We often travel around the times of our birthdays, mostly just because of the time of year that they occur. At this point in our lives, we don’t tend to make a fuss over our birthdays and certainly don’t tell people when we’re traveling if it happens to be one of our birthdays. This made what happened during our trip to Hanoi even more surprising. We had a very full itinerary while we were in Vietnam with every day full of long tours and it was always a joy to return to our hotel in the old town area of Hanoi.

On this particular day, we had gotten up early and gone to the Ninh Binh province where we saw many amazing sights. It was relatively late when we returned to the hotel and we were looking forward to going out and getting a bite to eat. As we entered the hotel, the staff at the desk asked us to take a seat in the lobby as they had some information for us. This did not surprise us as they were extremely helpful, friendly, and had provided us lots of useful information about places to go in the neighborhood.

What was surprising was when the staff returned with an entire birthday cake and singing “Happy Birthday” to us. Since we had never mentioned the birthday to the hotel, we made the assumption that they must have gotten it from our passports. The staff told us that they were honored that we chose to share such a special occasion with them. In addition to the cake, they also gave us a tray of fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice. Then we went up to our room to change for dinner and discovered a hearts made from towels and flower petals on the bed. To say that the staff of the Antique Legend Hotel were wonderful would be an extreme understatement.