Today’s the day! Off we go on our little Southeast Asia tour through Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand …
18 July
Welcome in the sauna called Bangkok! Only about 28 degrees, but high humidity. We arrived Sunday morning after a non-optimal AirBerlin flight and found our way to our youth hostel. Nice hostel with a edgeless pool on the top.
We took a taxi to the Chao-Phraya-River (Station 22) and went to Grand Palace Pier (Station 9) by boat. Walking past some weired markets we first visited the Wat-Pho-Temple, featuring a 46 meters long Buddha. Crossing the river we had look at the Wat-Arun-Temple. Then we had our first encounter with the Thai kitchen back on the east bank of the river. After visiting the Museum of Siam we hadded back to the hostel to enjoy the pool during sunset.
19 July
Today we flew from Bangkok to Hanoi and it got even warmer. Also in terms of traffic we reached another level! But apparently that’s just the beginning.
We walked around in the old city centre and visited the Ngoc-Son-Temple, featuring a massive old turtle on display and passed by the cathedral. Back at our hotel we had our introductory meeting and went off for dinner with the rest of our ten person group and Tony (our guide).
20 July
Today we drove out to Ha Long Bay, got a really nice house boat and drove through the bay. We climbed one of the many limestone rocks and had a swim in the bay. Lunch and dinner, mainly consisting of seafood, were served on the boat. Also we’ll spend the night in our nice little cabin onboard.
21 July
Today we had an early morning and continued our tour through the UNESCO World Heritage bay to visit an enormous cave on one off the islands. The whole bay is just a stunning piece of nature, following Vietnamese stories created by a dragon. With breakfast and lunch as well as some sun bathing in the heat we were well prepared to find our way back to Hanoi. On the way we had our first day-time rain (wow), though only while we were driving anyways. Back in Hanoi we enjoy one of the famous Water Puppet Shows and ended the day with a drink in one of the road-side bars (with plastic chairs or stools almost in the traffic).
22 July
Today was our last day in Hanoi. We visited the man Ho Chi Minh himself in his mausoleum, had a look at the museum and the One Pillar Pagoda and visited the Temple of Literature and the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ (Hoa Lo Prison). We rounded off the day with a body massage and some very nice food (fried frog legs for me). Now we are in a train heading towards Hue … quite an experience!
23 July
After a night in an overnight train we arrived in Hue, had lunch and saw the Imperial City of Hue. Covering a huge area the palace unfortunately to a large extend destroyed in various wars. The picture shows part of the Thien Mu Pagoda.
24 July
On the way from Hue to Hoi An we passed by the Marble Mountains and went for a swim in the ocean. In Hoi An itself we had a walk in the city, did some shopping, grabbed some dinner and went for a long night’s out dancing in a beach-pool-bar … which we arrived at, using an 11 seats mini-van together with 19 other people.
25–26 July
Besides a lot of shopping (mostly for Heike though) we visited My Son, another beautiful world heritage site and enjoyed our first real rain season experience … it was pouring like hell!
27 July
Going from Hoi An to Nha Trang, I had the worst bus trip ever! Feet in a hot box and you can’t move them. Gosh. Anyways, after a good nap we went to see the Long Son Pagoda with a massive white Buddha and had relaxing afternoon at the beach with cocktails.
28 July
Today we went on a boat trip in Nha Trang, did some snorkling, had some beach time and visited the Cham Ponagar Temples. In a moment we are off for the next night train.
29 July
First day in Saigon – also known as Ho Chi Minh City – we spend some time on the local markets and visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, used by the Viet Cong to fight and resist mainly the Americans. Certainly a very special exhibition.
30–31 July
From Saigon we drove to the Mekong Delta, where we had a boat trip visiting several island, locale factories and markets. We a not very home-stay-like home-stay, took a bike to explore one of the islands and drove back to Saigon the following day. On the way, we passed by one of the few multiple-religions-temples.
1–2 August
After the Mekong delta we went back to spent half a day more in Saigon and finally left Vietnam towards Cambodia. In Phnom Penh we visited the Royal Palace, the Silver Pagoda, the Wat Phnom temple and the Independence Monument.
Also we visited the Khmer Rouge prison S21 and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, both museums nowadays.
3 August
Another bus trip, another experience! For lunch I had fried tarantulas and crickets and finally in Siem Reap we finished the day with a fish massage (actual doctor fish eating your old skin).
4 August
Today we got up at about four to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We did a full day tour of a good fraction of the complex. Massive temples, tombs and city ruins.
5 August
We spent another day in the area visiting a children hospital and an orphanage, donated blood and rewarded ourselves with another full-body massage (Khmer-style).
6 August
Probably the worst day of the tour spending roughly 12 hours in busses and taxies going from Siem Reap to Bangkok.
The best was the from Bangkok bus terminal to our hotel: about 13 kilometres in about two hours. Yes the traffic was that bad! But not just that: during the trip the car died 21 times, the car showed the gas sign basically since we left and we listened to the same 2m30s song on repeat for about 1h30m. Ahhhhhh…
7–9 August
Back in Bangkok we spent some time wandering through the city, visited the Jim Thomson House and had fried Skorpion for snacks (bah…). We drove out of town to see floating markets, the Bridge over the River Kwai and more temples.
