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Hannah & Grant's Travels
Hello,
I thought i'd give Hannah a break from writing the blog, so apologies for the bad spelling etc.
So if you read our last blog, you'll know we were had just arrived in Da Lat after a pretty cool bus ride through the mountains of Vietnam's central highlands. The first thing we noticed in Da Lat is that it was much cooler than the rest of Vietnam, as its about 4500 foot above sea level. It was a welcome break for me from being in 30 degree plus heat all the time. We decided to go and visit a flower garden that Hannah had spotted as we were coming in on the bus. We then went to see the "Crazy House" that's a very strange building that looks like a giant tree, but is actually a hotel where you can stay. After having a stroll around the lake and the market we decided to go to a place called "V Cafe" for dinner. It was pretty cool as the food was great and there was a Vietnamese guy who was singing american songs and playing guitar, and he was actually really good! We couldn't find much to do in Da Lat, so we went to the "Sinh Tourist", which is a brilliant tourist company that runs buses throughout the whole of Vietnam and also into Cambodia. We booked a bus to Mui Ne for the next morning.
On the journey to Mui Ne we had to drive through the mountain roads (if you can call them roads) were terrible. There were sections of road that had started to fall away, and at one stage we actually had to get out of our bus as the driver thought it may be too heavy to drive over what was left of the road. There were also huge rocks all over the roads that were left over from recent landslides.
So we arrived in Mui Ne and were glad to be on safer ground. All morning the weather had been great, blue skies and boiling hot sun, but as soon as we checked into our hotel (which was right on the beach and had a pool!) a tropical storm decided to appear, and we lost power in our hotel. We couldn't do much so decided to wait until it cleared to go out. Not far from our hotel was loads of sea food restaurants (which comprise of patio furniture and tarpaulin as roofs) You could even pick your sea creature from the fish tanks that were on show. This put Hannah off a little bit... and me too to be honest. We thought we should try some fresh fish while we were there so we went for BBQ'd red snapper with lime and chili. We didn't pick the fish as Hannah felt bad about sentencing a fish to it's death. The food was good, other than the giant cockroaches running around our feet.
The next day we woke up to blue skies again and decided to book a trip to the sand dunes, we then spent a couple of hours getting burnt by the pool. Just before the bus arrived for the sand dunes, it started raining! When we got to the dunes we got a plastic sheet that you can slide down the big dunes on, it looked fun so we found the biggest dune to go down. I went first and it was a pretty rubbish, i went really slowly and just sunk into the sand. Hannah went next thinking it would be quit slow like mine was but she was wrong! She went so fast that when she got to the bottom it threw her off quite violently and grazed her sun burn which looked really painful (i was laughing inside, but by the look of Hannah's face I don't think she found it too funny). That night we didn't fancy fish again so we found a little place that did western food called La Taverna and we had some really good pizza with gorgonzola cheese (hard to find proper cheese out here).
The next day we got the bus to Saigon which took about 6 hours. Saigon is huge! Strangely much bigger than the capitol Hanoi. We got dropped off at De Tham which is the main backpackers area. We tried to find some of the hotels in the guidebook but struggled and some looked a bit rough. We ended up finding a decent place for $12 (decent means it has a bed and a shower that works) that's quite expensive for what we were getting in other places that were better. Where we were staying had everything we needed close by. Great restaurants, bars etc. There was even a Pizza Hut. We found a Highlands Coffee place which was a place we'd liked when we were in Hanoi and had a nice iced coffee. We decided to go the War Remnants Museum which is a shocking place full of images and weapons of the Vietnamese War. We found it hard to believe looking at these images how far Vietnam has come since the 1960's as neither of us realised how much destruction had been caused. You couldn't help but feel angry/moved by some of the images and stories of what these people had to endure. If anyone plans on going to Vietnam this place is a must.
That evening we went to "Good Morning Vietnam" for dinner and then went to a rooftop bar overlooking De Tham and had cocktails. Hannah Felt drunk after one as they put so much alcohol in them! The next day we both felt pretty ill and shattered from traveling around so much, so we decided to chill out at the hotel, which luckily had cable tv to keep us entertained!
We'd planned on going to Cat Tien National park from Saigon but found that there wasn't many tour providers doing group tours and if we did a private tour we were looking at $250 which is way out of our budget. We felt we'd done everything in Saigon and decided that we'd move on to Cambodia the next day.
When we got on the bus for Phnom Penh, we were both quite sad to leave Vietnam as we'd experienced so much there (good and bad) and both agreed that it's hard work getting used to new places. Hannah was a bit worried about crossing the border after reading some stories about them ripping off foreigners for tourist visas, but it went fine and we actually paid less than we were told it would be. As soon as we crossed the border it felt different straight away. There were flat and flooded fields for miles with wooden houses on stilts all over the place and water buffalo on the side of the road. We finally got to Phnom Penh and got a guest house that was recommended in the lonely planet guidebook. We got a Tuk Tuk to the riverside and had some dinner. The next day we got a Tuk Tuk to the Killing Fields ofChoung Ek and The Genocide Museum both very disturbing places. At the Killing fields there's a huge monument full of thousands of human skulls that were the victims of The Pol Pot regime. This place was just one of 300 mass graves throughout Cambodia. When it rains heavily sometimes human remains come to the surface and we actually saw a human tooth and some clothing of the the people that were murdered here.
After quite a depressing day our tuk tuk driver (Dara) asked us if we wanted to go to a shooting range but we didn't really feel like it after the things we had just seen. That night we went to a place called Friends for dinner. This place uses its profits to help young local children to develop skills that will enable them to get jobs. The food was the best we'd had so far. We had mango chicken with cashew nuts, crispy rice noodle salad with lime and chili, fish cakes and some homemade hummus on crispy wontons. It came to $30 but we didn't mind as it was going to a good cause and the food was amazing.
The only problem with where we're staying is that we keep having to get tuk tuks everywhere, and you are constantly having negotiate with them as they all try and rip you off. We've just booked a bus ticket to Siem Reap for tomorrow (Thurs) and our just going to relax on our last day here in Phnom Penh.
Love to you all.
Grant.
I thought i'd give Hannah a break from writing the blog, so apologies for the bad spelling etc.
So if you read our last blog, you'll know we were had just arrived in Da Lat after a pretty cool bus ride through the mountains of Vietnam's central highlands. The first thing we noticed in Da Lat is that it was much cooler than the rest of Vietnam, as its about 4500 foot above sea level. It was a welcome break for me from being in 30 degree plus heat all the time. We decided to go and visit a flower garden that Hannah had spotted as we were coming in on the bus. We then went to see the "Crazy House" that's a very strange building that looks like a giant tree, but is actually a hotel where you can stay. After having a stroll around the lake and the market we decided to go to a place called "V Cafe" for dinner. It was pretty cool as the food was great and there was a Vietnamese guy who was singing american songs and playing guitar, and he was actually really good! We couldn't find much to do in Da Lat, so we went to the "Sinh Tourist", which is a brilliant tourist company that runs buses throughout the whole of Vietnam and also into Cambodia. We booked a bus to Mui Ne for the next morning.
On the journey to Mui Ne we had to drive through the mountain roads (if you can call them roads) were terrible. There were sections of road that had started to fall away, and at one stage we actually had to get out of our bus as the driver thought it may be too heavy to drive over what was left of the road. There were also huge rocks all over the roads that were left over from recent landslides.
So we arrived in Mui Ne and were glad to be on safer ground. All morning the weather had been great, blue skies and boiling hot sun, but as soon as we checked into our hotel (which was right on the beach and had a pool!) a tropical storm decided to appear, and we lost power in our hotel. We couldn't do much so decided to wait until it cleared to go out. Not far from our hotel was loads of sea food restaurants (which comprise of patio furniture and tarpaulin as roofs) You could even pick your sea creature from the fish tanks that were on show. This put Hannah off a little bit... and me too to be honest. We thought we should try some fresh fish while we were there so we went for BBQ'd red snapper with lime and chili. We didn't pick the fish as Hannah felt bad about sentencing a fish to it's death. The food was good, other than the giant cockroaches running around our feet.
The next day we woke up to blue skies again and decided to book a trip to the sand dunes, we then spent a couple of hours getting burnt by the pool. Just before the bus arrived for the sand dunes, it started raining! When we got to the dunes we got a plastic sheet that you can slide down the big dunes on, it looked fun so we found the biggest dune to go down. I went first and it was a pretty rubbish, i went really slowly and just sunk into the sand. Hannah went next thinking it would be quit slow like mine was but she was wrong! She went so fast that when she got to the bottom it threw her off quite violently and grazed her sun burn which looked really painful (i was laughing inside, but by the look of Hannah's face I don't think she found it too funny). That night we didn't fancy fish again so we found a little place that did western food called La Taverna and we had some really good pizza with gorgonzola cheese (hard to find proper cheese out here).
The next day we got the bus to Saigon which took about 6 hours. Saigon is huge! Strangely much bigger than the capitol Hanoi. We got dropped off at De Tham which is the main backpackers area. We tried to find some of the hotels in the guidebook but struggled and some looked a bit rough. We ended up finding a decent place for $12 (decent means it has a bed and a shower that works) that's quite expensive for what we were getting in other places that were better. Where we were staying had everything we needed close by. Great restaurants, bars etc. There was even a Pizza Hut. We found a Highlands Coffee place which was a place we'd liked when we were in Hanoi and had a nice iced coffee. We decided to go the War Remnants Museum which is a shocking place full of images and weapons of the Vietnamese War. We found it hard to believe looking at these images how far Vietnam has come since the 1960's as neither of us realised how much destruction had been caused. You couldn't help but feel angry/moved by some of the images and stories of what these people had to endure. If anyone plans on going to Vietnam this place is a must.
That evening we went to "Good Morning Vietnam" for dinner and then went to a rooftop bar overlooking De Tham and had cocktails. Hannah Felt drunk after one as they put so much alcohol in them! The next day we both felt pretty ill and shattered from traveling around so much, so we decided to chill out at the hotel, which luckily had cable tv to keep us entertained!
We'd planned on going to Cat Tien National park from Saigon but found that there wasn't many tour providers doing group tours and if we did a private tour we were looking at $250 which is way out of our budget. We felt we'd done everything in Saigon and decided that we'd move on to Cambodia the next day.
When we got on the bus for Phnom Penh, we were both quite sad to leave Vietnam as we'd experienced so much there (good and bad) and both agreed that it's hard work getting used to new places. Hannah was a bit worried about crossing the border after reading some stories about them ripping off foreigners for tourist visas, but it went fine and we actually paid less than we were told it would be. As soon as we crossed the border it felt different straight away. There were flat and flooded fields for miles with wooden houses on stilts all over the place and water buffalo on the side of the road. We finally got to Phnom Penh and got a guest house that was recommended in the lonely planet guidebook. We got a Tuk Tuk to the riverside and had some dinner. The next day we got a Tuk Tuk to the Killing Fields ofChoung Ek and The Genocide Museum both very disturbing places. At the Killing fields there's a huge monument full of thousands of human skulls that were the victims of The Pol Pot regime. This place was just one of 300 mass graves throughout Cambodia. When it rains heavily sometimes human remains come to the surface and we actually saw a human tooth and some clothing of the the people that were murdered here.
After quite a depressing day our tuk tuk driver (Dara) asked us if we wanted to go to a shooting range but we didn't really feel like it after the things we had just seen. That night we went to a place called Friends for dinner. This place uses its profits to help young local children to develop skills that will enable them to get jobs. The food was the best we'd had so far. We had mango chicken with cashew nuts, crispy rice noodle salad with lime and chili, fish cakes and some homemade hummus on crispy wontons. It came to $30 but we didn't mind as it was going to a good cause and the food was amazing.
The only problem with where we're staying is that we keep having to get tuk tuks everywhere, and you are constantly having negotiate with them as they all try and rip you off. We've just booked a bus ticket to Siem Reap for tomorrow (Thurs) and our just going to relax on our last day here in Phnom Penh.
Love to you all.
Grant.
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