Koh Phi Phi

Next stop on Sarah and my Thai adventure was Koh Phi Phi. To get to Koh Phi Phi, you have to fly into Phuket and take a ferry. We spent one night there which was enough. It was definitely not by favorite place. Think sex tourism and lady boys. After going to see the Big Buddha, we boarded the ferry for some fun in the sun. We spent the first afternoon getting to know the town and trying to set up a dive for the next day. Sarah told them she was asthmatic which didn't go over too well. The cute guy from South Africa trying to get us to dive agreed to let her go with a doctors note, so it was off to the doctor for Sarah! With her note in hand, we woke up early and went to the dive center where we were turned away any way. Fail. With a whole day ahead of us and no plans, we decided to book an island hopping your instead. The boat was awesome!

Monkey Beach

We started at Monkey Beach, which is a beach full of monkeys. Very, very aggressive monkeys! The trip traveled on to this little bay where we hopped in the water and were surrounded by millions of little striped fish that looked just like Flounder from the Little Mermaid.

Sarah swimming with the fishies

 The trip ended at Maya Beach, the beach made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio's movie The Beach. Not a bad substistute for diving! 

Koh Phi Phi Beach

We made it back in time to book a night dive with a different dive shop which we didn't tell about Sarah's asthma. Learned that lesson! The night dive was pretty exhilarating. I'd only done it once before and it was as cool as I'd remembered. At one point during the dive, the dive master has us all turn off out flashlights and sit at the bottom of the ocean. Then we had an underwater dance party flailing our arms and legs to make the phosphorescents glow. Amazing!

The Viewpoint

On our last day, we met Hana, a friend from LBS, at the beach to hike up to the viewpoint. It was scorching hot, but the hike was worth it. The view was really breathtaking. 

Cousins!

After relaxing by the pool for a few hours, it was time to take the ferry back to Phuket to meet Mr Boon, our local cab driver. Had it not been for his speed-demon driving abilities, we wouldn't have made it to the ferry on the first day or the airport on the last day in time. I definitely underestimated the size of Phuket. It's huge! Koh Phi Phi was amazing and I hope to go back one day. Three days was not enough!

Khao Sok

In front of our lakeside bungalows

After waking up super early to fly from Bangkok to Surat Thani, Sarah and I met our driver to take us to the Morning Mist Resort in Khao Sok National Park. It was well worth the early morning because by 11 AM we were headed out to go elephant trekking. Our elephant was named Samboon and had spotted ears that he kept flapping to keep himself cool. The guide let us both move down out of the saddle and onto his neck to get a more upclose and personal feel for elephant riding. We needed to cool off (and nap) after our ride, so we went to the hotel pool to relax a bit.

Khao Sok National Park

After a light lunch, we had our first of hopefully many Thai massages down the rode at Country House. After the massage, Sarah proclaimed "This is the best day ever!" Sounds like the trip is off to a great start to me! We had drinks at a place on the river before another delicious Thai meal before hitting the hay early in our little treehouse hut. 

Inside our tree hut

The next morning, we were picked up at 8:30 for a two day-one night jungle trek. We drove about an hour into the park to a pier and boarded a longboat to venture further into the jungle. When we arrived at our lodging for the night, we found a row of bamboo bungalows hovering above the lake. We immediately dove into the lake for a swim and some kayaking before lunch. 

The longboat we took to the bungalows on the lake

After lunch, we hopped back into the longboat to begin a three-hour hike through the jungle to a cave. Imagine all of the creepiest, crawliest creatures you can and that's what was in the cave. We saw loads of bats, spiders the size of your hand, snakes and apparently there were also leeches milling about. Fortunately, none of our leech checks detected a leech so the heebee-jeebees I had the whole time might have been a little unwarranted (aside from the giant spiders, bats and snakes). As we ventured further into the cave, we trudged into deeper and deeper water in this underground river until the point that we were literally swimming because you couldn't touch the floor. In any other country, you'd have to stop before you even reached the water, but not in Thailand! You just swim right on through. I felt like a true spelunker. 

Incredible sunset over the lake

When we got back to the bungalows, Sarah and I felt like we deserved a beer (or three) and tossed back a few with our new German, Dutch and Canadian friends while having another swim in the lake. Sarah announced again at this point that this was "the best day ever!" It might be hard to keep topping such awesome days for ten days straight, but hopefully Thailand won't let us down. 

Creepy cave

Boracay

After two days in Manila, it was time to head for the beautiful beaches of Boracay! The LBS crew loaded into our nearly private Cebu Pacific airplane to start the journey from plane to boat to bus to tuc-tuc until we finally reached Sur Boracay, our hotel for the next four days.

The beach in front of our hotel

After a hectic few weeks of traveling around Vietnam, Cambodia and Hong Kong, some R&R was just was I needed. Gemma and I spent the next few days sunbathing, getting massages and reading with a little time interspersed for a few activities. 

Sunset in the Philippines

I met up with some of the guys on the second morning to go diving. The water was unbelievable clear. We saw some eels, a water snake (ew!), lots and lots of fish, a cuttlefish, and loads of blue starfish. I got back to the hotel just in time to catch the others before heading out for a sunset cruise. We ventured out to a gorgeous secluded beach where we watched the sunset. On our way back, they stopped the boat and we all hopped off to swim. I didn't have a bathing suit on, but it didn't matter! I jumped in in my dress. 

Not quite on the board...yet

On the third day, a group of us went to the other side of the island to take kite boarding lessons. I felt a little cheated because I was told we would get to actually ride a board. Apparently, kite boarding is really hard (go figure), so they spent the whole three hours teaching us how to handle the kite. Maybe next time I'll actually get to strap into a board!

Sunset cruise with the LBS gang

If I learned anything about the Philippines during the week, it's this: the islands are really beautiful, the people are extremely friendly, and the food is pretty disgusting. Aside from the fact that I got food poisoning from some bad food on the beach, they eat duck fetus! Not joking. At our final dinner, Rach bought a basket of duck fetus (feti?) and held a competition to see who could eat one the fastest. Three lucky (or were they?) people won a free massage the next day. The fetus is still in the egg which is then boiled. You crack open the top and suck out the "soup" before cracking the rest of the shell and eating the fertilized egg. Needless to say, I did not participate in this competition. Only three people were brave enough to try, so they all got a free massage. One of them also got sick. Poor guy. Hope that massage was worth it! If you're curious about this disgusting custom, read on in the Wikipedia article about balut.

EW!! Duck fetus

Manila

RAfter a short stopover in Hong Kong to meet up with 80 of my classmates who were there for one of LBS's global business experiences, 60 of us made our way to the Philippines. Two of our classmates are native to the islands and took advantage of the fact that we were all in Asia by showing us their country. The trip started out with two nights at the New World Hotel in Makati City, Manila. We enjoyed a fun opening dinner of not so tasty Filipino food before a big night out at Raven, the penthouse club at the W Hotel. Of course, only the best for LBS. 

On our second day in the Philippines, we took a bus to Tagaytay to ride mini-horses to the top of Taal Volcano, the smallest active volcano in the world. I was afraid I was going to break my horse, it was so small. The heat was pretty excruciating so I stuck to the horse, but a few of the more ambitious guys in the group decided to hike the 4 km to the top. 

We had another group dinner at a place called Mamou after our fun day out. Called it an early night after dinner to pack before heading to Boracay early the next day. Manila really impressed me with how modern and developed the city is. There are a lot of American chains in the malls, like PF Changs, California Pizza Kitchen and Starbucks. I guess the Americans left their mark!

Siem Reap

The final stop of our three week Vietnam/Cambodia adventure was certainly the piece de resistance. Beginning with sunrise over Angkor Wat and ending in the ancient city of Angkor Thom, we spent our last two days hiking up steep stairs, sweating in the scorching heat and learning about the interesting blend of Hindu and Buddhist influence throughout the Khmer Empire as far back as the 9th century. 

We started our first day at the legendary Ankgor Wat joining hundreds of eager tourists looking upon the largest temple in the world. The bas-reliefs carved in the 12th century are so well preserved they could have been carved yesterday. 

After Angkor Wat, our driver took us to Ta Nei, a seldom visited temple that ended up being one of our favorites of the day. Off the beaten path, this temple was completely overgrown with trees and roots and empty of the tourists that plagued Angkor Wat. We literally had the whole place to ourselves! We then continued on to Ta Keo where we had to climb some scary steep steps up to the top of the temple for a very worthwhile view at the top. After Ta Keo, we moved on to Ta Phrom, also known as "Tomb Raider" as it was featured in the Angelina Jolie movie from a few years back. I never understood why she and Brad Pitt adopted their first child from Cambodia, but after realizing that she had filmed on location here for close to a year (and seeing the adorable Cambodian children), it all makes sense now!

Our last stop before lunch was Pra Roup, a temple designed a bit differently than those we had seen thus far. It was built out of brick and was covered in lion statues. Oh, and there were more stairs to climb!? After a brief (and pretty unsatisfying) lunch of Cambodian fare, we continued on for the final two temples of the day. The first was Banteay Srei, a beautiful pink sandstone temple about 45 minutes from the main Angkor Wat area. At this point, we'd seen so many temples that I sadly have to admit that they all sort of started blending together. The last stop of the day was Banteay Samre. I think I was too hot at this point for my brain to work properly, so I can't remember what made it special. 

After our long day of touristing, we went to the pool at Le Meridien for a swim and to cool down. The fun had really only just begun though because we had a big night ahead. The hotel recommended a place call Mahob for dinner which was fantastic - one of the best meals of the trip! Laura and Gemma ordered steak which came out on a hot stone for them to cook it themselves. I had tuna tartar with mango and a chicken curry that was delicious. Oh ya, and George ordered beef with fire ants. Ewww! (Actually, I had a bite of ants, and you can't really even tell they are on your form.) After dinner, we went to Phare, a local circus troupe that tells the story of the Khmer Rouge struggle through dancing and acrobatics. It was a really amazing show that brought us all to make generous donations at the end to help the students of a performing arts school in Battambang revive the Khmer culture that was lost during Pol Pot's regime. 

Laura's flight was earlier than ours, but we didn't cover Angkor Thom and Bayon in our tour on the first day, so we woke up again at sunrise to beat the crowds to the ancient Khmer capital city. It was well worth it. The New Years celebrations brought our the locals in full force. The whole city was buzzing with partying Cambodian families and worshipers alike. Different from the other temples we had seen, Bayon has all these really cool heads on all of the towers. Historians don't actually know what the significance of the heads are or who they are meant to represent. We wandered around Angkor Thom after Bayon to Baphuon which is a pyramidal representation of mythical Mount Meru that marked the center of the city that existed before Angkor Thom. Unfortunately, we couldn't go inside because we were in shorts and our guide had misinformed us about the necessity to cover our shoulders and knees. We ended our Siem Reap experience by walking along the Terrace of the Elephants and through the grounds (and New Years parties) back to meet our van. Our time in Cambodia wasn't enough. I left wanting more. The people are so kind and seem so happy despite their tragic past. I will have to come back one day and explore some of the beaches!

Nha Trang

Traveling can be tiring, so we made sure to include as much R&R in our itinerary as possible. Nha Trang was the perfect answer to our desires allowing for us to lie on the beach or by the pool for three days with absolutely nothing planned. Laura was sick the whole time with some sort of sinus thing, but at least didn't miss out on any activities and was able to sleep through the worst of it.

Since we literally did nothing but read, swim and eat, I don't have a whole lot to say about Nha Trang, but this:

- The Sunrise Hotel has a great pool, an average breakfast buffet, free lawn chairs and umbrellas on the beach and horrible lunch

- Sunset at the Sailing Club is awesome

- The Louisiane Brewhouse is another great beach club to chill out, have a drink or watch the sunset

- Russians...so many Russians! 

Hoi An

After the hustle and bustle of Hanoi, the costal town of Hoi An was a nice change. We spent the first day relaxing on the beach after a hectic bike ride from our hotel along the highway alongside some rice paddies to the sea. Gemma and Alex decided the danger wasn't worth it and strapped their bikes on top of a cab for the rid back, but Laura, Zahra and I couldn't get enough of the heat and opted for a longer route home to see some more of the gorgeous countryside. Dinner that night at Morning a glory was the perfect way to end the day. 

The next day, we woke up early to meet Van, our guide/cooking school chef, to brave the local market. We had a day of Vietnamese cooking ahead of us at the Green Bamboo. The market was a lot of fun until we got to the meat and fish part where I had to excuse myself. I'm not particularly partial to seeing raw meat. After that, we had a coffee stop along the row of tailors that were luring us into their stores. Not to worry, we had plenty of time later to visit them. We then went to Van's cooking school for a day of food and fun. This really was a great day. Each person in the class selected a dish to cook and received instructions on how to prep and cook the dish. We grazed through all twelve dishes throughout the day ending on a delicious pho. I made a chicken curry with coconut milk that I can't wait to make again when I finally get back home (wherever that may be). 

After the class, Gemma and I had the bus drop us back off at the market so we could check out the tailors. We both ended up having a dress custom made (the same one, in fact). Hoi An is known as the capital of tailoring in Vietnam for a reason.  We're both very pleased with our purchases. We had a great dinner at Green Mango with the rest of the group later on, despite having sworn off food earlier in the day after eating a twelve course meal at the cooking school.

Phnom Penh

After arriving in Phnom Penh and checking into our luxury rooms at the Plantation Hotel, we took a short tuc-tuc ride to the FCC, once the stomping grounds of foreign journalists and expats during the chaotic times of the Khmer Rouge. The food was excellent and the view of the Mekong made it a great place to start our trip in Cambodia. 

This morning we woke up to meet our guide to head to the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. This was just the first of our heavy experiences of the day as it was followed by the Genocide Museum later. It really amazes me how cruel people can be to their own. This experience brings back the emotions I felt when learning about the genocide in Chile for the first time. Pol Pot was as bad as Hitler or Pinochet, yet we never learned a thing about him in school and even the UN recognized his government through the 70s and 80s. 

After the Killing Fields, as if we hadn't had enough, afterward we visited the S21 Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum which during the Pol Pot regime was used as a prison for anyone the Khmer Rouge decided to bring it to torture, interrogate and ultimately cart off to the Killing Fields for execution. The museum is full of well-documented photographs and records of all the men, women and children that passed through its cells from 1975 to 1979. We all left the museum in a very somber mood.

Since we opted for Western food on our first night in Phnom Penh, we chose Malis, a Khmer restaurant, for dinner. What a treat! I had chicken curry in a lotus leaf that was sweeter than a Thai or Indian curry which was delicious. We also had some scallops with peppercorn to start that were awesome. The restaurant was set in a pretty courtyard with a little pond with fish in the middle. Great night!

On our last morning in PP, we planned to visit the Royal Palace, but unfortunately the hotel misinformed us and it was closed. Since we were already out and about, we wandered down the river until we happened upon Wat Ounalom, a Buddhist temple that was celebrating the new year in full force. We ventured inside, sticking out like sore thumbs as the only westerners in the entire buzzing complex. There was a woman near the entrance to the temple with a cage of small birds for sale. Children and their parents could purchase a bird to hold by the neck momentarily before releasing it into the sky. I'm guessing this is some sort of good luck or a wish for the new year. Pretty neat ritual, although I do feel bad for the little birds. There were hundreds of people milling about in their Sunday best praying with the monks, making donations, buring insense and putting rice into a series of bowls for the monks to eat. 

After leaving the temple, we caught a tuc-tuc back to our hotel but stopped short before we reached it. It turned out that though the Royal Palace was closed, the National Museum next door was open. With nothing else to do but lie by the pool at The Plantation, we opted for some culture. The museum itself is housed in a very beautiful old building. Unfortunately it hasn't been kept up very well. Nonetheless, there are some beautiful sculptures from as early as the 9th century of the many Hindu gods. We learned a bit about the mixture of Hindu and Buddhist culture throughout Cambodian history which I'm still not sure I quite understand. 

Now, we're off to Siem Reap for the final leg of our Vietnam/Cambodia adventure before heading back to Hong Kong to catch up with our other friends from LBS on Friday. 

Mekong Delta

RFor a taste of local life, yesterday morning we boarded Le Cochinchine, a sleeper boat, down the Mekong River south of Ho Chi Minh City. The boat and the staff were incredible. We had the whole boat to ourselves too which was quite a luxury. The trip started with a tour through the largest floating market on the Mekong River. The merchants are all haphazardly organized more or less according to the goods they are selling which they present by hanging a sweet potato or a pumpkin, for example, from a bamboo pole above the boat. 

Once we were back on our larger vessel after the floating market, we dined on a delicious seafood lunch aboard. The heat really took it out of us, so we all reclined for a nap before an exciting countryside bike ride for another taste of local life and gorgeous views of the rice paddies. Upon our return to the boat, we sipped on fresh coconut while getting foot massages from the crew. Turns out the mechanic, cook, and cabin boy are also all masseuses!  We enjoyed another delicious meal onboard before asking the crew to turn out all the lights so we could lie on the deck chairs and look at the stars. 

The next morning, we had another great meal aboard Le Cochinchine before taking the dingy to a coconut candy and rice paper "factory." We saw how both the coconut candy and rice paper were made and tasted some interesting Vietnamese treats such as royal jelly, some weird creamy substance that bees make that is apparently good for just about everything: arthritis, aging skin, joint pain, cancer...

After getting back into the dingy, we visited an old historic home with some fruit orchards growing jackfruit, papaya, mangosteen, and other tropical fruits before ending our Mekong journey. 

Saigon

Our Vietnamese adventure ends in Saigon, as it is more commonly called, or Ho Chi Minh City in its official name. We'd eaten our fill of Vietnamese food at this point so ventured out to French cuisine to get a taste of the influence left behind by the many years that Vietnam was under French control. Both Le Forchette and Bibi at Alibi are great options for French food in Saigon and we throroughly enjoyed our dinners (and the wine) at both. 

The sites in Saigon are not for the faint of heart. On our first day, after returning from the Mekong River cruise, we visited the War Remnants Museum. While very one-sided and full of propaganda against the United States, it is a very eye opening exhibition of the cruelty and devastation caused during the Vietnam War, or as they call it here "the aggressive American War." Most disturbing is the floor dedicated to the birth defects caused by Agent Orange and other chemical warfare employed by the U.S. forces during the war and their lasting effects today. 

No lesson in Vietnam War history would be complete without a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels, just outside Saigon. We met our guide early the next morning for a visit to the site of some of the tunnels remaining from the war. The tunnels were originally dug during the war in the 1940s and 19050s between the French and Vietnamese. The tunnels were expanded from 50 km to 200 km during the American-Vietnam War. People lived underground for up to a decade! We had the chance to go into a 100 m stretch of tunnel that has been widened so tourists can fit. It was very cramped and spooky even without the fear of Viet Cong soldiers sneaking up on you or falling into a booby trap.

To lighten the mood, perhaps, the tour also included a visit to a local farm where we got to try our hand  at making rice paper, feed the pigs and learn how rubber is made. Vietnam is covered in rubber trees, mostly all government owned. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon splashing around in the rooftop pool at the Liberty Central Riverside hotel and enjoying their extremely affordable spa services. The girls had a better experience than the boys, however as it seems that all three were offered (and declined) a "happy ending" to their massages. Yikes!

Halong Bay

Everything the guidebooks say about Hanoi recommends a trip to Halong Bay, so of course, we had to do it.  We booked an excellent two day (or more like, 1.5 day), one night cruise from Hanoi to Halong Bay. The long drive was well worth the scenery when we finally arrived. The views of the thousands of islands in the bay are truly breathtaking. The trip started out with a yummy lunch on board followed by a kayak trip through a floating village. Since our group was odd numbered, I offered to take the single  boat in hopes of burning a few extra calories to compensate for all of the fried spring rolls I've eaten since arriving in Vietnam. One of two "kayaccidents" aside, the kayak adventure was a lot of fun. Zahra, Laura and I almost ended up at a pearl farm somehow (I never was good at navigating on the open seas) and ran into the wrong side of the dock while coming in, but I had a blast. 

After returning to the boat, the crew was hosting a sad excuse for what they called a Sunset Party. That didn't stop us from getting down with some karaoke after dinner though. The selection of songs was pretty meager but we managed to belt out some Spice Girls and Celene Dion to a crowd of exactly one geriatric Italian man who thought we were awesome. Our off-key singing must have sent the rest of the boat to bed early.

I woke up for sunrise the next morning where I met our Italian friend (alone again...where was this guy's wife all the time?). Sadly, the fog was too think to see the sunrise so I went back to bed.  After trying to sort out whether we would make our flight with the tour guide in a hilarious exchange where we told her our flight was at six and she replied "is it the DUMBEST flight?" we finally realized that she was trying to say domestic, we packed up our stuff and loaded back into the dingy for a visit to the Surprise Cave. It really was a surprise too, because none of us realized we were going there. It actually gets its name from its surprising size or location (I honestly don't know, to be honest), but it was pretty cool.

Turns out, our flight was not the DUMBEST flight also, because we made it to the airport in time to catch our flight to Danang for the next leg of our trip in Hoi An.