Ha Long Bay ... series 2...

Hạ Long Bay (literally: Descending Dragon bay; Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCOWorld Heritage site located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes.

Perhaps this photos justify why this location was chosen by UNESCO as one of the 7th Nature World Wonder....

Congregation of tour boat, slowly entering the secluded, hidden local floating fishing village....
It's just like discovering new civilization....
The local floating fish farm....you could buy the seafood here and cook on the boat... but the price quite premium...  
the boat goes deeper into the bay....

Ha Long Bay....

A fews weeks ago, my friends and I managed to visit Ha Long Bay... famous natural tourist attraction not so far away from Ha Noi... And since every nature wonder have their own local legend... I just attached the information from Wikipedia.

Local legend has it that long ago, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth and decided to live here then. The place where Mother Dragon flew down was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island (Bái: attend upon, Tử: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vỹ island (Bạch: white- colour of the foam made when Children Dragon wriggle, Long: dragon, Vỹ: tail).

 
Bird of prey.... 
Captain and boat crew....
Nearing the location...
We are at the entrance of the fishing village..

Friday night traffic chaos + nice local house....

This photos was taken from my office building, on Friday night recently.  This among teh main junction in the city and there are traffic lights.... but the traffic just chaotic.... 
Just imagine yourself driving or riding bike or ... taking chance crossing the road.  I saw there are two traffic police officer manning the traffic...  but the traffic just seem uncontrollable... probably in our outsider eyes... For the local, it's normal day as usual.... 
Police traffic here has such a magic power when controlling the traffic... probably the obedience of the peoples or the harsh punishment if you disobey... 
We visit a few sites today, and I was quite amazed with the nice houses in this area.. the design probably influenced by the French...  I could saw they have small fruits orchard,  vegetable gardens and reared a few chickens...  Even rich people here reared chickens... 
Most of the house have the national flag... perhaps belong to important party member.....

Halal restaurant in Hanoi....

As far as I know, this is the only halal restaurant in Ha Noi... although there's 1-2 more restaurants claimed they are halal... their defination of halal is unconvincing...

Nisa restaurant is operated by uncle Ben Taat, a Malaysian who has been living here for quite a long time... The above picture is the local gift shops nearby the restaurant... since I have problem with my upload here... I just keep it there...
The menu comprising local Malay, Indian and Western dishes...  and they are delicious... the portions is generous ... and the pricing if you compare to Malaysia is quite high, but if you compare to the local dishes here.... it's reasonable... about RM20 per person.

I was amazed to see the owner collections of photos, from the photos of him with the famous public figures.. such as presidents, ministers, politician, artist..... to photos of his involvement in Sepaktakraw game in various countries....
This is the restaurant name card... keep it with you as you need it when you want to direct the taxi driver to the location... they don't speak English here..... so a card with local address really helpfull..

the ambience inside is quite cosy and relaxing... place for Malaysian use to hang out for tea tarik and chat.... the usual patrons are Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean... and foreigner who loved the food.... 
front view of the restaurant.....