Backpacking

After "dinner" we were looking for something to do and of course, there was absolutely nothing around, so we decided to go for a walk. After our unadventurous walk we returned to the village and saw all the villagers watching our host chase a bat with a giant bamboo stick.. that was their entertainment for the night! What a life! Surely twiddling your thumbs is more exciting... Throughout the evening Haakon showed the kids some magic tricks, Clare played cards with the daughter of our host, Mahta fell asleep and Paul anxiously waited for the minutes to pass. By 9:30 the entire village had gone to sleep.

Next morning we tried to sleep in as much as possible to decrease our waiting time, but the family had numerous people coming in an out and needless to say, they needed their living room which we were sleeping in. We woke up starving but quickly lost our appetite when the daughter had - for BREAKFAST - a handful of stiky rice plus a sweet we had given her. Where do these people get their vitamins from? I'm sure that girl would rather have brussels sprouts! Anyways, we didn't want breakfast, we just wanted the bus!!! Paul and Clare decided to shower in order to waste 20 minutes and decrease waiting time! As soon as they finished their shower and we were all packed and ready to leave, the most heavenly thing happened! The bus arrived 2 hours too soon! We were absolutely stoked and jumped at the bus! We were finally on our 5 hour journey to Xam Neau, what a relief...

Seeing that we both survived the motorbike trip, we were ready to start thinking about leaving Vietnam. The country has some beautiful scenary, but the people are not nice at all. They generally feel that tourist deserve to pay more for everything and that it should be no other way. For example, the driver on a local (non-tourist) bus threatened to kick us off when we refused to pay more than the local price; don't worry though, we stubbornly managed to keep ourselves on the bus. We thought this "you pay more" attitude was strictly towards tourists, boy were we proven wrong by some villagers in the middle of nowhere during our motorbike trip. Allow me to elaborate, our guide had brought along a stack of photos he had developed for the host at our home stay. As we were crusing along, clumsy Hung managed to drop these photos without realizing, but it just so happened that we had to stop a few meters further to repair the bikes (big surprise!). What happened next might give you an indication of how the a-typical Vietnamese thinks... a villager brought us the photos, SO NICE! Yeh, except that she was requesting a handsome payment of 200,000 Dong (USD 12.5) in exchange for the photos AND this was after she had gone through them and selected her favourites as a souvenir!! Keep in mind that it had cost Hung 120,000 Dong to develop the photos and so the final settlement was that he would develop copies for the lady and hand-deliver them to her on his next trip. In the meanwhile, there was a group of ladies who had come to check out the foreigners and their cameras. As shy as they seemed, they asked Clare to snap their photos and had a blast looking at them, requesting more photos and taking turns to have their photo taken individually. It all came to a shocking halt when they actually had the nerve to ask Clare for money after THEY had asked HER to take numerous photos...What?!?!

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...

After the previous day's extraordinary drinking, waking up early next morning for diving was hell. Haakon's head was pounding and Mahta & Halvor were both super tired.. Apparently snake was supposed to turn you into Superman, but let me tell you, I did not feel like Superman, more like a rotten sac of shit. Oh well.

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catch you later,
H

Here we go again..

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

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

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

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

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

H H M