I had booked a 2-day tour, as I didn’t have more time for a longer trip. The boat we were on for that time was really, really cool. It was quite big with 3 floors and everything. Luckily I was the only person that was travelling alone, so I got the best room on the ship just for myself. It was on the top floor, big bed, air con, own bathroom and a big balcony. The only “bad” thing about the boat was, that it was extremely slow. It took us hours until we reached the stone formations. But it was all worth it: Amazing scenery!

The captain found a nice place to stay for the night and we spent some good time jumping from the ship and having fun, while the crew was preparing a fantastic meal for us. It was plenty and tasted really good.

Afterwards we got ourselves into some kayaks and paddled to a nearby cave. It was really exhausting, but the scenery around us made up for it. The cave however was nothing special. The ones I saw in Thailand were much better.

We paddled back while the sun set behind the rock formations and hulled them into nice red colors. We then had another good meal and spent the rest of the night playing card games and socializing. All people on board were in my age group, which was pretty cool.

On the next day our captain brought us to some island, where some of our group (who booked the 3-day tour) stayed for another night, and we picked up some others from another group to bring them home. We then slowly shipped back to the harbor and made our way back to Hanoi. On the next day it was time to say goodbye to South-East-Asia, as I hopped on a bus to China…

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After some exhausting 18h hours I finally arrived in Ninh Binh at 2 o’clock in the night, where I woke up some guest house owner near the train station, who kindly provided me with a bed. On the next day I rented a motorbike from him to visit various sites around the city. First stop was the old settlement of an ancient capitol. There wasn’t too much too see except a small temple. The surrounding nature however was really beautiful!

The next stop should have been a place that’s supposed to look like Halong Bay near Hanoi or Yangshuo in China with its carst stone formations. I didn’t have a real map so I just started to drive into the direction, where I thought it would be. The road however decided to head into another direction without a crossroad to change ways. In the beginning the mountains were very far away, but after a while I found myself right in between them. I was totally lost and cruised around for 2h without having any clue where I was. I just knew I had to head left to get back into the direction of the city, but the road kept on going straight or right. Really unfortunate. Or was I lucky, exploring the Vietnamese backcountry like that, far away from any tourists? In the end, that’s what traveling is all about, isn’t it? It definitely was great fun! At one time I even got stopped by the police, who just was curious and wanted to know where I’m from etc.

After a while I found my way back to the main road and eventually found my destination. By that time it was already pretty late (about 4 pm) and it seemed that I was the last tourist going in, as I barely saw any tourists and the ones I saw, where going in the other direction, towards the exit.

I forgot the name of the place (and I’m to lazy to look it up now), but basically you have these incredibly beautiful mountain formations there, with rice fields in between them and a small river going through, where you hire a boat driver that roars you through.

It was really stunning! And interestingly to see: Most people here don’t roar with their arms, they sit back, relax, and roar with their legs…

After the trip was I finished I watched the sunset and then headed back to my guesthouse, where I returned the motorbike and went out to get some food. Unfortunately there weren’t may restaurants around, so I went so some small local place on the street, where the waitress didn’t speak any english. So I just waited until someone ordered something that looked eatable, pointed on it and made her understand that I wanted the same.

On the next day I hopped onto a train to Hanoi, as I had to keep on moving, with very little time left on my visa…

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In the afternoon I decided to walk to the beach. It was a bit further away (about a 1h walk), but the way led along a beautiful river, rice paddies etc., so I quite enjoyed the walk.

The beach was pretty big, with a nice line of palm trees between the road and the beach and some mountains in the background. Surprisingly it was rather empty. As there wasn’t much to do and no people to meet, I spent a few hours in the burning sun and the little bit cooler water, before I walked back.

In the evening I went outside looking for a nice place to watch the football world cup. I found a small place with a TV and a group of locals sitting outside. I thought cool, was I wanted to watch the game with some locals, but once I tried to sit down, one guy was like “no! no! no!” and pointed in another direction. I have no clue whether he just didn’t want me there or if he just wanted to help me. Anyway, I walked into the direction the guy pointed and found a huge place with an open screening. Worked for me and surprisingly it was mainly (98%) Vietnamese people watching, also the town is a real tourist magnet. I only stayed for the first game and went to bed afterwards, as I was still very tired from the bus ride and the second game would have been at 1:30 in the night, thanks to the different time zones…

On the next day I wanted to go to a mountain pass that I read about in the guidebook and the internet. It was a bit further away, so I rented a scooter and got on the road. It took me quite a while to get there, but it was a really cool drive along the coast line and the mountain pass itself was pretty amazing. The road wound itself up around the mountain, passing beautiful secluded beaches and the top offered some really amazing views in all directions.On the top there was a small radio tower and weather station, as well as some old military bunkers and stuff. I didn’t drive down on the other side, as it already was pretty late and I had told Bram that I would meet him at 6 o’clock to watch the next football game. So I just had a coffee on the top and then went back on the bike to drive home.

Back home I returned the bike, on which I had put ~250km, and met with Bram to get some food and watch the game. Afterwards we walked a bit around the city, which is beautiful lit in the night, and checked out a few bars as well as some kind of fare.

On the next day I just walked a bit around the city and took some pictures of the nice old town, which sadly was transformed into a complete shopping town for tourists. It was always the same: Tailor, shoe shop, restaurant, souvenirs. Repeat.

On the next day I wanted to go to Ninh Binh, a small city shortly before Hanoi. So I went into a travel agency and booked a ticket with them. I couldn’t book it directly at the train station, as Hoi An itself didn’t have one and I didn’t want to rent a scooter again, just to drive to the next town to buy a ticket. So I told the girls in the travel agency, that I wanted to buy a sleeping ticket. They said OK, told me a price and I paid. They said I could pick up the ticket in the evening. I went back to my hotel and started to read in my book. After maybe 10 minutes, one of the girls appeared and said that she was sorry, but they charged me the wrong amount and asked me to come back to the agency. So I walked back there, paid the right amount. It didn’t take another 10 minutes and there the girl was again. She said I should come to the agency. Again. There they explained me, that they were sorry, but there would be no more sleeping tickets (also they made a call, when I’ve been there the first time, to check that). She asked if it was OK, if she booked a soft seat for me. I didn’t really have a choice, as I was running out of time and didn’t want to spend another night in Hoi An, so I said ok. She said I could pick the ticket up at 9 o’clock. I wasn’t sure if I was able to make that, as I wanted to see the football game that day, so she said in case I didn’t make it, she would give it to the reception at my hotel…

So later that night, shortly after 9 o’clock, I walked back to my hostel. About halfway between the place where I watched the game and the travel agency, I met the two girls from the travel agency on the road with their scooters. They said they just dropped my ticket off and were going to get something to eat now. They were really sorry, about all the inconveniences, so they invited me to come along. I just had something to eat, but who would say no to a free meal?! So I tagged along and they gave me another pho (soup) and a beer. They were really nice, but I had to get up early the next day (as a motorbike driver would pick me up at 6 am to bring me to the train station), so we called it an early night, after we had finished eating,  and they drove me back to my hotel, where I packed my stuff and went to bed…

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On the second day Bram and I booked a boat tour, that someone recommended to us. I didn’t take any pictures, but let’s say it was different from all the boat trips I did so far. In the beginning we went to some island with a tacky museum on it. Not what I signed up for, so I stayed on the boat and saved the entrance fee. Next stop was another small island, where we were able to snorkel a little bit. Unfortunately the viewing distance in the water was really limited, but near the coast I was still able to see some nice corrals; almost no fish so. Next stop was another island, where we were supposed to go on land and relax on the beach, but the beach didn’t look so good and they wanted more money, to go on the island, so we stayed on the boat, as most of the other western people (there were about 50% western people and 50% vietnamese people) and just had a good time playing cards and stuff.

Then came the part where it got really interesting. The boat captain claimed, that he could sing a song in every language in the world. To prove this, they build up some improvised drums and a few other instruments and he started singing some famous songs. Then he asked everybody were he was from and then invited all the people from one country onto the stage and sang a song in their native language. We had some Australiens, Germans, Dutch, Scotts and god knows what. Really entertaining, especially for all the Vietnamese people on board. Afterwards they opened the free floating bar, where a guy in the water gave some kind of red liquor away. It was really chaotic in the water, as everybody, especially the Vietnamese people, went crazy, so most of the time you got a nice cocktail of that red liquor and sea water. Luckily I didn’t get sick on the next day.

One of the guys, Sean from Australia, had a nice room in the Novotel and he invited everybody that was interested for an after party to his place. Bram decided to take the overnight bus to Hoi An, but I thought this would probably be a nice event, so I stayed. The room was on the 11th floor, so we had a really nice view over the whole beach. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera…

We had a really good evening in the hotel room and went to a nearby bar / club later… Good times, good people.

On the next day I didn’t do anything in particular. I also booked a night bus to Hoi An and passed the time on the beach with reading etc. On the beach someone was selling these strange, little cakes which were really delicious. Nearby there was a Vietnamese family having a picnic and their young boy was constantly running around and found my book of great interest. Especially a photograph from Laos, which I used as a bookmark. I decided to give him a piece of my cake, which he greatly excepted. He immediately ran to his family and proudly showed off his cake. The family seemed to like that, because they gave the boy a beer and a few fruits and sent him over to me. Before I had finished the beer, they brought another one and later another one… Many people told me, that the Vietnamese people are not really friendly and are worth than the Thais. This is just not true! A while later another family sat down next to me and they also gave me some fruits. I think Vietnamese people really like to share, without wanting anything in return…

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We unpacked our stuff and then walked a bit around and explored the city. In the evening we went to a bar, that I read about on the internet. It was definitely the craziest bar I ever went to. Unfortunately I only took 2 pictures, as the owner didn’t like that, because his piece of art wasn’t completely finished yet. While sitting in a small corner, enjoying a beer, this group of Vietnamese people walked by with candles. We were wondering what was going on, so one of the waiters said we should follow them, they were getting a tour. So we joined them (a group of Vietnamese teachers from Saigon), while the owner of the bar explained them the various places. One of the teachers sometimes translated a bit for us. The bar had 6 or 7 floors, with dozens of little stairways, corners with benches and tables and all the walls etc. were modeled with strange faces and other weird stuff. It was really interesting! If you’re ever in Dalat, go and check out the “100 Roof Bar”.

Afterwards the group invited us to join them for a midnight snack. They paid for everything, as they seemed to have some kind of expense account from their school. It was a really funny evening.

On the next day we went to visit the “Crazy House”. I’m not completely sure, but I think it’s from the same architect, that owns the bar. Anyway, it is, as the name says, a really crazy house. I guess the pictures speak for themselves…

We kept on and tried to walk to a cable car that they had in the city. We got kind of lost and decided we had to leave the road, as it was going into the wrong direction. So we made our way through the forest and kept walking into the direction, were we thought the cable car must be.

After a while we were finally able to see it; except that we walked all the way to other end of the cable car!

On that side there was a big lake, were you could do boat tours and stuff, but as the weather looked like rain, we decided to take the cable car back. A few minutes after we entered the cable car, it started to rain…

In the evening we met with Bram and went out for some beers. On the table you can see something I grew really fond of in Vietnam: Quail eggs. Some Vietnamese guy in Saigon introduced me to them and now I’m really addicted to them. Back home I hated boiled eggs, but these little ones are a really nice snack to go with beer and you always have something to do (-> peeling).

On the next day we decided to do a trip to the highest mountain in the area. Our guesthouse had a tour, but we all shared the opinion, that 18$ was too much money to just walk up a mountain, so we went on and did it on our own. We got a taxi to the foot of the mountain and then started walking up. The first part wasn’t that good, as we had to walk on the concrete street uphill. But after a while we found a small walking path to the top, which was really nice. In the beginning it was pretty wide, but the closer we got to the top, the smaller the path got.

From the top we had an amazing view of the surrounding country side, but unfortunately it was really cloudy and looked like rain again, so we just had a small pick nick on top (we brought some sandwiches) and then walked down again.

The path was a bit muddy, which wasn’t a big problem going uphill, but going down it was a completely different story. It got really slippery and we landed on our back several times. Still a lot of fun so.

For the next day, Bram and I booked a ticket to Nha Trang, while Lars went on in the other direction, to Saigon.

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On the next day I explored the nearby area. The views were nice, but the beach itself was nothing special at all. It was very windy, so swimming was not really an option. I spent most of the day reading my book.

In the evening I had arranged to meet with Bram at his place for dinner. I tried walking there, but after about 20 minutes I gave up and took a motorbike, as I still had about 350 house numbers to go. We found a nice place and had some food. Afterwards we went looking for a “bia hoi” place, but we couldn’t find any, so we settled for a small, local outdoor place. It was a really funny evening, as the owners of our “bar” / cooling box had a huge fight with the bar / cooling box owners from the next place. The whole family was involved, lot’s of yelling, police etc. So much better than TV…

For the next day we decided to do a jeep tour to some nearby sights. Our driver picked us up in the morning with an old jeep and drove us to this little river, where he told us to walk through it to the canyon. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we started walking through the river, which was only about 10cm deep.

After a while we came to this beautiful canyon of red stones on one site and palm trees on the other, with a little waterfall at the end of the stream. It was really cool and not what you expect to see in Vietnam at all!

After that our driver brought us to a fisher “village”. There weren’t that many houses, but hundreds of fisher boats… We took a few pictures and continued our trip to the next stop: The white sand dunes.

There, in the middle of this tropic country, suddenly we walked into a desert. Beautiful, big, white sand dunes with a small lake next to it. Truly Amazing. From some kids we rented two big parts of plastic, for sliding down the sand dunes. While we walked into the direction of the dunes, two little girls approached us and offered to show us the best spot. We followed them to the highest point of the dunes, where they offered to take pictures from us, while we were sliding down the dunes.

At first we were struggling a bit, but after a few runs we had figured it out and it was a lot of (sandy) fun. Especially if you lay down head first on these slides, you got really fast. Only the breaking at the end was kind of a problem, so we ended up being covered in sand from head to toe, so we decided to take a swim in the lake. It was pretty nice, so spend some good time in the water, while the girls got inpatient and asked for money. Neither of us thought it would be worth paying someone, just to take a picture of you, so we said no and after a while the girls gave up and walked away. Sorry girls.

Afterwards we climbed up the dune again and took some picture series while jumping over the edge. Good times.

Our next stop were the red sand dunes, where we were supposed to watch the sunset. Personally I liked the white dunes better than the red ones, but I guess that’s a matter of taste. Unfortunately by now the weather turned bad, so we weren’t able to watch the sunrise.

It was a great day. I really liked the sand dunes and the canyon and never would have expected to see something like this in SEA. As there wasn’t much more to see and I didn’t like the beach too much here, I booked a bus ticket to Dalat for the next day.

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So as we arrived in the backpacker street, we started looking for a place to sleep. The first place we checked out, didn’t look too bad, but it was too expensive for her. It was not exactly cheap, but I probably would have taken a room there, if I would have been on my own, but I thought to myself: Just follow her and let her find the cheapest place available. She haggled a bit with the hotel owner, but he (his mother) wouldn’t go down with the price, so we walked out of the place, looking for another hotel. We came about 20m far, when suddenly the guy came running out of the place, stopped us and said we could have a double room for free. We were a bit puzzled, but he explained, that all we had to do, would be teaching English to some kids for 2h. Didn’t sound too bad and for a free room… We both didn’t mind sharing a room, so we accepted the offer. No idea why he had to walk out of the place first to get this offer…

So the next day (after I went to the Chinese Embassy to apply for a Chinese Visa), a taxi drove us and two other people to a nearby school, were they had several classes in all age groups from 4-17. They put us all in different classes and explained us what to do. I got lucky as they put me in the classes with the oldest kids (14-17). They didn’t have any real lessons any more, so my job was just to talk to them, ask questions etc. It wouldn’t have been to bad, but the school was a bit too small for all the kids, so there were 3 different classes in the first floor, without any walls or anything in between. So it was really loud and I had trouble understanding the kids. But it was an interesting experience anyway.

After two hours a taxi brought us back. The belgium girl moved out of our room as one of her friends had arrived that day and the room was too expensive for me alone (they didn’t have any single rooms left), so I went out again, looking for a new place. Well, I didn’t find a good room, but an interesting one. It was on the 6th floor of a small building and was basically a birds nest, as 3 of the 4 walls consisted of wired fence. The view however was really nice!

In the evening I went out into the buzzing night live of the backpacker street, which had a nice mix of travelers and locals. And after a while I finally found, what I’ve been reading a lot about in the guide book: A place selling “Bia Hoi”. Fresh beer aka the cheapest draught beer in the world. One glass of beer for 0,22€. The bar was really cool and I think I spent every night there, as long as I stayed in Saigon. They only had these little plastic chairs (as everywhere in SEA) and not really much space. The funny thing was, they rotated all the chairs and tables all the time, to make space for new people. So every night you ended up on at least 2 or 3 different tables, so I met a lot of people. Locals, tourists, Expats… Good Times.

On the next day I went to one of the many war museums. It was very interesting, as they had many weapons, tanks, planes, helicopters ect. on display and a really good exhibition of photos taken by photographers who were killed during the war (my favorite).

I spent the rest of the days (I had to stay 6 days in Saigon to wait for my Chinese Visa) strolling around, visiting various smaller sights and just “living” in Saigon, like going to the cinema etc. I’m really not a big fan of big cities, but for some reason I really liked Saigon. But it’s not for the faint hearted, as the traffic is crazy. It’s motorbike madness! HCM has a population of 8 million people, of which 300.000 have a car and 4 million have a motorbike! Whenever you cross the street, it’s best no ignore what you have learned as a child (look left and right first) and just started walking. The hundreds of motorbikes will just flow around you. Once you show fear, you’ve lost so!

On my last day I booked a tour to the CuChi Tunnels. A place nearby were you could see some original Vietcong tunnels. Most of the stuff was nothing new for me or anybody else, who’s seen most of the Vietnam War movies, but it was still interesting too see all that stuff with your own eyes. Like the tunnels. I knew that they were small, but this is just amazing:

They had a good display for various types of traps too. Some of them were really creative (not this one).

They also had a small shooting range were you could shoot various weapons, like the M16, AK47, M60, M1… It wasn’t really cheap (about 10€ for 10 bullets), so at first I didn’t want to do it, but then I thought: I’m only living once, so what the hell. I bought 10 bullets for the biggest gun they had around, the M30 machine gun.

The whole fun is over in about a second, but it’s a niiiiice feeling. While shooting you don’t really notice it, but once you’re finished, you’re ears a beeeping, as it’s f***ing loud!

A few meters next to the shooting range you could see large bomb craters, created by B52 bombers during the war. While there’s now a forest on top, it was more like a wasteland during the war, as all the vegetation was destroyed by bombs, agent orange and other stuff.

They also had some tunnels that you could crawl through. These were already enlarged for tourists (about 3x of the originals size) and they were still to small for me. It was incredibly exhausting for the upper legs and extremely hot. That was definitely no fun in the original tunnels!

On my last night I met up with Bram again, who was also travelling through Vietnam. My next stop was Mui Ne. So was his, only that we would be leaving one day after me. We had a few beers and arranged to meet up again in Mui Ne…

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After that I walked along the river, where I got approached by this woman, who told me she had a boat etc. and if I wanted to go to the floating markets… I haggled a bit with her and got the price down a bit. It was still a bit expensive, but about 5$ cheaper than what the guy in the guesthouse had offered me. We agreed to meet at 5 in the morning at the pear.

I decided to go to a nearby bar and have a beer before I would call it an early night. As I was sitting there with my beer, a guy came in, ordered a beer, saw me and sat right next to me. It took me a second, but then I realized that it was the guy from the guesthouse. He was like: My sister just called me, you ordered a boat trip from her? Small world. We had a nice talk and another beer, for which he paid for and he said I would get picked up at the guesthouse in the morning… (As it turned out, neither he nor his sister picked me up, but his brother)

Anyway, we took off as the sun was just rising and cruised along the river for a while, until we reached the first floating market. It’s basically a ton of smaller and bigger ships selling various stuff. Mostly fruits and vegetables. If you want something, you just dock onto that boat and buy whatever you want. My guy steered me through all the boats, while I took my pictures. It was interesting to see, especially the bigger boats, as the people seemed to live on these…

After a while he said we would go to another floating market, a bit further away. He took the “scenic route” and drove me through these small canals. Really cool!

The second floating market was a bit smaller and had mainly smaller boats, but less tourists, as most of the bigger tours don’t go here. We docked onto one of the boats and bought a few water melons. There are really small here, like the size of a handball…

After about one hour he drove back in the direction we came from. I thought the tour was finished and he would bring me back home, but at some point he turned right into a smaller side arm of the river. He then stopped at a small peer and told me to get off the boat. He brought me to this small place where apparently his brother was having a party. I still have no idea what kind of party it was, but I think it was something like a bachelor party, as it was only men. Anyway, they invited me to join them and gave me a beer and some of the best Vietnamese food I’ve had in my whole time there.

It was really delicious. All kind of different meat and some bread. No side dishes like rice or noodles. Just meat. Perfect! And lots and lots of beer. Every 5 minutes someone came and demanded to finish the class (-> ex). While I like drinking, this was a bit too much for me, as this was my first meal of the day and so much beer in so little time so early in the day was quite exhausting. After all it was about 11 o’clock in the morning!

They started singing karaoke and dancing around. They wanted me to sing too, but that’s not really my thing! And to be honest, I don’t even know the full lyrics of ONE song!!!

After a while I told them, that I might be time to go, as I wanted to go to Saigon in the afternoon, but they wanted me to spend the day with them. It would have probably beeen really funny, but as the drinking speed was a bit too fast for me and I had already checked out of the guesthouse, I declined. The brother was kind enough to drive me back to the hostel with his motorbike, to pick up my backpack, and then to the bus station.

While the floating markets were interesting, but nothing too exciting, the party with the locals was definitely a nice experience!

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Afterwards they rowed me through the floating village, which is, as the name says, a bunch of houses floating on the river. Many of the houses have a fish farm underneath it.

There was also an old lady on a boat selling noodles. The second Vietnamese guy on my boat called her and ordered two portions of noodles for him. They looked really delicious and he wanted me to buy some too. I would have, if I wouldn’t have known, that the woman is washing the plates and stuff in the river, which might not be toooo good for my stomach…

After he finished eating, we visited one of the fish farms. Apparently they are up to 6m deep and are right under the floating house. The owner also invited me, to take a look into the house. It was very functional, not much furniture etc.

The next stop was a small peer, where they dropped me off to visit a nearby mosque and some souvenir shops. Not really interesting, but it’s included in every tour in Asia.

When they brought me back, I visited the marked and got some cheap food and fruits. The fresh fruits are really one of the best things in Vietnam. You can buy 1kg of Rambutans for about 70 cents or 1kg of Leeches for 1-2€!!! And they are really delicious…

On the next day I went to Sam Mountain. I took the motorbike all the way to the top, as I didn’t want to walk up in the heat. I then told the driver to pick me up at the bottom again. From the top I had a nice few of the vietnamese and cambodian countryside. On the way down, there were a lot of small temples and stuff, which I more or less skipped, as they were nothing special at all.

After all, the mountain wasn’t that good and I was done with it pretty fast. So I decided to leave to Can Tho on the same day. I packed my stuff and walked through the streets to find a motobike driver, that could bring me to the bus station. I found one quickly, as they are  waiting on every street corner, told him that I wanted to go the bus station and he said OK. While he was driving, I was thinking to myself: Hmm, this way looks really familiar! And bam, he dropped me right of at the bottom of Sam Mountain. I asked him, where the bus station was and he pointed to the mountain. Ooookeeey. As it turned out, he didn’t speak any English at all, at he probably must have thought, hey he’s a tourist, so I bring him to the only tourist attraction nearby. Not very clever, as my huge backpack might have been a good hint, that I’m not gonna walk up a mountain. So I tried to explain to him, that I wanted to go to the bus station and not to the mountain, but he didn’t get it all. He then brought me to a nearby hotel, where the woman at the reception spoke a little english. I told her I wanted to go to the bus station and she just said: No! Aha. I tried several times: Bus…to Can Tho…Where is the bus station…etc. Luckily at that moment a mini bus turned up in front of the hotel and my motobike driver combined me saying Can Tho and the minibus outside having a sign saying Can Tho, and shoved me outside and pointed to the van. Not what I had in mind, as the mini bus is a bit more expensive that a big local bus, but I gave in and hopped into the bus…better than nothing.

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After about another hour we arrived in Ha Tien. Most people use this town only as transit station to a nearby island, but as I spend enough time on the beaches in Sihanoukville, I skipped the island and decided so spend a full day in Ha Tien. It’s not really a big town and there’s not much to see, so I just started to walk around with anything in particular planned, until a motorbike driver started to talk to me and convinced me to drive to a very popular beach nearby.

The beach itself wasn’t really nice, but it was crowded with locals (I was the only westener on there). I didn’t bring any bathing pants, so just sat down in one of the beach bars, had a few beers with my driver and enjoyed the flair.

After a while my driver asked me, if I wanted to go to the next few sites. His english was too bad to explain what it was, so I just hopped on the back of his motorbike and let him surprise me. The first stop was a small hill with a restaurant on top. Nothing really interesting; a nice view to Cambodia so…

The next stop turned out to be a mix of a summer toboggan run and a rollercoaster. He told me to get in the front of the card, while he was sitting in the back. On the way up I realized, that the brake, to control the speed, was on the back seat. So when we reached the top, where we got off to visit a small view point, I switched the seat and got in the back. My driver tried to convince me to get in the front, but I friendly declined. He then tried to explain to me, how the brake works, to which I responded: I won’t brake! (Unlike the summer toboggan runs in Germany, it is physically impossible for the cards to leave the track, as they are fixed to it like a rollercoaster, so there’s no reason to break at all). He thought I was joking but didn’t want to sit in the front either, so he got himself another card.

It was a really nice ride, as I got really fast without braking at all. I would have never expected to find something like this in South East Asia. A nice surprise!

After that he drove me back to town, where he invited me to his home to have a few more beers. When it started to rain he drove me back to my hotel and as he was a nice guy, I arranged with him, that he could pick me up in the morning to drive me to the bus station.

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