Did you say....Lobster Lady?

Indeed I did... but we'll get there in a moment.

We enjoyed our cooking class, the best part being that we learned how to make fresh rice paper! Cool party trick right? We'll probably never do it again, but hell, we could if we wanted to and that is what counts. 

The following day we signed up to go snorkeling in the Cham Islands, which are about an hour by boat from Hoi An. We were told that it was a good way to beat the heat, and they weren't kidding! On the boat after snorkeling was the first time in months that I can say that I was cold!  It was awesome. Beyond the delicious chill, the snorkeling was cool...there were beautiful (and huge!) sea urchins, really interesting colorful barnacles of some sort, gorgeous purple and blue coral, and those cute fat starfish that are almost just blobs. Ohh, I also found Nemo and his dad in an anemananemane. For serious.

That night we departed Hoi An....on a night bus! You get on and instead of seats there are beds, stacked two deep, with three across (aisles in between).  The beds are a little short, and weirdly there is nowhere to put your stuff (the biggest problem if you ask me), at one point I slept with my purse on top of me... In any event, we actually did get some sleep, and had the most random experience ever.  We got in to Nha Trang at like 6:30 in the morning, grabbed a cab to our hotel, where we learned that we could have a room by 8 (score!). They opened their rooftop cafe for us to hang out at and we got breakfast (which was amazing by the way). Then we napped for like 3 hours, and watched a movie. Eventually, we wandered out where we found a great beach club and proceeded to have a many course, delicious western lunch with.... REAL BEER. It's an Australian owned place and they brew real beer that, my friends, was a treat.  Over the next few days, we drank a lot of that beer.  It had the benefit of being delicious Aussie-microbrews with Vietnamese prices.  Yes, just over a half liter was $2.50. 

That night we decided we wanted to watch the USA-Algeria game with some people, so we wandered down to the strip of restaurants/bars.  We tried one place, where we had this conversation: "Are you going to show the USA game?" "The England game is now, USA already win", "Umm, I don't think so", "Oh, then it is later tonight, at 1:30 am", "Nope, I'm pretty sure it's now", "Oh, then no one wants to watch"  Thanks for your help sir.  We headed next door to the Texas BBQ, where we watched with like 2 dudes and the guy who owns the place (a crazy American) and some Vietnamese waitresses who really enjoyed all of the noisemakers sent to them by Budweiser.

The next two days were spent like this: Get up early, eat delicious breakfast, head to beach resort, rent 2 comfy beach chairs under a palapa 15 ft from the beach, lay there for 8 hours, periodically order drinks or food, swim, read, nap, repeat.  Tough life, I know. Our second day we finished up with a visit to.... the Lobster Lady!!  Who is she, you might ask. There are vendors all over Vietnam who wear those fun straw hats and carry bamboo poles with baskets (as pictured below), some of them have sort of portable restaurants. On the beach in Nha Trang, they are portable seafood restaurants!  They set up, sell people fresh prawns, lobsters, and crabs, and then grill them over a bucket of coals and serve them to you on a tarp on the beach (all before the cops come of course!). It was delicious, super fun, and only $10!

The last two days we have been in Dalat.  It's up in the central highlands and we came because we heard it was cool and lovely.  Cool it definitely is, lovely, we weren't convinced.  The town itself is a little ugh.  Today we finally got out of town (Mike's been on One Percent Foundation board retreat calls all weekend).  First we tried to take the tourist train that is supposed to go into the woods to a village.  When we got there we were told there were no trains today as they had not reached their five person booking requirement. Boo. Cute train station and adorable one-car train though.  So we grabbed a taxi and headed to a cable car that took us a few kms out of town to a pretty reservoir. This was the Dalat we were looking for.  We spent a couple of hourse walking around the lake, sitting enjoying the lake and exploring a ransom new-ish Zen monastery there, then headed back towards town. 

Then we checked out Bao Dai's Summer Palace.  He was the last king of Vietnam, he abdicated for Ho Chi Minh.  The palace was hysterical, Mike remarked that it was the shabbiest royal abode he'd ever seen.  It was vaguely Art-Deco, very minimalist 30's decor, and kept up terribly.  But it was some amusing insight into Vietnamese history. Also it had nice gardens :)

Tomorrow we head to Mui Ne to check out the Sand Dunes then on to Saigon...

Pictures to come!

Happy Father's Day!

First of all, happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. Great work, guys!

I thought I'd offer up a brief addendum to Debbie's cultural observations about Vietnam and give a quick update on the last few days.

Cultural Observation #1: Honking. Everything here honks. In fact, when we got to Hanoi we were a little overwhelmed by all the cars and motorbikes honking. They use honking as a mix between echolocation, letting other cars, motorbikes, bicycles, and people know where they are; and the traditional "get out of my way" message. When we got to Halong Bay, we learned that the boats too honk, particularly as they cut each other off or vie for space at the docks. Finally, we were intrigued to learn that the trains also honk, as we watched a people slowly get out of the way of an oncoming train at the Hue train station.

Cultural Observation #2: Lack of Intellectual Property Laws. Just assuming that's the case since it turns out in Vietnam you can copy anything. This is the first place we've seen photocopied books (cover, price tag, and all). It's also the only time I've heard of the issue you find in Hanoi with hotels copying the names of other successful hotel chains. Many taxi drivers at the airport are paid commissions to take unwitting tourists to the wrong hotels with the same name. Be careful which "Prince Hotel" you are taken to. And also watch out for tour companies. One of the most reputable companies here (though also the one that wound up screwing up our Halong Bay tour) is called Sinh Cafe. Which is great since there are Sinh Cafes all over Hanoi. Oh, right, except that most of them are knock-offs! At the "Real Sinh Cafe" (the real one is now forced to call itself that) they have a sign on the door noting that across the street is a fake Sinh Cafe. So confusing.

The last few days have been great...very relaxing. We're in the town of Hoi An, on the coast in roughly central Vietnam. Totally charming and historic, with lots of good food and shopping. At night the old quarter is lit up with red and white lanterns and is truly beautiful. We also opted for a few nights at a hotel in the old quarter that's entirely lit by lanterns (including our room!). Again, amazing in the evenings. We've spent the last couple of days walking around, enjoying the architecture, and stopping every hour or so for food and/or drink. It's so hot in the middle of the day here that it's basically a necessity.

Hoi An is also known for its tailors, and we decided the deals were too good to pass up, particularly since they basically construct the clothes for you from scratch. I'm having a three-piece black suit made, and Debbie's getting a beautiful dress. We're going to pick them up in a few minutes (fittings were earlier this afternoon...we only placed the orders yesterday!).

We've also loved reuniting for a few days with our British friends Becky, Adam, and Steve, who we met on the slow boat to Luang Prabang and travelled through much of Laos with. They're heading up Vietnam as we head down, and getting to see them again here has been a special treat! If anyone reading this needs ever a place to stay in England, I'm volunteering Steve to host you. You won't regret it. These are top-notch people.

Tomorrow Debbie and I are taking a cooking class (our third so far in Southeast Asia!), and the following day we're doing an all-day snorkeling trip to a nearby island. That night we're planning to catch an overnight bus to Nha Trang, a popular beach destination here. Yes, yes, life is tough...

don't be fooled by the t-shirt we are in vietnam ;)

Hey Folks!

We finally ponied up and got a Flickr Pro account to back up our pictures online. They are by no means all up yet.. it takes some serious time, but there are lots to enjoy ( so far china and hong kong are complete, everything else is partial). So if you're bored at work, or just missing us terribly, feel free to peruse, more will be up soon.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51023516@N04/sets/

Same Same.... BUT DIFFERENT

Ok, first a few funny things about Vietnam:

1) people here wear pajamas as clothes.  i'm not talking old timey silk pajamas, i'm talking about cotton twinsets with cartoon frogs on them, grandpa pajamas with stripes and buttons.  amazing.

2) "same same" is the worst phrase in the world.  it is the phrase that people here use when something is not remotely similar, it costs more and you will be unhappy about whatever they do next. when someone says "same same", run.

3) at any given time if you turn on a tv to an english channel there will be a CSI or NCIS on, pretty much 24 hours a day.

The last few days we have been all over the place!  We went on a moderately ill-fated trip to Halong Bay.  Thankfully, as the pictures show, it was really beautiful, and that made up for it.  The tour was just all crazy pants, as Mike would say, it was more a random conglomeration of experiences rather than a tour... but at the end we got almost half of our money back, so happy endings for all.  We ended up scheduling a night train to Hue for the following day, so we booked a nice hotel as a treat.... and it was AMAZING. The staff was lovely, and helpful and really made up for all of the shuffling around in Halong Bay.   We spent the next day wandering the old quarter, and enjoying Hanoi despite the craaaazy amount of traffic.

The overnight train was an adventure! The 'soft sleeper' beds were for sure the hardest beds we have ever encountered, and the train rocked so much that I had a dream that I was in an endless earthquake... in my dream I was like, it's almost like being on a crazy freight train... then I woke up ON A CRAZY TRAIN. Ha.

We spent the next two days in Hue, the imperial captial of ancient Viet Nam. We had a great morning exploring the citidel (walled city), which has an imperial palace (also walled) in it, and in that the forbidden purple city! (also walled). The buildings/ruins (I say that because some of the buildings have been restored, and some are ruins, and there is really no rhyme or reason, just ruins, then building, then building with nothing inside... made it a great adventure). Regardless, there was amazing mosaic work on them, the palace buildings and temples were really lovely. We also went for an imperial feast for lunch, 7 courses, including one that was a carved pinapple/with carrot pieces to make a rooster covered with toothpicks holding spring rolls, and a dessert that was a sweet bean paste shaped like fruits and perched on a fake plant!

Today we took the train from Hue to Danang, which is supposed to be a gorgeous ride.  The scenery was amazing, incredible coastline, beautiful jungle.... the train, however, was the most disgusting thing we have ever seen. Trash everywhere, windows so dirty you could hardly see out of them, puddles of unidentifiable brown goo (my backpack was minor victim to one)... and getting off the train in Danang was melee (they recheck your ticket on the way out, so everyone crushes through one door). Meanwhile, we finally got to Hoi An, which is LOVELY. We spent the afternoon walking around and exploring (and booking a reeeally nice hotel for the second half of our stay here). Twilight here is downright magical, all cute streets and lanterns and such. We plan to stick around for a few days, getting some clothes made (supposed to be cheap and awesome), hanging out by the riverside (or beach). Then on southward...

Until we have time to write a post... here are a few pictures...out of order..sorry in a rush

Us at the top of our Cat Ba Island hike of dooooom

Halong Bay!

Mike in Halong Bay

Mike and Uncle Ho

Halong Bay Sunset

Our Cyclo! That tiny man pushed us like a kilometer!

Goooood Morning Vietnam!

I love that movie!  Going back a few days... we spent the last 5 days in Vientiane, the capitol city of Laos. We intended to spend about 2 or 3 days there, but after reading the description of the bus ride from there to Hanoi (16 hours advertised, we heard more like 24-36 with increasing 'danger and overcrowding') we booked a flight which resulted in a longer stay... The first couple of days we were still flush with friends, we spent one day at the buddha park (a cool park with a ton of different kinda psychadelic statues) and at the national monument of Laos (beautiful, with loads of friendly monks). The next day we checked out the Laos version of the Arc d'Triumph (an amazing sign calls it an unfinished monster of concrete...hehe... it's actually cute) and then we went BOWLING! IN LAOS! It was hilarious and fun and a great way to say goodbye to a bunch of our friends who were headed to southern Laos.  We ended up having a great couple of cafe days, and I got a chance to get some extra pages put in my passport (I was counting visas, these Asian countries all have full page visas... and I didn't think I'd quiiiite make it) now I have an extra A-X of them!  The funniest part is that I have an old passport, with the state seals, and now I have that plus a new passport inside... hence it is now... Frankenpassport!  We also found a great restaurant called Makphet that is part of a non-profit that trains street kids with life skills (ironically we found a different one in Hanoi today (KOTO), always delicious and you feel so good about yourself when you get dessert).  We finally headed out yesterday early afternoon to Hanoi to get our first taste of Vietnam.

First impression was that it is pretty (lots of fields outside the city), nice French colonial buildings, a ton of motorbikes and crazy busy. After the chilled out enviornment in Laos, we weren't quite prepared for this level of hustle and bustle.  We checked in to our hotel and headed out to check out our neighborhood in the Old Quarter.  We stopped for a Bia Hoi (local fresh beer).  They put out low stools all over the sidewalk, and beer costs about 20 cents.  We had our first run-in with the intensity of the city when the guy who ran the place literally took off Mike's shoe, convinced us to let him polish it (yes, his Tevas) and then demanded money, we eventually gave him a couple of dollars and reminded ourselves we weren't in Laos anymore....

Today we got up EXTRA early to go see Uncle Ho in the flesh!  Between the hours of 8-11 am you can go get in line to see the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh, and boy, was that one of the strangest things I've ever seen.... We waited in a big line, checked our camera, dressed modestly, and got to stroll by, a very peaceful looking, well preserved Uncle Ho.  We spent a long time in the very confusing but amusing Ho Chi Minh museum (my favorite parts... the handball he used to exercise, and the clock that was in the room when he died...) We're back in a country where people stare, point, poke and photograph (a la China) which is funny, a whole family found Mike's beard point and laugh hilarious.... We spent the afternoon at the Temple of Literature (beautiful) and KOTO (tasty and sooo good for the kids).  Then took a couple hours to rest. 

This evening we went to the water puppet theater... which is kind of hard to explain (best to just google it) but there are puppets, and water, and traditional music... it was overall interesting and fun.  We also ran into our friends Marilyn and Federico (from the slow boat!) and went for a drink with them.  All told, a great first day.  Tomorrow we are heading to Halong Bay and Cat Ba island on a 3 day tour (one night on a junk boat and one at a hotel). Should be good fun!

Tubing…Tubing…Tubing down the Nam Song!

After bidding a fond farewell to Luang Prabang (did we mention we loved it there?!), we took a five hour minibus ride to Vang Vieng. We travelled with our new friend Delphine, a wonderful French photographer living in New Zealand (who took some amazing pictures of us that you may have seen on Facebook), and her adorable 3 ½ year old son, Matteo.

The trip to Vang Vieng was a little crazy. Suffice it to say that the roads were windy, the driver took the turns very quickly, and Matteo got a little bit sick. Aside from that, it was fascinating to drive through hill tribe towns and see things like cows blocking our way in the road, babies sitting in the road (seriously, in one town there was a one-year old sitting in the middle of the road and when our driver honked, a 3-year old ran to grab the baby out of the way!), and dead animals strung up by the side of the road. We also saw some of the most dramatic mountain landscapes we’ve ever witnessed.

Vang Vieng is kind of a strange place. It’s a small town along a river, with incredible mountains surrounding it. The landscape is truly beautiful. The main activity in Vang Vieng is tubing down the Nam Song river, a 3-kilometer trip that takes about 3 hours in the dry season and one hour in the rainy season. What could be better than tubing down a river with gorgeous scenery, right?

Well, at some point in the last 10 years someone decided that what it could use is bars along the river, “happy shakes” with drugs in them, and bar/restaurants in town where backpackers can sit for hours watching reruns of American television shows such as Friends, Family Guy, and the Simpsons. So that’s exactly what you find in Vang Vieng, along with hundreds of drunken backpackers.

All that being said, we actually enjoyed our time there. Tubing was fun and beautiful, and we even stopped at some of the bars for a few drinks (they “fish” for you by throwing life preserves or plastic bottles on a line, and if you want to go to the bar you just grab onto the line and they pull you in). We went to a bar with a giant waterslide that our friend John went down, and one that had a slingshot and darts. We also admittedly spent a few blissful hours perched at a restaurant watching Friends. It’s Debbie's favorite TV show, after all.

So putting aside the fact that this backpacker haven is in the middle of Laos, it was actually kind of fun. We just can’t understand why that’s what Vang Vieng turned into. The truth is that if it were in the U.S. or some other Western country, no one would bat an eye. But why in Laos of all places??

Luang Prabang: a tonic for the soul

That’s what the Lonely Planet guide calls it… and while 9 times out of 10 the restaurant they recommend doesn’t exist, on this point, they were entirely correct. Mike booked us a silly fancy hotel at a decent deal for this stop (figuring that after two days on a boat we needed something fancy… not a bad call). The hotel ended up being right in the middle of the main street at the end of their nightly market (which is the most fun ever, we can’t stop buying things, and they are all awesome). Our first evening we walked around a bit, had some dinner and turned in early. Our first real day we spent wandering around the town. We’ve both talked about it and we can’t figure out why, but Laos, and particularly here, feels great, it’s just kinda magical and so far neither of us can pinpoint it, but it is great. The scenery is spectacular, the town is adorable (it’s a UNESCO world heritage site, so it’s pretty low key and there are restrictions on building, noise, etc.), there are gorgeous Wats (temples) everywhere, with monks in gorgeous orange robes hanging out. (As an aside, my favorite thing is walking by the monks’ laundry… gorgeous vibrant orange robes and sashes hung out to dry) The whole place just feels happy, relaxed and peaceful (and SUUUUPER HOT… but what are you gonna do). The great thing about the slow boat was that we made lots of friends, and because it’s a small town, ran into them all the time. After about the ninth time we ran into our fun British friends we made plans to go with them to the Buddha caves and waterfalls the next day.

The next morning we grabbed two tuk tuks for all 14 of us (15 including Matteo, but he’s so tiny) and headed to the Buddha caves, the caves were neat-ish with lots of buddhas, been there a long time, but it was hot and took a loooong time to get there… so it ended up feeling so so (we did end up with some great pictures though). After a second, really long ride we ended up at the waterfalls (and bear preserve? Who knows, but there were bears, in hammocks…) Thankfully, the waterfalls were gorgeous, a series of them going up hill, some for swimming, some for looking at… I would say as you went up the pools got prettier and less pleasant to swim in, but each was great for some reason. A middle pool had a huge rope swing, which we were persuaded to try even though we are chickens. Let me tell you, epic fail. Mike can’t motor scoot and it turns out, I cannot rope swing. I full on belly flopped both times, it was un-pretty although less painful than I’m sure it looked… next time I swing it will have to be with one that has a foot hold… Mike also almost killed our friend Steve, who thought he was going to land on Mike so he held on all the way through the back swing, grazing the tree and landing in what we all thought was a really shallow spot… but he was fine! And now Mike has a life debt to him ;) Good thing we’ll probably see them in Vang Vieng, maybe Mike can pull his inner tube to safety…

This morning we woke up early enough to see the monks on their morning alms walk. They walk through town and locals offer them rice and other foods for their morning meal. Very cool, but it takes place sometime between 5-6 am, good thing our hotel is on their route, so when I woke up at 5:45 I peeked out the window, and there they were! I grabbed Mike and we watched from the balcony. We’re enjoying our last day here, just hanging out. From here we will head on to Vang Vieng to go tubing down the river, then on to the capitol. Did I mention, we LOVE LAOS.

Rolling...Rolling...Rolling Down the Mekong River

Today you're in for a special treat! Not only do we have a few days' worth of fun adventures to regale you with, but we're going to bring extra excitement to the story telling by alternating paragraphs between me and Debbie. Therefore you'll get both Debbie's witty and insightful style and my humorless, descriptive take on things. Should be a good mix.

Before we begin, I should note that there are actually only 762 curves between Pai and Chiang Mai (not 768 as I said in my last post), and John rocked them all and made it back to Chiang Mai (and ultimately home to Oakland) safe and sound.

OK, so now our story.

Mike: We boarded a minibus at 8:00pm on Thursday. Given the windiness of road to Pai (762 curves!) we knew we were in for a wild ride. Since we wanted to be able to sleep and not vomit, we decided the best thing to do before boarding the minibus was to down a few beers. So, yes, we were quite tipsy when we boarded. And that whole falling asleep plan would have worked out great if I didn't need to stay awake enough not to fly into the door (or Debbie's arm) every time we took a turn. The problem is that the drivers don't find it necessary to stay in their own lanes, so they take curves at ridiculous speeds and you really can't avoid flying around helplessly. At least, I couldn't...Debbie had the window seat. I thought I was going to have some room to brace myself on the other side, as no one was sitting there when we took off from town. But then about 10 minutes down the road we picked up a very large, burned out Australian hippie who in turn did his best not to crush me on those turns. I don't know what was worse...his size/heft or the fact that the only conversation he could make was about bands he had seen. I'm telling you: BURNED OUT.

Debbie: We pulled in to a town on the Thai border at around 3 am, where a dude came out of nowhere and was like..."Take any room, have a nice sleep, see you at 7!", he said it with cheer, like it was more than 4 hours away. After an awkward encounter which involved having to make more of an explanation than necessary that the burned out Aussie should not be in our room with one double bed, we went to sleep. A restful 4 hours later, we were fed breakfast and told to load up into the back of a truck to head to the border. It took some rearranging to get everyone and their stuff in... and the truck started to move...and we realized we had left someone behind! A woman from the hotel grabbed her motorbike and followed the truck, and we all made it safely to the border. We checked out of Thailand, and headed down to taxi boats across the river. It was at this point that I fell into the Mekong river a little bit.... Don't worry! I was ok! Dirty, but ok... It just turned out that what I thought was dirt was really compact sand, and about a foot of it fell off, with me on it... After that minor mishap, it was on to the Laos border, then a chat about how epic our journey would be and how to get the best seats on the boat...however, by the time they let us get on the boat we were the last ones on and had to settle for whatever we could find.

Mike: In truth, the boat trip itself was pretty uneventful. The boat was long, fairly narrow, and wooden, with (really uncomfortable) two-person benches on either side. Your options for going down the river are the slow boat (2 days) or a speed boat (1 day), but the speed boat is described as a harrowing and/or near-death experience. Actually, a number of people die on them each year, as they're really not much more than surf boards with car motors on the back (to cite Lonely Planet). We saw a few of them go by during our two-day journey, and all of the passengers were wearing helmets and rain gear. The slow boat, on the other hand, is much safer (although at the beginning of the trip we were told that recent water levels have been so low that some of the boats have run aground in the middle of the river). But as I said, our journey was blessedly uneventful. The only incident of note was when the boat was piloted towards shore about an hour into the trip and five or so kids (ranging from maybe seven to thirteen years old) got on with baskets of beer, cigarettes, soda, and chips to sell. Seeing a really adorable seven year old walking through the boat hawking "Beer Lao" in the cutest voice imaginable was heartbreaking in both a good and bad way. Otherwise the best part of the journey was simply the people on board (there were probably about 70 of us), including Americans, Australians, English, Israelis, a Dutch woman, a German guy, and a French woman living in New Zealand who is travelling with her ADORABLE 3.5 year old son Matteo. There was lots of socializing, beer drinking, reading, napping, and singing/music-playing. And of course some of the 20-something English dudes smoking joints in the back of the boat. All in all a lazy trip down a lazy river.

Debbie: All told, our butts were sore, but we were super glad we did the slow boat.  We're off to Vang Vieng tomorrow for more awesome scenery and tubing down a river, hopefully with loads of our new friends. Keep your eyes peeled for our Luang Prabang post (I'll give you a hint. it will be up tomorrow)