I've Got So Much Catching Up To Do

So today is the 9th, I'm in Osaka, Japan. My last post was on the third back in Siem Reap, so I've got a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately a lot of great GoPro pictures aren't going to be included because...eh, that's a lot of work and my workspace at this hostel isn't very comfortable.

General outline of events (mostly for my benefit, but I'll leave it in as a teaser):

1. Siem Reap
1. Day 2 Angkor Wat et al.
2. Day three, late morning flight back to Bangkok
2. One night back in Bangkok, (boring)
1. Early flight to Hanoi
3. Hanoi
1. Exploring the city, prison museum, lake, etc.
2. Day 2: Halong bay cruise
3. Day 3, early flight to Bangkok
1. Transfer to Osaka, long flight
4. Osaka
1. Arrived late, navigate trains to get near hostel
2. Get to hostel at 1 AM after getting kinda lost
3. Day 2: learning to navigate, Kaiyukan Aquarium, Osaka Castle

Ok back in Siem Reap!!!

For the fourth of july, we rode a tuk-tuk on a circuit through the many temples and temple complexes around Siem Reap. The most famous is Angkor Wat, but there are literally dozens more, and I really can't tell you the names of each without a lot of research to refresh my memory.

There was one with trees growing out of it all over. One with a big....causeway leading up (the first we visited). Many had steep stairs with no railings. This was seriously a cultural/sensory overload, beautiful but completely overwhelming. Any one of these temples could be a must-see in any town in the world, and here Siem Reap is just overflowing with them.

Not Angkor Wat

Not Angkor Wat

Uh, this one is from on Angkor Wat I think

Anyway. That adventure really tired us out. That night Christian finally found the crocodile burger he'd been looking for (for many meals we'd go to Pub Street in town, which was a very short walk away). The restaurant was hanging up american flag banners as we ate. 

Side note: Cambodia primarily uses USD as currency, but reverts to Riel for values less than $1.00. However, they won't accept any US bill that is at all damaged, because the banks there won't accept them. Uh, so that's some random education for you.

Back to Bangkok

Reall not much to say here. We went back to bangkok for the night so we could fly to Hanoi. We stayed at the same place...I don't know if I mentioned the funky electronics before, but back in our first stay they had keycards, and inside the room keycard holders that you had to drop the key in to get AC and power. 4 beds, so only one key needed to be in, the problem was that 3 beds if you dropped the keys in they would buzz loudly. Well, my bed's holder was ok, for a time until it would start to intermitently buzz and click--and to solve that you needed a card in the last beds holder which would buzz incesently if there was no card in mine.

Erm, anyway, for our second visit we got a different room.

We didn't do anything really. Went back to Terminal 21 mall because it's cool there. Oh, I watched Jurassic World.

Hanoi

Then we went to vietnam. Short flight, arrived nice and early (got to our hostel at...10am maybe?). The Little Hanoi Hostel 1. Very friendly staff. Vietnam uses Dong and USD interchangeably, but mainly they use dong. 

For our first day we walked around the old town district tarea of Hanoi where all the tourism and cool stuff is. Here's a stupid tree that couldn't figure out how to grow right:

I guess the main event was the Hoa Lo Prison museum, where we were taught how poorly the french treated communist political prisoners there (but they kept their courage, hurrah!). Here's a creepy batch of mannequin statue things to show what vietnamese communist prisoners endured.

There were other statues. The creepiest was in the dungeon cell...maybe I'll find that picture sometime.

And then later how well the Vietnamese treated American POWs there (great food, volleyball, medical care, what more could you want from prison?). 

Well, the information there might be taken with a grain of salt, because the Wikipedia page describes lots of torture and war crimes, using coercion of US prisoners to produce positive statements. They left that out of the museum. (Except when those damn French did it).

Ha Long Bay

This is sort of the "must-see" location for norther vietnam. A massive bay of towering limestone islands. I'm including a pic here that absolutely won't capture the scale and beauty of the place, but it's a nice pic anyway...sadly it's the only I'll give for now.

We took bamboo boat rides through little cave tunnels into the interior of islands, where we would be in the water surrounded on all sides by walls of rock. There's probably a geographical word for that...but I don't know it. 

Vietnam apparently liked to see shapes of animals in islands and rocks. There's a Stone Dog...some Fighting Cocks

The main spotlight fell on Thien Cung, or the Heavenly Cave, which is a big cave we walked through and our guide told us what all the stalactites and -mites were shaped like. The Heaven name comes from a spot where sunbeams strike down from the ceiling strikingly. Vietnamese myth focuses on a dragon that moved in there and chilled. Later married some fisherman's daughter and all the animals came to celebrate (and...evidently got turned into stalactites? Idk about that).

Anyway. That was another long trip that tired us out. Actually it was about 4 hours transit on a tour bus to and from the bay! 

In the morning we had to leave around 6 am, our hostel prepared us a little bag with some jelly sandwiches. Aww.

That day we flew to Bangkok. Stayed there for ~4 hours. Then flew to Osaka (a 5ish hour flight). Long day of travel. 

OSAKA

THis morning, the first thing we set out to do was get to the Osaka station and redeem our JRail passes. But what do you know, I left my passport at the hostel so I couldn't, I have to do it tomorrow.

After that we went to Kaiyukan, an awesome aquarium. They've got Whale sharks, dolphins...this Capybara here who was pretty chill

Man I gotta stop typing my back is killin me. 

I'm just gonna publish because it's been so long.

Uh...well, until next time, thanks for reading.