New years eve

Figured it's the same temperature in Hanoi as in London. Difference is we're not really prepared for that sort of climate. At the moment I'm wearing both my jumpers and still can't stop shattering my teeth, god I wish I'd brought gloves!

Anyway, today we braved the winter coldness and headed out to see the army/war museum. Apart from the fact that we got locked inside a tower and had to look forever for somebody to let us out, it was good. Got to climbe on helicopters and armoured cars, awesome!

At mid day we thought it would be a good idea to get somewhere inside to grab a beer (it's only New years once a year) and found a cafe that looked good enough. Only that the owner insisted we were Germans and didn't give us a chance to argue. This turned out very awkward as my German skills are non existent and Diana had major difficulties recalling any of her four years of German lessons in middleschool. After trying our best to ask for the bill ("ehh bezahl...en?"), getting how much we were supposed to pay("dreissig" "what?" "dreissig" "?"  "fünfzehn und fünfzehn" "Ah!!!! Fifteen, Mia he means fifteen!!"), and getting asked where in Germany we were from (answering JA, JA!) we ran away very embarrassed.

Happy New years!

Ha Noi in Ha Noi

Starting off New Years Eve with the local bia Ha Noi.

Ha long bay

Spent the day on a boat with this view!

Cravings

Pictures from Mui Ne, Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City

Sunbathing in Mui Ne.

Jesus statue watching over Vung Tau citizens, but not Mia.

A Ho Chi Minh local helping Mia to cross the street.

Christmas Eve celebrations with Paula, Davina, Neal, Tim, James, Clive and Gareth.

Christmas Day celebrations with the same group of people.

Local nastiness in the shape of rice vodka.

Pictures from Angkor Wat

Sunrise over Angkor Wat, 5:30 am.

Monks climbing Angkor Thom.

Christmas celebrations

Christmas Eve wasn't exactly spent in a very traditional way but what can you expect when it's 40 degrees hotter than we are used to, all the Christmas songs are sung in Vietnamese and you get robbed the day before? We spent our Christmas in Ho Chi Minh just sorting out things after the robbery and decided to move the celebrations to Christmas Day. It didn't stop us from going to one of the small road bars serving big Saigon beers for 10 000 VND (30 pence!) and where we befriended people from Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and England. We got along so well we all decided to meet up and celebrate Christmas Day together.

Christmas Day started with a well deserved lie in and then we headed out to buy presents! Ben Thanh Market is huge, hot and hectic and perfect for Christmas shopping. We set up a budget of 100 000 VND (I'm going to miss this currency, it's a very special feeling withdrawing two millions in ATMs) and managed to get really good presents for each other.

During the day we had deliberatly been starving ourselves to really be able to enjoy a pricey special Christmas dinner. It was indeed very special actually, and absolutely the first time I've ever had curry on Christmas! After that we met up with our new friends, went to yet another road bar and had loads of rice whiskey, something I suspect we are all regretting today. But all in all a very nice Christmas and now we feel ready to move on to Hanoi in Norh Vietnam even though we are not exactely looking forward to mere 20 degrees and rain.

Robbery and Vietnamese police

The past few days have been dramatic, to say the least. The second day in Vung Tau started with me being robbed of my bag (containing pretty much all my valubles), me panicing and Diana screaming "police, police" (again using the charads) to attract everybodys full attention, us finally finding the "police station" (read: one table, two chairs, one hammock and a vollyboll pitch), us desperately trying to retell what had happend (I guess you can all see the scene in front of you, me hysterical ripping Dianas bag repeating "stolen, stolen"), us finally getting the non English speaking policeman to get a translator (maybe the only English speaker in the city) and explained for the thousand time what had happend, us getting lift from the two policemen on motorbikes to a second "police station" (looking pretty much the same as the first one, but with a filing cabinet full of unorganized reports, very convincing) and the police to finally start writing a report in Vietnamese while constantly smoking a cigarette looking very grim (as we woke him up from his nap in the hammock).

Finally, after many hours spent with the Vietnamese police we left the station empty handed. Apparently insurance companies are a rarity in Vietnam and the grim policeman couldn't understand why we kept on insisting for a report (how do you explain "insurance company" using charades..?).

Well, I can't say we slept well that night, knowing that the theives had our key to the hotel room along with all the other valubles. I'm still crying inside when I think about long busrides without beeing able to play tetris on the phone, listen to my music and use facebook/skype whenever WiFi becomes available :(

Anyway, luckily nobody got hurt and the passports were in safe hands by the hotel receptionists. Yet another story to tell the grandchildren I suppose (god, they'll be tired of stories).

Vung Tau

Vung Tau is not a very touristy place. Not that I have any numbers or anything but the fact that people actually change seats in restaurants, to be able to stare unabashedly at us without having to turn their necks sort of tells me that. We like it though, coming straight from Mui Ne which was so touristy the menus were written in Russian.

Here everything is in Vietnamese, even our conversations with the locals (though very limited, the only words we know so far being 'thank you', 'man', 'woman' and 'two'). The menus are also in Vietnamese, with a few words translated into English or more common, Russian. It's absolutely an experience, I don't think Mia ever imagined having to act as the sun while I pretended to sunbath when hunting for sunscreen (she did a very convincing job by the way).

After a while it sort of gets a little bit tiresome though, especially after trying to get a new toilet paper roll using our very limited Vietnamese vocabulary, or when inspecting the food you've ordered and discover that you have to eat a turtle in something that looks like a sauce made of just butter in order to get full (not that that has acually happened to us - yet - but turtles actually seem to be a pretty popular dish here).

Still it's a great experience and we have always enjoyed charades.

Mui Ne

After leaving Ho Chi Minh City behind we ended up in Mui Ne, on the east coast of Vietnam. We stayed in a cheap and nice guesthouse close to the beach and enjoyed a few days of sunshine and motorcyckle rides (Mia being the experienced driver!)

But every sun has its cloud and we quickly got fed up with all the luxurious resorts and Russan tourists (they were EVERYWHERE!) and decided to try our luck somewhere else. After a grey and rainy Tuesday (when not much is going on in a place like Mui Ne) we packed our bags and left early this morning.

The bus ride and today's happenings are a story by themselves and we'll tell you all about it in a separate blog post.

Good morning Vietnam!

Ho Chi Minh City

After a fifteen hour busride which included stomach cramps (food poisoning finally hit the both of us), a very weird border crossing and a serious lack of food we found ourselves in Ho Chi Minh City. The plan was to stay one night and then take a bus to Mui Ne on the coast but the long busride left us pretty traumatized, especially with the stomach cramps and everything. The decision to stay another night turned out to be a very good idea, we've completely fallen in love with the city!

There are beautiful parks pretty much everywhere and big flowerpots are put randomly along the streets. Everything is so green and leafy and the Vietnamese people are all lovely and extremely helpful, even the MAD traffic has its charm (at least after you've crossed the street!). The former French colonialism is sometimes very obvious in the shape of boulangeries, small squares where plenty of cafes and coffee shops are situated side by side, there is even a Notre Dame Cathedral here!

Soon we're heading out for some proper Vietnamese food. I'm having a good feeling about this, it's probably going to be very hard to get used to Shoreditch's Vietnamese restaurants again when we get back to London.

The temples of Angkor Wat

Finally in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) after spending two days in Siem Reap, to see the reputable temples of Angkor Wat. We stayed at a lovely guesthouse in the centre of Siem Reap, cheap and outstanding service from the Cambodian family running it. They took great interest in helping us with every enquiry we had and also arranged for a  tuk-tuk to drive us around the temple area (that turned out to be HUGE!). The first day we spent about 8 hours exploring the main part of the temples. We took millions of photos, climbed the steepest stairscases ever seen and was mainly just fascinated about the ages of it all, being about 1000 years old.

The second day started early with watching the sunrise over Angkor Wat, something that everybody seem to recommend and that everybody seemed to do. Together with a few houndred other tourists we watched the sun come up over Angkor, beautiful is not enough to explain it. The rest of the day was spent with our tuk tuk driver Chu and we visited even more of the temples. 

If it wasn't for the stiffling heat and lack of whiffs (and the fact that due to religious reasons, women had to wear long-sleeved shirts and something covering the knees, stockings in our case...) we could have enjoyed a few more days walking around the Angkor Wat. But for now, we are satisfied temple wise and left Siem Reap happy to move on to the next stop.

One thing worth mentioning about Cambodia and especially Siem Reap is the merchants that seemed to be appearing from nowhere trying to sell all kinds of unnessesary gadgets. A normal conversation that occured about 20 times daily could sound like this:
"Lady, you buy bracelet"
"No, thank you"
"Lady, you want to buy bracelet"
"No, Thank you"
"Lady, You can buy bracelet"
"No, Thank you"
"Lady, 10 for 1 dollar"
"No, Thanks I'm good"
"Lady, one, two, three, four, five six seven, eight, nine, ten for 1 dollar"
"No"
"Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, for 1 dollar"
"No"
"Okey, but you buy later, yeah?"
"No"
"Lady, when you buy later you come to me right?"
"NO!!!"

Not exaggerating. 

Pictures from Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville

Suvarnabhumi Airport (from which we were allowed to bring ALL our electronic devices).

My first Khmer food experience, the earlier mentioned salad which set my mouth on fire.

The local beer Angkor enjoyed at the beach. Together they were 64 pence.

The view from our guest house.

Otres beach, our favourite.

Waiting for breakfast.

I made a new friend who ended up stealing my baguette!

We went on a boat trip to uninhabited islands our last day in Sihanoukville. Rumours about Cambodia not having as pretty and dramatic reefs as Thailand proved to be true and neither of us were too impressed by the snorkling.

Pictures from Bangkok

Unfortunately I seem to be unable to put Mia's pictures onto this computer and my camera gave up on its already poor existence a few days into our stay in Bangkok. So well, this is a tiny part of our Bangkok!

Mr Mihan, our very first tuk tuk driver!

Mia giving a kiss to the Golden Buddah

Grand Palace

A few minutes after this photo was taken my camera died. Pretty good most things are cheap in Thailand so I could buy a new one there.

Incredible photo skills

Mia is showing proof of her incredible photo skills and Diana is happy to see all the amazing temples (more photos are coming, hopefully)

Night bus to Siem Reap

Just arrived to Siem Reap after a 10,5 hour bus ride. The standard of the roads here in Cambodia is very bad, and on top of that bus drivers drive like maniacs. The combination of this turned out to be a rather shaky experience.. Well, luckily nobody got sick (like last time when half of the passengers were sick during the 5 hour bus ride, will never forget the smell..) Soon of to explore the temples of Angkor Wat!

Turquoise sea, Khmer food and 32 pence a pint

So we're finally in Sihanoukville, easily our favourite stop so far! Every day we are enjoying a blue sky, white beaches and a turquoise sea. And of course spicy Khmer food (I needed assistance of nearly two litres of water when eating a Khmer SALAD the other night) and the local beer Angkor which is as cheap as 32 pence a pint. London prices are going to get hard to get used to again...

Sihanoukville

Just like paradise. We've been unable to update the blog for the last couple of days due to failing Internet connection.. Seems like it's working again now though.. Sihanoukville is an amazing place, could stay here for a very long time! Starting to get pretty annoyed with the beach merchants trying to sell bracelets, fruit, sunglasses etc already though, well might be a minor problem.. We'll try a proper update tomorrow:) xx

From Suvarnabhumi airport

Dear all,

Just about to leave Bangkok for one night in Phom Penh before moving on to Sihanoukville on the coast. If anybody is interested in a glimpse of the Sihanoukville beaches have a look here,  but we will surely post our own photos soon!

Grand palace and swimming pool

Drinks in Silom

Bangkok baby

First day in Bangkok done, a truly amazing experience! Even though the jetlag has been messing with us all day (making it completely impossible for us to calculate 90-25..) we still managed to get up at 8.00am and started the day with taking the ferry along the river to china town. It was a very crowded experience- tiny streets and thousands of streets stands selling everything from spices and peanuts to miniature dragons, chinese dresses and very sugary ice coffee. We soon gave up beeing pushed around with all the Chinese and took the ferry a bit further up the river, to koh san road. After just a few minutes we found ourselves in a little tuk-tuk with Mr Mihan, a little man that we apparently had managed to rent for a few hours (paying £0,50 btw). He drow us around in his little tuk-tuk and showed us "the big buddah"- a huge golden buddah statue and "the lucky buddah" - a temple that is normally closed but was open today due to the celebration of the kings birthday, double luck! After our little spiritual tour we went for super expensive seafood, very bad choice, but hey- we're on holiday!! In the afternoon we felt our backs deserved an aroma oil massage (after carrying our massive backpacks through 30 degrees the day before), do I even have to mention how amazing that massage was? Now, Margaritas on Silom rd!

In Bangkok after mental rape by El Al Airlines

We are finally in Bangkok after what might have been the most stressful event in our lives so far. Somehow Mia and I got listed as high risk passengers by the El Al Airlines ground crew at Heathrow airport. We didn't quite understand what that meant at first but after being taken into a separate room to answer questions about everything and nothing ("What are your flatmates names?", "Why did you choose to fly with El Al?" and "Where is your UK visa?") and informed that we were not allowed to bring our hand luggage onboard the plane (instead we had to put it into plastic bags) we had a rough idea.

We thought everything would be fine once we had passed the security control and were taken by surprise when we found it was there everything actually started in El Al airlines special gate checks. We are talking full body checks (they actually checked my hair for hidden items!), samples taken from our clothes, skin and every single item we brought with us (in our plastic bags...). After a while Mia was taken onboard the flight (a member of staff actually led her all the way to her seat) while I had to wait without knowing anything. After nearly two hours waiting I was told I was not allowed to bring any electronic devices, but instead had to send them back to my UK address. Just great news when you're about to spend two months travelling! After a hysterical fit and some shouting they were "kind" enough to put it in my backpack that was already checked in so during the next fifteen hours of flying I could do nothing but hope they actually put it in the right bag.

All this happened while Mia saw the plane get more and more packed, at one point the captain actually told the passengers the plane was soon ready for take off. As one of the last passengers at the gate check I was finally allowed to board the plane, this in the style of a very upset catwalk though the already full plane. I can't really say that we had that "We're on our way!"-feeling at take off. Maybe needless to say but DO NOT fly with El Al Airlines, even if they gave us a story to tell the grandchildren.

From phone

Just testing if this works.. Mobilphone bloging, high tec! Officially unemployed by now, so I have lots of time for these things:) Slagging on the sofa atm, life's good! / mia

Asia Is Better

Dear All.

In 10 days we're boarding the plane to Bangkok for two month of sunshine- travelling South East Asia!

This blogg is for all of you- friends, parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, boyfriends, regular costumers, colleagues, bosses etc etc. who cares to follow our trip. We promise to do our best to keep you updated on what's going on over there, in return- feel free to drop a comment and update us about life back home. 

Last 10 days we’ll keep busy preparing luggage, moving out of our rooms, moving in to Big Yellow, sorting out Visa, quit our jobs, take vaccinations etc etc etc!

/Mia