In January, we took an amazing two week trip to Southeast Asia, visiting the countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, where we ate... basically everything. In between meals, we saw lots of temples and other cultural sites, but the food!!! It's the best!!!
We first went to Vietnam. We visited northern Vietnam back in 2014, so this time we went to the south, to Ho Chi Minh City. We had a slightly eventful cab ride to our hotel (we got rear ended!) but the rest of our days in Vietnam were relaxing and wonderful.
Our hotel offered breakfast for $4 a person; in America that would be pretty cheap, but not in Southeast Asia! Instead, we wandered to the street corner a block away and found this stand, where we got delicious soup for $0.60 a bowl.
This was an excellent start to our stay in Vietnam!
Ho Chi Minh City was all decorated for the upcoming Lunar New Year, which was the week after we visited (which ended up being lucky for us, since apparently everything closes for about a week during the New Year celebrations!).
2017 is the Year of the Rooster
It's always interesting to see random propaganda while walking around the city. I often forget that Vietnam is a communist country!
We took a day trip from HCMC to the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is where the Viet Cong hid, lived, and worked during the Vietnam War.
We could only visit the first (of three!) layers of tunnels, but it was cool to see.
They also had a lot of different types of booby traps that the Viet Cong would use during the war, like this one with spikes in the hole!
They also had very realistic looking mannequins showing how people lived and worked during the war. The ones inside the tunnels always startled me!
Our last night in HCMC, we took a food tour with two early-twenties Vietnamese students, who drove us around on the backs of their motorbikes to their favorite food spots. They promised the best banh mi, and definitely delivered!
We left HCMC and headed for the Mekong Delta, for a few days on the river in the countryside. What a difference from the hectic pace of the city!
After a long car ride to the country, we boarded our boat and were welcomed with fresh coconut juice and sliced tropical fruit (including the BEST bananas we've ever had!). The next few days we cruised up and down the river, exploring the area and learning about their way of living.
A boat similar to the one we were on! Most places in the delta are only accessible by boat.
We went to a lady's house and learned how to make rice paper, which is much harder than it looks!
Of course we had to visit the traditional market, where Vietnamese shop for veggies, meat, and pretty much anything else you could possibly need.
While cruising, we passed many smaller boats of fishermen. This one had rigged up a hammock! Smart!
We did some biking which was fun, especially since they gave us these hats to wear to protect us from the sun. Even though it was January, the sun was quite bright and warm.
We got a ride through some smaller canals from two ladies. They paddled the whole way until we jumped onto our bigger boat, then they busted out the electric motor to go back upstream.
We relaxed at the riverside pool for a few hours before heading to the airport and departing for our next stop: Cambodia.
In Cambodia, we only had one goal--to see the world famous Khmer temple of Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world! We got a guide (which was crucial; there were almost no signs in English!) and a 3 day pass and we explored not just the Angkor Wat temple, but lots of other temples in this huge complex.
Us at the Angkor Wat temple!
Buddhist monks are the stars of Cambodia!
Front side
Scary face guys on a bridge
The Buddha faces in this temple were awesome!
Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones were both filmed in this temple complex
Those roots are so neat!
A temple that has not been restored
Early wake up to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat...
Along with all the other tourists and their cell phones
Cambodia was awesome but after 3 days of temples it was time to leave. We headed back to the airport, and boarded the plane bound for Luang Prabang, Laos.
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