Travelling

So we've made it to Saigon and it's totally hot/humid that we're currently hanging in s coffee shop because it' got air conditioning and free wifi.

Flight over was good. Was on a 777-300ER and it was pretty awesome. Screens the size of an upmarket netbook (at least 10") in-seat power and powered USB ports in economy!

So today we've kind of been walking about - went to Ben Thanh market and the War Remnants Museum. We somehow didn't pick up a map from the airport, so have been aimlessly navigating for part of the day - we know we're heading in the correct direction but have no idea where until we hit one of the roads listed in the LP. Oh and bought our train tickets for the first to legs. Wasn't too bad bought it from the train station store in the backpacker-ish area so it was $70USD for both of us which was less than I expected.

Tomorrow it's out to the Chu Chi tunnels... I think'll I'll sleep well tonight.

I think this one is a little blurry?

According to WolframAlpha that is approximately 1 day 18 hours 54 minutes and 26 seconds from now...

Have just the day of work tomorrow then I have Fri off in lieu of last weekend, which is good since I was originally going to have to lug my stuff to work then head from there to the airport.

Will try and blog on the trip, actually it would be rather odd if I didn't right?

Anyways time for sleep, another day awaits and then it's holiday time!

Till I head of on another adventure to South East Asia. Coming along with me for the Vietnam part of the ride will be my dad, and for the later part of the trip I'll be catching up with my friend Emily in Laos.

I haven't travelled overseas with either of my parents since I was like 4 years old so it should be an interesting experience. I'm sure there will be moments along the way where we'll need to escape each other, but at the same time I reckon it's cool that we're able to do this. It's definitely something I will remember.

I don't know what it is about Asia, but I really love it. Crazy traffic, bus and train journeys not to mention the food!

Being the geek within, I'm going to lug the majority of tech gadgets that I did last year (minus item 3 for obvious reasons). I've also added a Fujifilm J10 to the mix which is basically my cheap digital. The camera cost me basically $99 with a waterproof case so I'm not going to be cut if I lose it into a river.

Our general plans (though I've taken the role of travel planner) is to make our way up from Saigon to Hanoi where we'll make a side trip to Halong Bay and up to Sapa.

So in the coming weeks there'll be all sorts of fun things to do, like making playlists for my iPod (bring on the top 250 hits from the 90's!), research accomo so that we at least have a starting point when we arrive in cities, getting my google docs in order so I can have them offline on my eeepc....

At home today on a day of after my epic week of sleep deprivation. Long story short, worked an overnighter over the weekend with a release and whilst things were smooth there were a few hiccups. And as I'm on out of hours support this week lucky me has had to wake up at like 4:45am three days in a row...

But it's not all bad, learnt all about classloaders in the process which is good. Plus I now know the feeling of Jar Hell!

Other than that I really have to get a roll on my travel googling. Otherwise before I know it it will be 11 weeks from now and I'll be wandering Saigon in a daze...

So I spent some of this weekend helping my aunt book domestic flights in the U.S. for her and my uncles trip in December/January to catch up with my cousin who's over there at the moment. The travel agent had quoted a particular price, but based on my travel research last year for the big trip I was sure we could do a fair bit better.

So after doing some searches on Priceline.com we began the adventure of booking the tickets. Except since we wanted to pick seating too, we went through the airline and not Priceline.com as Priceline doesn't let you specify exact seats.

Now I thought it would be pretty straight forward except for the technology issues we came across. Continental Airlines booking was pretty straight forward, but US Airways and United were a somewhat nightmare effort to get the booking completed. Perhaps coincidental, but maybe not seeing they most likely share the same booking system as they have codesharing agreements.

US Airways has a site where Purchase does not work if you have multiple tabs open to their site. Except they don't tell you before you buy, only after you click and sit there for ages... so not trusting airline sites when their systems fail (had an experience with Singapore Airlines a few years back), it was time for a Skype call to the US. Another failed attempt later, another phone call deciding to do it over the phone for an extra $25 per passenger... Poo to all the US airlines that charge you extra $$$ for everything - bags, baggage etc! Eventually got those tickets sorted... getting names etc right was funny what with American versus Australian accents...

As for the United booking experience... it tanked as well, but at least when I rang they had record of all passengers and payment details etc so it was on hold and all I had to do was verify some info. And since I had like a another 3 sectors to book I did it over the phone, as since they already had the details correct I didn't have to freak that they might get the spelling wrong. On the up note at least they didn't charge any reservation fees like US Airways.

Meh and along the way Verified by Visa... argh I can't stand it. Read Wikipedia article section on criticism. It looks totally fake/phishing style and it's a pain to have to enter details + remember yet another password.

A cool thing though in the whole process is Skype is awesome. Freecall US numbers are free to call... so convenient!

So I've gone from potentially 5 weeks of solo travel through Vietnam and Laos to now having company all of the way. Em's arriving in Laos on the morning I arrive and I managed to talk my dad into coming to Vietnam as he was thinking of visiting the relos in Singapore. So now he gets to spend 3 weeks backpacking it up the coast with me before going to Singapore for a week.

I must say that since solo travelling can get lonely at times it's definitely tops that I won't be myself. Friends/family to share random train adventures, confusion and funny moments with is always so fun. Can't wait!

I'd been meaning to do a wrap up post but never got round to it. Got some time this evening so here it is.

So all in all, trip was awesome... liked America way more than I expected. So for the best, worst and oddities...

Best

• Disneyland
• Las Vegas
• Zion National Park
• Budapest - partly due to the Hungarian currency tanking whilst we were there, and hence us becoming 'rich' and stuffing ourselves silly at dinner...

Worst

• Way too many tourist bus type tours in Prague
• BMW museum - I'm not a big fan of cars...

Oddities
All of these are from America...

• Prepaying your petrol before you filled. This was actually quite a pain. Firstly the things in gallons, your driving a car you don't know how far the mileage goes on a tank, and you can't use the machine at the bowser because you have an international credit card and hence 'enter your zip code' doesn't really mean much.
• Petrol stations where you have to pay for an undisclosed amount of air?!? To add weirdness the air filly things didn't even have a gauge, so you couldn't tell how much more you needed to fill the tyre.
• Lamingtons in Budapest

Oh and there has to be a list dedicated to best food experiences...

• The Buffet at the Bellagio, Las Vegas
• Menza, Budapest. Best food ever, so much so 3 of 4 nights was where dinner was had. Deviated once and it was terrible so decision made, to eat where it was good.
• Chocolate butter kek from Aldi, Munich - and they have the exact same ones here in Aldi, imported from Germany but with a different name... Tastes good 'cos the EU have a law where chocolate has to be at least 25% cocoa solids... the Aldi chocolate - 35%

Today included a visit to one of the many thermal baths that exist in Budapest. A visit to one of the more touristy oriented ones was made so no nudie bathing required (more traditional baths have different days for males and females and are in the no bathing gear sense).

The 37.35 degree celsius water of one of the outdoor pools was really nice and warm. Like a huge never ending bath... and with fountains and jets as well!

Also went on a tour of the Parliament building which was quite pretty and nice, with lots of gold things...

Tomorrow is actually Hungary's Republic Day so it will be visiting some museums and the zoo and stuff, as most other stuff is closed. Found some of the museums closed a different day this week to stay open tomorrow.

Anyways that's it for tonight.... (and maybe the trip)

So in a Budapest Macca's drinking hot chocolate as it has free wi-fi! And it is fast. Budapest is a nice change from Prague and Munich. It's not as touristy, easy to walk around and the food is great and cheap (when compared to Prague and Munich). You can have a top sit down meal with drinks for $25 AUD approx. Which whilst I could not afford to eat like that every day of this trip, seeing we're at the end it's like a 'why not?' Especially thinking about 27+ hours it will take to get home.

What has been a little :-( is that most of the European countries visited have taken to maintenance works of things which has scuttled some of the pretty building views... but not all at least.

Oh also, Budapest marked the staying at an easyHotel which is from the 'easy' group brand that Stelios (of easyJet fame) created. For a 7x8 square metre room (the smallest) it is surprisingly big - maybe about the same size as the hostel room in Hollywood. At $120 AUD for 4 nights I can't complain.

Postings tomorrow night from Macca's on the nightly hot chocolate run...

And windy at times over here, so jackets, gloves and beanies are in use. Prague is a very nice city but it has lots and lots of tourists. You can tell it when you are stuck between swarms of tour groups with their leader flying their 'flag' and also at the absurdity of the costs of things. Things that were free as early as 2 years ago now cost like $20 bucks to go in! For example some churches cost just under $10 bucks to go in... which for me is just a little too steep. It was good in Munich as you could visit things and they were reasonable and or free. Prague is just a little over tourist-ed...

That said have enjoyed it, and am leaving tomorrow morning to Budapest. Can't wait to get home though...