a picture supplement (and slight addition) to kev’s previous (ridiculously long) post.

pictured below: tri’s family, waterpark, ridiculous traffic, snails, housing, ice coffee.

left to right: tri, tri’s mom, trang, dam.

dalat, vietnam. (the alps of SE asia.) ***incredibly, kev didn’t get this far in his blog post, so i’ll give a quick recap, although i’m sure another blogpost will be coming soonish. last wednesday, we jumped a bus from ho chi minh, and 14 hours later landed in dalat, an incredibly beautiful mountain city–unlike anything we have seen in the past 4 months. although the pictures can’t do it justice, it was amazing, and the temperature was, although a welcomed change from the standard sweat-dripping-out-of-your-eyeballs, COLD! as cold as it was in michigan, we found out later. sporting the only warm clothing i had (sweatshirt and zipoff pants) i craved a hat and gloves the entire time. it was THAT cold. we didn’t stay long, just enough to fill up on aritchoke tea (a local speciality), avacados and strawberries (the cool weather apparently was the perfect environment for growing crops) and to galavant through the mountains on a motorbike.

it was well worth the stop.

pictured below: local kids coming home from school, kid bundled in hat and gloves on motobike (i promise, it was FREEZING in the mountains), artichoke tea, and a beautiful cemetary.

nha trang, vietnam. *** from dalat, we jumped back on the bus, took off our sweatshirts, and another 7 hours later, landed in the sunny, gulf shores of vietnam, nha trang. pretty much the entire time we were there, we spoiled ourselves rotten. dirt cheap rooms, beautiful sunny days, an entire day of lounging around an organic spa (mud baths, mineral springs, beautiful swimming pool) for less than $4 a person (kev kept commenting on how soft his skin felt after. dont tell him i told you :)), and island hopping–snorkling, fresh seafood, and jammin to a live band singing “Proud Mary” on the boat (mom, i belted it out with them in honor of you :)).

pictured below: mud spa and island hopping, complete with freshly caught sea annenomes for lunch.

now, we’re already in hoi an, the tailor-making capital of (i swear to god) the world. there are over 500 tailor shops in this tiny town. i caved, and am having a coat made as we speak. i’m a sucker for “cheap” things. i’m sure there will be plenty of pictures to post of everything very soon. as you can see, it seems like we’re flying up vietnam (our month long visa is already expiring in 10 days!!!!) but haven’t had adequate time (or quick enough internet access) to stay up to date on everything we’ve been doing. vietnam is a LONNNNNG country. from here we’re heading to a city called hue, which is 6 hours away, and then to hanoi (the capitol) which is another 17 hours away, and THEN we have to get our butts over to the Laos/Vietnam border, which i can only imagine will take close to 24 hours. so. we have a lot to see/do, in not much time! i feel bad i haven’t had time to post stories (god knows there’s a few to share!), we just can’t seem to update quick enough! anyway, we’ll try to keep you posted as often as we can…and although we may not be able to call as much as we’d like, know that we are thinking about all of you everday, and miss you something fierce.

happy trails, and enjoy the fall colors for us.

xxx

lgt

p.s. kev uploaded like 17 pages of
new photos on flickr, if you feel like seeing a few more… 🙂 www.flickr.com/shoelessone <3 edit: i have total buyers remorse. surprise surprise. cute coat, but come on now. what was i thinking. too bad there’s no “return with receipt.”