Ger to Ger

Just got back from a very cold, but interesting trip visiting the nomads and sleeping in ger, kind of a tent used by the nomadic people. We are now rushing to get a shower before the train ride to Irkutsk, Russia. Will get back with more from the trip when we get to Irkutsk.

Beijing to Mongolia

November 24th and one month left till Christmas, and we are driving through the Gobi dessert and listening to Christmas carols. We left Beijing at 7:40 am this morning, now the sun is setting outside and we still have more than 18 hours to go.

The train ride on the Mongolian plains and rolling hills has been one of the most beautiful train rides so far. With the white snow, blue sky and horses, yaks and camels roaming the hills.  

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Ulaan Baator

We are now in the Capitol of Mongolia. Here we stay at a guest house, very simple, just a room in a apartment, but perfectly fine. Cashmere is the thing to buy here and the city is full of cashmere stores, so there has been some shopping…… Ove has ordered a Mongolian bow so we got some nice souvenirs!!!  Even though the city have more than 1 million people it still feels like a small town, with lots of cozy, local cafes and restaurants. Chains like Mc Donald’s and Starbucks have not reached this part of the world yet.  Everywhere you can see that this was ones a part of USSR, old ugly blocks and state buildings.

Lars woke up this morning and looked out the window and said with excitement: “Something is dropping from the sky!!” It is not everyday he see snow. Today its been a little bit snow and around -15 C. We have one more night here in UB and then we will go on a three night trip on the plains, living in ger with the locals.

Beijing

Hi everyone, we have not been able to post anything on our blog lately because Blogspot and also facebook is banned by the Chinese government.

Here in Beijing we rented a room at a Hutong Guest house, a typical old Chinese house with a court yard in the middle and small houses around.  The Guest house had only 6 rooms and Tiril and Lars played in the yard with the house cat. There was only a little bit snow left but it was enough for Tiril and Lars to have a great time.  They are not spoiled with to much snow!!!!!

Here we stocked up on more winter clothes and also we got our 15 kg box, that was send from Singapore to a former college of Ove who now lives in Beijing.  After all the different markets we have been to Tiril and Lars are now getting good at barging, when they play we hear: “ 1 for 3 dollar, 2 for 5 dollar, what color you want…. we have many things …any thing you want…what you want….”

One day we took a tour and saw the great wall and Ming's tomb.   The great wall was a cold experience, but very impressive. We are not so impressed by the taxi drivers here in Beijing, most of the time they don’t want to pick us up or the take us to the wrong place. We have also seen a acrobatic show, very good……..

The last night in Beijing we where treated to Pizza by some friends of Ove that he worked with in Singapore. I nice ending to a interesting time in Beijing.

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Ha Long Bay

After a four hour long car drive from Hanoi we came to Ha Long City and our boat, a 23 meter long Junk, Du Tieu Chuan. The boat has two cabins, a dining room, a big sundeck and a crew of five + guide,  we have it all to ourselves.  The weather is now a lot colder, a round 15 degreed C and windy.

Ha Long Bay has 1969 small pinnacle islands, and in between them the local people live on floating houses. About 2500 people live out here in 7 small villages, the biggest one with 150 families. We visited one of the villages, here we got to see their local floating school. People out here live a very hard life, and most of them have never gone to school. A family make their living from fishing and tourism, and can make up to 100 usd a month.

We have also been kayaking and swimming, the sea is still warm even if the weather has gotten cooler. Since we have our one chef on board the food is amazing, I think we counted 7 different dishes for dinner.  Ha Long Bay is on the world heritage list and it is understandable……very beautiful. 

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Hanoi

We are now in Hanoi and getting ready for a long train trip to Beijing. Here we stay in the middle of the old quarter, a very busy part of the city.After two days in Hanoi traffic we are starting to get the hang of crossing the streets here, running zigzag in between a million motorbikes and cars. Traffic goes everywhere even on the sidewalk. People in Hanoi seems to live on the street, chatting, cooking, playing games and drinking their coffee. Last night we saw the famous water puppet show, the kids loved it!!!!!

Saigon to Hanoi

The train left Saigon at 11 pm. The train will take about 30 hours to get to Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. We will arrive around 6am.

Life on the train

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We had a cabin with 4 beds and a small table. The beds where very narrow and hard, but Tiril and Lars where very tired and fell a sleep right a way. The next morning we woke up at 6:30 am to sunshine and a  very talkative  group of  60 years old Australians. Outside we could start to see mountains, the train tracks run along the coast line, and at one point we where driving on the side of a mountain and had the ocean below us, spectacular view of the sunset!!!   
The train made a few longer stops along the way so we have time to run out and buy food and snacks. Here Ove and Lars is out shopping for French baguettes(which is sold every where here in Viet, after the French colonial time) and some drinks. The small shops is almost on the train tracks. Tiril and Lars spend the time playing Nintendo, Uno and looking out the window at all the water buffaloes, ducks and people working on the rice fields.

The lunch cart was very interesting and a bit scary, but we still tried some.  Rice and chicken!!! 

On the last night Lars fell out of bed twice, good thing we where able to convince him to sleep in the lower berth. 

Boat trip on Mekong River

At 9 am our guide came to pick us up. First we took a small boat through a floating village and then to a Cham village. Cham people is a minority group in Vietnam, originally from India. Centuries ago they had a big kingdom in central Vietnam, only a small group live in the south and they are Muslims.

After we went to the river boat for a two day cruise  down the Mekong River. The boat had a crew of five, including chef and guide, so we where well taken care of. (this was a private boat only for us). Ove got sick, high fever and runny nose, so he didn’t get to enjoy the trip. But the rest of us had a nice time.

We have now had one night in Saigon, and are getting ready for the train to Hanoi.

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Phnom Penh to Chau Doc

Last night Ove woke up and found Lars sound a sleep with his feet on the pillow, stomach on the bedside table and his head hanging half way outside.  

After breakfast we went to the royal palace and a quick trip to the national museum. Lars and Tiril was tired and bored with all the sightseeing so we didn’t spend to much time,  before heading to the harbor for the boat to Chau Doc in Vietnam.  A very small boat with only room for 12 passengers took us down Mekong River.  At the Cambodian border we stopped along the river at the smallest immigration office we have ever been to. Then we passed  through the Vietnam border without any trouble. After the border passing the boat took us to a floating cafe, where a new guide picked us up and took us to the hotel.

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

The boat trip

This morning our guide came to our hotel at 6:30 am and took us to the boat jetty, for the boat leaving for Phnom Penh at 7:30 am. We are now getting closer to the capitol of Cambodia crossing the Tonle Sap Lake. This is the largest lake in Asia and it varies from 6000 in dry season up to 15000 square km in wet season.
Right  now floating villages are passing by. A long the way we see people busy with their daily chores making a living on the lake. So there is a lot for us to look at on the way.

In Phnom Penh

When we arrived in Phnom Penh a new guide waited for us. We took a tour in the main prison used during the Khmer Rouge regime, approximately 25 000 people where killed in this prison alone,  today it is a museum.

Later we stopped by a dancing school for children, mainly orphans,  here they learned traditional Cambodian dance. 

Ankor Wat and Siem Reap

Today we started our organized tour through Cambodia. On the program for day one are the many temples in Siem Reap. Our guide picked us up just after breakfast and we went to the temple of Bayon and Ankor Thom first.    These amazing  buildings are built between the 10th to 15th century. After lunch we went to see the famous Ankor Wat, a big beautiful temple built as a tomb for the king.

Every time we go back to our car all the local people come running trying to sell handmade crafts, books, postcards and more.

Most of them small children not older than 5 or 6.  It is a bit hard to see all the poverty and how some of the people live here in Cambodia. 

In the evening we had a walk through the market and got some christmas presents and Tiril got a dress. At the restaurant Lars didn`t behave so I had to take him back to the hotel…..no dinner for Larsy!!!!

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Bangkok to Siem Reap

This morning Ove and I  got up at 4 am, Lars woke up 10 min later and said : “I need food!”.  At 4: 45 am we left for the train station, when we got there we where offered taxi to the border for 2000 bath but we bought train tickets for 144 bath.

We all had breakfast at platform number 6 while we waited for the train to come. Around us people where sleeping on benches and on the ground, it was a strange feeling standing there at 5 am in the dark waiting for the train. The train to the Cambodian border only has 3 class seats, so we had to sit on wooden benches for more then 5 hours, you can say we felt a bit sore after the trip. A very new experience for us!!!!

At the station we rented a tuk-tuk to take us to the border, and we paid a guy to help us cross over to Cambodia. He probably over charged us but he made the hole border crossing easier for us. We didn`t need to stand in line at the Cambodian immigration and he also helped us with a taxi from the border to Siem Reap, a 3 hour long drive. Finally we arrived at our hotel, an old french style building, very nice right in the middle of the old town.

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Life in Bangkok

Finally the taxi driver found our hotel,  Unico Leela Hotel, a really nice small hotel.  And to Tiril and Lars great surprise there is a swimming pool, so after lunch we had to go down for a swim.  Later in the evening we went out for a Thai meal and then to the night market. Here we got some souvenirs, Lars got football uniform and Tiril got her nails done. We also got some cheap DVDs and some nice statues.

There is a festival here in Thailand now, Festival of light, so everywhere there where fireworks and people where placing flower ornaments with  candles on the water. 

This morning we went to the floating market.  An exiting experience but a bit to long drive to get there, good thing Tiril and Lars where tired and slept most of the way.   

Tonight we will have an early dinner and then go straight to bed, because we need to be at the train station at 5 am tomorrow for the train to the Cambodian border.

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Train to Bangkok II

Good morning!!

We had a pretty good night. The sun is shining and it is 9 am in the morning. Tiril climbed down to Ove in her sleep last night and woke up surprised: “why am I here?” then she climbed back up for some more sleep. Lars had a small,  wet  “accident” in bed , but other than that everything is fine. We just had breakfast, egg, ham and toast. Really nice to have breakfast while the Thai landscape is passing by outside the window .

We will arrived Bangkok around 11:30 am.

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