Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Vung Vieng Fishing Village at Ha Long Bay

Second day on the junk. We woke up as early as 5:30 am, intended to catch the sunrise. The heavy fog disappointed us.  But, we didn't lose much, as we earned the layering view of islets created by blurring fog. The scenery was beyond description. The humming of diesel engine followed a few minutes later. 

Again we continued our journey through the gaps between ancient limestone karsts. We had only one place left in our itinerary- Vung Vieng Fishing Village. Sitting quietly on the deck, we snapped the beauty of nature, while enjoying the cold breeze in Ha Long Bay.


 Junk with picturesque lanscape as background.

 Fishing boat disturbed the tranquility of the reflection.

 Vegetation grow on one of the islets.

 Some areas in Ha Long Bay have high density of islets.

 Feel like in Paradise.

The small boat had shifted through a thousand hills (轻舟已过万重山) is best depicted by this photo.

 This is what we saw from the upper deck.
 Other Indochina Junks were gathering and moving forward to Vung Vieng.

 One of the fishermen that we encountered.

We reached Vung Vieng after our breakfast. The fishing village was built under government's initiative. The village has developed from a simple anchorage in early 19 century to more than 70 households now. The villagers moving around by boat, if they decided not to swim.


 
 We visited the small scale fish cultivation industry.

Then we visited the school of Vung Vieng. Tony was our teacher. He taught us a few Vietnamese words- e.g. "cam on" means thank you.

After visiting the fishing village, we were brought to witness the greatness of God's creation around the village on a bamboo made boat. We used the small boat to move around Vung Vieng.

Beautiful natural arch near the village.

 We went through a narrow passage to go back to our junk.

We couldn't hold ourselves turning our head around, tried to catch all the great scenery around us.

The rower was very helpful. She helped us to take several nice photos.

At the end of our trip, we were arranged to visit the pearl farm just beside the village. For us, the farm was small. A demonstration was done to show us how to insert the nucleus into the oyster (lower left). Pearl products were displayed at the souvenir shop near the exit. The prices for the items displayed  were quite high (similar to what we can get from Sabah). We stayed at Vung Vieng for about 2 hours.

We took our lunch on our way back to Ha Long City. This is our group photo with our tour guide Tony (white shirt at the middle), taken before we left the junk. He was helpful, friendly, and very good in kayaking.

We reached Ha Long City at 12:30 pm. Then, another 4 hours of journey back to Hanoi. Exhausted, but worthy. If you have the chance to visit Hanoi, we would recommend that you spare a day or two to visit Ha Long Bay as well. Ha Long Bay is truly a place that we should visit at least once in a lifetime. Spending a night on the junk is expensive, but worth it. 

Indochina junk has provided very good service to us. We had been given free drinking water, coffee, and tea, delicious food with non-repeating dishes for every meal, plus, caving, kayaking, and taking boat trip around Vung Vieng without extra charge. If we wish to list one thing in lack, then, it should be a free pearl necklace as souvenir, haha!




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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Amazing Ha Long Bay Cruise Experience

Ha Long Bay (Halong Bay) is truly a nature wonder. The name Ha Long 下龙 revealed the legend that the place was once the site where dragons descended. The breathtaking islets with vertical karst limestone walls are contrasted by the emerald green water below, calm and quiet. No wonder it is listed as one of the UNESCO Heritage Site. 

Ha Long Bay is four hours away from Hanoi by road (30 minutes of rest in between). Lucky, the road condition was not too bad. We were able to rest on our eleven-seater Ford Transit.

Our two-day-one-night tour was provided by Indochina Junk. Our itinerary- lunch on the junk while we cruised into the heart of Ha Long Bay, kayaking around the islet, exploring the cave at Thien Canh Son, swimming, and later dinner on board on the first day. Second day, we took our breakfast on our way to Vung Vieng fishing village, exploring the village and the pearl industry, and took lunch on our way back to the harbour. The fee, USD280 for two of us.

Why Indochina Junk? First, strong recommendation from Livien, which had pushed us to take the tour package with Indochina Junk. Then, overwhelming good reviews in Tripadvisor, and of course, the exclusive Bai Tu Long Bay tour. As far as we knew, there were only two cruise companies have been given the permission to enter Bai Tu Long Bay. We were lucky to enjoy more space and privacy in the middle of the world heritage. Worth it or not? For us, definitely a big yes.

We were introduced to our tour guide, Tony after we arrived at the Ha Long City. It was 1 pm. He led us to our junk with a glamorous name- Dragon's Pearl (made us think of Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean). We would like to continue our sharing with our photos.

Entire "Ha Long" fleet can be seen from the waiting room at the harbour.Please click on this photo to see the bigger panoramic image.

Photo taken at the jetty, when we were waiting for the transit boat to our junk. It was hazy throughout our 2 days' tour. The haze limited our visibility but had enhanced the elements of adventure.

Junks undocked from the harbour and cruised into the sea dotted with limestone islets.

One of the sister ships of our junk. We shared the same journey throughout our trip.

The bedroom was decorated in traditional Chinese style with wooden wall and floor (upper left), outdoor and indoor dining area (upper and lower right), and a place for us to lay down and relax on the top level of the junk. The indoor dining area was completed with a bar.

Our photo on the upper deck of the junk.

We took 2 hours to reach Thien Canh Son. The islet is owned by Indochina Junk and received very limited visitors. Thien Canh means heavenly landscape. Our tour guide Tony described the place with a name that we couldn't agree more- Paradise Island.

 Beautiful scenery around the islet.

Photo taken from opposite site of our landing area, which could be accessed through Thien Canh Cave. The view from the high ground was amazing, even though some of the view was blocked by overgrown vegetation.

Cave exploration was something that we didn't expected. The cave was windy with cooling temperature during our visit. The ancient stalagtites and stalagmites revealed the age of the cave. This beautiful cave could be reached by climbing a few stairs- a price that we gladly paid.


 Our family photo at the entrance of the cave.

Yeah, we went Kayaking. That experience was larger than life. The limestone islets were so huge and magnificent when we moved closer to them. We should have brought our camera with us, but we didn't. We left it in the locker when we went kayaking.

After kayaking and caving, we spent some time to enjoy the beautiful beach. A swim in the cooling sea water was really refreshing.

Back to our junk, we enjoyed our sumptuous dinner with finely decorated dishes.

We couldn't see anything around us, except the dim illumination from the junks. However, when we pushed the ISO to H2, well, this is what our saw through our camera.

Night on the junk was quiet, with occational sound of singing and laughing from other travel mates. We slept early that night, with the hope to wake up early to see the sunrise. Follow us on the second day of our cruise tour at Ha Long Bay in our next post. 


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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Exploring Hanoi Old Quarter

We visited Hanoi in late April. From Noi Bai International Airport, we took more than one hour to reach our our hotel- Hanoi Old Centre Hotel. The hotel is located at the heart of Old Quarter, one of the most prominent tourism area in Hanoi. Old Quarter is believed to be inhabitated by Vietnamese some 1000 years ago, starting from the time of King Ly Thai.

Of course, we can't expect that the streets remained the same as 1000 years ago. Now, it is a township with concrete buildings and narrow streets. However, a few very old historical relics survived as well. In a round trip, we visited Ngoc Son Temple, Thap Rua (Turtle Tower), the Opera House, Vietnamese Women's Museum, St. Joseph Cathedral, and Ly Quoc Su Pagoda.These places are nearby Hoan Kiem Lake. Starting at 2 pm, the tour took about 3 hours.


Hoan Kiem Lake (or Guam) is in the heart of Hanoi Old Quarter. It looks like a peaceful oasis in the middle of traffic sandstorm. Turtle Tower medidates on a patch of dry land in the lake (upper left). The surrounding area is well landscaped with people resting, relaxing, jogging, or even drawing beside the lake. The legend of Hoan Kiem Lake and the history of Turtle Tower is available at hanoi.vietnamplus.vn. One of my Vietnamese friends stated that Turtle Tower is the most symbolic monument in Hanoi. If that is true, then, Hoan Kiem is definitely a must visit site in Hanoi.

Turtle Tower was built in 1886 as a tomb. Now, it serves as a tower to honour the magic turtle which is guarding Le Loi's sword. The legend told that King Le Loi crushed mighty Chinese army with the magic sword originated from the sea. A magic turtle later claimed back the sword from him. Some believed that the sword is still being kept in the lake (Hoan Kiem, 还剑 means returning the sword).


Ngoc Son Temple is located on the northern island of Hoan Kiem Lake. The temple is connected by a wooden bridge (upper left). The entrance fee of 20,000d per person was collected at the entrance (upper right). Built in 18th century, the temple has strong Chinese influence (lower left).The name Ngoc Son means 玉山 in Mandarin, or Jade Mountain. A 6-feet-long giant turtle specimen is displayed in the temple. The giant turtles are still populated in Hoan Kiem Lake. As the lake endures heavy pollution, more conservation work have to be done to keep the turtle happy and far from extinction.

The legend of Hoan Kiem is carved on the entrance of Ngoc Son Temple.

Panoramic view of Ngoc Son Temple. The temple attracts many foreign and local visitors.

Hanoi Opera House is located at the southeast of Hoan Kiem Lake. We found the building is nothing but a vivid structure with rich French Colonial Architecture. Well, we left the building after taking a group photo there. If you wish to catch some performances there, you can visit Official Site of the opera house.

Our next stop, Vietnamese Women Museum, 500 meters away from Hanoi Opera House. The museum is housed in a contemporary white building. It is catchy in the middle of beige colonial themed street. The entrance fee was 30,000d per person. The museum is open from 8 am - 5 pm, seven days a week.

The museum was built to honour the women's contribution to Vietnam. From costume of wedding, the tools for farming and fishing, to the fire arms that the women of Vietnam used in the fight against the intruders, the three-storey-museum was much more bigger than what we had expected. It cannot be considered as an impressive museum, but it can definitely keep us occupied with more than 20,000 objects exhibited. We stayed in the museum for one hour. More information about the museum is available at the Museum Official Website.

Tired, we decided to take taxi from Women's Museum to St. Joseph Cathedral. The journey took 5 minutes, with the fare of 18,000d.The cathedral is opened to public for prayer after 5 pm.

Built in 1886, this majestic Gothic cathedral is a house of worship for Catholics. The stain glass windows are breathtaking.  There are several lemon tea shops outside of the cathedral which worth trying.

We passed by Ly Quoc Su Pagoda on our way back to our hotel from St. Joseph Cathedral. The pagoda is located some 50 meters north to the cathedral. Dubbed one of the oldest pagoda in Hanoi, we found that the existing building there was actually built after 1954. The old one was buried deep under the flow of time.

In this afternoon tour, we actually made a big circle around Hoan Kiem Lake, clockwise. Our trip was blessed with a good weather. We learnt a lot of information about Hanoi from our HanoiKids tour guides. The tour was really helpful for us to familiarize with the places, especially when we went out on our own at night for shopping later. The information about attraction in 36-old-street is available at vietnamonline.com.

Next, our second day in Hanoi. We visited Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, One Pillar Pagoda, Presidential Palace, Temple of Literature, and Hanoi Citadel. 



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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

HanoiKids, Great Ambassador of Hanoi

When we heard HanoiKids for the very first time, we couldn't hold our imagination. None of what we had imagined came close to what we met in Hanoi. They are young university students, friendly, energetic, helpful, good English, and they could get along with our family members very well. On top of that, they work voluntarily. It means, we are not obligated to pay for their service.

We had experienced taking a free service, which ended up with a merry-go-round of expensive merchandise outlets and souvenir shops. Once we met with handsomely paid tour guide who couldn't communicate effectively. A few others, good service with equal weighting of payment. Of course, once in a while, we stumbled onto those who offered excellent service with relatively low payment.

How about excellent service with zero cost? You must be crazy. Well, that's what we had in Hanoi.

As usual, before we departed to Hanoi, we had done our homework. Tripadvisor, Lonely Planet, Wikipedia, blogs, official websites, none escaped. Information was captured, and plans were drawn. What could be better than getting a local guide as companion? Well, instead of one, we had a team of two. We took two trips with the members of HanoiKids.

The first trip, day 1, afternoon. We strolled around our hotel at the old quarter. By foot, we visited Hoan Kiem Lake, Ngoc Son Temple, Thap Rua Tower (Turtle Tower), the Opera House, Vietnamese Women's Museum, St. Joseph Cathedral, and Ly Quoc Su Pagoda. The second trip, day 2, starting at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in the morning, followed by Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's house, One Pillar Pagoda, and the Temple of Literature. Then, in the afternoon, we visited Hanoi Citadel for about two hours before heading back to our hotel at 5 p.m.

During the trip, the members of HanoiKids guided our way, explained everything they could recall about places, helped us to call for taxi, worked as our translators, and tried very best to accommodate everything in our to-do list. They were good in recommending nice places to stop for lunch and dinner as well. The best part of being together with HanoiKids members is, they were more like friends than tour guides to us. We chatted a lot down the street and have learned invaluable information about the life in Hanoi.

Smile (pink shirt) and Thu (green shirt) with our family in front of Ngoc Son Temple. They told us the story about the turtle reservation in the temple later on.

Taking ice lemon tea beside St. Joseph Cathedral. Thu told us that resting on the small kid bench in front of the shops while enjoying the food and drinks is a part of Hanoi's life. Well, we like it!

Duc (right) and Thi (left) with us in front of Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We have to express our highest appreciation to them for keeping up with our tight schedule- visiting many places in such a short period of time.

Thi was explaining something to Livien and Bryant.

We would like to express our highest gratitude to HanoiKids, especially to Thu, Smile, Thi, and Duc. Thank you very much for making our Hanoi trip a great experience for our family. You all are really great ambassadors of Hanoi. Keep up the good work. All the best and keep in touch.

More information about HanoiKids are available at http://hanoikids.org/

More sharing about our experience at Hanoi is available: Food in Hanoi.




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