Halong Bay

Sunday morning, we were off for a 2 day/1 night tour of Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Located 3 hours outside of Hanoi, we spent our days exploring the waters and a cave, kayaking, swimming, playing cards and relaxing in the sun. (It reminded me of Antarctica so much. Swap the cold and white for blue/green and sun and you have Halong Bay)
I'm going to let my pictures do the talking...

Our boat

Black and White

We explored a cave

Not a great picture, but it's the only one I have of us jumping off the boat into the water.

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We got back to Hanoi late Monday afternoon. We grabbed a quick dinner and then met Tess for ice cream before heading to the airport. We left for Ho Chi Minh around 10pm and got there around midnight, slept in the airport and then left HCMC around 7am and arrived back in HK around 10. It was a long day, but worth it. :-)

We even found comfy massage chairs in the airport to sleep in!

Hanoi: Day 2

Saturday, we spent the day tackling Hanoi. With only one full day to explore all Hanoi had to offer, we had to pick and choose what we wanted to see the most. So we started off with my pick, the Museum of Ethnology. I first read about it on Tess’ blog and then heard about it in a few guidebooks and websites. They all raved about it so I wanted to check it out for myself. 

 The Museum of Ethnology focuses on the 54 ethnic groups within Vietnam. The museum provided different details about the different ethnic groups- from daily lives, to clothing, and food, language etc. I was amazed at how people are able to survive today- some of the ethnic groups still rely on hunting and gathering methods for food and survival! The Museum also had life-size replicas of houses of the different ethnic groups. We were able to explore the houses; they were all so different- one was about 15-20ft off the group and around 100ft tall while another was just 2 or 3ft off the group and about 100ft long. 

After the Museum of Ethnology, we took a cab to the Ho Chi Minh Complex. The museum there was closed for lunch when we arrived, so we wandered over to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. This too was closed- it’s closed every year from September to December for renovations/fixing ups (gotta keep him looking good! Haha).

 We walked to a place for lunch, in search for pho, but the café that was recommended to us wasn’t serving lunch- only tea, so we found another small café and grabbed a quick lunch before heading to a local market. This market was very different from the one we visited in Ho Chi Minh City. It was definitely geared to local people- as it barely sold any touristy things. It had three levels and was packed with people and goods. There was barely any room to walk. Needless to say, we didn’t spend too much time here.

Our next stop was Hoan Kiem Lake, one of Hanoi’s famous lakes. We walked around part of the lake- it was just around 4 or 5 so the sun was slowly setting, providing some nice pictures.

We stopped at Fanny’s, a French ice cream parlor along the lake before heading back to the hostel.

We met up with Tess and the group she is abroad with (some HWS and Union kids)again later that night before packing our bags for Halong Bay the next day.

  HWS kids in Hanoi!

Tess and I

Hanoi: Day 1

Friday morning we set off for Hanoi! We had a 12-something flight, so we had breakfast at the hostel and hung out for a little bit before leaving for the airport around 10:30am. Since it was a domestic flight, checking into our flight and going through security was easy. I feel like the workers weren’t too concerned with anything.

{One thing we noticed while checking in was that Vietnamese don’t understand standing in line like we do. People were literally just gathering around the counter throwing their passports and tickets to the lady; constantly shoving and pushing each other just to get checked in. It was crazy.}

The flight to Hanoi was only 2 hours; I napped and listened to my iPod. When we arrived in Hanoi the taxi our hostel arranged for us greeted us. Driving from the airport to the hostel, I noticed a huge difference from HCMC and Hanoi. In Hanoi, driver still relied on their horns, but not as much; it was much quieter than HCMC. In addition, it seemed like the Hanoi airport was further from the city than the airport in HCMC (not that that’s really important…).

We arrived at our hostel, the Drift Backpacker and unpacked in our dorm style room- yep, we stayed with 3 other girls in bunk beds (I got a bottom bed J). We grabbed a quick dinner at the hostel before heading off to meet up with the HWS kids studying in Hanoi. I was rather excited to see my fellow Heron, Tess.

After being dropped off on a random street and being told the address was ‘over there {insert hand point here}’ and asking numerous people for directions, we finally ran into a few HWS kids who were able to lead us to their dorms. And I finally got to see Tess for the first time since May! It was great to see her.

Tess, along with some other HWS kids took us out to eat at a BBQ chicken place. It was basically a street where people sit on these little chairs around small tables and eat this delicious chicken and bread. 

We were served chicken leg (basically both pieces of a chicken wing on a stick- it was hard to eat, but we were all able to handle it) and some other type of chicken, and then this bread which is grilled and dipped (?) in honey. All so delicious.

Afterwards, we went to this small little bar (not really sure what to call it) by their dorms. They basically brew (again, not sure) their own beer and sell it for less than 10,000 dong or less than fifty cents. They also served peanuts, cucumbers and salt (who would have thought- but the combo of cucumbers and salt is delicious) and quail eggs (yes- I actually had a quail egg!). We hung out there for a little while before finishing the night off with fried bananas at another street vendor. Again, delicious. It was a great day to start off our visit in Hanoi!

The quail eggs!

And fried bananas!