Vietnam

Its crazy to even say that we are no longer in Vietnam. I am not sure where the time is going and I am too frightened to figure it out. I am currently posting from Vang Vieng, Laos and we have already been to Vientiane, Laos as well. However Laos will have to wait until my next post for an appearance as I have not accumulated enough photos.

......That being said
Briana and I spent 8 days in Vietnam. Our time was spent between Hanoi and Halong Bay.

Hanoi
To be honest, Hanoi has thus far been my least favourite destination. It was beyond hectic, very unorganized and rather overwhelming. Not one second went by where you didn't hear the beeping of someones horn. Traffic was nuts and there was no where to walk. Everyone parked their scooters on the side walk making pedestrians fend for themselves on the most insane roads I have ever witnessed. AND most parts of it smelled. However, I want to be clear that I still very much enjoyed myself and we both appreciate that we got to even visit.

I am only posting one photo from hanoi as most of them are not on my camera. That photo shows the only traffic light I saw in the city which was rather useless as not one driver obeyed it. As you can see cars are going in every direction and pedestrians are somewhere in the mix as well. Due to the lack side walks you can understand how Hanoi would be a scary city to walk around. I would be very curious to know the amount of annual accidents in that city haha 

Halong Bay 

We had an amazing time in Halong Bay. We took a three and half hour (absolutely cramped) bus ride from Hanoi to Halong Bay, where we boarded a small cruise ship or large house boat (depending on how you want to look at it). We spent one night and two days on the ship before it dropped us off on a very remote island, where we and the rest of the people on our boat were the only ones there. On the island we also spent only one night and two days. Our days were filled with activities such as kayaking, swimming, badminton, volleyball, wakeboarding, rock climbing and napping. The night of course was occupied by flip cup, beer pong, and other games. Our sleeping arrangements on the island was a very unique experience. We were grouped in minimal bamboo huts; the best way to describe them was bamboo hunts (without walls) with mattresses on the floor and mosquito nets. During the night we heard the waves crashing and the intense thunderstorm, it was pretty surreal. Overall Halong Bay was definitely our highlight of Vietnam.

Briana looking out towards the Halong Bay landscape

Pretty cool building on top of one the limestone peaks. (photo was taken from a kayak).

 Part of the cruise experience was suppose to include a sunset kayak trip to a cave located in one of these limestone islands. After ten minutes of kayaking, Briana I noticed that we were sitting waist high in water and that our kayak was sinking. We had to promptly (very promptly) kayak back to the ship to avoid swimming back haha. This crappy kayak forced us to miss out on the cave adventure :(. However, on the bright side we had a very entertaining time trying to tame this sinking kayak.

Me rock climbing. The scary part was that I had to have weighed twice as much as the guy who was hanging on to my safety rope haha. 

Briana gearing up!

Panoramic shot of the beach where we spent the night

wakeboarding was too much fun. 

Briana gearing up again!

I swear Briana didn't go wakeboarding at night! My camera just wasn't very good at handling the low light 

after two summers of wakeboarding every weekend in Haliburton, Ontario she 's pro ! :)

Teaching our australian buddies how to play beer pong.

flip cup time. 

sketching our mark into the island 

more games

We had to take the festivities one step further with face paint :)   (painting was done by our  tour guide and not us)

good morning bri!

inside photo of our hut.

picture on top of our boat

this is how you grocery shop when you're on a cruise ship in the middle of no where. 

another photo inside our hut

our hut from the outside

Bubye Vietnam! Hello Laos 

As I promised on my last post. I have uploaded some photos from the floating village, otherwise known as Kampong Phluk in Cambodia. If you have the time, please check out my last blog post to check them out! 

Hope everyone enjoys Vietnam as much as we did!

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Its hard to believe that we are already packed to leave Siem Reap and making way to Hanoi, Vietnam. So far the current theme of our travels is that everytime we go somewhere new it becomes "our favourite place." I suppose that a good thing though!
Our time in Cambodia was short but amazing. We could not get over how much we loved the city, the people, the food, and the attractions. Nothing against Thailand (because we really loved it there too) but the people in Cambodia seemed to be more sincere and welcoming.
Briana and I spent three nights and four days in Siem Reap. We visited the ancient ruins of the old city of Angkor Wat, where we toured many ancient temples and other such buildings. If you are unfimiliar with Angkor Wat I highly suggest you wikipedia it or something because it is beyond interesting and hard to believe that such an ancient civilization was capable of so much.

Bri and I in a tuk-tuk on our way to the night market

Scooters are the all purpose vehicles over here. This one is the family car model

This is called the Dr. Fish pedicure. You stick your feet into this pool of fish and they eat off all your dead skin

we inspected to make sure there were no parihanas

it takes tickling to a whole new level

the local tuk tuk super hero

in front of the moat the surrounds the Angkor Wat temple

In front of Angkor Wat temple

Gates to the ancient city

In front of the Jungle temple where they filmed Tomb Rader

Bri hurt her toe again :( I think she is finally going to watch where she is walking

This 500+ year old tree died then another one grew arround it. Way to cool!

The next day we went to a town called Kampong Phluk, otherwise known as the flooded city. I don't think either one of us have ever seen anything like this including anything I have seen on the Discovery or National Geographic channel. We took a long “Tuk Tuk”ride which is just a name for a carriage towed by a scooter to this remote port. From there we hopped on a boat which drove us for half an hour through flooded plains which were very aesthetically stimulating until we reached the flooded village of Kampong Phluk. In this village there are no roads, side walks, or dry grounds of any kind. The only way to get from point A to point B is to boat or swim. With such restrictions on a town you would not expect there to be many people however, this village was made up of 3000 people and had everything from houses, elementary and secondary schools, hotel (not that I would want to stay there) and restaurants. It was really quite something. After boating through the village, we got off at a restaurant, where we then hopped on to another boat this time being powered by to woman who took us to through the flooded forest. Unfortunately all the pictures from the actual village were taken from Briana's camera. I will update this blog with some of those photos in a day or so, so check in again there to see photos from the village!

some houses

The guy let me drive !

through the flooded forest

thig guy kept good company

floating cattle ranch

Unfortunately I have to go, as our flight to Vietnam is in 2 hours. So I will leave you to enjoy these pictures in the mean time and I will update this post as soon as possible!




Here are more pics from Kampong Phluk!