Singapore - By Brian

We spent two days in Singapore before visiting Borneo, and two days after coming back. We visited the Botanical Gardens and the National Orchid Garden, which is absolutely amazing. They have 1000 species of orchids and another 2000 hybrids. We also visited the bird park which is bird overload! Saw the shoebill we didn't see in Uganda. Later that night we went to the night safari at the Singapore Zoo. It's basically a zoo, but for nocturnal animals; very cool. And we ate some more good food.

Big thanks to James and Kari for hosting us in Singapore. And to Ronny and Anie for helping us with logistics.

Silly photo a the night safari

World's highest man-made waterfall. It's in one of the aviaries at the bird park.

I have a buddy. He just hopped on as I was walking through an aviary.

Guess where.

One of the many, many spots at the orchid garden.

Hybrid developed at the National Orchid Garden.

HUGE!

This is what $40 USD in drinks looks like. The Singapore Sling was invented at the Long Bar at the Raffles hotel in, you guessed it, Singapore. Had to do it. Got a bunch of free peanuts and live music out of the deal. So it wasn't as painful.

South Vietnam (Hue, Hoi An, Siagon) - By Brian

After Hanoi, we spent a couple of days in Hue. We spent a day riding around on the back of motorbikes touring the beautiful countryside and seeing some of the great sites around the area. Two of these that were really cool were the tomb of emperor Tu Duc. There are several tombs around Hue, but this one is suppose to be the biggest and grandest. It was completed before his death in 1883 and must be at least 100 acres. There are some 50 buildings, a couple lakes, streams, gardens, you name it. A bit lavish.

For those of you that are my age, or really hip older folks, have you ever looked at the Rage Against the Machine album cover with the man on fire and wondered if it was real? It was, and we visited the monastery were that monk lived prior to driving to Saigon on June 11, 1963. They have the car that he drove to Saigon that day. There is also a large tomb were he is buried. His name was Thich Quang Duc and he was protesting the government's repression of Buddhists.

We then made our way to Hoi An for three days of wondering around and eating some of the best food I've ever had. Hoi An is a great town, but we really didn't do a whole lot. We just relaxed and ate. And were very happy with that.

Then on to Saigon. We made the obligatory stop at the War Remembrance Museum. To say it's a bit one sided would be an understatement. The entire first floor was all about all the awful things the US did during the war (I am not saying we didn't do bad things, but we weren't the only ones). It's really so bad that it discredits the information. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see it from a different perspective. Later that night we had a great conversation with a local woman that works for the UN Development Program in Saigon. Just sitting on the sidewalk on plastic chairs drinking beer and talking world policy, stereotypes, etc. That was the best part of the visit to Saigon.

No idea who these kids were. They came into the store in Hoi An and asked to take a picture with us. It wasn't a challenge to the kid that came and talked to us, I asked. Only thing I can think is that they though we were famous. It was pretty strange.

Sticky rice vendor. Not too bad, not the best.

Leafy dragon, Saigon.

War Remembrance Museum

Pho. Beef flavored broth with noodles and beef. Real tasty.

Thought this sign in the War Museum was a bit out of place.

Hoi An

Hoi An

Thich Quang Duc's car. Over the car and in the windshield you can see the famous photo.

Thich Quang Duc's tomb

Crossing a bridge in Hue on the back of a motorbike. A few seconds after this, when I wasn't looking ahead, but behind, my driver locked 'em up and I ended up munching his hair. All was good.

Tu Duc's tomb

Tu Duc's tomb

Tu Duc's tomb

Herding ducks to market.

North Vietnam (Hanoi and Halong Bay) - By Brian

When we elected to extend our trip in Nepal, we also decided to visit Vietnam, which wasn't on our original itinerary. Marisa had visited Vietnam when she traveled SE Asia back in 2001, but I had never been there and it's always been high on my list of places to visit. We planned to spend 10 days there, and work our way from Hanoi in the north down to Saigon in the south.

We arrived in Hanoi on a Lao Airways plane from Luang Prabang. After sorting our way through immigration, grabbing our bags and getting some dong (yup, that's what they call their money) from the ATM we hopped in a taxi with another couple and a single woman. When we arrived at our destination I had concluded that we'd owe 120,000 dong (17,800 dong to the dollar) and I grabbed three "50,000" dong bills. When we started handing our driver the money he realized my error in grabbing three 500,000 dong bills and snapped them up. I didn't realize this till later. My fault, but I was still pretty POed he made off with about $80.

We had heard and read that Vietnam, but Hanoi in particular, has many scams. Clearly we had found out the hard way. This, however, would be a valuable lesson. The next morning we took a cyclo (a cycle rickshaw where you ride in front of the driver) to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. After negotiating a good price, which involved walking away several times, our driver tried to have us get out and "walk just one minute over there". We weren't falling for it. He got a bit closer and tried it again. I said great, but I am not paying till I am there. So I walked around the corner to find out the Mausoleum was about 4 blocks away. Back in the cyclo, our driver tried to explain by saying he thought we said "mu-see-um, not ma-soo-lee-um". OK, buddy! Finally we got there.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant called Highway 4. It's in all the guide books, has 4 locations, nice menus, etc. When we asked for our bill we were presented with a handwritten bill. This isn't that strange, but then I noticed the prices were off. They were all inflated. Our seemingly friendly waiters had padded the bill. When we called them out on it they miraculously presented a printed bill with the right prices. Amazing! They also had tried this on the table next to us. So within about 30 hours we had three scams pulled on us. Great intro.

At this point you are likely thinking "jeez, I am never going to Vietnam"; think again partner. These three instances aside, we had a brilliant time in Vietnam. I was quite bummed to be leaving after 10 days, will definitely go back, and would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to visit SE Asia.

On to the goods bits...

First off, the food. It's amazing. While we were in Hanoi we enjoyed the single best food item of the trip: roll your own fresh summer rolls with hot caramelized beef, noodles, fresh mint, cilantro, basil, pineapple and a spicy fish sauce. Could have eaten about a hundred of these. Good thing you had to do some work to eat them versus just stuffing your face.

On a side note, just in case you are heading out for some Asian food, fresh rolls are Vietnamese, not Thai. You can't find fresh rolls in Thailand, so you shouldn't expect them in a Thai restaurant at home. Spring rolls are always fried, summer rolls are always fresh.

Also had dinner at a school were they teach poor youth from Vietnam how to cook and serve in restaurants. All the food is prepared and served by students. I had a fantastic duck in tamarind sauce here. Yum! More on the food in futures posts.

As I mentioned we visited Ho Chi Minh; well preserved and resting a la Lenin in his very communist looking Mausoleum. The funny part about this is that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread about the country. To visit HCM you have to cue for about 45 min, go through security, and then quietly walk past his body resting in a glass box inside a huge granite room. Now, you might think this sounds strange. Well, it is, but I have to say I thought it was pretty cool. Don't know why, just did.

We also visited the HCM museum were they point out many highlights from HCM's life. Not surprisingly the perspective is a bit one sided and fails to mention several key things. Like, when and why did his name change to HCM? Or how did he die?

After two days in Hanoi we headed up to Halong Bay for an overnight cruise on a boat. Halong Bay is a large area of the sea that is dotted with 1,969 limestone islands. It's a pretty spectacular place even if we didn't have the best weather. We did a little sea kayaking and visited a huge cave on one of the islands.

We then made our way back to Hanoi, spent the following day strolling around the city and the jumped an overnight train to Hue.

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum where "The glorious leader" rests in peace

Water puppet show in Hanoi with traditional musicians; this is a famous art form in Vietnam and well worth a look (even for me)

Viewpoint overlooking Halong Bay - we didn't exactly have sunny weather

A typical "junk" boat; ours was very similar to this

Views inside the "Amazing Cave" in Halong Bay; for perspective, note the two people in the right side of the picture

The cave was ENORMOUS

Just outside the cave

Traffic in Hanoi includes bicycles, motorbikes carrying families, and cars...when you cross the street you just keep a constant speed and hope nobody hits you