(our hostel in HANOI, VIETNAM..very popular) so i flew into HANOI, VIETNAM by way of CHINA to meet up with dan (a good friend of mine from ULSAN). we traveled to HALONG BAY, checked out the local scene in the city, and made it to snake village, a strange and interesting experience where we, or i ate a live beating snake heart while drinking that cobras bile and blood. why?...for the story i guess!
(HALONG BAY from the cave entrance viewpoint)
(i ate this dudes beating heart, drank his bile and also his blood)
(sunset in HALONG BAY as we spent the night on the boat)
after 8 or so days in NAM, dan and i met up with a few others that we became good friends with (MIKEY, LUCY, LAURA, and KIRSTY) for a 22 hour bus ride to VIENTIANE, LAOS. i was happy to leave VC world as it wasn't my favorite place; however, a great experience. the 6 of us set up shop in the country's capital for just a couple days where the girls walked about and us boys got some motorcycles and cruised around the city the lazy way. interesting city, real laid back and casual during the day, but what a circus at night. imagine every two wheeled vehicle having a prostitute or a lady boy trying to make a few bucks. gross. after a couple days, we deemed it necessary to leave and cruise to VANGVIENG, and if anyone has ever traveled LAOS, you know this is a highlight of a trip of this nature. tiny little town in the middle of nowhere filled with a bunch of backpackers and a muddy little river. this river is the VANGVIENG river and is know for tubing. you rent a tube, start at the top...float 3.5 km as you stop at the many makeshift bars along the way. loaded with ziplines, rope swings, slides, rapeze swings, women showing their body parts, 21st birthdays, and people just having a great time, this place was dangerous but created some amazing memories. the day after tubing we went to the lagoons and to the caves. cold crisp blue water with a tree plenty high enough to backflip off of made for a great day.
(backflip off the top of the tree into the lagoon)
we swam, hiked up to the cave, and a few of the 6 people crashed their motorcycles!! all around good time in VV. after a few days in VV, we loaded up and headed to LUANG PROBANG. an amazing bus trip through the mountains with great views along the way.
(lookout on the way to LUANG PROBANG)
in LP we got our own dorm style room with bunk beds for 5 days or so. although it rained quite a bit, we did some great things including a sunset boat trip down the MEKONG river and the well known LP waterfalls.
(our sunset boat trip up and down the MEKONG river)
(backflip off the falls in LUANG PROBANG)
(rope swing into the falls in LP)
(amazing crew..right to left: mikey, kirsty, lucy, laura, dan, myself)
this place was beautiful and really was a pure and serene place. as it came time to leave LP, it was a bit bittersweet as the 6 of us who had been traveling for the better part of a month together prepared to go separate ways. dan and i took a bus back to the country's capital where we would catch a train to BANGKOK, THAILAND before getting a van and a ferry to KOH CHANG. mikey stayed in LAO another two weeks, the three girls would go to BANGKOK before lucy split to AUSTRALIA and the girls to KOH TAO, THAILAND. dan and i made it to KOH CHANG, a nice remote island on the east side of the GULF. we spent a week there where we had great weather including sunny days and great storms at night.
(sunset on the beach in KOH CHANG)
after KOH CHANG, we headed back to BANGKOK where dan would catch a plane to FRANCE and i would head down to KOH TAO to meet back up with laura and kirsty to get our SCUBA certifications. spent a week on this little island where i got my open water as well as my advanced SCUBA certs.
(sunset over the port in KOH TAO..amazing)
it was great to be back with the girls one more time before i split. after KOH TAO, i had to make a visa run. i left by boat overnight to land, then van to a boat to BURMA(myanmar) back to a van to a bus to BANGKOK.
(boat ride into BURMA/myanmar)
from BK, i took a train up to the north of the country to CHAING MAI where i would again meet up with mikey who had just flew in from LAO. on the train i met a guy name EERO from FINLAND, a cool dude who traveled with us for the duration of the time we spent in the north. after a few nights in CHAING MAI, mikey, eero, and myself rented some motorcycles and set off on a 6 day trip around the north. the first day, we went to the tiger kingdom, the hotsprings, a few waterfalls, the PAI canyon, and eventually to PAI.
(jungle cat who loved to cuddle)
(a must do if you travel north in THAILAND)
(a beautiful waterfall along the way north to PAI)
this was an awesome town, it was small, remote, with a bunch of backpackers just having some good old fashioned fun. we spent a couple nights in PAI going to the waterfalls and other random places, before heading off to MAI HONG SON. we visited the longneck village and the hillside tribe.
(not my definition of fun..but hey, to each their own)
(little boy in the longneck village..he was so innocent looking) after a day in MHS, we cruised into MAI CHEOM where there was absolutely nothing to do, atleast our guesthouse had a pool. got up early and went up to the highest spot in THAILAND before cruising back into CHAING MAI where we were racing against the clock to get our bikes back on time. amazing road trip, highligh of my vacation.
(way up high and way too cold..but cool sights)
back in CHAING MAI we spent a day and did the jungle flight ziplining with 44 platforms weaving our way through the jungle.
(zipline flight through the jungles in the north)
after a few more days in the north, all three of us went back to BK where we were getting ready to go our own ways. eero stayed in BK for a few days before going back to FINLAND, mikey cruised down to the islands to do his diving, and i made my way to SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA. after a pain in the ass ride to SIEM REAP, i stayed at a place called popular guesthouse where i met a few people who i would travel with to see ANGKOR WAT. this place was amazing as it was almost hard to believe that the religious structures that they built were so massive and intriquitly crafted. i'll post pics, its hard to fathom it without a visual.
(ANGKORWAT)
(check out the face carved into the stone above my head)i spent a few days in SR before catching a bus to the country's capital PHNOM PENH. i relaxed for a day before cruising to the airport to pick up HERIM as she would meet me to travel for the next 3 weeks. PP was a bit overwhelming for the fact that if you are white then they assume you are rich and are in your face all the time. in PP, we visited S21, the genocide museum as well as the killing fields where a lot of the natives killed during the POL POT regime were buried in mass graves.
(S21 genocide museum)
(this tree was used to hang women and to smash babies off of..sad)
it was a very somber place and almost uncomfortable in a sense. we left PP after only a couple days and headed down to the southwest coast to SIHANOUKVILLE, a little beach town where it would have been nice to relax and get some sun if it didn't rain for 6 days in a row! we left the south and headed back into THAILAND where we would ferry out to KOH SAMET, a beautiful small island with whitesand beaches, peace, and quiet. it was nice after being in an in your face country like CAMBODIA.
so we spent a nice week on the island before heading back to BK where i would again meet up with mikey before flying out and back to the land of the free. BK was interesting, we hit up the royal palace, a lot of other buddhist stuff, the whole KOH SAN ROAD thing, and of course a ping pong show. if you don't know what that is, you can figure it out on your own, i'm not explaining it. i flew out of BK on the 5th of august, exactly 60 days after i left KOREA. back to sunny SAN DIEGO for a short time before heading back to SK. overall, a great trip, LAO and THAILAND were my favorites while CAMBODIA and VIETNAM (minus HALONG BAY) were average, but nonetheless interesting. i look forward to finishing up SE ASIA (malaysia, indonesia, and philippines) next year, again with dan and also with J AG. crazy adventure...check. way more pictures on my facebook page..check em out if you want. stay tuned.
