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Halong Bay

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

Halong Bay is this incredibly beautiful and massive bay east of Hanoi. Filled with rocky hills, caves and national parks as well as floating fishing villages and lots of tourists.

We were on an overnight tour so after a 3 hour drive ended up on a pretty cool old school wooden boat with about 20 others. Spent the day cruising around through the amazing misty scenery. Stopped by some big caves which would have been a bit cooler if they weren’t for the neon lights all through them, making it look like a dance party.

Unfortunately it was freezing cold so there was no swimming which would have been great but did get to go kayaking which was nice. Met loads of cool people on the boat and spent most of the day just playing cards and watching the rocks go by, very peaceful and relaxed….apart from the crazy dinner lady.

The crazy dinner lady served us our meals but was a bit pedantic about where we had to sit, moving people from different tables and yelling at you if you sat where you wanted, rather than where she wanted. Her lack of english made it difficult to explain that we just wanted to sit with there with our friend. Always interesting…..

Once the sun went down there wasn’t too much to do so we retired to our cabin after I was given the entire history and culture of Iceland by an over enthusiastic Icelandic guy.

The next day we headed back to port for an incredibly unorganized ride home where we all just ended up in random vans. The trip was beautiful but like all tours in this part of the world, no information about anything so its kind of like “surprise, we’re going over here now”

But had a good time meeting people and I like just being on boats, especially on super calm water like this. Would be an awesome place in the summer, jumping off the boat and things but there’s always next time!

So back to Hanoi where Judah and Brett had finally met up with us, we were only together for one night as me and Tash were leaving the boys to fly to Laos in the morning. We had a pretty relaxed evening at a bar and then eating huge ice cream sundays at “Fanny’s Ice-Cream.” Off to the airport bright and early for a short flight over the border to my final new country, number 24!

Posted in Travel, Vietnam | 1 Comment »

Snakes and Planes

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

You know how on planes everyone rushes to get off really quickly? Well in our overtired-everything-is-funny state we waited until people had gotten off….so talking and laughing away we suddenly realized that EVERYONE was off the plane and only the air-hostesses were left giving us funny looks. So we quickly grabbed our stuff and ran out down the stairs to the bus where the entire plane was waiting for us. But somehow Jeff came out after us as the bus was driving away and ended having to get a whole other bus just for him. This was obviously far too much for us and while we laughed hysterically the rest of the plane just gave us evil looks….anyway guess you had to be there.

So we were in Hanoi, got to a nice little hotel in the old quarter, very French influenced architecture and cafes on corners, as well as the usual crazy motor bikes seemingly trying to run us down. The only down side was that is was freezing and raining, not what we wanted after we had left Nha Trang with perfect weather. So after a vague walk down the street trying to find somewhere cheap for dinner we somehow ended up at a not cheap but warm Irish pub, for pasta, tea and other un-asian type food. We meet a swiss guy and agreed to meet up the next day to find the infamous snake restaurants. The weather the next day was no warmer but at least not raining. Checked out the area, around the lake where we saw some important looking thing on as island, saw a lot of things to buy and Jeff and Tash got measured up for some tailor made clothes. Then we headed back to meet up with the Swiss guy and another German and headed out on a local bus using charades trying to describe where were going. “You know, snake, eat”
We did actually make it there surprisingly, an area called Le Mat where you can eat snake in 10 different ways and drink its blood along with the beating heart….very pleasant.
We headed down some quite streets until we saw a sign with a snake on it, inside were massive bottles with alcohol and huge snakes coiled inside, in a cage near the door we could see movement from the snakes that didn’t have a bright future ahead of them.
A man came out.
Sit down please.
We sat.
Awkwardly.
Kind of felt like we had entered some sort of snake mafia circle. Nothing was said about the snakes, we were offered tea, cigarettes, some sort of bong. Then the guy in the suit got down to business. After a big of arguing we finally agreed on a price for the 3 boys as by this stage I had backed out of any claims I had bragged about doing.
Out comes the snake.
It wasn’t super massive just very long. With us all hovered around with cameras the guy expertly slit the throat (do snakes even have throats?) dripped the blood into shot glasses with vodka, the greeny-black vile into another glass and then…wait for it…the BEATING HEART. Yes actually beating away in the glass.

So we were taken upstairs to our own private table where the boys downed the blood, the bile and the heart (not beating by now) and we were brought 5 courses of snake, spring rolls, soup, crunchy skin, salad and a plate of meat….mmmmm…..snake.

It was very interesting and cool to watch but there was no way I could have done it, at least we got some photos and some disgusting video footage though. After it was all over, we went back into town for me and Tash to get some real food at a nice french cafe. Chilled out in our room with some cheap takeaways and to bed.

In the morning we discovered we were being kicked out of our hotel for not booking a tour. The place we were staying was really nice but they were ridiculously insistent on us booking tours through them, to the point where we had to run through the lobby to avoid them. The ironic thing was is that we were about to book a tour but wanted them to wait till we approached them. However not soon enough as they told us to leave then tried over charging us for ‘room tax’ a few arguments later we were out with the right change directly next door to a nicer place and me and Tash booked our Halong Bay tour for the next day. Judah and Brett from home were heading to Hanoi so Jeff was going to stay and meet them. Spent the day hanging out at the markets and sitting by the lake. Evening came and went and it was early to bed as we were heading out to Halong bay early the next morning.

Posted in Travel, Vietnam | 1 Comment »

Floating bars and beach parties in Nha Trang

Sunday, January 28th, 2007
I have taken a lot of overnight buses on this trip, all of them pretty bad but this was up there. The bus was packed and the seats more designed for tiny Asians on a 3 hour trip rather than ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Back in ‘Nam’

Sunday, January 21st, 2007
Only 3 weeks until home time! Can’t believe the year is almost finished, but not quite yet still more countries to visit, things to see and lots more to buy. And Vietnam is a good place to go shopping! We ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Beach Fun

Sunday, January 21st, 2007
DSC04052.JPG Sihanoukville is Cambodia’s Cote d’azure. It is however, yet to be overrun with mini dogs and women in white linen. It’s not quite yet a beach resort which is a good thing after the commercial beaches ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Cambodia, Photos, Travel, Vietnam | 1 Comment »