Photos!

We finally made it home last night, and got our photos developed and organized! Please visit the following link to see them:

The Art Show

The vacation portion of our trip has begun.

Our time in Vietnam was an incredible, seemingly nonstop adventure, but we were starting to need a vacation from our vacation! Taking the chance of spending our last week in Thailand was probably the most brilliant idea we ever had. (Of course, I will skip the part here where we arrive in Phuket town at 2:00 in the morning, and stay in a "mansion" that has signs in our room warning against prostitutes and where I wake up the next morning with nearly 30 mosquito bites all over my body- of course Thomas has not one). But many of you reading our blog along the way, hearing of hellish bus ride trips, critter roommates, rainy weather and the such, may not have been all that jealous of our trip so far, but now you definitely should be! ;) I was skeptical of Phuket at first, and there's probably still much to warrant that, but we really lucked out. We are staying in the southeastern part of the island called Cape Phanwa, far away from the infamous Patong beach and the many more popular areas on the western coast. Surprisingly little is said about this part in our guide book- thankfully, as it's blissfully quiet and much less developed than other parts. Well, yes, there's still a Novotel next door and other resorts down the road, but as you approach the Cape, the hustle and bustle dissipates and the buildings turn into lush tropical forest on your left and beautiful ocean on your right.

After being the good spendthrift backpackers that we were in Vietnam we decided to chip in a bit more for our stay in Thailand, and wow, does your money go far here! I don't know if it's because we are in a less popular part, but the hotel is beautiful and we are living like kings! It is right on the beach, and aside from a few other guests, the place feels like it's all to ourselves. The weather has been hot and sunny all day, every day, and we couldn't ask for anything more. All through Vietnam we kept wanting to move on to the next destination, to the next attraction, to the next adventure. This is the first place we've come where I don't think I'll ever want to leave.

Now this is the part where my grandmother and my parents should probably stop reading. As we are in a remote part of the island, the only practical and economical way to get around is by renting ourselves a motorbike(only $5 a day!). After the first day of cursing at the thing, I got adjusted to it and now I'm thinking it would be really useful thing to have back home! In Vietnam, there is no way in hell I would every think to rent a motorbike myself. Eight years ago I rode a bicycle around town and that was enough, and now there are ten times as many cars as well as motorbikes, and the traffic is more insane than ever. But in Thailand, or at least in Phuket, things are much more organized- people actually drive on their side of the street, and there is a side of the street for them to be on! There are also novelties like traffic lights and street signs! So having our own little motorbike to get around has been totally awesome.

I'm writing to you alone this morning, because at 7:00AM Thomas went off to his first session of Muay Thai training at a gym nearby. After three years of studying Thai boxing in New York, he is finally in the motherland!! Well, we don't have too many more days left here, but I'm sure he'll get in a few more sessions to whet his appetite...

Well that's all for now. I have a lot of work to get to today: I have to even out my tan, eat insanely yummy pad thai, and finish my book! ;)

-Ronit

Change of Plans!

So last we wrote we were in the lovely town of Hoi An getting beautiful hand tailored silk clothing made, checking out the local beach, tasting the Hoi An specialties, and stuffing our bags full of souvenirs- yes there is at least one for each of you!! ;) As we left Hoi An, we were psyched for more beach time at the beach capital of Nha Trang- but first we must endure another sleeper bus! After the bus from Hanoi to Hue, we were prepared for anything and everything, and now we are true vets! Well, we made it to Nha Trang in one piece, but it welcomed us with an all out monsoon- and this is supposed to be the dry season??! Seeing that the weather was staying to put on a good show for the next few days, and there's not much else to do in Nha Trang except beach and snorkel, we paid for half a day in a hotel to clean up, and continued second night in a row on the sleeper bus- this time straight to Saigon. If we haven't earned our backpacker crud by now, well than screw it! We arrived in Saigon at 6:30am but the rain followed us here :( Despite this, we headed over to Ben Thanh market where eight years ago, I befriended two cyclo drivers, Hoang and Quang. Well, eight years later, going down the same street they used to park, I found them! So excited I ran up to them and re-introduced myself. AFter we got talking, they remembered me and we had a fantastic reunion.

Sooo, brace yourself for our change of plans. We are ahead of schedule and storms are rolling in all throughout the region making the sightseeing we were going to do by this time and were hoping to do further south not so exciting any more...We've had an incredible adventure nearly three weeks in Vietnam, but now we're jumping ship and headed to Thailand! Hey, what's a good backpacking adventure if you can't be spontaneous! :) We booked a cheapie flight to Phuket for tomorrow night and coming back to Saigon on the 28th. So Thailand here we come! Thomas will get his Muay Thai fix, and we will both get some good relaxation in the sun (crossing fingers) to finish off the trip...

Ronit & Thomas

North to South... What a difference.

After the beautiful green filled hills of Sapa, we made our way back to Hanoi on the sleepr train for an early morning arrival- 5.45am. This was to be the beginning of one of our longer and rougher days in Vietnam. We had nowhere to sleep and nowhere to go with plenty of time to waste. Ho Chi Man's museuleum was pretty scary and that's not just Ho Chi Man himself (Madame Tussaud's version was just as good, lol). The guards there watch your every move, everyone walks in two rows, and there's no talking-at all. It's a quick walk through and in the end you wonder waht just happened. The rest of our day was spent battling sleep and entertaining ourselves until our overnight bus from hell. We were shown lovely pictures of a modern bus with comfortable sleeping pads and an overall modern aesthetic. However, what you see is not what you get in Vietnam (future travelers beware). Our bus was on the low-low-low budget side complete with non-reclining seats/beds, no toilet stops, a mean driver and frequent delivery stops of "la vielle ferme" French wine. Apparently the delivery stops happened to be on our way so it made sense to have everyone on the bus participate. We arrived in Hue the next morning and were greated with warmth and perkiness from our hotel attendant. This was a big shift in atmosphere and almost had me worried. We visited a bunch of tombs and pagodas, checked out the citadel and observed the biggest flag in Vietnam (lol, ok.). Hue was nice and short. On to Hoi An... It's warmer here, calmer and the old quarter is quite nice and reminiscent of an older era in Vietnam despite being touristy. I'm glad they kept this place as it once was. The people are so friendly and joyful you'd think you were on another planet. We then made our way to the tailor district and spent 3 hours getting fitted for custom made jackets and dresses. This place is dangerous because once you get started the possibilities are endless and the price tag a joke. Everyone is happy in the end so it all works out. Our tailors, a Vietnamese woman and her sister, were funny and seemed to enjoy our negotiating pratices. In the end, they were hugging us and proclaiming long friendship. Here's where they got us: after finishing with one person you're passed on to a custom shoemaker that also has her giftshop friend waiting right beside her to get you ready for more spending. The Vietnamese are great salesmen and if it weren't for the airfare they would make a killing in the US! After a long day we headed back to the hotel situated in an alley with a couple little restaurents. To our surprise I discovered Danny Devito and his familly having dinner there too. I recognized him by the neck fat on his back, lol. What a day.

Tom & Ronit

Perfume Pagoda & Sapa

The past few days have been amazing with trips to Perfume Pagoda and now we are in Sapa. Perfume Pagoda is a day trip from Hanoi, which required an easy 2 hour bus ride into the country to the Perfume River. Motorized boats are not allowed on the river, and the only way to get to the pagoda, a well-known pilgrimage site, is by having a woman row you by small boat for an hour to the mountain. The scenery is incredible with limestone cliffs and lush fields on all sides. When we arrived at the mountain we had an intense hour hike up to the top to find an incredible opening into a huge cave. This is where one of the more famous temples is hidden and it's breathtaking.

The next night, we left Hanoi for Sapa by overnight sleeper train, which was pretty nice. Sapa is a very mountainous area about 9 hours north of Hanoi and is known for its stunning views of rice terrace farming and hill tribes. Yesterday, we took a four hour hike to Black H'mong and Red Dzao villages accompanied by our tour guide and four Black H'mong women who went with us the whole way so that we would by goods from them later! They were very sweet and the tactic worked as we are now proud owners of a pillowcase, two bags and a belt! :) The trek was incredible and it would take way too long to describe in detail so we will have to wait for the photos to give you a better idea. At the end we went back to the town of Sapa by motorbike taxi. As we descended back up the mountain, the fog and mist had rolled in and it was a very surreal sight. Pooped after a long day, we passed out around 7pm with no dinner and woke up at 8:30 this morning! Vacation is tough work...

- Ronit & Tom

Photos!

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a computer with an actual disk drive in this country! Here are some pictures from the beginning of our trip. We hope to uplaod more soon!


Hong Kong!


Ride to Vietnamese Border town of Mong Cai.


The bridge to Vietnam- we made it!


Beautiful but rainy Ha Long Bay.

The Capital

So we made it to Hanoi last night, and had a very fun-filled eventful day! Between dodging the insane chaos that is Hanoi traffic, weathering ice in our drinks, and currently hiding from the rat living under the computer, Hanoi is awesome! We walked all over the old quarter discovering local markets, street shops, pagodas, yummy foods (I even ate fish!!), and tonight we are going to check out the water puppet show. But exciting of all has been practicing my ancient Vietnamese skills. Today a woman even asked me if I had studied Vietnamese- I understood and was able to reply! That was the best moment ever. :) - Ronit

Thomas says hello...

(Ronit thinks he is still overwhelmed from the day... He is speechless)

Good Morning Vietnam!

We finally made it to Halong Bay, Vietnam last night after a very long and adventurous 36 hour journey from Hong Kong. Monday morning we headed for a two hour train to Guangzhou in mainland China. When we arrived there, it was clear we had left the lovely international city of Hong Kong where everything is written in English and people are exceedingly helpful. We were immediately ripped off on our overnight sleeper to Nanning, but this was to be expected and we will try to move past this! The bus station was chaos with thousands of people milling about, not a word of English spoken or written, and filthy as all hell. We're pretty sure we saw half the population of China converged on this one station. We managed to catch the 14 hour train to Nanning, and thankfully due to jetlag, we slept for about 13 of them! We arrived in Nanning at 6:30 in the morning. It was still dark out, and now for the difficult part- to find a bus to the Vietnamese border. With ripped out pages from my china book with bits of mandarin written down, I showed the taxi driver the word for long distance bus station and hoped he would bring us to the right place. We were in luck! We just made it in time for the daily 8:00am bus to Dongxing, the chinese border town that leads to Halong Bay, and not the usual route most take to go to Hanoi. We went on a lovely 3 hour bus to the border, walked across the bridge, took our snapshots, and now we were in Mong Cai, Vietnam! Hooray, we did it... or so we thought. Immediately we were whisked away by taxi motorbike to a local bus to Halong Bay. We prepared for the 4 hour trip through rural northern vietnam, and were excited that we had made all the connections so far no problem. But the excitement dissipated with a very rocky ride through partially paved extremely muddy roads, which were causing accidents and traffic jams. It appears that northern vietnam is completely under construction!! After one 2 hour stop, we continued on only to be stuck in another one. By this time, we had been on the road for 7 hours, and our local passengers now looked like they were making their seats into overnight beds... as it got pitch black, the mosquitos came out, and here we were in the middle of nowhere vietnam on a tiny muddy road backed up for miles both ways. After a slight moment of insanity, we found our zen, accepted the situation, put on our insect repellent and tried to get comfy. Finally, the traffic moved and another hour later we arrived in Halong City, only 7 hours later then expected... So yes the adventure has definitely begun! Along the route, our digital camera was also sacrificed, so we won't have pictures for a while. My 35mm is being put to work! Halong Bay is rainy and stormy today so no touring and we might be on our way to Hanoi tomorrow, a day earlier then expected. But our spirits are still high- they have to be, we are on the vacation of a lifetime in beautiful Vietnam! So happy birthday to Thomas as we rest in leisure today...

-Ronit

p.s. if anyone wants to reach us on the road, send emails to ontheroad@funktionfive.com. this is what you get when your boyfriend is very into technology! :)

Landed in Hong Kong

After a fifteen hour flight we succesfuly landed in Hong Kong. Had a very good and enjoyable flight with Cathay Air. We managed to find Eric's place without too much trouble. Hong looks amazing so far. Had some great Chinese food at a posh restaurent last night. Believe me it's nothing like what we have in NYC. I will post the venue name very soon. Today is our touring day, can't wait to have dim sum and check out the markets including the famous wet market. I will post photos later today.

Tom

Update!!!

Ronit just ruined my sketch. Here's a picture of both of us...