Andi’s Weblog

Looking back, our journey to Vietnam was really great (especially foodwise) with only very few annoyances along the way. Even though I should start with the good sides, I’ll quickly go ahead and summarize the bad sides first: horns, horns, horns and traffic, traffic, traffic. That’s about it, besides some very few annoying street vendors of course ;-).

We arrived in Hanoi by airplane from Vientiane and took a humid walk looking for a hostel. The one we found (one from the LP list) featured really friendly service and good, dirt cheap breakfast. Furthermore it was located in a quiet back alley in the middle of the otherwise noisy old quarter where horns from motorcycles, cars and even bicycles replaced the singing birds we got used to in Laos. Since I still had to fix some parts of my BA thesis I couldn’t do that much sightseeing and therefore I didn’t get to see the grave of Mr. Vietnam aka Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I saw the old quarter with its lake in the middle (some part of it is probably shown on every postcard you will ever receive from Hanoi) and I’d really like it if only they would remove this annoying street circling the lake.

Back to summary: We arranged a trip to Halong Bay which was amazing (just google if you want to find out more). After we returned from our two day one night trip to Halong, we took a shower and went straight into the night train bound for Sa Pa (with some little one hour bus ride at the end). I’m glad we booked a four bed soft sleeper and we were on a touristy train because we could sleep well. We were a little concerned about the train ride because we had heard stories about horrible train rides in Vietnam (especially along the east cost). So after a Vietnamese birthday party at our hotel in Sa Pa, a unique and amazing trek through the mountains (covered with rice fields) and a general good time with two English and two Danish, we returned to Hanoi at 5am in order to move to the airport and fly straight to Saigon. So we didn’t do the usual tourist track along the east coast via Hue, etc. because we couldn’t get any train tickets. This was due to the Vietnamese national day (public holiday). Actually it was the third public holiday that caused overbookings in literally all available means of public transport and therefore made us change our plans! It’s time for backpacker rule #3: Before you leave home, make sure you possess an overview of all public holidays at your destination and the people’s habits connected to these holidays.

So, again, we arrived in Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City by airplane. I generally liked the “capital of the south” better than I liked Ha Noi because the city just felt more laid-back while there was still something going on in every corner at every time of the day/night. In other words HCMC made the impression of a vibrant yet laid-back place on me where people strive for success in business (not for “lelax” as they do in Laos). Since we had the opportunity to meet Mathias (a fellow golfer and HSG buddy) we got to taste some of the best food of the trip (except for the soup that ruined my new white polo shirt) and again, generally just had a good time. In and around HCMC we went to see the really impressive war remnants museum (where the public can access pictures of American soldiers lifting up parts of the bodies of Viet Congs that had been hit by bombs, agent orange victims, napalm victims, hostages in “tiger cages” etc.) as well as the Cu Chi Tunnels (the famous, incredibly narrow tunnels where Cu Chi soldiers hid during the Vietnam war). Generally speaking, HCMC was very interesting and very good governmental propaganda for uninformed visitors.

We then moved on to Phu Quoc, a relatively undeveloped yet beautiful island in the south of Vietnam. We relaxed, enjoyed the beach (where we had lunch aka “chocolate pancakes and banana shakes” as well as dinner) and I could finally finish my BA thesis Yippie! The only downside was the fact that I turned myself into a Lobster by walking along the beach for a few hours - what a tragedy! After two days of relaxation we took a ferry to Rach Gia from where we took a bus to Ha Tien in order to start the most adventurous part of our trip so far…

After we came back from our trip to the hill tribe village we spent some more time chilling in Chiang Mai (Bow Chiang Mai Guesthouse) before another van came to pick us up and take us in direction Chiang Khong (or so) where we would stay over night in order to cross the border in the morning. Since we were the last passengers to enter the van, I got a crappy seat in the back. Actually I got half a seat because the other half was used by the luggage of some girls who had taken huge suitcases instead of backpacks on their backpacking trip - I still keep their faces in “good” memory.

Arriving at the hostel we could prove what we had called the “backpacker rule of thumb for trips” before. The rule says that as a typical backpacker you want to tell people stories about you being ripped off, going through serious sh*#! and still pretend to be enjoying your time. What you have to do is to bargain on the cheapest trip you could find, so as to pay half the price of what normal tourists pay and you’ll get a real backpacker bullshit trip for sure - for only half the price of real comfort (Half the price in Thailand usually means that you save about 2-3 USD per day, which according to our experience the typical backpacker spends on beer. So in fact if you do shitty trips or you travel in comfort is not a matter of money it is rather a matter of your valuation of beer). So after this crappy bus ride we arrived in a even worse hostel at the thai border were we were served crappy food. We decided that we’d make this trip our first and very last “real backpacker” experience. For our gusto we had gone through enough trouble by that time and we prefer telling stories about the policemen at the customs offering you marijuana - which actually happens quiet often in Laos - to stories about the crap we “survived”.

After a good sleep in a dirty as hell hostel we crossed the border to Houai Sai, where we got offered marijuana for the first time by our Lao tour guide. Then we got our visa and guess what … they offered us marijuana again. Do we really look like drug addicts? I didn’t think so until this point of time. We moved about 150 m in direction of the place where we were supposed to take a boat bound for Pakbeng (half way to Luang Prabang) and we got offered marijuana again. This time a shop owner wanted to sell us something “to smoke”. There must be something about us making us look like we actually wanted to smoke one of the economically most important agricultural products of Laos. Entering the boat, the ticket officer also had some special green substance to offer and when we reached the guest house in the evening someone entered to offer us .. exactly “a smoke”. Ok, let’s face it. Rule #2: As a backpacker you have to deal with drug dealers because typical backpackers seem to smoke weed.

- STOP -

Have I mentioned that the wooden seats on the boat with about 30cms space for the legs and a 100% vertical backrest didn’t really add to my positive mood and neither did the fact that electricity in Pakbeng was turned off at 10.30pm so that we had no more fan? Pakbeng itself is a cosy village that only exists to host tourists on their way to Luang Prabang. I liked it but I didn’t like the food we were served by a “real” Indian (my bet goes for Malaysia; just to make sure I don’t forget: the waiter at this restaurant was trying to sell us ”something to smoke” too). We had been warned by our loyal travel guide LP that Lao usually don’t consume their food as it’s still hot. I prefer re-heated food to be hot rather than cold when I eat it.

Surprisingly we had a nice group of people around us and could catch a nice place on the floor in the front of the boat for the second day of our trip (9 hours boat ride). In fact the second day was ok and the incredibly nice riverside guesthouse in Luang Prabang (we paid comparably expensive 13 dollars for the room) finally turned my mood back to holiday mode.  We met up with the fairly international crew (Chile, Argentina, Spain, Ireland, England, Germany, Switzerland) that we had spent the day with, went to a restaurant had a few drinks and talked a lot (aka had fun). The next days were similar: some sighseeing, “international dinners” at nighttime and then some local market / club experience (Lao fake western music rocks!). One of the highlights was the nearby waterfall which featured crystal clear turquoise water - a dream came true as I stood in front of the “natural swimming pool”. In general Luang Prabang felt like real holiday again and I really loved the place for it’s combination of nature, markets, well preserved french colonial style buildings and laid-back people. (Although the many marijuana dealers aka waiters, tuk tuk drivers and tour guides got a little annoying after a while.)

We took a bus to Vientiane on which we got to know a German girl who had spent an internship there two years ago. She knew the place quiet well and again (like in Beijing and Hong Kong) we didn’t need a map to get around town and to discover the best restaurants/bars around. Vientiane is not a special place in any way but I still liked it. In summary, I absolutely loved Laos but I wouldn’t recommend anyone taking the boat trip we took. I’d rather recommend to fly straight to Luang Prabang and take a one day boat trip from there to the north.

Again, I have to postpone my picture uploads due to extremely slow internet connection.

“Dear passendschas, we will shohtly be arriving in Bangkok International Airport, please put your seats …”, said the Captain. These were the words which made me feel like our holidays had finally started. Even though Beijing was new to me, I was used to Chinese culture and Chinese cities before. I knew basically what to eat how pronounce the English words for people to understand them and therefore didn’t feel entirely foreign there. I felt at home in Hong Kong and was looking forward to feeling foreign to Thailand. I was looking forward to experiencing something completely new.

So here we were, at the centerpoint of old-new fusion, where daily relaxation was supposed to meet strong business ambitions. We tried to get an impression of every side of Bangkok. We stayed close to the business disctrict (if there is such thing as ONE business district in Bangkok), tried out the fairly new sky train, took a boat tour on the river (the canals: no snake farm, no orchid farm) went to the Grand Palace, saw the Reclining Buddha (read: Recycling Buddha) and tried good Thai curries, spicy soups, etc. (of course Flo had to eat with chop sticks as well). All in all Bangkok was an interesting place that I would not want to live in (not even for a few months) in the years to come. Therefore it was probably the last (very interesting) time that I spent some part of my holidays in Bangkok in this decade.

After we had some trouble to move further north from Bangkok (due to the public holiday during the Songkran festival), we booked a flight to Chiang Mai and arrived there at the zenith of the Songkran (aka Water Festival). We had to make our way through the water spitting masses. Literally the whole city was on their feet spitting water at each other exactly on this one street that we had to pass to reach our hostel. People were respectful and left our backpacks as dry as possible while they made sure every single spot of our bodies/clothes was entirely wet. The other days in Chiang Mai were extremely relaxed because the 300 temples are all located around the centre and you’d never walk more than one km from one to the other. We decided to take a trip to some hill tribe village and stay there over night. The trip was exhausting, especially because of the incredible heat. But the guitar music at the fire (played by some seriously drunk inhabitants of the village) on top of mountains, where we could finally breath fresh air again, could more than compensate for that. In Summary, our stay in and around Chiang Mai was a good holiday with some interesting insights into Thai culture.

Again, pictures for this post will follow as the opportunity arises.

Coming back to see so many people was a great experience. The arrival felt a little bit like coming home to me. Getting back to Wan Chai, passing all the familiar spaces in central and finally shaking hands with some of the guys who added a lot of shared memories to my exchange was just great. Although I had been there before, I used the opportunity to introduce Florian to the calm side of Hong Kong a.k.a. Cheung Chau Island where we took a walk around the island and generally just enjoyed a laid-back day with nice weather. We spent a day at university and went for lunch with the Swedish (plus Lady Holly). Another day we did a bus tour around Hong Kong Island with stops in Pokfulam, Aberdeen, Stanley, Shek O and Central. We went to Oysters and Volar (obviously with a large part of THE team) and continued the next day with a trip to the Bid Buddha as well as a “hang-over” brunch at Brunch Club. We concluded our stay with a very international barbecue at Shek O beach (thank you very much for making this happen, Julian!) as well as another night with dinner with the Koreans (Holly, Ashley and Bobby).

On monday we left our beloved couch at Gabin’s and Vincent’s to see a friend’s dad in Macau. Since I had visited him before I knew he was a perfect host and I expected that he was going to make us feel at home. He offered his world-reknown hospitality again and we therefore both enjoyed to chat about the recent past as well the happenings in Macau in a 100% relaxed atmosphere with excellent food and comfortable accomodation. We got to see the Lisboa, the Grand Lisboa, the Venetian, the Sands, etc. and we even got to understand some basic rules of professional gambling.

In summary, our stay in Hong Kong was a good experience for Flo. He really liked the place. For me it was more about seeing the people which I really liked as well. Macau was great too and we were therefore keen to make some more valuable experiences on our route in South-East Asia.

(Pictures will be published as the opportunity arises. Some are already accessible through Facebook.)

After the first night out in Bejing during which we ate Scorpions (taste like nice crisps) strange worms (disgusting!) and other weird stuff, we were prepared for another big walking trip in Beijing. I guess that we walked about 10-20km each day because the city is so spread out and we regularly underestimated the distances from one sightseeing spot to the other. We saw the olympic stadium (the bird’s nest), the soon to be finished CCTV headquarters, the Great Wall, the forbidden city, the Beijing city planning exhibition, etc. .Looking back, I’d say that the highlights of our stay in Beijing were the Peking International Youth Hostel for accomodation, the “three guizhou men” restaurant for the most delicious Chinese cuisine I got to taste so far and the excursion to the Great Wall (walk from Jin Shan Ling to Simatai). You can get a taste of our stay in Beijing by enjoying the following pictures:

Our room at the Peking International Youth Hostel

The roof tops of the forbidden city

Eating scorpions

Eating disgusting worms

The food market

The bird’s nest

Open Mic night at Lush

You may also want to enjoy a 360 degree view from the great wall. You can find many more pictures on Facebook.

Remark: I posted this note on Facebook before because I could not access wordpress from behind the Great Firewall (eg China).

After a nice and comfortable flight from London to Beijing we finally started our trip. At least feelingwise the trip didn’t start before our touch down at the brand new modern and cool Terminal 4 at Beijing Intl. Airport. We arrived there at 7am so we had a whole day to “waste”. We reduced our cost to reach the city by not believing the first taxi driver who offered to take us to the centre (which is probably coincidentally located just in front of his friend’s art gallery). A nice shuttle bus ride later we stood right in front of our hostel and therewith next to the infamous forbidden city.

The most obvious option for us was to leave the luggage and go straight into the mysterious place which turned out to be not as mystical as we expected it to be. The thousands of tourists visiting the forbidden city at the same time as us might have had an influence on our impressions but mainly as Europeans we are just used to other ways of conserving a people’s history. We are not used to 1cm of dust on top of silk armor and hundreds of years old weapons. We are not used to paly (blasse) colours on buildings. Nevertheless it was a very nice first real day of our journey. We got to see very impressive ancient buildings with an interior that is entirely different from what you would see at any European castle. Everything is so much more simple. Signing off now waiting a few more minutes for James and Sophie to take us for dinner

After a comfortable night in a train between Zurich and Frankfurt, I was lucky enough to wait at the check-in counter for Florian to arrive and got nothing but a call to ask me to reschedule the flight. That was a good start of the trip: We were looking for adventure, here we got a first slice.

Florian finally made it to FRA about 10 Minutes before the closure of the check-in counter so we could catch our flight in time, move to London and take a “London in a very small nutshell” tour in a few hours. At night we met Pippo at some random Japanese restaurant and then moved to a pub to have a beer before I would eventually fall asleep inside the pub

Because we can´t edit our pics here, please follow the links to get some impressions (big picture size) of what we saw yesterday:

Buckingham Palace

Westminster Station

Pub in London

My brother just launched a new Kyte Channel called “Global Startup TV”. The channel currently contains a trailer for the upcoming START Summit 2008 (April 17th, 2008, St. Gallen => apply here) as well as some speeches from the START Summit 2006. To German speakers I highly recommend listening to Mark Korzilius (currently only on YouTube). Mark is the founder of Vapiano and Tam Tai.

We were actually planning to start our trip with a nicely prepared visit to Tibet. Unfortunately Swiss Newspaper NZZ (and some others) reminded us that politics still plays a role when you plan your trips. Even if we wanted to risk a little adventurous “Chinese Army Sightseeing” trip, they would just not allow us to enter the country. We’ve paid our flights, a driver, hostels, etc. and still we won’t be able to go to Tibet - that sucks! Surely this is not the only concern one could have about Tibet these days but I’m not going to make statements related to politics / conflicts on this blog because I think that there’s too much room for misinterpretation.

We have finally I’m currently trying to figured out where else to go and how we could possibly get at least SOME money back. I’ll update this post as I have news on where to find us during the next weeks. because we are lucky enough to get almost all our money back. We decided to extend our stay in Beijing for a few days and then go straight to Hong Kong, where we were supposed to go after visiting Kathmandu. Our trip could then either will then be continued to Bangkok and later to or Manila It all depends on because we could match our trip with our friend’s schedule because he was supposed to who will take us around his home country.

We had an interesting workshop on the future of mobile applications. After an introduction to the topic by Marc Stieger, Mark Forster took over the stage and guided us through a little brainstorming about the future of Mobile 2.0. Some nice ideas came up, even if they were not really revolutionary, some of them could have some great potential to become the next big thing in mobile applications, I guess.