Well that sucks

The Oxalis tour of Tu Lan cave and hiking thru the jungle was canceled. But, there's a similar one I can go on. It's a longer hike and less driving. I just wanted to do an Oxalis tour because they do all of the big expeditions up here. This other one seems to have what I want--a guided trek through the jungle, through rivers and some scrambling up and around the karsts. I'm not too interested in swimming in a cave but what the heck. As long as we don't get lost. Should be fun.

Well, I'm all caught up on this blog now. I'm glad it wasn't permanently deleted.

Cave tour video and others

There are real cows in Vietnam (Bruce). The end has jungle sounds from outside my room on the lake.

https://youtu.be/8PAtp7dSSQU


AJ

People from all over.

The guy in the right has been traveling for 9 months. He's from London. Went to the US, Canada, South America, Austrakia, Cambodia, Laos, now Vietnam. He doesn't know where he'll head off to next. The couple behind me is from Denmark. He's working in LA right now tho.

Returning to the docks

A walk up the hill to a pagoda.

More cave

Cave pics

Cave tour

Took a last minute boat and walking tour of the Phong Nha cave. It's a very popular attraction in Vietnam.

...and checked into this one!

11 February 2016. Lake View hotel/resort. Nice diner in the place. I can take that canoe out if I want. And damn that bed is no place for an old man!
$55/night. Jeez.

Checking out of this skanky place...($18 for the night)......

That sucked

11 February 2016. I don't know what happened, but my blog was locked. The email actually said it was deleted! But after checking I found out Google locked it due to suspected spam. Something really weird was going on because right after I got the blog deleted email, my primary google gmail account was locked out also. That was disconcerting.
Google's process for unlocking my email required an SMS text message to my phone with a code number to enter to unlock my account. Well, I don't get cell service here so that was out. The only other option was for Google to have a robot call my cell phone and say the code via voice. I tried that option hoping my voicemail would record the code. I used Skype to call my cell number, hit the # key during my 'greeting,' got to my messages and bingo, got the code. Once I entered it my gmail was unlocked.

Then, I found out that a bunch of blog postings I made via email were returned undelivered. What?

I got onto blogger (the blog hosting system run by Google) and hit the Appeal button where it said my blog was locked. Today I got an email saying it is now unlocked. Whew.

But the weird thing is, I cannot view my own blog from Vietnam anymore! Luckily, I have a VPN service that connects to a server in the USA. When I connect via VPN, I can see my blog.

So now I'll re-post my stuff but I have a lot of catching up to do. Some of the posts will have >> next to the text because I'm just forwarding my old rejected emails.