Hanoi - Day 2

Wake up at 7am and have our breakfast in hotel. The tour guide reach at our hotel 8 am sharp for the city tour around the town of Hanoi. Our first destination is to Tran Quoc Pagoda that sits on an island in the West Lake or better known as Ho Tay. It's  one of the oldest pagodas in the country that was built near the Red River in the 6th Century. A bodhi tree in the closure is said to have been growth from a cutting of the tree under which Buddha has achieved enlightment.

Tran Quoc Pagoda

The old lady is 93 years old who spent most of the time in the temple reading sacred manuscript in the temple.

The Golden Statues of God inside the temple.

Lotus flower which are sacred flower of Buddhism.

The Pagoda



Then we stop over at Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and also Museum. Surprised to see that there are so much people visiting the Mausoleum during the public holiday. You even have to queue for quite some times before you are able to see the house that Ho Chi Minh used to stay before. Somehow, you wont see Malaysian spent their public holiday visiting Tugu Negara or National Museum because they rather spent their time shopping in Midvalley.

Ho Chi Minh Masoleum.

Ho Chi Minh reject to stay in this palace. Therefore, it become the places for him to meet leaders from oversea. He however stay at a small house nearby this palace.

This is the house that Ho Chi Minh used to stay. The lower ground is for the children to play when they come visit him. The upper part of the house consist of 2 rooms. One is the room to sleep and another room is the study room.

Too bad the Mausoleum was close during the public holiday therefore we cant go inside. The tour guide even told me, even if the Mausoleum is open during weekdays, you will have to queue up for a long distance before you can get inside the Mausoleum. After that we stop over at One Pillar Pagoda. According to the local, the Pagoda was built by the king to worship Kuan Yin after he dreamt that Kuan Yin handed him a son.

One Pillar Pagoda

The entrance to Temple of Literature

Another section of the temple.

One of the king that built one section of the Temple of Literature

Musical performance by using traditional music instruments.

The Ngoc Soon Temple at Hoan Kiem Lake

We move on to the Temple of Literature which was founded as Confucian Temple. It become the Vietnam's first university that trained a lots of scholar. The large courtyards consist of nice gardens, lily pond, bronze statues of crane, stone carved of all the scholars and beautiful styles of chinese gates display. There is also short performance about the tradisional music instruments of Vietnam inside the Temple of Literature. We also visit Ngoc Soon Temple at Hoan Kiem Lake which is nearby our hotel.

Tea pot

All are hand made.

The owner's son and daughter who welcome us to their factory.


Thang Long Theather

The traditional water puppet show.

After lunch, we visit the porcelin factory which was outside the Hanoi city. Too bad some of the big factory was closed during the May Day. At night, we walk to Thang Long Theather to watch one of the most famous troupe in Hanoi, the Water Puppet Show. A traditional Vietnamese orchestra provides background music accompaniment. The instrumentation includes vocals, drums, wooden bells, cymbals, horns, erhu (Chinese two-stringed fiddle), and bamboo flutes. The bamboo flute's clear, simple notes may accompany royalty while the drums and cymbals may loudly announce a fire-breathing dragon's entrance. It portrays the day to day life of rural vietnam and the folk tales handed down over generations. Stories of the harvest, fishing and the festivals are highlighted. One should never miss such an extrodinary show of high cultural value.