Back to KL

Dee and I left the hotel at 7.30 for our trip back to KL. I had to take an extra bag for all the stuff I had bought! We had breakfast at the airport and boarded out Air Asia flight back to KL. We both slept most of the way and after getting out of the airport, we caught the bus and a taxi and then we were back at Stonor Park.

It was 4pm at this stage and we were starving so we walked over to KLCC for some sushi. Ross met us and we walked over the road to Avenue K for a drink. We walked home, had a quick refresh and then drove out to Tamarind Springs for dinner. We had a great meal of Laotian, Cambodian and Vietnamese food (just so Dee felt at home after her travels :-)).

Back at home, we enjoyed a few cowboy shooters with our newly purchased butterscotch schnapps before falling into bed after a long day! It's nice to be back home.

Last full day in Hanoi

This morning started reasonably early as I awoke again to the propaganda being pumped out of the loud speakers up the road. I had a quick breakfast and then jumped in a taxi to take me to the Temple of Knowledge. I had read that the temple was definitely worth seeing and they recommended that you get there before the tour buses so I arrived about 8.30am.

I got out of the taxi and was met with a sea of people trying to get tickets for the temple. Everyone seemed to be local though - hardly any tourists. So I joined the throng and followed the locals in pushing my way to the front of the ticket booth and shoving my 20,000 Dong through the hole to get my ticket. I literally had to elbow my way out of the ticket booth and by the time I reached a bit of space, I had worked up a sweat - I just had to laugh!

After taking a couple of minutes to compose myself, I walked with the crowd through into the temple area. It seemed that all the locals were there to offer prayers to the idols in the temple before heading off to work. The temple itself was the first university in Hanoi and around the central lake, a ring of tablets with the name of each person who graduated from the university with a doctorate degree.

As I walked into the first temple, I was struck by the strong smell of incense burning and I stood and watching people offer money and prayers to the idols. The religion in Vietnam is a blend of many religions many based on Buddhism so it was a little familiar to temples I had seen in Thailand.

I left the first temple and headed to the larger, two storey temple at the back. Again, more people praying and giving offerings to more idols. I climbed up the stairs and had a great view of the temple grounds. I walked back slowly along the outside walls of the temple grounds. The temple was OK but nothing too spectacular. Definitely not worth the argy-bargy I had to go through to get the ticket!

From the temple, I walked up the street until I came across a little cafe called Smile. I had read about this cafe in the guide book as they trained former street kids in hospitality and they work in the cafe. I popped in for a quick cappuccino and a pain au chocolat and sat there planning my next move while dunking my croissant.

I continued up the road and headed into the Museum of Fine Art. In the first building I found an amazing display of the costumes and artefacts of the different ethnic groups found throughout Vietnam. It was amazing how many groups there were and how different their traditional clothing was.

I wandered through the different levels of the museum looking at ceramics, paintings, sculptures and religious artefacts for the rest of the morning. It was a great museum and well worth visiting. I really enjoyed wandering around and for the majority of the time that I was there, I was the only one in the museum.

From the museum, I wandered up the road and stumbled upon a groovy little English language bookstore. I bought a Bobby Chinn cookbook which I thought would be a good one to have seeing as Dee and I were going to his restaurant tonight. I also looked around a great furniture, homewear store called Dome.

By this time I was incredibly hot and sweaty so I walked back down the road and found my way to Koto, another restaurant that trains and employs disadvantaged youth. Dee text me to say she was on her way back into town from Halong Bay so I had sat in the Koto Temple Bar and had a drink while reading my cookbook waiting for her to arrive.

Dee turned up soon after and we ordered great food - prawns, green mango salad and other appetizers - and as usual, a couple more beers! We were quite merry by this stage so we walked back to Dee's hotel and picked up her stuff before jumping in a cab to my hotel where Dee was going to stay with me tonight.

We relaxed for a little while before heading out to hit the shops for the last time. I took Dee to the couple of the boutiques I had been to down the street from the hotel then we headed back into the Old Quarter to pick up the last couple of things Dee was looking for. We took a cyclo through the streets of Hanoi which was an interesting and somewhat 'scary' experience! See video.

We stopped into Le Pub (again!) where they had $2 cocktail specials today and had a couple of drinks while we watched the world go by. Dee found her tea set and other bits and pieces she was looking for on the same street and we grabbed another cyclo back to the Old Quarter to pick up the dress that I was having made before we walked back to the hotel.

We arrived in time to have a shower to refresh ourselves before heading out to dinner. We jumped in a cab again and headed a fair way out of the city to Restaurant Bobby Chin. The restaurant had moved locations recently and the old location was close to the hotel but now we traveled for about 30 minutes out of the city to a tiny nondescript villa where the restaurant had relocated.

As we arrived, both Dee and I were a little wary as the place looked a bit dodgy but as soon as we went inside, we could tell it was a pretty cool restaurant. We had a glass of Prosecco in the downstairs lounge before heading up to dinner. The chef Bobby Chinn is half Egyptian, half Chinese so we weren't too surprised when we saw shisha pipes on the tables!

After our cocktail we headed upstairs to the tiny dining room. The place was packed but this meant that there were about 15 people there! The waiter was really friendly and helpful and we enjoyed an amazing meal with a bottle of wine. The standout of the night was the red grapes coated in goat's cheese and pistachio nuts - an odd combination but like a party in your mouth! The beetroot salad was also amazing as were the coconut prawns and the chicken curry.

We finished the meal with a trio of creme brulee - amazing! We were so full but managed to roll downstairs again for a final cocktail and some shisha. We lounged about on the diwania for an hour or so and before we knew it, we were the last ones in the restaurant! We asked the staff to call us a cab and we headed home after an amazing night - great food, great atmosphere and great company!

Happy Birthday Ross!

Although Ross' birthday celebrations really started last night at midnight, his birthday "day" started by me waking him up at 6am. OK, this may not sound like much of a birthday so far but I planned to take Ross on an early morning hike so we could watch the sunrise from the top of a ridge overlooking the city. Champagne breakfast included in the deal.

However, due to the festivities of the night before, we were both a bit rough and struggled to function too quickly. I packed up the backpack with all the essentials (including last minute additions of Berocca and Nurofen) and then we headed out in the car.

I had a vague idea of where we were heading so set the GPS to where I thought we should be. It was still dark and we ended up past Zoo Negara (the National Zoo) winding our way up an ever narrowing road towards the ridge. We passed through a tiny kampung (village) which was pretty cool in the pre-dawn mist.

After deciding this wasn't the place we were supposed to be, I reset the GPS to another local. This time I had it right and we ended up at the Klang Gates Dam in Taman Melawati where the trek up to Bukit Tabur begins.

Because we took a slight detour before getting there, it was now well past sunrise but still early (and cool) enough. We followed a few other people up the near vertical path to the top of the ridge. It was magnificent! The ridge itself is made out of quartz crystal and the trail gives you views of the Klang Gates Dam and also a great view of the city. As you can see from the photo, we took some time up the top to soak in the view. I would like to say it was also serene but a very "chirpy" university group were also climbing the ridge this morning.

Neither of us felt like breakfast (let alone champagne!) so we sucked down the water and recovered from our hangovers from the night before. After the climb down, we headed home and felt pretty good about ourselves that we managed to do all this before 9am considering our delicate condition.

That being said, we hit the shower and then fell back into bed. I gave Ross his present (Shure Sound Isolating headphones and a bottle of 2002 Petaluma Shiraz) and the present that Ann gave him before we soundly fell asleep. I didn't surface again until 1pm!

I had organized a masseuse to come to the house for an hour and a half massage for Ross at 2pm so by the time he came out of that he looked pretty relaxed! We spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch before heading off to dinner at the revolving restaurant at Menara KL (KL Tower).

We picked Jason up at his hotel and headed out there. It was quite the experience! Beautiful views but it was completely full of tourists (no surprise) and families with toddlers. The tourists were pushing past everyone's tables to get the best views for their photos and the toddlers were running around and shrieking - not exactly the quiet dinner I had planned! The food was ok but nothing to rave home about. So basically I would say it is a good place to go for the view of KL at night but not really the place for a quiet or romantic dinner.

Jason, Ross and I headed to the bar downstairs in Starhill Gallery for a cocktail before walking home. I think Ross had a pretty good birthday all up :-)

Dinner at Tamarind Springs

Today was a pretty leisurely day. Ann and I had our nails done, Dad and Ann picked up their new glasses and we picked up the camel rug from having the hanging loops put on it.

We also went to Tamarind Springs for dinner. It is a great restaurant serving a variety of food from Thai, Italian and Indo-China. After a gin and tonic at sundown, we sat down to a sumptuous meal of steamed bass with lemon grass, cashew and lime sauce, spicy broccoli and tofu, Cambodian Lok Lak (beef curry) and local lobster in tamarind sauce. It was enough to feed a small village!

As you can see from the photo, the fish was served whole but was filleted on both sides and was delicious! We topped off the meal by having dragon fruit with rum and raison icecream and fried bananas with Grand Marnier sauce and icecream. The restaurant is in a beautiful setting only about 15 minutes from the city but you really feel you are in the jungle. It also overlooks the golf course. Definitely recommended if you are visiting KL.