Enter MY puny Mind.Y.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

knock knock...

decided dat i'll never get down to writing an entry for each day in vietnam so i shall jux consolidate everything in this entry...

ended the second day by watching the fireworks in vietnam... amazing dat Alexis n i managed to fall asleep in the first nite coz the other guests reveling downstairs n there was loud music... woke up early the next morning to a dead town since it was the first day of LNY n everyone was probably catching up on their sleep. stumbled upon a roadside drinks stall n Alexis had her coffee fix there in the form of v conc nescafe coffee... how uninteresting after all the hype we've heard bout vietnamese coffee... was still kopi nevertheless...

while drinking, met a chinese couple from qingdao. spoke to them n learnt dat they were gg to Halong Bay n we were planning to do so too so might as well travel together. we crossed the Red River via the Long Bien bridge to get to the bus station only to find out there was no bus to Halong Bay on dat day anymore... happened to see dat there's a bus to Hai Phong which was a little nearer to Halong so took it. the vietnamese truly knew how to stretch it. they had stools along the aisle to maximise the bus capacity! met another chinese man at the bus station who helped us arrange a taxi to Halong through his chinese fren who knew vietnamese...

at the jetty, there were v few ppl due to the hols... ended having the entire vessel to the 4 of us... like a private trip... supposed to take 4 hours... realised dat it was coz of the speed the ferry travelled at... but i later appreciate the slowness coz if it had went any faster, the cold would b so unbearable... the sights werent extremely spectacular but was a good time of chilling... later we struggled to find transport back to Hanoi... experienced our first ketokking... this guy pretended to b helpful n collaborated with a chinese-speaking vietnamese to get us a van back to hanoi at an exhorbitant price. dat unscrupulous guy later refused to send us to our preferred destination n dumped us somewhere near a roadside steamboat stall where we spend USD10 on roadside steamboat. decent meal but rather costly! den along da way, we were distracted by rice crackers (guo ba) n tried it... was yummy with liver pate... truly yummy...

on day 2, we decided to go to another bridge near long bien to watch the sunrise... i accidentally set the alarm an hour earlier n ended up walking along the streets of Hanoi at like 5 plus am... uurrggghhh!! but got to see their market... n stoned for like an hour on the bridge which din hv a pesdestrian walkway lah! in the end, too misty n we saw no sunrise. only sunlight...

went back to the guesthouse n slept for another 2 hrs n went out to get train tix to Hue... was a rather fussless task... thank God there were still soft sleepers though Alexis n I had different compartments. wandered along the streets... found no noodles bar which was an excellent sandwich cafe!!!!!! i still miss the baguette!!!!!!! ooooooooohhhhh la la... though it was slightly marred by the smell of poo on my shoe soles!!! ahhh!!!! got propaganda posters too which were sooooo cool!

simply roam in the town area to chk out their wares... took their local bus... stumbled upon goldenland... cosy restaurant with all the angmohs... they had the loveliest spring rolls... walked walked shopped shopped snapped snapped... thank God some stalls were opened... whiled away time until it was time to leave for the railway station...

alrite... so much for Hanoi... gonna continue with Hue when i finally feel like it... den the unhappy stories would surface... uurrggghhh...

anyway, for the current. got stopped by a guy to donate to the handicapped today... ended up buying the handmade flowers... n i did something i utterly regretted!!!! i told him dat the flowers r for him... ahhhh!!! he was totally stunned... kaozz... felt like i gave away my virgin valentine's day gift. suck! to a stranger!!!! wat was i thinking?!?!?!?!

11:45 PM

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