~Travelog: Vietnam (Part 3)~

Hi & Assalamualaikum...

Try to finish writing about my visit to Vietnam.. phewwww.. Let's continue to our journey on 15th August 2013.. Today, we're going to Mekong Delta, which was about 2 hours from Ho Chi Minh city.. Actually my aunt want to visit the floating market in Mekong river..because she was so fascinated with it when watching the discovery channel about Vietnam..  However, we were told at the end of the trip that we're not going to the floating market as it actually open only early morning from 2 am till 7 am.. it's ok.. next time we'll go for sure.. A day before the trip to Mekong Delta, we had made reservation with a person named Kareem, who owned a restaurant in front of our hotel.. He's the one who arranged our visit there for 23 USD per person including the foods.. We gather in front of the hotel at 7.30 am.. At 8.00 am, a mini bus arrived to take us for a tour at Mekong Delta..

It's morning & ready to go.. :)

Snap the picture first.. hehe

 again... 

and again.. hehe

 The scenery of early morning in front of our hotel.. Do you see the yellow building in the middle at the end of the road? that's Ben Thanh market.. forgot to upload it in previous entry.. it just 5-10 minutes by walking to the Ben Thanh market from the hotel.. ;)

 Close up picture of Ben Thanh market.. :)

The mini bus was ready for us... :)

 This is our tourist guide.. Phom.. we pronounce it as 'foam'..hehe

The scenery along the journey to Mekong Delta.. 

Morning market.. 

Quite dirty... It wasn't safe to eat at stalls nearby the busy road.. 

Still in the capital city of Vietnam.. 

It looks like Chow kit market in Malaysia.. 

Green scenery.. 

Paddy field.. Looks like village in Malaysia.. 

You see the cemetery there? we were informed that since the land was limited in Ho Chi Minh, there was no public cemetery.. most of the deceases were buried at their own land.. It's their believe that the decease will bless the next generation..and if you can see the above picture, there were two similar cemetery.. It means they are couple (husband and wife were buried next to each other).. If the cemetery is single and with only 1 design, it means that when the decease died, they are still single.. 

 Along the road to Mekong Delta, we also can see there were many restaurant/ hut (refer the picture above).. We were told by Phom that this hut were built for the motorbikers who were travelling or on their way to somewhere where they can rest and have a break or drinking a cup of tea/coffee.. you may see the swings hanging and table/chairs inside the hut..

During the trip to Delta Mekong, Phom told us everything about Vietnam.. about the people..culture.. the roads.. We asked him everything that we want to know.. We asked why most of the building in Vietnam were tall.. why people here prefer motorbike as the main transport.. how much fuel cost per liter and others.. Phom told us that most building in Vietnam was built on small land but tall because the land was very expensive..  people who have their own house/apartment in Ho Chi Minh city were considered rich.. most of the migrate people from Hanoi or other cities of Vietnam couldn't afford to buy a house there.. Besides, most of the family live in the same building, some may have three generation in the same building.. they have a land, and then they divide among the family member.. that's their culture.. Besides, car is not so popular compared to motorbike.. The reasons why people in Vietnam prefer motorbike is because millions of motorbike on road each day and if you drive a car, you will caught in a traffic jammed for a long time.. a 20 minutes trip will be one hour trip..it was much easier if drive a motorbike.. as i mentioned before, how people in Vietnam drive was so dangerous..  in fact, the cost of fuel here was also expensive.. 1 liter of petrol cost about RM5.. Phom was so shocked when we told him that the cost of petrol fuel in Malaysia was just RM2++.. in addition, he said most of the Vietnamese people couldn't talk in English because most of them were uneducated because of poor.. Only rich people afford to go to the school.. most of Vietnamese children started to learn English only when they were 10 years old..  and it was only 1 hour per week.. Only those rich children who afforded to go to the international school were exposed to English language at an early age.. People in Vietnam also struggling to earn a living.. you could see this everywhere.. maybe due to the high living cost.. Moreover, as what i observed along the journey, the environment in Vietnam was very poor.. The rubbish and garbage spreading everywhere.. You can compare directly that Malaysia was much more modern, clean, peaceful and better than Vietnam.. even the traffic jammed in Vietnam was much more worse than Malaysia..  I feel so grateful and blessed to be born in Malaysia.. I did..  So, you too have to be grateful Malaysian.. please.. stop complaining.. Explore another Asean countries and see everything with your own eyes.. Don't just condemn the government that we have today.. There are other countries that are more worse than Malaysia.. 

Let's take a look the videos being captured.. weeeee.. :)

p/s: actually there were 2 more videos.. but it can't be uploaded... sorry guys.. :(

ok..back to the story.. Before we reached the port in Mekong Delta for boarding a boat, we stop for a while at a place (i forgot the name but it's more like R & R in Malaysia)..we were given 15 minutes to go to the toilet and buy drinks or taking pictures in this beautiful place.. 

 Along & Mak Su.. :)

 Me! hehe.. :)

I love this place.. 

 Them.. 

 Us... (^_^)

 Us again... hehe

Fall in love with the concept of this place.. such a calm place.. My aunt bought a cold coconut.. it was so refreshing.. having a drink in such a beautiful place.. it's heaven on earth! :)

 Let's take a snap.. weehoooo.. with toilet as the background..haha

 Retarded siblings..hahaha! :P







Then, we continue our journey....

 Scenery along the road approaching the port.. 








Here we are.. We're going to explore Mekong Delta... ;)

walking to the boat... 

 The lady in blue blouse was our tourist guide at this Mekong Delta..  :)









Enjoy the videos.. along Mekong River... :)

Our first destination was a bee farm.. This bee farm was unique because the bee here were just only ate Longan or 'Buah Mata Kucing' in Malay.. Here, we were given a chance to taste a honey lemon tea with seed for free and snacks made of honey.. ;) 

walking to the Bee Farm restaurant.. :)

Khairul & Mak Su holding the Bee nest.. i was afraid to be stung.. That's why i didn't hold it.. hehe

Here we are... 

The honey lemon tea (lime actually) with seed.. delicious if we put more lime into it..hehe.. i'm not really into honey because of its weird taste.. :P

Beautiful girls served us..i'm jelly with their skin..  :P

The honey lemon tea.. :)

we also had the chance to taste royal jelly.. it was quite expensive.. but it was good for our health especially for fever and ulser.. 6 small jar cost about 50 USD.. i couldn't remember the price of the honey.. if i'm not mistaken 6 bottle honey cost RM 25 each.. we could buy both honey and royal jelly here.. 

At this bee farm there were also few animals.. including the phython.. yewwwww..

my aunt was so funny.. we laughed at her.. she wanted to hold the python but at the same time scared to the max..hahaha

My Ayah Teh.. Mummy also scared..haha :P

I really couldn't touch the snake.. it was so soft and slimy.. euuuwwwwwww.. see the scared face there???hahaha

Till then, bye2 people.. continue with Part 4 later.. :)

~Travelog: Vietnam (Part 2)~

Hi & Assalamualaikum...

Let's continue with the journey in Vietnam..heeee..  At 12.30 pm (Vietnam time), we went lunch at the nearby Halal Vietnamese Restaurant.. In front of Saigon Pink 2 Hotel, there's a few halal restaurant in which most of the owner can converse in Malay.. They were very friendly.. Most of the time, we had lunch and dinner at 'Kampung Melayu Halal Restoran' because the food here were very delicious and tasty.. it suits our appetite.. For your info, the foods and drinks in Vietnam is quite expensive.. Even you just drink ice lemon tea and chicken rice, the price was as the same as you ate Secret Recipe or Pizza San Francisco in Malaysia.. when you want to travel here, you will spend mainly on foods and shopping..

The front view of the restaurant..

We ate 1 set of BBQ chicken rice and 1 set of Roasted chicken rice.. 1 set can cater 2 people.. and each set cost about 199 000 dong.. It's cheaper if order by set.. The foods in Vietnam were healthy as it less spicy, oil, sugar, & salt.. similar like Chinese cuisine..hehe.. 

My Bro & Cousin.. 

Us.. Atok.. To'ki.. Mama.. Me.. Along.. :) 

The scenery around our hotel.. There's a lot of shops nearby selling goods for instance Deuter bags, clothes, shawl, Dress & many more with reasonable price.. it a small road but busy with people.. besides, many Vietnamese people who can speak a little bit Malay will approach you & promote the things they've been selling.. Sometimes i feel quite irritating but it's better to just ignore them.. or talk slowly that you don't want anything... :)

Next, our destination was Ben Thanh market.. It was a must visit place among the tourists who came to Vietnam.. Ben Thanh market will be opened daily from 8am until 6pm.. It was a very large and crowded area.. you have to be aware with pickpockets and your own items..  2 days wasn't enough to explore each shop in this market.. Here, there were many things being sold such as souvenirs, cotton material, jeans, branded shirts, Deuter bags, Perfumes, Jubah Dresses, handbags, shades, pickles, nuts, chips and manyyyyyyyyy more.. phewwhhh.. To keep it simple, everything you want you can get here.. But maybe the prices in Ben Thanh market was different compared to other places in Vietnam.. Because i was told by the tourist guide the next day that the rental fees for shop in Ben Thanh market was very expensive and usually the sellers had marked up their prices twice than the normal prices.. 

Various souvenirs available.. keychain.. fridge magnet.. 

Table runner.. bags.. Glass item..pencil case.. coin purse..

This was the things that can make a woman gone crazy... bahahaha.. most of the shop selling clothes material can make clothes as your request (Baju kurung moden, peplum, jubah dress and etc) within a day and they may send them right away to the hotel you stay.. i did bought custom made jubah satin +lace dress for my sis wedding next year and it cost RM180.. much more cheaper if you custom made in Malaysia.. after giving the body measurement, i've a  conversation with the workers of the shop..asked about their cultures..a nice place to visit.. suddenly she said: " you're so beautiful"..  i just laughed and said "beautiful because i'm wearing make up".. and then she said "no..no.. your face is so beautiful.. it's not the make up" and then she asked about my age and what i've been doing.. she also said her friend in front of her shop also said that i'm beautiful.. kembang semangkuk please...bahahaha

Cotton...various types of cotton available here.. with various designs & colours.. you will gone crazy to choose the best one.. ;) 

Even the Vietnamese people can recognized that we're Malaysian.. when we passed by their shop they will said, "mari-mari kakak abang.. murah saja"... besides, there was so many Malaysian having vacation there..  i've met many Malaysian & we smile to each other.. By the way, ONE important advice, don't touch the things in the shop unless you intended to buy those items.. Because if you don't buy those items, the sellers will scold and curse you.. in Vietnamese words of course..hehe.. Some of them will grab your hand and push you to buy their items.. seriously, it's not easy to escape once the seller got you.. they refuse to let you go until they successfully persuade you to buy items from them.. and you really need to be clever in bargaining the prices.. for example, my bro want a sling bag and it cost 50 USD.. He refuse to buy.. the bargaining session take quite sometimes.. i just observed them..after a long bargaining session, suddenly the prices drop to 25 USD.. but he still refuse and want to go to another shop, but the lady grab his hand and push him to buy.. my mom said no need and we just went by with the lady cursing at the back..hahahaha.. it's kinda scary you know.. See how the prices can be so different there?? and yeahhh.. you need a strategy when shopping.. As for me, i prefer just to ask the price without touching the items and just go if i found it unreasonable.. hehe.. Most of the shops here accept money in USD, RM and  Dong... But next time whenever i want to go to Vietnam again, i'll changed 100 USD only.. The rest i'll just use Ringgit Malaysia because it was acceptable in most places here.. Even people selling coffee on motorcycle by the street and the beggars accept Ringgit Malaysia.. But remember they'll just accept RM5 and above.. Sometimes it depends on the shop owner.. Most of them didn't want RM1 because the value is too small.. Plus the goods you buy will be cheaper.. Because here in Vietnam, the shop owner will just calculate 1 USD equal to RM3.. eventhough the real exchange rate was 1 USD equal to RM3.25 (during our vacation).. so if you buy a cloth which cost RM 25, you have to pay 8 USD (RM 26)..  a bit pricey right? After a while, we felt tired and went back to the hotel to leave the items we already bought in the room and have a drink.. shopping was a really tired activity..hehe

us on the way back to hotel.. 

Them.. :) 

On the way back to our hotel, we've seen unpleasant scene.. 2 Vietnamese guys were having a fight.. one of them is the owner of the restaurant and another guy is a shoe polisher.. we were so shock and stunt.. it was really scary you know.. & later we know the real story.. that a Malaysian guy who want to enter the restaurant was disturbed by the shoe polisher.. and the owner of the restaurant gets angry when the shoe polisher disturbed his customer.. so there goes the drama..hehe..  after that, we entered the shop for a drink.. and then we continue our journey by exploring the Ben Thanh market again.. 

This time, my mom and aunt bought a lot of chips and nuts.. especially the jackfruit chips..the vegetable chips (mainly potatoes of various types) was also delicious..  They said the price of the chips & nuts here also cheaper than Malaysia.. 

Ben Thanh Market view..  

Many weird and rare things also sold here.. in that bottle, there was a snack and scorpions and other various poisonous animals soaked in oil.. i guess it was a traditional medicine.. 

Tired already.. they spend almost 30 minutes in this shop only... -_-" 

waiting for them..  

 Nuts and chips in the house... zzzzzz

After that, we went back to the restaurant for dinner.. Alhamdulillah, everything was delicious.. see what's left by my cousin below?hehe

Clean & clear.. just the head of the fish left..haha

 After dinner, we went to the night market which situated outside the Ben Thanh market.. They also selling items like in Ben Thanh market.. but it was much more cheaper.. 

The night market..  

Crowded as always.. there goes my handsome To'ki.. :)  

various clothes were available here.. jeans... polo and tommy hilfinger shirts.. which cost less than RM30 if you know how to bargain the cheapest price..  

come & get it here...Telekung for prayer also very cheap here compared to the price in Malaysia :)

So that's all our activities on the 1st day of arrival here.. main activities just shopping...shopping... and shopping... will continue the journey in Part 3.. ;)