vacation summary so far - mostly up, one big down....

Thought I'd jot down some of the highlights and the one big dark point of our trip so far....

I met up with Olivier in Ko Tao, Thailand on Feb. 4th and we stayed in a little bungalow on Sairi Beach for about 5-6 days. We swam in the ocean every day and it was very relaxing. We didn't do much sightseeing - one day we rented scooters and drove around to the various beaches, but mainly it was very lazy - just what I needed! I took some pictures with my lovely Canon 512 Powershot.

After Ko Tao, we took a boat and a bus to Krabi and stayed on Hat Ton Sai. The Krabi province is very beautiful, tall limestone cliffs that end in white sand beaches. We swam a lot and rented sea kayaks and paddled around. I took lots of pictures.

We flew from Krabi to Bangkok for a shopping day before heading to Saigon. I was very excited about coming back to Vietnam, I was here in Hanoi a couple of years ago and I was looking forward to seeing the south. And taking lots of pictures with my fancy camera. But, and this is the low part, on our first day walking around Saigon, I was coming out of a temple with my camera in my hand and I was "motorcycle robbed" or however you call it. A girl riding on the back of a motorcycle snatched it out of my hands and it was gone. Took 2 seconds. Needless to say I was very upset and very, very pissed off. Still am a bit, have occasional fantasy where I relive the moment and I picture myself reaching out as they drive off and I grab her by the hair....she had the really bad brassy dye job that a lot of Asian girls get when they try to make their hair lighter...anyway, I won't go into the details of my hostile revenge fantasy.

Besides that, the holiday has still been good. I've been trying not to let it taint my opinion of Vietnam, although I do feel myself feeling quite mistrustful. Olivier has been great and lots of fun to travel with. He took some pictures with his camera so I'll still have some mementos. We went out to Mui Ne, a beach area with fantastic sand dunes and it was really beautiful. We leave to go back to Taiwan on the 23rd and it's back to work on the 26th. Hope everyone is well, will post pictures (the ones that aren't gone forever!! Sob!) soon.

Bridget