By the time we arrived in Tune Hotel, LCCT, it was already 1am. It was a short nap before waking up at 4.30am and be in LCCT at 5.15am. We were all seated on the hot seat beside the emergency exit. I loved my 14E seat. It has ample of leg space to give the extra comfort. Our flight took off at 6.40am and we arrived in Noi Bai International Airport on time. The immigration clearance was pretty quick as the crowd in the airport was less. However the baggage was rather slow. We waited for half an hour to collect 2 luggages.
The first impression that I got of the Hanoi City was the people was less friendly as compared to their famous business hub, Ho Chi Minh. We asked for whereto and howto get to our hotel but were offered with overprice taxi services instead. Taxi services offered at counter could go up to USD38 when it was actually USD15 only. We asked for a map each just in case we got separated at times but were given only 1 unclear photocopied map. I could recall how friendly the ground staffs in Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh were. Previously we did not have any difficulty in getting tourism information of the city. Read about my last experience flying into Vietnam at here. Anyway I hoped it will be better when we get to city later.
After hunting around the airport, we finally caught a taxi right in front of Vietnam Airlines taxi stand at USD15 as suggested. We arrived at APTez Hotel at about 10.30am. The hotel was situated at Tong Duay Tan. It was along a hidden alley with lots of food stalls and motorcycle parked by the side. We were greeted by the hotel's friendly staffs. We were thankful for being allowed to check in early. We were given the VIP room, 503 on the 5th floor(the Asian way of counting). The room was clean and spacious. 2 things which I was uncomfortable with were the blue lighting on the plaster ceiling and lack of elevator for a 6 stories high building.
We dropped our luggages in the room, freshened up and headed down to our first destination of the day, the Presidential Palace. En route, we looked for decent local food stall but found nothing. We finally settled with Joma Bakery Cafe, a western cafe. Nice food with excellent environment, nice hideout place from the noise pollution from the crazy traffic of the city. The roads were crowded with motorcycles and all equipped with annoying horn. As usual, I could not understand why horn was used every now and then.
We continued walking under the light drizzle along Dien Pien Phu, passing the Le Nin Park, Flag Tower and our Malaysian Embassy. It was a pleasure walk ignoring the noise and the crazy traffic. The huge trees lining along the both side of the road and colourful lantern and decorative item used for the city millennial celebration made the walk an interesting one.
The Ba Dinh Square was half under renovation. We could only watch it from far. Then we stopped in front of the Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum to admire the exterior of the Russian style architectural. We walked ups and down looking for ways into the Presidential Palace and the Stlit house. The officer stationed there were not helpful with poor command of English. We finally figured out that the stilt house was closed for lunch till 2pm from the 2 officer we bumped into.
We decided to head to the famous One Pillar Pagoda first before turning back to the Stilt House. The One Pillar Pagoda was nice but I was expecting something more magnificent since it was highly recommended by many sources. It turned out to be a 2m x 2m temple to house few goddess on the water surface. The temple was supported by a pillar of 1.25m in diameter. As I was busy on the camera, both SL & SY were looking at sourvenirs. They were offered prices in all different currencies which includes 人民币, 台币 but never 马币 was mentioned. I guessed our presences were rare in Vietnam.
Moving on, we headed to the Ho Chi Minh's Museum. It was situated beside the Pagoda. According to our old guide book, the museum resume after lunch at 1.30pm but it was incorrect. We sat by the museum and waited patiently with few other visiting groups, giving our aching legs some time to recover. However when time came, we decided to skip this from our itinerary as we have few other more interesting place to go. So we went back to the HCM's Vestige In the Presidential Palace Area. This area housed the Presidential Palace, the Stilt House and HCM living quarter as well as HCM's used cars garage. It was a nice green garden with a private lake in the heart of Hanoi.
Then we walked along Ong Ich Khiem into Son Thay. We passed the Hung Vuong and then turning into Hang Chao, the screw and electrical appliances street. We got a detour round the Temple of Literature. Stepping into the temple felt like stepping into another world. It was ambiance, all green and no worry about eye sore sight like we have seen in other part of the city. I found lots of comfort in there. I loose myself for a moment here while busy rubbing the head of those tortoise in hope for academical luck. This was surely one of the best attraction in Hanoi.
We continued our journey under the rain, heading to the weekend market within the Old Quarter. On our way, we passed by the wet market along the Ngo Si Lien. There were a lot of light snacks being sold there but we were not daring enough to try on our very first day here. We only tried the fried maze fritter. Seeing BBQ dog sold in the market freak most of us off. I wished I could have the courage to try it on.
We went to the restaurant nearby our hotel for a late tea. I got my first dessert and a beef noodle. Both were so so. Then we stopped by our hotel to ask for clearer direction to the weekend market. The reception highlighted the route for us on the map and we then left.We walked westward along the Silk street, Hang Bong. We arrived at the Hang Dao way too early. Most of the night market merchant has not started their business yet.
We walked to the lake instead. It was nicely lid with colourful neon lights. So much effort being place to make this a community leisure spot as well as a tourist spot.
Then we head back to the night market We walked and walked. The night market seemed endless. We were hungry but we did not see any food around. So we decided to diverge out of the night market street. We ate a yummy chicken Pho at Hang Khoai.
We were so exhausted. We were back in our room at about 10.30pm and I slept at 12 after a can of Ha Noi Beer. It tasted a little bitter but worth every dong. 10,000d/RM1.50 for a can of beer was too tempting.
This was a great day to start our trip. It could be much better if it was dry.
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