Storm 'a' coming

This storm is super cool. Here's a link to a satellite photo.

We hear that Nha Trang is going to get hit with rain and Hue will be clear from the storm, so will Halong Bay. SHould make for some beautiful photos though!!!

Saturday in Hanoi

Saturday! What a day!

Last night we went and saw the water puppets. That was fun but kept us out way too late.

We woke up around 3:30am today. We just had fun talking and decided that we'dget up and get ourselves ready and go see Hoan Kiem lake early in the morning. This is the lake with the giant turtles and legend has it that a king of Vietnam had won a battle and while boating on the lake, a giant turtle came up and demanded the return of the sword. Well I hope that I got it right, if not then Tina will correct me or someone will comment. As it was, the streets were dead and getting through traffic was easy. It was very humid and misty out.

We found the lake and walked around it. We took photos which you can see by clicking on the picture on the right bar. We saw people practicing aerobics and tai chi on the lake. We also saw people lifting weights... it was like an ourdoor gym!

We got back in time for breakfast and went off with our group to an optional tour of Tho Ha village. This village lives on making rice paper. It was a long drive out there but we made stops to take photos and got to ask Quang, the tour guide, lots of questions about how Vietnam culture and society work.

We walked throughout the village and got to see rice paper making the old fashioned way and also see a new machine. We got to interact with the local people and got a feel for life outside of the city hassle.

Tonight we get to go to a home-hosted dinner and eat with a family.

We're checking out of here tomorrow so you probably won't get another entry until we get to Hue. Our next stop is Halong Bay for an overnight stay. You'll get tons of photos from the Halong Bay trip though I hope. This is one of the areas that we really want to see.

*** STORM NEWS

Some of you may ask about the storm that is coming. We have a typhoon that is coming to Da Nang... this storm is supposed to be as powerful as hurricane Katrina. They are evacuating people to Hoi An and other cities and have advised alll fishing boats to dock. Their biggest concern is loss of life right now. They've made arrangements with other countries to accept fishing boats if they can't dock. We shouldn't be in the path of the storm at all. It's expected to make landfall tomorrow or the next day, but we'll be north of the storm. Let's keep everyone in our prayers and hope that things go well. They've had a lot of time to prepare and know what to watch out for.

I'll try to get photos uploaded, the network here is horrible. Oh and feel free to post comments back to either the photos or the blog entries if you'd like.

Photos

I'll be trying to get photos uploaded when we have free time. You should be able to click on the picture on the right to get to the collection. From there you can click on any photo to get the full size version.

Just an FYI! I can't test the links from this hotel, they managed to block viewing the website... BUT I can still edit it. ODD!

In Vietnam finally!

Well we made it to Vietnam! The plane out of Bangkok was delayed as Tina says. We got in and everyone got together to get their luggage. After we had enough people together, we all went out together through the "No items to declare" line. Didn't have to bribe anyone or anything, it didn't take any time at all. They didn't even look twice at us and our stuff.

We immediately found our guide for Vietnam and I asked him where I could get a SIM card for my phone. We found a place in the airport and I got it put in... cost about $40 USD. It's got enough minutes for me to last this trip, I have no idea how many that is.

We drove back to our hotel and that was very cool. We could see traffic driving in every direction and nobody seemed to follow any rules. It was also loud with everyone honking their horns at each other. At one point... well many points, we had an oncoming biker drive against traffic at us and between the bus and a wall! What an amazng place to drive. That's something that I definately don't want to do. I uploaded photos and there is one with this intersection where everyone was driving around into each other. Speeding is mandatory otherwise you won't get anywhere.

I got a hold of Anh Sanh and we're going to arrange to ship all the gifts that we brought for them to Nha Trang ahead of us. We just filled a duffel bag with eveything except for items related to the party. Now I have to shove in those 6 cartons of 555 cigarettes. We got 2 through a friend.

The group that we are with are really nice people. We've connected with all of them and have made many friends. This will definately be a good trip and the company is very wonderful. I've updated the guide on our plans to go on our own for Nha Trang and a little bit in Saigon. He's fine with that. I've also asked Anh Sanh to book another 16 seats so that we can invite the tour group if they would like to come.

Anyways, that's all for now. I've got to get to bed since we have a full day tomorrow. I'll have lots of photos.

We're in Vietnam. This is awesome. This is so neat... wonderful place. Very pretty and just like what I imagined. I can't wait to explore it more. I want to see more of the countryside.

Birthday and ramblings!

Hi everybody! I turned 30 as we landed in Bangkok!

As Tina said, the technology in Bangkok is super cool. At their new airport, they have free luggage carts. The carts have a braking system where you have to press the handle down before it would move. Well the baggage area was on the second floor and the parking was down a floor... so we took the escalator of course, but this was a really cool escalator! It was a ramp so I pushed the cart onto it. Well there is an article about how high-tech this airport is, the carts are RFID enabled and as soon as it got on the ramp, it locked the wheels and no matter how hard we pushed, it wouldn't release until it got to the end. I don't know what was neater, the RFID or the FREE CARTS?

They people were really nice at the airport. We brought our immigration forms in to them and we didn't have an address that we stayed at. We said that we were part of a tour. She said just put down anything so I wrote down "OAT Tour Hotel". It's really neat to see the security out here, all the police are military so you see full uniform with hats. When we were driving in the rain, at an intersection we saw a military person out with a gun.

Alright, time to get myself ready. I got 2 hours of sleep in and am still pumped with energy. I'm really anxious to hit Vietnam and not just be near it. I'll try to take some airport photos, we were a little too much in a hurry last night.

Charles

First update from Narita Airport

At 3:24PM

Well we’re on the plane and it’s flying at a nice height of 29958 ft and cruising at 580mph. It sure is cold outside, 8 degrees F. I had an interesing experience going through security... I thought that I had emptied everything but I guess i had left my iPod in my back pocket. This definately buzzed the metal detector and I decided to take my belt off as well. So they used the handhed scanner on my and also beeped on this tiny zipper on my money travel belt. Oh well, next time I’ll be more careful getting through security. At least Tina found a line that was really short so we got to the front really fast.

$8 to get on the net here at the airport. It’s not worth it for an hour so I’m typing this on the plane and will post it when we get there.

Ok, I'm there. I just paid 500 yen to get online. We uploaded a photo of us with our luggage. I'm headed off to wander around, Tina's going to take over next.

- Charles

Photo Books

This is Charles. I wanted to tell you about what books I am reading and give you reviews. I'm currently reading books on photography, trying to get my skills honed.

National Geographic Field Guide Travel
This book has some good overviews about other travellers and their photographing. It's a quick read, fairly nice.

Spirit of Place: The Art of the Traveling Photographer
This book is wonderful! This has some very good exmples of photographs, photographic technique, and tips on how to take photos in different types of environments. The author talks about how to mix in with the people and not just be a tourist watching from a distance. This is prety neat but I don't think that I can apply this too well since we'll be in cities for just a few days.

Lonely Planet Travel Photography
This is another good book. This is nice and current, talks a little bit about digital photography as well. It's small so it could be a good travel book to bring along and refer to.

Photographic Composition
Another book that I just got. It looks really promising, talks about the affects of color and other composition tricks.

Well that's all for now, I'm not as good a writer as Tina is :)