Hanoi: one last look

let the pictures speak for themselves, some more of Hanoi

hanoi: my travel companion

who is none other than jeremy! :D



honestly, we have never spent so much time together alone & overseas before. besides our JB trip with his family & his NH clique, we've never travelled together. I even wondered what if he grew tired of me after 6 straight days of seeing me 24/7? HAHA. of cos he didn't!

anyway, travelling with boyfriend is a first for me and I'm glad to say that it turned out well. we didn't discover shocking habits that changed opinions of one another. neither did any of us found ourselves mysteriously sleeping on the floor the next morning. so all is well!

as usual when he's tired, he asked for me to help him massage. and when we came back, tired and legs aching from the walking, I remembered that Veron & I had run a hot water bath to soak our legs in Paris too. which made me do the same for ourselves and we helped to massage each other's legs.


he navigated when we were lost and I was too tired and bothered (on a side note, I am able to read the map too!). I think that was the only time I got on his nerves. I kept nagging at him to ask the locals for directions in my hurry to want to get back to the hotel. but he was determined to follow the map and get us back on track. which he did! :D

I helped him to shave.

he helped to carry my luggage.

when we came back, the turbulence on the later part of the journey was quite bad. even the cool & stone-faced Caucasian sitting beside me let out a loud 'Shit!' while the plane dipped and rocked back and forth on the turbulence. I remember clutching Jer's arm with a panicked face, half thinking: is this it? He saw my reaction and just laughed it off.

but I'm serious, the plane was so small. who knew if it could take the impact. but whatever it was, I still hold on to the thought that I had at that moment I held on to his arm

At the very least, I found the person to journey with me... No regrets.

Thanks baby. Glad you enjoyed the trip as much as I do. Looking forward to our next trip together!

hanoi: major attractions

we spend about a day being tourist-y and visited some of the major attractions in hanoi. actually our objective of the holiday is just to relax and enjoy the weather & slower pace of life in vietnam. which was why for our entire trip we did not have an itinerary planned at all. we only drew up a list of places-to-go and the night before we thought abt what we wanna do and add in the restaurants that is along the route. and voila!

sometimes while walking to our destination, we find sth along the way which we didn't see on the map. and we just stop for a while and explored. I really like the impromptu and no-rush feeling of this holiday. a really gd recharge for me.


some monument for a past King we discovered

many people asked, isn't 6 days in Hanoi too much? even the hotel manager said she can finish all the attractions in 1 day. yes of cos we can... we can also fly to Ho Chi Minh. but in view of our budget & we didn't want to rush ourselves here and there, we did not plan another destination besides Hanoi. if not it would beat the purpose of the aim of our holiday - to relax! (:

so here goes, some of the attractions we went:






Temple of Literature. full of Confusian's teachings by long-ago Vietnamese.






Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum - holding place of his body


war memorial

hanoi: more food

before we left for Hanoi, Jer & I spent some time researching on places & restaurants to go based on other people's reviews. It was fun to find a particular restaurant, try the food for ourselves and see if it was really as good as the review said it to be.

our first two attempts didn't turned out well. Au Lac Cafe was a real pity, many reviews recommended the place for coffee & snacks. Supposedly, its a cafe with a front terrace where guests can sip coffee & have pastries and watch the world go by as it is strategically situated facing the main road. right opposite to Metropole Hotel. But when we made our way there, all we saw was a boarded up area with nothing like what we see. It has either closed down or moved ):

Bobby Chinn's
then we also tried to find Bobby Chinn's restaurant - named Bobby Chinn's - and we managed to find it about 10-15 mins away from where we live. but it has moved. argh. luckily the neighbouring shop gave us their new address. and you know what, its new location was almost, just almost... out of the map. its like at the top of the page right at the border. I guess you can say at least we got the address :P we made our way down by cab one of the evenings and also explored the region.


Bobby Chinn's now at 77 Xuan Dien St, near 2 major lakes divided by a long bridge. Its located inside a prime residential area. Much like our Bkt Timah Road with its restaurants & eateries. we were early as we didn't think of calling to reserve and wanted to avoid the traffic. but it was nice to just walk along the lake (it looked more like a sea to me), enjoy the sea breeze in take in the beautiful skyline & architecture.


the meal at Bobby Chinn's was good, but too dark for us to take pictures. and we tot we would looked 'sua gu' to take a picture of all the food. it cost us USD70+ for two. Jer say it was abt the same as local standard but for the ambience & quality - worth it! because we were early, it seemed as if we had the entire restaurant to ourselves & the waiters were very attentive.





Fanny's Ice Cream
one of our best find among the restaurants we visit. the ice cream was fantastic. made in-house naturally and every scoop was smooth and melts in your mouth nicely. Our favourite have to be the dark chocolate. I also like strawberry and chocolate coffee. the vanilla flavour with the tiny black flecks shows it was made with real vanilla and not just artifically flavoured. now you know how to tell the good ice cream from the artificial ones!







other local food we tried:

salty crepe with seafood, very yummy!


a fried version of another Vietnamese popular dish: spring rolls


restaurant style pho! its a franchise restaurant called Pho 24. we went twice. actually road side stalls taste abt the same its just that in restaurants the cut of the beef is better, and more selection.


they call our you tiao 'fried bread sticks'. not as flavourful as our local version, but taste great when dipped into pho soup

hanoi: halong bay cruise

on the second day, early in the morning we set off for our luxury cruise. allow
me to say 'luxury' because we paid about USD170 each. so! it must be luxurious! hahaha. anyway, b4 we could board the cruise we had to take a 3 hour journey on the road to the pier. and at the pier there was some communication breakdown and we had wasted a bit of time: us waiting for the boat manager, and the manager likewise. not knowing each was already there.

so of cos we spent some time... cam-whoring!





the cruise was good. nice food - two buffets and one full menu lunch. the bay was beautiful & very peaceful with the rocks & caves dotting the coast line. we spent about an hour kayaking, a very good way of immersing in the tranquility of the bay. there was a moment where I almost bump face first into a gigantic rock while kayaking, because it was so dark and we couldn't see anything in the cave. phew! almost disfigured! lol.

we also climbed a lot of steps to go up a viewing point which was the highest point in halong bay to catch the bird's eye view of the beautiful scenery. 437 steps. and 100+ steps at another location. plus the kayaking. so I guess our buffet was justified? :P

more photos will be uploaded on FB. giving jer the honour of uploading the pics. so I will wait till he does then I compile my own albums, telling more about our experience. more posts to come! still a lot more to share (:








legend has it that when the Chinese invaded Vietnam long ago, the gods sent down dragons to help them. the dragons spitted jade & jewel that became the islands and islets now found along the bay. these formed a wall and a barrier against the approaching enemies and the Vietnamese were saved. The place where the Mother Dragon landed was now known as - Ha Long Bay.

While we climbed steps to one of the highest viewing point in Ha Long Bay, we also went to a cave rich in history and geology. Apparently the cave dates back to millions of years ago, and evidence were found that cavemen once lived in the very cave we went. Millions of years ago, Ha Long Bay was deep sea. evolution and erosion over time (and we mean a really long time here) created the beautiful place that it is today.

hanoi: first impressions

when we first boarded our transport to our hotel, we were commenting on how slow their pace of life was, all so different from us. evidence - the car was driving abt 2/3 the speed of a local car on a highway.

then we realised maybe its not the pace of life. its likely that its due to just how vietnamese drive. the scooters/bicycles/bikes are an unruly crowd! zipping across the lanes like nobody's business. most of the times, there are basically no rules practised on the roads. the drivers mainly just avoid people crossing the roads. so you shouldn't dash across lest they cant avoid you in time. why... we used the traffic light and when the green man flashed for us to walk, guess what?

the motorbikes were zooming across the road like the green man was for them. we thought we looked damn silly standing there, looking lost and confused. lol. but of cos, in no time we got used to the traffic conditions there and crossed like pros. the trick is to cross slowly, not dashing. becos you can never out run the bikes & car with their sheer volume on the streets. cross section by section and the vehicles will avoid you as they pass.



and for a developing country like Vietnam, I was impressed that even small local restaurants have clean toilets WITH toilet paper AND proper flushing systems. of cos they are not sparkling clean like our toilets. but sometimes when I go JB the toilets are like just a bucket of water for 'flushing' and no paper. so this is much better than expected!


hanoi: street food
street food is a must. city dwellers might be skeptical of the standard of food & hygiene but from what I see - nothing much to worry about. they use gloves, chopsticks, etc when handling food and even on the streets you find the stalls providing tissue/serviettes. of cos, they clean their bowls & utensils by dunking into a pail of water (clean one of cos, check to be safe *winks). but jeremy & I came back fine so no worries! a bit of germs won't kill!


the first local dish we sampled, its seen like 90% of the time. pho - rice noodles! its a bit like a thinner version of our kuey teow









some of the street food we sampled:


vietnamese tang yuan! in ginger soup with roasted peanuts


Che - a dessert that mixes a lot of ingredients together. coconut milk is an ingredient in many desserts, used in che too!





quite a nice kebab at less than SGD2!


a simple dish that is likened to our chee cheong fun. taste very gd with spring onions and a special sauce. seems like some gland juice from an insect was also put in. let's not think so much abt it :X

Australia: the places I like