A Tragic Lack of Representation

American culture has infiltrated South East Asia in every aspect. People know the details of Obama's economic stimulus package, US unemployment rates and the capital cities of every state in America. They love American music, from Katy Perry to Nirvana to the Eagles to Jay-Z. People know the intimate details of movie stars' lives, including baby names and latest films. They eat at KFC, Starbucks, Diary Queen and the Hard Rock Cafe. Yet the majority of the South East Asian people I met were shocked to find out I was American. They simply don't meet American people travelling. Whether it's because Americans are more likely to teach or work abroad for a year or two than travel, or just because Americans find it difficult to leave the biggest and best country in the world to see what else is out there, is undetermined. Either way, for the first time in my travels I told people I was American and they were pleasantly surprised. The US is starting to regain respect from the rest of the world, making now an ideal time to travel the world.

The Beach

I thought the beaches in Thailand would be overdone and in a way they are, but they are still some of the most beautiful places I've been in my life. We started out on the Andaman coast, on the Western side of the peninsula at a small beach called Tonsai. There is very little actual beach, it's mostly a climber's paradise because of all the limestone crags covering the area. We didn't do any climbing this time though. After Tonsai we took a ferry to Ko Phi Phi, an island 2 hours west of Tonsai. We meant to only stay a night or two but ended up staying longer because the diving was so amazing. We saw 2 leopard sharks that were each about the size of me. They weren't scary though, they just look like big fish. Plus I found out that they don't have any teeth, which also helped:
We saw a bunch of Hawksbill turtles which are the most adorable species ever. They were just sitting on rocks or floating along munching on some sea sponges. There were schools of every fish you could imagine, including barracudas. The thing that amazed my the most was the brilliance of the colors and the visibility underwater. I don't have an underwater camera yet so you'll just have to imagine it (or look at these fantastic photos I found on the internet).

After Ko Phi Phi we crossed over the Thai peninsula to Ko Tao and Ko Phangan, where we did more diving and beach stuff. In Ko Tao we went to a place called Shark Bay, where I snorkled around with blacktip reef sharks. Yikes! These ones, unlike the leopard sharks, actually look like scary sharks, with the pointy dorsal fin and the grey and white coloring. It wasn't so bad when it was just one of them at a time. The biggest one was about 5 feet long and they were a few meters below me. But when Jenny hopped back abord the boat and I spent a few minutes alone in the bay, there seemed to be a shark party right underneath me. 6 of them (that I counted) were gathered right around me, just pacing and waiting for something to eat. Not me, fortunately.

Chiang Mai: Kingdom of Vegetarians

Chiang Mai is a smallish city in Northern Thailand, about equidistant from Laos and Myanmar. Jenny and I spent longer than we anticpated there, because there is so much to do, both in the city and in the surrounding countryside. Actually let's be real: we wanted to stay because there was too much delicious food to pass up. There were more vegetarian restaurants in Chiang Mai than I've ever seen in any city. Ever. Just from walking around the city we passed at least 12 to 15. The most tragic part was that there weren't enough meals in one day to eat at all of them. There were vegetarian restaurants of every class and variety: one had outdoor garden dining and waterfalls, one was run out of a Buddhist university behind a major Wat, one had a cooking school attached (which we also attended), one served only organic ingredients and was also an organic market. It was unbelievable. We had pad thai, tom yum soup, spring rolls, fried rice and every sort of curry you can imagine. This was green curry at the Buddhist university cafe. Mmmm.

We did some other things besides eating (and getting loads of Thai yoga massages). The most exciting was a trip to an elephant training village. We were nervous about going with any tour company advertising elephant rides, because of the stories we've heard of mistreatment and exploitation of the elephants. The place we went had 5 female elephants, which we learned to control by certain Thai commands (Yud! = stop, Buay! = go forward) which I struggled to pronounce and keep in order. We learned how to make the elephant turn left, right, go forward, go backward and stop. Then we rode two per elephant to a watering hole and a river where we gave them a bath and had a waterfight (they had an advantage becuase of the water holding capacity of trunks). Jenny and I rode Nongmai, who was the young (8 year old) and naughty elephant, becuase the Mahout (elephant trainer) said we were the best at commanding the elephants. I think it was because we shouted the commands really loud whereas everyone else was quite timid. I figured she might not understand my Thai pronunciation, so the louder the better, right? She wasn't so naughty, just very hungry and self-determined. She was adorable though. These are my new elephant friends.

Three days en route to Thailand

We heard the slow boat from Laos to Thailand up the Mekong River was a beautiful journey, well worth the 2 days of 10 hours on a slow, slow, slow boat. The boat can't travel once it's dark outside, so in between the 2 days we spent a night in Pakbeng, a small port town where all travellers to the Thai border and to Luang Prabang in the opposite direction stop. Electricity was only available from 6-10 pm. Some restaurants and homes had generators to provide electricity after hours, but not our guesthouse (at 30 kip-$3.5 /night I wouldn't have expected it). The boat we travelled on had mostly hard, wooden benches for passengers to sit on, but Jenny and I managed to get 2 of the 10 cushioned bus seats (tragically out of place on a boat). It wasn't so bad, I read about 300 pages of my new book. The second night we arrived at the border too late to cross into Thailand so we spent another night in Huoyxai, another travel stop town. We had to splurge on our hotel room, and spent 50 kip ($6) for one night stay. The next morning we crossed the Mekong river which divides Laos from Thailand. We took a "ferry" which was a tiny wooden boat, only wide enough for one person per seat. We walked up a sand dune to get to the immigration office, which was more official looking than the Laos side (a man sitting under a tent with a typewritten sign declaring "immigration"). This is Jenny at Thailand immigration:

Laos

For a country of only 5.6 million people, there are probably about a million tourists here. Laos is the backpacker's paradise of Southeast Asia it seems. We spent 2 weeks here in 3 different towns. We crossed the border from Vietnam and ended up in Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. It's a pretty small city though and less frequented by tourists than its Northern counterpart, Luang Prabang. The first day we visited the Buddha Park, which is a statue garden filled with different style Buddha statues. I'm not sure why it exists or what it's purpose is (besides to take silly pictures next to the statues), but there were a few monks hanging around (also taking pictures). We sipped on fresh coconuts and played dominoes looking over the river. The next day we decided to be more adventurous so we rented a motorbike and ventured to a national park, Phu Khao Kwai National Protected Area, supposedly an hour and a half from Vientiane. After a few rough starts on the bike, I finally got it going pretty well, until we got lost, and lost again, and lost again. The only directions we were given were to bear right at the bus station, go 87 kilometers until we see the stuppa (temple) and take a left. Naturally we were lost in about 15 minutes and it took us almost 2 hours of pulling over and shouting to random people along the side of the road "Phu Khao Kwai?" ("poo cow quay") and hoping they'd point us in the right direction (which surprisingly they all did). Eventually we arrived and went on a 5 km trek to the elephant tower, where there is a nearby salt lick where wild elephants hang out. What we didn't know is that they only come around in the evening, and we had to leave by 4. So no elephants. But an adventure nonetheless.

After leaving Vientiane we went to Vang Viang, which is about 3 hours north. Vang Viang is a super laid-back town, whose main attraction is the infamous "tubing." I put tubing in quotes beacuse mostly it means going back and forth across the river (with or without an actual tube) to the bars on either side, each of which has a rope swing, a giant slide or a zip line to propel you into the water. Not to mention that on either side of the river are huge limestone mountains and forests...absolutely georgeous location. We also went swimming in a swimming hole right next to the bungalow we were staying in with a whole bunch of Lao children. The boys were doing flips off a platform and the girls were taking their long skirts that they were swimming in and fill them up with air to make a little floatation device. It was genious. Jenny and I also went rock climbing along the limestone crags; the highest climb was 18 meters, which is about 60 feet. I've never really been rock climbing before so when the guide pointed to the top of the rope we were heading to, i had a small moment of panic. I did make it to the top (and back down again) without hurting myself.

Next we took a bus to Luang Prabang, which is a super cute city in Northern Laos. There are dozens of Wats (Buddhist temples) within and around the city, some of which have really intricate wood carvings, engravings and mosaics coating the outside and inside walls. Here we took a tuk-tuk to a waterfall (it was way too cold to swim!) called Kouang Xi and there was also a rescue center for Asiatic Black Bears, also called Moon Bears, who had been taken from poachers. Traditional Chinese medicine uses the bile of these bears for something or other. They keep them in tiny cages and remove the bile. Eww, I know. We also took a 6 hour trek to 2 ethnic minority villages North of Luang Prabang. One was a Khmu village (aka Khmer, ethnic Cambodians) and the other was a Hmuong (aka Muong in Vietnam). Neither village had running water, although there were a few satellite dishes sprinkled throughout. The people are mostly farmers, growing everything from sticky rice (Laos staple food) to corn to herbs, and raising chickens, pigs and cattle. Our guide told us we hiked 35 km (21 miles!) but I don't know if I believe him. We woke up early one morning to watch the Monks receiving alms. Monks from each Wat in the city line up to accept food donations (usually sticky rice, sweets and other stuff) from local people. As the monks walked past, there was a second line of young boys, maybe 9 or 10 years old, who were standing with cardboard boxes or plastic bags to accept food donations from the monks. Anything the monks either didn't want or could spare they would toss to these boys, who actually seemed to be making out pretty well for themselves.

23 hour bus ride to Laos

Yes. It was just as sketchy as it sounds. The first "sleeper" bus left Hue city in central Vietnam at 5:30 in the evening. I say "sleeper" because it may have been a sleeper for some people, but Vietnamese people are a lot smaller than I am. The bed only fit up to my mid-calf, and since there was another bed right in front of me, I was pretty crunched up. Not to mention the window next to me was ajar, so cold mountain air was blasting in my face all night. Still, that was the comfortable part of the journey... At 1 am the bus drops us off at a "rest stop" in the middle of the mountains somewhere along the border to wait for another bus to take us across the border to Laos. The rest stop consisted of a little restaurant and a parking lot. After the bus driver promised Jenny he would wait until the second bus arrived, he hopped back on the bus and they drove off into the distance. Fortunately the second bus did arrive; unfortunately it was a sitting bus that would have had enough leg room for someone 5'2" and shorter. Not to mention the fact that the luggage space underneath the bus was filled with bricks (I think there was some sort of border smuggling situation going on, but I can't be too sure), so our 50 or so backpacks were either piled in the aisle, or in some passengers' leg space. I think I must have slept at least 18 of the 23 hours though, so I can't really complain.

Seriously though, I am a giant in Vietnam. At one of the rest stops a woman stood and measured herself next to me and then all her friends giggled. They also laughed because my pants only came down to my ankles and they thought I was too tall for my pants.

Wedding in Sóc Trăng

We got the chance to attend a wedding of one of Jenny's friends from Vietnam, Dao. She lives outside of Soc Trang, which is a small city in the Mekong Delta, which I never would have visited if there hadn't of been a wedding there. It is a very sleepy town and the only thing that stays open past 10 pm is the internet cafe (which closes at 11). Her house was a 20 minute drive from the town. Let me just say, Vietnamese weddings are nuts. I say this for a couple reasons, but first off because they last 3 days. There are 3 days of ceremonies until the bride and groom are officially married, she can leave her family and move into her husband's family's house. It starts out with a party at the bride's family's house, which involved a lot of eating, drinking Saigon beers (mostly the men), and an mc with a microphone singing songs with an accompanying keyboard player, who only really played the same techno beat at faster and slower tempos. There was nothing vegetarian for me to eat so an older Vietnamese lady kept feeding me candy and orange soda all night. Literally she was feeding me. If at any point in the night I wasn't holding either a piece of candy or my mug of orange soda, she would unwrap a candy and put it in my hand. Eventually the groom came to the house and brought some vegetarian pho (noodle soup) which was unbelievably sweet! I was already really full (and a little ill) from all the sugar but it was delicious anyways. At the end of the night Dao asked if we would sing a song before we left. Since no one was really paying attention to the mc, we thought we might be able to slip in and out without anyone really noticing us singing. Unfortunately Dao asked Jenny to make an announcement (on the microphone), which she then translated into Vietnamese for everyone (on the microphone). So that's how we got everyone's attention. We decided on "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" because we knew the chorus and one verse, and figured we could just keep repeating the same verse (no one would understand it anyways). After the song was over, everyone (everyone meaning Dao and the mc, who turned out to be her high school teacher) insisted we keep singing, and the next logical song was "Joy to the World," the one about Jeremiah and his bullfrog. We must have sang the whole song through 5 or 6 times. Then the mc and another guy got us to dance with them. The one guy started a conga line, but it was only him, Jenny, and me in line. All the other guests were just sitting and watching us dance and no one joined in. I have to say it was a pretty magical experience.

The second day was a luncheon reception at a restaurant, where the bride and groom did all the "traditional" wedding stuff, like cut the cake (which no one ate), pour champagne (cherry soda) into a cascading fountain and take obligatory wedding photos. The oddest part was that not a single guest at the party, except Jenny, Katie and I, was watching the bride and groom. The food had already come out and they were all busy eating. Also no one took any pictures besides us and the wedding photographer. When all the food was gone, the guests just got up and left. It was literally an eat and run type situation.

The last day of wedding was the big one, where the bride leaves her family's house, goes to the groom's family's house, and they are officially married. The first ceremony started at 6 am, meaning we woke up at 4:30. Before we got in the taxi we stopped for some street food breakfast. We tried this hot, creamy, super sweet soup with wide, flat noodles in it. The lady served it out of the cooking pot into small plastic bags, tied up with a rubber band, which we bit a hole into and sucked the soup out of. It was amazingly delicious. Since the ceremony started at 6 am, we arrived at the party by 9 am, and food (and beer) was served. There was a little competition between the older men's table and the older women's table over who could cheers the loudest. Vietnamese cheers is mot, hai, ba yoooo!, which means 1, 2, 3 drink, and I'm still not sure who won. This picture is from day 3:

Nha Trang, Dalat, Saigon, Long Xuyen, & Can Tho

It's been a while since I've written, mostly because there is too much to talk about. So here is a quick note about all the most awesome things we've done. Katie and I took an intro scuba diving course in Nha Trang, which was super sweet. A little intimidating at first when we were dumped out into the ocean with a tank of oxygen and some fins, but in the end it was totally not scary. We saw a ton of coral and reef fish, butterfly fish, clown fish, pike fish, lion fish, cuttlefish and a huge jellyfish. It was awesome.

Next we spent a day in Dalat, which the guidebooks call a quaint mountain town studded with French colonial architecture. It wasn't. It is also the Vietnamese honeymoon capital, which meant it was like a little version of Las Vegas, without the gambling. It seemed normal during daylight hours, but at night the neon signs were a little crazy. We took an EasyRider tour on the back of motorbikes throughout the countryside. (I didn't want to mention to the drivers that the movie ends with both riders shot and killed) We visited a fruit and vegetable farm, a coffee plantation, a rice wine (not wine at all, but super potent rice vodka) factory, a flower farm, a waterfall and a silk factory. Riding on the motorbike through the countryside might have been the best part of it all. I only wish he'd let me drive!

After an overnight bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), we met up with Jenny and wandered the steets of Saigon for a few days. It was unbearably hot and humid so a lot of the days were spent sneaking into fancy hotels to sit in their airconditioned lobbies. We also drank a LOT of Sinh To, which are fruit smoothies. So far we've tried pineapple, papaya, avocado, dragonfruit, mango, watermelon, strawberry, milk apple and some weird ones like Sapodilla and Rau Ma. I don't know if those are English or Vietnamese words but they were unidentifiable regardless. We also hung out with a man named Peter, who Katie and I had met getting off the bus from Dalat. We were (clearly looking) confused trying to find the hotel and he offered us a ride in his taxi. It only ended up being a block away and because of one-way streets I think it would have been quicker to walk. But it was sweet nonetheless. He had lived in San Diego for 25 years so his English is very good and he works helping foreign investors to plan new developments in Dalat and other smaller cities in Vietnam. He took us out one morning for lunch at an upscale traditional Southern Vietnamese restaurant. We tried all sorts of new foods, and for dessert we had Che, a sweet thick soup made with sticky rice, tapioca and sweet beans. He then took us out for coffee, which he also wouldn't let us pay for, and we met his friend who is apparently the number 1 tennis player in Vietnam. Huh. As we were sitting he asked if we had ever gotten foot massages and when we said no, he insisted we come with him. So he got us foot massages. They started out as just massage and some reflexology but then they ended up being full body massages. We were seriously pampered. It's crazy how welcoming and generous people have been with us. I think it might partially be a male thing, but I think also it's just a Vietnamese thing. We love to hang out with locals and they love Americans. It's a perfect match.

Then we headed to the Mekong Delta, which is not very well described in any of the guidebooks and now I can see why. Most of the towns are not very tourist friendly. There is very little English spoken or written in restaurants and hotels, the tourist "attractions," so to speak, like pagodas and wildlife reserves, are far removed from the town center and transportation by taxi is pretty expensive. So luckily we have been with people who know their way around. Our first stop in the Delta was Long Xuyen, about 10 km from the Cambodian border and an hour west of Can Tho, the biggest city in the Delta (2 million people). We were taken around by Jenny's study abroad program director, which was great. We sat in on a lecture about the changes in agricultural policy in the Mekong Delta and travelled to a environmental wetland reserve, where we went birdwatching and lounged on hammocks. We also went to Châu Đoc, where we visited some Khmer (Cambodian people who are an ethnic minority group in Vietnam) style pagodas.

We spent nearly a week in Can Tho, the city where Jenny had studied abroad, staying with her host family and meeting her friends. One day Jenny's friend Angela took us on a bike ride to the countryside across these small bridges to a group of islands. This is us trying not to crash our bikes: Every sort of fruit we've seen in the market was growing along the path: jackfruit, mango, longan, pineapple, milk apple, custard apple, celery apple (I have no idea what the English name actually is but it looks like a small red pepper and tastes like a mix between apple and celery, so...), banana, sapodilla and papaya. All the ripe ones had already been picked though, so no snacking. We stopped for cafe sua da along the path, which is really strong drip coffee with a whole bunch of sweetened condensed milk. Sometimes (in this case) more milk than coffee it seems. It's a nice pick-me-up and I'm not sure whether it's the caffeine or the sugar high. Another morning we went to the floating market, which is Can Tho's principal tourist attraction. We left the house at 5 am to walk to the dock and take a boat to the market. The market closes at 8:30 so it's best to get an early start. The market seemed to be a venue for the farmers themselves to sell their fruit and vegetables to other retailers, like sellers at the market in town. Everything was being sold in bulk; ladies were tossing watermelons from one boat to another. The woman driving our boat stopped for a pinapple. She peeled two pineapples, cut them in half and gave them to us as snacks. She left part of the stem on though, so it was like eating a pineapple on a stick... a lollipop pineapple. We also stopped at a fruit farm where we saw pretty much the same fruit we had seen on the bike ride, but this time we got to try it all. We were too full from eating half a pineapple each to really enjoy it though. The most exciting thing about staying in Can Tho was the fact that Jenny's host mom, Miss Lan, was an English teacher, so everytime we walked in the door there was a room full of young Vietnamese students wanting to practice their English with us. Most days we taught an English class or two, trying to explain the differences in pronunciation between the "TH" sound in "this" versus "three" or listening to student presentations about the character of the people in Can Tho or life in the countryside. We expressed interest in trying new foods, like bánh xèo, a crispy pancake made with rice flour and stuffed with bean sprouts, egg, cabbage and other stuff, which you cut apart and put inside a wrapper of lettuce, mint and other green herbs. A student then asked if we would like to join her and her boyfriend for the best bánh xèo in Can Tho. She practiced her English with native speakers and we got to try a local dish at a restaurant we never would have found on our own. We went out for a dessert that was a coconut shell, filled with this jelly coconut stuff. It was technically coconut flesh mixed with agar, but it tasted like lightly flavored coconut jell-o. It was great. Another student mentioned that his friend had a house in the countryside and that we could go one morning. So three students took us on the back of their motorbikes to the grocery store where we picked out food to cook for lunch and then to his friend's farm. The house probably had at least 3 acres of land, behind which was a rice paddy that had just been harvested. We walked around to pick milk apples and see the farmers harvesting with the boys, while the girls prepared us lunch. They wouldn't let us pay for anything because "they had invited us." It was unbelievably sweet. After lunch (fresh spring rolls with tofu, vermicelli noodles, basil and carrots, tofu battered in rice flour dipped in sweet chile sauce and pomelo for dessert, we went inside and sang kereoke. They had a serious kereoke setup, with huge Bose speakers and two microphones. Jenny, Katie and I sang Hotel California, Strawberry Fields Forever, and Hit Me Baby One More Time, which we thought was a pretty standard mix of American music. :)

I'm sure I'm forgetting things since so much happens every day, but oh well. Next we go to Sóc Trăng, an even smaller town South of Can Tho for a friend's wedding. It's a three day wedding, which will be exciting! Photos will come as soon as I find internet fast enough to upload them!

Cuc Phuong

Katie and I decided to spend a night in Cuc Phuong National Park, about 3 hours south of Hanoi. It was a trek to get there (a 2 hour bus ride followed by a painful negotiation with a xe om driver to take us another hour to the park headquarters), but it was totally worth it. At the park headquarters, there is an endangered primate rescue center, which rehabilitates monkeys who have been rescued from poachers (monkey brains are both a delicacy and an ingredient in traditional medicine). They were the cutest monkeys I've ever seen. If that experience won't convert someone to vegetarianism, I don't know what will.
After the rescue center, we ventured out into the park itself. It is 20 kilometers from the park headquarters to the park center, where we were sleeping in a stilt house. Mostly because we didn't want to pay for another taxi, we chose to rent bicycles to get to the house. After a 45 uphill ride, however, we realized that we had only gone a few km and decided on a new plan to rent a motorbike. It took about 45 minutes to arrive at the park center on motorbike and I can't imagine how long it would've taken us on bikes. Driving a motorbike is so fun. I can't believe I don't own one. They are super small and have 4 gears, but no clutch, which you shift with your left foot. The other foot has the brakes and the right handle bar pumps the gas. There were only a few hills that gave me trouble. The tour buses passing me on narrow dirt roads also were terrifying. We stopped along the way at a few caves that were so dark you needed a torch after the first 10 meters. At night we went night-spotting, but besides bats, moths and a dead snail, we only spotted flying squirrels. It was one of the most beautiful and non-commercial sites I've seen in Vietnam so far.

24 hours in Hoi An

Last weekend I took a quick trip to Hoi An, along the central coast of Vietnam. I took an overnight sleeper train, which, because I booked a "hard sleeper," was 6 bunks, stacked 3 high, in a tiny tiny room. The bed above you was so close that you couldn't sit up...only lie horizontal or stand up. The way down was not so bad, it took a measly 14 hours to get to Da Nang (the closest town, which is about 45 minutes away by motorbike). On the way back, it took around 16. When I got to the train station, some very sweet Vietnamese folks in my bunk offered me a ride to Hoi An - they seemed nervous that I was planning on taking a xe om instead of a real taxi. The 24 hours I actually had in the town were well spent. I got some clothes hand tailored, met some fantastic people and ended up at a georeous beach club with a bonfire. I wish I could say the same for the 30 hours I spent abord the train.

Myanmar

I've been putting off writing about my 2 week trip to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) because there is just too much to say (and I'm nervous that I've already forgot some things!). But I've got to start somewhere. So here goes...

The democratically elected leader of Myanmar, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Syu Kye, requested a ban on tourism to Myanmar. After she won the election in 1990, the overpowered military decided they didn't like the outcome, put her under house arrest and began a period of military rule characterized by massive amounts of forced labor and atrocities on human rights. That being said, I went anyways. Knowing I was inevitably putting dollars in the hands of the government (for flights and entry fees) was certainly a turn-off, but Myanmar is such an incredible country with the most welcoming and warm people I've ever met. It was enlightening to hear the stories people told us, and you could tell people would have liked to talk even more about the political climate. One of the most notable things about Burma was the prevalence of monks in every day society (we saw monks out and about throughout the day: wandering to various pagodas, collecting money for food or collecting food itself, riding motorbikes, and shopping for sunglasses). The other was the traditional dress, longyi, worn by both men and women. Longyi are basically long wrap around skirts that are worn year round, in cities, on fishing boats, in factories. They seem ultra comfortable in the incredibly hot weather. When we were there it hit 30-35 degrees celsius, but in the summer it can get to 45 or higher (well over 110 degrees farenheight). Another noticable thing about Burma that has been lacking in other countries I've been to is the military presence. Not only are soldiers fully equipped with M16s but there are parts of the country not accessible to tourists. There is a leper village off the coast of Inle Lake, whose existence the government denies, and tourists are not allowed to cross the river to the south of Yangon (formerly Rangoon) because of the intensive damage caused by 2008 Cyclone Nargis, after which the military government denied Red Corss assistance. I never felt unsafe when travelling but there was definitely a different sort of feeling than in other countries I have been to.

We started the trip in Yangon, the capital city. Notable sites included Shwedagon Pagoda, which was actually an enormous temple complex, most of which was covered in gold leaf. The top of the central golden pagoda is studded with literally thousands of rubies and diamonds, and a 76 karat diamond tops it. Monks and their non-monk buddies wandered around the complex on the Saturday afternoon we were there. We also visited a monestary school for boys and girls, the Yangon harbor, a 76 meter long reclining Buddha and Botataung Paya. Botataung Paya housed a few important relics: the Buddha's hair and teeth relics (which unless the Buddha was a saber tooth-tiger were quite an exaggeration) and a Buddha arcade (spinning arcade-like games in which you threw Kyat or dollars...depending on which bucket you got your donation into, that's what you would receive...good health, long life, prosperity in work etc.).

After 3 days in Yangon we went to Mandalay, a smaller city in central Myanmar. We visited a workshop where 3 men were pounding out (by hand) gold leaf, and then saw the Maya Myat-Muni Buddha image, which was so fat from gold leaf donations that he had lost his fit shape over the years. Afterwards we visited a few teak buildings, the King's apartment and Shwenandaw monestary, which was the last of the ancient style monestaries. Then a trip to Kuthdaw Pagoda which houses the "world's biggest book," 729 stone slabs, each in its own stone house, that tells a Buddhist story of some type. I couldn't read it, but I certainly appreciated the beauty of the Myanmar script, which is super curvy and round. We went to another monastary, Mahagandhayon Monastary and saw the monks having lunch (which was a shockingly big tourist attraction). All their food is donated by rich families or by collecting small donations/foodstuffs from the surrounding villages. They also are not allowed to eat after 12 noon, so lunch is especially important for them. We ended the trip with a visit to Mandalay hill where we met some friendly teenagers and monks who wanted to practice their English. Although I'm pretty sure monks aren't allowed to speak directly to and/or put their arms around women for a photo op. In Myanmar every man is expected to be a monk for at least 6 months time, after which he can decide whether or not to continue his religious studies or go back to his family. Some of them are a little bit less into it than others.

The third stop on our trip was Bagan, which has 16 square miles of ancient temple ruins. The UN tried to establish it as a world heritage site, but the military government decided to restore and rebuild some of temples, as opposed to leaving them as they were. The landscape reminded me of center city Philadelphia, if all the buildings were torn down, and in the place of each Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Checker's and Wawa was an ancient pagoda. There were a freaking lot of them.

After Bagan we went to Pindaya, a very small town known mostly for its Shwe Oo Min Natural Cave Pagoda (Shwe means gold by the way) which was a cave with over 8000 Buddha statues. We also saw a paper-making/umbrella making workshop and a clay workshop in which all the clay pieces were made by one woman and her homemade self-spun pottery wheel.

We continued on to Inle Lake which was dotted in small floating villages, made with mud and grass gathered from the bottom of the lake. Livelihoods included fishing, boat-making, cigar-making, blacksmith, lotus weaving and farming on floating islands. The fishermen practiced a form of fishing unique to Inle Lake, where they stood up and used their legs to row, as opposed to rowing sitting down with their arms. We also visited a primary school and an elementary school, where the kids are rowed from the school house to the playground and wash their feet off on the side of the boat before naptime.

Our last day in Yangon we went to a reunion of Allison's family. Just a small gathering at a monastary, 100 or so of her Burmese family members. Everyone was very sweet and welcoming. And...that's all!

Week of Antiquity (Part 2)

After Hue we went to Siem Reap, Cambodia, which is where Angkor Wat and a lot of the other ancient temples of the Angkor people are. The first day we went to 4 different temples which were in varying conditions today, some were in pristine condition and others in almost total ruin, overtaken by trees and plants. A lot of the temples had these intricite carvings on them, sometimes along a whole wall in sort of a mosaic that told a Hindu epic story. My favorite story was about some woman god who was angry and stole all the treasure of the people and hid it at the bottom of a sea of milk. So the gods and demons tug on opposite ends of a huge snake to churn the sea of milk for 1000 years trying to get the treasure. Then after 1000 years (after all that tugging) the snake vomits poison all over the sea. Then Shiva, the God of Destruction, drinks the milky poison so that they can get back their treasure and all these dancing ladies popped out of the sea. Seriously??

This is me kissing a God.

We went to another temple which the guide was super excited to tell us was the temple that was used in the film Tomb Raider with Anjelina Jolie. He probably told us about her 10 or 12 times. He pointed out the exact tree that is in the movie and told us all about how she and Brad Pitt adopted a Cambodian orphan. I never saw the movie but the site was certainly film-worthy.

The last day we went on a boat ride on the Tonle Sap lake. The lake is enormous, and from one side you can't see the other. Apparently though, during the dry season the lake is only a quarter of the size it is now. It creates this unique environment where there are underwater forests. During the dry season the trees and plants are in the earth, above water, and in the wet season they are completely underwater. We were there in the middle, so we saw half-trees exposed. On the lake we went birdwatching and went to a floating village. There is no land near the village so everything has its own boat: houses, gardens, community centers, schools, shops. To get from one place to another you have to row yourself there. Everyone who lived there seemed to have incredible balance.

I would say one of my favorite parts about Cambodia is the Khmer food. It's way spicier and more flavorful than Vietnamese food, which is a lot of rice or noodles with garlicky green vegetables (for a vegetarian at least). For breakfast I tried a Khmer rice porridge which is basically rice soup: rice in broth with onions and scallions and chilles andother veggies. Meals in general are heavy on curries with rice: lemongrass, pineapple, sweet basil, chiles, green mangos, papaya and peanuts are all big ingredients. Yum.

photos!

All my pictures are now online. You can see them at: http://picasaweb.google.com/jsargrad

But to be fair, all the pictures of me (which is what you really wanna see) are on Scott's photo website, January 1st onwards: http://picasaweb.google.com/scott.sargrad

This is my personal favorite. The Japanese boys at a pagoda in Hue who asked their mother to take a picture of me.

For other awesome blogging about Vietnam you can check out Scott and Alison's blog: http://www.hanoiorbust.blogspot.com/

Xe om

Xe om are motorbike taxis that are all over Hanoi. On every street corner, alleyway and even inside people's homes, there are guys that have motorbikes and you sit on the back of them and they take you to your destination (or somewhere nearby) for a small fee. These guys I have found are amazing on the streets of Hanoi. They cut in front of way more cars and across way more lanes of oncoming traffic than Scott normally does, and so far, I am unharmed. Today on my way to yoga class though was definitely a first. Since Tet (solar new year) is coming up, traffic has grown to be ridiculously heavy. So when we got to a street of stopped traffic he drove in the other lane. No big deal. But then he cuts to the sidewalk and says "hello," which is code for me to hop off the motorbike so that he can drive it up onto the sidewalk. I hop back on again, we drive for a little while on the sidewalk until the traffic clears up and then (no warning this time) he drives right back off the curb onto the street. Needlesstosay being a pedestrian in this city is pretty unfortunate.

Week of Antiquity (Part 1)

This week was family vacation week. We travelled to central Vietnam to Hue, the imperial capital, and to Siem Reap, the center of the Khmer empire in Cambodia. The Sargrads just can't seem to get enough ancient ruins...

Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn Dynasty, from 1802 to 1945. The line of 13 kings seemed to start off strong, but by the end of their rule, they were basically puppet kings, since the French had colonized Vietnam and had control over the government. Regardless they built some pretty sweet walled cities and tombs for themselves. The first place we visited was the imperial walled city, inside of which was a second walled city reserved only for the king and his family. And his thousands of servants. And hundreds of concubines (who are picked out by his mother). And his herd of elephants that carried him everywhere (the king doesn't walk). A lot of the royal grounds were actually destroyed during the Vietnam war, becuase it is located near the border between north and south Vietnam. The best part were the tombs of the kings. The first one we visited seemed like the king's vacation home. It was on a really pretty lake (a manmade lake the king had built for himself), away from town, with a reading dock, a private theater and georgeous grounds. The tomb itself though was just a sandstone box. Inside a wall, which was inside another wall. Here are the grounds.

The other tomb we visited was crazy ornate. It was on a mountain top, so you had to climb hundreds of steps to even get there. It was the next to last king's tomb so there was huge French influence and you could definitely tell. Once you finally got to the top of the mountain, there was a building that housed his tomb. Every inch of the interior walls was covered in a ceramic and glass mosaic: some mythical creatures, flowers and plants, birds, and just awesome designs. When you looked closer you could tell what the ceramic bits actually were, there were some soup spoons, beer bottles, plates etc. In the middle of the room was a lifesized gold statue of the king himself. This guy had some insecurities.

Highlights

Here is a quick update on the last week in Vietnam:

Motorbike tour of Hanoi...Seeing as Scott was my tour guide/driver I can't say much about Hanoi because I was terrified to look beyond the back of his helmet. EEK! Just kidding. eek. He actually holds his own in traffic, which is basically non stop. The thing about motorbikes is that they just drive in any space possible to get towards their destination, the scariest of which was driving in the opposite lane towards oncoming traffic. But I survived one trip so why not try another? The city is extremely fast paced with people (mostly women) carrying a ridiculous amount of stuff on the back of their bikes/motorbikes. I've seen motorbikes carrying a 2 pigs, a water buffalo, a mini fridge, a 6 foot long piece of plexsiglass, and a markets worth of fruits and veggies. Scott says he saw one carrying a full sized refrigerator but I'm not sure I believe him. You always think they're going to tip over (and sometimes they do).

New Years Eve Hanoi...Actually much more anticlimactic than I would have assumed. Everyone gathered in the central area around Hoan Kiem lake to await the arrival of the new year. But when it comes, if it hadn't of been for the drunk Australian man yelling and waving around a bottle of champagne I don't think anyone would have counted down or really done anything except for go home again. Tết is the Vietnamese New Year (they use the Lunar calendar) in January or February and I think it goes on for several days. They don't utilize the concept of one moment culminating the celebration, and they just thought the Western man was crazy. Which may or may not have actually been the case.

Best (worst) circus ever...Animal rights have not quite extended to this part of the world. That being said, and keeping my horror in check, I saw the best circus in the history of circuses. The Hanoi zoo is larger than I expected, monkeys of every sort, tigers, birds, goats (?), an elephant. And the cages are within arms length from the visitors with fences around them that are left open. We saw people feeding shrimp chips to the monkeys, and once we saw the monkeys reject their lunch of cucumbers and carrots, it seemed like the monkeys were used to this. On our way out, me Scott and Alison saw a sign of animals (not all circus animals) doing absurd things on bicycles and stilts and wearing tutus. After we got a good laugh thinking the poses had been photoshopped, we walked into a circus tent during a practice run through, and no...they were most certainly authentic. The only ones there were the trainers and their friends but they welcomed us to watch. And omg we could not stop watching. First we saw a small bear (a sun bear) walking on his hind legs, doing handstands on his front legs, standing on his hind legs on a plank of wood balanced on a cylindrical block of wood (a see-saw if you will), riding a bicycle, jumping off the bicycle and walking it back to the trainer, all while waving his paw at the crowd. And this was just the start. Next came the monkeys, who also rode bicycles, did acrobatics, spun on rings, and balanced on the see-saw, while the trainer tossed him a ring to put around his neck and a top hat he put on his head. After that they brought out a menagerie of assorted circus (and non-circus animals) for the grand finale. In total, there was a bear, 3 monkeys, 2 huskys, 1 puppy, a kitten and a goat. The majority of them walked a plank, walked on a series of raised stilt sort of things and jumped hurdles. The goat also walked on his elbows (I don't understand either) and one of the huskys pushed a hamster wheel while the other ran back and forth through the middle. I don't think words can adequately describe.

Perfume Pagoda...After an hour long car ride southbound from Hanoi, you get on a metal row boat, which is powered by one individual woman (ranging from 18 to 30 in age it seemed), who rows you an hour down a river to a huge complex of temples that's only accessible by boat. The men sat in a ticket booth wearing suits and smoking cigarettes, while the women were doing extreme physical labor. Imagine rowing a boat of 4-5 people for an hour. The girls were ridiculously strong and apparently they start rowing at age 6. Welcome to gender equality, ladies! After getting to the island, you get off and walk (climb) an hour up a series of mountains to get to the big one at the top, which is inside a huge cave. The cave was thought to look like the mouth of a dragon, and dragons being sacred animals in Vietnamese culture, the temple was built inside. My photos certainly do not do it justice.

Ha Long Bay...This bay is east of Hanoi, and one of the UNESCO world heritage sites. I'm not 100% sure what that means but regardless it was totally rad. It's basically 2000 islands that are made from limestone and super jagged and go on for miles and miles. The legend is something else about dragons but in reality the water level has been decreasing over millions of years and these crags are what remain. (don't quote me on this ... my facts are a little sketchy). Anyways there's a lot of uninhabited sharp pointy islands. We took an overnight ride on a junk (traditional-type ship) to a few of the islands where we walked through a cave (even bigger than the last!) that was discovered by a monkey (Vietnamese lore is somewhat odd) and went kayaking through an opening in the rock into a hidden lagoon. Sooo beautiful. There are also floating villages in Ha Long Bay, that collect rainwater and fish for food. Very few boats have engines, so people make do with manpower. One man was paddling himself along on a chunk of styrofoam using a shovel as a paddle. Ingenuity. Here's a picture of Scotty kayaking.