Saigon

Initially we planned to go by train to Hue, spent a day there and then take the last train to Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon.
Unfortunately the weather did not really like that - thus it was raining cats and dogs and we had to take the next train to Saigon. This lead to approx. 35h on a train were the seats/ beds are made for Vietnamese (not in length but in height...). The intresting thing is that (at least) Vietnamese are able to sleep anywhere for a loooong time (there was one in our compartment that slept more or less the whole trip through - kinda scary).

We arrived in Saigon around 6 in the morning and went to the center, found a hotel with a nice room (but the employees were...well, you can be unfriendly and you can be them...) - unfortunately we found out later that the room had no working lights except in the Bathroom and it took them ages to fix it in the evening...in the end they more or less managed so ok(ish).

On the first day we had a look at the city by walking around, looking at the reunification palace as well as the war memorial museum (very very propagandistic but quite interesting and a bit horrible - somehow I am afraid though that one museum in Phnom Penh will be even worse :()
Today (yess - this is once again a very recent entry :)) we booked a 1 day tour to the mekong delta and, well, we in the end got what we paid for (price was 10$ per person). it was a 2h bus ride to the delta, then we spent about 45min on a slow boat down the mekong, lunch, coconut farm (coconut candy - yummy), 15min on a rowboat through some narrow channels, some "nice" vietnamese music and back again...
But well, at least the weather is nicer now - 30 degrees up and more or less sunny :)

pics (only a few this time): https://picasaweb.google.com/108376587121284252497/Saigon?authkey=Gv1sRgCMb7z4C53via9QE#

Tonight we head out to Phnom Penh via a night bus.

cheers

Hanoi

The trip vom Luang Prabang was not as bad as expected - although it did take around 28h in a bus. Luckily the bus was not full so both of us had 2 seats to spread upon (very useful) and the bus was more comfortable than the one we had previously.
We started in the evening and around 2am the bus stopped at some bus station in the middle of nowwhere - that was a bit puzzling because we had no clear idea on the route the bus would take (e.g. which border crossing, etc.) and nobody told us how long the stop would be (I think - might also be that I was asleep). Anywho, the bus started moving again after 1-2 hours and around 7 or 8 in the morning we arrived at the border. The Laos crossing was easy - the Vietnam one was a bit...well, strange. We walked across the border, entered the building and they asked for our passports - so far so good. But then they simply took the passport and asked us to sit down and wait...then approx. 4 or 5 customs officials were standing behind the counter, one was looking at the passport, one was stamping them, one was...no clue and 2 watched the others...
After about an hour the assembled behind a small desk and called out each and every name and said "you can go". intresting :)
The drive on was on some muddy roads (due to the rain - see the pictures).
then, around 10pm we arrived in Hanoi, shared a little bus-cab with some other travellers towards the backpacking part of the city. The cab, receiving commisions from hotels, dropped us of at one, the room we looked at was quite nice (with a good price) but when we said we gonna take it the room was somehow not available any more...but there was another one, looking the about the same for the same price. needless to say it was not same same but a complete craphole...discussions were futile so we moved on down the road, looking for something else. Something was found quickly and, although more expensive, we decided to take it (which was a good choice as the staff there was really friendly and everything).
All in all we spent 3 days in Hanoi - unfortunately the wetter was not as nice (17 degrees, cloudy to rainy,...) and I did not dare to go to Halong Bay as it would have been a 2 day trip and if the weather turns out bad you're stock on a boat, it is not as breathtaking as it could be,...
Meaning that we walked a lot around the hanoi old quater (very nice narrow roads and the majority of the sights are located around it), sit down in "bia hois" (basically these are little street bars that serve their own beer - it is always freshly brewed (not older than 24h) and once the barrel(s) is empty they close...in addition they are dead cheap :)) & tom worked on finishing up his thesis (and I cross-read it :))
The food was excellent - partially influenced by the french (baguettes, etc.), yummy noodle soups (called pho), barbecue,... :)

Note: surprisingly, it's been a long time since I have slept as much as I did on the bus to Hanoi - unfortunately that also made me feel like "spat out"...

Pics for Hanoi as well as the trip there can be found under https://picasaweb.google.com/108376587121284252497/Hanoi?authkey=Gv1sRgCOfdx9KV6p_4nwE#

Luang Prabang (Laos)

The bus ride from the Laos border to Luang Prabang was...well, lets call it painful as, in essence this is what it was. It was a night bus going for 14hrs (departure at 6pm and arrival at 8am) covering the amazing distance of nearly 500km. There was just little space in the bus, the bus was full and the seats were not comfortable - therefore sleeping more than 3 or 4 hrs was no option at hand. But the view of the countryside offered while there was still/ again light at least partially compensated the little trip to the limbo (strange - always thought limbo is a dance and does not stand for "Vorhoelle" as well...anywho).
Road conditions were somewhat close to nearly inexistent (thats when we realized why the trip takes so long), we were going up and down very winding roads with no security enforcements whatsoever, we were constantly a bit afraid of the brakes failing (esp. as we did one stop in the middle of the road for 20min to have the breaks cool off...),...BUT we did arrive well and safe and enough lamenting - me's backpacking for Buddhas sake! ;)
On the bus we met Steffi (Germany) and Marina (Argentina/ Germany) who were nice enough to spend the 2 days we had in Laos with us.

Luang Prabang is a really nice and relaxed city - it is located at the Mekong (and a small branch of it) and, despite many tourists vistiting it, it is not (yet) as touristic as e.g. Chiang Mai. The locals are very friendly and the boss of our hotel even spoke German (quite surprising). For getting around easier we rented bikes (I even got a pinkish one - hooray...) and then we set off for food and some small sightseeing/ checking with travel agents on possible trips as well as the best connection to Hanoi (which turned out to be a 26-28hrs bus trip...).
The travel agents were not really helpful on day trips (so we decided to do our own by hiring a tuk tuk for half a day to a day) but for the bus tickets it was ok --> we got them there.
In addition we had the brilliant idea of doing our own little tubing in the mekong river - for this we bought some (kids) floating tires in the Luang Prabang china market (unfortunately they did not have any arm floats... ;)).
As we initially planned to use them to float down the mekong for a few kilometers (...) we decided to better test them before. The attempt was quite successful (we were floating to the little sand island in the mekong we planned to but we also did realize that the initial idea "was good but the world not yet prepared for it" (or our asses to big, the tires too small, we too unbalanced, whatever). Furthermore, the current proved to be stronger than anticipated/ assumed when floating --> the way back to our starting point was a bit tough (but some Laotians had a fun time watching us)

In the evening we had a really nice (and cheap) dinner, had a few beers, Tom and Steffi challenged each other in a burping contest (luckily there was no (obvious) reason for a farting one) and when we wanted to change locations we found that nearly everything was closed already. Luckily a tuk tuk driver "had  mercy with us" and brought us to another bar (Utopia - very nice and relaxing) and said that he would pick us up in 1 hr (which we did not understand at first, but when the bar closed 45min later we knew...). On the way back we bargained with him for the next day and he agreed to take us around for a day for a very small amount (I think something between 250'000 and 300'000 kips (thats about 25 - 30 euros). Unfortunately he did not show up - thus we had to re-negotiate with other drivers again (plan was to go to the Pak Ou caves ("Buddha caves") as well as the Kuang Si waterfalls.

The first stop were the waterfalls - it is not a huge or high waterfall but more one with multiple pools where you can swim, etc. with perfectly blue water in a "rainforesty" surrounding. In short really really beautiful (see pictures - majority was taken there :)).
As we spent a lot more time there than planned we decided to let the caves be caves (tom and myself had to catch our bus at 6pm) and went back to Luang Prabang for a shower (thanks steffi!) and getting equipped for the long ride ahead.
We also saw some bottles of Laotian whiskey - basically they seem to put snakes, snails, geckos,... - in sum whatever creepy-crawly they find (no matter if with or without legs...), etc. into a bottle and then...well, no clue what happens then but it looks... well, see the pics.
And, what was funny was that the guy trying to sell it to us said something about life-prolonging effects, etc. - but he looked like 60 (our guess was he was 30), had no teeth,...
therefore, in case I bring any of you my dear readers a bottle of whiskey back as a present, well... ;)

So, all in all, Laos was the most fascinating country so far (at least for me) and it is a pity we did not have more time to spend. BUT I do know that I want (rather need :)) to come back and explore the country on a motorbike - the scenery and evertyhing is just breathtaking and intriguing in a way.

Pics can be found under https://picasaweb.google.com/108376587121284252497/LaosLuangPrabang?authkey=Gv1sRgCNfD6ObWgfWEgAE#

Besides, my target until mid 2019 is to fill all currently empty pages in my passport (so far there are 20) - anyone in for the challenge? :)

cheers

Chiang Mai

The train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the north was really comfortable - the sleeper was clean, the beds were made by an employee, every bed had a curtain,...really impressive :)
We left around 7pm and arrived there at 9 or 10 in the morning and, well, there is not soo much to tell about the city - I am not sure why it's being hyped that much but ok.

We found a very cheap hotel which was not too far off the center and clean(ish) - thus perfect for the 1-2 nights we planned to spend. The first day we did some walking around and realized that Chiang Mai must be the (hidden) german capital of Thailand and that everything is aligned to possible tourist needs (in our whole trip we've never seen such a massive amoutn of "western" restaurants in one spot... (needless to say that it was no good as well - tried a burger and well, stomach no like...).
We also looked for some tours to make the second day (Chiang Mai is said to be nice for trekking) as well as an offer for our trip to Luang Prabang (doing this via a travel agency is a bit safer...).
After checking a few agencies we decided for the one with the cheapest price - not because we're greedy but all offered more or less the same and well, price does matter sometimes :).

The one day tour was okish - the trip (should have) included around 4hrs of trekking, elephant ride, a tribal village, waterfall and bamboo rafting. The elephant riding was, bluntly speaking, crap - I was just happy that the "driver" did not hurt the elephant with his stick.
Trekking was ok as well - although we did not cover the promised 4 hrs but rather only two (which also meant that instead of at 5-6pm we got back to Chiang Mai at 3 - also due to another reason to be mentioned later). The first stop of the walk was a waterfall - this was quite nice but the water was freeeeezing).
Then we moved on and on our way we picked up some tourists who were just returning from a 3 day trek and were rather exhausted (surprising as they were fully equipped with trekking flip flops...) - this was (I think) another reason for our shortened walk.
Nevermind, after "lunch" we went on to the Bamboo rafting and this was actually quite nice - we were sitting on a raft and floated down a river (incl. some rapids).

Back in Chiang Mai we went to look for a brewery recommended by our travel guide but could not find it and ended up in some other restaurant we we had the honour to watch (and listen to) an "intercultural couple" (old man with no hair,... and thai woman) fight - from what we were able to understand the fight was about the principle of "no hardy more money"....
On the next day our travel to Laos started - we were picked up from the hotel at 10 am and driven by a minibus to the Thai border (6 hrs drive). From the Thai/ Laos border we had decided to take a bus to Luang Prabang (duration 14hrs) - ideal would have been to take a slowboat down the Mekong but this would have taken 2 days and time is a precious good we don't really have anymore....

For details on the trip and Laos see the next entry :)

cheers

N.B.: pics from Chiang Mai can be found under https://picasaweb.google.com/108376587121284252497/ChiangMai?authkey=Gv1sRgCLHLwp2ZyOrKWA

Bangkok - part 2

So, the last blog was about the Sunday we have spent with Yuichi and his girlfriend (now it's 8 days after the last blog and there's a lot to catch up :))

So, on Monday we (Tom, Tine (girl we met on our "night out" in the first evening, myself) had a look at Bangkoks Chinatown in the afternoon (was quite nice but nothing special - love the small narrow roads though) and also walked to the train station for tickets to Ayutthaya (old capital of a kingdom) which is north of Bangkok (approx. 1,5hrs by train).
Ayutthaya was really fascinating - I think it is kinda similar to Angkor Wat (even though a lot smaller) - meaning that there were a lot of ruins of old temples and we spent approx. half a day just walking around, climbing up things (were permitted of course), taking pictures, etc..
When we got back to Bangkok it started raining and didn't really stop in the following 2 days - this had the effect of tom & myself spending some "quality time" in our hotel (as mentioned I think we stayed in a quite nice hotel) doing nothing except sleeping, reading, sleeping, eating, ...
On Friday (which was the day we left for Chiang Mai in the evening and also the day of my last post ;)) we did some sightseeing in the city - including the palace as well as a huuuuge buddha statue (approx. 60m long and 18m high and naturally gold-plated)

Furthermore, and this was the reason for our prolonged stay in Bangkok,we also got our passports with all required visas (Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia) back on Friday evening - thus nothing could stop us then & the risks for required bribes was minimized ;)

Bangkok

We have safely arrived in Bangkok on Saturday evening and, after some (small, after India not even mentionable) hassle when trying to find our hotel we immediately kinda really felt like "being on vacations" - main reason being in a nice hotel and Bangkok, despite being a huge city, is somehow very relaxing (at least it was to us but that might also be a tribute to be paid to India ;)).
The first evening we spent at the Khao san road watching people (elderly germans or brits with young thai girls or ladyboys, ...), eating from the different food stands (one word: delicious - all of them ;)) and enjoying our first night out since we left Austria.
On Sunday a colleague of mine from the project in Geneva (who basically leaves 9 month in Bangkok and works in Switzerland for 3 months) and his girl friend were friendly enough to show us some parts on Bangkok we might not have been to otherwise.
Our first stop was a huuuuge weekend market in the northern part of the city which was completely different to any markets we say in India - nobody tried to pull us into their shops just because we were "Falangs", nobody followed us, &&& and we could really enjoy our walk etc.. After spending a few hrs there we enjoyed a 2hr Thai massage (which made my shoulders hurt for the next 2 days :)) and then they drove us to their home for a shower (thanks again!!)
In the night we first went out for dinner and then Yuichi and Eu showed us around the red light district. That was for me a weird mixture of being interesting and disgusting - interesting because of again you were not pushed into anything and you could just sit at a bar outside and watch the people and distgusting because of all the elderly man staring at the girls, their salvia turning to rivers,...For a more detailed (and better) description of the red light district feel free to read the following blog entry from a friend of mine: http://richardaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/bangkok-behind-red-light.html

On our way back to the hotel around 3 in the morning via a cab we got stopped by the police and thats when I learned that in Thailand it is mandatory for Falangs to carry their passport at all time. Meaning that, as Thomas luckily had his passport with him (I had locked mine in the hotel safe to keep it safe and forgot to take a copy of my passport with me) the police kept his passport and he had to drive to the hotel to get mine while I was waiting with the Police. The funny thing was that I was in an urge for some "relief" and when I asked the policemen he only pointed to the sidewalk. Knowing that I was not in India I asked 3-4 times if he is serious and when he kept nodding I thought ok, turned around and, surprisingly that was when they realized what I had asked them and showed me the way to a public bathroom... ;)
Pics from Bangkok and surroundings can be found under https://picasaweb.google.com/108376587121284252497/BangkokAndAround?authkey=Gv1sRgCJClpNPJ1fayBQ#

further updates to come - gotta run back to the hotel to get our passports with visas for vietnam, laos and cambodia and then we head to chiang mai via a night train.

so long

Looking back at India

As the rain surprised us in Kalkutta I have some time to recap our experiences made in India in a brief (not gonna go into the touristic parts)
so
o "For me coming from you friend is a four letter word" - dedicated to all those little street selling buggers who do not know the meaning of words like no NO or any alike (neither in German, English, Russian, Swedish or Spanish)
o Tourist taxes are mandatory per law, always applicable and need to represent at least 100% of the "native" price
o 4 weeks are just not enough
o In case it can be avoided, do not travel in March/ April to (south) India - the heat's just killing you
o the Taj Mahal is overrated and a tourist rip off (although it's kinda a must see...)
o India is THE country with the highest bureaucrazy known to mankind (ok - at least to me) - they e.g. require the same information in at least 2 forms and in addition make at least 3 carbon copies...bloody English!!!
o Little kids often ask for pens instead of rupies or foreign coins (--> they are either very eager to learn or they were taught some words wrongly...)
o Some kids are already more or less fluent in many different languages dependent upon which tourists are easiest to convince to buy something (e.g. Russian in Varkala or German in Mandawa) but they do lack a lot of generic geographic knowledge (thumbs up for the language skills although they are used to "support the dark side of power")
o Public transport is a very cheap and reasonable and quick way to get around and get to know locals (mostly via their kids) but they are not a synonym for cleanness in any kind
o Every cow is sacred, every cow is good. If a cow is tasted, god gets quite irate

nota bene: list might not yet be completed and is to be regarded as work in progress until this comment is removed :)

All the above sounds very negative (realized that when re-reading it) - thus some corrections need to be made as India was a great experience (although also very stressful to some extent). Looking back it is really amazing to see all the cities with their differences (rich vs poor,...) as well a bureaucracy in action that would drive europeans nuts - but the people accept it and follow it very calmly.