TravelStream™ news feed for member annek on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/annek en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:45:51 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1229157900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1229157900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1229157900/tpod.html Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:45:51 -0500 There and back again

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Fleet, England, United Kingdom

This is just a pin to complete the map.
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Bangkok, Thailand

I had been unsure as to whether I would make it to Bangkok as planned due to the recent closure of the city's airports, but everything was resolved a couple of days before I was due to fly, and my flight was uneventful. In fact the airport was practically empty as so many people have changed their travel plans due to the airport closures, so there was very little waiting around or queuing and I was out of there faster than ever before.

Much as I adore Vietnam, I do not adore winter, and the heat that hit me as I stepped off the plane, shedding my coat, scarf and jumper, was very welcome. Walking from that blissful heat straight into the air-conditioned airport was less welcome, but due to the recent airport issues it's still really empty so I was out pretty fast.

Bangkok feels comfortable and familiar to me, and it feels good to be back here. Soon after arriving I met up with Sally, my friend who I volunteered with at the Wildlife Rescue Centre, who flew to Thailand today for a Christmas holiday. It was great to see her, and we had a good night out on Khao San Road, catching up on all the gossip, both happy to be back in Thailand. I also bumped into Becky, who I travelled with in Pai, and it was nice to be able to catch up with her too before she jets off to Australia.

I didn't do anything spectacular to end my trip but I did have a really enjoyable few days. I finished my Christmas shopping, and indulged in all my favourite things about Thailand while I still had the chance: cheap massages and spa treatments, a Toni & Guy haircut (including highlights) that I would never be able to afford in England, Sang Som buckets (a cheap Thai spirit mixed with coke and, you guessed it, drunk through a straw from a plastic bucket), and copious amounts of tom yum soup. In fact, I couldn't decide what to have for my last dinner in Thailand before my flight, having already had tom yum for lunch.... so in the end I had tom yum again for dinner.

I did feel sad to be ending my trip, but given the chance to extend it I wouldn't change a thing. It's natural to feel sad to be leaving places I have become attached to, and of course the free and easy backpacker lifestyle, but I'm ready to see my friends and family, enjoy Christmas at home, and then focus on resuming my career in the New Year. I'm not even going to try to summarise this trip or describe how it has changed my attitudes and perspective on life, because I just don't have the words, but what I will say is that if anybody is reading this and wondering whether to go travelling, maybe even wondering if you could cope with it.... DO IT!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228645980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228645980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228645980/tpod.html Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:36:33 -0500 There and back again

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Hanoi, Vietnam

After Cat Ba I went back to Hanoi for one night before flying to Bangkok the next day. I arrived in Hanoi in the afternoon and did some of my Christmas shopping, and then in the evening Tu picked me up and took me out to have dinner with friends from work, many of whom I had met at the baby's birthday party last time I was in Hanoi. We had a really nice dinner and then headed on to a karaoke bar. Forunately nobody bullied me into singing - the songs were all in Vietnamese so I would have had a pretty hard time! I still really enjoyed myself; the karaoke bars here give you a private room for your group, unlike karaoke clubs back home.

After karaoke Tu took me on to another bar, Tet Bar, to meet some more of her friends. On the way she decided to take a detour to show me West Lake. On the way back to the bar we were pulled over by the police because Tu only had one helmet, so I wasn't wearing one. At first they talked about taking us to the police station, but we soon bribed our way out of that one - a bribe is cheaper for us as well as more convenient for everyone than the official fine. We finished the night at Tet Bar where I met some more of Tu's friends, both Vietnamese and Westerners. I had a great night and wish I had more time to spend in Hanoi with my new friends.
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Cat Ba, Vietnam

We arrived on Cat Ba Island in the morning after our overnight cruise of Halong Bay. Despite it being winter the weather was good today, so we had a lazy day on the beach reading our books and having what was by far the best massage of my whole trip.

On our second day we went on a rock-climbing trip. As somebody who used to be scared of heights I was a bit nervous, because I tried climbing on an indoor wall a couple of years ago and didn't enjoy it at all. However I really wanted to give it another go, and I had a good feeling about the company we chose. In the morning I was relieved that it was just Gabriela and I, with our wonderfully calming and encouraging instructor Tim, and a young Vietnamese guy called Ding.

We started the day with a cup of tea at Tim's 'house', which is a shack on a beach in a deserted part of Halong Bay. We drank our tea, got to know each other a bit, played with his puppy, Weasel, and then headed to a nearby beach to start climbing. My first climb with Ding was just a short, easy one to get used to it, then I did a more challenging one with Tim. It is a testament to Tim's personality and abilities that not only did
I get up the cliff without tears, but that I felt calm and confident
the whole time and surprised myself by actually enjoying it. As I rested at the top, soaking in the stunning view, another group of beginners arrived on the beach and I heard Tim telling them how shit-scared I would have been feeling while climbing up. When I came down I got a big round of applause. I was shaking so much that I could barely speak, and I think if Tim hadn't put his arm around me I would have collapsed into a heap on the beach.

After those two climbs, Gabriela and I left the other beginner climbers with Tim and Ding and went kayaking with a really nice friendly Malaysian girl called Jess. Once again the kayaking was really fun and relaxing, just what I needed to calm down from the adrenaline rush of my first proper climb. We joined a bigger tour group for this part of the day and had lunch with them on a boat. We met some really nice people but on the whole it made me glad that we had decided to travel independently and not with a tour group. The nice people were completely overshadowed by a few English loud-mouths who, had I been with them for longer than one afternoon, would have soon found themselves thrown overboard. I was mortified when they started having a food-fight, while the Vietnamese staff who had prepared our delicious food stood by watching and looking uncomfortable.

In the afternoon we joined up with some more climbers and did some harder climbing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will definitely do more climbing in the future.

The day after rock-climbing, Gabriela left to fly back home to Germany. I will miss her a lot, I enjoyed travelling with her so much, but I'm sure we'll meet up again soon. I decided to spend a few more days in Cat Ba. I hired a bicycle to explore the island, which I really enjoyed; I must admit I'll generally choose a motorbike over a bicycle, but I'm quite enjoying my current little exercise spree.

On my last day I went hiking in Cat Ba National Park. Once again I was certain that joining a tour group wasn't the right way for me, so I ignored the protests of the people at the hotel who kept telling me that it was impossible to hike in the national park without signing up for a tour, and flagged down a moto driver to take me to the park headquarters. Once I got there I paid a few dollars for a guide and asked my driver to come back later to pick me up. I was shown a seating area where I was told to wait for my guide. There were a lot of people there and I wasn't sure if we were all waiting for the same guide, or if I was going to be on my own, which I would much prefer. My question was answered when a smiling middle-aged Vietnamese lady arrived on a motorbike, waved and threw a bamboo stick at me, and went sprinting off up the hill. I figured this must be my guide, and ran after her.

Fortunately I think Lin's fast start up the mountain was a showing-off tactic, as before long she was clearly exhausted and I wondered whether we would actually make it to the top. She didn't speak much English but she was very fond of the word 'monkey', so she happily showed me where the monkeys live (Cat Ba has a very endangered population of langurs), although we weren't fortunate enough to see any. When we got to the top of the mountain I asked Lin to take a picture for me. When I put the camera in her hand and showed her where the shutter button was, she looked at me as if I'd just handed her a grenade and pulled the pin out. I don't think she had ever taken a picture before because it took her a few good minutes to figure it out, and looked terrified when I asked if I could take a picture of her. She allowed me to do so but the ever-present smile vanished from her face as I pointed the camera at her. Afterwards she was enthralled by the concept of being able to see herself on the screen, and after that there was no stopping her. She spent lots of time hunting out good places to pose for pictures in the forest, and I was hard pressed to wrestle the camera from her when I wanted to take a picture myself.

Once we finished walking, my driver Xun picked me up, and I asked if he could drive me back along the slightly longer scenic route along the south coast of the island. He agreed and, like Lin, seemed to take much delight in finding nice places for me to take photos.

After one last dinner of fresh Cat Ba seafood I talked the stingy hotel manager into giving me some extra blankets and spent a cold night in my room, wishing I'd paid for a room with heating.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228815360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228815360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1228815360/tpod.html Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:16:46 -0500 There and back again

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Halong Bay, Vietnam

We left Hanoi on a tour bus to Halong City; we were adamant that we didn't want to take a guided tour of Halong Bay but our friend Tu was able to get us cheap seats on the bus as they weren't fully booked. Throughout our travels in Vietnam we have repeatedly been stuck on buses with the same highly arrogant, obnoxious and offensive American man, so upon seeing him on this bus we were very relieved to have just bought bus tickets and not booked ourselves onto the whole tour.

Once in Halong City we bought one-way tickets to Cat Ba Island by way of an overnight cruise through Halong Bay. Once again this was intended as a 3-day guided tour, but we managed to convince them to just drop us off on Cat Ba island after the boat trip.

We boarded the boat at about midday and had a really nice lunch. Just as we had started to get to know people we were moved to a different boat as they didn't have space for everybody, but it worked out for the best as we had a really nice, small group on the second boat. We stopped to see some caves, which were fantastic but slightly ruined by the multi-coloured neon lighting. Halong Bay (literally, 'descending dragon bay') itself though is absolutely breathtaking. In the afternoon the boat stopped so that we could swim and/or kayak. The sea was a bit cold so Gabriela and I opted for kayaking, which was so peaceful and fun.

We had another lovely Vietnamese meal in the evening and then bought a couple of bottles of Vodka Hanoi and spent the night playing drinking games with our new friends Jill, Alejandro, Peter and Lenka. Once we were drunk enough not to feel the cold we saw the night out up on the deck watching the stars.
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Hoi An, Vietnam

We took the night bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An and arrived at a reasonable time in the morning having had a good night's sleep; this was quite a relief after our last hideous night bus adventure from Saigon to Dalat!

On our first morning we set out to choose a tailor to get our clothes made; there are literally hundreds of tailor shops in this small town, and it is 'the' place in Vietnam to get your custom-made clothes. We heard many mixed reviews of various shops in town, but many of these I felt were influenced by commission. However we found a shop we were happy with quite quickly. It can be daunting just trying to choose the right shop, so if anybody is reading this in search of advice, I would highly recommend Peace on Tran Hung Dao Street.

I had a dress made, and I was so happy with it after the first fitting that I ordered a couple of tops too. Gabriela got a leather jacket and some boots. We're both really happy with all our purchases and I now need my friends to start getting married once I'm home so that I have an excuse to wear the dress.

As well as shopping we spent time exploring some of Hoi An's historical sights such as the Japanese friendship bridge and some old buildings and temples.

We also took a tour out to My Son, a site with numerous temples that have been ruined by time and war. It was definitely a sight worth seeing, and it was interesting to see the effects that so many different groups of people have had on the ancient temples. There are areas where attempts to conserve the temples by international archaeologists have in fact contributed to their further decline due to a lack of knowledge about the ancient techniques used to fix the bricks, and most of the statues are missing their heads, which were taken to museums in Paris during the French occupation.

Hoi An is famous for its clothes but it's certainly worth a visit in its own right, and the only reason I was glad to move on was that the weather was pretty bad, so we headed north after a couple of days.
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Hanoi, Vietnam

Gabriela and I spent a long, boring day in Hue en route from Hoi An to Hanoi. We thought it seemed like a good idea to break up the journey by taking the early morning short bus journey from Hoi An to Hue, so that we could spend the day there before heading up to Hanoi on the night bus, but the rain saw off our enthusiasm for exploring Hue, so we just spent the day in cafes.

The night bus was really comfortable but after all the coffee I couldn't sleep. I got chatting to a friendly Vietnamese Easy Rider, Nam, who was on his way up to Hanoi to collect his next tour group. He couldn't sleep either so we spent most of the night silently 'chatting' by passing messages on our phones.

Once we were in Hanoi Nam introduced us to some of his friends. I preferred to spend time with new Vietnamese friends rather than just going to see the tourist sites. On our first night we were taken to a party held for a one-month-old baby's birth. We were told beforehand to bring an envelope with some money in to give to the baby's parents, and lots of people had brought gifts of toys and clothes. We had a huge, delicious meal and I surprised myself once again by enjoying all the seafood. After the party I stopped off with Nam for an ice-cream by the side of a busy road in central Hanoi, and enjoyed some late-night people-watching.

We also went to see a water puppet show. The theater's stage is a pool and the water puppets are operated by puppeteers sitting in the water behind a curtain. I had no idea what to expect but it was such good fun. It didn't matter at all that we couldn't understand any of the words, because the 'stories' were short and simple. I loved the humour as well as the beauty of it all; the water puppet company has travelled internationally and I really hope they come to London so that I can drag all my friends and family off to see them. That said, I don't know if some of the magic would be lost outside of Hanoi.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1227682800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1227682800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/annek/1/1227682800/tpod.html Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:47:22 -0500 There and back again

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Nha Trang, Vietnam

As our bus left Dalat, in the mountains, and headed down to Nha Trang on the coast, the weather got progressively worse. We are only really here as a stop-off on our way up north; it would have been nice to see the nearby islands and do some snorkelling, but I don't think it would have been much fun in this weather so we amused ourselves reading and eating ice cream in cafes while we watched the rain. The hotel was really nice so we made the most of our balcony and spent an evening drinking Vang Dalat (wine is not one of Vietnam's strengths, it has to be said) and people-watching, before watching movies in bed.

It could have easily been a wasted day but one great thing came out of our visit to Nha Trang and that is our discovery of my new favourite photographer, Long Thanh. He is based in Nha Trang and we were able to look round his gallery, which made the day we spent at this rainy seaside resort worthwhile.
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Dalat, Vietnam

After a day in Saigon, Gabriela and I were keen to get into the countryside while the weather - predicted to turn bad soon - was still nice, so we took the overnight bus to Dalat. Sadly it was not such a pleasant experience as my previous overnight travels! It wasn't a sleeper bus, just a normal bus that happened to drive at night, so it was really difficult to get comfortable. The driver kept the air-con on high all night so we were freezing cold, and to top it off they played relentlessly loud disco music ALL night. And when I say disco, I mean school disco... yep, they played the Macarena. Valium and earplugs did not help in the slightest. Ironically I did manage to drift off to sleep at about 4.30am, and it was at exactly this time that the bus hit a cow. The bump woke me up but I didn't know what had happened until Gabriela told me afterwards. They didn't stop to see if the cow was OK. We later found out that the same bus the previous night crashed into some trees because the driver was tired; nobody was injured but I guess that explains the loud music and icy temperatures. I would not recommend ever taking the night bus from Saigon to Dalat, other than to people I dislike intensely.

At 5am while it was still dark, they dumped us in the middle of Dalat where everything was of course still closed. We could see one building with lights on, which turned out to be a hotel, so the moto drivers hanging around outside (do those guys ever sleep?!) went to wake up the sleepy owner, who without saying a word showed us into a lovely room and left us alone to crawl into what felt like the most warm, comfortable bed I have ever slept in.

We slept for a few hours and then, feeling better, headed into town. It didn't take long to find an Easy Rider, an infamous group of friendly informal tour guides with vintage motorbikes based in Dalat. We hopped onto the back of a couple of amazingly cool-looking bikes and soon we were out of town and in the mountains. We went to see a waterfall which was nice but a bit too over-developed, as well as seeing a coffee plantation, a very tastefully-done 'historical village' and a couple of nice temples. At one point our guides dropped us off at the start of a forest path so that we could walk on our own through the forest for a while, before they picked us up again at the other end of the trail. The scenery at that point could have been straight out of Canada; Vietnam never ceases to amaze me with the diversity of its beauty. Of our two drivers, 'Buddha', spoke more English so acted as our tour guide for the day. It was great fun, and if I come back here on a higher budget one day I'll definitely take one of their long-haul motorbike trips through Vietnam.

Dalat is pretty cold compared to anywhere I've been recently, so we spend the evening drinking hot chocolate and then went for a massage before bed, at what seemed like a really nice spa underneath a fancy hotel, where we could also use a sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. The massage was lovely but afterwards the girl, who I'm fairly sure was a prostitute, argued with me for a while because she said that the 20% tip I had given her was 'mean' and that I should give her the full price of the massage as a tip. She got quite aggressive about it when we were alone, but was immediately polite again once there were other people in the room. It made me wish I hadn't given her a tip in the first place! It would have been easy to feel intimidated by her anger and give her the money, but I am sure she has made a lot of money in this way, so the old genetic stubbornness kicked in and she didn't get another dong out of me. Vietnamese prostitutes don't scare me!
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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Gabriela and I arrived in Saigon (AKA Ho Chi Minh City) in the late afternoon, and after dinner went for a quick email check only to discover that our friend Jason was also in Saigon. We met up for a 'quiet drink' which turned into several more less quiet drinks, some surprisingly tasty flaming rainbow shots, and then we decided to finish the night with some dancing. We found a club which was quite good fun despite the fact that the music was horrendous and the only Vietnamese people there were prostitutes. I really do want to go clubbing without the tourist masses in this country at some point - maybe we'll try again in Hanoi!

The next morning we went to Cu Chi, where there is a network of tunnels used by the Vietnamese military during the war. I didn't feel it was a particularly educational or interesting experience as the focus of our tour seemed mainly to be gruesome traps, big guns, and pride over how many Americans they managed to kill.

Next we went to the War Remnants Museum, which was a much more worthwhile experience. The photography exhibition was just mindblowing, and I felt I learned a lot about the politics surrounding that pointless war, and how it affected ordinary Vietnamese people and is still affecting them today. The pictures drawn by local children were particularly heart-wrenching, particularly those still affected by Agent Orange. I really want to learn more about this subject so I bought a copy (when I say copy I mean, literally, every page is a photocopy...) of a book about Kim Phuc, the girl in 'that' famous napalm photograph.

I really like Saigon - I had been warned that there is a lot of crime here, particularly bag-snatching, but I really liked the atmosphere of the city and felt safe here. I would have liked to spend more time here but there are so many more things we both want to see in our limited time in Vietnam that we felt it was best to move on, so we had a nice dinner and then took the night bus up to Dalat.
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