06/01/2025
Blessed with awesome weather. It was the earliest we I could get up.
Dilly dally at breakfast, spending with the cats for the last time.
A sip of morning.
Grab taxi came after 10mins, smooth short drive from resort to Trang An.
Signage wasn't clear, but the ticket booth was big enough to be seen.
If memory didn't fail, it was around 9am, literally bo lang.
They had a rule where a boat would only leave with 4 passengers. Made the best choice ever, bought 4 boat tickets to have the entire boat by the 3 of us.
Serenity of Trang An Ninh Binh, a place to be missed dearly...
The government protected it's UNESCO site, only row boats were allowed.
They had new and clean life vests by the way, the boat was clean and well maintained too. We were very impressed and that assured a great 2hrs experience.
Our lady boater smile a lot, she knew little English, pity that we couldn't communicate much.
Giant lalangs (cogon plant). This plant always give a beautiful wanderlust vibe.
Rowed into really low caves. It's good to keep caps on (just in case), had to lower our heads at certain points. I wonder if there's any unfortunate fellow who bang their heads onto the cave, but as far as I observed intentionally, no blood stains lolxx...
Some colored lights were installed, enhancing the limestone formations.
The 2hrs boat ride included island hopping (aka pee stops).
It was so peaceful here.
Like this.
Very like, hope to have more travel photos like this in future.
I chose the route with King Kong. Cute right?
Photo spot of Trang An with a pavilion in the middle of.... river? Pond?
Suddenly a lot of locals arrived here for photoshoot.
2hrs boat ride was scenic and relaxing, we had the best cooling weather in Jan. We tipped the boat lady for her arm breaking job.
We moved on quickly to Mua Caves, not hungry for lunch, we saved a lot of time by skipping meal.
No entrance fee, but had to walk pass some touristy cafes. Not a bad thing cos it was neatly lined with flowers. The area was nice enough to take a lot photos but we were running out of time.
Technically we didn't see Mua Caves, we climbed it's mountain called Lying Dragon Mountain.
The sight of the stairs killed my soul before it killed me physically lolxx...
The view with a bit of effort, it was less than half the climb.
Wanna try rolling down? Waahaahaa... 头破血流就有。
There were 2 peaks, this was the lower yet tougher one. My kid sis went for it.
The view further up, swee enough already.
It was easy to deal with the pant and tiredness, it's the arthritis pain, but panadol had helped.
We had walking sticks from Decathlon and was envy by many others haahaahaa...
Kid sis took pics of us from another mountain.
How the hell I made it sia... Not sure if Mt Bromo is worst than this.
What didn't kill me will make me stronger right?
I took photo of my little sis too, she was the tiny 1st one in front.
View of the Lying Dragon from the other mountain.
It's actually scary to look down.
There was big platform where we stopped and wait for my kid sis.
The view from here was no difference from the peak where the dragon was. But the steps were horribly high. For those who are dead inside out, stopping the climb here is no regret.
真的有够美的。。。
That's the dragon which I told my sisters strictly not to climb over. The rocks were sharp, stepping area were narrow without safety net whatsoever. Nothing adventurous, not worth the risk to me.
Briefly thanked Mother of Goddess for watching over and was time to climb down.
My gawd...
When we gotten down, nobody had mood for Mua Caves and we had to rush back to the resort to catch limo bus ride back to Hanoi.
Finished, done and alive, pic before leaving.
Walking back to the main road, passed by pond, looked magical in photo.
Took pic nia, no time to swing, sad.
The limo bus was arranged by the resort, it came clean but a bit cramp.
Took about 2.5hrs.
Accommodation this time at the south of Hoan Khiem Lake, further away from the Old Quarters.
M Village Ho Guom was S$30+/night in Agoda and S$60+/night in Booking dot com.
We had one room each and every room had a different layout.
This was mine.
All good except that the bathroom was very small and didn't have separate partition for shower.
But they had FREE laundry with dryer and common kitchen/lounge which was the only reason I might stay here again if I ever come back.
Previously old man and I came to Maison Sen, rejected at it's door without reservation. This time we made a reservation on the same day in the morning.
Got in! The buffet was about S$27, I think it's pretty steep for the locals.
Happy Chinese New Year lolxx...
There were 2 "wicked" parts of this restaurant -
(1) There's a short flight of unavoidable stairs to the buffet area;
(2) Only dessert plates were available (not the standard size serving plate). 3 shelled oysters was all the small plate could take and you had to play "stacking up your food" game to walk lesser.
Coke not included in buffet but I was weirdly craving for it.
We had enormous fresh oysters.
Grilled scallops and other shells with spring onions and shallots, super duper nice but all shell kinda tasted the same after a few bites.
Tried mantis prawns again, I think normal prawns were better.
Cholesterol soaring haahaahaa...
They also had steamboat which we didn't try. Should had just request for a pot to at least drink some soup.
Local desserts.
Pho counter.
The next day was our last day in Hanoi. Went Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, it was quite an experience but no photos were allowed inside. Miss it now...
No comments:
Post a Comment