The process of entry/immigration took very very long and it was really a waste of time. Being a Malaysian is a privileged as immigration process really finish very fast, just the waiting time for your turn need a lot of time. The time of Hanoi is GMT+7, which is slower than the time of Malaysia by 1 hour and Hanoi have 4 season.
The tour guide in Hanoi fetch us in the Airport and brought us to the MS Hotel (Majestic Salute Hotel). Being told by the guide that there are about 3 million motobikes in Hanoi city and it is the major mode of transportation. Besides that, we can constantly heard the sound of the horn as a sign of warning.
This hotel is the largest in the old town of Hanoi where the business areas are located. Being largest, it has 2 doors at the front and back entrance. After checked in and rest for a while, we are brought to a nearby place for dinner before going to the pasar malam located just in front of the hotel. The pasar malam is only available during the weekends and we were lucky enough to be there when the pasar malam is held. Bad things about this is the place will be very crowded. Even the things that were sold in the market were not suitable to be used in Malaysia and the quality of the goods is still questionable. Besides that, all the people walk in 1 direction only, just like driving on the road. The people will not walk in the opposition direction. For example, all the people going up will walk on the right while people going down will walk on the left. For most of the people in Hanoi, speaking English is a problem unless their have already learned them.
If u can look at the pole, there are a lot of wires connecting together and it was very messy and not nice looking. Imaging having to try and fix them if a problem occur.
The next day, we were brought to the mausoleum of Ho Chin Minh, Father of Vietnam as well as visit the place where he used to stay and work before.
After lunch in Hanoi, we then continued our journey to Ha Long for 3 days and 2 nights. The scenery and view are very nice and pretty. The amount of people and vehicles are very less as compare with Hanoi and also quiet. The trip from Hanoi to Halong took about less than 4 hours journey by van.
At the entrance and beside the check in counter, we can see this: "Welcome to Halong Bay Hotel" with my father name on it. What an honour. However, the number of tourist in the hotel was not many.
Again, view from my room:
After checked in, we rest for a while before heading out for dinner. After dinner, we were given free time and we decided to go to the night market for a visit. The local people can speak mandarin as China is just a few hours ride from Halong. Due to this, we can always saw a lot of China people around this area.
The next day, we were brought to the jetty for a cruise ride around the Halong Bay on a wooden junk.
The view of the Halong Bay was very beautiful.
The people even stay on the sea and earn their living by fishing and 'chopping' the tourist with expensive seafood
We were then brought to a big cave with 3 connecting chambers, from smallest to the biggest. As the name implies, "Sung Sot' meaning 'surprise', you will be suprise to see the next chamber being larger than the previous one.
View of scenery from the cave to the bay:
A stalagmite which almost like a junk and 'Guan Yin' standing on a lotus leaf
After the visit, we had our lunch on the junk and the headed back to our hotel for rest. The next day, we headed back to Hanoi again for a night sleep at the same hotel again. On the way back , we visited a big factory and market which sell from clothes to jewelly as well as furniture and decoration items.
Another thing special about people in Hanoi is that they usually eat at the roadside while sitting on a short chair and short table.
Besides that, the buildings in Hanoi are very small as well.
As Christmas is just round the corner, all the hotels are the Christmas mood with pretty decorations.
I leave Hanoi on 17 of december 2008. Overall, the food in Hanoi consider ok only as the taste is different. Besides that, there are not much place for sight-seeing in Hanoi as the traffic is a lot and hard to cross the roads.
Overall, i think Halong Bay is a nice place to visit as compare with Hanoi.hehe.
p/s: all the pics are taken using Nokia N73
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