I was lucky to be invited to a Wedding in the beach town of Da Nang, Vietnam this March and since it was my first time in the country, of course I made a trip out of it. Here are links to the hotels we stayed at. Click over also to read about our hike to see the UNESCO Heritage Site, Ha Long Bay
Hanoi
I was pleasantly surprised at how cheap Luxury hotels were in Hanoi. I lightly splurged for the JW Marriott on the single night we spent here. These same hotel chains were 5X the price elsewhere, lucky us!
Da Nang
This part of Vietnam is making a huge push for tourism with quite a few social media friendly landmark installations. The amusement park on top of Ba Na Hills is the destination for a French Village and the brand new Golden (Buddha Hand) Bridge.
This resort town was NOT cheap for being Southeast Asia (I would say Bali resorts provide much more wow factor for lower prices). After reading many reviews and browsing visitor photos, I noticed that most of the coastline either belonged to huge resorts with multitudes of guests (and the ocean was a far walk from your room) or were near the city and littered with trash.
I looked to the north of the city and discovered the small 40 villa Son Tra Resort RIGHT on the beach. I booked a basic villa at the price I found on Agoda.Com and then requested an Oceanfront upgrade with a private pool when I checked in. This way allowed me to pay for the upgraded room at the local rate instead of the website rate. Daily continental breakfast vouchers were included in our room rate, and having a different type of Vietnamese noodle soup for breakfast every day on the beach was superb.
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