Ok, this picture was actually taken in Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. But still, Merry Christmas from SE Asia!Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Merry Christmas from Luang Prabang!
Ok, this picture was actually taken in Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. But still, Merry Christmas from SE Asia!
Christmas in Laos
Merry Christmas everyone!
I have been having a very wonderful and memorable Christmas here in Luang Prabang. I met Aunt Sandy, Uncle Vic, Satchel, Eli, and Uncle Vic's parent's: Vic and Ruby in LP for a few fun filled days. I have been seeing Christmas decorations for the last month (all through Vietnam) but it really hadn't sunk in that it was Christmas because it's warm! I keep waiting for the cold rains and slushy snow, but I'm in SE Asia, so don't think thats going to happen. Although it did not feel like my usual Christmas, we have been having a delightful time exploring the town, climbing hundreds of steps to get to Phu Si (splendid views of LP city), cruising in tuk-tuks, tempting our tastebuds with all sorts of delicious foods (eating at nice restaurants, a nice change for me from constantly eating street food!!), enjoying wonderful bungalows set in the jungle, and having an all around good time with family. I have been teaching Eli (my 6 year old cousin) the art of bargaining at the markets. So far we have been doing very well, buying goods at a fraction of the price which the vendors offer. I can tell he will make a great backpacker in 15 years! He keeps telling me: "Let's go bargaining!"
I have been having a very wonderful and memorable Christmas here in Luang Prabang. I met Aunt Sandy, Uncle Vic, Satchel, Eli, and Uncle Vic's parent's: Vic and Ruby in LP for a few fun filled days. I have been seeing Christmas decorations for the last month (all through Vietnam) but it really hadn't sunk in that it was Christmas because it's warm! I keep waiting for the cold rains and slushy snow, but I'm in SE Asia, so don't think thats going to happen. Although it did not feel like my usual Christmas, we have been having a delightful time exploring the town, climbing hundreds of steps to get to Phu Si (splendid views of LP city), cruising in tuk-tuks, tempting our tastebuds with all sorts of delicious foods (eating at nice restaurants, a nice change for me from constantly eating street food!!), enjoying wonderful bungalows set in the jungle, and having an all around good time with family. I have been teaching Eli (my 6 year old cousin) the art of bargaining at the markets. So far we have been doing very well, buying goods at a fraction of the price which the vendors offer. I can tell he will make a great backpacker in 15 years! He keeps telling me: "Let's go bargaining!"
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Note to Travelers in Laos
A quick note to anyone who is coming to Laos and has the Lonely Planet:
In the LP it says that there are no ATMs in Laos. This is actually not true. There are many ATMs readily accessible in Vientiane. There are no ATMs that I know of anywhere else, so it is good to stock up on kip in Vientiane before heading anywhere else.
Recommendations:
Vientiane:
Mixay Guesthouse-Good for backpackers. A good sociable place. Cheap as well. Single rooms with outside bathrooms are $3 a night, the dorm style room is even less. Also, right in the middle of the downtown Vientiane, off the Mekong river.
Buddha Park-Anyone in Vientiane must see the Buddha park. You can go to the local bus station and catch a bus that takes 45 minutes. Be ready for a bumpy ride though. The buddha park is this massive place filled with hundreds of interesting Hindu and Buddhist statues. There is also a massive Buddha, maybe 100 feet long or more, laying down and resting on his hand. Also, a huge mushroom/pumpkin that you can climb to the top of and have panoramic views of the whole park. I wonder if the creater did some drugs before making this park? Seems so.
Luang Prabang:
Mixay Guesthouse-Randomly found a guesthouse with the same name, don't think it is the same guesthouse though. $5 a night for a big bed, and an inside bathroom. Nice old lady runs the place too and gave me a free water.
Cold River Guesthouse - The staff and owner are very friendly at this little place overlooking the Nam Chan river. It is a bit more expensive, but I was splitting a $10 room with my friend so that was okay. Good fruit shakes. (I recommend apple.)
Lao Lao Garden - A great restaurant! Went 2 nights in a row for Lao style barbeque. You get a huge barbeque in the middle of you table, and BBQ your own meet, and then make a soup in the surrounding "moat" thing at the same time. Delicious. You also get a free taste of lao-lao, the traditional whiskey of Laos. It is pink, and tastes like sticky rice. Also, a big bonfire at the back of the restaurant where people sit around and chat after dinner.
In the LP it says that there are no ATMs in Laos. This is actually not true. There are many ATMs readily accessible in Vientiane. There are no ATMs that I know of anywhere else, so it is good to stock up on kip in Vientiane before heading anywhere else.
Recommendations:
Vientiane:
Mixay Guesthouse-Good for backpackers. A good sociable place. Cheap as well. Single rooms with outside bathrooms are $3 a night, the dorm style room is even less. Also, right in the middle of the downtown Vientiane, off the Mekong river.
Buddha Park-Anyone in Vientiane must see the Buddha park. You can go to the local bus station and catch a bus that takes 45 minutes. Be ready for a bumpy ride though. The buddha park is this massive place filled with hundreds of interesting Hindu and Buddhist statues. There is also a massive Buddha, maybe 100 feet long or more, laying down and resting on his hand. Also, a huge mushroom/pumpkin that you can climb to the top of and have panoramic views of the whole park. I wonder if the creater did some drugs before making this park? Seems so.
Luang Prabang:
Mixay Guesthouse-Randomly found a guesthouse with the same name, don't think it is the same guesthouse though. $5 a night for a big bed, and an inside bathroom. Nice old lady runs the place too and gave me a free water.
Cold River Guesthouse - The staff and owner are very friendly at this little place overlooking the Nam Chan river. It is a bit more expensive, but I was splitting a $10 room with my friend so that was okay. Good fruit shakes. (I recommend apple.)
Lao Lao Garden - A great restaurant! Went 2 nights in a row for Lao style barbeque. You get a huge barbeque in the middle of you table, and BBQ your own meet, and then make a soup in the surrounding "moat" thing at the same time. Delicious. You also get a free taste of lao-lao, the traditional whiskey of Laos. It is pink, and tastes like sticky rice. Also, a big bonfire at the back of the restaurant where people sit around and chat after dinner.
Luang Prabang
Arrived in Luang Prabang 2 days ago after another harrowing bus journey.
Highlights of bus journey:
-Multiple people vomiting into plastic bags and then throwing the plastic bags out the window. Had to quickly shut my window a few times to prevent the said bags from flying into me.
-Some random young guy got on the bus with a humongous rifle. Why? Not sure, but he was insistent that he have the gun slung over his should for the entire 11+ hour bus ride.
-Villagers on the bus. We stopped in multiple villages along the way and picked up whole families of villagers. When all the bus seats filled up they simply took plastic stools and placed them in the aisles for extra seats.
Luang Prabang:
This is a very small town, I believe about 26,000 people live here. It is one of the most lovely towns I have been it. Luang Prabang (and Laos in general) has a very laid back vibe. The people don't seem to take anything too seriously and have a great sense of humor. People get up early and work during the morning, then seem to just take it easy during the afternoon and night and drink lao-lao (a 50% alcohol whiskey made from sticky rice.) Anyway, in Luang Prabang orange robed monks roam the streets from the many monasteries and temples around town. People also wake up early in Laos to give alms (sort of like a hand out) to the monks. The monks walk around very early (before the sun even rises) and carry around a bowl and the people come out of their houses and put money or rice into the monk's bowls. Very interesting to see.
Besides having a great atmosphere, Luang Prabang is set in a stunningly beautiful place. It is tucked amidst mountains, surrounded by lush palm trees and other plans. There seems to be this perfumy air about the place. You can wander the banks of the Mekong river and see villagers farming on the other side. Amazing!
Everything in Laos closes at 11:30pm, so it's been lots of early nights.
I am loving Laos so much! It reminds me alot of Nepal in many ways. The villages we passed on the bus are very similar. Also, some of the villagers' facial features reminded me of Tibetan features. Laos is very undeveloped, similar to Nepal (outside the main cities.) Also, the country side is very similar. Very mountainous, winding roads that take forever to cover, lush lowlands, jutting crags. Beautiful!!
Highlights of bus journey:
-Multiple people vomiting into plastic bags and then throwing the plastic bags out the window. Had to quickly shut my window a few times to prevent the said bags from flying into me.
-Some random young guy got on the bus with a humongous rifle. Why? Not sure, but he was insistent that he have the gun slung over his should for the entire 11+ hour bus ride.
-Villagers on the bus. We stopped in multiple villages along the way and picked up whole families of villagers. When all the bus seats filled up they simply took plastic stools and placed them in the aisles for extra seats.
Luang Prabang:
This is a very small town, I believe about 26,000 people live here. It is one of the most lovely towns I have been it. Luang Prabang (and Laos in general) has a very laid back vibe. The people don't seem to take anything too seriously and have a great sense of humor. People get up early and work during the morning, then seem to just take it easy during the afternoon and night and drink lao-lao (a 50% alcohol whiskey made from sticky rice.) Anyway, in Luang Prabang orange robed monks roam the streets from the many monasteries and temples around town. People also wake up early in Laos to give alms (sort of like a hand out) to the monks. The monks walk around very early (before the sun even rises) and carry around a bowl and the people come out of their houses and put money or rice into the monk's bowls. Very interesting to see.
Besides having a great atmosphere, Luang Prabang is set in a stunningly beautiful place. It is tucked amidst mountains, surrounded by lush palm trees and other plans. There seems to be this perfumy air about the place. You can wander the banks of the Mekong river and see villagers farming on the other side. Amazing!
Everything in Laos closes at 11:30pm, so it's been lots of early nights.
I am loving Laos so much! It reminds me alot of Nepal in many ways. The villages we passed on the bus are very similar. Also, some of the villagers' facial features reminded me of Tibetan features. Laos is very undeveloped, similar to Nepal (outside the main cities.) Also, the country side is very similar. Very mountainous, winding roads that take forever to cover, lush lowlands, jutting crags. Beautiful!!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
A Little Tid Bit of the Bus Ride
Here is a little snippet from the Hanoi-Vientiane bus. All the foreigners (6 of us in all) were sitting in the wayyyyyy back of the bus, and were barackaded in by these bales and boxes of miscellaneous stuff. It took some serious manouvering to get over this hurdle to go to the bathroom, take a stretch, or get some food. I took this picture while we were waiting for the Laos border to open. We got there a few hours early, so just sat around trying our hardest to sleep. I was not fully prepared for the journey as a few of the other backpackers were. My pillow consisted of a nice crunchy bag of banana chips which I purchased in Hanoi. As the journey continued, the pillow slowly deflated as we passed around provisions. This man is the bus driver, who came back to the foreigner baracade during the wait and had a little nap. Most of our seats did not recline (broken.) In front of the foreigner baracade was where all the locals got to sit in non-bouncy and reclineable seats. Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Bus Ride to Laos
I like to travel by bus. Lets face it, flying would just be cheating (plus it is way out of my budget to take short flights to other countries.) So, 24 hour bus ride from Hanoi to Vientiane it was! I also like taking bus journeys because I actually physically feel the distance I am travelling. When I fly, it is as though I get in a big silver box, and then in a few hours I am half way around the world.
I was picked up from my guesthouse in Hanoi by a random moto-driver who spoke almost no English. He took me a few kilometers away to dark alley and dumped me with my bag, telling me "wait taxi here." Ok.... So I sat, and waited, and waited. Finally a few of us were picked up in a taxi and taken to the bus station about 30 minutes away. Here, we waited and waited again. The bus finally came to get us around 7 PM. The bus looked as though it were about to fall apart. The bus filled up with locals and then the foreigners (6 of us in all: 2 Argentinians, 1 Australian, 1 German, 1 Brit, and me). We were ushered to the very back of the bus... in the cargo storage area. The six of us were sitting amongst bales of miscellaneous stuff (which I am convinced was drugs) and huge boxes of stuff (which I am convinced were body parts being smuggled). We arrived at the border around 4 AM, but the border crossing didn't open until about 7 AM. So we sat FOREVER in the bus, trying our hardest to sleep amongst bales of drugs (ok, actually it was probably just fabric or something, but whatever.) Finally the border opened. It was complete madness. The 6 of us were trying to wait in some sort of line to get our visas, which proved to be a fruitless effort because all the locals simply pushed in front of us. After we spent 30 minutes getting our visas and shivering in the drizzling rain, we emerged on to the Laos side. It was so incredibly foggy, we couldn't see 20 feet in front of us. Back onto the bus. After about an hour, the fog cleared and we finally got to see Laos. Simply spectacular countryside!! The countryside was initially very mountainous, but soon tapered down to flat land being cultivated for something. The rural houses were similar to those I saw in rural Cambodia, as they were on stilts. The siding of the rural houses was made of woven palm frond looking stuff.
Anyway, made it to Laos in one piece. I survived and have now broken my record for longest bus ride.
I was picked up from my guesthouse in Hanoi by a random moto-driver who spoke almost no English. He took me a few kilometers away to dark alley and dumped me with my bag, telling me "wait taxi here." Ok.... So I sat, and waited, and waited. Finally a few of us were picked up in a taxi and taken to the bus station about 30 minutes away. Here, we waited and waited again. The bus finally came to get us around 7 PM. The bus looked as though it were about to fall apart. The bus filled up with locals and then the foreigners (6 of us in all: 2 Argentinians, 1 Australian, 1 German, 1 Brit, and me). We were ushered to the very back of the bus... in the cargo storage area. The six of us were sitting amongst bales of miscellaneous stuff (which I am convinced was drugs) and huge boxes of stuff (which I am convinced were body parts being smuggled). We arrived at the border around 4 AM, but the border crossing didn't open until about 7 AM. So we sat FOREVER in the bus, trying our hardest to sleep amongst bales of drugs (ok, actually it was probably just fabric or something, but whatever.) Finally the border opened. It was complete madness. The 6 of us were trying to wait in some sort of line to get our visas, which proved to be a fruitless effort because all the locals simply pushed in front of us. After we spent 30 minutes getting our visas and shivering in the drizzling rain, we emerged on to the Laos side. It was so incredibly foggy, we couldn't see 20 feet in front of us. Back onto the bus. After about an hour, the fog cleared and we finally got to see Laos. Simply spectacular countryside!! The countryside was initially very mountainous, but soon tapered down to flat land being cultivated for something. The rural houses were similar to those I saw in rural Cambodia, as they were on stilts. The siding of the rural houses was made of woven palm frond looking stuff.
Anyway, made it to Laos in one piece. I survived and have now broken my record for longest bus ride.
Arrival in Laos
LAOS!Welcome to Laos! I arrived in the capital of Vientiane yesterday evening after a harrowing 24 hour bus journey from Hanoi, Vietnam. I spent the day wondering the streets of Vientiane and thoroughly enjoying how extremely relaxing this place is. After being dropped off at the central bus station, I caught a tuk-tuk into the city center with the other foreigners who were on the ridiculously long 24 bus journey with me. The first thing I noticed was the complete and utter lack of horns!! In a SE Asian capital!! No horns?!!? Amazing, really, if you ask me. Vientiane is stationed right on the Mekong river and directly on the other side of the river is Thailand. I ate breakfast at a street vendor (actually more like river side vendor) and gazed about the Mekong and looking at Thailand.
A few stats, for the interested:
Money: kip 9000 or so kip = $1
Religion: Mostly Buddhist, Theraveda to be exact
Mode of transport around town: tuk-tuk
Delicious foods I have tried so far: fruit shakes! I had a delicious coconut shake at lunch. The food here so far seems very similar to Thai food. I still have much culinary exploration to do though.
Room: staying at a place I stumbled upon called Mixxay Guesthouse.
Price of room: $3
General atmosphere of Vientiane: extremely laid back, people are incredibly friendly and have a great sense of humor. It is easy to walk down the street and not get accosted by touts, drivers, beggars, etc... Comparing Laos capital Vientiane to Vietnam's capital Hanoi is like comparing night and day. One is black, the other is white. Only 200,000 people live in Vientiane.
Laos is famous amoung travellers for: Beer. Beerlao to be exact. Tested a Beerlao last night, and it was quite good (although I am not sure I would call myself a beer conneiseiur or anything. Still good.)
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Beautiful Lanterns of Hoi An
These lanterns are a specialty of Hoi An. At night they illuminate the streets and shops with a majestic light that makes you wonder whether you are dreaming or not. 
Big News in Vietnam
I was away from the city for 3 days on my Halong Bay journey of epic proportions. I was on the bus coming back in to Hanoi after this journey and noticed something was.. different but I couldn't put my finger on it. I starred out the window trying to figure it out. The first thing I noticed was that there was a large amount of police officers around (by the way, Vietnamese police officers wear uniforms the color of rotten pea soup. Maybe it's supposed to be an intimidating shade of green?) I still couldn't figure out what was different. A fugitive on the loose? But the flow of motor bikes going down the highway looked more shiny for some reason. Finally, figured out what the difference was. Every single person was wearing a helmet! On December 15th, Vietnam passed a law that every person on a motor bike must be wearing a helmet. The police were about to enforce the new law, the penalty being something like $10. It is not uncommon to see 4 people on one motor bike, including small children. Usually, the driver (if anyone) will be the only person wearing a helmet. So it was quite a surprise, but also a good thing, to see that everyone was wearing one. I did notice that most of the Vietnamese guys under a certain age, defiantely didn't buckle their helmets. Rebels.
Moving, Moving, Moving
Current Location: Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.
I can't remember where I last left off. Vietnam has been a whirlwind! My visa runs out on the 20th or December, so I am deciding whether to stay a few more days in Hanoi or to head off to Laos. Will sleep on it and decide in the morning.
Hanoi and Saigon are considered to be counterparts, north and south. Despite the fact that they are the two largest cities in Vietnam, they have a distinctly different vibe and atmosphere. Saigon is much more modern, intense, high energy, and fast paced. Hanoi on the other hand has a much more laid back, less Western, more Vietnamese, a pinch Chinese, and older feel to it. The streets here in Hanoi still teem with motor bikes though.
A bit of an update (sorry if there is any overlap from previous posts):
Hoi An: Already wrote about Hoi An, but it was my FAVORITE (top 2) place in Vietnam. Pretty much a place you would imagine in some ancient fairy tale book. After Hoi An it was off to Hue.
Hue: Hue is famous for being the ancient capital of Vietnam. The most "interesting" thing to see in Hue is supposed to be the Citadel where the royalty used to live centuries ago. Honestly, I was not too impressed. I prefer to wander through the crazy markets, streets, and observe other daily life activities than to see these sorts of things, although it was pretty nice. I enjoyed the ornate Chinese archways, doors, and walls. Otherwise, I found Hue to be relatively unspectacular. Although, it did have a fantastic market along the riverside. After Hue, we were off to Hanoi (current location). Paula and I took a sleeper bus. (Can't remember if I already wrote about this.) Unfortunately the driver felt it necessary to blast horrific Vietnamese karaoke music the entire 13 hour ride. Oh dear. Pretty much every passenger was infuriated, but he refused to turn it off. Spent a day in Hanoi and were off to Halong Bay.
Halong Bay: FAVORITE place in Vietnam, along with Hoi An. Anyone coming to Vietnam cannot miss Halong Bay. It is the most mysterious, magical place I have ever seen. I took a 2 night 3 day tour on a junk boat through the bay (which I will elaborate more on later.) I went on the boat tour with Paula and Ebony. We stayed one night on the junk and one night in a guesthouse on Cat Ba island, the largest island in Halong Bay, with a population of 7,000. Cat Ba island is a craggy, Jurassic park-esque place. We did a jungle trek through the forests, which were complete with yards of tarzan vines hanging down all over the place. I was peaking around all the time to make sure I would spot the dinosaurs if they decided to make an appearance. I think they were a bit scared away though, because I did not see any. At the bottom of the trek route there was a sign labeled: "ADVENTUROUS ROUTE" which of course, we took. It did end up being quite adventurous. I kept slipping into fantasies of being an explorer who has just stumbled upon the island. These explorer fantasies were periodically interupted by shrieking Korean tourists who had just reached the top of a close peak and were screaming over: "VICTORY!!! VICTORY!!! VICTORY!!!" Oh well.
[NOTE: For anyone planning a trip to Vietnam, please email me (leaholson1987@yahoo.com) and I will give them the name of the company to go on the Halong Bay tour. We got an excellent tour for our money. I have a friend who was not completely thrilled with her tour, but our company was excellent.]
Today: Was planning on going to see Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh), but admission to see him closes at 10:15am, so will see him tomorrow. When I say I am going to see Uncle Ho, I mean literally, as his body has been "preserved" by some Russian specialists (similar to Lenin). Embalmed is the word? Anyway, I shall pay him a visit tomorrow morning. I am hoping he is still here in Hanoi, as apparently he is shipped to Russia for 3 months out of the year for "maintenance."
So instead went to Hoan Kiem Lake, which is in the center of Hanoi's old quarter. There is a nice red Japanese bridge at one end which leads to a temple which we visited. At the temple we (Ebony, Paula, I) met one guy from Argentina and one from the UK. Paula was excited to meet a fellow countrymen and to be able to speak Spanish again. We all roamed the city together for the day. Our main visit was to the temple of Literature. About a 30-40 minute walk from the Old Quarter. The Temple of Literature is an ancient temple dedicated to men of scholarship and academics. After we wandered all around, pretty much just getting ourselves lost.
In Hanoi (similar to Saigon) there are streets dedicated to all sorts of things. For example, there is a clothes street, hat street, shoe street, motor bike seat street, etc. Along the entire street will be only one thing, but multiple stores selling that designated thing. It confuses me a bit how people manage to have good business as they are all selling the exact same things, but it somehow seems to work.
Streets of things I have seen: motor bike seat covers, lace, buttons, sequins/fake gems, dolls, toys, jewellry, electronics, safes, refrigerators, TVs, helmets, motorbikes, bicycles, dogs, birds, meats, fruits/vegetables, manequins, wigs, beauty products, coffee, dried fruits, snake wine, watches, bags, souvenirs.
Today, managed to find "depressing" street. It was a particularly dingy and decrepit street. I think one of the main hospitals of Hanoi is stationed here. I saw a rather strange looking sign board from across the street and dragged our gang over to take a look. It was a glass case on the street full of pictures of the most graphic injuries I have ever seen. Heads pretty much hanging off, severed hands, horrific gashes going to the bone, bodies mashed to a pulp. There wasn't really any description of why the pictures were there. There were a few words in Vietnamese underneath each picture. This sign board made all our stomachs turn. I have never seen anything so graphic displayed like this on the street. I could not for the life of me figure out the purpose of it, but here are some possibilities:
a) I thought maybe it was some sort of advertisement to encourage people to wear helmets on their motor bikes, but there was no words anywhere or pictures of people wearing helmets.
b) The sign was stationed outside a hospital. Maybe it was the hospital's way of saying: look at all these horrible injuries that we have fixed! Come here and we can fix you too!
Those were the two options I could think of. No one else cared to ponder why these pictures were here so we moved on.
More depressingness came up. This same street (next to the hospital) was lined with parents all holding small children (probably around the age of 3-5) and every single child had a cleft palate/ cleft lip or some other sort of mouth deformity. There were literally dozens of parents holding these children along the street. None of them were begging, they were all just sitting around. Maybe waiting for surgery? Not sure. Anyway, a bit depressing.
I can't remember where I last left off. Vietnam has been a whirlwind! My visa runs out on the 20th or December, so I am deciding whether to stay a few more days in Hanoi or to head off to Laos. Will sleep on it and decide in the morning.
Hanoi and Saigon are considered to be counterparts, north and south. Despite the fact that they are the two largest cities in Vietnam, they have a distinctly different vibe and atmosphere. Saigon is much more modern, intense, high energy, and fast paced. Hanoi on the other hand has a much more laid back, less Western, more Vietnamese, a pinch Chinese, and older feel to it. The streets here in Hanoi still teem with motor bikes though.
A bit of an update (sorry if there is any overlap from previous posts):
Hoi An: Already wrote about Hoi An, but it was my FAVORITE (top 2) place in Vietnam. Pretty much a place you would imagine in some ancient fairy tale book. After Hoi An it was off to Hue.
Hue: Hue is famous for being the ancient capital of Vietnam. The most "interesting" thing to see in Hue is supposed to be the Citadel where the royalty used to live centuries ago. Honestly, I was not too impressed. I prefer to wander through the crazy markets, streets, and observe other daily life activities than to see these sorts of things, although it was pretty nice. I enjoyed the ornate Chinese archways, doors, and walls. Otherwise, I found Hue to be relatively unspectacular. Although, it did have a fantastic market along the riverside. After Hue, we were off to Hanoi (current location). Paula and I took a sleeper bus. (Can't remember if I already wrote about this.) Unfortunately the driver felt it necessary to blast horrific Vietnamese karaoke music the entire 13 hour ride. Oh dear. Pretty much every passenger was infuriated, but he refused to turn it off. Spent a day in Hanoi and were off to Halong Bay.
Halong Bay: FAVORITE place in Vietnam, along with Hoi An. Anyone coming to Vietnam cannot miss Halong Bay. It is the most mysterious, magical place I have ever seen. I took a 2 night 3 day tour on a junk boat through the bay (which I will elaborate more on later.) I went on the boat tour with Paula and Ebony. We stayed one night on the junk and one night in a guesthouse on Cat Ba island, the largest island in Halong Bay, with a population of 7,000. Cat Ba island is a craggy, Jurassic park-esque place. We did a jungle trek through the forests, which were complete with yards of tarzan vines hanging down all over the place. I was peaking around all the time to make sure I would spot the dinosaurs if they decided to make an appearance. I think they were a bit scared away though, because I did not see any. At the bottom of the trek route there was a sign labeled: "ADVENTUROUS ROUTE" which of course, we took. It did end up being quite adventurous. I kept slipping into fantasies of being an explorer who has just stumbled upon the island. These explorer fantasies were periodically interupted by shrieking Korean tourists who had just reached the top of a close peak and were screaming over: "VICTORY!!! VICTORY!!! VICTORY!!!" Oh well.
[NOTE: For anyone planning a trip to Vietnam, please email me (leaholson1987@yahoo.com) and I will give them the name of the company to go on the Halong Bay tour. We got an excellent tour for our money. I have a friend who was not completely thrilled with her tour, but our company was excellent.]
Today: Was planning on going to see Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh), but admission to see him closes at 10:15am, so will see him tomorrow. When I say I am going to see Uncle Ho, I mean literally, as his body has been "preserved" by some Russian specialists (similar to Lenin). Embalmed is the word? Anyway, I shall pay him a visit tomorrow morning. I am hoping he is still here in Hanoi, as apparently he is shipped to Russia for 3 months out of the year for "maintenance."
So instead went to Hoan Kiem Lake, which is in the center of Hanoi's old quarter. There is a nice red Japanese bridge at one end which leads to a temple which we visited. At the temple we (Ebony, Paula, I) met one guy from Argentina and one from the UK. Paula was excited to meet a fellow countrymen and to be able to speak Spanish again. We all roamed the city together for the day. Our main visit was to the temple of Literature. About a 30-40 minute walk from the Old Quarter. The Temple of Literature is an ancient temple dedicated to men of scholarship and academics. After we wandered all around, pretty much just getting ourselves lost.
In Hanoi (similar to Saigon) there are streets dedicated to all sorts of things. For example, there is a clothes street, hat street, shoe street, motor bike seat street, etc. Along the entire street will be only one thing, but multiple stores selling that designated thing. It confuses me a bit how people manage to have good business as they are all selling the exact same things, but it somehow seems to work.
Streets of things I have seen: motor bike seat covers, lace, buttons, sequins/fake gems, dolls, toys, jewellry, electronics, safes, refrigerators, TVs, helmets, motorbikes, bicycles, dogs, birds, meats, fruits/vegetables, manequins, wigs, beauty products, coffee, dried fruits, snake wine, watches, bags, souvenirs.
Today, managed to find "depressing" street. It was a particularly dingy and decrepit street. I think one of the main hospitals of Hanoi is stationed here. I saw a rather strange looking sign board from across the street and dragged our gang over to take a look. It was a glass case on the street full of pictures of the most graphic injuries I have ever seen. Heads pretty much hanging off, severed hands, horrific gashes going to the bone, bodies mashed to a pulp. There wasn't really any description of why the pictures were there. There were a few words in Vietnamese underneath each picture. This sign board made all our stomachs turn. I have never seen anything so graphic displayed like this on the street. I could not for the life of me figure out the purpose of it, but here are some possibilities:
a) I thought maybe it was some sort of advertisement to encourage people to wear helmets on their motor bikes, but there was no words anywhere or pictures of people wearing helmets.
b) The sign was stationed outside a hospital. Maybe it was the hospital's way of saying: look at all these horrible injuries that we have fixed! Come here and we can fix you too!
Those were the two options I could think of. No one else cared to ponder why these pictures were here so we moved on.
More depressingness came up. This same street (next to the hospital) was lined with parents all holding small children (probably around the age of 3-5) and every single child had a cleft palate/ cleft lip or some other sort of mouth deformity. There were literally dozens of parents holding these children along the street. None of them were begging, they were all just sitting around. Maybe waiting for surgery? Not sure. Anyway, a bit depressing.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Mekong Delta
Boating down the Mekong Delta, a most fantastic place in the South of Vietnam. The Vietnamese woman in the conical hat was paddling us furiously through these tiny canals. (Note: Anyone coming to Vietnam must see the Mekong Delta! A+)
Future Career?
I proved to be quite a fisherwoman. I may have a career on a Vietnamese fishing boat. This is from the boat trip off Phu Quoc Island. I caught 4 fish, which I was quite impressed by. Later on, the boat crew cooked up the fish for us for lunch. At one point, I was sure I had caught a great white shark. It was pulling and fighting, and I was dragging in the line with all my might. Turns out, my friend Chris and I had caught our hooks on each other. We both though we were bringing in a barracuda. Damn... just a fluke. Vietnamese Fisherwomen??
This is a traditional Vietnamese fishing boat, of the smaller variety. They look like saucers to me. Anywhere along the ocean you will see fishermen in these boats casting out their nets or with their fishing poles. The boats are woven out of wicker. I am not exactly sure how they are waterproof. But, the Vietnamese know their fishing I suppose. I was quite excited to paddle out to sea and become ship wrecked on a tropical island, so I was trying to paddle furiously out to sea. Jayne, on the other hand, I think was a bit scared at my shipwreck excitement. Updates....
Ok, where did I leave off from?
Mui Ne I covered... Next stop was Dalat which I believe I also covered. After Dalat was Nha Trang. Nha Trang was nice, although the weather was quite stormy when we were there so we were not able to enjoy the beach. The picture of the sleeping buddha is from Nha Trang, by the way.
Highlight of Nha Trang: Mud bath! Jayne, Ebony, and I went for a day at these special mud baths. We began by entering this strange little complex and showered off in our suits in an area signed "Shower Area For Men." After this, we were ushered into a massive tub which immediately began to fill with chocolately brown mud. I felt as though I were an oompa loompa who had fallen into Charlie's chocolate river. We froliced in the mud for quite some time. The staff kindly provided us with three plastic buckets so we could pour mud on our selves. About 45 minutes after the mud bath began we were being attacked on any exposed flesh by mosquitoes, of "mozzies" as Ebony the Australian calls them. After the mud bath, we were ushed again to the "Shower Area For Men" where we spent about 15 minutes trying to get all the mud off. I kept creeping peeks into the bushes to check if there were any midget, orange haired, green suspendered oompa loompas hiding about. Unfortunately, I did not see any. This shower was followed by a "hydrotherapy jet stream" thing. We stood on a bunch of rocks and were shot at with streams of warm water. This was quite nice. After this was a mineral bath, similar to a jacuzzi. Again, we were attacked continuously by mozzies whenever we came out of the boiling water for breath.
The rest of the group left and I stayed an extra day in Nha Trang to explore and such. I did alot of walking and thinking, then off to Hoi An.
Hoi An: This is my absolute favorite place in Vietnam. It is as though some sort of Vietnamese fairy flew over the city and sprinkled magic fairy dust on the place. It is old, the textured, and cultured, classy, and elegant. The place bursting with tailors. I had 3 things made, very basic things for travel. My compatriates were not so restrained and had all sorts of dresses and trousers made.
Hue: This was the next stop after Hoi An. I have heard good things about Hue, but honestly I thought it was decent at best. It is home to the Citadel, the ancient capital of Vietnam. We went to the Imperial Enclosure, which was nice. After 7 months in Asia though, a pagoda is a pagoda is a pagoda. We did have some great food in Hue though. The best part of Hue was the market which was fantastic, I love markets though. It was also chock full of street food that I always love to try.
Hanoi: Just arrived in Hanoi today. We took a sleeper bus which is outfitted with beds, as the bus journey is 13 hours long. This would all be great and grand, except that the driver insisted on blaring horrific Vietnamese karaoke music the ENTIRE bus journey to everyone's chagrin. So, the sleeper bus ended up being pointless because sleep was impossible. The bus ride: If you can imagine your cranium being cut open with a seraded bread knife (which is rusty), and then the soundtrack of every dodgy Vietnamese karaoke bar is stuffed in your brain on endless repeat, then your cranium is stapled shut (with rusty staples.) Thats what it was like. Only a little worse. I think I shall write a story on it... to come later.
I am now with Ebony (Australia) and Paula (Argentina). We spent the day wondering around Hanoi, stopping in at random food stalls, stores, and other sights. I much prefer to get lost and wander, rather than look at the sights in the guide book. We were watching a huge talent show at a Vietnamese primary school from the doors outside. It was rather hilarious. Then, the teachers saw us and invited us in as VIP guests where we sat at the front of the auditorium while all the hundreds of small children cheered and screamed. We got front row seats to choreographed dances by 10 year old Vietnamese girls decked out in green eye shadow and silver sequined tops, and 8 year old kung fu masters in yellow silk outfits. It was fantastic.
Ebony and I had a fabulous meal of street food for dinner. I can't remember what it is called, but I will write the name later. Hanoi seems to be foodie heaven, so I am trying to expand my Vietnamese food expertise beyond delicious pho bo (which is my current addiction.)
Tomorrow: Paula, Ebony and I are heading off to Halong Bay for a boat tour on a dingy! Ahhh... this should be grand. It is 2 nights and 3 days on a boat. I am quite excited for this one. As I have just finished my book called "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith (which I highly recommend by the way), I decided to purchase Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, which seemed appropriate as I am about to embark on a 3 day boat journey. Much adventures to come!
I also have some great photos I must up load, but I must pack my bag for the boat journey.
Tam biet (goodbye) and thanks for reading.
Mui Ne I covered... Next stop was Dalat which I believe I also covered. After Dalat was Nha Trang. Nha Trang was nice, although the weather was quite stormy when we were there so we were not able to enjoy the beach. The picture of the sleeping buddha is from Nha Trang, by the way.
Highlight of Nha Trang: Mud bath! Jayne, Ebony, and I went for a day at these special mud baths. We began by entering this strange little complex and showered off in our suits in an area signed "Shower Area For Men." After this, we were ushered into a massive tub which immediately began to fill with chocolately brown mud. I felt as though I were an oompa loompa who had fallen into Charlie's chocolate river. We froliced in the mud for quite some time. The staff kindly provided us with three plastic buckets so we could pour mud on our selves. About 45 minutes after the mud bath began we were being attacked on any exposed flesh by mosquitoes, of "mozzies" as Ebony the Australian calls them. After the mud bath, we were ushed again to the "Shower Area For Men" where we spent about 15 minutes trying to get all the mud off. I kept creeping peeks into the bushes to check if there were any midget, orange haired, green suspendered oompa loompas hiding about. Unfortunately, I did not see any. This shower was followed by a "hydrotherapy jet stream" thing. We stood on a bunch of rocks and were shot at with streams of warm water. This was quite nice. After this was a mineral bath, similar to a jacuzzi. Again, we were attacked continuously by mozzies whenever we came out of the boiling water for breath.
The rest of the group left and I stayed an extra day in Nha Trang to explore and such. I did alot of walking and thinking, then off to Hoi An.
Hoi An: This is my absolute favorite place in Vietnam. It is as though some sort of Vietnamese fairy flew over the city and sprinkled magic fairy dust on the place. It is old, the textured, and cultured, classy, and elegant. The place bursting with tailors. I had 3 things made, very basic things for travel. My compatriates were not so restrained and had all sorts of dresses and trousers made.
Hue: This was the next stop after Hoi An. I have heard good things about Hue, but honestly I thought it was decent at best. It is home to the Citadel, the ancient capital of Vietnam. We went to the Imperial Enclosure, which was nice. After 7 months in Asia though, a pagoda is a pagoda is a pagoda. We did have some great food in Hue though. The best part of Hue was the market which was fantastic, I love markets though. It was also chock full of street food that I always love to try.
Hanoi: Just arrived in Hanoi today. We took a sleeper bus which is outfitted with beds, as the bus journey is 13 hours long. This would all be great and grand, except that the driver insisted on blaring horrific Vietnamese karaoke music the ENTIRE bus journey to everyone's chagrin. So, the sleeper bus ended up being pointless because sleep was impossible. The bus ride: If you can imagine your cranium being cut open with a seraded bread knife (which is rusty), and then the soundtrack of every dodgy Vietnamese karaoke bar is stuffed in your brain on endless repeat, then your cranium is stapled shut (with rusty staples.) Thats what it was like. Only a little worse. I think I shall write a story on it... to come later.
I am now with Ebony (Australia) and Paula (Argentina). We spent the day wondering around Hanoi, stopping in at random food stalls, stores, and other sights. I much prefer to get lost and wander, rather than look at the sights in the guide book. We were watching a huge talent show at a Vietnamese primary school from the doors outside. It was rather hilarious. Then, the teachers saw us and invited us in as VIP guests where we sat at the front of the auditorium while all the hundreds of small children cheered and screamed. We got front row seats to choreographed dances by 10 year old Vietnamese girls decked out in green eye shadow and silver sequined tops, and 8 year old kung fu masters in yellow silk outfits. It was fantastic.
Ebony and I had a fabulous meal of street food for dinner. I can't remember what it is called, but I will write the name later. Hanoi seems to be foodie heaven, so I am trying to expand my Vietnamese food expertise beyond delicious pho bo (which is my current addiction.)
Tomorrow: Paula, Ebony and I are heading off to Halong Bay for a boat tour on a dingy! Ahhh... this should be grand. It is 2 nights and 3 days on a boat. I am quite excited for this one. As I have just finished my book called "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith (which I highly recommend by the way), I decided to purchase Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, which seemed appropriate as I am about to embark on a 3 day boat journey. Much adventures to come!
I also have some great photos I must up load, but I must pack my bag for the boat journey.
Tam biet (goodbye) and thanks for reading.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Sleeping Buddha
The massive sleeping Buddha at the Long Son Pagoda in Nha Trang. Doesn't he look peaceful?Predicament in Dalat
We bought a bus ticket from Dalat to Nha Trang. After getting onto a mini bus, we preceded to be shuddled from one bus to the next. After about 4 bus changes we were left to wait in a random bus station in town. Apparently, the bus company we were supposed to take asked for more money when they realized that we were foreigners so we had to take another bus. Mui Ne
We rented motor bikes for a few days in Mui Ne. After about an hour and a half of driving, we stopped at a small village and were welcomed by hoardes of children. They were especially fascinated with our sunglasses and our skin color. We took out a bottle of sunscreen for reapplication purposes to find that the children were immensely fascinated with this mysterious lotion as well. They insisted that they each have some sunscreen to put on. After a mere 30 seconds, this sitation got completely out of hand and we were surrounded by about 15 kids transformed into drippy white ghosts from the copious amounts of sunscreen they had slathered on their faces and arms.
League of Nations
The League of Nations, as other travelers have begun to call us. This is my travel group at the moment. Jayne is on the far left. She is from Edmonton, Canada. We have been traveling throughout the whole of Vietnam together. Me, next to her. Orange sweater is Paula, from Argentina, who we picked up in Mui Ne. And Ebony, from Australia who we saw in Saigon, met back up with in Mui Ne, and have been traveling with ever since.
Touques in Vietnam? Yes, we were in Dalat at this point, trying to warm up in our sweaters and with big bowls of pho. Dalat's climate is very cold and brisk compared to the rest of Vietnam that I have seen. Hats, sweaters, and gloves were necessary. It was strange, because the day before, we were on the beach in bathing suits!
Delicious Coffee
Enjoying some delicious Vietnamese coffee from a street vendor in Saigon. This is at a market in Cholon, the Chinatown district of Saigon. This coffee really gets you buzzing.Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Dalat
Xin chao! (Jeen-chow!) Aka, hello, in Vietnamese. The epic journey continues north through Vietnam. I arrived this afternoon in Dalat, a fantastic little town with a very strange atmosphere. More later... first updates.
Mekong Delta: The Mekong Delta is about a two hour bus ride south of HCMC (also known as Saigon.) I did a Mekong Delta day tour with Jayne (the Canadian girl I am now traveling with) which was amazing. The Mekong Delta is this massive area centered around, what else, the Mekong river. There is huge amounts of rice that is cultivated in this area. There are not many roads, people travel everywhere by boat. I was amazed at the way people live. They have their entire lively hood on these tiny fishing boats. It seems as though most people who do not grow rice are fishermen/women. Highlights:
-Being on the boats. We had to switch boats about 6 times. We had one boat for the more rough waters, another through the winding mekong waterways, and a very small boat paddled by this tiny Vietnamese woman through extremely narrow canals.
-Coconut candy making factory: There is a coconut candy making factory on one of the islands. We learned the whole process of the candy making, and of course got to try all different varieties including durian candy. It was.... interesting. I think durian is an aquired taste.
-Python: At one of our first stops on the tour we all got to hold a massive python around our necks!! It was surprisingly heavy, and was slithering it's tounge out on my hands.
-Fishing boats: The Vietnamese fishing boats are spectacular! Very bright colors.
Phu Quoc Island: I spent 5 days and 4 nights on Phu Quoc island, which is on the southern end of Vietnam. Compared to Saigon it is a very quiet place. Alot of honeymooners. Highlights:
-Boat trip: We took a boat trip for a whole day. It was definetally one of the best things I have done in my whole almost 7 months of traveling. From the boat trip:
*We went fishing. Number of fish I caught: 4
*Number of friends I was with 3: 2 Canadians and 1 Brit
*Total number of people on the boat: 8
*Number of times we went snorkeling: 3
*Number of times I jumped off the boat: 1
*Number of jelly fish stings I got after jumping off the boat: 7- 8
*SPF Sunscreen: 50
*Number of bottles of rum we brought for the boat trip: 1 (what is a pirate boat trip with out rum?)
*Number of beaches we stopped at: 3
If anyone is in Phu Quoc Island, i HIGHLY recommend the boat trip. Grand.
Mui Ne: Mui Ne is a small beach town about 6 hour northeast of Saigon. We finalllly left Saigon as our visas are running out. Let the journey continue! Highlights/stats of Mui Ne:
*Traveling with Jayne (Canadian) and Dan (English)
*Price of our room: $15 divided by three people, included hot water (wow!!) and mosquito nets
*Number of Swedes we met at our guesthouse: 2, both named Frederick
*Shells collected from the beach: 10 - 15
*Number of days we rented motor bikes: 2
*Red sand dunes: Massive dunes made of amazing red sand. I felt like I needed a camel or something while walking through them.
*White sand dunes: About a 45 minute motor bike ride out to the white sand dunes. If you can imagine, the white sand dunes were even more amazing than the red sand dunes. We drove our bikes out through some spectacular countryside and had lunch at a small road side place. Then we rented a tiny wooden boat for the three of us and paddled into this beautiful lake covered in lotus flowers. We paid 100,000 dong for 1 hour on this tiny wooden boat, more than we paid for motor bikes for the whole day (80,000 dong.) I think the villagers were laughing straight to the bank, but it was ok because we had so much fun. Jayne and I did the hard paddling while Dan sat and enjoyed the view. Before we left the shore one of the locals handed us an orange plastic jug. What for? For bailing out the leaky boat. Dan manage to bail out the boat continuously so we didn't sink.
*We paddled over to the while sand dunes which are breathtaking. Climbed all over them, it seemed as though I was in Saudi Arabia or something. There are alot of small kids with "tobogans," big body sized plastic sheets and they walk around to tourists and you can pay 20,000 dong and sled down the sand dunes! Since we were the youngest people there, the kids took us to the highest and steepest dune possible. You run and jump on to your sled on your stomach and sled down the dunes and if you want, can fly into the lake. Well, of course we flew into the lake. It was a lung pumping walk back up the almost vertical dunes, but was so fun! I had so many gos on the sleds.
*Number of herds of sheep passed while motor biking to the white sand dunes: 1
*Number of herds of cows: 2
*Number of herds of goats: 1
*Price of 1 liter of petrol: 18,000 dong
*Number of people in our biker gang the second day of motor biking: 8 including the Swedish Fredericks, me, Jayne, Dan, Ebony (Australia), Alex and Ana (newlywed Russian couple.) We felt almost as badass as if we were riding Harley Davidsons.
*Hours from Saigon to Mui Ne: 6
*Number of mosquito bites I recieved in Mui Ne: 10ish
*We stopped on our first motor bike trip in a small village. The village children were fascinated by our sunglasses and my rings. We stopped to apply some sunscreen and then they of course wanted some too. This hoard of children took the bottle of sunscreen and rubbed copious amounts all over their body, including their eyes. They were delighted to see how white they looked (because they did not properly rub it in.) The whole scene was quite hilarious.
Recommendations: Thai Hoa resort. It is quite a nice place. It is expensive but if you are with one or two other people it is not too bad. The food there is not great but there are good restaurants right across the road. Also, Thai Hoa is right on the beach so you can wake up and go straight down for some sand and surf.
-If you go to Mui Ne, renting motor bikes for a day or two is an absolute must.
-Sand dunes are beautiful. Red is good, white is better. See both.
Dalat: Jayne and I have picked up a few more additions to our traveling group. Our friend Dan from London headed back from Saigon fromMui Ne, but now we are traveling with two more people. Ebony, from Australia and Paula, from Argentina (although she has lived in Spain for 7 or 8 years.) We arrived today in Dalat around 3 o'clock PM. Dalat is about a 5 hour bus ride north from Mui Ne, but in Central Vietnam. I think they call this area the "Central Highland." As we were winding up the mountains to Dalat it very much reminded me of the bus rides in Nepal. The roads are incredibly windy and the scenery is fabulous. On the outskirts of town was a very strange scene. In some ways it reminded me of Spray, Oregon. It had a very Western-y feel with alot of abandoned looking houses (even though people live in them), lots of open fields, and donkey drawn carts. The difference (one of the differences) is that instead of cowboy hats, people are wearing the trademark Vietnamese conical straw hats.
Dalat itself has a very interesting feel. It is almost strange that is very French colonial town is just plopped down in the middle of the mountains. The climate is much different than anywhere in Vietnam I have been so far. We got off the bus in our tank tops and flip flops and all shivered a bit. It is not uncomfortably cold, just very crisp. It feels like Portland either in the early spring time, or in the early fall, just when the summer head is subsiding. The four of us got a great room for $12 total and all put on pants, sweaters, hiking boots, and wool hats! It felt very odd to be wearing a woolen hat when the day before I had been in my swimsuit on the beach. We unpacked, settled in, bundled up, and headed out for a walk through town. The town has a very quaint feel to it. There are alot of French style buildings, but it still feels distinctly Vietnamese. We went to the markets and got to try all sorts of dried fruits including dried tomatoes, beets, mangoes, kiwis, strawberries, mulberries, and a bunch of other things whose name I couldn't even guess. There is a massive market in Dalat which sells used clothing. It feels like a humongous vintage clothing store from home with a Vietnamese twist. After wandering the streets for a few hours we went for dinner. So, the four of us from all different countries were sitting at a Vietnamese restaurant each eating steaming bowls of pho bo and artichoke tea, wearing woolen hats and trying to keep warm, watching motor bikes go by below, looking at a Vietnamese version of the Eiffel tower which at night lights up, listening to Celine Dion on the loud speaker, still tan from the day before at the incredibly hot beach. Sometimes these scenarios are just too funny.
*Number of hours from Mui Ne to Dalat: 7 (even though they say 5.5)
*Number of stops along the way: 2
*Number of people in my room: 4 (including me)
*Number people I have seen wearing huge ski jackets: 30-40 (I can't believe this is still Vietnam!)
*Number of Eiffel towers in Dalat: 1
*Most famous wine in Vietnam is called: Dalat (obviously, made in Dalat)
*Number of days I will be in Dalat: 2
*Next stop: Na Trang
*Day my Vietnam visa runs out: 20th of December
*Next stop after Vietnam: Laos
Miscellaneous:
*The stops I have planned after Dalat including (in order, going from South to North): Na Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa.
*Planning on taking the sleeper train on the leg from Na Trang to Hoi An
*Number of motor bike accidents I have witnessed so far: 2 (both in Saigon)
*Number of cockroaches that I saw crawling on my toothbrush in Phu Quoc Island: 2
*Number of cockroaches living in our bathroom in Phu Quoc Island: 2, one we named "Roxy"
*Pairs of numchucks Alex, the crazy Russian newlywed, brought on his honeymoon: 1
*Amount of sand I got in my mouth while sledding down the sand dunes: copious amounts
Tam Biet (goodbye) from Dalat
Mekong Delta: The Mekong Delta is about a two hour bus ride south of HCMC (also known as Saigon.) I did a Mekong Delta day tour with Jayne (the Canadian girl I am now traveling with) which was amazing. The Mekong Delta is this massive area centered around, what else, the Mekong river. There is huge amounts of rice that is cultivated in this area. There are not many roads, people travel everywhere by boat. I was amazed at the way people live. They have their entire lively hood on these tiny fishing boats. It seems as though most people who do not grow rice are fishermen/women. Highlights:
-Being on the boats. We had to switch boats about 6 times. We had one boat for the more rough waters, another through the winding mekong waterways, and a very small boat paddled by this tiny Vietnamese woman through extremely narrow canals.
-Coconut candy making factory: There is a coconut candy making factory on one of the islands. We learned the whole process of the candy making, and of course got to try all different varieties including durian candy. It was.... interesting. I think durian is an aquired taste.
-Python: At one of our first stops on the tour we all got to hold a massive python around our necks!! It was surprisingly heavy, and was slithering it's tounge out on my hands.
-Fishing boats: The Vietnamese fishing boats are spectacular! Very bright colors.
Phu Quoc Island: I spent 5 days and 4 nights on Phu Quoc island, which is on the southern end of Vietnam. Compared to Saigon it is a very quiet place. Alot of honeymooners. Highlights:
-Boat trip: We took a boat trip for a whole day. It was definetally one of the best things I have done in my whole almost 7 months of traveling. From the boat trip:
*We went fishing. Number of fish I caught: 4
*Number of friends I was with 3: 2 Canadians and 1 Brit
*Total number of people on the boat: 8
*Number of times we went snorkeling: 3
*Number of times I jumped off the boat: 1
*Number of jelly fish stings I got after jumping off the boat: 7- 8
*SPF Sunscreen: 50
*Number of bottles of rum we brought for the boat trip: 1 (what is a pirate boat trip with out rum?)
*Number of beaches we stopped at: 3
If anyone is in Phu Quoc Island, i HIGHLY recommend the boat trip. Grand.
Mui Ne: Mui Ne is a small beach town about 6 hour northeast of Saigon. We finalllly left Saigon as our visas are running out. Let the journey continue! Highlights/stats of Mui Ne:
*Traveling with Jayne (Canadian) and Dan (English)
*Price of our room: $15 divided by three people, included hot water (wow!!) and mosquito nets
*Number of Swedes we met at our guesthouse: 2, both named Frederick
*Shells collected from the beach: 10 - 15
*Number of days we rented motor bikes: 2
*Red sand dunes: Massive dunes made of amazing red sand. I felt like I needed a camel or something while walking through them.
*White sand dunes: About a 45 minute motor bike ride out to the white sand dunes. If you can imagine, the white sand dunes were even more amazing than the red sand dunes. We drove our bikes out through some spectacular countryside and had lunch at a small road side place. Then we rented a tiny wooden boat for the three of us and paddled into this beautiful lake covered in lotus flowers. We paid 100,000 dong for 1 hour on this tiny wooden boat, more than we paid for motor bikes for the whole day (80,000 dong.) I think the villagers were laughing straight to the bank, but it was ok because we had so much fun. Jayne and I did the hard paddling while Dan sat and enjoyed the view. Before we left the shore one of the locals handed us an orange plastic jug. What for? For bailing out the leaky boat. Dan manage to bail out the boat continuously so we didn't sink.
*We paddled over to the while sand dunes which are breathtaking. Climbed all over them, it seemed as though I was in Saudi Arabia or something. There are alot of small kids with "tobogans," big body sized plastic sheets and they walk around to tourists and you can pay 20,000 dong and sled down the sand dunes! Since we were the youngest people there, the kids took us to the highest and steepest dune possible. You run and jump on to your sled on your stomach and sled down the dunes and if you want, can fly into the lake. Well, of course we flew into the lake. It was a lung pumping walk back up the almost vertical dunes, but was so fun! I had so many gos on the sleds.
*Number of herds of sheep passed while motor biking to the white sand dunes: 1
*Number of herds of cows: 2
*Number of herds of goats: 1
*Price of 1 liter of petrol: 18,000 dong
*Number of people in our biker gang the second day of motor biking: 8 including the Swedish Fredericks, me, Jayne, Dan, Ebony (Australia), Alex and Ana (newlywed Russian couple.) We felt almost as badass as if we were riding Harley Davidsons.
*Hours from Saigon to Mui Ne: 6
*Number of mosquito bites I recieved in Mui Ne: 10ish
*We stopped on our first motor bike trip in a small village. The village children were fascinated by our sunglasses and my rings. We stopped to apply some sunscreen and then they of course wanted some too. This hoard of children took the bottle of sunscreen and rubbed copious amounts all over their body, including their eyes. They were delighted to see how white they looked (because they did not properly rub it in.) The whole scene was quite hilarious.
Recommendations: Thai Hoa resort. It is quite a nice place. It is expensive but if you are with one or two other people it is not too bad. The food there is not great but there are good restaurants right across the road. Also, Thai Hoa is right on the beach so you can wake up and go straight down for some sand and surf.
-If you go to Mui Ne, renting motor bikes for a day or two is an absolute must.
-Sand dunes are beautiful. Red is good, white is better. See both.
Dalat: Jayne and I have picked up a few more additions to our traveling group. Our friend Dan from London headed back from Saigon fromMui Ne, but now we are traveling with two more people. Ebony, from Australia and Paula, from Argentina (although she has lived in Spain for 7 or 8 years.) We arrived today in Dalat around 3 o'clock PM. Dalat is about a 5 hour bus ride north from Mui Ne, but in Central Vietnam. I think they call this area the "Central Highland." As we were winding up the mountains to Dalat it very much reminded me of the bus rides in Nepal. The roads are incredibly windy and the scenery is fabulous. On the outskirts of town was a very strange scene. In some ways it reminded me of Spray, Oregon. It had a very Western-y feel with alot of abandoned looking houses (even though people live in them), lots of open fields, and donkey drawn carts. The difference (one of the differences) is that instead of cowboy hats, people are wearing the trademark Vietnamese conical straw hats.
Dalat itself has a very interesting feel. It is almost strange that is very French colonial town is just plopped down in the middle of the mountains. The climate is much different than anywhere in Vietnam I have been so far. We got off the bus in our tank tops and flip flops and all shivered a bit. It is not uncomfortably cold, just very crisp. It feels like Portland either in the early spring time, or in the early fall, just when the summer head is subsiding. The four of us got a great room for $12 total and all put on pants, sweaters, hiking boots, and wool hats! It felt very odd to be wearing a woolen hat when the day before I had been in my swimsuit on the beach. We unpacked, settled in, bundled up, and headed out for a walk through town. The town has a very quaint feel to it. There are alot of French style buildings, but it still feels distinctly Vietnamese. We went to the markets and got to try all sorts of dried fruits including dried tomatoes, beets, mangoes, kiwis, strawberries, mulberries, and a bunch of other things whose name I couldn't even guess. There is a massive market in Dalat which sells used clothing. It feels like a humongous vintage clothing store from home with a Vietnamese twist. After wandering the streets for a few hours we went for dinner. So, the four of us from all different countries were sitting at a Vietnamese restaurant each eating steaming bowls of pho bo and artichoke tea, wearing woolen hats and trying to keep warm, watching motor bikes go by below, looking at a Vietnamese version of the Eiffel tower which at night lights up, listening to Celine Dion on the loud speaker, still tan from the day before at the incredibly hot beach. Sometimes these scenarios are just too funny.
*Number of hours from Mui Ne to Dalat: 7 (even though they say 5.5)
*Number of stops along the way: 2
*Number of people in my room: 4 (including me)
*Number people I have seen wearing huge ski jackets: 30-40 (I can't believe this is still Vietnam!)
*Number of Eiffel towers in Dalat: 1
*Most famous wine in Vietnam is called: Dalat (obviously, made in Dalat)
*Number of days I will be in Dalat: 2
*Next stop: Na Trang
*Day my Vietnam visa runs out: 20th of December
*Next stop after Vietnam: Laos
Miscellaneous:
*The stops I have planned after Dalat including (in order, going from South to North): Na Trang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Sapa.
*Planning on taking the sleeper train on the leg from Na Trang to Hoi An
*Number of motor bike accidents I have witnessed so far: 2 (both in Saigon)
*Number of cockroaches that I saw crawling on my toothbrush in Phu Quoc Island: 2
*Number of cockroaches living in our bathroom in Phu Quoc Island: 2, one we named "Roxy"
*Pairs of numchucks Alex, the crazy Russian newlywed, brought on his honeymoon: 1
*Amount of sand I got in my mouth while sledding down the sand dunes: copious amounts
Tam Biet (goodbye) from Dalat
Monday, November 26, 2007
Phu Quoc Island
Hello from Phu Quoc!
Phu Quoc is a small island just south east of the Cambodian coast line. We are thoroghly enjoying ourselves here. The beaches are gorgeous: white sand, blue waters, palm trees. Phu Quoc is a bit quiet, lots of honey mooners and couples here. But Jayne and I have managed to find everybody under the age of 30 on the island to hang out with, which is about 15 good people.
Habac, the owner of the Eden restaurant and bars (who invited us to Phu Quoc) is decorating the Phu Quoc Eden for Christmas. So, this morning we woke up and decorated the huge Christmas tree he had sent in. It was a bit funny, an American and a Canadian decorating a Christmas tree while wearing bikinis, on a small Vietnamese island... What fun travel is.
Phu Quoc is a small island just south east of the Cambodian coast line. We are thoroghly enjoying ourselves here. The beaches are gorgeous: white sand, blue waters, palm trees. Phu Quoc is a bit quiet, lots of honey mooners and couples here. But Jayne and I have managed to find everybody under the age of 30 on the island to hang out with, which is about 15 good people.
Habac, the owner of the Eden restaurant and bars (who invited us to Phu Quoc) is decorating the Phu Quoc Eden for Christmas. So, this morning we woke up and decorated the huge Christmas tree he had sent in. It was a bit funny, an American and a Canadian decorating a Christmas tree while wearing bikinis, on a small Vietnamese island... What fun travel is.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
War Remnants Museum
I highly recommend this museum to everyone who visits Saigon. It is shocking. Especially as an American, I could not believe the things I saw! Massacres, soldiers killing children, soldiers pushing people out of airplanes, torture, the horrible affects of agent orange dioxin. I could not believe what I was seeing. I don't know too much about the Vietnam war, but I had a much different impression of it. I kept thinking wow, this museum makes Americans look horrible, but I guess the Americans were horrible. Shocking.
There is a huge photo exhibit in the museum. After looking at all the photos there is a book that visitors can sign and write something in. We were looking through the book reading people's comments. Similar to the comments I saw at the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, there were lots of things like: "Never let it happen again." "Peace on earth." Why even write this? I really don't think there will ever be peace on earth, unfortunately. Anyway, there was one comment that absolutely enraged me. It was written by an Irish guy and it said: "Great museum! It really highlights the stupidity that runs through America as a whole." This comment made me so INCREDIBLY mad I wrote a huge response underneath it. The things that the Americans did in Vietnam were horrific, and I just learned that. In my opinion, people are people whether they are Irish, American, or Vietnamese. We trust what we are taught. If someone tells us, this is how it is when we are 12, we generally believe them. I think to say that stupidity runs through America is just breeding intolerance. Why do we have wars? Intolerance is one reason. So to say something like that is intolerant and ignorant. ARG!! What we need is tolerance! Tolerance and truth!!
There is a huge photo exhibit in the museum. After looking at all the photos there is a book that visitors can sign and write something in. We were looking through the book reading people's comments. Similar to the comments I saw at the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, there were lots of things like: "Never let it happen again." "Peace on earth." Why even write this? I really don't think there will ever be peace on earth, unfortunately. Anyway, there was one comment that absolutely enraged me. It was written by an Irish guy and it said: "Great museum! It really highlights the stupidity that runs through America as a whole." This comment made me so INCREDIBLY mad I wrote a huge response underneath it. The things that the Americans did in Vietnam were horrific, and I just learned that. In my opinion, people are people whether they are Irish, American, or Vietnamese. We trust what we are taught. If someone tells us, this is how it is when we are 12, we generally believe them. I think to say that stupidity runs through America is just breeding intolerance. Why do we have wars? Intolerance is one reason. So to say something like that is intolerant and ignorant. ARG!! What we need is tolerance! Tolerance and truth!!
Saigon!
Welcome to Vietnam!
I have been badly neglecting my blog. So much to write! Here goes:
I arrived in Saigon about 7 days ago. On the bus from Phnom Penh I met a Canadian girl named Jayne and we hit it off, so decided to travel together throughout Vietnam. It has been really fun to travel with someone else. A much different experience than what I have been doing so far. It is really nice to have a friend to talk to about what you see, feel, and hear while traveling. Also it is much more social in general. It is cheaper as well, since we split everything such as our hostel room, etc...
Saigon is absolutely fantastic! I love this place so much, and am definetally going to live here for an extended period of time someday. The Vietnamese people are incredibly nice and generous. I am so confused because while in Sihanoukville people said: oh my gosh, Saigon is horrible, you will get ripped off, it is dangerous, etc... But I guess everyone just has to find out for themselves, because I love this place.
It was off to a bit of a rough start in Saigon. Jayne and I settled into our room and then stepped outside to find a good place for dinner. The second we did this a 6 year old boy comes peddling up to us on his tricycle and runs over our feet and screams over and over to us: "You're white!! Fuck you!!" Wow, quite the shock that was for us. We were a bit confused, who in the world taught this little boy such horrible things!! Anyway, we walked down the street a bit more and see a 4 year old boy smoking a cigarette through his nostrils!! Even more of a shock! So, the first few minutes in Saigon were a bit rocky, but since then they have become much better.
A few highlights of the week:
-The zoo: We got to take pictures and play with two orangutangs! We also watched a snake ingesting a rabbit.
-Cu Chi Tunnels: I have very mixed feelings about these. The Cu Chi tunnels are this massive underground tunnel network where Vietnamese soldiers lived while the Americans had occupied the land above and were bombing it and napalming it, etc... There are three levels of tunnels and they stretch for hundreds of kilometers, all the way to the Cambodian border! We had a guided tour all day from this Vietnamese guy who fought in the war and I think went a bit mad. This made the tour even more strange. At the tunnels we got to walk through (more like crawl through) about 100 kilometers. It was incredibly claustrophobic and hot and sweaty in the tunnels, but quite interesting to go through. The thing was, the whole Cu Chi complex has been turned into a bit of an amusement park which I did not appreciate at all. I thought it was a bit grotesque. For example, if you want you can go to the shooting range they have put above the tunnels and fire and AK47. Also you can take you picture with a US tank, and watch motorized manequins of Vietnamese soldiers make bombs. I felt very uncomfortable there because everything just seemed to be a photo opportunity. In a place which I am sure has seen alot of death and suffering, this didn't seem right.
-Ben Thanh market: This is in the heart of Saigon, one of the biggest markets. At there market there is everything from food stalls, coffee beans, souvenirs, tailors, clothes, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, fish.... You name it, Ben Thanh has it.
-Water puppets: We went to a water puppets show last night. Water puppets is a traditional Vietnamese kind of theater. There is traditional singing and music which accompany the marionettes. It is a good look at Vietnamese tradition and culture.
-Motor bikes: Wow, I thought Phnom Penh had alot of traffic. Yeah right. Phnom Penh traffic is childs play compared to Saigon. It is completely mad. The number of motorbikes here is over the top. The streets are a continuous stream of bikes. Hiring a moto driver to go around town is an absolute must. A wild ride is an understatement!!!
I have been badly neglecting my blog. So much to write! Here goes:
I arrived in Saigon about 7 days ago. On the bus from Phnom Penh I met a Canadian girl named Jayne and we hit it off, so decided to travel together throughout Vietnam. It has been really fun to travel with someone else. A much different experience than what I have been doing so far. It is really nice to have a friend to talk to about what you see, feel, and hear while traveling. Also it is much more social in general. It is cheaper as well, since we split everything such as our hostel room, etc...
Saigon is absolutely fantastic! I love this place so much, and am definetally going to live here for an extended period of time someday. The Vietnamese people are incredibly nice and generous. I am so confused because while in Sihanoukville people said: oh my gosh, Saigon is horrible, you will get ripped off, it is dangerous, etc... But I guess everyone just has to find out for themselves, because I love this place.
It was off to a bit of a rough start in Saigon. Jayne and I settled into our room and then stepped outside to find a good place for dinner. The second we did this a 6 year old boy comes peddling up to us on his tricycle and runs over our feet and screams over and over to us: "You're white!! Fuck you!!" Wow, quite the shock that was for us. We were a bit confused, who in the world taught this little boy such horrible things!! Anyway, we walked down the street a bit more and see a 4 year old boy smoking a cigarette through his nostrils!! Even more of a shock! So, the first few minutes in Saigon were a bit rocky, but since then they have become much better.
A few highlights of the week:
-The zoo: We got to take pictures and play with two orangutangs! We also watched a snake ingesting a rabbit.
-Cu Chi Tunnels: I have very mixed feelings about these. The Cu Chi tunnels are this massive underground tunnel network where Vietnamese soldiers lived while the Americans had occupied the land above and were bombing it and napalming it, etc... There are three levels of tunnels and they stretch for hundreds of kilometers, all the way to the Cambodian border! We had a guided tour all day from this Vietnamese guy who fought in the war and I think went a bit mad. This made the tour even more strange. At the tunnels we got to walk through (more like crawl through) about 100 kilometers. It was incredibly claustrophobic and hot and sweaty in the tunnels, but quite interesting to go through. The thing was, the whole Cu Chi complex has been turned into a bit of an amusement park which I did not appreciate at all. I thought it was a bit grotesque. For example, if you want you can go to the shooting range they have put above the tunnels and fire and AK47. Also you can take you picture with a US tank, and watch motorized manequins of Vietnamese soldiers make bombs. I felt very uncomfortable there because everything just seemed to be a photo opportunity. In a place which I am sure has seen alot of death and suffering, this didn't seem right.
-Ben Thanh market: This is in the heart of Saigon, one of the biggest markets. At there market there is everything from food stalls, coffee beans, souvenirs, tailors, clothes, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, fish.... You name it, Ben Thanh has it.
-Water puppets: We went to a water puppets show last night. Water puppets is a traditional Vietnamese kind of theater. There is traditional singing and music which accompany the marionettes. It is a good look at Vietnamese tradition and culture.
-Motor bikes: Wow, I thought Phnom Penh had alot of traffic. Yeah right. Phnom Penh traffic is childs play compared to Saigon. It is completely mad. The number of motorbikes here is over the top. The streets are a continuous stream of bikes. Hiring a moto driver to go around town is an absolute must. A wild ride is an understatement!!!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
My New Boyfriend
I've found a new boyfriend in Saigon. I know, it looks like he is much more into his juice than me, but I think he really likes me....
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Rants and Raves
Ok, enough of my rants and raves. See you in SAIGON!!
And goodbye to Cambodia, I will surely be back.
Probably, Some Good Advice
I usually take advice from the guidebook and people with a grain of salt. For examle when I arrived in Nepal people told me: ''No matter what you do, DON'T EAT THE STREET FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'' After 5 months, I left Nepal a conneiseur (sp?) of the street food. I ate street food everyday and loved it, also I never got sick from it. Some people in Siem Reap told me: "Phnom Penh is horrible!! You'll get robbed if you ever walk alone!!!" Well, as it turns out PP is one of my favorite places so far, and I have not been robbed ever. Now people tell me: "Oadvice which I think is a good one though, especially in Cambodia and parts of Vietnam, is to stay on well marked pathes and not to wander off to jungle areas. The reason being is landmines. There are many of them in both places (millions), and while it might cut h my god!!! HO CHI MINH!!! HORRID!!! People will slice open your back pack with a razor and steal everything!!!" As you can see, you take these things with a grain of salt.
There is one piece of advice, though, that I think is good to remember and stick to when in Cambodia and parts of Vietnam. This is: don't leave well marked pathes and don't wander off into the jungle. The reason being landmines. Cambodia, especially, is full of them (millions.) Yes, this may cut down on spur of the moment jungle treks and adventures a bit, but I think a cut in crazy adventures is well worth it if you save your arms and legs from being blown off.
There is one piece of advice, though, that I think is good to remember and stick to when in Cambodia and parts of Vietnam. This is: don't leave well marked pathes and don't wander off into the jungle. The reason being landmines. Cambodia, especially, is full of them (millions.) Yes, this may cut down on spur of the moment jungle treks and adventures a bit, but I think a cut in crazy adventures is well worth it if you save your arms and legs from being blown off.
Markets Galore
A woman in one of the Phnom Penh markets sells assortments of pickled vegetables and other miscellaneous and unidentifiable (by me) things. 
In Phnom Penh, a woman cuts and cleans a freshly dead chicken. Surrounded by, other dead chickens. 
Vegetables! Always fresh, always crunchy, always bright. A spread of vegetables at the main market in Battambang. By the way, the morning is always the best time to go to the markets because this is when all the women do their shopping.
America... Is It A Dirty Word?
This "issue'' is something I have been dealing with since the beginning of my travels, actually, even before this journey started. People told me: ''The world hates Americans, be careful.'' Before leaving I even thought about telling people I was Canadian if the reaction to "American'' was as bad as people said.
At the beginning of my trip I would sort of skirt the issue with other people I met, hoping I wouldn't have to tell them where I was from. But now, I have no problem with telling people I am American, and I would not tell people I am from anywhere else, as that would be a lie. I get different reactions from different people. The locals of wherever I am (Nepal, Cambodia, etc...) seem always to be awed by the fact that I am American. They say something like, "Oh very nice country! Very rich country! Very big building! Land of milk and honey!'' I sort of laugh at this and ask them why they think this. I don't really know how to explain that yes you can make alot more money, but you also pay alot more.
Then, there is the reaction from fellow travellers which is a bit less enthusiastic than that of the locals. People are never mean about the fact, after all I can't help where I was born, but at times I can detect a hint of sarcasm or a trace of annoyance as if I am responsible for all the things going on in the world to do with America. At times it seems as though people think I was the one who sent the troops over to Iraq. This, at times, can be frustrating. Even though it is frustrating, I do, and will continue to say I am from America. The other day a German guy told me I was a cool Canadian. I thanked him, and quickly corrected him, telling him that I was American.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not one of those crazy flag waving patriotic people in any sense of the word. I know nothing about the politics or business of America and don't really care too much anyway. But I do think people from other countries need to know that all Americans don't just stay in their own state forever and rot in a corner. I think alot of people don't realize that some Americans actually do know where Africa is, and that Africa is not a country but a continent.
Since I am American, and say it, people always seem to tell me their "horrid American" story. Greatttt.... This is always good. Maybe it will be about the California girl who thought the language of Holland is "Amsterdamish" or the Southern guy who thought that Danish was just a pastry and not a people. Or maybe it was the fat drunk guy from Colorado who was grabbing the prostitute and saying dirty things. Yes, these stories can sometimes be amusing. But I also want to ask: "Ok, well what am I supposed to do about that? I doubt you know what borders Montana and the capital of Florida." Ok, it is a bit different, but I habout ear alot of these stories and they get a bit annoying.
''American'' is a bit of a dirty word on the travellers circuit. I can see two sides to this. At times it can be difficult for me to say I am American when surrounded by a bunch of people from Europe who are bashing Bush and the war. People can look at you differently. I am American so my parents must be rich. I am American, so I am probably getting 500 dollars a month to travel. Some people can't believe it. "You are American??'' they say. ''You actually left your 4 years of continuous college and job opportunity and money and friends and state to TRAVEL!?'' Some people seem incredulous.
On the other hand, I always tell people I am American because I think the world should know that not all people from the States never leave and are racist and drink six packs all day and get wasted at frat parties. One thing I have come to despise is when I don't know something about the world that other people seem to think is common knowledge. I feel like it is my duty, as one of the very few young Americans who seem to be traveling around this area, to show people that I am not stupid and I know things about the world. Basically I want to be a good example of what an American can be.
''American'' is a bit of a dirty word at times. Maybe not necessarily dirty, but stigmatized. Americans have a reputation, and that reputation is hard to break, but I will do it. As frustrating as it may be, I also get rather annoyed at the people who are so firm with this stereotype of ''stupid Americans.'' Some people are so vocal about this stereotype and are not willing to come to grips with the fact that America has 300 million people in it, which is quite alot, and there are so many different types that make up that 300 million. So, in my opinion, people who joke and stereotype all Americans as ''stupid and ignorant'' are just propagating the immaturity and ignorance that they are so against.
So, I call all Americans who have the means to travel! Meet the people of the world! Prove that you know that a Danish is not just something that will add an inch to your waistline!! Prove that you know that a person from Holland is not a 'Hollandaise'! I challenge everyone to go out and prove it, and change this damn stereotype one person at a time!
(Picture: The picture was taken by a young homeless girl I met on the riverfront of Phnom Penh. She took a whole bunch of really cool pictures. When I told her I was from the US she searched out the flag and took a picture of it. There are flags from 100+ countries flapping in the wind along the river front of PP.)
Spiders...
I know I said I really wanted to try fried spiders, a somewhat expensive delicacy here in Cambodia. I went to a "bug booth'' in Battambang and tried other things, not including spiders as the vendor told us that it was not spider season... Well, apparently it is spider season in Phnom Penh because I just walked by a HUGE bucket of fried tarantulas. They were really massive. Just expand your hand to maximum size and thats how big they were. I know I said I wanted to try them, but seeing them... well... um.... maybe later.... I wondered where they collected the hundreds of tarantulas to fry. I hope that its no where in the vicinity of my hotel room....
Delay to Saigon
Well my intention was to be in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City) right now, but plans change. I left Sihanoukville this morning and there was madness at the bus station in Phnom Penh so I decided to stay another day in PP which is just fine with me. So, tomorrow (I think) I will be going to Vietnam. As for today and tonight, I am going to thoroughly enjoy another day in PP, one of my favorite places.
As for Vietnam, I have no idea what I am going to do there. I was initially thinking to backpack from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi, but I have been hearing news of really bad rains and typhoons hitting central Vietnam at the moment. So, instead I may spend a month in Southern Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta where I think the weather will be better. But really, I have no idea.
As for Vietnam, I have no idea what I am going to do there. I was initially thinking to backpack from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi, but I have been hearing news of really bad rains and typhoons hitting central Vietnam at the moment. So, instead I may spend a month in Southern Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta where I think the weather will be better. But really, I have no idea.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sihanoukville
Updates:
Hello!
I am in Sihanoukville, Cambodia right now. I came here about a week and a half ago thinking I would stay 3 days and keep moving, but I have been here a week and a half now!!
Sihanoukville is a very nice place on the South Coast of the country. There are some really beautiful white sandy beaches, palm trees, blue waters, the whole tropical experience. (Including some stinging jelly fish, be careful!) The beaches are a bit enchanting, and it is difficult to leave but I think I am ready to get a move on. Today I got my Vietnam visa and am probably going to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh city tomorrow or the next day.
This and That:
-For all people interested in the "sex tourism" business, Sihanoukville seems to be the place to be. I am currently reading a book called "Sex Slaves" about the trafficing of women in Asia and it is really strange to see the words on the pages being acted out right infront of my eyes. I really can't believe it at times. The book focuses more on the main customer market for girls being Asian men, but Sihanoukville seems to be a place for Western men to have the Cambodian girls. I have been to many of the night scenes around town in the last week with some friends from my guesthouse. Some, near the more red light district areas, are really quite shocking for me. We went to one place and I was the only Western female at the place. Nothing wrong with that of course, I am used to that by now. But the only customers at the place were men between the ages of 40 and 70. The girls who work at literally every bar/club in the city are called "taxi girls," a nicer name for prostitute I guess. At all the places you see a young Cambodian girl (my age or maybe younger) with a very big fat white guy with gray hair who could be around 65 or 70, and is definetally 3 times the size of the Cambodian girl. At times, a sight like this is almost comical until you realize what the daily life for one of these girls is like.
-One thing I was surprised about was how out in the open sex tourism is here. In the morning, sometimes I will sit outside my door and relax on the patio area. If you are up in the morning you will see the taxi girls emerging from rooms to go home.
-Do the girls like it? I was quite shocked to hear that many men believe that the girls actually like doing this work. I admit, probably a few do. But having sex with 10 different guys a week does not sound like fun to me. HIV infection is very high among these girls, and many also take a drug called "yaba" which I think is some sort of methamphetamine type things. They take yaba so have energy to stay up all night, every night. Alot of the girls are realllllyy almost grotesquely skinny, which makes me think they take alot of drugs. Anyway, I was talking to some guys from Holland who are my neighbors at the guesthouse. It was their opinion that the girls really liked what they do, and if they didn't want to do it, they could do something else like sell shrimp on the beach. I absolutely, could not disagree with them more. I don't think the girls like it, I don't think it is a good life, I think it is demeaning, they are likely to get STDs and HIV, they are probably treated badly. And yes I suppose they could go work on the beach, but the people who walk around the beaches selling bracelets, massages, manicures, shrimp work all day, morning to night, and maybe make a few bucks. On the other hand, the girls work one night, and have one guy, and they make 10 or 20 dollars. That is alot in Cambodia. Then, if they get addicted to yaba, they are stuck.
Being around the girls and the bars I can see why guys would think the girls like their job so much. The girls are young, very pretty, and they know how to flirt with guys. The girls go around to all the guys and flirt with them and try to get the guys to take them home for "boom boom." It really seems like it would inflate a guy's ego quite a bit, and the girls are good actresses and know how to make it seem like they are having fun. This whole scene reminds me of high school a bit...
Anyhow, enough of that. My point is, Sihanoukville is rife with Western sex tourism which is a really strange business.
Recommendations:
GST Guesthouse: This is a really fantastic guest house. It is right across from Occheuteal beach, one of the most popular beaches. Also it is a really good place to meet other travellers and backpackers. A very social meeting place. My room is $4 a night, and I have my own bathroom, TV, and fan. Highly recommended.
See you Vietnam!!!!
Hello!
I am in Sihanoukville, Cambodia right now. I came here about a week and a half ago thinking I would stay 3 days and keep moving, but I have been here a week and a half now!!
Sihanoukville is a very nice place on the South Coast of the country. There are some really beautiful white sandy beaches, palm trees, blue waters, the whole tropical experience. (Including some stinging jelly fish, be careful!) The beaches are a bit enchanting, and it is difficult to leave but I think I am ready to get a move on. Today I got my Vietnam visa and am probably going to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh city tomorrow or the next day.
This and That:
-For all people interested in the "sex tourism" business, Sihanoukville seems to be the place to be. I am currently reading a book called "Sex Slaves" about the trafficing of women in Asia and it is really strange to see the words on the pages being acted out right infront of my eyes. I really can't believe it at times. The book focuses more on the main customer market for girls being Asian men, but Sihanoukville seems to be a place for Western men to have the Cambodian girls. I have been to many of the night scenes around town in the last week with some friends from my guesthouse. Some, near the more red light district areas, are really quite shocking for me. We went to one place and I was the only Western female at the place. Nothing wrong with that of course, I am used to that by now. But the only customers at the place were men between the ages of 40 and 70. The girls who work at literally every bar/club in the city are called "taxi girls," a nicer name for prostitute I guess. At all the places you see a young Cambodian girl (my age or maybe younger) with a very big fat white guy with gray hair who could be around 65 or 70, and is definetally 3 times the size of the Cambodian girl. At times, a sight like this is almost comical until you realize what the daily life for one of these girls is like.
-One thing I was surprised about was how out in the open sex tourism is here. In the morning, sometimes I will sit outside my door and relax on the patio area. If you are up in the morning you will see the taxi girls emerging from rooms to go home.
-Do the girls like it? I was quite shocked to hear that many men believe that the girls actually like doing this work. I admit, probably a few do. But having sex with 10 different guys a week does not sound like fun to me. HIV infection is very high among these girls, and many also take a drug called "yaba" which I think is some sort of methamphetamine type things. They take yaba so have energy to stay up all night, every night. Alot of the girls are realllllyy almost grotesquely skinny, which makes me think they take alot of drugs. Anyway, I was talking to some guys from Holland who are my neighbors at the guesthouse. It was their opinion that the girls really liked what they do, and if they didn't want to do it, they could do something else like sell shrimp on the beach. I absolutely, could not disagree with them more. I don't think the girls like it, I don't think it is a good life, I think it is demeaning, they are likely to get STDs and HIV, they are probably treated badly. And yes I suppose they could go work on the beach, but the people who walk around the beaches selling bracelets, massages, manicures, shrimp work all day, morning to night, and maybe make a few bucks. On the other hand, the girls work one night, and have one guy, and they make 10 or 20 dollars. That is alot in Cambodia. Then, if they get addicted to yaba, they are stuck.
Being around the girls and the bars I can see why guys would think the girls like their job so much. The girls are young, very pretty, and they know how to flirt with guys. The girls go around to all the guys and flirt with them and try to get the guys to take them home for "boom boom." It really seems like it would inflate a guy's ego quite a bit, and the girls are good actresses and know how to make it seem like they are having fun. This whole scene reminds me of high school a bit...
Anyhow, enough of that. My point is, Sihanoukville is rife with Western sex tourism which is a really strange business.
Recommendations:
GST Guesthouse: This is a really fantastic guest house. It is right across from Occheuteal beach, one of the most popular beaches. Also it is a really good place to meet other travellers and backpackers. A very social meeting place. My room is $4 a night, and I have my own bathroom, TV, and fan. Highly recommended.
See you Vietnam!!!!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Bugs!! (Crunchy...)
Fried cockroach? Fried grubs anyone?
This is the whole bugs/snakes/birds/frogs stall. They seemed to have everything except spiders, which is what I was looking food. Notice the two bowls full of snakes on the bottom right hand side. Next to the platter of yellow things (to it's right) is a platter of peeled fried frogs on a skewer. 
Learning to Weave
At the scarf "factory" - a few looms underneath a stilted house in the countryside. This woman is the owner.Coming Up
I have spent a wonderful week in Phnom Penh, but it is time for me to get moving to the next location. I met a girl in Siem Reap who told me there was nothing to do in Phnom Penh... This is probably the farthest thing from the truth I have ever heard! There are endless things to do, one of the best being to simply walk around and soak up PP life. The people, the jobs people do, daily business, markets, food stalls, buildings, animals, and a million other things. Life here is fascinating! I am leaving tomorrow but I am positive I will be back to Phnom Penh!
Next stop: I am leaving tomorrow to Sihanoukville, a beach town on the south coast of Cambodia. I will then travel along the south coast eastward toward Vietnam. I have been consulting the Vietnam map recently and have realized that it's much larger than I had initially pictured, so I will probably cross over into Vietnam in the next week or week and a half depending on how fast I move through the rest of Cambodia that I want to see.
Anyways... the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to Sihanoukville on a bus at 7:15 tomorrow morning! See you there!
Next stop: I am leaving tomorrow to Sihanoukville, a beach town on the south coast of Cambodia. I will then travel along the south coast eastward toward Vietnam. I have been consulting the Vietnam map recently and have realized that it's much larger than I had initially pictured, so I will probably cross over into Vietnam in the next week or week and a half depending on how fast I move through the rest of Cambodia that I want to see.
Anyways... the only thing I know for sure is that I am going to Sihanoukville on a bus at 7:15 tomorrow morning! See you there!
The Tooth
"MASS GRAVE OF 166 VICTIMS WITHOUT HEADS." I stare into the muddy pit. One-hundred and sixty-six. I play with the number in my head. How many is that? How much space does one hundred and sixty six bodies take up? One hundred and sixty six seems like a big number. I move my toes around the ledge of the pit. Wiggle my fingers. Feel my lungs breathe in air, feeling the space one body takes and try to imagine it multiplied by one hundred and sixty six. One hundred and sixty six seems like alot.
I'm hyper aware of my feet methodically crunching the gravel trails that wind through the pits that were used as mass graves by the Khmer Rouge. This is the killing field where thousands of Cambodians were taken for the sole purpose of execution. Thousands of men, women, and children were shot, beaten, bludgeoned, buried alive and hit against trees here. The place is eerily silent, even though there is a faint breeze the trees or grasses don't seem to rustle. No birds chirp. No frogs croak. Its just the chunch of my boots, of my living body, moving through these green fields of shattering death.
I'm staring at a small alter, on it are bits of bones that have been found after the main memorial of skulls was constructed. Forgotten bits and pieces of people. A broken piece of a jaw, a fragment of tibia, a few crumbling ribs. There is a tooth lying amidst these bits. Its a molar. It has turned a shade of coffee brown from years buried in a pit. I stare at it for five minutes. Its just a tooth. I clench my own teeth together, feeling my jaw muscles tighten. The wind gusts again, but nothing seems to rustle. I put my index finger out and push the tooth. Its real, I am assured. I stare at it a bit more, unblinking. My right hand, which seems to have a mind of its own picks the tooth up. I hold it in my palm and stare at it some more, as though I've never sen a human tooth before. I run my fingers over the curves and canyons on the top of the tooth. Feel the jagged and pointy root on the otherside. I twirl it in my fingers and feel the weight of it in my hand.
This tooth was, at one time, attached to a jaw with other teeth, which was attached to a skull, attached to a head, attached to a body. But most of all, this tooth was attached to a life. I try to comprehend whtat this means. This tooth was attached to a life, a life like mine. Still holding the tooth, I think about the life that used to be attached to this tooth. Was the life male or female? Young or old? What passed over the life's tooth? I think about the tooth's first months in the world. It's mother probably nourished the connected life with her milk. Milk must have flowed lovingly over the tooth. This tooth must have chewed alot of food in it's life time. What was the favorite food of the tooth's attached life? Did the life like Cambodian curry noodles and amoc fish? Or did the life prefer bamboo sticky rice and salted pork? What sorts of foods did this tooth chew? Did the tooth's life have a favorite pho stall on the streets of Phnom Penh? Did it like sweets and desserts? Did more coffee or tea flow over the tooth? Did the tooth's life take care of it's mouth? How many hundreds of times did the life carefully brush this tooth, to preserve it's smile?
I ponder thes questions while feeling it's weight. All of the suden, I have a better idea of how much one hundred and sixty six is. It's alot. It's an immeasureable amount of lives. One hundred and sixty six molars just like this one. Dozens of questions to ask about each tooth, each life. I start to get a better feeling about how much one hundred and sixty six is. But what about 2 million? Two million... I try to think of two million teeth like this one. The number is so large, I don't know how to visualize it. Two million molars. Two million favorite foods. Two million despised foods. Rivers of tea must have flown over these teeth.
I place the tooth back on the alter. From this one tooth I now understand the massive scale of genocide. I now realize what genocide takes away: life. I now understand death. What the death of one person means. What the life of one person is. This single brown molar has made me understand more about death, murder, and genocide than the miles of news bulletins I've read on CNN, Fox, NBC at the bottom of the television screen. "One million dead." "Reports of 100,000 murdered." "Ethnic cleansing." But those bulletins meant relatively nothing to me. Numbers. Figures. Statistics. Letters. Words. Moving from right to left. "One million people dead..." That seems like alot of people, I would think to myself, and continue on with my daily business. But now I understand, at least a little bit more. I don't know what a million or 2 million people is. But I know what one is. There was a life attached to this tooth. A life cut short by brutal execution. This molar showed me what is meant by death, and what is meant by loss of life. I still can't visualize 2 million people, but I can visualize one. And to be able to visualize one, is all that matters.
I'm hyper aware of my feet methodically crunching the gravel trails that wind through the pits that were used as mass graves by the Khmer Rouge. This is the killing field where thousands of Cambodians were taken for the sole purpose of execution. Thousands of men, women, and children were shot, beaten, bludgeoned, buried alive and hit against trees here. The place is eerily silent, even though there is a faint breeze the trees or grasses don't seem to rustle. No birds chirp. No frogs croak. Its just the chunch of my boots, of my living body, moving through these green fields of shattering death.
I'm staring at a small alter, on it are bits of bones that have been found after the main memorial of skulls was constructed. Forgotten bits and pieces of people. A broken piece of a jaw, a fragment of tibia, a few crumbling ribs. There is a tooth lying amidst these bits. Its a molar. It has turned a shade of coffee brown from years buried in a pit. I stare at it for five minutes. Its just a tooth. I clench my own teeth together, feeling my jaw muscles tighten. The wind gusts again, but nothing seems to rustle. I put my index finger out and push the tooth. Its real, I am assured. I stare at it a bit more, unblinking. My right hand, which seems to have a mind of its own picks the tooth up. I hold it in my palm and stare at it some more, as though I've never sen a human tooth before. I run my fingers over the curves and canyons on the top of the tooth. Feel the jagged and pointy root on the otherside. I twirl it in my fingers and feel the weight of it in my hand.
This tooth was, at one time, attached to a jaw with other teeth, which was attached to a skull, attached to a head, attached to a body. But most of all, this tooth was attached to a life. I try to comprehend whtat this means. This tooth was attached to a life, a life like mine. Still holding the tooth, I think about the life that used to be attached to this tooth. Was the life male or female? Young or old? What passed over the life's tooth? I think about the tooth's first months in the world. It's mother probably nourished the connected life with her milk. Milk must have flowed lovingly over the tooth. This tooth must have chewed alot of food in it's life time. What was the favorite food of the tooth's attached life? Did the life like Cambodian curry noodles and amoc fish? Or did the life prefer bamboo sticky rice and salted pork? What sorts of foods did this tooth chew? Did the tooth's life have a favorite pho stall on the streets of Phnom Penh? Did it like sweets and desserts? Did more coffee or tea flow over the tooth? Did the tooth's life take care of it's mouth? How many hundreds of times did the life carefully brush this tooth, to preserve it's smile?
I ponder thes questions while feeling it's weight. All of the suden, I have a better idea of how much one hundred and sixty six is. It's alot. It's an immeasureable amount of lives. One hundred and sixty six molars just like this one. Dozens of questions to ask about each tooth, each life. I start to get a better feeling about how much one hundred and sixty six is. But what about 2 million? Two million... I try to think of two million teeth like this one. The number is so large, I don't know how to visualize it. Two million molars. Two million favorite foods. Two million despised foods. Rivers of tea must have flown over these teeth.
I place the tooth back on the alter. From this one tooth I now understand the massive scale of genocide. I now realize what genocide takes away: life. I now understand death. What the death of one person means. What the life of one person is. This single brown molar has made me understand more about death, murder, and genocide than the miles of news bulletins I've read on CNN, Fox, NBC at the bottom of the television screen. "One million dead." "Reports of 100,000 murdered." "Ethnic cleansing." But those bulletins meant relatively nothing to me. Numbers. Figures. Statistics. Letters. Words. Moving from right to left. "One million people dead..." That seems like alot of people, I would think to myself, and continue on with my daily business. But now I understand, at least a little bit more. I don't know what a million or 2 million people is. But I know what one is. There was a life attached to this tooth. A life cut short by brutal execution. This molar showed me what is meant by death, and what is meant by loss of life. I still can't visualize 2 million people, but I can visualize one. And to be able to visualize one, is all that matters.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Angkor Wat
This has nothing to do with my previous stories, but here is a picture at Angkor Wat the most awesome temple. The sun was just rising and the day was beginning to get hot, so lucky for me most of the big tourists groups were heading back to town. The place is stunning. I loved to think about life in the temple, and the people who built it (this must have been some damned hard work!) Floating Village
Here is a picture of one of the floating villages on the Tonle Sap lake. These are some of the most amazing things! These are the actually houses that float and are tethered to one place. In the more shallow places the houses are on tall stilts. But there are also alot of house boats in the sense that there are houses on the canoes. I wouldn't mind living a few months like this to see what life on the lake is like. Riverfront
This is on the Phnom Penh Riverfront. One of my favorite areas of the city. On one side of the street is all the swanky restaurants and bars and nightclubs. On the other side is the river, where people come into harbor their literal house boats, wash in the dirty water, and sleep on the sidewalk. This is one curious little girl who wanted a tattoo from me. This picture was taken by another one of the street girls, who had a blast taking aroundmy camera and photographing people and places on the river. Tats on the Tonle
Me, sitting on the river bank of the Tonle Sap, the best place to meet some really interesting people. This is the 10 year old girl who was the most charismatic 10 year old I think I have ever met. I gave her 2 "tattoos." This one, and one on her hand. Her mother is in the background. Her mother is 29 years old. They both sleep outside in the riverfront area. She was the first in a long line of street children to recieve tattoos from me. PP Recommendations thus far
Here are some recommendations reviews for some things in Phnom Penh:
Genocide museum: I will do a more complete review of this later when I have a long block of time to write. This is a really good museum, but prepare to be more depressed than you have ever been. The museum has been pretty much preserved the same way the Khmer Rouge left it... Cells, iron shackles still in place, gallows, torture devices, iron clubs and murder weapons. This is a good museum to see, so everyone is aware of the attrocities that went and and still go on everyday.
Capital Guesthouse: This is where I have been staying here in PP. It is simple but cheap. I decided to splure and get the $4 per night room with the bathroom inside, instead of a shared bathroom. It is decent... if you are not going to spend much time in your room, which I don't. Plus: they have mosquito nets you can put up in the room. Minus: The reception staff can be a bit snippy at times, but whatever.
Deli Cafe: This is a nice little cafe I found on Sihanouk Blvd. (I broke my vow of no restaurants since being in PP by the way.) It is a place that only locals go to, and is not in any guide book, but is very nice. They have all traditional Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese foods, especially really good noodle soups. A good place to go for breakfast to get an iced coffee and a bowl of noodles... The same stuff they sell on the streets. A bit more expensive than the real street for because you get to sit inside and relax away from the hustle and bustle. Good coconut bubble tea, and good fish congee.
Friends: This is a realllly nice awesome restaurant. The prices are pretty cheap for such a nice place. Most of it is tapas, so make sure you get a few things to test. It is across from the National Museum. Also, you can eat your heart out for a good cause. The place trains ex-street kids so they will develop a marketable skill. Most of the wait staff and cooks are "students" learning about the restaurant business.
Seeing Hands Massage: I indulged in a $5 massage today. It was for a good cause!! What can I say! I think there are a few locations, but I went to the one near the river front. All the trained masseurs are blind. I got a Japanese style massage, and it was good!! I told her to do it "strong" and she definetally did it strong. All the money goes towards helping the visually impaired Cambodians. A good way to support something, while indulging in a great massage at the same time.
Genocide museum: I will do a more complete review of this later when I have a long block of time to write. This is a really good museum, but prepare to be more depressed than you have ever been. The museum has been pretty much preserved the same way the Khmer Rouge left it... Cells, iron shackles still in place, gallows, torture devices, iron clubs and murder weapons. This is a good museum to see, so everyone is aware of the attrocities that went and and still go on everyday.
Capital Guesthouse: This is where I have been staying here in PP. It is simple but cheap. I decided to splure and get the $4 per night room with the bathroom inside, instead of a shared bathroom. It is decent... if you are not going to spend much time in your room, which I don't. Plus: they have mosquito nets you can put up in the room. Minus: The reception staff can be a bit snippy at times, but whatever.
Deli Cafe: This is a nice little cafe I found on Sihanouk Blvd. (I broke my vow of no restaurants since being in PP by the way.) It is a place that only locals go to, and is not in any guide book, but is very nice. They have all traditional Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese foods, especially really good noodle soups. A good place to go for breakfast to get an iced coffee and a bowl of noodles... The same stuff they sell on the streets. A bit more expensive than the real street for because you get to sit inside and relax away from the hustle and bustle. Good coconut bubble tea, and good fish congee.
Friends: This is a realllly nice awesome restaurant. The prices are pretty cheap for such a nice place. Most of it is tapas, so make sure you get a few things to test. It is across from the National Museum. Also, you can eat your heart out for a good cause. The place trains ex-street kids so they will develop a marketable skill. Most of the wait staff and cooks are "students" learning about the restaurant business.
Seeing Hands Massage: I indulged in a $5 massage today. It was for a good cause!! What can I say! I think there are a few locations, but I went to the one near the river front. All the trained masseurs are blind. I got a Japanese style massage, and it was good!! I told her to do it "strong" and she definetally did it strong. All the money goes towards helping the visually impaired Cambodians. A good way to support something, while indulging in a great massage at the same time.
Curious People
I have figured out the formula for attracting a nice array of very interesting, strange, unique, and odd people in Phnom Penh. Here is what you do:
Step 1: You must be by yourself. Being one person alone is very much more inviting for people that if you are with someone else.
Step 2: Go to the riverside area in Phnom Penh and watch life go by.
Step 3: Have a very inviting look about you, and talk to anyone who tries to engage you in coversation.
The formula is simple, just sit by yourself on the the ledge to the Tonle Sap River along the riverfront. I have been doing this for the last 3 hours and have had some very interesting, fun, hilarious, sad, weird, and depressing stories to tell.
I had just finished a massage, and was in high spirits. I was strolling around the streets, enjoying the Cambodian breeze whipping around my hair. I decided to sit down on the river's ledge to watch life go by, which never ceases to be boring.
There was a woman with a child about 8 or 9 about 10 feet from me. The girl was very eager to talk to me and practice her English. I small talked with the young daugher for a while. The mother and daughter were homeless, and had all their posessions in a few bags. Two Cambodian young guys came up and sat next to me. They asked if we could talk, and I said sure. The guys looked like Mormons, very well dressed and clean cut, but with a strangly mischevious air about them. I chatted with them for a while, and then noticed the homeless woman and daughter behind them trying to get my attention. "NOO!!!" they mouthed. "Bad boys! Don't talk!" Hmm... I wondered, what are they, the Phnom Penh mafia or something? Then one of the guys took out a Bible. "You like Bible?" he asked me. "No." I replied rather bluntly. More women gathered around behind the guys so they couldn't see them. The women and girls continued waving to me and mouthing for me not to talk to them... They didn't seem too harmful, I thought maybe they were some sort of missionary... but maybe that was just their disguise. The homeless women and girls sat down near by and motioned me over to sit with them. I said goodbye to the guys and went over to talk to them. About 5 mintues after I had moved, the guys came over and asked if I would meet them tomorrow. "No, I don't think so," I replied, again, rather bluntly. They looked at each other, and quietly consulted one another. "Do you hate us?" they asked me. "No," I replied, I just don't want to meet you. "Oh, ok." Then they left.
For about an hour I sat and talked to the homeless women and children. There was one mother with a one year old boy, naked from waist down. She had hardly any teeth left. She was 26 years old which was "old" in her opinion. Then there was the woman and girl I had originally been talking to. The mother turned out to be 29, and the daughter was 10. (HOLY!! she had her when she was 19!) The mother looked alot older than she really was and was missing a bunch of teeth as well. The daughter though, she was a character!! Incredibly charismatic, spoke very good English, a real fire cracker type of girl. A hilarious sense of humor, very compassionate, excited about life even though her circumstances seemed far from ideal. From the hours of conversation here is what I learned about the two: They sleep every night in the riverside area, usually on the grass. The girl's mother has no job, and can't get a job because she has no marketable skills. The girl's father is no where to be found, and I don't think she even knows him. The girl goes to school (I think), at least some times.
I asked all about their lives and what they do everday. They eat rice. Just rice because it's cheap. They have been homeless for about 3 years now. Sometimes at night, boys that huff paint come and steal things from them. the daughter relayed all this to me with excitement and seemed completely unphased by all these hardships. They mother and daughter both admired my turquoise rings I had on from Nepal. At this point the mother took the dangly plastic turqoise colored earrings out of her ears and placed them in my hand. I was so touched by this gesture. I at first said I could not accept them, but the mother insisted in her broken English. She really wanted me to have the earrings. The charismatic pair had nothing but a few bags with all their worldly possessions in them, and the mother gave me the only jewellry she owned.
After a while, we gathered a crowd of a bunch more street girls, homeless mothers, and child booksellers who roam the streets trying to sell knock off books to foreigners for a few bucks. Most of the children were crawling on me like I was a jungle gym. I had a small naked one year old baby in my lap and was bouncing him up and down. I lifted him off me just in the nick of time to miss a heavy stream of pee.
One of the mother's most prized possessions seemed to be a collection of about 10 pictures. They were all wrapped in plastic and she showed them to me carefully. All were of the mother and daughter a few years ago. The mother looked about 10 years younger in the pictures thanshe did now. I looked into her eyes in the pictures. They were full of youth and hope. I looked at her eyes now, they seemed dazed and more empty. From various snippets of the conversation and from the pictures I had a feeling some thing bad has happened in the last 2 years to her. I had a premonition that she mayhave become a prostitute to support herself and her daughter.
She presented me with one picture very proudly showing me a bracelet she was wearing in the picture. It was a thick band of jade. I complimented her on the bracelet in the picture. Very beautiful. Then I noticed that in the picture she had swollen glassy eyes, a sort of puffy face, and a few very purple bruises on her face. I asked the daughter what they were from. Apparently, her mother hadn't given a man some money that she owed him (maybe another clue into her life as a prostitute?) and he came in the night when she was sleeping and beat her up and stole her things. Then he took the daughter and dragged her into the river and tried to drown her but the daughter swam away intime to live. I was shocked. The daughter didn't seem to think it was any big deal. Oh yeah, the girl also had a little brother at one point but he is dead now from drowning.
Somehow I ended up with a pen in my hand and was drawing "tattoos" onto all the eager street children around me. I did a palm tree on the girl's hand and a flower on her arm. She loved it, showing it off proudly to everyone. Then all the other kids wanted one too, so I turned into a Phnom Penh tattoo street artists. It was rather comical. Me, sitting on the river bank with a felt tip pen, inking dirty and delightful kids with images of trees, flowers, suns, and other symmetrical designs. The whole thing turned into a bit of a mob scene with all the kids trying to get a tattoo. Groups of tourists passed me giving me quizzical looks as though I might need to be saved, and what the hell was I doing in the middle of all these homeless people anyway? All these women and children living on the Phnom Penh streets made me love Cambodia even more than I already did. Their genuine kindness, wonderful sense of humor, generosity, and warmth made me so happy. Most, seemed purely happy, despite having nothing and having to sleep outside day after day and dealing with things like beatings, starvation, and stealing. Some of the best people I have met.
A few hours later I said goodbye to all my new friends and moved to a new spot down the river bank. I stopped at a food cart and boy 2 skewers of grilled squished bananas, my favorite street snack and sat down to enjoy the setting sun. A group of young kids were playing down by the water, mostly were wearing either tatters or were completely naked. They came up to me to ask for money and I gave them the remainder of my bananas. They were very pleased with this and sad on the ground relishing the warm sweetness. Then we all started to talk (mostly through charades because they spoke almost no English.) I again, somehow ended up with a pen in my hand, and the kids eagerly pointing to where they wanted me to draw on them. I did my classic palm tree, ocean, setting sun, seaguls flying scene which they were delighted with. So the little group each got a ball point pen palm tree tattoo. After I had finished with them they looked like quite the little biker gang. While tatting them up, a young guy who I thought may have been Japanese was standing beside me watching the whole thing, and laughing at the excited kids. "Very nice!" he complimented the tattoos. I started practicing my Khmer with the kids, reading sentences from the guidebook while they corrected my pronounciation. The possible Japanese guy sat down very near and watched me... I struck up a conversation with him. It turns out he is Chinese from Hong Kong, and has been living in Phnom Penh for 5 months. "Are you Catholic?" was the first question he asked me, pulling away his scarf to reveal a cross hanging from a leather necklace. "No," I repliced. "Christian?" "No." "Buddhist?" "No. Atheist." "Oh..." We small talked for a bit. He looked like a pretty hip guy, mid twenties I think. He got out a scrap of paper and asked me for a pen. I handed him one, while I practiced more sentences with the kids. I thought he was going to write his email address for me. He handed me a slip of paper he had been secretly scrawling something on. I held it up to make out the writing and he anxiously said "Put it down!!!" motioning for me to read it more secretly.... By the way, at this time there were about 10 Cambodian guys standing around "discreetly" watching me draw and talk with the kids. I looked at the paper, tilting it toward the last sun light. What the... On the scrap of paper was scrawled: "I AM A Out Communists (UWFO)" "What the hell?" I thought to myself. This is getting weird. Then, he starts screaming at the nearest Cambodian guy standing near me. "I know you are a communist!! You want to hit me!! You are a Buddhist!! Get out!! You want to hit me!!!" It was a bit startling. I still had no idea what the note was supposed to mean, and could not really understand his whispery explanation in broken English. This was getting intersting. First of all, what is the UWFO?? He mentioned it over and over again. I googled it just now, and could find nothing. Second, why do I care? Well, he said he hates Cambodia and wants to move to USA. He says there is too much communism, Buddhism, and monks. "Very bad. Too much monk. Too much Buddha. All should get out." What the???? This was the first opinion I have heard this negative about Buddhism... "Well, Cambodia is a Buddhist country you know. If you hate Buddhists why did you come?" He responded, although I couldn't tell his point. Something about Vietnam, the UN, refugees, China wanting to kill him, he can never go back to China because the police will shoot him, people in PP want to kill him, Buddhists hate him, monks bad... Really didn't make much sense to me. He really seemed to despise Buddhists whole heartedly, and seemed to connect Buddhists and communists (never heard this link before. Is there a link?) Well, I was starting to get a bit nervous. From his words, it seemed like everyone in Asia hates him and wants to kill him... I was starting to expect an assasination attempt right there on the river front and scooted a bit away. Besides this strange talk and weird note, he seemed like a nice guy... But he refused to stop ranting about how all the communists should get out of Cambodia, and all the Buddhists should get out. (Now this is just ridiculous, because it's a Buddhist country!!!! WTF) At this point, I was so full of stories I couldn't take it anymore, so I said goodbye to him and that it was nice to meet him. I took the note with me, and will work and unencrypting it in the future. (Does anyone know what it means? Was he some sort of spy? What is the UWFO? He said everyone in Cambodia knows he is with the UWFO of Vietnam so they hate hiim....)
sit by yourself + look inviting + Tonle Sap river bank + Phnom Penh = weird/strange/sad/funny/moving/depressing/touching/compassion/exhilaration/people
Step 1: You must be by yourself. Being one person alone is very much more inviting for people that if you are with someone else.
Step 2: Go to the riverside area in Phnom Penh and watch life go by.
Step 3: Have a very inviting look about you, and talk to anyone who tries to engage you in coversation.
The formula is simple, just sit by yourself on the the ledge to the Tonle Sap River along the riverfront. I have been doing this for the last 3 hours and have had some very interesting, fun, hilarious, sad, weird, and depressing stories to tell.
I had just finished a massage, and was in high spirits. I was strolling around the streets, enjoying the Cambodian breeze whipping around my hair. I decided to sit down on the river's ledge to watch life go by, which never ceases to be boring.
There was a woman with a child about 8 or 9 about 10 feet from me. The girl was very eager to talk to me and practice her English. I small talked with the young daugher for a while. The mother and daughter were homeless, and had all their posessions in a few bags. Two Cambodian young guys came up and sat next to me. They asked if we could talk, and I said sure. The guys looked like Mormons, very well dressed and clean cut, but with a strangly mischevious air about them. I chatted with them for a while, and then noticed the homeless woman and daughter behind them trying to get my attention. "NOO!!!" they mouthed. "Bad boys! Don't talk!" Hmm... I wondered, what are they, the Phnom Penh mafia or something? Then one of the guys took out a Bible. "You like Bible?" he asked me. "No." I replied rather bluntly. More women gathered around behind the guys so they couldn't see them. The women and girls continued waving to me and mouthing for me not to talk to them... They didn't seem too harmful, I thought maybe they were some sort of missionary... but maybe that was just their disguise. The homeless women and girls sat down near by and motioned me over to sit with them. I said goodbye to the guys and went over to talk to them. About 5 mintues after I had moved, the guys came over and asked if I would meet them tomorrow. "No, I don't think so," I replied, again, rather bluntly. They looked at each other, and quietly consulted one another. "Do you hate us?" they asked me. "No," I replied, I just don't want to meet you. "Oh, ok." Then they left.
For about an hour I sat and talked to the homeless women and children. There was one mother with a one year old boy, naked from waist down. She had hardly any teeth left. She was 26 years old which was "old" in her opinion. Then there was the woman and girl I had originally been talking to. The mother turned out to be 29, and the daughter was 10. (HOLY!! she had her when she was 19!) The mother looked alot older than she really was and was missing a bunch of teeth as well. The daughter though, she was a character!! Incredibly charismatic, spoke very good English, a real fire cracker type of girl. A hilarious sense of humor, very compassionate, excited about life even though her circumstances seemed far from ideal. From the hours of conversation here is what I learned about the two: They sleep every night in the riverside area, usually on the grass. The girl's mother has no job, and can't get a job because she has no marketable skills. The girl's father is no where to be found, and I don't think she even knows him. The girl goes to school (I think), at least some times.
I asked all about their lives and what they do everday. They eat rice. Just rice because it's cheap. They have been homeless for about 3 years now. Sometimes at night, boys that huff paint come and steal things from them. the daughter relayed all this to me with excitement and seemed completely unphased by all these hardships. They mother and daughter both admired my turquoise rings I had on from Nepal. At this point the mother took the dangly plastic turqoise colored earrings out of her ears and placed them in my hand. I was so touched by this gesture. I at first said I could not accept them, but the mother insisted in her broken English. She really wanted me to have the earrings. The charismatic pair had nothing but a few bags with all their worldly possessions in them, and the mother gave me the only jewellry she owned.
After a while, we gathered a crowd of a bunch more street girls, homeless mothers, and child booksellers who roam the streets trying to sell knock off books to foreigners for a few bucks. Most of the children were crawling on me like I was a jungle gym. I had a small naked one year old baby in my lap and was bouncing him up and down. I lifted him off me just in the nick of time to miss a heavy stream of pee.
One of the mother's most prized possessions seemed to be a collection of about 10 pictures. They were all wrapped in plastic and she showed them to me carefully. All were of the mother and daughter a few years ago. The mother looked about 10 years younger in the pictures thanshe did now. I looked into her eyes in the pictures. They were full of youth and hope. I looked at her eyes now, they seemed dazed and more empty. From various snippets of the conversation and from the pictures I had a feeling some thing bad has happened in the last 2 years to her. I had a premonition that she mayhave become a prostitute to support herself and her daughter.
She presented me with one picture very proudly showing me a bracelet she was wearing in the picture. It was a thick band of jade. I complimented her on the bracelet in the picture. Very beautiful. Then I noticed that in the picture she had swollen glassy eyes, a sort of puffy face, and a few very purple bruises on her face. I asked the daughter what they were from. Apparently, her mother hadn't given a man some money that she owed him (maybe another clue into her life as a prostitute?) and he came in the night when she was sleeping and beat her up and stole her things. Then he took the daughter and dragged her into the river and tried to drown her but the daughter swam away intime to live. I was shocked. The daughter didn't seem to think it was any big deal. Oh yeah, the girl also had a little brother at one point but he is dead now from drowning.
Somehow I ended up with a pen in my hand and was drawing "tattoos" onto all the eager street children around me. I did a palm tree on the girl's hand and a flower on her arm. She loved it, showing it off proudly to everyone. Then all the other kids wanted one too, so I turned into a Phnom Penh tattoo street artists. It was rather comical. Me, sitting on the river bank with a felt tip pen, inking dirty and delightful kids with images of trees, flowers, suns, and other symmetrical designs. The whole thing turned into a bit of a mob scene with all the kids trying to get a tattoo. Groups of tourists passed me giving me quizzical looks as though I might need to be saved, and what the hell was I doing in the middle of all these homeless people anyway? All these women and children living on the Phnom Penh streets made me love Cambodia even more than I already did. Their genuine kindness, wonderful sense of humor, generosity, and warmth made me so happy. Most, seemed purely happy, despite having nothing and having to sleep outside day after day and dealing with things like beatings, starvation, and stealing. Some of the best people I have met.
A few hours later I said goodbye to all my new friends and moved to a new spot down the river bank. I stopped at a food cart and boy 2 skewers of grilled squished bananas, my favorite street snack and sat down to enjoy the setting sun. A group of young kids were playing down by the water, mostly were wearing either tatters or were completely naked. They came up to me to ask for money and I gave them the remainder of my bananas. They were very pleased with this and sad on the ground relishing the warm sweetness. Then we all started to talk (mostly through charades because they spoke almost no English.) I again, somehow ended up with a pen in my hand, and the kids eagerly pointing to where they wanted me to draw on them. I did my classic palm tree, ocean, setting sun, seaguls flying scene which they were delighted with. So the little group each got a ball point pen palm tree tattoo. After I had finished with them they looked like quite the little biker gang. While tatting them up, a young guy who I thought may have been Japanese was standing beside me watching the whole thing, and laughing at the excited kids. "Very nice!" he complimented the tattoos. I started practicing my Khmer with the kids, reading sentences from the guidebook while they corrected my pronounciation. The possible Japanese guy sat down very near and watched me... I struck up a conversation with him. It turns out he is Chinese from Hong Kong, and has been living in Phnom Penh for 5 months. "Are you Catholic?" was the first question he asked me, pulling away his scarf to reveal a cross hanging from a leather necklace. "No," I repliced. "Christian?" "No." "Buddhist?" "No. Atheist." "Oh..." We small talked for a bit. He looked like a pretty hip guy, mid twenties I think. He got out a scrap of paper and asked me for a pen. I handed him one, while I practiced more sentences with the kids. I thought he was going to write his email address for me. He handed me a slip of paper he had been secretly scrawling something on. I held it up to make out the writing and he anxiously said "Put it down!!!" motioning for me to read it more secretly.... By the way, at this time there were about 10 Cambodian guys standing around "discreetly" watching me draw and talk with the kids. I looked at the paper, tilting it toward the last sun light. What the... On the scrap of paper was scrawled: "I AM A Out Communists (UWFO)" "What the hell?" I thought to myself. This is getting weird. Then, he starts screaming at the nearest Cambodian guy standing near me. "I know you are a communist!! You want to hit me!! You are a Buddhist!! Get out!! You want to hit me!!!" It was a bit startling. I still had no idea what the note was supposed to mean, and could not really understand his whispery explanation in broken English. This was getting intersting. First of all, what is the UWFO?? He mentioned it over and over again. I googled it just now, and could find nothing. Second, why do I care? Well, he said he hates Cambodia and wants to move to USA. He says there is too much communism, Buddhism, and monks. "Very bad. Too much monk. Too much Buddha. All should get out." What the???? This was the first opinion I have heard this negative about Buddhism... "Well, Cambodia is a Buddhist country you know. If you hate Buddhists why did you come?" He responded, although I couldn't tell his point. Something about Vietnam, the UN, refugees, China wanting to kill him, he can never go back to China because the police will shoot him, people in PP want to kill him, Buddhists hate him, monks bad... Really didn't make much sense to me. He really seemed to despise Buddhists whole heartedly, and seemed to connect Buddhists and communists (never heard this link before. Is there a link?) Well, I was starting to get a bit nervous. From his words, it seemed like everyone in Asia hates him and wants to kill him... I was starting to expect an assasination attempt right there on the river front and scooted a bit away. Besides this strange talk and weird note, he seemed like a nice guy... But he refused to stop ranting about how all the communists should get out of Cambodia, and all the Buddhists should get out. (Now this is just ridiculous, because it's a Buddhist country!!!! WTF) At this point, I was so full of stories I couldn't take it anymore, so I said goodbye to him and that it was nice to meet him. I took the note with me, and will work and unencrypting it in the future. (Does anyone know what it means? Was he some sort of spy? What is the UWFO? He said everyone in Cambodia knows he is with the UWFO of Vietnam so they hate hiim....)
sit by yourself + look inviting + Tonle Sap river bank + Phnom Penh = weird/strange/sad/funny/moving/depressing/touching/compassion/exhilaration/people
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
