sabai dee from just out of laos:-)

Sophie came into the room our first night in Laos. "I have seen . . . " she paused, searching for the word in English. "Something terrible."

I was urged to go downstairs to be her witness. Sure enough, the kind-faced Laotian woman running our guesthouse in Pat Beng was happy to show me her catches-- two plump, scuttling cockroaches held captive in a tupperware, each roughly the size (including height) of a small mouse. "These are the best Lao cuisine!" she told me happily, and explained that she planned to cook them with honey for breakfast. Such began our stay in Laos.

People often recommend at least 10 days for Laos, supposedly because it's a country where it's best to relax and ease into the slow lifestyle. I'm sure this is true; however, it's also because overland travel takes FOREVER. Sophie and I had 8 days until we needed to be back in Bangkok, and we spent about 5 of them in transit: One day to the border at Chiang Khong. Two days on the slow boat to Luang Prabang with an overnight in Pat Bang, a small town where most residents have never heard of WiFi. (There's a fast boat, incidentally, but it's said to be quite dangerous). An evening, a full day, a morning in Luang Prabang. 7 hours to Vang Vieng. One day, then one morning in Vang Vieng. And then an afternoon/night bus back to BKK. And this was just to visit two main tourist towns with a paved road between them. Thankfully, the transit time was easily passed with spectacular scenery, books, travelers swapping stories, naps, and my own personal French tutor.

We finally made it to Luang Prabang, where we were recruited to take a look at the SpicyLaos backpackers hostel. I'm so glad we went, because it turned out to be fabulous, and we were welcomed right in to a room full of friendly backpackers. Sophie and I celebrated our successful arrival by dining in style at L'Elephant, a Casablanca-style French restaurant which David in Chiang Mai had said was his favorite place to eat in all of south-east Asia. Our meals, local fish with a creamy sauce and veggies and a shared tiramisu for dessert, cost $15 each-- 5 times the cost of our dorm beds! Though I'm definitely not spending that kind of money every night here, it was a pretty delicious treat. Although I can't say for sure whether it was as good as those breakfast cockroaches were said to be. (As one traveler commented, "Well, maybe they know something we don't!")

The next day, we took a tuk-tuk (with a new friend, Cornelia from Romania who lives in London) to the local waterfall. Once there, we heard about a hike, and decided to check it out. It was a steep, muddy climb to the top of the fall, where we could walk ankle-deep in rushing water and just past our ankles, water would spill hundreds of feet to the bottom where you'd started-- we were standing in an infinity pool, and it felt like conquering the world. (There was a quite firm guard rail, for the record.)


(Sophie is the one with the friendly butterfly on her bag, and Cornelia is the redhead:-) )















After the waterfall, we returned to the hostel for a nap, and met up with Megan from Los Angeles (yaaay LA) for another climb, up the hill in Luang Prabang for the view at sunset. (Megan was taking a course during the day to learn how to make a silk scarf on a loom-- I got to visit the next day, and it was pretty cool.) While the climb had a beautiful view of the town and the rivers, there wasn't so much a sunset-- for reasons I'm not sure of, we don't really seem to be getting any colorful sunsets here (perhaps the time of year?) and Laos was quite cloudy and rainy the entire week, possibly in relation to the typhoon in China. So, oh well. Still pretty, and in the evening we found cheap street food for dinner, wandered the night market, and finally settled down for drinks at a place called Utopia that fully lived up to its name. It was pretty much a paradise; a cafe made of bamboo on stilts with cushiony mats and candles, and something about the set-up and the warm weather and the night skies and the palm trees made it seem like the most peaceful place that could possibly exist in the world.

The next day, Tuesday, we made our way to Vang Vieng, a town known for its tubing, caves, and the fact that every restaurant and bar in town played re-runs of Friends or Family Guy all day long (one also plays The Simpsons). The road there was something incredible. On a map, it looks as though it is a relatively straight line that should take perhaps two hours. In practice, it is a six-hour tilt-a-whirl ride through a kindergartner's craziest scribble, full of hairpin turns and loops around mountains and chickens and children running in the street and a mini-bus driver that seems overly enthusiastic about the possibility of running them over.

In the midst of this, though, it is beautiful. We were just so small on this little mini-bus while the mountainside erupted around us, at times at such steep angles that the mountain wall was actually concave, textured by a thousand shades of jungle green save for the bits of sheer cliffside that looked as though they'd been streaked by hand with beige and black pastels. I kept finding myself thinking, "I just didn't know there were mountains like this." As though it was blasphemous that I hadn't known, and as though it seemed be urgent to apologize to the Creator for not having realized sooner. (My pictures don't do this any justice, by the way-- it was quite a bumpy ride, and difficult to even get any shots that weren't just of jungle brush.)



Finally, we made it to Vang Vieng. This entry is getting quite long, so suffice it to say that tubing was quite an experience. It's something like spring break Florida-style meets Hurricane Harbor meets the monsoon season with south-east Asia safety standards, and I'm really glad that we listened to the guidebook and took lifejackets. It was really fun, though, and relaxing once we got the hang of not crashing into the brush along the riverside.

So now, we're back in Bangkok (though Sophie is probably on a plane to one of the islands by now) and in a few hours I'm meeting up with Punky for a weekend trip to Phuket. Yay!

Until next time, much love,
Sara

in the jungle

Hi world!

On Monday, we embarked on our first ever jungle trek. Que divertido! (It is entirely possible that this entry will be littered with Spanish phrases, because...) We climbed into our sangthaew-- the local bus/truck combo-- and met our co-trekkers, 2 British girls and three couples from Spain. Un bien oportunidad! As you can imagine, we got quite a bit of Spanish practice in, especially since (for once!) our Spanish was deemed to be generally no worse than their English.

Getting to the jungle took a little bit of time, since we first stopped at a butterfly farm (somewhat random, but strangely unavoidable when trekking), as well as at a local market for lunch supplies. But finally, we made it! Our trek began with an hour long elephant ride, and I was glad to see the elephants were well treated-- it was clear that with all the tourists, the elephants had all the bananas they could eat. It was funny because the elephants didn't seem tot at all mind drinking water from ditches with us in tow, which from our perspective made for quite a roller coaster;-)


Promptly after our ride, we started up on our hike. And by up, I mean what turned out to be a continuous 45 degree climb for about three and a half hours. While the exercise was great, it was not at all what the brochure or our guide had described, and I wasn't surprised when one of our number (Emily, from England) got a cramp in her leg just one hour in-- especially since we hadn't even stretched beforehand. Given the difficulty of the hike, I was perfectly happy to visit with Emily while we took our time at the rear of the pack. In the end, we all made it to the top without collapsing, and we slept pretty well, too. Minus the roosters.

The next day Emily and her friend Sara were to go rafting, so we said goodbyes. While it was a bummer to lose them, it meant that the primary language of our group became Spanish, which was very exciting. We learned several practical phrases such as "Ten cuidado de la mierda" (mind the poop) "jodidos gallos" (an expletive to yell at the roosters at 4 a.m.), and "El manejero es un tocon" (the driver is a creeper!). The entire group was a delight to be around, and in the evening we played Charades (famous movies) and Spoons together. Finally, the last day was filled with white water rafting and bamboo rafting, both of which were really fun and I'm glad I had a chance to do them.

The one down-side of trekking was that I learned the hard way that mosquitos can bite right through water sneakers, and I now have about fifty bug bites on my feet. Fabulous. Fortunately, we're not in a malaria zone at the moment, but the itching was so awful that last night I found myself wishing I could jump off a bridge if only it would make the itching stop. Thankfully, that was in today's itinerary almost precisely!



We did it! And yes, it did help the itching. For a little, anyway, until I made it to the pharmacy for ointment in the afternoon.

So, today actually ends the Three Musketeers portion of the trip. Fonze and Jeff fly home on Sunday, and by chance I've met a Swiss girl named Sophie who had almost precisely my dates of availability to travel to Laos. So, after a good-bye dinner with David and Newee we said our own sad goodbyes-- and in the morning, Sophie and I make our way to Luang Prabang! Ch-ch-ch-chianges. (PUNNY!)

Until next time, much love,
Sara

chiang chiang, chiangity chiang she bop:-)

Hey all,

I last wrote on Monday, just before we left Hanoi. Our flight to Bangkok on Tuesday went smoothly (well, it was bumpy, but our execution of the day went smoothly), and we went straight to the train station to buy tickets for a night bus to Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. Since we had all our bags, we basically just hung around the train station for the day, which was fine-- we ended up meeting a couple of Australians who had just been to India, so we spent the afternoon swapping travel stories and then caught our train at 6 p.m.

We decided to ride glamourously in 2nd class berths (I've done night trains without berths, and have since decided that they are NOT worth it) and the whole thing was a lot of fun. I think I just love any excuse to sleep in a bunk bed, really. We played cards before bed, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned, but card games are a big hit with the Thai people-- whenever we play, we always have a flock of them around us trying to figure out how we're playing and how to help us along. One of the train stewardess ladies actually sat right down with us and had quite a laugh figuring out how the game worked (though she didn't QUITE get that the cards were meant to be kept secret from the other players.) Lots of fun, and I got a surprisingly great night's sleep. (I suppose it helps when one doesn't have burly German women busting through the door for border control at 3 a.m., of course.)

Wednesday morning we arrived in Chiang Mai, where Fonze's uncle's friend David had kindly volunteered to pick us up from the train station (he's lived in Chiang Mai for fifteen years or so). He took us out for a delicious breakfast, and made plans to visit for dinner the following night. We spent the day wandering the Old City, which has about a trillion wats and lots of shopping. (I bought the most beautiful flowy blue Renaissancy skirt ever for about $13-- a small fortune in Thailand, but SO worth it.)

We had heard about a hike that ended with a temple on a hill, so we were talking about going there on Thursday, but we'd need to hire a tuk-tuk. Thinking we'd save money and have an adventure, we discussed renting a motorcycle for the day, but then we decided that for safety reasons (like, not having anyone to teach us to drive it) that probably wouldn't work. Jeff and Fonze then proposed that biking there would be a fun alternative. Cue an eyebrow raise on my end, because it was supposed to take a half hour to get there by TUK-TUK, before even starting the hike. I opted to pass, and on the way home from dinner I was able to book a ziplining excursion instead.

So, I got to spend my Thursday ziplining in the jungle. It was so much fun! There were 22 stations-- something like 15 ziplines, 3 suspension bridges, 3 rappelling stations (including the final "Happy Ending," a 40 meter drop), and a rickety spiral staircase. The group was just me, some Irish backpackers, and an Israeli family who spoke only a little English, so I made friends with the Irish group and our tour guide, "Mr. Boston." I got home around 3:30 p.m., and Jeff and Fonze were both already asleep in our room. I had admittedly had a less strenuous day than them (not having had to bike down a 3 mile hill without brakes or whatever it was that they were up to) but I was actually quite pooped too... so, it was group siesta time until David picked us up for dinner at 5:30. Dinner was a treat: His wife, Newie, made us (and a British friend of theirs) pad thai with shrimp for dinner, and mango pie for dessert. Yum! I am really going to miss all the fresh tropical fruits when I get back to CA, but luckily I have several weeks left of passion fruit and mangoes and pineapples, and that's quite alright in my book. (Must get an avocado-- I've seen them a couple times and they look delicious!)

David was pondering what else we might want to do while we were in the area, and he mentioned that his foster daughter, now age 20, was living with a hill tribe in Chiang Dao, and we could go visit her for the weekend. So, we had more wandering time in Chiang Mai on Friday, and then Saturday morning we hopped on a bus to Chiang Dao, about an hour and a half from Chiang Mai. Chiang Dao was BEAUTIFUL, a small town with just one main road, surrounded by jungle and steep green mountains that went straight up to the clouds. David's daughter Nasee and her boyfriend Aak helped us with transport, and took us to see a local cave ( super cool-- lots of bats) and to visit their hillside tribe. While there, we got to meet Nasee's grandma, who is revered because the tribe believes she can talk with God, as well as her mom, sister, and niece. In general, the tribe kids seem to think that we white people are fairly hysterical looking, which is amusing. We also climbed up a jungle hill to see a local wat, which was especially neat because it had inspirational messages left by monks, like "You've passed 201 toughest steps, with 309 easier steps to reach the Chedi and the Venerable Phra Ajarn Sim's cremated remains." Very sweet of them:-)



All in all, things are pretty good, and I'm enjoying being back in the land of a thousand smiles. We returned to Chiang Mai today, and tomorrow we're going on a 3-day trek and then we're planning on -- yes-- bungee jumping. I'm quite nervous about the latter, so I've been practicing the jumping part ("one, two, three, bungee!") off of curbs and things like that. Quite silly. Also, for anyone concerned at home about safety, I've promised Julie that I will make sure that someone else jumps before me, penguin style. But, we're going with a quite reputable company with a good track record, so there shouldn't be too much to worry about:-)

Until next time, much love,
Sara

P.S. I almost forgot-- for anyone out of the facebook loop who is interested, I've posted a photo album on facebook with more photos from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=228207&id=503370711 . My profile should be pretty public, but you will probably need to log in from a friend's account if you don't have your own.

viet nam

Hi world,

I'd been delaying writing about Vietnam because I hadn't quite made up my mind about it...and then I didn't have internet access for three days, so I couldn't have written if I wanted. But, we're back in Hanoi for the night so....hey there!

We arrived in Saigon on Tuesday (June 29th), which is basically a big city. It turned out to be quite a fun place in some ways. The traffic, for one, is quite entertaining. You know when you're trying to walk by someone in a hallway and you sort of do a little dance trying to figure out who will go right or left? This is the game that pedestrians play with motorcycles in Vietnam-- on the paved road, as well as on the sidewalk. The main roads had insane traffic and the electrical wires were really quite a sight (see photo-- Dad, don't worry, we're leaving Vietnam tomorrow), but the culture of the city was really up all the little alleyways, where women served pho for 50 cents at child-size sets of tables and chairs, and you can see guys practicing their karaoke skills in their open-air living rooms.

We also found some interesting things to do ourselves, like seeing the War Remnants Museum about the here-named "American War" (pretty depressing-- I feel surprised the Vietnamese has let us back into the country at all). Additionally, we had our second encounter with blind masseuses, but the massages weren't quite as impressive as the ones we'd gotten in Cambodia. Although, they did have private, curtained off rooms, and I splurged and spent 50 cents for air conditioning. I wasn't exactly sure whether I was meant to undress, though (we hadn't the last time), so I didn't, though perhaps the curtains should have been my indicator. It was quite fair, then, that when my masseuse came in, tugged at my skirt and pointed at the hooks on the wall. So, I hung my shirt and skirt there, but (not wanting to be too presumptious about local modesty customs) I left my bra and underwear on. The masseuse returned, and reached out to figure out where I was standing. She quickly noticed my bra and yelled, "AAARGH!" and tugged at it so that it snapped at me. It still makes me laugh to think of it-- friendly, huh? She pointed at the hook again and left. For a total of $2.50 I suppose I can't complain too much.

In general, though, Ho Chi Minh was yet another big city, and we found ourselves quickly getting frustrated. Everyone talks about how pretty Vietnam is, but you definitely can't see that in Saigon. We decided to book a daytrip to the Mekong Delta for Thursday, which seemed to make sense for money and time reasons. It did have its fun moments, but on the whole the day was a bit underwhelming and we got rather tired of being taken to souveneir stores with overpriced trinkets. Probably the funnest part was going in a little canoe with just the three of us and two Vietnamese rowers, or perhaps also taking a small wooden cart pulled by a horse-- little moments that felt a little more like they COULD have been authentic (even though I'm sure they were no less touristy than riding a gondala in Venice.) In any case, though, the rest of the day wasn't quite worth writing home about.


So, we booked a flight to Hanoi for the next day, with plans to get out of the city to Cat Ba Island (in Halong Bay) as quickly as possible. After our not-so-spectacular Mekong Delta tour, we were fairly intent on getting there independently. Luckily, due to the hotels being overbooked for the weekend, we were forced to go on a tour boat. This turned out to be an AMAZING "back-up" plan. We booked a mid-priced three day tour of Halong Bay that included one night on the boat and one night at a hotel on Cat Ba. The boat was so fun, I can't even tell you. We basically had two full days with a really great group of about 15 people from Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and England. The trip included plenty of time to kayak, swim, and see caves in what was basically Never Never Land. There were some other boats around sometimes, but they were all of a classic smallish wooden design that made you forget that they were full of other tourists too. We jumped off the roof of the boat for nighttime swims and though we had rooms, a bunch of us spent part of the night sleeping under the stars (until it got quite windy around 2 a.m.) All in all, it was amazing and so worth visiting.


Cat Ba, by the way, turned out to be kind of lame. We went on a really cool/intense hike there, but the city itself is basically a crowded party central with lots of overpriced alcohol. Sooo glad that we didn't go straight there.

So, today we came back to Hanoi, but we were pretty much done with Vietnam. While the country does seem to be a pretty place, we're not quite as enchanted on the whole as we'd hoped to be. The men are significantly less respectful than the ones we'd found in Thailand and Cambodia (I am not a cat, please stop clicking your tongue at me as if it will make me attracted to you-- and also, please don't grab my butt and then grin at me as if that was perfectly appropriate), and we're quite tired of the fact that Vietnamese consider honking to be defensive driving-- even in more rural areas, it is incessant and inescapable. The scams are more frustrating than anywhere we've been (no matter how clearly you agree on a price for transport, it is common that more is demanded on arrival) and disagreements seem to easily become shouting matches and physical violence-- not that we'd care enough about a dollar to get involved in a fistfight, of course, but all of these things combined make for certainly not the most pleasant of environments. Maybe we just didn't do this country quite right, but it doesn't seem to be working out for us this time around.

So, we're ready to move on, and we've decided to leave tomorrow, and skip Laos for now (though I may go later this summer) in favor of less time on buses and more time in the north of Thailand while Fonze is with us. Yaaay elephants:-)

Until next time, much love,
Sara