Tina's wanderings around the world

To say we arrived in Hanoi bright-eyed and bush-tailed wouldn’t quite be accurate. Night travel, though convenient and a money saver, since it saves paying for a night of accommodation, is never quite restful. That being said, we both managed to get a few hours of sleep and weren’t too badly-off. We started navigating in what we thought was the direction of the Old Quarter, but then realized there were at least three bus stations in Hanoi and that ours wasn’t quite as close to the Old Quarter as we thought. We hopped into a taxi and had him drop us off at Hoan Kiem lake, the infamous lake that borders the Old Quarter. At just after sunrise, the lake was surprisingly buzzing. Crowds of people were walking around the lake, running around the lake, stretching and doing tai chi, chattering away to their husbands, wives, friends and getting their morning exercise in. It was fantastic for people watching. We found a café close-by, ordered some coffees and a croissant (ah yes, the French food...

The bus trip from Vientiane, despite being informed that it was a four to five hour trip, was in fact seven hours. But we took it as a travel day and when we got to Konglor, after a road full of pot holes (that was reportedly a sealed road), we gladly went for a walk to stretch out our legs and explore the village. We got beyond the 2-D roadside view and descended into the village, seeing houses on stilts, children running around, ladies carrying chickens by their wings, and basically seeing people go about their daily lives outside of the city. And what a beautiful place to live.   We woke up and went to the cave the first thing in the morning. First, a national park entrance fee. Then a cave entrance fee plus a boat fee. Fee after fee after fee…fairly typical. The cave was pretty incredible. It was the two of us and two guides drifting up on a wooden boat with a longtail boat motor. The boat descends into complete darkness broken only by four completely inadequate headla...

Vientiane. What is there to say about you? You're the capital city of Laos with a population of around 800,000 people. Technically, I suppose that’s bigger than the city of Seattle, but it doesn’t seem like such a big city. We walked around the first day and splurged on cocktails and a non-noodle dinner. The next day we walked around 10km, first to see That Luang, the country’s national symbol and yet another former resting place of the Emerald Buddha.    We also walked past Patuxai, Laos’ version of the Arc d’ Triomphe that is also known as the “vertical runway”. After failing to conquer Laos’ communist ambitions, the US donated a bunch cement to the country so it could build itself an airstrip. Instead they used it to build their own victory gate. It’s said to be a “replica” of the Arc d’ Triomphe, but it doesn’t look at all like it. Used as inspiration might be accurate.   Next we visited the COPE center, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping vi...

It was right about the time we were visiting the waterfalls outside of Luang Prabang that Marcus started feeling unwell. He held out until we got back to our guesthouse after dinner, but collapsed pretty shortly after. Fever, chills, body aches. His whole body was on fire that night and I kept waking up, feeling his burning forehead, neck and arms. In the morning he managed to get on board our mini-van to Vang Vieng which probably exacerbated the situation. Mini-vans? Like roller coasters through the curvy mountain roads! You try to ignore the fact that the drivers pass each other on the other side of the road through blind curves. You especially try to ignore this as the roadside grows increasingly steep as you climb higher and higher into the mountains.    Luckily we managed to snag a none-too-full mini-van and Marcus could stretch out over his own bench to try to rest. He would have been able to rest, that is, if his head didn’t keep smacking into the side of the van at ...

In Laos, $1 equals roughly 7,000 kip. (Don’t ask me which $, the US or Australian—at the moment we’re working off of currency cards we bought in Oz that hold US$ but which we purchased with Australian $. So it’s much of a muchness and we’re going off of round figures.) That’s a weird exchange to work with, for sure, certainly harder than Thailand where $1 was roughly equal to 25 baht. When traveling in another country, you easily get lost in the new currency, paying attention to the currency’s value only during the first day or two. Then, aside from buying transportation, you tend to get into the local currency mindset.    Take 10,000 kip, for example. Equal to about $1.50. What can you buy for 10,000 kip? Prices vary from restaurants to convenience stores and from city to city, but here are some 10,000 kip purchases we’ve made so far: 2 x 1.5 liter bottles of water from a convenience store 1 litre bottle of Beer Lao (at a restaurant—cheaper at the convenience store) a ...