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Terminal Boardumb => Non-Music Shit => Cities => Topic started by: Sukebe GG on September 15, 2011, 07:50:29 PM
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Believe it or not, I am moving there for a year starting from Oct. 1. We may not be there the whole year- maybe six months in HCMC or possible Singapore. Just a heads up if anybody happens to be traveling through...
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I'll be there in late April early May next year....
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Hanoi is great, way better than HCMV!
Been in Vietnam twice, wish i could go back.
Did a part of my field work studies in Dalat University...
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Did a part of my field work studies in Dalat University...
What did you study?
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Did a part of my field work studies in Dalat University...
What did you study?
I studied geography and did my master thesis about the impact of protected area on Ethnic Minorities.
My case study was a national park located the in central highland near Dalat.
Anyway Vietnam is fantastic, Vietnamese are the nicest people ever. Gotta give a thumbs up for them after all the shit they wen through.
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Sweet! I'm a geologist myself and will go there for a research cruise in the south china sea next year. The cruise is in 2 lags, first 2 weeks from HongKong to Vietnam and another 2 weeks with ending in Vietnam. My boss suggested that i should only join the first lag and hang out/travel through Vietnam during the 2nd lag. 2 weeks paied vacation - STOKED! Vietnam is pretty much the last country in SE-Asia where i haven't been yet so i'm superexcited to finally go there! Can't wait!
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I've been there twice and preferred HCMC actually but Hanoi will be fun...Give me a shout when you are going to pass through...
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I'll drop you a line before i go there. Would be fun to hang out/get drunk/do something with a fellow Termbro!
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Sweet! I'm a geologist myself and will go there for a research cruise in the south china sea next year. The cruise is in 2 lags, first 2 weeks from HongKong to Vietnam and another 2 weeks with ending in Vietnam. My boss suggested that i should only join the first lag and hang out/travel through Vietnam during the 2nd lag. 2 weeks paied vacation - STOKED! Vietnam is pretty much the last country in SE-Asia where i haven't been yet so i'm superexcited to finally go there! Can't wait!
Wow that is awesome...Hope you'll have blast man!
If your a geologist, try to do a trip at Phong Nha-Bang National park then. About 500 km south of Hanoi (Quang Binh Province), it's one of the world's two largest karst regions with tons of caves and limestone forest.
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Hey Sukebe GG, you'll be there end of next month?
I'll arrive in HaiPhong by boat on the 26. of April. I'll be flying out from Hanoi to Saigon on the 29th already to meet up with a friend and check out the south. So i have 3 days in the north where i wanna visit HaLong bay and Hanoi. Not much time, i know, and i wonder if that is actually feasible at all? Should i skip the bay and go straight to Hanoi?
Also, if you (or anyone else) have ever been to PhuQuoc island and have any recommendations on where to stay, that'd be great.
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Hey Sukebe GG, you'll be there end of next month?
I'll arrive in HaiPhong by boat on the 26. of April. I'll be flying out from Hanoi to Saigon on the 29th already to meet up with a friend and check out the south. So i have 3 days in the north where i wanna visit HaLong bay and Hanoi. Not much time, i know, and i wonder if that is actually feasible at all? Should i skip the bay and go straight to Hanoi?
Also, if you (or anyone else) have ever been to PhuQuoc island and have any recommendations on where to stay, that'd be great.
Yeah, I should be here. I am going back to Japan this weekend and as long as my visa renewal there goes as planned, I'll be back here by the 10th of next month. I think Halong is about 3-4 hours by car from Hanoi and a one-night trip allows you to see quite a lot...Personally, I'd skip Hanoi over Halong- it's pretty spectacular and Hanoi really doesn't have a lot to offer other than grimy streets and HCM's corpse...Don't know about Phu Quoc but I'll ask around...
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Thanks for the info. Yeah, i think i'll visit HaLong bay. Would be stupid to not go there. My plan atm is to go there directly from HaiPhong on the 26th evening or 27th morning to do a boattrip and drive to Hanoi on the 28th then. Any particular recommendations regarding HaLong bay? Is CatBa island worth a trip?
Anyway, if you're in town on the saturday 28 and are up for a few beers or something let me know. Is there any cool bars at all?
If you have any tips on where to find awesome food in Hanoi that'd be great, too. Budget doesn't really matter for me this time, i just want to find the best as possible food, fancy restaurant or food stall...
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Thanks for the info. Yeah, i think i'll visit HaLong bay. Would be stupid to not go there. My plan atm is to go there directly from HaiPhong on the 26th evening or 27th morning to do a boattrip and drive to Hanoi on the 28th then. Any particular recommendations regarding HaLong bay? Is CatBa island worth a trip?
Anyway, if you're in town on the saturday 28 and are up for a few beers or something let me know. Is there any cool bars at all?
If you have any tips on where to find awesome food in Hanoi that'd be great, too. Budget doesn't really matter for me this time, i just want to find the best as possible food, fancy restaurant or food stall...
Cat Ba is Ok if you like trekking and go up the hills in the National Park where you have a great view. Cat Ba town can also be quite animated at night, but judging the time you have, it might be a little short to do it since you'll probably want to spend a night on the Boat in Halong Bay. Don't know...
Like i said before i prefer Hanoi 10 times over HCMC. HCMC is for me just another growing up south-east Asian city with way less charms than Hanoï, that beiing said, HCMC is fun too though, especially for party. Really good ph? is available everywhere in the street stall, same as for Nem (fried Roll) and fresh spring rolls for really cheap...
I can't remember the name, but just North-West of Ho Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi, there is a roundabout with some restaurant/bar beside and i remember one which were serving some freaking huge bucket of beer for about .50 cents...Crazy shit...Anyway everything is so cheap there...
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If you're into beer check out this article:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/travel/21explorer.html?pagewanted=all
Overall I liked Hanoi more than HCMC, but that trip to Halong Bay is gonna eat up most of your time.
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Yeah, for the traveler, Hanoi is certainly more charming, easier to move around in and probably cheaper than HCMC. Official closing time for bars is 11:00 PM with only a handful of places operating later so there's that...The roundabout NW of Hoan Kiem has one of the few places to get a microbrew and watch the rush hour mayhem from the terrace...That beer article clearly shows the difference between the two cities - a lot of people give a pat answer of HCMC = Capitalism, Hanoi = Communism but it isn't really that simple. HCMC is certainly like a Bangkok junior. The bia hoi homebrew I have had here has been pretty nasty - I guess I need to start drinking it in the morning to get the fresh stuff...
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Thanks for all the input, folks! Much appreciated!
Really looking forward to go there - i'm sure it'll be a blast!
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Little tip for Halong Bay. If you spend the night on the boat, make sure you don't let some food lie around your cabin or your bags, otherwise you might attract some undesirable visitor or wake up next morning and find your bag infested by a coackroaches colony just like it happen to my buddy who was sleeping the cabin next to me. Otherwise bring yourself a case of beer aboard and have fun.
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If you're into beer check out this article:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/travel/21explorer.html?pagewanted=all
Overall I liked Hanoi more than HCMC, but that trip to Halong Bay is gonna eat up most of your time.
That's a great read. I want to get to Vietnam so bad. Pho and Belgian inspired beer. Heaven.
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No need to make a new thread I guess, but I'm moving to HCMC/Saigon in October and plan on being there for at least six months, if not longer...
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Just saw this thread now. Was in Vietnam for 3 weeks this summer and loved every place we went. Would have been in touch about Hanoi had I seen this earlier. Definitely the craziest city I've ever been to. How do you like living there?
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At first I was kind of opposed to it but I've come to embrace the chaos...Actually, outside of the Old Quarter, it isn't so crazy. We live around the Tay Ho (West Lake) area and there are peaceful spots here and there...the place has kinda grown on me, I guess. Its also that we have a really nice place and I work at home so I only have to wade into the chaos when I feel like it.
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At first I was kind of opposed to it but I've come to embrace the chaos...Actually, outside of the Old Quarter, it isn't so crazy. We live around the Tay Ho (West Lake) area and there are peaceful spots here and there...the place has kinda grown on me, I guess. Its also that we have a really nice place and I work at home so I only have to wade into the chaos when I feel like it.
Some spot around Tay Ho lake are definetely nice and quiet and doesn't have the chaos of the Old Quarter (which i like thought...). Are you south of the lake ? Many embassy and expat are there...
i would move there (or anywhere else in Nam) if i had the opportunity to do it for a few years. I went there twice (1 and 4 months respectively) and loved every single minute of it. It's definetely in my plan to go back there one day with my kid(s). I was invited to my friends wedding in HCMC this year but couldn't do it.
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One thing i liked most about Vietnam was the Coffee! Sooooo damn good! I could seriously bath in "Ca phe sura da".
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One thing i liked most about Vietnam was the Coffee! Sooooo damn good! I could seriously bath in "Ca phe sura da".
you are so right! both cà phê sua dá or just cà phê sua are soooo good!
I brought back a small metal drip filter home and bought sweetened condensed milk with finely ground dark coffee here (couldn't find a vietnamese brand here so it wasn't the real thing but still pretty good...) and use to make some all the time when i first got back from there. I kinda lost the habit of doing it over the year but you just remind me that i will have to do some again.
When i was in the central highland part doing reasearch studies, every single family i was meeting welcomed me either with a coffee/ or tea and always finished with rice alcool. After doing 8-10 families in a day i swear i could barely walk and drive my motorcycle! It was insane!
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I hear ya. I drank like 4 or 5 of those coffees every day until i was completely spastic and nerve-wrecked. Stuff just tastes too good so i couldn't stop but that shit is strong!
I also brought home a metal-filter and some vietnamese coffee and i do a nice icecafe every once in a while.
You should try and get the real vietnamese coffee instead of regular one. Should be easy enough to find either online or in some asia-markets.
It's kinda weird that they have such a great and unique coffee culture. Wonder where that comes from. In most other asian countries it's basically nescafe or tea all the way, which sucks, of course.
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Also, i wish these type of booths would exist over here:
(http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5344/7425959992_6885f680a8_z.jpg)
And finally, there's many a good reasons to donate in Vietnam (taken at Hanoi airport):
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/384350/IMG_2828.JPG)
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It's kinda weird that they have such a great and unique coffee culture. Wonder where that comes from. In most other asian countries it's basically nescafe or tea all the way, which sucks, of course.
It's a very long story i could explain you in much more detail but it's all related to the post-war "new economic zone" (NEZ) settled by the goverment in the central Highland in order to lowered the demographic pressure in region like Hanoi and the surrounding Red river Delta and also in south city like HCMC which has seen their population inflated by migration from the war. In order to do so they moved people in those new created zone where there was tons of space for people to settle in.
So by 1980, those NEZ became quite populated and it wasn't the best place (climate/condtion speaking) to cultivate rice. Since the central highland have the perfect climate and condition to grow coffee, by the beginning of the 1990's the government invested tons of money in programs to implement coffee culture in the central highland, they provided massive help to teach and help peasant to grow coffee and by 2004 Vietnam was then the second world producer of coffee behind Brazil.
obviously it is more complicated than that but that resume as a whole why Vietnam as such a good coffee culture.
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I had no idea that coffee was such a recent crop in Vietnam. That's some amazing growth curve. Vietnamese coffee has some inherent sweetness that I've never really encountered with other varieties...
Yeah, we've been living on the south side of the West Lake...I think my favorite area isn't so much the Old Quarter but rather the area south of there...the streets are a bit wider but it still has a lot of old buildings and stuff...
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I had no idea that coffee was such a recent crop in Vietnam. That's some amazing growth curve. Vietnamese coffee has some inherent sweetness that I've never really encountered with other varieties...
Well they planted coffee before the 90’s obviously (maybe late 60’s but more in the 70’s I think), but it was really in those years (90’s) that it all started and created the coffee boom of the country on the market. What use to be en Eldorado for most peasant at the beginning is now quite a disaster. The country has literally over flood the coffee market and completely destabilized world coffee market by creating too much offer VS the real demand which finally resulted in a massive drop of coffee prices all the around the world. Today most central highland peasant are having a hard time out of coffee culture because of the global decreasing market price but also due to the fact that many of them jumped head first in coffee “single crop farming culture” to the detriment of other crops.
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Bread and Butter has Huda, they play the smiths all the time and the patronage is 90% ILA first timer teachers who are kinda snooty, Dan is cool though, wasn't really my regular while I was there though. Whats Darts club like?
I have a love/hate with Bui Vien. I still have to go there to make "purchases" and now I've decided I like Huda - have only found it there. I've seen Bread and Butter but those little alleyway joints are depressing. There's a nice Greek place with supercheap gyros up there but I really cannot figure out the attraction for these old white long-term expats, sitting in a Pham Ngu Lao alleyway watching the trinket and tobacco hawkers, and tourists...
Darts Bar is a darts bar apparently. I know some serious darts players who go there and by chance an ex-employee of my wife worked/works there. They've had live music there before apparently so the sound might not be horrid...
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Yeah, pham ngu lao sucks in general, i still spent a lot of time drinking there. My roomates used to work at vascos in the snooty part of d1 so I went there a lot too, go vap district is still my favorite.
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The show was really great. The local viet. band was a nice surprise - the last song some guy turned to me and said they were trying channel Sonic Youth. I asked the singer/gtr what bands he listens to and he mentioned SY!...The sound was surprisingly great - Null was using two small Vox amps but it was loud as fuck and Yoshida is just an amazing drummer. It would've been great to see them with Tabata tho...Met Dan there and some other Americans around my age so that was cool also. I hope they have more live shows at this Darts bar because it is within walking distance from my house...
I don't think I've ever heard of Go Vap...I live in Q1 and am still trying to discover all its nooks and crannies - and nearby Q3.
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Record shopping in Saigon:
http://issuu.com/wordvietnam/docs/word_vietnam_october_2014__fa__/0
or
http://wordvietnam.com/images/printmag/Word_Vietnam_October_2014.pdf
go to p. 88