Back to Bangkok, Korea Prep and a Last Scare

Being back in Bangkok was nice, especially so because we were staying at Eileen and Kristina’s again. It cannot be overstated how much we appreciated having a place to use as a home base. It made our travel much easier than can be expressed here. We owe them a great measure of thanks.

Also, most of these pictures are from Mae Hong Son, at least the one of us and our bike and of the temple.

Anyway, we had a fair amount of minor tasks to complete in the two weeks we had before departing for Korea, so we got on them. After a few lazy days spent lounging around the house of course. Our first priority was to acquire our Korean visas. We were told that this might take upwards of a week, but in fact it did not. We went in on a Friday and returned on Monday. No interview required. Perhaps that was because our school here in Korea made most of the arrangements for us while we traveled. It was a bit of a test finding the place though, so we did our share. We called and got a general idea of the embassy’s location but when we arrived in that part of town, it was not immediately obvious and our directions consisted of the name of the subway station to get off at and that the building was opposite a large mall. In fact, the embassy was not across from the mall but rather down a street that was behind the building across from the mall. We walked all over and found nothing. In the end, we resorted to taking a taxi to find it, but by then it was noon and the embassy was closed for lunch. We had an hour and a half to wait. We walked back to the mall and got lunch.

Our other business was healthcare. Thailand has a major medical tourism industry as healthcare is dirt-cheap there. You couldn’t rent a car in the US for what you pay to get a dental check-up. Seriously, you pay more for a night in a Motel 6 than you do for a physical. So, we signed up to see the dentist and get checked out. Everything was pretty normal, except an odd encounter we had with a frantic French woman. We passed her talking to another westerner as we entered the hospital and she caught up with us in the magazine shop. Her story was this: Her and her husband had been somewhere on the coast in the south when they found themselves in a dingy, prostitute ridden town. They planned to spend the night and take the train back to Bangkok the next day. That night her husband went to get money from the ATM. As he was walking away, a pair on a motobike road past, the guy on the back grabbing her husbands bag which contained their passports, ATM cards, money, etc. Instinctively he grabbed the guy by the shoulder. Apparently he came flying off the bike and split his head open on the cement. Her husband then contacted the police who arrested him and charged him with assault. They demanded something like $3,000, but eventually she and her husband managed to get it down to $1,000, I think. Well, that wouldn’t be so much of a problem if the driver of the motobike hadn’t managed to keep the bag with their ID, cards, etc. She paid what she could up front and rushed back to Bangkok to get help from her embassy, but the French embassy apparently doesn’t give its citizens financial assistance in these types of situations because they do not support bribery, which is what this thing was. They found a hotel for her, began getting her new IDs issued and arranged for their flights home to be moved up, but that was about all they were prepared to do. She was frantically trying to get the money when we met her, afraid that the police would renege if she didn’t get the money right away. She was asking us for help. She needed something like 12,000 bhat. We gave her 1,000. It was about all we could afford. We felt terrible for her. What a terrifying position to be in. Later we learned that the Thai police hold westerners responsible in any legal situation. If you’re in a taxi and it gets into an accident, it’s your fault. If you’re being robbed, you defend your self and the thief is injured, it’s your fault, and on. The logic for this is that had you not been there, this thing wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Ass-backwards if you ask me. Generally I’m pretty accepting of cultural differences and appreciate that different countries have different mores and beliefs, but this one is just plain ridiculous, especially when you take into account how much the economy depends on tourism. Thailand has something like a million visitors a year. Bullshit. The country is beautiful, just avoid contact with the police at all costs. It’s better just to throw some cash at the person and leave. After that encounter, we were extremely careful.
On one of our days free of any errands to run we went to Lumphini Park where we saw comodo dragons swimming in the lake there and lounging along the banks. They are incredible. We saw one that had to be at least 6 feet long. It was great.

In the end, we said a sad goodbye to Eileen and Kristina and headed off to Korea, which is where we are now. The flight was easy and coming through customs was a breeze.


This is a Lady Bug in a plant of some sort.

Slice of Pai

So for the delay in writing this, raft of things have happened in the past few weeks and I’ve not felt up to it until now. Last I wrote we were taking the treacherously coiling road up to Pai from Chiang Mai.

According to our Lonely Planet, Pai is one of the last spots along the old hippy backpacker route through this region and we found that assessment to be pretty accurate – this is of note because the book’s accuracy has been less and less reliable throughout our trip. We arrived and found a dusty town with dirt roads choked with internet cafes, guided tour agencies, hip clothing shops and restaurants, a surprising number of which offering middle-eastern fair from baba ganouj to hummus and falafel. The town its self was populated with old ‘60s hangers-on and Thai men dressed and living as if it were still the summer of love, wearing bellbottom jeans and mesh tank-tops, long hair or dreadlocks flowing down their backs, stoned to the gills.

We headed toward Pai River and found a pleasant little bungalow, reasonably priced and on the water with indoor plumbing and a nice deck. We spent 3 nights there and didn’t do much in between them, just relaxed and explored town. We did take a daylong yoga class, my first, which we enjoyed but apparently was more advanced than most beginners’ classes. One of the draws for us was that the package included lunch and dinner, both of which were supposed to consist of Indian food cooked by a genuine Indian woman, this is a paraphrase of the flying that drew us there. In actuality the food turned out to be sub-par Thai-tourist fare. We were unimpressed. Mama, the name the teacher insisted we call her, was easy going enough and a decent enough teacher, but that didn’t make up for the disappointment in the food.

The rest of the time was divided between milling around, reading, shopping at over-priced bookstores, eating and checking e-mail (this is where we learned that our friend Annie was getting married to her boyfriend Tim – if you two read this, CONGRATULATIONS! We’re so happy for you.) The food was incredibly cheap and on our last night in town I had the best curry I ate all trip. It was yellow curry with eggplant. Delicious. (To all the food blog readers, I’m sorry about the lack of attention it has gotten. I’ll write more on it soon. Don’t worry, I haven’t stopped eating.)

We’d read that you can take a rafting trip on to the next town, Mae Hong Son, so we investigated and eventually signed up at one of the numerous tourism agencies. We left early in the morning and as it turned out, we had an even more nauseating drive ahead of us than the one in to Pai. The road was even more twisted and cutback riddled and this time we were riding on benches in the back of a pickup. I was thoroughly sick by the time we arrived at the drop. Only the mint gum I chewed furiously the entire time saved me from divulging the contents of my stomach all over the 5 other people we were riding with. For future reference to anyone who might be daring to take a similar route, an entire pack of gum is about right, no less than 5 pieces, but be sure to spread them out so that you take them at intervals and build up a tolerance for that much gum in your mouth at once.

In our group were a pair from England who’d been traveling for three years spending time working all along the way, a father and daughter combo from England (they had rented a car and drove themselves to the drop) and a Canadian couple that had just finished teaching English in Korea. Hilary took care of the questioning for me while I did battle with my inner ear.

Once at the river we got all suited up, life jackets, helmets and paddles, aumnd pushed off, the British father/daughter team in our boat. I immediately snapped my aluminum paddle. The paddle just peeled right off. Hilary, being the generous person she is, offered up her paddle and sat back to enjoy the ride until we reached the lunch stop where we could pick up another. The trip was billed as intermediate and supposedly had at least two class 4 rapids. The danger was heightened by our guide’s continuous attempts to high-side us sideways on any rocks he could find in the river, thus dumping one or another unlucky person. Mostly it was the father who was sent sprawling into the water or grappling with the edge of the boat to hang on. It was fun and in the end we all got it as we got a little too squirrely in the class 4 and flipped the boat. Hilary took a pretty good bump on the leg and I had the father come down on top of me, also I wrapped my ankle on a rock and had to ride out the rest of the rapid floating on my back. It mellowed out considerably after that and gently floated down river through a giant wildlife preserve spotting a pack of monkeys and several king fishers. All-in-all, it was a fun trip and we felt good at the end of the day. Plus we got to ask the Canadians lot more questions about living in Korea.

Mae Hong Son was an entirely different sort of town than Pai. It did not pander to tourists what so ever. In fact, we had a bit of trouble finding a guest house. It is a regular small town, the same as you might find in the U.S. There is of course a market, but it wasn’t any different from the rest. Near to the town are several Long Neck Karen villages. They are considered refugees from Burma though many of the villages they live in are pretty old. Hilary and I decided that we would rent a motobike and check out a village then look for the biggest waterfall in the area. We had a map we got from our guest house, but weren’t sure of our competency on the roads on our own. I drove and Hilary rode on the back with the map. She got us to both places successfully.

The Karen village was not at all what we’d hoped for. There were several on the map and we chose one of the smaller ones because we figured that was our best shot and seeing one that wasn’t thronged by tourists and constructed around the accompanying trade. It didn’t matter. We paid 500 bhat a piece for entrance – the money supposedly goes to supporting the villagers as they cannot work in Thailand due to their refugee status. The village was little more than several little stalls where villagers were selling postcards of Long Neck Karen (in one case a woman was selling postcards of herself), little trinkets and cheap art pieces. The understanding was that you’d buy an item in exchange for taking a picture. We did this once. We don’t mind contributing to a village, especially when it’s so little, but it just seemed tawdry in this manner.

The waterfall was beautiful.

In the end, we did something like 100kms on the bike that day. It was great. We even got the bike up to 80km/hr.

The next day we left for Mae Sariang, but when we pulled into town, we decided we were ready to get back to Bangkok, and the fastest way to do that was to go back to Chiang Mai and catch the train the next day. That is what we did.


More Pictures later.

Bangkok, Jobs and the North

When we got to back to Bangkok, our intentions were to stay overnight and get on up to Chiang Mai (a popular city in the north of Thailand) and the surrounding region for a couple of weeks, but as it turned out, we had potential job offers waiting in our e-mail inboxes and they would require some attention. For those of you who don’t know, which may be very few, we applied to teach English in Korea via Park English, a job placement organization. We had been waiting to hear from them for a while and had become somewhat antsy about it as our departure date was fast arriving. Before heading out on our travels proper we had purchased a pair of tickets to Korea that left on October 10th and here we were, little more than a month from flying and without jobs. So, we pushed a little and it paid off. The e-mail we received was a job posting for a pair of teachers at Edo Best English School which is located on the southern coast of Korea in Yeosu. We did a little research on the area and found it to be everything we were looking for. It is in the least developed region of Korea, is right on the coast and with a mere 300,000 people is smaller than most other cities. We e-mailed Park English right back, saying we loved the job and would like to move forward with it. The next step was a phone interview with the headmaster. That went swimmingly and what followed was a whirlwind of e-mails and phone calls between Park English, the headmaster and us. After a few hours, everything got worked out and we were e-mailed contracts which we signed and faxed right back. And we then had jobs. Relief. If you want details, comment and we’ll e-mail you them.
Sorry for the simple nuts and bolts beginning, but that’s pretty much how it went and I couldn’t find anything humorous to write in there. At least nothing that wouldn’t be a complete diversion. Besides, there’s nothing funny about job hunting and the particulars. This is serious business people.
Anyhow, having gotten that squared away, we boarded a night train for Chiang Mai and slept restlessly through the night because the air-con was on high and the lights were left on all night. It was cold. While we’re looking forward to the coldness that Korea will offer, being cold when you know it’s hot outside is a different thing entirely. It’s not nice. We don’t like it. It’s like when you order something and then it arrives and what the person next to you is eating looks better. Maybe.
It was hot when we got to Chiang Mai. Very hot. Made especially so because of the ice box we’d slept in over night. We were not impressed. The first few guest houses we stopped at were all booked up and so we took what we came next. The room looked a little dingy but beggars and all that stuff. We took it, brushing away a few hairs we found on the mattress and planning to move the next morning. We had the whole day ahead of us, so we set about making plans for the next day. Hilary wanted to take a cooking class and I had seen a mountain biking trip. So we signed up for separate things. I signed up for my biking trip at a guest house near to ours that we had over-looked and had vacancies. This would come in handy later that night. We spent the rest of the day exploring the city. It was nice enough, I suppose. Nothing all that remarkable if you ask me.
After dinner we headed home, got ready for bed and went to settling in. That’s when we found the band-aide. It was until then hidden underneath one of the pillows and it was used. Now, we can handle a few stray hairs, we can take a couple of roaches or ants, we can even deal with large reptiles living in the walls, but we draw the line at used band-aides in the bed. Call us prissy or pampered or what-have-you, but we’ve got our standards. Though we’d paid for the night, we said F this place. We’re out of here and headed over to the aforementioned guest house where I’d signed up for mountain biking. The next day went much better. I can’t say exactly what Hilary’s cooking class was like but I know she enjoyed it and learned to make green curry, som tam, sticky rice with mango, and something else I’m probably forgetting. As for myself, I had one of the best days of the whole trip. Hilary has had to hear about it several times since.
The trip started at around 9am. Now, in the brochure there were pictures of riders in heavy gear, chest protectors, shin guards, gloves, elbow pads and helmets. It struck me as ridiculous that we would be made to wear so much gear, but by the end I was thankful. When I signed up I was offered rides ranging from beginner to expert. I didn’t want to get myself in over my head, but at the same time, I didn’t want to find myself on a leisurely ride through the park. As luck would have it, out of the 6 signed up (3 women, 3 men) there was an Aussie in the group who was in a similar situation. We were all taken to the top of a nearby mountain, outfitted with all the heavy duty gear and told to ride around a bit to get comfortable. Once we were set, the guides badgered the third guy into trying the advanced track we were starting on. At the start the trails split for a ways and then rejoin so that anyone who can’t handle the advanced trail can take it easy. The third guy could not handle it. Not five minutes in I saw him go flying headfirst over the handlebars. He proceeded to do that 5 more times before we met up with the women and he begged off. To be fair, the ride was damned dangerous. We spent a great deal of time riding the breaks down near shear, mud covered, root riddled trail. I was sent off my bike several times as was the Aussie and even our guide. It was great. I was at the point where I was pretty scared, but not so much that it wasn’t enjoyable. Meanwhile, the trail was just about all my technical skills could and some times more. I was filthy and exhausted by the end of the day, and feeling like I’d accomplished something.
The next day we took a minivan up the most twisted road I’ve ever been on to Pai, a small hippy town in the mountains.

Laos Continued

Laos is one of the most beautiful countries we were able to visit and Vang Vieng was probably the most stunning place we stayed. The surrounding landscape looks like someone took the islands from Halong Bay, giant limestone configurations that rise from the earth almost perpendicularly, and transplanted them. In Laos, these very same formations rise out of vast green rice paddies. Spectacular. Just as in Vietnam, these rocks are riddled with holes, some of which are deep enough to be called caves even. We (the Germans, Micha and Mieke and ourselves) had heard all about the different caves to be seen. Some very tall tales none of which we were entirely sure of. So, on our last full day in town, we decided to head for the one rumored to be the biggest, best cave of all, 5 km down a muddy road from Maylyn (where we were staying) and away from town. We had been told there was not only a cave there but a lagoon to swim in. We were excited.

Being four strapping you and healthy adventure-happy travelers, we decided that we should walk it – we’re also frugal currently. It was hot that day my friends. H-O-T hot. Mirage appearance hot. The kind of hot that threatens to dry your eyeballs right out of their sockets. After the first km, my skin was like those perforated hoses that are used for watering. I mean I was sweating like a sweet tooth at a dentist’s office. It took the better part of a couple of hours to get there and when we did… well… there was no lagoon to be found, only a narrow river, more a creek really. There was a small rope swing and shaded bamboo platforms to rest on, but no lagoon.

We had been warned that the trail up to the mouth of the cave would be treacherous and that the flip-flops Hilary and I were wearing probably wouldn’t be sufficient. We dismissed these warnings at the time but found ourselves scrabbling up a near vertical path, more rock climbing than hiking. We did make it. The mouth of the cave was relatively small but once inside, the ceiling rose too maybe 50ft and the room spread out to the size of a respectable cafeteria or ballroom. Just inside, the trail led down to the center of the chamber and on to others. This we learned after. Citing our weakly shod feet and lack of a flashlight, we declined to follow Micha and Mieke into the cave. Instead we navigated our way back down and took a dip.

When Micha and Mieke got back, we decided collectively that the only way to survive our return to Maylyn was to arrange a ride somehow. There had been a tractor and trailer bed thing parked near where we’d paid to see the cave and we figured to hire it, maybe. In actuality, it looked more like a rotor tiller with extended handlebars, but it did a pretty good clip and for a modest price (50,000 kip = $5). We got home safely and without further renal damage. The next day we left for Luang Prabang.

The ride wasn’t so bad despite the incredible amount of curves in the road. I managed to keep my lunch which is always an accomplishment. Once in town, we found a nice guest house right on the water – The Nam Khan, a tributary of the Mekong River. As luck would have it, we were just in time for the start of a three-day longboat racing festival. The festival is called Bun Awk Phansa which means End of the Rains Retreat according to my Lonely Planet – don’t quote me. Hilary and I took a couple in. The races were held on the Mekong. On the first day, each boat held maybe 25 people, but by the last day that number swelled to over 50. It was all very exciting and all the restaurants, permanent and otherwise, were packed with beer swilling Laotians cheering their teams on and singing karaoke. Meanwhile, all the streets near the river were packed with booths selling plastic toys, especially guns, the rebel fighter’s favorite the Kalashnikov to be exact, fake wooden handle and all. There were other cheap trinkets, some clothing and pirate DVDs and CDs too.

Also in town was Laos’ most popular pop rock group (not the monks pictured here)whose name eludes me presently. We learned this from a couple we’d met tubing in Vang Vieng and run into again in Luang Prabang. I don’t recall their names either and Hilary’s not here to ask. I do remember that they were from Portland, were on their honeymoon and we had a lot in common. We forgot to ask for their e-mail addresses before we left. Anyway, the concert was free and out doors, so we headed over en masse. As it turned out, it was sponsored by Carlsberg Brewing which owns Beer Laos, so there was cheap beer to be had along with county fair-like activities – balloon popping with darts for prizes and the such, and a couple of those giant inflatable castles complete with slides inside them. We tried to gain access but were denied. I guys we didn’t fit the height requirements. Isn’t that funny. At one point you’re too small to go on the rides and then later you become too big. We didn’t try the carousel. The concert was okay if you’re into stuff that sounds like Fall Out Boy. Personally I don’t but it was still interesting, at least until it started raining and everyone started rushing for the road.

The next morning Hilary got up very early, before 6am, and went out to greet the monks as they made their daily rounds. Throughout this region, Buddhist monks go out early in the morning to collect donations. The typical gifts change from country to country but rarely consist of money. Here it was rice and these rice-banana-coconut milk fritters steamed in banana leaves. They were delicious. After she returned and dragged me out of bed we left for one of the several different sets of waterfalls. We headed for the largest one. Again, the name is missing from the book and my brain, but it was incredible. Near the entrance is a bear rescue shelter where they have several Asian Black Bears. I didn’t take a picture so imagine a black bear wearing a gigantic fur around its neck, like a balding man’s afro.
(Here’s a link: http://www.wildlife1.org/cms/images/stories/endangered/bears/p-16.jpg)
They also had a tiger. The waterfall its self was a ways up an increasingly washed out trail. It had been raining recently and so the river was gorged. Finally we reached the base of the falls. Micha, Mieke and I opted to take the trail to the top, getting extremely soaked on the way. When we reached it, we found we had 2 choices on our return: either go back the way we came or walk along the very rim of the falls hoping that the wooden rail holds. I’ve never been one for returning the way I came and I suspect Micha and Mieke don’t like it either, so we did it. It wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds because the footing was pretty good and underneath the water was a pretty decent sized ridge to brace your feet against. The way back down on the other side was much less dangerous. The waterfall was spectacular. I think it was the largest we’ve seen. We opted for going back to town instead of on to the next waterfall with Micha and Mieke. I’d had just about enough of riding around in tuktuks and had been slightly carsick on the ride.

There’s not much special to mention about the rest of our time there. We did not visit any of the temples or wats because, well, we’ve seen enough to last us a while. Not to sound ungrateful. We flew out early in the morning and were back in Bangkok before we knew it. It would only be a brief stay, but important.

These are clouds.

Laos, Not Lousy

Vientiane is the capitol of Laos and is home to 201,000 people, at least if our Lonely Planet guide book is to be believed – it has failed us on occasion. The number of residence is disputable, but there is no doubt that the city is the capitol and the most inhabited. We arrived mid day and went along with the German couple to find a guest house – this would soon become a trend and I doubt we got our guide book out once while in Laos. We ended up finding a nice enough place that was cheap and close to the center of town, not that we planned on staying in town long. Really Vientiane was more a stop-over on our way to Vang Vieng for us, more so than a destination. There is however a fare amount of turbulent history there apparently. You wouldn’t know it from being there unless you went to a museum maybe. According to the guide, the city has been ruffed up by the Vietnamese, Burmese, Siamese, Khmer, and French, all in succession. What’s more, it appears the city was once a festering “den of vice” but the only sign we saw of this was the Beer Laos which is actually made by Carlsberg Brewing. So it goes.
We did happen to luck upon the riverside night eating area. It wasn’t exactly a market or cafeteria, but it was a distinct gathering of street food peddlers verging on restaurants. The food was pretty good, but maybe that’s just the Beer Laos clogging my memory. I hadn’t had too much drink, but enough so that food flavors were enhanced. I stand by my tongue, though. It was good.
On our one full day in Vientaine we ventured out to Pha That Luang, a normally gleaming golden temple that doubles as a symbol of Buddhism and Lao independence. The sun was stuck behind clouds when we were there, so there wasn’t much radiance, though I’ll admit it had a subtle glow. It supposedly houses a piece of the Buddha’s breastbone. We didn’t see it. I think it’s actually entombed, and as luck would have it, we’d left our hammer and chisel at the guest house. Next time. Also, out front sits a statue of an ancient ruler who looks quite friendly despite the sword laid across his legs, handle in hand.
The next day we hightailed it for Vang Vieng and the famous rope swing tubing. Let me explain. After we finished the Peace Corps, Hilary and I headed directly for home while our friend Jeff gallivanted off to travel around Southeast Asia at length. This tubing thing was one of the many highlights, and the one that stuck closest in my mind. You see, Vang Vieng hugs the Nam Song and for a pittance you can rent an inner tube and get driven 5km up river to then float back to town. All along the river are bar/restaurant/snack shacks, each with some sort of rope swing rigged up. All you have to do to use them is buy something, usually a beer. Generally I like jumping off stuff or swing off stuff into water and when Jeff told me of this arrangement, it was immediately a priority.
Vang Vieng its self is rather small and heavily crowded with backpacker-type restaurants and bars, all playing DVDs of “Friends.” The Germans picked a place across the river that sounded great – nice bungalows right on the water for a very agreeable price. As it turned out, the place, Maylyn was more than we could’ve expected. The bungalows were beautiful one room affairs with decks made for relaxation, there was a nice little restaurant offering very good food and the patron, Joe, was a wonderful host, instantly making us feel at home. I could go on about Joe at length, but it is more than sufficient to say that I enjoyed his sense of humor immensely and found him to be very insightful. I would’ve liked to stay much longer if for no other reason than to continue the conversations we had in the evenings after dinner. He’s made a greater impression on me than any other person I’ve met on this trip. (Joe, if you read this, I hope you don’t find it too fawning. At least it isn’t a backpacker’s manifesto.) Maylyn is easily the place we’ve felt most comfortable, other than Kristina and Eileen’s, and I would highly recommend staying there.
On our first full day, it was slightly grey and drizzly, but I managed to drag the Germans out to tube – Hilary chose to stay behind and read. (Enough of this “the Germans” stuff, it really isn’t fair to them to continue to refer to them only as that. They’re people goddamn it! There names are Micha and Mieke.) As it turned out, it was very nice on the river as there were very few others, though we could not go on many of the rope swings as the river was too high.
I got a little scraped up at the first stop. The way it goes is this: you float along and when you see a place you want to stop at, you feverishly paddle your way over and when you get close enough someone throws either a smaller inner tube or a shaft of bamboo to you, both of each are attached to a rope which they use to pull you in. I was quite impressed by the accuracy with which many of these guys threw the tube. They’d ring you from as far as 20 yards out, no problem. Unfortunately, as the river was high, so was it swift. So, when I attempted to pull myself in via the bamboo pole that had been extended to me, I ended up pulling myself right out of my tube and cling to it desperately with one hand and cling to the bamboo equally desperately with the other. It worked out in the end, but not without a minor scrape or two. As dangerous as that may sound, there was an even greater danger awaiting us further on.
At the first place we stopped we met a very boisterous Italian. It was only 11 a.m. and already he was excessively drunk. This he would explain to us when he got particularly rambunctious after attempting to prod everyone there to jump from the rope swing platform. He tried to take Micha’s beer, intending to hold it for him while he jumped I presume, but Micha had no intention of jumping and told the guy so. This is when he reveled to us that he was well drunk because he only had 2 weeks of vacation and needed to make the most of it. We liked him, Micha included. He sounded exactly like Borat.
After an hour of jumping, riding the zip line and playing volleyball, we headed on. The next place is only worth mention for this one thing: I tried to do a back flip off the swing and as you might expect, I did a massive back flop instead. It could’ve been worse. I could’ve landed on some of the giant chunks of bamboo and lumber that were floating down the river dislodged by the excessive amount of recent rain.
By the time we reached the bottom, we’d spent all but 3,000 kip, which was 1,000 kip short of the fee for crossing the bridge that would take us back to our bungalows. Somehow I convinced Micha and Mieke that we should simply swim it, a feet that appeared easy enough until we got into the water. At one point, about midway out into the river, I was fairly certain that I would be washed down river and may just end up toppling over the dam a few miles further on. This obviously didn’t happen, otherwise I’d be dictating this from a hospital bed rather than typing it here in Bangkok. Yeah for survival.
That night we ate barbequed fish and some other stuff at Maylyn. It was fantastic.
The next day, we all headed out to tube. Over night, the river dropped at least 2 feet and many more rope swings were operational. The place with the zip line we’d stopped at the pervious day now was able to offer the use of its rope swing. It dipped terrifyingly close to the water, but with my knees tucked up, I managed to make it. More importantly, Hilary completely surprised me by coolly climbing to the top of the platform, watching me jump to show her how safe it was and then doing the zip line. She was a champion. She was to surprise me even further at the next stop. There she again scaled the platform, this one being a little higher and only offering a rope swing. At first she stood back from the edge, holding onto the railing, nervously letting people pass her. Gradually she scooted closer until she was there holding onto the rope swing. Down on the deck of the bar/restaurant/snack shack we got a rousing chant going - “HILARY! HILARY! HILARY!” – and she did it, calmly letting go at the peak and pinching her nose to avoid getting water up it. It was beautiful. Yet another fear concurred.

Long Overdue

So, it has been quite a while since I last wrote, but in order to avoid as long an entry as previous occasions have warranted, I am going to break the last 3 weeks up into 3 entries. Sorry for the delay.

Sapa had been our home for something like 10 days when last I wrote. On our last day in town, we hiked a few miles up one of the roads in town and visited a couple hill tribe villages on the way. It was somewhat clear for the first time since we’d been there and the mountains rose a higher than I had expected when I’d only seen hints of them behind the constant clouds that shrouded them. Also, I took some sniper photos of people in town. Usually when you ask someone to take their picture, something which I normally do and would heartily recommend all visitors do, you get a kind of canned image, a posed picture in which surprisingly frequently you subject is flashing the peace sign. I wanted to get a couple natural shots of people just being people, doing their daily thing, whatever it may be. So, I sat on the balcony at the restaurant where the Vietnamese man had abused me at chess so ruthlessly and snapped pictures of people, unbeknownst to them.

When we finally left, we were ready. Unfortunately, our room must have been in close proximity to a slaughter house of some sort because 7 of the 10 nights spent there were interrupted by the blood stopping howls of pigs being butchered (only one on each occasion). There is no worse way to wake up than to the feverish screams and final death rattles of an animal being killed, not even waking to a rat caught in a trap flopping about your house. As a result, we were generally nervous when going to bed. So, we looked forward to uninterrupted nights of sleep starting on our night train back to Hanoi.

When we got back to Hanoi, we had a decision to make. We knew we were heading to Laos next, but where and how were as yet only speculative. Our original plan had been to cross at the newly opened border crossing in Tay Trang because we supposedly could reach it from Sapa, but as our visa was quickly running out (only 2 days left when we got to Hanoi) and we were unsure of whether or not the crossing was really open or just hear-say, we had returned to Hanoi. Our desire was to take a bus or train to Luang Prabang which is in the middle of Laos, and then follow the main road there down through Vang Vieng, on to Vientiane, right near the Thai border, and from there take a night train back to Bangkok. However, we were to learn that buses to Luang Prabang were much more expensive and took almost 8 hours longer than the ones to Vientiane, strange considering that Hanoi is much closer to Luang Prabang. We had to adjust. Our plan became the one we executed, which is this: we took the bus to Vientiane, took buses north and then flew to Bangkok. The flight was partly inspired by our desperation to rid ourselves of some of our baggage. We had started out from Bangkok with only daypacks, but had somehow purchased so much stuff that we now required 4 daypacks and a large plastic bag/valise. We would’ve liked to take the slow boat from Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai, in the north of Thailand, but the bags were becoming unbearable. It would’ve been much better had we taken our travel packs instead, but you only learn these things after it is too late I suppose.

We have had many homes on our journey - I would define anything that we spent a night on as a home. We have slept on planes, boats, trains and, far too frequently for my liking, buses. Our home for the 22 hour ordeal from Hanoi to Vientiane was neither lavish nor decrepit, and though we boarded with much trepidation, it served it purpose well enough. There were 2 unfortunate things about it. First, the wanton depraved inconsiderate derelict bastard sitting across from Hilary and I insisted on trying to sneak smokes throughout the night despite the bus drivers repeated announcements that there was to be no such behavior on the bus. Second, the bus, having left at 6 o’clock in the evening, arrived at the border at 3 a.m., a full 4 hours before the border opened. The only plausible explanation I can conceive of is that the majority of Vietnamese, lacking air-con, enjoy sleeping on buses. Certainly most are not tall, so perhaps the bus seats are more comfortable than the way I experience them. I don’t know. I don’t speak Vietnamese, so I could not ask anyone what the hell we were doing there 4 hours early when we could just as easily left Hanoi 4 hours later. I’m sure there’s some logic to it somewhere. Our early arrival did prove useful in spite of the lost sleep. Hilary and I met a German couple equally disgruntled by the early arrival and also traveling the same route as us. We ended up spending the next few weeks traveling with them. They’re great friends. I believe you make friends faster and form tighter bonds with people quicker when you meet them traveling. Long-term travel is fairly intense and thus your feelings are a little rawer, you relate to people a little more openly and without concern. I think that’s the reason you form friendships faster.

Anyhow, the border was easy enough, though we had a bit of a scare when we learned that Vietnamese money was not to leave the country. You see, the previous day in Hanoi we had stopped at a bank to take out 200,000 dong (about $12.50 usd) to last us until Laos. Hanoi has cheap black market DVDs for about $1 usd, and we wished to purchase a couple more (we had already gotten several). Several shops offered the entire run of Scrubs, all 6 seasons for less than $10. We fancied this a wise acquisition. Well, somehow Hilary became confused at the ATM and before we knew it, we were the proud owners of 2,000,000 dong. Much more than we wanted. We attempted a spending spree but things were just too damn cheap. The exchange rate back to usd was too bad to even consider, so we planned on trying to use it in Laos. Also, it was Sunday so no banks were open. So, there we were at the border with a lot more dong than one would want to simply give away. Thankfully there was a money exchange in the Vietnamese crossing building. We changed the dong to kip at who knows what rate and headed on.


This a picture of a butterfly.

In Briefs

I figured while I had the time, it would be nice to update the blog as much as possible so it is that I am writing this short entry about today, this very morning that was somewhat cold and wet with drizzle, though lacking outright rain.

We rented a motobike without driver being that I would provide that survice, and headed out to find Silver Falls, a reportedly large-ish waterfall outside of town roughly 20kms on an extremelly muddy and rutted road. The owner of the bike looked a little nervous as we pulled away, either because of our stated destination or because of my driving. It seems I not only have a bit of a heavy foot, but also a lead wrist to match. It took us a half hour of splashing through puddles, sloshing and slipping through mud and careering around corners to reach the falls. They were as tall as advertised and Hilary and I took turns climbing the steps to get a closer look. We did not want to leave the bike alone as we had heard of a scam where someone comes along and vandalizes your bike and then shows up later acting innocently and offering to fix whatever the damage is. The falls, a multi-teared affair, pours down from the top of the mountain and plunges into green forest, passing under a metal bridge in the process. The water looked the color of dehydrated urine, so we didn't bother going down to the smaller pools to washing our faces as many of the Vietnamese tourists were doing, prefer to admire from a fair distance. After that we drove back to town and ate a picnic lunch by the lake in the center of town. All very nice.

Our First Real Village Visit

Everything finally fell into place yesterday and despite the rain, which was light anyway, we followed Chang to her village, first passing the boutiques selling all the same things the H'mong and D'zao people sell on the streets but at a much grater price and with the profits going straight into Vietnamese pockets (this is a bad thing because the hill tribes here are not only very poor but are treated as second class citizens), these intersperced with soap stone carvings shops selling Chinese looking figurines and chess sets and restaurants selling offering a broad menu of which nothing is remarkable but the array of food. Finally, we passed out of town, leaving everyting but the small markets where they sell soda, water, gum and gas out of two liter bottles behind. The road wound down the side of the mountain and eventually we came to a small store where a lot of kids waited for tourists to come so that they could sell them bamboo walking sticks with one end made pointy to stick in the mud because unlike the trail through Cat Cat, this one was not paved, instead mainly consisting of wet, orange clay, slick as a fish's scales. We were immediately surrounded. We bought one for Hilary and I charged ahead without, which was fine until the very end when I got a little careless and ended up flat on my ass in the mud.

The trail started down pretty steeply and we carefully made our way on it, still admiring the beauty of the area. We were surrounded by rice paddies on all sides and could see them crawling up the opposite hillside. You see, we were heading down one side of a ravine to then cross a river and head up the other side. It was slow going for the most part and at one point we were passed by a couple of men, each dragging trees at least 8 feet in length behind them by rope. They raced down the path running at near full speed and I thought, "if this guy slips or turns and ankle, that tree is going be the end of him" when each passed, but thankfully neither did while they were within sight.

We reached the bottom about an hour into the trek and waiting for us was a nice suspension bridge and a steep incline, as muddy as the path we'd just survived, with small trickles of water coming from the collection of rain on the surrounding foliage keeping the clay nice and wet, so slippery. We scrambled up this for another hour and finally came to the village school where Chang would be going if her mother would buy her the school uniform. Despite her absence, she speaks English quite well I'd say, though like most people we've met here, she says yes to anything she doesn't understand, so it can be confusing at times. From the school we could look across and see the trail we'd taken down. All along it were tourists inching their way down. We never saw any of them any closer than this, so I don't know if they went to another village, gave up when the got to the bottom or were run of the hillside by some mad man dragging a down tree behind him at breakneck pace.

Mercifully, Chang's house was not much farther and we arrived safely. There we met her brothers whose names were something like Uhn, Tay, Trung and Co, and her grandfather whose name I do not recall in the slightest, but whose picture appears in this entry. We sat inside by a fire that was already going, sending smoke up through a low-slung straw or wicker platform where some things I never saw and forgot to ask about were drying. Chang cooked us lunch of rice with potatoes and cabbage on this open flame while we talked to her aunt who had come with us from town and played with her three youngest brothers. The little house was virtually surrounded by rice paddies and a river ran next to it. We couldn't see a road in any direction, only paths weaving between rice paddies leading to other little country houses. H'mong villages are not what you picture in a village. The houses are not at all close together and as far as I could tell, there were no specific village activities or policies.

We ate lunch, the four of us who had hiked in, while Chang's eldest brother sat watching and evidently waiting to pour his homemade plum wine because as soon as the meal was finished he slapped three sake cups on the table and filled them to the brim from a dirty old plastic jug thick with halved plums and chilies bobbing in heavy pink wine. Hilary politely declined and I ended up havnig four rounds with him so that I was a little tipsy when we started hiking again, this time up to Chang's aunt's house a little ways further up the hill. I should make it clear here that we had actually crossed over the hillside earlier and had dropped down the backside a bit to get to Chang's and that her aunt's was up another hill. I hope that is at least slightly clear.

We only stayed at the aunt's briefly, though she offered to put us up for the night. We were pretty beat at this point and wanted more to get back to town, so we politely declined. As it turned out, we did not have to go so far as we had come. True we were farther down the valley, but there was a back way from Chang's aunt's that led down to a D'zao village. It was on this path that I took my spill only about 100 feet from the bottom. At the bottom we passed several tourists on their way to the D'zao village, all looking eager and excited for their visit, but led by Vietnamese guides to houses made to fit the comforts westerners expect. This is not good for several reasons: the village gets very little of the money from the tour unless someone buys something and the village's customs are interrupted to fit other people, not to mention the western influences and the amount of trash that is produced by these groups that often number in the 20s and require their own bus.

At this point Chang's aunt left us and we climbed up to the road just us three. We took motobikes back to town. I had noticed some people throwing the frisbee in the town square earlier in the week and as luck would have it, they were again when we got back. I joined in and Hilary rested, and that was really about it, except that we met a guy named Martin from Arizona whose frisbee I had been using unwittingly, and who was very excited and talkative, so much so that we barely got a word in in the hour we spent with him. At one point he asked us what we'd seen so far, then brushed the question aside before we even got a chance to answer because "it didn't really matter." We received a nice lecture on the iniquities here and some good advice on some places to eat and visit. He also offered to have us over for dinner. He has a small hotel room, but has come for four summers now and has a H'mong girlfriend which evidently is against the law of the "moral police". This is according to him. He said he'd even had a friend busted by the moral police. As he told it, they came pounding on the door at 3 in the morning and haulled him out of bead, demanding he pay a fine of $30usd and threatening that it'd be $100 the next time. We tend to believe him.

Anyway, that's about good. Miss you all. Post comments!

From There to Here, and a Lot In Between

So, once again I am left typing out a massive posting because we've had little time, and I require at least an hour to do the blog justice, and with each stop that time expands greatly as you might expect. Now, having made oh, let's see... I believe about 7 stops. I'll cover as much as I can, as briefly as I am able (those that know me well will know what to expect). I will delay you no further, other than to say that I will start where I left off and try to finish where we are.

I believe our last entry was from the day we arrived in Dalat. We had taken a moderately lengthy bus ride up into the mountains and had found a room that is still the best we've had, both luxury-wise and price-wise. But I suppose no one is reading this anxiously awaiting news of our accommodations, so I'll try to describe Dalat, the surrounding area, and our experience. Unfortunately for us, it was extremely rainy and cold (low 60s, we're babies now) the entire time we were there, so we missed out on most of the things we came for. Dalat its self is a relatively small town surrounding a smaller lake and organized around the kind of tourism that attracts businessmen and families more than backpackers - golf courses, karaoke joints, resorts, etc. However, evidently beyond the city limits there are numerous vast towering and plunging multi-tiered waterfalls, none of which we had the joy of seeing because, as I said, it was pouring the entire time. We did get to see the market which was about the same as every other market we've visited in every other town except for a couple of products unique to the region. They are these: strawberries, some other type of berry that slightly resembled that of the boysen variety, and candied and dried fruits from kiwi to tomato (the later of which I was led to believe were strawberries and if you'd have seen them, you'd have believed it too). Despite the rain, we enjoyed ourselves and made the best of it, suffering it with little complaint, though venturing from our hotel in spirts. In the end though, we were forced to cut our visit short by a day or two. We are definitely visiting again when we come back to Vietnam. The waterfalls must be seen.

From Dalat, we took a bus to Nha Trang, which was really just a a stopping point before we continued to Hoi An. The city was nice and because we were taking an over-night bus to Hoi An the next day, we got more than a day to explore. Being right on the sea and with several small islands just off the coast, it is immensely popular and the beach is populated by an astonishing number of men in speedos or similarly tight and short swimwear, and women in bikinis (I only note this because Vietnam is a fairly conservative society as far as dress, and we were surprised by how indifferent or ignorant of this many tourists are). All along the beach is a boardwalk and at night it is largely frequented by Vietnamese playing soccer, eating at the various vendors (we even saw lobster offered at one) and children renting and driving mini-cars like the plastic jeeps and Corvettes you buy at Toys R Us. That first night we even caught a group of Vietnamese teens break dancing. We had prapared to eat lobster seeing as how it was seemingly was offered everywhere, but we found it to be more expensive than at first glance. The restaraunts trick you by putting it in terms of price per kg. It would've cost us each around 400,000 dong to eat which is more than $20usd each (the exchange rate is commonly 16,000 to the dollar). We ate noodle soup for 15,000 dong instead.

The next day we rented a motobike as we had until 7pm when our bus left. We spent most of the day driving up and down the coastline checking out the local temple, which wasn't all that spectacular because we are quite templed out, having seen as many as we could in Thailand and Cambodia. We also drove to some smaller towns and beaches. We both ended up a little sunburned because we neglected to put any protection on whatsoever. I got it worse than Hilary as I was the one doing the driving and so facing the sun most of the time. If we ever come back, we'll go to one of the small towns to stay.

We didn't do one of the island tours because most sounded like booze-cruises and as I've said before, that's not really our scene. We managed to make it a full day and at 7pm climbed aboard our bus for an extremelly long and uncomfortable night of travel, I with my knees pressed firmly against the chair in front of me and Hilary with only my shoulder to rest on. Despite our best efforts, we got very little sleep and arrived in Hoi An quite haggard and in dire need of showers. We hadn't the opportunity since the morning the day before and had spent the entire day in the sun on the motobikes. You can imagine the odor that we carried of sleep and sweat and recycled are. Not good to say the least.

Hoi An, as it turned out, is a beautiful old French colonial town with narrow streets and a small river bisecting it. We visited for this reason and because it is the tailoring capitol of the area. There are tailors on virtually every corner and they are all seemingly desperate for your patronage. Also, I don't think they can distinguish between white people very well because often we'd be asked to come and look at someones shop several times in a day no matter how we responded. The tailor next door to our hotel was especially adept at this, asking us to visit his shop both as we left and again as we returned, both of which were fairly frequent due to our hotel's proximity to town. We are generally polite with vendors of all ilk, so we did not try rudeness, anger or insult. Perhaps those are the tacks to take. Instead we shopped where less badgered to do so. We ended up spending more than we expected, but not that much at all by US standards. We priced the first day until we found a tailor shop we felt comfortable with, based on a mixture of price, availability of material and personal character. In the end, we bought two suits for me (one nice bright green wool one that is pictured - dapper if I say so, and I do) and several things for Hilary, including a pretty summer dress and some skirts and pants. When I first asked about the green suit, the shop owner refused to believe that I was serious. She kept insisting that the material was too hot and really only for coats anyway, but in the end we managed to convince her that I was indeed serious about the suit and she made a beautiful one, or rather the place that does their sewing did. The person who actually did the stitching requested that he be called when I came to pick up the suit because he wanted to see it on me. I don't think he believed I wanted it either.

Later that day, we discovered the market which is similar to all the other markets we've visited but different in that it also has a wing filled with tailors that charge at least $10 less per suit than the tailor shops. I don't know the breaks on women's attire, though Hilary did get a coat there while I got a third suit. We both chose floral print linings, which evidently hadn't been done before judging from all the fuss over it. Again, the clothes turned out very smart.

We spent the majority of our time in Hoi An strolling the narrow streets and eating in various colonial-style buildings. We found ourselves at a wonderful French bakery at least once a day to get sesame rolls and pain du chocolat (sp?). Hilary also purchased something like 10 purses because they were so nice and also ludicrously cheap - some buys were encouraged by the fact that the proceeds went to help disabled people, others were simply too nice to pass up. On the riverfront we discovered fresh pressed sugarcane juice. They make it by pushing a long stock of sugarcane through a press, then taking that same sugarcane, folding it around a lemon and running it through again. It is delicious and very thirst quenching. Don't tell Gatorade. They may show up and try to steel the formula. We also found another kind of pomegranate that is yellow on the outside and has light pink seeds on the inside. Very good, though not as sweet as the red kind we get in the US, however, you can get about 4 for the same price.

Clothing, purses and fruit are not the only games in town, as there is a booming shoe trade also. There are multiple streets utterly lined with small shoe shops that have various designs and colors ranging from the common place to the utterly absurd and ornate. Some of the material would be better suited for a Kamono than a pair of sneakers, but there they were. These shoes are not to by, but are designs to choose from. When you go to one of these shops, they sit you down and measure your feet, then hand you a few catelogs to look through to pick a design. Then you get a pile of materials to choose from, like you might choose a dress. After you've chosen all of these things, your shoes are custom made. All for as low as $7usd. Not bad.

On our last day, we rented bikes and road the 4kms to the beach. The ocean was blue and the sand white, as you may have suspected, and we walked it for a couple of kms. It was lined with ridiculously sized resorts that just as easily could've been small towns considering that people staying there have no need to leave. All had in-house tailors and gift shops carrying the same things as in town but at a mark-up of maybe 100%. These places never cease to amaze me in their grandiose seclusion, and their detachment from almost anything resembling the country in which they are situated. They are much like McDonalds or any other chain in that you could be in any country in the world when inside one. They are so similar as to allow very little differentiation. You could fairly expect to walk out of one and be in another country entirely. I guess I just prefer getting a genuine cultural experience verses the canned one provided by resorts and the like.Getting back to the point, these bike excursions always make our travel seem more real, or at least more in line with what we'd imagined for ourselves before setting out. I think it's the intimate view of the countryside, the ability to view people living their lives according to their culture and traditions rather than as dependent on tourists, and the escape from the throngs of tourists themselves.

Anyhow, we enjoyed Hoi An greatly, but were ready to go when it was time. Too many tourists and the food was too expensive. So we caught a bus to Hue, which was about a three hour journey and only another stop-over before going on to another stop-over in Hanoi, which would lead us to Halong Bay. Hue was nice and once again we were taking a night bus the day after our arrival, so we were afforded time enough to explore the city. On our only full day we rented bikes and went over to the Citadel which is the old imperial city. There are several smaller "cities" within, though the entire thing is maybe a square mile. The architecture was interesting and we enjoyed the visit, but don't really have much to say about it on the whole. We're not really museum goers or sight see-ers anyway. We prefer natural wanders. That night we took a sleeper bus instead of the standard bus we'd taken on our last over-nighter. The sleeper bus was supposed to have reasonably plush bed/chairs and be a lot more comfortable, with plenty of leg room. As it turned out, the beds were more like narrow bunks on a submarine and neither Hilary nor I could fully stretch out. Hilary wore her bitchin' new moose socks given her by Oley and life-savors as the bus was near fridged. Then, in the middle of the night, the toilet began overflowing. Thankfully it was down a little from floor level and near the side doors so the water that came pouring out went under the door and onto the road. I had woken to use the bathroom and found the toilet already brimming. I told the bus driver, but he thought I was asking to use the bathroom I guess because he kept thumbing at the back of the bus, saying bathroom. Finally, an hour later we stopped to pick someone up and I rushed to the front. Again they tried to tell me to use the bus toilet and again I tried to explain the disaster that was occurring in there. Finally I just told them to take a look while I went pee in the bushes, and I got off. When I returned, they had discovered the problem. There wasn't much delay however. I think they simply turned the water to the toilet off, but I don't know. I didn't check.

In Hanoi we were greeted by a crush of motobike drivers and hotel hawkers all trying desperately to get you to use their services, as usual. And as usual we pushed through them to get some space and figure things on our own. We had met an Italian couple on the trip over and we decided to split a taxi with them. (Luckily people have not outwardly had contempt for us being US citizens and given us a fare shake as far as we can tell. We have been admitting to being from the US rather than proudly announcing it, so maybe that has something to do with it. But maybe they just give us a fair shake because they've realized that people no more reflect their governments than than tin cans reflect an image). Anyway, we found a nice little hotel and began shopping around for trips to Halong Bay and Cat Ba island. As luck and expenses would have it, our cheapest and best option was the trip our hotel provided, so we signed on and began to explore the city.

Hanoi was nice for the day and they have bootleg DVDs for less than $1usd, so we bought a bunch. You can even get the entire series of Seinfeld for all of $20, seasons 1 through 10. We didn't. Our only night in town happened to be Saturday, so there was a big street market as I assume there must be in every city in this part of southeast Asia. We explored it but only got some kem (ice cream) and almost hit by several motobikes. The next morning we left for Halong Bay bright and early, taking a small bus to the harbor where our guides had to buy tickets and arrange a boat for us (the thing was well planned as you might guess). After sitting in the sun for maybe an hour, we finally boarded a boat. This did not however mean that we were taking to the sea, though it may have implied otherwise. Instead we sat docked for another hour and a half, part of which was spent eating lunch. There was a little excitement as a small knife fight broke out on an adjacent boat, but the sour feelings were quickly quelled without bloodshed or further violence. I guess maybe pirates still do ply these waters. Finally our boat put to sea and we grinded out into the bay, bumping the boats next to us to get free. Slowly, as the harbor disappeared, we began to get a small taste of what we were in store for. Small and large limestone islands matted in green vegetation launching straight up from the water with little or no beach, and sometimes even an indentation where the water lapped the sides and wore away the soft rock loomed up before us. We stopped first to visit a cave on a smaller island and were met by a sign advertising the eco-friendly nature of the island park behind which you could see toilets that emptied directly into the ocean. The cave was quite large, lit by several florescent bulbs of various colors and called something like the Heavenly Palace. It was kind of neat but its neatness was greatly diminished by the number of people forming a solid straight unbroken line throughout, the cement path, and the addition of sprinklers behind rocks made to appear as natural geysers but clearly not. After a brief tour we got back on the boat and continued on to where there was a floating village complete with a school and a local water cave. You could take a 20 minute visit to both for $2usd. We passed. At this same stop we saw the first of many vendor boats selling fruit, cookies, chips, soda and cold beer. I think if you were trapped on a desert island, you could still find a Vietnamese vendor to supply you with food. They've probably already got some stands on Mars just waiting for the day. We were getting into the real islands. What we'd really come for. Once we set of, the beauty of Halong Bay began to become very apparent. All around us were sheer islands like the ones I've described earlier. Magnificent graceful things, pristine and almost virtually untouched. Many simply to sheer to attempt to climb at all. And the water spread out around them green as the skin of a lime. Sadly, much of the water was utterly lousy with cigarette butts, plastic bags, processed food packaging and other rubbish. We next stopped to kayak around a small group of islands but were told not to swim. We had planned to ignore our guides but seeing the water closer made us rethink that. Finally we left for where we'd anchor for the night and as it was getting dark, when the guide said we could swim and even jump off the roof of the boat (about 15-20 feet) we excitedly did, imagining the water to be much cleaner here than where we'd been earlier. This was not the case as I was to learn the next morning. That night, Hilary and I met a couple of Germans, one married and with his Indian wife, and a Brit that we spent most of the evening with playing cards on the top deck. They were good people and it was nice to be in an environment conducive to easily meeting people. We've suffered from a lack due to the absence of nightlife and our stays in hostels that are without communal areas. (If we ever open a hostel, the first order of business will be to provide a communal dinner so as to allow people to meet easily.) They were headed back in the next day while we were going to spend a night on Cat Ba Island. Their trek was the opposite of ours so we bid them a good journey. The night was pretty rough as the fan only worked intermittently and our room was stuffy enough to cause Hilary to become slightly claustrophobic. The next day we ate breakfast and docked. Cat Ba was much larger than I expected and it took a while to get to Cat Ba National Park where we were spending the morning hiking. As it turned out, I believe that we didn't actually go to the national park, instead being taken to another trail in a local village while our guides pocketed our entrance fee (it should be mentioned that we paid a flat rate for the entire trip, food, lodging and entrance fees included, so they didn't take money directly from us). We don't mind this sort of scam really and the hike was great, though much more challenging than we were led to believe. It was a climb starting on a paved path and deteriorating to scrambling over rocks. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed the challenge, though I had to wring my shirt out several times. I believe I lost maybe two liters of water weight. After the hike we were taken to our hotel in town and given the option to go to monkey island after lunch. We declined and instead rented a motobike and did our own tour of the island, checking out the nearest beach and the countryside.

The next day we got up early and began the trip back to Hanoi. We got to pass through a different mass of islands than on the previous day and again marveled at their majestic rise into the sky. They are just like in the pictures. Simply breathtaking. Another 3 hour bus ride got us from the dock to Hanoi and we decided to push on to our next stop, Sapa. We had just enough time to get passport pictures for our Laos visas, eat dinner and arrange tickets for the sleeper train. The train was nice enough, better than the bus anyway, and we arrived only this morning somewhat rested. The train doesn't actually take you to Sapa. It takes you to Lao Cai where you catch a bus or minivan up through the mountains to Sapa. The town is amazing. It is placed near the end of a valley up on a mountain wall. It is populated by an extremely diverse group of indigenous people including H'mong, D'Zao, Xia and some others I cannot remember, not to mention the Vietnamese. We immediately fell in love with the town and after befriending a younger H'mong girl named Chang who was trying to sell us some bags, we decided that we should forgo some of our Laos time and hang out here longer as we had wanted to do originally. That night we met a very friendly elderly Vietnamese man who owns a small restaraunt here and challenges all visitors to chess and some of his homemade plum wine. He beat me soundly four times running (but I got him once last night).

We had plans with Chang to visit her village the next day, but when it came time to meet, there was confusion on where and we could not find her, so instead we went to Cat Cat village, about 3kms outside of town. The village its self wasn't so spectacular being much more spread out than what you might expect of a place called a village, and also being heavily influenced by tourism. It is the primary village toured in this area. The trail through the village wound down to the river where we found what looked like a small Swiss grotto to us facing a beautiful waterfall. From there we hiked on along the rivers edge until we found another path, this one mud versus the cement we had been tredding. We turned and followed it up the hillside and came upon a H'mong funeral. Needless to say, we were the only Europeans there, but they were welcoming and let us watch for a while. Once we felt we'd stayed long enough, but not too long, we left and hiked our way back to town where we ran into Chang and discovered the confusion from that morning. We thought maybe something came up or she'd blown us off. We made plans for the future, and that's where it stands now.
Wish us luck. Miss you all.

Battambang to Phnom Penh to Kampot to Rach Gia to Ho Chi Minh to Here (Dalat)

Since arriving in Battambang and writing the last post on this blog, it’s been at least a week, probably more, and in that time we have traveled through as many as 5 other cities so you must forgive us for the length of this one. I do not wish to waylay you any longer with an extended apology so I’ll just remind you that this is kept in perpetuity and thus can be read at your leisure, which is to say, there’s no need to muscle through the whole thing.

First a little about Battambang, as we’re certain we did not say much about it in the last post (we haven’t read it since we wrote it). It is a reasonably sized town and we did very little. On our only full day there Hilary came down with a brief stomach virus and so I went on a tour of the local sights alone, well, not entirely alone as I hired a motorbike driver to take me. The tour was supposed to take three separate stops, one at the base of a hill at whose top were a few “Killing Caves” where the Khmer Rouge murdered several people and a Buddhist shrine with several Buddhas, a second at a temple or wat or whatever, and a third stop at an old railway on which you could ride through picturesque scenery. It was hot that day my friends and I stupidly refused to buy any water from the many vendors that I passed on my steep ascent. By the time I reached the time I was sweating profusely and glad to visit the shade of a couple of shrine-caves in which sat contemplative Buddha – no murders were committed in these for the simple reason that they were too shallow. After properly cooling myself, I headed for the peak and along the way befriended a volunteer school teacher who promptly took over as my guide. I was of course a little leery, but generally prefer a small payment to a local over a nasty scene, so I accepted that what may seem like a friendly tour may actually be an unexpected expense. I am a bit of a sucker, it’s true. My new tour guide, whose name I have since forgotten because I didn’t do the trick where you repeat it to your self 5 times, took me to the top where he pointed out 2 new temples in the midst of construction, a very deep cave which he claimed had a whole that lead to a stash of gold at the bottom of the mountain, which was why the government had come and sealed it shut, and finally a few mammoth guns left from the siege with the Khmer Rouge. These were giant guns that I imagined could fire shot all the way to Phnom Penh. He asked that perhaps if were to strap himself to a shell and fire, launching himself to the US, could I maybe help him get set up once he arrived. I agreed, though I believe the prospects are dubious at best.

From the top, he led me down to the “Killing Caves”. I was not entirely prepared for the stories he told me. It was very sobering, you see the “Killing Caves” have two separate openings, one which is easily walked down and another that plunges straight down to the bottom. Clearly we took the walkable one. At the bottom, looking up through the whole, he began to tell me the story of what had happened. The Khmer Rouge had come and attacked the nearby village because the villagers did not want to join them. The KR then took the people to the top of the hill and forced them to kneel at the rim of the cave where they were hit in the head or neck with a hammer, a hatchet or any number of instruments at hand. The victims would then fall down the abyss and if they hadn’t died from the head trauma, the fall generally killed them. The few that survived and attempted to climb out the other side were met by another executioner who finished the job. Even now as I write this it is horrifying. I find myself at a loss for words or explanation.

My guide then explained that the glass plaited stands around the base of the cave had to be placed there and filled with the bones that remained because previously tourists had left with souvenirs.

We left the caves and walked back to the road where I would go down and he would head back up. The only thing he asked for was that the next time I come through Battambang, I stop in and have a meal with him. I promised I would and walked back to find my motorbike driver.

(I’d like do make a brief note here explaining that the visit to the “Killing Caves” was very moving and I struggled with whether or not to include the account of the events as I didn’t want to trivialize them by putting them in such close proximity to potentially humorous accounts of our travel. In the end, I thought it was more important to include it.)

I found the village eatery where I had left my driver, but couldn’t at first see him. I wasn’t all to worried as his departure would’ve saved me $8, which may not sound like much but goes quite a ways in Southeast Asia. He did however turn up as soon as I approached. It was than that I decided that if I wasn’t going to go on to the remaining two sites because I was utterly beat, and that if I wasn’t going to go on, but still pay the $8, which I surely would be expected to do, I should at least get a motorbike driving tutorial. So I asked if I could drive. My driver, another person whose name I have forgotten because I did not do the trick, seemed a little nervous, especially after I said I’d never driven a motorbike before, but he acquiesced. I did not have to push him, if some of you are thinking that. He agreed, just a little apprehensively. I figured I would drive down from the village to the main road, you know, just get a little feel for driving. The driver had other things in mind. Once he hopped on back and gave me the basics, I was to drive all the way back with only his slight guidance. He didn’t say this of course, it simply was the way it went. He told me when to change gears and where to turn, and some times if I was taking us along a path he must’ve felt was particularly dangerous, he would push on my back so as to force my arms to turn us in the direction he desired. I usually accepted. As it turned out, driving was easy enough. When I got home, Hilary’s stomach problems had passed and I was immensely dehydrated, which proved to be the start of my stomach problems.

The next morning we pushed to Phnom Penh but not without some confusion first. We booked our ticket through the hotel we were staying at. After booking the manager said to get some breakfast and come back at 8:50 to catch the bus. It was 8:05 then. I even double checked, making sure he did not mean 8:15. He assured us he didn’t, so we went to the Sunrise Café for smoothies and toast. When we returned, the motorbike drivers were vary concerned. They insisted that the bus had left at 8:30, so they rushed us over to the station where we were informed that there would be another bus at 9:30. Damn the language barrier. We still managed to get to Phnom Penh.

For us, Phnom Penh was only remarkable for three reason. First, Eileen’s friends and hopefully now our friends Cullen and Vanessa, second, S21, and third, the Vietnamese Embassy. Our friend Eileen whom we know from the Peace Corps was kind enough to send along word to two of her former Thai volunteers, Cullen and Vanessa, that we were coming to PP and might need a place to stay. They were kind enough to accept us. The Peace Corps network is awesome! Cullen and Vanessa really made us feel at home and had great advice about the city. We had gotten some scare tactics from a Canadian ex-pharmaceutical rep about our lack of malarial remedy or protection, so Cullen pointed us in the direction of a respectable pharmacy. Evidently you’ve got to be pretty careful with these things here as often you get knockoff stuff that is something else entirely and can leave you in a pretty sticky jam. Who wants to be three days away from the nearest airport and coming down with Malaria? Certainly not us. (The only suitable hospitals in this region are in Bangkok we’ve been told several times over.) Our first full day in PP was spent acquiring emergency Malaria meds and visiting the Vietnamese Embassy and S21.

The Malaria meds were easily acquired while the Vietnamese Visas proved a little more strange and difficult. When we first arrived at the Embassy, we found a gate and guard. Assuming that it was an Embassy like all the others we’d been to, we thought that we’d have to check in with the guard before entering, so we thought nothing of it when he asked for our passports. However, when he told us to go ahead and leave them with him and return the next day around 5, we became skeptical and demanded our passports back. He gave them back with no trouble and as we walked away, he pointed down the street to a sign that said the visa office was 50 meters down. Odd. The visa office was also a strange scene. Inside we picked filled out the appropriate forms and went to turn them in. Again we were asked to leave our passports over night. Leaving my passport with anyone makes me uncomfortable and I did my best to explain that we’d rather not. Evidently this was not welcome and we were handed our papers and the officials left the room. Not sure what to do, we stood for a moment talking it out when a woman appeared, took the paperwork back, photocopied our passports and said we were to pay $35 each and return the next day. We did and the visas were gained in a matter of minutes, which leads me to this: why the hell did they need to keep them over night if they could just as easily do the whole thing in such a short time? Who knows? Government beaurocracy I guess.

We visited S21, as I said and it was more gruesome than the “Killing Caves,” but there is plenty of information out there about it and if you wish, I’m sure you can find it easily using google.com. The things I found most shocking were these: Pol Pot died without ever facing persecution and England and the US backed the Khmer Rouge’s inclusion in the UN despite the obvious genocide going on in Cambodia. We urge you to look into the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge.

Anyhow, that was all that was really worth mentioning as it pertains to us. I could go on about the things that we learned from Cullen about Cambodia as he is privy to a lot of info via his position with USAID, but this post is already reaching a ridiculous length, so here are the particulars. You’ve got to be careful of both pork and oil as much of the pork comes from Vietnam and is the kind that has foot-and-mouth and can’t be sold there and much of the oil also comes from Vietnam, is already used and only cleaned up by mixing in bleach to give it a clear appearance. Also, money can get you just about anything and the head of police wields much more power than just about anyone. There was a great deal more, but as I said, this is getting long and I’ve yet to get to even Vietnam, where I am writing this from.

From PP we headed west to Kampot near which is Bokor National Park. Bokor was our primary reason for visiting, but we were also interested in a slower pace which Kampot offers in spades. We bus-ed in and found the town to be suitably quaint, though our lodgings were about as creeping as they come with high, filthy ceilings and rickety doors and walls. We changed the very next day into a much nicer place that was markedly cleaner and safer, and didn’t feel like someone had been killed there. After checking in, we did a round of the town and decided to rent a motorbike to drive over to Kep, a small fishing village on the sea about 25km away. It took Hilary a moment to get used to riding but I took it slowly and she got comfortable enough for us to head out into the countryside. Driving down the dirt road, surrounded by quilted fields of rice paddies broken up by tall palms and framed by mist-hooded mountains, we really got to see the country as we imagined. Sadly, the rain that had started that morning as a slight mist gradually grew stronger and stronger until it stung as it struck as and we were both absolutely soaked. Doing 50km on a small motorbike with no coverage probably didn’t help. Just 5km short of our destination, we were forced to turn back. I dropped Hilary off at the hostel and took a quick spin around town to flex the bike. Racing down I side street at upwards of 65km, I found myself abruptly confronted by a speed bump. I had two choices: slam on the breaks and get skinned up pretty good (I was stupidly wearing shorts) or pull up on the handlebars and ride it out, which is what I did and always do. I landed a mini-air safely and headed back to turn the bike in before I got myself in further trouble. I had been required to leave behind my passport as collateral for the bike and did not wish to see it forfeited.

The next day we booked a trip up to Bokor. As luck would have it, this was also the day of our 2nd anniversary. Bully for us. We had heard that the road up to the park was quite treacherous, or as our Lonely Planet guidebooks says, “it’s a scenically stunning and horrifically bumpy 25 km up to the plateau.” That was a tremendous understatement. That’s like saying a Long Island Iced Tea is slightly alcoholic or that the atomic bomb is moderately destructive. I’m all for “ the glass is half full” mindset, but if it’s empty, the damn thing is empty. Shit! The road was about as friendly to the spine as say a caning. I mean, at points I was pretty sure that there was no road at all and we were driving down the remains of a rock slide, but that probably would’ve been softer. This trip made the drive from Poipet to Sisophon seem like a ride on the tea cups and Disneyland. It was jarring and abrasive and violent and just about everything else you don’t want a road to be. Instead of jail terms, criminals should be sentenced to trips up and down this road.

Now, was the whole thing worth it? It’s hard to say. At the top there was more driving on equally detestable roads and some pretty interesting and beautiful sights. I’m not much for old, decaying buildings, so the old abandoned palace and casino, two of the main attractions, were of little interest to me beyond wondering what had transpired there and what the place must’ve looked like in its prime, full of people and alive. What was spectacular was the two-tiered waterfall gushing water that looked like a quartz strip in granite. The water was that orange-yellow of quartz and cascaded in a massive torrent over both tiers. It had been raining all morning. I managed to scurry down to near the base and marveled at the power and beauty of it. I took only a few pictures of the falls, but got a really nice one of an odd looking red mushroom we passed on the way. The ride down was of course equally despicable and destructive, but we did learn that there was a boarder crossing into Vietnam much closer to us than we’d expected. It had opened just a couple months ago and was a mere hour’s drive. We had anticipated going all the way back to PP, but as it turned out, we wouldn’t have to.

That night for our 2nd anniversary we took ourselves out to a nice dinner of crab and green Kampot pepper. Evidently “in the years before civil war took its toll, no self-respecting French restaurant in Paris would be without Kampot pepper on the table.” Thank you again Lonely Planet. The crab was spectacular, but I will save other blandishments for the food blog.

Amazingly, the border crossing at Ha Tien was indeed only an hour away and open to foreigners, so we had no problems crossing. We planned to take a overdue honeymoon on Phu Quoc island and so we road straight to Rach Gia where all the boats and ferries go from, however, when we arrived it was pretty stormy and we were informed that no boats had gone in almost 5 days and none would be going soon as a big storm was expected. We were disappointed but not too badly. That night we made friends with the owner of a Pho restaurant where we had our first genuine Vietnamese Pho. I have been a fan of this noodle soup ever since a friend of mine turned me on to it my senor year of college and the proprietor of the Pho restaurant I frequented in Eugene saw my face so much that she still remembered me when I returned from the Peace Corps. Our new Pho friends had a son that did all the talking for them as they spoke no English. Dong was his name and he took us to get the best and the cheapest smoothies we’ve yet to have. We got two and some ice cream for him all for less than a dollar. Amazing. We had breakfast with them the next morning and Dong arranged bus tickets for us to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). He was great and we felt somewhat sad leaving despite the fact we’d known him and his family less than a day.

The bus ride was a smooth and comfortable 6 hours and dropped us off at a bus station that was no where to be found on our Lonely Planet maps. No fear. We headed for the bus depot and asked which bus would take us to the Pham Ngu Lao area where according to the book we could find all manner of lodging, eating and shopping. The woman pointed us to bus 2 and sure enough, the bus took us there. We felt very worldly taking the local transport and finding our way around. The bus driver helped of course, stopping where we wanted to go and telling us we were there.

The Pham Ngu Lao area is a fly-by-night travelers dream. It is a cornucopia of shopping and eating all at cut-rate prices. The place was teeming with shops offering bootleg backpacks, clothes, DVDs, CDs, electronics and art. We stopped in several and marveled at the prices and wares. But what really amazed us were the painting shops. There must’ve been ten of them all offering hand-painted copies of nearly every masterpiece you can think of, and done with exquisite detail and care. To an untrained eye such as my own, the paintings could’ve been authentic. They had everything from Matisse and Van Gogh to a full five-panel Klimt. All were stunning and we wished we could take them with us. The skill with which they were executed was astonishing. We refrained from buying any, but did get a nice backpack, a couple CDs and a set of DVDs.

We ate at a restaurant that had just about every kind of food you could imagine on the menu. The menu its self was almost 75 pages, 4 of which were occupied by cocktails. The food was good, but not spectacular. But what do you expect for less than $7 total. We are party poopers, or at least our days of partying because we can are pretty much over, so, as usually, we were in early and headed out early the next day.

We took another long bus ride out of town as we have little interest in museums and landmarks. We prefer natural wonders. We are now in Dalat which is a small mountain town up in the hills. It is raining today same as yesterday, and it is cold, as in the mid to low 60s. We’ll try to keep everyone updated and write more often, but that’s no guarantee. Hope everyone reading this is enjoying their summer and doing well. We miss you all.


(Sorry for the lack of photographic accompaniment. It will come soon.)