Vietnam - same same, but different.

And there we are - a few hours later and we already arrived in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. The border crossing was less painful but you feel a little bit unease when somebody takes away your passport and you cannot see neither your passport nor the person you gave it to. But all worked out and we arrived in Vietnam!

The first night we stayed in Saigon in a nice hotel and the city vibe is great. It is well developed and seems very different to Pnomh Penh. We we only have limited time we decided to take a motorbike (which means we have a driver and the two of us are on the same motorbike, which makes 3 people and one helmet - everything here is about Heath & Safety!). Our driver aka Speedy Gonzales took us round the city and we have seen all we wanted: The Notre Dame, a few monuments, the markets, the seafront, the Palace and the War Museum. We had a really good time and it was funny looking at the three of us: All hand in hand with our driver, crossing the street! We felt like little children trying to learn how to survive in a big city like this without being under the wheel. Unfortunately our very nice driver proved to be a bit of a criminal as we charged us twice the price as agreed. Lesson 1: Even if they say "yes" they don `t understand a thing. So even if you think you made it clear, don`t bother, pay what they ask you to.

After our short stay we headed straight to Nha Trang, although we did not plan to. But the bus to Hoi An stops here and after 10 hours in a sleeper bus (which means a bed rather than a seat!) we decided to stay overnight there. Good decision as it proved to be one of the best beaches we have ever seen and we really want to come back one day!
The next day we headed straight to Hoi An, a long journey on another sleeper bus. Which means, uncomfortable and smelly, but hey! That `s what it`s all about (is it??) Hoi An is a great old and historical city and the buildings are a mix of Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese style. We felt like in an old movie and yes, sometimes we were in the centre of attraction and people took pictures with us/of us. Not sure if they really thought we are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes but we kind of enjoyed those seconds of stardom.

Next stop was Hue, only 4 hours away and one of our favourite places in Vietnam. Hue was the previous capital during the Nguyen dynasty and it was really impressive to stroll around the old city walls and imagining how it was a few hundred years ago. Other than that there is not too much to do in Hue, but this historical site is a must-see on any Vietnam itinary.

After these two amazing historical cities we headed to Hanoi, the capital!
Hanoi is a nice city with a little lake, a nice old town but honestly, the people are really trying their BEST to get to your money. One day we walked along the streets of Hanoi and a market woman put her pineapple carrier on Rafs shoulders. He tried to say "no, I am okay, no thanks, no, no noooooooo" but it was too late: He already took over her job and with her hat on his head, he could really be a Vietnamese market boy selling pineapples. Of course this was not a nice gesture of her and once we took the picture we had to buy the slightly overpriced pineapples. Oh well.
Anyway, after a few organisational things such as getting the japanese railpass (where we walked for 3 hours to get it!!) and sorting out Halong Bay we left for our trip to Halong Bay the next day. It all seemed wonderful: 2 days, 1 night -everything organised, food included etc. Good times! Well, the reality was, of course, a bit different. Once we arrived in Halong City we waited for over one hour until we could go on one of the boats. We realised, that they did not split the 3 groups (one day, 2 days, 3 days) so we were all in one boat, literally. We also realised that our guide sucks. Not only he admitted that he is "not really intelligent" and his name is "from his Grandfather who wanted him to be intelligent (quote by himself!)" but he did not get the simplest things right. After we boarded, we needed to disembark after 30 mintes, as there were problems with the boat. Of course, the people who booked only a one day tour were slightly pissed off, as they were supposed to see the beauty of Halong Bays island, and not just the pier. Anyway, after we boarded the second boat, we had lunch (3 hours too late, but hey!) and - in the end, the people who were expecting a 4 hours full day tour, were asked to leave the boat. People started to get really angry, shouting at the guide and wanting their money back -a perfect start!

After 4pm we finally moved away from the pier and got to see this beautiful landscape of more than 1000 islands. No wonder it is a UNESCO world heritage site - it is really amazing.
After we headed to some lovely floating villages - they even have their own bank! - we had dinner on the boat and got our keys for our cabins. At first, there was a little "misunderstanding" as they offered as bunk beds instead of twin or double beds (bunk beds aren`t as romantic for couples I would say, and when we booked the tour they said we ll get a double OF COURSE), but we fighted for it and in the end got a twin. However, one girl needed to share her bed with 3 guys as the tour operators could not count til 16 (that s the number of beds on board). Well, it` s Vietnam. The second day was very chilled out as well, we sat in chairs on deck and looked at this amazing natural spectacle. In the end we had a good time and we just needed to accept that Vietnam would not be Vietnam if it was organised. Oh, another pineapple story (don t worry, I will finish here, but it s a good one:))One English guy bought a lovely looking fresh and fruity pineapple from one of the market women who got on and off the boat. He tried it and his face looked like a squeezed peach - he said "It` s pure vinegar". Unbelievable - they basically put the pineapple in vinegar to preserve the "fruity" colour but in the end you cannot eat it. Another ripp off, and it seems they make all the money with pineapples!

Back from Halong City to Hanoi and another cruelling ride to Sapa, North Vietnam - We had a really comfy bus and we never slept that well in an overnight bus before - or maybe we get used to it so much that one day we only can sleep in busses? Maybe.

Sapa was great - you see different hilltribe women and children selling handcraft and food. Sometimes they follow you - FOR AGES - until you make it clear that you don t need another bag/purse/gloves etc. At one time we had 2 women who would not leave us for more than one hour, we also planned our espace through another door, but no, it seems they can split into a few of them! We stayed there for only one night, but got to see Cat Cat Village (a sweaty walk, but worth it as the views are amazing) and downtown Sapa including Ham Son - a short walk up the mountain with nice gardens, lakes - very nice views indeed!

The next day/night we took the bus back to Hanoi, as the border crossing to China seemed best from there. It was another "painful" decision, knowing you are only 40 km from the border to China but to get to where you want it`s easier, less expensive and simply better to go all the way back to Hanoi (with a very uncomfy bus!) and from there 4 hours to Lang Som, 30 minutes to Dong Dang and another motorbike ride to the border. OMIGOD!!Once we crossed the border to China there were no ATMS whatsover and because of 50p we could not take a bus directly to Nanning but needed to take ANOTHER taxi ride to town to get cash. After buying the bus ticket to Nanning from there we thought, great - at least we can get some food now, as we are starving! However, we suddenly realised that we need to change the time to one hour ahead - so AGAIN, no rest, no food, and another ride....After 3 hours we arrived in Nanning like zombies, but - the next bus to the final destination was in - ONE HOUR - pressing our teeth together, we managed to find a kind of Burger King (oh yes, after 24 hours of madness, junk food!) and went on ANOTHER journey of 6 hours....However, we finally arrived in Guilin at midnight, after 30 hours of travelling, changing busses, taxis etc. OH YESSSSSSSSSSSS

Raf and Mel aka. "Rien ne va plus"

Laos & Cambodia - prepare yourself for a long journey!

LAOS
Where can we start? Laos is amazing, sad, shocking and peaceful. It`s a rollercoaster of good and sad but it`s probably the best or most interesting country we have seen.
We arrived after crossing the border from Thailand to Laos in Chiang Kong/Houei Xai, which was fairly easy after a bit of ride. We decided to take a public bus (backpackers always try it the local way...) and after 6 hours and a bumpy ride we arrived at the border. Seemed like in the middle of nowhere but in the end the crossing and visa on arrival was very easy. We needed to cross the border by boat which was quite amazing, as you can literally see both countries. We arrived in Houei Xai and were already greeted by a tour guide who recommended a guesthouse (most probably his mum`s!) and organised the boat ticket to go to Luang Prabang.

So we stayed one night in this little village in Laos and had a nice dinner at the Mekong River at the Riverside Restaurant. Food was great and the beer too! Laos Beer is almost as good as Bavarian beer so I felt like home (almost!). The next day we got picked up by a tuk tuk together with a few other foreigners and loaded with pillows (as we were told the boat has the most uncomfortable wooden seats!) and sandwiches. After a short introduction and advice from our driver ("don`t let anybody carry your bags as they just take them and run away" etc - we felt very safe!) we went on the boat and luckily got VIP seats (well, basically old bus seats that were used for the boat but practically much better than the wooden benches). The journey itself (day 1: 7 hours) was actually not too bad and the view / landscape was absolutely stunning. Let alone the feeling of sitting in a slow boat, cruising along the Mekong River was not too bad!

A few drunken Englishmen with a bottle of whiskey, but apart from this, not too many embarrassing moments (as in: I am embarrassed to be European!) and we arrived and stopped in a small village called Pak Beng, all is made of hostels, guesthouses, restaurants and anybody who has been living in this village owns a shop, hotel or restaurant, so around 20 people awaited us to check their accommodation. In the end we chosen a small guesthouse but probably not the best option, as they managed to rip us off twice - not giving the right change and pretending to have heard the double amount of breakfast we ordered, of course we paid the whole bill. But it was quite nice to stay in this VERY rural place! Day 2: We were told to go on another boat, which seemed smaller and we thought, oh they will split us in groups but no - EVERYBODY went on again, so people were sitting on each other, but again, we managed to get the better seats (well done italian-german punctuality!).

This time it was dragging a bit, as you have already seen it all - people washing themselves in the river, children playing and trying to sell you all kind of stuff, women washing / searching for gold, fishermen, dead cows and a few other things. Some nice, some not. But in the end, we arrived in Luang Prabang, a really nice village, with a french style (great baguette!)and a great night market. We only stayed there for one night, checked out the market, the main streets and the mekong riverside and took the first bus to go to Vang Vieng.

After this nice rest we went to Vang Vieng, the journey was uphill and very curvy so I had troubles in keeping my breakfast where it should be! But the surroundings and small villages were simply stunning. Very green, lots of small villages, some supported by UNESCO and a lot of happy faces (well a few of them threw water at us, which is normal here, so we learned to watch our camera!). We arrived in Vang Vieng after 7 hours drive and we loved it straight away. Although it s mainly famous for tubing and partying (for which we are considered to be too old, but hey!) it s much more than that. A totally cool place, lots of nice restaurants, pancake and sandwich huts and a cosy atmosphere overall. We met a lovely couple from Norway and had a few drinks in a "river bar". Although we felt - again - a little bit misplaced as we already reached the age of 25 (BOTH!), we had a lovely night. The next day we then went tubing. Oh , this is GREAT fun. At first we were unsure if we liked the generally "tubing-and-get-drunk" attitude, BUT we just loved it:) You swing around and jump of ropes, you can have a drink at one of the bars, chill out, playing volleyball and sit in your tube floating down the Mekong River. It`s great - and the nice thing about is that you contribute towards their communities in renting one of those tubes. So all in all, a great thing! But it s still a bit of work to paddle down 4 km and in the end we gave up and walked back:)
After the last night in our beloved guesthouse (we felt like king and queen!, big bed, balcony and bathroom inside....what a wonderful world!)we then went on the EPIC journey in crossing 2 countries in one go. As we wanted to go to Siem Reap/Cambodia as soon as possible we decided to take the challenge and go as fast and far as we can.

CAMBODIA
So then, there we go: various busses and a few tuk tuk s later we finally arrived in Siem Reap, a journey of 36 hours!
1) Bus from Vang Vieng to Vientiane (4 hours)
2) Tuk Tuk from Vientiane city to bus station
3) Public Bus from Vientiane bus station to friendship bridge/border to Thailand
4) Bus from Thailand Friendship Bridge to Nong Khai Bus station
5) Bus from bus station to Korat (6 hours)
6) A Long 5 hours wait from midnight to 5am at Korat`s busstation
7) Bus from Korat to Aranya Prathet (border to Cambodia) (4 hours)
8) Border crossing, long queue but we finally reached Cambodia!
9) Bus from border to bus station
10) Bus from bus station in Poipet to Siem Reap (3 hours)

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS and WE NNEEEDD A SHOWEERRR!!

So we arrived in Siem Reap, the main point to explore the temples of Angkor Wat. We checked in at our guesthouse and realised that the climate here is unbearable, over 40 degrees!

Day 1: We rented a tuk tuk for 2 days and Jumro drove us round to see 8 temples in total. Our hightlights were Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre as well as the waterfalls (which were dried up so yo ucould only see trees but amazing carvings where the waterfall is normally during wet season).

Because of the heat and our european immune system, we were sweating like pigs (Raf managed to change the colour of his T-shirts 3 times, naturally!). After 14 bottles of water and 2 ice teas later we arrived back in our guesthouse, exhausted. The temples are amazing though, something we both have never imagined. Well it s not called on of the 7th world wonder for nothing!

However, seeing all those poor children, who smile at you and want to sell you accessories, food, drinks and ask you for money to go to school, makes you think how good you have it actually. And it s very hard to say no thanks, when they look at you with their big eyes and cute voice. On the first day we returned with 2 books, postcards, bracelets and thought - right, maybe we just buy water next time.

Day 2: Absolutely amazing day. Although Raf had a bit of a weak moment (when we lied down at Angkor Thom and spilt a bottle of water over his head), we really enjoyed the second day too.

We had three hightlights: From all the 7 temples we have seen we really liked Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm - where they shot Tomb Raider!, and of course Angkor Wat.

It is simply unbelievable those 1000 year old temples, with hundreds of meters of carvings and stones. We walked through Angkor Wat and tried to understand how they could have built such a thing, but it s truly a world wonder and hard to describe.
Back in our guesthouse, we just fell in our beds...over and out.

Because of our physical exhaustion we decided to "take a day off", where we basically just ly in our bed, with air-con in the room, watching one movie after the other. And it was great! We just smiled all day long...:)

The next day we headed to Pnomh Penh, another 7 hours drive in the bus. By the way- It`s Khmer`s New Year`s celebrations, so all shops are closed (not the best timing for us!) and most people celebrate with their families or public places. Although it is said to be the biggest event in the year, we did not notice anything, other than closed shops - GREAT! We also did not really Pnomh Penh as a city itself, really creepy areas, smelly and lots of traffic. We did not want to stay in the streets later than 6pm when it s getting dark, as we have seen many poor areas and most people don`t let you go unless you buy something. We also went to Choeunk-Ek Killing Fields - a shocking reality story of their past, when Khmer Rouge soldiers wept out 2 million Cambodians for nothing but pure power - and this happend only a few decades ago, in 1976. My eyes were filling with water when we saw the mass graves and the video that described their horrible death. All this made us even more sad about the country and its people and it also did not make us feel more comfortable, as we knew they lost everything. It gives you an awkward feeling when you are walking along the streets with your lonely planet guide "budget travel through southeastasia" in your hand. We also checked out the Silver Pagoda and the Royal Palace (from outside). This area is really beautiful and the seafront is not bad either.

This is it - bye bye Cambodia and hello to Vietnam!

Mel and Raf aka sweat-shirts

Thailand - where you go?

And here we are - after a long 12 hour journey to Phuket we are finally there. Apart from our hostel, Tulang Guesthouse - which seems more like a 4 Star accomondation in Europe - our impression is less impressive than Malaysia...We already experience a bit of a challenge not get bitten by dogs, as it was 5am in the morning when we tried to walk to our hostel and a gang of dogs waited for us. With shaking knees we decided to back off and waited until the sun was rising...(cowards!)
After Phuket we headed to Ko Phi Phi and felt like real tourists (for a change!). The boat was packed and full of Europeans and Chinese and when we arrived at the pier in Ko Phi Phi 1000 s of people tried to sell you accommodation (starting with "where you go") and everybody told you that it s SOOO expensive to stay here and this is the price to pay etc. Of course, after 2,5 months travel we know that everybody is lying. Therefore we headed with a taxi boat to Long Beach, apparently one of the nicest and affordable beaches at Ko Phi Phi - and we found out there IS accommodation even for backpackers budgets!

All in all, YES -it s worth a trip, you also start to feel like Leonardo Di Caprio in THE BEACH as soon as you do another boat/snorkeling trip to Ko Phi Phi Don, where you will find the famous Maya Bay/Beach. However, the amount of boats and tourists force you to wake up from your dream: No, you are not Leonardo di Caprio, you are just a backpacker trying to get a nice picture! Anyway, the snorkeling was amazing and the tour with our private little taxi boat was definitively worth it. The island itself is of course overpriced and we tried to find out the cheap places to eat - that don t really exist.

After Ko Phi Phi we headed straight towards Bangkok, after we checked out Phuket beach for a few hours. Again, VERY touristy and it does not really feel like Thailand, apart from the cheap markets. The journey to Bangkok was alright, 12 hours in a really comfy bus, with toilets (oh yes - this was shouting out "Halleluja" - especially after our slight problems with diarrhea!) etc. We were a bit concerned as the situation in Bangkok seems to be a bit dangerous at the moment, as the "reds" try to dissolve the government and there were a few bomb attacks where nobody was hurt. But of course, not the best circumstance to travel there. In the end, we did not see anything at all and everything was peaceful. However, Bangkok is not a city where you want to stay more than a night. Again, overpriced and it takes ages to go from one place to the other, well, if you take local busses as we did. The short journey on a riverboat was nice though and we have seen the famous Wat Pho - temple of the reclining Buddha. Really impressive, definitively worth a visit.

We then decided to take a local bus (we learnt our lesson afterwards!) to the Nothern Bus station to get a ticket for Chiang Mai for the next day. It took 2 hours to get there and we were more than exhausted and annoyed as we thought that 4km should not take more than 20 minutes. Well, not in Bangkok!

After our slight mental breakdown in Bangkok we arrived in Chiang Mai - Oh my Buddha! What a great city! Not just that you feel safe and comfortable, with loads of nice little cafes, restaurants but also, you can do more than a few activities, such as elephant tour, rafting and visiting tribal villages. This is what we did.

We stayed in Julie s Guesthouse, a good decision, as we had a lovely and spacious room, a great atmosphere and good food. We felt great and relaxed. Yesterday, we had a really good time with the elephants and rafting. They brought us to an elefant camp where we went on the back of an elephant - at first it felt a little bit weird and you always thought you hurt the poor guy, but in the end you realise, their skin is like leather and they are so huge and heavy that you don t need to worry about touching them. It was great, you wish you could take them home! In the end we also paid the elphant directly - he picked up the 100 Bt with his trunk & also gave back the change, amazing! They even played a little concert at the end, 2 elefants with an instrument and the other ones dancing. You thought you are in a movie or something. After that, we headed to the rafting point. And it was so much fun!

The first part, white-water rafting was a good laugh and the second part, bamboo rafting, which meant you are more underwater than above, was more for the Thais to laugh at us Europeans:) In the end, we also visited a small village (a bit smaller than Unterwangenback where I come from and a bit less civilised, but pretty similar:)) This tribe was called "Lisu" and the people basically live of handicrafts and agriculture. Amazing how simple you can live your daily life and the houses they are living in are about 10sq meters for a family of 4.
What we also discovered is that most people say they speak English, but the majority of those does not understand and reply what they think they understood - a few nerve breaking conversations but now we know to be a bit more patient and to ask 3 people instead of one person.

Mel & Raf aka. lost in translation