Da Lat, Vietnam 12 April 2010

This is the reception to our hotel in Dalat, ín the centre òf the city. Called the Tulip Hotel.


The Traffic in this ảrea stopped on weekends and become a market area. The area that we are standing on becomes a play ground for children and adults to walk around.

Nha Trang is very touristy but nice. Found a good restaurant tonight, not as good as the one in Da Lat but OK. The one in Dal Lat was superb.


Pictures taken at a Buddhist Temple in Da Lat. We took a countryside tour of Da Lat with the Easy Riders - pillion passenger on motor bikes. It was a great day. Below see Patricia on the bike.

Vietnam - Da Lat and Mui Ne April 2010

Da Lat - View from our window in the Tulip Hotel. First taken in the afternoon and second taken early morning before the fog lifted.

Da Lat - a cool climate. It is so amazing to see roses in Asia that we had to take this picture. We ate at a lovely restaurant, roses, candle and of course, the Saigon beer. While in Vietnam you have to do it the vietnam way.

We travelled to Da Lat from Mui Ne over a very rough road in a very cramped, old, local bus. It took 6 hours to travel 170kms but the scenery was spectacular, so it was hard to whinge too much. When someone go off the bus there was big excitement but then there was always the reverse, more people boarding with bags and boxes of who knows what.

Mui Ne - the view from our accommodation on the sea (1st pic) and the outside of our room - maybe the house that Jack build would be a good description.... It was called a resort but ........ Hey the room was very basic but with aircon and the view made up for it. You could hear the waves crashing on the shore. The garden and pool were lovely. It had a huge python in the lake and it was huge. Luckily it was asleep everytime we saw it.

OK, here is our friendly resort next door on the left and ours is the one on the right(1st pic) . It looks like a dungeon from the beach.

The staff of the resort next door enjoyed our company and took our photo. They liked practicing their english with us.

At Mui Ne these boats are used by fisherman. You can see the nets inside. They row them standing up with one oar. Never seen a round boat before. Some of them are plastic, you can see one in the background.

Ho Chi Minh City - early morning traffic.

We went to a water puppet show in Ho Chi Minh. This lady dressed in traditional chinese dress was an usherette.


Stopped for coffee in the city and this lady was selling wares on the street. It was in a park with beautiful big trees, reminiscent of Australia.



Floating market on Mekong river. This market was for the locals to purchase their produce for resale.

taken at floating market at Can Tho - part of the Mekong Delta trip

Lady weaving in a village

We have bought a bus ticket that will take us around Vietnam to Mui Ne,m Da Lat, Nha Trang, Hoi An and Hue. Leave tomorrow Friday 9th April, to go to Mui Ne and are staying at Loai Phongn Hotel.

We have been staying in a hotel called Thanh Thuy Hotel in Ho Chi Minh. Hotel reviews on the web work so well, as this one has only 1 star and is $25 US per night but it's really great. Has an undesirable entrance which I think brings it down but the room is fantastic. It's in the backpackers area in District 1 central to all the city highlights.

Walking in the city is interesting. Trying to cross a road, well what an experience. The only way at times to cross is to edge across with motor bikes going either side of you. Then you get to the middle and then the foray to the other side starts. It's amazing, we haven't seen an accident. Today though, we got to the middle and a large truck went by and blasted it's horn right next to us. What a fright!!!!

Phnom Penh

young monk's with a Camera taking photo's of each other posing in front of a large Canon

the central Gardens in the centre of the Museum Phnom Penh

Eddie & Hank eat your heart out, zoom in and look at the price

Taken from the FCC Restaurant, an example of french architecture in Phnom Penh. Many of these buildings have been renovated and are magnificient, but this one as character.

Robert on the river bank at the beginning of the Mekong River - pagoda in background.

After Battambang Phnon Penh was a lovely treat. So clean in comparison and we dont feel like aliens here. There are other tourists......

We've met lots of people here and learnt from their experiences, even a couple from Adelaide.... The hotel Trasak Pa Em turned out to be very nice, once the tuk tuk driver found it that is. It's a new hotel just renovated and hard to find. We are on the 4th floor with a balcony and breakfast thrown in at a great restaurant which is part of the complex.

Visited the Russian markets and the National Museum and spent happy hour at the FCC Restaurant each evening to enjoy the half price drinks. Only one day here so not a lot of time.

Mekong Delta Tour to Vietnam

The night of Day 2 of the tour was in Can Tho and the accommodation was a wonderful improvement. We upgraded to aircon and the bed didn't have broken coils in it. Yippeeee!!!!! We both like Can Tho. It was much cleaner and the people very friendly. The vietnamese who are learning english just love to talk to you and they are so lovely.


hundreds of ducks in pen on land and river - they get the best of both worlds!!!


Locals on the Mekong river


Our boat on the Mekong - took us from Cambodia to the Vietnam border then we took another boat to do the Vietnam part.


Photo taken on way to Vietnam Border along the Mekong.

One of the boat drivers - he was about 9 years of age.

We have arrived at Chau Doc and are staying at a backpackers - Vinh Phuoc Hotel. It's very basic. We are having a drink right now at a posh restaurant overlooking the Mekong. Our hotel is about $10 a night and this one starts at $100 for the basic room.

The border crossing went very smoothly, quite boring in fact.

We leave Phnom Penh tomorrow morning (Monday 5 April) to do a Mekong Delta tour which starts with a bus/boat trip to Chau Doc. A night at Chau Doc and then we spend a day touring ending at Can Tho where we spend the night. Day 3 on tour and we arrive at Ho Chi Minh on Wednesday 7 April.

Battambang Cambodia

We leave for Phnon Penh tomorrow on the bus - the VIP one this time. We will be staying at the Trasak Pac-Em Hotel.

We are staying the Siem Hout Hotel in Battambang. Battambang is very different to Siem Reap. Poverty is very evident. It is not a tourist town but we are glad we have visited. We went out at 8pm last night to get something to eat and there wasn't much to choose from so came back to the Hotel Restaurant which proved to be a good choice.

We arrived here from Siem Reap on the bus. We were the only tourists on board and had the best seats at the front. We love it when people who are learning english come and speak to us. It's great. They are a wonderful people.

This photo is a staircase that can be seen from our room in the hotel.


Robert and Patricia on the Bamboo Train. Hey this was fun. It's used by the locals to transport produce between villages. They make good income from giving tourists a ride, 14 km to the next village and back. It was an interesting experience. When you meet a train coming the other way, one has to dismount and allow the other one to pass. We only had to do this one. The second photo shows it being put back together. This would not win any awards in Australia for OHSW protocol but it was fun.

We were told today that the bamboo train is to be terminated. An Australian company if rebuilding the railway line after they have cleared the land mines....... Eechhhh - glad we didn't see any of those.



We visited this Rice Paper making business in a local village.

The street where our hotel is located.

We went to a temple just out of Battambang but realised we were just templed out. And it wasn't a patch on Angkor temples.

Cambodia - Siem Reap - Week 4

Photos from Ankgor Temples


The Cultural show at an orphanage in Siem Reap. A very rewarding experience!!

The journey by bus from Kanchanapuri to Cambodia was an interesting exercise. The bus service was horrific. The bus left us in the middle of a busy road in Bangkok in early morning traffic and pointed towards a Police Station that we couldn’t see from that point and said the bus would pick us up there. We had traffic going both sides of us and managed to get across the road safely. It was obviously too much effort to take us to the pick up point.

The demonstrations by the reds was still going on but it didn't affect us too much except they said the traffic was much slower than normal. Made for interesting sight seeing.

Then we got to witness corruption on both sides (Thailand and Cambodia) at the border crossing. The visa scam at the border (taking us to another location) and the ATMs at the border where we were told to take money out in Thai baht and convert it to Reil the Cambodia currency. When we arrived in Siem Reap everything was priced in US dollar.

We arrived, to the most disgusting hotel in Siem Reap you could imagine. We arranged accommodation at another hotel and they picked us up by tuk tuk at 10am the next morning. We slept in the bed but didn’t shower until we reached our new hotel. Anyway enough negatives. But we did feel pretty silly for being taken for a ride and not researching enough before we travelled.

From here on the fun started. The new Hotel Ta Som is excellent, the staff very friendly and helpful and they have gone out of their way to please. $15 US for aircon and hot water and a clean room, serviced daily.

We visited the Angkor temples over 3 days and they are just so beautiful and amazing and awe inspiring. We had a tuk tuk driver and a guide for both days and it was fantastic. Very hot. Day 1, 3 we checked out all the local attractions, Day 2, 4 and 5 the temples.

Future plans - We leave on Thursday 1 April for Battamburg for 2 nights and then Phon Phen for 2 nights and then on to Vietnam (no more border crossing dilemmas hopefully as we have arranged our visa in advance!!!) Hotel in Battamburg not confirmed yet.

Week 3 - Koh Phangan and River Kwai

We caught the train from Surat Thani to Bangkok and then a bus to Kanchanapuri. Left Koh Phangan at 11.30 am on Monday and arrived Kanchanapuri on Tuesday at 11am, so 24 hours travelling. The sleeper bunks on the train were the only 2 left and so we were not together, but in the same carriage. We thought we would have airconditioning but no, fresh air was it and fans to circulate it. But the upper bunks of course had no air flow so it was very hot. We both had a very disturbed sleep. Patricia woke dreaming that there was an earthquake and the building was shaking which was very understandable.The train we caught was the slow one. It kept stopping all night to let the express trains through. We have learnt that you cannot book a train at the last minute.

We arrived at Sam’s Rafthouse - a rafthouse on the River Kwai. We are right on the water with a balcony over the river. It’s lovely. When a boat goes by it feels just like we are on a boat.

Today Wednesday - Robert’s birthday - we went on a tour which included the Erawan Waterfalls which had seven levels and it was superb. It had those little fish that nibble you but some of them weren’t so little. We were so hot that we didn’t care. Patricia managed to slip on a rock and fall in the water shoes and all. Good way to cool down. The other highlights of the day were riding an elephant on land and the river, bamboo rafting down the River Kwai, the Krasae Cave with a golden buddha and the wooden viaduct built by WW2 prisoners. We then went on the Death Railway and saw the Bridge over the River Kwai. It was very sobering to be there imagining the suffering that happened there in the past.

Robert at the Bridge over the River Kwai

Taken from the Death Railway Train. Monks sitting in the jungle. We were told that Buddhists believe there are still souls who haven't passed over.

Us on the elephant

Erawan Waterfall

On Friday we leave Kanchanapuri on a mini bus back to Bangkok and then straight over the border to Siem Reap in Cambodia. We have an airconditioned bus booked for the trip. The bad bit is we are picked up at our hotel at 5.15am. Hmmm!!!!

We are staying at the Ta Som Guest House Seim Reap which is budget but comes with very good reviews and the staff are very friendly and helpful.