Life Before Work review: 9 day Vietnam tour of Hanoi, Sa Pa and Ha Long Bay
An honest review of my experience with Life Before Work in Vietnam
I love to visit major cities by myself, but I usually prefer to join tours for destinations that are harder to reach. In Vietnam, I wanted to hike through the beautiful rice terraces of Sa Pa and did not feel comfortable going alone, and I also wanted to experience cruising in Ha Long Bay with other budget minded backpackers in my age range.
After visiting southern Vietnam as a solo traveller, I thought that joining a tour would be a great way to be more social for the Northern part of my Vietnam trip and I was interested in getting advice from a local guide.
I booked this 9-day Vietnam Discovery tour in October 2019 and I paid for it myself, so this is a completely independent review. You can read a detailed day-by-day summary of all the experiences I had on this tour, or jump straight to the end where I share what I liked, what could have been better and my final recommendation for this tour from Life Before Work.
Quick Overview of the Vietnam Discovery Tour
Highlights: Kayaking in Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site. Hiking in Sa Pa to see the rice terraces and the culture of the Hmong people in the area. Also Vietnamese iced coffee and food!
Destinations: Hanoi, Sa Pa, Ha Long Bay, Freedom Island in Ha Long Bay.
Who was on the trip: There were ten people on this Vietnam tour, seven were Canadians aged between 20 and 28, many from the Western provinces. One girl was Italian from London, along with two Americans, a university student from Alabama, and someone from Colorado.
Who was the guide: We had one main guide for the whole trip who was from Vietnam, and a second guide who was with us only in Hanoi and again on Freedom Island. There was an additional local guide for the Sa Pa hiking trek.
How did we travel: There was a lot of walking around Sa Pa and in Hanoi, we took public night buses on two occasions, a chartered coach bus to reach Ha Long Bay, a large cruise boat overnight in Ha Long Bay and a smaller boat to transfer to Freedom Island. We also took motorbikes on two occasions to go short distances within towns.
Where did we stay: Simple hotels, multi-person hostel rooms, a homestay, and a cruise boat cabin. Almost all the accommodation did not have pools. There were occasions where men and women stayed in the same hostel room together.
Recommended Luggage: Ideally bring a backpack, you should be able to move and carry the luggage yourself as you will have to bring it on the boat and move it between accommodation and buses.
Hanoi Arrival
I had a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh city by myself before this tour started and honestly, I had a hard time. I wasn’t used to the crazy traffic, I was struggling to find vegetarian food and I felt like I wasn’t getting the full experience of Vietnam. I’ve never really felt that I struggled like that in the entire time I’ve been travelling so I was really looking forward to joining a group.
On the first day of the tour, I flew to Hanoi in the afternoon and met the group just as they were leaving the hotel, which had an arcade in the lobby and looked nothing like a hotel from the outside. I got my own room because there were uneven numbers of people on the tour, it was a fairly simple hotel but clean. The tour leader was a local and brought me over to the restaurant on his motorbike after I unpacked.
We had a hot pot BBQ with lots of grilled vegetables and fries, you sit at these little plastic tables and chairs which are quite close to the ground and I was convinced I was going to destroy mine but they held up fine. We went out for beers after and the last two girls joined us from a delayed flight and we went out briefly to a very loud nightclub. Nothing too crazy, just got to know everyone.
Hanoi Walking Tour
We had one full day in Hanoi and the group was together for most of the day. We started at the tour leader’s favourite noodle shop for breakfast, I finally got some vegetarian soup, it was so nice to have a local tour guide to translate and check if things were safe to eat. Next stop was Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son Temple where we did an incense blessing, there are apparently giant turtles in this lake and they have a statue of one in the temple but we didn’t see any.
Afterwards we had the first of many coffee stops ! Why is the Vietnamese iced coffee so good ? (Answer: because it’s made with condensed milk, it’s the sugar that makes it so good.) We visited this hidden café that you accessed through a little store then up two flights of stairs, we had our coffees on the rooftop and went over the trip itinerary together.
The guide then brought us to a little food market and bought a variety of things for us to try. They were very good about accommodating me as a vegetarian, I had spring rolls, sesame desserts, and a sour plum juice that came out of a suspicious looking jar but was quite good.
We had a more historically significant stop next at the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which may be better known to many people as the prison John McCain was in during the Vietnam War and was also used by French colonists for political prisoners earlier in the 20th century. I think it was good to start the tour with a stop like this to get more context for the history of the country.
Hanoi and Night Bus to Sa Pa
We had a short walk to the temple of literature, which was historically Vietnam’s first university, and now has nice ponds and gardens you can visit. We also walked by the “train street”, which is literally a street with shops and cafes that had an active train running through it several times a day. It got famous from many Instagram pictures, and the government shut it down just weeks before our visit for safety reasons, you can learn more about it here .
There was one last iced coffee stop, I went for a coconut one this time, then some of the group went with the guide to an optional excursion to a “snake village” where I think they had snake for dinner ? As a vegetarian, that was not my idea of a good time, so I went back to the hostel and did yoga and had avocado toast (I realize how basic that sounds as I’m typing it out but I needed a little break).
We all met up later that evening and walked for about fifteen minutes with our luggage to the night bus stop, the main luggage goes under the bus and you can bring a small bag on with you, you remove shoes and place them in a provided plastic bag. There were rows of individual little metal bunk beds, and there was not much storage space on board and some of the taller men said it was a bit cramped. I brought an eye mask and got a bit of sleep, not the most comfortable but not bad for my first night bus experience in Asia.
Sa Pa Morning Walk
We transferred to the hotel in Sa Pa and had a rest before heading out on a walk around the area. Sa Pa was actually cold, I had been in Asia for about a month at this point and I had forgotten what cold felt like, (12 degrees felt cold at that point).
It was pouring rain, so I got out my little travel umbrella, and honestly, it was useless. There’s a reason no one else was using one, getting wet is just reality, my feet were soaked in about 5 minutes. We went to stock up on hiking supplies, literally every store in town sells knock-off North Face stuff, I don’t usually feel comfortable buying counterfeit brands but you couldn’t buy the real stuff here even if you wanted to.
I made a major mistake here by not buying hiking boots at the store. All I had for my backpacking trip were Skechers brand “yoga foam extra comfort” city walking shoes, and the Sa Pa trek requires hiking boots. I also wished I had bought a rain jacket at this point.
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We then stopped at a lookout restaurant for smoothies (avocado peanut butter was surprisingly good) and I tried to dry out my socks because I read somewhere that you can literally get trench foot if your feet stay wet too long. This café also randomly had some… modern art ? sculptures you could stand on, including a stairway to nowhere (does that have some deeper meaning? Who knows.)
So we walked right back up the mountain we came down, I gained no weight on this trip and I think it’s because we did so much walking. Sa Pa town itself almost reminds me of a little ski resort town up in the mountains, it was nice to get a different perspective after being in the big cities. We got some excellent strawberries as a snack on the way to the big local market where we some kind of noodle dish and shots of whatever the local homemade brandy is called here.
Sa Pa Town Visit
We walked around the market and the tour guide then bought a variety of meats from animal parts that are not as commonly eaten in North America for people to try. I know eating meat is part of life for many people, but as a lifelong vegetarian I chose to visit the souvenir part of the market instead. It may be harder to see the process of preparing meat so directly in Asian markets vs. North American grocery stores, but that is the reality of meat consumption and at least most parts are being used.
We had free time for shopping and stocking up on snacks and drinks for the hiking trip the next day. I love checking out the local flavours of common snacks ( like in Canada we have ketchup and dill pickle chips as a normal thing, here they had “Manhattan Ribeye Steak Flavour”). We went out for dinner and had another “hot pot” which again, they were very nice about accommodating me and letting me make some veggie stuff first before the meat went in and I just chose to ignore the fact that the soup base probably wasn’t vegetarian, I went into the trip knowing I would need to be a bit flexible . In bed early again to be ready for the big hiking day !
Sa Pa Rice Terrace Hike
The entire hike was only 2 days/1 night so we all just brought smaller backpacks and left big luggage at the hostel. So it was still pouring rain at this point, and we just had to accept that as a part of the experience, I don’t think I was prepared for the amount of mud though, especially with no proper hiking boots.
I was also a bit concerned going into the hike not being in the best shape of my life (having just finished struggling through a graduate degree and gaining some weight in the process) and of course we started by hiking directly up a steep hillside. We had an official guide and maybe 10 unofficial other guides, women from local village who help you along the trail in exchange for buying crafts and bracelets from them at the end. In the beginning we had a nice chat, my guide was actually 27, around my age and had 4 children.
However, with the amount of mud due to the rain, within the first hour, everyone had fallen at least once, I took 2 guides down with me (everyone was fine !!). Seriously regretting my choice to forgo the hiking boots from the store yesterday. We made it back to the main road after maybe 2 hours of hiking through the mud and washed out parts of the path, and we stopped at a lookout cafe to try sugarcane and get some of the mud off.
Another hour and a half down the road, we got to the lunch stop village and the unofficial guides leave at that point. Something you should understand about the unofficial guides is that they will be there with you on the trail whether you hire them or not and they rely on tips from people walking on the trails.
I fully understand that people deserve to be paid for providing a service, but instead of paying a set price for the unofficial guides, they swarm the group at the end of the trail with all these crafts to buy, like purses, bracelets, headbands etc. and it was quite overwhelming to try and figure out who to pay based on who helped you and choose stuff really quickly.
I understand that it’s just different than what I’m used to at home but that was a bit stressful. Just be prepared that the unofficial guides will be expecting you to buy things and you can choose for yourself whether you are going to be tipping for their services.
I had also misunderstood the exchange rate and only brought the equivalent of 20$ CAD for the entire 2 days. During the shopping process with the unofficial guides, I managed to spend 90 percent of the money I brought on the hike and had to borrow some from another group member to pay for food. Got lots of bracelets though, as gifts to bring home !
I was also bit concerned about whether there would be restrooms on the trail, but they were available in the little villages at the restaurant stops. I went into a little shack on the edge of the river expecting the worst and there was a full modern washer and dryer inside (can’t always judge by appearances !) I would still suggest bringing your own tissues and hand sanitizer though.
Sa Pa Homestay and Spa Bath
So, we then walked directly up a rice terrace hill. This was super muddy, and I felt like I was slipping off the narrow terrace edges in my stupid Skechers ‘Yoga Foam Extra Comfort City Walking” totally unsuitable shoes, but the tour guide helped me along and I made it.
Anyway, we stopped in a terrace field with water buffaloes and some people briefly rode them. It’s a bit strange, like being in someone’s random backyard ? But I don’t think we were bothering anyone.
We finally got to the homestay place after walking into another village. It was owned by a really nice family who lived there with their dog and young children, and there was a big room upstairs for the girls to share and some shared rooms downstairs for the men. They also offered a shoe drying service which was desperately needed.
We took motorbikes back into town for an included spa bath experience. They had separate rooms for men and women and everyone got their own barrel of hot water to sit in with herbs in it which was very nice after our day of hiking through the mud and rain. It was also nice to just talk to people for a while, I think that’s a nice feature of tour groups, when you are with people for a while you can actually get to know people more than randomly talking to someone in a hostel for a day.
We had dinner back at the homestay, they had lots of different dishes on the table and you could just serve yourself (I mostly served myself spring rolls), and another round of those homemade brandy shots (I swear it’s pretty much the same stuff all across the world, in eastern Europe we had something similar called Rakija). After that we just went to bed, it was a long day and we had more hiking ahead of us.
Sa Pa Waterfall Hike and Bus to Hanoi
We had breakfast at the home stay then got right back on the hiking trail. The rain finally stopped and we did a much flatter trail which ended at a waterfall. The first day we were mostly hiking alone as our group, but there were a number of other visitors on the trail for this day. I think that’s also important to understand about visiting Sa Pa, it is not some kind of hidden, unknown place, people live there and there is an established tourism industry, it can be busy, especially on the main hiking paths.
We reached the end point around lunch time and took a van ride back to the starting hotel, had a chance to shower and put dry, clean clothes on ( you don’t appreciate dry feet until you haven’t had them for a few days !)
We had lunch on a terrace overlooking the mountains but couldn’t see anything as the rain had returned. I ordered a veggie burger which turned out to be grilled vegetables on a burger bun (so very technically a veggie burger) and a watermelon smoothie (I had more smoothies in 2 months in Asia than in the rest of my life in North America).
We took another bus back to Hanoi, which was also called a night bus even though it was late afternoon and was overbooked as people just kept getting on even when no beds were left and were just sitting in the aisles. Not super comfortable, but we made it back to Hanoi.
We stayed all in the same room for one night at a hostel and had free time for dinner and shopping for supplies for our trip to Ha Long Bay and Freedom Island. I went and stocked up on snacks and alcohol at the convenience store and dropped off all our hiking clothes for laundry. Nothing too exciting to report here, mostly just a travel day.
Ha Long Bay Social Cruise
I think we all woke up fairly excited for the Ha Long Bay cruise. The first half of the trip was more about nature and outdoor activity and the second half was a bit more of a party. We were joined by a lot of other people for the cruise, both from other tour groups and people backpacking with their friends. We all got on a coach bus and had a stop along the way at a big touristy service station.
The bus stop sells these fruit printed “tourist” shirts and everyone I know who has backpacked Vietnam seems to have one. We got matching ones as a group and I have surprisingly gotten good use out of it at my cottage and for costume parties (easy costume idea: confused tourist, just slap on a visor and neck wallet with this shirt and you are good to go).
We arrived at the ferry port and embarked on the boat and it was so much nicer than I would have thought. We went with Oasis Bay, the cabins were like nice hotel rooms with full bathrooms, sharing three to a room, and the ship had a big restaurant/activity/dance floor area, an open deck on top and I think two hot tubs. We had lunch onboard and half the people went to do kayaking first.
Ha Long Bay Cruise
Our group went along with some people from Ontario, who we ran into again a month later at the Full Moon party in Thailand. There was also a group of men who were in a wedding party on the way to Cambodia (I know this because they had obviously had several drinks and explained it very loudly several times).
I ended up in a two person kayak with someone from my tour, and we followed the tour leader through a small cave opening in the rocks. At this point, one of the men from the wedding party stood up on a kayak to take a picture, flipped the boat and could not sort it out, blocking the tunnel passageway. We were stuck there for a while, and you know what, I just decided to have a beer, enjoy the sun and not worry.
Once we got everyone through the cave tunnel, we circled up the kayaks and tour guide told a legend/story about a dragon and taught us a Vietnamese song for saying “Cheers” ( I got the rhythm down, but never quite figured out the words).
The rest of the evening was dinner, a “drinking yoga” session ( which was not the most…mindful session I have ever attended, but I had a good time). There was also a talent show and dancing, just generally a party. And when you are ready to go to bed, you just walk down some stairs and the room is right there, super convenient.
Freedom Island
I was so tired this morning, like not hung over, just straight up tired. I always travel with a small memory foam pillow, so I just slept on the smaller transfer boat we took to reach Freedom Island. Upon arrival at Freedom Island, we checked into cabins with bunkbeds, like a hostel and I slept for like 6 hours.
According to people on my tour, I missed paddle boarding and a volleyball tournament, so this was a bad day to be so tired but I think all the travelling just caught up with me. I went out into the ocean with another girl from the tour to take pictures around sunset and felt a bit silly at the time having a “photoshoot” but it really is a beautiful landscape.
We had dinner and got to know some of the other travellers, most were British people with an Intro Tours group going from Vietnam to Cambodia, I thought maybe some of them would be on my Cambodia tour but they were a slightly earlier departure. You can read about my Intro Travel experience here.
We played some drinking games and they had half price drinks (got some lychee martinis !) and the highlight was really karaoke out by the hammocks, it was a good little beach party, and again, when you are ready to go to bed, its like twenty steps back to the cabins.
Return to Hanoi
I woke up feeling much less tired today (considering I slept for like 18 hours the day before) had breakfast on Freedom Island and transferred back to the big boat where we had a short spring roll making class (I always said I would make them when I got home and still haven’t). Then back on the coaches toward Hanoi.
We went back to the original hotel and I got my own room which was decorated with…rocks. So many rocks. Rocks on the wall, rocks on the bathtub, rocks in the shower, it was really a unique decorating choice. I went out to the shops and markets by myself to look for a souvenir pin (you can check out my collection over on Instagram !).
We also got our nice clean laundry back, just not with all the same clothes we started with. I had someone else’s shorts and my shoe insoles were in someone else’s hiking boots, and one person just straight up never got their shoes back. I hadn’t done laundry since I was in Bali with another tour group three weeks before, so the laundry was definitely needed at that point !
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There was a final dinner out as a group, I had some excellent vegetarian food and we all went out for a few drinks after. Myself and two other girls were leaving the group the next day and everyone else was continuing on down the coast of Vietnam as part of a longer Life Before Work Vietnam tour experience. Based on talking to some people who did the entire trip, they said the highlight was really the first part, so even though I was sad to leave, I think I made the right choice with the limited time I had.
Final Recommendation for the Life Before Work Vietnam Tour
What I liked: Having a guide from the country who could translate made huge difference, both for finding vegetarian food and going to places I never would have found by myself. Having the transportation arranged and being with people on the buses was helpful and felt safe. The guides were also such nice people, and I genuinely felt that they cared about us and our experience in Vietnam. The group was a good size as well, small enough to move around easily but enough people to be social.
I also feel like I had two quite significant experiences in nine days without feeling particularly rushed, I would have just arrived one day earlier in Hanoi to visit some museums by myself. Life Before Work travel was also very good at answering emails promptly and I thought the pre-departure info they provided was sufficient.
What could have better: I would have appreciated a stronger recommendation about needing hiking boots for the Sa Pa hiking otherwise I felt prepared for the trip and I feel like the experience I had was what I was expecting. No real issues or concerns that came up. I was originally concerned that pretty much no meals were included except on the cruise, but food is so affordable in Vietnam that I appreciated the freedom to try new things and not be stuck with an included set menu.
Final Recommendation: I think anyone in the 18-35 age range looking for a social backpacker style experience could enjoy this tour. I visited Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An by myself and it was nice to take a break from solo travel and have a guide managing the transportation and recommending cool places to visit and food to try. I thought it was very affordable for the amount of activities we did.
It’s a budget tour so probably not suited for someone who is looking for a luxury experience or if you would have any issue taking a public bus. The social cruise in Ha Long Bay is also obviously a more social, party oriented experience so keep that in mind as well. The hiking was not strenuous, I hadn’t been to the gym in a while and I still managed, but also consider that the hiking portion of the trip includes full days of physical activity.
Overall, I feel that I got the experience that was advertised with this Life Before Work Vietnam Discovery tour, and the kindness, positivity and helpfulness of the tour guides along with the beautiful nature experiences in Sa Pa and Ha Long Bay made it a highlight of my visit to Vietnam.
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