Im back from Vietnam with all the pictures! Ha. I've been uber lazy to blog, what with the internet disconnecting halfawy as i send emails and submitting blog entries, and I lose whatever I'd written. GRR!
And I gave up. For a looong looong time. And the terminals in vietnam couldn't even access blogger.com. I wonder if there is some kind of ban on blogs in vietnam, and the commnunist authorities restrict access to large blogging domains like Blogspot. But Xanga and Livejournal wasn't a problem though.
Anyway, the trip to vietnam was a good one. Wait. a GREAT experience. I definitely wouldn't mind going back there again. (: One of the main things that attracted me was that it wasn't very "mercenary", as in, it hasn't been transformed into a real tourist attraction yet. (Note: YET) The scene was still very local, and most of the hawkers there were very honest. Few sold us, tourists, stuff at exorbitant prices. But the price could most often be cut to less than half of the asking price :P
I've put some of the pictures into collages, to reduce the time taken for uploading. Here goes!
We left Singapore aboard plane SQ176. I must say the inflight entertainment KRISworld was quite good. There were many movies to choose from and we could even learn the basics of foreign languages! Heehee. Forgive me if I sound excited at something so small as this, but this is my first time taking SIA! I've been taking Qantas Airways and Silkair for my other trips. But I still prefer Qantas though. More leg space. (: I watched Chicago. Finally. Haha.
We put up at the Sunflower Hotel- Hanoi, at Hanoi, and this was to be our living quarters whenever we stopover at Hanoi. It's accomodations weren't very good. Windows couldn't be locked, no glass panels in the bathroom, water was sandy and yellow, and the bathroom lights switch was.... well, in the bathroom, beside the shower. (Electric shock eh) But otherwise it was in a very good location. City wasn't far, and the wholesale market was nearby. On weekend nights there is an entire street long of night market.
Buildings in the city were a fresh sight to us. Instead of being proportinately wide as high, they were narrow and tall! Dien (pronounced as Z-ian), our tour guide, said the authorites put a restriction on the width of houses, but not the altitude. Hence, the rich could often buy a piece of land marked out near the roadside (at about US$2000 per metre sq.), and build many floors. Hence the weird shape.
The most famous dish in Vietnam, besides the spring roll, was the one in the picture. I can't remember its name, heh :P. it's quite delicious: Really springy white noodles (Ever wondered why our noodles are not as Q as anyone would like it to be? There's an ingredient in the vietnamese noodles which is banned in Singapore. Ahh.), with hot pan-fried (on charcoal pots) fish and lots of vegetables. Yummy.
One thing that I'll miss most about Vietnam is the coffee. Look at the pic, isn't it really delicious? (: About as much condensed milk as the coffee itself, diluted by ice. Their black coffee has a sort of a sour taste to it, which is only gotten rid of by adding milk no matter how much sugar you add, so nobody orders black coffee.
In vietnam, there are many dogs, but few cats. Which isn't quite the case in Singapore. One of the cutest cats I've ever seen was in the coffeehouse in which I had the delicious iced coffee. It dances! And it's white and small and chubby. Hee.
After one harrowing night (for my sister) at the hotel, we set off early in the morning for a luxury boat to Ha Long Bay. All of us bought minute pineapples the size of a scoop of ice cream to eat as snacks. Damn cute right? Haha.. And it wasn't sour at all! On the contrary, it was sweeter than icecream (: I wondered then if the fruits in vietnam were all as sweet.
We stopped over at one of the 200 islands to look at some ancient caves, dating back to about 200AD. Some of the more spectacular formations were illuminated by coloured lights. There was even a Couple Formation! A man and a woman kneeling in front of a smaller cave near the ceiling. Another larger, older cave wewent into had no lighting, but even more spectacular. There were Japanese words on ceiling, marking the Japanese owning of the ports, and French words, during the French colonisation. There was also a stone that resembled a lion near the exit.
After 2 hours in the caves, we went back on board for a fresh seafood lunch. Yums! Scallops, clams, calamari, crabs, prawns, seafood fried rice...
And reached our destination another 2 hours later. There was time for lots of pictures at the upper deck of the boat, and my hair got so messed up in the wind, that I used the shawl to cover my hair, heh.
On the second day at the bay, we climbed (literally, on four feet) the highest peak on HaLong, and was rewarded with a great sight at the top. We met some tourists from Germany and England, as well as New Zealand and Switzerland. Then we descended, with me at my painstakingly slow pace. I have a phobia of falling, cultivated since I flipped over on my handstand and landed on my head in primary 4.
Oh, and we put up at the Sunflower Hotel - Ha Long. The quality was vastly different. I loved it here, haha.
Alright, part 2 coming up soon! (:
