Amazing Thailand!

After stopping at the 7/11 to buy some water we booked our trip to Ko Tao. In the hurry to get to the bus we forgot a mobile phone at the hotel so the owners must have been really happy with us leaving....

The bus ride to the town where we would get on the boat to Ko tao was a bit scary. It was fully packed with tourist and their hug backpacks and the driver was really tired and almost fell asleep driving. I didn't noticed until Vern started yelling to the driver. So we maid a few extra stops to get the driver red bulls and coffees. And that worked, we safely arrived in the town were the boat left from. Only to find out that the night boat we booked was cancelled and we had to book a hotel in this really tiny little town with nothing to do.

The next day we got picked up at the hotel at 7 o'clock in the morning. So at 6.30am my alarm would go off but at 6.15 am the reception called us; " You leave at 7?" Me; Yes i know, don't you worry we be down on time!" Reception: Your taxi pick you up at 7am!" Me; "Yes i know, we still have plenty time don't worry!"

So i hang up the phone a bit irritated that she woke us up so early. Since i was awake i went to the shower and started getting dressed when reception called again, this time Vern answered; " yes", Reception;" Your taxi is waiting for you" Vern; "That's to early it's only 6.30am" Reception; No it is 7.30 am your taxi will leave without you!" Vern; WHAT!!!! 7.30am???? We are coming down right now don't let the taxi leave!!!"

With all the time differences during our travel i didn't looked at the time on the clock when i set the alarm the night before. Oeps, my mistake.....

We missed the first boat leaving for Ko Tao but there was always the second morning boat, a little bit slower, but it would still bring us to the island. The day started pretty stressful but when we sat down on the boat we relaxed and everything was fine again, 5 hours later we arrived on this wonderful little island.

In total we spend 2 weeks on Ko Tao. Relaxing on the beach, waiting for the old guy with his bqq and corn in the afternoon, or the ladies with the fresh fruit, at night drinking and watching movies, meeting new people, and of course we did a diving course.

The whole purpose of going to the island. The course took 4 days and it was amazing!! We were the only two in our class so that was really nice. The first time underwater was wired but we got used to it pretty fast and we where good and easy students our teacher sayed, we made his job easy. We saw so many beautiful things under water in the following days... I can't describe it all. I will post some pictures so you can see your self. What i liked the most seeing was the one dive were we saw 2 turtles. It's sow amazing to see that and to swim with them. I loved every moment we were under water. After the course i did 2 fun dives. Vern was sick that day, again eat something wrong, so he couldn't come. The day before the fun dive it rained so the visibility wasn't that good, but still so nice to see the live and nature under water.

The last few days on Ko Toa everyone was excited for the full moon party, and more then half the people on Ko Tao went to the island next to it to party there the whole night. But sadly for us Vern was still sick so we stayed on Ko Tao with a few and went to a bar on the beach to party there but the party ended early. At 2 am we walked back to the hotel/bungalow to go to sleep. We made 1 stop on our way to eat for the last time the best pane cake in Thailand. A midnight snack we got there many times... We will miss that for sure!! Great pane cakes with nutella and banana, delicious!!!!

The 2 weeks flew away and before we knew we were on the boat back to the mainland to take a bus to Bangkok to fly out of there 2 days later.

Bangkok was nice, we didn't see much more than the street our hotel was on because of the protests that were going on. From the rooftop of the hotel we could see and hear them.

Getting on time to the airport was a little bit of a challenge because many streets were closed. Lucky our cap driver understood that we had a plain to catch and flew thru traffic and because of him we were on time to fly to our next country, AUSTRALIA!!!

Photo's....

We got lost trying to follow a walking trail in the lonely planet. Wasn't that bad. We saw these ladies making carpets. Vern tried to.

And you thought the houses in Amsterdam were hanging over....

Our cosy little cabin in Chitwan national park.

Mommy and his baby...

The rhino we saw when we did the elephant safari. So amazing to see them in the wild!

Climbing up the trunk. That is so much fun... I had such a good time with bathing the elephants!

Vern was so afraid of getting wet that he hide behind me. I don't think it helped him much...

Climbing up the elephant before taking him for a nice bath in the river.

Vern's is exploring how close he can get to the crocodile before he eats him.....

The distance between him and the croc is about 2 meters.

In Chitwan National Park in Nepal in the morning you could bath the elephants, or did they bath us???

The bus we got on when we crossed the border of Nepal.

A over crowded train station in Varanasi. If you look really good you can see me sitting there. I wear a pink pants and gray sweater.

Washing the cows in the Ganges river...

A man washing his cloths in the ganges river. It's crazy what they all do in the river. The take a bath, wash their cloths, wash their cows, use the water in the temples for i don't know what, maybe even drink it....

Here we are in Varanasi, at the Ganges river. Trying to let up a kite. If you see the little kids do it it seems so easy, but it's not!!! We had fun with the kids playing there.

A little goat with a t-shirt on. It looks so cute.

Walking towards the Tai Mahal early in the morning. The fog is just lifting up. About an half hour earlier we could barely see the Tai Mahal from where we are standing in the picture. It's was still nice and quit. This is about 9 o'clock in the morning and by 11 o'clock you would have like 50 people in the photo.

A nice photo we took from the fort on the other side of the river from the Tai Mahal.

Mekon Delta, Vietnam

The bus ride to Can Tho was hot and uncomfortable. We thought, as many other times, that we had a big bus bringing us to Can Tho, but we had a little mini bus. Normally no problem because then the bus is filled with Vietnamese who normally don't travel with a lot of luggage. But this time it was different. There was another France backpackers couple with 2 backpack each, there was us with 2 backpack each and then there was this girl (Vietnamese) who had like 5 suitcases and a huge wedding photo. And all that had to go in the mini bus with no trunk what so ever to put luggage in. All the suitcases and backpack where packed in between everyone on the mini bus. Not that comfortable and to hot because the airco didn't work that well. I had my book to read so the 4 or 5 hour bus ride went by fast.
We found a nice hotel in Can Tho where Vern decided to take the biggest room in the hotel. We could have slept both in a huge king size bed, we had a small balcony, airco, tv and a nice bedroom. Vern thought it would be nice for a change to have a big room instead of a room where our luggage barely fits.
The hotel owner sold us a nice cruise over the river for the next day. We booked it with the other couple we met on the minibus, To split the cost. So the next morning before sunrise, oef that was early, we walked to the river to get on a small boat. It was a beautiful cruise over the Mekong River. The sunrise was amazing, to so the people start their day and enjoy the peacefulness on the water was amazing. We visited 2 floating markets. Everyone who has a boat and fruit or veggies clusters together and sells their good. They all have a long stick in the air with what they sell. And then theirs this boat who sell drinks going around to. It's so cool to see this and the fruit is so cheap and delicious. We eat some, looked around how everyone is selling and trading goods and then we left and sailed into smaller canals. Just like Amsterdam. We visited a rice field where the ladies chopped down the rice. Amazing to see how fast they are. Vern took over the big knife and tried to. He managed to get some down but the lady who kept working to when Vern joined in got like 10 times more done. It is crazy how fast they chop. The ladies didn't spoke any English but the guide who was with us translated and we had some fun talks together. They went back to work and we walked back to the boat, as we did that we passed a guy who had a fish farm. In his backyard he had a big stinking pool and at first site you wouldn't think that something was living in there, but when he threw some food in the pool all the fish went crazy and fought for some food. Never if seem fish fight like that. Crazy, but the smell was really bad.
After cruising around for 5 hours we got back to where we started. It was so nice to see the Mekong Delta like this and see how people make their living here.
We stayed here for 2 days. The last day we just walked around town and didn't do much special than eating and drinking. I love the food here in Asia!

After 2 days we left on a big bus this time towards Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The bus ride was fast and okay. I read my book and Vern looked for markers on the road where there was a motor crash earlier. Vern saw the white drawings on the road before but didn't knew exactly what they were, until he saw one that was to obvious. The lining showed a bike, a car and a body. After that each time we saw the lining we knew there was an intersection coming because that's were all the accidents happen. No one stops but just turns on a road and everyone else has to move around the car or motorbike and sometimes that goes wrong.
At the bus station in Can Tho we saw some terrible photo's of motorbike accidents. Only the driver wears a helmet and all the other sometimes 4 passengers don't so you guess what happens in an accident. One photo we saw a mom and her maybe 1 year old boy lying on the road, both death. I will spare you the details. But the photo's showed how terrible wrong it goes in an accident.
I was glad that on Phu Quoc there wasn't much traffic and craziness going on on the roads, and i said to Vern;"No way we are renting a motorbike anymore. The Traffic in the bigger city's are to crazy and dangerous. I like traveling around to much to let myself get killed here in a motorbike accident!" Vern totally agreed.
After 2hours we arrived in Ho Chi Minh, a huge city with so many motor bikers it's crazy. What the bicycle is for the Netherlands that's what the motorbike is for Vietnam.
Crossing a road in this city is crazy. Just step on to the road and look if the motor bikers see you and if they will pass in front of you or behind you. It's like that computer game with the frog you have to get safe to the other side of the road.

In Ho Chi Minh we shopped a little. Our souvenir for Vietnam, Vern bought some nice t-shirts and we walked around town.
We wanted to go to the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon but because i had my knee wound i couldn't crawl, so that was no option. Stupid Vietnam tatoo......
We had fun just staying in the city and buy the stuff we needed and reorganize our backpacks. Because after 4 weeks traveling by bus/motorbike/tuktuk and what ever more we were about to fly out Ho Chi Minh and than it matters how heavy your backpack is and how it is packed.
The flight out of Ho Chi Minh was good. The airplane was not that big and Vern didn't had room to move his legs but the flight to Phuket Thailand was only 2 hours and the tickets in total did cost us about 120 dollar so no complains here.

We landed at 00:25 hour, march 17th in Phuket Thailand. Be booked a hotel close to the airport. It should only be an 5 min car ride so you would think that wouldn't cost you to much. Well time of day thus everything here. They wanted like 3 times as much as normally. If only we had looked at a map when we booked the hotel we would have know how to walk. Because when the taxi dropped us of at the hotel we moved not even a kilometre away from the airport. It was nice and fast so that counts for something to. As soon as i saw the bed i fell asleep.
The next morning we walked around and started looking for a travel agent to book a bus out of Phuket towards the island Ko Tao. The travel agents was a bit of a search but we knew we where back in Thailand because at every street corner there was a 7/11 store.

Next blog more travel stories. Vern just woke up and we go out to get some breakfast with the friend of Vern we're staying with in Australia. That's how far behind i got on writing blogs..... Didn't wrote anything about Vietnam, back in Thailand and now we are in Australia. Sorry guys....

Vietnam

We crossed the border of Vietnam on the back of a motorbike. Not something we planned.
We left Kampot, Cambodia, in a tuktuk. A 2,5 hour ride to the border true little villages, watching cambodia people living their life. The little huts along the road, the kids playing, women preparing food, men on mototbikes passing us with a overload of dead pigs on the back of the bike or a complete family (mom, dad and 3 kids in the age of 9 months to 3 year...) all without a helmet on. It is amazing what you see during a 2,5 hour ride.

The plan was to cross the border with the tuktuk and find another tuktuk in Vietnam who would bring us to Ha Tien. But nothing goes how you plan it in Cambodia. About 30 min before we would cross the Vietnam border our tuktuk driver stopped at a little hut where 2 men were standing with each a motorbike. Our driver says to us; " you get out, go on motorbike." And we respond; " That's not possible, have you seen our 4 bags, that doesn't fit on a motorbike!" The driver says; " i no crossing the border, you on motorbike." And that was the end of the discussion. So the motorbike drivers takes our backpacks from the tuk tuk, hands us our little bakpack and puts our big backpacks in between their legs. Gives us a helmet (luckly) and also asks for 10 dollar each to bring us to where we wanna go. This is how they get the most money of tourist, let them think they have a ride to the border and then half an hour before the border say they have to change to motorbike and ask for extra money.. Well it was a fun drive after all. You have to try everything, right??

Crossing the Vietnam border was easy and didn't took long. After the border we had another hour ride on the back of the motorbike to a little town called Ha Tien. What we read in the lonely planet it was an okey town and there was a ferry terminal to an island, Phu Quoc. We told the drivers the hotel we wanted to go to, but as usual they brought us to a different hotel where they probly get comission or something. And telling them this is not the hotel we want to go to suddenly they don't understand enough english. It's funny how things works here. But the hotel was okay and not that expensive so for one night good enough. Atleast that was the plan untill we found out that all the boats going to the island were full because of some holyday weekend in Vietnam. All the locals going away for a nice weekend. The first 3 travelagents told us that we had to spend 3 days in the little town that everywhere you went smelled like tried fish. Not something we were planning to do. We almost stopped searching for another travelagent telling us the same story when we saw a travelagent that had tickets for the afternoon boat the next day. Sitting infront of the office we saw it was across the street from the hotel we wanted to stay in. If only the motorbikedrivers listend to us, it would have shaved us a lot of walking around and frustrations. But i guess thats what traveling is in these type of countries.


The next day a little boat looking like a coffin flaoting took us with 150 others in small seats to the island of Phu Quoc. Arriving there the dock was filled with motorbike and tuktuk drivers who started yelling even before the first people got of the boat welkomed us. They where so close to the little plank we had to balance us and our bags on that it suprised me no one ended up in the water. Lucky we had a minibus waiting for us to bring us to the west of the island to our hotel. So we didn't had to bargain with 20 men to get the best price and nicest ride.

We stayed in a recently opened hotel owned by a Dutch guy and his Vietnamese wife. They both spoke dutch so that was nice.

The Dutch brother and sister who we met on the boat to the island stayed there to and we ended up spending a lot of time together. Sitting on the rooftop patio drinking and eating untill sometimes 1 o'clock in the morning. The day we left we found out that normally the patio is closed at nine at night, oeps..... But we had fun times.

During the day Vern and i exploired the island on a motorbike. You could drive to the north for the day or to the south. I like the drive to the south the best because the roads where better and you drove along the beach most of the time or true the forrest, nice and cool. We stopped a lot to have a snack, snorkel, sit on the beach and swim or visited a locale fishermen in his hut in the ocean. To get to his hut you had to balance on a narrow bamboo pole above the water. Really cool. The guy didn't speak any english and our Vietnamees isn't wonderful so we didn't speak but he showed us his catch, snails.
I loved it that the locals were so friendly and that we saw abit of how they life.

Driving to the north you would drive true little fishervillages where they had a lot of dried squid lying along the road that had this awfull smell. I couldn't stand it, but Vern didn't mind it so much. Everytime we drove true a little village the kids would come run to the roads and yell; "hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello...." untill they didn't see us anymore. Really funny.

We drove around on our bikes for 5 days and the last day i was reminded why i didn't like motorbikes. Driving back from the north towards the hotel we drove on this dirt road that was okay for the most part of it, but sometimes there would be a big puthole you had to avoid. Vern was driving a head of me just before a curve in the road i didn't saw a puthole on time so i had to drive true it. No problem i thought because i wasn't going that fast, except for that rock lying in the middle of the puthole that made my wheel turn left and the only thing left to do next was falling to my left. The first thing that hit the dirt was my left knee followed by a nice role over my right shoulder ending up back on my feet again. As soon as i realised i would fall i yelled for Vern but because of the noise of the motor he didn't hear me and disappeared around the curve. By the time he realised i didn't followed him anymore he turned and saw me standing next to my bike hidding dirt of my shirt. After me telling what happened and he wurried if i was okay he looked at the bike and tried to start it, luckly it did start and still worked okay. He helped me rinse my knee wound and offcourse took a few photo's.
A few locals driving by stopped to see if everything was okay and probly thought: " oh no, another tourist not nowing how to drive...".
Well i just got the vietnam tatoo as everyone calls it, i mean every tourist. The only good thing about this tatoo is that its not for there for life!

My knee hurted for about 2 weeks and Vern carried my big backpack from time to time, he's a real sweetheart. My man!!!! It changed our travelplan true Vietnam a little bit but not to bad. We didn't do a homestay in the Mekong Delta what i kind of really wanted and Vern not really so that worked out okay for him.

After hanging around the island for a week we headed towards the Mekong Delta. We took a little nicer and bigger boat back to the mainland to a town called Rach Gia.

The town was simeler to Ha Tien, and we spended only 1 night here. The next day we took a bus to Can Tho. A nice town in the middle of the Mekong Delta.

More about our adventures there in a next stories. I want to publish this before i have to rewrite it a third time because internet keeps shutting down and not saving my story. So sorry for wrong spelling and stuff but no time to re read my story.