I don’ know where to start from. Arriving at Hanoi has overwhelmed my senses, particularly my sight.
First thing, there’s too many pretty girls here. I came to realised that why there’s not many Vietnamese model in international stage – my rational is that the person was overwhelmed while choosing a pretty girl to represent Vietnam.
“You, or you, or you? or you? or your sister? or your mum?”
So they skip Vietnam altogether and choose other countries instead.
(too hot – can’t even pose in front of my shop)
Secondly, the beer is too cheap to boot from. Sometimes, in this weather, we hesitate to buy either a big bottle of water, or a bottle of beer.
Beer always win.
Life is tough here in Hanoi… often have to choose between beer or water.
Exploring Hanoi city
… which only lasted less than 90 minutes, including walking time. Streets are slightly difficult to navigate here because often the map is incomplete – maps often ignore small alleys and only include important streets. Bleh.. lousy map!
If you want a complete map, you have to buy one, according to Lonely Planet guidebook.
Hanoi’s street food
According to Lonely Planet guide, there’s a food street not far from where we lived. (We stayed at a street called HANG MANh, how cool is that). The food street is just 10 minutes walk from our place.
After exploring for 30 minutes, we still cannot find it. And we accept our defeat and decided return to hotel.
We must fill our tummys, first.
Luckily we found a food stall under a tree shade, decided to give it a try.
Mind you, we have no idea what they serve so we simply point at next table, and do the “peace sign” again. That’s a universal language sign for peace… or simply, “two bowls of pho, please”
Accept defeat from weather – we return to hotel
We are lost; and we are damn hot.
Cannot tahan the weather. We need A/C! We need to shower! We don’t want to stay at street!
As we are still lost, we wondered around small alleys, hoping to find our hotel by luck.
After a short stroll by the lake, we finally found our hotel (!).
Happiness.
There’s an old saying
“when life you lemon, you make lemonade out of it; when weather is hot, you do laundry and dry your cloths”
That’s exactly what we do. Seeing our dirty cloths are piling up, this is the perfect chance to clean our stinky smelling cloths.
Catch up some work
HOT HOT HOT. that’s the only word that jammed our mind.
“I hope tomorrow’s Ha Long bay trip weather’s is good like today” we thought.
By 4pm, we are already sitting at Gecko restaurant (they serve best western restaurant with A/C and RM1.50 beer)
I decided to spend the rest of the day catching up my work – reply email, write blog, check stats and etc.
Also, while I almost done reading the book “The Alchemist”, someone tapped my shoulder from behind, and ask “Are you Malaysian?”
Hello, fellow Malaysian
Introduced himself as Liau, who travelled to Hanoi by himself. He decided to take an escapade and explore Hanoi on his own.
A brave young fella.
Mr Liau joined us for the rest of the evening. We talked mostly random things – career, culture of Hanoi, and travel experiences. I asked him, “did you notice, there’s lots of leng lui here in Hanoi?”
“FUCK YEAH MAN! WHY SO MANY LENG LUI ONE ?!” he replied.
Then he asked the waiter, “Hey buddy, how to say you’re pretty in Vietnam?”
Obviously he is up for a bit of action. /naughty
Unleashing the fun (for the rest of the night)
After some conversations, the waiter shows us a place for massage.
“No dirty” we says. Waiter understands, and offer to bring us to local pub.
“What’s the name of the pub?” I asked, being cautious…
The reason I became cautious is the body language of waiter – he started to touch my shoulder and arm while talking. I am suspicious that he is gay.
“Temple pub” he says.
After the dinner, we decided to go back hotel to freshen up. Also, we Googled for “Temple pub”, being afraid of a gay bar.
Luckily, it’s not – but a dodgy party place for backpackers whose trying to score with locals.
Hanoi Clubbing Scene
Disappointing.
Rate of male and female is 95:5. Noooooooooooooo.. another sausage fest!
But…. yes there’s always a but.
Out of that 5 ladies… 4 of them are fine looking. They either look like SNSD, or look like KARA.
… and I am wearing my sports attire, like I am going to jogging. Ahh. Bad attire = no action.
Suddenly.
The waiter asks us to go dance; we felt a sense of tingling as the look in his eyes turned seductive.
Fuck lo. Olin lo. Diao lo.
He looked at me, ask “hey let’s go dance”… then he started doing his sexy dance – bending shoulders and ass.. seductive dance.
Ahhh, my eyes!!
“I am not good at dancing, and I am full” I showed him the gesture, kindly rejecting him invitation. He turned to Shannon.
Can’t believe we are actually experiencing this. HAHAHAHHA.
(Liau, Shannon, Anonymous-you-must-know)
The eye contact: 2 Second Rules
“DUDE, that waiter look at my eyes for more than 2 seconds!” Shannon told me immediately.
It is forbidden to look into men’s eye for more than 2 seconds… between men.
We cannot tahan liao and we decided to go back.
The waiter didn’t go back with us. Phew.
Where am I now?
Hanoi, Vietnam.
Click here to read your daily dose of blog posts - don't get addicted k?
Hey I received your postcard yesterday. Thank you for the beautiful Vietnam Sumandak photos (you really know what I like huh). But for the underaged girls, I have to wait 10 years lah, haha :-D
@MurphyNg Glad you like the postcard. Well if the girl is still underaged then we only have to wait! hahhaha.