The Kingdom of Cambodia

On the eve of the last day of the Uear of the Snake, we departed from Da Nang to  Siem Reap. I thought only foreigners would travel on the New Year Eve, but I later found out we were wrong. 

The plane is a small four row seating plane with propellers! The first time I ever sat in one and am very amused. Did you know you can see Ling Ung Temple's statue from the sky?

Arrival in Cambodia was fairly easy. Prepared my visa form at the airport and give an extra dollar for the lack of a picture to go with the visa. But did you know? The visa application goes through a series of visa officials down this row of tables and your name gets called out when they are done stamping. 

Very interesting and rather efficient! Btw, it's $20 for the visa. 

Oh, apparently customs officer was on break:

Just leave your customs form there!

So the first sign of trouble came when there was no sign of our guesthouse when we exited the airport. Almost every single hotel/guesthouse here provides free pick up/arrival, and I double checked with our guesthouse about our arrival... Luckily, there was wifi (though pretty spotty) at the exit, and I sent them an email as well as a text (through Skype) AND called the owner's cell through Skype. Unfortunately the wifi was too slow for the phone call to make sense, but I believe my text got through. Just as I was looking for other hotels to stay (the hostel looked very tempting), the tuk tuk driver for our guesthouse showed up. 

I was already having some reservations about our guesthouse, especially seeing the area where it is located seemed fairly remote at night. I was also worried when the owner made me pay all four nights upfront and won't let me pay just for one night. However, their welcome smoothie was delicious!

Papaya flavored smoothie that was actually better than any I had in Vietnam!

I tried to look through the tours they offered. So the reviews online of their parent tour company, Capitol Tours, were terrible. They were however quite cheap. We would have considered a one day trip, except the hotel people were extremely passive aggressive about wanting us to book something. So instead, we just decided to see the next day after we leave about finding a way to the Angkor. 

And also, there were no mosquito nets in our rooms, which prompted some serious research into infectious diseases in the area. Apparently dengue is quite the problem here... And also after spotting 8 geckos on the ceiling on the common balcony, I decided to dose myself off with 30% deet. Never mind the neurotoxic side effects...

The last unpleasant thing was the hot water issue. Later the next morning we found out that the hot water doesn't come on until after the water had been ran for about 30 minutes. On the Wikipedia web page about the preservation of the Angkor Wat, the over usage of underground water basins is threatening the destabilization of the structures, especially during the dry season. This and the fact that I do not support wasting water is the reason for my dislike of this guesthouse. 

The free breakfast had the choice between bread with different variations of egg, noodles with soup (basically instant ramen), and fried noodles (stir fried ramen in pad see ew sauce). 

Yep, this is instant ramen, in hot water, not even stove top cooked. The veggies must have been cooked separately. 

The fried noodles were quite delicious, as  I loved pad see ew. But, my friend who had it the next day said it wasn't very good as they didn't put enough sauce in. 

The coffee was quite delicious. It wasn't Vietnamese coffee and didn't taste like the watered down instant coffee, but also didn't quite taste like it was from beans either... But, I had it with sweetened condensed milk, which makes everything delicious. :) 

Alright, next entry on the ancient Angkor city. And the name of our guesthouse? Ta Som guesthouse. 0/10 would recommend. They do clean our room daily and appear to offer new towels daily and are usually pretty nice, but I still feel that location isn't good, I am having difficulty with help for finding tours, and the hot water issue REALLY bothers me. For $17/day, I would rather go to a hostel where at least I can more help and not scammed on some bad tour. 

Hanoi: The capital of dragon country.

Making our way to Hanoi was fraught with challenges. Number one, we are traveling just before Tet, so while the train would have been a beautiful experience, there were no trains tickets left. According to our doctor friend here, one will need to book at least one month ahead of time before Tet... But we were able to book airline tickets from Vietnam Airlines' website for relatively cheap (about $60-70 each way). And the airline allows 20 kilo for check in for free, so no need to worry too much about luggage! 

Upon arrival, I made a mistake. There are these airport transfer shuttles, which are located to the right further up from the taxis that costs 40,000 VND to go to the old quarter. Should've taken those instead of paying 300,000 VND for a taxi that didn't even drop us off at our hotel. The initial asking price was 350,000 and some guy wouldn't even take my offer for 300,000, but given that there is a cheaper alternative, there's really no reason to take an overpriced taxi. 

Just an aside on the airport transfer, these are provided by Vietnam Airline and will take the passengers to the south end of the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is mostly walkable and there are tons of motorbikes and little bike carts offering rides once there. You don't need to book the shuttle and just pay once you get on. The only problem is that there is no space for luggage, so it would be difficult to fit large luggages in to as these tend to get packed to the brim. 

The traffic in the Old Quarter is waay crazier than Da Nang. The motorbikes are head to head with the cars and the streets are narrow. Traffic lights are only at some intersections and most motorbikes don't obey them. 

In some ways, Hanoi reminds me of an older version of Beijing, but Beijing banned motorbikes about 20 years ago, probably due to concern of safety and noise. So the craziness is partially due to motorbikes. Apparently traffic is significantly better as a lot of people have left for Tet, but being a major tourist scene, the Old Quater's businesses are going strong. 

The Old Quarter is full of these skinny houses as in Da Nang as well, though the ones here are more similar to French style with the decorative side rails. This is our hotel, the Holiday Gold Hotel, which like many is squeezed in one skinny anterior. 

The inside is fairly old with winding staircase (no elevator). The service as usual, is fairly good and friendly, though we only took advantage of the free map, which was what I depended to navigate as the streets are at all sorts of angle to each other and quite confusing!

The hotel provided free breakfast, which was meh in my opinion. They had toast with eggs, Vietnamese noodles, or creeps. This is the apple crepe with lemon sugar and honey. The coffee provided is American style, which at this point is quite tasteless to me. 

So Hanoi is known for the Pho Ga (chicken pho), which is lighter compared to Pho Bo. There are lots of little shops in the streets, but out of concern of having diarrhea on board a ship and sharing rooms, we opted to a slightly cleaner looking restaurant. 

This place offered chicken pho and a chashu dry pho, which we did not get to try. 

This was their cooking area with the chicken and other meats.

The pho is a bit pricier in comparison with Da Nang at 40,000, though considerably cheaper than the tourist shops, which all runs about 50,000-60,000. 

I must admit, this was quite delicious, but was definitely on the lighter side. But after adding the garlic sauce (in the background here), the pho was super yummy! Definitely one can taste the hours that the chicken has been stewing and the lightness of the pho noodles themselves. The garlic sauce added a hint of sourness to kick up the taste which was much appreciated. 

This is Nuoc Mia, sugar cane juice. Unlike most juices here which is mixed with water, this was straight up sugar cane pushed through a Pressor to squeeze out the goodness. It is not incredibly sweet like I imagined and instead is very refreshing with the taste of the sugar cane plant itself. 

There is also a stand selling sticky rice balls, but as if you can see the sign in the background, this shop is located at 77 Hang Dieu and opens from 9a to 7p as evident by the fact that we could not get any before leaving for Halong Bay. 

I actually have no idea what this is called. It is spring rolls wrapped in rice paper and deep fried. It's usually eaten with bun and Nuoc mam sauce, which I would recommend over eating it along as it can get very greasy. We walked by several little street stands selling this around noon, but could not find any stands after 7p. But, the tourist restaurants still sold it, which was where we ended up eating it. This plate costs $50,000. 

Now this! Best find in Hanoi! (Second is the sugar cane drink). This is Banh goi, which translates to pillow cake apparently. At 9000 per one, it is not bad. We found this by chance when walking by this place with tiny stools and lots of Vietnamese people. We initially made the mistake to take away, but you should sit down as it is very hard to dip in the delicious sauce when it's in a little bag! 

This is Nem Cua Be, which translates to crab cake apparently. It is pretty good but I cannot identify what part does it tastes like crab... 

This is the shop and they specializes in deep fried goods. The fried sweet doughnut looked similar to some of the other stuff we ate, and the salty doughnut was basically a Vietnamese meatball in dough... 

But this shop is probably the busiest shop that I saw in my little time there. There were hardly enough chairs, they have 6 family members working and there were people on motorbikes waiting to get their portion to go too!

This was just some fried doughnut that some lady forcefully put in a bag and shoved in or hands. It tasted very similar to the ones I have had in Da Nang and Hoi An, but the little ones had caramel and sesame covering instead...

Hanoi Beer tasted different from Bia Saigon and beer Larue in that it is stronger and bolder in flavor, and not as flat as Bia Saigon. 

The only smoothie I had in Hanoi. It was pricey at 40,000! The avacado smoothie tastes significantly different from the ones back home, but I suspect that is because most Vietnamese people in America are from the south where they like their foods much sweeter...

Okay, enough on food. Some of the other craziness in Hanoi was mostly on the Tet preparation. There were three popular items that I keep seeing over and over again on the back of motorbikes being transported: roosters, peach blossom trees and kumquat trees. 

There is a whole market dedicated to selling the trees that it was quite hilarious to see lots of motorbikes carrying minitrees on the back. 

How does one drive with that?

Here is a peach blossom tree on display. While it supposedly is a twig, the size of this makes me think they just moved the whole tree. 

In fact, it is apparently so popular that people, including airline stewardesses were taking them on the plane! How does one bring back a small tree with flowers on it? :O

And roosters of corse. I have no idea what they are planning for these... I am sure they would be tasty but apparently they can also be used for cock fighting?

These two birds certainly aren't in any shape to be fighting... 

After dinner, we also strolled by Hoen Kiem lake, which was right in the heart of Old Quarter. It was nicely decorated for Tet as well. 

I have no idea what that super shining structure in the middle is, but the light pollution is certainly incredible. I swear LEDs probably have the best business in Vietnam. 

We took the airport shuttle back to the airport. But as the shuttle stops running at 7pm, and our flight was at 10, we took the earlier 6pm bus just to be safe. We were very lucky that the airline agent offered to move us up to the 7:45pm flight! Love the flexibility of Asia. :)

This was a case of confiscated items behind the security point. There were lots and lots of scissors, but also other items like screwdrivers, knives (wha?), forks, wire cutters and other sharp and plastic items... It provided us with a good 10 minutes of amusement. 

And off we went, back to Da Nang!

Hello Da Nang! Actually, Da Nang is probably as equally filled with LEDs...

Halong Bay, part two.

Day 2 adrift at sea, no food or water, without land in sight...

Okay, enough of playacting! Especially since we haven't moved at all from our ship parking lot in the bay... I got up early to catch the sunrise, but alas, the entire bay was covered with clouds and fog and I could not even see the sun. 

Breakfast was supposed to be western style. I failed to identify the salt and pepper on the table, so my eggs tasted terrible. The toast was probably the worst toast that I have ever put in my mouth... I instantly regretted even trying to eat it. The sausage was Vietnamese sausage! It has a distinct flavor and texture that I always fail to identify what exactly it is made out of, which I think I probably do not want to know. 

After breakfast, we visited a cave. So these are limestone caves. I have seen a number of them, and this one does not particular stand out, though I still made an attempt at photography. 

Pardon the stop sign, I have no software to remove it at this time... Given that I was shooting at 1 sec speeds and forgot my tripod, the entire cave trip was me contortion-ing myself into various positions to stabilize against rocks... I am sure I provided plenty of amusement for the Taiwanese and French tourists behind us. And of course I completely missed our tour guide, who was just boringly pointing out various rocks that can be imagined into creatures. I can play that game by myself, thank you. 

There was something very amusing about this collection of penguin trash cans...

And of course, lots of climbing has to be involved. At the entrance, there always is the sign that says "the elderly, people with hypertensive heart disease should not enter"... What is the hate on diastolic heart failure? I feel like smokers, especially COPDers, should be part of that warning as well. 

So after the slightly boring cave visit, that was apparently the conclusion of our $129 cruise around Halong Bay. We were ushered onto shore to have lung and driven back to Hanoi. 

Goodbye, beautiful Halong Bay! You disappointed me some but was still impressive!

So some conclusion thoughts about visiting Halong Bay. So number one is that one has to visit with a cruise boat. There are no other way to visit this area, but then you have to follow the plan set by the tour people rather than self explorations unless you shell out money for a private tour. Some of the activities, such as kayaking is really fun and worth it, but the other stuff like squid fishing and cooking class really is not. I am uncertain how to really get unique shots as it seems impossible to venture out on one's own... If I was to do this again, I think I would probably go with the cheapest cruise as long as they include hot water and kayaking (though this should be taken with a grain of salt when advertised by the hotel or company). 

This is a shot of me attempting to run onto the other cruise boat to prolong our trip... Don't I look like I am a dorobo? 

 (Image from google image search...)

I should totally photoshop that picture... Teehee~ 

Halong Bay Part one: I want to shoot a postcard quality photo!

Having seen lots of pictures of Halong Bay, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Halong Bay. One, I get seasick very easily, and the idea of being on seawater never appealed to me. Two, I also am not expecting a good trip considering this is catering purely to tourists. But, everybody raves about the experience and how beautiful this place is. And truthfully, I must admit it is a beautiful natural wonder. 

Our journey started in Hanoi, where our tour group came to pick us up from our hotel. I really wanted sugar cane juice, but after we embarked on our journey for sugar cane juice, we found out that the shop does not open for another hour. And then I wanted pillow cake, which when we found it, the shop was just opening and the frying oil is not even hot. 

So with some disappointment, we met Menh, our guide. We got on with the rest of tour group in a mini bus and took the 4 hour journey from Hanoi to Halong harbor. The drive was actually quite pleasant and I napped the entire way save for the 20 minute stop at this super touristy shop...

A friendly reminder that they are responsible for either the loss of belongings after we leave or loss while on the bus...

After being shuffled into the "waiting pen" at the harbor, an area where tourists get herded to while waiting for the guides to do whatever they need, I tried to get some photos, though most of them were of the ships. There were some very small ships, which I lowered my already low expectations for our accommodations (I though we were going to be sleeping in bunk beds and sharing bathrooms...). 

When our guide returned with our very fake looking tickets, we got on a small boat, which then took us to our larger cruise ship further away. 

Our cruise ship was better than I expected. We were given some instructions and then left to explore and photograph on our own. Unfortunately, the first day was quite cloudy. This led to some cloudy pictures as well. I did my best here to squeeze in some colors, though most things were a big white blur. 

Somehow, the numerous islands really reminded me of FF8, where you run around the strips of sand to find the Chocobo forest, but apparently that's just me...

This is the "welcome drink". This seems to be popular at a lot of places, tours, hotels, messages etc. Really though, it just taste like tang with raspberry syrup on the bottom. 

Our lunch was as I expected, some flashy tourist affair. It was not bad, just not the bun or pho that I have been craving. Even cheap Banh Mi sandwiches would have been better in my book. 

(Pic of Ti Top Island to come)

After lunch. we stopped at Ti Top island. This is clearly a tourist destination and you need a ticket to see the island! Not that you can get here anyways without a tour boat, so I am uncertain of why a ticket is even necessary. Oh, and the bamboo seats set out on the beach? 8000 VND/hr/chair. The stone ones are free though. 

Our guide led us up these ridiculous stairs to reach the pagoda at the top. Needless to say, we stopped a ton of times and completely lost our tour group. I was able to snap some beautiful photos of the bay. To come when I get home and can actually process and upload said beautiful photos of halong bay. 

The view up top was definitely worth the climb, though it was also full of tourists. I couldn't resist having a picture snapped just to document that yes, I made it up top!

We stayed for about 1 hour at this island. It was full of tourists, and some people went to swim in the water, though I could caution against that as the water smelled and there were tons of trash floating by. But as always, sitting on the beach, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and smelling the salty flavor of the sea will always be a good experience. 

After returning to the boat, we set out on a part of the adventure that I was semi-dreading... Seawater Kayaking! The thought of possibly flipping over and falling into the water was absolutely terrifying. Also, since I have never kayaked before, we were ridiculously slow and lost track of our tour group while in the bay... This led to a mental breakdown on my part where I played Robinson Cruise for the next hour while we wandered around the rocky islands...

Alright, I'll admit it... I was actually having fun. It was also fun to pretend that we are adrift at sea without food or water.... :P

The sun was also setting at this time, though it was difficult to see through the clouds, but it was beautiful. 

There were these caves at the side of the islands that may or may not be entered, though I certainly did not see any person entering. Lots of boats kayaking near it though. 

(Pic of floating houses to come)

There were also these floating houses that one can consider calling village. We did not receive any explanation from our guide, but I suspect these houses belongs to the ladies who go around to the different cruise boats to sell snacks, water, drinks and alcohol. I did not see any signs of fishing activity, therefore my suspicion is that these sprung up due to tourism. 

By the time we have returned to our ship, it was close to being dark. I must emphasize one thing though, it appears that all the cruise ships just sails to the area next to Ti Top island, and then just settle there until the next morning when they all depart to return to the harbor. The actual ship only travels from the harbor to this area and back. So my pictures are really mostly of the other cruise ships rather than any beautiful bay scenes as we barely moved anywhere. 

The cruise ships in the distance, all settled for the night. 

Pardon the not so artistic picture. This was the cooking class, aka "here are some stuff and why don't you DIY your own spring rolls so you can be preoccupied"... Yep, one line instruction and that's it. Never mind the fact that I used to sell spring rolls with VSA...

I was worried that the DIY spring rolls were going to be our dinner, but thankfully we had another touristy dinner. Once again, the food is decent, but not delicious like bun or pho... 

After dinner, there was squid fishing, which really just means throw a sinker into the bay on fishing rod, and hope for the best. No real bait, no additional attraction for squids. I am pretty sure squids are actually quite intelligent creatures and won't fall for a lame trap without any enticing incentives. The squids were clearly insulted, and the men who went fishing just got drunk...

Alright, enough for one day. Part two to come.