Vietnam: Hoi An

From Hanoi we took a sleeper bus to Hoi An using Camel Travel. I only mention the name of the bus company so that everyone reading this will never use it because it was terrible. The sleeper bunks they had on the bus were designed for Vietnamese (little people) and were about 8 inches too short for any westerner. Also, the guardrail to prevent you from rolling out of your bunk during the bumpy ride was non-existent. The pillow was a stained pillow case with about a dozen feathers in it. We tried to sleep as the bus driver swerved all over the road, honked his horn non-stop and smoked cigarettes. Next thing we know, we are being told to get off the bus because we need to transfer to a new bus...only the new bus is around 2km away (but accordingly to all the locals, it was only a 5-10min walk). After hopping a cab over there, we were dumbfounded to learn that our bus actually arrived 2 hours late so we missed our connecting bus. We had to kill 5 hours in Hue Vietnam before the next bus would depart. We finally made it to Ha Noi, albeit 8 hours later than expected, and promptly went to the clothing shops to get fitted for suits. Morgan's friend Will Akridge had a shop he recommended to us to buy all our custom made clothing. I purchased a black Tuxedo, a dark pin striped suit, a gray suit, a white linen suit, 5 button down shirts and a pair of custom made tux shoes for a total of $425. Morgan and I grabbed a few meals on the street for anywhere between $0.25-$0.60 a meal. We spent so much time at the clothing shop that we made good friends with the girls working there. Our last night in Hoi An we took the girls out for a drink where we learned that one of them makes $5 a day and the other makes $10 a day working 12 hour days, 29 days a month. This low salary works out well for them though because rent is only around $20 per month, and food is around $1.50 per day. One of the girls we met named Viet said she saved money for 6 years to buy her motorbike. After spending 2 nights in Hoi An, we caught a flight to Ho Chi Minh city where we will spend a few days before flying to Nha Trang (beach city) for Will Akridge's birthday.

During our first meal in Ho Chi Minh today, Morgan and I met a nice old guy from North Carolina. He said that he was 68 years and had just retired from UPS. Randomly we asked him if he had heard of Akers Motor Lines, his answer "I worked for Akers Motor lines for 9 years, best job I ever had". Small world...

Vietnam: Hanoi and Halong Bay

Morgan and I caught a quick flight over to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, from Siem Reap to explore for a few days. We booked a hotel online for $12 per night and I guess you get what you pay for which in this case was a shower duct taped together, bugs and a nice smell of mildew. Morgan's friend from EHS, Will Akridge, lives in Hanoi and we met up with him our first 2 nights. He introduced us to the $0.25 draft beers on the side of the road which was brewed fresh everyday. Our next day we did a walking tour of the city of which there are almost no sidewalks. The sidewalk is covered up by parked motorbikes which forces you to walk in the road and dodge the oncoming motor bikes and cars, not very safe at all. Fresh pineapple on the street costs around $0.50-1.00. After walking the city, we decided to book the Halong bay tour for the following day. Knowing that all prices are negotiable, we walked to several travel agents and gave them the "we just aren't sure, this price seems expensive". After 3 travel agents, we found one who lowered his price by 15% so we signed up for the deluxe 2 days one night on a junk boat in Halong Bay ($59 per person). We spent one more night in the town with Morgan's friend and this time we saw quite an interesting fight. There was a scuffle at the street restaurant we were at and we watched one man chase another swinging two machetes at him. After hearing people's screams around the corner and only the man with machetes run away, we did what anyone would do, we put down our drinks and got the hell out of there. The next morning we caught a bus to Halong bay to board our boat. Halong bay is the area with almost 2000 islands sticking straight out of the water with 50-100 meter cliffs. We were able to explore a huge cave and do some kayaking in between the islands as part of our tour. Also, you sleep on one of the old fashioned junk boats at night which was actually quite nice since we had a really powerful AC unit. There were people who lived on house boats who would paddle up to your boat and try to sell you pringles, soft drinks and other food/drink. There were also tons of people selling pearls (or fake pearls). The price...only $20 for a pair of pearl earrings (gotta be fake). Today we took the bus back to Hanoi where we will spend another night before leaving to go to either Hoi An or Phuket.

Cambodia: Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat

After spending 3 nights in Vietnam, we booked a bus ticket to Phnom Pehn, the capital of Cambodia. The 6 hour air-conditioned bus ride cost us $10 each. As in Vietnam, US Dollars are accepted everywhere in Cambodia and are actually the preferred currency. When we arrived a group of tuk tuk drivers (motorbikes pulling a small carriage on the back) immediately started harassing us to buy a ride to our hotel from them. We decided to go with the driver who spoke the best English which ended up costing a lot more in the end. He took us to his friends hotel where I'm sure they over charged us by $5 (which is a weeks wage in this country for some people). He convinced us to go ahead and book our bus out of the city at the hotel which was $3 more expensive than booking through one of the many travel agents. We learned our lesson and won't be too friendly with any of the "helpful" tuk tuk drivers in our next city. We found that in the end, they are just trying to scam you (albeit only for 2-4$ each time). We visited the Killing fields which is where tens of thousands of Cambodian's who where resisting or thought to be resisting the Pol Pot regime where brutally murdered and buried. It was a very sobering experience and afterwards we decided not to visit the other tourist attraction in town, the torture prison. Our hotel was right next to the kings palace which was an interesting place. I took several good pictures there which I will upload later. The city tourist area had been very westernised. Many bars and restaurants are serving american and european dishes. Food was much more expensive in Cambodia (around $5 for a meal) than in Vietnam (around $2 per meal). Our last after noon in Phnom Penh we spent with a travel agent as we planned out some of the next stages of our trip. She was very friendly and we ended up staying and talking with her for a while after booking our flight out of Cambodia. She gave us great tips on how much things should cost and what things to avoid. We also learned that she earns around $500 a month and that she works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. After spending one day in Phnom Penh, we boarded the bus to head toward Siem Riep which is home to the Angkor Wat temples.

Angkor Wat (Siem Reap)
We met a nice guy from the UK who told us we could probably see all the temples in the Angkor wat area in around 4 hours. People normally spend around 3-4 days walking the temples, we were going to spend 1. It took us around 6 hours to get through all the temples in the 100+ degree heat (with no sunscreen). The last temple is the most popular since it was in the movie Tomb Raider and it has a tree growing on top of the temple. Most of the temples are around 1000 years old and there are almost no rules when touring them. There are very few "Do not enter" signs and for most of the temples, you can literally climb where ever you want. We took lots of good photos which I will upload once I get to a better computer. After cooling off in the pool ($25 for a hotel with a pool, satellite TV and air-conditioning), we walked down to the aptly named "Pub Street" for a few $0.50 local Angkor beers. There were quite a few old western men walking around the city (super creepy) which we immediately assume were in search of a local woman or a small child. Cambodia is known to be one of the favorite spots to visit for western Pedophiles. Our waitress at the restaurant was very funny and friendly and she wrote down several English to Cambodian word translations so we could learn some Cambodian. Morgan and I decided to take a break from drinking and get a $6 1 hour massage, terrible decision. This was the most painful massage I have ever received and my masseuse did not speak very good English so it was difficult to tell her when she was hurting me other than screaming. Today we fly to Hanoi where it will hopefully be a few degrees cooler.

Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City

After a 9 hour flight from Sydney, I arrived to Ho Chi Minh city. The customs people barely looked at my passport before stamping it and leading me to the cab area. Everything in Vietnam is negotiable and costs around 10% of prices in the USA. After 15 minutes of haggling a cab driver, I finally talked him down from 450,000 VN dong to 150,000 dong(roughly 7$ USD). Our hotel here called the Mai Vi in Pham Ngu Lau is $20 a night. We have free internet, a TV with several movie channels in English and a decent bathroom, not a hole in the ground as I was expecting. A family runs the hotel, there are 3 daughters, one son, mom/dad and grandmother who all live here and trade off shifts in the lobby. The bars here never close, in fact, they didn't even know what "close" meant when I asked the bar owner "what time does the bar close" but she understood everything else I was saying. Beers are about 1USD, shots are 1USD, Vietnamese food for lunch is about 2USD. Everything is so cheap. We just bought our bus tickets from HCMC to Phenom Phen Cambodia which is a 7hr bus ride for $10 USD. The streets are overrun by motorbikes with very few stop lights. Its not uncommon to see people standing in the middle of a 10 lane road just hanging out as motorbikes swerve around them. The rule of thumb when crossing the street is to just start walking and let the motorbikes swerve around you. There are no walk signs, no large gaps in traffic, no feeling of safety. Most of the cabs don't have seatbelts from what I've noticed. All the local people haggle you non stop to buy things like cigarettes, gum, dvds or local food. During the day it is around 90 degrees, at night it gets down to 80. Taking a cold shower does little to cool you off from the hot hot weather.

Today Morgan and I toured the Cu Chi tunnels. These are underground tunnels where the Viet Cong hid during the war. At the end our of tour, they let us walk through the tunnel which is designed for a 4.5 feet tall Viet Cong person. The tunnel is 6 meters underground and when walking through with 10 people behind you and 10 in front of you, it definitely makes you panic. The first exit for the tunnel was after crawling for 50 meters, Morgan and I both took the first exit as fast as possible. I forgot to take my camera so no pictures unfortunately. We took a boat to get to the tunnels which allowed us to see what the rivers look like (floating vegetation everywhere, shacks on the waterbank hand made from various garbage.

People here are full of smiles, very friendly. Almost all the young people speak some english and nearly everyone wants to learn English. McDonalds has not made it to Vietnam yet but there is KFC, Pizza hut and Hard Rock Cafe. These are the only American chain places I've seen which is interesting. Tomorrow we leave for Phenom Phen Cambodia, should be interesting..

Australia: Sydney

George and I spent 2 days in Sydney before my flight to Vietnam and his flight home. We decided to stay in a mixed 8 bed dorm room at a hostel and had a blast. Our roommates were very friendly and welcoming. We had a mix of people from the USA, Canada, Netherlands and the UK. With only one full day in the city, we rode the ferry across the bay and went to the Taranga zoo for most of the day. I had hoped to see a salt water crocodile but did not. Our roommates turned us on to some box wine which we drank both nights since it was by far the cheapest form of alcohol in Sydney. I was amazed at how expensive things were in Sydney, probably close to on par with some areas of New York. I will have to upload photos later on since the computers in Vietnam don't have as many features as the one's in Australia and NZ.

New Zealand: Rotorua

George and I spent 2 days in Rotorua which is the city on the north island most known for its volcanic activity. During the two days we saw 3 different areas with boiling lakes, geysers, bubbling mud pools and hot springs. We also visited a redwood forest in the area which was planted one hundred years ago to mirror the forests of California.

New Zealand: Wellington and Taupo

After spending 12 days on the south island of NZ, we caught a flight from Christchurch to Wellington and started exploring the north island. Wellington is the capital of NZ located on the southern most point of the north island and has a population around 250K. George and I spent the day at the local museum which had an impressive display especially considering it was free admission. The museum included a history of the culture of the indigenous people of NZ, volcano's, earthquakes and animals. After the museum we met up with Aidan, a friend of Matt Wren's who's from and lives in Wellington NZ. Aidan advised us to check out the Hurricanes vs. Reds Rugby game that night so we bought tickets and went to our first ever live Rugby game. Since we didn't know the rules and the weather was chilly, we left around half time to walk back to our hostel and call it a night.

The next day we drove to Taupo which is about 4 hours north of Wellington. The scenery is much more flat on the north island with many more bulls and cows than we saw in the south. The clouds hid most of our view of the volcanoes as we drove by but we got a few pictures. We went jet boating the following day in Taupo. Jet boating is which is where you ride 50mph on a river and do numerous 360 degree spins from time to time. Somewhere in between the spins the drive will tell you a little about the area you are cruising around. After getting soaking wet on the jet boating tour, we hopped back in the car and drove to Rotorua where the majority of volcanic activity (hot springs, steaming lakes) can be seen.

New Zealand: Franz Josep

Yesterday, May 4th, George and I signed up for a half day hike of the Franz Josep Glacier. This is the 2nd largest glacier in New Zealand and is over 10km long. Walking along the glacier was the highlight of my trip so far. Lucky for us, it rained for several days before we arrived so the glacier was very clean and blue. We had a group of 26 people on our tour and our guide was a fan of the Atlanta Hawks. George and I got some great pictures of the area which I will attach.

New Zealand: Abel Tasman and Pancake rocks

This past Sunday (May 2nd), we decided to hike Abel Tasman national park. This park is located on the northern tip of the south island of NZ. After buying our water taxi tickets we boarded a boat on a trailer hooked up to a tractor. It wasn't high tide yet so a tractor had to take us through the shallow water into the ocean to start up the boat. They dropped us off on the beach and we had a 6 hour (20k) hike back. I thought that if we went at a fast pace, we could surely make the hike in around 4 hours, boy was I wrong. After 5.5 hours of walking fast, we finally got to the end of our trek. There were almost no bugs on the hike which was very unusual. The only wildlife we saw was a few birds. There are no squirrels, no spiders, no ants, no mosquitoes, none of the things which I am accustomed to seeing in the outdoors.

After spending the night in Westport, (cheapest, best meal we ate all trip, only $9.50 NZD for a pork roast with potatoes, apple sauce, carrots, peas, all smothered in gravy), we drove to Franz Josep, a glacier town along the western coast of the south island. On the drive we stopped to view the pancake rocks. these are rocks which formed in layers which scientists cannot explain.

New Zealand: Christchurch and Kaikoura

Christchurch is a really nice, quiet city with several parks and gardens around town. George and I went for a jog through the botanical gardens which was really refreshing since we hadn't been outdoors in good weather for several days. Back at the hostel we made some Brazilian friends who were anxious to practice their english. Christchurch had a large selection of bars right next to our hostel so we bounced around to a few, had some pints and went to bed. The next morning we left for Kaikoura which is a coastal town with great marine life. We had 80 degree weather when we arrived, and a perfectly clear day. After renting some bikes, we visited the seal colony to see a seal hobbling around the parking lot. The town was quite small, only around 10 restaurants. We found a pub called the Whaler with a Friday night porterhouse steak special and grabbed some dinner. The following morning we signed up for a swim with the dolphins tour. George wanted to do the swim, I just wanted to watch due to the cold water. We saw several hundred dolphins swimming around our boat and George spent around 25 minutes swimming right next to them. Next we made our way back to shore, grabbed some lunch and hit the road for Abel Tasman park. Since we had a late start, we didn't get to the park until nightfall so we will have to start our exploring tomorrow.