Right after arriving at the airport, I took the bus to the city center to meet Vanny. We would take a bus together, to go to Vung Tau together to stay there with a friend of hers. We succeeded in meeting in the city center, quite on time, and actually found each other in all that chaos. Then we walked to the agency and took some kind of collective mini bus towards Vung Tau. Her “host” is an older Canadian man who has Parkinson’s. After arriving, we went out again to try and find something to eat. There wasn’t much, but we did find a little place that was cheap.
We should have had AC in the room, but it was broken.. It was HOT and I thought I wouldnt be able to close an eye.. so, desperate as I was, I decided we’d just go downstairs and steal the ventilator from the living room. That made it a lot better 🙂
The next day, Vannie and me went out for breakfast together, to one of the famous “whatever with shrimps” places in town. It was nice!
Not sure if it was that day or the next.. one day we went shopping at the market and bought meat to prepare Gulasch.. and we also got some fruit. I absolutely wanted to try Durian and we got some of that! So lunch that day was German. At the moment the guy’s daughter is there, too, and she joined.
In the afternoon we were at the beach and then, in the evening we all went out for dinner together, and then had juice.
We went back to HCMC by bus – rather directly to the airport. Vannie stayed with me for a bit and we had some bad and overpriced food together.. well.. the airport.. and then my trip was already over. I’ll need to change planes in Abu Dhabi, without much time to spare, but who cares, if it goes wrong I’ll just be a bit late for work!
The sleeper places from Danang to Ha Noi were already fully booked, so I decided to miss the great view that should be somewhere along the train route, and I just booked a flight. I booked the same Hoi An – Danang transfer and was taken to the station by some guy from the hostel, by motorbike. And it was my first and only trip in Vietnam on a motorbike without helmet! wow! The guy seemed to know less than I did about my bus.. I got a bit worried, but it did actually come, stop and take me 😉
Nguyen then picked me up in Ha Noi at the airport, we went home first and then back to the city, first for dinner and then drinks with some other CS people, I read the term “egg coffee” for the first time, and then we sat down at one of the tiny tables in front of some beer place in the backpacker’s area.
My host moved out of his apartment and in with a friend to give me more privacy – and I was very impressed by that not-so-vietnamese corner of the country! It was a very fancy new are consisting of high rise buildings with their own security and a mall underground. In the morning I had to walk a bit to the bus station and then took the bus into the city center. I visited the temple of literature, some more pagodas and temples, the presidential palace and then, eventually, sat down on a square where kids were running around and playing and it was possible to rent inline skates, hoverboards, and so on.
In the evening we went back to the city and had food next to the lake, and then sat at some church square having ice cream.
The next day, early in the morning, we left to pick up the other 3 people (two guys from the US and the girlfriend of one of them, a girl from singapur) who wanted to come along on our trip to Halong bay. Nguyen drove – a different car this time. haha. Somewhere on the way, we stopped for breakfast – the usual soup stuff. I wanted to go to the bathroom.. walked in.. and didnt know where to look! There was one toilet with a door. Not lockable.. but at least it had a door.. and when I went back out I was alone and dared to take a photo 😀
It’s the craziest public toilet I ever saw!
At Halong Bay, we had to ask to find the new port as it moved, but eventually we made it and got on a ship. We visited the caves, Nguyen bought drinks, then we got back on the boat and went on through the rocks to the floating market, village, whatever. We were told we could rent canoes there and so we did. We were almost alone as it was already quite late. Great! Coming back, the boat already waited for us, we hurried up and saw that Nguyen had bought more food. So we had sweet potatoes sitting on the top of the ship, while going back to the port.
On the way home, we stopped somewhere and had vietnamese hotpot! Instead of ordering beer one by one, they just put a whole box of beer next to our table and we could take a new one ourselves whenever we wanted!
The next day I did some more walking around the city, went to the market (boring..) bought weird market food (i think it contained meat..) and bought a few scarves. I also watched the water puppet theater and went to a hidden coffee for “the best” egg coffee with view over the lake and normal price. The entrance was very hidden, you had to go through a small passage and then up 3 floors. I decided to go on a day trip to perfume pagoda the next day, and wanted to book it from the oh so famous tour agency “the sinh tourist”. Google told me the address, I went there, and the street was FULL of agencies of (more or less) exactly the same name in the same colours! 🙂
It was just great! I think I found the right one and booked. Departure would be early in the morning.
In the evening I went to the CS meeting and everybody seemed very excited to speak english! I stayed too long for my direct bus to go.. The alternative would have been changing several times which would have taken more than an hour. But one of the CS guys suggested he could drive me to a station by scooter. He did, and as it was only maybe 2km from home, I decided to walk. On the way I bought a sandwich from a woman who spoke no english and first wanted to sell me a cup.. My “Banh mi” pronounciation was obviously not very good 😉
To her question what she should put on it I tried to signal “just go ahead” and I did get something in the end.. with some fatty meat which was the first thing I threw away. The rest was ok!
In the morning, the mini bus first picked up other people, then made a stop at some touri roadside restaurant (I refused to eat or shop) and then we seperated and got into the little boats. Our guide spoke terrible english, his favourite expression being “cuse me” … At the temple site, we learned that it’s not allowed to enter the temple if your shorts don’t cover the knees (well, nobody told me before, and I just went in until they kicked me out!), then we had lunch in a restaurant there (included in the price) and finally took the cable car up.
The pagoda was impressive, and there were hardly any people! It was the very last day of this years festival. Perfect! We walked around, took pictures and then went back down past all those tiny stalls selling religious stuff, souvenirs and snacks. The guide told us a few things, we bought different sweets, and made it back down to the boats.
Before getting off the boat, the group started discussing if the boat guy should get a tip. Clear “no” from my side, but I think they gave him some. In the end, I just got off while he kind of kept them telling them they must give him MORE! haha.. great.. i love it!
On the way back to Hanoi, I got our guide to let me get off near home instead of going into the city first: the place felt like the side of a highway, and the first thing i had to do was cross it. I made it 😉
And walked home to cook with Nguyen.
The last day, we went out for breakfast together, then – as it was raining – to a museum and then he took me to the airport for my flight back to HCMC.
The train’s departure didn’t change, and after dinner with Nam, he brought me to the train station and put me in the train. Only part of the way – around that broken bridge – would be by bus. Easy enough, and perfectly organised. There were not really enough seats on the buses, so they brought some of those tiny plastic chairs for people to sit in the aisle 🙂
I had a sleeper ticket and the night was fine. Whenever, I guess around breakfast, someone walked through the train, selling little papers. I had read online that that should be for food – so I bought one. And then started worrying: nothing happened after that. There was no food, maybe I had bought whatever else? Maybe I had to go and pick my food somewhere? But some other guy in the compartment also had such a ticket and was happily waiting. So I just stayed. And really, eventually the food cart came. People changed, and whenever, some non-vietnamese business guy stayed in our compartment. He didn’t really know when to get of, and when the train guy shouted his station name, he ran towards the door. But came back a few minutes later: it hadn’t been his stop, that would only be the next one. I felt very well prepared with my phone, simcard and google maps.
From Danang to Hoi An I had some pickup service booked – I absolutely didn’t want to discuss prices with taxi drivers! So I had to wait a while at the train station and bought some pineapple slices. They came with a little packet of spices and trying to open it, I poured it all over myself. Great! Also, that was some actually spicy stuff and thus quite weird on a pineapple. Well, I tried it! After arriving at the Hotel (yes, a room just for myself! wow!) I went out again and walked around the old town. It’s SO beautiful!
Later, I met a CS girl at her cute little coffeeshop, Rosie’s cafe, and we then went for dinner with a friend of hers. The next day, because I had been writing emails with some guy from Hanoi who kept talking about motorbike tours, I wanted to rent a scooter! I went to withdraw some money (should police stop me for whatever reason, I would need money to be able to bribe them! 😀
) and then very officially rented a scooter from the man who was always hanging around in front of the hotel. The first helmet he offered me was small, but he came back with a bigger one. Unfortunately that bigger helmet didn’t have the necessary sticker, but well, I guess nobody cares anyways. I found a gas station, and then, holding my phone with google maps open, went towards My Son. I quickly realized going around noon was a bad idea and put on my long sleeve jacket. Hidden from the sun was better and temperature-wise it didn’t change much anyways. In front of the My Son entrance, there were some other foreigners with their motorbikes and I just asked them if I could follow them! We first went to a restaurant, then left our scooters there (saved the money for the official parking!) and went to visit the site. The 4 of us booked a guide and got a private tour. It was HOT and I had decided to do less sight seeing and more hanging out at the beach and therefore planned to move to a hostel at the sea the next day. One guy from our group also happened to stay there and we decided we’d meet again.
When I was back in Hoi An, I had planned to attend an English class a cs girl did in some nearby village and her boyfriend picked me up by scooter! I brought chocolate but it was too soft to be eaten like this and had to be put in the fridge first, to go back into a solid state. After the class, we ate at her house and then went out for dessert! They offered me to stay there for the night and to have breakfast together at her workplace (some very touristy restaurant belonging to a museum) and so I stayed. We went to bed quite early – her and me sharing the bed while the boyfriend had to sleep on the floor – and they got up equally early, around 4, and I think did some yoga. At 6 we left to her work, got the rather expensive, but really delicious breakfast, then her boyfriend had to leave to get to his work, and we had a coffee. After that she showed me around the museum – I got in for free with her and there was not a single other tourist! Yea!
After that, she organized me a mototaxi to take me back to Hoi An. I visited some more stuff there, in the old city, but it was HOT. At 9 in the morning already!
I had the hotel call me a taxi and went to An Bang beach to move into “Under the Coconut tree”. The place was THE perfect hostel! It was all open, no real walls, they stopped below the ceiling already and were made from wood, bamboo, whatever. Toilet and shower were outdoors, too, there was a bar with sitting area and the beach was just a few meters away. I stayed at the beach and, in the evening, met Akos again, and we went to have a drink a few meters further along the beach in the only place still open.
The next day was another beach day, and later I went to the city with Akos. He had bought a scooter and was slowly crossing Vietnam, north to south! I asked the hostel people if they could borrow me a helmet, they could, and he took me to the city to walk around and eat something. We found a restaurant serving cheap beer if you just ordered food, and that’s what we did. Daniel joined us: He had had an accident with his scooter and was walking with crutches. After a few rounds, however, they didn’t want to give us more beer at that special price and so we left 😉
I got juice somewhere at a place on the street and then we went back to our hostel.
The plane arrived in Ho Chi Minh City earlier than it should, entering the country was easy and fast, there was free WIFI, and there were even free drinking water dispensers available. Nice! Leaving the airport, at the exit, someone was checking people’s luggage tags so everybody only left with their own luggage! wow! I managed to sneak out between some other people, and was standing.. outside! Right after the exit door, I was actually outside in the open, there was just a roof. I wrote Nam and he said he’s on his way. So I chose a nice pillar, told him near what restaurant I was waiting, and sat down. When he came, we first walked to the domestic terminal where the motorbike parking is. It has several floors, and is FULL of motorbikes! I was told to wait downstairs, near the exit and then we went towards the city and my hostel. After a bit of searching, we found it. From the big street, it’s along a tiny alley, then right into an even tinier alley, and there it is at the very end. I changed into shorts and sandals, left my backpack in the room and went down again for a little sightseeing tour around the city by scooter. Nam bought me sugarcane juice and Banh Mi, told me a lot about the history of the city, showed me where he lives, and drove me all across the city. The next day, my first project was to buy a simcard.. I succeeded – and was online from then on! I walked around the city, saw the War Remnants Museum, had lunch somewhere at the side of a street, and got used to the crazy traffic.
The next day, I met Vannie for dinner and coffee afterwards, and she suggested when I’m back to Ho Chi Minh City, we could go to visit a friend of hers living nearby at the sea. Great idea! 🙂
My next plan was to take the train north, to Danang and go to Hoi An from there. However, on the internet I read that the train line was interrupted as a bridge broke. They checked for me, and the departure stayed the same.
The flight to Abu Dhabi was fun – there was WIFI on the plane and I actually bought a pass to be online for a while. And instead of displaying my location somewhere flying towards the UAE, google showed my location as Dulles International Airport – Dulles, VA, US When I had first looked for flights towards Myanmar, I read that Qatar Airways offers a free hotel night if you choose the fastest connection available and it still takes a certain number of hours of that night. Arriving at Abu Dhabi, I remembered that, and thought I’d try if Etihad offers that option, too. I talked to a guy who told me unfortunately this would need to be pre-booked, so he couldn’t organise anything for me, but he gave me a food voucher for dinner, instead. And he promised to give me another one, for breakfast, if I came back the next morning. Yea! 🙂
After a sandwich and juice, and after finding an ATM that accepted my postfinance card (3rd ATM out of 3!) I took the bus towards the city center. I assumed it would go to the center – which it didn’t 🙂
Instead I got off at the final station, in “nowhere” and was told by my new CS friend to take a taxi to “Special” – taxi drivers know it. Mine didn’t – and let me get off somewhere near the sea which seemed nicer, but also much emptier than the bus station. I didn’t really have any idea where I was, but finally Moses came to pick me up and we went for a shisha. To whichever of the 3 Special-places. Afterwards, he drove me back to the airport and I went in and looked for a nice place to sleep. I found a quiet (round!) couch, set my alarm to “much too early” and slept. Luckily there were some etihad blankets lying around as it was really cold with AC. After getting up, I went to pick up my breakfast voucher. However, there was nobody from the airline at the counter, but some other guy gave me some juice and water and told me that soon someone should come. They did, I got my voucher and had breakfast. Boarding started on time, and the plane was quite empty – I had the whole row of three seats for myself. Yea!
We managed to get to the Niagara Falls bus terminal and arrived in Toronto soon enough. Being perfectly prepared, we knew where our Hotel was, and first bought a day ticket for all public transport. In the hotel, there was already a message waiting for us: Lloyd (a friend of Ginger!) had been there to meet us and would come back soon. We went to the room – and the phone rang! Reception told us, Norma and Lloyd were back. We left with them, walking around the city and later ending up at their place for spaghetti 🙂
On the way home, we stopped at the wodka bar next door and in an Irish pub closer to our hotel. And we learnt we don’t need to buy another day ticket, the city is definitely small enough to reach the main sites by foot.
The next morning, we met Lloyd for breakfast – a Peameal sandwich at St. Lawrence market. Ginger had told us that’s the one thing we must eat in Toronto! In the evening we had the Canadian national dish – Poutine! 🙂
Instead of going up to the CN Tower, we looked for other view points and ended up making a table reservation for The One Eighty, for 5pm, their opening time. When we arrived, we were really given a table right at the window, overlooking Toronto. Great! Prices were high enough, but they didn’t mind us only having drinks.
On our last day, we met Norma and Lloyd again, for breakfast, before heading towards the airport and then back to Switzerland.
After taking the bus from Wethersfield back to New York, we looked for a place to sit down and have dinner while waiting for the night bus to Buffalo. Bus tickets in the US seem to have no fixed seats, and we wanted to make sure to get the best place with most legroom, so we started queuing at the gate more than an hour before the departure time. We did manage to be the first people at the door and then inside the bus 🙂
We had some time to decide on which seats exactly we wanted and were then ready for the night. We had to change buses twice at night, and when we finally arrived in Buffalo, our luggage was not there! The bus driver tried to call people, but still couldn’t find anything, so he got our data and said he would try again in the afternoon, after sleeping. So we left towards our hotel without suitcases. Having said my name in the hotel, the receptionist told us, our luggage had been found and would arrive at the hotel around noon! We did some more outlet shopping, went to the waterfalls, sat in the whirl pool for a while and went out for dinner.
Entry to Canada, walking across the bridge, was as easy as the USA, and this time, from the hotel window, we could see the Niagara falls. Perfect – we don’t even need to leave the room and go out into the cold! Besides that, the hotel has a sauna! It’s not really as warm as it should be, but well, better than nothing. We even set our alarm to wake up early in the morning just to see the sunrise over the Niagara falls 🙂
After arriving in Wethersfield by bus, we called Ginger and she came to pick us up and gave us some suggestions what we could do in the city. We decided to go to see the Science Center (science sounds good, right..!?) and the Mark Twain House. Going to get tickets with her, we didn’t even need to pay because she is a member with both of them. Talking about what else to do, and what to eat, we decided to go to a really big supermarket – and buy some fresh lobster! I was told that’s something to definitely try there, as it is so much cheaper than here. So we each had a whole lobster. And to make it more international, we added swiss Raclette to the meal.
We decided to do check in the evening before already so that we don’t need to carry all our stuff around in the morning. There was lots of traffic on the streets, but we made it! And learnt what “SSSS” on a flight ticket means 🙂
After getting rid of our luggage, we bought two little Raclette devices that use candles – so that we can have swiss food with Ginger. The flight was fine, and the paper that was handed out and needed for entry to the US didn’t ask anything about previously visited countries. Upon arrival, there were hardly any people queuing at the passport check and we made it to the front really fast. Getting two german passports, the guy there asked what we were going to do here – he was happy with “sightseeing”, didn’t even look at anything in my passport besides the first page, and we were in the US!
We managed to find the hotel and then left again to walk around in the city – and one of our first purchases were umbrellas! It was raining quite a lot!
As the first hotel was fully booked, we had to move. And because New York is just soooo expensive, and a 10-minute bus ride should be doable, we moved to the other side, to New Jersey. Then we stood in front of a very empty-looking house and rang the bell but nobody answered. After a phone call and some more waiting, we went to the other location of that “hotel” – seems we had been given a wrong address. We left our bags and went shopping 🙂
Then, in the evening into the city to meet Mark and Julia 😉
To celebrate New Year’s Eve, we went to “Bob’s party” – we managed to find a Liquor store, succeeded to get home (Times Square was closed off, lots of police everywhere, and that was between us and the bus terminal), and then back into the city. By then, there was even more chaos with Subways no longer passing below Times Square, so we had to walk to the next stop and it took us forever to get to the party. Bob seemed to be prepared, besides lots of snacks, there was also beer, and quite a lot of champagne 🙂
The new year started with lunch in Chinatown and Les Misérables on Broadway at night, and tomorrow it is already time to pack and move again, away from New York now and on to Wethersfield, Connecticut.
After visiting the cherry blossom festival, we took the train first back via Hachinohe and then on to Sendai where Minoru met us at the train station. At home, his other two guests, Germans, were already making dinner. We went to buy some bread to have with the little can of harissa to make dinner a bit more international. The next morning, the Germans left and a Russian girl living in Japan arrived. With her, Minoru took us to a flower park outside the city and then to foxtown – ‘the cutest place in japan’ as she had heard 😉
We made it back just in time to catch our train to Tokyo and then to Kyoto.
Equally by chance as going during golden week, our trip fell into the cherry blossom season. However, only in the north the trees were still blossoming. And the one place that had english information about a cherry blossom festival online was Hirosaki. So this is where we went. Hotels in Hirosaki were fully booked, so I checked nearby cities and we ended up in Hachinohe. There seemed to be Japanese people only and so we got the chance to have a typical Japanese breakfast – including fermented soy beans. I did try them but they’re not my favourite. The rice with sauce was better 😉
After breakfast, we took the train to Hirosaki, got rid of our backpacks and took the bus to the park where the festival took place. We were prepared and had brought some food from the supermarket for our picknick under the cherry trees.
Cherry blossoms, picnic and a castle in northern Japan 🙂
As the Golden Week was just starting, upon arrival, we first went to the JapanRail office in the airport to get all the train reservations for the next week. The online reservation had not been successful, but by moving our program by one day, we were able to reserve shinkansen seats for all our train trips.
On our second day in Tokyo, we were invited to a barbecue organised by a couchsurfer and his friends. There were also a lot of other Japanese people around, as it was the first public holiday of the ‘golden week’. So some if Tai’s friends had been around, reserving the barvecue, since early morning. We only arrived at noon.
Towards the evening, we left to do a bit of sightseeing and went to Akihabara.
The next day, we saw the palace and, in the evening had dinner with some Couchsurfers in a typical Japanese place. We got our own room and were brought different plates of food. The menu included ‘all-you-can-drink’, so we had the chance to try different things 😉
In the temple area, we met, by chance, one of the girls we had met the night before at dinner. Tokyo is such a small city 🙂
Walking around, we saw a little shop with a looong queue of people waiting. We checked and saw that they all bought some kind of bread. A guy working there, told us to go and queue – it would take about 30minutes. We didn’t, and instead kept walking around in less crowded streets. And we really found another shop selling this bread. This one was without any queue and so we got our lunch of traditional Japanese sweet bread.
Daytrip to Salzburg. We were lucky that the weather was so nice. The only problem was that our train, in the evening, was just cancelled with no further information. Well, luckily we didn’t try to take the last train back 😉
Of course I had to buy a real, non-supermarket, Mozartkugel 🙂
