Travel Update

Posted by Pieter in

Hi sports fans The recipe for success for your holiday: Go on pre-paid pre-arranged luxury trip, all inclusive. Preferably go with girlfriend/wife/partner that you've been together with for years and years, and consequently you know each others ins and outs, highs and lows, bad and good moods etc. This mix has an 80% chance of sucess. Recipe for disaster: Go backpack in smelly overcrowded hot sweaty transport-challenged South East Asia with no real plans, a very iffy itinerary, and a brand new girlfriend of just six months who you haven't even gone away to Hermanus with for the weekend. This could go south on you very quickly... have you guys seen amazing race? However, I am happy to report bliss from the tourist haven of Hanoi. My girlfriend is a travel rockstar, taking the hotels out of my hand allowing me to concentrate on the chore of figuring out our next awesome excursion. The good news is hotels are cheap and nice - we stay for $20 a night in some SWEEET spots - and the locals friendly, so that helps. Halway through our trip, and we've been to Singapore, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. We've crossed borders in boats, buses, planes and on foot. Our shortest trip was five minutes, our longest one 30 hours. We have splurged on pirate DVD's, knockoff board shorts and quality suits, and right now our biggest issue is to have a cheap dinner in the charming hotel restaurant or to take bikes to that beaut spot on the river for the sunset. The river might win... THE HIGHLIGHTS! CHIANG MAI - believe the hype. Cheap, cheerful. Get bent out of shape by short Asian chick and pay her $5 for the pleasure! Go mountainbike throught hilltribe villages. See a buddhist funeral. Get fed for free! Eat too much awesome sweet and sour noodles! Get a fisheating massage! We could've stayed much longer... MEKONG RIVER AND LAOS - the slowboat not to China. Had fun cruising across the border. Survived the runs, cheap gin, and lack of funds on arrival to have a blast in Laos. The most memorable thing about the time in Laos was probably the minibus ride from hell in the rain and fog across the mountains to Van Vieng - where we proceeded to try a tandem rope swing twice at the infamous tubing party- failing twice- number two being where Dianna chipped her tooth and the party was over. I said I would love her even if she looked like a witch of eastwick, she told me to stuff it. We got the tooth fixed in Hanoi... HANOI: Crazy. 4.5 million people, 4 million motorbikes. Do the math. We found a wonderful little hotel in the Old City by the gate, and they even got us a DVD player for a night so we could start watching our contraband- Vietnam have no copyright laws, so imagine what the pirate DVD shops are like. Also had an awesome sushi dinner, and then got to work. I did the research on trips to Halong Bay while Dianna got her tooth fixed at the clinic, and picked me up a good Spanish reading book while I was at it. This sounds simpler than it is, considering you're dodging motorbikes, tuctucs and hacks all day. HALONG BAY: We had bad reports about this must-do trip from other backpackers. Kak weather, bad food, overpriced, etc. Which is why we bought the midprice trip at $65. Our guide secretively admonished us to not tell anyone about our price, cause apparrantly we got the upgrade. Maybe that was BS, but either way, the following occurred: Awesome views, nice temperate weather, great crowd, good food and nice room. Over three days we slept on the junk in the harbour, kayaked round the islands, walked through the caves, swam round the boat, hiked to a mountaintop on the national park of Cat Ba plus cycled around the island. It was a BLAST! To put it in perspective, our 3-day tour was all-inclusive and cost the same as a day trip to Cape Point... We are now in Hoi An, shopping mecca, cool beach and friendly folks. Next stop... Cambodia... Gotta go get a bike and a dinner. Take care sports fans!!!

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