Hot Hanoi - Part 4

It's the weekend...actually half of the weekend is already gone. I had an extremely busy Saturday with it starting at 9.30 in the morning at Menara Star in Petaling Jaya. Hahaha...yes, your dear floggers have been chosen to go to Penang, the final round of The Star's Drive For Food. Yay! There will be four of us driving all the way from KL to Penang starting early next Saturday morning. Check in to this blog again after 4 Nov to find out the results.

So for now, here's Part 4 of Hot Hanoi (especially for SC of Food4Thot who'll be making a trip there soon). Have a good "what's left of a" weekend! ;o)

I had forgotten to post the above shot earlier. We were taken to visit a crafts factory where one could find all sorts of souvenirs. I was awed by the intricate work being done by the endless rows of these people, threading the canvas bit by bit to create a work of art; an art made of different coloured threads. These art pieces are also found in the city but prices will defer according to the quality of threads used.

We then started our journey after lunch to Halong Bay (a 3 hour bus journey), arriving there in the evening. It's pretty quiet here and there is really nothing much to do but to just enjoy the view outside my hotel window.

The view on my right

The view in front. It felt so peaceful as I looked out my window. As the night grew, I was only greeted by a canvas of darkness in front of me with some flickering lights now and then. With nothing else to do, we turned in early, looking forward to our cruise the next morning.

It was raining the next morning and as usual the moment we stepped out from the hotel, we will be surrounded by the locals; some beckoning and some pleading to us to buy something from them. As you can see, rain or shine, the selling never stops. What more if one could find an interested buyer even though she's already on the bus!!!

We arrived at the jetty shortly and the group of us made our way excitedly to our little "ship" that was already waiting for us. There were quite a number of smaller boats around the jetty area with some of the locals peddling their goods to us tourists or with some just beginning their day in trying to catch some fishes so that they can sell them to us for lunch later!

Once we were on board and the ship started its journey across the bay, we basically just sat back and enjoyed the lovely scenery (while of course some of us took photos). I'll leave you with some of the many photos I took.

To be continued...