Where to, Gumshoe? – Page 5 – Follow us through our day to day travels and adventures

Ho Chi Minh City (Day 99): War Remnants Museum, Banh Mi, and Pho

June 7, 2016

Wow! It’s already been 99 days since we’ve gone. Feels like we should do something special to celebrate our 100th day tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to the Mekong Delta area and staying in Can Tho for a couple of nights before coming back to HCMC.

This morning we got ready, grabbed coffee and juice from downstairs and something quick to eat, and went to find the breakfast stall that Chloe had recommended that served “com tam” (broken rice with grilled pork chop). She told us the stall closes around 10am so we should try to go early just in case. We didn’t make it out early enough because by the time we got there around 9:30am, we didn’t see a stall. We’ll try again tomorrow morning and go earlier. After our failed attempt at getting com tam, we walked to the War Remnants Museum.

The admission fee for the War Remnants Museum was 15,000 VND = $0.85 CAD/person. We spent about 2 hours at the museum going through each of the exhibit rooms and looking at all the photographs captured from the war. I enjoyed looking through the photographs and reading more about the photographers who went to Vietnam to document the Vietnam War. It’s very sad that the majority of them died while capturing photographs that we get to see today (Tim: Lots of photo descriptions include the note “last roll of film” as they came from the photographers’ cameras after they recovered their bodies). About half of the photographs were directly attributed to specific photographers and included their original comments that went with the photos when they were first published. These comments were fairly neutral for the most part. The remainder of the photographs had commentary written by the musem that was very anti-American. My least favourite room was the Agent Orange room which had dead baby fetuses in jars on display. The pictures of all who had been and are affected by Agent Orange was devastating, but I think having the jars of dead baby fetuses was a bit too much. I saw them from the corner of my eye and walked the other way.

While we were still looking around an announcement came on saying the museum would be closing at 12pm and would reopen at 1:30pm. We didn’t realize the museum closed midday, but it did sound like something that would happen since I read that Vietnamese people take lunch very seriously.

Since it was lunch time for everyone else, we decided to have lunch too. We walked to a banh mi stall, Banh Mi Sau Minh, that was recommended by one of Tim’s friends who said it was the best sandwich he’s ever had (Tim: and I take his recommendations seriously). With testimonials like that, it would be an insult not to give it a try ourselves. There were two banh mi sandwiches listed on their menu so we ordered one of each. The owner was really nice and gave us two bottles of a lychee gatorade type of drink and he said it was “no money”. Maybe it was because we looked super sweaty and dehydrated to him.

We took our sandwiches to go and ate in the park we passed by earlier in the day. It was nice and shaded and there were benches all over to sit. In one of the banh mi, he spread “laughing cow” cheese on the bread. It was different but complimented all the Vietnamese deli meat well. As we were just sitting on the bench enjoying the shade, huge gusts of wind swept through the park and all of a sudden it started to pour really hard. We opened up our umbrellas and headed back to the hotel. Even with umbrellas we were both pretty soaked.

We dried off and did a bit of planning for our upcoming few days. With the help from the lady downstairs, we booked our bus ticket to Can Tho (3.5 hour bus ride). The rain continued to come down really hard and we could hear lightning from our room. We headed out for an early dinner to try out another banh mi for our appetizer and finally had pho!

We read online that Banh Mi Hyunh Hoa is one of the more famous/popular banh mi shops in HCMC. It’s pretty close to our hotel and only a street over from the place we went to last night for dinner. We tried to walk by after the park earlier in the day but they didn’t open until 2:30pm (close at midnight). This time, we passed by and they were open. The shop had tons of scooters out front ordering sandwiches for dinner. We ordered one to share and stood across the street under cover while we ate. This banh mi was definitely more hefty than the other ones we had. It had a lot of different meats in it and we could feel the heat from the pickled chili peppers. I think this one was my favourite so far. It was most similar to the ones we have at home. So far, the banh mi that we’ve had so far didn’t have as many pickled vegetables and cilantro as I would like. 2 days in and we’ve had 4 fairly different banh mis already – so delicious!

We walked another 10 minutes in the rain in search of Pho Thanh Chanh. It was recommended by Chloe and also on one of the pho lists that Tim’s cousin, Nick, sent to us. It was also the closest one on that pho list to us so we went there.

Pho Thanh Chanh is a family run restaurant, which I’m guessing the majority of the restaurants in Vietnam are. The Mom is out front preparing bowls of pho and her daughter (probably 15 years old) takes orders and cuts up the limes and chilis, and her two younger sons (probably around 12 years old) deliver the pho to tables. Since we were eating quite early, the boys looked like they just got off school as they went to the back room, got changed and put on an apron. Tim ordered two bowls of the house special (dac biet) pho, one of the few terms Tim knows in Vietnamese. The soup and meat were all very delicious. There was a really good ratio of noodles, meat and broth.

We headed back to the hotel for the night and are continuing to plan out parts the upcoming month. I’m looking forward to seeing the Mekong Delta, experiencing more of the Vietnamese countryside, and getting out of the big city for a couple of days. I really like walking around cities but walking around HCMC gives me slight anxiety. Why don’t scooters and cars obey the cross walks?

Steps today: 14,000

Ho Chi Minh City (Day 98): Independence Palace, Street Food, and Sweat

June 6, 2016

When you get one whiff of scooter exhaust, incense, and ripe tropical fruit all at once, you know exactly where you are – in SE Asia. It’s our first time in Vietnam so we’re both pretty excited to explore the country. Our last trip to SE Asia was a two week trip to Thailand 3 years ago and we both really loved it. We’ll see what Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos do for us.

All we could hear from our room were cars and constant honking. If you’re a light sleeper, HCMC is probably not ideal. It seems as though cars and scooters are really liberal with the horn. We fell asleep quite early last night and woke up naturally to the sounds on the street. We thought it was at least 9am, but it was only 5:30am! I guess we’re a bit jetlagged.

We get free breakfast at the hotel so we went downstairs shortly after it opened at 7am. The breakfast was self serve and had congee, fried noodles, sauteed green beans, bacon, sausage, fried eggs, toast, and passionfruit. I also had a cup of coffee with condensed milk. I usually don’t drink coffee but I really like Vietnamese iced coffee. The breakfast was better than I expected.

We left the hotel and walked towards Independence Palace (or also known as the Reunification Palace). As soon as we walked outside we could feel the heat and we started to sweat. Crossing the street in HCMC is a bit scary. Even if you have a right of way with a green crossing light, in HCMC, you don’t have the right of way. Basically whenever we crossed the street today, Tim would be on the side to block me from oncoming traffic and I would just hang on tight. Even when cars see pedestrians walking they just weave around you dangerously and scooters don’t stop on red lights. This is something I have to get used to. Bangkok was way more orderly in that way (in comparing SE Asian big cities). I don’t remember being scared for my life while crossing the street in Thailand. This feels more like China in that sense.

After about a 10 minute walk, we made it to the Independence Palace, which was the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. At the end of the Vietnam War, a North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gates of the palace in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon on April 30.

Entrance into the grounds and building is 30,000 VND = $1.75 CAD per person. The palace is kept the way it was when Saigon fell to the North, which made it really interesting to walk around. It felt like we were stuck in the 1960’s. While walking around, there were a lot of Vietnamese tourists taking pictures posing in front of many of the rooms. I was thinking that if I were south Vietnamese, it would be a bit sad walking around what the palace used to be given it’s only been 41 years since the fall of Saigon. The sentiment from the commentary plaques around the palace was that the south was very grateful for being saved by the north from the Americans. But obviously we have to take those opinions with a grain of salt being in a single-party communist country.

The bunker area felt a bit eerie while walking around as there weren’t as many tourists in the basement while we were there. The palace was bombed during the war so the bunker was built in the palace basement by the Americans for the President. While walking through the palace, it made me want to read more about the Vietnam War since I don’t know as much about it as WWII. We’ll be going to the War Remnants Museum tomorrow and spending time learning more about the war.

After the palace, we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral and checked out the Saigon Central Post Office. Our plan for lunch was to walk about 30 minutes to the Lunch Lady food stall that Anthony Bourdain went to on one of his episodes in Vietnam. We (I) was really hungry when we were at the palace so we went for a snack at Popeye’s across the street from Notre Dame. We shared a meal, and the chicken was super juicy and delicious. The air con also felt heavenly. The crowds for lunch were starting to build up. The prices at Popeyes are a bit cheaper than North American prices but quite expensive for Vietnam.

After a pretty hot walk through the city, we made it to the Lunch Lady. It was about 1pm, so the lunch crowd dissipated but the ground was covered with napkins and shrimp heads (remnants of previous lunchers). We sat down on slightly grimy plastic chairs and ordered two bowls of noodles. The lunch lady makes a different soup every day of the week and usually closes when she sells out. Today’s soup was a sweet and sour tom yum type of soup (called Bun Thai) with lai fun (round rice noodles), seafood, and beef. While waiting for our noodles, people kept trying to put food on our table without us asking but we just said no to everything. We read from reviews that they’ll put food on your table and you obviously have to pay for them unless you say no.

The soup was really good, I could see why Bourdain enjoyed his meal here so much. When we paid, the guy said it was 80,000 VND =$4.60 CAD for our two bowls. This is slightly more than what we thought it would be (we’ve adjusted super quickly since Australia) since Lonely Planet says street food is usually only 20,000-30,000 VND for a bowl of pho. Any how, when you convert it to Canadian, you realize how cheap it is. At first I thought we were charged more because we were tourists but I read online that 40,000 VND is right. They do have a smaller sized bowl that locals know as an option for 30,000 VND, but majority of tourists are just given the larger bowl.

On our way back from lunch, we came across a cam sanh (green peel Vietnamese orange) juice cart that had two scooters waiting for their order. The ladies on the scooter ordered 5, they drank 2 on the spot and took the rest to go. They smiled at us and gave us the thumbs up after Tim gave them an inquisitive thumbs up, so we ordered one to share. We asked how much it was and the lady said it was 10,000 VND = $0.55 CAD. This is one of the main reasons why I love SE Asia – cheap fruit and fruit juices. After she told us the price, the ladies conversed in Vietnamese. Tim joked around and said maybe they asked her why she didn’t charge us more. She gave us the local prices and we saw the ladies pay 50,000 VND for their 5 drinks (Tim: I think Kait would enjoy herself more if she didn’t think everyone was trying to rip her off :P).

We walked towards Dong Khoi, which is one of the nicest areas in Ho Chi Minh. It’s where the Opera House, City Hall, and all the luxury stores and hotels are. We walked down the large boulevard in the middle of the street towards the Saigon River. When we got to the Saigon River, the walkway along the river wasn’t very attractive nor was there much going on so we kind of took a peek and walked towards a market.

On the walk back, we stopped by Ben Thanh Market. Luckily we did because as soon as we walked in there was a huge downpour and we would’ve gotten drenched. The market was full of rows of t-shirts, purses, backpacks, coffee, fruit, and accessories. The vendors are pretty aggressive when you walk through each aisle. Even if you’re not looking at anything at their stall, they’ll try to pull you to look. Tim was wearing his Under Armour t-shirt and it seemed like all the vendors we passed by keyed in on it and showed him what other t-shirts they had that were Under Armour. We were curious about their pricing so we asked about a purse and they quoted us 750,000 VND and we said we weren’t interested. Then they knocked it down to 500,000, then to 400,000 and when we started to walk away they said 100,000! So basically we’re guessing that the prices they’re willing to take are 10% of their initial quote.

When we passed by the food vendor area, Tim asked me if I wanted something to drink. The ladies in all the stalls got up and grabbed my arm and stuck their menus in our faces. All their fruit juices were 20,000 VND = $1.15 CAD and I guess knowing that we got our juice for 10,000 VND, I wasn’t interested. When we got back to the hotel and I typed in the conversion and realized it was only $1.15 CAD, I felt super cheap.

The rain died down so we headed back to the hotel to relax and get out of the crazy heat. We both were super sticky when we got into the room, it was actually pretty disgusting. We heard some Aussies at the market say how they’re sweating so much that it’s dripping in their eye and making it burn. That’s how we felt!

I searched online for “the best banh mi” in HCMC and wrote down a couple of places to try out. There was one only about 5 minutes away from us so we decided to give that a try for dinner. They closed at 8pm so we were cutting it a bit close at 7:30pm. We had to cross another crazy roundabout intersection to get there, which was scary at night. Luckily there were a few more people walking so we just used them as buffers.

The Banh Mi cart was called Banh Mi 37 Nguyen Trai. They specialized in a banh mis with grilled pork patties. When we got to the stall, there were several people infront of us waiting for their sandwiches. The bottle neck was the grill as they were waiting for the pork to cook. After about 20 minutes of watching the pork cook and the lady assembling sandwiches for others ahead of us, we got ours. After ours, there were only 4 more baguettes left and she had to turn away a lot of people who were coming after us. We felt pretty lucky! The banh mis were 18,000 VND = $1.03 CAD each. It started to rain while we were waiting so we took our banh mis back to the hotel to eat.

The banh mis were delicious but a bit spicy. I haven’t had a banh mi with grilled pork patty before, so it was nice and different. Instead of mayo, she put a thick brown sauce that was a bit sweet on top of the meat, along with pickled cucumber and lots of cilantro. There’s a more famous banh mi place down down the block that we’ll probably try another day.

Steps today: 23,000

Spending Summary: New Zealand

During our month down under, Kait and I got to spend 7 days in New Zealand with my sister and her husband. Cost wise, we were expecting it to be similar to Australia, with the added advantage of splitting certain costs with another couple. Let’s see how we did.

Accommodations: $140.84
Food: $357.11
Transportation: $361.84
Activities: $253.04
Souvenirs: $103.56

We spent a total of $1,216.38 (CAD) over 7 days in New Zealand. It was a short excursion so there isn’t too much to discuss, but let’s see how it stacks up to all the other countries we’d been to so far in terms of cost per day.

Accommodations

So, the first thing to note here is that our accommodation costs for New Zealand were very low thanks to two things. First, my sister and brother-in-law had friends in Auckland and Wellington that hosted us while we were in those cities. Second, of the 2 nights that we did stay in hotels on the road, the costs were split between 4 people. Of the 2 nights we stayed in hotels, the total cost was $281.67, or an average of $140.84 per room per night. This was slightly more than it was in Australia, but since Kait and I only had to pay for half of that, our total came out much lower.

Food

Food costs were also pretty much the same as Australia. Nothing too interesting about food costs.

Transportation

As with the other countries, transportation costs were split between intercity and intracity travel. For our New Zealand costs, you can basically look at it as a single item, because all our costs were car rental related. (I roughly divided gasoline costs to being either intercity or intracity).

The Toyota Highlander we rented for 7 days was $464.13, or $66.30/day. We drove 1,222.8 km and spent $158.85 on gas. Gas was around NZ$2/litre.

Souvenirs

This was my (and Kait’s) first time in New Zealand, so for me, I looked for banknotes and coins to collect. This worked out to be $103.56, which averages out to a pretty high per day amount because we only spent 7 days in New Zealand.

Activities

Between Auckland and Wellington, we spent time mostly enjoying the natural wonders of New Zealand. Most of that was free, but we did spend NZ$174 to explore the Waitomo Caves. The only other activities we did that cost money were the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua (NZ$54) and the Auckland War Memorial Museum (NZ$50).

As expected, the travel costs in New Zealand were right around the same ballpark as Australia. After Australia and New Zealand, we’d be spending the rest of our trip in South East Asia, so going forward, I expect our costs to drop significantly.

Spending Summary: Australia

So, clearly I’ve fallen (very) behind on these spending summaries, considering Kait and I are back in Vancouver now. I still think they might be useful for people considering trips to these locations though, so I plan to write one for each country that we visited.

We spent 23 nights in Australia, and we anticipated it would be the most expensive country we would travel through. Let’s see if that held true. (As with the other finance posts, all costs are given in Canadian Dollars unless otherwise specified).

Accommodations: $1,325.87
Food: $1,311.98
Transportation: $1,490.16*
Activities: $409.83
Souvenirs: $156.80
Telecommunications: $28.98

So, why the asterisks next to transportation? Well, that’s because I decided to exclude (a painful, $695AUD worth of) speeding tickets from that total. I’ll save the speeding tickets for their own “special” post. All I’ll say here is don’t go over the posted speed limits in Australia, ever. I’ve been driving for almost 16 years and by my estimates, driven around 300,000km. In that time, I’d accumulated a total of 3 speeding tickets costing me $600 (2 in Canada, 1 in the US). In 6 days of driving in Australia, for under 3,000km, I doubled my lifetime total number of tickets and more than doubled my total cost.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at how the costs compared to the other countries we’d visited so far (average cost per day).

Accommodations

We spent 23 nights in Australia, and although our average per night cost was only slightly higher than in Japan, we spent 12 nights staying with friends and family. So in actuality, when we paid for accommodations, the cost per night averaged $120.53. This far exceeds our accommodation costs in Japan, which averaged $76.79 when we weren’t hosted by family.

Sydney is an expensive place to live in. Real estate is increasingly unaffordable to the average household. It was actually somewhat interesting overhearing random bits of conversations around Sydney which sounded just like conversations you overhear in Vancouver about real estate. Interestingly though, or accommodation costs in Sydney were quite reasonable and we found a nice hotel for under $100/night. The small motels during our road trips, and accommodations at the resort city of Cairns, was what pushed up our average cost per night.

Food

No surprises here when it came to food costs in Australia. Prices are slightly higher than in Canada, but nothing is too outrageous. Even when the price seems high, it’s not so bad when you take into account tax is included (and there isn’t the same tipping culture in Australia as there is in North America). A small (i.e. small drink/fries) Big Mac meal was $9.85.

Transportation

Here’s where the costs get a little bit more interesting. Starting with the intracity spending, most of our costs here came from airport transfers and transit fares within cities. Sydney has a decent transit system in the city centre along with trains that go out into the suburbs. Melbourne has a large network of street cars which were nice but felt pretty dated compared to the large subway networks in Asia that we were used to.

Getting to and from the city centres in Melbourne and Sydney were also quite convenient. Melbourne Airport had a bus that runs frequently between the airport and Southern Cross station, along with free hotel transfer if your hotel is in the CBD. They advertise free WiFi on board but it didn’t work both times we took the bus. It’s $19AUD one way (no discount for return tickets). Sydney is even more convenient with the AirportLink train. It takes you from the airport to several different stops in the CBD, and you can use the Opal Card which will work on all the other city wide transit options. The exact fare depends on where you’re going, but it’ll be less than $19AUD.

Our intercity travel costs came exclusively from 2 domestic flights we took. We flew from Adelaide to Cairns on JetStar which cost $212.68/person, and we flew from Brisbane to Sydney on Tiger Air which cost $82.79/person.

The remainder of our travel costs came from the Car Rentals. I included all car related costs such as gas and parking here as well. We drove from Melbourne to Adelaide and from Cairns to Brisbane. Both rentals were from Hertz and the car rentals themselves worked out to be $67.61AUD/day. I was pretty happy with the costs of renting a car, but of course the speeding tickets kind of ruined the mood. (2 of the 3 tickets came from speeding cameras by mail, so we didn’t find out about those until later).

Souvenir

As with the other countries, I like to save coins and banknotes from the places I visit. Since I’d been to Australia before, there weren’t as many coins or banknotes I didn’t already have. It might interest you to know that Australia was actually the first country to introduce the modern polymer banknote in 1988. Canada followed suit in 2011, and actually contracts Note Printing Australia, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia, to supply the polymer and security features of the new Canadian Banknotes.

Activities

The bulk of our activity costs came from a Great Barrier Reef tour while we were in Cairns. It was just under $200/person.

Telecom

My sister had a Cellular WiFi hotspot device which we activated while we were in Adelaide. Telstra was a pain to deal with though, and their pay as you go plans were difficult to understand. As much as I like to complain about Canadian Telcos (I’ve filed multiple complaints with the CCTS), I think Australia might be worse.

Miscellaneous

Not covered above is that Canadians (and pretty much everyone else I think) needs a Visa to enter Australia. You apply online for an “Electronic Travel Authority” and it gets linked to your passport. It costs $20AUD.

Our time in Australia was split with a week in New Zealand, which I’ll cover next. While it didn’t turn out to be more expensive than Japan on a per day basis, that was largely due to more of our accommodations being covered. Also, we spent a lot more on intercity travel while in Japan. If I were to compare two hypothetical trips to Tokyo and Osaka vs Sydney and Melbourne, I would guess that you would spend more in Australia.

(Originally Published August 8, 2016)

Singapore (Day 97): 12 Hour Layover

June 5, 2016

Last night, we slept for most of our 7 hour red-eye flight from Melbourne to Singapore. They served two meals during the flight – a snack at 2am and a large breakfast two hours before we landed. We landed at Changi Airport just after 5am (Singapore is two hours behind Melbourne). Our connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) would leave Singapore at 5:25pm, so we had around 12 hours for our last partial day in Singapore. With the way our flights worked out (Tim: i.e. how I planned and booked the flights) and since we wanted to fly Singapore Airlines, it was great we were able to spend ~35 hours in Singapore for “free”.

We took our time leaving the terminal since it was so early. We went to the washroom and both washed our faces and brushed our teeth. By the time we left the airport it was around 6:30am and we headed to the City Hall SMRT stop in the city. The train connecting Changi to the downtown core makes it really easy to explore the city on a layover. The train ride takes about 20-30 minutes.

We walked towards Collyer Quay to see the Merlion and views of Marina Bay Sands when it’s quiet. The city was so peaceful at 7am on a Sunday morning. There were a handful of people by the Merlion with their tripods trying to catch the sunrise, but unfortunately it was really cloudy so there wasn’t much to see. Given Singapore’s blistering heat, it was good the day was mostly overcast.

Our only plan for the day was to eat chili crab at Jumbo Seafood for lunch so our day was pretty relaxed. Since they didn’t open until noon and it was 7am, we went to look for a small breakfast at the La Pau Sat Hawker’s Market in the CBD. Online it says the market is open 24 hours, but I think it just means they don’t technically shut down the market. Vendors can open whenever they want. There were a few stalls open for breakfast and some that had some Chinese BBQ that didn’t want to serve it even though they were open.

We shared an iced coffee and a toasted breakfast sandwich (egg salad half and a Singaporean spicy tuna half). The coffee was good but the sandwich was pretty mediocre. I went to one of the Chinese BBQ stalls to order BBQ duck with noodles, but the vendor said “not yet” and there were no noodles for it. I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. My general consensus of the hawker’s market vendors are that they are fairly rude. I think this is just the way they are in general, but it’s very harsh and abrupt. For example, when I got to the stall, the guy says “what do yo want?” (in not a very nice tone).

Anyhow, we left La Pau Sat and walked towards Marina Bay Sands to check out the Gardens at the Bay. We didn’t get to walk on that side of the bay in May, so it was nice to be able to see it today. The Gardens at the Bay grounds are quite large. Most of the gardens are free to walk around but there are some parts that require admission like the Flower Dome, Cloud Forest ($28 SGD for both), and the walk between the Supertree Groves ($8 SGD). We didn’t end up going into any of them and just walked around the grounds. We heard that the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest are really cool but we didn’t think spending $56 SGD was worth it for us today. Maybe in the future when/if we come back.

After taking our time in the gardens, we walked towards Clark Quay for lunch. Jumbo Seafood is a famous Singaporean restaurant that specializes in chili crab. I didn’t know what to expect but just knew that it was something that we should probably eat. We didn’t get to have it in May and when we asked Marcus if we should eat it (Marcus is Singaporean) he said we have to eat it and order the fried bread (mantou) to use to dip in the chili sauce. So we did as the Singaporean said and ordered one chili crab and 8 pieces of mantou (we ordered 4 at first then wanted more).

There are actually two Jumbos around Clark Quay’s river walk and we went to both of them to see if they had a table. One of them said without a reservation there was no room so we went to the one we originally thought we would go to. The hostess said if we wanted a seat inside the restaurant as opposed to sitting outside in the heat, we had to share a table with others so we agreed. We were seated with four other people. Two girls and another couple. They brought out a dish of peanuts and filled our cups with tea. We later found out on our bill that the peanuts and tea were $1.20 SGD pp. I know Tim doesn’t like to eat crab (only due to the effort outweighing the reward) so I was happy he was willing to try it out. The crab came covered in a sweet and spicy chili sauce. It was really good. Are there any places in Vancouver who do chili crab? Marcus’ suggestion about the mantou made it even better. The mantou were super fresh and were cooked perfectly. We could’ve ordered more but we were both full so eating more mantou with the chili sauce would just be pure gluttony.

After lunch we made our way back to the City Hall SMRT stop to get back to Changi Airport. We were starting to get tired so heading to the airport earlier sounded like a good idea. When we got to Changi we used our Priority Pass membership (4 free lounge visits courtesy of the BMO World Elite Mastercard) to get into the SATS Premier Lounge in Terminal 2. We had 2.5 hours to kill so sitting in the lounge and showering was good use of the pass.

The Stats Premier Lounge had Singaporean/Malaysian food, drinks (alcoholic and non), and sandwiches. Since we just had a sizeable lunch, we didn’t eat anything until we were about to leave. I tried a small bowl of laksa, which they make for you on the spot and Tim had spaghetti and meatballs.

We headed to the gate to board our flight to HCMC. The flight was only an hour and 45 minutes. They served us a meal and it was basically time to land. Our descent down into HCMC was a bit scary because when we were going through the clouds the plane was going up and down sporadically. I was squeezing Tim’s hands and some people were yelping every time the plane made a sudden movement. However, the 10 year old girl in front of us was having the time of her life. She was saying it was like a ride and how it was so much fun. At least someone enjoyed it.

We passed through customs without any issues as we got a 3 month multi-entry visa before we left home. Vietnam is the only country we’ve been to on this trip that didn’t require a form to be filled out upon arrival. I guess they don’t care about any details about your trip in the country. We got our bags and headed out to take a taxi to our hotel.

There were a lot of stands with taxi signs before you get outside. We didn’t stop to see how much they would’ve cost. But according to Lonely Planet, they are usually flat rates and would cost 300,000 VND ($17 CAD) for a trip into the city. We lined up at the taxi queue and didn’t recognize any of the taxi names. I was looking for the two legit taxi companies that were deemed as being “ok”. We thought since the taxi queue at the airport should only have legit taxi companies, we lined up. We told the taxi driver to turn on the meter, which he did.

When we got to our hotel, he said the ride was 400,000 VND plus the 10,000 airport fee (which was expected). I know this was a lot higher than what Lonely Planet and the airport website said a metered cab was supposed to be (average 180,000 VND). But since we had our luggage in the back, what are you supposed to do when you don’t agree with the price. (Tim: The meter actually said it was supposed to be around 150,000 VND plus the 10,000 airport fee, but he quoted the 400,000 price using the timer that ticked up instead of the actual fare meter… e.g. the car was idle for 4 minutes during our ride). Anyway, we learned our lesson. Only stick with Vinasun or Mai Linh Taxis. I thought seeing the legit taxi company cars would be more obvious, but there was a sign saying you can’t pick which cab you want (so what are you supposed to do?!).

We’re staying at the Platinum Hotel for 3 nights. It’s located in District 1, which is where the bulk of the touristy things are in HCMC. The staff was friendly when we arrived and gave us a welcome drink. The lady showed us to our room. It’s fairly small and clean enough. We’re only paying $35 CAD a night so I guess my expectations shouldn’t be super high.

We’re both really tired. Our June 5th has been a pretty long day. We were in 3 cities today, making our way back to the Northern Hemisphere – getting closer and closer to home. HCMC is 3 hours behind Melbourne.

Steps today: 26,000

Melbourne (Day 96): Last day in Australia

June 4, 2016

Today was our last day in Melbourne and Australia. Like yesterday, we basically had no plans for the day except to finish packing, plan SE Asia, and to watch the new(ish) X-Men movie. The past week in New Zealand was a lot of “go go go” so it felt really good to sleep in and not feel like we had to see something.

Marcus lives in a suburb of Melbourne called, Abbotsford (15 minutes from the CBD), and there’s a really good cafe in his apartment complex that we went to for brunch once. The cafe, Kitty Burns, is really busy on weekends so Tim and I went down around 10am to have brunch for the last time. We shared a chorizo burrata egg dish (same as what I had a month ago) and a jelly filled donut. The donut was actually the main reason we wanted to go there for breakfast. The last time we went, they only had cruffins but we wanted to try their jelly filled donuts – more for novelty sake. Brunch was delicious. I’m going to make the chorizo scramble when I get home.

After lunch, we trip planned for the rest of the afternoon. We have a plan for the next month and a half but only have a couple of things booked. I think we’ll be booking hotels and what not as we go along. I can’t believe it’s almost the end of our trip. Time truly did fly by. We’ll be home in less than two months!

Tim really wanted to watch X-Men: Apocalypse when it first came out but Sydney’s IMAX (largest in the world) at Darling Harbour wasn’t playing it so we didn’t watch it there, as originally planned. There’s a movie theatre across the street from Marcus’ apartment, so we decided to watch it on our last day. Regular price for tickets were $21 AUD but Marcus could get them for $13.50 AUD through his insurance provider (I’m not sure how that works), so he got us movie vouchers that we needed to show at the box office to redeem for tickets.

We got to the movie theatre shortly before the movie started at 2:20pm. When we got there, there was no staff at the ticket counter and only two guys at the concession, so we just lined up with everyone else. It turned out that only two guys were working that day. They were doing both tickets and concession at the same time. Also, there was no one there to rip any tickets, so it would have been very easy to sneak into the movies that day since they were short staffed.

There were about 30 minutes of ads and trailers before they started the movie. We both liked the movie and found it entertaining. After the movie, we went downstairs to Coles to buy some wet wipes, kleenex and a couple of snacks for SE Asia.

We got back to the apartment and decided to go for Pho for our last dinner in Melbourne. I know, why would we go for Pho when we’re going to Vietnam in a day? Abbotsford is really close to the Vietnamese area of Melbourne, called Richmond, and we just wanted to have something quick before coming back and packing up. Plus, the weather today was super gloomy and rainy so noodle soup was perfect. We went to Marcus’ favourite pho place on Victoria St., called I <3 Pho.

After dinner we headed back to the apartment, washed up, and finished packing. Marcus was appalled that we didn’t buy anything for ourselves in Australia so he gave us an Aboriginal painting that he had. We told him we would hang it in our new home (that we’ll have eventually) and he needs to come visit us.

We both found that spending a month in one country has made us feel more attached to it. We were both pretty sad to leave Australia (and New Zealand). It’s so comfortable here and familiar, that going back to Asia, and South East Asia at that, will be quite a change. We saved the least developed/poorest countries for the end of our trip.

Marcus drove us to the airport and we said our goodbyes. It was so nice to spend time with him. He’s so hilarious and I love listening to his stories and commentary on things. Hopefully he’ll come visit us in Vancouver in the near future.

We’re flying Singapore Airlines again to Ho Chi Minh City via Singapore. We’ll have a 12 hour layover there to explore more of the city before heading to Vietnam. I really like Singapore. It’s an Asian city that I wouldn’t mind living in. I also really like flying Singaporean Airlines. They’re definitely the best airline I’ve flown with. The service is really good and after flying budget airlines throughout Australia, flying Singapore Airlines again feels like such a treat.

Back to Asia we go!

Steps today: 5,000

Melbourne (Day 95): Back to Australia

June 3, 2016

Our alarms went off at 4:15am this morning so we could catch our 6:45am flight. We basically rolled out of bed, got changed, and went out the door. Jess and Robin woke up with us to send us off. It was really great to be able to travel and spend time with them while we were here on this side of the world. It was an added bonus that we got to explore New Zealand with them. It’ll be nice when they eventually move back to Canada so they’re closer.

The airport was about a 30 minute drive from Jo’s house. I always get a bit stressed before heading to the airport, especially when we have to drive to the airport and aren’t familiar with the roads. Thank goodness we had a GPS or else navigating around Wellington would create a lot of issues. There weren’t many cars at all on the roads until we got closer to the airport area. We dropped the car off at Hertz before they were even open, and walked to the departures terminal.

Wellington Airport is a pretty small airport. The coolest thing they have are props from Lord of the Rings. There were a few flights headed for Australia so the airport was quite busy for 6am. The flight from Wellington to Melbourne was around 3 hours and 45 minutes, but we left a little later than scheduled so we didn’t land in Melbourne until 9am (Melbourne time). As we were approaching Melbourne, there was a huge blanket of fog covering the city. The pilot said planes were having a hard time landing but we would try or else have to circle around to try again. Luckily, we were able to land on our first try. When we landed in Melbourne, there were a lot of planes who couldn’t take off due to weather, so we were dropped off at the Domestic terminal and had to take a shuttle to the international terminal.

The customs line up was a gong show. We landed at the same time as several international flights. Since I don’t have the new Canadian “e-passport”, we couldn’t go to the fast track line and had to line up with all other passports. We waited in line for about an hour and when we got to baggage claim, our bags were taken off the carousel and sitting off to the side.

We took the Skybus to Southern Cross Station and got something to eat. We hadn’t eaten all morning and were pretty hungry. We went to Hungry Jack’s before walking to the tram to Marcus’ apartment. We finally got to Marcus’ apartment shortly after 12pm. It felt like an extremely long day already. We showered, did a load of laundry, and caught up on some stuff. We’ll be using today and most of tomorrow to try to plan Vietnam out. Right now we only have our flights in and out of Ho Chi Minh City.

Since it was our last full day in Melbourne, we were having dinner with Chloe, Alex, Marcus, and Max. Chloe made dinner reservations at Kaprica, a pizza place in Melbourne’s Carlton neighbourhood. We figured we won’t be having pizza for a while so it was perfect. Kaprica was packed when we got there, so it was good Chloe made reservations! We decided to share five different pizzas. They were all really delicious. We definitely won’t be eating pizzas like this until we get back to Vancouver.

After dinner we walked to a gelato shop that Max and Marcus really like. It was also in the Carlton, which is an Italian part of Melbourne. It was the third day of winter and there was a long line up outside of Pidapipo for gelato! I guess it was good gelato weather because it would’t melt as quickly in the winter. Max recommended adding the warm nutella (for $1 AUD) to your gelato, where they carve a little well and pour the nutella into the centre.

We walked back to the car and said goodbye to Chloe and Alex. It was nice to see them a few times while we were down here, especially considering they’ve been away from home for two years. I’m happy they also got to meet Marcus, it’s another friend for them in Melbourne.

It’s our last day in Australia tomorrow and it’s always a bit bittersweet when we leave a place after a month. I’m a bit more nervous about the next month and a half while we’re in SE Asia. I think it’ll be the most challenging part of our trip so far since the countries and areas we’ll be visiting aren’t nearly as developed as where we’ve visited so far. Also, it’ll be the first time during our trip that we won’t be seeing anyone we know. We’ve been lucky so far to be able to see so many friends and family in the past 95 days.

Steps today: 6,000

Wellington (Day 94): CBD, Waterfront, Mt Victoria

June 2, 2016

Today was our first and only full day in Wellington before heading back to Australia. We had a pretty early start to the day as we made our way towards Wellington’s CBD. Wellington is extremely hilly and it seemed like the majority of their houses were all built on the hills surrounding the CBD. All the hills and winding narrow roads made driving in Wellington pretty difficult and a bit stressful (even as a passenger). It seems like cars can park wherever they want so basically it’s only one lane going up and down the hills.

When we finally got to the CBD, it took a while for us to look for parking. We eventually found a metered spot ($4 NZD/hr), which is cheaper than parking in one of the lots we went into, which was triple the price (max day was $60 NZD!). We walked around the CBD for a couple of hours to get the feel of the city. Wellington is a small big city that seems like it would be a nice place to live (and not drive). The CBD is in a bay and surrounded by hills and water which makes it look really picturesque.

After our parking time was up, we drove along the water towards Mount Victoria. We found free parking along the beach, on “Oriental Parade” and had lunch at a restaurant close by called, Beach Babylon. The food was well prepared with good quality ingredients (for the price it should be good quality!) so we were all satisfied.

After lunch the sun came out and we walked along the seawall back towards the CBD and the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand. Admission to Te Papa is free and the museum is quite extensive. In the amount of time we had for the day, we only were able to go through one of the floors – wildlife and the WWI, ANZAC Memorial floor.

Te Papa has a dead deep sea colossal squid that was huge. There was a video playing which showed how the squid was accidentally caught by fishermen around Antarctica. When it was caught, it weighed over 400kg and the eyes were the size of soccer balls. Now that it’s been preserved, it has shrunken down a bit and isn’t as big as it was alive.

The ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) part of the museum was a very well done history lesson about WWI and the ANZAC’s attack in Turkey. We don’t learn much about Australia an New Zealand’s involvement in the World Wars in (Canadian) school so it was interesting to learn about it here. Basically, the ANZACs attacked Gallipoli in Turkey during WWI without a solid plan and were not prepared at all, so a lot of troops died during those attacks. Also an interesting note was that 1 in 4 New Zealand men fought in WWI.

After Te Papa, we walked back to the car and drove up to Mount Victoria for 360 views of Wellington. We didn’t mean to, but we were there just in time to see the sun set (Tim: perhaps it seemed like good fortune to Kait, but I planned for us to arrive around sunset time). It was a nice way to cap off our day in Wellington.

We stopped by a grocery store on the way back to the house to pick up ingredients for a New Zealand onion chip dip called, “The Original Kiwi Dip”. Along with the ingredients, we picked up some other Kiwi snacks and actual golden kiwis. I know we get them at home but it didn’t feel right not eating a kiwi in New Zealand. We learned that kiwis aren’t even native to New Zealand, but are from China (Tim: and mostly grown in Italy).

When we got home, Johanna started cooking us dinner. Tonight’s dinner was likely our last home cooked meal until we get back home in July! She braised some pork with pasta and roasted some vegetables for dinner. It felt nice to share our last meal with Jess and Robin in a warm home setting. Our flight the next morning was at 6:45am, so we tried to have a fairly early night.

Steps today: 18,000

Waitomo (Day 93): Ruakuri Cave and Glowworms

June 1, 2016

Today is officially the first day of Winter down here in the Southern Hemisphere. Since we’re slowly making our way south (on the North Island) to Wellington, we’re seeing temperatures drop drastically. The temperatures are beginning to feel like Sapporo weather when the sun goes down (below 5°C).

We slept well last night. The bed was quite comfortable and it was cool to stay in such a historic hotel. It felt more like it should be a B&B rather than a hotel from the style of the rooms. I opened the curtains and saw beautiful green hills, which we didn’t get to see when we came in at night.

We woke up earlier today to go to the information centre to book a Waitomo Caves tour, but they didn’t open until 9am (which we found out when we got there at 8:30am). We booked a combo tour to see the Ruakuri and the Glowworm Caves. The combo tour cost $87 NZD per person and included entrance to the Waitomo Museum ($5 NZD value). Our pick up time wasn’t until 10am so we had time to grab something quick for breakfast. There wasn’t much choice in Waitomo for restaurants since it was a very small town, so we went to the only nearby restaurant that was open – “Kiwi Paka”.

Kiwi Paka was a “cabin like” hotel and a restaurant that was only about 200m from our pick up point. Tim and I shared a big breakfast combo ($17 NZD) and a flat white ($4.50 NZD). It was a good breakfast to share since we wouldn’t be eating again until later in the afternoon.

We got picked up by the tour company from the information centre and taken to Ruakuri Cave. The tour lasted about 1.5 hours as we were taken deep into the limestone caves and were guided around. We saw some interesting formations and a few clusters of glowworms. The guide was only okay. She wasn’t as informative as I’d like and I felt like I didn’t learn too much from her.

After the Ruakuri Cave, we were dropped off at the Glowworm Cave, where we were lead into another cave in Waitomo. The guide for this portion of our tour was a lot better (in my opinion). She was Maori, and was a lot more knowledgeable about the caves and glowworms than our first guide (she was also pretty funny). We weren’t allowed to take any pictures in this cave though. The tour started off with us walking through a limestone cave, which wasn’t as neat as the Ruakuri Cave, and then we were lead to the river below to see the thousands of glowworms. They looked like clusters of stars and was amazing to see. Everything was pitch black and silent. The tour guide didn’t use a paddle to move the boat around but was just pulling on rope that was strung up inside the cave to move the boat. We were very impressed that she didn’t fall in. This tour lasted about 45 minutes. If we were to go back again, I would just go back to the Glowworm Cave, but I’m glad we did both this time around.

We headed back into town where we left the car but took one of the trails back instead of the main road. We took the Waitomo view point trail which lead us through a forested area and then up a hill with a view of Waitomo and the surrounding rolling green hills. My favourite part of New Zealand has been all the scenery. I can’t get enough of all the rolling green hills. They go on for miles and are so beautiful!

Once we got back into Waitomo Village, we went to the museum since we had free admission. We walked around the small museum, which is located at the back of the information centre, and watched one of the short documentaries they had available for viewing. We had the whole theatre to ourselves and I fell asleep (which normally happens to me in dark theatres). Everyone else seemed to enjoy the documentary about a group of New Zealand cavers who tried to find a connection between two caves but failed (Tim: Anticlimactic ending).

Feeling well rested, we got into the car and made our way towards Wellington. The drive down was about 5 hours south. On our drive we saw some amazing scenery. We saw two volcanic looking mountains that were covered in snow. Snow covered mountains aren’t things we usually get excited about but with New Zealand’s very green landscape, the solo snow covered volcanic mountains looked amazing.

We stopped in a small town called, Ohuke, for dinner. Since it was such a small town, we didn’t have much choice. We ended up going to a family run restaurant called Captain Kune’s. They served any fried food you can think of, burgers, and pizzas. The owners were friendly and you could tell it was a family run joint and everyone in town seemed to know each other.

After eating dinner and getting gas, we were on our final leg to Wellington with three more hours to go. Since the sun sets so early, it felt like it was very late in the evening. As we were driving to Johanna’s house (Johanna went to med school with Jess and Robin), my initial impression of Wellington was that it reminded me of San Francisco because of all the hills and the way houses looked and were spaced. We’ll see what it looks like in the day light. Maybe I’m totally wrong. Johanna lives pretty far up on the side of a hill, which most houses in Wellington seem to be situated, in an area with newer houses. She welcomed us with open arms and showed us our rooms for our time here. She has a really nice home and is very kind to let us (Tim and I) stay with her. We settled in and she made us some tea before we all washed up for bed.

Wellington seems like a really nice place. We’re looking forward to seeing it tomorrow in the day light!

Steps today: 8,000

Rotorua (Day 92): Lady Knox Geyser, Lake, and Polynesian Spa

May 31, 2016

We set an alarm to wake up in time to watch the Lady Knox Geyser erupt at 10:15am. Robin read about it the night before and was interested in checking it out. By the time we got ready and checked out, we had 20 minutes before the eruption and it took about 25 minutes to actually drive there. When we pulled up to the parking lot, we ran to the geyser and saw the presenter still talking about New Zealand’s geysers, so it was perfect timing!

As soon as the presenter stopped talking, the geyser began erupting, like clockwork. The geyser could erupt for up to an hour (unusually long). After about 5 minutes, everyone left after taking their photos. We stayed around to see the eruption end, but after about 20 minutes, we gave up and left, as did the other people who were waiting around. Tim felt sad for the geyser because it was still erupting with no one watching. People’s attention spans are so short, and I guess it was also starting to rain.

When we first arrived, there was a sign that said to be ready to show your tickets. We didn’t realize it cost money see the geyser because Robin read it was free. It worked out perfectly that we were slightly late because there was no one checking tickets when we rushed in. We ended up seeing the geyser and other sights around the Waiotapu area for free. I looked online tonight and apparently the sights were $32.60 NZD per person!

On our way out of the Waitapu area, we saw signs for a mud bath so we decided to check it out. The mud bath was another hot spring which made mud bubble up. Rotorua is a lot like the onsen town of Beppu in Japan, where we went around to all the different “hell” hot springs. It ended up being a similar day since we planned on going to a hot spring spa too.

We made our way back into Rotorua’s CBD for lunch. Jess read about a brunch restaurant in Lonely Planet called, Third Place Cafe, so we decided to go there. It was a casual cafe where you order at the counter and they bring the food out to you. The breakfast and lunch menu looked really good so I was excited to try it out. I ordered a “Roasted Kumara Mumble Jumble” breakfast and Tim ordered the “Middle Eastern Spring Lamb Platter”. Both dishes were really good. We were both happily satisfied. If we ever go back to Rotorua, I would definitely eat here again.

After lunch we headed to Lake Rotorua, which is the second largest lake on the North Island. We walked along the walkway of the lake and around a park and saw a lot of birds. There were a lot of black swans in the water, which I haven’t seen so up close before. There were also large gangs of New Zealand geese, which are large and white.

Rotorua is full of beautiful lakes, geothermal sights, Maori cultural centres, and spas. It was still fairly early in the afternoon so we decided to check out another lake in the area before going to the Polynesian Spa to end our time in town. We drove about 10 minutes to Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake) where I hung out close to the car to admire the view and everyone else went for a quick walk through the forest.

We drove to the Polynesian Spa and decided to go into the “adult pools” ($27 NZD = $23.75 CAD). The Polynesian Spa is a geothermal spa that backs on to Lake Rotorua. The adult pool area had several different hot spring pools at different temperatures, ranging from 38-43°C. It was a nice and relaxing way to end our day in Rotorua. There was a Korean tour there at the same time we were, and at one point Tim and I were in a pool with the majority of them and we felt like we were back in Seoul. Too bad we didn’t know any Korean!

We washed up and left at a good time because a Chinese bus tour came and all the pools were jam packed with people. We spent about an hour and a half at the baths which was a good amount of time.

For dinner we went for Indian food at a restaurant called Indian Star. We saw it yesterday and it was full for of people for an Indian birthday party. We figured if it was good enough for a large Indian birthday party, it must be good! We shared four different types of curries, garlic naan, basmati rice, two mango lassis and a Kingfisher beer for $94.80 NZD = $83.60 CAD. We enjoyed everything we ordered. We were all surprised that we finished everything. I guess we were all hungry!

After dinner we drove for about 2.5 hours to get to a town called, Waitomo, which is a major tourist attraction for its caves and for Hobbiton (Hobbit and LOTR tours). On the way there, Tim pulled over and we looked at the stars for about 15 minutes (it was really cold out, 5°C!) and it was beautiful. I guess I don’t get that far out away from cities because I haven’t seen that many stars before. I turned around to hug Tim and I missed a shooting star that everyone saw. Oh well…

We arrived at our hotel, which is a historic (old) hotel called, Waitomo Caves Hotel. The hotel looked nice as we drove up to it. It has a lot of character and we were really happy with our two bedroom room ($125 CAD/night). Since Jess and Robin had a larger bed in Auckland, they took the two single beds in the other room while Tim and I get to enjoy the larger bed. I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be a family room, so we got the “parent’s room” and they’re in the children’s bedroom.

We made some tea and tried some of the other NZ cookies we bought before heading to bed. We’re planning on waking up a bit earlier tomorrow to see what cave tours we can join. We couldn’t book anything online since they required 2 days notice for advanced bookings so we’ll have to go to the visitor centre to see what we can get.

Steps today: 10,000