Hanoi, Vietnam (4/9 - 4/13)

As we had planned, Monday thru Wednesday (6^th - 8^th) was very uneventful and gave us some time to catch up on sleep and prepare for our 4 day trip to Vietnam.  So, on Thursday, we caught a flight to Hanoi, the former capital of North Vietnam (and present day capital), a place that has been the scene of many things most of us wouldn’t care to see.  It is also the site of the Hoa Lo Prison, which later became more famously known as the Hanoi Hilton, an American POW camp during the Vietnam War that was made famous by John McCain, a place he spent 5 ½ years of his life.  We had debated on which Vietnam city we would visit, and based on the recommendation of my Uncle Bert, we thought Hanoi would be a more fulfilling experience than the more westernized Ho Chi Minh City in the south (formley known as Saigon).

After the hour long taxi ride, which ran us 300,000 Dong ($18), we pulled into Hanoi.  Some may describe the city as “full of character”, while other may say it is chaos in its purest form….I found it to be somewhere right in the middle.  About 90 percent of the traffic is motor cycles, there isn’t one stop light, no car lanes are labeled, most streets are no more than 2 cars in width, and sidewalks are a rare thing to find.  We had been warned about how to conduct yourself when crossing a street…”Walk at a decent pace, not too fast or too slow, and DON’T BREAK STRIDE”.  After a couple of attempts in which I was sure I was going to get run over, I found this advice to be absolutely correct.  You don’t really look both ways before you cross because there is always going to be traffic coming, you just simply start walking across the street at a consistent pace, and the motorcycles will fly by you on both sides.

We had booked the first night at the Hanoi Backpacker Hostel, but when we pulled up, a guy came up to the taxi and asked us if we were staying at the hostel.  We told him yes, and he then informed us that they had run out of room for the night, but that their “sister” hostel had room.  We said ok, he jumped in the cab with us, and we went a few blocks to the other location.  I immediately became a little suspicious that something didn’t make sense because the guy was riding with us, but went with it anyways.  He took us to an actually hotel, only charged us $10 each, and we even had AC.  But, after checking my email the next day, I had a message from the hostel asking if everything was alright because we hadn’t showed up….and as I had suspected, that guy was just staking out the hostel, waiting for a couple of dumb asses to roll up in a cab and take their business to his hotel.  It didn’t end up being a big deal (we had AC), but definitely learned from the experience. 

On Friday, we booked a trip up to HaLong Bay for a two day, one night cruise around the bay that is located on the South China Sea.  The scenery turned out to be quite extraordinary, with huge mountain cliffs surging out of the sea.  Both days were not ideal visibility conditions, but we still saw enough to realize how neat the place is.  We booked the cruise through our con artist friend, who had assured us there would be ten ladies and we would be the only two guys….and despite the fact that I had already figured out how he had lied to us about the hostel, I still believed this promise of a boat load of girls….and as you probably guessed, he once again was completely full of sh*t.  The actual group on the boat consisted of Trey, myself, a Malaysian couple in their 60’s, and a couple from Belgium in their 50’s.  We still ended up having a great time, and got a lot of reading, lounging and sleeping in.  I definitely recommend Halong to anyone who makes a trip to Hanoi.

We decided that despite the perk of having AC, we still wanted to go stay at the Backpacker Hostel to see how the crowd was…..and just as we walk in to book a room, I turn around and see a buddy of mine I went to school with named Sean.  “Hey Sean, funny running into you here”…small world, and I immediately knew we had made a good decision to go to the hostel because I had just run into an old friend, and the place was packed with travelers.  This confirmed all of my previous thoughts about hostels….if you find one that is bearable in condition, you will always find tons of fellow travelers who can give their recommendations on other places to see, and you may even run into people you know.  We stayed at the hostel both Saturday and Sunday night, bar hopped with a huge group from the hostel, and visited a couple museums (I didn’t make it to the Hanoi Hilton, and although I am not happy about it, I suspect I will make it back to Hanoi at some point).  Hanoi turned out to be an absolute blast, while also giving us et another perspective of a large Asian City.  In comparison to the other cities we have visited, I would characterize Hanoi as possibly being the least westernized city (only saw one McDonalds), but still offering all the accommodations a traveler needs and a whole lot of character to go with it. 

Monday morning marked when Trey and I had to go our separate ways.  Trey is planning on continuing his travels through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, while Monday would be my last day in Asia.  Trey has an adventure ahead of him, an adventure he will do on his own….I am jealous and wish I could continue, but I have to get back for a school activity, so good luck Trey, god speed.  

I got back to Bert and Merrie’s place at noon, packed up all my belongings, and then Merrie and I had planned on participating in the celebration of the Thai New Year called Songkran, which is best described as Mardi Gras meets the biggest water gun fight you have ever seen.  We were both becoming quite worried as to if it was safe to go out on the streets however because of all the political protests that were going on that were becoming violent, and also the possibly of another coup occurring (3 have already occurred in the last year).  The news indicated none of the protests were in the area we were at, so we decided to it was safe to join the festivities.  With my gun loaded with water, we walked to where everyone was celebrating, posted up at an Irish pub, and shot water at every passer by all afternoon long.  By the end of it, I was completely soaked and covered with a flour paste they use as a sign of welcoming the New Year.  The party was great, and it was especially neat to see that everyone was trying to ignore all the political uprising that was going on by simply having a good time. 

That night, with my fingers crossed that the airport would not shut down (the last coup forced the airport to close for a day), I said good bye to Aunt Merrie, and began my 27 hour journey back to the states.  I am happy to say I made it back with not hitches in the process, and although I definitely still had plenty of energy to continue traveling, it is nice to be home. 

I am planning on writing a few final thoughts about my time in Asia, so keep an eye out for my last post.

Cheers,

sbt

South Thailand and Kuala Lumpur (March 23rd - April 5th)

Well, it has been two weeks since my last entry, and I apologize for keeping you all in such suspense this whole time (I am being slightly sarcastic here).  Anyways, I elected to not bring my computer on this past leg because I didn’t want to worry about the security issues of carrying it around, and I am glad I didn’t bring it for that reason, but I also have a WHOLE lot of stuff to talk about.  So, I’ll start from the top and will hopefully give an entertaining recap of the events.

After we got back in town from Hong Kong on the 22^nd, we had a few days to kill in Bangkok before our flight for Phuket left on Thursday (26^th).  Since my time in Bangkok is coming to an end, we figured it would be good to hit up a few more sites in the area and based on the recommendation of Merrie, we elected to go see a crocodile farm one day and go to the ancient capital of Thailand (Ayutthaya).

Tuesday (24^th) we took a cab to the crocodile farm, which about an hour long drive outside of the city.  The park consisted of several crocodile water pens where they are divided up according to their age (one pen had some that were 70 years old), a whole herd of elephants that you can feed sugar cane to and pet, and they also had 4 tigers.  And, for only 200 baht ($6), you can sit next to the tigers and get a picture with them.  The picture we took is a little deceiving because we look really happy and excited to be in the picture, but in actuality we were scared sh*tless.  You have no idea how big a tiger is until you sit right next to one.  We also saw a crocodile show that involved three crazy Thai men wrestling crocs and sticking their arms/heads/etc inside the croc’s mouth.  Very entertaining, but I still just don’t understand how someone decides it’s a good idea to stick their head inside the mouth of a crocodile….they are stupid lizards that only know one thing, close your mouth when something is inside it and eat!

The following day, we took a tour bus up to Ayutthaya.  In all, we saw 4 temples and the old Royal Family Palace.  Some of these temples are centuries old and have sustained numerous attacks from invaders attempting to take over Thailand.  Probably the most bizarre thing we saw was one of the temples has hundreds of headless Buddha statues, which was the result of a Burmese attack on the Kingdom….the odd thing here is that the Burmese are strong Buddhists themselves.   The entire tour and boat ride back to Bangkok was a full day activity, and one that I would definitely recommend.

Thursday was the beginning of an eight day tour of South Thailand.  We flew into Phuket, which is the largest city in the area, and took a cab down to the city center.  The cab driver told us it would be 400 Baht, and like any other situation in Thailand, we began to negotiate the rate down.  After little success of the guy to at least drop it to 350, I began to get a little angry…..and then I realized I was arguing over $1, and gave in to his request.  I have found myself arguing over relatively small amounts of money in US standards, but for some reason I continue to find myself in the same argument.  We arrived to our first stop, the Phuket Backpacker, checked in, an then got a look at our room….the place didn’t seem that bad, but there was obviously no air conditioning, and we had one double bed to share between both of us.  We both looked at each other, laughed, and said this was going to be an interesting week.  After we got settled (put our backpacks on the floor), we went out to the courtyard area and began chatting with the other travels staying at the hostel.  I have done the hostel thing before when I went through Europe, but I really forgot how much fun they can be because you get to interact with so many different people from all walks of life.  This particular group consisted of English, Australian, Swedish, French and Canadian travelers.  The conversation centered around where everyone had been, where they were going, how long, etc.  Most of the guys were traveling for months on end, and one Swedish guy named Frankie has not been home for over a year…basically, they made my six week stint feel like a joke.  After we all became acquainted, we decided to head down to Patong Beach to check out a few different bars.  Patong is about a 20 minute drive from Phuket, so instead of cabing it, we decided we would hitch a ride from a local with a truck because as our new British friend Jay put it, “It’s more fun to hitch a ride then take a taxi.”  So, we all stuck our hands out at every passing truck, and the third truck that passed us pulled over and said he would take us to Patong for 400 baht.  DEAL!  Little did we know that this guy had a lead foot and so the ride was not as long as expected, but much more intense (or fun as Jay had promised).  When we got to Patong, I realized this was the main area to be at because the streets were packed with foreigners going from bar to bar, guys carrying around iguanas to take pictures with, and more Ladyboys than you would ever want to see.  The place turned out to be a good time, but it definitely encompasses the “seedy” side Thailand that gets a little old and disturbing after a while.  I’m glad I saw it, but if I were to come back, I would probably avoid Patong altogether. 

Friday’s activities involved waking up, finding a good breakfast place (a very tough thing to do in Thailand), and then hitting the beach.  We went back to Patong, and I was actually quite impressed by the quality of the beach.  Clean white sand, lots of people, and LOTS of sun.  Since this was the first day since last summer for my beautiful, dead sexy body to see the sun, I made sure I put plenty of sun block on…..I guess I needed something a lot stronger than spf 30 because I got absolutely fried (terrific, first day on the beach and I’ve already managed to sideline myself for a few days).  That night, after an aloe vera shower, we ended up repeating the previous nights festivities of going to Patong.  I can now say with a high degree of certainty that I have no desire to return…..and we also made a mistake.  On our way back from Patong, we decided that it was time to see what McDonalds tastes like, and so we officially ended our streak of not eating Mcee D’s, but it was damn good (and I am not a McDonalds fan, except for their breakfast of course).

With two days of Phuket/Patong being more than enough, we decided to take the ferry over to Phi Phi Island.  About the only thing I knew about the place was that it supposedly has some gorgeous views and that the movie “The Beach” was filmed on it.  After arriving and checking into our guest house (again, no AC, but otherwise pretty nice), we walked around the small town, and made a few observations:  There is not a single car/motorcycle on the whole island (finally, don’t have to worry about being run over!) and you couldn’t paint a better scene of a traveler’s destination than this(nothing but guest houses, restaurants and bars).  It only takes about 30 minutes to walk around the whole town, and while we were taking everything in, we bumped into a couple of our English buddies Jay, Anthony and Ash that we hung out with in Phuket.  They got to Phi a day before us, so we decided to have them show us around.  The night started at the Reggae Bar, which has a Muay Thai Ring in it that you can volunteer to fight in for a free bucket drink.  The crowd was lively, cheering for their respective favorites in the ring….Ash and Anthony actually ended up fighting the second night.  I am very glad I decided to not fight because they looked like they had just ran a marathon after they were done (and I am not in what most call “good” shape right now).  We spent all day on Sunday at the beach again, but this time I was wise and sat in the shade for a good portion of it.  Great beach, tons of Swedish travelers (I would guess 70 percent of the island was made up of Swedish people), and given the fact that almost all the tourists there are European, many girls at the beach don’t seem to like to wear tops…..not something that bothered me too much.

On Monday, we decided we would do a campout Jay had told us about which consisted of going over to the smaller island called Phi Phi Lay and camp on the same beach as you see in the movie The Beach.  So, at around 4 pm we jumped on a boat with about 10 other people and rode over to the island.  The scenery as we pulled up to the island was absolutely unbelievable…..I honestly think Phi Phi Ley has to be one of the prettiest places on Earth.  It is really tough to come up with a good description other than unreal, so I’ll just leave it at that…..Anyways, we did a little snorkeling and canoeing in the bay, then we pulled up to the beach we were going to call home for the night.  The sun was just starting to set, and we were the only people there (about 15 people in all).  The group split up to wonder the beach and try to take in what we were doing.  We began to get acquainted, and the group turned out to be remarkably diverse.  There was 2 Swiss, 2 French, 2 Canadians, 2 Italians, Trey, myself, and about 5 locals who were our guides.  Just as the sun set we were served dinner, and it was actually a great meal (chicken curry, vegetables and rice).  We all began to chat and learn what everyones story was…..we were all under 30, and had the common goal of trying to find some adventure.  As the night progressed, laughter began to echo in the canyon as we began to find things in common, laugh at each other’s accents, and even try to tell a few jokes.  Greg (Switzerland) found my accent to be especially entertaining and would often repeat everything I would say and try to overcome his heavy French accent…he especially enjoyed saying “Scottsdale, Arizona”.  The guy was absolutely hilarious every time he did it and I hope to cross paths with Greg again someday.  After a few hours of sitting our the candle lit table in camp, a few started to turn in for the night, so the remaining 5 who were still up walked down to the other end of the beach, brought the ipod stereo we had started dancing to, and continued to laugh for hours.  One of the coolest things we discovered while being on the beach with only the stars to serve as light was the plankton in the water would glow like fire flies when you ran you hand through the water, and a person swimming under water appeared to be a glowing ball of green fire….this entertained us for hours.  The night turned out to be truly magical in some ways….we had a wonderful group of engaging people and we were on an island in southern Thailand….and it was just us.  I am hopeful to have another experience to rival this one, but I will be honest when I say I am not optimistic.

After having a couple great days at the beach, we decided our next stop would be Krabi, which we had heard was a great place to learn how to rock climb.  So, we took the ferry over to Krabi, and ended up at Railay Beach.  Because of the massive mountains surrounding Railay, the only way to get there is by boat, so we once again found ourselves at an isolated but lively beach with no cars or motorcycles.  We decided to stay at the Ya Ya Resort because the price was only 700 Baht/night ($20), and once we saw our room, we figured out why it was so cheap and that maybe they should consider dropping the “resort” from there name.  Obviously, no AC, but we were getting use to that at this point, but the problem was the bathroom stunk and there was no way to flush the toilet.  After some careful thought, we figured out the way to flush was to shoot the shower hose down the toilet until everything disappeared, which we found to be quite comical.  That night, after we found a decent place to have dinner, we went to the bar at the end of the beach, appropriately called “The Last Bar”, watched the live band they had playing, and met a few other travelers (of course, Swedish).  The band was actually pretty good, playing everything from CCR to No Doubt…the funny thing about the band was they were always on key, but they had a few different interpretations of the lyrics (probably because they had never actually researched what was being said).

On Wednesday, we signed up to go rock climbing for a half day, and our guide named Teak was awesome.  He has been climbing now for 11 years and has picked up English quite well considering he has never been formally taught, and actually has an Australian accent even though he has probably never left Thailand (I assume he has worked with a lot of Aussies over the years).  Anyways, he explained everything to us, showed us how to tie knots, and after about 20 minutes of instruction, I was attempting to climb my first face….this was of course after Teak climbed the entire face in about a minute and set all the ropes for us.  After climbing for about 10 minutes and only finding myself about 10 feet up, I was once again reminded that I need to get in better shape!  I did end up making it to about 40 feet after 5 attempts, but when my hands just wouldn’t close because they were so tired, I called it quits.  Trey, on the other hand, made it to the top every time (about 70 feet)….we both really enjoyed it, and both swore that this would not be the last time we would attempt to rock climb.  That evening, we met a couple of girls from California named Rana and Sherrie who are currently traveling around the world together.  It was really neat to here about their trip, which started in Australia, with plans to travel Asia, India, Africa and then South America.  They are also doing different philanthropic activities on their journey.  We wish them well and encourage you to check out their blog.  http://www.theworldawaitsus.com/

Just as we were really starting to enjoy Railay, it was time to move on again, this time back to Phuket because we had an early flight to catch on Friday morning.  So, we caught the 3 hour ferry back to Phuket, and this time chose another area to stay in called Kata Beach.  Upon arrival, we realized Kata was really just a toned down version of Patong, so we just grabbed dinner and called it a night.  We were pretty exhausted at that point anyways, and we also wanted to rest up for our big weekend in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Formula 1 car race with my Uncle Bert.

The next day (Friday April 3^rd), we made it to our hotel in downtown KL, and FINALLY, SOME AC and comfortable beds!  Trey decided he was going to take a nap (I wasn’t feeling 100 percent either…signs of mild food poisoning were starting to set in), but I still wanted to walk around the city for a while.  After taking a stroll to the Petronas Towers, I noticed KL was remarkably different from Bangkok, despite the fact that Malaysia and Thailand border each other.  The city reminded me a little of Hong Kong, and after some discussion with Bert, the thing all of these countries in SE Asia have in common (with Thailand being the only exception) is they have all been colonized, and as a result, have many western influences that Thailand has not been exposed to until more recently. 

The next day, with both Trey and I feeling much better after a wonderful Italian dinner, the three of us (Bert, Trey and I), made our way to the race track.  The  crowd was big, and the makeup seemed to be more foreigners than locals.  I was not familiar with F1 racing prior to KL, but was blown away at how many people from around the world were there to take in the race, and after I studied the program some, I began to notice there were some key differences between F1 and Nascar that really make it an entertaining sport to watch. 

The rest of the weekend, the three of us spent going to race, battling crowds, drinking Carlsberg, and dealing with tropical storm like rains that eventually cut the race short.  All in all, I had a great time hanging out with Bert, learning about F1 and touring KL.  I definitely recommend attending a race if the opportunity presents itself.

WELL, I have just written way to much, and I apologize.  The next couple of days, Trey and I are going to be back in Bangkok, and do as little as possible before we head to Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday.  What’s crazy is that after my Vietnam trip, I only have one more day before this whole journey is over!  It has flown by…but stay tuned!

Ciao,

sbt