We’re now in our last week of travel in Vietnam and have saved the best places to visit for last. Through our guesthouse/travel agency in Hanoi, we booked a five day/five night trip to Halong Bay and Sapa. It was a great deal really, included all transportation, tours, accommodations and meals. Halong Bay is a World Heritage Site, is listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die and has been nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World. It is truly awesome! There are hundreds of tour boats on the bay and it takes two weeks to [View Full Entry]

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If we haven’t mentioned it before, it takes a really long time to get anywhere in Vietnam by bus or train. Of course we could catch a flight, but what would be fun about that? We arrived in Hanoi on the overnight bus, it took about 15 hours! It was really early in the morning and we weren’t quite awake yet, we look out the window and see lots of barbequing, big rotisserie cookers with… pork? Well, another look at it and we realized that it was the pet pooch, not small ones either. Note to self…read menu carefully here! Well, [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop was Hue, about 130 km North of Hoi An or 4 hours via Express Tourist Bus. The roads are great here, new highways, new tunnels for travelling through the mountains rather than over, but let me tell you this was the slowest bus ride we have ever been on! Once we finally arrived we were welcomed with the typical power outage. By the way, it’s about 100 degrees here and no power means no a/c, no fan, nothing! Luckily, we found a guest house with an awesome pool and we partied with about 60 other people all afternoon [View Full Entry]

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Hello everybody, we are back! After all the computer frustrations we experienced in Vietnam, and public computers in general, we have broken down and purchased our own laptop! Now we can upload photos to our own computer, watch dvd's, and surf the internet in the wireless internet cafes. Back to our Vietnam adventures... We left the cool temps of Dalat and travelled by bus to the coast once again. Nha Trang is a busy resort town with a great beach, lots of high rise hotels, nice restaurants, Bia Hoi (cheap "fresh" draft beer), etc. We found a hotel with a view [View Full Entry]

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It's been over three weeks since our last entry. We found Vietnam to be difficult, not just the lack of good internet connections, but the entire experience of travel in the country. First, the internet is slow, unreliable, frequent power outages, pirated software, old computers, and so on. It's nearly impossible to find one good computer in the entire country, therefore no blogging. I think we have picked up a virus on our memory stick where we have saved our photos...can't seem to open the files now even though we know the photos are on there! Second, as we made our [View Full Entry]

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Dalat is just a few hours from the coast but the temps are nice and cool (15-24 c). We walked around in shorts and tee shirts and the locals were dressed for winter with knit caps and heavy coats. It was a nice break from the heat of the coast. 800,000 thousand domestic tourists and only 80,000 foreigners visit each year. It's a bohemian little mountain town, folks wear berets, there is an Eiffel Tower in the center, a lake, pagodas, churches and the Crazy House. We discovered Dalat Wine, perhaps the best wine under $2 in the country! We wanted [View Full Entry]

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After a great time in Saigon we headed North East to the coast. We missed our first bus (they forgot us...) and we were given top bunks on a "sleeper bus". These buses are made in Asia and not for folks our size. All of the seats are actually for laying down, not sitting up. We never realized how long our legs were and how big are feet are until now. We both had to climb up, squeeze in and hang on for the four hour ride! Mui Ne is a sleepy little town with the beach, the dunes and the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) 22 June via a bus from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When we get off the bus the first thing heard is "Moto Mister, Taxi Mister, You need nice guest house?" As usual. we strap on our packs, pull out the map and set out to find a place to stay on our own. It's not hard, there are dozens of guest houses in this part of town. Our requirements for accommodations are pretty simple; we no longer care if there is one bed or two, hot water went out when we left the [View Full Entry]

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...The Bamboo Train! The last couple of weeks have been amazing in Cambodia. We celebrated my birthday on June 9th at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Phnom Penh with champagne and dinner. Took a trip up to Battambang and enjoyed the town, the French Colonial architecture, cheap eats and accommodations. We rode motos out to see the Killing Caves, the 11th Century temple ruins of Wat Banan, then hopped the Bamboo train back into town. It was a blast! We were actually on the train tracks and when a real train or another bamboo train comes along the smaller one has [View Full Entry]

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Rabbit Island is a short boat trip from Kep. We stayed two nights and it was just like camping on an island farm! There were cows, goats, pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs everywhere but only seafood and veggies on the menu! There was no electricity or running water, just simple bamboo bungalows. In our first bungalow we had to hike to the toliet and had no showers. The next night, we upgraded to a bungalow with in-room toilet and an outdoor shower, ah luxury... We had our first taste of Durian fruit. Durian is the stinky fruit that is not allowed [View Full Entry]

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