In my last post, I suggested the ludicrous possibility that
that post would be my last. Silly me. I am far too self indulgent for that. And I like web-logging too much.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Feeling Nice Again
I just went back to look at the last post to see where I left off. Wow, that's depressing stuff. Not anymore! As I write this, we are in Dalat, and our tummies and minds are both very happy!
To continue... Lisa was sick in Bangkok so she got to see almost none of it. She was sick all day, but made it out in the evening for a drink at Sky Bar on the 64th floor of the building down the street. I got her some prescriptionless anti-nausea and anti-biotics in the grocery store in our basement for $4. When the superbug plague starts, it's going to start here. In general, that kind of thinking has been one of the "things" about being here. In some ways, the environmental impact of the people here seems smaller; motorbikes instead of cars, reusable stuff, communal cooking and eating. But in other ways, it makes me think that it doesn't really matter what I or what Canadians do, in the grand scheme of things. In all the countries we have visited, bottled water is what everyone drinks, vehicle emission standards either do not exist or are ignored, and I haven't seen a real recycling bin yet. It hurts several times a day when I scrunch up a water bottle and put it in the regular garbage. Vietnam has 90 million people, but that is a drop in the Asia bucket when we are talking about China, Indonesia, etc etc. The next N years are going to be interesting over here.
I got to see some of Bangkok! When Lisa was day sleeping, I took a little route on the river ferry, then walked a bit, then took a canal ferry, then took a sky train home. Then had a nap. I guess we will just have to go back someday.
Maybe it is just a coincidence, but we felt better when we got back to Vietnam! On Saturday, we flew to Saigon, which they call Ho Chi Minh City since the north won the civil war. What s relief to not feel sick. Maybe we can last another week here after all!
We, meaning I, got ripped off by a taxi into town, and paid about $4 more than I needed to. Grrrr! But we got to our hotel and immediately found the rooftop pool and patio. Yay Saigon!! We fixed ourselves up, and went wandering. We got caffeine for the walk. Its too bad Lisa doesn't like it because they have delicious coffee here. Eventually we found a nice restaurant to eat at. It was a little too late for dinner, and we were the only people there except for the staff. Eventually they stood around awkwardly while we finished eating so that we would leave and they could go home or out partying. Who knows. We wandered to a bar that is in the travel book called Apocalypse Now and we went in. We had the fun! There was dancing and music we knew. And we got to play "does she work for the bar or is she a hooker or is she just a girl out with her friends? How offensive of us. Or maybe not.
We went back to the hotel and went to sleep. I blame it on that ferocious evening café den, but I woke up at 3:30 (am), and I was UP. So I watched Apocalypse Now, which neither of us had actually seen before. Random and a good but very weird movie.
Somehow I was not super tired the next day, and we had a big day of doing the sightseeing. We went to the War Remnants Museum. It documents the French and especially the American war here. While the story is clearly told from the perspective of the Vietnamese Communists, it is pretty sad and terrible what happened to the country and its people during the war. Lisa and I had to leave the agent orange photo room because it is not nice to look at. Not nice!
They do have American tanks, airplanes, and helicopters parked out front, so that was also neato. Most of the Vietnamese people we have interacted with on this trip have been of our generation, so not the generation that actually fought in the war. However, we still find it remarkable how friendly and warm and happy the people here are, given the past 100 years of their history. We still find it a little awkward though when they talk about the colonists leaving, when we are the colonists in Canada.
And then
We went to the Independence Palace. I think that's what it was called. History time, overdue. The French showed up in Vietnam in the 1800s and said we run this now. Then WWII happened and Japan took over for a year, so the French left. Then WWII ended and the Japanese left. Great, right? Wrong! The French came back immediately and looked to have the same setup ad before. Except this time, communism was big, the soviets were supportive of Vietnam being communist, and a French-educated revolutionary named Ho Chi Minh led the revolt. That was the French War. In 1954, Geneva convention split the country into North and South Vietnam. But the north communist Vietnamese wanted the country united, and the French wanted their colony and puppet government. America, proteccting it's interests in resources and ideology, funded the French and then eventually sent lots of soldiers in a war effort that lasted about 17 years. Finally, pressure from home and elsewhere and the futility of their effort led the Americans to leave in 1973. The north kept pushing and the glorious (for some) reunification happened in 1975. A tank drove through the gate of the Palace and symbolically the war was over. The Palace constructín was started by the American sponsored leader/dictator around 1960. Some of his own troops killed him because he wasn't the best, so he did not get to see it completed. Anyway, it is sooo 1960s architecture. Lisa found it to be ugly: "who thought it was a good idea to build ornaments out of concrete?" After five years at University of Waterloo, I found the palace to be quite comfortable, airy, repetitive, and functional. Hmm.
Saigon really comes alive at night, like a lot of the cities here and in Europe. People come out of their medium density apartments and fill the streets and parks. We have commented about how we have felt perfectly safe with all of our night walking here. We think it is partially due to a lack of thugs,partislly due to most of the inebriated people being tourists, and mostly due to the streets being so busy all the tine. We are concerned about being scammed for 20 bucks, but we aren't really scared of being raped or murdered or mugged. Maybe we are being naïve. Anyways, people come out and sit around and they play soccer in barefeet on concrete, or they play weird badminton-soccer with limbs that should not bend like that.
This has also happened enough to not be a random event: Cafe's and restaurants in Saigon and Dalat both like to play love ballads, with or without their English lyrics. I've heard more Celine Dion in the last week than I have in the last year. We have seen posters for Valentine's Day still up. I don't think they know that on Feb 15 you put up decorations for the next holiday. That's just how it works, right?
We had a late flight yesterday from Saigon to Dalat, so we decided to go to take s half day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels outside of town. We went there on a boat! Up the Saigon river! The tunnels are how the Viet Cong hid and moved people and stuff around during the wars. A lot of it is pretty ingenious. They used their small stature and flexible limbs in their favour, building these tunnels that the American soldiers couldn't fit inside. Once they started getting bombed to hell, they just dug deeper and deeper, with tunnel levels at 3, 6, and 9m underground - deeper than a B52 bomb crater can reach. They had secret entrances too big for American shoulders to fit through. They built chimneys up to 100m long, horizontally, so that smoke from kitchen fires would lead the bombers to the wrong place. Both sides did terrible stuff to people, but I respect the tenacity of these soldiers and communities.
We were pretty late and stressed going to the airport because after the tour we went for ice cream and a rooftop drink - so entirely our fault - but we made our flight to Dalat. Today we finalized our Canyoning excursion about 19 minutes before they picked us up at our hotel, but we are happy it worked out. It was really fun to rappel down rocks into the river below, and then repel through waterfalls and float down the river. It was NOT fun to hike back up the mountain at the end, but maybe that's just us getting soft after three weeks of vacation and easy living.
This afternoon we visited the Dalat Flower Park. It is a wonderful place with cheesy shrubs and topiary, nice flowers, and people taking ridiculous photos and selfies everywhere. We got to be idiots for an hour before finally getting too tired and abandoning the dragon hedge for the safety of our hotel.
And I guess that brings me to now. We fly to Hoi An tomorrow, which is really our last stop. I can and can't believe it has been almost four weeks, if you know what I mean. I will add a couple of picks now but hopefully more later. Also, its not impossible that this is the last post of the trip, so steel yourselves for the end. It will be harder for me than it is for you, I am certain.
1) Lisa is about to rappel down that waterfall! She did it nice.
2) Lisa starts down "The Washing Machine" - this one got really crazy at the bottom. Lisa is the best wife ever!
To continue... Lisa was sick in Bangkok so she got to see almost none of it. She was sick all day, but made it out in the evening for a drink at Sky Bar on the 64th floor of the building down the street. I got her some prescriptionless anti-nausea and anti-biotics in the grocery store in our basement for $4. When the superbug plague starts, it's going to start here. In general, that kind of thinking has been one of the "things" about being here. In some ways, the environmental impact of the people here seems smaller; motorbikes instead of cars, reusable stuff, communal cooking and eating. But in other ways, it makes me think that it doesn't really matter what I or what Canadians do, in the grand scheme of things. In all the countries we have visited, bottled water is what everyone drinks, vehicle emission standards either do not exist or are ignored, and I haven't seen a real recycling bin yet. It hurts several times a day when I scrunch up a water bottle and put it in the regular garbage. Vietnam has 90 million people, but that is a drop in the Asia bucket when we are talking about China, Indonesia, etc etc. The next N years are going to be interesting over here.
I got to see some of Bangkok! When Lisa was day sleeping, I took a little route on the river ferry, then walked a bit, then took a canal ferry, then took a sky train home. Then had a nap. I guess we will just have to go back someday.
Maybe it is just a coincidence, but we felt better when we got back to Vietnam! On Saturday, we flew to Saigon, which they call Ho Chi Minh City since the north won the civil war. What s relief to not feel sick. Maybe we can last another week here after all!
We, meaning I, got ripped off by a taxi into town, and paid about $4 more than I needed to. Grrrr! But we got to our hotel and immediately found the rooftop pool and patio. Yay Saigon!! We fixed ourselves up, and went wandering. We got caffeine for the walk. Its too bad Lisa doesn't like it because they have delicious coffee here. Eventually we found a nice restaurant to eat at. It was a little too late for dinner, and we were the only people there except for the staff. Eventually they stood around awkwardly while we finished eating so that we would leave and they could go home or out partying. Who knows. We wandered to a bar that is in the travel book called Apocalypse Now and we went in. We had the fun! There was dancing and music we knew. And we got to play "does she work for the bar or is she a hooker or is she just a girl out with her friends? How offensive of us. Or maybe not.
We went back to the hotel and went to sleep. I blame it on that ferocious evening café den, but I woke up at 3:30 (am), and I was UP. So I watched Apocalypse Now, which neither of us had actually seen before. Random and a good but very weird movie.
Somehow I was not super tired the next day, and we had a big day of doing the sightseeing. We went to the War Remnants Museum. It documents the French and especially the American war here. While the story is clearly told from the perspective of the Vietnamese Communists, it is pretty sad and terrible what happened to the country and its people during the war. Lisa and I had to leave the agent orange photo room because it is not nice to look at. Not nice!
They do have American tanks, airplanes, and helicopters parked out front, so that was also neato. Most of the Vietnamese people we have interacted with on this trip have been of our generation, so not the generation that actually fought in the war. However, we still find it remarkable how friendly and warm and happy the people here are, given the past 100 years of their history. We still find it a little awkward though when they talk about the colonists leaving, when we are the colonists in Canada.
And then
We went to the Independence Palace. I think that's what it was called. History time, overdue. The French showed up in Vietnam in the 1800s and said we run this now. Then WWII happened and Japan took over for a year, so the French left. Then WWII ended and the Japanese left. Great, right? Wrong! The French came back immediately and looked to have the same setup ad before. Except this time, communism was big, the soviets were supportive of Vietnam being communist, and a French-educated revolutionary named Ho Chi Minh led the revolt. That was the French War. In 1954, Geneva convention split the country into North and South Vietnam. But the north communist Vietnamese wanted the country united, and the French wanted their colony and puppet government. America, proteccting it's interests in resources and ideology, funded the French and then eventually sent lots of soldiers in a war effort that lasted about 17 years. Finally, pressure from home and elsewhere and the futility of their effort led the Americans to leave in 1973. The north kept pushing and the glorious (for some) reunification happened in 1975. A tank drove through the gate of the Palace and symbolically the war was over. The Palace constructín was started by the American sponsored leader/dictator around 1960. Some of his own troops killed him because he wasn't the best, so he did not get to see it completed. Anyway, it is sooo 1960s architecture. Lisa found it to be ugly: "who thought it was a good idea to build ornaments out of concrete?" After five years at University of Waterloo, I found the palace to be quite comfortable, airy, repetitive, and functional. Hmm.
Saigon really comes alive at night, like a lot of the cities here and in Europe. People come out of their medium density apartments and fill the streets and parks. We have commented about how we have felt perfectly safe with all of our night walking here. We think it is partially due to a lack of thugs,partislly due to most of the inebriated people being tourists, and mostly due to the streets being so busy all the tine. We are concerned about being scammed for 20 bucks, but we aren't really scared of being raped or murdered or mugged. Maybe we are being naïve. Anyways, people come out and sit around and they play soccer in barefeet on concrete, or they play weird badminton-soccer with limbs that should not bend like that.
This has also happened enough to not be a random event: Cafe's and restaurants in Saigon and Dalat both like to play love ballads, with or without their English lyrics. I've heard more Celine Dion in the last week than I have in the last year. We have seen posters for Valentine's Day still up. I don't think they know that on Feb 15 you put up decorations for the next holiday. That's just how it works, right?
We had a late flight yesterday from Saigon to Dalat, so we decided to go to take s half day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels outside of town. We went there on a boat! Up the Saigon river! The tunnels are how the Viet Cong hid and moved people and stuff around during the wars. A lot of it is pretty ingenious. They used their small stature and flexible limbs in their favour, building these tunnels that the American soldiers couldn't fit inside. Once they started getting bombed to hell, they just dug deeper and deeper, with tunnel levels at 3, 6, and 9m underground - deeper than a B52 bomb crater can reach. They had secret entrances too big for American shoulders to fit through. They built chimneys up to 100m long, horizontally, so that smoke from kitchen fires would lead the bombers to the wrong place. Both sides did terrible stuff to people, but I respect the tenacity of these soldiers and communities.
We were pretty late and stressed going to the airport because after the tour we went for ice cream and a rooftop drink - so entirely our fault - but we made our flight to Dalat. Today we finalized our Canyoning excursion about 19 minutes before they picked us up at our hotel, but we are happy it worked out. It was really fun to rappel down rocks into the river below, and then repel through waterfalls and float down the river. It was NOT fun to hike back up the mountain at the end, but maybe that's just us getting soft after three weeks of vacation and easy living.
This afternoon we visited the Dalat Flower Park. It is a wonderful place with cheesy shrubs and topiary, nice flowers, and people taking ridiculous photos and selfies everywhere. We got to be idiots for an hour before finally getting too tired and abandoning the dragon hedge for the safety of our hotel.
And I guess that brings me to now. We fly to Hoi An tomorrow, which is really our last stop. I can and can't believe it has been almost four weeks, if you know what I mean. I will add a couple of picks now but hopefully more later. Also, its not impossible that this is the last post of the trip, so steel yourselves for the end. It will be harder for me than it is for you, I am certain.
1) Lisa is about to rappel down that waterfall! She did it nice.
2) Lisa starts down "The Washing Machine" - this one got really crazy at the bottom. Lisa is the best wife ever!
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Paradises
At airport. Go to bangkok now. So broken. We ate the mean food yesterday for lunch and then had a nap and then lisa got sick and then i got sick. I still feel the sick but lisa is better. Now she only has her head sinus sick left. We will maybe have a nap in bangkok and maybe wake up feeling nice again. I hope so.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Lisa's Turn
Lisa's turn! I generally don't add anything because I'm lazy and I am not sure if people actually want to hear about our trip while potentially getting hypothermia... But apparently you do! So I will talk!
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Good Morning Chiang Mai
Lisa and I are now on the airplane to leave Chiang Mai and
go to Phuket. For those of you who have not spent the last four months planning
a trip to Thailand: Chiang Mai is in northern Thailand and is definitely the
regional capital. Phuket is an “island” on the southwest coast of the country,
along the isthmus of Thailand. It has the potential to jump to the top of the list of my favourite isthmus...es? – stay tuned for final results!
Today is the first day since we arrived in Lao that Lisa and
I both kind of feel normal. That has likely coloured our view of Chiang Mai,
but I think we did pretty well, considering. We stayed at the strangely-named “Good
Morning Chiang Mai Tropical Inn”. It became clear why when we saw this out our
window:
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Today I write about Laos
So. Laos.
We had a pretty quick stay in this country, only two nights. Our flight in was kind of delayed so we didnt land til after dark. Our on-arrival visas cost $42 each - the most for any country in their huge list. I don't know what Canada did to Laos, but I would be more surprised if it was nothing. Anyways. We cabbed into town with a few otyer tourists and were dropped off at our hotel on the peninsula of Luang Prabang. (pronounced more like bong than bang). We went wandering for food, and found a strange mix of places. Some were empty (bad sign?), some were too full for us, and a mix of indoor and outdoor. We found a spot finally. The Lao food was significantly different than anything yet, but yummy. Mine smelled kind of like feet but it tasted really good. They eat everything with sticky rice there, that is their thing.
Yesterday we woke up kind of late and had a nice breakfast by the river. Tue worst thing about Luang Prabang is the tourists (including us no doubt). At breakfast, we watched this group of three girls take every kind of selfie we could imagine, and more. Its actually amazing how much these asian girls love selfies. So many of them have selfie sticks, and its not for a lack of friend to take the photo; the whole group is doing selfies and rarely taking pics of each other. Is this me feeling old? Or just rationally Canadian?
After breakfast, we climbed the big hill to Mount Phousi, which (like everything there) had a nice Wat and a bunch of Buddhas on top. And a gorgeous view of the city. We exited by a different stairwell and were glad we did. The up-route was boring and plain, but the down route had all sorta if golden Buddhas, caves, Nagas, and other stuff. Even an anti-aircraft gun! So much to look at.
While not watching my feet, I misstepped on a down stair and started falling to my right. Thanks to my extensive fall-related training, i released the object in my right hand and executed a perfect reach to grasp reaction, getting a good power grip on the Naga handrail. Unfortunately, the object in my hand was our SLR camera. I watched in slow motion as it fell down onto a nice rock slope, then tumbled down about 20 more stairs before coming to rest. Lisa walked down, picked it up, aimed it at me, and took a photo. Whew. Somehow, it is dented and chipped everywhere except on the stuff that matters. Hopefully its not *just* off - hopefully all the pics from now on are not just a little blurry. We will see.
We got down from the mountain, said hi / sa bai dee to a few monks, and crossed the river to lunch restaurant dyei sabai on a bamboo bridge. A few days ago, instagram @natgeo posted a pic of monks crossing the bamboo bridge. Kinda neat to be there ourselves right after. For lunch, we had Lao Fondue. This is a fun mix of Korean BBQ, pho, and actual north american fondue. And so delicious that i ate toooo much again. In Laos they ask you yo take off your shoes a lot. So bending over to do up my shoes after lunch? Not so easy.
We walked back over the bridge and walked over to the former palace / national museum to look at their Things. They're nice. Canada gave them a nice plate (*cough*$42*cough*).
Then it was time for changing the clothes and lying in the AC. It was 34 yesterday. I haven't sweat through a shirt like that in quite some time! And how!
We regrouped in time to catch an awedome sunset over a beer and scrabble. Thry have restaurant kiosks set up all along the rivers, but they lack certain facilities. In our next quest for dinner and a washroom, we walked and walked and walked and ended up at a hotel and thought okay fine. But then too many china mainlanders were yelling and being jerk tourists so we left. Finally we fought through the night market and found a table! We are rarely so happy to find an overpriced tourist restaurant.
FYI we are here in the so-called "dry season". (that's called foreshadowing). No sooner did we order than I saw some flashes of light down the street... Five minutes later, after a shrewd table change, there was a torrential downpour. Lights were flickering and people were running and shouting like rain is a new thing. The night market disappeared instantly. Tourists were huddling on our patio to get out of tue rain, so we offered a seat (since we are soooo nice). Eventually a couple of germans sat down, and while one beer turned into three, the rain stopped and we had a nice little night.
Amid all the distraction, we forgot to take our WITH FOOD malaria pills with the food. We took them when we got home. Bad choice. I had the worst dream hallucinations i have ever had, not even close. To sum it up... I caught up on Breaking Bad (apparently its not over / now it features James Franco), stressed out over leaving work for my upcoming four week vacation, and finally blew up during a weird family board game of paper ball baseball in chairs (what?). May i never have such night terrors.
Because of all of that, we skipped getting up to watch the Luang Prabang monk alms giving ceremony. There are mixed reviews about how much tourists, especially non-buddhists, shouod be involved anyway, so its okay i think. Wr have seen and continue to see our share of Wats and Monks.
We strolled around for a bit then caught a tuk tuk to the airport and flew to Chiang Mai in Thailand. That makes five countries in the last 9 days, which is kind of nuts. We slow down here for a bit which is well timed. Next stop is the beach and the doing of nothing.
We hqve explored Chiang Mai only a little bit so far, but we like what we see. Unfortunately, neither of us are feeling our best today - Lisa with the tummy and me with the sinus dry and sad. I feel like such a delicate Canadian flower: ohh, it's too hot outside and i need the air conditioning; the AC is too powerful and it makes me throat dry and my nose all stuffed up. #firstworldproblems #suckitup. Jeanie why did I not bring my Rhinaris? Anyways, if anyone knows how to defeat the dry, let me know. I had a nap with a shirt over my head today and i think i will keep that going.
Bedtime now! After a big dose of JD, we hope to sleep off the mean and wake up to the nice.
I wanted to add pics but the internet is too slow. Maybe later.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Hard Work
Boo hoo we are seeing too many awesome things and we are worn out. I know. But that is kind of how we feel. Today we got up at 5:30 so we could tuktuk 90 minutes to Banta Srei, another awesome temple about 60km from Siam Reap. We got there almost first, which was kind of cool. The carvings there were older and also way better preserved than at Angkor Wat or Angkor Thom from yesterday.
CAMBODIA
Well, i started writing this on the Blogger app, but then I added a photo and it crashed and now I have to retype words. Too bad for me, and also for you because there was good stuff in there.
Anyways. Lisa and I are now in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It's hot! 
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Lisa and Simon go to Asia
Well, the title of this blog is now a major misnomer, but we will let that slide, won't we? Apologies in advance for typos. I am writing this on our little tablet and I left the real keyboard at home. And I am trying to type fast to tell you all about the exciting excitings that we have been up to.
Flight Friday night at 1am to Hong Kong. 16 hourss later we land in HK. We each slept for four or five hours thanks to our ostrich pillows (Google it) and were not too bad upon arrival. We followed our instructions and got on bus A41 to Sha Tin and Shannon was there with TEA and COFFEE. Shannon is nice. And so is Andrew! I mean Jeezy! Awesome hosts. Zombie Lisa and I toured around HK for the day and had a nice time. It was very comfortable for us there. I think we could live in Hong Kong. We like the way that everyone lives is apartments, parks are near and plentiful, and transit is cheap and amazing. The city is modern and busy and fun and delicious!! We vowed to stay up to 8pm even though we were drunk tired by mid afternoon. After a game of Chinese settlers and a yummy beet pasta thing, we slept. A lot. Lisa got up after 14 hours, but I went for the full 17. It was spectacular. Lisa wasn't mad, but she was impressed.
On our own. we took the subway to downtown and went up the busy Peak Tram to the top of a mountain in the city. Where there were two malls, lol. We walked around for a while, then went to meet ourhosts for dinner. And then we went for more sleep. Mmmm sleep.
So that brings us to Tuesday morning. We got our S together (s stands for stuff, obviously) and took the bus to the airport. The airport is very fancy. Lots and lots of fancy. We were assigned to the dimmer gate and took a bus to our airplane. Then we got on it and it flew to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We had to get our visa on arrival, and everything went very smoothly so that was a relief. Lisa and I don't really understand how politics work here. It is apparently communist, but it doesn't seem to be much different than our market-economy. And you should trust me because after two and a half days here I am quite the expert...
Hanoi is crazy. We heard it was crazy, but it's one of those things that you have to experience to really get. There are cars, and even the occasional bus, but for way more people, there are motorbikes. Not big bikes, mostly low cc bikes and scooters and mopeds. There are a few traffic lights, but they seem to be just a recommendation. Same with lane / direction markers. Follow it if you feel like it. Seeing a family of four on a scooter is pretty common. Most riders wear patterned mouthmasks to keep out dirt and pollution. Its just kind of how it is.
Okay, so. We took a taxi from the airport. He pulled over, pointed down a narrow lane where cars clearly cc would not fit, pointed, and drove off. Our hotel is lovely though. The staff and people are just so nice. On Tuesday night we arranged to go on a boat to Halong Bay Wed-Thurs. So we woke up on Wednesday waiting for a ride to the coast. I got up early so I went wandering around, inthe rain. I found the best coffee I've had this trip. A "Take Away Coffee" was advertised, so I went in. the man poured coffee from a plastic water bottle into a saucepan, heated it up, dumped it into a red solo cup, and put a straw in. Delicious, thick, black coffee syrup! I might have to go find that guy tomorrow.
Halong bay is an amazing place full of amazing. I took lots and lots and lots of photos, but don't have them on the right device so far. Google it. That place is real and we went there! We went to a huge cave! We went ashore and swam around and climbed to the top and looked around. Lisa caught a squid!!! We kayaked in a nice lagoon. It's one of those places. Go there. Plus, the people in our group were all super nice. One of the guys had a s erious case of resting bitch face,. but you can't win em all. Our tour guide, Van, was the cutest. So funny! The scenery and the food and the hotel are important but it really is the people that make our vacations, and so far the Vietnamese people are awesome.
We got back from that journey at around 430 today. We went for rooftop coffee (cold, with cocoa and yoghurt... yup... it was weird but good!) and then had delicious street food. We saw Hanoi's water puppet theatre, had a nice BIA Hoi, and that will be all for tonight. Tomorrow we fly to Siam Reap, in Cambodia. We will see big Wats there. If you haven't heard of it, Google Angkor Wat. We will go to there! We are excited for hot weather, culture, and Cambodian food!
We are having fun and doing lots of activities. We heard it is super cold back in Toronto. Sorry!?
Lisa says: I caught a squid! Almost! I had it and then when I went to bring it in, it flipped off. I almost caught a squid!!
Flight Friday night at 1am to Hong Kong. 16 hourss later we land in HK. We each slept for four or five hours thanks to our ostrich pillows (Google it) and were not too bad upon arrival. We followed our instructions and got on bus A41 to Sha Tin and Shannon was there with TEA and COFFEE. Shannon is nice. And so is Andrew! I mean Jeezy! Awesome hosts. Zombie Lisa and I toured around HK for the day and had a nice time. It was very comfortable for us there. I think we could live in Hong Kong. We like the way that everyone lives is apartments, parks are near and plentiful, and transit is cheap and amazing. The city is modern and busy and fun and delicious!! We vowed to stay up to 8pm even though we were drunk tired by mid afternoon. After a game of Chinese settlers and a yummy beet pasta thing, we slept. A lot. Lisa got up after 14 hours, but I went for the full 17. It was spectacular. Lisa wasn't mad, but she was impressed.
On our own. we took the subway to downtown and went up the busy Peak Tram to the top of a mountain in the city. Where there were two malls, lol. We walked around for a while, then went to meet ourhosts for dinner. And then we went for more sleep. Mmmm sleep.
So that brings us to Tuesday morning. We got our S together (s stands for stuff, obviously) and took the bus to the airport. The airport is very fancy. Lots and lots of fancy. We were assigned to the dimmer gate and took a bus to our airplane. Then we got on it and it flew to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We had to get our visa on arrival, and everything went very smoothly so that was a relief. Lisa and I don't really understand how politics work here. It is apparently communist, but it doesn't seem to be much different than our market-economy. And you should trust me because after two and a half days here I am quite the expert...
Hanoi is crazy. We heard it was crazy, but it's one of those things that you have to experience to really get. There are cars, and even the occasional bus, but for way more people, there are motorbikes. Not big bikes, mostly low cc bikes and scooters and mopeds. There are a few traffic lights, but they seem to be just a recommendation. Same with lane / direction markers. Follow it if you feel like it. Seeing a family of four on a scooter is pretty common. Most riders wear patterned mouthmasks to keep out dirt and pollution. Its just kind of how it is.
Okay, so. We took a taxi from the airport. He pulled over, pointed down a narrow lane where cars clearly cc would not fit, pointed, and drove off. Our hotel is lovely though. The staff and people are just so nice. On Tuesday night we arranged to go on a boat to Halong Bay Wed-Thurs. So we woke up on Wednesday waiting for a ride to the coast. I got up early so I went wandering around, inthe rain. I found the best coffee I've had this trip. A "Take Away Coffee" was advertised, so I went in. the man poured coffee from a plastic water bottle into a saucepan, heated it up, dumped it into a red solo cup, and put a straw in. Delicious, thick, black coffee syrup! I might have to go find that guy tomorrow.
Halong bay is an amazing place full of amazing. I took lots and lots and lots of photos, but don't have them on the right device so far. Google it. That place is real and we went there! We went to a huge cave! We went ashore and swam around and climbed to the top and looked around. Lisa caught a squid!!! We kayaked in a nice lagoon. It's one of those places. Go there. Plus, the people in our group were all super nice. One of the guys had a s erious case of resting bitch face,. but you can't win em all. Our tour guide, Van, was the cutest. So funny! The scenery and the food and the hotel are important but it really is the people that make our vacations, and so far the Vietnamese people are awesome.
We got back from that journey at around 430 today. We went for rooftop coffee (cold, with cocoa and yoghurt... yup... it was weird but good!) and then had delicious street food. We saw Hanoi's water puppet theatre, had a nice BIA Hoi, and that will be all for tonight. Tomorrow we fly to Siam Reap, in Cambodia. We will see big Wats there. If you haven't heard of it, Google Angkor Wat. We will go to there! We are excited for hot weather, culture, and Cambodian food!
We are having fun and doing lots of activities. We heard it is super cold back in Toronto. Sorry!?
Lisa says: I caught a squid! Almost! I had it and then when I went to bring it in, it flipped off. I almost caught a squid!!
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