Ha Long Bay/Nha Trang

So on the 27th, Michole and I went on a cruise through Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. It was absolutely incredible. We left Hanoi early in the morning and three and a half hours later, we made it to Ha Long Bay. Not to mention, in that entire three and a half hours we had the pleasure of listening to this Thai guy talk on one of his two phones (one a Blackberry and one an iPhone...which is completely necessary). This wasn't just any Thai guy. No...he happened to be Captain Amazing, or as Michole described him, "the most important man in the world." Really, he was. I mean, you must be the most important person on the planet if you're talking on your phone about your many houses around the world and that you're currently playing host to Jean Claude van Damme (or JC as he likes to call him) at your beach house in Phuket cause he's filming a movie there. Oh and also it was important for all of us to know that he was planning on building a Ritz Carlton in Phuket but is instead building some other fancy hotel because it was easier to plan or something along those lines. Basically, he's super important...switching between speaking in Thai on one phone and California surfer-esque English on the other. The best part, though, was when he stood up tall at a striking 5 foot 2. (No offense to all of you wonderful short people out there but damn. This guy has a Napoleon complex.) It made for an interesting ride to the bay.

Once we got there, though, we checked into our boat-Indochina Sails II. Here it is:

Sorry...not the best picture ever. But it was super nice. Our room was immaculately clean and pretty. Hard wood everywhere, marble bathroom, fancy bedspreads, free wine (!!!), and right down the hall from the dining room. Granted, I almost starved during lunch since it was a set menu...consisting of mainly Vietnamese dishes meaning fresh seafood. Luckily, I had a can of pringles in the room. And some oreos. I may or may not be gaining lots of pounds here. After "lunch," we took a boat tour through a floating fishing village in Ha Long Bay. It was eye opening. These people live in tiny shelters floating on the water and spend their days fishing and hoping tourists like us will float by long enough that they can attach their little boats to us and try to sell us a soda or water. Here are some photos of the village:


As you can see...they live in extreme poverty...although almost every house we went by had a nice TV. Crazy! Apparently they get electricity from generators, so I guess they spend a lot of free time watchin' the tube. It was really interesting to see this village though...completely floating on the water.

After the boat tour, we went kayaking through a cave with bats flying around our heads. After steering clear of rabies, we climbed this mountain with a pagoda at the top and took lots of cheesy pictures. It was really pretty up there, so we went kinda crazy with the cameras. I'll spare you all of those. Here are a few:

You can see Ha Long Bay in the background. There's over two thousand of those islands everywhere. The majority of them are just like floating cliffs, though.

This is probably a better shot of the islands.

It's a dolphin trash can!!! I couldn't resist.

After our photo session, we headed back to the boat for dinner. A buffet! I could eat! Ha...lots of good food choices. Lots of wine. Sleep at 9:00. It was amazing. The next morning, we woke up and went on a tour of the Surprise Cave, apparently named by the explorers in the early 1900s who were completely "surprised" at the inside of the cave that they happened across. It has three chambers, one of which being breathtakingly huge. I tried to take pictures, but none of them turned out very well...here's one of the better ones of the big chamber, although it really doesn't do it any justice:

All the rock formations from thousands of years of calcium being deposited from the water are amazing. It was really interesting, and I'm glad we got to see it.

After the cave, we had brunch on the boat then it was time to go! Don't worry...we were definitely with Captain Amazing again on our ride back to Hanoi. And also don't worry...he was just as important this time.

Back in Hanoi, we stayed at the Hanoi Elegance again...still the best hotel we've been in by far. Michole and I even decided to be less lame and go out! We found a bar with a balcony and were able to sit and look over the millions of motorbikes down below. Just to get an idea of how many bikes there are in this place, I took a pic from the balcony of a makeshift parking lot. Look at all the bikes!!

It's crazy.

Yesterday, we hopped on a plane to Nha Trang, which is where we are now. It's a beautiful beach town, and also happens to be the location of the Miss Universe 2008 pageant which takes place here in two weeks. They're already rehearsing and stuff for it so it's been interesting to watch some of it. The city is completely excited about it...posters are up everywhere advertising for the pageant. Obviously, it's a big deal here. I'll keep ya'll posted on any Miss United States sightings or anything. We layed out by the beach all day today. For like three dollars we got two comfy chairs under a cabana umbrella thing, so that's where we spent our day. And that's also where I developed the most awkward sunburn of all time. Apparently, when I spray my sunscreen on, I don't rub it all in correctly. So instead of being sunburned all over, I have splotches. On my knees, my legs, my arms, my back. Basically, I look like I have a skin condition. I bought some aloe and bathed in it earlier so we'll see what happens. It's really bad. Especially with the contrast of RED on WHITE. Nice.

We're about to go grab dinner and then there's this bar called the Sailing Club right on the beach that has happy hour tonight and really cheap drinks so we're gonna see how long we can stay out. I'm so proud of us for trying to go out! Ha...usually we just read until we fall asleep. Oh well...we're on vacation, right!?

Hanoi, Vietnam

We're in Vietnam! So crazy...I repeated that to Michole like a million times today. I keep trying to picture exactly where I am on a map and every time it blows my mind...this is amazing.

We got here around 1:30 this afternoon after spending last night in Bangkok. The hotel we stayed in was close to the airport and really convenient. So convenient, in fact, that it was called "Convenient Hotel and Resort"...and it was basically a replica of a Holiday Inn Express. Except that it had this toilet:

How great is that?! Haha...the room was actually really nice and then we walk into the bathroom and BAM! It's like they handed a two year old some stickers and said go to town. Love it.

So we flew over to Hanoi today and spent the day walking around the Old Quarter, which is the part of town we're staying in. It's also the part of town with the most French influence so it's really old/colonial looking. There's a beautiful lake right in the middle of the Old Quarter with floating temples on it. We were able to go into one of them and walk around. Really we just took pictures of the lake...so here goes:


This is the floating temple.

The red bridge to get over to the floating temple.

The other floating temple...but looks like you can't get there unless you feel like swimming. Probably not the best of plans.

Another part of the lake. There's a really pretty walkway that goes all the way around it...they call it a "jogging trail" and people were actually exercising everywhere around the lake. Except the kind of exercise they do here is ridiculous. And by ridiculous I mean absolutely hilarious to watch. They just stand there and swing their arms around then crouch down and swing their arms some more, then shake each leg for a while, then do a little jig, then repeat. How this is supposed to be good for you is beyond me but it was definitely entertaining to watch.

Our hotel in Hanoi is amazing. Everyone who works here is absolutely wonderful and accommodating. It's one of the nicer hotels we've stayed in the whole trip. They even booked us a cruise on Ha Long Bay for tomorrow night. I'm really excited about this. Apparently Ha Long Bay is currently being considered to be one of the new "Wonders of the World." So basically it's going to be gorgeous. We cruise on a junk (Vietnamese yacht basically) and we get to go kayaking, and we stop at some secluded beaches and islands and such. It should be really nice. We get back to Hanoi on the 28th and we're staying at this same hotel again. The 29th we'll be heading to Nha Trang...beach town! Super excited about that, naturally.

Oh also while in Hanoi today we went to a water puppet show. It was...interesting. I had read about how it was "absolutely necessary" to go see the water puppet show, and it was only two dollars, so we went. Basically, you go into this theater (think super miniaturized version of Bass Concert Hall and/or just a lecture hall at a university with comfy red seats) and the stage is a pool of water with a big Vietnamese building in the background/palm treees, etc. The puppeteers stand behind the building thing and move the puppets around in the water. Then there's traditional Vietnamese musicians sitting on the side playing music...and I guess I'm not the biggest fan of Vietnamese music. Just got kind of bored. The whole thing was actually pretty boring. But it's a really traditional Vietnamese art form, so we did our part to experience the culture while we were here. I'll just pass on those from now on.

By the way, if I was to die here it would be from getting plowed down by one of the eight billion motor bikes coming at you at any given time. There are no "you can walk now" signs on any street so you basically just have to start walking, don't look anyone in the eye, and hope that the oncoming traffic sees you and swerves to miss you. We've had more than one near death experience, to be honest. But amazingly, the people are used to this, and they all drive pretty slow (as opposed to the crazy fast drivers in Bangkok) so I think we'll be ok. :)

I'll post about Ha Long Bay when we get back! Hope all is well.

Photos!!

Finally some photos! I think i just spent almost 200 baht (roughly 6 dollars) using the internet trying to load up my pictures, and I wasn't even able to load all of them, so I picked some of the best ones. So here goes:

Michole and I at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It was gorgeous.

More Grand Palace.

Some Buddhas.

At the Grand Palace.

More of the Grand Palace.

The Reclining Buddha. It's HUGE.

The feet of the Reclining Buddha. See the person to the right? Puts it into perspective a bit.

At a secluded beach on Koh Tao. There were huge rocks everywhere but it was really pretty.

More on that same beach. Those bungalows are where we hope to stay next time we come out here :)

I thought this was cool. It's on a beach in Koh Tao, and the rocks are massive. I thought it was neat to see how high the tide comes up. And also the balancing skills of that rock on top.

Koh Tao.

This was walking through a beautiful resort on Koh Tao.

Walking into the water!

Now that I know how to post photos, I'll probably be able to do it more. Koh Tao was absolutely beautiful. Michole went diving one morning and I went with her on the dive and went snorkeling. There were two sisters from Ireland with us (one snorkeled with me) and then a couple from Australia who have become our new best friends. We hung out with them all day. They've been traveling for 5 YEARS! I can't imagine. But Thailand is their last stop before they head home. Anyway, snorkeling was unbelievable...beautiful reefs and tons of fish that I've never seen before in my life! The extreme sunburn on the backs of my legs was definitely worth it. :) The dive instructors were a married couple from Brazil who are living on Koh Tao and they were amazing. They were so happy and positive and just radiated fun. They're like those people who always make a good time out of every situation, and they definitely love diving so they were super excited to take us all out.

Yesterday, we took took a huge catamaran from Koh Tao back to Koh Samui, which is where we're staying now. Our resort is RIGHT on the beach, and it's like one of those beaches that you see in postcards for exotic places. It's stunning. We can walk straight out on the beach from our little pool area. We have a bungalow that's really nice, and there are a lot of people our age staying here-mostly from Europe, but there are a few American girls too. We're hoping to make friends with some of them and go out tonight. Here are some photos of Koh Samui:

Laying on the beach at our hotel.

Paradise!

Looking down the beach the other way.

Oh AND...Michole and I climbed an 80 meter waterfall today!!! I don't know how many feet that is, but it was a lot. And it was steep. And we were climbing up roots and rocks and mud and it was awesome. I'm really proud of us. Here are some pictures of our huge accomplishment:

This was on our way up the waterfall. What a beautiful view.

There's the waterfall! It doesn't look as massive in this photo, but it was huge. And this was just the bottom...we climbed all the way to the top.

This is looking down close to the top.

Michole and I at the top! There was a little pool up there, so we went for a swim...and promptly got out when fish were nibbling on us. It felt weird. Although it was worth it considering we were DRENCHED in sweat.

Me with Bom. He showed us the way up to the top. There's no way we would have made it without him considering there was absolutely no path.

This was one of the parts that actually had a rope for you to hold on to. The majority of the way up was steeper than this and you just had to figure out how to not fall.

So pretty much I'm having the best time EVER. I've decided that the beaches are much more fun for me than the cities...surprise surprise. I'm not looking forward to going back to Bangkok tomorrow, but we just spend the night there and then we're off to Vietnam on the 26th! Oh and just in case you were wondering, my stomach feels fine and I've been eating plenty of pasta. As in spaghetti. Because there are Italian restaurants everywhere. Perfect!

Koh Tao/Koh Samui

Well I actually got to feeling better this morning. Which was good because I had to get on a plane as well as a boat today.

We left Bangkok at 7:30 this morning and landed in Koh Samui an hour later. The fun part was that we had a five hour wait until the boat left to take us to Koh Tao...so we walked up and down the beach by the pier and stopped in a restaurant/bar on the beach for lunch. And then....the boat ride. The boat was the complete opposite of what I expected...thankfully. I imagined an open air, tiny boat that we'd be on for three hours. Instead, it was a two story, air conditioned boat with comfy seats. And they definitely piled the backpackers in. There were people our age from all over the world in that boat. Some were going to Koh Tao and others to Koh Phangan (the crazy party island). We stopped at Koh Phangan first about 30 minutes after leaving Koh Samui and unloaded people and restocked the boat with more. A lot more. So many that people were sitting in the aisles and anywhere else they could find. Some weren't even lucky enough to find anywhere to sit and had to stand for the two hour ride to Koh Tao. Apparently the air conditioning was on but it definitely was not doing any good with all those people packed in there. It was miserable. It was a sauna. I think I lost 42 pounds today just from sitting in that boat. It also didn't help that I was sitting by a window, and even though it was tinted, the sun was beating down on me. Awesome. Nevertheless, we made it to Koh Tao with all the other backpackers and checked into our hotel. It's definitely minimalist, but we each have a bed and there's air conditioning, so I can't really complain. We're about to grab some food then get a cheap Thai massage and crawl into bed. We have after all been up since 4:30 this morning and we're exhausted.

We'll be here at Koh Tao for two nights then back to Koh Samui for two nights. Which means another amazing boat ride....maybe it won't be as packed this time. Also, I'm making it a point to not sit by a window.

Oh and remember how I told everyone it was the wet season and it would be raining on us every day? Well it hasn't rained once. I think they lied when they said wet season and they actually meant the season where the sun pounds down on you even more than normal. Oh and another awesome thing...my backpack is broken. Thank REI for selling me such an awesome product. The frame is broken on one side. And it pokes me. I need duct tape. And I'm definitely hoping that it's under warranty. I haven't even made it a week and it's already broken....oh well. I'll make it through.

Finally, I think I should be the new spokesperson for Immodium. It hasn't left my side. :)

Bangkok

I made it!!! Plane rides weren't too bad...considering Michole and I both slept about 10 hours on the 15 hour flight (thank you Ambien). We got in last night, and after about an hour in customs, we got our bags and learned how much heavier they were than we thought. Awesome. We managed to get them into the car and off to the hotel, though. Our hotel is nice. It's a Best Western (figured we couldn't go wrong there) and it's really close to everything we wanted to see.

This morning we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel then took off for the Grand Palace and a few other temples. They were breathtakingly beautiful. Everything is so intricate and gorgeous. The only downside was the 9 million degree weather and the bright sun shining down on us all day. It's worse than Texas. Can you believe it? Anyway, after that we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit. We took off for food a bit later and I felt woozy....imagine that. First day and my stomach is already mad at me. I slept it off pretty much the rest of the day and feel a bit better now. I've got a bag of Lays Potato Chips that I'm clinging to right now considering I've basically only eaten breakfast today. No worries family...I feel ok right now. Hopefully the appetite comes back tomorrow.

And I have to feel better tomorrow considering we go to the airport at 5:30 in the morning to take off for Ko Samui and Ko Tao...two islands. We get into Ko Samui around 8:30 then take a boat over to Ko Tao. We'll be there for two nights and then back to Ko Samui for two nights. The places we booked to stay in look really nice...right on the beach! I think they have computers too, so hopefully I'll be able to update.

All in all, I don't like Bangkok...just like Michole said. It's huge, trafficky, and smoggy. There are people everywhere and I didn't come to Southeast Asia to feel like I'm in a concrete jungle. The Grand Palace and temples were a nice break from that, but now I feel like I've seen all I want to here. Which is good cause the next times we're in Bangkok we're just passing through.

I'll try to post some pictures on here next time...right now I'm off to bed. 4:30 in the morning will not be an awesome time to wake up. Hope all is well with everyone!

Airport

So...it's 4:30 in the morning and I'm about to take off for the airport. Pretty much all I'll be doing for the next 30 hours is hanging out in airports and then occassionally getting on a plane. I'll be at LAX for six hours today, so will welcome phone calls to distract me out of my inevitable people watching coma. Incredibly, everything I wanted to take fit into my little backpack. I say little, but that thing has amazingly pushed its limits and now seems like a gigantic duffle bag with shoulder straps. I probably took way more than I needed considering my medicine alone takes up the top portion of the bag...hey, it's what I do. I come prepared. But I won't see that bag again until I'm arriving in Bangkok at 11:55 pm on Thursday. That's 11:55 am Thursday here. So if ever you're sitting there wondering what I'm doing, you can figure I'm 12 hours ahead of central standard time. Makes it easy on ya.

Thainambalaysia here we come! (thanks Michole for the ingenious combination of destinations)