Authentic Experiences WithLocals

I was clicking through iPhoto to find some pictures for my latest blog post, when I stumbled upon my Hanoi Trip album. The trip happened almost a year ago, but I still remember the fun that Mumun, Vindhya, Acul and I had! I’m not just talking about shopping at the night market *cough* or the Halong Bay cruise, but also our dinner in the Old Quarter, local style.

Mien, Vindhya, Mumun, Acul, among the locals.

We met up with Mien, a Hanoian travel blogger that we knew from Malaysia, at the hostel we were staying in at Old Quarter. As tourists who wanted to have some local experiences, we asked her to decide on where to have dinner.

HALONG BAY CRUISE & HANOI STROLL, VIETNAM - WE FINALLY MADE IT!

We finally made it to Halong Bay..! woohoo..!!
After failing to get there in our previous Vietnam trip, this time we made it to the biggest karst in the world! Not that it matters to me much, but it's one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. Not that it matters either, but it just looked amazing in postcards and magazines!

I'm not going to write a whole lot of details of our trip since I'm being realistic about my spare time, so I'm only sharing the pictures I took with my phone. Hopefully I'll manage to write more about it later.
Let's hit it!

HALONG BAY TOUR

center: Vietnam flag on every cruise boat.
top left: one of the karst in Halong Bay
top right: the Madames Vindhya, me and Mumun on the deck
below right: Mumun's & my room in the cruise boat
below left: swimming in Halong Bay's cool water..!!

Tours in Ho Chi Minh City

OUR FOOD AND TOURS IN HO CHI MINH CITY & AROUND
Still 16 - 18 Oct, 2009

Hear no evil, hear no evil, hear no evil

The great thing about staying at a tourist area is that there are so many travel agents around. And we were lucky to have chosen Delta Tour, which provided good tours for us. If you wanna do it the adventurous way, maybe you could, but I don’t have any information on how to do it.

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

HO CHI MINH, THE CITY
16 - 18 Oct, 2009

At 7 a.m we were picked up by a private car courtesy of the Hue Holiday Hotel to Hue’s airport.
Before noon we arrived at Noi Bahn international airport, Ho Chi Minh City, at the domestic arrival terminal.

HUES IN HUE, VIETNAM

HUE IN A LITTLE LESS THAN 24 HOURS

Oct 15, 2009

Before I go into details on this pleasant transit between Hanoi and HCMC, let me just tell you that Hue is a very nice city to have a peaceful vacation, which then made me wish that we would’ve stayed there a little longer. I liked the windy air, much like Hanoi, I liked the vacant streets that it was safe to cross, and the laid-back atmosphere. Well, sometimes I do enjoy the hustle and bustle of bigger cities, but now and then a quiet ambience is just what we need to have a sense of balance.

Alright, enough of Socrates talk, let me introduce you a little bit more to Hue.

PLACES IN HANOI AND THE PUBLIC TOILET...

GOING PLACES IN HANOI... 

Hanoi, still in Oct 12 – 14, 2009

Flag pole in front of Ho Chi Minh mausoleum

We didn’t have much else to do in our Hanoi agenda. The great thing about it is that we could just roam about, practice our street-crossing skill, and unexpectedly popped up in areas with interesting shops and just things to see.

OUR HANOI CITY TOUR

Our own Hanoi City Tour was still in Oct 12 – 14, 2009

In exploring the city, we didn’t hire any one to guide us. The internet was already a big help, telling us what to see and where to go. The only maps we had were the ones that we got for free at the airport upon our arrival. Jakarta is way behind when it comes to free maps.

Hoan Kim Lake

This is what always came up whenever we browsed for Hanoi information. It’s a vast lake in the middle of the city, located in the Old Quarter district. Life happens around the lake. And it’s only, like, 10 minutes walk from our stay.

INTRODUCING: HANOI, THE CAPITAL CITY OF VIETNAM

We finally got to Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, in Oct, 2009. And this is the beginning of our story in Vietnam.. 

At 6.30 AM we were already sitting pretty in the AirAsia plane that would take us to Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. The 3,5 hr flight gave us time to catch some more z’s, thank God.

Landing smoothly on the Noi Banh International Airport, we were surprised to see how .. umm.. plain, the airport is. Finally, a foreign international airport that makes our Soekarno Hatta airport doesn’t look so bad :P