TravelStream™ news feed for member sara_minx on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/sara_minx en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:43:16 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1236103440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1236103440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1236103440/tpod.html Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:43:16 -0400 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Nha Trang, Vietnam

Leaving the Highlands, the bus slowly drove through the misty Ngoan Muc Pass with breathtaking views of the adjacent cloud forest, sometimes with the clouds below us. Then we joined the coast road heading north, having stops at simple road-side restaurants right on the beach.

Nha Trang is a popular beach resort with a large port. The hotel was just a block in from the beach with an Olympic sized outdoor pool. We visited the Poklon Garai Cham Towers, built between the 7th & 12th centuries by the Cham civilisation which spread over what later became central Vietnam. They had little land & were often pirates attacking passing trade ships. They often built brick towers (sanctuaries) & many became influenced by India, adopting muslim or hindu faiths. The inside of the towers is still sacred & blackened from years of burning incense.

On the outskirts of Nha Trang are the hot mud baths of Thap Ba Hot Springs Centre. Locals & tourists spend hours wallowing in mini pools of naturally heated watery mud & larger swimming pools, with official photographers offering their services to each muddied group.Bizarre but fun!

That night we ate at a DIY BBQ restaurant in the town. Each group of diners was supplied with a little hot coal burner & plates of marinated meat & seafood to cook themselves. Fab fun, if rather hot & smokey. The San Miguel girls kept the beer flowing, until we joined the party with richer locals,expats & tourists at the pretty cool beachside Sailing Club.

One day we had a boat tour, with a stop at the Aquarium & its poor fish in tiny tanks indoors & slightly luckier turtles/big fish in larger open air pools. We walked through the nearby village of Mon Mieu which turned out to be a photograher's paradise with friendly locals & cute kids going about normal life in the fishing village. After a snorkle which turned up a few fish, sea cucumbers & some coral, & a fab lunch buffet on the boat, there was time for relaxing on the stony beach (mmm, a bit too like back home in Brighton for my liking!) before returning to the mainland for more fabulous fish for dinner!

Qui Nhon is home to the Nguyen Nga centre where disabled young people are taught skills including handicarfts & computer skills, & given the chance to have a quality of life that would otherwise be impossible in a country which offers them very little support. Visitors are extremely welcome, entertained with music, taken around the workshops & can buy their crafts.
In the afternoon, all the locals seem to head to the beach, as they did in Nha Trang, & I joined a group playing beach volleyball. Other options around were football, tai chi, power walking & badminton, the Vietnamese seem to be a very active bunch! That night I watched the world go by from my street-side cafe with some street food (mini kebabs) & the best cappucino I had found since Saigon :) Not being a tourist town, I provided some entertainment myself, with lots of enquiries about my country, marital status, holiday etc!!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235675400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235675400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235675400/tpod.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:08:25 -0400 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Dalat, Vietnam

After a final night in Saigon, we headed north out of the city, crossing rivers with floating houses & fish farms. After a while the road started to climb and wind as the Central Highlands healded some cooler air & lush mountain vegetation.

A stop on the way was at the "Chicken village" the unofficial name of Lang Dinh An, where people from some of Vietnam's minority people live. Its claim to fame is, rather obviously, a chicken. Not just any old chicken, but a giant concrete one into whose bottom small children can climb (yes, I saw it happen!). Not sure why it was built, there are several dodgy theories, but it provided some good photo op's. We also saw the local weaving & silk products. Elsewhere we stopped at a tea & coffee shop, both of those being produced locally. The coffee can be hot or iced, black or with milk which is nearly always condensed milk, so not having sugar is not an option! They use proper coffee granules filtered through an individual container on top of a glass partly filled with the milk or ice.

Arriving in Dalat is a little surreal, with alpine style chalets, a mini Eiffel tower/post office & peddaloes shaped like swans on the large central Xuan Huong lake. The french former colonists discovered its cool climate in 1897 & many built chateau-style villas for escaping Saigon's heat & mayhem. Some are in total disrepair, others have been restored to their former elegance. Dalat is known as "the City of Eternal Spring" and also "the honeymoon capital of Vietnam" with as many local tourists as us overseas ones!

There is a wide variety of things to do or see in Dalat, plenty for a couple of days' stay :
For me the highlight is the Da Lat Market, with a huge hall stuffed with stalls selling fruit,veg,noodles,rice & an upstairs terrace with food stalls providing fab overviews. Next door is open air but covered market selling meat, fish, flowers, sweets,dried fruit & every/any-thing else! The whole thing is a busy, colourful spectacle spilling out onto the surrounding streets.

The hotel Sofitel Dalat Palace is nearly 100 years old & has been renovated beautifully to maintain the splender of the French-colonial life.They happily let scruffy Riff-Raff like us in to have a look & maybe partake of a cup of a tea!! Worth a visit to see the decadent luxury of then & now.

The Hang Nga Crazy House (official name!) is a bizarre building that has taken 15 years to build & is still incomplete. The designer, Mrs Hang Nha, is a Russian trained Vietnamese architect & the building is open to visitors as well as being a hotel with each unique room having a theme, maybe a large fake bear or eagle, an asymetric bed & gaudy soft furnishings. Very Gaudi-esque staircases, tyrrets & walkways link everything. V odd!

Emperor Bao Dai's Summer Palace was completed in 1938 & remains almost untouched since his abdication in 1945 following the uprising under Ho Chi Minh. He was the lst Emperor, strating his reign aged only 12, of the French government's chosing. The Art Deco style building includes various strange (& in places tacky) artefacts & photos of the Emperor & his family.

We took a cable car across the Valley of Love, looking over the intensive market gardening of flowers & fruits, & forests of pine trees. Nearby there is a kind of toboggan run down to the base of some pretty waterfalls, bizarre but fun! In the grounds of the Truc lam Pagoda are more lovely views over the valley & the dam below.

One night I decided to try some of the street food, chose my mini kebabs (of unknown origen!) to be heated up over the coals when all hell broke loose - my young seller shouted the police were coming as she pushed the mobile stall away at high speed, along with every other vendor around. A police car pulled up & 4 miserable looking men hassled anyone not quick enough to get away. I hung around feeling hungry, watching the reaction to the police. As they moved on, my girl reappeared with my food, which was tasty! I also sampled a kebab of offal (I think) & tried the dried cuttlefish, heated for seconds over coals then served in newspaper, chewy but tasty. Another night we sampled the locally made mulberry wine which tasted more like port than wine, 2 glasses was enough!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235239260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235239260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235239260/tpod.html Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:05:32 -0500 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Vietnam is a country on the move, having left behind hundreds of years of wars, invasions & occupations by the Chinese, French, Japanese & Americans. Reunification under the Communist party was in 1975, with economic reforms in 1986 allowing the country to start to expand. There is now a paradox of a communist government with a capitalist economy, and growth is everywhere from the building of new roads and skyscrapers to the bustle of every street, market and cafe.

Saigon is officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, after the 1st president of the united Vietnam & is home to over 6 million people (probably near 8m if you include the many illegal residents who don't have permits) crammed into a swelteringly hot & sticky city of 21 districts. The taxi ride from the airport was not for the faint-hearted, my driver was totally crazy & seemed to be suicidal, I let out several gasps as the near-misses were by inches...but I later realised he was just a normal Vietnamese driver!! I was duly delivered near my hotel, as the night market was in full flow on the actual street. The hotel was on the edge of the famous daytime Ben Tranh indoor market, selling everything you could think of, with the surrounding streets chocablock with yet more vendors until at least midnight. In the food stall area, I chose the busiest one, crammed full of locals sitting on small chairs eating seafood that had been alive only moments earlier & cooked on a grill or coals at the back. I was squeezed onto a table already occupied by 3 locals, checked out the pictures in the menu, pointed to 3 of them...& had an amazingly tasty meal of grilled seafood ( clams?), a stirfry & grilled freshwater snails, all for under 4 pounds :)

It is estimated that there are over 4 million motorbikes/scooters in HCMC, and at times it seems like there might be more!! There are no road rules, it is quite acceptable to overtake on any side, go through red lights, go the wrong way up one-way streets, ride on the pavement if the traffic is too slow for you, fit 3,4 or even 5 people on each bike...and everything can be carried, from live chickens to gas cylinders to building materials. Everyone from babies upwards travel on 2 wheels, children are generally alternated with adult, occasionally with a high chair strapped onto the bike. There is a recent law requiring helmets to be worn, but again this is effectively optional, bribes being paid to the traffic cops if they choose to stop you out of the thousands of cyclists buzzing around like manical ants. There is a never-ending supply of material for us tourists trying to get THAT shot of bikes with impossibly big loads/animals etc, I've included a selection here!

Vietnam is a very young country, with so many of the older generation having been killed in the American war, over 10% of the population was either injured or killed. Nowadays 65% are under 30, & there is a 2 child policy in urban areas. The main religion (70%) is Buddism of which there are 2 types, with ancestor worship overlaying all the religions.


The Cu Chi Tunnels were an elaborate system of tunnels built only 30km from Saigon, allowing the Viet Cong to live underground, hiding from the US & to launch surprise attacks.There were more than 250km of tunnels, they were started during the war against the French & then used again from 1960. There were even tunnels underneath a large US base. Eventually the US realised they existed & sent men down to fight in them, but suffered appalling casualties.The VC spent weeks/months underground at a time & around 10,000 VC died too. They can be visited on a day trip from Saigon & at Ben Dinh they have been enlarged to 1.2m to allow visitors to enter more comfortably. In reality, people crawled on their elbows. It is unimaginable that they lived under there for weeks or months at a time, with areas for cooking & letting the smoke out discreetly, the 10mins I spent underground was enough for me.





]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235498700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235498700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235498700/tpod.html Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:46:12 -0500 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Escaping the Saigon rush hour intact is quite a feat in itself, you just have to trust your driver & shut your eyes/mouth at every near miss! We headed south crossing the Saigon river & eventually started to see trees & open spaces. The roads became narrower with almost the same concentration of 2 wheeled transport, but gradually more peddle-power than petrol. Concrete was replaced by fruit trees, paddy fields & rivers.

The Mekong river is the World's 12th longest river, and critically important to the 6 countries that it passes through from its source in the Tibeten Plateau through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia & Vietnam. The Mekong Delta covers 15,000 sq miles in southern Vietnam, & the Mekong or " Nine Dragon River" is tidal with 2 tides a day up as far as the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, delivering fresh seawater & at times flooding the land which is as a result incredibly fertile.The land is separated into islands linked by channels, with transport via the water, only little rowing boats called sampans negotiating the narrowest canals, & bicycles on the land. The region has 3 rice crops a year compared with 2 elsewhere, resulting in Vietnam in now being the world's 2nd greatest rice exporter.

At the riverside town of Cai Be we met up with our beautiful guide Miss Tuyen who took us straight onto a motorised longboat & out onto the wide waterways of the delta. Within minutes, we were sailing through the floating market where boats sell their produce like pineapples, squash & rice, most boats having one example stuck on a pole at the front so floating shoppers can easily see what's what! Inbetween were houseboats with the washing hanging on lines & dogs lying in the sun.The banks of the river were lined with simple wooden houses on stilts, a petrol station for the boats & ferry jetties.More solid houses were further up the bank. Back to the larger river, we passed fish farms & fishermen.


We visited some of the cottage industries - rice paper, coconut candies,soy sauce, bamboo roofing, salt -travelling by our motorised boat, paddle-powered canoes & bicycle. Everwhere we sampled jasmine tea, sweet coffee, tropical fruits & sticky-rice sweets. At the homestay, we had a lesson in making spring rolls, ate a traditional buffet with fish & prawns & visited the tiny market in the morning. The trip was all extremely photogenic and relaxing, with welcoming locals & delicious food, & I would highly recommend it!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170621720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170621720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170621720/tpod.html Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:31:55 -0500 Quito to Cuba in six weeks, with a return trip to the amazing Colombia, & something new & totally unique - Cuba!

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Isla Las Cañas, Panama

After various buses heading south, a hitch hike or 2, and a couple of nights in tiny towns with tiny hotel rooms, I was escorted through 6 inch mud by 2 young girls to the sea's edge. There I catch the little boat across the inlet to Isla Las Canas which I had read had a turtle project & did homestays. The project organiser was sent for & after a while he appeared, welcomed me & allocated me to a family. My room was v basic, with numerous beds crammed in, all with rather dodgy looking matresses.Geckos & spiders watched over me, but hey, I love all that!

I spent 3 nights there,filling my days with walking along the never-ending deserted beach or over the land where the ripe watermelons were being harvested. I took photos of the wildlife, swam, snoozed in hammocks & ate at the one restaurant, simple but tasty meals of various fish, rice & beans, and overdosed on watermelon!

There was a project to encourage ecotourism & the idea that live turtles would generate more income long term than from eating the eggs as was the tradition. Each night I walked the beach with a guide, hoping to find a nesting turtle but as it wasn't really the season so had no luck. One child did though, I met him with his bag full of ping-pong size eggs...more work to do there then!

From there I hitched back to civilisation then took a couple of local buses with their salsa on full blast as normal back to Panama City for my last night on mainland America.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235238180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235238180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235238180/tpod.html Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:11:53 -0500 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Hong Kong, China

As I only had 2 part days in HK, I was up early & caught a 745 ferry to one of the outer islands, Cheung Chau. A total antidote to frenetic HK island, CC has no cars, only bicycles & scooters pottering through its narrow streets. Very relaxed & friendly, I spent an hour exploring over to the far side before dashing back to get the return ferry.




On a tight time schedule, I got straight from the ferry onto the bus up to Victoria Peak, the forest-covered centre of HK island & did the hour long walk around it to take in the 360 degree views of the island, including the fabulous contrast of the trees above the concrete jungle below. Then I took the traditional tram down the step slopes back to the Smoke, grabbed my bags & headed off to the airport & a 2 hour rest on the flight south to Vietnam...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235131560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235131560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235131560/tpod.html Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:59:45 -0500 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Hong Kong, China

The Cathy Pacific flight was pretty good as far as 12hour flights go, the selection of over 100 films was quite distracting so I didn't sleep much :) An hour after arriving, the airport bus delivered me into the cacophony of taxis, buses, cars & trams which is Hong Kong in the morning rush hour (well any hour,actually!)

After an free upgrade to a rather posh suite & a catnap that became a few hours, I wandered towards Central, finding that my street was also officially known as "Dried Seafood Street" - shop upon shop of dried shrimp, shark cartiledge, dried & live sea cucumbers, all in baskets on the pavement & in the open air shops! I had no idea what many of the piles of dried goodies were, vegetable or animal, I couldn't tell & no one spoke English!

Later I took the famous Star ferry across to Kowloon in the nearby New Territories island, just in time for sunset over the impressive skyline of HK island.
Hong Kong is actually a collection of over 20 islands, many of which are uninhabited. Kowloon certainly IS inhabited, & has the backpacker area & a frenetic shopping area, with the deluxe designer shops rubbing shoulders with more affordable & interesting local ones. I decided to grab some street food at a stall which had locals queuing up (always a good sign) & after some pointing I ended up with a selection of 3 tasty morsels in paper bags, no idea what 2 of them were, one was fried octopus I think!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235562000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235562000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/3/1235562000/tpod.html Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:52:24 -0500 Exploring Vietnam - so many motorbikes, smiles & noodles!

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Brighton, England, United Kingdom

Happy to be leaving British winter!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170362400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170362400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170362400/tpod.html Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:38:53 -0400 Quito to Cuba in six weeks, with a return trip to the amazing Colombia, & something new & totally unique - Cuba!

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Isla Grande, Panama

The pot-holed road from Portobelo ended in Guarira, where I took a water taxi 2 mins across the sea to Isla Grande (NOT its namesake in Brazil where I spent a wonderful NY's Eve in 2004 into 2005!). I found a reasonably priced room right on the beach & explored the single street of little hotels, open-air bars & restaurants serving fish & the island's specialty of delicious octopus in coconut milk (yum !). A path crossed through tropical forest to the other side where there were luxury cabins in a resort.
Coral reef ringed the white sandy beaches except for the surfers' beach. I snorkeled that afternoon & met a restaurant owner who offered to take me out on a kayak the next morning. We paddled out to an island up for sale for $10 million (!!) & then through the mangroves, jumping off the side to snorkel by some huge coral. In the afternoon, I hiked over the island, taking photos of the many lizards, butterflies & tropical plants.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170016620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170016620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/sara_minx/colombia-cuba/1170016620/tpod.html Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:36:38 -0400 Quito to Cuba in six weeks, with a return trip to the amazing Colombia, & something new & totally unique - Cuba!

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El Porvenir, Panama

We woke upon the 2nd morning to Panama's photogenic San Blas Islands which are dotted over the azure Caribbean Sea. There are 365 islands in the archipelago, some of which are little more than a bump of sand barely rising out of the sea, covered with coconut palms. I had stayed in an island in 2004, sleeping in a hammock, & that island remains one of the highlights of my trip. This time, clouds spoiled the potentially perfect photos, but it was still a fabulous place. We put down anchor close to one island that afternoon, then Andres ferried us & food over in his little dinghy. We snorkeled around the tiny paradise, which had some nice coral reef, spotting a huge tail poking out from under the coral - it wasn't a shark, just a bloody big fish!(probably a dogfish)

That night, we cooked kebabs on the bonfire & sat under the stars drinking rums & coke. Later on, everyone else chose to return to the boat to sleep, but I decided to take the option of sleeping on the island, as this would be my last chance to sleep on my own desert island for a while!! I just had a couple of sea gulls for company, my thin silk sleeping sheet/bag, a full moon & a million stars ! I found a spot NOT under the palm trees with their dangerous load of coconuts ready to knock me out, & bedded down on the sand, using my rucksack for a pillow, as the leaves rustled in the breeze & the waves gently lapped a few feet away. I had a surprisingly comfortably night's sleep, having to be WOKEN UP by Andres the next morning at 9a.m!

Our boat Bothros got stuck on a sand bank as we tried to leave, but dinghies from several other sailboats came to our rescue & towed us off it! We then sailed on to the island of El Porvenir (where I had flown into San Blas in 2004) where we officially entered Panama with the immigration office. After some yummy fish for dinner, we sailed through the night to the historic town of Portobelo on the mainland north coast. I had been there before too, & had heard about a beautiful island an hour away down a dodgy road. I said farewell to my fellow sailors & headed off on a chicken bus, rather happy to be back to being independent again after 4 days of confinement on the boat!
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