Vietnam to Cambodia, May 31

Travel Day
We're up before dawn to check out of the Nha Trang hotel, and the crowd is already active in the ocean-front street and park outside our hotel balcony.  Hundreds of people are running, walking, swimming, moving with Tai Chi, or playing ball games.  They're in the main street, both sides of the road, and heedless of the traffic direction.  A guy is jogging head-on into our taxi's traffic lane, in the fast lane.

We're so early, the airport terminal is a ghost town.  Well, almost.  We encounter some residents...  Jim buys a cinnamon roll and coffee and while he's munching and I'm taking his picture, a small-kind roach crawls up my pant leg.  (Yes, Sons. I did.)




After brushing off my backpack and standing around outside for a while, we fly from this small airport, which is in Cam Ranh Bay (Jim recalls being here once on a short leave during the war), into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) so we can transfer to another flight to Cambodia. 

Check out the smog in Ho Chi Minh City.  Worse than I ever saw in LA, growing up.

                                   Baggage claim sushi bar?

Siem Reap, Cambodia, is a medium-small town surrounded by agriculture.  Lake nearby.  Rivers and flooded fields abound.

A lemongrass straw

When we get to our hotel, Tara Angkor, we have lunch while our room is readied --we're a little earlier than usual check-in time but since it's low season, no problem.  I have padh thai for lunch.  Not as good as what we cooked in Bangkok.

Lunchtime

In Siem Reap, drivers aren't devoted to so much horn-honking, which is required driving practice in Vietnam, but the darting here and there without signaling, including down the wrong side of the street, is just the same.  


We get out in it, though, in a tuk-tuk.  We tuk-tuk a couple of kilometers to buy entrance tickets for Angkor Wat complex for tomorrow.  They take our photos and print them on our $20 entry tickets, which we must show at each temple.  

And then, we really get out in it--we borrow the hotel bikes and peddle off to the central market.  Darting.  Wowee--this is a different viewpoint from a taxi or even a tuk-tuk. 
Notice we're in the correct lane.  
But I wish I had video of us crossing traffic at the 3-way intersection by the market.
 (Where are our bike helmets???)



Back at the hotel, Jim runs on the treadmill (I forgot my running clothes back at Keith and Pan's in Bangkok) and I sit poolside and read till dusk.

Our hotel.  Our room view is into someone's backyard, but the hotel clean and neat and friendly.

Tomorrow, we've got a 5 a.m. rendezvous with the sunrise at 

Angkor Wat.

Vietnam, May 30, Nha Trang

Last day in Nha Trang.  
At daybreak, when Jim was up, there were dozens of people doing what looked like Tai Chi alongside the ocean in the park area, and lots of people swimming. 

We eat our leftover bakery items for breakfast and sit out on the hotel room lanai in the blinding early morning sunlight sipping coffee and tea.

This morning's purpose: find the sports store we were in yesterday.  I want to try on--and purchase--some sports pants that I spotted yesterday.  Trouble is, we can't recall the little store's exact location.   

We walk up and down streets where vendors are already lighting their cooking fires, walking their wares, and calling out to come into their shops.
 

So much construction, remodeling of flats and laying of stone tile sidewalks.  We dodge the motorbikes, bicycles, cars and occasional bus when we cross streets.  We can't find the sports store.  




But we do find the Hawaii cafe.

And the post office, where I buy and mail my mom a promised post card. 



Sultry finally gets to us.  We stop in for an air conditioned breather at the big department-type store along the beach road.  We were in here yesterday, too--and today try on a few things once our sweat dries.  We buy!  Deb gets a super-nice linen skirt and top for work and Jim a linen shirt. 


Revived but not crazy, we hail a taxi--they all have AC--to take us to a restaurant a couple of kilometers down the road.


Lunch smells like smoky garlic but alas, not as tasty as Da Lat.






Spring rolls, mushroom soup, chicken with veggies and white rice cone.   And since I didn't want mine spicy, Jim's "yes, spicy for me" gets him a visitor-level of heat.

Two rotating fans cool us and the other diners. 




We can't let go of the hunt for that elusive sports shop.  Once more we re-talk our wanderings from yesterday, and think we've finally remembered which street the store is on.  On the way we come across a bakery and ice cream store, and vow to return after this final hunt for the store.  

We find the store!!! but Disappointment.  The pants are too baggy.  No other sizes.  No purchase.

But the ice cream store is two blocks away.  I pop out my umbrella against the sun and we troop back to sample the homemade flavors: a tiny sample of durian (no kidding, and it was kinda good), then fully committed to fast-melting tiramisu and cheese cake.

Taxi back to the hotel for a relaxing hour of internet and reading.  Watching the ocean from our terrace, we decide to get onto the sand but between our 7th floor room and the front door of the hotel the rain ensues--can no longer even see the sand or the ocean which is just across the street.  We're pinned in for a couple hours of TV and reading and watching the landscape fade into wet and the streets become temporary rivers.  Then at 6 p.m. as appointed, we make a quick round-trip taxi ride in the downpour to pick up our $1.50 laundry.  The taxi ride cost as much as the laundry...doesn't that seem odd?

We stuff our backpacks with our clean clothes and our new clothes and are ready to burn our fatigued, current clothes.  But won't.  It will be hot in Siem Reap, Cambodia, tomorrow, and Angor Wat the following day, and no one will notice our wilted wardrobe.

Vietnam, May 29, Nha Trang

Nha Trang, on the beach
Sunday, May 29

The bakery--ahh.  Breakfast of coconut bitty-cake and mixed fruit filled bitty-cakes; with 5 extras and a bag of chocolate butter cookies for later, $3 USD.  Our hotel wanted $14 USD !!! for breakfast.

Cuttlefish prep.  We see it later at dinnertime, sizzling on street habachies

Our hunt for an umbrella pays off; we bargain hard

Veggies at the market

Dodging motorbikes

Market; lots of women wear that cone-shaped hat

Market a-pied.  Earlier, I bought 2 books from a bicycle book vendor.

It's the bakery

Old and new housing abounds; very dense just off the beach road

Our hotel on the beach road; 7th floor room with ocean view was a free upgrade (low season generosity).  Umbrella for sun and rain.  Yes, it's hot here.

Lunch #1 while we read Ryan's poems and chapter using the cafe's free wifi.

Map of close-in Nha Trang (I see it's upside down)

Lunch #2, also dinner.  More tofu for me

The coffee store, just down the street from the laundry.  After walking around for hours today, we finally found the much-needed laundry outlet.  We note the location on our map, and return later to drop off our dirty duds.  Our load of laundry cost: $1.50; ready in 24 hrs.  That vs. hotel laundry service: $20.

Vietnam, May 28 Da Lat

One Day in Da Lat, Central Highlands

One day isn't enough. 

Our hotel

Outside our hotel.  So many motorbikes!

Vietnam, May 27

Vietnam: Travel Day, May 27 Cat Tien to Da Lat

Leaving rugged Cat Tien, we take the boat across the river and just the other side are met by a driver, Minh, and guide, Thang, who speaks English.  It's 4 hours to the mountain town of Da Lat, where we'll spend the night.  

The road to Da Lat begins with an hour of jarring bumps and potholes in a narrow road alongside small farms and simple houses.  


About the time the road improves to a 2-lane, Thang gets a phone call on his mobile.  He calls to the driver to pull over, and then tells us that the Lodge still has our passports.  NO!!!!  But it's ok.  They're sending someone to catch up to us and put them in our sweaty hands.   Hotels in Vietnam keep guests' passports until checkout.  They'd forgotten to give them back and we'd forgotten to verify that we had them in our possession.  I feel sorry for the person driving to meet us--he's got the worst road conditions, two ways.  But so grateful. 

Coffee (in distance) grows on many hillsides in the central highlands.

We passed the 40 minute wait at a roadside cafe chatting with the guide who has a little girl two weeks younger than Nayeli.  Cute as can be, looking at her photo on his phone.  His parents are coffee farmers, and he affirms that Vietnamese coffee is the best, and also that the 'weasel'-enhanced beans really are the best--called Caphe Chon (Vietnam) or Kopi luwak or civet coffee.  Thang works for Pine Track Adventure, leading mountain biking tours and climbing etc. but not so much during the rainy season, which is now.  The drive was hard on the bum,  and means we'll arrive after dark in Da Lat, but this respite to wait for our passports turns out to be a great time chatting with Thang.

Motorbikes carry EVERYTHING

Small town on way to Da Lat

Tofu and veggies

Cool here in the mountains; don't need the AC

It's dark when we arrive  at our hotel La Sapinette.  Dinner awaits.

Vietnam, May 26

Kat Tien National Park
Birding Day

While eating breakfast we notice a blue and green bird working the tree outside the lodge open-air dining room--it's a blue-winged leaf bird. I'm so excited! We've borrowed the Asia/local bird book from Ms. Mai, the Kat Tien Lodge owner.
We plan to go with a birding guide at 7 a.m. for the morning, but the rains hit at about 6:50 a.m. After lingering at breakfast and some sitting around admiring the view in the heat
the rains abate and we set out for a few hours' walk with our guide Mr. Trang.

There's a narrow concrete drive/trail from the lodge, past the Nat'l Park Headquarters, and to the end of the Nat'l Park land. One of our first birds to see is black and red broadbill, and then Mr. Trang spots its nest!

Along the way are two wildlife viewing towers and we climb each to see more from the tree top view.
One's a little wobbly and its second story is way too high for me once that sway is included.

Some more birds: Asian fairy blue bird (love the name, and the bird); violet cuckoo; red breasted parakeet--great bands of these guys, calling and flying around, and saw one feeding a juvenile. 


We're back at the lodge for a torpid afternoon, then go out again, this time riding in the back of a truck on plank seating and a grab bar.  We cruise and stop occasionally to walk out into the wetland.  Jim finds a porcupine quill!  We see two deer.  And many birds. We stop at the Ranger Station and have tea.  Did I mention that it's hot?

Tea at the ranger station

We're tired at the end of the day, about 6 hours of birding all together, and thanks to Mr. Trang we see about 50 species.

Our tent cabin on the river

Travel Day to Vietnam

Quatar Airlines' Boing 777 from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City smelled new. First not-full plane we've been on. Quick trip, just over an hour.

To travel within Vietnam, need a Visa. Although the guidebook says "Visa on arrival," in truth the paperwork needs pre-approval. Jim found all this online, and the pre-approval was emailed to us to print out. We got our passport-type photos ahead of time, too, which turned out to be very helpful but not essential, as someone in the Ho Chi Minh airport visa office took photos for a fee. The visa fee is paid there, in US Dollars or Euro only. $25 for a singe-entrance, $50 for multiple entrance.

The driver from Forest Floor Lodge meets us outside baggage claim. We drive through the city and on to Cat Tien Nat'l Park and Forest Floor Lodge, 4 hour drive. We arrive at dark night, eat, and fall into bed in our cabin-tent.

Bangkok Day 4, We Cook

Delectable!

Cooking class at Thai House, which is an authentic teak home-stay nestled on a canal northwest of Bangkok.   We went for the day only, for a full-day cooking class and were surprised with a 1.5 hour canal tour, too.

Photos tell the story.  Oh, and it's still hotter than ...hot.  We'll call it sultry.

Canal vendor

Corner market

Another shopper

Canal corner market; our boatman shops

One of several temples on the canals we traversed

Cooking begins...with knowing one's ingredients

I didn't know lemon grass was so pretty

Makings for yellow or red curry

Snack time

Best padh thai EVER; and I helped