Cambodia and the beginning of Vietnam

Hi there,

It's been a while since I wrote something we are at the beginning of our travel in Vietnam, and its absolutely amazing what a beautiful country and so, so different from Cambodia. Cambodia was beautiful to but very badly organized and it felt there like crazy hot mess! But with pieceful sights. Because the temples of Angkor What where stunning to realize that this was created a thousands years ago, and that it is still somewhat in tact. Makes you very humble. There a so much beautiful

in Cambodia. One of my favorites was the island Koh Rong Samloen, you get there by boat from Sihanoukville and there is one place you can stay: Eco dive beach resort and one fishingvillage: population of the whole island 100 people. We had a little hut on the beach, there is no wifi and electricity is for four hours a day. 6 pm to 10 pm. And surprisingly I loved it. It's so nice not to internet every once in a while and just swim, watch the sunset walk around the island. Definitely doing that again. A little sabbitical during travelling :). Another one of my favorites was Kampot where we did a sunset cruise on the Mekong. This  was hilarious, we were on the boat driving out to watch the sunset, the boat was pretty packed mostly Vietnamese cause it was a Vietnamese holiday, 2  other tourist and Frank

 and me. The people from the boat told us that we could swim from the boat so we did. When we were in the water and looked we saw all these people taking pictures of us swimming, they that we were so weird that we would swim in the river?? I mean who does that? So these people have a lot bikini shot from me! :) So after this interesting experience it was time to go to the capital Phnom Phen. And I just didn't feel it there. I didn't liked the city at all. Nothing bad happend it just isn't my kind of city, there is no city centre everything is really spread out. But the people all our very nice so that made up for a lot. That reminds me, in Cambodia they eat insects, every insect, cockroaches, grasshopper they have it all. It's even sold in the foodcourt at the shopping maall. Which I think it's great I hate the little suckers so for me: the more on the plate the less on the ground! So eat a away. Sadly it's not all fun and games heres. The country is still recovering from the Khmer Rouge and it's horrors. But slowly but steady their climbing up, the tourism is increasing and there are a lot of solid organisation who still help the war victims and there children. So that is positive and on that note we left the country to go Vietnam. We arrived in Ho Chi Min city and got scammed straight away bu the taxi driver (little bastard) cause his meter wasn't that honest, and when we got out of the cab, we had to pay almost 20 dollars for a ride we figured out later was supposed to be 3 minutes and 2 dollar. So will only happen once! That's the thing with Vietnam, their much more organised but allso much better in scamming you! Cause my ipad got stolen here as well, so yeah that sucked but most of all you have to extremely careful here. That's ok cause now we now. Never the less I still think this is an amazing country. I loved Ho chi min cause it is a great city to walk around and the food OMG foodie heaven everything is just delicous!! I am one very happy girl! We at Mui Neh now rhis a beautiful coast a place, so we do a lot of chilling here. So far Vietnam has been a rollarcoaster ride! When you're up you're high, when you're down, you're low!! I am curious for the rest. 

Talk to ya soon, 

Love J 

Laidback Lao

Hi There,
As I'm writing this we have arrived in Cambodja, Siem Reap to be exact to visit one of the seven world wonders: The temples of Angkor. But before all that we crossed another country Lao. We went from Chang Mai to the border and take the VIP night bus to Luang Prabang. now VIP normally means airco and slightly bigger seats compared to the local busses, In this case it wasn't. But all that faided when we arrived, we arrived early morning around 5 and that is also the time when the monks come out of the monestery and collect the food that is given to them by the people. All of this happens in silence with the sunrise around the corner. Very special that we get to see that.

So we spend a few days in this city and we saw all the highlights: the caves, the waterfall, a boattrip over the Mekong. Because Loa used be a french colony the food in Luang Prabang is delicious and ofcourse because it's a city. So we had baguettes, crossaints and hold you're knickers Buffalo Steak Tartare! Yammie😃. After this we went to Vang Vieng, this used to be crazy, partyplace, full of drugs and people dying and drowning, but  not anymore thank God. So when we arrived we thought we could do something sporty so went on a tour that includes, visiting the caves, (yes they have caves two) tubing and kayakking. We had our own guide Pong who went with us. Everything was fine untill we had to kayak. Yes what you're thinking happend. So here we are in the kayak everything is going smoothly thinking what a good team we are. Pong was also in an another kayak right next to us. And of a sudden the water turns into this strong current and we were on the right side near the bank. And we were going fast so I started yelling (I sat In front) we gonna hit the bank, we gonna hit the bank and yes! BAM hitting the bank the kayak turns ande we're under water. As I try to come up ( Frank was already up) the kayak hits me on my head so I'm under water again, and I fall down ofcourse I manage to come up. The water wasn't deep because it's dry season so I could stand. As we stand in the water trying to get our stuff together, we got help from to local kids we dove in the water to help us find everything. Thank you very much and thankfully we had waterproef bags. As all of this happend you propably wonder where was Pong, Well Pong was on the other side of the river, the safe side and laughing his bony ass of! Seriously not Funny yet!!!! Jeez, ok it was funny we both had to laugh. So that was our kayak adventure, not doing that anytime soon.

So we left Vang Vieng, me with huge egg on the head, to go to Vientiane the capitol of Lao, only to go down to the Islands for Lao New year. On our way to the Islands we had to make a stops to spend the in to most creepy hotel ever, in Thakeak. This was an old Mansion, French  style ofcourse, we were the only guest except  for one huge dead cockroach. We already payed cause we booked online. We stayed one night. The next day we went to Pakse in a local which was hilarious, everything goes on that bus, alive roosters in a box with airholes, plastic bags files with coffee and even a moterbike down the aisle. When we're we visited the What Phu temples. And from there it was finally time to go to the Islands. Which was a hassle because we got dropped of at the wrong spot, there was a bridge going to our Island which apperantly nobody knew about. That's what I mean with laidback Lao everything Goes really slow and nobody really cares, wrong spot ooh ok just wait an hour and you'll get picked up again. Wanna go now pay extra. I mean their laidback not stupid. when we finally arrived at to right Island it was time for a week of fun! We met Some great people along the way so we got to spend time with them cause we were all on the same Island, hotel even😄. Then it was time for New year, this goes with a lot of water you throw at people and other way around,(and you have waterpistol fights with the kids)  to wash away you're sins from the past year, and to get blessed for the New year. We're lucky to get invited by the locals to wash the buddha in their temple. We went there by boat, and you wash the buddha's  with rose water, yet again for good luck and blessings. We felt very blessed that day! And ofcourse all of this goes with a lot of food and lost and lost of beer and local spirits. This was three days, on the third day we said our goodbyes to all this great people that we met and moved on to Cambodja where we are now. But that is a for another time.

Talk to ya soon,

Love J

So Many firsts!

Hi there,

As I'm writing this, I'm trying to recapture all the experiences that we had so far. So many firsts, in Bagan we did our first ballooning flight over the temples which was an absolute unforgetable experience. Absolutely amazing. From there We went to Inle lake were we saw beautiful nature and villages build on water. For real if you don't have a boat  you would be stuck  forever. From there we went to Mandalay to get to Thailand, Chang Mai. That was a shocker, Chang Mai is like the US but with Asians, seriously on every corner there's the holy trinity: McDonalds, Burger King and Starbucks. It's such a huge different compared to Myanmar where cold water was a Gods sent. And here we have everything that we're used to in the Western world. With quite the prices that go with it. Cause it ain't cheap. Stil cheaper then the Netherlands but not that much. Don't get me wrong, we totally went for it. We had McDonalds went to the huge shopping malls and had great Italian food. As for what you can do here: I petted a tiger😄! So exciting, that was yet another unforgetable experience. As was the elephant camp where they can be in their natural surroundings, and not get abused very importent! Cause it still happens a lot here in Asia. So if I can contribute to that not happening anymore, and see this beautiful creatures in their own nature, I say yes!! Further we went to this little hippie villages called Pai, ooh the fun we had with that name WOW. Were we rented, wait for it, Scooters. Yes I was on a scooter and I'm alive. I went slow but steady, Frank was kind of annoyed , He said that grannies went faster! I said: sorry that I don't have a deathwish like you. But we had great fun cruising through town. stil who fell on her bum by making an amazingly failed u-turn: ME, thank god for not being a dare devil cause I was unharmed just a few little bruises, and I'm ready to go again. 😄

But there is also a downside to first, as I'm writing this Frank is in our room slowly dying of food poisoning. Poorthing, the plan was to go to Laos today but we're not gonna make it. So we will be staying here till he's fully recovered. That said I'm gonna take care of my husband.

Talk to ya soon,

Love J

Exploring Myanmar

Myanmar is our first destenation for our trip around the world.
We're gonna go to several countries in Asia, Australia and if we have enough money left South-America. But first things first : Myanmar.
We arrived in Yangon over a week ago, Yangon is the biggest city in Myanmar and has this beautiful temple complex called Shwedagon Paya accompanied with a Large parc  and lake, called Inya Lake. For us this is the only reason that we came here. Yangon defenitely is next level Asia. By that I mean, no roads for you to walk on. Where there is space you walk, this through shops, through restaurants, doesn't matter. English here is not gonna get you far, even cabdrivers get lost in translation and on the road. But the temples ( also known as pagoda's) are beautiful. So we spend a morning walking through the complex taking pictures. The locals were taking pictures of us, especcialy Frank, apperantly I married a celebrity who knew? After two days of crazy, hectic, smelly but most of all hot (40 degrees) in Yangon it was time for a little relaxation on the coast, a little piece of Paradise called Ngapali beach. We spend our days here tanning, swimming, eating, snorkling and cruising on ieniemienie Asian bikes. Absolutely wonderfull!! You can tell that tourism is new amd upcomimg in a lot of places , there are buildingsites everywhere, and they haven't seen people like us often. 😄 But everybody is really nice, they try to help whenever they can.

No we're in the most touristical and spiritual place of country: Bagan also known as " the temple city" . Not going here is like going to India and not see the Taj Mahal, so  here we are. The're over 3300 temples across the city, you obviously can not see them all but if you do what we did: rent electricall scooters and ride through the gorgeous temple landschape you can see a lot. In my opinion Bagan is one of  the most magical cities I've ever been to. And the best is yet to come. Tomorrow we're ballooning over the city. Yes in  an airballoon!

Keep ya posted,

Love J