Day 2 - Friday, May 1, 2009 - Exploring Hanoi Motorbike Style

I want to start posting what I have completed. This post is unfinished I still want to add pictures to it when I get to a computer with a USB drive and if my USB stick isn't toast...

Also keep in mind this is a flashback post...queue harp arpeggio and wavy lines fading to black...

I awoke at 9:30 after a good night's sleep. We headed down for our complimentary breakfast. I had an omelet with cheese and bread with black Vietnam style coffee (which is brewed individually in each cup with a small tin filter that you pour hot water into and it drips down through, almost like the inner cup part of a percolator, this also creates that fine coffee slurry at the bottom of your cup)

We decided to rent motorbikes to explore around the city. The hotel called up a company and within minutes a man showed up ready to rent us 3 bikes at $6 each for the day. James signed them out and we were off in no time. Our first challenge was finding a gas station which wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. We pulled in and 50,000 Dong later I had a full tank which was maybe 2 liters of gas.

We cruised around randomly for a while and then parked our bikes by the lake near the bustling downtown area of Hanoi and went to the markets. We were bombarded from all directions by street vendors trying to sell stuff. A lady walked by me with pineapple baskets balancing on a long strip of bamboo, plopped it on my shoulder and threw her hat on me for us to take a picture of. She also wanted to sell 2 bags of pineapple for 50,000 Dong, I wasn't sure if it was a good price or not and ended up buying some (I later found out that I could get the same amount for 18,000 Dong or $1 USD) Oh well you live and learn...



We went over and bought tickets to the famed Hanoi Water Puppet Show

We wandered around some more and ended up walking through a fresh food market and buying some mangoes and some army green with the red star Vietnam hats. We sat with the locals on the street for a bit before mounting up again in search of "The Museum of Literature"

It took us a little while to find it, we parked our bikes and spent a few hours wandering around the museum.

As we were leaving we met a Vietnamese man by the name of Duc (prounuced Dook, very quickly) He was from Ho Chi Minh city and was in Hanoi for a few days working for an electric company. He offered to show us around, so we followed him for a bit and ended up back at the lake that we were dropped off the night before. He had some work to take care of, so we parted ways with plans of meeting up after the puppet show.

We took off on our bikes yet again and ended up coming out on a road that ran up the coast. After a few miles of riding we pulled off at a restaurant that was on stilts over the water. We didn't stay very long (there was no English food menu) and the sun was going down. The bikes were also due back at 8pm. We made it back by the deadline only to find out they weren't going to pick them up until the next morning and that we could use them more if we wanted to.

We left the bikes at the hotel as we made our way to the water puppet show starting at 9:15. We bought some mini-pizza things and made our way to a more commercial restaurant serving Vietnamese food but in a more Western (Gweilo) setting and method, but it was still pretty tasty. I had a beef and noodle dish with mixed in vegetables.

We went down to the theater and made it to our seats, it was a smaller venue, probably 200 seats and there was a live traditional Vietnamese band providing the music and lyrics to the scenes of the show. None of the words or songs were in English but I got the idea of the performance. It was pretty good I'm glad I was able to see what the water puppet theater was all about.

After the show Duc called us up and we went cruising again. He brought us to the Hanoi brewery but it was closed. So we stopped at one of the roadside sitdown places. We talked for a while and Duc ordered a bowl of food for all of us to share, we were still pretty stuffed from the dinner we had earlier so we didn't eat much.

We were all pretty exhausted from a long day of constantly being on our guard riding the motorbikes up and down the busy streets. Duc showed us back to the hotel and we bid farewell to our gracious host. Off to bed for our early rise on the way to Halong Bay tomorrow!

Day 1 - Thursday April 30, 2009 - Hong Kong to Hanoi, Vietnam

I want to start posting what I have completed. This post is unfinished I still want to add pictures to it when I get to a computer with a USB drive and if my USB stick isn't toast...

Also keep in mind this is a flashback post...queue harp arpeggio and wavy lines fading to black...


We went to the airport at 11:25 after finishing getting ready in the morning, we exchanged money, ate, and caught our plane. We were pretty tired and our plane waited in line a while before taking off. We had a 1.5 hour flight into Hanoi, we made it though customs pretty easily and helped out a British couple who didn't bring any US dollars with them to pay for their visas... So we took their Hong Kong dollars in exchange for some US greenbacks.

We found a local bus going into the city which was supposed to be "leaving in 10 minutes" an hour later we pulled out for the hour ride into the city. It was alright though we were able to pick up a few Vietnamese phrases from some of the bus attendants that would come in handy over the next few days.

We didn't really have a destination, just the Old Town part of the city. The bus attendant waved to us to get off at this one intersection near a park. We stepped off the bus and into a world of chaotic craziness; walls of motorbikes, zooming cars, and relentless beep-beeps coming from all directions. We walked around awestruck and overwhelmed. Eventually we found our way to the "Blue Sky Hotel" which was a very nice place for $7 each per night which included Breakfast, TV, Air Conditioning, and Internet. Most of these Hotel/Hostels were also travel agents and could hook you up with pretty much anything you needed to do to be a tourist.

We bought Halong Bay tickets for a 2 day, 1 night stay on a tour boat called "Fantasea Adventures" this included meals and transportation to and from Halong Bay which was 3 hours from Hanoi.

We also decided to take an overnight bus from Hanoi down to Hue, Vietnam on Sunday night.

We went out exploring around the bustling streets and found a place to get traditional Vietnam food. I ordered a really great meal of Pineapple, beef, and cashews in a mild sauce with rice and some spring rolls. This cost about 79,000 VND (Dong) which ends up being about $4.5 dollars for a excellent and filling meal. Really tired as I write this entry.

Happy Mothers Day from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Happy Mother's day to all the moms that read this and especially to my mom and grandmothers!

James and I parted ways with Meghan today, spent 6 hours in a food court, and are now in a "premium lounge" for 5 hours for $35. At least we get some coffee, cakes, and a shower.

Right now I'm going to start transfering over a bunch of my daily notes although some of my pictures will have to wait until later. So hopefully within the next few days or so I'll be able to create some full complete posts to show/tell what i've been up to the last two weeks.

So much travelling

So much travelling this last week, I haven't got much of a chance to sit at a computer. I have been keeping a daily written journal that I will transfer over to here at some point, probably when things slow down when I get to the Philippines and won't be travelling every day.

In the last week it has been Hong Kong flight to Hanoi, Vietnam overnight bus to Hue, Vietnam all day bus over the Lao border into Savannakhet then another early morning 6 hour bus to Pakse, Laos. Looks like we will stay in Pakse for another night and get a flight to Siem Reap from here, rather than taking another day and a half bus ride and wasting more time before we have to fly out on Sunday to Cebu in the Philippines via Kuala Lumpur