Pad Thai, Pad Thai and some more Pad Thai

The last time we updated the blog we were relaxing on the beaches of Koh Tao, Thailand. Our days there consisted of lying in the warm shallow water, relaxing on the beach, playing soccer on the beach, getting Thai massages and eating our fill.

After traveling back up and arriving in Bangkok at 3am, we were fortunate enough to find a hotel that allowed us to check in at 4am.  We rested up for a bit and decided to explore the MBK mall.  After a very tiring morning at the mall we walked away we nothing to show for our efforts because Thailand is much more expensive than anywhere else in our traveks. We took a boat up the river and then explored Chinatown. Chinatown was a bustling market selling many interesting and random things.

We returned to our hotel near the infamous Khao San Road to cool down before venturing out again for some delicious street Pad Thai. We found ourselves a streetside bar to sit at and people watch for the night.

The next day Andrew and Candice went on a tour to Kanchanaburi.  After taking a hour and a half train ride over the bridge over the River Kwai, we stopped for a buffet lunch on the river.  The action packed day then went off to do a short river raft ride down the river. Along our float we saw two "crocodiles" that turned out to be large monitor lizards. After our rafting experience we hopped on a bus and headed to the Sai Yok Nai waterfall before the main prospect for the day, elephant riding. The ride was about 15-20 mins long but was definitely a highlight for Candice and Andrew.

While Candice and Andrew did their adventure for the day, Chris explored Bangkok and its many street food vendors. Tasting fried and barbequed banana, green curries, coconut candies, pancake wrapped sweet creams, pad thai wrapped in egg, fresh fruit and fruit smoothies, chicken kebabs, freshly squeezed orange juice and sweet rice with mango, Chris definitely had an enjoyable day! 

Once back in Bangkok the three of us met up and waited around until our shuttle to the airport. The flight went by relatively smoothly after a long night sleeping in Bangkok airport, and we were eager to get to the hostel in Hanoi for a delicious burger and long nap.

Today we visited Van Phuc, a silk village just outside Hanoi, for the morning and hung around the hostel in the afternoon. Tomorrow we are traveling to Halong Bay by bus and are looking forward to our last week on the move.

Candice, Andrew, and Chris

Update from Paradise...

When we left you last, we were waiting to get to our most desired destination.  However the journey there was far less than desirable...

It began with a drunken tuk tuk driver who could barely walk, let alone drive us to the bus station. Luckily it was no more than a kilometer away from our hotel so we made it safely.  After thinking the worst of our journey was over, we got our first glimpse of our bus.  The old, beaten up and very small bus that stood before us had the most uncomfortable seats you could imagine, especially since we had to sit in them for 4 hours in the middle of the night while we were all rather exhausted.  We then had to wait at the Thai border for another 2 hours until it opened and we could be transferred onto another bus.

We found out at the border that we could only stay in Thailand for 15 days (because we had arrived by land and they did not give visas at the border) rather than the 21 days we had originally planned to stay there, and we were not very pleased with the way things were going thus far.  Still grumbling, we hopped onto our second bus to get to Bangkok.  We thought our first bus was bad… This next bus had the worst driver we have encountered so far. This man thought he was a formula 1 racecar driver. He would pound on the gas and hammer on the brakes whenever he got the chance.  Candice even got a bit of air off of her seat at one point, while Andrew was feeling a little car sick. Due to his insane driving, we also had to stop for gas twice along the way, and each time was a half an hour wait.

When we finally arrived in Bangkok we were exhausted, starving and upset about our shortened stay in Thailand.  We walked around for a bit before finding a place to eat and stay. We found a wonderful little two-story room that was owned by an older Thai couple and stayed there for one night before hopping on a train to Koh Tao. During our short stay in Bangkok we rested up from the long and tedious ride there, as well as explored some of the local cuisine and tourist attractions. Our hotel was on Rambuttri Street, which is one street over from the infamous backpacker Mecca, Khao San Road. We decided that since we didn’t have very much time in Bangkok we would just hit the two most popular sites, the temple of the emerald Buddha and the grand palace. Conveniently, these two sites happen to be in the same complex. We took a free tour through the complex, and after a few hours of site seeing we picked up some amazing chicken kebabs and headed back to the hotel.

In front of the Royal Palace.

After a short resting period, we were on the road yet again. Luckily this bus ride was much more comfortable.  After waiting for the ferry for another 5 hours we were FINALLY on our last leg of the way to Koh Tao. The ferry ride was pleasant and seemed to go bye very quickly after our long wait.

While on the ferry, promoters from various resorts on the island handed out brochures and told us their prices, making choosing a hotel very easy! We settled on Ban’s Diving Resort, which certifies more divers than any other dive company in the world. The room for the three of us, with private bathroom and a fan, costs us about $23 a night. The first two days on Koh Tao were spent relaxing on the beach and wandering around searching out good dive companies and Pad Thai!

Chris on the beach waiting for a meal that never came...

Candice relaxing in the 32 degree water.

On the third day, Andrew did his diving review course in the morning while Chris and Candice did their Discover Scuba Diving courses. In the afternoon, we all went out together and did two dives. We saw many colourful fish, corals and anemones on the dives! The next day we did an all day snorkeling tour around the island, visiting four different snorkeling sites and a picturesque small island off of Koh Tao called Koh Nang-Yuan. We all really enjoyed the snorkeling, especially throwing our watermelon rinds off of the deck and watching as the fish swarmed the rinds! We were fortunate enough to have an excellent guide for the trip, and he showed us all the best spots, as well as how the corals are both being harmed by tourism but growing back at the same time. We saw many of the same animals that we saw on our dives, but we also lucky enough to see a banded sea snake, the most venomous snake in the world!

SCOOBA diving !!

The colourful dive boats.

Fishy

Sunset and drinks on the beach

Long-tail boat

Since then we have been relaxing on the beach and making regular trips to watch the fire-twirlers perform nightly on the beach. 

Cambodia and the temples of Angkor Wat

After our short visit to Saigon (in which Andrew and Chris picked up some snazzy tailor made suits!), we continued our journey to Cambodia via an overnight bus.  When we arrived early morning in Phnom Penh, we were pleasantly surprised with the cleanliness and almost French riveriaesque atmosphere.  We walked along the promenade searching for a suitable hotel, before stumbling upon Indochine hotel.  We were glad to avoid more stairs as the last three hotels we had stayed at required as much uphill trekking as in Sapa. After recuperating for most of the day, we had an amazing khmer dinner before setting out to explore the weekend night markets.

Men in Black...

The next morning we accidentally slept in four hours later than intended, partially because of exhaustion and partially because our room was a cave. After breakfast we rented a "tuk tuk," or a motorcycle with a carriage on the back, for the the whole day for $12 through our hotel. We took the tuk tuk 17 km south of the city to visit the Chheung Ek Genocide Memorial, otherwise known as the killing fields. It is a memorial to the tens of thousands of farmers, intellectuals, priests, etc. who died there under the Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia. The site of the killing fields was used as an extermination camp for prisoners who had been interrogated and were not longer of any use to the Khmer Rouge. While not to the same scale as WWII, the genocide was particularly brutal and we found the museum and memorial to be a very emotional experience. The main monument is a beautiful structure built in a traditional Cambodian style, but it is vividly juxtaposed by its contents: layer upon layer of human skulls.

Tuk Tuk!

The memorial building outside...

...and inside.

After the killing fields we headed back into town to visit the Tuol Sleng prison, otherwise known as S-21. S-21 was a high school and elementary school which the Khmer Rouge converted into a detention facility for the thousands of prisoners they arrested in the Phnom Penh region. The prisoners were held there for interrogation and torture. The Khmer Rouge would torture the prisoners until they obtained a confession, or until the prisoner died.

A prison cell for high officials at S-21.

After a very depressing morning, we decided to do some shopping! After Candice bartered some jewelery merchants to 20% of their original price, we headed back to the hotel. There our tuk tuk driver tried to scam us by saying that the trips to the markets would cost an extra six dollars, and when we decided to just walk away after paying the $12, he used every offensive word he knew in the English language.. and it was by no means a limited list.

The promenade in Phnom Penh. (Yes, Chris and Andrew have the same shorts.)

We caught a morning bus to Siem Reap that took about 6 hours. The bus was rather uncomfortable and the air conditioning was barely functioning, making us very pleased to get off and have a swim and shower at our previously booked hotel. After refreshing ourselves, we set out by tuk tuk to the temples of Angkor Wat. After arriving on the site, we climbed up a small hill and an unsafely steep set of 'stairs' that led up one of the temples. Sitting at the top of the temple we watched the sun set as tourists took elephant rides up and down the hill below us, a truly magical experience!

Sunset atop Angkor.

The next day at 7:30 AM we set out once again for the temples. We began our journey at Angkor Thom and then visited many more temples on our route to see Ankgor Wat, the largest religious building in the world. The temples were magnificent, each intricately carved of sandstone that had been carried from a mountain 50 km away by elephants. The stairs to enter each of the temples were extremely steep, with an average rise of about one an a half feet with no more than 4 inches of flat space to rest our feet.

After several hours of visiting temples we came back to our hotel for a 50 cent bowl of rice for lunch, and another dip in the pool.  Once we were feeling refreshed, we ventured out into the old town market.  We walked around for a bit and stopped on "pub street" for dinner.

Pool at our hotel, much nicer than expected, and super warm!

Chris also managed to stub his toe on a rock and cut it up pretty badly.  After Andrew and Candice cleaned it up as much as possible, he headed off to the clinic just to be sure it was alright.

Today we took it easy and spent most of the day by the pool, and again we find ourselves waiting for another night bus off to Bangkok.  Until next time...

Andrew, Candice and Chris.

"You Buy from Me?!" - Sapa -

Well, its been a while since our last post, but we have certainly been busy!

From Hanoi we caught a night train to the northwestern mountain town of Lao Cai, which is only a few kilometers from the Chinese border. We took a "deluxe" sleeper train, with four people to a cabin. While waiting for the train to depart, we were much anticipating who our fourth party member would be. Despite our fears that we might have a less than favourable fourth roommate in our cabin, we were pleased to find that it was actually a very cute little Vietnamese girl and boy. Although they were very shy at first, Candice coaxed them into the cabin with Canadian flags and pins. We had a great time playing and joking with the kids (two turned into four when their other brother and sister jumped into the room as well), until it was time to turn out the lights and doze off for our 8 hour ride to Lao Cai.

Our first Vietnamese friends!

In Lao Cai, which is a rather unappealing industrial city, we were picked up by our hotel minibus and drove for about an hour in the fog.  When we arrived at the hotel, we felt like celebrities due to the number of locals crowding around the bus waiting to meet the new tourists.  "Hello, what's your name, where you from, you buy from me?" were the only phrases we heard from the touts the entire trip...  

Touts...

Our first hike was nothing spectacular because of the copious amount of fog.  Although the fog looked mysterious, we didn't get to see the surrounding scenery very well that day.  When we got to the first village, we learned that the men get to choose their wives and the women can't refuse.  We also learned that the people play with their dogs throughout the summer, but come winter they cook them up for dinner.  This is why all of Sapa is full of puppies, and only a small amount of full grown dogs.

Candice says :(

After our hike we returned to the hotel and were rather surprised by the bathroom. The toilet and sink were normal, but the shower head came directly out of the centre of the wall, turning the entire bathroom into a large shower! We then wandered into the town of Sapa and through the market. After Candice showed interest in a handmade blanket, she was immediately swarmed by roughly 10 H'Mong touts all saying "You buy from me, you buy from me!" and shoving their blankets into her face. Seeing the incoming touts, Andrew and Chris quickly moved away, but Candice was too slow. It took about 15 minutes and some stern reprimands from Andrew to finally lose the last of the sellers. We definitely learned our lesson with that one!

A terrified Candice.

The next day we set out once again, this time for a much more interesting hike. Through the fog, we trekked up and down narrow mud paths lining the rice terraces seeing very little except what was within about 20 feet. After decending a particularly treacherous set of paths, we came below the fog and into a beautiful lush river valley.

Later that day we arrived at our homestay in a small rural village. Thankfully they had electricity and running water, but our meals were all cooked in a large wok over a wood fire inside the house. We were unsure of what to expect of the homestay, but we were very pleased to see that it was extremely well kept and tidy. Dinner was several courses, each cooked in the wok and then quickly reheated later, and was followed by a particularly potent home made rice wine that tasted more like vodka than wine. Several shots, and a few gravol later, we returned to our beds for a long and deep sleep.

We are currently in Ho Chi Minh City waiting in the lobby of our hotel for a night bus to take us to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. 

- Andrew, Candice and Chris

Holidays in Hanoi

Over the past couple days we've managed to cover quite a bit of ground. Our hotel is in the historic Old Quarter of Hanoi, and just west of Hoan Kiem Lake. From our hotel it takes about 3 minutes to walk to the lake. The entire city is in constant motion, and silence is a rarity except in the middle of the night. In order to cross the street one must simply walk out into a stream of traffic, careful to maintain a constant pace, and watch as the traffic flows around. None of our traditional rules apply in Hanoi, but we actually found it quite easy to get used to, and in some ways it is a welcome change, despite its apparent randomness. The 30th and 31st were both national holidays in Vietnam so the city was packed with nationals as well as tourists over the weekend.

In terms of shopping, there is certainly not a shortage of merchandise.  Each street is generally full of one specific item.  Our favourite street thus far is silk street, closely followed by shoe street.  Walking through all the sellers can be an exhausting task. We have found that the best way to get out of a sale we no longer want is to offer the seller a ridiculously low price which tends to make them give up.  Dong Xuan Market was one of the most interesting markets we've seen.  Full of different smells, some good, and some not so good...  The smell of the festering cooked duck is surely one we will never forget, as well as the raw meat often seen sitting out in the hot humid weather and the many live animals including fish, rabbits, turtles, and frogs.

View of traffic circle from the restaurant balcony

 Chris and Candice enjoying some fresh juices

 First Pho breakfast in Vietnam (after 45 minutes of searching)

Andrew the Adventurer 

(just prior to someone attempting to steal his camera) 

 Shoe Street!

 Some questionable looking, and worse smelling, chicken

 A typical corner store in Hanoi, no space is wasted

Someone never took Foodsafe..

 This guy, on blacksmith street, has working figured out!

Candice tries her hand at hawking pineapple

 The bar at 69 restaurant, a restored Chinese merchant's home

 View down the street from our hotel

The Red Bridge spanning part of Hoan Kiem Lake

Tomorrow we will be checking out of our hotel in the morning and then catching a train later that evening to the mountain village of Sapa, about 8 hours to the North-west. We will be in Sapa for 3 days, and will be staying in a local homestay one night and a hotel the other night before returning to Hanoi.