I knew we were doing a lot of tiring things on this trip, so we decide to work in a couple of down days in Hoian.

I’m so glad we did!

The first day, we headed to the beach in the morning and the kids went into the not-so-warm South China Sea.

They decided it was too rough and too cold so off to the pool they went.

The kids always come up with some great pool games!

But also enjoy getting some drinks and lounging:

Some get a little sunned out and head off on their own:

The kids also played some ping pong (with Rob).

We all went to relax in our rooms and then headed out to dinner.

(Our hotel ^^^)

We found a great little restaurant called CaoCao Grasshopper close by (who also did our laundry) and had a good meal.

Rob and I headed back out to Hoian while the kids went to bed early.

The next day we had the last of the amazing breakfasts and headed into Hoian again. We wandered the streets and shopped for souvenirs and picked up Rob’s suit:

It was so hot, that when we stopped to go into an ATM machine, we all wanted to go in because it was air conditioned (but it was tiny!)

We headed back to relax a bit in our room, and the sadly had to say goodbye to our beautiful view:

We headed to the airport and then flew to Hanoi. Everyone was exhausted!

We arrived to a cooler, rainier city:(

Our driver ended up dropping us off at the wrong hotel (a sister hotel) and that was a bit of a fiasco! They couldn’t find a taxi to take us all to the right hotel so Rob and Josh walked over in the rain while a couple of guys took our bags over on scooters!

We settled in and then went for dinner at the hotel’s restaurant (it is supposed to be excellent and no one wanted to venture out into the rain). It was a decent meal.

Bed earlyish in preparation for heading to Halong Bay!