GOODBYE VIETNAAAAAAAAM

I couldn't resist.

Well... the beard's gone, so the trip must be over.

(Wow I don't like being clean-shaven!)

Vietnam was amazing, but too too fast.

I spent my day and a half in Saigon mostly wandering in what amounted to concentric circles of increasing size. As I've discovered is a bit of a norm for me, it's hard to accurately capture my experience of a new place in words, or even pictures. What I really come away with is a general impression, punctuated by a few specific moments, of a place and its people.

The highlight of Saigon, in terms of sights, was the War Remnants Museum (aka the American War Museum). This was an impressively well put together collection of artifacts, photographs, stories and facts about the American/Vietnamese War. Noooooot a good place to go if one wants to feel good about being American. I pretty much felt like walking around the entire time apologizing to everyone around me.

The museum takes about as "fair and balanced" an approach to the war as Fox News does to politics (in about half the photo-captions, Americans are "invaders" and Viet Cong "patriots"), but regardless the exhibits are compelling. Particularly noteworthy were a gallery of photographs of and by war-photographers (from a number of countries) who were killed in action and the display on the effects of Agent Orange. The latter was certainly the most stomach-turning: it included photographs and information of soldiers and civilians who'd been seriously injured by direct exposure to Agent Orange, as well as children born as late as 2003 with serious birth-defects (severely physically and mentally disabled) due to parents' or grandparents' exposure.
Despite its frequent one-sidedness (hooray for long-running one-party political systems!), this museum is a must-see for anyone traveling through Saigon.

At the War Remnants Museum: the last guillotine ever used, by the government of South Vietnam in the 1960's to behead a North Vietnamese operative. Yeesh (but hey at least America wasn't responsible for THIS one!)

An American tank. Sorry. Sorry! SORRY!
Of course I had to wear my Commie army-hat this day...

After the experience of feeling like my national pride had been spin-kicked, I exited and found myself engulfed in a throng of middle-school aged kids getting out for the day. The contrast between the sobriety of the museum and the lively chatter of school children just across the street was refreshing.
I wandered up to a little food-stand (what can I say, pictures of the effects of chemical warfare really spur my appetite!) and was immediately confronted by a young girl eager to practice her English. I asked her what it was she was (and I would soon be) eating... she didn't know the name, so I decided to call it a Vietnamese quesadilla (except in rice-paper, sans cheese, plus quail-eggs, chilli-sauce, and a bunch of other unrecognizable edibles). We talked for a bit (with her gaggle of friends giggling around us), and she told me about her family's plan to move to New Jersey in a couple weeks. It was fascinating for me to talk to this girl (who spoke remarkable English) about her impression of America and Americans. She was nervous but excited about the move, and had the impression that no one in America had ever even heard of Vietnam. She was stunned to hear how culturally important Vietnam and the Vietnam War are in America. I did my best to reassure her that she'd find plenty of friends and friendly Americans... I neglected to mention that in my opinion American middle schools are the most cruel institutions on the face of the planet. She'll be fiiiiiiiine.

Feeling a bit better about myself as an American (and a human being in general) after this pleasant interaction, I wandered off.

I spent my last day in Southeast Asia getting a massage at the Institute of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine by a blind masseus (in which I learned what it feels like to be a percussion instrument), eating Pho, having a shave (I think I was probably the most heavily-bearded individual the barber had ever shaved), doing some shopping and wandering more.

Then I hopped on the back of a moto (with the driver holding my morbidly obese backpack wedged between his body and the handlebars) and made my way to the airport. Twenty hours later (but only 1.5 hours after I left Vietnam), I arrived in the FREEZING cold Bay Area and was greeted by my loving roommates. To be around friends again! Yay!

Can't say I'll miss the traffic...

I will miss the markets, though. Mmm... frog.

I'm fascinated by what moto-taxi drivers can do on their motos.

Seriously?

So 7.5 weeks of traveling, 5.5 by myself. Yet I've found myself, and a number of other folks, asking, "why not longer? You've got no obligations to be home for!".
Well, and why not? Being me, I just about thought this question to death. And I realized (with the help of my lovely counseling parents), that, frankly, it was enough.

Though I've gotten just about non-stop crap from my roommates for saying it, I was exhausted by the end of the trip. Traveling alone was a wonderful experience, and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone who's willing... but it's exhausting. I didn't anticipate how taxing the routine tasks of travel would become when done alone. Planning each day, planning ahead, keeping mindful of my luggage and belongings... even deciding on what to eat at a given meal-time. When with another person, at least every once in a while a person can simply say "you decide/you deal with it" and turn off one's brain for a few minutes. Traveling alone, I never had the luxury of turning off my head and truly relaxing. I met a number of other lone travelers, and discovered two ways they were able to mitigate this exhaustion. First, they would plan a few days every couple weeks in which they would remain stationary and have absolutely nothing to do. I certainly could have done this... but I was too excited to see what was next and continue the adventure! Second, they would have friends periodically come to meet up with them and share part of their travels. Sure enough, in the last couple weeks I found myself daydreaming about talking a friend/brother into flying out and meeting up with me for a few weeks of more Vietnam/Indonesia/Malaysia/China/Australia/East Timor/wherever!

I had a hard time, frankly, letting myself off the hook for not extending my trip. Especially after having met so many people who were traveling for so much longer, and feeling that I'd short-changed my experience of Vietnam, I found myself feeling almost obligated to keep on trucking. But when I was discussing the decision with him, Mitch put it best: "Neither choice is wrong, and neither choice is life-changing."
So I sat back with a cup of over-sweetened Vietnamese coffee and a pint of over under-flavored Vietnamese beer and let myself feel how I was feeling.

And I knew it was time to go home.

Whirlwind Vietnam

First of all, I want it noted how hard I just worked to resist the urge to title this post "Good Morning, Vietnam". Or even "Good Morning, Saigon". Or "Good Morning" anything, for that matter.

Enough self-congratulation.

Since my last post, I have spent a few days in frenetic Hanoi, taken a 2-day trip to Halong Bay (about a 3 hour drive north of Hanoi), taken an overnight train to Hoi An in central Vietnam, and
flown to Saigon (where I arrived last night).


Halong Bay was interesting. It truly deserves its fame and UNESCO World Heritage Site status - it's one of the most beautiful and otherworldly places I've seen. It was almost work to be there, because I found I had to keep reminding myself that yes, this actually does exist and no, I'm not just looking at reeeeeeeeeeally big postcards in every direction. The waters are crystal blue and the gray limestone cliffs and islands come jut skyward as if the sea floor was reaching fingers out of the water.

Unfortunately (and I had been warned of this), Halong Bay has genuinely suffered from its own beauty. The place feels like an assembly line. The only way one can get out into the bay is by booking a tour through an agency in Hanoi, and once arriving at the bay it feels like a tour-assembly-line. It was all about "hurry up and wait" - you're hustled onto a (actually surprisingly nice) junk, and ferried like schoolchildren to See The Giant Limestone Cave!, Have an Authentic Vietnamese Seafood Lunch!, Kayak for One Hour Around the Islands!, See Thumb Island!, Go For a Swim!. It's honestly obnoxious - there's no room for creativity and minimal exploration.

To be fair, however, I'll honestly say that the hour spent in a kayak made the trip worthwhile. We were hurried off the boat at Place To Go Kayaking, only to be told that the 8 specific kayaks our company rents were actually being used, so we'd have to sit and wait for a half hour. We were all a little miffed, but it wound up working out in our benefit: we got to be in the kayaks - at sea-level, alone - for sunset. It was phenomenal. My kayak-mate, Greg, and I paddled away from the boats and posted ourselves against one of the islands in a spot where we could watch the sun fall behind dozens of islands in the distance. It was again a moment when I found myself needing to be reminded that this was actually real and those islands are not just cardboard cut-outs in middle-distance. Wow.
Naturally I didn't bring my camera with me on the kayak, but Greg has promised to send along some of his photos.

Yup, it really is that pretty.

They call this "Thumb Island". I really couldn't figure out why, but I thought it was cool and worthy of a thumbs-up.

That's me, and that's Halong Bay.

Did I mention that it really is that pretty?

After Halong Bay, I spent another full day in Hanoi, which I spent visiting Ho Chi Minh's Masoleum and the mostly wandering around (my favorite pastime in new cities). Ho Chi Minh's Masoleum was.... remarkable. The official reverence for this man is like nothing else I've experienced. Despite his will requiring his remains to be cremated, after Ho Chi Minh's death, his body was embalmed and is forever on display in his masoleum in the middle of Hanoi. The line to get into the massive structure was daunting, and I'm pretty sure there was more security than at the airport. No cameras allowed. Or shorts. Or phones. Or water. Or flash-lights.
After shuffling forward in line for a solid 45 minutes, I had the singular honor of continuing to shuffle past three sides of an open glass case containing THE MAN.
I know how important he is in Vietnam, but wow it was hard not to laugh at the over-the-top pomp of it all. I was immensely relieved to hear a few stiffled sniggers from a Vietnamese couple next to me.

After making my way through the actual masoleum, I had the pleasure of visiting such noteworthy sites as Ho Chi Minhs office - preserved as he left it! Complete with Ho Chi Minh's Desk! Ho Chi Minh's Alarm Clock! Small Crumbs from Ho Chi Minh's Cookie! (ok, made that last one up).

Ho Chi Minh makes me feel like this!

After the day of visiting modern mummies and further exploring Hanoi's anachronistic streets:


I boarded a night-train to Da Nang at 11:00pm. Following advice, I had bought a ticket for the nicest car available: the "soft sleeper". This consists of a room about the size of 2 broom closets with 2 stacks of 2 bunk beds, and a desk. In my exhaustion I was a bit underwhelmed... until I slept like a drugged baby (the rocking of a train is officially the BEST sleep-aid) and saw the next morning what the alternatives were: the "hard sleeper"'s 2 stacks of 3 beds (that's 6 people in a double-wide broom closet) and the "hard seat"'s open car jam-packed with as many bus-like seats as possible.
The view from the train as we approached central Vietnam in the morning was phenomenal - it began with rice paddies tended by cone-hat-wearing, indigo-clothed, water-buffalo-leading locals (again: "this is not a postcard, Daniel") and ended with pristine and vacant white-sand beaches against deep blue sea.


Hoi An, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, is also postcard-iconic. It manages to perfect a symbiosis of Francophilia and Vietnamism (I love making up words): mildly decayed French colonial architecture neighbors several-century old Chinese-style housing, which both border a river paced by old Vietnamese men in colorful row-boats. Wow. Another place where I found the best and most enjoyable way to spend time was simply walking, walking, walking.


And now here I am, in Saigon! In my near future is an umpteenth cup of delicious-in-a-different-sorta-way Vietnamese coffee and a day and a half of wandering a new city. Woo!

In Hanoi. I just thought this was cute. And no, that beer does not belong to the little girl.

Can somebody please, PLEASE, tell me what has happened to these dogs? They were attached at the rear. I'm not joking. It was the wierdest thing I've ever seen.

I've determined that every country I've departed left during this trip (save the States... and the layover in Korea) has been just as sad to say goodbye as I've been. As is the norm, I've staved off that sadness by aquiring little tokens to remember the nation by - souvenirs of various genres. Well, it seems that each country has just been convinced that whatever souvenirs I'd acquired just weren't quite enough. Sooooo Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have EACH seen fit to leave with a nice little food-born friend to take in my stomach with me as I depart.

UGH!

I left Laos yesterday afternoon for Hanoi, Vietnam, and Laos was so generous as to ensure I make such dignified moves as the immediately post-takeoff airplane-bathroom dash (similar to Matt's curry-induced, pre-takeoff dash of weeks earlier). I was a bit laid-up for my last half-day in Luang Prabang - which is too bad since it prevented me from visiting the supposedly-wonderful Kuang Xi waterfall - but I'm working through it now and not letting it prevent me from exploring Hanoi!

Luang Prabang was nice, but strange. After a few weeks of being in pretty low-infrastructure places, this UNESCO World Heritage Site's tourist industry was startling. I even saw old white people! Wierd!
Anyway, the heavily French-influenced town was fun to explore, and my overnight jungle-trek with a friendly Aussie couple was exhausting but satisfying.

Considering how taken aback by Luang Prabang's built-up-ness.... imagine me flying into Hanoi yesterday! This city is absurd. I'm staying in the Old Quarter - a delightful mess of winding, intertwining, stopping-and-starting, name-changing alleyways and streets. The architecture is a smattering of different styles - ranging from contemporary to French Colonial to ancient Chinese - and beautiful in its eclectic shabby-chic-ness.
And the traffic. Wow. It puts Bangkok to shame. The streets are a constant river of scooters coming and going in every direction, with the occasional car or van barreling through horn-blaring. I think I'll stick to my feet here!
And food is everywhere! Street vendors in stalls or wandering with baskets slung across shoulder-polls manage to spread their epicurial perfumes widely enough to overwhelm the stench of exhaust. I'm cursing this damn stomach-bug (mild though it is now) for preventing me from eating every little thing that piques my curiosity.

Ok, trying to keep this short[er than normal]. Tomorrow I'll be leaving early for an overnight trip to Halong Bay (sleeping on some junk... heheh), then the evening after I return I take an overnight train to Da Nang in central Vietnam. After a couple days in Da Nang and Hoi An, I fly to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) for a grand total of about 40 hours... and then home!

Wow, it's really been this long?


Ah! On another note, I finally got a new camera while in Laung Prabang! A smattering of photos of the past little while:

The (appropriate) last photograph shot by my old camera before it became a knee-pad.
Outside of Ban Lung, Ratinakiri Province, northeast Cambodia.

The "sunset side" of Don Det island in Southern Laos. My $2.25/night room was one of the bungalows a little down the way.

When I dropped my clothes off with some nice lady to get them laundered on Don Det... I didn't expect to later see them displayed on a clothesline in the middle of a dry rice paddy.

Sun behind clouds behind Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Cocks actually fight in the wild!

The mountains outside of Luang Prabang. Awesome trekking hat ($1.50), pants ($6) and stick (free!): check, check, check. Also managed to make my dumb shoulder-bag into a backpack... sorta.

By far the coolest sports photo I will ever take. These guys are amazing at wicker-foot-volleyball (I'm certain that's the sport's official name). In the village where we spent the night on our trek out of Luang Prabang.

On our way back to town after the trek, we got called off the street to come join this baby's-one-month-old! party. We (the Aussies, our guide and I) were damn near force-fed Lao beer and rice-whisky (shudder...) and dragged to the dance floor. Now I realize I may look like I'm dancing reeeeeeally awkwardly, but look at everyone else! I'm spot on!

A water-puppet show outside of the Literature Temple in Hanoi. I actually just now got out of a full hour-long performance of this traditional Northern Vietnamese entertainment.

Miss you all!

Lest I deceive...

everyone (including myself) into believing that this trip is nothing but roses and butterflies (rather, monks and elephants), I feel I should relate the goings-on of my lovely yesterday.

I planned on leaving Vang Vieng yesterday morning. I had learned in the days prior that my options for traveling North to Luang Prabang were via "minibus" (van) for ~105,000 kip (for reference 8500 kip = $1) at 9:00am to arrive at 3:00; "VIP" bus (I guess just a cushier bus than normal) for ~95,000 kip at 10:00am to arrive at 5:00; or a local "express" bus for which no one could either tell me the price or time of departure (I chalked this up to them wanting me to pay for the pricier tourist buses). I decided I'd just foot the extra cash and go for the minibus, since I'd heard the road was a bit rough to Luang Prabang. So at about 8:30 I walked to where I had seen a place advertising and asked about buying a ticket. Sold out. Damn.

After finding out that it was sold out, the friendly woman I was dealing with said that she actually had a friend who'd been chartered to drive some tourists down from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng the day before, and he'd be willing to take me back there (since he had to return anyway) at 2:00pm for 85,000 kip. Well that sounded just perfect to me, since there actually was still about a half-day's worth of site-seeing I was interested in doing in Vang Vieng. I left my backpack with her and told her I'd return then. Perfect.

I rented a bicycle and headed out of town toward some caves I had heard were worth visiting. It was about an 8km ride on a bicycle that was comically too small for me (and uncomfortably upright compared to the road bikes I'm accustomed to), but the scenery made it endurable. Rice patties spread out to the West of me in green terraces for about a kilometer until the butted up against jagged, green-studded limestone cliffs. Otherworldly. I found a sign for some caves and turned off the road, riding through the fields until I crossed the river and came under the cliffs. Ditched the bike and spent about an hour wandering (more like scrambling and crawling) around alone in a cave... alternately turning off my flashlight in order to freak myself out about the total darkness and near-total silence of a deep empty cave.
On my way out, I ran into a couple other tourists who told me a charming story of a Canadian gentleman who, in 2003, had decided he would be the first person to ever reach the end of one of the caves nearby (NOT the one I was in) and made it a fair way back before his flashlight batteries died. His body was found a week later only 4km from the cave entrance... still no one knows how deep the cave actually is! Creeeeeeepy.

After some lunch I headed back to catch my personal minibus to Luang Prabang. For no definable reason, I started getting a bit anxious as I cycled back...
When I arrived at the travel agency (I guess you could call it that) at 1:30, the lady happily called her friend to check up with him. I may not speak Lao, but I guess I've been around it enough now to recognize when a conversation is not going well.
She hung up the phone and said "Um, he says it will be about 4:30 or 5:00."
"What?!"
"Someone accidentally took his car key with them to Vientiane" [3 hours south of Vang Vieng]
"WHAT?! But if I leave at 5:00, that means I won't arrive in Luang Prabang until midnight! And then I have t find a place to stay!"
This is the first time in the day I almost lose my nerve.
"Yes... this is bad" I could tell she really did feel bad, "I think it's best if I take you to the bus terminal and maybe there is a local ("express") bus that is coming soon"
"Thank you, that'd be very nice"

To the bus terminal we go. Where we learn that the next bus is at 4:00.
The lady looks really apologetic but suggests that the terminal attendant guy should be able to call a hostel in Luang Prabang and arrange a room for me, with pickup from the terminal there. Ok, good! She leaves.
I go ask the gentleman there if he can do this and he asks if I have a phone number for one... he doesn't know any. I dig around in my guidebook and find a few and he dials them for me. No rooms. Hoping for at least an empathetic smile from the bus guy, I say/sign to him that there are no rooms anywhere. He tells me I owe him 5000 kip for the phone.
This is the second time I almost lose my nerve.
Faaaaaaantastic. Fine, whatever. I'll just sit in this damn terminal until 4, and deal with finding a room when I get there.

4:00 comes, and goes. I ask when the bus will come. "Maybe 4:30".

4:30 comes, and goes. "Maybe between 4:30 and 5".

5:00 comes, and goes. A bus with "Vientiane - Luang Prabang" drives by. UH OH.
"Was that my bus?"
"What bus?"
"That bus that just drove by that said Luang Prabang."
"A bus just drove by that said Luang Prabang?"
You have got to be kidding me.
"I don't think it actually said Luang Prabang."
"I saw it. It said Luang Prabang!"
he shouts to some lady standing down by the road and says something about Luang Prabang. She shrugs and shouts something back.
"No, that one was going to Pho Savahn."
"Then when does the bus come for Luang Prabang?!?"
He consults some of the other guys standing around.
"Maybe 7"

This time I really really REALLY almost lose my nerve.

I could tell he felt sorry but didn't know what to do. He talked to some of the other people, but just kept saying "there is no other bus until 7:00, I'm sorry!"

And then a bus pulled up and stopped... and holy crap it's going to Luang Prabang! I damn near flew onto that bus for fear it would leave without me.

I was just settling in for the long ride when I was reminded of one consistent feature of bus rides in Southeast Asia: every driver seems to be convinced that what his passengers are really truly desiring, no matter what the hour, is Lao karaoke videos to be played at ear-shattering volume. Oh hell. Here I'm just about starting to get my nerves in order and I've got to compete with the immortal trifecta of drum machine, synthesizer and off-key (to my at this point culturally insensitive ear) whine-shrieking. With accompanying video. I put my headphones in, wrap a scarf tight around my head and blast my own music at unhealthy volume just to try to find a little bit of peace (by listening to metal... I know Matt can understand this at least). I fight the karaoke for about 4 hours before I finally give up, take my headphones off and try to just let the music fade into the background. But sure enough, just as soon as it starts to become (deafening) white-noise, some great musical-taste conflict must break out at the front of the bus because for the next 3 hours, the driver/DJ can't settle on any one song for more than about 30 seconds.

This is the fourth time I almost lose my nerve.

Finally, somehow, I doze off for a few minutes before being shaken awake and told I'm in Luang Prabang. I stumble off the bus and find myself on the outskirts of an unfamiliar town at 12:30. I tuk-tuk into the center of town and start walking street by street, looking for any hostel with a light on and without a "Full" sign posted on the gate. I'm just about at the point of eyeing some park benches when a couple guys pull up on a scooter and ask what I'm looking for. I communicate that I need to find a room, and they offer to drive me to somewhere with space. Oh thank God! I hop on (yes, we are now 3 on a scooter, plus my gigantic backpack... extra safe) for about a minute's ride to another part of town. He drops me off and I go in and YES! they have a room! I thank the moto driver profusely for being so friendly... and he tells me I owe him 20000 kip.

This is the fifth and final time I just about lose it.

With the hostel receptionist guy translating, I tell him how messed up this is, how he should really communicate this kind of stuff BEFOREhand, how I paid less than that for the several-kilometer tuk tuk ride into town, how I'm just about ready to remove his head from his body, and how fine I'll pay him 10,000 just because I'm so damn tired I can't handle this crap anymore.


I feel much better today! I think I'll go wander around this UNESCO World Heritage City (or whatever they call it) for a bit, then maybe arrange an overnight trek to stay in a local village tomorrow.

And here are some pretty pretty pictures of pretty pretty Vang Vieng taken with a phone.

Great days, different ways.

Heh. I'm clever.

Bad news: my camera doesn't even work to download pictures from. Soooo this is gonna get a bit text-heavy.

A few days ago, I spent the day touring around an area called the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos. For the sake of not hearing about how I "don't learn", let's pretend that my form of transit was a donkey.
Aaaaanyway, so I was cruising around on my donkey and had a really great day. The day started - after a night spent at a little mountain-lodge-feeling kinda place (with the constant hiss of the rushing waterfall nextdoor) for ~$2.25 - with a post-run morning shower in Tad Lo waterfall.

The Bolaven Plateau is a fairly high-altitude region that over the past 20-30 years has become dominated by coffee production. As I drove (I mean, rode) along, I saw that most houses had big tarps out front with massive amounts of some sort of berry drying on them. I figured they probably were coffee beans, but decided to stop and find out for sure. I pulled over and turned off the donkey (and took off my donkey-riding helmet) to investigate. I wound up meeting a really pleasant gentleman who spoke remarkable English (considering this really is out in the middle of nowhere) at a tiny little market on the side of the road. He'd studied agriculture in university in Vientiane and then returned to the area to buy a coffee plantation. He told me all about growing and harvesting coffee, as well as his passion for cock fights (can't say I share his passion, but it was funny to hear that his wife accuses him of loving his fighting cock more than his daughter). To my surprise - against the trend that I assumed was universal of big companies coming in and stealing locals' livelihood - apparently all the coffee is grown by Lao families, which then make good money selling it to big Vietnamese coffee companies. Fascinating!

After about an hour of chatting, I kick-started my donkey and continued on toward the town of Paksong. Just as I was thinking that I really would like to find somewhere to sample the locale's crop, I saw a sign outside of a house saying "Fresh Coffee Roasted Daily". So I downshifted the donkey and pulled right over. Turned out this was the house of a Dutch man who'd about a year ago fallen in love and married a Lao (actually, a "Bolaven") woman. He lives there and helps with her family's plantation, but spends most of his time pursuing his hobby of coffee-roasting. I went in planning on having a cup of coffee and continuing on, but again wound up sitting and talking for about an hour and a half. As I walked up he was just finishing a round of roasting, so he threw the beans right in the grinder and poured himself and me a cup of coffee. It was phenomenal - I've never had coffee that tasted so... fresh!
He also reiterated what the Lao man earlier had said: that the coffee plantations really are all locally-owned, and are a great source of income. Regarding the former, he told me an anecdote about the biggest Vietnamese coffee company (Dao something) wanting to buy land but not being allowed, so they instead gave a bunch of coffee plants to a Bolaven village and contracted them to do the growing and sell to the company. Pretty awesome! Regarding income: apparently a coffee picker (not even plantation-owner) makes 6 times the wage of the average waitress, 4 times that of a police officer (officially, at least) and 3 times a teacher with a university degree. Yeesh. Us coffee drinkers of the world say "you're welcome"...?

Just those two conversations, as well as the beauty of the scenery I donkeyed by (and a bizarrely delicious scent of buttered toast that I kept smelling on the road), made for an awesome day.


After a (not-so-awesome) overnight bus trip that night, I arrived for a day in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Finding myself groggy and disoriented in a bus terminal at 6:00am in an unfamiliar city, being hassled by tuk-tuk drivers, I felt my composure quickly slipping. Then, suddenly, Kathrin materialized in front of me and said exactly what I was trying to figure out: "Where do we go??" in exactly the tone I was asking it of myself. It's amazing how just being in a shared situation of total disorientation can create instant superbestfriendships. She was also just in Vientiane for the day, in the midst of a 10-day saga of replacing a lost passport (yeesh). So we became instant Vientiane touring-buddies. There's not a whole lot to do in Vientiane (a day was really enough), but it was a lot of fun just bumming around town on a bicycle with some random witty Italian buddy. It turns out she and a friend are planning on coming to San Francisco in March, too! I got all excited thinking about where I would take someone on a tour of the Bay Area: at least one day would have to involve a burrito from Chunky's, a trip across town on the trolley (yeah, yeah) to Ghiradelli for a sundae, and a prompt food-coma in Ghiradelli Square.

Anyway, it was just a fun day. After Kathrin left in the evening (to the Italian embassy in Bangkok after having successfully gotten her emergency visa for Thailand), I decided it was high time I had another massage (my first since leaving Thailand). I found the local massage school at a temple and definitely had the best hour-long massage of my trip so far.... for about US$5. Awwwwesooooome.

Thinking this was probably going to wind up being just a great day through and through, I dropped off the bicycle and headed off to my hostel to shower before dinner. At which point I realized I had NO idea where my hostel was. I had dropped my backpack off there about 12 hours earlier and apparently not done quite such a bang-up job of noting where it was located. For the first half hour of walking in circles, I mostly just laughed to myself. For the second half hour I started getting a bit annoyed. When I finally found it after about an hour and a quarter and realized I had pretty much walked right by it about a dozen times, most of my warm-fuzzy feeling from the day had worn off. To top it off, the front desk guy was passed out on the couch in the lobby area, and when I was finally able to rouse him to get my key, he didn't do to good a job of hiding the fact that he was three sheets to the wind. Greeeeeat.
Regardless, still a fun day.

I'm now in Vangvien, north of Ventiane. I'll be here, enjoying tubing down a river walled by massive limestone ciffs probably until tomorrow, when I head to Luang Prabang. And then to Vietnam for a whirlwind North to South tour.

Ta ta for now!

Radio Silence

Many apologies for the week-long (more?) radio silence, but the jungles of Northeastern Cambodia and river islands of Southern Laos are not quite internet hot-spots.

...did that sound too pretentious? Or just pretentious enough?


For starters: a moment of silence for a fallen companion. Matt- your gift finally came to fruition. My camera is no more. No, it was not pickpocketed. It did not go down in a blaze of glory.
I fell on it.
Following several recommendations, I decided to rent a motorbike for my first day exploring around Ratanakiri Province (out of its capital, Ban Lung) in Northeastern Cambodia. I know I should be treating every experience I have with a fully "open mind" and avoid comparison, but I frequently find myself comparing my experiences here with those of Brazil. And here I found an interesting crossover: apparently both Brazil and Cambodia are of the conviction that little urban scooters (called "motodups") are definitely made to be suitable for dirtroad/off-road travel. Not true.
I headed out in the morning and made it to the local crater lake for a refreshing walk and morning dip. Met a friendly Khmer gentleman who's been living in Seattle for the past 30 years (sidenote: it's always a little chilling when talking to Khmer people and hearing about some major life event happening between 1975 and 1979... and knowing it was almost certainly caused by the genocide) having a picnic with his family, and he invited me to try roasted beehive... with bee larvae still inside. Surpringly, not too bad! (or sweet)
Anyway, after some time at the lake, I decided to go waterfall-hunting. Despite the copious (1) signage, I made a few wrong turns on my way to the first waterfall. I finally got directions from someone who spoke English and was on the right track. Due to the sandiness of the "road", I was traveling at a pretty slow speed, but I saw a turn a little too late and turned just a little too sharp and the moto slipped on the sand and we went for a nice little sliiiiide. I'm totally fine (and I certainly WAS wearing a helmet), but my camera - traveling in the knee-level pocket of my fresh-bought super-awesome $6 trekking pants - was not so lucky. Good news is I didn't lose any pictures! Bad news: I'll be relying on the kindness of strangers with facebook/email until I can get hold of a replacement.

Wooo!

After that little mishap, I decided to just head back to Ban Lung and weep my sorrow into one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever had (sausage, carrots, cucumber, sauce, pepper sauce and probably some other stuff on a baguette lightly fried in oil (!) for 2500 riel, or about $0.60)... and then walk back to the lake.

The next day I left with a group of folks I'd met the first night in town for an overnight trek into the jungle. It was nice but a little less rigorous than we'd all been hoping. The most rewarding experience was on the way back. We had moto-ed to a local village at the edge of the national park (I was NOT driving this time!), where we left our motos and then picked them up on the way back. Waiting for lunch on the way back the second day, I noticed one of the village boys had an open gash on his shin. Talking through the guide, I asked what happened and his mom told me that he had been cutting wood and missed and nailed himself right in the shin (this sounds familiar...). The wound was pretty open and raw, and I kept seeing him picking at it, and then gnats swarming into it as soon as he stopped. I had my little first aid kit with me, so i asked if it would be ok for me to clean and dress it after lunch. With his permission, I cleaned it with an alcohol swab, put a couple bandaids over it and instructed him to leave them on for a day or two. Pretty remarkable to realize that people don't even have access to these most basic medical supplies.

I also quite hit it off with our guide. He began just calling me "little brother" and offered to let me live and hang out with him at his cousin's restaurant and just eat, drink and hang out with him for free. If that city hadn't been so damn dusty (I looked fake-tanned from all the orange dust), I might have considered hanging out for a few days.


From Ratanakiri I mosied over to Si Phan Don ("Four Thousand Islands") in Southern Laos. This is an area where the Mekong River fans out around probably literally about 4000 islands. Beautiful. I spent a few days sleeping in a river-side bungalow (for about US$2.25/night) wandering around a couple islands (Don Det and Don Khone) by foot and bike, seeing some of the very endangered Irrawady freshwater river dolphins, relaxing, eating delicous pumpkin burgers and making buddies with a handful of Canucks. Friendly folks who gave me copious/priceless tips for the rest of my journey... and tried reeeeeeally hard to talk me into extending my trip. Hmmmmm...


This morning I mosied (2 hours jammed in the back of a covered pickup with about 13 of my best friends) from Si Phon Dan to Pakse, from which I am exploring some of the waterfalls and coffee plantations of the Bolaven Plateau. At the moment I've just finished watching the sunset over the waterfall at Tadlo with a banana smoothie. And my room here is also about US$2.25. Ohhhhh what a troubling life I lead.


And an observation: I realized I'd had a real breakthrough when I saw a bathroom that was a brick hut sandwiched between two pig-pens with a porcelain hole in the ground and a bucket of water with a pail for "flushing", and I instantly thought 'whoa classy!' because the porcelain was actually white and the hut was made of brick, not wooden boards. Can you imagine how excited I get when I find a throne-style toilet?


I believe I can still use my camera to upload pictures, but I don't have it with my at the moment - I'll post some more next chance I get!

Interactions

I had a pretty sobering day today: visited the killing fields on the outskirts of Phnom Penh and then the Tuol Sleng prison (both now sewrving as memorial/museum sites about the Cambodian genocide)... and on the way saw the fresh results of a fatal scooter accident. Unsurprisingly, the combination made me think a bit. It reinforced my belief that the most memorable and interesting aspect of trips tends to be the interactions I have with other people, so I thought I'd share some interesting interactions I've had.


Visiting the temples at Ankor Wat could be a little bit frustrating because of the profundity of food/souvenir/book/"you want cold drink?"/toy vendors, including a lot of children (particularly bothersome when you realize it's the middle of the day during the week and they probably would be better off spending that time in school). I would try to be as polite as possible with these folks
- I'm now quite adept at saying "no thank you" in Khmer - while making it clear that I really wasn't interested in being hassled. Towards the end of my third day in Angkor Wat, though, my resistance was wearing a bit thin.
Eating lunch in a little stand outside of one of the temples, a young girl came up to me and struck up a conversation ("Where are you from? The capital of America is Washington DC!"). After a few minutes, she pushed a simple little basket-weave bracelet toward me on the table and said "This is a present for you!". Despite her sweetness, alarm bells immediately went off in my head and I assumed she was then going to use this "present" as a way of trying to get money out of me. I protested a bit, but she was insistent. She walked away and I left it sitting on the table throughout my meal, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never did. She walked off and I didn't see her again. She really did just want to give me a present. It made me sad that it was so difficult for me to accept this little gift without being immediately suspicious.
Thanks for the bracelet, young lady!

This afternoon after the death-centric first part of the day, I went to the biggest market in Phnom Penh to explore and distract myself a bit. I stopped at a food booth to partake in whatever the heck it was the lady was cooking (some sort of delicious fried potato pancake sorta thingy). A Khmer gentleman sat down next to me and decided I needed a conversation. His English was very halting (but, as I pointed out to him, far better than my Khmer!), but he didn't let that get in the way of trying to get to know me. After no more than about 5 minutes of conversation, he gave me his card and instructed me to call him if I needed anything or wanted someone to show me around Phnom Penh. Why? Because, as he told me, he loves his culture and wants to share it. And then he paid for my food! I gave him my email address with explicit instructions to be in touch if he ever comes to America.

Last night enjoying dusk and a glass of Tiger beer in some swanky rooftop bar on the riverside (hooray for happy hour $1 pints of beer!), a few Aussie ex-pats decided to (in their words) abduct me. I've been quite enjoying my time exploring around on my own, but did not object to being abducted to see what Friday nights are like for ex-pats. They took me with them, introduced me to some local buddies, then to dinner and a party at a friend's apartment. Most of the folks there were around my age and working for various NGOs. Interestingly, there was a pretty significant cluster of people there who are working at the Khmer Rouge trials that just started in 2006 (only took 30 years to start bringing those responsible for the genocide to trial...). Again, total strangers - though Aussie, not Khmer, this time - taking some random guy in and treating him as an old friend.
*As an aside, I've discovered that though it's always been my impression that Americans monopolize the stereotype of being the loud and rowdy foreigners, Australians reeeeeeally take the cake around these parts!

A couple of evenings ago I befriended a couple of Kiwi tourists and we went to dinner together. They were definitely into adventurous eating so first we found somewhere to eat frog as our first course, then wandered around and arbitrarily picked another street-side restaurant for the rest of dinner. It was getting on the later side (most restaurants here start closing up around 9), so the three of us were just about the only people in the restaurant. No one there spoke English, and the extent of our Khmer were the basic pleasantries, so with sign language we asked them to just bring us food - whatever they wanted! It wound up being delicious: grilled beef and sliced vegetables with a couple different dipping-sauces. The owner of the restaurant wound up just pulling up a chair at our table and through sign language, a few words, and a phrase book we had a lovely conversation about food and how to eat what we were eating. He was completely invested in spending his time doting on us and making sure we enjoyed our meal. Braving the language barrier just to be a friendly guy.


All right, enough of the sappiness. Phnom Penh has been fun - it's a pretty hectic city but much less developed than Bangkok, for example - but it's time to move on. Tomorrow at 6am (ugh) I hop on a bus for the Northeast of Cambodia: Ratanakiri province for some hiking and volcanic crater lake bathing!


And now for some (mostly) irrelevant pictures:

Monkeys! In the middle of the capital of Cambodia. Eating noodles. Naturally.

Monks collecting contributions.

The hostel I'm currently at on the lakeside in Phnom Penh. Mine is the room to the left of the one straight back. Pretty rad!

One shelf in a about 2-story high memorial at the killing fields of Choeung Ek, filled with bones found in just a few of the couple hundred mass graves at this one site.

Goofy grin in front of the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Monument. A testament to the Vietnamese's role in ending the Pol Pot regime's genocide in 1979.

Sunset from the balcony at the hostel

I've realized I have a bit of an obsession with taking pictures of monks. Especially when they're doing things that "normal" people do - like getting their picture taken at the Royal Palace.