We arrived in Luang Prabang at night, around 8 pm, paid erroneous fees to get through customs and then found a hotel and began exploring the city. Luang Prabang has a huge night market, but because we got there late, it was nearly finished, AND my Visa card wouldn't work in the ATMs so we decided to call it an early night.

The next day we explored around, trying to find another brand of ATM. After 2 hours of walking around in the sweltering heat, we learned that there were no other ATMs in the city and instead ended up just getting a cash advance.

Laos money in hand, we got some food, and then after haggling with a few drivers, settled on a Tuk Tuk to take us to the waterfall with Adam and Adrian.

Welcome to our primary mode of transport: tractor/truck/moto turned taxi Tuk Tuk. Stellar.

The drive was about 45 minutes or so, and it was really pretty. Laos is such a beautiful country, with so many uninhabited areas, it is a pity there are so many UXO bombs littered throughout the forests so you can't just go aimlessly explore anymore. Keeping with Laos, the waterfall was also very beautiful and we decided to hike up one side to see the view from the top. The hike was not s fun, as it was straight up a mountain, and I was wearing flip flops. Luckily I didn't fall to hard, and we eventually made it to the top.

Testing fate as we peered over the edge at the falls below

At this point, we decided to try to get down on the other side, which was an adventure in and of itself. We actually started out the right way *shocking, but thought we were wrong so we ended up going a different way for a while. After walking for a few minutes we realized we were just walking away from the waterfall and turned around. Eventually we made it down, and the path was much easier, mainly with steps, compared to the cliff scaling of the other side.

Once at the bottom we walked down the falls a bit and went swimming in beautiful turquoise pools at the base of smaller falls. While it was gorgeous, it was also freezing. I could only stand to be in there for a bit, but enjoyed it all the same. After swimming, we returned to our Tuk Tuk driver, who, slowly, took us into town (we were passed multiple times). It was fine though, it's not like we had anywhere to be. I did however enjoy my first drink in a bag. I don't know if I was just really thirsty, but this was the best shake I think I had on my entire trip. Pineapple heavenliness really. I debated going back up to the waterfalls just to get another shake!

Beverages served in bags: another fabulous thing about Asia.

Getting passed... again.

That night we all enjoyed an Indian dinner, which of course, was delicious. Dinner was followed by a walk through of the night market. Luang Prabang has a fabulous night market, that spans down nearly 3 full city blocks, chock full of vendors and artists hawking souvenirs. I found some really cool bamboo guns. They reminded me of the rubber band guns of my youth... oh good times.

Night market

The next morning we set out to book some sort of Elephant excursion, after looking at many, we decided on a 'Mahout Trip' where we would learn how to drive the elephant as well as just ride it. I was excited, especially since riding an elephant was the main thing I wanted to do in Asia while I was there. We ended up doing little else as it was so hot, and the electricity was cut to the city (something about a big building being built that required the entire city to be without power, "or else the workers will die" they said). We spent another night at the market, buying souvenirs and such, and being disgusted by the amount of flies that were everywhere. I am pretty sure they eat them though, since all the ladies were waving bags and catching the bus, and then later I saw large piles of their wings... tasty? I think not.

So gross.

The next morning we got up bright and early to feed the monks before we left for our elephant excursion. In Laos (and maybe everywhere) the monks walk around on the streets each morning to get food for the day. Apparently they eat only what they are given and only before 12 noon. Anyhow, Brooke and I had talked to a few people the day before and they had told us to get up around 5:45 and to go to the street and we would be able to buy sticky rice and banana leaves from women to give to the monks as they walked down the street. So that is exactly what we did.

It was a cool experience, we had only one issue, when a random lady tried to throw a whole lot of food on our tray and then demand we pay her money. It is sad that people are trying to rip off people that are feeding the monks. Seems like a double bad thing...

Feeding the monks... notice lady #2 about to swoop in and drop all her food...

After the monk feeding experience we got all packed up for our elephanting and headed to the agency to catch the bus. A short bus ride later (less than 20 minutes) and we were at the Mahout Camp. The camp was located across a very dirty river, so we took a rickety looking junk across the river. Upon arrival, we immediately saw the elephants. They were standing in the shade, having a morning snack of leafy goodness. Their drivers (Mahout's) were lazily napping on their backs, and it was definitely a great first view.

The baskets are secured with multiple ropes...

Because we had booked the Mahout package, we had to change into fabulously hideous elephant driving clothes, which were quite stylish to say the least. It beat getting our regular clothes all gross though.

Of the 12 people who had rode with us to the camp, only 5 of us were doing the Mahout portion, with the remainder doing only a day trip. Since there were only 6 elephants, we doubled up and started back across the river, this time in the basket on top of our elephants.

Crossing the river was an adventure, it felt like we were going to fall off some times though, which would have been less than enjoyable. After riding for about 10 minutes, our Mahout, perched on the elephants head, turned around and said to me in broken English, "You drive now." I was a bit taken back, as we were moving and I didn't really know how I was going to get out of the basket and onto the head of the elephant without falling, but not to be outdone, I nodded and haphazardly maneuvered myself from the basket to the head. Now this was cool. A bit freaky, but really cool. Or Mahout was teaching me the words to use to get the elephant to go, "Bpa" or something meant GO, "Qua" meant right, "Sai" left, and "YA" no. I really don't think the elephant listened to me at all, as the driver just kicked from the basket, but it was still cool nonetheless. After 'driving' for about 15 minutes, the driver turned to Brooke and said "Now you drive." I thought getting into the driving position was difficult, but it turned out to be much harder to get back into the basket from the head. Pretty much the Mahout ended up just picking me up off the head and placing me in the basket... good thing I am so little.

Brooke drove us to the lunch area, where we had a meager and mostly tasteless lunch.

At least the elephants enjoyed their lunch

After lunch we went back to the elephants, this time starting on the heads as the drivers, each of us on our own elephant. We ended up driving the elephant back all the way to the camp, through the river, and bathing the elephants in the river... or were bathed by our elephants, which was more of the case with Brooke. Fun though.


Brooke had a submarine elephant

Exiting the bath

After getting soaked we took tubes out and floated down the river. It was more like we paddled down the river since it was so calm, but it was pretty hot outside, so it actually felt pretty good. I just had to not look at the water, or think about how all of the elephants had poo'd in it as we had crossed... so nice. Dinner was amazing, again, when local people are cooking you the food, it is so tasty! Of course I gorged myself nearly to the point of pain, but it was so worth it. Because the bugs were out in full force and we were nearly out of our bug spray, we decided to turn in early for the night, and avoid getting completely eaten.

The next morning we got up bright and early to eat breakfast before we drove the elephants back to the lunch area. Driving the elephants was fun again, but my legs were getting sore as the elephants rough skin and prickly hair were rubbing them raw.

Chillin on the elephant, trying to keep my legs off of the prickly skin.

I was happy to be off in the end, but it was worth it for sure. After we dismounted our elephants (which was also an adventure, as I was trying to get off mine without falling in a river of pee from the elephant in front of me, it could have been tragic, but somehow I managed to not fall in the pee) we went out 'bamboo rafting'.

See the pee river?

Look at me! I'm on an elephant (note the enthusiasm, this photo was taken early in the day)

While bamboo rafting sounds cool, it turned out to be not so great, as we were stuck on a tiny raft that didn't go very fast with tons of spiders. I don't know if the spiders were just living in the raft and then when we put it in the water they all came out or what, but for the first 45 minutes of the rafting we kept getting bombarded by huge nasty looking spiders. Gross.

Rafting was followed by another bland lunch which was followed by a 2 hour trek through villages, across rivers, through fields and finally through the forest. It was a beautiful trek, albeit scorching. I wrapped my sarong around my shoulders to avoid getting burnt, and sometimes I actually had it over my head as well.

It was definitely a sweaty experience to say the least. After the trek we were taken by bus back to Luang Prabang, where we randomly ran into Leigh (he had come up through Laos and had just arrived from Vang Vieng) and had dinner and did one last pass through of the night market.

Our hiking trail

I really enjoyed Luang Prabang. Granted it is very hot, but the people are fabulous, and they make a mean smoothie (unlike the crappy ones of Vietnam... but I'm not bitter). I would have liked to spend more time here, but as it always goes, time is always short and we had to fly out from Bangkok one week later, so we weren't really able to stay any longer. It is definitely a must see though for any SE Asia trip for sure though.

Luang Prabang remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After returning from Halong Bay, because we only had a few days left in Vietnam, we quickly found a hotel and booked a trip to Sapa. After quick showers and dinner, we were on our way to the train station. Our high class sleeper train awaited, a big metal very grungy looking box. In our room were 6 beds topped with an old blanket and small rock hard pillow. Don't go thinking we were in the ritz, oh no. These beds were hard as tables, and the over zealous air con and piercing florescent lights only added insult to injury.

Yeah, I was on the top. Right next to the ice machine of an air con.

"Staff Cabin"- we were in the worst of all seats... maybe they ran out of tickets? That's what you get for trying to save money on tickets I guess.

The best was when Brooke tried to find a bathroom. A staff member kept pushing her back into our room and shut the door. Apparently we are so low we are not allowed out...

Needless to say, when we finally arrived, 12 hours later, I was frozen (I was wearing everything I brought... which wasn't much, since we left our packs in Haoi with Allie), tired and grumpy.

After a bit of craziness, we got onto a van with other tourists and began the drive to Sapa town. The drive was pretty, but was an hour long, cramped, and very windy. Of course, with our luck it was foggy and looked like it was going to rain. When we finally got to Sapa, the bus started dropping various people off at different hotels. We were dropped off last with a couple of other tourists, at a really nice looking hotel... but no, this was not the hotel we were staying at, and after trying unsuccessfully to check in, then waiting for 20 minutes and finally being picked up by 2 motos, we were at the right hotel. Still tired, grumpy and hungry, we were irritated to say the least... oh, and it had started raining, and of course we didn't bring our rain jackets... no those we had left in Hanoi. After breakfast of ramen with a fried egg, we left to go trekking. Our tour consisted of our guide, Ha, and two other tourists, Maily, a girl from Canada and Leigh, a guy from Wales. Ha was very concerned about my lack of appropriate shoes (what, Vans are not muddy trekking shoes?) and since we had no rain jackets either, we stopped in the town to pick up some cheapo-jackets.

As we were walking through the town, women dressed in all sorts of colorful outfits began to follow us. Ha told us they were villagers who would walk with us and try to be our friend and then at the end of the trek try to sell us something.

Even with the haze, the trek was beautiful. Rice patties were everywhere, and the rain was mearly a trickle. The village women kept trying to talk to us, but they all asked the same 5 questions: 1. Where are you from? 2. How old are you? 3. What is your name? 4. Do you have a boyfriend? 5. How long are you in Sapa? I, getting tired of the same questions, started making up crazy answers, saying I was from Zimbabwe and other ridiculous places. In the end, the four of us travelers just ended up talking with each other the whole time, a welcome relief from the banter. For lunch we stopped at a little hut where we ate loaves of bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, and bananas. Simple but good. As if on cue, the village women tried to sell us many things but we said no. I really didn't want the purses and bracelets they were trying to sell. Instead, Leigh gave our leftover lunch to them and they seemed very grateful.

Full, we kept walking along the trail. After another 1 1/2 hours we came to a village. We had chosen to stay at a village house instead of at the hotel. After a quick tea break, the little girls who had been following us since lunch started to talking to us again. We asked Ha what we were supposed to do for the rest of the day, he just smiled, shrugged his shoulders and went inside to take a nap.

With that we decided to have the girls show us around. First they took us down to the river (apparently you go swimming when it isn't so cold). One of the little girls, Chee had "allowed" her 5 year old sister, Coo, to come along which was "very lucky for her." Coo was so cute, and could barely speak any English, and instead she just stood there, watching everything.

Brooke with Chee and Coo

After the river, Chee said she wanted to take us go to her house. Since we had nothing else to do we went. Getting there was a bit of an adventure as we walked through rice fields, up steep hills, in between houses, and around trees to get to her house.

Trekking out to their home.

When we arrived we saw her dad chopping wood. There were 4 foreigners and 5 girls which looked like quite the arrival party. He smiled and motioned that we could go in. We went into her very small, dark, damp house that had no lights and dirt floors. The house consisted of one large room with a television, another room with a hole in the floor for a cooking fire and a curtained off area for their parent's 'room'. On top of the main room, they had built a loft type area, where bags of rice were stored and the girls slept.

It was interesting to see their house, but I felt a bit odd, and kind of intrusive. After viewing the home we trekked back down to the homestay. Again, the trek was super steep, and it is shocking I did not fall in the mud. The views of the rice fields were amazing though and made up for the slightly treacherous conditions. When we arrived at the homestay the girls started asking us to buy something from them. Since they had been our tour guides and entertainment for the past 4 hours we each purchased a little something equaling $1-2 a person. One of the girl's got very upset because no one bought anything from her. She started crying and didn't leave for an hour and a half. We tried to ignore her as to not promote that kind of behavior. Leigh tried to explain to her that he had given her sister double the amount of money so she would share with her. She didn't care. She just kept crying. Finally, after her mother came, she left, and we put our cards away and went inside for dinner.

Coo, eating sticky rice at her house.

At the homestay, a woman and her son lived, and served as the cooks for the evening. Oh my goodness, the dinner was amazing! It was a delicious spread of rice, vegetables, meats (which I didn't eat) spring rolls, and beans. I ate so many spring rolls, and loved every minute of it. After dinner we played some more cards, watched a bit of soccer, chatted and then went to bed at 11pm... not much to do in a quiet village without electricity at night...

The next morning, we had a very sweet breakfast of crepes with honey, lime, sugar, and bananas.


Notice they are all just hovering, the only way to get them to not try to sell you things was to completely ignore them. I felt bad, but they are intense and it is the only way.

After breakfast we headed out trekking to a waterfall. It had poured rain all night, making the trail awful, muddy, wet, and dangerous. Again, we had our village women guides, but this time we needed them, as each basically held our hands as we made our way down the super slippery trail through and between the rice fields. It turned out that my trekking Vans served me well, as I didn't even fall (not because of me, but because my little lady held on tight, and caught me from falling multiple times)- Brooke did take one tumble, which Leigh stealthily caught on film, but for the most part, the trek was uneventful.

Lunch consisted of another bowl of ramen with an egg and cabbage. Simple, but it was warm, so it was good. We saw the waterfall and then took about a 20 min trek up to a main road where a van took us back to our hotel.

After a warm shower (it was more eventful for Brooke, as it broke, and she had to just use a hose) we went downstairs and had a disgusting dinner. The first dish they brought out looked like pieces of dried chicken coated in something. Brooke and Leigh tried it, very chewy they said... because it wasn't chicken, but fried frog. Yummy! Yet again, another reason I am glad I am Vegan. Brooke ate a few pieces but I don't think she liked it all that much. Everything they gave us was gross. I ended up eating rice with soy sauce.

After our dismal dinner, a bus came to take us back to the train station. A woman on the bus got sick, and threw up (gross!) LUCKILY, she threw up right as we were pulling into the train station. Since we arrived over an hour early (another common thing about booked tours, they always drop you off super early in front of a restaurant in hopes you will buy something) we walked around a bit and bought some snacks for our trip.

Because our trip there had been so comfortable, we tried to upgrade our tickets, but were told we would have to pay $15 to be in a VIP class because all the seats were sold out (doubtful, but since we can't speak Vietnamese, we couldn't really say anything). Not wanting to spend that much, we resigned ourselves to another crappy ride, and at 7.00 we met up with the man who was to get us on the train. Some of the other foreigners in our group were getting very anxious as they wanted to be holding an actual ticket to know they would get on. They were yelling and arguing with all the Vietnamese men and everyone was getting frustrated. We decided that as long as we got on the train it would be fine, since we knew our seats sucked anyways, and they wouldn't be giving those away. It did seem though that the men gave our tickets to the angry foreigners, but the man came over to us and said, "Stay here, no worries, no problems." Again, we decided getting frustrated would get us no where, so we did. We really weren't worried anyway, since it was 20 min before the train left and lots of people were still waiting to get on. Finally, he walked us over to the train, discussed with a conductor the situation, and we were put on a much nicer car. Nice beds, only 4 people to a room, and soft blankets and pillows. We did have to move once which was a bit of a scare because we were obviously in someone else's car, but after moving, we settled into a car that was pretty much empty -- so much for all the other classes being "sold out" -- There were tons of open beds. We made friends with the Vietnamese man in our car who was a little to friendly and an hour and a half later once we could get him to go up to his bed, we went to sleep.

We arrived in Hanoi on Monday morning at 4.45am and took a moto-taxi to our hotel which we had prepaid for. They told us we could check into our room at 8.30 and that we could sit at a table and wait. The whole day we did pretty much nothing. Which was nice... though our room was crazy, as the ceiling was leaking, and we didn't have hot water until 2 pm. The hotel people were not to helpful, and kept saying everything was fine... which it wasn't. We got some extra towels to catch the water spots... which quickly soaked full of water. At one point the cleaning ladies saw that we were using towels on the ground and got angry and stole the towels, seriously what else were we supposed to do? I promptly re-stole the towels from them and placed them back on the floor.

Brooke wanted to see the water puppet show, so I went out and got tickets. The show was interesting to say the least.

Water puppetry at it's best. I think he is chasing a frog in this one...

Weird, and slightly creepy may have been a better way to describe it. It was funny though since Brooke had been talking about it for 2 weeks and it turned out to be so weird. The most exciting part of the show was when a giant rat ran up the wall and the crowd got a bit excited. Regardless though, it was good to see, I'm sure we would have regretted it if not, but if you visit Vietnam, I would probably skip it...

The puppeteers....

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Hoi An Market

Attempting to escape the rain in Hoi An

Because we had spent so much time (and money) in Hoi An) we opted to skip Hue completely and booked ourselves bus tickets straight through to Hanoi (not before we mailed home all of our purchases however... my pack is so little, there is no way they would have fit even if I had wanted to carry them around...). Again, the bus was mostly uneventful, aside from the crazy drivers, but that is to be expected by now. 5:30 am brought us, tired, dirty and sore to Hanoi. Our plan was to see Halong Bay and then return to Hanoi for our flight out to Laos. In the travel agency we met a girl from the UK who was also looking into a trip to Halong Bay. Because the tour agent would not sell us a ticket for the trip leaving that morning the 3 of us decided instead to head out to Halong City ourselves and book a tour on our own.

This trip turned out to be very exciting. First, when we arrived at the bus station, everyone was yelling and we got pushed inside some random bus. Our saving grace was a boy who spoke decent English in front of us. He served as our translator and told us we were on the right bus to Halong City. We did have a brief dispute about fare once we were already on the bus, but eventually it all worked out alright. Since we were on a gov't bus, the driver was very determined to pick up as many passengers as possible. Apparently he got more money the more people he had? I don't know... What I do know was that half way through the drive we came up on another minibus to Halong City and the craziest (read insanely terrifying) game of car chase ensued. We actually ran through 2 different toll booths, and on one occasion the driver drove through a lane that was closed, having another guy jump out and move a large iron fence to plow through and pass the other bus. It was hysterical, albeit scary; watching the buses scream through the cities, with the guys hanging out yelling at people to get on there bus to Halong City. Needless to say, we arrived to our destination earlier than we had thought.

Driving in Vietnam at it's prime, We are trying to pass the other white gov't bus, with that big yellow truck in the on coming lane...

Again, trying to pass, while the guy is yelling out the door trying to get more passengers... A bit further, after blowing through a toll booth, we passed the other bus.

Once at the dock, we went about trying to get a tour. This turned out to be harder than we had anticipated. There was only one guy selling tours, and he was more expensive than had we just booked from Hanoi. Though slightly annoyed, we were able to eventually get him down to the price in Hanoi and got on a boat heading to Cat Ba Island.

On my moto en route to Halong bay

The all inclusive tour included a visit to a cave and stay over in a hotel at Cat Ba Island for the first night and a night on the boat with kayaking on the second day. The caves were cool, though a bit dramatized with colored lights, and I enjoyed the walk through. I don't know how they were formed (our English speaking guide spoke pretty poor English), but the caves were discovered less than 15 years ago, so they are still in pretty good condition.

After the caves, we docked and disembarked for Cat Ba Island. Looking to save money and gas, one minibus showed up to transport 15 passengers and all of there bags. It was so crazy squished, and the 30 km drive to our hotel was less than enjoyable.

When we finally did arrive at our hotel we found that it was the only hotel outside of the city. It was 2 km from anything, a bit of a drag if you want to do anything. Another added 'bonus' was that Cat Ba Island is run by a generator and therefore has no electricity between the hours of 5 am and 6:30 pm. This translated into no internet, and no messages back to home, yielding in apparent terror from the Beijing earthquake (which I don't really understand as I am in Vietnam and no where near Beijing... China is a huge country...). Anyways, the next day we trekked up a mountain... Literally. We actually climbed up rocks for a bit. Slightly ridiculous, but it resulted in a decent view of the Island (I would have been fine without it, but I didn't know that until AFTER I had completed the trek...).

After the trek, we returned to our hotel for lunch, a nap (me)/beach time (Brooke and Allie) and were picked up to be taken to the boat.

Nice to see some things never change and I am still a blanket hog

The van took us back to the same dock, but when the tour guy said, "I'm sorry, there is no more room on the boat," we were not so happy. The whole reason we had come on this tour in the first place was to sleep on a boat, and dang it, we were going to sleep on a boat. We calmly told the agent this, he went away talked on his phone and came back and said we could all (the 3 of us) share one bed. Again, we explained to the man, that while we knew it was not his fault that the boat was overbooked we were not going to pay full price to all share a bed. We said we would consider this option if we were refunded part of our tickets, since we had paid to each get our own beds on the boat. The magical thing about Vietnam and booking tours is that, all you have to do is say you want your money back, and, as if by magic, things appear. After we asked for a refund, magically 2 full rooms opened up and we were able to stay the night in our own beds (Allie actually had 2).

After the bed fiasco we immediately went out Kayaking. Brooke and I kayaked around a big island thing, which from far away looked smaller... it was fun though, and we returned to the boat, had dinner and played cards with some girls from the Netherlands, and France. Allover an enjoyable time. The next morning found us cruising back to Halong City where we had lunch and then returned to Hanoi. As a side note, our driver went SO SLOW! Well, maybe just normal speed, but having grown accustomed to crazy drivers, it made the trip seem to take forever... just a side note...

Crazy travels through Vietnam remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Our splurge of the trip, a 2 star hotel.

We set out on foot, exploring the beach, finding food and overall having an enjoyable time in Nha Trang. The weather was beautiful, and the smaller city was a welcome relief from the craze that was HCMC. Nha Trang, apparently a big area for Vietnamese holidays, was very tourist friendly, with lots of little shops and food choices. Dinner found us at an awesome Indian restaurant where we gorged ourselves on tasty Nan, curry and rice. Needless to say, I practically had to be rolled back to our hotel I was so stuffed.

Beach down the street from our hotel

Since we were only spending one night in Nha Trang, we wanted to get an early start on our next day and started out the next morning at 7 am. We rented our first motorbike, from a man on the side of the street named Mr. Lam. It never ceases to amaze me how trusting these people are with tourists. We showed up, wrote down our names, told him our hotel name, paid him 6 USD and were given a shiny black bike with 2 helmets. We didn't show any ID, give him our passports or anything. For all he knows we could drive the bike to Hanoi and never return... lucky for him we are honest...

It was funny though, when we got our bike, both Brooke and I looked at it, a bit apprehensive, Mr. Lam asked, "You drive before?" Brooke confidently said yes (she had driven one twice, more than my once), and after he showed us how to start and brake we were off to a fabulous, albeit wobbly, start.

Our days itinerary consisted of Monkey Island (which, after searching the Internet in vain for directions, I eventually got the hotel to write down what it was called in Vietnamese) followed by waterfalls. Mind you, we had not researched the waterfalls, but Mr. Lam, when we rented the bike said, after "Monkey Island you see waterfalls, just go 3 km more." With those stellar directions we headed out. To be fair, we had a map with an arrow in the direction/road to initially drive and the receptionist, though surprised we were going to go on our own, did say you stay on HWY 1 the whole time. Once we did stop to ask directions... well ask may be a stretch, as we stopped at a fork in the road where at a small shack, turned make shift convenience store I was able to beckon to a woman, who though she spoke no English, when I showed her the Vietnamese words and looked confused (something I have perfected) she pointed to go right... Eventually we made it to the boat dock (18 km outside of town, 17 km off the map... go us huh?). Since we can't have all the luck, we had just missed the boat, and 15 minutes later, after staying off the package deal offers and eating a distasteful pistachio popsicle (green, I thought lime, not so much... I don't recommend it), we took the short boat ride that brought us to Monkey Island.

At the pier, waiting for the boat to take us out to the island

Monkey Island is a small island that is less a Monkey sanctuary as it is a commercialized establishment, home to tons of monkeys that, due to all the tourists constantly feeding them, are mostly tame. The island boasts showing monkeys in their 'natural habitat', which is a stretch for sure, but was pretty cool. The monkeys are really smart though, and right after they sold the 'monkey food' the monkeys jumped up on the tourists, scaring them and causing them to drop their bags of food, resulting in the monkeys getting all the food. I, stupidly, was eating an orange, and had a hungry entourage of monkeys, begging and jumping up on me trying to get my fruit. Selfishly, I slurped up the entire orange, faster than I would have liked, to avoid getting attacked by all of the crazy monkeys.

Completing the commercial extortion of the monkeys was a 'Dog and Monkey Show'. Dogs walking on 2 legs, monkeys riding the backs of dogs and racing, goats walking on balance beams and monkeys doing all sorts of tricks (my fav was the bicycle riding, complete with a Tuk Tuk driver and passenger). In the end though, the whole thing was pretty inhumane. All of the monkeys were wearing collars with leashes and when they came out they would hold the leash so their handlers wouldn't pull so hard and hurt their necks. I can't imagine the trainers are that kind to them, 2 animals tried to escape, and the man did not yell happy sounding words at them... oh gosh; my PETA is showing, sorry...

Leashes aside, this was my fav: Tuk Tuk driver with passenger, notice how the monkey is crossing 'her' legs??

Having had enough of animal cruelty we caught the boat back to the dock and set off in hopes of finding waterfalls. Much to my shock, we did eventually find the falls, whether they were the ones Mr. Lam had spoke of is debatable, but it was an enjoyable adventure finding it anyway so all was well. (To actually find the turn off we had to ask 3 different people, and got our point across by drawing a picture of a waterfall... I am quite a gifted artist... pointing to our water bottle and making ridiculous hand motions... regardless we got there in the end).

Ba Ho, the waterfall area, was a forest area with 3 different waterfalls you can visit by trekking up to them. After paying the entrance fee we set off on the trail. Apparently we looked like we may drown, as a young Vietnamese forest ranger followed us and helped us find our way their and back from the waterfalls (which turned out to be nice, as we may not have found the falls on our own.)

Though not overly spectacular, the falls were pretty, and the best part was being able to swim below the falls in the natural pools. After the falls, we returned to Nha Trang, almost crashed into a parked bike (don't worry, all was well in the end), and prepared for yet another 12 hour bus ride to Hoi An...

Nha Trang... remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Following our bus ride from Hades (i.e. Siem Reap to PP), we were determined to enjoy our ride from PP to HCMC. With this in mind, we booked our tickets in advance, requested the front row and hoped for the best. 7 am came and we were picked up for the bus, driven less than a block and told to wait. A major irritant I have with this area is that they pick you up and force you to sit and wait for at least an hour every time you catch any sort of public transport. Also, generally no one speaks any English so it is hard to know which bus you should actually be getting on! After waiting for 15 minutes or so with no idea of what to do (people kept looking at us and saying 'wait here'), we talked to the guy with the megaphone (megaphone = importance, he must be in charge of something right?) and he said to wait here (shocking) and that the bus would be the next one. After waiting another 20 minutes, another bus pulled out, Mr. Megaphone waved at us and we got on the bus, in hopes we would arrive in HCMC later that day. Conclusion, I've said it a thousand times, but being patient, looking confused and asking loads of questions will get you far. I for one am shocked I have not gotten on the wrong bus by mistake through my different travels. I think my only saving grace is the fact that I ask so many people questions that I eventually get turned back around into the right direction.

Finally on our bus, our ride turned out to be fabulous. There were only 6 people on our bus, which was a bit ridiculous, especially when we took a ferry across a river, parked right next to another bus going to HCMC that was also quite empty. You think they could have coordinated and put us all on one bus... It would definitely save a lot of gasoline that is for sure, but who cares about conservation. The rest of the ride however went over without much of a hitch, with good seats, good music volume, and slightly cold... but much better than any other ride we have had. Ironically, with nearly the entire bus open, Brooke and I stayed in the front seats. We could have each had 4 seats, but whatever. All the books had warned of corrupt Vietnamese officials scamming money at the border crossing, and after the fiasco in Cambodia, we were prepared for the worst. In actuality however, it turned out to be fine, easy actually, well all except the part when the bus almost left me at the border of Vietnam when the guard could not find my entry stamp. I walked out of the building just as the bus was pulling away. Flashbacks of Florence ensued; this time however, Brooke was able to convince the driver to stop. (You would think he would have noticed though; there were only 6 of us on the bus in the first place! Again, whatever.)

Safely on the bus, we arrived in HCMC around 3 pm, got a hostel (after bargaining, and climbing many sets of stairs to see different rooms), and set off to see the War Remnants museum and Reunification palace. Because we didn't have much time, we opted to just look at the Reunification palace and not go through it. Before the war, it was the seat of the South Vietnamese govt, and it was here that the North Vietnamese tank broke through the gate, taking Saigon and officially ending the war. After looking at the tank for a bit through the gate (fixed to my dismay... it would have been way cooler if it was still broken... not practical mind you, but cooler) we went to the War Remnants museum.

The War Remnants museum was very interesting as it was information on the Vietnam War from the perspective of the North Vietnamese. It was very different to how I had learned about the war, as the 'enemy' talked about in the displays, was actually America. One of the areas of the museum was completely dedicated to the atrocities of war, focusing heavily on Agent Orange and napalm. The thing that was the most horrible about these was the lasting effects they had on the people of Vietnam. Birth defects, disfiguring burns, the signs from these weapons are everywhere. I would like to hope the USA did not understand the lasting effects these weapons would have... I hope. One thing I learned from the museum was that, of the 3 mil casualties from the war, 2 mil were civilians... I don't know, devastation of war is awful to say the least.

After the museum, we walked by HCMC's version of Notre Dame Cathedral, apparently a smaller version of the original? I wouldn't know as I've never been. We also walked by the Opera House, which, just as in America, is surrounded by all of the uppity shops like LV, Burberry and other ridiculously priced labels. Dinner was a fabulous experience, as HCMC has many veg restaurants. Zen, was just that: delicious veg food with no more mystery meat.

Our posh veg place, so fancy, but still cheap.

The next morning, after booking air tickets to Laos and making our tour bus wait for us, we went to Cu Chi tunnels. As is standard with nearly all set tours, we had a stop over at a handicapped artisan factory, where again, the driver almost left some people... A simple act of counting how many passengers are in the van before you speed off would save a lot of heartaches.

The Cu Chi tunnels were an extensive system built 3 levels deep, very tiny and dirty and showed how the Vietcong got around and lived underground in Cu Chi near Saigon. The tour guide for the other group was really good and I think he may have fought in the war, as he was very knowledgeable and anti-American (not in a mean way, but you could definitely tell his side).

The tour guide explained that the Vietcong men women and children all fought against Americans, setting traps, shooting from fox holes underground etc. The most interesting thing was that they used anything we left behind to fight us: tires for shoes, old bombs to make new ones and land mines, any can (tuna, soda etc) they could find they converted into land mines etc. Children and people to old or young to fight would help by laboring in the fields to get food to feed the soldiers. There was definitely a community wide effort in this area to rid out the Americans.

Notice I am getting out of the hole by myself. The tour guide definitely doubted my strength and abilities to do so... I am so buff though and easily got out of the hole.

At the end of the tour, we were to walk/crawl through about 40 m of tunnels. The first section of the tunnels was greatly enlarged for tourists, while the latter half not as much. 2 large American men could only fit through the first section, and for some parts of the later sections I had to crawl it was so narrow. For the tourists, they had installed lights in parts of the tunnels, but in some parts there were no lights and it was SO dark. It would have been so scary during war going through these tunnels, especially since the VC planted traps within the tunnels ("welcome to Vietnam" as the tour guide laughed), and since it is pitch black (you cannot even see your hand in front of your face) it would have been near impossible to be able to miss the traps.

After the tunnels, we tasted tapioca root, a staple for VC troops during the war... It actually wasn't that bad, bland, but ok. But then again, I like some pretty weird things, I am sure it got old day after day though.

Another thing they had us try was Rice Whiskey with snakes and other vile creatures in it. I passed, but others in the group tried it... mostly I thought it just looked really disgusting.

After our tour, we returned to the city, did some shopping in the crazy busy market, picked up some snacks for the bus, ate dinner at another (more classy) veg place, got our plane tickets to Laos and got on the sleeper bus. Next up, Nha Trang...

Vietnam: HCMC remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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At 8 am, when no one had shown up for our 7 am bus departure, we began to think we had been scammed. Why did we buy tickets from a random lady in a shop under construction to save 20 Baht!! (50 cents) Around 7:45 we met another girl with similar looking tickets who had also booked through the same lady, and her bus too was late. She was lucky, as within 5 minutes, someone came to get her, and told us to still wait, our bus was coming. So we waited (something traveling on the cheap will make you good at) We were very relieved, when around 8:05 a little Thai man came and told us to walk to the end of the street to get the bus. Apparently a family of four was an hour late, delaying our departure. Seriously? Come on; let’s get this show on the road.

Holding umbrellas for money

Once on the bus, the actual ride turned out to be not so bad. It was a bit hot, but the bus was mostly empty, so we were able to spread out a lot. Getting through to Cambodia turned out to be another story however. Getting out of Thailand was no problem, but the bus we came on wouldn't let Brooke and I go ahead of the group and forced us to go with them, turning out to be the beginning of the scam. Once we reached the Cambodian border, the scamming officials would only accept 1000 Thai Baht instead of the listed 20 USD fee. Determined to not pay 30 USD to get into Cambodia when it is listed at 20 USD we tried, (in vain) to argue with the officials. It turns out the Cambodian mob (who knows who they are really, but I will call them the mob...) wouldn't let any white person through with using USD and would only take 100 Baht. After trying other ways for about 45 min we broke down, paid the 1000 Baht charge, vowed to hate the Cambodian mob, and entered, hot and slightly irritated into Cambodia.

Mafia run Cambodian border

Being smart (er, crazy) travelers, Brooke and I had only booked the bus to the border, with the plan to find 2 people to share a cab to Siem Reap once across the border. As luck would have it, we met 2 American girls from Seattle while in the Cambodia Visa line and we shared a taxi for the rest of the trip through Cambodia to Siem Reap for 48 USD (8 USD over the actual fare; again corrupt Govt mob). The taxi was definitely worth it, as a govt mob bus (read in, probably a scam, and would get you into Siem Reap super late...) would have been awful, as the roads were absolutely horrendous: words do not adequately describe the bumps, detours, and general disarray. This area would definitely be an off-roading boys dream, personally, the 7 hour bumpy ride was less than enjoyable... but that's just me...

I wish you could see all of the pot holes in this picture

Another bonus with the cab was that we did not have to stop at random, unscheduled stops and could go much faster, we actually passed the bus we would have been on had we booked tickets straight from Bangkok to Siem Reap, which made us dislike Cambodia a little less, though our backs were getting a beating from the roads so it may have been a toss up. When we finally arrived in Siem Reap, we easily got a hostel and a driver and friend to join us for an early morning exploration of the temples.

DAY 1:

5 am Sunrise on Angkor Wat

Angor Wat... with no tourists... some kind of miracle truly

Gate at Angkor Thom

All of the stairs we climbed all day long

Bayon

Ta Prom: the temple from Tomb Raider with Jolie

More trees growing out of temples

A monk looking on at Pre Rup

Looking down from one of the smaller temples in the 'grand tour'

Our tour ended with watching the sunset at Baphun and then returning to Siem Reap, exhausted, around 7:30 pm. Starving, we found cheap street food for dinner, then returned to our hostel, took cold showers (no hot water in our budget accommodation) and collapsed into bed.

DAY 2:
Because the previous day had been so exhausting, we chose to start around 9 am the second day, to give us a bit of a sleep in hopes it would rejuvenate us and make us excited once again to see the temples.

Day 2 had us begin with the smaller temples of the Rolous group, and then finished with the far out temple of Bataray Sarie. It started raining when we were at the last temple of the day, but because I had already seen loads of temples, it was more of a welcome relief to the beating heat than anything else.

After another long day of temples, we finished evening with dinner and some shopping at the night market.

Conclusion: Siem Reap is a must see for trips to SE Asia. Even with the crappy roads and corrupt officials, it was amazing. As far as time lines, it is doable to see all the major temples of Angor in one day (from 5 am to 6:30 pm). It is however not advisable as we were absolutely exhausted and worn out of temples by the time the day was through... My recommendation? Buy a 3 day pass; see the Rolous group and the Batary Sarie temple on the first day. Day 2 do the grand tour with sunset at Bayon. Day 3 finish with Sunrise at Angor Wat and finish the rest of the small loop. You will definitely appreciate it all more, and you won't be to tired to take it all in.

A Cambodian woman patching my cheapo Bangkok bag.

From Siem Reap we booked bus tickets to Phnom Penh. While the roads were much better, the bus ride was awful: our 2nd to last row gems of seats yielded a 7 hour, smelly, hot, overcrowded (a few people on the bus actually stood the whole time), and extremely loud bad Cambodian bubble gum pop karaoke ride... What irritated me the most was the girl in the next row up opened her window, killing what little amount of A/C was trickling out of the vents and making the back of the bus even hotter... not so fun. We will definitely be sure to book near the front of the bus in the future. As a side note, on our ride into Phnom Pehn we stopped for the usual food and WC break, what found us here however was not the usual foods for sale. Crickets, spiders and frogs were just a few of the delicacies to be had at our rest stop. Of course, people were also sporting pineapples and mangos, but after seeing all of the fried bugs, I couldn't get myself to eat a thing.

Fried frogs, can you see their eyes and legs?

This woman was picking through her wares and would occasionally grab one and eat it. She was selling crickets, roaches and spiders. Praise veg.

Having arrived in Phnom Penh around 2 pm, we had already scoped out a hotel in my guide book that was close enough to walk from the bus station. A quick orientation and we were able to avoid the moto touts and head off in the right direction on foot and made it to the Royale Guesthouse within 10 minutes. Because they didn't have any budget rooms available (sometimes I wonder if they are lying, just to fill up the expensive ones first... most likely), we took a grand room with 2 double beds, A/C, TV, fridge, private bath and it was only up ONE flight of stairs. After a much needed shower, we set off to see some of the city before it got dark. We walked up to Wat Phnom, the highest point in the city, don't get to excited though, it's only up like 50 steps or something, not all that impressive as it is the highest point. The ride there was more impressive, as we experienced our first motor bike ride, with me riding side saddle in a skirt. The visit to Wat Phnom wasn't a complete bust however though, as walking up the steps however, I did see my first monkey up close. It was just chilling on the steps, eating a cucumber, minding its own business.

One unfortunate thing about SE Asia is everywhere you go you are constantly hounded by people begging for money, or trying to sell you some photo copied book or ripped off sunglasses. It gets quite annoying when people won't leave you alone. The kids are cute, but eventually it all gets old.

This guy wasn't begging, just enjoying his cucumber at Wat Phnom

After Wat Phnom, we head out on foot to find the post office. A confusing twisting journey had us eventually to the post office, but not before it had started to rain. Since we were traveling light, neither of us had packed rain jackets and we opted for the cheap 50 cent ponchos instead. Dashing fashion aside, they were a cheap alternative to getting soaked.

A less than appetizing meal of spring rolls later, which involved mystery innards (hopefully it was veg, but after the bus stops with all of the fried bugs and frogs for sale to eat, you can never really know), along with seeing a rat in the restaurant that was as big as a cat (no lie, seriously, I wanted to see a rat like that the whole time I was in NYC, but instead, got it at a meal in Cambodia... be careful what you wish for) finished my first day in PP. So far, not my favorite city, but ok...

Day 2 in PP started with a trip to the Nat'l Museum to see the Silver Pagoda, which we passed on, because we didn't want to pay the 6+ USD entrance fee. Instead, we made our way to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-21). During the Khmer Rouge, the school was converted into a prison. The school/prison consisted of 4 buildings, used for cells and to torture more than 14,000 people before taking them to the Killing Fields south of Phnom Penh, where they were killed.

The museum was very disturbing, with pictures of many of the tortured people. What was most interesting t me about the whole thing was the amount of young people in the KR. Over 50% of the members were 15 years or younger. They would take small children and indoctrinate them with the KR mind set, raising monsters with no remorse or common decency towards other people.

They were planning to empty all of the cities and create an agrarian society. They worked to completely empty the cities and forced everyone to work in the rice fields all day in hopes to triple the countries rice production. They focused most on killing people with education, anyone with skills. They only wanted citizens who would not think, but would be willing to work and not complain. Obviously, the plan did not work, but in the 10 years or so that they were in power, 1/3 of the countries population was killed.

The most disturbing part of the museum was the skulls stacked in cabinets, showing how the KR killed many of their victims by beating them with the blunt end of the gun, to save 'precious bullets'. It is awful how war can make you so evil. Even freakier is that if over 50% of the KR was under 15 while they were in power, which would put the surviving members at around 50 years old... just old enough to start coming in power again... something to think about anyway.

We had planned to see the Killing Fields following the museum, however, we were both so disturbed with the museum that we felt we had seen enough and instead opted for the Russian Market. Window shopping and a delicious and very cheap meal later found us on another moto, this time headed for the main shopping mall of PP. Brooke had to get her nails filled, and I planned to get a pedicure. Our hostel had said this would be the best bet for finding a decent nail place so we tried it out. 3 hours later, we each had a mani/pedi (Brooke with a fill as well) and for 2 USD (Brooke paid more...) I was quite satisfied. For dinner, we ate at a restaurant on top of the mall. The circular shaped restaurant looked out over PP and was a neat atmosphere (I unfortunately could eat nothing on the menu and instead had rice... ah well, the life). During dinner, the rain had returned, this time being more of a downpour however. When we got down to the street, we found that it had been raining for a long time and the streets were beginning to flood. Not to be outdone, we donned our rain jackets and set out to trudge through the nearly knee deep water.

Do not misunderstand, this was possibly the grossest thing I have done so far in SE Asia. As we were walking through the nasty water, all I could think of was all of the garbage and putrid mud that had lined the streets that morning. All of it was now washing away, and all around my legs. I finally broke down and paid for a Tuk Tuk, only to find that within 1/2 a block the water had mostly cleared and that we were only 4 blocks from our place. All the same, the shower I took that evening scrubbing my legs was much needed.

As for pictures, I have still yet to post since Turkey... because I haven't been able to upload the pics. Maybe soon? But definitely not until I can find a decent internet connection, as uploading over dial-up is crazy slow.

The Temples of Angkor remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Arrived from Macau, ahead of schedule and met the McPhie's at the airport after a quick and painless stop through customs and immigration. 20 minutes later we were at the Hotel de McPhie, which, while they insisted was meager, was absolutely amazing compared to where we had been staying. A big bed, clean bath WITH hot water, A/C, great company, what more could you want? I dare to say not much.

Since Brooke and I had not eaten much (if anything) solid all day (we had no more HK dollars, and did not want to get out Macau money as you cannot change it into anything), we immediately set out to feed ourselves. One amazing Thai dinner and a discussion on how Thai's eat (fork in left eat with spoon right: Elder McPhie, eat with fork in right use spoon left: Sister McPhie), we were full and happy. A showing of Vantage Point ended the evening nicely.

A meal the following day... Pad Thai from a street vendor for 25 cents...

The next morning we set out to see the sights of Bangkok. With help from some people the McPhie's work with, we were able to conjur a cab into the city, headed for the Grand Palace.
The Grand Palace was marvelous, with beautifully ornate carvings and decorations adorning every inch of wall space.

A shrubbery! On the Grand Palace grounds.

Offerings at the Grand Palace.

After the Grand Palace we walked to KhaoSan street, say it with me AUGH... but we had to book bus tickets to get to Cambodia the next day and felt like this was our best bet. ANYWAY, while here we were shuffled through a miriad of shops and made a Napali man very happy when we decided to buy suits (at 98 USD for a jacket, skirt and shirt, its not to bad!).

With our suits initially purchased, we shared a 50 Baht lunch of Watermelon and papaya salad and set out to explore more of the city. A scamming Tuk Tuk driver took us to 2 sights, the Golden Buddha and the black Buddha (not really a Buddha, but a black statue of a Rama), along with 2 tailor shops, which we didn't buy anything from, since we had already got our suits (and for like 1/4 of what these shops wanted). Needless to say it was slightly annoying, but for 5 Baht (about 15 cents) and the crazy game of Tuk Tuk frogger our driver played across intersections, it was worth it.

After being abandoned at the Rama statue (not a big deal as we had a map, and it was near where we wanted to go next), we walked to the Golden Mount. A big yellow Mountain Fortress in the middle of Bangkok, we climbed around the structure to get to the top and see around Bangkok, which was interesting, but mostly just a big crowded mess of buildings, with the occasional Wat.

Following our golden trek, we set out to see the Victory monument, our attempts were thwarted however, as we were sidetracked by groceries and finding a ATM for cash to purchase bus tickets to Cambodia. We got all but 1 block away, when we had to grab a Tuk Tuk back to Khaosan and buy the tickets and have our first suit fittings. Alas.

With all of the crazy drivers in these countries it is a wonder there are not more accidents. As we were driving back to buy the tickets, a woman on a scooter was cut off behind us and crashed. Luckily she escaped with a still working bike and some pretty nasty road rash. Crazy happenings in this city though...

Our day ended with a slightly chaotic cab ride back to the McPhie's, as neither we, nor our driver, could understand where they lived. Eventually we made our way however, ending a fabulous first day in Bangkok.... tomorrow Cambodia.

One day in Bangkok... remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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After the long and drawn out process of traveling to Hong Kong from Turkey (which included, much to my mothers dismay, a brief stopover in Qatar, which translated into a very smelly 8 hour plane ride to Hong Kong, there is just something about that region that does not bode well with my nose... anyways) I arrived, an hour early to Hong Kong. I was exhausted, for some reason, I still cannot sleep on planes, and by the time I made it through the horrendous customs line to be admitted into the country.

Interesting side story: I almost didn't get let on my plane in Turkey, because I don't have a return ticket from Hong Kong. Luckily for me, I was able to persuade the ticket lady to let me through, because I had a return out of Bangkok within 90 days of my arrival in Hong Kong. Another traveller I met in the airport in Hong Kong was not as fortunate however, as she made him buy a return ticket in Istanbul from Hong Kong before she would let him check in through security. Of course, once I got to Hong Kong, they did not care, or even check if I had a return ticket, the wonderful world of customs...

Haha welcome to Asia...

Anyways, back to Hong Kong. Having arrived early than I had expected (because my plane from Qatar left 1 hour early... I guess they just leave once everyone is there as opposed to the scheduled time), I easily maneuvered myself from the airport, to the express train, to the correct station, to a very soft oversized chair at the Starbucks I was set to meet Brooke and our host at 5 pm. Having planted myself, I dozed for about 2 hours, probably looking homeless, and smelling that way too, I managed to find Brooke and Carrie, our couchsurfer. One shower and a fabulous spinach lasagna later, and I was happy in Hong Kong.

Since we only have 2 days in Hong Kong, they would be crazy busy, but afterwards, we will pretty much be traveling to Hanoi and can sleep on the trains/busses/rick shaws or however we end up getting to Vietnam. That having been said, our days were cram packed to say the least. Brooke and here father had been in Hong Kong for 2 days already when I got there and had seen most of the sights, but she went around with me again... how thoughtful eh?

Sights: our first day began with shopping at Stanley Market, a market near the shore line in HK. I was on a mission to find jeans so we set out... unfortunately no jeans were to be had, however, there was some sort of religious festival going on, as multiple people went by, pounding drums and dancing with Chinese dragons on there way to a temple by the shore. Along with the Dragon, each small parade of people also had offerings, including a plate of fruits, plates of wafers and, of course, an entire dried pig, complete with knife in its neck, pushed through the streets to the temple on little cart/wheel barrows. One parade group actually dropped their pig on the ground, I can imagine that is very offensive to the spirits as they were all in a tizzy trying to get the full pig back on the wheelbarrow.

While at Stanely market Brooke and I tasted a very interesting fruit. A little bigger than a strawberry, with green pokies, the fruit smelled awful, but was so intriguing we had to taste. When the fruit is peeled, a white, jel-like inner fruit is shown. The fruit has a pit, and though has a somewhat amiable taste, the weird hard jelly texture was gross, and I was good with one bite...

Kowloon Park

Still not having found jeans, we headed up to the Ladies Market in Kowloon (another district in HK, not on HK island, but attached to mainland China). Here we found myriads of people touting there wares and I was able to find 2 pairs of jeans for the trip for only $37 USD total. After a quick stop at the Man's Market for Brooke to buy a notebook (FYI: you can buy both men's and ladies clothing at both markets, the names are a bit decieving, you may be able to find more ladies things at the ladies market and visa versa, but I think it is debatable) we headed to the riverfront to watch HK's evening light show.

HK's light show is the longest constantly running light show in the world (15 min), is free, and definitly a must see if you are in HK. The show is best watched from the Kowloon bank of HK as the major buildings on HK island all light up and shine lights coreagraphed to music towards this side.

After the light show, we stopped briefly to see an Olympic display and then caught the ferry back to HK island to catch a bus back to our couchsurfers. Fortunately for our us, Carrie had a bus map of HK island that she let us use, for, while the free tourist maps are great for knowing physical locations of the tourist sites, they usually don't include info on local bus routes, making taking the buses very difficult. That having been said, Brooke and I were able to manuever through the various bus stations, and after asking mutliple bus employees and drivers, found a bus that would take us to near Carrie's building. Even more phenomenal was that we actually recognized and got off on the right stop. Not to shabby in my opinion.

Day 2 in HK started with a walk through HK park (not before we found/stumbled upon a Subway sandwich shop and splurged on footlongs to take with us to the Peak later in the day). The park is very nice, with a conservatory, aviary **which I was slightly freaked about... all the birds** and lovely sitting areas.

This was a cool tree we found, it had 2 different colored flowers growing on it... I don't know how that works but its cool huh?

After the park we rode the tram up to the peak, the highest mountain on the island, boasting beautiful city views and a slightly intense accent, which feels like you are going up 45 degrees. Really cool though. Atop the peak we enjoyed the 2nd half of our sandwhiches (we were to hungry to wait) along with the views of the city. We had wanted to go up the tram in the evening, as it is supposedly the best time, but both days we were in HK were quite foggy/smoggy and we were worried we wouldn't be able to see very well.

We decided to go full out and ride the tram both up and back (even though the bus was cheaper) and it turned out being great since we got on a tram down the hill that was quite full and got to stand in the very front, and were able to watch everything on the way down.

After the Peak we headed to Kowloon to see Wong Tau Sin Temple. A Toaist temple, the decoration and artwork is very beautiful. The most interesting thing I found were people, kneeling, as though in prayer, with cups full of sticks, shaking the sticks and hitting them on the ground in a regular motion until a stick would fall out. At that point, they would grab the stick, write something on a piece of paper and then either get up and leave, or repeat the process. Apparently, these are fortune sticks, each corresponding to a piece of paper with the same number with a fortune.

Not the temple, Brooke and I kickin' it with Jet Li

After the temple, we headed to Kowloon park, where we explored for a bit and then took a nap. Next up the floating restaurant. Brooke had seen the pictures in the tourist maps and was intrigued so we set out to find the supposed free shuttle boat to the floating restaurant. Because easily finding things is not our strong suit, this involved a bit of aimless wandering down the mostly deserted pier, complete with a very intergetic old woman who I think wanted to give us a boat ride around the harbor in what looked to be her house/touring vessle/workplace. Needless to say, she did not speak any English, and we did not get in her boat, though it would have made for an interesting story.

We finally found the correct dock, and sure enough it was a free shuttle. Free because the restaurant was over 50 USD a meal. We happily took our shuttle, took some pictures, and then turned around and took another shuttle back, we are much to cheap/poor to indulge in such ridiculousness and instead enjoyed a meal of bok choy and ramen for around 1 USD.

Another exciting game of finding our way back to Carrie's ensued, this time resulting us getting on a minibus that dropped us directly in front of her place and another day in HK was complete. Originally, our plan had been to take trains/busses from HK to Hanoi Vietnam, some researching however showed that the trip would cost around 100 USD and take 2+ days minimum, because of this, we changed our plans, booked tickets out of Macau for the following day to Bangkok and found ourselves on the ferry boat to Macau the next morning without to much trouble.

We found out that Macau, though different than HK, accepts HKD so we decided not to get any more money out and decided to try to make it with the little we had left. This wasn't going to be too difficult as we only had 5 hours before we had to be at the airport anyway.

After clearing immigration, we set out to find a bus to take us to the ficcade of St. John's. Without too much trouble we were able to get on the corrrect bus, and even get off on the right stop. (I know, we are good) From there we proceeded to walk through the streets of Macau to the ficade of St. John's. The back of the cathedral was destroyed in a fire, but the front is beautifully carved and was restored and still remains today.

Following St. Paul's, we hiked to the top of some mountain/fortress thing (with all of our stuff mind you), played on a cannon and then explored the casino strip in Macau.... not before however we sampled 3 of Macau's delicacies: an egg tart, dry almond cookies and this dried, pressed beef stuff (all three pretty gross in my opinion).

The casino strip of Macau is similar to Vegas, only with lots of developments going up. The Wynn Macau has a fountain show to music, similar to the Bellagio in Vegas, while the lobby of the Lisboa was definitely the most ornate and my favorite by far.

Other than that, they were just Casino's, not to exciting if you have ever been to Vegas (I didn't however go to the Casino's on the lower island, so who knows, maybe they were marvelous...).

Wynn

After having taken in our fair share of Macau sites, we set off to find a bus to the airport. 45 minutes later, hot, tired from packing all our stuff and frustrated (we had received multiple, different directions to an apparently invisible bus station) we broke down and hired a cab to the airport and caught our flight to Bangkok... next up Thailand!

Hong Kong... remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Because the maın purpose of my stay ın Turkey was a conference ın Izmır, I traveled by plane from Istanbul. Izmır ıs the 3rd largest cıty ın Turkey and beıng a coastal cıty ıs quıte beautıful as well. The conference was held ın the Crowne Plaza hotel ın front of the sea, not to shabby eh? Lıke Istanbul I quıte easıly found my way to the hotel (agaın, after lookıng stupıd, and talkıng to multıple Informatıon people). The Izmır aırport ıs kınd of ın the mıddle of nowhere so I had to take a 20 mınute taxı to my hotel, but all ın all no major hıccups.

As far as the week went, maınly conference stuff. The hotel was nıce (whıch translates ınto everythıng, ıncludıng ınternet) beıng overprıced. The conference went well, ıncludıng my stellar presentatıon on collaboratıon technıques... blah blah blah, no one really cares. The ınterestıng part of thıs conference was the large amount of cultural actıvıtıes ıncluded ın the agenda. Every nıght somethıng was planned, and wıth the promıse of free food and a good tıme, I partıcıpated fully. Included ın the festıvıtıes were dınner ın the cıty of Izmır's museum, a tradıtıonal Turkısh dınner wıth Turkısh food, and of course, Turksıh dancıng and belly dancers (more on the phenomenon of drunk engıneers and belly dancers later), an overly extravegant Gala dınner and fınally a vısıt to Ephesus and surroundıng areas.

All were very enjoyable, wıth good food, and entertaınıng company. The company generally got more entertaınıng as the evenıngs progressed, as all of the events had open bars, whıch goes wıthout sayıng makıng the dıfferent experıences much more amusing. My personal favorıte was when the conference coordınator was forced to dance wıth the belly dancers, all dressed up ın supposedly local garb (I never saw anyone wearıng thıngs lıke that to say the least...).

What happens in Izmir...

Ephesus was truly fabulous however. An ancıent cıty of marvelous ruıns, the cıty claıms to be where the gospel of John was wrıtten, as well as the locatıon where Paul taught a large portıon of hıs mınıstry to the Ephesıans. The ruıns date back to the 3rd century and earlıer AD (or so my guıde saıd), though much was destroyed from earthquakes and dıfferent ınvaders over the years. Only 15% or so of the city has been excavated, giving only a brief glimpse to its former grandeur.

My personal favorite tidbit picked up on our tour was about the library and the conveniently located brothel across the street. During excavations of the city, archeologists found an tunnel underground, secretly (well, secret to the women of the city anyway) connecting the library with the brothel, giving men of the city the excuse to go to the library to receive personal enlightenment. Oh what lengths people will go to show forth a supposed image.

Library

That aside, the remainder of Ephesus was equally entertaining. Following the library and the brothel, we saw the large city theatre, used once for the governing bodies and entertaining from gladiators and what not. With around 25,000 seats, it is one of, if not the, largest outdoor theatres in the world, and impressive to say the least.

It is because of the theatre that they think the city of Ephesus had around 250,000 people, because the government would have represented 1/10 of the population and would have needed to all fit in the building for the senate. Now the theatre is used for modern concerts, apparently in recent years all sorts of people, including Sir Elton have performed here... go to the Sir...

The theatre used to lead to the harbor, which is now more than 6 km away from the silting off the harbor, explaining why the city was eventually abandoned, and the large city walk in front of the theatre is where Marc Antony and Cleopatra walked. According to our guide, apparently the street was covered in red wine for there honor, as they visited Ephesus on their travels.

Following Ephesus, we visited two shops, mainly trying to scam us into buying leather jackets and hand woven rugs. The rugs were beautiful, but with prices ranging from 1,000 - 10,000+ Euro, it was a little more of an investment I was willing to make. (On a side note, the really expensive rugs, silk on silk, take a woman 7+ years to create, and sadly, I doubt the woman get much of the profits from this cottage industry in Turkey).

After the scamming (many people on my bus bought leather jackets, so I guess it worked, I was not tempted, I felt very hypocritical even being in the shop, how can I not eat it, but drape it about my body... just my thoughts), we went to a small village for dinner (not before however a long and windy bus ride up a very narrow road, complete with a minor bus breakdown, the driver fixed the problem, or so the guide assured us... right...). The food was good, I was scammed into paying for a 5 YTL (almost 5 USD) soda, I saw some fabulous motorbikes, and the evening was complete.

Ephesus was a great end to my stay in Turkey, as I travelled to Hong Kong the following day. It would take me over 24 hours of sleepless travel time to make it from Izmir to Hong Kong, which resulted in a very tired me, but that is an entry for later.

As a side note, I do have pictures of all these things, and will add them as soon as I figure out a way to upload my photos (I forgot my cords in America, so it may be a while). ALSO, props to anyone who noticed that over half of this entry, and all of the previous entry, typed in Turkey, do not have regular i's but instead have the turkish letter, without the dot. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to type the western letter, and had to use capital letters to reach websites like gmaIl.com and travellerspoInt.com.... just an interesting point, well to me, not that anyone else noticed, or cares...

Smyra, and the ruıns of Ephesus remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Istanbul, the Asian side

Luckıly I arrıved at my hotel just before the hotel shuttle ınto the cıty so I was able to drop my thıngs ın my room and head out for a day explorıng the Sultanahmet dıstrıct of Istanbul. All ın all, Istanbul ıs a thrıvıng and beautıful, albeıt dırty and crowded, cıty. After beıng dropped off ın front of the Blue Mosque, I, agaın lookıng stupıd and lost, had about ten random people tell me I could not go ınto the Blue Mosque rıght now, sınce ıt was prayer servıce. (Somethıng I could have fıgured out, as they blast the prayers over huge loud speakers so everyone wıthın 5 km can here the servıce and joın)

Blue Mosque

Lıke Chına, young Amerıcan gırls are an anomaly ın Turkey and I soon made frıends wıth 2 Turks, Hamıt and Eunus (Eunus assured me hıs name meant Dragon or somethıng manly, and was not named after the old woman name ın the states). Eunus was from Turkey, but only on holıday as he now lıved ın Florıda, and was vısıtıng hıs famıly for a few weeks. Hamıt and Eunus showed me around the Hıppodrome area of Istanbul, whıch I thought would be a buıldıng, but was more of an area.

Hippodrome

Here I saw an Egyptıan column, apparently transported from Egypt hundreds of years ago, by unknown means and replaced ın Istanbul.

Egyptian Column

Also ın thıs area was the statue that used to have dıamond encrusted serpents on the top, stolen a long tıme ago, as well as a large column constructed by Constanınople, apparently to remınd everyone that Istanbul WAS Constanınople.

After the Hıppodrome, Hamıt had to go back to work, most lıkely scammıng tourısts, and Eunus helped me fınd the Grand Bazaar. A huge area wıth every ımagınable souvenir, all fake, accordıng to Eunus, and mass produced ın Chına and over prıced for tourısts.

Grand Bazaar

Along wıth the Grand Bazaar, we also vısıted the Egyptıan Bazaar, whıch was equally crowded, but prımarıly sold spıces and food thıngs.

After the Bazaars, we walked over the Brıdge over the Bosporus, dıvıdıng Istanbul, and Turkey, between the European and Asıan contınents. Thıs ıs an ınterestıng fact about Turkey, sınce ıt ıs techınıcally on both contınents.

Lunch followed, where I ate my fırst eggplant... I don't really want another all to soon, but ıt beat the gross smellıng fısh they had everywhere. It would have been a struggle wıthout Eunus, as we went to 3 dıfferent places before we found one that would make me vegetarıan food wıthout yogurt.

Eunus and I inside the Blue Mosque

After lunch we headed to see Hagıa Sophıa, prevıously the largest cathedral ın the world but ıs now a museum. It unfortunatly was already closed for the day so I saved 10 YTL and just looked at ıt from the outsıde. Defınıtly a large church though. The funny thıng about ıt though ıs, whıle a Chrıstıan church, I doubt ıt gets any vısıts from Turks, as somethıng lıke 99% of Turkey ıs Muslım (whıch explaıns the densıty of Mosques, I saw probably 10 just walkıng from the Blue Mosque to the Grand Bazaar). The lack of Chrıstıans explaın why the church was actually forced to be converted to a Mosque and was kept that way untıl early sometıme ın the 1930s. Regardless, the buıldıng ıs a must see sıght wıth any tour of Istanbul.

Hagia Sophia

Followıng a brıef look at Hagıa Sophıa, we contınued on to see the Blue Mosque. Much to my dıappoıntment, the Mosque ıs not really Blue, whıle ınsıde there are a lot of blue decoratıve tıles, ıt stıll doesn't seem all that blue... just my opınıon.

The Mosque ıs stıll ın full operatıon and as wıth all Mosques, to enter ınto the buıldıng you have to remove your shoes and women have to cover theır heads. Supplıed at the entrance were shalls for women, luckıly however, I could just use my hood. Also supplıed were plastıc bags for us to carry our shoes throughout the Mosque whıle we were ınsıde. Accordıng to Eunus you used to just leave your shoes outsıde the Mosque whıle you prayed/walked through however people started stealıng the shoes left outsıde of Mosques so they have stopped that practıce. Talk about a bummer, go ın to pray and get nearer to your spırıtualıty and return to fınd you had been robbed. Oh the humanıty.

The Blue Mosque was the last stop of my Istanbul tour, next up Izmır, Smyrna for the ancıent scholars among you.

Apparently ıt was Constantınople... remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Shanghaı, Chına remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Germany remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Prague, or Praha in Czech, is the capitol and largest city in the Czech republic. The city is chock full of beautiful churches, buildings, gardens and bridges crossing the Vltava river. We arrived in the morning and after a slightly confusing experience with the information desk, had a hotel reservation and a bus ticket into the city center.

A marvelous thing about Prague is the exchange rate. At just under 20:1 it was a glorious experience trading in our Euros and USD. Needless to say, I felt very rich holding my one and two thousand count bills.

Another experience in Prague are the ridiculously fast escalators to and from the underground metro lines. The metro lines in Prague are very far underground and to compensate for the distance, the escalators run nearly twice as fast as they do in the states, which translates in a lot of concentration being required to get on and off (for those of you who doubt my concentration abilities, I did NOT fall off\trip). Our hotel, or pension (one step down from a hotel) was fabulous! We had a kitchen in the room along with a balcony and a chest with china (as though we need such fancy things, but it was a nice gesture) and all for only $17.50 ea a night! Our first day we spent mostly sleeping and recovering from Italy and didn't start out to tour until later in the evening.

How peaceful am I? And no, I am not sucking my thumb here, but as you can see I am fast asleep. I was really tired.

Along with catching up on much needed sleep, our private hotel room in Prague translated into a make-shift laundry mat, which worked out great until in started to rain.

After our naps and an unsuccessful attempt to phone Val, my old roommate and person we were supposed to stay with the following evening, we headed out to explore Prague. Unlike Italy, with very conformed buildings, Prague has a plethora of architectural styles. Gothic, modern, classical and even Mexican style pueblos can be seen all on the same street. This modern art statue for example is directly in front of the huge and old opera and symphony houses.

I found it amusing anyway.

Prague concert hall, doesn't the pig diver fit great in front of this building?

While walking the streets of Prague I found my first Chinese food restaurant of Europe. To say the least I was excited, and was dreaming of all the cheap tofu and rice I was going to consume while in Prague.

One sad thing about Prague are the random buildings built in front of the fabulous churches. It doesn't seem like much planning went into this city and as with this church, half of the church is obscured due to this modern restaurant being built right in front in the Old Towne Square.

Old Towne Square

After exploring Old Towne Square for a while, we decided to cross a random bridge on the Vltava river and walk back across the Charles Bridge at dusk.

View of the Charles Bridge

View of Vltava river and Prague at night.

Charles Bridge

Along with architecture and great exchange rate, Prague had another
fabulous thing to offer: an open elevator. Rameneal? Maybe, but for the 6 year old trapped inside it translated into free entertainment.

Nicole and I definitely enjoyed ourselves to say the least.

The next morning we set out to see New Towne Square. First up, the dancing building. Apparently a newer modern style is beginning to take place in Prague, I just think the building is weird. But that's just me.

Next, per a guide map tip, we set out to find the apparent botanical gardens. After a few detours from some less than helpful directions, we found the gardens.

Entering into the 'secret' gardens.

While the gardens turned out to be less than ethralling, we were able to get a few good shots.

Not so botanical...

Upon exploring the gardens, we actually got lost and wandered onto some random persons property (which ironically turned out to be more botanical than the actual gardens).

But sitting on their bench we had a nice view of the castle, so all was not lost.

Final one of the gardens.

After exploring the gardens, and finding a random Czech boy that let me use his phone, I was able to get in contact with Dan, Val's husband and set up a time to meet them. After a rather uneventful tram ride we arrived to Val's apartment where we were greeted by Val and her 1.5 year old son Vinson. Val looked great (I don't think either of us have really changed since college, even though she has had a baby) and Vinson is absolutely adorable. A towhead with the brightest blue eyes, I enjoyed just catching up with Val and playing with Vinson for a few hours.

Vinson. Seriously, Val needs to make him a cute Czech outfit and charge tourists to take pictures of him in Old Towne Square, she would make a killing by exploiting his cuteness... wait is that bad?

Once Dan got home from work we all went out to dinner in the city where we got traditional Czech food including goulash, potato and bread dumplings and onion soup.

After dinner, Val and Dan left to put Vinson to bed while we headed up to Prague Castle to view the castle while it was free in the evening. Prague Castle is the largest castle in the world and is quite impressive.

Haha, at least we think we are funny...

Keeping with tradition, there were many steps ascending to the castle.

Inside the castle walls we walked through the golden lane, a small road with tiny, abandoned houses. We went at night to avoid paying tourist fees, so maybe during the day their are shops with over priced souveneirs? I will never know.

Sunset over Prague Castle

Prague castle cathedral

The next morning we got off to an early start beginning with a walk around the gardens surrounding the summer palace. I found it amusing that you can see the regular palace from the summer palace, traditionally I thought the two palaces would be at least out of eye sight of each other, but that is just me. The gardens however, were beautiful and well manicured, boasting great views of Prague Castle.

Next we headed to Prague Castle and in particular St. Vitus Cathedral. This is the cathedral within the castle walls and was originally created when Wenceslaus acquired a holy relic — the arm of St. Vitus. Inside the cathedral is very ornate, and Gothic.

The reason for the Cathedral, St. Vitus.

Because I apparently LOVE climbing the steps of old buildings, we next took turns with Vinson and climbed the 287 steps to the top of the Cathedral.

At least this urban trek was free.

View of Prague from the tower.

Next up, another church (by this time I was less than impressed with all the churches). St. Nicholas' Cathedral was a welcome change being much brighter, and less doomsday.

After St. Nicholas' Cathedral we went to Peacock garden to have a picnic. Peacock garden is cool, not only because of the obvious Peacock's everywhere, but the garden is surrounded by a wall designed to look like an old cave, with intentionally hidden animals and faces to find.

Can you find the lion?

Following our lunch, Val went to put Vinson down for a nap while the rest of us went to the Jewish quarter. Previously the Jewish Ghetto, thousands of Jews were killed here in the 1300s and most of the ghetto was destroyed early inthe 19th century.

Luckily a few synagogues, the old cemetery and the Jewish Town hall were not destroyed and because the Nazi's had intended the location to be a Jewish museum after they had annihilated the race, many of the artefact's housed in Prague were placed there by Nazi's during WWII.

The Jewish cemetery is quite large, with many headstones, old and faded from time, pointing every which way.

It is very solemn.

After the Jewish memorial, I went back to visit with Val while Nicole and Brenda went to the opera and Brooke saw a neon light show (which apparently was not that great by the way).

All in all Prague was marvelous and I would definitely go back. One thing I missed was the bone church outside of Prague, definitely a place I will visit if I make it back this way some day.

Praha remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It's not every day that you get to visit a sinking city, but that is exactly what a visit to Venice entails. A short ride up the canals on the barges makes this evident as many of the houses right on the canal are right level with the water level, and high tide would raise the water even more. Apparently, during times of high tide, you can take gondola rides through St. Mark's square, my only question is where would all the pigeons go then?

Our experience in Venice was filled of meandering through the streets, perusing the little shops and just enjoying the atmosphere. After our first day we enjoyed it so much we decided to spend another night at Johnny's and explore the islands surrounding Venice.

Murono, about a 45 min boat ride from Venice, is where the famous glass blowing of Venice occurs. Here you can watch experienced Venetian glass blowers (they saw hammerhead sharks and horses being made). Murono was very quaint and had much less of the hustle and bustle than Venice. If I were to come again, I would definitely get a hotel here as it cheaper and so typical of what you think of Venice, without all the tourists.

The second island visited was Burono (Seriously, they've got a rhyme scheme going). A bit further out, Burono is famous for making the lace often associated with Venice. Watching the lace making was also amazing, but the best part of Burono was definitely the variety of colors on the houses.

It seriously looks like a Crayola add.

Laundry time in Burano.

After a long day or sight seeing, we enjoyed another Italian dinner, full of all the staples, pasta, pizza and over priced water.

After Venice, we headed out on the train to Milan. In Milan we were able to stay with a couch surfer. Nini lived at home with her family (Mom, Dad, Sis, and Grandma) and they were fabulous. Grandma would always try to help us and would explain everything to us in Italian, even though she knew we could not speak any Italian, it was really quite funny. In Milan we started out at Sforzesco Castle.

The castle used to house the ruling family of Milan in the 15th and 16th centuries but now serves as a home for various museums and art galleries.

Clock tower of Milan, just outside the castle.

After the castle we went to see the Milan Cathedral. The Milan Cathedral is the largest Cathedral in Italy and the second largest gothic cathedral in the world. With 100s of spires, it is an amazing view to say the least. Instead of paying to climb the stairs we opted to enjoy lunch outside the Cathedral.

After lunch, I took a short nap outside the opera house (as I chose not to pay for the tour and instead slept a bit while waiting for everyone else just outside), we went to visit the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. This is the church that houses Leonardo da Vinci's famous Last Supper. The original church was built in the 14th century, however during world war II it was bombed and nearly all of the church walls were destroyed. Luckily for all, the wall containing the Last Supper was relatively unharmed during the bombings as it had been sandbagged for protection and has been quite well preserved. The Last Supper specifically portrays the reaction given by the apostles when Jesus said one of them would betray him. Because the painting is very old and has been damaged over time, much time and money has been spent in attempts to restore it. Because of this, to view the painting you have to book tickets months in advance. Since we are no where near that on top of things, we did not have tickets to actually see the painting, but we went to see the building\church anyway. We checked breifly on tickets, but as they were booked until the end of August we had little hope- that is until a guy came up asking if we wanted to buy tickets for the 5:15 showing (one hour later). Being slightly skeptical, we had to go in and check the price and validity of the tickets with the office staff but finding them to be legit, we purchased the tickets and were able to see the mural.

The amount of security surrounding the painting is surreal. Each 15 minutes, 25 people are allowed to go in and view the painting. Before entering the hall, you pass through two different climate controlled rooms that measure for various things that could harm the painting. Of course no cameras are allowed in the room, but once through security you are able to view the painting for 15 minutes. The painting in itself is brilliant. The depth and perspective is fabulous and each of the apostles have distinct expressions on how they reacted to Jesus saying that one of them would betray him. While much speculation surrounds the painting and exactly who each of the apostles are, viewing the painting was brilliant, even if for only 15 minutes. Once you leave the room, you are also placed in a temporary holding room, to stop any outside air from entering into the hall (these guys are serious about this painting, which is a good thing as it is rad).

An interesting point I found was that even though viewing the painting is booked out through August (with 25 people viewing every 15 minutes all day every day at €8 a piece), the restoration of the painting was so expensive that private funding was used to pay for the process.

On a side note, I have gone to the bathroom in the Mona Lisa. Seriously, this is the highest class Port-a-Potty I have ever seen, and I could not leave Italy without making my 'mark'.

Following viewing the Last Supper, we went to explore the gardens behind the Castle. The garden is huge and except for the obscene amounts of mosquitoes are very beautiful. We found a cute amphitheater with chairs cemented in, along with a huge Soccer\Football field, Donovan Frankenreiter was actually preforming the night we were there, but sad for him, I don't think anyone was there as it was very quiet, it kind of sounded like he was singing to himself.

After the depressing concert (we didn't go either, as the last train left in about an hour and the tickets were expensive) we hit up the grocery, where we got food for dinner and an entire bucket of gelato which we devoured in a matter of minutes on the train ride.

Arriving home marked our end to Italy, all in all we had a fabulous time and saw many amazing sights and buildings. We payed to climb three different sets of stairs and ate about a kilo each of gelato. We ate lots of pasta and pizza and met some fabulous people. We learned a bit of Italian, including my personal favorite, 'excuzi' (excuse me), said by the little old women when they are bustling about. We only got one pay phone to work in the entire country (we tried to get many working, which resulted only in our getting frustrated and losing all our change every time). I definitely recommend a visit here, even though it is a bit expensive and I look forward to returning and exploring the southern half of the country as well. Ciao.

For all the Italy photos, CLICK HERE.

Vive Italia... remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The real David is actually located in a museum in Florence, but due to time constraints, we opted to pose near the David replica, which in my uneducated opinion of art is just as good, better actually, because it is free.

The Duomo is a very famous cathedral in Florence (it is the Cathedral Lucy\Sandra Bullock wanted to visit in While You Were Sleeping) and is huge. The dome is covered in a huge painting depicting the last judgment, and was very gruesome. The dome itself is huge and was built without a wooden sub-structure and is the largest masonry dome in the world.

We definitely had fun posing in the stairway... Cosmo here we come.

After ascending the Duomo, Brooke and I head out to find a grocery store. On a side note, the best people to ask directions in a foreign country turns out to be money changers. First, they speak very good English, and second, they have very little bias in telling us where the best restaurants, shopping areas or supermarkets are. After a bit of a goose hunt, we were able to find the Florence food markets. This was a huge building filled with individual food vendors, selling a myriad of foods. The first level was mainly meats. In Italy you can buy many varieties of meats, some more gruesome than others.

My personal favorite was the entire rooster with feathers, sick, and the pig leg, with hoof still attached.

On the upper level of the market was every type of fruit and vegetable imaginable. Brooke and I shopped around getting the best deals and purchasing a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Our final purchase was that of a huge watermelon half. A little Italian woman tried unsuccessfully to sell us a 7 kg watermelon (granted she was going to give us a deal, but seriously, how we would eat it is beyond me) and we eventually conceded to buy a piece nearly as large that was slightly more manageable.

This was my favorite dried fruit stand. So tasty.

After a slight mix-up with train stations and tickets, we got our tickets to Venice and enjoyed a marvelous feast of fruits and vegetables in the train station. Once we had finished our lunch, we left for Venice, because Brooke and I were less interested in the various museums and cultural pleasantries Florence had to offer, we opted to leave early for Venice and get accommodation's figured out before Nicole and Brenda arrived later in the evening. As luck would have it, July 14th was the Feast and Regatta of the Redeemer, which translated into English meant a huge party, chock full of fireworks, tons of tourists and sky high accommodation's. For over an hour Brooke and I unsuccessfully gained information on local hotels, none of which were below €40 each. Eventually we opted to stay just outside of the city in a gem of a one star hotel dubbed 'Johnny's' (personally I think the one star was a bit generous, but hey, it's just me).

Johnny's, the fab villa above a gas station. A bit dodgy, but cheap at only €20 each.

Even with the sky high prices however, Venice is amazing. Picturesque houses line the canals, and it is remarkably quiet, even with the hoards of people for the festival, because there are no cars.

After dropping our bags at Johnny's we headed back into Venice to see the festival fireworks and experience the masses of people. Even with all the people, Venice is fabulous. Built on a number of small islands, transportation is done either by foot or boat in the various canals connecting the city.

Here we are on our first boat/bus ride in Venice. See how I have embraced European fashion trends?

It was wild as there are no cars and instead of buses, they have barges and smaller 'taxi' boats. Because we arrived late in the evening, we enjoyed our boat ride to St. Mark's square, followed by a gondola ride throughout the canals of Venice.

Side note, when bargaining for a gondola ride take note- if your gondolier is angry about the price he will not give you as long a ride, and will be quite grumpy... I may be speaking from experience.

After our gondola ride, we booked it to St. Mark's square to see the fireworks. They were marvelous, and as I love fireworks more than most, enjoyed every bit of the 45 minute display which was choreographed to various music. Particularly interesting were the types of fireworks used. Many I had never seen before, and they were absolutely wonderful. America should get on the band wagon of some of these fireworks as they are great.

After the fireworks were finished, we made our way back to the bus station to catch our bus back to Johnny's. Generally, buses stop running in Venice around midnight, but due to the festival (the fireworks didn't even start until 11:30 pm) a few buses were on extended schedules. In our defense, we had received various opinions on whether the bus we needed to take would run late. After sitting at the stop for nearly 20 minutes, our bus did finally show up, but it read 'limitado' under the number. Dismissing this we got on the bus and started off towards our hotel. After the bus had driven about half way to Johnny's, the bus stopped, and the driver, in Italian was telling us 'finito', 'get off'... apparently 'limitado' meant the bus was only going half way. With few options, we began the trek back to Johnny's. Joined by a Kiwi, we made the rather dangerous walk back to Johnny's (dangerous in that roads in Italy have no shoulder, and as I posted earlier in my Rome experiences, Italian drivers drive wicked fast, at one point, I think my arm would have been ripped off had I stretched it out even a bit).

Pisa, Florence and Venice... Oh My! remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Pisa is quite terrifying... or maybe she was scared at how awful we looked... we hadn't slept in a few days.

Pisa Fortress

After a short stop-over at an old fortress, we arrived to the tower. Let me tell you, the tower is not a disappointment, it really is leaning quite drastically and it, and the surrounding cathedral and baptistry are very impressive.

The tower, which is leaning at an angle of about 5.5 degrees, differs in height by about 3 feet from the highest to lowest points respectively. In 1990, the tower had to be closed as it was increasingly sinking\tilting at an alarming rate. 10 years and many man hours and dollars later, the tower was deemed to safe to re-enter and still had its original tilt.

Keeping with tradition, we opted again to climb the 294 steps to the bell tower. Climbing the tower was fabulous, as you could really feel the slant. Also, once at the top of the tower, the view was fabulous, which was accentuated by the fact that their was nearly no barricades obstructing the view.

Atop the Tower

After climbing the tower and exploring around the other buildings, we decided to stay in Pisa for the night, instead of jetting back straightaway to Florence. This may have been the best choice we made during our entire stay in Italy. We found a great hotel, and at only €25 each located less than two blocks from the tower, was a killer deal. Once checked in to our room, we headed out for a relaxing day the beach. The beaches we found were fabulous, with incredibly soft sand and perfect water. I found it amusing that people were attempting to surf the two foot waves, but hey, they can try right?

Waiting for the bus, after spending a marvelous day on the Mediterranean in Pisa.

A refreshing two hour nap later left us happy, tanner than before and ready to eat. Returning to the tower, we found a nice restaurant where we enjoyed another (and pointably cheaper than Rome) Italian meal.

Brooke snuck the water bottle back to the fountain so we wouldn't have to pay the ridiculous prices for more water at dinner. Slightly sketchy? Maybe, cost effective? Definitely.

All in all, Pisa was my favorite stop in Rome. It is cheaper and has marvelous beaches, oh, and did I mention how cool the leaning tower is?

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Right before the chaos began...

At this point things began to get crazy. The last train for Pisa left at 12:37 am... two minutes to go. The other girls grabbed all our stuff while I ran to the ticket machine to buy all 4 tickets to Pisa. Time 12:36 am. Having a slight issue with the ticket machine I grabbed the tickets and began sprinting to the train deck, just in time to see the train pulling out from the station. So there I was, stranded in Florence, with only my wallet and my pajamas (I had been napping remember, and they grabbed my stuff). This was a fun predicament, and because the police were coming, I and the rest of the backpacking bums were forced to leave the station. I decided to make the best of my unfortunate situation and began staking out a new piece of concrete real estate. I chose a prime location just outside of the station, across from some girls from Norway and a group of girls from Spain.

I was preparing myself for a long night when the police came out to tell us all to 'not fall asleep' as people would rob us if we did (like I had anything to take seriously, all my stuff was on a train to Pisa). Luckily for me, after the police left, one of the girls from Spain came up to me, inviting me to sit with them, as she had overheard my unfortunate experience of being left by my traveling companions. I was very grateful, and soon settled in between the Spaniards (from Bilboa by the way) and began playing cards when what to my wondering eyes did appear, but my long lost traveling companions.

It turned out that after I had missed the train, they had all been so concerned about my well being (mainly due to the fact that they had my bag, and all I was wearing were shorts and a t-shirt and it was cold) that they got off the train at the next stop and then proceeded to hike back for over an hour to the station in Florence. The hike was made even more exciting as it was in the dark, they did not have a map AND they had to carry my pack as well (which Nicole did like a champ). Needless to say, by the time they made it back to Florence they were quite exhausted and were excited to pull up a comfy piece of concrete and take a nap until the next train left in 2.5 hours... leaning tower here we come.

The fateful camping spot, where we waited once we were kicked out of the train station.

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Seriously, the line was insane!

The Vatican Museums were filled with all sorts of relics, paintings and sculptures. The highlight of the museums was definitely Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine chapel. The ceiling is absolutely gorgeous and huge and took Michelangelo three years to complete. The ceiling depicts nine books of Genesis, and most notably God's Creation of the World. A very famous portion, showing God reaching out and giving life to Adam is one I tried to capture (semi-illegally) in the photo below.

Too bad the only one that wasn't fuzzy has my face in it... ah well, Murphy's law.

The ceilings in the Vatican Museums were phenomenal.

The lonely nun, the only one I saw in the Vatican.

After exploring the Vatican Museums we continued on our whirlwind tour of Roman sites (not before I was left however... I fell asleep in the museum and got ditched... but don't worry, I found an internet cafe and met up with everyone in a few hours... which turned out to be a general theme for the trip).

One last shot of St. Peter's Basilica

Where are all the people, pigeons, markets... as dead as you will ever see St. Peter's square.

First up was the Spanish Steps. Apparently these are the widest and longest staircase in Europe and we had planned to get lunch and eat on the steps, the blazing sun however, deterred our desires to eat on the steps and instead we enjoyed lunch and gelato in the shade followed by some fun in the fountain.

Our next stop was to see the Trevi Fountain, the largest fountain in Rome. Legend says that if you throw a coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome. In order to ensure our speedy return, we all fully supported the tradition and threw good money into the fountain. On a side note, apparently throwing two coins means a marriage will occur soon, and three coins means divorce, sorry mom, I only threw one coin in. A cool fact is the 3,000 Euros thrown daily into the fountain are collected each night and used for Rome's needy.

Following the fountain, we headed to the Pantheon. The Pantheon was built in 125 AD and is remarkably well preserved. It was originally created as a building for all of the Greek God's, but is currently used as a Christian church. The Pantheon is huge and is the largest non-reinforced concrete dome in the history of architecture. Originally, the Pantheon's ceiling was covered with bronze, but as with the Colesseum, it too was melted down to create St. Peter's basilica. Along with being a church, the Pantheon is also the burying place for many famous people, including Raphael (of course I am generally only interested in where the TMNT are buried). Of interest to me, was the Pantheon's draining system. Because of the hole in the ceiling (which allows for better air circulation) there are many small holes in the floor allowing for water drainage.

After asking various souvenir vendors for food recommendations, we headed to grab a quick dinner in Rome. Per recommendation, we found a great place, slightly outside the city centre and enjoyed a great family style Italian dinner which proved to be a great finale to our Rome experience.

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After a few unsuccessful attempts to use the phones and find transport into Rome, including a group of cabbies trying to trick us into taking a taxi all the way into the city (crazy expensive), Nicole and I were able to find and get the last two seats on the bus into the city center. Once inside Rome another thing became clear, Italian drivers are crazy! Lanes at intersections are completely arbitrary and if you feel like the person in front of you is going to slow, you simply pull up to the side of them, creating your own lane and wiz by them at frighteningly fast speeds when the lights turn green.

Even with the alarming driving procedures, Rome is a fabulous city with many things to see.
Our first morning Nicole and I headed out to explore Vatican City and in particular, St Peter's Basilica. A huge church, the basilica covers almost 6 acres, and is considered to be the burial site of Saint Peter (particularly, tradition holds that Peter's tomb is below the baldachin and altar).

Along with housing the apparent remains of the apostle Peter, the basilica also holds the tombs of many Popes and other prominent Catholic figures, including the most recent Pope, Pope John Paul II. In the main hall of the basilica there are many statues and monuments to various Popes and other important Catholic figures.

In the middle of the basilica, is the statue of St. Peter Enthroned. It is Catholic tradition to visit the basilica and kiss\touch the right foot of the statue, and because of this the foot is almost completely eroded away. In fact, the left foot is now beginning to be worn down as well due to so many people visiting the basilica each day.

Near this statue and directly beneath the main dome of the basilica, is a huge monument, covering the supposed grave\remains of Peter. The monument is huge (30 m tall) and is covered with bronze, supposedly taken from the Panthenon.

After we explored the interior of the basilica, we, keeping with the pay to climb tradition of Europe, opted to climb the dome, or cupola 120 m (394 ft) to the top. We, being adventurous, and more importantly cheap, opted for the without lift option and trudged to the top.

The view from the top was fabulous, as you could see much of Rome and all of Vatican City.

After decending the stairs, we met up with Brooke and her mother and headed to see the Roman Colosseum. This was really fabulous, and included my favorite subway stop in Rome, because when you came up from the subway, the Colosseum was huge and the first thing you saw.

The Colosseum was created between 70 and 80 AD and was the host for gladiator fights and other public events. To me, it was phenomenal that a building of this size and architectural complexity was created so long ago, and for the most part is still well intact today, nearly 200 years later. Even more impressive was the amount of thought and planning that went into this ampetheatre.

The Colosseum had a seating capacity of 50,000 but due to the effectiveness of the planning, all spectators could be evacuated from one of the 80 doors within a manner of minutes. Seating worked by rank, with the most important people (Kings, Popes, senators etc) sitting in the first level all the way to commoners, slaves and women sitting in the highest level. Originally, the seats were covered\created with marble and went nearly to the top (with the top level being standing room only) but the marble was all stripped by the Pope when St Peter's Basilica was created.

Yes, I was calling Jack Bauer, the Colosseum was under attack by crazies!

Another interesting thing about the Colosseum was the intense underground labyrinth that housed the animals and gladiators. Traditionally, the gladiators were Roman prisoners and if they won their battles they would be granted their freedom, that is if they could survive.

Apparently we didn't make it out...

After the Colosseum, we went on to explore the Roman Forum. This was the center of old Rome, and is still in large part well preserved.

The Roman Forum was fabulous, lots of old ruins from when Rome was first inhabited, Brenda and Nicole paid for a walking tour, Brooke and I however, decided to just wander about.

My favorite spot was the Palantine hill. It was so beautiful.

Taking a breather in the Museum on Palantine hill.

I cannot even express how much I wanted to be the head and hands behind this statue. My efforts were thwarted however by a crazy guard who was giving me the evil eye.

After the Forum, Nicole and I were so exhausted that not even our insatiable hunger could steer us from going to bed.

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Much to my relief, London Bridge was not, as I had been so told in my youth, falling down, and is still fully assembled in London. Contrary to popular belief, the London Bridge, other than being the London Bridge is not that cool. Other than being a place from which to look at Tower Bridge and relive child horrors of a bridge falling down, it is pretty much a normal, nonaesthetically pleasing bridge. The lack of beauty however, did not detir our picture taking spirits however.

Following our walk across London Bridge we made our way down to the Thames river bank in attempts to walk up to see the more aesthetically pleasing Tower Bridge. We however, were of course side tracked by a huge cathedral and enormous doric tower that beckoned us to come climb it.

The tower was built after the fires of London in attempts to beautify the city. For only £2 we were able to trudge up the 311 steps of the winding staircase to get a fabulous view over looking London.

In case you were wondering, 311 is a lot of stairs

Of course, not before we snapped a few photos of our beautiful selves.

This tower is not for the faint of heart... or legs, the 311 stairs up the spiral staircase is intense... I could definitly feel the burn. The view in the end however, was worth it, and we could see most of London.

Our last full day in London started early, with another stop at Westminster Abbey so I could experience the sundial. While we had seen it earlier, the clouds, and obscene amounts of Tour de France fans inhibited my opportunity to fully see the dial in action.

Pic of dial. This photo was taken at 10:13 am... apparently it does not take into account daylight savings time, but other than that, it works fairly well. It works by standing on the line closest to the current date. An as always, I am interested in sciencey things...

After the sun dial I made my way to the changing of the guards. This was a drawn out ordeal, involving the queens guards dressed in fabulous attire, walking back and forth, and the band playng prodominantly American tunes, with such ditties as Staying Alive, the Pirates theme and Copa Cobana.

I'm pretty sure here the band was playing the National Anthem... only shortly after the Copa Cobana.

Their hats were definitly the best part here...

After the gaurd change, Nicole and I enjoyed a leisurely walk through the parks surrounding Buckingham palace.

We took this picture right before some guy came and tried to make us pay to sit in the chairs... nothing is ever free, especially in London.

Also a plus about the gardens (or minus depending on your view), was the many pelicans walking around and swimming in the lakes. I found it particularly amusing that they had signs discouraging the feeding of the pelicans, as aposed to the ever popular don't feed the pigeons signs.

Me and Buckingham palace in the background. Not to shabby of a house for the Queen eh?

Following our jaunt around the palace, we headed to the London Eye, a huge enclosed ferris wheel allowing tourists to see nearly all of London from a bird's eye view, as the line was horrendous we opted to do the Eye first thing in the morning, before we flew out to Rome and instead happened upon a brilliant fountain.

This is me, inside the fountain, it is really fun, we had a few close calls, but luckily, no one got to soaked. There were however, a few sopping children running around... hmmm, the fact that I am amused by the same things as are small children... what does that say about me?

Continuing in our super mature nature, following the fountain, we found a skate park. It was nestled under a bridge, with only a few skaters there, so I didn't feel to bad showing my moves.

What do you think? Quit my day job right?

Continuing in the 'run yourself into the ground' while traveling Europe trip motto, next we headed to Tower Bridge. This bridge, which is much more elaborate than London Bridge (which in all honesty isn't saying much) looks like it was stolen from Disneyland. The spires are great and I love the blue accents.

Disneyland right? The castle, white and blue trim, I was expecting to see Sleeping Beauty walk out at any moment.

Here I am, wearing the bridge as a crown, do I look regal or what?

After the bridge, we rushed to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we attended a service (key word here, FREE to the public... great way to get into cathedrals by the way) for the beneficiary's of St. Paul's. St. Paul's was goregous, very elaborate, and the service was very nice as well, complete with a boys choir that was very enjoyable.

After the service, in a seemingly vain attempt, we hurried to Shakespere's Globe theatre, in hopes that we could buy standing room tickets for the evening show. Of course, since we went 1 hour from show time, the tickets were completely sold out, but as we had not much else to see and were feeling lucky, we decided to wait in the cancellation line in case people canceled. While it did not look promising, we were eventually able to conjure up 1 standing room ticket (for free even, thank goodness for flakey high school students who don't show). Because we had been running around all day, and were exhausted to say the least, this was not a bad thing, as I watched the first half of the show, and Nicole watched the second half.

insert pic here
Photo of the layout within the Globe theatre

All in all, the Globe was marvelous, while not Shakespeare's original theatre, it is an exact replica, and the standing room tickets are great, you can easily get right up to the front of the stage without much trouble and as long as you can bear standing for 3 hours, are a steal at only £5 (sadly, this is cheaper than a one day underground ticket for this ridiculously priced, but fabulous city).

insert pic here
Potentially copyright-infringing picture of the stage, close huh?

As is expected, once the show was completed we were completely exhausted. I have taken Bree's place of falling asleep in random places, as I mastered the art of sleeping in subways during my stint in NYC. I happily napped the entire ride home and fell to sleep almost as quickly.

The next morning, before our flight to Rome, Nicole and I enjoyed the London Eye. While potentially another opportunity for London to rob poor tourists, this was a rad way to see London. With a bird's eye view we could easily see all the places we visited, and got a good feel for the layout of the city.

Following the eye we made one last stopover in Trafalgar Square, to get pictures with the lions. The park nazi did her best to keep us away from the statues, but to no avail, we foiled her attempts and got pictures anyways! (which are not on my camera and will be loaded later)

Our last stop in London was to Portobello road. We had hoped to find the riches of ages, but were unfortunate to find that the main markets ran only on Saturdays (it was Tuesday). Instead, we meandered through the open markets (still quite a few) and ate yummy falafal pitas. Seriously, one of my favorite foods right now, if you've never had one, you should get one.

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Upon arrival in London, as happens with international travel, we were immediately herded through customs. I was fortunate enough to get the only grumpy English customs agent, and after she chewed me out for a good while, I was able to sneak into England (not before however, I was fighting Australian flashbacks and quite frustrated with the entire country).

After we gathered our bags and passed through the most non-obtrusive claims/declarations system to date (slowly England was winning its way back into my graces) Nicole and I were faced with a brutal reality; namely, the weakness of the dollar. The pound is really strong, commanding $2.25 US, so needless to say our exchange rate was a less than pleasurable experience. On top of the dollar being worth so little, it turns out London is ridiculously expensive. Just to get a train from the airport into the city center was £15!

Nicole and I upon arrival to Victoria Station in London

Even with the grumpy customs worker bent on keeping me out of London and the ridiculously steep prices, London is fabulous! The city is filled with amazing architecture, art and history. Shortly after arriving, Nicole and I met an old college friend and his fiancé Elodie in the city. We had a fabulous time exploring London during the afternoon, and Matthias made it his duty to insure I didn't fall asleep on the Tube (the jet lag, or lack of sleep rather, was killing me, it was seriously hard for me to keep me eyes open at times).

All of us in front of Buckingham Palace

Along with experiencing some of the traditional London sights, it so happened that the Tour de France race was actually being held in London and while this also translated into loads of people and underground delays, it was overall a cool experience. An interesting point about this bike race, apparently it is a big deal here, who knew? All along the roads where the bikers were racing were loads of people, watching and cheering as each of the bikers passed by. While I am yet to know if people were cheering for particular racers or everyone in general, it was quite a phenomenon to see so many people out to watch the England portion of the famous race.

Seriously, these guys are moving, check out their entourage, complete with police escort and all

Now, not that the racers were not amazing, they were, and they were biking surprisingly fast (it's crazy how less impressive it appears on TV, but they were really hauling). But even so, I was content to watch a few racers go by, and then move on. Apparently biking is high class entertainment here though, as people stood out clapping, making noise with noise makers for the entire race portion (for hours and hours...blocking my view mostly). I don't understand it; maybe I don't have high cultured tastes when it comes to athletics. Either way, my favorite part of the race was this sign reading "Le de Tour France", which I thought was brilliant considering how far out of our way we had to trek because of the race. We hoped the company wrote the logo in such a way to avoid copyright laws...

Le deTour France... at least I think I am funny

Along with the race we also were able to see the more traditional sights.

Apparently, Big Ben is the name of the bell within the Clock Tower. Regardless of name however, it was impressive.

Westminster Abbey is huge! The building takes us more than a city block and is very ornate.

The Cathedral of Westminster is also very impressive with ornate carvings galore.

Our first day in London was a success, we saw much and I was mostly able to fight off the urge to sleep (Matthias hitting the glass helped however). Tomorrow holds more excitement and London adventures, until then...

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One thing I learned was that, contrary to my previous belief, a lot of the stereotypes are true;
1. People in Australia really do talk like they do in the movies, 'Goodday Mate', they really say 'Barbie' (I never heard 'Throw another shrimp on the Barbie', but I imagine if you hung around long enough, someone would).

2. While not all people hate Americans, a large percentage do. Best bet, claim Canada and profess to hate Bush.

3. The towns in Australia and New Zealand, minus bars and a few restaurants, completely shut down starting at 5 pm. Also, 5 pm is more of a floating time frame, and depending on how the workers are feeling, they can shut down at any point from 4 - 5. Translation, you had better go to the grocery during the day, or be hungry, because nothing is open once the sun goes down.

4. I do not agree with the Kiwis belief that cars should tow boats, but hey that's just me.

5. Who knew America had such great phone, cell and internet plans. Who wants to pa 30 cents per half minute to land lines and even more to mobile phone and pay per Mb you download on the internet ... not me.

6. When traveling, often the best times can be found in getting there. Stop to smell the roses. How else would we have found this amazing boot statue?

7. As a general rule, people are good. They want to help you if they can, and locals are the best contacts for what to see and do.

Take our Australian grandpa friend who rescued us with our empty car?

8. Finally, I am still happy about the 11:1 sheep to people ratio in New Zealand.

What a beautiful world

All in all this trip was brilliant, filled with beautiful sights and great fun (albeit expensive). The most important thing I learned however was how cool America is. There are so many places in America I haven't seen that are equally breath taking. While I am excited to return home, I am even more excited to continue exploring. Next month Europe, then who knows where my life will take me, one thing I have learned however is that you get from life what you put in. I have been fortunate enough to have a pretty sweet life, and luckily for me, it's just getting started.

For the remainder of my New Zealand photos, and all of the other not yet shown in my blogs (400 pics in total, a lot I know), CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS. Hope you enjoyed the ride 10% as much as I did.

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A sample rapid in the Kaituna River

Arriving at the river, we were again outfitted in wet suits, and this time also boots and warm top layers. After carrying our raft down to the river (down a very slippery hill, which resulted in me slipping and sliding on my butt nearly into the river) and a quick explanation of how and when to paddle we were off to our first water fall.

The first drop was not very high, just enough to get us a little more used to things. While we were able to deftly maneuver our raft correctly down the first drop, we accidentally got turned around for the second and took it backwards in style. Since we were now experienced veterans we were now ready for the 7 m (~23 ft) waterfall.

Waterfall on the Kaituna River

This waterfall was much bigger than the first two (obviously) and we were completely vertical in the raft as we went over the edge.

I would like to point out my superb form, head ducked and all.

Not too shabby.

Following our waterfall experience we did a little 'river surfing'. River surfing is where you paddle as hard as you can into the base of the waterfall, as if you are trying to go back up the falls. This results in the front of the raft being sucked up and down and a very bumpy and enjoyable ride.

Here is our best scared faces we could muster, apparently mine was a split second late.

The front of the raft gets absolutely soaked, yeah for Brooke and Bree.

It was on a river surfing experience that our guide told us to 'wave to the camera', obediently, we all waved, smiled, coo-d - and acted like wonderful tourists. During the waving, Brooke had momentarily chickened out and was grabbing for the raft when the guide yelled out 'keep waving', reluctantly, Brooke began waving hysterically, only to at that exact moment hit a large upsurge and was knocked from the raft into the waterfall.

Woman overboard!

As our guide had instructed us previously, in the chance that you fall out of the boat, immediately roll onto your stomach and swim to shore as fast as possible to avoid going over the next waterfall. Brooke remembering these instructions, immediately began paddling to shore. The guide however, quickly shouted out instructions for us to grab her, and luckily for Brooke (and Bree and my muscle ego's) James was able to grab her out of the river and scoop her back into the raft.

While it was fortunate that Brooke fell out on the same side as James, it would have been absolutely brilliant if she had been on my or Bree's side, as any attempts made by us to rescue her would most likely have resulted in another one of us also falling into the river.

Following our eventful rafting experience we headed to the Rotorua Luge's. While Brooke and Bree had done the luge in Queenstown, we had been repeatedly informed that the luges at Rotorua were much better (aka faster, more dangerous, exactly what we were looking for). As it was fast approaching sunset, we opted to take the gondola and purchase a 5 run all inclusive gondola/chair lift package.

Of course we took photos on the gondola, we are tourists remember?

Hot helmets eh?

The luge at Rotorua held up to our expectations and the next hour was filled with ridiculously fast rides down the concrete tracks. Luckily for us, there was no major accidents, though I did have a small run in with Bree's kart, resulting in only minor damage to my kart...

On your marks, get set... GO!

Looking fabulous in this summer's latest fashion

Following our night time luges, we decided to have one final soak in the thermal water, as we were completely frozen from the rides. The best part of this was our dress, or lack thereof in getting to the hot pools.

Check the kicks

Needless to say we caused a bit of a stir in the hallway and elevator.

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The first walk we completed was Turanaki Falls. Apparently these falls were filmed in the Lord of the Rings, where I don’t know.

Look familiar anyone?

Following the falls hike, we turned in for the evening until the morning, but not until after we posed like a Kiwi in front of our favorite New Zealand traffic sign.

Supposedly the Kiwi is endangered, but there are a lot of these signs everywhere. I wonder how many times a Kiwi bird has to cross the road to warrant a sign being posted? Just wondering.

As a side note, we have begun eating some quite delicate cuisine. We have found that just about every meal goes well with baked beans. For just 49 cents, you can get a can of baked beans in tomato sauce, which, when added to cream of chicken soup paired with brown rice is warm, filling and most importantly cheap. Seriously, the things we are now consuming are not normal by any means.

Back to the ranch, the next morning Brooke and I woke early to do a sunrise hike around Mt. Tongariro.

We were hiking even before the sun!

The track was supposed to be 1 hour or so, but of course, we took a wrong turn resulting in a 2 hour long slated trek dropping us about an hour up the road from the car park. This brings me to another point: whoever is clocking the times these treks take must be in amazing physical shape. With the hikes we completed today, and the treks completed at Mt. Cook, all of which were slated to be completed in 3 hours return (or roundtrip). Seriously, to complete these tracks in this time you would have to really be booking it. Brooke and I barely beat the specified times and we jogged much of the trek. But that’s just me complaining…

A bonus of getting up early: no one around and crystal clear skies.

Since our trek resulted in us being dropped at the road Brooke and I tried our hand (unsuccessfully) at hitch hiking.

In the end, we resigned ourselves to another run down the mountain to our car in the car park. On a side note, unlike what everyone, including the weather reporters had predicted, the Tongariro Park was beautiful and clear, nearly perfect for the crossing; we however, had already booked a blackwater rafting trip in Waitomo and were not able to do the crossing. We did however get some rad pictures of Mt Tongariro.

Seriously, I think I must have really offended the weather fairy.

How cool are we?

Apparently not that much...

So with the beautiful crossing weather, we were unable to do the crossing and instead had to head up the west coast to Waitomo caves. The drive up the west side of the North Island was absolutely beautiful. It was seriously like driving through the shire, everything was so green and we were surrounded on every side by an obscene number of sheep. Interesting fact: there is a 11:1 New Zealander to sheep ratio in this country. I am sure this does not amuse anyone as much as it does me; however, I have and continue to get a royal kick out of that fact.

You can't see them, but there are boat loads of sheep down there.

Haha! Look at the sheep... how cute.

Another amusing thing I have noticed about New Zealand and Australia is there unrealistic opinions of there vehicles. Nearly every car has a hitch, regardless of how small or insubstantial the engine. Take this Taurus for instance, trying to tow a full size camper up a hill. Obviously, not very successfully.

On a side note, you wouldn't need to buy a truck to haul your boat, heck, use the sedan, slow and steady wins the race right?

On our drive, in attempts to give back to society, picked up our 4th hitch hiker of the trip. Jacob was a real treat, a 'recovering' drug addict, he had recently been arrested for, wait for it, robbing a bank at gun point. Not the most ideal thing to learn about a random kid you pick up, but he assured us all was well, as he had to stay clean and be 'good' to avoid being locked up indefinitely. Upon dropping off our hitcher we arrived in Waitomo Caves, a city of probably 10 that survives on the caving industry. Here we had booked a underwater rafting and caving adventure. Before our trip, we stopped at the Glow-worm Museum where we were informed about glow-worms and their history. Apparently, glow-worms are actually the larvae of a winged insect that create spider-like strands with luminescent droplets that glow like blue stars in the caves of this area. Along with the information session, I decided to attempt the cave crawl.

Yeah, pretty sure this is meant only for small children, but in the spirit of adventure I wiggled through anyway.

After my practice run, we went to our blackwater rafting experience. They fitted us with stellar wet suits, jackets, super hot white gumboots, yellow hard hats with lights and my personal favorite, bright purple pirate pants (the pants went over the wet suits to protect them from ripping against the rocks while we were caving). Our trip began with a 27 m abseil down the canyon into the cave (abseiling = repelling).

Brooke was definitely the most graceful while Bree and I went for the more traditional approach.

Yeah, and the harness, not comfortable.

Once we reached the water we went for a small hike upstream the river to a point in the cave that was completely dark. It was at this point that our guide, Simon had us turn off our lights and look up at the cave ceiling to see the thousands of glow worms above us.

This was a really cool experience. The glow worms produce a blue light that looks just like the fake stars at Space Mountain. If I hadn't been there and saw the actual bug/larvae moving along the strands I would not have believed that the lights were actually the bugs. Truly amazing.

More glow worms

After our glow worm experience, we took to the blackwater tubing portion. This was also neat as we tubed down the river in the pitch black, watching the glow worms on the ceiling of the cave. I had the misfortune of listening to Simon when he told me to 'quick, get out of your tube and walk here' and I, unfortunately being obedient, jumped out in the only deep part of the river, completely soaking myself, and almost loosing my gumboot as I flailed around trying to get back on my tube.

Soaked, but back in my tube

Post tubing, we proceeded to do some caving, through nooks and caverns in the cave walls. Brooke had a bit of drama getting out of the first hole, resulting in all but de-pantsing of the pirate pants.

Aye-eye matey

The smallest cave I did was alongside another larger hole, the only problem I had was my helmet and light battery getting caught on the rocks. All was well though and we all managed in to get a photo.

After a quick snack (3 pieces of chocolate and wassail) we began our hike back up stream to the beginning of our trek where we would rock climb out of the cave.

Scaling down the rock walls

The climb out of the cave

Deceitful weather at Tongariro remains copyright of the author court_7, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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