'Round the world 2012
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Thermal Baths
Budapest apparently has the most thermal baths of any major city. We decide to check one out on Thursday. Szechenyi pool has outdoor pools and indoor hot tubs, saunas, and steam rooms. All the pools have different temperatures, most are between 25- 35 degrees. The saunas and steam rooms are also heated to different temps. The hottest sauna we see is set to 60-70 degrees! On a hot day, the pools are an excellent way to stay cool. We test out several baths and pools and leave when our fingers turn all wrinkly.
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Budapest, alive at night
Budapest is hot and sunny during these long June days. We spend the days wandering various parts of the city. Up and down Kiraly Utca, where our hostel is centrally located, we branch off into the side streets to find restaurants and cafes. Two streets over is Andrassy Utca, the main street in the city that connects all the way to Hero’s Square. Budapest is actually made of two halves: Buda to the West of the river and Pest to the East. The Buda side is cute, lots of smaller narrower streets with colourful buildings lining the sides. The Buda hills contain the castle, Matthias church and the Fisherman’s Bastion…
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Denmark vs. Germany
Second day in Copenhagen and I am loving this beautiful city. The core is incredibly compact and very walk-able. Bikes are everywhere…according to Carter, who’s studying geography/urban planning, CPH is a global leader in making the city bike friendly; everyone wants to “Copenhagenise”. We spent the afternoon doing a free walking your, organise by a group called Sandemans. The guides are all young volunteers, essentially, working for tips only. Our guide is Rosie, a Brit who’s been living in CPH for about a year and a half. Her full time gig is an internship as a copywriter at an agency. She’s a great guide and gives us a brief history…
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When everything goes wrong
We had plans to spend all day Wednesday in Stockholm, sight see, wander around, and then have dinner at a well rated restaurant where I had made a reservation ages ago. Carter booked us onto the Swebus to Stockholm. We take the #2 Flogsta bus to Uppsala centre, then board the bus for the 1 hour journey to Stockholm. Once we get into Stockholm, we walk along the water, towards the pier where we plan to buy tickets to a hop-on-hop-off cruise that would take us to all the major tourist stops. Suddenly, I notice Carter frantically searching his pockets and rummaging around in his bag, looking for something. “What…
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Extreme contrasts
Landed as scheduled early in the morning at Arlanda airport and take the train to Uppsala, where I meet Carter. First impressions of Uppsala: there is no one here. Flying from crowded, noisy, dirty, hot, humid SE Asia to cold, quiet, clean, sparsely populate Sweden has been a shock to the system. We spend the afternoon wandering around the centre of Uppsala and visit the main church and some of the main streets. There is hardly anyone around. We take the bus to a lake nearby — still no one around. Carter asks a lady near the lake “is there a beach/sitting area nearby with more people?” “More people?!”…
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Jumping off a boat!
We had just finished kayaking from the hidden lagoon back to our Halong Bay cruise boat. Margaret, the Scot living in Warsaw and Teo, the Singaporean travelling with his parents, had opted to stay on the motor boat and skip the kayaking. So it was only Jamie & I and the uber tall dutch couple, Renate and Robbert who had kayaked through a small cave in one wall of the limestone islands of Halong Bay to reach a secluded lagoon. It was so beautiful and peaceful, and we had the whole lagoon to ourselves for 10 minutes before other kayakers also started to paddle in. Now it’s time for…
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Rice paddies of Sapa
Sapa is in the Northwest of Vietnam and is famous for it’s mountainous terrain and ethnic hill tribes. Jamie and I are booked on a 3 night, 2 day Sapa tour. We are the only ones booked on this day so we essentially get a private tour, lead by our guide Tu. Before we head to the train station with Tu to board our overnight sleepers to Lao Cai city, we unexpectedly meet Tu’s wife, Name. Yes Name is her name. She admits “I confuse a lot of people” when we ask her about her name. Name is Thai and has only recently moved to Vietnam to be with Tu.…
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Travel agency hunting
Jamie got in on Saturday and we grab a late dinner together, along with Tomas, a British actor I first met at the Farm Stay who happens to be staying in the same dorm as me in Hanoi, and Sonica, another Londoner. She’s taking a career break, travelling for a while. Jamie, a friend from university, is joining me for a week in Vietnam. First night in Hanoi and it’s raining and pretty disgusting, but early impressions are that the city is more charming and definitely more green than Saigon. Sunday morning, we do some “homework”, shopping around the Old Quarter for a couple of reputable travel agencies to book…
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Motorcycle ride in the rain
A few of us are riding up to the caves tomorrow, why don’t you hop on the back and tag along? Suggests James. He had jumped into the conversation I was having with Louisa about malaria pills. James, from Edmonton, studies birds, and had applied for a masters program at a university in Holland. Half Thai with long shaggy hair, he talks a bit like a surfer/street kid. Later, when I ask him if the caves impressed him, he says “yah, they’re dec”. So I tagged along on the back of James motorbike. We rode up to the Phong Nha caves with two Kiwi boys, Max and Oscar. We meet…
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Cave Explorers
It was pitch black. The only light to illuminate anything was coming from our headlamps. We had walked quite far into the Dark Cave and had reached the edge of a pond/lake. This is as far as we can go, I thought. But I was wrong. The two Dutch guys and Leland, the American started to wade into the pond and swim, with only their headlights to shine the way. I looked at the Vietnamese guide who had sold us the tickets to the Dark Cave…”are you going in too?” I ask. Not going to be a good sign if the local refuses to swim in this lake in this…
