Jul 2006

Before I get started on the travel stories, I would like to inform all of you that there is no worm!! I know you were all hoping Henken would get some support, but the doctor told me that there is no way that thing could have come out of my !@$%.. Wonderful..

It has now been about 10 days since we last updated you on our travels, and needless to say, we have moved on from Saigon and hit up a few more places in Vietnam.

The first place on our itinerary was the French-Colonial city of Dalat. Due to the city's high altitude (about 1500 metres above sea level) the French used it as a get-away during the colonial period, which makes it a rich and "clean" city. The city is what we would call a smaller town situated in the midst of gorgeous mountains. Very picturesque and quite chilly at night (Mahta actually wore a sweater)!! We only spent one full day in town, which was spent riding around the countryside on motorbikes. We rented a so called Easy-Rider (a group of bikers offering tours around the outskirts of town) for a whole day, and he showed us all the nifty places. Halvor got stuck behind the guy, while Mahta and I had our own pimping bike (well, we didn't have a bike, just a scooter).. It was actually really cool. We drove around to silk factories (Got to hold small silk worms !!! They look like the worm version of the Michellin Tyre dude btw) as well as a cool waterfall and some other stuff. All in all, a really nice day.

The next day we took the morning bus to Nha Trang, so-called Vietnams's beach Capital, looking for some sun, sand and cheap beer. Guess what we found!!! Sun, sand and cheap beer.. he he Our first evening was spent sampling the local wine, spirits and beer menu at various watering holes accross town. The beer was dirt cheap.. About 50 cents for half a litre bottles.. not bad! Anyways,the night was a blast. When the bar we were at closed (which really should have been a sign for us to go home), we ended up leaving with a vietnamese girl (YES, we were trying to set Halvor up) to another place. Kinda cool. She introduced us to all her friends and stuff, but by this time the twins were completely shit faced, so we were forced to leave.

Now, see, this is kinda where the fun starts.. On our way back from the bar, Haakon started talking to this Vietnamese dude standing by the side of the road. (I think I was trying to teach him a secret handshake, which is kinda funny cuz he didn't speak English) Anyways, I taught him the handshake, and I guess I must have made a huge impression, because before I know it, we're sitting in his living room.. hmm... wish I could tell you what happened, but I really don't remember..The point is that he invited us over for breakfast next morning at 10 AM (it was 4 in the morning, Halvor could barely stand and Haakon had his drunk face on). We accepted!!!

Drunk as shit, we showed up at this guys place at 10 next morning. Halvor could barely stand, and I was seeing stars!! Turns out this guy was 38 years old and had two kids. Funny. So we sit down on this guy's couch and start playing with his kids while he dishes up breakfast. 30 minutes later, he comes out with a HUGE tray of fresh crabs and a massive grin on his face. KICK ASS. Now, at this point, he asks me if we want anything to drink. Sure, some water would be really good, so I take off to the store with this guy. Once at the store, he says something in Vietnamese to the lady and she points towards to small water bottles. "Hmmm, must be all they have" I think to myself, so I look at her and ask for the last two remaining. After a weird look and a larger than normal price for water, she hands me the bottles and we head back for breakfast. Once there, another Vietnamese dude shows up (speaks a little bit of English) and we're ready for breakfast. MMMmmm, by this time my body is screaming for water, and I'm about to drag the two bottles out his hands so I help to get everything set up, including a small shot glass. That's when it hits me, we didn't go out to buy water, we went out to get moonshine (or ricewine, as they make over here) DAMN!!! The next few hours are bit of a blur, but it included copious amounts of crab and way too much moonshine.

About two hours after, Haakon is hammered, Halvor had thrown in the towel and Mahta is stuffed with crab. What a kick-ass start to the day! Considering my situation, it's of little surprise that when our friends suggest we should go to a restaurant and get some snake, Haakon's all ears and Mahta figures snake would be an interesting change for lunch. Oh-oh, here we go. I jump on a motorbike with my guy and head off to a restaurant to get some snake. Once there, we realize that it would be cooler just to stay there (as opposed to bringing it back) and the guy drives back to pick up Mahta and a third Vietnamese dude. Thus, just to recap, we are now 3 Vietnamese guys (all 36-38 years old), Mahta and myself (piss hammered) in a local restaurant about to get a big serving of snake. I'm not going to go into details, but the afternoon was spent drinking cheap draught beer @$1/2L (further intoxicating Haakon), eating snake and frog and trying to understand what the hell these guys were talking about. Actually a really fun afternoon.

In the evening, Mahta and I invited the guys out for dinner, which wasn't too exciting, but kinda nice. We all sort of left on bad terms unfortunately, due to too much booze and limited English skills. (The guy got angry cuz we didn't want to borrow his snorkeling gear and other situations that left us feeling used). Even though the ending was kinda crappy, the day had been very interesting and at times really fun. We went to bed at about 1 o'clock, piss hammered and not looking forward to next day's diving at 7.30 AM..

I know this is not entirely up to date yet, but my fingers are now really tired, Hanoi's bustling streets are calling my name, and it's been more than 5 hours since my last beer. I hope you all understand

Catch you later,
H

The last time we updated the blog, we had spent 2 days in Phnom Penh but the fun stories started after that.

On our third day in the city, Halvor decided to bring out his clean side and opted for using a cotton swab as the appropriate tool to clean his ear. BAD IDEA!!! See, the thing is that Haakon had brought these really crappy, no-name cotton swabs from Canada, which he gave to Halvor. He he.. Thirty minutes later, he comes out laughing. Apparently he had pushed the q-tip so far into his tiny ear that the cotton part fell off the "body" of the q-tip and lodged itself inside the ear canal. In other words, Halvor was now stuck in Phnom Penh with half a q-tip inside his ear. Kinda funny. Seeing that it was no real emergency, we waited until late afternoon next day, where the funny story ends. Getting the q-tip out of the ear proved to be of little amusement to Haakon and Mahta, as all that was required was an ear flush.. bummer, no surgery?

The two remaining days we had in Phnom Penh, we spent visiting various sites around the city. We went to one former school which was used as a prison under the Khmer Rouge regime. For more than 3 years, 100 people were tortured and beaten to death every day!!! The fact that this was only 30 years ago, makes it even more extreme. All in all, the Khmer Rouge Regime (or Pol Pot regime) killed between 1.7 and 3 million people in a matter of 4 years. Their preferred method of killing was through the bamboo stick lashes, and any intellectual or prominent person was at a higher risk of being captured and tortured. The goal of the regime was to make a pure agricultural society.. WOW!

We left Cambodia and Phnom Penh after 5 relaxing days. We opted for the slower, but more scenic route down the Mekong Delta to Vietnam, which ended up being really nice. For 5 hours, we cruised down the Mekong river and other smaller canals to a place called Chau Doc. The river looks exactly the way Hollywood projects it, and half the time Haakon was getting Apocalypse Now flashbacks he he

Chau Doc is a small city along the Mekong river, and apparently, 3 white people with big backpacks is not an everyday sight. Kids yelling "Hello" after us and people had to take double looks all the time. Kinda cool to be an alien for a while. We spent one full day in Chau Doc cruising around the country side and up a mountain with our super cool mopeds. (Halvor ended up with one that had a bum horn, he he..)

Seeing that boats were slow and expensive, our next journey was undertaken by the means of an old fashioned bus. When we started the 4 hour ride, we each had 2 seats and were cruising along nicely. Within 1.5 hours, our space had been reduced to barely one seat each. Not fun. The only cool thing was that our bus was filled with cigarette smugglers, the youngest one being 12 years old, and the oldest one being 70-80 years old. They all had about 1000 packs (YES, 1000 PACKS!!!!!) attached to their bodies and then hidden under HUGE clothes. They looked ridicilous, and I think you could spot them a mile away. Have no clue how they did it..

Our bus dropped us off in Can Tho, which is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. The city wasn't that exciting, but we spent the next morning cruising down the Mekong river to a massive floating market. Really nice. We then left the main river and went down through smaller canals and even stopped at some fruit gardens. We can now all proudly say that we have tried Snake Wine and been offered to pick our own chicken for lunch..

We took a small bus from Can Tho to Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City), where we have spent the last two days. Not much to report, besides Haakon's tape worm scare...

(insert by Halvor and Mahta here)
Conversation went something like this:
Haakon (in the bathroom, immediately after pooeing) - Uuuuh, guys.. I think we have a problem... Can you come in here
Mahta - What? Why? I don't want to come in there (reluctantly walks into the bathroom)
H&M - Halvor!!! Get in here! This is serious!!!
Halvor - Uh what... I really really don't want to (even more reluctantly goes into the bathroom)
Haakon - Check it out, I don't know if I shat him (2cm long centipede) out or if it was in there before
Centipede (in toilet struggling to get out) - Hey guys, give me a hand, I'm all feet. This toilet bowl is friggin slippery, I can't get out. Hey, what's that's flash? Here, let me pose for you. Take it away... No, wait! don't flush! Nooooooo....
(insert ends, back to Haakon's story)
so we took the pictures to a nice doctor who told us that it was nothing but a tape worm scare, Haakon was good to go!

... and yeh, we had a kickass ride on motorcycle taxis today. Quite insane with Saigon traffic!

For now, stay cool,

Cheers,

H H M

Here we go again..

After a long flight from Norway, Halvor finally arrived in Bangkok early Monday morning. Mahta and I picked him up around 9 o'clock, and gave him absolutely no time to settle down before we started what would prove to be a busy monday.

First of all, we had to pick up our passports from the Vietnamese embassy. Besides having a maniac Tuk-Tuk driver (think we spent the majority of our time on the wrong side of the street) the trip was fairly uneventful, and we received our visas without any hassle. The mission after this was to buy Haakon a new camera. I figured that this would be once in a lifetime chance to snap some killer pictures from Asia, so I opted for a brand new D-SLR camera. (And I'm super happy with it so far). The evening was spent mostly relaxing and getting ready for our 5:55 train to Cambodia next morning...

The train dropped us off in Poipet, which is described in the Lonely Planet guide as being the "cesspool of Cambodia". This can't be far from the truth - not much else here than mosquitos, mud and poverty. After being ripped off by the government officials on the border (seems government officials love to charge you 5 bucks extra for allowing you to enter the country... unless of course you want to wait at the border for 3 hours), we stuffed 5 people plus driver (met a couple of Brits) in a Toyota Camry and braced ourselves for the 6 hour drive to Siem Reap. Roads are not good and 6 hours with Mahta on top of Halvor in a camry was not so pleasant... It did save us at least $1 per person, so it was definitely worth it.

In Sieam Reap we ran into Bill (see second entry) who greeted us with a pleasant "Yo Yo Yo!". This made Haakon and Mahta all teary eyed, who thought for sure they would never see Bill again. The four of us ventured to Angkor Wat the following two days, which was an experience that should not be missed. Amazing temples made great exercise for Haakon's new camera! The face temple and the jungle temple (where they filmed Tomb Raider... wow!) where amongst the favourites. Other than Angkor Wat, Siem Reap was same same as what we've seen earlier, although Cambodia does seem a bit poorer than Thailand. Victims of landmines and begging children made a huge impression.

Another bus ride brought us to Phnom Pehn, a bigger city with even more tuk-tuks and action. We got scammed big time, ending up paying a total of $3 (US!!!!) per night for our room, which didn't come with a working toilet (we proved this... twice!). A wonderful terrace on the lake (literally... it's on stilts) makes up for the hugely expensive room so we have decided to stay, but switched rooms. Spent day 2 lazing in the sun and walking around Phnom Pehn to get a feel for the atmosphere. Turns out it is as expected - dirty, poor and hectic traffic. Spent about an hour teaching a kid English at the riverside (upper class area, way too expensive for our kind). Now we're off to dinner - blog you later.

H H M

Hey all,

Here we go again. This time I promise the blog entry will not be too long (due to a few less exciting weeks), but if you wanna hear the story about Mahta and the bird flu, please read on.

First, I wanna tell you all that I'm currently chatting (and webcam'ing) with some random Thai boy online.. he he. found the computer logged on to MSN and figured I'd start chatting. It's kinda difficult, as he doesn't speak any english, and my knowledge of the thai language is limited to ผมเสียใจ, meaning SORRY.. he he.

Anyways, back to the blog. Last time we spoke, we were chilling in Kuala Lumpur and I had ranted about the anus of Malaysia. Well, KL proved to be a bit better than that. We spent 3 days in this mega city, and I think we saw everything there is to see, and quite a bit of what's not to see. In other words, the city proved to be kinda boring. The Petronas Twin Towers, were kinda cool, but's that's about it. For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, think of Entrapment and Chaterine Zeta Jones (boys, no droolling on the keyboard). We did get a chance to go up to the Skybridge, some 41 stories above ground, and snap several pictures. Kinda cool.

After our three days in KL, we were excited to leave to see Henken in Singapore. We arrived in Singapore at 6.30 PM, after an 8 hour bus ride (with a bunch of Indians singing the whole way). By 7.30 PM, we had made our way to Henken's place, only to find the door locked, Henken's cell phone shut off and no Henken to be found. Finally, after a few hours and many rounds of cards, Henken showed up and brought us into his HUGE 3 bedroom apartment. Super nice!!! There's not that much to say about Singapore, other than their weird laws (you're not allowed to have a sip of water on the subway, and will we fined $500 if you do). However, we did have a very enjoyable time (much thanks to Henken's hospitality) and got to meet a lot of nice people. To sum it up, Singapore consisted of sightseeing, drinking and eating.. In other words, GOOD TIMES!

We flew back from Singapore to Bangkok, which by now seems like a second home, a week ago. The first day, we spent finding the Vietnamese embassy and handing our passports over to get a Visa. We got ripped off big time, but oh well. This is where the fun starts. That night, Mahta was beginning to show signs of the Bird Flu, and by next morning, the fever had set in. She battled the disease and ventured out, which resulted in puke on the street and high fever. We decided that anti-bird-flu-pills (antibiotics) was the right way to go, and after a brief chat with the pharmacist, the pills were ours and the road to getting better seemed set. OH NO, two days later, Mahta was hitting 40 degrees in fever, and was starting to hatch eggs, so off to the pharmacist Haakon went. She told me that the pills we had received were in fact COMPLETE SHIT, and would not have any effect on us non-Asians.. NO SHIT SHERLOCK... Anwways, we got some other ones, and have since then laid low, eating pills and drinking lots of water.. I think it worked this time.. It appears as if Mahta is less bird like and the fever has gone down. Cross you fingers that there won't be a relapse people..

Tomorrow morning, my dear twin brother, Mr. Halvor, aka the Nutcracker, arrives on Kao San at 8.32 AM, and we are really excited. I even promised him that he can partake in the "eating of anti-bird-flu-pills competition" with us.

Our next journey will take us to Cambodia on Tuesday morning, which should prove to be fun. It requires several hours of shit ass bussing, on shit ass roads in the middle of nowhere. We'll let you guys know how it works out.

Cheers,

Here are a few images from earlier this month. Scroll down for more pics.