Road to Hell

It's becoming a habit that these updates come whilst we take long car journeys; the sort that leave me wondering if the song on the radio would be a suitable final one! 

Why are we doing it? No choice...this is Vietnam after all, not England, and they do things their way. Trust me when I say I request a slow, safe driver every time, (better late than never is my plan) but it's madness on the roads. What's the fuss you may wonder? It's actually one part of our trip that I would not advise you to experience yourself, unless you're a hardcore traveller with nerves of steel. (You know who you and your two travel buddies are!)

Then come the buses - the devils of the road! It is our firm belief that anyone who takes a ride on one of these is either seriously deranged or completely oblivious of what they're getting into; the roadsides are littered with signs showing graphic evidence of what does happen to them. Why so bad? They do exactly as they like, as most other drivers do, just on a bigger scale. They overtake with mere inches to spare and the drivers go days without sleep (as confirmed by our own driver who often drives 18 hour trips with no sleep or exchange driver!!) 

Add to this the motorbikes, scooters, push bikes, people, cattle and dogs as well as everybodies belief that they're right (even when going the wrong way up the road on our equivalent of a motorway) and you end up with metal carnage. You might think I'm being dramatic, (hey, I've been called that before!) but when your taxi drives straight across a crossroads and takes out a scooter that just happens to be using the same crossroads and i think you have the right to be. 

So I'm sat here now listening to Roman sing Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' and trying to focus my attention on the little iPhone screen note page rather than road ahead, thinking about the best way to tell you about Mui Ne, a little part of heaven in Vietnam and the reason I'm in this car, but for now, all I can think about is the madness of the roads!

Apologies

Just a quick message to all to apologise for the delay in posts.

We have been experiencing some technical difficulties but normal service should resume within the hour.

Thanks for sticking with us.

Vietnam

We arrived in Ho chi Minh city to a newer airport but the same old chaos to get your visa as usual. We somehow managed to hand the forms in through a sea of people and then proceeded to sit on the floor whilst we waited for our name to be called out in broken english. We waited 45 minutes but before we knew it we were stood outside in the humidity and sea of people. 

We're staying at a fab little place that costs just £20 a night. We've stayed twice before and loved it so much we came back. Its called Xuan Mai Hotel and is 4th on Trip Advisor. The rooms are fine but it's definitely the people that make it great, especially Nang who spoilt Roman rotten again. We spent our first evening eating local food, sweating puddles in the humidity and watching life pass us by. One thing about vietnam cities is that nothing goes slow; everything moves at the fastest pace possible. My dad often thinks that John and I need to slow down, but compared to here we're going backwards! We sat and waited for dinner and heard the constant ringing of an irritating mobile phone, you know, one of the pre selected tones that a 5 year old in music class came up with! It was really starting to annoy me with its constant ringing, and I was pretty close to telling the waitress to just answer when it finally dawns on me that it's the code to say that food is ready down the street where it's cooked and our waitress runs off to collect. After dinner we head back to get to bed after all showering off all of the cities dirt and our own sweat.

We woke and John and Roman go for breakfast; I rarely make breakfast as 30 minutes more sleep is my preferred choice. We put practically every item we own into the laundry as it costs just £6 and will be ready by 5pm, and then we set off on a walking tour of the city. It;s sheer insanity but a great way to see things and lose all the water from your body. We wandered around, sat and had drinks to cool off and then let Roman loose in the park. I will give him credit, he ran round and climbed everything in sight for an hour whilst John and I sat sweating on a bench in the shade... Did you get that it's humid yet? When Roman had gone a red blotchy colour we finally managed to drag him to an air conditioned frozen yogurt place - wow did we all enjoy that! We then had to walk back to the hotel, not a particularly pleasant thought but we detoured through the main market and watched the traffic go round the roundabout that was featured on Top Gear. No wonder they spent so much time figuring out how to exit the roundabout - it was absolute madness.

So it was back to the hotel, another shower, another change of clothes and another rest from the heat before heading for dinner where as usual Roman stole the attention of all the females! We are visiting the Cu Chi tunnels today, a huge important part of Vietnams history and a major player during the war. So we sit now in our private car (£22) listening to some random Vietnamese version of Barbara Streisand watching some of the most ridiculous driving you could ever witness. If it can be picked up from a shop or warehouse it can go on a scooter, along with your family (including dog and baby.) Awards for most crazy items being carried on a scooter go to a complete wedding set up of flowers, two mattresses, and 8 cases of beer including one between the legs that had a baby sat on top of it! The winner though had to be about 60 goldfish in individual bags of water;how they were not cooked beats me but then perhaps they were and were simply on the way to a street food stall! The place is madness and the constant sound of beeping horns fills the air along with the smog. We've seen a few crashes, thankfully none serious but all painful to watch and no doubt experience. How people reach old age here I will never understand.



So we finally arrived at the Cu Chi site, each paid our £2.50 entrance fee, (Roman was free) and went to watch a video about the war. The Vietnamese obviously tell the story from their side and it is one of a nation who, when it comes down to it, out smarted their enemy. The tunnels they built were amazing, to think that every one of them was dug by hand and there are so many. We managed a 20 meter crawl underground and felt hot, claustrophobic and keen to get out. If it is your thing you can do a 1km crawl through the tunnels, a lot on your belly dragging yourself a long. I doubt they have many takers!



We spent time learning of the booby traps and how they recycled a lot of the metal acquired from the Americans. You could see huge craters from bombs dropped by the B52's and an American tank that was captured by them. We visited the kitchen and eating area and tried the main food they ate, Tapioca dipped in peanuts and sugar none of us liked it but if you had no other choice then that wouldn't really matter. 


Finally we had a go at firing weapons. It was 35000 (£1) a bullet with a minimum of 10 required. We chose to shoot the AK47 and had 5 bullets each and a bucket full of tears from Roman as he wasn't allowed to have a go. It's not something you get to do everyday and I'm pretty sure I was a better shot than John!



We had a really interesting time and are glad we went to see it, it's easy to ignore these things and give them a miss but to do that is to deny a huge part of history and have no respect for the huge suffering that everyone involved incurred. So we're back in the car heading back to the city for our last night before heading to the beach. The music continues to be a random mix of old pop with Asian cheesy beats. We're currently listening to Take my Breath Away and not thinking of top gun, but rather the crazy people on the roads who's mad driving will cause their own to be taken away today.

We arrived back to Ho Chi Minh city and headed for dinner. It's a 5 hour car journey tomorrow to Mui Ne on the coast and our car leaves at 9am. 6 days by the beach, sounds perfect after the smog, dirt and craziness of the city.

Hopefully next blog will be a relaxed one, we plan to do one tour that takes in the sand dunes and lets us you slide down them on sledges, sounds fun!

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ 

Kuala Lumpar

We left the beaches of Thailand and boarded our flight to Kuala Lumpa; luckily it was not a long flight and we arrived at the airport located about an hour out of the city itself. We headed for our hotel and reached it by early evening, our room was on the 16th floor and from the huge floor to ceiling windows we had an amazing view of the Petronas Towers, which was absolutely stunning, and even more so at night when the whole skyline twinkled. John and Roman went to eat and I went to bed - I'm feeling worn out on this trip and have been sleeping for England.

Our first full day was spent getting our bearings. Thankfully we were less than a ten minute walk from the towers as it was unbearably hot and sticky (once again we had to rely upon air-con as our best friend) We intended to go up the towers that day; two slight problems with this however: the first being that they are closed on Monday's, and the second I will get to later. We decided to have a look around the mall that's under the towers and take advantage of the cool air. Here we discovered that everything in Malaysia that you purchase in a shop is more expensive than in England; high end products by a large amount, so we had some yummy but expensive ice cream and headed out into the heat again for the walk back to our hotel. The afternoon was spent relaxing by the pool whilst Roman burnt off some energy swimming and learning to dive to the bottom, which isn't going so well as Roman insists on holding his nose.

On day two we took a tour with a guy we found on trip advisor. When looking for guides his name came up time and again so we felt confident in booking him. We went with CK to Deerland, which was on route to our elephant experience and is a side stop that pretty much everyone does. It's basically a small zoo where you can feed the deer and rabbits and hold a python. (It has other animals too, which are all in varying states of health!) They used to have a bear but he was taken from them due to the conditions and to be honest I can only wonder why the whole place hasn't been closed down. This is not somewhere we would have chosen to visit had we had a choice, nor would we recommend it to anyone else. We left feeling rather sad and refused to sign the petition to get the bear back.

We then headed for lunch in a tiny village before going to the elephant rehabilitation centre. John and Roman chose to swim and ride, I went with just feeding so I could take pictures. We fed them sugar cane and papaya, and we quickly worked out they loved the papaya best and so Roman stocked up with a box. Towards the end of feeding he was actually putting it into the elephants mouth himself, whilst the elephant lowered itself to help him.

After feeding time John and Roman rode around a tiny square bareback, it took all of 5 minutes and most of that was getting on and off. John got off lightly after my 40 minute ride in Cambodia earlier in the year! It was then time to get in the river with the baby elephants and give them a wash, splashing about and getting splashed by the elephant. It looked heaps of fun and the boys enjoyed it but they came out freezing, to find themselves in a cold shower with a torrential downpour looming. We've grown to love elephants so much more on this trip and have been so lucky to observe and interact with them so much.

Our final day started with the short walk to the towers to buy our tickets (it used to be free but you now pay). They only let 1000 people up a day so you need to get there early, no problem we think and reach there at 10am to find all tickets sold out?? Argh it's our last day and we can't do it, so we head to the information desk to ask what time they sold out and found out that it opens at 8.30am for tickets and tour guides often queue from 5.30am to buy them, so they are all are usually gone by 9am at the latest. Ok, so we didn't see that one coming and now we were faced with not being able to go up the towers at all...I guess we must have done a good deed at some point on our trip though because the guy behind the counter gave us 3 of his own personal tickets to use; I can't even explain how much this made our day. It was such a kind thing to do and we of course rewarded him with a tip.

You go up the tower in set groups and by now John is fighting with his fear of heights and questioning doing it, I'm proud to say he made the choice to go. We took the lift to the 41st/42nd floors and stepped out onto the glass walkway that connects the two towers. Roman and I had pictures taken and looked down at the city below, for the most part John stood in the middle of the walkway looking forward!

Now, I've been up the towers before and then you only went to the walkway level, so it was a great surprise to find out that you then continue to the 86th floor where they've built an observation deck. It has amazing 360 degrees views, and you can literally see the whole city and miles beyond. We even spotted our hotel, which looked like a little playmobil building.

We were picked up from the towers by CK and headed to meet some monkeys and go see some fireflies. We drove out of the city which took about an hour and came to monkey town (not its real name but it should be!) It comes complete with food stalls catering just for the monkeys. We got out and watched as they ruled the whole area. We bought some food and were advised to put in a bag or keep it out of sight or they would be on us in a second. We fed them runner beans and did really well with the first bag. They don't snatch or scratch and are actually nice little things; very soft and not aggressive at all. The second bunch of food I bought I tried to hide inside my jacket: epic fail! I found myself besieged by 20+ of them all doing their utmost to steal my stash. They jumped on my back, head, crawled up my legs and whilst they never hurt or scratched once I relented and threw the beans away from me and conceded defeat.

We spent the next hour stroking, feeding and sitting with them and loved it. Roman declared he liked monkeys again after he had struck them off the like list earlier in the holiday when they stole his weetabix.

We headed to a seafood place for dinner and to wait for the sun to set, then we went to see the fireflies. Wow! It was amazing for so many reasons, we sat in a row boat in the dark with not a noise to be heard (even Roman stopped chattering for once), it was so peaceful. Then you see them twinkling in the trees; it looked like every tree was decorated for Christmas. You can't take photos with flash and without nothing came out so it's one of the amazing things we have done that we can only advise you to go and do for yourself. The fireflies are not actually flies but beetles and so small, about the size of daisy petal and so there are literally thousands of them filling the trees along the riverbank. It was a great peaceful way to end our time in Kuala Lumpar, as in the morning we would be heading to Vietnam - crazy central.

A few pointers about KL, it is expensive! You can eat locally for cheaper than in the malls, cafes or hotels but compared with other Asian places it is still costly. Alcohol of any kind, being a Muslim country, is very expensive: it costs around £7 for a beer and cocktails around £15. (We thought Copenhagen was expensive, well Camilla we found somewhere even more expensive!) It is like Singapore, very green and clean, not quite as upscale in all areas as Singapore feels but not to far behind. It's a great hub for cheap flights all over Asia with Air Asia and definitely worth a few days stop off.

More coming soon :D

Thailand, Christmas and Happy New Year.

We have just spent 11 days and nights in Thailand on the beach celebrating Christmas and New Year. We had a great time and whilst it was never our plan to come here on this trip it worked out well for us. (I know dad, yet another change!) The hotel we wanted was fully booked so we stayed in our usual brand The Marriott and collected some points for future stays. I have to say this was one of the most disappointing Marriott’s we've stayed in: the staff didn’t give two hoots about the guests and the pools couldn't have been designed worse if they tried. One had no sun at all as it was located in the centre of the hotel surrounded by the 3 buildings and the other was on the roof with the sun loungers in a completely different walled off area. (It's hard enough keeping an eye on what Roman is up to without having a whole wall between us!) This left us with a little bit of a problem as swimming and lounging were the very things we had come to Thailand for. John solved the problem by going to our first choice hotel and playing at being a guest - which worked fine! And so, for 11 nights we slept at our hotel and lived, played and spent money at the other hotel. We met some lovely people and Roman made some great friends, Luca and his younger brother Noah. We got on really well with their parents Jarred and Shelly too, so everyone was happy.

At this point I became unwell and ended up in bed for a few days, and so the rest of the group made the most of one of these peaceful days to go to dinner for dinner together...and no one had a clue what time they made it home that night; I was so worried that John would have scared off our new Australian friends that I asked Roman if daddy was the only one drinking to which he assured me that no he wasn’t so I could relax again!

In the daytimes we spent time by the pool and time on the beach; the evenings were spent eating very cheap local food from places on the main front road as the cost of things now on the main strip is crazy money.! You are easily on par with England for pricing - who would have thought that we once came here almost purely for the cheap prices. We were sad to see our friends leave on the 30^th and head back to Australia, but we were happy in the knowledge that they arrived safely and survived the New Years eve party that they'd arranged, crazy people!

We had a quiet NY’s eve in that we went for dinner and then popped back to the hotel to sort things out as we had a very early flight in the morning. The whole area was far from quiet though, and I kid you not, fireworks went off for 6 hours straight, with every hotel in the area trying to outdo the next. I have never seen so many lanterns floating in the sky either; seriously, we're talking thousands of the things!

So we all enjoyed Thailand and we found just what we were looking for: friends for Roman, swimming in either pools or the sea and great company. We did nothing at all tour wise - we have done a lot before but we also had this time marked down as a total relaxation period where there would be no dragging Roman around places that would probably bore him to tears.

Oh and much to Roman’s delight Father Christmas did in fact still find him even though he wasn't at home! Though after jumping for joy he quickly followed up with "will he have left me some presents at home as well?"

Happy New Year, let’s hope 2012 is a good one.

Cape Town

Cape Town; The World’s number one holiday destination...for good reason.

We arrived into Hout Bay, which is just a 20 minute drive from Cape Town itself. We had arranged to stay in a penthouse apartment for this part and on arrival we were blown away. 'When can we move in' was our first thought whilst Roman simultaneously declared he wanted to live here. Our balcony offered stunning views, overlooking the beach and the mountains that surround the bay. It really is a beautiful place and we could not have wished for a better base to explore from.

We decided to take a trip round Chapman's Peak which is a road carved out of a mountain; I thought it looked the perfect place for one of those posh car manufacturers to road test and show off handling ability. John thought it all a little close to the edge and being scared of heights, he found it a little unnerving. We headed along the coast to a place called Simon's Town; yes brother dearest, you have a whole place named just after you. It is a working naval base, so not sure that he would fit in, but it has interesting things to visit including museums. There's a naval submarine that offers guided tours for 40 zar, a toy museum and much to our delight a lighthouse called Roman's Rock. You can certainly spend a few hours here, meandering round the shops and sights but we were heading this way for a date with the penguins so pressed on to Boulders beach.

Boulders beach is a lovely little beach with a wooden walkway where you are inches away from my favourite animal, and we certainly spent a few hours laughing at them and their silly little ways. They are not bothered by humans and are happy to come and have a nosey at us strange people. We then headed on to Cape Point, but as it had a walk that involved heights and large drops we decided John's nerves just could not take it. Instead we found an amazing cafe for lunch, very child friendly with an amazing play area and so we sat in the lovely sunshine eating yummy food and watching Roman take over the play area.

We woke the next day to the most horrific rain. It literally rained all day and we really couldn't do much so instead we attempted to plan some of our future trip. Thankfully the sunshine returned the following day so we decided to head up Table Mountain in the cable car...when I say we I mean me and Roman as john bottled it (for a change). It was a four minute ride up to the top and when you arrived you were greeted with the most amazing views out over the area. We were so high you could see the clouds on the horizon. Roman and I had lots of fun and made a pact to get daddy up there before we left.

We had an afternoon tour of Robben Island booked so headed down to the waterfront to catch our boat. Robben Island is where the prison was that held Nelson Mandela for 18 years of his life. Conditions for the inmates were horrific and our tour guide was a former inmate who had spent 7 years locked up just because he marched for rights for the blacks and Asians. It was only when the world boycotted South Africa that things had finally started to change. The Olympics banned their athletes and no country would do trade with them. Thankfully things are changing and the prison is now a protected site and will not see any more of the horrors of the past. The people who live on the island are the people who work there, most of them people who were unfairly imprisoned. We really enjoyed this tour and we are so glad we did it. Roman however continued with his sea sickness theme - it seems that unlike the rest of my family he is yet to find his sea legs.

We stayed on the waterfront for dinner and had food at one of the many world class restaurants on the front; this is the place where anyone who is anyone hangs out and it is so very different from other parts of Africa we had seen. It’s amazing that a place such as Cape Town is so close to some of the poverty we have seen, for this place is money and then some.

The next day, true to our word, we managed to get John in the cable car and up to the top of the mountain. I was convinced that if he stood in the middle he would be fine...how wrong could I be. When we got to the top he refused to go anywhere near the sides or look down and freaked out at some of mine and Romans adventures and photo ops. It did seem at one point that he would be walking down, although that thought freaked him out as well. Thankfully sense prevailed and we got him back down in the cable car, but I have to confess I felt a little bad for making him go up, yet at the same time very, very proud. Daddy went up in both mine and Romans estimations, next stop sky dive......As if!

We spent the remainder of our time visiting the beach in Hout Bay, it is so beautiful and has a little harbour that the seals come into and you can feed them fish. Roman got really good at it, so it cost us a fortune.

So our time in Africa has come to an end. If you had asked us 2 weeks in whether we would return to Africa, I think we would have said maybe, but ask us now and its a 100% yes. It really does have something for everyone and would make a great family holiday. I think next time we will do Kruger again then fly down to Cape Town and explore the Garden route more. It won’t be for a few years yet though as Roman needs to be 12 to dive with the sharks and hopefully by then he will find his sea legs. He has Tibbett blood in him so the boy should be a natural on the water.

Something you hear time and again whilst here is “This is Africa”: it applies to the crazy antics on the roads and pathways, whenever something mad occurs, like the renaming of traffic lights as robots, much to our amusement. The first time someone said when you get to the robot you turn left we spent ages looking for an actual robot. The buses here are crazy, they may be allowed to carry 20 but it’s the norm to see double that and when you question the response is “this is Africa” We didn’t take any bus trips for obvious reasons! The countryside is very mountainous, something I didn’t expect and very beautiful. The people are friendly, the food is divine and the cost of things is very good value.

So it is with a sad heart that we leave for the next part of our adventure. We have had to cut Australia out apart from one night due to accommodation issues and because of this we find ourselves facing 4 flights totalling 20 hours.

So its Thailand for Christmas, where we hope to laze on the beach, do a little snorkelling and get a visit from a certain man with a white beard and red suit. We will then spend New year’s here before heading to Kuala Lumpur on January 1^st 2012. From there we have no idea where we will end up; it’s very much work in progress and I have to say thanks to all who have helped with advice for us.

Hope that you have all had a wonderful Christmas and that the New Year brings health and happiness to all. We look forward to updating you next year.

Lisa, John and Roman

Merry Christmas

O.K guys, it's been a while since our last post, but we promise their is another one just around the corner...but you'll have to wait just a little longer.

In the meantime, we just just wanted to wish you all a very Happy Christmas. We'll be half way through our day before most of you are even unwrapping your presents, so we just wanted to let you all know how much we'll miss you on this special day, and how much our love goes out to you all.

Big Love from the Cooper Clan xxx