Thailand Travel Blog

Laos

2010-01-07T17:00:00.001-08:00

Luang Prabang

We caught a boat back to Nong Khiaw and then had to wait for a few hours before our minivan left for Luang Prabang. I found a guesthouse/restaurant that had all the latest issues of Time, Newsweek, and The Economist and was in heaven for two hours. It is rare to find magazines like this in Asia especially in Laos and when you do find them they are really expensive, so it was nice to be able to relax for a while and catch up on some news. The bus to Luang Prabang was a pleasant ride and I slept most of the way. It was the smoothest bus ride thus far in Laos, which is not saying much but still. We arrived in Luang Prabang around 6:00 and after searching for a little while found rooms. I shared a room with Fanny, the French-Canadian girl. The conversations continued in French with the five of us together as I was the only one who didn’t speak French but someone would translate in English the gist of what was being said and they tried to speak in English when we were all talking together. Luang Prabang is a beautiful city. All the action like any other Laos city is based around the river, this case the Mekong. There are bakeries and French baguettes everywhere and most of the tourists were French as well. Luang Prabang has a very European feel to it. The city itself is beautiful, there are many temples and the streets are small and charming. It is not a very big city, in fact you can walk the whole thing in half a day but very quaint and charming. There are nice cafes you can just sit with a coffee and book and relax. There are a lot of tourists though. The first night we didn’t do much just checked internet after being without it for a few days and had a beer. We also had some delicious sandwiches from the street filled with chicken, egg, tomatoes, cucumbers, tofu, chilli sauce, and some other things that I can’t really say what they were. All of this for a little over a buck. It is very easy to eat cheap in Luang Prabang as there is street food everywhere but there are also a lot of really nice restaurants that make it hard to always eat street food. On my first full day in Luang Prabang I basically walked around the whole city stopping at all the sites. There were some famous temples, but the most interesting site was probably the National Museum also known as the Royal Palace, which was the place of residence to the King of Laos during France’s occupation. It had some really nice mosaic glass and other things inside. For lunch I stopped at a restaurant called Tamarind, which was mentioned in Lonely Planet and has been in different magazines and such as well, and for good reason it was delicious. I had a dish that was basically chicken with some spices cooked inside sticks of lemongrass. You open up the lemongrass to find the chicken inside and then dip that into a sauce they give you, it was delicious. They have fresh fruit refreshers as well that are quite tasty. The meal set me back about $5 or $6, which is a lot for Lao standards but it was well worth it. The rest of the day I just wandered around the streets, which is the best thing to do in Luang Prabang. At sunset I walked up to Du Phi, which is a temple at the top of the mountain and provides spectacular views of the city below. It was very pretty to see at sunset but there were hundreds of tourists there so it kind of took away from the atmosphere. After sunset I met back up with the group for some dinner and I had some delicious grilled chicken from a street vendor. That night Laos was playing against Malaysia in the semifinals of the SEA games in soccer so Julien, Florian, Dominic and I went to a bar to watch the second half. There is a street in Luang Prabang that all of the bars are on and there are some really nice bars with firepits and a DJ and everything. However, it was a Monday night and not many people were out. Laos ended up tying the game at 1 but then Malaysia scored two more goals to win 3-1. We ended up staying at the bar until midnight when everything shuts down in Luang Prabang and all over Laos for that matter. Officially 11:30 is curfew and no bars or street vendors are allowed to stay open past then. It’s one of the few occasions you see police in Laos as they come out to enforce the closing time. Dominic ended up getting extremely drunk so we had to help him back to the hotel.
The next day my plan was just to relax and read. I found a bookstore the night before and bought On the Road a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while. First I stopped by the Lao immigration office and extended by Lao visa for 8 more days. The process was surprisingly painless and took all of ten minutes. I just had to pay $2 per day. Then I went to the bookstore, which also doubled as a restaurant/teahouse. There was one book there that was available only to rent. It was about an American who had just graduated from Princeton who went to work in Laos for a tourism development organization that was run by the government. This was back in the late 90’s when tourism was first starting in Laos. The book is called Another Quiet American and was a very interesting read as the author recounts his experience in Laos. It was also very practical as it delved a lot into the history of Laos and I could understand a lot of the things he was saying just by being in and traveling in Laos and I think it has and will make my experience in Laos better. I sat and read the book for four or five hours and finished it in one sitting. Afterwards I met up with Julien, Florian, and Dominic who had just finished their dinner and we went back to the hotel a short time later. That morning Fanny had left so I had the room to myself. We didn’t really do anything exciting on our last night in Luang Prabang as we had to get up early the next day. I will say that Luang Prabang is one of the nicest cities/towns I have been to in SE Asia. The people are friendly, the food is great, it’s nice to see monks walking around, and it is a very picturesque city as well. The atmosphere is inviting and charming and this is a place I could see myself living for a year or two if an opportunity ever arose. It is small though and would probably get boring after a while. Another really nice thing about the city is that there are so many good things going on for the locals. There are numerous nonprofits in the city and a lot of different restaurants and business work to help the local community. It was very nice to see. The next morning we woke up early and took a tuk-tuk to the bus station to buy a ticket to Vang Vieng. We had inquired about tickets at numerous travel agencies but the cheapest ticket we found was 105,000kip, which is about $12. We figured if we went to the bus station and bought a local bus ticket it would be a lot cheaper. Our plan backfired however as the price of the local bus was 95,000kip and we already paid 8,000kip each to get there. Furthermore the next bus (9:00) was full so we had to wait until the 11:00 bus. This turned out to be not so bad though because we just sat and played cards for a few hours while we waited for our bus. I learned a new French card game that is pretty cool and involves a lot of strategy.

Vang Vieng

The ride to Vang Vieng was an experience. First of all let me begin by saying that Lonely Planet says if you get motion sickness at all be sure to have the proper medication before taking the bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. The whole ride is on curvy roads and these big buses don’t handle curves very well. On each curve your body and everything in the bus to would lean to one side then would fall to the other side when the bus changed direction. I have never really had a problem with motion sickness and I felt fine but there was an older Lao lady that sat in front of us who was puking the whole trip. She would puke into bags and then tie them up and put them on the floor. Another woman, perhaps the daughter of the older woman also puked several times during the trip and put her puke bags underneath hear seat as well. After a while the smell started to seep out through the bags and to make matters worse after ever sharp turn the bags would roll around the floor inching towards our feet at which point we would kick it away. After a few hours of this Julien finally asked them to put the bags somewhere else. Although the ride was rocky it was pretty scenic passing by huge limestone formations. We finally arrived in Vang Vieng at about 6:00.
I was interested to see how Vang Vieng really was. It has become a favorite destination for backpackers and “tubing” has become the most popular activity drawing in thousands of tourists. Everywhere I’ve traveled so far I’ve seen people with the exact same tank-top from Vang Vieng. The town is filled with restaurants and guesthouses that are all the same and all play Friends or Family Guy all day. Vang Vieng is also known for having a lot of drugs available and some tourists just come to get high and watch Family Guy all day. I was looking forward to having fun but had reservations about Vang Vieng as well.
We quickly found a guesthouse and after relaxing for a while went out and had some dinner at the most “local” restaurant according to Lonely Planet. It was pretty much just like all of the others as well. We walked around the town a bit and it is nothing but guesthouse next to restaurant next to travel agency. We also checked out a bar that had a bunch of people laying in hammocks and sitting around fires. It was pretty cool but we weren’t really in the partying mood. We walked around a little more and went back to the guesthouse and went to bed. The next morning I awoke feeling weak and cold and my stomach really hurt. Julien felt the same and we had the dreaded travelers diarrhea. We were planning on going tubing but scratched that idea because we both weren’t feeling that great. We mustered up enough energy and along with Florian went to check out a cave that was about 2km away. The cave was ok, just another cave for me but I couldn’t really appreciate it that much because I was afraid I would defecate in it at any moment. After the cave we walked back to town and had a late lunch. I just took it easy the rest of the day and had some bread and rice for dinner while watching a few hours of Family Guy. We were hoping that this bout of diarrhea would be short-lived because Florian and Julien had time for a couple days and it would suck to miss out on tubing. The next morning I felt really bad and there was no way I was going tubing. Julien also wasn’t feeling great so we decided to wait one more day and hopefully go tubing the next day. After a little while I felt a little better and again along with Julien and Florian went to check out another cave, this one about 7km away. We rented motorbikes but had to go to three different gas stations before we found one that was actually working. We rode on a dirt road and I was just hoping that a tire wouldn’t puncture. We made it to the cave in one piece. There was a large grassy area in front of the cave where many tourists were sunbathing and there was also a lagoon in front of the cave that you could swim in. The real attraction was tree you could climb and jump in from that also had a rope swing. I went to explore the cave while Julien and Florian just relaxed. The cave was huge and good thing I had my headlamp because it was also dark. I walked about 20 minutes into the cave and there was no sign of an end. I didn’t feel comfortable walking much further because if my light died I was screwed, so I decided to head back. I got lost finding my way back a few times but eventually was able to find my way. After that I just relaxed while Julien and Florian went to explore the cave. When they got back it was around 4:30 or 5:00 and the sun was setting soon but we decided to play in the water and jump from the rope swing for a little while. By the time we left the sun was pretty much gone and we were wet and freezing. We drove back to town as fast as we could and made it back to the motorcycle rental place. Then we met Dominic and some Swiss people he had met for dinner. The Swiss told us that they just saw a local guy beating the shit out of some tourist and they had to step in and break it up. The tourist was bleeding everywhere and had to go to the hospital. That is the problem in a place like Vang Vieng, tourists have overrun the place and with the mix of alcohol and drugs tourists don’t realize that the locals have the power. We have no resort if something happens. But I’m sure the local had every right to beat up the tourist. He was probably acting like an idiot and disrespecting the local. We went to the most popular bar after dinner and it was like being at a college party. Everybody was wasted and dancing and singing and it might have been fun if I was equally as drunk but I couldn’t help thinking about the situation. These tourists were going crazy and getting drunk like they were at home but we are in Laos, one of the UN’s least developed countries. They have a different culture and are not used to seeing stuff like this. The tourists get drunk and end up arguing over things with the locals. One tourist was yelling at a street sandwich seller for giving him the wrong change. The whole thing was ridiculous. Many tourists just come to party without thinking about where they are, they want to learn nothing about the country they are in, and just want to have a good time. Now, I am definitely not speaking about the majority of tourists but many of the tourists in Vang Vieng are different than you meet elsewhere. They are the tourists that just travel around to the party spots like the Full Moon Party in Thailand and Bali. They come to party cheap and it’s those tourists that I can’t stand. They have big muscles and walk around with no shirt on in a place where none of the locals do. It’s a mix of emotions and feelings that comes to mind about Vang Vieng. On one hand the locals don’t seem to be losing their culture, I mean why would they when they see a bunch of drunk tourists, it doesn’t really encourage them to be like that. They are also making a lot of money on the tourists selling sandwiches or opening a guesthouse, it seems like every local resident has done one of the two or found some other business catering to tourists. On the other hand the locals should not have to put up with the disrespect and drunkenness of tourists. At midnight when the bar was trying to close, nobody wanted to leave but then the police came up yielding machine guns and everybody quickly cleared away. However, there were still the one or two drunk tourists that tried to reason with the police. Perhaps, if I were drunk and having a good time I would forget about all these things I speak of but as a sober observer it’s a little disgusting.
Magically the next day I felt fine. My diarrhea was gone and Julien felt all right too so we were finally going to go tubing. We got up and had some breakfast before going to rent our tubes. We had to pay 55,000 kip for the tube (about $7) and pay another 60,000 deposit. If we brought the tube pack before 6:00 we got the full deposit back, after 6:00 we only get 40,000 back. So we got in the tuk-tuk who drove us to the start. There is a bar at the beginning that everybody starts at. You don’t actually use your tube until you leave this first bar. All the tubes are basically stacked up outside the bar and you just take one when you’re ready to leave. At the bar there is also a zip-line that you can swing from and at the end you just let go and fall in the water or if you are more adventurous, which many people were, you can try doing a back-flip or other acrobatics. We ended up getting pretty drunk at this first bar and probably spent a few hours there. We jumped into the water from the zip-line a few times and were feeling pretty good. There are also markers throughout the bar so people start getting drunk and writing things on their friends. Finally we left the first bar got a tube and headed for the second bar that was maybe 20 meters down river. So we tubed the 20 meters to the second bar and that’s as far as we would go. We drank a little bit more there and to be honest the rest is pretty fuzzy. It got to be the time to leave and we went to get our tubes but they were nowhere to be found. There were no tubes left. So after Julien, as he usually takes the lead in the negotiations, argued with the locals and tuk-tuk driver to no avail we gave up defeated and took a tuk-tuk back to town. We went back to the tube rental place but they had not been returned there so we got no money back. The whole thing was bullshit, pretty much the last twenty people to leave are not going to have a tube as somehow they mysteriously disappear. I’m not sure exactly what happens, either tourists who didn’t pay for a tube take one or locals take the tubes and have some understanding with the rental place. When you are at the bar though which for the majority of time people are you have no control over your tube. The worst part is that we didn’t even need the tube, we used it for all of 20 meters that we could have swam and we didn’t even go down any of the river. Looking back it was all stupid, we were being the dumb drunk tourists. We lost about $14 on the tubes for nothing but you win some and you lose some and the ones you lose you just got lay your head down and get over it. After we got back, we met Dominic who had left and actually made it down the river, and the Swiss people for dinner. I ate way too much food but we played with some local kids for about an hour, combining our little Lao with their little English, which turned out to be the highlight of the day. After that I wobbled back to the hotel and tried to go to bed. There was a lot of loud music though that was rambling in through our windows, which happened to be coming from a wedding that was going on in an open area behind our hotel. Earlier we had seen chairs and tables being set up for the event and had wondered what it was for. Finally at I have no idea what time, I fell asleep.
Julien, Florian, and Dominic left the next day but I decided to stay in Vang Vieng for a few more days, although I didn’t drink or party again. The first day I didn’t really do much of anything but the next day I went on a caving/tubing/kayaking trip that turned out to be really great. There was a group of about 15 of us, mostly older tourists. First we went tubing through a cave that had water running through it. We were given headlights that simply consisted of a bulb with nothing covering it strapped to a battery pack that we wore around our necks. We went in groups of five our so each connected to each other. Even after all the caves I’ve seen it was still pretty cool because we were in tubes and there was water. The cave didn’t have that many cool formations but it was dark and it was more the tubing experience that was interesting. After all groups had gone it was time for lunch, which was a delicious meal of sheesh-kababs with chicken and vegetables and rice. There was a group about six Russians on the trip with us. I always feel awkward speaking to Russians in Russian, both because I’m ashamed of my lack of Russian but also because I don’t really know what to talk to them about. So as they were talking the whole morning in Russian I never said anything to them. The leader of the group was a large and loud Russian man that looked like he could have been a former wrestler or bodybuilder. His legs were thick as tree trunks and although he had a big belly I wouldn’t call him fat, he was just a large individual. He spoke very little English and there were times when one of the guides would speak to him and he would answer back in Russian to a completely different question. It was quite hilarious. Also both in the cave and outside of it as we were waiting for the others he would get someone from his group to take pictures of him posing in different positions and places. He was quite a character. During lunch he was looking for something to drink and speaking to his friends in Russian. At the beginning of the day we had all been given a bottle of water with a number on it. We were supposed to remember our number as that was our bottle. However, with his lack of English he missed all of this so he had no clue what number his bottle was. So as he was having a conversation in Russian with his friends he said he would just take any bottle, what difference does it make. Well the bottle he happened to choose was mine and just as he was about to take a sip I said in Russian, “That is my bottle.” It caught him and his group completely by surprise and everyone except for him started laughing. He was clearly the leader of the group and it was pretty funny for the rest of the group to be laughing at his expense. After they knew I spoke some Russian, the rest of the day I spoke some with the group going over the usual questions, where are you from, how long are you traveling, etc…
After lunch was the kayaking portion of the trip. I have kayaked before but certainly don’t consider myself an expert kayaker. The water was pretty calm as it is the dry season so I didn’t think it would be that difficult. I was paired with a man from Singapore who had never kayaked before so I took the back, which is the more important position because they steer. The kayaking went pretty smoothly but my partner was pretty bad and we could never get in a good rhythm. It was easy enough though, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. The kayaking was done on the same river as “tubing” so as we went by, we passed the bars that I had been unable to escape a few days prior. We did stop at a further bar down the river though to rest for a little while. After jumping from the swing into the water a few times, we got back into our kayaks and paddled the rest of the way back to town. All in all it was a very good day. We kayaked about 15km and it really is a great workout. Although my shoulder started to ache by the end of it, I told myself this is one of many things that I am going to try to do more often when I get home. We got back to town around 5:00 and after that I washed up, had some dinner and didn’t do much the rest of the evening.
The next day I was excited because I had booked a one day rock-climbing trip. Vang Vieng is supposed to be one of the best places in SE Asia for rock-climbing, along with Krabi in Thailand. Our guide was a 22 year old local who had been climbing for 4 years and along with me there was also an Australian guy and British girl. I have only ever been rock climbing at a gym indoors and never outdoors so I was excited to give it a try. I learned how to properly tie the rope and to belay when others were climbing the wall, two of the first skills you learn. In the morning we each climbed about four or five different routes. It was just like climbing a rock wall indoors except there are so many options to choose from to put your hands and feet that you don’t know what the best spots are. On one route I was unable to make it to the top and I felt such a fierce sense of disappointment. There are few other things in the world that success is so easy to measure, you either succeed or you fail, you either make it to the top (the way you do doesn’t matter) or you don’t, and when you don’t it really sucks. I vowed that this was going to be another thing I would take up when I get home, my list was growing by the day. After lunch it was just Apple (guide) and I as the two others only booked a half-day trip. Because it was just the two of us we were able to move a lot faster and do more climbs. After four or five more climbs I was utterly exhausted and could not make it up the last one. Again the feeling of bitter disappointment resounded over me. Apple gave me some pointers on things I could do if I really wanted to take climbing seriously like using the hand squeezer things. Rock climbing requires incredible upper body strength, flexibility, and finger strength and it really is a fun and rewarding activity. However, it is something you always need a partner to do, which can be hard to find sometimes. As we were climbing we met a couple from Vancouver that has been climbing for fifteen years and have been all over the world to climb. I realize then that it would be great to take up rock climbing, kayaking, mountain biking, surfing, and whatever else but I should find one hobby/passion and really devote myself to it. What that might be, I’m not sure yet. Apple and I also had discussions about tourism in Vang Vieng and what he thinks about what has happened there. He said on one hand he was grateful for all of the tourists because it had given him a job but on the other hand his heart drops a little every time he sees a girl in a bikini or guy with his shirt off walk by the temple with the monks watching. He also enlightened me a little bit more about relationships and romance in Laos. It was basically forbidden or unheard of to have a girlfriend or boyfriend and you couldn’t really sleep with a woman until you married them. Unlike its close neighbor Thailand, Laos is a very conservative country when it comes to romance. I was pretty exhausted after the day of climbing so once again I had some dinner but did little else that night. At dinner though I did overhear some tourists talking about getting arrested for smoking pot. Apparently some bar had enticed tourists in with the promise of free joints, which they gave but then the police quickly came and arrested many of the tourists. The bar must have had some relationship with the police to get the tourists in trouble. Everyone who was caught had to pay a $500 fine or go to jail, just another one of the problems with Vang Vieng. The next day I had quite the journey ahead of me. I wanted to make it to the 4,000 islands for my birthday because it is a nice place to relax but also because Fanny, the French Canadian girl I had met earlier was going to be there with some friends. In total the trip was supposed to take 18 hours and consist of 3 bus rides and a boat ride. The first bus was to Vientiane, which took about 4 hours and arrived without any problems. From there I was shuttled into a tuk-tuk to a travel agency in Vientiane where the bus to Pakse, the next stop would pick me up. I had about an hour to kill and it was around 6:00pm so I went to have some dinner at an Indian restaurant. There was some kind of celebration or concert or something going on across the street from the travel agency as there were a lot of people gathered and live music. I tried to go see what was going on but the entrance was blocked off by two armed guards. The bus was supposed to leave at 7:00 but at 7:30 it was still not there. I didn’t really know what was going on and the two employees at the travel agency had left to go somewhere else and just told me to wait there. I was alone in the office and could have stolen anything I wanted but they knew that I wouldn’t. Finally at about 8:00 one of them came back with about 7 more tourists and then took us all to the bus station where the bus was waiting. The bus was a sleeping bus, which meant that instead of seats there were small beds. I had experience the sleeping bus in Vietnam and wasn’t looking forward to another one. This one was even worse though. Each sleeping area was meant for two people with nothing separating them. They were small and cramped and not meant for your average size Westerner. I was paired with a middle aged Basque man from Spain who had what appeared to be burns on his legs. I knew it was going to be a long and unpleasant night. I had the space closer to the aisle and was trying to be as close to it as I could. Well the man I was with was a little larger than me and kept moving his legs over to my “side” of the area. I had to basically hug the side railing to avoid touching him. Even worse was that he was snoring half the night and I was also directly over the bathroom, which emanated a foul stench of urine. After twelve agonizing hours of which I managed maybe two hours of sleep we finally arrived in Pakse. From there I was shooed into a minivan and was driven to another travel agency from which I would catch a van to the 4,000 Islands. After about half an hour of waiting I was finally on the final leg of my long, exhausting journey. The ride to 4,000 islands was a nice 2 ½ hour ride of which I was able to catch a few winks of shuteye. We finally arrived to the pier and took a short boat ride to Don Det, the backpackers island and I was finally able to relax. After arriving at the pier, I instantly heard a voice shouting my name and saw Fanny up above sitting at a restaurant. Well that was easy, I thought. I knew she was there but didn’t know where she was staying but figured it would be easy enough to find her as the island wasn’t that big, but I didn’t even have to worry about that. I found a place to stay with a Korean guy I met on the boat and was ready for pure relaxation. The first day I walked around with Chan, the Korean, and explored the island for a little while. There wasn’t really much to do on the island, which was the point. There a basically a row of bungalows overlooking the Mekong River all with hammocks overlooking the river. The first day I also ran into Omer, the Israeli who I had been traveling with in Vietnam. I also forgot to mention that that first day on the island was my birthday. For dinner I met up with Omer and a group of about 7 other people that he had met there or before and a special “happy” cake for my birthday. Since my birthday is also Christmas Eve and apparently is celebrated as Christmas Day in some parts of Europe, everyone went out to the beach that night. There were about 40 people spread out in groups gathered around bonfires and drinking Beer Lao. It was a good way to spend my birthday but once again was overshadowed by the fact it was Christmas. Even in Asia I can’t escape that my birthday falls on one of the most inopportune days of the year, but I have learned to deal with it even if I still have a little bitterness inside me.
The next day I rented a bike and went exploring with Chan. We biked the length of Don Det and crossed a bridge onto the next island Don Khon. On Don Khon we biked to a famous waterfall that is supposed to be the biggest in SE Asia. Although the waterfall was quite a sight with rapids rushing furiously over large rocks I’m not sure if it is indeed the biggest in SE Asia. Apparently there is a place you can swim by the waterfall but we were unable to find it, instead we biked over a very rocky road to the end of Don Khon to a beach where we went swimming instead. Here also sometimes you can see dolphins in the river but we didn’t spot any and after a while biked back to our guesthouse on Don Det. The rest of my two and a half days on Don Det I did absolutely nothing and it was great. My days consisted of laying in my hammock and reading and eating and that’s pretty much it. There really was little else to do, which is the appeal. The 4,000 islands may truly be one of the most relaxing places on earth. On my first day in Don Det I was introduced to The Bakery. The Bakery was well exactly what it sounds like, a bakery run by an Australian guy who had been living on the island for 4 years. He made delicious doughnuts, bread, cinnamon buns, etc… Unfortunately that first day was the only I was able to experience the deliciousness of The Baker as the Australian was affectionately known. He did not bake anything for Christmas, as he deserved a break, or for the few days following. Each day I would get up in the morning and make the ten minute walk to the Bakery hoping that it would be the day that The Baker was back at work but alas every time I was disappointed. On the day I was planning on leaving, however, I heard rumor that The Baker was going to be back at work. I considered long and hard staying for an extra day just so I could feast on baked goods but decided against it and left without them. It was probably for the best, I was eating a lot on the island as it was, if there were delicious baked pastries available I may have never stopped eating. Omer and company had left the day before me so on my last day I was pretty much by myself just reading and relaxing. Omer and the others had decided to go the Koh Phagnon for Full Moon New Years Eve Party. I was very tempted to go with them as well as it was going to be massive. Not only New Years but a fool moon as well it was going to be complete chaos but there was still more to see in Laos and I had Thai visa issues to worry about as well so I decided against it.
I left Don Det reluctantly on the morning of December 29th and took a boat back to the main land and from there a bus to Champasak. Champasak was the site of the famous Wat Phu which is one of the most famous sites in Laos. It is another Khmer era temple like Angkor Wat. The guidebook said it was a must see so I decided to go to Champasak for a day before Pakse for New Years. The bus dropped us off at a junction in the road. Along with me there were three other guys traveling alone, one Japanese, one French, and the fourth sounded American but I never found out. From the place the bus dropped us off we had to take a boat across the Mekong River as the bus was on the other side. There was also a “ferry” that took cars and motorbikes over the river. The “ferry” was simply some wooden boards with an engine, it was like a giant shipping crate and looked like it may fall apart at any moment. We made it to the other side from where we had to get a Tuk-Tuk to the center. The tuk-tuk driver was a brother of a guesthouse owner and the owner was there as well saying the tuk-tuk ride would be free if we stayed at his guesthouse. He was fat (an uncommon site in Lao) and happy man with a giant grin that showed many missing teeth. It also seemed like he ran the whole small town as all his brothers were either tuk-tuk drivers or worked with him at his guesthouse. The guesthouse wasn’t great but it was fine enough and the French guy and I shared a room. We both wanted to make it to Pakse the next day so we inquired if we still had enough time to go see the temple. It was 3:00 at this point and the temple closed at 5:30 so we figured it was ample time. We, along with the Japanese guy took another tuk-tuk driven by the same brother as earlier and drove the 8km or so to the temple. The whole temple was on three different levels, the first level had two temples across from each other that were closed for entry and were under construction. On the next level there were some statues of some Hindu goddesses and after climbing a steep set of stairs we reached the third and most impressive level. On the third level was s small temple that reminded me of Angkor Wat and some other scattered rocks and stones with inscriptions of gods and goddesses. The most interesting being a large rock with a picture of an elephant inscribed. At the top of the temple was a beautiful view looking east of the town of Champasak along with the lowest part of the temple and two lakes that were there as well. It was really a beautiful sight and I sat there overlooking it for half an hour or so. Overall though I wasn’t that impressed with the temple. It was cool but the historical significance just didn’t get to me and after seeing Angkor Wat it was hard for anything else to compare. There was little to do in town so after we got back to the guesthouse we had some dinner and just talked for a while before going to sleep early.
The next day the French guy and I caught a “bus” to Pakse, which was only about 25km away. The bus was really a sawngthaew or one of the converted small pickup trucks with benches along either side that I mentioned previously. This sawngthaew actually had three rows of benches and before we even got on was so crowded that there were guys standing on the back of it where there was a platform of railings about two feet wide to stand on. All of the luggage was on top along with numerous bamboo chicken cages filled with chicken. The locals all crammed in some lying on top of each other and I was able to get a standing space on the back. Obviously something like this would never have been allowed to pass back home or in any Western country but I don’t think Lao has the highest of safety standards. An accident, even of the not serious variety, was almost certain death for me. All in all there were about 30-40 locals and tourists alike crammed into the back of the sawngthaew. I will admit standing and riding at the back was kind of fun, I felt so free with the wind hitting my face and getting a great view of the open road. Eventually after a couple of passengers had been let out there was room for everyone to sit. I wanted to keep in standing but the locals said that I should sit because of the police, I guess maybe it wasn’t kosher to have four guys standing on the back of a sawngthaew, unless a necessity. We arrived at a bus station and all the tuk-tuk drivers tried to convince the Frenchman and me that we had to get off here and take a tuk-tuk the rest of the way but the locals in the sawngthaew told us we didn’t need to get off so we stayed on. A few minutes later we arrived at a large market and at this point we did need to take a motor taxi which was a motorbike attached to a cart with two seats and some room for luggage. He took us the 2km to a guesthouse and I was able to check in and set my bags down. Pakse is a town of 66,000 people or so and one of the biggest cities in the south of Laos. I figured I wasn’t going to be able to get to or it wasn’t worth getting to a bigger city or party spot to spend New Years so Pakse was the alternative. The first day I was there I basically walked around the whole city in a few hours. There were a few hotels and restaurants but not really any strictly bars that I saw. I was trying to scope out the city for a place to go for New Years but I found nothing. I asked a couple of local people if there was a good place to go but nobody knew anything. I was beginning to wonder if anyone here even celebrated New Years and if there would be any sort of celebration. At night I walked down to the Mekong where there are a row of restaurants frequented by the locals at night all enjoying local food and Beer Lao. I kept walking along the river for quite a while and ran into a Cinema/Bowling Alley. None of the movies that were playing looked any good so I decided to go bowling. Each game was about $1.50 but when you are playing by yourself the games go really fast. I bowled one game and did terribly not even breaking 100. I did so bad that I had to bowl another game. The next game did not go much better and I kept experimenting with different grips and releases but none seemed to work. Finally I told myself the third game would be my last. I broke 100 for the first time on the third game but still left pretty disappointed. I told myself as I left that bowling was not going to be the hobby that I picked up. I returned back to the guesthouse and went to sleep.
I woke up on New Years Eve determined to find somewhere to spend that night. First I had some breakfast and caught up on the web, which was much faster and cheaper than it was in the 4,000 islands. Then I went back to my room and forced myself to update my blog or at least type it, which I hadn’t done for over a week. Actually updating it online would have to wait because I didn’t find anywhere that had wireless.

This is a Long ONe

2009-12-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

Hue

The bus ride from Hoi Ann to Hue was a scenic four hour journey along curving roads and rolling hills. We arrived in Hue around 6:00pm and it was rainy and cold. We quickly found one of the first hotels we saw and just chilled for the rest of the night. The next day I took a one day tour of the city while Omer stayed back. I ended up being on the same tour as Luc, the Australian I met in Mui Ne with Omer. It was another rainy and cold day but the tour was well worth it. We went to the Citadel, which was built by Emperor Gia Long in the 1800’s. It was used as shelter during the Vietnam War when the French and American’s bombed it destroying much of it. We also went to visit some tombs and pagodas as well. The tombs are in the middle of nature and are quite peaceful. It certainly makes a great place for a final resting spot. The best part of the tour was our guide, however. He had a wealth of knowledge and information on all the attractions and Vietnamese history that it really added a lot. At one point he even corrected another tour guide who had given a piece of misinformation. If I had visited these sites on my own, I wouldn’t have gotten close to the same amount out of it. Sometimes a guide can make a lot of difference, unfortunately many times you don’t get a great one or can’t understand them but this was one of the better ones I’ve had.
On our second and final day in Hue, Omer and I just walked around exploring the city for a few hours. We were on our way back to our hotel when we ran into a couple motorbike drivers that started talking to us. They asked us if we wanted to go with them to have some beers and talk politics. It sounded a little sketchy but I was intrigued and convinced Omer to go as well. This was either going to turn out really bad or good. We each went with a different driver on the motorbike and they took us to a local beer place. We had a beer and they started telling us about Vietnam and the war and such. One of them had relatives in America and one was imprisoned at the re-education camps during/after the war. It was actually an interesting conversation and we learned a lot. After a while they asked us if we wanted to go see Ho Chi Minh’s house. He lived in Hue for a few years when he was a kid. Again we were skeptical but decided to go ahead. We only had a few hours because we were catching a bus that evening to Hanoi. They took us to his house, which was a simple and basic Vietnamese house, and to a neighboring museum next door (if you can call it that). A local man had to open the lock on it and inside were just a bunch of pictures of Ho Chi Minh with his family and others. After visiting the museum the motorbike drivers asked us if we wanted to drive through the real Vietnamese countryside. We didn’t have much time but agreed anyway. I’m glad we did because this ended up being my highlight of Hue. We rode through local villages and wet rice patties. We really got to see typical Vietnamese life up close and personal and it was surreal. We passed water buffalo laying around, kids playing, and women working in the fields. It was really amazing. The drivers drove us back to our hotel and then asked us for money for showing us around. Now I knew they were going to ask for money because they weren’t just taking us to all these places out of the goodness of their heart but it still felt like we were getting taken. We gave them half of what they asked for and walked away. For only a couple dollars each it was definitely worth the experience but we learned a valuable lesson that nothing is for free and cost should always be discussed first. We got back just in time to catch the 12 hour bus to Hanoi.

Hanoi
We decided to take regular sitting bus this time and not a sleeper bus because the last sleeper bus was not the greatest experience. This bus ride wasn’t that much better. Terrible and loud Vietnamese music was playing during the whole trip making it impossible to sleep. After more than 12 grueling hours we made it to Hanoi. We walked around for over an hour looking for a decently priced room and finally ended up settling on something for $8 together. The room was a shithole but it was the cheapest we could find, accommodation in Hanoi is expensive. I immediately proceeded to clog the toilet and some poor Vietnamese man had to come up and fix it. We passed out for a few hours and for the rest of the day just wandered around the city. The old quarter of Hanoi is centered around a lake and it makes for a very beautiful and romantic spot. At night you see nothing but couples hanging out together around the lake. There is also a temple on the lake that looks really cool lit up at night. Another highlight of Hanoi is all of the Bia Hoy’s around. Bia means beer and Hoy is like draft. It’s basically the cheapest place to drink as you can get a glass of beer for something like 25 cents each. The bad thing about Hanoi is that everywhere shuts down at midnight. It is hard to find a bi ahoy or bar that is open past then. The second day in Hanoi I wanted to see the Ho Chi Minh Masoleum and Museum. We got up around 10:00 though and the Masoleum closes at 11:00 so we were frantically trying to find a motorbike taxi to take us there. All throughout Vietnam you are constantly harassed by these motorbike drivers that just come up to you and say “moto-bike, moto-bike, where yo go? You want moto-bike” yet the one time I actually need one there is not one to be found. So we settle on a cyclo who pedals frantically trying to get us there by 11:00. We make to the grounds at about ten to 11:00 and we run to try to get to the Masoleum but we go the wrong way and by the time we find it, it is closed. If we had just gone the right way we would have made it. I guess it didn’t really matter much though because Ho Chi Minh’s body wasn’t even there. For three months of every year his body gets sent to Russia for cleaning and upkeep. So we didn’t make it to the Masoleum but we did go inside the Museum, which was pretty interesting. Ho Chi Minh or Uncle Ho as he is still affectionately called certainly was and still is a hero to many in Vietnam. He was a very smart man and even used the same words from the American Declaration of Independence to try to get America to recognize Vietnam as a sovereign nation. One thing that did go right though was that after about a week of wet and cold weather the rain stopped and the sun came out. It would not rain again for the remainder of my stay in Vietnam which was perfect timing because I was going to Halong Bay the next day. After the museum we finally found a motorbike driver and hired him for $8 for the rest of the day. He took us to all the main attractions in Hanoi including the Ethonology Museum, Temple of Literature, B-52 Museum in which we were the only two people there and also the Hoa Lo Prison Museum (this was the prison where John McCain was a POW in Vietnam). The prison was especially interesting as there were very propagandist videos playing showing how well American POW’s were treated. That night we found a pizza place that had an all you can eat buffet which included pizza, pasta, rice, ribs, and some other local dishes. Me and buffet’s don’t go well together and I ate so much that I literally had trouble moving afterwards. It was nice to have some decent pizza and pasta but I completely overdid it. After that I went straight to bed.

Halong Bay
The next day we started a 3 day tour of Halong Bay. We took an extremely overcrowded bus for four hours to Haiphong and then boarded a junk boat. Omer and I paid $43 for the 3 day trip which was about the cheapest anyone paid. Somehow we got upgraded to the luxury boat where everyone else was paying $100 or more. Our guide pulled us aside and told us not to tell anybody how much we paid and we happily obliged. The boat was nice and relaxing and Halong Bay was beautiful. There are over 3,000 islands and they are everywhere. We first went to a cave, which is one of the top attractions of Halong Bay. The cave was pretty cool but after seeing the caves in Borneo, it didn’t excite me that much. After the cave we had a chance to do some kayaking in the bay, which was really cool. I can’t imagine a more beautiful place to kayak in, and the weather was perfect. It was sunny the whole time. Halong Bay is actually one of 28 finalists for the new 7 natural wonders of the world. After kayaking we set up anchor for the night and just relaxed on the boat. It was really nice being and sleeping on a boat/ship again and really made me miss Semester at Sea. It’s just so nice and soothing sleeping on the ocean. The rest of the group was made up of mostly older people so Omer and I just watched a movie and went to bed. The next day Omer, I, a Finnish guy, and 2 New Zelander girls left the rest of the group as they were only on a 1 day trip and met up with another one. We took a boat to Cat Ba, which is an island in the bay and went trekking at Cat Ba National Park. At the top of the mountain the Vietnamese somehow built an overlook platform, which contained great views of the valley below. After the trek we took a bus back to the hotel we were staying at for the evening. After eating some lunch we took a boat to “monkey island” which is supposed to be a secluded beautiful island that has monkeys on it. Sure enough we were welcomed by a group of monkeys eager to steal anything they could get their hands on. At one point a monkey had grabbed on to one guy’s pants without him noticing and he had to struggle to break free of the monkey’s grasp. They are cute creatures but don’t be fooled they will come after you and can be dangerous. Monkey island was quite small and we found a path so we decided to follow it to the other side of the island. After about 25 minutes going over steep and sharp rocks we reached what can only be described as paradise. There were bungalows on the other side with a nice beach and no monkeys. We jumped into the water and were having a great time when the owner of the bungalows came running out and told us it was a private beach and we had to leave. So we had to get out of the water and hike back to the other side of the beach after only spending about five minutes there. Those five minutes were worth it though as it was an amazing place. We went back to the other side of the island and hung out for a little while longer before our boat took us back to Cat Ba and our hotel. The rest of the day we just walked around Cat Ba and relaxed.
The next morning we got back on the boat and headed back to Haiphong where we had lunch. We had to wait for a while for our bus to arrive so our group of five, Omer, the Fin, Kiwis, and myself found a bia hoy place and started drinking. Before we knew it we were kind of drunk just in time for our bus to arrive. The rest of the bus must have hated us because we had to stop three times on the way back to go to the bathroom.

Hanoi
We made it back to Hanoi that evening found a hotel and passed out for a couple hours. We had previously bought tickets to a water puppet performance that night so we woke up from our slumber and made it to the show. It was actually very cool, the puppet masters are behind a curtain and have these puppets on poles that you can’t see and are unbelievably coordinated. The puppets dance and prance around in the water while traditional Vietnamese music is played with it. After the water puppet show we met up with 2 girls who Omer had met previously in Cambodia and hung out with them for a little while.
The next day we didn’t have really much to do and just needed to kill time before our night bus left for Sapa at around 6:00. So we just wandered around the city some more. The nigh bus to Sapa was quite the experience though. First we got in a minivan who then picked up 6 more tourists and then drove us to a travel agency. From the travel agency we got our stuff and got in another minivan that took us to another van that we transferred into and just when we thought we could get comfortable the minivan took us to a bus that said Sapa on it. Finally we got on the bus that was actually taking us to Sapa and didn’t make it out of Hanoi till about 9:00pm. Once again we took a sitting bus but after watching a couple of movies I was actually able to get some sleep. We got to Sapa around 7:00am. Sapa is unlike the rest of Vietnam. It is up in the mountains and the majority of locals there are hill tribe people mainly consisting of the Hmong tribe. Another thing about Sapa is that it was cold. You could actually see your breath it was so cold. It is a beautiful town though. It is small and quaint. The whole town basically consists of a market selling fake north faces and the local Hmong’s selling local clothes and a row of guesthouses/hotels and restaurants. There are numerous villages surrounding the town and the best thing to do is go on a trek. The first day there we didn’t really do much just walked around the town and I bought some jackets to send home. Even though they are fake the quality is still pretty good and I paid about $40 for two northface jackets and a fleece that would have cost me about $500 for the real thing back home. The next day we rented a motorbike and just drove around the whole area. We drove through local villages and took winding roads overlooking cliffs. It was absolutely amazing scenery but a little scary at the same time. The only bad thing was that the whole area was covered in fog so you couldn’t see that much but what you did see was still beautiful. Then we drove to a waterfall that was pretty nice and hung out there for a little while. There were some locals selling tea and bbq meat, potato and like a bamboo cylinder with rice inside that they heat over the fire and out comes blocks of sticky rice. We got some food and heated up by the fire. After the waterfall Omer couldn’t handle the cold anymore so I dropped him off at the hotel and kept on riding to a local village. It is amazing how simple their lives are. The women go into Sapa town to try and sell their hand woven clothing and other things to the tourists many times taking the children with them while the men go into the mountains to hunt animals or grow crops. Their homes are as basic as they get, just wooden huts centered around a fire. The road to the village was pretty rough and there were a few times where I pretty much had to drive through a few inches of water. The whole time I was just praying that I wouldn’t get a flat tire or do something terribly wrong. One wrong move on the motorbike and you’re going over a cliff. The roads were extremely curvy in addition to rough so it was quite the adventure. I made it back in one piece though and Omer and I went out and had dinner at what had become our local go to restaurant. We were planning on leaving the next day or the day after but then we met two Israeli girls that night at the hotel who were going on a two day trek the next day through local villages and included a homestay at one of them. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go but decided that I would at the last minute. The first day we trekked about 18km just walking from town down a mountain passing different villages along the way. The most interesting part was stopping at a local school and seeing the children in class and singing songs. All of the tribal kids get to go to school for free where there is usually a local teacher from the tribe as well as a Vietnamese teacher. Healthcare and education for these minority tribes are provided by the government. The schools were the nicest buildings in the village probably because they are constructed by the government. At school the kids learn Vietnamese and all the tribes have their own indigenous language. We also got to see some girls put on a dance show in the village which was also a cool site. At about 5:00pm we got to the village where we would be staying that night. They had a makeshift pool table there so the rest of the night we just sat around drinking local rice wine and playing cards and pool. It was someone’s birthday in the group so the locals brought out a special apple rice wine that is only used for special occasions. It was much tastier than the normal rice wine. We had a group of 8 and as always when you are traveling people ask you where you are from. Somehow America came up and a Dutch guy an Australian immediately had bad things to say about America and Americans. When they found out I was American the Dutch guy even said no offense but I don’t like Americans. It’s really amazing how bad a reputation Americans have around the world. Some of it is warranted I guess but it’s easy to be neutral and peaceful when you come from countries like Australia and Holland but we have a huge role in the world and yeah we have made some bad moves but I like to think we have done some great things as well. It made me realize how American I really am. I love football and thanksgiving and even though I travel and am more knowledgeable about the world about most Americans I still have pride in my country. It’s crazy that people can generalize people from a country so much. But Americans certainly do have a different view of the world than the majority of others. Of a country of 300 million people I have met very few Americans on this trip. I do certainly think it would be good if more Americans traveled and saw other places in the world but I also feel the need to defend the so many good American people. Anyways I’ll stop ranting about that. The next morning after breakfast we trekked back to another village for lunch where we had lunch and then took a van back to Sapa. Omer and I met two Australians on the trip one mentioned above who really was a good guy who were on their way to Laos as we were. We figured out we were on the same bus to Dien Ben Phu which is the closest city in Vietnam to the border of Laos the next morning. The four of us got along pretty well and it was cool to have some new people because I was starting to get sick of traveling with Omer. We bickered and fought with each other like brothers and I guess in a way we were. On the rest of our last day in Sapa we met the Australians for dinner, we had some great local bbq on the street, and ended up going to one of the few local pubs for a drink. One drink turned into three and before we knew it, it was midnight. The Australians and Omer went searching for food while I went back to the hotel to get some sleep having no idea what was in store for us during the next three days.

Road to Laos
We woke up in a hazy state to catch a bus to Dien Bien Phu at 9:00. Dien Bien Phu is a town about 28 km from the border with Laos. Getting to Laos would be a two-day trip. The first day was an 8-10 hour bus ride to Dien Bien Phu and then the next morning we could take a bus into Laos. 9:00 came and the bus wasn’t there, then 9:30, 10:00, 10:30 and still no sign of the bus. We asked the people who worked at the guesthouse to please call and find out what was going on. They said the bus was “broken” but not to worry it would be here in half an hour. Well it wasn’t there in half an hour and the same thing continued for the next two hours, we would ask when the bus was going to arrive and they said it would just be another half hour. Finally at 1:00 the bus arrived with the Australians already sitting in it. I should say it was actually more of a minivan and not a bus and I will start calling it as such. The van was already pretty full when it picked us up and I was really hoping that we were going to be the last passengers but the Vietnamese have a great ability to fit as many people, bags, vegetables, chickens, etc… into a small space. Sure enough we picked up a few more locals on the way and just like a Tetris game they made everything fit. We probably had 20 people and just as many bags in a 15 passenger van. It was a little cramped to say the least but I was able to wiggle in some room for my feet and wasn’t in the worst position. The ride was a picturesque yet bumpy ride. Much of the road was unpaved and we were going about 20-30 km per hour for most of it. There were times that we would get stuck trying to go up a hill or over particularly rocky areas and the driver just backed up and tried again gunning the pedal until we made it through. Early in the ride when we stopped for a break, the van would not start and we had to all get out and push it a few meters to get it going and started. We passed through villages and mines and a few times we had to stop for 20 or 30 minutes while bulldozers worked on the road. Lonely Planet said in its 2008 version that this journey should take about 2 or 3 days so the roads must have improved a lot since then because we were able to make it in one. At one two or three hour stretch of the ride we were driving on the edge of a cliff and it was dark at this point as well. I was sure that any second we would go spiraling down to our death. Remarkably at about 10:30 we arrived in Dien Bien Phu. Dien Bien Phu is not much of a town at all with a few guesthouses and restaurants, we quickly found the cheapest guesthouse, which wasn’t really a room but more of a storage closet with 2 beds and passed out.
We had to get up at 4:30 the next morning to catch the 5:00 bus to Mung Khoa, which is the first major city in Laos. Sure enough the 5:00 bus didn’t leave until 6:00 but it was a real bus. I think there were more bags of vegetables than people on it though. A bag of garlic was under my feet as once again the Vietnamese will put things anywhere to make them fit. The whole bus was filled with onions, garlic, chillies, and other local fruits and vegetables that apparently were being transported to Laos. We got to the border without any issues in a few hours. Omer and I already had our visas for Laos, we had gotten them in Hanoi but still had to pay a 7,000 kip administrative fee. Luckily I had exchanged some dong (Vietnamese currency) for kip (Laos currency) with another traveler. I was the only one out of the four of us (Omer and the two Australians) who had any kip so I paid for all them as well. After crossing the border and another three or four hour ride through Lao villages we arrived in Mung Khoa.

Mung Khoa
None of us knew anything about Mung Khoa before we got there, it is not even mentioned in the Lonely Planet SE Asia edition which is all I had at the time. The bus dropped us off at one side of the Nam Ou river and again we had to pay a few kip to cross it, we finally settled on some Thai Baht and got to the other side. There was also a ferry for cars and motorbikes that was literally pushed by a boat to get the 10 meters or so to the other side. We got to the town and tried to figure our next step. It was about 1:00pm at this point. We quickly learned there were no ATM’s in Mung Khoa so the four of us were relying on my about $50 US Dollars worth of Kip until the next town. We sat down for some lunch and met a few other travelers that said there was a bus at 3:00 to Udomaxi, which is a bigger town with an ATM. From there you can catch a bus anywhere. During lunch we also met two Israeli guys who had just arrived from a 9 day canoe trip. They had bought a canoe at some other town up the Nam Ou River and canoed down to Mung Khoa after two days of practicing and learning from the locals. They would just camp or stay in local villages every night and canoe by day. It sounded like a really amazing experience something out of Into the Wild. We decided that we were going to try to catch the 3:00 bus to Udomaxi so we got into a pick up truck with benches in the back that are used as taxis and went to the bus station which was about 3km away. We got to the station at 2:00 but the bus was already full to Udomaxi and it was the last one of the day. We would have to wait until 8:00 the next morning for the next bus. After we missed the bus we decided we were going to be adventurous that night. We didn’t want to walk the 3km back to town with all our bags so we decided to camp on the banks of the river. There was a pretty steep drop off from the road to the river but we found a place to walk down near the bus station and reached the riverbank. Some kids had followed us and came down to see what these strange falongs (foreigner) were doing. We put on our bathing suits and went in the water for a little while and played with the kids. After that we started to plan things for the night. Tony (one of the Australians) and I were to go to town to find food and Omer and Red (other Australian, so called because of his red hair) were to make a fire. So Tony and I wondered into town where we saw the Israelis again. We offered them to join us and they said they had to sell their canoe first and then they might. We went around looking for food and a pot to cook it in and were debating if we should just buy take away from a restaurant. We got to the boat pier just as the Israelis had sold their canoe to a local. They were happy that it only took them a few hours to sell it. They also said they had plenty of food left and a pan and wok that would be enough for six. So we helped them carry their stuff back to our campsite and were greeted with a fire. While dinner was being prepared Tony and I again went on a mission for some beer, but with our limited funds ended up with Lao Lao or local rice whisky, which was much cheaper. We were wandering around the pretty deserted main street and ran into a sort of bar. That was my first introduction to “boon” which in America we call bocchiball. Apparently it was taken from the French and “boon” is now played on the streets everywhere in Lao usually for a few Beer Lao at stake. Also we were lucky because the SEA (Southeast Asia) Games were happening in Laos from December 9-18. The SEA games are basically the Olympics of SE Asia with much national pride at stake. Anytime Laos was playing soccer the whole country would be cradled around their TV sets. We brought back the Lao Lao and had a great meal of noodles and vegetables. We discussed life and traveling for the rest of the night and passed out. We got up early the next morning, packed our stuff, and huffed our way to the bus station intent on getting on the 8:00am bus, which we did. We arrived in Udomaxi after another very bumpy road and luckily they had an ATM there. Everyone got money and paid me what the owed. I had a decision to make, Omer and the Australians were going to Luang Prabang but I wanted to go to Luam Nam Tha, which is more North and supposedly really good for trekking. I decided I had enough of Omer and went to Luam Nam Tha. Raffy, one of the Israelis was also going there for a night to pick up his bike that had ridden from China.

Luam Nam Tha
When we arrived in Luam Nam Tha we had to take a pickup into town. We found a guesthouse and I was finally able to relax after a long last few days. It was cold in Luam Nam Tha but luckily I had some warm clothes including a jacket I bought in Sapa. It was a nice quiet small town with very friendly people. Everybody said Sabadee (hello) to you on the street as you passed by. The first night Raffy and I shared a roasted chicken with chilli sauce, which was delicious and I was able to shower and check the internet after a few days without it. I wanted to sign up for a trek but there were not many tourists in town and the treks were much cheaper with more people. Anywhere between 1 and 8 people can go but the price is substantially cheaper the more people you have. Basically there are four or five travel agencies around town that list all of their treks on a big white board and the number of people who have signed up for the next day and there was pretty much nobody signed up for anything when I checked the first night I was in town. The next day I decided to rent a bike for the day and hope to find people to go on a trek the next day. I biked to a waterfall that was nearby and also through some villages. It is amazing how simple life is in Laos. Much of the population live in villages. It is probably the most relaxing country I’ve been in which was a big difference from Vietnam. Nobody comes up to you to get you to buy something, they are content with just ‘chilling’. Life in the villages has very distinct roles for the men and women. The men go out and catch fish or hunt other food and take care of upkeep on the houses while the women wash the clothes, cook the food, and tend to the children. It is common to wander around a village and see men just sleeping in a hammock or on the floor. Laos definitely don’t take things too seriously. After my bike ride I returned to town to try to find some people to sign up for a trek. I met a French couple who had signed up for one the next day and at the last minute was able to find three other people who wanted to sign up as well so with me that made 6. So the next morning we were to depart at 9:00. It turned out everyone else spoke French in the group. Two French guys were traveling together, there was one guy from Montreal, and the French couple (the guy was actually from Belgium). Most of the time they would all talk in French together and I would just go and talk with our guide who was your typical 25 year old guy. The trek was for 2 days and the first day was not too bad. There were a few long uphill sections but most of it was pretty flat walking through the forest and valley. We stopped at a little bamboo hut for lunch, which consisted of sticky rice and some local vegetables. In Laos pretty much all meals are eaten with sticky rice. Also in Laos chopsticks are not used as they eat with their hands using sticky rice to help scoop up the other food. We got to the Akha (a hill tribe group) village where we were staying the night around 4:00 and Julien, Florian (the two French guys) and Dominic (the Canadian) went on a little adventure in the river. We walked/swam in the river against the current, which was hard work. We stumbled upon a rickety old bridge that was crooked and half falling apart and decided it would be a good idea to cross it. We made it to the other side and went exploring following a path. We crossed some local village boys with a harpoon and mask to catch fish, they learn from a young age how to hunt. Finally we ended up at a dead end and went back to the river to let the current carry us back to the village. The water level was very low though and the river was very rocky so we had to move carefully over the rocks and every few meters you would get a large rock hitting your ass or hips depending on what side you were on. Finally after about half an hour of this we arrived back at the village. We had another traditional Lao meal with chicken and vegetables, pumpkin and sticky rice. It was delicious. The rest of the night we sat around a fire discussing movies and music and watching the stars, which were truly remarkable. I haven’t seen that many starts in a long time. There was no light pollution, the village was pitch black except for everyone gathered around little fires throughout the village. There was separate house/hut made for tourists that we slept in for the night. It would have been cool to actually sleep in an villagers home but that wasn’t the case. The next morning after breakfast we started our hike back to the main road. First we passed through three more villages, one of the Lantern people who come from China and another Akha village who come from Cambodia. Each village has its own culture and customs and our guide told us that they had tried to combine to smaller Akha an Lantern villages but shortly after two members of the Akha village died and they returned to their former home. They believe a lot in spirits and things of that nature. After passing through the villages we had a very difficult walk through the jungle going over rocks and mud at times and the last bit of it was mostly uphill. It was a pretty tough trek but finally we made it to the road where a van was waiting to take us back to Luang Nam Tha. When we got back I found a guesthouse and got some food at the local night market. I had some laap, which is a traditional Lao salad with some sort of ground meat and garlic, shallots, coriander, mint, and chillies, and in this particular one buffalo skin. It was pretty good. I saw our guide sitting having some beers with one of his friends (another guide) and a few tourists and I joined them for the rest of the evening. Before I knew it I was a little bit drunk as they would just pour a little glass of beer and pass it to you and you had to drink it in one sip, they would go around the table and do this to everyone. I was planning on leaving for Luang Prabang the next day but changed my mind and decided to go to Nong Khiaw after hearing about it from the couple on the trek who said it was really nice. Julien, Florian, and Dominic were also planning on going there as well.

Nong Khiaw
The next morning I arrived at the bus station and because there were no direct buses to Nong Khiaw, it not on the main highway, I had to buy a ticket to Pak Mong which is a town about 33 km from Nong Khiaw. The bus was actually going to Luang Prabang but stopped in Pak Song. I met two women who were going to Nong Khiaw as well so we stuck together. Julien, Florian, and Domnic had chartered a minivan from their guesthouse along with some other people so they would be going directly to Nong Khiaw. After another long and bumpy ride we arrived in Pak Mong at around 4:00. The pickup driver wanted 30,000kip each to take us the rest of the way to Nong Khiaw but we would pay no more than 20,000. After waiting for an hour and a half we finally found a driver that agreed to 20,000. Reflecting back on it the difference between 20,000 and 30,000 kip is little more than a dollar so it really wasn’t worth the wait but I guess it’s the principal of the matter. Anyways we finally arrived in Nong Khiaw at about 6:00 and it was easy to see why it is a favorite destination for travelers. The town was centered on the Nam Ou river with guesthouses that had bungalows that overlooked the river. I found the cheapest guesthouse I could find and ate some delicious Indian food. I got up the next morning and saw the true beauty of the place. There was a morning fog over the town but it didn’t take away the beauty of the river and amazing limestone formations around it. You could see fisherman in the water and kids washing themselves in the river. There was a long bridge over the river that went from one side of town to the other and standing on the bridge you could truly get a great view. After much internal debate I decided to make it to Muang Ngoi Neua that morning. Muang Ngoi Neua was another town up an hour north on the river, which was supposed to be smaller and even more spectacular than Nong Khoi. It has developed a sort of cult reputation among backpackers as a great place to relax. There is one boat a day at 11:00 so I went to the pier where I saw Julien, Florian, and Dominic. They were heading to Muang Ngoi Neua as well.

Muang Ngoi Neau
The boat ride was a little over an hour and was a pretty cool although uncomfortable experience. There were no towns on the way. We met another French Canadian girl on the boat who knew of a cheap guesthouse in Muang Ngoi Neau so the five of us went there and got two rooms, 3 in one 2 in the other. The whole town was filled with guesthouses and at times there are probably more tourists than locals. It is a sleepy quiet town that only has power from 6-10 pm every night. The first day we just chilled and relaxed and got to know “Mama” who was the owner of the guesthouse of which the name was Mama banana. ‘Mama’ truly did become our mom for the next few days, cooking all of our meals and talking to us. Fanny the French Canadian girl quickly became a big fan of mama’s as she helped her cook when a big group of tourists came to eat. All five of us helped bring food out to their table and we felt like party of a family all helping out. ‘Papa’, ‘Mama’s husband’ was not feeling well so Fanny give him some medicine that made him feel better. The first night we didn’t eat until 9:00 because we had to wait until the big group had gotten their food but Mama made us some delicious Buffalo Laap and cooked vegetables. Mama was a one woman show. She did all the cooking herself and had only one assistant that helped with chopping vegetables and things like that. It was great getting to watch her cook in her small little kitchen with a wood burning stove. We just sat around the rest of the night listening to music. The next day started with some delicious if not extremely disgustingly fattening banana-chocolate pancakes cooked up by mama. I then played some volleyball with some local kids including mama’s 15 year old son. We were going trekking to some local caves and villages so mama made us some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the only problem is she also put regular butter and a lot of it, which turned the sandwiches pretty gross. So we set off and passed some kids hunting rats (no joke) and many cows as well. The scenery was pretty insane. The path started out flat walking past farms and cows with mountains in the backdrop then we had to pass over a few streams and soon arrived at the first cave. The cave was nothing spectacular, I have seen enough caves on this trip that they are all starting to look the same. Then we walked a little further and arrived at a village. Apparently this village was known amongst druggies because we encountered a French guy who was stoned out of his mind and met a few others on the way who were nothing but skin and bones. There was a local with a crazy beard and sideburns that sold pot and opium to supply all of the tourists. We kept walking and ended up going through the forest. There were numerous forks in the road and we didn’t really know where we were going, we were just trying to stay close to and follow the river. At one point we crossed the river over some locally made contraption that felt like it was about to collapse at any instant but we made it. Finally Fanny and I got tired of wandering without knowing where we were going and turned around to go back while Julien and Florian pressed on. On the way back we quickly made it out of the forest and back to the main path so we were clearly not going the right way because we were weaving through the forest for an hour or two without finding anything. Relieved that we had found our way back to the main path, we stopped to talk with some village children and take pictures when we saw Julien and Florian coming back soon after. They said they went a little bit further but the forest was full of leeches so they turned around. We walked back to town and met up with Dominic who had turned back early in the trek and the four guys went to play some “boon”. The only time I had played this game was at a bar in Brooklyn and it was really fun. The locals take it very seriously and are very good. One of the locals asked if he could have some of my beer and he took a sip and spit it out onto his ball to polish it. There were two courts, the locals were playing on one and us farangs on the other. After a few games we went back to the guesthouse where mama made us some duck laap with cooked vegetables. It was very delicious and we quickly chomped it all down. At this point mama knew we were leaving the next day and was very upset. She gave us each a bracelet that she made for us. We relaxed the rest of the nigh. The next morning we got up early to catch a boat back to Nong Khiaw which form there we would catch a bus to Luang Prabang. We said our final goodbyes to mama, it was quite sad leaving her. It was the first time that I really felt part of a community. The previous night mama had showed us pictures of tourists who had sent her pictures and she also told us how a group of three tourists who had stayed at her place went to Luang Prabang to get menus made and lamenated for her restaurant and brought it back to her.

Mui Ne, Nha Trang, and Hoi Ann

2009-11-22T03:34:00.000-08:00

After Saigon and the Mekong Delta trip, I took a bus to Mui Ne which is a small beach town. Basically Mui Ne just consists of one long road along the beach with a bunch of resorts/guest houses and restaurants on it. A lot of the restaurants and resorts had signs in Russian because there are a large number of Russian tourists and also workers in oil. Mui Ne is also a world famous kite boarding destination, the best place in all of Asia. I met some of them and they are like a small cult, they live to kite. I considered taking a five hour class but the cost was a steep $200 and even after 5 hours you can't really do much, couple that with the fact that I don't know when I'll be in a place that I can kite-surf again so I decided it wasn't worth it. The first day I rented a bike for $1 a day and rode up the coast to some sand dunes that Mui Ne is also known for. I arrived at the sand dunes and there was an entourage of kids offering their services to me. The kids let you use a plastic sheet they give you and help you pack the sand on it. I picked a boy that had shown me how to get to the dunes and with him another girl about 13 came along with a younger girl and boy both about 10. I had my own personal crew of 4 kids that would get the sheet ready for me after each slide down the dunes. I went feet first, head first, and I tried to stand on it like a snowboard but every time I got down to a particular point the sheet would stop moving and I would fall over. I also got sand everywhere, in my shoes, all over my clothes, in my hair, in my underwear. Sand was absolutely everywhere. The dunes were fun for a little while but they weren't that big and it was scorching hot out and I had sand all over my body so I left after about half an hour. I paid the kids the agreed upon price but they kept haggling me to give them more, they asked for a tip. They did really help me a lot but we agreed on a price so thats what I gave them. On the way back the thing that holds the chain on the bike broke and I had to walk the bike back to my guest house which was about 7km away. It wasn't fun but I got to walk through the town and the local fishing village which was really cool. At the fishing village you can see hundreds of boats out in the ocean and local fisherman with nets bringing in the days catch. It was a beautiful spot to watch the sunset. I met an Israeli and Australian guy at the guest house and have been traveling with them ever since. There was a poker tournament at a local bar that night so we went to that and had a pretty good time. I should have made the last table but got beat on the river when I was all in. The next day I rented a motorbike to drive to another set of sand dunes which were farther away and were supposed to be bigger and better than the first. It was a spectacular ride along the coast about 25km long. When I got near the dunes I wasn't sure exactly where I was supposed to go but luckily there was a jeep tour heading there so I just followed the jeep over a dirt road for about 500m and reached the dunes. Again I "rented" a plastic sheet from a local kid and went out to try it. Unfortunately these dunes weren't that much better than the first so I didn't stay very long. The scenery there was very beautiful though. There was a kind of lake next to the dunes and you could also see the ocean in the distance. On the way back I picked up an old local woman who needed a ride and dropped her off a few km down the road. It was pretty cool being able to help someone after all when you are traveling you are constantly relying on the help of other people. I made it back to town in one piece and met up with Omer the Israeli and Luc the Australian for some drinks. My last night in Mui Ne was quite interesting but inappropriate material for this blog so you will have to ask me about that personally. Omer and I caught a night bus at 1:00am to Nha Trang, our next destination. I was able to sleep most of the way and we arrived in Nha Trang at about 7:00am.

After walking around for a while we bargained our way into a really nice room for $7. Overall accommodation has been a little bit more expensive in Vietnam than Thailand or Malaysia but when you are traveling with two people it makes it a lot cheaper. We really didn't do much our first day in Nha Trang, we just kind of walked around and explored the city a bit and walked down to the beach which was nice but nothing compared to the beaches in Thailand or even Malaysia. The next day we rented a motorbike and explored some of the sites of the city. We went to the Cham Towers. The Cham were the local indigenous people in parts of Vietnam many years ago. We also checked up the local market which was enormous. Just about anything you can imagine can be found at this market. Then we went to a Pagoda overlooking the whole town which was really nice. The most interesting part though was driving the motorbike, somehow I got nominated to drive and it was my first experience driving a motorbike in pretty heavy traffic. It is as crazy as it looks, now Nha Trang was nothing compared to Saigon but there were roundabouts and traffic going in all different direction and I was in the middle of it all. I pretty much only made right turns because I was afraid of turning left. As we were leaving the Pagoda it was getting dark out and it was rush hour but I got us home in one piece. Our nights in Nha Trang consisted of walking around for an hour or so deciding on where we were going to eat. Most of the restaurants catered to tourists and had Italian or Western menus along with Vietnamese food. One night I had a craving for pizza and pasta but was sorely disappointed with what I got. Western food, especially Italian food was just not the same so I vowed to stick with the local food. On our final full day in Nha Trang we went on a boat trip to some of the islands around Nha Trang which pretty much turned into a booze cruise. The crew drank more than any of the passengers and we ran out of beer pretty fast. I tried snorkeling for about five minutes but the masks and snorkels they provided sucked and there wasn't much to see anyway so the rest of the trip we just relaxed and talked with other travelers on the boat. They set up a little "floating bar" at one of the stops which basically consisted of a tire in the ocean with a board over it and one of the crew pouring out cups of wine. At the end of the trip the crew member who had clearly been the drunkest just hopped on his motorbike and drove him. At first I was appalled but then I realize that it is just a normal part of life here so I guess I had to be ok with it. On our final day in Nha Trang the weather turned sour. It was windy and rainy all day, the annoying kind of rain that just drizzles all day and doesn't go away. We walked around some more and stopped at a roadside barber for a shave and trim. There are barbers that just set up a chair on the street with all of their tools. They use manual clippers and no water during the shave and after about a weeks worth of facial hair it felt like I had each small hair being ripped from my face but I toughed it out and had a nice clean shave when it was all done. We took a night bus to Hoi Ann which was about 12 hours of trying to sleep but waking up every few minutes after hitting another pothole or crack in the road. Not only that but the bus was absolutely freezing so I only managed a couple of hours of sleep at best. Tired and disheveled Omer and I walked around for an hour before we finally found a hotel that was reasonably priced $8. Hoi Ann is a charming little town with a lot of history and character. It was like a breath of fresh air, gone were the sounds of motorbikes zooming everywhere. The whole town can be walked in 30 minutes but I liked it so much I stayed 3 days. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and there are many old buildings and temples all over the town. The Japanese and Chinese both had a heavy influence in Hoi Ann. Now it is best known as a tailors town. There are over 200 different tailors there and it is a great place to get shirts, suits, and jackets made but I skipped on that this time. I already had 3 suits made in Saigon 3 years ago. The part I liked about Hoi Ann the best though was the food. It was absolutely amazing. In fact I would say most of my time there revolved around food. Where was I going to eat, what was I going to eat? These were the most important questions of my day. I ate and ate and ate and ate until I couldn't eat any more and then I still ate more. There was fried wontons and wonton soup and co lau which is a noodle dish served with croutons, lettuce, and pork or shrimp. The noodles can only be made in Hoi Ann and are delicious. The bad weather followed us to Hoi Ann so it was rainy every day. Because of the weather I also ate a lot of Pho which was delicious. Also because of the rain it was like an excuse not to go out and do much so I could just eat more. Another specialty of Hoi Ann is white rose which is kind of like a shrimp dumpling but smaller. It was delicious. Hoi Ann itself is dissected by a river with the charming old town and all the restaurants all within a few blocks of the river. At night when it rained the river would flood and the street overlooking the river was impassable. Another highlight of Hoi Ann was the local market which again has to do with food. On one of the few occasions I wasn't eating I bought ten knock off polo shirts for about $3 each and went to the post office to mail home. The shipping charge was about $20, not too bad. The other best part about Hoi Ann was the nightlife. For an old quite town I wasn't expecting much of a nightlife and I guess with the exception of a few places there wasn't really but Omer and I had a bit of a unique experience. The first night we were in Hoi Ann we were just walking around when we ran into a Swedish guy who was going to a bar that he said had free rum and cokes from 9-12. We thought that sounds pretty sweet so we went along. This bar is the perfect definition of dive bar. There was markers for people to write all over the walls and a pool table in the middle and sure enough there was free rum and cokes from 9-12, the whole night I paid for one drink and it was less than a dollar. The next night Omer and I went back obviously and saw a sign on the wall that said: "Wanted 2 Westerners to help with the bar," or something like that so naturally we inquired about it. After talking with the owner he said if we passed out flyers and helped play music and dj we could have free drinks all night and free something else as well. So we said great we started right then and there. The owner drove us to his house gave us some flyers to pass out showed us where we could get free food the next day if we wanted and then drove us back to the bar. From there he gave us his motorbike to use and we went driving off passing out a flyer to any Westerner we saw. I made the mistake of walking into a competitor bar and passing out flyers there before quickly getting a talking to by the manager or something. We managed to convince a group of middle aged men and women to come and it turned out to be a really fun night. We got a ride back to our hotel by one of the employees at the bar and got up at noon the next day nursing hangovers. That day we went out to pass out some more flyers, we had a mission to fill up King Kong Local Bar as it was called. The problem was it was out of the backpacker area and kind of hard to find. You had to pass a bridge to get to the other side of the river which few tourists ventured to. But passing out flyers gave us a great reason to talk with other tourists and we developed a bit of a reputation amongst the locals as well who all knew who we were by the end of the day. That night we got a decent turnout although not as great as we would have hoped and actually went back to the hotel pretty early around 1:00AM. We said goodbye to the owner and other people at the bar as we were leaving the next day and once again one of the employees/motorbike drivers drove us back to the hotel. It was pretty damn cold out and raining and although it was only a 20 minute walk or so it would have sucked to make it. We were hungry though and our driver took us to probably the only place that was open at 1:00AM, which happened to be a pho place. Our driver waited as we gulped down our food were overcharged because we were tourists but it was so good we didn't care and drove us home. It was a great 3 days in Hoi Ann. I will miss the food but if I stayed there any longer I might have left obese.

Singapore and Vietnam

2009-11-10T06:43:00.000-08:00

When you think of Singapore, you imagine a clean and efficient city that sticks out in Southeast Asia like a sore thumb and for the most part it is true. Singapore is the business and financial heart of Southeast Asia. It is made of of majority Chinese although there is a large population of Indians, Malays, and Westerners as well. The official language is English and its clear to see English is quickly becoming the worlds language. It was nice to be in an actual city again. The subway system was extremely efficient and overall the city was very clean. Every time you bought a subway ticket you had to pay a $1 deposit and you could redeem it after your trip by putting the ticket back in the machine, a great way to minimize waste and recycle. I was lucky to find a Japanese guy living in Singapore on couchsurfing for my whole 4 day stay. Kuni, my host is really an incredible guy. He is softspoken and quiet but has traveled to over 100 countries including many in Africa. He lives in a luxurious but small studio/ 1 bedroom apartment and hosted 4 people every night. In fact he says in the last few years, rarely a night has gone by where he hasn't hosted at least one person. He truly lives for couchsurfing and I think for many middle aged men especially couchsurfing gives them a community to feel part of. You can never feel lonely with new people staying at your place every night but I don't know if I could do what Kuni does. He just moved to Singapore a week or so before I arrived and was already hosting people. I owe him a great deal of thanks. Not having to pay for a room made me able to enjoy Singapore a little more and not be so concerned with my spending. I booked a hop on hop off bus/boat tour and was able to use it for 2 days. So I hopped on and went around the city. I learned many interesting things, for one it is extremely expensive to buy/own a car in Singapore. You first have to pay for a permit just to be allowed to buy a car and then taxes are insane as well. It's something like $10,000 just for the permit. They do this to minimize traffic and pollution in the city and it definitely works. Singapore reminds me a little bit of San Antonio as all the action is on the riverfront. However the buildings in Singapore are a lot bigger and I would say the river is a little nicer.

I visited Chinatown which was just another Chinatown, nothing special, every big city has one and also the Asian Civilizations Museum which was very interesting. There are exhibits on the history of Southeast Asia as a whole and Singapore in particular as well as specific exhibits on Chinese and Indian history and the influenced they have had on SE Asia. It was a very interesting place but after a few hours your brain is on overload and you can't retain any more information. I also visited Sentosa Island, which is kind of a mini island with a bunch of attractions and amusements on it like an aquarium, different 3-d shows and other things. They only thing I wanted to do was the luge which is basically just this go cart type thing and you go rolling down a road. It was pretty fun but was over quickly. They also have beaches on Sentosa but it is not much. They ship in the sand from elsewhere, and it is not really paradise as there are many oil tankers in the ocean. I did, however, visit the southern most point in mainland SE Asia, which was on Sentosa. This too, however, was not very interesting, just basically a platform to overlook the ocean.

The next day I wandered through Little India which was right by Kuni's place. It was actually pretty interesting and authentic. I had some delicious chicken briyani and definitely want to learn how to cook Indian food when I get home. There was also a pretty neat Hindu Temple in the middle of Little India which reminded me a lot of India itself. Everyone inside was making offerings to the deities or something and there was a lot of music and gathering. I'm not really sure exactly what was going on, Hinduism is the one religion that confuses me most. For the rest of the day I just relaxed at Kuni's and that night I went out with Sven who was a Hungarian guy also traveling at Kuni's and about 20 other couchsurfers that we met. We went out clubbing in Singapore and I would say at least half of the people at the club were white. I lost Sven halfway through the night which sucked because I was relying on him to get us back to Kuni's. I like going to clubs now and then but overall it's not my thing. I have to be either really drunk or with good friends to enjoy myself and I was neither so I was ready to go home by about 2:00 AM. Unfortunately cabs are very expensive at that time so I ending up staying out with everyone till around 6:00 when the metro started running. Although Singapore is known as a clean city, when I left there was trash and beer bottles all over the place. The area we went out was called Clarke Quay and it is basically an area on the river with a large concentration of bars and clubs. It's actually a really cool area and a cool spot to go out because everything is close to each other, I just would have preferred a cool bar with maybe some live music. I made it back to Kuni's dead tired and luckily was able to get inside the gate as someone was leaving. I got inside and passed out on the couch and got about 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up for my flight to Saigon.

Saigon was the first place on my trip that I had been to before and I was curious what that would be like. Would I remember the streets at all? I first came to Saigon on Semester at Sea but when I got there this time it was completely different. I went right to the "backpacking district" and there was many hotels and restaurants catered to backpackers all over the place. I definitely didn't see this the first time I was here. It is very interesting because on SAS we mostly stayed on the ship so we avoided the main backpacker areas which was cool because it made things feel less touristy in a way. I didn't quite expect the amount of backpackers that I would encounter in Saigon. In addition to backpackers, there were many older tourists in Saigon as well, a much older crowd than Thailand or Malaysia for instance. I walked through the city trying to recognize streets I had probably been to before. I finally found a familiar spot when I saw a statue of a man on a horse and a kind of grassy park area near by. I had remembered being in that area the first time I was in Saigon. The first night I just wandered around and walked to Apocalypse Now, a bar/club that I had fond memories of. I found the club after walking around for about half an hour but everything seemed so different. I certainly don't remember seeing so many nice stores and buildings. Saigon has all the latest stores and even has a Louis Vitton. There was an opera going on in the opera house and a row of motorbikes lined up outside watching on a screen which was pretty cool. One thing I do remember about Saigon is the crazy traffic. There are really no street signals and there are hundreds of motorbikes going in all different directions. There are no crosswalks and to get across the street you just start walking and hope the motorbikes avoid you in time. I met up with another couchsurfer the first night, an English DJ/model type that seemed to have a lot of amazing couchsurfing experiences but who was not the type of person I would typically be friends with. Nice as hell but a little bit to into himself. We ended up at a club and I didn't feel like doing the club thing 2 nights in a row so I left early. I will so the girls in Saigon though are absolutely beautiful. I can see why so many westerners come here to teach and find themselves a nice Asian girlfriend. I don't know if I could do it and respect myself though. I had a lot of conflicting emotions and thoughts about the whole thing, my latest gf being Vietnamese and all.

The next day I visited the War Remnants Museum which I didn't get a chance to do the first time I was here. It was truly a powerful experience and the whole time I felt myself shrinking inside as an American. We really did some terrible things in the Vietnam War but it is really interesting because the Vietnamese that were for the South feel very grateful towards America, many escaped and lived there after the war but many old Vietnamese probably still hate Americans. The young people in Vietnam seem to hold no grudges against Americans though. My tour guide for my Mekong Delta trip which I will go into said Vietnamese have three prevailing opinions of Americans: 1) They all want to learn English so they think America is good, many want to go there 2) They just want all the world to live in peace now, and 3) The American military men had no choice of where they went, they were just following orders so most like Americans but don't like the American government which is perfectly understandable. The War Remnants Museum was very interesting with some graphic photos of the terrible affects of Agent Orange. There were also many photos of all the countries around the world protesting the war. I really don't know much about the war and the world opinion at the time but I am interested now to read a lot more about it. After the War Remnants Museum I visited the Reunification Palace which was the home of the President of South Vietnam during the war. Unfortunately it has not been taken care of very well and much of it was dirty and falling apart and overall it didn't really have an impact on me. The rest of the day I just relaxed and walked around and booked a 2 day trip to the Mekong Delta leaving the next morning.

On a sidenote, being in Vietnam, I definitely had to step up my bargaining compared to Malaysia and Thailand. In Thailand bargaining is friendly and cordial, they get offended when you get upset, in Malaysia there is minimal bargaining as everything is fixed price but in Vietnam if you don't bargain hard you will get taken advantage of. The prices they quote you are five to ten times the actual price you should pay so you have to bargain hard and usually if you walk away they will come chasing after you and agree on your price. The Vietnamese of made copies of pretty much every Lonely Planet book that exists and hundreds of novels as well so you can buy copies for cheap prices which is nice if you want a book to read and get rid of when your down but which wouldn't last for any prolonged amount of time. But the accomodation in Vietnam, at least in Saigon, is much more expensive then any other place I've been so far. Maybe it's because the high season is starting but I had to bargain hard just to get a single room for $10, most places wanted $15 or $20 which is a lot for this area. I hope other parts are cheaper.

Back to the Mekong Delta trip. First of all there are many different travel agencies in Saigon, I went to about five or six of them looking for the best trip but it turned out to be a complete wast of time because they all are the same. All the travel agents use the same company and everyone is on the same trip. So about twenty of us got on a bus and started our tour. Our first stop was My Tho and Unicorn Island an Island on the Mekong River where we saw a bee farm and had some honey and then saw locals making coconut candy. The candy was pretty delicious but pretty much the whole island had been set up strictly for tourists. There were merchants selling T-shirts and souvenirs and I felt like a cow just being herded from one activity to the next. We took a boat and went through some canals but it was all pretty touristy. The best part of the day was after lunch we were able to take bikes and explore the area on our own which was pretty cool. Then we got back on a bus for many hours and eventually on a ferry. The bus ride was pretty bad because half the people on it were just complaining about how long it was taking. I just wanted to punch some of them in the face. This is not Germany or Canada people, you're in SE Asia and you have to go with the flow. I was glad that I had signed up for the homestay option for $10 more because when everyone went to the hotel I was whisked away on a motorbike by my host. After about a half hour ride on the motorbike I arrived at my homestay. The place had been set up to host tourist about three years ago. There were separate rooms for tourists to stay and hammocks laid outside in the common area overlooking the river. Nonetheless, it was an authentic experience. The dad was the only one there for a while and I spoke to him for a while. He was a high school Chemistry teacher and had a 14 and 19 year old son. They came home a few hours later along with one of their friends who heard their was a foreigner staying tonight and wanted to practice his English. So I talked with him for a while and tried to help him with his English. He was trying to study in Singapore and had to pass exams to test his English and was having trouble. English was the way out for so many of these people in these countries the way to study in other countries and to make something out of their lives. Everybody wants to learn English these days, I guess I should be thankful that it is my first language. In Asia, with knowing English comes opportunity. You can work as a tour guide or in tourism in some other way. Everybody wants to know it. Kids and adults alike will walk up to you on the street just to practice. I could see myself teaching English for a year or two when I'm done traveling to try to help these people out. I realize that teaching English is really giving people opportunities and it would be a cool thing to be a part of. The maid or housekeeper served me a feast for dinner which could have easily fed five or six. The next morning Viet, my host lent me a bike and I biked up and down the path that he lived on. There was basically one long path with houses on either side and a river behind one side. Viet's house was right on the river. I rode to the local market and passed many houses on the way, I was able to observe real Vietnamese people in real life and see their houses. Nobody spoke English and I ended up sitting with a group of men having tea for a while which was nice. After my bike ride the maid drove me back to meet up with the rest of the tour group. The rest of the morning we took a small boat and was able to witness the largest floating market in Vietnam and maybe all of SE Asia. This market was as real as it gets, sure there were tourists there watching but the buyers and sellers weren't there for the tourists. The farmers come from all over the area and bring their fruits or vegetables by boat to the floating market. Our guide said if they were lucky they would sell everything in 3 days and then go back home and come back a few days later and do it all over again. Sometimes it took as long as a week to sell everything. Some farmers specialized in one thing, maybe pineapples or potatoes while others grew a few things. To let the buyers know what they were selling they put up a giant stick on the front of the boat and tied the fruit or vegetable they were selling to it. A very basic system of wholesaling. These farmers live on their basic wooden boats while they are waiting to sell their supply. It is a very basic life but a respectable one. Most of the Vietnamese men and all the farmers are in perfect shape because they are doing physical labor all the time, they all have six packs and perfectly proportional bodies. They know how to use their hands and build and fix boats, all things I will never know how to do. I respect their ability and almost envy them in a way. I could definitely live of the fresh fruits and vegetables that people in Vietnam and all over SE Asia by from their local market every day. After touring the floating market we visited a rice noodle factory and rice husking mill, both interesting places. They are pretty much small family owned businesses that just make the rice noodles and rice for that region. After lunch we returned to Saigon on a bumpy ride and after bargaining and checking out 6 or 7 hotels finally settled on one for $10 which was more than I wanted to pay but the best I could do. Tomorrow I go to Mui Ne which is supposed to be a nice beach town with world renowned Kite boarding and cool Sand Dunes. I am excited to explore the rest of this country with so much history and to talk to the people to learn more about the feelings about the current situation in the country.

This is going to be long.

2009-10-31T00:03:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the length but nobody is really reading these anyway so here goes.

Well it has been a while, sorry about that I just have been so busy traveling and having fun that I have been to lazy to write anything, so I apologize in advance for this being such a long post.

I guess I should jump right in. I last left you in Kuching, I awoke the next morning to catch a boat to Sibu and then from Sibu to Kapit and then onward to Belega hopefully. I had got many conflicting reports about if it was possible to get to Belaga. You see if the river is too low then boats can’t get from Kapit to Belaga. Unfortunately in this part of the world the only way to get the real answer is to just show up and see what happens. In the morning I met Thomas, a 39 year old avid German motorcyclist who had been recently laid off from his job and was traveling for a year before heading back to Germany. Thomas and I had a similar plan so we ended up traveling together for a number of days. We arrived in Sibu without any hitch and asked there if it was possible to get to Belaga from Kapit but nobody there knew anything so we just decided to get on a boat to Kapit and figure it out when we got there. The reason why we wanted to know if it was possible to get to Belaga is Belaga is known as a great place to stay in a longhouse for a day or two and also from Kapit to go further on you have to take a boat back to Sibu, so you have to backtrack. Well we finally arrived in Kapit around 4:00PM and soon found out that no boats were running to Belaga anytime soon because the river was too low. We were not to come all this way for nothing though, so we quickly found a hotel in the town of about 8,000 and I asked the receptionist if he knew of anybody that could set us up to stay in a longhouse. He quickly called his friend who hopped over on his motorbike and said that there were two options for longhouses we could stay in. The first was farther and much better, it would be a more “authentic” experience with the longhouses still constructed out of wood (most of them know are made of concrete) or a second cheaper option at his Uncle’s newer and more modern longhouse. After much negotiation we settled on a one night stay at the more traditional longhouse and were to leave the next morning.

In the morning, the ‘Chief’s’ son-in-law came to pick us up in a minivan and after about an hour and a half of driving over very curvy and rocky roads we arrived at the longhouse. It looked much the way you would picture a longhouse to look like, all made out of wood with many improvements necessary. Some planks were missing and some were clearly on their last legs. There were chickens everywhere as well as dogs. Inside the longhouse there were skulls hanging apparently of enemies killed about 100 years ago, head-hunting is no longer allowed. Some of the older members of the longhouse still had traditional tattoos all over their body but this practice does not really go on any more. Inside the longhouse there is just one big long common area and individual rooms or apartments for each family. There were about 20 rooms in total with about 100 people. We met our host family had the rest of the day basically just to chill and explore the house. There were kids running around everywhere which made it nice, I later learned that all the kids go to a school a few km’s away and live at the school during the week so we were lucky to be there on a weekend. The longhouse was an Iban (one of the local tribes) one and they still live a very simple life. It is quite sad though that much of life at the longhouse revolves around the TV. All the women after cooking and cleaning and any other duties just sit around with the kids and watch TV all day, and I mean ALL DAY. They really like Bollywood movies and know all the hit songs from America. The men in the longhouse go and pick fruit during the day and fish when it’s possible. They were climbing way up in trees picking longan’s (fruit that is a ball with a shell that you peel and inside kind of tastes like grapefruit but not quite as sour). The members of the longhouse then go sell the fruit and vegetables they grow at the market in Kapit. Thomas and I went down to the river to play with some of the children who were swimming and splashing around. The locals also all wash themselves and brush their teeth in the river. They take buckets filled with all of their toiletries to the river and do everything they need to do. The sad thing, though, is that they throw most of their trash in the river. You can see plastic wrappers, bottles, and everything else floating down the river or on the river bed. It is quite sad that people who live off the land do not treat it well. This is the problem with bringing things into the longhouse without proper education. The Malaysian government is doing a pretty good job compared to other countries to protect its little remaining jungle and natural environment but it takes education of the local villagers to really make sure that the environment lasts. Another interesting thing that happened while we were at the longhouse was some guys that worked for a power company in Malaysia were visiting the longhouse to take some measurements or something. They were trying to figure out how to connect the longhouse to the grid or if solar power was a better alternative. The government is actively involved in affairs at the longhouses.

That evening Thomas and I finally found a man who spoke English who told us a little bit more about the longhouse and the Iban people. We also found out that the longhouse has to accept tourists who want to visit but only get a little bit of the money. The government helps provide food and repairs to the longhouse and in return the longhouse has to accept tourists. However, travel agents who book tours get most of the money and only pay a little bit to the locals. Also we found out that it works on a rotating basis in the house meaning that each time a tourist comes to stay the next family or room is in charge of hosting them. Most of the longhouse people seemed happy to host tourists but it still seemed unfair that they were required to. The government is also trying to take the smart kids out of the longhouse and give them proper education and then put them back in as Chief of the house. The problem, though, is that when these kids see the real world many of them don’t want to go back to the longhouse as they can get jobs and live in modern life. The not so smart ones are left at the longhouse with the women and old ones. The modern longhouse is certainly not what it was like 50 or 100 years ago but life is still very simple and consists of old women weaving bags in the common area and the men gathering around at night to discuss the days activities.

The next morning we bid adieu to our hosts and went back to Kapit where we caught a boat back to Sibu. From Sibu Thomas and I took a night bus to Miri ,which was probably one of the worst experiences of my travels so far. For some reason I still can’t comprehend on any bus in Malaysia they turn the AC on full blast to the point it is absolutely freezing and it’s not just the tourists who are freezing all of the locals are as well. If you don’t remember to wear a sweatshirt you are in for an absolutely miserable time and even with one it is still very cold. So I tried to sleep while holding myself but needless to say I got very little sleep and was very happy when we finally made it to Miri.

We got to Miri about 6:30AM and waited about an hour for the local bus to come. The bus driver told us where to get off and we headed towards Highlands, a guesthouse recommended in Lonely Planet. Little did we know what we were in for. I had only one day in Miri as I was flying to Mulu National Park the next day so I wanted to make the most of it. I wanted to get to Niah Caves, which are supposed to be one of the highlights of Borneo. In these caves, a lot of archaeological discoveries were made including the remains of the first homosapiens in southeseat asia. The guesthouse had a trip going there and I asked the receptionist/owner about it. She told me the details and I said I would probably want to go. She asked me a short while later if I was still planning on going and I said I was thinking about it at which point she said there was no longer a trip leaving that day and I should take a local bus. She also yelled at me for eating toast for breakfast as my free breakfast was the next morning and not that one. She was the most unhelpful guesthouse worker/owner I have ever met. She would tell you wrong information and treated you like a child. Everyone I met at the guesthouse had the same experience with her as well. She was like the soup nazi of guesthouses, the guesthouse nazi if you will. Anyways since she was going to be no help, Thomas and I went to the tourist information center to get more information about Miri and how to get to the caves. We figured that it would actually be cheaper if we rented a car so that is what we did. I called a local car company and after a little negotiating we managed to get a car for 24 hours for 120 Ringgit which would have been the same cost as taking a bus and taxi to the caves but a lot more convenient. Better yet we found an Austrian girl, Lisa, who wanted to go with us so the cost was split three ways. The car was manual so Thomas had to drive because sadly I still don’t really know how to drive manual. It was so nice to have a car. We didn’t have to worry about which bus to catch, how much a taxi was overcharging us or what time we had to be back. We were on our own and could take as much time as we wanted. The drive to Niah Caves took about an hour and a half. The caves itself were pretty cool. We saw locals with a huge pole trying to get birds nest out of the cave which is considered a Chinese delicacy and goes for hefty prices. The caves were pretty impressive but I was unable to grasp how historic they were. One thing that I’ve found out on this trip is that I am actually really interested in history but only recent history, like the last few hundred years maybe a little more but ancient history dating back to BC I find very boring because I just have no grasp of it. I can’t put that kind of time into perspective. The caves were huge and one was called painted cave which had a few symbols painted on them. Somehow I was not very moved or enthralled though. We drove back to Miri after the caves and a stop for some dinner at a Malay food court kind of thing which are just different stalls of food. Malay food usually consists of either rice or noodles (mee) with chicken or seafood or fish of some sort and vegetables. It is pretty simple but good but I have found myself more often eating Indian or Chinese food in Malaysia. The diversity of food is really great. Because there are so many Chinese and Indians in Malaysia you an find the food pretty much anywhere. We arrived back to Miri and after a few drinks went to bed. I was unable to explore Miri much but it seemed like a pretty cool town with a surprising number of bars and karaoke spots.

The next morning Lisa, the Austrian girl, and I happened to be on the same flight to Mulu. I had booked accommodation at the dorm inside the park but she had heard from someone else you could do a kind of homestay for half the price outside the park so I figured I’d just do that with her. We arrived after just a 30 minute flight (you can only get there by boat, but it is a long and grueling journey and actually more expensive then flying). We found the homestay and had our own room which was nice. We also met a nice Dutch couple and helped them find a room next to us. After getting settled we went to the park headquarters and they pretty much set our itinerary for the next 2 days. Unfortunately in Mulu every cave has to be visited as part of a guided tour and there an influx of tourists, mostly package ones. Because of the amount of package tourists and the fact everything has to be part of a guided tour it seemed as though backpackers were avoiding Mulu. Although I also don’t like it when you have to go as part of a guided tour I think many people were making a mistake by missing Mulu. That afternoon we went on our first tour to Great Cave and Deer Cave. There really was no reason for a guide. The walk is a simple one over a plankwalk, one in which anybody can do. The caves were very impressive though, in my opinion much more than Niah. There were cool formations everywhere and one that looked exactly like Abraham Lincoln. The park was incredibly well maintained. Throughout the cave, there were little posts with information about the cave and species living within it. After visiting the two caves we sat in a waiting area waiting for bats to migrate out of the cave which usually happens around 5:00 or 6:00pm. Sure enough at around 5:30PM bats started coming out from the mouth of the cave in droves. They were flying together in a snakelike formation and for the next half hour to hour there was just a nonstop flow of bats. It was really a site to see.
There was absolutely no night life in Mulu so we had some dinner and went back to our room to watch a movie (don’t worry no hanky panky) and for some good conversation. Lisa had just finished med school in Austria and was traveling around for a while before starting work. It made it very helpful traveling with a doctor, one of my eyes had become all red and she gave me some cream to fix it up. The next day we went on another tour to two more caves, which were even more impressive then the first two. There were stalactite and stalagmites everywhere and water was running through the bottom of the cave. The cave formation process is really crazy, thousands of years ago a rushing river had formed the cave but once again it happened so long ago that I can’t really visualize the concept. After the caves we went on a Canopy Skywalk through the jungle much like the one with Teman Negara, this time with no camera crew though. It was cool to walk through the jungle and get a perspective about 20 meters high. Although we couldn’t really see much wildlife our guide explained a lot about the trees and plants that were in the jungle and how the compete for space to get sunlight and survive. After the skywalk Lisa and I went to check out a waterfall, this we didn’t need a guide for. It started pouring when we got there and we jumped into the river. It felt like a scene out of a movie, it felt pretty amazing. The waterfall wasn’t much but just swimming around the river felt great.

I left Mulu the next day and flew back to Miri while Lisa had a later flight to Kota Kinabalu. One very important thing I forgot to mention is that a few days earlier in Kapit, Thomas had told me about this mountain climbing competition on Mt. Kinabalu. Mt. Kinabalu is the tallest climbable peak in SE Asia, a little over 4,000 meters above sea level and is usually tackled in two days. The first day you climb about 6 km to base camp and the next morning you get up early to make it to the top before sunrise. It is a grueling and tiring climb. However, because the mountain is owned by a private company, it is extremely expensive to climb. After all fees for permits, guides, lodging, etc… it costs about $200 to climb. I really wanted to climb the mountain but didn’t want to pay $200 to do so. Thomas presented a perfect alternative. There was a race on the mountain on the 25th of October and only cost $35 to enter. The race was called the Kinabalu Climbathon and was part of a series of mountain races. All you had to do was go online and register so Thomas and I decided to do so and then we also told Lisa about it and got her to sign up (the women’s race was a day earlier). So we all agreed to meet again at Mt. Kinabalu for the race. I arrived in Miri about 1:30PM and had to figure out a way to make it to Brunei that night. I was tight for time because I had to make it to Mt. Kinabalu by the night of the 24th for the race. There was a local bus at 3:30pm to Kuala Belait in Brunei but then no further bus to BSB (the capital) where I needed to get to. There was also a bus at 4:30 to a different and new bus station straight to BSB but nobody seemed to know about this bus or station. I decided to risk it and try to see if this bus existed. The problem was there wasn’t a local bus running there until about 3:45 which would really be pushing it close. Taxis were charging hefty prices though so I decided that I would have to risk it. I got a local bus and explained where I wanted to go. The whole trip I kept starting at my watch hoping we would reach the bus station in time and hoping that there would be a bus. I finally arrived at the bus station at 4:20 but there was no bus in sight. I went over and talked to someone there who told me in limited English that the bus had left at 4:15, SHIT! I thought. What was I to do? I asked if there was any chance the bus could turn around but she said no, I finally was able to get someone to drive me to where the bus was for 20 R (6$). When we caught up with the bus, I got on and realized there was nobody else there. I was the only passenger. This bus was going to go all the way to BSB (4 hours) with nobody on it and they couldn’t turn around to get me! I was frustrated because I had to pay an extra 20 R but was able to get to BSB so that night which was the most important thing. I arrived in BSB around 6:00pm and found a place to stay for a quite expensive $22. There is not much to do in Brunei at night, alcohol is not allowed to be served anywhere so I took the opportunity to relax and buy some movies for a couple dollars each. The next morning I visited the royal regalia museum which was pretty interesting because it basically has a whole biography of the Sultan’s life as well as all of the gifts he has received from other countries. It also shows videos of his silver jubilee (25th anniversary as Sultan) which was quite extravagant. The Sultan of Brunei is one of the richest men in the world and for such a small country Brunei is very well off due to its oil reserves. I left Brunei later that afternoon on a boat for Paulau Labuan which is an island en route to Kota Kinabalu. I missed the last boat from Libuan to KK so I had to take a speed boat to another town and from there a bus to Kota Kinabalu. The bus to KK was an interesting one. The front of the bus had a huge TV and I had just bought a bunch of movies so the driver let me put one in. I chose Soul Men. At first it was just me and this other half Indonesian/American guy but then a flood of locals came on the bus and I felt bad because the movie had a lot of bad language and the driver was frantically trying to fast forward past the sex scenes. It was actually quite a funny experience. None of the local seemed to mind the movie to much and some even came up front to watch it.

I arrived in KK around 7:00pm and found a guesthouse. The next day I was going to the mountain so I wanted to get my rest. I chatted with some travelers in the guesthouse and told them about the race, they had all just hiked Mt. Kinabalu in two days and told me I was crazy for entering the race. They said it would take at least 7 hours to climb to the top. I was beginning to wonder what I was getting myself into. The next day happened to be the Governor of Sabah’ (Malaysian Borneo consists of two states, Sarawak and Sabah) birthday and there was a massive celebration on this huge field which was cool to see but I didn’t have much time to sit around and watch, I was on a mission. I caught a share taxi to the mountain and got there around noon. The receptionist at the guesthouse said that Thomas and Lisa were already there and had saved a bed for me. The day arrived was the day of the women’s race so I went to the park and just as I arrived Lisa was finishing the race. I found Thomas there as well. Amazingly Lisa had reached the top of the mountain in about 3 hours 40 minutes and finished 41st overall amongst the women, an amazing accomplishment. I soon realized what I got myself into. The majority of the competitors there were triathletes, ultra marathon runners, or compete in mountain climbing competitions. I was just an ordinary tourist wanting to climb the mountain because it was the cheapest way of doing it. Another dagger was that I found out that for the men if you don’t make it to the top in 2 and a half hours then you would have to turn back. The women got 3 and a half hours to the top which is how Lisa was able to manage up. They do give you a little wiggle room so they let Lisa continue because she was almost there. Thomas has arrived to the mountain a few days earlier and as a competitor was able to ‘train’ on the mountain for free so he had already climbed up the mountain once and it took him about 4 and a half hours to the top. I was beginning to realize there was no way I was going to make it up in the time limit, even professional competitors were worried they may not. I had nothing to lose though so I was going to give it my best shot.

Race Day

We woke up about 4:00AM, ate some breakfast and caught a shuttle bus to park headquarters and from there to the starting line. The race started at 7:00am. Most guys there were decked out in spandex shorts/pants, all looking very professional. They had special shoes, water holders, knees taped, the whole nine yards. I had on a T-shirt, some basketball shorts, and hiking shoes. There were about 170 men in the race and maybe ten of those were tourists like Thomas and I that were doing it just because it was the cheapest way to climb the mountain. The climb was 8.7 km to the top of the mountain, the total race was around 21 km because on the way back you have to come down a paved road an extra 4 km or so to the finish line. I was given a number to pin on, number 121, and just laughed inside. I felt like I was about to run a marathon with no training whatsoever which was pretty close to what was about to happen except this would be uphill the whole way for 8.7 km. The race started and I took a deep breath and started walking, I kept up with the pack for a little while and then people started to separate. The first 2 km were the toughest. I think I ate too much chocolate before the race and it hadn’t settled in my stomach. I was trying to keep a steady pace and not stop, my heart was beating faster than I have ever heard and it seemed like it was going to jump out of my chest at any moment. There was a marker every half km and you would reach the next one and think to yourself that was only a half a km, fuck! The climb was pretty much straight up the whole way with just a few places of leveling off allowing you to somewhat catch your breath. After about 2km I started feeling a little better and kept a constant pace, I passed some people who had passed me earlier but I was racing against time. There was no way I was going to make it to the top in 2 and a half hours. When I was about 5.5km up, I saw the first competitor come flying down the mountain. I mean he was literally flying running down the mountain as fast as he could, one wrong step would be serious injury. I reached 6.5 km at about 2 and a half hours and they made me turn back, I was able to get up to almost 7 km but there was a gate and they would not let anybody else pass it. I was extremely disappointed and pleaded with them to let me keep going but it was to no avail. To be honest I don’t know if my legs could have taken me any further. I started walking down the mountain just as it started drizzling, it stopped after a little bit but not before it had made all the rocks pretty slick. I was somberly walking down the mountain disappointed that I had come all this way but was unable to reach the top. But who was I kidding, did I actually expect to make it to the top in 2 and a half hours. I had no experience, no training, and was grossly out of shape, I should have been happy with how far I got but wasn’t. After sulking for a few km’s down I decided that I had to finish the race strong so I started running bits of it down. I saw people running past me with blue wrist bands (what they give you when they reach the top) and got a sense of motivation. I tried to run down as much as a I could and when I got to the paved road I ran the last 4 km’s to the finish line. I thought my legs would fail me at any moment but I made it in one piece. I found out later that the winner made it up and down the mountain in 2 hours and 40 minutes and only about 50 of the 170 entrants actually reached the top so that made me feel a little better. There was an awards ceremony after the race with a free buffet so that was cool too. Speaking to some of the competitors who do this sort of thing regularly most of them said that it was the toughest race they had ever been in and many of them said they were not going to do it again. These guys were incredible shape, some had calves the size of tree trunks. It was a community of people that all see each other at competitions like this or marathons. Just being around these people really motivated me to get into shape and start exercising more often. I also start an exercising routine but am never able to keep it up but I am determined to one day come back to Mt. Kinabalu and compete in the Climbathon again, this time reaching the top. Exercising is quite difficult to do when traveling but I will try to do as much as possible. I do walk a lot and go on hikes and treks through the jungle but will make a more deliberate effort to do so. Something about the race just started a fire in me. Looking back on it now I am proud on how far I was able to go. I really pushed myself to my limits, there was no way I could have made it to the top, I was in no physical condition for that but hopefully someday I will be. (By the way Thomas did not make it to the top either but there were a couple tourists who did, obviously they were in much better shape than I was).

After the competition I went with Lisa to some hot springs that were about an hour away. On the way we picked up some alcohol to enjoy that night. The baths at the hot springs took painfully long to fill but we were able to get some decent soaking time in which felt great on our sore muscles. We missed our ride back to Ranau (middle point between the mountain and hot springs) so had to pay a little more on the way back and then caught a bus a few minutes later back to the mountain. The bus ride was pretty scary. The road from Ranau to Mt. Kinabalu is quite dangerous especially at night. There are no streetlights and there is a one lane road going each way. Our bus driver would speed up to the car in front of it and then pass it on a blind turn. We passed by a pretty bad accident on the way but it did no deter our driver in the least bit, he kept passing trucks and cars 5 at a time. We finally got back to our guesthouse after what felt like a 3 hour ride (it only took half an hour). We enjoyed some drinks and celebrated the competition being over. The next morning I said goodbye to Thomas as we were going in different directions and along with Lisa and a Polish guy we met, Tomek boarded a bus for Sandakan. Tomek had arranged to stay with a guy from couchsurfing that night who said it was all right if Lisa and I stayed with him as well. Gordon, our host, picked us up from the bus station and took us out to lunch on him. After hanging out at an internet café for a few hours Gordon picked us up and drove him back to his place. We each had our own bed and it was so nice to not stay in a guesthouse for a night. Gordon was the best host you could possibly ask for, he left us alone in the house, let us do our laundry, which was much overdue for me and then took us out to a great dinner on the waterfront. I spoiled myself with some delicious chicken and lamb, which was a quite pricey $5, and we had a great dinner. This time we all chipped in to pay for Gordon’s dinner. The next morning Gordon bought us breakfast and drove us all the way to the Sepilok Orangutan rehabilitation center one of four in the world. Orangutans are a native species only to Borneo but are endangered because much of their natural forest has been cut down and logged for palm tree oil plantations. Also many of the local villagers take baby orangutans as pets and lock them up in cages, again going back to the lack of education. The orangutans come to Sepilok and they rehabilitate them so that one day they can go back into the wild. This process can take up to ten years or more. We got a chance to watch the orangutans at feeding time and saw three of them. They are so cute you just want to go up to one and hug them but they are quite strong. An adult male orangutan is four times stronger than an adult human male. I got to talking with one of the volunteers there who said that for a 2 month volunteer program he paid 3,000 pounds (about $5,500) and there was a 2 and a half year waiting list. Pretty crazy. It was really cool seeing the orangutan but there were so many tourists there with their cameras taking pictures it felt like a bit of a zoo. One very interesting thing I learned is that the word Orangutan is actually a Malaysian word that means “man of the forest”, “orang” means man and “tan” means forest. It never occurred to me that it was a Malaysian word but it makes sense because that is where they are found. There are less than 20,000 orangutans left in Borneo. I wanted to do some kind of jungle trip to see wildlife and Uncle Tan’s was supposed to be the best budget option. They have a 3 day 2 night wildlife camp with different river safaris and treks and is supposed to be good to see wildlife so I decided to do that. Lisa and Tomek had less time so they went to another town to try and do a 1 night jungle trek/safari. Gordon dropped Lisa and Tomek off at the bus station then took me back to Uncle Tan’s which was close to Sepilok. I can’t say enough about how wonderful Gordon was as a host. He is everything that is right about couchsurfing. He said that everytime he couchsurfed he had such a great experience so he felt it was necessary to treat his guests well and to show them around too. It really is a great pay it forward concept. He drove us around Sandakan showing us all the sites, took us to Sepilok even though he just waited outside and paid for our breakfast and lunch. He also let Lisa and Tomek keep their bags at his house for a few days. He was really the perfect host and I was very grateful to him. I left Gordon and joined the tour group at Uncle Tan’s there were about 17 of us.

After a 2 hour ride through the jungle and past palm-oil plantations we arrived at the Kinbatangan river (spelling?) and went on an intro river safari where we saw hornbills and kingfisher birds, long tail proboscis monkeys, macaques, and some other smaller animals. The accommodation was very basic huts but I didn’t mind. Some people could not sleep but I passed right out each of the 2 nights we were there. Over the course of 3 days we did 4 river safaris and 2 jungle ‘treks’. I wouldn’t really call them treks as we just walked a few hundred meters in the jungle but over the course of those three days we say an orangutan in the wild, a crocodile, a lot of insects and spiders, an owl that looked really cool, and a lot of monkeys and birds. It was pretty cool but also with such a large group felt like such a package. At no point was the experience really exhilarating. I would have liked to go deeper into the jungle and done a true trek but that just wasn’t possible. I’ve heard in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) there are much less tourists and you can do multiple day treks into the jungle with a guide on your own or with a few people. It was pretty amazing though to see that much wildlife, so amazing in fact that after a while you get tired of seeing monkeys. It is really cool to watch the monkeys jump from branch to branch and to watch sleeping birds perched on a branch at night not moving no matter how many pictures with flash are taken. I have seen things that most people would be so excited about but it is kind of like a catch-22. I have seen so many amazing things in my life and have been so lucky that only the most amazing things seem to really impress me and get me excited. I need to learn how to appreciate and be grateful for all the amazing things I am doing. I mean I saw an orangutan in the wild, how many people get a chance to see that? Not too many, it would just be more cool if it wasn’t part of a guided tour but what am I going to do, go trekking in the jungle by myself? The fact of the matter is that much of the natural habitat of many large animals is being destroyed by logging. The reason it was so easy to see an orangutan is because there is not much jungle for it to roam around in. The jungle is now in between palm-oil plantations which are visible all along the drive from Sandakan to Semporna. The only true primary forest left in Malaysian Borneo is in the Danum Valley which is very expensive to get to. However I think that would be more interesting to see. One thing Uncle Tan’s did have going for it though was the food. The food was amazing and was buffet style so naturally I ate way too much of it. French Toast in the morning, crab the first night for dinner, and food available pretty much all day long. All this eating finally caught up to me on the last day as we were leaving the jungle. I was in a truck with three others on the ride through the dirt roads back to the main road from which I could catch a bus to Semporna which was my next destination when my stomach started hurting real bad. I knew I had to shit because I hadn’t for the last two days (you wouldn’t either if you saw the bathrooms at Uncle Tan’s). I didn’t know how much longer I could hold it and my stomach was really starting to hurt so I asked the driver to pull over and proceeded to run into the jungle, squat down and take a huge shit. Luckily I had brought some toilet paper with me so I finished my business and put it in a plastic bag. I was gone for quite a while so naturally the rest of the car knew what I was up to which was quite embarrassing but I was never going to see these people again so I didn’t really care. We reached the junction and I caught a bus to Semporna when my stomach started acting up again. Once again I asked the bus driver to stop and went out to shit all over the jungle. I stayed there till everything came out and when I got back to the bus (minivan) everyone had moved away from me. I couldn’t help but laugh. I felt bad but I didn’t care because my stomach felt so much better and I passed out the rest of the ride.

People go to Semporna to dive on Sipadan which is an island about an hour from Semporna and is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for diving. Sipadan is a protected area with nobody allowed to sleep on the island and only 120 permits a day issued for scuba diving. They say you have to book weeks in advance to be able to dive on Sipadan but I arrived without any reservation. When I arrived in Semporna I walked in the wrong direction looking for a guesthouse and hordes of local kids came up to me and started asking my name and practicing their English it was really cool. They really like talking with tourists. When I finally found a guesthouse I walked around to all the SCUBA companies seeing if any had any open spots to dive Sipadan. Luckily I had found one who had an open spot the next day because someone had cancelled. The only catch was I had to take their name and sign in using their name because it was the one the permit was registered to, not a big deal. So I went to bed early and got up the next morning for 3 dives in Sipadan. I just completed my open water certification a few weeks ago and hadn’t done any diving since then so I was a little bit worried because I was going with more experienced divers but it worked out fine. Sipadan was truly amazing. Everywhere you looked underwater you would see a giant turtle or white tip reef shark. The first dive I probably saw at least ten different turtles and eight different sharks along with schools of barracuda and many other fish. You could see turtles just perched in a whole in the coral and could swim right up next to them, it was truly amazing. I haven’t dived at many places but I would imagine you would be hard pressed to find a place where you see more than Sipadan. Literally everywhere you look there is something amazing. By the third dive you were actually tired of seeing turtles and sharks, somebody would point to something and then you would be like oh its just another shark. By the end of the third dive though I was exhausted. I went out for dinner and ran into Lisa and Tomek who were diving Sipadan the next day. Here I am today the day after diving Sipadan. Today I am just relaxing and catching up on my blog which is long overdue. Tonight I am catching a nightbus to KK and then from there flying to Singapore on the third.

My time in Malaysia is almost at an end. I am truly going to miss this place but am ready to move on at the same time The people here are incredible friendly and accommodating. Nobody really tries to rip you off which is nice. Before I arrived in Borneo I pictured local indigenous people living in longhouses with tattoos and immense jungle with wildlife. Borneo is not quite what I had imagined as it is an incredibly modern place with cities and a lot of money from palm and fish oil but still has a lot of charm. I think Kalimantan is more of the Borneo that most people think of. Malaysian Borneo is now full of package tours and tourists and is well on the backpacking trail.

Melaka and KL

2009-10-15T00:23:00.000-07:00

The next day I walked around pretty much the whole city of Melaka. Melaka is a very cool city but not very big. It was conquered by the Portugese in the 1500's then the Dutch and then the English so there is a lot of history. Much Dutch architecture remains like churches and forts so I walked around that part of the city in the morning and learned a lot more about Malaysian history. After that I went back to Chinatown and ran into a Dutch/French restaurant and spoiled myself with a Dutch pancake with banana, chocolate, and vanilla ice cream all for a pricey 15R or so (about $5). I have realized that much to my dismay much of my traveling is focused around food. Instead of making sure to visit all the museums and sites I make sure to sample all the different kinds of food. I pretty much plan my day around eating which is kind of ridiculous. I really need to get better at that and just eat when I'm hungry and not at all hours of the day. After I ate I walked around Chinatown and went into some art galleries. Melaka is a really cool city because it is full of artists and galleries, it almost feels like Europe. I found a really cool gallery called The Orangutan House. The artist has different paintings of orangutans in bright colors, he has one creative piece showing the first right of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was a cool, funky little place. That night I went to Little India and had murtabak which is like chicken or lamb baked into Roti (bread). It was ok but not the greatest I've ever had. That was pretty much it for the day. I feel like I saw all of Melaka and was ready to move on.

The next morning after sampling some dim sum I went to the bus terminal where there are buses to Kuala Lampur like every hour. I caught the next bus and arrived in KL as it is affectionately called around 3:00pm. This was the first place on my trip that I couchsurfed so I was excited for that. I found my way to Tuchkus' place and was ready to check out KL. Tuchkus is Lithuanian and he lives with his gf from Lithuania as well. They just recently moved into a new house and it was perfect for couchsurfing as there was plenty of space. A Kiwi named James was staying/living there too. They were all really good people. I took the very convenient lightrail to Merdeka Square which is a central point in the city and walked around. I walked to the National Mosque but it was closed for tourists so I went to check out the Malaysian history museum while I waited. It was actually a really nicely done museum with four sections. The first going back to the ancient neolithic times, then the next talking about Malaysia before the Europeans came and ancient kingdoms, then the third European colonization and influence and the fourth was about Malaysian independence and Malaysia today. Unfortunately I was not able to see it all as I got there shortly before closing but it was still really cool. After that I went back to the National Mosque and checked it out. I must say a lot of mosques look very beautiful on the outside but inside they are pretty much all the same, just a large carpeted area for Muslims to kneel down and pray. They are pretty bare inside but it is pretty fascinating to actually watch somebody sit down and pray. After that I went over to Chinatown for dinner. Chinatown is the main tourist area and main attraction in KL. It has a street that is just filled stalls of knockoff clothes, shoes, watches, and dvds. Around Chinatown there are some Chinese restaurants obviously too. The best part though, was by far the fruit. The fruit in Malaysia but particularly KL is delicious. I tried mangosteen for the very first time and I was instantly in love. Mangosteen's have a red/purplish shell that you press into and then there is the white kind of flower looking part that you eat. It was so sweet and delicious that I bought and ate about 7 of them. Overall though I was not that impressed with KL after the first day. It seems like all the major cities in Malaysia are the same at least Penang, Melaka, and KL. They all have a Chinatown that is kind of the main point and a Little India as well but its kind of sad if Chinatown is always the highlight of a city.

The next day KL grew on me, however. There was a German girl that was also couchsurfing and I went out with her the next day. We first went to Batu Caves which is like 13km outside the city. Batu Caves is a series of Hindu cave Temples and they are quite spectacular. We only went in the main cave but it was enormous. We were surrounded by cave walls with a slight opening at the top leading to the sky. Inside were Hindu sculptures and pictures of Hindu God's as well as a Temple with people praying. Another highlight of the caves were the monkeys. There were monkeys everywhere, they were on the steps (243 of them) leading up to the cave and inside the caves themselves climbing the walls and eating coconuts. I tried to get to close to one and he showed me his mean teeth. One thing I forgot to mention is that on the way to the caves, the ticket person on the bus forgot to tell us where to get off so we ended up having to walk like a km just to get there. No big deal, though.

After the caves we went back to town and just started walking, exploring the city. We walked through the heart of the business district and this is where KL started to seem like a major city. There are skyscrapers everywhere. The Petronas Towers (Petronas is an oil company) was a few years ago the tallest building in the world, but have since been overtaken by a few others including Taipei 101. People were walking with purpose down the street on their lunch break from work although few people were full suits or ties because its so damn hot. There is evidence of globalization everywhere; Mcdonalds, Starbucks, and 7-11 line the streets and people were walking around with their coffees. It was interesting to see Muslim women with head scarves in a business suit and it is the first place in Malaysia that it actually seemed like people had important and business related jobs. We sample some sweets in Little India (I have discovered that I love Indian food but hate Indian sweets) and then went back home to Tuchkus' house. The area where we were staying was really cool but it was not in the heart of the city and was more residential. Tuckhus lived in a neighborhood with mostly Chinese and there were the neighborhood food stalls that people met at in the evening to have a coffee or mee (noodles). There was one place that had seat outside and showed a movie. So we went there for dinner and relaxed. It also had free wireless which was a plus. That evening we also were able to catch the end of a weekly market that is held in the neighborhood as well. There was more fruit and weird Malay/Chinese sweets. The mangoes that we got there were probably the best I've ever head. They were so juicy and delicious. The rest of the night we just sat around talking about traveling. There was a map of Asia on the floor that we were all just staring at in wonder deciding where we wanted to go next. Even though we all were from different countries we all felt like we had so much in common, much more in fact than most people from our own countries. We were all travelers and all understood desire to see the world and to get away from the routine. My first thoughts of KL were not that great and although I don't think I'd ever live there, I left with a positive feeling about it and I'd go back, just for the fruit if nothing else.

So the next day I flew to Kuching in Malaysian Borneo. My time in peninsular Malaysia is over and I think just in time. I feel like I saw much of Malaysia, beaches, cities, and jungle and was ready to move on to something else. Borneo although still Malaysia should be a bit of a different experience.

I arrived in Kuching and was immediately pissed off because they had stopped public bus service to the airport so I had to pay for a taxi to get downtown. Driving through downtown I realized that this was a very modern, contemporary city with riverfront hotels and restaurants. Kuching is a good gateway to Borneo and definitely has a different feel than peninsular Malaysia. Malaysian Borneo was run by James Brooke who was British for many years so the city has a decidedly European feel to it. I tried ti enquire about maybe a longhouse tour or something but its the off season for tourists and you need a minimum of 2 or 3 people for many of the tours, so if your traveling by yourself your SOS. Thats ok though I took the time to relax and walk around Kuching. Again there is a Chinese and Indian area but are not the center of attention like other Malaysian cities. Kuching is a very clean and nice town. Unfortunately people, myself included think of Borneo as a mass of jungle with indigenous people who live in longhouses and have tatoos all over their body. Well good or bad, those days are pretty much over. Modern longhouses are built out of concrete and have electricity and satellite TV. The traditional wooden ones are pretty much just for tourists. Even so I still would like to see how the Kenyah, Kiyan, and Iban tribes live today. Tomorrow I am taking a boat to Sibu and will see if maybe I can set up a longhouse visit there.

Prehentians and Taman Negara

2009-10-10T18:51:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened since I last left you. First on my final night in the Cameron Highlands I got really sick off some bad Indian food and was running to the bathroom every hour or so. I felt really bad for the other people staying in the dorm with me but thank god that the bathrooms were separate from the room. I’ll spare you the gross details but I finally managed to puke/diarrhea everything out. I was to catch an 8 hour bus the next morning to the Prehentian Islands and I was worried I would not feel enough to make it, either that or I’d shit myself on the bus which may lead to a great story on embarrassment but not one I really care to happen.

I made it to the Prehentians without any incident sticking to bread and plain rice on the way. The Prehentians are truly amazing. You have to take a very bumpy half hour or so speedboat ride to the islands from the mainland but the bruises on my ass were well worth it. Everything you picture a tropical paradise island to be, the Prehentians was it. It looked like a postcard had jumped off the paper and come to life. There are no motorized vehicles of any sort on the island and power is run by generators and shuts off for a few hours each day. I spent five days on the island but could have spent many more. Time just goes away, I had no idea what day or time it was the whole time I was there. The only bad thing about the island is that food was really expensive and not very good (when I say expensive, I’m talking about like $4-5 for a meal instead of $2-3) because everything had to be brought from the mainland. The interior of the island is all jungle and on a sunny day you could have your path blocked by a monitor lizard. There were all kinds of lizards, geckos, and other reptile looking things whose names I do not know. I finally got my open water Scuba Diving certificate and SCUBA Diving was really cool. I saw 2 stingrays, some huge bumbhead parrotfish, angelfish, moray eels, and numerous other fish whose names once again I have no idea of. The highlight of the islands though was a snorkeling trip. There I saw five or six blacktip reef sharks, two huge turtles, and numerous other fish. It was really awesome. I also met some cool people staying in the same dorm as me, one of which was Israeli and he told everyone he was Greek because Israeli’s are not allowed in Malaysia (he also had a German passport). I’ll have more about him later. I could easily see how some people wind up on the island and never leave. So many people come to the Prehentians or islands in Thailand and just stay and become dive masters and live there for a few years. The Prehentians close down completely for about four months out of the year due to monsoons so 8 months on the island, 4 months off. Not a bad life. I don’t know if I could do it, I need more intellectual stimulation but it is a pretty stress free life that many would envy. There were many Western girls living on the island who had taken up local boyfriends, which was pretty funny. There’s not too much more to write about the Prehentians because not much happens there. It is just a relaxing beach getaway where time tends to melt into the sand. There is little nightlife to speak of just a few bars with overpriced alcohol and I got there towards the end of high season so it seemed to be much less busy than usual, although there were a lot of Chinese tourists staying at another part of the island. A little bit more about the islands, there is a small and big island. The big island is more touristy and full of resorts while the small island is where the backpacker ghetto or hangout area is called Long Beach which probably has the most beautiful beach of any place on either island. There a row of restaurants and chalets on long beach and that is pretty much it. I definitely recommend anyone going there if they have the chance.

It was hard to leave the Prehentians but I wanted to see a few more places before my flight on the 14th from Kuala Lampur to Borneo (part of Malaysia but different island). I ended up traveling with the Israeli guy I met, his name is Omri, to Taman Negara which is the oldest jungle in the world and a National Park in Malaysia. We took a minivan/bus to get there. So far the bus experiences in Malaysia have been pretty good, no crazy stories. On the ride to Taman Negara though I did fear for my life a few times. Our bus driver would speed up right to the edge of the car in front of him before he quickly slammed on the breaks he would continue to do this tailgating the car in front of him the whole time until there was an opportunity to pass. In Malaysia they have suicide lanes, that are used for passing in either direction but these lanes are on the Highways not just streets, so it can make for an exciting passenger experience.

We made it to Taman Negara in one piece and found a dorm for 10R a night. (About $3) There was a river that separated the National Park from the town. On one side of the river was the park with its own accommodation and restaurant that were much more expensive and on the other side of the river were all the cheap guesthouses and floating restaurants, literally on the river. The only catch was every time you crossed the river from one side to the other you had to pay 1R. This was about a 30 second boat ride and although 1R is nothing, it was still a bit ridiculous. The first night we just kind of walked around the town and relaxed so we could get up early and explore the park the next day.

We went to the park the next day and the first thing we wanted to do was the canopy walk which is a walk about 10 stories across a canopy walkway that lets you get a different and higher view of the jungle. It is supposedly the biggest canopy walk in the world. Anyways we got to the walkway at around 9:00AM and were greeted by a Malaysian film crew of like 20 people. They were shooting a film/video for one of Malaysian states/provinces to promote development in Malaysia. To do that they were showing some different tourist sites of that particular province of which Taman Negara happens to be a part of. They wanted to film us walking across the canopy so we happily obliged. They gave us water and refreshments and also paid our 5R entrance fee for the canopy walk. They also gave us props to hold, Omri had some binoculars and I got a video camera that didn’t work. They wanted to film us walking along the canopy pointing at things and using our props with big happy smiles on our face. We finished that and were about to go exploring more in the jungle but then they said they were going to an Orang Asli village (Orang Asli means local people, they are basically nomads who live in the jungle moving from place to place) and asked if we wanted to join. We had wanted to do this anyways and a tour would have been 40R so we happily went along. There they filmed us some more talking with the village chief and kids and there was a scene where they showed us how to make fire. It was kind of ridiculous just showing up and shoving a huge camera in these people’s faces. They were simple people who lived off the land and we were treating them like a circus act. But they didn’t seem to mind too much and the kids love it when you take pictures of them and then show them the picture so I did this a lot. We also learned how to shoot a blowgun, which they use to catch birds and other small animals. I hit the bullseye on my first shot, I’m a natural clearly I’m ready to live in the jungle. After the village the film crew asked us to go with them to some “big tree”. Omri and I realized then that they did not want just a few shots with us but that this was going to be a whole day affair and that we were the stars of this video. The irony in all this is hilarious. Omri and I were laughing about it all day. Omri is Israeli, he only got to Malaysia because he also has a German passport but he speaks no German and spent his whole life in Israel. Israeli’s are not allowed in Malaysia or any other Muslim country pretty much because they have no diplomatic relations with Israel. But yet here he was an Israeli, being used as a posterboy to promote tourism and development in Malaysia! The irony could not be greater. This video that we were making was going to be shown in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries to promote development and one of the leading roles is played by non other than an Israeli! That is just too funny. Anyways the day continued, we went to this big tree took a couple of shots than had free lunch which was awesome. The last scene I was not a part of because I did not look the part of businessman with my beard. Omri however, was perfect for it. They put Omri in a business suit and he was to shake hands with a Malaysian man to make it look like he had just bought the whole National Park. They had a makeup ladyboy for him and everything. Finally they got the last shot and our day was done. We had seen pretty much everything we wanted to see that day in the park and didn’t have to pay for any of it. I forgot to mention after the “big tree” we stopped in these caves which was really cool. You had to crawl through these narrow crevices in pitch black and there were bats everywhere. With bats, you have bat shit of course and it got all over us. We made it out alive though and without any snake sightings, thank god. So the end of the day came and our work was done. Omri and I were to be stars in Malaysia. The best part was, the director came over and gave us 150R each (about $45) for our days work. I had to sign for it and everything, it was official. That is the best part about traveling. Things like this just tend to happen sometimes, especially in Asia. Omri and I had some dinner and laughed about our hilarious day. I gave the director my email address so hopefully he emails me when the movie is finished.

Omri left the next morning and I was on my own again. I decided to stay in a hide in my last in Taman Negara. Hides are these wooden huts out in the middle of the jungle when you can go and stay a night or two. They are meant for seeing wildlife at night, as this is when everything comes out. The hide overlooks an area of the jungle and you are supposed to just go and sit there trying to see wildlife. Well I got all of my supplies; I rented a very thin mattress pad from the guesthouse and bought food and water and made my trek to the hide. It had rained the night before so the jungle was a bit muddy and with mud and water come leeches. I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to pull off numerous leeches from my feet. It was pretty disgusting. I was wearing my Keen’s which is like a sandle-shoe with a hard sole but open areas on the top which are probably the worst thing to wear when leeches are present. The leeches were able to slide in the open areas but then I couldn’t see them because they were on my toes covered by the front of the shoe-sandle. Leeches are not dangerous but they do draw a lot of blood and both my feet were pretty much covered with blood by the time I finally made it to the hide an hour and a half or so after my trek started. I made it to the hide at 3:30pm and had hours to kill before sunset. I hiked around for a little longer but the leeches were really starting to piss me off so I went back to the hide and just tried to kill time. There were twelve rock hard wooden bunk beds at the hide but apparently I was the only one staying there on this night. Time moves so slowly when you are bored and by yourself. I would pace around and think then look at my watch thinking half an hour had gone by but it was only two minutes. The next few hours took an eternity to go by. I would plan for each half hour or so to do something. I could eat my dinner at 6:00, eat a cookie at 6:30, go to the bathroom at 7:00, etc… Finally the sun went down and it was just the jungle and I. The jungle really does turn into a different thing at night. The birds and insects of the jungle serenaded me and the fireflies gave me a spectacular light show. I shined my flashlight throughout the trees and grass but could not really see anything. I sat on the bench for two hours listening and watching the jungle trying to make out the shape of animals. I saw nothing but fireflys, bats, and geckos though and they were all in my hide. I thought too myself that this would be pretty incredible on psychedelic drugs, then I would be sure to see some tigers and elephants heck I’d bet I’d even see some lions and crocodiles too but alas I could not trick my brain to believing that I was and I saw nothing. After a few hours of watching pitch darkness I finally could not take it anymore and attempted to sleep. My thin mattress pad did not do much to make the rock hard bed more comfortable and I spent the next few hours rocking and rolling trying to fall asleep. I finally did manage a few hours of shuteye and fell asleep to the sounds of the jungle. I woke up at around 6:00 and had to wait an hour or so before sunrise at which point I packed up my stuff and made the hike back to the guesthouse. I got there at around 8:30, was able to take a shower and clean all the blood the leeches had left and said my goodbyes to Taman Negara.

I boarded a bus to Jerantut at 10:00, then took another bus to Temerloh at 12:00, arrived there at 1:15 and had to wait until 5:00 to catch the next bus to Melaka where I arrived at around 10:00pm. All in all it was a twelve hour trip and I had wasted a whole day traveling but it happens and I’ll try to plan better next time. I arrived in Melaka and saw what I can only describe as pimped out trishaws. A trishaw is a bicycle with three wheels and a seat in the back that fits about two. It is a form of taxi. These trishaws had glittering lights all over them, music blaring and were just really a crazy site. It was Saturday night so that means there was a huge nightmarket in Chinatown so I walked up and down the main street sampling some nonya (fusion of Chinese and Malay) cuisine. From what I’ve seen so far Melaka looks like a pretty cool place. Tomorrow I will go to Kulua Lampur for a few days. I’ll let you know all about it. Until then take care and word to your mother.

Malaysia

2009-09-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

So I figure that if I'm going to take this blog thing seriously I have to post more often. My first three posts I tried to fit in everything that I'd done in weeks into a blog and ended up just rambling on but not really describing anything. So I will try from this point forward to post more consistently and maybe even add some photos.

I arrived in Penang, Malaysia after an 18 hour train ride from Hat Yai, Thailand. Hat Yai itself was an interesting town, with a mix of Muslims, Thai's, and Chinese. I saw maybe three other foreigners when I was there which was pretty cool but other than that there is not much more worth mentioning. The train was pretty smooth and no crazy stories to mention from there either. In fact I haven't had one ridiculous story yet. I guess life is not as interesting when you are not drinking so much. I haven't had a drink (alcoholic) in 2 weeks.

The train arrived in Butterworth, Malaysia but nobody stays there for very long as there is a quick ferry ride to the island of Penang with Georgetown being the capital. The train arrived at 10:00pm and walking through the streets of Georgetown I could instantly feel like I was in a different country. The Malays have a much darker skin tone than the Thais, many of them look very similar to Indians. As I was walking through town, I could sense the culture of the place. There were Chinese food stalls all over the place and Muslim and Indian restaurants as well. I could already tell I would be doing a lot of eating here. I found a guesthouse that was sparkling clean and called it a night. The next day I was able to see the town in the light and it was even cooler. There was such a mix of Malay Muslims, Chinese, and Indians. Penang has much history as a trading port and the diversity could clearly be seen. It has also been designated as a world heritage site recently. I just walked around town taking everything in for a little bit. I had heard about a lion dance competition that was being held there while I was there as well from someone on couchsurfing. So I went over to watch that and I am very glad I did. It was pretty incredible the daring and skill it takes to do that. There are numerous poles in a straight line some one across some two across, each one with a surface enough for one person to stand on comfortably. Two people go under this lion outfit, one is the head, the other the body and they jump from pole to pole while putting expressions on the lions face. It is like a mix of dance and gymnastics. It requires incredible strength and flexibility as well as athleticism. While the lion is jumping around the rest of the "team" is playing drums and symbols. You are judged on the difficulty of your routine, coordination of drums and lion, and expression and movements of the lion. It was pretty awesome to see. They only have this competition once a year and teams from all over Asia participate. I just happened to be there the weekend it was held.

After walking around for a bit after the lion dance competition I went up to Penang Hill which is this big hill on the island that is supposed to have a really amazing view of Georgetown. You can hike up which takes about three hours but I decided to take the railway up because it was getting close to sunset and I wanted to be on the top for that. Unfortunately you couldn't really see the sunset but when it became dark you could see the lights of the city and the water which looked pretty cool. That night I went to have dinner in Little India, which is basically just a bunch of Indian restaurants and shops that are blaring Indian music that sell Bollywood movies and CD's. It definitely feels like you are in India and the food was absolutely delicious all for about $3. I didn't skimp on anything, I went all out. Mango Lassi, Roti Canai, Pujabi Chicken, and a Horlicks (I was intrigued because I saw this on the menu everywhere but had no idea what it was. It is some kind of warm milk/coffee drink that is supposed to help you sleep) it was actually pretty good.

The next day I went to the second and final day of the lion dancing competition, the defending champing from Malaysia won again. For the next four or five hours or so I sat inside a Chinese food shop in a mall with some local couchsurfers just talking. The locals were both older, one probably in his 40's the other in his 60's and I learned a lot about Malaysia history and culture. The Muslim Malays control politics and the Chinese and Indians have very little representation. I also learned about the 1969 race riots in where officially a hundred and some, unoffically a couple thousand Chinese were killed. It is pretty interesting because usually the Chinese in other countries control all the business and are the upper class but it is not the case in Malaysia. Because of the conversation I missed out on some other sights I wanted to see but it was definitely worth it.

The next day I caught a bus to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The Cameron Highlands are in the middle of the country is known for its rolling hills, tea plantations, and jungle walks. It was much cooler in Cameron Highlands than Penang or anywhere in Thailand I had been which was nice. The two days I have been here were raining off and on the whole time but that didn't take away from it. The owner of my guesthouse kept trying to persuade me and everyone else to do the full day tour run by the guesthouse but I figured I could go exploring on my own. So I went through a hike in the jungle to the top one of the highest points in the area. It was quite the trek, all uphill and I didn't see anyone else on the way which was pretty cool. It made me feel like I was discovering this jungle for the first time except there was a clearly marked path. I finally got to the top but could not see anything because it was so foggy, but thats ok I saw some spectacular views elsewhere. After the hike I was really tired and took a different path down. I wanted to visit one of the tea plantations after that but I misjudged how far away it was. I started walking towards the tea plantation which is on a side road that goes through the rolling hills. It was really beautiful, you can see tea leaves all over the hills and beautiful flowers as well. I was really considering hitchhiking as this seemed like the perfect place but couldn't bring myself to do it. I didn't need to as a nice Malaysian family stopped and offered me a ride the rest of the way. I got to the plantation and unfortunately they weren't doing factory tours because of the weather but I still got to drink some delicious tea and feast on an assortment of sweets. After my experience getting a ride I decided to grow a pair and hitchhike back to town which was about 9km away. I got a motorcycle to the main road and then two Chinese men drove me past the town I was going and the next town after because I figured mine as well check it out. So I went to a local strawberry farm. The farm itself wasn't that interesting but the food was. I had a strawberry muffin with ice cream, fresh strawberry juice, and strawberry hot chocolate. It was a feast of strawberries. They even have strawberry n'aan at the Indian restaurants here. After that I walked most of the way back to my guesthouse but again was offered a ride when I was almost there. It was about 6:00pm at this point and I was exhausted so I took a nice hot shower and then went out with some people from the guesthouse for dinner.

Today was my last day in Cameron Highlands. I took a bus then hitched a ride (I'm beginning to really enjoy it) to another tea plantation owned by the same company, BOH (the biggest in Malaysia). This plantation was more touristy and they had signs throughout explaining the history of BOH and how they produce their tea, there was also a ten minute tour of the factory. The teahouse itself where you can sit and drink tea overlooks hills of tea leaves. It was quite the amazing sight. In fact all of Cameron Highlands is an amazing scene of rolling hills and jungle. After the tea factory I had planned to walk/hitch a ride to Gunnug Birching the highest point of Cameron Highlands and also famous for its mossy forest which apparently is like something out of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. It was 5km uphill to the place though, I couldn't hitch a ride, I was utterly exhausted, and it was foggy, so I thought better of it and hitched a ride back to the guesthouse where I am now.

A note about hitchhiking. I certainly wouldn't do it everywhere and I still haven't done a long distance journey hitching. I would like to but don't know when it will happen because I can imagine that there is nothing worse standing on the side of the road in the pouring rain waiting for a ride. I think Cameron Highlands is absolutely the perfect place to hitchhike for the first time and to hitch in general. There are side roads to tea plantations that are very long walks and friendly people more than willing to give you a lift. There is one main road so you just stand on the side of the road you're going and wait for someone to pull over. The farthest distance I hitched was only about 14 km, not very long at all. I've heard and can attest that Malaysia is a very hitchhiker friendly country. It was fun to do it, but of course I'm not going to do it everywhere I go. In this case it was the easiest way of getting around, as there are not really public buses and the only alternative is walking a long way.

I was planning on going to the Prehentian Islands next but I heard a monsoon might be coming through there so I may have to change my plans. I guess next time you'll figure out where I went.

Thailand

2009-09-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

So the font on my last post was totally messed up. Sorry about that, actually nobody has read it so I don't really have anyone to apologize too. It's ok, Taiwan seems like a distant memory now. I have been in Thailand for a little over three weeks now and it has been great. I see why they call it the "land of smiles". Everybody seems to be happy and not stressed but there is something deeper that I will get to later.

My first four days I stayed at this place I found on couchsurfing called The Overstay. It is a very interesting place which consists of part bar/part hostel/part art studio/part squathouse. Basically there are 10-15 people that stay at this place every night, some on couches, but most on mattresses sprawled all over the fourth floor (It has 6). I definitely met some interesting people there but after four days my foot was covered in about a 100 bug bites and the conditions were not the cleanest so I decided to try my luck on Koh San Road. Koh San Road is a backpackers haven. Bangkok has been called the gateway into southeast asia because it is different enough than the West but has most of the luxuries of home. Koh San Road is the epitome of this. It is a road filled with nothing but guesthouses, restaurants, bars and street vendors selling various clothing and souvenirs. Some people come to Bangkok and never leave Koh San which is sad because what is the point of coming to a new place? During my time on Koh San, I had a few interviews for an English teaching position. It's a real pain in the ass to have to live out of a backpack and put on nice clothes for an interview. Also the second you step outside you instantly start sweating and by the time I arrived at these interviews it had felt like I just took a bath in my own sweat. Thailand is HUMID. After coming from the dry heat of Arizona for five years, this is going to take some getting used to.

After about a week in Bangkok, three of my friends from semester at sea arrived, Jen, Randi, and Tim. It was nice to see some familiar faces and we had a great time traveling around Thailand. We went to Chiang Mai in the north where we had a fun elephant riding, white water rafting and bamboo rafting experience. Bamboo rafting which is supposed to be calm and relaxing where you just sit aboard a bamboo raft and move slowly down a calm river turned about to be the most dangerous activity of them all. I somehow was nominated to steer which basically means putting a big long bamboo stick in the ground to point yourself in the right direction. Well one of the bamboo shoots? (logs) was loose and my leg slipped so that it was stuck between two shoots. It was quite the hilarious yet painful experience. I should also mention our guide on this days experience. He spoke broken English but we could understand him. One of the activities on our tour was a hike through the jungle to a waterfall. Throughout the hike our guide would hide behind trees and bushes and jump out and try to scare us. He would also throw rocks in our direction pretending like it was a monkey. He did scare us a couple of times but he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world. I guess if you do the same thing day after day you have to think of other ways to keep yourself entertained. We also had this German guy as part of our group, and for whatever reason our guide would not stop touching him throughout the tour. Let's just say the German got pretty agitated and I thought it was going to come to blows, but thankfully it did not go that far. Rafting was our last activity and the whole ride back it was pouring. We were riding in the back of a pickup truck that has a top and two benches in the back, these all serve as buses in parts of Thailand. Riding through the jungle was a really cool site to see as well as watching the crazy Thai motorcycle drivers behind us. (Sidenote. In Thailand and the rest of SE Asia the motorbike is probably the most common form of transport. It is not uncommon to see a whole family, dad driving, wife in the back, and small child in front on one. The kids start driving motorbikes at like 8, it's really crazy.

That night in Chiang Mai we went to a Muay Thai fight. I was really looking forward to it, but it turned out to be more of a circus show. All of the fights were between 13-15 year old kids. 99% of the crowd were foreigners and the announcer lady would give someone in the crowd the microphone to commentate the fight each round. It was kind of a cool idea but I would have preferred to see a legit grown men fight.

After Chiang Mai we hit up two islands in the southeast, Ko Phagnon where the famed full-moon parties are, and Ko Tao. The highlight of Ko Phagnon was renting motorbikes (more like scooters) and riding around the island. There is a stretch of road right by the main beach where the backpackers go and where we were staying that is nothing but huge hills and one of the motorbikes couldn't make it up one of them with two people. Thankfully ours (Jen and I) didn't have that problem.

Ko Tao was had more of a chill vibe and is known for SCUBA. There are 40 or so odd SCUBA operators though and many people go there to get their SCUBA certification. We weren't certified so we went on a "discover dive" which is a legit dive you just don't go any deeper that 12 meters. It was a really awesome experience. Getting that perspective and being under the sea like that, seeing the fish swim in front of your face was truly amazing. On our second of two dives though, as I was going up to the surface, I took a breath and didn't feel like I was getting any air. When I reached the surface I checked my air guage, and I had indeed run out of air! It was a pretty crazy experience. I don't know what went wrong because all my friends guage showed a 100 and mine was at 0. I told our guide and he just kind of shrugged it off. Well I made it out safely but it was a scary thought knowing that I had run out of air, not scary enough to discourage me from going again though, just have to keep a closer eye next time and actually check my air guage. One of our nights in Ko Tao we went to a Ladyboy Cabaret show which was quite the entertaining experience. Unfortunately our time in Ko Tao came to an end much to soon and we took a night ferry back to Suratthani where we were catching a flight back to Bangkok. I thought the night ferry would just consist of some seats inside which where what the other two ferries were like, but no. There were mattresses spread all over two floors and it was like a giant slumber party. It was a really cool looking set up but I couldn't sleep at all because I was freezing from the sea breeze coming in through the windows. I eventually went to the bottom level and just squeezed myself in between two people sleeping. I probably looked like a total creeper, but I didn't care I needed some sleep! Unfortunately we arrived about an hour late and then got to the airport about 8 hours before our flight. So naturally we played spades to kill the time. My friends had one final night in Bangkok before their departures back home which was not too eventful.

After my friends left, I realized that I was on my own now. No more friends coming, nothing to fall back to. I was in Thailand with no flight home and had to figure out what I was doing. I felt a momentary panic but that went away and for the next few days I continued my job search. After being offered a job in Rayong which is a few hours south of Bangkok I really thought about what I was doing here. If I took the job I would have to sign a one year contract that would keep me here until October of next year. Also Rayong is a town that doesn't have a large foreigner population and there is not much to do. So after much deliberation I decided not to take the job and really not to try to look for another one. I came to Thailand because I wanted to live in another country but more so because I wanted to do something meaningful that would try to help figure out what I am doing with my life. Getting a teaching job in Bangkok would be fun but honestly it wouldn't be so different from living in the U.S. I would go out on the weekends, make some friends who would probably be foreigners and live a pretty normal life. The only big difference being the language. It would be nice just to ingrain myself and live in another country but I don't know if I would really be doing that here. So I have decided that I am going to do a volunteer program helping teach Burmese refugees English and other things as well. I have been accepted into a program and can basically start whenever I want, I just have to volunteer for a minimum of three months. So I think I'm just going to travel around SE Asia for a few months and then start that in January. I have to leave Thailand in a week anyways because my visa is running out so mine as well explore some other countries while I'm there. I'm leaning towards going to Malaysia first and then perhaps checking out Singapore and Indonesia as well. I heard Malaysia is a good country for hitchiking and I have also wanted to try it. I have met travelers who have hitchiked through many places and it is something I want to experience so I think I may try my luck in Malaysia.

Today I met up with the Soi Dawgz or Bangkok's Ultimate Frisbee Club. It was a ton of fun and that is something I'm going to miss out on by traveling and not settling in Bangkok for a while. I want to really experience Bangkok by joining social clubs like Ultimate and other things but I think I would rather travel and volunteer instead, at least for now.

Getting back to the Thailand lifestyle. It is a simple one for the most part. Eric Weiner in his book "Geography of Bliss" said something to the effect Thai people are so happy because they don't think about anything. I think he put it very well, Thai people are relaxed and carefree. They hang out with friends and socialize but don't think or discuss serious topics. I don't think I could handle living in that environment for very long. I need intellectual stimulation even if I'm reading about the terrible things that go on around the world. Thailand is a place I could definitely spend a year or two and I could see how and why people don't want to leave. But to truly revel in Thailand's glory you have to turn off your brain a little bit.

Another aspect of Thailand and Bangkok especially that I have trouble with is the sex tourism. Bangkok is one of the worlds leaders in sex tourism. You see prostitutes walking down Sukhumvit, Bangkok's main Business street. You also see tons of white men walking around with Thai women. Many are legitimate but many are paid for and I get this weird feeling everytime I see a white foreigner with a Thai woman. Something that makes me kind of sick. Maybe Thai women are attracted to white men but it seems as though men come to Thailand to find themselves a wife and settle here. It's accepted in the country from what I can tell but there something deeper to it that I can't put into words. Don't get me wrong, Thai women are absolutely gorgeous but I don't know if I would feel comfortable walking down the street holding one's hand. Something about me would just feel wrong.

Well this has been a long post without many good stories, hopefully that will change. I haven't really done much exciting but hopefully that will start to change as I make my way out of Thailand and on to the start of my traveling.

Taiwan

2009-08-28T01:16:00.000-07:00

So after a 17 hour flight with a stopover in Anchorage, I made it safely to Taipei. The plane did not have TV's for each seat, which should be a law on any international flight, but　Ｉ was able to sleep for the majority of the 17 hours so it was ok. The part that I wasn't sleeping　Ｉ read "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" which was a perfect book to read before such a journey, thanks Jess. I realized, well I didn't realize I already knew, but the book emphasized thａｔ　Ｉ had to live in the now and not worry so much about the past or future so that is what I　ａｍ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｔｒｙ　ｔｏ　ｄｏ．　Ａｎｗａｙｓ　Ｉ　ｆｉｇｕｒｅｄ　ｏｕｔ　ｍｙ　ｗａｙ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｂｕｓ　ａｎｄ　ｓｕｂｗａｙ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ｅａｓｉｌｙ　ａｎｄ　ｇｏｔ　ｏｆｆ　ａｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｔｏｐ　ｗｈｅｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｈｏｓｔｅｌ　ｗａｓ．　Ｆｉｎｄｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｈｏｓｔｅｌ　ｉｓ　ａｌｗａｙｓ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｏｕｇｈｅｓｔ　ｐａｒｔ．　Ｉ drew a basic outline of a map but it provided no help. After wandering around with my heavyass backpacks I　ｆｉｎａｌｌｙ　ｆｏｕｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｐｌａｃｅ．　Ｓｉｎｃｅ　Ｉ was arriving before check-in time there was an envelope with my name on the door. There I　ｆｏｕｎｄ　ａ　ｋｅｙ　ｔｏ　ｏｐｅｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｒｏｎｔ　ｄｏｏｒ，　ｗｈｉｃｈ　Ｉ had no trouble with, and a code to open the doors to the actual hostel itself which was on the second floor. After fumbling with the door and trying the code about twelve different times I was getting pretty frustrated. I knew ｔｈｅ　ｃｏｄｅ　ｗａｓ　ｒｉｇｈｔ　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｄｏｏｒ　ｆｌａｓｈｅｄ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｇｒｅｅｎ　ｌｉｇｈｔｓ　ａｎｄ　ｍａｄｅ　ａ　ｌｉｔｔｌｅ　ｂｕｚｚｉｎｇ　ｓｏｕｎｄ．　Ｈｏｗｅｖｅｒ，　Ｉ　ｃｏｕｌｄ　ｎｏｔ　ｆｉｇｕｒｅ　ｏｕｔ　ｈｏｗ　ｔｏ　ｔｗｉｓｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｄｏｏｒ　ｔｏ　ｇｅｔ　ｉｔ　ｏｐｅｎ．　Ｉ was beginning to think I　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｏ　ｓｉｔ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｕｎｔｉｌ　ｔｈｅ　ｏｗｎｅｒ　ｃａｍｅ　ａｎｄ　ｓｈｏｗｅｄ　ｍｅ　ｗｈａｔ　ａ　ｄｕｍｂａｓｓ　Ｉ was. Finally by some stroke of god not wanting to see that kind of embarrassment the door swung open and I　ｗａｓ　ａｂｌｅ　ｔｏ　ｇｅｔ　ｉｎ　ａｎｄ　ｓｅｔｔｌｅｄ．　
　　Ｔａｉｐｅｉ　ｉｔｓｅｌｆ　ｉｓ　ａｎ　ｅｘｔｒｅｍｅｌｙ　ｍｏｄｅｒｎ　ｃｉｔｙ．　Ｔｈｅ　ｓｕｂｗａｙ　ｉｓ　ｓｕｐｅｒ　ｅａｓｙ　ｔｏ　ｎａｖｉｇａｔｅ，　ｅｆｆｉｃｉｅｎｔ，　ａｎｄ　ｃｌｅａｎ．　Ｉ was very impressed. Taipei has all of the major stores the U.S. has, even a Cold Stone and Ikea. It also has the highest skyscraper in the world, Taipei 101 (named Taipei 101 because it has 101 floors) which is a pretty cool looking building. I went to the top to check out the view at night which was really cool, you could see all of the lights of the city from the 89th floor. I kind of wish I　ｗｅｎｔ　ｄｕｒｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｄａｙ　ｔｈｏｕｇｈ　ｓｏ　Ｉ could see the mountains and make out some sites I　ｈａｄ　ｓｅｅｎ．　Ｍｙ　ｆｉｒｓｔ　ｄａｙ　ｉｎ　Ｔａｉｐｅｉ　Ｉ basically just hopped on and off the subway and checked out a lot of different places. The highlight was probably Longshan Temple. I　ｉｍｍｅｄｉａｔｅｌｙ　ｇｏｔ　ａ　ｓｅｎｓｅ　ｏｆ　ｐｅａｃｅ　ａｎｄ　ｃａｌｍ　ｗｈｅｎ　Ｉ walked in as many people were praying and lighting sticks on fire and placing them into this big brass bowl. I don't now what exactly it symbolized but it looked pretty cool. At night I　ｃｈｅｃｋｅｄ　ｏｕｔ　ｏｎｅ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｆａｍｏｕｓ　ｎｉｇｈｔ　ｍａｒｋｅｔｓ　ｉｎ　Ｔａｉｐｅｉ．　Ｂａｓｉｃａｌｌｙ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ａｒｅ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｌｏｔｓ　ｏｆ　ｄｉｆｆｅｒｅｎｔ　ｆｏｏｄ，ｃｌｏｔｈｅｓ，ａｎｄ　ｏｔｈｅｒ　ｒａｎｄｏｍ　ａｃｃｅｓｓｏｒｉｅｓ　ｖｅｎｄｏｒｓ　ｌｉｎｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｔｒｅｅｔ．　Ｔｈｅ　ｂｅｓｔ　ｐａｒｔ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｎｉｇｈｔ　ｍａｒｋｅｔｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｔａｉｐｅｉ　ｉｎ　ｇｅｎｅｒａｌ　ａｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｄｅｌｉｃｉｏｕｓ　ｆｒｕｉｔ　ｄｒｉｎｋｓ．　Ｔｈｅｙ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｈｅｓｅ　ｓｔａｎｄｓ　ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈｏｕｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｉｔｙ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｆｒｅｓｈ　ｆｒｕｉｔ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ａｒｅ　ｍａｄｅ　ｉｎｔｏ　ａ　ｄｅｌｉｃｉｏｕｓ　ｆｒｕｉｔ　ｊｕｉｃｅ，　ｔｈｅｙ　ｂｌｅｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｒｕｉｔ，　ｓｏｍｅ　ｗａｔｅｒ，ａ　ｌｉｔｔｌｅ　ｉｃｅ，　ａｎｄ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｐｏｗｄｅｒ　ｓｕｂｓｔａｎｃｅ　ａｎｄ　ｉｔ　ｃｏｍｅｓ　ｏｕｔ　ｔｈｉｃｋｅｒ　ｔｈａｎ　ａ　ｊｕｉｃｅ　ｂｕｔ　ｎｏｔ　ａｓ　ｔｈｉｃｋ　ａｓ　ａ　ｓｍｏｏｔｈｉｅ．　Ｔｈｅ　ｂｅｓｔ　ｉｓ　ｗａｔｅｒｍｅｌｏｎ．Ｉ wanted to check out "snake alley" where apparently they have drinks make with snake blood and different food made with different parts of the snake. I　ｃｏｕｌｄｎ’ｔ　ｆｉｎｄ　ｉｔ　ｂｕｔ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｌｏｏｋ　ａｇａｉｎ　ｔｏｎｉｇｈｔ，　ｔｈｉｓ　ｔｉｍｅ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｂｅｔｔｅｒ　ｄｉｒｅｃｔｉｏｎｓ．　Ｔｏｍｏｒｒｏｗ　Ｉ　ｆｌｙ　ｔｏ　Ｂａｎｇｋｏｋ　ｗｈｅｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｒｅａｌ　ａｄｖｅｎｔｕｒｅ　ｂｅｇｉｎｓ．　

Last night in the U.S.

2009-08-24T21:49:00.001-07:00

So I am leaving tomorrow to begin my adventure. After a 2 day stopover in Taiwan I will be in Bangkok with nothing but a backpack and a Thai phrasebook. I don't think it will really hit me until I get to Thailand that I am actually moving across the world. In the last few days I have had to say goodbye to my parents, grandma, girlfriend, and some of my best friends all to pursue what exactly? I'm not sure. Traveling is the one thing I love to do but as I said goodbye to all these good people I couldn't help thinking if I was doing the right thing? Time will only tell but as hard as it was to say goodbye to everyone, I am excited to start this journey and new path in my life. I have always thought that being a travel writer would be the coolest job in the world but to be a writer you actually have to write and write well. So I'm not sure about the latter but I will write about my journeys if only for myself. There are some crazy stories that are sure to ensue, hopefully I will be able to give them justice in my writing. See you in Taiwan.