Despite the fact that I had an amazing time backpacking through Southeast Asia anyway, I’m so incredibly happy that I got to spend part of my journey with the two most important people in my life. The two weeks I spent with my parents in Vietnam couldn’t have been more fun, interesting, exciting or wonderful! Thank you so much for all your support and love. Without you, this trip wouldn’t have been possible for me in the first place. And also thank you for joining me on my adventures in Vietnam and sharing all these great memories with me. I love y’all so much and I’m so thankful to call you my parents.

I am beyond blessed! Continue reading →

Let’s just put it this way: our cruise through Halong Bay was not quite what we expected it to be from the brochure they showed us at the ticket office. We got lucky with a really nice group though, and therefore, did enjoy the 2-days-1-night tour and the beautiful and stunning nature of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Halong Bay, which means “descending dragon” in the Vietnamese language . Such an impressive and unique landscape – nature at its best. Continue reading →

Hoi An, you’ve been good to us, but now we’re off to our next stop: the UNESCO world heritage site of the Imperial City in Hue.
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Our Vietnamese cooking class with Linh was a great success. We were ten people and cooked ten different dishes for everyone to try (everyone cooked their own dish) which made the whole day a little busy and obviously nobody left without being completely stuffed by all the amazing food (good thing we skipped breakfast). But we all had a lot of fun and learned so many different recipes for great Vietnamese food – come by our house when I get back to have a try yourself ;)

Unser vietnamesischer Kochkurs war ein voller Erfolg. Wir waren zu zehnt und haben zehn verschiedene Gerichte gekocht (jeder hat sein eigenes Gericht gekocht), was den ganzen Tag ziemlich hektisch gestaltet hat und offensichtlich ist niemand hungrig nach Hause gegangen (zum Glück haben wir das Frühstück ausfallen lassen). Aber wir hatten alle auch super viel Spaß und haben viele tolle, neue vietnamesische Rezepte gelernt – kommt mal bei uns vorbei, wenn ich wieder zu Hause bin, um es selbst zu probieren ;) Continue reading →

After the little disappointment of the supposedly pretty “beach town” Da Nang, Mom, Dad and I found our favorite place in all of Vietnam: the UNESCO world heritage city of Hoi An. We could’ve easily spent weeks in this cute little town but unfortunately we only had 4 nights (not the first time we cursed the Easter holiday limitation we were on). But we made the best of it and enjoyed every single moment: from our photography tour, massages, the Vietnamese cooking class, bike rides, great dinners, to interesting encounters with the locals – everything was a highlight.

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From Saigon we flew into Da Nang where we wanted to enjoy a beach day before heading to Hoi An which is famous for its super cheap and fast tailoring. From other backpackers as well as from our travel guide we learned that there is really nothing else to do in Da Nang besides laying on the beach. Though when we arrived there to do so we got deeply disappointed. The beach was dirty, the sky cloudy and the sea so rough that the red flag was up so we couldn’t even go into the water. We got some chairs anyway and started spending our “beach time” with reading and taking naps. After about two hours we got really cold though and left. Amazing beach day, huh? Our night program on the other hand was one of the highlights of our entire trip and definitely made up for all the previous letdowns. Continue reading →

Ho ho ho Chi Minh City’s got it all: great people, amazing food but above all, millions of bikes!

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