Going on holiday in Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam… leaving on Friday and coming back on Wednesday. Plan to carry along my laptop, but don’t think I’ll have the time to update this blog during that period.
Have been doing some researches on Hanoi and Halong Bay for the past few days… plenty of things to see, do, eat and experience. The only thing that I probably won’t want to try is riding a bike in Hanoi…
have a safe trip :)
I’ve been to Vietnam several times but never gone to Hanoi or Ha Long Bay but it seems very pretty in pictures and viedos. The best thing to do in Vietnam is eat all the local favorites.
Have a fun and safe trip. =)
Lol, good one YeinJee. That is some crazy looking bicycle traffic. They look like ants on the move. Amazing they don’t all crash into each other.
Hi YeinJee! Just curious, where are you from?
taxi is the best transportation cause traffic is horrible and scary. i was afraid to cross the street when i was in ho chi minh city last summer.
Ha, that reminds me, I got yelled at out pretty good by an older Vietnamese lady I met not long ago who had imigrated to America years ago for asking if she was from Ho Chi Minnh City. Learned my lesson good on that one! She angrily said, “never say that to me again”, and I think she probably meant it!!
Thanks for the wishes… I am back, safe and happy ;)
Emilie… Hanoi is just ok from Asian’s perspective… Halong Bay is the place to be, it’s absolutely wonderful.
Yupe, taxi is the best. Wanted to try their motorbike-taxi initially, but the traffic was just too chaotic.
Anon#3… actually, they do (crash). I have witnessed three minor accidents in my first two days in Hanoi; luckily no serious injuries.
Loki… Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Anon#6… hmmm, what’s the reason for the yelling? I can’t get the point.
“Anon#6… hmmm, what’s the reason for the yelling? I can’t get the point.”
Sorry, Yein Jee. I should be more clear in my comments. I will not get into a debate with anyone about this, but the fact is, the reason the lady got angry at what I said, she explained is that she (along with others from South Vietnam) migrated from Vietnam to the US towards the end of the war…as refugies I suppose. Because as she put it. “Ho Chi Minh is the reason I came to the US, and to me it will ALWAYS be ‘Saigon’….not Ho Chi Minh City! So don’t ever call it by that name to me again.”
Point being I suppose, not all Vietnamese people of Saigon at that time were too happy that the City would be renamed after Ho Chi Minh following the war. So even though the official name is Ho Chi Minh City, to to people like that lady , her former hometown will always be ‘Saigon’ to her.
It’s important to remember that alot of South Vietnamese of that time were not supportive of Ho Chi Minh so, many of the former residents of that lady’s age today have a somewhat bitter attitude about the whole thing. Hope that explains it better.
Know that this post is not any opinion about that time expressed on my part, just a fact of my encounter with this particular Vietnamese lady and what she expressed to me. Needless to say, I sincerely apologized and told her I meant no offense. I was just refering to it by the current name. But I understood her feelings.
ic, thanks for the explanation.