World Wandering with the Walkers

Patong, Phuket

walkersgowandering — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:51:00 GMT

Sunday 14th May

Arrived at our hotel late afternoon. Receptionist is an Australian man that comes across as quite grumpy, but nice enough. Its really nice to have a proper big bed, away from mosquito's and rats and have some privacy. We went for dinner at a restaurant called Break Point that Dan found on trip advisor. Dan had noodle soup and I had sweet and sour pork. It was really great as they had put a similar amount of garlic in to what I do in my own cooking! We decided to have pudding too as hadn't eaten much else that day. We had fried banana with ice cream and honey and it was delicious.

Monday 15th May

Had a really last day as had a proper room and bed for the first time in weeks and just wanted to lie down and cuddle all day and watch the film channel! It makes a nice change from being in bunk beds and the place with the 'no cuddling' rule!

Tuesday 16th May

Wednesday 17th May

Went to Jungceylon shopping centre again. We went to the bakery in the supermarket and got a French baguette- something Dan had really been missing. It was the value day at the cinema and Dan likes the Alien films so we decided to see Alien Covenant. Went back to the hotel to put warmer clothes on as the air con is always icy in cinemas. It followed on from Promethius, which was handy as that's the only other Alien film I've watched properly (although I didn't think it was very good and had a nap part way through)! Alien Covenant was actually quite good.

We went to the night market again for dinner. We had veg spring rolls, hot basil chicken with rice and omelette, BBQ squid, BBQ chicken&veg kebab and coconut ice cream. We shared each dish so we could get lots of flavours.

Koh Lanta

walkersgowandering — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:49:00 GMT

Thursday 11th May

Friday 12th May

Saturday 13th May

Sunday 14th May

Krabi

walkersgowandering — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:48:00 GMT

Tuesday 9th May

Wednesday 10th May

Thursday 11th May

Bangkok and Kanchanaburi

walkersgowandering — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:45:00 GMT

Thursday 4th May

Friday 5th May

Saturday 6th May

Sunday 7th May

Monday 8th May

Chiang Mai

walkersgowandering — Wed, 17 May 2017 12:17:00 GMT

Wednesday 3rd May

Got the bus back to Chiang Mai. It took 3-4 hours and took a prettier route than it had on the reverse journey. Again a policeman came on and looked for soneone. We went to stay at At Baahn Khan Hostel 2 again, but stayed in the bigger dorm this time to save money- and hope we might get less mosquito bites as the mosquito's would have more choice! The room smelt of cheesy feet and we both had top bunks but we didn't get more bites! We booked our flight back to Europe.

Thursday 4th May

Had trouble getting museli again- waited about 40mins and were worried we might have to go so we didn't miss our bus.

Got the 10am Bangkok Bus Lines bus back to Bangkok. It arrived at around 9pm. On th way the bus stopped a short distance out of Chiang Mai and 3 policemen searched both on the bus and in the luggage hold. By now we were wondering what type of fugative they were looking for.

Chiang Rai

walkersgowandering — Tue, 2 May 2017 00:45:00 GMT

Sunday 30th April

Arrived in Chiang Rai mid afternoon after a 3 hour bus journey from Chiang Mai. During the journey a policeman again got on and checked the bus, looking for soneone. Our hostel, Mercy Hostel, was only a short walk away from the city bus station. We arrived, relaxed for a bit and did the laundry. We went out for dinner to Barrab as it was cheap and top rated on trip advisor. It was brilliant food, with lots of fruit/veg which we had been much in need of. It was one of the best meals we've had on Thailand. We had 3 vegetarian dishes: a local curry, a stir fry and a papaya salad and we also had a local pork curry. We ordered them all small so we could share. The stir fry had a really interesting mushroom in it that had a texture like seaweed. On the way back we had a quick look for the market but didn't find it.

Monday 1st May

Chilled in the morning. Went to look around the city temples in the afternoon. They were very pretty and had lots of orchids outside.

Chiang Mai

walkersgowandering — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:25:00 GMT

Thursday 27th April

Got up at 3.45am (Dan got up later as is quick to get ready) and left the hostel at 4.30. Hailed a passing taxi (although he had some trouble understanding where we wanted to go) and went to Mo Chit bus station.

During the bus journey when we had nearly reached Chiang Mai, a policeman came on to search the bus, looking for someone.

Arrived after 11hour bus journey and got a pick up truck taxi to our hostel (not prebooked). We stayed at At Baahn Khan 2 as recommended by someone we met in our dorm in Bangkok. Stayed on the 5 bed dorm. Only had one other person in it, a French lady.

Went to the food court at the central mall for dinner.

Friday 28th April

Had delicious museli with yoghurt and fruit for breakfast and Dan had omelette.

Had a look around the city and went to a temple that had some very sexist policies that really wound me up.

We worked out which high ropes adventure to book. The ones in the leaftllets had bad reviews regarding safety. I asked the lady at reception for advice about one and she said 'don't do, many people die'. She recommended another company for good safety. There was the choice of Phoenix adventures or Flight of the Eagle, both run by same company. Eagle was more ziplines and absailing and Phoenix was more assault course so we decided on that and booked it for the next morning.

Had dinner at a place where the food was nice but cockroaches were running around the table.

Saturday 29th April

Woke up with mosquito bites on my face, mostly around my eye. I hadn't put repellant on my face as thought it would irritate it. Started to after today though. I also had some bad Ines on the back of my right hand.

Got up for the first Phoenix adventure of the day. Had trouble persuading the hostel staff to give us breakfast at 7am even though they had said the previous day that this would be fine (as we needed to be ready for pick up at 8am). When I went to order they said not before 8am. I had a shower and then came back to ask again and they made us omlette as had no muesli. The omlwtte was really nice and came with toast and fried broccoli and carrots.

Picked up at 8.30 by minivan, everyone else on board was going to the eagle flight so we had the Phoenix place to ourselves which was really nice. We got a locker for our stuff and then got our safety gear on. There was a harness, the most comfortable I've ever worn, helmet with hairnet under and gloves. He even fave us a bumbag to use later so I could take my phone up with me for photos. We had a good safety and practice briefing before starting the smaller course. The safety was great, the place was designed so you couldn't detach from the safety line unless you took your harness off or had finished the course. The instructor came with us on the smaller course. After a short break we did the larger and more challenging course and he folowed us from the ground and let us know when we could do each zipline. One of then was a bit too difficult and came off! Once we had finished we had a lovely lunch that was included and got our free t-shirts.

We came back and had a shower and then went to the massage station outside of the central mall. We both got the back, neck and shoulder massage (also included arm and hand) for 30 minutes each and it only cost about £3.80 total. It was the best massage we had ever had, and a little painful. We decided to try the full Thai massage next time we get one.

For dinner we went to the Saturday market, one of the biggest markets in the world. At 7pm the national anthem came on over the speakers and everyone stopped and stood for it. We had lots of lovely food. We had corn on the cob cooked of a BBQ, passion fruit juice with the seeds in, deep fried onion and pumpkin, banana waffle with chocolate sauce and mango sticky rice.

Sunday 30th April

Hailed one of the converted pick up truck taxis to get to the bus station. The price was a bit over the top and he wouldn't negotiate so we said no and hailed another one. This one was better but still more than we paid doing the same journey in reverse so we bartered to a compromise. When we got there he pretended he had no change to try to get us to pay his original price. Dan did have the right change though so he didn't have any luck with his scam. (We paid 30 baht each on the way and he wanted 50 each but we had agreed on 40 before getting in).

When we got to the bus station Dan noticed that the mosquito bites on my had had got really bad and a red line had spread from one of them in both directions, looking like it was following a vein. Worried about infection and decided to Google it when we got there!

Got some rice crispy cake/cracker things for the journey/lunch.

Got the bus. It was nice and comfy (it was the 1st class bus (there was also 2nd class and VIP)) and had quite a few soldiers travelling on it. It look 3-4 hours to reach Chiang Rai. The loo was hard to use as nothing to hold on to!

Bangkok 22nd- 27th April

walkersgowandering — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:23:00 GMT

Hanoi 18th- 22nd April

walkersgowandering — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 00:21:00 GMT

Hanoi to Cat Ba Island and Cat Ba Island

walkersgowandering — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 11:21:00 GMT

Saturday 15th April

Sunday 16th April

Easter! We go on our cruise around the bay and to the famous Ha Long Bay (the reason we wanted to visit Vietnam in the first place). Got to the Full Moon Party Hostel for 8am pick up. Minivan took us to the harbour to board our boat.

We began our cruise. We saw a small floating village and also lots of liter in the sea. We cruised through many styrofoam boxes that had been used as fridges/freezers and then just thrown into the sea.

We arrived in Ha Long Bay and docked at the floating dock to go kayaking. This was so much fun! We went through caves and coves and had a fantastic 2 hours. In one cave there was a bit of a traffic jam and it became more like kayak bumper cars! After that we came back for a little bit of sunbathing and then had some lovely lunch. There was rice, grilled fish, egg, pork, veg, tofu and spring rolls.

Monday 17th April

Tuesday 18th April

Hanoi

walkersgowandering — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 11:08:00 GMT

Friday 14th April

Arrived in Hanoi at around 5am. Got off the bus to find my bag was missing and in its place another that looked just like mine. No one around had my bag so we though the had got of at the earlier stop of Ninh Binh and taken the wrong bag. We headed to our hostel, See You at Lily's, and took the bag with us. When we arrived I opened it to see if there was anything that could be used to identify whose bag it was and luckily for me they had left their passport in it!

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

walkersgowandering — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 10:51:00 GMT

Monday 10th April

Arrived at lunch time and got collected from the village centre by the man who runs our home stay, Village House. They made us lunch while our room was being made ready. It was noodle soup with egg. We went for a short bike ride into town using the free hire bikes. They were all a bit broken and it was a case of trying to find the most functioning one. Dan had to walk his back as the chain was loose and kept coming off. After that it was a nice bike ride. After that we went for a swim in the river. In the evening we enjoyed the family meal. The sweet and sour aubergine and tomato was particularly nice.

Tuesday 11th April

Got up and had breakfast early before our tour. We both had noodle soup and it was the same as we had had for lunch the previous day. I had coffee and it tasted like they had but Baileys in rather than milk!

The tour picked us up at 8.30am and stopped on the way do we could take photos of the river. The first stop was the botanical gardens. The gardens were forest with lits of different plant and animal species. It smelt very herbal there- perhaps of menthol. We scrambled down some rocks to reach a waterfall, gave some photos taken and go for a paddle.

Next stop was the Paradise cave. There were around 530 steps to climb up to get to the cave so had some good exercise! The cave itself is absolutely amazing- its 31KMs long and has beautiful stalactite and stalagmite formations. The public, lit-up part if the cave is just the first kilometer and this was the part we visited.

For lunch we went to a restaurant that brought a big tray of BBQ food, rice and salad to be shared and to make spring rolls with. It was the tastiest pork I have ever had!

In the afternoon we visited the dark cave. This started with a zip line ride to bear the cave entrance. The zip line is the longest in Vietnam. Then you swim to the cave entrance and can have some fun climbing a tree to jump in if you wish. You paddle through shallow water in some of the cave, then go through a narrow sandy tunnel to the muddy part. You go further into the mud until you are floating in it. You can't sink either, it holds you up! After a few minutes we turned all our lights off briefly to float about in the dark. On the way out we had a quick swim to wash the mud off ourselves and then went in canoes back to the main bank. There were various activities there, an assault course, water biking, and more zip lines. We had about 30mins there and then got dried off and went back to the minibus. The bus was having trouble getting the engine started but succeeded after about 5mins. The bus stopped on the way back so we could see the view from the bridge. There was a horrible smell on the way up, and I looked down and people had been dumping their rubbish, one bin bad had a dead dog inside it with the rest of the trash and its legs sticking out. It was awful. I'd like to go back to see the sunset from the bridge but don't want to see or smell that again. I don't understand why you would put a dead animal as large as that in with your trash and then throw it at the side of the road to rot half in a plastic bag.

We had the family meal for dinner again.

Wednesday 12th April

We went with Peter from San Fransisco (who we had been caving with the day before) and we met up with Isabel, who we first met in Da Lat, who had Elsa from Paris with her. Formed a larger group at the boat ticket office and got a boat to the caves. You paid per boat so the more people, up to maximum of 12, the better. The boat stopped outside Phong Nha cave and removed it's roof so we could get a good view when in the cave. As we went in they turned off the engine and switched to paddling. The cave is huge and truly awesome and also very peaceful. The whole place is uplit with bright electrical lighting. On the way back out of the cave we were dropped off to have a walk around the dry part. This part was even more incredible. One we had seen the inside we left the cave and headed up a few hundred very steep steps to get to Tien Son cave. We had to have a few quick stops on the way up to catch our breath. There were little shops part way up- I've no idea how they managed to get the large freezers for ice cream up there! Tien Son cave was just as spectacular as Paradise cave, and it was really peaceful as Dan and I, Isabel, Peter and Elsa were the only ones in it! It was nice and cool too after all the stairs up to it. On the way back down we bumped into Martin from Holland again. He's the guy we first met when we shared a tuktuk tour in Phnom Penh to S21 and the Killing Fields. We then met him again when he stayed at Cozy Nook hostel in Da Lat. We met up with the rest of the group and got the boat back to town. I had a little nap on the way back, with a life jacket making a good pillow on the back of the chair in front. By the time we got back it was tipping it down and we all made a dash for somewhere to have lunch. We found somewhere that claimed to do the best BBQ pork around and the group decided to go there. It was just us, Isabel and Peter by this point. The food was alright but Dan picked better than me- mine was far too salty for me and we swapped meals part was through as Dan's lovely! Our meals were the same except mine was rice and his was noodle, and the rice seemed to have absorbed all the salt. Part way through the meal Martin from Rotterdam turned up again!

Thursday 13th April

After check-out we went for a bike ride and decided to go all the way to Phong Nha cave, a 13.5Km round trip. It was a beautiful bike ride and very peaceful. We had a really late lunch at 3pm (when happy hour started) at the best pizza place in the village...they actually have a wood fired oven! Only basic pizzas in happy hour so we had a margherita and Hawian, each came with a free beer! As we cycled back to our home stay it started to rain so we raced back.

We had the family dinner, I had a shower, and then we got the night bus to Hanoi. The night bus was much more comfortable this time as I took my inflatable pillow on with me, and there was also a toilet on board. The driver was a very angry man though, shouting at passengers over where they should sit and telling people to go where there was no beds. Everyone was muttering that it was going to turn into 'a United Airlines'. He drove with road rage too, swaying the bus about so it was hard for people on the top beds to not fall out...in the end he knocked an hour off the journey!

Hue

walkersgowandering — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 00:24:00 GMT

Sunday 9th April

Monday 10th April

Da Nang

walkersgowandering — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 00:22:00 GMT

Saturday 8th April

Sunday 9th April

Hoi An

walkersgowandering — Sat, 8 Apr 2017 03:37:00 GMT

Wednesday 5th April 2017

We arrived on the sleeper bus at around 7am.

We walked to our home stay and found the room very spacious, but not as clean as we'd like. They hadn't emptied the toilet bin!

We looked around the ancient town.

Da Lat to Nha Trang. Nha Trang to Hoi An.

walkersgowandering — Sat, 8 Apr 2017 03:27:00 GMT

Tuesday 4th April

Got the 12.30pm bus to Nha Trang. It took about 4 hours and was very scenic. As we descended the mountains we were in mist for a long time and it made for a scary bus ride. Part way down we saw the bus that had left before us had crashed into the back of a pick up truck and everyone was sat around looking unsurprisingly grumpy. No one hurt though, just vehicle damage mostly to the lights. Once we got through the mist we got some great views.

We had around 1 hour in Nha Trang until our next bus. We went to find food and got a bahn mi. On the way back we got lost and got in a pickle! We asked someone where the bus company was and we were on the road parallel to it and we arrived with 15mins to spare. A minibus came to pick us up and take us to the main bus stop. They fitted in as much as physically possible with people standing crouched over in the door nook.

We got the sleeper bus and tried to get comfortable. There were plenty of loo stops. The driver was pretty sensible too.

Da Lat

walkersgowandering — Mon, 3 Apr 2017 02:53:00 GMT

Saturday 1st April

Didn't do much today. Sunburn extremely painful and still can't find an ATM that accepts my card in this town. Got some ibuprofen then stayed in from the rain playing card games and drinking tea! It's free tea and coffee here and it's delicious.

Sunday 2nd April.

3rd ATM lucky today...it only took 8 ATM's to try since we got here! They must be fussy about what cards they accept!

We walked up to the cable car, which was about 40mins away. Had a very scenic ride on that to a pagoda and gardens and some shops at the other end. Then the rain came rolling in. We had out macs/ponchos though and I called Dan Macintosh with his mac on. It was a pretty ride back in the rain.

On the way back we went to the local park and I tried the excerise equipment briefly...same as in Phnom Penh and Saigon!

We had egg bahn mi for lunch and then played more card games.

Monday 3rd April

Went to the Crazy house and day market.

Visited the night market in the evening.

Mui Ne to Da Lat

walkersgowandering — Mon, 3 Apr 2017 02:49:00 GMT

31st March 2017

Got the lunchtime bus up to De Lat in the highlands. Some beautiful scenery on the way. When we arrived at our hostel we were blow away by how lovely it is. You have the option of a home cooked meal every night. Everyone gets together and chats and its the most sociable place we've been. Really clean, modern and comfy too. Even has a bidet toilet downstairs!

Mui Ne

walkersgowandering — Mon, 3 Apr 2017 02:41:00 GMT

Thursday 30th March

Got up at 3.20am for the 4am sunrise tour. Started with watching the sun rise at the white sand dunes, then off to the red ones. After that we stopped at a fishing village and lastly visited the fairy stream. The fairy stream was really beautiful and did look like it was from a fairy tale.

In the afternoon we swam and chilled by the pool. Were in the shade most of the time, but got horribly sunburnt in the short time we weren't.

Ho Chi Minh City to Mui Ne

walkersgowandering — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 01:34:00 GMT

Wednesday 29th March 2017

Got 8am bus.

When we got to Mui Ne we took a walk down to the beach. It was hard to find an accessible part as it had all been privatised. When we did the tide was in and there was no beach anyway. We went back to the hotel and had a swim. It was curry night at the restaurant so we made the most of that!