Cambodia

Today is my last day in Cambodia, tomorrow morning I leave and have a lay over in KL for 5 hours, then I get into Hong Kong about midnight, it will be a long day. I have enjoyed this vacation so much, and I can't wait till I can travel again, but for a longer period of time. This was way too rushed. I could have easily stayed over a month in each spot.

The weather today was thankfully a bit cooler than yesterday. It had to at least hit 100 yesterday, and today it was about 95, but there were some clouds that blocked the direct sunlight. Yesterday the sun was so intense, I got a horrible migraine, which made seeing the sites not so fun. But today was wonderful.

Overall the trip was amazing. We met so many great people, and there was not once where I felt unsafe. (we were still careful though). Almost every time we went on a tour with a guide, we made friends with them and then they took us out in the evening and showed us the local spots, it was great. At each place we also met great people who were also traveling; it definitely makes the experience that much more amazing.

I forgot to write about this the other day, but there is a local tradition to southern parts of asia called betelnut, basically it is a leaf of a betel tree, a nut of a aerca (sp?) tree, and then lime all put together an chewed. They have been doing it for over a thousand years. The combination of these three make your mouth bright red and you have to spit out the saliva. So I met a woman in a small village who had some, and she said I could have some, so I tried it. It tasted basically like I was chewing on bark, a leaf, and then a bitter gross taste (from the lime). It burned a little then my mouth felt a little numb. It stained my mouth and teeth a redish color for about 6 hours, and the right side, where I was chewing it actually was burnt! It must be some sort of chemical reaction when adding the three. Two days later and I can still feel it! It is said to make you feel more alert like a mild stimulant (compared to drinking a cut of coffee), but maybe because of the burning, I didn't really notice. It was neat to get to try it with some locals, but I won't be doing that again!

Southern Laos and Cambodia

Sorry, I am going to do this one pretty brief.

First I gave the wrong name for where we were in Laos, it is called Pakse. So we went on a tour to 3 different breathtaking waterfalls, and tea and coffee plantations and also got to hang out in a local tribe villiage. Laos is amazing, and I want to go back there, 2 days was no where near enough time.

I made it to Cambodia, and it is amazing. Angkor Wat is even better than I expected. Pictures won't do it justice. I can't believe how huge it is and how detailed all the stones and temples are. I only wish I could have seen in about 800 years ago when it was new! But this is really amazing. I have one more day left in Cambodia, where I will go back to Angkor Wat to see more temples becuase it is impossible to see them all in one day. Then sunday morning I fly back to Hong Kong. Iwill get all my pictures added to the internet once I get back to Hong Kong.

Vietnam to Laos

The sleeper bus to Hue was interesting. I had a very close call in the first 20 mins of the trip when i got stomach pains and felt very very sick. But luckily it was a short sickness and threw up once and then felt fine. Was worried I was going to be sick the whole trip, but very thankful I wasn't. I have been trying to wash my hands a lot more, but it is difficult traveling like we are to be clean. Didn't manage to sleep too much, but the beds were kind of comfortable. We got off in Dung Ha about 2 hours outside of Hue to eat breakfast and found out they did vietnam military tours there and decided to stay for a tour and get a ride to Hue later. It was a great decision. Our tour guide was a local to the area and was 11 years old when the American War started (as they call it). His family had to give up their restaurant during the war and move to the next town over because the town was turned into a military base. Dung Ha is on the south side of the boarder, out of the 65,000 American soldiers who were killed in the war, 12,000 were killed there. He took us into a field where American bunkers were and we got to see a few of them, also saw some unexploded bombs that were missed by the mine clearers and the locals just leave them because many people have been injured by trying to remove the bombs. There was a trail and we made sure to stay on it! We then visited a cemetery of soldiers. After that we made our way to the boarder of North and South Vietnam and walked across the bridge and visited the war museum. Finally he took us to the underground tunnels. The North Vietnamese near the boarder had to live underground because of bombings. The tunnel we went through housed over 400 people. There were 3 different levels, the first 12 meters deep the second 15 meters deep and the 3rd 23 meters deep, we got to go into each level. Families had their own living quarters which were about 4 feet by 5.5 feet for up to 5 people. The tunnels were about 3.5 feet wide and 5.5 feet high. They had designated rooms for kitchens, bathrooms, and medical care, all very small. It was very cool to get to go through them. I could not imagine living like that.

From Dung Ha we went to Hue and spent the night. The next morning we got a bus to Savannahket, Laos. During this bus trip I saw some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen; lush green jungle like mountains and rivers and small mountain huts. In Savannahket we walked around a bit, then saw a bar where people were playing a game outside so we went there. It is a game pretty much like bochie ball, with just little differences. We ended up staying there and playing the game with the locals till midnight, and then went back to the hotel to sleep, it was a lot of fun.

This morning we caught a bus to Pahket, Laos. This bus was a local bus and parts of the ride were on dirt roads. The local bus was a smaller version of a school bus with less comfortable seats and no air conditioning. It is probablly in the 90's here too. The bus would drive and when it got to a small town it would beep a lot and then locals would come out to the road and hop in. It was hot and uncomfortable, but really cool to experience.

Today is Wed, and our flight leaves Cambodia on Sunday morning, we we don't have much time left. Siem Reap is a day and a half bus ride, so I think we are going to take an hour plane ride to Siem Reap so we get to spend a full day in Laos. The coffee here is amazing! Tomorrow we might take a tour to the plantations and pick some coffee beans and try different fresh brews of Laos coffee, or we are going to rent motorbikes and head out 30Kilometers to waterfalls, still haven't decided yet.

Day 4 Vietnam

Just got back to Hanoi today from out HaLong Bay tour. It was a great tour. The drive there took almost 4 hours in a van with 14 people, but it was ok because we got to see a bit of the countryside. Our boat was a lot nicer than I was expecting. The bottom floor was rooms, the main deck was the dining area with couches and a tv with speakers. Then there was a roof. First we boarded the ship and ate lunch, then we sat up on the roof as the boat meandered through hundredes of little rock islands (and other tour boats...). Althought there were a ton of other boats, it was still one of the most beautiful things I have seen. Our boat then docked at one island where there was a massave cave. We got to walk through the cave, I have never been in one so hugh befor, it was probably 50 feet high, and very open. It looked as though there used to be a stream with a waterfall running through it, but there was no longer any water in it. After the cave we docked at a floating dock with kayaks and got to kayak around for about an hour. That was awesome, we got to get really close to the rock islands and explore a lite. The rest of the day we swam. We were on the boat with 11 other people and all of them were really friendly and fun. We had a great time jumping off the roof of the boat into the water. We ate dinner, and then drank some beers sang some karoake and went night swimming some more. It was fun, and very beautiful, so worth doing. Now we catch a 13 hour sleeper bus to Hue Vietnam, it is located in the center area of Vietnam.

Day 2 Vietnam

Today we rented motorbikes and road around Hanoi all day. It was insane. There are no lights or stop signs and there are motorbikes filling the roads, it looks very scary, but if you just keep going with the flow it is pretty easy. We road around, did some shoping (bought 8 Wii games for $9US), went to the Temple of literature (which is the oldest school in Vietnam, and it was beautiful!), hung out with some locals on the side of the road, met a friend who showed us around, went to a traditional puppet show (it was all in vietnamese so couldn't understand it, but it was all done on water and had like music, it was really interesting), and then got some dinner. It was a very long day and thanks to the motorbike we saw most of the city. Tomorrow we get up at 7am to go to Halong. I am really looking foward to that! Also, we have been picking up a lot of vietnamese words and phrases, after trying to learn cantonese, this seems so much easier!

Vietnam

Arrived in Vietnam yesterday! Spent an hour at the airport waiting for the bus to fill up - but three vietnamese girls who worked for the shuttle bus were very friendly and taught us some key phrases, which has helped us out a lot. They then showed us where to get off the bus to find cheap hotels. Walked around the Old Quarters till we found some hotels. $7 a night per person with a nice clean room, internet, airconditioning, breakfast, and a view! The hotels here are also travel agents, so all the planning we didn't do before we came, we got taken care of for the next few days, for cheaper than we were finding online. Today we are going around the city on motorbikes and exploring some temples and attractions. Tomorrow morning a bus picks us up at our hotel and takes us to Ha Long and Cat Ba. look them up, it looks awesome! We go on a boat form there and go on a 2 day 1 night boat tour with kayaking breakfast lunch dinner and swimming. We get back on the 3rd around 5pm and then catch a train to Hue at 7pm. We will arrive in Hue the next morning. So that takes care of travel and stuff till the 4th. Then we need to figure out Laos, and Cambodia.

Dinner was great last night. Had beer with pineapple, it was in a red tomato sauce that was sweet and loaded with garlic. It was nice to get an asian meal that wasn't so spicy!

Things are going good. Will write again when I get the chance.

by clicking on this link you can see a satellite view of where I have traveled throughout the days! My friend Adam who is coming with us on our trip has a gps system that hooks up to a website and tracks on a map where you are, and I think depending on satellite signals it can update as much as every 10mins. So if you want to see how my trip to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia is going check here. If you see the track go anywhere else besides those three countries, then you may want to start to worry and call a US embassy. Also the gps has a emergency button to press, so if anything should go wrong not only will someone know but then they will also know where to find us! does that make you feel better mom? I leave Thursday April 30th and coem back to Hong Kong Sunday May 10th.


http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0NF3eAPf4uCLTr4hLqQNcAOiCg1SJamDx