Well, the boys came, they saw, and just as soon as they conquered, they left. Our SF friends, Nick, Brandon, Aaron and Ryan, spent the last two weeks traveling with us through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It was an adrenaline-fueled, action-packed, and fun-filled extravaganza and, while we were sad to see them leave, we could use some R&R finally.

It all started with a three day boat cruise through Ha Long Bay - a surreal, other-worldly place where huge rock formations seem to grow straight up out of the ocean. On our first evening, we went diving off the roofdeck of our Jolly Roger junket, kayaking around towering rocks, and caving through deep caverns. At night our guide had fun card games devised for us which allowed us to meet new friends and have a great time. The next day we headed to a remote island within Ha Long with a picturesque white sand beach and nice little bungalows for us to stay at. Our day was filled with tubing through one of the most beautiful places on earth, rock climbing, kayaking, swimming, and lazily enjoying the beach. We just had to be sure to watch out for jelly fish which got pretty big some of them as big as a medium sized dog (or a really fat cat, if you're a cat person). While returning to the bay, the boat docked with another boat that was full of people on the 2-day cruise. We hopped on the new boat and were ecstatic to find Nick, Aaron and Brandon on board! After some bro-mantic hugs and a celebratory beer we exchanged stories and met some of their new friends.

The entire Ha Long experience was unreal and something that will not soon be forgotten. The only downside to Ha Long is the trash. There is trash floating everywhere. We truly hope that one day they can clean up such a beautiful place and put rules and regulations in place to keep it, and the rest of the country, litter free.

After Ha Long Bay we headed back to Hanoi for one more night where we enjoyed some snail soup, a trip to a rooftop bar with an awesome view, and some great times.

After a flight to Vientiane, Laos and a quick busride through luscious green mountains, we arrived in Vang Vieng, Laos. Country number four on our trip thus far. We checked into our hotel which had quite a view. A quaint footbridge hung over a foliage lined river, framed by mountains jutting out of nowhere. We could definitely get used to this place.

Vang Vieng has a reputation as a party town, known for the bar lined river that flows through it. People rent innertubes and float down the river, going from bar to bar and imbibing in the nectar of the gods. And while we definitely enjoyed the party, we were also pleasantly surprised to learn that Vang Vieng offers much more than booze filled buckets and constant Friends reruns on the TVs (amazing show, by the way). We ended up spending a day hiking to two caves along flooded footpaths with spiders the size of baseballs. The caves were awesome and it was great to get out and exercise a little. Upon our return to the town, Sam and Don both had leeches sticking to them! I suggested that we make some leech soup out of them, but I think they both just wanted the leeches off of them as soon as possible.

Don and I rented moto bikes the next day. After a little bit of practice, we were riding like pros! Well, almost pros. Don still had some trouble with those pesky left turns. But at least we didn't run directly into a sandwich stand like the group that we watched on our last day in Vang Vieng. Motobiked up, we traveled around this large dirt loop that ventured out into various mountains where we hiked up to a scenic overlook and took in the view. We also found the blue lagoon, known for its bright blue waters (although apparently we showed up on a bad day, because they weren't that bright) and a massive cave that must have been close to a mile deep with ceilings 20-30 yards high. There was even a Bhuddist Shrine inside that was eerily illuminated by some natural light peaking through. It was like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. The rest of the bike ride was through mud filled roads (which were extremely hard for us to get through, although we're not sure why because locals seemed to have no problem with them) to villages that appeared rarely visited by tourists. Similar to our experience in Hoi An, the village children would run out and give us high fives and scream hello to us. It was quite an experience and the scenery was amazing.

As for Sam, Nick, Brandon and Aaron, they spent another day partying down the river, although this without inner-tubes. As it's the end of the dry season in Laos, the river was at its shallowest. While the current was still strong, they were able to march back and forth across the river from bar to bar without danger of being swept away. However, that meant that many of the notorious water slides and rope swings that toss travelers out into the water were out of service. That was no problem, as each bar had plenty of other games to keep us entertained, including frisbee, basketball, mud volleyball, and human-sized jenga. Fortunately, we all survived the river with only a few minor cuts and bruises.

Partied out (ok, not quite yet) we had to leave the lovely Vang Vieng and head off to our next adventure. So we hopped on a plane and headed back to Bangkok. At the airport we were wandering along and randomly ran into Ryan Davis! Ok, it wasn't completely random, we were expecting him to be there.

With just one night in Bangkok before we had to head south, we knew we had to take advantage of the time we had. So we grabbed some delicious Thai food in a nice little alley and then headed up to Sky Bar, on the 63rd floor of the Sirocco Hotel. The bar was featured in Hangover 2, and despite the $20 price tag on the drinks, it was well worth the visit. We knew Bangkok was big, but you have no clue how massive it is until you see it from above. It was absolutely amazing and if you ever end up in Bangkok be sure to take the elevator trip to the top of one of its numerous high rises to catch the view, but be sure to wear closed-toed shoes and pants and get ready to sweat up a storm.

The next day Sam, Ryan and Don headed down the river for a nice boat trip through the middle of the city. Nick, Aaron, Brandon and I headed to the Bangkok weekend market. A market that puts all the other markets we've visited (trust me, there have been a lot) to shame. It was absolutely massive and even had puppies, kittens, flying squirrels, and hedge hogs for sale.

We boarded the night train for Surat Thani, where we caught a ferry to Koh Pha-gnan, home to the world famous Full Moon Party aka the biggest party in South East Asia. Despite the moonsoon type rains, we met a huge group of people and body painted up in anticipation of the black lights, moon light, and fire throwing. The full moon party was amazing (despite the fact that we never once saw the moon since it was hiding behind rain clouds the entire night). While most of the body paint washed away (and what little didn't ended up on our bed sheets), the memories will surely last forever (sorry for the lame cliche).

We even got to show off our American pride!

You'll notice the rain pouring off the roof tops onto party goers below. There were probably 15-20,000 people on the beach. And that was during the low season. In the pouring monsoon rains. During the busy season there are as many as 30,000 partygoers!

Not all of us made it to sunrise on the night of the full moon (myself included - sorry I'm getting old), but some of us did (way to go Sam, Nick, Don and Ryan!).

While we were definitely in Koh Pha-gnan for the party, we also found some other fun activities too. We took a half day boat trip up the east coast of the island where we hiked to water falls, scuba dived, and had our Castaway moment trying to open coconuts (I think it took Tom Hanks 3 days to figure it out in the movie, only took us about 30 minutes! Guess we're just studs).

After a fun filled two weeks it was time for our friends to leave, but before departing the guys (not including me, since I was sick) headed out on an elephant trek. And I must say that I am JEALOUS, because it looked amazing. I want to try to smuggle one back with me to San Francisco and ride it around the streets.

Unfortunately, Don had to take care of some business with his flights, so he went back to Bangkok with the guys for a couple of days. With the boys gone, it was time to relax a little. We moved from Haad Rin Beach to Haad Yao, which was much more low key and very relaxing. Sam and I rented motos and rode all around the island to see all the parts that we had missed before. We took a hike up to some waterfalls and found a spot with a great view!

Sam didn't even have any troubles making left turns on his moto (sorry Don, had to throw that in there), as he cruised along like a pro:

We loved relaxing so much that we decided to get a few more days in, so we hopped on a ferry to Koh Tao (Turtle Island) and grabbed a hotel on Sairee Beach. Koh Tao is world reknown for its scuba diving. More people get their scuba certifications here than anywhere else in the world. And we can see why. The beach is amazing and the sunset is even more amazing.

On our first full day, we booked a Zip Line and snorkleing trip. The snorkeling was absolutely fantastic and we were ecstatic to have Sam's underwater casing with us. Unfortunately, it's only rated for a depth of up to 10 meters, so we haven't been able to take it on any of our scuba dives, but it is perfect for snorkeling. We snorkeled on an island right off of Koh Tao called Koh Nang Yuan, which is actually three separate islands connected by a sand bar. It looks like something out of a postcard. The site was called the Japanese Gardens because the coral beds are so immaculate that they are supposed to look like japanese gardens. And we were not disappointed. Upon entering the water, we were greeted by a group of fish that love to bite humans. Specifically if you have any dead skin or open wounds. Unfortunately for Sam, he had quite a few wounds and they went beast mode on him.

We continued the scuba dive and saw some awesome fish and other sea creatures. The highlight for me was a long nosed emporer fish, which was brown with a stripped pattern eating some coral with a parrot fish. I wasn't sure what it was and hadn't seen it before, so I pointed it out to Sam and then the parrot fish swam away and the emporer fish rapidly changed colors to match the sand in the background perfectly and then some aqua marine spots appeared on it. It was quite the sight.

After snorkeling we hiked up to the top of one of the islands and got in a quick photo shoot so that we can create some postcards of our own if we so desire!

Finally, we zip lined from one island to the other, crossing over sand bars and coral filled waters. Wind whipping through the air, we yelled out battle cries like "GERONIMOOOOOO!!!" and "SCOOOOOBY DOOOOOBY DOOOOOOOOOOO!" Not sure we'll ever get the chance to zip line between islands again, so it was definitely an experience.

Snorkeling definitely peaked our interest in the underwater world and we were definitely looking forward to our scuba dive the next day. We had two dives in store for us: Champhuon Pinnacle and Hin Pee Wee. At Champhuon we saw schools of Chevron Barracudas (big fellas) that numbered at least 100, boxing shrimp, dancing shrimp, dancing Sams, morray eels, corals that just seemed to go on forever, and fish that swarmed us like crazy. I've never seen so many fish. And with about 15 meters of visibility you could see practically forever. And with water that was 84 degrees you could stay in it for practically forever. Unfortunately, our air tanks didn't last forever, so we eventually had to leave and head to our next site, Hin Pee Wee. We dropped down to 18 meters and immediately were greeted by a large sea turle that was swimming right underneath us. We knew this dive was going to be good immediately. After swimming through some corals and seeing some large schools of fish, we wandered away from the coral into the great wide open. Then, out of no where, a ship appeared. And not just any ship, but a big ship. The HTMS Sattakut to be exact. This US Navy World War 2 ship had 3 battle stars and was used against the Japanese during the war. After the war, it was determined that it cost too much to maintain and send back to the US, so it was donated to the Thai Navy who kept it for 6 years before deciding it cost too much and sinking it right next to Hin Pee Wee. Swimming up to it the bow rose out of the sea floor, and the deck gun pointed off to no where, schools of fish swimming around it ignorant of it's massive firepower. We swam around the ship and watched grouper fish lazily resting on the deck. It was our first underwater wreck for Sam and me and it was spectacular. After the wreck, we returned to the coral where we were greeted by another turtle feasting on the seabed. We were able to swim just a few meters right above him. He seemed to be enjoying the island lifestyle as much as us. We also saw a huge banded sea snake, which is apparently one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. Lucky for us, it can't bite humans except between the fingers and the ear lobes. Our dive guide warned us that if we see one not to swim above it because it needs to surface to breath, and it wouldn't attack unless you got in its way. So of course, Sam freaked out a bit when he found himself directly above the snake when he first saw it. All part of the experience though. We finished up our dive by seeing a big porcupine fish. This has been by far our best dive thus far and we can't wait to get in dives at the Perhentians (Maylasia), Bali (Indonesia) and Koh Phi Phi (the western coast of Thailand), which are all supposed to be amazing.

Don joined back up with us and instantly fell into the island life style. We lazed about the beach, Don booked a scuba trip for the next day to the Japanese Gardens (except to a different part than where we snorkeled. His trip will be much deeper with the chance to see some reef sharks!). Last night we decided to revel in Koh Tao's night life and joined a pub crawl that visited four different bars. The highlight was definitely the ladyboy cabaret show where women (?) came out and lip synched for us and gave some unsuspecting individuals lap dances. And then, they asked for volunteers. At this point nobody wanted to go up but people instantly pointed to Sam and I and pushed us out. So now it was our chance to shine! We went back to the dressing room and suited up in our hottest women's wear. We went back out on the stage and owned it. Gyrations abound, the crowd clapped and cheered us on. Although we may have been the hairest ladyboys ever, I think we were also the damn sexiest lady boys ever too.

And that, ladies and gentlmen, brings us to now. We're happy to share our adventures with you all and miss all of you. If we could have all of you here with us it would make this trip that much more epic. For the time being though, we'll continue enjoying our trip for all of you. WISH YOU WERE HERE and wish you drinking (50 cent and $1) beers with us. Now, we're off to play some mini golf, enjoy the beach a little more, and then catch a nigh ferry back to Sura Thani where we will be taking a bus to Khao Sok, a national park in the middle of the Thai penisula where we will be sleeping among tigers, elephants, monkeys and bears. Oh my!

Wow, wow, wow. Who knew there would be so much to do and so little time. Sorry about the lack of posts, but on our whirlwind tour we have had little time to update you all. Our last post was in Saigon, southern Vietnam. We write to you today from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, located in the north.

During the rest of our stay in Saigon, we started off by visiting a Banh Xeo restaurant recommended by Anthony Bourdain (delicious!), visited a pagoda (known as Turtle Temple for its numerous turtles outside), passed by the Reunification Palace where Don and Sam made amends, visited the War Remnants Museum (heavy on the propaganda, but also very disturbing at parts), and drank some bia hoi (fresh beer), met with some other travelers and enjoyed the night life.

The next morning, we traveled to the Mekong Delta and did a tour of the area which included visits to a honey farm, fruit farms, coconut farms, floating markets, land markets, coconut candy factories, rice paper factories, and the largest town in the delta area called Can Tho. While the entire trip was pretty touristy, it was still a lot of fun. We stuck our hands into the bee hive and pulled out fresh honey (scary for me since I think I'm allergic to bees, or least I was as a kid. Don and Sam handled it like champions), listened to some traditional live music (Don stopped clapping along as soon as they started singing about Ho Chi Minh), ate grilled rat (much more delicious than you would think), ate snake (chewy, but still good), held snakes, cruised down the river and relaxed.

After briefly returning to Saigon, we jumped aboard a night train to Nha Trang, a coastal city known for its beautiful beaches and islands. We arrived at Nha Trang at 5:30am in the morning and after dropping our bags off, we headed to the beach to find it absolutely packed at 6am with locals. Children played in the water as parents looked on, enjoying the cool morning air from the beach. The water was a vibrant blue and islands dotted the horizon everywhere - truly a great view. The water is much cooler than in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, but it is still relatively warm and enjoyable. For breakfast, we met up with Alex, a friend from SF traveling from Hanoi to Saigon and then headed to the beach to soak up some afternoon sun. However, by the afternoon, all the locals had left and the beaches were sparsely populated with tourists. We enjoyed the day, worked on our sunburns, played in the ocean, and enjoyed refreshing Pilsners from the local, beach-side brewpub, the Louisiane.

Unfortunately, we also saw the dark side of Nha Trang, when late at night (after drinking probably a little too much) we were headed to grab some late night Banh Mi sandwiches when a group of girls pulled up on motobikes, accosted Alex and stole his watch, and then came at me. I pushed two of them away pretty hard, and they ran away giggling and jumped back on their motobikes. When I reached down, I found that one of the girls must have came up from behind me while I was pushing the other two away and snagged my iPhone from out of my pocket. All this happened in about 8 seconds. At least they didn't get my passport or bank cards! Being the good friend that he is, Sam sat watch at our hostel door to make sure no burglars raided our room during the night (well, he sat watch for about 5 minutes before heading to bed).

The next day we headed to VinPearl, an island with an amusement park accessible by a 15 minute cable car ride across the ocean. All four of us expected to be bored to death at the amusement park but were pleasantly surprised to find all the free roller coasters we could ride (with no lines!), free bumper cars, free arcade games as far as the eye could see, dogs riding bicycles, an aquarium, and a bad ass water park. At one point in the water park we met a family traveling and went down a ride on a huge yellow raft which whipped around turns so quickly that Sam went flying about a foot and a half airborne at one point. If we had to describe VinPearl, we'd describe it as the place where amusement park rides that don't meet American safety standards go to continue living. There was even an amazing ride where you whip down from the top of the island (with amazing views) and have to control your own breaks around curves in order to make sure you don't hit the person in front of you or go flying off the rails (but don't worry, there were some nice 3 foot tall metal nets to catch us if we did).

On our final day in Nha Trang, we went scuba diving off of one of the islands and saw some of the clearest water any of the three of us had seen, populated by moray eels, lionfish, box fix, pipe fish, and a ton of other specimens. It was a great way to end Nha Trang, and the best of our two scuba trips thus far. Hopefully even better trips are still to come!

From Nha Trang, we took the night train to Hoi An - the land of tailored clothes and peaceful evening river bike rides. And we did just that. Sam had two linen shirts and some slick boat shoes made (marina ready for when he gets back), while I had a silk shirt custom made. After I put on my silk shirt, I immediately regret not going for linen, as it is HOT in Vietnam (and Cambodia, and Thailand, and everywhere else we are going). We took a guided motobike tour through the Hoi An countryside where we saw farmers hard at work with their water buffalo and local kids run up to our motos to give us high fives as we drove past.

We also took a fabulous cooking class at the Morning Glory Restaurant, where we started off with an 8am trip to the local market (which puts any farmer's market in the US to shame for sheer size but lacks entertainment and prepared food) to check out the various ingredients that we would be using. There are a plethora of fresh fruits and vegetables here in Asia that you can't get in America (at least not fresh). We continued back to the restaurant where we prepared, and subsequently ate, a 5-course meal consisting of shrimp wonton soup, a fresh spring roll, banh xeo (crispy egg pancake), chicken skewers, and a mango salad. While everything was delicious, my personal favorite was the banh xeo which was absolutely amazing. Now that we know how to cook them, we're bringing them back to the states!

When Don and I went for haircuts in Hoi An, we expected only the finest from a city so well known for it's custom tailored services. Unfortunately, "a little shorter" apparently didn't translate very well to Vietnamese, as we both ended up with military style buzz cuts. At least they keep our heads cool in all this heat! We enjoyed our time in the quaint old town, where they periodically close down the streets to motos and cars allowing for a relaxing stroll or bike ride. We followed another Anthony Bourdain recommendation and got delicious Banh Mi sandwiches near the market, but boy were they spicccccy. Our mouths burnt for a good 30 minutes afterwards. Just thinking about it makes us want to go back and get another one just to torture ourselves so good.

The "night" train from Hoi An to Hanoi took a gruelling 17 hours, eating up a full day of activity as we didn't arrive until 4pm on Sunday. After checking into Hanoi Backpackers, the first European style backpacker hostel we've found in SEA, we mingled with other travelers in the hostel lounge over free beer and bbq. In fact, this was the first hamburger we've eaten since leaving the States and Man oh Man! was it greasy and delicious. After a night of crawling the streets of Hanoi with fellow backpackers, we took an early morning guided tour of the Old Town. While just as busy as the streets of Saigon, the traffic in Hanoi is much less chaotic and cars and motos tend to keep to their lanes, instead of using the entire road. After the tour, we stopped for some Vietnamese coffee next to Hoan Kiem Lake, which was interrupted by thunderous lightning and torrential rain. We tried to wait it out for an hour, but gave up hope and ventured onward to the Hoa Lo Prison (sarcastically nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton by American POA's), where John McCain and other American pilots were held captive during the war. The Prison, much like the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, was a house of propaganda and displayed photos of American POA's playing sports, celebrating Christmas, receiving medical care, and getting souvenirs as they were released.

Later that night, we took a trip out to Snake Village, where Matt and I (Sam) were "killers" and Don was a "biter". Basically, the killers are responsible for gutting a live snake and the biter has to bite out and swallow its beating heart. After the snake was killed, every body part was cooked in a 5-course dinner, which included ground bone pate, meatballs, bbq ribs, fried meat, and skin salad, with snake blood, bile and plenty of rice wine to go down with it. Not everything was tasty, but it was at least tolerable and made for a fun night.

Matt and I then escaped the big city for the cool, peaceful mountains of Sapa to the north, near the border with China. We took a two-day trek from Sapa to Ban Ho, passing lucious, green rice paddies, tiny villages, raging rivers, and towering waterfalls. We spent a night at a homestay with a local family in the village of Ta Van, who were very friendly and hospitable. Having not slept on the train from Hanoi to Sapa, we were exhausted after a long day of trekking and crashed shortly after a delicious dinner of local small plates and rice wine. However, we were unable to sleep late as the roosters were eager to wake us at sunrise for another full day of trekking.

We're now back in bustling Hanoi for a day before setting out on a three-day Halong Bay cruise. Our friends Nick, Brandon, Aaron and Ryan from SF will be joining us in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand for the next two weeks. We'll be sure to update you on our adventures in due course.

Day 9 (May 9, 2012): After an 11 hour bus ride, with a quick stop in Phnom Penh, we arrive in Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon. It's interesting to see how much driving differs in SEA versus the USA. While the driving in Cambodia (particularly Siem Reap) was defined by chaos, the driving here seems much more ordered. What it lacks in chaos it makes up for in pure MOTO MADNESS! Talk about motos everywhere. Thousands of them. It's an amazing sight to see, and I can't wait to try playing frogger across the street to avoid them as they zip around on all four sides of you.

Our bus pulls up to a park near our hostel which is teeming with locals enjoying the cool night air and breeze. Kids play a game similar to hackie sack with something that looks like an enlarged shuttlecock. They play with such dexterity that I wonder which of them will become the next Lionel Messi. We wander out for food, I (Matt) order the sour crab soup and am surprised to receive snail soup with curdled blood. Mmmmmmm.

We head check out the Notre Dame Cathedral, built during the mid to late 1800s, and then head to a rooftop bar overlooking Saigon for some night time drinks and conversation. Bats fly overhead as we peer out at the bustling city. It's a great site to see, and is the largest metro we've been in since Bangkok. We visited a couple more bars (the Pub and Allez Boo) before calling it a night. In the morning (which is as I write this) we will visit the War Remnants Museum, Reunification Palace, some pagodas, and a couple of restaurants recommended by Anthony Bourdain (Vietname is his favorite country after all). In next morning we'll head to the Mekong Delta. We'll follow up with you all then!

Days 6-8: Life on the beach sure is relaxing. By day we work on our sun tans, with the exception of me (Matt) who skips the tan and goes straight for the burn. By night we play the guitar, drink fruity cocktails, meet people and get some night swimming in. We found a log on the beach and pulled it out to the ocean to act as a raft. After awhile, Sam even made some new local friends who hopped on the raft to horseplay around with him!

The water is around 80 degrees, which was perfect for our first scuba diving session. We headed out to Koh Rung Samloem on a rickity old fishing boat with our dive instructors for two dives. The sea got the best of Sam, who decided to feed his dinner from the previous night to the fishes on the way out to the island. Nevertheless, he manned up and we all went for our first dive to a reef about 12 meters deep. The dive was great and full of box fish, barracudas, and an assortment of other fish. The second dive wasn't as exciting, but the wet season officially kicked off during it. Coming up into the sopping rain was quite an experience, especially for Matt who's air ran out early and had to swim 200m in the pouring rain and increasingly large waves back to the dive boat.

That night, Sam got lucky at the Cambodian casinos playing roulette and we partied accordingly. In the morning we packed our things, sad to leave our new friends, and jumped in a cab towards Kampot, Cambodia. You may recognize this quaint french colonial village for it's Kampot Pepper, famous worldwide. The drive to Kampot was something else. As mentioned, the wet season just started so about 45 minutes in it started pouring. And when I say pouring, I mean imagine sitting under Niagra Falls pouring. Nevertheless, our driver decided to continue driving at about 55 mph on a two lane road while viciously overtaking every other car, motorcycle, cow, dog, and bicycle on the road, despite only having about 30 feet of visibility. The City was charming and much cleaner than all the other cities and villages we've seen in Cambodia. After taking in the sunset over the Preaek Tuek Chhu River, framed by an old French bridge and some lucious green mountains in the background, we headed out for some street food (delicious noodles for only $0.75usd) and then called it a night.

Day 5: After a full day bus ride from Siem Reap, we arrived in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Our hostel was located on a quaint, beach road about 10 miles from the town. After a quick, morning dip in the ocean, we headed into town to visit Matt's college buddy who owns a local bar. We played pool, swam, and climbed out to a rock point to lounge and take in the ocean air. That night, the moon was full and bright for the famous full moon party, which included fireworks, flame throwers and plenty of neon paint. However, the real full moon parties occur in Koh Phanang, Thailand we're we'll be in exactly one month from today.