Tastes of Asia

Seeing as we've finished Asia, we decided to put this together to give you a taste of some of the things we had a chance to eat while we were over there.



Chiang Mai, Thailand

Our fave Thai beer

Lunch in Vang Vieng, Laos
Kayaking Day Trip

Fried Rice in Banana Leaf with BBQ's Shish Kababs

Breaky in Luang Prabang
FanTASTIC bread with pineapple jam
It was very french!!

Hanoi, Vietnam

Chicken Stirfry with veggies

Arrived from Laos exhausted - lifesaver :)

Lotus Seeds - yummy snack
Four Thousand Islands, Laos

An example of some of the interestingly translated food and dRink menus :)

Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh) and Cu Chi Tunnels

We are leaving south east asia in 19 hours!!! NINETEEN!! We can't believe that our 2 months here is done...it has certainly been an experience. A mixture of amazing moments, and ones that test your patience. It's also been very humbling to see some of the things that we've seen, along with the people and living conditions. One last blog from Asia...

Saigon is the BUSIEST big city we've been to, and we have NEVER seen so many motorbikes in our lives. It took us 2 hours to go 70km today to the Cu Chi tunnels because of motorbike traffic jams getting out of the city. It is INSANE. Check out the pics of some intersections...sometimes you just don't need traffic lights, you know? And crossing the road? You really just go. Just anytime, just go. LH is becoming much braver at defeating traffic! Round of applause :) We couldn't get any pictures of us caught in the middle because we wanted to make sure we always crossed the road TOGETHER :) The city itself is sort of an asian London...lots of bright neon lights, fancy hotels and lots of people. It's also nicer than Bangkok to us because there's trees here!!! It's a tiny bit cleaner than Hanoi...there are garbage cans here...but people still throw stuff on the streets and burn it. We're staying in a cute little hotel in "mini hotel alley", and it really is mini...they had to take us up the elevator with our bags cause we couldn't fit up the staircase...and we barely could either (see pic).

Tunnels today were pretty cool to visit...although we did have the 2 hour bus ride each way to endure...the visit itself was educating only because we had a great tour guide. We got to walk through the tunnels too, and neither of us could imagine living in a space that small. They were about 1m high or shorter at some parts...we were totally bent over, sometimes crawling, through a pitch black tunnel. We think we lasted 30m? When we finally made it back to the city, we went to the War Remnants Museum. It was comparable to Tuol Sleng Museum in Cambodia, impact wise. It was so interesting, and very shocking to see what happened only 30-40 years ago. We were both pretty speechless when we left.

Now we're off to repack Greg and lil Lowe for the big plane ride tomorrow...eeee!! Final thoughts on Asia - it was a great learning experience and has made us stronger in many ways :)

Much love to everyone, thank you SO much for all your messages, we get SO excited to hear from you and hear what you think of our stories and pictures!! PLEASE keep it up for Aussie!

Love and misses,

L and L

Hoi An and Nha Trang

3 new coats, a pair of shorts and crop pants later...we left Hoi An for Nha Trang :) We WERE going to post pictures of us in our coats for you..but then we packed them...and are NOT getting them out until Australia when we can LEAVE them while we adventure up the coast. We are SO pro at stuffing stuff in our bags now...let me tell you. Greg and lil Lowe (yes, we named our bags) are FULL to the brim, ready to explode...it's a good thing we have somewhere to leave stuff in australia.

Other than having over 200 tailor shops, Hoi An has lots of cute little cafes and restaurants, handcraft shops, art displays of gorgeous paintings and a cute little market that sells LOTS of jewelry and scarves. We stayed in the old town, which is super quiet for motorbikes compared to what we've seen and you can actually walk down the little dirt streets without getting run over! We did a day trip to My Son ruins, which was pretty...but hard to fully appreciate after having been to Angkor. Are we becoming historical site snobs!? It was HOT in Hoi An and we found ourselves wishing we'd stayed somewhere with a pool...good thing Nha Trang had a BEAUTIFUL beach:) (see pics)

We did our LAST night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang, which we both decided was the worst one yet, only because we got the least amount of sleep on it and felt GROSS arriving in Nha Trang at 6:00am. We got some breaky and walked down to the beach to take a look...WOW. We were super impressed...especially being there so early, we got to see it at it's quietest hour. We spent the day at the "Louisiane Cafe" which is a western style beach resort with a pool and beach chairs and umbrellas on the sand. So nice!

Wanna know what we did on the second day?!? SCUBA DIVING!!! That's right, a whole 6 meters under water!!! No, it was really unreal...it was an intro scuba tour, it was one on one, and the dive instructor was with you the whole time as you went down. But being able to experience it and see some cool fish and wildlife was amazing...and we're planning on doing it again if we can on the barrier reef!!! Quite addictive, you might say. Check out LH in her wetsuit ready to go :)

Saigon is officially our last big city in Asia that we visit before we head off to Aussie...don't worry, we'll post one more time with some motorbike traffic and Cu Chi tunnel pics!!

Until then..

Love L and L - scuba pros

PS - We found a picture of our morning hair...just thought we'd add it so you could check us out...

Sapa trekking

Pictures will do most of the talking here....Sapa is a tiny mountain town north of Hanoi close to the Chinese border. It is much cooler and way less humid than anywhere we've been so far, because it's so high. Our tour had 2 nights on a night train (9 hours each way) and one night in a hotel, with 2 days of trekking. The town was a lot like Banff...very touristy, and a lot of the tribespeople come up and sell their metal, handcrafts, quilts, bracelets..etc. LH had a big problem with this and wanted to buy it ALL. LT has a smaller bag so....you know...less fits in it:) The first day we only did a 3 hr trek down to Cat Cat village and back up for lunch. Day 2 we trekked for about 5 hrs, with a lunch stop, and then got a jeep back up. We got to see two tribes (Lao Chai and Tai Van). We should also mention in here that after lunch, we were walking on a dirt road, and LH almost stepped on a dead snake. SNAKE!!! LH's biggest fear! She almost died...and freaked out a little, but dealt with it really well :) LT had to go back and get a pic to document the moment. We are both DEFINITELY feeling our legs today, and are SUPER stiff. NOT too excited about a sleeping bus tonight! Felt really good to get some fresh air though. Our tour guide was great, the hotel was gorgeous and the town itself was so breathtaking..right on the top of the mountain with great views of rice fields and farm lands. Our 2 nights on the night train were great, we got free mini waters and free fruit!! And the comforters were great! We'll leave it at that...we're going to get some food for our night bus...wish us luck!!

Love and hugs,

Lellies

Halong Bay - A tale of two cockroaches

BOY do we have stories for you!!! Got into Hanoi on the plane from Laos around 8pm at night...trying to find a guesthouse in the dark and then a place to eat on a sunday is more difficult than we thought! Next day was pouring rain...and we spent most of it wandering from tourist office to tourist office trying to find some good tours to Halong Bay and Sapa for trekking. We managed to book at 3-day boat tour to Halong Bay, a 2-day Sapa trekking tour and an overnight bus to Hue (and then Hoi An) all in one day!! This meant not staying in a hotel for 5 nights out of 7...two nights in a hotel were included on our tours.

Halong Bay was absolutely STUNNING (see pic). Our tour consisted of 3 days, one night on a boat, one night in a hotel on Cat Ba island and then back to Hanoi. The boat was super cute...the food was a little too greasy and pretty much all sea food, but we managed!

ANYWAY, day 1 we spent sailing to these superb caves with stalactites and stalagmites (see 1st pic), then to a beach..sort of...for swimming, and then found our anchor spot for the night. You might be wondering what this cockroach business is about..LT does NOT like cockroaches. At all. We're in our teeny room (see pic)...sleeping away, and LT feels something on her shoulder, in her BED..and rolls over to squish it...a little freaked. Gets up to turn on the bathroom light to see what it was (meanwhile LH still sound alseep, totally unconscious to the world)....and sees the smear of some cockroach on her pillow, but no cockroach. EW. There it is! Crawling up the wall! Hides in the curtains for alittle, then falls onto LH's legs and starts crawling on her bed. LT will NOT have it crawl on her shoulder too, so she grabs a flip flop and SMACKS LH in the leg. LT -"sorry sorry sorry..."LH - "it's ok...um..yeah...no prob..." (still half asleep). LH gets up to stand up...LT - "um yeah you might wanna keep your feet on the bed...cause there's a cockroach..", LH - "ok, sure...yeah.."...we look down and it starts CRAWLING towards the bathroom!! It flips on it's back...bound to be almost dead..and another smaller one crawls out from under LH's bag. So...LT squealing on her knees on her bed...LH - "ok, it's ok, we'll just cover them with a cup"...LT - "UM NO WE WON'T....they have to be dead"..LH - "well I can't kill them..." LT - "k, give me the flip flop..." and that is how LT killed her first 2 cockroaches :) In a tiny teeny room, on a boat in the middle of the ocean off the coast of vietnam! Took her awhile to fall back asleep and a few night's recovery, but the hotel in Cat Ba island was beautiful..and clean..and cockroach free (see pic)!! The rest really isn't that exciting...next day we got to bike, trek and kayak, which was awesome. Weather turned out for us, although we woke up to pouring rain again. Luckily the day we left rained all day, and all we did was see a floating village (see pic), head back to Halong and eat, and then drive back to Hanoi! We're going to post as many pics as we can with this because it's sensational and we loved it :) Well worth the cockroach scare!

On to Sapa!!

Love L and L

Luang Prabang

Hi from the other side of the world!!! So we know that we said that Vang Vieng was our favorite, but we spoke too soon...we hadn't been to Luang Prabang yet. It is SO cute here, we love it!! Lots of french influence....food, architecture, style...it's just cool. There are tons of cute little restaurants, all the houses, guesthouses and shops have coloured shutters on the outside...very european. We hiked up to the top of this hill today to get a view of the city and mountains (see pic), and both of us said the it looked very German/Austrian, minus the palm trees :) Now, what we SHOULD have done, was left Vang Vieng when it was monsooning for a day and come HERE...BUT hindsight is 20/20, and we know that. We were looking into doing a trek, but we didn't have a whole lot of time here, and we wanted to actually see the city and some of the temples they have here. Yesterday we took a trip to the waterfalls that are just outside the city...they are beautiful (see pic)!!! We even got to swim at the bottom of them....a little cooler water than we're used to :) Today we rented bikes for the day and rode around to check out some of the temples they have in the city, which we MIGHT do again before we leave tomorrow because it's just such a nice way to see the city. We also discovered night markets (see pic) that are SENSATIONAL here :) They sell lots of silk, LOTS of silk, silver, handcrafts, linens, house and home decor...it's just really cool and makes both Lauren and I wish we had a caddie to carry another bag around for us :)
We also threw in a picture of the soup that we found and LOVE...along with some appetizers that they well on street corners for 50 cents..spring rolls...mmmm. Check out the fresh bowl of herbs that you add to your soup! So cute! I think the total cost of that dinner was maybe $3? Together?

We leave on an afternoon flight tomorrow for Hanoi, Vietnam. We've heard it's similar to Bangkok, but boy are we ever ready!! After having been to Phnom Penh, we can handle anything. Really. In closing, we would just like to say that Laos is a magical place and we love it. It is a fantastic country to travel through....and we're not coming home :)

Love and misses,

L and L

Vang Vieng

Definitely one of our fave places so far!! Aside from the fact that we woke up today and it was MONSOONING outside (see picture...notice the friends on tv)...for a good 7 hours? So we decided we'd write another blog! We're going to include some more pics of us on the river, and some of the cute little town so you can see it. We also put in a pic of a fruit stand at the mini market here...take a look at the kind of fruit we eat!! Dragon fruit...and that's about all I know in english! We get them in fruit salads and most of them taste great...the only one to watch out for is the one on the far end with the yellow spikes. Yesterday we rented some tubes and did some floating down the river...actually it's more like bar hopping using a tube :) It's pretty much the main attraction here, and you have to at least do it once if you visit. You float down and stop off at little bars on the side of the river (see LH enjoying her tube..and an oreo:)). They have ropes and long bamboo sticks to reach you as you float by, OR if you miss that, they just come swimming after you. You go in, have a drink, do a zip line or a swing into the river and then on to the next one! At some of the bigger bars, there is beach volleyball (LT loved this :)) and hackey sack with a ball. The zip lines and swings get bigger as you go, and you should all know that LH definitely went off one of the biggest ones. We pretty much just ushered her up there so she didn't have time to think about what she was doing. Fun times though! Check out LT on one in the pic! Today, due to a rain out, we ate some breakfast, and watched about 3 hrs worth of friends at our cafe (see pic)...ugh. I think we're both good for our friends fix until we get home. We also decided to have a Lao massage...which was way overdue, and actually recognized some of the moves from our thai massage course! But $3 is great for an hour massage anywhere. Tomorrow we're off to Luang Prabang, which is about 6 hours from here on the bus...don't worry..we booked VIP!!! We're there for a few days before we FLY to Hanoi!!

Until then...




Love L and L