Vietnam: Hanoi

Oh my gosh...we thought Bangkok was crazy, but it is nothing compared to Hanoi! Hanoi is loud and crazy, busy and wild. Trying to cross the street here can be a matter of life and death...well, not really, but it feels like it! The traffic is insane! At a four-way intersection, everyone goes for it at the same time...buses, cars, trucks, people, bicycles, motorcycles - you have never seen so much mayhem - and miraculously, no one crashes! Trying to navigate the streets is pretty crazy. The sidewalks are all used up as either parking lots for motorcycles and mopeds or for people sitting on stools eating food, so the only way to get down the road is to walk in the street and try with all of your might not to get run over. People are honking incessantly to let you know they are coming and no one stops for you if you are crossing the street...you have to just make a frantic run for it! Red lights seem to be merely "suggestions" and the person with the right-of-way seems to be whoever is bigger - if you are a bus, you have it made. Everyone here is trying to get you to buy pirated books (but no one seems to have Eclipse, the third Twilight book...depressing), fruit, a ride on their bike, and even drugs! Nathan and I got offered marijuana twice in about two minutes one night when we were walking down the street. You are so used to cheerily saying "no thank you" every time someone tries to sell you something, that we politely responded, "no thanks" with a smile before we realized that they were offering us drugs and not fruit or something more benign! It was pretty funny. They just smile politely and go on their way. One thing about Vietnamese people is that they are the sweetest, friendliest, smiliest, most genuine people. People will strike up conversations with you when walking down the street to practice their English and find out where you are from. They are so helpful and kind and we are having so much fun meeting people along the way!

(typical intersection in Hanoi)

(the powerlines are just as insane as the traffic - so much going on at once)

(it is amazing the amount of stuff people fit onto their motorcycles)

(street food in Hanoi)

From Hanoi, we booked a trip to go out on a cruise to Halong Bay. We spent two days and one night cruising along the bay in an old junk boat - which was actually pretty nice and had great food! The bay has these huge limestone karsts rising out of the water and it is pretty stunning.

Northern Thailand

After Cambodia, we headed back over the border into Bangkok, then hopped on a night train up to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is in Northern Thailand and is an absolutely beautiful city, rich with culture, kind people and amazing food. We loved this city and wish we had more time here!

While we were there we decided to take a cooking class to learn the basics of Thai cooking; and not to brag, but we made some of the best Thai food I have ever tasted. We were pretty impressed with our skills, I’ll be honest. We were given cookbooks to take home, so the real test will be trying to replicate what we made once we are back in SC. Can’t wait to have our friends and family over for dinner!

Chiang Mai had a great night market and we bought some souvenirs and ate amazing street food. We also found an "authentic" Mexican food restaurant while we were here and it was actually pretty good! Actually, our standards are probably pretty low because we crave it so badly, but it definitely hit the spot...burritos and margaritas, yum!

After Chiang Mai, we hopped on a dilapidated local bus for a four hour ride up the windiest road to a little hippie town called Pai. After our stomachs settled, we set out on the town to explore. Pai is a cute, small, artsy town with lots of hippies and handicrafts. We ate more yummy cheap food here and then came back to relax on our hammocks on our balcony overlooking the valley. It was really beautiful here...very jungle-y and green with a river snaking through the town. A big tourist attraction here is elephant rides, so on our second day in Pai, we signed up for an elephant excursion through our guesthouse. They didn't tell us what company it was through, and everyone in South East Asia works off commission...friends refer tourists to other friends and everyone is in it to make a buck. Unfortunately, we didn't ask too many questions since the price was right, and when we were picked up in the morning and driven to the site, we passed all of the more "official" looking elephant camps and arrived at a tiny place on the side of the road that had two elephants chained up under a rickety structure. The elephants were excited to greet us and we fed them bananas, which they loved...but they were not excited to take us around the jungle on their backs. Our elephant was more interested in eating and we stopped frequently throughout our trek so that it could rip huge branches off of the jungle floor to munch on...it was actually pretty fascinating. However, when she was actually moving, she was extremely resistant...she went very slowly and stopped a lot; she did not want to be giving us a ride which started to make us feel bad. I love elephants and was SO excited to ride one through the jungle, but after it all, I felt so guilty! They are not treated great, and we saw later that our poor elephant had a foot that was all deformed and looked like she had lost some of her toes, which was why she was so resistant the whole time! It probably really hurt her to be carrying us on her backs. Afterward, she kept lifting her leg and resting her foot...it was so sad! We should've gone to the elephant conservation camp instead! The ride itself was still fun - an hour through the jungle and an hour up the river where the elephant does tricks and throws you off her back (which was actually a bit frightening) - but it was hard to enjoy knowing that the elephant did not want to be involved in any part of it. After our ride, we gave her more bananas to say sorry and then headed out for the hot springs which our guesthouse made sound so amazing. We arrived to find super hot, shallow sespools of dirty water that had dead boiled animals (frogs, insects, etc) floating in it. We tentatively dipped our feet in for a few minutes, then left. After our day we felt that we deserved some true R&R, so when we got back into town, we decided to get another massage. An hour and a few bucks later we were feeling well rested and relaxed!

(relaxing on our balcony over beautiful Pai)

(our sweet mangled-foot elephant)

That night we went out to look for a restaurant and were seduced by a big chalkboard sign that said the night's special was a big juicy hamburger and fries...we were sold. We picked out what else we wanted on the menu and went to order...fresh out of hamburgers and everything else on the menu that looked good. Sweet. We had already ordered drinks so we ended up having to stay there and ordered what they did have in stock and tried not to stare at the middle-aged white men canoodling young Thai girls behind us. On that note, it is crazy and sad how many middle-aged men are here for that kind of tourism. We were at a restaurant in the airport and nearly every table there was taken up by a young Thai girl and middle-aged man...it's really disturbing. On a lighter note, but still upsetting, is the fact that this was not the first time we encountered the hamburger incident. We have been seduced twice...maybe three times by signs with pictures of juicy, mouthwatering hamburgers, only to be told "hamburger finished"! Even at the beginning of the lunch rush! I think it is just their way to get desperate tourists into their restaurant...really! This has also happened three times with spring rolls...spring roll always "finished"! Not cool.

After two days in Pai, we headed back down to Chiang Mai to catch a flight to Bangkok and then Hanoi. We decided to take a mini-bus back down to Chiang Mai rather than the bus because it took half the time and we wanted to make sure there was no issue catching our flight. I wanted to take a video on our way down the mountain so that people could see what we experienced, but I couldn't bring myself to look away from the road for more than a few seconds without getting sick. It was insane! Remember the four hour bus ride on the windiest road ever that brought us to Pai? Well, this driver got us back to CM on that same road in about two hours - we flew around corners, passed on blind curves, screeched to a halt whenever we were about to collide with someone else, and on top of this, the buses don't have seatbelts here which made it all the more "exciting"...South America bus rides are nothing compared to South East Asia! How we managed to keep what was in our stomachs down, I do not know. We made it safely though and also survived our flights...after 15+ hours of travel, we finally arrived at our guesthouse in Hanoi, Vietnam. Thank God!

Cambodia

From Bangkok, we decided to make our way out to Cambodia to see the Angkor ruins. We read horror stories online about getting over the border...it is super corrupt and everyone is trying to scam you and, apparently, an unnamed airline is paying them to keep it that way so that people will be too scared to cross by land and will purchase flights instead. We just decided to read up on the scams and felt prepared enough to do it ourselves. We hopped into a cab at 6:30am and headed out to the bus station. It was about 7am when we got there and there was a bus taking off for the border at that time, but we realized that we still needed to exchange our money into US Dollars because this is all they will accept at the border. We bought tickets for 8am, then went to find the exchange office. Closed until 10am...sweet. We just crossed our fingers and got on the bus hoping that there would be an exchange office at the border. After a four and a half hour bus ride we arrived at the border. We expected to be attacked by tuk tuk drivers trying to scam you into an expensive ride to fake border crossings like we had read and heard about, but there was no one there...apparently, our bus dropped us off at the actual border crossing so we were able to skip a lot of the hassle which was great. We found an exchange office, made our way through the Thai border and talked our way out of paying the "extra fees" they tried to make us pay at the Cambodian border. They threatened not to let us in but we insisted we would only pay the amount posted and 5 minutes later we had our visas and could pass through the border. We were so confused and felt so disoriented as we walked easily through since we had expected to put up such a fight. Everything was going so great, and then...something tragic happened. I realized after we were already on the road to Siem Reap that I had left my book on the bus! Not just any book, but my Twilight book number three that had miraculously appeared on the shelf in Lucerne...lost on a bus somewhere in Thailand. Such a exciting and wonderful moment - finding the book - only to have it ripped from my fingers a few weeks later. Well, okay, I left it on the bus, but still...saddest moment of my trip. :( At least we are in South East Asia where cheap, counterfeit (photocopied) books abound, so hopefully I will be able to replace it soon. After three and a half more hours in a taxi, and then another 30 minutes or so on a tuk tuk, we finally arrived at our hostel in Siem Riep...$5 each per night with $6 in-room massages...we love South East Asia!

The next morning we woke up at 4am to get breakfast at our hostel before heading out on a tuk tuk to watch the sun rise at Angkor Wat. We zoomed past other tuk tuks carrying people to the ruins in the dark and made it there just in time to see the sky begin turning from gray to pink and gold behind the dark silhouette of the temple. It was pretty phenomenal. We watched until the sun had risen over the temple and then began to explore while the air was still cool. We spent about 6 or 7 hours walking through the amazingly well preserved temples and ruins. The carvings and construction were spectacular, and in some places the jungle has taken over the ruins and huge roots and trees engulf the abandoned stone buildings. It was pretty cool. After a long day hiking around, our tuk tuk driver took us back to our hostel and we enjoyed our in-room, $6, one-hour massages...one of the best massages I have ever had. Because of our limited time in S.E. Asia, we made Siem Reap our only stop in Cambodia - we hear there are some amazing towns in the South, but we will have to come back another time!

sunrise at ankor:

Bangkok

tuk tuk

khao san road

chinatown

So much fun! First of all, it is so nice to be out of Europe and actually be able to afford things, like food, internet, your hostel, etc. We skimped so much on food in Europe that it is starting to show...poor Nathan has lost weight! Now, in South East Asia...we will eat. We liked Bangkok. We stayed at a great little hostel in a less touristy part of town and it was perfect - and they made fabulous iced vanilla lattes in their little cafe! The "best pad thai" in Bangkok was served at a restaurant across the street from our hostel and it was packed out every night; very good and very cheap! We explored the old town, walked through the crazy, loud markets (that have everything you could ever imagine or want to buy, including "Kitchen Aid" mixers that we watched them making out on the streets), we explored China Town and Kao San Road, ate noodle soup from sidewalk vendors, rode tuk tuks, took a boat up the river, ran desperately across streets trying to dodge the crazy traffic, hid in our hotel during torrential downpour and deafening thunder and lightening...it was great.

Pictures...finally

Finally we have a computer that is fast enough to upload some photos. Take a look at some of our previous posts for new photos! Although it is fast enough to load up some pictures, it is still slow enough that we weren't able to update everything, but we will try again soon and will, of course, show more pictures when we get home. Miss you all!

The Rest of Europe...

At the end of our time in Italy we realized that, due to the sad state of the American Dollar and the fact that Western Europe is just plain expensive, our funds were depleting a bit more rapidly than we had anticipated and although the name of this blog is "going broke" we would actually like to avoid that, if at all possible. So...we decided to head out of Europe a bit earlier than we had originally planned and make our way to South East Asia where it is cheap! This gives us more time to explore there and some extra money in our pockets. Once we changed our tickets, we kind of sped through a few more stops in Europe. From Florence, we headed up to Munich, then we went over to Switzerland, then into France. Here are some highlights from the end of our Europe trip:

Munich:

The place we stayed in Munich was a cute little hotel recommended by Rick Steves and it was perfect. I feel like we are getting old...Rick Steves recommendations are so appealing these days and we just do not fit in well with the 20-something hostelers anymore; we have little in common with them to talk about, we can't seem to stay up as late as them, and they are all like 18 to 20 (so young!). Sad, we are officially old! Anyway, the hotel was great...super clean, quiet and affordable. We spent our time in Munich seeing the sites, eating hot dogs, browsing through the farmers markets, drinking disappointing coffee that couldn't compare to amazing Italian cappuccinos, drinking beer in the beer houses/gardens, eating amazing sushi (of all things to be found in Munich), and we rode bikes through the city with Mike's Bike Tours. Mike's Bikes was an interesting experience. The group we had was a bit small and was mostly couples and 30-somethings who really just wanted to see the city. I believe this really disappointed our tour guide as he seemed to be hoping for a rowdy, loud group of 20-somethings who would want to spend the entire time at the beer garden. He told some stories that seemed truly unbelievable, complained about Mike (the company owner), and pouted because our group wasn't fun enough. I should add that this man was well into adulthood, maybe even approaching 40, and he has been doing these tours for about 13 years...he was quite the character. We still had a great time biking around the city and he entertained us nonetheless. One interesting thing we noticed in Munich, is that Germany loves Michael Jackson...he was everywhere. There was a shrine set up for him (that covered an existing monument in the city) and there were people gathered around, fully dressed up in Michael gear, dancing around and doing Michael moves. Just right there, in the center of the square. It was kind of amazing.

(in front of the Glockenspiel)


(riding bikes through the English garden)


(enjoying more hot dogs)

Switzerland:
From Munich we headed into Lucerne, Switzerland. We were excited to see the beautiful mountains and Alps surrounding the serene lakeside town, but the fog was socked in so tightly that we could barely see across the lake! It was still very beautiful though. Fall colors everywhere, bridges across the river, cobblestone streets and beautiful old buildings in the old town. We explored, walked along the old city wall and got some amazing views of the sleepy town. Also, one of the most amazing things happened to me (SA) in Lucerne...if you have been reading this blog since the beginning, you may remember that in Argentina I picked up a little book called Twilight and, somewhat ashamedly, got completely sucked in. Well, I bought book number two in the series before we left for Europe, and finished it quickly, of course. Then, when we were at our hostel in Lucerne scanning the book exchange rack, Nathan saw something magical on the bookshelf. There it was, shining in all its glory...book number three! English books are crazy expensive in non-English speaking countries in Europe...and probably in English speaking countries as well, so to get a free book - and not just any free book, but this specific one - just happened to make my day...week...and maybe even my Europe trip. Don't judge me for liking Twilight...it's so juicy and good.

Lucerne at night:

From Lucerne, we headed out to Lauterbrunnen which is in a beautiful valley outside Interlakken. The valley is stunning with towering Alps on either side and waterfalls jutting off the cliffs into the valley below. We stayed here for a couple of days and hiked around. We spent one day hiking through the valley from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg and back, then the next day we took a nail biting ride up the mountain on a cable car and hiked the "mountain trail" into Gimmelwald. It was stunningly beautiful and I imagine it would be even more beautiful in the Springtime when wildflowers would cover the entire mountainside. It was just so serene and quiet and jaw droppingly gorgeous, which made the grueling hike up the mountain at the beginning of the trail entirely worth it. The people in Lauterbrunnen are so warm and friendly and the valley itself is just surreal; towered by alps on each side, green rolling hills, beautiful orange, red and gold trees, and cows, sheep, and goats scattered throughout the entire valley and in the mountains. All of the animals wear bells around their necks, so as you walk through the valley or in the hills, all you can hear is the bells echoing and they sound like wind chimes. It was wonderful.


(stunning Lauterbrunnen Valley)


(picnic-ing at the top of the world)

After Lauterbrunnen, we headed out to Bern. We really liked Bern. It is a beautiful city with a river snaking through it...bridges, old buildings and covered sidewalks throughout the entire old town. Although we loved exploring Bern, I think our favorite moment was in the kitchen of our hostel. When we were shopping at the local market, we realized that they had avocados...ripe avocados. We also saw that they had cilantro, something we hadn't found at any other grocery store in all of Europe. We then discovered that they had tortilla chips! Not potato chips or paprika chips (which are all over every country we visited), but actual corn tortilla chips. Soooo, we had our usual cheap ramen soup for dinner, some veggies and we made a HUGE bowl of guacamole and stuffed ourselves with that and chips and, of course, beer. It was AMAZING. A little taste of home over here on the other side of the world. :)

Beautiful Bern:




France:
On our way out to Paris, where we would catch our flight to Bangkok, we stopped in a few cute towns along the French/Swiss border - Colmar and Strasbourg. They are picturesque little cities with colorful buildings crowded along cobblestone streets with bridges over rivers that wind their way through the towns; the buildings are all half timber construction which gives the town this unique, quaint feel. We spent a few days in Colmar and explored Strasbourg for a day as we waited for our late night train to Paris. We had coffee at my favorite coffee shop in all of our trip; a tiny, pink art nouveau building with amazing French vintage decor, owned by a group of elderly French women who were all smiles, just loving the business that they run. It was packed and the customers loved it too; all of their pastries and dishes were homemade and they took such care in making us the best cappuccinos. They were so cute and warm and you could tell they just loved what they did. Loved it.


(the cute little vintage coffee shop)

(Colmar)


(Strasbourg)

After Colmar and Strasbourg we headed out to spend our last days in Europe in Paris!





Aside from our hostel, Paris was fabulous (albeit expensive). Our hostel seemed to be run by college boys who have never cleaned a day in their life - it was expensive, dirty and I got bedbug bites - but we got free breakfast, which means a lot in a place as expensive as Paris. We saw the sites and soaked up our last few days in Europe and then boarded our plane and headed off for...Bangkok!

Italy

Ahhh...Italy. We loved it there.

We came over on the ferry from Dubrovnik to Bari and went straight into Naples. We hadn't planned to stay there more than a day, but loved it so much, we ended up spending three days there. We stayed at this quirky hostel owned by super Italian Giovanni...he gave us a 30 minute run-down on what to do and where to go in the city, made the entire hostel dinner, and brought out his guitar and got everyone to sing songs at the top of our lungs (and one song, specifically, has been stuck in our heads ever since). We visited Pompeii, hiked to the top of Mount Vesuvius, dodged scooters all over the city and in every alley, ate the best (and cheapest) pizza ever - it originated in Naples if you didn't already know, and got invited to a concert in the duomo performed by a German boys choir (one of the highlights!).


(at the top of windy Mt Vesuvius)

After Naples, we headed out to the Amalfi Coast. First, we stayed in Sorrento. Although it rained most of the time, it was so fun exploring and relaxing. Our last day there we had great weather so we tried to hike up to a little town on the top of the mountain looking over Sorrento that was recommended by a magazine in our hotel. It started out as a lovely hike...there was a tiny staircase winding up the mountain with stations of the cross at every switchback. They ended at this cute, tiny chapel at the top of the hill. After this, our instructions led us through olive and lemon groves, through vineyards, and then...nothing. The directions just instructed us to continue for 10 minutes (in no particular direction, although there were plenty to choose from) up to the final destination. So, we hiked straight up the mountain, for what we guessed was about 10 minutes, and ended up on the side of the highway with trucks and motorcycles screaming past us. We finally found a local walking along the highway and asked her if we were headed in the right direction and she told us that we had hiked two kilometers (uphill) past where we were trying to go. Awesome. We hiked back down and never did find the town we were looking for, but it was definitely a beautiful hike...tons of olive and lemon groves, vineyards, beautiful homes and amazing views, so it was still well worth it!

After a few days in Sorrento we made our way to Positano. Thanks to my dear friend Danielle, we stayed at the most amazing hotel! We had phenomenal ocean views from our terrace and had great weather the second day, which we spent soaking up the last of the summer sun on our huge deck. We ate amazing food, drank yummy wine and just relaxed Italian style. It was perfect.


(relaxing in Positano)

After a few days in Positano we made our way up to Rome. Neither of us had been there before and we both liked it much better than we had anticipated. We, of course, did all of the touristy stuff...saw the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, went to St Peter's Cathedral, the Colosseum, the Forum, the Palatine, visited the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, tossed coins into the Trevi Fountain, had appertivos in the piazzas; it was great.

(at the Coluseum)


(at the Trevi Fountain)

From Rome we headed into Siena. In Siena we "camped" which was more like staying in a cute, heated mobile home and was some of the best, cleanest and cheapest accommodation on all of our trip! Siena was so beautiful. Cute, winding cobblestone streets with, of course, Siena colored buildings everywhere, all surrounded by the beautiful Tuscan countryside. We stayed a few days and just took it easy...we ate yummy food, relaxed in the piazzas, and just slowed down for a couple of days.

(Siena's main square at night)


(laundry, shutters, and pretty colors)


(in the tower above Siena)

From Siena we went into Florence. We didn't have much time there but we still managed to see quite a lot. We just trekked it around town and saw the sites and got excited about all of the amazing architecture. It is so much fun to actually see (in person and not on a page of a book) the places, buildings and sites that you have studied! I have been to Florence before, but after studying many of these buildings in my classes, they come alive in such a new way...it was very cool. Nathan mentioned at the beginning of our Italy trip that his trip wouldn't be complete without finding some obscure restaurant that had checkered tablecloths, authentic Italian cooking, possibly run by the mafia...and on our last night in Florence, we found one! Checkered red and white tablecloths, meats hanging from the ceiling, Italian music blaring, family owned and run, AMAZING authentic Italian food...in fact, I think we may have had our BEST meal in all of Italy here. It was the perfect end to our Italy experience!


(the view above Florence)


(enjoying the last gelato!)