a i m l e s s

Vietnam!

Our unwelcomed entrance to Vietnam included two overnight buses (blasting Lao music ALL NIGHT, squishing three full grown adults into seats built for two, infants wailing away, frequent slammings on brakes, crazy downhill speed stunts, and urine/b.o. smelling locals).  Exhausted, we boarded our final three hour ride; a truck taxi on pot-holed dirt road through northeastern Laos to the border city.

 All of this, and not even a kind welcome.  The Vietnamese guards were nice enough to rid us of our extra ‘kip’ (Lao money) at a terrible rate.  We were warned that locals in this border village were not used to having foreigners, and the ‘bus station’ was a mere 500 meters walk into the village.  The ‘bus station’ as mentioned, was little more than a man whose teeth were in a worse state than his rusted and dirty mini-bus.  He offered us the ridiculous price of 40US$ for a ride to Hanoi.  We were able to bargain him down to 30, but the going rate is about a quarter of that price.  Tired, hot, sweaty, muddy, we had no choice but to board this bus with it’s tiny seats and it’s men with outlandishly long finger and toenails that they ever so conveniently placed between the seats that Danny and I smushed into. 

The ride should have been 8 hours, but somehow we got shifted once more.  We stopped at every village, crossroads, town, and random house on the street, paired with a gentle constant quadruple horn honk at stops, gos, curves, straights, ups, downs, pretty much at any given moment the brake was replaced with the horn.  We arrived around midnight in Hanoi at an unnamed bus terminal to a crowd of pushy Vietnamese men who wanted us to ride on their motorbikes for an exorbitant price.  Thankfully, we knew of these scams and began our walk to the Old Quarter, realizing after just a few minutes, that we would never make it due to our current state of fatigue.  A few blocks away we flagged down a taxi, who put us on his meter and promised to take us to one of Lonely Planet’s suggested guesthouses (it was way too late to look around).  The meter rose faster than any taxi in New York City, and shafted again, we ended up paying 198,000 VND (about 12.50$) for a 15 minute taxi ride in circles.  I was so mad, I envisioned myself spitting at the taxi driver’s face, but somehow managed to keep my cool and snatch the 2,000 change as rudely as possible. 

 WELCOME TO VIETNAM.  The locals are unfriendly, unless they are trained in tourism in which case they forcefeed creepy laughter at inopportune conversational moments.  Bargaining takes on a violent undertone; as foreigners we are expected to pay five times the prices locals pay (which is okay for a vacation, but in long term travel is impossible to keep a budget!)  We’re hoping people are simply more pushy in the city, and once we leave for the south, we will encounter a friendlier vibe.

 We departed Hanoi after just a few days, to the humid and hot Cat Ba Island located in Halong Bay, just a few hours bus ride east.  We slept in a tent on the beach, burnt our fair skin in the powerful sun, swam in the warmest sea, and took a boat tour to see more islands around the area.  The water was clear and greenish, the limestone rock cliffs magnificent and large; they created some magnificent and large thoughts and emotions within me.  There were natural bridges eroded into many of the rocks, some were more narrow at the waterline, upside down tear-drop shaped protrusions of stone and green plant life.  We met a sweet sweedish family who travels together every summer in southeast asia and I felt inspired by them to instil the love of exploration and adventure to my future family. 

Back in Hanoi, our last day together, I must rush this post as Danny and I have a date with the Prison Museum to see photos of John McCain behind Vietnamese bars.  As for my future in Asia, I’ve had lots of questions about what’s next, so here’s a vague itinerary:

1.  Buy a bicycle this week, and gear, and cycle around Vietnam until the end of my visa (about three weeks.)

2.  Ride into Cambodia and explore Khmer culture, cycling through and stopping at many places along the way.

3.  Enter Thailand via bike, explore wildlife in Hat Yai National Park, and meet my new employer at the end of August in Surat Thani.

4.  Teach english part time in the port city of Chumpheon, with easy access to many beautiful islands and beaches.  (Breathe, eat, sleep, learn Thai, practice yoga)

5.  Undergo teacher training at Pyramid Yoga Center on Koh Phangan from February until April 2009.

6.  To avoid a severe beating from family and friends, return to New Jersey and share the shanti things I learned in the past year. 

Hopefully, the money will last and my bicycle will not fall apart.  No worries, I am prepared and safe for such travels (MOM, BREATHE!)

“Journeys are the midwives of thought.  Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship, or train (or bike).  There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places.  Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape.”

Laos is a mix of old and new.  Tradition and commercialism.  Lust and religion.  Tourists have only been visiting this country for less than 20 years, it so amazes me how traveler villages have sprung up in so many places around the country.  It’s easy to get taken aback by the beautiful natural surroundings, and instead of submersing yourself in the ‘real’ culture, to sit back and write about it in an air-conditioned PCbong.  For foreigners, this country is a paradise.  Everything is cheap; dinner is less than a dollar if you like noodle soup.  You find yourself arguing with tuk-tuk drivers over 40 cents to take you across the city.  There is very little pollution (still, thankfully) and many international NGOs working to protect the natural areas and wildlife.  It seems for the most part, foreigners who stay here care, unlike various places I saw in Thailand. 

 We entered Laos by boat in the north, to a village called Huay Xai.  The village had guesthouses with kids who spoke fluent English.  They were used to having foreigners around, and one boy learned to play guitar by travelers passing through.  The prices of food and accomodation were twice what I found was normal for Lao (ahem, 4$) and we noticed many locals still chose to bathe and do their laundry in the river.  This was my favorite type of village though.  It was small enough to remember people’s faces after only a few days, and devoid of any big commercialized buildings or restaurants.  Every shop was family owned, and also served as a living room, motorbike garage, and PCbong. 

We found out about many other opportunities while in this village, one being the Gibbon Experience.  There is a French guy who, 7 years ago, raised money to preserve the Bokeo Jungle which is home to many families of gibbons (those skinny little monkeys).  In order to preserve the jungle, he came up with an idea to bring awareness and some tourism to the area.  He and some volunteers built tree houses in a small section of the jungle, cleared out trails leading around and through the jungle, and attached ziplines between platforms to allow tourists to access more of the jungle.  For a mere 200$ you can explore the jungle with guides and delicious Lao meals included for three days two nights!  We met some new friends named Dorien, Uland, Amy, and Griffin.  Together, we zipped, hiked, swam, and generally were in awe at the jungle and the project itself.  We didn’t happen to see any gibbons, the families tended to move away from the treehouse areas after tourists began visiting, but we did learn a lot from our guides about the plants and other wildlife in the area.

But I get ahead of myself.   Before visiting Bokeo jungle, we did a two dak ‘trek’ in Luang Nam Tha province, in the northeast of Laos.  Our trek, or hike, lasted about 7 hours a day.  We traversed rice paddies, big open fields, and into the jungle with vines and steep steep steep hills.  We ended at the Ahka village.  The Ahka are a very unique indigenous tribe that grows rice in the fields.  We had massages from some of the young Ahka girls, learned lots about their culture, and took a ton of photos of the kids and elderly while the adults were working.  I wasn’t sure if I thought being there was a positive thing or not.  The kids knew there was something out there they were missing, and I think after having lots of tourists visit their village they were changing their ideas of the world.  This is more a philosophical arguement though… would you rather know or not know?  In general?  Ah, I digress. 

We then headed to Luang Prabang, French-influenced tourist central with beauuuutiful limestone waterfalls just a bikes ride from the town.  I could have spent all weeks hiding out in the caves around the falls, why I didn’t is still beyond me!  There was nice tourist friendly restaurants and covered shopping areas around the town.  It was clean and taken care of, more so than any Lao place I had seen.  In the mornings the monks who live at the temples in Luang Prabang walk down the streets collecting alms (food to eat) for that day.  We joined the Buddhists in dishing out balls of sticky rice to the line of monks as they meandered through the pre-dawn light.  It was beautiful, and I wished I was more thoughtful to give them some fruit or sweets.  Most of the monks were under 18 years old, strangely enough, and I still am not sure if they really follow Buddhist precepts… I saw some novices hitting on girls and smoking cigarettes.

Next down south to the narrow and tall limestone hills of Vang Vieng.  This village is known for drunken tourists tubing down the river, then watching reruns of Friends in the many guesthouse/restaurants along the main road.  Though we did have one day of tubing debauchery, we generally prefered to explore the surrounding natural area.  Danny went rock climbing, we visited caves, and I volunteered teaching English at a local village school.  The landscape in this area was so magnificent, you have to see it to believe it.

 Now, in Vientiene, we have checked out the city, the temples, the buddha park, got our seafood fix at the river restaurants, and are heading off (just Bubby and me) to Phonsavan, known for the thousand year old stone jars that are about 3 meters high and weigh over a ton!  Then, to explore some caves the Lao people hid out in the 1960-70s while the US carpet bombed the areas they ‘believed to be housing communist forces.’  Two days until Vietnam for some snorkeling, fishing, boating, and caving in Halong Bay!

 Next on the agenda, the division of Rumianowskis!  Danny heads south to do some diving, meanwhile I find a bicycle and finish planning my Asia bicycle adventure!