Real Honeymoon In Vietnam

By the time we ‘got around’ to organising our honeymoon, it was timed to coincide with our one year anniversary. Because we’d spent 6 months travelling around Europe in a motorhome just before we got married, all we wanted to do after our wedding was ‘nest’ – especially as we’d bought our first home and moved in two weeks before our wedding.

We decided to go to Vietnam – I hadn’t spent much time in Asia, although Ryan had been some 7 years earlier. We originally wanted to go somewhere remote with no crowds and a lot of nature (like Alaska) but it wasn’t the right weather for it. So I’m not sure why we decided to go to Vietnam if we were trying to avoid crowds and pollution… first mistake.

I also convinced Ryan to wing it and not book any accommodation or internal flights before we went, or even plan where we were going to go – I’m SOO organised in my daily life that I love to travel with no plans. He hates it. But decided to humour me just this once. I think the second mistake was me thinking that a 2 week holiday was the same as a 6 month backpacking trip.

So the long and short of it was that it wasn’t a very relaxing or restful honeymoon, but it was filled with interesting experiences and all we really cared about was spending time with each other. We’re not the typical touristy couple who likes doing museums and lying by the beach, so in that regard it was up to our adventurous standards. The honeymoon in bullet points is as follows:

• Eating dry bread rolls on both flights, as even if you put yourself down as vegetarian, you apparently have to confirm 3 hours before flying…

• Learning to successfully cross roads that are teeming with crazed scooter riders and not dying in the process – tick.

• Drinking great vietnamese coffee in Ho Chi Minh.

• Eating copious amounts of lemongrass and chilli tofu and vegetarian spring rolls.

• Spending more time with our noses stuck in a guidebook trying to figure out where to go next than experiencing where we currently were.

• We didn’t even wet our toes in the ocean after making some poor choices to go north too quickly, where it was not very warm…

• Hoi An was fantastic for getting clothes custom made, but on reflection, we should have got more!

• We had to move hotels due to…hair from a certain body part….in our pillowcases…in Hanoi

• After a 4 hour bus trip, we got turned around at Halong Bay due to fog. Which then ruined the next week of our trip that we’d planned to spend in an eco resort on an island. And we missed out on seing one of the natural wonders of the world! And our bus got hijacked by angry men on the way back to Hanoi, much yelling and crazy driving…

• No rays of sunshine in the whole two weeks due to overwhelming pollution, didn’t expect that funnily enough.

• A backup plan of traveling to Sapa in the mountains was also fraught with troubles, being abandoned at train stations, rooms not being reserved, the punches kept coming! On the upside, Sapa was amazing, the views were breathtaking, the hikes brilliant, and we spent a great one year anniversary in an eco hut on the side of a terraced rice paddy…

• Scouring the markets in Hanoi for vintage scissors and metal scales that the Vietnamese used for everything from vegetables to meat to cloth (to use as postage scales for my Etsy store, they were perfect).

All in all, it was great to experience such a country as Vietnam, but I think we should have stuck with our original idea of solitude and wide open spaces… but all I really needed was one handsome husband and I was a happy lady, no matter where we were. 😉

All images from Marnie and Ryan’s collection

Ms Gingham says: It’s not all strawberries dipped in chocolate for Marnie and Ryan on this honeymoon but I bet they’ll have some killer stories to tell their grandchildren. Not only that but these amazing photos too!!

Marnie says: “I am an environmental scientist who has developed a passion for all things vintage during the course of organising our wedding – so much so that I have started an Etsy shop for vintage and industrial decor. Nothing like a creative side venture to keep things interesting!”

Make sure you read all about Marnie and Ryan’s Vintage Country Wedding on Polka Dot Weddings too!