We're not going to write a day by day blog about Panglao Island and our experiences there, but we'll tell you about a few nice occasions. Since the diveshop had a small bar/restaurant in it we became really good friends with all the local Philippino workers as well as a super nice British Guy named Mike and they took us in like we were family. Mike is a dive master in training and lives for the time being in Panglao. Say hi Mike!!

Basically every night we were there, we were either drinking San Miguel, Tuba (local coconut booze) or the local Tanduay Rum and laughing at some stupid joke one of us would crack. It was so great that we stayed there for 8 nights which was not what we had expected when we had first arrived!!

Among a bunch of great times we had two really nice evenings at Mike's newly acquired home (he found a sweet place while we were there). The first time we had a delicious bbq (SO nice to have helped cook a meal after so many months of being served our food with no say in what goes in it!) with chicken, steak, garlic bread, pasta and copious amount of booze.

In other words we had all the ingredients for a killer night. And a killer night it was. In fact, it was so good for some of us that Mike woke up on the floor right besides the couch.. HA HA

The second event at Mike's pad was just as good, if not better. A bunch of the Philipino guys from the dive shop came up and we had a HUGE feast. We were about 20 people and we all had booze, food and coconut wine. Good shit!!!

Another night Pouya and Haakon went drinking with the guys while Mahta was sick in bed. One of the guys at the dive shop was turning 20 and in true Philipino tradition, they have a party. Unfortuynately, Pouya and Haakon arrived a bit late, so the dinner was finished, but no problem. See, in the Philippines, it's rude to serve your guests booze before they eat, so the host/birthday boy runs out of the house down the street and buys the most delicious BBQ'ed chicken. These guys are unreal!! He actually left to go buy us food and it was his birthday!! We obviously didn't know it until he had come back and asked us to come inside for some food. Unreal. The Philipino's hospitality is something else. Anyways, we eat this chicken, which by the way was the juciest, most succulent chicken we have ever tasted. Didn't even know it was possible to make chicken this good. The skin was soft, yet crispy with a smooth bbq sauce on it, while the meat was tender and juicy. Mmmmm, We still have dreams it. We later find out the it had been bbq'ed over charcoal (on one of those turny thingies you see in the store) and injected with a special sauce before cooking in order to remain juicy.. WOW.. Damn, that's a lot of talk about chicken, can you tell we are yummy-food-deprived? Ok back to the story. After enjoying this superb chicken, we venture outside again where 15 or so Philipino's and Mike were sitting drinking. And when I say drinking, I don't mean no Western-style-drinking. Oh no, this is an art. First you have a simple communal glass which is used for the cocnut wine. Its a large, but not too large milk glass. Then one person is responsible for filling up the glass for so to pass it a person who downs the whole thing. He then passes the glass back for refill before the person besidehim downs a glass. HA HA. What an incredibly social way of drinking. It was awesome. We all ended up on quite the bender and at 12 o'clock we headed out for the local "disco". See, every saturday, they fence off the local basketball court, turn up the music and have a jam. We had bought ourselves (ie the 15 Philippino's and us) and table with a case of beer. Good times. Pouya and Haakon eventually made it home in the early hours in the morning, while Mike passed out on his floor...

The last story I will tell you guys is one about cocks. Yes, it's about cocks, but let me tell you, this is no porn.. That's right, we went cockfighing. A few of the guys at the dive shop found out that we wanted to go to a cock fight, so we all planned to go one Sunday afternoon. We all piled into the diveshop's car and headed for the cockfighting arena around 3 in the afternoon. What a sight.

They had an organized fighting rink with 300 or so Philipino guys watching two cocks beat the living shit out of each other and slicing throats. People were yelling, money was flying (you make bets on the cocks) and birds were everywhere. After watching a match we started making bets. Seeing that our knowledge of a good cock is fairly limited, it was pretty much a 50-50 game. We ended up winning a few and loosing a few, but it was wicked fun. The cocks have razors tied to the legs and will fight until one has killed the other. We should really start this shit back home. Good fun.

Oh, we also had a nice day trip to a place called Chocolate Hills. They are huge mounds created by some screwed up ecological phenomenom. Kinda cool.

And we got to see the world's smallest monkey - The Tarsier.

There are many more stories to tell from our stay in Panglao, but I think this will do for now. After an amazing week, we finally left ur dive shop and said goodbye to a lot of really nice people before heading for Malaysia

All in all, the Philippines had treated us like kings. The people here are by far the friendliest bunch we have ever met, the food is good, beer is cheap and everything is taken with a smile.

Philippines remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We were already looking forward to our next destination when we suddenly noticed just how cheap alcohol was and we were able to drink our sorrows away with Erlend, the Norwegian we had met earlier in Manila, and Tanduay, the Philipino rum that is ever so sweet and cheap (2L bottle of coke = $1.20; 1L bottle of Tanduay = $0.70)!!

Check out what we found in our frozen water bottle we bought from the store, hahaha we promise we had nothing to do with it!!

Two days later we were on the road again hoping to find better waters and maybe even a nice atmosphere..!?! And we were succesful! After a Jeepney, boat and tricycle ride and some walking we arrived at a beautiful island called Boracay. Boracay is thee tourist destination in the Philippines and we were happy to be tourists for a little while.

Our time in Boracay was made even more enjoyable because of two really nice Pinoys named Marlon and Caps...

they were so nice and hospitable towards us that our time there would not have been the same without them! We had a great night drinking till the wee hours of the morning and they even invited us for a home-made meal the following day! This is where our love for the Philippines and its people began to flourish.

After a few lazy days at Boracay we left for what ended up being a 36 hour journey to the island of Panglao. It was a journey like no other. So first we took a tricycle from the beach to the pier,

then we took a boat to "mainland" which was just another island - but a little bigger, then we took a jeepney for 3 hours to a bigger city, then we took a freezing cold A/C bus for another 4 hours to an even BIGGER city! Here it got a little complicated, we didn't have a map of the city and we weren't quite sure which pier we had to catch our ferry from. After some asking around, we figured we had to take two jeepneys. Lovely!! You have to understand how uncomfortable these things become when the novelty has worn off: there is little or basically no space to move while you're cuddling your backpack, there are stinky armpits everywhere - actually to be honest we were the stinkiest people around, and sore asses made for a few very uncomfortable rides. So, we got off the first jeepney, grab a bite to eat, catch our next jeepney and get dropped off at the wrong pier! OH NO!
Jeepney:

Our boat was leaving in half an hour and there was only one boat that day! Gotta make it! Luckily though our ferry left from a pier not too far away, so on we went to another jeepney (3 in a row! Must be some sort of a record!) which got us to the right place.... Oooooh, hope there are tickets left! And yes there were seats, actually so many seat that we could even choose what class of ticket we wanted...of course we opted for good old, trustworthy "economy class." This was to be our home for the next 14 hours. Mahta, the world champion sleeping machine, had no trouble getting in some 12 hours of sleep. Haakon and Pouya on the other hand were a bit restless and began wandering the ship for some fun and adventure. They were quite content when they ended up at the rooftop bar with a dozen of army guys singing Philipino karaoke songs and drinking lots of Red Horse which is the Philippines strongest beer!! Nobody really knows what happened on this rooftop bar, bu we think it involved singing Tagalog (name of the national language) while 20 army guys where clapping.

After this eventful ferry ride, we still had more traveling to do! Another 3 hour boat ride, some waiting around followed by a 3 hour super-cramped bus ride and we had FINALLY arrived at the island of Panglao! At first, we were quite angry with ourselves for spending all that time and money to get to there amd it just didn't seem like a nice place at all!! Our hotel search was disasterous, prices were high and quality was ultra low. What did we get ourselves into? We finally settled at a nice place called Underwater Divers with a super friendly staff, always a bonus!

White Beach and Boracay remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

It's been about three weeks since our last update, and let me tell you, we have had a pretty good time.

We flew from Kuala Lumpur early in the morning late September to Clark airport in a city outside of Manila. We woke up at 3.30 (ie in the middle of the night) in order to have enough time to make our 7.45 flight. The trip to the airport was ok, but we were super tired and by the time we had checked in, our bellies were asking for some food. Guess what happens?? Remember our earlier rant about eating McDonalds in the morning... and how much it sucks?? Well, it happened again!! We had a choice between Malay food (ie. rice and stew) or McDonalds. You can imagine how shitty the other food looked like, cuz we ended up with McDonalds... We won't bore you with shitty details, but... It sucked. Do'oh!!!

Anyways, our flight to Manila was fairly uneventful but finally landed around noon local time. Seeing that our flight didn't land in Manila, but rather in the cheap airport in a city called Angeles, meant we had a 3 hours bus ride to get to the city. 3 hours may sound like a fair amount, but by now, 3 hours feel like a quiet travel day. It's really weird how time "changes" when you're travelling..

Now, this is where the fun starts. By the time we reach Manila it had started raining and seeing that we were both really tired from the early start, the prospect of a nice cozy place to stay sounded fantastic. As the bus dropped us off in a shabby part of town, we jump on the subway, and finally, after being denied access on the fist subway due to our huge backpacks, got to a "nicer" area of town. By this time the rain has intensified and the non-existent sun has set already. We do however end up finding a decent, yet pricy hotel a 15 minute walk from the subway station. We didn't really like the place, but because of the rain, we figured we'd take it for the night.

The evening was pretty quiet as the rain just kept pouring down and most people stayed at home. No worries right, the rain will stop by tomorrow.. HA HA, when we wake up next morning, the rain had doubled in strength and the gusts of wind were shaking the whole building. Oh shit.. As mentioned earlier, the place we stayed at was not the coziest hotel, so we packed up, put on our raincoats and moved in to another place called "Friendly's Guest House" which was literary just across the street. The guesthouse was on the fourth floor, with a perfect view of the surrounding areas, and by the time we had put our bags down we could see how the winds were getting stronger and stronger. Nice... After a chat with some of the other people staying there, we find out that we have arrived just in time for a typhoon and the authorities projected it to reach full force around noon that day. (it is around 10 in the morning). Ok, no worries right. But here's the bitch of it all.. We had absolutley ZERO money, had not eaten breakfast and were starting to get really hungry. So what to do?? Yeah that's right, we have to go to the bank. WTF MATE!?!? There's a typhoon going on and we have to battle our way to the bank.

We bundle up, put our travellers cheques in a plastic bag and head outside. Damn.. It was pouring down, the gusts were throwing us around and signs and trees had started falling down all over the place. We were not going far, but it was absolutely crazy. At times we had to take shelter by the side of the road, as we were scared of getting decapitated by a flying branch or road sign. The wind was so strong at time that we could not move forward, and when we'd look up, we would get hit in the face by what felt like small water projectiles. Anyways, it took us about 10 minutes to walk the 500 metres to the bank and we are super excited to get there. Well, tough luck. The DAMN bank is closed due to inclement weather. What the hell... What do you mean bad weather!! ha ha. We are retards.. Of course it was going to be closed, there's a bloody typhoon going on and everyone but us knew about it from before. Oh well. The scene however, was unreal. Right outside the bank, a huge tree (about 5 foot diameter) had fallen across the road while this group of homeless kids were huddled under a roof across the street. We felt so bad for them. They were wet, cold and probably scared shitless. Just wanted to take them home...

The way back to the guesthouse (GH) was just as bad as our journey to the bank. Shit was flying everywhere and the 20 or so trees that were in a park right by our GH were all torn out of the ground. And remember, this is at 10.30 ish in the morning. The typhoon is not supposed to reach full strength for another hour or two.

We finally make it back upstairs at the guest house and explain to the owner that he's shit out of luck for money. No worries though. The owner, a Philipino named Benji, turns out to be super cool and tells us that we can pay later and that he has noodles if we are hungry.

For the next 4 hours or so, we do nothing but watch the typhoon. Roofs started tearing apart, huge metal plates were being thrown around, trees were breaking and streets flooded. It was unlike anything we've ever seen. The typhoon was just toying with the city. At one point, the roof of our old hotel across the street started tearing apart and a 2 metre long opening appeared. It was absolutely mental. We were doing great though. By this time, Benji had given us noodles, we had changed our clothes and Haakon had started drinking San Miguel (local beer). What else to do during a storm than get drunk, right? It sounds really bad, and it was really bad, however, to us it was like watching a movie. It turns out the the typhoon, named Typhoon Millenium was the strongest to hit Manilla in 11 years. The gusts reached 230 km/h and 20-30 people died. Afterwards, the typhoon hit Vietnam and China, where several hundred people were killed. What a way to start our trip in the Philippines.

Due to all the trees that had been knocked over, the whole city had lost power as power lines were cut. It was soo weird.. Manilla is a place that is never quiet, but the whole evening was absolutely dead.
Seeing that our guesthouse was not a 5 star hotel, there were no generators, which meant no power, no fans and no AC. It may sound really bad, but it was actually kinda cool. We got to know everyone that were staying there really well and it created a kind of cabin feeling.

By late afternoon the typhoon had died down and we could finally venture outside again. We had met this super nice American girl, Mary, who was nice enough to lend us some money, so we went out for some late night food and sheesha. It was really weird and scary though. Only a few places that had generators had lights on, there were trees, sheets of metal, garbage and shop signs dumped all over the streets and there was barely anyone outside. Really a surreal setting. Anyhow, we found a small Korean place that was still open and sat down for dinner, Mahta, Haakon, the American girl and a Norwegian guy named Erlend. The food was so so, but again, the setting was awesome. When I think back on the fact that we sat in a small Korean Restaurant, having a candle lit dinner while the city outside was destroyed, I feel like we were in some sort of screwed up movie. I think it'll forever be one of those nights we'll never forget. We ended the evening with sheesha in a cozy arabic place drinking COLD beer that we had just bought from one of the few shops that had generators. What a day!!!!

After a really hot a sticky night (remember we had no power), we woke up in the morning just to find out that we now had run out of water as well.. YEAH. See, we were on the fourth floor, and with no power, the pump that transports the water from ground level and up was not working, and the tanks on the roof were empty. HE HE.. The people at the guesthouse were really cool though. One poor soul had to run up and down with buckets so that the guests could take cold bucket showers. He he interesting when there are 20 people staying there. We spent the day mostly looking around our little area call Malate. The Typhoon had caused quite the havoc around town, so we decided that sightseeing would not be the best idea. It was however a pretty nice and relaxing day.

It was not until our third day in Manilla we decided that it was time to go back to our roots and start sightseeing. We walked all around town partially looking at all the sights and partially looking at all the destruction.

Check out this perfect "cartoon" looking well

In the evening, our guesthouse owner had what is known as a wine night. In simple terms this means that he buys a bunch of wine and the guests get to drink free wine. What a place guys!!! Anyhow, we had an evening with free wine, before, Haakon left Mahta behind and went drinking with a German dude. We found a street cafe in a popular bar street and had 50 cent beers all night. It was a pretty good night, besides the plate of liver we were served. See, at one point, we went to the grill to find some food, but didn't really see anything we liked. However, ten mintues later, we are served this plate of what looks like some really weird chicken. At that point it was all too late to give it back, so we ate it only to find out it was liver half way through. "Oh well" we said and finished the plate.

Manila and the typhoon remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

While we were on the island, Grant also got a huge tatoo on his shoulder. It was really cool!!! Some local guy did it all freehand with a bamboo stick and ink.. Super cool. And I got a huge picture of a shark tattooed on my back. It's wicked. I got the guy to give it red eyes and all.. It looks awesome... Naaaahhh just kidding ma... Didn't get anything, but I bet I got your pulse racing by now...

The last night of the dive course we were forced to sample the local bar scene in order to celebrate our diving graduation which was really cool. We were joined by a few of the dive instructors and spent the night drinking buckets (vodka, ice and Redbull in a bucket). The place we went to even had a Muay Thai rink in the middle.. You could sign up and fight your friends.. After a few buckets Grant and I were ready, but by this time it was all over and we were gently asked to go back and drink more instead.. OK... It was a really cool night with lots of laughs and many drinks.. And the best part guys, Haakon managed to keep all the drinks down.

We left next morning for Thailand's southern most island called Ko Lanta. After randomly picking between 20 different hotels, we ended up at this really nice bungalow / chill out place.. It was really nice and relaxing. G & K spent 2 days with us before they had to head home, while M & H spent 5 days before leaving for Malaysia. We have quite a few pictures from Ko Lanta, so here they come.. Most are pretty self explanatory.

This is the bar/restaurant at the place we stayed. It was really nice with a wicked view.

Guess who??? Yours truly Mahta and Haakon

The first one is just a view from the bar, while the second one is taken from a 5 star hotel that was close by.

After some relaxing days in Ko Lanta and our Thai visa nearing expiration (how did we spend so long in Thailand?) we decided to head to Malaysia. After two days of traveling, we finally arrived at the "paradise" of the Perhentian islands, right off the east coast on Peninsular Malaysia. By now, it is drawing close to monsoon season and thus, many places are closing up for the season. We spent 4 relaxing days doing absolutely nothing but lay on the beach.. It was really nice Oh wait, we had one dive, which was great. Our dive master was attacked by a big trigger fish (which bit her on her forehead) but besides that it was a normal dive. Having said that, this "normal dive" was fantastic. There are fish everywhere of all sizes and colours (especially small Nemos) and tons of beautiful coral. We saw sting rays and bamboo sharks! Well worth the money.

Our plan was to leave the Perhentian Island for so to get an Indonesian Visa in Kuala Lumpur, so we jumped on an overnight bus to the capital after 4 days. We were actually really lucky, cuz we got the last 2 seats on the bus.. Everyone else had been smart enough to reserve beforehand!!! Note to self.. stop being so stupid.. he he..

We are now currently in Kuala Lumpur and the blog is finally up to date. Our plans have changed slightly due to some minor complications with Ramadan.. It's the Muslim's holy month right now, which involves fasting from sunrise to sunset. Because of this, most restaurants are closed and many shops close early.. i.e. Sub-optimal travel conditions. We thus decided to go to Philippines first, and will fly out of here to Manila tomorrow morning. We are both really looking forward the the Philippines and will tell you guys all about it.

Hope you are all doing good and that life is treating you well.

Lots of hugs from Southeast Asia.

Thailand and Malaysia remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Eventually, after much laughter and poking fun, we managed to pull him out using the other truck. Side note: A group of about 6 cars were camping right were we got stuck as they couldn't go any further. They had been waiting for 3 days for the road to get better!!! For the next 30 mintues, we were thrown around by huge ruts, but we eventually got to our destination. Once there, we had to walk for 20 minutes in order to get to the second leg of the transport. Due to heavy rain the past 5 days, the typical bridge had been washed away, and we got our first encounter with the difficulties this trip was to bring. We had to walk accross a river (reaching up to Mahta's waist) with the bags on our heads in order to get to the other side. Fun stuff. We finally make it to the next "road" and sit down to wait for our next ride. After about 45 minutes, it finally appears. This time it was a proper off-road car. A Toyota Land Cruiser with chimney and winch. And were we ever going to need it. The road was in horrible condition. I don't even know if I would call it a road; it was more like a dirt path.

For the next 2 hours, we spun, winched, dug and walked our way to the jungle village. It was by far the most extreme thing we've ever seen someone do with a vehicle. With 10 people in the back, this off-road machine powered its way through 40 cm deep ruts and 30 degree inclines. Amazing!!!

Once at the local village, we knew that we had a 90 minute walk ahead of us, so we set off right away. One guy made friends with the local monkey, so he decided to bring it along. It was really cute and spent the next hour or so sitting on this guys head. he he. The walk took us on a steep and windy jungle path into deeper and deeper into the forest. It was really cool to actually get to spend some time in a proper tropical jungle. We walked for about an hour and a half before we reached a small hut. This was the kitchen for the treehouses and also the place where we were given our harnesses. The people living there also had a live bear and baby gibbon roaming around. They were so cute!!! The bear was about 5 months old and was really friendly. She'd come up to you and wanting to play, she would wrap her paws around your legs. Unfortunately she was also really strong, so we couldn't really roll around on the ground with her.

After putting our harnesses on, the real thrill of the trip began. We strapped onto a zip line and jumped of the edge of the plateau. WOW. We basically flew from the hill side to the nearest tree house (about 80 metres away) at a height of 40 metres above ground. Our blood was pumping, adrenaline flowing and we were really pumped when we finally got to put our bags down. Let me decribe to you how impressive this treehouse was. First of all, as mentioned above, the whole house was built in a massive jungle tree 40 metres above ground. It had three floors, running water, a shower and of course a toilet (the toilet was a porcelain squater that had no plumming, meaning your poo dropped 40 metres down.... he he.. they had a bunch of pigs on the ground ready to eat anything, so it was nice and clean). It was unreal. It was more like a open hotel than anything. Also, leading away from the tree was a number of zip lines. Once there, we were served fresh nuts, fruits and drinks, while the few of us that had gotten bitten by leechs was picking them off. Yes, Haakon was bitten, while Mahta tasted too bad and got away unharmed.

This is where the fun really started. For the next 2 hours we were shown around the zip line system and got to try all the good lines. The longest one is almost half a kilometre long and you are flying VERY high off the ground. It was awesome. We were zipping back and forth on these lines in the middle of the jungle. It was like the childhood dream of being able to fly finally came true.

After a few hours of flying, we finally came back to the first treehouse to have dniner. Our group of ten had split up, and six of us were to spend the night in this treehouse, while the other four had already left for a second treehouse. We were given an odd mix of vegetables, rice, omelette and potatoes for dinner, which really didn't have much taste, but due to the incredible atmosphere, we all enjoyed it. After the guides all left and we had the whole tree house to ourselves, everyone's childhood dreams were coming true. Soon, the moonshine was brought out (which Haakon and Paul had cleverly acquired the day before) and we spent the evening talking crap, having shots of lao lao, and playing Uno.

We were woken at 6:30 the next morning to the sound of rain and our breakfast being zipped in. Surprise surprise, we got rice, vegetables and some meat. Wait a minute... we get a vegetarian meal for dinner with an omelette and then no omlette and pork for breakfast? It just didn't make sense and we only ate what we could force down. It didn't matter though, we were going to trek to a waterfall and spend the night there. We sat around for 2 hours waiting for a guide to take us and were disappointed when they finally arrived. Apparently heavy rains made it extremely dangerous to go to the waterfall as the river we were to zip across was flooded. This meant that we would have to zip right through a strong current and it was not recommended. No problem though! We had the opportunity to zip back and forth all day long! Weeeeeeeeeee.

We spent the rest of the day doing just that. We zipped, we ate, we swapped treehouses and had a bug-killing competition at night (Haakon was the big winner with over 30 kills!).

We were scheduled to leave the next morning and head back to Huay Xai. Heavy rain made for both an adventurous (and leech-infested) walk into the village and drive into the city. Our driver made it to the half way point gracefully, we give him props for his imaculate driving which is quite a novelty in Laos (as our second driver proved true). He brought us to our lunch destination where everyone was overjoyed to have their first Beer Lao in 3 days! What a feeling, a cold refreshing beer after being thrown around in the back of a truck for 2 hours... well deserved! Our second driver didn't seem to be quite as talented in his driving, but we still made it back alive (muddy, but alive!)

Gibbon Experience remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We all cram onto the boat, and the driver fires up the engine. With a huge roar and water splashing everywhere we take off going upstream on the Mekong River. It's at this point we realize what the crash helmets are for. We must have been doing about 60 km/h in this dinky little thing called a boat. It was crazy guys. We were moving sooo fast.. All good though, until it begins to rain. An i'm not talking about no spitting raindrops we get in the western world, I'm talking about the big fat stuff that only monsoon countries see. The type that you think you can just lay down horizontally and swim in mid air. So, imagine this, we are zooming upstream in this dinky little boat, doing about 60 clicks when it starts to pour down. When you do that kind of speed, and the water droplets are the size of small grapes, it begins hurting, so we tried to the best of our abilities to cover up. We were sitting there with our helmets on, our rain jackets accross our legs and soaking wet.

We did this for about 3 hours before we finally reached our lunch location; a tiny raft like place which served food. And guys, let me tell you, the soup Haakon ordered must have been made with toilet water (Well, I guess that's impossible cuz the toilet waste flowed directly in the Mekong). It was worse than any soup he'd ever tried. Disgusting. Anyways, after about 45 min, we changed boats (don't know why), added 3 more poeple (which just cramped us more) and continued upstream (oh, when will it be over?). Since we now knew what to expect, this leg of the journey was better than the previous one, but yet it was horribly uncomfortable. About half an hour before we reach Huay Xai, we stop for another change of boats (still don't know why). No problem, right? Wrong. Big problem! See, what happened when the dork of a driver tried to move our bags onto the next boat is that he drops Haakon's backpack in the Mekong River. That's right, the whole bag is now floating in the river. DAMN, were we all pissed. All the people that we had met that day had been really rude and not nice, and this was just the last thing we needed. Oh well, we couldn't really do much but suck it up, and before long, we had finally made it to the final destination.

P.S. when I say that the people on the boat were not nice, I really mean it. Next day, we met a couple from Britain who had been on the same boat, just one day after us, who were forced to stay overnight at the shitty little place we had lunch, because they refused to pay more money to the driver. They only managed to get to the final city because a Turkish family felt sorry for them next morning and told the driver that unless they were allowed to come with them they would ask for a refund. The British couple were super upset, but were laughed at by the locals... so sweet of them.

Boat Ride From Hell remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

The night life in Xam Neau was intense, so intense that there wasn't a living soul out after 8 pm! We could've started to chase bats as it looked really tempting when the man in Nam Soi did it, but we decided to gather in Clare and Paul's room to play Scrabble instead.

We woke up the next morning with the ambition to see the coolest tourist sites around! There were a total of two. The bigger attraction was the Pathet Lao Caves in a neighbouring town of Vieng Xai. The other was a waterfall on the way to the caves. We decided to rent scooters and see all that we can, it was going to be an exciting day! We even bought some fruit and bread to take on a little picnic.

Off we went to the waterfall... we drove and we drove and we never found it. Turned back and around, still didn't find it. The only thing that came out of it was H&M's scooter starting to fall apart; pieces flew off and were never recovered, oops. Haakon nicely repaired it with whatever we had around, hopefully we would be able to make it back home without getting stuck on the way. Still looking for the waterfall, we finally decided to ditch the scooters and walk up a rocky path that seemed to have potential for leading us to the right place, but we were a little disappointed to find nothing but steep and slippery rocks. Disappointed and dehydrated, we decided it was time for our picnic. Oooh, we had the greatest pineapple ever! And the fact that it was only 30 cents made it even yummier! After our picnic we decided to give up on the waterfall and head for the caves.

What a touristy day! We had a guide walk us around some caves which served as shelters and intricately planned homes to Pathet Lao leaders for 10 years while the United States continuously bombed the region in oppostition to the existance of Northern Vietnamese in Laos. The natural limestone caves had many bedrooms, offices and they each had an emergency room with steel doors and huge oxygen machines in case of a chemical attack.
Our guide told us a sad story of how his father, a farmer, was killed in the fields by American war planes. His father, his friend and all living animals in sight were mercilessly shot to death. He also said that during the time of war, each and every family would be responsible for making their own cave in order to acquire protection from bombs and war planes. We left the caves feeling heavy in our hearts.

We spent another Scrabble night in Xam Neau and headed for Phonsavan the following morning. The bus ride was quite normal. Chickens and pigs were constantly being loaded and unloaded at various little villages along the way, Laotians were unable to stomach the curves and twists of the road and were therefore constantly vomiting off the bus.

We finally arrived in Phonsavan, another small city with about 50,000 people and nothing to do and nothing fun to eat. Great! One thing that was quite unique about Phonsavan was all the war relics that restaurants and hotels had used as decoration. Apparently locals go hunting for bombs. They whip out their family metal detector and search for bombs buried underground. Then they obviously soak these bombs in water for about a week in order to disarm the bombs! Safety first! Some people decide to keep the bombs in order to provide tourists with knowledge about the war, while others choose to sell them as metal scraps for $200!

After a few hopeless trials at finding accomodation, Clare and Mahta were sent on a mission to find somewhere nice... Of course, a huge rain storm started to pour down on us, but don't worry! The boys were dry; Paul and Haakon stayed warm in a cafe drinking refreshing Beer Lao. Drenched from their walk around town, the girls came back with big smiles on their faces; we knew we had scored the best place in town. Cutest little bungalows at $4/night! The boys didn't stand a chance to win the "best accomodation hunters" award!

Phonsavan had nothing to offer us but rain, terrible food and some boredom. However, we managed to book a tour (yay, more touristy stuff!) to the Plain of Jars for the following morning. What are these jars you ask? Well, nobody really knows. The huge 2000-year-old jars have been found in various sites around Phonsavan and are of unknown origin. They are believed to have been used for burial purposes, either as coffins or urns, but no one is entirely sure yet.

After our 2 nights in Phonsavan and a long time since we were on the tourist trail we headed for the much-touristed city of Vang Vieng. This bud ride was also pretty normal, kids were scared of sitting near us, people were still vomiting and there was a strange man on the bus with an AK-47. Hmmm, what have we gotten ourselves into? Luckily, the AK-47 was tucked away throughout the trip and no body died! Wicked!!

The boys were sent off to find accomodation here and they did not come close beating the girls. 1-0 for the girls. YEAH! $3 for a dungeon of a room didn't seem like a winner. And Haakon's sandals were stolen the first night he left them outside the guesthouse. Good old tourist trail, travellers stealing from one another. How is a giant with size 12 feet supposed to find decent sandals in Southeast Asia? Shame on you!

Vang Vieng was our chance to load up on greasy Western food and we loved every second of it! Pizzas, pastas, burgers and fries became our daily diet and rice was long forgotten. This was also our chance to kick back, relax and bum around... We walked around town, had dinner, stuck around to watch a movie. No stress, no hassles. Really refreshing!

Vang Vieng is famous for it's tubing and the following day, we decided to see what the fuss is all about. We rented an inflated inner tube of a tractor tire and left all our valuable in the dry comfort of our room, so we unfortunately have no photos of this day! We spent 7 hours drifting down the Nam Song river, drinking beer and buckets, and swinging like monkeys. There are numerous kick-ass bars set up all along the river and they pull you into their bar with a giant bamboo stick so that you can have the time of your life! Each bar had it's very own swing where you would jump straight back into the river! Some of the swings were really high, about 10 m drop, and swimming back to the bar became more and more challenging as more and more alcohol was consumed. Ahh, wish we had some pictures!

We spent a few nights unwinding in Vang Vieng before heading to an even more touristy town of Luang Prabang. Guess what? The girls scored again! $5 for a beautiful hotel room that we still dream about! 2-0 for the ladies!!!! On a rooooollll. Luang Prabang, surrounded by the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers, is a cute little town of 25,000 people and a huge number of temples. We tried spending a day touring around the temples in the scorching heat but quickly realized how tired we were of touristing around. Needless to say, temple-ing came to a sudden stop!

Clare and Mahta had to contain themselves at the night market. So many things, so little space. They decided to browse the first night and return the following night with a clear idea of what they wanted, just to avoid impulse shopping. Everybody knows the consequences of impulse shopping, oooh woe is me.

We also had the opportunity to visit the waterfalls of Tat Kuang Si some 30 KM outside of Luang Prabang. It was a treaherous ride on the back of a tuk tuk and yet we still saw some brave tourists biking up and down the dirt roads on the crappiest bikes ever. Props to them! The waterfall was beautiful and we had the opportunity to swim around and hike up to the top of the falls. Haha, there weren't many people going up there and we were curious why. Of course, we found out why.... there wasn't really much of a view up there and the hike up proved to be how can i put it? difficult..

Luang Prabang, especially our wicked hotel room, treated us nice... and soon we would be leaving Laos.

Laos remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

First Taste of Laos remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Needless to say, this entrepreneurial mentality got VERY tiresome in the long run and we were quite excited to leave the country.

As explained earlier, the British couple (Paul and Clare) had become old friends by now, and since we were all heading in the same direction, we decided to continue our journey together into Laos the following morning. Now, in order to go to Laos from Hanoi, one has a few alternatives. First of all, you can jump on a plane with the infamous and always reliable Laos Airways.. Sounds tempting.. I think not.. Secondly, you can utilize the so called " 24 hour bus ride from hell" (that's quoting Lonely Planet). Apparently, the busses are an absolute nightmare, it may have something to do with the 30+ chickens on the bus or the 35 degree heat without A/C, but we're not sure since we opted for a different and more unconventional route. We decided to cross at the most remote (but closest to Hanoi) border crossing. There was only one problem... This most appealing crossing did not issue Laos visas on arrival and of course H&M had not arranged them in advance. How do we get ourselves out of this pickle? Now, this is how we solved the problem:

Let me paint a picture for you. Mahta, Paul, Clare and Haakon are walking downtown Hanoi about 4 o'clock on a Saturday evening when we decide to take the route described above. Paul and Clare had been planning ahead and had already bought their Visas earlier while H&M were less prepared. Oooops!!! Not a good start for the unconventional route. But hold on. We are in Vietnam, not the western world, maybe the embassy is open? After a long search for the right phone number and some help from a local girl, we get the answer. It's SATURDAY EVENING.. are you crazy... It's not going to open until Monday. DAMN!!!!... hmmm, what to do... Oh, what if we ask one of the travel agencies, they seem to advertise visa arrangements... And sure enough, after a little bit of digging, we found one that could do it in time. We handed our pasports in at 5.00 PM on Saturday evening, paid what amounts to a small fortune in Vietnam, (but really isn't that much) and 2 hours later, we had great, shiny (AND LEGITIMATE) visas in our passports. YEAH, the Vietnamese corruption finally paid off. I mean, where else could you get a visa after the closing of the embassy through a random travel agent...

Now, with the visa situation taken care of, we could start our journey early next morning. Mind you, we weren't able to leave for 3 hours due to the normal complications with Vietnamese people (they "accidentally" bleached Mahta's pants in the laundry and wanted to fight Mahta - yes, that's right, MAHTA - and some other shit), we finally left Hanoi on a local bus by 11 AM. The beginning of the journey went really well, and about 7 hours and 2 bus changes later we ended up in a place called Mai Chau. The whole trip sounds really boring, but believe me, it's way more fun travelling on local busses than it sounds. There is continous entertainment from all around: funny locals doing random things, crappy busses crying for power, blocked roads due to landslides, people suddenly begginging to beg just cuz they notice foreigners around, and other random happenings. Wish I could go into detail, but I think that would be over the top. Anyways, we made it to the village of Mai Chau, and instinctively began searching for a place to stay. Seeing that the town is REALLY small, has no hotels the first option presented to us quickly became our only option. Yeah, that's right, we ended up staying with a local family. They kinda rented us their living room, and we slept beside the son. It was cool though. The house was built on stilts, completely made out of bamboo from top to bottom and all we had was a thin mattress on the floor with musquito nets.. Really cute. Since we were staying with these people, we also accepted their offer for dinner (for a small price of course). Thus, by 7 PM, we were served a delicious home cooked meals with vegetables, spring rolls and other delicious stuff I can't even pronounce. YEAH!! Unfortunately, they didn't speak much English, but we some how managed to ask for the local brew, which in Vietnam means RICE WINE. It's dirt cheap (about 60 cents per litre), tastes pretty bad, contains about 30 percent booze, is done as a shot and is a ritual included in any Vietnamese meal of a certain size. By 11:30PM, Paul and I had polished off 1 litre of this stuff and were just starting to get drunk. GREAT STUFF! Can you imagine the disappointment we felt when the family asked if we could go to sleep at midnight??!! BUMMMER!! Oh well, the family had been really nice, and they had a cozy home.

Coming up in the next blog: leaving Vietnam and crossing the border into Laos, only to find out that there is absolutely nothing on the other side. What happened? Where did we sleep? Did we get food? Find out in the next entry...

Journey out of Vietnam remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Northern Vietnam - Day 6 remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

When we arrived back at the house, the family had prepared a delicious lunch which we devoured, but it still never left us feeling satiated. The big chief, happy with his new drinking partners, insisted on more rice wine which Hung had to deny on our behalf simply because there were many hours of driving to come. After soaking up some sun and eating lots of yummy food, we decided a little cat nap would be perfect. And perfect it was! We woke up feeling refreshed and ready for our next leg of the journey.

Seeing that we were only supposed to drive about 70 km in the afternoon, we were sure that we would arrive at a decent time at our last homestay. It may not come as a surprise to you when I tell you that this didn't happened. Instead, this is what happened:

The first 45 minutes of riding was really nice. The terrain was rolley and really scenic. In fact, I think we actually had a little bit of sun for the first time in 4 days. So far, so good.

After 45 min, we leave the main road and hit up a smaller dirt road, leading into the mountains. The road is muddy, but nothing we hadn't seen before. By now, we were all getting accustomed to the bike, mud and water... so we cruised through this part like it was our job. The next obstacle we reach is a river.. he he. yes, there's a river flowing accross the road, and we have to drive through it to continue. Haakon guns the Minsk and heads straight for the river. Helga is roaring and there's water everywhere!!!! But guess what, we make it. Yeah. We got wet of course, but Helga, Mahta and Haakon are safe and sound on the other side without even stopping. (Count of hands: How many people thought we'd fall in? We hate you all!!!)

Because the river was such a fun place, it may not surprise you that Haakon had to go back and do it again. Yes, that's right, he decided drive back accross the river, knowing perfectly well what happens when you try to go swimming with the motorcycle.(Count of hands: How many people think Haakon screwed up and dropped Helga in the river?) Bastards, you are all wrong. We made it! And it was brilliantly executed. LOADS of fun. Since we were all having fun, our trusted guide, Mr. Hung, decided to try something cool. Instead of driving accross the river, he wanted to drive along the river (in the river that is). He leaves the group, and drives slowly up the side of the river, before cutting out onto a small "island". His goal is to drive from the island, down the river and out where we are standing. The whole feat would have been really cool if it hadn't been for him fucking it up. He drives off the the island and into the river looking like he is already about to fall off. In fact, we could predict the outcome before it even happened. No surprise to us, but apparently a surprise to Hung, his front wheel hits a hole, he loses balance and falls off the bike. It was really funny to watch. Paul and I run out yelling "We'll save you Hung" as he tries to hold on to his bike, which is now starting to float down the river. HA HA. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. We eventually managed to get the bike out of its swimming position and onto the island, but it required alot of brute force. I guess you all know what happened next. Yeah, that's right. The bike would not start... We spent the better part of 2 hours waiting for Mr. Acrobat to fix his bike. (I think we were laughing for a good 45 min of it). The best part of it is that he didn't even manage to fix his bike. It really sucked! But everything is possible in Vietnam. Hung simply asked a local tribesman if he could swap Minsks temporarily. He even got the local guy to push his bike to the mechanic.

Well, after about two hours (4 o'clock), we eventually got going again. Hung had acquired a shitty old Minsk, but at least we were moving. I guess it would have been really nice to be able to tell you that after this mishap, eveything went as planned, but unfortunately, this didn't happen. The next thing that occurred was Paul and Clare losing their tailpipe. The exhaust simply fell off the engine and was dragging on the ground. SHIT!! We stopped of course, and Hung pulled his tool kit out yet again. We managed to temporarily fix it, but not for long. 10 min later, the damn thing fell off again, and proved nearly impossible to fix. We eventually had to force it to stay put, but the bike now had a huge cap where the tailpipe was supposed to go. For those of you who don't know, driving without a tailpipe is hell. The bike went from being loud to sounding like a 747 ready for take off. IT WAS SOOO LOUD!!! Even the local people were all plugging their ears as we drove by.. Absolutely hilarious.

We had now covered about 35 km, and it was about to get dark when it started raining. It wasn't much at the beginning, but we could tell that there was a big storm coming. After a quick group meeting, we decide to cancel our original plan, and drive back to the closest village(about 5 min). We found a hotel just as the storm hit. It was raining soo hard that the streets began to flood. 30 minutes after we had arrived, the street was filled with water. I tried to walk through it, and it reached up to my knees... WOW, I've never seen anything like it. Mopeds were stuck in the water, and people were trying to move their cars.

There's not much to tell about the evening. We had our usual crappy dinner with surreal beers before we went to bed.

Northern Vietnam - Day 5 remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

The first 60 km went by really quickly. The roads were good and the view even better. We were basically riding on small asphalt roads the whole time, but we were still in the middle of the mountains.

At about 11 o'clock, we stopped to rest our sore asses as well as try some local soy milk. A group of 6 or 7 young girls and boys had made an impro soy-milk stand and were selling soy milk to each other. They were super excited to see us whities, and even more excited when we started taking pictures of them. Whenever we showed them the picture, they were all giggling and couldn't believe that this little black box could actually reproduce what they were looking at. The wonders of technology, eh?

Anyways, we now had a choice as to which route to take. 1: We could be really boring and go with the easy conventional route, or 2: We could take the rocky trail with a better view. We opted for option # 2, and off we went.

The first thing we see after leaving the main road is something that could barely be called a path. There were rocks absolutely everywhere and an a steep incline leading off into nowhere. Needless to say, Haakon was excited. The next few hours were spent manouvering through these incredibly challenging riding conditions. Helga was struggeling and we had to keep her in first gear for most of the way, but it was all worth it. By the time we came to the top, we left the road and went to a small field with a view of the valley below. The only other living creatures were water buffalos and a few cows!!! Another incredible memory.

We left the cow-littered field after 45 minutes of much needed rest just to find out that the sky was about to break open and we would get super soaked. The next 2 hours was undertaken in pouring rain but it was still a lot of fun.

We made it to our final destination, a Vietnamese stilt house just by the edge of a gorgeous lake. In fact, the owner was the village chief!!! Just as the previous nights, the evening was filled with good food, rice wine and beers.

Northern Vietnam - Day 4 remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Todays journey was to consist of a slow ride of about 40km to the Chinese border. We humped along a nice asphalt road (but no cars) and slowly made our way to the border area.

We had heard that there was supposed to be a nice waterfall, but nothing had prepared us for what we saw. IT WAS GORGEOUS!!! The river (which is the Vietnam/China boundary) flowed into 3 seperate and huge falls, with green jungle growing on all sides. It was incredible. Also, we jumped on some sort of bamboo raft and was taken across the river right by the bottom of the falls, into China. It was awesome.. Due to the current being really strong, we couldn't really go swimming, but Paul and I managed to hold on to the raft and go for a quick dip anyways. I can now proudly say that I have pissed in China.

As opposed to the previous day, the day progressed without any funny, stupid or weird incidents, which was a pleasant surprise. We arrived back at the homestay before dark and had a traditional Vietnamese dinner (with rice wine of course) before calling it an early night.

Northern Vietnam - Day 3 remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

After about half an hour of riding on compact gravel we left the "main road" and headed to smaller trails. In other words, we had entered the no-car territory. The first 100m gave an indication of how the day was to progress... half a meter of mud and water, and H&M crammed on a Minsk made for some spectacular riding (in Haakon's opinion anyways). How can we put this? We were ENTIRELY COVERED with mud, and that was just the beginning! For the next two hours we continued our mud riding further and further away from civilization.

At about 11, we came across the most challenging bit yet. A 30m long and 75cm deep puddle of muddy water had decided to place itself in the middle of our path, hehe FUN! Seeing that there was no way back, Haakon the great decided to force Helga into submission and power her across the "pond". Guess what, we made it through! Haakon had now become a master at mud-biking! Needless to say, he had to have another go! Without Mahta on the back, it was a piece of cake to maneuver and H&H (Helga and Haakon) flew back and forth across the "pond" two times.

After our half hour play time, we decided to continue on as our bellies were crying out for some real food and water. And that's when it all went down... 5m further, we come across a narrow path (10cm wide) with big puddles on both sides. Having conquered the previous obstacles with supreme elegance, Haakon felt confident that this 3 metre long path would pose no problems at all. Damn, was he ever wrong. With minimal speed, we left the "safety" of solid mud and rolled onto the narrow path. So far so good. That's when it all happens. Helga's rear wheel lost traction and the whole machinery lost speed. Now, what happens if you're on a bike with no speed??? It starts tipping!!! Yes, that's right, the bike starts tipping.. No problem right? Haakon has long legs, he can just push off from the bottom of the puddle as he has done so many times earlier that day... WRONG. See, the puddle was deceptively deep, and Haakon's leg just dissapeared down into the muddy water. And this is what happens next:

Mahta: Are we falling?
Haakon: FUUUUCCCKKK!!!!
Helga: WRRROOOOMMMMM
Mahta: OH SHIT!
Helga: Actually, by this time there is no more Helga, she is dead quiet!

So what happened. Well, the bike, Mahta and Haakon all fell over into the puddle and got almost completely submerged in water. He he .. But don't worry guys, we saved the camera and the scene looked really cool!! Yeah.

As described before, the Minsk aka Helga, is a solid and higly unreliable motorbike, which we were just about to realize. After our little swim, the damn girl decides to seize up and not start at all.. I mean, THERE WASN'T EVEN A CHANCE IN HELL to get her firing. SHIT!!!

The next 1 hour, was spent trying to fix the poor girl. Hung practically tore the bike apart and tried every possible trick at his disposal to fix it. The Minsk is probably the simplest motorbike ever built and should in theory be really easy to fix. but i guess dropping them in water is not that common. After an hour, the bike finally started working, and it looked as if lunch would be coming up very soon.

That's when the second problem starts. See, earlier (before H&M) tipped their bike, Paul had dropped his bike (Fantasia) in 20 cm of mud and had problems with the throttle. What this meant was that we had to stop (150 metres after the first stop) to fix his bike. Obviously, we had to turn the engine off.. BAD IDEA. See, fixing Paul's and Hung's bike was a piece of cake but getting Helga started after she cooled down took about 90 minutes. While the boys tried to apply their mechanics skills, Clare and Mahta spent the hot afternoon sleeping by the side of the trail. By the time we left, we had spent a total of 2.5 hours trying to mend Fantasia, Helga and Don't Kiss Me (Hung's bike). This sounds really boring, but remember that we were in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam. It was by no means boring. First of all the sceneray was gorgeous, secondly the weather was nice and hot, and thirdly, we were never really worried about having to spend the night. In other words, it was actually quite fun.

So, as mentioned earlier, we finally got back on the bikes and started driving. So far so good... But wait.. We just had two strikes, and we all know that three is the lucky number.. So what happens?? 50 metres down the road we find out that a roadslide has completely washed away the road!!! HA HA... But no threat, we slide down the side of the road down to the local river and start using that as a road. Kinda cool to be driving in a river (it wasn't filled with water though).

After our three strikes, we were obviously starving (it was 4 o'clock by now) and we had absolutely no clean water left, so we decided to drive hard to get to civilization. The next two hours were spent driving in even more mud, enjoying the scenary (mostly Mahta of course) and learning the ways to control a big ass motorbike in mud. I had the time of my life. The riding was challenging but really fun.

By 6.30, we have finally made it out of the super muddy parts and onto more gravel like tarmac, which was good, but another challenge came our wayt. See, by this time it was starting to get dark. YEAH. In the middle of nowhere, with no streetlights on a Minsk.. he he. Fun. Right after 6.30 PM we came to a halt by a HUGE river (which was flowing beyond its borders due to rainy season) with a non-existent bridge. No threat, the Vietnamese people are never far away. The local people had invented some sort of bamboo raft with lines crossing the river, and with the help of 5 Vietnamese people per raft, we drove the bikes on the tiny bamboo raft and muscled them over the fast flowing river. One of the most exciting moments on the whole trip!!!

Once safe and sound on the other side, another incident came our way. The banks on the other side were really steep and thanks to the fact that it had been raining for 2 hours (and still raining) the gravel was slippery and not well compacted. What this means for people sitting on a shitty motorbike is that we had to give lots of throttle. Guess what guys?? We gave too much throttle. The front wheel left the ground, the bike started tipping backwards and Mahta makes some unrecognizable sounds. It must have looked soooo funny. Anyways, we fall backwards with the bike about to come down on top of us, but fortunately we manage to throw the bike sideways and to the ground. The bike was fine, Haakon was laughing, but Mahta, poor girl, had landed on a sharp rock and bruised her butt. It was funny though. She was laughing and and au-au-ing at the same time. What a scene.

After the spectacle we created, we eventually made it, without any incidents, the last 20km to the small village where we were to spend the night. This was really cool. Instead of staying in a hotel, we spent the night with a local family, sleeping in their house. They were all really nice people, and the evening was spent eating, drinking beer and of course sampling the local rice wine.

By the time we went to bed we were super tired, and Mahta's ass was hurting.....

Northern Vietnam - Day 2 remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Before we get started on telling you about the trip itself, let me give you an intro into the bike we were to use. The bike is called a Minsk, and is an old Russian motorbike. It is a 125 CC, meaning it has no more power that a regular moped, but obviously has more torque. The max speed of the bike is about 60 km/h, it weighs a whole bunch, and comes without any gauges (ie speedometer, fuel gauge etc). Having said that, the bike is unreal. It is called the mule of the mountains and has such a simple design that a monkey with a hammer and a stone could fix it. Well, not really, but pretty much any Vietnamese male over the age of 30 will know a Minsk inside and out. Our Minsk was nice and blue, and she quickly acquired the beautiful name of Helga. We also had full protective clothing, meaning motorbike jackets, pants, gloves, helmets etc. Ok, back to the trip.

Off we went, but first we had to get ourselves through bustling Hanoi traffic which can be challenging enough when you're crossing a street on foot. Haakon, the experienced biker that he was, popped a wheelie just as we were pulling onto the highway but managed to pull himself together and we successfully drove hard to catch up with the others. Driving at our max-out speed of 60 Km/hr , the wind and bike vibration forcing our face to move in ways we didn't know were possible, rice fields and mountains began to appear in the horizon. The sun was bright and hot while the wind was cooling our faces. What a feeling... We were finally getting a taste of the real Vietnam.

We drove hard for about 3 hours before finally stopping for some drinks at a local roadside cafe. By this time we were told that we actually passed the group and decided that we should just wait for the others to catch up. It was a good chance to rest from the whirling world on a motorbike. Soon enough, our new guide, Hung, appeared with an English couple - Paul and Clare - and we were finally introduced to the people which we were to spend some incredible days with.

After a quick lunch, we carried on at a pace that almost seemed boring compared to what we had been doing earlier till we reached an old "communist" hotel which was to be our home for the night. The hotel looked like it had been built in the mid 60's, with huge rooms of shitty quality. Oh well, I guess it was worth it for the scenary. The town we were in (and the hotel) was set right in between 5 or six large tree-covered mountains. Absolutely stunning!!!

After parking our motorbikes, our guide went out to find us some dinner while we refreshed ourselves in the communist hotel. 20 minutes later, we were all ready to go for, what we thought would be, a nice filling dinner. First the good parts: it was Paul's 27th birthday that same night, and we were all in a great mood to celebrate! Ie, the drinking was good. We got our hands on some Portugese wine which Hung believed was potentially made in China and quickly polished it off. The next thing on the menu was some local rice wine (moonshine) and finally, after 2 long hours of bad wine we got some cold beers. MMMmmmm, so far so good right?
Now, for the bad parts:. We can't say much nice things about the meal but we'll try to paint a picture for you anyways. First of all, they had freshly killed a chicken for us which was really nice, but they have the tendency of just hacking it up in chunks with the bone which is not so nice. Inaddition, the chicken is was boiled and not fried, which made for really grosse meat. For the rest of the dishes, Hung had decided everything and that may have included a plate of boiled cabbage, the water from the boiled cabbage (which was to be eaten as soup), rice, vegetables and some other stuff. All in all, the meal was highly unsattisfying and did not fill us up at all. We also asked if it was possible to get beef,, but received a negative response, as the town was too small to eat a whole cow before it went bad. HA HA... what a disappointment.

After the scrumptious meal, we took some beer back to our room to continue the celebration and eventually fell asleep around midnight, stoked about another day of motorbiking.

P.S, you can go here: http://www.minskclubvietnam.com/thebike.html if you wanna look at the bikes we were using

Northern Vietnam + Russian Minsk = Fun! remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

We arrived at the boat at 8.30 in the morning, and by 9 o'clock we were on our way to the dive site. Our divemasters were an ancient Russian guy and a tiny French/Vietnamese fellow. They both proved to be pretty good, but unfortunately the diving wasn't. Due to a strong current, the visibility was reduced and we were constantly pushed into the coral reefs. Our second dive was better, but all in all, the diving was shit compared to our experience in Thailand and Halvor didn't think much of the snorkelling... Guess that's the way it works out sometimes.

By this time, we had grown tired of Nha Trang, so we went to book a bus ticket to Hoi An. By the time we reached the office, it was already 6.00 PM, and we were really worried that they wouldn't have any tickets left. The relief was great when we found out we had scored the last three tickets on the bus!!! Kick ass.

The evening and next afternoon were really not too exciting, so I won't bore you with details, but we spent the day sun tanning on the beach and the next evening eating delicious seafood... MMMmmmmm.

As I just told you, we scored the last three tickets for the 12 hour overnight bus ride to Hoi An, which we thought was awesome... WRONG.. We got stuck in the very back of the bus, which on a normal bus wouldn't be THAT bad, but on a Vietnamese bus is horrible. Imagine this: It's 34 degrees and 80 percent humidity outside. The bus is absolutely packed (in fact there is one guy sitting on a plastic chair in the aisle). The airconditioning doesn't really produce any cold air. Mahta, Halvor and Haakon are sitting in the back seats with absolutely no room for shoulders or (long) legs. THE ENGINE IS RIGHT UNDERNEATH OUR ASSES, PRODUCING ENOUGH HEAT TO FRY AN EGG ON THE FLOOR... Seriously, it was too hot to keep your bare feet on the ground... WOW. By the time we arrived Hoi An at six in the morning, it looked as if we had just walked out of the shower.. We were all soaked and stunk really badly.

Our time in Hoi An was not really exciting. We spent 4 nights in this cute town relaxing, sun tanning and chilling by a pool. We rented some crappy bicycles (which could hardly support Haakon's weight, think of the struggle when Mahta and Haakon shared a bike) to take to the beach some 5Km outside of town... it was all worth it when we arrived at a beautiful, and clean beach with a gorgeous view of some islands. We opted out of the trip to the beach the next day, so we all decided to splurge and use the swimming pool at a nice hotel. Probably one of our worst investments so far seeing that we were rained on only after an hour! We finally came to the inevitable moment of saying our goodbyes to Halvor, he decided to spend a few days tailoring suits in Bangkok over spending the time with us... do you feel the love?
We left for a dreaded 17 hour long bus ride to Hanoi the same afternoon, but luckily the lack of engine heat help ease the pain.

That leaves us about one week behind current date. What happened this past week??? I'll give you all a hint.. Motorbiking on old Russian Minsks in Northeastern Vietnam. We'll update soon..

Until next time...

Diving and so on remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

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

Mountains and Beaches remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

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

Hitting up Vietnam remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

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

Cambodia & Angkor Wat remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

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.

The Bird Flu remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

First I would like to apologise for the delay in updating this stuff. Internet in the places we went to in Thailand was bitchin' expensive, so we opted out of the updating. :-)
Sorry guys

Anyways, seeing that it's been a while, we better get started. In other words, find yourself a beer, kick your friend/colleague/brother/mum off the comfy chair and enjoy.

As I told you in the last blog entry, we left Bangkok that evening at around 6 o'clock to catch a night bus to Chumpon. We had a nice big airconditioned bus and everything was going great until the bus stops at 3 in the morning. "Probably just a bathroom break" we told eachother and went back to sleep. 30 seconds later some little Thai dude comes up to us and says "this is where you get off".. Ok, fun stuff. It appeared as if we were at some dinky little bus station in the middle of nowhere and we were shown a room with floor mats and a bunch of "thai style" pillows. Needless to say, the night ended up being rather uncomfortable, but by 6.30 we had finally boarded a van with 7 other people and ended up somehow by the pier. The next 2 hours were spent relaxing on a boat with 40 other backpackers on our way to Ko Tao. Amazing feeling!!!!

Once at Ko Tao we were greeted by 40 Thai people trying to sell us diving courses. The island is 7 km long and 3 km wide and acts as the home to more than 35 dive schools. Competition was in other words kinda rough. At this time, we didn't really know what to do. None of us knew much about diving and everyone we talked to offered us "the best diving experience on the island".. hmm Lucky for us however, Mahta had met Chris, an American guy, on the boat who had been to the island 3 years earlier and was going back to the same school to do more dives. Kickass!!! We finally had an independent dude we could trust. We jumped onto the back of the pickup truck with these guys and drove 3 minutes to the dive shop to talk to the owner. She ended up being a super cool chick and we got what would prove to be an absolutely killer deal. Also, as a complimentary service, all the dive schools gave free accomodation for 4 nights, so we were now off to pick our place. We ended up with a pretty shitty bungalow, but for the price we paid, we didn't really care. Kickass.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of our diving, but it was some of the coolest stuff we've ever done. Everyday worked out pretty much the same. For the morning part, we'd meet up at the dive shop (we being: Mike, our super cool dive instructor, Bill, Chris's American friend, and the two of us) and learn about diving for a few hours. The afternoons were spent on a boat diving, relaxing and talking shit. All in all, we had 4 dives and saw some super cool fish, including the real Nemo. We had an unreal time and I really wish I could go back and do it all again.

As mentioned above, we did our course with Bill and Chris, two American guys from Colorado, which we got to know real well over the course of the next week and a half. We spent our last night at Ko Tao celebrating the opening of the World Cup and our graduation into the PADI system. It was a great night except that we slept in and almost missed our 9:30 ferry the next morning! Should've invested in a better alarm clock, we're working on it...

So, we left Ko Tao and headed for Ko Phangan for a full moon party. The ferry ride was pretty rough considering the aching hangovers, but we managed. We arrived to an overwhelming amount of taxi drivers yelling "Haad Rin, Haad Rin!" (where the full moon party takes place) but we took Chris' advice and stayed at Haad Yuan, a beautiful and peaceful beach. Our bungalow here was definitely a major upgrade and it treated us well. Well, except the ginormous spider (10 cm wide) haakon found. Turns out what is ginormous to us is only normal to the locals who laughed hysterically at our reactions.

Time flew by at Haad Yuan.. the full moon party was alright, it was more like a commercial festival than the party we were hoping for. Quite the site though! We spent a few days tanning, and Haakon managed to turn himself into a tomato regardless of the 30 SPF sunscreen! It's okay though, he's recovered.

On June 14th, Mahta decided to have her birthday.. What a day.. We spent the afternoon doing a 2 hour long jungle hike and the evening drinking vodka buckets (complements of the owner of our hotel). Also, earlier that day, we had met a super cool Israeli couple who provided us with music all night. The guy was a progressive trance DJ and spun some really crazy stuff. We drank and talked trash pretty much the whole night. By this time, the 4'5 (150cm) tall, 45 kg heavy Thai owner was drunk as shit, but nevertheless had a great time. (P.S. Haakon managed to get his hands on a chain of 250 firecrackers which we fired off that evening... Fun stuff) Also, just to make the night that much better, one of the people working at the resort had baked a cake for us all to enjoy. WOW, how's that for service....

We spent 6 day on this fantasy beach of ours, but had to eventually leave for Malaysia. It was a sad departure as we had become really close to Chris and Bill. The Israeli couple and the resort people had also made a huge impact on our stay. Definately a place we would like to come back to..

We jumped on a bus early morning on Thursday to get to a place called Butterworth in Malaysia. The bus ride was really shitty (15 hours on a small mini bus...), but we managed to get the anyways. That is, we ended up at an island instead, called Penang, but close enough. This is where I will have to bring out the nasty words... Coming from beautiful Ko Phangan to this place was like going from heaven into the anus of the world. The place was dirty as shit, the rain went through the roof and into the "hotel" rooms and it stunk like ass.. What a place!!!

We spent the evening trying to find a decent place to eat dinner, before settling for some shitty pub food. NOT HAPPY!!!
The next morning, we checked out of our "high" class $10 a night hotel and ended up at a much shittier place for $5 a night... wooohooo... We're moving deeper into anus. It's like I've always said, if you're going to try something shitty, make sure it's done right..

The day we spent at Penang island turned out to be really good though. We rented a motorbike and with Haakon driving and Mahta hanging on for dear life, we managed to make our way around the island.

The next morning we left for Kuala Lumpur, which is where the fairtale trip goes on pause. We're spending a few days here in KL before we head down to see Henken in Singapore. We're super stoked about getting to bug him for a few days and will update the blog as soon as we get some more good stories.

P.S Iran's lost two games and Mahta is being laughed at by the locals...

The start of real travelling remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs

Believe it or not, but Haakon and Mahta have now officially managed to start their own blog. The address is pretty simple. http:\\kickingit.travellerspoint.com. Don't know how often we'll update, but we're hoping to manage at least once a week. Feel free to check back at ay time if you're A.) Bored B.) Wondering what the hell Mahta and Haakon are up to C.) Wanna spend some quality office time daydreaming D.) Wanna give us some good travel advice E.) Want a reason to "kick it" in Asia with us or F.) You're wondering if Haakon's been thrown in jail or not and if so, how much you should contribute to "Haakon's Jail fund".

In other words, I feel that there are quite a few good reasons to lean back and enjoy some travel stories once in a while. We'll try to the best of our abilities to keep it funny and light :-)

Anyways, enough with the promotion of the blog, let's get down to business.

As most of you know, I quit my job in Toronto about 3 months ago, and have since been super busy planning this trip and packing my stuff.

Eventhough it has been a hassle to leave Canada, I feel that overall it worked out fairly well. Mahta and I spent a few days in Boston, with the beautiful and ever hospital Karen, as well as a few great days in Houston visting mum and dad. Both trips were very successful and we enjoyed every minute of them.

After the trip to Houston, packing and selling stuff was the primary task at hand. As mentioned above, the whole process was fairly painless and on May 31, 2006, Mahta and Haakon had gone from having a Ford Mustang and a fully furnished one bedroom apartment to two backpacks weighing 5 and 7 kg respectively. How's that for packing!!!

We jumped on the plane to London at 6.00 PM on Wednesday but was delayed due to thundershowers for two hours. The plane ride was fairly uneventful, besides Haakon spilling a glass of wine on our new found friend in the seat beside us. DAMN!!! Gotta get that under control one of these days.

We landed in London early morning on Thursday, where we spent a day sleeping/sightseeing with Martin. (No, we did not sleep with Martin for those curious minds). Eventhough it was a brief visit, we had a great time and we got to say hi to Big Ben, the Queen, Martin, and various other important people.

After a day in London, we caught the 10.00 PM flight to Bangkok. This time I managed to keep my limbs under control, except the "tripping over headphones, kicking the sleeping girl" incident. I hate flying!!!

We landed in Bangkok at 3.00 PM the next day and headed straight for Khao San Road. For those of you who haven't been to Bangkok, it's the Mecca for backpackers. Basically, it's a 200m long street lined with bars, hostels, junk food and street vendors trying to sell you all kinds of crap. Kind of a neat place.

Not much has happened during our time here in Bangkok. For the most part, we have been out and about buying the rest of our necessities. We have however had time to see both the 5.5 ton golden Buddha and the 15,000 stall weekend market. Both were kinda cool. We also bought 8.5 metres of Thai silk and a handheld sewing machine, which we intend to create the world's two first and greatest Thai Silk sleep sacs out of. Think we can do it??

Seeing that we have 12 minutes left, this first chapter will now come to a close, but please keep checking for updates in the near future.

We will leave Bangkok tonight and arrive by bus in Chumphon tomorrow morning at 4 where we'll catch a boat to Ko Tao, off the east coast. Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, we'll have our diving licences in a few days. Wish us good luck.

Cheers,

Leaving Toronto remains copyright of the author bumble bee, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

Comment on this entry | Tweet this | Your own free travel blog | More Travellerspoint blogs