VIETNAM: EXPLORING HANOI AND HA LONG BAY

Finally, I and my wife’s long-awaited trip to Vietnam happened! As promised form the recent post of my 5 Day Must Bring Checklist, I’ll be giving you an update on how our tour to Vietnam went. Here's one clue, I'm stoked

Through the streets of Hanoi

The car that fetched us from the airport run onto something causing one flat tire.

With only 5 days in Vietnam, my wife and I decided we go to only 2 places. 1st is Hanoi, 2nd is the famed Ha Long Bay. Hanoi, the country’s capital city, is estimated to have about 7.7 million in population and that was just around the year 2015.

The city is pretty intense with all the motorcycles zooming in the busy streets and crossing the street is a skill you have to learn when you visit the country. A tour guide told us that almost all the residents of Hanoi own a motorcycle. Now imagine how many is that!

Walking through the street of Hanoi is such a pleasure for me. People here are very nice and friendly. Hands down one of the nicest we’ve met traveling in Asia.

Old Quarter in which we stayed for the first few days was a bustling community characterized by shops, street foods, restaurants, and it’s busy motorcycle filled streets. It’s a great place to be a tourist and a perfect opportunity to do my street photography.

Makeshift baby crib in the streets of Hanoi. Cute, happy baby.

One of the most interesting sites to go in the Old Quarter is the Hoàn Kiếm Lake. In the morning people go there to walk around the lake, exercise or just simply sit, relax and enjoy the day.

These girls holding and turning the ropes seems to be just there waiting for random people to play the skipping rope. Cool huh!

And by night, the streets around the lake turns into a huge community area where people are free to walk at the middle of the road to mingle with friends, enjoy some family quality time and eat the most delicious food I’ve tasted.

Seeing the community having fun and enjoying the company of each other makes me miss my hometown so much.

Viet people serve dog meat as a local delicacy. I honestly have not tried and I probably would never eat one. This is frowned upon in most countries, but I do respect the culture of them serving them as dishes. Heck, people of my country eat dog meat as well! Although it’s done very discreetly nowadays.

One of the freshest and tastiest meals I’ve eaten is in Vietnam. The best one is the Bun Cha. It’s a grilled pork served with rice noodles, fish sauce, and some fresh herbs. Hmmmm tasty. Unfortunately, I ate it all before I was able to grab some photos.

A View of Ha Long Bay

The Ha Long Bay is probably the most famous tourist destination in Vietnam. And I sure do understand why! I meant the place is just gorgeous!

My wife and I booked an overnight stay in one of the cruises that will tour you around the bay. It was fun overall and the experience shared with the people onboard was priceless.

The view is magnificent and enchanting. It’s just amazing how this beautiful landscape is formed! I simply have no words to describe it. Do not miss this out when you come to visit Vietnam.

Probably the boat captain or an attendant of the ship waiting for their passengers

Part of the cruise’s package is to bring you to the huge caves found in the bay. And by huge, I mean HUGE. My jaw dropped in awe knowing that these enormous caves were formed naturally.

And after exploring the cave, we are given a little more time to enjoy the beach and the scenery. And you know what I'll do, take more photos!

Relaxing and fun indeed.

That’s it! I wish I could show you more photos of our trip but unfortunately, about 3 rolls of films I brought with me were expired (as concluded by the lab where I had it developed) and since I was not aware of it, I basically wasn’t able to expose the shots properly and ending up with a super underexposed images.

But aside from that, Everything was a bliss. A breath of fresh air for me and my wife. I honestly enjoyed the experience of being there than taking street photographs. I hope you enjoyed this post and more places to travel for all of us!

See you on the street!

RELATED ARTICLE: Traveling to Vietnam: My 5 day must bring checklist

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