Adventures

First snow

The last few years we didn't get much snow in our hometown, which kind of made winter dull and gray. Tim especially is originally from a region in germany, where cold winters with a lot of snow are normal, so we did miss that white stuff.

This winter started off with a surprise: Our first snow fell today! And it didn't melt right away but started piling up, and that's the unusual part. Right now it looks like we have more snow than we'd had at any point in the last three years, the time that we lived here.

We took our cameras on a walk to enjoy the crisp cold day and the fresh snow, before too many people have walked through it, or it melts away.

Day 9 - Trang An & Hang Mua

First of all: We have a LOT more pictures of the fantastic landscape we saw that day than I could possibly fit into this post, so go check out the corresponding photo set "Trang An & Hang Mua"!

In the Ninh Binh Region the main attractions are boat rides on rivers than run through the rice fields, along the limestone mountains, and sometimes even below through the many, many grottos in the limestone. We didn't have time to go and do all of them, even though they are supposed to be very different. We had read that the Trang An Area was usually a bit less crowded than the Tam Coc Boat ride, and that it led through more and smaller grottos. The main difference is, that in Trang An, the river is wedged in between limestone mountains, while for Tam Coc, the river runs through wider valleys and rice fields.

By the way, the whole Trang An - Tam Coc - Bich Dong Region is actually a UNESCO World Nature Heritage Site and a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site - the only place in Vietnam that got both of these titles.

So we once again rented a motorbike, got on it and drove to Trang An. At the tour complex we paid our fare of 200.000 Dong each and were directed to a boat together with two young vietnamese women. Our rower was a middle-aged woman with a very friendly smile, but no knowledge of english. The two vietnamese girls in our boat translated for us whenever necessary. There are two routes through you can take though the grottos, a shorter and a longer one. We had asked to be taken on the longer one, but I am not entirely convinced that it was what we got in the end.

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Day 5 - Driving from Hoi An to Hue via Hai Van Pass

To get from Hoi An to Hue we had initially wanted to take the train, but then decided renting a motorbike was in the end cheaper, easier and gave us a much better opportunity to actually see something on the way. It is also a bit more risky, because technically it’s illegal to drive a motorbike without a vietnamese drivers license. The Vietnamese don’t care though and rent you one anyways and I guess make a good amount of money with it, because we saw loads of other tourists on scooters.

The day before we had signed up for the bike at Motorvina and when the taxi dropped us off at the Hoi An Office we were immediately shown the 135ccm scooter we had booked. Read our review of Motorvina and why we chose them at the end of the article.

By now I had decided that I am only young once, no risk no fun, so after I told Tim once again to drive extra carefully we finally took off. And in the end I think it must have been one of the best decisions we took and probably was one of our best days in Vietnam. The weather was absolutely perfect - and we had a whole day to drive and explore the country.

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Day 3 - Visiting Hội An

Since our Homestay was located a few minutes outside of Hoi An, we used the free bicycles provided to get into and around the city of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The bike ride took about 10 minutes, leading through rice fields until we got to the city, there we continued on to the old town, located down by the river.

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Easter weekend at home

I spent the easter weekend at home with my parents. And in springtime, that region is honestly one of the most beautiful places in the world. During spring the yellow fields of rapeseed pop up everywhere and create a stark contrast to the fresh greens everywhere else.

So of course I used the long weekend for some time outside, and since I did take my camera with me this time to try out my new lens, I now want to share the beauty of spring with you.

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Ireland - Day 9 - Gap of Dunloe

The weather forecast for our day nine had been pretty good, so we wanted to use the day for our hiking trip through the Gap of Dunloe. We booked the trip "the wrong way round" - starting our journey with a boat ride through the Killarney Lakes, and then walking though the famous gap, where we'd be picked up again at the end.

We started the tour in a Vintage Bus at O'Connors Pub in Killarney. The bus took us out to Ross Castle, where we transfered into a small wooden boat.

Then the ride across the Killarney Lakes began. First we crossed the biggest lake, Lough Leane, until we came to the Meeting of the Waters.

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Ireland - Day 1 - From Dublin to Renvyle

Our day began really early when we left home for the Frankfurt Hahn Airport at about 4:30 am. At the airport everything was pretty uneventful, and soon we were on the plane and in the air. We had a very smooth flight (which I have been told is rather unusual) and a perfect landing in Dublin at about 9.00am local time. Our next step was the rental car pickup at the airport, and then it was Tims job to take us onto Irelands roads. Driving on the left side, of course, as our rental car, navigational systems and multiple road signs told us repeatedly.

Our first stop was Trim Castle, the biggest anglo-american castle...somewhere.

Anyways, it was in fact pretty impressive - and we walked around the castle grounds for quite some time to take our first photos on this trip. It was drizzling most of the time we spent at Trim, but we did not let that darken our mood. We all brought plenty of rain-equipment, because after all, we're in Ireland, what did we expect?

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Day 19 - From Denali to Anchorage

Before we had to leave the Denali National Park we decided we wanted to drive the Park Road as far as you are allowed with our own vehicle. And we were so glad we did! We not only saw the first bull moose of our vacation, we also did finally get to see a bear. A real life grizzly bear.

As we first saw him, he was really far away and could hardly be seen without the help of our binoculars. He was on the other side of a riverbed and went into the bushes. After a while we decided to go down there to get some pictures of the valley - not having the best feeling....

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Day 18 - Denali National Park and the green shuttle bus

The second day of our road trip began early for us, as we had to make our way to Denali National Park until 11.30 at the latest to be on time to board our shuttle bus. Since we hadn’t seen any animals on the previous day and were almost through the scenic parts of the road, we didn’t expect too much of the last bit of road left on the Denali Highway. But just about five minutes after we had started driving again two caribou stood right in the middle of the road. We stopped. They looked at us and then started to walk towards us. They stayed in sight for quite some time, looking at us just as curious as we looked at them. Then another car drove by and they went off into the bushes.

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Day 16 - Thunder Bird Falls

Since we used most of our day 16 to get everything ready for our road trip to Denali we didn't have time to do big excursions. Instead we went to the Thunder Bird Falls that are fairly close by Eagle River.

The area is located in the Chugach State Park and has two trails. One trail leads to an overlook over the Thunder Bird Falls. We didn't find that too impressive since we were pretty far away from it. The second trail leads down to the Thunder Bird Creek and allowed us to actually get up close with the waterfall, which was a lot more impressive.

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