Collect Moments

Venice, Sunset at Rialto bridge Cover the earth before it covers you.  Was searching online for a suitable tagline (as usual) for the upcoming post and came cross this, I thought it's rather humorous, and so very true. For we all will turn into a pinch of dust and return to the Earth, someday. Anyhow, Lnr and I took twelve precious (more precious to me for he has plenty) annual leave and embarked on a nineteen days trip to southern Europe - spanning across seven places in two countries ( or three if we consider Vatican is a city-state of its own). As with the past trips, it was two and half happy weeks spent with Lnr as we gazed at the marvellous marble status in amazement; watched the same sun sets into the horizon; revelled in palatable local cuisines; and snapping a thousand pictures. We booked the flight tickets five months in advance and spent the next couple months planning our itineraries, booking train and accommodations one weekend at a time. All of a sudden ...

X in chào !  Instead of heading to Lombok for a 3D2N Rinjani trekking and some snorkelling by the Gili islands, Lnr and I made last minute cancellation to our flights and changed our destination to Viet Nam in early Sep after several powerful earthquake struck Lombok weeks before the trip. While I was a little disappointed and concerned about the change, the trip turned out to be very favourable and we had a really fond week there, fortunate enough to be showered by kindness and friendliness from the few local point of contact we had. We were highly recommended by my colleague to consider trekking the tallest mountain @ Viet Nam - Fansipan for its breathtaking above-the-clouds sunrise views, as well as visting areas near Ninh Binh for it's tranquillity and karst mountain/cave formations, nicknamed the inland 'halong bay'. We thereby planned our trip hastily to cover 3 places, namely Hanoi, Sapa and Ninh Binh.  We spent just half a day in the capital city Hano...