A piece of Finland

Pakse is a really small town, and we were there only beacuse of the nearby waterfalls. We spent a day visiting the two waterfalls. We had to take a local bus there, which was an experience itself as we had no idea where we had to get off and it didn't help that nobody in the whole bus spoke English. Fortunately everybody else in the bus knew where we should get off and they pretty much threw us out of the bus after spending the whole busride staring at our fair skin, blond hair and blue eyes. When we came back to Pakse, we thought we knew where we were and decided to walk to our hotel. It wasn't a good idea! It was dark and we didn't even remember the name of our hotel :) We assumed that everything would be near in a small town like Pakse. There are three different bus stations in Pakse and cos we had already visited two of them, we assumed we had arrived to the bus station close to our hotel (cos it looked really similar). We started walking around (probably in circles) and even though we had a map we had trouble finding the right street as the streets had no English names. At one point we were quite sure we had arrived in a wrong city as nothing
looked familiar to us. :) Luckily after wandering aroung for about an hour, we finally found people who spoke English and they showed us the way to our hotel.




Tad Lo waterfalls


After Pakse we took another bus to Si Phan Don (four thousand islands). The scenery was almost like back home in Finland. The place also reminded us of Finland because it was like walking into a sauna, we were literally sweating our asses off! The first island where we stayed at, Don Khong, was really peaceful and quiet and there wasn't really anything to do there. So we decided to go tanning on the riverside of Mekong. Just when we thought we had found the perfect place to relax, tan and swim, three big water buffalos joined us and went swimming/peeing next to us. Lovely! :)

One of the waterbuffalos interrupting our sunbathing

Beacuse Don Khong was too quiet for us, we only stayed there for one night and took a boat to a backpacker island called Don Det the next morning. This was a lovely little island with more to do. We stayed in a cute little guesthouse (which only cost us about 4 euros) which accomodated only us and three gay couples. We decided to rent bicycles to explore the island. This ended up being a lot of fun and we just cycled into "town" when we had nothing else to do. We also cycled to another island called Don Khon which is connected to Don Det by an old french bridge. We went dolphin watching there and spotted three Irrawaddy doplhins. The doplhins are really rare and only about 20 doplhins live in this area, so we were really lucky to see them. We also went to see some waterfalls (again) on Don Khon. This time Lili couldn't really appreciate the waterfalls becuse of the heat and the fact that she just wanted to jump in even though it was forbidden to swim in the waterfalls. The last day on Don Det we went tubing which was really relaxing. We were floating in the river in a huge inner tube and letting the stream take us forward.



Our bungalow



Chilling in our hammocks



On our way to see the doplhins





Cycling around the island



At the waterfalls, this made Lili very unhappy



Waterfalls



Happy Merry Christmas!

As the Cambodians say: Happy Merry Christmas from the sunny beach capital of Cambodia!

Our Christmas drinks; mango daiquiris yammy! :)

We were turned down by monks

We have now been travelling for over three months and we are already finishing each other's sentences. There is really no need for us to speak with each other anymore as we think about the same things at the same time and often express ourselves with the exact same words at the same time.

We took a nightbus from Hanoi to Vientiane and this was the first (but not the last) of our many buses  that broke down. There were two buses that left at the same time from Hanoi, a sitting and a sleeping bus. The both buses made it through the night, but in the morning when the buses had to drive in the hot Lao weather, the sitting bus broke down and everybody packed in to our sleeping bus. A few hours later our sleeper bus broke down aswell. We were in the middle of nowhere so we really didn't have any other choice than to wait for the bus driver/mechanic to fix the bus. Luckily this only took a little over an hour. Still we arrived in Vientiane six hours later than we were supposed to, which really wasn't a surprise to us as no buses have never been on time here :)

Vientiane is a tiny capital city which resembles a miniature size Paris minus the Eiffel Tower. The city is filled with cafés, french restaurants and baguettes. Even the architecture is similar. There is also a Scandinavian Bakery in the city that sells snus and swedish ginger bread! :) (we however only bought ginger bread) We have even managed to save the ginger bread for Christmas Eve and we´ll enjoy it tomorrow.

A monk in Vientiane

We took a night bus (a king of bus) to southern Laos. The bus was the nicest bus we have had so far with beds instead of seats. We had the front row seats (or beds) in the upper deck and it turned out that the first bed was for four people. We didn't mind it but the monks who were supposed to sleep next to us were only giggling and pointing at us. They were really embarrased and didn't know what to do. Finally they had to ask someone to tell us to move so that we wouldn't have to sleep next to men but we didn't want to move cos we had the best seats in the bus. That's when the monks switched places with two local guys. The guys told us that monks are not allowed to sleep in the same bed with women and that's why they couldn't sleep next to us. We later found out that monks are not even allowed to touch women, or women are at least not allowed to touch them. We don't know if it works both ways :)



King of bus :)



Our seats in the bus



PJs, Mr. King Kong and the slaughter street: you gotta love Vietnam!

We arrived in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City in the middle of the night and noticed right away the language barrier as our taxi driver didn't speak any English! We still managed to find our hotel and bargain about the taxi price, even though the driver almost started crying when we didn't want to pay him enough. Our hotel receptionist (who ironically also was the security guy according to his shirt) was sleeping when we arrived. It took us a long time to wake him up. We were shouting, giggling and poking him and still he was fast asleep. Finally when Katja removed his pillow he woke up :) Our hotel was the nicest hotel we have had so far with bathrobes and real blankets (apart from our hotel in LA) and it only cost 25 USD! Everything is really cheap in Vietnam, we have paid around 10-15 USD a night for nice hotel rooms and food rarely costs over 3 USD.

Vietnamese woman selling fruits

Walking around in Vietnam is really interesting and really an experience itself. The people here wear their PJs everywhere (we don't know if they actually use them as PJs or only as normal clothes but they look like PJs to us). Crossing the street here is a suicide mission! The motorcycles are everywhere and they don't stop even when they see you are crossing the road. We have a special technique when we cross the roads, we walk reaaally slowly and try not to get hit by anything.

Pyjama party in the middle of the day

We spent one day in Ho Chi Minh City just walking around and shopping and took a bus to Mui Ne in the afternoon. Mui Ne is a little beach town, famous for its sanddunes and kitesurfing. We visited the white (which we thought were actually yellow) and red sanddunes on a daytrip. In the evening we decided to pamper ourselves and took a massage that only cost us 5 USD.

Red sand in Mui Ne

Fairy stream

Walking in the Fairy Stream, the sand felt really nice under your feet

The sand was really soft so it was hard to not fall

Cute puppy

Fishing boats

Lili trying to slide down the dunes

Nha Trang was supposed to the beach capital of Vietnam, but it was raining there when we arrived there. :( That's why we decided to spend only one night there and catch a bus to Hanoi the next day.

Cute boats in Nha Trang

When we arrived in Hanoi we were dropped off in a really small and crowded street where we decided to stay. Our hotel is in a street where people sell everything from raw meat to yammy fruits. The smell is kind of disgusting but you get used to it. The people actually slaughter some of the animals (mostly chicken and fish) right in the street! That's why we named our street The Slaughter Street!

Cutting meat

Hanoi

From Hanoi we did a two day trip to Halong Bay. We spent two days sailing around the bay in our cute boat and visited a huge cave. The cave was really big, 10 000 square meters in total. It was discovered in 1962 by the French. We don't really know what our guide's real name was but assuming the pronounciation would be too hard for tourists he asked us to call him Mr. King Kong! :)

Our cabin in the boat

Halong Bay

The cave

Inside the cave

Inside the cave

Tonight we are taking a night bus to Laos. We don't know if we are able to get into the country because we didn't apply for visas beforehand but we'll see and hope for the best. In the worst case scenario we'll just have to bribe the immigration officers to grant visas for us.

Mr. Mouse

Yesterday we had our first serious encounter with intruders in our hotel room! This happened in Hanoi, Vietnam where we are now. We had been sleeping for an hour when Katja woke up when she heard a water bottle fall down from our bedside table. She thought she saw Lili moving as well, woken up by the sound of the bottle. A few minutes later Katja heard some scratching sounds. The she undestood that Lili was still fast asleep and what she first thought had been Lili moving was actually a mouse on the nightstand. That's when Lili woke up by Katja's reaction to the mouse.

We searched the room but couldn't find the mouse anywhere. We even started doubting ourselves and weren't anymore sure that we had actually seen a mouse. So our plan was to forget about the mouse and fall back asleep. A few minutes later we heard some noises and were convinced that the mouse hadn't left our room. Then we did a new search and saw some mouse poop in the room. That's when Katja jumped into Lili's bed and we decided to try to sleep with the lights on. Well it didn't work! This time it was Lili's turn to freak out as she saw the mouse running on Katja's bedframe. Until this moment we thought we would be safe in our beds. As this was not the case we needed a new plan! We tricked the mouse to go the bathroom and then we closed the door assuming it would be trapped there. The mouse did not like this and it started to gnaw the door. We could already see the mouse through the hole in the door and got scared! We figured out that we needed a plan C!

Lili was left in the room alone to keep an eye on the mouse as Katja ran downstairs to the reception to get some help. It took a while before she could wake the receptionists up (as it was already 3am and the people here are really heavy sleepers) but finally a young guy came to our rescue! He came to the room, asked for a plastic bag and just grabbed the mouse and killed it. It was over in five seconds!

Rest in peace Mr. Mouse!

We were saved by the Bible

We have now been traveling for almost three months and as you may have guessed we have ran out of discussion topics. So one evening before going to bed we noticed our bungalow had a Bible and we ended up having a very interesting discussion about it. :) So please feel free to suggest any new discussion topics for us! :)

We spent the last two weeks in the Philippines and most of our time was spent on the beach :) After 20 hours of travelling we landed in Cebu airport and catched a local bus directly to the city of Dumaguete where we spent two nights. We went on a day trip to a nearby Apo island which is world famous for diving and snorkeling. We decided to go snorkeling there and this one Philipino guy wanted to be our private snorkeling guide. We saw many Nemo fish and other colourful sea creatures there. Our guide took us also to another snorkeling spot where we snorkeled with giant turtles. We kind of felt sorry for them cos we just kept following them around while they were trying to eat. Hopefully they didn't get too stressed out :)

Dried fish sold in a market, the smell was unbelievable!



Apo island



After Dumaguete we decided to go to Siquijor island. The island was kind of small  and quiet and we didn't see many other tourists there. We mainly just relaxed on the beach or by the pool there. The second day we went for an island tour with a local guy who had a pink tricycle :) He took us around the whole island with his cute tricycle to see waterfalls and beaches. We even got to swim under the waterfalls.

Siquijor island

Waiting for the sunset on Siquijor

We went kayaking in the morning



Waterfalls

400 year old tree

Our cute tricycle



Lili swimming in Cambugahay waterfalls

Our next destination was Panglao Island on Bohol. It was the nicest place of all the places we visited in the Philippines. We didn't really activate ourselves there, we just concentrated on getting a good tan and enjoyed the white beaches. :) On Panglao we made friends with a Philipino guy called Van-Van. He wanted to have happy happy time with us, and by happy happy time he meant drinking one gallon of homemade coconut wine, but we kindly refused his offer cos we unfortunately had to wake up really early the next morning. So no happy happy time for us and Van-Van this time. :)




Alona beach in Panglao island

Alona beach



Our last stop was Malapascua island which is also supposed to be good for snorkeling and diving. A lot of tourists come to the island to dive with thresher sharks. We don't really dive so we went snorkeling instead. The snorkeling was much better on Apo island and we didn't even get to see any sharks here even though our guide said it could be possible to see them. :) So because the snorkeling was kind of a disappointment, Lili decided to jump off a 15-meter high cliff. It took almost thirty minutes for her to gain the courage to jump and it really hurt when she hit the water. Even her flipflop broke from the impact but it was worth it!




View from our balcony on Malapascua island



Contemplating whether to jump or not



Lili hitting the water

  

We had time to kill before our flight so we decided to take a taxi to a shopping mall. To enter the shopping mall we had to go through security check and a metal detector. The security guys pulled us aside to wait for the sniffer dog to arrive and go through our bags for drugs. This was not the first time we were suspected as having something to do with drugs. At the airport in Ecuador this police asked us where we went in Ecuador and when we answered Montanita he assumed we had been smoking marijuana! We just started laughing and luckily he believed us. Also when we arrived to the Philippines and said we are from Finland we were right away offered marijuana (apparently our tricycle driver had had finnish customers who smoke a lot of pot). The shopping wasn't that good cos the stores only sold winter clothes which we don't really get as it's way too hot to wear anything other that t-shirts on the Philippines. That's when we saw a hairsalon and Lili decided to cut off her super dry hair and it only cost her 1,70 euros!

Shop till you drop and eat till you burst!

LA is treating us really good. It is a nice change to be back to the western culture :) Our hotel has a superb location with Hollywood & Highlands mall, Kodak Theatre, Chinese Theatre and Hollywood walk of fame just around the corner. Our first stop in LA was of course Victoria's Secret followed by other stores. We spent the first day in LA shopping and walking around Hollywood. In the evening before going to the movies we walked by a red carpet movie premiere for Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman and Winona Ryder! Even Heidi Klum attended the premiere! :)

Hollywood walk of fame

Hollywood sign



Starbucks was a must, Lili enjoying her Double Chocolaty Chip frappuccino





The Black Swan movie premiere (Heidi Klum is the one with blonde hair :) )



The second day in LA we decided to visit Universal Studios. We took a tour of the studios and saw Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives, they were also shooting the show on the same day but unfortunately we weren't allowed to visit the sets. In the evening we went shopping to the Grove near Farmer's market. The place was filled with Christmas decorations and it was really pretty. The people here are really friendly and not at all as shallow as we thought they would be, we met a guy in the bus who helped us find the shopping mall. We ran into him again in the bus back to Hollywood and chatted with him for a long time. He even invited us to have drinks with him but we were too tired to join him. Many actually thought we were locals, Katja asked a guy in a store if they had passport covers and his response was oh, are you gonna be traveling and she told him we are traveling. The same thing happened when we actually bought our passport covers and the cashier repeated his words. Btw the covers are great! :)



Our new passport covers



Universal Studios

Wisteria Lane, Susan's house



Gabi's house



A real Boeing 747 airplane that was completely destroyed for a movie, the plane only cost them 60 000 USD but the transportation was 200 000 USD :) 

Christmas tree!

 

The third day was our beach day. We rented a car and visited Santa Monica, Venice beach and Malibu. Btw the houses in Malibu are incredible! We spent the day chilling on the beaches and watching dolphins swim in the water. In the evening we went once again to the movies and saw Eat pray love. This time the movies only cost us 3 USD!

Santa Monica pier



Santa Monica beach



A doplhin, it was really hard to capture them on camera

 

Venice beach



Lili's new project is to take group photos as we noticed we didn't have almost any photos of the two of us in South America, Venice beach in the background



Our last day was dedicated to shopping and cruising in Beverly Hills. We once again saw really big houses. The median value of a house in Beverly Hills is 1.8 million dollars. We were walking on Rodeo drive (and of course shopping with our parents' credit cards :)) as this crazy man grabbed us in a bear hug and started talking Finnish and Swedish to us. He is supposedly a major tourist attraction and friends with many celebrities. He embarrased us by yelling to other tourists that we are movie celebrities, the other tourists started staring at us and we just wanted to escape :) We had decided to save money by returning our rental car to the airport (which in the end was more expensive than a taxi). It also ended up being a hassle! We couldn't find the right place and we were driving in circles for about an hour asking four different security guards which was the right way. All of them had their own opinions where we should drop off the car, and finally we managed to find the right place. We now feel kind of sorry for the guy who we returned the car to as we were complaining so much.




The weird guy was forcing Lili to hug him



Katja on Rodeo drive



Beverly Hills

  

As you may have noticed, we have complained a lot about the food in South America. Now we have no more complaints and we have been eating a lot. Our day started with a warm croissant and with a warm huge chocolate muffin which was already cut in half because they are so big and it would be impossible to eat a whole! After two months of no fresh vegetables, we finally were able to eat delicious salads. The second day when we went to the Universal studios, we ate yammy caramelised apples that we always have wanted to taste :) and Lili even got popcorn in the movies that she has been craving for. Our main discussion topic in South America was good food (because of the lack of it) and especially the salad in Olivegarden. This is why we didn't mind driving quite far to get the delicious salad we had been dreaming about for months, and it didn't disappoint us. We really fell in love with Pinkberry! They have the best frozen yoghurt with fresh toppings such as raspberrys, blueberrys, blackberrys, pomegranates, kiwis and over 30 other options.



The really healthy apple




Yammy frozen yoghurts