Saturday, September 18, 2010
12:33 PM
2010 Vietname Cambodia trip - Day 7, Hanoi
hanoi, located north of vietnam, capital & second largest city in viet, with a history of 1,000 yrs.
arrived in hanoi at 6am on e nite train from sapa & we were looking ard for an accom which will let us check in at this timing (w/o any extra charges). of course i did my research b4hand & noe roughly which area to target & e price range of e budget hotels. so we went to view e rooms from hotel to hotel b4 settling for golden sun 1, a budget hotel along e river @ US$12.50 per pax per nite (US$25 per room, we were given a discount actually!) inclusive of breakfast. actually i've alr made my decision to stay in golden sun when i was doin my research in spore, jus wanna check out e other hotels to see if they can win me over. e reason y i chose this was bcos it's e cheapest, has a good rating on trip advisor, centrally located, & there's laptop provided in e room!
kian happily surfing e net~~
a nice & clean toilet wif bathtub~~
a nice & clean toilet wif bathtub~~ 
strolling ard Hoan Kiem Lake, a popular plc wif both locals & tourists located btw the old quarters & french quarters. u can see grps of old folks practising their tai chi, couples relaxing by e lake, etc. there's also a story abt a golden turtle residing in e lake.
walked ard e old quarters, aka 36 streets, which has a history of 2,000 yrs. there are actually more than 36 streets in e old quarters, wif each diff street selling pdts of a diff theme (eg. shoes, bags, food, clothes, etc.) a very cool thing to note was e street names are named after e pdts they r selling (eg. hang bac st - "hang" means shop & "bac" means silver, so e shops there all sell silver & jewelry). we read this from lonely planet, we printed out e online version on vietnam & cambodia & brought them there!had lunch at cha ca la vong, a famous 100 yr old shop selling fried fish, a vietnamese special dish. price is fixed @ VND 120,000 per pax (~ S$8.50) & there's oni 1 dish there, not ala carte. so it's actually quite pricey, maybe bcos they r famous, but e food is unique & worth a try.
big mkt at e old quarters, very similar to ben thanh mkt in HCMC~~
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum~~ we forgot to check e opening hrs of e plc & it was alr closed when we went after lunch... sadz... tink e opening hrs are from 8am to 11am, so we din get to go inside.
one pillar pagoda~~
streets of hanoi~~
one thing we noticed in vietnam was the buildings r all very narrowly built. i went to googled abt this & found dat it's to fit as many shops in a street as possible. an alternative theory was since e property is taxed based on its width, of course they'll try to build as narrow as possible.
temple of literature, first university of vietnam, featured on e back of e VND100,000 banknote ~~ e royal families & elites studied here, wif a system quite similar to china (eg. they studied 四书五经).
chilling out at highlands coffee, similar to our starbucks, in vincom centre, one of e more atas shopping centre in hanoi.
big mkt at e old quarters, very similar to ben thanh mkt in HCMC~~
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum~~ we forgot to check e opening hrs of e plc & it was alr closed when we went after lunch... sadz... tink e opening hrs are from 8am to 11am, so we din get to go inside.
one pillar pagoda~~
streets of hanoi~~
one thing we noticed in vietnam was the buildings r all very narrowly built. i went to googled abt this & found dat it's to fit as many shops in a street as possible. an alternative theory was since e property is taxed based on its width, of course they'll try to build as narrow as possible.
temple of literature, first university of vietnam, featured on e back of e VND100,000 banknote ~~ e royal families & elites studied here, wif a system quite similar to china (eg. they studied 四书五经).
chilling out at highlands coffee, similar to our starbucks, in vincom centre, one of e more atas shopping centre in hanoi.