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Published: March 16th 2007
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First meal in Hanoi
Hungry YL. He's having barbequed meatS in some kind of noodle soup, comes with springrolls. I'm having duck noodle soup which is excellent with a healthy dose of chilli Departing Hoi An midafternoon for the gruelling mammoth 18 hour bus ride to Hanoi in our berms and t shirts, we had absolutely no idea what the capitol of vietnam had in store for us. Several days of watching BBC's weather report, we were expecting crisp, cool, 25 degree days. As a result, it came as a rude shock to us when we got off the bus at 630am only to be greeted by an icy cold rainy morning - we were blowing mist out of our mouths! The weather was quite miserable for the first few days at 18 degrees in the rain, but it's gotten better since.. we can finally put the berms back on. Fearing the worst, I have since bought 3 sweaters (all dirt cheap knock-offs at a local skate shop) and a snowcap. Despite the initial rain, I have to admit that the weather here is the best we've encountered so far.
Hanoi is serving as our base for 2 excursions, one to Halong Bay and another to Sapa. We recently concluded our Halong Bay trip. I was really looking forward to the 2 day 1 night boat trip around the islands but it came
as somewhat of a disappointment for a multitude of reasons: First off, our tour guide sucked. He was grouchy, money faced, didn't explain any delays and never did any commentary.. completely un-tourguide-like! Also, the weather was still cold and rainy so we couldn't hang out on the 2nd deck of the boat for more than 10 minutes without freezing, and the weather made it very very misty so visibility was just terrible. ALSO, we were stuck on the boat with old people haha most of them were at least double our age (triple in some cases)! Fortunately, we swapped boats at night (not enough cabins on ours) and met 3 beer guzzling guys from England and Sweden. Copious amounts of beer and great conversation, we all had a very good night's sleep. I would definitely recommend the Halong Bay tour, but do visit outside the months of Dec to Apr to avoid the cold weather and fog. It cost us US$30 each.
The food here is just incredible and unique to the north. We've tried just about everything but it's a shame that we can't pronounce or remember all the names of the dishes! Noodle soup here is very
Temple by the lake
Nice bridge. Connects to the temple. popular owing to the cold weather.. duck, chicken, pork, they have it all. Spring rolls and deep fried pork are everywhere, taste great, come in big portions and are dirt cheap! Bia Hanoi and Larue Beer are superb.. it's refreshing to have a full bodied lager again after all the watery stuff that's served in this part of the world. And Tiger Beer seems to be on tap in every bar here, good stuff! The standards at the pubs here are much higher, serving potent cocktails and subzero beers at S$2 or S$3, great happy hour deals too. I don't think there is a day that goes by without a beer and some good old vietnamese coffee.
We even tried the touristy thing by visiting the Hoan Kiem Lake (we're within walking distance anyway and most bars and restaurants are on the west side of the lake.. WEST SIDE, represent!), the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (it only opens in the morning so we arrived to find it closed) and the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Plenty of propaganda in the museum.. I'm even thinking of going communist now hmm.
Well, tonight we depart by train to do a little
trekking in Sapa. It costs between US$69 and US$99 for all-inclusive trekking tours from Hanoi and that is just WAY out of our budget. Initially, we decided to skip it altogether and fly back early on the 19th, but Tigerairways doesn't have a flight back to Singapore until the 23rd. After considering 1) doing a DIY trekking trip to Sapa 2) flying to Saigon and flying to Singapore 3) taking a bus into Vientiane, Laos for a quick tour and then crossing into Udon Thani, Thailand to fly home 4) travelling up into China and taking a flight back from Guangzhou, we weighed the pros and cons (and cost!) and decided to take option 1. Unfortunately, before realizing that we would be going home much later than originally planned, we went into shopping mode and bought up the entire skate shop - sweaters, shirts, vests, shoes, you name it haha I'm not too sure how long my money's going to last anymore :P Scoured the city by public bus in search of the cheapest way to Sapa and decided on the S$8 hard seat 10 hour train to Lao Cai (pronounced Lao Gai) and minibus transfer to Sapa.
And
Train Tracks
Random train tracks in the middle of town. Nice shot. we finally partied last night at Toilet Pub. We had planned to go to Apocalypse Now because of the great times we had at the same club in Saigon but we soon found out that it had shut down. Toilet Pub was great - good dancing crowd and even better R&B, too bad it closes at midnight though. After that, along with 3 Americans and our newly acquired gay, drug-dealing, prostitute-pushing, motorbiking Vietnamese friends (they seemed completely innocent at first glance when they were pushing me glass after glass of red label haha), we went over to New Century club which is the MOS of Hanoi - HUGE, crowded, bad house music, and rich Vietnamese with Henessy bottles on every table. So-so night overall.
Where are all the pictures of Halong Bay you might ask, well, the camera has gone missing. I have a feeling it was snagged. Walking back to the hotel one evening, I realized that the camera pouch that was strapped to my belt was unzipped and felt unnervingly light. The good news is that I still have all the pictures from the trip except Halong Bay, and it's almost the end of our trip, the
bad news is that I have no camera. So don't expect any pictures of Sapa!
***For members of the Singapore branch of the Alex and Yaolong Fanclub, we will be flying back late on the 23rd of March, arriving at Changi Budget Terminal at 1am on the 24th of March. Let us know of your welcome home plans, we're not in the mood for surprises.
*** People who are interested in finding out more about our South-East-Asia escapade can feel free to ring us up when we are back and arrange a meeting. ( Price : Minimum 3 pints of beer )
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Enlarged Toke
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Groupie!
Oohhh Yeaaahhh..the groupies are finally gonna get their chance to lay their hands on the peroxide duo again huh! alright alright, i'll bring down the cheerleader girls from the west side, hustlers from the east side, and some line-dancing mademoiselles as good measure too eh ;)