The few days since our last post have been a blast!
Our second day in Da Lat we hired the same motorcycle taxis as the day before to give us a different tour. We saw the "Flower Gardens", which were a bunch of huge greenhouses full of vibrant, colorful flowers. They were beautiful. The guide didn't speak English and he told us they were tulips, but I think that's just because that's the only kind of flower he knows how to say in English. We don't actually know what kind of flowers they were, but the guide bought us each one and it was awesome. We also saw a coffee plantation, which stretched out over an entire valley. Coffee is actually a small fruit and the part that makes our tasty beverage is the seed. We got to eat the fruit to get to the seed to see what it looked like. Next we went to a mushroom farm and got to see mushrooms growing. I can't really describe the process accurately, since I didn't have anyone to describe it to me, but it was pretty gross looking. After that we went to a silk factory where we saw basket after basket of silk worm cacoons, which are soaked in water, unraveled, and then died to make thread.From there we went to see Elephant waterfall, which was a huge waterfall surrounded by huge chunks of rock. The picture on facebook where Dustin looks like he's about to start something too inappropriate for this blog (ahem, Sarah Lowry) is Elephant waterfall. Next to the waterfall was a pagoda with the biggest Buddha statue EVER! It was at least 30 feet tall and it's belly was so big there was a room inside it. Inside the actual pagoda there were 5 enournous statues as well, two of them with hundreds of hands and faces. After all this fantastic stuff, we headed back to Da Lat and vistited the "Crazy House". The lady that built it has a Ph. D in architecture from Moscow and the name suits it. Some of the rooms looked like caves, while the staircases looked like Dr. Seuss illustrations. There were mirrors above all the beds on the cieling. It took us about an hour to explore the whole thing. Our last stop was Boa Dai's Summer Palace. This was kind of just a huge house and they charged fees to sit on a fancy motorcycle or the family car and take a picture with our own camera.
One place we stopped that was not on the tour list was a place that distilled their own rice wine. Dustin took a shot of it (yuck) but I wanted nothing to do with it. It was very cool though, getting to see the whole process of the distillation. We walked into another room in this place and there were about 7 weasles in cages. Since our guides didn't speak English we just had to guess what they had caged weasles for. We thought maybe they ate them or kept them for their fur, but we couldn't have been farther off. We ran into some other tourists there that had an English speaking guide and they explained it to us. The weasles are fed coffee because they poop the beans out whole. The beans are then washed off and sold for 5,000,000 Dong/Kg, about $250/Kg. It's quite a delicacy. We got a cup of it to see why it costs so much and it was pretty much the best coffee I've ever had. The best part was, I guess since we were right there where they make it, the cup of weasle coffee only cost us 50 cents! Overall, the tour was one of the best we've taken, despite our guide's lack of English.
The next day we took a sprinter van on what should have been a 5 hour drive to Mui Ne. However, our driver was bat shit crazy and drove entirely too fast the whole way on hairpin turns with mountain on one side and cliff on the other, slowing down only for axel-breaking pot holes. We ended up getting here in about 3 and a half hours. When we got here we just relaxed on the beach before setting out to find some dinner. After dinner we came back to the hotel, used google phone calling to talk to our families and took a night swim in the pool until it closed.
Yesterday was a great time. We rented a motorcycle in the morning, which was of a considerably higher quality than the one we rented in Hoi An. We spent the morning riding around town, getting our bus to Saigon arranged, and exploring the one-road town of Mui Ne with the wind in our faces. My helmet situation was kind of funny. The first helmet the hotel gave me didn't fit my head right and so I asked if I could have a different one. There is an addition to the hotel currently in progress and I'm pretty sure the girl just went up to one of the costruction workers and asked if she could use their helmet. this thing was shaped like a baseball helmet, but with a visor so big it looked like I should have been welding, instead of riding a motorbike. Needless to say after riding around with that stupid helmet on, I asked her to give me a regular helmet for a motorbike and, laughing at my request, she got me a normal helmet that fit, finally.
In the afternoon we had the world's best kebabs for lunch before setting off for a tour of the sand dunes by jeep. The jeep was so much fun to ride around in, being completely open on all sides. We were, however, promised an English speaking guide but that didn't quite happen. We drove about 30 minutes to the white sand dunes, stopping on the way to take a picture of a bunch of boats on the water which was presented on our brochure as the tour of the fishing village. We took two pictures and got back in the jeep and kept driving. when we got to the the sand dunes we were all excited to ride the jeep around in the sand when the driver stopped in the parking lot, pointed at the sand, and said "white sand dunes" Apparently the pictures in the booking office of a jeep up in the sand weren't what we were going to experience. We ended up renting slides to go down the sand for a dollar a piece (these slides did not work, by the way) and a four wheeler for $15 for 30 minutes. The slides sucked and the jeep tour may not have been anything we couldn't have done on our own with the motorbikes, but the fourwheeler was worth every penny. We kind of beat the little thing up a bit, going full speed for almost the entire time, me on the back praying we didn't go over a sudden sand cliff and die, Dustin driving as fast as he could. It was an awesome time and we got some really cool pictures.
Another place included on our brouchure was Lotus Lake, which was not a separate stop, but just the lake next to the white sand dunes. It was really beautiful, but we didn't get to enjoy it as much as we would have I think if it had been a separate stop. The tour was supposed to end with watching the sun set over the red sand dunes. As wek headed for our last stop of the tour, we looked at our watches and it was about 3:30. We got to the dunes and walked around a little bit. Somehow, even with the sun beating down on the sand, it was cool enough to walk in barefoot. However, since it was so early and we really did want to see the sunset at the dunes, we told him to take us back and we just remembered how to get there so we could come back around time for the sunset.
While we were waiting for the sun to go down, we took a walk down fairy springs, which is an ankle deep, meanderring stream fed by ground water seeping out of the sand. We walked about 1 Km each way from where the stream feeds out into the ocean to a gorgeous, but small waterfall, and back. It was a great way to kill two hours, very relaxing and fun. When we got back. we rinsed the salt water and sand off of ourselves and hopped on the motorbike to go catch the sunset. We made it to the red sand dunes just in time to see some breath taking colors over the dunes. It was one of the better sunsets I've ever seen. When we got back from that we went to eat at a place highly recommended by Lonely Planet and got fish in a clay pot and fresh clams to split. It was a fantastic dinner. We came back to the hotel, went back and forth between the pool and the ocean until the pool closed, and then headed to bed. Mui Ne was not at all what we were expecting, but it was one of the coolest places we've been.
We have about 2 and a half hours now until our bus comes to get us to take us to Saigon!!
To contact us, you can facebook us, comment on the blog, or email us (mm1293@ship.edu or d.lowry11@gmail.com)
Friday, March 16, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, and the Beginning of Da Lat!
Wow, we haven't posted in over a week! Shoot. We've done so much over the last week it's going to be tough to remember!
The day after we dropped my mom off at the airport we spent the day wondering around Hanoi and waiting for our sleeper bus to arrive at 6. When it finally arrived, we were the last ones on the bus so we got stuck at the back on the top bunk. However, a couple of sleeping pills later, the 14 hour ride to Hue wasn't too bad. We arrived in Hue at about 8 a.m. the next morning, sleepy, but otherwise o.k. Getting off the bus, we met two other backpackers named Will and Ryan and walked with them to find a hotel. We ended up staying in the Backpacker's Hostel in a dorm with 12 other people.
Our first day in Hue it was so hot we could barely move. There is a citadel there that we went to but when we got there all we could do was try to find some shade. At this point I had a splitting headache so melting in the sun walking around a hot citadel was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. We left the citadel, which was really cool besides the heat, and got a cyclo (bicycle with a carriage seat in front) to take us around the city for an hour and bring us back to the hostel. It was a nice way to see the city without having to strain ourselves at all, as awfully lazy as that sounds. When we got to the hostel, Dustin was starting to get a headache too and feel pretty sick so we got some dinner and went up to the room at about 7:30 to lay down for a few minutes. We ended up not getting up until the morning though!
The next morning we got up at 5:30 for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone and the Vinh Moc tunnels. This was a really cool tour. It was not too expensive and we got to see the tunnels, a few military bases that the Americans used during the Vietnam war, and of course beautiful views the whole time we were on the bus (about 6 hours total). There was a girl sitting in front of us on the bus that was from California. The tour guide was talking to the group on the bus about the things we were going to see and about the American war and this girl kept raising her hand and asking really simple questions. I don't remember any specifically, but we could tell that this girl was dumb by the questions she was asking. When the tour guide was done talking for a minute, he and this girl started talking just to each other about Vietnam. He mentioned something about communism and she said "But Vietnam isn't a communist country". I am not joking. Then when the tour guide sorrected her she had this look on her face of ernest and sincere surprise! What this girl was doing in Vietnam, besides making Americans look bad, I have no idea. It was hilarious. The higlight of the tour was the tunnels, where the Vietnamese would hide for shelter against American bombs. It was truly heartbreaking. of course I am quite a bit taller than the average Vietnamese person, but the whole time in the tunnels I had to bend over to walk. There were "rooms" that families would sleep in the size of a small walk-in closet. There was a room dedicated to delivering babies. 70 babies were born in the tunnels. It was amazing to imagine what it must have been like. Also disturbing were the bomb craters left above the tunnels. The Americans really did a number on Vietnam.
Hue was not our favorite city, so the next morning, we headed for Hoi An. Hoi An was incredible. We got there at about lunch time and found a hotel close to the center of town for cheap. We ate lunch at a street vendor and then rented a motorbike. The motorbike was a lot of fun. We spent a while just driving around the outskirts of town, enjoying the sunny weather. When our butts started to get sore from the seats we came back into town and explored the markets and what Hoi An had to offer. The market was really cool. It was mostly produce and meat, but we didn't get the impression that they were trying to sell to us and we were able to walk through the maret and look around without too many people badgering is to buy their things. One unique thing about Hoi An is it is a town full of tailors. Every other shop is a clothes shop. If you show them a picture of a dress you like in a magazine, they say ok, take your measurements, and will have that same dress made for you in two days. I didn't have one made because it didn't fit our budget, but if there was ever an amazing place to shop for clothes, it's Hoi An.
We had thought we were going to see the full moon festival, however we missed it by a day. But the riverfront was still lit up with lanterns and for a few cents you could buy a floating candle to put in the river. It was a beautiful place at night with everything lit up. One of the best parts was almost every restaurant sold draught beer for 4000 dong (20 cents), so we just went from restaurant to restaurant enjoying the riverfront. For dinner we ate on the river at a street vendor and asked a woman that was sitting by herself to join us. She was a Norwegian Woman the same age as my mom and she was very interesting company. We spent the rest of the evening with here going to a few different bars and restaurants for drinks and more food. She was traveling in Vietnam for 6 weeks by herself and seemed to be having the time of her life.
The next day, we got a bit of a late start. Our hotel informed us that they were booked for the night so we set out to find somewhere else to stay. By the time we had eaten, found a hotel, and gone to the bus station to book our tickets for the next day, it was early afternoon. We grabbed some lunch and headed for the beach. The beach was beautiful, just a short motorbike ride away. we got some chairs and sat out on the beach and swam for about an hour before we headed back into the city. It was very relaxing and the perfect temerature out. But we couldn't stay there all day because we had to be back for a Vietnamese cooking class! Now when we originally made our appointment for this class, the girl we talked to was fun and personable and the people that were taking the cooking class loved her. We were expecting to have this girl for our cooking class, but of course we got someone else. The class was still fun but we were pretty disappointed that it wasn't with the girl we had met the day before. We learned how to make pumpkin soup, Pho, and ginger and onion chicken. All the food was very good but the girl who taught the class was strange. This class wasn't quite worth the money we paid for it.
That night, after the class, we hit the bars again and met a really nice australian gay couple. they got us really excited to go to Laos, telling us about their travels there. They also told us that they had gotten haircuts and shaves and ear cleanings done and suggested that we do the same. We ended up finding the place they had gone and got our ears cleaned. It was a very stranger experience. They used tools that were probably not clean, kept in an empty Heineken can. They used a little straight razor and shaved our earlobes. Then they went in there searching for wax and whatever they could pull out they wiped on our hands for us to look at. Very wierd.
That same day we took a day trip to My Son temples. Some say this is like a mini Angkor Wat but it ws very small. There were about 20 temples left that the Americans hadn't bombed in the war. It was a very good tour though with a very clear English speaking guide. We have heard that My Son is much more impressive if you see it before Angkor Wat, so we were glad to have seen it when we did.
We got on another sleeper bus around 6 p.m. we tried so hard to secure spots in the front of the bus, but once again, we ended up in the very back. At least this time we were on the bottom bunks. Being at the back of the bus, we could feel every vibration and sway. The bus was very top heavy and took the corners a little too fast and there were times it swayed so much I thought we would tip. I took some sleeping pills again, but kept waking up in sheer terror for the bus swaying. I convinced myself that the bur would surely tip and kill everyone in it. However, we made it safely to Nha Trang at about 7 a.m., just in time for breakfast.
Nha Trang is a nice beach town with a decent bar scene. The first day we spent some time at the beach before walking about 5 km (we didn't know it was going to be that far) to the National Oceanographic Museum. It was a really cool place with aquariums of all different kinds of tropical fish and a huge collection of crustaceans and coral. it took us about an hour to complete and at the end we were very glad to have made the trip. We decided to take a taxi back though, as it was very hot outside and we had already walked so far to get there. When we got bac, after dinner and naps, we went bar hopping to a few good bars with cheap specials and had a nice evening just enjoying each other's company.
The next day we decided to catch up on our sleep and rela at the beach all day. We spent about 6 hours on the beach reading and swimming. Dustin has some decent sunburn on his shoulders and I got burned pretty bad on the bad of the legs, but nothing to painful.
The waves at this beach were huge, breaking right at the shoreline. They were fun to float on if you could get past the initial wave that would break at your feet and have a tendency to knock you over. At one point, I was swimming by myself because Dustin had thrown his shoulder out swimming (ouch) and was ready to get out before me. I got hit by a huge wave. I meant to dive under it but it completely ignored my intentions and swallowed me whole. All I could do was hold my nose and wait for it to spit me back out. I got quite a bit of water in my ear from it and had a bit of a headache from being tossed around so hard.
Before we left the beach, a gay man from Germany who was very drunk came and sat on Dustin's chair with him and talked to us for a while. He told us about his Thai boyfriend who skis in France and he kept touching Dustin every time I touched Dustin. It was... interesting. It wasn't the gay part that was weird, he was just so drunk and so forward that we were ready to leave when we did.
We had a nice seafood dinner and hit the bars again last night. Didn't meet anybody except the gay German fellow in Nha Trang, but it was still a fun town and we had a great time. This morning at 7 we got on a bus to Da Lat. This time we were on the very front of the bus on the bottom. They were good seats and the views out the bus windows were undeniably the most breathtaking I have ever seen. The only problem was that we had to drive on very windy roads, many of them with a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. Being in the front seat, I had a clear view of the windshield and needless to say this made my recently-developed bus anxiety even worse. Again, I was very happy to arrive safely in Da Lat.
We got here today at about 1. The water I had gotten in my ear from the wave that swallowed me has now developed into a full blown ear infection. I got some drops and used them but so far, it seems to be getting worse. But, trying to ignore my earache, we set out for a late lunch at about 2. We found this place a few blocks from our hotel an read in the lonely planet that we should try food cooked in clay pots there. Dustin got fish in a clay pot and I got venison on a regular plate. There are not words to describe this food. It was by far the best food we have had in Vietnam. Every bite was packed with flavor, especially the fish, and because it was in a clay pot in the hot juices, it stayed hot until the last bite. Food will never be the same after this meal.
After lunch, we decided to take a motor taxi to the cable cars just outside of town which go to a monastery and a beautiful lake. The drivier turned out to also be a freelance tour guide and for $10 a piece, he took us around to two different waterfalls and a back country village. It took 4 hours and we both had a great time the entire time. The guy was very pleasant and, although his English was rough, he knew the best places to take us. One of the waterfalls we visited had an optional rollercoaster you could take down the the falls and back up It was cheap so we did it. On the way down it was twisty and turny and we got to control the speed, so it was a hoot. The waterfall was breathtaking and the ride back up was fun too.
When we finally got back to our hotel, it was about 7 and while looking for dinner, we stumbled upon a huge night market with food vendors everywhere and tons of people selling everything from shelfish to sweatshirts. It was a great way to end the day. We are taking it easy tonight because of my ear infection and for the sake of saving money.
I know this post was very long but I hope you enjoyed it. Although there is a facebook ban in vietnam, most computers we have access to had a different IP address downloaded that allows us to get on facebook. So if you want to contact us hit up the facebook, email us (mm1293@ship.edu)(d.lowry11@gmail.com), or comment on the blog!
We love and miss all our friends and family and hope everyone is having a wonderful time at home!
The day after we dropped my mom off at the airport we spent the day wondering around Hanoi and waiting for our sleeper bus to arrive at 6. When it finally arrived, we were the last ones on the bus so we got stuck at the back on the top bunk. However, a couple of sleeping pills later, the 14 hour ride to Hue wasn't too bad. We arrived in Hue at about 8 a.m. the next morning, sleepy, but otherwise o.k. Getting off the bus, we met two other backpackers named Will and Ryan and walked with them to find a hotel. We ended up staying in the Backpacker's Hostel in a dorm with 12 other people.
Our first day in Hue it was so hot we could barely move. There is a citadel there that we went to but when we got there all we could do was try to find some shade. At this point I had a splitting headache so melting in the sun walking around a hot citadel was not high on my list of things I wanted to do. We left the citadel, which was really cool besides the heat, and got a cyclo (bicycle with a carriage seat in front) to take us around the city for an hour and bring us back to the hostel. It was a nice way to see the city without having to strain ourselves at all, as awfully lazy as that sounds. When we got to the hostel, Dustin was starting to get a headache too and feel pretty sick so we got some dinner and went up to the room at about 7:30 to lay down for a few minutes. We ended up not getting up until the morning though!
The next morning we got up at 5:30 for a tour of the Demilitarized Zone and the Vinh Moc tunnels. This was a really cool tour. It was not too expensive and we got to see the tunnels, a few military bases that the Americans used during the Vietnam war, and of course beautiful views the whole time we were on the bus (about 6 hours total). There was a girl sitting in front of us on the bus that was from California. The tour guide was talking to the group on the bus about the things we were going to see and about the American war and this girl kept raising her hand and asking really simple questions. I don't remember any specifically, but we could tell that this girl was dumb by the questions she was asking. When the tour guide was done talking for a minute, he and this girl started talking just to each other about Vietnam. He mentioned something about communism and she said "But Vietnam isn't a communist country". I am not joking. Then when the tour guide sorrected her she had this look on her face of ernest and sincere surprise! What this girl was doing in Vietnam, besides making Americans look bad, I have no idea. It was hilarious. The higlight of the tour was the tunnels, where the Vietnamese would hide for shelter against American bombs. It was truly heartbreaking. of course I am quite a bit taller than the average Vietnamese person, but the whole time in the tunnels I had to bend over to walk. There were "rooms" that families would sleep in the size of a small walk-in closet. There was a room dedicated to delivering babies. 70 babies were born in the tunnels. It was amazing to imagine what it must have been like. Also disturbing were the bomb craters left above the tunnels. The Americans really did a number on Vietnam.
Hue was not our favorite city, so the next morning, we headed for Hoi An. Hoi An was incredible. We got there at about lunch time and found a hotel close to the center of town for cheap. We ate lunch at a street vendor and then rented a motorbike. The motorbike was a lot of fun. We spent a while just driving around the outskirts of town, enjoying the sunny weather. When our butts started to get sore from the seats we came back into town and explored the markets and what Hoi An had to offer. The market was really cool. It was mostly produce and meat, but we didn't get the impression that they were trying to sell to us and we were able to walk through the maret and look around without too many people badgering is to buy their things. One unique thing about Hoi An is it is a town full of tailors. Every other shop is a clothes shop. If you show them a picture of a dress you like in a magazine, they say ok, take your measurements, and will have that same dress made for you in two days. I didn't have one made because it didn't fit our budget, but if there was ever an amazing place to shop for clothes, it's Hoi An.
We had thought we were going to see the full moon festival, however we missed it by a day. But the riverfront was still lit up with lanterns and for a few cents you could buy a floating candle to put in the river. It was a beautiful place at night with everything lit up. One of the best parts was almost every restaurant sold draught beer for 4000 dong (20 cents), so we just went from restaurant to restaurant enjoying the riverfront. For dinner we ate on the river at a street vendor and asked a woman that was sitting by herself to join us. She was a Norwegian Woman the same age as my mom and she was very interesting company. We spent the rest of the evening with here going to a few different bars and restaurants for drinks and more food. She was traveling in Vietnam for 6 weeks by herself and seemed to be having the time of her life.
The next day, we got a bit of a late start. Our hotel informed us that they were booked for the night so we set out to find somewhere else to stay. By the time we had eaten, found a hotel, and gone to the bus station to book our tickets for the next day, it was early afternoon. We grabbed some lunch and headed for the beach. The beach was beautiful, just a short motorbike ride away. we got some chairs and sat out on the beach and swam for about an hour before we headed back into the city. It was very relaxing and the perfect temerature out. But we couldn't stay there all day because we had to be back for a Vietnamese cooking class! Now when we originally made our appointment for this class, the girl we talked to was fun and personable and the people that were taking the cooking class loved her. We were expecting to have this girl for our cooking class, but of course we got someone else. The class was still fun but we were pretty disappointed that it wasn't with the girl we had met the day before. We learned how to make pumpkin soup, Pho, and ginger and onion chicken. All the food was very good but the girl who taught the class was strange. This class wasn't quite worth the money we paid for it.
That night, after the class, we hit the bars again and met a really nice australian gay couple. they got us really excited to go to Laos, telling us about their travels there. They also told us that they had gotten haircuts and shaves and ear cleanings done and suggested that we do the same. We ended up finding the place they had gone and got our ears cleaned. It was a very stranger experience. They used tools that were probably not clean, kept in an empty Heineken can. They used a little straight razor and shaved our earlobes. Then they went in there searching for wax and whatever they could pull out they wiped on our hands for us to look at. Very wierd.
That same day we took a day trip to My Son temples. Some say this is like a mini Angkor Wat but it ws very small. There were about 20 temples left that the Americans hadn't bombed in the war. It was a very good tour though with a very clear English speaking guide. We have heard that My Son is much more impressive if you see it before Angkor Wat, so we were glad to have seen it when we did.
We got on another sleeper bus around 6 p.m. we tried so hard to secure spots in the front of the bus, but once again, we ended up in the very back. At least this time we were on the bottom bunks. Being at the back of the bus, we could feel every vibration and sway. The bus was very top heavy and took the corners a little too fast and there were times it swayed so much I thought we would tip. I took some sleeping pills again, but kept waking up in sheer terror for the bus swaying. I convinced myself that the bur would surely tip and kill everyone in it. However, we made it safely to Nha Trang at about 7 a.m., just in time for breakfast.
Nha Trang is a nice beach town with a decent bar scene. The first day we spent some time at the beach before walking about 5 km (we didn't know it was going to be that far) to the National Oceanographic Museum. It was a really cool place with aquariums of all different kinds of tropical fish and a huge collection of crustaceans and coral. it took us about an hour to complete and at the end we were very glad to have made the trip. We decided to take a taxi back though, as it was very hot outside and we had already walked so far to get there. When we got bac, after dinner and naps, we went bar hopping to a few good bars with cheap specials and had a nice evening just enjoying each other's company.
The next day we decided to catch up on our sleep and rela at the beach all day. We spent about 6 hours on the beach reading and swimming. Dustin has some decent sunburn on his shoulders and I got burned pretty bad on the bad of the legs, but nothing to painful.
The waves at this beach were huge, breaking right at the shoreline. They were fun to float on if you could get past the initial wave that would break at your feet and have a tendency to knock you over. At one point, I was swimming by myself because Dustin had thrown his shoulder out swimming (ouch) and was ready to get out before me. I got hit by a huge wave. I meant to dive under it but it completely ignored my intentions and swallowed me whole. All I could do was hold my nose and wait for it to spit me back out. I got quite a bit of water in my ear from it and had a bit of a headache from being tossed around so hard.
Before we left the beach, a gay man from Germany who was very drunk came and sat on Dustin's chair with him and talked to us for a while. He told us about his Thai boyfriend who skis in France and he kept touching Dustin every time I touched Dustin. It was... interesting. It wasn't the gay part that was weird, he was just so drunk and so forward that we were ready to leave when we did.
We had a nice seafood dinner and hit the bars again last night. Didn't meet anybody except the gay German fellow in Nha Trang, but it was still a fun town and we had a great time. This morning at 7 we got on a bus to Da Lat. This time we were on the very front of the bus on the bottom. They were good seats and the views out the bus windows were undeniably the most breathtaking I have ever seen. The only problem was that we had to drive on very windy roads, many of them with a mountain on one side and a cliff on the other. Being in the front seat, I had a clear view of the windshield and needless to say this made my recently-developed bus anxiety even worse. Again, I was very happy to arrive safely in Da Lat.
We got here today at about 1. The water I had gotten in my ear from the wave that swallowed me has now developed into a full blown ear infection. I got some drops and used them but so far, it seems to be getting worse. But, trying to ignore my earache, we set out for a late lunch at about 2. We found this place a few blocks from our hotel an read in the lonely planet that we should try food cooked in clay pots there. Dustin got fish in a clay pot and I got venison on a regular plate. There are not words to describe this food. It was by far the best food we have had in Vietnam. Every bite was packed with flavor, especially the fish, and because it was in a clay pot in the hot juices, it stayed hot until the last bite. Food will never be the same after this meal.
After lunch, we decided to take a motor taxi to the cable cars just outside of town which go to a monastery and a beautiful lake. The drivier turned out to also be a freelance tour guide and for $10 a piece, he took us around to two different waterfalls and a back country village. It took 4 hours and we both had a great time the entire time. The guy was very pleasant and, although his English was rough, he knew the best places to take us. One of the waterfalls we visited had an optional rollercoaster you could take down the the falls and back up It was cheap so we did it. On the way down it was twisty and turny and we got to control the speed, so it was a hoot. The waterfall was breathtaking and the ride back up was fun too.
When we finally got back to our hotel, it was about 7 and while looking for dinner, we stumbled upon a huge night market with food vendors everywhere and tons of people selling everything from shelfish to sweatshirts. It was a great way to end the day. We are taking it easy tonight because of my ear infection and for the sake of saving money.
I know this post was very long but I hope you enjoyed it. Although there is a facebook ban in vietnam, most computers we have access to had a different IP address downloaded that allows us to get on facebook. So if you want to contact us hit up the facebook, email us (mm1293@ship.edu)(d.lowry11@gmail.com), or comment on the blog!
We love and miss all our friends and family and hope everyone is having a wonderful time at home!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
March 5!!
We have had an interesting and wonderful last couple of weeks! Last week we went to Ha Long Bay and had a wonderful time there.
The first night of that excursion was spent on the Luxury Imperial Cruise ship in a large room with a private bathroom. We got to see an enormous cave with huge, old formations called Surprising Cave. The cave was totally dead from all the hands touching the formations, but it was really cool. Who doesn't love a good cave? When we emerged from the cave we headed to the place where the kayaks were kept and got to spend and hour kayaking around huge limestone karsts. It was fun but I was soaked and ready to get out of the kayaks when the hour was done.
We met some fellow Americans on the boat, Janice (sp?) and Adam and had a great time eating dinner with them and talking over a few drinks until we went to bed. The music that the crew of the ship put on for us to listen to was hilarious. First, it was the original "Killing Me Softly" and a mix of other similarly old songs. Then, when that cd started skipping, we asked one of the crew members to change it so he put on some techno music with a dvd of the Victoria's Secret fashion show to accompany it. Finally, when we couldn't take any more techno and lingerie, he put on Lady GaGa's latest masterpiece of an album. Probably not the music we would have picked if we were the DJs, but it was so funny, we couldn't complain.
The next morning, we had breakfast with our new friends and then said our goodbyes to them before we got on another boat. This boat took us to Cat Ba National Park where we got to ride bicycles around the island and take a hike through the jungle. We saw a lot of interesting flora that we were unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, our guide, Frank (a lot of the guides and hotel employees give themselves English names to help the tourists pronounce and remember them), despite his adequate English, was pretty inept and never did really explain what anything was to us. However, we still got to go on a hike through the JUNGLE OF VIETNAM, so it's hard to complain about a crappy guide.
When we were done with our hike, we biked back to the boat, which took us to our bungalows. The bungalows were on a very small beach wich we walked in about 5 minutes. However, once we were done with the main beach, there was nothing else to do so we went exploring under the stilts of our bungalow and found a whole separate beach on the other side that, based on the amount of coral and shells we found there, looked like not very many people discover this spot during their stay there. We found a tide pool with 14 starfish in it and so much coral I can't even explain it. I never ever thought I would pick something up off the sand on a beach and say, "oh, it's just another piece of coral," and put it back down. It was pretty awesome.
That night we had a buffet style dinner, followed by a fire on the beach. We met an older woman named Nancy, who leads a very interesting life. Her husband died a few years ago and her only child is grown, so Nancy takes her retirement pension, and the money she got when her husband died and uses it to travel the world. In the U.S., she lives in a motor home and travels all over the country. She has been to 45 countries and 49 states and her goal is all 50 states and 100 countries. She was traveling with a Taiwanese woman she met on a tour in Egypt a few years ago. She was certainly a free spirit. I don't know if I could ever live like her but I definitely admire her for having the guts to go out and do what she wants to do.
The next day, we left the tour group and headed to Cat Ba Town for the night. Right now is the lowest of their tourist season so we were just about the only people there. That day we went to some beaches and collected more shells and coral. After dinner at the hotel, we took my mom back to her room and went out on the town. We first went to get a massage, but the place we went to was very strange. It was just a middle aged man and an old woman with a couple of massage tables upstairs in their house. It was a very uncomfortable and weird hour, but it only cost us a total of $12 so at least we didn't blow tons of money on it. Throughout the day we had seen several neon signs advertising karaoke, so next we thought we would go get a drink and sing a few songs. The first place we came to with a karaoke sign out front just looked like some lady's house at the entrance but she pointed to the sign and pointed upstairs and waved at us to come in, so we did. she took us up a couple flights of stairs to a door that had flashing colored lights and loud music behind it but we didn't go in that door. We kept going up the stairs. A few flights later and we came to a second door with the same flashing lights and even louder music. At this point we were thinking, "ok, cool, this must be some kid of multi level bar like the hardwear bar in Harrisburg. This is gonna be great." Finally, after even more stairs, we came to a third door with the loudest music of all. The woman opened the door and instead of the raging bar scene we were expecting, it was an empty room with white paint on the walls and no decorations. On the wall next the the door there was a flat screen tv and a karaoke machine with a vietnamese man squatting in front of it, singing at the top of his lungs with the mic volume all the way up. Dustin told the lady we were looking for a bar and she told us to stay. We exchanged one look and booked it down the stairs and out of the building. It was a hilarious experince, but I don't think we'll be hitting up any more karaoke joints any time soon!
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and spent the whole day traveling by boat and bus back to Ha Noi. On the boat we got to take a cooking lesson and learn how to make yummy spring rolls. Since we've been back in Ha Noi, we've gotten to see the Temple of Literature, the Fine Arts Museum, and the Hoa Lo Prison, a.k.a. the Ha Noi Hilton, where John McCain was held as a POW in the Vietnam War. It was really interesting and sad. The portion of the prison where they talked about the American War, however, was a propaganda machine. They made it look like American POWs had a good old time in the prison and spent their whole time there playing ping pong and chess. There was a video on loop and the last thing it said was "The American's should not forget that they were lucky to have been war prisoners in Vietnam".
Last night, we dropped my mom off at the airport and sent her on her way home. It was great having her here and we are going to miss her. We are excited to get out of Ha Noi, though, and explore the rest of the country! Here is a basic itinerary for the next couple of weeks, which is subject to change:
3-5: Take a sleeper bus down to Hue (14 hour bus ride!)
3-6: Visit the DMZ and the Vinh Moc Tunnels
3-7: Take another night bus to Hoi An
3-9: Night bus to Nha Trang
3-11: Night bus to Mui Ne Beach
3-13: Night bus to Ho Chi Minh City
3-14 through 16: explore Saigon
3-17: Take a ride on the Mekong into Cambodia!
Our bus ride with stops in all those cities is over 1000 miles and cost $60 each!
We hope all is well with our friends and family. Again, just another reminder, we do not have access to facebook so we won't be able to post on there any time soon. To contact us email Dustin at d.lowry11@gmail.com or me at mm1293@ship.edu
We also see all the comments on our blog so don't hesitate to comment!
The first night of that excursion was spent on the Luxury Imperial Cruise ship in a large room with a private bathroom. We got to see an enormous cave with huge, old formations called Surprising Cave. The cave was totally dead from all the hands touching the formations, but it was really cool. Who doesn't love a good cave? When we emerged from the cave we headed to the place where the kayaks were kept and got to spend and hour kayaking around huge limestone karsts. It was fun but I was soaked and ready to get out of the kayaks when the hour was done.
We met some fellow Americans on the boat, Janice (sp?) and Adam and had a great time eating dinner with them and talking over a few drinks until we went to bed. The music that the crew of the ship put on for us to listen to was hilarious. First, it was the original "Killing Me Softly" and a mix of other similarly old songs. Then, when that cd started skipping, we asked one of the crew members to change it so he put on some techno music with a dvd of the Victoria's Secret fashion show to accompany it. Finally, when we couldn't take any more techno and lingerie, he put on Lady GaGa's latest masterpiece of an album. Probably not the music we would have picked if we were the DJs, but it was so funny, we couldn't complain.
The next morning, we had breakfast with our new friends and then said our goodbyes to them before we got on another boat. This boat took us to Cat Ba National Park where we got to ride bicycles around the island and take a hike through the jungle. We saw a lot of interesting flora that we were unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, our guide, Frank (a lot of the guides and hotel employees give themselves English names to help the tourists pronounce and remember them), despite his adequate English, was pretty inept and never did really explain what anything was to us. However, we still got to go on a hike through the JUNGLE OF VIETNAM, so it's hard to complain about a crappy guide.
When we were done with our hike, we biked back to the boat, which took us to our bungalows. The bungalows were on a very small beach wich we walked in about 5 minutes. However, once we were done with the main beach, there was nothing else to do so we went exploring under the stilts of our bungalow and found a whole separate beach on the other side that, based on the amount of coral and shells we found there, looked like not very many people discover this spot during their stay there. We found a tide pool with 14 starfish in it and so much coral I can't even explain it. I never ever thought I would pick something up off the sand on a beach and say, "oh, it's just another piece of coral," and put it back down. It was pretty awesome.
That night we had a buffet style dinner, followed by a fire on the beach. We met an older woman named Nancy, who leads a very interesting life. Her husband died a few years ago and her only child is grown, so Nancy takes her retirement pension, and the money she got when her husband died and uses it to travel the world. In the U.S., she lives in a motor home and travels all over the country. She has been to 45 countries and 49 states and her goal is all 50 states and 100 countries. She was traveling with a Taiwanese woman she met on a tour in Egypt a few years ago. She was certainly a free spirit. I don't know if I could ever live like her but I definitely admire her for having the guts to go out and do what she wants to do.
The next day, we left the tour group and headed to Cat Ba Town for the night. Right now is the lowest of their tourist season so we were just about the only people there. That day we went to some beaches and collected more shells and coral. After dinner at the hotel, we took my mom back to her room and went out on the town. We first went to get a massage, but the place we went to was very strange. It was just a middle aged man and an old woman with a couple of massage tables upstairs in their house. It was a very uncomfortable and weird hour, but it only cost us a total of $12 so at least we didn't blow tons of money on it. Throughout the day we had seen several neon signs advertising karaoke, so next we thought we would go get a drink and sing a few songs. The first place we came to with a karaoke sign out front just looked like some lady's house at the entrance but she pointed to the sign and pointed upstairs and waved at us to come in, so we did. she took us up a couple flights of stairs to a door that had flashing colored lights and loud music behind it but we didn't go in that door. We kept going up the stairs. A few flights later and we came to a second door with the same flashing lights and even louder music. At this point we were thinking, "ok, cool, this must be some kid of multi level bar like the hardwear bar in Harrisburg. This is gonna be great." Finally, after even more stairs, we came to a third door with the loudest music of all. The woman opened the door and instead of the raging bar scene we were expecting, it was an empty room with white paint on the walls and no decorations. On the wall next the the door there was a flat screen tv and a karaoke machine with a vietnamese man squatting in front of it, singing at the top of his lungs with the mic volume all the way up. Dustin told the lady we were looking for a bar and she told us to stay. We exchanged one look and booked it down the stairs and out of the building. It was a hilarious experince, but I don't think we'll be hitting up any more karaoke joints any time soon!
The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and spent the whole day traveling by boat and bus back to Ha Noi. On the boat we got to take a cooking lesson and learn how to make yummy spring rolls. Since we've been back in Ha Noi, we've gotten to see the Temple of Literature, the Fine Arts Museum, and the Hoa Lo Prison, a.k.a. the Ha Noi Hilton, where John McCain was held as a POW in the Vietnam War. It was really interesting and sad. The portion of the prison where they talked about the American War, however, was a propaganda machine. They made it look like American POWs had a good old time in the prison and spent their whole time there playing ping pong and chess. There was a video on loop and the last thing it said was "The American's should not forget that they were lucky to have been war prisoners in Vietnam".
Last night, we dropped my mom off at the airport and sent her on her way home. It was great having her here and we are going to miss her. We are excited to get out of Ha Noi, though, and explore the rest of the country! Here is a basic itinerary for the next couple of weeks, which is subject to change:
3-5: Take a sleeper bus down to Hue (14 hour bus ride!)
3-6: Visit the DMZ and the Vinh Moc Tunnels
3-7: Take another night bus to Hoi An
3-9: Night bus to Nha Trang
3-11: Night bus to Mui Ne Beach
3-13: Night bus to Ho Chi Minh City
3-14 through 16: explore Saigon
3-17: Take a ride on the Mekong into Cambodia!
Our bus ride with stops in all those cities is over 1000 miles and cost $60 each!
We hope all is well with our friends and family. Again, just another reminder, we do not have access to facebook so we won't be able to post on there any time soon. To contact us email Dustin at d.lowry11@gmail.com or me at mm1293@ship.edu
We also see all the comments on our blog so don't hesitate to comment!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Week 2 Already?!?
Above is a screen shot image of some of our SPOT GPS points. We are experiencing technical difficulties with the SPOT and are currently working with customer service agents to solve these problems. We have been "checking-in" daily and as you can see, only 3 of 9 points have actually appeared!
We have lots to talk about from the past few days but it will have to wait til next time as Mariah is asleep and I am practically already there. Everything is running smoothly, perhaps a little toooo smoothly! We couldn't ask for a better beginning to such an unpredictable and incredible part of the world.
We miss our friends and family and can't wait to share these experiences with you in person!
I hope this small adventure shows at least one of you that world travel is possible and at a reasonable price. And trust me, I know that deciding when and where to go may seem daunting. There are always so many different factors to take into consideration. Remember, the hardest step is over once you've decided to go!
We will try and write again soon. Thanks for reading!
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