ajasiaadventures

So were hanging out in Bangkok and there is a little bit of civil unrest. Things were pretty chill until today when they got a little heated up. We are just hanging out in our quiet little hotel on the outskirts of town until things settle down. So if you are reading the news, we're safe and in a quiet area of town- We are not staying on Khaosan Rd- the backpacker area (things got a little bit scary in that part of town tonight)! We'll update if there are any changes otherwise we will see everyone in a few days.... read more

It seems the north of Vietnam is nothing but a series of trip highlights. After spending all our money in Hoi An, we traveled up to the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi. It is a fairly large city, and in stark contrast to Saigon. The old quarter is a maze of streets and alleyways that are impossible not to get lost in. Each street is named after the product that was sold there hundreds of years ago, and things still tend to congregate around the old quarter. For example, you can search for hours for a pair of shoes, and then turn a corner and find 50 shoe shops on the same street. It's a really neat city indeed. After wandering around Hanoi for a day, we headed south to the city of Ninh Binh. This ... read more

I wrote a blog entry awhile ago, but then forgot to publish it. We are currently in Hanoi and really enjoying Vietnam. Tomorrow we are heading to Cat Ba Island for some puttering around in boats. All is well and we will add a real update soon.... read more

(This entry is from awhile ago, I just forgot to publish it until now) From Ho Chi Minh city, we headed to the smaller beach town of Mui Ne, although there was essentially no beach so we didn't stick around for long. We did, however, take a day trip to the sand dunes outside of town. They were beautiful. There were both white dunes and red. We tried the local sport of sand sledding, but as we have experienced snow sledding, we found the whole experience to be a little disappointing- you don't slide very fast and then you get stuck and just end up rolling down the dune. But it was still lots of fun. After that, we headed to Dalat- sometimes referred to the Disneyland of Vietnam, but we though it was more like ... read more

So, after our last entry we, the Kiwis, and Steph (representing France) went to Battambang which continued to be unspeakably hot. Our room was actually 36.5 degrees at night. Needless to say, we paid the $2 extra and upgraded to an air conditioned room. It was glorious. Heat aside, we saw some neat stuff there, including a cave where the Khmer Rouge killed people, and the fabulous bamboo train. The train consists of a platform of Bamboo sitting upon two axles that ride on the train track. The rear axle is rigged to a small engine that propels the whole contraption down the line at slightly disturbing speeds. It was awesome, and we had a blast. We then all went back to Phnom Penh, and spent a final night together before parting ways. The next morning, ... read more

After a few days relaxing on the very chill island of Don Det in Southern Laos, we decided it was time to move on to a new country. Everyone, and every guide book, warns you about how awful Laos buses can be, but aside from the one rice bag ride, overall we had great experiences on Laos buses. Sometimes they were hot and overcrowded, but they were usually quite entertaining. The same cannot be said about our one Cambodia bus experience. Instead of doing our usual local bus/whatever we can ride in that's headed in the direction we want to go thing, we decided to go for the easy and relaxing VIP bus full of tourists. After all, it was supposed to take about 10 hours to get to Phnom Penh. We will not make that ... read more

We've begun our journey south. We are currently in the second largest city in Laos- pop 125,000- called Savannakhet. We are going to stay here for a night or two and go see something called the Monkey Forest- Andy is very excited. Yesterday we were in a small city called Tha Kheak. There wasn't much to see in the city itself but we went on a group tour to a cave about 3 hours outside of the town and it was amazing. It was huge. It runs 7.5 km through a mountain connecting two villages. We took a boat through it and some of the caverns we so big would couldn't see the top with our lights. It was lots of fun and we met some nice people. We are currently traveling with two Danish people ... read more