Da Nang - Marble Mountain, Monkey Mountain

After spending a day in Ho Chi Minh City, which I will talk more about later, we were off to Da Nang, the third largest city in Vietnam, and one of their lest touristy.

We were originally supposed to spend 5 days there, but we couldn't get a train out when we wanted so we ended up staying there for 6 days.  This suited us just fine though.  We had an absolutely wonderful time relaxing on the beach and playing in the ocean waves.

On the third day of our trip while playing in the waves later in the day I got stung by a jellyfish.  It got me from my hand down to a few inches above my elbow.  Luckily it didn't hurt tooo bad, and after a day the pain subsided.  It did end up flaring up again later in the trip, getting quite itchy, and I may end up having a scar (on my hand in particular), but it could have been a lot worse!  I'm lucky it didn't sting my face.

Out in Da Nang we saw the Marble Mountains as well as Monkey Mountain.  Marble Mountain is a beautiful mountain where they "mine" for marble (it's easy mining, seeing as how the mountains are made out of marble.)  We took a tall and hot elevator to the top and slowly made our way down while enjoying the view and occasional cave.  Monkey Mountain was also beautiful.  On the top there sits a seven story high statue of a lady buddha, the Bodhisattva of Mercy.

Marble Mountain

Tall elevator

Beautiful pagoda on the mountain

Monkey Mountain

Vietnam, aka. Motorbike Country

Tim and I got back from our vacation in Vietnam a few days ago.  We had a very fun and relaxing time, and saw a lot of really neat things.  Vietnam is an absolutely beautiful country.  The cities we went to had a lot of trees and beautiful beaches, and the countryside was wonderful.

The other thing the cities also had a lot of was motorbikes.  They are absolutely everywhere, probably 30 motorbikes for every one car, and then that car is probably a taxi.  It made crossing the street interesting to say the least. We found out that what Vietnamese people do is just walk really slowly and let the bikes dodge them.  In fact we were told a few times to NOT run across the street.  Another trick for crossing the street we picked up was to slowly shuffle beside a local who was also crossing.  I am not ashamed to admit that once a local who we followed across the street was a little boy around the age of eight or nine.

Other things in Vietnam did not surprise us.  There were still a lot of soi vendors, er, street vendors, and some people were still very pushy with selling their wares.  People still crowded the sidewalks, transportation vehicles, and even bunk beds on the night trains. 

It was nice and warm in Vietnam, but it did cool off at night a bit, more so than in Thailand.  The water in the ocean was very, very warm, and Tim and I spent a lot of time in the waves of the ocean.

The prices were a touch more expensive than in Thailand, but still very reasonable and it was easy to stick close to a budget.

All in all we had a very good vacation, and over the next few days were are going to be putting up pictures and updates of our trip.

Love you all lots!
Kelsey and TIm

Vietnam, here we come!

Tim and I are leaving for Vietnam early tomorrow morning!  We are going to spend the day in Ho Chi Minh City and then fly to Da Nang in the evening.  Then we are working our way back down to Ho Chi Minh and flying back out of there are the end of our trip.  Can't wait!

And don't worry -  I've got the allergy situation under control :)

Samet

This past weekend Tim and I were able to get out of Bangkok again, this time we went south to the island Koh Samet (fun fact, Koh means "island" in Thai).

Despite my feeling a bit ill on Sunday, we had a really fun and relaxing time.  After landing on shore we spent a bit of time looking for the guest house that was recommended to me by my coworkers - Tuk's Resort.  We were glad we took the extra few minutes looking for it, because it really was a fantastic place to stay.  Clean, comfortable, and in a beautiful and quiet location:

The little porch of our guest house, which got a good amount of use

The only problem is that the stone path leading to our room was usually covered with little teeny tiny frogs quickly jumping to get out of our way, so we always had to watch our step very carefully whenever walking to or from the room.

Adorable little frog

Saturday we spent a good amount of time wandering around the island and swimming in the ocean.  At night we saw a very spectacular fire dancer show on the beach.

We had most of our meals at the resort next to us, called Jep's.  The food was delicious (one of the best Greek salads I ever had) and the prices were fairly decent.  It was also right on the beach, and so very beautiful and relaxing.

A lot of my co-workers were surprised that this was my first time getting out to Koh Samet, but all of them said that I ended up falling into their exact routine by booking my room with Tuk's and eating at Jep's.

It was the perfect mini-vacation!

Tim and I are getting pretty excited for our Vietnam vacation.  We've been looking at things to do and places to stay, and are probably going to book our rooms for the first couple of nights sometime today.  I took a personal day off work so we can go see some museums together downtown, as well as go to Khao San road to buy a few things before we take off.
 
Only three more days before we leave Saturday morning!

Lots of love,
Kelsey, and Tim

Tiger Videos

Here are a couple of videos of the tigers in the Tiger Temple getting their evening exercise. Bearing in mind we are very close to them, with a flimsy 4' tall fence separating us. 

Timmmmmy!!!!!!!!!

Yay!

Tim got into Bangkok last Wednesday night after a long (but he says good) flight.  Would have updated sooner but we were busy getting things ready for Vietnam, organizing things here in Bangkok, and seeing a few things around town.

It's been absolutely wonderful having him here with me!!

He says he likes it, and that "it's cool".  However, the heat certainly doesn't suit him, haha.  We are also getting by with his peanut allergies alright - I have a couple of cards that say a couple of different things.  One says "do you use nuts in your kitchen?" (to which we wish to hear the answer "mai chai", which translated literally means "not yes", or "no") and the other one basically says "if I eat nuts I will die, including peanuts, and including peanut oil."  So they seem to understand that, and take it pretty seriously....except for one confusing server who took it to the front cashier and left it there, but that's another story that neither of us really understand anyway.

This last weekend we were even able to get outside of Bangkok and go to Kanchanaburi which Tim really enjoyed.  We did a couple of similar things that I did during the first trip, which was really nice as these were things that I thought Tim would really enjoy.

Our first stop was at an elephant village, where we got to ride and swim with/wash the elephants.

Next we went to the Tiger Temple, and Tim touched a tiger for the first time.

We also got to do a special program where we first got to walk the tigers out then watch them during their evening exercises behind a short cage.

Silly tiger didn't want to put his paw in the water.  So cute!

A visual of the small barricade separating us from the unleashed and alert tigers.

Spoon feeding the tiger some noodles.

We had a lot of fun at the elephant sanctuary and Tiger Temple.  Watching the tigers run loose behind the short cage was scary, but still an amazing experience.  The tigerkeepers seemed to have a pretty good handle on the tigers (I guess you would need to have one!)

Sunday was a very fun and relaxing day.  Tim and I went swimming, Mary and I got massages....the perfect Sunday!  On our mini bus ride home we paid a little extra to have reserved seating behind the driver (as we always manage to get stuck in the back) and it was well worth the 30 baht we each paid.

Generally a really great experience!  I am so glad I was able to show Tim Kanch.

I will also post a couple of videos of the tigers within the next couple of days.  For now, that's it!

Love you all!  

Tim says "hi"!!!!

Kelsey