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Category: Vietnam

Tags: muppet show hanoi, friendly vietnam, hanoi muppet show, travel northern vietnam blog, hmong chinese clothing, northern, vietnam, hanoi, trip, slideshow, trip

Preview of Vinkor's blog at TravelPod. Read the full blog here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vinkor/vinkor/1164221280/tpod.html This blog preview was made by TravelPod using the TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow creator. Entry from: HANOI, Vietnam Entry Title: "NORTHERN VIETNAM" Entry: "this is a travel of 3 years ago, one of the best in all my life Vietnam is really a beautiful and interesting country, easygoing, good climate and food and friendly people furthermore it is very cheap and well organized I flew from Milan,Italy where I live to Hanoi via Bangkok, Thailand. NORTHERN VIETNAM Hanoi is the northern capital of Vietnam, nice city even if it has about 3 millions inhabitants, full of interesting buildings and museums, with a central romantic little lake and an historic center of narrow lanes with a lot of shops, markets, little restaurants, bars and guesthouses. There' s a jam traffic made of millions of chinese motorbikes and fortunately of few cars, otherwise it should be an inferno. I had some problems to find a room as I arrived around midnight after an all day long waiting at the Bangkok airport where I knew a beautiful thai girl who was waiting many hours like me her flight to Phuket Island. The manager of my vietnamese hotel helped me to buy the excursions tickets I wanted in northern Vietnam for about 300 usdollars, included the overnights in his hotel, the flight to Hue, central Vietnam and three excursions to Sapa valley, Halong Bay and Ninh Binh. I spent two days visiting the nice capital, going around with the boy-motorbiketaxy and saw the mausoleum of the heroe and former President Ho Chi Minh, a museum of history and art, a garden with american weapons and military planes of the '70 war against U.S.A., a revolution museum, walked along the romantic lake passing through the red wooden bridge to the little island where an old rich temple is a must to be visited. I used to eat at the little restaurants where I could appreciate the tasty vietnamese food that in my opinion is better than the chinese one. Noodles vegetables and fish soups or rice, meat and vegetable were my favourites. The beer is excellent and the banana cakes too. Then a lot of exotic fruits some of which I had never eaten before. One night I enjoyed the water muppet show at the theatre close the lake and spent much time by shopping clothing, shoes, postcards, handicrafts, etc that I sent by mail to my home and that arrived only after two months! I took the night train to Sapa arriving in the morning of the following day and reached the mountain town by an hour bus ride. The guest house was good and the food too. Sapa is a nice town full of coloured little hotels, a night market and a modern catholic church. I opted for the daily trekking to the valley below. I was in a little group led by a nice local girl in ethnic black costume and we walked happily down the valley in a sunny but fresh day reaching a river, passing some little villages and admiring the green landscape made of ricefields and meeting some ethnic black mong vendors of handycrafts. The following day on sunday I chose to reach by bus Bac Ha the town where an ethnic coloured market occures, full of flowers hmong people that come for shopping and eat in the little restaurants. They also sell little and big animals like dogs, donkeys and horses and I shot about 200 photos as everthing was rich of colours. We visited a family house made of wood and attended to a strange show of an old drunken man who sang, danced and offered us a strong rice liquor. Returned back by train to Hanoi I jumped on a bus to reach Halong Bay in a group excursion and then we found our typical wooden vessel that shipped through the enchanting bay (a trip to Vietnam is worthing even only for this marvellous place, one of the world wonder). It looks like a lake with hundreds of green stone cliffs exiting from the calm waters. The place is very peaceful and romantic, no rumors, no mess, only some vendors by boat. We visited a nice light coloured cave, had a trekking along a little wood and reached the top of a hill to admire the panorama. In the evening we reached the nice big island of Cat Ba where we overnighted in a clean and modern hotel after our little rooms in the vessel. Our little group was very friendly: two Hong Kong ladies, two american men, a swiss girl and me. We enjoyed the night in a karaoke bar singing ..." Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/vinkor/vinkor/1164221280/tpod.html Photos from this trip: 1. "Vietnam" 2. "Uncle Ho Mausoleum" 3. "One pilar pagoda" 4. "Bah Ha Sunday market" 5. "Hmong flower women" 6. "Water puppet show in Hanoi" 7. "Halong Bay Cat Ba beach" 8. "Ninh Binh Halong on earth" See this TripWow and more at...

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