Ha Long Bay - Oriental Sails

We visited Hanoi, Vietnam for a short 4 days, 3 nights trip. We missed our ex-classmate's wedding and we had to clear some of our annual leave. Might as well use this opportunity to visit and bring some gifts over!

Dates of travel: 10-13 October 2015

This post will be broken up to two parts: Hanoi & Ha Long Bay.

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Oriental Sails

Since we were in Hanoi, we didn't want to miss out visiting Ha Long Bay. I'm damn sure I didn't regret going to Ha Long Bay for a 2 day 1 night cruise.

First, we shopped online for an affordable cruise that we liked on https://www.bestpricevn.com/halongbaycruises/. We managed to find one we liked and suited to our budget. I emailed them directly for a good price. Of course, what the online travel agent quoted to us is different from what the operator quotes us. Whichever one you book with, make sure that the final price includes the transfer from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay.

Oriental Sails is the lowest category out of 3 other cruises they have. It suited our needs just fine and we didn't need a super luxurious cruise anyway.

Price: USD150 (converted and paid in Vietnam Dong)
Includes: Accommodation, Food (lunch, dinner, breakfast & lunch), entrance fees, kayaking, squid fishing

Since we were staying out of the Hanoi Old Quarters, we had to take a taxi from our friend's place to Oriental Sails office. The pick up time was at 7.45am and then we boarded the mini bus and embarked on our 3 hour long journey from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. After 1.5 hours of bus ride through padi fields and Northern scenery, we stopped for a short break to stretch our legs, some coffee and to send some postcards out.

Finally, we arrived at the port where we boarded a small speed boat to ferry us to the cruise ship. The ship is what they claim to be a traditional wooden junk boat converted to a cruise ship. to me, it was luxurious enough to be considered NOT a junk boat.

safety first

 On board, we were ushered to the dining room where we were given welcome refreshments and our rooms keys. The dining room boasts full length windows which allows natural sunlight to filter into the spacious cabin.

on board

 The welcome refreshment was mango juice and a hot towel to wipe away my sleep and to re-energize me for the cruise!

Welcome drink and warm towel

Roll calls and room keys were quickly given out. I must say we were quite lucky. The cruise is suited for about 36 pax, but there were only 17 of us!

Room

In the room, there are large windows in which we can open to allow some breeze and sunlight into the room. The beds were comfortable


our cabin room

Welcome fruits were placed inside the room as well! The platter consisted of bananas, a mango, rambutans, grapes (which were not sweet) and an odd green fruit which we never got round to eating. We suspect it's an orange or lime of some sort.

welcome fruits

 The cruise ship was recently renovated, thus everything looked new and clean! The bathroom is spacious! They even provided bath soap and shampoo!

toilet

There's a window in the toilet for you to enjoy the view while showering. That's provided there's no one else outside watching you! Both of us would have preferred if there were curtains to cover the windows as during the night when we're docked for the night, there's other cruise ships around the bay. You never know who may just be looking in!

bathroom 

Deck

The cruise has a total of 3 levels. The rooms were located on the 1st and 2nd levels. The dining room and bar on the 2nd level, and the sun deck and a nice al fresco siting area on the 3rd level! It was too cold for us to sun bathe though. Even though the cruise was recently renovated, the deck chairs were obviously not replaced. Most of the chairs had holes right in the middle of the chair and luckily there were not many people on board fighting for a deck chair.

deck chairs

 Because we're traveling in a bay, there's not much waves. Suitable for people who's prone to sea-sickness!

ha long bay!

Food

Activities

Hiking

The cruise includes several activities such as exploring a cave! Our guide brought us "hiking" where shoes were recommended. However, we left all our shoes back in Hanoi! We managed well in just slippers though. This is a dry activity, though all the climbing drenches you in sweat.

If you follow your guide closely enough, she'll explain things like how the sea level was so high millions of years ago that it causes the wave like patterns on the roof of the cave.

cave

more climbing

After all the climbing up the stairs and through the cave, you'll reach the peak of the... island?

view of the bay

 All that climbing really paid off! What a view!



panoramic view of the bay!

Squid Fishing

In the evening, after dinner there's also a KTV session and squid fishing! We totally skipped the KTV and were out to the tender boat in hopes of catching some squid!

squid fishing!

 I caught a crab instead!

Tai Chi

tai chi

If you're able to wake up early enough, there's tai chi classes in the morning at 6.30am.

 Kayaking

On the second day, we went kayaking in the bay!



Top 10 Penang Dishes You Must Try!

** No cats were harmed in the making of this **

I revisited Penang from 30 Aug - 2 Sep 2015.

There's only one thing to do when you're in Penang. That's to basically eat everything awesome that you can find and get to. During the 4 days and 3 nights that I was in Penang, we had like 10 dishes/meals on average. 15 on a good day. I am surprised I didn't suffer from indigestion and puked at the end of every night. Here is a list of my top 10 favourites things that I ate, in no particular order.

1. The Alley Cafe

Located in literally a nice little alley

Address: 5, Lorong Stewart, George Town, 10200 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Website: https://www.facebook.com/thealleypenang/
Telephone: +604-2613879
Opening Hours: 12pm - 12am

cool wall art

This is a nice cozy little cafe that I heard sold cronuts. YES CRONUTS! A cronut is when a crossiant and a doughnut make love and produce this little round ball of happiness. The cronut will have the layers of flaky, buttery crossiant layers but in the shape of a doughnut. It's genius basically.

This is what they call battery water

They sold take away coffee in this cool bottle and they call this battery water. Hey, they aren't wrong about that! As it was late in the evening, we didn't have coffee because we were afraid we couldn't sleep.

churro and cronut!

Finally, the long awaited churros and cronut has arrived!! We ordered the large serving of the churros (RM9) (no regrets) and one portion of the cronut (RM9) together with a hot chai and a pot of hot fruit tea.

Honestly, the churros is way better than the cronut. The churros is crunchy and crispy on the outside and soft on the outside. It went exceptionally well with the salted caramel and cinnamon sugar.

2. Tuai Pui Curry Mee

Tuai Pui Curry Mee

Address: Address: 23, Lebuh Kimberley, George Town, 10100 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Opening Hours: 9am to 5.30pm. Closed on Wednesdays.

You have no idea how happy I was to be back. I am not a fan of curry mees or spicy stuff. This curry mee changed my mine. This stall is situated along Lorong Kimberly about 200m from the main road. Once you walk in, you'll see a small push cart type of stall just located outside a shop house. Order the food, and proceed into the shop house to wait for your bowl of goodness.

big bowl of heaven

The curry mee consists of a large serving of yellow noodles, coagulated pork blood (seriously damn delicious), pork intestines, fish cake, taupok, cuttlefish, beansprouts and more! Why this dish is so fantastic is because the gravy is actually drinkable! It's not too thick and flavoured with a complex mixture of curries and broth.

3. Penang Road Famous Teochew Chendul

Address: Jalan Penang, 10450 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

Telephone:+60 4-262 6002

Opening Hours:10:30 am – 7:00 pm

CHENDOL!!

Do not be deceived by the long snaking queue to this stall. The queue may be long, but it moves pretty fast as well. We waited roughly 10-15mins before we were next in line. The orders are pretty standard: having here or takeaway & how many bowls. If you're slow to decide or order you might get reprimanded by the stall operator.

waiting in line

Because they're moving the queue so fast, they have to prepare many bowls at once. This results in most of the ice melting into the coconut milk. Other than that minor thing, the bowl is generous for RM2.50, lots of chendol and red bean and decent Gula Melaka to flavour the entire bowl.

big bowl!

Once you've paid and got your own bowl, you have to look for a spot to either stand or sit along the roadside to savour the chendol. We found a nice shady area next to a longkang (drain) and finished the entire bowl within minutes.

so happy me!

4. Seafood Popiah at Gerai Gerai Padang Brown

uncle creating his art

This popiah stall is located towards the end of the food court. You won't miss it as this stall sells only popiah with the longest queue. Thankfully the uncle has a system going. You order, take a queue number and wait.

GLORIOUS POPIAH

I know, you may be thinking why is the popiah drenched in gravy and it will make the popiah skin soggy! It was done intentionally and I must say it was EXTREMELY GOOD. This was the best dish I had during this Penang trip!!!

The radish is cooked in seafood broth and then folded together with fried egg, lettuce and crab meat! The gravy is heavy and laden with prawn/crab/seafood flavour. It was so damn rich, we actually pour all the gravy onto our spoon and drank it. NOT TO WASTE ANY DROP OF THIS AWESOME GRAVY!

5. Three Road 888 Hokkien Prawn Mee

hokkien prawn mee

Address: 67, Lebuh Presgrave, 10300 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

hokkien prawn mee

Now, when you think of Hokkien Mee (or even fried prawn mee) in Singapore, you think of the plate of white stir-fried yellow noodles & beehoon. In Penang, Hokkien Mee basically is a bowl of pipping hot prawn noodles in soup. Now, for this bowl of Hokkien Prawn Mee, you can choose additional ingredients you want to add such as pork intestines, pork belly or even pork ribs.

6. BEST. CHAR. KUAY. TEOW. @ Siam Road

We just couldn't find the best Char Kuay Teow in Penang during our stay. We've had many plates of Char Kuay Teow, but all of which (even after adding duck egg) felt like it was missing something. I remembered a friend who had visited Penang and claimed that this Char Kuay Teow at Siam Road was the best of all the famous Char Kuay Teow stalls in Penang, even better than the red hat auntie with a feisty attitude. 

Yes, we went three days in a row. First two days were closed and we came back on the third day and it was finally opened!! YES! *rejoice*

This may look like a plate of measly white coloured, stir fried plate of CKT. It is not. It was the most fragrant plate of CKT I ever put in my mouth. The prawns were fresh and juicy, the noodles cooked just right and the whole flavours of CKT just exploded in my mouth. I think what made this plate of CKT so special was that it was cooked over charcoal fire.

I just had to finish the ENTIRE PLATE!

stamp of approval

Trust me, it was that good.

7. Kafe Kheng Pin Lor bak

Address: 20, 16, Jalan Penang, George Town, 10050 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

So, Kheng Pin Kafe is located about 8 mins from the hotel at this junction. It's certainly quite hard to miss it.

lor bak

Basically, its's just chunks of deep fried meat with tau pok, century egg, prawns and fishball and you dunk it in the special thick sauce.

8. Toh Soon Cafe 

Address: Lebuh Campbell, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
Phone:+60 4-261 3754

I would consider Kaya Loti, half-boiled eggs and coffee or tea to be a local breakfast staple for both Singapore and Malaysia. The loti (bread) is so damn soft and they toast it just right so it is really crispy on the outside. Order the Kaya toast as it's much tastier as compared to the butter-sugar counterpart. There is a menu for you to choose your kind of toast such as chocolate bread or even peanut-butter toast. Eggs are boiled to perfection too!

9. Sin Nam Huat Roasted Chicken & Duck Rice

Address: Jalan Macalister, George Town, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

The trick to this restaurant is to go early! We went at around 3.30pm (they close at about 4.30-5pm) and all we had were roasted chicken! No more duck. But since we were there already, we ordered a plate of roasted chicken anyway.

Now, I'm never a fan of roasted chicken. I ALWAYS eat steamed white chicken because it is always juicier. This plate of roasted chicken changed my perception! The chicken were juicy and soft. Being doused in fragrant soy/sesame sauce adds to the flavour of the entire dish! The skin was crisp and partly caramelized as it was roasted. 

The next day, while I was having a spa session, my friends went back and bought the duck drumstick for each of us. Pardon my really greedy face, but it was so damn good. I've never sucked on a bone looking desperately for scraps before.

10. Assam Laksa @ Penang Road

We went back for a second bowl of Cendol and we had cravings for Assam Laksa. As it turns out, this particular stall is famed as well! The broth was not too fishy or sour, unlike the others we've had. The sardines were just right and the onions... yumz!

Even though we visited on a weekday afternoon, the shop was crowded with people having a bowl of cendol or assam laksa or even char kuay teow.

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Click here to find out what else you can do in Penang!