited another handful of temples today. It was even more humid today so thankfully, this tour was slightly shorter than the first one. Don’t think we could have coped until 6pm today.

This tour covered 5 temples. We were taken round by a tour guide with a good sense of humor and a lot to say.

List of temples:

  1. Preak Khan
  2. Ta Som
  3. East Mebon
  4. Pre Rup
  5. Banteay Arie
Preak Khan temple

Preak Khan temple

Ta Som temple

Ta Som temple

Banteay Srey

Banteay Srey temple

This is the most well-kept temple of all the temples we’ve seen. The carvings are ridiculously intricate. It is the smallest temple by far, but it is the most impressive. You have to visit this one!

After the last temple, we stopped off at a Cambodian village to have a look at their way of living. We were given a sample of their palm sugar sweets. They were delicious. It is very much like tablet from Scotland. We bought a small tub for $1.

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Another great day all round. We definitely saved the best temple for last. You need to see it to be blown away with the workmanship. I can’t imagine the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that went I’m to making these buildings.

What a 2 dollar tip looks like

$2 tip

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