Call 2 Adventure

Day 6 Early departure from Hanoi Airport to Hue, Vietnam: Before we depart for our next stop Hue, I must capture a couple anecdotes of naïve Julia and I getting ‘scammed’ at various times while in Hanoi (we did learn our lessons and didn’t have much of a problem the rest of the trip). While in Hanoi Julia discovered she is a terrible haggler of street vendors. We’d seen 3-d pop up Thank You cards with envelopes being sold at every street corner in town. Julia was dead keen to get one, but was not 100% about approaching a vendor to negotiate the purchase of one. Finally, she got up the nerve and asked a ‘kind and generous’ old woman how much as was told the equivalent of one card for NZ$10; which Julia quickly produced ... read more

Day 3 Halong Bay We woke early to pack and eat breakfast at the hotel prior to an early pick-up for the 4 hour drive to Halong Bay for our two day / one night cruise. I wish I could say the drive to Halong was uneventful, but it wasn’t. We had the driver from hell… he spoke very little English, which in normal circumstances would have been OK, but this wasn’t a normal drive. Early on it was easy to see this guy was suffering from a hard night of drinking and partying, the way he kept guzzling bottles of water, stretching his arms and propping his head and eyes up were comical – if it was not for the fact that I was in the van with this guy. The situation was further complicated ... read more

The final leg of our trip saw us in San Francisco.Our San Francisco itinerary included: 21 Aug - evening arrived in SF. It was amazing coming down the 101 under a perfect blue sky and 90F degree weather to crest a rolling hill and see off in the distance the famous August fog bank of SF. The drive over the Golden Gate Bridge behind us we valeted the car and checked into our hotel. After a long day of driving and car charging we had a lovely Indian dinner and then called it a night.22 Aug - We started off with a walk down to the old ferry building for breakfast and the market stalls. After a worrying ... read more

This leg of our trip saw us traveling from Seattle to Vancouver, Washington (Portland).Our Portland itinerary included: 13 Aug - Afternoon Amtrak train to Vancouver, Washington. Walked from the station to the Red Lion hotel on the Columbia River. A celebration dinner in Portland with Mom, Bill, Ben, Bren and Kirsten.14 Aug - Grandmother passed away in the morning before we could see her. We changed our plans for the weekend to allow people to mourn. Ju and I rented a car and drove up the Columbia River Gorge - celebration drinks in Teresia and John's backyard. ... read more

After much wait our trip to North America for a road trip from Vancouver BC to San Francisco - and Ju's first time in the States. Our itinerary in Vancouver included: 7 Aug 6pm - depart Auckland 7 Aug 2pm - arrive in Vancouver BC, train into town, lugged baggage to accommodation, hit the old skytower in Vancouver for the panoramic views, a walk around the harbour, dinner and drinks. 8 Aug - shuttle bus to suspension bridge park in the morning, bus tour of Vancouver in the afternoon - including Granville Island 9 Aug - bike ride around Stanley Park (20+Km) 10 Aug - early morning bus to Bellingham Highlights included: 1. very few homeless people. 2. Ju's first sampling of various American foods - 7/11 Big Slurpee, Dairy Queen Blizzard, deep fried pickles, micro ... read more