Day 19/20/21 - Mui Ne We had frantically tried to book a hotel in Mui Ne before we left Nha Trang, but every hotel in our price range online was booked, so we had no choice but to wing it (which is not Steph's forte). We knew our bus would drop us off at some random hotel and hoped they'd have a vacancy. After the gorgeous 6 hour drive - most of it along the coastline - we arrived in Mui Ne. The city is basically a road with resorts, guesthouses, swim shops and restaurants straddling each side of the pavement. [View Full Entry]

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Day 17/18 - Nha Trang That's "Happy New Year" in Vietnamese Sunday began the Tet celebration (New Year). So G slept until 11:30AM while S would have kept sleeping well into the early evening if hadn't G woke her up at 1:30PM. Since we hadn't eaten since the night before, we heading to a nice restaurant we had heard about right on the beach. The weather was overcast and the sun never did quite make it out of the clouds, but since it wasn't raining as it had apparently been the last 4 days we were quite alright. (We're sure there [View Full Entry]

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Day 14/15/16/17 - Hoi An On Thursday (Jan.22), the three of us (S, G and Jane) hopped on the bus from Hue to Hoi An. The bus ride was suppose to be 4 1/2 hours, however we left about 2 1/2 late but somehow miraculously only got in 1/2 an hour late. (Don't worry, we're confused as well - still trying to figure out the math equation - maybe in Vietnam you don't carry the one????) We luckily didn't have to go thru the same drama as we did Hue when we got dropped off outside some random hotel. Well, we [View Full Entry]

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Day 12/13/14 - Hanoi to Hue On Monday - Jan.19th, we (S, G and new friend Jane) boarded our night bus from Hanoi to Hue at 7:00pm not realizing 'the hell' we would soon be in for during the next 15 hours. It brings back too many bad memories to recall each moment of the ride so we'll simply just give you the jist: rank smell coming out of the bus bathroom, horrible Vietnamese music blasting well into the night (even G's noise cancelling haedphone - which work on a plane - were no match), a driver with a horn honking [View Full Entry]

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Day 7/8/9/10/11/12 For many of you reading this, you may have serious doubts that Steph and G actually endured all that is written below. The usual phrases associated with S & G are "laying around all day - getting up to only go to the fridge", "taking naps in the afternoon", "watching TV marathons for hours on end". However, the last few days have been filled with phrases more like, "stepping over huge piles of buffalo poo", "trekking for 18K (about 11 miles)" & "waking up to sounds of pigs being slaughtered". So for those doubters, we have attached some pictures [View Full Entry]

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Day 6/7 - Hanoi WARNING: If you the mother of either Genevieve or Stephanie, you may want to skip this entry (JK Moms!!!) We woke up early on Wednesday to make it to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in time (closes at 11AM). Our German friend, Anette, joined us for the day again. The mausoleum is across town, so we all decided against better judgment and got a motorbike taxi to the mausoleum since it was early and the trip would only cost $0.90. A bit nervous as we straddled the bike, we had no time to rethink our decision, as [View Full Entry]

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Day 5/6 Halong Bay We hopped on the tour bus on Monday (1/12) at a bright and early 8AM for our 3 1/2 hour bus ride to Halong Bay. It was quite an uneventful ride except for the occasionally pointing and mouth dropping we did when a motorbike passed by with a dead cow or pig on the back of it. The dock was filled with tourist, but we quickly got on our boat and braved the windy day up on the top deck, checking out the views from the harbor. After, a bit we were off to discover the islands. [View Full Entry]

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Day 3/4 - Hanoi Okay, I know you all we're sitting on the end of you seat waiting to hear about our ride. We hopped in a mini bus (cost $2 for a 45 minute ride) and driver had us sit the very front. As any good Westerners , we reached for our seatbelts, but no such luck for Genny since she was in the middle. Right off the bat as we pull out of airport, the driver passed another minibus on a two lane highway with a motorbike in the lane right next to us. Then he continued to drive [View Full Entry]

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Day 1/2/3 - Hong Kong So after 28 hours you can go from Devon, PA to Hong Kong. We wake up at 2:30AM only to be greeted at 4AM with a blinking "CANCELLED" screen. In true fashion, Stephanie flipped out and went into panic mode while Genevieve was the smooth operator "Michael Jackson soudtrack playing in the background". We eventually got a flight to HK via Chicago but that wouldn't happen for another 4 1/2 hours later. Stephanie's cherry was popped when she got to ride in her first double decker plane. The flight was uneventful other then we got hardly [View Full Entry]

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