The Travel Tales of Julia Sheldon

May 16: Phong Nha at Gecko Hostel. We arrived at 4am, slept for 2.5 hours, and woke up to have some breakfast and get picked up for an INCREDIBLE tour to Paradise Cave and Dark Cave. Huge thanks to Phong Nha Discovery Tour and our guide, Sunny. She really was smiley all day long despite the rain, and so funny! We first walked through forests and rain to a waterfall in the Botanical Gardens. Paradise Cave was discovered by a farmer in 2005, found largely by accident. Seems he saw a hole, tried to get in and made it about 10m down before realizing that it was huge and he couldn't see anything. The British Cave Research Association and Hanoi University began mapping out the cave system and made it tourist-accessible for only 1km of the 31km as of 2010. It's called Paradise because the temperature, somehow, doesn't change; it's 20-22 degrees all year round. I actually found it quite chilly, since we walked up the mountain in the pouring rain. We were given an hour ...

May 8: We’re in Hanoi! We did the first half of a free walking tour with the hostel! We wandered about the Old Quarter, got to visit a textile market, and then went to the oldest coffee shop in the city (from the 19 th  century). Let me just say, egg coffee sounds odd but is delectable and 100% worth it; but you have to know where to go to find it (hidden through and behind a bag store, up a staircase, down a very dingy hallway). Essentially, they whip the egg white until it’s half meringue and then add it to your espresso. OM NOM NOM. The traffic in the old quarter is NOTHING like Ho Chi Minh, so it is much more relaxed and easy to get around.  May 9& 10: A 2 day, 1 night boat cruise around Halong Bay with Lemon Cruise, booked through Vietnam Backpackers Hostel but not a booze cruise. Unfortunately, I had a cold the entire time and missed the vast majority of activities, which included visiting a pearl farm, a floating village, and playing beach volleyball....

May 4: It's pronounced 'Ho Chee Ming'. Took a taxi to the airport (rip off in terms of price), and then my flight was delayed by an hour. Womp womp. ANDY ARRIVED IN SOUTHEAST ASIA!!!!!! I AM SO HAPPY. Our flights landed at the same time, so we met up and took a taxi back to our guesthouse. It took a bit of a hunt to find where we were staying; not because of lack of landmarks, but because of the sheer number of possible alleyways and an unclear understanding of how street addresses work in this city. Thanks to some VERY helpful English-speaking locals, we were able to figure it out. A necessary shower and chicken pho were had, and then bed by 930. I forced Andy to stay awake so that he could begin to get used to the time difference here. We shall see how long it takes for him to get on track. May 5: Sleep in! That means we left the guesthouse at 9 ha. It really is difficult to sleep in here; there is simply too much noise and light. Plus, it clearly gets BOILING HO...

April 30: I slept until 3pm. At 6, Tom and Miu, the leader and a participant from a CISV Camp in Norway in 2014, picked me up for dinner and drinks. We had several drinks, including a cannabis-laced absinthe (though definitely not real absinthe because I was not hallucinating and I didn't feel high in the slightest, which was kind of disappointing). At 5 am, I woke up feeling absolutely terrible. Seems I got traveler's diarrhea from my first meal in Vietnam. Womp womp. May 1: Tom picked me up for brunch ... Seems that noodles are eaten for 3 meals/day. I tried Bun Cha and absolutely loved it! We were served a huge plate of half-cooked rice noodles, fresh vegetables (mostly yucky greens and bean sprouts), and a bowl with sweet broth and fried pork. It is a dish that is very popular and apparently famous in Hanoi. We then went for the strangest massage I have ever had. It is entirely possible that I was being told everything in Vietnamese, but I really had no idea. I was gi...

April 25: Used the excellent internet at the hotel to upload a bunch of pictures in order to make space on my phone and to catch up on social media until leaving for the airport. HUGE lineup outside of the airport just to get through the first security gate. Then, check bag or check in, pay a terminal fee, and go through the second security check in. Now, this security is SUPER relaxed. I had a full water bottle and they didn't notice :s  Seems there was a LOT of congestion at the Manila airport which led to all flights being delayed at least 45 minutes. Got to Nikki's at 9pm; we caught up a little bit and were asleep by 11!  April 26: Super chill day. Watched a movie, wrote a blog post, spent time being naked in the air conditioning with the hope of reducing the super uncomfortable heat rash, which SUCKS. HARD. I need to sleep with a fan on me at all times, or air conditioning. And I don't mean really cold a/c ... I want, like, 25 degrees Celsius to sleep. After a...

TIL: there is an edible delicacy based on bat poop. April 18: The Puerto Princesa Underground River was TOTALLY worth it. A van picked me up at 7:30am and drove 2 hours to Sabang. We got a on a boat to a beach, then walked a bit to the waiting area for the cave. A boat for 10, with a guide paddling, took us on a tour through this UNESCO world heritage site, named the 7 th natural wonder of the world.  I’ve never seen anything like it, and the geo kid in me was flipping out. It was difficult to take pictures in the dark, but I did try … and we were given an audioguide. Some of the rocks look like vegetables. This is a banana heart. The ecosystem is VERY fragile within the underground river, which is why humans are only able to easily traverse 1.5km into it by paddle boat. We were asked to keep our mouths closed to avoid swallowing guano (bat poop) and various minerals that drip from the ceilings. It started to rain on the way back, so we weren't able to zipline, bu...

April 8: Travel day. Sigh. Left the hostel in Moalboal at 915am in a stupidly expensive rented car because apparently the buses don't go up the west coast of Cebu, but only go to Cebu city (on the easy coast). Caught a 2 hour ferry and was surrounded by a family of hardcore Catholics ... so had a 45 minute chat about God. I asked them if they knew how to catch a bus, and they offered to take me to the terminal - another example of Filipino generosity and hospitality. So kind! Took a bus across the island of Negros Occidental, from San Carlos City (a smoke-free city! Whoa!) to Bacolod, only to then learn that I should have got off at the second stop. So, back on a bus to return the way I came. I borrowed a girl's phone to text my friend, just to be sure that I would get off at the right stop. Buses here are interesting: a ticket is bought once on board, with cash, and aside from an actual terminal I have no idea how to determine what is a bus stop or how to find them. With the...