Journey of Life

How the time flies! We must say that we barely to get know Hanoi city of the time constraint. Hopefully we can make a come back in the future and explore other parts of Vietnam. Our outbound flight scheduled at 3 pm. Before checking out, we spent some time having breakfast at the Diplomatic Lounge.  Nu'man also spent time at the pool. At noon time, Vietnam Drive  picked us up in the afternoon and headed to Hanoi airport. Bye-bye Vietnam!!!

It took around two hours and half drive to the jetty before we embarked for Halong Bay trip. Once we boarded into Song Bien 19 , we knew that this would be an interesting island trip, as opposed to typical snorkeling and islands hoping activities. Halong Bay was the shot for Kong movie in 2017 and the island itself was called Skull Island. We were given a sitting table with an Australian family of three. As I mentioned earlier, there won't be any snorkeling or swimming on this trip, as you can tell based on our attires. So, what we gonna do? Let's the pictures do the talking...

We had internal flight up to Hanoi this morning on Vietnam Airlines. Noontime, we arrived at bustling city of Hanoi, VietnamDrive picked us up from Noi Bai International airport. I used up my membership privilege to book for a suite at Intercontinental Hanoi Westlake. To our surprise, we had been upgraded to a premier suite that facing lake...yeahhh!!We were given a welcoming drink as well as delectable sweet and savory treats at the Diplomat Lounge. We skipped our heavy lunch then. Yup... it was served all-day long and we can hopped in anytime as many as we want to!

If Cambodia has it Angkor Wat and Indonesia has it Borobudur Temple (both ticks are still off in our bucket list), Vietnam has it own decades old Hindu temples in Quảng Nam province, located specifically in My Son Sanctuary. Built by the King of Champa between 4th to 14th century are dedicated to the worship of the god Shiva. After an hour, we reached the sanctuary about 70 km southwest from Da Nang. The site is surrounded by mountain ranges and the temples are quite scattered. We just follow the signboard that dictate the temple's sequence along the trails.

Feeling tired from yesterday tripped out of the city to Hue, so we only had half-day tour for today. I also presented my paper for ICUFN conference later in the evening, at the hotel. So, this going to be a short post. VietnamDrive had arranged to visit the Marble Mountain, about 10 km from the hotel. There was a stairway of about 150 steps or more leading to the top. But we would rather to take the lift to reach to the summit. Several Buddhist grottoes existed became the main attractions that tourist flocked. It also offered a magnificent views surrounding the area. After spent about an hour at the mountain, we proceeded to the Museum of Cham Sculpture. It was a site known as "the garden of sculpture" before the museum was erected in early of 19th century. The museum displays the Cham sculpture found in Danand as well as nearby districts. One of it was My Son, an architectural district that we will visit tomorrow.

It was our last morning in Saigon city. We had a domestic flight to Da Nang in the evening.While there were still plenty of time before the checked-in, we just meandered around the city, and for my wife last minutes shopping. We also bought along souvenirs and some local delicacies.After having lunch at the nearby restaurant, we had a late check-out and get ready for the pick-up to the airport. We were thought of skipping several sites just because the 3 days of our stay was not enough. As we still had a plenty of time, the driver stopped us at several tourist spot for a photo shot. We stopped at Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral that has two bell towers established by the French Colonist (you might know it by its name) in the 18th century. We also passed through the Saigon Central Post office and the Reunification Palace, the former Presidential Palace. At around 4 pm, we arrived at the airport, and checked-in for the late evening VN 1326 flight to Da Nang!