Window seat view, Vang Vieng - Luang Prabang 
Luang Prabang night market
Luang Prabang
Elephant riding!
Mekong river28.05.2008
Four days in Luang Prabang!
Window seat view, Vang Vieng - Luang Prabang Elephant riding! Mekong river
24.05.2008
5.10!
Malin, Krishna and Yushan (two girls we met in Vientiane who we've been hanging out with) and I went climbing yesterday (23-05) with Green Discovery, and it was one of the best days I've had so far on this trip. We were with a group of 9 people in total, plus 3 guides and a dog, and it was really good to be climbing outdoors again. The cliff we were at is right on the other side of the river from Vang Vieng, and it was nice because there was something for everyone there. We all got to try all the climbs we wanted, and I got my first 5.10! :)
Today (24-05) Malin wanted to go tubing, but Krishna, Yushan and I weren't that excited about it so we decided to have a long breakfast instead (not watching Friends), and then rent bikes and go look for the blue lagoon.
We never found the "blue" lagoon, but we did have a very fun day.
Krishna started it off by crashing in to a brand new, red and shiny moped parked by the bridge (turned out the bike she got didn't have any breaks). We got sort of lost on a field, stuck in mud and bitten by cave mosqitoes, but it was all fun so we kept going. We figured that anyhow it would be good fun exercise, and though we didn't find a real lagoon we did find something cool at the end. We'd passed two signs along the way that said "natural swimming and jumping", wich we found under a scetchy, very high hand-made bamboo bridge. We also adventured inside a cave, and at the end of it (not very far in), we found a little transparent lake wich was extremely cool and definitely made up for not finding the blue lagoon we had such high expectations of :)
Today (24-05) Malin wanted to go tubing, but Krishna, Yushan and I weren't that excited about it so we decided to have a long breakfast instead (not watching Friends), and then rent bikes and go look for the blue lagoon.
We never found the "blue" lagoon, but we did have a very fun day.
Krishna started it off by crashing in to a brand new, red and shiny moped parked by the bridge (turned out the bike she got didn't have any breaks). We got sort of lost on a field, stuck in mud and bitten by cave mosqitoes, but it was all fun so we kept going. We figured that anyhow it would be good fun exercise, and though we didn't find a real lagoon we did find something cool at the end. We'd passed two signs along the way that said "natural swimming and jumping", wich we found under a scetchy, very high hand-made bamboo bridge. We also adventured inside a cave, and at the end of it (not very far in), we found a little transparent lake wich was extremely cool and definitely made up for not finding the blue lagoon we had such high expectations of :)
22.05.2008
Vang Vieng, Laos
We're in beautiful Vang Vieng, and loving it. The days are spent chilling in hammocks down by the river, drinking Lao Beer, going caving, trekking, tubing and kayaking (and maybe some climbing), and of course, watching Friends. Nobody goes to Vang Vieng without spending at least one evening lying on cushions in a restaurant watching Friends. Every single restaurant here are showing reruns of every season all day long (except from two who are showing Family Guy).
It's a beautiful, though a touristy place.
18.05.2008
Crazy Beautiful Vietnam
After being on the road in Vietnam for about 10 days now I've come to the conclusion that people here buy their driver lisence on the street. Driving here is litterary "TUT OG KJOR", it's worse than Bangkok insane.
The way to do it in the city, as far as I've understood, is to honk as much as you can and just go. The more and louder you honk, it seems the more rights you have. The roads are packed with mopeds, cyclos and kids riding bikes, and crossing on foot is a really interesting adventure the first time you do it. Saigon is especially busy, and as the bible says; "wherever you go you're gonna have to cross the road eventually, so do as the locals do and just start walking". We did, as slow as possible, and after many small steps we arrived safely and intact on the other side.
The worst, in my opinion, is the motorway. The white line in the middle doesn't seem to excist here, or they use it as a guideline for where you should be when cars are coming the opposite way. Everyone (but an occasional roadtripping foreigner, mopeds and pedestrians) drive in the middle of the road. About 2 seconds before hitting the vehicle coming the opposite way (also in the middle), they both honk and make a sharp turn out to the right, only to make a sharp turn back on to the middle as soon as they can. It makes travelling more fun, in a sick way, but also a little more terrifying.
From Hue we took another night bus directly to Hanoi. It ended up being the worst bus trip any of us had even been on - 12 hours of being thrown back and forth, sliding up and down in the long seat, and no sleep at all.
The plan was originally to go straight to Halong Bay, but when we arrived in Hanoi at 6 in the morning and neither of us could keep our eyes open we went with the first guy offering us a place to stay (wich wasn't too bad, a 10 dollar room including cocrooches(kakerlakker), free internet and breakfast). Despite a tiring start, it ended up being a pretty good day. After 6 hours of sleep on above average comfortable beds we spent the rest of the day realaxing in the sun by one of the lakes.
The next morning we got up (an hour early), and left for Halong Bay. (We have now officially given up on time zones, as they seem to change day by day). Instead of doing the whole thing on our own, which would have been more expensive, we joined a two day-one night trip on one of the big Halon Bay boats you see on all the post cards. All meals included (good ones too), kayaking, disco-caves (lacking the music though), and swimming. One time only, for more we were told to pay 5 USD extra on each spot. Halong Bay is really amazing. It looks a little like Krabi in Thailand, just a lot bigger, and it's so beautiful. There are people living on the sea, in tiny houses floating around, and on our kayak adventure we found an old pirate cave.
All in all it was two GOOD days. Being away from all the noise and pollution in Hanoi was maybe the best thing about it, and also seeing the stars again.
All the star formations, like Little Bear, Big Bear, Orion etc are all upside down here by the way.
I hope all is good back home in Norway and NC. We are leaving to Laos tomorrow and I have no idea about how easy/hard it is to find internet access there, but we'll keep staying alive and having fun :)
The way to do it in the city, as far as I've understood, is to honk as much as you can and just go. The more and louder you honk, it seems the more rights you have. The roads are packed with mopeds, cyclos and kids riding bikes, and crossing on foot is a really interesting adventure the first time you do it. Saigon is especially busy, and as the bible says; "wherever you go you're gonna have to cross the road eventually, so do as the locals do and just start walking". We did, as slow as possible, and after many small steps we arrived safely and intact on the other side.
The worst, in my opinion, is the motorway. The white line in the middle doesn't seem to excist here, or they use it as a guideline for where you should be when cars are coming the opposite way. Everyone (but an occasional roadtripping foreigner, mopeds and pedestrians) drive in the middle of the road. About 2 seconds before hitting the vehicle coming the opposite way (also in the middle), they both honk and make a sharp turn out to the right, only to make a sharp turn back on to the middle as soon as they can. It makes travelling more fun, in a sick way, but also a little more terrifying.
From Hue we took another night bus directly to Hanoi. It ended up being the worst bus trip any of us had even been on - 12 hours of being thrown back and forth, sliding up and down in the long seat, and no sleep at all.
The plan was originally to go straight to Halong Bay, but when we arrived in Hanoi at 6 in the morning and neither of us could keep our eyes open we went with the first guy offering us a place to stay (wich wasn't too bad, a 10 dollar room including cocrooches(kakerlakker), free internet and breakfast). Despite a tiring start, it ended up being a pretty good day. After 6 hours of sleep on above average comfortable beds we spent the rest of the day realaxing in the sun by one of the lakes.
The next morning we got up (an hour early), and left for Halong Bay. (We have now officially given up on time zones, as they seem to change day by day). Instead of doing the whole thing on our own, which would have been more expensive, we joined a two day-one night trip on one of the big Halon Bay boats you see on all the post cards. All meals included (good ones too), kayaking, disco-caves (lacking the music though), and swimming. One time only, for more we were told to pay 5 USD extra on each spot. Halong Bay is really amazing. It looks a little like Krabi in Thailand, just a lot bigger, and it's so beautiful. There are people living on the sea, in tiny houses floating around, and on our kayak adventure we found an old pirate cave.
All in all it was two GOOD days. Being away from all the noise and pollution in Hanoi was maybe the best thing about it, and also seeing the stars again.
All the star formations, like Little Bear, Big Bear, Orion etc are all upside down here by the way.
I hope all is good back home in Norway and NC. We are leaving to Laos tomorrow and I have no idea about how easy/hard it is to find internet access there, but we'll keep staying alive and having fun :)
13.05.2008
Ruins, tombs and mopeds
The feeling in this country is so different from the other places we've been so far. I can't really describe it, it's just special.
We're in Hue right now, only a 12 hour bus ride from Hanoi. We arrived this afternoon, and spent the rest of the day zipping around on mopeds with two aussies, getting lost in the countryside and visiting old (and not so old) tombs. That's about it for what to do in Hue, so after some more tomb-exploring tomorrow we're going north on another night bus.
The tomb of some emperor. Looks like it's the age of Angkor, but it's actually only about 100 years old.
08.05.2008
Meeting Vietnam
Our first meeting with Vietnam was a fun/crazy/interesting/good one. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 6.30 p.m yesterday, excited to see if they'd let us in to the country or not (originally you have to apply for a visa before you get there, but some new rules we came across online say Scandinavians are granted one at arrival). Luckily the man in the passport control, who looked really grumpy and mean from far away, turned out to be the nicest passport controller we've ever met. He didn't speak much english, but smiled and said "my friend, your friend" while pointing to Malin who was doing a silly dance because she has ADD sometimes :p He let us in to the country and we walked downstairs to locate our backpacks among all the suitcases lying around on the floor.
As we needed some money for the bus I changed 10 US dollars and got 150 000 dong, and a 5000 coin (the currency here is ridiculous, but sort of fun. Yesterday we withdrew 3 millions each (a week budget)). Unfortunately though there was no bus to be found outside the airport, and the taxi drivers around all had different stories, like "no bus, this new airport", or "no bus, finished today" etc, etc. Not wanting to be fooled, we (and two brazilian guys who came on the same plane), decided not to believe them, so after barganing the price for a taxi (for a loooong time), we started to walk out towards the city instead. Some of the taxi drivers followed us, honking and laughing and trying to make a deal, but they turned around when we got to the motorway, and old men on crappy motorcycles took over instead. After a while we got tired of walking, and ended up taking a 10 dollar taxi to mini-hostel street.
Mini hostels are pretty interesting, and all very cute. The bigger ones are run like any other hostel/guesthouse, and have "normal" sized bedrooms and baths, but you can also get a room in a real mini hostel, which is how we understood it; a family living in a 2x2m room and renting out the other floors to tourists. The cheap ones you can get down to 5-6$, but you have to climb x# of stairs.
After setteling in to a nice little room we went out and bought dinner for 2$ each. Very cheap, but very good.
We're spending one more day in Ho Chi Minh, and then we're taking a night bus up to Hoi An. It takes 22 hours, -two nights and one day in Nah Trang, which is supposed to be beautiful.
As we needed some money for the bus I changed 10 US dollars and got 150 000 dong, and a 5000 coin (the currency here is ridiculous, but sort of fun. Yesterday we withdrew 3 millions each (a week budget)). Unfortunately though there was no bus to be found outside the airport, and the taxi drivers around all had different stories, like "no bus, this new airport", or "no bus, finished today" etc, etc. Not wanting to be fooled, we (and two brazilian guys who came on the same plane), decided not to believe them, so after barganing the price for a taxi (for a loooong time), we started to walk out towards the city instead. Some of the taxi drivers followed us, honking and laughing and trying to make a deal, but they turned around when we got to the motorway, and old men on crappy motorcycles took over instead. After a while we got tired of walking, and ended up taking a 10 dollar taxi to mini-hostel street.
Mini hostels are pretty interesting, and all very cute. The bigger ones are run like any other hostel/guesthouse, and have "normal" sized bedrooms and baths, but you can also get a room in a real mini hostel, which is how we understood it; a family living in a 2x2m room and renting out the other floors to tourists. The cheap ones you can get down to 5-6$, but you have to climb x# of stairs.
After setteling in to a nice little room we went out and bought dinner for 2$ each. Very cheap, but very good.
We're spending one more day in Ho Chi Minh, and then we're taking a night bus up to Hoi An. It takes 22 hours, -two nights and one day in Nah Trang, which is supposed to be beautiful.
06.05.2008
05.05.2008
Land of teas
Malaysia is wonderful. We ended up staying at Perhentian Kecil for almost a week. Most of the time was spent on the beach reading books under colorful umbrellas, but we also had fun playing beach volley with the guesthouse crowd, some island exploring, underwater headstands and body surfing. On wednesday Malin and I went on a snorkelling tour around the island, and got to see giant turtles, big sharks (1.5 m) and parrot fish. The parrot fish was the most scariest as it would swim straight against us moving it's jaws up and down as if it was gonna eat us.
On thursday we left the island to go to Cameron Highlands. Maria stayed behind but we're hoping she'll meet up with us later.
I think Cameron Highlands might be my favorite place on this trip so far. Not only was it good to see real mountains again and breath in some cooler air, the mountains were all covered with either jungle, strawberry farms or tea plantations. You might have thought England is the tea's national state, but in my opinion England is no longer even high on the list. Malaysia, on the other hand, is on the top. We stayed at a place called Father's Guesthouse in Tanah Rata (highly recommended), and thank's to their awesome tours (and funny tour guides), we managed to, all in one day, visit a tea plantation, a tea factory, have some local tea and scones, climb(in Malay; drive up) the highest mountain in the region, do a jungle walk, learn how to survive in the jungle, and visit a tribe village.
Right now we're in Kuala Lumpur, realaxing and being real tourists. We're flying to HCMC, Vietnam on the 7th, our plan is to go north to Hanoi and then cross in to Laos. It's not a very detailed plan yet, so if anyone has any suggestions on interesting things to do, let us know.
On thursday we left the island to go to Cameron Highlands. Maria stayed behind but we're hoping she'll meet up with us later.
I think Cameron Highlands might be my favorite place on this trip so far. Not only was it good to see real mountains again and breath in some cooler air, the mountains were all covered with either jungle, strawberry farms or tea plantations. You might have thought England is the tea's national state, but in my opinion England is no longer even high on the list. Malaysia, on the other hand, is on the top. We stayed at a place called Father's Guesthouse in Tanah Rata (highly recommended), and thank's to their awesome tours (and funny tour guides), we managed to, all in one day, visit a tea plantation, a tea factory, have some local tea and scones, climb(in Malay; drive up) the highest mountain in the region, do a jungle walk, learn how to survive in the jungle, and visit a tribe village.
Right now we're in Kuala Lumpur, realaxing and being real tourists. We're flying to HCMC, Vietnam on the 7th, our plan is to go north to Hanoi and then cross in to Laos. It's not a very detailed plan yet, so if anyone has any suggestions on interesting things to do, let us know.
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