Wanderous

The promo will run from May 15 to 18, 2008 or until the allocated 500,000 seats are sold out. This is good for travel from June 9 to December 31, 2008 to any of Cebu Pacific’s domestic and international destinations.

When Ry and I saw this we both started panicking. We’ve already said that we’re pretty much set for the year, but this is just crazy. How can you say no to something that’s free? As with the Piso fares deal you still have to pay other fees* but it still comes out lot cheaper than the regular fares and the psychological effect of FREE is very powerful.

* Fuel taxes and surcharges will range from 3,500++ pesos per flight (so for return flights that’s times two) for international flights, and 1,000++ pesos for domestic flights. Airport tax of 1,620 pesos is also charged for international flights, along with a 700 pesos terminal fee.

It’s been a while since Air Asia’s last seat sale, but they’re back with a two day sale for International trips from January 12 2009 to April 30 2009.  You’re gonna have to plan ahead a little bit folks, but I’m sure it’ll be well worth your money.  As usual Kuala Lumpur is your gateway to all these cities, as its Air Asia’s base.  But once you’re there you can go to places like Hanoi or Vientiene, or even all the way to the gold coast in Australia!

One cool thing that Air Asia’s done is come up with a little spreadsheet that tells you if free seats are readily available, limited, or taken in any given month.  This makes it a LOT easier to search for the free seats, since you no longer have to keep clicking “next day” over and over again hoping for a free seat on a particular date.  Just to get you started, a return trip from Clark to KL and back will cost you roughly 3125 pesos.

Anyone going to London should definitely look into this.  Apparently a company in the UK called coolgorilla has released a London travel guide for the iPod, iPhone, and mobile phones for absolutely free!  It comes with illustrations, maps, and even videos of places to visit in London, just like a regular travel guide.   It’s unfortunate that I won’t be going to London anytime soon, but if I was I’d certainly find this very useful.

The implementation of the travel guide is a bit different for each device.  For mobile you’ll actually have to pay some money because you access the guide through the internet.  For the iPod you simply download the files and load them up, and for the iPhone…actually I’m not sure how the iPhone works because they bring you to a website where I can’t see anything.  I probably don’t have a plug-in or something like that.  Anyhow to found out more just clickety-click!

In this day and age no one travels without at least a gadget or two, be it a laptop, an mp3 player, or a digital camera. So it’s always important to know what voltage and type of outlet the country you’re going to uses. Wikipedia may be full of factual errors and biases, but it’s certainly a good place to start. With this comprehensive list, you can be ready to charge your gadget of choice at a moment’s notice!

Hanoi’s a vibrant city and a pleasure to walk around in. From the cramped, merchandise laden streets of the old quarter to the broad avenue surround Hoan Kiem Lake and the French quarter, you can literally just choose one direction to walk in and discover a million things to catch your attention. Given that we were there for only three days, with Halong bay taking up day 2, We only really had 2 days to take the in the sights of Hanoi. This is an account of our first day in Hanoi. I’ll write about our tour with the Hanoi Flash kids in another post.

Day 1

After having recuperated somewhat after our harrowing first night in Hanoi, Aissa and I decided not to waste any more of the day and set out around lunch time to take in Hoan Kiem Lake. The first thing that any visitor unfamiliar with Hanoi or Vietnam will notice is the sheer number of scooters and motorcycles racing around the city streets. There’s really nothing quite like seeing a horde of scooters and motorbikes thundering down a boulevard, especially when you happen to be crossing it at the time. Locals seem to have a sixth sense, and walk across the street without a care in the world. Aissa and I looked every which way before taking one step onto a street.

We gingerly made our way to the outskirts of Hoan Kiem Lake, and had lunch at a noodle place (this picture was taken the night before we left) to get our bearings and decide where to go next (food will be discussed in more length at a later entry). The insight guide we bought suggested a route, but we figured we’d just walk around the lake and see what there was to see.

Hoan Kiem Lake

A view of the lake

The broad avenues of Hoan Kiem Lake transport you to another world. The tight, scooter infested streets of the old Quarter reminded me very much of Recto and Quiapo but the Lake Area represented something that I’d never quite experienced before in my entire life. It reminded me of the Sunken Garden in UP combined with the Manila Baywalk, just a huge open area dedicated to greenery and an escape from the urban jungle. It was very pleasant to walk along its well manicured gardens, and filled me with evil and highly illegal thoughts of filling the Sunken Garden with water and turning it into a lake/pond. Hey look it’s sinking anyway right?

Ngoc Son Temple

entrance to ngoc son temple

the famous red Huc bridge

The main tourist attraction of the lake is Ngoc Son (Jade Mountain) temple, and the Huc (Morning Sunlight ) bridge leading to it. The temple was erected to honor great Vietnamese heroes like Trang Hung Dao who repelled the Chinese Yuan dynasty invaders. There’s an entrance fee of around 3000 dong I think (OK I’m not entirely sure but I do remember it was small enough no to bother me at all, and I’m very anal about money so there).

scary tortoise

artsy leaf shot (look it turned out rather nicely so I’m putting it here)

Inside there are many buddhist statues (It is a temple after all), incense burners, a wonderful view of the lake, and a replica of the tortoise (that Aissa found scary) who supposedly gave Emperor Le Loi a magic sword to defeat the Chinese Ming dynasty. Apparently the Vietnamese have a rich history of turning back invading foreign nations.

the freak of nature

On our way out of the temple, a kind old German tourist took this picture of us on the Huc bridge, after seeing me struggle to take a good picture with my arm stretched out. When informed that we were Filipinos he looked surprised and said he’d never met such a large Filipino. I agreed that I was a freak of nature and thanked him kindly for the picture.

Statues and Electronic Wonders

revolutionary statues

After walking a short distance, we crossed the street to a small plaza with a large Soviet style statue of three revolutionary figures. There’s a woman holding a sword of some sort, then a man holding what I later found out to be some type of rocket launcher/bazooka, and a rifleman. No idea what the text says but I’m sure you can make an educated guess. There’s a bit of street art there too, which personally I don’t condone when done on such monuments.

hungry, fella?

Then we found this awesome electronic touchscreen travel guide, which is a boon to any tourist cheap or unwise enough not to bring any kind of travel guide with him. Obviously we were hungry at this point.

We crossed another small street and ended up at a huge plaza with a statue in the middle dedicated to Ly Thai To, the Vietnamese emperor who established Vietnam as a kingdom called Dai Viet (or great Viet) in the 11th century. The beautiful plaza and stylized dragons are very eye catching, and definitely worth a look. There are obvious signs of modernization as well though, as we saw some more scribbly street art and a group of young Vietnamese teenagers with dyed red hair breakdancing to Akon and Britney Spears under a pagoda. I didn’t add them here because they were kinda blurry, but you can check those pictures out in our Flickr account.

Water Puppet Theater

After resting for a bit in the plaza, we decide to go to get ticket to the famous Vietnamese water puppet theater. They cost 20000 dong for the regular seats and 40000 dong for the VIP seats. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is because it wasn’t that obvious when we entered the theater, but the regular seats were terrible. Well, actually the seats themselves were quite nice but the distance between them was like an inch, and since we’ve already established that I’m a freak of nature this wasn’t good news for me. We eventually moved out to the aisle where two seats were unoccupied, and my legs felt much better. Look for the seats at the back row on the far left. They’re reserved seats, like movie theaters here so make sure to get a ticket early.

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the show itself, as my camera is woefully inadequate at taking pictures in low light. I did get some snaps of souvenir water puppets outside though. You have to pay another small fee, I think 10000 dong to get a camera inside, so you’d best make sure your camera can actually take pictures in low light properly because otherwise there’s no point. Tickets for the show are available throughout the day, but I’d suggest you go early to pick an ideal time for you and to get the best seats.

After the water puppet theater we had a light dinner at a hoan kiem cafe called the Little Kitchen, which Aissa will talk about in more detail in a later post. Considering we’d only had 4 hours of proper sleep, we were done for the day and wearily walked back to Hanoi Holiday hotel for a nice shower and a resftul sleep to prepare us for Halong Bay.

View of Mayon from Legaspi airport, borrowed from kegler747

Our friend Carlo aka Ar-wee-der-yet has travelled quite extensively in the Philippines and abroad, a feat we’re quite envious of. He’s also a fellow travel blogger, and came up with this list of Philippine airports that I think is sheer genius. Instead of doing a top ten list he decided he’d rank them as best in “category”. So for example “best view while landing” goes to Cagayan De Oro’s Lumbian airport and the Tacloban airport.

My favorite category is “Most picturesque airport” which goes to the Legaspi city airport for its view of Mayon Volcano. The picture above has a Mount Fuji-like feel to it, and almost makes me want to go there just to see that view. The fact that Cebu Pacific has a one peso fare from Manila to Legaspi city makes it even more tempting.

Anyway to see the rest of the list just clickety-click!

From April 14 to June 30, use your Philippine issued Mastercard for a purchase of at least $10 and stand a chance to win these free gadgets:

• 10 Apple MacBooks
• 15 Canon camcorders
• 23 Sony Cyber-shot cameras
• 30 Nokia N81 handphones

Since we’ll be going to Hong Kong and Macau this month, I’ll be sorely tempted to use this promotion as an excuse to shop for even MORE gadgets! Even if you’re not traveling, you can still take advantage of the promo if you’re the type to order stuff over the internet. So for example if you purchased tickets from Air Asia, Tiger Airways, or Jetstar, you’d be eligible for the raffle.

As a side note, Mastercard’s promotions website is a good place to go if you want to check out the mastercard promos in the country you’re going to visit, or even in the Philippines.

As Aissa mentioned in the last post, I’m quite proud of my discovery of “green bean cake”. It’s not every day you make a food discovery, especially one that you can describe in such Filipino terms. Para siyang chocnut, pero lasang hopia! I managed to find a picture of the same product, though under a different brand name. Do yourself a favor and try it out if you find it in Hanoi. It’s ridiculously cheap (just like chocnut!) and guaranteed to tickle your taste buds!

On a side note, I had no idea “Oishi” meant “tastes good” in Japanese. I found this out when I gave some some hop-nut to a couple of Japanese tourists who were in our Halong Bay tour. And I thought it was just some made up Japanese sounding brand name.

Halong Bay is a sight to behold, with over 3,000 limestone islands jutting out of emerald green waters in the Gulf of Bac Bo. “Ha Long” means “Descending Dragon” and according to myth a celestial dragon once flung herself into the sea, her tail digging deep valleys and crevices in the mainland. As she descended into the sea, these were filled with water creating the bay. Another legend says that the Jade Emperor ordered the dragon to halt an invasion by sea. The dragon spewed out jade and jewels, which upon hitting the water turned into wondrous islands and karst formations, creating a natural fortress against enemy ships.

Halong Bay is not only breathtakingly beautiful, but it is also an invaluable artifact of natural history, containing records of geological events covering a period of more than 500 million years. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has recently launched a campaign to recognize Halong Bay as one of the world’s seven natural wonders.

Hanoi Holiday arranged a day trip for us, and a Ford Transit filled with other tourists of various nationalities arrived promptly at 8:00 AM to pick us up. Our companions were a friendly bunch. There’s something about people who love to travel; their enthusiasm and sense of adventure are infectious and they’ve always got interesting stories to tell.

In the row in front of us was an Australian couple who was living our dream of long-term travel. Next to us was a retired Canadian gentleman who’d gone from the Air Force to wedding photography to global philanthropy. (He’s traveled all over Asia and Africa, among other places, and he’s adopted several children from the poorest parts of the world. He’s sending them to school and giving them a chance at a better life and in return all he asks is that they help others in whatever way they can when they are in a position to do so. Meeting people like that restores my faith in humanity.) We were also accompanied by two middle aged couples (Malaysian and Thai) who put my cardiovascular endurance to shame, and a group of Koreans and Japanese.

Halong Bay is three hours from Hanoi, and while it was a nice enough drive (no traffic!), I with the infamously tiny bladder was ill at ease for the first hour or so because our guide announced that we would only be making one stop.

Mercifully I managed to contain myself till we made it to our halfway point, a tourist stop with restrooms, a cafeteria and assorted Vietnamese products for sale, from ornate silver works to clothes and bags made by handicapped children. This is also where Ry discovered Hoa An, a snack food that tastes like hopia and has the texture of Choc-Nut. He’s dubbed it “Hop-Nut” and he’s extremely pleased with himself.

When we arrived at Bai Chay Tourist Warf in Halong City, we were greeted by a flurry of activity – tourists coming and going, vendors of all sorts, dozens of boats teeming in the water. Our guide shepherded us onto the Mihn Hang and we finally set sail.

As we went on our way, we were occasionally approached (and sometimes boarded) by vendors on boats sailing alongside us, offering us fresh fruits and vegetables.

Then we stopped at a floating market where we could buy fresh seafood then have it cooked on the boat for lunch. They had, among other things, the largest cuttlefish I’d ever seen and an exciting array of prawns, crabs and lobsters. Ry unfortunately does not share my enthusiasm for crustaceans because he thinks they look like insects and he refuses to eat anything with an exoskeleton. (I know, I don’t understand it either.)

After lunch, it was time to visit the caves. Those caves are one of the reasons you shouldn’t take up smoking. I thought my lungs would explode from the climb, and it was embarrassing that I had difficulty keeping up with the senior citizens in our group. Either they’re in extremely good health or I’m just terribly out of shape. I suspect it’s more of the latter, though they are particularly hardy folk. They were about my parents’ age, but if my dad were there he’d have taken one look at those steps and told us he’d wait on the boat.

It’s surprisingly cool inside the caves, and well lit too thanks to the lamps installed to light the path and illuminate particular rock formations. It’s all very well maintained, and it’s nice to see the effort that’s gone in to preserving something so precious and beautiful while sharing it with the general public. A path in and out of the caves has been laid out with steps and wooden walkways so that visitors don’t have to worry about slipping and cracking their heads open on the Vietnamese’s natural heritage. Our guide pointed out some of the more famous formations, stalactites and stalagmites in the shapes of people, animals and mythical beasts.

The cruise back to the wharf was a relaxing one. Tired from the physical exertion, I draped myself on a lounge chair on the deck. With my feet dangling over the rail and the cool wind in my face, lulled by the gentle rhythm of water lapping against the sides of the boat, I was the picture of contentment.

We arrived back at the wharf at around 5:00 PM. This was just a day trip for us, but if you have more time and wish to explore the bay further, you can spend several days on a boat similar to ours but equipped with sleeping quarters and a bathroom (tiles and running water and everything). That’s definitely on my agenda for my next trip to Vietnam. I love the idea of sleeping on deck under the stars in the middle of the water, though Ry still needs more convincing. If you’re not the roughing it type, you can book two- to three-day cruises on luxury boats starting from 120 USD.

Sorry for taking so long, but we’ve finally got a Hanoi post! In this part, I’ll be talking about our arrival in Hanoi, the Hanoi Holiday Hotel, and other general observations of Hanoi for a first time visitor.

The Airport

You’ll need to present this and your passport at any hotel in Hanoi

Airports are the first look any traveler will have of the city he’s about to visit. When we arrived at Shanghai’s Pudong airport last year we were blown away at the sheer modernity of it. When we saw how nice and slick the Davao airport was, we wondered why our capital’s international and domestic airports were so shoddy.

Noi Bai International airport in Hanoi has the advantage of being the newest international airport in Vietnam. It still looks new, and from the outside reminds me of the as yet unopened NAIA terminal 3. The inside is nothing special, but everything is spic and span, and the bathrooms are clean. There’s an absence of water fountains or water dispensers, which so far we’ve only experienced in the Shanghai and Manila DOMESTIC airport. All in all, the airport was pretty standard fare.

The Taxi

Night shot with long exposure in the taxi

One of the most harrowing things a traveler in an unfamiliar city can encounter is the first taxi ride into the city. Especially arriving at 1:30am in the morning, we didn’t want to be stuck in the airport haggling with a Viet taxi driver who may or may not know how to get to our hotel. Luckily for us, Hanoi Holiday Hotel kept their word about sending a hotel driver to pick us up. Well, “hotel driver” may be a misnomer. What happens is the hotel will contact a taxi driver or company, give him the passenger’s name and arrival time, and have him ferry the passenger to the hotel. If you arranged this with the hotel, they will pay the drivers ahead of time, so you won’t have to haggle with them about the fare or get duped into staying at a different hotel where the driver will get a commission.

Luckily our driver was a decent enough fellow, whose command of the english language began and ended with hello. That suited us just fine, since we weren’t really in the mood for conversation after the flight. Don’t be surprised if your taxi driver doesn’t turn on the airconditioner during your drive. I don’t know if it’s a fuel saving measure, but it seems they don’t typically turn them on. I don’t think they’d mind if you asked them to turn it on, but I wasn’t in the mood to play charades. After an uneventful 40 minute drive to our hotel, we were dropped off at a dimly lit building. After rapping on the door a few times, a sleepy hotel staff member opened the doors and told us in broken english that we would have to stay in another hotel.

Hanoi Holiday Hotel, and Hotels in Hanoi in general

After hours of filtering through reviews on Tripadvisor, two things become apparent about hotels in Hanoi. One is that bookings are rarely ever final. I can’t put my finger on why this happens, but almost every review of a hotel in Hanoi will have at least one horror story about a tourist being told that the hotel they’d booked was full, and that they would have to stay elsewhere for the night, more often than not in an seedier affiliated hotel. Never mind that you booked months in advance, or that you paid through a hotel booking aggregator like Hotelclub or octopustravel, reservations are only final once you’re in your hotel room, and even then things can get iffy.

The second thing is that you can bargain a hotel’s prices down to below their regular rates, but if you do so prepare to be bombarded with offers of tours. The hotel will try to make the money they lost on the room rate by booking a tour with a friendly tour operator, so they will continuously pester you and in some cases I read that they mock or insult you if you choose not to get a tour with them. We had planned all along on getting a Halong Bay tour, so that was never an issue with us. It’s still something to keep in mind though.

While the second of the Hanoi horror stories didn’t happen to us, the first certainly did. Bleary eyed and tired as all hell, the hotel staff member led us down an alley near Hanoi Holiday to a seedy looking hotel whose name I didn’t bother to remember. Our frustration mounted as we got to our room, which had a malfunctioning airconditioner, a dusty fan, rough sheets, and a bathroom with an open shower. This had to be, bar none, the seediest place I’d ever tried to sleep in. “Roach motel” comes to mind.Emphasis on try, because neither Aissa and I had much sleep that night. We’d arrived in the “hotel” around 3am, and stumbled groggily out at around 7. The hotel staff (who we will refer to as “night manager” from now on) had said he would pick us up by 8 or 9, but I was so frustrated I’d decided we would force the issue, and if they didn’t get us a room by then, we would simply book with one of the numerous hotels we’d seen along the way.

Luckily night manager seemed to sense our cranky moods as we lumbered towards the hotel, and told us that our room would be ready by 8am, and we could have breakfast while we waited. Hanoi Holiday’s website advertises a “buffet” breakfast, but that might have been a while back, since now they just offered us a choice of three different breakfasts: Continental, American, and Vietnamese. We ordered Vietnamese since we were in Vietnam, but were soon told that it wasn’t available. We settled on Continental, which is basically scrambled eggs and toast with juice and coffee. The juice was freshly squeezed lemon and was actually quite refreshing, and the toast and eggs were pretty normal.

The “view” from our hotel

After breakfast we were informed by night manager that our room was ready, and we greatfully climbed to the 3rd floor to our room, which to our surprise was their most expensive “city view” room. I figure they overbooked again, and this was the only room they had on hand. At that point we didn’t care though, and were just grateful to have somewhere nice to sleep. Even without the contrast to the shitty hotel we stayed in the night before, Hanoi Holiday’s rooms were as nice as advertised (check the pictures out on their website), and well worth the money. If you take a look at the room pictures they have on their website, it looks exactly like that, and for $20 a night, they’re some of the best bang for buck rooms you’ll find in Hanoi. Eventually we were moved to the real room that we booked, a standard room, which was just as nice as the city view room, except it had an airconditioner that had to be smacked around a few times to keep it quiet.

scooters along hang manh street

So do I recommend Hanoi Holiday Hotel? It’s really hard to say. On the one hand, they offer a terrific value proposition, their staff were excruciatingly polite, and they’re located in a terrific place in the old quarter that’s walking distance to many tourist attractions and shopping areas. Unfortunately that first night really threw us off. We’re not picky with hotels mind you, but we expect to get what we paid for, and unfortunately we didn’t exactly get that with Hanoi Holiday. I’ll let you guys make the decision for yourselves.

As an alternative, try the Rising Dragon hotel. They’re a bit more expensive at $30 a night compared to $20 for Hanoi Holiday, but the staff responded quickly and were up front with the fact that they were booked on the 17th, and thus couldn’t offer us a room. They offered to book us in a nearby hotel for the first night, but the reviews of that hotel were less than stellar so we passed. Little did we know…

The other hotel I’d suggest is the Pan hotel. It looks like it might be relatively new, as it doesn’t have any reviews so far. But I liked the fact that its on the same street as Hanoi Holiday, is priced almost as low, and their lights were on and the lobby was open when we arrived at 2am, as opposed to Hanoi Holiday which we had to knock on to figure out if there was anyone inside.

Lastly, I’d advise strongly against booking and paying through a hotel aggregator, especially for these smaller hotels. Many of them don’t seem to realize that they’re on these sites, and you may have to argue your way to prove you already paid for your room. Arrange to pay them when you leave, or through their own website. Next up, Halong Bay!