You're like a disease.

Sunday, March 02, 2008 @ 11:58 PM

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM

Heyya guys, yes i finally i see the smirk on your face...its tru i have finally updated my blog. after many months of blurness, i finally found something great to blog bout....my holiday in Hanoi.
this was totally a last minute thing, i still remember aaron asked, kaj u wanna go hanoi..i was like ya!!! and then weeks of planning and google'in and research, we finally were in LCCT. not to mention we were 6 hours early for our flight. so we spent the time learning new card games and planning our journey once we reach there.
this is was so an amazing race experience for me.. and i m sure it was the same for the other 4, james aaron kevin n mui how.
upon reachin hanoi, we were suddenly struck with breezing chill air. it was 13 degree celcius and i have never experienced winter weather before. we were shivering as we travelled from the airport to our hotel. i immediately made a fool out of myself when i tried to compete with the driver for the driver seat, how was i to know vietnam ppl drive on the left. ish ish...

At the hotel, we were again caught by surprise when james found someone sleeping in our room..it was super funny coz we tot it was a dead body ...then found out it was one of the worker...he turned out to be a nice dude. BTW the hotel rooms were amazing..so much better than wat i had expected.
at the begining of this journey we had divided the duties during the trip

aaron: the pR & booking guy
james: the navigator n timeline person
kevin : the chief financial controller
muihow: the camera + tripod guy cum porter
kajen: the souvenir buyer n alarm clock...

yup my job was mainly jus to remind everyone to buy souvenirs n wake them up every morning...so unfair jus coz i always wake up 1/2 hour beofre my alarm rings.

anyways first 2 days were spent in hanoi itself...it was super duper cold there...we were wearing like 2 or 3 tops a time. we did a lot of walking and alot of map navigating...all for the amazing race training la..hehe
the 2 main locations of our stay in hanoi were the old quarter n french quarter...there were so many shops so diversifed n so cantik cantik...food was not a prob at all...n its good...don beleive ppl aobut having iarhoea n stufff...we were perfectly fine...
since our trip was a budget trip, we did change part of our money at KL but realised that we shud have changed all coz malaysian currency is like unknown there...everything is in dong(vietnam currency) or in dollars...when we were super desperate to change money, i called the malaysain embassy n tried my luck, they then refered me to maybank....i called maybank n was soo excited when the guy who spoke on phone pronounced my name perfectly...i immediately knew he is a malaysian....hahahaha..we ran to maybank..n they we met Mr chan, the regional manager of maybank vietnam...he was like an angle to us, he used his personal money n changed for us..he even added additonal 5 USD for us...so nice of him...

ok moving on, our third day was the highlight of the trip, it was our tour to halong bay. journey started with a wan ride for 3 hours from hanoi n the jeti an haphong town, we then boarded our cruise ( called the "junk") i was quite surprised, it was really nice, had 8 rooms, a dining area n an upper deck for view. really cool...
I had a room all by myself andeach room had its own toilet. all this in a boat!!!! so cool.
and mus i even say, ha long bay is spectacular...breath taking ...awesome...no wonder its on the 1000 places u have to see b4 u die list'.
our tour comprised of the accomodation, food, n kayaking...n we also went to a cave, where legend says, a dragon mated with a local vietnamese gal....so beautifull...
one part of the bay looked jus like a the king kong movie set...so nice.....

ok then we got back to hanoi on thursday ...and that night we were taking a berth train to Sapa, the highland area, the border of viet and china...
For dinner, ren manage to find us a french fine dining retaurant. its actually a training restaurant but the place is so frenchy n classy food is really good...price also boleh tahan.
that night we boarded the train for a 9 hour journey to sapa. train journey was fun, playing cards chating n sleeping...Once we reached sapa we were attacked by so many locals who were asking to to stay at their hotel n stufff...took us bout 1/2 hour to lose their trail. ish soo scary..
Sapa is another wonderful spot...so cool, refreshing n pretty. We got ourselves a tour guide, a native tribe girl who then leaded us on a 4 our hike to the cultural village aorung the mountains...
was super tiring but worth it....i hope i lost weight there...hehe

finally, after the train journey back to hanoi, it was our last day our trip, saturday....we specially allocated few hours to find souvenirs. we split to 2 teams and then met for lunch at Pho 24 9 a fast food place) Pho ("fur") is like their national food..its hor fun la...but relli good. At Pho's we revealed that the split in the morning was a plan to get a birthday cake for aaron...yup ren's 21st bday was celebrated in hanoi...of course it wasnt extravagant but with the money we had he was happy...

With that, our trip came to an end....reached KL bout 1030pm on saturday. Even tho, i kept getting stres thruout the whoe trip for looking different (not vietnamese, not mat salleh...) Must say, this was really really a fantastic experience for me...travelling with frens..( these 4 guys were jus so awesome) ( now i know...james is very good with maps, mui is soo lame, ren is like my kind of traveeling type and kev is like the camwhoring king )
We took millions of pics, i spent the last hour looking a them in the dvd, n i still haven finished looking ..so imagine how crazy we got...we also manage to film an episode of national geography, cloverfield, deal or no deal and amazing race... not to mention britney spear's songs were inspirational to the 5 of us...hehehehee

rest assured that this is would not be the end of my travels..........cya soon