THE STORY ABOUT THE VISA, THE ANGRY MAN AND THE SECRET PLACE

Oh, the aliveness of Ha Noi. It strucks me with surprise every time, every day. There are scooters honking and cars driving and women in hats selling fruit and dogs sleeping on the dusty pavements. And yet, with all this aliveness, I find my inner calm here.
"It's weird." I told Claudia yesterday as she licked on her forth ice cream for the day, "that I've only been here once and yet, somehow I feel at home. Ha Noi is home in a strange way I can't explain."

We talked about nyckelböcker the other day, a Swedish word meaning books that is really written about a real person but the names has been changed, but the direct translation is "keybook". A famous podcaster had got it all wrong and thought it meant books that really captures the essence of ones soul, and now, he described in one episode, he felt like he missed the word that he once used as "keybook", as he had applied "key-" to many other things that he thought described him perfectly.

Ha Noi might be the keycity for me.
It's so vivid, so alive, it's talkative and cheerful but yet, there is this island-vibe slowing down our steps and makes us stop and smell the flowers (slash, the smell of loveliness from the endless amazing food stalls).

Yes, the pace is slow but the options eternal. The other night we were out partying and bumped in to... well, probably everyone who was out partying in the whole city, but mostly we hung out with these two guys from London, one of which had already stayed in Ha Noi for 10 days and had no plans on leaving. I totally related. Claudia keeps asking when I want to leave the city, of course, but I have no answer.

BOOBIE-GRABBING & ZEN-LIVING

Tonight, I woke up with a shock. Across my chest an arm had landed all of a sudden and I felt a tiny, sleeping body come closer to me. I pushed Jennifer away again, silently laughing about this being her second attempt to second-base me in her sleep, and soon went back to dreaming.

Next time I woke up it was quarter past eight and my girls were eager to get to the breakfast restaurant.
"Big day today!" Jennifer shouted from the bathroom. "Wakey wakey! Doi Suthep before noon, remember?"
I did, even though my body had no intention of co-operating today.
I had been up until 2.30 that night, chatting with the friends back at home. The time difference really sucked at times. When it was pitch black night for me, Claudia and Simon were off celebrating our weekly tradition of The Sunday Pizza, and I missed them like crazy. They were the biggest part of the routines I do actually miss, the everyday fikas and the long, long, long, neverending, talks.

But outside sun was shining Thai-style; a warm, glowy light that made all of my Instagram pictures look temperature-enhanced, and breakfast was waiting for no one after 10 am.

We filled our plates with fruit and gorged up on coffee and french toast and hurried vacay-style, meaning: not so much.

BUZZLING BANGKOK & BREAKUP BREAKDOWNS

Life in the sun is simply better. Life with Pepsi Max for 16 baht and every flavour of chips you couldn't even have imagined is better. Life with the only task for today is writing and finding the cheapest streetfood is better. The tourist sites can wait. We have been staying by the pool, charging our batteries after six very hectic Singapore days. The weather is more than fine here, it's much less humid than Singapore and the sun warms you, it doesn't instantly make you sweaty.

UNAWATUNA - A CAPSULE OF FROZEN TIME // LAST DAYS IN SRI LANKA

DAY 9-16 

UNAWATUNA

The 31th of January, we got fed up by the German lady and the dead corals and violent waves of Hikkaduwa and packed our suitcases for another beach town called Unawatuna, after being tipped of that there was supposed to be a beach reachable only through a walk in the jungle, that was supposed to have calm waters and very little people. Jennifer was longing for snorkling and I was just longing to get away from the hotel owner and her cheap internet, so we jumped on a train and 40 minutes later, we were there.

THE MAN AND THE WATERBOTTLE SECRET

This is the story of what happened in Hikkaduwa a few days ago. 

We stayed a couple of days in Café Ceylon and except for the weird German lady, the staff was very lovely.  One day we bought a papaya and asked if one of the staff members could split it for us since we didn't have a knife.
He came up to our room with two plates with each half of a papaya, some napkins and a slice of lime. We thanked him smilingly and he stayed to talk with us for a while. He introduced himself as Haryana.

UNPLEASANT GUESTHOUSE OWNERS & CHANGED PLANS

DAY 6
HIKKADUWA

We've arrived in the beach town Hikkaduwa, a place where there was supposed to be great conditions for snorkling, something Jennifer's really been looking forward to.

RECOLLECTING MY ENERGY

DAY 4

KANDY

The last two days has really charged my batteries. Arriving in Kandy, we were alarmed by the noise, the traffic, the never ending "MISS! TAXI!?", the squawking birds. It was night time, the train arrived two hours late and we were solely exhaused.

First taxidriver approching us said 1000 LKR to go a couple of kilometers up on the hill. I strichtly said no and went on, as he approched us again asking for what we were willing to pay.
"500." I said ice cold as he just wrinkled his nose. After that a medival dance of taxidrivers starting coming towards us with the same offer. We quickly jumped in to the first guy who said 400 and we arrived at the hotel just a couple of minutes later.

TRAIN THOUGHTS FROM THE SRI LANKAN HIGHLANDS

DAY 3 
COLUMBO - KANDY 

Writing this, I am cruising through a landscape greener than anything else I've ever seen, taking breaks from the computer to stare wideeyed at the ocean of trees and mountains, all glazed in an etheral afternoon light. Through my body is in perfect harmony, finally in the timezone it is supposed to be in, my mind is somewhere else. 

DANGEROUS WATERS & AMAZING BREAD

DAY 2 
COLOMBO, SRI LANKA

I woke up this morning to the smell of coffee, which was idyllcal, and to the sound of my seven alarms, which was less pleasant.
"I did an experiment on you", Jennifer said from the bathroom. "I wanted to see how long it would take for you to wake up so I didn't turn of your alarms."
"And what was the result of this experiment?"
"That I wanted to throw your phone in the wall. Or possibly on you, but I doubt that would wake you up."
I laughed and drank my coffee.
"Where do we start today?" I asked.
"We need to do a cash withdrawal, find out where we are going after Colombo and hit that beach, finally..." She was abrupted by my grumbeling tummy, which made sounds suitable for ogres.
"Or we start with breakfast?"

____________

OUR WORST TRAVELING EXPERIENCE

Okey. So I've dragged myself from writing this story, but I think it deserves to come out to the light, finally. Partly because it might turn from a terrible memory to one we can laugh about, and partly so we can shread some light over the poor police system in China. Or the poor system in general in China.

But it was an experience. It sure was. 

See? Still pulling myself from doing it. Only now, I can't possibly deliver a story that lives up to the level of horribleness I've led on, so I better just tell it. 

THIS IS THE STORY ABOUT 
HOW WE GOT LOCKED IN A NATIONAL PARK 

...IN INNER CHINA 

ONLY IN CHINA...

36 HOURS IN CHANGSHA - A FIRST IMPRESSION OF CHINA

Our moving hearts have led us to the last part of our trip; China.

Arriving in Guangzhou airport yesterday for a six-hour stop-over, we started to realize just what kind of advenure we were up against. On the airport, everyone spoke English, if somewhat bad at times. That's okay, we are not perfect either. We took a cappucino/double espresso at the airport that costed us more than vi spend on food on a day in Thailand, but except that, all was right with the world. We were given the bill immediatly after ordering, which was strange for us, but we just laughed, said "I guess we're in China now".

TALES OF ASIA: Handeling the chaos that is Ha Noi

ON THE 6TH OF APRIL, WE ARRIVED IN VIETNAM.

It was way too soon to say goodbye to Kuala Lumpur, but when you are stupid and listen to people telling you not to spend a week there, you get what you deserve, I guess.


At first glance (on Wikitravel), Hanoi was frightening. The storys there about taxidrivers taking you to the wrong place and threatening to beat you up were endless, and standing outside the airport with little to no knowledge about the country, we started to wonder what the frick we had gotten ourselves in to.

CELEBRATING LIFE: THE PERFECT DAY IN KUALA LUMPUR

The luxury of being in a big city, of having everything you possibly could want outside your doors, and of being strong enough psysically to being able to enjoy it.

This day was one of those rare periods of time where everything was perfect. The planets were in line. All was good with the world, and we decided to celebrate that.

LIVIN THE SUITE LIFE IN KUALA LUMPUR

Oh ramen. You come in to my heart, my mind and most importantly my belly and there you found your permanent place. I will always cherish and care for you. Until I find something else Malaysia is wickedly talented at making. Then I will probably have an affair with that as well. But don't worry. I will always love you. 

One might wonder why I'm talking to my food. First, it's because I'm a nutcase. But secondly, it's also because it was the first thing I ate that didn't made me want to throw up.


We arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday, exhausted after 11 days in misery.

GETTING SICK IN THAILAND

We though our bad luck should stay in Railay. It had to!
We had gone through so much by then, having paradise ruined and all, so we thought we deserved a smooth path for once.

Well...you probalby know us well enough by now to guess what next sentence will be:

WELL...WE THOUGHT WRONG

Yeah, there it is. You knew it right?

TALES OF ASIA: Day 13-16

What have we been up to since our last entry, you might ask yourselves. You might walk around at home, anxiously pacing back and forth trying to wrap your head around what we'll do next.

Well, worry no more. Here's a recaps.

TALES OF ASIA: Day 4 - 6

Hi there. Long time no see hah?

We've been good. We've been lazy. We've been parking our butts on the sunbeds besides the pool.
That is, of course, after we'd fixed that
we've been

really

really

stupid.

MISTAKE NUMBER #3:

NOT DOUBLE-CHECKING WHAT AIRPORT 

THE FLIGHT IS ACTUALLY LEAVING FROM

And I cant stress this enough unless you're walking around with 2380 THB you just HAVE to throw away on something completely unneccesary.

TALES OF ASIA: Day 2 & 3

Let's recap the last couple of days in Bangkok's overwhelming heat.

And also, is it humanly possible to be this tired and not having fallen asleep standing yet?
The jetlag, or whatever it might be by this time, is making us old, making us go to bed at 8 o'clock or take an afternoon nap inbetween rounds on town.

TALES OF ASIA: Day 1

Finally comes the twilight of what seems to be the longest day of our lives. Although, I can't say for sure since day and night and time in general now seems like a myth someone once told me about.

There is supposed to be a complex system with concrete rules on how many sunsets you can have in a day? Fascinating!

___________________________________________________________

We left for Copenhagen airport 7.30 on the morning of March 6th.