[Hanoi & Sapa #9] West Lake Rest, Hoan Kiem Tour Bus, Home

The evening of October 5, West Lake from our room window. Our last evening in Hanoi.

Direct Answer & TL;DR

We spent the last three days of the 7N8D trip at West Lake in Hanoi. On the first day we rested at L7 West Lake and Lotte Mall. On the second we rode a Hanoi City Tour double-decker bus around Hoan Kiem. On the third morning we flew home from Noi Bai International Airport. The bus ticket was a single-loop ticket and the loop took about an hour. It has Korean audio commentary, but it was too fast for me to follow. At Ngoc Son Temple only the adults needed tickets; the kids were free.

Won amounts for card payments are copied from our Travlog (Hana Money) payment records; Travlog is a Korean prepaid travel card. Cash is converted at that period’s rate (100 VND ≈ ₩5.20). USD figures are approximate, at roughly ₩1,400 = $1. With the Klook city tour added, the three days came to ₩318,791 (~$228).

October 4: A day of resting at the hotel and Lotte Mall

I did sleep well on the sleeper bus. Even so, I must have been very tired, because I passed out at the hotel and woke up later. In the morning we had breakfast, walked around Lotte Mall, which is attached to the hotel, and bought souvenirs at Lotte Mart.

The Vietnamese pho at breakfast was really good. I squeezed in some lime and added the garlic from the side bowls.

In the plaza in front of Lotte Mall sat a giant yellow duck balloon with X-shaped eyes.

Compare it with the people below to see the size.

The parking lot was different from Korea’s too. Lotte Mall has a separate motorbike parking lot next to the car parking. Motorbikes were packed in under a solar-panel roof.

I kept finding more things to buy at Lotte Mall. In the end I signed up for the Lotte Mall (Vietnam) membership and started collecting points.

On the way back to the room I saw the floor plan in the corridor. The rooms weren’t plain rectangles.

On the plan, each room is a pentagon with a pointed outer end, lined up diagonally along the corridor. My guess is this:

• The windows face outward at an angle, not straight ahead. The view is less blocked by the neighboring room’s wall, and each room gets more of the West Lake view.
• The outer wall bends and gets longer. For the same width, you can fit a wider window.
• The narrow part by the corridor holds the entrance and bathroom, and the widening window side is the bedroom. It looks like they split the bathroom and bedroom efficiently.

I couldn’t find the hotel’s stated design intent. This is a guess from the floor plan.

In the afternoon we went to the hotel sauna, then the pool, then back to the sauna. The sauna had no bath or jacuzzi. It was still really good. We had a great time swimming with the kids in the rooftop infinity pool, which looks down over West Lake.

2:52pm, West Lake is beyond the edge of the water.

October 5: Around Hoan Kiem by city tour bus

After breakfast I called a Grab. The destination was the city tour ticket office near Hoan Kiem Lake, 8.4km from West Lake by Google Maps.

From Lotte Mall to Hoan Kiem Lake. The actual road the Grab took may differ a little. (Map: Google Maps)

The Hanoi City Tour is a red double-decker bus. I bought the ticket in advance on Klook (a Korean-friendly travel booking site). We chose the single-loop ticket. You can’t get off and back on; when the loop ends, it’s over. One loop took about an hour, I think.

We sat in the very front of the upper deck. Through the windshield we could see the Hoan Kiem streets laid out in front of us. The bus also passed St. Joseph’s Cathedral. The square below its gray spires was crowded with people taking photos.

9:54am, the very front of the upper deck.

10:06am, St. Joseph’s Cathedral.

You can listen to Korean commentary through earphones. The problem was speed. Even in Korean, it was too fast for me to follow. I also wished they would tell it in a more interesting way. Rather than trusting that Korean audio exists, I’d skim the sights you’ll pass before boarding.

11:22am, the city tour bus parked by Hoan Kiem Lake.

We got off the bus and walked to the lake. The red The Huc (Thê Húc) Bridge leads to Ngoc Son Temple on a small island in the lake.

11:27am, The Huc Bridge.

We bought only two adult tickets, in cash; the kids were free. According to VnExpress, under-16s are free, and you don’t need a ticket to walk on the bridge. Inside the temple, a huge turtle lay in a glass case. It is a preserved specimen of a turtle that lived in Hoan Kiem Lake.

11:39am, the turtle specimen at Ngoc Son Temple.

📍 Ngoc Son Temple (Đền Ngọc Sơn) · Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Hoàn Kiếm, Hà Nội, Vietnam

A little after noon, we called a Grab and went back to the hotel. The rooftop pool was closed that day. According to the hotel notice, it was for maintenance work. It would reopen at 7am the next morning, the time we were leaving for the airport. The kids wanted to play in the pool more.

We had a snack instead. I’d heard the mango dessert at the hotel’s LUSH was good, so we ordered the mango bingsu (Korean-style shaved ice dessert) and a strawberry mini cake. As hotel guests, we got 10% off. The kids said the fresh mango was really good.

1pm, the mango bingsu at LUSH.

The sauna had been so good on the first day that we went again. The pool was closed, but the sauna was open. In the afternoon we stopped by Lotte Mart once more. I wanted to use up the rest of my cash, so I paid the cash first and the rest by card.

Toward evening, the sun set over West Lake outside our window.

5:23pm, Hanoi’s last sunset.

October 6: From Noi Bai to Incheon

We checked out in the morning. The deposit hold from check-in was released (#8). Our booking only included breakfast for adults, so I paid the surcharge for our two kids’ breakfasts at that point. Around 7am we took a Grab to Noi Bai International Airport’s international terminal (T2).

From Lotte Mall to Noi Bai International Airport. 18.5km and 28 minutes by Google Maps. (Map: Google Maps)

I did the online check-in in the app 24 hours before departure. Again, seats in the paid front section were assigned to us for free, as on the way here (#1). It is a section where buying the same four seats in the app costs money. I think these were premium economy-side seats. The space felt generous, and being at the front let us get off quickly after landing. As on the way out, I wonder if Vietnam Airlines did this as a courtesy because we were flying with kids.

The full settlement, pre-trip bookings plus everything we paid locally, broken down by category, is in #10. The Travlog card savings and how to use Grab vouchers are there too.

Over the 7N8D, the kids didn’t get sick once. They slept on the night train, climbed Fansipan, walked through Cat Cat Village, and rode seven hours down on the sleeper bus. I’m really grateful they stayed with us through that long trip.

On the first day in the Hanoi Old Quarter, our younger one said, “Vietnam is scary” (#4). The motorbikes were loud and the streets were chaotic, and the kid said they wanted to go back to Korea. A week later, at the airport in Korea, that same kid shouted:

“Korea is heaven!”

I think the kid felt it was less chaotic than Vietnam and somehow more comfortable. Probably also because Korea is more familiar to them.

🔗 References

• VnExpress - Ngoc Son Temple: A historic spiritual haven in Hanoi — Ngoc Son Temple adult admission, free under 16, no ticket needed to walk on The Huc Bridge, the Hoan Kiem turtle specimen on display
• L7 West Lake Hanoi by LOTTE - Infinity Pool — the hotel’s rooftop infinity pool
• 7N8D Trip Cost: Travlog Card and Grab Vouchers (#10)
• Hanoi & Sapa 7N8D Booking Summary (#1)
• Hanoi Arrival to the Sleeper Train (#4)
• Sapa to Hanoi by HK Buslines Sleeper Bus (#8)