http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Laowai/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Laowai en-us Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:55:37 BST Sun, 07 Sep 2008 08:55:37 BST The first thing I did when I arrived late in the afternoon in Mui Ne is check out the beachhellip Only to discover that there wasnrsquot any The guesthouse I was staying in had a beachfront without any sand the ocean directly hit a small dike Also the other guesthouses and resorts I could see until far in the distance didnrsquot have any beach. No Why have a beachless beach resort t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Mui-Ne/blog-250569.html Da Lat is located in the South Central Highlands of Vietnam and was originally the playground of the French who built villas in the clear mountain air to escape the heat and humidity of the coast and of Saigon. Because of the style of architecture Da Lat is often nicknamed lsquolittle parisrsquo. Many of its hotels and houses built in a French style the city spreads across a series of pinec http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Central-Highlands/Da-Lat/blog-250224.html Massage Sauna Mud Bat Hot Springs... What more do you wantOn Valentines day I took a night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang. Finally I would reach the good weather... Nha Trang is a mediumsized city with a large beach front and is the location in Vietnam for beach holidays and water sports. The bus arrived at 6am. I found a nice hotel 100 meter from the beach but I couldn't enter the room unti http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Nha-Trang/blog-247533.html Hoi An used to be an international trading port from as early as the 17th century. Now it's a living museum a small tourist city with several houses musea and handicraft places you can visit. In general I don't like these kind of places it's just too fake and touristy for me. Who needs handicrafts anyway in this industrial age Hoi An was pretty nice tough mostly because of the pleasant arc http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-246778.html Just Not My DayAfter spending almost 2 weeks in Hanoi and surroundings it was time to move. Hue used to be the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty between 1802 and 1942. Because of this there are many historical sites such as the imperial citadel tombs of the emperors and several temples and pagodas. To get to Hue I took a night bus from Hanoi. The 'beds' where decent 1.80 meter long http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/North-Central-Coast/Hue/blog-246763.html Tet in HanoiOne of the reasons for going to Hanoi this time of year was Tet the Vietnamese New Year. The streets where quieter during the holiday but also much more colourful. Flowers where sold everywhere there where special celebrations at temples and on the streets two types of trees where sold a peach tree about to blossom and a Mandarin orange tree. The peach and the apricot blossoms are http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-245460.html Bay of Descending DragonsHa Long is literally translated as Bay of Descending Dragons. In 1898 a sublieutenant named Lagredin captaining the Avalanse reported seeing a huge sea snake on Ha Long Bay. This was also witnessed by many of the crews. Thus emerged the European image of the Asian dragon. Whether this appearance of a strange animal looking like a dragon resulted the name of Ha Long B http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-244429.html Arrival of the CluelessTo get from Nanning to Hanoi Vietnam it's possible to take the train the bus or a combination of both. Not wanting to spent time haggling for Vietnamese money and ongoing tickets at the border I booked a bus ticket that covered the whole distance. This even included transportation from border checkpoint to checkpoint in golf carts This bus on the Vietnamese side dro http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-244053.html Green City of ChinaNanning calls itself the 'green city of China' and because of it's green parks and tropical surroundings it's a name well chosen. Since I had to wait until the next Monday for the Vietnamese consulate to open I had three whole days to explore the city. Nanning is a very friendly city with some nice parks that are not filled up with gardens and tea houses like most Chinese park http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Nanning/blog-243759.html Cheap taxi wrong destinationThe night train from Guizhou arrived on the Guilin North train station. After exiting the station several bus drivers and taxi drivers approached me with the question if I wanted to go to Yangshuo. Yes I said and I asked one of them in Mandarin if he had a bus and what the price was. He answered that to Yangshuo would be 20RMB. That's not that bad I thought he proba http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-240233.html Winter WonderlandFrom Anshun I took the bus to Guizhou. Too bad there werenrsquot any stops some of the sights where amazing. Especially the frozen rice fields. Usually when we think of rice fields the prominent color that comes to mind is green there was no green in the rice fields these days but the replacing white made a spectacular sight nonetheless. The rice fields were not the only thing http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guizhou/Guiyang/blog-240200.html Student lsquohomecomingrsquo trainI arrived with the night train from Chengdu hard sleeper. While not uncomfortable space is very limited for a tall Dutch guy such as myself. Because of the upcoming Chinese New Year lots of students are traveling home and thus the average age of the Chinese traveler was much lower than normal. China being China a train full of students didn't become a party http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guizhou/Anshun/blog-240166.html In 2005 I traveled over land and sea from the Netherlands to China. Transport varied from buses trains ships and trucks to my own two feet. After living more then 2 years in Chengdu China I'm going to be on the road again. This time I'll be backpacking for several months in SouthEast Asia. In the afternoon of January 16th 2008 this journey started with the night train to Anshun. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Chengdu/blog-239895.html