Bangkok

After spending the last 2 weeks on a beach, we were ready to hit the big city and get to some nice, clean, cheap air conditioned rooms!

We were a little nervous heading into Bangkok, knowing about all the red shirt protesting going on, but had asked around lots on the situation before going, it sounded like the protesting was limited to certain areas of the city, thankfully, not near the Khao San backpacker area where we had planned to stay. We did find out they were at one of the biggest shopping areas where we had wanted to visit, so had to cancel those plans and limit our shopping to Khao San Road.

We spent most of our time here just walking around buying t-shirts, having some beers at night, and visited the Grand Palace (lots of really nice temples and the King’s Palace). The dress code restrictions here were pretty strict (must cover elbows to knees...in 36 degree heat!) , so Kendra and Kyle ended up having to borrow some nice clothing (you’ll see Kyle’s karate pants in the pictures, and Kendra’s skin-toned dress shirt), haha. Made for some good pictures anyways.

One thing we really noticed was how much the red shirt protesting is hurting tourism in Thailand...especially Bangkok. While we didn’t see any red shirts ourselves, we noticed Khao San was DEAD – eerily quiet compared to what it normally is. And people in the tourism industry are trying even harder to make a buck, i.e, trying out every scam in the book. Normally, tuk tuk drivers (small motorbike taxis) are known to try and pull a scam, telling you the Palace is closed, but they’ll take you to some jewellery shop where you can buy really cheap gems. We have read about this scam in every travel guide, so generally avoided tuk tuks all together and used metered taxis. Only this time, even the metered taxis were trying the same scams! Needless to say, we felt like every cab we got into we were somehow going to get ripped off. The drivers were desperate to make some extra cash.

On our last day in Bangkok, we were sitting on our rooftop pool and noticed the skyline of Bangkok had turned ugly. This was the day all the fires had been set by the protestors, so black smoke clouds in every direction. We headed out for one last dinner, and found out a city wide curfew had been set for 8pm. Our flight out was just after midnight, so thought we should just try and get a cab and get to the airport early, didn’t want to risk not making it there. On our way back to the hotel to quickly pack everything we saw most of the shops were closing up and the streets were nearly deserted. Was very creepy scene for a normally extremely busy area. We knew it was time to get out of the city! So, on that note, it was a good feeling to be leaving Bangkok (even though we had a long wait at the airport). We were looking forward to heading to Bordeaux for some good wine 

Perhentian Islands (Malaysia)

We decided to spend the last 2 weeks in Asia on a beach and soak up as much sun as possible before leaving, so we headed to the Perhentian Islands, just off the north eastern tip of Malaysia. Beautiful beaches – white sand, clear water, awesome snorkelling. These islands are far from developed, not a single road on the island, and the resorts are scattered on different beaches between the 2 islands (Kecil & Besar). We spent most of our time on the small island, Kecil.

The hotels on the islands are mostly budget huts with interesting accommodation standards (1 and 2 Star Beach Bungalows!!). We spent our first few nights on Coral Beach, which was one of the quieter beaches, with only about 5 hotels, few restaraunts, and dive shops. No nightlife whatsoever...we found it hard at first to find beer anywhere on the island, but managed to sniff some out (you really had to ask as it wasn’t displayed). So needless to say, we were able to cut down our average daily beer intake. We ended up meeting a few people who had asked if we’d want to go on a snorkelling trip/beach hunt with them. So we rented a boat, and about 8 of us went to “shark point”, a snorkelling area where we supposedly were to see sharks. This place ended up being probably the most dangerous place we’ve seen in Asia. As we pulled up in our boat, a girl was screaming at us for help, she was almost drowning, had no life jacket, and was far from her boat. Another couple was having the same issue, as boats were ripping through the area and the current was strong, so we ended up staying only 15 min maybe...and saw no sharks.

Next we found a secluded beach, Romantic beach. This was the beach Kyle had been searching for his entire life! Whitest sand we’ve seen, nicest water, and no people, no hotel, no road to it – we had found pure paradise! We spent the afternoon hanging out there with a bunch of ice cold beers we managed to scavenge ($3 per can), went snorkelling, (where we saw about 5 baby sharks), and enjoying the scenery. Romantic beach had an amazing coral reef with all sorts of stuff underwater, swim with about 5-7 baby sharks all the time, stingrays, many many clownfish (nemo) hanging out in the anenomi coral, and tonnes of other tropical fish. Kyle vowed to make it back to this spot a lot over the next two weeks!

After Coral Bay, we went to Mira Beach, a few shanty bungalows on its own private beach. This was our favourite place in Perhentians. Accommodations were very basic (wooden huts, shared bathrooms which was pretty much a hole in the ground, no fan in our room, and power for only a few short hours at night). However – it was the people that made all the difference for us. The 4 people that worked there seemed to just enjoy life, and we had lots of fun with them. One of the guys, Mohammed, was definitely a free spirit – always laughing, making us laugh, and bringing us lychee fruits. This guy seemed to have the personality of a 10 year old sometimes, knew how to have fun everyday. He would bring out his mattress every night and just sleep on the beach – living a simple but happy life.

Kyle was on a mission to swim with a big shark, so as he was out casually looking for it snorkelling around the point, he turned to come back, and a large black tip (reef) shark swam only a few feet in front of him, excitement and panic took over, and he hi-tailed it back to shore. It was 2 metres long, and fairly thick (small in the shark world, but large for what we are used to). After that, Kyle and a Spanyard we met, were on a constant hunt for this shark, they searched sunrise and sunset, only to spot another one on the reef about 1.5 metres long. While at Mira, we constantly jetted over to Romantic Beach to soak up the sun and peacefulness.

After a few nights at Mira, we decided to check out Long Beach – the main backpacker beach in Perhentians. However, I got an ear infection – so when we went to Long Beach, Kyle and I decided to drop Kendra off and hunt for some accommodation while Kyle and I tried to find a doctor in the village. Overall, this seemed to be the worst day for all of us. Comforting to know with all the deadly animals in the jungle and in the sea that there is no doctor to be found!

Kyle and I came back from the village (where we found there was no doctor around, and told to come back later – after another expensive taxi boat ride) to find Kendra red faced and exhausted from walking up and down the scorching beach looking for a room. Long Beach is by far the hottest beach on the islands, the sand is so hot you can barely walk on it, so felt like 40 degrees, and Kendra had been trucking her backpack around, so we felt a little sympathetic but thought it was a good intro to backpacking in Asia. Yet again, we had found interesting accommodation (room looked fairly clean, but later found out lots of mould in bathroom due to no windows, and even mould on the pillows – bonus!) However, room was cheap! But with my ear still infected, we wanted an AC room for the next couple nights – no matter what the cost! Ended up finding a decent place with AC, big room, felt like luxury. (But was still only about a 1 star hotel)

After Long Beach, we decided to check out the other island and stayed at Flora Bay. Was a nice beach, but still couldn’t compare to our Romantic Beach. We spent most of our time here sleeping on the beach, reading, and playing crib at night. One day we hiked through the hot mosquite infested jungle to arrive at another secluded beach surrounded by big rocks, not as nice as Romantic, yet still relaxing.

After Flora Bay – we decided to spend our last 3 nights on the islands back at Mira Beach. We were excited to get back and see our new friends, and they were just as excited to see us again (well at least Mohammed was) He came up and screamed when he saw us “My friends my friends! My darlings! You came back!!” . He came up to our shack, swept up the deck and the room, told us he was happy we came back. While at Mira, we headed to Romantic Beach, again of course, and decided to do a dive the next day. On our dive we all saw a 1.5 metre shark – was pretty cool to all see that. Kyle and I also noticed a large trigger fish (which we didn’t know what it was at the time), was such a cool looking fish, big and colourful, so went swimming towards it – our instructor started telling us to get out of there. Apparently, they are aggressive and will come and bite you. Good to know for next time I guess!

Back at Mira, Mohammed was screaming something, so went to check it out, on a stick he had a very poisonous viper snake on the end of stick.....and of course it was on one of the decks of the huts just behind ours, if we weren’t creeped out enough at night, we were now! We got the typical Asian local response “No problem”! Our last night on Mira Beach, the staff prepared a BBQ on the beach. Lots of food (mostly fish), was really good and we were really appreciative as it took a lot of prep work. We tried some Reef shark, quite good actually, and barracuda is excellent. Our last day, we spent the day at Romantic Beach (again), didn’t go too deep though, as have heard in Asia, you can get bad karma from eating shark.... we also saw a fairly big monitor lizard eating a smaller baby, weird to watch, but the little one did put up quite a good fight. When it came time to leave, we got a bunch of pictures with our friends at Mira. They helped load our bags on the boat and gave us a big hug. I think Mohammed teared up when he said bye to Kyle. We got on the boat and he was screaming “I love you – I love you”! We were sad to leave them, but were ready to leave the beach.

We then were on our route to Bangkok to stock up on some cheap clothes and souvenirs before leaving Asia and heading to France to meet up with my brother, and say bye to Kendra.

Kuala Lumpur

We arrived from Bangkok during the day, found a place in Chinatown (backpacker area) went through market, ate and went to the Reggae Bar some happy hour. Malaysia is not a typical place to drink! Beer in Vietnam is $.50 for 500ml bottle, Thailand $1.00 for 500ml bottle, Malaysia Kuala Lumpur $4 per can during happy hour. Ouch! Guess that’s culture shock at its finest! Ha ha. There are only 2 bars in area, as Muslims are not huge fans of alcohol...and Malaysia is mostly Muslim.
Next day, went to Petronas Towers as typical tourists. They used to be the highest buildings in world (even higher than world trade towers) but now Tapei and Dubai have upped them. Still amazing at the height of them. We then went to Menara Tower which is 4th highest free standing tower in world (after CN tower in Toronto that is!). This gives you about the best view of the city, KL has a pretty cool cityscape as it is very large and spread out with many high rises. Makes Calgary look like a small town. After that, went back to Reggae Bar again.
After KL the three Houstons’ headed to Island Paradise in Perhentian Islands (Kecil and Besar) to kick back, relax, and get all of us a tan! Stay Tuned.

Chiang Mai

Flew again on a plane that had only 4 people, Kyle’s backpack even got its own windowseat. Arrived at night and had about 4 full days to take in the city. Checked in, then headed out to the Sunday Night market, loads of people, food, local goods, music etc. Chiang Mai has tonnes of stuff to do, 4 days would not be enough.
First day, went to the Tiger Kingdom, didn’t know what to expect, but pretty cool place, paid about $50 and chose to hang out with the smallest tigers, and the biggest they had. You get about 15 minutes with each. They said they don’t drug them, and tigers sleep 18hrs per day, and that’s about what they did while we were there, but they would wake them up when we came in, pretty lazy animals. We were laying with a big cat, when it was sleeping, and the guy there slapped a bush in front of its face to wake it up, pretty intense when it looks around thinking you did something to it, ha ha. Overall, pretty friendly.
Next day, we decided to live like monkeys, and take a tour called Jungle Flight zipline, supposed to be the longest in asia. Had to wear cool hairnets, but the ziplining was exciting. The longest line was 300metres and all are pretty high up in the jungle. But there were a bunch of 150-180m lines as well. A few drops around 50-80m where they pretty much let you free fall until they lock the carabineer. Had to deal with a typical American on the tour, one time he got an elbow to the head as he crashed into the platform, everyone admitted after they enjoyed seeing that, ha ha. Later had some “sodas” with a few people we met on the tour.
Third day, went to BaanChang Elephant conservation Park. Essentially at this park, each elephant has 1 Mahout (pretty much the elephants fulltime caregiver and buddy, they take care of the elephant 24/7 every day, no days off, 3hrs of sleep per night, so a huge life commitment to become one of these). So each person has built a good relationship with their own elephant. We signed up to be a Mahout for the day. Picked up a lot of bananas on the way, got there, the owner told us all about his park, and how it came to be etc. Then we fed them breakfast, the little baby took quite a liking to me wrapping its trunk around my neck. They won’t put seats on elephants back, as not natural, so you have to ride with nothing, so we learned how to do that. Then ate, and hopped on for a trek through forrest. Kyle got a huge mama elephant with a baby attached by chain, she didn’t seem to like him too much, the whole trip growling, farting, disobeying. Luckily the Mahout was there to guide the “naughty” elephant as they call it. My elephant wasn’t bad, but enjoyed scratching its a$$ on every second tree. After a walk, the elephants needed a bath, so we headed to their “tub” and rode them in, one Mahout rode around on a little elephant and could pull its ears a certain way and it would spray like a supersoaker on command. Pretty funny, but gross when you get sprayed in the face with that water! We scrubbed them, and got off, showered up, and that was the end. Elephants eat 300kg of food per day! So you can imagine how much drops out during the day as well : ).
Last day in Chiang Mai, I wanted to learn how to cook some Thai food, so I made Kyle come along, and we learned how to make a bunch of good local eats, but had to cook in about 35degree heat, and then had to eat the food we cooked. Washed it down with a cold Big Chang beer, and all was well.
Kyle ended up sniffing out some Stanley Cup Playoffs...of course! We coaxed a Scottsman out to watch game 7 of Montreal vs. Washington, was good to see as brought a bit of home in the mix. Good for the Canadiens!
From Chiang Mai we flew to Bangkok to meet up with Kyle’s sister Kendra. We flew in around the same time, so picked her up at midnight, and were almost blinded by her absolute Canadian whiteness! Ha ha. Went to hotel, then out for some cold beers, and local food.

Vientiane, Laos

We caught a flight out of Siem Reap to Vientiane (capital of Laos). There was 4 of us on the plane...never seen that before. Made it safely to Vientiane..people are always concerned about the safety of Lao Airlines, but seemed ok for us. We spent 3 nights here, and really didn’t do too much! We would have liked to spend more time in Laos, and had planned on it, but we didn't think we'd spend so long in Vietnam, so had to cut Laos down to only the few days. Maybe another time we'll see the rest of the country....
Vientiane is very French-influenced. Lots of cafes and French restaraunts, and the people are very laid back. Was quite the change from Vietnam and Cambodia where someone was constantly trying to sell you something. We pretty much went from cafe to coffee shop to restaraunt to pub...all day. Oh and got a Traditional Lao massage in between. We did end up going bowling too...(there’s pretty much nothing else to do...), where I waxed Kyle both games! Guess I have a natural talent for bowling!

As of now, we are back in Thailand in Chiang Mai...doing lots! Next post will be more interesting....

We posted more pictures : http://picasaweb.google.com/kyle.houston

Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Siem Reap & Temples of Angkor)

Phnom Penh

We originally didn’t plan on going to Phnom Penh – we had wanted to go directly to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat, directly from Saigon. But flights were very expensive, so we decided to bus it from Saigon. It was supposed to be a 6hr ride to Phnom Penh....for us, it was 12! It turned out we were travelling on the last day of the Cambodian New Year, so we hit a point where we moved about 4 km in about 4 hours (and we complain about Calgary rush hour??!). The reason for the backup was a ferry that crosses the Mekong River. It is about a 2 minute ferry ride, but only about 6 cars can fit at once and there’s only 5 ferries going back and forth. So, the trip was painful...
When we finally made it to Phnom Penh, we only had half a day to see some sites. We went to the Choeung Ek Killing Fields. This was a very disturbing place. We had known very little about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia before coming here, but now understand how difficult of a past Cambodians have had. Essentially, a group called the Khmer Rouge (led by Pol Pot)took over the country and planned a massive genocide of anyone who refused to follow their regime to create an agrarian society (ie. If you were a doctor, teacher, or any intellectual). Well, 2 million people fit this mould, and were all killed between 1975-1978, which ended up being ¼ of the Cambodian population. A lot of people were forced to kill others, just to stay alive themselves. We also learned that people that killed during the Regime of the Khmer Rouge are still living amongst all other Cambodians today (could even be our tuk tuk driver).
After the Killing Fields we went to Tuong Sel Museum. This was also a disturbing place where the Khmer Rouge kept and tortured people before being sent off to the Killing Fields to be executed, if they didn’t die from torture here.
Overall, we were glad we made the trip to Phnom Penh – made us understand a lot about Cambodia’s history, and again, makes us appreciate our lives.

Siem Reap & Temples of Angkor

Took a 6 hour bus ride to Siem Reap (actually was 6 hours this time!) We were amazed at the amount of littering and garbage we saw along the way. You’ll see in our pictures...We also happened to find entertainment along the way. Found some local kids at a bus stop restaraunt with a pet goat....the pictures will explain the rest...Kyle’s work, not mine.
We got in to Siem Reap in the evening, so didn’t do too much, just checked into hotel and crashed. We got up early the next morning (5AM) to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Was quite the view and worth the early morning wake up. After went to our favourite one the temples of Bayon, which is about 57 faces built all over the temple looking every which way...was pretty cool. We spent the rest of the morning touring around about 10 different temples, all of which are from the 10th – 12th century. Really impressive and so unbelievable to see in person...can’t even capture how cool they were on camera. The only thing was it was REALLY hot out. I think it was 37 above, with no cloud, no breeze. Just HOT. So we were burnt out by about noon and went back to hotel to cool off and nap, then went back out for sunset. The next day, we pretty much did the same thing, but mentioned to the tuk tuk driver something about a cooler full of cold beer for the days journey, and he came through for us. That night we ended up meeting up with a couple we met in Halong Bay in Vietnam. Was good to catch up with them and share stories about where we’d been over some beers.

Next, we were off to Laos....

Mui Ne & Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Mui Ne

When we got to Mui Ne, we were looking forward to seeing a nice beach again. Wasn’t the case here, beach was not that nice, so we ended up finding a hotel with a pool, where we spent most of our 4 days here.
We ended up meeting a few other couples, some Germans and Brits, so decided to go with them to rent a scooter for the day and check out the sand dunes that are famous in Mui Ne. We ended up going to the white dunes (there’s red ones also), which turned out to be really cool. The dunes were massive, and in our Vietnam travels have seen a lot of dry hot deserts throughout the country, never would have known it. You could rent a plastic sheet from a kid and slide down about 110-120 feet slide, and really steep. We found the best way to slide down was on our stomachs, problem was we’d end up with a mouthful of sand by the time we got to the bottom. Was worth it though!
We also thought it would be a good idea to try and get a round of golf in. We always talked about doing it in Asia, and looked up the course in Mui Ne. It seemed really nice, not too difficult or anything, and not a bad price. So we showed up at about 2pm thinking it would be cool enough out. There was no one else on the course so we got on right away. They also provided us with our own personal caddies (2 vietnamese girls). Didn’t mind, they were nice and helpful, but kept us honest with our scores...which was a bad thing!(I think Kyle’s caddie got extremely tired of raking all the sand traps the whole round!!!) I think Kyle and I both golfed the worst we have...EVER. We only did 9 holes and that was MORE than enough. It turned out to be a very tough course, and realllly HOT. I don’t think either of us have sweated that much since we’ve been in SE Asia. Oh well, we can say we golfed seaside in Vietnam at least. Our scores will never be shared!

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

We had talked to other travellers who had been to Saigon, and almost all of them recommended a short visit. So we ended up only staying 2 nights there, and spent 1 day hitting the sites. We went to the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside of the city. This is how the Viet Cong hid from the US bombing during the Vietnam war. Was crazy to see how they had miles of underground tunnel systems – the tunnels were very small, the only way we actually were able to crawl through them was because they had been made bigger after the war, for tourists to be able to fit through. We also saw all the “booby traps” set up by the Vietnamese and were able to fire a gun at the shooting range. Kyle chose the M16 – was very loud! Funny to see a video on how the US tried everything to get into these tunnels, but could not for the life of them figure it out during the war.
After the Cu Chi Tunnels, we went to the War Remnants Museum. Was very shocking and disturbing. We read about the effects of the Agent Orange (apparently the most toxic chemical to that date) sprayed by the US during the war, and saw how it is still affecting people today. The chemical totally deforms people from birth in ways you can’t imagine. We saw a lot of shocking photography of the war, a lot of it was disturbing, but at the same time it opened our eyes and made us realize how lucky we are to live in such a safe and peaceful country.

Ninh Binh, Hoi An to Nha Trang (bike trip)

Ninh Binh

Decided to head to Ninh Binh for 1 night, a cool place with national parks. It is referred to as the Halong Bay of the rice paddies. Huge limestone cliffs rising up out of rice paddies. We went on a river boat tour for 2 hours through the cliffs and some caves for about $2. Next day we went to a national park, Cuc Phuong National Park. We heard they had a endangered primate center, so paid the $40 to get there with a private car, mostly to see the monkeys. When we got there, driver dropped us off at the other end of the park, and told us to do a 2 hour hike to go see a thousand year old tree. After arguing to try and get him to take us to the monkeys, and him not understanding, it was pointless and we decided to do the hike anyways. Turned out to be nice scenery, but just hot and sweaty with lots of stairs. After the hike, we finally got to the monkey center....tour ended up being about 5 min, we were expecting at least 30, and we only saw about 4 kinds of monkeys....oh well, still a decent day.

Hoi An

Hoi An is a small, touristy beach town, with about 500 tailor shops! This is supposed to be the best place in Asia to get a suit made. So, we ended up visiting our tailors everyday for the 4 days we were here. If you know how picky Kyle can be, you can just imagine how much bickering was going on between him and three nice (sometimes pushy) Vietnamese ladies. It was amazing how quick they can turn out a suit (we got sized up at 7 at night, suit ready to try on by 11am the next morning). They normally can get a suit finalized in about 2 days, for Kyle....4, and he still wants changes done when we get home, haha. I guess he gave up with the bantering, they were happy to see us leave i think. In the end, we spent so much money on a few suits and shirts that the owner had her neices (all the tailors) take us out for dinner. Seemed like a fun time, until we saw the raw, or really undercooked buffalo (with about half an inch of thick, chewy skin...YUM) Was still a fun time, they were genuinely nice ladies.

Didn't do too much else in Hoi An, but layed on the beach and by the pool at our cheap, but nice hotel.

Motorcycle Diaries (4 day tour through Central Highlands - Hoi An to Nha Trang)

From Hoi An, we decided to look into an "Easy Rider". A guy we met in Thailand told us about this motorcycle tour and a good guide, so we thought it would be a good way to get to Nha Trang - better than the buses.

We called Mr. Dung, and he was at our hotel in Hoi An the next day, giving us a sales pitch. We were hesitant at first due to the price, was a little out of our budget, but decided we wouldn't get to do something like this again, so agreed to it.

Next morning he picked us up, packed up all our bags for us, and we were off. I was on the back of Mr. Dung's bike, Kyle was driving his own chopper, and probably the stupidest helmet in all of Asia. It was about a 750km trip that went straight West towards Laos border, then south through the highland mountains, then back East and down the coast. All areas were virtually untouched by tourism. We definately got some second looks by the locals, but the kids were always so excited when we waved at them. Kyle had quite the time trying to maneuvre through some of the towns with traffic circles and busy intersections (few close calls with other vehicles, dogs, etc and a few stalls at red lights)

It turned out to be the experience of a lifetime. We saw so many things. Here's most of it: rice paddies, Cham ruins, war memorials, pineapple farms, cinnamon trees, pepper farms, mushroom farms, flat tires, tea & coffee plantations, incense operation, smuggled wood carvings, waterfalls, orphanages, tribe and village people, hundreds of smiling kids waving at us (they rarely see foreigners), Vietnam war veterans & landmarks, huge python, scorpions, and a monkey. We also sampled some "real Vietnamese food", including deer, porcupine & ostrich.

In the end, the trip was worth every dollar, and we became good friends with our tour guide, who treated us like family and always made sure we were safe and comfortable, even though it was hard to understand his english sometimes. We learned to nod and agree with him...:)

Nha Trang

Arrived in Nha Trang...not what we were expecting. Busy beach city, lots of development and beach vendors constantly trying to sell you something on the beach, even when we say no, they still stand there until you are on the verge of telling them to F-off, haha. I guess everyone is trying to make a buck though...

Since we became good friends with Mr. Dung, he invited us over to his house for a seafood BBQ and to meet his family. He has such a beautiful family, 3 cute kids and a really nice wife. We wanted to be good dinner guests, so Kyle picked up some beer (20 - 450ml bottles for $7) Good deal! So hung out, laughed with his 3 year old son who tried drinking some of the beer, and ended up drinking cigarette butts! Was a good night - BBQs here are definately a LOT smaller than ours back home.

Next night, Mr. Dung fullfilled Kyle's Vietnamese quest for eating SNAKE! He came to pick us up with his whole family, who came to watch the big white guy choke down some snake...Apparently his kids love eating it! Turns out when you go to eat snake in Vietnam (and especially if you're a foreigner), you get a whole lot more than what you'd expect... So it started with watching the cook scoop about 10 snakes out of a crate outside the restaraunt, then we sat in the back of the restaraunt and watched as the cook: cut snakes' heads off with scissors, (heads still moving after severed from body for about 5 min), cut their stomachs open and pulled out beating hearts, pulled out 10 baby snakes from 1 pregnant snake (a nice surprise, even for the cook) squeezed blood from snakes into bottle of vodka, squeezed kidney juice into a different bottle of vodka. So quite an appetizing ordeal....

Next, we were told to sit down, and wait for snakes to be cooked. First dish that comes out, 7 little beating snake hearts on a tray. Kyle orders BIG beer, then him & Mr. Dung take a shot of snake blood vodka, with beating heart in it. Managed to keep it down and was a bit shaky for a while after. Next was snake rolls (crushed up snake, including bones wrapped in banana leaves). Then, snake burger patties! YAY! Not quite like the burgers back home....Finally...snake soup! Oh, and more shots of kidney juice in vodka. By this time, we had had enough snake (mostly Kyle eating), we decided to leave. Next day, we headed on a bus to Mui Ne. Had to wake up at 6:30...not feeling so good, and still not feeling so good (snake karma). But at least we have a good story! :)

Now we are in Mui Ne, the last week has been an unforgettable adventure!

Northern Vietnam - Hanoi, Sapa & Halong Bay

After a month and a half of beaches in Thailand, we were ready for a beach break and excited to get to Vietnam for some cooler weather. We took a quick stopover in Bangkok to do some shopping and take in a movie before leaving Thailand.

When we first got to Hanoi, it was absolutely chaotic. Motorbikes everywhere, cars honking constantly, and there doesn't seem to be any traffic rules. Crossing the street is just like playing "Frogger", but once we got the hang of it, we figured it all out and we were a little more brave. We stayed in the Old Quarter - most travellers stay in this area of Hanoi, lots of hotels and cafes everywhere. We tried Vietnamese coffee for the first time and are now hooked on it :) We found there wasn't too much to do other than go to some museums and temples or just sit in coffee shops, so we were looking forward to booking a trip to Sapa and Halong Bay to get out of the city.

To get to Sapa, we had to take an 8 hour overnight sleeper train to Lao Cai, about 2km from the Chinese border. We hadn't taken a train before in Asia, so didn't know what to expect. It was so noisy and bouncy, we didn't sleep at all. Once we got to Sapa though, the long trip was definately worth it. The scenery was unbelievable and we were so amused by the local Black H'mong women that surrounded us when we got off our bus. There were about 20 of them running up trying to talk to us and were waving and smiling while we were waiting in the hotel before our trek. There ended up being 6 of the tribe women walking with us for the whole 17km on the first day. They were very helpful and nice, and spoke pretty good english - very cute babies a few of them had too. However, we were disappointed at the end of our trek when about 20 of them surrounded us trying to sell us souvenirs. Oh well, we still ended up buying a few things that we'll probably never use, but would've felt bad if we didn't buy anything after they hiked all day with us.

We trekked through a few different villages and saw how all the different village people live. It was crazy to see how simple they live and to learn all about their culture and traditions. We saw soo many little kids working hard all the time too - carrying heavy baskets or logs on their backs and hiking up the mountain, impressive! We finally made it to our homestay - there was four in our group and we ended up having another pair stay with us, along with our guides. We had a good time with everyone - our host brought out some "happy water" (rice wine) to start our dinner.....the "water" kept flowing and it turned out to be a really fun night, haha. Next morning, not so happy, haha, but we still managed to get up and go trekking again. Then it was the night train back to Hanoi that night, this time, we were exhausted and slept almost the entire time.

The morning we got back from Sapa (4:30 AM), we left for Halong Bay at 7:30AM. When we first got on our "junk" (traditional vietnamese boat), we were amazed at how nice it was...not what we would expect when we hear "junk". Our room on the boat was probably nicer than a lot of the hotels we've been staying in. The first day we toured around, went kayaking and went through a big cave that was packed with other tourists. Really busy, but still good to see. The next morning we got up early and hiked up about 400 steps up a mountain to get a good view of the bay - was pretty good, but tiring at 7 in the morning. We then transferred to a smaller boat and went on a jungle trek through Cat Ba National Park. Was really good because everyone else on our boat had only booked a 1 night tour, so it was just the two of us with our guide, Hien. We stopped in and visited an old man who was living in the middle of nowhere in the National Park. Was cool to see how he lived - really basic, grew all his own vegetables, had his own fish farm and chickens. Then we continued on and headed to Cat Ba island, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. Was a cool harbour town, pretty laid back compared to the chaos in Hanoi!

We're now in Hanoi, going to a national park near Ninh Binh tomorrow (about 2 hours south of Hanoi) for a couple days, then we start to head further south in Vietnam to Hoi An.

Thats it for now!

Khao Lak to Ko Samui

We've hit a bunch of places since last post, so will try and keep it brief for each one.

Khao Lak - was a lazy beachside town 100km north of Phuket island...pretty cool place, was the place hit hardest by tsunami 5 years ago, so has not built itself up as a tourist destination like elsewhere. We basically lazed around, and rented a scooter hunted for deserted beaches : ), and waterfalls. Once at the waterfall, I tried scaling the wall to cool off under the water...got there okay, on the way back, slipped and my foot plunged into the water under some leaves....all i could think was water snake! so I scrambled out quick as i could as Jenn laughed.
Khao Lak was also a jumping point for Similian Island National Park, 9 island Marine park, where you can only take day trips...so untouched other than the daily boats...pretty unreal place, just did some snorkelling and laying on the beach there. Probably the nicest place either of us have ever been.

Khao Sok - next we headed inland towards Khao Sok National park, apparently the oldest Jungle in the world. Stayed in a treehouse with not much around us...it was pretty creepy at night with all the noises. Took a full day tour where we took a boat through the whole lake with cool limestone cliffs/mountains around...then got to the end where we trekked through jungle and into a massive cave. Went through cave for about 1.5hrs saw tonnes of creepy stuff (bats, spiders, frogs). The cave was pitch black the entire time, and there is a small river that runs through it that you are constantly walking in...fear the snake again! ha ha. Eventually we hit a point where you have to swim about 10 metres in the dark.

Ko Tao - from Khao Sok we travelled to the little island of Ko Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. Tried out scuba diving for first time, which was a blast, would have done more if it wasn't so pricey. We'll plan to do scuba again towards end of trip. Ko Tao is probably busiest dive place in Asia, so has a different vibe than other islands - dive shops everywhere, and lots of backpackers. The rest of the 4 days we laid around and took in many chang beers : ). The island was one of the coolest we had been, but is starting to feel tourism, as its getting crowded, more developed, and lots of garbage.

Ko Phangan - Pretty nice island with high moutains rising up, and home of the full moon party. Dates didn't work out to go to this, but possibly in April we will make it back for it. Not much to say here as we did virtually nothing on quiet beaches. Rented a beachfront bungalow for about $15 on a pretty secluded spot. This island is not over run other than Hat Rin (place of full moon party). We stayed on Bottle Beach, really nice spot.

Ko Samui - This island is definately the most westernized of the three in the Gulf - McDonald's, Starbucks, fancy hotels and restaraunts, and lots more tourists! (Mostly European, as there is an international airport on the island) We figured we needed some adventure after laying around for 4 days on Ko Phangan, so we rented a scooter, and hit some buddhist sites, and saw most of the major temples. Had a minor scooter mishap infront of a restaurant full of people, wearing my nice green helmet, looked like an idiot, ha ha. We hit the driving range...realized the golf skills are a bit rusty, wanted to a round of golf, but couldn't fit it in.
Next day took a tour to Ang Thong National Park, which is a bunch of small islands. Did some snorkelling, kayaking, hiked up to a few viewpoints to get pics of the park, and another one to see a big emerald lagoon that formed in the middle of one of the islands. Had a rough ride on the ride back, the sea has been rough in Samui, and Jenn and I thought it would be cool to sit in the front of the speedboat, bad idea, we have some sore backs to report! ha ha.

Now, we are heading to mainland Surat Thani to fly to Bangkok for 1 day, do some quick shopping, and then jet out to Hanoi in North Vietnam for less beach and more adventure!

Ko Lanta/Ko Mook/Phuket

After we left Krabi, we headed to Ko Lanta for 5 nights. So far Ko Lanta has been our favorite island - really laid back and not too big or busy. We rented a scooter and toured the island and found some desserted beaches. Spent a lot of nights just hanging out having a beer on the beach, was great!

Next we headed to Ko Mook, small island south of Ko Lanta. Was REALLY quiet. We pre-booked our bungalow here for 4 nights, probably could have left after 2, but was definately a memorable experience. We stayed at a place that was brand new, only opened 3 weeks before, and the first night we were there, we were the only ones at the resort. We roughed it a bit and stayed in bamboo bungalows that were REALLY basic - 2 twin mattresses on the floor with mosquito nets, and a fan, which cut out in the middle of the night because the island doesn't have 24hr power...and...a shared bathroom. So, were ready to go after 2 nights....but, we toughed it out and met some great people who showed up. Met another Canadian couple and a Swedish couple and made friends with the staff (an old lady and man who were the cooks - and the old man was VERY offended if we didn't eat everything off our plate! - but was really nice and kept bringing us treats from the village or fresh coffee in the morning...definately good service). Also made friends with the owner's dog, Brownie, reminded us of our own a bit...

From Ko Mook, we headed to Phuket - huge change. Phuket is really busy, expensive, and very touristy. Went from being the only ones on the beach to sharing it with a couple thousand on Kata Beach. So only spent 3 nights there, stayed in a nice place, went to the zoo, the old town center, and went to see the Big Buddha. I think they told us it was going to be the biggest in the world, was pretty cool, on top of a huge hill, so we had a great view of all of Phuket. We were also able to catch the gold medal hockey game - woke up at 3 AM and watched it live from our hotel room, Kyle was able to down a few beers, and I think we woke people up - Kyle was screaming when Sid scored! Anyways, had a good time, but were definately ready to leave after 3 nights....

We are now in Khao Lak, about hour north of Phuket for a few nights, and then we are heading into the jungle at Khao Sok National Park.

Thats it for now,

Cheers

More pics at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyle.houston

Tonsai Beach & Krabitown

We were in the rockclimbing hippie central of Railai (in Krabi province)...we stayed in Tonsai Beach area though in the jungle...it was a better deal. Tonsai...oh how it is Rasta central....specialties in the beach bars include "peacecake", "magic cookies", and there is a constant essence of ganga in the air! ha ha.

Pretty good time, hung out with friends Paul and Angela and rented sea kayaks...where you kayak under limestone cliffs and through caves, and hit up various beaches...unfortunately we don't have those photos as we can't take our camer in the water..Paul was photographer for the day..maybe he'll send us some.

Our second day there, early in the morning we had about 10-12 monkeys relaying off our roof...pretty cool...they were flyin all over the place as they went through trees.(few good closeups on picasa)

After two days of relaxing there, we parted ways with Paul and Angela (they went to Samui and then soon enough back to calgary! ha ha) we headed to Krabi town to take a beach break and see a city...well...that lasted all of 12 hours, although a cool city, we quickly booked a ticket to Ko Lanta...another Beach Vacation! ha ha.

Cheers

Ko Phi Phi and "The Beach"

Have been on Ko Phi Phi Don island for 3 days now, met up with some friends from Cowtown,

pretty much have been lazy around beach and walking around town whilst enjoying a soda or two...or three...or four....or five : )

Took a boat tour today to Ko Phi Phi Leh...where the movie The Beach was filmed...pretty cool island, but not exactly like the movie where Leo had peace and quiet...a few more people showed up. Tonnes of boat coming and going, but was still pretty awesome scenery. There aren't any resorts on this island so made it better.

Ko Phi Phi Don, has been completely over run with hotels and partiers, don't let the picasa photos fool you. We thought there would be a few people around...jam packed with crazies. But still again, a cool island altogether, just a shame they let it become what it is....busier than you can even imagine.

Next we head to Krabi province, on Railei beach, and chill out some more, and enjoy more sodas....we are going to try and rough it, and get some beach huts with no AC. F$#k its hot here! Us Canadian whities are still adjusting to the blistering heat....no bad burns yet to report though.

Cheers.

More pics at.

picasa link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kyle.houston

Bangkok

We finally made it to Bangkok today. We are staying near Kho San Road for the next 2 nights, one of the major backpacker/tourist streets. It is definately one of the craziest places we have ever seen. It is total chaos - tons of t-shirt and clothing kiosks, tourists everywhere, and just an all out circus. It is definately an experience! We tried out some of our bartering today - actually works pretty good, and we were able to get a few good deals (or at least we think....)

Our hotel is really nice - can't complain for $20/night, and much nicer and cleaner than what we were staying in in Paris for over $100/night.

I think it will take us a few weeks to get used to the heat and humidity - we were pretty much drenched when we got off the plane! We are looking forward to getting out of Bangkok and hitting the islands for a little more quiet time, should be quite the change from this place.

We have posted some pictures from Paris on our site - the link is below, where we'll post all our pics from our trip. That's it for now! Take care :)

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kyle.houston

Paris!

We finally made it to Paris after a long flight to London, then a 7 hour layover before landing in Paris late last night. So our first day we did most of the touristy things - went up to Montemarte and had an awesome view of the city, went up the Eiffel Tower, took a boat tour down the river (while we sipped on some heinekens :), and walked down Champs Elysees. The rest of the weekend we'll be hitting the Louvre, Notre Dame and Les Invalides. Then its off to Asia on Monday!

We'll post some pictures in the next few days to a Picasa site we set up - I'll attach a link once we put some up. Bye for now!

Countdown is on...

Less than a week away now!! Thought this would be a good time to start the blog. We're starting to get really excited now that work is wrapping up and we're tying up all the loose ends with the trip planning.
For those that don't know, our official itinerary is:

- Leave Calgary Feb 3rd
- Paris - Feb 4 - 8
- Bangkok - Feb 9 - 11
- Koh Phi Phi Island - Feb 12 - 15.....or longer
- The rest of SE Asia is unknown.....mostly throughout Thailand, and a few weeks going through Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, & Laos
- France again (Bordeaux) & Spain - May 20 - June 1

So that's it - next time we update this, we'll be well on our way!

Cheers!