Our Travel Blog

OK, so I am running out of titles, all may become clear later! There was no great rush to get moving today as we weren’t being met until 1045. Needless to say we didn’t rush. Once at the airport it was busy, but everything kept moving. I wish airports would standardise what needs to be done to keep the security dragons happy. Sometimes belts need to be taken off, other times shoes, sometimes both. Sometimes a watch has to be removed. We were hungry at the airport, but couldn’t be bothered sorting out the local food, so it was a Burger King lunch!

We got on the plane, which closed it’s doors and pushed back 20 minutes early… unusual! The flight was fairly turbulent, and more so as we started our approach. As we descended about 3 miles from the runway it got quite bumpy and dark. About 350 ft above the ground the engines fired up and we started climbing. The pilot had hit the TOGA switch. TOGA is part of the auto throttle system and stands for TakeOff/Go Around. On take off it will set the correct thrust and if the aircraft has to abandon the approach TOGA will set the correct thrust for the manoeuvre. I suspect the pilot lost sight of the runway due to a heavy downpour ahead of us and had to abandon the approach. Despite this and going into a holding pattern for 15 minutes we still arrived 5 minutes early.

We were met by a guide who escorted us through immigration. With all the paperwork we had filled out I was expecting a very thorough entrance process. Instead the guide took us to the immigration officer and told to go through and stand behind the booth while he sorted things out with immigration. No pictures, no fingerprints they didn’t even check our faces against the passports.

We then had our bags picked up for us and went off to meet our guide and driver for a 40 minute trip to the hotel.

The hotel is set in some woodlands and seems to be ok EXCEPT for the bathroom. Although it is part of our suite, it is open to the elements in that there is no roof to it! Given that this is the hottest place yet at 38C (100F), I am not sure I am keen on the setup!

Tomorrow we are of to a temple that occupies 250 sq. miles.

After breakfast we left the hotel around 0820. I wasn’t too sure about this mornings tour as it was a cookery class!!

As we left breakfast, the pool area was empty, as you can see there are no German tourists staying here (ask if you don’t understand).

We met our guide and walked into town where we went to one of the larger restaurants. The lady who owns this restaurant has done a really good job, not only with the restaurant and food, she also prepares food for other restaurants as well as some of the street vendors. She now has 10 restaurants of her own!

We met our chef / guide for the day, Gerri. She started at the restaurant 14 years ago, cleaning tables. She taught herself English by talking to the customers and slowly worked her way up the ranks to where she is today.

We first headed out to the morning market where Gerri explained all the different meats, vegetable, fish and spices that were available. There were hundreds!!

We walked back to the restaurant, and were given a tour of some of the cooking stations, then it was time to put our culinary skills to the test. Our first task… Wontons. The filling was already prepared, ALL we had to do was place the filling in the won ton and seal it! The casing was a rice bases, very thin dough. We were shown how to make two different shaped ones, I never could follow instructions and failed miserably. They still tasted good though!

Next up was a spring roll, again we were lucky all the filling was prepared, again ALL we had to do was wrap it! The wrapping was an exceedingly thin piece of rice paper, the filling was pork slices, shrimp, green salad, yam, a small crunchy spring roll and a slice of 5 star fruit. This time the wrapping was a little easier, and again the taste was great.

Next it was time to prepare a marinade for the chicken. We chopped up turmeric, garlic, and shallot and then pounded it all together using a pestle and mortar. The chicken had also been coated with some other ingredients, but I can’t remember them all. Our concoction was then spread onto the chicken and it was left to sit.

After the chicken had been prepared we prepared a mango salad to go with it. We started off peeling the mango and then cutting it into thin slices, we added some herbs and greens and then prepared a (not too) spicy dressing. By the time all that had been done, the chicken miraculously re-appeared cooked! We sat down to eat another tasty creation.

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Although the write up makes it sound quick, we spent about four hours there altogether. It turned out to be a very interesting and informative experience.

We walked back to the hotel and cooled down for a bit in the room. We also had to fill out an eArrival form for Cambodia which required all known information about us plus a photo to be uploaded to the government site. This wouldn’t have been so bad had the government not changed the rules 2 days before we left requiring us to obtain an eVisa by uploading all known information about us plus a photo to be uploaded to the government site, and charging us $36(US) each for doing so!!

Once that was done and we had our magic QR code, we decided to go and hire a cyclo (well that’s what it sounded like). It was a bike, with the front converted to seat a person, and the driver did all the hard work from the saddle.

We’ve just got back from another night walk around the city in search of dessert, we didn’t need dinner after our cookery class. The town comes alive at night with lanterns, both on land and on the water

Tomorrow we head back to Da Nang by car, then fly to Siem Reap in Cambodia for a few days.

OK, the title relates to the temple we saw today, but I guess applies equally well to us! We had a good local meal in the hotel restaurant last night and hit the sack at at a more reasonable time (2200).

A group of fishing boats had gathered in the river near the hotel in the early morning.

After breakfast we met our guide for a one hour drive to My Son temple, in Vietnamese this is Mỹ Sơn, pronounced Mee Suhn. It means beautiful mountain. As I am suffering from information overload, details can be found here . The drive was more relaxed than Hanoi, although there are still groups of suicide scooter drivers around to make life interesting!

We arrived at My Son and walked about 600m to pick up an electric buggy to take us 2 km’s to the nearest part of the site. From there we started a 1km walk to the main ruins. Again, a selection of photos with occasional comments.

Shortly after we tarted our walk we came across a lady weaving cotton. She was selling her goods at a very low price, so Lyn finished up with a new bag!

Below are some of the ruins dating back to the 4th century. If you have read the Wikki article you may know that the temple has served both Hindu and Buddha religions over time. Due to the Hindu connection, the Indian government have been very involved in helping the Vietnamese in restoration of the site.

The picture above shows the brick construction, the lighter bricks were the original, the darker ones are new ones from the restoration. For some reason the old bricks only suffer from colour change if they have been damaged. It is as if there is some preservative coating on them.

Later we went to a short cultural show, unfortunately distance from the stage and lack of light (and an inexperienced photographer) didn’t make for good pictures.

We then headed back to the buggy station, and then to our car for a 30 minute drive to the river to pick up a boat for a short trip to a restaurant.

Above is the lunch menu, not the best picture but it can be read if you zoom. We thought we chose from the menu, but no, we were given a taste of everything on it!!

After the late lunch we went back to the hotel for some relaxation, cooling and possibly a swim. We may venture out into the night market later.

Tomorrow we have a local cooking lesson, we have to do well at it as the result is our lunch!!

Today we were met at a respectable hour (1000) by our guide and driver and driven to the Hanoi Airport. This time we had no issues with check-in! After about an hours flight we landed at Da Nang, about 400 miles south. We met up with our guide, there’s something nice about having someone in the arrivals hall hold up a sign with your name on it, and headed of for about an hours journey further south to our home for the next 4 days. The car journey was a lot more serene this time, good roads, little traffic and hardly any kamikaze scooters .We discussed our trip with the guide and made some changes; tomorrow was to be a long full day, but the rest of this afternoon was free time. We agreed to do some of tomorrows trip today and have some free time tomorrow after our touring. We have found our guides very accommodating when it comes to making changes that would help us. From previous experience we have learned that full day tours in the heat and humidity is a bit too much…… Yes we’re getting old!

After check-in we went to the room for a few minutes. Yet again we had a great room; so far on the trip all the hotels have been excellent. When booking this trip we declined the 5 star hotels in favour of the 4 star ones. It brought the cost down quite a bit, and in reality we aren’t really 5 star people. Four will suite us fine!

We then headed down stairs to meet up with guide and do battle with the heat, luckily the crowds weren’t too bad…yet.

Hoi An was a port city during the 15th to 19th centuries, trading between both S.E Asia and the rest of the world. We started walking through what is termed the new city from the 19th century. One of the things the town is famous for is lanterns, both as decoration in shop fronts and for sale in the markets.

We crossed over the river from the new city to the old city, started some time in the 14th century. Below is the Japanese Bridge, so called because it was built in the early 1500’s by the Japanese who had been forced out of their home land. It has been damaged in various wars, but much of it is still original, including the pillars and much of the timber frame.

Walking along we saw the couple below, not too sure what they were talking about!!

There were also many Chinese immigrants who had been forced out of China in the 1400’s who fled to Hoi An, and there is still a sizeable community present, together with a number of Chinese Temples.

As time went by the crowds started to grow and we headed back to the hotel to cool off and rest for a while. Tomorrow we are driving out of town to a temple first built in the 4th century.

Before we get on with today’s adventures, let’s fast rewind to yesterday. All started out fine, we boarded the high speed train, we were collected from the station and taken to the airport. At check in we had a problem. Lyn’s middle name was missing it’s last letter. This is something I should have picked up, but I have also found previously that a number of airlines truncate the middle name, so this shouldn’t be an issue. It was! After a few minutes playing on the computer and consulting superiors, we were told it was ok to fly “this time”, but don’t let it happen again! Went through the emigration process and grabbed a snack, we then heard the dreaded “Would Mrs Winch please report to check in”, we thought that the missing letter had caught up with us. There was no one at the gate, so we figured we’d just wait. Ten minutes later we heard the message again. To get to check in we would somehow have to go backwards through emigration and security to get there. I figured a trip to the Air Vietnam lounge would help, we were told to go back to emigration and tell the officer we had been called back to check-in. Miraculously this worked, he just grabbed our passports and told us to see him when we came back. Simple! (assuming we came back, and hadn’t been kicked off the flight) We got to the check in desk expecting the worst, only to find Lyn’s suitcase there! Turns out she had put her dead cell phone in the case a few days ago, which is verboten, and the scanner caught it. Put said cell phone in carry on, back through security, picked up the passports with no problems and sat down only to find the flight had been delayed 40 minutes. We were late getting into the hotel at around 2300 and after a 0500 start that morning we asked our guide if we could start a little later, so it was an 0830 start for the next day.

Now to today.

About 7AM we heard speech coming over a loudspeaker system outside. It was the daily communist propaganda “encouragement” for the citizens.

We met our guide at 0830 for a mornings walk around the old French quarter of Hanoi. Vietnam had been a French colony for may decades, and the underlying architecture reflected this, although many of the buildings have been increased in height width and depth since then.

The traffic here is amazing/disturbing/unbelievable/crazy/ fill your own words. Scooter is King with a scooter to car ratio of 100:1! Rules of the road and common sense do not seem to apply to scooters, they do not believe in one way streets; centre lines on roads appear to be advisory and crossing the road seems to be impossible. However there is a simple rule for pedestrians to cross, walk in a straight line at a slow constant pace. Vehicles WILL stop or go around you. We proved it on many occasions! The situation was made even worse as the city is celebrating the 70th anniversary of release from French rule this week end.

As usual I’ll dump a whole load of pictures below, some won’t have captions as I am beginning to lose track of what is what! I’ll need to piece it all together when we get home.

As you can see in the above shots, side walks (pavements) once the safe zone for pedestrians, are now parking places for scooters!

There was a large lake in the city, with two islands. One of the islands was connected by a bridge and had a temple on it. There are far less temples here than in previous stops, the majority of people here (85%) practice traditional folk/spiritualism.

Above are the two guardians of the temple gate

Walking around the lake we were stopped by a young lady who asked if we could spare 5 minutes of our time to help her. She was a school teacher who was with a group of grade 1 kids who loved “foreigners” and would like to meet us. They practised their English and took some group photos!

After we finished our walk we headed off to a small cafe that is famous for it’s egg coffee. This didn’t really appeal so we settled for coconut coffee, one hot one iced. After a little more walking (we’re glad we got up to a couple of miles a day back home before we left) we met the car and drove to B52 lake. This is a small part of a lake that has been preserved in the city where a B52 crashed in the Vietnam war.

We then drove a little further and discovered another Temple!! These were nowhere near as ornate as previous ones.

To balance things out, below is the Catholic Cathedral modelled on the Notre Dame in Paris

Now it was lunch time, so we headed off to a back street restaurant whose claim to fame was that President Obama ate there. We had a traditional meal of rice noodles,BBQ pork and spring rolls.

Following that it was off to the city prison where revolutionaries from the turn of the 20th century were sent during the uprising with the French. The same prison was later nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton, where American airman were detained during the Vietnam war. Madame Guillotine made her presence known in the original prison.

We did a little more driving around the city, they too have a market built on the rail tracks, but nowhere as near impressive as the one in Thailand.

We rounded off the afternoon with a local craft beer and snacks

We could have sat all day on the street corner watching the sights and the traffic.

That’s our day in the busy city, tomorrow we are off to Hoi An which should be a lot quieter.

Of course a busy day had to be followed by an early start. 😊 Up at 5AM, finally I realise there really are two 5 o’clocks per day.

Today we were off to see / participate in a daily routine, the giving of Alms to the monks. The monks walk from the temple along the streets of the town with large bowls, collecting offerings of food. Primarily this was sticky rice and rice cakes. The food is then taken back to the temple and a meal is provided for all the monks. Going off topic slightly, our guide was a monk for 10 years so gave us some insight to their life. In the Buddhist faith all males are expected to attend the temple as a novice monk for a period of instruction. This can range from a few weeks to many years. Our guide completed most of his education this way. Unlike western monks they don’t “sign up” for life, but they may continue as a monk for as long as they wish.

Above are the monks collecting the Alms. Those who have one bare shoulder are novice monks.

Once you have given your offerings, a small amount should be left over to give to the spirits of the animals. Three (or 1,5,7,9) small rice balls are placed on the Temple walls for them.

Once the ceremony had finished we headed off to the morning market. Even though it was just 6AM the place was pretty busy, both with tourists and locals doing there daily shopping. Some of the things on sale were pretty bizarre (to me any way)! Dead squirrels and rats for stews, frogs alive and dead, catfish alive and dead, large black hard shelled beetles etc. etc. There were a variety of fruits, previously unknown to us and every where people were selling buffalo skin in various guises to be used for food.

Below are a few shots of the market.

Once back at the hotel we had breakfast, then it was off to pack. We will be taken to the train station to catch a high speed train to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, about two hours away. The it’s onto a plane heading to Hanoi in Vietnam.

We headed down for breakfast around 0745 for an 0830 pick up. Today was a mixed bag of visits with our first stop being the Royal Palace Museum.

It was built in 1904 during the French colonial era for the King and his family. The palace is close to the river making it easy for guests to travel there. The river was the main form of transportation in those days. In 1975 the Monarchy was overthrown by the Communists and the Royal Family was sent to “re-education camps”. Many did not return and have not been heard of since. The palace has since been converted into a national museum.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the museum, so all you can see are some outside shots.

From here we headed off to see few other temples, unfortunately technology let me down as I was relying on the GPS link from the phone to the camera to tag the photos so I could track them back later. It didn’t work, so here are some mixed temple views!

Above is the name of one the temples. In Laos a temple is VAT, in Thailand it is WAT. The language and alphabet in the two countries is similar enough to allow them to communicate.

Above is a close up of the bottom right corner of the Tree of Life. The whole scene is depicted in a mosaic of small pieces of glass. The two pictures below also incorporate glass work.

By this time we were “templed out” so we headed off for a drive through the country to a fabric workshop. As we left the city, the roads became progressively worse, making Ottawa’s pot holed roads look quite good. The journey reminded me of road trips in many of the Caribbean Islands. Where ever you went there were roadside vendors or open store front shops. Again, like in many of the islands, although the housing looked poor, all the people we saw were clean, well dressed and happy looking. They have mastered the art of making a moped or scooter into family transport, we often saw them with 2 adults and 2 children on them, crash helmets…. what crash helmets!!

We arrived at the workshop shaken not stirred! The speciality here was silk. We could watch the silk being spun from the cocoons, and then been woven on the loom. The intricacies of the patterns was amazing.

Below are some of the patterns being woven

After watching the weaving we went into the shop, where Lyn managed to find a small silk wall hanging to take home with us. Next we had a Lao lunch, the went onto see some waterfalls.

In the park they have some rescue bears that they look after.

Finally we found the water falls, we had brought swimwear with us, so decided to go swimming, it was cool and refreshing!

Tomorrow it is a 5 am start for us! In the afternoon catch a train then a plane and hopefully finish up in Vietnam.

We almost made it #1 at breakfast again, but had to settle for #2 this morning. It was then a quick 10 minute trip into the airport. It was during this trip that we discovered our guide made jewellery and had her own store, that kept her Lyn chatting for the short journey.

It was little confusing at the airport as, although our first flight was domestic, back to Bangkok we were treated as International passengers as we were flying onto Laos. 95% of the flight checked in at the Domestic terminal, the rest of us at the International. Once the flight was called, we walked to the aircraft and met up with the passengers from domestic. All I can think of was that we cleared immigration at Chiang Mai rather than in Bangkok.

At Bangkok we felt a need for some “normal” coffee, so we grabbed some from McDonald’s! Flying in to Luang Prabang in Laos we thought the airport to be some way from the city centre as there were no large buildings visible. We were wrong we landed close to the centre of the second largest city in Laos, population 50,000. Laos is a small landlocked country with a population of around 7 million people.

Once through the various immigration formalities which were quite rigorous i.e. fill out arrival and departure card, get visa in the passport and pass though immigration, we emerged into the airport landside. It only took about 10 minutes as we had a guide to fast track us. He told us it can take upwards of 2 hours to complete immigration normally. Luang Prabang was a throw back to the 1950’s. No high rises or apparent modern buildings. The room was totally different to any we have been in so far, and to me is of the French Colonial style. There is even a 1947 Citroen out side. Laos was a French colony until 1945 when it then endured 2 years of Japanese rule and then the French took over again after 2 years until the 1980’s.

The area was perfectly safe to go walking after dark, so we headed off to a local restaurant for some local food. We also needed to get some local cash as you cannot obtain it outside the country. The exchange rate is ridiculous….. we changed $50 and came away with 800,000 kit!

Tomorrow we head off exploring the local area.

Ok, I know you’re all suffering withdrawal symptoms after missing yesterdays blog!! There were a couple of reasons, it was a long day with not too much time to write and I was suffering from a cough/cold which seemed to have peaked around two in the morning. Although not feeling 100% yesterday, it did not spoil the days activities……. the elephants!

We drove about 90 minutes to an elephant sanctuary to spend a day playing with, feeding and washing the elephants. The sanctuary is privately owned by one of the people who used elephants as a “power house” particularly in the logging business. Logging was banned in Thailand in 1989, leaving many elephant owners to abandon their elephants back to the wild. Unfortunately these elephants had been domesticated, or born outside the jungle, and were not able to survive on their own. Many of the more caring owners set up sanctuaries to rescue these animals. This particular one, the Kanta Elephant Sanctuary has 14 elephants on a 20 acre site. Not only is the sanctuary there to help their own animals, any elephant in need of medical assistance can be brought there. Money is raised partially by tourist trips, and the sanctuary is also used by vet students who want to specialise in elephants.

The first thing we did was get dressed for the event as it was very likely we would get both muddy and wet…. We did!

Lyn dressed to go Elephant hunting

Below are a series of random photos, initially we were separated from the elephants by a sturdy bar fence to allow us humans to rid ourselves of any fear! After that we were free to roam with them, pet them, feed them and play with them. It was suggested that we stay clear of the rear end for a number of reasons. Elephants have poor eye sight, and any sudden movement at their rear could cause them to panic or swing their tail, which would result in injury to us. Also they eat 300Kg (660lbs) of food per day, this food has to go somewhere!!!

The females have very small tusks, this tusk has not been cut, just worn down by every day activity. The males have longer tusks, but are not so keen to come and play with us humans. We fed the elephants sugar cane which they would (usually) take gently from your hand with their trunks. The dexterity of the trunks are amazing, they could pick up and organise six or more pieces of sugar cane to place in their mouths.

After a mammoth feeding session, we went back to the rest area where we were given a lesson in elephant cooking (their food that is!)

We made sticky rice balls with protein, salt, tamarind and banana added, their favourite (and most nutritional meal). We then had a traditional Thai lunch prepared for us, then it was back to the elephants.

This time, instead of the elephant getting the food in her trunk, we held the rice ball above our head and said Bon Bon. The elephant would then raise her head and open her mouth. Time to risk hand and arm and place the ball in her mouth. They were (usually) very gentle, they have no front teeth which was reassuring, and even if you don’t want to hear it, their tongues were silky smooth.

We now took the elephants down to the river to drink some water, have a bathe and a bit of play time. Elephants drink over 100 litres (26US gallons) a day.

Late afternoon we headed back to the hotel where I crashed for a bit, then we braved going out to the local market to get a meal. A couple of Pad Thai’s and a couple of beers for $20.

Tomorrow is purely a travel day, I’ll write today’s entry then.