Travel Hanoi @ 29 April 2009

Pampered with luxurious tours, I had long forgotten the feeling of backpacking. To revive its spirit, I travelled with 4 other friends in semi-backpacking style to Hanoi and Sapa, Vietnam. Vietnam is always an icon of postwar, hardship and suburban. Though mentally prepared, we were still awe struck by the scent, the view, the culture and the people of Vietnam. We definitely had mixed feeling with Vietnam. We were both impressed and, at the same time, surprised. Due to the compacted schedule, we had yet to have chance visiting Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and French Quarter. The following were something that impressed us, at least myself, very much:

The landmark Ho Kiam Lake located right in the middle of Hanoi.

Old Quarter 36 Streets, Hanoi
After an eye-opening journey from airport to our hotel (the driving attitude), we started exploring the famous Old Quarter of Hanoi city. Ho Kiam Lake was the landmark for every location. Ho Kiam Lake was translated as Sword-Returning Lake, depicting the legend of sword returning to a gigantic tortoise after a victorious war between Vietnam and China. Rather disappointed with the Ho Kiam Lake view, we ventured into Old Quarter 36 streets. To impress you, each street was selling the same goods in grandeur – shoes, silks, silver, incense, tomb carving, cloths, spices, souvenirs etc. You name it they have it. My first impression was, well, being a Vietnamese woman was difficult. Most of them did the hardwork and ‘run’ the family. Salute….

Lucky snapshot of a beautiful couple in front of St Joseph Church.

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Water Puppet Show
The status was rather similar to our Wayang Kulit but their puppets were more animated and colourful, performing on a water stage. It appeared to be quite interesting for awhile and the show was later paled by the recurrent lyric which sleepened most of us. There were different folklores portraying the daily lives of Vietnamese, legends and mythologies (dragon, phoenix, unicorns etc.). My votes went to fire-spitting dragon dance and marriage story. Nonetheless, it was still something we had never watched before.

St Joseph Church is the best place to capture daily local life.

***

Vietnamese Vs French Cuisine
It was unbelievable that the best French restaurant – The Green Tangerine, was actually located in Hanoi. The excitement started right after we stepped into the restaurant. The setting was beyond elegant and we could not help to jaw-drop with the food selection, of course the price as well. I was rather shocked when my food arrived. I made a mistake of ordering a plate of raw beef and surprises came one after the other. The raw beef was unexpectedly delicious and I could hardly felt the rawness, no doubt a world-class cuisine. Cha Ca La Vong was another famous local restaurant. They had only one menu, which was fried fish and rice noodles. It was rather embarrassing if you visited Hanoi and not trying the local specialties. We tried some tasty Vietnamese breakfast – rice noodles, sticky rice, Vietnamese coffee etc., sitting along the street side just like locals. Thumb up!

***

Spring roll in Hanoi style, dining in Green Tangerine, the best French restaurant.

***

Vietnamese Coffee
Out of nowhere, we bumped into a coffee stall accidentally that was highly recommended by forumers. The boss not only spoke fluent Cantonese, but also generous enough to treat us his coffee. The price was reasonable and the quality of coffee was top notch! To enjoy Vietnamese coffee fully, you need to prepare it in Vietnamese way – to filter the coffee with special filter and to add in dense and viscous milk. Exquisite taste it was! Having drinking coffee from Brazil and Italy, Vietnamese coffee definitely deserves the same level of excellence.

Lantern shop nearby St Joseph Church.

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Traffic, Vietnamese National Day and Labour Day
Jackpot for the most peaking holiday in Vietnam, it was a nightmare for us. During our excursion to Tam Coc, we experienced the worst jam of all. We trapped inside the traffic for almost 4 hours. Unmovable and bored, it was the best moment to observe the locals because even the motorists were trapped on the road. If you think there are too many motorists in Malaysia, well, think again. We saw a sea of motorists packing with their family and heading back home for their national holiday. You got to amaze on their driving skills too. Honking and foul language exchange were not uncommon.

Trishaw along Old Quarter 36 Street.

***

Tam Coc
After gruesome 6 hours on the road in total, we finally arrived Tam Coc. This place was often called as land Halong Bay due to its landscape. Boating on the winding river through grottos, I had a wonderful time. The scenery was pleasant and greeny, very typical rural view of Vietnam.

Flower Hmong lady absorbed in processing their colourful embroidery. Man smoking local pipes.

***

Cat Cat Village, Sapa
It took us 8-hour night train and 2-hour bus to reach Sapa, the most northern part of Vietnam. The train journey was disastrous and excruciating but, well, that was the beauty of backpacking – to experience the unexpected and unimaginable. The reason of visiting Sapa was to catch a glimpse and to visit the residency of minority groups in Vietnam. There were many tribes but mainly from Hmong, i.e. Black, Green, Red, White, Flower Hmong etc. It was a rainy day and we had to trek through the mountain to reach Cat Cat Village. Cat Cat meant for waterfall in Hmong language and this village was occupied mainly by Black Hmong. The word ‘Black’ was symbolized from the indigo colour of their dress. It was indeed an eye-opening experience for us. Their costume, embroidery, residency, terrace rice field, food, herbal drink etc. kept amazing us. Buffalos were walking freely and abundantly across the waterfall and rice field – peaceful and scenic views that every photographers craves for.

Scenic Cat Cat Village.

***

Bac Ha Market
Sunday morning, Flower Hmong tribal people will gather in Bac Ha to buy their daily necessities, to socialize, to exchange goods, to gossip, to wander around etc. The moment we stepped down the bus, our eyes were filled with colours. Flower Hmong’s costume was amongst the most colourful costume I had ever seen. They were unique, striking and unimaginably bright – each sending signals to my camera to snap them. Frantically, we snapped and snapped while squeezing into the market. It was such a frenzy of snapshot, everywhere we saw photography enthusiasts like us taking pictures, squatting or telephotoing. There was an animal market too, where they sold ducks, horse, buffalos, pigs, dogs, birds etc. Laughter, bargaining, gossiping, children bearing…."Wow!”. that was exactly the word crossed in my mind at that moment, definitely worth a long journey to be here. We also spotted a scene that mind-blowed everyone – a 60++ year old women bore a pig, probably heavier than me, on her back. Full respect!

Colourful Bac Ha Sunday Market, where many Hmong people socialize.

***

Halong Bay
It was quite a let down to us. We were getting very bored with the monotonous view. The food was rather uncreative and pale. The stalagmites were even not as impressive as those in Ipoh. Perhaps, we should apply World Heritage ownership for Gua Tempurung. In fact, we decided to play Mahjong on the boat. Yup, you heard it right, we brought our Mahjong tiles along to Halong Bay! Wish you were there...

The famous Halong Bay and the caves.

Travel Mexico City @ 23 March 2009

A business symposium brought me to the amazing Mexico City. As usual, the flight and transit time were excruciatingly painful, about 30 hours in total one-way, but it was worthy. It was my first exploration in Central America region. It struck me that this city shared many similarities to Rio de Janeiro, which I visited not long ago. Both of the cities are huge in population (Mexico City has a population of 20 Million), presence of slum areas, Latin America and soft spoken (yup, that surprised me or perhaps Spanish are just too loud). Though I did not stay too long, I still manage to squeeze some spare time to explore some exotic attractions this city offered – The Basilica of Guadalupe, Teotihuacan Pyramids and Anthropology Museum.

The whole City is full of these trees with purple flowers. Awkwardly similar to sakura!

The city night view from my hotel room.

Majority of Mexicans are Catholic which had been incorporated with local beliefs and cultures. The interesting fact is that Mexicans still celebrate some festivals which were rather contradictory to Catholicism, such as Festival of Dead which glorifies the return of dead souls. Lady Guadalupe is the most worshipable saint throughout Mexico. She has an equivalent status to virgin Mary but her skin colour is black. According to the local history, Lady Guadalupe showed her miracle image to the priests in a poncho, a type of Mexican costume. The original copy was exhibited in Basilica of Guadalupe. According to the tour guide, many parts of Mexico City are currently suffering sinking problem, Basilica of Guadalupe is one of the examples. Tracing back to the geological history, Mexico City was built in the midst of five lakes. To prevent the further sinking, many buildings have been undergone the structural strengthening.

The Basilica of Guadalupe, which suffers from sinking problem.

The miraculous puncho shown by Lady Guadalupe.

Mexico is popular with its exotic civilizations, such as Aztec, Maya, Teotihuacan etc. This was indeed the first time I had the chance to study these civilizations. They were indeed equally stunning, striking and different from Egyptian civilization that we are all accustomed to. They built step pyramids which were solely deployed for ritual scarification. Their pyramids were normally solidified whereas Egyptian pyramids were purposely compartmentalized to store mummies and artifacts. One similarity was that the priests sat at highest hierarchy in the social status after the God or King. Teotihuacan was a blood-thirsty nation whereby they believed God could only be appeased by blood offering. Therefore, people would poke (finger, arm, penis!) or even sacrifice themselves to squeeze the blood out of their body for God. Teotihuacan was a parallel civilization with Maya, interesting enough, both of the civilizations disrupted in the same period. The most probable cause might be the lack of water and food resources. The alien theory was considered as the lamest and most ridiculous one, from the despicable tone of our tour guide.

Teotihuacan Pyramids which glorified human sacrifies. Citizen were sacred if their blood was sacrified to God. The above is Pyramid of Sun.

Before visiting Teotihuacan Pyramids, our tour guide brought us to a Mexican Indian corporation shop. My first thought was that it must be an usual trick of our cheeky tour guide. I had to apologize for that thought as the corporation was really genuinely local and his explanation of tequila and artisans definitely deserved my purchase. This region was famous for obsidian, quartz, jade and other mineral rocks. Obsidians rock is extremely rigid, a black solid which glows with various stunning colours (gold, silver, rainbowish etc.) under the sunlight. In the ancient time, Teotihuacan conquered the trade of obsidians in the adjacent area as it could be used to produce decorations as well as weapons. Besides, we were shown how to produce a local drink known as Pucke, a similar drink to tequila. Jokingly, Pucke is also known as Mexican viagra. It was milky and has a strong fermented smell. I still preferred my tequila with limau and salt.

Tequila, a blasting drink with the twist of lime of salt. Pucke, a milky white fermented drink which was known as local viagra. Tried both myself, tequila beat the hell out of pucke.

Obsidian rock with glowing gold colour under sunrays.

Colourful costumes of Mexican culture.

Teotihuacan (as exotic as it sounds) pyramids – The Pyramid of Sun and Moon, was known as “The City of God” by translation. Apparently, it was the place where men could turn to God. The base area was same as the Giza Pyramid in Egypt but the height was only half of that. It was windy with scorching sun but I enjoyed the scenic view very much. The steps were numerous but having experience of climbing the unimaginable Angkor Wat, this was just ABC. Vertigo was always my phobia but strangely enough, I have no problem with deep diving which involves great height underwater.

Pyramid of Moon in Teotihuacan.

I spent 3 good hours in Anthropology Museum, having my foot sore so much but worthy. It was the finest museum of its kind in the world. I was awed with the varieties, quantities and qualities of the exhibitions. Extremely impressive, it gave you the best perception of Central America history. The only drawback was that the descriptions were mostly in Spanish. Chronologically, the style and nature of the exhibitions altered but equally awesome. On the second floor, the Mexican costumes were well presented, such a colourful race! Outside the museum, I witnessed a very typical and interesting ritual, whereby four local Indians hung their foot upside down and spinning from top to down, stun show! See the picture and look at the height! It supposed to spin 52 repetitions to represent one year cycle and to cast away misfortune, accompanying with indigenous music and chanting.

Mexican locals who performed stunning ritual shows.

In conclusion, Mexico city surprised me. I did not expect too much prior to the trip but its rich culture and uniqueness caught me off guard. I wish I had more time to seek for more surprises.

Some of the amazing collections from world-class Anthropology Museum.

Tioman Shark Dive 8 March 2008

I had my Advanced Open Water Dive certificate in Tioman. The feeling of revisit Tioman with more relaxation was definitely somewhat different. Our diving date coincided with public holiday. The booking was so full that we had to board the night ferry from Mersing jetty, so did the return journey. I should conclude that the night ferry experience was ‘rocking’ up and down due to downpour and current. My dive buddies were Apple, Carrie and Fei. We stayed in Berjaya Tioman and dived with B&J Dive Centre. B&J was professional in diving business – equipment was well-maintained, boat was spacious and dive master was responsible. We did 3 dives with B&J, together with many foreigners. I did not rent any underwater camera this time but our Finnish diver friend, Timo, was kind to provide me photos for blogging.

Berjaya Tioman Beach and Spa Resort. Comfortable and scenic.

Magician Rock (52 min, 18.9 meters)
Magician was famous for its cool and colourful coralscape. I did not spot many special fish species but the coral view was pleasant. Right after descending, I spotted a juvenile harlequin sweetlip which was in the middle of transition to its adulthood. The physical appearances of juvenile and adult sweetlip differ from the dotted size on their body. This transition sweetlip had both big and small dots on its body, sweet!
Another adventure was my personal confrontation with the Titan Triggerfish attack. That was a hell of an excitement! I was taking my sweet time to glide through the coral while suddenly my buddy and dive master signaled warning to watch out my back. By the time I turned around, a nasty and bitchy triggerfish charged to my direction. Retreat and recharge again, it was within my arm-length and I could clearly saw its sharp and piercing tooth. Fighting to save my ass off, I hit the triggerfish repeatedly with my pointer. Huh, the stubborn triggerfish finally backed away and I was halfway to the surface! My buddies were watching the whole show with amusement, pity me…

Striking nudibranch searching for mates

North Point (52 min, 20.7 meters)
The dive site had some coral walls. Both macro and large species could be spotted here. I was excited to spot my first Barramundi Cod. It was shy and searching for shade when we went after for closer look. Besides, we also spotted a giant moray eel, as long as my height! Its sleeky body was pretty much exposed between the boulder slit. Check out the photo!

Giant moray eel! Secure your finger first...

Barramundi Cod, one of my wish list to spot

Renggis Island (61 min, 12.0 meters)
My 2nd time to dive Renggis. It was right in front of Berjaya Tioman Resort. My first dive was a night dive and I did not really enjoy it. My anticipation for this dive was therefore a bit reserved. Well, it turned out that this dive was awesome! We spotted many creatures – black-tip shark, cuttlefish, chevron barracuda, turtle, all sorts of clownfish and anemone.... It was a close encounter with a pair of cuttlefish. These creatures were amazing. They changed their body colour and pattern in a blink of time. Once, I spotted them emitting fluorescent colour while hunting at night, cool thing. There were more than one black-tip shark in Renggis. They were as big as my size, but fatter and bulkier! The only thing I wanted to complain was the surging current and thermocline.

Ever changing cuttlefish

We had half-day strolling Kampung Tekek, enjoying the fried rice and chicken, chatting non-sense, annoying Apple and Carrie, playing ‘moneyless’ mahjong…. In short, we had a quite relaxing diving holiday, well, put aside the ferry ride and gruesome driving journey. Also, I was satisfied with my diving skill, improving bits by bits. Keep diving, diver Fox…

My Travel Experience, Part 3 (Europe & Amsterdam)

Part 4 (Europe, Amsterdam)

Not wanting to travel alone, I shared my prize with a friend. The tour that I won was a budget tour. In fact, the itinerary was so compact that we stayed in every country for only two or three days. So much to see but so little time to utilize, I would say it was quite a challenge. The countries that we had covered were France, Holland, Germany, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy and so on. I had vague memory on this tour, since the schedule was too congested. During that time, Euro was not established yet and therefore, we had so much fun in exchanging foreign currency in each country. As the first time to explore Europe, European countries were very similar and very different to me. Odd enough, their languages were so different in pronunciation but yet they shared the similar wording. They had their own food and cultures but soccer was pretty much dominant throughout the whole Europe. As much as I like French food, Italian food was exquisitely comparable to Spanish and Chinese food. Brand name, such as Gucci, Prada, Armani, Porsche, Ferrari etc. became too common in Europe.

There were two small but intriguing European countries worth to mention in this tour. Liechtenstein was the smallest country in Europe. It was famous for its stamp publication. The country still has their king system. Similarly, Monaco was small and scenic, popular for its winding F1 track and world-class Monte Carlo casino. Unfortunately, I still used film camera at that time and none of the photos were taken digitally.

Bridges in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was the most typical harbour city to me. Local sailors bid farewell and travel far ashore while foreign sailors stopped by to refuel, to rejuvenate and even to get laid in the red-light district. That was always the image in my mind and it was exactly how I felt when I set afoot on this city. Amsterdam are world-renowned for many things – clog, cheese, tulips, window girls etc. Afterall, Amsterdam is always branded with XXX – Sex, Drugs & Rock n Roll.

Sea of Tulips.

The cutest snapshot in Keukenhof Garden.

In Keukenhof garden, I had seen the prettiest and the most variety tulips in my life. Their colours were so vibrant as if they were artificially painted. We spent more than 3 hours to snap shots but none of them justified the freshness and perfection of those tulips. You got to see with your naked eyes, for once in your life! Strolling along the notorious red-light district, I did feel some kind of pity and, well, kinky. The truth was raw and savage. Inside a transparent cubicle, the prostitutes elaborated their body to attract customers. The customer could even negotiate the price before making a deal. How pathetic… but somehow, prostitution was legal, so did the drug taking, and no one was complaining about the free window browsing.

Can you believe that Tulips originated from Turkey!?

My Travel Experience, Part 2 (France)

Bon Jour, we are talking about France today. France is worth to visit a dozen. Fashion, political power, wine, agriculture, architecture, history, sports, glamour, cinema…. Anything you can think of elegance, France has it all and be the best. It is a country which can self provide and self maintain, a country with veto power, strong defense system and yet stylish and artistic to the max. There are hundreds reasons French people can be so proud of themselves. Strangely, I found French people warm and friendly. The trick is to speak French with them, no matter how broken, they will offer their help more than willingly. Why they abhor English so much? Please study European history.

Paris is the most beautiful metropolitan city I have visited. No question about it. The air is aromatic with scent of romance and roses. Café and perfume shops are around corners all the time. The fact that from London to France is just 3-hours train distance made me travel to Paris for 5 times during my study. Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sacré Coeur, The Louvre….. You definitely need more than a week to explore Paris. The Louvre… how can I not mention that. The museum design is a beauty itself. It holds 4 most famous masterpiece in the world– the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory of Samothrace (Nike), Venus de Milo and Slave statue by Michelangelo. Another art museum worth a visit is Centre Pompidou. Totally different style from the Louvre, Pompidou exhibits the most futuristic and modern art works, be it in video, painting, audio clips or merely random poets. It may not be the cup of your tea but it definitely stretches your imagination and challenges your tolerance.

I travelled to Southern France (Loire Valley) with a small group of friends and had a blast of mid-spring time. At the heat of my final PhD writing, I decided to take a break and it was the most relaxing tour ever. We cycled to the suburb of Southern France, where Poppy flower blanketed the field casually, the sunny sky was painted with bright blue hue, freshest air and green vineyard combination, backdrop of unbelievable royal castles, mouth watering foods served in any restaurant you bumped into…. The peace, relaxation, fulfilment and tranquility was something I can never forget. I can only imagine if I retire there, I can live more than 150 year-old.

Next stop is Europe…. Yup, you heard it right, Europe. I always believe in lucky draws because I did win a Europe trip before. Yup, you heard it right again, do not shot me. I paid nothing to travel Europe one time when I won a lucky draw from STA Travel…. To be continued…

Moulin Rouge


Castle in Loire Valley

Poppy Field at suburb of Southern France


Rideau Castle in Tours

The most famous landmark - Eiffel Tower in Paris

My Travel Experience, Part 1 (England)

I always want to write something about my travel experiences. This is the best timing to flash back as I started to explore the world in year 1998. That will make it 10 years of unforgettable experiences. Flashing back, I am contended and proud of the journey I overtook. Most of my friends already knew that I am a travel hunger freak. My travel style and expectation changed with time. I will write it in many parts, symbolizing phases how I embraced my travel hobby, how I felt about each country.... The feeling are raw and personal, please do not get offended.

England was my virginity (God bless Queen Elizabeth!). Well, practically, I conquered Singapore before England but please forgive me for saving my virginity to England. The culture shock was nothing but all. Ashamed of myself, I was clueless about the differences between England and United Kingdom during my very first visit. In fact, they spoke ‘unconventionally’ as what I expected from TV. England oh England… I definitely had mixed feeling on this country. I love Her and I hate Her as much as I love London and I hate London. It was the country full of palpable antiquity, academic excellence and staunch believe in science and novelty but at the same time, it was also a country stained with hypocritical history, notorious gloomy weather and filthy snobbishness.

I had been staying in England for more than 5 years. It was my greatest privilege to pay countless visits to British Museum, my favourite place besides Science Museum. Living in London is excruciating when costs and expenses drown you but it will be a paradise if you have no worry on money. Leceister Square, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Buckingham Palaces, Greenwich….some places worth to set my footprint. I did explore other cities besides London, such as Manchester, York, New Castle etc. but they were somehow shapeless to me, similar castles, similar garden and similar weather. Scotland was something different. It was William Wallace (Mel Gibson from Braveheart) who drafted the image of Scotland to me and it was exactly how I felt when I visited Edinburgh, a city with preserved history, breathtaking sceneries and unique accent.

Huh… I definitely need more spaces to blog. England itself already consumes a substantial part. To be continued… my next country is the dearest France, where I keep going back falling under Her irresistible charms. London or Paris? You must be kidding me, my friends….. London is old grumpy grandma and Paris is young sinful gorgeous mistress, make your pick….

Tower Bridge

Oxford

Chatsworth House, Sheffield


Trinity College, Cambridge