sylt & hamburg photo diary

SYLT & HAMBURG PHOTO DIARY.

saigon randoms

SAIGON RANDOMS. A compilation of all the left-over photos taken in Saigon throughout December-January, starting with my absolute favorite taken on the first day of 2012!

P.S. Chuc mung nam moi!

mekong delta: day three

MEKONG DELTA: DAY THREE. Last day in the Mekong Delta, we first hit the floating market and after visited a fruit farm. The highlight though was definitely visiting the local market before heading back to Saigon, It was much more exciting compared to the other local markets I had been to so far - live snakes! In their little glass cages it was fine, but while we were taking our pictures a 'snake hunter' came by with his newest catch and started pulling out the snakes and placing them on the table right next to me, help!

mekong delta: day two

MEKONG DELTA: DAY TWO. Between finding a cute, affordable apartment in downtown Rotterdam (yeeeees) and a gazillion deadlines (thanks, uni...), I've had very little time to sort out the +2000 photos taken in Vietnam this winter, but I'm working on it, so bear with me. Here are the pictures from our second day at the Mekong Delta, personally my favorite day, because the flooded Tra Su forest gone nature reserve was amazing. I'm not usually a friend of birds, but that day, every bird spotted made me squeal. Almost as must as I squealed when a huge spider decided to get acquainted with my back.

mekong delta: day one

MEKONG DELTA: DAY ONE. During our last week in Vietnam we decided to go on a 3 day trip through the Mekong Delta area. The first day was a bit touristy, we were travelling with a tour, so we did things like visit coconut candy and honey tea production sites, but most of the time was spent on the bus/boat/ferry as we made our way from Saigon to Chau Doc, a little town on the border to Cambodia.

hoi an + my son

HOI AN + MY SON. Our 3 days in Hoi An were filled with bipolar weather. The first day was mild, we strolled through the ancient town before heading to dinner in Da Nang. The second day was amazing so we got on our scooter and headed to My Son and then spent the rest of the day at the beach. Sadly, on our third day it rained all day and we were confined to our hotel room (hence close to zero photos taken in Hoi An). When we did leave once for lunch, we ended up completely soaked, no fun - we rescheduled our flight so instead of leaving the next day, we left that day, escaping the horrible weather to be welcomed by Saigon sun. :)

da nang

DA NANG. Still in the process of finding an apartment and getting back into university-mode (already had one deadline, next one is next week, mid-term in 2 weeks, shoot me now). Needless to say, I'm currently an absolute mess. Desperately need to get back on track, still have a pile of photos to sort out and then post. So here a step in the right direction: on our way from Hue to Hoi An our driver decided to play tour guide for the day, stopping every now and then for pictures and we even got a chance to go up the marble mountains. A 3 hour drive turned into a full-day adventure. :)

nomad

NOMAD. Left "home" in Vietnam 24 hours ago and just walked through the door of "home" in Germany! First post coming from outside of Asia... Currently loosing the battle against flu germs, thumbs down to airplane air, so glad I have not watched contagion yet, am so ready to curl up in bed and get some sleep right now, that is as soon as I unpack and then repack to head back to Rotterdam tomorrow, where for the first time in 2.5 years no "home" awaits me - let the apartment search begin! More from me soon, still have a ton of photos from Vietnam to share!

hue

HUE. Not exactly chronological, but I haven't gotten all the pictures from Nha Trang together yet, so here are the pictures of Hue first. :) If you are going through these pictures at thinking how extremely crap the weather conditions look, looks are in this case not deceiving. We had to hunt down winter jackets out of fear of freezing into ice cubes! Ooook, maybe I'm slightly exaggerating, but after 6 months of sun minus some Singaporean monsoon rain, I refuse to accept anything less than 26 degrees + sunshine. It's important in life to know when to put your foot down and say "no, mother nature, this simply is not good enough"... :)

phu quoc

PHU QUOC. Sorry for the lack of posts lately, the internet is frustratingly slow so I haven't been able to motivate myself to even just turn on my laptop. I now have so many photos to share though, the folders are overflowing, so in an attempt to sort the photo-mess out, here are the pictures from Phu Quoc!

sign of life

SIGN OF LIFE. Short break from travel frenzy. Here are some pictures taken in Saigon before taking off for Phu Quoc, Christmas with the family in Nha Trang, then Hue, Da Nang and Hoi An (got back to Saigon 2 days ago). Just woke up for the first time in 2012, happy new year everyone! :)