Pale Blue Dot

Custard-Apple - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2011-01-03T12:31:00.000-06:00

Tastes like a mini-jackfruit. Easier to eat because of manageable size. Custardy. A bit grainy. I give it a solid B.

BKM

Motorbiking the Bolaven Plateau

2011-01-02T10:03:00.004-06:00

The day after we arrived in Laos we rented a motorbike and headed on a two day trip around the Bolaven Plateau, starting east to the village of Tad Lo. The stretch of road from Pakse to Tad Lo was the best paved road we had encountered thus far on the back of a bike. The road wound through the rich coffee growing region of the plateau and past Vietnamese markets. The straight lines and sharp black hue of the fresh asphalt brought an air of prosperity to dusty wood and bamboo villages. The 110cc bike was a beast, and thanks to the condition of the road, we were able to hit 80 kph for large sections of the journey.

A few kilometers short of Tad Lo a small object whizzed past my face, and Brittany yelped. We both thought the object was a pebble or a butterfly, common face-hazards for us during our motorbike travels.

I was surprised by the pain, and even more, the feeling that something was still whipping my face. Everything on my chin was numb and I kept slapping at myself. A sight for sure. I felt something and ripped it off. I thought I might be bleeding.

We stopped to check out the wound, but when I turned to investigate her injury, the cause of her pain was immediately evident. She had the insides of a bee dangling from its detached stinger, firmly impaled in her chin. I used my pocket pliers to surgically (and I'm sure oh-so sterile-y) pull the stinger out, and we applied a little first aid to prevent infection before continuing to Tad Lo. We had been going 70 kph. (There I am to the left, making a face much scarier than my wound. Obviously, my face is numb from poison, some of which has reached my brain, and I cannot help myself.)

Tad Lo village is at the base of the lowest of three waterfalls - a short multi-terraced fall visible from the town's wooden bridge. The middle waterfall, a five-minute walk up river, is a single precipitous drop of fifteen meters into a large deep pool. We enjoyed hiking up to the falls and having a relaxing sit-down.

The town is also home to three Asian elephants, available for rides at the Tad Lo Lodge. The price was a little steep for us (though we would find out later, one of the cheapest places available), but the way the elephants were kept was romantic to us. They were just standing, unrestrained in front of the lodge eating bananas. Brit walked up to one and started talking with it. All the elephants were sweet females. It was so funny how they balanced and ate a whole bunch of bananas like we eat a single one. I'm kicking myself in the arse for not taking a photo. I walked up to one and struck up a conversation - asked if she'd like to tag along for a walk.

As we left, she followed us with a slow and lumbering gait. We both secretly wished she would just keep on with us. Follow back to the bike, then back into Pakse, and later throughout Laos and Thailand. (And if we really let ourself dream, we could afford to ship her home and have the space and food to feed her. Sigh.) Sadly, as we neared the edge of the lodge's yard she stopped.

We spend the night in the most happening place in town, Tim's guesthouse. The relaxed dining room and collection of bungalows is an immensely popular place, especially with French backpackers. Tad Lo was full of guesthouses, including a "Tim's" imposter called "Tom's" Guesthouse, but none seemed as inviting as Tim's. After an evening of story swapping and reading, we squeezed onto one of two twin beds in our private bungalow and slept.

Yes. You heard that right. We shared a twin bed, even though we had two in our bungalow. Every time we share a tiny bed, I regret it in the morning, but every night we're faced with sleeping alone in cold beds, I just can't do it! Alright, all together, now! "Awwwwww."

Richard & Brit

Statement of Purpose

2011-01-01T09:03:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year! Resolutions abound, and we have a few goals for this little blog. Nothing outrageous - bear with us.

-Finish chronicling Laos (thereby finishing Southeast Asia)
-Share our recent winter birding trip to Big Bend National Park (we rented a Really. Big. Lens.)
-Write a few articles about our Texas travels last spring (Old San Antonio Road, Galveston, Brazos Bend, and more)
-Collect and share some photography albums
-Publish reviews of our most favorite and most hated travel-related books
-Continue to keep up the blog with any new travel or DC related awesomeness after we make our big move

Thanks for reading :)

xo
R+BM

Crossing the Border - Laos and Cambodia

2010-12-31T12:31:00.001-06:00

A VIP bus brought us from Kratie across the border and on to Pakse. An overbooking on behalf of the bus company put Brittany on the upper deck of the bus in a plush La-Z-Boy-like seat, and me in the front, squeezed between the driver's seat and a Khmer bus director. As we passed through the scrubby hills, the director told me about the recent history of the road leading north to Laos. The hills and forests had been the last holdout of the Khmer Rouge insurgency, which only ended recently with the turn of the millennium. Only in the past decade had the road been repaved to modern standards and the border with Laos opened. Despite contrary reports, at the time of our crossing in October 2010, we were able to procure visas on arrival.

When the director was young, his father and he had been driving in the area when they were stopped by Khmer Rouge bandits. They were forced to hand over all their money and their food. “They took our chickens,” he said, aloofly. The destruction caused by a quarter-century of pillaging was evident. No trees older than 15 years were visible - all were sold to the Chinese to fund the insurgency.

While we waited to cross the new border station, two dozen guards (presumably half and half from Laos/Cambodia) played a friendly game of soccer...on gravel...some with no shoes. In the distance, two men in shorts and tank tops welded re-bar as part of a new concrete drive-thru style station being built. We dropped a few passengers at the border and I was able to join Brittany top side for the remainder of the trip.

We dumped four-fifths of the Westerners at Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands), a top pancaker destination in Laos known for it's sandy beaches among the lazy Mekong. Everyone we met said “there's really nothing to do there but sit in a hammock, read, and drink Beer Lao.” Interesting, if that's what you're into, but we had other plans for Laos.

In Pakse, after a quick ride in a side-car rickshaw (the passengers sit on a plank extending from just behind the motorbike driver, supported by a third wheel), we checked into an friendly guesthouse across the street from the Lonely Planet recommended and perpetually full Sabaidy 2 (sabaidy means "hello" in Laotian).

Pakse is the largest city in southern Laos - an administrative center during colonial times - but as we would discover travelling through the country, even the largest cities have the characteristics of small Western towns. Pakse lies at the convergence of the Sedone and Mekong rivers, and its nightlife is restricted to one block just east of the Sedone steel bridge. In Pakse only tourist buildings are open past dark. The four guesthouses, a half dozen restaurants (only two are tending towards busy), and two internet cafes. We picked the busier of two Indian restaurants, as we would for most nights in Pakse, and took an immediate liking to Laos.

Richard

Longon - Fruits of Southeast

2010-12-30T14:17:00.003-06:00

These little brown fruit have a very thin skin and have a taste and texture just like skinless grapes when peeled - maybe a little sweeter. They have a single seed in the center. Longon aren't very hard to peel, but grapes are easier to eat. Give me grapes, I say. If I want to peel every bite, I'll eat a rambutan. At least they're fun to say and pretty to look at.

Grade: B-

BKM

Bonus Gas Stations in Southeast Asia

2010-12-21T13:26:00.006-06:00

Traveling with a rickshaw driver who is in need of a fillup? He's more likely to stop at a roadside stall than a gas station, where the gasoline is cheaper and poured from glass (sometimes plastic) 1L beverage bottles of all sorts. Coca-Cola and Fanta bottles seem to be preferred, but we once pulled up to a stall with only dozens of Red Label bottles. Alcoholics, much?

BKM

Irrawaddy Dolphins of Kratie & Other Eco-tourism

2010-12-20T12:45:00.002-06:00

The most we saw of the elusive dolphins.
Kratie is considered an established stopover on the Banana Pancake Trail* between Cambodia and southern Laos. We weren't the only foreigners in this sleepy riverside town, but atleast we had left the over-commercialized centers of
Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.

Kratie is one of a few towns in Cambodia whose focus is eco-tourism. A stretch of the Mekong River just north of Kratie is home to a significant population of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, a fresh water cetacean found in various rivers in south-east Asia. Their Mekong river population was estimated at 1000 before 1970. The Pol Pot regime hunted the dolphins for their oil, which they used to lubricate – among other things – their weaponry. Combined with fishing deaths and motorboat accidents, the population has been literally decimated (current estimates are less than 100).

We motorbiked to the village of Kampi and took a boat to the dolphin pools. We had more than thirty sightings of at least ten individuals in four locations. Each sighting consisted of a stubby nose rising from the chocolate-milk water followed by a flash of the dolphins small dorsal fin. Most sightings were from 30-100 meters distance. Right before heading back, I heard a breath behind me, turning quickly I saw the dorsal fin of a large individual less than 10 meters in front of the boat.

We appreciated supporting eco-tourism in Cambodia. Cambodia's environmental situation is not unique among south-east Asian states, or even the world; but with less than 30% of original forest remaining, it is dire. Eastern Cambodia's hills were the final stronghold of the Khmer Rouge insurgents, Kratie province included. Pol Pot's army sold choice trees to Chinese buyers to finance their insurgency, which lasted until the turn of the century. Unchecked illegal logging has since has denuded the hills, and save a few less-accessible stands, little primary forest exists East of the Mekong and south of Laos.

In developing countries, where the local's ability to feed his family determines his career, eco-tourism represents the only sustainable form of conservation. By employing locals as guides, hoteliers, and restauranteurs, they are not longer forced by starvation to poach or illegally log.

Richard

Dragon Fruit - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-12-19T08:58:00.007-06:00

Our first encounter with the dragon fruit was a sizeable slice in our fruit salad on Cathay Pacific flight into Asia. I didn't recall having seen it before, and I was intrigued. I examined, I sniffed, I nibbled...I fell in love. I have to figure out what this is! I thought.

And I did.

We bought and ate our first one on the way to Cuc Phong. It's easy to peel, and the flavor ranges from light sweet to not sweet. A structured/mushy texture, if you can imagine that.

Deeeelicious. One of my very favorites.

Since we've been back in the states, we bought one to share with friends. Don't. It was imported from Vietnam and "radiated" because, duh, Vietnam is dirty. The flavor was craptastic.

We enjoyed the fruit so much, and the imported version was so horrible, that Richard looked into growing them. Apparently it's difficult.

BKM

Siem Reap

2010-12-18T08:44:00.002-06:00

Siem Reap is a town with a purpose: extract money from Western tourists. Not a single person could be trusted outright because at some point in time they too would try to get money from you.

Surrounding the restaurants and bars filled with mediocre fare at bloated prices was an army of tuk-tuk drivers touting for fares. These drivers advertise a great deal, they will drive you around the sights for a day for a low price equivalent to a rice farmer's weekly earnings. The drivers are kept employed, at least free to hassle tourists, in part by a local ban against the renting of motorbikes to foreigners. This law keeps must keep at least 500 people employed in and around Siem Reap.

The pricing of Siem Reap shot our budget to pieces. We enjoyed the sites, but our travel purse was glad to leave.

Richard

Angkor Wat & Angkor Thom

2010-12-17T12:41:00.012-06:00

Our almost-Christmas-card.
According to plan, we saved the best sites for the last day. Despite a fair amount of temple fatigue, we were still impressed by our first stop, Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat is unique among Angkor temples in that it has been continuously occupied since construction. This fact has prevented much of the major damage due to negligence and jungle growth. Only a few of the lesser buildings had sustained any considerable damage. The carvings here are in good condition and Brit had a field day. Many of the motifs were seen in other temples, but in better condition here. The causeway depicting the Churning of the Ocean of Milk, the outer wall and moat, the five towered temple mount – but on the grandest scale. The moat was 190 meters wide, the central walkway 475 meters long, the outer walls nearly 3.9 kilometers in length, the central tower 55 meters tall.

We circled the bottom tier of the temple mount, taking in the series of bas-reliefs. We climbed to the top tier and looked out over the complex. Beneath us lay the largest religious structure on earth, and still higher climbed the symbolic Mt. Meru. I imagine myself a peasant, born at a time when the only prominence on the flat Cambodian horizon was the central towers of Angkor Wat. I would have been raised to believe that the towers were Mt. Meru, home of the gods. My king, himself divine, lived there. This inspires little else but awe and fear, no surprise that the Khmer empire lasted 600 years under this scheme.

Bayon - can you count the faces?
We once again passed through the south gate of Angkor Thom, a walled city nearly 10 square kilometers in area, built by Jayavarman VII after the Cham empire had sacked the old Khmer capitol. Historians claim that Angkor Thom once supported a population of one million, at a time when large European cities held less than 100,000. The gate was topped with the now familiar four faces. We climbed to the crest of the wall, which pushed east and west, dividing the forest and the moat.

The most mysterious temple is Bayon. In addition to some historically interesting bas-reliefs, the temple boasts 216 stone faces. Bayon's central tower is unique for having a round base. This departure from the norm and the resulting aesthetic made it my favorite.

By now, we were both templed-out. With a storm brewing we rushed past the Baphuon and Terrace of Elephants before whisking through the tempest back to town via tuk-tuk.

Richard

Angkor - the Small Circuit

2010-12-16T18:23:00.008-06:00

Prasat Kravan
Our second day at Angkor was dedicated to the small circuit, a 17km loop which we completed by bicycle. The morning started quite nicely with a quick stop at Prasat Kravan, whose highlight is the interior of a brick tower containing several scenes starring Vishnu.

A few minutes away was Bantaey Kdei, another construction by Jayavarman VII, which contained more faces.

We stopped for lunch at a collection of stalls catering to tuk-tuk drivers. The offering were various grilled creatures which had been cooked an indeterminate amount of time previously, and were now sitting cold under a few flies. Brittany had her doubts. I dove into the stuffed frog and grilled pork fat. While more substantial than, say, a sparrow, the presence of a number of small chewy bones put me off. Intermittently crunchy is not a texture I appreciate.

Next we visited Ta Prohm, of Tomb Raider fame. The site is known for the progress of the overgrown jungle. Massive trees sprout from the roofs of many of the structures. Sadly, in the past few years, steps have been taken in the name of restoration. In addition to reconstructing collapsed building, many trees have been destroyed to prevent further damage to the structure. At the least, platforms and railings were erected to aid with photo opportunities. While great for posing, they destroy the romance of site.

We biked passed Ta Keo, a stark temple mount left uncompleted when the commissioning king died during construction.

We had just finished our rounds at the small temple of Thommanon when the sky broke open. This was to be our first experience with monsoon rains. The power was awesome. What had been dry minutes earlier was a rushing torrent. Expansive ditches and culverts filled in a matter of minutes. Little surprise remains to how Tonle Sap grows 10x in size every wet season.

Prepared for the weather, we buttoned down our rain gear and pushed on. First past the Victory Gate of Angkor Thom. We took a left in the “city center” and rode past Bayon, exiting the city at its south gate. We had intended to watch the sunset at Angkor Wat, but our plans, like our butts, were soaked by the rain. Surely, tomorrow would be different.

Richard

Mangosteen - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-11-24T13:12:00.015-06:00

With a thick, pretty dark purple rind, the mangosteen seems hard, but it is very easy to peel with fingers only. The rind is
totally separate from the flesh, so no messy cross-contamination. Inside, the small white bulbs are easy to pull apart, but the flesh is not strong. The fruit is surprising juicy and very sweet. Moderately tart. Dime size flat seeds. A++!

Jackfruit - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-11-17T08:19:00.005-06:00

Similar to the durian with a less "offensive" flavor. Light sweetness,
creamy texture. Little sections of edible flesh surrounding sizable seeds. I loved it and Richard actually liked it, as opposed to its stinky friend.

BKM

Sickness on the Road

2010-11-15T08:12:00.037-06:00

Richard says sickness is an inevitable part of travel and he is surely correct for himself. He has been sick with sinuses and a low fever twice for this trip. Once in Hue and once, again, in Pakse. A light headache and sniffles that eventually becomes low fever and a barrage of snot that these flimsy, single-ply Asian tissues simply cannot withstand.

Lonely Planet states that 30-50% of travelers will contract travelers diarrhea within 2 weeks of starting their trip, the vast majority are bacterial cases. Just as we began pushing our street-food limits in Hue, I was hit in the middle of the night with an urgent bathroom attack. I was scared shitless, excuse the pun. My only other experience was in Syria, when the condition lasted miserably for days, eventually rendering Richard and I incapable of moving – we missed most of the sights in Damascus. I crept back into bed so as not to wake Richard, and began contemplating my next move against this potentially debilitating illness.

What works for us:
-Any illness can benefit from a rehydrating concoction of watered down black tea with a heap of sugar and pinch of salt.
-If we didn't bring medication from home that fits our condition, we're not afraid of local pharmacies. We've never met a pharmacist who wasn't enthusiastic helping about us out. Usually they're dirt cheap and don't require a prescription! If we're skeeved out by whatever they hand us, we just check it out online before use.
- We always carry a thermometer, just in case a low fever gets out of control.
-If we think we're inflicted with traveler's diarrhea, start with a fast. The trickiness of travelers diarrhea is the false sense of well-being after a particularly debilitating download. I feel fine! Of course I can eat, again! I'm cured! But it is not so. (Plenty of rehydration fluid during the fast, though!)
-After a fast, test the stomach slowly, with plenty of liquids. I choose Ritz crackers for this (they're everywhere!).

As for me, I was A-OK after a day of strict fasting - rehydration fluid only - and an attapulgite pill from a local pharm for good measure. Free to push my stomach in every conceivable way through the rest of our trip :)

Angkor - Banteay Srei and the Big Circuit

2010-11-13T07:34:00.003-06:00

Banteay Srei
Our first proper day in Angkor started with trip out to Banteay Srei, translated “City of Women,” and home to some of the most intricate carvings in Angkor. Some say the mysterious moniker stems from the quality of the carvings – such delicacy could only be achieved by smaller, woman hands. Others hypothesize the temple was a monastery dedicated to housing women. The least interesting, and my vote, is that Srei is a contraction of Sa Rey, meaning auspicious. Either way, the carvings are truly spectacular. Despite the temple's diminutive size, we spent an hour and a half lapping the central tower examining and reexamining the details on the posts and scenes on the lintels.

Our first stop on the big circuit was Ta Som. The gates were topped by the four faces of Avalokiteshvara, a calling card for buildings constructed under ruler Jayavarman VII.

Faces of Avalokiteshvara
Preah Neak Poan, a ceremonial pool, was next. The large square pool was flanked by four smaller pools. Each was fed by a fountain styled in the likeness of a horse head, a lion head, an elephant head, or a human head. In the center of the main pool was an island adorned with two nagas – their tails entined. Monsoon flooding necessitated access via a 150m long elevated boardwalk, which passed over tadpole infested waters.

Preah Khan was our first taste of the grandiose Angkor temples. One of the first projects by Jayavarman VII, Preah Khan is an archetypal representation of Angkor architecture. The king's revolutionary style had yet to dominate his structures, and many features were straight out of earlier temples.

We backtracked along the big circuit, with a quick stop at the Eastern Mebon, an early temple mount located in the center of the Eastern Baray. The temple is capped by the familiar group of five temples, but an atypical guard of eight stone elephants stand on the corners of the lower tiers.

Brit loved the elephants.
Our last stop was the temple mount of Pre Rup. This steep temple is a great place for people in the know to watch a quiet sunset. A few travelers sat on the top tier, Angkor brand* beers in hand, watching the sun dip towards the forest canopy. For us, we had seen enough. We soaked in the golden hour preceding dusk and headed home.

Richard

Fanta Fanta! Don't You Wanta!

2010-11-12T15:19:00.005-06:00

Now in LYCHEE!
I was thrilled to find this flavor, but disheartened when I took my first sip - it tastes like crap. Watered down weirdness. I'll stick to my orange and strawberry, thankyouverymuch!

BKM

Tonle Sap - the Heart of Cambodia

2010-11-12T07:58:00.000-06:00

The last full moon in October marks the beginning to on of the largest festivals in Cambodia, Bon Om Tuk. We witnessed part of the celebration on our bus ride to Siem Reap in the town of Kompong Thom. As our bus inched across the town's main bridge through a large crowd of revelers, we could see two long, colorful boats racing down the river. Each boat was powered by a few dozen paddlers similar to Dragon boat races in Chinese culture. Bon Om Tuk, which means reversal of the water, roughly corresponds with the end of the wet season and is meant to mark the occasion when the flow of the Tonle Sap river changes direction. Tonle Sap lake is unique in that every year during the wet season, when the Mekong river floods, excess water flows up the Tonle Sap river into the lake. During this period the lake gains over 1000% of its volume, flooding previously dry land with nutrient laden silt and making the land both fertile and creating one of the world's greatest inland fisheries. It is in this way that Tonle Sap is the heart of Cambodia.

With such a dramatic range in water levels, villages along the lake are architecturally unique. We cruised the main drag of Kompong Pluk in October when water was at peak levels. The stilt houses of the village sat a few feet above the waterline. During the dry season, the main strip is a dusty, dirt path 3-4 meters beneath our boat. The village was teaming with naked children having an afternoon bath, and floating pig stys. Past the village lay the famed flooded forest, which had been the center of a environmental battle ten years previous - the flooded trees make a great nursery for fish frylings in the wet season, but great firewood in the dry.

Water fight!
Further on was Tonle Sap lake, where large numbers of Khmers had gathered on boats for a gigantic water fight - throwing plastic bags filled with water, spewing their engines and even chucking water hyacinth at eachother. We assume this is part of the festival, but the twelve year-old captain (the only other person on the boat besides us) with his three word English vocabulary couldn't enlighten us.

Our kid captain.

Richard

Angkor - Climbing Through Beng Mealea

2010-11-11T14:45:00.001-06:00

Beng Mealea was our first Angkor stop, and is still one of my favorites. While better bas-reliefs and statues are found elsewhere, nothing beats crawling through this ancient deteriorated temple. Surely, countless tourists have traipsed over the same piles of rubble, but I felt like the first.

BKM

Angkor - Plan of Attack

2010-11-11T09:34:00.001-06:00

Beng Mealea
Angkor Archaeological Park consists of the remains of the Khmer empire's intertwined religious and political center. Khmer kings styled themselves as gods and to project this image built temples representative of Mt. Meru, home of the gods. From 802 AD until the death of Jayavarman VII, the most prolific builder, in 1219 AD, the Khmers built temples, barays, monasteries, bridges, and great cities in the vicinity of the modern town of Siem Reap.

With so many sights, the potential options for independent travelers are daunting. Wary of the inevitable temple fatigue, we set out to view less renowned sights before capping off our tour with visits to the masterpieces of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. The most visited temples are split between big and small circuits, which we would visit on the second and third days. We would start our tour with the remote temple of Beng Mealea, located 70km away by tuk-tuk.

Unlike many of the temples on the circuits, Beng Mealea is unrestored and still contains many of the centuries old trees that had reclaimed the site. The central tower has collapses and large stone blocks litter many sections of the temple. Here, a bit of clambering is recommended, lending an exploratory air to the situation. Without a rigidly marked path, one is Indiana Jones looking for undiscovered details amongst a maze of ruins. The site gave us a crude intro to Angkor motifs, which we would later see in more preserved forms. We spent nearly three hours traipsing around Beng Mealea, and were piqued to see more temples in the coming days.

Richard

Rambutan - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-11-10T23:27:00.000-06:00

I love the playful look of the rambutan - bright red and "hairy." They're easy to peel, and the taste doesn't disappoint, either. The white flesh is like a sweeter grape with a larger pit.

BKM

Touring Phnom Penh

2010-11-10T07:55:00.003-06:00

Silver pagoda.
Our second day in Phnom Penh was spent doing the typical tourist circuit around the city. The National Museum introduced us to the splendor of Angkor period art and architecture, and whet our appetites for our approaching visit to Siem Reap. We wandered beneath the art-deco dome and tarp ceilings of the central market and climbed the Wat Phnom (Phnom means hill) – home to a troupe of well fed, well behaved macaques. We took a tuk-tuk out to the somber memorial at Choeung Ek “killing fields,” the final resting place for the 17000 inmates of Tuol Sleng prison.

We had to wait until our fourth day in Cambodia to complete the tour with a trip to the Royal Palace (currently closed) and the Silver Pagoda, one of the more opulent buildings in existence. Located in the center of a large courtyard which is lined with murals depicting the Hindu epic Ramayana, the Silver Pagoda not only contains 5000 one kilo silver tiles – which make up the floor and give the temple its name – but also thousands of Buddha statues made from various precious materials. One Buddha is made from a large emerald, another is made from gold, encrusted with thousands of diamonds including a 25 carat centerpiece. Royal trappings are not new to Khmer monarchs, as we were about to find out at Angkor.

Phnom Tamao

2010-11-09T15:42:00.003-06:00

Pure white Finlayson's squirrel.
Our third day in Cambodia, we rented a motorbike and headed to Phnom Tamao. Cambodia's premier animal sanctuary is a cross between a zoo and a safari park, containing scores of large and adequately sized enclosures housing 1200 individuals from 85 species spread over 2500 hectares of protected forest. We rode our motorbike along the paths with only the animals around us, stopping periodically to observe new and exotic species.

Indochinese tiger.
In addition to iconic creatures like the Asian Elephant (endangered), Indochinese Tiger (endangered), Indochinese Leopard (near threatened), Sun and Moon bears (both vulnerable) thanks to Free the Bears, we saw peculiar animals like Finlayson's squirrel, the Binturong (vulnerable), the Black Giant Squirrel (near threatened), and Greater Adjutant storks (endangered). Phnom Tamao also boasts the largest captive population of Pileated gibbons (endangered), which are quite the entertainers.

Greater Adjutant stork.
(Describe this foul looking animal as you will.)
Before any fellow nature lovers call this method of spotting wildlife less than authentic, consider that most of the animals housed here were rescued from poachers and private owners. Animals are released when possible, and a lifetime of dedicated searching in whats left of the true “wild” might yield half the sightings.

Green bee-eater.
This being a protected forest with its own wildlife, we spotted dozens of wild green bee-eaters, and had a fleeting glimpse of the beautiful Asian Fairy Bluebird.

Richard

Cambodian Food

2010-11-09T08:09:00.002-06:00

After the culinary wonderland that is Vietnam, Khmer originality, street-food, and cleanliness are seriously lacking. The streets in Phnom Penh are dead. Whereas every corner turned in Vietnam presented a delightful culinary surprise, Cambodian street food is non-existent in comparison. Only drinks and the occasional grungy noodle stall. No thanks.

Upon arrival, we immediately began patronizing restaurants. The prices were so bloated and the portions so small that it all but canceled out the fact that the food was somewhat tasty. A well made fish-amok is a Cambodian specialty – a coconut curry concoction, not as brazen as it's Thai cousin.

We ended up eating the majority of our meals at our Phnom Penh guesthouse, where both the quality and prices were moderate. When we boarded the bus to leave the big city, I was listlessly hopeful that our experience in Siem Reap would prove more flavorful.

Update – The food in Siem Reap was primarily a touristy square of hundreds of restaurants, mostly foreign and mostly expensive. Khmer food still failed to impress me (especially compared to Vietnamese or Thai), but the faux-Mexican was cheap and not half-bad. That's a lot coming from a Texan! They also had a few bbq places that were delicious, but I'm not sure how authentic.

BKM

Phnom Penh, First Impressions

2010-11-08T08:05:00.000-06:00

Phnom Penh has a vice-ridden, dangerous stigma attached with its name. Among the less serious vices of military-class shooting ranges, “happy herb” pizzas, and the oldest profession lie more despicable side of these activities such a vaporizing a cow with a RPG, opiates, and child prostitution. Coupled with a murky political situation and the frequency of violence, we went into Phnom Penh expecting one of the most unstable places we've ever been.

Within hours upon arrival this uneasiness was gone. The pace and attitude of Phnom Penh is more relaxed and friendly than HCMC. Khmers are a smiley bunch, the vast majority upon making eye contact in the street break out in a full toothy smile. At lunch we discover that the food style has greatly changed – more emphasis on curries and soups, and more fish than pork. The US dollar is the primary currency, with some ATMs the only choice. Cambodian riels merely replaced the missing US coinage – 1000 equals roughly a quarter. The only indication of our previous conception of Cambodia are the armed guards. Private soldiers line the streets in front of massive houses, offices, and vehicles of the highly esteemed – always armed.

Our first encounter with the dark history of Cambodia was a visit to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Memorial at the site of the infamous S-21 political prison. From 1975-1979, 17000 political prisoners were incarcerated and tortured before being executed at the nearby Choeng Ek killing fields for “crimes against the revolution.” Only 7 prisoners survived S-21. The director of the prison, alias Duch, is the only Khmer Rouge leader to take responsibility for his hand in the genocide. Much of the leadership of the Khmer Rouge is long since dead, mostly of self-destructive political intrigue. Only four more members of the leadership are currently standing trial for their crimes against humanity.

Twenty-one years have passed since Cambodia was freed from Vietnamese occupation; seventeen years since the first national elections; six years since the first local elections. Phnom Penh appears to be growing past the recent atrocities inflicted upon it – the city was forcibly evacuated by the Khmer Rouge beginning in 1975. Buddhism was outlawed and actively dismantled by the Khmer Rouge, but now massive, newly constructed Buddhist complexes line the freshly paved avenues. Despite the common sight of stoners and western sex tourists walking around with young Khmer girlfriends, the government seems to have taken a hard stance against harder drugs and child prostitution.

Richard

Durian - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-11-07T16:03:00.014-06:00

No fruit has such a reputation preceding it as the durian. We've heard trains and buses ban the fruit because of its stench. They say the foul smell will linger in your nostril for days. Nonetheless, it is accepted that if you can withstand the smell you will be greatly rewarded.

My initial introduction to durian was wholly disappointing - but not in a bad way. It was lacking in stench! When we pulled up to a bus station with a large durian display, I thought I could smell the trashy fruit from the bus. To my deep disappointment, the odor was simply actual refuse.

One evening we stumbled upon a vendor at the market. We snatched up the prickly fruit and brought it to our hotel, where the ladies laughed at us but brought us a plate and knife.

Beneath the sharp exterior (it had actually penetrated Richard's shirt), were 4 wedges containing a few large seeds. The texture is creamy like custard, and the flavor was unique. Overall, it tastes faintly of bananas and pineapple, but it's the pineapple-tingle at the back of the tongue that really surprised me.

I really enjoyed the snack and found myself craving it a few days later. Richard didn't hate it, but surely didn't crave it.

BKM

Up the Mother River

2010-11-07T08:03:00.001-06:00

Our journey up the Mekong from Vinh Long to Phnom Penh was one of the most varied trips we have ever taken. The trip consisted of seven legs by seven unique forms of transport – reminiscent of a favorite show of ours: By Any Means with Charlie Boorman.

Mekong fast-boat
We started from Vinh Long in the early afternoon by minibus to a private bus station where we connected with a bus to Can Tho. In Can Tho, we transferred to another bus station by taxi. The next leg to Chau Doc was completed by an express van which as some points was carrying 22 people, with only 18 seats. Two men were sharing a plastic stool in the door well, the director hanging out of an open window, and an unlucky old lady standing behind the back row of seats in the luggage compartment. The van reached the outskirts of Chau Doc an hour past sunset, and we hopped on the back of two xe om (motorbike taxis) into town. Riding on the back of a motorbike with a 50+ pound backpack was a new, somewhat questionable form of transport – a mix of discomfort and terror from the weight resting on your backside and the potential of falling off by hooking a passerby with a stray strap. The next morning we caught a fast boat from our hotel. We passed through a major canal to the main stream of the Mekong before heading upriver to the Cambodian border and Phnom Penh.

Harvesting rice on the Vietnamese Mekong riverside.
The riverfront in Cambodia is markedly different from that of Vietnam. Where as in Vietnam, levees lined the river and every piece of land was being cultivated, the Cambodian banks were untamed mud, and agriculture was less frequent. Men stood on posts in the river sweeping huge triangular nets through the water. Herds of cattle ate grass and drank from the shores. Pairs of black and white kingfishers flicked across the water spooked by our boat. Colorful Buddhist wats of a style particular to the Indianized states of south-east Asia populated the shoreline. Their naga-crested roofs stark against the green forest canopy and expansive blue sky. Children waved and flashed pearly smiles, their faces much darker and broader that their Vietnamese neighbors.

Cambodian riverside with naga-laden temple. Photo courtesy of Richard.
We finished our journey by a taxi-like vehicle called a remork. Like an Indian auto-rickshaw, it is a motorbike that drags a two wheeled covered cart. However, the bike is attached such that the cart can be removed and used independently. In twenty-four hours we had encountered seven unique forms of transport, some endemic to the two countries they served, and traveled over 300 km to start the Cambodian leg of our trip.

Richard

Vietnamese Food

2010-11-06T07:45:00.000-05:00

I can't count the ways I could wax poetic about my all-consuming love for Vietnam, primarily the cuisine. In no time, we became comfortable with their pervasive street food culture and dove right in. It's hard not to when every quick jaunt through town throws tasty little goodies in your path – donuts, waffles, fruits, shakes, meat pies, soups, and more.

Nearly every night, we ignored the flashy tourist restaurants in favor of a walk through the main thoroughfare or night market, settling on a street stall that loosely fit our only requirement that they be busy enough that they are quality and fresh.

Slurping up fish soup on a poorly lit street corner.
We couldn't have identified the ingredients even if we had tried.
It was easy to find what we wanted because Vietnam uses a western alphabet. Initially we stuck to the dishes we knew, but after baby sparrows and an unnamed fish soup served on the sidewalk in Hue, we were unstoppably indiscriminate. We were almost never disappointed with the flavor and quality of our food. Some of our favorite dishes remain nameless, but here are a few that we can identify.

Banh canh lady. The small yellow things are the crispy miniature pancakes.
Banh Xeo – Richard wasn't a fan, but I am in love. An uber oily, eggy crepe filled to spilling with beansprouts, shrimp, and other goodies. Served with a peanutty sauce. (Xeo is pronounced “shay-oh” and is named so for the sizzling sound it makes when frying.)
Banh Canh – Discovered at a late night market, served by a woman sitting on a tiny stool, surrounded by her equipment and satisfied customers. These were Tostito's Scoop-ish crispy fried dough served atop bean sprouts, veggies, and bits of meat and a chicken sausage thing. Drowned in sweet fish sauce, it was simply divine.
Che – A street-side shake. The base is ice, coconut milk, and a thick, yellow tapioca concoction. Anything can be added – black beans, lotus seeds, jellies, and more. A refreshing drink that I crave, now that we've left the country.
Cau Lau – Maybe my favorite dish in Vietnam, this soup is a Hoi An specialty. The noodles are a light tannish color with a rough texture. They're topped with leafy green herbs, bean sprouts, tasty pork, thin croutons, and just enough of the incredibly flavorful broth to wet it all down. I could eat a bowl of this soup every day for the rest of my life.

Vietnam is also known for their delicious French pastries. This is the only place I've been where the pastries look good and taste good, even if the contents were surprising. (You know how pastries always look better than they taste.) I once picked out a chocolate pastry. When I picked it apart and finally gave it a nibble, it was apparent that it was not chocolate. I have no clue as to the contents because I devoured it too quickly!

When we arrived in Hanoi, I had a narrow view of Vietnamese food: pho and spring rolls. I had vaguely heard of Vietnamese sandwiches. Consider my eyes peeled open. Their cuisine is as deep as the culture that surrounds it and the willingness of every street vendor trying to make a ~~buck~~ dong by frying up something irresistible to the passersby.

BKM

First Stop on the Mighty Mekong

2010-11-05T14:01:00.000-05:00

Our first stop on the Mekong river was Vinh Long, a small provincial capital that lies on one of thousands of islands that rest between the nine branches that constitute the Mekong delta. With less than 200,000 residents, Vinh Long is a sleepy backwater to delta epicenter, Can Tho (pop. 1.3 mil), only 50km away. However, even the smallest crossroad bustles in south Vietnam's breadbasket.

Before we toured the riverine vicinity of Vinh Long by motorized long boat, Brit stopped at the local terrestrial market for an impromptu photo shoot.

Our main destination was the daily floating market at Cai Be, 14km away by water. Separating the two centers of commerce was one branch of the delta and an island. The island was in turn bisected by a ten meter wide canal, a thoroughfare of commerce. Giant barges spilling with rice plowed through the still water. The banks, supported by retaining walls of brick, concrete, and sandbags, boasted large palms and trees up to eight meters high bearing all manners of fruit. The occasional pedestrian/motorbike bridge passed overhead, with more frequent crossings being made by ferries. Much narrower channels further divided the island, their mud shores populated by mangrove trees and blue mudskippers.

Floating market.
The floating market was similar to its land-based counterpart. Sixty-foot wholesaler boats were anchored loosely in rows, full of one particular ware (mostly fruit and sugar cane), which was proudly advertised by hanging a sample from a 10 ft long mast above the ship. Smaller boats motored and paddles between the larger vessels purchasing merchandise for further distribution and personal use. The quantities of produce cultivated in this region is staggering.

Back at our hotel, which apparently operates a side business renting rooms by the hour (with complementary condoms available at reception and in the stairwells), we prepared for the long journey up the mother river to Phnom Penh.

Richard

Quick Tour of Vietnamese Market

2010-11-05T07:10:00.002-05:00

Time for some shopping...

Eel? Water snake? Who knows, fry it up!

The vendor opened the lid when she saw me struggling to take a photo through the dirty glass. I got as close as I dared. (Upon further inspection, I saw my distance mattered not - their mouths are sewed shut.)

I laughed when I saw these guys. It looks like they're wearing clothes. The big crab dressed in blue at the top is my favorite.

Sweet little frogs, unknowing of their fate. The flesh of their brethren is piled high in the background.

What flesh in the background, you ask?

In case you're wondering - this is most definitely not a pet market. All food, YUM. Unfortunately, I didn't make it over to the fruits and veggies section of the market, though it would have been just as exotic, I assure you.

Three Days in Saigon Ho Chi Minh City

2010-11-03T16:40:00.001-05:00

I'm not a fan of huge, new cities and HCMC was no different. Larger in population and area than Hanoi, HCMC is much younger. This bodes well for the width of streets but poorly for caliber of its cultural sights. Most buildings worthy of note were the early 20th century colonial constructions.

The highlight of HCMC was the food. The pho was superior to all we had eaten before, and we found one of the best restaurants in HCMC, Quan An Ngon, which specialized in street-food but with vastly superior quality.

We had official business in HCMC, and having arrived late Friday had to wait until Monday morning to get extra visa pages for Brit's passport. In the spare time this gave us, we were able to catch up on the blog and ship back some of our accumulated booty, which was good as the new clothes from Hoi An made my bag look like a bloated water-buffalo.

With HCMC, our stay in Vietnam was coming to an end. In two days we would be in Cambodia.

Richard

He Was Orphaned – So it's Okay...Almost

2010-11-03T08:27:00.004-05:00

Rich and I are at the communal computers, and a kid sits on a couch near us. There's lots of motion as he's swinging this ball of something around and around on the coffee table. Between emails I glance over...

That's how we meet this little guy.

Me: Oh my God! How did you get this!?

Kid: I bought him.

Hrm. I think these are endangered or something.
Me: Oh, they sell them here?

Kid: It's illegal.

Me: Oh...uh...haha...

Kid: He was an orphan, I've had him since he was a baby.

Oh, maybe it's not that bad. The loris was an orphan – he's giving it a home...
Me: Aw, poor guy!

Kid: I bought him from the hunter.

Yup...no way around it. This is a horrible situation.
Me: Are you going to stick around? Can I go get my camera?

I wanted to see a pygmy slow loris while we were here, but I had no hopes for it. They're a threatened species and nocturnal, meaning pretty hard to spot. And this is how my morals around poaching and illegal animal trafficking are compromised by my need to photograph tiny furry creatures.

BKM

Reunification Express

2010-11-02T15:04:00.001-05:00

A few guidebooks had recommended riding a train in Vietnam. Being fans of train travel, especially after positive experiences in China and India, we were excited to ride the rails. The Reunification Express runs over 1300km from Hanoi to HCMC. The fastest train takes nearly 31 hours to complete this route. We rode the fastest train for 17 hours from Danang to HCMC.

Whereas the week before, trains were cancelled due to heavy flooding in north-central Vietnam, our train was only delayed a few hours. For this trip we chose hard sleeper births – 6 beds in one unit. About 30% cheaper than the top end soft-sleeper, these births are occupied by mostly locals. Our experiences in Europe, Egypt, China, and India did not prepare us for the dilapidated state of Vietnamese trains.

Typical top births are allowed at least 30 inches of head room. This train barely allowed 18 inches. The rider was obliged to slide into the bunk, and barely had room to lay on his side. Most features of the train were nonfunctional – important features, too – like doorknobs and reading lamps, folding tables and sinks. Not a square inch of the interior seemed to have been scrubbed in years. The car itself looked like a Chinese hand-me-down, sharing many of the same features as Chinese trains. Only one generation older, before the design kinks had been worked out.

We arrived at Saigon Station, a name that hearkens back to the city's former moniker that most HCMCers still use today to describe their home, 35 years after the name change. In desperate need of a shower, we settled into a guesthouse in the backpackers' ghetto near Pham Ngu Lao.

Richard

My Son

2010-11-02T09:02:00.001-05:00

We motorbiked 50km to My Son from Hoi An before dawn in an attempt to catch the Champa ruins at sunrise. We ended up horribly late (as usual) but no harm done. With the massive rain clouds, there wasn't much of a sunrise. In fact, our tardiness was fortuitous. Unable to obtain a local map, we trailed the first tourbus of the day. We chased the bus through the damp, empty streets making half-a-dozen unmarked turns before popping out onto Hwy 1A. The rest of the trip was well marked.

Despite arriving an hour past “sunrise,” we, along with the tourbus, were the first to arrive. We parked the bike and walked 2km to the site, allowing ample time for the tourgroup to move further ahead. This left us alone in the cozy ruins, save for the bats hanging from the temple rafters.

After an hour of exploring, we headed back to Hoi An. We made it back in time for a quick lunch and a swim in the stormy ocean (great for body surfing) before heading off to Ho Chi Minh City.

Richard

Enjoying a Temple in Hoi An

2010-11-02T02:00:00.000-05:00

Pomelo - Fruits of Southeast Asia

2010-11-01T08:34:00.000-05:00

The fruit has a thick green rind. At the Bac Ha market, vendors were buried in mountains of the partially peeled fruits. They had sliced off most of the outer rinds to make them easier for immediate consumption.

The pomelo is like a less tart, drier grapefruit with much more membrane. All in all, I'd say we enjoyed it :)

Modern Wardrobe in a Medieval City

2010-10-29T10:01:00.002-05:00

Hoi An – famous for more than it's UNESCO World Heritage Old City. It is home to hundreds of skilled tailors. Some call it 'the poor man's Hong Kong.” Here, a couple of hundred bucks and 48 hours got us a water-buffalo leather jacket, 2 pairs of silk/cashmere pants, a custom long summer dress, a knee length wool jackets, and a bathing suit from scratch. All fitted exactly to our bodies, complete with three fittings and alterations.

Richard

Prix Fixe

2010-10-28T09:29:00.001-05:00

From Hue, our bus dropped us off in a typical tourist trap – at the front of a hotel that was “a very long walk” from the center and “running a special.”
“Only $15 a night!”
Either the traveler accepts the special price without comparing, or spends money on a moto to get into town. Being the budget conscious travelers we are, we opted for neither, and trudged about eight minutes into town – definitely not far enough to warrant hiring a xe om or taxi.

Our first stop was a dilapidated mess with no electricity, undergoing construction and employees sleeping in the hallway. The hotelier refused to accept less than $15. Um, okay....onto the next hotel!

We settled on a place for...you guessed it, fifteen dollars. Albeit, this time a clean A/C room with electricity. Later while in the lobby, Richard overheard other backpackers trying an old trick on our hotelier:
“I was offered $12 down the street for a room like this. If you can match it, I'll stay here.”
The response was the same as for us when we tried the day earlier.
“This is not possible. From where?” The hotelier smirked while the backpacker, the same as we, fumbled to produce the culprit.

National Pastime

2010-10-27T17:59:00.001-05:00

In Vietnam, every body of water larger than a pot hole - be that family pond, flooded ditch, or imperial moat - is typically being fished throughout the day.

A school boy with makeshift pole pulling silver-dollar sized fished from a swollen ditch along the road on his way to school.

An old man with a long bamboo rod and a hand-held spool of string sits patiently along the moat at the Imperial city of Hue.

Richard

Cuc Phuong National Park

2010-10-27T08:51:00.007-05:00

Cuc Phuong is Vietnam's first, and some say best, national park. A fifty kilometer ride into the hill near Ninh Binh brought us to our very first of what we hope to be many encounters with primary growth rainforest. This jungle is home to fifty meter tall trees and numerous species of forest creatures.

On our three hour sojourn by motorbike (not a preferred wildlife viewing platform) along the park's singular road, the only creature of note we saw was a five foot long black snake that lay spanning nearly all of the single lane. Based on our limited observations, we believe it was an Indochinese spitting cobra. They're all black and fairly common in the area. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stay for an overnight safari, when most animals are spotted. (Brittany is dying to see a pygmy slow loris, and Richard is dying to see a pangolin.)

The highlight of our trip was the endangered primate rescue center. The facility is home to 160 individuals from 15 species, including the Cat Ba langur. Most animals there were rescued from poachers and illegal wildlife traders, with a few of the younger individuals coming from their successful breeding program. So successful, in fact, that a near identical center has been built in the Cat Tien National Park near HCMC.

Same Karst, Different Day

2010-10-26T06:17:00.000-05:00

The day after touring Halong Bay, we were in Ninh Binh touring the same karst peaks, set not in seas of salt water, but seas of rice patties. This day, our vessel a motorbike, the drizzle turned to dust. To avoid the hassle of hiring a rowboat to go through Tam Coc, the caves that are the main attraction of Ninh Binh, we climbed to the peak above Mua cave. The pagoda on top, only accessible by 450 stone steps, offers good views of the row boats below.

In stark contrast, the view back towards Ninh Binh reveals the city's character. Ninh Binh is a dusty city built on Highway 1A which connects Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City. Our drive to the pagoda took us about 10km down this artery of Vietnam, including a few stoplights. Most stoplights here have a countdown for both green and red. Two to three seconds before the light turns green, people start moving. Coupled with the some drivers' blatant disregard for the red light altogether and adding Vietnam's lack of a protected left green arrow, intersections are fuckwacked.

This same day, we tried to visit the ancient capitol Hoa Lu. By the time we began our long drive back to our hotel, the sun was setting and all of the large trucks were trying to make it home, as well. It was a truly frightening experience having to choose between lack of vision due to dark sunglasses for eyeprotection during dusk or lack of vision due to dust/sand/rocks in the eyes. It needn't be said that our arrival at the hotel was a glorious relief, despite that like most other hotels in the city, our room faced the highway and exposed us to the constant din of traffic and ear shattering air horns from sunrise to well after sunset.

R+BM

Cat Ba Boat Tour Around Ha Long Bay

2010-10-25T08:42:00.000-05:00

We were hesitant to book a Halong Bay tour in lieu of independently kayaking so soon after the Bac Ha incident, however organized tours are the only option to explore the region beyond hiring a private boat (which is prohibitively expensive). We were pleasantly surprised despite the gray skies and near constant drizzle. It helps that we were joined by other independent travelers, uninterested in guided tours.

We kayaked amongst fish farms floating between karst isles and toured an uninspiring cave before being served a huge meal of spring rolls, seafood, veggies, and white rice. Afterwards, we swam near a deserted beach, taking turns diving off the roof of our dilapidated boat.

Our last stop was Monkey Island, which had a short hike to great views of Long Ha Bay and a troupe of maniacal macaques. The troupe was well behaved until a tourist from another boat pulled out a snack. Suddenly, two monkeys attacked her, tugging at the bag. In an instant, every person holding something their hands was suspect. One of our boat mates holding a orange point-and-click camera was assaulted, the monkeys pulling at her skirt and tripping her as she tried to flee. I scooped up a rock to strike at the assailants. A young male with the look of a crazed junkie in his eyes confronted me. To him the rock in my hand looked like his next fix. I threw the rock at him and held out my now empty hands. After another false charge at me, he and about eight others chased the next victim, another boat mate, this time holding his sandals. As he was chased twenty yards down the beach, the remainder of our boat gathered knee deep in the surf. We signaled our ship's captain, who had anchored off shore, and were evacuated safely back to Cat Ba island concluding our tour.

With all the activities, the highlight of the trip was sitting on the roof of the boat watching the unique oceanscape pass around us. The magnificence of Halong and Lan Ha bays barely redeemed the disappointment that was Cat Ba town.

Richard

Cat Ba, Cat Ba

2010-10-24T08:38:00.004-05:00

The town of Cat Ba on Cat Ba island left a bad taste in our mouths. Prices for food and lodging were elevated from Hanoi standards, with an appalling lack of quality.

Falling upon our steadfast method of making the best of a bad place, we grabbed a motorbike and headed up the coast road. The road follows the west coast of the island, passing rocky cliffs, deserted beaches, and mangrove swamps. We followed the road inland through fantastic valleys surrounded by karst peaks. The return road from the fairy dock at the north extremity of the island to Cat Ba town on the south end of the island separates the inhabited half of the island from Cat Ba national park.

Cat Ba national park is home to an endangered subspecies of langur, but the only wildlife we spotted were packs of wild dogs scavenging along the road.

Richard

Doing What We Do

2010-10-23T07:45:00.001-05:00

General frolicking about, off the path, in rice terraces around Sapa.

Sapa, An Ending

2010-10-22T07:25:00.002-05:00

Our last day we had planned to relax around town, writing and catching up with the ol' blog. But a chance meeting with some friends we met at the hotel led to a hike to nearby Cat Cat village.

At this time in Vietnam, the rice field are being harvested by hand. Villagers go out into the terraces, cutting and binding bundles of rice. Others come through and beat the bundles over large bins to shake the rice off. The kernels are then dried on large tarps, sidewalks, driveways, or sometimes just the side of the road. The last step for them is to climb a small ladder with baskets of the rice and pour it into large bins. This allows the wind to take away the stray bits of chaff.

Knowing that Cat Cat could be a little on the ultra-touristy side, our party took a purposeful wrong turn into another valley for a quick sidetrip. The couples promptly and accidentally lost eachother. Richard and I kept walking down and down, meaning to turn around eventually, but there was always something interesting just around the corner. We meandered to the very bottom of the mountain to the fast paced Ta Van river. Everything was fine going down – we felt secluded and adventurous – until we reached that river and had to turn around for our hike back up. We had descended at least 1500 feet down from our hotel, and we had to earn it back.

When we cleared the road over an hour later, we hitched a ride to town with a minibus full of Japanese tourists. But not before downing an entire 1.5L of water from a roadside vendor. We were so ill-prepared to be lost, we only had a .5L that didn't even last the way down!

Our hike was one striking view after another. By starting at the top and descending the valley, we had every possible view of the rice terraces, even walking through a couple. During one rest stop about 2/3 the way back up the mountain, I looked over the entire valley full of rice terraces and tiny people hard at work. It felt unreal. Like I was looking out at a CG rendition of an artist's perfect thought of Vietnamese rice terraces. If I lifted my hand up, I could reach out and touch the painting I was gazing into.

Finally back in Sapa, we were dog tired but felt accomplished. We found an authentic British pub – owned by a Brit – and ordered the most gargantuan fish and chips I have ever seen, complete with authentic malt vinegar. We met a few people and drank a few beers and felt pretty good when we hopped on our mini bus to Lao Cai - which connected with a train, taxi, bus, and eventually hydrofoil to land us in Cat Ba 18 hours later.

xoxo
BKM

The Flower H'mong We Speak Of

2010-10-21T07:39:00.002-05:00

These women were at the Bac Ha market. I tried my best to ask permission and generally not act like a horse's ass (compared to the other tourists). Read the link. You'll understand.

BKM

Easy Riders (Or, Our New Favorite Mode of Transportation)

2010-10-20T07:32:00.005-05:00

Fresh off the disappointment of Bac Ha, we opted against the typical,local-led foot trek down into the Ta Van Valley. While the small groups (less than 6) would have been less obnoxious as a busfull, the tours tended to start from the same places at the same time and go along the same routes, leading to a well worn path hardly better than bus tracks. Instead, we decided to take a motorbike down to the Tay village of Ban Ho. We stopped all along the 28km road and climbed out to spectacular vantage points of the valley below.

The untethered freedom of motorbike travel is liberating, but compared to The States there are a few differences.

Imagine our fat American asses squished on this piddly machine for an entire day of traversing gravelly, potholed roads thatmake the Grand Canyon look “eh.” Ass-blistering and spine rattling, I tell you. -Brit
-The largest bike we've seen is 110cc – when riding two up, speed is limited.
-When offered automatic or manual, I chose manual, but was surprised to find there was no clutch. A manual motorbike is more a semi-automatic and gear shifting is reversed. -Roads alternate from two lane, nicely paved thoroghfares to six inch deep muddy puddles, landslide choked cliffsides, and gravel covered construction zones.
-With most roads being slightly less than two lanes with all manners of vehicle and livestock travelling at different rates, traffic patterns are complex. A motorist must be vigilant for oncoming traffic, stalled trucks, crossing pedestrians, passing motorbikes, and wandering livestock, allowing for ample use of the horn.

Moms should not read the next section.

On a 15% downhill grade, rocky construction road, we lost our motorbike crash virginity. Now, this sounds more alarming than it is - after all, we have our wits and fingers to type up this post. We merely tipped over going about 2kph after the front tire locked up on a fist-sized rock. We both agree, it was more of an ungraceful dismount. I landed on my upper shin, and other than loss of pride, the only damage a dime sized hole in my jeans. I learned quickly that on downhill gravel, one should focus on the back break – a lesson I've never had the opportunity to learn on a road in the US.

After our spill, we were waved down by a group of loud teenagers who had witnessed fall. They pointed us down a narrow sidewalk to the town of Ban Ho.

We ate fried rice in one of the three “restaurants” next to the town bridge. It seemed their only other business to sell ice cream to school girls walking home.

Richard

After an unsuccessfull attempt to visit La Vie waterfall, we headed back to Sapa via the villages of Su Pan (Black H'Mong) and Ta Van (Dzay). The roads were equally treacherous, but our sorely learned skills kept us upright.

Optical Illusion

2010-10-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

Here we are atop a small hill near the highest mountain pass in Vietnam.
My head looks larger than Richard's. It is not. Really. I swear. Really.

Just Don't Eat the Head

2010-10-19T07:23:00.006-05:00

To make up for our lack of adventure by joining the tourbus to Bac Ha, that night we walked to a local street stall for some “street meat” - the third most questionable form of streetfood, behind seafood and raw, unwashed fruit and veggies.

The nice lady threw some raw pork..? or beef...? and two baby sparrows onto the grill and fanned the ashy gray coals into life.

For future reference, baby sparrows can be eaten nearly whole.

R+BM

Sapa

2010-10-18T09:25:00.003-05:00

It seems I am nursing a soft spot for old colonial hillstations. I love them for the same reasons the French and British did – a chilly, high altitude getaway from the heat, dust, and bustle of below. Sapa, an old French hillstation in the very northwest of Vietnam, did not
disappoint. The weather was cool, the fog mysterious, the sunshine a rare blessing. At every turn were sweeping views of communal tribal lands below. The beauty and sheer expanse of the rice terraces exceeded my wildest imagination.

There were many opportunities to trek and tour the tribal villages with groups and guides, but after our Sunday bus tour to the Bac Ha market, we were disappointed with the average tourist and really felt a need to trek on our own. So trek on our own we did.

Sapa is not lacking places to go and people to see. The area boasts the highest peak in Vietnam – Fansipan – and is home to a wide array of tribal peoples – Black H'mong, Dzay, Red Dzao, Tay, and more. There are countless opportunities to get off the beaten path.

We took a motorbike up to the highest mountain pass to photograph Fansipan. The view was hardly noteworthy, but just a small hike up a nearly concealed path on the hill opposite the road and the views were breathtaking. While I stayed on a certain spot to take pictures continuously as the light changed, the little monkey hiked over to a nearby hill for a bit of rest. Not a bad view, I think.

BKM

Be a Traveler, Not a Tourist

2010-10-17T01:55:00.000-05:00

There are two problems with visiting the weekly Bac Ha market from
Sapa. The first is logistical. The market is a 3.5 hour, two legged
trip from Sapa by public bus. The transfer in Lao Cai is made
difficult by the limited number of buses available. Round trip, fares
total about $12 per person. The alternative isn't much better – an
organized tour bus. This method takes 3 hours to reach Bac Ha and the
cost is only $10 per person. Interested in saving time and money, we
jumped at the tourbus offer, not realizing that the trip was more of a
tour and less of bus.

The second problem with visiting a market that is only held once a
week is the sheer concentration of tourists. While there are plenty of
sites in the vicinity of Sapa to disperse the thousand or so tourists
based there, every Sunday all of these tourists descend upon the Bac
Ha market. They gawk and rudely snap pictures without permission of
the artfully dressed Flower H'mong whose hinterland the market serves.

Real business does take place - water buffalo traded, piglets bought,
clothing mended - the traditionally dressed women transporting their
goods home on the backs of xe oms, modern motorbike taxis. However,
the local-to-tourist ratio (LTR)* was a paltry 3:1, at best.

There, the westerner is not treated as a visitor, but an integral
annoyance to the locals. They only interact to exchange cash. We
explored the town, trying to find a pocket of authenticity but were
unsuccessful.

On the return trip, our bus made an unsolicited stop at a local
village to “view the local ways.” Since we had pulled up near 3 other
gargantuan buses, we knew that this was not to be. Dozens of tourists
were lined up to snap the same photo of the same boy shaking the same
rice – none of them asking permission or in any way interacting with
the child. The village felt like a zoo, with the villagers playing the
part of caged spectacle, treated inferiorly in this tourist
relationship.

I tried to imagine my life, every Sunday afternoon invaded by loud,
flashing tourists. Our uneasiness was reflected in the faces of our
village hosts.

We couldn't get back into the bus fast enough to finish the last leg
of our journey. On the side of a mountain, someone had painted the
phrase,

"Be a traveler, not a tourist."

After this experience at Bac Ha, we vowed to always travel
independently if possible.

*A rather unscientific assessment made by Richard to describe the
authenticity of a working city.

-Richard

Happy 1000 Hanoi, You Look Swell

2010-10-10T22:49:00.002-05:00

This month Thang Long (Hanoi) celebrates its millenial anniversary. Lights on Ho Kien Lake, flower sculptures at the Temple of Literature, flag shows and minesweepers in Ba Dinh Square, and circuses in the Old Quarter – the whole town is gearing up for “a big party” according to Phung, a local pharmacology student we met at Ho Kiem Lake. Phong and his friend Duc approached us to study their English. Both born to rice farmers in a village 100km from Hanoi, they aspired to one day study in America.

Phung is ridiculed by his peers for his dreams of America. He's too ambitious, they say. Phung isn't deterred – he asks for tips on British versus American English.

Later that night on our walk home, we pull up tiny plastic chairs at a street restaurant. Without question, the “waitress” begins to throw tiny plates of questionably cold dishes on our table. Cold beef; dill and squid salad; meatballs topped with tomatoes; a foreign vegetable with the sliminess of okra but the look of an overboiled cucumber; and so much more.

The temperature and consistency of the meal is bothersome, but we're hungry and this is the meal we've payed for. We simply cross our fingers and hope we don't see the effects of this meal in 4-6 hours.

R+BM

Frogger of Life and Death

2010-10-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

There is an art to crossing streets in Hanoi. “Don't stop, keep moving slowly, the drivers will avoid you,” says Ms. Ho, our hotelier.

I found this to be mostly true after causing a few screeching halts and an incident where Brittany was hit by an overloaded moped traveling on the wrong side of the road. She's fine.

Less than twenty years ago, Hanoi had no stop-lights. Today, many intersections are regulated by the familiar green, yellow, and red. Often the signal is treated as a suggestion, and sometimes ignored outright. Traffic in Hanoi is a multi-layered tapestry – each thread, a driver's path, erratic. Step back to the street level, and dozens of threads weave through the streets forming dynamic patterns around pedestrians and cross-traffic.

(Photo by Brit, of course. Taken atop of a buzzing transformer – very safe.)

Richard

69 Bar Restaurant (69 Ma May, Hanoi)

2010-10-09T23:47:00.001-05:00

We completely sold out our last day in Hanoi and had a meal at the fancy Westerner haunt, 69 Bar Restaurant. Almost exclusively white faces crowded the tables, opening the menu to the first page “Why we are named 69...,” or “Excuse you, foreigner, with your dirty mind – 69 is a lucky number in Vietnamese culture.”

The cozy upstairs loft was filled to the brim with obvious pancakers and tour buses of middle aged Europeans ordering Vietnamese specialties and drinking local beer or cocktails made of imported liquors. (And an extensive liquor menu, they did have.)

As cheesy as I felt – taking pictures of our meal, no less – we both thought the delicious meal totally worth it. I had been looking forward to trying green papaya salad and this place did not disappoint. A heaping plate of julienned green papaya dressed to perfection and topped with well seasoned bits of dried beef. Richard ordered the Northern specialty cha ca – a pan of ultra flavorful fish and sauce served to the table on a bed of hot coals with a side plate of fresh chopped green onions and dill. We scooped the fresh herbs into the boiling pan, waited a few moments for the flavors to meld, and pigged out. Topped off with Hanoi fried spring rolls and a couple of local beers, we were in foodie paradise.

BKM

Dong Dispensing

2010-10-02T20:40:00.002-05:00

“Opportunities to dispense with your dong are endless.”

– Lonely Planet Vietnam – Hanoi, Old Quarter, p92

BKM

First Purchase

2010-10-01T16:55:00.002-05:00

Our first purchase in Vietnam - coconut drink at the HCMC airport. 25,000 dong, roughly $1.25.

Excuse the frightening watermark. I'm smoothing out the kinks of ubuntu/UFRaw/GIMP.

-BKM

Instant Millionaires

2010-09-29T13:30:00.002-05:00

1:30pm – HCMC Airport

36 hours of airports and planes is all it takes to be a millionaire.

To preface this post, the exchange rate for Vietnamese Dong to USD is roughly 20,000 to 1 USD. Withdrawing 4 million Dong, roughly $200 USD, in front of the Saigon airport's domestic terminal is not extraordinary.

What is extraordinary, however, is how lucid I am after spending all day Monday running around Plano making final arrangements (one final arrangement being a last minute decision to purchase a backpack for Brittany at REI on the way to the airport...when we were already running behind) and flying from DFW to LAX to Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City (19 hours in the air with the occasional catnap between inflight entertainment). Looking at my watch, it's 1:30pm here in HCMC, 1:30am in Dallas. I should be sleeping. Being my first time to fly the redeye and arriving in the evening, I hope to fight jet lag by merely staying awake until it gets dark.

So far, the largest cultural shock is the female propensity to wear high heels while traveling despite the hobbling effect.

UPDATE: After arriving in Hanoi and struggling to stay awake until 9pm, we slept perfectly until 7. With any luck, the worst of the jetlag is behind us.

-Richard

Hoping to Revive the Blog

2010-09-09T21:22:00.001-05:00

It's been a long time since we've even looked at this site, what a shame! Our whole online presence looks different, actually. Turtle's New Life is long gone. It turned from a personal site into travel/budget and is now deceased. I have a photography site here. I've long since neglected my twitter, and Richard recently started his only to immediately neglect it, attaboy! (Mental note - delete those accounts. I hate cyber clutter. Of course, if I hated it as much as I am saying, then I would delete my myspace, but that's just silly talk. Oh, the memories!)

We're hoping to revamp Pale Blue Dot as a travel log for our upcoming trip to Southeast Asia. We leave at the end of this month for 104 days through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. We are stoked to say the least.

Hope you stick around :)

-BKM

All recent travel shown here:

2009-10-10T04:07:00.000-05:00

turtlesnewlife.blogspot.com/

Beijing 2008

2008-07-22T04:48:00.008-05:00

Trains and Planes
As we neared Beijing on our train in the early morning, there was a thick fog enveloping the city. I mentioned something to Richard and he rightly pointed out that no, it wasn't fog...it was smog - a thick pollution hovering over the ground, not high in the air. Getting off of the train it was difficult to breathe and the coughing and sneezing began almost instantly. In a word, it was disgusting. The train station was clogged with people and traffic. With our bags and almost no idea where we were going, my very first impression of Beijing was not the greatest.

We finally navigated to the 365 Inn, where we thankfully had booked a room. With a home base and no bags to hamper us, Beijing instantly became a friendlier place.

Da Zhi Lan Hutong

The 365 Inn and associated Sakura Cafe were in the Da Zhi Lan hutong in the Qianmen area. It was a very homey sort of street with great food and small vendors throughout. We were only a short walk from the infamous Tienanmen Square.

In our neighborhood were multiple gift shops, a Peking Duck place, a hot-pot restaurant, and two other hostels, as well as access to the Qianmen transport hub, which had buses and metro to most any location in the city.

...

Beijing is a city of contradictions. New yet old; fake and sometimes real; dirty and sometimes clean; crowded with pockets of respite.

Weather/Pollution

One illustration is the weather. One our first day in Beijing, you could barely see the building two blocks away. The smog was all encompassing and obviously part of the air. As the sun set, you could stare at is fiery orange disk as is descended through the brown sky. The second day, quite a different sky appeared. The sky was distinctly overcast, and below the blanket of cloud, the air was noticeably clearer. In the afternoon a brief yet heavy rain swept through the city as if to wash away the dust and dirt. For in the morning, as I sipped my coffee, I noticed shadows on the ground outside. I rushed outside and looked up to see a sky as clear as those I had seen in the mountains of Yunnan. I suddenly felt like climbing Jingshan Park again, looking over the Forbidden city, and going to the embassy district to see the skyscrapers, but as we were headed to the Great Wall that day, I had to settle with a brief redo of Tienanmen Square. The next two days, and even that afternoon, the city descend back into smog, and even as we were driving to the airport through another afternoon rain, I could see the city fighting its polluted with a cycle of cleansing rains.

[Lonely Planet factoid - some research states that breathing Beijing air is likened to smoking 70 cigarettes a day]

Tienanmen Square

Tienanmen Square was less grandiose than I expected, but I wanted to note that there were security checks at all the enterance points to the square. The Chinese police were checking bags, but as I neared the checkpoint, I was ignored. Looking back I realized that all foreigners were un-checked and that only Chinese people were being checked...

Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and Lama Temple
(And how we escaped Chinese Tourism in the hutongs, Embassy District, and the Ancient Observatory)

Another illustration of the contrasts of Beijing is the patterns in the local tourism trade. Visiting the listed sights, internationally known symbols for Beijing, was much like visiting Disneyland. Obviously dolled up, with queues and souvenir shops, obviously renovated in preparation for the Olympics, with little really history or function left. Sure, they were must sees, and each sight was quite impressive in their own right. Yet hidden beneath a new coat of paint and drowning in a sea of foreign and domestic tourists, they were no more fun or exciting than a trip to a remake at Disneyworld's Epcot center.

Despite this, Beijing is still the heart of China, and just around the corner sits little pockets of reality. The walk from Qianmen to Temple of Heaven, passed through a surviving hutong region, full of little shops and laughing locals. Furthermore, in the ancient observatory in a small stone tower near the embassy district amongst towering skyscrapers, we were not pushed or pressured to rush from exhibit to exhibit or digging through crowds to get to the rooftop collection of Jesuit era astronomical tools.

The Great Wall

The great wall at Simatai lived up to its expectations. From the top of the 12th watchtower looking west over the remainder of Simatai and across to the 24 towers of Jinshanling, we had view of nearly 10km of contiguous wall, with views of solitary towers on distant hills stretching out of sight. The area around the wall was surprisingly undeveloped and not entirely easily accessible, two and a half hours from Beijing. The hills were green and we frequently found ourselves alone (save our two self-appointed guides and souvenir salesmen).

Silk Street/Pan Jia Yuan Market

There exists a few shopping meccas in Beijing. We ventured to two. First the silk market for all sorts of clothing, that could often be had at 10% of the asking price. As for the Pan Jia Yuan market, it was full of souvenirs, or what I call crap. It was more diverse, but less touristic.

Olympic Center

We managed to walk around the Olympic center. The main complex looked relatively complete, with entrance tents set up with guards around the perimeter, and the only construction still visible was on the massive Bird's Nest. It seems like most construction is taking place on infrastructure and beautification projects in and around the city.

Four Faiths attempt

We attempted to photograph buildings from the major religions present in Beijing. (St Josephs Church (Christian), Temple of Heaven (Taoist), Lama Temple (Buddhist), Cow Street Mosque (Islamic). Sadly, we never got to Cow Street Mosque, but hopefully we can post pictures soon.

After my initial shock upon arriving in Beijing and despite the pollution and the plasticity of some tourist sights, I quickly warmed up and look upon the city fondly.

Pre Beijing Update

2008-07-13T22:14:00.003-05:00

Rich is over my shoulder, so this blog is more from the both of us than just me. We know! We haven't updated in a while, but we've been busy! :P And it was kind of nice being off the radar.

Let's see...last time I wrote we were in Hangzhou at a very nice little hostel. It is there that I received my bag - a great relief! We walked around the famous West Lake and visited the Ling Yin buddhist monastary. It was my first view of buddhist grotto-style carvings. We have some really cool pictures but haven't gotten a CD made, yet. We also saw some monks...talking on their cell phones! I thought that was pretty funny. From Hangzhou we bussed to Huang Shan.

"Shan" means "mountain." We stayed in a little town at the base and met the near-famous Mr. Cheng, a tiny little man with a strange accent to his self-taught English. He helped us plan our trip up the mountain and got us a hookup at a 3-star hotel for only $17. The mountain was gorgeous, and it better be because we climbed thousands of steps. It was a clear day and the scenes were truly breathtaking. Even though hoards of tourists ruined the ambiance at times, I'm glad that we went. I wimped out at the end, though, and we took a cable car part way down :] From Huang Shan we took 12 hours of busses to Suzhou.

We had a bus transfer at Nanjing and were very close to being ripped off. A mini bus driver offered to take us to a different, better bus station to finish our trip to Suzhou for 148 yuan. When we arrived and were ON the bus, he said the 148 was for ONE person, though we made it very clear that the price was for two. Luckily, we only keep small bills in Richard's wallet and the larger bills in our money belt so after much yelling and trying to get off the bus Rich was able to open it up and say "Hey, I don't HAVE the money!" We ended up paying 180.

In Suzhou we stayed in a hostel not in Lonely Planet but the same chain as our previous hostels. It was my favorite room and one of my favorite cities. The hostel would have been perfect had the bar/cafe not been under construction. We were in a very authentic old style neighborhood - people walked around in their PJs in the morning and little kids ran around...they even had a red light "district"...just one "hairdresser" sitting by the window of her shop watching TV in a nighty, turning her red light on at dusk. One day we rented bikes and rode to the Silk Museum. Apparently Suzhou is known for its silk. Afterwards we rode to the Humble Administrator's Garden, one of the best known and well kept Chinese gardens. They were beautiful despite how packed they were. Again, I wish I had the photo CD made to show you! We also took a day trip to Tongli.

Tongli is really only known for its old town which you have to pay to enter! It was a bit touristy, but very nice. The products for sale were surprisingly not as inflated as we would have thought for such a tourist attraction. There is the famous sex museum and gardens.

Our last evening in Suzhou before the night train we ate at Papa Johns. In China it's an awesome sit-down restaurant. We had an island pizza that was superb. Shortly after we boarded a hard sleeper train for a 14 hour ride to Beijing.

Hangzhou

2008-07-03T19:38:00.002-05:00

Hellooooo,

I still have no bag, but I'll tell you what I do have: our very own ROOM with a Western toilet and shower and everything! The room is tiny...I'll take a picture. It just fits a bed and small desk. There's a little electric tea pot and set, and a small bathroom. The room also comes with his and hers house shoes. Rich said he's seen them many times before. What I love is the window that I can open to sit out on the ledge. A really cool thing is that you insert your room card into a little slot when you arrive that activates the power, so none is wasted while your gone.

We're in Hangzhou. Our hostel is right by it's famous West Lake...I think West Lake. Maybe Western... Anyway, we walked around it last night, and it was very pretty with the fountain and the lights across and everything. Today we're doing a few things that I'll write about later. Hopefully we'll find a pet store. There are and squirrels and chipmunks lucky crickets supposedly. Awesome. I'm going to get a cricket :P

I hope my bag comes today! Until then, I'm in my new skirt and a pair of boxer shorts, hahaha.

I'm Here!

2008-07-03T00:07:00.000-05:00

That is all.

:]

Liuyuan and JFK

2008-06-30T10:11:00.002-05:00

I spent much of the 27th typing emails to Tibet, and unsuccessfully
attempting to re-scale the fence around the sand dunes near the
hostel, at a time unlike the night before, when the sand would fry an
egg. I boarded a bus to Liuyuan (or Lu you arrr, if you are from
Dunhuang)... well more like a big mini-van, with a fat driver who was
wearing a wife beater and slacks. The road north to Liuyuan brought
much desolation as trees turned to shrubs, turned to sand, and varied
colors of green turned to a monochromatic shade of tan. The road was
straight, no obstacles to detour it, and the landscape was devoid of
features, save a lone dust devil that hovered in the distance over the
one discerable mud brick dwelling in sight. For China we were going
quite fast, atleast 80kph, because we covered 130km in nigh two hours.
As we were gathering customers in Dunhuang, the driver got into an
argument with a taxi driver over two potential clients. We left town
before they did, but half an hour later, the taxi sped by, blaring its
horns mockily as it past. I half hoped to find the taxi broken down
in the scorching sun, but alas it wasn't so, and at the end of two
hours, we pulled into the coal covered, town of two dozen buildings
and a train station called Liuyuan. I attempted to check into the
hotel, but after being shown and paying 40 for a rather nice single
with a bathroom, I was shifted to a not so nice slab of wood, without
a bathroom, sharing a communal bathroom without a shower, and without
running water in the sinks. I went down stairs to see what it would
take to get a shower, and apparently the room I was shown cost 100.
After being offered 80, and then 60 (as I was packing my bags to
leave), I finally declined and opted for a night on a softer matress
(my sleeping pad) on the marble floor of the train station.

The train brought change as well. When I awoke at 3AM, it was
raining, and according to the trains thermometer, the temperature was
12C. Later that day as the sun was setting around 9PM (it had set past
10 in Liuyuan) the temperature had read 37C. There was not a single
"waiguoren" (foreigner) on the train, and with my limited vocabulary
and the help of a man from Wuxi who spoke broken English, I tought at
first two kids how to play "Go fish", but as the popularity among
their parents and later other kids, half the car was playing when I
awoke this morning. As for JFK, the man from Wuxi told me that the
parents of the children (who had dragged me out of bed to play go
fish) said I was like Kennedy or Yao Ming. He likened me to Superman
for travelling in China alone. I think that is quite an
overstatement, and as the night went on I talked about how much fun
China has been in the past month and all I have learned. I talked
about life in America, and he was very excited to hear (as most
Chinese are) about the prosperity of America. And I ended, saying
that on the eave of Brittany's entry to China, I hope that in 2 weeks
time, she can learn to love China as much as I have.

With that note, she leaves tomorrow (or the day after, depending on
where you are) and arrives less than 3 days from now in Shanghai. I
cannot wait, but as she will be here, my/our contact with the
blogosphere will be severed until we have left China. So until after
crossing the Tibetan plateau into Kathmandu Valley (about the 23rd of
July) good bye and good luck.

P.S. This is my first time to post, sorry for the lack of links (I'm　Able to view the blog for the first time from Shanghai... sorry for the weird capitalization as well, Chinese characters keep popping up on the screen.

Greetings from the Silk Road

2008-06-26T09:24:00.009-05:00

After climbing Emei Shan mountain and battling Tibetan Macaques, I saw the Dafo (Great Buddha) at Leshan. I spent two days in Chengdu, eating hotpot and gongbao jiding (Kung Pao Chicken), and sipping tea at Renmin (People's) Park. In Xi'an I browsed the Muslim quarter, met up with an old friend from Yangshuo, and got my camera snatched off my person near the Big Goose Pagoda. Saw the Terra Cotta Warriors, biked around the Ming Dynasty City Walls, and ate for the first time at McDonalds. Big Macs apparently taste the same globally.

After a 24train eating instant noodles and reading David Copperfield, I arrived this morning to Dunhuang, a stop on the Silk Road. Dunhuang is home to the Mogao Caves, reputed to be the most intact collection of Buddhist art in China, and famous for its cold donkey meat with onions and peppers (of which I partook for dinner). Surrounding Mogao is endless flat sand and rock desert, and not 500m from my guesthouse sits a 200m tall sand dune, behind which sits Moon Crescent Lake, which for the lowly price of 120Y (18USD) I can look at it. Maybe tomorrow I will go there, but perhaps I will jump the fence and climb the dune, bypassing the ridiculous fee.

Tomorrow night, I head north to a town on the remote Urumqi-Lanzhou Line that runs to distant Xinjiang Province, where I have to prepare for my 4:10AM departure for the marathon 32hr train ride to Nanjing, which after a quick tour there and in Shanghai, I ride the Maglev to meet Brittany at Shanghai Pudong Airport.

China's All-Seeing Eye

2008-06-19T22:31:00.004-05:00

China's developing high-tech police state.

Bonnaroo

2008-06-17T22:10:00.001-05:00

Bonnaroo was...crazy. It was a round the clock hippie fest. It was stifling during the day and freezing at night. It rained. It rained after our canopy fell down. I saw old favorite musicians. I discovered new favorite musicians. There was some artsy stuff, there was some trippy stuff, there were some cool vendors. I met whackos. I stared Ben Folds in the eyes [from, like, 6000 feet away :/] I bought some art. I walked a lot, I got some blisters. I lost a shoe. I took some photos. It was pretty much awesome ::

This guy was huge. We didn't even come up to his knees.

Please notice the boot suspended in mid-air...hahaha.

Also [for my mum and Joan], a video of Pearl Jam. Eddy was soooo messed up. He barely made sense...and if I didn't think the whole thing was hilarious, he would have been a real downer talking about people in comas and wheel chairs. I think he was dee-runk. Or trippin that El Ess Dee. But probably the former.

Photos

2008-06-17T20:37:00.006-05:00

These photos were sent with Richard's June 12 entry. Click images for larger view.

This place is flooded, now. I can't remember the naaame!:
The monk from Happiness Country Monastary:

Shoot. I can't remember the name of this place, either. It's on the tip of my...er, fingers.

Minibuses and Landslides in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

2008-06-17T11:00:00.000-05:00

Left Lijiang for two days for Tiger Leaping Gorge - with its amazing 4000m vertical change from river bed (1500m) to the top of Jade Snow Peak (5500m). Caught a bus to Zhongdian (now Shangrila) and entered the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Shangrila has about 3 (that I could count) army barracks near the city, and the new part is all less than 10 years old. Not much to do there but scout out the large Tibetan monastery to the north with its psychedelic wall frescos. I tried some yak meat and yak butter tea, then headed to the valley to the north of Shangrila with a Swede named Jakob. We biked into a village where the men were pounding mud bricks into a new house, the women we're cutting hay in the fields, and the kids assaulted us; asking for money or a ride. After fighting off the hordes, we climbed a hill for a better a view.

The next day, after meeting up with a Brit, Josh, who had studied Chinese in Shanghai with Jakob, we caught a taxi to Deqin. The road was only 180km long, but it took 5 hours to travel. The terrain gets much steeper north of Shangrila, and the valley floors turn from fertile farmland to treacherous river. The Yangzi River and Mekong River both run through this area on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. The roads are scraped from the edge of the hills, and you wind your way down a 2000m ridge, only to reach the bottom, and climb back up the other side, only to begin again. We crossed a pass at 4292m above sea level, well above the alpine limit. As we neared Deqin, and later on to Mingyong Glacier, the road degraded to mere rock, and the path was frequently blocked by landslides. We found ourselves many times waiting for men to fill a truck bed with rocks or dirt from a recent landslide, before we could fit across the road.

In Deqin, at a noodle shop, we were openly called a Chinese word for foreigner with context not too unlike a racial slur. We did not see another foreigner in Deqin for 2 days. From Deqin we took a minibus driven by Dumb and Dumber, who didn't hesitate to play 90's pop music, slap eachother around and stop at one's girlfriend's house on the way to Mingyong Glacier. Expecting a nice leisurely 45 min walk, we found a 800m climb through forest to the edge of the glacier, which took over 2 hours to go up, and over 1 to come down. By the time we returned to Deqin, the temperature had dropped below 10C, and we slept well.

The next day, Dumb and a new lady took us up to Shangrila. Or I should say, they took us to the pass and 3km later a chunk of the minibus fell out the car, and we sat for 45min at 4000m without human contact. After a full minibus and regular bus passed, we finally hitched a ride with a Chinese guy and his girlfriend to Shangrila. Despite the trouble, I made it back to Lijiang and from here I will continue to Panzhihua in the southern Sichuan province and then by night train to Emei Shan near Chengdu. While Sichuan province has been the recent location of a massive earthquake, and parts are currently flooded, it appears that the more southern locales are still quite operable, and cautiously I go to find out for myself tomorrow.

Happiness Country Monastery

2008-06-12T13:53:00.000-05:00

Biked north of Lijiang today with David, a guy teaching English in Guangzhou. We visited the very touristy Shuhe, and the lesser Baisha, where we had lunch and met the legendary Dr. Ho. Faced with plenty of options for the afternoon; we chose the only monastery that was free. Fugoa Si (Happiness Country Monastery) was once the largest monastery in the valley, but during the cultural revolution it was destroyed. After walking the bikes up a deserted steep road for an hour, we stumbled upon a herd of cattle and the sign for Fugoa Si. We climbed some dilapidated stone stairs, through what was left of an arched entrance, and past a few empty courtyards, we found a lone monk sitting in the most up kept courtyard near a bee keepers hive. He quickly rose and came to greet us. David speaks fluent Mandarin, but here in rural south western China, the accent or the dialect was undecipherable. The monk did, however, speak in a very peculiar form of English. Later we determined that the monk had learned to say words by imitating the sounds from Chinese syllables, so that the rhythm of speech was very much Chinese, but the words we're English.

He invited upstairs to the temple, and offered us a seat and some local hot tea and sunflower seeds. After our tea, and writing him notes in his visitor’s book, which had all forms of language in it, he lit incense for us. As we prayed and presented the incense to the shrine, he played a large drum and blew a tune from a conch shell horn. He ended with some chanting and cymbals. As we left, he said, "Nice to meet you, pleasant and safe journey, be careful." With a hand shake we headed back down the mountain.

Snuggle In [Creepy Crawlies]

2008-06-12T10:00:00.002-05:00

So yesterday I found a cockroach when I was packing for Bonnaroo...not the gross part of this post. I immediately thought of the bed bugs that Richard said he encountered in…I think Guangzhou. He told me that his hostel was infested. They were about the size of a pencil eraser, and he even said that one crawled across his chest while we were on the phone. Let’s just say, being as I’m headed off to that country, soon, I was appropriately girly grossed out.

Then I looked them up. Holy mother of everything sacred! They come out to eat you right before dawn! Only if you are prepared to be scarred for life, click here, and here, and here.

And just for fun click here and here. [These really aren't fun. These are about the bot fly, my ONE AND ONLY FEAR.]

A Few Pictures

2008-06-11T22:23:00.004-05:00

Some of Richard's travel companions have posted pictures online here. He is in some toward the end, like this one :]

Yunnan's Revenge

2008-06-10T23:23:00.006-05:00

Spend Sunday and Monday in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province in southwest China. A large (1.7mil) city, but the cleanest I have seen. People walk their very fine looking dogs, mostly Pekingese but many different breeds as well. Walked the markets and parks seeing Chinese men playing a game similar to Chess. I could understand all the pieces, but I know the character for ma (horse), and it moved exactly like a knight does in chess. The markets served all types of things: Turkish delight, lotus tea, spicy mushrooms, shish kebabs, and fruit. At the end of the market was the pet store, where among birds, snakes and turtles, they sold bunnies, small hoppy hamster type creatures, and squirrels. I ate dumplings for the first time, and a special ice cream with green apple syrup. I ate alot of little things that day and something hit me *ahem* It was bad for a day and a half but, now it is fine.

Yesterday, toured the area around Old Dali, the ancient capital of the Nangzhou kingdom that ruled much of Yunnan and Burma until Kublai Khan conquered it in the 1300s. Rode bikes up to a Kung Fu temple, and then to an unremarkable Bai minority town along the lake. A total of 50km and my butt hurts. The lake and area are beautiful. Dali is at 2000m elevation, and the mountains to the west go to 4000m. I should post pictures in the next week.

Bye.

Let's Take a Break

2008-06-09T10:15:00.008-05:00

...from all this China talk.

On a whim Maygan and I have decided to go to Bonaroo this weekend. It...is going to be Awesome. I can't even CONTAIN myself.

Here are some highlights in the line up:

Pearl Jam Metallica Jack Johnson The Raconteurs Willie Nelson Death Cab for Cutie Tiësto B.B. King Les Claypool Ben Folds O.A.R. Stephen Marley Lupe Fiasco Against Me! Pat Green Tegan & Sara Ladytron Janeane Garofalo Rogue Wave Electric Touch

I even get to try out some of my new gear. The accomodations for the festival are full-on camping and the weather may be rainy, so I'm bringing my new sweet rain jacket and hiking boots. Yaaayuh :]

Extra Day in Yangshuo

2008-06-06T14:58:00.001-05:00

So, as I waited to board the train in Guilin for Kunming, I realized I had left my passport in the safety deposit box at the hostel in Yangshuo. I called, had my suspicion confirmed and was forced to return to Yangshuo, and spend the night. I spent the evening with some Israelis and a guy from Detroit who lives near Chengdu in Sichuan province. He is certain that travel to Chengdu is possible, and gave me his number to contact him, as he will be in Chengdu when I should be there. That is great news, as it allows me to see Sichuan province, which I was #3 on my list of places to see. So, I have my passport close, and now I head to Kunming.

Day 10

2008-06-05T21:20:00.004-05:00

Ni hao from China. Brittany convinced me to post a blog finally, and as I can't myself post or see the blog in China (I think the site is censored), she will post for me. I wish I could offer pictures, but alas I left my cable in Dallas somewhere, and haven't found another mode of transfer.

Today is my last day in Yangshuo in Guangxi province, South China. This is my last stop in purely "South" China. I shall be in the West for atleast two weeks before spending a week in a half heading towards Shanghai, where Brittany will be on the morning of 2 July.

I started the trip early in the morning of 28 May, sitting in DFW airport. The flight to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific was quite comfortable, seeing as I occupied less than 6 sqft for over 14 hrs. I
arrived on my birthday, to the large, relatively clean, but touristy Kowloon peninsula across from Hong Kong island. Hong Kong is quite nice, but the internationals that live there are annoying and the city is so large, that it is hard to meet people.

Guangzhou was better, but I stayed only for the day. The streets were unlike anything I have ever seen. 14 million people inhabit Guangzhou, and I must have passed half of them selling all matters of things in two miles of one street along the Pearl River. Luckily I did not have to stay the night, and I arrived the next morning in Guilin.

Guilin is touristy in some parts, but home to nearly 500 thousand people, it has locals as well. The hostel was like hostels I've been before, and there was no shortage of likeminded travellers to chat with and get advise from. The information learned there has drastically changed my itenerary, and I will continue to stay in backpacker mecca's such as Guilin and Yangshuo, as they are typically the best sites in China. From Guilin, I joined a Chinese Domestic Tourist tour of the Longji Rice Terraces. Spectacular to see, and there was good hiking to be had.

From Guilin, I have travelled to Yangshuo, and the scenery is dreamlike, though the whole region is based upon tourism. I met two travellers in Guilin, and together we rented the penthouse suite for 35 RMB (5 USD) per person. We rented bikes and climbed Moon Hill and explored Water Cave. Everything here must be bargained for. As a rule, most things are offered with a 150% mark up, even admission fees to places such as water cave. The listed price was 128 RMB, but we paid only 50! Yesterday, we hiked through the surrounding villiages, and saw much of what the area was and has become. The peasants were all older, as the youth work in Yangshuo. We took a sampan (bamboo raft) across the river, and hiked along rice fields, and orchards. The food here is very touristy, but yesterday I ate the local speciality, beer fish. It was a very boney carp, sliced in half, served whole (head and all), in a very delicious sauce.

We (foreigners) are quite the novelty here, as domestic tourism is huge. Chinese tourists take pictures of me, and depending on how exposed an area has been, I get stares. In Guangzhou, a whole street in the center of unremarkable and thus unvisited Guangzhou watched as I walked by.

The language is difficult to catch, but I have picked up words such as hello and thanks, as well as numbers up to a 999, and how to say " I don't want" to get rid of those pesky tourist sellers.

Tonight I take an 18 hr train to Kunming, from where I will venture to Dali, Lijiang, and Shangrila in Yunnan province. I wish you all good times, and until next time, Shi Chen.

Shoes.

2008-06-04T19:18:00.004-05:00

Oh My God, Shoes.

Seriously...pray for my feet. In a quest to gain maybe an ounce of strength or stamina before I'm at the grips of mountain hiking in a far off foreign land, I have a goal to put 10 hours of walking on my boots and 5 hours of walking on my sandals. I have two quarter size blisters after only 30 min! Can you believe that?

Leaving the service industry behind and sitting at a computer 9+ hours a day has apparently thrown my entire body into atrophy. I have the ferocious strength of a kitten. That won't get me very far up the sacred mountains. That is, if we can even still visit one...with Tibet closed and Nepal being practically out of business our trip is morphing constantly.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm whining. I'm not whining. Promise.

<3

PS. If you haven't seen the shoes video...watch it! You'll love it or hate it.

An Yong

2008-06-03T10:51:00.009-05:00

If I Google searched that properly, "an yong" is "hello" in Korean.

Since we can't get into Tibet and Nepal is in the off season, Richard and I are considering a trip to Korea for the time we've alloted for those places, then a flight to Delhi to continue our plans in India.

I am WAY more excited about this than I should be for one reason - Korean food is some of my very favorite food. The thought of actually eating real bulgogi and traditional banchan is enough for me to die and go to food nirvana.

Anyway, Richard is great. He lost the cell phone [well, it was stolen when he left it out unattended!], then bought a new one, so everything is great. He was going to blog and add some photos, but he can't find his USB cable...BUMMER. He may not post pictures until I bring a cable. Hopefully he'll buy one before then.

Cell Phone!

2008-06-01T20:52:00.002-05:00

Richard got a cell phone! Now I can contact him anytime for $.021 a minute with Skype.

Skype. Is. Awesome.

I Received a Call

2008-05-29T18:31:00.004-05:00

I guess Richard was nauseous from more than coffee before his flight on Wednesday :/

I received a call from him this morning - he said that he had arrived, was at the hostel, and felt worse. I guess there had been some spewage of food on the airplane an hour or so before landing. I felt soooo bad. I even asked him if there was anything I could do. Seriously?...I'm literally as far away as humanly possible.

BUT I received a call after lunch. He said that he felt better. That, of course, made me feel better. He also said that he was drunk. Unfortunately, that didn't make me feel drunk.

Richard also mentioned something about meeting a travel agent and getting a definite way into Nepal...woot! He also mentioned something about international trade and how it took him extra long to dial the number, but I'm pretty sure that was just the booze talking.

Hope everyone had a great day :]

Uh Oh

2008-05-28T07:36:00.003-05:00

Right below this post is the China trip itinerary. It shows that Richard got back from Yellowstone late yesterday and leaves for China this evening.

Well, the calendar is WRONG! Rich's flight leaves at 9:45 this MORNING. He checked his ticket at 2am and discovered this little error.

Needless to say the last 5 hours have been crazy. We haven't slept, I just returned from DFW, and now I'm heading to work. Richard was nauseous when I dropped him off at the airport from all the coffee, and I kinda feel like passing out while writing. Excuse me if I sound delirious.

So now I'm tired, I'm sure he's tired, I have work, and he has some rigorous flying ahead of him.

*sigh*

Itinerary

2008-05-23T08:51:00.002-05:00

We're Going to China!

2008-05-22T15:25:00.002-05:00

Richard and I are going to China! [Duh] You most likely wouldn't be visiting this site if you didn't know that. [But just in case...]

He leaves the end of May, and I meet him in Shanghai on July 2. I return on August 9th and he returns...that day or the day after. I can't remember.

Together we'll go through cities in China, Tibet [hopefully], Nepal, and India. It's going to be a blast and we plan on posting stories and photos while we're gone for our friends and family.

So...Enjoy!

I'll have our Google Calendar itinerary up, soon.

:]