Good Morning Vietnam!

My only experience to lend me any thought towards Vietnam before our actual trip here was sneaking into the living room & hiding under one of the coffee tables when I was like 6 to catch snippets of this show my Dad watched called M.A.S.H. However, I found out later that the show wasn't even about Vietnam - it was about the Korean war... So ya, very glad I actually got here to see what this country is really all about!!

We flew in to Saigon and viewed first hand the clutter and chaos of this huge sprawling city! Jam packed, every size and type of building you could imagine without a space anywhere to be seen... ontop of that - traffic traffic traffic... motorbikes and mopeds everywhere speeding through intersections making our attempts as pedestrians harrowing to say the least!

We did manage the War Remnants Museum but what a horrifying war. I've never come so close to puking, but after reading the descriptions of the torture used on prisoners I nearly did and walked away with tears in my eyes. Besides learning how cruel humans can be to other humans we also learned a lot about agent orange and the effects it had on the children of those who'd been exposed. Awful awful awful.

We also took a bus ride outside the city to view one of the hardest hit areas and explore the Chu Chi Tunnels where the Vietnamese people buried themselves undergroud in an extensive network and maze of tunnels barely large enough to fit their small asian frames. Craig and I tried a few tunnels and came up hot, sweaty and claustrophobic. We spent the remaining 2 weeks of our time in Vietnam reading a book called the 10,000 Day War to gain a better perspective on all sides. Conclusion - complicated, disasterous and dangerously similar to the wars the USA is now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There were, of course, lighter moments to our time in Vietnam. We spent a few night in Mui Ne and pedal biked our way 20 some km's north to the Gold Sand Dunes where we rented crazy carpets from a little boy who took us out for a hilarious & very hot adventure in the sand dunes. Definitely not as fun as snow as far as speed is concerned but good for memories.

Onto Nha Trang - we arrived by bus in a major downpour and it didn't take long before both of us were soaked attempting to find a guesthouse but it was warm and the streets were flooded and it's all part of the adventure right! We had planned to go diving here but the water was as brown as I've ever seen.

Instead we decided to see Vietnam on motorbike! We left Nha Trang for a 5 day adventure away from the tourist traps to take a real close look at how the countryside vietnamese live. 2 bikes, 1 guide - 1st 2 days we took turns sitting behind our guide on his bike and rotated driving the other and for the last 2 days Craig & I doubled it together - talk about another level of trust!

Highlights from the trip include:
laughing at all the hilarious things vietnamese can fit on the back of their motorbikes
riding a waterbuffalo
seeing the beautiful blue sky and puffy white clouds every day!
playing with kids at an orphanage one morning
trekking to some absolutely stunning waterfalls
holding a massive python
returning the wild waving and hellos from all the kids on the side of the road
seeing all the villiage children wandering around & playing right next to and even on the main highway where huge buses and semi's are thundering by - many of the kids without clothes on

We ended in Hoi-An near the middle of Vietnam and after getting many more tailored clothes than we ever could've imagined for ridiculously low prices... we took a night bus (they actually have beds in them - not comfortable for a 6ft or even 5'9 frame, but beds all the same) down to Nha Trang for a day of diving and then another night bus to Saigon and onto Chau Doc where we'd catch a bus to head across the border to Cambodia but not before we stopped at a little fishing villiage... on the water... the families live on the water and their farms are under their houses!

All in all, Vietnam was a very amazing & educational experience. What a very beautiful country with very friendly beautiful people!

Singapore!

So now I'm only a couple weeks behind. Craig & I are in Vietnam right now and its been a blast, but just before we flew here we spent a week in Singapore hanging out with a couple we met through Athletes In Action in Thailand. They (Reon & Rosemary) invited us to come down, told us we couldn't come to southeast Asia without visiting Singapore. And we're definitely glad we did. Extremely different from the rest of Asia it was great having tour guides to take us to experience all the local culture, food and living conditions.

The Night Safari was amazing and has won tourist acclaims around the world - its attached to the Singapore Zoo but you go at night to see all the creatures that really come alive at night! It started with a live animal show where they had a wolf run up onto this huge rock and howl at the moon! Very cool!

There's also some sweet trails all along the beach to go biking and rollerblading so we hit those up one afternoon and crashed a sandcastle making competition - craig and I have made a few sandcastles but nothing like that!

Reon and Rosemary also took us to all the best lookouts of the city at night and during the day! Tons of greenspace and a very cool and well-laid out city!

We also finally got a chance to cook! Most people who know us know Craig & I both love cooking so we baked a lasagne! That's as close to a real "Canadian" meal we could think of and man was it ever good!!! (Especially after tasting pig intestines earlier in the week!)

We also fit in some recreation! Reon took Craig and I to play some basketball outside with the locals one afternoon but the heat and humidity almost made Craig & I both pass out. We called all the time outs - nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with shade and water! We've also added Tchoukball to our sporting skills! Its all the rage in Singapore and their country is ranked 3rd in the world! Reon coaches it so we participated in one of their 3 hour practices! Craig and I's arms almost fell off by the end of the night from trying to throw the ball so hard and far! If you get a chance you should look up this sport on the internet!

3 other random thoughts...

1. We learned a new chinese tile game similiar to our tile rummy that kept us up til ridiculous hours of the night. I don't think we went to bed before midnight the whole time we were in Singapore!

2. Our little rendez-vous on that last island in Thailand left my legs a bitten mess! I almost went insane with scratching something like 35 bites on one leg! But thankfully Reon andRosemary shared some Chinese medicine with me and it helped a lot!

3. Speaking of Chinese medicine, Craig & I both got some acupuncture done! I'm not sure how much it helped but it was very interesting to speak with this old Chinese man who's also made us think twice about drinking cold liquids... you'll have to ask Craig about the science behind it..

So there you have it! That brings us to our flight to Vietnam on Jan 15th! We've been here in Vietnam for almost 2 weeks and will be heading to Cambodia in just a few days. I'll catch you up on the last leg of the journey from there. Hard to believe we're almost done our 6 months of galavanting. We fly back to Canada March 7th I think!! The trip has been amazing in so many different ways, but Craig & I are also looking forward to the new adventures Canada has for us!

Hope all is well with you. Send an email to us anytime. Would love to hear from you and what's going on in your world! craig.suz09@gmail.com

Christmas in Thailand!

Okay - still playing catchup, but feel more motivated having heard recently that more friends than i thought are reading this.

So from Laos we caught a cheap flight down to southern Thailand to Phuket for only $50 for the both of us! We got in late Christams eve so we set up our tent right next to the ocean even though we couldn't see it. It was super cool and maybe a once in a lifetime experiece waking up Christmas morning to a beautiful ocean at our doorstep! We went for a long walk down the beach, jumped in only to discover a sting ray a meter away from our feet and a huge jellyfish floating about 8 feet away!

We met my 2 cousins at the airport and headed to the beach!Fun way to spend Christmas! Boxing day we went on a dive trip but I think we were pretty spoiled in Indonesia - the diving was a lot better there I thought, although we did get to see a massive yellow and black spotted eel!

After Phuket we headed down to Railay for New Years which is probably one of the most stunning places Craig & I have been. Huge limestone cliffs, beautiful beaches and aqua blue water! We did a 4 day rock climbing course on lead climbing which was very cool and spent some time sea kayaking as well. oh ya - we also got a chance to play some beach with my cousin jodi which was a blast!

The last place in Thailand we went to was a tropical island where one of the first episodes of Survivor was filmed! We pitched our tent for 2 nights but after a monkey stole our laundry detergent and another one our sunscreen we decided to crash in one of the bungalows close by - great idea since the next 2 nights it poured rain! We spent 4 days on the island mostly relaxing but we did manage a 20 km hike through the jungle to an old abonded prison used during World War II. Things grow big in the jungle - particularly the leaves! We also kayaked through a mangrove forest to this "crocodile cave". There used to be huge man eating crocodiles on the island which is one of the reasons they built the prison here (they figured between the shark infested waters and man eating crocodiles it was unlikely prisoners would make an escape attempt) But between the pictures of those crocodiles, the eery calm off the water, the pitch black of the cave and the sound of bats overhead we didn't last very long in the cave and paddled out pretty quick. Later in the day we spotted a couple of these large lizards and I think if we would've seen one of those in the cave I would have seriously freaked out - but from the beach it was okay!

From the jungle to a bustling metropolis - Singapore here we come!