Woo hoo! It feels great to have a break, away from Singapore, and most importantly fun with friends! i don't know about you two gals, but if i can get along with you two for 5 days straight, i'm going to make you both my travelling kakis! Now let me bring you to the land of hidden charm...
Day 1: Temple of Literature, Ho Chi Minh Museum, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, One Pillar PagodaBeautiful Tuesday morning and we're on our way to Hanoi via a 3-hour flight. i didn't let my parents know about this but we almost couldn't make it to the flight as i didn't bring the card that was used to buy our tickets. We took abit of hesitation in choosing a taxi as there were 3 different companies touting for customers. Finally we decided to go for one and discovered they charged a flat fee for going into town. We reached our hotel whereby our room was already prepared for us (which implies that they don't have much guests). Though the price of the room is 5 times as compared to 2 years ago, the room is well equipped for our needs. After settling our bags, we set off for our city exploration! Armed with a city map, 3 road idiots begin their journey! Hanoi downtown is not huge, walking is definitely doable. And its tourist friendly for the fact that road signs are visible at every road junction and all shops have their address printed on their signboard. No worries about wondering which road are you at. And so, we reached the first target of the trip: Temple of Literature. Initially we had some difficulties locating the entrance, but with the help of some locals, we avoid doing a detour and found it. This was the first university in Hanoi and seriously, looking at the size of the compound, there weren't much students back then i guess.
怎样看都像中国的四合院
Next up is the Ho Chi Minh Museum which we promptly paid the $1 entrance fee cos there's air-conditioning! The museum had nothing much inside and it was already close to closing time (4.30pm), but we had much fun taking pictures with Uncle Ho.
i need to do something about that tummy...
Next, we walked in circles trying to find the One Pillar Pagoda without knowing we had passed it before. That's because the pagoda is so small...
How not to miss it?
Back to the hotel for a short rest and we're off to dinner at a place that the hotel staff recommended. It looked quite posh on the outside (for Vietnam's standards) and there were alot of customers inside. Boy were we pleasantly surprised. It's similar to Marche, whereby there're different stalls of food. But we had servers to take our orders and send the food to our table. And believe me, you'll never see so many servers in a restaurant before. The customers are a mix of locals and tourists and food are served pretty fast. Prices are cheap by our standards, slightly over 10 Sing for a hearty meal for three. Best is, no service charge, no tax!
A must visit!
Day 2: Ha Long BayEarly next morning we checked out of the hotel and carry with us a small baggage to set off for our Ha Long Bay tour. Halfway through the journey it began raining and it never stopped since. That was my biggest worry before the trip. Oh well, what could we have done anyway?
Look at the number of people waiting to go Ha Long Bay
Maybe it's the non-stop drizzle, the roaches in our cabin, the regret of not bringing a swimsuit such that i can kayak, terrible voices of ang mohs singing karaoke at 2am, the Ha Long Bay wasn't as fascinating as i expected. But we had a big highlight of our trip: Thomas the Train! And i'm definitely not referring to that most boring cartoon on earth. Coined YD (Yan Dao) by us truly, Hin had the privilege of sitting beside for lunch (but didn't managed to dig much!). i had the privilege of him asking me to take a photo of him and his friend (much neglected by us). It's inevitable that YD tends to attract some unnecessary attention, in this case, i call her the German b***h. Not very kind but it's apt. Especially when she abandons her parents and stick to him for the longest time and disrupts us when we were having a hearty laugh. Hmph. Most unforgivable is she actually left a note for him on our last day of tour. My mum said i should have been equally proactive. So people, take me as a living example, follow your heart, don't live to regret what you did not do but could have done.
Day 3: Ha Long Bay, Hang Gai Street, Hoan Kiem Lake, Water Puppet ShowWe wanted to watch the sunrise, but missed it and ended up talking to a sleep deprived and drunk Brit. i guess the only 收获 from this tour is that we managed to interact with lots of foreigners, and introducing Singapore to them. Talked to 1) an Aussie couple from Darwin and Sydney; introduced Zoo, Birdpark and Newton Circus for their transit trip 2) Nathan, the drunk Brit, who works as a kitchen helper back home and travels once he has the $ 3) Mary, a French who is working in Singapore for 3 years now, talked about her funny experiences 4) Thomas & Dimirthy, from Boston, maybe on their graduation trip or something. Conclusion is, we are always first thought as Mainland Chinese and they'll be always be surprised by our grasp of English.
Good morning Vi-et-nam!
Back to Hanoi and a short rest at the hotel, we're off on our feet again. For the rest of the day, we strolled along Hang Bong Street and Hang Gai Street, which supposedly is the shopping street. But for any place that appears on the tourist map, it's bound to earn the tourists' moolah. So prices weren't cheap. Hoan Kiem Lake was, well, more of a pond than a lake in my opinion. But i love the Water Puppet Show! For only S$4, you get good seats and a good show! Though 100% of the time, we don't understand what they were singing, but the catchy folksongs and the cute actions of the puppets had our eyes fixated on the stage.
The puppeteers soaked in water everyday
Dinner part 1 was a bad experience. Recommendation led us to Little Hanoi which supposedly serve good international food. But the menu is full of sandwiches and sandwiches. And there're no locals inside that place. And the service staff looked down on us. i was so damn pissed off. In the end, we walked back to our hotel nearby for dinner part 2, where food is good, price is cheap and plus a local pianist playing on a piano which has 3 spoilt leftmost keys and 2 spoilt rightmost keys.
Day 4: Perfume PagodaWe depart for a day tour to Perfume Pagoda, south of Hanoi, in the countryside, about an hour away. On the way, we saw rice paddy fields and we were lucky to coincide with the harvest season now, so we could see all the villagers hardworkingly laying out the unprocessed rice grains on the ground to dry them. And not to discriminate, but you know how people say that blondes are intellectually challenged? We certainly saw for ourselves on this trip. 2 blondes from Land of Windmills asked the guide what were the villagers doing. Drying the rice, guide replied. Rice? But why it is yellow? Me and Hin looked at each other, let out a look of disbelief. i hope none of you will ask that question too hor. Then we set off on a sampan of sorts for a 40 min ride along the river to reach the foot of Perfume Pagoda. Weather was exceptionally lovely and HOT!
Row row row your boat, gently down the stream...
Finally we reached the foot of the mountain where we were told that we had to trek 1 hour up to reach Perfume Pagoda. WAH! i can't recall the last time i took part in a seriously energy exhausting outdoor activity, but i survived the climb! So the perfume smelling cave and the pagoda was so-so, but it was definitely good exercise.
Char took cable car up!
That pretty sums up my virgin trip to Vietnam and next day we took a plane back home. Although i was pretty reluctant cos i was having so much fun and work seems like a drag. Then again, i won't be going back to Vietnam anytime soon unless we go up to Sapa, i might consider. Next up: Turkey next year, girls, on anot?
