Continuing north through Malaysia we visited the island of Penang. Braving a night train we headed across the border to Champon, Thailand. The train let us off a 3 a.m. and we had to wait until 7:00 a.m. for the bus that took us to the ferry to beautiful Koh Tao. Koh Tao is where we had our diving adventure getting our PADI Open Water and Advanced diving certificates (Scuba Diving In Thailand). After about ten days in the small island village (we really liked it there) we went to the bustling city of Bangkok.

Out of Bangkok we headed southeast to Siem Reap, Cambodia. After visiting Angkor Wat (Cambodia’s Angkor Wat) we made our way to Phenom Penh for a few days (Cambodia – A Sad Piece of History). Then we were on to the beach town of Sahanoukville and then over to the island of Koh Rong for more diving (I think we are hooked).

Our route to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) involved a van back to Phenom Penh and the a long bus ride across border into Vietnam. We bought a multi-stop bus ticket for our trip north in Vietnam. From Ho Chi Minh City we went to the beach town of Mui Ne. Then up into the mountains to the garden city of Da Lat (Da Lat – Vietnam’s Garden City). After a few days of cooling off we heading back down into the humidity to the beach town of Nha Trang. We enjoyed two days of diving before taking a twelve hour bus ride to Hoi An. From Hoi An we had our motorbike adventure to Hue (Central Vietnam by Motorbike). We faced one more long (thirteen hours) bus ride to get to Hanoi. Our tour of Halong Bay (Ha Long Bay – Vietnam’s Wonder of the World) involved a van ride, our cruise and then the van back to Hanoi for a couple of days.

We finally got our visas for India. It took seven days (we were on the boat for three), $206 and several trips to the embassy but we were finally on our way. Our flight took us to Kolkata (Calcutta) India for the beginning of a three month adventure.