We've got a ton of exciting travel coming up!

Spent the morning researching various flight options to arrange meeting up with our daughter Lindsey and granddaughter Sadie in Paris. And the plan is starting to come together!

We've got her flights booked now. She's going to arrive in London a bit earlier and spend a couple of days with Ruth's aunt. Then they are going to hop on the chunnel train and take the train to Paris on May 1st. We will fly May 1st from Antalya, and meet them in Paris.

Good thing we all like different things!

We took the local transportation up to the central area yesterday. Not much to see, really. Hua Hin is a beach resort area and the beach is why people come here. 

The central area doesn't have much worthwhile. We wandered down to the beach, and then through some of the seedier bar and massage areas, but there isn't much going on there during the day.

Down to the beach!

It's too hot during the day to get a decent walk in, so we tried getting out early. But even before 8:00am, it's not early enough. You still end up drenched in sweat. Of course that would probably happen in the middle of the night as well, since the overnight lows are still around 27C (81F).

Our condo is only a ten minute walk from the beach, so we figured we might head that way just to check it out and walk along the beach.

Foreign exchange costs

First on the agenda here in Hua Hin was to get some more Thai baht cash. We had made an agreement with our host here to pay him for our accommodation in cash, and in exchange we got a healthy discount. But that discount is partially offset by the fact that it actually cost us money to get that cash.

Almost all Thai banks charge a fee of 220 baht ($6.20 USD, $8.40 CAD) for the privilege of using their ATM.

This will do for a couple of weeks!

It was a nice little guesthouse we stayed at near Bangkok's DMK airport. Really nice friendly people, and we've booked another night in there when we return to that airport to fly to Maldives on March 22nd.

Also, it's located a 15 minute walk from the terminal itself, and the commuter rail line to Bangkok's main train station. So it's really convenient as well.

Moving day today!

Didn't do anything yesterday! We were tired, and it was baking hot out, so other than getting out for some food, all we did for exercise was to walk with all of our worldly belongings from one cheap hotel room to another one.

But, we did a lot of internet research sitting in our air conditioned room, and got our condo and train tickets booked for our trip to Hua Hin today.

Change of plans!

We would have preferred to remain in Vietnam until March 22, but because of the screw up with the dates on our Vietnam visa, we had to leave the country by March 7th. Yes, we could have gone through the hassle and expense of getting an extension, but we didn't think it was worth it. In hindsight, maybe we should have, but of course hindsight is never useful, except as a learning experience!

Then we thought about going into Laos for a couple of weeks, but that was also going to involve visas, and the flights weren't cheap, and the route over land wasn't easy. 

Exploring Hanoi, Vietnam

On Monday, we spent a few hours wandering around Hanoi. Our hotel is located right in the center of the old quarter, and there is enough to see just walking about watching daily life that we didn't need to go very far. Still, we put on a lot of steps!

It is most fascinating watching the traffic. I took a couple of videos for you further down.

Out for a bike ride, then off to the big city of Hanoi

On Monday, our train to Hanoi didn't leave until just after 4:00pm, so we had most of the day to do some more exploring.

We rented a couple of bicycles and decided to ride up to the tourist boat port of Trang An just to see some different scenery and check out the area.

The right place, at the right time!

The highlight of the Ninh Binh area are the various boat tours that take you through the scenery and caves. There are quite a few options to sort through, and various routes to choose from. 

I did a lot of research, and we had made our choice and planned on doing a boat tour on Monday morning when it would be less busy. But it didn't turn out that way, and we're glad that we were in the right place at the right time to do things a little differently!

There's a reason it's busy here

There's not much to see in the actual town of Ninh Binh itself. But that's what people use as the transportation hub. Most of the hotels and restaurants are in the popular area at the town of Tam Coc, about 6 kms (3.7 miles) away.

And the reason Tam Coc is popular is because of the scenic geography with small rives flowing through three cave systems. The big attraction is a boat trip through the caves, although we are saving that for Monday when it will be less busy.

We found all the tourists!

And they are here in Ninh Binh. Every last one of them, apparently!

We woke up to another drizzly day in Vinh. You could tell it had rained quite a lot overnight, but fortunately we missed that and it was just drizzling a bit when we left for the train station.

February Expenses

Our expenses did pretty well in February, all things considered.

We had a budget of $2,385 CAD, and we spent $2,457 CAD ($1,810 USD) for the month. And the extra was solely related to our decision to fly from Da Lat to Vinh instead of taking buses. Without that, we actually would have been under budget. So we're really pleased with that.

One of the best meals we've had in Vietnam!

On Thursday, we took the minivan back to the city of Vinh. We simply went and stood on the main street. We were actually waiting for the number 31 bus that runs between Con Cuong and Vinh, but there are also the same system of minivans that we took to get to Con Cuong in the first place. And we were only at the stop for five minutes before one came along, so we hopped in it.

It was quite a bit quicker going back. We must have got in the "express" van, because it didn't make nearly as many stops as the one we took going up, and it was a little more expensive, at 120,000 dong ($4.90 USD, $6.60 CAD) per person for the two hour and twenty minute ride.

Last day in Con Cuong, Vietnam

Well, we haven't seen another westerner for five days... since we left the airport in Da Lat. 

And we also haven't seen any sunshine, at all! It hasn't really rained, it's just been foggy and overcast, with some occasional drizzle. Temperatures have been nice though, with highs around 20C (68F).