Avoiding white slavery…

“Home is a place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in”
-The Death of the Hired Man, Robert Frost

One week back in Miami, back to my friends and family, back to my job, and back to my old life. It was remarkably easy to sink into my old habits again. Of course, I can’t stop thinking about the life I was leading just 2 weeks ago. When I was traveling, one week meant different cities, different beds, different companions, even different countries. This one week in Miami has been the shortest in months. I’ve slept in my own bed for 6 nights now (one night on Anibal and Melissa’s sofa after my birthday party!) - which is a first in a long while. I woke up the other night, not knowing where I was. That happened a lot while I was gone, but it was especially peculiar to realize I was in my own room.

Time really is relative, isn’t it? 7 days with Gert and by the end of it, we were like a married couple, hanging our panties out to dry together and ordering for each other in restaurants. After literally 2 minutes talking to Selina for the first time, we had decided to stay in Phnom Penh together as roommates before traveling on to Siem Reap - we didn’t even know each other’s names! A week spent in a different place every night seems like an eternity - when I think about walking into my uncle’s house for the first time, way back in September, it seems like years ago.

Several people have asked me what I’ve learned from my trip, or how it has changed me. That’s hard to answer. I met some people who looked at their own travels as a weird type of voyeurism, a way to see how other people live but with not much influence on their own lives. I’ve heard a lot of people say that those experiences, especially the unpretty ones, make them appreciate their own lives more. And I understand that, but how can it also not make you think about what you need versus what you want?

But what I can’t stop thinking about are all the decisions I had to make, and how my experiences might have differed with other choices. It reminds me of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, did anyone else read those? You get to the end of the page and are given 2 choices, and you flip to the page number of your choice and continue on from there. I used to love those books because they essentially gave you dozens of endings. Being on the road without much of a gameplan is like that. Is this person crazy/annoying/fun? Do I feel safe here? Is eating that going to make me sick? I know it sounds cliche, but what I learned more than anything else is to trust my instinct and not be afraid to take chances. I did a lot of things that were hard for me, things I had to psyche myself up for, and they always, always paid off. I’m hoping that stays with me forever.

So that’s that. I’ve spent the last week, in an effort to ward off jet-lag and/or bird flu, uploading and organizing my photos. If 500 pictures seems excessive, please understand that I’ve only posted about half of them! They’re divided by country…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shescrafty/sets/

And if you don’t have a fast connection, or really, much of an interest, and you want to look at them by subject matter, go to my “tags” page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shescrafty/tags/

I’ve tagged each photo according to where it was taken, what’s in it, etc. So, for example, if your name is Sue Moroz and you have an unhealthy fixation about my mother, you could click on the “mom” tag. The bigger the font, the more photos there are tagged with that word. I’ve also tagged some as “favorites” - if you don’t want to see all of them, you might just want to check out my faves.

I got a sweet email from my bank telling me that due to fraud in Vietnam, they have “placed a block on all signature based transactions” here. Thanks, you wankers.

More details about my birthday - god I loved those irish folks. Up until then, the people I had been traveling with were pretty different from me when it came to the silly fun things like pop music and bawdy humor. They taught me how to say “kiss my ass” in irish. On our trek, me and Den spent the entire time doing lines from Blazing Saddles. They loved that I knew the song My Lovely Horse from Father Ted. While we were tubing through the cave (so cool, dark, scary, loud) someone said something like “in my head” and the next thing you know, we are launched into Zombie by the Cranberries (”in my heaaad, in my heaaaaaaaaaad, Zombie Zombie Zombie-ie-ie”) echoing off the cave walls. Me and Baz sang “Islands in the Stream” as we kayaked down the river, until I said “you know, if we’re going to sing a Kenny Rogers song it should be his best one…” and he said “The Gambler!” so then we were going down the rapids shouting “you gotta know whent o hold em…” And we were all loudly singing our favorite Smiths lyrics in the bar…

“Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know, it’s seriooooooooos”
“And if a double decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die…”
“You’re the one for me, fatty, you’re the one I really really love”
“I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to weaaaar, this man said it’s gruesome that someone so handsome should caaa-aaaaa-aaaaare”

Incidentally, for once in SE Asia I did have a stitch to wear! I had been carrying a gleaming white tank top around in a zip-loc, with little beaded details, waiting for a special occasion. So it was great to pull it out and put on a clean shirt for my birthday. Of course, I still wore flip flops.

My birthday dinner went like this: my 4 irish-brit friends, Baz (the Prince William Aussie), his Lao buddy, 2 french canadians from kayaking, Sota the japanese guy, and another canadian we befriended literally on the way to the restaurant, a dreadlocked girl named Renee. Caroline disappeared during dinner and showed up with a cake! it was frosted and everything! I have NO idea where she got it (Vang Vieng is a small town, the roads arent even paved). So we went out dancing to the only disco in Vang Vieng. Baz requested In Da Club from the DJ so they all sang “go mary, it’s your birthday, we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday”, and I did “drink bacardi like it’s your birthday”.

Somehow I made my bus in the morning, spent a quiet night alone in Vientiene (despite a really nice dutch guy on the bus next to me, but I just wasn’t having it), and now I am back in HCMC. I spent the day shopping and bought lots of stuff for me, including a gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous dress from one of the high end silk shops. The rest of you are getting crap. And cambodian babies.

My final hours: wrap this up, catch a cab, pick up my backpack from the guesthouse, and go back to see the family for one more night. I’m really looking forward to seeing them! Then… to the airport tomorrow morning for another 30 hour ordeal to get home. I hope customs doesn’t care about some questionable items I’m bringing home…

First off, thanks to all of you who sent e-cards and birthday wishes. I have only a moment, but wanted to let you know that I had one of the most beautiful and memorable birthdays ever here in Vang Vieng, Laos.

It started last night when Fiona and Caroline knocked on my door at midnight with a banana-chocolate crepe… just what I always wanted! Crepes are big here with the huge european backpacker scene.

They also gave me a pair of Thai fisherman pants, which I had said I wanted, and a really nice card welcoming me to my durty-thirties, with such sentiments as “it’s all downhill from here” and “we hope you remember us after the dementia sets in. Then it was tubing through a cave and kayaking down the river - and it was sweet when my mates told me my ticket had been paid, awwww - and it ended up being gorgeous and fun and we made even more friends who are waiting for me to go out to dinner. My kayak partner was a hilarious aussie who looks a little like Prince William (nice! but I still like Harry better) and we sang Blondie songs and Kenny Rogers songs and guess what, we were the only kayak not to capsize in the rapids! Yes, I am that good. We agreed on the last leg, as the sun was setting, that we would be especially careful, as I was really cold and he had a big Lao Beer between his knees.

Lunch on the river, kayak pit-stop: Fiona (irish), me, Jane (Brit), Tone (Lao), Sota (Japanese), Den (Irish), Baz (Aussie), and the French-Canadian girl
But I have to run, we are meeting the rest of our group (2 french canadians, the aussie, his lao friend, and a nice japanese fella) for dinner… some of them want to sample the “happy” shakes but I think I’ll pass. I have a bus to Vientiene to catch in the morning!

In Laos still, in Vang Vieng, a sweet little town that is quickly becoming corrupted by tourism and losing it’s soul. But it’s absolutely gorgeous, very small, surrounded by karst mountains.

It’s also the type of town where I would be insanely bored if I was alone, thank god I’m not! I met 4 fun people on the bus yesterday (the 3 hour trip taking more than 5 because we broke down several times): 2 irish sisters, Caroline and Fiona, both WILD, and a couple, Den from Northern Ireland and Jane from Manchester (yet I can understand her!). All very smart and opinionated and I’m so glad I’ll have fun people to spend my birthday with.

I don’t want to write too much now because it cost twice as much for internet here than in Vientiene. And I have to watch my money because it looks like I’m in a little bit of trouble financially - I have loads of money in my bank account but I can’t touch it because I can’t remember my pin number. And nobody takes credit cards so I can’t use my check card either. At least until I get to Saigon. Which just goes to show that my brain consists of:

90% movie lines and song lyrics
9% useless trivia (the name of the boat from Jaws? The Orca)
1% my junior high locker combination: 24-16-28

I think I’m alright with cash to last me until Vietnam but that also means no more posh french meals like I treated myself to in Vientiene.

So funny, the irish people have been sitting here behind me and we had no idea. For like 20 minutes, not until they started talking to each other and I turned around and went HEY!

Jane and Den are doing an RTW trip, they are on their “last leg” of it, which is still a week longer than my entire trip. It sounds so great: South America, New Zealand, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand. But they have been traveling since March! I’m already starting to feel the ache to come home - I miss my friends and family. BUt I’ll see you in a week!

Talk about deja vu… But I’ll get to that later.The pendulum keeps swinging on Laos - from great to lonely, from perfect to frustrating. Maybe I’m just ready to come home. Yet at the same time I want to keep going and going and going…

What I don’t like: streets are not marked. I have seen not one street sign since I got here. Which means, of course, that I got horribly, totally lost. I think I ended up in Thailand. Not really, but I can see it right over the Mekong. As I was walking I was feeling so sorry for myself and wishing I had someone with me, either to keep me on track (Gert) or laugh about my ridiculous predicament (Selina), but eventually I saw a landmark and used my compass-flashlight key chain - THANK YOU JEFF AND JANICE for the best gift ever, I use the compass daily and the light really came in handy when I was clenching it in my teeth crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam! So eventually I found the Mekong and went to a cute riverside restuarant, called the Riverside Restaurant, for a lackluster solitary meal. I was hoping for Lao food that would blow me away but it tasted like westernized thai food. But I had the big Lao Beer, since they were out of the smalls and you know me, I’m a trouper.

I was having a lukewarm reaction to Vientiene but then it got a whole lot better - the squid lady came by! Dried squid is one of my favorite pre-, during, or post-dinner snacks. As soon as I got my bill I jumped up to chase her as far as the next restaurant, where I got her to roast me up some squid and it was great, she was so nice and the restaurant people didn’t seem to mind me buying street food to eat there - of course I ordered another beer (my mother and Alex will stand by me: you cannot eat dried squid without beer!). I also used my guidebook to communicate that I wanted hot sauce and lime for dipping, and the hot sauce was so good. Homemade, garlicky, gingery, and HOT by god, hot.

So I ended up enjoying the sun set over the Mekong River, eating dried squid and, let’s face it, getting pretty drunk.

Today was another unusual day. I had decided to start off with the Lao National Museum and I got, oh, nowhere near it. I had wanted to go to Pha That Luang, which is supposed to be a big deal, a huge monument, but the guidebook lists it as closed Monday. I asked the tuk-tuk driver and he said no, it is indeed open, so we headed there. It was great because it was still early, and maybe all the Lonely Planeters stayed away thinking it was closed, so I was practically alone.

I was just walking along looking at beautiful paintings by local artists when I hear “Hello!” and once again, turn around and see 3 young monks. I am a monk magnet. Long story short: they were fun, we spent the next 6 hours together, they took me on the local bus to Xieng Khuan (aka “Buddha Park”) 24 km out of town - I never would have been able to figure out the local bus!, then back to Vientiene to go to 2 magnificant pagodas, and I just said goodbye and we have a tentative playdate for next week when I pass through Vientiene again. I lost my head for a second and held my hand out to shake hands and they jumped back like I pulled a gun… good one, Mary!

So the day turned out to be really great, really really wonderful… But here’s what I DO NOT like about Laos, it is too laid back! I know, how is that a problem? It is a huge problem when you are waiting for a plane ticket on an already full flight and you come back to the travel agent the following day as agreed and it is obvious that he totally forgot to check! They had me sit there for about 20 minutes waiting for… something, I don’t know. And now they want me to come back tomorrow. I said if I can get the confirmation before I leave for Vang Vieng, okay, otherwise…??? I might have to fly to Phnom Penh again, or somehow get back into Vietnam and take the bus… What I’m trying to say is that I might be stuck here forever. Send my stuff.

I was a little pissed so I went next door and that travel agent said Okay! but then it was cash only!!! What the hell? Frankly, I need my US dollars since I can’t get any here, so that option didn’t appeal to me.

I have a feeling there is a Vietnam Airlines office very close that they are not telling me about. Which is pissing me off. I am going to call right now.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Yesterday afternoon I went back to Angkor Wat on my own (with my moto driver, Pross) and had a little quiet time sitting on one of the small sub-temples in full view of the front of Angkor Wat. I wrote in my journal, wrote some postcards, just chillin’ out waiting for the sun to set.

Angkor Wat is considered the largest religious building in the world, and although it is almost 1000 years old, I was surprised to find out that it (and many of the temple ruins) is still used for worship and there is an adjacent monastery. So there are always these magnificent looking monks in saffron robes wandering around, which is a big novelty for the tourists. I was even thinking yesterday that I would have to amend my “Monks are fun guys” statement because some of the younger monks seemed pretty irritated by people following them around with cameras all the time.

So I was really surprised, while I had my head down writing, to hear “Hello!” and see 2 very young monks wanting to chat with me. One spoke english and the other spoke japanese and they said they thought I might be japanese - which I will take as a HUGE compliment because all the japanese girls I have seen have awesome fashion sense (”Harajuku girls, you got the wicked style…”). We were joined by another young monk. They had a lot of questions about the US and Vietnam, and I had a lot of questions about Cambodia… For example, all those people I see begging, all the landmine victims, they don’t get any help from the government and basically if it wasn’t for the tourism they wouldn’t have any money at all. He asked about my religion and when I told him I was buddhist he got really excited and said “in Buddhism, we believe that to help others is to help yourself”, regarding the amputees and begging kids.

A finnish guy came over to take a picture of the monks and I asked him to take one with my camera too and it turned out really sweet. I promised the monk I would send him some books in english and he gave me his address at the pagoda. We ended up sitting there on the steps of the temple talking for over half an hour, well past the sunset and, ooops, after the park closed. I had to walk out in the dark with my flashlight (absolute must-have item for temple exploration, if only to see inside the dark dark bathroom!)

As Pross and I approached the guesthouse we saw that much of the Old Market Area was in the dark… again. Our block had no power the night before, but just for about an hour or so. But last night I didn’t get power back until after 10 pm. Evidently, pretty common in Siem Reap. So instead of sweating in my room, I walked into the Old Market area to find a place to eat. It’s very eerie walking through the streets of Cambodia in total darkness. I knew there were people all around me but I couldn’t see them. I found a place that looked nice and the proprieter was desperate for a customer so I sat down and ate a wonderful romantic candleligt dinner all by myself. I’m still not used to eating alone. I tried a traditional khmer dish called Amok - it’s like a fish curry with shrimp and squid and veggies and eggs. Really spicy, really good.

So it was up early again this morning to get the big sunrise shot. I met Pross in the lobby at 5am and you know what? I wouldn’t have thought I could be cold in Cambodia but on the drive to the temples in the dark, I froze my Wats off. I’d gone to Angkor Wat on Thursday for the sunrise but we really got there just as the sun came up (our tuk tuk had trouble, we had to get our admission tickets, it took too long), so I was happy to get there in the dark this morning and set up dead center just as the sky started to brighten.

People do still live there, around Angkor Wat and the other temples 

After that I just did some of the other big temples in Angkor Thom, including Bayon (one of my favorites) and the Terrace of the Leper King and Terrace of the Elephants. And it was great! When I went to those on Thursday, they were just teeming with people but somehow I lucked out this morning and had them almost all to myself. I think the big tour buses do a well-traveled loop and fortunately, none of them were around for me.

Bayon… hundreds of semi-smiling faces 

Defaced Buddhas

Me and Pross 

I got back to town by 9am because I don’t want to get “templed out”, and I plan on going back for sunset. I also arranged for Pross to take me to a weekly concert to benefit the hospital, this week is violin music. I figure that will be a nice way to spend my last night in Cambodia.

One more thing… the kids here are too much. Borderline annoying and adorable, I can’t decide if i want to smack them or hug them. They follow you down the streets saying “postcards? postcards lady?” and if I say I already have them they say “but now buy from me!” They are tenacious and adorable. When you say “no thanks” they try to engage you in conversation by asking where you are from. It’s really smart because most westerners are too polite to not answer a direct question. So when I say I am from the US they all, and I mean in unison, yell out “Really! I am from Washington DC!” which is SO CUTE. I had one girl say “there are 50 state, the largest one is Alaska and the smallest one is Rhode Island”. Then they want to know what state I am from and yesterday I had a little boy tell me “the capital is Tallahassee” which was impressive. I think a lot of Floridians don’t know that.

And there is quite a bit of emotional blackmail too. It’s so transparent… but it works! I had this girl, she was selling postcards postcards postcards - and i was saying no thanks no thanks no thanks and she said “when you go, I will miss you.” Jesus! I almost put her in my backpack.

But… it doesn’t really work on me. The ones that follow me down the street, the ones that come up to you in the cafes and will not leave - I never want to give money to them because somehow they have learned that if they are annoying enough and persistent enough, people will give them money to leave them alone. I don’t want to support that. In Saigon, the moto and cyclo drivers make me want to scream, so when they ask me where I am from I say “Uranus. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Oh and guess what I saw. My record for number of people on one moto was 5, which I saw twice in Vietnam. Well the other morning I saw (and I had to count out loud to be absolutely sure) “onetwothreefourfivesixSEVEN!” and threw my arms in the air for victory. 3 adults, 3 children, and the lady in the back holding an infant. Of course it went by too fast for a photo so you’ll just have to trust me.

Fun Fact: Cambodia is the only country whose flag features a man-made object! (Angkor Wat) See what you learn when you read my blog?

Denise, you win. It was indeed Jesse from Saved By the Bell. I love you for knowing that (and I know Tia, Tay and Sue know it too!). And my mom didn’t diss laotians, she dissed H’mongs!

A quick update…

The temples are unbelievable. I’m so glad I’m here. The four of us - me, Salina, and the blokes - spent an entire day there, starting with a sunrise at Angkor Wat, hopping from temple to temple, and going back to explore Angkor Wat again before calling it a (long) day.

Sunrise, Angkor Wat

I think my favorite was Ta Prahn, the temple that is being slowly swallowed by enormous trees. It’s where parts of Tomb Raider were shot, and I did take the Tomb Raider photo of the entrance with the roots of a gorgeous ficus cascading over the stones like a waterfall.

Amazing carvings of apsara, complete with belly fat!

Me and Selina

Entrance to Preah Kahn 

I’m not going to write a lot about the temples since I’ll post the photos eventually. The bad news is that i think (I hope!) i left my camera cable in saigon so it won’t be soon.

It’s still a little sad here - the poverty and so many disabled people. Some of the landmine victims have formed music troupes, playing traditional khmer music outside the temples during the day and in the posh traveler neighborhoods at night. They’re very good. I think i have spent more of my money giving 1000 riel here, 1000 riel there, to the beggars and musicians and incense ladies in the temples. There are just SO MANY that you can’t help everyone. Walking back to the hotel last night I gave my last riels to a man who was following me and touching my arms with his handless stumps saying “khmer rouge… BOOM! no hands…”

Landmine victim band

Well Salina left this morning, catching a plane to Bangkok. I am chilling with the Aussies this afternoon before they head back to Saigon, then I am on my own again. I’ve arranged a moto to go back to the temples and if the weather is nice, i will try to catch the sunset on Angkor Wat (me and 1000 other people - everyone knows where you need to be to get the best photos, it’s no secret). And tomorrow i will do another full day of temple exploration.

I got my ticket to Vientiene on Sunday, so Laos is ON. I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m so… scared! (my eternal respect to the first person to name that reference.)

Hey, miamians. Any of you still there? I guess if you don’t have power you can’t exactly answer…

Well I made it to Cambodia. And if there ever was a place with some seriously bad mojo, this is it.

After a bumpy and eventful ride, I’ve arrived in Siem Reap via the capitol city of Phnom Penh. The border crossing from Vietnam was as confusing as one might expect, but eventually we got put on a small shabby bus and driven down the worst road you can imagine. A ferry crossing was particularlly difficult - i know it sounds uncharitable but I couldnt help but think of Night of the Living Dead, all these touters and disabled people and small beggar children moaning and chanting and pushing their hands through whatever open window we had on the bus… It was sad. But I was expecting them to start moaning “braaains”.

On the upside i made friends with the vietnamese monk on our bus… Remember I mentioned happy monks? They are! All of them. I am making a blanket generalization here: monks are fun guys. He spoke a bit of english but he also had a reall nifty electronic dictionary. why didnt i get one of those 2 months ago?!?! We had about 3 hours to chat and we used his e-dictionary a lot. At the end of the trip, he gave me the prayer beads he had used for 30 years. I asked him several times “Are you sure you want to give these to me?” and he insisted. He pointed to his chest than my chest and said “same”, then typed something into his e-dictionary and showed me the translation: “good heart, kind-hearted”…

SUCKER!

They’re lovely big wooden beads with a saffron tassel. I told him I would promise to meditate more.

Okay, a moto with a trailer just flipped outside the internet cafe and it was really scary. But no one was hurt. Looks like an old lady is about to kick someone’s ass though.

Cambodia has been pretty emotionally draining. And physically! I couldnt imagine worse buses or roads than vietnam but my god. the monk laughed his ass off when we hit a really hard bump and I went “my god!”in vietnamese… the good news is that scheduling has worked out really well and i know my family will be happy to know that I am once again traveling with a partner.. partners really. I met Irish Salena on the bus, a really nice and mild-mannered girl who is Janice’s long lost twin - the physical resemblance is mild but the voices and expressions are identical (except, of course, Salena’s got that irish brogue). We’re rooming together and doing all the normal girl stuff that I couldnt do with the dutchman - fingernail painting and pillow fights. I’m kidding of course. I did that with the dutchman too.

We’ve also hooked up with a couple crusty aussies, 2 brothers named Tony and Frank who are in their 50s and 60s. they’re real weathered and fun and I get the feeling they are thrilled about going home to brag about traveling Cambodia with 2 20-something sheilas.

I really had just planned to stay in Phnom Penh for the night and get the morning bus to Siem Reap, but as it turns out there was an unlisted bus for 12 noon, which meant that we could sight-see in PP for the morning. So we decided to go to the Killing Fields.

I can’t say that i have ever seen anything so horrible as thousands of skulls piled about 3 stories high. And what shook me up so much, what made me unable to breathe and made my eyes water and throat burn, was when i lit incense to pray and bent to put it in the ground next to one of the mass graves and saw human teeth littered all over the dirt. And bone fragments and clothes, but the teeth gave me chills that still haven’t left my body.

The Stupa, memorial

Teeth

Ironically enough, the Killing Fields are really beautiful. It’s hard to imagine the genocide that happened there. it’s about 15 km out of PP and very quiet and if it wasn’t for the monument filled to the top with exhumed skulls, you would think it was lovely. I let some kids take me around (since we bypassed the $5 guide) especially since i made a promise to the Dutchman that I wouldn’t walk anywhere in Cambodia if I wasn’t directly following a local - due to the estimated 6 million unexploded landmines. One of the guidebooks actually says “if you can’t get the local children to walk with you somewhere, don’t go”. The kids were cute and informative and I asked if there were landmines around the area and they said “Yes!” (although i was still techinically on the Killing Fields, which have been cleared for tourists). They wanted $2 to take me on a long walk but I said no thanks, paid one kid for the incense (even though i saw him steal it for me) and gave them a dollar to share.

Still. There’s just not enough incense in the world for places like that. Even Tony, a confirmed atheist, said he fought the compulsion to cross himself when we first saw the skulls.

We had taken a tuk-tuk out of town, which meant it was a dirty and bouncy ride back. I really need to buy one of the nifty checkered scarves the locals wear to cover my face. Our driver was great and got us to our next location, the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. In keeping with the theme of the Killing Fields, Toul Sleng is a high school that the Khmer Rouge took over and made into a prison camp, where most of the prisoners were housed and interrogated before finally being executed at the Killing Fields outside of town. Again, and maybe especially after the Killing Fields, it was heinous and awful. From the outside it looks like any southeast asian school (except for the barbed wire), and you go inside and all the rooms are set up either as prison cells or interrogation rooms. All the photos of the victims were very moving, there were SO many. They used the children’s exercise frames for rope climbing as gallows. And when I walked up the stairs, I saw rusty colored splatter stains still on the walls. The place is unbelievable.

Interrogation room

The Gallows

Photos of the Khmer Rouge victims

Blood on the walls 

The prisoner regulations are chilling as well:

THE SECURITY REGULATIONS
· You must answer accordingly to my questions — don’t turn them away.
· Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
· Don’t be a fool, for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
· You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
· Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
· While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
· Do nothing, sit still, and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
· Don’t make pretexts about Kampuchea in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
· If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire.
· If you disobey any point of my regulations, you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

PP itself isnt the type of place i want to hang around. Salena and I went to a highly recommended restaurant last night (that employees unfortunate children and teaches them about the hospitality trade), and got soooo lost. The streets are really confusing, and it doesnt help to have an english map and khmer street signs. But we found it eventually and it was really really worth it - excellent (though trendy) food like pumpkin soup and roasted eggplant dip. By far the most expensive meal I have had since coming to SE Asia - a whole $20 for 2 people!

Tuk-tuk… It gets dusty back there!

Right now I am in Siem Reap. After Tony and I fought off the touters, possibly the most aggressive I have seen yet, more aggressive than Hanoi - we ended up at a really charming guesthouse. A huge step up from the pit Salena and I slept in last night. We’re willing to fork over $13 for a double with AC and hot water and MY GOD A REAL SHOWER - most SE asian showers are just you standing in the bathroom with a nozzle on the wall and a drain in the floor, meaning everything gets wet.

We are planning a long day tomorrow, since Salena, Tony and Frank are committing the worst crime in Cambodia and just getting a one day pass to the temples before moving on to their respective destinations (thailand and back to vietnam). Myself, I am going for the 3 day pass which means I will be on my own again after tomorrow, and hopefully I can get a seat on the sought-after Sunday flight to Vientiene… Laos, baby!

We’ve arranged 2 tuk-tuks to pick us up at 5 am… whoa. but everyone, EVERYONE, needs to see at least one sunrise over Ankor Wat, right? Me and Salena are also planning to look into the tethered balloon that takes over the temples… that has cool potential, although many purists argue that balloons are the first step to Disneyfying one of the world wonders… I’ll wave at them from 200m up!

Continuation of last week… Gert and i arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday morning at 4 freakin’ 30 am and had to wait for our travel cafe to open up. Then another gross shower in the communal dorm bathroom and off to Halong Bay.

Halong Bay is absolutely gorgeous. We spent the first day on a boat cruising around, kayaking and swimming, all in view of the enormous karst formations rising from the water. Halong means “descended dragon” - legend has it that a momma dragon flew down to the bay to conquer an invading army and thought it was so beautiful that she stayed and had many babies. And when it was hazy, you could see the formations barely visible in the mist and one might almost believe there were dragons sleeping out there.

After climbing to top of caves in the cliffs

Gert and I got to spend the night on the boat and we really lucked out by getting one of only 2 upperdeck cabins, which meant that we had a large window that looked directly out into the bay, rather than over a walkway like the lower deck cabins. What a view to wake up to!

That’s the view from the bed

The following day we docked at Cat Ba Island to go trekking in the national park. After my bad experience trekking with piss poor shoes in Sapa, I decided to just go up the approach trail, which was hard enough, then meet the group at the end of the trail. As disappointed in myself as I was, I knew I made the right choice 2 hours later after seeing the beet red Scots coming off the trail, who all said “you made the right choice” - the trail ended up being much more challenging than anyone had expected, bloody knees and skinned elbows and SO HOT. Plus, I ended up having a great time with an older Australian couple who introduced me to Shandy… How come I never heard of this? Beer and Sprite. We sat with some locals in a cantina and drank a few cold ones, and even got to see a man showing off the mountain goat he had just caught - don’t ask me how! Those things are nimble! The entire village was very excited and he posed for pictures for me, and even grabbed the poor goat’s testicles for a photo. I think that’ll be my christmas card this year.

Top of trail

Goat nuts

Our guide showed us this freshwater spring; there was an old lady washing her clothes

Later that day, after the trekkers had recuperated, we took a boat to Monkey Island. And saw some monkeys. I don’t trust them. They warned us not to get too close, which we thought meant like 4 meters but actually “too close” meant 10 meters… a monkey came running at me from my blind side and I heard a guy who worked there yelling at it and it backed down, but I was already halfway to the water. It was right about then that a british guy who was leaving came up to us with a stick and gave it to Extreme Aussie Steve, saying “if they come at you, you might be able to scare them off with this, otherwise run for the water. They won’t go in.” Comforting.

Still, it was nice on the beach (though I felt like I was constantly being watched…) and very relaxing. No one got bit, which would have posed significant hold-ups at Customs… “Yes, I was bitten by a monkey in a 3rd world country.”

Cat Ba is quite touristy so after we got back to the hotel, Gert and I went walking away from the hotel strip and had a lot of fun with kids playing in the street - they all wanted Gert to play soccer with them (”where you from? Holland?”) because they all know Amsterdam’s soccer team.Then we met up with Extreme Aussies Steve and Ramona and 3 belgiums who were lots of fun, and we went to a couple bars and drank big Tiger beers. These backpacker bars… so fun but also, what’s the point of going to another country if you end up sitting in a posh bar where the only locals are the wait staff? Still, they were playing hilarious old Aussie pop music from the 80s and Steve was loving it. Bands we had never heard of - the Belgium guys were in the army and they only knew who Suzy Quatro was because they used it as a code word!

So the next day it was back to Hanoi. The bus was lots of fun - being with a bunch of westerners made me realize that I wasn’t overreacting about the way people drive here! At one point we saw a car coming toward us in our lane (it was a divided highway with a median) which made us shake our heads and laugh, until we realized there was an accident up ahead and we had to make a u-turn in the middle of the road too! So after turning around, driving against traffic, crossing the median and driving on the left side of the road, we were heading the right direction (on the wrong side), which amused the aussies who said “Finally!” But then we saw the accident and it actually looked pretty horrible, a mangled motorbike and a big truck and lots of dark pavement. Dampened the mood considerably.

Back to Hanoi, then Gert and I repacked our backpacks, me to go to saigon the next day and him to go back to Holland that night. I really enjoyed traveling with him so it was quite sad. We’d spent the week playing little jokes on each other and it was fun to see that we both had something up our sleeves for the very end… I was threatening to put opium in his pack for customs and he was threatening to steal my plane ticket home, so when he wasn’t looking I stuck a bag of Oreos in his bag (he had some in Sapa and said “I bought these cookies in Hue - try one! they’re so good!”) and just before he hopped in the cab he said “here’s your ticket back” and handed me a Vietnam Airlines envelope, and I freaked out for a moment until I realized a) it wasn’t mine and b) there was something else in it… Turns out he had been hoarding a pack of this dutch stuff called Direct Energy, some glucose candy thing that I had become addicted to and he told me he’d run out of in Halong Bay… Awwww.

Our last meal in Hanoi together… Tiger beer of course

So now i am back in Saigon, staying at a small guesthouse. I opted to not go back to family since I am walking distance from the travel cafes and airline offices and consulates that I need to figure out what to do next. And without my mother i would have a hard time communicating with my aunt and uncle… I will go back just before I leave to say goodbye and pick up some things I left there, but for now i want to be in the city center. I chose not to stay in the backpacker ghetto and I am glad. The famous Miss Loi’s guesthouse was completely booked when I arrived (I can see why, it looked charming) but there were many options nearby and I found a nice, clean, safe family run GH. I like the neighborhood a lot - they obviously see lots of westerners but it doesn’t look like many hang out with the locals, so when I went out to get some food that night I struck up a conversation with a friendly cyclo driver - he took one look at me and asked if I was part vietnamese, which was a first. Usually they only figure it out when I ask for nuoc mam and hot peppers with my meals! He recommended a restaurant down the street, so I picked up some really excellent rice and pork at local prices - I was getting so frustrated with the food in the tourist hubs: not authentic and overpriced. So I paid 8000d for dinner, about 50 cents. And 5000d for a nuoc mia (sugarcane juice) and bottle of water, about 35 cents. Just another reason to get off the beaten path.

Cu Chi tunnels; showing us the smallest tunnels

Demonstrating traps for American soldiers

Wall murals

Me in the tunnel… Before the flash, it was PITCH BLACK. 

Back in HCMC, me and a cyclo driver 

So now… I picked up a guidebook for Laos and have to do some quick decision making. The land crossing between Cambodia and Laos seems pretty dodgy - most travelers report that the border on the cambodian side is actually run by the mafia! And extortion is almost guaranteed. I’m looking into flying now, which might also work out better because I’m running out of time…

Riding the night train to Lao Cai made me think of a Liz Phair song, “Baby Got Going”, about a girl who really likes riding the train… Squeeze her knees underneath her book, you know a really good shakin’s all it took… The train is fun. Me and Gerrit (who shall be known by his nickname Gert, which I still can’t pronounce correctly) shared the cabin on the way out with a quiet v’mese couple (I slept like a baby) and the way back with the Israeli snorers (oi vey!).

It was all very Agatha Christie and I kept expecting someone to burst in and say “Someone has murdered Colonel Edgewater! It must of been one of us….” We booked soft sleepers and I wouldn’t go any other way. They fit 3 berths on each side of the hard sleepers! The top berth is waaaay up there. When we came in Gert let me pick top or bottom bunk and I almost said bottom just to see what 6′5″ of dutchman looks like climbing up there. But that would be cruel, so he hoisted me and my pack up.

After arrival at Lao Cai, our bus driver assistant met us holding a sign with our names on it, which was a first for me! I took a picture (even though he spelled my name wrong). We crammed into a 15 passenger mini-bus with about 18 people. This was officially my 2nd time in Vietnam being in a mini-bus with multiple vomiters. The road to Sapa is long and winding and some poor women just didn’t handle it well. The bus assistant thought it was hilarious, telling me and Gert “she is vomiting!” with genuine glee - until he saw the leg of his pants. Now THAT’s funny.

Sapa is a gorgeous hilly town with really great weather. We arrived, had breakfast, and met our trekking guide, a 16 year old h’mong girl who told us to call her “Mimi-lou”. (I looooove the way the h’mong women dress - really beautifully dyed garmets and lots of hand embroidery. They wrap their legs with dyed fabric and roll their hair up into these caps… So cool. And that’s what they really wear! It’s not put on for the tourists, then taken off at home and replaced by sweats. You see the women in the fields dressed in their embroidery and dyed tunics.)

Mimi-lou was about 2 inches tall. Really, we were wondering where the rest of our guide was. The guides were the so fun, though, these tough h’mong girls who, like all 16 year old girls, wanted to hang out with each other and flirt with boys. They knew english phrases like “You crazy! you crazy man! You dreaming! I hate you! I kick your ass!” So although it was supposed to be a private trek, we really just hooked up with the other guides and their customers.

Mimi-lou, the pocket-guide

We had booked a home-stay, meaning we trekked to a village called Ta Van (12 km I think) and slept in a h’mong home. Okay, so it ended up being 8 westerners playing poker outside and the family watching TV inside, but we had a blast. Our group was: a young Austrian couple, a cute french-canadian guy named Louis-Phillipe (he had a Jared Leto thing going on), a british guy named Dan who had been traveling for 4 and a half years, me and Gert, and 3 fun israelis. FYI - I have never met so many Israelis. Evidently, this is the time of year they all go on holiday. Who’s watching Israel?

The Austrians, Dan the brit, the 3 Israelis, Gert & Mimi-lou, and the French Canadian 

I kicked ass in poker. They’ll never trust another american who says “I don’t remember how to play…” I didn’t! But it came back, like riding a bike. Either that, or they all sucked.

Oh yeah, the trek. Okay. Loved it and hated it. I had decided against bringing my beautiful Merrell hiking boots just to wear them for one week… they’re heavy and big and I’m traveling light. But I almost had wistful tears in my eyes thinking about them while I was sliding down that mountain on my arse. I wore very comfortable walking sandals that had served me well for more than a month, but had almost no traction and I slipped on loose rocky downhills about 3 times. One of the times was pretty spectacular, if I do say so. At the trailhead, as soon as I looked doooooown the slope, I bought a bamboo walking stick. Best 33 cents I ever spent in my life. It wasn’t the most challenging trail but it gave me the nervous sweats everytime it went downhill. And there were parts where the “trail” was a series of rocks through hillside rice paddies with water on one side and about a meter drop into water on the other. And yes, I did slip and step into the water up past my knee once - it’s hard to walk on wet rocks with no traction AND a pack! I have no one to blame but myself - but I’m glad I did it.

And of course, old h’mong women and small children wear practically leaping around me. The biggest problem most travelers have with VN, after the scary traffic, is someone at every turn trying to sell you something. But they still manage to be surprised by h’mong women treking 3 km along side you shaking beautiful handicrafts in your face saying “buy from me!” Seriously - they’re with you almost the whole way. And in the village. Some are nice and some are really aggressive… do trekkers really buy embroidered blankets 12km out of town that they have to carry on their backs back? I was ready to take things OUT of my pack, not put things in.

After a not-very-authentic, but wonderful, breakfast of crepes with sliced banana and chocolate sauce, we hit the trail again, a shorter trek of about 4 km, passing a beautiful waterfall. The verticals gave me almost no problem and this was more uphills than downhills, so while it was more challenging, I managed to stay on my feet and had a much better trek. At the top of the last hill, we were met by our transport back to Sapa - either motorbikes (free with our paid trek) or jeeps ($2 a person extra). I had insisted to Gert that we book the jeep and I think we both knew we’d made the right choice… the road looked very dangerous and I can only imagine what would happen if a motorbike going up met a truck going down.

Sapa itself is a sleepy little town. You can walk almost the whole thing in about 20 min. Which we did. We had all day on Monday to check out the market and hit an internet cafe, so we ended up sleeping in past 10 - my first time since I left Miami!

The handicraft women are in the village too. Oh, Sapa has been the first place where anyone has offered to sell me drugs - and it happened 3 times! Marijuana and opium. 2 times, I wasn’t that surprised by a sleazy looking teenager approaching us, but the third was an old h’mong woman who first shook her goods in front of us - “buy blanket?” - and then said “smoke marijuana?” We could barely contain our amusement.

Gert teasing schoolkids 

We had a great conversation with a h’mong woman who approached our bench in the park. Once she understood that we weren’t going to buy anything from her, she just wanted to chat. I was peeling a pomegranet and broke it into thirds to share, and she slid onto the bench beside me and ate it with her blue hands (they all have blue hands from the indigo dye). She assumed we were married (mistaking the lovely ring on my right hand for a wedding ring) and asked where we were from. (So funny, but everyone, even ethnic minority villagers, knew Gert was from Holland! Hanoi, Sapa, Halong Bay… I didn’t realize dutch people were so tall. I thought germans and scandanavians were too but they all seemed to say “where you from? You tall, you from Holland?”) So when I said I was american, she asked how long we have been married and we said one week. I told her he wanted an american greencard so he married me, and she said she was very happy that he was coming to live in my village because she had to leave her village when she got married. She asked how many kids we wanted and I said “five” and Gert said “two” at the same time, which made her laugh hysterically.

But then we had to leave, to catch our mini-bus back to Lao Cai for the nighttrain. Can you fit 20 people and luggage in a 15 passenger van for over an hour driving through the mountains? Why not? We had the same driver’s assistant who seemed thrilled to have to squeeze in next to Gert - we were pretty sure on the way to Sapa that he was sweet on Gert. At least no one puked this time.

Okay well I’ll have to write a whole other entry about Halong Bay. The dutchman is gone and I am on my own for real this time. Unless I meet someone nice on the flight back to Saigon tomorrow…

I’m going to get moving on a cambodian visa and some transportation. And now… well I’ve talked to too many people who have said great things about Laos and now that I’m slightly ahead of schedule, having seen Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Sapa in one crazy week, I might look into moving northward to Vientiene after seeing Angkor Wat. As long as I can make it back to Saigon by November 8th! It’s kind of weird not knowing where I will be or who I will be with on my birthday. And tonight I was trying to explain the appeal of Halloween to Gert over dinner. I have a feeling it just won’t be the same in Southeast Asia. What should I dress as? Maybe I can dress up like someone who wears clean clothes for a change. It’s kinda hard to send out laundry when you are in a new place every night - even the hotels mostly don’t use dryers, and if it rains it might take days to get your clothes back! I’ve been washing my tank tops and unmentionables, but it’s kinda hard to wash jeans in a sink.

When I get home I am wearing something white. And high heels!