Cham Towers

Aside from the beach I'm pretty sure the Cham towers is the best bit about Nha Trang. The buildings were incredible, old and obviously made and restored with love. 

You know those days when the sunlight is perfect and all seems right with the world, even though you're still hot and sweaty? Yup that was this day. 

Nha Trang, Vietnam

Nha Trang, Vietnam.

Home of really really pushy hotel vendors that follow you down the street and laugh when you trip. 

Thousands upon thousands of Russian tourists who like to wear teeny tiny Speedo bathing suits. And the ladies like to tuck their bathing suits up their bums to create an unsightly thong.

Far too many drunken backpackers doing pushups in the middle of the street. And far too many bars selling "buckets of drink" to these fools. 

But also the beach is gorgeous. The water is gorgeous. The weather is gorgeous. 

And the massage places really know what they are doing! 

We took our very first night bus from Nha Trang to Hoi An. The bus was about 13 hours long. It was a sleeper so we thought that it might be a good thing. We forgot that the bus would not be built for large Canadians but small Asian people. 

The seats were like 3 rows of bunk beds with no place to put your carry on luggage but on your lap. It was an interesting journey. 

Da Lat

We went to DaLat for two reasons. 1) Da Lat By Night was a great restaurant when I was a kid. 2) We met a nice girl who grew up in Da Lat and she said that it was beautiful. 

Women are carrying everything around with them. And these things are heavy. The men aren't doing the heavy lifting... they are drinking coffee and smoking. And driving motos. 

Da Lat is the Paris of Vietnam. They even have an Eiffel Tower. 

I discovered a new love: iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Best treat ever!

We followed the map to get to the gondola. The map was wrong. But we are smart and eventually found it. However we took so long to get there that it was closed for lunch. For 2 hours. 

When the gondola opened up again it began raining. And we shared our little swinging carriage with a Russian couple who liked to move around and make the whole thing swing unpleasantly.  

We went to a pagoda and it rained. We walked a long way to a lake and it rained. 

And it rained.  

We saw this gorgeous lake and it rained. 

And we were over being outside in the rain. So we went back to our amazing hotel and had a nap. Probably. 

Ho Chi Minh City

Everyone calls it Saigon except for government officials. 

It is busy and hot and the traffic is crazy. 

Our first Vietnamese meal. It was pretty delicious. And for $4 each, a pretty good deal. 

Look at these cool maxi-bonsai by the river. 

This is just a small sample of all of the scooters in this city. I wonder how old you have to be in order to ride one. 

We went to the zoo in the middle of a park. It was a bit run down but they were working on it. I felt bad for the big animals like the elephants. They were pretty cute though. 

There are signs everywhere. It's information overload. I can't imagine trying to find a specific business, there is just too much to look at. 

I tried to get a good photo of the madness of the traffic but it all moved so fast and just flows in and around everything. 

The telephone and electricity cords are everywhere. Some are held up with other cords that are wrapped around them. 

But the good news is that the food is delicious. 

Glacier Hunting in Franz Josef

TJ had never seen a glacier. So we went to one. 

But not before doing this pose:

And seeing these amazing waterfalls. I have a memory of them being called Thunder River Falls. That sounds about right. This was just a 10 minute stretch your legs on the bus stop. Just beautiful. 

Franz Josef is a tiny town. It has one ATM and that's pretty lucky because the next glacial town over doesn't even have one. 

We discovered that the grocery store closed at about 8pm. Luckily our hostel had free veggie soup which was fabulous! 

And I do. I really do!

The accidental theme of this long journey of ours is me taking a photo of TJ taking a photo of something. But that's not the interesting part of this photo.  Two branches of the river converge here. A really blue bit and a grey bit. And you can see in the water where they come together. So interesting. 

We planned to walk to the glacier. We had walked about half way the day before and it was no big deal. But then, as it had been on and off, it rained. A lot. So we got a shuttle. Clever, because they leant out umbrellas too. 

That's the glacier. We walked through that barren landscape that would have been perfect for some epic battle scene in a movie. 

Also it seemed pretty logical to believe that giant apes or maybe dinosaurs might pop out of those trees at any point. 

Glaciers are big ice cubes.

And are surrounded by mysterious and awesome things. 

Champion!

We couldn't get too close, which is actually probably a good thing. Many people have dies due to ducking under the barrier and then having the ice and rocks shift. No thank you. It was eerie and beautiful. 

Plus we got a photo with Mr Rangerman. 

Queenstown

Queenstown is for crazy people. Those who like bungee jumping and heli-skiing and the like. Those people are not me. So instead we walked around the town, drank beer and ate free pizza, found a cookie shop with a happy hour and played a lot of cards. 

Such a view

I could probably fill this backpack. With shoes. 

On our last day we discovered there was a bit of a ceremony going on for this steamship. It has been running for 100 years. There were a bunch of steam tractors that blew their steam horns when the boat came into the harbour. It was a call and answer of horns. And all the other boats came along as an honour guard to usher this boat into it's next century. It was all rather emotional really. 

We almost walked more, but then it got cold. And so we went in search of a fireplace.