I've been in Luang Prabang for the last day. It was another 8 hour bus ride. It would have been 45 minutes faster but the bus broke down 10 miles out of town. One of the belts broke but luckily they were able to replace it on the road. I was just about to jump into a Tuk Tuk when they fired it back up.

Once in town I was impressed by the well maintained neighborhoods. This was once ran by the French and you can still see it today in the buildings and many small cafes. Yesterday we awoke at 5:30 to go feed the monks. They don't work so they ask for food donations every morning. They walk the main streets which are lined with locals and tourist and collect there daily meals. They are given everything from rice to bananas and candies. It was a really cool site to see. There orange robes pop with color in the early morning light.

In the afternoon we went to some of the local Temples and Wats. As we were roaming the streets people were squirting us with water guns and dumping buckets on our heads. I read they have a huge water fight on Lao New Year. But I thought I was going to miss it, since New Year was on the 13th. I talked to a few locals and they said they celebrated it for a week the 10th-17th. After seeing a few of the Wats I decided to join in on the fun. I talked to the guys in one of the groups that soaked me. They invited me to join in the festivities, after dumping a bucket of water on me. The rest of the crew joined in. We ended up spending 3 hours there. It was so much fun. We loved getting the other tourist. We nailed a few Tuk Tuks with about 8 people in them. The Lao people were a little more cautious with the tourist, so they didn't expect it when we drenched them. It was a really hot day, it felt nice to cool off. We had buckets of water, as the people would ride by on there bikes we would soak them. As the sun went down, I was cold for the first time on this trip. Being wet for 3 hours chilled my core temp. I decided to go back and change.

I ended the night with a good dinner in the street market. You can get a great meal for about $1. After dinner I went to the Night Market. It was all hand made crafts. I bought a few souvenirs. I try to hold off until the last day or so. But I wanted to support the local crafts.

Today were are going to check out a waterfall. Then back to Vietnam. I fly into Hanoi this afternoon. I decided do the 45 minute flight, since the bus takes 24 hours. It cost a lot more but my time is worth something.

5 more night before I head home.

Vang Vieng!!

I spent the last few days in Vang Vieng, Laos.

I've been hanging out with three Canadians I meet Candice, Kevin and Amy. It's been nice splitting cost on hotels and transportation. We've been together the last 5 days, most likely I'll hang out with them for my last week it Asia.

Vang Vieng is known for a few things, first would be tubing the river. The second is rock climbing. I was able to do both in my time there.

The tubing is more like a wild spring break party. People from all over the world getting wasted. Jumping off zip lines and rope swings into the river. There is a bar about every 100ft. By the end of the day we had only went 200 yards down river. The tube rental was such a waste of money, you could walk or swam, the water was so low. I had fun though. I went on a few of the zip lines and swings. But I hit my foot on a rock off one of the swings due to the shallow water. After that I just hung out, I got a small cut on the bottom of the foot. No big deal but it's hard to keep it clean.

The next morning we went out with a guide for a half day of rock climbing. We went with a great company named Green Discovery. Our guide was Hoi, he was very knowledgeable and spoke great English. This is hot season in Laos. So we started early and went to a nice canyon, which was sheltered from the sun. There was limestone cliffs on both sides. One side was about
40ft and the other was about 60ft. There were a lot of fun routes. We did about six different climbs. None of them were to hard but all fun. I had never climbed limestone. I was amazed by how strong of a rock it is. There were tons of good holds that didn't look strong enough to support my weight, but they did. I would highly recommend climbing in Vang Vieng.

Today I took a 9 hour bus to Luang Prabang. I'll spend the next few days here. Then I'm flying to Hanoi. I'll spend 5 more days in Vietnam then back home. I'm having an amazing time on my trip but looking forward to being home with Daniele.

One week left.

Friendly Laos!

From what I've seen in my first day in Laos is impressive. I'm currently in the capital Vientiane. In most country's the capital has always been a tough city. The locals will try to pry open your wallet, to convince you spend money in there shop. But in Laos the locals are very friendly, and haven't once tried to hustle money out of me. I've also had quite a few locals including monks approach me to chat. I'm going to spend the next week moving up through Lao to Luang Prabang.

I'm looking forward to all the natural beauty and friendly faces.

Bangkok!

I'm going to go back a day on my post.

Originally I wasn't planing on coming to Thailand. But since Brad couldn't stay for the whole trip. Bangkok was the most economical place for him to catch a flight back to the states. We spent most of our time in Thailand on Koh Chang which was amazing, we did the post on it few days ago.

Bangkok is a great big city. The traffic is crazy, the tourist areas suck money out of your wallet at warp speed. But if you get a few blocks off the beaten path the prices drop in half. And the locals are very friendly. I only had 24 hours before I left to Laos. So I made the most of my time and walked all over the city. I tried checking out neighborhoods I didn't see in my last trip. I had a good dinner for $1.50 and saw a few Wat's.

Thailand has been all over the news with there political tension. We even got a few people from the states trying to urge us to skip Thailand. But as you all know the media likes to blow things out of proportion, especially the US media. Yes there is a huge political rally going on. But it was very peaceful it was only a few block from were we stayed. I walked through it a few times and people smiled as I passed. What they are protesting about doesn't concern tourist, And they know tourism is a huge part of the economy. They don't want to mess it up.

The short of this is, don't always believe what you see on the news. There's too many 24hr news stations that need to fill air time. The news media likes to run things into the ground.

In Laos!!

If you count the USA this is my 5th country in the last 2 weeks. It's been a little busy to say the least. I took the overnight bus from Bangkok to Vientiane and 13 hours later here I am.

I haven't had much time to check it out yet. But I did meet 3 Canadians on the bus. We all had very similar plans so we decided to share a rooms to save on cost. I might be traveling with them for the next week or so. It will be nice.

I'll post some pics tomorrow.

Enjoying the sun! Koh Chang Day 6-8

Its been a crazy and at the same time relaxing last few days. After we visited the temples of Angkor we took off in the morning to Thailand which was an interesting journey to say the least. There are a couple of ways to get to the Thai border either by bus or by taxi. The bus was said to take twice as long as the taxi so we opted to take the taxi. Now with a taxi there are two ways to do it, you can either rent the taxi for yourself or share the taxi with some other people traveling to the border. Since it was just the two of us we decided it would be cheaper to share the taxi, little did we know that when we signed up for this that they would be cramming ten (8 adults, 2 children) of us including the driver into a Toyota Camry for an hour and a half. More over no one that we were sharing the taxi with spoke a lick of English so it made the ride even that much more interesting. We were so cozy that at one point one of the ladies in the back seat with us fell asleep on Jason’s shoulder making for a pretty funny picture. Once we arrived in Poipet near the Thai border we were dropped off at a bus station around 2km from the border. Eagerly we got out of the taxi to stretch our legs. To get to the Thai border Jason and I hopped on a motorbike with all of our bags and the three of us drove the final leg to the border.
Once we arrived at the border we had to go through the Cambodian departure process. While we were in line we met a nice girl from Denmark “Maja” who was at the border to extend her Thai visa. We asked if she would like to share a tuk tuk to the bus station on the other side where her boyfriend “Fridi” was waiting. We had some loose plans to try to take a bus into Pattaya but after some discussion we decided to head with them to the island of Koh Chang. We managed to catch the final ferry to the island and stayed at the same hotel that they were staying at.
So to sum it up our journey from Siem Reap to Koh Chang went something like this:
A tuk tuk to the taxi station
A taxi to the bus station
A moto to the border
A tuk tuk to the bus station
A bus to the Chanthaburi
A bhat bus to the ferry
A ferry to the island
And finally a van to the hotel.
Needless to say we were quite tired at the end of the day.
We arrived on Koh Chang in the night. So when we saw it at first light we were amazed. The beaches are picture perfect, the sands, soft white and the water is just perfect. We walked the whole length of White Sand beach which was by our hotel. By midday we wanted to check out the rest of the island. We decided to rent Motorbikes as they only cost $7.50 for 24 hours. I wouldn’t normally rent motorbikes in Thailand but Koh Chang didn’t have much traffic so the riding wasn’t bad. We did have to ride on the opposite side of the road as back home. We did fine for the most part; once I found myself drifting to the wrong side of the road and had to make a quick turn back. Our first stop was Lonely Beach. It was a nice small beach tucked away from the road. It’s not very commercialized and had a lot of cheap backpacker accommodations. We ended up spending a few hours there. We went back to White Sand beach for the sunset and to go out to dinner with Maja and Fridi. We had a really nice dinner on the beach. There was a cool fire show in which one of the fire performers was maybe three years old, it was crazy. They put on an amazing show.
The next day we still had our bikes until 1pm so we decided to check out a few other beaches. First we went to Kai Bae beach which had a few picturesque beaches on deserted islands a few hundred yards off shore. It was low tide so we decided to walk to across to the island. Little did we know half way across there was a big reef system with coral, As a scuba diver I couldn’t keep walking and damage the coral that was older than me. We decided to turn back and only made it about half way. We then stopped by Koh Preah beach. It was once again out of a post card but I was worn out and decided to head back to the room. That evening we went back to Lonely Beach with Maja and Fridi for another chill BBQ on the beach.
We had an amazing time in Koh Chang. If you can ever make it out here, I would highly recommend it. The dollar still goes a long way here. You can get a top notch room for $50 a night.
Were now in Bangkok, it took us 9 hours on a Baht Bus, Ferry then a bus. As big and crowded Bangkok is I still rate this as one of my top cities. It has some of the best food and amazing sights.
Brads flying home tonight. I’m going to be solo for 12 days. I’ll be in Bangkok for one more night then off to Laos. I’m looking forward to relaxing on the Mekong river.
Hopefully I’ll have good internet in Laos so I can keep this blog updated. Check back in a few.

Angkor Wat & Siem Reap

Yesterday morning we arrived in Siem Reap. We were dropped off at the bus depot and got a tuk tuk ride into town. We didn't know where to stay so we asked some travellers that were on the bus with us for a recommendation and they suggested Encore Angkor. We asked to be brought to the same hotel as them but when we got to the main street our tuk tuks went in opposite directions. We had no idea about where we were going but figured he was taking us to one of his friends hotels. Unbelieveable to both of us we actually arrived at the right hotel. The hotel is by far the nicest we have stayed in thus far. It is very peaceful and the hotel staff are very nice.

Once we got checked in we decided to get some breakfast. We started walking down the street but there was nothing we could find. We decided to walk back to the hotel and low and behold there was a restaraunt directly across the street. It had a sign for laundry service above it so it was a little decieving. Jason and I both ordered the omlette and bread with a couple shakes which came out to $4 total.

After breakfast we hired a tuk tuk driver for 2 days to take us on a tour of the Angkor Wat temples. On arrival we finally got our first view of the temple of Angkor Wat. This is the most popular of the temples of Angkor. It is 1/2 wide by 1/2 mile long. We spent a good 2 hours at this temple alone. The enormity and detail of the work done by the ancient Kymer is difficult to describe. After we were done with the Angkor Wat temple we visited at least another 8 temples that all had different and interesting characteristics. Wakling through the ruins and seeing the smiling faces on the sculptures of the Bayan temple was definitely a highlight. We took a break during the middle of the day to get some lunch and take a siesta in some hammocks they had in the restaurant. We finished off the day at a temple at the top of a hill to watch the sunset.

On day two we had to wake up a 4:30am to meet the tuk tuk driver ("Lucky") to get a ride back to Angkor Wat for the sunrise. Unfortunately the clouds blocked most of the sunrise so we were only able to get a couple pictures. We then headed off to Banteay Srei which was about 27km away. This wat ("temple") had some amazing carvings in the sandstone walls that has been preserved for the past 1000 years. We then headed back to the main temple area and hit a few more wats before calling it a day. We headed back to the hotel for some nice R&R in the pool.

Tomorrow we head to Thailand.

Phnom Penh Day 3

Yesterday we had a really busy day in Phnom Penh. I'm running a little behind on the blog so I'll make it quick. Or not.

We started the day going to the Killing Fields. It was really sad. Over 2 million people were murdered in Cambodia between 1975-1979. The Khmer Rouge took over the country, and forced everyone to back into the stoneage. If you didn't follow all the rules you were killed. No working, No smiling, no artistic ways, no education. No public jobs, only peasant manual labor, There were around 10,000 people killed at the killing fields, They were all bludgeoned to death, because bullets cost to much. There was a big Stupa were thay placed all the bones that were found there. Brad and I saw bones still in the dirt as we were walking around.

We then went to S21 were the people were jailed and tortured before they were brought to the killing fields. Again it was really sad. But a part of history that I hope never repeats it's self.

We finished off the day on a brighter note we visted the Royal Palace, It was breathtaking. Very similar to the one in Bangkok but worth the money.

We were taking the night bus to Siem Reap. Which left at midnight. This left us with some freetime. So we got a nice 90 minute Khmer Massage for $15. We have been doing a ton of walking around so our bodies were beat.

Were in Siem Reap now. I'll try to get a blog of today up soon.

Enjoying Phnom Penh!!

Yesterday we took the bus from Vietnam into Cambodia. The trip through customs was smooth and before we knew in we were in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We arrived at about 2 got checked in then straight for lunch. I had a really good Chicken Curry with rice, Brad was craving a taste of home and had a Hamburger.

After lunch we just walked the town checking out all the markets and riverside. This town is a lot nicer than I was expecting. Granted we are staying in the nicer area along the river. While checking out the city, we ended up playing Frisbee with a handful of local kids for at least 30 minutes. It was a lot of fun, the kids were having a great time.

That night we needed to stay up late so we could get adjusted to the time and hopefully insure us a full nights sleep. We went out to a few of the restaurants and meet a nice couple from Germany. We ended up spending the night chatting about the orphanage they were teaching English at and scuba diving; he was an instructor so we swapped stories.

We are having a good time so far in Cambodia. Off to the Killing Fields today. I know this is going to be tough to see.

Day 1 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

After about 20 hours of airports and planes we landed in Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam. We were sitting up front so Brad and I were the first few off the plane. We went straight to the Visa on arrival area. We had to set it up in advance but there was no problem, it took about 5 minutes then off to customs. Which was a breeze. I grabbed some DONG out of the ATM then off to the Taxi's.

We ended up getting a ride on a metered Taxi which ended up costing us about $10 usd for the 20 minute ride. Not bad but I'm sure we paid way to much. We got dropped off in the Pham Ngu Lao Area. The traffic made the bay area look like a Sunday stroll. The motorcycle to car ratio is crazy, I'd guess 100 motocycles to each car, It's a area of mixed hotel's shopping and resturants. We headed to a place I had read about in the Lonley Planet. Once we found it, they had informed us they were sold out, but would bring us to there other hotel. Within a minute were were on the back of Motorcycles zooming through the streets. It was a short ride, but a good experince to start off the trip. We took a look at the room and it wasn't bad but we wanted to look around. We ended up walking off and the next place we checked out was Duc Voung Hotel. It was a little more but twice as nice. We took the room for $22 a little more than my budget but Brad and I split it. The room has A/C, breakfast and free WIFI.

After throwing our bags in the room we were off to explore the city. It was only 11AM so plenty of time to see the highlights off the city. We walked to Reunification Palace which was where the first Communist tanks crashed through the gates and Saigon surrendered to the North. We took a quick look then off to lunch. Then off to the War Remnants Museum, It gave me a totally different perspective on what I thought about the war. It was really sad. We then walked around and went to a few markets and got pitched everything in this country. No purchases though. I don't want to carry anything extra for the next 3 weeks. There's a big Notre Dame Cathedral that was built in 1877. We took a few pics then started to head back to the room at about 6.

We had plans to rest then go back out for dinner. But we both ended up sleeping and not waking up until about now 1am. I decided to do a blog post then back to bed.

Were going to start to head to Cambodia in the morning. We saw the highlights of the city so time to move on. Brad is flying out of Bangkok so we are in a hurry to get going.

Please check back for more.

All packed up and ready to go!

I'm all packed up and ready to head to the Airport. This is all of my luggage for the 3 week trip. I only bring the necessities. I have a few sets of clothes. I only bring synthetic material clothes, since they don't hold odor or sweat like cotton. Each set gets worn a few times then it's washed when needed. I can get a load of laundry done for about 50 cents. At that price no need to overload a huge suitcase that you'll have to carry halfway across the world. Having this small bag also makes it so I can carry it on to Flights and Buses. It would suck to lose your bag when overseas so this is a way to help prevent it.

I'm flying out in a few hours. First I'm heading to San Jose and going to spend the evening with my dad and family. My flight to Vietnam leaves San Francisco at 1:05 am so I have plenty of time. The flight with a layover in Taiwan is about 20 hours. Not the longest flight I've been on but still a journey.

Check back for more updates on my trip.

South East Asia Here I Come!!!

On Wednesday I will be taking off for another adventure in Asia.

This trip I will have my friend Brad with me on the first half. We are starting off in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City. Brad is going to be flying home out of Thailand, Bangkok on April 4th. And I'm going to be flying home out of Vietnam, Hanoi on April 16th. That's all we have planed. Everything else we will figure out along the way.

Most of my friends and family think this is crazy. But I love the split second decisions about were to go and stay. I have a rough idea on what I want to see. All other things will fall in place along the way. A few of my highlights that I want to hit are the Temples of Angkor in Cambodia, Halong Bay in Vietnam, floating down the Mekong river in Laos and a list of others things.I'm going to be updating every few days along the trip.

Please check back for amazing pictures of Asia.

Sunshine to Shoveltime

One Sunday to the next couldn't have been any more different. Valentine's Day was bluebird, perfect temps. The very next Sunday we awoke to find two feet of snow outside. On Saturday we went to dinner with my Aunt Ginger, Janet, Great-Grandma Margaret, and Brad to celebrate my Great-Grandma's 86th birthday. It started to snow, but it wasn't sticking. The forecasters had called for up to two inches on the Valley Floor, so we figured it would change over night to snow and give us a little dusting. WRONG. After dinner we went to the Grand Sierra to catch up with some of Danielle's past co-workers. We were only there for about an hour and three inches had already built up on the car. There were people outside the hotel playing in the snow. They were from Miami and had never in their lives seen snow. They were beyond excited to be playing in it in just shirts and shorts. We drove home - slowly. When we got up in the morning we found a nice surprise of around twenty four inches of snow. Luckily the snow fell so fast the roads didn't have much time to cool down from the prior week's heat. The roads were surprisingly in decent shape. Just as two feet of snow can fall, the rain can come and melt it all away. Over the next four days all of it was gone.

Valentines Weekend

I've been really busy with work the last few months, so I had to make sure this Valentine weekend was perfect.

Saturday we awoke, had breakfast, then off to the gym. We took a class called 24 Lift which is a 1hr class of non stop sets with dumb bells and a barbells. By the end you are beat.

After class we had a sandwich then showered up to go out. We went and saw "Valentine's Day" the movie. It was packed with couples out on their Valentines day dates. We were running late so Danielle let me out so I can get a seat while she parked the car. I felt a little funny buying a ticket for one to a chick flick on Valentines day. It was kinda funny, I got a few strange looks. Danielle said she felt the same when she came in. The movie itself was great. It was shot in a few different views and tied all together at the end. There were also a ton of popular actors/actresses in it.

To complete the day we went to our favorite Sushi restaurant, Sushi Moto for dinner.

Valentine's day I woke up early and made Danielle's favorite breakfast, Crepes. We needed to store up energy for our afternoon of Cross Country skiing. This was our first time ever trying it. We decided to go to Donner Summit to the Clair Tappaan lodge. They have 12km of trails which head up towards the backside of Boreal. Went rented our gear and headed out. We had a lot of fun and made fools of ourselves at the same time. We each crashed a few times. Cross country skis suck for going downhill, or maybe it was just us. My binding was cracked on one of the skis so the ski kept popping off which didn't help. It was still a great time and I'd do it again. I want to try Skate Skiing next time.

After skiing we went and got massages to help with all the pains from crashing and the Lift class yesterday. The weekend was wonderful. Back to work tomorrow. Here are some pics of Danielle being a goofball. :-)