Merempat trip Part 3. VANG VIENG, LAOS

5th July 2018

We arrived at Vang Vieng quite late that day. Around 11.30am. The sleeping bus we got into drop us in the middle of the Vang Vieng town and the driver also help us to find a tuk-tuk to get to our homestay. See there's no taxi around, that i've seen in Vang Vieng. Usually people get around with tuk-tuk which is much cheaper than taxi i guess. The tuk-tuk driver charge us 50Kip = RM25 to go to our homestay which is not very far actually but considering that it was almost midnight and he was waiting at the bus stop all night long, we kind of just go with it. i just want to check-in in our homestay and clean myself as soon as possible so, i don't really care about budget anymore at that point. (30 hours no shower guys! i can pratically smell my skin rotten! lol)

After checking in into our homestay, we went to get a shower and clean ourselves as soon as possible. I think it was around 2 am that we could finally get into bed. Oh how i miss soft bed!!

6th July 2018
 That morning we woke up around 10 am and ready to explore Vang Vieng.
See, our homestay located in the middle of the town which is very easy to get around. This is another tips of finding a good homestay or hotel at Agoda or online. always check the location on the map. I think these days most of the site online provide map so, its easy to find the hotel/homestay's location.
Riverside Garden Bungalow is one of the cheapest and in town homestay that i found on Agoda.
However, the cheap price is the only thing that was good about the homestay i guess. Despite the strategic location, their wifi reception is bad (probably because our room is one of the fartest), the room is not clean well maintained too. When we check into the room, there's a dust here and there and the window is broken too. to make it worst,  receptionist or the owner of the homestay is so not friendly. Like almost feel like she's irritated by us everytime we ask something to her like a location and where can we get Tuk-Tuk.Maybe because she can't speak english but we were at The Pilgrim Homestay in Cao Bang before and trust me, they can't speak english too but both of the owner was smiling the whole time and even inform us about where to eat around the homestay with their google translate app! The only thing that was friendly to us was the puppy who never tired of greeting us. awww.

i was attracted to the cottage concept they have but it wasn't well maintain so...

Merempat trip part 2 (Halong Bay & Vietnam-Laos Border)

2nd July 2018

basically, we spend day 2 on the bus all day long.

So, we woke up early around 6.30 am to get ready.

Cao Bang-Hanoi bus leave every hour so don't worry if you miss the early bus. We manage to get the 8 am bus. However as we all know local bus usually stop here and there so i think we only leave Cao Bang for real around 9.30am. Since it's a long journey, we stuff our bag with a lot of junkfood.
and one of the essential for me to bring is my earphone! Mau emo-emo dalam bas bah. hahahah

We arrived Hano around 3 pm and continue with our second bus to Halong Bay. See our day 3 was spent on the bus all day long. although i enjoy watching the scenery while being emo with my song tapi buntut panas juga la hooo... lol,

We arrived at Halong Bay around 9pm. And with the help of the bus conductor (Again! i know) we manage to get a taxi to our hotel! yeyyyy. No because why we always ask the conductor to help us because the local here hardly speak English. Also, from my previous visit to Vietnam, they love to charge more if they know you are not from their country (Happen in all country). with the help of the local, we manage to get local price of course!

3rd July 2018

We woke up around 5am to hike but when we look outside it was still very dark so we decided not to go out early for safety reason (or because we both are just a scaredy cat. Whatever you called it).
We only go out around 6am which is very bright for hiking.
I book the Viet Nhat Hotel on purposed because it's very near to the Bai Tho Mountain or more like hills to me. Cheaper and only a few minutes from the Entrance.
It might be a little bit hard to find the entrance to the hills but you'll definitely find it if you ask around. See, most of the people who leave near the entrance is an old folks and they can't speak english but they were helpful. they really wants us to find the entrance that after the hike some of the old folk we met asked us if we manage to find the entrance. Sweet la baaa..

Unlike any other hills, the entrance to this hills i actually among the shop. YAS. you need to go through someone yard to get to the peak and we still need to pay 40k Dong just to go through their house's yard. lol. And the most shocking thing is, it's not even a proper way! the gate was closed and we need to climb the gate to get through it. AHAAA..

The hike is pretty much easy because there's a stair along the way.
The sun was already shining when we went up there but the view is just amazing!

arghh the view!

Merempat Trip (Ban Gioc Waterfall, Cao Bang, Vietnam)

30 Jun 2018

Its actually took me 4 months to really come up with the full itinerary before our actual travel.

so to cut the story short we finally departed from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur on this date but if you are coming from Kota Kinabalu you gotta transit in Kuala Lumput for an hour or two. Unlike our trip to Singapore, this time the flight went smoothly. We arrived at Noi Bai International Airport around 3pm as expected and head straight to Hanoi City. Noi Bai International Airport to Hanoi City only cost us 9000 dong using public suttle bus! 

It might took a bit (a lot actually) of your time because the bus will stop everywhere around the city, but what's a good way to see the city other than being on the hop in and hop off bus. right?

As soon as you come out from the airport, make sure to ask around where you can get a shuttle bus. 

I don't really remember the bus number but i think bus number 60 (please check with google)

Its a bit hard to communicate with local people here since most of them doesn't speak english but we manage to find the bus in short amount of time (see, we learn a lot of self-made sign language during our 2 weeks trip! lol).

The bus last stop at the Old Quaters and we need to exchange bus again because we wanted to go to My Dinh to buy sleeping bus ticket. After we ask around, they told us to get bus number 23. 

We can't really communicate with the local so we did manage to get into bus number 23 but the bus went to the other stop. We were supposed to go the other side of the road but i guess we got a bit confuse with the instruction given by the woman in the counter. Lucky we only need to pay for 8k dong. Then we follow the same bus to My Dinh bus stop where we need to pay another 8k dong.

We arrived at My Dinh Station and went to buy the last sleeping bus ticket to Cao Bang as soon as possible. We manage to buy the last sleeping bus and still have like and hour and half to waste so we went to eat and clean ourselves before checking in into our bus.
I decided to buy bus ticket on the spot because i look through it online and the price is usd25/person/1 way Hanoi to Cao Bang. And that was probably the best decision i ever made because it's a lot more cheaper. we manage to get the ticket for 200k Dong which is equal to RM34.98! only USD 8!

Progress on My Braces

On my previous post click here , some of you ask me to post on my braces progress. 

so, i am updating on my braces today.

So to cut the story short, i put my braces in 2015 and the doctor said it will only took a year to complete it. 

so, as promised the doctor took it off on december 2016. 

however,

it actually look okey from this picture because i took it from above,