DaveAlina

DaveAlina

DaveAlina

We are a couple from Toronto, Canada that have decided to explore this beautiful planet of ours! We are embarking on a 4 month adventure through SE Asia. Follow our path as we try to best describe in words (and pictures!) what we will be experiencing.



Asia » Thailand » Central Thailand » Bangkok April 25th 2013

We are now at the end of our journey..or is it just the beginning?? hmm. We spent 4 days in Koh Chang doing absolutely nothing and loved every second of it. We were feeling slightly burnt out and needed a few days before Bangkok to just chill. Koh Chang is the second largest Thai island after Phuket so there was much to see, not that we did! That would've interrupt our daily lay-on-the-beach-and-read-for-3 hours routine. And so we have covered roughly a 500 metre radius around our guesthouse. We stayed at the Blue Lagoon Resort, set in a beautiful garden with it's own lagoon and boardwalk leading to the beach. The beach wasn't with the likes of Koh Rong or Sao Beach but it was still beautiful and we loved it. How ironic that on the ... read more
Our hut at the Blue Lagoon Resort
Lagoon
Our second hut

Asia » Cambodia » North » Siem Reap April 20th 2013

We are now BACK in the Land of Smiles!! Which we've dearly missed. Until now we've had a very interesting and educational week or so. It all started while we were still in Phu Quoc, Vietnam by visiting the Coconut Prison. This was a prison built by the American puppet regime during the Vietnam war. Most of the original structures have been torn down and replaced with replicas filled with real life looking dummies to depict the torture that was inflicted unto the Vietnamese prisoners. This place was graphic and horrid. We learned about how the prison operated and of the many techniques of torture. After the prison we went to Sao Beach which is now dubbed as our favourite beach of the ENTIRE trip. It was fabulous. Way nicer than our garbage ridden beach at ... read more
Guard tower at the Coconut Tree Prison - Phu Quoc
Prison barbed wire
The "tiger cage"

Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City » District 1 April 1st 2013

Vietnam so far has been very "go go go". We lingered a bit too long in lovely Thailand and Laos so much so that we had to cut some time from our stint in Vietnam (unfortunately)...So we've been moving from city to city every 2 days or so. We've managed to travel the whole country from North to South in just under 3 weeks! We took yet another sleeper bus to Hoi An which (yet again) is being claimed as one of our most favourite places. The list is growing by the day! Hoi An is a shopper's dream. If you wanted to have tailor made shoes, dresses, suites and just about anything in between..that's Hoi An in a nutshell. Besides the tailors it is quite the romantic place. Located in central Vietnam on the coast. ... read more
Hoi An specialties - White Rose dumplings and Lau Cau - Noodles with beef and greens
Small alleyways in Hoi An
Colourful bridge connecting two sides of the river in Hoi An

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi March 26th 2013

Arriving in Vietnam was a bit of a culture shock if that's at all possible at this point. After the seemingly quiet and peaceful Laos (yes even Vang Vieng was considered "quiet") Hanoi seemed like Lao's loud, obnoxious cousin. However, we quickly fit into the fast paced city and explore all the vibrant things it has to offer. In Hanoi, drivers like to..no, love to HONK. They will honk to warn you they are behind, beside or infront of you. They will honk when they want you to move..or they will just continuously honk. This, combined with the amount of people, small crowded streets, and colourful shops makes it an interesting base from which our Vietnam adventure begins. We spent only a few days in Hanoi exploring our surroundings. This included seeing Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum ... read more
Hanoi
Bridge on the lake in the Old Quarter
Traffic madness

Asia » Laos » West » Vientiane March 18th 2013

Vang Vieng was kind of hard to leave. We had such a chilled out time there. On our 3rd day we we hit the tubing place, got our tubes and our hands marked with a number each in permanent marker. We were group 9-13. Everyone in VV wear these florescent t-shirts/shorts/tanks/hats/bags that say "in the tubing"..we don't quite understand this grammatically incorrect phrase, but it works for the farang...and that's pretty much all you can find in any store. When you combine the same articles of clothing, paired with the bright blue permanent marker # on the back of your hand it almost resembles an army of zombies of sorts, especially when there is alcohol/drugs involved! Anyway, they drove us roughly 5 kilometers away from the center of town and we got in our tubes. The ... read more
Even funkier menus
Walk to our bungalow at Maylyn in VV
Memories of war...

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi March 18th 2013

This blog will be mostly dedicated to reliving our journey from Vientiane, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam (where we are now). Prior to booking the horrid 24 hour bus (or so we thought!) we read TONS and TONS of different forums and other people's accounts of their experience; most weren't very good. Budget was a slight issue and so a flight was too pricey for us. We also considered breaking the trip up but time was of the essense as well. We decided that it would be a more economical and timely option to take the sleeper bus. We feel it is our duty as travellers to provide an accurate account of the northern route bus ride that has been dubbed "The bus from Hell". Firstly, we are not picky travellers nor do we need much in ... read more
Waiting to board our bus
Getting to our seats..they ended up moving us from the bottom bunks to the top ones

Asia » Laos » North March 6th 2013

It feels like it's been eons since Pai..we left Pai (quite unwillingly but excited nonetheless). To where we are now (Vang Vieng, Laos) we took: A 7 hour mini van A tuk tuk A 2 day slow boat A 3 hour mini van A 4 hour ride in the back of a truck with 23 people in it A tuk tuk A 9 hour (was supposed to be only 6!) bus ride through the mountains We'll go back to the 2 day slow boat This was a really cool experience, the trip was divided over 2 days, 9 hours on the boat each day. We had a stop over at a small village for the night as well. The slow boat is an open aired boat, seats about 70 people on old bus seats that are ... read more
Alina the captain!
Incredible sunset over the Mekong
View from breaky at the stop over between slow boating in Pak Bang

Asia » Thailand » North-West Thailand February 25th 2013

Chiang Mai has been simply fantastic. One of our favourite places so far. A Northern hub surrounded by far away misty mountains with a bustling city life filled with night markets, shops and incredible food options. We stayed near the "Old City" in the heart of CM at a quaint hostel, Chiang Mai Thai House, just off the main road on a small soi (street). We paid 400BHT a night (insanely cheap after the islands!) and got a big bed, fan, tv with an English movie channel! A POOL and super cheap restaurant. We loved it. The old city is surrounded by a moat which gives it a slight medieval feel. This city is filled with history. There are hundreds of Wats scattered all around, and parts of the original city wall built over 700 years ... read more
Doing the ritual
KO!!
The remains of the old city wall

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Lipe February 17th 2013

Since our last blog we have managed to travel half the country from South to North. We're now sitting here in our super posh overnight bus to Chiang Mai and type this (over due) blog. Before we recap our last 10 days or so, we just want to mention how incredibly amazing these long haul buses are! We took a 9 hour bus from Surat Thani to Bangkok today (500BHT each). They fed us snacks/drinks..put on 2 movies, had AC, seats reclinced almost all the way to a flat position, annnd we had free neck pillows! Fantastic. We then hopped on another bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai for another 9 hours. This bus has 2 levels and we chose the bottom as there are only 5 seats and we're the only ones down here. Our ... read more
Our bungalow at Varin Resort
Colourful bungalows
Hanging on the porch

Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Koh Kradan February 8th 2013

We stayed in Krabi a total of 4 days. We did the the super touristy but must do 4 Island Tour which was pretty cool. This included visiting Maya Bay in Koh Phi Phi which is the "The Beach". Oh to walk in Leo DiCaprio's footsteps, how lovely. If it wasn't for the gazillion tourists and 3/4 of the beach filled with parked speedboats and longtail boats. Still the saying "when in Rome" comes to mind. So we joined the bandwagon. The whole day was really awesome. We took a speedboat to snorkel around Koh Phi Phi Leh. (There are 2 islands that make up the Phi Phi islands, Phi Phi Leh and Phi Phi Don..Leh is where 'The Beach' is and it's an uninhabited island) We first snorkeled close to Maya Bay. It was fun ... read more
In full swing
Gorgeous




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