Shockalotti and Lozenators Intrepid Journey

Gallery: Cambodia

shockalotti — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:22:00 GMT

Cambodia

Gallery: Thailand

shockalotti — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:22:00 GMT

Thailand

Bangkok

shockalotti — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:54:00 GMT

We headed back to Phnom Penh for a couple of day to wait for our flight out to Bangkok. A place called Lakeside Guesthouse which is built on the water. I jammed out a few tunes at a local cafe with a lovely couple from Germany / Ireland to celebrate Saint Patricks Day even though we forgot all about it.

The next day we flew to Bangkok and stashed our bags there so that we could go shopping. The place was called Chatuchak and we picked up a few small gifts for the people back home. Whilst there we were very careful of our bags because we knew it was a great spot to get robbed. Even so after being distracted for a total of 5 seconds we looked down at our bag and found our wallet had been stolen out of our bag. It was done so professionally we didnt feel or see a thing!

This was a totally scary experience. Everything starts running through your head like: "Oh no we wont make our Canadian entry deadline and will have to come home", "We will forfeit our flights", "Oh credit cards will get emptied of money". A bit of disciplined thinking was in order, so after calming down we had the locals assist us in getting to the police station and having our statement taken. This helped immensely in getting new emergency travel documents sorted out. The locals were SOOOO helpful and nice, they even offered us 500 Thai Baht which is equivalent to 2 days wages - very generous, but we declined. So we had to stay in Bangkok whilst it was all getting sorted out - and hopefully paid for by insurance.

We were so demoralised initially, but after a couple of days of plain sailing, and staying in comfortable accommodation, watching cable movie, we started relaxing again. The New Zealand Embassy was really helpful, especially Cameron who was a kiwi expat. Our flights all needed re-scheduling and luckily didnt incur any rebooking fees.

Finally we jumped on a plane to Hong Kong and knocked on the door to the apartment at 11:30 pm at night. Poor Andrea she was still waiting for us when we arrived.

We had a great 2 days whilst in Hong Kong. Lauren's cameron broke day on the last day as we exited SE Asia. Lucky that it was the end of our trip, but kinda unlucky given all the other things that have happened all at once. We took this into the local agents who gave us a transferable warranty for Canada. Then we got a few other necessary gadgets - Hong Kong is the best place to buy cheap good quality electronics.

Andrea and Kris took us for two wonderful dinners in Hong Kong. This was really a step up from any fair that we had treated ourselves to in SE Asia.

We got up early at 5 am in the morning for our flight to Vancouver. We had a couple of connecting flights in between and each time we got held up for a couple of hours because of our unusual emergency travel documents. Annoying, but at least they checked out OK and we were able to board with no real problems.

Angkor

shockalotti — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 17:16:00 GMT

By this stage we have spent a few months in SE Asia. We have really loved it, been annoyed, harrassed, amazed, entertained, bored, sick, ecstatic, pumped. You get the idea, its been a pretty decent journey. However we are ready for Canada now, and a bit tired of fried rice, or bizzare liver dishes.

Lauren and I discussed the issue and decided for a few more hundred dollars that it would be worth going to Cambodia to see the ancient Angkor ruins and have a quick glimpse of the country. So shortly after arriving in Bangkok from Krabi we hop on another plane & fly to Phnom Penh, a busy, third worldish city. An hour after that we get steered into 6 hour bus trip to Siam Reap.

When we got off the bus there was a lot of yelling and statements like "my friend my friend", "want a Tuk Tuk?","Cheap guesthouse!". Roughly 50 tuk tuk drivers were pushing extremely hard against a wire mesh fence, trying to force the gate open to get to us. You could read the expressions of apprehension and fear on the faces of the tourists around us. We must have looked the same. 30 seconds later the fool at the gate opens the lock, and all 50 drivers come running... no sprinting towards us. I thought they were going to attempt some frenzied mauling mob mugging of the tourists!

Such was not the case. Surprisingly one of drivers pulled up short by me and spoke almost perfect and polite english. 5 minutes later we were booked into the best accommodation for money we have seen on the trip - Coconut Lodge. You have to stay here if you come to Siam Reap.

Our driver named Lida was an extremely intelligent, polite, and ambitious young man. We immediately hired him to tour us through the Angkor ruins.

All I can say is you have to see these temples and palaces. They are incredible. Think Egyptian and Inca to get an idea of the advanced civilization these guys had. Nobody knows what happened to them but all their incredible stone buildings are still in tact and look wonderful today, 1000 years later. When you stand in these structures you get get overawed by the history the walls, floors, and carvings must hold. And to think that nobody has a clue as to what became of them.

Angkor is made up of several sites, temples, palaces, and mansions. Apparently what made the Angkor civilization prosper is that they figured out how to capture and store water during the rainy season so that they could grow rice all year around. Their technology and architecture was very advanced.

Some of the sites we visited looked like something out of a fairy tale. Trees, roots, vines, moss, lichen, growing inseparably around and through the stone.

Today much work takes place to stabilise and in some cases restore crumbled parts of the structures. This work is largely subsidised by Japan and France.

Hat Ton Sai

shockalotti — Mon, 5 Mar 2007 17:05:00 GMT

Mellissa and Darren arrived the next day from New Zealand, which was so unexpected and cool at the same time. We flew down to Krabi airport together and scooted off to Ao Nang beach resort where all rich old german tourists and their 3.75 kids go to holiday. Darren and I spent 1.5 hours searching for accommodation less than 3900 Baht (120 $ US). Eventually we found a nice moldy grimy place which smelt of damp meldew / wood. What a welcome for Mellissa! He he he. I think the highlight for her was the dirty looking ass bath in the toilet (in place of toilet paper) at the end of our hall. We lived through that night and quickly hoppped on the boat to Hat Ton Sai the next day.

Wow! If you are ever considering a beautiful, cheap, and hip place to do rock climbing then dont hesitate to come here. The cliffs are fantastic, and overhang the water in the most bizzare way (our photography of this area regrettably is pretty bad - so I will see if I can phlagerize someone elses efforts to capture how cool these cliffs are). Stalagmites / tites? (I can never remember the little poem) overhang the water, and at any time during the day you can see people climing hundreds of feet in the air - scary!

Everyone, guys and girls, at Hat Ton Sai look lean and chiseled like they had been working out for the last 300 years. Apparently rock climbing is a good sport for getting fit.

We explored the area by trekking over the hills and found the local beachs Railay and Pra Nang. Very nice. Darren and myself were appalled at the number of fit women choosing to sunbath topless. Darren reckoned they must be German.

We saw a bunch of monkeys scrambling from house top to tree, scrapping it out. They are cheeky little devils and will steal food and other bits if you leave them out. One night we were having dinner a what appeared to be brown berries fell near our plates. Luckily we had almost finished since the berries were actually monkey terds. He he he.

Whilst we were close we took the opportunity to dive in one of the worlds best dive spots called Ko Phi Phi. We saw lovely coral and fish, and had a blast in these beautiful waters.

Mellissa had heard from a good friend (named Jane) who really like Krabi, and thought it would be a great place to check out. I was going to go rock climbing but decided to change my plans so we could hang with our mates a bit longer. Anyway I can do plenty of that in Canada.

Krabi was a bit of a hole to be honest. So hot you wouldnt believe possible. I think it must have been at least 40 degrees celcius and really humid. All the shops were shut because it was the weekend. So we went looking for a pool, which we gave up on. Then we went to see the movies which were all in Thai. So we contented ourselves by going back to a local Irish Pub and knocking back a few beers.

The next day I woke up to my third bout of food poisoning in 2 weeks - in Thailand. When they tell you Thailand is the most developed country in SE Asia and they know how to cook food - dont believe it. You will get food diarrhoea at some point in you spend a couple of weeks in Thailand. Almost everyone I have met has had it.

We found a great spot in this miserable little place called Siyoma. The staff we lovely, hilarious even, cooked brilliant food, cost next to nothing, and played any newest release movie you wanted, and you could use their internet or cheap. So if by some misfortunate circumstance you end up in this town, then eat and stay at Siyoma.

Bangkok

shockalotti — Sat, 3 Mar 2007 15:23:00 GMT

Wow. Bangkok is so busy. We got off the sleeper bus all groggy and caught a bus for 7 Baht each to Kaosan road in the central city. The Tuk Tuk and Taxis wanted to charge us 100 - 150 Baht each. Hmmmm seems to be the same in every big city in SE Asia.

All the Hotels appeared to be fully booked out when we arrived at 7 am in the morning! But we did manage to find a nice place called Mary V Inn for 6 $ US per night. I bought breakfast from one of the many side of the road food stalls - Pad Thai Chicken, and fresh pineapple / mango pieces. All for 1.50 US dollar!

We saw some great local markets. One had over 15000 separate stalls, stocking just about everything - apart from Elephants and Jumbo Jets. I think they are currently setting up another one so they can stock these too.

Then we took a sky train and stopped at Siam station, and checked out their latest space station type shopping malls. Pretty big. They stocked Ferraris and Mazeratis, Versace, etc etc... you know, all the stuff you will never be able to afford. It was fun anyway.

Later on, we had dinner with Heidi and Chris, and sadly saw the last of them for this SE Asia leg of our trip. We are thinking of making a slight detour up to Alaska to go visit them later this year.

The day we ended up taking a BS Tuk Tuk drive to see the local sites for 20 Baht. Although we had been warned we still went and regretted it. He he he. We went to a couple of jewellery stores and a couple of tailor suit stores. Needless to say that we bought nothing... but the driver made his commission and wasted our time in the process. In payment for our patience we saw a couple of rickety old buddhist temples that we closed!!! Hah! Then he dropped us somewhere 4 km from our hotel and wanted to know if we would like to walk. Duh! Then whilst walking back to our hotel a couple of official looking tough guys asked us to remove our sunglasses, park ourselves off the footpath and hold our hands by our sides. They had guns and asked nicely so I guess I felt compelled to agree. 10 minutes of waiting like this, the King of Thailand rolls through with his procession of BMW, Mercedes cop cars - heaps of them. Then I understood why we were waiting like dweebs with our hands by our sides on the side of the road. They REALLY love the king here, you have no idea. Its a crime to stand on a dollar bill because his face is on it.

Gallery: Laos

shockalotti — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:41:00 GMT

Laos 2007

Pai

shockalotti — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 15:10:00 GMT

We headed for Pai, with Chris and Heidi as our travelling companions. I really should have paid Chris a rental rate for using his guitar since I was always borrowing it.

Pai is chilled out, with some nice waterfalls, elephant rides available. The town itself is really low key with a bit of party life happening later at night. Similar to Vang Vieng in Laos but nowhere near as cool (we love Laos - see Vang Vieng and Muang Noi on this blog for more details).

We caught up with the Edo and Shiri from the Laos boat crossing. And then later bumped into Leslie and Dave that we met in Muang Noi in Laos. A great night sitting around an open fire at a trendy bar called Ting Tong watching fire dancers, and playing volleyball, and crawling through logs (see the photos) whilst drinking the local beer.

On 2 Mar we got a bus back to Chiang Mai so that we could connect to Bangkok.

Chiang Mai

shockalotti — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:30:00 GMT

A four bus trip from Chiang Rai, Chiang boasts a bunch of Buddhist temples, elephants, trekking, bars, and lots of "Karaoke" places. Strangely enough the Karaoke bars have pictures of lovely looking 20 something ladies posing in a seductive manner. I cant help thinking those girls probably wouldnt be too good at singing Elvis renditions of "Love Me Tender".

Chiang Mai is known for its festivals addiction. I think on average they have a major Thai festival every 2 - 3 weeks. Goodness knows what for, maybe they are just really happy?

We stayed in a cool little guesthouse called Banana GH. I recommend it if you are staying in Chiang Mai as it is close to everything and the people there are really nice.

We got foodpoisoning, and I can tell you it wasnt very fun. We had stuff coming out of us from every direction. Headache, stomach ache, diarrhaea, vommitting. Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!! Not nice I can tell you! Lauren was worst hit still suffering 4 days later. I was lucky and only had to put up with it for 1 day.

Laos Thai Border

shockalotti — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 20:30:00 GMT

We crossed the border today from Huay Say in Laos, to Chiang Khong in Thailand. Pretty painless. Cost 1 US dollar each to cross. Getting a Visa for Thailand cost nothing, and there were no bag checks. I am sure you could have smuggled in whatever you wanted to - which seems strang to me. After that we walked up the gangway and headed to the nearest bus station. By the way - we heard some tourist got caught with some marijuana down in South Thailand and they put them away for 6 years! Not sure if this is true or not, but sure is scary for such a common thing.

One of the first things to strike me is how genuinely nice and helpful the locals were and they werent trying to rip you off. You get a little cynical after travelling through Vietnam, and also in small pockets of Laos (but nowhere near as bad as Vietnam).

After a 2 hour bus journey we ended up in chiang Rai. A fairly quite little town in Northern Thailand. (Wynne) I spent time playing a Chris' guitar that he bought from Thailand for 60 $ US. I must admit I am pretty rusty, but I can feel the addiction for playing starting again. We stayed at an idillic little jungle bungalow type place for $4.50 US per night.

Luang Prabang to the Border

shockalotti — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 15:30:00 GMT

We had to back track to Luang Prabang in order to make the journey to the Thai border. Again accommodation was a hassle to obtain.

In summary: Luang Prabang to Pak Beng by slow boat. When they say slow, they arent kidding, this thing was meant to take 9 hours, and in the end was more like 11 hours. We ended up negotiating through a rapidly moving Mekong river in almost pitch dark, with navigation lights, and a depth measuring pole. I shudder to think what would happen if we hit rocks at speed. The journey was most uncomfortable for about 60 of the passengers, however, for the 6 of us up front it was rather enjoyable. We drank local Laos rice whisky called Lao Lao, played guitar, sang, played cards, and basically socialised. Everytime I looked back at the other passengers, which wasnt often I am sure I saw blue murder in their eyes.

The next days boat trip was much more comfortable and a bit faster taking 8 hours. We arrived in Huay Say and slept overnight to prepare for the crossing in the morning.

Nong Kiaw and Muang Noi

shockalotti — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:12:00 GMT

Glad to finally get out of Luang Prabang, we took a 4 hour bus trip to Nong Kiaw. This place like Vang Vieng was beautiful with steeply rising hills and lush vegetation.

We spent an evening playing Settlers with Phillipe and Max. The next day regrettably they headed on towards Thailand, so it was sad to see them leave.

We walked over to the local caves called Nam Tham. Allegedly these were a refuge for approximately 100,000 communist supporters from Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia. The Americans bombed the area but the caves proved to be solid support. They had living quarters, hospital, admin centre, and even a bank!

On the way back we ran into a bunch of school kids, who were just fantastic company. We hung out for probably an hour, whilst they looked over our photos, communicated in pigeon english / laos. Then we headed for a swim with them at the local water hole.

Here again, we witnessed soldiers waltzing around languidly with their pet AK47's strewn around their necks. At around 9:30 pm they told everyone to go to bed because the rebels were coming down from the mountains.... whatever that means? In the middle of the night Lauren wakes me up.... I hear the following:

rustle, rustle rustle.. poke to my ribs... rustle rustle.. "Wynne (whispered), Wynne, WYNNE! (louder this time)..." (ME)... "hmmm?"... "I think I heard gun fire"...."huh?"..."I think I heard gun fire"....."Nah, I think thats the fishermen whacking the water to stun the fish"...."are you sure??"....."yeah I think so"....."are you really sure????"....."yeah I think so"....."I dont think so?!?!".... "a huh... zzzz zzzzzz zz zzz".

A couple of hours later Lauren wakes up with a start hearing "rata rata rata rata rata rata rata rata rata....." as the sound fades away into the distance, thinking she has heard machine gun fire yet again. Turns out to be a truck with a rattly engine. We figured this out as it drove by at lunch time again.

A couple of days later we headed to Muang Noi which is fairly similar except even more beautiful and much more laid back. Accommodation was a paltry 2 $ US for a night in a cute little bamboo constructed bungalo.

We journed north to several tradditional hill tribe villages on a 2 day trek through jungle, mountains, and rivers. Painstaking stuff - the hills were really steep and required a bit of guts to keep going. After 9 hours of solid trekking, we finally stopped at the village Ban Phon for a night. We were virtually over run with every kid in the village (which there seemed to be so many!). They couldnt get enough of our games, trying to learn english, and their fascination with the digital camera. Eventually we had to go to bed. However, this was hard since we were all suffocating from the internal log fire used to cook dinner - with no ventilation. Our eyes were stinging with tears. The bed roll seemed to be made of solid rock, and the pillows filled with sand. I woke several times in the night (the entire back of my head had gone to sleep because the pillow had no give). Roosters had crowing competitions every hour or so, and the 20 or so dogs would also wake to start barking and fighting. All in all a very rewarding experience!

On the trek we got to know a bunch of interesting people. Amongst them we met a hard case kiwi lady called Jannett and an Irishman called John. We continued to travel with John later on playing Settlers. I have to say that I was disappointed that he won so many times after only just learning the rules.

Luang Prabang

shockalotti — Fri, 9 Feb 2007 12:48:00 GMT

North of Vang Vieng we travelled 4 hours. This place is meant to be one of the 'must sees' of Laos..... Hmph. OK it was nice with all of the french styled buildings and obviously historical culture. However the real highlight of this place was a night street market. Very pretty and lots of cool handicrafts and clothes to buy. Not to mention food was very cheap off the side of the road.

Sadly we had to stay longer than a day here since we couldnt get money out of the bank until monday - 2 days later. We drank lots of lipton tea with condensed milk which was quite nice really.

Golden tip - Laos is terrrible for getting money! Carry plenty of American dollars in the form of travellers checks. I am not exaggerating when I say they have 4 ATM's in the entire empire of Laos! I counted them. And half the time they run out of money since the pesky tourists keep taking money out of them!

Vang Vieng

shockalotti — Sun, 4 Feb 2007 12:32:00 GMT

Wow what a place. Four hours North of Ventiane. You have to check out the photos, a beautiful place with those steep hills you see in post cards. It looked just like a post card actually.

We booked into Vang Vieng Orchid guesthouse and stayed for the next week.

We chilled out, went on a tour which involved trekking through jungle and mountains, magnificent caves, streams, and kayakking down rapids, and finally jumping off a high rope swing monkey style. Wynne did a double back flip summersault into the water. It looked good on the 5th attempt - the other 4 times hurt pretty badly. Hope the video is able to be viewed. Lauren had a crack at it but had a couple of bad accidents and hurt her back a little causing headaches and backache for several days.

On your way down river, just in case you were thirsty for a beer (because it is very fine weather here), there are people in the middle of the river on rafts with beer on the end of a fishing pole. Fantastic - they think of everything!

Then we met several great people, played our addictive game Settlers of Catan. If you havent played it - dont! It is simply too addictive, and causes all sorts of withdrawal pangs when you cant play it! You have been warned.

The cafes and resturants all had big screen TV's or projectors, with large cushions and beds everywhere so you could recline or sleep - whilst watching your favourite movies or sit coms. Awesome! We loved it (some people dont like it for some reason - something about being too touristee????).

One of the kiwi guys we met invited us to his local bar, which he owned and operated with his girlfriend. Apparently his girlfriend was having a going away party because she was heading back to England. We went along but the lights strangely were off. We went in and there was only 4 people there. Strang for a going away I thought.

What happended was in the process of trying to get his lights to stop flickering, he had climbed up the pole and got electrocuted. So there he was stuck to the pole because he couldnt let go. He passed out and then proceeded to fall a couple of metres backwards onto his skull - which got pretty damaged. They shipped him off to accident and emergency (which is pretty dubious anyway) and patched him up a bit. Being the good natured party animal he came back to the bar with a very bloody bandaged head - against the wishes of the doctor who wanted to send him 4 hours to Ventiane for further treatment. We left early and had dinner.

Savanakhet to Ventiane

shockalotti — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:01:00 GMT

3 hours of being jammed into a friggin mini van is not my idea of a good time. After exhuming ourselves from the sardine can called a rickety old Mitsi van we hobbled up to the exit office from Vietnam. A bunch of locals kept on jumping in front of us to get served first, so we just mocked the heck out of them for doing so, which strangely they didnt like. Oh well...

After that we were told by a strange lady on a motor scooter wearing a bizzare tinsel hat type thing (which I couldnt stop looking at), told us the bus was waiting just on the other side of the border - 5 minutes walk or so. Also if we wanted to get rid of our 'worthless' Vietnamese currency, she could give us a 'generous' conversion rate. Call me cynical but I declined her generous offer and kept my money safe in the deepest pocket I could find.

After our 5 minute walk which ended up taking more like 40 minutes, we found a local bus which presumably was the bus in question. I swapped my currency at a healthy rate, after some fairly intense haggling, and we borded the bus.

We stopped from time to time to allow locals to sell us their food: chicken on a stick, eggs on a stick, fish on a stick, rice in a bag, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, blah blah blah....

We met a couple of great German guys by the name of Max and Phillipe. We got on so well we decided to stalk them all the way up the North through Laos.

Finally after starting from Hue - Vietnam in the morning, 10 hours later we arrived in Savanakhet - Laos. Chilled out.... quiet.... flat... nice... pretty good really after coming from the rat race.

We had dinner on the side of the road on tiny plastic chairs, and ate chicken, fish, meat etc which was grilled on the little BBQ's along the road.

The sunsets this close to the equator really are something, the sun goes blood red and gets rather large. We have never seen such sunsets in New Zealand.

To cut a long story short, Savanakhet, Tha Khaek, and Ventiane were pretty boring and not much to do - to be honest. However we only spent a couple of days migrating up through these towns and didnt dilly dally too much. However there was a pretty little place en route called Phonsi, where we spontaneously decided to stop and talk to the locals. They were so nice, friendly as heck, and invited us to some free water mellon, even though we tried to pay them. I think our arrival was the highlight of their day as heaps of kids came to play with us, the locals all sat around watching us eat and laughing at every mini gesture made. Later on we took a boat up to some little waterfalls which was beautiful - and took a refreshing swim in clear fresh water.

(Wynne) Also in Tha Khaek we went to a major annual Buddhist celebration which was rather bizzare. A bunch of buddhist monks sleeping on their mats under a 'lean to' type shelter, with about three main contempory music shows blaring out Laos top 10 music at the same time. Picture yourself at a major major carnival with all sorts of food and bumper car rides going on. I swear my ears took a mammoth assault during this evening. Women dancers doing a go go type routine which was strange since the Buddhist - Laos culture does not permit women to show their shoulders or knees and is very particular about things like holding hands and pecking in public - I am confused. Then a drunk dude came up and started buying food and drinks for us, which I didnt feel particularly comfortable about but was also rather amusing. Then he called over a girl, who started batting her eyelids at me - all very funny. We put a stop to it, and tried to ditch him, but he kept following us. I, being the slowest of the group ended up humouring him and walking with him, in an effort to quickly get away. Which I did, which was hard since he was trying to man handle me towards the Tuk Tuks. Goodness knows what kinds of hanky panky he had in mind. But it made me kinda freak so I turned around and sprinted off, with the help of our German friend Max who had come to save me.

Also a little tip Tha Khaek and Ventiane were insane places to find accommodation - there were no places available when we arrived, so you must book ahead if for some unknown reason you decide to stay in these two places.

Hue

shockalotti — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:18:00 GMT

Isnt it funny how we all can experience the same thing and have completely different perceptions of that experience? We met lots of people who really enjoyed Hue - mostly because it was chilled out. In my opinion it was really really boring, the people were grumpy, and there was nothing to see.

So.... we decided we wouldnt head any further north into Vietnam and instead we would turn West and head into Laos. And this decision we spontaneously decided at 8 pm at night. Damn! This created all sorts of problems for us. Notably currency. Laos doesnt take Vietname dollars, and getting money out of banks in Laos is near impossible unless you are in one of the main centres.

We ended up getting out 1.5 million Dong (Vietnam dollars) and taking it to the border with us. The bus trip was hell. Lauren and I both ended up with Vietnamese solders sitting on our laps. My butt was suspended between two seats with a 300 mm gap in between. So I got two long bruises where I had sat on the hard ridges of the seat. These people are experts at cramming impossible numbers of people, geese, donkeys, and cargo into any space available.

Danang and Hoi An

shockalotti — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:06:00 GMT

Because Danang was so far away we decided to splurg on our budget and take an overnight train. The idea is you sleep on board and get breakfast in the morning, all whilst travelling.

Great idea, except they couldnt turn the heating off in our cabin, so we ended up soffocating from heat exposure and the tiny beds (my head and feet were touching walls at both ends). Needless to say that I didnt sleep much, but Lauren did apparently.

Danang was nice, and the people were really nice. However there wasnt much for us to do there so we caught a local bus to Hoi An. Before getting on we haggled and argued with the lady selling tickets to get on. The tarriff said 40 cents on the outside of the bus she was trying to charge us 2 $ US. Lauren got really upset with her (yee haa go girl!). They settled for 1 $ each. You get used to this type of thing in Vietnam but it still brasses you off.

Hoi An was fabulous. Such a pretty little town, obviously influenced by earlier French occupation earlier in the centry. Architecture, language, and cuisine were very French - which was kinda strange coming from the Vietnamese locals. Hoi An really is worth a look for all of its obvious historical wealth.

We stayed in a pretty little place situated directly over the river with beautiful lights at night.

The very same day we arrived we ordered a few suits to be made which were dirt cheap and very well taylored. We got them right down on price. For example my cashmere blend jacket and 2 pants cost 60 US dollars. And Lauren got similar value on her skirt, pants, jacket, and shorts suit combo. She even had taylor made Pijamas made!

Nha Trang

shockalotti — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 15:47:00 GMT

We were glad to get away from Dalat, even though we had a pretty good tour with the Easy Riders.

Nha Trang is approx 4 hours from Dalat, and is a very big city - several million people. On the beach front lies the tourist area, and where we stayed.

We really enjoyed this town. Great weather, nice locals, and lots going on. We decided to enlist in an Open Water PADI Dive Course. $210 US well spent. After three days we were properly drilled in all sorts of emergency proceedures, and felt confident enough that we could dive safely in the future.

At one stage I was watching Lauren underwater, roughly 8 metres deep. What most people dont realise is that the lower you go the less bouyant you are because your body and lungs and bouyancy device compress to a smaller size. The reverse is also true, and this means that if you go up say 5 feet then you become much more bouyant and you have to adjust by releasing air from your bouyancy vest. This is what Lauren tried to do but she pushed the wrong button and ended up jetting towards the surface. There was air everywhere, and then she was just gone - poof - just in the twinkling of an eye. I looked at the instructor, and I was pissing myself laughing through my regulator cos it looked so funny. However I shouldnt have laughed because it can be quite serious if you dont give yourself time to decompress whilst surfacing.

Anyway so Lauren was intent on not getting left behind by the instructor, and so she swam extra close. So close in fact that her visor kept on hitting the instructors fins. This happened not once but approximately 4 times, so that the last time it happened, the instructor turned around furiously in the water and the gave the thumbs down signal and to definitely not do it again! Very funny. Enough said, Lauren says that writing things like this is very mean. Sorry.

Also whilst in Nha Trang Lauren turned 30. I must admit up to that point I hadnt organised a birthday present. The main reason being that I didtn want to get her anything tacky - which theres lots of here. Then it hit me.... the day after her birthday... better late than never I suppose. Anyway she ended up spending 1.5 hours getting her head washed and massaged, combed, and professionally styled. Then I took her to a health Spa where she spent 4 hours getting nails, feet groomed, and all sorts of massages. However, I forgot about her and didnt realise that she was hungry. So when I arrived back there at 5 pm she was REALLY hungry! Ooops. So I got her a burger and Coke and she was good for another hour whilst they continued their treatment. Shes also got a beautiful little pearl bracelet to remember the ocasion by.

We were enjoying ourselves far too much to want to move on, but there was still so much in Asia to see.

Dalat

shockalotti — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:40:00 GMT

We were told that Dalat was a major hightlight for several people: how wonderful the hill tribe people were, how amazing the Easy Rider tour guys were. In all honesty I found the place really boring apart from a couple of key experiences.

We ended up taking a Easy Rider tour with a couple of locals. Basically they just have big bikes and take you on the back of the bike and show you around, explain the history and local economies etc. We saw all the stages involved in making silk - that was incredible: they grow silk worms on mulberry leaves, then take the cocoons when they go into pupae stage. The cocoons are thrown into a hot tub of water where the silk unravels and is collected onto high speed spools. Then the take the spools and spin it into yarn. Later it is weaved into patterns using some type of old weaving machine. Finally the yarn is dyed using extracts from all sorts of sources such as coffee beans and other things. Absolutely beautiful fabrics. Check out the shots.

Mui Ne

shockalotti — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:32:00 GMT

After arriving back from our Mekong tour, we jumped aboard a bus to Mui Ne and arrived at 12.30 am in the morning. Lucky for us there was a man sleeping out in the open in the garden with a torch - just waiting for us!

The place is a typical beach resort with courses in kite surfing, wind surfing, and the local countryside tours. And is fairly low key and relaxed.

We enjoyed swimming on the beach and the fine weather. At this stage I thought it prudent to start excercising again as I hadnt really done any since knocking off work the previous year 21 Dec. It is very difficult to get back that type of daily discipline when you are travelling and doing bugger all.

We met a neat Aussie couple called Tim and Tam. Tim seemed to have the record for worlds greatest number of personal stories and he had us in stitches the whole time. We ended up travelling together up to Nha Trang and hanging out fairly often.