还是美丽的

可能太快了
我自己无法捕捉到
你完整
真正的面目
可能也不想知道
从另外一个角度看
你还是美丽的。

taken on 17th May :: on the cab to Danang train station

May 16th - Hoi An

My Son is this Vietnamese equivalent of the Cambodian Angkor. just ALOT smaller. but I got to sit in a jeep! I guess I have a thing for retro automobiles. And Vietnam has them, all the Vespas and Jeeps, I was busy oogling at them.



*by the way, i came across this other person who uploaded her Angkor pictures and it felt good, warm, familiar, cool in a way to see that someone saw the same things that you did and took the same photos that you did. What made me notice was I saw the picture of the monks, and my brain went "I think I saw these monks before". well, pretty amazing in a weidd sort of way isnt it. I know its a tourist attraction and there's probably loads of these pictures out there but well, her pictures kinda did its work on me. well, it helps u do a little cheating. at the rate I am doing, it will be Christmas when I finally go into Cambodia here.

credits to ngader

Hoi An

byebye Hue, we are going to.....

HOI AN.

The midpoint stop during our bus ride was at Lang Co beach. Beautiful beautiful beach. i really love the scenery with the sprawling beach infront of me and the surrounding mist. After hopping onto the bus, we drove through the Hai Van Pass which separates North and South Vietnam. Used to be a mountainous route and now the Vietnamese has built a tunnel which makes it easier and safer.

lunch was trying out the Hoi An's specialty - Cao Lao. And I drown it down with BABABA "333". Vietnam's local bia (beer).

fiona read from her book that white rose (another specialty) had shrimp & frog filling. FROG... during our shopping, we saw an old lady selling it by the roadside, and many locals coming out of their shops to buy. (which tempted us) we asked the lady in the bookstore we were in what was inside the innocent hargow (prawn dumping) like wrapping and she said prawn and beans. No frogs! so we tried. It was nice and tasted very much like hargow with a kueh like texture.

an old lady with her plate of white rose.

after a difficult time locating this place, we were abit apprehensive about eating there because it was at a ulu place + they were ALL locals. we decided to take the risk and had our stomach satisfied with the above. it was the vietnamese wrap your own 'po-piah' except it was rice paper & not popiah skin. and besides veggie, you can wrap a springroll inside your spring roll, or wrap in an egg (which had tau-gay wrapped in it), or the satay. vegetables aside, it was superb. and the female boss seeing that we were tourist, stood by to wrap our popiah and to feed us with it. (after she left fi & i proceed to remove trace of tau-gay discreetly) vietnamese are a friendly lot of people, and after the boss went away, the lady sitting beside us helped us with the ever-understood sign language. Ba Le Well Restaurant is a MUST-go. At this point, everyone has to applaud Fiona for eating veggies.

the rest of it are spent shopping, and we need no photographic evidence of that.

Hue

the day at Hue was a short one. we reached in the morning, and then spent the next 2 hours, depositing our bags with new friends we made then going off to settle the whole flight change hassle. it was after settling all these that we booked our hotel, washed up and went out for a great big meal. of course, we didnt skip the famous Hue pancakes!

being a small town, we thought we should just go on foot to visit all the various places of interest. then it drizzled and we decided to just hop on to this cyclo which has been asking "xich lo?" (cyclo?) all these while and offering us directions. haha imagine 2 of us in a small xich lo... it was like us sitting in a pram. it was quite a hilarious sight and we got our fair share of attention from the locals. our cycloman, was really friendly, and was one of the few people who tried his best to teach us Vietnamese. unfortunately, my vocabulary is still stuck at "xin cao" (hello), "cam on" (thank you), "ngong lam" (very good!).

we cycled past various sights mentioned in travel guides but only stopped to visit the Forbidden City. which is the smaller version of the China's 紫禁城.

not small at all. we spent an hour in there and alot of shots couldnt be captured properly because the building is too wide & ours are just consumer cameras, not professional enough to take wide shots. i gave up trying to trying to create a panorama shot by segmenting the building into a few parts so that i can just join them up using photoshop later. too difficult.

as many would have noticed by now, Vietnam's culture is very much Chinese influenced. so, things felt more or less familiar.


being very used to metropolitan cities, the slow pace of these old cities like Hue and later Hoi An has it own charm. we watched as cars, cyclos and motorbikes travel at the same pace across the bridge. and saw cyclos transporting big wooden cupboard. its like watching the era of cheongsams and samsui women, scenes that became familiar because of tv serial.

didnt take too long before we were done with the city tour, and we continued our adventure with cycling. in retrospective, Hue and Hoi An were probably the only 2 place with the biggest possibility of not getting killed. after a while we just gave up navigating, but just merely remember the various turns we took so that we can just follow the same way back to our hotel, and enjoyed our ride. like making crazy turn with all the motorbikes beside us, stopping with everyone at the traffic light being a part of the big horde of bicycles & motorbikes. haha come to think of it, cycling was FUN there.

carousel.

location: lenin park (hanoi)

fiona said that vietnamese are living our 80s - a period we were in when we were young. when people commute using motorbikes and bicycles. where children went fishing with their dads, kicked the feather thingy instead of going short sighted with PSP. our last day at hanoi was spent at Lenin Park, an amusement park that seemed to be caught in time. it was a weekday, the park was relatively empty and quiet. the metal planes, metal seats, metal horses & trains didn't move but it was still rather enchanting.

// im not having much luck with blogger & youtube. will upload the pictures & video when its possible.

Hoi An - My Son

Hanoi

back to tell the tale. the 4th day at Hanoi, we had not much plans up our sleeves. so, we decided to go to Hoan Kiem Lake early in the morning to see the locals up and about their morning exercise as well as to see the pagoda & bridge.

in all travel guidebooks, the lake will be described as a 'romantic' one. when i first saw the lake, romantic definately didnt come to mind. Near the lake was this big roundabout where traffic was heaviest. rowdy was more it. then you start to see the families there, the vietnamese women in their pajamas, the couples. Vietnamese couples kuchimo in parks & lakes at anytime, at night or in broad daylight, right on their motorbikes. i guess now you can use the word 'romantic'.

Halong Bay

Halong Bay - "Vinh Ha Long" means "Bay of the Descending Dragon". The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves where numerous stalactites and stalagmites are found. The bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Vietnam is full of UNESCO world heritage sites)

USD$18 to get us into a tour group of a rather cute guide ( i cant seem to find the video i took, must have deleted it by mistake), Singaporean uncles & aunties (which reminded us of our parents), a Japanese (who read picture books). Stalactites & stalamites werent exactly in my field of interest, so when the guide pointed out breasts, cats, male, female lookalikes - it was just "oh" and "click" went the camera. The only recognizable one i have is this. See the cat looking up as if awaiting some prey?

but it was great spawling out on the deckchairs with the wind blowing on our faces.

and the many junks at sea!

snapped this while on the bus. the sky is beautiful over there, stretches on forever.

Places of Interest - Hanoi

our 2nd day at Hanoi, we visited the major places of interest. The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology where we learnt about the various ethnic groups in Vietnam & the Temple of Literature where Vietnamese offered prayers to Confucius and the many other great teachers. Enter!

Liz, someone from a club we managed to befriend from Couchsurfing.org, was our guide for the day. Without him, we would be cabbing instead of taking the public bus which cost us 30cents.

Liz said that these turtles bring goodluck to our academia. so there we are touching its head and mumbling, high gpa high gpa. i just checked my grades, i am finally a 3.20 zunzun, a high merit. cum laude, byebye.

that night we were supposed to have a home dinner at one of the club member's house, but due to some miscommunication, it was cancelled and neither us nor Liz knew about it. (Due to unforeseen circumstances, we also didnt manage to go to the mausoleum nor the HCM musuem.) We waited at the hotel lobby for 45mins or so, till we got news. we decide to head out for a meal. I've learnt that it is important to have a good guidebook which does good recommendation for food, else we will always be just eating pho or other familiar food. or just places with English Menu (which tends to be more expensive most of the time). That night, we ate at a road side stall for the 1st time, eating this plate of fried fritters. the key to getting the best experience is to watch the locals, we watched the local dip their fritters into this bowl of sauce before eating and we followed suit. YUM =) (*pictures should be with fi)

how things look like

this is how the public bus looks like. there is a driver and ticket officer on duty. so you get on the bus and the ticket officer will approach u so that u can buy the tickets from them.

this is how the policemen look like. very communist. and Vietnam is a relatively safe country, you see these policemen often especially at places of interest. They have their own platform thingy that they stand on.

1st Day - Hanoi

too many pictures. fi & i had 3G of memory space each, so go figure. so i'd do this selectively here. May 10th... TigerAir. No arrowbridge, so its straight up to the aircraft, pretending its your private jet. 3 hours later, its *Xin Chao Ha Noi!

the 1st coffeejoint we visited and it overlooks the Hoan Kiem Lake. Had my coffee and couldnt sleep that night. my sleepless night in Hanoi... i think i almost drove fiona crazy.

shops/houses in Vietnam are narrow, tiny and stacked up. so if you have more money, you add 1 more layer of space in your house. So there's always these steep & narrow staircases. one of those few occurances that I have to watch my head. Same goes for our hotels, the amount of stairs we have to climb! by the time we reach our room, we are panting. hahaha

* xin chao is hello in vietnamese. read as xin jiao. yes, like 'new bird' in hokkien. repeat after me, xin chao!

all in all

since im such a bloggerholic, let me start this one off.

May 10th - 13th (Day 01 - 04)
Hanoi
Bodega hotel with their nice staff, dorm stay, hoan kiem lake, learning vietnamese, vietnamese walking in their pajamas, "very far very far", this was referring to Lenin Park, superb massage!, meeting vietnamese friends, not meeting vietnamese friends, learning about the ethnology of Vietnamese, pagodas, Temple of Literature where we touched turtles and asked for good GPA (haha), water puppet show, day tour to Halong Bay, 4th day was bus ride to Hue (14hrs)where in the midst of sleeping and waking up on the bumpy ride, we woke up and saw roasted dogs (thit cho).

May 14th (Day 05)
Hue
At Hue, we had good cheap food, first experience at cycling in Vietnam and rebelling against traffic rules if any exists. Cyclo day tour. Hue pancakes. Visiting the Forbidden City.

May 15th - 17th (Day 06 - 08)
Hoi An
Travel from Hue to Hoi An, where we drove throught Hai Van Pass which separates North and South Vietnam. Pitstop at LangCo Beach, which was BEAUTIFUL. tailor made clothes, My Son, cao lau & white rose (both of which are hoi an's speciality. and they taste great. hoi an is one of the few places that actually has their own local speciality), alot of walking around and shopping, for books/scarves/teeshirts. Day 08 was a cab back to Danang to catch our 12 hour train ride to HCMC (soft sleeper $41usd/pax)

May 18th - May 19th (Day 9 - 10)
HCMC
train ride to HCMC was comfortable enough to read, get decent sleep. weird train food. sharing a cabin with australian travelers-1 of whom has been traveling for 9 months, polluted air, expensive cabs which we have to hail selectively cos some of their meters jump so fast, spending a day just to check out travel agencies to get to Cambodia, being sian cos their elections screwed the bus schedule and our schedule, and finally being able to find a solution and get to Cambodia without having to waste time and doing a night stopover at Phnom Penh. best part of it was eating roadside seafood, crabs, clams, SNAILS (my 1st time), all of which cost $14? Notre Dame Cathedral, Post Office (Buu Dien), going to Cholon (HCMC's chinatown) but disappointed with the many shops closed early. Going to Cuchi tunnel and the Cao Dai Temple the next day. Getting caught in the rain and experiencing first hand how life was like in the tunnel where we took cover from the rain.

May 20th - 23rd (Day 11 - 14)
Cambodia
clearing customs, getting mobbed by tuktuk/motorcycle/taxi operators, by children, asking for money/food/candy/to buy their stuff, food peddlers carry their goods on baskets atop their heads, dirt roads, minivans operating as buses with people sitting on top of the vans, (that means they actually have to breathe in all the dust flying up from the road), being dumped in the middle of the road, no rooms available at the hotel, to having 1 last room (thank goodness) because someone checked out 2 hours ago, feeling relief that we are still alive, Angkor Wat, HOTHOTHOT, climbing steep stairs, taking unglam videos, slacking out the next day at a bubble tea place, giving out chocolates to kids, buy more teeshirts, another 12hr back to HCMC (what to do, budget traveling, got time but no money)

May 24th - 27th (Day 15 - 17)
Back at HCMC
typing all these. and realizing i got my dates all mixed up. hahaa.. ok will have to refer to our travel log. now i will go upstairs to get fiona. she will fill in the other missing details of our trip. we are rather broke so we decided to scrap the tour to Mekong and slack out. Visited the Ben Thamn Day market, did final shopping, and left with only.... a miserable 50cents after dinner. We had dinner at a vegetarian place called 'The original Bohdi Tree' (recommended in Lonely Planet) because it was cheap. we were so broke. hotel with no tv (and fiona freaked out) and we started making each other hysterical by singing, acting to ourselves. we settled down for reading and then having an early night. Spending $4 at a bar on beer, which was the equivalent of our dinner just because we dont want to go back to the hotel where we had nothing to do.

2 countries. 17 days. 6 cities. Hanging on by a shoestring of $1000 (airtix included) it's a good 1st backpacking trip. =) definately returning for Sapa, Dalat, Nha Trang, Phu Quoc Islands (the highlands & the beaches!) and yes sunrise & sunset at Angkor.

p/s: edited after referring to travel log

hcmc soon.

ok doing some last min shopping before hopping onto the train. Hoi An is the place we spent most money

total damage on shopping:
eu: USD $52 (silk top, pencil skirt, thick jacket, dress)
fi: USD $48? (sundress, silk trousers, silk top, pompom skirt)

total damage on food:
usd $20?

okie now gtg for more last min damage. ciaoz

p/s: they eat dog here.but thats not the point. the dog they eat is ROASTED. like sio ter (roasted pig). they stand in the same upright position. u can tell the exact shape of the dog. poor lucky.

Hoi An

so we are at Hoi An - tailoring haven. instead of buying readymade clothes, you tailor make them. entirely new shopping experience. you flip catalog, pick what you like, pick your material then voila, clothes for your exact measurements. quite unbelievable. and at a price of less than zara. super unbelievable. and having to actually stop yourself from exploiting such a bargain because though its cheap, it still cost money. that is painfully unbelievable.

just came back from My Son - Vietnam's equivalent of Angkor Wat. Weather is hot like crazy and while fi is taking a shower, im stealing some blogging time.

tomorrow will be a 24Hr train journey to Ho Chi Minh City. Au Revoir!

Hue

internet time has been usually a rush and now since i have time and enough, let's begin.

i guess its true you miss people more not when you are lonely but when you are having a good time. like how good food will make me think of the F.M "oh Gan Ann will love this", and how i think i could bring my dad for cheap beer and mum for shiok massage.

after settling the whole flight fiasco, fi & i went for a good lunch, a city tour then wrapped up with a cycling experience since this is the best place to do it. Hue is an old city where life moves realllyyyy slowwly, so cars/bikes/motorbikes might as well move as the same pace. so we had some adventure smelling exhaust fumes, making some scary turns. this "dont think" logic applies here as usual. dont think just cycle.

tomorrow we will be heading for Hoi An...for SHOPPING! trust me, we havent been doing much so far.

millions thanks!

kudos to xihao for being awake at 10am singapore time to help 2 poor girls in Hue to change our flight. now fi and i are at the net cafe, with no hotel, have our bags deposited at fellow singaporean girls' room just because we have to change our schedule. we will be flying back on 26th May (Sat) TR 329 HCM to SG. 1250 - 1545 Budget Terminal

anw, we are safe and sound. we had a totally feel-like-queen massage last night. which got kinda ruined by the 14hr bus ride to Hue this morning. ache....

missing u guys alot.

Greetings from Hanoi

and so fi and i are sitting here after our 20cent beer. as of our 3rd day in Vietnam, we have had cheap food, slept in a dorm (last night was with a filippina guy), went to Halong Bay, squatted by the roadside to eat, sat in slightly higher chairs to drink 20cent beers, made many random friends/acquaintances.

oh, we made a video about how we successfully cross a road in Vietnam. one of the most valuable experiences in Vietnam. Like they say, DONT RUN!

Tomorrow we will be heading to Central Vietnam, Hue. Till then!

BRAVO

setting: SG (Budget Terminal)
(Internet Kiosk)

eunice & fiona: (blogging) zooms in on screen. Boarding Plane....NOW