Here’s our tour of the food market prior to our cooking class. It’s a bit long, (still working on my video editing skills) but very interesting types of meat, seafoods, fruits & vegetables.
Mind you, I’m not a chef…these are the only cooking classes I’ve ever taken unless you count Home Ec in high school. 🙂 So I am sadly not used to seeing food in it’s raw state as you will find from some of my reactions during the tour.
Filed under Cambodia, Khmer Food Market
We took a tour of the local market as our head chef pointed out the ingredients for our meals. We made spring rolls, mango salad & seafood/chicken with rice. Tasty!
Filed under Uncategorized
The past 2 days have been jam packed in Cambodia. The people are so friendly here.
In front of Angkor Wat
Day 1 we did the Angkor Wat and 2 other temples, then the Floating Village tour. Day 2 we did a Countryside Tour, a Silk Farm Tour, and then a Traditional Khmer Massage. In the evening we took a Khmer Cooking class and made our meal for dinner. More pics to follow, for now got to catch a plane back to Vietnam.
Filed under Uncategorized
I tried logging into FB several times at my hotel in Vietnam, and kept getting an error page saying the site was not available. I thought maybe it was down or something, which would be weird.
I did a Google search and it does appear that Vietnam blocks FB. As an avid user, I sure take for granted being able to log in anytime and receive & post updates.
I found a couple of sites that show you how to “unblock” it, but I thought it best to leave it alone instead of being the next day’s news “Westerner thrown in jail for unblocking FB”.
Now we’ve been in Cambodia a couple of days, where I can log in. It’s interesting you can log in from Cambodia but not Vietnam…we also thought it was interesting that when applying for our Visas we could do it online in Cambodia but Vietnam we had to send the paperwork by mail.
Anyhew, having a great time, we packed a bunch of stuff into our 2 full days in Cambodia which I’ll try to post some pics in a bit.
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No internet on our boat in Halong Bay until now, we are heading back to the mainland where we’ll be off to our next stop. Wanted to upload this for you so you know what we’ve been up to. This morning we did Tai Chi on the deck of the boat, so peaceful and still all around us. Then we had a cooking class, Vietnamese Spring Rolls. Very cool! Jet lag improving.
Filed under Halong Bay, Vietnam
Here’s my jet lag again! What is going on?! It’s 12:30p.m…at home. 3:30a.m. in Hanoi.
Sorry, another long post! I will cut it down moving forward. Had a lot to catch up on.
Literally, yesterday morning we ran 3.5 miles around the lake for our daily exercise (it’s a mile per lap).
Dragon tree by lake
Book tree by lake
Then, the quest for Flip Video Camera began. We ran around grungy after our run for a while, since there were some camera stores near the other end of lake.
After clean up & refresh at hotel, Jim spent hours and ended up walking 10 extra miles while I rested (from my middle of the night jet lag!)…the lady at our hotel front desk said they had it at a certain mall. When he got there, they didn’t have it after all.
We then trekked another 6 miles the rest of the day on the hunt. I am tracking our miles with my Nike+ Sportband, it also tracks calories burned, etc. then we sync it online to keep track. A handy tool! We want to walk and hike/exercise as much as possible, so we are avoiding elevators and taxis as much as possible.
Passed by a couple of movie theaters, we were the only foreigners in the place. Stopped in to inquire if they had English subtitles, they said no. They have American movies, but dubbed in Vietnamese and/or Vietnamese subtitles. Kind of defeats the purpose, we wanted to see a Vietnamese movie with English subtitles. Popcorn never smelled so good. There was another farther (further?) theater that had them, we planned to go there if time later in the day.
We FINALLY found a place that had the Flip SlideShare or something like that, it was more than we wanted to spend…I just wanted a simple, inexpensive option in case I lose it or it gets stolen (dirty rats!). Luckily they also had a Sony Bloggie option, 4 hours of record time. Still a bit more than what we wanted to pay but those were the only 2 things we found…I wanted something with the convenient USB built in. K anyhew, we finally have recording capability again…now I have to figure out how to use the share/edit features, hoping it’s as simple as Flip.
On a tangent: The trek reminded us of searching high and low in Bangkok for a simple coffee mug that said Thailand on it or something. I collect coffee mugs from places we go, and when I drink from them at home it reminds me of our trip. But that was a half day running around as if we had no other sight-seeing we wanted to be doing! We didn’t have any luck except at a mall at Starbucks we finally found a mug that said Chiang Mai. Weird buying a mug in Chiang Mai at Bangkok, but we did visit Chiang Mai so I got that one. Something about buying a mug from the place you are at at the moment! Well maybe I am weird…Jim is a good husband, he just goes with the flow. Makes for more adventures we would have otherwise had I suppose.
By 5:30 p.m. we were hungry and still not had lunch. Highland Coffee (tourist place) for some fries and a drink to figure out dinner, our feet were killing us (Jim’s more than mine) & we settled on a Western place, though I did get Vietnamese dish. 🙂
Oh yeah, due to it being the weekend, the Water Puppet Show was booked. I don’t recommend Hanoi on weekends, many locals and tourists alike. So crowded and hectic! No movie either, we were exhausted and called it a day at 8p.m.
We will try for movie & Water Puppet Show in Hue or Hoi An when we get there in the next week or so.
It’s now 4a.m., I’d better get some rest for a couple hours before we check out and head out for Halong Bay. Stay tuned!
Jim just got back after being out for the last couple hours in search of a Flip (he was going to a place nearby, but ended up with the wrong map at another place much further). No one seems to have it! They have plenty o Sony Cams, Canon Cams & other…but no Flips. Well we have a nice fancy Sony at home, but it’s not as convenient. So we’re having a hard time finding the basic Flip. Well, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Keep ya posted.
Any rate, on our list, we’ve got a Vietnamese movie and Vietnamese Water Puppet Show. So now we’re out into the day…at 1:30p.m. More later! 🙂
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Waaaaaaaahhhhhh!
A rat stole my Flip video camera! 😦
Jet lag again, it’s 12:09p.m…at home! 3:09a.m. here & I’m wide awake. So I’m drafting my thoughts on the incident, to post later (sorry, it’s a little long entry this time, but I’ve gotta get the steam out!):
It’s not the camera itself I’m so bummed about, and of course, considering a Junk Boat in Halong Bay we down a couple days ago where some tourists died, this is a small thing compared to what some people are going through right now.
But it’s the content that was on the video I’m mad about, also that I actually got duped! We had almost 2 hour’s worth, 13 miles of walking & 2 days worth of interesting video snippets. The battery was about to die and we were almost back to the from a day of exploring, just after dinner. I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and charge her up and download the videos to review & post.
Saturday night & already dark, we walked by the Hanoi Kiem Lake; full of lights and wonderful activity–families, couples, teenagers, elder people, all coming out to tool around, eat, socialize and enjoy the night.
We neared the end of the lake & I pulled out my handy Flip to take a quick snippet showing the vibrant colors and the life, then put it back in my left pocket as habit (I keep my camera in the right pocket). Unless I’m using them, they are stored in my pockets–both zippers are USUALLY zipped (we have been cautioned of these “very good pick-pockets”).
Then 2 young teenage rats came, trying to sell us their postcards. They were both full of talk and action, and got very close to us. “Buy my postcard, one dollar. Please! Please, buy my postcard. One dollar!” They kept repeating more often than what we have experience here (usually a few people here & there will ask us to buy their books/postcards/maps…but they usually go away after saying no once or twice). Well this time, these 2 kept on and kept walking along with us as we refused.
Finally they left after about a minute, we continued walking towards our hotel. We were very tired after our day, and just wanted to get back. I was going to video the end of our walk, went to pull out the Flip and wha? Where’s the Flip???!!!!
I was so mad, I walk right back there and looked around for those 2. We couldn’t remember what they looked like, went up to some 2 young suspicious-looking rats sitting on a bench with a girl. Having taught middle school for 6 years, I can usually tell when something is up and who the guilty party is even if they deny it.
Well this one rat, he looked me in the eye and said “What?”…he sounded the same…and that he responded in English was also another indicator that it was likely him. I asked him where is my camera? I was pretty sure it was him, though he didn’t have any postcards on him. Suspiciously, there was an older man and woman nearby them with big cameras, big “camera” bags and large print photos which could have been what they were using as postcards. We went in circles; I asked the kids to show me what’s in their pockets, there was nothing.
Jim went back to the restaurant to make sure I didn’t leave it behind while I sat & stalked this kid and his 2 friends (one was a girl)–I was just scoping it out and trying to see if they would try to approach some other tourists. When Jim came back and confirmed the restaurant didn’t have the Flip, I know I’d never see the camera again. Jim even tried to give them money to get the camera back that they “found on the ground.” He’s a good hubby! 🙂
Using my PI skills, here’s my assessment: I think maybe the 2 guys were assigned to us and keep us annoyingly-occupied while the girl came and got in my pocket. The man and woman are the wing-men to store the goods. Just my hunch! And whether or not it’s true, it will be my conclusion. 😦 RIP little camera with lots of cool stuff on it.
We will get a new Flip today and start again! And at least we still have some photos from my camera, I’ll post them later for you.
Any rats come round my pockets again will be in BIG TROUBLE!
Filed under Pick pockets
Well, so much for thinking I was too cool for jet lag! It’s 9:23a.m. …at home! I am wide awake, and it’s 12:24a.m. in Hanoi. I’m hungry for breakfast too. 😦 Jim is asleep. So I guess I will catch up on my blogging and some reading.
Forgot to mention, I saw a great Korean movie called Cyrano Agenty on the flight over. It’s one of my new favorites.If you get some time, please watch it, it’s funny! See the trailer in English Subtitles here:
Maybe I’ll try to sleep now. If not, I’ll post some of our video from the day.
Filed under Korean Movie
We are FINE! We were not on the boats or anywhere near there. We barely just found out about the news of the sinking boat, and are sorry to hear the news.
We were planning to do this trip later in our vacation, and will see if they plan to open operations again by the time we are scheduled to go and will decide then if we will still go.
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Gone to Asia! 