After our dive trip Jeremy and I flew to Kuala Lumpur for a couple days en route to Malaysian Borneo for more diving. Both of us had developed some trouble with our ears after the last trip, so we hung out in KL for a while waiting for our ears to get better; I took the opportunity to get some work done.
I met my friend Jeremy in Phuket, Thailand for a 6-day liveaboard scuba diving trip around the Similan Islands, one of the world’s best dive sites. My daily expenses were about ten times what they were in Vietnam, but it was well worth it.
In spite of spending over three weeks in Vietnam I can’t say I saw much of it, because most of my time was spent in a couple very touristy areas: Hoi An and the backpacker area of Saigon. So it wasn’t until I did a couple day trips outside of Saigon that I caught a glimpse of the real Vietnam, which I loved.
Since most of my time in Saigon was spent working (or trying to) I don’t have much to write about, but did have a bit of fun here and there.
After taking a couple weeks off from work in December, I planned to spend the first week or two in January getting caught up on work in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I found a hotel in the backpacker district for only $12 USD/night including TV, a/c, wireless internet and breakfast. That’s less than half my rent at home.
I spent five fun and relaxing days in Hoi An from Dec 24-29. The days were spent wandering around taking pictures while snacking on various mysterious but good and super cheap street food, eating excellent meals with friends, and playing pool until the wee hours of the morning.
Yesterday I met up with Roger and Marjorie in Hoi An. We did some sightseeing during the day, had some very tasty pho, a round of 21 cent beers and some really good spring rolls for a snack, then we splurged and had an excellent 5-course meal for our Christmas eve dinner. ($6.50 CAD)
I arrived in Hanoi around 8:30 last night, the start of 3-4 weeks or so in Vietnam. I’m really excited to be here. (mmm, Vietnamese food!)
To paraphrase Napolean Dynamite, this is pretty much the worst blog ever made.
I am now about three weeks and dozens of adventures behind on blogging. I think I’m going to abandon the practice of trying to include photos with each blog post, or maybe just start adding them later; my photo-publishing habits are too sporadic to be able to keep up.
I have been on Ko Samet for the last few weeks, and this island/beach life has made me verrry laaazy.
I’ll try to catch up soon.
Leaving Whistler to travel for the winter was a difficult decision; I had to keep reminding myself that I’ll never get a better chance to do an extended trip like this, and Whistler will still be there next winter, etc. I have been happy with my decision but every once in a while have second thoughts, e.g. when hearing about the record snowfall Whistler had last month.
I managed to forget about it for a few days, and upon arriving in Bangkok I checked my voicemail for the first time in weeks because my phone didn’t work in Japan. I had 16 messages waiting including a few nice birthday wishes, but among them were a series of automated messages from PowderFone (that I had signed up for last winter) saying things like “good morning, this is PowderFone, today Whistler has 20cm of fresh snow”.
Argh!