Luang Prabang, Laos, last day

World Heritage UNESCO site,L.P. has many old Wats and colonial French building that are interesting to visit. Good selection of foods and drink, except wine. Laos wines are fruit mixes and rice is used to make vodka,whiskey and something called Lao-Lao, not sure what that is. L.P. is at the confluence of two rivers, one being the mighty Mekong. It's been hot and humid so trying to sleep under a noisy fan leads to blogs at odd hours. house boats/ferries line up on the shore line at night and many little resturant/bars overlook the river and boats. Bugs aren't TOO bad.

note on typos

My droid doesn't display a cursor on the Blogger site, so if I proffread and find an error, the only way to correct it is to erase back to the error. unless it's really bad, I'm just too lazy to do that.

edit

That was 10 dollars a night. Two more if we want air conditioning.

Luang Prabang, Laos

Flew in from Hanoi this AM and found a nice guesthouse near the Mekong River for$qp/night. While in Hanoi I asked a motorcycle taxi guy what xe om meant in Vietnamese- he told it the translation is "hold on tight you round-eyed imperial running dog, I'm going to try to kill us both" :-)

Halong Bay, May 26 - 28

Here's what $90 will get you in Vietnam: Transportation from Hanoi to Halong Bay, cruise Halong Bay on a Chinese style junk, lunch on the junk, hike up through a cave, kayak around the bay, cruise more through the karsts of the bay to Cat Ba National Park, overnight on the junk in a private room with private bath, breakfast on the junk, cruise to Cat Ba Island, bus around the island, bicycle ride to Hospital Cave (a huge cave used by the Viet Cong as a hospital with 3 floors, swimming pool, movie theater), back to the junk and cruise to Monkey Island (still in Cat Ba National Park), lunch on the terrace overlooking the sea, kayak around the island, hike to find the monkeys, back to the resort to swim to the floating bar (drinks served from a kayak while we floated on life preserver rings), beach volleyball, dinner on the terrace, overnight in a private bungalow, breakfast on the terrace, reverse transportation back to Hanoi, including lunch on the junk. All included.

same streetcorner

A BUS!

Hanoi streetcorner

My first attempt at posting a video to the blog. Let me know if it works.

Royal tombs near Hue

May 25th. We rented a couple of bicycles and rode out to find some of the royal tombs. The weather was cool for a change, and only a little mist now and then.

Hue in May

Here are some pics from Hue.

Hue was bitterly fought over during the war and is near the DMZ.

One photo is of a citadel gateway to the Purple Imperial City.

Women still wear the conical hats, but not always traditional dress.

May 23 Cham ruins

The Cham lived and traded in this area starting in the 4th century. Some Cham still live in the Mekong Delta. Even though the majority of Vietnam is Buddist, the remaining Cham are 80% Muslim.

Beer

That's about 18 cents.

May 23, on the way to Hue

Hotels and sleeping. Xuan Mai in Saigon, sleeper bus to Nha Trang, sleeper bus to Hoi An, hotel Phuoc An. Now day bus to Hue. Has it really only been 5 nights??

Vietnam

Some photos from Vietnam, not necessarily in order: Inside the Cao Dai Great Temple. The Cao Dai religion is a strange mixture of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Muslim, and Vietnamese animism. A photo from inside the Cu Chi tunnels where the Viet Cong hid during the war. The Mekong Delta from the plane as we flew into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Ancient Cham Towers in Nha Trang.

May 21 Nha Trang

We went diving in The South China Sea with a Vietnam dive company, $45 for a two tank dive, picked up at hotel, lunch after. They know how to give service.

May 20, Nah Trang, Vietnam

Went to see the Cu Chi tunnel system outside of Saigon, very large,very complicated and right underneath one of our bases. The "American" War has a w,hole new maning here,but Vietnam has been under attack for a long time, France, China, Japan, Thailand have all ataced and tried to dominate Vietnam- good thing they don't hold grudges.--Took a overnite bus to Nha Trang, no chairs all beds, sort of

May 20, Nah Trang, Vietnam

I am not sure that last post published and I'm not sure what stories I told, so I'll a day and see if it shows up.

May 18, Hong Kong airport

between planes waiting to go to Ho Chi Minh City(Saigon). 14 hours so far on a plane, 2 1/2 hours to go.

May 15: T-minus 40 hours

We got reservations last night for the India train from Calcutta to Goa to Agra(Taj Mahal).

The India train reservation system is a frustrating experience until you get the hang of it.

Start off with , it's a good overview.

We'll have to explode the packs at least once more to add/subtract stuff, and then midnight we leave for the Des Moines airport.

I've started my Ho Chi Minh look, but I think it's more of the Colonel Sanders look.

Tipping Point; May 13

In every trip we get to the point when we may not have everything done, we may be missing stuff, not have all the confirmations we need-- but we have enough. Tickets, visas,passports and enough clothes. We can go.

In Iowa May 10

Hello from Iowa!

We packed up the 5th wheel with bicycles and motorcycle, hooked up the pick up and left Pecos, Texas. Two days later we backed into Carol's daughter's driveway.

Now we're frantically trying to get to final items done, flight out of Jordan,(bus through Syria-not a good idea), need a Lonely Planet for India,trying to back up stuff on the computer and still need to call Verizon and suspend our service.