Travels in SE Asia

Gallery: Sapa and the end of our Trip

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:34:00 GMT

Gallery: Back to Hanoi & on to Sapa

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:17:00 GMT

Gallery: Cambodia

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:11:00 GMT

Gallery: Saigon onto Mekong Delta and Cambodia

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:03:00 GMT

Gallery: Heading South

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:57:00 GMT

Gallery: We Arrived

kim_gilmour — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:44:00 GMT

Sapa and the end of our trip

kim_gilmour — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 17:50:00 GMT

Hi all, Many of you know that we are back home again and I have already told some of you about our last few days in Vietnam, but I of course need to put it all down here too! So on Wednesday night we took an overnight train to Lao Cai which is in northwest Vietnam, very close to the Chinese border. From there we took a van ride up into the mountains to a little town called Sapa. The area is incredibly beautiful and has become very popular for biking and hiking so it's definitely a touristy town. The elevation is approximately 1900 m. The area is mainly composed of stepped rice paddies and is home to a few ethnic minority groups such as the H'mong and the Dzao. We met our guide, Sung, who is H'mong and took off on our hike followed by a couple other H'mong women. They have arranged marriages at 13 or 14 years of age and children very soon thereafter. Sung is 20 years old and was married at 14 and has a 6 year old and a 4 month old. The men mainly work the rice paddies and the women make the colorful crafts (handbags, blankets, etc.) and also act as the guides. Most of them have learned English from the tourists. We walked up and down steep, narrow, rocky paths and across the narrow dikes between rice paddies. It was pretty overcast and foggy this first day so we couldn't see the tops of the mountains, but the scenery was incredibly beautiful. We ran into some other tourists with their guides and around lunch time we all "somehow converged" at the same place for lunch! The two women who "helped" us this far were heading back to Sapa and as a thank you to them we of course bought a few things. Obviously the plan all along!! After lunch we were followed by a few other stragglers - they all ask the same questions - what's your name; where are you from; how old are you (and no matter what age you say you are - "oh you look so young!"); how long have you been married; do you have any children; "no? then you will soon, right? one boy, one girl." You eventually have to say "all finished with shopping, no more" before they finally give up on you! We ended the first day in a small village at a homestay for an overnight stay - the home of a Dzao woman. The H'mong and the Dzao speak different languages but they also both speak Vietnamese so that's the language the communicate in. Staying with us in the homestay were also a guy who just graduated from college from Washington and a couple from Australia. The guides and the the hostess all made us a delicious local dinner and then the hostess proceeded to try and get all of us drunk of her homemade rice wine - 7 shots of it! Luckily it wasn't too potent so were were all still able to stand straight! This area of the country is extremely poor and most of the villages didn't have much but the basics. But, the people who run the homestays have made a bit of money - our hostess had a large flat screen TV and a nice stereo, but she still cooked over an open flame and the bathroom was a hole in the ground in an outhouse. We slept in a loft like area on decent mattresses with heavy, colorful blankets over us. That night we had hours of TORRENTIAL rain. I laid awake listening to it and fretting over the fact that we were going to have to hike in it the next day! I wasn't so much worried about getting wet, but more the fact of what those steep, narrow, rocky trails were going to be like. Needless to say, they weren't as treacherous as I thought they would be, but it was pretty precarious going at times. It was fun though too and we got drenched and muddy. Luckily none of us fell though ! We made it to another town by mid-day, had lunch and then were picked up by a van to be driven back to Sapa. I think we hiked about 14km the first day and about 8 or 9 the second day. We spent a couple hours in town and then were driven back to Lao Cai for the overnight train back to Hanoi. We found out that the torrential rains were all over the north and central parts of Vietnam and were the worse they'd had in 35 years! Parts of Hanoi got really flooded as well as mud slides up where we had been. We seemed to have missed seeing or experiencing the worst of it though. We arrived back in Hanoi on Saturday morning, our last full day. We walked around in the rain shopping for gifts, etc. It was amazing how much the rain kept people away from the city - even some shops were closed. Much of the traffic is comprised of people who live outside the city and because of the flooding they weren't able to make it in. It finally let us by late afternoon and held off until the early morning hours. We had a delicious last dinner of different kebabs grilled right on the sidewalk. Well, over a fire on the sidewalk! We flew out of Hanoi on our long journey home Sunday morning. This was most certainly a trip that we won't forget! I'll be posting some photos here soon hopefully and will let you know when they're here. Thanks for following us along on this trip and thanks for all your messages! Love to everyone!

Back to Hanoi & on to Sapa

kim_gilmour — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:35:00 GMT

Hi everyone! This will most probably be my last posting until we return home. We arrived back in Hanoi last night from Siem Reap and we take an overnight train up to Sapa in the mountains tonight. We are taking it easy today in Hanoi as we both are exhausted from all that we've been doing the last few days. We slept in a bit this morning and didn't really HAVE to be anywhere today.

The temples in and around Ankgor Wat were absolutely amazing - something I've never experienced before. On Sunday we rented bicycles for $1 each for the day and rode out to Ankgor Wat, about 6-8 km from the center of Siem Reap. The temple of Ankgor Wat was our first stop. We parked our bikes and were instantly surrounded by several kids hawking guide books, water, postcards and bracelets. "You buy from me." "I remember you from yesterday." "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "America...capital is Washington." No matter how many times you say no, thank you, they keep on persisting. These kids are at pretty much every major temple. It's unbelieveable though how good their english is and you sometimes end up having little conversations with them. You want to buy everything from them too because they are so cute and friendly. But, it also gets increasingly frustrating.

As we were walking across the bridge over the moat to Ankgor Wat we had a monkey walking along with us - the first one I've seen outside a zoo! We saw several more throughout the day - the Cambodian people feed them, so they're pretty tame.

Besides Ankgor Wat, we saw several other temples the first day - Bayon, my favorite as the detail and size of it were unbelievable; Phnom Bakheng, a 15 minute walk up a large hill with view of Tonle Sap lake, the jungles in the distance and THE place to take sunset photos of Ankgor Wat although we avoided the crowds and saw it in the middle of the day; Baksei Chamkrong, Baphuon, Royal Palace, Terrace of the Elephants, etc., etc., etc. The detail and vastness of all these temples is jaw dropping. It's just unbelievable how preserved many of them are (the earliest ones were built in the 900's)and how practically every service is covered with carvings of some kind.

On Monday, we rented a car with driver to take us to a couple of the outlying temples - Kbal Spean, about 50 km from Siem Reap where we had to hike about 30 minutes up to a small river/waterfall. The carvings were mainly in a 75 meter stretch of riverbed; Banteay Srei, about 30 km from Siem Reap, and then 4-5 others that were in the northern part of the Ankgor Wat complex including Preah Kahn which is one of the few sites that has been left in ruins as it was found - trees growing out of walls, etc.

Our last day in Siem Reap, Tuesday, we rented a tuk tuk to take us to a few remaining sites that we wanted to see, one of them being Ta Prohm which was where Angelina Jolie filmed Tomb Raider a few years - they love her in Cambodia! ;-) It's another site that has been mainly left as it was found - huge silk/cotton trees growing out of the walls, large fallen stones everywhere, etc. The amount of Japanese tourists though...argh!

We were completely exhausted and drenched at the end of every day there - beautiful sunny days, but in the 80's and HUMID! My clothes were pretty much falling off me. We ran into the New Zealand couple we had met on the bus ride from Saigon and had dinner with them one night - very cool people. We had foot massages one night too - $5 for one hour, each! Crazy, isn't it? Besides behing exhausted from visiting all the temples, we also got exhausted from being hawked by tuk tuk drivers, etc. The town wouldn't be what it is without Ankgor Wat and isn't 100% representative of the rest of Cambodia. There were some incredibly nice people, but also many who just feed off the tourists, try to scam you as much as they can and are just constantly after you.

One of my highlights though was one of the kids trying to sell us stuff at one of the smaller sites - a little girl about 9 or 10 years old. Her english was great, she liked that my name was Kim because it's a Cambodian name (actually an extremely common asian name - I should have started taking photos of all the signs with my name on them!) and she drew us a beautiful picture of flowers. She wasn't as in your face as some of the other kids, just very friendly, adorable, and smart.

Tuesday evening we flew back to Hanoi and tonight we head to Sapa where we have a guide meeting us who will take us hiking to a few mountain villages to meet some locals and see how they live, what their customs are, etc. We are going to be staying in a local's house overnight too which should be great. We take the overnight train back to Hanoi Friday night and on our last day, Saturday, we'll do some shopping. We've only bought a few things so far because we didn't want to have to carry them everywhere, so we'll make up for that on Saturday!

See some of you soon and others of you soon thereafter. Love from both of us!

Cambodia

kim_gilmour — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:20:00 GMT

Hi all! Well, the past few days have been quite the adventures traveling across land and water. Two days ago we left Saigon by mini bus - 15 people, plus the driver crammed into a barely airconditioned mini bus/15-passenger van. We were stuck in the very back seat with two other people and very little leg room. Everyone on board was Vietnamese except for another young couple from New Zealand. We were on this mini bus for 6 hours, mainly over secondary type (paved) roads. About 2 hours into the trip we made a lunch stop at a roadside diner/market. The New Zealanders and us were the only non-Vietnamese in the entire place and were just kind of milling around wondering how much time we had and what we were supposed to do. The next hour and a half to two hours was over partially paved roads, meaning you'd be on paved for about 200 yards, then potholed dirt roads, then paved, then back to dirt, bouncing up and down and around. We were driving right next to the Mekong Delta dodging in and out of potholes, motor bikes and other cars and traffic coming in the opposite direction. We eventually arrived in Chau Doc, a border town on the Vietnamese/Cambodian border. We hopped on motorbike taxis with our 25-30 pound backbacks and headed to a hotel. I was hoping like hell that the driver wouldn't make any quick starts or stops, otherwise I'd be on my back on top of my backpack! Our room was a windowless, fan only room, but only $6! OK for one night. We left early the next morning on a small speed boat up the Mekong River to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia with about 10 others. The border crossing was about an hour into the trip. There was a guy traveling with us that takes our passports and $ and gets our Cambodian visas taken care of. Then we go upriver a couple minutes more, get out and get in line to have our passports stamped. Back on the boat and into Cambodia we go, 3-4 hours more. The river is murky and brown, really wide at points, and very flooded right now as it's the rainy season. Lots of people live along it in stilt houses with fish farms netted under their houses. The weather was rainy and there wasn't much to do on the boat except sit and watch the river go by, sleep or read. We arrived in Phnom Pehn, found a hotel near the docks and since we only had the afternoon there, we went right to it. We ate a traditional Khmer lunch; went to the Tuol Sleng (S-21) Genocide Museum which was a high school that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge converted into a terrible prison where many people were tortured and killed during their reign in the late 1970's. Very disturbing. Then we went to the opposite side of the spectrum and visited the Silver Pagoda in the Royal Palace grounds where there is a Buddist statue made entirely of Baccarat crystal! Dinner at a food stall at the central market and then we BOTH hopped on the back of a motor taxi back to our hotel.

Had to get up incredibly early this morning for another boat ride, this time up the Tonle Sap river, which is a tributary of the Mekong, into the Tonle Sap lake to Siem Reap. This boat was larger - about 70 people and our luggage strapped on top at the back of the boat. The boat was not made for the taller Western person. The seats were so tight and below decks, but at least it was air conditioned. By the time we started out a bunch of people decided that riding up on the narrow decks or on the roof of the boat was more comfortable. We made our way up there about a quarter of the way through - MUCH BETTER! We sat at the very front of the boat in front of the captain waving at the locals in their boats and enjoying the view. Once the river opened into the lake, the water was a bit rougher, so they told everyone to get back down in the seats. Now for those of you who've been on a boat before, it was just medium choppy water. But in this boat when you're below decks it seemed like the boat was going to tip over every time he hit a chop wrong. I guess the captain didn't feel so comfortable in these conditions either because after about 1/2 an hour of this he headed over to a more secluded area of the lake, tied the boat to a stand of mangrove trees and said we were going to sit their indefinitely until the wind died down a bit! Well, at least the sun was shining and it was a pretty spot - we sat there for over an hour. One of the guys left on a local boat and came back with bread and bananas for us. When we took off again, it was still pretty choppy for another hour, water leaking through the windows, flipping back and forth, etc. As soon as we saw land again (this lake is huge) and things seemed calmer we all clamored up on the roof again and arrived in Siem Reap soon thereafter. A 5-6 hour trip that took 8 hours!! It was all really fun believe it or not! ;-)

So, after all that, we finally arrived in Siem Reap which is a small touristy town, very poor, but then you see the odd Japanese or Western business man in their fancy cars and houses right in the middle of the poverty. The town is the gateway to Ankgor Wat and all its associated temples, what some people consider the 8th wonder of the world. We'll spend 2 and a half days exploring as much of them as we can. Some we have to be driven a couple hours to as they're out in the jungle, pretty much undisturbed.

Can't believe we only have a week left here - it's all gone by so fast, but then I think of all we've done. Much love from both of us to all of you!

Saigon on to Mekong Delta and Cambodia

kim_gilmour — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:53:00 GMT

Xin chao (pronounced sine jow) everyone! I'm going to try really hard to keep this brief as it's getting late and we're in an internet cafe. We have been in Saigon or HO Chi Minh City as it's known to most Americans. We arrrived here Monday morning on the train at 4:30 am and had a taxi bring us to a guesthouse just south of the backpacker district. Our room is sparse, no windows, but has aircon, is clean and only $12 per night. We slept a couple hours and then hit the town. It's been in the high 80's to low 90's with 85-90% humidity. Basically within 10 minutes of walking you're dripping and your clothes are sticking to you. We walked all over Central Saigon seeing a huge market, antique district, Notre Dame Cathedral, the French colonial style postoffice, parks, etc. We visited the Reunification Palace, now called Independence Palace which is basically where the American War (Vietnam War for us) ended; the War Remnants Museum which is mainly photographs depicting the atrocities of the war. This was incredibly fascinating and sad. We went to a beautiful pagoda as well. The traffic is absolutely crazy here - hundreds of scooters and motorcycles in the streets. The streets are wider than in Hanoi, so it takes more guts to just step out there and wade through it. We've taken a motor taxi a couple times. I really love them and think NYC should incorporate them - a much faster and cheaper way of getting around. For you NYers, figure taking a taxi from Houston Street to 14th Street and across town for less than $1!!! It's surprising there aren't more accidents though with how they drive.

Tuesday we hired a taxi for the day to take us NW of the city to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. The Cu Chi tunnels are where the Viet Cong built an underground tunnel system back in the 40's and expanded it during both the Frenc and American wars. It frustrated our army so much that they eventually carpet bombed the area. It's pretty touristy now, but about 3/4 of the way through we came upon a tunnel that we could crawl through with a guide. They've widened them and made them a bit higher for tourists, but we still had to walk through stooped over and even had to crawl at one point. The Cao Dai Temple is the craziest structures of architecture you've ever seen. Almost puts Gaudi in Barcelona to shame. This religion incorporates several different religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, and Confusionism. We got to see the end of a ceremony and then walked through the main temple.

Today, Wednesday, we went to Cholon which is the Chinatown district of Saigon. They have a huge market, which parts of it for us felt very similar to Canal street. They also have several beautiful pagodas that we visited. Very ornate places and coils of incense on hanging from the ceilings.

Tomorrow we leave for Cau Duc which is a border town in the Mekong Delta next to Cambodia. We'll take a 6 hour bus ride there, stay overnight and then take a boat up the Mekong River to Phonm Pehn, the captial city of Cambodia. The next day we'll make our way to Siem Reap where the temples of Ankgor Wat are.

Have I said how hot and sticky it is here? We do have similar weather in NYC, but we usually don't walk around all day in it wearing t-shirts and pants - usually shorts or skirts and tank tops. We have seen lots of people wearing tank tops and since it's more of a cosmopolitan city it's more accepted, so I did wear one yesterday. But you have to cover up your shoulders when going into pagodas and temples. But, we haven't melted yet! Still having delicious and cheap food everywhere we go - pho, Vietnamese sandwiches, fish and rice, chicken and rice, fruits, some veggies, sweets. Lynn absolutely loves the coffee with condensed milk - iced or hot.

So much for briefness! More in a few days - love you all!

Heading South

kim_gilmour — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:24:00 GMT

Hi All! Thanks so much for your notes - it's great to hear from you! We are now in the Central city of Hue (pronounced Whay)which is the old imperial capital of Vietnam. Before we left Hanoi we took a day trip to Halong Bay. Most people take an overnight trip there, but we decided on a one day trip. We were the only ones doing that so we got our own guide and huge boat. It was a sunny day, but hazy, so the overall effect wasn't as amazing as I thought it would be. It's a large bay full of 3,000 huge limestone towers rising out of the water that are about 400,000 (or 400 million - I can't remember!) years old. There are caves you can walk through (you get off the boat obviously) and some you can kayak into. We had a delicious lunch on the boat. The guide was really nice - he said he'll give us a private tour next time we want to come back of different areas that are known for their indiginous music. His brother and sister both play instruments. He gave us some good insight into the state of things with the government these days and how many of the younger generation don't like it. Pretty interesting stuff.

Thursday night we got on an 11pm train heading south. We had an 11 hour train ride to Hue and slept in the first class, air conditioned soft sleeper births (four to a "room"). Only $36 each! They aren't as fancy as they sound, but were comfortable enough. The other two people in our "room" were Vietnamese, but most of the other people in first class were other Westerners. The countryside was amazing - really another world away.

Hue is in the middle of their rainy season and boy does it ever rain here - a lot of rain! Did I say a lot? We found a hotel and then took off to visit the enclosed old imperial city. We spent about 4-5 hours exploring every inch of that, got soaked to the bone, but trudged on. I have the best pants that dry really fast. But, my feet were wrinkly and white as can be by the time we got back to the hotel! And, I had my hiking sneakers on. We had a 7 course meal for dinner which is the old imperial style of having dinner. Today we hired a taxi driver to take us to several temples and pagodas just outside the city. We got to watch the monks at one of the places chanting one of their daily ceremonies. Right in the middle of their ceremony there were huge claps of thunder and pouring rain outside. At least we had the taxi so we had time to dry off a bit in between each place. These places are really beautiful and I don't think our photos will do them justice. By the way, most of the computers we're using seem to be older versions, so it doesn't look like I'll be able to upload any photos right now.

We also visited the local market full of food, clothes, home goods, etc. We did some serious bargaining/haggling, first with buying some tea and coffee. A woman who spoke English "helped" us out and then led us to her stall where she sold clothes. At first she said it was OK if we didn't buy anything, just come look. OK my ass! We ended up buying one thing from her, but she got really mad at us because we decided not to buy a couple other things we felt were too expensive for what they were - we can get them cheaper in NYC. At one point Lynn started talking to me in Spanish thinking she wouldn't understand, but she did! We had a heck of a time getting away from her. We explored a bit more of the city and then had dinner at a place on stilts frequented by Vietnamese that serves good grilled meat and seafood. Lynn had sauteed frog - yes, it does sort of taste like chicken, but I couldn't really stomach seeing his feet on the plate!

Tomorrow morning we get back on the train heading to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City to the rest of the world), an 18 hour train ride! The weather has been pretty comfortable so far, humid, but not unbearable. Saigon will most probably be pretty steamy, so I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for that. We've been meeting some really nice people here - the Vietnamese are incredibly friendly, well, except when you don't buy enough things from them in a market I guess. Will hopefully check back in with you all in a few days. Much love from both of us!

We arrived!

kim_gilmour — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Hi everyone - we made it safe and sound and on time on Monday morning, Vietnam time. I slept quite a bit on the flights, but was still exhausted. Plane sleeping just doesn't cut it! We hit the ground running on Monday. Our hotel is simple, but clean and nice. We are staying in the Old Quarter of Hanoi which is a large area of small, twisty streets, narrow sidewalks, and everything very close together. After booking a couple day tours we walked all over the Old Quarter for hours. In NYC we have the lighting district, the jewelry district, the flower district, etc. Here they have the herb street, the lighting street, the tool street, the shoe steet, etc. It's incredibly fascinating, but a bit overwhelming too - sensory overload. You mostly have to walk in the street because they are either cooking on the sidewalks or doing their trade on the sidewalks. Also, the traffic is continuous. We were both saying that if we came from a small hick town it would probably be too much for some people. Everyone either rides bicycles, small motorbikes or scooters. EVERYONE! There are hardly any stop signs or traffic lights, but for some reason it works. No one drives very fast, even on the main roads and there is no road rage at all. They are all very stoic and just deal with it. Some are smoking or eating or talking on their cell phones while driving. Pedestrians just go for it. As we were warned before we came, you just walk across the street. Don't hesitate as that's when you're likely to get hit. They traffic will avoid you. Jaywalking in NYC has come in handy. It's a bit disconcerting at first, but after the first time, it was pretty easy for us. Although today we were at one intersection where there just didn't seem to be an opening. I think we stood there for almost 5 minutes before we finally braved it! We at our first meal of pho ga (delicious soup with chicken and some herbs) at a literal hole in the wall. They pulled up a folding table and some plastic chairs for us and within 30 seconds two bowls of soup were placed in front of us from the pots on the sidewalk. Each bowl was $1! Delicious and cheap! We went to the Water Puppet theatre Monday night. For those of you who don't know, this is a very old tradition in Vietnam. It was pretty cool, but we were both so tired by that point too.

Tuesday we got up early, which wasn't difficult as the city awakens around 5am. The horns outside our window combined with the kitchen below us slowly woke us up around 6am. For some reason though, on vacation it seems easier to get up early. There's more incentive then getting up to go to work! We took our first day trip, to the Red River Delta which is about 2 hours south of Hanoi with 4 other people and a guide. One couple was an older couple from S. Africa and there was also a father and daughter from NJ. She is living in Hanoi for a year working for a wildlife organization. We rode bikes through rice fields and tiny villages for a couple hours. Then went to a local family's house to make and eat a Vietnamese lunch of spring rolls, sauteed water lily spinach, squash with peanut sauce, and rice noodles. Everything was fresh from their garden and was delicious. Then we rode bikes for another hour and a half or so and ended it with a boat ride along a canal. The bikes had no gears and we were riding on dirt roads, crumbled cement roads and across thin stretches of land between the rice paddies. I actually slipped off at one point and almost landed in a rice paddy! The older woman with us really slipped off and went head first into the paddy! She was laughing as she came out though. The people in these villages are incredibly friendly and would yell hello to us as we rode past. Little kids just keep waving and repeating, hello, hello, hello.

Today, Wednesday, we went to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, but apparently they're doing some renovation work on his body so it was closed. We rode the Xe om (spelling?) which are the motorbike taxis - each of us on the back of one. Now think back to what I said previously about the traffic...it was fun as hell, but scary too!! It's such a great way to get around though, even when they go against the traffic just to get across an interesection! We went to the Ho Chi Minh museum and also visited the houses he lived in in the late 50's . Then we walked to the Temple of Literature which is a very large pagoda and garden area that's exremely peaceful and beautiful. On the way there we came across two older men giving hair cuts and shaves on the sidewalk. Lynn had been lazy since we'd arrived and hadn't shaved. So, he decided to clean up a bit. The poor guy had to use 3 razors on Lynn's thick American facial hair! A girl from England stood with me and watched the entire spectacle. We also went to the Museum of Ethnology which gives an entire history of the Vietnamese culture.

Tomorrow we're taking a day trip to Halong Bay which the people of Vietnam are trying to convince the powers that be to make it the 8th Wonder of the World. Then late tomorrow night we will begin our trip south, taking the train to Hue.

All the food we've had so far has been amazing - pho, rice noodle dishes, congee, dragon fruit, etc. I'm starving right now actually, so will sign off for now. Thanks for all your messages. We're taking loads of photos! Love you all!

One more week

kim_gilmour — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 14:33:00 GMT

Hi all - Welcome to our SE Asia travel journal. I'm not sure if I'll have time later this week to write anything, so decided to do that today. Lynn and I will be off on our trip in less than a week. We'll be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean at this time next week, hopefully soundly sleeping! I'll try to update this as often as I can - just not sure how many internet cafes we'll come across. I'm also not sure if I'll be able to upload any photos, but I'll try. So check in periodically to see where we're at if you want. We're really excited about this trip - it's something we've wanted to do for a long time and a part of the world that sounds so beautiful and fascinating. We'll be traveling down the length of Vietnam, north to south, and then up into Cambodia to Ankgor Wat and possibly the capital Phnom Penh. If we have time, we'll also fly to a couple cities in Laos, but we're not sure about that yet. We may leave Laos for another trip. We'll end our trip back in Hanoi. Can't wait to share our adventures with you!