Thursday, February 28, 2008

Vietnam Trip 2008

I had a fantastic experience in Vietnam. The weather is cold, the food is weird and the language is beyond our comprehension. However all of these never stopped me from enjoying the trip because I had great travelling friends.

Well, since all my travelling friends are bloggers, so no point if we all blog about the same thing. Hence I will blog about Vietnam’s socio-economy which I guess nobody will cover.

In Vietnam, the distribution of wealth is very unequal. The rich is extremely rich whereas the poor is awfully poor. This phenomenon is clearly shown on the road, whereby you can see Vietnamese either drive a Mercedes or ride a motorbike, even worse bicycle. There isn’t any cheap car I could find on the road, I think the cheapest car is the taxi, which is Toyota Vios. At least in Malaysia we can see the variety of car ranges from economical to luxurious. Of course the population of poor people is more than rich people, so the traffic is always full of motorbike and bicycle, in tourist centre there are lots of trishaw too. Speaking of globalization, I didn’t really see its effect on Vietnam because most of the shops are local brands, there isn’t any Mcdonal’s , KFC, Carrefour I could find in the city area. Anyway, I can’t exactly say there is no globalization going on in Vietnam because I don’t know the country’s trading in the international level.

In Hanoi city, it is divided into two parts, which are old quarter and French quarter. Old quarter, like its name suggests, it is the older part of the city, where there are lots of shop lots and markets. On the other hand, French quarter has high class hotels and magnificent European style buildings like the Opera House which we can’t enter. Well, my point is the city development is uneven and I guess this will polarize the economy status of Hanoi, which will only benefit the rich people. In the old quarter, we often can see people sit at the road side and enjoy their tea, and café only visited by foreign tourists. Well, I don’t know if this is related to their culture or their buying power.

I guess that’s enough for my review, and now the pictures below will show you how much I love this trip.





LCCT, before boarding



Outside St. Joseph Church



Inside the church



Vietnamese Muzium of Revolution



Thing you must do after taking a photo (in order to save memory space..)

Everything has 2 sides (important landmark in Hanoi)

Waterfall at Sa Pa



Our unique way of camwhoring



Food that i ate in Vietnam



Happy 21st Birthday, Aaron (celebrated at Pho 24)

Creepy Faces (on the junk)

After kayaking at Halong Bay





At the same time, check out my calendar series:





4 thought:

Zzzyun said...

hey how did u do the changing photo thingy? very cool..

lurve the one where 5 of u appeared one by one hehe

ching mei said...

mui!!
nice photos! you are so tech savy!
glad u had a great trip =)
see u in uni on monday
so fast holiday end! :(

~*eley *~ said...

MUI HOW! only u and aaron updated on hanoi. ur other two lazzy lazzy friends havent yet. *hint - president!* :D

eeveehow said...

To zi yun, i use GIF animator, then upload it through photobucket.
To ching mei, thanks! See you at uni on monday, can't believe holidays have over, sad....
To eley, the president says he will blog about it within this few days, haha!