Tag: street food

Our Next Adventure – Ecuador!

So Victoria officially has finished another assignment and you all know what that means, it’s time to hit the road again. We originally had planned to outfit my Montero as an “expedition vehicle”  with a roof top tent and refrigerator and all that and then drive it across the US and then all the way down Baja again. Only this time we were going to leave it there and fly back to the fifth wheel and then after her next assignment we’d fly down, pick it up, and head into mainland Mexico via the ferry and continue south. Then we’d rinse and repeat down through Central America and then maybe put it on a boat and tour South America too. Unfortunately these grandiose plans were interrupted when shortly after we decided all this Hurricane Matthew hit the east coast and dropped a tree on my Montero I had been storing at my parents home in Savannah, Ga.

We briefly considered buying another truck and a cheap camper as a replacement but ultimately decided we didn’t feel like dealing with all that(Maybe next time?). So instead we just looked to Kayak.com to see where we could fly cheaply. We’d been to Asia recently so Victoria scrapped Indonesia, we considered Spain and Greece but it’s winter there too (and we’re tired of the cold already), and then we saw Ecuador. It’s the same time zone as the east coast so that’s convenient, they speak spanish and so do I now, it’s on the equator so it’s always warm(Ecuador means equator in spanish), it seemed perfect .

Most people I’ve told don’t seem to know where Ecuador even is. It is a small country in South America on the Pacific coast in between Colombia and Peru. For a small country it has a huge variety in landscapes from the colonial towns of Quito(the second highest capital in the world) and Cuenca, to the Andes mountains, the Amazon rainforest, the Pacific coast, cloud forests, and the world famous Galapagos Islands(we won’t be visiting them as it would cost as much as the rest of the trip combined!).

We’ll be traveling for a little over five weeks and that should give us enough time to view a good part of the country. We’ll be backpacking as usual and getting around mostly by bus. As usual we’ve made zero reservations other than we’ll be flying into Quito on the 6th of January and back out on the 14th of February. We will be making a reservations at some point for our first night in Quito but other than that we’ll be winging it. We have a general plan to hit spend a few nights in Quito, head down into the Amazon, travel down the spine of the Andes, cut over to the coast and work our way back up, and then back to Quito and home. Something like below.

First we’re headed home for the holidays for two weeks. I had to get something up as we were interviewed by a friend of mine for a podcast called “Breaking The Chains”(I’ll post a link when it goes live) about people who live a bit outside the norms(us?) and I didn’t want any new visitors to think we’re too morbid with the first post being about the tragedy of Pol Pot’s rule in Cambodia. Stay tuned, I might even get around to posting about Koh Rong, the last place we went in Cambodia and an absolutely stunning island.

The Slow Road to Vientiane

With no sign of the rain abating we decided it was time to push on to Vientiane, no matter what. We get a few kilometers from town, bike stalls out, starts right back up and a few kilometers more stalls again. Time to find another mechanic…. We go into town and are basically turned away from several different shops because we don’t speak Loation. You’d think they’d be happy to take some money from us westerners as they always charge us a bit more than the locals, but not in Vang Vieng. I finally find a guy willing to check it out. Again with the full disassembly and four hours later no more stalling but now the bike has half the power. By this time it’s six o’clock and I decide to call it a day and bring it back in the morning. He spends 20 minutes tweaking a few things and gets just a bit more power and just sends me on my way. He of course spoke no English.

We decide it’s time to make the trip to Vientiane anyways, it’s the capital and a much larger town so I figure we’ll have better luck there. So we limp to Vientiane for four hours in the pouring rain. Thank God that portion of road isn’t as mountainous as the rest of the country or I’m not sure we’d have made it. We were literally doing 10km an hour up some of the hills, lol.

So we finally make it to Vientiane and Victoria had previously found some people interested in the bike. One guy was particularly excited about it and he was there within the hour to look at it. We figure were going to have to discount the bike or just agree to get it fully fixed before we sell it. Luckily this guy knew more about motorbikes than us and was enthusiastic and honest. He declared that it was a minor issue and he should have no trouble getting it fixed cheaply. He then proceeded to pay us what we bought the bike for. He drove off delighted as he’d wanted a motorbike like this one for a while and we were delighted to sell the bike at no loss and within an hour of arriving 🙂 I then bought our tickets to fly into Siem Reap that night, it was cheaper to wait a day so we spent an extra night in Vientiane.

For a capital of an Asian country it’s tiny, 200k vs 10+million for Hanoi and Bangkok. Despite there not being a whole lot to do or see it was a nice atmospheric town and there was good western and street food easily located. There was also a night market each night which was huge and frequented by locals and tourists alike. We also enjoyed the break after all the rain(we later found out the road between Luang Prabang and Vientiane was closed due to landslides caused by the nonstop rain.)

Next up Siem Reap and the amazing temples of angkor, one of the wonders of the world.

Hoi An, the biggest little city in Vietnam

Hoi An is a must if you travel to Vietnam. There are so many great things about it.  It has a nice beach, a quaint downtown scene which locals call the “old town” and lots of delicious, cheap, street food.  Most of the accommodations in Hoi An are “homestays.” We decided to stay at Thanh Laun homestay located between the old town and the beach.   The homestay came with free bikes which came in handy for getting around. The hostess of the homestay, Trinh, was very welcoming and made delicious coffee and breakfast every morning.  Thanh Luan is located right off the main road, Hai Ba Trung.  If you go north it will take you to An Bang beach.  If you go south you will hit the old town.  Since we stayed in the middle it only took us 10 minutes by bike to get to either.  And the food, ohhhh myyyy GAWWWWDDDDD! Commence food pics….

The bike ride to the beach is very beautiful, especially at sunset.  In fact, we think Hoi An has the best sunset we have seen so far in Vietnam.  There can be quite a bit of traffic on the road but it didn’t have much of an impact on the beauty of our surroundings.  There are rice farmers throwing seeds in the paddy fields and grazing water buffalo. There is an intersection before you get to the beach, turn left and take the next right and venture down one of the alleys for a less crowded area of the beach.  You can park your bikes for free and the chair rentals are only 20,000 VMD ($1).  Don’t follow Hai Ba Trung all the way to the beach or you will have to pay to park your bike and like $70,000 VMD for a beach chair.  Also it is VERY crowded at this section of the beach.  The locals start to crowd the beach daily around 5 pm.

You do not have to pay to go into the Old Town.  There are some historic buildings that you must have a ticket to go into but it doesn’t cost anything to walk around.  Wandering around the old town at night is a must.  Motorbikes are not allowed and the old town is lit up by colorful lanterns.  It creates a romantic ambiance.  There are ladies that strongly encourage you to purchase their “wish” candles you can float down the river. I couldn’t resist.  We noticed a huge difference in the amount of people on the weekend verses weekday so if possible try to avoid visiting on the weekend.

 

Another thing you must do is have some clothes tailor-made.  Having wide hips and long legs, it has always been a struggle in my life to find a great pair of jeans.  A petite Vietnamese lady took my measurements and in less than 24 hours I had a $40 pair of jeans that never fit me so good.   For $70, Tim had a purple sports coat made.  He was due for a new one.  If you know Tim, you know how much he loves his purple sport’s coat he got from a Goodwill like 10 years ago.   The ladies nailed our clothes since neither one of us needed adjustments.  You can literally have anything you want made in 24 hours.  If you have a picture of what you want, the tailors can copy it for you. It is simply amazing.

We spent five very enjoyable nights in Hoi An and could have stayed longer.  Tim and I have been hearing a lot about this very popular ride from Hoi An to Hue via motorbike….Stay tuned. 🙂

Wow! Our trip to Vung Tau!

Vung Tau is a popular get-a-way from the hustle and bustle of HCMC.  To get here from HCMC you take the ferry which costs 200,000 dong, or about $9, per person.  The ferry terminal in HCMC is called Ben Tau Canh Ngam.  There are two popular locations for lodging while visiting Vung Tau.  The front beach, more popular with foreigners because of the closeness to shopping and restaurants, or the back beach where the locals vacation.  We chose the back beach because the beach looked nicer but were initially concerned because we weren’t sure if there was going to be restaurants around.  It turned out to be a good gamble.  The location is great because it’s only a five minute walk to the beach and there’s plenty of cheap-eats type restaurants since the locals frequent the area. We stayed at the Tan Hoang Than hotel for 300,000 dong, $13.50, per night.  The hotel was a little on the dirty side but it came with a balcony and the price was awesome for the location.  Beware that this area gets hoppin’ on the weekend and the rates triple.   At night it’s nice to walk along the waterfront and people watch.  The beach was great and very nice for swimming.

We walked to see the giant Jesus of Vung Tau which stands a whopping 32 meters (105 feet). This is free to do if you have to energy to ascend approximately 900 steps.  What I really liked was being able to go inside of Jesus, up a narrow spiral staircase of about 130 steps, to take in a spectacular view of the beach.

The food we had here was incredible.  We tried various restaurants and street seafood vendors.  You can’t go wrong it’s all fantastic and most Vietnamese dishes are less than $2 each.  The seafood is more costly and a couple of times we splurged $5 for crab claws or clams.  We have become very fond of the coffee.  We order the iced coffee with milk like twice a day which are only 50-75 cents each.

It was obvious that most foreigners choose to stay near the front beach.  Every time we went out, people stared at us like they never saw a white person before lol.  In fact we didn’t see another white person the 4 days we were there.  Most people we met were so friendly, especially the children who all say “hello!” when they see us. It melts my heart every time.  It’s amazing how easy it is to hang out and laugh with people even though you can’t speak the same language.

Tim and some locals smoking tobacco out of this strange bong like pipe. It was tobacco I promise.
Tim and some locals smoking tobacco out of this strange bong like pipe. It was tobacco I promise.

Good Mornin’ Vietnam!

We were horribly exhausted after traveling for 32 hours when we arrived at 2 am in HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City), formally known as Saigon.  Thankfully it was a breeze getting through customs since we were literally the only flight to arrive at that time.  We had our visa set up to pay on arrival so there was no issue there either.  The only reservation we made for the entire 10 weeks we will be traveling was for the first night so the hotel would set up the airport shuttle. We didn’t want to worry about how to get to the hotel and it only cost $14 dollars. It wasn’t until after we arrived that we discovered Uber works in HCMC and it would have been 1/3 of the cost.  Anyways we stated at Madam Cuc 184.  It costs $20 a night.  The hotel is in a quiet part of the backpackers district which can get crazy at night.  The rooms and bathrooms were clean.  The only thing I didn’t like was how they lock the gate at 2300 each night.  Since we were jet lagged we would wake up at 0300 in the morning and were stuck.  Also the manager requested to hold our passports during our stay.  At first I was a little sketched out but we later learned that this is actually a law.  All hotels are supposed to take your passports.

There are plenty of options to eat around the hotel including a market.  The park is right around the corner and we were surprised at all the Vietnamese people getting up early to exercise in the park.  Some were doing their own thing, some were in groups all wearing the same shirts.  We saw people doing the fan dancing thing, Thai chi, and aerobic dancing.  Tim and I decided to jump in and play too. 🙂

We read about the hazards of pedestrians in the city so we were mentally prepared.  Some streets are easy but some times you have to literally put yourself out there, with a confident step you will succeed in crossing the street.  The cars and buses are the real threat.  They are like the great white sharks of the road and will squash you without hesitation.  The motorbikes can easily manuever around you.  Once you do it a couple of times you get the flow of traffic and will understand.  There is a method to the madness.

While in the city we visited two different museums, the War Remnants museum and the Reunification Palace. The war remnants museum was interesting and displays the atrocities of the war.  However, some of the facts and portrayal of the Americans are slightly skewed.  It was nice to stroll around the Reunification Palace and view the luxurious rooms and underground bunker.

HCMC smells of cigarettes and gasoline with a hint of fish sauce.  Smoking is an epidemic here and the motorbikes are everywhere.  The fish sauce comes from the food obviously.  However it is delightful and charming in its own way.  It’s a vibrant city and there is always something to do at all hours of the day.  This is why it’s a good place to be whilst getting over jet lag since there is always somewhere open to get beer, food, or whatever your heart desires.  The Vietnamese people are very friendly and willing to help us even while we butcher the correct pronunciation of their language.  Google translate has been a God send and I highly recommend downloading the Vietnamese language pack.  For some reason I was under the impression that most people spoke English here. We are slowly picking up phrases and it always helps to smile when approaching people. 🙂