Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Hanoi, Vietnam - City of MOTORCYCLES!!!

Hi everyone! Back in action again. Been quite busy after starting my new semester. Busy paying moneys though I don't have to pay the tuition fees. Some of you know why. For those who don't I won't be boasting here. (Actually I am boasting already. LOLZ.) Never mind bout that. So this post is mainly on my trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, thanks to my sponsor Ms. Su Zhen aka my sister. Its a full expense paid trip there. Woo hoo~~ Actually she sponsored the whole family la. Hehe... It was a 4 days 3 nights trip there but it felt like 5 days 5 nights trip. 

Why do I say so? Caused I drove down the night before to KL so that I can fly from there 6am in the morning the next day. so thats night 1. Funny thing is the day before my friend Tai Kar Cheh aka Steady called me and tell me she's coming to Penang and asked if I was free. Guess what? She's from KL!!! LOL. So I told her... FOR THE WHOLE LONG HOLIDAYS! YOU COME ON THE DAY I AM GOING TO KL?!?! So I didn't meet her in Penang. Never mind bout that. So I drove all the way from Ipoh to KL while my dad drove from Penang to Ipoh of course. I was kinda high that time. I can still sing and vrooooooommmmmm at 4am... LOL... Any other days I would most probably be zzzzzzzzz.... So when we got to KL we went for some early breakfast in mamak and took an airport taxi to LCCT. Crappy place if you know what I mean. So paid everything and flew off to Vietnam at 6am sharp! Amazing Air Asia wasn't late. LOLz. BTW CURSE THOSE BLOODY VIETNAMESE WHO DOESN'T KNOW THAT THEY HAVE TO SWITH THE BLOODY PHONE OFF IN THE PLANE!!!

Never mind. So we reached there on schedule ie 10am and my sis and her friend went out first to look for a cab to take us to the hotel. Well I dunno how the communicate. She say BIG CAR for FIVE people and he say OK! The result is... 15 USD to hotel in a Hyundai 5 seaters. Its for 5 people but who's driving then? Of course he forgot bout himself la! Crazy guy. So never mind we put our luggage in the boot and ready to go. I thought Hanoi is a big place so should be good. Well it's not wrong that it's a big place. It has RIDICULOUSLY MUCH (I had to use much cause it's uncountable) MOTORCYCLES there. The best is yet to come. It's not like we are from a better developed country that we had never seen that many motorbikes BUT the way the ride and the way they drive! The horns really sounds like trumpets and their traffic is like an orchestra full of trumpets! They don't care what is in front of them, as long as it's in their way they will honk till it moves for them. Well besides the honks! The bikes are like bloody hell you get out of my way or I will knock you down with my 2 wheeler. So screw the traffic minister! 

After like about 1 hour of driving we finally made it to the town centre where MORE bikes are to be seen. Now here comes the best! The driver, despite of the address being given, GOT FREAKING LOST! He didn't know where the hell out hotel is! I mean there are surprisingly many hotels there but hello. You are a vietnamese driving a cab and you don't know where out hotel is? So after more time of circling the town. He finally asked a lot of people and he found it! Well the hotel was good. The manager was good. We got lotsa free things from him. *will tell you what later*. There he starts to promote different cruise for us to visit Ha Long Bay. Of course he is trying to be nice buy giving us discount of a few BUCKS! It's okay with us. After booking the cruise we went out for typical Vietnamese food. Well the taste was like flat. I mean if it's sweet then sweet it is you get. Not like here we have sweet and sour or what sweet sour spicy. However, personally, I think it's not bad but of course Penang hawkers are way better than them. After that we went back to the hotel to get some rest cause I haven't been sleeping for 24 hours d. 

After the nap we went out for their famous WATER PUPPET SHOW. Well at first I thought wow! Hoseh liao! Canggih lo! Then went in and there are some pretty girls there playing their traditional musical instruments. Then later the show started with puppets being played on the water! I thought okay... At least that's something new to me. So as the show went on, I tried to get and understand the whole story. While I was still blur bout the story, THE FREAKING SHOW ENDED! Crappy! But then later I found out that, there weren't any story at all!!! Shit la. Wasted my brain cell trying to figure out what story they are trying to tell. LOLZ... Then of course after the show we went back to the hotel and rested for the Ha Long Bay trip on the following day.

Woke up at round 8am and prepared for Ha Long Bay. BTW. Did I mention the damn weather was like 15 degree there? So my whole family thought we should wear a sweater. AND GDI it was not cold at all! So I took out the sweater on our 3 hours journey to Ha Long Bay. When we were half way there, the bus driver stopped at some handcraft making factory for us to rest and of course shop for souvenirs. The things over there are like bull shit kinda expensive! Mei! Your wooden doll cost freaky 4 USD there and those Magnets are like 3USD! My jaw dropped and screw the souvenirs. LOLs. Of course after that we continued our journey to Ha Long Bay. Not forgetting there are like 10 other ang mors there with us. 

Upon arrival there, we were greeted with a smile by the captain and then we were brought to our cruise! There we had out lunch. They arranged us 6 into a table so of course my family got a table to ourselves and 1 more ang mor joint us. He's Pascal from Luxembourg. The others are seated on other tables lo. So the dishes came one by one, Asian food, starting with prawns, fish and so on. While me and my family are happily enjoying those seafood. We realised that the ang mor wasn't eating that happy like we did. My mom asked him why and to our horror! HE DOESN'T EAT FISH FOR THE MOST LUNATIC REASON I HAVE EVER HEARD OF! Pascal : we had never seen fish! The fish we eat are FISH STICKS! I was like harlo, you know what fish is? Then of course after he slowly explained, he was staying somewhere that is very far from the sea not like me surrounded by sea. So they don't eat much seafood there. We were like ok, so we eat! LOL! 

After the food we rested for like 30 minutes before the ship finally reached Ha Long Bay and we were brought to some caves namely the Amazing Cave. Nothing much to see there. It's just that those ang mor had never seen lime stones before. Then after the hiking came the most interesting part I have been waiting for! KAYAKING!!! My dad decided not to go kayaking so me and mom went on 1 while my sis and her friend got on the other. So at first I was a bit nervous cause that my first time kayaking. So was my mom. So she was like... AH ZHI!!! ROW WHICH SIDE? RIGHT OR LEFT?? Well after some shouting and worrying. I finally made a right call. Ma... you sit there and enjoy the sceneries ok? Let me do the rowing. So I was rowing alone! Lol. While turning my head to look at my sister, SHE WASN'T ROWING TOO!!! Man what a hilarious moment. Of course being lack of experience means water coming into the kayak and wet my pants and of course some minor collisions with my sister's kayak. It was fun! Upon returning. Something better happened! 2 ang mors fell into the sea while trying to get out of the kayak!!! LOL!

So that was basically what we did in Ha Long Bay. At night the temperature fell to 10 degrees but I still cover myself with everything that I had and went up to the sun deck and see stars. Well not for long before the wind starts to blow and I think my face starts to freeze. So I went back to my room. I shared room with a ang mor. That ang mor is the very ang mor that sat with us for lunch. Actually I was kinda disappointed. There was another ang mor from US. Quite pretty. She get to stay alone! I thought hell yeah I gotta stay with an ang mor girl! What the hell it turns out to be an ang mor kia. LOL! What to do? So not for long before I fell asleep and the following day (my birthday) was greeted with lotsa wishes and some songs at 3am played by the ang mor!!! CRAP! WHY WASN'T HIM SLEEPING??? ARGH!!!

So never got a real sleep that night. After breakfast we were brought back to the bay and off we were going back to Hanoi. Went we got back to Hanoi, I was happily chatting with my friends over the msn while posting thank you's to all those who remembered my birthday. TO THOSE WHO FORGOT!!! It's okay... Oh yeah! Thanks Meng Khim for inviting me to celebrate for me. I wasn't in Penang. Maybe some other time. OK! Back to the story. Then my creepy sister come to me and tell me. Eh, I wanna go pharmacy buy some lip dunno what, you don't simply run away. I was like ok... Then as far as I know, the pharmacy is just round the corner of my hotel. She went for like hours! Then went she came back with her friend, both of them were smiling like they had done something HOLY! I was looking at their funny faces and starts to wonder what's happening. Only did I realised that they walked like half an hour to a cake shop to get me a cake for my birthday! LOL! AND IT'S BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE! (but not from secret recipe). So surprising. I mean it's in Vietnam you know? Who would think that she will go looking for cakes in HANOI?? But I don't get to eat those cakes. Sorry.

That night was kinda high again for me. Was waiting for her cause she say she wanna bring me for ice cream. So again I was online and kept waiting for her. Finally at 1 am I gave up and go up and see what's going on. When I got back to the room. BLOODY HELL!!! She was sleeping like a pig d! Damn! So I thought I should wait for her to eat that cake and I slept like a pig too! 

The following day, we went down for our breakfast. As I said the manager was good! The menu there says that, Toast with Egg (fried or omelette) or Toast with Butter and Jam or Vietnamese Chicken soup Noodle. Well in the end we had all but no extra charges. Oh yeah. Not forgetting to mention breakfast was included in the room rate. The room rate was 25 USD for 3 ppl. Frankly speaking, with those type of service, they can definitely charge more! However, it's better if they keep it this way. LOL! So after breakfast we went out hunting for souvenirs. Along the way we saw a lot of stalls selling the same things. So we were like "that shop say 2 USD only??" Well after much bargaining, we didn't buy from them. My dad got scolded by a guy trying to sell him wallet! LOL! Then we went to the whole sellers place and started hunting again. Only then did I realised they are not really good in math despite of being Chinese descendants. As we were buying, we like bargain for more than 70% they went like NO! NO! NO! CANNOT! So some of the souvenirs we bought are kinda expensive but still cheap to us la. Then finally I used the final tactic! Rounding up! At first they tried to sell me 1 for 50k VND (Vietnam dong) then I say NO! 2 for 20k VND she was like in shock! So I know too low d. So I slowly raise to 40k VND still she didn't let go. Until finally I say nope I don't want it already, we can pay now. So the total was 250k VND so I tell her now let's make it 300k VND. I take 3 of this and we make it 300k VND. She goes like pressing the calculator and OK! LOL? It was lower then when I asked for 40k VND for 2. She is really... OOPS.

So happy with our rewards, we slowly stroll back to the hotel and got ready to go home. At 4.30pm we took a cab to the airport and we flew at 7pm. Now seriously, I had a bloody stomach ache on the plane. So I went to the toilet and while I was doing my business, the plane got caught in air turbulence! Level III samore! I thought what the hell is the pilot doing? I am trying to SHIT here! Well after finishing my business I came out and found a place to sit. Then again the plane when shaking again and 1 Arabian woman starts to cry and shout like she was being raped by the seat belts! So all the crews went to comfort her and well she scream and shout and cried for like 30 minutes while deep in my heart I really feel like going there and punch her husband on his face for scolding her while she's still shouting! Damn! THE NOISE BOTH OF THEM MADE! I was caught in some kinda mild typhoon on my way to Hong Kong! The plane literally SHAKED like it had never shake before and was forced to stop in the middle of the air. I couldn't land and we can't go backwards. For me, that little shake was like me shaking during the countdown in gurney. LOL. So by 11pm we got back to Malaysia and we headed home straight from LCCT! 

It was an interesting journey. Had a lot of fun. My sister already promised other places when both of us has holidays again... Will be looking forward to DISNEY!!

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