this is the first of a series of blogs about my travel to the rising star in south east asia, vietnam.
after singapore in 2011, i did not expect that it would be soon that i will have another international trip this year. my partner and I have already decided a month before our said trip not to push through because of personal concerns. but, eventually through our modern day angel, we made it to our second asian trip.
from cebu, we traveled to tagbilaran and stayed overnight before leaving for manila to hanoi. you might be surprised why we needed to go to bohol and travel to manila and not directly from cebu to manila instead. well, the package tour includes this trip, where 21 out of the 23 travelers are from bohol (majority are from the dumaluan clan). it was one way for us to know the other members of the dumaluan family, mostly the third generation. we were also travelling with rev. fr. jonas and rev. fr. butch – who are also very close to the family of doc mimi and doc doyet dumaluan. mind you, traveling abroad with this great number is super fun.
arriving in hanoi, the capital and second largest city of vietnam, we were greeted by our heart-warming vietnamese tour guide named ‘junie.’ due to the influence of the europeans, they actually have that accent combined with their vietnamese language. hearing them speak is something new to my system but was able to understand eventually.
on our way to the hotel, i noticed zones ready for industrialization and commercialization, similar to our reclamation areas in the philippines. i also saw motorcycles bringing loads of beautiful flowers to the their flower market early morning. the famous vietnamese hats are also worn by both men and women with their traditional vietnamese wardrobes. when we reached our hotel, there were people eating and drinking by the streets while minching on vegetables and seafoods. they sat on small individual chairs almost touching the ground. this is similar to the ‘pungko-pungko’ style of eating in cebu.
to be continued…