1st stop in Cambodia - Koh Rong Samloem :)

I shoot straight up in bed, wide awake... for the 5th time in the past 3 hours... honestly a little frightened... there is some unidentified animal making foghorn level noises every half hour. Neither of us has really slept because we are terrified and have no idea what this thing is. It's really horrible. REALLY loud. We don't have electricity to really look for it. This time is different though. This time it's followed by scratching noises right next to my head. I start making clapping and snapping noises and the thing quits for a while. It sounds really close. Sheri hears the same thing on her side throughout the night. [Ended up being a rat that was actually crawling around inside our bed. It was trying to get out, but was trapped by our sheets and mosquito net. true story.] we don't really sleep at all amongst the commotion. Did i mention we are hot as hell and sweating?

and... that's how the best day of our trip so far started

So - what was the mysterious animal? Turns out it was a giant gecko. This thing is about the size of my forearm and apparently they make extremely loud noises about every 10 days during some sort of mating period. The commotion in our room continued each night, but we never had the loud gecko noises more than a few times. The rat was removed from our bed by the staff, but there were clearly many rats in our room each night. Slept pretty well after the first night though :)

So - why would we possibly consider staying at this place after the first night? And why would we want to actually extend our trip to stay at this place for a 5th night? Check out the pictures. Most beautiful beach we've ever seen. Nobody there on the island other than the other guests (14 bungalows).

Lookout point view of Lazy Beach!

The view from our front porch!

Hornbill

The other beach...

Jungle walk to the other beach...

Our beach "Lazy Beach"...view from our couch at lunch everyday!

The bungalows...

Phu Quoc

We spent a week relaxing on Phu Quoc Island in South Vietnam. Stayed the first 2 nights in a place in the middle of the jungle called Freedomland. Bungalows with no hot water, but probably our favorite place we've stayed and definitely the best food we had in all of Vietnam. Our first day there, we took a 15 minute walk to Ong Lang beach. It was about 2-3 miles of untouched beach. We were the only ones there. We were excited...

We transferred over to the Beach Club for the next few days, ate a lot more good seafood, watched a lot of sunsets, and spent a day exploring the island on a motorbike. For our year anniversary we rented out a boat for a little fishing, snorkeling, and scenery.

Bai Sao Beach

BBQed Sea Urchin for lunch. Pretty damn good actually...

Freedomland!

Mango Bay

Piggy - the Freedomland owner's Phu Quoc dog. We loved her

Communal dinner table at Freedomland

More Ong Lang

Hoi An

Next stop in Vietnam was Hoi An. Really kitschy and touristy, but we both loved our 6 nights here. We spent a day exploring (and getting very lost) on nearby Cam Kim Island on bikes.

We visited some of Hoi An's famous tailors and got some custom-tailored clothes. $17 shirts, $24pants, $20 shorts, $55 shoes, and $118 suit, all custom fit to my skinny, lanky ass. Sheri got a jumper, 2 dresses, shoes, and a shirt (all for about $200). We had fun, and had to resist buying more.

One of our favorite parts was the Bia Hoi - fresh beer. Made fresh every morning (and only good for a day). At $.10 - $.16 a glass, we had quite a few. Kind of tasted like a Japanese beer like Kirin mixed with a bud light. Not bad at all.

The face of the monster....

Sheri devouring her 1st Bahn Mi (Vietnamese sandwich). We went to the place that Anthony Bourdain went to on his Vietnam episode in the Hoi An market.

Biking day on Cam Kim Island

Cooking class - this guy is serious about his noodles

Herb Garden pictures

underbite sunbathing dog doesn't really need a caption

Hoi An scenery

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

It's been a while since our last post... been traveling in vietnam and cambodia, and we haven't had much internet access. On to Ha Long Bay.

After 10 days in lazy Laos, Vietnam was a big shock. We spent 2 nights in Hanoi, and then headed out to Ha Long for a 3 day, 2 night cruise through the bay. Although we had read that it wasn't the best time of year to visit, we definitely weren't prepared for the weather. It was cold and overcast the entire time. Pretty cool way to see it. Eerie, creepy, mysterious. The bay was still unbelievably beautiful, but it was tough not to think what it would have been like on a warm, tropical day. We only have 1 pair of pants, and 1 long sleeve shirt each, so we actually wore the same thing for 3 days straight. haha

The boat cruise was really nice. We visited "Amazing... or Surprising" Cave, hiked up a mountain for views, kayaked, and did a little squid fishing. We also biked around Cat Ba national park and spent a night on Cat Ba island. We particularly liked our guide - Long. The guy was extremely enthusiastic about telling us all the legends of the bay, and was a great storyteller.

Overall - an amazing experience and a must-see in southeast asia, despite the weather.

View from the cave, looking out at other boats in the harbor

Cat Ba National Park

Our boat!

View from Titop Island

LAOS: ELEPHANTS!

I had been looking forward to this part of our trip for a while....elephants! We both wanted to make sure that we found a place that wasn't the typical tourist riding overworked elephants on baskets. We wanted to be able to experience something more and also make sure we were giving money to a good cause. Elephant Village in Luang Prabang is an eco friendly organization that buys overworked and abused elephants and rehabilitates them. They literally have to buy the elephants from the businesses/people who are abusing/overworking them. Each elephant costs around $20,000 to buy...not a cheap operation. So all of the money spent at Elephant village goes directly to what it should be going to...the elephants!!

They offer a few different packages. We decided to do the 1 day mahout training experience (a mahout is the elephants trainer. They are basically with the elephant all the time.) We were picked up by our guide who gave us a few fun and serious facts about elephants. Laos was once called "The land of a million elephants". Now there are only about 3500 elephants left. Once we arrived at the village, we learned the basic Mahout commands to use with the elephant. Then we learned how to get onto the elephant's neck for riding (you kind of have to be a monkey). We took a ride down to the water and around the village. When we got back to the village, we were able to feed them some bananas for treats. After lunch it was bath time. Our elephants clearly were excited and you could tell this was there favorite part of the day! We each rode our own elephant down to the river with the mahout and we were given a scrub brush. The elephants submerged their heads and bodies into the water so we could wash them... also splashing with their trunks for fun!

It was a great day and a great cause that we got to support. We really got to experience how giant but gentle these animals are and it was one of our favorite moments of the trip!