So far we have been to Ko Phi Phi, Ko Tao, and lastly Ko Pha Ngan.
Ko Phi Phi was verrrrrry touristy. No locals besides those working in the tourist industry. It was a bit pricey, but GORGEOUS. There was a spit of flat land with beach on either side that contained all the buildings, and on either side were huge towering limestone mountains. Mike and I rented kayaks one day and kayaked out of one bay to Monkey Beach. We did see one old monkey while we were there. It was nice since there were only a few other people. We spent our time there constructing a person-sized car out of sand. Other than that, just relaxed, ate some good food, and went to some crazy beach bars at night that had people spinning fire batons, hot rope jump (i.e. a burning rope) which both Mike and I tried, and fire limbo. It wasn't as dangerous as you would think, somehow. A bit hot though. Spent 3 days there total.
At Ko Tao we stayed in a very remote cove that you had to take a 4x4 truck over crazy roads to get to. It was really nice, and we stayed in a bungalow with a hammock out front that overlooked the bay, beach and beautiful blossom trees below. Spent our one full day there on a snorkeling trip. The snorkeling was surprisingly very good, almost (but not quite) as good as that in Oz. The coral was beautifully and brightly coloured, yellows and oranges and blues. Lots of fish. One bay had a lot of old waterbottles and some garbage, which was sad. But lots of cool rock formations to swim through.
At Ko Pha Ngan, we spent our first few days at Bottle Beach, which is a remote beach up North that you have to get to by boat. It was a perfect beach paradise. We stayed in a nice bungalow by the beach and spent a lot of time relaxing an reading. Mike participated in nightly soccer games with the locals (my toes had raw blisters from wearing fins, so I sat out). We were very sad to leave, but decided to head south to get in the full moon party spirit. Mike threw his back out this morning, just before we were going to catch a truck into Haad Rin, which is the town where the Full Moon Party is. (Yes, the other recent option to get out of Bottle Beach is to take a 4x4 truck over some very steep, bumpy roads. Not so pleasant for Mike's back...) Fortunately they dropped us off at a clinic in Haad Rin, and I was lucky enough to find cheap accomodation near to the clinic and the beach where the party is. Don't worry, Mike is still able to walk around and he got some pain killers from the clinic. It was pretty good timing, as we will just be laying on the beach for a few days before heading back to Bangkok!
This will probably be the last post of the trip...the full moon party is on the 26th, so we are looking forward to that! The day after we catch transport back to Bangkok, where we spend one more night before our flight home!
Thanks for reading!!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Cambodia
We spent a total of...48 hours in Cambodia. We had mixed feelings about it. First we stopped over at Sihanoukville while waiting for a night bus to Siem Riep. Sihanoukville is a verrrry touristy beach town. I realllly did not like it. The beaches were overcrowded, lined with bars blasting terrible music, and you were constantly bomboarded by beggers and people selling things such as hair wax jobs using dental floss. It was way overpriced too, and we ended up spending more than double or triple on meals than we have anywhere in SE Asia. That was a surprise, since we expected Cambodia to be the cheapest. We think it's because they use the USD as a second currency, so everything is priced by the dollar. Fortunately we weren't in Sihanoukville long.
Siem Riep was very pretty, surrounded by a river/canal thing lined with trees. Sort of reminded me of Chiang Mai. Lots of guesthouses and good restaurants. We ate some DELICIOUS Cambodian food (I ate amok, which was sort of like a less-runny Thai red curry wrapped in banana leaves and served with rice, and Mike had Lok Lak)...I was very sad not to have more time to experience the delicious Cambodian food! Angkor Wat was AMAZING. Beautiful. Huge temples covered in ornate carvings, crumbling temples with faces carved in them or huge jungle trees growing through them. Saw the one in Tomb Raiders. It was one of our favs. We didn't run into as many children begging as we expected, but when we did we were ready with stickers to give them, and they were so cute! They smiled, said thank you, and then ran away. Or asked for one for their younger sibling at home. It turned what could have been an unpleasant experience into a positive one. Oh, and surrounding the temples were vast expanses of jungle with paths running throughout....with monkeys! Tons and tons of monkeys! Lots of parents holding babies. It was soooo cute. One of my favourite parts of visiting Angkor! After a day of temple viewing, we were done and ready to move on, back to Thailand. We left the next morning.
Siem Riep was very pretty, surrounded by a river/canal thing lined with trees. Sort of reminded me of Chiang Mai. Lots of guesthouses and good restaurants. We ate some DELICIOUS Cambodian food (I ate amok, which was sort of like a less-runny Thai red curry wrapped in banana leaves and served with rice, and Mike had Lok Lak)...I was very sad not to have more time to experience the delicious Cambodian food! Angkor Wat was AMAZING. Beautiful. Huge temples covered in ornate carvings, crumbling temples with faces carved in them or huge jungle trees growing through them. Saw the one in Tomb Raiders. It was one of our favs. We didn't run into as many children begging as we expected, but when we did we were ready with stickers to give them, and they were so cute! They smiled, said thank you, and then ran away. Or asked for one for their younger sibling at home. It turned what could have been an unpleasant experience into a positive one. Oh, and surrounding the temples were vast expanses of jungle with paths running throughout....with monkeys! Tons and tons of monkeys! Lots of parents holding babies. It was soooo cute. One of my favourite parts of visiting Angkor! After a day of temple viewing, we were done and ready to move on, back to Thailand. We left the next morning.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Southern Vietnam
Welll....I have a lot to catch up on! I suppose I should start from the beginning...
Hue
Another big city, but delightfully laid back compared to Hanoi. Much less honking, a pretty river running through the middle and a nice backpacker area with delicious restaurants. We only spent one day and night there, but enjoyed it. We walked around old Hue across the river and then hired a little "cyclo" (little cart towed by a bicycle) to drive us around and show us some temples and ruins and things, since it was soooo hot. We saw the citadel, which is a walled in area of temples and ruins. The ruins were due to American bombing. Wandered around some markets too.
Hoi An
Probably my favourite place in Vietnam, this was a very cute little old town with streets lined with tailors (TONS - this is THE place to get custom-made clothes, and there are about 200 tailors...don't know how they all make money!), restaurants, art and lantern shops. It had a very relaxed feel, which was much needed for us. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and spent much time relaxing by it during the very hot afternoons. We ate some amazing "Hoi An specialty" food too. My favourite was Cau Lao, a dish with home made noodles, pork, fresh spices and crunchy chip things. I ate it for almost every meal, and unfortunately never saw it again outside of Hoi An! There were also delicious Vietnamese savoury pancakes with meat and sprouts and other veggies, which you wrapped in lettuce and then rice paper, and dipped in a fish sauce.
Mike and I both got clothes made, of course. Mike got a suit made, which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare because at first they made it much too small. Fortunately we had a full other day and a half so we had time to demand changes, and in the end it was pretty decent. I tended to just try on clothes the tailors had on display, and ended up getting a few dresses and skirts and shorts. We spent two nights and three days there, or was it three nights and 4 days? I can't remember. It was really nice though.
I forgot to mention, we caught a few overnight buses along the way down South and they were insanely futuristic. They had three rows of narrow bunk bed type things, but one person's feet were in a little pocket under the other person's nearly fully reclined bed. It was a bit cramped (especially for Mike) but we actually slept quite well on them. I did, at least :). Mike spent his first night on one spooning with two other Canadian guys haha. (Usually there is an aisle between each row, but not at the very back!)
Mui Ne
We skipped Nha Trang, which seemed to us to be like a big touristy Honolulu, and headed straight for quieter Mui Ne. We splurged on a nice beach front room and spent a few days relaxing on the beach, eating and drinking cheap beer. We had wanted to go kite surfing or seadooing, but it was surprisingly expensive ($50/hour for kite surfing, and $60/hr for seadoo).
Ho Chi Minh City a.k.a Saigon
Saigon was quite awesome. A more relaxed, neon, less honking version of Hanoi. We stayed in a very narrow guesthouse down a very narrow alley/road thing (only wide enough for a motorbike). At night we stopped at a local beer place, which was basically a bunch of tables set up on a sidewalk, and drank "bia hoi" (fresh beer, verry low percentage but tasty) with a cool American who had been living in Saigon for 9 months and a bunch of his Vietnamese friends. Bia hoi was 12000 D per litre...i.e. Mike and I drank 5L for about $3!
Next day we went to the War Remnants Museum, which was a museum with lots of pictures and things from the war between Vietnam and the states. Very very disturbing, with very graphic pictures, especially of incredibly deformed kids who were born after the US sprayed toxic gases to kill all Vietnam crops. Definitely an eye opener. We walked back to the hotel and stopped at various local (cheap!) bakeries, electronic stores and markets. We really enjoyed the day.
Mekong Delta
Had a great two day tour of the Mekong Delta, despite a few hiccups which will discuss later. The Mekong Delta basically is a giant network of rivers and deltas/islands/the land near the river banks. It obviously has very fertile soil, so there's lots of agriculture. A lot of the people there are very poor though, and live in little stilt houses along the river bank and bathe/dump trash/swim/transport their goods via the river. The first day we took a boat to an island and stopped at a few cool places there. The first was a bee keeper/honey harvesting place, and we got to sit down and try a few honey candies (such as ginger (gross), peanut brittle (delicious) and some other little round thing I am not sure of...) and honey and lemon tea. Mike tried a snak shot too, which he says was "NOT GOOD". Apparently it had a very long lasting after taste that was even worse, and he actually ate ginger candies (which he also didn't like) to get rid of it. By the way, the snake shot was a snake preserved in some sort of alcohol. They also had scorpion liquor too. Gross.
Then we went to a fruit selling place and got to try several different fruits such as jack fruit, which is one of the largest fruits in the world, and looks like a large, roundish green bumpy thing from the outside. The inside has little orange sections with pits inside. I decided it tasted similar to juicy fruit gum, somehow. While we ate we got to listen to a Vietnamese band play traditional music with all sorts of crazy stringed instruments. Mike discovered that country music is no longer his least favourite. There were lots of clashing notes and the singing was a bit strange, but it was still cool to experience once. Then we got paddled in a little row boat for half an hour through some of the small waterways between the islands, which was very pretty. We also went to a coconut candy making place and got to see how it was made and taste it - quite delicious! That night we stayed in a hotel in Can Tao, which was actually a very large city. We spent the night wandering and found a crazy multi-floored grocery store - the third floor was an arcade! It was packed with people too. Also found some of the cheapest internet ever...3000 dong per hour (i.e. about 15 cents).
Next day we hopped on a boat and went on a tour of the floating market at Can Tao. Tons of farmers pile their boat full of one type of fruit and sell it for wholesale prices. They display what they are selling but hanging one fruit from a very tall upright rod. Then we stopped by a vermicelli noodle making factory, which was a family run business using very traditional methods. First they mix crushed rice with tapioca and boil it over a fire, then spread it like a crepe to create a rice paper type thing, then let the paper dry in the sun on bamboo mats, and then slice it into thin noodles. Very little went to waste - rice husks were burned to fuel the fire, and could then be sold to farmers (in their blackened form) to make food for livestock and possibly fertilizer. We also stopped at a rice husking/grinding factory.
Unfortunately a few things didn't go according to plan as our travel agent had told us it would, and the tour guide told us he wouldn't drop us off at the bus station as we were promised (we wanted to catch a bus down to Rach Gia to get to Phu Quoc) since it was too far from the tour bus route (8km). But he helped us get a more expensive bus to the hotel at least, and we ended up sharing an air con'd van with a broken bench to Rach Gia with some other cool travelers (who we later hung out with at Phu Quoc). We were a little worried since some things already weren't going as our travel agent promised, especially since we also booked ferries to and from Phu Quoc with her and a bus to Siem Riep (some of which we didn't have tickets for yet), but everything ended up working out very smoothly.
We didn't do much in Rach Gia except use it as a port to Phu Quoc. It was very un-touristy and no one spoke English, our hotel included. But we managed to find a post office and mail some things (although mailing stuff in Communist countries is apparently a huge pain in the ass...they check everything you are sending very carefully and make you document it all in great detail...and they didn't speak a word of English!) and we had some tasty vermicelli from a roadside vendor.
Phu Quoc
Phu Quoc was really nice - an undeveloped gorgeous beach island. We stayed in a great little place on the beach with really excellent staff. Our favourite, Hao (sp?), served us beers on the beach in our lawn chairs and got us to teach him some English phrases. And there were tons of dogs running around, including 3 cute puppies, which I loved. The bungalow we stayed in was really nice, and the resort had a beachfront restaurant which served great food.
We spent the first two days exploring the island along its undeveloped dirt roads via motorbike. Day 1 we went to Sao Beach, which is a gorgeous beach with pristine, calm turquoise waters, white sand and palm trees. We stopped at a fishing village in the south (the least touristy place in Vietnam thus far), which smelled pretty bad. (I think due to all the dried seafood sold along the road?) Day 2 we road up North along some slightly crazier, bumpy roads. We spent some time at a secluded beach where we saw not one other person. It was very nice, except I stepped on a sea urchin (I think, it left a bit of a whitish spine in my foot at first) which was fairly unpleasant. Fortunately it didn't bleed/sting much after I got out of the water. Then, as we drove up to the Northern most fishing village, we found out our bike's tires were flat. We had managed to pull over right in front of a motorbike mechanic so he fixed our tire. However, shortly after we left, our other tire blew, so we had to drive back and get that one fixed. Then again about 5 minutes down the road, the back tire blew again (this time the valve patch just blew straight off...perhaps a crappy tube or they overfilled the tire?) It was a VERY frustrating experience (although the locals, who were very difficult to communicate with because of the language barrier, thought it was hilarious) and we ended up not getting home until 6pm, but we had a very nice dinner/drinks with the friends we met previously afterward, which made up for it. The next day we abstained from the motorbike and spent the whole day relaxing on the beach. It was great.
The next morning we caught a ferry to Ha Tien and then a bus to Cambodia...more on that later!
Hue
Another big city, but delightfully laid back compared to Hanoi. Much less honking, a pretty river running through the middle and a nice backpacker area with delicious restaurants. We only spent one day and night there, but enjoyed it. We walked around old Hue across the river and then hired a little "cyclo" (little cart towed by a bicycle) to drive us around and show us some temples and ruins and things, since it was soooo hot. We saw the citadel, which is a walled in area of temples and ruins. The ruins were due to American bombing. Wandered around some markets too.
Hoi An
Probably my favourite place in Vietnam, this was a very cute little old town with streets lined with tailors (TONS - this is THE place to get custom-made clothes, and there are about 200 tailors...don't know how they all make money!), restaurants, art and lantern shops. It had a very relaxed feel, which was much needed for us. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and spent much time relaxing by it during the very hot afternoons. We ate some amazing "Hoi An specialty" food too. My favourite was Cau Lao, a dish with home made noodles, pork, fresh spices and crunchy chip things. I ate it for almost every meal, and unfortunately never saw it again outside of Hoi An! There were also delicious Vietnamese savoury pancakes with meat and sprouts and other veggies, which you wrapped in lettuce and then rice paper, and dipped in a fish sauce.
Mike and I both got clothes made, of course. Mike got a suit made, which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare because at first they made it much too small. Fortunately we had a full other day and a half so we had time to demand changes, and in the end it was pretty decent. I tended to just try on clothes the tailors had on display, and ended up getting a few dresses and skirts and shorts. We spent two nights and three days there, or was it three nights and 4 days? I can't remember. It was really nice though.
I forgot to mention, we caught a few overnight buses along the way down South and they were insanely futuristic. They had three rows of narrow bunk bed type things, but one person's feet were in a little pocket under the other person's nearly fully reclined bed. It was a bit cramped (especially for Mike) but we actually slept quite well on them. I did, at least :). Mike spent his first night on one spooning with two other Canadian guys haha. (Usually there is an aisle between each row, but not at the very back!)
Mui Ne
We skipped Nha Trang, which seemed to us to be like a big touristy Honolulu, and headed straight for quieter Mui Ne. We splurged on a nice beach front room and spent a few days relaxing on the beach, eating and drinking cheap beer. We had wanted to go kite surfing or seadooing, but it was surprisingly expensive ($50/hour for kite surfing, and $60/hr for seadoo).
Ho Chi Minh City a.k.a Saigon
Saigon was quite awesome. A more relaxed, neon, less honking version of Hanoi. We stayed in a very narrow guesthouse down a very narrow alley/road thing (only wide enough for a motorbike). At night we stopped at a local beer place, which was basically a bunch of tables set up on a sidewalk, and drank "bia hoi" (fresh beer, verry low percentage but tasty) with a cool American who had been living in Saigon for 9 months and a bunch of his Vietnamese friends. Bia hoi was 12000 D per litre...i.e. Mike and I drank 5L for about $3!
Next day we went to the War Remnants Museum, which was a museum with lots of pictures and things from the war between Vietnam and the states. Very very disturbing, with very graphic pictures, especially of incredibly deformed kids who were born after the US sprayed toxic gases to kill all Vietnam crops. Definitely an eye opener. We walked back to the hotel and stopped at various local (cheap!) bakeries, electronic stores and markets. We really enjoyed the day.
Mekong Delta
Had a great two day tour of the Mekong Delta, despite a few hiccups which will discuss later. The Mekong Delta basically is a giant network of rivers and deltas/islands/the land near the river banks. It obviously has very fertile soil, so there's lots of agriculture. A lot of the people there are very poor though, and live in little stilt houses along the river bank and bathe/dump trash/swim/transport their goods via the river. The first day we took a boat to an island and stopped at a few cool places there. The first was a bee keeper/honey harvesting place, and we got to sit down and try a few honey candies (such as ginger (gross), peanut brittle (delicious) and some other little round thing I am not sure of...) and honey and lemon tea. Mike tried a snak shot too, which he says was "NOT GOOD". Apparently it had a very long lasting after taste that was even worse, and he actually ate ginger candies (which he also didn't like) to get rid of it. By the way, the snake shot was a snake preserved in some sort of alcohol. They also had scorpion liquor too. Gross.
Then we went to a fruit selling place and got to try several different fruits such as jack fruit, which is one of the largest fruits in the world, and looks like a large, roundish green bumpy thing from the outside. The inside has little orange sections with pits inside. I decided it tasted similar to juicy fruit gum, somehow. While we ate we got to listen to a Vietnamese band play traditional music with all sorts of crazy stringed instruments. Mike discovered that country music is no longer his least favourite. There were lots of clashing notes and the singing was a bit strange, but it was still cool to experience once. Then we got paddled in a little row boat for half an hour through some of the small waterways between the islands, which was very pretty. We also went to a coconut candy making place and got to see how it was made and taste it - quite delicious! That night we stayed in a hotel in Can Tao, which was actually a very large city. We spent the night wandering and found a crazy multi-floored grocery store - the third floor was an arcade! It was packed with people too. Also found some of the cheapest internet ever...3000 dong per hour (i.e. about 15 cents).
Next day we hopped on a boat and went on a tour of the floating market at Can Tao. Tons of farmers pile their boat full of one type of fruit and sell it for wholesale prices. They display what they are selling but hanging one fruit from a very tall upright rod. Then we stopped by a vermicelli noodle making factory, which was a family run business using very traditional methods. First they mix crushed rice with tapioca and boil it over a fire, then spread it like a crepe to create a rice paper type thing, then let the paper dry in the sun on bamboo mats, and then slice it into thin noodles. Very little went to waste - rice husks were burned to fuel the fire, and could then be sold to farmers (in their blackened form) to make food for livestock and possibly fertilizer. We also stopped at a rice husking/grinding factory.
Unfortunately a few things didn't go according to plan as our travel agent had told us it would, and the tour guide told us he wouldn't drop us off at the bus station as we were promised (we wanted to catch a bus down to Rach Gia to get to Phu Quoc) since it was too far from the tour bus route (8km). But he helped us get a more expensive bus to the hotel at least, and we ended up sharing an air con'd van with a broken bench to Rach Gia with some other cool travelers (who we later hung out with at Phu Quoc). We were a little worried since some things already weren't going as our travel agent promised, especially since we also booked ferries to and from Phu Quoc with her and a bus to Siem Riep (some of which we didn't have tickets for yet), but everything ended up working out very smoothly.
We didn't do much in Rach Gia except use it as a port to Phu Quoc. It was very un-touristy and no one spoke English, our hotel included. But we managed to find a post office and mail some things (although mailing stuff in Communist countries is apparently a huge pain in the ass...they check everything you are sending very carefully and make you document it all in great detail...and they didn't speak a word of English!) and we had some tasty vermicelli from a roadside vendor.
Phu Quoc
Phu Quoc was really nice - an undeveloped gorgeous beach island. We stayed in a great little place on the beach with really excellent staff. Our favourite, Hao (sp?), served us beers on the beach in our lawn chairs and got us to teach him some English phrases. And there were tons of dogs running around, including 3 cute puppies, which I loved. The bungalow we stayed in was really nice, and the resort had a beachfront restaurant which served great food.
We spent the first two days exploring the island along its undeveloped dirt roads via motorbike. Day 1 we went to Sao Beach, which is a gorgeous beach with pristine, calm turquoise waters, white sand and palm trees. We stopped at a fishing village in the south (the least touristy place in Vietnam thus far), which smelled pretty bad. (I think due to all the dried seafood sold along the road?) Day 2 we road up North along some slightly crazier, bumpy roads. We spent some time at a secluded beach where we saw not one other person. It was very nice, except I stepped on a sea urchin (I think, it left a bit of a whitish spine in my foot at first) which was fairly unpleasant. Fortunately it didn't bleed/sting much after I got out of the water. Then, as we drove up to the Northern most fishing village, we found out our bike's tires were flat. We had managed to pull over right in front of a motorbike mechanic so he fixed our tire. However, shortly after we left, our other tire blew, so we had to drive back and get that one fixed. Then again about 5 minutes down the road, the back tire blew again (this time the valve patch just blew straight off...perhaps a crappy tube or they overfilled the tire?) It was a VERY frustrating experience (although the locals, who were very difficult to communicate with because of the language barrier, thought it was hilarious) and we ended up not getting home until 6pm, but we had a very nice dinner/drinks with the friends we met previously afterward, which made up for it. The next day we abstained from the motorbike and spent the whole day relaxing on the beach. It was great.
The next morning we caught a ferry to Ha Tien and then a bus to Cambodia...more on that later!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Northern Vietnam (Sapa, Halong Bay and Ninh Binh/Tam Coc)
Well, so far we can say we've had a very bitter sweet experience in the North of Vietnam. Some people have been just great, and other experiences have been pretty bad. Let's start with the good though...
Sapa
Perfume (the lady at our guesthouse) booked us on a great Sapa tour and pretty decent Halong Bay tour, and gave us a good price on each. For the Sapa tour, we took an overnight sleeper train. (So nice! not used to having beds with pillows and blankets to sleep on! Had two other Vietnamese guys sharing our berth, who were nice although slurped chicken feet for about an hour when they first got on - gross!) Then took a mini bus from Lao Cai to Sapa, passing beautiful scenery on the way. Huge mountains and rice fields. In Sapa we were dropped off at a really nice hotel where we ate an amazing buffet breakfast before heading out on our trek. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by little ladies from the local tribes who were dressed in traditional clothing, and they ended up following us on our trek too. They walk with you the whole way and help you on the slippery parts in hopes that you will buy something from them after. They were actually quite funny and it wasn't as annoying as we expected it would be. They all asked the same three questions - "Where you from? What your name? How old are you?" The lady who chose to focus on me was named Za, and she was pretty cool. 50 years old but looked whithered enough to be 70 or 80. She made me a few little gifts out of grass and flowers along the way, and helped me from bailing into a rice pool at one point (the trails we walked on were VERY slippery and muddy as it rained a lot up there, and sometimes you had to walk on little rock ledges between rice paddy terraces/pools). So we didn't feel too bad buying a souvenir from her at the bottom. She deserved it. All of the ladies sell about the same 7 souvenirs. Same colour, everything. I think she liked us, as she gave us free bracelets afterwards. Either that or she was marking us as suckers. :)
We hiked to our guide and Za's village for lunch (Lo Chai? Lai Chao?) and fortunately no other village ladies followed us after that. Then we hiked to the Te Van village to our homestay where we would spend the night. It was really more like an inn for travelers, which was kind of weird, but we still get a cool experience of watching the people in the village pass by with all their animals, and there were chickens and all sorts of animals running around our homestay, including a pack of about 8 puppies!!! They were soooo cute. I spent most of the night playing with them. There was also an old pool table and some games to entertain us.
Our guide, Chi, was AWESOME. She was sooo funny. Spoke very good English and would say just the funniest English phrases, like "bloody hell". She was a cute little 25 year old with a gold tooth who again looked older, and would yell at us to "slow down! My legs are too short! Your legs are long!" She called Mike a cheeky monkey at one point. Mike and I joked around with her all the time, and she loved us. She really made the trip for us.
The second day we hiked to another village and a waterfall (not that impressive), then back to the hotel to spend the night there. It was a very deluxe room, with a jet shower! I have never even seen one of those before! For the last day, we hiked in the POURING rain to Cat Cat village and another waterfall. This time we stopped in one of the village houses (very dark, no windows, and smoky since they cook over the fire, a lot had TVs), and got to see the old fashioned machines they use to remove the shell of rice and corn off the cob.
All in all we really enjoyed the tour. We had one sour moment though upon return to Hanoi, when our hotel forgot to pick us up from the train station at 5:30 am in the morning. And of course I had lost the little hotel business card and we had left the map at the hotel, and turns out none of the taxi or motorcycle drivers know where F Hotel is! (Although they try to get you to hop in anyway, which is ridiculous.) So we had to walk there blindly, and it ended up taking us an hour and a half since we got lost a few times and didn't know exactly where it was. It was brutal. When we arrived at the hotel, Perfume's brother was there (sleeping) and realized he had forgotten to come get us, and was very sorry. Clearly not as competent as Perfume. He took $5 off our Halong Bay trip, which we fortunately were still able to book for an hour and a half later.
Halong Bay
Our Halong Bay tour was also quite good, although you always feel like you are being hearded from vehicle to boat to vehicle/etc, so it's not very relaxing and there's a fair bit of waiting around. It's amazing how many different people and companies these tours coordinate in order to transport you around and do the various activities. First we took a bus to Halong City, where we then caught a gorgeous "junk" boat out to Halong Bay. It was so nice, our bedroom was big (for a boat), air conditioned and had its own bathroom, the top deck had lawn chairs, etc. We were served fresh sea food for all of our meals, including large prawns, fish and shellfish. Oh, and delicious crab cakes cooked in half the shell too.
Halong Bay was gorgeous, although very un-environmentally friendly. There were locals who lived in little floaty houses on the water, and they just threw their garbage into the water! There were lots of plastic bags and water bottles floating around all over the place, it was really a shame. Especially for a world heritage sight. People seem to have very little regard for the environment here, which really bothers me. There were TONS of boats in Halong bay so it felt very touristy, but it was still beautiful, with tons of little limestone karst islands. The first day we went to a cave that was also very touristy, all sorts of coloured lights shining on the various structures. Still a very amazing cave though. Then we stopped on an island with a lookout point you could hike up to and a beach where we swam. The water didn't seem too bad there. That night we slept on the boat.
The next day, we went to Cat Ba island (the only populated island in Halong Bay). A very slow boat took us through the karsts near Cat Ba, which turned out to be even more beautiful and much less touristed (we only saw maybe one other tour boat) than those in the rest of Halong Bay...however, there were far more locals living there who had fish farms, and so the water was even dirtier than before! We stopped at "Monkey Island", where Mike and I hiked up this path to a lookout. There was a very old monkey sitting right in the middle of the path about halfway up, and he wouldn't move! We just had to walk past him! It was so funny! Fortunately he didn't attack us or try to steal anything from us. We saw a few other monkeys later on by the beach.
After that we went biking on Cat Ba to a little village, and from there hiked through the jungle to a cave. Then we went and had dinner/stayed in a very nice hotel on Cat Ba. It was normally $65 a night, which is really expensive here! Our whole tour only cost us $85! It was also a very good tour, but by the end we got really tired of the same food for every meal (which was pretty much the same in Sapa - rice, greens, stir fry, prawns and spring rolls). We vowed not to eat rice again for the next few days we are so sick of it, and went for a good old Western pizza when we returned to Hanoi. It was delicious. Hanoi was a bit nicer when we returned, now that we were getting used to the pace and crossing crazy traffic streets. We walked along the lake and it had all sorts of pretty, coloured lanterns hanging from the trees. We had delicious icecream too. However, we were still very ready to move on further South.
Ninh Binh/Tam Coc
Perfume tried for a long time to convince us to book an open bus tour with her, and I think she was pretty choked when we wouldn't. We looked up the company she was selling us, Camel, and read in hundreds of blogs about the horrible experiences people had with their open bus tours. She seemed to genuinely think it was ok, but we just had to go with the advice from other travelers. I think she was annoyed with us because the bus she booked us on for Ninh Binh was overpriced and turned out to be a tour! Mike and I had to stop with them at these temples at Hoa Lu (the ancient capital of Vietnam) for 45 minutes, and even though we weren't that interested we didn't want to wait around, and so we had to pay extra money to go with them. Then they dropped us off on the edge of Ninh Binh city and we had to walk for at least 15-20 minutes just to find someone who could speak English! We were feeling a little bit fed up with Northern Vietnam and all the scams, so we decided we would just spend the day at Tam Coc and then take an overnight bus south to Hue. Apparently people in the south are more relaxed, nicer and don't try to scam you as much.
Fortunately we found a nice guy at a hotel who booked us on an overnight sleeper bus (only 50% more expensive than what should have been a 2 hour bus we took from Hanoi to Ninh Binh!) rented us bicycles to bike to Tam Coc, let us store our bags for the day and let us shower afterwards! Even better, another very nice guy at the hotel offered to bike with us and show us the way through the local village streets and alleys, for free! This is SO rare in Vietnam! We thought for sure there would be some catch, but he just biked with us the whole time, and even waited for us when we stopped for each activity! He even refused to let us pay for parking our bikes at the pagoda (he paid) and refused to let us buy him a beer/drink after! It was really nice, and we totally appreciated it, especially after our horrible experience on the river boat....
Tam Coc is basically Halong Bay inland, on a river. The best way to explore it is to have a little lady row you in a row boat 4 km down the river and through the caves on route. So that's what we did. And it was absolutely gorgeous, with rice fields on either side and large, towering limestone karsts. I may have even liked it better than Halong Bay. However, we were wondering why all the tourists heading back in the other direction (the ones on the day tours from Hanoi) had sour looks on their faces. We soon found out. When we reached the turn around point, we were the only boat in the river besides boats selling drinks and things. First, some lady came up to us and pressured us to buy a drink for our rower. We thought, why not, even though it was overpriced, we'll be nice. It was a long way to row. Then about 2 minutes later our rower lady stopped and started hounding us to buy something from her. Everything she was offering was WAY overpriced, up to $20!! We didn't want any of it. We tried to just tip her a smaller amount, but she would not accept nor relent with her sales pitches. Worse, all the ladies around started pressuring us too. We only had 200000 D on us for the rest of the day, still had to buy dinner and water, and the ATMs don't work on sundays! We showed her what we had, yet still she kept saying 300000 D and 250000 D! She refused to row until we finally bought something from her for 60000. We barely had enough to pay for dinner, and we have nothing left over for arriving in Hue tomorrow. It was really a horrible experience, and we felt totally cornered, because the only way back to solid ground was down a 4km river. At the end she wanted a tip too, but we refused. Had we not had such a fantastic bicycle guide, it really would have soured us to Vietnam (still did a bit).
After the river trip we went to a pagoda nestled against the limestone karsts, and it was so beautiful! The whole place was really magical. It would have been nice to have more time to explore the area, but we are just really done with Northern Vietnam and had already booked our bus trip south. The hotel has been great to us since (free internet), and we will definitely recommend them to other travelers. But on to Hue! Hope our sleeper bus is what we were told it is!
Sapa
Perfume (the lady at our guesthouse) booked us on a great Sapa tour and pretty decent Halong Bay tour, and gave us a good price on each. For the Sapa tour, we took an overnight sleeper train. (So nice! not used to having beds with pillows and blankets to sleep on! Had two other Vietnamese guys sharing our berth, who were nice although slurped chicken feet for about an hour when they first got on - gross!) Then took a mini bus from Lao Cai to Sapa, passing beautiful scenery on the way. Huge mountains and rice fields. In Sapa we were dropped off at a really nice hotel where we ate an amazing buffet breakfast before heading out on our trek. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by little ladies from the local tribes who were dressed in traditional clothing, and they ended up following us on our trek too. They walk with you the whole way and help you on the slippery parts in hopes that you will buy something from them after. They were actually quite funny and it wasn't as annoying as we expected it would be. They all asked the same three questions - "Where you from? What your name? How old are you?" The lady who chose to focus on me was named Za, and she was pretty cool. 50 years old but looked whithered enough to be 70 or 80. She made me a few little gifts out of grass and flowers along the way, and helped me from bailing into a rice pool at one point (the trails we walked on were VERY slippery and muddy as it rained a lot up there, and sometimes you had to walk on little rock ledges between rice paddy terraces/pools). So we didn't feel too bad buying a souvenir from her at the bottom. She deserved it. All of the ladies sell about the same 7 souvenirs. Same colour, everything. I think she liked us, as she gave us free bracelets afterwards. Either that or she was marking us as suckers. :)
We hiked to our guide and Za's village for lunch (Lo Chai? Lai Chao?) and fortunately no other village ladies followed us after that. Then we hiked to the Te Van village to our homestay where we would spend the night. It was really more like an inn for travelers, which was kind of weird, but we still get a cool experience of watching the people in the village pass by with all their animals, and there were chickens and all sorts of animals running around our homestay, including a pack of about 8 puppies!!! They were soooo cute. I spent most of the night playing with them. There was also an old pool table and some games to entertain us.
Our guide, Chi, was AWESOME. She was sooo funny. Spoke very good English and would say just the funniest English phrases, like "bloody hell". She was a cute little 25 year old with a gold tooth who again looked older, and would yell at us to "slow down! My legs are too short! Your legs are long!" She called Mike a cheeky monkey at one point. Mike and I joked around with her all the time, and she loved us. She really made the trip for us.
The second day we hiked to another village and a waterfall (not that impressive), then back to the hotel to spend the night there. It was a very deluxe room, with a jet shower! I have never even seen one of those before! For the last day, we hiked in the POURING rain to Cat Cat village and another waterfall. This time we stopped in one of the village houses (very dark, no windows, and smoky since they cook over the fire, a lot had TVs), and got to see the old fashioned machines they use to remove the shell of rice and corn off the cob.
All in all we really enjoyed the tour. We had one sour moment though upon return to Hanoi, when our hotel forgot to pick us up from the train station at 5:30 am in the morning. And of course I had lost the little hotel business card and we had left the map at the hotel, and turns out none of the taxi or motorcycle drivers know where F Hotel is! (Although they try to get you to hop in anyway, which is ridiculous.) So we had to walk there blindly, and it ended up taking us an hour and a half since we got lost a few times and didn't know exactly where it was. It was brutal. When we arrived at the hotel, Perfume's brother was there (sleeping) and realized he had forgotten to come get us, and was very sorry. Clearly not as competent as Perfume. He took $5 off our Halong Bay trip, which we fortunately were still able to book for an hour and a half later.
Halong Bay
Our Halong Bay tour was also quite good, although you always feel like you are being hearded from vehicle to boat to vehicle/etc, so it's not very relaxing and there's a fair bit of waiting around. It's amazing how many different people and companies these tours coordinate in order to transport you around and do the various activities. First we took a bus to Halong City, where we then caught a gorgeous "junk" boat out to Halong Bay. It was so nice, our bedroom was big (for a boat), air conditioned and had its own bathroom, the top deck had lawn chairs, etc. We were served fresh sea food for all of our meals, including large prawns, fish and shellfish. Oh, and delicious crab cakes cooked in half the shell too.
Halong Bay was gorgeous, although very un-environmentally friendly. There were locals who lived in little floaty houses on the water, and they just threw their garbage into the water! There were lots of plastic bags and water bottles floating around all over the place, it was really a shame. Especially for a world heritage sight. People seem to have very little regard for the environment here, which really bothers me. There were TONS of boats in Halong bay so it felt very touristy, but it was still beautiful, with tons of little limestone karst islands. The first day we went to a cave that was also very touristy, all sorts of coloured lights shining on the various structures. Still a very amazing cave though. Then we stopped on an island with a lookout point you could hike up to and a beach where we swam. The water didn't seem too bad there. That night we slept on the boat.
The next day, we went to Cat Ba island (the only populated island in Halong Bay). A very slow boat took us through the karsts near Cat Ba, which turned out to be even more beautiful and much less touristed (we only saw maybe one other tour boat) than those in the rest of Halong Bay...however, there were far more locals living there who had fish farms, and so the water was even dirtier than before! We stopped at "Monkey Island", where Mike and I hiked up this path to a lookout. There was a very old monkey sitting right in the middle of the path about halfway up, and he wouldn't move! We just had to walk past him! It was so funny! Fortunately he didn't attack us or try to steal anything from us. We saw a few other monkeys later on by the beach.
After that we went biking on Cat Ba to a little village, and from there hiked through the jungle to a cave. Then we went and had dinner/stayed in a very nice hotel on Cat Ba. It was normally $65 a night, which is really expensive here! Our whole tour only cost us $85! It was also a very good tour, but by the end we got really tired of the same food for every meal (which was pretty much the same in Sapa - rice, greens, stir fry, prawns and spring rolls). We vowed not to eat rice again for the next few days we are so sick of it, and went for a good old Western pizza when we returned to Hanoi. It was delicious. Hanoi was a bit nicer when we returned, now that we were getting used to the pace and crossing crazy traffic streets. We walked along the lake and it had all sorts of pretty, coloured lanterns hanging from the trees. We had delicious icecream too. However, we were still very ready to move on further South.
Ninh Binh/Tam Coc
Perfume tried for a long time to convince us to book an open bus tour with her, and I think she was pretty choked when we wouldn't. We looked up the company she was selling us, Camel, and read in hundreds of blogs about the horrible experiences people had with their open bus tours. She seemed to genuinely think it was ok, but we just had to go with the advice from other travelers. I think she was annoyed with us because the bus she booked us on for Ninh Binh was overpriced and turned out to be a tour! Mike and I had to stop with them at these temples at Hoa Lu (the ancient capital of Vietnam) for 45 minutes, and even though we weren't that interested we didn't want to wait around, and so we had to pay extra money to go with them. Then they dropped us off on the edge of Ninh Binh city and we had to walk for at least 15-20 minutes just to find someone who could speak English! We were feeling a little bit fed up with Northern Vietnam and all the scams, so we decided we would just spend the day at Tam Coc and then take an overnight bus south to Hue. Apparently people in the south are more relaxed, nicer and don't try to scam you as much.
Fortunately we found a nice guy at a hotel who booked us on an overnight sleeper bus (only 50% more expensive than what should have been a 2 hour bus we took from Hanoi to Ninh Binh!) rented us bicycles to bike to Tam Coc, let us store our bags for the day and let us shower afterwards! Even better, another very nice guy at the hotel offered to bike with us and show us the way through the local village streets and alleys, for free! This is SO rare in Vietnam! We thought for sure there would be some catch, but he just biked with us the whole time, and even waited for us when we stopped for each activity! He even refused to let us pay for parking our bikes at the pagoda (he paid) and refused to let us buy him a beer/drink after! It was really nice, and we totally appreciated it, especially after our horrible experience on the river boat....
Tam Coc is basically Halong Bay inland, on a river. The best way to explore it is to have a little lady row you in a row boat 4 km down the river and through the caves on route. So that's what we did. And it was absolutely gorgeous, with rice fields on either side and large, towering limestone karsts. I may have even liked it better than Halong Bay. However, we were wondering why all the tourists heading back in the other direction (the ones on the day tours from Hanoi) had sour looks on their faces. We soon found out. When we reached the turn around point, we were the only boat in the river besides boats selling drinks and things. First, some lady came up to us and pressured us to buy a drink for our rower. We thought, why not, even though it was overpriced, we'll be nice. It was a long way to row. Then about 2 minutes later our rower lady stopped and started hounding us to buy something from her. Everything she was offering was WAY overpriced, up to $20!! We didn't want any of it. We tried to just tip her a smaller amount, but she would not accept nor relent with her sales pitches. Worse, all the ladies around started pressuring us too. We only had 200000 D on us for the rest of the day, still had to buy dinner and water, and the ATMs don't work on sundays! We showed her what we had, yet still she kept saying 300000 D and 250000 D! She refused to row until we finally bought something from her for 60000. We barely had enough to pay for dinner, and we have nothing left over for arriving in Hue tomorrow. It was really a horrible experience, and we felt totally cornered, because the only way back to solid ground was down a 4km river. At the end she wanted a tip too, but we refused. Had we not had such a fantastic bicycle guide, it really would have soured us to Vietnam (still did a bit).
After the river trip we went to a pagoda nestled against the limestone karsts, and it was so beautiful! The whole place was really magical. It would have been nice to have more time to explore the area, but we are just really done with Northern Vietnam and had already booked our bus trip south. The hotel has been great to us since (free internet), and we will definitely recommend them to other travelers. But on to Hue! Hope our sleeper bus is what we were told it is!
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Hanoi, Vietnam and end of Laos
Fortunately we ended up feeling better for the Gibbon Experience, and it was awesome!! Everything we hoped it would be. Mike and I had a treehouse to ourselves with running drinking water, a shower, hammock, snacks...it was awesome. Oh, and no climbing up to it, you had to zipline in and out! Meals, although a bit bland, were served to our treehouse. They pretty much gave us a harness and let us roam free on the ziplines all day, except when the guides took us hiking. Our guide showed us all the plants in the jungle they eat/use for medicine too. We got up really early one morning after a crazy thunder storm and saw gibbons! There were at least 3 of them, two black males and one light brown female. All of the people we met on the gibbon exp were really awesome too, and we ended up hanging out with some of them after in Luang Prabang too.
Back in Luang Prabang, this time able to explore, we went to a nearby waterfall that was AMAZING. It was a multi-tiered waterfall with various swimming holes throughout and turquoise water. Mike was convinced it was fake, it was so beautiful. We also went to the night market and out with our Kiwi friends at night. Oh, at an internet cafe my camera was stolen, so that is very sad :(. I accidentally left it for 20 min there after uploading pics, and when I came back only my camera cord was left behind :(. Fortunately I had just finished backing all of my pics on my USB, so no pics lost. Thank god.
After Luang Prabang we took a slow boat up the Nam Ou river to Nohn Khiaw, a gorgeous little town nestled between huge limestone mountains, with the river running through the middle. It was so cool seeing the locals fishing, the kids swimming and the buffalo sitting in the water. The kids seemed to be having SO much fun, it was a really happy place to be. The town itself was very small, only had one paved road (the rest dirt) and a couple of guesthouses/restaurants. Mike and I stayed in a bungalow with a balcony with hammocks that overlooked the river. It was like paradise, very peaceful. And the people were SO nice, they always smiled and said hello when we passed.
On our second day there we were walking up to some nearby caves when we saw a girl fall off a bicycle while doubling with another girl. She was unconscious on the ground, so Mike and I ran over to help. Mike carried her and we lay her down at a house and checked for breathing/etc. They really didn't know much about first aid there. After about 5-10 minutes she stirred awake, but then passed out again. The people gave her some drink which woke her up again, and when Mike asked what it was, we were told via charades that it was PEE. Gross! Did the trick of waking her up though :S. After her dad came and picked her up and we went with them to the "hospital" (not much there), where she was given medicine and looked at by a doctor. The dad and family were very thankful towards us.
Came back via local bus (very packed, shared with several sacks of rice and veggies and some animal...a guinea pig?) and then a tuk tuk which ran out of gas 2 minutes after we started driving...quite the travel experience. Oh, and Mike got puked on by some lady in the bus who was sitting in the front seat. And the bus wasn't actually a bus, it was a covered truck bed with seating on either side. Not very comfortable, but very cheap! I thought it was a cool experience, although Mike (for very good reasons!) did not enjoy it. We may not be taking one of those again for a while.
Same day caught a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam via Lao Airlines, which is supposed to be unsafe at times but it was no problem for us.
Now Hanoi....what a crazy crazy place. This is definitely an Asian city. Very fast paced, horns are used every 3 seconds by each and every car and motorbike on the road. Sidewalks are a place for people to spread their wares to sell or are used as a parking lot for motorbikes. There pretty much is no road line system, just a massive free for all. It is absolute madness. Cool experience though, very different from slow paced Lao. Mike and I have already been scammed twice, once by a taxi meter that miraculously jumped by 40000 dong when we weren't looking, and another time when we were eating hot pot at the night market. They told us the whole hot pot was 150000dong, and then served us plates of mushrooms/etc to put in it and charged us extra. Fortunately some nice English-speaking Vietnamese guy heard us arguing with the people and he helped us reason with them, and in the end we didn't have to pay for the extra plates. Thank god for that guy, the price was about double it was supposed to be! Oh, the night market was pretty cool. Mike and I bought sun glasses.
We are staying in a hotel with a SUPER nice, cute lady who owns it. She serves us fresh lemonade when we're thirsty, and breakfast! She was so good to us we booked a 3 day Sapa trek through her, and we leave tonight via overnight train. Hope it goes well!
Oh, and today in Hanoi we went to The Temple of Literature, which is some cool old bit of architecture where Confucious students (used to?) study. We also went to the Museum of Ethnology and learned about Vietnamese and all the hill tribes' culture. We saw some crazy water puppet show there, which is basically a puppet show in the middle of a lake with swimming puppets, created in Vietnam I think. We couldn't understand what they were saying, but still amusing.
PS!!! For those of you who read this, facebook is banned in Vietnam so you'll have to contact us via email (or the blog)! Mine is smeyers@ualberta.ca and Mike's is stick_man000@hotmail.com.
Back in Luang Prabang, this time able to explore, we went to a nearby waterfall that was AMAZING. It was a multi-tiered waterfall with various swimming holes throughout and turquoise water. Mike was convinced it was fake, it was so beautiful. We also went to the night market and out with our Kiwi friends at night. Oh, at an internet cafe my camera was stolen, so that is very sad :(. I accidentally left it for 20 min there after uploading pics, and when I came back only my camera cord was left behind :(. Fortunately I had just finished backing all of my pics on my USB, so no pics lost. Thank god.
After Luang Prabang we took a slow boat up the Nam Ou river to Nohn Khiaw, a gorgeous little town nestled between huge limestone mountains, with the river running through the middle. It was so cool seeing the locals fishing, the kids swimming and the buffalo sitting in the water. The kids seemed to be having SO much fun, it was a really happy place to be. The town itself was very small, only had one paved road (the rest dirt) and a couple of guesthouses/restaurants. Mike and I stayed in a bungalow with a balcony with hammocks that overlooked the river. It was like paradise, very peaceful. And the people were SO nice, they always smiled and said hello when we passed.
On our second day there we were walking up to some nearby caves when we saw a girl fall off a bicycle while doubling with another girl. She was unconscious on the ground, so Mike and I ran over to help. Mike carried her and we lay her down at a house and checked for breathing/etc. They really didn't know much about first aid there. After about 5-10 minutes she stirred awake, but then passed out again. The people gave her some drink which woke her up again, and when Mike asked what it was, we were told via charades that it was PEE. Gross! Did the trick of waking her up though :S. After her dad came and picked her up and we went with them to the "hospital" (not much there), where she was given medicine and looked at by a doctor. The dad and family were very thankful towards us.
Came back via local bus (very packed, shared with several sacks of rice and veggies and some animal...a guinea pig?) and then a tuk tuk which ran out of gas 2 minutes after we started driving...quite the travel experience. Oh, and Mike got puked on by some lady in the bus who was sitting in the front seat. And the bus wasn't actually a bus, it was a covered truck bed with seating on either side. Not very comfortable, but very cheap! I thought it was a cool experience, although Mike (for very good reasons!) did not enjoy it. We may not be taking one of those again for a while.
Same day caught a flight to Hanoi in Vietnam via Lao Airlines, which is supposed to be unsafe at times but it was no problem for us.
Now Hanoi....what a crazy crazy place. This is definitely an Asian city. Very fast paced, horns are used every 3 seconds by each and every car and motorbike on the road. Sidewalks are a place for people to spread their wares to sell or are used as a parking lot for motorbikes. There pretty much is no road line system, just a massive free for all. It is absolute madness. Cool experience though, very different from slow paced Lao. Mike and I have already been scammed twice, once by a taxi meter that miraculously jumped by 40000 dong when we weren't looking, and another time when we were eating hot pot at the night market. They told us the whole hot pot was 150000dong, and then served us plates of mushrooms/etc to put in it and charged us extra. Fortunately some nice English-speaking Vietnamese guy heard us arguing with the people and he helped us reason with them, and in the end we didn't have to pay for the extra plates. Thank god for that guy, the price was about double it was supposed to be! Oh, the night market was pretty cool. Mike and I bought sun glasses.
We are staying in a hotel with a SUPER nice, cute lady who owns it. She serves us fresh lemonade when we're thirsty, and breakfast! She was so good to us we booked a 3 day Sapa trek through her, and we leave tonight via overnight train. Hope it goes well!
Oh, and today in Hanoi we went to The Temple of Literature, which is some cool old bit of architecture where Confucious students (used to?) study. We also went to the Museum of Ethnology and learned about Vietnamese and all the hill tribes' culture. We saw some crazy water puppet show there, which is basically a puppet show in the middle of a lake with swimming puppets, created in Vietnam I think. We couldn't understand what they were saying, but still amusing.
PS!!! For those of you who read this, facebook is banned in Vietnam so you'll have to contact us via email (or the blog)! Mine is smeyers@ualberta.ca and Mike's is stick_man000@hotmail.com.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Laos + journey there
Well, haven't had time to get to a computer for a while but here it is.
Journey to Vientiane in Laos was pretty terrible. The road from Pai to Chiang Mai has something like 270 curves in it and our van driver refused to go under about 80 km/h the whole way, i.e. what should have been 20 km/h blind, hair-pin corners, passing in the oncoming lane, going 80. The driver even hit a post on the shoulder at one point. There was this hilarious loud Spanish girl who at one point shouted out "I don't wanna die!!!". Several people puked in cups, and fortunately I couldn't smell it otherwise I would have too. Mike was verrrry car sick the whole way. After Chiang Mai we took an overnight bus which turned out to be a cramped van that was impossible to sleep in. We arrived in Nong Khai at about 5:30 am and had to wait to take a tuk tuk to the border, from there took a bus across and got our visas, and then shared a taxi thing on the other side to town with a couple other girls we met along the way. We were somewhat insulted to find out that Canadians have to pay the most for a Lao visa - about $10-15 more than all other countries! Not sure what they have against us!
When we arrived in Vientiane, we found a guesthouse and immediately went to sleep for 2+hours. But we had to get our Vietnam visas, so we hunted down the embassy on bicycles and got one made for the next day. Vientiane wasn't that exciting...it was really dusty and at one point it got so windy we got whipped with dust in our eyes. There was a thunder storm that night, and that was pretty cool. We went to one temple that was alright. That was about all we did there.
Next day we caught a last minute bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a crazy tourist town surrounded by gorgeous, towering limestone mountains that is famous for its tube ride down the river. You rent tubes and float down the river, and all along the way there are bars blasting music, and huge rope swings and slides to go off of. It was definitely an experience, very surreal at first. Pretty fun though. I wouldn't do it for more than one day though. Sort of a backpacker right of passage though, so we had to do it. Next day caught a bus for Luang Prabang...and unfortunately now we are both sick (some food/drink in Vang Vieng? Maybe accidentally swallowed some river water? no idea). We haven't been able to go out/eat much since we've been in Luang Prabang, which is really a shame because it is beautiful. Today we had to check out of our guesthouse since we are catching an overnight bus to Huay Xai tonight to get to the Gibbon Experience, and they wouldn't let us stay in our room until then. Luckily we found this riverside restaurant with cool bamboo huts and comfy floor mats/pillows to lie on, so we just lay around there, attempting to eat/enjoying the amazing view for a few hours haha. The view of the river was absolutely gorgeous. The river is surrounded by very lush, green vegetation, palm trees and orange blossum trees. Would have been nice to explore it more, but we will be back in Luang Prabang after the Gibbon Experience so hopefully we'll get another chance.
Really enjoying Laos besides being sick. It is more lush and green and gorgeous than any other country I've been too, and the people are very laid back, polite and friendly. We've stayed in some amazing guest houses too for about $7 total, with cable TV, towels and fully functioning toilets with TP! Hopefully the sickness won't last long because our long awaited Gibbon experience starts on the 16th!
Journey to Vientiane in Laos was pretty terrible. The road from Pai to Chiang Mai has something like 270 curves in it and our van driver refused to go under about 80 km/h the whole way, i.e. what should have been 20 km/h blind, hair-pin corners, passing in the oncoming lane, going 80. The driver even hit a post on the shoulder at one point. There was this hilarious loud Spanish girl who at one point shouted out "I don't wanna die!!!". Several people puked in cups, and fortunately I couldn't smell it otherwise I would have too. Mike was verrrry car sick the whole way. After Chiang Mai we took an overnight bus which turned out to be a cramped van that was impossible to sleep in. We arrived in Nong Khai at about 5:30 am and had to wait to take a tuk tuk to the border, from there took a bus across and got our visas, and then shared a taxi thing on the other side to town with a couple other girls we met along the way. We were somewhat insulted to find out that Canadians have to pay the most for a Lao visa - about $10-15 more than all other countries! Not sure what they have against us!
When we arrived in Vientiane, we found a guesthouse and immediately went to sleep for 2+hours. But we had to get our Vietnam visas, so we hunted down the embassy on bicycles and got one made for the next day. Vientiane wasn't that exciting...it was really dusty and at one point it got so windy we got whipped with dust in our eyes. There was a thunder storm that night, and that was pretty cool. We went to one temple that was alright. That was about all we did there.
Next day we caught a last minute bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is a crazy tourist town surrounded by gorgeous, towering limestone mountains that is famous for its tube ride down the river. You rent tubes and float down the river, and all along the way there are bars blasting music, and huge rope swings and slides to go off of. It was definitely an experience, very surreal at first. Pretty fun though. I wouldn't do it for more than one day though. Sort of a backpacker right of passage though, so we had to do it. Next day caught a bus for Luang Prabang...and unfortunately now we are both sick (some food/drink in Vang Vieng? Maybe accidentally swallowed some river water? no idea). We haven't been able to go out/eat much since we've been in Luang Prabang, which is really a shame because it is beautiful. Today we had to check out of our guesthouse since we are catching an overnight bus to Huay Xai tonight to get to the Gibbon Experience, and they wouldn't let us stay in our room until then. Luckily we found this riverside restaurant with cool bamboo huts and comfy floor mats/pillows to lie on, so we just lay around there, attempting to eat/enjoying the amazing view for a few hours haha. The view of the river was absolutely gorgeous. The river is surrounded by very lush, green vegetation, palm trees and orange blossum trees. Would have been nice to explore it more, but we will be back in Luang Prabang after the Gibbon Experience so hopefully we'll get another chance.
Really enjoying Laos besides being sick. It is more lush and green and gorgeous than any other country I've been too, and the people are very laid back, polite and friendly. We've stayed in some amazing guest houses too for about $7 total, with cable TV, towels and fully functioning toilets with TP! Hopefully the sickness won't last long because our long awaited Gibbon experience starts on the 16th!
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Pai
Been in Pai for...2 and 1/2 days and it's been awesome! It is a little hippie town in the mountains. We met a British guy and two Austrians in the bus we took here, and ended up staying in the same guest house and have been hanging out, so it's fun! We found this amazing guest house on the river (we had to cross a very rickety bamboo bridge to get there!),
with gorgeous bamboo cottages for 200 B/night ($7!!). We have a king sized bed with a canopy/mosquito net, there's loung chairs in the covered patio outside that we've been relaxing in, and there's even a separate shower area and a TV! We're pretty certain this is the best deal we'll ever encounter.
Fortunately it's low season here, so we can get great deals and don't have to worry about not being able to find a place to stay! (Pai is very popular with travelers.)
Pai is very cute, lots of little restaurants and hippie bars and little shops. We rented a scooter and have been exploring around Pai with it and wow is it fun to drive! Remind me when we get back and I'll tell you a funny story about Mike driving the scooter... Yesterday Mike, Nick (British friend) and I drove up to a waterfall, which was like a big water slide
you could slide down! It was so cool! It actually didn't scrape your bumb up like those normally do. It was very refreshing in the 40 degree weather. Just as we were leaving it started to POUR rain and got very windy. This was the hardest pouring rain I have ever seen. It hurt. We biked in it for a while and then took refuge in a cafe. Fortunately it was finished by the time we left.
Today we drove up North to Lod Caves. The drive up wound through the mountains, passing some hill tribe houses and farmer's fields. It was beautiful! We weren't sure if our little scooter was going to make it up some of the steeper parts though haha! We hired a guide with a lantern and got to explore 3 massive caves. The formations in them were incredible...all sorts of stalactites and stalagmites
and columbs. The cave at times must have been 80 m high, and some of the stalactites were several metres long. For the third cave we got to take a bamboo boat down a river into a chamber full of bats. There was bat poo everywhere, including Mike's shoulder :). There were also little newborn bat bodies scattered around on the ground (most dead). That was kind of sad. The water in the rivers was FULL of fish.
There must have been over 50 decent sized fish surrounding our boat, waiting to be fed. And when you threw food at them they would nearly jump out of the water! The third cave had remnants of old tombs and paintings on the wall, so that was cool to see.
Afterwards we went for lunch at a little cafe in the little town nearby called Pang Ma Pha, and wow was that cheap/sketchy (under $1!). There were all sorts of weird parts of cow/chicken floating in our curry, and we only ended up eating about half of it. So far our stomachs are holding up ok, but we'll see how long that lasts!
In this pic I was on a swing out in front of our guest house, and a cow nearby walked right up to me and stared at me. At first she let me pet her, but I think she started to get territorial after a while.
with gorgeous bamboo cottages for 200 B/night ($7!!). We have a king sized bed with a canopy/mosquito net, there's loung chairs in the covered patio outside that we've been relaxing in, and there's even a separate shower area and a TV! We're pretty certain this is the best deal we'll ever encounter.
Fortunately it's low season here, so we can get great deals and don't have to worry about not being able to find a place to stay! (Pai is very popular with travelers.)
Pai is very cute, lots of little restaurants and hippie bars and little shops. We rented a scooter and have been exploring around Pai with it and wow is it fun to drive! Remind me when we get back and I'll tell you a funny story about Mike driving the scooter... Yesterday Mike, Nick (British friend) and I drove up to a waterfall, which was like a big water slide
you could slide down! It was so cool! It actually didn't scrape your bumb up like those normally do. It was very refreshing in the 40 degree weather. Just as we were leaving it started to POUR rain and got very windy. This was the hardest pouring rain I have ever seen. It hurt. We biked in it for a while and then took refuge in a cafe. Fortunately it was finished by the time we left.
Today we drove up North to Lod Caves. The drive up wound through the mountains, passing some hill tribe houses and farmer's fields. It was beautiful! We weren't sure if our little scooter was going to make it up some of the steeper parts though haha! We hired a guide with a lantern and got to explore 3 massive caves. The formations in them were incredible...all sorts of stalactites and stalagmites
and columbs. The cave at times must have been 80 m high, and some of the stalactites were several metres long. For the third cave we got to take a bamboo boat down a river into a chamber full of bats. There was bat poo everywhere, including Mike's shoulder :). There were also little newborn bat bodies scattered around on the ground (most dead). That was kind of sad. The water in the rivers was FULL of fish.
There must have been over 50 decent sized fish surrounding our boat, waiting to be fed. And when you threw food at them they would nearly jump out of the water! The third cave had remnants of old tombs and paintings on the wall, so that was cool to see.
Afterwards we went for lunch at a little cafe in the little town nearby called Pang Ma Pha, and wow was that cheap/sketchy (under $1!). There were all sorts of weird parts of cow/chicken floating in our curry, and we only ended up eating about half of it. So far our stomachs are holding up ok, but we'll see how long that lasts!
In this pic I was on a swing out in front of our guest house, and a cow nearby walked right up to me and stared at me. At first she let me pet her, but I think she started to get territorial after a while.
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