MY (1st) VIETNAM DISCOVERY

DAY 1: KL-HANOI, 19 JUNE 2010, SATURDAY

The day finally arrived for our trip to Vietnam. Puspa and I left Malaysia at about 10.40am by Malaysia Airlines and 3 hours later we landed at the Noi Bai International Airport Hanoi. The time difference was about 1 hour so it was roughly about 12.40pm in Hanoi (1.40pm Malaysian time).

The first thing we had to do was get to Hanoi city centre, which is about an hour away from the airport. We have decided that we would stay somewhere around the old French Quarters area because that is where most of the cheap accommodations are and because it is within the town centre.When I asked the information counter at the airport on what options are available to get to town, she immediately suggested we take a taxi and said that nothing else was available.

If it had not been for the Lonely Planet guidebook that a friend had lent us, we would probably have taken a taxi as taxi drivers are everywhere at the airport, peddling their services the moment we step out of the arrival gate, thus making them the easier choice though not necessarily the best or the cheapest. Instead we took the Vietnam Airlines shuttle service, which is available for going to and from the airport and she only told us about the shuttle when I asked her about them. However, finding them is a bit tricky, as it is not parked near the main entrance but towards the end of the building. I suppose that is why not many tourist took it. But it was worth it as it only costs us USD2 per person whereas a taxi would have costs us about USD20-30.

(Muka puas hati)

The shuttle dropped us of at a Vietnam Airlines office a few blocks away from the Old Quarters and since it wasn't too far from where we were, we decided to walk despite feeling a bit disoriented. We walked for about 15-20 minutes in a maze of beautiful, French influenced buildings before we finally reached the Hoan Kiem lake, which is opposite the Old Quarters.

We hadn't booked any hotel but Puspa had surveyed online on the accommodation options around the area and after a bit of walking and looking around, we decided to stay at Hanoi Lucky Hotel. For USD16 per night, it was quite a bargain as the room was clean and spacious with 2 queen size beds, a bathroom with water heater, a computer with free internet access, electric kettle and TV. But all shows are in Vietnamese; even foreign shows are dubbed with Vietnamese with only 1 person doing the voice for every character, which I find amusing!

Once we checked in, we rested a bit before going out again and since we had quite a heavy meal on the plane, we decided to skip lunch.

Our stop was the Temple of Literature. We got the local map of Hanoi from the hotel and the places of interest didn't seem too far apart from one another so we thought, let's walk. But it turns out that that wasn't the best decision as it was summer in Vietnam and the temperature was soaring. To make matter worse, we got lost a couple of times so it took us longer than it normally does to get to the Temple of Literature and by the time we got there, we were drenched in sweat and dead tired.

However, we did get to experience what it was like to walk around town in Hanoi, which is, frankly speaking, quite a nightmare. First of all, there are motorbikes everywhere (motorbikes out numbers other forms of transportation) and second of all; Vietnamese drivers don't actually abide by the traffic light. It would seem as if they come from every direction possible making it almost impossible to cross streets. If you want to wait for the cars, motorbikes, bicycles, cyclos etc. to come to a complete stop before you cross the street, chances are you are never going to get to the other side. So, how does the Vietnamese cross the street then, you ask? Very simple. They glance slightly both way (sometimes they don't even look) and just start crossing the street on their own pace and they never dash across (so that motorbikes can figure out how to avoid running into them) even if there is a massive traffic coming their way. Heart-stopping.

Anyway, the Temple of Literature or Van Mieu as it is known in Vietnamese was initially built as a Confucian temple modeled after Confucius' birthplace in China.

A few years later, Vietnam's first university was established within the temple's compound. However, that university was only meant to educate Vietnamese elite.

Despite the university operating for 700 hundred years, only a handful of students passed the final examinations because it was so difficult and names of these graduates were written on stone steles and then placed on stone tortoises. Some of the still remaining steles are displayed here.

Now, the temple's courtyard and the surrounding park is a pretty happening recreational place for the locals. When we were there, we saw people playing badminton, football (world cup fever :P) , walking their dogs or just hanging out with friends and families.


The admission fee to the temple is VND10,000 which is about RM2.00.

When we were done at the temple, it was close to 6.00pm and most museum closes between 4.30pm to 5.00pm so we called it a day. It was already dark when we reached the hotel as again, we got a little bit lost on the way back.


However, while we were lost we stumbled upon the Loa Ho prison or 'Hanoi Hilton' as it was nicknamed during the Vietnam War because American POW's were kept there. The prison was built by the French during their colonization period to imprison and execute Vietnamese. Since it was way late and the museum was already closed, I only managed to take a blurry picture from outside thought at that time I didn't know what it was.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we were so exhausted and were so ready to jump into bed but not before having dinner. Luckily, there are plenty of affordable places to eat around the area where we were staying. We ended up eating just next door a dinner of seafood fried rice, our first meal in Vietnam.