If I would have written this post 7 days ago it would have probably been titled "I Hate Tours" and while I am still not a fan the people and our tour guide made the 6 day trip end better than it started. I don't think there was anything necessarily wrong with Intrepid (although I will have my issues with them, especially the first 3 days), but for me tours just aren't the kind of traveling I like to do. I have had a lot of time to think about it and between the issues we had in Asia and the first of our thee here in Africa I think it really boils down to two things for me. 1.) You're on someone elses schedule the whole time. Seriously what's the point of traveling if someone is going to tell you you get 20 min to do this or meet back 60 min from now. It just sucks to have the entire trip dictated to you based on some companies timeline. In the end what you realize is that they just don't have the incentive to have you in their best interest. They are looking to get as much money out of you and get you from point A to B in the shortest amount of time. 2.) You are don't get that "oh shit" feeling. You never get to make a mistake or feel vulnerable or uncomfortable. You basically feel like a kid on a 6th grade field trip. You don't get to make mistakes or be out on your own and meet people and in the end that is half the fun of traveling.
That said it is great to be back in Africa and traveling over land is the only way to do it. When you fly it is convenient, but you just miss too much of the good stuff. The other cool thing is that being back has brought a lot of fond memories back of Makapansgat and the time I spent here 5 years ago. I really do think I appreciate how unique the experience was now more than ever. It just is something you can't duplicate. Seriously being in Makapan was totally different than this trip and I doubt no matter how hard I try I will never get to live in a valley in South Africa for two months. I am not saying this one will not be equally as great. I think there is a lot left to do here and I am pretty sure the next 35 days we have here driving across Africa will yield there own unique experiences.
Now that that stuff is out of the way I guess I should try and summarize what we have been up to. I will do my best to keep it short, but 10 days is a long time not to blog. Also we have been taking readings with Mr. Matt's gps. I don't have it with me, but I will try to post the coordinates for each of our camps so that you can go to google maps and see where we are.
Day 1 (August 7th) Departure
After going back and forth across town the night before to the tune of 120 bucks we figured out a way to meet our tour group closer to our hotel. When we arrived at the meeting point there was another group leaving the hostel. They had a huge overland truck and there were about 4 "hot" chics boarding the thing (they were Africa hot, which in the end probably meant nothing to write home about, but it was a shock to see anything resembling a girl boarding the thing). The guide asked if we were on her trip and while tempted to say yes we told her we were waiting for another group. Our ride showed up about an hour later and to our surprise was nothing like the fully geared out truck the other group had. Our ride for the next 6 days looked like an airport shuttle bus with a trailer. You know the kind that carts you from the economy lot to main terminal. All in all we had 14 people on the damn thing not including our guide and the trailer was not big enough to fit all the gear so the entire back row was full of bags.
Once we loaded our stuff up we set out and not an hour into the ride we had a flat on the trailer. It took about 20 min to change and then we were back on the bus. From there we drove another 2 hours or so and then stopped for lunch. Our guide ( his name is Garland) gave one of the group members 400 rand and told us to all go eat together while he shopped for dinner. It worked out ok I guess, but giving 14 strangers money and telling them to just go work it out on their own is a little crappy. After wasting an hour and a half in town we got on the bus and I swear not 20 min later we stopped for gas. At this point I was pretty much pissed. Seriously how does the driver sit around for an 1.5 hrs and not get gas. After filling up we pressed on and shortly after that blew out another tire. Yup two in 3 hours. Obviously the bus we were on was not built for this. I won't go into too much more detail as the trip pretty much went like this all damn day. In addition to all the technical issues we drove 180km out of our way to spend 20 min at the Blyre River Canyon (3rd largest in the world) Honestly, who drives 3 hours out of their way if they are only going to give you 20 min to walk around. On the way back from the canyon the breaks over heated on our way down a mountain on the way to Kruger and we had to stop again. To put it in perspective driving to Kruger from Jo'burg in a straight shot takes about 3.5 hours. In our case we spent 11 hours in a damn van on day one and missed Kruger by an hour. We did not realize it then, but this would cost us our night game drive and possibly an extra hour or two to see animals inside Kruger. About the only thing that went in our favor is we did not camp on night one. Since we missed Kruger we had to stay in a private game lodge outside the park.
Day 2 Kruger
This was probably the low point for me of the trip. We got up at 5:00 am again to depart at 5:30am so that we could stay on schedule and get to Kruger as early as possible. Day 2 was suppose to be our game drive through Kruger Park. Having been there before I was pretty excited to go out there again and get a shot at seeing a leopard and the rest of the big 5. Unfortunately for me Intrepid viewed the "game drive" as a way to add something to our tour while driving 80km an hour down only the main road to the northern most campsite in the park. Seriously our driver would have to slam on the breaks and back up a good 100-200 yards every time we saw something. Seriously having spent 4 days in Kruger in 2002 I knew this was not the way to see anything and as the day went on it just got worse and worse. By the time we got to camp we had seen the usual stuff, but had failed to see lions, leopards, or rhinos. We thought we might get a shot at a night game drive when we got to camp, but our tour leader shot that down quickly saying they would not come out to pick us up at our camp site for the night drive. I have no idea why he could not drive us back to the main lodge himself, but we got the impression it was just not going to happen. After setting up camp we ate and everyone pretty much went to bed having spent another 10 hours in our shitty bus.
Day 3 Road to Polokwane
It was another 4:45am wake up for us on day 3. After packing up we piled into the bus for a 3 hour drive through Kruger and then another 4 to Polokwane. On the way out of Kruger we actually came upon a huge group of people who had seen a big cat in the tall grass. They were all stopped and waiting for it to re-emerge. So what do we do, we stop for 5 min and then roll on slowly so that we could make it to Polokwane by 2pm. I guess that is just how it is in the end. Your experience comes second to the schedule, even when you have a real shot at sitting for 20 min and seeing a big cat. Honestly, I saw a lion just about every damn day the last time I was in Kruger and with Intrepid we saw none. I know there is a lot of luck in seeing game, but there is a certain patience to it as well and our guide had none. We left Kruger around 10am and continued on to Polokwane. We got dumped in a shopping mall for an hour while our guide shopped again. I get that he had to shop, but he could at least take us into a town where we could get on the internet or look around instead of leaving us at a strip mall. From there we went to camp, set up and ate lunch. We probably sat around camp for 3 hours waiting for our bus to come back from getting new tires. Clearly after day 1 it needed it. We did a late evening game drive in a private park to see rhinos. Of course we did not see any, but I will say our group was the best group of shadow and rock spotters I have ever seen. The night ended with dinner and another early turn in since we had another 4:45am wake up call
Day 4 Road to Nata
According to our guide this was our first official long drive day. I am not sure what he considered the other 3, but that was the way he described day 4. We left camp at 6am and the day was pretty much all driving. About the only cool thing that happened was we stopped in a small village on the side of the road to visit with the people who lived there. It was pretty cool to see all the kids running around and take their pictures and show it to them. They really got a kick out of seeing themselves. Chris showed them some of the video's we had from Asia, but none of them were as big of a hit as the video he took of all of them and their village. They literally burst out laughing as each one of them appeared on the screen. From there we made the rest of our trip to Nata. The roads were complete crap and covered in pot holes. It really is hard to describe, but we probably average about 30 miles an hour for a good stretch. In the end the drive took about 8 hours. At camp that night there was a bar at the place we were camping and everyone took some time to unwind after 4 straight days on the bus. I have to say this was probably the turning point for the group. Everyone began to open up at this point and the group began to gel a little bit. Everyone stayed up a little bit later that night since we were getting a reprieve the next day. Chobi was only 5 hours away and we did not have to leave till 8am the next day.
Day 5 Chobi
We got up late on day 5 and made the 5 hour drive across pot hole covered roads to Chobi. We set up camp and got a chance to order a customized t-shirt for our trip that we would pick up in Livingstone. They turned out pretty cool and show our entire trip from Jo'burg all the way to Nairobi. That evening in Chobi we got to go on a sunset river cruise. This was clearly the highlight of the trip and really raised everyone's spirits. It really reminded me of how cool it is to be traveling in Africa. We boated for about 2 hours and got within 10 ft of some of the animals on the banks. We saw everything, but big cats and at one point could see 7-8 different species of animals all in one place. The whole trip Chris snapped photos with the SLR like a National Geographic photographer. I must admit there are some cool shots. I wish the internet did not suck so bad here so we could put some of them up. After the cruise we went back to camp and lucky for us our guide had arranged a dinner at the lodge so we did not have to cook at camp. We all ate and then went to the bar again. I think everyone was finally having a good time. Too bad the trip was set to end the next day when we got to Livingstone.
Day 6 Livingstone and Victoria Falls
We got to get up late again and made the boarder crossing around 10am. It really was like something you see out of a movie. Once we finished border formalities we had to get on a small ferry that could carry one big truck at a time and then a bunch of people. Our guide arranged for us to meet up with another guy who lives in Zambia so he could take us to the falls while our guide and driver waited to get the bus across. It was a short ride across the Zambezi, but it was pretty crazy. The boarder was packed and people were sitting all over the place with huge bags of stuff. Once we got across we were taken by some our new crazy guide to Victoria Falls. Seriously it was some British expat who had lived there for 20 years, looked like he had not bathed in weeks, and was missing his front teeth. He drove us in a 1968 British double decker bus to the falls blaring the Beetles all the way. He was unique if nothing else. It was about an hour ride and we spent about another hour and a half at the falls. They were pretty impressive, although I must say I was expecting more. After the falls we headed back to Livingstone. We checked into our hotel quickly and then met the group for a booze cruise (35 usd for dinner and free drinks). The cruise lasted about 2 hours and then we spent the rest of the night till around 11 hanging out with everyone. After that we set out to walk back to our hotel, which was only about 10 min away. On the way out the guard said to be careful. Of course we asked of what people and he said no elephants. We both smiled to ourselves as we walked out the gate. Seriously elephants, watch out for elephants.... we must be in Africa
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Turn for home
After spending an entire afternoon in Singapore homeless we headed for the airport around 9pm for our 2am flight. The train ride took about 40 minutes so we were there in plenty of time. Usually that would be a bad thing since waiting in airports is pretty miserable, but no tin Singapore. I mean this place was like a small city and after you went through security everything was open until 1am or something ridiculous like that. I mean there was the usual duty free stores, an entire mall, free internet, 24hour dinning, an entertainment zone with a movie theater, online games and xbox's. If I would have know the airport was like that I would have gone there as soon as we checked out. After about 4 hours of hanging around we boarded the flight to Joahannesburg eager to get some sleep.
We arrived in Johannesburg on Singapore Airlines, which once again was awesome. I promise I won't say anymore about it, but Singapore Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown. We made it through customs pretty quick and headed to meet up with our ride to the Hyatt. Of course the guy was no where to be found and after looking around we finally found someone who was from the Hyatt who was there to pick someone else up. He called and they had no record of us needing a ride so we were basically SOL. Got to love Africa. Not off the plane 45 min and we were already having our first Africa moment. We finally got a cab and got to the hotel around 9am. The ride was a little interesting. All the walled in homes and barb wire always look strange to me. Between that and the ADT security signs all over the place that say "armed guard response" you would think we are in a war zone. We checked in to the Hyatt around 9am and after about an hour wait our room was ready. Not much else happened that day. We eventually ventured out to find the mall. Ironically it was Rosebank mall, which is where they always brought us the last time I was here with ASU.
The next day we spent more time walking around the area and trying to get a hotel in Livingstone. Honestly trying to find a hotel in Livingstone has been horrible. Aside from it being a busy time of year, just about everything there is a resort and costs 400 USD a night. Not really in our budget. We finally gave in after trying the internet, STA and a few other places and decided to go with a company we had contacted from Vietnam. It wasn't cheap, but we could not see ourselves going to Livingstone without a reservation. That night we hired a cab for about 100 USD to take us out to pay the travel agent and go to the Carnivore restaurant. It ended up being a really good night and the game meat at the Carnivore was delicious.
The next day we spent getting things organized for our trip and doing a little shopping. We decided to do as much of our big shopping in Jo'burg so that we could ship it before we left on our trip. The market in Rosebank was pretty cool and both of us got a good amount of stuff. after we were done shopping we headed to the Post Net shop across the parking lot to ship our stuff. Of course it cost a ridiculous amount to ship the box. It probably cost more to ship the damn, box than the stuff inside cost us, but it is always nice to lighten the load and not carry a ton of crap around. Once we had everything shipped we had to catch another cab across town to meet our Intrepid group. The place was impossible to find and our driver had no idea where to go. It took about 1.5hrs to find the place and it was a lucky find since the sign was not lit at all. We paid our on ground fee of 280 bucks to Intrepid then hopped back in the car to head home. The round trip once again cost us another 100 bucks. I swear the lack of public transportation is a killer in Africa. All said we probably spent 300 dollars just on taxi's in our 3 days in Jo'burg. The only good thing that came out of the night is that we arranged for Intrepid to pick us up closer to our hotel the next day. Once we got back to the Hyatt we pretty much went to bed. We had a 5:30am get up and we were both pretty beat.
We arrived in Johannesburg on Singapore Airlines, which once again was awesome. I promise I won't say anymore about it, but Singapore Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown. We made it through customs pretty quick and headed to meet up with our ride to the Hyatt. Of course the guy was no where to be found and after looking around we finally found someone who was from the Hyatt who was there to pick someone else up. He called and they had no record of us needing a ride so we were basically SOL. Got to love Africa. Not off the plane 45 min and we were already having our first Africa moment. We finally got a cab and got to the hotel around 9am. The ride was a little interesting. All the walled in homes and barb wire always look strange to me. Between that and the ADT security signs all over the place that say "armed guard response" you would think we are in a war zone. We checked in to the Hyatt around 9am and after about an hour wait our room was ready. Not much else happened that day. We eventually ventured out to find the mall. Ironically it was Rosebank mall, which is where they always brought us the last time I was here with ASU.
The next day we spent more time walking around the area and trying to get a hotel in Livingstone. Honestly trying to find a hotel in Livingstone has been horrible. Aside from it being a busy time of year, just about everything there is a resort and costs 400 USD a night. Not really in our budget. We finally gave in after trying the internet, STA and a few other places and decided to go with a company we had contacted from Vietnam. It wasn't cheap, but we could not see ourselves going to Livingstone without a reservation. That night we hired a cab for about 100 USD to take us out to pay the travel agent and go to the Carnivore restaurant. It ended up being a really good night and the game meat at the Carnivore was delicious.
The next day we spent getting things organized for our trip and doing a little shopping. We decided to do as much of our big shopping in Jo'burg so that we could ship it before we left on our trip. The market in Rosebank was pretty cool and both of us got a good amount of stuff. after we were done shopping we headed to the Post Net shop across the parking lot to ship our stuff. Of course it cost a ridiculous amount to ship the box. It probably cost more to ship the damn, box than the stuff inside cost us, but it is always nice to lighten the load and not carry a ton of crap around. Once we had everything shipped we had to catch another cab across town to meet our Intrepid group. The place was impossible to find and our driver had no idea where to go. It took about 1.5hrs to find the place and it was a lucky find since the sign was not lit at all. We paid our on ground fee of 280 bucks to Intrepid then hopped back in the car to head home. The round trip once again cost us another 100 bucks. I swear the lack of public transportation is a killer in Africa. All said we probably spent 300 dollars just on taxi's in our 3 days in Jo'burg. The only good thing that came out of the night is that we arranged for Intrepid to pick us up closer to our hotel the next day. Once we got back to the Hyatt we pretty much went to bed. We had a 5:30am get up and we were both pretty beat.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Is this Heaven....... no it's Singapore
We arrived in Singapore yesterday via Singapore Airlines around 5pm and I have to say Singapore Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown... hands down. I had heard rumors it was nice, but it was ridiculously nice for an economy ticket. Maybe we just got lucky because we were on a newer 777, but the seats were wider than usual, I had at least 6 more inches of leg room than I could use (that never happens), the seats had lumbar and recline controls, and best of all we had in-headrest TV's. We both fired up Kung Fu Panda, which was pretty crappy, and kicked back to enjoy our 2 hour flight. I can only hope our 11 hour flight to South Africa will have all the same amenities.
Overall Singapore has been exactly what we needed even if we didn't know we needed it. I think we both were expecting another Hong Kong. Nothing against Hong Kong, but it is still distinctly Chinese, while Singapore is very modern and very diverse city. Honestly, after traveling across the developing world for 2 months, Singapore feels like heaven. I know traveling is all about the adventure and culture shock, but every once and awhile it is nice to take a time out. I swear when we ate at Burger King I almost shed a tear... I got to order it my way; I did not have to pick off anything and that is a first since we left home. After eating we went to see the new Batman at 12am. It was pretty decent and is about a thousand times better than the last one. It was about 3am by then so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.
I don't envision us doing much of anything, but relaxing and enjoying the city and all its conveniences. I imagine we will stock up on books, mail another box of souvenir crap and get ready to head to Africa on Monday.
FYI New Pictures are up from Thailand up to Singapore
Overall Singapore has been exactly what we needed even if we didn't know we needed it. I think we both were expecting another Hong Kong. Nothing against Hong Kong, but it is still distinctly Chinese, while Singapore is very modern and very diverse city. Honestly, after traveling across the developing world for 2 months, Singapore feels like heaven. I know traveling is all about the adventure and culture shock, but every once and awhile it is nice to take a time out. I swear when we ate at Burger King I almost shed a tear... I got to order it my way; I did not have to pick off anything and that is a first since we left home. After eating we went to see the new Batman at 12am. It was pretty decent and is about a thousand times better than the last one. It was about 3am by then so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.
I don't envision us doing much of anything, but relaxing and enjoying the city and all its conveniences. I imagine we will stock up on books, mail another box of souvenir crap and get ready to head to Africa on Monday.
FYI New Pictures are up from Thailand up to Singapore
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Vodka buckets for the lose
After a good day of touring temples, on our first day, our second day got started a little slower... actually a lot slower...
Once we had finished our first day of touring we had our guide drop us off down near all the bars and restaurants so that we could get dinner. We ate at the same place as we did the night before since it had decent food and we were starving. It was around 9:00pm or so when we finished and we decided to stop into another place and get a drink to relax... that was our first mistake. Our second mistake came when we read that if you buy any two buckets of alcohol (not beer) you get a free t-shirt (The t-shirt has the name of the place on it and in quotes says "promoting irresponsible drinking since 1998"). Nothing like a good deal on alcohol and t-shirts to get us going. I am not sure what we were thinking, but Chris ordered red bull and vodka and I ordered vodka and tonic. When the drinks came we got our t-shirt.. and our "buckets." They were literally buckets with about 6 straws so you can share with friends. You know the kind you get for the whole table at Howl at the Moon. So we did the only thing you could do, we drank them. And when we finished them we did the only other thing you could naturally do. I mean there are two of us and we only had one t-shirt. So yup another round of the same.. At this point the place was getting going pretty good. People were stopping off at our table. Who knows how many people we talked to or met. Then Chris started dancing... never a good sign (remember Vegas..) We finished the second two buckets and I thought we were done, but then out of the corner of my eye I see Chris ordering another round. Two more buckets.. one more t-shirt. The night did not get much better than that. Chris kept dancing and we kept talking to people. It was pretty crazy. About halfway through the third we finally did something smart and called it a night.
Once home we made another stupid decision to drunk dial Melissa. Most expensive drunk dial ever and I apologize in advance for anything we said. Honestly, I have no idea what we said, but I am sure it was not that good of a conversation. All I really know is the night ended with Chris blacking out and me forcing myself to puke before doing the same.
The next morning.. or should I say afternoon was not pretty. I felt pretty good, but Chris was screwed. I guess puking the night before helped me out more than I thought. Around 1pm we were up and I went out to let our tuc tuc driver know we would not be able to make 1pm and asked if he was cool with 2:30. He said it was no problem.. of course he would we were going to pay him the same no matter what time we got out there. After a crappy lunch I finally convinced Chris to get moving. We met up with the driver at 2:30 like we agreed and headed to Angkor Wat and a few of the other larger temples. On the way it started to pour, which in the end was a blessing since it kept both the dust and temperature down. When we got to Angkor Wat it was raining pretty good and we had to buy two ponchos from a mob of kids that rushed our tuc tuc as soon as we stopped. The ponchos sucked. The arms on it were way to short and as usual it only covered down to the top of my pants. Other than that Angkor Wat was pretty impressive. Not sure what else to say than that. After Angkor Wat we saw a few more temples that were not as heavily restored. I think I liked them best since one was in the middle of the jungle and had trees growing out of it.
By then it was 5:30 and the temples were closing so we jumped in the tuc tuc and headed back to town. It was a pretty slow night after that. Neither of us had any interest in drinking and we were still pretty beat from the night before so we just ate dinner and headed back to the room.
We got up today around 10am to catch our flight. About the only surprise was the fact we had to pay a 25 dollar exit fee to leave Cambodia. Not sure how we missed that one, but it sucked. Good thing we had USD on us since that is all they would take. The flight was short and we got back to Saigon around 4pm. We leave tomorrow for Singapore and then head to Africa on the 3rd.
Once we had finished our first day of touring we had our guide drop us off down near all the bars and restaurants so that we could get dinner. We ate at the same place as we did the night before since it had decent food and we were starving. It was around 9:00pm or so when we finished and we decided to stop into another place and get a drink to relax... that was our first mistake. Our second mistake came when we read that if you buy any two buckets of alcohol (not beer) you get a free t-shirt (The t-shirt has the name of the place on it and in quotes says "promoting irresponsible drinking since 1998"). Nothing like a good deal on alcohol and t-shirts to get us going. I am not sure what we were thinking, but Chris ordered red bull and vodka and I ordered vodka and tonic. When the drinks came we got our t-shirt.. and our "buckets." They were literally buckets with about 6 straws so you can share with friends. You know the kind you get for the whole table at Howl at the Moon. So we did the only thing you could do, we drank them. And when we finished them we did the only other thing you could naturally do. I mean there are two of us and we only had one t-shirt. So yup another round of the same.. At this point the place was getting going pretty good. People were stopping off at our table. Who knows how many people we talked to or met. Then Chris started dancing... never a good sign (remember Vegas..) We finished the second two buckets and I thought we were done, but then out of the corner of my eye I see Chris ordering another round. Two more buckets.. one more t-shirt. The night did not get much better than that. Chris kept dancing and we kept talking to people. It was pretty crazy. About halfway through the third we finally did something smart and called it a night.
Once home we made another stupid decision to drunk dial Melissa. Most expensive drunk dial ever and I apologize in advance for anything we said. Honestly, I have no idea what we said, but I am sure it was not that good of a conversation. All I really know is the night ended with Chris blacking out and me forcing myself to puke before doing the same.
The next morning.. or should I say afternoon was not pretty. I felt pretty good, but Chris was screwed. I guess puking the night before helped me out more than I thought. Around 1pm we were up and I went out to let our tuc tuc driver know we would not be able to make 1pm and asked if he was cool with 2:30. He said it was no problem.. of course he would we were going to pay him the same no matter what time we got out there. After a crappy lunch I finally convinced Chris to get moving. We met up with the driver at 2:30 like we agreed and headed to Angkor Wat and a few of the other larger temples. On the way it started to pour, which in the end was a blessing since it kept both the dust and temperature down. When we got to Angkor Wat it was raining pretty good and we had to buy two ponchos from a mob of kids that rushed our tuc tuc as soon as we stopped. The ponchos sucked. The arms on it were way to short and as usual it only covered down to the top of my pants. Other than that Angkor Wat was pretty impressive. Not sure what else to say than that. After Angkor Wat we saw a few more temples that were not as heavily restored. I think I liked them best since one was in the middle of the jungle and had trees growing out of it.
By then it was 5:30 and the temples were closing so we jumped in the tuc tuc and headed back to town. It was a pretty slow night after that. Neither of us had any interest in drinking and we were still pretty beat from the night before so we just ate dinner and headed back to the room.
We got up today around 10am to catch our flight. About the only surprise was the fact we had to pay a 25 dollar exit fee to leave Cambodia. Not sure how we missed that one, but it sucked. Good thing we had USD on us since that is all they would take. The flight was short and we got back to Saigon around 4pm. We leave tomorrow for Singapore and then head to Africa on the 3rd.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
American Killer Hero
We arrived in Cambodia yesterday and after figuring out a few logistic issues (finding a new place to stay since the first one sucked) we settled in and have been having a pretty good time. Something about Siem Reap just seems more manageable and your not at the mercy of the hotel or some tourism company. However, before I get into the details about our time here in Cambodia I should probably go back to our last day in Saigon, which we spent getting screwed by yet another tour.
We set up the tour through our hotel with one of the local companies to go out and see the Cu CHi tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tour ended up being the second worse yet.. a very close second and is probably only second because it cost 6 bucks instead of the 40 bucks it cost in Thailand to ride elephants in a circle around tortured monkeys in 98 degree heat. The tour had a lot of the usual crap you get on a tour and honestly I could have tolerated the 4 hours of anti American rhetoric; we were in Vietnam and we were going to a Viet Cong site so it goes without saying. I probably could have even tolerated the fact that the trip had hidden costs (the tickets to get in cost 10,000 dong more than advertised) and we stopped at a local handicapped craft factory on the way out to the tunnels to get ripped off. Hell, I probably should have even expected those since I have yet to go on a tour that has not had a hidden cost and that has not stopped us at some local factory that tries to rip you off selling cheap goods. I let the factory stop get me twice in China, I will be damned if I ever buy anything on another tour again. Honestly, all of those things would have made it just another tour in Asia. What really put this trip over the top was the fact that we spent 5.5 hours out of the 7 hour tour on the damn bus ( 30 minutes went to the handicap handcraft factory). Yup, we basically paid 6 bucks for a round trip bus ticket from Saigon to Cu Chi. The first 3 hours were the worst. We spent them listening to a bitter old man grumble through a microphone, which made it sound like he was screaming, about how he got the shaft during and after the war. I am not saying he did not have anything to be pissed off about. He had driven swift boats for the U.S and after he chose to stay at the end of the war had ended up in a government prison for 4 years. I am sure it sucked, but I really did not want to hear about it at 8 o'clock in the morning. In addition he contradicted himself constantly and was sure to tell us that all Americans are arrogant and everything written about the war was bullshit. After 3 non stop hours of this and a short stop at the handicapped factory we finally arrived at the actual site we paid to see. It cost roughly 5 bucks each to get in ( not included in the tour) and we had about an hour to see it. Honestly, the hour was probably more than enough, there was not all that much to see. The tour started with a nice short 1960's propaganda film about the evil American empire. I think I counted the words "American killer hero" and "killing Americans" about 300 times in the 15 min film. It was so over the top that everyone on the tour could hardly keep a straight face.. even the Europeans. Once we had our fill of that the group split and thankfully we got a new tour guide. Best part about the guy is he did not talk much and even made fun of the other tour guide for talking about himself all the time.
From there we made quick work of the rest of the place and after a short break to shoot some automatic weapons we headed for the grand finally, a chance to crawl through the tunnels. Lets just say at 6'3 it was no small feet to get into a tunnel that came up to Chris's waste and were designed for 5ft Vietnamese people. I tried to video it best I could, but it was way to dark. The tunnel ran 100 meters, but you could get out every 15... of course we got out after the first 15. I figure once you have seen one tunnel you have seen them all and I had no desire to crawl another 85 meters sweating my ass off. After that it was back to the bus, where else, and we headed back for Saigon. This time we were free of our favorite tour guide, but not of annoyances. I had not noticed it earlier, probably because the old guy never shut up, but our bus driver loved his horn. It is common practice to honk as you pass hear in Asia, but this guy just laid it on every time we got close to another car or motorbike and since there were motorbikes about every 15-20 seconds the honking basically never stopped. It was great.. a nice 2 hour ride listening to the horn non stop. Finally, back in Saigon we got the last surprise. We were picked up at the hotel, but apparently our 6 dollars did not buy drop off service so everyone on the bus was just dropped in the park near the hotel. I swear if I can avoid it I will never take another tour. They suck. Even the best ones make you conform to someone else
schedule and the worst ones make you feel stuck while you spend most of your day looking at your watch wishing it was over. Honestly, the real issue here is the tour companies know they have you and there is nothing you can do if you actually want to see the sites. Very few things are in the actual city and unless you know the language or have a means of transportation you have to go through them. Thus you get 6 hours of shit to see the one thing you paid to see.
After the torture finally ended we grabbed some dinner. It ended up just being one of those days since the food sucked, the waitress got Chris's order wrong, and then finished it off by trying to over charge us by two meals. I was pretty much at the end of my rope by then when on the way home we ran into the two Aussie guys (David and James) we met on our Ha Long Bay boat trip. I know my first impression was not the best, but they ended up being pretty nice guys and we grabbed a drink with them for about an hour. We exchanged some stories and warned them against a few of the tours. We also made plans to try and meet up with David in Nairobi. He is doing some internship there for 6 months and should be there when we get there. After we finished up there we headed back to the hotel to just relax. It had been a pretty shit day and the next day we had to fly out to Cambodia.
Yesterday we got up and headed for the airport around 1:30. No real rough spots other than the plane we flew on was a prop plane not a jet. We got to Siem Reap (Cambodia) around 5pm I think. Our hotel pickup never materialized so we had to pay for a taxi. The taxi driver tried to convince us the hotel we were going to was not good, but we thought he was trying to scam us so we ignored him and told him to just drop us off. That ended up being our first mistake. The hotel was awful. They managed their reservations by a white board and while Chris was checking in the clerk had some guy head up to our room with an AC remote and a can of raid. The rooms ended up being disgusting with mold and dirty sheets. You could see where he had sprayed the raid in the bathroom and washed everything down the drain. At that point we made the decision to get the hell out of there. We left our stuff behind and headed for an internet cafe. Once we found a hotel we grabbed a tuc tuc driver and explained we needed him to drive us across town, then back to the hotel and then back to our new hotel. He ended up being a pretty nice guy and got us where we needed to go. The only real loss is the new hotel is fairly costly and we had to give the other place 10 bucks for the 4 hours we did not use the room. In the end I am not sure what we were thinking checking into the other place. With the going rate here around 25 bucks a night, we were paying 10, they were going to pick us up for free, and when we got there no one else was staying there.
We grabbed some food after that and made a deal with our tuc tuc driver to take us around the next day to some of the sites. He had helped us out and had been pretty honest with his price earlier so we figured he would be a good choice to take us around.
It has ended up working out pretty good and we paid him 20 bucks to drive us around all day today. We saw the land mine museum and several of the smaller temples today and he will pick us up tomorrow around 1pm so that we can do the sunset tour at Angkor Wat, which is one of the larger temples here. The land mine museum was not much to write home about, but it seems to be a good cause trying to clear the mines here in Cambodia. After 20 years of war they estimate millions of landmines are all over the country. The temples were really cool... finally. They were actual ancient ruins.. not something where the paint was still wet from being rebuilt 30 years ago like most of the palaces and temples we have seen here in Asia.
I must say Cambodia has been quite refreshing after Thailand and Vietnam. Not to take anything away from those places, but everything here is just more relaxed and manageable. That and you can get your own driver to take you anywhere you want on your schedule. Overall it was a pretty good day and I am actually excited about seeing the larger ruins tomorrow.
We set up the tour through our hotel with one of the local companies to go out and see the Cu CHi tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tour ended up being the second worse yet.. a very close second and is probably only second because it cost 6 bucks instead of the 40 bucks it cost in Thailand to ride elephants in a circle around tortured monkeys in 98 degree heat. The tour had a lot of the usual crap you get on a tour and honestly I could have tolerated the 4 hours of anti American rhetoric; we were in Vietnam and we were going to a Viet Cong site so it goes without saying. I probably could have even tolerated the fact that the trip had hidden costs (the tickets to get in cost 10,000 dong more than advertised) and we stopped at a local handicapped craft factory on the way out to the tunnels to get ripped off. Hell, I probably should have even expected those since I have yet to go on a tour that has not had a hidden cost and that has not stopped us at some local factory that tries to rip you off selling cheap goods. I let the factory stop get me twice in China, I will be damned if I ever buy anything on another tour again. Honestly, all of those things would have made it just another tour in Asia. What really put this trip over the top was the fact that we spent 5.5 hours out of the 7 hour tour on the damn bus ( 30 minutes went to the handicap handcraft factory). Yup, we basically paid 6 bucks for a round trip bus ticket from Saigon to Cu Chi. The first 3 hours were the worst. We spent them listening to a bitter old man grumble through a microphone, which made it sound like he was screaming, about how he got the shaft during and after the war. I am not saying he did not have anything to be pissed off about. He had driven swift boats for the U.S and after he chose to stay at the end of the war had ended up in a government prison for 4 years. I am sure it sucked, but I really did not want to hear about it at 8 o'clock in the morning. In addition he contradicted himself constantly and was sure to tell us that all Americans are arrogant and everything written about the war was bullshit. After 3 non stop hours of this and a short stop at the handicapped factory we finally arrived at the actual site we paid to see. It cost roughly 5 bucks each to get in ( not included in the tour) and we had about an hour to see it. Honestly, the hour was probably more than enough, there was not all that much to see. The tour started with a nice short 1960's propaganda film about the evil American empire. I think I counted the words "American killer hero" and "killing Americans" about 300 times in the 15 min film. It was so over the top that everyone on the tour could hardly keep a straight face.. even the Europeans. Once we had our fill of that the group split and thankfully we got a new tour guide. Best part about the guy is he did not talk much and even made fun of the other tour guide for talking about himself all the time.
From there we made quick work of the rest of the place and after a short break to shoot some automatic weapons we headed for the grand finally, a chance to crawl through the tunnels. Lets just say at 6'3 it was no small feet to get into a tunnel that came up to Chris's waste and were designed for 5ft Vietnamese people. I tried to video it best I could, but it was way to dark. The tunnel ran 100 meters, but you could get out every 15... of course we got out after the first 15. I figure once you have seen one tunnel you have seen them all and I had no desire to crawl another 85 meters sweating my ass off. After that it was back to the bus, where else, and we headed back for Saigon. This time we were free of our favorite tour guide, but not of annoyances. I had not noticed it earlier, probably because the old guy never shut up, but our bus driver loved his horn. It is common practice to honk as you pass hear in Asia, but this guy just laid it on every time we got close to another car or motorbike and since there were motorbikes about every 15-20 seconds the honking basically never stopped. It was great.. a nice 2 hour ride listening to the horn non stop. Finally, back in Saigon we got the last surprise. We were picked up at the hotel, but apparently our 6 dollars did not buy drop off service so everyone on the bus was just dropped in the park near the hotel. I swear if I can avoid it I will never take another tour. They suck. Even the best ones make you conform to someone else
schedule and the worst ones make you feel stuck while you spend most of your day looking at your watch wishing it was over. Honestly, the real issue here is the tour companies know they have you and there is nothing you can do if you actually want to see the sites. Very few things are in the actual city and unless you know the language or have a means of transportation you have to go through them. Thus you get 6 hours of shit to see the one thing you paid to see.
After the torture finally ended we grabbed some dinner. It ended up just being one of those days since the food sucked, the waitress got Chris's order wrong, and then finished it off by trying to over charge us by two meals. I was pretty much at the end of my rope by then when on the way home we ran into the two Aussie guys (David and James) we met on our Ha Long Bay boat trip. I know my first impression was not the best, but they ended up being pretty nice guys and we grabbed a drink with them for about an hour. We exchanged some stories and warned them against a few of the tours. We also made plans to try and meet up with David in Nairobi. He is doing some internship there for 6 months and should be there when we get there. After we finished up there we headed back to the hotel to just relax. It had been a pretty shit day and the next day we had to fly out to Cambodia.
Yesterday we got up and headed for the airport around 1:30. No real rough spots other than the plane we flew on was a prop plane not a jet. We got to Siem Reap (Cambodia) around 5pm I think. Our hotel pickup never materialized so we had to pay for a taxi. The taxi driver tried to convince us the hotel we were going to was not good, but we thought he was trying to scam us so we ignored him and told him to just drop us off. That ended up being our first mistake. The hotel was awful. They managed their reservations by a white board and while Chris was checking in the clerk had some guy head up to our room with an AC remote and a can of raid. The rooms ended up being disgusting with mold and dirty sheets. You could see where he had sprayed the raid in the bathroom and washed everything down the drain. At that point we made the decision to get the hell out of there. We left our stuff behind and headed for an internet cafe. Once we found a hotel we grabbed a tuc tuc driver and explained we needed him to drive us across town, then back to the hotel and then back to our new hotel. He ended up being a pretty nice guy and got us where we needed to go. The only real loss is the new hotel is fairly costly and we had to give the other place 10 bucks for the 4 hours we did not use the room. In the end I am not sure what we were thinking checking into the other place. With the going rate here around 25 bucks a night, we were paying 10, they were going to pick us up for free, and when we got there no one else was staying there.
We grabbed some food after that and made a deal with our tuc tuc driver to take us around the next day to some of the sites. He had helped us out and had been pretty honest with his price earlier so we figured he would be a good choice to take us around.
It has ended up working out pretty good and we paid him 20 bucks to drive us around all day today. We saw the land mine museum and several of the smaller temples today and he will pick us up tomorrow around 1pm so that we can do the sunset tour at Angkor Wat, which is one of the larger temples here. The land mine museum was not much to write home about, but it seems to be a good cause trying to clear the mines here in Cambodia. After 20 years of war they estimate millions of landmines are all over the country. The temples were really cool... finally. They were actual ancient ruins.. not something where the paint was still wet from being rebuilt 30 years ago like most of the palaces and temples we have seen here in Asia.
I must say Cambodia has been quite refreshing after Thailand and Vietnam. Not to take anything away from those places, but everything here is just more relaxed and manageable. That and you can get your own driver to take you anywhere you want on your schedule. Overall it was a pretty good day and I am actually excited about seeing the larger ruins tomorrow.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Saigon
Our last night in Hue ended up being fairly interesting. Around 6pm we were in the room cooling off and the power went out on for most of the city on our side of the river. It did not take long for the temperature to rise in the room so we decided it was best to head to dinner. We walked down to the river and walked around for about an hour again. Everyone in town seemed to have generators running to keep the lights on so I figure the city wide brownouts are a regular occurrence (it actually happened 3 times just while we were there). We finally settled on a place called the DMZ which had a good mix of foods, a bar and a pool table.
After dinner we decided to play a little pool. No point in going home with no AC. It wasn't any cooler in the bar, but at least we had something to entertain ourselves with. About half way into our second game we got challenged by what looked like a father daughter couple... it wasn't. It ended up being an Australian guy (named Chris) and the daughter of his a guy who he had just met on the overnight bus who was sick as a dog back at the hotel. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I am not so sure I would let my daughter hang out with a guy I just met on the bus. Anyway we played them in pool. Chris was talking to the girl and she seemed to be into staying and hanging out with us.. too bad she was 16. After a few games they headed home and we decided to head home and get some sleep before flying to Saigon the next day.
We arrived in ho Chi Min City/Saigon around 4pm yesterday and it was not quite the modern mecca we had hoped for. I am not sure where we got the idea, but for some reason we seemed to think Saigon being the largest city would be the most modern. The city is pretty much like Hue only a lot bigger. The architecture is pretty much whatever the French left behind and then there are some modern buildings sprinkled in. We did not do to much yesterday other than get caught out in a huge storm. The rain was nuts and I honestly don't think I will ever get used to it. All the streets flooded 3-4 inches deep and kids were running around playing in it just getting soaked. We tried to wait it out for a good 1.5 hrs in an internet cafe, but it never let up. Finally we gave in, took off our shoes and rolled up our pants. Since all it did was rain the rest of the night we spent most of our time inside watching TV and getting some dinner.
Today has been our day to tour the city of Ho Chi Min. Around 11:30 we got out and walked toward the Revolutionary Museum. it cost about a buck to get in and the exhibits detail both the revolution against the French and Japanese and the resistance against the American invasion (i.e the Vietnam War.) All I can say is it is quite... i guess the best word is interesting. I won't say much more than that, but lets just say we are not the good guys. After that we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the Reunification Palace. We didn't go in. I don't think either of us could take another hour in a museum. A short walk from there is Notre Dame Cathedral. It is basically a miniature version of the one in Paris made out of brick. Nothing all that impressive and it ended up being closed for the weekends. Lucky for us not all was lost and we spotted an indoor mall with AC. It really was just one big store and had an arcade in the top. We walked around too cool off and then walked back towards our hotel, stopping along the way at a big market. It really was nothing new. One market in Vietnam is as good as the next and they all seem to carry the same crap and after the Fedex issues we had in China buying large scale souvenirs is out. Actually for me buying any souvenirs seems to be out, since most of the stuff they sell is cheap crap that will break or shrink as soon as you get it home.
Tomorrow we are going to see the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside the city. It is supposedly an area of heavy fighting during the war and you can crawl through some of the tunnels. Not sure we will be doing much of that since they are designed for people half my size, but we will see.
After dinner we decided to play a little pool. No point in going home with no AC. It wasn't any cooler in the bar, but at least we had something to entertain ourselves with. About half way into our second game we got challenged by what looked like a father daughter couple... it wasn't. It ended up being an Australian guy (named Chris) and the daughter of his a guy who he had just met on the overnight bus who was sick as a dog back at the hotel. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I am not so sure I would let my daughter hang out with a guy I just met on the bus. Anyway we played them in pool. Chris was talking to the girl and she seemed to be into staying and hanging out with us.. too bad she was 16. After a few games they headed home and we decided to head home and get some sleep before flying to Saigon the next day.
We arrived in ho Chi Min City/Saigon around 4pm yesterday and it was not quite the modern mecca we had hoped for. I am not sure where we got the idea, but for some reason we seemed to think Saigon being the largest city would be the most modern. The city is pretty much like Hue only a lot bigger. The architecture is pretty much whatever the French left behind and then there are some modern buildings sprinkled in. We did not do to much yesterday other than get caught out in a huge storm. The rain was nuts and I honestly don't think I will ever get used to it. All the streets flooded 3-4 inches deep and kids were running around playing in it just getting soaked. We tried to wait it out for a good 1.5 hrs in an internet cafe, but it never let up. Finally we gave in, took off our shoes and rolled up our pants. Since all it did was rain the rest of the night we spent most of our time inside watching TV and getting some dinner.
Today has been our day to tour the city of Ho Chi Min. Around 11:30 we got out and walked toward the Revolutionary Museum. it cost about a buck to get in and the exhibits detail both the revolution against the French and Japanese and the resistance against the American invasion (i.e the Vietnam War.) All I can say is it is quite... i guess the best word is interesting. I won't say much more than that, but lets just say we are not the good guys. After that we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the Reunification Palace. We didn't go in. I don't think either of us could take another hour in a museum. A short walk from there is Notre Dame Cathedral. It is basically a miniature version of the one in Paris made out of brick. Nothing all that impressive and it ended up being closed for the weekends. Lucky for us not all was lost and we spotted an indoor mall with AC. It really was just one big store and had an arcade in the top. We walked around too cool off and then walked back towards our hotel, stopping along the way at a big market. It really was nothing new. One market in Vietnam is as good as the next and they all seem to carry the same crap and after the Fedex issues we had in China buying large scale souvenirs is out. Actually for me buying any souvenirs seems to be out, since most of the stuff they sell is cheap crap that will break or shrink as soon as you get it home.
Tomorrow we are going to see the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside the city. It is supposedly an area of heavy fighting during the war and you can crawl through some of the tunnels. Not sure we will be doing much of that since they are designed for people half my size, but we will see.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Chillin in Hue
After checking into our hotel yesterday we decided to grab some lunch and then headed back to the hotel to relax a bit. The overnight train had really taken it out of us and it was boiling hot outside. We ended up watching a movie and hanging out till around 2pm. At that point we figured we better do something, so we headed for the Forbidden Purple City/Imperial Palace, which is situated just on the other side of the Purple River and is the Vietnamese equivalent of the one in China.
It was about a 10 min walk over there and cost us 50,000 dong to get in, which is roughly 3.50 usd. Unlike a lot of the palaces we have seen the majority of the Forbidden Purple City has been completely destroyed and is just now being restored. It was pretty cool and surprisingly there were not a lot of people around so it was pretty relaxing to walk around. We spent most of our time sitting in the shade just taking it in and watching some of the construction. Honestly,it was kind of nice to be on our own and get to do things at our pace instead of being on a tour. We walked around a little more, got some ice cream and then headed back to the hotel. It was getting a little late and we wanted to cool off before dinner.
Once it started getting dark we decided to go look for food. Since neither of us was all that hungry and it was finally cooling off we ended up walking all over the city before dinner. It really is probably one of the things we do best, just wondering off down the streets to see whats in the neighborhood. It seemed pretty safe, especially for two huge dudes like ourselves, and most everyone was waving and smiling or just saying hello. I don't care what the tour books say about the Thai smile being infectious, for my money everyone here has been far nicer and doesn't seem to be trying to scam you at every street corner. Sure people ask you if you want a motorbike ride or to come into their store, but once you say no they leave it at that and walk off smiling. We walked for about a good hour and half and got to see all kinds of things including what we termed the family sedan. The family sedan is a motorbike with two adults and two kids. It really is amazing how they just pack everyone on. One kid in the front and one in the middle.
Around 7pm we stopped at a restaurant and got some food. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it did the job and when we were done we headed back to the hotel. Both of us were still pretty tired from the train and the walking had not made us any less tired so we called it an early night and went to bed.
This morning we got up around 10:30. It was nice to get up when we wanted to and not be at the mercy of a tour. Last night we decided we would see the sites on our own if we wanted to and not do any of the tours the hotel was trying to sell us. I think it was a good choice; it is hot as crap here again today and getting up at 7am is probably the last thing we needed. By about noon we were up and out the door. We grabbed some food and then headed over to a local market to check it out. It was unbearably hot and we did not last long in the confined spaces of the market. It was the first non tourist driven market we have found and was just packed with people and local goods. Having our fill after about 30 min we headed for a small outdoor seating area in the shade along the river. The breeze was great and it was cool in the shade. Honestly I can't even begin to describe how relaxing it was. We must have sat there for a good hour just looking out across the river enjoying a drink and some ice cream.
From there we made our way back to our side of the river. I doubt we will do to much more today. The city of Hue does not have too many places to see and I think we have seen all the ones we can without taking a tour to the DMZ or Hoi An, which are outside the city. I must say after the two sick days in Hanoi and the strict schedule of the tour to Ha Long Bay it has been really nice to just get out and walk around on our own here in Hue.
As for tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Min City.. aka Saigon, which is our last stop in Vietnam.
It was about a 10 min walk over there and cost us 50,000 dong to get in, which is roughly 3.50 usd. Unlike a lot of the palaces we have seen the majority of the Forbidden Purple City has been completely destroyed and is just now being restored. It was pretty cool and surprisingly there were not a lot of people around so it was pretty relaxing to walk around. We spent most of our time sitting in the shade just taking it in and watching some of the construction. Honestly,it was kind of nice to be on our own and get to do things at our pace instead of being on a tour. We walked around a little more, got some ice cream and then headed back to the hotel. It was getting a little late and we wanted to cool off before dinner.
Once it started getting dark we decided to go look for food. Since neither of us was all that hungry and it was finally cooling off we ended up walking all over the city before dinner. It really is probably one of the things we do best, just wondering off down the streets to see whats in the neighborhood. It seemed pretty safe, especially for two huge dudes like ourselves, and most everyone was waving and smiling or just saying hello. I don't care what the tour books say about the Thai smile being infectious, for my money everyone here has been far nicer and doesn't seem to be trying to scam you at every street corner. Sure people ask you if you want a motorbike ride or to come into their store, but once you say no they leave it at that and walk off smiling. We walked for about a good hour and half and got to see all kinds of things including what we termed the family sedan. The family sedan is a motorbike with two adults and two kids. It really is amazing how they just pack everyone on. One kid in the front and one in the middle.
Around 7pm we stopped at a restaurant and got some food. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it did the job and when we were done we headed back to the hotel. Both of us were still pretty tired from the train and the walking had not made us any less tired so we called it an early night and went to bed.
This morning we got up around 10:30. It was nice to get up when we wanted to and not be at the mercy of a tour. Last night we decided we would see the sites on our own if we wanted to and not do any of the tours the hotel was trying to sell us. I think it was a good choice; it is hot as crap here again today and getting up at 7am is probably the last thing we needed. By about noon we were up and out the door. We grabbed some food and then headed over to a local market to check it out. It was unbearably hot and we did not last long in the confined spaces of the market. It was the first non tourist driven market we have found and was just packed with people and local goods. Having our fill after about 30 min we headed for a small outdoor seating area in the shade along the river. The breeze was great and it was cool in the shade. Honestly I can't even begin to describe how relaxing it was. We must have sat there for a good hour just looking out across the river enjoying a drink and some ice cream.
From there we made our way back to our side of the river. I doubt we will do to much more today. The city of Hue does not have too many places to see and I think we have seen all the ones we can without taking a tour to the DMZ or Hoi An, which are outside the city. I must say after the two sick days in Hanoi and the strict schedule of the tour to Ha Long Bay it has been really nice to just get out and walk around on our own here in Hue.
As for tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Min City.. aka Saigon, which is our last stop in Vietnam.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Meeting Vets on the train to Hue
After having some dinner we left our hotel around 9:45pm last night (the same day we got back from Ha Long Bay) and were on the train checked in by 10:05pm for our 11pm train. Needless to say we did not need to leave the hotel as early as we did. We only bought two beds this time so we knew we would have roommates and spent the next hour or so waiting for them to show up. As people piled on we noticed it was all western travelers and we got our hopes up that it might end up being two hot chics we could talk to. No such luck.. as usual. Around 10:30 or so an old Vietnamese guy got on and about 15 minutes later another middle aged Vietnamese guy took the bunk above him. Neither spoke any English so we figured communicating was going to be tough. We stood out in the hall waiting for the train to leave wondering how much sleep we were going to get. The middle aged guy had disappeared almost as soon as he had arrived and the little old guy had busted out a radio and was blaring it loud enough for the entire train to here.
While we waited for the train to get going we started talking to the people around us. They were all on a tour with Intrepid (the same company we will use in Africa) so we asked them how it was going and if they were enjoying it. Overall it was a pretty positive response so I am hopeful that the Africa tours will be fun. We told them about our trip and they seemed pretty impressed we were on our own in Asia and that we still had Africa to go. Once the train got going the conversation died down a bit and we just stared out of the window as we stood in the hall.
About that time the older Vietnamese guy in our room started talking to us. Well trying to talk to us. We honestly could not understand a word he said so we decided to resort to hand gestures. He told us he was going to Hue and that he was 66 years old. We basically tried to tell him the same thing.. that we were 28 and going to Hue as well. It was going pretty well, but we were running out of things to write on the window so Chris busted out his Vietnam travel book that had maps. The old guy just kept talking and pointing all over the place on the world map. I am not sure we understood much of anything, but he really seemed to want to talk to us. We gathered that he was from a town outside of Hanoi and we told him we were American by pointing at it on the map. About the time the train really got going and left the city he pulled out an old ID. It was an old military ID from the army. He kept pointing at it and eventually we figured out that he had fought in the war. Yup, we were sharing a cabin with a Vietnam veteran.. from Vietnam. I don't want to offend anyone back home, but I have to say I always have respect for any man who has fought in a war.. even if it was on the other side and this guy was no exception. The irony of this fact did not escape us for the whole trip.. it really was crazy to be sitting there talking to this guy.. no hard feeling, just trying our best to communicate and get to know as much as we could about each other. We talked to him a little more and the conversation slowly died. Chris shared his pringles with him, but we eventually ran our of things to say or not to say to him.
Around midnight we settled into our cabin. The younger of our two roommates had gone off for awhile, but was back and laying in the top bunk next to me. The older man was still fiddling around with his stuff and I was reading. I am not sure what Chris was doing other than maybe watching the old guy out of the corner of his eye. Before anyone could get to sleep the old guy tried to open the door to our room and it would not open. Chris tried and had no luck either. Finally the guy next to me got down and tried and it appeared to be jammed. The guy shook it and kicked it and it still would not budge. At this point I am thinking to myself .. "great we are trapped and the conductor wont be by for hours, if ever." This went on for a good 5 to 10 minutes until finally he jarred it free. He seemed pretty pissed and headed down the train to find a conductor. The guy came back with a handy man and two other people. They proceeded to work on the thing for a good 30 minutes or more. I really can't remember how long they were there because I kept fading in and out. It had to be like 1am before it was fixed and I was beat since we had been traveling all day back from Ha Long Bay. With it fixed everyone else finally settled back in. Chris said he fell asleep right away, while I was treated to the snoring of the guy on the other top bunk for a good 45 min. As I laid there stretched out with my head against one wall and my feet against the other I found myself with a whole new perspective about the trip and how quickly the world seems to heal. In just a little over a generation, I was going to sleep on a train next to a guy who had fought against Americans just 35 years ago.. this is what traveling was about. Finally at around 2am I gave in and fell asleep.
I woke up to the middle aged guy getting off the train around 5am or something like that. The sun was up, but I knew it was early. He slipped out without waking anyone up and I went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later the old guy was up and out the door. He came back 10 min later and proceeded to slurp his breakfast and gargle his drink all while fiddling with his radio trying to get good reception. Thankfully he was not successful and turned the radio off after about 10 min and I was able to get back to sleep. We stopped again at 8am and now Chris was up moving around a bit. I had no interest in being up, but they had turned the AC off so it was getting pretty hot in the top bunk. I was awake for about an hour listening to the old guy talk to Chris. I am not sure what it was, but he took a liking to Chris and just wanted to talk to him the whole time even if Chris could not understand anything he said. At this stop we also got a new roommate. A young Vietnamese kid who ended up speaking some english. He told us that the guy said Chris was a good man. I laughed pretty hard at that one since we all know that is not true. He then asked if we were married and we said no. At that point we asked if we could take a picture. He said sure and posed with a huge grin on his face. You should be able to see it online if we ever are able to upload to flickr. After that I fell back asleep and so did the young guy up top with me. I have no idea what Chris and the old guy talked about after that, but the next thing I knew it was around 10:30am and was time to get ready to go.
Around 11am we got to the station in Hue. We said our goodbyes to the old man and with that he pulled out his ballcap and put it on his head. It was a USA Polo Sport hat and I just had to chuckle. Here I was in Vietnam, with an old vet wearing a hat with a red, white, and blue USA embroidered on it. All I could think is how quickly the world seems to change and how amazing that really is.
From the train station we grabbed a cab to the hotel. That's where we are now. Not sure what we will do today since it is boiling hot outside. I figure we will get lunch soon and then just go from there.
While we waited for the train to get going we started talking to the people around us. They were all on a tour with Intrepid (the same company we will use in Africa) so we asked them how it was going and if they were enjoying it. Overall it was a pretty positive response so I am hopeful that the Africa tours will be fun. We told them about our trip and they seemed pretty impressed we were on our own in Asia and that we still had Africa to go. Once the train got going the conversation died down a bit and we just stared out of the window as we stood in the hall.
About that time the older Vietnamese guy in our room started talking to us. Well trying to talk to us. We honestly could not understand a word he said so we decided to resort to hand gestures. He told us he was going to Hue and that he was 66 years old. We basically tried to tell him the same thing.. that we were 28 and going to Hue as well. It was going pretty well, but we were running out of things to write on the window so Chris busted out his Vietnam travel book that had maps. The old guy just kept talking and pointing all over the place on the world map. I am not sure we understood much of anything, but he really seemed to want to talk to us. We gathered that he was from a town outside of Hanoi and we told him we were American by pointing at it on the map. About the time the train really got going and left the city he pulled out an old ID. It was an old military ID from the army. He kept pointing at it and eventually we figured out that he had fought in the war. Yup, we were sharing a cabin with a Vietnam veteran.. from Vietnam. I don't want to offend anyone back home, but I have to say I always have respect for any man who has fought in a war.. even if it was on the other side and this guy was no exception. The irony of this fact did not escape us for the whole trip.. it really was crazy to be sitting there talking to this guy.. no hard feeling, just trying our best to communicate and get to know as much as we could about each other. We talked to him a little more and the conversation slowly died. Chris shared his pringles with him, but we eventually ran our of things to say or not to say to him.
Around midnight we settled into our cabin. The younger of our two roommates had gone off for awhile, but was back and laying in the top bunk next to me. The older man was still fiddling around with his stuff and I was reading. I am not sure what Chris was doing other than maybe watching the old guy out of the corner of his eye. Before anyone could get to sleep the old guy tried to open the door to our room and it would not open. Chris tried and had no luck either. Finally the guy next to me got down and tried and it appeared to be jammed. The guy shook it and kicked it and it still would not budge. At this point I am thinking to myself .. "great we are trapped and the conductor wont be by for hours, if ever." This went on for a good 5 to 10 minutes until finally he jarred it free. He seemed pretty pissed and headed down the train to find a conductor. The guy came back with a handy man and two other people. They proceeded to work on the thing for a good 30 minutes or more. I really can't remember how long they were there because I kept fading in and out. It had to be like 1am before it was fixed and I was beat since we had been traveling all day back from Ha Long Bay. With it fixed everyone else finally settled back in. Chris said he fell asleep right away, while I was treated to the snoring of the guy on the other top bunk for a good 45 min. As I laid there stretched out with my head against one wall and my feet against the other I found myself with a whole new perspective about the trip and how quickly the world seems to heal. In just a little over a generation, I was going to sleep on a train next to a guy who had fought against Americans just 35 years ago.. this is what traveling was about. Finally at around 2am I gave in and fell asleep.
I woke up to the middle aged guy getting off the train around 5am or something like that. The sun was up, but I knew it was early. He slipped out without waking anyone up and I went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later the old guy was up and out the door. He came back 10 min later and proceeded to slurp his breakfast and gargle his drink all while fiddling with his radio trying to get good reception. Thankfully he was not successful and turned the radio off after about 10 min and I was able to get back to sleep. We stopped again at 8am and now Chris was up moving around a bit. I had no interest in being up, but they had turned the AC off so it was getting pretty hot in the top bunk. I was awake for about an hour listening to the old guy talk to Chris. I am not sure what it was, but he took a liking to Chris and just wanted to talk to him the whole time even if Chris could not understand anything he said. At this stop we also got a new roommate. A young Vietnamese kid who ended up speaking some english. He told us that the guy said Chris was a good man. I laughed pretty hard at that one since we all know that is not true. He then asked if we were married and we said no. At that point we asked if we could take a picture. He said sure and posed with a huge grin on his face. You should be able to see it online if we ever are able to upload to flickr. After that I fell back asleep and so did the young guy up top with me. I have no idea what Chris and the old guy talked about after that, but the next thing I knew it was around 10:30am and was time to get ready to go.
Around 11am we got to the station in Hue. We said our goodbyes to the old man and with that he pulled out his ballcap and put it on his head. It was a USA Polo Sport hat and I just had to chuckle. Here I was in Vietnam, with an old vet wearing a hat with a red, white, and blue USA embroidered on it. All I could think is how quickly the world seems to change and how amazing that really is.
From the train station we grabbed a cab to the hotel. That's where we are now. Not sure what we will do today since it is boiling hot outside. I figure we will get lunch soon and then just go from there.
Ha Long Bay Day 2 and 3
Since I am still trying to catch up after our trip to Ha Long Bay I am going to try and make this quick. I will probably post twice again today. Just in case it gets confusing we were in Ha Long Bay from July 20th -22nd and then left the night of the 22nd to catch our overnight train to Hue. FYi spell checker has not been working for the last 4 posts so just try to ignore all the misspellings.
On Day 2 of the Ha Long Bay trip we got up around 7am again and got showered. We were upstairs for our breakfast at 8am. Seating assignments remained the same and after breakfast we were told to pack up and get ready to check out. We had to transfer to a smaller boat to free up the one we were on to pick up more tourists to sleep on it overnight. It came as a bit of a surprise and I was a little put out at first, since I thought we would have a place to store our stuff till we got to the hotel, but it ended up working out ok I guess.
By 9:15 we were on the smaller boat headed for Cat Ba Island to do some mountain biking. While we were on the way I asked Lucky for the day's itinerary, which I assumed would be as hurried as the day before. It was, but luckily the activities were a little more fun and there were a lot less boats around. He said we would be biking, kayaking and swimming and then at 5pm we would go to the hotel. At that point he let Chris and I know that we would be in a different hotel than the others. We had kind of picked up that everyone else had paid less than us for the trip and at first we thought we got ripped off, but once he told us we had a different place to stay we realized it might be because we had a better hotel (btw it was, our hotel kicked the other hotels ass). Once we got to the island we all picked a bike. As I was testing the breaks and seat Lucky told us not to change gears since most of the bikes did not work. Once everyone had a bike we set out for the 6km ride. My bike sucked. I could not change gears manual, but it had no problem shifting on its own. It constantly slipped in and out of gear as I went up hill and made it impossible to ride so I spent a good amount of time walking up hills. We road through a small village and got to the end of town where there was a lady set up selling drinks... of course. After a quick break we went on a little trek through the jungle to a bat cave. It was not that great, but we did see some huge spiders and the biggest guy on the tour cried like a big baby when we walked through the cave of bats.
Back at the bikes we started the ride back. My bike still sucked, but I figured if I road fast I could manage to get up hills. Unfortunately I pushed it too hard and about half way back the chain just fell right off the the bike. I tried to fix it, but had no luck so I was stuck walking it up hill and then riding it down for a good 1.5km. It sucked and it was hot. About half way up the biggest hill a guy stopped on his motorbike and offered me the bike on the back of his. I thought he was going to charge me so I said no at first. Eventually I gave in and took it once we agreed it was free. It was a 1950's style bike, straight out of the wonder years with a basket and a bell. It was the best bike I had ridden yet and I flew back to the docks ringing my bell all the way. Once we got back to the dock everyone boarded and we got served lunch on the way to our next stop.
After lunch it was time to Kayak. I swear every activity was scheduled for 1.5 hrs, which pissed me off because the whole reason we took the expensive trip was to get to kayak around the bay. Anyway we got in the boats and kayaked to a small cove that you had to enter through an under cut rock. It was pretty cool looking and I wish we could have spent more than 15 min there, but that was all we had scheduled. Chris and I rowed like champs pretty much the whole time. Actually I don't want to brag, but we kicked everyone elses ass and it would have been a lot of fun to have more time to kayak around on our own. After everyone else was back on the big boat we cruised over to a place called Monkey Island. Lucky said he had not seen any monkeys in weeks and we should not expect to see any. We had an hour and a half to swim.. of course and lucky for us the monkeys did come down after we got there. They did not do much, but at least we got to see them.
Around 4:30pm it was back on the boat and then on to the hotels. I am not sure how it happened, but the driver only made one stop at the crap hotel everyone else was staying at so Chris and I had to wait outside for our hotel to come get us. The guy showed up in an SUV and we climbed in after about a 15 min wait and we drove about 2 min down the road. The good news is the wait was worth it. We were in a place called the Sunrise Resort that sat right on the beach and had a pool. It basically looked like a smaller, cheaper version of Cabo, but after the days we had been having it looked like heaven. We got a free drink at check in, coupons for our meals and wrist bands so that we could go to the pool and use the other facilities. The pool looked pretty good so we quickly dropped our stuff in the room and made our way out to it. We spent a good 40 min or so just floating around reflecting on the tour and how this was the relaxing feeling we were supposed to get from Koh Samui (which if you will remember was a total bust). In the end we figured we did get the shaft a bit. Yeah our hotel was much nicer, but I think our whole trip was supposed to be a lot nicer and was supposed to have more free time for us to do stuff. It worked out ok in the end, but we basically got an 80 dollar tour for 140 bucks. After sitting in the pool we showered and went to dinner. Dinner was good and being the fancy boys we are we ordered wine with our meal. I know it is a little gay, but we were enjoying our time there and were going to get the most we could out of it. After dinner we walked back down to town to look for the others. I don't know why really; we had a much nicer place and none of them really talked to us anyway. We got down there pretty quick and dropped in to a place called the Green Mango for a drink. No one stopped by, even though we saw a few people, so we finished our beers and started the walk back. Not in the mood to walk we grabbed motorcycle taxis. It cost like 1.50 usd and got us there in about 2 min. We even got proposition for the "boom boom,' but we said no. It was back to the room at that point and we settled in by 11pm. It had been a long two days and would be another early morning so we fell asleep as quickly as we could.
Up at 6:30... well more like 7am and got packed. We made our way back down to meet the others. I am not sure how it happened, but we paid more and we were expected to get ourselves back to the hotel to meet everyone else. We got on the bus and then boarded the boat to ride back to the harbor. We ended up getting back to the main harbor and had to sit around for over an hour waiting for the bus. It really was a fitting end to the trip. While parts had been fun and Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island were really cool, the coordination and treatment on the trip really had not been that great. You really felt rushed the whole time and on the flip side felt like you wasted a lot of time waiting around for the logistics to work out. Anyway we were on the bus around 1:00pm and after a quick lunch made the 3 hour trip back to Hanoi.
We arrived at the hostel around 6pm and checked email and stuff. We ate dinner there and then walked around till we left for our train.
On Day 2 of the Ha Long Bay trip we got up around 7am again and got showered. We were upstairs for our breakfast at 8am. Seating assignments remained the same and after breakfast we were told to pack up and get ready to check out. We had to transfer to a smaller boat to free up the one we were on to pick up more tourists to sleep on it overnight. It came as a bit of a surprise and I was a little put out at first, since I thought we would have a place to store our stuff till we got to the hotel, but it ended up working out ok I guess.
By 9:15 we were on the smaller boat headed for Cat Ba Island to do some mountain biking. While we were on the way I asked Lucky for the day's itinerary, which I assumed would be as hurried as the day before. It was, but luckily the activities were a little more fun and there were a lot less boats around. He said we would be biking, kayaking and swimming and then at 5pm we would go to the hotel. At that point he let Chris and I know that we would be in a different hotel than the others. We had kind of picked up that everyone else had paid less than us for the trip and at first we thought we got ripped off, but once he told us we had a different place to stay we realized it might be because we had a better hotel (btw it was, our hotel kicked the other hotels ass). Once we got to the island we all picked a bike. As I was testing the breaks and seat Lucky told us not to change gears since most of the bikes did not work. Once everyone had a bike we set out for the 6km ride. My bike sucked. I could not change gears manual, but it had no problem shifting on its own. It constantly slipped in and out of gear as I went up hill and made it impossible to ride so I spent a good amount of time walking up hills. We road through a small village and got to the end of town where there was a lady set up selling drinks... of course. After a quick break we went on a little trek through the jungle to a bat cave. It was not that great, but we did see some huge spiders and the biggest guy on the tour cried like a big baby when we walked through the cave of bats.
Back at the bikes we started the ride back. My bike still sucked, but I figured if I road fast I could manage to get up hills. Unfortunately I pushed it too hard and about half way back the chain just fell right off the the bike. I tried to fix it, but had no luck so I was stuck walking it up hill and then riding it down for a good 1.5km. It sucked and it was hot. About half way up the biggest hill a guy stopped on his motorbike and offered me the bike on the back of his. I thought he was going to charge me so I said no at first. Eventually I gave in and took it once we agreed it was free. It was a 1950's style bike, straight out of the wonder years with a basket and a bell. It was the best bike I had ridden yet and I flew back to the docks ringing my bell all the way. Once we got back to the dock everyone boarded and we got served lunch on the way to our next stop.
After lunch it was time to Kayak. I swear every activity was scheduled for 1.5 hrs, which pissed me off because the whole reason we took the expensive trip was to get to kayak around the bay. Anyway we got in the boats and kayaked to a small cove that you had to enter through an under cut rock. It was pretty cool looking and I wish we could have spent more than 15 min there, but that was all we had scheduled. Chris and I rowed like champs pretty much the whole time. Actually I don't want to brag, but we kicked everyone elses ass and it would have been a lot of fun to have more time to kayak around on our own. After everyone else was back on the big boat we cruised over to a place called Monkey Island. Lucky said he had not seen any monkeys in weeks and we should not expect to see any. We had an hour and a half to swim.. of course and lucky for us the monkeys did come down after we got there. They did not do much, but at least we got to see them.
Around 4:30pm it was back on the boat and then on to the hotels. I am not sure how it happened, but the driver only made one stop at the crap hotel everyone else was staying at so Chris and I had to wait outside for our hotel to come get us. The guy showed up in an SUV and we climbed in after about a 15 min wait and we drove about 2 min down the road. The good news is the wait was worth it. We were in a place called the Sunrise Resort that sat right on the beach and had a pool. It basically looked like a smaller, cheaper version of Cabo, but after the days we had been having it looked like heaven. We got a free drink at check in, coupons for our meals and wrist bands so that we could go to the pool and use the other facilities. The pool looked pretty good so we quickly dropped our stuff in the room and made our way out to it. We spent a good 40 min or so just floating around reflecting on the tour and how this was the relaxing feeling we were supposed to get from Koh Samui (which if you will remember was a total bust). In the end we figured we did get the shaft a bit. Yeah our hotel was much nicer, but I think our whole trip was supposed to be a lot nicer and was supposed to have more free time for us to do stuff. It worked out ok in the end, but we basically got an 80 dollar tour for 140 bucks. After sitting in the pool we showered and went to dinner. Dinner was good and being the fancy boys we are we ordered wine with our meal. I know it is a little gay, but we were enjoying our time there and were going to get the most we could out of it. After dinner we walked back down to town to look for the others. I don't know why really; we had a much nicer place and none of them really talked to us anyway. We got down there pretty quick and dropped in to a place called the Green Mango for a drink. No one stopped by, even though we saw a few people, so we finished our beers and started the walk back. Not in the mood to walk we grabbed motorcycle taxis. It cost like 1.50 usd and got us there in about 2 min. We even got proposition for the "boom boom,' but we said no. It was back to the room at that point and we settled in by 11pm. It had been a long two days and would be another early morning so we fell asleep as quickly as we could.
Up at 6:30... well more like 7am and got packed. We made our way back down to meet the others. I am not sure how it happened, but we paid more and we were expected to get ourselves back to the hotel to meet everyone else. We got on the bus and then boarded the boat to ride back to the harbor. We ended up getting back to the main harbor and had to sit around for over an hour waiting for the bus. It really was a fitting end to the trip. While parts had been fun and Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba Island were really cool, the coordination and treatment on the trip really had not been that great. You really felt rushed the whole time and on the flip side felt like you wasted a lot of time waiting around for the logistics to work out. Anyway we were on the bus around 1:00pm and after a quick lunch made the 3 hour trip back to Hanoi.
We arrived at the hostel around 6pm and checked email and stuff. We ate dinner there and then walked around till we left for our train.
Ha Long Bay Day 1
Our trip to Ha Long Bay started with an early wake up call at 7:00am. Early mornings would regrettably become a theme for the entire trip to Ha Long Bay. We boarded a bus around 7:45am and we were the first to be picked up. For a brief moment we held out hope that it would not be too crowded since the bus only had 16 seats and was designed with people under 5'5 in mind. Unfortunately, over the course of about an hour we picked up 4 Aussies, 4 Brits, 2 Dutch, a Swede with his Chinese mail order bride and a guy from the Philippines. In total we had 15 people and the bus was packed. I got lucky and got a seat by the door so I had plenty of leg room, but everyone else was pretty much screwed for room. Once we had everyone we followed the sea of white people out of Hanoi and on the long road to Ha Long Bay.
Driving in this country is just as crazy as China. There are about a million motorbikes flying around the city at all times and a horn honks just about every two seconds. It quickly became apparent that it would not be the most relaxing ride out to ha Long Bay, but I did my best to zone out and get some sleep. As we crossed the Red River out of town our tour guide got up and introduced himself as "Lucky" and told everyone the first day's itinerary. Then we got to introduce ourselves and say where we were from... it was like camp all over again. I slept for most of the first part of the trip, but woke up about 1.5hrs into the ride when we stopped at a ceramics factory/snack bar to let everyone stretch for 20 minutes. Having learned my lesson in Xian about buying stuff on tour stops I steered clear of everything and just sat and waited to get back on the bus. When it was time to go of course two people were late.... this would also become a common theme on our trip. Awake now I was taking in the countryside of Vietnam. There were tons of rice fields along the way with people working in them. Along the roads people had tons of animals and one guy even had a live pig strapped to the back of his motorbike as he drove along. On a trip like that you really get to see a lot and reflect on how crazy it is that you are riding in a bus across Vietnam. It went on like this for about another hr and a half and we arrived a Ha Long bay around noon.
At this point we all got off the bus and were told to follow Lucky. I really hate using the guys tour name "Lucky," but for the life of me I can't remember his real name. Anyway as we walked towards the pier somehow a few people got separated from the group. It took like 20 min to find the 4 Brits that had wondered off and for some reason they never went back to where they had been dropped off. At this point I was beginning to think it was going to be a long trip. Honestly how can people get lost in the first 5 min of the trip when all we did was walk 100ft. We sat there for another 10 min or so and Lucky collected our passports. For some reason the captain needs them and keeps them until you leave the boat. After that we all boarded our "Junk" boat. It is not much of a traditional junk, which is probably a good thing, and has 3 decks, one with rooms, another for dinning, and then a 3rd deck open for viewing and sitting. Once we were all on we got the keys to our room and put out stuff inside them. The room had two twin beds, AC (that only ran at night) and a private bathroom. Pretty nice for a boat I must say. Once we were settled in we went back upstairs for our seafood lunch. It was a pretty light meal and since Chris does not like seafood it was even lighter for him. We sat with two brothers from Australia for lunch. They seemed nice enough, but at one point asked us if we ever wished we were not American during our time on the road. While they did not come right out and say it, it was basically a nice way of insulting us as Americans since for some reason we should be ashamed. We blew it off at first, but it would not be the last negative comment directed at us about America.
After lunch we followed a trail of tour boats like ours out to Sung Sot Cave. It was pretty much another cave. We have been to several caves on this trip and this one was probably the most boring. Lucky insisted on showing us shapes that did not exist and then made us stand in silence since no one would come out and say one looked like a penis. Seriously we were all adults.. we knew what it was and did not need to stand there smiling like little school kids. He finally gave up and told us it was called the population stick and then pointed with his light at a hole in the roof of the cave. For another 30 min we walked through the cave bored out of our minds. I am not a huge fan of caves in the first place, but none of the shapes looked like anything and it was humid as hell inside. Finally done with the cave we got back on our boat to go to the "secluded" beach the brochure had talked about. The trip to the beach basically consisted of turning around and going about half way back to the docks. The beach ended up being packed. Yup the beach we envisioned having to ourselves basically had people standing shoulder to shoulder in the water. Not really to thrilled we decided to hike to the top of the island and take some pictures. It was about 460 steps to the top. It really was not all that tough and took us all of about 15 min. Since we had been give an hour to swim and stuff we finally gave up and got in with the rest of the world. Around 5 it was time to go and we boarded the boat to head to an area of the bay where we would sleep. No lie we went right back towards the cave and stopped about half way back with 40 other boats to anchor for the night. All and all the entire first day we probably covered about 5 square miles of the bay. Seriously all we did was follow all the other tour groups back and forth across a small area of the bay all day long at a frantic pace. I was beginning to have some regrets and images of the Koh Samui tour were running through my head. We have not had the best of luck on organized tours and this one was not shaping up all that well at the end of the first day. Maybe it was our expectations that did it, but I really had visions of boating around the bay, away from it all, getting to Kayak or swim just like the brochure said. Instead we were jumping form tourist trap to tourist trap at a frantic pace with no time to explore on our own.
Dinner was served at 7pm. We sat with the Aussie guys again... more because they had to than they wanted to. It had been a pretty hurried afternoon, but I had started to notice that we just seemed to be the odd guys out and the only two seats left were with us. Not sure what it was, but being American on this boat full of Brits and Aussies did not seem to be a good thing. Everyone else either had more in common or just was not interested in having conversations with us. Now I know what your thinking, Chris and I are not that social and don't meet many new people, but on this trip we have made the effort to do the small talk thing. I have even pretended to be interested in the things people are saying, so I don't think it was us. There just seemed to be an anti American sentiment on the boat and between being generally ignored and more comments from the Aussie's I was pretty much done. Honestly its kind of weird that we had not had one issue on the entire trip up to that point and now a bunch of Australians and Europeans felt the need to be critics of America. Since I really did not have much to say to them we spent most of the night sitting up top just the two of us looking at the moon and back at the Ha Long City. It really was quite peaceful and was a nice way to finish up a hurried day. Around 9:30 we decided to call it a night. We had another early morning the next day anyway and I imagined it would be just as hurried as Day 1.
Driving in this country is just as crazy as China. There are about a million motorbikes flying around the city at all times and a horn honks just about every two seconds. It quickly became apparent that it would not be the most relaxing ride out to ha Long Bay, but I did my best to zone out and get some sleep. As we crossed the Red River out of town our tour guide got up and introduced himself as "Lucky" and told everyone the first day's itinerary. Then we got to introduce ourselves and say where we were from... it was like camp all over again. I slept for most of the first part of the trip, but woke up about 1.5hrs into the ride when we stopped at a ceramics factory/snack bar to let everyone stretch for 20 minutes. Having learned my lesson in Xian about buying stuff on tour stops I steered clear of everything and just sat and waited to get back on the bus. When it was time to go of course two people were late.... this would also become a common theme on our trip. Awake now I was taking in the countryside of Vietnam. There were tons of rice fields along the way with people working in them. Along the roads people had tons of animals and one guy even had a live pig strapped to the back of his motorbike as he drove along. On a trip like that you really get to see a lot and reflect on how crazy it is that you are riding in a bus across Vietnam. It went on like this for about another hr and a half and we arrived a Ha Long bay around noon.
At this point we all got off the bus and were told to follow Lucky. I really hate using the guys tour name "Lucky," but for the life of me I can't remember his real name. Anyway as we walked towards the pier somehow a few people got separated from the group. It took like 20 min to find the 4 Brits that had wondered off and for some reason they never went back to where they had been dropped off. At this point I was beginning to think it was going to be a long trip. Honestly how can people get lost in the first 5 min of the trip when all we did was walk 100ft. We sat there for another 10 min or so and Lucky collected our passports. For some reason the captain needs them and keeps them until you leave the boat. After that we all boarded our "Junk" boat. It is not much of a traditional junk, which is probably a good thing, and has 3 decks, one with rooms, another for dinning, and then a 3rd deck open for viewing and sitting. Once we were all on we got the keys to our room and put out stuff inside them. The room had two twin beds, AC (that only ran at night) and a private bathroom. Pretty nice for a boat I must say. Once we were settled in we went back upstairs for our seafood lunch. It was a pretty light meal and since Chris does not like seafood it was even lighter for him. We sat with two brothers from Australia for lunch. They seemed nice enough, but at one point asked us if we ever wished we were not American during our time on the road. While they did not come right out and say it, it was basically a nice way of insulting us as Americans since for some reason we should be ashamed. We blew it off at first, but it would not be the last negative comment directed at us about America.
After lunch we followed a trail of tour boats like ours out to Sung Sot Cave. It was pretty much another cave. We have been to several caves on this trip and this one was probably the most boring. Lucky insisted on showing us shapes that did not exist and then made us stand in silence since no one would come out and say one looked like a penis. Seriously we were all adults.. we knew what it was and did not need to stand there smiling like little school kids. He finally gave up and told us it was called the population stick and then pointed with his light at a hole in the roof of the cave. For another 30 min we walked through the cave bored out of our minds. I am not a huge fan of caves in the first place, but none of the shapes looked like anything and it was humid as hell inside. Finally done with the cave we got back on our boat to go to the "secluded" beach the brochure had talked about. The trip to the beach basically consisted of turning around and going about half way back to the docks. The beach ended up being packed. Yup the beach we envisioned having to ourselves basically had people standing shoulder to shoulder in the water. Not really to thrilled we decided to hike to the top of the island and take some pictures. It was about 460 steps to the top. It really was not all that tough and took us all of about 15 min. Since we had been give an hour to swim and stuff we finally gave up and got in with the rest of the world. Around 5 it was time to go and we boarded the boat to head to an area of the bay where we would sleep. No lie we went right back towards the cave and stopped about half way back with 40 other boats to anchor for the night. All and all the entire first day we probably covered about 5 square miles of the bay. Seriously all we did was follow all the other tour groups back and forth across a small area of the bay all day long at a frantic pace. I was beginning to have some regrets and images of the Koh Samui tour were running through my head. We have not had the best of luck on organized tours and this one was not shaping up all that well at the end of the first day. Maybe it was our expectations that did it, but I really had visions of boating around the bay, away from it all, getting to Kayak or swim just like the brochure said. Instead we were jumping form tourist trap to tourist trap at a frantic pace with no time to explore on our own.
Dinner was served at 7pm. We sat with the Aussie guys again... more because they had to than they wanted to. It had been a pretty hurried afternoon, but I had started to notice that we just seemed to be the odd guys out and the only two seats left were with us. Not sure what it was, but being American on this boat full of Brits and Aussies did not seem to be a good thing. Everyone else either had more in common or just was not interested in having conversations with us. Now I know what your thinking, Chris and I are not that social and don't meet many new people, but on this trip we have made the effort to do the small talk thing. I have even pretended to be interested in the things people are saying, so I don't think it was us. There just seemed to be an anti American sentiment on the boat and between being generally ignored and more comments from the Aussie's I was pretty much done. Honestly its kind of weird that we had not had one issue on the entire trip up to that point and now a bunch of Australians and Europeans felt the need to be critics of America. Since I really did not have much to say to them we spent most of the night sitting up top just the two of us looking at the moon and back at the Ha Long City. It really was quite peaceful and was a nice way to finish up a hurried day. Around 9:30 we decided to call it a night. We had another early morning the next day anyway and I imagined it would be just as hurried as Day 1.
Hanoi
So I finally think I am shaking the cold I caught in Koh Samui. I don't want to jinx it, but I have felt pretty good today. We are just getting back from Ha Long Bay and I have not posted in awhile so I think I am going to break this up into a couple posts over the next few hours. It will probably end up being more confusing that way since the posts will not be in chronological order, but it is just to much to do all at once.
Last I left off we were just finishing up our first day in Hanoi. Our second day proved to be about as eventful as our first in Hanoi. Between me being sick and there not being a whole lot to do here it was hard to get motivated to go out and see anything. In spite of that we decided to head over to the Hoa Lo prison, better known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton. It was pretty interesting for a prison.. at least what was left of it. Apparently about 2/3rds of it was torn down to make room for a business tower next door, so about one outer wall and a few rooms is all that remains. The majority of the exhibits are about how the French used the prison to house and torture Vietnamese fighting in the revolution, however there were two small rooms dedicated to the history of the American imprisonment. It certainly gave a different perspective on the whole thing, which made made it kind of interesting to see another perspective. After that we walked back to the hostel through the Old Quarter, which is also where the hostel is located. Apparently that is another thing to do while in Hanoi so we got to check that off the list. It basically consists of small store fronts in old buildings all along the street. I guess it gives you a little insight into traditional Vietnamese living, but in the end, like most things it is slightly tarnished by all the tourism and shops geared towards all the backpackers in the area.
That's about it for Hanoi... I told you I would keep it short
Last I left off we were just finishing up our first day in Hanoi. Our second day proved to be about as eventful as our first in Hanoi. Between me being sick and there not being a whole lot to do here it was hard to get motivated to go out and see anything. In spite of that we decided to head over to the Hoa Lo prison, better known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton. It was pretty interesting for a prison.. at least what was left of it. Apparently about 2/3rds of it was torn down to make room for a business tower next door, so about one outer wall and a few rooms is all that remains. The majority of the exhibits are about how the French used the prison to house and torture Vietnamese fighting in the revolution, however there were two small rooms dedicated to the history of the American imprisonment. It certainly gave a different perspective on the whole thing, which made made it kind of interesting to see another perspective. After that we walked back to the hostel through the Old Quarter, which is also where the hostel is located. Apparently that is another thing to do while in Hanoi so we got to check that off the list. It basically consists of small store fronts in old buildings all along the street. I guess it gives you a little insight into traditional Vietnamese living, but in the end, like most things it is slightly tarnished by all the tourism and shops geared towards all the backpackers in the area.
That's about it for Hanoi... I told you I would keep it short
Friday, July 18, 2008
When it rains it pours
It is raining here again tonight, which is par for the course so far here in Vietnam. After a full day of traveling yesterday we have been taking it easy so far today and spent most of the day making travel plans for the rest of our time here in Vietnam. As for yesterday we left Koh Samui around 9am. It was a pretty easy flight and we got to Bangkok around 1030am. About the only thing that was aggravating was that due to a miss communication Chris and I had to pay an additional 25 dollars to Thai airways since we left the terminal and came back in. It was pretty much BS since the lady in Koh Samui told us we had to re-check in after getting to Bangkok at the main desk, but when we did the guy said we should have stayed in the domestic terminal and gone to an international transfer desk. I am not sure what the deal was since we did not get the transfer sticker we were supposed to get, but it was a fitting end to Thailand... one last scam for the road. Once we got to Bangkok I started to feel a cold coming on and felt pretty under the weather the majority of the time we sat around the terminal. It was a long day of sitting and we finally boarded our plane for Hanoi around 5:50.
We arrived last night in Hanoi during a huge rainstorm. I thought the rain in China was bad, but it seemed to rain from every direction here. Just getting off the plane, even with covered stairs, we and our bags got soaked. Once inside the terminal we got through customs pretty easy and then got our bags. After exiting the terminal we found our driver to the hotel and got in a small car. The rain was still coming down and the roads had already started to flood. I swear the closest thing I can compare it to is the way it rains during a hurricane or tornado. Our driver from the airport was crazy. The guy accelerated though parts of the road the car could almost float in, passed people on all sides on both sides of the road, and honked at every motorbike we passed.. all while answering and texting on his cell phone. We drove for about 30 minutes through some pretty rough looking areas of the city. It was dark,raining and everything looked really old and run down.. not the best first impression. I could tell by the look on Chris's face he was thinking the same thing and I think we both were just glad to make it to the hotel.
We checked in and realized we had not had anything to eat since lunch and it was now 10pm. The kitchen in the hotel was closed so we ventured out in the rain. In a matter of seconds we were soaked from head to toe. Although the rain jacket helped keep my shirt dry my pants looked like I had jumped in a pool. We looked and looked for a place to eat and finally gave up. Instead we stopped by a small store and bought Ritz Crackers, Oreos, two cokes and a water. Yet another dinner of champions. I made short work of the crackers.. took some Tylenol and malaria and headed to bed.
Got up this morning around 10:30 and as I said we have not done much more than make plans and reservations for the rest of our stay here in Vietnam. I will say it has been a good day to rest for me and hopefully I will feel better in a couple days. As for tomorrow we may take in a few sights and then it is off to Ha Long Bay on Sunday.
We arrived last night in Hanoi during a huge rainstorm. I thought the rain in China was bad, but it seemed to rain from every direction here. Just getting off the plane, even with covered stairs, we and our bags got soaked. Once inside the terminal we got through customs pretty easy and then got our bags. After exiting the terminal we found our driver to the hotel and got in a small car. The rain was still coming down and the roads had already started to flood. I swear the closest thing I can compare it to is the way it rains during a hurricane or tornado. Our driver from the airport was crazy. The guy accelerated though parts of the road the car could almost float in, passed people on all sides on both sides of the road, and honked at every motorbike we passed.. all while answering and texting on his cell phone. We drove for about 30 minutes through some pretty rough looking areas of the city. It was dark,raining and everything looked really old and run down.. not the best first impression. I could tell by the look on Chris's face he was thinking the same thing and I think we both were just glad to make it to the hotel.
We checked in and realized we had not had anything to eat since lunch and it was now 10pm. The kitchen in the hotel was closed so we ventured out in the rain. In a matter of seconds we were soaked from head to toe. Although the rain jacket helped keep my shirt dry my pants looked like I had jumped in a pool. We looked and looked for a place to eat and finally gave up. Instead we stopped by a small store and bought Ritz Crackers, Oreos, two cokes and a water. Yet another dinner of champions. I made short work of the crackers.. took some Tylenol and malaria and headed to bed.
Got up this morning around 10:30 and as I said we have not done much more than make plans and reservations for the rest of our stay here in Vietnam. I will say it has been a good day to rest for me and hopefully I will feel better in a couple days. As for tomorrow we may take in a few sights and then it is off to Ha Long Bay on Sunday.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
And then there were two.... finally
Not sure if you noticed it or not, but we did a lot with John and Laura (the couple from Beijing) while we were in Bangkok. In fact every night we were there we did something with them and during that time Chris did such a fine job talking up Koh Samui they decided to come down to the island and join us. Nothing against them at all, we had our fun hanging out, but I was looking forward to getting back to the two of us and getting to relax before we embarked on Vietnam and even more so Africa. No such luck and not an hour after I wrote my last post they were knocking on the door of our hut seeing if we wanted to go out. Seriously, they had looked on the list at the receptionist desk to find us and then walked down to the room to see if we were there. Nothing like being stalked.....
Day 1:Relaxing.. sort of
Day 1 in Koh Samui was pretty uneventful. We woke up to a loud knocking on our door, which we ignored because we were sleeping. We knew who it was and we knew we could find them next door so we elected to stay in bed and stick to the plan of taking it easy for a few days. After getting up at noon we grabbed some Burger King and headed for the beach to just hang out. As soon as we got to the beach we spotted John and Laura getting massages right next to our place. Not to keen on doing much we just sat in the water for a few hours getting roasted. Around 5 we went in and showered and pretty soon after John and Laura stopped by. They wanted us to sign up for a tour with them, which neither Chris and I were too keen on. It was an elephant trek and a bunch of other stuff, but all we really thought would be fun was riding an elephant up the river like the brochure said. Just the elephant was about 10 bucks cheaper and did not require us to get up early so it was our option 1. Of course we got sucked in, we are suckers, and we ended up with a group rate of 1200 baht for the half day trip John and Laura wanted to do.
Once we had paid for our trip it was dinner on the beach... another fine date on our gaycation. About the only thing of note after dinner was that we met another couple traveling from the UK. John had asked him the rules of cricket and we pretty much spent the rest of the night talking They were cool and we made plans to meet up with them the next night after our tour. We left the bar around 11 and got convinced to stop one more time even though we had an early morning. A beer or two after later, around 1am, we headed for our mosquito filled shack to crash; with a 8am wake up looming far to near.
Day 2: Mr Ung's Magical Bullshit Tour
Woke up yesterday feeling like crap on just 6 hours of sleep. Drinking here is bad news... it dehydrates the crap out or your all ready dehydrated sunburned body. Feeling like crap we walked out to wait for the van that was supposed to pick us up. It never showed. In the place of our van with AC was a truck with seats in the bed. The only thing I was thinking is "let the scams begin," this was going to be a long day. From there we picked up a few more people who were all equally surprised by our vehicle, apparently they had read the brochure too. As we baked in the back of the truck on the way I felt worse and worse and so did Laura. Of course I had no sympathy... it was her fault in the first place we were on this damn thing. Once we were there we got right on the elephants. The river trek to the waterfall I anticipated was a 10 min walk in a circle around a so called zoo... After that we were ushered into the zoo area for an elephant, crocodile, and monkey show. It was a complete tourist trap and at this point feeling bad, turned into just being pissed off. It was a 100 baht, sometimes 200 baht for a picture with some animal chained up to a tree. It was so bad that there were leopards in cages no bigger than themselves. I am no PETA activist, but this was pretty awful. All three shows were equally as bad. The elephant crapped all over itself while doing ridiculous tricks, the crocks barely moved in the heat of the day, and a monkey name Robert refused to do anything other than tug at the chain around his neck. Who could blame him, if I had something around my neck I would pull on it too. Continuing on from there we walked to a lame waterfall and then to the mummified monk. For about 2 hours all I did was ask Chris what time it was, all the while wishing that 2:30 would come sooner. Lunch was next and honestly it was the best part. I don't really like Thai food all that much, but it was pretty good and it was the first thing that had gone as expected. While we were eating they hit us up to buy a DVD for 600 baht. I am not sure how they actually sold one, but suckers are born every day (as evidenced by the fact we were even on the trip) and some people bought them.. including John and Laura.
Finally at the end of the tour we drove back into town and to our place. We got back to our hut around 3:30 and Chris and I just crashed. We slept till around 5:30 until we heard pounding on the door... again. In no mood to answer we both went back to sleep for another hour. We got up around 6:30, showered and then walked out to get some food. Just around the corner from our place we saw John and Laura at a restaurant. We thought we might be able to sneak out and get some food, but there they were and there was no way we were getting by them. They had eaten, but we sat down and ate with them anyway. While we were eating Andy and Lucy showed up (the UK couple from the night before). After a few drinks there we tried out a place called the ice bar. Of course it was another scam.. it cost 12 bucks a person just to see it and then the drinks were ridiculously priced. With no luck there we did our own version of a bar crawl... 2 bars back to the beach where we sat until around midnight. At that point John and Laura left to go to bed and Chris and I continued talking to Andy and Lucy. Honestly its funny, we have met several people on this trip, seen tons of people our age and the guy we have the most in common with is a 40 year old guy from England. Since we were having a pretty good time we decided to go check out one more place and we certainly got more than we expected. The place was called the Ark bar and there was a huge group of Irish and British people drunk and falling all over the place. At one point Chris looked to his right and this girl was making out with her boyfriend with her whole ass hanging out right there next to him. She either did not notice or did not care. She even used Chris as an anchor to stabilize herself as she pushed up on to her boyfriend at one point. People were carrying on laughing and a cop was shinning a flashlight on her ass while people took pictures.... This was the closest we would get to a fool moon party her at Koh Samui and honestly it was good enough for me. One thing I will say is that she was a pretty shameless girl. Even after she found out her ass had been all over the place she really did not care and just carried on. The fun continued when her and a couple others decided to go swim. It was off with the dress and her, her boyfriend and her thong ran down to the beach. A few more joined and that was about all that happened since the bar closed down at 2am. By that point we had had our fill, said goodnight to Andy and headed back to the room.
Day 3: Beach and Sleep
Today we slept in till John and Laura came to say goodbye. That was around 11. Actually they came back twice once to say goodbye and once to give us their internet card for the place next door. At that point I was up so I convinced Chris to get out of bed. We walked down the street and grabbed lunch. After that we went back to our place. It was around 1:30 so we headed for the beach, which is where we sat for the rest of the day. We will probably meet up with Andy and Lucy tonight, but it should be an early night since we need to be up by 7am to catch our ride to the airport.
Tomorrow it is off to Hanoi via Bangkok. Hopefully the 7 hour layover will not be too painful.
Day 1:Relaxing.. sort of
Day 1 in Koh Samui was pretty uneventful. We woke up to a loud knocking on our door, which we ignored because we were sleeping. We knew who it was and we knew we could find them next door so we elected to stay in bed and stick to the plan of taking it easy for a few days. After getting up at noon we grabbed some Burger King and headed for the beach to just hang out. As soon as we got to the beach we spotted John and Laura getting massages right next to our place. Not to keen on doing much we just sat in the water for a few hours getting roasted. Around 5 we went in and showered and pretty soon after John and Laura stopped by. They wanted us to sign up for a tour with them, which neither Chris and I were too keen on. It was an elephant trek and a bunch of other stuff, but all we really thought would be fun was riding an elephant up the river like the brochure said. Just the elephant was about 10 bucks cheaper and did not require us to get up early so it was our option 1. Of course we got sucked in, we are suckers, and we ended up with a group rate of 1200 baht for the half day trip John and Laura wanted to do.
Once we had paid for our trip it was dinner on the beach... another fine date on our gaycation. About the only thing of note after dinner was that we met another couple traveling from the UK. John had asked him the rules of cricket and we pretty much spent the rest of the night talking They were cool and we made plans to meet up with them the next night after our tour. We left the bar around 11 and got convinced to stop one more time even though we had an early morning. A beer or two after later, around 1am, we headed for our mosquito filled shack to crash; with a 8am wake up looming far to near.
Day 2: Mr Ung's Magical Bullshit Tour
Woke up yesterday feeling like crap on just 6 hours of sleep. Drinking here is bad news... it dehydrates the crap out or your all ready dehydrated sunburned body. Feeling like crap we walked out to wait for the van that was supposed to pick us up. It never showed. In the place of our van with AC was a truck with seats in the bed. The only thing I was thinking is "let the scams begin," this was going to be a long day. From there we picked up a few more people who were all equally surprised by our vehicle, apparently they had read the brochure too. As we baked in the back of the truck on the way I felt worse and worse and so did Laura. Of course I had no sympathy... it was her fault in the first place we were on this damn thing. Once we were there we got right on the elephants. The river trek to the waterfall I anticipated was a 10 min walk in a circle around a so called zoo... After that we were ushered into the zoo area for an elephant, crocodile, and monkey show. It was a complete tourist trap and at this point feeling bad, turned into just being pissed off. It was a 100 baht, sometimes 200 baht for a picture with some animal chained up to a tree. It was so bad that there were leopards in cages no bigger than themselves. I am no PETA activist, but this was pretty awful. All three shows were equally as bad. The elephant crapped all over itself while doing ridiculous tricks, the crocks barely moved in the heat of the day, and a monkey name Robert refused to do anything other than tug at the chain around his neck. Who could blame him, if I had something around my neck I would pull on it too. Continuing on from there we walked to a lame waterfall and then to the mummified monk. For about 2 hours all I did was ask Chris what time it was, all the while wishing that 2:30 would come sooner. Lunch was next and honestly it was the best part. I don't really like Thai food all that much, but it was pretty good and it was the first thing that had gone as expected. While we were eating they hit us up to buy a DVD for 600 baht. I am not sure how they actually sold one, but suckers are born every day (as evidenced by the fact we were even on the trip) and some people bought them.. including John and Laura.
Finally at the end of the tour we drove back into town and to our place. We got back to our hut around 3:30 and Chris and I just crashed. We slept till around 5:30 until we heard pounding on the door... again. In no mood to answer we both went back to sleep for another hour. We got up around 6:30, showered and then walked out to get some food. Just around the corner from our place we saw John and Laura at a restaurant. We thought we might be able to sneak out and get some food, but there they were and there was no way we were getting by them. They had eaten, but we sat down and ate with them anyway. While we were eating Andy and Lucy showed up (the UK couple from the night before). After a few drinks there we tried out a place called the ice bar. Of course it was another scam.. it cost 12 bucks a person just to see it and then the drinks were ridiculously priced. With no luck there we did our own version of a bar crawl... 2 bars back to the beach where we sat until around midnight. At that point John and Laura left to go to bed and Chris and I continued talking to Andy and Lucy. Honestly its funny, we have met several people on this trip, seen tons of people our age and the guy we have the most in common with is a 40 year old guy from England. Since we were having a pretty good time we decided to go check out one more place and we certainly got more than we expected. The place was called the Ark bar and there was a huge group of Irish and British people drunk and falling all over the place. At one point Chris looked to his right and this girl was making out with her boyfriend with her whole ass hanging out right there next to him. She either did not notice or did not care. She even used Chris as an anchor to stabilize herself as she pushed up on to her boyfriend at one point. People were carrying on laughing and a cop was shinning a flashlight on her ass while people took pictures.... This was the closest we would get to a fool moon party her at Koh Samui and honestly it was good enough for me. One thing I will say is that she was a pretty shameless girl. Even after she found out her ass had been all over the place she really did not care and just carried on. The fun continued when her and a couple others decided to go swim. It was off with the dress and her, her boyfriend and her thong ran down to the beach. A few more joined and that was about all that happened since the bar closed down at 2am. By that point we had had our fill, said goodnight to Andy and headed back to the room.
Day 3: Beach and Sleep
Today we slept in till John and Laura came to say goodbye. That was around 11. Actually they came back twice once to say goodbye and once to give us their internet card for the place next door. At that point I was up so I convinced Chris to get out of bed. We walked down the street and grabbed lunch. After that we went back to our place. It was around 1:30 so we headed for the beach, which is where we sat for the rest of the day. We will probably meet up with Andy and Lucy tonight, but it should be an early night since we need to be up by 7am to catch our ride to the airport.
Tomorrow it is off to Hanoi via Bangkok. Hopefully the 7 hour layover will not be too painful.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Late nights in Bangkok
Yeah so like Chris said our first night in Bangkok included some interesting lady boy viewing and me trying durian (the rotten vegetable). I have no idea what drives me to do it, but seeing weird food and being called out to try it always gets me. The smell was pretty awful and it was about the consistency of a Banana, but that did not seem to be enough to stop me. So I grab a finger full and threw it in my mouth... to date it is probably the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life. I am not sure how to describe the taste, other than awful, just know that for the rest of the night my burps tasted like farts. Since then every time a smell it on the street my stomach turns and I feel like I want to puke.
Day 1: Temples and Stuff
The first full day in Bangkok we took pretty slow since we did not go to bed till late, that and I think some general trip fatigue had started to set in. As I said before I spent the morning dealing with Fedex and then we headed out to see the giant reclining Buddha and the palace. On our way to the palace we found a scam or two on just about every street corner. The first one we encountered was the most extravagant and started with a nice guy approaching and trying to tell us about the area and the sites. He pretended to work at a hotel and was not outwardly trying to sell us anything just give us some pointers. He told us the yellow tuc tuc's were government subsidized because it was a Buddhist holiday and that they would take us to all the sites for just 20baht (.75 USD). He also tried to convince us the palace was closed till 4pm and pointed us down the road. To get rid of him we headed in the direction he pointed and right away his accomplice pulled up in a yellow tuc tuc and started giving us the same speech. At that point we were real suspicious and just kept walking trying to get away from him. I will say if anything they are pretty persistent and will follow you for blocks. The same thing happened 2 more times while we walked down that road and at that point we were convinced it was a scam. Once we were out of sight we doubled back and headed for the palace. The detour probably doubled our walk and we were pouring sweat by the time we got back up to the palace. Just outside the palace Chris got attacked by a lady feeding pigeons. She just walked up to him and started pouring seed on his wrist. I swear the most taxing thing about Bangkok is every way you turn some one is grabbing you or yelling at you trying to sell you some crap or scam you. Once inside the palace, which of course was not closed, we looked around. It was pretty cool. I must admit Thai people like their bling and everything is painted in gold and bright jewel colors. From the palace we walked toward the giant reclining Buddha getting hassled all the way. We made quick work of the Buddha and walked around the temple for awhile. At that point we decided we had had enough of the temples and the heat so we headed back towards the hotel.
Once home we made arrangements to meet up with John and Laura again. Since we did not get back in time for the muay tai kickboxing match we headed down to Pat Pong. We walked through an open air market and took in some shopping. I am not much of a shopper so this was not really for me, but it was fun. For those who don't know this is also where you can take in a sex show and there are no shortage of guys on the street trying to sell them to just about anyone, including women. They pretty much have anything you can think of and more and Chris and I are prime targets so just about every 5 ft we would get hit up. Once we got to the end of the first strip we headed over to Silom Soi 4 and ducked into a bar and grill called the Sphinx so John and Laura could grab some food. Lucky for us it happened to be a gay bar.. and we saw some giant white dude getting a little to touchy feely with a tiny Thai man. I am pretty sure the dude was an escort, which sucked for him since he did not look like he was all that into it. I also got a compliment from the the waiter saying I looked like a football player from Argentina. No clue what that means, but I think he was trying to be nice. After eating and we walked back to the market and ran the gauntlet again. Once we got to the end of the market we were all pretty tired and thirsty so we walked across the street to a place called the Happy Beer Garden. We stayed there and had a few drinks till about 1:30am and had a good time with the staff. They were all pretty cool and seemed to like hanging out at our table. One or two of them were pretty enamored with my hair and it ended up getting braided before I left. I wont say any more about it than that (it looked awful), but Chris did take pictures for those interested. From there we grabbed a cab and headed home, in bed by around 2:30am.
Day 2: MBK and Maui Thai
Once again we were up late and not moving fast. Either the late night or fatigue really started to settle in for me. I felt nauseous and tired pretty much all day and probably should have just slept, but I did not want to waste the last day in Bangkok. It's funny when you get tired and don't feel good you tend to think a lot more about home, the people you miss and the comforts you enjoy. Yesterday, was probably the longest day of the trip for me and I spent a lot of time thinking about those things.
Anyway we headed to MBK around 1:30. Its just a big shopping mall and while impressive we have already been in Hong Kong and Japan so we have seen our fair share of malls. After that we just went back to the hotel to relax and to make sure we were home in time to go to the Maui Thai kick boxing match. We were doing this with John and Laura also and were worried about being late because the tour lady insisted it started at 5pm. Complicating things we had planned the night before to not meet John and Laura until 5 or 5:30. We were never able to get a hold of them to let them know the time had moved to 5pm so we spent a few tense moments wondering if we would be able to get in since we were going to be about an hour late to the fight. In the end it did not matter and may have been better since 3.5 hrs of kickboxing can only be so much fun. I must admit though that the fights were cool and we got to see some blood and knockouts even though most of the fights were just about wearing the other guy down. Chris took some pictures and movies so hopefully we will get those up soon. There was also a fake fight, like the WWF or WWE whatever they call it these days, where they showcased traditional fighting and some more jump kicks and stuff. None of that ever happens in the real fights so it was pretty cool to see them do it, even if it was fake.
After the fight we went back down to Pat Pong and the Happy Beer Garden since everyone had so much fun. I will be honest I had no desire to be there and by 9:30 just wanted to go home and go to bed since I felt like shit. It sucked most of the night for me and the heat adn humidity was not helping, but I toughed it out since no one wanted to call it a night and I did not want to ride home in a taxi on my own. Once at the place the night pretty much went like the one the night before and we ended up going home around midnight just like we said we would not do. Once home I checked in on the Fedex issue one more time and went upstairs to crash.
Day 3: Koh Samui
Today we got up late again.. a reoccurring theme in Bangkok. I felt a little better, but was still really tired. We checked out of the hotel around noon and headed for the airport and ultimately Koh Samui. Once here we checked into our hotel/bungalow. It is not the Hacienda del Mar in Cabo, but hopefully it will be nice and we wont get eaten by mosquitos. Honestly, I am looking forward to spending a few days relaxing and not feeling the pressure to go see more sights. At times it feels like we are rushing a bit to see everything and not getting to just enjoy the experience of traveling and just being away from work. We will see how tomorrow goes, but I am hoping it includes the beach and a little bit of sitting.
Day 1: Temples and Stuff
The first full day in Bangkok we took pretty slow since we did not go to bed till late, that and I think some general trip fatigue had started to set in. As I said before I spent the morning dealing with Fedex and then we headed out to see the giant reclining Buddha and the palace. On our way to the palace we found a scam or two on just about every street corner. The first one we encountered was the most extravagant and started with a nice guy approaching and trying to tell us about the area and the sites. He pretended to work at a hotel and was not outwardly trying to sell us anything just give us some pointers. He told us the yellow tuc tuc's were government subsidized because it was a Buddhist holiday and that they would take us to all the sites for just 20baht (.75 USD). He also tried to convince us the palace was closed till 4pm and pointed us down the road. To get rid of him we headed in the direction he pointed and right away his accomplice pulled up in a yellow tuc tuc and started giving us the same speech. At that point we were real suspicious and just kept walking trying to get away from him. I will say if anything they are pretty persistent and will follow you for blocks. The same thing happened 2 more times while we walked down that road and at that point we were convinced it was a scam. Once we were out of sight we doubled back and headed for the palace. The detour probably doubled our walk and we were pouring sweat by the time we got back up to the palace. Just outside the palace Chris got attacked by a lady feeding pigeons. She just walked up to him and started pouring seed on his wrist. I swear the most taxing thing about Bangkok is every way you turn some one is grabbing you or yelling at you trying to sell you some crap or scam you. Once inside the palace, which of course was not closed, we looked around. It was pretty cool. I must admit Thai people like their bling and everything is painted in gold and bright jewel colors. From the palace we walked toward the giant reclining Buddha getting hassled all the way. We made quick work of the Buddha and walked around the temple for awhile. At that point we decided we had had enough of the temples and the heat so we headed back towards the hotel.
Once home we made arrangements to meet up with John and Laura again. Since we did not get back in time for the muay tai kickboxing match we headed down to Pat Pong. We walked through an open air market and took in some shopping. I am not much of a shopper so this was not really for me, but it was fun. For those who don't know this is also where you can take in a sex show and there are no shortage of guys on the street trying to sell them to just about anyone, including women. They pretty much have anything you can think of and more and Chris and I are prime targets so just about every 5 ft we would get hit up. Once we got to the end of the first strip we headed over to Silom Soi 4 and ducked into a bar and grill called the Sphinx so John and Laura could grab some food. Lucky for us it happened to be a gay bar.. and we saw some giant white dude getting a little to touchy feely with a tiny Thai man. I am pretty sure the dude was an escort, which sucked for him since he did not look like he was all that into it. I also got a compliment from the the waiter saying I looked like a football player from Argentina. No clue what that means, but I think he was trying to be nice. After eating and we walked back to the market and ran the gauntlet again. Once we got to the end of the market we were all pretty tired and thirsty so we walked across the street to a place called the Happy Beer Garden. We stayed there and had a few drinks till about 1:30am and had a good time with the staff. They were all pretty cool and seemed to like hanging out at our table. One or two of them were pretty enamored with my hair and it ended up getting braided before I left. I wont say any more about it than that (it looked awful), but Chris did take pictures for those interested. From there we grabbed a cab and headed home, in bed by around 2:30am.
Day 2: MBK and Maui Thai
Once again we were up late and not moving fast. Either the late night or fatigue really started to settle in for me. I felt nauseous and tired pretty much all day and probably should have just slept, but I did not want to waste the last day in Bangkok. It's funny when you get tired and don't feel good you tend to think a lot more about home, the people you miss and the comforts you enjoy. Yesterday, was probably the longest day of the trip for me and I spent a lot of time thinking about those things.
Anyway we headed to MBK around 1:30. Its just a big shopping mall and while impressive we have already been in Hong Kong and Japan so we have seen our fair share of malls. After that we just went back to the hotel to relax and to make sure we were home in time to go to the Maui Thai kick boxing match. We were doing this with John and Laura also and were worried about being late because the tour lady insisted it started at 5pm. Complicating things we had planned the night before to not meet John and Laura until 5 or 5:30. We were never able to get a hold of them to let them know the time had moved to 5pm so we spent a few tense moments wondering if we would be able to get in since we were going to be about an hour late to the fight. In the end it did not matter and may have been better since 3.5 hrs of kickboxing can only be so much fun. I must admit though that the fights were cool and we got to see some blood and knockouts even though most of the fights were just about wearing the other guy down. Chris took some pictures and movies so hopefully we will get those up soon. There was also a fake fight, like the WWF or WWE whatever they call it these days, where they showcased traditional fighting and some more jump kicks and stuff. None of that ever happens in the real fights so it was pretty cool to see them do it, even if it was fake.
After the fight we went back down to Pat Pong and the Happy Beer Garden since everyone had so much fun. I will be honest I had no desire to be there and by 9:30 just wanted to go home and go to bed since I felt like shit. It sucked most of the night for me and the heat adn humidity was not helping, but I toughed it out since no one wanted to call it a night and I did not want to ride home in a taxi on my own. Once at the place the night pretty much went like the one the night before and we ended up going home around midnight just like we said we would not do. Once home I checked in on the Fedex issue one more time and went upstairs to crash.
Day 3: Koh Samui
Today we got up late again.. a reoccurring theme in Bangkok. I felt a little better, but was still really tired. We checked out of the hotel around noon and headed for the airport and ultimately Koh Samui. Once here we checked into our hotel/bungalow. It is not the Hacienda del Mar in Cabo, but hopefully it will be nice and we wont get eaten by mosquitos. Honestly, I am looking forward to spending a few days relaxing and not feeling the pressure to go see more sights. At times it feels like we are rushing a bit to see everything and not getting to just enjoy the experience of traveling and just being away from work. We will see how tomorrow goes, but I am hoping it includes the beach and a little bit of sitting.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Fedex sucks...
Arrived in Thailand yesterday around 3pm via Thai airways. I would not say it was a "smooth as silk," but they do a pretty good job trying to make it nice. Unfortunately for me I sat next to an annoying little kid and ended up getting the pork meal since Chris is an ass and took the last chicken. It probably was a non issue though, since both dishes looked like crap and I would not have eaten much of either. Nevertheless I spent the rest of the flight starving and getting elbowed by a small child.
Transport from the airport was expensive (30 bucks), but was pretty nice and got us to the hotel without issue. The hotel was a last minute change since Big John's hostel ended up sounding like a total shit hole with no AC and rooms that may or may not have solid walls. The new place is Hotel De' Moc and of course is a little more expensive 22 USD a night vs 7USD, but ultimately will make the stay a lot nicer. If I learned anything on this trip so far it is that the accommodations you choose and the services they provide (reservations, trips, internet, etc) make all the difference and have a huge impact on your overall impression of the city. Seriously, Shanghai may not be that bad of a place, but both hostels were awful and I likely will never go back to the city because sleeping during the two hottest days in the last 123 years with no AC was not miserable. (BTW if you want a fianl summary of China check out Chris's blog. It sums it up pretty nice and I just dont have the energy now to write anything.)
As for Thailand I have spent the majority of my time battling with Fedex over our package that got caged by customs. I have no idea what the rules are, but they caged the package for two t-shirts saying they needed the knit, manufacturer, and EIN of our importer. They claim to have tried to contact both my cell and Chris's dads, but I never got any voicemails and I assume he did not either. Honestly we never would have known there was an issue if I had not emailed them after checking the tracking number 2 days ago to see where it was. Anyway I replied to them letting them know that they are just souvenirs and they cost 5 bucks from a street vendor. That information got forwarded around, but did not resolve the issue. They notified me the package would be sent back if they did not get the information by the 10th of July. Of course that would mean we would be out 400 bucks since we have no way of getting the box back since it would be headed back to China. So I had my mom call them. She seems to have gotten it resolved, but I got another email today saying if I don't get them the information needed by 6pm on July 11th they will send it back. No clue what I will do at this point. I don't have an importer EIN and I sure as hell don't have the manufacturer of a shirt that probably is made in bulk at some government factory and then distributed to the street vendors to sell. As of right now I am done with FedEx and will never use them again if I can help it. I felt guilty using them as it is since my dad works for UPS, but this has just sealed it... FedEx is dead to me.
Other than that we have not done much here in Thailand. We went out for a little while last night and met up with the couple we met in Beijing. It was kind of weird seeing them after two weeks, but it was pretty fun and it is always nice to talk to someone other than myself or Chris. We are headed out to see some sites today and then to a kick boxing match... lets hope i don't get blood on me.
Transport from the airport was expensive (30 bucks), but was pretty nice and got us to the hotel without issue. The hotel was a last minute change since Big John's hostel ended up sounding like a total shit hole with no AC and rooms that may or may not have solid walls. The new place is Hotel De' Moc and of course is a little more expensive 22 USD a night vs 7USD, but ultimately will make the stay a lot nicer. If I learned anything on this trip so far it is that the accommodations you choose and the services they provide (reservations, trips, internet, etc) make all the difference and have a huge impact on your overall impression of the city. Seriously, Shanghai may not be that bad of a place, but both hostels were awful and I likely will never go back to the city because sleeping during the two hottest days in the last 123 years with no AC was not miserable. (BTW if you want a fianl summary of China check out Chris's blog. It sums it up pretty nice and I just dont have the energy now to write anything.)
As for Thailand I have spent the majority of my time battling with Fedex over our package that got caged by customs. I have no idea what the rules are, but they caged the package for two t-shirts saying they needed the knit, manufacturer, and EIN of our importer. They claim to have tried to contact both my cell and Chris's dads, but I never got any voicemails and I assume he did not either. Honestly we never would have known there was an issue if I had not emailed them after checking the tracking number 2 days ago to see where it was. Anyway I replied to them letting them know that they are just souvenirs and they cost 5 bucks from a street vendor. That information got forwarded around, but did not resolve the issue. They notified me the package would be sent back if they did not get the information by the 10th of July. Of course that would mean we would be out 400 bucks since we have no way of getting the box back since it would be headed back to China. So I had my mom call them. She seems to have gotten it resolved, but I got another email today saying if I don't get them the information needed by 6pm on July 11th they will send it back. No clue what I will do at this point. I don't have an importer EIN and I sure as hell don't have the manufacturer of a shirt that probably is made in bulk at some government factory and then distributed to the street vendors to sell. As of right now I am done with FedEx and will never use them again if I can help it. I felt guilty using them as it is since my dad works for UPS, but this has just sealed it... FedEx is dead to me.
Other than that we have not done much here in Thailand. We went out for a little while last night and met up with the couple we met in Beijing. It was kind of weird seeing them after two weeks, but it was pretty fun and it is always nice to talk to someone other than myself or Chris. We are headed out to see some sites today and then to a kick boxing match... lets hope i don't get blood on me.
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