Central Vietnam - Hoi An & Hue

Hoi An was a real highlight on my trip! It is a lovley small town, with old beautiful buildings, the countryside with rice paddies and nice beaches...and last but not least a great boulangerie (Cargo Club), where I enjoyed some espressos and really, really good cakes. ;-) Lucky as I was, I've been there right at full moon, where a festival takes place every month. It was a beautiful scenery, most of the electricity was turned off around the river and everything was just illuminated by candles and laterns. It is really worth spending some time in this town linger around through the streets! My Son is not that far from here, a temple site of the Cham Dynasty, like Hoi An also a World Heritage site. Well, if you've seen Angkor every other temple is 'ok', but nonetheless it's worth a trip. :-)

Danang, the main port of the region, is not far and easily reachable by motorbike. The town itself is not that worth visiting, but there's a nice museum with the world's largest collection of Cham artefacts. And cruising the hills around the city is very enjoyable, granting some breathtaking views of the town and beach area till you reach Linh Ung, a collosal new Buddha statue that looks south to Danang.

Hue, also a World Heritage site, was once the capital of a Vietnamese empire, with a large Citadel, the former palace of the emperors. There is not much left of the main buildings, they were destroyed during the American war. But there are still some buildings left and you can get a glimpse of how it must have looked like. As everywhere in Vietnam, also in the area around Hue you find remnants of the last war, e.g. some tunnels where the locals hid to escape the bombings. But if you don't see them you won't miss anything... :-)

Again, here you find some pictures... Enjoy!
:-)
Best wishes,
Rainer

hills and beaches...

After the heat of Cambodia it was sooo refreshing to come to Dalat in the central highlands.... ok, a little bit too refreshing, it rained very hard and finding a room swimming through the streets was a little challenge... ;-)
Dalat is a really lovely town, I enjoyed driving through the countryside exploring waterfalls, pagodas, weird houses and - the valley of love. That's something like a "Love Theme Park", a strange experience, but I liked to watch the locals posing at these sculpures taking pictures..and so did I. ;-)
After some rainy days I was searching for sun again and headed towards Nha Trang. The beach there is really beautiful and if you like to meet hordes of Russians, Australians and British then go there. :-)
Overall, there was not that much to see... take a look at the best pictures and enjoy the hills and the sunny beach... :-)

Rainer

temple hopping in Cambodia...

Although I'm supposed to travel Vietnam, Cambodia was too near to miss out the famous temples of Angkor... :-)
So, after a few hours by speed boat I reached Phnom Penh and got there in touch with the younger history of Cambodia when visiting the Killing Fields and the Genocide museum. It's hard to explain what had happend in the years of the Khmer Rouge doctrine... it must have been terrible. Almost every Cambodian family had to suffer losses...

Angkor Wat!!! Wow! I was so looking forward to this place! After seven hours by bus from Phnom Penh you're in the middle of the eighth wonder of the world. And I think I can say it right now, it's probably the highlight of my Vietnam trip (Ooops... ;-))...

Angkor, as I experienced it:

• Temples! Lots of them! I always mixed up the names, but finally I managed to visit a whole bunch of them, at least all the major and big ones. :-)
• Beautiful! The temples where amazing beautiful! Angkor Wat itself with awsome stone carvings, others with wonderful big stone heads, others utterly subsumed by the jungle giving the ultimate Indiana Jones feeling....
•  Touristy! :-( That's the bad part of it all, the whole site looked more like a big Theme Park and not like a historical site anymore... This at first dissapointed me so that I couldn't enjoy the experince that much in the beginning... 
• Beng Mealea! For god sake I found this temple off the beaten track. 65km away from Angkor, almost unvisited by tourists, huge and in the middle of the jungle! Jippiiieee! :-D :-D That's what I was looking for!!!
• Siem Reap, the town beside Angkor, turns at night to a party zone, and you can get seriously drunk there... ;-)
• Hot! It was so hot and humid, I was sweating like crazy...
• ATMs just give US-Dollar!?!?! Everything is paid and quoted in US-Dollar, they barely accept their own currency...!

Now, if you like, you can follow me to the temples again....see you there!! :-)
Rainer

exploring the Mekong Delta

After staying in two big cities I was glad travelling towards the countryside. Well, it wasn't that easy to escape the tourist horde, but after one day travelling I managed to be the only Westener in town again... and it was a good feeling! :-)
The Mekong Delta - in my imagination it looked different, I expected untouched nature, mangroove forests, swamps and stuff like that. In reality it is one of the most densely populated regions in Vietnam. And so you could hardly find a place without huts, fields or orchards and lots of boats are cruising the Mekong permanently. But anyhow, that all has its own charm...
And also the people where more relaxed than in Ho Chi Minh, here they are smiling again. :-)

What happend to me exploring the Mekong Delta:
it was not that easy organizing transport off the beaten track - bus connections between towns should be frequent, but after asking five people where and when the bus leaves and receiving five different answers I started asking myself if I'm some kind of stranded in My Tho..... :-)
But in the end I catched a bus somehow going in the direction I wanted... with the result beeing kicked off the bus at a bridge and be told, that the town I wanted to go is "over there".... :-o
But, like they almost waited for me, I walked into Xe Om drivers... who only agreed to take me to the town for an incredible overcharged fare! In fact I managed to bargain them for half the price they wanted in the beginning, but this was still too much.Well, looking closely we are only talking about one Euro or less, but it is all a matter of principle....
But after all I enjoyed cruising the Mekong visiting floating markets, narrow channels, wide river streams almost looking like a lake, small villages, a coconut candy factory and a restaurant where they served the food on roller blades, but on a bumpy, really bumpy terrace without spilling a drop... ;-)

Have fun looking at my pics! :-)
Rainer

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City...

...coming from Singapore was like a little cultural shock... Here I entered a city that's more like the "real" Asia than Singapore is. Crowded, noisy and dirty on one hand, colourful, tasty, vivid on the other. Overall it seemed to be a little unorganized at the first sight. But in fact it is not like that - here's why:

•  the best organized guys are the xe om drivers (motorcycle taxi) - they are everywhere, at each corner asking you the same questions: "need transport?"  - "No? Ok, want a massage, no problem..." *evil grin* - "No? Ok, want some weed?" After two days I found myself walking through the streets almost talking to myself like a prayer - "no, thanks" - "no, thanks" - "no, thanks" - "no, thanks"..... ;-)
• crossing the streets is much easier than in Indonesia, the motos and cars are like one living body flowing around you as long as you keep on walking slowly - but never even think of running or standing still! This would ruin the whole system! ;-)
• getting in contact with Vietnam's history - every museum is sometimes full of - let's say a little bit weird stuff - the trousers of Blablabla, the wristwatch of blablabla, the shoe of blablabla... everone a true patriot and fighter of the liberation army... I think you've got the point.. ;-)
• again, transport is the matter - there are a lot of companies selling the same tours and bus tickets throughout whole Vietnam, all located almost along the same street what leads to the same brabbling of "No, Thanks".... ;-)
• Exploring the Cho Chi tunnels (also known as Ho Chi Minh tunnels) was an experience of the different sort. Crawling through the - for tourists widened - tunnels was a disturbing feeling. Even more incredible after hearing the stories about the warfare of Northvietnam against the South and the Americans.

Again here are some pictures, the really most important part of this blog.. ;-)

Take care guys!
Rainer

Singapore - or how many malls can a city cope with

I was truly looking forward visiting Singapore! Most of all I wanted to proof the stories told to me about the cleanliness of the city and the restrictive laws regarding public habits...

So here's what I have learned...

- Well, The city is really really tidy, but not perfectly clean to the end - but I didn't dare to throw away the littlest fluff nor to drink or to eat in the metro (500SGD fine!! = 325€) 

- Everything looks so cool, clean, new and plain... but it is almost too perfect. At most sites I've missed something like a soul. Maybe because Singapores history is only about 200 years old...

- Shopping Malls. You can't escape them... ;-) But they are perfect places to escape the heat or - much more important - to find a restroom... :-) I think it would be able to walk through the whole town just by passing through the malls. ;-)

- my absolute favorite sites: 

• the new "Gardens by the Sea". This is a totally new site opend this year. It consists of nicley gardens, futuristic trees and two large glas domes, one contains a rainforest, the other one different climate zones - the dryer ones ;-) - from throughout the world.
• ArtSience museum, because it is looking incredible and because of the fantastic temporary Andy Warhol exhibition shown in there. (Ok, I like Popart... ;-))

To get a glimpse of what I've seen take a look at these pics...

Hang loose!!

Rainer

Two views on Malaysia...

Kuala Lumpur - the pulsing hyper modern capital of Malaysia with skyscrapers all around and deep frozen air conditioned shopping malls all over the city on one hand, and Melaka  - a town where you can feel history by strolling through streets flanked by colonial houses build by the Portugues, the Dutch and the British  - on the other hand. And in between a countryside dominated by oil palms. It looks like no other plants are cultivated throughout the whole country...
But what both cities have in common are their "cities in the city" - little India, arab quarter, Chinatown - they were all worth their names. But unfortunately I could not order "Kung Pao ji ding" in a Chinese restaurant in Melaka... Well, maybe China is already too far away.... ;-)

To get some impressions feel free to take a look at these pictures...

Hope you are all fine!
Cheers!
Rainer

Time ticked away...

... and after 4 months travelling together with Renate (see our blog) I'm now on my own. As always between us farewell wasn't that easy.... and being alone feels strange in the first point. This is now a different style of travelling and I have to find my own pace and way. But on the other hand I am looking forward to all positive and also negative situations and events I will have to cope with on my own. Each one will be a step in the right direction...

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Rainer