Still Loving Nepal

Well, I’m going to take advantage of this rare rainy day to get you all caught up!

Getting tikka from grandma 

Kathmandu

After leaving trekking, I came back to Kathmandu where I intended to relax for a few days.  I achieved my goal the first day and the second morning was spent meeting with a local friend who I’d met on the trail.  The next day was anything but relaxing.  We left at 8am, with 2 of his other friends, to go to Nagarkot, which is a 3 hour public bus ride from Kathmandu.  Due to the gas shortage (India has stopped supplying gas to Nepal), the busses aren’t running nearly as regularly and are extremely overpacked.  We set on the roof, hoarded in with others.  It was uncomfortable and probably unsafe, but it was a true local experience!  On clear days, Nagarkot has a great view of the Himalaya, but it was too hazy when we were there.  Still, though, the hilltop village has a great view over two grassy valleys below.  In Nepal, there is a saying that “guests are god” and the three locals certainly treated me that way, always asking if I was okay and if I needed something and making sure I had the best “seat” on the roof!  I had planned to go to the lakeside town of Pokhara the next day, but due to the fuel, they weren’t running, so I spent one more relaxing day in Kathmandu before setting off to Pokhara.

Fewa Lake, Pokhara

Pokhara 

In Pokhara, I met up with a Coloradoan girl that I’d met trekking who lives in Nepal now.  Her and several of her friends (local and tourist) were in Pokhara as well, so I spent most of my time with them.  Pokhara is a great place to do a whole lot of nothing besides eat (and the occasional drink), but we did do small activities each day.  One day we hired a peddle boat and spent the afternoon floating around the lake and walking up a hill to a World Peace Pagoda with a panoramic view of the lake.  Again, in clear weather, the mountains are behind the lake, but except for the odd glimpse, they hid behind cloud.  Another day was spent bicycling around the lake and to a waterfall.  One of the locals had some family in Pokhara and it was Daishan when I was there, so we spent the afternoon with his family getting tikka (the red dot on your forehead—it’s actually rice), and eating a big, delicious meal.  While getting the tikka from his family, they all say a blessing or prayer for you.  It was interesting as only the friend and 2 cousins spoke any English, but the family was extremely friendly and their prayers were wishing us all safe travels and a long, healthy life!  Daishan is the biggest holiday in Nepal and, as I understand it, is the celebration of the gods eliminating evil from earth.  Otherwise, it was a very peaceful and relaxing several days.

Monkey Temple

From there, it was back to Kathmandu.  By now, I know my way around the city well, which is nice and am actually beginning to really like it.  The Coloradoan girl took me to a hilltop temple, known as Monkey Temple, which has a great view over the city, along with a huge temple and monkeys!  I also went to Durbar Square, which is a World Heritage Site, but was heavily damaged by the earthquake.  Essentially it’s just a block that is full of many temples!  Lastly, I went to see the Everest movie, which was really cool since I could recognize some of the places and relate to certain parts of it!  The theatre was extremely nice and modern, which was surprising in the dirty, poor city!

Kathmandu busses

Although Nepal is the poorest of the Asian countries, I loved it from the beginning and it keeps growing on me.  I know my way around Kathmandu now and actually quite like it.  It took a while, but am now completely comfortable in the overcrowded, polluted Asian cities.  The people, despite the hardship with the earthquake and fuel shortage are friendly.  They don’t harass you like other Asian countries, they smile, and they are always happy to talk.  I found a dumpling food cart that I really like, and visit every night, and every night I am the only foreigner, but the locals always talk to me about where I’m from, what America is like, what life in Nepal is like and so on.  They speak English exceptionally well and really do make the foreigners feel welcome in a way that the Southeast Asian countries didn’t.  In fact, although they are probably the most different country from ours, I find them the most relatable people. Oh, and they have some cool mountains!

 I’m not exactly sure what the plan is from here, but I’ll be sure to enjoy it and fill you in!

Almost on Top of the World

I really don't know how to describe 28 days of trekking through the Himalayas in a blog.  I don't think I can, but I'll try my best!

From one little leech!

Earthquake damaged home

I chose to follow the traditional route to Everest, which meant starting from Jiri, where the bus stops, rather than flying.  While this added several days, it was worth it!  Anyway, the adventures started before I even had to begin walking.  The bus, as usual for Asia, was packed with way more people than should have fit, along with chickens, goats, and who knows what else I didn't see.  The lady across the aisle from me was vomitting the whole time and at one point we stopped for repairs.  Oddly, Nepali repairs apparently mean to take the tire off, take the brakes off, hit them with a hammer, then replace them and drive on.  After 10 hours of luxury, we finally made it to Jiri!  There was one other white person, a Welshman named Adrian, on the bus, so we decided to trek together.

The following morning, the adventures escalated.  We decided to get off the road and try walking through the jungle, but that was clearly a mistake.  About 20 minutes in, I fell off a 10 feet cliff and had to use rope to get my bag back up and lost one of my new trekking poles.  Not long after that incident, we realised we were getting infested by leeches.  I don't know much about them, but they suck--literally and figuratively!  They would get into our boots, up our pant legs, onto our arms and I think they put an anti-coagulant in your blood because they make you bleed a lot!  Anyway, we eventually made it to Shivalaya for the first night.  From here on, things got slightly more normal.

Everest Base Camp

The first glimpse of Everest

This section of the trek was much more remote, through the rolling hills and farmland, and the villages here were hit much harder by the earthquake than further up.  The next day we went to a village called Chaulakharka, which had one lodge, but it was destroyed by the quake.  We ended up sleeping in a random house and only 1 person in the village spoke very broken English, so this is where I started to learn a bit of Nepali.  Our mattresses were simply hay woven together with a sheet over it, but it got the job done!  Everyone in the village was amazed by us and we must've had 20 people watching our every movement and laughing hysterically when we were tying our shoes--I'm still not sure why.  From here, we went to Ngaur, which was meant to be 5 hours away.  Somehow, this took us 9 hours and we spent 1 hour walking in the dark.  When we finally saw a light, we were ecstatic and it turned out to be two older women who spoke no English, but understood we needed food and a bed and coincidentally, they had both!  Ironically, there was a lodge about 2 minutes further down the trail.  From here on, it got quite a bit less "exciting."  We spent the next 6 days walking through clouds with limited views, but enjoyed the hospitality of the locals and the peacefulness of the area not full of tourists!

Lhotse (middle) and Everest (right) with Prayer Flags

Eventually, we made it to Namche Bazaar, the biggest village in the area.  This, too, is after the airport that most tourists fly into to begin their trek.  It is essentially a normal town, but prices are obviously a bit inflated as everything in the region gets flown in then carried on porters' backs to their destination.  The porters would carry up to 80kg on their backs up hills, over passes, and all over the place!  If I ever felt exhausted, they reminded me that my 14kg was actually very little.  Anyway, on the way to Namche, the weather finally turned for the better and I got my first view of the top of the world--the summit of Mt Everest!  Due to the high altitude, you have to take a rest day in Namche to let your body acclimatize.  Besides eating cake and drinking real coffee in Namche, we also did a day hike to a the village of Khumjung and the Everest View Hotel.  The sky was perfectly clear and I had incredible views of the entire Everest range!

4th Gokyo Lake

From Namche, it took 3 days to reach Chukkhung.  Again, it isn't that far really, but you can only gain 300-500m in altitude per day to avoid altitude sickness and are meant to take a rest day for every 1000m you gain.  In Chukkhung, I met 2 Polish guys and an American and the 4 of us set off early the next morning for Kongma La.  This mountain pass was the highest point that I'd reach at 5,535m (18,160ft) above sea level!  The weather had still been good throughout with some cloud coming in the afternoon, but the views from the pass were unreal!  We had to cross a glacier at the end, and I was exhausted when I finally made it to Lobuche.  The next morning, we went up to Gorakshep, which is the highest village on the trek at 5,180m, or nearly 17,000ft.  After dropping off our bags and eating lunch, we went up to Mt Everest Base Camp in perfect weather again!  The following morning was the Everest Marathon (those people are nuts), so base camp was full of runners and 1 Japenese guy leaving in the morning to attempt Everest.  I heard later that he did not make it to the summit, but had to turn around.  Unfortunately, this is where I started to get sick also. By night, I felt awful.  It was like having the worst hangover in the world, and for those of you who haven't had the joy of experiencing that yet, it's a combination of a headache, dizziness and nausea.  These are tell-tale signs of altitude sickness, so I went back down to Lobuche in the morning, but still didn't feel well, so went all the way down to the medical clinic at Pheriche the next day.  There is an American ER doctor from New York volunteering there for the season and he took my oxygen levels and body temperature and determined that everything was normal, so he reckoned I had gotten a gastrointestinal illness, rather than altitude sickness, but I think altitude did have some impact also.  However, 4-5 people get flown out by helicopter daily, so luckily I didn't get anywhere near that sick!  Luckily after 2 days in Pheriche, I started to feel better and went up the valley to Gokyo.  The first two days, after living off of soup and toast and a lack of walking, were a struggle.  It's amazing how quickly you lose strength!  Anyway, I eventually made it back up to Gokyo, which is an awesome village.

Everest from Renjo La

From Gokyo, there are several day trips to do.  I went up Gokyo Ri, a small "mountain," but unfortunately got clouded in and had no views, but I made it!  There is also a series of 6 turquoise lakes, and I spent one morning walking to the fourth lake, but again, clouds turned me around.  The weather had changed quite a bit, and afternoons got very cloudy and even snowy.  I met a really friendly Canadian family and another Canadian couple, so we spent the snowy afternoons playing cards around the wood stove.  Oddly enough, since there is no firewood as it's all above treeline, the lodges use Yak dung as fuel.  Luckily, the smell goes out through the chimney, but it does do a good job of heating the lodges.  This lodge in Gokyo also had delicious pizza, which I ate for dinner each night!  Needless to say, I was happy to feel better and have my appetite back!  On the third morning, the skies were clear so the Canadian family and I set off to go over Renjo La.  This pass was lower and much easier than Kongma La, but again had unbelievable views from the top, including a stunning view of Everest!  After safely getting over the pass, it was fairly easy and downhill from there back to Lukla.  Lukla is the most dangerous airport in the world as the runway is literally on the side of a mountain and therefore rather steep, but landing is far more dangerous than taking off and I safely and happily made it back to the warmth of Kathmandu.

At the top of Renjo La

Kongma La--18,160 ft above sea level

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love Nepal.  The landscapes are beautiful, the people will bend over backwards for you, and it's ridiculously cheap.  While the lodges were a bit more expensive, they were comfortable and the food was usually delicious.  Anyway, the trek was a fantastic experience full of great people and breathtaking views, along with several days of breathtaking climbs!  My next plan is to go to a town called Pokhara, which is situated on a lake with great views of the Himalayas around it and relax for a bit.  From there, I may do another shorter trek, or possibly head to Chitwan National Park.  Or maybe I'll just get stuck relaxing by the lake... At some point I will spend a few more days in Kathmandu also, as I haven't explored much of the city yet.  I tried to throw as many pics as I could in the blog, but there's a lot more on facebook and even more on my computer that I can show you later.  Miss you all!  

Island Time

Sorry it's been so long, but the islands here don't have the greatest WiFi!

Angkor Wat

Anyway, my last stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap.  As it turns out, the town itself is really neat and small with lots of markets (and pub street) just along the river!  The main attraction, however, is Angkor Wat and the temples around it.  Two of us got a tuk-tuk for a half day tour around the complex and explored ruins of temples that date as far back as the 9th-century!  Needless to say, it's pretty impressive how they built them with the detail that they did so long ago.  I can also now say that I've been to Lonely Planet's #1 Travel Destination in the world!  Siem Reap was also the site of my most shocking adventure yet.  A large group of us from the hostel went on a boat trip through a floating village in a river, out to Tonle Sap--the largest lake in Southeast Asia--for sunset.  However, we obviously shouldn't have all been on the roof to watch the sunset as our weight caused the boat to flip and sink.  Luckily, there were several other boats around to help pull people out, but I managed to climb on top of the boat as it flipped and stayed completely dry!  Thankfully, no one was hurt, but there were lots of broken IPhones!

Monkey Beach, Koh Phi Phi

From there, it was 25 hours of travelling to get to Phuket in Thailand.  While I'd heard mixed things about Phuket, I met up with grandpa's friend's friend's son (confused yet?) and it worked out well.  I got some much needed rest at his house and met some of his friends, one of which actually ended up going to Koh Phi Phi with me.  Obviously my next stop was Koh Phi Phi, which is a beautiful island, somewhat ruined by the town in the middle.  The nice thing is that there are no cars or motorbikes, but I've heard the island was far prettier several years back.  Anyway, it was still fun ad we spent one day kayaking and in the evening I even had a go at a Thai kickboxing fight where I beat an Irish guy!

Beating up an Irish guy!

From there, it was on to Koh Lanta, which is a much more laid back island.  There is less development and more local communities here, especially during low season, when lots of the resorts are shut down.  It was a great place to hang out and I ended up running into a few friends from Siem Reap again, which was nice.

Sunset in Koh Lanta

After a couple days of relaxing on Koh Lanta, I went to Ton Sai near Railay Beach.  I was recommended by several people to stay in Ton Sai, which is a very hippy little village.  There's not much there besides a few guesthouses and a couple restaurants, but I got my own, very basic, bungalow where I could sit on my porch and watch monkeys swing from trees.  The village runs on a generator and only has power from 5pm until 6am each day.  However, the main attraction here is world-renowned rock climbing, so I did one half day lesson, then did a day of "deep water soloing" which is rock climbing without a rope on cliffs over the water.  If you fall, you just go into the ocean and if you make it to the top you get rewarded with a cliff jump back down!

Climbing in Ton Sai

My last stop was Koh Tao, which turned out to be my favourite island.  It was the second most developed, but has a very laid back, diving atmosphere.  So, I figured I'd join in and spent one day diving and the rest of the day relaxing on the beach!

Now, I'm back in Bangkok getting ready for my flight to Nepal at 7am tomorrow morning!  I have seen, smelt, tasted, and heard a lot of very strange things in South East Asia and it has opened my eyes to another part of the world, but I have truly loved it and met amazing people along the way.  Of course, I can't wait to get into the Himalayas either!

Cambodia--Who Knew?

Cambodia is probably the country that I knew the least about, but apparently it is full of all sorts of history and beautiful areas!

Kep's Crab Statue

I started my trip in Kampot, which is a sleepy riverside town in the "mountains."  One day I took a motorbike about 30km to another town called Kep, which I had to check out for its "blue swimmer crab" market alone!  After checking out the town and the beach, I went to the market for lunch.  The lady literally walked out into the ocean and I watched her pick a pot up and take some live crabs out that'd soon be my meal!  They wouldn't have made the legal size in MD, but they were meaty!  This area is also famous for growing pepper, so I had the pepper crab for lunch and was very satisfied!  You can take me away from MD, but it'll always be in my roots...  The next day, I went to Bokor National Park and Bokor Hill Station, which is a beautiful area full of ruined buildings that got abandoned 60 years ago during the war.  The views out over the sea are amazing, as well!  We even found an impressive waterfall. That night the tour included a two hour "sunset and firefly cruise."  It was fairly uneventful, but the sunset was nice and the lightning bugs were shocking to people who hadn't grown up with them!

Sunset on Kampot River

From there, I went directly to an island called Koh Rong.  Unlike most islands around Asia, it hasn't been overrun with tourism, yet. It's not far off as construction is rampant, but for now, there was no road, just one little village, poor wifi, etc.  The beaches were gorgeous and the water was refreshing.  I took a SUP out one day for a bit and trekked across to another beach one day.  Despite being warned, the trek was still harder than imagined and the other beach was actually being heavily constructed!  One day, I took a boat trip including snorkeling (sub-par), fishing (we got skunked), watching the sunset (beautiful) and swimming with bio-luminescence plankton (amazing)!  I spent a fair bit of time just relaxing in the sand on the beach!  While the island wasn't as stunning as Gili T in Indonesia, the lack of infrastructure was refreshing.

Koh Rong

Now, I'm back in Phnom Penh, the capitol city.  This place is full of recent history that much of the rest the world seems to have never heard of!  They had a giant genocide led by the Khmer Rouge.  Essentially, the Khmer Rouge wanted to rebuild society exactly how they wanted it to be, so anyone who wasn't a farmer was executed.  They killed 3 million of the 8 million Cambodians at the time.  Not only did they kill them, but because bullets were too expensive, they used knives, bamboo rods, hoes, axes, and even serrated leaves!  They feared redemption, so killed kids too by swinging them, by their feet, into a tree until their head was smashed.  At the killing fields, you can still see bones on the ground.  We also went to the S-21 Prison were people were held before going to the killing field.  They were tortured horrendously there and the floor is still covered in blood stains.  There were only 7 survivors at the prison, 2 of whom are still alive and one is still there to talk to tourists.  Our tour guide at the prison lost her father, brother, and sister at the time, but she ran through the jungle for 3 days to Vietnam until the Khmer Rouge lost power.  And all of this happened between 1975-1979!

Skulls in the Killing Field

Again, Cambodia was the country I knew very little about, but apparently has remote islands, lush jungle-covered hills, and an unbelievable history.  Tonight, I'm off to my last stop in Cambodia, Siem Reap, to explore the town and Angkor Wat--one of the man made wonders of the world!

A Little Bit of Everything!

Sorry, I've been quite busy lately moving around through the last bit of Vietnam.  The country is very diverse, although on a smaller scale than NZ, and the trip through the South saw a bit of it all!

33 foot cliff jump near Da Lat

From Hoi An, I went to Nha Trang just for one night where I had a day on the beach.  It's a strange place as it's a big Russian holiday-resort town.  Other than that, it was nothing special and the beach was not as nice as the one in Hoi An.

The following morning, I was on another bus down to Da Lat. Da Lat is up in the mountains, which meant it was significantly cooler than the rest of the country.  It was amazing.  I walked 7km around the lake without sweating!  Usually I can't walk 7 inches without becoming drenched.  The town itself was nothing special, although it had a big night market.  It was odd though, that the entire market was full of stalls selling the exact same things--dried fruit and veggies.  Anyway, the main attractions are the waterfalls and mountains.  I met a group of people who'd been travelling together, so I joined in with them and we rode out to Pongor Waterfall, which was really pretty and easy to climb up and around!  The next day I went "canyoning" despite the lack of a canyon.  Basically we hiked to a river then followed it downstream by means of cliff jumping, sliding, and rappelling down two waterfalls.  Of course, I was in my element, and thought this was good fun!  Da Lat was also full of amazing food!  Apparently Vietnam has quite a bit more than just noodle soup.  I also got bed bugs somewhere along the road, but luckily washed all of my clothes and equipment and aside from one miserable night, I survived.

Rappelling through a waterfall!

From Da Lat, it was down to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City).  HCM is the largest city in Vietnam, but isn't full of attractions.  Other than walking around and going up to a skybar for rooftop views, the only other real attraction in the city was the War Museum.  That was an eye-opening experience.  It is extremely graphic with pictures and descriptions and is very clearly anti-American propaganda.  Many people in the building were in tears as it described how terribly Americans treated the "innocent" Vietnamese. As with anything, I'm sure the truth lies somewhere between what we're taught in American school and what the museum portrayed. Outside of the city are the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used as an underground bomb shelter during the war.  They were designed to be small enough that Vietnamese could fit through, but not Americans and it was a struggle for me to wiggle through bits of it.  While it's cleared now, it was amazing to see how well disguised the entrances were and how they built traps to guard them.  There were over 200km of tunnels that could fit 12,000 people, in three tiers (3m, 6m, and 9m under ground) all dug by little hand shovels!

The lights of Saigon

From Saigon, my last stop in Vietnam was Bien Hoa.  This is merely a suburb of HCM, but a (American) friend who I'd lived next to while studying in New Zealand now teaches English there, so I thought it'd be nice to catch up and get off the backpacker trail a bit.  Despite being only 15 miles from the city, the public bus took nearly 2 hours!  I was the only white person in a bus with no AC that was loaded with boxes (apparently buses make deliveries) and shoulder to shoulder with people.  I tried to give my seat up to older people or women with little children, but was constantly pushed back into my seat as they yelled something in Vietnamese at me.  It got even more interesting when a fight broke out--of course I have no idea what over!  Anyway, once I made it, it was great.  Just getting back into doing "normal" things that you'd do at home was great.  We spent one day laying by the pool.  We went to an amusement park one day.  We went to a BBQ at a friends house one night.  We played soccer for 2 hours with some of the teachers and students.  Doing those kinds of things was a great breath of fresh air from the backpacker life.  It was also interesting as the town is obviously not designed for tourists and white people (only us) often got stared at and people spoke little to no English, nor were menus or signs in English.

I barely fit in the Cu Chi Tunnel

Anyway, this morning I took the bus out of Vietnam and entered Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Tomorrow I'm off to Kampot then headed north through Cambodia for a week and a half or so.  From there it's back to Thailand before my flight to Nepal on September 15!  Sorry I haven't been keeping in touch as regularly, but I love and miss you all!

Cruising Through Vietnam!

Well, it's been a while and a lot has happened (which is why I've been too busy to write a blog!)

Khu with her mom and dad in Sa Pa

After Ha Long Bay, I went off to Sa Pa in Northern Vietnam.  It's in the mountains, yet full of rice terraces, making it especially beautiful.  I did a home-stay there, which basically meant a local lady from one of the villages guides you trekking through the mountains, then you spend the night at their "house."  I got a 24 year old girl called Khu from the H'mong Tribe and even that was interesting.  The tribal people don't consider themselves Vietnamese, but H'mong rather, and speak a different language.  Khu was married at 18 and had a 5 and 4 year old kid already.  She spoke decent English, but anyway, her husband took my bag by motorbike to the house, while Khu and I trekked for nearly 7 hours to her village!  The landscape was amazing and her mom even joined us.  It still shocks me how these people work so hard out in fields and on mountainsides despite the heat.  Her house was merely one room in a bamboo shack with a cement floor.  The food was extremely plentiful and good, consisting mostly of veggies and rice, all cooked on a little wood fire on the floor.  I slept on a loft, on a thin mattress, with a mosquito net, but after a night bus and a long trek, I slept well!  The second day was another day of trekking, but I stayed at her mom's house that night in a different village, which was very similar, but slightly larger.  It's quite interesting as there are animals roaming everywhere, including cats, dogs, chickens, and ducks in the house along with water buffalo and pigs outside.  The last day we trekked back to the town and I was still very happy with how friendly they were and treated us so well!

Along Hoi Van Pass

After Sa Pa,  went to a small town called Tam Coc, which is really just the Ha Long Bay on land.  Rather than the limestone cliffs popping out of the water, they come out of the land along a river with rice paddies on the banks.  The first day we did a river cruise and the second we just rode around the area on motorbikes!  From Tam Coc, it was down to Phong Nha, which is a national park full of caves.  I met a few people on the bus and in the town, so we formed a group and went to Dark Cave, which was good fun.  The cave itself was impressive and huge, but you also get to zipline to the entrance, swim through the cave, take a mud bath, then kayak back out!  I intended to spend the night in Phong Nha, but decided instead to stick with the British couple I'd met and head on another bus down to Hue.

Lanterns in Hoi An

We spent only 12 hours in Hue, mostly sleeping, then got motorbikes and drove to Hoi An.  The drive includes 3 mountain passes, along the coast, then through the coastal beach town of Da Nang before getting the UNESCO World Heritage Town of Hoi An. The drive was also featured on Top Gear and we got perfect weather and the scenery certainly didn't disappoint.  Hoi An is really just a laid back town on a river that gets beautifully lit up by lanterns at night.  It's also known for getting custom tailored clothing, which I neglect
ed to do.  We spent one day laying on the beach as well, but unfortunately were constantly hassled to buy things and pay more, which ruined an otherwise gorgeous day at the beach.

Overlooking Tam Coc

Hoi An also has the best food I've had in Vietnam so far.  Vietnamese food varies from all sorts, but most commonly (in the north at least) different types of noodle soups.  In Hoi An there is more variety with things such as dumplings, chicken with rice and veggies, or a unique (and better tasting) noodle soup.  One of the oddest things I had was a shrimp pancake (more like a dessert crepe kind of thing) where it had whole shrimp, in the shell, fried in with it!  They had crab as an option too with little crabs, shell and all, in it, but I went for shrimp!

Anyway, I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing from here.  I may head to Thailand Sunday or spend ten more days in Vietnam before going into Cambodia!  I'll keep ya posted!!

A Yank in Vietnam

They let me through the border!

After a miserable 27 hour bus trip, we finally made it to Hanoi.  At first, we were put in the back of the bus, which we thought was okay until we realized that those seats had less leg room.  The "beds" reclined to about 130degrees, but you couldn't extend your legs and because the seats in the back of the bus were elevated, you couldn't sit upright without hitting your head on the roof.  Needless to say, it wasn't the most comfortable journey, but the company certainly helped!

After showering and eating, we went to bed as it was now after 11pm.  The following morning we set off to explore the city.  We checked out Hoan Kiem Lake, then went to explore a few museums.  The Vietnam Military History museum had a lot of cool information about different provinces fighting, their war versus France and of course, against America.  We then went to the Ho Chi Minh museum (Ho Chi Minh is their most famous president), which was strange.  There was a very weird assortment of things that seemed to make no sense!  By this point we were exhausted and hot, so got some food and relaxed for the afternoon before finding a karaoke bar in the evening!

The next morning, Joel and I were off to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay.  Cruise tours of the bay are very expensive plus the island was meant to be spectacular, so we opted with that option and it paid off!  We met several others at the hostel (mostly Americans, 1 of which studies at UMD and 2 of which studied abroad in Dunedin, NZ) and ended up getting a group of 10 of us to rent motor bikes together the next morning.  Cat Ba is beautiful with limestone and karst mountains covered in thick jungle and even just driving around was great fun, despite the rain.  Hospital Cave is a weird place as it is a hospital built into a cave, used in case the Americans attacked the island.  There is also a national park here and we hiked up Ngu Lam Peak for spectacular views across the mountains and to the sea.  At night we got a fresh fish dinner where we could watch them catch and kill the fish before bringing it into the kitchen--so good!  We all had a really great time and enjoyed the riding and scenery!

Finally, we did a day trip through Halong and Lan Ha bays.  It was unbelievable!  There are nearly 2,000 islands here, but most are simply karst cliffs and they stretch on forever.  This bay rivals Milford Sound for beauty!  On the trip we also spent an hour kayaking where we went through caves and under rock tunnels exploring different coves and whatever else we could find.  Later in the afternoon, after a delicious fish lunch, we got to go rock climbing up a 50 foot rock and jumped off, which again was really fun!  We were meant to stop at Monkey Island, an island full of monkeys, but a storm and moved in and the water was really rough, so we had to go back in a bit early.  Anyway, it was an incredible day and the scenery was breath taking!

From here, I am going to take a night bus tonight to Sa Pa and spend 2 nights living and eating with a tribe family in their village and they will show me around the mountain area!