The End of Our Continental Swing

**More photos on the way...my camera battery died**


We heard horror stories going into Vietnam about the relentless touts, street salesmen and cyclo-drivers that never allowed a moments rest. It's true that there is usually someone on your heels trying to sell something, but we really decided that after India, everything is relative. In fact, we've really enjoyed Vietnam and its friendly people.

We seem to get stuck in capital cities wherever we go, and Hanoi has been no exception. Luckily, the chaotic streets in this very old city make for an interesting vantage point into the lives of so many urban Vietnamese. Days wandering the streets are hot and sticky, the cafes pricey and trendy, and the Old Quarter with it's narrow streets and alleys is a bombardment of sights, smells and (very loud) sounds.

With about a week left in Vietnam we decided to spend the money for a slightly expensive overnight train to the northern town of Sapa--famous in Vietnam for it's tribal minority villages, their colorful textiles and the sprawling rice terraces that climb the green mountain valleys. Aside from the temperate climate it really was a nice place to see, and it was interesting to see the locals mixing their own culture with the very new 21st century version that has been crammed down their throats. As a result, their persistence and agressive tactics are surprising given that fact that most of the sellers are either 50-70 year old women, or 8-12 year old girls. Regardless, they really are adorable and hard to resist--but when you do resist they can turn nasty on you. eally though, we just wanted something to compare our India train experiences to, and that's the real reason we went to Sapa.

After we returned to Hanoi we immediately braved a public bus a few hours south to a place we had missed on the way in called Ninh Binh. The decision to go there was not made lightly as the last thing either of us wanted to do was deal with the crook taxi drivers required to get us to the station, encounter the henchmen who hang around pulic transportation stops, or just get on a bus in general. Yet, we decided to go for it--and after yelling at the taxi driver for unnecessarily driving us all over the city to get more money, then beating off the reaching hands of the people trying to get us on their bus, we headed to Ninh Binh.

The city itself was nothing special, but we rented a motorbike and cruised the beautiful countryside through the karst landscape, visiting a small National Park and a primate rescue center along the way. It also seems that the mosnsoon season has begun, and everywhere we go is starting to get heavy rain. In this motorcycle culture everyone rides their with a massive poncho that covers themselves and the whole bike--and nobody slows down when the rain starts.

So that's that. Vietnam is through--the last country on our tour of South East Asia. Yesterday afternoon we flew back to Thailand where we will spend our final 10 days. Strange to think that it's been three months since we were first here...back then we were saying how weird it would be to back in Bangkok, because that would mean the end of the trip. We'll see if we can get another wrap up post between now and the time we come home though. But don't tune out yet, we really are going to Canada where I'm sure there will be plenty more adventures.

Busy life in the North

We are still in Vietnam and enjoying our stay very much. The north has a little different feel than the south, a little crazier and hectic with hints of India chaos and pestering, but still great. We spent 5 wonderful days in the very atmospheric town of Hoi An. Wow, I need to go back there with the girls because the shopping (i.e. custom taylors that will make anything and everything for you at a very, very cheap price). It was hard to walk around the place and not buy much. Like many places we've been we keep saying that if we were here on a shorter vacation and had some slush money, oh the amazing things we could buy. So, if anyone needs a fresh new custom suit, winter coat, wedding dress, or anything else go to Hoi An.

Aside from the shopping, the town was old and crumbly and so dang cute. It looked like a modern designer came through and created this old french look, exept that it was authentically old and french and a designer couldn't recreate the buildings to look as great as these. Exploring the streets and buildings was a highlight of Vietnam.

We took a scooter one day and visited China Beach which was a popular spot for the U.S. troops to have a day off while over here during the war. The beach was nice and empty but the currents were too strong to swim. We had and interesting lunch on the beach (no menu's in english) and I think that this is the hardest country so far to be a quazi vegetarian, everything is made of meat, and strange meat at that. We stopped at some interesting temples and mountains made of marble on the way back to Hoi An.

After Jared successfully pried me away from Hoi An (seriously ladies, go there) we went to Hue to see some more historical stuff. We are getting a little board of temples, forts, stupas, palaces, museums, etc... but there is still so much to see while we are here, so we must press on. The town itself wasn't real great, but we did see old cities ruined by the wars and masoleums for the past emporers who ruled in the 1800's.

We left Hue a little early so that we could get a visa extension in Hanoi before ours expired. This required taking an overnight bus (haven't done one of those in a while) to Hanoi, the Capital city of Vietnam. It is interesting to see the difference in the local people of the north v.s. the south. Its more hurried up here and the sellers/taxies/touts are more persistent and in your face but it is buzzing with life. We took a short overnight tour of Halong bay but probably should have done one more day. The tour itself was cheap but wasn't great (setting aside the rats and cockroaches on the boat, I guess its like they say, you get what you pay for), but the bay was absolutely beautiful. We slept on the boat with a great family from Australia who made us feel part of their own since we were the only outsiders. We swam and kayaked for a bit around the bays limestone Karsts and saw a few caves that were all lit up with different colored lights (felt a bit hoaky and disneylandish, but much of the tourists sites are like that here in Vietnam). It would have been nice to have our own boat and guide to explore more of the bay, but we enjoyed the beauty regardless.

North Into the Monsoon

You may have noticed we aren't as consistent in our blog postings as we once were. Maybe we're lazy now, maybe it's the unpredictable internet connections of SE Asia. Regardless, accept our most humble apologies.

After our stint in Ho Chi Mihn City we veered off the beaten track a bit and visited Dalat--the honeymooners capital of Vietam. Set amid man-made lakes, concrete statues of various animals, and green terraced hills as far as the eye can see, this is the first place we've visited in the past two and a half months where we haven't been dripping sweat around the clock. In fact, at several thousand feet above sea level, we actually got to enjoy putting on our shoes and long sleeve shirts for a few days. Praise Buddah! Unlike it's ill-mannered alter-ego that we visited in India, Mt. Abu, Dalat was a pleasant town with a colorful (yet smelly) market, nice waterfalls nearby, and a generous helping of the strange touch Vietnam puts on areas of interest--such as neon halos around Buddah or the Virgin Mary, swan-shaped pedaloos for the lake, or 15 foot high concrete tigers.

We spent one day cruising the cool hills, checking out the sites, and weaving through traffic, and I'm proud to report I've become quite the master of the Asian motorbike. Luckily, there are only a fraction of the people in Dalat as there are in Saigon, so the ride was reasonably safe. As a funny side-note, people wear very fashionable helmets in Vietnam--they're equipped with attachments that shade from the sun, or add a nice personal touch. In fact, they seem to be so popular that people rarely seem to take them off. Whether at the market, walking down the street or fishing on the lake, a good percentage of the people seem well prepared to step into a construction zone. When all else fails, do as the locals do when visiting your friendly local pagoda.

Regardless of the strange structures around town and the excessive head protection, the cool climate was the relief we needed. If only it could last all the way to Hanoi. We stayed an extra day in Dalat because we didn't want to go back to the heat and humidity, but we've since moved down from the hills to Nha Trang, on the coast of the South China Sea. Needless to say we've back to scorching heat, and countless moto-bike drivers who are all competing to give you a ride somewhere. It seems as thought the further north we go the more frequent the rain is becoming, too. We actually had one night that the rain started about 6:00 pm, and by 7:30 we were crossing the main road in town with the water nearly up to our knees--we've never seen anything quite like it. Further along down the coast we made another quick stop in a less toursted area and enjoyed a day and a half of hard rain while cruising the quiet coast on bikes. With not much to do and not many menu's in English we moved on after just two nights, but Shanon and I did look good in plastic bags.

Up the coast we go...we will try to be more diligent about the blog, in this our final month overseas. We fly back to Bangkok on the 3rd of June, and then should be stateside on the 14th, and in SLC on June 15th. Yikes!
A few minutes of r&r between thunder storms.

Loving Vietnam

Here we are, alive and well, hangin with the commies in Viet Nam. We sucessfully crossed the boarder into our last planned country on our original agenda.

We came from Cambodia to the border via the Mekong river by slow boat, which was really great. Life on the mekong is slow and muddy. Some of the people live in floating houses right on the river. Very interesting.

We spent our first night in a city called Chau Doc which really didn't have much to it, but was nice to see the daily goings on in the river city. We took off the next day via bus (which was broken down for an hour or so) and boat to the island of Phu Quoc which was absolutely amazing. It was quiet and although there were enough bungalows and resteraunts to eat at, there wasn't hoards of tourists outnumbering the locals. Most of the tourists that were there we from Vietnam anyway. There also was a nice lack of anyone trying to sell you trinkets and junk on the beach. Our bungalow right on the white sand beach looking out over the amazing waters was really, really cheap. It seemed to be what Thailand was (so we hear), 20 years ago before the influx of foreigners. Very nice. We stayed for 4 nights and if Jared would have let me, I think I would have stayed for much, much longer. We lazed the days away in our hammocks and watched the local fishermen working their nets from our porch. It seemed like this place was changing fast with major construction sites throwing up resorts all over. It may just be another gigantic upscale resort island in a couple of years, so we were glad to see it before it changes too much.

Against my pleadings, we left the island and headed for the city of Can Tho which was located right in the heart of the Mekong Delta. We really liked this place and spent a wonderful morning on the river with our wonderful tiny boat guide.

He took us to the biggest floating market in the Delta and we watched the local people go about their grocery shopping, fruit haggling, and meat cooking rituals. We also visited a rice paper factory, snake farm and land market while on our boat tour. The land market was absolutely insane, seriously there were snakes, fish, crabs, frogs and all other random things jumping out of buckets and flopping around our feet. We got some great fruits there including my new favorite fruit-the incredibly sweet and juicy mangosteen.

We also got to participate in the April 30th celebrations- which is for the victory of N. Vietnam over S. Vietnam-pretty much the end of the American (Vietnam) war. So fun, full of random street snacks, motorcycle chaos, and yes a stage with what I assume is Vietnams finest performers. White suite wearing, dance move throwing, high voiced singing stage hounds. Awesome!

We are now in Saigon, which has been full of strange emotions. The city is full of wartime sites and museums. We have been to a few which were heart renching and hard to see. This country seems to have been in war for decades on end and it is amazing that the people have thrived through it all. The museum for the American war (aka Vietnam war) was so sad (the agent orange section was near unbearable) and a bit anti-american but very interesting to see it through the Vietnamese eyes.

Vietnam has been really great so far and has intrigued us in many ways. First of all is the food-I am begining to understand that these people happily eat anything that walks, crawls, swims, hops, slithers, flies or anyother creature that well...lives. We haven't loved the food, but its interesting none the less. Secondly-yes, the locals all wear those conical straw hats... everywhere, and the women all wear some sort of matching brightly patterned pajama suit. Not quite sure what thats about, but they look comfortable. One more thing, they all drive motorcycles, hardly any cars. In a city of 6.5 million people and no traffic laws this makes for interesting walks (yes, they even drive on the sidewalks) and wonderful afternoon moto watching breaks. Priceless. I am sure this country will continue to intrigue us as the weeks roll on.

Whirlwind Cambodia--AKA the Nutshell

Last time we checked in we were finishing some great, hot days in the southern end of Laos. We've come a long ways since then, and without really thinking about time--only about how to stay cool--we are now ending our stay in Cambodia. Here's a recap of the past few weeks. With as many photos as I could tolerate uploading on these incredibly slow machines.

Like always, border crossings can be interesting experiences, and heading into Cambodia from Laos was no exception. Delays, sizzling hot bus journeys, and a slew of people trying to get our dollars. All in a days work. Our first stop, the trash laden town of Kratie, was primarily for one reason and one reason only. To see the mysterious and near-endangered Irawaddy Dolphin of the Mekong River. After two boiling days and several attempted scams by our guesthouse, we did manage to see the strange mammals--from a distance. In fact, I don't even have a picture worth showing. Hindsight reveals that we could have done without this stop, which was something like a waste of money and and another long, expensive bus journey. (Seems to be the norm in this country.) Live and learn.

Our next destination was the grand prize of any trip to Cambodia, and what I do believe is the last large monumental site (i.e. Macchu Picchu, Taj Mahal) we will see on this trip. The city is Siem Reap and the place is the amazing Angkor Wat. Did I sat amazing? Yeah, I meant really amazing. Some of the structures here date back as far as 800BC, and they were built with incredible precision and have truly withstood the tests of time. Unreal to see, and near impossible to imagine how these cities, temples and complexes were constructed so long ago.

Beacause Siem Reap and the surrounding area was indeed just a few degrees cooler than hell itself, we started our tour days in the back of a tuk-tuk at about 5:30 am. By 9:00 we had each departed with about gallon of sweat, and by Noon we would try and be back in the city and in a cool place before complete meltdown. The bonus of getting up so early, besides beating the sun for a few hours, is that sunrise is a really wonderful time to be at the sites. Also, being up so early ensured we would beat at least some of the tourist buses that transport--what in numbers could have been-- small armies or Thai, Chinese and Japanese tourists.

With the heat, two days of sight seeing was enough. Siem Reap was a nice enough town (with excellent burritos Shanon would like to add), but Angkor is the attraction and there's not much else to see or do, so we hopped another bus and headed onward to the tumultuous capital of Phnom Penh.

The history of this country, and this city are start reminders of the dark past the country has experienced over the last 50 years. Although modern in places, the city itself is still regarded as a frontier town choke full of drugs, guns and prostituion (or so they say). It is also home to the notorious 'Killing Fields' and the S-21 prison camp (former high school) where Cambodia experienced genocide in the late 1970's. A humbling experience to witness the wicked ways of men. Rich and poor, old and new--that would be a good summary of the city itself.

And with that, we're off to Vietnam. Starting in the south and working our way north, this is the last country we had scheduled in our original itinerary so be sure and stay tuned. We're also busy scheming several different ways to end the trip itself....possibly wrapping it all up with something a little closer to home. When we know, you'll know.

Camera Update: Our camera does in fact have a virus and we are trying to fix it, but with minimal success so far. Hence fewer pictures than usual. So sorry, I know you'd rather look at photo than read my ramblings.

Go To Laos!

Wow, Laos... That is all we can say. We are loving this country and its very happy, friendly, peaceful people. This country moves slow, it's calm and beautiful and full of fun outdoor stuff!

We spent a few days in the city capital and even that place is calm. You feel like you are in a small village but it is the capital, large and full of people (well relatively large and full, this country only has about 6 million people in it and most live in rural, poor places). Man, it is so hot! We splurged (a whopping $10) and got a room with airconditioning and a tv since it is too hot to move. We did manage to make it out to Xieng Khuan, a park full of Buddha stone carvings and sculptures, which was really cool (in a hot sort of way) and we watched a local soccer game afterward with a popcicle in hand (a new addiction of mine, sooo cold and delicious).

After we left the city, we started making our way south on the public bus (oh, fun) with a 2 day stop over in a small town called Na Hin. We were dropped off the bus at the road junction and could only get to Na Hin by waiting for an hour and then cramming in a sawngthaew (large tuk tuk with two rows of seats) with the local village. Yes, I think the whole village was in the truck and Jared counted 25 of us at one time on the ride. With nothing much except for a gigantic cave with an underground river through it (yes this country is full of caves) we didn't stay in the town for too long, except to go to the local New Years party which our hotel host invited us to. New years isn't officially until the 13th, but I think the Laos people start celebrating 2 weeks in advance. It was really interesting, to say the least, and I was offered a many weird and frightening foods, most of which I got down just ok. We rented a motorbike and wound our way through the stunning scenerey and remote, almost archaic villages to the caves entrance. Once at the cave we had to take a motorized fishing boat through which took about 1 hour to make it to the other side of the mountain, about a 7 km one-way journey. Very cool.

We left that mountain town and hopped on another random local bus to make it to Savannaket for one night (nothing to tell except for the wonderful soup dinner on the sidewalk by the mekong with the Laos) and then another really hot bus day to Pakse which is a crossroads town in the south where we have been based for the last few days. There are definately some crazy street foods going on here like dried crickets on sticks, marinated spiders and baby duck eggs. Gross! We rented another motorbike and went onto the Bolaven Plateau for a night which was a little cooler and full of beautiful waterfalls. I had a little misshap with the rocks and ended up with a slight sprained ankle (which seems to be my injury of choice) but don't worry, it's getting better as the days go on. Today we saw an old, old temple called Wat Phu, which was built back between the 7-12th centuries. The ruins were amazing, I think just a little taste for what lays ahead in Agkor, Cambodia.

We spent the last 3 days in Laos on an island in the Mekong river called Don Khon. It was probably the most laid back place I have ever been. There was no phones or internet and we only got power for a few hours in the evening which made the nights very hot! It was a great mix of few tourists, a few good resteraunts and wonderful daily Laos. The main activity for the days were reading in the hammocks or riding cruiser bikes around the island. Not much else. We met so many great locals and it was right in the middle of Laos New Year so there were many water soakings, dancing moments and good cheer. New year is also called the 'water festival' which I think is a better name. No one is safe, and the streets turn to mud after all of the water fights. So fun, this country is the best!