Vietnam Voyage
We concluded our trip in the most memorable way, getting stuck at the Noi Boi airport for more than 16 hours with no food, insufficient warm clothing, and the longing to be back home where it's warm and fuzzy and clean. Sleeping on cold, hard metal chairs when the temperature was about 15 degrees has its way of lessening the desire to revisit the place anytime soon. But i must say that was prob a once-in-a-lifetime experience (i hope) that I will never forget and with the insurance payouts and airline refund, it prob worked out good after all, esp for gill, who spent a ridiculous amount of money for 8 days in Vietnam, haha.
Saigon
Was dirty, crowded, noisy, dusty, overrun by angmohs (esp those looking for 'romance'. these pple watch too much movies), and in short, not a very pleasant place at all. The mekong tour was nice, and the sampan ride down the river was just lovely. Otherwise, Saigon was really not very memorable at all, cept for the incessant honking of the motorbikes that keep ringing in your ears even when you sleep at night. Oh, the bags there are nice, but unless you are going for the woven/big clutch kind, do not buy anything else (ie those silk kind with wooden handles or soft silk cloth ones) there cos they are SO MUCH CHEAPER in Hoi An.
Dalat
Is the loveliest little town in Vietnam! Getting there itself was an adventure, cos we took our first long bus ride and imagine our horror when we reached there, we saw men dressed in those thick quilted jackets and mufflers and hats and there we were, in our thin jackets (I didn't even have one) and capris/skirt. We were so dreading alightling from the bus and to make it worse, ALL the guesthouses were closed, the place was like a ghosttown and the only place open was cos there was a funeral going on, which made the
place even creepier, and the pple at the funeral must've been thinking are these three girls stupid and crazy or what. Good thing Gill went to ring the doorbell of one of the hotels and the woman answered with rollers in her hair. I even spotted a spoon doubling up as a roller but I think I was too cold at that moment to find humour in it.
The town itself is small and walkable and the only good place to visit was Cho Dalat, their central market. They sell EVERYTHING there! The best find was the roasted sweet potatoes that was so good in the coldcold weather. They sold live poultry in woven bags too and they really looked so squished and poor thing. and the women sold fish, wearing blazers.and juls was saying there aren't occasions for her to wear her blazers back here, haha.
The tour was a super ripoff but we had a really good time with our guides. Mine insisted that he couldn't speak english and then thruout the tour, he was yakking away in english non-stop.rubbish-talkers. I think when people can make jokes in a foreign tongue that are actually funny, they are really quite admirable. We went horse-riding and my crazy horse COLLAPSED on its side once we reached the grazing ground and I just fell on the ground in the most unglam manner. I was so traumatised that Gill had to switch horses with me (hers was really more of a pony that looked like a cow and slightly less crazy).
Oh and when we went to sign the guestbook of the tour agency at the end of the day, we saw this Singaporean group that wrote "Kennasai lunch, ok tour". It was kindda tragically funny how pple could say the worse things and the Vietnamese just don't know any better.
Must-visit in Dalat - Cho Dalat
Hoian
was where most of our money drained into. after a 12 hour ride to hoian, we decided another 24-hour one to Hanoi was simply out of the question. so we paid another 56USD to get a ticket to Hanoi instead (at least they gave us sandwiches) but that was money well spent.
It didn't take long for us to get addicted to tailoring. It was tailor shops galore! they lined almost every street, and you just didn't know which one to walk into cos there were just too many choices. lesson learnt, never go to the tailors at the market. Stick to the ones along the streets. Gill went crrrrazzzzzyy and made like 20 items. at first we were still concerned abt costs and our lack of funds but after the decision to whip out the credit cards was made, there was no turning back. I made simple unexciting stuff like shirts and safe-dresses but you should see juls' 'the freak'! It was a casual flowy dress turned so super wrong that she had it ripped apart to at least salvage the nice satin and make a top out of it.
It was here that we witnessed the making of very simple, $3/pair of slippers that totally humbled us. at first we were indignant that the lady overcharged us by a dollar per slipper (the otehr shops were selling them at abt $2 each) but after watching the father and son team work so hard at making 8 pairs of slippers for us, we realised how petty we were to even think about the loss of a dollar when these pple are prob shortening their lives by half with all the glue that they have to sniff everyday, just so that we can have a pair of slippers that we will cast aside after like, 10 wears.
Must-visit in Hoian - Bale Well. 45000 dong ($4.5) for unlimited grilled pork satay, grilled pork, rice pancakes, spring rolls, vege, kimchi. yum!
Hanoi
Was surprisingly modern! after visiting the other towns and concluding that vietnamese fashion is an oxymoron, Hanoi was quite a surprise cos the pple were trendy (relatively) and the streets were cleaner generally had a less cluttered feel than Saigon. In fact, walking down the lake even kindda reminded us of walking down the streets of Europe.:) Too bad we had too little time there to explore, but there is always next time!
Okays. back to reality now. Pics later!
Saigon
Was dirty, crowded, noisy, dusty, overrun by angmohs (esp those looking for 'romance'. these pple watch too much movies), and in short, not a very pleasant place at all. The mekong tour was nice, and the sampan ride down the river was just lovely. Otherwise, Saigon was really not very memorable at all, cept for the incessant honking of the motorbikes that keep ringing in your ears even when you sleep at night. Oh, the bags there are nice, but unless you are going for the woven/big clutch kind, do not buy anything else (ie those silk kind with wooden handles or soft silk cloth ones) there cos they are SO MUCH CHEAPER in Hoi An.
Dalat
Is the loveliest little town in Vietnam! Getting there itself was an adventure, cos we took our first long bus ride and imagine our horror when we reached there, we saw men dressed in those thick quilted jackets and mufflers and hats and there we were, in our thin jackets (I didn't even have one) and capris/skirt. We were so dreading alightling from the bus and to make it worse, ALL the guesthouses were closed, the place was like a ghosttown and the only place open was cos there was a funeral going on, which made the
place even creepier, and the pple at the funeral must've been thinking are these three girls stupid and crazy or what. Good thing Gill went to ring the doorbell of one of the hotels and the woman answered with rollers in her hair. I even spotted a spoon doubling up as a roller but I think I was too cold at that moment to find humour in it.
The town itself is small and walkable and the only good place to visit was Cho Dalat, their central market. They sell EVERYTHING there! The best find was the roasted sweet potatoes that was so good in the coldcold weather. They sold live poultry in woven bags too and they really looked so squished and poor thing. and the women sold fish, wearing blazers.and juls was saying there aren't occasions for her to wear her blazers back here, haha.
The tour was a super ripoff but we had a really good time with our guides. Mine insisted that he couldn't speak english and then thruout the tour, he was yakking away in english non-stop.rubbish-talkers. I think when people can make jokes in a foreign tongue that are actually funny, they are really quite admirable. We went horse-riding and my crazy horse COLLAPSED on its side once we reached the grazing ground and I just fell on the ground in the most unglam manner. I was so traumatised that Gill had to switch horses with me (hers was really more of a pony that looked like a cow and slightly less crazy).
Oh and when we went to sign the guestbook of the tour agency at the end of the day, we saw this Singaporean group that wrote "Kennasai lunch, ok tour". It was kindda tragically funny how pple could say the worse things and the Vietnamese just don't know any better.
Must-visit in Dalat - Cho Dalat
Hoian
was where most of our money drained into. after a 12 hour ride to hoian, we decided another 24-hour one to Hanoi was simply out of the question. so we paid another 56USD to get a ticket to Hanoi instead (at least they gave us sandwiches) but that was money well spent.
It didn't take long for us to get addicted to tailoring. It was tailor shops galore! they lined almost every street, and you just didn't know which one to walk into cos there were just too many choices. lesson learnt, never go to the tailors at the market. Stick to the ones along the streets. Gill went crrrrazzzzzyy and made like 20 items. at first we were still concerned abt costs and our lack of funds but after the decision to whip out the credit cards was made, there was no turning back. I made simple unexciting stuff like shirts and safe-dresses but you should see juls' 'the freak'! It was a casual flowy dress turned so super wrong that she had it ripped apart to at least salvage the nice satin and make a top out of it.
It was here that we witnessed the making of very simple, $3/pair of slippers that totally humbled us. at first we were indignant that the lady overcharged us by a dollar per slipper (the otehr shops were selling them at abt $2 each) but after watching the father and son team work so hard at making 8 pairs of slippers for us, we realised how petty we were to even think about the loss of a dollar when these pple are prob shortening their lives by half with all the glue that they have to sniff everyday, just so that we can have a pair of slippers that we will cast aside after like, 10 wears.
Must-visit in Hoian - Bale Well. 45000 dong ($4.5) for unlimited grilled pork satay, grilled pork, rice pancakes, spring rolls, vege, kimchi. yum!
Hanoi
Was surprisingly modern! after visiting the other towns and concluding that vietnamese fashion is an oxymoron, Hanoi was quite a surprise cos the pple were trendy (relatively) and the streets were cleaner generally had a less cluttered feel than Saigon. In fact, walking down the lake even kindda reminded us of walking down the streets of Europe.:) Too bad we had too little time there to explore, but there is always next time!
Okays. back to reality now. Pics later!