Hanoi Day 2 (AM) - Sunday 13.04.08

Early morning activity on the street..shot taken from the balcony of our room

My alarm went off at 4.30am. Got up for Subuh prayers and then hit the sack again. I guess I was so tired last night. Tak sedar apa-apa pun. Tau-tau it was already morning. We could hear the honking from the streets below. Ahah.....Hanoi was aready awake. The shops would be opened soon and we can do more shopping. Yess!!!

We had our own light breakfast in the room. Had coffee and bread with the serunding. Later we would go down and have the breakfast provided by the hotel.

After everyone was ready, we went down to the hotel coffee house. We wondered what could we have from the spread. There were bread and fruits still left. The rest were not really food we could have on our plates...non halal maaa. I got the bread and cheese and some dragon fruits. We wanted to have coffee but it wasn't hot enough. Later when the hotter pot came, I pour some into my cup. Fuhhh.....it was such a strong one. Terbukak mata dibuat nyer. It was so kaw!! Luckily for us we had had our own breakfast. Perut still kenyang.

After the quick breakfast, we went up and got our bags and ready to venture the streets again. Today, we decided to go to the other market - Hang Da which was pretty close to our hotel. Naik cab lah...save the energy for later.

The guy at the reception greeted us. He asked where we would be off to today. We said hang Da market. He then told us...no go to Dong Xuan market. We told him we have done that yesterday. We then hailed down a cab and told the cabbie to go to the Hang Da market.

Hang Da Mrket

The ride didn't take long. We then got down and tried to figure out where was the entrance to the market. There was a staircase which we had to take to the upper part of the complex. The moment I walked up the stairs, this awful smell struck my nostrils. The smell was pungent and yulky combined. Really, really terrible. Something like those public toilets which had not been cleaned for ages. I was already covering my nose with my tudung.

Still...we went up and what did we discover? Ada lah a few stalls selling some ao dai kain and Vietnamese silk (so they claimed lah). We went one round and came out from that place in no times. I could hardly breathe. The smell was really, really awfull. When we got out, I asked for a Mentos sweet from Muni. I just has to smell something to wipe out the bad odour from the market. Nasib baik tak termuntah!!

An old woman crossing the busy street...tak takut apa-apa pun...pedestrians are pretty safe in Vietnam

So to people who have Hang Da in their Hanoi itinerary, my advise to them is a STRICT, NO NO, NO!!!! Unless you were prepared to tolerate the smell. We learnt it the hard way.

We then quickly crossed the road and took out the map again. We wanted to figure out the way to Silk street - Hang Gai and perhaps Hang Be too. "Hang" is Vietnamese for street.

We walked passed some painting shops. At one of the shops, Muni got small paper cut posters depicting the Vietnamese women in their ao dai. A really, really creative piece of work. And we continued our walk. I then saw a shop selling the game boy catridge. Stopped by la jugak beli one game for Nissa.

U suka yang mana??

I suka yg mana???

Jupe...u plak yang mana??

We walked a few blocks of shop and then we turned left and the next thing we knew there were embroidery shops infront of our very eyes. We went in...and apa lagi terjadi lah damage on bed sheets and other embroidery stuffs. Hai...belum apa-apa lagi bag dah penuh ni!!!

Shops on Hang Gai

We went on walking. The next thing we knew we were on Silk street or Hang Gai. So tugas pencarian masing-masing pun bermula lah. Went into one shop and the next one and the next one. Yang I knew between the three of us there were damages all over. Muni & Jupe got silk kaftan sleep dress, I got raw silk shirts for ABE, then a few more silk scarfs for Jupe & Muni and of course handbags. Ha....puas hati!!! Muka senyum je...

There was one shop which we went into had pictures of Mrs Mathatir and the shop owner. Then there was also the Queen (the one from Perlis) and some Malaysian embassy people. We noticed that she had a big bouquet of roses (red ones ok!!) in her shop. When we asked her she said roses are very cheap in Vietnam. She had them changed EVERYDAY!!! Ooooo...jealous nyer la... There were like 3 dozens of roses there in the big vase. Kat M'sia jgn nak berangan lerr..letak je la bunga fake kertas tu.

Next was to go to Ipa Nima a handbag outlet which we have discovered on the Internet. We asked around and showed people the address of the place. Not many people know of the shop. Finally we got a girl from one of the shops to stop us a cab and mintak she speak to driver yg we want to go to this handbag shop.

Nasib baik la ader cab driver yang mau send us there. The cabbie sort of took us on a real long ride. I felt as if we has circled the place more than once. Finally he stopped us at the juction close to Ipa Nima and we had to locate the shop ourselves.

Jupe infront of Ipa Nima..frust iyer?? Tak de bag...hehe..hehe ;-)

Ipa Nima was a building on its own. One would never miss it coz' it's pink in colour. We walked in and saw lots of really beautiful handbags. Those bags which would look good if worn with evening gowns to perhaps cocktail parties. Cantik...bling bling every where. Unfortunately for us, we didn't find the exact ones which we were looking for. We looked one round still...mana lah tau ader kot yg tersorok ker. But still tak de yang dicari. We went out and then decided to get a cab to go back hotel.

Stuffs we bought in the morning

We figured we had better rest for a while coz tonight we'd have the Water Puppet show to go to. So balik lah dgn cab. Sampai hotel..penat jugak...and apa lagi, photo time. Snap, snap here...and snap, snap there..

Next bershopping dalam hujan.....