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November 26, 2009

Getting Out Of Asia

It has been quite awhile since I've posted anything. Apologies for that.

Looking at the blog, apparently the last time I posted anything about the trip, we were in Bangkok. So, I'll start from there. There isn't much to say about our travels south to Singapore. We passed through Malaysia on two overnight bus rides. Our first ride took us down to the south end of Thailand, to the town of Ao Nang. That ended up being a ridiculous trip, as we were told that we'd be on the beach by 10 am. There were a number of circumstances and side events that bumped up the arrival time to about 2 pm. Ao Nang was very expensive in terms of accomodation, and it took another good half hour or 45 minutes of walking around to find a place that was only 500 baht, which was about $17, each night. The town itself was beautiful, really nice beaches, and we were able to eat cheap by shopping in the little roadside stands. We snorkeled and swam, and enjoyed the beautiful sunsets. We ended up staying for two nights, as we really enjoyed the town.

Our only stop in Malaysia was a two-night pause in on the island of Penang. To be fair, we saw very little of Malaysia, we were on a little island, and our passage through the country itself was at night, so we didn't see any of that. We weren't terribly fond of Penang, partly because of an unfortunate decision to stay in the guesthouse of the rudest man in SE Asia (for two nights), which really made us feel bad about the area, since he was the person we spent the most time with in Malaysia. There wasn't too much to do in Penang, it is very touristy, very built up, and very expensive. We did enjoy a few hours at a beach watching crabs, and we went for a nice hike on Penang Hill, which is a rainforest covered hill overlooking the island's city. Other than that, I was quite ready to leave; I wouldn't mind giving Malaysia another try, but I'll never go back to Penang.

Singapore really was nice, in comparison. We stayed in a great hostel, and we spent a couple of hours talking with the owner about all sorts of aspects of Singaporean life and world events. The city is very clean, though not as clean as they'd have you think. It also has a large number of strict laws, which is why it's called a "fine" city (for two reasons), according to the hostel owner. Still, it's tropical and lush, which can be seen when walking through the urban park called the Southern Ridges. We saw some of the best birds that we've seen in SE Asia in this park. There are also distinct neighborhoods full of distinct ethnicities, such as Little India, Chinatown, and others. These areas were really intersting, and the foods cheap and delicious. We had our last few Asian meals in Singapore, in the 30 hours that we spent there. Of course, Singapore is a developed city-state, and prices here are like prices in the US, so a long stay would cost a lot of money.

So, Asia was a fascinating part of our trip. We wish that we'd had more than five weeks to explore, but on the other hand, SE Asia is an exhausting place to visit. There is constant stimulation, whether you're walking around in the busy cities, or riding in any sort of transportation, or arranging any part of your trip. There is a huge range of cultures there, all of which are so different from Western culture that by the end of a month or so, I almost felt like I was in culture-shock overload. As much as we enjoyed visiting the six SE Asian countries, it was a bit of a relief to arrive in Australia, to return to a culture that in many respects is quite like that of the US. It's like a little mini-vacation from our trip, though we don't plan on sitting around much in Oz.

Until next time, be safe.


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November 09, 2009

Pictures From Angkor Temples

Here are some pictures from the Angkor temples, outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Jess & Aaron In Phenom Penh

Monk At Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat In Morning Light

Bayon Temple, Angkor Thom

Stone Face, Bayon Temple

Faces In Columns, Bayon Temple

Relief Of Woman In Temple

Bayon Temple In Angkor Thom

Preah Khan Temple

Roots Through Buildings, Ta Prohm

Vivid Colors, Banteay Kdei

Temple Wall, Banteay Kdei

Tree and Tower, Banteay Kdei

Wall Relief, Bangeay Kdei

Until next time, be safe.

 


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November 08, 2009

Thoughts On Cambodia

We are now in Bangkok, for just a day, as we head south into Malaysia. We'll need to be in Singapore in the next week to catch our flight to Australia on the 16th of November.

I last wrote from Phenom Penh. We left early from PP to reach Siem Reap on a busy, bumpy minibus ride. For a short distance, it took a long time, which is pretty much the norm for SE Asia. We ended up in Siem Reap around 5 pm, which was good in that it was light enough to walk around looking at guesthouses. Of course, it wasn't as easy as that; we'd agreed in PP at our guesthouse to have a tuktuk pick us up in Siem Reap, knowing that we'd end up having to go to some GH of that driver's choice. Sure enough, we had a driver waiting for us, which was nice in that it saved us a couple of dollars since their "bus stop" was about 2 km from town. Yet we ended up far away from any of the attractions of Siem Reap (i.e. restaurants, shops, the riverfront) and we were a 15 minute walk along a dusty, busy road that would be rough after dark. So, against the protests of our tuktuk driver and the manager of the GH that we'd ended up at, I headed out to find another place. I didn't have much luck, the large numbers of wealthy visitors to Siem Reap (to visit the nearby Angkor temple sites) had jacked up prices far above what we'd pay anywhere else in Cambodia. So I headed back, reluctantly. In my absence, the manager confided in Jess that he had another GH, in the center, for the same price; he'd been very nervous that I'd found something else. Before I could tell them I'd found nothing, we found ourselves being whisked down to the center via the tuktuk to the other hotel, which was much nicer, much newer, and directly in the center. And, it was the same price. Those shady characters, trying to get us to stay in their other crappy GH.

Anyhow, there is remarkably little to do in Siem Reap besides the temple sites. We arranged a tuktuk to take us to the temples in the early morning and relaxed in our room, which even had TV. We were up at 4:45 in next morning to go to the temples. We started in Angkor Wat, the largest, best preserved, and most famous temple in the area (most people don't realize that there are dozens of temples spread out in a large area). The sunrise didn't happen, as it was too cloudy, but while all the crowds waited expectedly, Jess and I headed into the temple itself as soon as it was ligth enough to see, which gave us unexpected solitude from the infamous crowds and time to examine the temple. We'd heard a lot about Angkor Wat from other travelers and had sort of developed a feeling that it was not only very crowded but probably overrated. Actually walking around the temple, seeing its beauty and intricacies up close, in relative quietness, showed that you can't take other people's opinion or experience for anything more than what it is. We found Angkor Wat to be really amazing, a place that is far more incredible in person than in print. Our experiences in the other temples continued to follow this trend throughout the day.

We visited probably six or seven temples, each unique and beautiful in its own way. We'd purchased a book on Angkor in Phenom Penh, so we were able to read about the temples a little as we walked through them. We had a bit of an issue with our guide, who wanted to finish our tour at 1 pm; we demanded that we stay there the rest of the day at least, as we paid $20 each in entrance fees. We even felt that we should stay to see the sunset, which the tuktuk driver was very against until we offered him more money. In the end, we were too tired to stay out past 3 pm anyhow, so it was a moot point about the sunset; we did get to stay past 1 pm, after we insisted. 

 The Angkor temples are difficult to describe, better represented in pictures than words. We did feel at times like explorers, when we found a certain temple more deserted than others, or were wandering through a temple more dilapidated than others. It was amazing to see the carved reliefs on the walls, images of people and animals, battles and villages, that had been carved between 800 and 1000 years ago. We really enjoyed our day there; I'll try to put up pictures of some of the temples.

That's not to say that our day was entirely relaxing. Being budget backpackers, the prices we had to pay for just one day was a big issue to us. We paid $40 for entrance fees (for a single day pass), we paid the driver $13 ($1 because he had a traffic fine/bribe that somehow we ended up paying), and $20 for the overpriced food out at the temples (for breakfast and lunch). The cost was the reason that we only went to see the temples one day, though they deserve at least two. Besides, we weren't so happy with the tuktuk driver; besides the stress and hard feelings about what we were getting for our money, he took us to his friends' restaurants, and we had to pay for his lunch. What has happened in Siem Reap is that a lot of people have gone there, with loads of money to toss around because it is so cheap (at least if you're on a two-week vacation), and so the prices go up and up. Apparantly, they've more than doubled in the last five years, because people know that they can get money from tourists. So budget travelers find themselves worried about the costs or not even visiting these beautiful temples, which is a shame. 

Also, we experienced the worst of Cambodian people around the temples, as one might expect in such a touristy spot. There were loads of touts, everytime we left a temple we could hear their high-pitched calls about water, food, and souvenirs as soon as they sighted us. Having only experienced those types of people, and the folks in Siem Reap (the hotel hustler, the tuktuk drivers), we really didn't get a good perspective on Cambodian people. This was my big complaint about how we traveled through Cambodia. We rushed through, since our time in SE Asia is running short, and we didn't get to meet the real Cambodians. We also didn't get to see any cities or villages off the beaten path, which in Cambodia is pretty much anywhere besides Siem Reap and Phenom Penh.

We met a German couple and had a good conversation with them here in Bangkok. In Siem Reap, somehow they found an opportunity to visit an orphanage, where they were able to buy some jackets and blankets for the kids, as well as spend a full day with them. That experience seems like it would have been just as rewarding as visiting the temples, especially since it would have given us the chance to sit down and spend time with Cambodians that weren't interested in helping us part with our money. Looking back, I think at least a week, maybe even two, would have been great to have to spend in Cambodia, I'm a little sad that we had to rush through so fast. That is the nature of this trip, to keep on the move. Our next week, passing through southern Thailand and Malaysia, will be no less busy and fast-paced. 

One last thought on Cambodia. Everything that travelers experience in Cambodia should be considered in relativity to the Khmer Rouge era. Cambodia has had a long, painful path of recovery in the last 30 years, they've had to rebuild everything in their society from their government to the tourist infrastructure from scratch. Traveling in Cambodia isn't easy, it's frequently stressful, and often travelers either feel like they are being scammed or they actually are being scammed. There's also a large communication issue, which impedes many encounters with Cambodians. Still, you have to respect the Cambodian people for what they have accomplished; reading online descriptions of travel even five years ago makes it sound like there have been vast improvements to infrastructure and ease of travel. Again, spending more time in Cambodia would definitely improve our perspective of the people there, and of how difficult their lives must be.

Until next time, be safe.

 


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November 05, 2009

Arrival In Phenom Penh

We're sitting in the backpacker district of Phenom Penh, a dodgy-at-best street in the Boeng Kak lake area, the kind of place that you can sit in a restaurant called I (heart) Fish & Chips, eating Indian curried chicken, watching the Nat'l Geographic Wild Channel, and listening to Bob Dylan's Christmas album overhead; if you are so inclined, there are Happy Shakes to be had, and even Herbal Pizza. Such are the characteristics of a good backpacker's neighborhood.

Arriving in Cambodia was an experience in itself. We had a great time in Can Tho, Vietnam, spending three nights there, more than we'd planned. It was a good city, not too crazy but with a vibrant feel to it, especially on its riverfront. Reluctantly we kept going, to the border town of Chau Doc. I'm not usually so final about a decision on a place, but frankly we just didn't like the place at all. It might have been the minibus ride, where we were crammed into a minibus so small that we had to put our bags in front of us and spent the three hour trip with our legs on top. It might have been the fact that they dropped us off 3.5 km out of town at a grungy bus station where the tuktuk drivers waited like vultures, demanding $2 for a 5000 dong ($.25) trip, or the busy road we had to walk along when we refused to pay so much. It could also have been the oppressive heat, the shady hotel manager who bumped up the price for AC in our room from $1 to $4 after we'd already settled in, or the ATM that ate our debit card and sent us running in a panic to the bank before we realized it was only an old, expired card, or the fact that the entire city shut down at 9 pm (literally; even the hotel manager was waiting for us to get back from dinner so he could roll down the doors). Whatever it was, or maybe a combination of all factors, we simply did not like Chau Doc.

Anyhow, it was a good thing we left early the next morning. We caught a slow boat that was to take us over the Cambodian border to Phenom Penh (henceforth referred to as PP). It truly was a slow boat, taking nearly 11 hours to reach PP, though a couple of those hours were spent waiting at the border for our visas. Even though 11 hours is just too much for any boat ride, this one was quite nice. It took us along several rivers from Chau Doc, eventually ending up in the mighty Mekong. By this point, the Mekong had gone from a large river to simply massive, its brown waters spread further apart than most lakes I've seen. Amazingly, despite how wide the river was, its flow was so fast, it was a little intimidating, in our relatively tiny boat (roughly 12-seater).  I can't imagine the volume of water that passes down the river. It's the end of the monsoon season in SE Asia, so many of the fields we passed were covered in lakes of the brown waters, and the homes that normally were over dry ground were long distances from the shore. Plying these waters, it was amazing to see the poverty that lines those rivers, for although these folks were well prepared for the floods with their boats and homes on stilts, they led a simple lifestyle, without electricity, without plumbing or running water, without any of the creature-comforts we take for granted. It was a view into the lifestyle of that huge percentage of humanity that lives on$1 or less a day; we figured these people probably lived more on a barter system than any monetary system. It was very interesting.

Leaving the boat, we had a 1.25 hr van ride waiting for us before we actually reached PP. Somehow, they crammed the 10 of us from the boat into a smallish van - including all of our backpacks - which might have seemed excessive, until we saw a tuktuk that had 13 people crammed onto it. We felt fortunate then, for we all had our own seats. Then we even saw a similarly sized van so crammed with people that three of them rode on top, and the backend was so packed that they couldn't even close the doors, using rope instead; I was surprised that the van was able to roll at all, as it flew past us. We'd been told that we'd be dropped off at the tour company's headquarters in PP, but we've been in SE Asia long enough you'd think I wouldn't be surprised when we ended up in some crap neighborhood at a hostel, "$5 each for room, cheap, cheap!" We declined, and with two Dutch girls we jumped onto a tuktuk that brought us directly to our neighborhood; our hotel, the #11 Happy Hotel, first showed us a room for $4, but we wanted AC, and that room cost us a whopping $8 (a change from Europe, where we paid $15 each for a bunk room). It was a decent room, there were good restaurants across the street (more of an alley, really), and I was too tired to bargain or keep looking, so at the #11 Happy Hotel we stayed. Actually, I was even happy to have had the LP guide, it was how we knew about our neighborhood; we've been lugging it around for a reason after all.

We got up this morning late, we didn't even bother to set the alarm clock, and had a huge breakfast of pancakes, muesli, and REAL coffee, then bartered a tuktuk driver down to $6 to take us on the 36 km round trip to the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek) museum and then to the Tuol Sleng Museum (the notorious S21 detention center of the Khmer Rouge). I won't go much into details, I don't want to give the wrong impression that we just seek out the most depressing places we can find on our travels. Really, though, unlike similar sites in other countries, these two sites are memorials to an event that goes beyond being part of Cambodia's history, it has defined the past 35 years of it, and continues to do so even today. The events that occurred in Cambodia in the late 1970s, the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge, happened in my lifetime, not my grandfather's. That is a shocking thought, that history was being wrought here when I was crawling around in my crib, that mass graves were being excavated while I was learning to read, that the KR still held a seat in the UN General Council and that the Cambodian government that rose from the ashes of the KR was still considered illegitimate by our mighty UN while I was preparing to enter high school. That, to me, is mind-boggling. Maybe that isn't enough of a statement. With all of our power, all of our communication and satellites and technology and wisdom, we couldn't stop 3 million people from being massacred; that is an atrocity in itself.

Something happened that shook Jess and I awake at the Killing Fields, one of those events that you later wonder which stars aligned to allow it, or which circumstances occurred to provide for it. We walked around the place, a shocking enough experience. We started at the stupa there, a tall tower filled with the skulls and bones of victims, a sight that takes your breath away. Then we walked behind it, where the pits still remain from the excavations of the mass graves. Clothing still lies strewn around, in small piles that have emerged as erosion has done its work. In the pathway between the pits, there are bone fragments that have emerged from the footsteps of visitors. It was one such torn shirt and bone fragments that I was trying to avoid stepping on when I heard a man say to me, "They are real. They haven't put any fakes here." I looked up to see a well-dressed Cambodian man, a video camera in his hand, speaking to me.

We struck up a conversation, casual at first as I commented about the place. Then he stunned us both when he said that he was visiting his father, who had been a victim of the KR and had been killed there in that unholy place. The story then emerged that he came from a well-off family, as his father owned a coconut farm and worked in an embassy. When the KR emerged as victors in the civil war, they took his father, who was one of the 17,000 who died at Choeung Ek; the rest of his family went into hiding in the countryside, staying alive by pretending to be peasants. In January of 1979, when the Vietnamese invaded and destroyed the KR, they fled across the border into Thailand, and two years later were able to immigrate to California. He has returned now three times, although he says he is the only one; when others in his family see his videos, they all sob, and his mother can't bear the idea of returning. He comes back to pray, and to see his father, for as a Buddhist this man believes still remains at the grounds and is happy to see a son come visiting.

Sunglasses are a good thing, in a situation like this.

That is what I mean when I say that to visit Cambodia, and to truly understand its existance and its people today, you must have a knowledge of what happened just three decades ago. We just read The Killing Fields, which was enormously informative, I'd highly recommend it. This man and his family had a similar experience to the character in the book. Beyond that, visiting Choeng Ek and Tuol Sleng, and by reading such books, you realize that the KR murdered all of the intellectuals, the doctors, the teachers, the businessmen, the bourgeois as they were called. In the process, they destroyed the intellect of the nation, as well as its culture, its potential, and its history. In that, they partially succeeded in achieving their goal of going back to Year One, the Stone Age. They also succeeded in dumbing down their nation, setting it back to the degree that it will take generations to begin to reach the potential of what it might have been had there never been a Khmer Rouge. We wondered that today: what would Cambodia be like today if that atrocity had never happened?

I can tell you what we have seen here in PP, the capital. On the way back from the Killing Fields, the driver took us through many backroads to avoid the heavy traffic of the main roads. We went through neighborhoods that at first, we said to each other, "This seems like a slum." Then it was clear that it was a slum. Poverty is rampant here, that much makes itself very clear, very quickly. In a country like Laos, people don't have much, but they seem to lack the desperation that usually accompanies abject poverty, they seem to have a peace about them. Here, the poverty has much more of an edge, which is a good way of describing Cambodia in general. My experience in Cambodia is very, very limited, since I've only been in PP, for a single day; still, there didn't seem to be the peace, the general happiness, that we saw in Laos and Vietnam.

Another striking feature of PP is its cars. First, there are many more of them than we've seen in the big cities of Laos and Vietnam. More importantly, they aren't just Ford Pintos and VW Bugs. The vast majority of them seem to be Lexus, Mercedes, or at least high-end Toyotas vehicles, with a hulking, shiny Hummer thrown in every once in awhile. We've read that Cambodia is a country where the rich get rapidly richer, and the poor get rapidly poorer; if these cars are any indication of that, then its's clear the upper crust's complete disdain of the multitudes of poor is rampant. We've had a wild conversation about it, about how there is so much money in this country, obvious from the fancy cars and even fancier shops lining the main drags, and yet there doesn't seem to be any concern for the welfare of those less fortunate. Yet communism is obviously not the answer; we keep finding the results of communism run amok on this trip. Somehow, it seems so hopeless.

Yet, it isn't so bad. We wanted to walk back from the museum, which took us about 1.5 miles through the heart of PP. We came across a large compound, with multitudes of students hurrying out of the gates on foot and on motorbikes, as it was around 5 pm. We then saw that this impressive building, with its equally impressive students, was a huge School of Human Sciences - a med school. When a country begins to educate its people, when it throws off the cloak of darkness that is ignorance and ideology, and when its people begin to care for their fellow countrymen, whether financially or physically, there is hope.

Until next time, be safe.


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Arrival In Phenom Penh

We're sitting in the backpacker district of Phenom Penh, a dodgy-at-best street in the Boeng Kak lake area, the kind of place that you can sit in a restaurant called I (heart) Fish & Chips, eating Indian curried chicken, watching the Nat'l Geographic Wild Channel, and listening to Bob Dylan's Christmas album overhead; if you are so inclined, there are Happy Shakes to be had, and even Herbal Pizza. Such are the characteristics of a good backpacker's neighborhood.

Arriving in Cambodia was an experience in itself. We had a great time in Can Tho, Vietnam, spending three nights there, more than we'd planned. It was a good city, not too crazy but with a vibrant feel to it, especially on its riverfront. Reluctantly we kept going, to the border town of Chau Doc. I'm not usually so final about a decision on a place, but frankly we just didn't like the place at all. It might have been the minibus ride, where we were crammed into a minibus so small that we had to put our bags in front of us and spent the three hour trip with our legs on top. It might have been the fact that they dropped us off 3.5 km out of town at a grungy bus station where the tuktuk drivers waited like vultures, demanding $2 for a 5000 dong ($.25) trip, or the busy road we had to walk along when we refused to pay so much. It could also have been the oppressive heat, the shady hotel manager who bumped up the price for AC in our room from $1 to $4 after we'd already settled in, or the ATM that ate our debit card and sent us running in a panic to the bank before we realized it was only an old, expired card, or the fact that the entire city shut down at 9 pm (literally; even the hotel manager was waiting for us to get back from dinner so he could roll down the doors). Whatever it was, or maybe a combination of all factors, we simply did not like Chau Doc.

Anyhow, it was a good thing we left early the next morning. We caught a slow boat that was to take us over the Cambodian border to Phenom Penh (henceforth referred to as PP). It truly was a slow boat, taking nearly 11 hours to reach PP, though a couple of those hours were spent waiting at the border for our visas. Even though 11 hours is just too much for any boat ride, this one was quite nice. It took us along several rivers from Chau Doc, eventually ending up in the mighty Mekong. By this point, the Mekong had gone from a large river to simply massive, its brown waters spread further apart than most lakes I've seen. Amazingly, despite how wide the river was, its flow was so fast, it was a little intimidating, in our relatively tiny boat (roughly 12-seater).  I can't imagine the volume of water that passes down the river. It's the end of the monsoon season in SE Asia, so many of the fields we passed were covered in lakes of the brown waters, and the homes that normally were over dry ground were long distances from the shore. Plying these waters, it was amazing to see the poverty that lines those rivers, for although these folks were well prepared for the floods with their boats and homes on stilts, they led a simple lifestyle, without electricity, without plumbing or running water, without any of the creature-comforts we take for granted. It was a view into the lifestyle of that huge percentage of humanity that lives on$1 or less a day; we figured these people probably lived more on a barter system than any monetary system. It was very interesting.

Leaving the boat, we had a 1.25 hr van ride waiting for us before we actually reached PP. Somehow, they crammed the 10 of us from the boat into a smallish van - including all of our backpacks - which might have seemed excessive, until we saw a tuktuk that had 13 people crammed onto it. We felt fortunate then, for we all had our own seats. Then we even saw a similarly sized van so crammed with people that three of them rode on top, and the backend was so packed that they couldn't even close the doors, using rope instead; I was surprised that the van was able to roll at all, as it flew past us. We'd been told that we'd be dropped off at the tour company's headquarters in PP, but we've been in SE Asia long enough you'd think I wouldn't be surprised when we ended up in some crap neighborhood at a hostel, "$5 each for room, cheap, cheap!" We declined, and with two Dutch girls we jumped onto a tuktuk that brought us directly to our neighborhood; our hotel, the #11 Happy Hotel, first showed us a room for $4, but we wanted AC, and that room cost us a whopping $8 (a change from Europe, where we paid $15 each for a bunk room). It was a decent room, there were good restaurants across the street (more of an alley, really), and I was too tired to bargain or keep looking, so at the #11 Happy Hotel we stayed. Actually, I was even happy to have had the LP guide, it was how we knew about our neighborhood; we've been lugging it around for a reason after all.

We got up this morning late, we didn't even bother to set the alarm clock, and had a huge breakfast of pancakes, muesli, and REAL coffee, then bartered a tuktuk driver down to $6 to take us on the 36 km round trip to the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek) museum and then to the Tuol Sleng Museum (the notorious S21 detention center of the Khmer Rouge). I won't go much into details, I don't want to give the wrong impression that we just seek out the most depressing places we can find on our travels. Really, though, unlike similar sites in other countries, these two sites are memorials to an event that goes beyond being part of Cambodia's history, it has defined the past 35 years of it, and continues to do so even today. The events that occurred in Cambodia in the late 1970s, the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge, happened in my lifetime, not my grandfather's. That is a shocking thought, that history was being wrought here when I was crawling around in my crib, that mass graves were being excavated while I was learning to read, that the KR still held a seat in the UN General Council and that the Cambodian government that rose from the ashes of the KR was still considered illegitimate by our mighty UN while I was preparing to enter high school. That, to me, is mind-boggling. Maybe that isn't enough of a statement. With all of our power, all of our communication and satellites and technology and wisdom, we couldn't stop 3 million people from being massacred; that is an atrocity in itself.

Something happened that shook Jess and I awake at the Killing Fields, one of those events that you later wonder which stars aligned to allow it, or which circumstances occurred to provide for it. We walked around the place, a shocking enough experience. We started at the stupa there, a tall tower filled with the skulls and bones of victims, a sight that takes your breath away. Then we walked behind it, where the pits still remain from the excavations of the mass graves. Clothing still lies strewn around, in small piles that have emerged as erosion has done its work. In the pathway between the pits, there are bone fragments that have emerged from the footsteps of visitors. It was one such torn shirt and bone fragments that I was trying to avoid stepping on when I heard a man say to me, "They are real. They haven't put any fakes here." I looked up to see a well-dressed Cambodian man, a video camera in his hand, speaking to me.

We struck up a conversation, casual at first as I commented about the place. Then he stunned us both when he said that he was visiting his father, who had been a victim of the KR and had been killed there in that unholy place. The story then emerged that he came from a well-off family, as his father owned a coconut farm and worked in an embassy. When the KR emerged as victors in the civil war, they took his father, who was one of the 17,000 who died at Choeung Ek; the rest of his family went into hiding in the countryside, staying alive by pretending to be peasants. In January of 1979, when the Vietnamese invaded and destroyed the KR, they fled across the border into Thailand, and two years later were able to immigrate to California. He has returned now three times, although he says he is the only one; when others in his family see his videos, they all sob, and his mother can't bear the idea of returning. He comes back to pray, and to see his father, for as a Buddhist this man believes still remains at the grounds and is happy to see a son come visiting.

Sunglasses are a good thing, in a situation like this.

That is what I mean when I say that to visit Cambodia, and to truly understand its existance and its people today, you must have a knowledge of what happened just three decades ago. We just read The Killing Fields, which was enormously informative, I'd highly recommend it. This man and his family had a similar experience to the character in the book. Beyond that, visiting Choeng Ek and Tuol Sleng, and by reading such books, you realize that the KR murdered all of the intellectuals, the doctors, the teachers, the businessmen, the bourgeois as they were called. In the process, they destroyed the intellect of the nation, as well as its culture, its potential, and its history. In that, they partially succeeded in achieving their goal of going back to Year One, the Stone Age. They also succeeded in dumbing down their nation, setting it back to the degree that it will take generations to begin to reach the potential of what it might have been had there never been a Khmer Rouge. We wondered that today: what would Cambodia be like today if that atrocity had never happened?

I can tell you what we have seen here in PP, the capital. On the way back from the Killing Fields, the driver took us through many backroads to avoid the heavy traffic of the main roads. We went through neighborhoods that at first, we said to each other, "This seems like a slum." Then it was clear that it was a slum. Poverty is rampant here, that much makes itself very clear, very quickly. In a country like Laos, people don't have much, but they seem to lack the desperation that usually accompanies abject poverty, they seem to have a peace about them. Here, the poverty has much more of an edge, which is a good way of describing Cambodia in general. My experience in Cambodia is very, very limited, since I've only been in PP, for a single day; still, there didn't seem to be the peace, the general happiness, that we saw in Laos and Vietnam.

Another striking feature of PP is its cars. First, there are many more of them than we've seen in the big cities of Laos and Vietnam. More importantly, they aren't just Ford Pintos and VW Bugs. The vast majority of them seem to be Lexus, Mercedes, or at least high-end Toyotas vehicles, with a hulking, shiny Hummer thrown in every once in awhile. We've read that Cambodia is a country where the rich get rapidly richer, and the poor get rapidly poorer; if these cars are any indication of that, then its's clear the upper crust's complete disdain of the multitudes of poor is rampant. We've had a wild conversation about it, about how there is so much money in this country, obvious from the fancy cars and even fancier shops lining the main drags, and yet there doesn't seem to be any concern for the welfare of those less fortunate. Yet communism is obviously not the answer; we keep finding the results of communism run amok on this trip. Somehow, it seems so hopeless.

Yet, it isn't so bad. We wanted to walk back from the museum, which took us about 1.5 miles through the heart of PP. We came across a large compound, with multitudes of students hurrying out of the gates on foot and on motorbikes, as it was around 5 pm. We then saw that this impressive building, with its equally impressive students, was a huge School of Human Sciences - a med school. When a country begins to educate its people, when it throws off the cloak of darkness that is ignorance and ideology, and when its people begin to care for their fellow countrymen, whether financially or physically, there is hope.

Until next time, be safe.


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November 02, 2009

To Saigon And Beyond

We're moving right through Vietnam, and it hasn't failed to fascinate us. Unbelievably, we are almost finished here in Vietnam, as we are getting ready to cross the border into Cambodia in two days. We've been here longer than other countries in SE Asia, but that hasn't made it seem like it's been a longer time.

Saigon was a very interesting city, I think we might have liked it more than even Hanoi. I think that in Hanoi, there was more to do, more museums and such, and the city itself was more beautiful, with lakes and tree-lined streets, but there was more of a vibe in Saigon. It was more welcoming for backpackers, I thought, with a whole neighborhood that felt like a haven from the hordes of motorbikes that filled all of the streets outside its three streets. Getting into the center was much easier than in Hanoi as well. In Hanoi, to reach the airport, we had to find the minibus stop on Google maps, then walk the half-hour trek with our packs to catch the hourlong minibus ride. It went quite smoothly, despite briefly getting lost trying to find the right street, and the flight itself was great as well. The best part, though, was getting on an air-conditioned bus at the Saigon airport, and being able to follow our route as we moved through the crowded streets of Saigon, using the map provided by our LP guide (the first time it has been useful in SE Asia). Of course, once we jumped off the bus, we were surrounded by pushy ladies trying to get us into their guesthouses. We resisted them, though we looked at a few of their selections; invariably, they always made us walk to the top of their five story building to discourage us from continuing our search for a good guesthouse.

We were briefly considering taking a tour into the Mekong Delta, which is an area southwest of Saigon known as the "rice-basket" of Vietnam, as well as a beautiful area to see the famous ricefields and lush, tropical landscape of a massive river delta. Of course, you can take a fairly cheap, convenient tour out, but I drove Jess nuts going from one tour agency to the next, looking at what they offered, and they all had days filled with visiting the tourist traps like the coconut candy factory and the rice-paper coop, the Carpet Shop Schemes of Vietnam. In between being pressured to buy crap, we'd be stuffed into minibuses and boats filled with other tourists; it just didn't seem like much fun. So, we decided to go out into the Delta by ourselves, and to take the local transportation, to book the boat rides in the rivers and canals ourselves from the docks.

First, though, we needed to get our Cambodian visas at the consulate in Saigon, which we hoped would prevent the kind of nightmare situations like we had getting into Laos. So, we split our last day into our two objectives for Saigon, getting the visas, and going to the War Remnants Museum there in Saigon. The museum and the Cambodian consulate weren't far apart, so we set off, though we didn't start until about 10:30, which was a big mistake. Everything in Saigon such as museums and government building close for at least two hours, so I was worried we would miss the cutoff. Sure enough, we arrived at the consulate at about 11:40, ten minutes after they closed, and they wouldn't reopen until 2 pm. So, we went off to find a little lunch, and we were outside the museum when it opened back up at 1:30. I'm going to post a full entry about the museum, by itself.

After we visited the museum, we headed back to the consulate. This time they were open, though we arrived as a couple of guys on a motorbike arrived to change out the gate-guard's AK-47 while holding a bundle of the guns, being rather carefree where the barrels would drift off to point at (as I ducked). Again, we had hoped to avoid any issues with the visa, that was the purpose of coming to the consulate rather than waiting to get one at the border. That wasn't to be the case, as it immediately became apparent. The agent inside handed us an application and pointed at a sign that stated that only Vietnam dong would be accepted. Fair enough, as we were in Vietnam. He then told us that the price was 500,000 dong (about $28). We asked him why the price was so high, and he replied that it was because we'd come in the afternoon, so we had to pay for the express cost. We pointed out that it was a simple sticker he needed to put in the passports, that it had taken 10 minutes for our Vietnam visas, and there were no other customers in line. Besides, every website (including Cambodia's) we'd seen had stated the price would be $20, with no fees mentioned, which we pointed out, and our guide booke even noted that these guys like to invent fees and charges to put into their pockets. I kept my cool very nicely, unlike at the border of Laos, but I politely pointed out that it was obvious that he was cheating us, and that I'd like to see his manager. At this point, he began to lose his English skills, until by the time that I was asking for his name to report him, he couldn't understand a word of English, despite his skill at the beginning of the conversation. He even went back to his desk to nervously straighten out the paper in the printer, by that point unable to even hear us. Needless to say, we didn't pay his cost for the visa.

The rest of our time in Saigon was really nice, as long as we were able to dodge the motorbikes. Jess developed a method of getting rid of the touts trying to sell junk in the streets, by starting her bargaining at "free" or "zero" and refusing to go up. This worked until some lady trying to sell a book of old currency bills thought she said "three" (as in $3), and then it was twice as hard to get her to leave us alone. We spent the entire day walking through Saigon, and although we didn't come even close to seeing much of it, it felt like we did. The next morning we checked out and jumped on a city bus that took us out to the bus station, where we were the only foreigners around. The Vietnamese found this a little shocking, and officials at the station took the initiative to help us buy our tickets. All I said was Can Tho, and they snatched the money from my hand, guided us to a booth, and got us onto a VIP bus with AC. That sounds great, and it was, but it still only cost 70,000 dong ($4) for the 4hr trip. The bus company even gave us a lift to the only hotel under $40 in our LP guide (a mixed bag of usefulness; most people using a LP guide want a budget place, which is badly lacking in the guide, but at least they threw in one that we could refer to). Before we knew it, we were settled into the city of Can Tho, and taken under the wing of the hotel's owner, a bossy but helpful lady who would have had our itinerary set (so long as we used her various services) if we'd so wanted.

One of the highlights of coming to the Mekong Delta, and Can Tho in particular, is taking a boat out to the floating markets. We looked on the dock for someone to take us, but being too late in the evening for that, we reluctantly used our hotel lady, and paid a bit more than needed. Still, the trip was a full day of fun. Starting at 5:30 in the morning (they provided coffee), we headed up in a little two-seater motor boat along the river. After about an hour, we reached the first market, Cai Rang, which was really nice in the morning sun. Even better, we'd left early enough to miss the multitude of boats full of tourists (the kind we avoided taking from Saigon) and saw only a few other boats with independent travelers there. We continued on, marveling at the locals going about their business on the riverfront. It is a different existence there, one of boats and fish and homes built on stilts over the water, likely both peaceful and difficult. We came to another, smaller market, this one with less motorized boats. Here we just sat for awhile in the middle, watching the river commerce going on around us, as vegetables, fruits, animals, chickens, and all sorts of other produce exchanged hands, or rather changed boats. We bought a grapefruit to eat, and then we headed back down the river, heading off on a long route through the many canals of the surrounding area. Here we passed even more peaceful villages and homes, a quiet, simple existence, far removed and away from the hectic streets of even a small city like Can Tho. Our driver stopped at a lousy, expensive cafe for tourists, but we forgave him, since he did take us on a seven hour trip.

Today, we had even more adventure and excitement, by renting a moped to check out the surrounding areas. Turns out it's more scary than fun, so we have mostly stuck around the city and its sidestreets to avoid the trucks and buses haunting the roads out of the city. We definitely feel like we are getting a Vietnamese experience, making our way through the streets on a moped, though not nearly as fast as the locals. I even found a sidestreet, and Jess tried out driving it around, though she wasn't comfortable with me on the back. It's all about the experience.

Until next time, be safe.


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War Remnants Museum, Saigon

This museum was one that we'd heard about and wanted to see. I originally put this in a post about our travels through Vietnam, but it is too large, and deserves a posting of its own. 

Now, I'd heard things about the museum, that it is very biased against the US, which is understandable, considering the Commies won. I was expecting this to some degree. I was surprised by how biased it truly was, though. The museum was actually fairly small, the first floor had a couple of galleries, and the second had a couple exhibitions, including one about US photographers who took iconic pictures of the battels. The first floor was divided between an exhibition of photos showing various graphic scenes, from dead bodies to people being "interrogated" or beaten, and then a section dedicated to the people whose lives and future children were dramatically altered by the usage of Agent Orange, a defoliant used to destroy the forest so that American forces could see what was shooting at them. The use of Agent Orange was unacceptable, as it used dioxins that are highly lethal against humans in even tiny amounts. The photos had less of an impact on me, though. They were terrible and graphic, but the accompanying captions never failed to place the blame squarely on US forces, despite the lack of a single picture that had a US soldier pointing a gun at someone. The captions referred to the US as "fascists" and "imperialists," and talked about how they murdered women and children on a frequent basis. Propaganda is propaganda, even when used in a situation such as a Vietnam War museum. For me, the war speaks enough for itself; it was a terrible waste, a stain on America's standing in the global community as well as its morals. It was the definition of excessive force, as we dropped more tonnage of explosives than any other war, including WWII. It was an undefined slaughter, of both American lives (58,000 killed) as well as Vietnamese (3 million died, over the 11 year period of the civil war, from both sides). America wasn't responsible for nearly that total of carnage on the Vietamese side, as the "democratic" southern government and the Communist north inflicted massive casualties on each other. Still, it was a war that we shouldn't have been involved in, nor should we have gone anywhere near Cambodia, where our bombings led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge and one of the century's most horrendous genocides. Some might argue that Vietnam was a proxy war, that we were indirectly fighting the Chinese and Russians (which we were), but that was no excuse for our involvement, which did nothing to prevent Communism and only caused death and destruction; Communism was quite capable itself to bring about its end.

While I don't defend our actions in Vietnam, it was still interesting to see how the war is portrayed in Vietnam today. As I mentioned, there were lots of pictures of dead bodies, there were stories of massacres where one person miraculously survived, and of course it was the US that pulled the trigger in all such situations. What was lacking was any evidence these were victims of US actions. Even more glaringly absent were any pictures or even mention of the atrocities that were committed not only against US POWs and soldiers, but against their fellow Vietnamese, by the Viet Cong. There was a replication of the prison used to keep VC POWs, and it looked dark and dank (though not so much when compared to those of Germany), but there was no mention of the Hanoi Hilton or other VC camps where torture and murder of inmates is well-documented. All of this was convienently missing. Another aspect I found interesting was the exhibition of gestures of support by other nations, namely Communist countries and European countries. There were plenty of quotes from European officials condemning what was going on, and what stood out, glaringly, were quotes from French officials. This seemed rather hypocritical, considering that for the better part of a century, France had subjugated, often cruelly, Vietnam as one of it colonies, taking its riches and leaving a huge vacuum of power when they left. That set the stage for the civil war to start, leading later to the Vietnam war. Seems like there should be times when people should consider their own past before they speak out against someone else. You know what they say, check for that plank in your own eye...

So, the museum really was important to visit, to gain a perspective we hadn't had before. Besides, there was a lot of history, much of which that was honestly presented, that showed just how terrible and tragic this war was. Regardless of its politics, of the motives of the various powers involved, and of the fact that no awards for decency and humanity were handed out, the people that suffered were the young and the innocent, the soldiers of both sides, the civilians of Vietnam. I'm reading a book now from the perspective of a VC soldier, and as he reflects after the war, when again Vietnam is about to be thrust into war with China, that it is the old guys, the politicians, the ones in power with no personal connection to the carnage of war, who agitate for it. The soldiers, on all sides, just want to survive.

Until next time, be safe.


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November 01, 2009

Videos From Vietnam

It takes forever, but I finally got some videos up from Can Tho.

Riding The Boat On The Mekong Video

Floating Market Near Can Tho Video

Until next time, be safe.


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Pictures From Vietnam & Laos

Here are some photos, starting with ones from Laos, then on our way down Vietnam.

 Sunset Over Mekong River, Luang Prabang, Laos

 Dusk Over Mekong, Luang Prabang

 Boats At Dusk, Luang Prabang

 Intersection In Hanoi, Vietnam

 Jess & Our Friend Ngan, Hanoi

 Halong Bay Entrance, Vietnam

 Sunset, Halong Bay

 Sunset Over Karst, Halong Bay

 Cat Ba Island Peaks, Vietnam

 Beach Near Cat Ba Town, Vietnam

 Sunset Over Cat Ba Island Bay, Vietnam

 Karst Formations, Halong Bay, Vietnam

 Saigon Street, Vietnam

 Motorbikes Whizzing, Saigon, Vietnam

 Nighttime In The Streets, Saigon

 Tossing Pineapple In Floating Market, Can Tho, Vietnam

 Floating Market Boat, Can Tho

 Lady Rowing Her Boat, Can Tho

 Watchdog, Floating Market, Can Tho

 Trawling For Fish, Can Tho

 Floating Market Scene, Can Tho

 Women In Floating Market, Can Tho

 Selling Grapefruit, Can Tho

 Aaron In The Floating Market, Can Tho

 Child In Floating Market, Can Tho

 Jess With Our Boatman's Creation, Can Tho

 One Last Shot Of Floating Market, Can Tho

 Lady Rowing In Canal Near Can Tho

Until next time, be safe.


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October 25, 2009

Welcome To Vietnam

I'm writing from Hanoi, Vietnam, an incredible city. When we first made our plans to arrive in Vietnam, we thought of skipping Hanoi altogether, and I'm very glad that we didn't. Just when I think that we've seen everything that cities will have to offer, that cities that we visit will begin to blend together into an urban landscape void of uniqueness, we come across a city so definitive in itself that I will always remember our time there, no matter how short it was. Hanoi is that kind of city, and although we are heading tomorrow on to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island, I've already forged memories of this city.

Looking at my watch now, I see that our taxi from the airport (an hour away) arrived outside our hotel about this time last night. That means we have had only 24 hours here, and yet it's been very memorable. Let me backtrack a bit. Sitting in Vang Vieng, Laos, we had to make a decision from three alternatives to get into Vietnam. First, there was the adventurous route, to travel upriver from Luang Prabang to a frontier town on the border; getting to the frontier town would require nine hours on the boat, the crossing an additional four hours, and assuming you caught one of the three buses a week from the border into Vietnam, you would likely find yourself crammed between crates of chickens and bags of rice for a nineteen hour trip. From reports we read, this route could take a week to complete. The second route was to take a chartered bus on a 36-hour journey; only those who've been on the roads of SE Asia understand the chill down our backs at this prospect. The third alternative was to pay a little extra, and take a 45 minute flight from Luang Prabang to Hanoi. So we took the third choice.

The flight was unremarkable other than we had better service in that 45 minutes than a four hour flight in the US (they served a small meal). Unfortunately, due to a flight delay, we didn't arrive into Hanoi until after dark. I didn't know much about this city, other than it is a bit crazy and there are 3.5 million inhabitants; what I did know is that it wasn't going to be all that easy to find a place to stay. Isreal came to our rescue, by sending three of its citizens (two of them buff guys as well) to blaze our path for us. We'd seen them in Vang Vieng, and so I didn't feel too uncomfortable speaking to them as we stood in line at the ATM to get out Vietnam dongs. I asked them if they were planning on taking a minibus into town, to which they replied they weren't sure. They had a few names of hotels they'd gotten from the net, and they planned on trying to find those places. In SE Asia, it is not a wise idea to book ahead at hotels; it is essential to first see the rooms, and then to bargain for them; I had the listings in our Lonely Planet guide to show to the drivers. We were approached by a taxi driver, who offered us a ride for $15, which divided between the three of us was cheaper than taking the minibus. Off we went.

As we approached Hanoi, we had our first clues that this was a different city than most. The closer to the center we drove, the more motorbikes started to clog the road. As we entered the tight streets of the Old Quarter, it became more like an unorganized motorbike/moped race, except there was no particular direction. Intersections had no stoplights nor stop signs, so it was a free-for-all through them, unprotected bodies weaving past each other, occasionally punctuated by hostile taxi-drivers (such as ours). It was to the point that I could not make sense of any of the logic of the drivers, they drove so erratically and without any particular notion of road rules or laws that I couldn't see how there weren't constant accidents around us.

Now, our LP guide has been essentially worthless for the better part of this trip, but it did mention that a common scam is that the taxi drivers will take you to a different hotel than you requested, with all sorts of excuses (it burned down, it went out of business, etc.). We were expecting this to happen, so it wasn't surprising when it did; when we confronted them, we were told that we were at the correct hotel, but it had changed its name. This is where the large size of the two Isreali men came into play. They agreed to see the rooms (after all, the taxi was dumping us regardless), and the other three of us watched as they came down and stood in the lobby, apparently haggling hard by as much arm motioning was going on. They talked the price down to $7 a person, a good price in Hanoi for a nice hotel, and better than what the other Westerners I stopped at the door paid for their room ($10 a person). We agreed to stay, but then the taxi driver tried to add a few more dollars to our bill. I quote: "That isn't how this is going to happen. We are Isreali." We won.

I will say, our room here is the first in a long time that we've had AC, much less a TV showing HBO and numerous other US channels. Unlike our room in Vang Vieng, there isn't a literal army of ants canvassing our floor. I am not complaining about the $14 we paid. On the other hand, we certainly took advantage of the sink to wash our dirty clothes.

Today was spent wandering the streets. That is perhaps too loose of a term. In Hanoi, you don't "wander," you look very carefully around you in every direction before you even dare enter the street, for having a foot on that pavement places you in a precarious position. The streets are a nonstop torrent of motored vehicles, mostly consisting of bikes of some sort with occasional cars. On some streets, the direction of flow is mostly followed, and in certain intersections, there are even street lights that most people obey, though there are rogues who crash through intersections long after their lights have changed, careening through the traffic. Most of the time, there is no rhyme nor rhythm to how people drive here.

We didn't follow much of a plan today, we just walked, part of our normal routine. We had the vague goal of reaching the infamous Hanoi Hilton, the POW prison where John McCain had his arms shortened to their T. Rex-like shape. My sense of direction in the hazy mid-morning was shot, though, and even though we had this huge lake right in the middle of the area to use for orientation, we still totally wandered off in the wrong direction (east rather than south). An hour later found us peering closely at the map, not knowing that the reason that we couldn't find the street names was because we no longer were on the map. Again, a saint stepped in to help us out, this time in the form of a petite college student named Dao Kim Ngan (we called her Ngan, which is pronounced "nun," rather than "naan," which is the word for duck).

When she first asked us if she could help us, we considered her carefully, with our usual dose of skepticism. She seemed nice enough, so we decided to follow her when she offered to take us to the museum, at least long enough to see what the angle was (as we had earlier, when some lady forced us to put her stupid pole balancing two loads on our shoulders as well as her cone hat, then demanding 50,000 dong ($3) for the resulting picture, which we laughed at). We walked along, talking in length with Ngan, who turned out to be studying English to work in the tourist industry, and had been turned down repeatedly by people in requests for nothing more than a conversation to practice her English. A bit jaded, I was still expecting some sort of spin, until she paid for our entrance fee into a very interesting Confuscian temple, just to show us where she liked to pray before big exams. We talked about everything that we could think of, sometimes with difficulty, but she was an incredibly sincere person. We never visited the museum, instead spending the afternoon walking around with her, and when we finally parted ways, she had to struggle hard to keep from crying. She made our day, without a doubt.

In just over 24 hours, the best aspect of Vietnam has made itself clear, much better than any of the great Vietnamese food we've eaten or the best hotel room yet. That would be the people. There are some younger guys, who look and then sometimes act like hustlers, but compared to the more aggressive touts and street-salesmen of many other places, they even are tame. Usually, when you explain you already have a LP guide, a wallet, and that you don't smoke and have no need for a lighter with a picture of Ho Chi Minh on it, they just say something funnily exasperated in a forced American accent and go away. Thinking about it, I believe it is just the quick smile that you find here that makes the difference; today I would sometimes catch someone's eye, and they would keep this sort of restrained, bemused look on their face, until one of us would just break out in a grin, followed by the other. Sure, my beard has been mocked endlessly today, I had a picture drawn of it, and it brought a street-side barber nearly to hysterics as he suggested a bit of a trim. It was all in good nature, though; that seems to be the general attitude of the people here. They go about their business, spinning around each other on their mopeds, squatting down in the sidewalk cafes that literally are on the sidewalk, and all of the other multitude of activities people in Hanoi seem to be involved in, but one characteristic that appears to be general is their good nature.

Until next time, be safe.

 


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October 23, 2009

Pictures From Thailand & Laos

These are pictures from our time in Thailand and Laos.

Wat Pho Compound In Bangkok

The Famous Reclining Buddha

Aaron & Stupa In Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai Temple (Wat)

Jess Plowing Thru Noodles, Chiang Mai

Massive Ancient Stupa, Chiang Mai

Sunset Over Night Market, Chiang Mai

Jess & Lao Bus To Vang Vieng

Country Cow, Vang Vieng, Laos

Cave Spider, Vang Vieng, Laos

Rice Paddy, Vang Vieng

Aaron Pretending To Be Dirty Hippie

Farm Near Vang Vieng

Rice Paddy Near Vang Vieng

Sunset, Vang Vieng

Same Sunset, Vang Vieng

Another Shot Of Sunset, Vang Vieng

View From Our Room, Vang Vieng

Valley & Fields, Vang Vieng

Water Oxen, Vang Vieng

Hill En Route To Luang Prabang

Monk, Luang Prabang

Boat On The Mekong River, Luang Prabang

Jess On Boat On Mekong, Luang Prabang

Aaron On Boat, Luang Prabang

Monks In Boat, Luang Prabang

The Might Mekong River, Luang Prabang

Monk Robes On Mekong Bank, Luang Prabang

Until next time, be safe.

 


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October 20, 2009

A Perfect Day In Laos

Yesterday was one of those days that goes down as perfect in my book. We slept well after all the crazy traveling from the day before, and we felt calm and refreshed for our first full day in Laos. We had no specific plans other than we wanted to do some type of outdoor activity. That is one thing that Vang Vieng is known for. The tourist offices offer guided rafting, rock-climbing, and trekking trips, but we just wanted a quiet day to ourselves to explore the area.

The manager of the guesthouse had recommended an area for walking and swimming called the Blue Lagoon, so we set off into the lush green countryside. The main road out of Vang Vieng took us over a bridge across the Nam Song River, which was full of dirty water from the previous night's rainstorm. We shared the muddy dirt road with fellow pedestrians, motorbikes, bicycles, and old-fashioned tractors, as well as friendly cows and chickens. We stopped for a bit and provided the cows with a bit of company by scratching their ears and patting their heads. The surrounding countryside was beautiful with its flat, green rice paddies, the workers in their wide-brimmed triangle hats, and the tall, jagged, rocky karst peaks towering in the background. Our only complaint was the intensity of the tropical sun, which made us sweat profusely all day long. As we walked along, we thought how it was bad enough to be a tourist walking in the heat, so it was hard to fathom what it must have been like to be a soldier in this area during Vietnam.

About 3 km into the walk, we found a drink stand and decided to sit down with the owner and have a conversation under a shaded umbrella. He recommended that instead of continuing on the road, that we enter a hiking trail across the way that would allow us to visit four caves without the hassle of multiple tourists, and we would "touch some nature," as he said. That sounded like a pretty good idea to us, and we promised to buy a drink on our way back. The hiking trail was covered with tall bushes and trees, providing us much needed shade. The only living creatures around were the critters, the birds, and a few cows. Eventually we came upon a very rustic farm that had no electricity but the owners charged a small fee to enter the cave area, about a half mile away. We paid the fee, and took two flashlights, and headed out on the path which took us over the rice paddies towards the karst peaks nearby.

As we neared the cave area, there were plenty of slippery, jagged rocks that turned our stroll into a scramble. I love a good scramble, but this was too slick to enjoy. It took us about twenty minutes to climb to the first cave. We slowly dropped down into the entrance, and were quickly thankful for the much-needed flashlights to guide the way as darkness swallowed us. The cave was really quite impressive, with stalagmites and newly forming mineral crystals from the continuous water drops. It took a lot of climbing and scrambling through very tight crevices, and I prayed the flashlight battery would stay alive. We were coming near the end with a glimmer of light shining in the distance, when Aaron noticed the largest spider I have ever seen right above our heads, guarding a passage that led us out of the cave. As we shined our lights on it, it would slowly creep along the slick, wet rock, its beady eyes reflecting in the darkness. It was me, Aaron and the spider. After a worrisome but successful photoshoot, we decided to face our fears and attempt to exit. Fortunately, Aaron went back into the cave to retrieve a bamboo stick that he'd seen. This weapon was used to move the spider, prior to our entry into the passage; sadly, that was the direction it chose to scurry. Being a bit of a wuss, I made Aaron crawl through the passageway first to make sure the coast was clear. Then I followed, and gladly, made it through insect-free.

After climbing out of Cave 1, we continued our scramble to two more caves, again sweating profusely and caked with mud from head to toe.  The other caves were nice, but didn't compare to Cave 1. After several hours, it was time to head back, and we decided to take a break and swim in a small stream nearby. The water was muddy and the current was quite strong from the rainstorm, but there was a little pool off to the side that looked very inviting. Once again, the clothes came off, and we were instantly cooled; the relief from the heat only lasted until we got out of the water. We were looking forward to getting back to the drink stand for a much needed cold beer. The hike out was uneventful but beautiful, and with evening approaching, there was a slight breeze in the air. Back on the road, we chugged a beer and had a quality conversation with a traveling Brit, and then we slowly took our time getting back to town.

Back in Vang Vieng, as we walked towards our guesthouse, it was clear that we were the dirtiest, grimiest couple of folks in town, which is a lot to say since this area is littered with Hippies. This is our favorite kind of day, to go out and explore the natural settings in solitude, away from tourists, and to earn a beer. We then showered up and washed our clothes in a bucket, turning the water into a muddy color. Then it was time to hit the streets for another beer and some Lao food. As Dad says at home, about this time of day, "It's Miller time." Well, here in Lao, it was Beerlao time. Cheers, Jess.


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October 19, 2009

Learning Experience In SE Asia

We are now in Vang Vieng, Laos. It has been an interesting and educational journey to get here.

We left Bangkok for Chiang Mai four days ago on a night bus. Perhaps if I'd looked at a map while considering how we'd obtain our Vietnam visas, we would have never gone to Chiang Mai, as it is north and west of Vientiane, Laos, where we had to go for the visas. I did neither, though, I just felt strongly that we needed to get out of Bangkok after two nights and that Chiang Mai was a good place to go. In hindsight, we should have purchased the Vietnam visas in Bangkok, which would have saved us a trip to Vientiane altogether, but it's funny how clear hindsight can be compared to the rush of the present.

Our night bus to Chiang Mai was quite a cool experience. We were on the VIP bus, which in SE Asia means that they put your luggage under the bus rather than on top. We needed to get to the tour company office in downtown Bangkok, a distance that looked remarkably close to our neighborhood on the map, which would have been a true miscalculation. It turns out the distance was 6 km, through very confusing neighborhood. As it was, we struggled to find a taxi driver that would turn on their meter (a common trick with taxi drivers is that they try to bargain for the price rather than use the meter, because you can never bargain them down below what the meter would charge). Once we found a taxi driver, it still took us over an hour to get to the tour office through the most incredible traffic that I've ever seen. We'd literally sit still for 5 to 10 minutes at a time; I could see the time ticking on the meter. At the end of the trip, the meter read that we'd idled for 35 minutes--to go 6 km, or 3.5 miles. 

The bus was worth it, though. We were on the second floor of a double-decker, at the very front, so we had a private windshield that was more like a big-screen TV showing the downtown of Bangkok rushing around the bus. Whereas the taxi had to wait its turn, this monstrous bus bulged out into three lanes of traffic, because it was that big. They showed a movie, Wolverine, which I've seen enough to be able to follow the story despite the fact it was in Thai. We rolled into Chiang Mai an hour early, which would have been cool if any of the stores were open at 6:30 am. I wandered around while Jess watched our bags, and found a cool little guesthouse filled with dark wood and the scent of mosquito repellent smoke, called Your Guesthouse 1.

Our stay in Chiang Mai was unremarkable in most respects. The city itself is well known for the multitude of excursions you can do, such as trekking, elephant rides, rafting, village visits, etc. That is all well and good, but Jess and I had neither the inclination nor the budget for such things, and so we just relaxed for two days in the city. We mostly stayed in the Old Town; venturing out to the bus station to buy tickets to Laos, we found that Chiang Mai is a smaller version of Bangkok, including its traffic. We still really enjoyed our stay in Chiang Mai, we walked all around the Old Town, we ambled through multiple markets, we ate large amounts of cheap Thai food, we drank as many fruit smoothies as our GI tracts would allow, and we befriended a great Chinese fellow. It was nice to have a couple of days where our schedules were as empty as we wanted them to be.

Probably the highlight of the visit to Chiang Mai was during the last few hours there, when we went to the boisterous Sunday Market. It encompassed several parallel streets, and sold everything under the sun, from cheap clothes to Thai toys to Hippie jewelry. Of course, our favorite part of the market were the multitude of food markets--we ate everything we could. We started with vegetable spring rolls, then had a banana wrapped in rice wrapped in the banana leaf. We moved on then to several pieces of dim sum (not Thai, but hey, when it's cheap, you eat it), and finished with big plates of pad thai. We couldn't finish without sampling the oddly looking black jello licorice drink, which we challenged each other to try but then sucked down like the nectar of the gods. In silence.

The relaxation came to an end at that point; it was time for yet another epic travel day, Asia-style, which throws into conflict whether we can even call the comparatively calm trips in Morocco and Europe "epic." It started out with a tuk-tuk ride to the bus station, followed by an eleven hour bus ride south and then east to Udon Thani, where we caught another two hour bus to Nong Khai. That is the border town between Thailand and Laos. We jumped onto a tuk-tuk to go to the border, and had to forcefully refuse as the driver tried to divert us to a travel agent that would have doubled our visa costs into Laos. At the border, we were stamped out of Thailand, and caught a bus across the Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River into Laos. There, we ran into trouble.

This is where our trip became educational, and where hindsight was far more revealing than foresight. Our best plan would have been to buy Laos visas in Chiang Mai, which would have been a little more expensive but easy. The second best plan would have been to have had US dollars, which we found out too late. The visa cost was $35 a person, but when I tried paying in Thai baht, they wanted the equivalent of $90 for the two of us, instead of $70. I argued, but got nowhere; they told me to go around to the currency changer. When I did just that, they offered me $78 for the same amount, and so I entered a round-and-round. Jess says that I got angry, I say I was only standing up for my rights. Regardless, in the end and despite my objections, I still had to pay 3000 baht; it will be the last time I am in SE Asia with no USD on hand.

Anyhow, we then took a bus on into Vientaine, the capital of Laos. Our first objective, after obtaining Laos kips (their currency, which I had worried about being able to get from ATMs after reading online forums, which turned out to be wrong), was to get our visas for Vietnam.  We decided that after all that riding, we would walk to the embassy, which looked like it was just down the road. It was a little longer than that, but we made it, at 11:20. That was cutting it very close, as they took a two-hour lunchbreak at 11:30. Still, we had our visas within ten minutes, and the Vietnamese officials couldn't have been nicer. They obviously cared much for their lunch break. We caught yet another tuk-tuk downtown to the backpacker street, intending on staying the night. However, as it was only noon, we decided that we could keep going, because Vientaine doesn't have much going for it.

So, we booked a bus at 2 pm, had a bit of lunch and coffee, and then caught a tuk-tuk and then a minibus to the big bus, which brought us to Vang Vieng. That last bus was promised to be a VIP, the equivalent to a Mercedes, but it was really like an old, dusty, beat-up Pinto. That was obvious when we pulled up in the crammed minibus and saw some guy hanging out of the engine of the bus we were supposed to trust us in the mountains of Laos, a scary thought. They wanted to throw all our bags on the roof, but looking at the clouds above, I refused, and carried it with me to my seat. Everyone else had their bags lashed to the roof, but fortunately, it didn't rain en route. The ride to Vang Vieng was along a twisty, rough road, although the scenery was some of the best we've seen yet on this entire trip. Somehow, that bus slowly rolled along the hills of Laos, around the curves, through the crowds of cows and chickens in the road. (That was remarkable, given that during the bathroom break the driver had to make sure the engine was still attached, and someone noticed that the tires were of an uneven size. Sweet bus, though, really. There will be pictures of it later.) It was supposed to be a 3 hour ride, and four and a half hours later, we finally arrived under the cover of darkness (perhaps to hide the Pinto-esqe appearance of the bus?) in Vang Vieng. It was 6:30 pm.

The Car Equivalent Of Our Last VIP Bus

So, let's add those rides all up. We started out at 7 pm, and ended up in Vang Vieng right at 6:30 pm, meaning the trip took 23.5 hours, with only a few hours of walking and eating and shouting at customs officials involved. We rode a total of four tuk-tuks and six buses in less than 24 hours. In all likelihood, we truly deserved the Pinto bus-ride to Vang Vieng, because by the point that we boarded that bus, we looked more rough than it did. They say when you look as bad as your passport picture, you're too ill to travel. I say, when you look as rough as we did, you are one step from being a professional Hippie, a crowd that swarms this area of the world. We fit in well today.

Until next time, be safe.

 


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October 14, 2009

Bangkok For 60 Cents

Hello from Bangkok, Thailand! We have arrived in our 8th country and 4th continent of the trip, and today I finished my third 4GB memory card full of pictures.

I suppose I need to cap off the Europe experience. Let's see, I last wrote from Turkey, from the nice little city/town of Selçuk. We were deciding how to get to Greece, the cheapest way of which would cost at least 70 euros. In the end, we took the ferry out to the island of Samos, which was quite nice. There's not too much to say about that, it was a Greek island, which is to say that it was brilliantly sunny, the buildings were whitewashed and glowed in the sunlight, and Jess forgot her swimming suit, which found her swimming in her skivies on a secluded beach. Given the condition of our two pairs of underwear each at this point in the trip, that was much less tantalizing than one might think.

Anyhow, we had a remarkably tame night bus ride up to Istanbul (meaning they didn't try to dump us off at any point, and I slept like a baby). Our last day in Istanbul, despite being weary from being on a night bus literally every other night that week, we burned off the pounds by walking all over the city of Istanbul. We found a few sites on our map that we wanted to visit, a mosque here, a spice market there, and we set out to find them. We were successful, and we saw neighborhoods of Istanbul that few tourists bother visiting, which is a real pity. We even crossed the bridge to see another neighborhood; there we found an exciting fish market, something that I always love, and the trip back across the bridge was the highlight of the afternoon. We didn't notice as much on the way across, because we were on the upper level with the cars and the tram, but coming back we walked on the second level of the bridge, which was a pedestrian walkway lined with shops and restaurants. Up above on the upper level were dozens if not hundreds of fishermen, dropping their lines over our heads to try to catch the fish swarming for the bread they threw in. Of course, being that the fish probably deal with a constant barrage of fishermen using the same old tired bread, I doubt that they bite very often. Still, it was a sight for us, the kind of culture that you don't get sitting on a tour bus.

Our flight from Istanbul to Bangkok the next morning was unremarkable, though I should mention that flying on Etihad Airways reminds me of the the good ole' days before all the US airlines went borderline bankrupt and cut their services. We were almost pampered by the airline, so rare when I am used to being abused and neglected on a good day flying in the US. Sure, Etihad is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but what happened to the joys of flying? Now, airlines like Ryanair in Europe are talking about making you pay to use the bathroom on the plane, and have considered designing planes so that you are in a semi-standing position. Shame!

Anyhow, we arrived in Bangkok as scheduled. Unfortunately for myself, I didn't sleep a wink during the flight, so I was in the beginning phase of a coma by the time we came out of the airport. A good monsoon rain was waiting to greet us as we found our express bus to the neighborhood we planned on staying in, called Banglamphu. I fell asleep on the bus, only to be woken up to the driver telling us to get off his bus. We staggered off into the rain, fortunately just outside a cafe. We didn't have reservations for a place in Bangkok; it's better here to actually see the bed you'll be sleeping on before paying for it. I didn't anticipate the rain, though. So, instead of the two of us lugging our backpacks around the neighborhood, I had Jess hang out in the cafe with a good cup of hot coffee and I headed out with my rain jacket and the Lonely Planet to find somewhere to sleep that night. 

Well, as the trend has been for LP on this trip, it was almost entirely useless; the maps were wrong, and the only two guesthouses in our budget apparently no longer exist. That's not to say that there aren't a ton of guesthouses in the general vicinity of Khao San Road, the famous backpackers street in Bangkok. The issue is that it was raining while I was going from one to the other, looking at the rooms that they offered. I saw some very dark, musty, and generally scary rooms before I found a clean guesthouse that offered a basic room with a bed, a fan and a window for 230 baht ($9.70). Then I ran back through the rain to the cafe, and Jess and I went back to the guesthouse to collapse for a 4-hour nap. Our evening was quite relaxing, we wandered around the area, and we ate Pad Thai from a street stand for 30 baht ($.90).

Today was a remarkably interesting day, relative to the general continuous flow of interesting sights and experiences we have come across. We started this morning after breakfast to find a neighborhood of palaces and temples that is south of our neighborhood. Up to that point, I had initially thought that Bangkok was less crazy and busy as a place like Marrakesh, for example. Remember, I'd slept on the bus into town, and we remained insulated in our little backpacker neighborhood overnight, which contains more white folks than Thais. We experienced the real Bangkok, just minutes away from Khao San Road, a street that I'm willing to guess most backpackers never venture far from. 

 Navigational-wise, we weren't doing so hot. It is monsoon season in Thailand now, so there is usually a cloud-cover to match the oppressive humidity and frequent random rainshowers, and getting your bearings in this city is next to impossible. It's hard enough to try to gauge where you are with all the traffic blasting past in the street, and then if you stop just long enough to look at   map, more frequently than not someone stops to offer some advice about where you are going. Now, we are skeptical about such helpful people, they almost always have another motive to offering advice. Let's say that you make $2 a day; are you going to walk around offering advice to foreign people, just for fun? Doubtful. So we put up a resistance, but talked with a few people, including one old guy that was so friendly that our guard was let down. So began our adventure.

The next fellow to amble up while we peered at our map surely had some angle in our day, although I'm not sure how. He was full of great advice, telling us that it was a special day where the government was sponsoring rides via tuk-tuks (those funny little converted motorcycles) to the valuable sights. He was quite reassuring, and even flagged down a random tuk-tuk with the proper government plate. So, against our normal routine, we climbed aboard, and off we went. Our first stop was indeed at a little temple with a huge sitting Buddha. Cool enough. Our next stop ended up being another one of those awkward moments that you don't really believe you had later on. He dropped us off at a "factory," which I was picturing to be a big warehouse full of poor Asian kids on sewing machines. No, instead it was a cashmere suit tailorshop, and we found ourselves backing out the door explaining how, as Americans, we just weren't interested in a $400 cashmere suit or coat. Off we went down the road, to the government run travel agency, the TAT.

This was the only part of the day that I became angry about. We went up to the counter, at which a sluggish fellow told us that the bus to Chiang Mai (our next destination) was booked out tomorrow night, a terrible event as we were planning on getting out of Bangkok. He offered to sell us train tickets, and at our insistence "found" some bus tickets that he offered at 1030 baht each ($31, not bad in other countries for a 12 hour bus ride, but in Thailand?). We argued about the price, until finally we insisted we were going down to the bus station to talk to another bus company. We went outside, irritated to say the least, to find the tuk-tuk driver ready to take us to the next factory. We declined his services, to which he became quite agitated, surprising because he was supposed to be taking us around for the mere charge of 20 baht (60 cents). He drove off in a huff, and as we aren't people willing to let things go easily, we went back inside the agency, showing him our LP that stated that a bustrip to Chiang Mai should cost anywhere from 450-620 baht. He countered that our book was from 2007, and that prices have gone up; "They've doubled?" I demanded to know. Before long, he was on his feet and others were hovering around, in case things got out of hand. In the end, as we had no way of knowing if we were being ripped off or not, we bought the tickets; later, on Khao San Road, we found the tickets for 350 baht, but perhaps for a less safe bus company. Hmm.

Anyhow, we exited to find our tuk-tuk driver sulking further down the road. Upon seeing us, he again offered his services, to which we declined, and then the truth came out. He showed us a card that gave him $5 of free gas, which he said that he received for each "factory" that he took us to. He then offered to drive us free around town and back to our neighborhood if we agreed to go to the touristy shops. I was fairly delighted by his frank honesty and so off we went again. We saw a huge part of Bangkok from that little tuk-tuk, and if you haven't seen Bangkok from the back end of a tuk-tuk hurtling down the crazy busy streets for three hours, you haven't seen Bangkok. Especially if you only paid $.60 for it. As we neared another suit shop, he stopped the vehicle and turned around, telling us that it was ok if we didn't buy anything, but that it was important that we take our time. So we did, politely looking at the fabrics and shooting the breeze with the salesman, who surely knew from our looks and shoddy outfits that we were never going to buy a suit. We stopped at a jewelry factory, which was better because we actually saw the fellows in the back room making the jewelry and could call it an educational experience. It was just the standard old Carpet Shop Scheme all over again from Morocco and Turkey, only this time we were in on it. The guy got his gas cards, and we got to see several of Bangkok's great sights, although they rushed by as he pointed at them and shouted something inaudible in the wind back at us. We're thinking that this could be a volunteering opportunity, where we offer to get these guys free gas by going around with them all day to the tourist shops. Nothing like a good deed...

Anyhow, Bangkok has been good so far. It's as crazy and chaotic as they say, and then there are the sidestreets that they don't talk about, the food stands and the gambling halls, the Thai martial art rings and the genuine fake Rolexes and T-shirts. Sure, we may have paid three times as much for our bus tickets to Chiang Mai (and from the government no less), but that is the result of being in a new country every week. As soon as we figure out the angles in a place, we are heading off to the next one, with all its new angles. That's just part of the adventure of it all, though. If there weren't some angle, some hidden agenda, some gas card waiting to be obtained, then it would be so boring.

Until next time, be safe.



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