Halong Bay VIETNAM

We are driven from Hanoi towards Haiphong, the largest port city of Northern Vietnam. This drive to the jetty was very pleasant. We are impress the the large numbers of tourist in the jetty and the numbers of boat operating from here. From my estimate there are more than 100 beautifully built Junk for tourist, and the estimate cost of 1 junk would cost more than one million ringgit. The boat consist of a seating lounge with long tables to seat six pessengers on the main deck and below the deck are cabins. Our boat left the mooring at about 11am and were sailing into the Gulf of Tongking, the view on the bay area is fantastic with many islands with high cliff from the sea. There are more than few hundreds islands, one hour into sailing the crew annouce that lunch will be serve. The cover deck for seating to enjoy the bay view was turn into a dining area. We had simple lunch and continue to sail in the bay, the water were very calm and we feel like we were in a lake rather than the sea. The boat stop at a water village for the pessengers to see people mostly fishermen doing their work and fish farm and for those book on kayaking in this calm bay. Towards to evening the captain of our Junk drop anchor in a very shelter inlet and were tying with another boat from the same tour operator. Dinner on board the boat were also simple and our tour cost only US$24.00 including a cabin for two. The night temperature were cool and quite. Next morning our boat set sail for port, and back drive into Hanoi by late afternoon. I am satisfied with this outing.

Indo China - Hanoi

We start from Hanoi and book a out of city tour of Tam Coc and Hoa Lu the local people also call by this name Halong Bay on land. The hotel book us for this tour at US$31.00 per person. Once out of the city we were able to see the agriculture farmland of Vietnam, everywhere are rice fields. We arrive at Hoa Lu in about 1 hour, and visited a temple and tombs of the olden days fuedal dynasty. After an hour of sight seeing we leave for Tam Coc and at the jetty we see a big crowd waiting to go into small sampan on the river Boi. I am very impress with the tourist in this place. At the jetty we were allocated 2 person to a sampan build of metal sheet. It is a flat bottom boat with 2 Vietnamese using the oars to row us. Along the river were high mountains and hills, some forming a cliff drop on the river. We can view the rocks formation out of the river but the water are not very deep. The boatman and his assistant try to sell us t-shirts , hand painted umbrella, vietnamese hat and other souvenirs. The whole journey takes about 3 hours and hard rowing passing into tunnels on the river trip.

After our lunch we start to drive back to Hanoi. This journey back to our hotel takes longer than our coming trip. The van became very hot as this aircon becomes non functional. By the time we reach the hotel we are fuming hot.

Backpacking into Indo China

We fly AirAsia into Hanoi in June 2007, we were very satisfied with AirAsia service and price as we did not encounter any problems or delay. As we clear immigration in Hanoi and start looking for the person send by the hostel to pick us up. As this agent handle for many hostel or hotels he was late, but manage to locate us after 20 minutes. While waiting for our pick-up to arrive we went to the moneychanger at the aiport to change US100.00 into Vietnamese Dong 160,000.00. The mini van drove us into Hanoi about one hour from the airport. In the Hanoi old quarter the driver phone the hostel keeper who send a young girl to led us to Tung Trang Hotel at 13 TamThuong Alley, Hang Bong Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi. email: tungtranghotel@yahoo.com Tel No.(84-4) 8 286 267. This hotel were recommended by Leenah and is very lovely done, our room has a belcony overlooking into the alley. After off loading our lugguage we went into the street or look for breakfirst, Vietnamese Pho Bo, their noodle with beef. It cost about US1.00 per bowl and taste delicious. After a hearty breakfirst we walk the streets heading toward Hoan Kiem Lake and also to book the Water Puppet Theatre of the evening show. It is the most recommended show with many visitors prebook for the evening performance. After we had paid for the tickets we take a leisure walk around the lake and the temple build in the middle of the lake. We then walk further north towards the West Lake, one of the big and popularly known lake of Hanoi. The weather was very hot and we are really exhuated from the heat of the afternoon. As all of us were very tire after the early flight from Kuala Lumpur we took a taxi back to the market Hang Da near our hotel for a insight exporation of the local people.

Europe Driving Holiday

We were on an European driving holidays on September and October 2007 with Harry and wife. We flew into London early in the morning on 12th September 2007 from Kuala Lumpur. At the immigration counter in Heathrow Airport we were expecting some tidious queries as always read in Malaysian newspaper about visitors from Malaysia. To our surprise the immigration officer was very polite and normal questions of purpose of visit and duration of stay were pose, however this was done off in less than five minutes and our entry stamp on our passport were done. We waited for about 25 minutes for Harry to pick us up in his Mercedes T series car. The weather in London at 6.30am were crisps at temperature of about 19 degree C. Although Harry's house were about 11 miles from airport, the drive seem to take ages of 45 minutes. Harry's residence is sited on a private estate of around 200 houses, the compound in the estate were well kept and most of the houses have no gate or perimeter fence. The most common are tall hedges and most house look very tudor design. After our lugguage were carted into the guest room we sat down to have a full english breakfirst of becon and eggs with toast.

Harry and Lily's garden is so beautiful, the flowers were in full blooms of red, yellow, orange and purple. On 15th September we are pack and drive to Suffolk in North East of London about 160 miles to meet up with Harry's friends for a English cottage retreat. It is in a village very off the beaten country and nice greenery and quite countryside. The buildings consist of a great hall build in the 15th hundreds, the individual cottage are also of that period but renovated to include modern sanitary and kitchen. The weather is this out countryside is very cold, we are freezing with cold. Harry's friend Nick and girlfriend Alison prepare great lunch of curry and cheese down in fine wine to wash down with meal. The next day Nick organise a golfing for 2 party at the nearby golf course. At night we drove to the village centre to watch the World Rugby Tournament held in France over sky tv at the local pub.

The next day we drove to the seaside town about 20 miles away to enjoy the big surf and high wind by the coast. We spot a gathering of Lotus 7 collector club outing at the beach. We were surprise by the numbers and distant these collectors and entueist coming from Switzerland, Germany and France. That night the whole party of us had a gathering of dinner at these beach village pub. The prices for the dinner are quite pricy.

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