Buffs303

You have entered The Twilight Zone! A lazy town in the middle of towering green moutain faces filled with hungover travelers and eyes glued to big screen tvs playing re-runs of Friends day and night. It feels like I am in college again! Only this time its far more dangerous. The tubing capital has captured the imaginations of travelers all over the world and brought them all to party in one place. Its not really how I imagined spending my time in Laos, but I met a fun group of guys looking to party and I went with them for the ride. Luckily, I came out with the least amount of battle wounds from floating the river. Most days start very lazily with a couple episodes of Friends and a delish meal of Laap or other ... read more

Finally, a town without deadly heat. Sapa. A beautiful name and region, full of indigenous peoples and terraced farming. I arrived along a winding road in the early morning and was pleasantly surprised at the friendly faces awaiting my arrival. Hoards of Hmong women with smiling faces pointing at me as I stood on the bus. They basically picked me out of the crowd and decided I was theirs for the taking. I had 5 or 6 women following me within seconds. My biggest surprise was the quality of their English. The Vietnamese English speaking skills do no touch that of the Hmong women. It must be that their language is not tonal like many of the Asian languages. My two main followers, Sa and Gochi, lead me to a guesthouse area and demanded to wait ... read more

Hue, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Hoi An. Yet it still takes a good 3 hours by bus. Actually, every bus ride in Vietnam takes forever. Unlike South America, where the drivers go as fast as possible, Vietnam has very slow speed limits. No big deal. I have time. Hue is another city I wish I could have spent more time exploring. Upon arriving, I knew that I would only be here for 1.5 days. Therefore, time was of the essence. I met a Spanish girl on the bus and we both got suckered into staying at the same hotel by a guy that jumped aboard our bus before it even arrived. A free taxi to a cheap hotel....done! Although Hue has a few hundred thousand residents, it somehow feels like a small ... read more

the shift key doesnt work, so thats why this blog will be missing shift necessary elements. bia hoi. the cheapest beer this side of the mississippi. actually in the world. less than 50 cents for a liter of home brewed beer. it was nha trang that introduced me to this novelty. an old run down german drunkard named bobby. what a guy. nha trang is the first beach city on my list. its a party town with tourists zipping in everyone direction. in all honesty, its not my favorite place because it does not offer much relaxation besides laying on the beach which i have trouble doing. instead i did what i always do....roam the city to see what i can see. lots of street vendors selling pate and pork sandwiches. delish. at 6 dollars a ... read more

Once a vacation is booked it takes forever for the departure date to arrive. However, the vacation itself goes by in the blink of an eye. I spent 8 months waiting to leave for Australia and now my 17 days in Kangaroo Land are already over. We seemed so busy the entire time I was here that we did not get too many chances to relax. Lucky for me, our busy activities weren't that exhausting. Outside of a few hikes in the beautiful Dandenongs walks through the cities, and driving down the coast, our busy times consisted of meeting people for coffee and going out for dinner. In 17 days we must have gone out for coffee at least 17 times. The past 8 days have allowed us to go out to dinner 7 times and ... read more