Third Time is the Charm, Vietnam: The Halong Bay Cruise

It was my third time visiting Vietnam;  apparently, I enjoy going there. Haha. Well, actually I’ve visited Ho Chi Minh twice, first with my family, and the second time with my friends.  Still with my friends, this time we visited the northern part of Vietnam, Hanoi, where Halong Bay can be found. Halong Bay is declared as one of the recent 7 Wonders of Nature. This is my second of the 7 Wonders of Nature, the first of which I was able to visit was in my hometown, the Puerto Princesa Underground River. That visit actually inspired me to add a goal for myself, which is to visit all the 7 Wonders of Nature before the age of 30 *crossing fingers.

 So it was really good timing the JE decided to book Hanoi during one of the Cebu Pacific Seat sale. I think we booked it as early as March of this year, and the fare costs us only about P3500. This time, JM volunteered to arrange the itinerary for our tour. She was able to find a travel agent, the Halong Phoenix Cruise, which provides Halong Bay cruise plus hotel accommodation in the city. The package only costs about $170 per person, which includes the cruise with complete meals and tour, plus one night accommodation in Asian Ruby Hotel in Hanoi.

Finally November came, and we left Manila on a Saturday evening. Funny thing during the flight, as Cebu Pacific hosts games for passengers. The game was to name three things that start with the letter, and when they asked name 3 colors that start with P, J was the first one to raise his hand. He was able to give Pink and Purple, but got stuck for a while. IV tried to help, and gave… guess what? Puschia!!!! LOL. Epic Fail!!! I actually thought of Prussian blue but was not really sure if there’s such a color, good thing J was able to think of Peach. Yey! He won a travel pouch. The other question was a female name that ends with O, and IV was the chosen one. Again, he was an epic fail, and couldn’t think of anything. I helped him and gave Rosario and Mercado, and JM thought of Chikito. Hahaha. Good thing they accepted it as the last 2 names are actually not female names. Haha. Continue reading here.

The Adventures of 2 Girls in 2 Countries - In Between

I wanted to have a separate entry for this as this one of those experience I'm sure I will never forget and learn from, especially on traveling.

So we left Universal Studios at around 9pm which we thought would be enough time since our train will not leave until 11:30. What we didn't foresee was everyone else was going home and there was a long queue for the train leaving Universal Studio. Before we know it, it was already past 10pm when we reached our hotel. We just immediately packed our bags and checked out. We tried waiting for a bus, but it took us a long time, so we tried to hail a cab. We didn't have luck on that either as the taxis we're not stopping or didn't want to let us ride as the train station was just really nearby. We had no choice but to wait for our bus again. We then ride the MRT again until Woodlands, which is where the train station is. The MRT ride took forever and when we finally arrived at Woodlands it was already 11:30. What's worst is that we don't know where exactly the train station to Malaysia is.

We asked some of the cab drivers, and they don't know it as well. Finally one cab driver knows and so he brought us there. And when we arrived, the train has already left. Apparently, they're not following Filipino time, which is always late. Haha. I was kinda expecting it. We then asked one of the crews there and he suggested to ride the bus and try to catch the train on its next stop. We did that, and to our dismay, we're still not able to catch the train. What was worse, was that I didn't know we already had cross the border, and we're now at Johor Baru in Malaysia. Continue reading here.