29/12/2024
The sleeper bus transport company gotten someone to bring us to the meeting point at 7am. I made a genius choice of booking a hotel this near to save up on transport and travel time. We brought with us a big luggage and a cabin size luggage, left the other big one in Hanoi's hotel. Moving on was easy even without help. I am a genius lolxx...
This was the shop front and there were hotels around it (and next to it), but I wasn't able to "detect" the online during the search for the nearest hotel.
The sleeper bus had neon lights like KTV, their love for colorful neon lights was unbeatable lolxx...
Had to remove shoes before boarding which I knew beforehand, therefore I had my old man prepared, he wore slip-on loafers, I wore slippers. Then we watched the rest "struggled" to get off their sneakers, heeheehee...
The individual cabins looked impressive and photogenic.
I had specifically requested for bottom cabins which the company ignored. We both had upper cabins. Old man was very happy with it though and getting up wasn't as difficult as I thought.
They provided blanket, pillow and 2 bottles of mineral water which I drank in small sips in case I burst my bladder during the 6 hours journey. Talking of which, I actually bought urine bags to pee into in case of the worst scenario where we couldn't hold on any more.
The beds couldn't be adjusted, you either lay down flat or sit up, the remote didn't work. I mean not only mine, the entire bus. The TV was for show too. But for only S$147 for 2 of us with return back to Hanoi, it's very reasonable already.
The KTV passage way was narrow, allowing only 1pax to move but I had to say bed cabins in bus is really genius.
It's difficult to find time to take pics with Labubu, on the bus I had plenty.
Yay, my girl was at Vietnam (flag as "prove").
Had breakfast packed by the hotel.
Belted myself and the bus rocked me to sleep while old man had motion sickness.
Had 2 rest stops, this was one of them.
Copy-cat Japan's cheese coin pancake, but not bad.
Toilet VND3,000.
When the landscape changed from city to rural with more mountains, I knew we were near.
The sleeper bus reached the final rest point in less than 5 hours. From here passengers got into different mini buses or cars to their hotels.
It was a blunder that we wasted about an hour waiting for our car. What happened was it drove off without us, then person in charge had to get us another car, urrgg...
Small hiccup, we reached Hotel De La Coupole. Our indulge of S$238/night for 2pax, including buffet breakfast and a herbal bath.
Finally drinking my welcome tea after on series of things arranged with the reception: room check-in, breakfast location, weather check for Fansipan and making appointment for sauna and herbal bath.
The hotel was BEAUTIFUL from floor to wall to ceiling, every corner was photogenic, 360 degrees 美到无死角。Couldn't resist to book it despite of the heartache with money.
Hotel lobby.
They had the nicest room slipper but unlike most hotels, they didn't allow guests to bring back.
Beds were very high, I literally had to crawl up and jump off.
Fixtures and furniture were exquisite.
Even the WC looked special lolxx...
Room had balcony which overlooked the other half of the building. While the architecture was impressive, we were amused by the fog too.
Me at our room's balcony while he went to the corridor to take this photo.
Hotel room's common corridor looking romantic with rose wall paper.
Main lift lobby.
We explored inside the hotel and slowly adjust ourselves to the cold temperature.
Act only, never touch the display barrels of thread.
Xmas trees were still around.
Couldn't get enough of the hotel...
Huge ginger bread house at their cafe.
Felt like Europe...
The garden was misty, should had more photos but these were what he could manage at that point of time.
Walked out for dinner, also tried to buy a swim wear but they didn't have large size for me.
This was inside Sapa Station.
Must be challenging to drive with low visibility.
We also couldn't see much of the city, could only see proximate of less than 10m.
We went into a random restaurant with some crowd for dinner, fingers crossed.
Advance Xmas 2025 lolxx...
2 sides of the restaurant's entrance had sink-in fish tanks of sturgeons.
Had to look very closely to look for the fish that camouflaged with the rocks.
Only one type of broth, tomato base with pineapples. It came with one load of fried beancurd skin which we love.
We normally didn't eat the corns, this time we wished we had more. The corns were crunchy with sweetness, very different from Singapore/Malaysia.
We had local reared salmon and chicken. Portion good enough for 3pax, we couldn't finish despite of being quite hungry to begin.
It was a hearty hot pot meal in winter, billed around S$35, they accepted only cash.
Went back to hotel, it's gorgeous at night.
We were running late for our herbal bath.
Had sauna first.
I had the whole sauna room by myself.
I wished their arrangement could be more seamless, we waited for more than 15mins for the herbal to be ready. The waiting area was very nice by the way.
They had thick curtains for every tub but was unisex, felt very insecure being naked.
With that, we had a very good night's sleep.
The next day was a BIG DAY to Fansipan.
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