more Vietnam pictures

These are some things we've seen in the last week. We've been to Dalat where we took a day tour seeing the mountains, silk village, cricket farm (I ate a deep fried cricket there!) a waterfall, a mushroom farm and a local market where they sell everything from clothing, vegetables, fish, meat and sadly; puppies that they eat. The picture of me and Josh with the two women are from a small minority village. These women were very poor but were able to weave these amazing skirts, we bought one for $6. The other pictures are from motorbike rides we've taken around Dalat and Mui Ne seeing waterfalls, sand dunes and a fishing village. Next we're on our way to Ho Chi Minh City to end our travels in Vietnam.

Recent Vietnam Pictures

Here's some pictures from our recent travels. A couple (the one pillar pagoda and B-52 Bomber are from Hanoi) but the rest are from Hue, Hoi An and Nha Trang.

Vietnam

This blog is for my friend Mollie who reminded me I haven't written on here in quite some time. ;) The past week has been pretty uneventful. Once we left Hanoi, we took an overnight bus to Hue. I think the rain followed us the entire way and stuck around our entire stay there. In a way, it was a good thing. Because it was so cold and wet outside, we did nothing except stay in our hotel room for 2 days watching movies. Sadly, the only time we left our room both days was to go eat. One time we ventured a little farther across the river to a book store but quickly walked back to dry off and warm up. Even though we saw nothing the city had to offer, it was nice relaxing for a couple days.

From Hue, we took a 4 hour bus trip to Hoi An where we had 5 hours to waste before our overnight bus to where we are now. In Hoi An we walked around through their market, stopped and had a pizza and then hung out at the bus station for our bus. What was suppose to be a 12 hour bus ride to Nha Trang ended up being 21 hours. We thought we were being smart with purchasing a sleeper bus tickets but when we saw the seats that were suppose to be a bed I was like "you're kidding me, right?!?" I think they were meant for the small framed Asian person who designed them. Not a good situation for someone with a bad lower back. I think it was around 5:30 am, the bus came to a stop. My first thought was we had arrived early but when the bus never moved and we watched the sun come up, I knew something wasn't right. We sat for over 5 hours. Word was there was an accident up ahead. Finally after 3 1/2 hours, the emergency vehicles passed by us and all I thought was 'thank god I wasn't the one in that accident!' It was so frustrating. No one said a word about what was going on, when we'd move or even how far away we were from our destination. Once we started moving, we made it maybe 1/2 a mile and had to stop for another hour. Anyway, we finally made it 21 hours later.

Today we spent island hopping. Our first stop was at an aquarium which was pretty decent for the $2 we paid to get in. Then onto our snorkeling site. But now is the worst time of year for snorkeling around here. Some girls said to not waste our time, they didn't see anything the water was so murky. They prepared us a great Vietnamese lunch that we had to eat with chop sticks. It was interesting, I still don't think we used them right but we managed! After that we had some free time to swim and enjoy their floating bar where they served red wine. I got some pictures of it, pretty funny. That was pretty much the end of the day. Tomorrow we're heading to Da Lat where we'll see a silk village, coffee plantation and maybe go on an elephant ride through the village.

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, please eat some turkey and mashed potatoes for the both of us. Oh,and don't forget the pumpkin pie, with extra cool whip!

Hanio and Halong Bay pictures

Here are some pictures from walking around Hanoi and our boat trip to Halong Bay and Monkey Island. I would say that so far, Vietnam is one of my favorite countries we've visited. The people here are so nice and welcoming and it's cheap! There is so much to see and do.

Hanoi, Vietnam

We've been in Hanoi for one week now and have seen so much. We recently got back from a 3 day trip to Halong Bay which was great. Our guide told us there were almost 2,000 mountains/ islands that make up the bay. Our weather the 3 days wasn't the greatest, pretty cold and drizzling the first and last day but nice the second. Our trip started by boarding our boat (or as they call them a "junk") called the Lotus Sail. There were 10 of us in our group including another couple from Iowa. We got to tour a cave the first day, stayed on the boat that night and headed to Cat Ba Island on day 2. Once there, we went to the National Park and hiked up a mountain and then climbed up an observatory deck to see the entire island from the highest peak. After that we checked into our hotel and took a boat to Monkey Island where we were greeted by hungry and greedy monkeys. One guy had a bag of Goldfish crackers that a monkey grabbed right out of his hand. Another guy had a monkey grab onto his jacket and climb up him to get his oreo cookies. Our of fear, the guy threw them out of his hand and the monkey took off. After witnessing that, Josh and I walked with a few rocks in hand!

Now that we're back in Hanoi, we've spent one day visiting local craft villages where they make birdcages out of bamboo, conical hats and a silk village where they produce silk. It should've been very interesting but the only village where they were actually working was the birdcage village.

Today we're just relaxing around the city spending time in a coffee shop (Gloria Jean's!) doing some shopping and reading in our hotel room. We've needed a day like this since we've been on the go everyday since our last day on Santorini. Tomorrow we're taking a day tour to Tam Coc where we'll board a small boat and float down a snake-like river through 3 caves and back. The pictures look pretty cool and it was a cheap tour. Then on Thursday we're heading down to Cuc Phuong National Park where we'll spend a night and do some hiking before heading to the bus station. From there we plan on making our way south toward Ho Chi Minh City, taking stops along the way in a few cities to have some beach time.

India pictures

So we spent 2 (long) weeks in India seeing many cities small and large. I left a lot of the picture taking up to Josh since a lot of the times I didn't feel safe walking around with my expensive camera. We started out in Mumbai which to us was a filthy city with not much to offer. We did spend a morning touring the slums which was a great experience seeing how over a million people live and work in these conditions of poverty. We were not able to take pictures on the tour though. From there we headed up north to the state of Rajasthan in the more desert part of the country. We went to the Pushkar camel festival which was pretty fun. I almost got bitten in the head by a camel which came as a shock to me, Josh and all the others around me as I nearly fell to the ground taking Josh with me as I dodged this animal's head lunging for mine! The photo of me with a thumbs down was at our 'prision' like hotel room in this town. We traveled by bus, car and train to get amongst these cities. The Indian train system as we found out many times was very frustrating and unpredictable. Thankfully our tickets never cost us more than $7 so I guess you can't expect too much. We spent a day in Agra seeing the Taj Mahal which we both agree to be one of the most beautiful sights we've ever seen. And then onto northern India where we spent 5 days hiking in the Kashmire Valley. There was a lot of doubt over whether or not we should even go because of the controversy between the India and Pakistan borders but we chose to go. It was the most peaceful 5 days we spent in this country and much needed after the stress of traveling between the big cities. Our first hike was a killer, climbing to a summit of 12,500 feet. The view from the top was beautiful as you can see from one of the pictures. Overall we enjoyed our time but are both glad to be moved onto another culture, and food! Today we arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam!