LINKS: Go Uncle George Go !

The new Forbes list of richest people is out.
George Lucas weighs in at $3.6 Billion at #70 richest in the US.

Why not give a raise to everyone ? =)

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-Richest-Americans_land.html

LINKS: Interesting posts.

I figured I will start using my blog to post some interesting links and videos too. Nothing to do with my trips and life but some links in case you have some time to kill. It also gives you another reason to visit my blog . =)

I will add the header LINK so you know it's a link or just a part of the story of my life.

Here is the first batch..

Nintendo Commercial (btw I already bought a Wii)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoyZmtS_nA

World of Warcraft SouthPark
http://lofish1972.imeem.com/video/t2E1aadd/south_park_warcraft/

Enjoy.

The park next door

This is a park here in Singapore close to a Reservoir. The monkeys are wild and just walk around you on the trees and don't seem to be afraid of people at all.

Vietnam

What a week... We have spent 9 days traveling a bit of the country.
Our first impressions were really good. We arrived on Friday night (Daniel, Milena and Me) and met with Huber, Jaq and Pedro at the Hotel in Hanoi.



Hanoi is one of the craziest places I have EVER been to. Motorbikes are EVERYWHERE. I will post a video here so you can see. There are no trafic lights and even when they are phisically there, they do not mean anything. People drive their bikes through sidewalks, wrong way streets and intersections in such a way you can believe they are not doing anything wrong or unusual. Crossing the street is like this:
1- Stare to where you wanna go on the other side of the street
2- Walk slowly towards your target and hope not to get hit (Pedro and Daniel did get hit)
It is INSANE.

The next morning we departed to Halong Bay.








This was quite a place and experience. We rented a 6 room boat and had a BLAST cruising Halong bay for 3 days and 2 nights. The trip cost us $130 US each with food. We had quite a lot to drink in the boat too. Halong Bay is one of the most beautiful places I have been too.




Huge Cliffs surround you as you cruise on the green waters and visit the islands and caves. Here are some Pics.


Coming back from Halong Bay we headed back to Hanoi (getting tired of city by this point). We spent a day there and Pedro, Jaq and Ben left to go back to Singapore. Our plan was to get a train to Sapa but we ended up missing the train due to a fight with a vendor that sold a jacket to Daniel that was too small... We ended up fightin the stupid lady for 15 to 20 min to get the money back with mimics, wrestling and a lot of screaming. BEWARE, NEVER give your money until you are centain you want something in Vietnam... They will not return your money and will try to push something else or more expensive goods to you instead.

Well ... after missing the train we headed back to another hotel (Youth Hotel) that I do not recommend as the rooms smells like cigarretes. Rooms in hotels cost about 15US$ a night and are normally pretty clean and easy to find. BARGAIN for cheap rooms. Bargain for EVERYTHING actually.




Next day we took of to a place called TamCoc. It is a place where you ride canoes on the middle of rice fields and go through some really nice scenery. Before TamCoc we visited some temples and that was a bit boring if you have traveled around thailand and Cambodia as they are not even close to as impressive.








Coming back from TamCoc we decided to try Sapa but no trains were available anymore so after some quite problematic decision making and some tears we decided to head to Ma Chu, a minority Tai tribe on the interior about 3 hours drive from Hanoi. It was quite a cool place with rice fields and we got to sleep on the stilt houses where they live. It was a nice 2 day tour with a VERY HARD bed to sleep in but still worth it.




After that we headed back to Hanoi and spent a couple more days there before coming back. It was a cool trip. If I were to do it again I would book my train tickets in advance and make sure I have the trip more planned so I hit the places I wanna hit. The group could not be better.

Thanks all ... Mi, Daniel, Pedro, Huber and Jaq... you made the holidays a LOT more enjoyable.

Cheers.