NHA TRANG, arrived and just dived in...

06.30 the bus finally arrived in Nha Trang, 3 days and 2 nights in the bus damn... The bus broke down just when I entered Nha Trang. I jumped out and walked with my Lonely Planet map to the Rainbow Diveshop. Luckely one of the staffmebers was too late. 'Can I join you guys today?' Oh yes, ofcourse! 15 minutes later I was in the harbor of Nha Trang jumping on the big diveboat. Started to rain and the water was freezing. So thick 5mm fullbody wetsuit on and dive. The visibility was not that bad, 8 metres and many cool fish (dragonfish, barracudas, scorpionfish and much more). The second dive was 17 metres again and this time I spend 20 minutes swimming with this giant turtle! How cool is that!? He was just to curious. The sun started to shine so sundeck with lunch. Spend some time with some other divers in the bar.

During noon I spend my time with walking around the city, even the poor parts. Visiting the Po Nagar Cham Towers and ofcourse running on the beach. Today I was planning to take the bus to Mui Ne and plans changed. Bus was double price and no time to arrange a hotel in Mui Ne. So I found a cheap place after bargaining and got this perfect hotel for just 6 USD. I went after a hot bath to the Why Not Bar...met a French Martial Arts guy and had so much fun at the bar. It was like National Western Girls Night Out (or Springbreak) American girls everywhere, and so many. So yes, we enjoyed our night. Wonderfull days...

HUE - HANOI - NHA TRANG, 3rd day in a row of bustravelling

In the morning our bus was in the middle of a big accident. A smaler truck hit a big truck while overtaking, the small truck was launched and flew over the bus, crashed half on his side and half on his top just next to us...crazy! After all the delays of last night I missed my connection with the bus to Nha Trang. Yes, they put me in the wrong bus. So now I had to wait in Hue for 4 hours to wait for another bus. I will arrive in Nha Trang 1 day later. Tried to get a lift somewhere but no luck this time. Just spend my time on the internet and in a biker cafe, talking with some bikers and entertaining little children.

After 4 hours the company made another mistake, this time a good one. They put me in a relaxing, quiet and comfortable sleeperbus. Perfect. And when the bus came out of the 6km long tunnel to Da Nang it was like another world; sunshine and hot! Yes, these little things make me so happy :-)

For the first time in 12 years I started to read a book. But in Hoi An this angry staffmember came in the bus and threw me out of the bus. Shouting at me that I didn't pay for a sleeperbus and had to wait for another bus... Uhm, who puts me on the wrong bus 2 times?! But no worries, I had my good luck moment. The last bus took about 12 hours...

HALONG BAY - HANOI - ???, time to say goodbye to my Dutch friends

Cheap taxi, and the best most luxury local bus ever! No karaoke, amazing luxury chairs, free drinks...everything perfect/ Arrived after 4 hour at My Dinh busstation in Hanoi. Taxi's tried to charge us 10 times more then a city bus. With our communication skill we jumped in one of the many city busses. Lotte was still thinking about getting the wrong way, Karien and me kept the exploring team together and just arrived where we wanted for just 3.000 VND instead of 150.000!

Lotte stays one more night, Karien is meeting her new tourgroup in an hour and I just booked a bus to Nha Trang for 24 hours. So again goodbye to some good friends... But I will meet Karien again in 10 days. And in our last few minutes in Hanoi the kids came to us again and want to sell us books with titles like 'Sex Slaves...' whahaa, it's getting more and more funny. .

The bus was not in time and they told me they put me in the straight bus to Nha Trang...NOT! In the night there was a long traffic jam after a huge accident. The bus was like every Vietnamese bus; noisy. There was something wrong with the colorsettings of the TV so everybody looked like Smurffs. They played the Vietnamse lookalike of Hans Teeuwen. And somebody was angry at me because he couldn't see the TV screen because of my big head, he punched me in the face and a little fight started in teh bus. During the night some other Vietnamese guy pushed his sweaty bare feet in my face all the time, some of them hate backpackers.

HALONG BAY - COSTA DEL CAT BA(GGER), boattrip day 2

Just after falling alseep everybody is banging on the windows. We had to get into our kayak at 06:45. Just 1 hour of kayaking with broken paddles whahaa. Cheap ass shitty boattrip. Just circled around some of the rocks, no time to go to the beach. Damn, al the Dutchies look like shit after the boozenight yesterday hahahaa.

On our way back we decided to jump off at Cat Ba Island for visiting the National Parks, Cat Ba Town and the Caves. Well, the pier was 30km from town so we had to jump on some motorbikes and these drivers were fighting with eachother all the time, welcome to Cat Ba... The town is called Costa Del Cat Ba....maybe because of all the hotels, but no high season right now so I call it Costa del Cat Bagger, nothing to do. Lotte decided to take a cheap haircut, well she got where she asked for... :-) Sorry Lotte, you looked better before ;-)

On our way back they keep asking for money and let us was into the caves, and when we arrived at the top op the cave, they asked us for money to open the door. No way! We asked to stop at the National Park and they didn't, when we wnated to go there we had to pay them more. Well, Karien and me had enough off it and decided to play some games at the pier and wait for the ferry.

The ferry arrived 15:30 at Dao Tuan Chau, according to the Lonely Planet it should take 3,5 hours and it was freezing. But it took just 1,5 hour. And because I made some friends with locals on the ferry I arranged a very cheap ride in a luxury warm car for 25km. Sometimes we are lucky.

Evening was time for pizza...uhm, looked more like a matser with cheese and some meat :-) Because the service was so bad, all the customers got free deserts. Great!

HALONG BAY, touristic shit turned into a Dutchie boozecruize (boattrip day 1)

Time to geet some liqiuor! The prices for drinks on the boats are expensive so better buy your drinks on the shore. We should leave with the boat around 12:00 but we had to wait and wait for other people. ANd the asshoiles inthe hotel kept our passports so the captain didn't want us on the boat without passports. After a while everything was arranged and we were on the boat with 22 people. Not everybody was that fun and open, but we gathered a cool group of Dutchies and John from the US. Lot's of fun on the upper deck, even though it was raining. The scenery was not as on all the touristic pictures, no sunny rocks. The mysterious misty and rainy surroundings were maybe more beautifull. The caves were way too toruistic, hundreds of people at the same time and many many boats. We even crashed with one of the other boats! We started already in the afternoon with our own boozecruise :-) And it's right what they say, what you pay is what you get... You pay a cheap 2 day tour? You wel get a shitty boat, limited food (small fish per 5 persons and one little cup of jam per person whahaha). They tell you you have to pay serrvice fee for every bottle/can of you own drinks, well we had a lot and just hidden them under the bed :-)

After some games, many drinks and crazy night it was time to try to sleep. Karien and me had a room next to the engine room so no chance to sleep with all that noise. After 03:00 it finally stopped for a while. We had to open our cabin with a screwdriver, what a luxury :-)

HANOI - HALONG BAY CITY

Woke up to late for a normal bus to Halong Bay, we decided to arrange everything by ourselves. But it will finally end up for the same price as a arranged tour from Hanoi. The local bus was very noisy and we arrived around 16:30 in Halong Bay City. Nothing to do, boring city. Booked a 2 day boat and kayaktrip for just 35 USD and the hotels here are quite cheap (5 USD).

To make the day a little bit special I ended my long period of 'freedom' :-)

HANOI, enjoying life with my Dutchies

Bang bang, Karien woke me up so early today. She and Lotte arrived in the morning with the nightbus and needed a place to stay. After changing hotels time for more sleep. Renteed a few bikes and in our colorfull ponchos we explored the city. It stopped raining sometimes. Visiting the Literatury Temple, Pagoda, Musoleum and more. Very busy day with lot's of tasty local streetfood.

We went to a spa and relaxing center (SF) for 2,5 hours of relaxing, massages, facial treatments, jacuzzi. Soooo hot! And meeting some persons for the first time naked is also a bit different :-) Traditional day today, so hurry up for the Waterpuppetshow today, as we haven't seen enough water the last few days whahaa. But it was funny, maybe a bit too overdresed with our tailormade clothes from Hoi An, at least I still had my hikingshoes on. Everything in Vietnamese and the rest of the crowd was not that enthousiastic as we felt sometimes. The bars in Hanoi are not officially open after 00:00. The Pub kicked us out and we stayed at th Hair of the Dog bar with the doors closed. Not so my medicines anymore and nice travelcompany this time, so time for a cocktailnight!

HANOI, Operation D(ental)-Day

Arrived in a hotel somewhere. No idea where, it was the one that was open very early. Decided to wait for some friends here and skip Sapa. The weather is not good so no reason for a mountainhike in the rain. Instead of that I tried a cityhike in the sprinklers today, bad idea. After a while walking around I treated myself on a nice and expensive lunch. The city of Hanoi is not that interesting, I'm only here for a good International dental clinic. I made an appointment yesterday at Westcoast Dental Clinic. In the early afternoon they started and yes it was urgent. A treatment of 6 hours non-stop. The surgery consisted out of repairing 3 back teeth (removing old fillings and replacing them), repairing a broken tooth (the piece that broke of was in my gum and removed by myself 2 weeks ago), treating several inflammations of my gum (3 places), cut and burn a big piece of gum behind my wisdom tooth and cleaning my teeth from several pieces of bone, splinters and more. So I spend the whole day with my French Dentist, thanks Pierre. But I enjoyed this day, so relaxing in the dental chair with reggea music on the background. SMiling with my dental sunglasses on. Pierre sometimes asked me to keep my feet still :-) Now I have even more medicines and painkillers :-) Because of the long and painfull treatment they had to use a lot of anesthetics (fuckin' huge injection needles yeah!) and well this stuff is also freezing your face! The hours after I couldn't talk anymore. So only some noodles for me tonight...