The places of bad Internet connections

After spending a little too much time in Hoi An, we didn't have much time left for the south of Vietnam.
So again, we dared to take the "sleeping bus" to our next destination: Nha Trang. We only stayed here for one day and one night. This day we wanted to take a cable cart to see as much as possible. What we didn't know was what on the other side of the cable cart there was an amusement park, a waterpark and an aquarium! So we spent the whole day in the park swimming, sliding, and looking at turtles, sharks and exotic fish.

Next day we got up early and took the bus to Mui Ne, a much smaller place with a relaxed atmosphere.
We probably should show you some pictures from the fairy stream and the red and white sand dunes we went too, but sadly the connections are so bad that it isn't possible. We been suffering from this for a long time now, hopefully when we get to Australia we will find a better connection and be able to upload lots of pictures.

After travelling for a while now in none wine countries we have started to like the Vietnamese Dalat wine, which we get for as low as 20 Kroner a bottle in the restaurants.(Looking forward to Australia though!)

Two days in Mui Ne, back on the bus to Ho Chi Minh just in time to get to the airport and our flight to Siem Reap (Cambodia).
The only purpose of the visit was to look at The Temples of Angkor Wat.
And boy'o'boy did we see some temples. First day, started at 9am. We wanted to get some consistence in our templewatching so we told the driver to take us to the oldest temples first. From 800-900 a.d. Our driver didn't really wanna go there since the temples was so small, but we convinced him. Compared to what we saw later, I guess they where, but they where still big great temples. So from here its temples and lunch and finally the sunset at the top of one temple, bit cloudy but still beautiful. and back at the hotel around 1830pm.

Yeah, you guessed right, that is a freakin long time to be walking up and down temples in 35 degrees and sun, sun, sun. So we decided that we should get an even earlier start the next day, by seeing the sunrise coming up behind the biggest religious building in the world, Angkor Wat.
5 am we left the hotel, groggy but ready to be stunned. It was picture perfect, except all the flies and mosquito's before the sun was up. We had a break after this to eat some breakfast and Hilde slept a few hours. And out we went again, and another sunset we saw, and whole bunch of more temples.

This evening we decided to eat at Deadfish Tower, who guarantee they don't serve, cat,dog,rat, and some other creepy things. After 10 min. Lisa and Steve which we last seen in Hoi an comes walking by. Small World, Big Temples.....

Siem Reap was very touristy, with many 5 star hotels and such, but still there are lots of problems for the locals still trying to get back after the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot massacre.
There are lots of landmine victims and orphans, and you feel bad for them. But you just cant help them all. And sadly after a while you get tired of the feeling that everyone regards you as a walking talking ATM. F.eks. This one little girl followed us on our way home one evening, and she was maybe 6 years old, pointing to her stomach and saying she was hungry. With a sad voice saying she wanted money. We decided that we should buy her something to eat at a store since she wouldn't let go of Hilde. When we came out she latched on to Hilde again, and started the same beg routine, Jorgen tried to give her chocolate and something else, but now she only wanted money. When she finally realized we wouldn't give her money, she let Hilde go while she pinched her hard. Not taking the chocolate she was offered. So clearly not everyone are so bad off as they pretend. But they keep begging for money cause its an easy way of making money.
Its sad :'( ( just to clarify, we gave money to landmine victims and schools and such where we knew it went too a real organisation.)

We are in Gili Islands outside Bali now, but that's for the next blog, this keyboards is so hard to type at, its killing my fingers.

Soon we will be better at updating and putting in loads of photos, hopefully.

Cheers!

Traveling around Vietnam

After 4 wonderful weeks in Thailand, we jumped on a plane to Hanoi, Vietnam. The first experience here was some nice men offering to take us into town with a taxi for a really good price. But a moment later a policeofficer started walking towards us. Then the nice men ran the other way. So i guess we were glad we didn't go with their taxi...

The next thing we noticed in Hanoi was the weather. After one month in constant sunshine and around 36 degrees we were a bit surpriced to discover fog, rain and 23 degrees in Hanoi.

The trafic in this Hanoi is horrible!

The motorbikes are everywere both on sidewalks and in the most narrow alleys. They are constanly honking and don't stop for anything or anyone. In Vietnam they drive on the right side of the road, like we do at home, but even though they're supposed to keep to the right, they just drive whereever they can fit their bike.

This is the temple of litterature. It's a quiet garden and a great escape from the rest of the noisy city. It has many big pools with fish and turtles. A lot of big thinkers has graduated here.

Look at this little cutiepie :)

After a few days in Hanoi we had seen a lot of buisy people aggressivly wanting to sell us everything and anything, narrow streets, too many motorbikes honking and a lot of rain so we decided to take the over-night bus to Hoi An.

This smal town is in the middle of Vienam. And the busride lasted for about 16 hours! The bus acctually had seats where an avrage Vienamese could sit or almost lie down. But still the seats were very narrow, so when we tried to find a comfortable position we were afraid to fall down on the people lying underneath us.

Hoi An

After arriving Hoi An the weather had improved. Its much warmer and sunier here than in Hanoi.

Hoi An is a plesant little town with good food and smiling people. The houses are like most we have seen in Vietnam small franch-inspired colonial houses. But there is also alot of really old buildings, dating back many hundred years.

The town is full of small shops, vendours, art galleries and tailors

Jorgen with a smiling Vienamese

This is a dragon in the midle of the canal in Hoi An

On the 16.th of march we diceded to give ourselves a treat: Three days at a fancy Spa Resort. It's the first time this jurney that we've booked in to a really nice hotel so we weren't feeling so bad about it. It had a big pool (with no people), nice rooms with fresh fruit, a great breakfast buffay, tasting of lokal food samples everyday from 5 to 6 and the service was great!

The next day we booked 2 hours of spa treatment. This was a strange experiance. First we were coverd with something they called Tamarin, sugar and honey porridge, was wrapped up in towels and left to dry up for half an hour. Then, after desperatly trying to remove the porridge in a shower we were sent back to our rooms. And now a new treatment was ready. This time it was (surprise surprise) another bowl of porridge. Now we were buttered up in oatmeal. It was quite sticky and even harder to remove than the first one. In the end we had sweedish and thai massages (much nicer than the porridge part).

Jorgen in his newest creation. Traditoinal Ao Daw Jorgen style.

Beeing in Hoi An we are now the proud new owners of: 2 new dresses, 1 pair of shoes, 2 traditional asian suits, 1 shirt and 2 winter coats. Exellent :)

"My Son" temples nearby Hoi An

Now we have been in Hoi An for 6 days, and are planning to head for Na Trang tomorrow.

Please keep updating us with news and comments from home:) We miss you.

So long

Snorkling at Phi Phi

Here are some pictures and maybe a video from Phi Phi and the Islands around it.

Finally we had a use for our fancy mask, and we used it well. Many pictures became a big blur, but some turned out pretty good.

This post is meant more for showing then telling :P

New species. The masked mermaid (maybe something for Hollywood...)

School of.....?

Parrot fish

These are like Scar in Finding Nemo. And some yellow friends.

School of mobfish I believe, at least they behaved like one.

Trying to impress the masked mermaid :)



In two days we head off to Hanoi via Bangkok. Guess next time its a Vietnamese post, unless we get held up at the border! Splash!
PS! Sorry that the video quality seems rather poor, it's ofcourse not our fault but the site makes it rather bad when we upload.
And leave a few comments will you, not only we that should stat the fact we are alive is it?

Thaiboksing and nightlife on beautiful Koh Phi Phi

After we left Koh Lanta, we headed for Koh Phi Phi. The islands are known for its stunning beauty and from scenes from the movie "The beach". If we should believe the Lonley planet guide, there are no budget accommodations here ((don't kid yourselves) it said). But we still had to go.

Since we are a bit optimistic, and so far haven't had too much trouble finding a decent place to stay yet, we headed into the village to find a proper spot to stay. While Jorgen went around inspecting hotel rooms (to make sure they were decent for bad backs), Hilde met this adorable creature. She can't help herself taking pictures of all the kittens we meet.

The village here at Koh Phi Phi offers a number of activities. The night life entertainment consist of a huge number of bars and nightclubs.

The other night we went out to see thai boxing. To us the boxers looked like 15 year old boys, but when they started fighting we wouldn't go into that fighting-ring even if we were offered a great amount of money (or a free bucket, which was the prize for the brave foreigners who dared).





When walking around in the village yesterday we found an amusing addition to all the tsunami escape route signs.

Sorry that the update is a bit short. Have a great day!