BMertens

After a couple of days in central Vietnam, I took a night bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi. This would be the base of my travels in Northern Vietnam : Ha Giang and Castaways. I arrived there on Tuesday, March 5th, at 4:30AM and I shared a grab with Kurtis from Australia and with another guy to my hostel, VBH. Fortunately they always have some nice comfortable sofas somewhere and so I got another couple of hours of sleep. When I got up I didn’t want to just spend the day in the hostel and so I decided to join the free walking tour of my hostel from 10AM to 1PM. It was nice to get to know the Old Quarter of Hanoi, but the tour wasn’t great. We didn’t get any explanations and just walked ... read more

Hoi An CookingOn Tuesday, February 26th, at 4PM I had to say goodbye to my friends in Da Lat because I was taking the night bus to Hoi An. Funny enough, Pamela and André who had done the canyoning with me were taking the same bus as me and we travelled together. :-) It was a long ride (15 hours), but the sleeper bus was very comfortable and I slept like a baby. This way I reached Hoi An and I was quite fresh and awake. :-) I had booked the bicycle tour for this day as well as the sunset tour, but when I reached the hostel they told me that the bicycle tour would only happen the next day and the sunset tour wasn’t confirmed for any day yet because there weren’t enough people ... read more

Donnerstag, den 21. Februar habe ich Cambodia verlassen und bin in das letzte Land auf der Liste meiner Weltreise geflogen : Vietnam. Es war sehr stressig gewesen dorthin zu kommen, denn mein Reisepass war voll und ich musste für dieses letzte Land einen vorläufigen Reisepass bekommen... Es war wirklich sehr blöd : wenn Belgien, wie alle Nachbarländer (Frankreich, Deutschland, Luxemburg, Niederlande) ein E-Visum beantragen könnte, dann hätte die halbe Seite die ich über hatte gereicht für die Stempel, aber da wir nur das « Visa bei Ankunft » bekommen können musste ich 1 1/2 Seiten frei haben und somit fehlte mir 1 Seite.... :-( Das stressige daran war, dass einige Webseiten behaupteten Vietnam akzeptiere den vorläufigen Reisepass nicht und ich war auch nicht sicher ob die Fluggesellschaft ihn akzeptieren würde... Zum Glück haben wir einen unglaublich ... read more

On Wednesday, February 13, Stefan and I left Laos and we went by minibus to Siem Reap in Cambodia. It was a very long trip : we started at 8:30AM with a ferry to the main land (we had been on Don Det, one of the 4000 islands), at 9:30 we had a minivan to the border and at 11:30AM another minivan from the border (Cambodian side) to Siem Reap where we would arrive at 6:30PM. We had booked directly with AVT (Asian Van Transfer), the best minivan company to do this trip and we really liked it ; the van was comfortable, the driver good and very friendly and we did several short toilet breaks. It took us about 1 hour to cross the border from Laos to Cambodia and we can only confirm what ... read more

On Thursday, February 7th, Stefan and I took the 1:30PM bus from Vang Vieng to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. The bus ride was quite okay and fortunately the bus stopped close to our hostel so that it was only about 10 minutes walking. After 5h in the bus, we were happy we didn’t have to take a Tuc Tuc to the hostel but could walk a bit. :-) Our hostel, Barn 1920, was a really cool place. The common area and the coffee shop were decorated in 20s style, the staff was dressed in 20s outfits and the rooms were great : curtains and lockers for every bed, comfortable beds and enough showers and toilets. We were quite hungry, so after our check-in we immediately went to the small food market outside our hostel. They ... read more