Day 1 Hanoi (31 January 2006)

Time	Event
5.45am	Hurrah! Going to the City in a Bend of the River! I am delighted to escape this horrible weather in KL! Packed up the last of m things like toothbrush and facial wash.
6.30am	Airport limo arrives. It was a plesant ride to KLIA
7.30am	Arrive at the airport.
8.00am	Checked in and had an Egg McMuffin at McD’s
8.30am	Bah! Heard from Mien that our flight is delayed until 11.35am (originally at 10.00am) Apparently all MAS flights to ASEAN countries are delayed. How unreliable!
9.00am	Bumped into a customer and a family from church. What a small world! The customer is travelling on the same flight as us! The family’s sending their daughter off to Australia for studies.
9.35am	Entered Departure Hall via the autogate. Mom had problems going through because the scanner could not read her thumbprint which had faded from doing housework! Of course Miss Dainty Fingers had no problems going through. Waited at the departure gate. I felt like Tom Hanks in The Terminal. Finally read the Lonely Planet book on Vietnam which Ragu lent me a few days ago. Found a funny part about social graces: “Pity the Unmarried: - telling the Vietnamese that you are single or divorced and enjoy a life without children may disturb them greatly. Not having a family is regarded as bad luck and such people are pitied, not envied. Many Vietnamese will ask if you are married and have children. If you are young and single, simply say you are not yet married. If you are not so young (0ver 30) and unmarried, it may be just be better to lie” Looks like I have to do a whole lot of lying??
10.50am	Finally met Mien and her family before boarding the plane.
11.48am	Take off!
11.51am	In the clouds!
11.53am	Above the clouds!
12.50pm	Lunch is served! Fish with noodles and white wine
1.50pm Hanoi (2.50pm in KL)	Touched down in Noibai Airport! It was about 27 degrees Celsius. I had expected it to be about 18 degrees, nevertheless it was still better than the arid weather we had in KL. Noibai airport looks somewhat like the old airport in Subang.
2.30pm	Our tour guide Mr Hiep came to receive us. Before we checked into the hotel we did a tour of a few places. Hanoi city is about 45 minutes away from the airport. The landscape in Northern Vietnam is mostly ricefields, corn fields and old buildings. Spotted a Petronas station! The houses are quite oddly shaped as they are narrow but high. This is because land is expensive, it can cause something like RM30,000 per square meter. They get taxed on their land, so that’s why they make use of vertical space rather than horizontal space. Another observation: I spotted many “thit cho” signs along the way. Thit Cho is a popular dish in Vietnam but you wouldn’t want to go near it….because it is dog meat. You don’t see many dogs roaming the streets of Hanoi…they probably end up in a dish. Anyway this is the Year of the Dog, so it is considered bad luck to eat dogs. So lets hope many doggies are saved in Vietnam this year. Quite a number keep dogs as pets. Another observation of the dogs there is that most of the pet dogs are fat and quite furry..must be the weather. You hardly see those emaciated strays like you see in KL. Traffic is crazy. People ride everywhere and without helmets. Amazing. Also it is the culture here to honk – pretty much like in Bangkok. I guess coming from KL it isn’t too much of a culture shock (the honking part) but KL is considered very tame.
3.00pm	First stop – Westlake and Tran Quoc Pagoda This is one of the oldest pagodas in Vietnam. There is a number of monks’ funerary monuments in the garden. Within the temple grounds there is also a Bodhi tree, which is the type of tree which the Buddha meditated under.

3.40pm	Passed the Temple of Literature. This is the first ever university in Asia and it was dedicated to Confucius
3.50pm	Went to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and the Presidential Palace. It was a pity the Mausolem was already closed because therein lies the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh. The mausoleum is closed on Mondays and Fridays , otherwise it is opened from 8am – 11am daily. But I think I’d rather spend the time visiting other places than see a preserved body. The entire place is shut every October to upkeep and maintenance of the embalmed body.
	Behind the mausoleum is the presidential palace, Ho Chi Minh’s stilt house(1958-1969) and his house from 1954-1958. There’s also a picture of his room in the stilt house. Oh yes and this is where the toilet with pengsan factor for kwailos was.
4.30pm	Visited the One Pillar Pagoda which is a stone’s throw from where we were. The pagoda is designed to resemble a lotus flower. The original pagoda was destroyed by the French and the one we saw is a rebuilt replica.

5.00pm

Finally checked into Galaxy Hotel!Showered and rested for a bit.

6.00pm

Dinner at Thien Thai restaurant. Our menu was: Fish soup Prawn spring roll with fish sauce Fried squid with fish sauce Vege soup with pork Fried spring roll Stir fried clams Roast fish, vermicelli, pineapple with rice paper wraps Fried siew pak choy Watermelon I saved the written menu but I am unable to reproduce it on my blog because I can’t really understand what the guy wrote! my attempt at a spring roll We were entertained by some song and music played by a group of musicians. Here you can see some of the local instruments being played.

7.45pm	Went back to the hotel to let our folks rest while we Young Hearts wandered the streets of Hanoi.
8.00pm	Evening walk. The streets are still bustling. Decided to walk to Lenin Park. Walked pass the Northgate of the Citadel. It’s really beautiful at night.
9.00pm	Stopped by Highlands Coffee opposite Lenin Park. This is Vietnam’s version of Coffee Bean or Starbucks. Everyone was decked to the nines, wearing their winter gear (although it wasn’t cold) – furry hats, wooly jackets, mufflers and the rest of it. It was obvious we were foreigners from the way we dressed (ie only T shirt and slacks) and the items we ordered. We were the only ones who ordered coffee in cups whereas most of the locals were drinking alcoholic or iced beverages. At the same time, there were some “Vietnamese Idols” across the street in Lenin Park entertaining us with their wailing. We had no idea whether it was a competition or it was open for wannabes who just want to sing, nevertheless they sounded terrible and even Chinese New Year songs sounded heaps better. Packed a tart and a muffin for our folks because the Young Hearts felt guilty for enjoying themselves and leaving their folks in the room. In any case they were too tired to walk all the way.
	Went across to Lenin Park to capture some shots of his statue and the flagpole.
10.40pm	Headed back to the hotel and called it a day.