Long overdue Vietnam post

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Since I've got back my laptop, now I will start to craft about Vietnam. First and foremost, it wasn't the bestest trip because I'd realized that we did not calculate our money for the trip properly and THIS trip made A lost interest in travelling because it was his first trip to a non-halal country.

You see, we got different views of travelling. A's type is vacation, luxury, good food and private pool. For me, I don't care much about the hotel or food but mine to the sightseeing and activities we are doing. So combined together, with tight budget (I'll tell you at the end of the blog), we ended up scrapping a lot of things from the initial plan.

You can read my previous post on how we initially planned. This post will tell you about the planned and the real deal.


We love Da Lat but people there dont know how to converse in English and ZERO halal food. We were ripped off when we landed in Da Lat airport thinking of taking taxi to our hotel from the taxi counter, paid the amount, around SGD30-40 and when we reached, we had to pay the taxi driver again. I tried to explain but A said just pay him. Haiz. Hotel was awesome! The view is awesome. And it is colder there. Much more nicer than Cameron Highlands.

We stayed at Terracotta. Away from their town but it was a bliss!

Their so called Eifel Tower



So I contacted a few agencies and found one that is cheaper than the rest. Even my friend's contact was quite expensive.

Initially: HCM-Mui Ne-Dalat-Nha Thrang-HCM
Planned: HCM-Dalat-Nha Trang-HCM
Real deal: HCM-Dalat-HCM

Because we were ripped off at the airport, we decided to save a bit money by not going to Nha Thrang and the journey to and fro is like 6 hours and we dont have much time. What's there in Nha Thrang, another city without halal food but the beach is super awesome!

The day we landed we went sightseeing using this company: Saigon Private Car +84 902 689 426
They charged us USD60 for around Da Lat sightseeing, I think around 4 places we went and 1 food place.


We went Datana Waterfall and something like luge to go down from the hill top. So cool! We were not allowed to take a plunge in the waters because of the rapids was too strong. 



You can watch this video for the experience. I cant my video of this but its okay I guess.

Then we went for cable car ride. It is quite eerie and calming at the same time because it is out of nowhere and so silent we can only hear like birds chirping and some wolves howling.


Then we went to the flower garden. It was super huge and it started to feel cold. Colder than normal, I think around 12-13 degrees.



And last but not least, we reached to our food place. We became vegan for 3 days and oh boy we are so happy to reach Ho Chi Minh to eat halal food! Had lunch+dinner. This place is kinda trusted because the rest, we dont really understand and they too cant speak English. It's a bit pricey to compare to the street foods but we dont dare to eat them. This shop is famous vegetarian restaurant there and they sell halal (from Malaysia) snacks and maggi! Anyways, we were like the centre of attraction, or only me because they never seen a person wearing headscarf before. The patrons like asking where I am from and why I wear the headscarf. Oh, she thought I was from Malaysia because she didnt think Singapore has Muslim people.

If you feel really waswas, I think you just bring your own food and cook it

We brought our own cute cooker but we only use it for cooking maggi and porridge. Should had bring more things so we can play masak-masak.




ALL VEGGIES!! No I didn't complain, I eat veggies and I dont mind eating veggies but I am not ready to be vegetarian. My body was a bit cuckoo because of no meat intake. I should have prepared myself in detox and cleansing my body. heh

There's a lot of cafe and with WIFI so we could just chill and take some time to surf net (no InstaStory back then and I wasnt really into snapchat). We had great time around the resort area too with a very nice scenery and weather. Oh there's this one time we were asking the waiter to take a photo of us at his cafe because of the dope deco, he asked us to kiss each other while he takes a photo. Lol! Talking about how open they are. I mean, kite melayu masih ade segan silu kot. But they are very traditional in a way they dress. Some/Most of them would wear their traditional clothes, sort of chongsam with high slit and wearing baggy pants underneath. 

When we headed to HCM, it was so hot, humid and dusty compared to Dalat. We both suddenly not keen so much in HCM which we ditched the Mekong River ride and the War Memorial site. We just go city sightseeing on our own with our handy-dandy map. Dah mcm Dora the Explorer tau coz I have a list of halal food eateries in HCM that I saved so we just need to indicate them at which district. 

Map courtesy of Silverland Hotel. Those cards are the clothes that we tailor-made at Ben Thanh market
The hotel was squeezy, the toilet even worse! But the rooftop pool was a good one. We enjoyed as if it was our private pool and it was much more expensive than Da Lat's resort. A freaking resort. Anyways, food in HCM also quite expensive compared to Da Lat and having halal food makes it more expensive than normal food. But I'm glad we found halal eateries because I need meat!! I had chicken and A had Pho beef. Mengerapu makan! 



Oh and we didnt managed to find Naelofar Hijab there that was super cheap they say, $5! Or even telekung2. Baju kurung yes, can tailor-made and we did baju raya and his working shirts there.


A photo posted by Fiza Aw (@fiza_licious) on

I think this is their parliament house or something

The awesome cool Post Offce that is still running. You can write postcards to yourself back home.


The Saigon Mosque


Okay done!! Like finally!!

We were short of money because both Da Lat and HCM hotels (through Booking) held half of the payment and not full (partly my fault I didnt check on it, i overlooked thinking that both hotels were paid full) and both our cards didnt work so we had to use our cash. I brought extra $150 and A had $100 and all had to fund the hotels. and i did tell you about halal food was expensive, because the prata cost like $2 per piece so imagine the rest? i think more like we paying dalat meal for both of us on only my meal in HCM. so sad cant shop or do things much. huhu but itsssokayyy, the experience counts right? hehhehe. that's why we love da lat more than HCM in overall. Maybe if we didnt go Da Lat and stayed at HCM should be fine. haha

Location: Dalat, Lรขm ฤแป“ng, Vietnam

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