Enjoying life!

AMAZING THAILAND!

amouna — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:56:00 GMT

That is the first text you read in the airport when you arrive to Bangkok "AMAZING THAILAND". And it sure is amazing. I was lucky to meet two crazy and funny swedes in Vietnam and they convinced me to join them to the even crazier full moon party at the Island Koh Phangan, so my first week in thailand has been intensive partying at night and chillin out on the beach during the day. There is soooo much to tell I don't know if I have the energy to tell you about it all. The full moon party was insane, a FREAK SHOW, people were completely wasted either on alcohol or drugs and acting like animals, I guess that says it all. So I personally did not enjoy it too much, it was simply an interesting event to observe "human behaviour". After Koh Phangan I wanted to go to the more chilled out island Koh Tao, but the thing was everyone who had been to the full moon had the same idea, so pretty much 10 000 people did the same thing. It was a night mare trying to find an acommodation. ON the way there I met two Irish sisters, Michelle and Lisa, real party animals, totally mad, but lovely girls! So we deciced to find a place together, finally after calling 20 hotels we managed to get a room at a man's house. He basically had rebuild his house so the rooms could be rented. The house was amazing, made of bottles. The location however was far up on the hills in total darkness, far from the beach. So the first night going back from a beach party we managed to go completely lost in the dark, ending up being surrounded and chased by stray dogs.....TOTALLY SCARY, NERV WRECKING, but again another crazy story to tell. we had to control ourselves from not panicking and running away like idiots so the dogs would not sense our fear. But still we managed to take some pictures during this scary walk home, so we could still laugh about the whole situation.

Then came the sleepless part, with having insects crawling on you during the night and the dogs still barking outside our room, basically the whole night. We all had to pee so desperately but we were to scared to leave the room because of the damned dogs. The next morning the first thing we did was to hit the beach and try to find a bungalow. We were really lucky to find one just on the beach. This was when the nice chilled out time began. But too much chillin out bores me so after a day of sunbathing I decided to go diving. It was aaaamazing, I even got to see a SHARK, a Barracuda and tons of other beautiful fish and corals, I was so amazed by the beauty in the sea, I just froze watching these creatures. And surprisingly I did not freak out or panic when the shark came, I was so sure I would, but it was just an amazing creature to see swim beneath you. I am defintely doing it again! They even have turtles here, but unfortunately I did not get to see one.

I just loved Koh Tao, but at the same time it was sooooo touristy, you basically only meet tourists, which was fun, but at the same time I did not feel like I was in Thailand. Therefore I decided to leave to a city called Nakhon, which a Thai woman had told me to be very cultural with lots of temples and mosques. So I took the night boat from Koh Tao to the main land last night, which turned out to be another sleepless, nervwrecking experience. It was a small wooden boat, with two floors, but the floors were so low you could not really stand up, and the "sleeping seat" was basicallly a carpet on the floor. To our great luck, it was quit rough and windy last night so most of the trip the whole boat was swinging up and down on the water and it almost felt like it was going to break apart everytime it hit the water. Now I can almost relate with the thai people why they don't fear death, or at least they don't seem to, maybe because they get to experience things like this soo much so they get used to it, I am almost getting there.

So this morning I arrived to Nakhon, completely exhausted. It is an interesting city since you can't find any tourists and most people don't speak english and they stare at you a lot when you walk down the street. There are supposed to be tons of temples to see here, but I was so dead walking this morning I could feel how my knees were like jelly, so I decided to go for a nap, which lasted for 5 hours! I just woke up and there is tropical rain and thunder, so I guess I won't get to see the temples today.

I guess I do miss the tourists a bit, so I will head to Krabi tomorrow morning which is on the west coast of the peninsula, close to Phi Phi and Phuket. But the positive thing about this city is that it is amazingly cheap, basically you pay less than half then on the touristy islands.

That was far from everything that has happened here, but I don't want to bore you guys with every detail, so until next time, take care!

hugs from a "druged from tiredness",

Amani

Gallery: Adventure

amouna — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:24:00 GMT

Being stuck in Lao Cai and coming back to Hanoi

Kammuri was the best that happened!!!

amouna — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:37:00 GMT

Ok, I know I might sound a bit crazy and schizofrenic at the moment, since last time I wrote life sucked, because of the stupid storm Kammuri...bla bla...but my mom always comforts me with the arabic saying...."when something bad happens...there is always something good that comes with it!" And as always mummy is right!

So maybe I should inform you first that we managed to escape the imprisonment in Lao Cai, and we are currently in a beautiful hotel with ac and clean sheets and even a computer with internet in the room, more importantly back in Hanoi!!!

But before this luxury the last days we were dirty like crazy, stinking, but still happy! Coming back from Lao Cai to Hanoi turned out to be the best adventure I have ever experienced in my life! I guess I can see it that way because we survived to tell the story, otherwise it would have been the first and last adventure, but still the best :-))

We were stuck for 2 days in Lao Cai, which were both fun and boring, Fun when going out with our vietnamese rescuers (Sanh, Minh and Chao), who took us to very typical vietnamese places that no tourist would ever find. And the food...yuuummmii, you can see lots of pictures with them eating, eating and eating! Boring, was the rest of the day since there is not much to do in Lao Cai, except for internet cafes that are filled with annoying kids playing computer games and SMOKING next to you!! So when the rain finally stopped our rescuers said it is time to hit the road, before it gets worse.

Adventure PartI: The Departure and Bumpy Ride to Bao Yen

Monday the 11th of august we got up at 6 in the morning to prepare for the departure. We went downstairs to have a shot of vietnamese coffee, and it is really like a shot...damn strong. Watching the sun rising behind the Lao Cai train station. Our minibus finally arrived. The 7 of us, got in......tension is rising...ok enough bullshit otherwise this will become a book. To make this first part short it was the bumpiest ride of my life for about 3 hours of stomach shaking and head banging in the bus.

We finally arrived to Bao Yen a small town south of Lao Cai. We were supposed to catch a ride on a motorcycle for the next 90km, since we had been told that the roads are not reachable by car. Until now, I am not sure why the hell we continued by bus, since we were relying on Sanh and the rest to take us were ever they go, we never asked. But I am guessing because there were like thousands...ok maybe around 50 tourists there already bargaining with all the motorcycle drivers.

Adventure PartII: The Road of Obstacles...came to an end:-(

The bumpy road was like heaven compared to this part. We were driving either on mud lakes, water, mountains of soil and finally it was getting more challenging so we all had to get out of the minibuss and clear the road of huge rocks and fallen down wood from the storm. After each obstacle that we managed to conquer we felt like heroes, yeaaaha. Until we reached a part...that was completely missing...there was no road left to clear on the mountain, it had gone down the valley.....God have mercy on it's soul. I am telling you everyone was just paralysed at this point, surprising, no panic attacks, like: what do we do now, we are stuck, we are going to DIE! Ok, that is exaggerated. Instead, everybody remained very calm taking pictures and movies, check out mine:-)

So the only thing left to do was to use our legs, we started walking on what was left of the road, a small edge. This was just about noon, so the sun was happily grilling us on our way up-hill with luggage. Fortunately, after only 10 minutes of walking we had some motorcycle riders passing by who wanted to earn some cash so they gave us a ride to a small village....which I forgot the name of....This ride was the best adrenalin kick!

Adventure PartIII: The Village

From here we still had 350 km to reach Hanoi, so motorcycle was no option. From what we were told the roads were better in this area to go by car, so again Sanh saved us by contacting his buddies and ordering another minibuss to come and pick us up. However, we had to wait for like 3-4 hours for the bus to arrive. These 4 hours were a blast! We got to meet some ethnic minority from the Tay tribe. Eventhough we could not speak the same language we still had lots of fun with them. People in this village were extremley friendly and hospitable, and curious, everyone was looking after us and yelling "Hallo!Hallo!", I guess that is the only english they know.

Walking through the village we happened to run into the only english speaking person, who was an english elementary teacher from Hanoi, Mr Nguyen. He was kind enough to invite us to his home. However, it was still hard to understand him. His english was like my spanish, which is not good. He told us that he had moved to the village so he could earn more money teaching english, which was 2 million vietnamese dong per month (80 euros!)

The best part was getting "stoned" with the old Tay ladies. I spotted this ladies across the street and from a distance it looked like they did not have any teeth, but still wearing RED lipstick. I approached them to take a picture with them, and then to my surprise I could see that their teeth were dark red, because of some green plant they were chewing on, so of course I just HAD to try it. They took out this huge green leaf for me put in some white paste..made of GOD knows what, some tobacco and again..some GOD knows what, but I figured if they have lived so long using this I should survive it as well. According to Sanh, they chew this to keep their teeth strong and at the same time the "drug" has a relaxing effect. It tasted quit bad, but I have to say I did not really get a strong trip from it, maybe cause I could not stand chewing it for too long...blleeeee, and the most dissapointing thing... my teeth did not turn as red as theirs, obviously you have to keep it up for years before you can get that "beautifully" coloured teeth :-)

Adventure Part IV: The True Beauty of Vietnam and snake luck!

On the way from "the village" we saw the most beautiful scenery driving on the top of the mountain! We even ran into some buffalos blocking the road it was like in a discovery channel documentary.

Then all of a sudden the driver hit the break and the guys were yelling something in vietnamese and all go out...it turned out that the driver had run over a snake but it was still alive. So my initial naiv thought was that they wanted to spare it a painful death and kill it, but they were totally excited that they will have snake for DINNER tonight! One of the guys just placed his foot on the snake's head and killed it with a stone. I don't think I have experienced this many adrenalin kicks on one day. And considerate as they are the placed the snake in a bag right infront of my feet in the car, and it was still moving!

According to vietnamese superstition meeting a snake on a trip, brings you luck, so I guess we should be happy to have met it.

Adventure Part V: Birthday Parrrrrtttyyy!

It was pitch dark on the road, now and then we passed by bikers or kids walking just next the cars. Everytime I was getting an heart attack thinking we were going to hit them any moment.

Then we stopped at somebodies house, which turned out to be some kind of restaurant. The son of the family was turning 9 so we had the great chance to take part of a kid's birthday party vietnamese style. The uncle seemed very happy to see foreigners so he was making us drink shots of home made spirit, I don't know how many brain cells I killed from drinking that stuff, it was deadly. I have learned some more vietnamese now..."mot,hai,ba,hoi!!" (meaning 1,2,3 drink!)

Then we finally arrived back to civilization, to a small town called Tuyen Quang, were we spend the night at a nice hotel. It was soooo great to have a shower, but then again we only had our dirty, stinky clothes to put on again :-)

Adventure Part VI: The Final Destination!

Tuesday morning we went for another taste bud exciting eating session with Chao, every meal that these guys took us to was a new experience full of taste and pleasure! I am talking about food now...don't think anything else;-)

And then we hit the road to Hanoi, but again stopping for eating lunch on the way, and the guys were fooling us all the time that they had ordered dog meat, so we were a bit suspicious, since that is a specialty in the north of vietnam. You could see several restaurant signs, with the word Cho (=dog). There were soooo many dogs in this area I was amazed they were not getting run over by cars, or maybe they were and that is when they have them for dinner, like the snake. There were even traffic signs warning for dogs!

We can not describe the joy and relief we felt when we finally arrived to Hanoi, eventhough it was noisy, crowded, dirty, it was almost like coming home!

I guess it is not possible to book a tour like this, in case you would like to experience it, check for tropical storms before heading to Sapa.

Today I basically spent the day having 4 hours of spa treatment from head to toe and then relaxing at the hotel room. Tomorrow will be our last day in Vietnam and friday I will fly to Bangkok....yiiiipppiiii!!!!!

Until next time!

mot, hai, ba..hoi!

Stuck in a storm!!!!

amouna — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:15:00 GMT

I wanted to have some adventure on my trip and I sure got more than I asked for! Now the adventurous rainy hike turned into an imprisonment in a small town called Lao Cai in the north of Vietnam. The Typhoon Kammuri that came from China has caused so much landsliding, that the train tracks and roads from this place are unreachable. There is basically floods on the roads...first we thought ahh it's just some rain, but now we heard that around 100 people have died because of this storm, that is scary, so we are very lucky to be safe and sound, but still stuck in this very boring town. We were supposed to go back by night train to Hanoi on the 8th of august, but we when we woke up on the 9th the train was heading back to Lao Cai because of blocked trails. And there was even a train that had flipped over.....I really miss Sweden and Germany now...were it is safe! Also people here try to scam you even in these situations. Tons of tourists are stuck in this town now and everyone is ancious to leave in anyway, so there are some bad vietnamese drivers who are asking for outragous amounts of money to take people by bus on the road, and from what I have heard they have only managed to drive for 50km and then got stuck on the road because of a huge flood. The tourists had to spend the night at surrounding villages or even outdoors...in the rain!! It is outragous...and what really pisses me off is that I just read on the internet that there was a warning about this storm coming up north but still the travel agencies let all these tourists book the tours to come up here. I have to say I am getting a very bad impression about the people here. But at the same time we were extremely lucky to meet a guardian angel on the train, who is a vietnamese business man and he has helped us in every possible way. Which gave us hope that there are nice and honest people here as well, but unfortunately the bad guys leave a deeper mark. Our guardian angle Sanh, has very good contacts so according to the high way police the roads might be cleared up this afternoon and we can then head back to Hanoi. At least the rain stopped today after 3 days of non-stop showers...now I know what they mean by the rainy-season:-)

I actually have a lot of great things to tell about Sapa, the tribes, the beautiful scenery, but right now my mind is preoccupied by getting the hell out of here, so maybe I will tell you more about the good stuff when we are back in Hanoi and upload some great pics.

wet and quit dirty,

Amani

Making clothes in Hoi An

amouna — Sun, 3 Aug 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Did I say that Hoi An is relaxing?....I take it back...because once you start going to the tailors here the circus begins! Hoi An is an old small town famous for all the tailors, but trying to find a good one is not easy. I think we have spend the last 2 days here just running in and out of tailor shops to re-fit each item for at least 3-4 times, and I still haven't gotten anything finished. Quit an experience. Makes me appreciate shopping in Sweden, even if it is 3 times more expensive at least.

By the way if anyone is trying to write me e-mails use my private one (asaid99@hotmail.com) since the max-planck page is not working here:-(

Alright have to run for the 50th re-fitting at the tailors'....see you later alligators!

Gallery: Nha Trang...diving and enjoying!

amouna — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 22:19:00 GMT

Forget about crossing the streets...GO DIVING!!!

amouna — Fri, 1 Aug 2008 21:40:00 GMT

Ok...I know I have been awfully lazy when it comes to keeping you guys informed of what I am up to here in the far east...but it is soooo damn hoooot, which makes me soooo damn laaaazy.

So the last week we spent in Nha Trang, a beautiful beach resort, the first 2 days we were chillin' at the beach and enjoying the HEAT! Then we decided to become certified open water divers! THe course lasted for 3 days, one day in the swimming pool and 2 days in the ocean, but it felt like it was for a week at least. Because it was exhausting, nerv wrecking, exciting, fun, sleepless (due to very late night study sessions ;-)) and GREAT at the same time!! We met a lot of fun people from all over this planet.

But Nha Trang was a big change from Saigon, except for the diving course and the wild partying at night, it was much more relaxing.

This morning we arrived to Hoi An, which is an even more chilled out small old town, with 500 tailors!! So we basically spent the whole day today going in and out of tailor shops. It's amazingly cheap here to get tailor made clothes, unfortunately I have to resist not to buy to much clothes since I still have to travel for another 2 months and my back-pack is already full!!!!

Gallery: Saigon+Mekong River

amouna — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Forget about bungy jumping..just cross the streets in Saigon!

amouna — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 04:22:00 GMT

Yeaaahhhha,

finally the trip has begun and I have now spend my first day in Saigon, which has been very exciting and exhausting. Especially since we did not sleep for over 24hr during the trip to come here.

The most exciting thing about Saigon is the TRAFFIC! I am telling you....you want an adrenalin kick..come here and try crossing the streets while a million of mopeds are racing towards you....aaaaaaaa!!!!...was my first reaction. Fortunately I had read in the lonely planet about the crazy traffic and there they also mention that you should absolutely not panic and run for your life across the street, cause that might just end it!!! So you have to remain in total control and just try to walk in a tempo which will allow the mopeds not to run you down...so no sudden moves! It was both extremely scary but also extremely hilarious!

And you will see the most shoking things too...like small babies held by their mothers while the father drives the moped...or huge metal poles held with one hand by a moped driver who hopefully did not stick that pole by mistake into somebodies head. Lots of lots of crazy stuff you have to see it too believe it...I will try to take some pics and upload them soon.

So I hope I will survive Saigon's crazy traffic these next 5 days so I can tell you more about the coming adventures in Asia!

Hasta la vista babies!