TravelStream™ news feed for member laurenandjack on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/laurenandjack en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:39:02 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1074601620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1074601620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1074601620/tpod.html Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:39:02 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Bangkok, Thailand

Although we haven't been traveling, moving around, or sightseeing in the slightest, we are giving you a travelogue entry anyway. We have been in Bangkok for the past week, arranging visas and flight tickets for the next part of our journey. We decided to earn our visas ourselves, despite the nearby presence of hundreds of travel agents who will do it for you for a couple hundred extra baht. Last time we do that. We thought it would be neat going to the embassies, observing how they work, and so on, but all it turned out to be was a lesson in patience. Not only have we spent the last 5 days minus the weekend waiting in line, expressing frustration at nonresponsive embassy employees, and taking hour long taxi rides through Bangkok's traffic (which we recently heard is one of the top ten worst in the world!!)we also have had to once again endure Bangkok's repressive heat and polluted air. We have found refuge, unbelievably, in malls. Something we hate back home, but so modern and delightful here in Bangkok. We got our Burmese visa yesterday, our plane tickets today, and tomorrow we pick up our Indian visas and fly out of this hellhole.We are writing now, pre-Burma, because we expect that we won't be able to communicate much in Burma (known to the government as Myanmar) while we are there. Phone calls cost around $8/minute, and internet access is severly censored. We know that Yahoo and Hotmail have been banned, we are not sure about Excite. Either way, the internet cafe scene will be scarce. Why, you may ask, would a country go to all the trouble to censor something so innocent as Yahoo!? Well, we thought we would educate you a bit as well about the political and social situation occurring right now in Burma. The country is governed by one of the most repressive regimes in today's world. It is a military dictatorship that remains in power despite losing the national elections to a woman named Aung San Suu Kyi in 1990. Instead of handing her the reigns at that time, they placed her under house arrest for years and jailed most of her prominent supporters. She was recently placed under house arrest again and remains locked up. This regime has been known to improve the country's tourist infrastructure through slave labor, including the use of forced child labor. Political dissent is punished with imprisonment or worse. San Suu Kyi herself is adamantly against the presence of tourists in the country; she believes tourist dollars go straight into the pockets of government officials and fund the government's terror, thereby maintaining its existence in power. However, many other political reformists believe that to isolate the Burmese would be devastating to their plight for freedom and democracy. We have taken both of these views into account, and will go to Burma with the intent to support only the locals by putting USD into their pockets rather than the government's. This means avoiding the national train system, Myanma Airlines, government-owned guesthouses, and so on. This avoidance of the government was recently made a bit easier with the abolition of FECs. FECs (Foreign Exchange Certificates) were required for each tourist until last August, meaning upon arrival you had to change at least $200 into FECs, which meant giving USD straight to the government. Most people got out of it by bribing officials; now this is no longer necessary. I guess it is obvious as to why the government has attempted to censor the Internet; they don't want the Burmese people broadcasting their plight to the rest of the world. Anyone interesting in learning about the international effort to free this country can check out www.freeburma.org, or www.Myanmar.com to check out the government's propaganda.We are really excited for both Burma and India. By the time you hear from us we will most likely be in India (we plan to spend 2 weeks in Burma), and now we bid you adieu.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1083751500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1083751500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1083751500/tpod.html Wed, 05 May 2004 10:30:06 -0400 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Drenched South, India

The south of India seems so different from the north; the people are friendly, the landscape is beautiful and the beaches are pristine. I am now traveling alone, as Lauren decided to go home. I wanted to keep going to experience solo travel and to see the sights of the south. I miss Lauren dearly, but I must say I am having a great time going solo. Being alone makes for many more opportunities to meet interesting people and change my mind on a whim. I have met more people out here than I can count, sometimes I'll make a friend and we'll travel together for a day or so or until our itineraries branch. I continue to be reunited with people I've met and last seen hundreds of kilometers away. Shortly after we sold our Enfield motorcycle in Delhi, Lauren and I parted. I hopped a train to see the world heritage listed Ellora caves and the Ajanta caves. These are cave temples hewn from rock by hand at bends in rivers. They date between 600 - 1000 C.E. (A.D.) and are devoted mostly to Buddhism, lesser to Hinduism and a few are shrines to Jainism. These caves are a definite highlight to my trip to India, especially the Ajanta caves because their main feature is art in the form of painting instead of sculpture. You don't see much ancient painting in India. Thanks to having been forgotten and rediscovered by the British in the late 1800's they remain minimally vandalized. Goa was my next destination; with its idyllic beaches, great weather, cheap booze and an excellent tourist infrastructure, this place also belongs in my list of highlights of India. Goa is a small Portuguese enclave that retains European values like Catholicism and not so punitive taxes on booze. Its shores are packed with beaches to suit any taste, from backpacker hangout Palolem, to party central Anjuna, far flung reggae listening Arambol, and a few completely deserted ones. I rented a motorcycle on my birthday to sample all of the ones that interested me. I stayed at the three I mentioned above. In Goa particularly interesting liquor is made from the fruit of the cashew or coconut. It's called Fenny. This here is cashew country. After Goa, I ventured to Hampi via several local buses that took 2 days to get me 300 km. It was worth it though, I loved Hampi. There is nothing I have ever seen that is similar to this place. If I had to provide an analogy, I'd say it's a cross between Roman ruins, and a landscape similar to Arches National Park in southern Utah, with distinct central Indian influence. It was a huge capital that had its peak in 1332 C.E. I did lots of hiking and bicycling here. Mysore was my next stop. It's a big, dirty, intriguing Indian city. There is lots to see here; from sandalwood oil and incense processing, to men sitting around in candle-lit street front rooms hammering out beautiful gold jewelry. There is a huge palace that occupies the center of town. Along those stairs to see the Big Cow, I saw quite a few people finger painting each step marking their individual design they sport on their forehead. There is so much to see here, I only wish I had stayed longer here. Maybe I'll go back. Cochin came next. Since I left Goa, I met this Kiwi (New Zealander) and had been traveling with him on and off since. I ran into him as I took the picture of the nets on the beach. Cochin has interesting sights and history, like a synagogue built by original Jewish settlers and beautiful, winding, leafy roads that pass numerous churches, schools and cricket fields. One gets a good, wholesome, joyous feeling being here. Chris and I took an 8 hour boat ride to Kollam, near the tip of India. It made for great, beautiful scenery, relaxing time and 8 new friends, all of which I ran into further down the road. The Keralan (state of India I took the boat through) backwaters reminded me a lot of the swamp back home in Louisiana, except here palm trees replace cypress trees and back home there is much less development and little naked brown children. At the end of the boat ride, I made connections, city to city, to get to Madurai. Madurai is a city famous for its Sri Meenakshi temple - an enormous complex of towers, arches, larger than life Hindu deities, and carnival-style methods of worship. I saw people throwing wads of butter at statues, statues partially burning (butter as fuel), ashes being repeatedly tossed at Ganesh statues, lots of finger painting, chalk-marking, touching with fingers and heads (floors, stairs, statues, whatever), and of course chanting and blessing elephants. All this at the crack of dawn, I can't fathom what goes on in the more popular times to worship.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1079614020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1079614020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1079614020/tpod.html Thu, 18 Mar 2004 12:57:51 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Everywhere, India

Okay, here's a travelogue entry finally! It may be a short one as we're tired and we have a long drive tomorrow. Since buying a motorcycle seriously altered the dynamic of our travels, we'll start with a description of that. Driving a motorcycle in India has to be one of the most different and unique experiences in the world. The roads for the first part of our trip, in Madhya Pradesh, were pothole-filled and only wide enough to accomodate one truck, not a truck passing another truck and a motorcycle trying to stay alive. Even on the national highways, which are the 'best' roads, we often had to share them with camel carts, tractors pulling wagons full of people, trucks going the wrong way down a divided highway, and herds of cattle and goats. Indians seem to have no fear on the road; it seems they leave everything up to karma. There are no speed limits in India, just funny road signs, curiously always in English, that say things like "don't drive in the wrong direction" or "lane driving is sane driving." We are constantly lost, as they only place road signs where you don't need them. So we stop and ask a lot, in English, and usually get longwinded replies in Hindi, or one of the other hundred languages or so they speak in this huge land. We like to try and stop for breaks in the middle of nowhere, so we can have a little peace and quiet, but always, out of nowhere, a human will appear. India's like that - there's always someone around. Who likes to watch every single thing you do. We often feel like we're just real-life, walking TV shows. Oh yeah, and it's real hot here. Today is was 104. We sweat so much on the bike we don't even know it. As soon as the sweat breaks on our skin the intensely hot air is there to dry it right up. We drink 10 litres of water a day and we're still dehydrated.Whether or not we like India is a good question. One we haven't quite answered yet. It has overwhelmingly bad parts, things that can make you break down crying or want to go to sleep and wake up in Candyland. But it's also amazingly diverse, with so many things to see and so much history behind them all. After Agra and the Taj Mahal, we visited the early 17th century palaces in the tiny village of Orccha, a place that looks like it belongs in a storybook, with far off spires that reach into the sky. From there we visited Khajuraho, an isolated village that is home to the most exquisitely beautiful temples we've seen thus far on our trip. They were built between 950 and 1050 A.D. by the Chandela dynasty, powerful rulers of the northern plains of India. Across the surfaces of both the interior and exterior of the temples dance sensuous asparas (heavenly nymphs), and couples engaged in Kama Sutra like poses. They are made of sandstone, and are so perfect they could have been built just yesterday. From Khajuraho we concluded our tour of the state with a relaxing stay in the village of Mandu, where we meandered through 15th century forts, palaces and mausoleums.Next was the state of Gujarat, the proud birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. First stop was the small (4.5 million is small by Indian standards), loud, and dirty capital city, Ahmedabad, where we experienced the epitome of the Indian thali at a lovely restaurant called Agashiye. The thali is the best thing about India- they are everywhere, and eliminate the need to know how to order Indian food. A thali is basically an all- you-can-eat sampler of dishes, served on a big palate-like plate or a banana leaf, and always includes 2 main dishes, dhal (lentil soup), plain rice, chapatis (pita-like bread), and in Gujurat, tall glasses of buttermilk. All this for around 50 cents. From Ahmedabad we headed to the former Portuguese colony called Diu, a small island off the southern tip of the state. Thanks to Gandhi, Gujarat is a totally dry state, except for Diu, where alcohol is damn cheap. We spent a relaxing week on the island, where we stayed in a guesthouse upstairs in the old 16th century Portuguese St. Thomas Church, watched the sun setting over the colorfully painted town every day from the roof, and in the evenings ate tasty Portuguese fish dinners cooked by the owner's wife. From Diu we made a detour to the town of Bhuj, which was pretty unspectacular except for the fact that it is still under reconstruction from a devastating earthquake that hit in 2001. That particular earthquake killed over 30,000 people in the state of Gujarat, and Bhuj was hit the hardest. Three years later it looks like the quake could have hit just yesterday, and all the town's citizens are hard at work trying to put the pieces of their lives back together.Now we are in Rajasthan, the land of many camels. Every day it becomes more difficult to find a shady spot to take a break. First stop was the cream-colored town of Udaipur, where parts of the James Bond film Octopussy were filmed. We spent most of our time there exploring the old city set on the shores of Lake Pichola, and gazing out at the Lake Palace Hotel, wishing we could be there, supposedly one of the most spectacular hotels in the world. Now we are in the blue city of Jodhpur, where blue painted buildings radiate outward from a high and might fort. And it is here that we have finally found an Internet cafe with services sufficient for our travelogue needs. So it's your lucky day!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076854140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076854140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076854140/tpod.html Tue, 17 Feb 2004 11:05:12 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

New Delhi, India

Being in India is like tripping on acid at the world's largest never-ending carnival, where everyone around you is an overexcited carnie, and the petting zoo's gates have been trampled. We arrived here on February 5, after 2 more Biman Bangladesh flights. First, from Yangon to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. We were out up in a hotel by the airline, along with everyone else going to Calcutta, and provided with meals. This was a very weird experience and provided us with our first glimpse of "Indian logic." The next morning we took a flight from Dhaka to Calcutta, the biggest city in India with 18 million people. India is immediately overwhelming. From the airport we were hurtled through traffic in an old Ambassador taxi. It was an 18 km drive and so gave us plenty of opportunity to gawk at India from a sheltered space. What did we see? Loads of garbage everywhere, being picked at by holy cows. Antique smoke-spewing buses made of tin that looked no stronger than a coke can. Calcutta was a bit much for us and we left the next evening for the holy city of Varanasi. It is a holy city because it is located on the banks of the River Ganges, the "mother" of India, and is considered to be one of the oldest cities in the world, at least 2000 years old. It is considered by Hindus to be a most auspicious place to die, because of the belief that dying here will remove you from the cruel cycle of death and rebirth, which normally takes many lifetimes of good karma to accomplish. The city has been built all the way to the banks of the river, and culminates in a series of ghats (steps leading into the river) extending in either direction for about 3 km. It is a fascinating place to visit, because all aspects of life, public and private, are performed on these ghats at all hours of day and night. We had a balcony overlooking a very popular bathing ghat. All day long you could step outside and see men in their underwear washing their sins away in the holy water. Other activities in view on the ghats were weddings, loads of laundry, daily yoga workouts, and of course plenty of animal activity. Mostly cows and goats, who aimlessly meandered among the ghats, munching on garbage and medititating, always getting the right of way. Our hotel was right downwind from Manikarnika Ghat, the "burning ghat." From our balcony we could see public cremations occuring all day long. We were told that around 70 bodies were burned there every day. The bodies are carried through the city on bamboo stretchers in pedestrian funeral processions. Once they arrive at the burning ghat, the cost of the funeral is calculated according to how much wood is needed for that particular body. After the fire dwindles away, the ashes and remains of the deceased are thrown into the River Ganges to finally meet with eternal peace. There was a great viewpoint tower right above the burning ghat where you could see the bodies being thrown in the fire and poked at by the poor Untouchables' (a "caste" of people in India, the lowest of the low, who perform jobs like desludging open sewers and cleaning the alleyways of cow shit), and their bamboo poles. The city itself, beyond the river and its ghats, is also very fascinating. The streets are so narrow that they can't accomodate motor traffic, except for a few intrepid motorcyclists. They go up and down and all around, and we didn't venture much from our one well known route in fear of getting lost in the maze. They are absolutely disgusting, due to the high population density and to the fact that cows are given the run of the place. Sometimes walking through these alleys we'd get trapped between the dirty walls and dirty cows. Oh yes, and there are monkeys everywhere, jumping from building to tree, swinging around and jumping at tourists. They seemed to sense that tourists feared them, and a couple of times they would trap us in our room, which in fact, came with a good monkey-beating stick. They loved to scare Lauren as she read on the balcony, by jumping down on the top of the A/C unit right next to her head. After they got a good scream out of her, they'd scramble across the railing and jump head first into the tree 2 floors down. From Varanasi we took a train to New Delhi. The Indian train system deserves some mention. It is the largest private employer in the world, and the tracks branch out all over the country. We ride in sleeper class, which is the cheapest class for overnight trains and is always packed with people. It almost feels like you are on your way to a concentration camp, as you are packed into a narrow, hard bunk, surrounded by fellow passengers with nothing to keep warm, looking out barred windows. Every so often a man with a rifle wanders down the aisle. For Valentine's Day we bought each other a motorcycle. One, that is. Seriously. We are sick of public transportation and there are so many places we want to visit that aren't very accessible by bus or train. Anyway, we love the open road. Don't worry, we've got plenty of experience and traffic here travels top speeds of about 40 km per hour. We bought our bike, a 350cc Indian made Royal Enfield, from a highly recommended and reputable mechanic. We spent days with them going over all parts of the bike, spare parts, and tools. We bought top of the line full face, convertible to open face, helmets. We have a luggage rack that holds one backpack on each side and a toolbox in the middle. Dads, you'd be proud. And Moms, there's nothing you can do about it cause we're half a world away!!! Tomorrow we hit the road, and our first stop is the Taj Mahal, the greatest monument to love ever built. We'd like to dedicate this first leg of our journey to our Moms.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076849280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076849280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1076849280/tpod.html Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:31:35 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Yangon, Myanmar

Alright fellas, we're back in action. You can blame India's electricity instability for our apparent procrastination in writing an entry. The power craps out here at least 5 times a day; now we are in Delhi, where they've achieved nearly constant power flow.Burma - what a place. We arrived in Yangon at night, the capital city, fresh off a flight with Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Hopscotched through the bureaucratic bullshit; it was much easier than we expected seeing as we were entering a military dictatorship. We spent our first full day in Yangon trying to escape the sweltering heat - that night we hopped on a bus to the ancient city of Bagan. The plains of Bagan have to be one of the most magnificent things we have ever seen. At one time there were around 14,000 caramel colored temples rising out of the land, as far as the eye can see. The early history of Bagan remains shrouded in mystery; all historians know is that the temple building craze began around 1044, after King Anawrahta came to power, and lasted for around 250 years. The theory goes that the king was disappointed with the degree of his subjects' devotion to Buddhism, and in order to rejuvenate the practice of this religion, invoked a building frenzy of monuments, each one of which (that we saw, anyway) contains several Buddha figures. More than likely the King was building temples for selfish reasons - to achieve merit that would make up for his less than pious activities. Building temples is one accepted way, in the Buddhist religion, to "go to confession" and repent for your sins. Today only about 3000 of these temples remain over a 42 sq. km area; finding an empty temple, climbing to the top in the glow of the last of the sun's rays, and gazing out at the multitude of temples extending in every direction makes you feel as though their existence is endless. There is no place in the world like Bagan. We spent 3 days exploring the area on bicycle, pedaling from one temple to the next, and never ceasing to be amazed. We felt as if we could stay and explore forever. The landscape in which the temples reside is absolutely flat and desert-like, with trees, cacti, and shrubbery covering the land here and there. The grounds are kept by herds of hungry goats and cows, aimlessly guided by old cheroot-smoking herdswomen.From Bagan we took an overnight bus north to the city of Mandalay, a dusty, sprawling, polluted mess of a place. We didn't do much here because of the sheer toll that the intense heat and heavy pollution took on our bodies' energy. Moreover, Lauren got sick again and stayed in the room, which had a TV and bathtub, for most of our time there. The one and only highlight of our stay in Mandalay was seeing a performance by a theater troupe called the Mustache Brothers. They are internationally famous because in 1996, one of the brothers, Par Par Lay, and cousin, Lu Zaw performed for Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, in celebration of Burma's 50 years of independence. Par Par Lay spoke his mind about the current political situation in Burma during the performance, and was thereafter tortured, sent to a hard labor camp, and imprisoned for 5 years. He was released early due to international attention to his case. There are around 50 theater troupes in Mandalay; most earn good livings working at weddings and festivals. The Mustache Brothers, however, have been forbidden to perform at these functions, and so spend their evenings entertaining tourists and informing them of their plight. From Mandalay we headed back to Yangon, to begin planning our trip to India. For a capital city, Yangon is extremely rundown and seems to exist in another time. The whole country is completely free from western influence and so many of the traditional ways of living have been retained. Even in Yangon, almost all of the men still wear the traditional longyi, basically a long wrap skirt. The men hold hands and the women wear rotten tree bark powder on their faces to lighten their skin. The betel nut is the flavor of addiction here, and the sidewalks are stained blood red to prove this. Hordes of people wander around aimlessly at all times of the day as if they had nothing to do. Vendors line the sidewalks shouting their wares to the passersby. There is a constant clamor of noise and activity. The buildings are crumbling and the sidewalks buckled with potholes and missing sewer covers wide enough to swallow a man. For being such an oppressed society, the people are remarkably happy and lighthearted. To us this was most evident at dusk, when the city seemed to come alive as children and adults flooded the streets for makeshift soccer matches, hacky sack circles (with basket woven balls), and neighborhood socializing. Although most Burmese citizens are not actively fighting for the country's freedom and are smart enough not to talk about it, you can sense a fiery energy in their eyes and can see that they are patiently waiting, not for a revolution, but for the day when justice prevails. At times this yearning was expressed to us, most memorably by the daughter of a Burmese woman and a British colonial officer. Her name was Ethel, and we met her right before we were to leave for India. She was very animated and insisted that we come again; in the middle of a crowd of people as we said our goodbyes, she looked all around, thrust her old wrinkly face between ours, and quickly said,"and don't forget to pray for my country."
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1073716620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1073716620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1073716620/tpod.html Sat, 10 Jan 2004 02:33:36 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Happy New Year! Sorry for not writing sooner, but we haven't had much to say. December was a bad month for us, and so far the new year is progressing in a much more positive light. Just to recap for those of you who don't know, these are the things that occurred during our travels in the month of December: Jack got violently ill from food poisoning, and upon recovering we both came down with wicked colds; our hard drive crashed, forcing us to reformat it, and causing us to lose all of our recordings, music, but thankfully not our pictures which we had backed up the day before; on Christmas day we found out our favorite little cat Squirrel had been missing since Thanksgiving; and at Christmas dinner Lauren chipped a tooth. On Christmas Day we had a free roast beef dinner at our favorite little coffeeshop, run by "a Christian guy", as stated on the invitation. We spent the evening chatting with a lovely Canadian couple and then raced to the center of town to call our parents. This made them and us very happy, but cost more than 2 nights of accommodation!!Shortly after we left Luang Prabang, and although the time left on our visa was diminishing quickly, we decided to see a little bit more of Laos while we still could. We headed north to the town of Nong Khiaw, from which we took an hour boat ride to Muang Ngoi Neua, a tiny village located on a river peninsula and cut off from civilization by steep mountain ranges. Its isolation means it remains very small and has absolutely no motorized traffic. We got a thatched bamboo bungalow above the riverbank for $1 a night. We spent the next day hiking to caves in the area, and ran into a wedding in the middle of the town. This turned out to be very interesting, as the participants waved us over and offered us rice wine. We enjoyed the reception for a while, drinking wine and eating sticky rice and laap, raw meat salad, with our fingers. The bride and groom wore elaborate costumes that looked as if designed with Indian influences in mind.After Muang Ngoi Neua, our trip turned into one long bus ride. We traveled to the junction town of Udomxai, where we had a miserable stay in a mosquito infested room with dirty sheets. Good thing we have our silk sleepsheets! The next morning we hopped on a bus to Luang Nam Tha, where we arranged our final Lao transportation to the Thai border. We knew this ride would be a bad one. The road is so bad that buses won't even attempt it; only 4WD pick-ups make the run. We secured our tickets and grabbed a seat in the back of the truck; the front was already taken. It soon filled up, mostly with tourists, and a few Lao. These trucks are found throughout SE Asia, and are called songthaews, which means "2 rows." The bed of the truck is lined with 2 benches, and they squeeze in as many people as possible, so there are always an unlucky few hanging off the back. This was definitely the worst ride we've endured thus far. Of course the road was unpaved, and extremely dusty. The bed of the truck has a ceiling but no walls, just metal bars, kind of like a cage. We were all covered in as many pieces of cloth that we could find. The road was so bumpy that if you were a pregnant passenger, it would function not only as a bus ride but as a $6 abortion. It was so dusty that by the time we arrived at our destination, even all us tourists looked Lao. But we finally made it and in good spirits. We had one last BeerLao and crossed the mighty Mekong to Thailand. And we forgot to mention, this was New Year's Eve day. We passed out in bed by 9:30 pm. At 12:30 we woke up and wished each other a happy new year.So here we are, back in Thailand, and it sure feels nice. Cars, 7-11s, Burger Kings everywhere, it feels just like home. Or, it feels like discovering an advanced civilization after spending months with savages. We spent one day in the city of Chiang Rai, and then took a bus to our present location, Chiang Mai, the capital of the North. It is the 2nd largest city in Thailand after Bangkok, and is viewed very sentimentally by most Thais. It is often believed to lie on a sacred site, and contains over 300 Buddhist temples. The old city, where we are staying, is surrounded by a 6 km square shaped moat, which has a unique gate at the center of each side, and fortified corners. You can almost imagine the ancient Thai soldiers fending off the Burmese, who wanted to steal their beloved capital. It is definitely one of our favorite places thus far, despite the traffic and pollution. Northern Thais are the friendliest people we have come across yet, and their hospitality definitely makes this a lovely place to be. On my birthday, Jack and I rented a motorbike and drove up Suthep Mountain, right outside of the city. This particular mountain is seen by many residents as a guardian of the city, and holds Wat Phra That, the most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in the north of Thailand. It was built in 1383. This was an interesting place, mainly because there were more Thais there than western tourists, which is a rarity this time of year. We watched quietly as pilgrims offered roses and candles to the numerous Buddha images. After this, Jack dropped me off at a spa for some pampering, where I got a facial, manicure and pedicure, all for under $12!! He picked me up and we stuffed ourselves at a middle eastern restaurant on a homemade cheese plate, and falafel. The cheese plate was a real treat, as it is very difficult to find even real milk in this part of the world.The next day we began a 5 day cooking course at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. We both already make Thai food at home, but our knowledge is limited and we wanted to master the basics. The class turned out to be very worthwhile. Each person had their own cooking station, and after we watched the teacher explain each dish, we went to our stations to make our own creations. We made on average, 7 dishes per day, which of course we were expected to devour. Each class also had its own theme, such as vegetable carving, and our favorite, making your own curry paste. That day was very tiring, as making your own curry paste involves a lot of pounding with a stone mortar and pestle. The results were delicious when we used our own curry paste to make Paenang curry. We were also taken to the local market, where the teacher explained all of the local ingredients. No need to tell us, we know you all expect some Thai cooking when we get home. We had our last class yesterday.So here we are now, not knowing what to do. Jack got bit by a dog the other day, and tonight has to get his last rabies booster. We are a bit behind our itinerary, so are deciding between doing a motorcycle tour of northern Thailand or leaving Thailand and heading for Burma. We'll let you know.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1072098240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1072098240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1072098240/tpod.html Mon, 22 Dec 2003 09:43:37 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Vientiane to Luang Prabang, Lao Peoples Dem Rep

We arrived in the Land of a Million Elephants in the midst of a grueling 24 bus ride from Hanoi to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, that involved sitting at immigration for 2 hours waiting for them to open, and then at a restaurant for about the same amount of time while the bus driver watched the kataw (a cross between volleyball, badminton and hacky sack) championships of the SEA Games on TV. But we slept through the night and that's what's important. We spent one evening and one full day in the capital city; the evening is worth mentioning because of the delicious food we found downstairs at our guesthouse - filet mignon and roast chicken with vegetables and roast potatoes. Yum. We spent our day sightseeing and enjoying the fact that we weren't in Vietnam anymore. We were amazed, and still are, by the lack of hassles, crowds, traffic, and by the overwhelming presence of tourism, the most obvious economic force in the region. In ancient times Laos was known as Lan Xang (million elephants) and was known by war journalists as the Land of a Million Irrelevants, but we like to call it the land of a million temples. Our time in Vientiane was spent viewing the various wats, including the most important in Laos, the Great Sacred Stupa (Pha That Luang).From Vientiane we took a bus north to the tiny town of Vang Vieng, a travelers' haven dotted with happy pizza restaurants, limestone caves high up in cliffs, turquoise streams and the Nam Song River. This place is truly a big kids' playground. Our first day there we hiked 6 km down a dirt road to Phu Kham Cave, a large cavern that contains a reclining Buddha. The best part about this cave was the blue lagoon in front of it. The locals had 2 kinds of swings and a tree jump set up, and it was the perfect water in which to plunge. The next day we decided to try our luck tubing the Nam Song River. For $2 they give you a tube and drive you 3 km from town where you begin the Beer Lao run down the river. As soon as we got in that water, we were sure we would never leave Vang Vieng. This is the life, we found ourselves mumbling at various points throughout the tubing adventure. The locals have taken advantage of the tourist traffic down this particular stretch of the river - every 100 ft or so you come upon little Beer Lao bars, some set up on bamboo platforms in the middle of the river, some located on the riverbank, and 3 very smart vendors at strategic spots, i.e. at deep water jumping spots, all advertised by yellow beer lao crates. We learned after our first tubing day that these are they only 3 stops you want to make, otherwise you are too drunk to jump by the end of it all, considering it's 650 ml of beer per stop. First stop - monkey swinging beerlao (with cave). We knew this stop was a winner; as we approached we could see it was located on nice big jumping rocks above very deep water. As you float by, the man shouts beerlao!, and the wife pulls you in with a bamboo stick. Our first day we were tubing with some Danish guys, who turned out to be great company as they loved to jump. Immediately upon exiting our tubes we were hurling ourselves off the rocks, until someone noticed a tire swing hanging from a tree over the rocks. Here's how it works. You climb a tree and shimmy to the end of a branch that is parallel to the ground, grab a bamboo rope-getter, and balance at the end while you attempt to get the rope, which is made of bicycle tires tied together. Then you sit on the branch, which by the way is right above lots of jagged rock, and then you go for it. Final result - big swooping semi-circle swing into the swirling currents of the aqua blue Nam Song. It was at this stop that I (Lauren) learned something new about myself and about growing older. My mom used to always say how brave I was when it came to jumping into water. I always jumped first. Well, I can say now that I see how as you get older, you also get more afraid. I will be 26 in one week and it took me about that many minutes to work up the nerve to jump. And I couldn't even get the rope my self. I made Jack get it for me while I sat there and shook with fear. How shameful. Jack on the other hand, was all balls, and his braveness was shown in the way he perfectly executed his swings with meticulous consideration, as onlookers oohed and aahed. (He made me type that). We started too late in the day to make any more stops, but we took note of all the jumps for the next time and got all of our beers to float instead. Upon exiting the river in town, we found ourselves in a branch of the market that we had never seen before...perhaps it is hidden for the sake of tourists' stomachs? We gawked as we walked along hurriedly and wet, at tables with all sorts of various delicacies. We saw women hacking up large rats and a woman plucking a mongoose looking animal. Dead snakes, bowls full of huge cockroaches, tons of squirrels, rats skinned and otherwise. We were not happy when the next day we ordered chicken fried rice and found in it chunks of skin with wiry black (rat?) hairs. Jack ate it up just the same.The next day we were more than ready to tube again and this time knew exactly where to stop. Of course we took our time at the rope swing again, and then made our way to jumps number 2 and 3, both at the same spot. The first one was a bamboo inclined ramp, suspended 25 feet above the water at a 45 degree angle. Basically you just climb up and jump. This time we were with some girls from New Zealand, and an old man who used to jump from helicopters in the North Sea. There was also a lone Korean girl who provided us all with more laughs than we've had in a while. Ask us about this story some time and we'll tell you. She had more soul and guts than anyone we've ever known....jumped but couldn't swim. The second jump was much more scary than the first. It involved a basic swing, hung from a tree on the cliff above by 2 very long ropes. The hard part was getting yourself standing on the swing. Once you did that, everyone on the beach would grab a third rope at the back of the swing, and run quickly back towards the woods until you are suspended horizontally about 50 feet above the beach. Then they let go and you fly. I could only do this swing once. It was so terrifying. Of course Jack did it about 20 times and nearly sank some tubers. The third stop on the Nam Song was called Jumping BeerLao, and was a simple one. It had a concrete platform on a cliff about 40 feet above the water. You just run and jump and hit the water pretty damn hard. After 2 days in a row of tubing this river, you wouldn't believe how sore we were, especially me. We could barely get out of bed. So we spent one more day lounging around town, and decided to leave for Luang Prabang the next morning. Morning came, and we found that we couldn't leave without tubing that river one more time. So we did.The next day we took a bus to Luang Prabang, the premier tourist destination in Laos. It is a beautiful place that makes you feel like you are in a small provincial town in France, despite all of the Buddhist temples, palm trees, and orange-robed monks strolling the streets. There are 33 of 66 original temples remaining in existence; the rest were destroyed by invasions and bombings. (Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world, mostly due to the secret war waged by the USA and CIA during the Vietnam War. You often see parts of bombs used as flower pots, ash trays, fence posts, structural reinforcement of houses, etc). The city has been recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, as it is considered to be the best preserved city in SE Asia. It is very charming and atmospheric, and is located on a peninsula between the Mekong and Khan Rivers. Very soon after our arrival Jack came down with some kind of stomach bug and I feared he might be dying of malaria. Of course these fears were intensified by the fact that there is absolutely no modern healthcare to be found in this country and if we were to get sick, would have to fly to Thailand. This is, of course, why we got travel insurance. Anyway, he was very sick, you know the kind of sick where stuff is coming out of both ends as soon as you even think about drinking a sip of water. This lasted for a little over a day, whereupon he recovered and we both came down with nasty colds. This combined with a poignant case of holiday homesickness kept us in our room for 4 days straight. We didn't do much but take care of one another, but we are almost totally healthy again, and have spent the last few days enjoying our time here in this lovely city. We have visited most of the temple sites, and also the Royal Palace Museum, which was interesting only for the history behind it becoming a museum. When the Communist revolution occurred in the 70s and the monarchy was abolished, the Communists sent King Sisavang Vatthana and his family to a cave in northern Laos, in which they were locked and were denied food until each of them died. They turned the Royal Palace into a museum and called it a gift from the king. Crazy, huh?Today we did a little organized tour; we are still a little too tired to arrange things ourselves. First we visited the famous Pak Ou Caves, which are two caves crammed full of little Buddhas. Little Buddhas everywhere. After that we visited the most beautiful waterfall we have ever seen, Kuang Si Falls. It is actually a succession of several waterfalls, level after level of them, with beautiful, unbelievably clear water swimming holes between them. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of any of these places, as our portable hard drive just crapped out on us. Luckily, we backed up all of our pictures from the last 4 months just yesterday on CD, but we have lost about 60 pictures from yesterday and today. Apparently the file system was corrupted when we hooked it up to this computer we're currently on. We want to throw it on the ground and smash it, we are so pissed. We're going to hold on to it for now and see if there is anything we can do to fix it. We know we just have to reformat the drive, but that will mean losing everything, including music and travel recordings, that was on it. Dick, if you're reading this, do you have any advice for us? What do you know about Checkdisk and Recovery Pro? Email me please. Anyway, we were planning on leaving this town tomorrow to enter the depths of Laos, but will probably stay one more day to get this thing resolved.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070616420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070616420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070616420/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2003 08:00:44 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Hoi An to Hanoi, Vietnam

As you know, our motorbike trip through the Central Highlands dropped us off in the small city of Hoi An, where we spent our time relaxing and recuperating. It was the rainy season in Hoi An, and by the time we left, we had to walk through knee deep water just to get to our hotel. Hoi An is a gorgeous city full of French colonial architecture and ornate Chinese assembly halls. The Old Quarter has been thoughtfully preserved and is a network of tiny streets and alleys, which looked similar to the canals of Venice by the time we left. The streets are closed to truck and bus traffic, which is a blessing in Vietnam. Most of our time was spent walking through the streets, window shopping and sightseeing. The area is famous in Vietnam for its silk and tailor shops, which are everywhere, so we found the best shop in the city, recommended to us by Lucky, and had some clothes made. This was a luxurious experience, as they take you back into a beatiful Chinese style courtyard, serve you tea, take all of your measurements, while you look through piles of fabric and choose your styles. Five hours later we had some new outfits.From Hoi An we took a miserable 18 hour bus ride to Hanoi. We awoke to find ourselves cruising down a street in Hanoi, which was an entire block of street stalls and storefronts displaying dead dogs hanging by their necks from hooks, ready to be sold to anyone who likes thit cay, or dog meat. Not something you want to see first thing in the morning!Hanoi is an extremely loud city, with an Old Quarter similar to Hoi An's, except much louder and crowded. This is where most of the sights are in Hanoi, and thus where most tourists spend their time. The best thing about Hanoi is the presence of bia hoi (fresh beer) stalls, which sell glasses of beer from the keg for about 10 cents a glass. Very popular. The beer goes so fast, motorbikes deliver up to 3 new kegs at one time. In Hanoi we discovered kem com (rice ice cream), which quickly became our new favorite flavor. We eat it every day, sometimes twice. It is a very picturesque city, dotted with lakes and tree-lined boulevards. It would be a great city for walking, except everytime you step out of your hotel you run the risk of being killed by a rampant motorbike. Good thing they constantly warn you with the horn, the second language of the Vietnamese, in Lucky's words. We have seen a couple interesting things in Hanoi, one being the embalmed corpse of Ho Chi Minh. This was a pretty freaky experience. The guards line you up single file and then take you through the Mausoleum around Uncle Ho's body, which is frozen in time inside a glass cubicle. We can't really figure out the country's obsession with this guy. He did liberate them from the French, but also ran a successful police state which involved torture, unnecessary arrests and so on. Maybe they didn't respect him so much though, considering his Will requested cremation and they mummified him anyway. A Communist tradition, apparently. We also experienced the traditional Vietnamese art form of water puppetry, which is believed to have originated in Northern Vietnam in the 11th century. It basically involves puppets dancing in a pool of water, and was most likely invented by bored rice farmers of the Red River Delta during the flood season.From Hanoi we took a sidetrip to Halong Bay, a World Heritage site in the Gulf of Tonkin. The water in the area is emerald green, and dotted with limestone rock formations jutting out of the water. We took a relaxing 2 day cruise aboard a Chinese junk and sailed throughout the various rock mountains, of which there are thousands. Ha Long translates as 'descending dragon', and the Vietnamese believe the area was formed by a dragon who flew down from the sky, waving her tail to create valleys through the mountains. These resulting valleys filled with water to create Halong Bay.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070619240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070619240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1070619240/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2003 02:59:20 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Northwest Vietnam, Vietnam

Ever since we began planning our journey to SE Asia, we dreamed of taking the ultimate motorcycle trip - through the mountains and villages of Northwest Vietnam. We heard this could only be done on a Minsk, a 125cc Russian made motorcycle. So we sought out the best Minsk mechanic in Hanoi, and found a sturdy supply of Minsks waiting to be rented. For $6 a day, we got the Minsk, saddlebags, helmets, and a complete tool and spare part bag. We left most of our luggage in Hanoi and left for the northwest.The first two days of our journey were plagued by serious construction. There was essentially no road to drive on, just one long rock quarry to drive through. It was hard to see the distant scenery due to all of the dust and haze in the sky. We were constantly having to pass huge trucks on a one lane dirt road, with so much dust you couldn't even see if anything was coming from the other way. Not much fun. Both of these days, we didn't arrive at our destination until dark, because we had to stop and wait several times for bulldozers to clear landslides and tear down hills. The first night we spent in a Thai (not as in Thailand) minority village in Mai Chau, where we slept in a bamboo stilt house. We didn't get much sleep, as the locals stayed up really late and got up really early. The third day of our trip was fantastic. No more construction!! We drove through spectacular mountain scenery and tiny farming villages. As we drove deeper into the North, we could see the results of isolation on minority villages. The ones closer to Hanoi look and dress just like ethnic Vietnamese. The communities farther away have their own unique styles of dress and ways of living, and also have very different physical features. On the fourth day we finally arrived in Sapa, wet and cold. As we got closer and closer to Sapa, the weather got drastically colder and foggier. We crossed over Tram Ton Pass, the highest mountain pass in SE Asia. By the time we arrived in Sapa we couldn't see a thing or feel our fingers. It was also very difficult to find our way through the town as you couldn't see 5 ft in front of you. Finally some girls on motorbikes found us took us to their hotel. We got a room with a bathtub and fireplace, which we sat in front of for most of our time in Sapa. Sapa is touted as the premier tourist destination of NW Vietnam, but is really a prime place to see the devastating effects tourism can have on traditional communities. The Saturday market is the biggest draw, and in the old days was called "Love Fest", because it functioned as the weekly social gathering of the area. Now it is a market for tourists, and has lost most of its original charm. Not only has its functioned changed, but the hilltribe people are still terribly poor, despite the influx of tourism. Watching them try and sell their handicrafts to rich tourists with camera craze is a pretty sad sight. Needless to say, we took off before the Saturday market and headed for the small town of Bac Ha.About 20 km from Bac Ha, we realized that we had left our passports at the hotel in Sapa. We knew this would happen at some time in Vietnam, because the government requires all foreigners to be registered with the local police every night, and so the hotels always take your passport. We dreaded driving back into the cold and fog of Sapa, and headed on to Bac Ha. Finally we were able to get in touch with our hotel, who sent our passports up the next day.We came to Bac Ha to experience the Sunday market, which is full of hilltribe people from the surrounding areas all packed into a concrete market infrastructure. Things you can buy at Bac Ha market - water buffaloes, puppies in burlap sacks, leopard pelts, hand embroidered clothing, bags, aprons and scarves, ruou gau (horse shit wine) on Skid Ruou, squealin' for their lives piggies, and of course produce and raw meat, the staples of any market. Bac Ha was a great place to be to witness this long-standing tradition of Vietnamese communities. Most of the people in the area still wear traditional clothing, and live the way their ancestors lived hundreds of years ago. The most striking difference between our Western cultures and those of the hilltribes is the degree to which we roam free, while they are bound so deeply to their communal roots that members of each group don the same intricate costumes, and their Sunday market is more of a social gathering than a venue for commerce. Bac Ha is the perfect place to witness this, as it has yet to be transformed by tourism into a carnival of dealings between locals and foreigners, where market traditions have been swept into the dust. While it is intensely interesting to immerse oneself into local customs and surroundings, it is also unnerving to know that one's presence may be disruptive to the ways of life of communities that haven't changed for hundreds of years. We certainly tried our best to be the least intrusive we could possibly be.So now we are back in Hanoi, and we leave for Laos in 2 hours! We are sad to leave - we have grown to love Vietnam. We are not looking forward to the 24 hour bus ride ahead of us. We are having problems uploading pictures. So we will have to try again later, we know you love the pictures and we have a stack to show you! Hugs and kisses.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1069555920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1069555920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/laurenandjack/asian_adventure/1069555920/tpod.html Mon, 08 Dec 2003 00:52:31 -0500 Join us as we sweat our way across SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent...

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Central Highlands, Vietnam

Our motorbike tour of the Central Highlands began in Dalat, when we met an easy rider named Lucky. He convinced us, pretty easily, that the journey from Dalat to Hoi An via motorbike would be amazing. He turned out to be right. Not only were we able to travel through an area of Vietnam with gorgeous scenery, we learned more about Vietnamese culture and society than we thought possible in such a short time. It was definitely worth it. This particular area of the Central Highlands, which runs close to the Laos border, was only opened to foreigners in 1992. This was due to the existence of secret re-education camps; the government feared their discovery by Western visitors. Parts of the area were also closed to foreigners in 2001, when minority villages were attempting to revolt against the central government. It is an area seriously prone to landslides. We felt pretty confident considering that Lucky has been doing these trips for 10 years. But one part of the journey was to be a new adventure for all 3 of us. Lucky had never before taken the route that follows the original Ho Chi Minh Trail, the supply line for the Communists during the war against Vietnam, which we attempted on the last 2 days of our journey.Our bike was a 100cc Honda Wave, which probably 50% of the Vietnamese population drive. These bikes have no clutch and a strange shifting pattern. Not much power either, but it worked fine for our purposes. We had absolutely no problems with it. We drove through beautiful mountain scenery on the first day of our trip to the M'nong minority village on Lak Lake, where we spent the night in a thatched roof bamboo stilt house. There are around 54 minorities in Vietnam, and most speak their own languages, as well as Vietnamese, at least the ones that have assimilated into Vietnamese society to some degree. They are also called hilltribes, for most of the minorities tend to cluster in villages at higher elevations. Much to our surprise, we were not of any interest to the locals at Lak Lake. We found out why after being there for a while and witnessing a succession of tour buses arrive, park long enough for its passengers to snap some photos, and then drive off after about a half hour. That evening we ate a lot of Vietnamese food, and got drunk off homemade rice wine, which turned out to be a recurring theme during our trip. The rice wine loosened us up nicely - we were able to ask Lucky many questions about the quirks of Vietnamese culture that we just haven't been able to understand. That night we slept peacefully on the floor of a bamboo stilt house and hit the road again the next morning. Our next destination was Buon Ma Thuot, the coffee capital of Vietnam. The scenery along the way was beautiful. Instead of a front yard, every family in this area uses all available space in the vicinity of their house to dry coffee beans in the sun. The Vietnamese love their coffee and make it extremely strong. Incidentally, this is the first country we have been to thus far where the coffee is actually drinkable, but by now we have already quit drinking it! It was great to be able to witness the daily life of the locals in the countryside, and to see how they make their lives work. We drove through a granite quarry, where workers were smoking cigarettes and packing dynamite into small cracks in the enormous rocks. They gave us some quartz as a souvenir. We stopped to watch the sand harvesting industry, which Lucky says is a whole lot of work but really good money. And of course, everyone seemed to be hard at work in the fields, laying out coffee beans, plowing with water buffaloes, net fishing in the rivers, or selling petrol. The shimmery dark green of the coffee trees and the distinguished height of the black pepper plants, coupled with the intense blue of the sky, made for unforgettable images that we will always associate with the country of Vietnam. Another great thing about this trip was how our interaction with the locals seemed totally refreshing due to two things. One, the existence of Lucky, our faithful guide and translator, which made it easy to communicate, and two, the fact that the area of the central highlands is highly untouristed, and for many children, we were the first white people they had ever seen in person. At one point on the way to Buon Ma Thuot, we stopped at a pharmacy for some stomach medicine (too much rice wine!), where there was a young girl working who is currently studying english at school. She was around 12 years old and was visibly excited at the chance to practice her English with some foreigners. She tried hard to practice, but was so obviously infatuated with Jack and his beard, she could barely do anything but stand there and giggle. Finally we were able to speak some English with her after she brought out her lesson book and some slimy eyeball fruits (Jack's favorites!) It was an unusual experience only because we are very used to child vendors who already know how to speak english very well and are only interested in one thing - your money. We all traded email addresses and promised to keep in touch. Once we arrived in Buon Ma Thuot, we drove out some crazy roads to see 2 different waterfalls, one of which was a great swimming hole, but Jack was too scared of the fish to go in! Lauren wouldn'tdo it either!!! The next day we departed for the town of Kontum, the town that marks the beginning of our stint on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It is a very small mountain town. We spent the next day there as well, exploring the area. We had a unique meal in Kontum - a goat hotpot. The goat was pretty interesting tasting and we liked it, although the banana rice wine helped with that. We spent a few hours at the restaurant, laughing and talking over wine, and learned much more both about Lucky and Vietnamese culture. Lucky fought in the Vietnam War for the South Vietnamese (i.e. the Americans), and at the conclusion of the war, was forced by the Communist government to spend 8 years of his life in a re-education camp. Despite all of this, he remains an extremely easygoing, warm-natured guy. He has 17 brothers and sisters, 6 of which are successfully living in America. He plans to move there as well; but for now he is stuck in Vietnam in order to follow his duty. This duty is to take care of his father's tomb and burn incense regularly in his memory?!! The next day in Kontum we visited an old Catholic Church, a minority orphanage, and prepared for our journey on the road less traveled, the Ho Chi Minh Trail.The fifth day of our trip was the most outstanding in terms of scenery. The road wrapped around mountain peaks, and dove down to follow rivers and valleys. We had the road pretty much to ourselves and it was in great shape. The Trail took us to the town of Phuc Son, the last stop before the end of our journey. Phuc Son is a very small town, shrouded in mist and nestled in between tall green mountains. It was here that we had the weirdest experience ever in terms of interacting with other people. As we walked to dinner with another couple and their guide from Dalat, a group of local guys decided to join us. They took us to a local restaurant and immediately beers, rice wine, and tons of food was brought to the table. The local guys were all around our age, and we could tell that Son, the most flamboyant of the group, was the coolest guy in town. He immediately took a liking to Jack, while I had 3 guys to my left who sat there and stared at me while I ate. We felt like the most famous celebrities in the world. The guys to my left took turns feeding me with chopsticks and refilling my glass. They all told Lucky to tell Jack that he is the luckiest man in the world because he has the most beautiful girl in the world. They wanted our autographs, first on their hands, and then on their clothes, which they said they would never wash! Son gave Jack a silver bracelet and asked him to shoot some pool with him, as Son is regarded as the best in the area. So, after dinner, we all headed to the pool hall, whereupon Jack kicked Son's butt twice in a row. And then in arm wrestling, although he lost at 'leg wrestling.' By this time the group of guys had grown to around 20, and the ones that had taken us to dinner asked if we would like to come to their house for drinks, which was right next to our hotel. So we ended up sitting out on the sidewalk on little plastic chairs drinking rice wine and eating little tart fruits dipped in salt and chili peppers (to prevent hangovers, we were told, and it worked!) There were around 8 guys at the house and we hung out for a few hours, learning about them and answering their questions through Lucky's translations. It was very weird but a lot of fun. The guys sitting on both sides of me kept touching my hair, saying they'd never seen anything like it. They brought out bottle after bottle of rice wine, which is usually served in recycled water bottles or soda bottles, until finally they brought out a huge jug and we said goodnight. Hanging out in a very small town in the States can be a little weird and different; imagine doing this in Vietnam! The next morning they were waiting outside our hotel to say goodbye. We gave them all Mardi Gras deblumes, and to Son we gave a hacky sack and some silver earrings from Bangkok. They told us that they hope we remember them if we come back, and that they know we are different cultures, but they truly believe we are all one people on one world. This was the last day of our journey, and the first unlucky one in terms of the weather, as we drove all day through the rain to Hoi An. Once we arrived we said goodbye to Lucky and thanked him for his services. We truly were lucky to have him as our guide. We are having issues with the Travelpod site and cannot upload pictures at this time. We are about to embark on another motorcycle trip, this time of Northwest Vietnam, the journey we have been dreaming of ever since we started planning our SE Asia adventure.
]]>