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My visit : Vietnam is a country of natural beauty. I have longed for visiting Vietnam ever since its Ha Long Bay beat the great Sundarbans to become one of the seven natural wonders of the world. I got a chance to visit Hanoi for a duration of 10 days in early August this year. Though the usual tourist season is from November to April, I was eagerly waiting for the day to land in Vietnam. I have searched the internet and decided a have a thorough visit of Hanoi, make some country visit, visit the renowned pagoda and of course the Ha Long Bay. We reached Noi Bai International Airport, Hanoi on one fine morning and in no time cleared the immigration, get the luggage, board a tourist coach to Hanoi. On the way I found all the building on both sides of the road have similar red tiled roof giving them a distinct character. We crossed the red river and entered the Hanoi city. We booked a hotel on the bank of the West Lake and fascinated by the beauty of that great water body. After taking a shower I came out of the hotel for lunch and went to a nearby shopping mall. After much deliberation and consultation with the waiter I ordered for “Nasi goreng” – a vietnameese dish containing chicken. On the way back to the hotel I was astonished to find a “Husband Day Care Centre” – a first such thing I have seen in my life. Wives can put their husband in the joint when go to shopping or have some personal errands, they have to pay for the drinks the husbands consume.
Water puppet show going on
West Lake Hanoi
In the evening I googled to find some suitable markets for shoes, bags and other leather goods and went to Hang Bong Street. The leather goods were really of great quality. I liked a number of items but bought nothing because the price was too high. By the way, the language is a problem in this area. They hardly spoke any English. I along with my friends took the dinner in an Indian restaurant near my hotel. The food and ambience were really enjoyable. The next morning we decided to visit countryside of Vietnam. The communes and villages were scattered with vast areas of paddy cultivation in between. The irrigation system was governed by canals and tubewells. We came to know that Vietnam was among the leading rice producing countries. We took our lunch in a village restaurant with traditional dishes such as sticky rice, vegetable soup, ‘morning glory’ stew and fried chicken.
Ha Noi Opera House
President’s palace
Hang Be street: The tourist’s paradise is situated in the old quarters of the Hanoi beside the Red river. The street is dotted with souvenir shops, currency exchanges, travel office and obviously the famous Made in Vietnam Sports shoes, caps and Bags shops. In a nearby street there is shops for Vietnamese silk. There are a number of European hostels and pubs catering mostly the tourists came from Europe and Japan. The mood was always festive there. The hawkers were selling the ‘Zippo’ gas lighter of Vietnam war fame. Street foods and fruits were delicious. In close adjacent there were the Hanoi Opera House and the Natural History Museum. Both are major tourist attractions.
Pearl culture farm
Shopping Malls in Hanoi: Hanoi has some big shopping malls. They include Vincom Mega Mall, Vincom Royal City, Aeon Mall, thai chain shop Big C etc. Each shopping mall boast of Vietnamese as well as international brands. Prices are relatively low. Its worth here to mention that after landing in Vietnam you can be an instant millionaire as 100 USD means 2,25 million Dong.
Stitch works
Women are stitching
Ha Long Bay: The major tourist attraction of Vietnam must be the Ha Long Bay. One Saturday morning we started for Ha Long Bay from Hanoi. The roads are fine and straight. We stopped at a statue of Ho Chi Minh and took some pictures there. There are two must stop over on the way to Ha Long Bay. The first one was a handicraft centre. There are a lot of products from clothing, souvenirs, sculptures to local chocolates, homemade foods etc. But the main attraction must be the sight of about 50 women were stitchinge just awesome. I can vouch for that this stich works are the best in the world. There was a pearl culture farm with a beautifully organized showroom. Representatives from the farm explained us the complex process of pearl harvesting through microsurgery and other means. We were fascinated the by the beauty and glamour of some of the best quality pearls in the world. I loved to read their tag line “ Neck of every woman of the world must embrace our pearls”. They care for women not for men…Ha. Ha. We reached the Ha Long Bay shores around midday. We bought tickets for a boat cruise in the bay. Before boarding the vessel we witnessed a puppet show performing on the water. We were quite familiar with puppet shows but never seen or heard of any show in the water. Despite the language barrier we enjoyed the show much. We had a cruise for about 4 hours in the bay and overwhelmed by the stunning beauty of the craters and clear waters. We enjoyed the view of the famous “Cock fight” crater. We entered a cave sparsely lighted by reddish bulbs and oh that was an experience. Though we had a great cruise all along I suggest to take a longer cruise for two or more days for exploring all the beauty of the bay. You may visit the Cat Ba island and the national park there. But remember the last ferry to go there left the shore on 3 p.m. After returning from the Bay we visited a small reclaimed beach and enjoyed the company of almost a thousand weekend tourists. We had a great dinner in a famous roadside restaurant and enjoyed very much to prepare the popular vegetable and chicken soup ourselves.
Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay
Cock fight crater
Ha Long Bay cave
Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum:
On Sunday we went to visit the most famous place in Hanoi city – The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum. We were surprised to see the long que to enter the tomb. The solemn atmosphere reminded me the Lenin’s tomb in Moscow. After paying my respect to the great leader we entered his residence – a wooden two storied tiny house with two rooms upstairs. The ground floor had an open working area. How humble was the living of Ho. Then we had a guided tour in the museum having a lots of memorabilia regarding the leader. The traditionally clad gentlewoman proudly informed us that Ho Chi Minh used more than 100 names and pseudonyms throughout his life and could speak Vietnamese, French, Chinese and Russian as his mother tongue.
Museum in the distance
Ho chi Minh museum entrance
Hanoi City tour:
We visited The Tran Quoc Pagoda, The Pagoda of the literature and some other small pagodas in the city. We visited the national flag stand where the national flag of Socialist Vietnam still flying high while communism is diminishing day by day.
Pagoda Tran Quoc
National flag stand
The Perfume Pagoda:
We had the chance to visit the most famous Pagoda of Vietnam. To reach the Pagoda we had a river cruise for about an hour. The scenery on both sides of the river was breathtakingly mesmerizing. The lotus are in abundant in the river in between hills on both banks. The boatwoman was 58 years old but she was definitely more fit than us. It was really a great experience.
River cruise to perfume pagoda
Traditional Stitch Work
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