Sunday, March 21, 2010

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Boracay, Philippines






























After Manila, Cabu Pacific Airlines took us south to the tropical paradise of Boracay, where we stayed in a bungalow on White beach for PHP 1500 per night (Del Oro or something). Boracay is a beautiful, tiny island with great beaches and diving sites. Of course me and Kristine didn't DIVE, but we did go snorkeling. Which was nice. And we met some cool people.
There's a great Greek restaurant on the island called Cyma, lots of other restaurants and tourists, and everything is quite expensive. Great Mongolian barbecue is served on the beach.

Manila, Philippines














































































































































































Our flight from Saigon to Manila was scheduled at the convenient time 1:20 am, which resulted in a quite scary taxi ride from the airport, and arrival at the Red Carabao hostel around 9 am. The hostel was very cheap (about $10 for a twin room), but scary. It looked like an old castle, had lots of stuffed animals and weird artwork inside. Also, it was located right next to the South gate of the Chinese cemetery; in a seemingly not so very pleasant neighborhood. After a few hours of sleep, we moved downtown to the business center, Makati. We found a very nice hostel called Our Melting Pot ($22), where we shared and apartment with an American guy named Tracey (who traveled with us for the rest of our trip).

The next day our Filipino friend Rhyan from Seoul National together with his sister Johanna and their dad took us sightseeing. We went to Rizal park, Intramuros, saw some beautiful old churches (of the few remaining in the second most destroyed city after WWII), went to the world's fourth largest shopping center; Mall of Asia, where we watched the sunset. Apparently it's so beautiful partly due to the extreme air pollution. Manila seemed like kind of a difficult city to get around in on your own, so I'm very grateful Rhyan and his family took care of us!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Mui Ne, Vietnam











After one night in bustling Saigon, we took a bus northwest to Mui Ne, which is pretty much a beach with a bunch of resorts, bars and restaurants. The place is known to be great for kite-surfing, which we didn't do.
We stayed one night at Thai Hoa ($35), but moved to a more centrally located hotel on the second day. The place was called Ngoc Duy; it was probably the cheapest place in all of Mui Ne, but it was great. We had a big twin room with a seating area outside. Since it was Vietnamese new years, the hotel staff invited us for dinner. Me and Kristine ended up at a table with only Russians who could barely speak English, but we still got along quite well. Actually, almost all the people we met in Mui Ne were Russian, except for this one Swedish guy who lived in Vietnam and sold cosmetics.
The food was great, especially the Corn from the street stalls and my new favorite: Dragon-fruit!
Apart from staying on the beach, we went on a half-day tour with Mui Ne Easy Rider ($10), where we had each our driver and some pretty sweet rides (at least mine was). We went to see the white sand dunes and a lizard farm. Apparently lizards are (due to scarcity) selling for about 400 times as much in restaurants as they did only a couple of years ago. We were invited to have tea with the owner. Since it's considered rude to reject any gifts, we were pretty much rolling out of there due to an excessive intake of cakes, cookies and watermelon seeds.


Monday, March 1, 2010

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.






















































































































































































































































































































































After a 7 hour busride from Phnom Penh, we finally arrived in Saigon. We stayed at Ngoc Thao guesthouse in District 1, which was great. About $20 per night. I’ll also recommend the restaurant ”Flavor of India” and the GO2 bar which had a pretty nice rooftop bar with happy hour all night.
The traffic in this city is insane, with only a few cars and MILLIONS of motorcycles. There’s at least three people riding on each of them, and we saw some carrying up to six people! I felt like I was risking my life every time I tried to cross the street.
We went to the War museum (needless to say, Vietnam has also been through awfully rough times) and the Reunification Palace. The bomb proof basement made me think of Twin Peaks.  

Phnom Penh, Cambodia






















We took a boat from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, and the ride was about 7 hours long. I got to see the backside of the backpacker medal, as I was feeling really sick for the entire ride. In Phnom Penh we stayed for two nights at Sunday Guesthouse, which was a nice, very clean hotel with helpful staff. They got us Vietnamese visas in one day for $45. We got a private driver for one day ($5 per person), and went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the killing fields. The fact that Tuol Sleng used to be a school didn't make the atmosphere less creepy. The very recent history of this country (late seventies) is so unbelievably brutal.
Apart from this, we went to the Russian market, Wat Phnom, the royal palace and the silver pagoda.
Cambodia turned out to be my favorite country from the trip. The people were friendly (though some sellers on the streets wouldn't take 'no' for an answer), and I fell completely in love with the colors; dusty and faded like in an old photograph.