Posts Tagged With: asia

Bali: Sanur day 4/5 Andaz by Hyatt garden villa

Posted on November 8, 2025 by Mel

So….just to be clear this place isn’t usually within our travel budget. It’s a one off to celebrate my 40th and my thesis submission for a PhD! We are staying at the Andaz by Hyatt in Sanur for the next few nights in a garden pool villa and it’s just lovely. We are now back on the main beach so everything is within walking distance again. On checkin the room wasn’t quite ready so we lazed by the “adult only quiet pool” and had some snacks.

At 3pm we checked in, and our villa is beautiful and quiet…as you’d hope. We have a private pool and are surrounded by mature trees and nature which is so calm and relaxing.

We went for a wander for dinner in the evening and headed 400m up the street to Warung Mama Sanur which had excellent rendang and Ayam Soto, as well as cheap soft drinks. This place came up a few times in my research for local eateries and I definitely recommend it if you’re down the south end of the Main Street.

I do want to mention somewhere….they are spending a huge amount of money fixing up all of the sanur footpaths on the main road which is fantastic. They are doing a really good and thorough job however it has made things a little bit tricky for me with my mobility issues. I just have to go slow. Once they are done it will be an excellent tourist selling point.

We also went on a bit of an adventure last night to test out Bali’s tourist medical systems lol. In under an hour and with a total cost of $45 AUD with no passport on me I got a prescription med I needed and only 1-2 awkward conversations to report back on for it…that was at 9pm at night as well! So probably a better experience than trying to get the same medication in Perth really.?

I woke up on day 5 to my 40th birthday! Yayyyyy old Mel!

We walked up to Cafe Batujimbar for some breakfast where B had fried rice and I had eggs and some very tasty juice. Not the cheapest option on the Main Street but very tasty fresh food, especially the squeezed juices.

Then it was pool time, reading in the sun and relaxation for the afternoon.

Dinner was a step away from local places tonight and instead we went to the Hyatt’s beach BBQ grill all you can eat. Cost is about $70 AUD but its buffet and includes all kinds of meat, sides, seafood and dessert. It was DELICIOUS! Really good quality food.

They also had fire dance performers with two live shows at 7:15am and 8am for diners. We added the drink package to our dinner too which came with unlimited cocktails, beer and wine.

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Bali: Sanur Day 2/3 – further away from the beach this time

Posted on November 7, 2025 by Mel

So to show you where we stayed this time here’s the map. You can see here at Alantara Sanur we are much further inland and on the other side of the bigass highway which is not a fun process to cross. Price wise it was comparable to smaller places closer to the beach which surprised me….but no resort features so I see the trade off.

We are about a 10 min grab ($3) or shuttle (free from hotel) ride from the centre. The biggest issue here has been that while the villa is beautiful there is very little that’s walkable nearby. Most warungs are either closed now or just food carts and I prefer refrigeration. It’s also a good 20 min walk to the beach.

We did grab ($2.5) to Naughty Nuri’s to give it a go for the first time. Food was great! Prices are what you expect for a tourist focused place.

On day 2 we walked up to one of the only open nearby places called men’s shed. Pretty much what you expect from the name lol…old Aussie white dude runs it, lots of western food and white dudes inside. Beer was well priced and good music though!

Day 3 we did some pool lazing (still love the private pool) then caught the hotel shuttle into the beach area and had dinner and drinks on the beach at the Tree Bar. Definitely more my vibe.

We move to a much more central (and expensive!) location for the rest of this trip now but I don’t think I would stay here again. The distance from the centre and the highway didn’t work for us even with the private pool and villa. It was a good test of preferences and priorities!

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Giving Bali another go…

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Mel

We have both been to Bali a few times now and just don’t seem to enjoy it. We have stayed in Kuta, Ubud, Seminyak and Jimbaran in a very expensive resort. I can’t quite pin point why as we both like Thailand and Vietnam which has a lot of the same cultural aspects – including hawkers and street sellers who drive B mad. AyaNa Resort (photo below) was amazing but almost Australian pricing so the “cheap” aspect got a bit lost.

One of the infinity pools at AyaNa Resort

We are giving Bali another try in a few weeks though because a 3.5hr direct flight for $100 each way was hard to say no to. After a lot of reading and talking to friends who visit Bali frequently, we have opted to stay in Sanur. Apparently it’s a little less intense.

When we visit Thailand and Vietnam, we tend to pay a bit more for accomodation (yay, spinal issues) but we love to eat out at markets and local restaurants or food stands (not carts)). Drinking alcohol is hit and miss for us currently as we aren’t big casual drinkers so it’s definitely not a main focus. Cocktails are always a winner though. Based on all that, Sanur seems a good fit for a “relaxation” trip.

Ajanta Villa advertising image

We are booked in a private villa (Ajanta Villa) which is near the beach and food markets, two of the things we both love about Thailand trips. This will be my first time with a private pool so I’m pretty stoked for that! I’ve also done heaps of research on food places in the area as well as beach clubs….and I’m keen to hire a bike and enjoy the 5km bike/walking path.

We haven’t booked any big day trips as this is definitely a “read books and lounge in pools” type getaway. With that said, we will be in Bali for my birthday so we are going to catch a Grab to Nusa Dua and check out Koral Aquarium Restaurant + reef beach club on that day.

Koral Restaurant

So…I’m excited! I have a slew of new books on my kindle ready to read because PhD life is melting my brain and I haven’t been escaping with my favourite authors as much.

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Day 23 Vietnam: travelling home and reflections on an organised, personalised tour

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Mel

We are travelling home from Da Nang airport – Singapore – Perth with Singapore Airlines on their $0 return flights. We generally have a good experience travelling with them although once again had to queue at the airport to show our visa date….this time to get the boarding pass. I do not enjoy that part at all about Vietnam!

In Da Nang we accessed the Orchid Lounge which takes priority pass ($27USD per person if paying directly) but in Singapore the stopover is only 2hrs so we will wander and then go to the gate. The orchid lounge was very similar to all the other “pay per use” ones we have been in although it is definitely one of the nicer ones! Comfy seats and snacks, drinks and power points are abundant. I can also lay down or put my feet up when we use the lounges if needed so for me it’s worth it when the wait exceeds 2hrs.

Home arrival time is midnight tonight…and I have a work meeting at 8:30am tomorrow. Then I fly to Brisbane the next day for a week at a conference. Lucky me! Also travelling with this sunburn is hideously uncomfortable. Do not recommend.

We got a lovely Singapore sky on our final leg!

Our Little Vietnam Tours experience

When initially looking into travelling for almost a month in Vietnam we ran into a few early issues.

1. We first looked at intrepid as we have been on their tours before. We quickly learned that their Vietnam tours are very heavy on the walking (an issue for me due to spinal condition) and they all included multiple overnight trains

2. The overnight trains were a hard no for me. I know they are an experience but a combo of anxiety, spinal pain and having to pee a lot (toilets are disgusting on these) meant they just were not going to work

3. Having started to adapt to travelling with a physical issue now (and being a lot more confident in saying that) i was aware the medical systems in Vietnam aren’t great. Unlike Thailand and Indonesia who have high quality private hospitals covered by our travel insurance, that’s not a thing here.

All of those combined meant I started to look at other options which was when I came across Little Vietnam Tours https://www.littlevietnamtours.com run by Annie (who is Vietnamese) and her husband (who I think is American). Annie works with you on a personalised itinerary, she books everything for you and arranges a consistent guide in each region. Did it feel a bit elitist? Yep. Did we both struggle with telling the guide when we wanted something different so we didn’t hurt their feelings? Definitely. Was it good value? Absolutely. It included all visiting/tourist site aspects of the intrepid tour + much better accomodation + private tours and came in slightly cheaper! We also got excellent restaurant recommendations in each place that were “local”.

Positives of this approach:

⁃ We knew the guides and drivers were paid properly by an ethical company

⁃ The restaurant recommendations were all spot on. They were worth their weight in gold!

⁃ Everything was done for us. When I had a question I just flicked a quick message and got a reply within a few mins. We also had contacts if we needed for an emergency so we were reassured we would have an English/Vietnamese translator if needed

⁃ They organised an itinerary that made sense in terms of where we went and when, how we got around and the order of “visits” in each place. They did this with what I wanted in mind, for example most people got south to north or north to south…but we knew we wanted to finish centrally for the beach stay. She made it work south – north – central!

⁃ We had a hotel issue at An Bang and Annie was able to speak with the manager about it which helped to get across our concerns and work towards a resolution

Challenges specific to us:

⁃ we had one guide we just didn’t vibe well with. That was a bit awkward as we had the same one for three days. We also had a guide we felt was not representative of the company’s usual quality. That guide didn’t listen to us, expected us to buy lunch every day for him (not an issue, but not discussed at all!) and took us to see all his mates shops in the markets which really got to B. He also took lots of photos of us with his own phone after being asked multiple times not to. We gave appropriate feedback afterwards and he will receive some additional training on expectations

⁃ I didn’t build in enough rest days for us. A private guide is a hell of a lot of mental load in terms of having to talk and engage constantly + the additional physical toll of a stupidly humid location and the physical movement of visiting places. We also found out halfway through that the one guide was not clear I had a back issue even though we had been told they understood. We found this out after a day of climbing 700 stairs and me not being able to walk the next day! That particular activity impacted almost a week of the holiday as I couldn’t get my feet to stop swelling afterwards

⁃ We were not very good at taking advantage of this services if I’m honest. I like to be in control and I struggled to rely on the guide having all the info and contact details for some parts. This also meant I didn’t use some of the extra services eg booking food tours, arranging extra locations, arranging private drivers for additional activities, changing start and finish times to suit me. It didn’t matter how many times someone pointed out I was paying for the individual service and could arrange whatever I wanted…I felt weird about it

Would we do it again?

Good question and one we are considering now for a Thailand trip. I am very glad we did it in Vietnam for the peace of mind and for the really good hotel and restaurant recommendations. I’m a lot more confident travelling in Thailand and I think I would likely organise my own drivers, guides and activities there. I do acknowledge having a consistent guide makes some things easier but we also found it was a big mental load as introverts…which honestly had not occurred to me.

We do highly recommend Annie’s business (Little Vietnam Tours) though. She was very supportive, helped us find things in each place to suit our interests and the accomodation and restaurant suggestions were spot on. I would have searched for hours and still not come up with hotels that were the same quality and in the locations she chose! Local knowledge was definitely an asset.

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Vietnam: all the yummy restaurants we ate at!

Posted on July 17, 2024 by Mel

Saigon

• Home Saigon (yummy but a bit expensive)

• Quán phở số 10 (excellent local Pho!)

• Rice Fields (over rated and expensive)

• Den Long Restaurant (excellent!)

• Bahn Xeo 335 (very good, walking tour)

• Quan An Co Lieng (good, walking tour)

• Street cart to try Bot Chen

• Bahn Mi Ngoc Chau street cart

• Seafood alley

• Eden Star Hotel included breakfast (pretty good)

Ben Tre and Can Tho

• The elephant ear fish resistant! (It doesn’t seem to have a name but the food here in Ben Tre was absolutely amazing as part of tour)

• Mekong rustic lodge (awful, couldn’t eat the dinner or included breakfast)

Hanoi

• Cha Ca Thang Long (elephant fish only thing served, mix of tourists and locals but good)

• Bun Cha Dac Kim (yum, walking tour)

• Pho Ga Kahn Beo (came here twice for the “dry” chicken pho)

• Bahn Mi B+ (pancakes made as you watch)

• Bahn my pho co (good but unusual…this was the weird separated Bahn mi dish)

• Hoa Beo (dessert – yum!)

• Cafe Dinh (authentic egg coffee)

• Nimh Binh – awful mass produced tourist place pumping through hundreds. So bad didn’t even get name!

• Palago Hotel included breakfast (pretty good)

Hue

• Quan Hahn restaurant (very tasty local dishes)

• Roast pork noodles at local place opposite the Eldora Hotel (yum!)

• Madame Thu (touristy but good)

• Eldora Hotel included breakfast (eggs made to your liking helped a lot here)

Da Nang

• Bep Tran (authentic local food, good pricing but very busy)

• My Quan Co Sau (best noodles ever! Definitely try quang here, pricing was excellent + Michelin recommended)

• Wink riverside hotel rooftop bar (for a western bar their food was fresh and tasty)

• Wink riverside hotel included breakfast (great range including pho!)

Hoi An Town

• Bahn Mi Phuong (good but a very tourist focused option and not cheap)

• Hai Cafe BBQ (higher prices but excellent BBQ meat)

An Bang Beach

• Soul kitchen (expensive, food is good but not worth cost. Great view!)

• Phuong’s Beach Restaurant (tasty, best priced on the beach option, can use their beach chairs and drinks are very well priced)

• Lucky Restaurant (our favourite where we ate many times and very well priced)

• Passions (great food, good price)

• Purple lantern (nice food but another very tourist focused one)

• Nya Hung Restaurant (really nice hot pots)

• Aira Boutique included breakfast (very low quality, ended up going elsewhere each day)

• An Bang Fresh Juices (really yummy, no added coconut water or milk)

• An Bang Beach Village (recommended by an ex pat and the red snapper was amaaaazing!)

• Hoi An Noodle Bar An Bang Beach (very new, tasty but not as good as some of the other local places)

• CHiEM boutique hotel included breakfast (you have to order on an app the day before which so many people whinge about but we thought it was great! Food was delicious )

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DAY 19/20 Vietnam: Da Nang back to An Bang with a Hoi An visit!

Posted on July 16, 2024 by Mel

Day 19

We left Da Nang at 11am and it was a 30 min drive back to An Bang and our hotel I’m feeling very conflicted about -Aira Boutique. The beds are so hard I can’t sleep, there is loud music nearby (other venues) every night that NOBODY has mentioned in reviews…but it’s a nice little locally run hotel. It’s also one of the most expensive on this part of the beach (still bloody cheap compared to other places!) and they pursue you if you write negative reviews. Hmmm. We got back with our get your guide transfer during rain and napped/watched eps in the aircon until the usual 4pm happy hour at the pool started. Only mocktails for drinks today as we are a little dusty from last nights fireworks and wine effort!

Dinner was at a newer place in A Bang called Hoi A Noodle Bar. It was okay. Not amazing but not bad either.

Day 20

Well, at around 11am today I finally called it and decided I wouldn’t stay the final 3 nights at Aira Boutique. Running on about 2hrs sleep again I stomped my way down the laneway to a smaller “Aparthotel” called CHiEM Hotel and asked if they had a room. They confirmed they did have a ground floor garden room and the price was $80 USD a night. They also let me visit the room to see the noise levels and sit on the softer bed. Sold. An hour later I was happily ensconced in my new home for 3 nights. So far so good. Apparently there was a rooster issue for 3 months (he lives behind the outside wall) but someone “fixed the problem” in February. Ha.

Last week, one of the activities we had to cancel due to my insanely swollen feet and legs was a cooking class at red bridge cooking school. We were inside the no refund period but they offered us a banquet dinner instead at their well known (and apparently very good) restaurant in Hoi An Ancient Town. So off we went! The restaurant is Hai Cafe Courtyard BBQ .

This was actually our first visit to the area at night and we had been warned it’s very loud and full of party people. We arrived at Hai Cafe at 6:30pm (just on sunset). The BBQ was DELICIOUS and we highly recommend it.

After dinner we wandered for a little while at our own pace (no guide this time so I could do my own thing) and I enjoyed seeing all the lanterns. I can also see how the party reputation is gained! It was very crowded and touristy but I did enjoy the lanterns. I did some haggling at the markets but my heart wasn’t in it as I really just wanted to pat all the dogs….some sellers went home happy with what I paid.

Two more days of beach relaxation before we head home on Thursday.

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Tipping in Vietnam

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Mel

We did parts of our trip with a private tour guide arranged in each region. The organiser who connects us with local guides gave us this guidance on tipping:

Tipping is not customary in Vietnam, though it is highly appreciated. Workers from the upscale hotels (4 to 5 stars) are more likely to expect tips, although it’s perfectly fine if you don’t. In some restaurants, a 5-10% service charge is added to the bill, hence you may not need to pay a tip. Tour guides and your chauffeur will expect a tip for their service. Our recommendation is USD $5 per guest per day for your guide and USD $2 per day per guest for your driver (more or less based on your satisfaction, of course).

So based on that we tipped the following for our drivers and guides in each region:

– Saigon and Can Tho 4 days with the guide and driver: guide = $40 USD, driver = $20USD

– Ho Chi Minh Walking Food Tour with private guide (4-5hrs) $10 USD for guide

– Hanoi 2 days with guide, 3 with driver: guide = $20 USD, driver = $15 USD

– Halong Bay 2-3 days with English speaking “boat wrangler” who got us a private table when I was going to lose my mind on the crowded boat. We tipped him 200k VND and the crew the same

– Hue and Hoi An: this one was a bit messy as the guide was not great and I cancelled halfway through…he got a few free meals out of us first though. We tipped the driver $12 USD for 3 days.

Other tips were mostly in VND especially after we got out into the Hoi An and An Bang area which are more regional. They were small extra amounts at local restaurants we visited numerous times and little extras for taxis or local drivers.

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Day 17 Vietnam: Da Nang on the river

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Mel

We left An Bang Beach today to enjoy 2 nights in Da Nang. This wasn’t originally planned but came about after I found out there is an all night rave in front of our beach hotel tonight (no thanks) and the Danang international Fireworks Festival Finale is tomorrow night!

Da Nang is not our usual sort of place. It’s a resort town and has hundreds of expensive high rise beach resorts lined up one after the other. They also block locals from the beach which I’m very opposed to. The tourist stuff around here is very cheesy. With that said, I really needed a decent bed for a night as I am struggling with Vietnamese rock solid mattresses. Our Melia Vinpearl riverside hotel for tonight has very nice beds! And a next level view….

Dragon bridge

Da Nang has two “touristy” areas with the huge beachside resorts and then a big group of riverside hotels. The new one-kilometer-long (actually, well over that) walking zone runs from the foot of the Dragon Bridge to the Tran Thi Ly Bridge in Hai Chau District and only opened a couple of months ago. We missed the walking street though as I was in charge of directions and we went the wrong way haha.

The Dragon Bridge is very Da Nang haha. Its unique design makes the bridge look like a dragon rising from the river to fly to the sea. The Dragon Bridge can “breathe” Fire and Water with performances at 9 pm on the weekends. The Vietnamese tourist info said only Saturday and Sundays but the internet told us Fridays as well…and eventually I found a link to this site which verified it. Vietnam are not great at updating their websites.

Initially, we were going to visit Asia Park and go on the Ferris wheel evident in some of the photos but it was a real hassle to get to and reviews say the park is not great value. Again…tourist area. Given our epic view from the hotel room tonight we decided we didn’t need a Ferris wheel as well. So we walked down and across the dragon bridge then up the other side. We had dinner at a place full of Vietnamese locals with no instructions on how to put this Da Nang specialty dish (Bahn Cuon) together. Luckily Google helped! https://vietnam.travel/things-to-do/da-nangs-special-pork-rolls

We walked back to the hotel around 8pm and got some lovely photos while walking across the Han Bridge.

Then it was 9pm and time for the dragon to do his fire breathing thing!!!

Tomorrow, we are checking out of here and into a waaaaay cheaper hotel for the grand finale night of the Danang International Fireworks Festival. It was very difficult to get accomodation for that event and prices were about 30x the usual amount for riverside stays…so no panoramic river view from the room tomorrow 😂

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Day 14, 15 and 16: An Bang Beach Relaxation

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Mel

Day 14

Today was a designated rest day which meant lunch at a local family owned restaurant called Lucky’s. Great food and prices about 3 mins walk from our hotel! The Bahn Mi was about $1.20 AUD and the pineapple smoothie was $2 AUD.

After lunch we read some books and then floated around in the hotel pool during happy hour. Happy hours in Vietnam are amazing – they range anywhere from 1 – 7 hours haha.

Dinner was at another local place call Passion Restaurant, this time we had mains of Bahn Xeo and Chicken Rice. Plus two cocktails and two beers which came to a grand total of…$18 AUD.

Day 15

We were supposed to attend a local cooking school on Day 15 but my little swollen feeties weren’t up for the challenge. Instead, we had a leg massage which really helped with the fluid in my ankles. Then we visited Phuong’s Beach Cafe for lunch where we enjoyed lemongrass chicken and a local dish Cau Lau. Phuongs is to the far left of An Bang Beach and comes highly recommended by expats in the area. You can also use the beach chairs as long as you buy something but the humidity and UV index is way too hot for us, even in the shade.

After lunch it was nap time before happy hour and pool swimming at the hotel. We then watched a beautiful sunset on the beach along with half of Vietnam 😂

Dinner was at purple lantern which was a little bit too touristy for us…yummy seafood though.

Day 16

Breakfast today was at Lucky’s where B finally got to try his pancakes. He’s been hanging out for these for a few days!

I had a few hours work to do in relation to grant applications so I knocked that off while B watched tv eps. We also changed rooms at Aira Boutique today as the noise levels have been….a lot…at night. I’ve been making a fuss (who…me?) about it each day. It’s not getting any better though which is interesting. They really wanted me to remove my 1 star review….

Then it was happy hour and pool time again! We drank lots of mojitos with belgiums, NZs and aussies before dinner at Nya Hung nearby.

Tomorrow we are off to Da Nang for two nights to avoid a giant beach rave taking place on An Bang Beach which will be a nice change of pace.

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Day 11 Vietnam: Ha Long bay – Hue

Posted on July 6, 2024 by Mel

After my Long Island iced tea adventures last night I woke up at 4am from all the sugar (I felt fine – thanks to B for making me have hydralyte lol) and watched the sunrise.

After an early brekkie we joined a guided tour to explore Luon cave. We chose to go in a sampan rather than a kayak which was a good call as we watched all the kayaks ram into each other. We went through the cave and into a little inlet area, then came back out and saw monkeys!

We were back on the boat around 9am where we had time to shower and then move all our stuff to the dining area. We were then able to sit on the deck or in the dining room – the deck was hot but the dining room was full of idiots. It was a tough choice. They served a light brunch at 10am and then we settled the bill before it was back to the terminal and the 2.5hr drive with a private driver to Hanoi Airport. Settling the bill required me to stand up for about 10 mins on a boat that was ricking back and forth which made me very motion sick…that kept up for the entire rest of the day. Lucky me. I almost threw up multiple times in the car and then at the airport so ended up aching to use one of my odansetron wafers. That definitely helped.

The flight to Hue took just over an hour and it’s a very different kind of place! A little slower paced.

We went to dinner near the hotel – a place called “Hahn Restaurant” which was recommended. It had lots of local people in it which is always a good sign! We tried one of the “Hue specific dishes” here called Nem Lui.

This dish is made up of grilled minced pork rolls on lemongrass stick served with rice paper, vegetable and peanut sauce. You stick it all in the rice paper, wrap it up and then pull the lemongrass out. Then dip!

We are staying 2 nights in Hue at the Eldora Hotel which is a bit flash!

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