TravelStream™ news feed for member hewharris on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/hewharris en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:58:45 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216212120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216212120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216212120/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:58:45 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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Inhambane, Mozambique

Two main attractions in Mozambique are the beaches and scuba diving.  Megan and I left Chimcambane and traveled a few hundred kilometers north to Tofo: a beach community outside of Inhambane perched on the Indian Ocean.  HO-LY SHIT.  What an amazing stretch of land.  The area is a long strip of massive sand dunes covered in scrub brush that pours down to the sea.  There are turquoise waters and just the first few signs of development.  Getting here is not easy, but minimal improvements in infrastructure could see this place blow up on everyone's travel radar in the next few years.  I had seen Megan's posting in Chicambane, which was terrific, but this was my first glimpse of the coast.  Tofo is nestled in the heart of Mozambique's scuba diving Mecca.  We stayed in a thatch "casita", 8'x8' cabana, tucked in between the dunes and fell asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the beach.  I woke in the morning to catch the sunrise and was treated to a pod of humpback whales making their way north to calve in the warmer, safer waters of the tropics.  Seeing the whales breaching off the cost line had me high tailing it down the road to Tofo Scuba.  I needed to see what diving here was all about.  I was not going to have the chance to see the manta rays or the whale sharks that are typically found in these waters during the warmer months.  It is winter and those giants had been gone for about 6 weeks with a return expected around October.  Bummer.  I still was psyched to check out the reefs.   My first dive was relatively shallow at 14 meters.  The second I got down there I began questioning what all the hullabaloo, yes I did just say hullabaloo, was about.  4 meter visibility, lots of current, lots of surge, rocky outcrops, muted corals and only a modest number of uninspiring fish.  I was trying to decide whether I had become a diving snob and got back to shore thinking I would be spending most of the time on the amazing beaches and less time underwater.   All of the famous dives I read about were deep dives so I decided to complete my advanced open water license and give it another go.  We went out to sea and dived Manta and Giant's refs, about twice as deep as the first dive.  I could not have eaten my words from the previous dive more quickly.  The sea life in the water was HUGE.  Giant rays, massive potato grouper, school of king fish and MILLIONS of Red Fanged Trigger fish.  Cruising out to the open sea to make the dive we saw pods of whales along the way.  Unbelievably, the dives were to the soundtrack of migrating whales whose echoes and squeals could be heard at all times.  This was a type of diving I had never experienced: rough seas, rapid negative descents (fall of the boat backwards and immediately swim down 20 meters FAST to avoid being swept away by the surface currents) and big currents.  It felt adventurous.   Megs and I left Tofo and made the short trip to Barra where Annie, Zach and Emily (other volunteers and visitors) met us to start their open water certification.  I spent an amazing week deep diving with monstrous pelagic fish, sharks, rays and eels. They got a hookup for doing our training during the low season so we all were able to stay for free in the lodge.  What a way to spend a week at the beach!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215952740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215952740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215952740/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:40:51 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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Xai-Xai, Mozambique

We made it from Maputo, a capital o reasonable size and infrastructure, to Chicambane, a more rural area in the Gaza province.  I arrived in Chicambane at the perfect time.  The first evening was the 100th year celebration of the local church, complete with speeches, singing, dancing and the slaughter of 4 cows.  Beef, it's what's for dinner.  Also in Xai Xai, just 10 km up the road, was an art and culture festival in which each province of the country was represented in food, dance, music, theatre and art.  A crash course in Mozambican culture right at my finger tips!  Chicambane consists of a series of rust colored dirt roads (that red brown...dare I say burnt sienna...color of the Africa that pops into your head when you close your eyes) with palm, coconut, orange, mango and grapefruit trees shading mud and reed homes with thatch or sheet metal roofs.  Dirt is dirty.  Period. I felt and looked like I was covered in a fine dust, but strangely I was the only one in this situation.  Everyone and everything else seemed clean...remarkably clean.  Although people are by no means wealthy in this community there is a certain amount of pride in appearance reflected by their grooming and    SPOTLESS pressed clothes.  With this attention to appearance came an attention to hair.  More specifically women's hair. You can take whole university classes on the sociology of black hair in the United States, so I should have expected similar politics in Mozambique.  What was surprising was to see a plethora of wigs in all colors and styles.  Let me emphasize that many of the styles were like nothing I had ever seen and, to a certain extent, defied gravity in such a way that I had to question whether Newton's theory was actually correct.  One of my favorite stories from Megan was in regard to a woman who asked her to shave her head so that the woman could make a wig out of the hair.  This "pedir-ing", (pedir is to ask for something in Portuguese), no matter how outlandish the request, is VERY common in Mozambique.  Strangers with come up to you and pedir you for your watch, shoes, t-shirt and apparently even our hire.  This is not in an aggressive mugging manner.  Simply someone saying "esto pedir...." Fill in the blank. You say no and they walk away.  No harm no foul. I'm not sure how often it works, but there must be some amount of success because it's pandemic.   Blah blah blah, I got off track.  Back to the woman that was pedir-ing for human hair.  By some cosmic luck we bumped into this woman on our way out of town.  She had shaved her head and was sporting a multi-layered polyester "up-do" that made me think a wig of Meg's hair might not be such a bad idea. Peace Corps is about helping a community and this woman clearly needed some help.  In the end esto pedir pictures of that wig, but unfortunately there was never the right moment to paparazzi someone in such a small community.      
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216036920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216036920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1216036920/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:21:26 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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Xai-Xai, Mozambique

There are four main modes of transportation across Mozambique: private car, chapa (mini-bus), bus and boleo (hitch hiking). Private cars are expensive to rent and at >$100/day.  Ergo, this is not a feasible option when you realize the other modes clock in on the order of $5/day.  Chapas are vans that are designed to fit approximately 14 people (think of a high school tennis team or a bunch of Mormons going out to proselytize), including the driver and will typically transport you within town for about 20 cents.  Buses are bigger but in no way really resemble grey hound style transportation.  They range I size from the type that transports you from the airport to a hotel and go up to the full size touring bus....just remember this one was probably manufactured about 40 years ago...sans any refurbishments in that time period.  These buses travel along the length of the country on the one main road, EN1, and cost ~$12 to go 300km/180mi.  Finally the fastest, cheapest and most comfortable option is hitch hiking.  As you would guess you simply flag someone down going in you direction and hop in.   Any day of travel generally requires a combination of all types of transit.  Our journey from Chicambane to Tofu was a perfect example.  We began on foot and walked to the main road from Megan's house.  We flagged down a chapa on the side of the road and took it ~10 mins into Xai Xai, the provincial capital of Gaza.  From Xai Xai we took a second chapa another 10 mins up the road to a gas station.  At the gas station we were hoping for one of two things: boleo or a bus.  90 minutes later we had not found either, and since travel after dark is dangerous our time was running out.  Luck was on our side and a young British man alone in a huge pickup truck was looking for company and heading in our direction.  Woohoo!  He was a geologist doing early stage field work to evaluate mining opportunities in Mozambique.  He also didn't tell us that he was going to make a stop at one of his field camps en route.  About one hour into the drive he simply turned off the paved road onto a narrow dirt track that went straight into uninhabited bush.  Megan cautiously asked "Oh, is this a short cut?" as the two of us ran through the myriad of psycho thrillers with opening scenes eerily similar to our present reality: two young Americans in Africa accepting a ride from a stereotypical Brit.  We approached the camp, which was in a small valley with a lake abutting the property.  In my head I had already written the escape scene: Megan and I swimming across the lake and climbing the hill on the eastern shore that descended to beach on the Indian Ocean while our British sociopath gave pursuit under the veil of darkness...while wearing night vision goggles of course.   Needless o say that did not happen and we backtracked to the main road after he gathered supplies.  Our route continued north to Inhambane.  Our paths eventually diverged and he dropped us on the side of the road about 50 miles from Tofo, our final destination.  We flagged down another chapa into Inhambane.  This chapa, which should seat 14 people, had approximately 23 people squeezed into it.  I sat with the driver and two other people in the front seat with my bag on the ground, knees around my ears (thank you years of yoga), feet on the dash board and backpack tucked in wherever I could fit it.  Disembarking in Inhambane there was a small scuffle with the driver who wanted us to pay more money and was not going to let us out.  Thankfully Megan talked our way through it...again.  A second kudos to knowing the local language.   We grabbed a bus where the chapa dropped us and it took another hour of travel and frequent stops to make it to our final destination.  From the Tofo bus stop it was another 10 min walk and nearly 8 hours after our departure we had made it the 300km/180mi to our destination.  A few huge lessons came from this adventure: 1. When traveling any appreciable distance plan for it to take all day2. Take whatever form of transportation becomes available.3. If you can't speak Portuguese you may want to rent a car4. Although fairly unreliable, the public transportation is safe...and cheap.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215776580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215776580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215776580/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:01:46 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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Maputo, Mozambique

Three days after leaving New York I arrived in Maputo, Mozambique. I was ecstatic to be here and more happy then ever to step out of the Airport and into the warm African sun.  My layover in Joburg taught me one thing: Southern Africa in the winter can be really REALLY cold. I was in a t-shirt and when walking on the tarmac to board my flight I could see my own breath. The landscape was flat and brown, like a cold Midwestern winter day.  The sun in Mozambique peaked my spirits immediately.  Megan, an old friend volunteering with the Peace Corps, met me at the airport and we spent the afternoon exploring Maputo. In spite of their low ranking on the UN development index, the capital of Mozambique appeared far more modern than I had anticipated.  The roads were wide and in excellent repair, public employees were pruning the trees that lined the streets, small restaurants and cafes lined the side-walks and the mix of old and new cars would not have been out of place in a place like Pittsburg. That being said there were many other reminders to le me know that I was in sub-Saharan Africa.  Namely the security presence. The police were on most corners along Julius Nygere, the main boulevard through Maputo.  I should also mention that they were wielding AK47s.  This is in homage to the AK47 emblazoned on their flag.  They riot helmets were there just to add to the effect.  Although mildly unsettling to see that much fire power on the streets it is not uncommon in many parts of the world.  What made the situation significantly unsettling was when I was stopped by one of the policemen and asked to show my papers.  It felt like a film noir movie about the eastern block.  "Papers".  Megan and I had walked about 5 blocks from our hotel to have a beer while taking in the views of the Mozambican Channel.  We had both left our passports in our hotel...which it turns out was a big mistake.   I do not speak any Portuguese (the official language in Mozambique) and would have been screwed if Megan were not with me.  Bits of their conversation were easy to understand with a Spanish background and the main things I could tease out were: 1. California (the state on my driver's license that I showed the officer)2.  Dead person3. Jail4. Pay us money What? As I later learned the story went something like this: a man that fit my description (white tourist chump?) was last seen with someone that showed up dead.  Since I couldn't produce any documents we were going to have to go down to the police station.  I had only been on the ground for 2 hours and I was being held by a man with a semi-automatic weapon being told I was going to be taken away to the station to be questioned about a homicide.  Welcome to Mozambique. Thankfully we had left our passports in the hotel room of Lindsey, another volunteer.  Passports were provided, words were exchanged and we were told to go on our way.  Afterwards we talked about what had happened.  The cops were really just looking for a bribe.  Amnesty International recently published a big report on corruption in the Mozambican police force.  Needless to say, it was not a glowing report.  I can say tat I now have first hand experience that corroborates their story.  The interaction could have gone MUCH differently if Megan did not speak Portuguese.  It hammered home some of the challenges of independent travel in Africa and made me realize how incredibly easy Southeast Asia is to navigate.  Chalk it up to the first of what will surely be many adventures in Africa. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1208882520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1208882520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1208882520/tpod.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:42:42 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

After 2 years of living in Australia my time on those sunny shores has drawn to a close.  There aren't too many times in life when the opportunity to travel weds perfectly with having no firm committments.  So its off to Asia I go on what is sure to be a great adventure.  I am not sure how often I will have access to the internet, but I will do my best to keep everyone updated through this blog as I trek across the continent.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215188700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215188700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/hewharris/1/1215188700/tpod.html Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:37:39 -0400 Does This Come With Rice - Getting Lost in Asia

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New York, New York, United States

I don't really hate New York, per se, but I do hate JFK International Airport.  On my way from Tokyo I landed in JFK and was prepped for my 3 hour layover before heading up to Boston.  Might flight was eventually canceled and American Airlines could not get me on another flight until the following day....at mid-day....at Laguardia Airport...on a different Airline.  And in all of this they couldn't figure out how they could get me my bag, which was already checked through.  Without any money for cab fare or a hotel they sent me on my way with a ticket for mid-day the next day.  I made it to Boston and, what a surprise, my bag was missing.  Because i had switched airports and airlines it was no where in the system and the lovely woman behind the desk at Logan told me 'honestly, it could be anywhere, its no where in the system'. Sweet.  3 hours later it showed up on a flight from JFK and I was able to relax for a few days at home without thinking that i would need to re-purchase every piece of trekking gear that i had with me....and that all the gifts i had bought would never reach their intended recipients.  Flash forward a few days and I was boarding a flight from JFK to Maputo, Mozambique, via London and Johannesburg.  A long journey no doubt but I was looking forward to my African adventure.  What possessed me to leave from fucking JFK, the worst airport on Earth? My flight on British Airways was canceled and I arrived in London after my flight for Johannesburg already left.  The next flight for Joburg left 24 hours later and I was stuck in London for a night.  Needless to say I missed my connection in Joburg for Maputo.  Since my flight was on South African Airways, not British, I was told that they could not do anything to help me with that flight and that I would have to go about securing another one on my own.  WTF.  I also have a friend, Megan, working in the Peace Corps in Mozambique and she had planned to meet me in Maputo.  I got in touch with her and explained everything, thank god, but now JFK was not just fucking with my life it was messing up other peoples as well.  Everything was eventually re-booked, hotel rooms bought and canceled and itineraries changed.  I learned one thing from this entire experience: air travel in the United States is a total joke and completely unreliable.  I flew 18 sectors across Asia on airlines like Yeti Air or Air Laos and did not have a single delay or lost luggage.  Both transits through New York resulted in delays of greater than 24 hours and lost baggage.  What a fucking liberty.
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Tokyo, Japan

'...and then we'll take it higher.' Nothing get my inner geek going like differential equations.  Seeing as how those don't pup up in everyday life my next biggest guilty geeky pleasure (welcome to my secret life) would have to be high rise neon advertising.  That particular brand of Madison Avenue ingenuity that baths city squares in the bright glow of progress.  On trips to New York I might pop-out at 42nd and Broadway to take in the light of Time Square and then never tell anyone the real reason why I was late to dinner on the other side of town.  When it comes to this over the top advertising I am of the opinion that the higher, the brighter, the better.  I am also secure in my thoughts that in the land of neon Tokyo reigns supreme, and within its empire Shinjuku is the capital.  Shinjuku is a hodgepodge of restaurants, shops, bars and 'entertainment' venues.  Sounds intriguing, no? If you think of entertainment as paying for sex than Shinjuku is your neck of the woods.  It is the home to the red light district, love hotels and an assortment of entertainment for women.  The red light district has your standard assortment of whore houses and plenty of the all to Japanese variety: dressed up as anime characters, in full stuffed animal outfits, as a domineering school girl, hell kitty, etc etc.  The love hotels are one of the few places where sex starved Japanese, the country having the lease boom-boom per year in the developed world, can knock the boots.  Japanese families will typically live in incredibly small quarters with extended family in tow.  Where in these abodes can you do 'it' in privacy? No where. So to the love hotels people flock for some alone  time.  There are blocks and blocks of these rent by the 4 hour rooms (side note: 4 hours seems a little aggressive for people not getting any sex....doubt the whole time would be required).  Oh yeah, you can get the rooms in Micky Souse theme with sex swings or other sorts of random accoutrements that get you in the mood.  Nothing says lets do it like Disney.  Finally, the entertainment for women involves some wort of boy bands with long mullet-ey hair and fake tans.  I have put it to Katie to figure out what is actually offered at these venues.  I am way off track.  Back to the angelic glow of this city.  Each area has its own panache.  In Akihabara, the electric city where all the geeks hang out, the sights are all 'techy' and the red lights are replaced with anime advertising and cartoon porn (yup....dirty cartoon comic books for people that have traveled so far down the rabbit hole that actually women, or men,  no longer do it for them).  In Shibuya the scene changes again and there are giant televisions, restaurants and whole neon buildings where every floor is karaoke.  Amazing.   In this neon jungle it can become overwhelming.  Let me rephrase that.  I can imagine, mostly because I have a great imagination, how someone would find this luminosity stifling.  To me it felt like the rays of the sun reaching a plant: giving me the strength to grow and become the best version of myself.  But sometimes respite is necessary and I was happy to see that small shrines were spread around the entire city. You can walk along the streets in a dense sea of sky scrapers and suddenly spot tori gates tucked between two buildings.  These gates mark the entrance to a shrine and you simply follow the path through the chain of gates until you hit the sacred space.  The city falls quiet in these spots and you can zen yourself out while living in the centre of the biggest city on Earth.  The backdrop of old timber Shinto shrines against the towering neon modernity is an unbelievable, truly Japanese, sight to be experienced.Check out my Tokyo photos at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/hewharris/sets/72157605901485015/
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Tokyo, Kanto, Japan

Tackling a new city is always best when there is a mission involved.  Day 1 of my Tokyo adventure involved trying to apply for a visa for Mozambique.  There were a few things working against me:1. I needed to get the visa in Japan or I would not be able to get into Mozambique. Double complication: I already bought my tickets2. I can't speak a lick of Japanese3. I have never been to Tokyo4. Katie, who lives in Tokyo,had to go to work on the "So excited, so excited, so scared" help line 5. Katie and I had not been able to navigate a single city on our trip without requiring 3 attempts to find anythingFirst mistake occurred when I assume the address of the embassy would resemble a street and a number which I could look up, find the cross streets, walk to and put my passport into someones hot little hands.  WRONG.  The address was written: MITA 3-2-17. Huh?  Thats a little different than what I am used to. Since Katie was leading this excursion I decided to pay attention to shiny things I saw on the street, people sleeping in subways and the irony of seeing block after block of spotless streets without any public trash cans in view.  I should have been paying more attention because Katie's map of the city led us to Yoyogi Uehara, the end of the subway line and the neighborhood where the Mozambique embassy was located....about a decade ago.  A bit of time was spent getting lost then retracing our steps to the subway and then Katie had to go to work.  She left me to my own devices, with a map in hand, and wished me luck on my journey.  Here is what I discovered about addresses in Tokyo: Mita 3-2-17-Mita is the precinct within the city. Just like saying Soho, Kensington or Tribeca-3 is the region within the precinct.  A given precinct might have 5 to 7 regions within it-2 is the number of the block within the region-17 is the number of the building on the blockBRILLIANT!!! Its like an engineer developed the address system: Drive-Directory-Folder-File Name. So logical, and yet a little difficult seeing as how there aren't really any street names.  How do you find the second block in the third region of the precinct? Anyways, with an atlas in hand and years of engineering education under my belt I found the building in no time.  The Mozambique embassy was a small two story single family home down a side street in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Bizarre.  Something seemed a little rotten in Denmark and I stood in the middle of the quiet alley looking, for lack of a better word, befuddled at the atlas Katie had given me.  Mita 3-2-17.  I was here.  Had it moved again?An old Japanese woman approached me and began speaking French.  What in the? I knew the Tokyo Tower was a direct rip off of Mr. Eiffel's work, but this seemed odd. I responded in the broken French I picked up from ordering beers in Paris and watching Amelie one too many times and she immediately broke into perfect English.  WHAT??? Turns out she is a teacher at a French American school, hence the language persuasion with which she was tickling my fancy.  Also turns out I had found Mita 3-2-17.  Also turns out this is definitely not where the embassy is located. Feeling a little defeated by my failure but more than inspired by the city I was ready to put off finding the embassy until tomorrow. This little trilingual guardian angel would have no acceptance of failure and walked with me into shops asking store keepers if they knew where the embassy happened to be located.  2 tries, a Japanese atlas and 20 minutes later she walked me directly to the door of the building.  I wanted to give her a hug, buy her a bouquet of flowers and a little cottage in the country.  I couldn't' believe how nice she was and how much time she had spent helping a stranger. I also was incredibly embarrassed.  We had made it to our final destination.  Mita 3-12-17, NOT Mita 3-2-17.  Katie's inability to read Japanese has morphed into her inability to read English and she wrote the address down incorrectly. It was blind luck on my part that I was looking for the wrong address.  Had I not been standing in the middle of the street looking like a lost "beige skinned round eye" I would not have had the chance to experience the overwhelming Japanese hospitality.  I half expected her to offer me some sweet tea, biscuits and read me a bed time story before I went to sleep.  Check out my Tokyo Photos at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/hewharris/sets/72157605901485015/
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Tokyo, Japan

Paris, London, Milan, New York.&nbsp; I thought I had stepped foot on the streets of all of the iconic cosmopolitan fashion meccas.&nbsp; I knew Tokyo had a fashion scene but the throngs of Japanese that you see flocking to Louis |Vuitton in Honolulu made me think that they had a lot of disposable income AND limited access to those luxury brands back home.&nbsp; Slap my ass and call me Charlie, I could not have been more wrong.Never have I seen a more fashion forward city.&nbsp; The men are dressed in fitted suits with tailored lines that make an average New Yorker look like they are wearing an over sized garbage bag.&nbsp; The women in their skirt suits with perfect hair and makeup and 4 inch heels somehow traverse the city as if they were wearing sneakers (are they easy spirit 'looks like a heel feels like a sneaker'?) and are definitely not wearing anything from the Jacqueline Smith collection at J.C. Penny.&nbsp; Completely unbelievable.&nbsp; A walk down Omotesando past the 5 story Prada building, Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton displaced any misconceptions i had about Tokyo.&nbsp; Not only do they have access to these luxury brands, they are aggressively buying them and are not afraid to wear couture on the streets.An interesting trend around town was the number of designer bags.&nbsp; I saw more LV logos, Fendi and Gucci in all shapes and sizes slung over shoulders.....MENS SHOULDERS.&nbsp; Yes my friends, hand bags are a huge accessory for the men about Tokyo.&nbsp; I'm also not talking about some male fashionistas parading around this way.&nbsp; There were men going to and from work, guys in jeans, guys in hip hop clothes...almost any type you can think of...all sporting bags.&nbsp; What you were wearing did not matter.&nbsp; The only thing that mattered was that you were wearing a giant handbag.....WOMAN'S HANDBAG.&nbsp; I saw too many&nbsp;men sporting over sized silver bags that would have had any Park Avenue Pollyanna salivating. And then there was the street fashion.&nbsp; No trip to Tokyo is complete without a day spent pounding the pavement amongst the 'cosplay' and goth kids of Harajuku or the uber-orange fake tanned bleached out hair boys and girls of Shibuya.&nbsp; Words can hardly do justice to describe the&nbsp;people watching&nbsp;in these two parts of town.&nbsp; I will simply have to let the pictures speak for themselves.&nbsp; Needless to say, with each new neighborhood there was a complete shift in style and 'cool'.&nbsp; It was impossible to get <i>Right Said Fred out of my head.&nbsp; Walking past the haute couture ships on Cat Street between Shibuya and Omotesand had me reeling with what may surely be one of the most well executed puns of all time: navigating&nbsp;the 'Cat Walk' between stores.&nbsp; Tokyo I heart you. &nbsp;&nbsp;Check out my Tokyo Street Fashion pictures at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/hewharris/sets/72157605888953184/
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Vang Vieng, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

Take a town in the countryside nestled amongst limestone cliffs darting out of rice paddies with a beautiful clear river flowing&nbsp; amongst the peaks. Add some restaurants, bars and a few hostels/guest houses. For fun develop a tubing trip complete with riverside bars serving cheap beer, free shots of local whiskey and resplendent with rope swings, zip lines and water slides tossing inebriated tubers into the water. Finally, give&nbsp;all the hippies the options of opium tea, mushroom pizza or marijuana and banana smoothies and voila: you have created a mecca for backpackers that rivals India's Goa or Thailand's Koh Phangan (Full Moon Party). This town is fun with a capital D-R-U-N-K. Did I have an amazing cultural experience? No. Were there any people from Laos floating with us? No. Did I spend the afternoon mud wrestling along with 40&nbsp;of my new closest friends in a dirt volleyball court that got flooded by an afternoon thunderstorm? Yes. People seem to get stuck in this town as the day of floating and partying is addictive. Those who chose to stay for the long haul (we're talking months people) were working for bars in town. The "job"&nbsp;is to float down the river handing out fliers describing the party and drink specials that night. In return you get free food, drink and accommodation for as long as you keep on riding the river. Hanging out all day partying on the river, talking to everyone in exchange for all of your basic needs being met? Sounds like a backpackers wet dream to me. &nbsp;
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