This is what you have to do in Hoi An, Vietnam — getting the tailor made clothes. There are more than 400 tailor shops around the town for everything: dress, skirts, shirts, bikinis, shoes, accessories and even jewelries. You can custom made whatever you want. I decided to explore the tailor made dress experience. And coincidently, I have a wedding to attend this summer. What a perfect occasion! So I shopped around the town and now I’m a proud owner of two perfectly fit beautiful dresses. Here are some of the shopping tips from my experience.

Shop around: out of the main market street

I know, it’s not easy. If you are not a shopper, it can be an agony. I, myself is not really a shopper. I do enjoy shopping but just for little accessories or occasional clothing shopping would be all. When I heard about Hoi An, the wonderful world of custom-made-everything, I thought I couldn’t resist myself to buy everything. First I checked out the place my friend suggested that is located on the main market street, Tran Phu Street.

“How much is this?” I found a cute blue dress.

“45 US dollars.”

“Forty five dollars? Can you give me any discount if I buy two? How about two for 45$?”

“Where are you from? Where you from dress is really cheap? But not here. I make this.”

Probably true. Maybe her work is worth to spend 45$ but I couldn’t’ believe one simple dress cost that much in Vietnam, where you can eat a bowl of noodle soup for 1.5$. So I walked away. Even if she’s right, I didn’t like the fact she was attacking me about the price haggling.

Don’t give up; there will be the same design

I was looking for the same designed dress in other shops but it was quite hard. I was keep thinking ‘Damn, that dress was cute. But I hate to crawl back to that lady!’

However, I found a even better one in Tran Hung Dao street, little out of the way from the main market. Not the same design, but only 20$ for the dress I really liked. Of course I asked for some discounts. He carefully measured my size and made sure that it will fit me well. After all, that’s the beauty of tailor made dress.

When I was about to finish my shopping in the market, I saw the cute blue dress in other shop. So, don’t give up; there will be the same dress in other shops.

Haggle, but not too much

Most of the places I went to give me an honest price. At least I thought they did. The main street is noticeably bad; they sell a t-shirts for 180,000 dong (9$) but you can find 40,000 dong (2$) easy enough just out of the main centre.

However, it’s always depending on how much you are willing to pay. For me, I didn’t think that the dress is 45$ worthwhile. When I found the other dress, I haggled down to 22$ from 25$. It was a reasonable price, but didn’t hurt to try it little harder if they agreed me, and they did. However, remember; this is a tailor made cloths. Meaning it is natural to cost more than what you can buy off from the night market. So if you found the right one, try to cut down the price a little, but not too much. If you think that’s an honest price and you liked the tailor, it would be worthwhile to pay the little extra money.

With my new tailor made dress in Hoi An

Make sure to pick up the cloth with enough time

Even they measure you properly; there are always the possibilities to fix it here and there. I had two dresses at different shops; I requested to fix a small part in the shoulder and the tailor insisted to fix the seams for me at the other place. They wanted their product to be perfect.

So I suggest letting them know when you have to leave the town and checking with them at least few hours before you have to go. It’s always a good idea to double check. If the mending is minor, it would only take few minutes or an hour.

Have you been to Hoi An and made the dress? How was it?

What is your favourite Chinese food? Have you ever make it at home?

Chinese food is widely known for cheap and easy takeout food more than home cooked meal. I do also like Chinese food and I enjoy cooking, but to this day I’ve never cook it at my kitchen. It’s one of those foods that it costs much more to cook than order one.

In Dali, a laid back town in Yunnan Province, I had my chance. Rice and Friends Dali Cooking School was the one offer the opportunity to make delicious Chinese food and get to know the cuisine better. You can see how much I enjoyed cooking here in the video!
 

 
Luxi, our teacher is from Leshan, Sichuan. While she was traveling around, she demonstrated a lot of Chinese dish to see if she can find or replace the ingredients. And she set up a cooking school based on her own knowledge and experience.

The class starts with going to the local market with Luxi. Picked out fresh ingredients for the day’s dish, and she explained some of the curiosity I had about Chinese vegetables and fruits.

Seasonings for cooking Chinese cuisine

Before grabbing wok, Luxi explaines some of the main seasonings of Chinese cuisine. Dark and light soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking wine, and Sichuan peppercorn. The harmony of the seasonings are making just the right taste.

Now we are ready for cooking. We cooked three dishes; each well represent what Chinese cuisine is.

- Dried tofu salad: sliced dried tofu with fresh season vegetables

- Fish flavoured eggplant: fried eggplant cooked with picked chili

- Kung pao chicken: fried chicken with sauce and peanuts

Every step of the way, the ingredients are well prepared just like a cooking TV show. It was so much fun!

Luxi, the teacher at Rice and Friends Cooking School

In each step, Luxi introduced each process and demonstrated. I enjoyed learning behind stories. That’s one of the reasons why I like cooking. Each dish has its own history or stories from the past, and it is represending the character of the dish. For example, fish flavoured eggplant is not really anything to do with fish. It doesn’t taste like fish. The reason why is that Sichuanese people used to cook fish with pickled chili and they accidentally cooked eggplant with the exactly same ingredients and they liked it. So, eventhough nowadays people don’t cook fish the same way, but this eggplant dish still remains as fish flavoured eggplant. You can listen the story by Luxi via the attached video above.

Ingredients for dried tofu salad

Kung Pao Chicken

Fish flavoured eggplant

The whole process from shopping to cooking took about 5 hours. Moreover, you’ll go home with the recipe book so you don’t need to write down everything while you are cooking. They just moved to a beautiful spot where we can see Cang Shan from the kitchen.

If you are traveling in Dali, Yunnan, China, visit Rice and Friends Cooking School to learn how to cook few of the most famous Chinese cuisine!

Disclosure: The cooking class is provided by Rice and Friends Cooking School as a partnership with Runaway Juno. However, all the opinions expressed here are completely my own. 

“Ahahahahahahaha-“

The immigration officer couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes whilst my eyes were full of tears.

“I’m serious!” I claimed.

“Don’t worry! Vietnamese are very friendly!” She said.

“To Koreans?” I asked.

“No, to everyone! Don’t worry! You’ll be fine!” She answered.

“So, I won’t go to jail?”

“No.”

This is the answer I got at the end of 573 km trip in one day.

Jail? For what you might ask.

Okay, here’s the whole story; it starts in Nanning, China. For my month visit to Vietnam, I went to Nanning to buy a Vietnamese visa and cross the border by a bus. As a Korean, I get 15 days free entry but I wanted stay a month. My hostel in Nanning was supposed to take care of the visa business for me. However, the consulate wanted a flight number for my visa because I requested ‘unusually’ long permission. The hostel wanted me to go to the embassy by myself, but I knew if I went, I would return without gaining anything. I predicted this based on my countless number of encounters with Chinese bureaucracy. So I decided to extend my visa while in Vietnam.

I entered Vietnam without a visa on 22 April, and got a stamp for 06 May: 15 days.

In Hue, Vietnam, when I was trying to extend my visa; it was a national holiday. The next destination: Hoi An. Everyone said ‘Yes, you can do it in Hoi An. It will take 2 or 3 days. Don’t worry!’

Okay, so there I was in Hoi An, at a nice homestay. I asked about the visa extension and apparently, it’s only possible in Da Nang, 25 km away from Hoi An. After an hour bus ride, I arrived at 4:15pm, just before the office was about to close.

“Where’s your invitation?”

The immigration officer wouldn’t allow me to fill out the form because I didn’t have an invitation. Based on her explanation; travelers cannot travel Vietnam alone. They have to have an invitation from a Vietnamese tour company in case of some accident might happen. And this is the law. To this day, I’ve never heard of the requirement of invitation to travel to Vietnam. Have you?

Long story short, I had to go on a border run to the Vietnamese border town of Lao Bao. I really didn’t want to, but I had to. I didn’t want to take a chance of overstaying my visa. I honestly thought they could put me in a jail for it.

My travel map for 29 hours

The itinerary I was looking at was:

Hoi An – Hue, Hue – Lao Bao, Lao Bao – Hue, Hue – Da Nang, Da Nang – Hoi An

Total: 573 km.

Saturday, 05 May: I took a bus to Hue at 2:00 pm. (130km)

Sunday, 06 May: I took a bus to Lao Bao at 6:30 am.  (161km)

I arrived at Lao Bao around 10:30am. No problem at the exit counter. I paid 20,000 Dong for something, and got an exit stamp. The Laos entry office was quite far from where I stood. Maybe it wasn’t too far but it was quite a distance by foot and the weather was just too hot. Technically, I didn’t need to go Laos to renew my visa; all I needed was an exit stamp from Vietnam. So, I walked around the Vietnamese custom office and went to the entry counter on the opposite side.

The immigration officer gave me until 20 May, 2012.

“Excuse me… I’m sorry but could you give me two more days? My flight is on 22 May.”

And he called the other officer who could speak English.

“Show me your itinerary.” He said.

A little hope; he was willing to listen to me. So I pulled out the itinerary from my backpack and showed it to him, but he was impatient; he was gone already. A female officer offered her help. I explained the situation to her, thoroughly.

“Sorry, I really want to, but I can’t. It’s the law.”

I started explaining to her what I’ve been through. How I couldn’t even buy the visa, how I got rejected to extend the visa, how I’m a good person and I just want to travel in your country for two more days. My eyes were full of tears whilst I made my case; it was unfair that I had to go through this much trouble.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it’s the law. I really can’t.”

She came out from her booth to talk to me. I explained everything once again.

“Two days is okay. You maybe have to pay the fine, but it’s okay. You’ll be okay.”

I wasn’t sure what was okay. So I popped the question: “So, they won’t put me in jail?”

She couldn’t understand the word ‘jail’.

“Jail. Prison? Bars. Prison. Jail.” I made the gesture of handcuff. And then she goes.:

“Jail? Oh, jail. Ahahahahahaha-!!!!”

She just couldn’t stop laughing. And she told the story to all of her coworkers at the immigration office. Oh well, at least I made them laugh.

A local bus from Hue to Da Nang. Packed like sardines

Sunday, 06 May: I got a stamp that’s good until 20 May. I caught a minibus to Dong Ha. (81km) Changed the bus to Hue (71km) and after a two hour search, I finally was able to catch a minibus to Da Nang, and it was packed like sardines, seriously. (99km). From Da Nang, I got a local bus to Hoi An (31km).

I arrived in Hoi An at 7:30pm.

So, I traveled 573 km in 29 hours. Five buses, two motorbike taxies, one taxi and one bike ride home sitting on the back. It was a hell of a journey and still I didn’t get what I needed. But at least I’m valid for another 15 days. And hopefully, like the lady said, they won’t put me in a jail for overstaying two days. Or maybe another border run to Cambodia? Maybe not.

Wish me luck!

Have you ever been to a crazy border run?

Dakgalbi 닭갈비 – means grilled chicken, literately.

I posted a photo of Dakgalbi dinner from Korea a while ago, and Jenny mentioned that this was her favourite dish in Korea. We briefly talked about making it when I’m traveling to Vietnam. Few month later, here I am staying in Hanoi, Vietnam. We decided to make Dakgalbi for the Saturday dinner. I’ve never properly made it before, and neither did her. But since we both like cooking and eating, I was sure that we’ll love it no matter what.

Ingredients:

Gochujang 고추장 (red pepper sauce)

Gochugaru 고추가루 (red pepper powder)

Vegetables: garlic, onion, green pepper, carrot, cabbage, and any vegetable you like. I added some baby corns.

Soysauce

Sesame oil

Cooking wine

Sugar (or any kind of syrup)

Noodles or rice 

Chicken (with or without bones)

#Only critical ingredient is Gochujang, since that has unique flavour that you can only taste in Korean food. The others can alternate vary. 

Cooking Dakgalbi with Jenny - with all the ingredients

Basically, make the sauce and marinate the chicken in the sauce for few hours before cook it on the pan. If the chicken is already ready, start making sauce and put the chicken in.

Prepare Sauce

Mix everything that goes into the sauce all together.

Gochujang 6 Ts (depend on the spicy level preference), gochugaru 2 Ts, soysauce 2 Ts, cooking wine 1 Ts, sugar 2 ts, half of onion – blended, and one bulb of diced garlic.

Add 1 or 2 Ts of sesame oil at the end.

#This is a standard recipe but you can make it different depending on how you like it. More/ less sugar, more/ less Gochujang and so on. 

Prepare Chicken

We preferred no bones in the chicken. It’s just easy to eat. The chicken thigh we bought needed to de-boned. Jenny was in charge of that and she did a wonderful job! Since it was going to marinate for few hours, we left the big chunk of chicken instead of cutting them small pieces. We used two big thighs and two big chicken breath for three people. It was equivalent of one whole chicken.

Now, mix the sauce and the chicken together in a big bowl, and put it in the refrigerator for few more hours.  

De-bone the chicken leg

Chicken and sauce are ready!

Cooking

Cook the well marinated chicken with all vegetables on the frying pan. If you are using carrot and potato, put them the first with chicken since they took long time to cook. While cooking the chicken, don’t forget to cook some rice and noodles to eat with dakgalbi. Nothing is a proper meal without a bowl of rice.

Cut the chicken in small pieces and for the final touch, mix the boiled noodles with the sauce. Make sure to minimize the fire.

Cooking Dakgalbi

Eat! 

It was spicier than I expected, but it tasted pretty authentic to me. All three of us are fans of eating and also Korean food, we liked it so much. I was so full I could barely move after dinner. I should say it was pretty successful. In Korea, they used to cook the rice at the end of the meal; using dakgalbi sauce and cook it on the pan. But since we were so full, we had to skip that.

Thanks to Jenny for sharing fun cooking experience, and Stephen for taking pictures of us cooking!

Read Jenny’s blog post about our Dakgalbi on her blog Culinary Wanderlust for more detail on how to prepare and cook. She’s really good at writing recipe down! 

 
Hanoi is humid and hot. It is a food heaven for good eaters and it has good markets for shoppers. Mostly, it has full of characters. You’ll never get bored.

Coming from China, Vietnamese characters gave me different feeling. Chinese character is not so exotic to me since I can read and write most of them. But Vietnamese is different. It looks just like English but it really is not. It has 6 different tones; you can see it on the top and the bottom of the each letter. And just like speaking Chinese, they won’t understand you if you’re not using the right tone. Four tone was hard enough but six tones? I’m scared to even try it.

Anyway, Hanoi back street is crowded with not only motorbikes but also all the signs to lure the customers. Sim card, all the food, advertisements and messages. It was rather fascinating to me.

I captured some of the scenes and letters around Hanoi while I was walking around. It wasn’t easy; because I had to make sure that I wasn’t in danger with all the motorbikes. But yes, I got fascinated by the letters and the scenes around Hanoi. It entertained me for four days.
 
 

Small Restaurant in Hanoi Vietnam

Buying Sim Card is Easy in Hanoi

Buildings near Lake in Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi Vietnam

Hanoi Train Station

Hanoi Back Street

Temple of Literature in Hanoi Vietnam

Danger Sign Hanoi Vietnam

Bia Hoi

Advertisement and Laundry at backstreet in Hanoi Vietnam

Coffeeshop in Hanoi Vietnam

Lenin Statue in Hanoi Vietnam

The Letter Means 'Intelligence' at Temple of Literature in Hanoi Vietnam

Bun Ca in the street

Advertisement in Hanoi Vietnam

Yangtze River Cruise was officially my first luxury-scenic cruise experience. I’m not exactly ‘luxury’ type of a traveler, but I wanted to experience what I don’t normally do.

Four days of the cruise was one of the highlights of my China trip, no doubt. Because of the scenery and because of the cruise experience. Here are three things I got to know from this cruise trip.

Group tour can be informative

Our Guide Explaining the History of Shibaozhai Pagoda

I’ve been on group tours. Once for my friends who were visiting me from New Zealand, and once a short trip to Japan that sponsored by my university. And countless school trips were of course, group tours. For me, the problem of group tour is that I just couldn’t remember the details. HOW did I get there, WHAT did I eat and see, WHY it happened, WHERE did I go, and WHEN did I do stuff. Everything’s vague. Because I didn’t involve with all the planning and reading ahead, I think I just didn’t care much. Whatever happened, it wasn’t a my responsibility.

However, this time around was different. Because I cared, because I wanted to cherish every moments, I enjoyed the aspects of the group tour. Since there’s no internet access on the cruise ship, the guided tour was a good source of the information. This cruise is included most of the tour programs except three shore excursions. We had a guide every step of the way; Shibaozhai Pagoda, Shennong Stream, Three Gorges, and Three Gorges Dam. And it was informative and entertaining.

Most importantly, I walked with one of those flag. Finally, I did it! I was finally in China.

It is easy

Pre-arranged Picture Time with the Captain

We didn’t have to do anything. Everything was in order. We just needed to follow the instructions from the central audio system. They told us the schedules and where we had to be. Food was served according to the time schedule and it was perfect. All the food was the perfect Chinese food. They even called us in the morning to make sure we were up for the breakfast. During the free time in between tours and meals, I worked on my writing while drinking tea. Unfortunately it was foggy for few days, I didn’t have a chance to have ‘enjoy the scenery while drinking tea’ option. Certainly, it was easy.

After three months of hardcore travel in China, no decision-making was refreshing and peaceful. No more where to go, what to eat, how to buy read this, why we can’t do this, and when should we go there. It was like a dream I never wanted to wake up.

It is too perfect

Farewell Banquet at Yangtze River Cruise

It is like a whining from a spoiled child. For us independent travelers, ‘easy’ can be equalized as ‘boring’. The decision-making is stressful but that is what makes travel so much fun and worthwhile. Especially in China, we faced a problem every step of the way. The simplest thing a human can do; sending a postcard, caused a lot of troubles (somehow) so we ended up spent 30 minutes at the post office, solving the problem we didn’t know. It was exciting.

Following the schedule made me tired. I felt weirdly tired after the second days on the cruise ship, and I just couldn’t figure out why. I didn’t do any exercise, I wasn’t stressful, I didn’t think much, I ate well and I slept well. And I realized I was tired because of the exact reasons I just mentioned. I wasn’t moving and thinking like I did before. Food was too perfect, room was cleaned whenever we came back, the whole world was in just five deck cruise ship. And I wasn’t used to that.

Long story short

It was a short trip, but I got to know the great aspects of the cruise. Certainly it was something that was different than what I knew. Long story short, if you are asking me if I want to do it again I can surely say yes to that question. I liked the atmosphere of the cruise. Also I liked the idea of using cruise as another way of transportation. It is scenic and relaxing, and also it will bring you to the destination you want to be. Of course, it was a bit boring in some ways, but it was due to the sudden environment change. Aren’t we all used to what we already know? I’m going another cruise trip in Vietnam soon. Then I will know more about the cruise. Can’t wait.

Me, working or...?

Wake up in the morning without a noisy alarm clock. One of the best changes from my previous routine. I love it.

Make some tea. Preferably strong one; Pu’er green/ dark or black tea.

Check my email from Gmail, and also I have an email application from Mac, which contains 5 other email accounts.

In the mean time, open up Facebook and Hootsuite to check my social networking updates.

Open up BBC to check the news world-wide. Or check their twitter account.

Check the comments I got on Runaway Juno and reply them. Also check my other websites.

Tweeting appreciation messages of the retweets and reply all the tweets using Hootsuite.

Check the notifications from Facebook.

Reading others’ blog posts on Hootsuite and one thing lead to another, I’m swimming in the sea of interweb.

Thinking, ‘I have things to do!’ and get back to work.

Read RSS feed on my email that delivered from travel companies, fellow travel bloggers, and other resource websites. And retweet them on Twitter.

Check the notifications from Facebook.

While checking my emails, check the updates from Pinterest and Pin it some more because it’s sort of fun.

And I remember I have to log in to Skype for my friends.

Reply emails.

Open up Google analytics to check my stats for the clients.

While I’m on the right Google account, check my Google+ and hang out there some more, because I need to maintain it as well as my other social networks.

Update photos to Flickr.

Check the notifications from Facebook.

Tweeting some more.

Check my YouTube account for comments and check how many views I got from the latest video.

Suddenly, I get inspired by something-someone and start getting all these ideas about everything. Searching for the information online and make a huge pile of the lists.

Check my calendar and to-do list to not miss anything that I suppose to do. And realized that I forgot something from few days ago.

Try to make blog posts for my blog; get photos from Flicker, copy and paste from the word document. And during the process, I get distracted by other tabs that open and forget what I was doing. I have more than 10 tabs open on my Google Chrome.

While I forgot what I was doing, check the notifications from Facebook.

Tweeting some more.

Finally get back to what I was doing and finished the blog posts that took me few hours to finish. Whoa!

Posting this via Su.pr.

Updating the post on Facebook and Hootsuite. And check my blog status while I’m at it.

I get new email. Check them and reply it.

And, check the notifications from Facebook.

And repeat.

12 work day is flying fast. Oh the life I walked into.

Sounds familiar?

Jenny is the one who introduced A&W to me...

At a little hostel in Chinatown of Singapore, I met Jenny. She lived and taught English in Korea that year and started traveling around Asia. I was on a short break from school for two weeks. We celebrated Chinese New Year together, got over a not-very-fun hangover, spent some time in a small beach, and share a bed bugs experience. Oh that wasn’t pretty. Ever since I met her, she was my travel inspiration. For me, a travel newbie, she was an extremely experienced traveler at that moment, and she is still making her way out in the world. I had a great time in Malaysia because of Jenny.
As I announced, my next destination is Vietnam and I will visit her in Hanoi. I asked her for this interview before my visit, and she wrote a wonderful guide.

1. If you use only one word to describe Hanoi, what would that be?

Chaotic. Hanoi is a bit nuts. The traffic is absolutely mad and goes in every possible direction and I often fear for my life just walking home! Then there’s all the other stuff going on…roadside vendors and food stalls, motorbikes parked all over the sidewalks, kids wobbling down the street on bicycles, xe ôm (motorbike taxi) drivers hooting and calling to you, old ladies in conical hats carrying bouncing baskets of fruit on poles over their shoulders, women walking their bicycles which are laden with plastic goods or balloons or flowers, and more! But there are hidden gems of tranquility; a quiet rooftop café, a restaurant tucked down a back road, a relatively peaceful park with people playing board games or exercising, or even just a quiet residential lane. These sudden moments of sanity amongst the mayhem are what make Hanoi a cool place to live.

Typical Mobile Fruit Seller in Vietnam

When the French finally went away they left their baguettes behind!

2. What’s the weather like?

It varies. Hanoi has 4 seasons! Summers are ridiculously hot and humid and that’s when we get lots of big thunderstorms, winters are damp and chilly (and there’s no insulation or heating, so you feel it A LOT!), and spring is warm but grey. Autumn is the best time to be here, it’s nice and warm but not nearly as hot as in the summer, and the sun is out most of the time!

3. How long have you been living there? Do you feel like home?

I’ll have my two year anniversary in July! I guess in some ways it feels like home. I like it here, and I’m mostly used to the way the city works by now. I like my apartment, down my little lane with a great local market in the mornings, but as friendly as they can be I’ll always be a “Tây” (foreigner). I know I won’t stay here forever, but I’m certainly not ready to leave yet!

4. Tell us about your favourite and the least favourite thing about Hanoi.

My least favourite is the traffic for sure. Not only is it super busy, but the attitude you get from the people driving is very “me first”, and there’s no consideration or courtesy for other drivers, cyclists, or pedestrians. My favourite thing is probably Hanoi’s character and atmosphere. There are a lot of old French buildings that give it a sense that it should be all European and proper, but then amidst all that it’s still a crazy Asian city. And it’s easy to get frustrated with the chaos but that’s what makes it special, too. Even after I’ve been here this long, unexpected things still pop up all the time!

5. Let’s talk about food. Vietnamese food is very popular around the world. What’s your recommendation that we must try?

Ah there’s so much! Vietnamese food is so light and all the ingredients are always really fresh. I recommend the nem (fried spring rolls) or nem cuốn (fresh spring rolls) and bún chả, which is marinated grilled pork in a sweet but vinegary broth, with noodles and fresh herbs. It’s a Hanoi lunchtime specialty and I don’t know why I don’t eat it more often! I also really like bánh xèo, which is a big crispy pancake with meat, shrimp, and bean sprouts inside, which you take chunks of and roll up in some rice paper with herbs. I think it’s actually a southern dish but it’s available here too. Delicious! There’s a ton of other good street food around, so you just have to be adventurous and try things!

A delicious bowl of bún chả, photo courtesy of Taekyoung Oh.

6. What is the first thing would you recommend us to do right after we arrive in Hanoi?

Wander. Start by walking around Hoàn Kiếm lake, then get lost, and look at everything. When you get tired, find a café with chairs out on the street and just sit and people watch. There’s stuff to see in Hanoi but I think the best things you see are the ones you find when you’re not looking for anything. If you’re into photography, keep your camera ready, because there is SO much to take pictures of!

An old man sitting next to Hoàn Kiếm lake.

7. You’ve been living in Hanoi quite a while now, and you’ve been traveling long time. Do you miss Canada while you are living in Hanoi? If you are, what do you miss the most?

Of course I miss Canada! I miss my friends and family and seeing my nephews grow up. My sisters-in-law are always posting pictures on facebook, but of course it really doesn’t compare to actually seeing them. As for the country itself, I definitely miss it more in the summer, when I know the weather’s probably good there and I could go out hiking and camping and have BBQs. I sometimes also miss the convenience of it. It’s being able to take care of errands easily, to know exactly where to go to get the things I want, or being able to walk into a shopping mall and instantly find clothes that fit. That just doesn’t happen here.

8. What is the most famous landmark in Hanoi? And which one is your favourite?

I’m not sure what’s the most famous. Maybe Hồ Chí Minh’s Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature, or Ngọc Sơn Temple in Hoàn Kiếm Lake. I don’t know if I have a favourite, but the Mausoleum has made me giggle ever since my friend and I made a gingerbread house in the shape of it!

Me and my friend TK outside the mausoleum. Photo courtesy of Taekyoung Oh.

9. Where’s your secret hangout place? The place where you feel most comfortable, or had the most fun.

There’s a bar we often go to after work called Eté. It’s not really that special, but has decent food and ok prices, and while there are a lot of expats who go, it isn’t touristy. I’ve been there enough now that they know me by name (I’m actually not sure if this is a good or a bad thing!) When the weather’s good we sometimes go to a microbrewery called Windmill, or more often to a Bia Hơi. That’s not Bia Hơi corner in the Old Quarter, which is listed in the Lonely Planet book and populated by tourists. There are proper Bia Hơi restaurants everywhere that are full of Vietnamese, serve super cheap beer, and usually make some pretty decent food, if you can read the menu! I also really like a tea house called Ochâo. It has friendly staff and a great view over the lake and you can sit there for hours while they keep refilling your cup with hot water!

10. Sunny day, warm outside, and you don’t have anything on schedule. What would you do? What’s your go-to activity in Hanoi?

No question, I would take my bicycle for a ride around Hồ Tây (West Lake). It’s about 13km around and while for a few bits of it there’s traffic, there are also a lot of lovely quiet stretches and little cafes to stop at, and it can be really beautiful and serene. In the summer there are huge lotus fields near the northern end, complete with happy Hanoians taking LOADS of photos!

Lotus field in the north part of Hồ Tây.

11. Vietnam is also very famous for their coffee culture. How much is for a cup of coffee?

I don’t drink coffee so I’m not entirely sure but I think you’d pay around 15,000 dong (75 cents) for a cup. I usually go for a sinh tố xoài (mango smoothie), which would cost between 30 – 40,000 dong.

Various types of Vietnamese coffee for sale.

12. Would you recommend us one ‘off-the-beaten path’ place in Hanoi?

Thống Nhất Park (commonly known by foreigners as Lenin Park) in the south of the city has a lake which is nice for a walk around and people watching, and isn’t touristy at all. There are lots of groups of women exercising (particularly late in the day) which are always entertaining to watch! Near where I live there’s a small lake with the wreckage of an American B-52 bomber that crashed into it during the Christmas raids of 1972. It’s not much to look at but I don’t think it’s on any tourist map, and it’s interesting to see. The best part is the plaque on the wall next to it, which is complete propaganda and praises the soldier who shot it down. Like I said above, the far reaches of Hồ Tây (West Lake) where it’s quiet are nice, or if you want a western-style café the Hanoi Social Club is very good. There’s a little tea house near the Temple of Literature on Ngo Tat To that, despite being so close to a major tourist attraction, is very un-touristy and full of young Vietnamese people drinking tea and playing cards. I also like Chicken Street, where the only food available is delicious barbecued chicken, roasted potatoes, toasted honey bread, and cucumbers in a yummy dressing.

Sorry, that was a lot more than one!

13. Any extra ordinary customs that travelers should know?

The Vietnamese often take a nap in the early afternoon, just after lunch. You probably won’t notice it in the touristy parts of the city, but elsewhere things can get a bit quieter around that time, and sometimes you’ll walk into a shop and find the proprietor dozing! Also, on certain days of the lunar month, they make small fires on the edge of the street and burn things for their ancestors.

Nap time in Hanoi.

14. I’m a fan of souvenirs. Which one should I buy in Hanoi?

There are beautiful silk scarves that are very cheap if you bargain right, but shop around for quality. The lacquerware is also lovely. There’s a place called Craft Link that sells nice stuff at decent prices, so you don’t have to bargain. The best thing about it is that it’s all Fair Trade goods, made by women in small villages in the countryside, and all the money goes back to them instead of to a greedy shop owner! Of course if you really want to be a proper tourist, you can buy yourself a typically Vietnamese conical straw hat and a Vietnam flag t-shirt!

Bamboo dishes and lacquerware for sale in the Old Quarter.

15. As a local, would you like to share your secret travel tips about Hanoi with us?

Get out of the Old Quarter. Go further west than Hồ Chí Minh’s mausoleum, further north than Dồng Xuân market, further south than the prison museum, and even east across Long Bien bridge (Ok, I admit it. That last one I haven’t even done yet, but it’s on my list). If you just stay in the Old Quarter you probably won’t like Hanoi very much, because it’s so touristy and everyone wants your money. Get out of there, wander and get lost in Hanoi’s lanes, which is where life really happens.

If you want to know some of the places that expats and locals go, that aren’t necessarily touristy, try looking at the New Hanoian website at http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com/ I use it all the time!

About This Week’s Sister:

Jenny Singleton is a Canadian living in Hanoi, Vietnam. She’s been teaching, working and traveling around the world way before I met her in 2006. She recently started a cooking blog and this is her brilliant bio: I like to cook. And travel. And eat. And travel some more. And eat more. Maybe take a photo or two. And travel. And eat again. And then try cooking what I ate. And bake something I saw on a website that looked good. And grow things on my balcony. And then eat them. So if you haven’t figured it out, here you’ll find accounts of my cooking, eating, travelling, photo-taking, and plant growing adventures wherever I might be in the world! Enjoy!

Visit her cooking blog  “Culinary Wanderlust” and follow her on twitter @jennyinbc. Also you can find her on Pinterest @jennyinbc1977.

Xishuangbanna is a whole different side of China. It is in between China and Southeast Asia: Thailand and Laos. Weather is tropical, and the majority of people are Dai nationality. They even use different language: Dai. I traveled in Xishuangbanna twice, on my way to and back from Laos. The second time, I’ve decided to explore different parts of Xishugnabanna. From Jinghong, you can choose few different day trips to other region. I moved to Menghai for a couple days and went further.

The Octagonal Pavilion 八角亭 is situated on a hill in Jingzhen Village, in the county of Menghai, Yunnan Province, which is about 87 kilometers (54 miles) away from the city of Jinghong. It represents the superb craftsmanship of the Dai Minority in both construction and decoration. It is first built in 1701. The original structure was damaged during the Cultural Revolution but renovated in 1978 and the ornate decoration is still impressive. The paintings on the wall of the Manlei Buddhist Temple are scenes from Jataka, the life history of Buddha.

If you go: Catch a bus to Mengzhe 猛遮 and ask the driver to let you know when you have to get off. They’ll understand.

Entrance Fee: 20 CNY

Praying Monk statue at Octagonal Pavilion

Octagonal Pavilion in Jingzhen, China

Octagonal Pavilion in Detail

Octagonal Pavilion in Jingzhen Village - beautiful craftsmanship

Roof of Manlei Temple

Buddha painting on the wall of Manlei Temple

From Manlei Temple

Monk's Robe at Manlei Temple

Wall painting at the Manlei temple - Jataka, the life history of Buddha

Wall painting at the Manlei temple - Jataka, the life history of Buddha

Wall painting at the Manlei temple - Jataka, the life history of Buddha

Architecture of Manlei Temple

Cute Toilet Designed like Octagonal Pavilion

For me, the name Yangtze River is quite familiar. It was always mentioned in the textbook through out the school years; the longest river in Asia, the third longest river in the world and it was an important area for human life in Asia. Other than that, I didn’t know much about it, especially about traveling. Few years back when I had a long weekend, I thought about cruising Yangtze River. But since I only had a week, I decided not to. The scenery looked amazing from the photo.

So when I was planning this trip to China, cruising Yangtze River crossed my mind. And the opportunity came. From April 11 to April 14, from Chongqing to Yicheng, I cruised the Yangtze River, finally.

The scenery

Among the total length 6,418 kilometres (3,988 mi), the three gorges region is one of the highlights of the Yangtze River scenery. Three Gorges region has a total length of approximately 200 kilometres (120 mi). The Three Gorges occupy approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) within this region. Although it is primarily famous for its scenery, the Three Gorges region is also a historically and culturally important location in China.

We started the cruise from Chongqing. As the river goes downstream, we cruised the first gorge – Outang Gorge and the second and the most famous gorge Wu Gorge on the third day. The weather wasn’t really great for the last two days but luckily it cleared up for us tourists. Outang Gorge is 7 kilometres long and the highest peak of the three gorges is located in Outang gorge.

Last but not least, we cruised through the third, Xiling Gorge on the last day of the cruise. Xiling gorge used to be the most dangerous route to cruise because the water was too shallow, but it is safe now because the dam raises the water level.

On the side note, Congqing skyline is not bad to look at.

Century Sun Cruise ship and Yangtze River

Qutang_Gorge_Yangtze_river_Cruise_China

Wu Gorge

Bridge over Wu Gorge

Chongqing Skyline

The attractions

Because of the development around Yangtze River, some of the attractions developed with the tour program.

Shibaozhai Pagoda

The town of Shibaozhai is a hill along a bank of the Yangtze River. The town is well known for their 12 stories pagoda that built on the cliff. People were climbing to the top of the hill to pray, but it a lot of people lost their lives because it was extremely dangerous. In the year 1819, the nine-story pavilion was constructed adjacent to the cliff to aid people in getting to the top of the hill. In 1956, three more stories were added at the top of the structure. And every floor of the wooden structure contains interesting artifacts. Each of the 12 floors of Shibaozhai is dedicated to a famous general of the Three Kingdoms period (220-265AD), a local scholar. When you reach the top, you’ll meet the king of the heaven. I prayed in front of him, hope my wish will come true. We’ll see!

Shibaozhai pagoda

Shibaozhai pagoda the view

Shibaozhai pagoda The top

Shennong Stream

The Shennong stream is famous for their naked male boat trekkers. True story. In the old days, the people used to wear a cloth made with a natural fabric and apparently it became very itch when its wet. So the boatmen naturally started working naked to be more comfortable. Well, now you can’t see the scene due to a lot of visitors though.

The Shennong Stream is located in between the first and the second gorge, Qutang Gorge and Wu Gorge. It has been inhabited since at least the Han Dynasty; the primary ethnic group of the river valley has been the Tujia people. Early history of the settlement is proved by the mysterious hanging coffins stowed in clefts on the high vertical limestone cliffs. You can still see few of the leftovers. The view is amazing. The whole tour took about 3 hours, and the beautiful limestone cliffs became a very good company.

Shennong Stream

Shennong Stream the boat

Me, in Shennong Stream

The dam

It is big. No need to repeat this is world’s the largest dam; because I can see that. It’s huge. The Three Gorges Dam was the last one on the list for the cruise. It located in the third gorge, Xiling Gorge, in the Yiling District of Yichang, in Hubei province.

Before visiting the dam, we went in the five-level-lock of the dam. It brought us down to 65 meters from 165 meters. It took four hours to complete the process. I watched a couple of the lock, and it was pretty impressive. Just couldn’t imagine how big it was from the inside.

The Three Gorges Dam is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (21,000 MW). It is 2.3 kilometers long and 101 meters high. It took 16 years to complete the construction, and they are still building extra parts like ship lifts for smaller boats (small boats can’t use the lock). The cruise ships have to reserve the lock and it’s free.

The dam changed life along the Yangtze River, completely. The maximum water level differences before and after the dam is 100 meters. Because the water level was raised, government relocates the people on the hillside along the Yangtze River. Government built new buildings on the hill for people to move in, and the people’s occupation changed from farmer to various other ones. For example, our boatmen from Shennong stream were fishermen but they live by roaring tour boats now.

Clearly, building the dam made the national-wise effects, and seems like it is under control.

Me, at the Three Gorges Dam

The Three Gorges Lock

The Three Gorges Lock Open Door

The cruise

I’ve been on few cruises, but never the scenic cruise. I think the reason people love to cruise is because of the feeling. Literally, you are floating on the river with everything you need. It’s a little world. No need to seek for anything from the outside world while you’re on the cruise ship. Everything’s there. I worked in the free time, but it never felt like working. It was just so relaxing. Food is served in time, you have crews to take care of anything you need, and you can even get a health check from a Chinese doctor, of course this is only for Chinese cruises. Also it gave me a chance to meet interesting travelers.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that great to enjoy the sun deck, but because of that I had some relaxing time in my room, working, reading and listing music. For the four days, I was in whole another world.

View from the room

Yangtze River Cruise Travelers

President 3 cruise ship

Disclosure: The Yangtze River Cruise was sponsored by Chinatours.com in partnership with Runaway Juno.