Saigon and Phu Quoc

Having spent some time in the north of Vietnam, we moved down to Saigon. This is like a more modern version of Hanoi, without the small streets of the old town in Hanoi, but with just as many mopeds and scooters buzzing along the streets and tooting all the time.
This is not the place to stay long if you plan to live to be old. We were lucky as our Giant Dragon Hotel was OK and our room was on the roof on the 9th floor, so we were above the traffic and able to get some sleep at night. We did some sights in Saigon, including a Hindu temple and a war museum... which was a bit grim in places but informative (if perhaps a little one sided).
Our patience for these busy cities was beginning to wear thin, so we decided to head off for the Mekong Delta. A long and interesting bus ride, including stops for people, food and 10 bags of coal!!! was an experience, as was the bike ride to the center of Vinh Long (as bus stopped with us having no idea where we were). So few people speak English as soon as your off the main road in Vietnam. We did a home-stay (ha ha very homey!!!) then visited a big floating market by boat. Also local production of rice paper and pop rice! quite interesting.
Now we have moved on to the island of Phu Quoc off the coast of Vietnam in the very south, for some sun, beach and no tooting bikes :)
We needed a few days for relaxing and we plan to stay until the end of the week before moving on to Cambodia. Today we have moved into a great place on the beach and plan to do nothing much, but relax, read and swim.

Here some pictures of the Mekong Delta:



Our noble homestay...


The neighbours


Floating market


Fresh lychees on board

Hue and rainy Hoi An

Hué welcomed us with warm and sunny weather after our night on the train. After we had a rest in the hotel, we hired some bicycles and rode around in the old town. Hué has been the political capital from 1802 to 1954 unter the 13 empererors of the Nguyen Dynasty. The Citadel was the first imperial city on the bank of the Perfume River. We didn't go inside but rode all the way around it. Later on we found a quiet rad along the river where a long row of house boats form a floating village. It was very interesting to see how these people live, in a small boat with very limited space, but with a TV, most of them. Riding along the boats, a lot of children were waving to us, shouting "hello" and "how are you?".
In the evening we had dinner in a place packed with drunken locals drinking even more beer. The ride back to the hotel was then a bit excitign next to all the motorbikes, but we managed to get back safely.

The next morning we were catching a bus to Hoi An and it started raining again. At first sight Hoi An didn't look to be much. Once we had a room fixed, the rain seemed to stop and we took a walk into the old town and could see its charm straight away. The old town sits by the river and is a patchwork of small streets with old single and two storey houses mainly with shops on each side. We found a nice restaurant by the river, where we spent a few hours as it started raining again...
The next morning, still rain :-( We then went straight to a travel agent to book a flight to Saigon in the evening at 8.30pm. The rest of the day was spent in cafés with eating and reading, in between getting wet and trying to get dry again. We took a look at the old Japanese Bridge, which is the only other sight we felt tempted by in the rain. In the late afternoon we set off for the airport, hoping to be in warmer and dryer regions again soon.

Thursday 24th Hoi An, Vietnam

As we cannot see our blog site via this connection, I'm not sure if this entry will be posted!
We spent a few days in Hanoi, very busy as expected, and cloudy. We took the night train to Hue and stayed a day there. Now we are in Hoi An, in the centre of Vietnam. An interesting old town, but its raining and were getting wet. We will move on to Saigon tonight... hoping for sunshine!
(Please comment on this entry, if it it posted OK?)

Hanoi and Halong Bay

After two days in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we were heading off for Hanoi. We got on a small plane of Lao Air for the 1 hour 10 min flight. At Hanoi airport we were met by a "driver", holding our name up, who took us to the guest house that we booked in advance. The drive took 45min and we got our first experience of Hanoi traffic - complete scooter madness!!
The air is thick with smells and noise and the weather damp and humid with about 15°C.
The next day we booked a trip to Halong Bay. We arrived in the harbour of Halong City after a 3,5hour drive in a Minibus, with hundreds of other groups and people trying to catch the right boat. Our small group eventually got on a boat and set off into the Bay. As it was still quite misty, Halong Bay was only showing us its mysterious side...

After lunch that was served on the boat, we stopped to visit a cave that is on one of the bigger islands. The cave has three parts of which all are connected, with very interesting formations of rocks inside. The cave is huge and actually very impressive, we both have never seen such a big one before.

We booked a night train from Hanoi to Hué for the next day at 19 o'clock. The weather was even more unpleasant, rainy and windy, and we were already looking forward to get some sun in Hué and Hoi An, our next two destinations.
But despite of the weather we took a pedalriksha to the Temple of Literature. This was dedicated to Confucius in 1070 by Emperero Ly Thanh Tong. Later on it was a university for the education of mandarins.
It's a well-preserved area in traditional Vietnamese architecture in 11th-century style with roofed gateways and low-eaved buildings. Very pretty!

We headed to the station in the evening in good time to catch our train. The train was not quite as comfy and service-friendly as the one in Thailand... no dinner, no breakfast, but nice people in our compartment. Diana and Palmira from Buones Aires were good fun and we talked and played cards until late what made time go by.

On into Laos

We had an interesting trip from Thailand to Laos. We went by minibus overland and then crossed over the mountains at a very remote boarder crossing into Laos. The drive was bumpy and dusty and we arrived late in the evening in a small village.


The next day we drove on down to a small village by the Mekong River, where we picked up a small (very crowded) boat to take us down stream to Luang Prabang (look on the map to find it), where we have been for the last 4 days. Its a very interesting old town with a big colonial French influence in the houses and villas. We eventually found a great guest house with a nice room, polished wood floors and a nice garden to sit and read in... very laid back and just what we needed.
We went on a day trip to an Elephant camp yesterday which was good fun and interesting. Our guide was quite good and we had him all to our selves. The trip included a river boat ride to a local waterfall and then on to see the elephants. They had 6 and we had a 45min ride in the woods and along the river bank. Our elephant driver was walking along next to us and singing to his elephant (they do that sometimes) so we had a chance to practice the instructions our guide gave us! He then got on with us and soon I was able to change places with him and ride on the elephants neck on the way back to the camp. Caro was just a little concerned in the seat next to the driver.



After lunch we then went on a 4 hour kayak trip down the river to get back to the town. This was good fun in the rough water parts, but hard work on the neck and arms and nearly killed us both! Today we have been for a 90 min. Lao massage to recover. This was good and helped the aching muscles a lot.
The food is great and very varied here. The spring rolls are popular, as is the curry. Its not too pricey, but a little more than in Thailand. we are heading on by "VIP Bus" tomorrow, so hope this provides a more comfortable method to travel than the last one.

Chang Mai

Here we are now, in Chang Mai. The night on the train was not too bad, actually quite comfy. The temperature here is a bit more pleasant, not so hot as in Bangkok and in the night it cools down quite a lot as the mountains are very close.
The first day we spent a bit time on planning our further steps. We decided to head to Laos and booked our 2day trip to our next destination Luang Pradang on the 11th of January. In the evening we checked out the huge night market, that spreads out along a long road with all kinds of useful and useless bits and pieces and a lot of food stalls.

Yesterday we attended a Thai cooking class on a Thai farm. We started with some shopping on a local food market and drove then to the farm. It was a very pretty place with all sorts of trees, plants, vegetables and herbs that is grown in an organically. Our teacher first showed us around the garden and gave us some information about herbs we were going to use and then we started the first cooking session. We were 8 people and everybody had his own cooking station.
We started with making our own curry paste for the curry, then a soup and a stir fry in the wok. We were already starving before we started to cook the soup, but we had lunch not until we had finished all three meals.
He showed us how to eat with sticky rice, that you dip in your different dishes with your fingers.
In the afternoon we made some desserts and Pad Thai, a very famous traditional Thai dish with noodles in the wok.
It was a really nice day out on that farm and we have definitely learned some new things about Thai cooking. Some of you may come to benefit from our new knowledge in time ;-)

Today we rented a scooter and drove a bit up into the mountains. We visited another big, important monastery and a small hill tribe village.




For tomorrow we are plannig to take it easy, maybe try a Thai massage and visit some more monasteries, that you can find here around every second corner.
We are looking forward to our trip on Friday, that will take us a part of the way on the river Mekong and over a less-travelled border into Laos. We will try to get online later on next week. We hope all of you are fine :-)

Landed in Bangkok

So here we are, Caroline and me in Thailand... on the first stop of our trip. We're staying in Bangkok for a few days, as the first bookable night train North was Sunday night. This gives us a few days to get some sleep and get into the right time zone. We have been to some of the temples and checked out lots of Buddha's. We found a good Guest House to stay in and have eaten some good Thai food already :)
We have already been blessed by a monk in a temple, so we are sure to have everlasting happiness.
Its naturally hot and sticky here, but we've both experienced this before on other trips and can take it, making us very compatible travellers. On Sunday night we will take the night train, which is a sleeper, to Chiang Mai in the North. Still not sure where our route will take us after this, but its sure to be interesting.