Bangkok II

Ah I love this city. My flight to Romania is outbound from Bangkok (as was Curtis' back to Canada) so we had to return here. Decided to come back a day early from Hanoi to have more time in this wickedly fun city. Checked out Siam City Park, which was a bit cheesy but the waterpark was great fun (despite a thunderstorm interrupting our time). Curtis left on the 26th of July. Afterwards, I had a chance to go for a tour to the Tiger Temple about 3 hours away along with the bridge over the River Kwai and the 'Death Railway' to Burma, named after the costly toll on POW lives during it s construction by the Japanese in WWII. I met a Korean couple there, and the guy (Young-Woo) was a magician - learned some new things :). How random.

Hanoi, Vietnam

Aside from all the Vietnamese people, Hanoi really felt more like an old European city than an Asian one. It was quite pretty, but we didn't have much time there due to our Halong Bay trip. Water puppets are extremely cool and I will definitely miss the street food (pho, sandwiches, local noodles).

Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island, Vietnam

Upon arrival into Hanoi we basically booked this 3 day 2 night tour 7 hours before it began (amazing how travel agents work past midnight in Asia) since we didn't feel like being in a big city yet. Boarding the wooden junks in the crowded pier felt like a Pirates of the Caribbean moment. The scenery is very similar to Guilin/Yangshuo (which makes sense as they are quite close to each other) except apparently there are far more limestone islands on the Vietnamese side. It was a good chance to hone my photography skills (as much as they could be with a point-and-click camera) and posted below are quite a few pictures (as I did not want to risk losing them again). Forgot to wear sunscreen and my skin is now peeling (despite it being very cloudy while kayaking/swimming/biking).

Hoi An, Vietnam

Curtis and I decided to skip Natrang in favour for Halong Bay up north so we flew directly from HCMC to Danang/Hoi An. Hoi An is a sleepy town of about 70,000 people that basically specializes in textiles. In addition to that, they have amazingly good food and such nice warm people. We had the chance to meet many locals and one in particular, Anh, invited us to really have a glimpse into what daily life was like for those who live on less than 20,000 dong (~$1.5 CDN) a day. It was humbling, but not as bad as some people make it sound. It was a refreshing change from the hectic life of the big cities and a feeling of ease I haven't felt since Pingyao, China. We stayed for 3 days and put far more money than we had originally into the local economy (i.e. we bought craploads of stuff).