Bouncing

Living Lumbini Loca

2008-12-19T00:26:00.001-08:00

NOTE: This is the third posting today. Hilary suggested I post things separately so as to make them more easily read, so I am trying that. There are two other posts that are new, so don’t skip them. And, as always, comments are welcomed warmly.

Lumbini is the birthplace of Buddha and thus a major religious site. Unfortunately for us, it is located right near the Indian border, about an hour from where we originally crossed into Nepal, so we were in for some serious backtracking. Most people visit Lumbini upon entering Nepal through Sunauli as we had. Few are foolish enough to do it in reverse as we set out to do. There is no direct route from Chitwan to Lumbini, so we had to take a bus to Bairawa (basically Sunauli) and transfer there. This likes quite straightforward on paper. It wasn’t.

We left Chitwan easily enough, though the condition of our bus was a little less then desirable. At first, things seemed okay. We were making a decent clip and weren’t too uncomfortable, but gradually the bus became fuller and fuller until we were tighter than a girdle. This was only the first of our problems and a relatively innocuous problem at that. It’s not so bad being in such close quarters and we probably smelled about as bad or worse than anyone else on the bus due to the fact that we’d refrained from showering while in Chitwan. We stayed full and tight until we got to Butwal, where we were to turn south to Bairawa. Here the problems got steeper. Our bus abruptly stopped in a random bus station and we were all told to change buses because there was a strike.
Our next bus took us around town picking more people up and then stopped as abruptly as the last. Again we were told there was a strike. A bus across the street was full and leaving for Bairawa right then so we ran across the street with a small group of European travelers in tow and scrambled up the back ladder onto the roof of the bus. These were the only seat available. We spent the next hour and a half ducking and dodging low hanging tree branches and electrical wires, dust kicking up from passing trucks and buses, stopping every 20 minutes to pay off a striker.

I suppose the striking business deserves an explanation. It appears that any time there’s a disagreement here, people strike. They don’t strike like people in the US. There’s no worker walk out or picketing. Instead, locals close down the roads in their area and demand money for their use, or in extreme cases, deny use entirely. In this instance a local person had been struck and killed by a bus and the people in the region were demanding the bus driver be charged (though there’s dispute over culpability) and the government pay them some sort of reparations.

We got into Bairawa in the afternoon and were immediately accosted by bus and taxi drivers, each pulling us toward their vehicles while snarling and arguing at the others. We ended up atop another bus racing along the road, spitting dust up into our faces. When we finally pulled into Lumbini, a kindly looking gentleman informed us that this was not where we wanted to get off. We actually wanted to go a little further. And, knowing no better, we stayed on. We found ourselves in what could reasonably be called a Nepali ghetto. The streets were thick with acrid smoke and people living in extreme poverty. Everyone stared at us and it was quite clear that we’d gone a lot farther than we thought to. Our new friend guided us to the only guest house in the area. His guest house. The room was cheap and the sheets extremely musty, but the food was good. We stayed one night and moved to the real Lumbini. The place where we’d been told to stay on the bus. There we found a nice clean guest house.

The park its self is quite stunning, though it was foggy the entire time we were there. Buddhist nations and organizations from all over the world have built or are building giant monastaries, temples, pagodas and nunneries there, and each seems to be attempting to out-do the others in ornate-ness, beauty and size. They have intricate paintings and large white or gold stupas rising from the middles. Lagoons and waterfalls in their gardens. All sorts of extravagances. However, the actual site of Buddha’s birth is quite non-descript. It is housed in a square brick building that protects the ruins of an old temple and a piece of stone encased in bulletproof glass that is said to be the exact place and stone on which Buddha was born. It appears to have a footprint in it. The place had more a feeling of a museum than of a holy site. I was somewhat disappointed by this. I figured a holy site such as this would have an aura of peace and worship but it was more peaceful and seemingly sacred at the Monkey Temple in the middle of Kathmandu. Still, it was good.

I’m sorry to make this so short. I could go on about the temples, but I haven’t got the time. Already I’ve been working on these posts for a couple hours. Hope all’s well. Looking forward to seeing everyone in the new year.

Chitwan National Park

2008-12-18T23:21:00.001-08:00

Nepal has a vast set of wildlife and there are many national parks in which to view the various species. We had already seen the common Langur and the rhesus macaque at a distance along with several kinds of birds, but we wanted bigger game and for that Chitwan National Park is the most common destination, more common than a Langur. Pokhara is littered with brochures and posters depicting the various animals you can find in Chitwan. Strangely, an inordinately large number of the photos showed the animals copulating. There were tigers and elephants mid-coitus. Rhinos and pigs in the throws of love. Even a hyena making whoopee. I don’t know the reason, but Smith offered a logical theory: it’s probably the only time the animals are in one place long enough to be photographed thoroughly. Sounds good to me. Any other theories are welcome.

The travel agent we arranged our trekking guide through and purchased our flight from Kathmandu to Delhi from offered what sounded like a great three or four-day package. It included transport to and from, lodging, food and all sorts of activities, all at a great rate. We signed up. In the end, it was a mistake. Usually, we’re not package deal types, but we were lured in and trusting. The agent hadn’t led us astray yet and was extremely nice and grateful for our business.

We took the bus. It dropped us off in the middle of a field along with several other travelers and we were immediately set upon by hotel and resort people vying for our business. Did we have reservations? Who with? Etc. Finally, our guest house driver showed and we headed off. Our guest house was a short drive away, on the outskirts of town and in mid-construction. Half the rooms were finished and the other half looked to be in the middle of a slow construction. Our room was dingy, bare and the bathroom had a wet floor the entire time we were there despite the fact that none of us showered once. The beds were slightly sticky and as firm as the floor. They were also too small for me. The food wasn’t any better. Every meal was fried in half a bottle of oil and left a glistening residue on our plates. After our first night there, three people turned up with stomach issues.

You’re not really here to read about the condition of our lodgings so I’ll move on to the park and our activities. Our prospective activities included a plethora of elephant-related activities ranging from riding them to bathing them and watching them breed (thus the pictures mentioned previously). Also, there was a jungle walk, a village visit, a boat ride on the Narayani River and sunset watching. And there was a jeep ride deeper into the forest. The jeep ride included a visit to a crocodile hatchery. It was not included in our package. Shocking, I know. It would cost us an addition 1,000 Nepali Rupees. We signed up grudgingly.

We had arrived mid-day and after lunch, we visited one of the various places that the elephants are kept. It was extremely depressing. The elephants were all chained to giant wooden posts and given no slack to move about. I believe elephants have relatively sad looking eyes anyway, but in the condition they were in, they appeared downright depressed. It was hard going and Smith and Hilary were really hit hard by it. We declined all future elephant activities.

The following day, we struck out early and spent an hour drifting down the river in a dugout canoe made from one single length of wood, a local poling us along with a length of bamboo. It was extremely misty and we could make out very little at first, but as we went, we saw some king fishers and some Mongolian ducks. Toward the end we
passed a gharial crocodile making its way up river, its eyes and prodigious snout poking out of the water. Gharials have huge tips to their narrow and long snouts. They look like toothpicks nosing creampuffs or cow-pie-tipped pool cues. They are very curious looking creatures. It was also the first time I’d seen a feral crocodile. But it was the only one we saw and we soon pulled up on the shore and began our walk into the jungle, which was, to cut it short, fruitless. We saw some Langurs in the tree-tops and we saw some macaques drinking water. That’s it. Well, that and some birds. No hyenas. No tigers. No rhinos. Nothing. Bubkiss. We headed in for lunch disappointed. But it wouldn’t last because after lunch we set out in the jeep and got an eyeful. Not five minutes into our jeep trek and we came upon a rhino. None of us had ever before seen one in the wild. It looked fake, to be honest. It could just as well have been like Jaws at Universal Studios. The one that lunges up out of the water at you as you pass by on your train car. A machine encased in styrex or carbon fiber and cleverly painted, but it wasn’t. It was real. Standing there 100 feet away and staring right at us. We watched and took pictures until it trundled off. Then we drove on, passing barking deer, midget deer and various bird and Langurs. Finally, we stopped at the Gharial breeding center, paid our 50 rupees entry fee and gawked at their awkward mouths and unreal appearance. Their mouths are about the most unwieldy and seemingly uneconomically formed things I have ever seen. They might as well have had toes on their backs or ears on their tails. Either would be equally likely. Many of the males were missing the top or bottom half of their mouths from fights. Their mouths perpetually open to the sun or sand. Massive under-bites or overbites. They lolled in the sun and seemed as fake as the rhino had, especially so in their stillness. They are an endangered species and how could they not be?

On our drive back we passed several marsh mugger crocs. These guys and gals prefer stagnant water and will eat just about anything, thus the mugger portion of their name. They look what you expect them to look. Our excitement at seeing them was much dampened by the exoticness of the Gharial. Besides, they were across the marsh from us and some of us had to pee.

We got back to the guest house safely and looked at the remaining schedule. It was all elephant-related, so we decided to cut our losses. The money was already spent either way. Might as well be happy. We decided to leave a day early.

Flying Vomite

2008-12-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

The Mankofskys, as I know them, are not flyers, and so it was with great trepadition that I strapped on my harness. Let me back up and explain how it is that I came to strapping in. It’s my sister Smith’s fault. I wouldn’t have given it any thought without her. She saw the advertisements for paragliding and was instantly in. I said it was too expensive but she got me anyway. The deal became, if our mom would pay for half, I would go. I counted on Holly saying no. Not so much because of the cost but because of the danger. I was wrong and so I found myself atop Saronghot, strapped to a dreadlocked Frenchman telling me to walk to the edge of the hill until I felt the parachute pulling me back, at which point I was to run as hard as I could. I had already witnessed several other paragliders take off, including Smith, and with each one my fears grew. There really was no turning back though. I’d paid my money. I was strapped in. The Frenchman was strapped in behind me. What else could I do?

I started walking to the edge and well I felt the wind pulling the parachute back, I tried to run, but there wasn’t time enough. I didn’t get a single step in. We were lifted right up into the air and I was left to look down at the ground as I was pulled away from it higher and higher. We rode a drift of warm air that radiated from the ground below, making a long, slow spiral up and people went from old GI Joes to Lego men and women, to ants, to specs. As we wound up, my pilot began shouting, “Vomite! Vomite! Vomite!” I was a little disoriented, due to the fact that I was flying via a parachute with my feet dangling over nothing but air and that he was saying vomite, but by the third time, I picked it up. Someone above us was vomiting and we were taking evasive action. It was a close one, but the vomit passed us safely by, not so much as misting a shoe toe. Now, it’s not like our parachute would’ve collapsed had we been struck by the vomit, but who wants to be thrown up on. Not the pilot and I, and I’d venture not any of you either. It was after we averted this minor disaster that the Frenchman at my back informed me that I was to tell him if I felt sick. I should tell him post haste. Stat. Pronto. ASAP. I scoffed. Me, sick? Ha! Laughable!

Naturally, five minutes later I was fighting back nausea. Choking it back. Taking big, deep breaths of air. Focusing on placid things like soft green moss and citrus fruits arranged in glass bowls… And then I was puking. Not rough, relieving burps but outright vomit. Thick vomit. I rued breakfast. Why of all things had I ordered a set breakfast? Was I crazy? Had I wanted this for myself secretly all along? I don’t know, but half-digested potatoes, eggs, toast, jam, muesli, fruit and curd and tea were spraying from my mouth and drifting down to fertilize the rice terraces below. It had tasted much better going down. It was time to call it a wrap. We headed for the landing site.

Smith was waiting for me, equally disheveled. She was pleased to see me, vomit driblets on my coat sleeve. She was relieved to not be the only one who had tossed their breakfast back, and knew she wasn’t alone upon seeing me. I needn’t say a thing. We took the van back to Pokhara, bought a bunch of oranges and went to meet Hilary who had declined the adventure.

It wasn't a disaster in the end. The vomit came out of my jacket and it was a nice experience in retrospect, especially the first fifteen minutes for me. Unfortunately for Smith, she'd been sick upon lift-off. But we did it, though surprisingly there was no adrenaline to it. There's more thrill in jumping off of a 10 foot rock then drifting 3,000 feet above the ground. I never got the sensation of my stomach leaping into my throat, though it's contents did make there way. I can't say I'd do it again, but then maybe I would. I'll avoid the eggs and potatoes in the future.

Shri Swamis Ricecake, Granola! and Tomato Bisque Get Down Yoga Style and Trek

2008-12-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

First, I’d like all readers to know up front that we have changed the settings and you no longer have to log in or sign in or give a blood sample to leave a comment, so please fill our comment page letters that from words, words that form sentences and sentences that form paragraphs, whatever they may be. Thank you.

Secondly, let us celebrate the now more than a week old victory of the virtuous and virile over the vulgar and virulent, the success of the saintly over the scandalous, the fortification of the fantastic. I am of course writing of the Ducks of Oregon defeating the Beavers of Oregon State. Go Ducks!

When I last wrote, we were about to set off for Pokhara and Sadhana Yoga with plans of yoga, relaxation and that’s about it. Since then, a lot has changed, largely due to the recent attack in Mumbai, though we never had designs on visiting anywhere near that city. In the wake of the violence, we have decided to spend almost all of the rest of our travel time here in Nepal. But enough about ugly things and changes in plans. Let’s get to what we have been doing.

We started at Sadhana Yoga more than two weeks ago. It is a nice yoga retreat about a 45 minute walk outside of Pokhara. The building is situated on a lower slope of Sarangkhot hill and has an excellent view of Lake Fewa (the south end of the lake is where the town is). The bus from Kathmandu stops at the edge of town and we figured, from the looks of our Lonely Planet map, the distance from the bus stand to the yoga center was walkable – we are walkers after all. Well, it is walkable, but not pleasant. At first, it was quite nice walking through town and then out onto the dirt road that skirts the lake. It was even nice when we finally came to the turn off for Sadhana Yoga, despite the road’s shabby state: ridiculously rocky and almost unmanageable for anything not on two legs, two wheels or absurd suspension. It was the last bit that did us in. Fifteen minutes up the hill and we came to a narrow trail, innocent and flat in appearance. Soon after turning onto it we found ourselves scrambling up a steep hillside, sweaty, hot, red in the afternoon sun, our backpacks sagging our shoulders into our knees as we climbed. But we made it… I guess it wasn’t so bad.

The yoga wasn’t nearly as difficult or demanding, not that I have a great amount of experience with it, but I was told by a reliable source (whom you all should know) that it wasn’t nearly as strenuous as most classes. Here I’ll provide a schedule for your enjoyment:

6:00 am – Meditation: We sat cross-legged or, if you are built like Gumby, in the lotus position and slowly repeated “so hum”, first aloud and then only mouthing the words. Generally, we managed to stay awake throughout the meditation despite the early hour, however, the same cannot be said for our legs which dozed off every time and sometimes became downright comatose.

7:00 am – Morning Walk: This was a walk down the trail that tortured us on our way in, then down the rockiest road this side of Baskin Robbin’s and out onto the dirt road around Lake Fewa. We did the same walk every day and saw pretty much the same things, though sometimes the fishing boats were in different places. One morning, we saw an entire family – aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. – giving some freshly cut and dried rice the thrashing of a lifetime. I mean really giving it a good beating. One it won’t soon forget.

8:00 am – Nose Cleansing: Does anyone know what a Netti Pot is? It’s a tea-pot like contraption with a spout specially designed to fit into your nostril so that you can pour warm salt water (or whatever you like really) into it so as to cleanse your sinuses. The salt water travels up into your sinus and then out through the other nostril. Naturally, you stand with your head tilted sideways while you do this. It sounds like it would feel the way it does when you get water up your nose in a pool, but it doesn’t. It was kind of nice. Once you have cleansed both nostrils, it is time to blow your nose in three different ways. I bet none of you know that there are so many ways to blow your nose. You do each nostril individually, then both nostrils together, then both nostrils together while pretending to chop wood and finally both nostrils together while doing the chicken dance. It sounds like I’m joking but I am completely serious.

9:00 am – Yoga: Finally, the yoga… well… not quite. First we do some Pranayama breathing exercises which involve breathing air out of your nose in strong streams and holding your breath, often as long as you can. This we did not commonly enjoy, but we had to do it to get to the yoga. The morning yoga varied from the usually yogic activities more so than evening yoga. Often, instead of a flowing yoga, or yoga at all, we did various movements and positions that seemed more designed to build muscle than anything else. Sometimes we did sun salutations or moon salutations, but those were more frequently done in the evenings.

10:00 am – Breakfast: This was a delicious mix of curd, fruit (apples and bananas) and muesli. It was very good and washed down with banana lassies.

10:30 am – Free Time: After breakfast, we could take mud baths or steam baths. We did mud baths on the first day. We were brought to the roof and given a bucket of warm mud and told to smear it on our bodies in layers. We did so and froze every time a stiff wind passed. After an hour, we washed it off. My skin has never felt so smooth in my life. However, neither has it felt so dry. I felt like my skin was a size and a half too small for my body, like I was wearing my younger brother’s clothes. It wasn’t pleasant. I also tried the steam bath. I was put into a box with only my head out, like I was posing for one of those photos where you’re body is behind a board painted to look like a lion or something and your head is in a cut out hole. The box was then pumped full of herb-infused steam from a pressure cooker. I sweated a lot and smelled like a mixture of lemon-grass and rice.

12:00 pm – Meditation: We skipped this every day so I can’t tell you if it was any different from the morning session. Either way, an hour of meditation a day is sufficient by our standards.

12:45 pm – Lunch: This was almost always the same and commonly referred to as Dhal Bhat. We had rice, dhal, a couple of curries (usually a cabbage curry and some sort of bean thing) and some Indian pickle. It was good and after lunch we had more free time.

3:00 pm – Karma Yoga: We cleaned stuff, pulled up a radish garden and flattened the soil to make a grassy area for yoga, painted a fence and coffee table, picked up rocks and collected and burned trash from the trail – this last one was a bit of a wash, karma neutral due to the emissions from the plastic we were told to burn.

4:00 pm – Tea and Popcorn: Pretty self explanatory. I dam near cracked every tooth chewing half-popped cornels. Dangerous!

4:30 pm – Chanting: Durga, the wife of the yogi, Asanga, led us on various chants ranging from simple to complicated. They were either in Sanskrit, Hindi or Nepali. None were in English. She has a beautiful voice and the chants were very nice when they were easy enough for us to be able to do them without having to read them. Our favorite went: “Jaya mata kali, jaya mata durgai, jaya mata kali, jaya mata durgai. Kali durgai, namo nama, kali durgai namo nama, kali durgai, namo nama.“ Ask Hilary or Smith to sing it. It doesn’t sound as good in print.

5:15 pm – Yoga: We tended to do more traditional yoga activities during this yoga session, as I said earlier. We also did some Pranayama exercises, but nearly as strenuous as the morning’s. I didn’t mind them so much. The yoga was good. It was at a nice level for a beginner such as myself. I think Hilary might have enjoyed some more advanced positions and to that end, we had a positions contest in which she would get into some advanced balancing position and I would fail at trying to match her, frequently crashing headfirst into the ground.

7:00 pm – Dinner: More Dhal Bhat, this time in more of a stew form using the leftovers from lunch and accompanied by fresh chapattis (a flat bread not unlike a tortilla). This was also good. We were rarely wanting for food and frequently too full. Once we reached breakfast, the food came fast and in large amounts. The women who served us seemingly do not know the meaning of, “only a little, please” because no matter how many times I said it, they gave me a full second serving.

We were left to our own devices after dinner, but the power was infrequent and often we retired to our rooms within an hour of finishing.

Sadhana also offers a cleanse of the entire system, and as I like to try these things, I paid the extra 500 rupees and did it. The process goes like this. The night before you start, you eat only an apple. Then, in the morning you are given a bucket of warm salt water, a cup and a list of exercises, and then you are escorted to the cleansing room which has its own attached squat toilet, which you will need. You are told to drink two full cups of salt water per exercise cycle. The cups are not small and you are to drink them down in one gulp if possible, and as fast as you can if not. You cannot eat anything. My directions were to drink and exercise until only water came out. Durga said it should take between ten twenty cycles, but probably 15 would do – for the math-challenged, this means between 20 and 40 cups of salt water without break. I made it through 10 rounds and decided it was more than sufficient. From then on, I was supposed to relax, stay awake and eat a thin gruel of rice and dhal. I did it but was fantasizing about huge chocolate covered caramel candy bars by the end.

Somewhere in there we went to town and learned of the viciousness in Mumbai, decided to stay in Nepal for the duration of our trip and signed up for a trek into the Annapurnas with a Canadian friend we made at Sadhana named Sarah. We got a local guide named Lucky and packed light.

There are many treks you can take in Nepal and a majority of them involve the Annapurna section of the Himalayas. The mountains are quite picturesque and loom large behind Pokhara. We settled on one of the more common treks. We decided to do a six day trek that took us up to Poon Hill, an astonishingly beautiful viewpoint from where you can see all of the Annapurnas like they’re in your backyard, and then over to a hot spring. We took a bus from Pokhara to Nayapul on Monday December 1 and headed into the mountains. It is the end of the trekking season currently and we passed only a few fellow hikers on our path. We spent our first night in Tikhedhunga, a small and empty village on a lower hillside. From there, we hiked to Ghorepani, the base point for Poon Hill. Poon Hill is a short hike from Ghorepani, but it is extremely steep and almost entirely made up of stairs. The previous day’s hike from Tikhedhunga to Ghorepani is infamous for its stairs – a total of 3,300 supposedly – that seem to be endless and zigzag straight up an increasingly steep hillside. The 1,000 or so stairs to Poon Hill were not agreeable either. Plus, we headed up from sunrise instead of sunset due to cloud cover. Poon Hill is around two miles above sea level and wicked cold, but the view was well worth the hike. We hiked back down to our lodge satisfied.

Next, we headed for Tadapani and from there we turned to Jhinu Danda and the hot springs. The springs were nice and the locals had built a little pool with underwater cement benches. We all jumped into the nearby river and then warmed ourselves in the pool. Despite being glacial runoff, the river was not as cold as the Rogue, though it was breath-takingly cold. The kind of cold that momentarily seizes your lungs and chest.

We spent our last night in Tolka and then hiked down to Dhumpus Phedi where we were greeted like stars by a group of kids from a school for the def who were on a picnic. We took pictures with them and smiled big, toothy smiles like people who have accomplished something. We stank of sweat and were beaten and tired, and I’m almost certain the kids who took our pictures will show their friends the photos and say, “here we are with the smelliest people we have ever met.” Just the same, we felt great.

I’ll try to include a map of our trek, if I can find one on the net.

A quick side note about the towns along our trek. Perhaps it was because we were hiking at the end of the season or maybe we were taking a less common trek, but almost every village we stayed in was almost entirely vacant. I mean empty. Bereft of human life. They were like sets for horror films. Walking into Ghorepani, the cobblestone streets were entirely abandoned but for a couple of small children playing with a toy truck and some crows cawing in the distance. There was even some mist floating down off the surrounding mountains. If anyone is looking for a good location for a slasher film, try the Annapurna Circuit. The towns are sweetly quaint without any vehicular access. You couldn’t even mountain bike in. Everything comes from the surrounding area or is trekked in on the backs of mules, donkeys, asses and porters. We passed many of them on our way in and out. The porters were the most amazing. These seemingly tiny men climbing these brutal, unending stairs with homemade baskets brimming with clothes, rice, beer, soda, coffee, jackets, blankets, toilet paper, disposable cameras, tampons, candy bars, shoes, gloves, dhal, flour, liquor, toothpaste, scarves, sunscreen, bandages, boots, earrings, bracelets, miniature statues. The baskets strapped to their backs or hanging from cloth wrapped across their foreheads. These are truly hardened men doing unenviable work for a pittance.

We finished our trek on Saturday, December 6th.

We are back in Pokhara and will spend a week here checking out the sights. The World Peace Pagoda is here. Tomorrow, Smith and I will go paragliding. Wish us luck.

Nepal in Fall (a lame title)

2008-11-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

There are multiple options for getting to Nepal from Varanasi. You can fly at a modest price, you can take a tourist bus to the capitol for about have the price of the flight or you can take the local bus nfor ten hours to the boarder, walk across and catch another local bus from there. We are intrepid travelers, makers of use of the local transportation, people of the people, travelers instead of tourists, so naturally we took the public bus. The guest house we were making use of recommended we take the tourist bus, as you might expect, and when that failed, they insisted that we use their taxi to get to the bus station at a cost nearly double that of the bus ticket its self. We passed on that too and had no problem what-so-ever finding a pair of rickshaws to chariot us to our departure point.

The bus ride to the boarder was less eventful. It was a long push in cramped space and we got into Sunauli as the sun set. The walk from the bus station to the boarder was brief and we crossed with a minimum of hassle. Negotiating the Nepali side was a little trickier, but not by much. We required passport photos, which we lacked. However, for an extremely modest price, we could photocopy our passports and use that instead.

The Nepali side of Sunauli is about as flea-bitten, depraved and dusty a town as I have ever seen and good only to pass through at as rapid a pace as possible. Feral dogs scrounged the streets for food, drug addled Nepalis and Indians worked various hustles and everyone attempted to separate you from you hard earned pocket money. We had to exchange our Indian rupees for Nepali rupees and were fleeced like golden sheep. I mean royally swindled on the rate. Then we purchased a bus ticket for Kathmandu at a slightly excessive price from an agent that seemed genuinely sorry to be doing it to us. Then we dealt with a drunken Nepali who admittedly hated Sunauli because he “drank and smoked too much.” We avoided him after that. We got to Kathmandu safely, though not one of us slept soundly for longer than maybe 30 minutes (it was a night bus). The road was sparsely paved and the seats were made for people who are six inches shorter than us on average.

We arrived in Kathmandu early in the morning and immediately headed for the Thamel part of town where all the other tourists stay, shop and arrange travel. We checked into the first hotel we could find that wasn’t too expensive, but still paid a lot more than we should’ve. We were promised hot water, but as it turned out, that hot water was only available when it was sunny because the entire town runs on solar power, which is great for the environment, and very respectable, but sucks when you are filthy from 20 hours of bus riding. We dealt with it and scouted out another, cheaper hotel. We spent the rest of the day getting ourselves together, gathering our wits and generally relaxing, resting and rehydrating. The next day we ventured out into the city to see what there is to see, which turned out to be much more difficult than we had expected due to the ineptitude of our map and the fact that every street in Kathmandu seems to bend slightly until you are going in quite the opposite direction of the one you intended. Also, there is a bare minimum of street signs. We first set out for Swayambhunath temple in the west of Kathmandu. The temple is affectionately called the monkey temple due to the number of monkeys that live on the hill that the temple is situated on. Somehow we ended up at Drubar Square where the city’s kings were once crowned and legitimized, and from where they ruled, or so our Lonely Planet tells me. If you enjoy being asked to take a tour repeatedly, this is the place for you. Don’t waste your time looking anywhere else. Durbar Square has more tour guides offering their services than tourists and travelers visiting. We passed. But we did pay to take a picture of a monk or Brahman or some such religious figure who had dreads he said he’d grown for 30 years. They were long. I also took a couple pictures of another similar man, but on the sly. The square its self was pretty exquisite, with extremely old pagodas and whatnot, all intricately engraved with images of various Hindu figures ranging from Shiva and Ganesh to Hanuman and Vishnu. The roofs all had dried grass growing out of them and the wood the structures were made of looked handsomely aged. It was nice.

From there, we headed to Swayambhunath and actually found our way there. The temple is atop a relatively steep hill and you climb a few hundred steps to get to it, but there are several benches along the way and monkeys to entertain you. The pictures we had seen of the stupa made it look stunning but they were not at all fair and could not capture the tranquil beauty of it. The white dome and golden spire are brilliant against the velvet blue of the empty sky. Even with monkeys screeching and taking food from tourists, people snapping photos and chattering on, the temple and stupa have an extremely peaceful feeling. The peace was only broken by a particularly large monkey that had staked his claim to an area and took offense when another monkey invaded it. There was a brief and terrifying moment when the monkeys, squabbling and shrieking, came tumbling toward where we sat. We narrowly averted being in the middle of it and were lucky to escape without rabies or any puncture wounds. It was
dangerous, I’m telling you. We walked around the base of the stupa clockwise, as you are supposed to, spun the prayer wheels and repeated om mani padme hum (hail to the jewel in the lotus – this is also what is inscribed on the prayer wheels). Atop the white dome are the watchful eyes of Buddha and the question mark-like “nose”, which is actually the Nepali number ek or one, and the symbol of unity of all life. It was quite a day.

The next day, we headed out to Bhaktapur, about 30kms outside of Kathmandu. We spent two days in this small town roaming the cobblestone streets and checking out the numerous pagodas which strongly resembled those in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. In fact, the central area was also called Durbar Square. It turns out that there are Durbar Squares in most of the main cities of Nepal. I guess that’d be due to each city having its own ruler and each ruler living in a Durbar Square.

From Kathmandu, you can hardly make out the luminous mountains that are just beyond the valley, partly due to hills that obscure them but more so because of the thick smog that clouds the horizon. It was very disappointing. We had hoped that it would be different in Bhaktapur, but it wasn’t much. The only things that the city had over Kathmandu in this regard was a higher altitude and a different position in the valley. We could make out more of the awesome and jagged mountains but they were
still shrouded in dust and smoke particles. Also disappointing is the fact that I will not be able to stare in awe at the glory that is Mount Everest. It is impossible to reach a viewing point any other way than flight or trek, which is great because it protects the mountain, keeps it unspoiled and pristine, saves it from the hordes that would surely clutter it, me included, were there to be buses that would take you there. Once again, sucks for me but is good.

We are briefly in Kathmandu right now and head for Pokhara tomorrow. We will be staying at a yoga center for at least a few days and perhaps longer. The town its self looks spectacular, with a large lake and an excellent view of the Annapurnas. We have heard several excellent things about it and are really jazzed to spend some time there.

And now a side note about food. I have been eating Indian food and Nepali styled Indian food steadily from the moment we got into India and have been loving it. I’ve eaten paneers and dhals, rotis and naans, curries and chutneys, rice and raita, and loved them all, however, too much dhal gives you gas that is extremely foul and singes the nostrils. It smells like you hatched a rotten egg into a pan of burned butter and rotten garlic. I mean, it is awful, vile and despicable. Somehow, I keep ordering the dhal, despite this. It tastes too good and is easy on the stomach, no matter how violently it assaults the nose. Anyone who has been here can understand.

(For those wondering what the kids are saying in the video, they are say "Hilary Teacher is beautiful.")

Planes, Trains and Automobiles to India

2008-11-14T00:18:00.000-08:00

Well, we made it. After two buses, three taxis, four subways, two planes and a train, all spread over more than 48 hours, we are here in Varanasi, India. We survived despite exhaustion and intermittent delirium, confused and uncertain travel plans, and of course, language barriers. The first thing that struck us upon arriving in Delhi International Airport (where we landed in India) was the poverty. It’s not so much its prevalence as it is obviousness and ubiquity. From the airport, we took a taxi to the train station. We had decided on our second flight that the best choice was to head to Varanasi and from there go to Nepal. We arrived at the train station early in the morning and had to wait for close to two hours before the tourist ticket office opened. The station its self is nothing like what you’d expect to see in the U.S. not that that’s surprising. What was somewhat surprising, at least for us, was the number of people who appear to live at the train station. There must have been more than 75 men, women and children sleeping in various places throughout the building, and everyone simply went about their business without paying them any mind. We had of course heard of the rampant poverty, but nothing really adequately prepares you.

Anyway, our train didn’t leave until 6:30pm so we had a considerable amount of time to use up before hand. We ventured through the throng of people that surrounded the train station, waving off offers of all kinds – I think I could’ve purchased a child or a kidney for a below market price, if I had wanted either, but it would’ve been too much of a hassle and our bags were full enough already. Straight across the street was a somewhat touristy area, though it was also a bit seedy. We spent the day walking around and eating at a rooftop restaurant where we almost surely wore out our welcome, but so it goes on the road.

Finally, departure time came and we boarded the train for Varanasi. The ride was simple and easy. We had purchased middle class sleeper tickets and the bunks were adequate. We shared with a pair of Japanese travelers and a pair of Indians. We got to Varanasi around 8am and got into a taxi. The taxis probably deserve a mention. They are beautiful little round-ish vehicles that look circa 1950s New York City, but they are either bright white or green and yellow. I love them. I want to buy one and ship it home. We took a nice white one to our hotel, the Yogi Lodge. We had thought we were going to the Yogi Lodge down by the Ganges River, but as we found out after checking in, the taxi driver had taken us to a different one. The one we’re at turned out to be better than the one we wanted to go to anyway. We made our way to the other one and found it cramped with shared bathrooms.

Varanasi is packed, same as Delhi. Again, like the poverty, nothing can adequately prepare you. The streets are absolutely clogged with cars, motorcycles, mopeds, bikes, rickshaws, carts full of fruits and veggies, cows and people. It is utter madness, especially at intersections. We spent most of our first day here getting acclimated to the chaos and traffic, and exploring the city. Varanasi is billed as one of the most holy cities in India because of its number of Ghats and its proximity to the Ganges River. There must be 30 or more Ghats all along the banks of the river and several temples within the city. Along the shoreline of the river runs a pathway with steps down into the water and there are people bathing (literally soaping up and rinsing off) and washing their clothes. Behind the path are the Ghats that range in style and use from prayer centers, to yogi centers to burning Ghats. There are two burning Ghats and you are forbidden to take photos at either one, so don’t expect any here, though we have visited both. At the first one, we witnessed the wonderful circle of life. A stack of wood with a shrouded body burned on the steps shortly before the water and directly next to it a pair of dogs were copulating. Now, I wish I could say the dogs were making wild and passionate love, however, that is not their way. It was more a quicky. A wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (pardon the cliché). It did illustrate the cycle beautifully though.

The Ghats are somewhat better viewed from the water and to that end we arranged to take an early morning boat ride along the shore. So, at 6am we set out for the river where our guide, hired from our lodge, rented us a row boat and a guide and we set off into the great Ganges to pear at the Ghats and the people bathing in the holiest river. The sun was rising, red and cloaked, and the air was thick with smoke from morning fires. We scooted lazily along surrounded by hundreds of other tourists and travelers doing precisely the same. About an hour in, we saw something in the distance that resembled a dead body and as we approached we become more certain until the fact was undeniable. We asked our boat captain and he explained that there are five kinds of people that do net have their bodies cremated: Brahman, pregnant women, children, people killed by a bite from a cobra and lepers. This was one of those five. I have only seen one other dead body in my life and it was much more serene. This one was white and pickled, covered in a shroud except where the cloth had been washed away like around its tight, narrow toes and pail, thin scalp. It was ghostly and dead. Really dead. Not like the body I’d seen before at a funeral. That one was all rouged up and dressed to look like it was napping on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner. This one was not.

We moved on from there to a monkey temple – a temple dedicated to Hanuman, the Hindu god that resembles a monkey (I would call him the monkey god, but I don’t think monkeys are particularly concerned with religion being too busy with cleaning their mates and jumping from things to other things). It was alright. The monkeys that were everywhere were more interesting than the temple its self, if you ask me. That’s really about it thus far.

From here, we will head to Nepal. We should be in Katmandu by Sunday. Wish us luck. We’re having a great time and eating all the Indian food we can handle. I ate a vegetable thali and a half today alone. Go Ducks!

I will include more photos next time.

Moving On!

2008-11-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

Well family, friends and felines (that means you Persia), I'm back to ramble, rant and write run-on sentences for to keep you abreast of what Hilary, Smith and I are up to. We're off for the road in little more than a week. We've eclipsed a year since we came to this fair-weathered nation and yet it doesn't seem hardly so long. I can't possibly recount everything that's happened in the past year, not simply because my memory doesn't have the capacity, but also because it would be downright droolingly boring and I wouldn't subject anyone to the minutia of everyday existence. It's just not that interesting no matter what country you are in. What I can say to cover that period of time is this: it was okay.

Next we are off to India and Nepal. Nepal is a recent addition to our itinerary. We didn't know whether or not we could cross into Nepal from India or how safe it is there until about a week ago, but it looks like a go. In fact, I think Nepal is our first destination upon arrival. We fly out to Delhi on November 10th and arrive in the morning, so we hope to make it to the border crossing that day. We'll firm it up this week. At this point, that's all we've got planned for Nepal, but we'll get it figured. From Nepal, we'll cross back into India over by Darjeeling. We're expecting Darjeeling to be spectacular and tentatively planning on staying there for near to two weeks. That's the way we like to do it. Pick a place and stay for a while to get to know it. We don't care for the mad, break-neck, scuttle. We're more dawdlers and loiterers, dalliers and leisurers. Anyway, if it doesn't work out there, it will somewhere else. Perhaps in the south.

So, that's where we're going. Now where we have been.

My sister Smith came to stay with us almost three months ago. She is in high school and doing her classes on-line. It's been great having her and she and Hilary have been getting along great. Smith will be accompanying us to India and on. She came right around the time of Chu Seok, which is a holiday here something like Thanksgiving, only instead of making a turkey, we make song peyon, Korean rice cakes. These cakes are not like the crisp round treats that come with buttered popcorn baked in or coated in carmel. Not the ones we enjoy in the west. These are glutinous, globular balls of rice paste with various sweetened things inside. Some have a mix of sugar and sesame that when cooked tastes a bit like honey, while others have sweetened red bean paste, which I find disgusting, or close to disgusting. Ghastly? Well, the tradition is that you make these confections. So, naturally, the school decided that we'd make them with the kindergardeners the day before we finished for the long weekend, however, no one bothered to explain to Hilary or me just how we were supposed to go about making these things. When it came time to make them with our kids, we were pretty much lost. To be fair, they assumed Hilary knew what to do and didn't give me a class, either because I'm a man or they thought me incompetent. Either way, I helped her and took pictures. It wasn't really a disaster, but while the other kids had bills, our kids had amorphous blobs and globules.

Also at Chu Seok, people wear the traditional clothing called hanbok. It is often characterized by vibrant colors and simple lines without pockets. The women's hanbok consists of a chima meaning a wrap-around skirt and jeogori which refers to a jacket. The ensemble is often called chima jeogori. The men's hanbok is comprised of jeogori and baggy pants called baji. Hilary and I wore normal clothes because a good hanbok is expensive, but most of the kids came dressed in them as you can see from these photos. Yeosu is still pretty small when compared to other cities in Korea, so I think the families are a little more tied to tradition. However, with the rapid growth of the factories here, that might soon change.

I spent most of the year teaching a private lesson in addition to my normal workload. The father of two of our students had been getting lessons from the man I replaced and I took them over. He is a really nice man named Mr. Kim and he took me out to dinner on several occasions. On one such occasion, he took me to the factory complex outside of Yeosu. The complex is around ten minutes drive from town and factories sprawl out over the terrain like mechanical spiders. They are mainly power, chemical and oil factories and they are all ensconced in masses of bending and turning pipes covered in bright white lights. It's a rather striking sight at night, what with the flame stacks burning off the excess gasses and the intensely brilliant bulbs all over. It's somewhat fantastical. Mr. Kim worked on one of the factories as some kind of planner, safety checker and trouble shooter. I'm not quite sure of his title right now. Anyway, he explained to me that many of the factories never shut down because they are far to difficult to restart. They run all day, every day, all year, which I thought was kind of wild.

Factories aren't the only attractions around Yeosu. The place is all hills and slight mountains, and every one has at least one trail to the top, if not several. And on all of these mountains, you will find Korean burial mounds. These mounds are commonly earthen and covered in grass, but in some places they are bade of stone. The largest mountain in Yeosu is called Chomchi Mountain (I made that name up because I don't know it's real name - chomchi means tuna) and is surrounded by apartments and rice paddies. The first time Smith, Hilary and I hiked it it was cloudy so I went back again later to get pictures and enjoy the view. By the time I got back there, they'd harvested most of the rice, but I managed to get some nice pictures none-the-less. It's a nice hike and goes almost straight up the side of the mountain. The trails around here aren't much for cut-backs, but then I never liked them anyway, and besides, the mountains are more hills anyway.

Hiking is very big here and Koreans have all the gear, even for a walk across town. I'm completely serious on this. It is a very common sight to see a Korean wearing a neckerchief, North Face jacket and pants, and a backpack, strolling down the street with a hiking stick in hand - and not some wooden thing they picked up from a park, but a high-end hiking pole or even two. They could be in the middle of the Patagonian steppe and be equally okay. They go all out for it, but then they're better prepared I suppose. They do seem to have better meals when hiking. I've seen a family at the top of a fair sized hill with a burner out grilling up some pork loin. I can't deny envy there, though I'm not big on pork per say.

Anyway, as we prepare to leave, I've been trying to reflect on the year and think of some grand coin of wisdom I came upon or some distinguishable moment of impact and I've got nothing, which isn't to say I didn't enjoy myself or see interesting things. I did however meet a lot of good people, mostly Canadians because they make up the majority of the foreigners here. I thought about giving a bunch of shout-outs here like some athlete on camera after a big win, but none of the people I would mention will read this save for maybe James and Brad (so, I'd like to give a shout out to my Edu Best homey, James and my Apple amigo One Ankled Brad). Working at Edu Best has been a great experience (that is a hideous cliche but I don't really know what else to say about it... that's kind of disappointing). We're going to miss the kids and teachers a lot. Hilary got really close with the youngest class, Hippo Class, and it's going to be sad to say goodbye to them. This is most of them. Hippo kids are around four years old and for most of them, Edu Best was their first experience at school so it has been really nice getting to watch them grow this year. When they first came, there were three kids that cried if I so much as walked by the class, but now they give me hugs and say "I love you." Hilary didn't have that problem. They loved her from the start. I'm getting a little choked up just sitting here writing this and thinking of leaving. They're just so damn cute. Anyway, I think they're the kids I'll miss the most. They were difficult for me because their language skills were so low but they've been great and they always give me something to laugh about at some point. They pick up the funniest things and bust them out on you at the most random times. Suddenly you'll have some kid telling you, "Josiah Teacher is monkey... I don't think so." Precious. Also, they'll say just about anything:

Well, I think that's about all for now. I wish I had more, but I don't think I do. Of course, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them, so feel free to send them. Otherwise, check back in in couple weeks for the latest.

I'll leave you with Moonie showing nostril and Robin showing monster face (Hippo Class):

Live From Korea

2008-05-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time since I last posted here - six months to the day I think – and I doubt very much that anyone even checks this thing anymore, so if you are here reading this now, you probably got an e-mail from me or Hilary. If not, well, count me impressed. (How did you get here, then?) Anyway, there’s really no reason for the long absence other than my own laziness… I thought maybe I’d say something like, I wanted to wait until I knew the country more so that I could more accurately explain our experience here, especially considering the length of time we’ll be here, but that would just be a lie. It was really only lethargy. I think I told Hilary ten times since we got here that I would write this. But enough already, chances are you didn’t visit our blog to read what you have so far.

There are so many things to be said about our stay so far, stories and impressions and whatnot, that it’s somewhat hard to pick a place to start from, so I’ll pick one at random.

This is a photo of the staff, including the people that we were replacing (the large bald man and the smaller hispanic woman).

Our first night in town, the headmaster of our school, MC, took us to a sashimi restaurant that specializes in tuna. Hilary and I are both big sushi and sashimi eaters, and were excited to try it here closer to the meal’s roots. Almost every restaurant in Korea serves a myriad of side dishes along with whatever you order, and the number of sides increases greatly when you go to a restaurant with a set menu. Tuna Village is one of the latter. Along with the large platter of raw tuna off all types came kimchi, salad, some sort of fried vegetables, some green spinach-like steamed leaf, some small octopus limbs in a nice sesame sauce still wriggling away and what appeared to be slivers of tongue also still wriggling. Hilary and I, both wanting to show MC that we were going to jump right in, proceeded to try one of everything. There really is no need to explain the taste of all of the things, as I’m sure anyone reading this is only wondering about the octopus and the tongue, so here it is: the octopus was great and the tongue wasn’t tongue at all and was actually disgusting – it had the consistency of cartilage and was stickier than snot, so it clung to the back of my throat from the entirety of the meal, no matter how much beer I drank to wash it away.

There, I’ve at least temporarily satisfied my desire to tell food stories.

I was Santa last year. Probably the worst ever, but maybe not. Next year it's Macy's for me.

Our jobs have been roughly the same since we got here, though our students have changed due to the Korean school year starting in March. In the mornings we have the youngsters. When we started out, Hilary had the really young ones while I had the kids a little older and with a little more English experience. That all ended for me in March. Hilary and I now share the young ones. We have 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds. It was extremely difficult for me at first, partly because I had a handful of kids that cried every time I entered the room. Hilary didn’t have the same problem. Korean kids spend much more time with their mothers than their fathers, so they are much more comfortable with a female teacher, also Hilary’s better with the little guys and girls than I am. Thankfully that has stopped. Actually, the kids are great and while it was very hard going early on, it has gotten much better, so much so that I really enjoy my morning classes (mainly because the kids are funny a lot of the time). Hilary and I share a favorite morning student. His name is Moonie, and he is wild and funny and cute. Hilary wants to take him home with us. I’m including some pictures of him and many other kids.

Maybe I should back up and explain about our school a little bit. We are teaching at an English academy, which means that the school teaches English and nothing else. We have children too young for standard school in the morning (from 10:30 to 2:30) and school agers from first grade through middle school and first year of high school in the evenings (from 3:00 to 7:30).

We have a book or a set of books for each class but have the freedom and necessity to supplement that with almost anything we see fit. The materials we have range from moderately interesting to narcolepsy-inducing. As a result, often I try to work in as much conversation and story telling as possible.

I’m running out of school things. Especially without Hilary here to remind me of things or anyone asking me any questions (if you have any questions, put them in the comments and when I update this next, which will be within the week, I will address them). I don’t want to write everything into this one post because it would be too massive a block of text, so I’m going to split it up some. I’ll try and cover more of our impressions of the country in the next entry. Hope everyone’s doing great wherever you are reading this from. We miss you all.

(Also, uncle Craig and aunt Mia came to visit. It was great to see some family and we had a really good time with them. So, if you two read this, thank you so much for coming to see us. It was great.)

(Also, I must apologize for how scattered this is. I tried to make it as coherent as possible. My next post should be better. And the lack of photos. It was loading really slowly. Another time.)

Back to Bangkok, Korea Prep and a Last Scare

2007-10-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-05T01:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-27T04:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-25T18:26:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-08-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

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.)

Angkors Away

2007-07-29T21:26:00.000-07:00

After our brief return to Bangkok, we split for Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. Now, before we embarked, we had been warned in no uncertain terms and with all severity that the road from Poipet to Sisophon which makes up roughly half of the journey on the Cambodian side was vicious on the spine and ass. Still, we were optimistic. We were wrong to be so. The road is dirt and in the middle it is covered in tiny, deep, jarring potholes that would be spine crumbling if you had to drive it the whole way but along the sides it is filled with crater sized holes in which our car all but disappeared before rolling up the other side (did I mention we were in a sedan?). The deeper pits saved us from total spinal destruction. However, while this may seem perilous enough, our driver was not at all satisfied. Not only did we have to be bouncing up and down through these pits, but we had to be doing it at breakneck speed, passing any and everything from other motorists to 7-year-olds herding cattle at as close a range as possible. I thought on several occasions that we surely had run someone off the road. To make matters worse, just outside of Sisophon we heard a sudden hissing and our driver pulled to the side of the road. It seems that our car was powered in some way by natural gas and one of his maneuverings had split some tubing so that now natural gas was spewing from underneath the car and the trunk. We had to stop in Sisophon for 45 minutes to get it fixed, which we were glad for because riding in a powder keg down a bumpy road is not our idea of adventure. In the end, we arrived in Siem Reap safe and tired.

What neither of us had thought of or realized was how much of a tourist center Siem Reap is. It's absolutely lousy with tourists of every stripe. From hordes of Asians traveling in packs, flashes constantly going to more subdued travelers months into around the world trips. As a result, the restaurants were superb, but we, as everyone else, were flocked by vendors and beggars. We took to joking with them as most were children. It seems that they must teach US state capitols in school here because everyone began reciting them when we told them we were from the States. We asked one little girl about Oregon and she snapped right back, "Salem," without even batting an eye. We were impressed, but not so much that we bought anything.

Anyhow, more important than the people at the temples were the temples themselves, and they did not disappoint. We bought three-day passes and hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us around (tuk-tuks are motorbike pulled carts). The first day we headed to Banteay Srei which is regarded as the jewel of the temples and is the farthest out into the park. It was as fantastic as advertised. The walls are ornately carved with all sorts of Hindu figures, including Krishna, Shiva and Arjuna. We tried to get there early, thinking 9:30 would be sufficient, but it wasn't. The park does open at 5:30 for sunrise, so many people had long been there.

From Banteay Srei we headed to Pre Rup, another spectacular temple. To be honest, they were all spectacular and you really have to see them to appreciate their beauty and impressiveness. There really is no way we can capably convey what it is to see them in person. Sure we can describe them, the carvings, they measurements, the flora growing from their brick foundations and walls, but none of that would give you a fair understanding of seeing them rise up before you. Suffice it to say, if you can, you should really see them for you self. We saw several more Wats that day and were dizzy with awe by the end.

For our second day we did the sunrise at Angkor Watt... along with 1,000 other people. Our driver insisted that it was the only Western facing temple and thus the only one where the sun rose from behind it. We thought perhaps 5:30 was a little early for most people but clearly we were wrong. Once inside the gate, the place was a zoo. People lined the surrounding walls and every few steps you had to step around a person's tripod. It seemed everyone in Siem Reap was there to get that famous picture of the sun cresting the high towers of Ankgor Wat. We were somewhat disappointed, but made due. Instead we went around back and explored. Finally, when the sun was up, we went inside. I climbed to the top, but Hilary wisely opted to stay on the second level. The stairs are absurdly steep and while going up is easy enough, coming down is damn harrowing. I opted for a lesser used staircase as the one with the recently fixed steps and handrail was packed and if any one fell, they'd take the rest with them. Forget that. Aside from the view, there wasn't much at the top to see anyway. We saw several more temples that day and were exhausted by the afternoon. That evening over a bowl of Korko Soup, we decided that 13 hours over two days was plenty and that we'd move on to Battambang the next morning via river boat.

The river boat was reportedly a beautiful ride on which you could see much of the country side and both were true. What wasn't true was the suggested time of travel. Magically what was supposed to be a 5 hour trip became a 9 hour journey down narrow streams. The scenery was indeed special and we passed many floating villages and other such sights, so we managed to keep our cool, but we were extremely thankful when it finally ended. And that's where we stand now, in Battambang about to head to Phnom Penh.

(Please note that these Wats are in no particular order as I had a hard enough time simply getting them on here.)

Khorat, Phimai and the Future!

2007-07-24T07:01:00.001-07:00

From Ayuthaya, we headed east as was our original plan when we left Bangkok. However, having looked over our itinerary, we realized there is very little to see in east Thailand and we might need to adjust our plans, so we did. Our new plan became this: we would spend a night in Khorat (Nakhon Ratchasima) and then head up to Phimai to see a Wat that supposedly pre-dates Ankgor Wat. We have very little to report about Khorat because we were only there for a night and did very little other than eat and roam the city in search of food, but in the opposite order obviously. Khorat, according to the Lonely Planet guide, is very seldom visited by tourists and so makes little or no effort to accommodate them. This we found to be true right from the bus and were pleased. As we looked for the hotel we planned to stay at, we stopped and asked a person that looked like they might be able to help us with directions. From this man we received our favorite response thus far from a person unable to answer our question, and that response was this: “I’m sorry, I don’t speak English. I’m from Thailand,” said in perfect English and in a very cheery tone. It was great.

That’s about all for Khorat.

We got up pretty early the next morning and headed for Phimai on the bus. We found Phimai to be small and without many tourists or attractions beyond a superb plate of honey glazed chicken wings which you can read about in the food blog. The Wat however was magnificent. It was not only wonderfully preserved, but it was intricately carved and there were placards in front of each structure explaining what it was, how it was used and what it had housed. We spent the better part of the day wondering around inspecting the different carvings in the walls and over the doorways. Many of the buildings were over 800 years old and still bore inscriptions now protected behind hard plastic casing in their limestone walls. The text was not transcribed and as neither of us read or speak Thai, we did not know what they said. Naturally we hope it was something eloquent and beautiful, but they could’ve said something as simple as “take your shoes off before entering or die a miserable death you scalawag.” Who’s to say?

That night at the market we saw our first insects-as-food booth. They were selling roasted grubs, crickets and some other crawling thing with more than four legs. Neither of us cared to try them, so we cannot report on their flavor. We’re sorry, but our stomachs, strong as they are, were not tempted.

Ayuthaya for Two

2007-07-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

After barely surviving a night without air conditioning, we asked for an upgraded which we got, and we rented bicycles. We thought about renting mopeds, but decided perhaps they were a little too much machine for us jest yet, especially with the activity on the roads being so fast and if not furious, at least more aggressive than we’re presently prepared to handle. So, having paid our 50 baht for the day-long bicycle rental, we took our trusty iron steeds and hit the road, aiming for the nearest Wat, temple or adventure, all after a healthy breakfast of Coke served in a plastic bag and soft-serve ice cream from some random street corner vender who was also selling wooden furniture (the ice cream was great, but it was so hot that it began to melt through the bottom of the cone only 5 minutes after buying it). We found several Wats and temples in down town Ayuthaya as they pretty much litter the streets of the city almost as much as wild dogs, but most charged an entrance fee and were clogged with tourists and touristy activities which, as we’ve said, we try to avoid whenever possible. We neither entered these nor took pictures. Hopefully our words about them suffice. We have this to say about them. They look like the average Wat and Temple that has been restored or built within the last 10 years.

Instead of continuing to blunder into these attractions, we, being the intrepid travelers and explorers and not the automobiles of Dodge make, decided to ride our bikes around the rim of the city and see what we might find. This proved to be a successful venture indeed as we found a beautiful and almost entirely deserted Wat that we were able to inspect at length without interruption or entrance fee. The Wat was called Wat Rathaburana in Sri Nakakharin Park. It was old, rustic and scenic, just the way we like it, but we only took pictures of an intricate tree and a supplicant in its roots or trunk, we’re not sure what they were.

Ayuthaya

2007-07-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

We left for our first venture beyond the boundaries of Bangkok last Friday. Ayuthaya (I-You-Tia) is a smallish town about 70 miles to the northeast of Bangkok and is Thailand’s old capitol. We took the train.

The first hostel we tried was full, so we moved on to the next one in sight which, due to the cities large tourist population, was within spitting distance. We took an A.C.-free room in the aptly named P.U. Hotel and signed up for the evening boat tour. You see, Authaya is an island by virtue of the fact that it is surrounded on all sides by three converging rivers. Situated at various points in and around the city are no less than ten Wats and temples. The boat tour took us to three such Wats: first Wat Phanachoeng, second, Wat Phutthaisawan, and finally, Wat Chaiwattanaram. Of the three, the final one was the most spectacular, though all were impressive. The first was much more modern than we like and had a heavy Chinese influence, another thing we’re not so ecstatic about. It’s not that they’re not beautiful or ornate, but that they’re much more recently constructed and usually refurbished so that you can’t tell what’s original and what isn’t, which is to say that they look very new. We prefer our Wats scenic and in ruins or at least dilapidated. These things are hundreds of years old and they should look it damn it. We didn’t even bother to un-holster our camera.

Anyway, Wat Phutthaisawan proved to be more what we were looking for. This Wat was best known for its reclining Buddha and we found it to be appropriately weatherworn and aged, and we took several pictures starting from the boat. In all, the Buddha was probably close to 20 feet long and must’ve had many local visitors, for there were several offerings about it. Also, there were several meditating Buddhas about its head that were equally impressive. This Wat, unlike the last, was free and had much less tourist-oriented activities. There was virtually nothing for sale but snacks and beverages, whereas at the previous Wat you could buy everything from saffron robes to gold Buddhas.

At last we headed to Wat Chaiwattanaram and got to see what we’d come for: a real, unmolested Wat full of age and presence. Wat Chaiwattanaram was stunning in its beauty and originality. From the moment we got off the boat the history and sanctity of the place was palpable and everyone was dully awed. The place was truly amazing and breathtaking. We walked through the entrance slack-jawed. At the center stood the temple, an imposing staircase pushing straight up into a vacancy. Naturally, we scaled the stairs and went inside where we found a statue of Buddha along with a lot of pigeon shit. The pigeon droppings did not detract from the beauty, surprisingly. Looking out from the top of the steps, you could see the towering Wats and buildings that surrounded the main temple and even at that height, they were magnificent, especially so set against the vibrantly green grass. We loved every moment and had to take a couple breaks to just stare and take the whole thing in, just feel the power and energy of the place. Sadly, night was coming on pretty fast and we still had a 20 minute boat ride to the night market, so we had to leave before we were entirely ready, but that’s usually the way with these things.

The night market was interesting, but nothing to write home about, so I won’t. The night however, was brutal. Suffering through a Thai night without A.C. is similar to getting into a hot tub in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

ELECTRONICS!

2007-07-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the know, Circuit City is now on the list of establishments that get the butt smear. You see, shortly before we left for Thailand, we bought a camera and an extra memory card. Before paying, we asked the sales rep that helped us whether or not the card and the camera were compatible and she assured us they were. However, yesterday when we tried to put the card in for the first time we had a rude surprise. The card and the camera do not work together as the card is too big to fit in the slot where it is supposed to. We’re certain that anyone can understand our frustration considering we can’t just pop over to Circuit City and explain the conundrum.

So it was that we headed out today to go to Panthip Plaza, an electronics bazaar as we were told. Once again, we walked over to the train, which we’ve done just about every day. We feel very local, if one can feel so. Anyway, we took our time finding the place, but when we did, we were not at all oversold. The place is absolutely ridiculous. It is at least 5 stories tall and crammed with electronics. If the Terminator were to need a new limb or an eye, I think he could find it at Panthip Plaza. If the Transformers were looking for relatives, they would start here. It was a visual overload.

We shopped around as we were instructed to do and ended up saving roughly 300 baht, which may only be $10 but sounds like a whole hell of a lot more, okay. We are back on track and everything is a go. We also couldn’t avoid buying a couple DVDs. They have just about any recent movie you could want, including the newest Harry Potter and “Die Hard: Live Free or Die Hard”. We didn’t buy either. The best part of buying them was hearing the person at the counter ask us to come back in 15 minutes after she’d burned our copies. Got to love the black market. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that they’re not camcorder jobs, or that if they are, the camera man wasn’t sitting in the front row. (Let’s hope Jerry was working the camera.) While we waited, Hilary got some sesame balls. It turned out that they seemed to be filled with sweetened plantains. They tasted strikingly similar to sesame snacks, but soft and warm instead of cold and crisp.

That was about it for our day. We’re ready to get out of the city now.

Something I forgot to include yesterday was that we stopped by the Peace Corps office and the place is about 10 times bigger than the office in Fiji, which is in no way an exaggeration. It is 3 or 4 floors tall and has a separate building for the medical office and volunteer lounge, which is embarrassingly better in every way than the one in Fiji. Volunteers here have access to internet, cable TV, numerous DVDs and VHSs, a refrigerator, a large catalog of work materials and a respectable library of books actually worth reading, for the most part. They also have 24 hour access to the lounge. Oghale, we hope you read this and think about the possibility. (The improvement of the volunteer lounge was one of my last projects before I finished work on the Volunteer Advisory Committee and my PC service, but it never happened.)

Wat?!?

2007-07-17T07:46:00.001-07:00

It has rained every single night we’ve been here so far, but not once during the day. Very nice. It hasn’t been the best weather however, more overcast than anything, but we’ll settle. We’re not greedy. We were even treated to a thunderstorm last night, complete with lightening. We’re getting the full treatment, I guess.

Anyway, thus far we’ve been slowly venturing further and further into the city, and today we looked to get ourselves from Eileen and Kristina’s all the way to the Ko Ratanakosin area. This part of town is littered with wats and Buddhist temples and is a fair distance from where we’re staying. We had to take two separate trains and a ferry to get there. Naturally, the place is a major tourist destination, and so the path there was fraught with hustlers and scam artists looking to lighten the pockets of any inexperienced tourists available, all by legal means of course, which is to say by convincing tourists to purchase meager tour packages and other extraneous goods and services. We did pretty well avoiding this sort of thing, not that it’s all that difficult. Besides, not being overly overweight, extremely pale, having camera bags slung across our shoulders, or wearing ridiculous, supposedly authentic local clothing, we make for less appealing marks. We don’t look like we’ve got money hanging out of our pockets. All it really takes is some ingenuity, and a smile and polite wave of the hand indicating “no thank you”.

Anyway, before getting on the boat to head up river to Ko Ratanakosin, we made a detour to Wat Yannawa (pictured here with trees leading to its entrance). The wat was almost entirely empty and it was nice to have it pretty much to ourselves. Its placement is kind of odd considering it’s in the middle of the city and not at all serene. I imagine it was quite nice a hundred plus years ago when there weren’t busses chugging past and street corner vendors cooking on every sidewalk.

After a brief visit, we headed over to catch a river taxi up to Ko Ratanakosin. The boat dragged us up river while a tour guide gave a review in English of every hotel we passed, noting its opening date and star rating, presumably for the benefit of the non-locals. Occasionally he’d break from the routine to point out a wat, temple or church. We got a pretty good picture of the Temple of the Dawn this way, though we took it from the dock after we disembarked.

Straight off the boat, we walked to the side of the Grand Palace, which is no longer used, but is instead a major tourist attraction, and is surrounded by a large, white wall. Next to it stands Wat Pho, which was supposedly closed for a Buddhist ceremony, but that information was gained from a Thai that we’re pretty sure was trying to dupe us into taking a tuk-tuk to another wat at an exorbitant rate that he might split with the driver. He got us, sort of. What happened was that we believed him, but didn’t immediately take a tuk-tuk. We walked a block and took one. We’re not certain, but we think our driver just drove around a bit and dropped us off in front of a random wat instead of the one we’d requested. Anyway, we felt that the 40 baht we paid wasn’t excessive, and besides, 40 baht is all of $1.16 USD, so we could afford it. It went to a good cause.

We found ourselves in front of what we think was Wat Ratchabophit, which is pictured here, including the one of Hilary. If you can’t tell from the pictures, the wat was amazingly ornate and we were taken by its beauty. The detail was stunning. From there we just wandered until we came upon Wat Ratchapradit. Again, the architecture and detail was remarkable. I can’t really do these places any justice in writing beyond saying that you need to see them your self to really appreciate them. We hung around this wat a little longer because we’d been befriended by an English teacher who mentioned possibly going inside, but it never happened and instead we spent 20 minutes awkwardly conversing with him about his daughter who is going to spend next year on an exchange in Alaska. She’s going to have a hell of a surprise when she feels the cold and the endless winter moon. Hopefully she’s done some research. He seemed pretty intelligent, so I think she’s probably adequately prepared. Finally, when we realized we were not getting inside, we excused ourselves and continued wandering. Next we went to the Grand Palace and peaked in through the front gate. The entrance fee was something like 250 baht which may be less than $10 USD, but is still too rich for our blood. Besides, we really want to see the older, less tourist-visited sites outside of Bangkok.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the sidewalk market looking at the different tables, which are actually tarps laid on the concrete. Again, I think Thailand has the market cornered on odd combinations of things for sale together. As Hilary said, “it’s like somebody went around their house thinking, ‘what can I sell today.’” Great. This has become one of our favorite things about Bangkok. This and the fruit carts. There are these carts that cruise around the city with peeled pineapple, papaya, green guava, watermelon, green mango and sometimes cantaloupe city atop ice. When you buy it, they put it into a plastic bag, chop it into bite size chunks (the fruit only, they cut inside the bag) and throw a skewer in for you to use as a utensil. It’s great, and all for 10 baht each, though occasionally we have to pay 20 baht.

Sorry for the length of this entry. One last thing. We learned today that most people park their cars in neutral. Due to the number of people in Bangkok, there are not nearly enough parking spots, so people routinely box each other in. The cars are left in neutral so that if you are boxed in, you can simple roll the car out of your way. There are whole parking lots filled with cars that have to be strategically moved. It’s incredible. You’ll come out sometimes and your car will be blocks away. Again, sorry about the length of this post.

Not Tourists, Visitors

2007-07-16T01:13:00.001-07:00

Today, we made our first real adventure out from under Kristina and Eileen’s wing. We started the day going to the Vichayut Hospital to get our vaccinations for Typhoid and Japanese Encephalitis and once there we were treated to top notch care and given our own pair of guides to help us through the process. We got the Typhoid shots today and will get the others on Wednesday (it is Monday her because we are 14 hours ahead of the west coast). The Typhoid shots cost 525 baht each which is about a third of what they would’ve cost in the U.S. (Kids, friends, Americans, come to Thailand for your medical treatment. It costs less and is better service.)

Having taken care of our first order of business, we headed out into the city, buying our rail passes and feeling very much like locals, or at least visitors privy to information that most other travelers aren’t. We felt special and elite, though the feeling was probably completely unwarranted. Our big ticket item for the day was the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson evidently led the rejuvenation of the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and with his considerable wealth he built a traditional Thai house, or rather, reassembled a set of Thai houses from around the country and connected each to the next. In the center, he planted a veritable jungle, which is precisely what he called it according to our guide. After the grand opening in 1959, he opened the house to the public with all the proceeds going to various Thai charities (today the proceeds go to the school for the blind). Inside he had arranged a massive collection of ancient religious artifacts and pieces of art, included beautifully ornate cloth paintings from the 18th century and Buddhist statues from as far back as the 14th century. They were all quite spectacular, but we cannot provide any photos because cameras were not allowed inside the house (we did take a picture looking into the living room).

The other draw for the House, besides the architecture and art, is the fact that on March 26th, 1967, Jim Thompson disappeared from the face of the earth, or seemed to anyway. It is doubtful to us that he actually disappeared. Disappearing entirely is near impossible without a lot of TNT and even then, people at least know that you disappeared. In this case, what happened to Jim Thompson is what isn’t known. Anyway, what makes this even stranger is that a year later his sister, living in the U.S. vanished herself. Weird stuff.

Anyway, having had our fill of tourist-like activity (if you recall, we decided that we are not tourists at all, but rather, we are visitors), we went to the Siam Mall to get something to eat because there was very little street food to be found. (For those who might be interested, they had Harry Potter at the IMax.) Now we’re back, hot, sweaty, sticky and tired, but embuoyed with a sense of accomplishment.

Markets, Flea, Food and Otherwise

2007-07-15T01:35:00.001-07:00

Eileen didn’t have to work yesterday so she and Kristina squired us about the city. In the morning we headed out to Chatuchack which is an enormous indoor/outdoor market that carries everything from throwing stars and diamond earrings to t-shirts and produce, though naturally, none of those products were sold at the same shop. It was swamped with tourists, which is fine and well, if you’re into that sort of thing.

We weren’t in the market for anything as we are at the beginning of our travels and would rather discard material than take more on. Kristina did buy us some snack thing that came wrapped in betel nut and was served on skewers. You eat the whole thing and as Hilary said, “it’s like an explosion of flavor.” We think it was filled with shrimp, some kind of nut and some citrus fruit, but we’re not entirely certain. They were very good, but there was no way we were going to be able to finish the 5-6 skewers that we had. Hilary accidentally left them at the restaurant where we ate anyway.

After Chatuchack we went across the street to a rather large market and got some fruit and vegetables. The market was rather sizeable and had all kinds of fruits, many of which we had never seen before, and could well have been aliens from another planet (rather than from another country). The big pink thing with the flippers is called a dragon fruit, the purple thing with the coconut like top is a mangosteen and the red, hairy thing is called a rambutan. You have to split them open to get at the fruit of all of these. I haven’t tried the dragon fruit yet but the mangosteens are extremely sweet and fibrous while the rambutan pale white and is a lot like lychee in appearance, taste and texture. We’ve eaten a lot of the rambutan.

After the markets, we went back to the house and Kristina cooked up a fantastic dinner. She made a really good tomato-cream sauce with some button mushrooms we got at the market. And when we finished, we head out to a weekly flea market that, contrary to Chatuchak, was bereft of tourists. The flea market was held in a parking lot and was somewhat of a Vespa expo. We should’ve taken some pictures but we didn’t.

The variety was stunning. You could find Vespa parts, rotary phones, stuffed animals and used shoes all at one booth or on one tarp (many of the goods were sold on tarps much like at a garage sale). Often, I wasn’t sure how any of the things could ever be sold or where they came from to start with. There were even mice and rabbits available, which Eileen assured us were not to become pets but rather food. Also, I’m pretty certain that band t-shirts come to this flea market like aging music acts go to county fairs, which is to say, as a last ditch effort to stay popular. Again, we did not purchase anything, though many of the rotary phones were tempting.

Kristina and Eileen have been fantastic. They've made the adjustment to Thailand so much easier and we'd like everyone to know how much we appreciate all their help and guidence since we arrived. This whole thing would've been so much more difficult for us without them. Thank you.

Here and There

2007-07-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

So, first let me apologize for the length of this blog entry before you get deep into it because it is going to be pretty long due to the amount of travel and interactions we’ve had in the last two days. We departed roughly 36 hours ago and quite a lot has happened in that time, so allow me to start at the beginning.

The universe as we know it began with a bang roughly 13.7 billion years, give or take. At first the earth wasn’t the most hospitable place, but over the passing years it became more comfortable until around 1.9 million years ago, homo habilis emerged. Then, several millions of years later, a homo sapien sapien developed the aircraft. And then, 36 hours ago, we boarding one of those flying contraptions and headed to Thailand.

Wednesday, we were dropped off at the airport about 3 hours prior to our scheduled departure so as to have ample time to deal with the throngs of people scuttling about the world via SFO. As it turns out, this was extremely fortunate because our flight was delayed such that it was impossible for us to make our connecting flight in LAX. But fortune smiled upon us and a wonderfully funny and high-pitched United employee named Lawrence took a liking to us (we know this because he said as much). Lawrence became the first person on our journey to go beyond the strictures of his job to help us. He switched us to the 8:30 so that we might catch our connection. (As a side note, Lawrence was appalled that we were flying such a great distance without either of us having frequent flyer accounts and so he demanded that we fill out the paperwork then and there so that he could comp us. Lawrence, wherever you are, the sun will be on your face and the wind at your back. Thank you.)

In LAX we were met with yet another set of hurdles. First, there was a massive line to check in at the Malaysian Air ticket counter. Luckily, having caught the earlier flight, we had plenty of time. When we finally reached the counter, the attendant, upon seeing that we only possessed one way tickets, became concerned. Apparently they frown on that sort of thing. He informed us that he was not supposed to allow us to fly but he’d see what he could do. Again fortune blessed us. The attendant produced a document absolving the airline of any responsibility for us and asked us to fill it out. When we’d finished, he informed us that somewhere along the line someone may demand that we purchase an exiting ticket, so, slightly concerned, we boarded.

As it turned out, we had absolutely no problem getting visas and no one mentioned that we had no visible exit strategy. To be fair, Hilary was not at all concerned and knew that as long as we maintained the good vibe that we’d been putting out from the beginning, everything would work out.

Our friend Kristina met us at the airport and helped us get back to her house where we’re staying now and I’m presently writing from. Once we’d cleaned up, she took us off to get Thai messages that are cheap and should be available at every international airport around the world. For 1,150 Baht we were each given hour-and-a-half messages. At this point I was feeling pretty questionable. I had air legs which are like sea legs, but not. I kept feeling like we were experiencing turbulence. Luckily I did not fall down on any of those occasions. The message was just what I needed, though it was much rougher than I had expected. I seriously doubt the woman who gave me mine needs a nut cracker as she could probably crack a filbert between her thumb and forefinger. Thankfully she did not squash a bone or major nerve.

From there we found a street vender and purchased our first authentic Pad Thai which was delicious (if you want more on this, check the food blog). Eileen and Kristina have a beautiful house with a lot of room. We’ll probably hang around for another week or so checking out the city and firming up visa stough. That’s about it for our day.

On a personal note, we recommend Malaysian Air very highly. The staff was very helpful and attentive and each seat had its own screen and remote set-up that allowed the passengers to pick from a list of 20 new and classic movies, 10 TV series, 30 video games and even shopping. It was great. But I would not advise eating the food. Perhaps that’s only because I didn’t let a single meal pass me.

2007-07-10T17:43:00.001-07:00

We started today with modest ambitions – to visit Coit Tower and Ina Coolbrith Park – but before the day was even two-thirds done, we had traversed Japan, the Republic of Korea, China, and Italy. Not an easy task by foot. Who knew they were all in such close proximity, and all in San Francisco too? One led right directly into the other. To be completely honest, we’re not entirely certain of whether or not we crossed through the Republic of Korea. We did however pass a building that said it was related to the Republic of Korea, and so perhaps we just concluded that we were in Koreatown. And if so, well, the mistake is regrettable, but minor. We do apologize for any confusion.
The park was very nice and at the top of an excruciatingly steep hill, but the view was pretty good if you’re into that sort of thing. Coit Tower was lovely as well, and we had a marvelous view of the Golden Gate Bridge fading into the fog. We did not go inside as the cost of entry was $5 and we are currently cheapskates due to our desire for extended travel and our present lack of employment. We did look at the mural in the lobby briefly. On the walk down we discovered two things. First, there was a wild flock of parrots, five to be exact, living in a tree on the side of Nob Hill (on a related note, do you call a group of parrots a flock?). And second, a bird had at some point pooped on my shoe, but spared my head and only grazed my shorts.
We attempted lunch at an Italian place that coerced us to enter via unrelenting explanation of their menu. However, they were far too expensive for lunch, so after 15 minutes spent pouring over the menu, we left. Seriously, who pays $15 for lunch? Instead, we ate lunch at Buster’s, which was very good if you like Cheesesteaks, and only cost $15 total (more on that in our new food blog).
The rest of the day was spent braving the buses in preparation for Southeast Asia while attempting to avoid the look of tourists. We’ve decided we’re visitors no matter where we go, not tourists. The term “tourist” just smacks of bula shirts, Bermuda shorts, zinc-ed noses, and general rubbish behavior that we don’t aspire to, and downright hope to avoid all together. Besides, visiting is much more intimate.
We’ve got little more than 24 hours to go until our visit abroad officially begins. Yessss!

(This picture wasn’t actually taken during this visit to SF, but it is of the Golden Gate Bridge and we don’t as yet have any other pictures of the city.)

Setting Up

2007-07-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

We are still in the country at this point (in Ashland visiting family and friends), but will be leaving in just over a week. We're getting pretty excited, but we still have a fair amount of planning to do. This post is just to make sure that this thing is going to work. We've been battling its short-comings all morning, so keep your fingers crossed, I guess.
We'll be flying into Bangkok after around 24 hours of travel. From there, we plan to head south into Cambodia, circle through Vietnam and Laos, re-enter Thailand and travel down its pan-handle into Malaysia and Indonesia. We've already begun the process of applying for our teaching jobs in South Korea, and it's looking pretty good.
Hope everyone's well.