Floating...

Had break-fast, jumped on a songthaew and got taken 15 kilometers up the road for some caving, some trekking and eventually some tubing back home. The caves were really cool, 1 with a big Buddha shrine, one with really sharp, slippery rocks and one which we swam into floating on inflated car tubes.

After lunch we trekked back to the main road, caught a car back a bit and then jumped into the river to float back to Vang Vieng. Floating on a river is quite relaxing, especially with all the beer-bars with flying foxes surrounding the river. Eventually made an arse off myself falling out of a flying fox and made my way back to Vang Vieng for food and internet.

Another day, another road

After seeing enough of Vientiane, we decided to move on to the next place. 150 kms of travel took about 6 hours. Eventually we made it though, checked into a guesthouse and walked around town (which consists of 2 streets), after which we had dinner in a restaurant showing simpsons-episodes (somehow it seemed a better choice than the place which was showing Friends). Tomorrow we're going trekking caving and tubing.

Vientiane

Spent the day walking through Vientiane, checking out temples, bookshops and other things to do. A nice, small city but also somewhat warm. Had food and beers on the riverside at night.

Another bus, Vientiane this time.

Seeing as Savannaket wasn't the most exciting place ever we took the first bus out in the morning. Actually, we skipped that one, it left at 6:40 but the 8:15 bus did the trick as well and seeing as Vientiane was only 400 kms further up the road, how long can it take?

The answer: Apparently 10 hours. Locals have to get on and off the bus all the time, the bus-driver needs a break every 2 hours, etc. A tuctuc-ride later we found our hotel in Vientiane then had a drink and some food at the river and passed out early.

Savannaket

Got up at 5:30, got in the bus and landed in Savannaket at 4 in the afternoon. This envolved several busses, and while at the first stop they told us:"No, you're not supposed to enter the bus to Savannaket all other tourists just entered", at the Lao border they made us enter that bus after all.

Not much happening in Savannaket, except for a torrential rainstorm for which we had to take shelter under some random person's house. Had dinner, sat outside, walked around for a bit and then went to bed.

Boat trip

Completely forgot to mention the boat-trip we booked on the Perfume river. Got thrown on the back of a motorbike in the morning, got put in a boat and boated up and down the perfume-river while looking at temples and perfume river-life here and there. Probably more exciting than I make it sound here. Managed to bump into Fiona, who was taking the same boat tour.

Probably not as much a surprise as it sounds, seeing as everybody in Vietnam is travelling in one direction. Dinner at night and then to bed early because we're leaving really early tomorrow moring, for Savannaket in Laos.

Yes we've only spent 7 days in Vietnam and we're missing loads so I guess we'll have to go back some day.

Hue

Woke up in the train and jumped out at the Hue train-station after a while. Apparently I'm pretty good at sleeping in trains. Apparently girlfriend had more problems.

Got jumped by 1000 people trying to sell us hotel-rooms, jumped in the back of one of their vans and got rushed to a beautiful hotel-room in Hue. A bit on the expensive side (if one is allowed to call USD $15 a night for a double expensive, thatis) but still nice.

Tried riding bicycles into town in the afternoon. Some oversights here.

1. The sun is shining pretty badly.
2. This makes it pretty fucking (sorry) hot.

Sweated like otters while biking through Hue and walking through the old citadel. Eventually back for dinner at a place where they more or less freaked out at the sight of foreigners:"Had to point at the plate of the people besides us to order" Still nice.

Leaving Hanoi

Spent most of the day getting back to Hanoi, then getting some more US-dollars, showering and eventually at 7pm the overnight train to Hue. Slept really well.

Cat-ba island

Woke up, got boated to Cat-Ba island and then set out to do some "light trekking". This did involve a pretty steep hill, which eventually turned into more of a rock-climb than a trek. Still made it to the top, sweating profusely.

After that checked into our hotel, had lunch and went for a Kayak-trip through the bay of Cat-Ba island. Nice! Got out on the other end of the bay and after some cursing and climbing (it wasn't the easiest climb to get there) all ended up swimming in a nice little salt water lake. May have cut my foot a bit on some rocks but I think I'll live.

At night ended up having some drinks with the tour-people, some ditzy Candian girls and some other people. We all ended up drinking some drinks too many, resulting in me doing 'Ice Ice Baby' during karaoke, before we all ended up in what might have been the quietest club I've ever been in. 2 security guards where guarding the dancefloor but they told us that they wouldn't turn up the music for some reason. Stumbled back to the hotel at midnight only to find out that all the doors were locked. Had to wake up some staff to let me stumble in.

Ha-Long Bay

In the morning a bus picked us up, drove us to Ha-Long city, found out that Vietnamese drivers are somewhat scary and that Vietnamese buses are not the funnest to sit in for long whiles.

Eventually got on a boat and set out into the bay. On board a kiwi-guy (Russell), an Australian girl (Amanda), 2 Irish girls (Fiona and Caroline) 3 Thai People and 4 Vietnamese. The Vietnamese had brought Vietnamese ginseng-moonshine, which proved itself to be extremely potent. Lunch and dinner on the boat and in between we visited a cave and a beach for a swim. In bed extremely early for some reason.

Exploring Hanoi.

Woke up late, had breakfast, booked a tour and explored Hanoi. My observations of yesterday still stand, add to this the insight that neither girlfriend nor me is succeeding at coming to grips with the Hanoi street-pattern. Still... a nice city to walk around in and look at stuff.

At our return Gregor appeared to have disappeared. Didn't find him back again. Good food at night.

Leaving Singapore

...argh! Had to wake up really early to clean up the place, before we all took off. Girlfriend and I had a flight out of Singapore to Hanoi at 4 PM so unfortunately we didn't get to do more stuff with the bride and the groom.

Made it to the airport, flew into Hanoi, got ushered into a cab, told the cab-driver where we wanted to go and got taken to a completely different place because 'our hotel was full'. Decided not to make a scene because the hotel looked nice enough. Possibly except for the huge cockroach in the bathroom, which neither girlfriend nor me dared to remove. So we decided to give it a name (Gregor, after Kafka's Gregor Samsa) and decided that it'd be a pet.

Did some Hanoi exploring at night and found out that it's overcrowded with mopeds, noisy (you're apparently supposed to honk your horn continuously) and that crossing a street takes a whole lot of faith in the moped-drivers-ability to avoid you. Eventually decided it was too hot for walking around and went back to bed.

the Wedding

Today's the big wedding day, at the mansion where all the internationals were staying (yes, there were a lot more of us than me or even Ruben had expected) , we all got put into a bus to have breakfast at the brides' mansion (food is a theme in Singapore). Eventually the groom arrived and all the men had to go out for the teasing of the groom, where they made Ruben do stuff to 'earn' his bride), think of stuff such as singing 'hoofd, schouders, knie en teen' (a dutch song), reading a letter in Chinese and doing other games.

Eventually Ruben earned Wendy, we all moved on to Ruben's place (nice!) for a few quick snaps and a quick tour for the internationals, before we left for 'the Great Shanghai'-restaurant. Table arrangements got Martijn and Roos at our table (made sense) and we got to go through an 8 course meal which also taught us to use chopsticks in more and more surprising ways (probably unintentional, but still....)

After dinner, we went back to our mansion, continued party-preparations, showered and then had a big dinner. I told you that food was a theme(!). After the dinner a big party started and eventually we all passed out in bed again...

Pre-wedding party

Checked out at the hotel, left our stuff inside and explored Chinatown, Little India and some other places in Singapore. Eventually took the tube and a cab to get to the place where we'd be staying for Ruben's wedding.

Found Ruben + family and got put to work straight away. Never thought that cutting ribbons could be so tiring (no aircon because it blew away the ribbons made me sweat all over). Eventually the party-preparations turned into a barbecue for the international guests and we all had meat, drinks and a good time.

Singapore

The last time I was in Singapore, I thought it was far too western and it didnt make much of an impression on me. At least now with me flying from Europe, instead of coming in from Malaysia, Singapore made a whole lot more sense to me. It's still not my favourite city but at least now I noticed that it was cheap where as coming in through Malaysia made me shout out:"Whoa! Expensive!" and at least I now noticed the asian influences.

Dropped off our stuff in Chinatown, went for a walk with girlfriend (got hopelessly lost), had some fruit-juices and dinner and eventually girlfriend went to bed. I realised that I had completely forgotten where we had to be tomorrow and at what time (for Rubens pre-wedding party) so I hopped on the internet, found out, mailed my mum to wish her a happy birthday and then went for a short walk through Chinatown (nice). I could get used to this travelling-thing :-)

CDG sucks!

Decided not to get to the airport too late (Charles de Gaulle airport, that is). I apparently completely forgot to tell you that the reason for us jetting off France-wards was that flying from CDG-airport was a whole lot cheaper than flying from Amsterdam airport straight away (even including train + hotel) Seeing as we had to check out before 10 and seeing as we were flying at 1, we decided to leave straight away, arrived at CDG at 10:30 and found out straight away that our arrival time would be 1, not our leaving time, that one would be 3 pm. Wise lesson for the interested, there's nothing to do at Charles de Gaulle before you go through customs (checkin only started at 1). Not that there's much to do after customs but at least there's some shops there.

Then did a long flight, where I mostly slept, exept for the stopover and girlfriend probably spent the flight poking me to get me to stay awake (at which I failed miserably)

Paris...

Yes, I'm slow on the updates. Fortunately time for adventure has started again and today girlfriend and I jet off Paris-wards for our 4.5 week holiday to Singapore, Vietnam and then God knows where else. We fly back from Singapore so we at least should get back there eventually.

Spent all of today in the Thalys and then walking through Paris for a bit (checked out the Sacre Coeur for a change). Had dinner, did some more walking and eventually went to bed.

Cruisin'

Okay, I should really update far more often but right now there's reason to update. Somehow I managed to become Arinso employee of the month last weekend and I spent all weekend cruising in a BMW Z4 because of it. Even more fun than I had imagined it to be.

And even better, in a week time I'll be on the plane Singapore-wards for a for week holiday. *yay!*