More pics. Saigon, Koh Lanta and Koh Phi Phi

Saigon River Cruise - Howard hard at work. Shouting at a customer.



Peoples houses along the Saigon River



Rough life for the goat


But they look happy enought to swim in the filth


Come to my houseboat...


Notre Dame Cathedral - Saigon


'Famous' gate at the palace in Saigon - was smashed through by a tank in a famous pic


Ho Chi Minhs card table....noice.


Thailand
Those are NOT surfers !


Koh Lanta beach at high tide - unswimmable for most of the day


K0h Phi Phi at seriously low tide


Longtail boat stranded at low tide - check out the anchor

Hue' Market, Hoi An and My Son (Mee Sun)

Hue' Market
Latest and greatest - you should see some of the trucks !









Hoi An - lovely city, but sooo touristy
Lantern shops


Famous Japanese covered bridge



They love an ice cream in this place


Grubs up


Yeah right !






My Son (Mee Sun) - Ancient Hindu buildings. Construction started in the 4th century and it was inhabited until the 13th century. They still have not been able to determine how the bricks stick together with no mortar. Yanks bombed most of the place and flattened the surrounding area.

Lotsa pics of Hue' area.....tombs, pagodas and temples

Spent a great day exploring tombs, pagodas, monasteries and temples around the Hue' area. Hue' is the cultural capital of Vietnam.

I went for dinner last night and decided to book a motorbike tour with someone based at the restaurant. It cost me $7 US for pretty much an all day tour - gotta be happy with that.

It must have been quite a sight to see me on the back of a 110cc scooter. The temples and Pagoda all started to look the same after a while but it was a great day nonetheless.

There is some real history here, the Pagoda mentioned below was built over 400 years ago.

Here are some pics..

Citadel
The citadel was the residence of a number of emperor's and their families. They must have lived quite luxurious lives in their times. The citadel is surrounded by a 10km perimeter wall and is something to see.

The tallest flag tower in Vietnam (37m). Hue' was taken over by the Vietcong for 3 weeks or so during the American war and flew their flag from the tower.


There were thousands of these Koi fish in the lake at the citadel - quite amazing to watch.

Thien Mu Pagoda

View from just outside the Pagoda.

Van Thanh Mandarin Temple

Not a very popular tourist spot. The driver stopped here on the way to the pagoda - I was the only person there.

Each tombstone here has a turtle at the bottom - a good luck sign for the Chinese.

Minh Mang Tomb

Minh Mang was the 2nd emperor of Vietnam. From memory, this is Hue's first tomb. When I die, they can bury me in the Minh Coord tomb.

Khai Dinh Tomb

This place was awesome. Quite gothic looking.

View of the tomb from a few hundred meters away.

Tu Duc Tomb

Probably the most lavish tomb that I visited. Quite an incredible place - absolutely huge. The real burial place of Tu Duc is a secret because they buried him with lots of treasure. So much so, that they apparently beheaded the 200 people that helped to bury him. A bit rough if you ask me. I think he was Minh Mang's grandson.

Some more pics

Pics of Koh Tao, Halong Bay and Hue'...

Thailand
Sunset from Laem Jo Po Ro - Koh Tao


Turtle Island - Koh Tao


NangYauan Island - Koh Tao

Mae Haad village - Koh Tao

Boats at Pier in Koh Tao - Mae Haad

Had Sai Ree - Koh Tao

Sai Ree village - Koh Tao. Unfortunately no Slurpee's at 7 Eleven

Cave Bar - Sai Ree Koh Tao

Vietnam

Halong bay is approx 1969 limestone karsts in the South China Sea - A unesco world heritage site.

Dozens of floating village people selling everything from food to Vodka to tourists - Halong bay. This person followed our boat for about half an hour 'excuse me - cheapo'

Tourist boats lining up in Halong Bay

Halong bay


On top of the 400 step steep climb - Halong bay

View from caves - Halong bay

Halong Bay

Flower stall at market - Hue'

Statues in park - Hue'

Perfume River and tourist boats - Hue'

Vietnam

Vietnam is quite a different place to travel than Thailand is.

I arrived in Hanoi, but unfortunately lack of planning did not allow me to see much of the place. I went to Halong bay, that was beautiful but took up 2 of my 3 days in Hanoi. I spent the rest of my time between the hotel and the travel agent, that was great. www.wideeyedtours.com - highly recommeded. The only impression of Hanoi was BUSY - the traffic and noise is something to be seen and heard.

Walking around the old quarter is an experience - I got totally ripped off trying to buy a tracksuit top, which is not easy to find in my size in Vietnam. Bought a 'genuine' Adidas tracky, that has the funniest labels you have ever seen 'Genuine leather' / 'we stressed authenticity' - anyway, I knew that I was being ripped off at the time, but had been looking for something that would fit be for about 2 hours so did not really care at that stage.

Have now arrived in Hue for a couple of nights and am killing time while waiting for the hotel room to get ready. Caught a cab from the hotel in Hanoi at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am - all the lights downstairs where switched off, so I lost my sunglasses when I tripped over the stairs - bummer. Fortunately can buy the rip-offs pretty cheaply over here.

More on Vietnam later.

Technology bites

For some who is a career technology person, I gotta tell you, I have having some serious issues.

The day before I left, my hard drive at home died. In a rush to fix it by replacing the drive, I managed to stuff my ipod up, so that all the music is on it, but I cant play it.

Then my mobile phone that I bought from Crazy Johns (whats the opposite of a plug ?) that I was assured would be unblocked did not work o/s. Money could at least fix that one.

The latest mishap was with my camera, that managed to corrupt the data and lose all of the photo's except for one of a door (huh ?) that was dated 2001 - dont ask me, I just work here. Bit of a shame to lose some great pics, but not the end of the world.

Spent a couple of great days snorkelling in Koh Tao - saw loads and loads of fish. Spent so much time following a big school of fish around, that my forearms are killing me from the paddling, but it was well worth it. Did not see any sharks or stingrays there, but did see a few stonefish that are lethal. Thankfully they weren't interested in me.

I am now in Bangkok for the night (I resisted the obvious phrase) and am quite amazed at how hectic this place is. There are people everywhere, including amputee beggars literally lying on the street begging. Makes you kinda thankful for the simple things in life I guess.

I leave for Vietnam tomorrow morning, unfortunately to be fetched by a cab at the ungodly hour of 6am. This is a shame, because the hotel is actually half decent so for the first night in the last little while, I wont be woken by ants etc. crawling over me in the middle of the night - the only downside of rustic island living.

So it looks like I managed to miss the tsunami of 2007 - quite scary that it was so close to home, but have not seen anything on the news about the situation in Australia.

Next post will be from Vietnam somewhere along the line, hopefully with some more pics.

Chag Sameach to all - Spent the last half an hour trolling the streets of Bangkok looking for Matza. Surprisingly could not find any - oh well, what can a Jew do ?

Koh Tao

Well, gotta tell you that the excitement about Tanote bay was over the top. The place sucks if you are not diving there. The accomodation that I stayed at was having generator issues and the electricity kept switching on and off. The beach is full of rocks (not Afrikaaners) so entry into the water made snorkelling difficult. Checked in at 4pm and and checked out at 7:45 am. Oh well.

I am now staying at Queen resort at Laem Jo Po Ro, which is where I stayed in Koh Tao 11 years ago. The place has undergone so much change, it is blowing me away. Last time I was here, there were a handfull of restaurants and shops in the main town. There are now 7 elevens and about 60 dive shops. It has really been spoiled since I was last here, and is now primarily an island for divers. I will post some pics before I leave here for the benefit of those that have visited the island before.

It is really noticeable that there are very few Aussies and Kiwis around due to the travel warnings - all other nationalities, including the Thais are somewhat bemused by this. I have met one Aussie and one Kiwi, and the rest are pretty much German or English.

More updates later.....