Hanoi, Vietnam: Land of coffee and motorcycles

After our brief stop in Taiwan, we moved on to country #5 on our month long trip – Vietnam!  This marked our entry to Southeast Asia, aka backpacker’s paradise.  We instantly understood why so many budget travelers flock to the area.  Everything is super cheap, the streets are bustling, and the culture is completely unique.

We had a few days in Hanoi, and we will always remember it for two things: coffee and motorcycles.  (Tommy would also add banh mih sandwiches to the list!)  They’re everywhere, in every variety imaginable!!!  Hanoi was one of the first places we really wandered around, just trying local specialties and absorbing the culture, instead of focusing on the most famous attractions we could visit.  Of course, we did check out a few of the main sights as well, but quite honestly our afternoons spent wandering from cafe to cafe were one of our favorite parts of the whole trip.  Keep reading to experience this vibrant, crazy city with us!

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Taipei, Taiwan: Wait, are we back in China?

As I continue catching up on our trip back in February (yikes!), it’s time to talk about Taiwan.  There’s really no reason this post got so far behind as it was actually the shortest part of our trip – we were only in Taipei for about 36 hours!  We had decided to stop here because to get from Tokyo to Vietnam you could either take an expensive flight with a long layover, or a cheap short flight to Taipei and a second cheap short flight onward to Hanoi.  We decided on the latter and got a tiny taste of Taiwan.

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