So little time so much to write about

My last week in very brief terms.

Went to Bohol Island and saw the world's smallest monkey, the tarsier and also the Chocolate Hills

Got covered in Jelly Fish goo and broke out in a hideous and itchy rash for a week

Went to Camotes Island, a white sand beach paradise

There's so much more, I'll have to write more at some point I just don't know when,

I should be back in Hong Kong within a week to 10 days, maybe June 7-10, I'll be able to catch up with more writing there.

Video uploads, Halong Bay, Cave, and Hanoi

Halong Bay Pier craziness








Here's a video of the cave we went to:




Street view in Hanoi:

Day 6 - Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - A night in Savannahket

11: 48am

We made it in to Savannahket at around 4pm last night, the bus dropped us off right at the hotel. The room we got was $10 for three of us, 2 beds, A/C, and a large bathroom.

We settled in and decided to walk around. We went through the markets and purchased some weird looking fruit. We made our way down to the river and walked along it for a while. It was very refreshing to not be hassled by street vendors selling crap.

As we gingerly made our way along the concrete and stone path a ruckus of voices emerged from the back area near a restaurant/bar. There was a crowd of men all playing a game under a large open walled room. We found out the game was called petang, a traditional Laotian pastime, like bocce ball. 2-3 players toss baseball sized metal balls to see who can get close enough and score points. Games go to 9 or 13. It's played on a packed dirt area about 8 feet by 25 feet.

There was a gentleman there by the name of Wongsai (Vongzai) that spoke some english and lived in the US for a few years. Another man, Keytoe, played many games with us after everyone left. James, Meg, and I lost our first game and the second game against the much more experienced Laotian players. Eventually, James and I teamed up against Meg and Keytoe, in the first game we staged a dramatic comeback from 8 points down to take the game at the end. However, our second game we weren't so lucky. We picked up and made it back to the hotel ready for a good night's sleep and a bus ride leaving at 7 am tomorrow.

Day 6 - Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - Hue to Savannahket via Dong Ha (Part 2)

***Started writing at 12:30pm***

We headed into the mountains shortly after leaving Dong Ha. In a short while we arrived at the border, the Vietnamese customs agent checked us out of Vietnam and we walked across the border into Laos.

We pretty much had to show every person we met our passport. We made it to the customs window and acquired two forms to fill out. I realized that my visa photos were still in my pack in the baggage carrier under the bus. After a stressful couple of minutes I located the bus driver and asked him if I could get to my pack. He waved me on and I rifled through my pack. Luckily, I dug out my Ziploc of misc. stuff the night before and it was right on top. I grabbed the photos and was back at the counter in less than 3 minutes. The agents looked over my documents and affixed a Laos visa to my passport as I handed them 2 $20 US bills which were thoroughly inspected and 4 tattered $1 US bills were returned as change. As this was going on the bus was already boarding to continue on. The team of 3 officers (the money collector, the visa stickerer, and the surly inspector) finished and with a seemingly labor intensive, unenthusiastic drop/lob the passport was back into my hands and I was off across the street to the bus.

I met yet another border agent and showed him my newly affixed Loas visa, then looked around for James who went to the toilet a few minutes earlier. After seeing flashes of my worst fear of the trip being realized, one of us being left behind in the middle of a non-english speaking town, James emerged, we boarded the bus, and were mobile immediately. The bus driver probably would have waited longer but the other passengers wanted to go.

I've been on the bus for an hour and a half in Loas now and it's such a different world than Vietnam or any other place I've seen so far. It is very humbling passing these stilted stick houses, the clear cut and burned forests, smoldering piles of charcoal, masses of wandering goats, cows, and water buffalo as well as the tuk-tuks. Seeing all this makes me think back to all the stories I would hear from my grandfather and great grandfather about how things were back when they were growing up. This scenery makes me long for the simpler times, yet have a great appreciation for how fortunate we are to be just passing through this place.

***Written at 2pm***
We stopped at a roadside cafe I had rice with string beans and fried egg with at 25% Orange Juice drink that tastes like flat orange soda. After yet another near-miss bus incident with Meg we are back on the road to Savannaket/Xvanahket/Sahvanahkhet/Savannakhet depending on what map you're looking at.

Day 6 - Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - Hue to Savannahket via Dong Ha (Part 1)

***Written at 8:30am***

I'm sitting on the "tour bus" now after a hectic morning that started with the first alarm at 5:30, then another at 5:38, then another at 5:45. I woke up, packed up, and went to check my e-mail while I was waiting for James and Meg.

One (of the many) things that I picked up from my ALE days is the ability to go from a full dead sleep to fully packed and ready to go in no time at all. After some e-mailing and twittering I had some Vietnamese coffee. I'm not sure if I explained how this was made already, but they make it in a glass (not a mug) with a small tin filter on the top. They add some fine ground coffee and then hot water, it drips into the glass that has a bottom of thick sweet condensed milk. Just as we were sitting down a man came to bring us back to Dong Ha to catch the bus. So we chugged and ran.

We picked up some other tourists bound for the DMZ at a hotel and set off out of Hue at 7am, which didn't seem like enough time to make it before 8am. After some nail biting and reassurance from the driver that it was only "2 minutes away" we made a phone call and found that the bus leaves at 8:30 instead of 8. We picked up some supplies, bread and jam and coffee for the road.

The manager called us a taxi to the bus station, we loaded up and she followed us to the station on a motorbike. She paid the fare and made sure we were set before leaving us. She was such a great help in making all of our plans happen.

The bus took off at 10 til 9, I'm writing now 15 minutes after departure with about 10 other people on the bus, we'll probably pick up a few more along the way. Alright, we'll see how things are in 4 hours...

Day 5 - Monday, May 4, 2009 - Hanoi to Hue via Dong Ha (Part 2)

****I wrote this at 10:30 pm in Hue****

A team of motorbikes met us @ the place where the van from Dong Ha dropped us off. The agency must have called ahead, they brought us right to their hotel and tried very hard to get us to go on a motorbike tour of Hue. In fact every time we turned around they would shove pictures and testimonials in our faces. It was 2-3 hour motorbike tour, but we were pretty exhausted and we needed to find the place to get our ticket to bring us back to Dong Ha by 8am the next morning (it turned out we didn't need to be there until 8:30, a detail that would have prevented us a lot of anxiety had we known it...)

I looked up the place on google maps and saw it was only one block away. When we went to find it, we took a right instead of a left, because we didn't know which way was north. So we crossed the Perfume River and looked around and couldn't find it, so we asked around and some pointed one direction while others pointed the opposite. We made our way back towards the hotel and passed an older Vietnamese gentleman that was excited to meet us (in a seemingly genuine nature, not the lust for US dollars nature that we'd seen incessantly in Vietnam). He invited us for a drink down the road while he waited for his daughter to get off the bus. On the way down we passed one of the motorbike pushers from earlier in the day. He talked to James for a while, finally we were able to keep moving and found a spot that was supposed to be very cheap. Shortly after, we were sitting down in the usual plastic kids chairs and mini table we'd become so accustomed to and learned to love in Vietnam.

We talked to the gentleman for a few minutes before a familiar looking man appeared outside and was talking in Vietnamese to us. He started drawing his thumb under his chin, like a slitting throat motion. We looked at him confused and ask the older gentlemen what he was saying, he said he didn't know which was even more strange. (We constantly had our guards up for any suspicious goings on and this definitely set off our alarms) As the guy got on his bike he kept showing us 7 fingers, 7 fingers, 7 fingers and then a drinking motion, we finally realized that he didn't want us to get ripped off at this place and that we should only pay 7,000 dong for the drinks we were having, not 10,000. As soon as he appeared he was gone. We sat there puzzled, but fine none-the-less.

We said goodbye to our new found Vietnamese friend and headed to the travel agency (which we finally had credible directions to this time) We purchased our ticket for $4 without a hitch and were back at the hotel for a swim in the pool in no time.

We went to the Western (Gwielo) bar for a pool game and some much needed familiar food. I ordered potato skins and a calzone, so much for the authentic Vietnamese experience. I just couldn't help myself, you can't even find this food in Hong Kong (actually you can rarely find any good food in Hong Kong, Meaghan and I joke that we're going to make a Hong Kong themed restaurant back in the States and call it "Empty Carbs & Shitty Meat")

After eating we wandered around for quite a while, James bought some sunglasses and we stumbled across a coffee shop on the roof of a book store. With my brain humming from a nice dose of caffeine we headed back. Again we were incessantly pestered by motorbike drivers for hire, although it didn't help that we kept saying "Bow you tee en" Which means "how much?".

We returned to the hotel to prepare for an early morning and more hours on a bus tomorrow, which will probably be the case for the next few days. Things keep falling into place, we've been fortunate thus far. I'm hoping our good fortune will continue as we head into Laos tomorrow and Cambodia in a few days.

***Finished writing at 11:15 on May 4***

Day 5 - Monday, May 4, 2009 - Hanoi to Hue via Dong Ha (Part 1)

We caught the 7pm bus from Hanoi, they picked us up at the hostel and brought us to the
station. We didn't have a ticket and couldn't find our receipt, but they didn't check it.
We sat (laid) on the sleeper bus idling for over an hour and finally we took off towards
Hue.

After about an hour we stopped at a place for a quick toilet break. I slept most of the way
on and off. Around 7 am we pulled on for breakfast at a place called Dong Ha, Vietnam. We
had some fried eggs and bread. While we were eating the local tour guide (Mr. Hoa) of the
Vietnam DMZ area (a 5km border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam) introduced himself.

He grew up in the area, he lived in the South during the war and was 11 when the war
happened. He was very knowledgeable and took us around for 440,000 VND each, which I thought was a little expensive, but looking back was a pretty good deal, around $24 US for a
personal guide with air conditioned car for about 8 hours. We saw an old US tank an some
unexploded bombs (ordinance). We went to a monument on the Southern side and then crossed
the river into the north side and went to a museum there.

Next we went to the tunnel area, where 400 North Vietnamese lived during the war supporting efforts along the border. We brought along our head lamps and Mr. Hoa brought us
through the 3 different levels. It was quite the experience walking the 4.5-5 foot tall
passageways weaving though the hard packed dirt and knowing there is 15 meters, 25 meters or
35 meters of ground above you. It was hard to believe so many people were packed in such a
place, yet they continued to carry out their lives as usual. Going to school, watching
movies, meetings, fresh water and sanitation, food, ventilation. All with claustrophobic,
dark mustiness.

After our adventure though the tunnels we returned to Dong Ha where the bus dropped us off,
booked our ticket into Savannahket, Laos tomorrow morning. We caught a ride into Hue and
will make our way back to Dong Ha early tomorrow morning (8am) to catch the tour bus. This
bus only runs every 2 days and sometimes not even, depending on if there are enough people
on it. We lucked out and it was running the next day, we just had to check and see if there
was enough people booked on it by calling back later. If it didn't run it would be a
pretty big nuisance and make it a much tougher and longer journey into Loas. The tour bus
ride would take 6 hours and traverse Laos from the east to the west.

****I was writing this in the van to Hue @ 3pm****

Day 4 - Sunday, May 3, 2009 - Halong back to Hanoi and on to Hue, Vietnam

Woke up around 7am on the boat, packed up my stuff and woke James and Meghan up to get ready. I thought we needed to get out of the room before breakfast, but it tuned out we didn't. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast, cucumber, and coffee. The coffee was quite bad, but Hong Kong has prepared me for even the worst bitter motor oil brews out there.

After breakfast we hung out on the top deck and talked with the others on the boat as the boat putted its way back to the harbor to complete our day. On our way we dropped off 3 people on Cat Ba Island so they could continue on for another night and leave the next day. The docking procedure was a crazy chaotic mess. We watched a lady on another boat that came in too fast fall down a flight of stairs and another woman on the roof almost fall off the front as the boat they were on barreled in to fast to get a good position and rammed the cement pier. There were so many boats in Halong Bay, the tour guide said anywhere from 500-700 boats like the one that we were on. We continued on to the port and had an alright lunch of seafood again. We departed the ship as we crawled and hopped a labyrinth of planks and halls over other boats to make it to the pier. We slugged through crowds of people waiting to depart on their own Halong Bay experience as we were leaving ours.

We met at a van and loaded up on our 3 hour trip back to Hanoi. We lost 2 of the Swedish guys and had to wait around for a while. Finally they showed up and we were off at around 12:30, down the slow and rugged highway. I slept most of the ride, thankfully. We stopped halfway for a break, I bought an ice-cream cone and a Taro/coconut bar for 30,000 VND. Then we loaded up once again and continued our way back to Hanoi.

When we got back, James and Meghan went to find a post office so I stayed back and ordered some food, a dozen spring rolls, sweet and sour pork with rice and a can of soda for 80,000 VND (18,000 VND = 1 USD) The travel company is supposed to come around 6 to bring us to the bus station and our overnight bus to Hue. We bought bug repellent and sunscreen to get ready for Laos.

The spot tracker seems to be a big hit, both James and Meghan have given the link out to their friends and families, it's too bad the computers here don't display google maps very well. Hopefully the overnight bus will be comfortable tonight.

Day 3 - Saturday, May 2, 2009 - Off to Halong Bay!

Woke up at 7 to pack up and eat breakfast. I had an egg & cheese omelet and a fresh baguette with Vietnamese coffee. The van picked us up and we drove around Hanoi to pick up a few more people that would be on the cruise with us. There ended up being 16 people in that 15 passenger van with all their gear too.

It was almost a 3 hour drive to Halong Bay, but it felt pretty quick (probably because I was sleeping like a bobblehead doll in the middle seat of the van). We passed through all the craziness happening on the pier, boats going in and out people boarding and exit all around, and loaded up on our boat. We relaxed for a bit with a cool towel and some flat orange soda, before we took off out to sea.

After an hour or so our lunch was ready. We ate shrimp, rice, tofu, and fish. It was decent food, but there wasn't a lot of it. We went to a spectacular cave first ****(I can't wait to post pictures of this Halong Bay trip and the cave, it was one of the most beautiful breathtaking views I've ever seen).

After the cave we went kayaking in these dual seat, heavy fiberglass boats with 15lb fiberglass paddles, haha. After returning from our hour of kayaking we were able to jump off the top of the tour boat. I jumped off a few times and Meghan has a water proof camera so she got a few shots of us from the water.

After swimming was finished dinner was served and we had fried shimp, beef and vegetable, Bok Choy type steamed greens, this food was also very tasty, but alas left me wanting more when it was gone.

James and Meg taught me to play the card game euchre, i think i almost have it down. Pretty soon our tour guide Kip busted out the Karakoke dvd for a while and some people went swimming again. A 7:30 breakfast tomorrow as we make our way back to Hanoi and then on to Hue.

Day 2 - Friday, May 1, 2009 - Exploring Hanoi Motorbike Style

I want to start posting what I have completed. This post is unfinished I still want to add pictures to it when I get to a computer with a USB drive and if my USB stick isn't toast...

Also keep in mind this is a flashback post...queue harp arpeggio and wavy lines fading to black...

I awoke at 9:30 after a good night's sleep. We headed down for our complimentary breakfast. I had an omelet with cheese and bread with black Vietnam style coffee (which is brewed individually in each cup with a small tin filter that you pour hot water into and it drips down through, almost like the inner cup part of a percolator, this also creates that fine coffee slurry at the bottom of your cup)

We decided to rent motorbikes to explore around the city. The hotel called up a company and within minutes a man showed up ready to rent us 3 bikes at $6 each for the day. James signed them out and we were off in no time. Our first challenge was finding a gas station which wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. We pulled in and 50,000 Dong later I had a full tank which was maybe 2 liters of gas.

We cruised around randomly for a while and then parked our bikes by the lake near the bustling downtown area of Hanoi and went to the markets. We were bombarded from all directions by street vendors trying to sell stuff. A lady walked by me with pineapple baskets balancing on a long strip of bamboo, plopped it on my shoulder and threw her hat on me for us to take a picture of. She also wanted to sell 2 bags of pineapple for 50,000 Dong, I wasn't sure if it was a good price or not and ended up buying some (I later found out that I could get the same amount for 18,000 Dong or $1 USD) Oh well you live and learn...



We went over and bought tickets to the famed Hanoi Water Puppet Show

We wandered around some more and ended up walking through a fresh food market and buying some mangoes and some army green with the red star Vietnam hats. We sat with the locals on the street for a bit before mounting up again in search of "The Museum of Literature"

It took us a little while to find it, we parked our bikes and spent a few hours wandering around the museum.

As we were leaving we met a Vietnamese man by the name of Duc (prounuced Dook, very quickly) He was from Ho Chi Minh city and was in Hanoi for a few days working for an electric company. He offered to show us around, so we followed him for a bit and ended up back at the lake that we were dropped off the night before. He had some work to take care of, so we parted ways with plans of meeting up after the puppet show.

We took off on our bikes yet again and ended up coming out on a road that ran up the coast. After a few miles of riding we pulled off at a restaurant that was on stilts over the water. We didn't stay very long (there was no English food menu) and the sun was going down. The bikes were also due back at 8pm. We made it back by the deadline only to find out they weren't going to pick them up until the next morning and that we could use them more if we wanted to.

We left the bikes at the hotel as we made our way to the water puppet show starting at 9:15. We bought some mini-pizza things and made our way to a more commercial restaurant serving Vietnamese food but in a more Western (Gweilo) setting and method, but it was still pretty tasty. I had a beef and noodle dish with mixed in vegetables.

We went down to the theater and made it to our seats, it was a smaller venue, probably 200 seats and there was a live traditional Vietnamese band providing the music and lyrics to the scenes of the show. None of the words or songs were in English but I got the idea of the performance. It was pretty good I'm glad I was able to see what the water puppet theater was all about.

After the show Duc called us up and we went cruising again. He brought us to the Hanoi brewery but it was closed. So we stopped at one of the roadside sitdown places. We talked for a while and Duc ordered a bowl of food for all of us to share, we were still pretty stuffed from the dinner we had earlier so we didn't eat much.

We were all pretty exhausted from a long day of constantly being on our guard riding the motorbikes up and down the busy streets. Duc showed us back to the hotel and we bid farewell to our gracious host. Off to bed for our early rise on the way to Halong Bay tomorrow!

Day 1 - Thursday April 30, 2009 - Hong Kong to Hanoi, Vietnam

I want to start posting what I have completed. This post is unfinished I still want to add pictures to it when I get to a computer with a USB drive and if my USB stick isn't toast...

Also keep in mind this is a flashback post...queue harp arpeggio and wavy lines fading to black...


We went to the airport at 11:25 after finishing getting ready in the morning, we exchanged money, ate, and caught our plane. We were pretty tired and our plane waited in line a while before taking off. We had a 1.5 hour flight into Hanoi, we made it though customs pretty easily and helped out a British couple who didn't bring any US dollars with them to pay for their visas... So we took their Hong Kong dollars in exchange for some US greenbacks.

We found a local bus going into the city which was supposed to be "leaving in 10 minutes" an hour later we pulled out for the hour ride into the city. It was alright though we were able to pick up a few Vietnamese phrases from some of the bus attendants that would come in handy over the next few days.

We didn't really have a destination, just the Old Town part of the city. The bus attendant waved to us to get off at this one intersection near a park. We stepped off the bus and into a world of chaotic craziness; walls of motorbikes, zooming cars, and relentless beep-beeps coming from all directions. We walked around awestruck and overwhelmed. Eventually we found our way to the "Blue Sky Hotel" which was a very nice place for $7 each per night which included Breakfast, TV, Air Conditioning, and Internet. Most of these Hotel/Hostels were also travel agents and could hook you up with pretty much anything you needed to do to be a tourist.

We bought Halong Bay tickets for a 2 day, 1 night stay on a tour boat called "Fantasea Adventures" this included meals and transportation to and from Halong Bay which was 3 hours from Hanoi.

We also decided to take an overnight bus from Hanoi down to Hue, Vietnam on Sunday night.

We went out exploring around the bustling streets and found a place to get traditional Vietnam food. I ordered a really great meal of Pineapple, beef, and cashews in a mild sauce with rice and some spring rolls. This cost about 79,000 VND (Dong) which ends up being about $4.5 dollars for a excellent and filling meal. Really tired as I write this entry.

Happy Mothers Day from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Happy Mother's day to all the moms that read this and especially to my mom and grandmothers!

James and I parted ways with Meghan today, spent 6 hours in a food court, and are now in a "premium lounge" for 5 hours for $35. At least we get some coffee, cakes, and a shower.

Right now I'm going to start transfering over a bunch of my daily notes although some of my pictures will have to wait until later. So hopefully within the next few days or so I'll be able to create some full complete posts to show/tell what i've been up to the last two weeks.

So much travelling

So much travelling this last week, I haven't got much of a chance to sit at a computer. I have been keeping a daily written journal that I will transfer over to here at some point, probably when things slow down when I get to the Philippines and won't be travelling every day.

In the last week it has been Hong Kong flight to Hanoi, Vietnam overnight bus to Hue, Vietnam all day bus over the Lao border into Savannakhet then another early morning 6 hour bus to Pakse, Laos. Looks like we will stay in Pakse for another night and get a flight to Siem Reap from here, rather than taking another day and a half bus ride and wasting more time before we have to fly out on Sunday to Cebu in the Philippines via Kuala Lumpur