Category: Asia

We arrived at the terminal and were grouped by our boats. Our boat is very small with only 4 rooms so we have 6 other passengers with us and about 4 crew. I was a little surprised to find out we were not going to Ha Long but also happy as it is full of tourists. Instead we are in Bai Tu Long. Which they call the baby dragons. We cruised for a few hours to get to our spot to anchor. The views were amazing.

It is hard to describe just how beautiful this place is! I think this is hands down the most beautiful place I have ever seen.

We got into our kayaks and went into a cave that is accessible only a few times a year. On the other side was an amazing lagoon. We paddled around and then went back through the cave to get out.

After that is was some free time on the boat followed by dinner and bed!

We are cruising along in our luxury van, which I have to admit is pretty comfy, for our journey to pick up our junk boat. It looks like it even has WiFi!

I have observed a few things about driving in Vietnam

• Road lines- it seems they just drive where they want… no need to stay in the painted lanes
• Road signs- these seem to be more of a suggestion than a requirement here. Stop if you like at the junction or just go right through, it is up to you!
• Indicators- I actually don’t believe that cars come with them over here. Nobody seems to ever indicate where they are going… they just go.
• Honking the horn seems to cure all problems.
• And if in doubt the biggest vehicle wins

We are off to Ha Long Bay today for a 3 day/2 night sail!

It is about a 3 1/2 hour road trip to get to the bay, we are in a luxury van… we will see what that means in this part of the world!

This post is a little late, but we got the photos from our food tour. We ate so much food we didn’t even need dinner yesterday!

Our first stop was some sort of papaya noodles with some stuff on them. It was one of our favorite items. We also ate a quail which was also surprisingly good.

I think here we had some noodle bowl and our first beer in Vietnam at this place.

This was one of my favorite foods it was an egg pancake sort of thing with shrimp and vegetables inside. Then you wrapped it in rice paper with some fresh lettuce.

These were our burgers made from worms. They were actually really nice!

Next we had some coffee with egg in it. (I had hot chocolate with an egg). Once again surprisingly good!

We finished in the French area of town the was made famous as president Obama ate here.

We got up early this morning and went to the flower and vegetable markets.

We were up early for the markets however it was the slow time for the markets as the busy time for the markets is around 2 am!

What I found interesting was how they individually wrapped the roses… could you imagine the time it would take?

After the flower markets we headed to the vegetable markets. They were still very busy from our view, but our guide said they were pretty much over for the day!

They load up their bikes as they can only carry loads like this until 6 am. Now we were a little confused if it was always illegal to carry loads like this or if they could only do it at night and early morning as the police were astill asleep. Once the police are awake and working they would give the driver a ticket for doing this.

It was a great morning and we are so glad we were up early to see the city wake up!

We spent our last day in Siem Reap relaxing!

First we had a long breakfast at a great coffee shop

Then we went out for a walk around town and found an eclectic little French place for a drink.

After we headed to the airport and finally found a place that had a jug of beer. It was on the menu everyplace, but every time we asked they said they didn’t have it! The beer didn’t taste any better in the jug…

We took off on time and landed in Hanoi around 8 pm last night.

Today was our bike tour of the temples and I was starting to get nervous as traffic is a bit much in town and I knew I had to cycle through it to get to the temples, but everyone survived and we made it to Angkor Wat.

I have hundreds of photos, but I will try and limit them for the post…

Then we headed about 5k away to the next set of temples, which you might recognize from a movie.

We took a short ride to our lunch spot and had a well deserved beer (at least we thought it was deserved). Before the last set of temples.

Finally we headed back into Siem Reap after a long, but good day!

So I have had a few bad treatments and the worse massage that I had had before yesterday was at the Ritz Carlton, now I paid $250 USD for that massage and yesterday I paid $12… so we really should not complain.

We had been by the day before and had a 30 minute foot massage for $4 and it wasn’t bad, so we thought we would go back for a one hour treatments. First of all it was almost done in some sort of container… I had a wall next to me with a roll up door.

I actually felt fine going in and came out with more aches and pains!

On the bright side it was only $12!

Richard had a very exciting morning- he got to go for a ride in a microlight and as you can see he was not excited at all…

Here are a few photos from his flight:

This morning we took off with out tuk tuk driver and went to visit some floating villages. It was amazing to see full communities living on the lake. They had a school, temple, police station, community centre, boat yard and shops. The only thing missing was a hospital and they are working as a community to raise the funds to build it.

They were even able to keep animals on the water. We saw chickens, ducks 2 cats and a dog!

It was amazing that some of the homes families of 4-5 people lived in were probably smaller standard kitchen. Some did have a solar panel, but we were told that was really expensive, so they mostly relied on a battery or a small generator for power.

After the boat tour we headed down to Pub Street for lunch and some 50 cent draft beers. The beer wasn’t great, but Richard said for that price he was not going to complain. We ended the afternoon with 30 minuted foot massages, which cost us $4 USD each.

Now it may be nap time or possibly a dip in the pool.