Africa!!

Since our last post we have arrived in Africa and already completed our safari. We stayed at Ngala Safari Lodge which was just lovely, very luxurious. On arrival we were greeted with warm towels and a very welcome hot chocolate. The whole experience was just amazing. The staff were incredible, so friendly and willing to look after us. Our driver/guide, Barney and our tracker, Joe, ensured we found plenty to see. And the food was just glorious, so delicious and so much of it! It was quite nice to have something other than noodles for a change!

Us with Barney & Joe

We had two drives each day, one in the morning and one in the evening. Although the 5am wake-up knock on the door was a bit of a shock to the system, the animals were well worth it. Our highlights were seeing a herd of elephants walking along within 10 minutes of our first drive, a pride of 11 lions just lounging around on a dirt mound, tracking down a young female leopard (whom we followed down a creek bed, into a dry river bed and then watched from about 5 metres away) and watching a cheetah with her 3 very fluffy cubs.

The baby elephant charging usOne of the male lions (his mane has only started growing!)
The beautiful leopard we followed
Cheetah with her cubs

It was quite sad to leave Ngala. We had such a great time. We’ll definitely be back!

We arrived at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe yesterday and went on a sunset cruise on the Mighty Zambezi River. The guide on the boat was very sharp and located a few birds, a monitor lizard and some hippos. The highlight was seeing a hippo yawn, bringing the top of its body out of the water as well as its head.

This morning we went for our lion encounter. When they told us that they had lions of 13 months and 18 months we started thinking that these wouldn’t be little tiny cubs! We started with the 18 month old ones, and they came up to thigh height. We were told not to play with them because they would inflict some injury and seeing their 4cm claws and sizeable teeth, we were inclined to believe them. It was so amazing. They were just beautiful. It was simply incredible being able to walk next to them and crouch down with them. The operators of the encounters are part of a breeding program for lions which aims to put human-raised lions into 10,000 acre habitats where they no longer have human interaction. The cubs from these lions are then raised entirely without human contact and are released (once they are old enough) into truly open areas.

Hands on with our lion cub!

Tomorrow we’re going to see the falls. We haven’t seen the actual falls yet, just the mist which rises above the relatively flat landscape in a very eerie way.

The plan is put a couple of photo albums up but we’ll need to wait until we get a reliable internet connection.

Cheers

Dain & Susan

Our first stop... Vietnam

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City was quite an experience after a long couple of flights, so much traffic and so many motorbikes (even more amazing was peak hour in full swing!!) At traffic lights the motorbikes are 8 wide, and there's just a constant stream wherever you go.

Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City

Nha Trang was fantastic - the resort was such a lovely place to stay and the staff couldn’t do enough for us. We did a few tours, one into the countryside - where we saw how they make rice noodles, rice paper (for rice paper rolls) and a conical hat maker (the hats are conical, not the maker). We did a cyclo tour which involved being ridden around the city by 3 cyclos - one each for us and one for our guide. We were taken to the markets, that sell EVERYTHING!! Fresh food, dried food, clothes, shoes, souvenirs, fabric, household items etc.

This bridge is built by the locals after every rainy season

Chillies, ginger & garlic at the markets

The third ‘tour’ we did was a sunset cruise, where we had a 40-45 foot wooden boat all to ourselves, with a dedicated guide and 2 boat drivers. The boat nosed up to the beach and we climbed up a ladder over the bow which was about 2.5m high.

Sunrise over Nha Trang

At the resort we ate a lot, swam and went for a few walks, mostly in the cool of early morning. We were sad to leave Nha Trang, particularly when one of the staff members came out to wave us off especially.

However, we are back in the big city now. We took a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels yesterday which were once a network of 250km of tunnels. The actual tunnels were destroyed by bombing, but they have recreated various aspects. It was quite confronting seeing some of the tactics and techniques used in the war by the Vietnamese. We also had the opportunity to fire an AK-47 which was quite cool.

Dain going through an entrance to the tunnels

Susan taking aim!

We visited the Mekong Delta and the floating markets today. It was a long drive there and back, but well worth a visit. Tomorrow we're planning to see some more of the city’s museums. We fly out Monday night for South Africa. Next stop... SAFARI!!

PS We've amended the settings so you can now comment on our blog.

Just a quick update

We're madly in the middle of last minute packing so we thought we'd put a couple of photos up and we'll do a full coverage of the day later.

Needless to say, we had an amazing day. The weather was perfect and from all accounts everyone had a good time.

love from Mr & Mrs Penman