Woke up early in the morning, if not mistaken around 0330....
But...the moment we went down to the lobby, we found out that the main door is locked!
oh damn... HTH are we going to go out? =_____=
A total GG for us.... we waited for a while, hoping that the staffs will be up.
30minutes passed but still..... the door is locked.
*LOOOONG SIGH*
Look like we have to change our plan, and go back to bed.
well..... at least we got more rest for the day.
p/s: I've got myself quite a number of blister on my legs,
from all the walking we have done for the past few days.
We went back to sleep for a few hours and woke up again for breakie before hitting the road.
We're worried we might not have the chance to revisit the flower market again, so, despite the market being less happening *it's most happening between 4-5am*, still, we are heading for it.
Scenery along the road:
Unknown building situated at the middle of the road, like a traffic island
slurp~slurp~!
Vietnamese really like to build their houses all the way up,
Rule of thumb : at least 4/5 storeys with a family shop/business at the bottom
The Long Biên Bridge, just beside Yen Phu Highway
Notice a lady wearing mask while riding a bike in the picture?
Frankly speaking, the air quality is pretty bad, if you try to 'dig'
your nose for some 'gold' at the end of the day,
you often get something that's black coloured....
Pollutants~ haigh~
It took us quite some time to walk along Yen Phu highway, an hour plus, I think.
走到妈妈都认不得料~
The longest mural.... in East Asia if not mistaken
It even make it to Guinness World Record!
*GASP!*
reminds me of Children's Day =D
some mosaic patterns
Workers busy sprinkling some fertilizer
I have no idea what does the hand sign mean. Anyone?
Locals having their breakie.... so tempting~
Another typical Vietnamese tower house
Street life - Man and Dog 人生狗活?
Can't believe the shop owner is using the
shop window as a place to dry their clothes!
Finally, we reached our first destination of the day - Quang Ba Flower Market.
It is situated along Yen Phu Highway, keep walking till you see it on your right.
When we reached there, it is obviously after-peak hours..... sad
T____T
女人花
Favourite shot of the day - Mama and Son 妈妈带我买花
Since we're not buying any flowers, we didn't stay long at the market before heading back to the CBD.
Argh~ another an hour + journey back.... my blisters were pretty serious at that time... was inching every inch I take.... duh...sakit sial~
But, nothings gonna stop me
*Backpackers' SPIRIT man!*
By the way, we decided to take another road which will pass by West lake and Truc Back Lake.
JJ and a mongrel along our way back
Row-row-row your boat, gently down the lake~
The size of the boat is so KAWAII~
In Vietname, the width of a road can be pretty narrow,
like 5m, but able to fit all sorts of vehicles.
Maybe that's the reason why there is rarely any
serious accident, cause the road is too narrow to drive fast.
Surprise, surprise, you can actually find a number of ANZ ATMs in Hanoi.
Bring your ANZ card if you have one.
an uncle fishing at the lake.
Here's a video on how the locals fish!
It might looked hideous swinging a rod back and forth, but
the main point is THEY DO CATCH SOME FISH!!!
Quan Thanh Temple, which was initially not part of our itinerary.
But since we are near, no harm stopping by, right~?
p/s: It's free~ my favourite term...haha
JJ with the entrance
Vietnamese like to place some small change under
the candle on altar, no idea why
灵明寂静
姜太公钓鱼？
The temple's corridor
有拜才有保庇嘛~
Rarely see anyone using Chayote aka 佛手 as an offering
We left after 15 mins, not much to see.
In Vietname, it is really really common to see the
local food vendors bugging the tourists.
"Sir, want to buy"
"Sir, shopping?"
"Sir, very CHEAP~"
"Sir, come come shopping"
"Sir, want to buy?"
XP
The only thing you can do is
Smile and keep on walking.
The Christmas decoration was still there when we visit.
JJ thought that it kind of ruin the cathedral's picture.
To me, the decor is cetainly not pretty but well.... can't expect too much.
The main entrance
Again, not too much to see, so we left shortly after taking some photos.
That symbol stands for Hanoi,
while CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI = Happy New Year
Still remember the night shot on the first night at Hoan Kiem Lake?
We're heading there after this.
A paggoda in the middle of a city.... hmmm
something fresh?
The red bridge
JJ
You have to pay to enter the Ngoc Son Temple,
10,000 VND, which is equilavent RM1.40.
The price is still ok.
There's a legend about the lake:
There used to be giant tortoise inhabiting the lake.
Adopted from the Net:
During the 15th century, King Le Loi, also known as Le Thai To, the founder of the Le Dynasty, found a holy turtle during a cruise on the then Luc Thuy aka Green lake. The turtle told the King to return the sacred sword that had helped him to defeat the Northern Ming aggressors since peace has been restored. Le Thai To unsheathed his sword and threw it to the turtle. He later named the lake "Hoan Kiem" which means Lake of the Returned Sword 还剑湖
Miao Miao on the roof!
We heard the local calling the cat "Miew, Miew", perhaps it means kitty in Vietnamese?
Oh .... just love this shot...haha
Mind your own business, KID.
Next stop is the famous Dong Xuan Market
The traffic around the market is packed with vendors and retailers who are using their motorcycles to carry stock.
I'm sure this motorcyclist has a pretty good balancing skill
Kawaii shopping bags
Vietnamese shares the same New Year as Chinese,
that's why it is common to see some of the vendors selling red packets.
The market is always packed with both local businessmen, housewives and tourists....
and frankly speaking, you'll find it pretty challenging to walk from one end to the other.
The skylight and the truss, pretty! XD
Sea of fabric!
Didn't buy anything cause we're worried that
it will be hard to carry them around (still have 26 days to go)
Afterthat, we kind of run out of programme for the day.
So, we decided to head towards the "Vietnamese Women's Museum"
The entrance fee was 30000 VND, which ~ RM4.10
The entrance doesn't really looked like a museum
but more like a hotel, don't you think so?
Again, the description board is always in "Vietnamese/English/Frence"
and if you can see in this photo, the museum actually
got a Certificate of Excellence 2012 from Tripadvisor
and it turned out to be not bad as well.
The traditional Vietnamese wedding dress.
If not mistaken, this is the red Dzao tribe's traditional clothing.
The influence from Chinese culture
Traditional Chinese herbal medicine
Worshiping the 5 goddess
(one of the main beliefs in Vietnam)
Sky full of Vietnamese straw hats, symbol of Vietnamese women
At that time, they were showcasing Singaporean traditional culture as well,
which I think not much different from Malaysian's.
Really miss the 'lah-lhiak' aka traditional wodden clogs, which were worn in wet kitchen.
The elevated base helps to keep the feet dry all the time.
We stayed in museum till it is closed (which is still kind of rush...and we don't really have the time to go through every single items in the museum)
Bunch schoolkids on the street
After leaving the museum, we headed back to our room, pack up all the stuffs and headed off for a simple dinner. If not mistaken, we ate some sort of noodle which was crispy and topped with peanuts and sweet and sour sauce. The flavour was quite ok, but the noodles are kind of hard and if the peanuts were crushed before being sprinkled on top of the noodles, it would have been pretty good.
*Sorry, we were too hungry and didn't take any photos*
Then, we bought some bread for breakfast on the next day....
because we're catching a train!!! This is my first ever sleep-over train journey.
The Hanoi train station
(this photo was grabbed from the internet,
the actual station looked more dull)
An advice: Don't expect that you will 100% get to board the train if you are punctual.
Why?
The train that we board departed 5 minutes before the departure time,
which means if you're not there, you don't have to be there... >_<
Lucky man~!
The ticket looked exactly like the one in the photo,
you get to choose lower/middle/upper berth.
BTW, the air-conditioner doesn't make any difference at all
My advice is : Always take the lowest one!
The middle and upper one has very limited head space
and luggage storage.
Again, luckily Ms Effa bought two that are lowest for us.
Really appreciate that =D
My corner and my worn-out legs.......zzzZZZZ
JJ's checking out his photos before sleeping.
The train stopped at a few places before reaching our destination - Lao Cai.
If you're not sure, remember to ask the others in the train, don't get down at the wrong station, because there's hardly any public transport between the towns.
If you don't know Vietnamese *like us*, just keep repeating :
"Lao-Cai, Ya? Khong? "
(literal translation : Lao-Cai, Yes? No?)
I was so exhausted that I hit the sack almost immediately the moment I'm on the bed.
On the next morning, JJ complained about the numerous bumping which make him hard to sleep.
But I literally tidur mati *way too tired*
Well......good night. peeps.
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