Kevyn and Dave

Cat Ba Island Most every traveler to Vietnam goes to Halong Bay. It's a World Heritage sight and quite gorgeous. We wanted to see it, but wanted to avoid the super touristy route, so we read an alternative would be to make your way to Cat Ba Island which is south of Halong, and take the boat from there. You can see some of the same sights, but there wouldn't be as many boats or people. Getting to Cat Ba Island, our jumping off point for the much-touristed and raved about Halong Bay involved no less than one taxi, 3 buses, one ferry boat and a motorbike ride. Just like we'd been advised by the trusty interwebs and guide bibles, the trip went fairly smoothly, delivering us to the main street of Cat Ba Town from ... read more

We did indeed buy. How could we resist? Hoi An has become famous for its multitude of tailors all vying to measure you up and make clothes for you. It is definitely something you could get used to and carried away with. And lots of people do, I'm sure. There are plenty of shops where you can buy extra bags and suitcases to cart your new custom duds home. We ended up with some shoes, a shirt, two dresses and a pair of pants. Oh yes, and a set of chopsticks. Actually the shopping was pretty fun, for two people who don't usually care to shop. Hoi An is also beautiful and there is lots to see. It was fun to just sit and sip an iced coffee and watch people go by, either speeding and ... read more

I think I (Kevyn) may have cursed it for us when, after a particularly harrowing cab ride to the airport in blowing snow, windshield wipers operating at .4%, and a scary driver ("geez, you can't even tell where you are....we could be on a totally different street, not even headed to the airport!"), I said , "Well, I hope this isn't setting the tone for the whole day." ***DING DING DING! You win! You're right! Your whole day is going to be a bit of a mess!*** So, we get to the gate and board the plane on time. At this point, we are exhausted (got up at 4am) but hopeful that it will be smooth from here on out. They announce that we will have to de-ice twice as there is a lot of snow ... read more

Playing Frogger In Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city (900,000), we were able to further hone our Frogger Skillz. You know, leaping between the cars and trucks to make it to the other side of the street without getting flattened. Well, we're still three dimensional, so those days at the Atari after school really paid off! Maybe next year, we'll see if Pitfall really taught us how to swing on vines and jump across crocodiles. Anyway... Cochabamba is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" for it's year-round temperate climate. The flight in from La Paz was short and spectacular. The city is said to be one of the most liberal in Bolivia. Cochabambinos (as the inhabitants are called) are famous for their protests, especially the "Cochabamba Water Wars", a series of protests that took place in ... read more

The Long Hike The second day started off with a very nice breakfast in the main hall with its screened walls, thatched roof and insanely beautiful mahogany floors. Sergio wanted to take us for a long hike to another river where we could swim and fish. The only people in the lodge at this point was our group of 5 (the two of us, a couple from Ireland, and a Dutch guy), so we all piled in the dugout canoe and Sergio paddled across Lake Chalalan to the start of one of about 20 trails through the jungle. I ain´t scared of no bugs! Well, mosquitoes. I wasn´t too worried about mosquitos...we´ve been around those a time or two and we had the super-DEET spray, so we weren´t terribly concerned. And they weren´t too bad at ... read more