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

angkor wat & phnom penh

*note: you should be able to magnify any of these photos by clicking on them.

Hi all,

First of all, hooray! We made it to Vietnam without one single scam, and found a nice three-bed room for $5 each per night right near the center of town. Definitely liking Vietnam so far (although I'm excited to get out of the city tomorrow-- we're planning on doing a day trip to the Mekong Delta.)

Which, of course, means that we've left Cambodia, which on the whole I liked a lot more than I expected to. Lonely Planet made it out to seem like a pretty scary place, and it wasn't, really-- I actually felt quite safe, from the people at least (the traffic is more dangerous.) The main issue was the possibility of bag snatchers in Phnom Penh, so we just had to be careful not to take our purses out at night. not so bad:-)

As I alluded to in my last entry, we spent Saturday visiting the temples at Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is about twenty minutes from Siem Reap, and traditionally hires moto (motorcycle) or tuk-tuk (basically a motorcycle pulled golf-cart type thing) for the day, since the Angkor Wat area is way too big to see on foot. The guesthouse tuk-tuk driver offered us a decent rate ($15 total to drive us for the day), so we accepted and arrived at Angkor Wat at about 6:30 a.m., and spent the morning seeing Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, some smaller temples, and Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is pretty much the coolest because it's all covered with trees growing on it-- Lonely Planet describes it as being caught up in a "dynamic wrestling match with nature." We spent lots of time walking and climbing, so despite the cool ruins we were actually quite exhausted by about noon. We decided to go back to our guesthouse in Siem Reap (about 20 minutes away by tuk-tuk) for lunch and a nap, and return for sunset.



Our tuk-tuk driver and a few other people had told us that the best place to see sunset was the best place to see the sunset was Phnom Bakheng, so up the mountain we went. As Lonely Planet had warned us, it was a bit of a circus for sunset. Also, once we reached the temple, we discovered that climbing it meant going up a very, very steep set of stairs with steps about wide enough to fit the balls of our feet. But, when in RomeCambodia...




Angkor Wat closes around 6 p.m., so we got back to the guesthouse and decided to go swimming before dinner. We ended up meeting several other backpackers and going out to dinner with them, and during dinner it finally rained for the first time this trip! Even at 8 p.m., it was a great relief from the heat. After dinner we headed back (well, us girls did...the group of guys we met stayed out to watch the soccer game on TV) and watched the thunder and lightning from the balcony. Pretty cool.

We had pretty much wrapped things up in Siem Reap, so on Sunday we made our way to Phnom Penh. The day was pretty uneventful, save for some highly entertaining Cambodian karaoke during the bus ride. The music videos were basically daytime soap operas were turned into music videos that looked like 7th grade glamour shots with delicate macarena-type dancing and Khmer writing lighting up across the bottom so that the Cambodians on the bus could sing along (which they did.) Pretty amazing, even if it did loop the same 30 minutes of video about ten times. We finally made it to Phnom Penh around 7 p.m. in the rain, so we quickly found a tuk-tuk driver to take us to our guesthouse and were perfectly content to spend the night in.

Monday was our only day in Phnom Penh, so it was busy but went smoothly. We left early to get our visas for Vietnam at the embassy (a pleasantly simple process, as it turns out) and then walked to the Tuol Sleng Museum to learn about the massacre in the 1970s under Khmer Rouge. The building had been a schoolhouse before the war, but the Khmer Rouge turned it into a torture prison.

After seeing the museum, we picked up our visas from the embassy and had lunch (veggies and noodles for about 75 cents) before taking a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields, which were about as uplifting as they sound. I find I never seem to have words after seeing places like Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields. We watched a documentary that interviewed a woman whose son and daughter had both been killed under Khmer Rouge, and she said, "I'm seventy years old so I should understand some things. I don't understand this. I understand how a husband and a wife love each other, or how a mother and a child love each other. I don't understand this." I'm not sure there's anything more that can be said.

Finally, today, we boarded a direct bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon.) There was a little bit more Cambodian karaoke, and then there were about five hours of Mr. Bean so I opted for gazing out the window (the Cambodian countryside is much more fascinating than one might expect) and listening to my ipod. We just got into Saigon a couple hours ago, but we wasted no time tracking down yummy pho... although it was a bit on the theoretically expensive end at about 90 cents. We'll have to do some better searching in the alleyways in the next couple days.

until next time, much love:-)
-sara

siem reap

Hey all,

It's an odd time for a blog update (for me, anyway), but the internet seems to come and go here so I'll post now while I can!

Since writing last, we've made it to Cambodia. Woohoo! I like it here much more than I expected to, though the journey here wasn't exactly one of our finer moments-- we spent the whole day taking careful precautions to avoid getting scammed into paying $35 for the theoretically $20 Cambodian visa, but we didn't quite pull it off. I'll get to that in a bit.

Anyway, our second morning is Bangkok was great. We were just jet-lagged enough to wake up around sunrise, so we had a pretty full morning filled with lots of yummy street food (like Thai tea in a bag), and saw the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.



We decided to take a train to the Aranyaprathet/Poipet border, and we made sure to have American cash so that we could try to sidestep a few of the major scams (being overcharged for visas, and being taken to a mediocre guesthouse by bus companies) The train ride was beautiful, but we messed up on our way off the train when a tuk-tuk driver asked if we wanted to go to the border. (Moral: never let a tuk-tuk driver choose you.) Long story short, we accidentally ended up at a travel agency instead of the border, and we ended up getting caught up in both scams. BOOOOOO. It was arranged that a taxi would take us from Poipet to Siem Reap (the town near Angkor Wat), which was fine, but that the agency would reserve a guesthouse for us. We arrived, exhausted, at the "No Problem Villa" guesthouse around 9 p.m. It looked reasonable, so we checked in. Thankfully though, I read reviews online before we went to bed, and learned that it had bed bugs. ICK. We covered ourselves with deet and survived the night with only a couple of bites.

We checked out promptly at about 6:30 a.m. the next morning and made our way to the Shadow of Angkor guesthouse, whch turned out to have a swimming pool. SO GOOD. I've never been so happy to find an unheated pool in the shade-- after a full hour in it we were actually a little bit cold! So, so happy.

By the time we finished swimming it was still only about 11 a.m., so we had tons of time to explore Siem Reap. We had a lunchtime feast at a super yummy Khmer restaurant for about $3 each, wandered the marketplace, then decided it was time for a massage-- not as glamourous as it sounds, necessarily, but worthwhile. In Cambodia, there is a business called Seeing Hands that gives blind people an opportunity to work as masseuses for $5 per hour. The location was in the main part of town, but up a quite poor alleyway that looked basically like what you see in infomercials for sponsoring Cambodian children. The people there (blind and otherwise) were all sweet and friendly, so it felt very safe, but sad. I can see why people disagree on how long one "should" or "needs to " stay in Cambodia on a trip like ours. There is enough time to see the sights in just 3 or 4 days, but I certainly think there would be value in spending more time with the people here. I've heard the same is true, though, in many of these countries-- so I'm looking forward to slowing down later in the trip.

Since it was likely to be our only day in town, we decided to just walk around and enjoy the town at sunset before heading to the night market, which was lovely. By the way, I've been spending way too much money in the marketplaces, but I'm having a really hard time turning down deals like three scarves for four dollars. But, we're only four days into our trip, so I suspect I'll develop better willpower (out of budget necessity, if nothing else) soon.











I suppose that's it for now. We're actually in the middle of "seeing Angkor Wat" day, but we had seen the major temples by noon so we decided to come home for lunch and a nap and return for sunset. Sooo, I will talk about Angkor Wat next time.


Love,
Sara

sawat dee ka from bangkok

Hey all!

We made it to Bangkok. Phew! And it is pretty exciting. And HOT. And humid. When we first landed I thought it wasn't as big a deal as I'd heard (I'm fond of warm weather, generally) but after walking around all day with feet swollen from the flights and humidity, I have to admit...it is hot.

The twenty hours of flight went totally smoothly-- definite thumbs up for China Air all around, especially on the food (three meals were served, and the chicken like, gourmet.) Our layover in Taiwan was brief and pretty uneventful, but we did take pictures with funny smurf type people:




We finally landed in BKK at 10:00 a.m. local time (8 p.m. back in CA). We looked at a couple guesthouses and ended up finding a good deal ($10 a night each) at a cute guesthouse called Erawan, a couple blocks from Khao San Road and next to the river. It's great because it's out of the way from the craziness of Khao San (lots of noise, tourists, and touts) but also near lots of wats (temples) and the palace and stuff.

After checking in to our fabulously air conditioned room, we set off exploring. We saw the temple in between our guesthouse and Khao San (at right) and then got a foot "massage" while waiting to meet up with Punky:




which, by the way, tickled a lot. But helped with the whole swollen feet thing.

After the feet-eating fish, we met up with Punky at 4:00 at the Ronald McDonald on Khao San. It was so exciting to see her! She showed us around and introduced us to a bunch of yummy new foods, including several fruits that I didn't know existed. I especially liked the mangosteen-- no idea what the correct spelling is, but it looks like a maroon tomato, peels like an orange, and tastes like a cross between a mango and a pear. We ended up having a bit of an adventure looking for a local hangout that Punky liked (we kept getting lost in some sort of little village area) but luckily the Thai people are ridiculously friendly and helpful, and eventually we were able to relax on the river.

aaand then jet lag kicked in, and by 7:00 we found ourselves itching to go back to the hostel and settle down. So, here we are...and it is so totally time for bed. phew!

good night, and loads of love,
Sara

south-east asia 6/18/10: here we go!

Hey friends and familia!

The travel addiction continues, and this year I'll be spending summer in south-east Asia. Woohoo! Asia 2010 has been in the works for just over two years now, and it's evolved a lot-- Asia seemed a lot smaller before I started looking at maps, for instance. It was also originally conceived as a Le Quad trip, but in the end it turned out we'd be having different adventures this particular summer, Sisterhood-of-the-Traveling-Pants style (though thankfully, we will not be attempting to ship pants back and forth between California, New York, the Middle East and the South-East Asia mainland.)

Instead, SE Asia will be a three-part trip:
~June 21-July 22: Thailand (1-2 days after landing on June 23-- our flight takes a couple days), Cambodia (4ish days), Vietnam (10ish days), Laos (8ish days) and back to Thailand with camp friends "Fonze" aka Katie and "Jeff" aka Rachel. ...for the record, I go by "Sonata" in this crowd.
~July 23-August 2: Thailand (at least, mostly, probably) with camp friend "Punky" (Kim), who is living in Bangkok.
~August 3-August 18: Myanmar (and a day in Thailand on each end) with my fabulous sistahloo, Amy.

This update is going up a little earlier than usual and a little later than planned because I am in the midst of a roughly 5-day period of absolute craziness that has been planned in detail since about October: I'm a bridesmaid in my friend-since-second-grade Kimberly's wedding (bachelorette party! rehearsal! wedding on Sunday!), my littlest sister Melanie graduated from Rosemont Junior High today (yay Mel!), and late Monday night I fly out. phew! Luckily, my flight leaves so late on Monday that it's technically Tuesday, so I'll have the day to pack and (hopefully) recuperate.

So, despite my great love for all of you folks, I am heading to bed for a couple precious hours of REM cycles and stuff. So, until sometime around June 21-23...

much love,
Sara