Halong Bay

We spent the past three days on a tour of Halong Bay. This is one of those areas you CAN try to see on your own but is actually cheaper and easier to see on a guided tour. We spent the first night on an Indochina 'Junk' boat, which slept 16 very comfortably. The engine ran all night, which for me was a calming purr but there were others not so peppy the next morning. On day two we explored Cat Ba Island National Park with a guide who was clearly on drugs. He was very entertaining. I think he may have been convinced that he was a creature of the jungle and not human. He had me laughing on multiple occasions as he scurried up vines and sat twitchy on rocks making strange noises. Again, some members of our group weren't impressed. One Frenchman sat next to us when we got back on the bus and whispered, "Did you see the size of that guys pupils?!"
We were given free time to explore the rest of the island, so naturally we rented a motorcycle and packed our spelunking gear. The first cave we found was behind someones house. We paid 75 cents to have an eight year old girl unlock the gate protecting the cave. It was an impressive cave. Several huge chambers and lots of small unexplored nooks and crannies. Amazing how your adrenaline kicks in when you're inside a mountain and the only person who knows it is probably playing with a doll eating cookies.
The second cave we found was Hospital Cave, guarded by a local man named Ba. If you have never heard of this cave, it is worth googling. It was built during the Vietnamese-American war as a bunker/hospital. It has 17 rooms burried inside a mountain, complete with a swimming pool, ping pong room, cinema, and many rooms for sleeping. Ba was actually stationed in this cave in 1979 during the Chinese occupation.
After the tour we stayed at Ba's house at the base of the cliff and taught him a few English words he had been trying to figure out while we drank tea from shot glasses.
All in all, a great way to spend a couple days. We are back in Hanoi now, about to hand our passports to a tourist office to get our visas renewed for another month. I'll try to post more pictures soon.

Nathan...What just happened?

I'm still not sure what happened at four PM Vietnam time this afternoon. We were on a walk in the French Quarter when all of the sudden everyone was eating ice-cream. They were all pouring out of a warehouse.. So naturally we walked in to get the scoop. Police were everywhere. Some men had microphones and were screaming into them. What appeared to be a biker gang was lounging in a dark basement and it felt electric..like there was about to be a knife fight or something equally dangerous.  But everyone was eating ice cream cones.  We couldn't see the source of these afternoon treats..but they flooded out of the shadows in the hands of tattooed tough guys and giggling girls alike.  Our best guess is that there is a mandatory city wide ice cream social enforced by cops at four every afternoon.
We walked away in total confusion, without ice cream cones.  I really wish we spoke just a few words of Vietnamese.  I'm trying to fit in by adopting the dress code of locals.  I have black tights to wear under all of my skirts and shorts, and recently purchased a cotton face mask (that matches my jacket)..to protect my lungs from pollution.  Sometimes I worry that Nathan will lose me in the crowd..I'm practically indistinguishable from the locals. 

Hanoi

Chaos. Colorful, noisy, dangerous. Nathan has the whole walking into traffic thing down. He doesn't bother looking up while weaving his way across five lanes of traffic while munching on a water chestnut freshly peeled. We rode an overnight bus from Sapa, so arrived tired but excited to walk around. At a mid day beer stall stop we were delighted to watch a local woman chop up a couple of smoked dogs. (perhaps more accurate..I was delighted) had I not just eaten I would have been all over a dish of dog. It's pretty hard to tell what breed you're dealing with when they're smoked, but I think it may have been a Welsh Corgie. Just kidding Kristin, I'm told corgi meat is tough. It looked more like twin Jack Russels. I will be trying some. Tonight we're off to the water puppet theater. This performance is serious business.. The puppeteers train for three years before being trusted with the ropes. Great first day.

Shoe Shine

We were just chased down the street by a man with a bottle of mysterious yellow liquid screaming at Nathan 'I SHINE YOUR SHOES!' I doubled over laughing as Nathan yelled back 'I'm wearing sneakers! They are made of mesh!' This did not stop the shoe shiner. He followed us all the way back to he hotel door.

Nose pickers?

Everyone picks their nose..it is a rare culture that openly advertises this universal truth with a pinky fingernail half an inch long. I respect it, and also find it creepy. If anyone reading this has definitive evidence that nose picking is not the reason for a long pinky nail, please share.
We decided to take the Northern route via Sapa to Hanoi. Once again we are freezing our tails off a mile high. We split the trip from Dien Bien Phu into two days. Our first six hour puke fest bus ride left us in Lai Chau for an evening of delicious local food and a couple of bottles of vodka shared with our friends from B.C. (I assured them we weren't stalking them when we showed up at the same hotel as them after bidding them farewell the day before, but may not have been convincing due to my wild eyes and giggling)...the wild eyes were a result of my trip from the bus station to the hotel on the back of a motor bike taxi while carrying my full pack, holding on for dear life while a man clearly inexperienced at navigating dirt roads with unsteady passengers also panicked at the idea of a skirt wearing lady tourist straddling his bike. Nathan's ride was apparently smoother than mine.
We got up early yesterday to find some fresh avocados for our baguette lunches in the local market. Before boarding the bus to Sapa we snuck into a hilltop tea plantation for a picnic. On the bus we were two of six Farangs (foreigners) who had each been told a different price for the ride. Mind you, the differences were all less than one US dollar. We all argued for about thirty minutes while the bus rolled along, but when the conductor woman finally got angry enough to grab Nathan's arm and threatened to throw him off the bus ( she was feisty.. I don't doubt she could have managed it) we paid the four dollar fare. Two of the others also paid at that time but the last couple played hard to get. It was a man and a woman from Holland, dead set on paying three dollars. They were harassed the entire three hour bus ride, which was fairly irritating to listen to, and then as the man got off the bus triumphantly at our stop his girlfriend covertly paid the extra two dollars when his back was turned. Thanks to their antics the bus dropped us off outside of town so we'd all have to walk a kilometer or two with our packs.
Our first encounter with a Mong woman went horribly. There are hundreds of village women who trek into Sapa to sell their bags and clothes. I mistakenly entered into what I later learned was a binding verbal contract to buy some things I didn't want by telling one woman my name and 'pinky shaking' with her. Note to travelers.. don't let your pinky out of your pocket. The result was having this same woman follow us for almost two hours, waiting around corners, jumping out at us when we exited restaurants. Finally we told her that she could stop following us in a more direct and unfriendly manner because being nice had no effect. We got the worst tongue lashing imaginable. For a Mong woman she sure had a good command of English expletives.
Sapa is overcast and cold. We're trying to enjoy good food and time to read and write but I have a feeling we'll be on the overnight train to Hanoi tomorrow.

Chicken feet and ear wax removal

Any guide book that tells you Dien Bien Phu isn't worth at least a day or two of exploration is a sham. This town is beautiful and full of friendly outgoing people. On our first evening here Nathan was having women approach him with their babies to have them rub his beard and giggle. I'm trying to convince him to indulge in a strange barbershop experience we've been seeing everywhere we walk: in addition to shaving your beard with a straight blade the barber will clean your ears out with metal scraping tools. I'm a little scared to try it myself. We ordered lunch after a morning of walking throuh the museum at a local spot advertising pho... They were out of pho, (a delicious noodle soup) but had some fried chicken. Our plate had deep fried bits of low meat content chicken parts. The chicken bit most interesting to eat was the foot. Chicken callus is better than you might imagine. I don't think I'll make ordering it a habit, but once was good.
Dien Bien Phu is a town with an incredible history. In 1954 the Vietnamese won their independence from the French with a decisive battle here. We scooted throuh the trenches and bunker tunnels this afternoon. We have made the decision to hop on a bus tomorrow for Hanoi. It will be tough to hit the big city after getting used to the cost of living out here...our last pitcher of beer ran us a dollar. Vietnam is so far the best value for our money. I'm not a lush, for those of you concerned by my use of beer as an indicator.. It just happens to be something we sample in each location.

Kip

As a side note, we took out a ridiculous amount of Kip in Oudom Xai before venturing North because we thought we'd be spending some serious time there..and as I mentioned before, Kip is worthless everywhere but Laos.  Yesterday we trapped arriving tourists from Vietnam as they disembarked from their bus and offered better than bank exchange rates for their excess Dong.  I think we might be on to something..we made the Kip work for us. Not easy to do.  If finding a job doesn't work out when I return to the States I might return to Laos and do black market exchanges in the back of a sandwich shop.  They could use a good sandwich shop in Mong Khua.

Phongsaly in the Rain

Well..its been a few days since I've been able to find the internets!  We collected ourselves in Nong Kiew and headed to Oudom Xai by bus to find an ATM before continuing North to Phongsaly.  The bus ride was charming.  It had been raining all night and the road from Nong Kiew was rough...real rough.  We sat down in the bus and a local man walked by us offering a plastic bag.  When we gave him a confused look he mimed throwing up into it.  Then, explained that Laotians don't travel well.  It was at that exact moment the man behind me started burping and dry heaving simultaneously.  Thankfully we remained untouched by local puke on the ten hour ride.  We almost had spectacular head-on collisions (twice) with dump trucks, and were forced to listen to the bus horn around every corner, of which there were many.  Its a system I support..on one way roads in the mountains, in the mud.  We got to Phongsaly in the dark, and the rain.  It's the highest town in Laos, sitting over a kilometer and a half above sea level.  Truly one of the most beautiful sights..if its not raining.  The bus station was 3 km out of town and so we lugged our wet packs into a Tuk Tuk which drove us closer.  We searched on foot for a guesthouse, and took the first one we found.  The beds were essentially wooden benches..and there was no heat.  The temperature had plummeted about thirty degrees and my extremities were bloodless. To top off the discomfort, I was hungry.  Bad combination.  Worse yet, not a single store or restaurant was open.   We looked..in the rain. Finally, we found a hotel that had a restaurant sign inside and found two of our traveling companions (lovely folk from B.C.)  who had just finished a meal.  They informed us that the woman in the back would cook fried rice for us, but only rice..because thats all she had.  We sat down in a completely empty ballroom at the only table in the facility.  We could hear the echo of our soggy voices.  I ignored the intel about fried rice and ordered noodle soup.  She said O.K...and then asked Nathan what he wanted.  He tried for some fried rice and was told that the only thing she had was noodle soup.  Two noodle soups it was. 
Phongsaly did not get better.  It got worse.  It rained for three days straight and was so cold we stayed wrapped up in blankets the whole time.  The road out, to the river was blocked by a landslide and was almost impassable.  I explained calmly to Nathan the morning we tried to escape that he should be prepared for the worst case scenario..which was that I intended to walk the 20 km with my pack to the river if I had to.  Nothing could have stopped me from extricating myself from the misery.
It's really a shame because everything we'd heard about the North of Laos was good.  Next time. 

We took another boat ride down river to a town with connecting bus routes to Vietnam.  This morning we woke at 415 to walk to the river and cross for the bus.  The small boat moving the tourists from one shore to the other almost left me behind.  I'm fairly unstable with my pack on, especially in situations that require me to balance on one foot, when that one foot is in the bottom of a floating craft.  The local guy in the back grabbed me by my head to steady me, and pull me in.  The boat dropped us at the opposite shore where the morning butchering was in full swing.  A cow was splayed out on the cement.  No flies at 4 in the morning..can't say I blame them for the early start...though I imagine its hard to hack a water buffalo to pieces in the dark.

We made it to Vietnam!  We're in a town called Dien Bien Phu.  We've been saving our appetites for some Pho tonight at one of the local stalls.  Nathan's worried about someone sneaking some intestines into his bowl..
He is checking the weather to make sure it has stopped snowing in Sapa..a Northern Vietnam 'must see'.  If it's still as cold or colder than Phongsaly it might not be worth the ride up there.  We've got to do a little work on our visas to give us some more time in Vietnam, so a trip to the big city is in order.  We're also planning on buying a couple of motorcycles for our month here.  We've been told its fairly easy to buy and sell them, and a great way to go at your own pace down the coast. 

The pace of life is much faster here.  Nathan has packed up his pretend cloth watch and will have to rely on me for keeping to a schedule again.  He's found a great coping mechanism for dealing with my insistence on timeliness.  The other morning he mentioned getting to a bus early 'Because I know how much you love waiting for transportation.'  I tried to keep a straight face while telling him he was exactly right.  I do LOVE waiting for transportation.  The more expensive it is..the more I love waiting for it.  So, he humors me when I tell him we need to be somewhere before HE thinks it's necessary because he wants me to be able to do the things I love.  Works for me!
We haven't missed a connection yet.

Nong Kiew

The Kip is a currency similar to monopoly money. If you're in Laos it's great, and the more you have the better. If you leave Laos, no one takes your play money seriously. No other country will exchange the Kip for other currency. If you leave Laos with Kip the joke is on you. There are three cities in Laos that have ATMs. Yesterday we left one to explore the Northern wilderness for an unknown period of time with unreliable transport. Trying to decide how much Kip to take with us was tricky. Enough to get us into Vietnam but not so much that we'd arrive with a pocket full of expensive tinder. We decided on one million Kip. About one hundred and twenty dollars between the two of us. The ride up the Nam Ou river was beautiful, though a bit tough in dry season. At one point the captain turned to the twelve passengers and said 'Ok, now you get out to push.' Everyone got out, and with the help of some local kids pushed the boat over a particularly shallow and rocky spot. We broke down twice after that. The second time had us stranded on the shore of a gold mining town for over two hours. I tried my hand at panning with little success. I did manage to get a group of women laughing when one of them imitated me.. then a primate dancing in the water. White girl can take a hint. Leave the hunt for gold to the locals.
Note to women travelers: if it's an eight hour boat ride, expect twelve. Also expect to pee in front of all of the other people on your boat. Wear a skirt.
We made it to Nong Kiew by nightfall. It is a stunning riverside town surrounded by jungle cliffs. We woke this morning excited about all of the things we could do: kayaking, rock climbing, cave exploring... And then we found out how much things were going to cost. Transport turns out to be very costly in the middle of nowhere and also sometimes it doesn't show up for days at a time. Nathan suggested we sit down and count our money. Somehow my wallet contained about half of what we'd agreed to bring and his contained a quarter. He'd like me to believe he's been pulling more than half of his share for the last couple of days but I'm skeptical. Either way, we're cutting things pretty close out here in the jungle. If www don't catch a bus to Oudom Xai tomorrow we might be camping out to save on a nights hotel expenditure.
Not sure what we'll do in Oudom Xai but it will likely involve some financial planning. Nathan is napping on a balcony hammock and it strikes me that I haven't washed my hair in two weeks. Maybe I'll use this time productively. We've done lots of swimming in rivers and waterfalls... but that kind of clean is a double edged sword. It comes with a price, a fungal one. Could be worse, having a ringworm polka-dotted midsection is both interesting and curable.

Food

Tonight we took a stroll down street food lane.
1. Tapioca gelatin squares covered in coconut shavings
2. Mung bean mush surrounded by tapioca gooey coconut sugar
3. Beef jerky Laos style
4. Fresh spring rolls (always a risk with potentially unwashed veggies)
5. Sugar cane water squeezed fresh from the cane and served in a bag.

And lots of other items like grilled chicken feet, intestines, rotten eggs, cow skin, pig heads..that we didn't try.  Only because we can't eat it all in one sitting..not because those things don't sound delicious.

I'm convinced Nathan has commie tendencies, he bought a t-shirt with his political logo
stamped on the front..(suspicions confirmed).   I also splurged (fifty cents) and bought him a watch made out of cotton, which is a perfect commentary on his delight with the people of Laos.  I told him we'd need to be getting up early to catch our 8 hour boat North on the Nam Ou river and he looked at his new watch and said,
" Sure, I'll set my alarm."
Great.
We're going to try our luck at a border crossing into Vietnam via boat.  We've been told it can't be done.  We'll just see about that.

Monk Joke

We spent yesterday walking around Luang Prabang.  Our exploration landed us in a village across the river that makes silk and paper. In a typical Jenny move I dipped my finger into one of the unsupervised buckets of silk dye to see how dark the color really was. Apparently manure is used in these all-natural dyes. I smelled like crap (truly) for the rest of the afternoon. Nathan wasn't very impressed.

On our way back to town we spotted a monk. He was perched precariously about halfway across a bamboo toll bridge raised 20 or so feet above the river. The water did NOT look very deep below him. Just as I was saying 'I hope he doesn't jump', he jumped.. or rather, let himself fall face first into the river. He floated to the surface about ten feet downstream. The current carried him another twenty feet. He lay face down, motionless in the muddy water. I turned to Nathan and worriedly groaned..time to jump in and save a monk?  With perfect timing the wily guy popped up out of the water and looked up at us...laughing. Tricked by a dead monk's float.

We're considering taking another boat into the North of Laos to get us closer to a Vietnam border.  This might cut off a couple hours of the overnight bathroom-less bus.  It might also leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere.  We've only heard second hand information about this particular boat.  Worth the risk. 

Lost in Laos

We rode the slow boat down the Mekong on Sunday and Monday. This trip from Northern Laos to Central via a boat that sits 70 people (technically) and 180 ish (in reality) takes two full days with an overnight in Pakben.  We were told that the boat was supposed to leave at nine AM on Sunday so we arrived at the dock at eight to get our seats.  Our tickets said we had seats four and five which were in a perfect location according to the guy that sold them to us.  He assured us we'd be happy with our purchase.  We were, but that's because the boat actually left at 12:30.  The seats didn't have numbers but we were there early enough to choose whatever seats we wanted.  Nathan kept referring to them as seats four and five even though we were about nine rows back.  After the boat was nearly finished loading a man stood up at the front and explained in broken English that we were waiting on a tour group arriving from the south that had another 80 people in it.  When they arrived they started cramming into the boat.  There weren't nearly enough seats for all of them so one man asked the captain "When this boat is full where do we go..is there a second boat?"  The man laughed heartily and replied, "One boat only."  Poor seat-less tourists.  Like I always say..If you're not early you're late.  Nathan doesn't see eye to eye with me on this. 
He loves the Laos mentality. 'Laid back' doesn't do it justice.  This is a place where timing is NOT everything.  If it happens, it happens and most plans are irrelevant.  He got such a kick out of one British woman's rant about Houy Xai being a black hole.  She'd been trying to get out of this particular town on a bus for three days but every time she showed up to catch it, something came up and it wasn't leaving until the next day.  I didn't necessarily think her story funny.  I could empathize with her frustration and partially believed her accusations that the locals had her trapped.  Nathan's delight at her grumbling was curious.  He admitted that the pace of things, the Laotian general lack of concern for deadlines and schedules simultaneously validates his own sense of timing and irks more anal retentive Western minded people like me (which tickles him).
The boat ride ends for most in Luang Prabang.  It's supposed to be the most romantic city in South East Asia.  I had my doubts as I listened to an elderly couple exchanging curses at one another while trying to split a cashew chicken dish this afternoon (she wanted all of the cashews!).  However, even grumpy octogenarians can't kill the charm of this place.  French influenced architecture, street markets, music, it sits on a peninsula jutting out into the Mekong.  I fell in love the instant I spotted Oreo cookie-coconut milk shakes.
We've decided to call Luang Prabang home for a few days.  I need time to investigate the elusive hairless beach cow.  Strangest thing.  Bright pink from over-exposure and dotting the banks of the Mekong.  I feel like Darwin in the Galapagos-taking notes, making observations.  I'm not certain but I think they eat sand.

A few Quotes from the last few weeks:

"Oh wow, look at that infant cutting a melon with a butcher knife..totally unsupervised" -  Nathan
"I'll do you one better..check out THAT infant...running with a shard of glass in each hand." -Jenny

"Meeeeoooww" - creature
"Is that a cat..or a child?"  - Nathan
"Both.  That is a toddler meowing like a cat on all fours, crawling in the middle of the street."

"Do you have a toilet?"  -  Jenny
"......?......"  - Boy behind a gas station counter
"Oh Cripes..Am I really going to have to mime this?"
".......??........." - Boy
This was an emergency situation as far as I was concerned..so I gave it my all.  I grimaced, clenched my knees together tightly and did the most emphatic pee dance I have ever done.  The boy turned bright red and pointed to the back.  Mission accomplished.

"Do you wake up in the morning having no idea where in the world you are?  I do.  Every morning." 
-Nathan

We are still trying to decide whether to float down the Mekong on tubes or make our way on an 18 hour overnight bus to Vietnam.  I'm having a hard time getting excited about 18 hours on a crowded bus, but it has to be done.

The Gibbon Experience!

We had an amazing time zipping through the jungle of the Bokeo Natural Reserve...and have returned to Houy Xai with minimal damage.  A few leach bites, hornet sting, forehead cable burn and some slightly over-worked patience muscles.  We were a group of eight on the trek and unfortunately there were two in the group who were constantly doing ridiculous things like rolling around in other people's beds with dirty sweaty clothes on while everyone else was zipping. Even they couldn't ruin how absolutely incredible it was to be suspended 300 feet in the air over a jungle valley with mist rolling in.

We hiked in to a waterfall on our first day to receive our harnesses and get some basic instructions for zip lining.  That afternoon we zipped from mountain side to mountain side to get to our first tree house.  Our evening meal was zipped in to us in a neat rice carrying case. On the second day of the trek we did another couple of hours of jungle trekking to get to our second tree house, where we were left alone to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the afternoon.  Naturally, six of us got into our gear and took off into the jungle looking for more lines. 

The trek was called 'The Gibbon Experience', but we didn't see any Gibbons..just heard them in the distance.   They were hard to make out over the barking deer.  No joke.
I could go on explaining..but pictures do a much better job.

Little girl holding her brother at the village where our trek began

Nathan clipping in

Take off

Our Guide 'Tong B' getting things organized in our first tree house

Coming in for a landing

The center of the tree house, complete with a kitchen sink

Our tree house on night number two

Just hangin' out, looking for Gibbons

Zipping through the mist was the most fun..having no idea where you're going

For anyone interested in this trip..you can book online ahead of time.  Google the Gibbon Experience and you'll find it.  We did the waterfall experience which was amazing, but apparently the people on the classic experience have more luck with Gibbon sightings. The tour runs out of Houy Xai, the border crossing town in the North.

Before I forget, the whiskey and the wafers were the exact same price.  One dollar and twenty five cents. 

We're Rich!

First off, I feel I need to clarify that I did not think it was FUNNY that Nathan was attacked by a tarantula.  How the scene unfolded after the attack, (when I knew he was fine and I was still in shock) was a little funny. 

We are preparing for our trip into the Laos jungle.  We crossed at the Huay Xai border last night just before the immigration officials called it a day.  There was a 40 Baht 'overtime' fee added to our entry stamp.  Inconvenience fee.  We got some grilled chicken, papaya salad and a 'BeerLao' for dinner.  The papaya salads taste like fish even though theres no fish in them.  I don't know why we keep getting them.

I spent the morning washing some of our clothes.  When Nathan announced that the cleanest shirt he had for the day was one covered in bat guano from a cave encounter two weeks ago I had to put my foot down.  Today he is buying another t-shirt.  I felt entitled to some kind of reward for hand washing our clothes in the sink, so with our wallets combined we became millionaires.  Eight thousand Laos Kip is one US dollar.  I have a whopping 780,000 in my pocket.  Its actually a hassle to be this filthy rich..the bills keep popping out of my money pouch.

And here are some pictures!

The old temple in the center of Chiang Mai at sunset

I'm not sure if I blogged about our experience watching Thai boxing, but this is how close we were to the ring

Muay Thai, round three

This shot cost me dearly.  I was attacked by a vicious jungle thorn and was pulling spikes out of my skin for days.  It was on the road between Chiang Mai and Pai

That's banana all over his front appendages..he bit me when he realized his sweet dinner was gone.  Just a nibble.

Our beautiful jungle stilt cabin in the middle of nowhere

Boiling eggs at a hot spring North of Chiang Mai

Our cooking class from the GAP culinary institute

We graduated with highest honors

That's right folks...LADYBOY!  We saw an interesting performance by accident one evening at a night bazaar in Chiang Rai

The White Temple.  Just South of Chiang Rai.  This place had some interesting artwork.  Spiderman, Batman, a few characters from Avatar, and Neo from the Matrix were all incorporated into the inner chapel wall art

Another White Temple shot...crazy hands and feet coming from the ground at the entrance

Tarantula night.  See...Nathan is fine.  This was after the incident.

Tea plantations in the hills north of Chiang Rai at the Akha village where we stayed

A Lahu village house propped on the hillside.

This waterfall was a ten minute walk from our Hill house

Crossing into Laos

Fun little quiz for all of you...which of these items do you think cost more?  And about how much would you expect to spend?  Nathan had a great idea this morning...international 'Price Is Right'