New bike

Work, biking and running about have filled my last couple of weeks. Fergal, John, Mel and I are (hopefully) going to partake in an Adventure Race towards the end of March so we have been doing a little bit of training. Last Friday five of us (including Alan) went for a four hour night walk over the Dublin mountains. It was very nice and the night wasn't too cold.

Another thing that I did over the last while was pick up another bike. And yes, it does have a different purpose then my other one. It's a Specialized S-Works Enduro - it is about 65% a downhill bike, but it will also ride up the hill quiet well. I've ridden it for about 200 miles at this point and it's been a lot of fun. It's easily the most fun bike I've ever ridden. You can fly down hills that I'd never think of taking a hardtail down. The component highlights (as well as a picture) are below:


The Frame - M5 Enduro FSR frame
Rear Shock - Fox DHX Air 5.0 with 150mm travel
Fork - Fox 36RC2 Talas, 110-150mm travel
Brakes - Shimano M-965 XTR, hydraulic disc, 8" XT rotor
Brake Leavers - Shimano XT
Front Derailleur - Shimano M-960 XTR
Rear Derailleur - SRAM X.0
Shift Leavers - SRAM X-0, carbon Trigger :)
Cassette - Shimano M960 XTR
Chain - XTR
Crankset - Custom Truvativ Stylo with Black Spire Stinger shift guide
Wheels - DT Swiss EX5.1 niceness :)
Tires - Specialized Enduro, 26x2.3 and Maxxis Swampthing 2.35s Super Tacky for when it's wet/loose

Today I was almost at the top of Three Rock and it started to snow. This is a photo I took before I went down Bone Shaker.


It was beautiful! (Until I hit the road decent which was freezing!)

Budapest for the weekend

Mel and I went on our first holiday (I don't think Germany for a couple of days around Christmas counts) since Germany last Summer. A couple of months ago we decided that we should go somewhere nice in early February after a bit of looking around, Aer Lingus seemed to have the best deal on an Eastern Europe destination, so we ended up going to Budapest for 4 nights (Flights for both of us where around €220).

A daytime view of Buda and Pest

A picture from Buda castle.

Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. The city itself is very beautiful with huge magnificent buildings on almost every corner and lots of unused space around you (something rare in Dublin) at all times. It being set on the hills reminded me of San Francisco on more then one occasion. I would say that the highlights for us was sipping on delicious coffee, walking around the old streets and checking out some of their museums and thermal baths...

Climbing the steps on Buda up to the castle.

There were a good few things that I didn't like about the place.
One thing, although I can hardly blame it on Budapest, was that it was really cold during our whole stay. Between -10C and -1C for the entire trip. We brought proper clothing but it still meant that after a few hours outside you really had to go in somewhere warm. When we got back to Ireland 7C felt so warm!!!

Another thing is that, for a city of 1.8 million people, it's one of the most quiet places I have ever been. On our first day walking around the city, you could almost count the number of people on two hands that we met. It was cold, and low season, but there really was no atmosphere.

The last thing, and something that I believe to be really important about the places I go is the friendliness of the people (Probably why Thailand is my favorite place). I'm sorry, but the people there all seem to be depressed – they never smile! There was one Hungarian person that we seen on the trip (apart from the service in the Gellert Hotel which was excellent) that smiled and did something that could be taken as being friendly. The service was mediocre to terrible almost everywhere we went! I also think multiple restaurants tried to rip us off – I called one when it was for 40 Euro but the others I let go when it was for less than a Euro.

Having said all that, I enjoyed the trip – it's a very beautiful city but I would advise to leave a trip there to a warmer time of the year when it's a bit busier and the gardens (and locals) have thawed out!

Budapest Photos

The Danube was covered in ice for our stay. It looked really cool!

The view out over Pest from Buda.

The swimming pool part of the Gellert Hotel's Bath complex.

Gellert Hotel's Lobby (for the Baths)

Hero's Square. There were BMXers doing cool tricks around the front.

Adrenalin Weekend

I guess I could call this weekend a bit of an adrenalin weekend, or at least Sunday was. Sunday started out with a trip up to Demonstration Forest. It's a park frequented by mountain bikers (including the Santa Cruz and Specialized testers who have their main offices very close to here) that is just above Santa Cruz. I biked there last week and it was pretty wet, unfortunately this week was the same. This week the SawPit trail was in better condition then last week (0 slides/crashes) while Brail was very sketchy in places (3 slides/crashes). After my third complete loss of traction down a step muddy section, I looked back up the hill and had a huge smile on my face. The ground was very soft and good for practicing cornering on terrible terrain.

After I got back from the bike ride, myself and Alan headed out to Byron for our first sky dive with Bay Area Skydiving! Mel got me a tandem jump for Christmas (she has been raving about it to me for over a year now) so it was now time for me to take the plunge. The experience was a lot of fun. Flying up in a very crampt plane to 14,000 feet was quite strange! At a reasonable height I asked the guy I was jumping with if we will be jumping soon – he replied, nooooo, we are only at 4,000 feet! Ohhh!

The jump itself was cool – I actually felt quite safe – looking out over the edge seeing California below you – no feelings of vertigo, I was just looking forward to freefall! The first few seconds are interesting – a huge feeling of acceleration, then a really unusual feeling of the wind 'holding' you up. After about 15 seconds, the whole thing felt quite normal! After about a minute the parachute went out normally and the slow down was much more gentle then I expected. Flying the cute was a lot of fun! Swooping left and right and flaring! The landing was gentle and that was that. I'd say that anyone could go and do it! It's not a physical thing and it does not feel that dangerous when your up there. I know a lot of the biking stuff I do is a lot more sketchy

Anyway, that's been my weekend. I'm looking forward to getting back to Ireland on Friday!

Christmas

It's been a while since I last updated, so here it the 'highlights' from this last while.

Christmas was really nice this year. Mel came down to Monaghan with me for 4 days and we basically sat around, ate and watched movies (I got Mum and Dad a decent home theater system). We didn't even go out! I think that was the first time in about 7 years!

Two of my nephews, Alex and Jack

In a last minute decision I decided to fly with Mel to Germany for new years. We left on the 28^th and returned on the 1^st. Again, we had a very quiet time over there and enjoyed playing around in the snow.

Mel relaxing in a forest :)

Mel, her father and I built this iglou on New Years Eve

A picturesque German forest

Driving to Flansburg

Since then I've basically been working and biking. At the moment I'm in California on business for two weeks and enjoying the sunny days. (Although there are way to many rainy days this trip for my liking!)

MAD Club Championships

MAD where running their Club Championship race (photos) last Sunday so I decided to pop along. The race came in two parts. The first part was a hill climb from the M50 up Kimashogue Lane and on up a fireroad to the top. The second part was a 1 and a half lap race around the MAD race circuit.

The morning saw 17 (I think) of us lined up to start. A few guys where in fancy dress and the atmosphere was jovial. At around 11am the first part of the race started. Immediately a sprint started (to which I though, OMG are these guys gonna keep this speed up!) Luckily, they didn't and I was able to pick them off one by one as we headed to the fireroad. As we continued on up the fireroad I looked back to see Sean attack me from time to time. Each time I thought he got close I moved up a gear and worked a little harder. I ended up winning the hill climb with a time of 17:07 with Sean and then Mark shortly after.

Head down, climbing away to the top of Kimashogue

Sean, who finished second in the hill climb

The second part of the race was a fun race circuit. We started with a LeMans style start (in order to thin us out a bit before we climb a short hill that descended into single track). The start of the race went well for me apart from a few sections where I completely blew my lines. When I go biking myself I'm not used to following someone ahead of me and trying to get by, I guess that threw me off a little. At the end of the single track we emerged onto a fireroad that was to take us back up the hill to the start for another lap. Luckily I was in the lead at that point so I just put my head down and tried to create a little distance between the trailing group because I was afraid of them catching me on the following descent. (there was about 5 of us close together). The climb out was nice and the first part of the descent was cool – I took the rocky section very fast and entered the forest single track very positive. Midway through the first part of the single track in the forest section I jumped a drop off incorrectly and bent my rear derailleur in through the spokes and out the other side. I was pissed! It ended my race. The lesson I learned today is that when you are in the lead and you come to a sketchy section that your not used to, YOU TAKE IT EASY! Ahh well, another lesson learned!

I was bumed after breaking the derailleur

Bjorn in fancy dress (notice the knee/shin guards!)

The race was great and very well orgainised by the MAD crew. Hopefully there will be more things like this in the new year :)

Santa Cruz

Sunset in Santa Cruz, CA.

I was flicking through some photos from last year and I found this one. I thought it was pretty cool.

A Beautiful Morning

8:20am this morning

My new bike and racing

A couple of weeks back I bought a new full suspension bike. It's got a a pretty funky name, Fetish Cycles Seduction but is an amazing bike. It's a big step up in terms of controllability and comfort (in rough sections) over my old Stumjumper Comp hard tail. (Which Mel is now putting to great use!)

The bike had an interesting past getting to me – it's brand new but for the first 2 weeks I had nothing but trouble. Firstly, Paypal sucks so bad! I can't wait to Google come along and kill them. I wasted about 6 hours trying to deal with them. (Everytime you buy something of a certain value, alarms seem to go off!). Then when it arrived I had a few parts to upgrade/replace including the chain, the seatpost and the rear disc brake rotor. After all that was done though it's being riding like a dream.

This is the spec (similar to Ultra Seduction):

2006 Manitou R Seven Super 80mm travel fork
Manitou Radium RL rear shock with lockout
Crank FSA Carbon Cranks
Front Derailleur Shimano XT
Rear Derailleur Shimano XTR
Shift Lever Shimano XT 9-spd Dual Control
Cog Set Shimano XT 11-34T 9spd
Chain Shimano HG93 XT
Hubset Shimano XT Center Lock 32H
Rims WTB Speed Disc Pro XC double wall 32H w/ eyelets
Tires WTB Exiwolf Team XC 26 X 2.1 w/Folding Dual DNA
Brakes Shimano XT hydraulic disc
Brake Levers Shimano XT Dual Control
Handlebar Truvativ Team CarbonTeam
Grips WTB DOT
Stem Fetish Cycles Carbon
Seatpost Use1 Alien Carbon
Saddle Specialized Alias 143

And of course, I have to have a picture :)


Having spent all that money I decided that I'm going to have to start racing a bit :) Last weekend, M.A.D. where running a fun race close to where I lived, so I popped along. The track itself was great and it was an excellent racing down the single track at race speed. Basically we where speeding along a single track through a thick forest with almost zero visibility. In the end, I was lucky enough to win it with Nigel (it was a team event). Hopefully it will be the first of lots of races that I'll enter!

External Photos Gone :(

The server that used to hold my photo albums is now unavailable - so links to my online photo albums no longer work. I'm going to figure out a different solution soon...

The Wicklow Way

On Sunday morning Mark and Emma dropped by my house to pick Mel and I up for a fine hobbity day. Earlier Mark had called telling me that he was going up to Glendalough and wondering if Mel and I wanted to go too. We were thinking about walking home from Glendalough to Dundrum for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately the days are a little short (and it's a bit cold) for such a feat so we decided to cut the walk by about 12km and walk from Roundwood instead.

As Mark dropped us off, it looked COLD outside – there was even snow on the ground. The view was absolutely amazing though and both of us where dressed quite well for walking so it wasn't too bad. At around 10:40am we started off. We knew that we would have to keep a quick pace in order to make it home before dark. The walk itself was amazing – there where so many hikers out! It was sub zero (taking wind chill into account) and the mountains where full of people hiking.

Mark and Emma as they dropped us off

Mel about 15 minutes into the walk

Me shortly after

A really pretty tree about 3 hours from the end

The view with about 1.5 hours to go

We eventually got back to the house in about 6 hours 20 minutes. It wasn't bad for a 34km walk which crossed 5 mountains :) The walk was about one quarter of the Wicklow Way – the next day we will try to get another quarter done.

Godskitchen, Movies and Ticketmaster.

Mel and I had been looking forward to going to a decent rave for some time now. We went to see X-Press 2 a few weeks ago in Spirit but I wont really count that. Last Sunday Godskitchen was in town (well, actually the point). Fergie, Ferry Corsten, Lisa Lashes and Armin Van Buren where the main DJ's for the night. The music was great – it was about 2 years since the last time that I went to Godskitchen in The Point. There is something cool about loud music, huge lasers and about 6,000 people dancing. For me, Lisa Lashes was the best. She finished off with hard house remixes of the Prodigy's “Voodoo People” and Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirits”. One thing that wasn't so cool about it was the hordes of track suit bottomed 'ravers' that looked like they had fallen out of bed and put on their clothes from last nights football game. I think some sort of dress code is needed. (Or at least a ban on track suit bottoms and football jerseys!)

Has anyone noticed how crap the movies are lately? A new cinema (with the worst website ever – geocities 99 all the way!) opened up beside us recently and it's been difficult to try and come up with a movie that I want to see. It's got 9 (at least, I think so) screens and I've only seen “God of War” and “Serenity”. Both good shows – but for me, “God of War” is the only must see.

Fergal and I have gone to California for 2 weeks on Edgespace business. Every time I go over there, I always check ahead to see who is playing around the Bay Area. I was astonished to find that U2 where actually playing in Oakland during our time there and that there was tickets (albeit, only the really expensive ones) left – so I booked a couple. It's crazy! Ticketmaster, on two tickets, charged $35 in 'inconvenience' fees! I'm using the web to book tickets which I know to be a lot more cost efficient then them having either a physical presence or phone operator available, and then they charge $35 dollars for convenience. They also charge the event organizer (although I could be a little off on this) about 5-7% of the tickets face value. So, for two tickets, they got about $60 - $70. Then, after all this, they send me an email 4 days later to say that my card didn't go through, even though I had seen the tickets on my credit card statement! Another 10 minutes 'convenient' phone call to the US and another international $2.50 charge to my card and it's all sorted out. Ridiculous! (But not the worst customer experience I've had recently, but I'll come to that later...)

Germany & Edgespace

Finally, a bit of an update...

At the end of August I returned back to Ireland from my summer away. Being back home was nice and I was more or less waiting for Mel to return from her trip. She returned back on the 6th and we went to Germany for a bit on the 8th :) I feel very lucky to have gotten on two nice trips so close together. It was a year since my last holiday when I went to Thailand but I think between July and September, I more then made up for a year without a break.

Germany:
The trip to Germany was amazing. It was quite short at just 10 days but we managed to fit a lot in. We flew into the north of Germany via Lubeck and then went up to Mel's parents place which is right up beside Denmark. Mel's mother was celebrating her 60th birthday so there was a big bash on. We stayed around there for a bit and even made a trip out to Sylt! From there we went down to a small town beside Dortmund (via Hanover) where one of Mel's friends lives. Then we hitch hiked out way down to Mel's brothers house which is close to Munich. Unfortunately, we only had one day in Munich which we ended up spending at the opening day of Oktoberfest in the HB tent :) The next day, when I was feeling a little “worse for wear”, we flew out of an airport close to Lake Constance. The trip was great and I wanted to spend longer on it. I got to do and see a lot of things in a short time, but I really wish it could have been much longer!

Since we came back from Germany, it's been back to work for me again. We had a party for Edgespace's first birthday (a quieter affair then last years party but a great time was had by all), a going away party of Gerard and Diarmuid who are going to New Zealand for 9 months, and last week, my brothers belated 21st party.

A present from Alan's parents

Germany Photos

It's been so long since the last time that I posted to my blog. I guess a trip to Germany, Mel coming home from vacation and general work stuff is the main cause of it. I've most of a post finished but I'm going out tonight and don't really have time to finish it. But for now, here are the photos from Germany.

Damn spam to my blog...

I just got spam as a comment on my blog :( Something about a guy on his way to Houston, oh and do you want to buy electronics? Go to my store...

I remember reading somewhere a couple of weeks ago that Blogger started using word verfication (as an option) to fight this. I've now turned it on - hopefully that will be the end of it :)

Photos from Thailand and Vietnam

I finally got around to putting together two slide shows of photos from Thailand and Vietnam.

Bangkok to Samui to San Francisco

The last section of our trip was just as crazy – but crazy in a more conventional way :)

So we took off from Phnom Penh and landed in Bangkok. We went straight to the Bangkok Airways ticket office to see if there where any more seats on the flights to Samui that night... No luck, so we had to go to plan B.

Last year myself, Conor and Alan took an overnight “VIP” bus to Samui. It is basically a really big bus with about twice as much room per seat and the seats recline further. These buses leave from central Bangkok so Mel and I hurried ourselves there. All seemed to be full apart from one agency that said we could have a good seat for the first 2 hours of the 10 hour journey but then we would have to sit in with the driver... We looked at each other, and without having to say anything we said YES! (Better on a beach tomorrow morning then ass'in around Bangkok for another day)

We got onto the bus, chatted to some people and fell asleep quite quickly. Everything was good :) Then two hours in, a guy tapped us on our shoulders and said that we had to move. Reluctantly, Mel and I grabbed our things, went out the door and headed for the drivers area. We poked our head around the corner and what did we find but a double bed just for us. :) Apparently, the driver cabin also includes a huge bed – so with smiles from ear to ear, we lay down and got ready for a good nights sleep.

The rest of the time in Samui was basically spent, sitting on a beach, driving around on a moped, doing various touristy things, getting lots of oil messages and going out. The last week was just amazing. It was so relaxing and cool not to have to travel all the time!

One day in Samui, Mel and I went to climb rocks - this is one of the starter ones.

And this was another we climbed later. Seconds after Mel took this picture she was clambering up the crack to the left of where I'm sitting!

Mel and I at the start of a day in which we drove around the island

Mel on a deserted beach later that same day

This is Mel outside the hut that we stayed in on Lamai Beach

After my week there I decided to fly to Bangkok (with Bangkok Airways again) instead of taking a bus – it basically meant a lot more comfort and an extra day to spend with Mel. Following that was a fantastic nights sleep on Bangkok International's finest marble floors, followed by about 19 hours of flights. Getting home took about 36 hours from leavings Mel to meeting my brother in San Francisco. It was grand, but heading straight into a week of work was a bad idea. By the time Friday came, I was mentally and physically drained. But it was an amazing holiday with the best possible person beside me and I'd advice everyone to travel to that region of the world.

Our day in Cambodia

So finally I get to one of the more crazy parts of our trip... Our day in Cambodia :)

Everything started off pretty well. We were taking a $4 each bus ride (you couldn't actually get a more expensive, more comfortable trip short of flying there) from HCMC to Phnom Penh. We headed over to the tour office with lots of time to spare, inquired if we could use Vietnamese Dong to pay for the Visa, and then went and got out enough to cover the Visas. Jokingly, I told Mel to go and grab a tin of Pringles... Just in case we didn't get any other food today...

After a couple of hours on the bus we got to the border. Very dusty, very isolated, not particularly interesting as border crossings go (although they are building a ton of stuff around there). Just as we got off our bus our tour guide asked us if we had US Dollars or Cambodian Riel. Of course we looked at him as if he had three heads. Just 2 hours ago, they said that Dong was fine... He then informed us that we had to change the Dong to Riel... It was at this point, for the first time today, that my heart dropped. I realised that we took out enough money for one Visa, not two! Ahh well, we'll just go to an ATM... Ehh, no ATM's here mate. Credit Card?!? Similar response.... Hmmmm. First things first, we changed what we did have into Riel (which our guide said was enough for the Visa) and headed for the boarder.

Early in the day we met a few Irish people who were also travelling to Phnom Penh and who we also met in Nha Thrang... With this vital knowledge, we hurried along to the Vietnamese exit point, caught up with them and got a lend of $20 to cover one of the visas. Happy days, I though... By the time we got to paying for our Visa, the guy at the counter said we were about €6 short on Riel! Feckers! The damned, guide (T & M Brothers – I found this interesting site about them there now when I did a google - moral of the story, they are cheap but DON'T use them!) together with the “foreign exchange agent” ripped us off (an old woman with a fist full of cash). Feckers!!! Luckly we caught the Irish guys just before they left the border region. We were last through and very nearly got stuck in no mans land :) Anyway, after all this excitement, we were going to met the Irish guys (yeah, I realise I'm Irish, but that's what myself and Mel called them, so I'll continue to call them Irish Guys) once we got to Phnom Penh and get the money for them from an ATM.

Crossing the Mekong

... several hours later while reading the Lonely Planet Cambodia book, we realised that there is no ATM in Cambodia, there was no banks open (today was Saturday night) and basically, apart from some Yen I had – we had no money. When we got there we found a Western Union (that was closing in about 5 minutes)... we thought that our prayers were answered, but of course there was something wrong. The area on the back of my credit card had wiped off a bit and the VOID sign was visable. (It wiped off because of rubbing against other cards in my money belt). About 5 minutes of Irish charm, and we where leaving with $100 in our pockets :) It took my licence, passport, bank card and lots of friendliness, but in the end we got some money. Now our plan was to have some food (we only had Pringles all day), have a few drinks, and go out. A solid plan I thought...

We had a meal in a really nice restaurant where you sat outside and a band played for you – the portions were a bit small (especially after the day we had), but we consoled ourselves with lots of dessert. Next, we went off to a supermarket that had a 70cl bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka for $4.50 :) (Stoli was our drink of choice when we were in Vietnam in addition to a cocktail that Mel fell in love with... It was called “I love you” (It's something like this). We went back to our hotel, chatted to the people at the reception about good places to go out and had a few drinks while we got ready... We decided to go to the hip night club that was recommended by our hotel. Big place, good music and almost exclusivly locals. At about 10:30 we left our hotel, each of us on the back of a moped on the way to the niteclub... Normally this is the point where I start talking about the club, how crazy it was – mad music etc... Errrr, not this time... Both myself and Mel's last memories were sitting on the back of a moped driving through Phnom Penh at night... Our next memory was both of us sitting on the back of a moped, driving home from the club... 4 HOURS later! Neither of us remember what happened. (Although I reasonably sure nothing bad had happened to us – both of us where perfectly dressed (I was wearing white and cream linen which is hard to keep clean in the best of places), my money belt was full of money as well as everything else that should be there and we felt no other ill effects.... abduction by aliens is getting higher on my list of things that could have happened to us!).

So, fresh from our moped ride home (the guy dropped us right outside our hotel) I was going through the cash in my money belt to pay him ($2) and he lunged, grabbed my money and sped off into the night! OMG! I just couldn't believe what had just happened. It wasn't a huge amount of money, about $100 minus what we spent that evening- but OMG. I had not been robbed face to face before (I was burgled about 2 years ago when €2,300 of my stuff was nicked from my room in Dublin). There was a couple of people around who saw what happened and came over to help us – one of the locals said that he would take us to the police station and help us out... So we got onto the back of his moped and headed, again, into the night. It was actually quite fun. 3 people on the moped driving around Phnom Penh. We eventually got to one, but about 2-3 minutes of being in there, the guy decided that it wasn't good enough and told us to go to another police station. We hopped on and drove another bit. Eventually we got to "a better" police station and walked in to find 4 guys either lying on the floor or in a hammock, all in their underwear and looking more then a bit pissed off.

Unphased, we started to say what happened to us and they started writing a report. After about 20 minutes the guy asked me if I would recognise our assailant. I said I would and the guy helping us said that he would too, they talked a bit and it became apparent that this person was seen hanging around the nite club we went to. (Some proof that we went to the club :)). So the police man turned to me and said, “come with me”. He then walked to the back of the room, picked up one of the 8 AK47s (at least I think that's what it was – otherwise, something very similar), threw it over his shoulder and walked out the front door. I walked out, only to find him starting his bike... For the next one and a half hours we drove around Phnom Penh trying to find the robber. It was crazy!!! At least I got to see a lot of the city!

Luckily, we didn't find the guy... (I didn't want to know what was going to happen) and we sat for about another hour writing a report. They wanted our passport information so we had to go back to the hotel to get it... It was 5am, so when we got to our room – Mel said that she was too tired (both of us where annihilated at this point) and I went back with them. Another hour later, they dropped me home.

We both woke at around 12 the next day and headed down to get the police report – we picked it up and had to sign it with our thumb print! It was gas!!! The report is great and we will no doubt frame it at some point. The only thing that I can recognise in it is our names and our passport numbers! After we got the report, we had breakfast and we looked at a sign above the reception...

Bangkok $115

Hmmmmmm, we asked when the next flight was, and they said in two and a half hours, we booked it there and then with the idea that we would be in Samui the next day. From here on out, things went smoothly :)

Leaving Cambodia so quickly needs a little explanation... Everyone there, apart from the guy who robbed us, was amazing! The people were really friendly and it hasn't been hit as bad with mass tourism as Vietnam or Thailand. I want to, and no doubt will, return there in the next couple of years to explore. The people were really friendly and I actually met people who didn't want to sell me something. (One of my gripes about Vietnam is that everyone we talked to inevitably wanted to sell us something... Everyone!)

Another thing that I wanted to do was recover from our travelling and spend a relaxing week on a beach with my sweet heart. We weren't really going to get to do that in Cambodia as we would have travelled north to Siem Reap... so flying to Bangkok wasn't as mad an idea as it sounds...

The flight from Cambodia was grand. We flew with Bangkok Airways which are amazing...

Myself and Mel in Phnom Penh airport

The last week of our trip was a little less crazy, but I'll get to it on yet another post. (The final one about my trip, I think...)

Mui Ne Beach to Ho Chi Min

Mui Ne Beach to Ho Chi Min

(Some of this stuff I've taken from an email Mel wrote :) )

We left Nha Trang and took a day bus to Mui Ne Beach. One word describes Mui Ne beach really well. Quiet! It was quite pretty and we stayed in a really nice hotel for $12 per night. :) Mui Ne is famous for it's kite surfing (and to a lesser extent surfing and wind surfing). We ended up staying two nights here and spent most of our time sitting on the beach watching the kite surfers or driving about on a moped. One of the days we took the moped and went around a fishing village. It was one of the first places in Vietnam that we were in that wasn't completely geared towards tourists. It was great, walking around, taking photos, chatting (or at least trying to) to the locals. The only bad thing was that every now and then there was a horrific smell that we have decided to call “Fish Sauce”. It pretty much smells like an open sewer. (Just like Fish Sauce :))

It was so fuuny. We were sitting at the beach and a lady walks buy carrying two toilets. I don't really know what she was thinking... Maybe there is no toilets close to the beach...

Mel and I at the sand dunes on Mui Ne. Apart from the beach itself, this is the other touristy thing to do. Little kids try to scam you into hiring a piece of plastic to slide down the side of the dunes. I paid about 25c to slide down the dunes. It's not much fun, but the kid did take this photo.

Look how much I trust Mel :) Later in the trip, Mel drove the scooter a lot with me on the back. We got SO many stares from the locals. They have possibly never seen a girl drive a guy on a scooter before!

A photo from the fishing village. These tiny fish being dried out is probably the case of the Fish Sauce smell....

Next we traveled to Ho Chi Min City. My first impression of HCMC is that it's a lot more cosmopolitan then anywhere else (except Bangkok) that we had traveled. Tall buildings, nice hotels, Starbucks... okay, not quite (that was Bangkok). The most interesting thing to do in HCMC is to take a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are the tunnels that the VC used in the war against the Americans – basically, in quite a small area there is about 250km of tunnels under the ground including bunkers). So you have the chance to climb into these tunnels through tiny holes in the ground which are totally invisible and walk in a crouched position, and sometimes on all fours (they were definitely not built for us), for about 10 min through hot, humid and dark small holes about 3-10 meters underground. The funniest thing was when a few bats woke up and flew over our heads causing a few girls to break out in hysteria in the middle of a dark tiny tunnel... but a very interesting experience! We even got to shoot an AK47 afterwards. After this we went to the War Remnants Museum (formally called “Some Pictures of the US Imperialists Aggressive War Crimes on Vietnam”) and were shocked for about one and a half hours (the length of time it took us to walk around the museum).

Mel climbs through a hole in the ground into the tunnels.

The next day we set out for Phnom Penh but I'll leave this story to another day. Basically, the next 24 hours was the craziest time of the trip and almost certainly any trip that I've been on!

Sapa to Halong to Hoi An to Nha Trang

So, the last place that I mentioned in my blog was Sapa. Being there was simply amazing. Just imagine huge mountains with terraced rice paddies and small wooden huts. From there we took an over night train back to Hanoi. The different classes on these trains need to be described.

First there is “Nice Class” (the one we stayed on the way back from Sapa and from Hanoi to Hoi An) It's basically a 'soft' sleeper bed. 4 beds per cabin. Actually quite nice.

Next there is “Chicken Class” (we were cheated onto this one on the way to Sapa – we payed for a Nice Class but they snuck us onto this... but that's another story) This is basically a 'hard' sleeper. 6 beds per cabin, small amounts of comfort.

Next is “Worm Class” - seats with a cushion.

Finally there is “Ant Class” - I wont even go into this one.
The prices obviously differ dramatically - our ticket in Nice Class from Hanoi to Hoi An (it wasn't an inflated tourist price) was $33 each! You could squirm in Ant Class for about a handful of rice and 3 chicken feet!

The train service itself is actually OK except that it is horrifically slow. Something that could be done in Europe in 2 hours takes 3 days and 7 different types of medication. Some of their railways stations are a sight to behold! The one in Hanoi is great. I'll quote Mel on this... “a train station that somehow strongly reminded me of a WW2 train station for people fleeing the towns, chaos over chaos” (later we found the tourist entrance :))

Next, we made one of our few mistakes on our trip. We went for the cheaper option on a 2 day, 1 night trip to Halong Bay. This is supposed to be one of the wonders of the world and is a world heritage site. It's basically a bay with hundreds of tiny limestone (I think) islands. I'm sure it would have been great except that it poured down for almost the whole trip, and we felt like sheep, no that sounds to comfortable, chickens being led to a slaughter house. In addition, we stayed in the worst 'hotel' that I have ever stayed in. The room had not been cleaned since the late seventies, the door was broken (you could see into our room!), and there wasn't even a window. I've stayed in crappy hostels before and places worse, but this place had the called itself a hotel! Oh yeah, all the food on the trip was crap too... I'm going to stop now... (I'm sure our whole experience would have been different if it stopped raining long enough for us to see enjoy the sights) This part of the trip only lasted 2 days and is possibly the only low point.

Halong Bay (It wasn't raining for about 10 minutes at this point)

Our next stop on our trip was a place that both Mel and I fell in love with. It's a small old twon called Hoi An about half way down the coast of Vietnam which is very famous for both clothes and shoes. (Anyone who knows me, now knows why I fell for this place. Mel did too, but she's a girl :)) As usual I decided to go low key and only got two suits, 4 shirts, 5 ties, 2 shoes... (ehhh, I think I'll stop now – I knew about this place before had so I traveled very light up until this point, about 10KG.) Mel of course couldn't help herself with a similar wardrobe purchased. Everything was tailored for you and some of the stuff I've already worn a lot and the quality seems grand. One of the mornings we got up early (I think the earliest ever for me at about 4:40am) for what they called a sun rise tour to My Son. My Son is basically the Cham cultures/dynasty religious head quarter. The place was amazing, however it was the one of the first major eye openers for the damage the American War did to Vietnam. There was 5 meter deep craters from B52 bombs next (and thus almost completely destroying) buildings that had stood for a thousand years. It was very sad from architectural point of view. Basically, most of the place was carpet bombed, poisoned, burned.... Still, the trip was amazing and defiantly worth getting up at that early hour for. There was something quite surreal about us walking around there with our guide and being the only people there.

Mel hard at work in Hoi An

Me outside one of the Cham buildings in My Son

Our next stop on our merry trip was Nha Trang. Do you know when you are on a roller coaster and you are heading straight for a huge rock (or something sturdy looking) and just at the last moment you pull up and it wizziz inches past you. This is our overnight trip from Hoi An to Nha Trang. These people are absolutely crazy (I haven't been to India yet but I hear they aren't that great either). Last year in Thailand, I thought that they were crazy. My feelings about the Thai are quite different now. In Thailand they only over take around a blind corner if they DON'T see someone coming. In Vietnam, you could be passing a truck on to the right around a corner and see two tour buses drag racing in the opposite direction one of them in your lane, the other on the truck that your passings lane on a two lane (one in each direction) road. Oh, and of course there is the family of 5 on a mopped nipping in between all of us. I didn't worry too much though... we had the obligatory flashing Budda at the front of our bus... That will save us :) (The Budda and the Buses horn are the only two safety features as far as I can see)

I have mixed feelings about Nha Trang – it is VERY touristy and the beach and surrounding islands don't match up to Thailand. There is massive development along the beach front and I'd say that in about 3 years it will look like Vegas. On the other hand, the night life was a lot of fun. As usual, myself and Mel found ourselves in an interesting situation. A club with about 1,000 people, thumping 80's dance music and two white people. It was great though, I think it was a local only type place and they were all great craic! It's a long time since I did the dancing train thing around a disco! Other nights we went out with Irish and Dutch people that we met on an excellent boat trip. If you are there, do the 4 island tour...

The view from our hotel in Nha Trang

Getting ready for a night on the town :)

Hmmm – this post is getting closer to an essay then a post, so I think I will stop here – spread in a few photos and call it a night :)