KatandEd
Our Travels Joined: January 4th 2009
Logged in: February 15th 2011
Logged in: February 15th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Arriving in Siem Reap at sunset
Siem Reap is a good few hundred kilometres from PP, so to get there we had to take - you guessed it - another bus. We used the same bus company we used from Saigon to PP, but the bus was a lot crappier and less comfortable - literal inches for the legs. The journey was long and bumpy, interspersed by a couple of stops at a local markets. We stopped at one where at one a local girl was walking around with a big spider which she quickly put on the shirts or hands of tourists, and she asked for money to take it back! There were also at least 30 girls trying to sell fruit to the hords of tourists getting off the buses to use the restrooms - they particularily targeted the men ... read more
ferry to Ko Phi Phi
We decided to take the budget option of getting from Koh Samui to Ko Phi Phi even after the warnings from other tourists of the hellish journey. We had to get from an island on one side of the mainland to another island on the opposite side of the mainland - distance wise not too far, but a good amount of effort required. We got picked up by a minibus at 6.30am taken to the ferry terminal where we left for the mainland at about 8am (1.5 hr journey) then 2 very crowded minibuses and 4 hours later we arrived on the otherside of the mainland and just caught the 1.5 hr ferry to Ko Phi Phi. We arrived at around 4pm and were ushered to the Phi Phi Casita where we had booked 1-night online. ... read more
Alms giving for the monks
The CityWe arrived in the city not so fresh from our 6 hr bus ride from Saigon. The journey was reasonably comfortable and the bus had good A/C, leg room and even movies being played with English subtitles! The drop off spot was the office of the travel company, so luckily there were a horde of tuk tuk drivers on hand to take us to our hotel, but unluckily they were 'unionised' and none of them would undercut each other and do the trip for less than their establishe overprices rate. A 4 dollar ride later, we arrived at our hotel. Note, I mean literally 4 dollars- the USD is the preferred currency in the country, the Cambodian riel is only used for providing small change. Unbelievably, even ATM's dispense clean, crisp US dollars! PP (as ... read more
Ed going for a swim
We were so excited to arrive in Thailand again and just chill on the beach for a while. We left Siam Reap on another 6 hour journey back to Phenom Penh, spent the night there then took 2 flights until we arrived in Koh Samui at about 8 at night. From the get go we had drama! We had arranged to spend 7 days at a self catering apartment on the island so we could make some of our food and feel like we weren't in a hotel for a while. We rented an apartment from this English guy, Jon who, owned the Mosquito Bar pub below the apartments. He was supposed to be at the airport to pick us up and low and behold he wasn't, we waited a while, called him and he said ... read more
On the film set
Saigon Our Easy Riders were desperate to drop us in the city and get out before rush hour began. For the last 80 kms of our journey, they really had their foot down and we each had a few near misses as they weaved their way through the increasingly busy traffic, even driving down a 50m stretch of payment (along with a horde of other motorcyclists, to be fair) at one point. We were really anxious to get to our hotel as well as our bums were so numb and we were flilthy with dirt. After taking a few photos they were off into the sunset lit smog of Saigon. Saddlesore, we slowly walked into the lobby of our hotel, the Golden Dragon., wondering what it had done to earn a rave review in the Lonely ... read more
Leaving Nha Trang!
We sat in anticipation in the lobby of our hotel in Nha Trang waiting for Danh and his partner to come pick us up on their bikes. Both of us were cautiously optimistic that they’d show up as we gave them a 2500 dong deposit and had no real way of tracking them if they didn’t show. Standing outside our hotel we heard the roar of two Harley Davidson type bikes and made our way across the street where Danh greeted us with a huge smile and outstretched arms. They sent us off to go have breakfast while they got the luggage secured - it was amazing that we could get 2 big bags and little bags secured on the back of the bikes with rope and bungy chords, waterproofed, too. Kat started the trip on ... read more
The Pumpkin Express
Hue We left Hanoi in the early evening on the Harry Potter-ish named ‘Pumpkin Express’ sleeper train south to Hue. (The state train company runs the locomotive and most of the carriages, a few private companies hitch on their own carriages which they market to foreigners). I've thrown in a couple of photos of what the dining car was supposed to look like, and what it did in reality). Ed had a burger for dinner that he had picked up at the station before we left, and a can of Tiger beer and 5 oreos for Katherine. The Oreo’s were courtesy of Mark and Mary from Tiperrary, Ireland, a lovely couple who were sharing our cabin on the train. After the intensity of Hanoi, we had a very gentle introduction to the city - we were ... read more
Sea horse
We sadly left Hoi An on our first overnight sleeper bus in Vietnam to the coastal city of Nha Trang. The sleeper bus was luxury compared to our Indian sleeper buses - but still a sleeper bus none the less. The seats were very narrow, you could not be a large person and even fathom fitting in the seat - it was slightly more narrow than an economy airplane seat. The seats were lie down seats with a 6 foot length so Kat snuggled in fine but poor Ed had to do some fancy work to get his body fit into the narrow and short compartment. We arrived in Nha Trang at about 6am, checked into our hotel, run by a Canadian fellow, and as per usual went to bed for a few hours. The hotel ... read more
Early morning fog
We left the chaos of Hanoi for the mountains of Northwest Vietnam. Sapa, also known as the ‘Queen of the Mountains’, was formed in 1922 as a former hill station and is located near the Chinese border. We took an overnight sleeper train to reach Sapa which left Hanoi at 9pm and arrived near Sapa at 5am. The sleeper was reasonably pleasant. We shared our 4-bunk cabin with a friendly older couple from Australia who were great company - we talked for a few hours shared a few beers and hit the hay. Kat woke up with about 5 huge bites on her bottom - gotta love the bed bugs on trains! We have a routine now when we arrive early morning to have breakfast and then nap for a few hours. So after checking into ... read more
Moped chaos on the streets of Hanoi
Hanoi Leaving the clear blue skies and bright sun of Laos behind us, we found rain and an ominous grey gloom when we touched down in the People's Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After filling in a form to certify that we hadn't got bird or pig flu, for some reason I felt quite nervous as we approached passport control. We knew from our research that Vietnam is a far more 'edgy' and hazardous place than the backpackers paradise of Laos and Thailand, and I felt it immediately. The stereotype of the Vietnamese is that they are less friendly towards westerners and we are more seen as a source of income than a welcomed presence - we weren't sure what the expect! The combination of the brown uniforms adorned with red and gold stars of the immigration ... read more
