At 6am sharp we were already in the city centre of Vientiane and tried to find a hostel for the night. It was almost impossible at this time of the day, as all guesthouses seemed to be full since people usually don’t check out at 6am in the morning. But after breakfast we were lucky and found a nice place which we all liked. In the afternoon, we went with a tuk tuk to the Buddha park outside of the city. The collector Luang Pu Bunleua Sulilat brought over 200 Hinduistic and Buddhistic statues to this park so visitors could come and see the human, god, animal and daemon statues. One of them was a giant pumkin which consisted of 3 levels - hell, earth and heaven. We could even climb into it by entering through ... read more

23.07.09 During my last days in Cambodia I had to learn that not everything can be perfect all the time. After a great time in Phnom Penh I enthusiastically went to Kratie which is famous for it’s fresh water dolphins and of course I didn’t want to miss them out. As soon as I had arrived to this little place on the Mekong river, I looked for a guesthouse which already seemed quite abandoned when I arrived. The room was big, but already when I checked in I realized that it was not the cleanest place. But the hot water shower convinced me to stay (you can’t imagine how good it feels to take a hot shower after weeks of cold showers… my feet actually got clean again!!) After the shower I was full of energy ... read more

Even though I have been in Cambodia for only a few days, I am already fascinated by the country and its people. It is almost impossible to describe the emotional moments I have already had in this country, but from the minute I arrived at the airport in Siem Reap, something special started to happen to me. Even though some things here are similar to Vietnam, nothing feels the same though. I am really struggling to find the right words in order to explain what I have experienced during my last days. 07.07.09: I arrived at Siem Reap’s airport in the early afternoon and the calm and laidback atmosphere just surprised me. Everything seemed so well organized and clean, that even the way from the airport to the guesthouse was already a pleasure. I had enough ... read more

Wow, I really need to speed it up a little if I still want to discover most of the places in the South of Vietnam. I have only 7 days left and then I will be already heading on to Cambodia. Where did the last weeks go?? From Hue I took the Bus to Hoi An and the way there was quite okay, even though the roads were bumpy as everywhere in this country. When I arrived, I met right away some people I already knew. And since there were no hotel rooms available in their hotel, they let me crash into one of their rooms. I found it very, very cool and was so happy I had a place to stay so I accepted the friendly offer and put my backpack into a little room ... read more

A few days have passed since my last entry. That means I have quite some news since then, so I better start right from the beginning: My last day in Hanoi was rather strange, to be honest. I didn't really feel like much more sight seeing since I had already seen most of the things, it was veeeeeeeery warm and I also knew I would take the night train in the evening where I didn't expect to get much sleep. So I decided to take it very easy. I went from one Cafe to the next one, read in the Lonely Planet to plan the next steps of my trip and slowly wandered through the city. Actually I just started to feel more comfortable about the hectic city and its people when someone tried to open ... read more