Flickr Map of Vietnam Trip
Being the geeky IT guy in the house, I often forget most people don’t read help files and howtos 
Luckily Yh reminded me that not everyone knows how to see the maps from our trips, so here’s a quick howto.
From our Flickr album (e.g. Vietnam Trip), click on the “map” link
Yahoo Maps will load and presto… you’ll see all the geotagged images from our trip. Pretty amazing eh?
2006-11-30 – Day 2- Vietnam – Perfume Pagoda
The morning started off a little slow since the travel agent had made a mix up and picked me from the hotel lobby around 8am. We made up quite an international bunch (2 Swiss, 2 Canadians, 1 Londoner, 3 from Hoh Chi Minh City and me from Singapore 
)
The journey started from Hanoi city south-west wards towards Chua Huong (Perfume Pagoda). After cross farmlands and small towns, we reached Ben Duc (Pier Duc). According to this site :
Chua Huong (Perfume pagoda) is located in Huong son (Perfume mountain) 70 km southwest of Hanoi. Chua Huong is not one temple but a cluster of temples and shrines in the general vicinity of Huong son. The pagoda(s) are located in My Duc hamlet in the province of Ha Tay. According to the book, Huong Son Thien Tru Pha, Huong Tich temple was built during the reign of Le Chinh Hoa (1680-1705), by a monk who happened on the site on his way to search for enlightenment. Other shrines and temples were later built in this area to take advantage of the beautiful scenery in this area.
Perfume pagoda has a long history in Vietnamese literature. This temple, its name, has been a theme of many songs, topic of poetry, used in literary works as well as backdrops for paintings. The uniqueness of Huong Son is that the mountains, river and forest appears like an oasis for buddhists in the middle of the great plains of northern Vietnam. This location truly incorporates all the elements of beauty that is often used in Eastern philosophy and arts.
Sounds real interesting doesn’t it? We got off at Ben Duc and proceeded towards Yen Vi river where there were scores of red metal hulled rowboats waiting to row us towards Chua Huong (I later found out that what we saw was just a fraction of the boats since it was off peak season). I got on board one of the boats with our tour guide for the day and Steve from London. On the 1 hour journey, the lady behind us tirelessly rowed us upstream (which I found amazing). I enjoyed the cool calm breeze and chatted with Steve. Curious enough, I found out he was also in IT and taking a good long break (3 months!) with intentions of heading to Australia to look for employment. Really quite a different culture from us Singaporeans who work hard and only have short breaks The boat ride breezed by and soon we had reached the foot of Chua Huong. It was a good thing that we were there on a weekday and also not during the peak period of February and March.
After a brisk short walk, we were told that a cable car had been built a year ago and those who didn’t want to climb up could take the cable car for 15000 dong. Well, since the climb was supposed to be only an hour, 5 of us decided to get some exercise and proceeded to climb up the steps towards Huong Tich Grotto. It was actually pretty good “stair-master” exercise since most of the path consisted of steps of rocks.
After about an hour’s cimb, we reached Huong Tich grotto. There’s 120 steps down into grotto with the words “Heaven’s Gate” (path to heaven) and “Hell’s Gate” (descend to hell) at the entrance. As I ventured into the cave, I noticed the shrine that was place inside and also many colourful stalagmites and stalactites. Our tour guide told us that we could take the cable car down again but since we were all in the walking mood, we decided to walk back the way we came.
This time round it seemed a little more difficult since going down the slippery rocks required a little more concentration. We took slightly longer than the climb up but we finally reached the foot of the mountain where we were supposed to have lunch.
After a “zhi cha” style lunch and enjoyed a nice cool Bia Ha Noi, our tour guide led us to Thien Tru (Heavenly Kitchen) Temple.
The journey back was downstream but still took our rower an hour to get back (again, strong arms they have here!). Caught sight of a fisherman using electricity to shock the fishes .. a pretty novel method that they practiced. We boarded into our mini-bus at Ben Duc and soon was on the highway back to Hanoi. At one of the stops, I caught sight of roasted dog… was pretty weird to see a dog roasted but apparently its a delicacy around this area. Suddenly made sense why I had seen simlar breeds of dogs around but all didn’t seem very old!
Reaching Sunway Hanoi, Yh informed me that their hosts had included me in the dinner plans so I could join in a delicious meal at Cha Ca La Vong (14 Cha Ca Str. Tel 8.253 929). Cha Ca, is a special dish first made by the family Doan in Hanoi. It was a pretty interesting dish since the only course was a generous serving of fried fish, vegetables and rice noodles. The helpers continuously topped up with servings of fish or vegetables as soon as we cleared the frying pan. Definitely recommended as we downed Bia Ha Noi with the food.. simply delicious!
After dinner, it seemed like a good idea to walk off all the food so we headed to Little Hanoi (I believe its 4 streets that form it … Hang Dao, Hang Ngang, Hang Duong and Dong Xuan). We walked around a little and also found a local snack that seemed like a Subway sandwich.
After a little confusion since we couldn’t communicate properly (we thought it was 70000 dong when it was only 7000 dong!), we headed towards Dong Xuan night market. It looked a little like the pasar malam that we have in Singapore and also had some food stalls set up. From here, we took a cab back to the hotel and was time to call it a night.
2006-11-29 – Day 1 – Vietnam – Hanoi
We touched down at Noi Bai International Airport at around 1000. Hanoi’s timeone is GMT+7 so its 1 hour behind Singapore. Heading out of the airport, we were greeted by one of the hotel staff from Sunway Hanoi where Yh’s seminar would be held. We met up also with delegates from Indonesia and Malaysia. Squeezing into two mini-vans, we drove into the city which was about 50 minutes away. The first thing that you’ll notice about Hanoi is that there is a lot of farmland and scooters! Pretty much everyone owned a two wheeler of sorts (bicycle or scooter).
Sunway Hanoi was considered to be one of the better hotels in Hanoi so we were glad to stay there. Its located in the business district and is a short 30 minutes walk to Old Quarters. The weather was pretty cool but overcast so it perpetually seemed like it was going to pour on us. One of the very first thing we did was head straight to Hoan Kiem Lake. Having heard so much about it from PC, I definitely wanted to have a look. Using a map provided by the hotel, we started to walk along the quaint old streets while admiring the shophouses and people’s activity.
Traffic in Hanoi definitely needs getting used to since everyone seems to have their own mind on how or when they should be moving. Its rather interesting as the traffic makes up a “symphony” of toots and engine growls as the folks move through the city. Pedestrians just have to look out and move along, vehicles tend to smartly avoid you and “flow” past. Seems all rather chaotic but yet straightforward since no one really needs to stop for long unless they reach a traffic light or a hesitant pedestrian. We passed by some children enjoying a game of badminton at King Ly Thai To’s statue.
Our first stop along Hoan Kiem lake (which seemed rather crowded for a weekday afternoon) was Ngoc Son Temple. Crossing a small little red bridge, we duly paid 3000 dong per pax for the entrance fee. There were some older folks enjoying a game of chinese chess and tourists milling around enjoying the view of the lake. One of the main problem we had to adjust to was the currency, since it was 1 SGD to approx 20,000 dong, most of the items were in very huge denominations that took some getting use to
We slowly strolled over to Old Quarters where there were seemingly endless lanes of shops specialising in shoes, bags and other knick knacks. We also chanced upon a wet market which was just two long lanes of stalls of seafood, flowers, and most of the things you would find in a wet market. One of the stalls even sold roasted pork by weight which I immediately had to try since its one of my favorite food. We had to gesture to the weighing scales to say 100 grams and eventually managed to get it wrapped up whilst it was steaming hot in banana leaves and newspaper. It was simply delicious to savor the hot roasted pork and made me wish for a beer! We walked a little more but soon it was time to head back to the hotel since we were meeting up with the delegates for dinner.
After getting together with the other delegates, a bus took us to the outskirts of town near a restaurant called Sen which served a great Vietnamese buffet. It was recommended by Yen (Vanessa’s nephew who also graciously offered to be my tour guide the next day). The food was great and the selection aplenty. We tried rice noodles in so many varied ways that you realise it must be a staple in Vietnamese diet. Of course, not forgetting trying out Ha Noi Beer which tasted curiously like Tiger Beer. After a pretty filling meal (1 million+ dong btw.. which worked out to about SGD $11 per pax ), we headed back into town.
We managed to catch a performance of water puppets (40,000 dong per pax) that was pretty interesting but unfortunately it was in Vietnamese with no translation. We could appreciate the puppet play but not understand the dialouge! I caught bits and pieces of what seemed to be the story of Ngoc Son temple and some other elements but about half hour later was starting to drift. The finale came about an hour later and we managed to see the masters who were knee-deep in water throughout the whole show manipulating the puppets with long rods and making them move effortlessly. Definitely an art to perform this way.
Some of the delegates wanted to walk around Old Quarters some more but since we had already explored our fill for the day, we lead the way back for the others who were getting tired from the day’s travel. Time to get a good nights rest for the adventure the next day!
We’re flying to Hanoi
Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, is a fascinating blend of east and west, with Chinese influence from centuries of dominance, and French design from its colonial past. It is largely unspoiled by modern architecture of the 1970s and 80s, and is now going through a modernization that is making it a rising star in Southeast Asia.
Hanoi travel guide – Wikitravel
Sure sounds fun doesn’t it? Yh is gonna be on a mission there with her company and I decided to tag along to have a look around. Will be going to Perfume Pagado and a few other places to explore. Just got a new camera Canon S3 IS so hope to get some nice photographs from the trip!