Silence.....
Me: *sulks* then *laugh*
The Lake
Anyways we wanted to make the most of our trip so we decided to start the touring straight away. Got geared up with my backpack, essentials and comfy clothes. The weather was quite humid so it wasn't too comfortable to be walking around in jeans. We were starving so decided to grab lunch first. Checked with the hotel staff whose names were River and Spring (River's wife) i know, i know kinda makes you giggle eh. but they were nice people and i'm sure they were doing us a favor by coming up with easy to pronounce nicknames.... anyways SS and I walked around looking for food. We looked around and saw this little corner shop which apparently sold noodles (Pho-pronounced Fur (silent 'r'). when i say little i mean little ok. the chairs and tables were so cute. reminded me of kindie chairs.
The baby chairs and tables......Anyways we wolfed down a hot bowl of rice porridge and steaming chicken noodles between the both of us. It wasn't too different from our local 'kuey teow sup' but the broth was the one which made the difference. The soup was both sour and salty and tasted so good with the chilli paste. We also ordered Vietnamese spring rolls which were crunchy and yummy and a bit sourish as well. With a full stomach we began our journey. First we took a walk around the lake just to familiarise ourselves with the surroundings. the lake was pretty crowded, there were people all around, families, kids and couples. Then SS and I saw a few couples making out in public. SS said it must be due to the French influence in the country. I was like whoa! felt a bit jakunlah. There were girls sitting on the guys laps, hugging and lots of lip-locking. all in broad daylight in front of so many others. im not saying its wrong, i just could not imagine seeing something like that back home. oh well...each to its own.
After walking around the lake, which was a pretty big lake, we headed back to the Hotel and just in time cos the weather suddenly changed. One minute it was blistering hot and the next brought strong winds, the sky turned dark and it began to drizzle...heavily. We sought refuge from the wind and rain in this little French Ice-cream parlour about 5 shops away from the Hotel entrance. Get this, the name of the Ice-cream parlour...Fanny. Yes, Fanny! SS and I had a laugh but we had to admit the ice-cream was good.
The walking made us tired and it was already quite dark. Hanoi was an hour ahead so it got dark quickly. We remembered seeing a foot massage sign next to our Hotel and we decided to check it out. It cost us USD 7 per person, SS brought it down to USD 5. Yes, you could bargain the price for almost anything here. I was so glad we decided to go for that massage. It was splendid! Felt so good after that, it was a well spent hour.
Waited for D and E (who were staying at another hotel) to have dinner. Since it was still raining, we decided against street food and ate at Little Hanoi. We had sandwiches for dinner. we were a bit disappointed cos we wanted to go all out on local food and the restaurant didn't have any local dishes. The sandwiches were ok, no different from what you could find back home. The baguette was a bit hard and big so I asked the waiter to cut mine in half. My conversation with waiter:
Me: Excuse me, can cut my sandwich in half please *with actions*
Waiter: *Looks at me, picks up butter knife and jabs the air in front of my face while saying* You cut, you cut!
Me: No, you take back there and cut for me.
Waiter: *Continues jabbing air in front of my face* No! you cut, you cut. and he turns and walks away.
WTF?
Momentary silence at the table before the rest laugh so hard, they almost fall off the chair. Basket! I asked another waiter (who did not witness the commotion) to do it for me. After dinner, we took a stroll through the night market and headed back to The Ritz. We tried drinking but were too tired to enjoy.
Day 2
Woke up quite early to start with the sight seeing. S and I decided to walk over to where D & E were staying cos apparently it was quite near. We got lost! cos we missed one turning. Damn! we took a trishaw along the way and felt real pity for the guy whose leg muscles had to work overtime. S & I being quite bootylicious squeezed ourselves into the small seat of the trishaw. Intially we bargained the price with him and he agreed, but wen we reached our destination we felt so bad for the poor dude that we decided to pay him the initial price hehehe. The Vietnamese gals are so small sized that we saw clothes on standard sized mannequins could not be zipped or fastened. We stayed clear of those shops.
After finally reaching their hotel, we had lunch by the roadside.....a mega feast which was quite affordable....check out the pics.
Literally by the roadside 
After that depressing journey, we headed for the Temple of Literature and Fine Arts.
From the outside
Entering the main courtyard
Another courtyard
Apparently the Temple used to be a University for scholars and was even visited by Confucious himself. It was quite interestinglah. We saw the attire of the scholars then. It's quite sad that a country once so rich with knowledge was almost wiped out and left with barely anything. But i guess, the country survived and has been able to sustain itself. Just the basic human survival instinct.
After that we took a cab back to The Ritz for some shopping around the area. We bought stuff and was later joined by some of our other colleagues who decided to hang out with us cos we were there a day earlier. We had dinner at some fancy restaurant cos our boss was among the folks who wanted to hang out with us. So we did and headed back to the Ritz to pick up our things. S and I were checking into the Melia. D & E joined us later for drinks in our room. We laughed so much that night. Lots of nonsense.
Some other colleagues headed to the night market that night but the excitement was pretty short-lived. One of them was robbed of her passport and purse. Apparently someone slit her handbag and took out a pouch which contained the aforementioned items. So S as HR manager had to take her the next day to get her things sorted out.
Day 3
I wake up to an sms from a senior colleague who wanted to discuss some slides i was to present during the meeting. I had plans to meet with D & E to visit Uncle Ho. So I told my colleague that I would see him later. Took a cab to their hotel and crashed their buffet breakie. On a full stomach we headed over to visit The Mausoleum.
Here lies Uncle Ho Chi Minh
The line was miles long. It was a moving line though so it didn't really seem as if it was ages. We just walked slowly and passed the different check points where they first took your camera and some were asked to hand over their phones. We were in line for about half an hour and it took us half a second to circle Mr. Ho.
Don't know if it was worth it or not. Then we just jalan-jalan around Hanoi, did some shopping and was really bushed by 6pm. The 3 of us visited the Opera House and the Museum. Could only snap pics from the outside of the Opera House cos we needed to pay to go in. The Museum was pretty disappointing. We expected it to be more like the Prison Museum but it was really boring. We went back to the Ritz area although we were staying there and did a bit of shopping. Oh yeah, D & I went for a foot massage. Second time for me. It was as good as I remember it to be.
S met up with us later. We had dinner then headed back to the Hotel to continue drinking. This time E was really pissed. We had a good time laughing at him and he laughing at himself. Hehehe. Went to bed or more like crashed into bed.
The next few days were office related. On the last nite, we had our performance nite. That was an absolute nerve-wrecking incident. Our office was going to do the "dikir barat" and yours truly was the singer...cough*cough*. Was a nervous wreck before the performance. Had to piss like 4 times in an hour. My boss kept encouraging me and saying i was gonna be fine. I wanted to run away and hide in the toilet. But finally as we walked up the stage, I worked the crowd, and all fear flew away. It used to be like this in Uni also, I'd get so nervous and feel like puking, but wen I start, there's no end to it. Even wen I had to speak in BM and my spoken BM kinda sucked at that point in time, I would speak with so much confidence it was embarassing! =)
3 days later we left the land of "minimoys" and headed back to reality. Was a good trip, the first 3 days at least. The food sucked on the way back. Again! So we maximised the value of our ticket, by getting sloshed! hehehe. and you know 1 drink in air is equivalent to 3 on ground or something like that. Don't know, don't care! hehehe
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