Nha trang and the beach

Tina an I are in Nha Trang now ... this part was supposed to be the beach holiday part of our trip ... i.e. less sightseeing and a lot of pool, beach, visiting islands etc... unfortunately the weather is not so good, so I write on the blog instead :)) and we have plenty of time to read lots. just finished to read a book about the life of kim phuk, who is the girl in a famous picture of the vietnam war running away after her village after having been hit by a napalm attack ... this is really a book worth reading! depressive, commotional but at the same time full of strength as well...
 
really pleased to see that alba & gaborno and jack are reading the blog ;)) greetings and kisses from vietnam!!!
 
hope that it finally stops raining ... so that we can rent a bike and go around
 
ciao ciao
peter

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My Son and Hoi An beach

Almost forgot - today we were brave and got up very early at 5.30 pm to drive to My Son - a site with ancient temples of the Cham dynasty ... there is only few temples left, because this was heavily bombed by the Americans during the Vietnamese war, which you can really see because there is plenty of big craters all over.
 
Back at 11 am we spent the day with plenty of fittings at the tailor and tonight we went to the beach at 6pm ... we rented a little motorbike and threw ourselves into the crazy Vietnamese traffic ... it was really worth is - the beach was great and we stayed there until it got dark with Steve and Mardi - the nice Australian couple we met in Hanoi and then in Hoi An again. Everywhere people really want to sell you stuff ... but very often they are also happy to just talk to you (and maybe sell you some stuff ;) and to to learn English ... E.g. I met a girl today who was selling stuff on the beach and she had started to learn English so she could make money selling to tourists and this also allows her to take English lessons so that one day she will be able to work in a Hotel and not be a street seller anymore ... Really impressed by that!!!
 
Ciao ciao
Peter

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Tailors in Hoi An

One of the big things in Hoi An is all the tailors that you can go to to make suits etc... Somehow this business has started some years ago and how they have around 200 tailors in the whole city .. I already did extensive research before leaving for the holiday on the internet to understand the places to go to ... and I went to a place that is really recommended everywhere called Yaly... to put a long story short - I ended up having 4 suits made and 8 shirts ;) ... this afternoon I had the 4th fitting and the stuff is simply wonderful. They have really good selection of fabric in Yaly and they did the suits exactly as I wanted them ;) ... if you want to have pure cashmere wool with no sintentic fabrics it starts at around 200 USDs .... beautyful imported fabrics (especially Italian ones ;) are up to 400 USDs ... but chosing good fabric really pays off, because the stuff simply looks amazing. And they do it exactly the style you want - so I went for the Italian style (off course) with the suits being more fitty around the waist and also the pants (dont know how to call it) ...  Tina obviously did extensive shopping too ;)) Good that we leave tomorrow otherwise I am sure we would buy even more ... haha
 
Ciao ciao
Peter
 
 
 

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Hue

After Hanoi and Ha Long Bay Tina and I have taken a flight and travelled about 600km further south to Hue - a city with a lovely citadel. We stayed in the Saigon Morin Hotel - a beautyful Hotel with colonial french architecture in the heart of the city. All the hotels we stayed in so far we found on tripadvisor.com, which is a really cool site if you travel, because it gives you traveller's ratings and opinions about hotels etc.
 
From Hue we took a train further south to Danang - a ride of about 3 hours that cost us 2 USDs (and that price included lunch and water on the train ;) ... Funny thing was we met this nice Vietnamese guy on the train who works with Swiss travel agencies in St. Gallen - he wore a Swiss T-shirt and was really proud and happy to meet somebody from Switzerland. Even funnier thing was that he had a big Swiss German accent talking English ... Arriving in Danang he arranged an extremely cheap taxi for us to go to Hoi An for 120000 dong (about 6 USDs) ... for a taxi ride more than 1 hour away ... Here in Hoi An we stay in one of the nicest Hotel i probably ever stayed in - it's called Ha An Hotel and it beats every top end hotel in friendlyness and attention to detail they put...it is simply amazing ... the rooms look so nice (I will need to put pictures) ... and for example this afternoon they realised we went to the room for a sleep and out of the blue they brought us fresh tea and fruit ... I definitely believe tourism will have a big future in Vietnam.
 
Ciao ciao
Peter

Ha Long Bay and cars in Vietnam

Yesterday and today we did a boat trip to Halong Bay ... its a Unesco world heritage site...really beautiful. Cool thing is we stayed overnight on the boat .. with swimming in the sea, a lot of really good Vietnamese food and plenty of Vietnamese beer and vodka ... with no hangover at all today! The trip to Ha Long were the boat started is about 3 hours ... an adventure. You thought Italian drivers in Palermo are nuts? They are the most disciplined drivers compared to Vietnamese - never seen something like this. Vietnames cars constantly hoot, even on (what looks like) highways .. to just make sure cars (and especially scooters) get out of the way. What was really funny - i saw this little vietnamese kid playing with 2 toycars ... and the sound he was making playing with the car was not 'brum brum' (how I would have expected it) but instead he was going 'beep beep'. We also met a very nice Austrialian couple on the boat - Steve and Mardi, who actually had taken the Vodka we didnt get a hangover from. We will meet them tonight again for dinner.

Tina says hello to everybody - she wants to go out now...so I better stop writing.

Ciao ciao
Peter

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Yeah... Bangkok and Hanoi

So ... Tina and I are finally on holiday ... We had quite a good flight starting on Wednesday evening in
Geneva via Frankfurt to Bangkok.
We had a a 2 hour break in Frankfurt so it was really cool that Alba and Jasmina came to the airport so we could
have dinner together ... it was great to see you - we miss you!!! The flight was cool, plane was half empty so we
had plenty of space. In Bangkok we stayed at the same place Jack and Jasmina stayed when they were there - in the Millenium Hilton - highly recommended, seldom seen a better and more friendly place. Highlights of the short 1 day stay we had were definitely
- the amazingly friendly people (and some amazingly friendly tuc tuc drivers ... haha ... see next point)
- riding the Tuc Tuc 2 times with both drivers trying to cheat us with their standard scams ... instead of bringing us to the destinations we wanted to go to, they brought us to some shops where they get commission ... good thing was we had our own private tuc tuc driver bringing us from one sight to the next, always waiting for us, but being dissappointed that we didnt buy anything in the shops they took us too
- the 1 hour oil massage we treated ourselves with in the spa in the Hilton

Bangkok is very interesting, although we only had a little more than 1 day - not even close to get a flavour of the city..so I guess we will have to definitely get back there one day. Yesterday we then flew to Hanoi in Vietnam - this place is magnificient. More scooters in 1 city than in the whole of Italy together. We are staying in a very nice little
hotel in the old quarter which we found on tripadvisor.com - it's called Hotel Elegance (http://www.hanoielegancehotel.com/). They even have a PC with DSL in the room, which makes it easier to book some more hotels we will need on the rest of the trip (and to write some stuff on the blog, given that Gabor and Alba seem to read it ... haha). We were also lucky today, as we managed to book this really nice boat tour to Halong bay tomorrow - with a nightover on the boat. Just hope the better will be better, because today it was quite rainy.

Ciao ciao
Peter

Off to Vietnam....yesssssss

Ha...haven't blogged for ages....anyway I guess nobody 

is visiting the blog any longer ... Am off with Tina 

to a 2 and a half week holiday to Vietnam- so maybe I will 

blog from there sometime if I find some nice Vietnamese 

internet cafes ... 

Ciao ciao 

Peter