98 mosquito bites and Cambodia

We are now in Bangkok, also known as Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit..

After Laos we tried to race down the coast because of the expiry date on our Vietnam visa. This didnt work out, as in Mui Ne Haakon found out he just had to learn how to kite surf, and joined a 2-day course. the second day the wind stopped blowing so we hung around for a couple of days before we decided it was time to claim the money back and leave.. We only spent one day in Saigon, it was like the essence of Vietnam: way too touristy, hence also expensive, very noisy and lots of annoying people. Tuk-tuk (3-wheel motorcycle taxi) drivers must be the most unintelligent people on earth. Even if a tuk tuk driver sees you turn down 20 other drivers, he just has to ask! We don't get it.

Anyway, the coast of Vietnam was beautiful, perfect beaches all around, and quite cheap, we've become luxury slaves after being able to afford hotels with swimming pools and massages and manicures.. The food was really good and the people much more relaxed than in the bigger cities! Generally recommended in other words.

So here's our little summary in pictures:

In Hue: Cycling around was great!








Queen of the castle!








This is from Hoi An, possibly the most beautiful town we have seen. Reminded us of Venice actually, with the canals, boats and pretty houses.








There was also a beautiful beach..


















Lonely cow on island wants to get back to the other cows!







Oh how wonderful it is to be a millionaire! But dont get too exited, 100 000 Vietnamese Dong is only worth 50 NOK. Thats why we loved the Dong :)






In Mui Ne: The funny diving guy who gave Liv Grete all his shells while she was walking around waiting for Haakon who did his kite surfing course.






The only fun we had in Saigon was this ice castle in a fun park, almost like coming home! The park was really spooky though, as we came after dark and there were hardly any lights!







And so the journey goes to Cambodia..

Typical bus ride in South East Asia 1: nobody told you that the day you were going to Cambodia happened to be the last day of the Cambodian New Year, and that half the country's population is going back to Phnom Penh from their holiday and that you have to take a ferry to get there.. We waited for 6 hours at the ferry pier



Getting bored and starved and buying funny fruits from the fruit ladies











From the Killing Fields outside Phnom Penh, not a very nice place. Lots of people were killed here in the 70s during the Pol Pot regime. These are bones and clothes of the victims, every time it rains new pieces are washed out of the grounds, there's such a lot of it that they can't control it! Apparently Liv Grete looked very shocked and moved and was therefore interviewed by Canadian journalists, doubt that the documentary will be shown on Norwegian TV but still..



Angkor What?! Haakon isn't quite awake yet









We just about managed to catch a glimpse of it through the hords of Japanese!







Climbing the steep steps to the top of the Wat








The view from the top











On the top











We thought Angkor Wat was only Angkor Wat, but it isnt! There's loads of Wats all around, and some of the other temples were even more fascinating than Angkor Wat itself, and they were practically abandoned! This one Haakon had to himself..




Bayon, probably the coolest temple with all the Buddha and Jayavarman VII (we think) heads







Crazy silver-coloured Lord of the Rings - trees were growing on top of the temples, its just surreal. These were our favourites..































This little girl persuaded us to buy a bracelet AND to take a photo of her. They are so stubborn these little children, and there are loads of them everywhere in Siem Reap and around the temples.
Typical conversation:
-Hello Siiir, buy bracelet from meeee?
-No thank you.
-Where you from?
-Norway.
-Aah, I know capital Oslo. And I can speak German, ein, zvei, drei, vier, funf
-He he. You know a lot!
-Yes siiiir, and I like your hair! Look at my bracelet?
-OK I can have a look..
and then you end up buying one.

But they are better than the children who beg. They have these horrible monotonous, drawling voices, and they just go: "Heeeeeeelloooooo maaaaaadaaaaam..... Ooooonee daaaallaaaaaaah..."

New hairdo

Typical South East Asia bus ride 2: the travel agency told you you had to change buses once. The third time you change bus (and youre 5 hours late) suddenly it starts raining and thundering, and you try to keep dry near the middle of the little roof they placed you underneath. then it turns out that this roof is constructed so that all the water falls down the middle, which is just where you and the 50 others waiting thought keeping your luggage was a good idea.

Conclusion on Cambodia: we will have to come back another time as we did do a speed-tourist-kind of- race through the country, we have heard and really believe that its better outside the tourist centres of Siem Reap (where the temples of Angkor are)and Phnom Penh. But it was so hot and so humid, it was almost like swimming, one step outside of your air-conditioned room and you're soaked.. Oh, and the mosquitoes.. Liv Grete felt really unwell and went to bed early, spraying herself with 2 different types of mosquito repellent. And woke up with, yes, 98 mosquito bites!! These are not normal mosquitoes, they must be some kind of mutants that are resistant to all mosquito repellants!

On the bus to Thailand: Funny German who speaks fluent Norwegian and eats fried grasshoppers, also known as Cambodian snacks...

Today we went to the weekend market, which must be one of the (if not the) largest markets in the world, its got 15 000 stalls! If we left one stall we weren't able to find it again, it was just unbelievably enormous.. and so cheap! might be going there again.. :)

On Khao San, the famous little street which is really just like the rest of Bangkok, only there's a higher density of shops and pubs and everything else..

Perfect end of the day with a blueberry smoothie :)

Vietnam, Laos and back to Vietnam

We have figured it's about time we start writing our blog in English, as we have met a few non-Norwegian speakers who might be interested in reading it, and hope to meet more :)


Since the last time we wrote, we have travelled straight from Yangshuo down to Hanoi, Vietnam (we paid for a so-called VIP night bus and ended up changing buses several times during the night and sometimes had to sit on the floor), then for a couple of days to Sapa in the north of Vietnam, then crossed the border to Vientiane, Laos (where we also paid for a VIP night bus and ended up sitting on the floor, or rather on top of our bags which also sat on the floor), up to Luang Prabang and down again, and on another VIP night bus down to Pakse, where we actually got a VIP bus with air-con, pink curtains and real films on TV and not Vietnamese karaoke (see, that's because the Lao people are honest, as opposed to their neighbours).

So, at the moment we are still in Laos. After Vietnam it's a great relief to be here, people are genuinely nice and will happily talk to you without wanting your money! The atmosphere is so much more relaxed and laidback, the weather is lovely and the food is nice too! The only bad thing about Laos is that traveling here is very slow as the whole country seems to be under construction. There's a lot of work to do, and it's all being done by hand.


Here in Savannakhet there's not much to do, so we finally found time to update this blog :) We have only spent one night here, but feel that we've seen all there is to see and done all there is to do already! What was really nice though, was my (Liv Grete's) cooking class at Mama's Home Restaurant today. I learnt how to make Laap beef, Tom Yam soup and Sticky rice soup with coconut banana (the world's most delicious dessert) while Haakon made himself at home and watched a film on the sofa, just waiting for the food! In our opinion, this little restaurant makes Savannakhet worth visiting :)


From left: Mama's daughter, mother, Mama and me








We also went to the tiny Dinosaur Museum. This is Haakon, the curator and basically the whole museum!







Yesterday we travelled up from Si Phan Don (4000 islands) at the southern end of Laos. There we stayed on a little island called Don Khon, right on the border to Cambodia. On our way down there we met this really nice couple, Charlie and Justin from Devon in England, and we ended up spending 3 lazy days with them on this beautiful island that only has electricity from 6 to 10 in the evening. So it was really hot without fans during the night, luckily Charlie and Justin were patient and didnt go crazy while waiting for me showering.

Here we are in our favourite floating restaurant (dont think the owners liked us that much though, as they had to kick us out every night when they had to swich the generator off)..

After a meal, we simply jumped in the river for a swim :)



The food was good and cheap, but the best thing is, they had a monkey!










We went to see the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins as well, freshwater dolphins that only live here and they are nearly extinct. We did get to see them but only from a distance, so we didn't get a decent picture of them. We did take a photo of us and the funny Chinese woman though! She had everything in her bag vacuum-packed and ate chicken fried in Coca-Cola.



Cycling around was also great, we did get lost a couple of times but it was beautiful and we also found a little waterfall to splash around in.









Now this is proof that Laos truly is nature's wonderland :) Who needs electricity when your bathroom looks like this:

Our shower..











bathtub..












and jacuzzi!













Oh and just look at this..









Cute little girls waving at us while we were waiting for the bus.







Here we are in the Buddha Park outside Vientiane(the capital of Laos).







Fresh coconut milk, yammy. As we sat and relaxed in this little restaurant, a crazy cow came running in, stumbled and fell over with a bang, managed to get up and ran out again..









Haakon looks like a little God.. Outside Pha That Luang temple in Vientiane.











Also from Vientiane: hiring a motorbike was great!










Cycling around in Luang Prabang proved difficult with all the bumpy roads.. Some extremely friendly locals helped us out in the end, but Haakon wasnt too pleased with the situation.









This is from way back in Hanoi. Here, there are no traffic rules but one: honk your horn if someone's in your way! There are motorbikes and scooters everywhere, the pavement is so stuffed with them that you have to walk in the road, which isnt really safe as there are thousands of motorbikes there too.. We figured that if Norwegians are born with skis on their feet, the Vietnamese are born with a motorbike between their legs. They can easily balance a whole family on one motorbike, though we haven't seen more than 6 ppl on one yet..

In Sapa: Haakon has so many happy memories of his old Honda, and spent a few hours of happy nostalgia on this little beauty.










In Sapa we also got our first I Nearly Died story, or OK, at least a I Nearly Got My Legs Broken By a Crazy Guy story. We checked into the cheapest hotel we found, 5 US dollars including heater. When we got in the room and put our stuff down, this other guy came and said we had to pay extra for the heater. We just said we didn't accept that and wanted to find another hotel, which the guy said was fine. When we went out he suddenly said we had to pay this ridiculous fee for seeing the room (it was onlsy two US, but still).. When we refused to pay, the guy ran upstairs and came down with these crazy ninja sticks and threatened to hit us with them, shouting "you can not walk, you can not walk"! So we paid the 2 dollars and walked out on shaky legs but at least we kept our knee caps..

Well well, that's all for now, we'll write more soon :)