The Things We Carry

Now that we've been on this trip for 220 days, we are doing a backpack cleanse.  I wish this meant that we were actually washing the packs, because that is one thing I have dreams about!  Every time we put them into the cargo hold of some South East Asian local bus, I cringe!  I remember the time we weren't allowed to put them in one, not knowing why, only to stop at a cattle/goat farm next and put twenty or so goats down there instead!  I also think about the overnight bus that left Asa eaten alive by bed bugs the next morning and cringe to think we might have stow away critters in our packs.  But, I'm not talking about that kind of cleanse...I'm talking about the kind of cleanse where we take everything out of our packs and decide once again if we really need to carry it from place to place.

We have a few categories of things that we've been carrying. There are the things we use often. This includes our summer weather clothing. Or at least much of it, since there are a couple of shirts that I don't really like to wear now that they fit pretty strangely in the arms/shoulders.  We wear our sandals almost every day and Asa is better about wearing his trail runners than I am (I like to just hang mine from a loop on the back of my pack). We've used our sleeping bag liners quite a lot too. They are perfect for overnight buses, guest houses without blankets, and places with suspect levels of "clean."  Also included in this list is the current guide book for the country or region we are in, the camera, the netbook, the iPod, the Kindle, and the chargers and cords for most of these things.

There are the things we know we will need again, but wish we could magically store them somewhere else for now.  This is where all of my socks would go.  I don't wear them and can't remember the last time I wore the right shoes for them.  Our sleeping bags have gone unused since New Zealand but we know we'll need them again in Europe, so they take up lots of space in our backpacks.  Our colder weather clothes are sitting right next to our sleeping bags too; except for the few days we wore them in North Vietnam, we hadn't worn them since Christchurch, NZ.  Our gloves and hats also have been taking up space for that day when we might wear them in Europe. We are also carrying around a woven beach mat that came in handy in Malaysia but we haven't used since.  I'm hoping for some beach time soon!

There are the things that we haven't used much, but I'm glad we have them, just in case.  There's the water purifier, which we used in Malaysia until Asa got sick (we don't know why he got sick, but aren't taking chances any more). Along with the water purifier and our SPOT goes 12 AA batteries, because the battery life is pretty low for the purifier and we still hadn't changed the original set in the SPOT.  But, we never used the purifier enough to run out of even one set. And the SPOT is still kicking it with the set it came with.  We have 13 AAA batteries, for our headlamps and after complaining about the low light in my headlamp since we went caving in NZ, Asa just changed them for me.  I also carry a sewing kit, which I've used a few times (and should use it on those shirts that are fitting weirdly). I carry my crochet stuff, but finding wool/yarn and space for my projects isn't a priority with my super full pack. I also carry a special card/poster that our friends Greg, Laura, Sara Anne, and Brendan made us as our going away card.  Its a print out of a globe adorned with photos of our summer trip and how to ask for the bathroom in many languages. I love it! Its getting flimsy now from being in my purse, and I don't look at it every day, but I'm glad that I do have it!

Then there are the things that we packed determined to use them, but haven't.  Our rain pants are the biggest example of this.  We knew, knew without a doubt, that after hiking so much all summer we would hike in whatever weather presented itself in New Zealand. But, when it came time to tramp in the "weather" we just didn't want it to be wet weather. Also in this category are the vitamins we drove all the way across the country, poured into a ziplock, and carried every day in a backpack since. Asa took about two of them. They are now discolored and smell worse than any vitamin I've ever smelled (Asa just threw them away).  There's the nasal spray that the pharmacist in New Zealand recommended. It made Asa sneeze worse than the allergy it was supposed to treat. But we've still got it, because it was expensive (also just tossed)! There is my knee brace. My knee was killing me whenever I hiked down hill, even slightly back in the summer and fall. But after a month of resting it in October and the beginning of November, I haven't even thought of it (not even when we climbed up and down Mt. Kozi in Australia). Our travel coffee mugs have fallen from daily use since we got to South East Asia and they are big and bulky and clang around. I worry that they will fall from the pack, yet we still carry them. We also carry around a few tea bags. They are very old now, but we didn't want to waste them and we might like some hot tea someday, won't we? I've also carried those two picture communication books that I made thinking they would help with any language barriers. They haven't proved too useful, as they food pictures don't really match up to what is on offer here.

We have used up or broken a few things in our 220 days.  I've worn through my only pair of jeans and had to replace them. I've also had to replace two bras since the ones I brought totally ripped apart.  Asa had to go out today to try and find a guy who could repair his sandal, though he came back without the repair done because the shoe shiner wanted to screw it back together and that would injure his foot badly.  The worst loss of the trip was when I got out of the camper van in Australia and ripped the iPod radio transmitter from the dash because it got caught in my shoe.  It was a weird freak accident, but it made our long Aussie road trip and the following three Kiwi road trips less musical! Asa's rain hat has seen better days. Our playing cards are sticky and difficult to use these days as well (we actually bought a replacement set tonight).

So, we've taken everything out of the packs. Its a wonder that everything fit in them in the first place! Here's a photo of the contents of Asa's pack:

We hope to be able to send this stuff home (sorry Dad!) tomorrow from Singapore. Sending packages from Vietnam isn't advised and we have a pretty long lay over in Singapore anyway.  We are sending home the two smallest pack towels since we usually just share the biggest one, as well as the water purifier with its filter topper and a few of the batteries for it.  We will no longer need the South East Asia Rough Guide or the Vietnam Lonely Planet. We'll send back the Cu Chi Tunnel book, since it's out of print now in the States. The rain pants are going home; who are we trying to kid? An extra hat that I made for Asa at Christmas time is shipping out. We're sending back a few of cords and adapters that we don't use anymore (like the camera cord that we never use since the netbook has a card reader and my iPod headphones since we only have one jack in the iPod and Asa's are better). My knee brace is going back. We are also shipping one of the picture communication books. Asa's rain hat isn't coming with us; the brim is broken and a wire sticks out of it.  My old sunglasses are scratched up, and I scored those new ones the other day during our adventures in Saigon.

We'll see how the packing and moving around goes now!

Update: We shipped a box of stuff from Singapore Airport today, weighing a little over 6 kg (13.25 lbs) and costing $88 SD ($63 USD) to send, which although a lot of money is totally worth it. Our bags feel so light now. Here's the box of stuff at the Post Office in the airport (which is really nice, by the way):

Cu Chi and Lai Khe

One of the reasons I wanted to come to Vietnam was to see some of the areas where my dad served during the Vietnam War. Although 70% of the Vietnamese population alive today was born after the end of the war in 1975, the landscape still bears the evidence of the war. One area where this is most apparent is the Cu Chi tunnel system about 30 miles outside of Ho Chi Minh City.

This elaborate underground system (at the peak of activity there were over 250 km (150 miles) of tunnels) enabled the Viet Cong to fight (and win) the war despite having fewer resources and firepower. In the beginning when the US came to Vietnam they didn't know about the tunnels and actually built a few bases right on top of the largest sections. Eventually they discovered the tunnels and developed methods of fighting and destroying them. However, because of how well they were built and the nature of the clay that they were burrowed in, many of the tunnels still survive.

The tour is somewhat surreal at times. For example there's a large section of primitive traps that the Viet Cong developed which our tour guide was a bit too enthusiastic about: "Look, here is a bamboo booby trap that plunges sharp bamboo right into the American's knee!" The "video" they show you is pure North Vietnamese propaganda from 1967 (literally, it was produced in 1967). And, there's a shooting range as part of the tour where you can shoot M-16s, AK-47s or one of at least 10 other types of guns (bullets were between 15,000 and 30,000 dong (75 cents to $1.50) each depending on the gun, with a 10 bullet minimum). In case you're wondering, we didn't try the guns out. Those who didn't want to shoot could buy ice-cream instead (and listen to the loud bang as others shot guns about 30 feet away).

We got to climb into and through the tunnels. Here's Jaimee poking her head out of a very small tunnel entrance:

From Saigon and Army Bases

And, here I am climbing around on a tank that acted like an adult jungle gym:

From Saigon and Army Bases

Today, we hired a private guide and car (which came with a driver in addition to the guide) to take us out to Lai Khe, the area where my dad was stationed from 1967 to 1968. When we booked the tour we were warned that there isn't much left of the American base, but to our surprise our guide Hung showed us several bunkers, and an old airstrip. Hung was also a veteran of the war, working for the North Vietnamese Army from age nine (!) to 19. He retired in 1975 as a 19-year old officer and was sent to Czechoslovakia to study for six years. He was really cool, and he even bought us our coffee when we stopped at a little road-side shack near the old base (the picture of him in the hammock was taken while getting coffee). Here Hung and I are on the old airstrip:

From Saigon and Army Bases

It was hard to imagine what the area was like during the war. Hung emphasized how much it's changed because of the war. He said that prior to building the base the Americans razed the area, both with bulldozers and with chemicals such as napalm and Agent Orange. And since the end of the war, farmers planted rubber trees, the Chinese built a couple steel factories and there are lots of industrial brick and ceramic kilns in the area. All that's left of the American base are a few bunkers and the crumbling asphalt from the airstrip (Hung pointed out that it was actually good quality asphalt). Be sure to check out all the photos from both Cu Chi and Lai Khe.

I won't say that it was completely anti-climactic to visit Lai Khe, but it is something that I've wanted to do for many years and it's kind of strange for it to now be over. I am sad that my dad is no longer living as seeing the area brings to mind many questions of what it was like when he was here. He didn't talk about the Vietnam war very much and, as he passed away when I was 16, I never really asked him too many questions about it. Now that I've visited his old base, I think the only quest left with regard to his Army stint would be to look up and find some of his fellow soldiers. But, as he never talked about any of them, I don't know how feasible this would be. In any event, this is a digression for another day...

Tomorrow we head to India! After two months in Southeast Asia, although we've loved it here, I think we are ready to move on. Plus, there will be Indian food!

An adventure and what we've been reading

We arrived in Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1976 but most people still seem to call it Saigon) yesterday night after an 11 hour train ride from Quy Nhon. We immediately noticed that Saigon is very different from anywhere else in Vietnam we've been so far. It's much more modern and fast paced with taller buildings and a lot more neon signs. And, although there are still hundreds of motorcycles, the city the streets (and sidewalks) are wider so it doesn't seem as crowded as Hanoi.

However, there are still loads of people trying to sell stuff on the street which leads to our latest adventure. As many of our readers know, we use a Spot Satellite GPS to update our position to a Google map in real-time (an embedded map used be on the side of the blog, but is now permanently located on this page instead). We attempt to "check-in" with the Spot device every time we change locations, but since it requires Satellite reception to work, it can sometimes be tricky to get a Satellite lock in the city because of tall buildings. Usually we scope out a flat area away from tall buildings to do a check-in.

So, this morning we found a park with a wide view of the sky, and set the Spot down while we rested in the shade a few feet away. Of course, as we already knew, once you stop moving you become a mark for people selling stuff. "Don't squint," I told Jaimee. "Why?" she said, but then looked up and saw not one, but two people approaching with sandwich boards made of sunglasses. The funny thing is, Jaimee actually wants new sunglasses so it wasn't completely annoying, although having two people at the same time was a bit much. Jaimee begins trying on sunglasses, and suddenly a shoe shine guy comes up and starts trying to shine my shoes. This is silly because they are trail running shoes, but he thinks they need cleaning so he takes a toothbrush to them. "No, no," I say getting up and trying to get him away. Meanwhile Jaimee is haggling over the price of a pair of sunglasses she likes. Eventually the shoe shine guy goes away but when he leaves we notice our Spot is gone!

Darnit! I think I'm more embarrassed by the irony of losing a device that displays its exact location to a map on the Internet, but Jaimee and I jump into action. The sunglass lady claims the shoe cleaner stole it and we can see him moving down the street and he seems to be moving a little fast to be an innocent shoe shiner. Jaimee is still haggling over the sunglasses so when she screams, "This is too much" referring to the entire situation and not the price, the lady immediately comes down in price to Jaimee's first counter-offer. Money is exchanged and we were off chasing the shoe shiner.

We bolt across two lanes of traffic and down several blocks never losing sight of the guy. We run past some tourist police and while I blow past them in pursuit, Jaimiee stops to talk to them. "I lost my GPS," she says, "and I think that guy up there stole it." The tourist policeman, clearly not understanding what a GPS is says, "Your my GPS is gone?" I reach the shoe shiner and inspect his box of shoe shine stuff. Nothing. Ditto for his pockets (although he did try and sell me some orthotics that were in there). We call off the police (who at this point were running down the street to meet me).

We run back to the park hoping that maybe we just mistook where the Spot was supposed to be, or that it was maybe thrown away as it was kind of close to a garbage can. As we're rifling through the garbage (not recommended in Vietnam, by the way) Jaimee notices some guy across the park pulling the Spot out of his pocket. Relieved, we approach him and tell him the Spot is ours. He hands it over and I immediately notice that he'd pressed the Help function which is supposed to put a Help icon on the Google map. Fortunately I could see that there was no satellite reception so I'm pretty sure the Help request didn't work. Luckily he didn't try the 911 function.

Anyway, he indicated he wanted some money for "returning" the device. We were happy to have the Spot back and even if he'd first stolen it, it seemed worth it to us to have it back so we decided giving him some money was okay. The only problem was that I only had 100,000 dong or 10,000 dong bills, worth $5 and 50 cents respectively (and there was no way we were giving him $5 for stealing our Spot). We saw that he was selling 5,000 dong lottery tickets so we thought as a compromise we'd buy two tickets for 10,000 dong. He thought this was a terrible idea and refused. He wanted more. Forget it, we thought and walked away. But he followed us, so we walked faster and he walked faster and began to pout. He was really upset. I offered to buy the two tickets again, but he said "no, more money" instead. No way, we thought and really began walking away fast from him. He followed us, screaming and yelling behind us for a good four or five blocks. Where are the tourist police when you really need them? Eventually, we lost him through some traffic. We went around a few corners, found a cafe and relaxed over some iced coffees. The only good to come of this is Jaimee's new sunglasses:

We spent the rest of the day going to two museums, The Museum of Ho Chi Minh City and The War Remnants Museum. Both were very interesting and contained your standard assortment of tanks, planes and exhibits. (See our photos for details.) The War Remnants museum is particularly good as it contains lots of great photographs from both American, Vietnamese and foreign photographers. It's highly recommended.

We also made our plans for the next two days. Tomorrow we're taking a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels (see book below), an area about 30 miles from Saigon that saw lots of fighting during the Vietnam War. And on Monday we hired a car with a guide for the day to take us out to the two different bases that my dad was stationed at during the war. Neither base sight is on a standard tour so we had to hire a private guide.

Lastly, I thought we'd mention three excellent books about Vietnam that we read recently:

Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam, by Andrew X. Pham. This is half-memoir, half-travelogue. It follows Andrews on a solo bicycle trip throughout Vietnam. He was born in Vietnam, moved to Louisiana (and later California) when he was nine years old and took this bike trip in Vietnam when he was in his 20s. Reading the book makes Vietnam sound a little intimidating as he encounters no end of problems and issues during his time here (and he even speaks fluent Vietnamese). But the book offers some good insight into the mindset of a Vietnamese-American family and the nature of home.

The Tunnels of Cu Chi, by Tom Mangold and John Penycate. While possibly not appealing to everyone (it doesn't shirk from graphic descriptions of war) this book provided a lot of background about the tunnels that we'll see tomorrow. Essentially, the tunnels were a huge underground labyrinth right underneath some of the largest US military bases. The book describes the fighting that took place in the tunnels from both the US (including a few Australian tunnel "rats" as the fighters were called) and the Vietnamese side. Like many war stories, the waste of human life is very tragic.

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram, translated by Andrew X. Pham (same author as above). Dang Thuy Tram was a North Vietnamese doctor from Hanoi, who traveled to the South of Vietnam to work in a medical clinic supporting the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. She was killed by Americans who found her trying to escape from her clinic that was being bombed. Her journal was discovered and saved from destruction and eventually even returned to her family in 1995 by the American soldier who saved the diary. It's a chilling view of how despised American were and how indoctrinated and idealistic many communists were at the time.

These are just three of the books we've read since we last talked about books on here. Here's a little Amazon.com widget that contains some of the other books we've read:




Most of the above books we read on our Kindle, although since we only have one Kindle we still scrounge around for paperbacks so that one of us can read that while the other uses the Kindle. If you're really interested in how a Kindle works for travelers, take a look at this detailed post from some other world-travelers (notice that they have two Kindles for the two of them). Overall, like us, they think the Kindle is pretty great, although there is definitely room for improvement (i.e., the wireless isn't very good internationally, graphics are horrible, and the web browser is atrociously bad) but as an e-reader it performs great.

Relaxing in the city of What Your Name?

The best recommendation someone can give a place is the phrase, "we were only going to spend one night but we ended up spending two." So when we were on our Ha Long Bay cruise and one of the Australian guys (who I thought was gay, but Jaimee didn't) used that phrase referring to the town of Quy Nhon in South Central Vietnam coast, we were intrigued. The town wasn't in our Budget Rough Guide to Southeast Asia but we wrote down the information about the town and hotel and decided to check it out. We've found that first-person recommendations are usually the best way to find cool and interesting places.

Of course, this is Vietnam, so it wasn't exactly easy to get here. As we mentioned last time, we'd decided to take the train instead of the bus and we had our difficult to purchase "Hard Sleep Air-Con Level 3" tickets. When we boarded the train we realized what this meant: the upper bunk of a three person bunk bed. The sleeper cars have no seats, just the bunks and if you're in the upper bunk you have about 15 inches of headroom. Just getting into the bunk was a struggle. (We were so traumatized when we saw the bunks that we forgot to take a photo of it, but we'll try and get one when we're on the train next. Update: it's not the best picture as it was hard to get because there were people milling around everywhere, but I tried to secretly snap a picture of the three level bunks.) It was not the ideal situation for a 21 hour ride. We tried to make the best of it and got up periodically to walk around.

Overall, the ride wasn't that comfortable but we made it to Quy Nhon only an hour late. We checked into the hotel recommended by the Australian and found our best hotel room yet: a huge room (it has a desk and two dressers), a bathtub, TV with HBO, air conditioning and a mini-fridge. All for just $10 a night!

The town itself is pretty low-key and laid back, especially compared to Hanoi or Hue. We took this photo in the middle of the day and were able to capture the street with NO motorcycles:

From Train to Saigon

There is a beach here, but it's not exactly a beach for sunbathing or swimming. It's more of a launching point for these strange pod-like fishing boats.

From Train to Saigon

The food here was incredibly cheap and quite tasty. We found this vegetarian place where we had steaming bowls of Pho for about 60 cents each. Also the people are super friendly. The lady at the store across the street from our hotel has a daughter who lives in San Antonio and she talked to us all about where we were going (and had been) in Vietnam. And the children here all yell "Hello" or "What your name?" even if flying by on the back of a motorcycle. A few times we stopped to try and have longer conversations with the kids but they didn't seem to know much more English than those phrases.

It's been a nice couple days here. Tomorrow we take the day train to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). It's supposed to take 11 hours, leaving at 9AM. We'll hang there until our flight to India on Tuesday. Speaking of India, we booked a couchsurfing host for when we arrive in Chennai. We're excited about that as we love staying with a local when we first arrive in a place. Our host is actually an American who's a teacher in Chennai.

Ha Long Bay Tour

After eschewing group tours for the first six months of our trip (except for one snorkeling trip in Malaysia) we've now been on two tours in a week in Vietnam. This isn't because our preference for tours has increased - it's because Vietnam is a much more difficult country to navigate on your own. Or at least that's how our stay here has been so far. Even getting information about prices can be difficult. Yesterday, for example we went to the train station to book our train trip south out of Hanoi, and we had to talk to the ticket lady at least four times because every time we asked about a particular train and class of service, it was either full, or not available to "foreigners" or only one seat available, etc. But more on that in a sec.

We spent the last two days on a tour of Ha Long Bay, a huge bay of 1,969 islands (you can remember that number because, as our guide told us, that is the year Ho Chi Minh died). Many of the islands jut up sharply out of the water and combined with the fog, it gave the area a very other-worldly feel; at one point we motored through a swarm of dragon flies and I wondered if this place was inspiration for the movie Avatar (that is, if Avatar took place on water).

From Ha Long Bay

Despite the huge number of tour boats, it was an amazingly peaceful tour. All the boats are essentially the same design with very quiet engines that allowed us to move slowly around the bay. We went on the two-day one night tour, as opposed to the two-night, three day options. We also chose the "Good Tour" instead of the "Cheap Tour" and it turned out to be very nice. There were only nine of us on the boat and every room had its own bathroom (including cockroaches!). Our other travelers were three young kids from Sweden, a young British couple and two men from Australia. We also got to go kayaking for a bit, renting kayaks (well, our tour company rented them) from this fishing village that lives out in the bay:

From Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is quite the contrast to the hustle and bustle and motorcycles that are everywhere else in Vietnam. Just not having to hear constant horns honking was worth the trip (and possibly a reason to book the longer tour if one is staying in Vietnam longer).

We got back to Hanoi last night and walked over to the train station to see about booking a train south of here. Eventually we booked a ticket to the city of Qui Nhon in South Central Vietnam. It's a 21 hour train ride, which might sound horrific, but the idea of getting on another "sleeper bus" had me itching phantom bug bites just thinking about it. Here's to hoping the train is nicer. We chose that town because one of the Australians recommended it as a relaxing, quiet place.

Take a look at all our pictures from Ha Long Bay. They're mostly gray because that's what the weather was doing the whole time we were there, but we found the area to be very beautiful and well worth the effort of booking the tour.

Hanoi

Our guidebook describes Hanoi, Vietnam's second largest city, as "small", "elegant", "surprisingly low-key" and "relatively laid-back". I wonder what city they visited because we found Hanoi to be the exact opposite. It's a crazy patchwork of narrow, crowded streets with hundreds of motorcycles and people trying to sell you thinks everywhere you walk. Even crossing the street is a harrowing experience. We found that the best strategy was to just keep moving. Using techniques learned from riding my bike in city traffic of Seattle, we'd try to keep a steady pace and just move into the road to cross amidst the motorcycles. Moving also protected us from the people selling items. At one point we made the mistake of stopping to consult our map. Suddenly one man is trying to put glue on my shoes (there is a flap coming loose on the front), another lady is putting a Vietnamese style hat on me to have Jaimee take my picture ("for no money," she says) and another lady is trying to sell me pineapple (actually, I think it's the same lady). It was a bit insane.

Which isn't to say we don't like it here; we like it quite a bit, but it is not an easy city. I think I liked it more than Jaimee as I'm intrigued by chaos, similar to how I viewed Los Angeles when we went there last September. I view it as a challenge to try and figure a city out, to see how it to make it work for us.

Unfortunately, being here only two nights has not been enough time to really get to know Hanoi. We arrived on the night "sleeping bus" from Hue - a ride that took a little over 12 hours, including a dinner stop. We thought we'd hit the jackpot when we got on the bus - it's wasn't very crowded and we each had our own "sleeping pod" to rest in. Here I am when we first got on the bus:

From Hanoi

However, we drove about six blocks and switched buses. We were jammed into a different bus where Jaimee and I had a "bed" in the very back of the bus, shared with three other people. Additionally, there were bugs in the bed that gave me lots and lots of bug bites. (To spare you from having to stare at the picture for too long I won't put it in the blog, but you can see the bites in this photo.)

The bus dropped us off a ways from the city center in Hanoi and as we didn't have a hotel arranged in advance we accepted a free taxi ride from a guy who said he worked for a hotel. Surprisingly, the taxi ride was actually free; when we got to the hotel someone met the taxi and paid the fare. Unsurprisingly, the hotel was overpriced (well, relatively - the room was $12) and kind of dumpy. We did decide to take it for one night though as we were tired and didn't feel like walking around the city with our backpacks. The next night we changed hotels to one recommended in our guide book. Which wasn't easy to find. Apparently whenever a hotel (or restaurant) gets a good reputation or is mentioned in Lonely Planet, copy cat businesses open up with the same name. Hence, there are several Hanoi Guest Houses, a few Little Darling Hotels (and variations thereof) and many Kangaroo Cafes. To know if you're at the original you have to make sure you're on the right street.

As mentioned above regarding traffic and crossing the street, Hanoi is not an easy city to get around either. There is no public transportation (apart from ubiquitous cyclo drivers offering "moto, moto" at every turn) and walking is nerve wracking at best and often downright dangerous. Despite this, we did manage to walk around and see the Old Quarter, the French Quarter and make our way out to the Military History Museum.

From Hanoi

It was fun reading the captions of the various exhibits. Somehow calling the enemy "thugs" and "hooligans" makes history seem so much more real. There was a huge section on the war with the French, and of course information about the American involvement, as well as several tanks, planes and helicopters.

Finally, tonight we went to a water puppet show at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. This was a really cute show involving, well, puppets in water. The music was all done with traditional Vietnamese instruments. This picture, although blurry, was taken at the end of the performance when the puppet masters came out from behind the curtain.

From Hanoi

Tomorrow we're heading out to Ha Long Bay. We debated about doing a tour or going out on our own, but in the end we booked a two day, one night tour. The tour is all inclusive, including an overnight stay on the boat and excursions to islands and caves, including kayaking. Considering it's only $30 per person, we figured it was worth the "splurge" as long as we don't have to sleep with bugs.

DMZ Tour

Yesterday we went on a tour of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) marking the area between North and South Vietnam. This was the most heavily bombed area of the entire Vietnam War (or, as our guide pointed out, the Vietnamese call it the American War). The tour was long, lasting from 6:30 am until 6 pm but it's highly recommended. As each stop on the tour charges "entrance fees" and the tour includes all these in the price, it's also an economical way to see a bunch of stuff all at once.

I won't bore the readers with too many details of the tour, as we've put comments on the pictures if you're interested in each stop. However, highlights were going to the battle site of Khe Sanh, a major turning point of the war (and where over 400 Americans lost their lives), as well as seeing the Vinh Moc Tunnels where hundreds of Vietnamese lived underground for two years while the area was bombed repeatedly.

From Hue and the DMZ

Finally, the last stop was the Truong Son War Cemetery, where over 10,000 bodies lie, many of them unidentified. Our guide pointed out that while almost 60,000 Americans lost their lives in the Vietnam War, over 3,000,000 Vietnamese died, and many of the dead are still missing or unidentified.

From Hue and the DMZ

For me, coming to Vietnam and seeing the impact and after effects of the war is especially poignant as my dad served in Vietnam from July 1967 to August 1968. He was not in the DMZ area, but down south closer to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). We hope to visit the area where he served later in our visit.

Today we're leaving Hue and heading North to Hanoi. After having so much fun on the overnight buses in Laos we're going to now try a Vietnamese overnight bus.

Update: While waiting for us bus we walked around Hue. Hue is an interesting and pretty city, but somewhat difficult to navigate. Traffic is insane and everything is pretty spread out so we had trouble just finding places to eat, for example. But we did walk around The Citadel, a walled section of the city where Emporer Gia Long lived back in the early nineteenth century. Most of the 148 original building were destroyed by heavy bombing during the Vietnam War, but there are still some beautiful temples and towers.

From Hue and the DMZ

Good Afternoon, Vietnam

We've arrived in Vietnam, and I'm not sure if we should be surprised or not, but it's raining. It's the first real rain we've seen since we've been in Southeast Asia and it's quite the downpour. Luckily, we have our raincoats (and rainpants and packcovers at the ready if need be) although that hasn't stopped every shop vendor we walk by from trying to sell us ponchos. A motorcycle even pulled over while we were walking on the street and offered to sell us two purple ponchos. I guess the Vietnamese aren't used to seeing a lot of REI eVent jackets.

Our big plan from our last blog post was to head east from Savannakhet to the town of Sepon where we'd use this as a base to explore the Ho Chi Minh Trail. We headed down to the bus station and booked a ticket to Sepon. They didn't put our backpacks in the luggage compartment and we found out why about five minutes into our ride when we stopped to pick up a herd of goats! It's cliche to talk about the live chickens on a bus (yes, this bus had that too) but a herd of about 15 goats in the luggage compartment seems too ridiculous not to mention. Jaimee got a few shots of the goat herders in action:

From Laos to Vietnam

Other than the goats, which we could hear bleating, the ride itself was fine. Except for the fact that we stayed on the bus about an hour too long. Our "ticket" (in quotes because it consisted of a verbal contract with the driver) was to Sepon, but somehow we missed the town and didn't figure this out until we'd reached the Laos/Vietnam border town of Daen Sawan. Instead of trying to backtrack (it was 3PM at this point), we took a room at a guest house in this town. Daen Sawan does not have much in the way of amenities, and we were novelties of some sort in that I don't think this town sees very many tourists. The town has hundreds of kids, all of who know a few English phrases (popular refrains: "Hello Thank you Good-bye" or "Give me money"), which they love to yell as we walked around. The were also lots of pigs, chickens, geese, dogs and cows roaming the streets.

The next day we set out for the town of Ban Dong which, according to our guide book had some old American tanks along the trail. Here's the description from our guide book:

The most tangible relics of Operation Lam Son 719 are two rusting American tanks that sit on the outskirts of Ban Dong, on Route 9. The easiest tank to find lies five minutes' walk off the road that cuts south out of town toward Taoy. Shaded by a grove of jack-fruit trees, it rests atop a small hill east of the road, partially dismantled for its valuable steel.

Given that we couldn't even find a major town along a major road while on a bus, what do you think our chances were of finding these tanks? This is assuming they're even still there. Also, what does a jack-fruit tree look like? We did find a tank though, in front of what we're guessing is a museum. The building wasn't open and the people in the area didn't speak much (any?) English so we couldn't find out much information about the tank or the building.

From Laos to Vietnam

So, after wandering up and down a dirt road in the middle of the mid-day sun looking for tanks, we decided to call it quits, had a Pepsi at a little shack/store and went back to our guest house in Daen Sawan. Catching a ride back wasn't exactly easy. Public transport in this area of Laos consists of motorcycle taxis (not an option for two of us together) or flagging down passing vans. After waiting a while, a van did pass by and stop for us, agreeing to take us to town. After arriving in town, the driver wanted $5 USD, which I countered with 40,000 kip (a little less than $5) but when I gave him a 50,000 kip bill he tried to keep the whole thing. We went through a tugging match with the bill until finally he acquiesced to giving me change and to my surprise handed me 30,000 kip. I grabbed it and we jumped off the bus.

While we were having a late lunch back in town we were surprised when a young Dutch couple we saw on the bus (we found out they were Dutch by talking to them) came walking back into town, asking the restaurant owners about staying in their guest house. Apparently they had some issues with their Vietnamese visa (it wasn't valid until the next day) and were turned away at the border. We ran into that couple again the next day after crossing the border. We shared a van to the Vietnamese town of Hue, where we are now. I was mad though because we paid $20 US dollars (good thing we've been carrying these dollars around) for the van ride from the border to the town of Hue (it ended up being about a four hour ride), but the driver picked up the Dutch couple after us and they were able to bargain it down to $8 each! Our bargaining skills clearly need some work.

One other thing to note: we took our first motorcycle taxi. The bus depot in Hue is about 4km from the town center and being that it was rainy (and a little cold actually), walking didn't seem like a good option. Plus, it's impossible to look at a guide book without getting about five different opinions from all the various people hustling things. We gave in and each of us took a ride on the back of a motorcycle into town, which was sort of exhilarating, but also a little scary. At least they provide helmets for you. Here's Jaimee with her helmet:

From Laos to Vietnam

We booked a very nice hotel room with free wifi and our bathroom even has a shower curtain! We also decided to to a real tour for tomorrow, this time of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) between North and South Vietnam. It's an all-day tour, which usually is not our cup of tea, but we figured it's a way to see a bunch of sights all at once. Plus, I don't think it will require us to identify any types of trees in order to find stuff. We'll be sure to report back how it goes.

Next stop, Vietnam

We are currently hanging out in the central Laos town of Savannakhet. We took a local bus from Vientiane, and it was a fairly uneventful and comfortable ride, although I did rip my shorts on a motorcycle that was in the aisle of the bus. Unfortunately, the shorts are pretty much beyond repair, as they'd already been stitched up twice before by Jaimee, but this time the rips are quite large:

If ripped clothes are the worst of our worries, we're in good shape. After feeling a little under the weather in Vientiane, we both recovered nicely and are having a nice time in Savannakhet. We've used this stop to determine our next few weeks of travel. Back in Luang Prabang, we thought we'd keep heading south in Laos, crossing through Cambodia and then into Vietnam. However, and this will come as no surprise to frequent readers, but we've changed our mind yet again. Being that Savannakhet is on a main highway between Thailand and Vietnam, it has a Vietnamese consulate. We stopped in there yesterday and got 15-day visas for Vietnam. We thought we couldn't get them until Phnom Penh in Cambodia, but they were able to issue them to us on the spot. So, now that we have our visas, and there's a major road from here to Vietnam, we've decided to go to Vietnam sooner.

Our plan now is to head East toward the Vietnam border, stopping for a night or two to see some remnants of Operation Lam Son 719, part of a US ordered, but South Vietnamese Army led attack on the North Vietnamese Army along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I'm not sure what there is to see exactly, but we plan on staying a night or two in Xepon (also spelled Sepon sometimes) and see if we can find someone who can show us around the old Ho Chi Minh Trail. Here is a map of the area:

View World Trip in a larger map

The only problem with this plan is we'll enter Vietnam in the middle of the country. We're not sure exactly what our itinerary will be, but we only have 15 days on our visa (getting a longer visa would have taken more time to process) and we would like to visit both the North and South of the country. Also, another big update is that we bought our tickets to India today. We are flying out of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Chennai, India (via Singapore) on March 23. We found relatively cheap flights on Tiger Airways and decided to go ahead and book the tickets.

Anyway, Savannakhet is a charming, albeit very poor town. There are some remnants of French colonialism here, including a beautiful Catholic Church built in 1930 in the main square.

The town is also along the river dividing Laos from Thailand and one night we had a sunset dinner along the river. We ate at this place where they server you claypot pull of broth and you heat it up over your own coal fire. Then you add whatever vegetables, meat or seafood you want into the broth. It reminded us of our meal in Melaka at Capitol Satay.

We also got a massage, and in all honesty have enjoyed watching movies on HBO at night (yes, our hotel, at only $8 US) includes air-conditioning and HBO. Unfortunately, the only other English channel is CNBC ("First in Business Worldwide!") and despite being an Econ major, I can only take for so long (Jaimee's tolerance is even less). But, HBO has been nice.

Here's the photo album link. We'll add more pictures as we work our way into Vietnam:

Laos to Vietnam

Vientiane, briefly

Sometimes when we visit a place we understand right away why it's popular. When we were in Luang Prabang or Chiang Mai, for example, we could tell why people visit there. Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the other hand, is somewhat of a mystery. Maybe we're missing something, but we don't really see the appeal of this city. It's sort of like a tourist destination trying to become a tourist destination.

We survived our overnight bus from Luang Prabang, even coming in an hour early, but after taking a tuk tuk downtown we immediately found out that all the guest houses and hostels were full. This is the first place we've been where everything has been booked. And we're not the only ones who searched for a room. It's the opposite problem of Luang Prabang; there you couldn't walk 10 feet without encountering a guest house offering a room whereas here you can't walk 10 feet without encountering a tourist couple carrying their bags around looking for a place to stay.

We got lucky, sort of. The morning we arrived, we walked up and down the main street where most of the guest houses are, and although they were all full, we decided to wait at one of them for someone to check out and then grab their room. We only had to wait about two hours before we were able to check in. The price sheet said 45,000 kip (about $5 US) and I thought that was per person, but it turned out to be the total price! However, the room was about what you'd expect for $5...two very narrow metal beds with cigarette burned sheets, a plank floor covered with shoddy linoleum and a view out the window of a brick wall. Oh, and there were bugs. But being that we'd hardly slept on the bus and were both suffering from slight sickness (nothing a bit of Imodium couldn't fix) and every other place was full, we took the room.

Today we changed to a nicer place down the street (getting the last room in the place), which at 85,000 kip (about $9) is worth every penny. It's no Fairmont, but it's clean, there are no bugs and the wall does not have a drawing of a penis on it. And, there's running water! The first place didn't have any running water in the morning, which the people working there didn't seem too concerned about. By the way, here's a business idea for an aspiring entrepreneur: come to Laos and open a plumbing school. They need plumbers here. Everywhere we go the plumbing is shoddy: entire faucets turn when you turn them on, there are constant backwashes of toilets, drains don't drain, pipes drip, showers have no pressure and shoot in all directions but on your body, etc.

As for things to do here, we did take a walk down Lane Xang Avenue, which supposedly is modeled after Champs Elysees in Paris. There's even a Laotian version of the Arc de Triomphe, called Patouxai:

We climbed the stairs to the top of it and although there wasn't much of a view on account of the smog/haze, it was fun enough.

Tomorrow we're going to continue south to the town of Savannakhet in Southern Laos, which supposedly has lots of French colonial architecture with a Vietnamese influence as well. Although there is an overnight bus, we figured we'd take the day time local bus. Not only is it cheaper, but the overnight bus lands you in Savannakhet at 3AM which we thought would be an inconvenient time to arrive.

We didn't take too many photos here, on account of there not being too much to take photos of, but here are the few that we did take.

Relaxing in Luang Prabang

We've enjoyed our time immensely in Luang Prabang. The city (it's more of a town really) here has a very "up and coming" feel to it. There is a lot of construction going on, and the steady influx of tourists makes it a vibrant place to kick back for a few days, although it's definitely not typical Laos. On the bus ride through the country-side to get here we saw how poor Laos really is, but you wouldn't know in Luang Prabang. It acts like a sleepy village, but it has all the modern conveniences you'd need to have a comfortable stay.

If not for our desire to see more places, we could easily stay here longer. From what we've heard and read, Luang Prabang now is what Chiang Mai was maybe 10 or 15 years ago. It would be interesting to come back here in a few years and see how it changes. With so many new guest houses and touristy restaurants opening up, I wonder if it will be able to continue to retain it's charm and appeal. But, of course, I think that's why we travel - to see places and enjoy them in the moment, as they are.

In any event, as I mentioned, our stay here has been very relaxing. We took a day trip out to a huge cave, called Pak Ou Caves where there are hundreds of Buddha statues, which although interesting, was not really that impressive (maybe I should have been impressed?).

Pak Ou is sort of a resting ground for Buddha statues

Combined with that trip, we also went out to a beautiful waterfall called Kouang Si. This was totally worth it, and we weren't going to go out there since it's the dry season, until we ran into some people from our bus who said it was gushing.

There were multiple swimming areas, including a cool rope swing that we got to use to jump into the water. Doing either side trip was kind of fortuitous, because although tuk-tuk drivers ask you on every corner, "Hello sir, Cave/Waterfall?" we weren't exactly sure how to organize a group to get the best rate. The drivers charge a flat fee to go (they charge about $50 US for the entire trip of about 100km), so the more people you have the cheaper it is per person. On the street one morning we ran into a Canadian from Montreal who was on our bus and he said he had booked the tour with six people but two of his group were sick so he asked us if we wanted to go. He was leaving in about 10 minutes, but we thought, why not? We grabbed some coffee and banana cake, ran back to our guest house and put on our bathing suits. We had no idea that it would be an all-day tour (we left at 9AM and got back at 4PM) but we had fun. Plus, this guy Pierre is a hoot, as were his friends from France (who we continue to see all around town).

Apart from the cave/waterfall tour, we've spent a fair amount of time lounging at a very nice bookstore/cafe called L'Etranger Books and Tea, which although overpriced by Southeast Asia standards, has free wifi, draft beer and at 7PM they show free movies on their TV in the loft area on the second floor. We were lucky enough to catch Fantastic Mr. Fox (bootlegged DVD from China) one night.

Additionally, we caught up with the Canadian couple that we met in Chiang Mai and had dinner with them. We attempted to go to the highly recommended Tamarind restaurant, but apparently it's closed on Sunday. As a backup plan we had great food and beer at the market, and it was fun to talk smack (as much as we could having not really followed the Olympics) about the upcoming USA versus Canada gold medal hockey game that they were getting up at 3AM to watch. (Having not that much a vested interest either way, I'm glad Canada got their gold medal.)

We went to Tamarind for lunch today, and it's definitely worth checking out. We had their vegetarian sampler platter and some pumpkin-coconut soup. The restaurant also has cooking classes which would be worth doing if we were staying longer here.

Speaking of leaving, we decided to take another overnight bus tonight, down to the Laos capital of Vientiane. It's supposed to take 12 hours. We'll see. (Update: the bus actually came in an hour early, with no breakdowns or other issues. It was uncomfortable though, and the Laos music videos on the TV were interesting for the first 10 minutes, but annoying after that, especially while trying to catch some sleep.) We've also been trying to figure out when to leave Southeast Asia and head to India. We're having a great time here, it's pretty cheap (we're averaging about $35 US per day including transport costs from town to town) and there's still a lot to see (Southern Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam). Our tentative plan is to do an S-shaped itinerary down through Laos and Cambodia and then traverse south to north in Vietnam ending up in Hanoi in northern Vietnam. From there we'd fly to Bangkok and on to India. Nothing is booked yet, but we'll be sure to update the blog when know for sure.

We added more pictures to the photo album, and there were some tourists who took pictures of Jaimee jumping into the water at the waterfall. The one guy promised to e-mail us the pictures which we'll post to the album as soon as we get them.

The Road to Luang Prabang

When we were planning our trip we knew that we couldn't plan out each step very far in advance. It was too difficult to know what the conditions would be at a given time and place. Plus, we wouldn't have wanted to be held to a specific itinerary; we knew that we'd discover new places we'd like to visit along the way. This is how we arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos. (Our guide book spells it Louang Phabang so you'll see us spell it both ways or just abbreviate it LP). Located in North-central Laos, LP is a charming, very much French-inspired town with lots of little temples, street vendors selling fresh sandwiches on excellent baguettes, and myriads of coffee shops and guest houses.

We've had two sandwiches in two days from this lady

However, getting here can be quite the adventure, as we can attest. First there was the border crossing. We took a pick-up truck to the border and went through Thai customs, which was easy, then boarded a boat across the river where we went through Laos customs, which involved securing a Visa from one guy, paying $35 US dollars each to another guy who stamped our passport, then getting it all checked by a third guy. I'm pretty sure the TSA from the US were involved in training the Laos border agents.

After getting checked in along with a large group of French and French-Canadian tourists, and one Japanese guy (who bragged that his Laos Visa was free!) we all boarded a van (14 of us in an 10-seater van) to the private bus station where we had two hours to wait before our bus left. Little did we know this would be the "calm before the storm."

First of all, although we had assigned seats, nobody sat in them because the seat numbers were underneath the luggage space so no one saw them so people just sat where they wanted and even after showing the people in our assigned seats, they wouldn't move because it would have meant the people in their seats would have to move, etc. Therefore, since we were the last on the bus (seeing no point in boarding early since the seats were assigned), we got seats in the last row, squished in between a monk, a Chinese and a Laotian, who I'll just mention were constantly on their respective cell phones most of the trip. Each phone had its own ring tone so after a while we would know who was getting a call just by the ring. "Oh, the monk is getting a text message now," we'd think as the bus creeped along the windy, bumpy roads.

Without going into too much detail I'll summarize and say the bus was delayed by over 10 hours, we broke down twice, got rescued by another bus (but only the locals had to get on that bus), and eventually made it to LP 25 hours after we left our Thai guest house.

The guy in the green sweatshirt was actually a passenger

We were so sleep and food deprived that I felt like I was hallucinating. (Why is everyone speaking a weird language? Where are we?) We tried going to a Guest House recommended by the Korean we met in Chiang Mai (he gave us the guest house business card and everything) but when we found the place we couldn't make out if 120,000 kip (the Laotian currency) was a good deal or not. Let's see, it's about 8,500 kip to the dollar or 260 baht to the kip, so that means 120,000 is? It's not easy even with all your faculties, which we definitely did not have at that point. Eventually, with the help of a calculator, we found out this was about $14 US, and being significantly more than we were used to paying, we decided to move on. We found a place down the road (you can't walk more than five feet without going by a guest house) where a room was 80,000 kip (about $9.50 US) so we took that.

After a street sandwich each and a couple cold glasses of Beerlao we crashed under the fan of our room. Today we switched to another guest house where we could have our own bathroom for the same price.

LP has definitely made it on the "tourist track" and we can see why. In fact, today we ran into a couple that was in our cooking class in Chiang Mai (they arrived today after only a 15 hour bus ride and just one breakdown). The town itself is very cozy, the food is good, and compared to the hustle and bustle of streets in Thailand, it's pretty quiet here. We're not sure how many days we'll stay. We might rent bicycles for a day and tour around or possibly take a boat trip down the river. Since we were supposed to arrive by boat initially, it would be nice to at least experience it for a bit. We do know we don't want to leave right away as the thought of getting on the bus anytime soon is not very appealing.

Here are pictures all the way from Chiang Khong to LP (we'll be adding to it as we do more stuff here).

No boat for us

We are leaving for Laos in about an hour, taking an overnight bus directly to the town of Louang Phabang. We had originally planned on taking a two day "slow boat" trip down the river, but the river levels are too low for the slow boats. Apparently, speed boats are still running and will make the trip in one day, but they can only take four passengers because of the water levels. Some fellow travelers we met in Chiang Mai (who's blog is quite good, by the way) alerted us as a comment on our last blog post that the boats were canceled, but we would probably have come up here anyway, as our 15-day visa for Thailand runs out in a couple days. Our super-friendly guest house sells bus tickets that include the border crossing ferry so we've decided to just go with that.

We spent the night at the border town of Chiang Khong, which is a nice enough town, as far as border towns go. We got off the bus around 8PM and were met by the owners of the Baan Rimtaling Guest House, a Thai woman and a guy from Florida, who as it turns out, can talk your ear off. We were lucky to get the last double room in the place, which at only 160 Baht (less than $5 US) is quite a steal. Plus, they ran a decent restaurant, so after the seven hour bus ride from Chiang Mai, we enjoyed some good curry and beer.

The water levels of the river are quite low, which we could see in the morning from our guest house:

We went for a short walk around town this morning, saw some monks buying cell phones (see our pictures), and Jaimee bought some yarn (surprisingly hard to find around SE Asia) and got a massage. Overall, a decent stopover.

Update: It turns out that just like airlines, buses also get overbooked. The bus to Laos was overbooked by two people, so in exchange for free dinner at the restaurant tonight and a discount on a room with our own bathroom (it's amazing what becomes a luxury after awhile), we decided to stay another night and head to Laos tomorrow.

Temples and Markets

After spending five days and nights here in Chiang Mai, this turns out to be our longest stay in one place since WWOOFing in New Zealand. We've wondered around, visiting all the temples inside the city, and last night we went to the Night Market, an area of town that becomes a huge outdoor shopping pavilion from 5PM onwards. There's a Sunday Night Market that we plan on visiting tonight, although since we're not really in the market for t-shirts, fake Tiffany jewelery, fake Rolexes, jade elephants, wooden bowls, etc. we don't plan on buying anything. It's fun to look around though.

Today we took a little side-trip out to Wat Doi Suthep, about 10 miles outside Chiang Mai, which was more of an adventure getting there than actually seeing the temple.

We went to the meeting place where taxis take people out to the temple. As we approached the line of waiting songthaews (pickups with benches in the back) we were beckoned towards a group of tourists waiting nearby. Apparently the songthaew drivers like to get around 500 Baht ($15 USD) per trip, and the trucks hold about 10 people so if it's full it costs 50 Baht each. The driver doesn't care if it's full - he just wants his 500 Baht, so when we approach the group (a Polish couple, a Korean man, and a mother/daughter from France) the driver is negotiating prices for the trip. He's also trying to sell side-trips to other temples, palaces and the like, some of which the Polish couple wanted, but the French lady did not. Being that we spoke the best English amongst the group we became lead negotiators. We brokered a deal to leave immediately for 60 Baht each for those that wanted just the temple, and 80 for the Polish couple to go to both the temple and the palace. This seemed like a fair deal, and we were ready to go when the Polish couple said no, they wanted 50 for the temple and the palace. The driver walked away disgusted. Luckily, four Chinese walked up and we all agreed to just go to the temple only for 50 each and let the Polish negotiate their palace tour separately.

The temple was quite pretty, but extremely touristy (should have expected that I suppose). It was also under going some renovations:

We walked around the grounds, had some pineapple and fried bananas, and came back to town.

Tomorrow we leave for Laos. We plan on taking a bus to the border town, spending the night on the Thai side, then crossing over in the morning where we hope to take a two-day boat ride down the Mekong river to the town of Luang Prabang. At least that's our plan...

Update: We added some more pictures, including some of our visit to the excellent Sunday Night Market.

Dreaming about Curry

We are now relaxing in Chiang Mai, in the North of Thailand. We took an overnight train from Bangkok, and although we had an upper bunk again like we did from Hat Yai to Bangkok, this train ride was much more comfortable. The air-conditioning was not freezing us out and the ride itself, although 13 hours long was on-time and relatively pleasant.

Chiang Mai is quite a contrast to Bangkok. Although it's a bustling city with all sorts of traffic the weather is much cooler. It gets hot during the day, but the mornings are very cool; we noticed it right away getting off the train around 7AM.

The train station in Chiang Mai was a zoo - everyone offered us ride, places to stay, tours. Since we didn't know where we were staying we decided to walk the 2 km into town, especially since the weather was so cool. Apparently people don't walk in Chiang Mai; we had to dismiss tuk-tuk drivers and taxi cabs every 100 feet or so.

Walking into town

Eventually we got into town and after looking at one grungy guest house, found Libra House, a very nice place with a lovely courtyard and free wifi! The rooms are small, but adequate, and at 200 Baht per night ($6 USD) it's certainly within our budget.

The only thing of note we've done here is take a Thai cooking class. We had a great time at this class. The class took place on a farm about a half-hour outside the city. They picked us up in the morning, we went to the market to look at the ingredients we'd be using that day, then went to the farm. The class was outstanding. We made green and red curry (from scratch, using a mortar and pestle), tom yum soup, spring rolls, phad thai, papaya salad and mango with sticky rice. We ate part of what we made for lunch, but also brought enough home for dinner later! The class is run by Thai Farm Cooking School and it comes highly recommended.

Other than the class, we've been eating yummy food, drinking lots of fruit shakes and reading in the hammocks at the courtyard of our guest house.

Here are the pictures, mostly of our cooking class, but a few of the Chiang Mai itself. Maybe if we get motivated we'll see some of the temples outside the city, but for now we're just enjoying relaxing and not doing too much.

Six Months

Today marks six months of traveling since we left Seattle on August 15th of last year. Our first adventure in the Enchantments of central Washington seems far away in both distance and time from our current adventure in Bangkok Thailand.

From Langkawki, Malaysia we took a ferry to Satun, Thailand, where after a fairly painless border crossing (didn't speak a word to the customs agent), we bused it to the town of Hat Yai where were caught an overnight train to Bangkok. Pulling into the dock at Satun, this is our first view of Thailand:

From Bangkok

Public transport in Thailand is interesting to say the least. If it has a motor, people use it as public transportation - motorcycle taxis, "tuk tuks" - small vans or converted three wheel motorcycles, boats of all kinds, vans, taxis, etc. For example, they packed 12 adults into the back of a two-wheel drive Toyota pickup (not an extended bed truck either) to get to the bus station in Satun. (Why they don't just put the bus station near the ferry, I don't know...) We took this picture, pitying the poor people who had to ride in it before we realized we were taking one as well:

From Bangkok

The train ride was not very comfortable, but what 17 hour train ride is? We bought a 2nd class "sleeper" car, but that's a misnomer; someone comes through around 9PM and converts all the seats into "beds", essentially five foot, 10 inch sofas (I'm six feet tall). Plus, the only seats available were upper bunks, right next to the air-conditioning vents. It was like sleeping outside in the winter it was so cold. I actually pulled out my 25 degree sleeping bag, which had been pretty useless since we got to SE Asia and crawled inside it to try and sleep, although with the florescent light on right above my head, there wasn't much sleeping.

Once in Bangkok, we worked our way over to the area of town where our couchsurfing host lived. We took the subway (yes, Bangkok has a subway), the sky train (ditto) and finally a taxi. We later realized taking a taxi the whole way would have been both cheaper and faster, but what did we know?

Our host, Nuch, met our taxi (the taxi driver had to call her on the cell since he couldn't understand our instructions or read the English script version of the address), gave us the keys to the apartment and said she was "busy" and had to go. We let ourselves in to discover one room with a double bed, a small empty wardrobe, and a bathroom. We didn't understand what was going on. Did she live here? Were all three of us going to sleep here? Only when she came back three hours later did she tell us this is an extra "apartment" that she has for family and friends. So, we had the place to ourselves.

The neighborhood reminded me of the Puerto Rican/Dominican neighborhoods of New York City (do these even still exist?) because of all the mid-rise apartment buildings, lots of little convenience stores and tons people on the street. Nuch says she likes having couchsurfers stay here because they get to see how real Thais live, as opposed to the touristy (or sex business) areas. There certainly were no tourists in this area, and we've enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere of having our own apartment. Our first evening we caught a beautiful sunset off the roof of her building (we're staying on the 12th floor):

From Bangkok

I was still feeling kind of sick our first full day in Bangkok so we took it easy just wandering around and not doing too much. I started feeling better toward the evening and we went to the Khao San district and had an amazing organic vegetarian Thai buffet at May Kaidee. I think after a few days of not feeling well and not eating very much, I was ready for scrumptious healthy food. I shoveled in loads of curries, spring rolls with peanut sauce, tempura vegetables, noodles, rice and salads. It was super tasty, amazingly fresh, and lucky for us since they only do the buffet once a week on Saturday. And the best part? It was only $3 a piece, including fruit shakes!

Yesterday, we took the canal boat by the apartment out to a floating market, a meeting place along the river where every weekend hundreds of boats meet up along a dock and form an impromptu market to sell various products and food. We had a scrumptious lunch of rice, noodles and spring rolls (we could live off these things!) before taking a three hour canal tour. Our boat was a low slung affair packed full of holidaying Thais. It was Chinese New Year, after all. We got squeezed into a bench built for much shorter people, right next to a young man who was "on the spectrum." Jaimee believes she is a magnet for people like this. You know the ones; personal space issues (either you are in their space or they are in yours), always facing the wrong way, and that nice mumbling and singing. While sitting beside this fellow he spread way out in the seat causing us to have less than half the row for the two of us. Then when we piled back into the boat after a stop he was RIGHT behind Jaimee, exhibiting his personal space issues again... The best part was when there was a big splash (the canal was full of fish) and his family wiped the water off his face for him. Jaimee felt nervous because a family that jumps to at a time like that only does it for one reason - to avoid a meltdown.

From Bangkok

The tour was pretty lame - there was a guy who would talk about all the sights (including at least 10 temples), but he only spoke Thai (maybe that's why we were the only white people on the boat?) and one of the stops included a visit to a zoo where there was a snake show.

Before ever complaining about conditions in American zoos again, I'll realize the animals could have it much, much worse. This zoo was depressing, and although it was kind of amazing how close the snake handlers got to the snakes, we also felt kind of bad for the snakes. Here's one performer with three cobras:

From Bangkok

We're staying one more night in Bangkok before heading North to Chiang Mai tomorrow night. We plan on heading up there to see the forests and mountains of Thailand, as well as take some cooking classes at a farm we read about on the Internet. To be able to make anything close to the amazing green curry we've been devouring here would be awesome.