Inbal's June/July, 2007 Southeast Asia Blog Update

June 3, 2007

It’s been more than two and a half months since I last posted on this Blog. Of course when you are traveling through so many places, experiencing so many new things, and meeting so many people, this time can seem more like two and a half years. My first month in Thailand was overall kind of isolated, serene, and reflective in its nature. The last two and a half months spent traveling through Cambodia and Vietnam have really been more of a physical journey of moving, doing, experiencing, seeing, hanging out and socializing with new friends I met, and generally spending less time thinking and philosophizing on my own. Yes, I have been meeting other travelers all the time and traveling with them. It started when I met Darren, a 34 year old English lad from Birmingham, on the Bangkok – Siem Reap (Cambodia) bus. I ended up traveling with him for over three weeks in Cambodia. While still in Cambodia, I also met a 25 year old Belgian guy named Roel (who, some say, looks a bit like a long, stringy version of Harry Potter), and we ended up continuing to travel through Vietnam. While Roel and I were traveling through Vietnam, we kept running into some of the same people we had seen in Cambodia and early on in Vietnam and by our second week in Vietnam, we were traveling together as a group of 5 people; Me, Roel, another English guy named Tom, a Canadian dude named Maneesh (who is also Indian), and a tall German guy (with a curly mop top haircut) named Lex. All of these guys are in their twenties (early, mid, and late twenties) and are each traveling on their own for at least six months. All five of us have pretty similar fairly laid back personalities with an also somewhat similar sense of humor (a mix of sarcasm, wit, and self deprecation), and an interest in experiencing some of the culture and human interaction in the places where we are traveling. Throughout most of our time in Vietnam, we spent time exploring new places together and going out for food and drinks at night. Of course, as I continued to travel with these other travelers, I realized the more people you travel with, the more of a group experience you tend to have. When you are in a group, you feel safe from the frightening experience of being alone, but at the same time you give up your individuality for the sake of the group. For me, this of course is always the central issue in traveling on my own and in my life in general. What is the ultimate balance between feeling isolated, having your own individuality, and feeling like you are a social being who is connected to others? To balance this group mentality, I would end up spending some days on my own (away from my friends) and would meet up with them in the evenings. This would give me a sense of individuality, while at the same time feeling like I had friends to share my experiences with. The thing is that sometimes it is easier to just go along with what the group does because it involves less individual effort. This can be a bit risky as you start to feel your individuality disappearing.

Today, our group of travelers officially disbands, as everyone except for me is heading to Laos and I stay in Vietnam for about another week and then heading to China (I just got my Visa to China). Maneesh and Roel are flying to Laos today and the others are already there.

To give you snippets of some of the experiences I’ve had during these last two and a half months through Cambodia and Vietnam, I’ll backtrack a bit to some of my adventures, thoughts, and impressions while traveling through these two fascinating countries. I’ll start with Cambodia in the Ankor Wat area of Siem Reap:




















March 23,

The trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap was in some ways crappy like I thought it would be, but in other ways mostly kind of painless. As I thought, the leg of the trip to the border was comfortable and easy (comfortable air conditioned bus). But of course, it was at the border where things got confusing and somewhat sweaty and annoying. I managed to find two western women and the Cambodian "Guide" of one of them, who were interested and willing to share a taxi from the Cambodian border (at a crappy border town called Poipet) to Siem Reap, like I was hoping. One lady I shared the taxi with was a funny slightly older lady, perhaps in her fifties, from Liverpool, England (strong cockney accent) who met up with a 23 year old Cambodian guy from Siem Reap who came to meet her at the border and was apparently her “guide” the last time she visited the Ankor temples a few weeks ago. I say "guide" because its possible she gets more than just Temple guidance from him, as they were sort of touching each others legs in the back seat of the taxi while listening to her iPod together (one earphone in her ear and one earphone in his). The other lady is a German woman of about 34. Named Freya. She is really nice, and friendly. Getting out of the border without being hounded by several sort of sleazy characters trying to make a buck off of trying to make deals to get us a taxi was challenging and extremely confusing, as we didn't really know the rules of negotiation and where to actuallyfind the stupid taxis (Air conditioned Toyota Camry's here). We finally managed to find the Taxi station and agreed on a price of US$15.00 per person with the Cambodian “guide” not paying. The ride was extremely bumpy and super dusty as the road really was terrible (Mozambique-like or even worse at parts). The taxi drove fairly fast on the dirt road and was dodging around, potholes, scooters, bikes, people, and trucks in a fairly safe but uncomfortable way. The landscape from the border until about a half hour before Siem Reap, strangely enough reminded me a bit of the Northern Namibia area (barren farmland with cows, huts, and palm trees but definitely much more 3rd worldish with pretty extreme poverty). I would have expected the landscape to be much green and tropical looking (lush, banana trees, bamboo, and other green tropical trees) and it did become more like that as we neared the Siem Reap area. The journey lasted about 4 hours to go less than 100 miles. We arrived at about 7pm (not too bad). The main street of Siem Reap is full of luxury hotels. I was kind of shocked at how luxurious they looked and the contrast between them and the extreme poverty outside of Siem Reap. The taxi took me to a guest house I had booked on the phone the previous night from Bangkok. They had my room reserved. A British guy I met on the Bus that day, named Darren, will come to my guesthouse to stay tomorrow. I will get a three day pass to the temples for US$40.00. I like this guest house. My room is huge with a large fairly comfortable bed, a fan, and a bathroom with shower and toilet (all for US$6.00). There is a nice rooftop restaurant/bar here with good food, and there’s a small murky pond in the back of the guesthouse (not really for swimming), and the place has a nice, fairly quiet atmosphere and vibe to it.




March 24,

This afternoon, Freya (German lady), Darren (super cool British guy) and I went to see our first Ankor temple and on the way saw Ankor Wat from a distance (so didn't really see it yet). The temple we went to was on a hill and is the best temple to see the sunset as the views are beautiful from there. The temple (don't remember its name) is quite beautiful, with cool statues of lions and carvings of Buddahs and dancing ladies. It was quite an amazing temple, but the carnival atmosphere of all the tourists there coming to see the sunset was just too much. It was just way too crowded.
























March 25,

I had a wonderful day today with Freya and Darren at three different spectacular Ankor temples. The temples truly are astounding (and we havn't even toured Ankor Wat yet). It is sweltering hot and exhausting here as the temperatures are in the 90’s with super high humidity, but walking through the temples is utterly satisfying, despite the intense heat.
















































































































March 27,

Being here in Siem Reap, Cambodia has made me feel more
sensitive about being asked for things, as the situation here has really gotten out of hand with desperate begging and constant attempts of very young children and adults to try to sell you things or to take you on a Tuk Tuk ride (a motorcycle & wagon Taxi).



The poverty here is quite intense and of course the consequences of the long war have been devastating. On the street and in and around the temples, the hassling, hawking, and generally aggressive selling tactics can at times be really difficult to deal with and quite depressing, as more than half of this activity is done by tiny kids and landmine victims. This stuff is very complicated and sad. The intense concentration of tourists from around the world here has of course also really helped to create this situation.


































































































































































































The temples of Ankor are simply stunning. Words can not describe the beauty and sheer brilliance of these structures. Their complex architecture, shapes, amazingly detailed stone carvings, and massive overall size really makes one awestruck. Some of the temples have over the years been covered up by thick, gnarled jungle vegetation, huge trees, and twisted tree roots creating impressive monuments jointly designed and built by humans and nature. I'm standing under a tree root covering a temple in the photo (on left) that was used as one of the sets of the movie "Tomb Raider" (with Anjelina Jolie) a few years ago. All the Japanese tourists (and me) line up to have their photo taken under it.

I've been to some amazing temples, structures, and monuments in my lifetime (Pyramids, Valley of the Kings, and the Temples of Luxor in Egypt, Taj Mahal, Ajunta and Elora Caves, and Khajarao in India, Masada in Israel, and the great Mayan Pyramids of the Yucatan) but I've never never seen anything as amazing and impressive as the collective Temples of Ankor (which includes Ankor Wat and at least ten other temples we saw and that’s not even scratching the surface).












































































































March 28,

Today, Darren, Freya, and I just finished our 3 and a half days of touring the temples. The heat here has been really intense which of course by the end of the day, sucks all the energy out of you. The three of us have just had the best time together. We've been hanging out together all the time and are yet to be sick of each other. These guys are great. I really like them a lot, and we have really been laughing up a storm, but also having very intense conversations about life in general and more specifically about our own individual lives. Freya will be here two more days and then she goes back to Bangkok (and then to the islands and back to Germany) and Darren will continue traveling in Cambodia. I really hope we can keep traveling together because I really like him. He is a very sensitive, thoughtful, positive person with a super sense of Humor. He comes from a working class background in the midlands of England and he has traveled and lived in Southeast Asia, South America, New Zealand, and different parts of Europe in the last 11 years. He is about 34 years old and he has a really independent spirit. Freya is also 34, sweet, and funny. She is a Special Education teacher in Germany and she is finishing up an 8 month sabbatical from her work (yes, you can do this in Germany).












































March 29,

I went to the Landmine museum in Siem Reap today. It is not so much a museum as it is a cooperative set up by one very impressive man who goes around this region (and other regions in Cambodia) and takes apart old landmines and old missiles he finds. As a younger man, he actually used to place the landmines in the ground for the Khmer rouge and for the Vietnamese, and has decided to dedicate the rest of his life to finding and detonating landmines everywhere in this country. He does this without machines, without a safety suit, very cheaply, with his bear hands. He and his wife have also adopted 20 youth landmine victims (most of them with missing hands or feet) who live with him in this place and help run the museum. There were thousands of landmines and missle shells on display in this place. It was sort of haunting. One missles had a big USA stamp on it. It made me feel a bit sick. Some of the youth landmine victims were playing vollyball in a dirt field across the co-op and I took a few photos with their permission.






The man who set up and runs the Landmine Museum.



























































































Landmine victims band playing at the Ankor Temples.










April 2,

I've been in Cambodia for more than 10 days now. The first week was spent in Siem Reap, visiting the amazing Temples of Ankor (truly spectacular) and I'm now in the capital, Phnom Penh. Soon (in the next few days) I will visit the genocide Museum and the Kiiling Fields just outside of Phnom Penh (where over 17,000 people were shot and blugeoned to death between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge). Phnom Penh is a really interesting and lively city. Tons of scooters, small motorcycles, and bicycles everywhere. Many times you'll see an entire family riding a little scooter (5 or 6 people). The city sits on the Mekong River. Again, as in many other Asian cities, there is a lot going on the street; tons of food vendors selling everything from Noodle soups to fried bread to all sorts of large wierd insects and worms, to little grilled crunchy mini birds (entire body, head and all). The really fascinating and telling thing about Phnom Penh (and also Siem Reap and I'm guessing parts of the rest of Cambodia) is that you don't really see people older than 30 or so. Everybody here is young, as the older generations were of course almost completely wiped out in the Khmer Rouge days. This is really clear as you walk around the streets and the countryside. I don't think I've seen any man above 40 ( really, none) and I could count on one hand the amount of older women I've seen. Cambodia is really a country made of young people. I've never seen anything like it anywhere I've been around the world. This really makes you realize how devastating the wars were here, and also how recently everything happened here.




Phnom Penh photos.



























































































I'm currently still traveling with Darren. He is a really great guy and we are enjoying each other’s company. I think we get along so well because our sense of humor, pace, and energies are similar.









































April 5,

Yesterday, Darren and I visited the Killing Fields outside of Phnom Penh. Currently, this rural place is so peaceful, with the trees and grass gently blowing in the wind and the sound of school children playing in the surrounding fields.






























But walking around the dug up pits where people were hacked up with machetes, shot in the head, and repeatedly smashed with metal pipes gives one a heavy sense of sadness and desperation. You can still find pieces of torn clothing and human bones and teeth stuck in the ground inside and around the pits. Some of the pits are still covered, with hundreds of bodies still buried underneath and some of the bodies were taken to be buried elsewhere. The tall memorial tower there has thousands of human skulls placed on wooden shelves stacked up from the bottom to the top of the tower. On some of the skulls, you can see where the machete hacks cut into the skull (a gruesome reminder of how brutal the murder of all these men, women, and small children was).
























































Over 18,000 were murdered in the Killing Fields. Many of them were murdered after they had spent many months in tiny cells and brutally tortured in the S21 Khmer Rouge detention center (what is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum).



A bed in a classroom at Tuol Sleng used by the Khmer Rouge to torture prisoners.















Photos of Khmer Rouge prisoners at Tuol Sleng.










































Tiny holding cells of S21 prisoners.














Tuol Sleng buildings and courtyard.









Everywhere I hang out in, whether its my Guesthouse or restaurants or internet cafes, the TV's at these places are always showing really violent Asian films (of the Kung Fu type) with lots of bloody shootings, knife fights that end up in a bloody mess, people being burned alive, and gruesome torture scenes. You would think the people here would not want to watch this type of stuff due to their recent history, but its to the contrary, they seem to love it and at times laugh and cheer at the violence. I am yet to figure out this obsession with violence. Most Cambodians I encounter seem quite peaceful and very shy and giggly. But you also sense a real sadness with some individuals, especially around kids that are out on the street selling stuff and begging. There are a lot of little girls carrying babies in their hands on the street. This desperate sight is especially hard to look at. Overall though, I do sense some hope for the future of the people here. I spent half my day today at the big market in Phnom Penh (called the russian Market) buying some nice Cambodian silk stuff.

On a lighter note, yesterday, Darren and I had Happy Herb pizza (the “happy herb” is used in tradition Khmer cooking and so it is legally used as an herb/spice in these pizzas), and then we went to get a professional Thai massage (US$6.00 per hour and completely non sexual). This was quite an amazing massage as the massage lady had a vice like grip on my feet, legs, arms, hands, head and back, pulling, pressing, stepping, stretching, and cracking me like a rag doll (think of all the different things you can do with a Gumby doll). Some of it was a bit painful and slightly uncomfortable but overall felt extremely therapeutic. After the massage, my body felt really loose and wonderful. For a while I felt as light as a feather and quite happy and relaxed.

Tomorrow, Darren and I start to head to the Northeast of Cambodia, to a region called Ratanakiri (the more hilly, forested, and less toured area of Cambodia):

http://cambodia.threeland.com/RatanakKiri.htm


April 9,

It's been three, long, active days since Darren and I left Phnom Penh. We are now in Ratanakiri Province in the more remote Northeast of Cambodia in a small town called Ban Lung. This is a beautiful area of rolling hills, jungle like vegetation, hill tribe villages with rice fields and vegetable gardens, rubber tree forests, a lovely fresh water lake created by a meteor crater, rivers, and several cascading waterfalls.

We left Phnom Penh on Friday on a 10-hour bus ride to the Northeast that turned into 12 hours when we had a flat tire and the wrench used to change the tire broke. That night we slept in a small town near the Laos border called Stung Treng. Saturday morning, we got in a Namibia style taxi (Toyota Camry) with six other locals. There were 5 of us in the back and 3 people in the front. Darren is about the same size as me, but luckily the Cambodian mother and two teenage kids in the back with us had typically small, skinny Asian bodies. It was still a really tight squeeze. At the beginning of the trip, the teen boy reached his hand into a small bag on the floor and pulled out a really cute, flea infested puppy. Of course the puppy ended up sleeping on my lap for the entire three-hour trip. I was stroking its little head and neck the whole time. Every once in a while it would raise its little head, stare at me, and immediately fall back asleep. The road to Ban Lung was pretty bad with lots of bumps and potholes. We arrived at the Tribal Hotel in Ban Lung at around noon.

Without much rest, we rented scooters and rode over to the beautiful crater lake, located about 5 km east of Ban Lung. The lake (more like a pond by New England standards) is a perfect circle shape and is surrounded by jungle vegetation with interesting vines, roots, and bamboo plants everywhere. The water in it is very clean and clear. I immediately felt right at home with a Lake Waban-like atmosphere (with fairly different vegetation of course). We walked all the way around the lake (about 2 km), taking dips at several different quiet spots. There were dozens of local kids of different ages happily swimming and playing in the water. Some of the older kids were climbing up the trees near the water and diving in from the top branches (amazing displays of acrobatics).





























































































All the people who live in this area are of different hill tribes each with their own language and distinct culture. Like in Owaboland (Namibia), these guys don't really dress in their traditional garments unless they are having some kind of celebration or ceremony. There are several tribes in this area, including the Tompuon, Krueng, and Jarai. On our walk around the lake, a group of young men picnicking next to the lake (in their upper teens and lower twenties) invited us to have a drink and eat the beef they were grilling on a makeshift bar-b-que they made out of bamboo. We joined them for some nice rice wine and delicious beef with a lemon and black pepper sauce. Two of the guys were teachers and the one guy who spoke a bit of English had just graduated from High School and wanted to be a teacher in the future. These guys were incredibly sweet and generous and we had really nice time hanging out with them. The generosity and hospitality of these guys really amazed me. Two of the guys were unemployed and the others were probably making a couple of dollars a day and yet they kept feeding us and giving us rice wine. When the sun started going down, we left the lake.











































The next morning (Sunday), we rented the scooters again and met up with a sixteen-year-old Tompuon tribe guy (who we met at the lake the previous day and offered to be our guide in the area the next day) who took us to three of the hill tribe villages near by. Our teen guide's name is Phirim and his English is pretty decent. He is a gentle, sweet guy who's favorite subjects in school are Geography and History (like me) and he knows a lot about the culture of the people in this area. The villages were set in rolling, green hills, with wooden huts on stilts, rice paddies (currently dry because it's the end of the dry season), chickens, pigs, dogs, and buffalo (the Asian kind with big horns; they are used to plow the rice paddies). In the villages, there were several women and young girls who were hard at work weaving traditional handicrafts, kids who were playing games, and people doing their laundry and pumping water. Non of the huts had running water or electricity but some had TVs hooked up to car batteries. These villages and people are still fairly untouched by tourism. Kids never come running to you asking for anything. Unfortunately, this may change in time, especially as the roads improve to this region. I already started sensing Phirim's sweet innocence starting to diminish as he kept asking me what different things cost in America. Of course, I don't judge him for this but I can sort of sense the process of where he is heading. Still, currently, due to the lack of begging and hassling here, it is much easier to enjoy the charm and beauty of the children of this region. After visiting the villages, we headed to see the large reclining Buddha statue at the top of a hill near a monastery.



Phirim and me.















































































































Ban Lung market with satellite dish.














Huge mystery bird at Ban Lung market.












Reclining Buddha.










Afterwards, we headed to two different waterfalls with refreshingly cool pools of water. Of course, as you can imagine, I was in heaven in these places, swimming about like a happy fish high on crack. As the day was winding down, we rode back to Ban Lung through the hills and bright red lit (magic hour) Rubber tree forests. The dirt roads are full of this dark red sand that flies everywhere whenever a car or another motorbike passes by, completely covering you in layers of red dust. As we rode through the villages, little kids and adults were occasionally waving to me, making me feel quite welcome and peaceful.



























































Rubber tree forest.











Today, we are finally just relaxing. We are not sure yet what else we will do here. We may hire a guide to do a two day trek through the hills and jungles (with an overnight at a village), but we are not sure yet if we will do that. Tonight, I will visit the local fair and mini carnival that happens to be in town (in preparation for Khmer New Year which starts next week). Darren and I went there last night, and it was quite an experience with a creaky roller Coaster ride, bumper cars, gambling, dart games, and food stalls. I'm still planning to get into Vietnam on the 22nd of April (the date the Vietnam Visa is supposed to begin) and I think we will continue to be in the northeast and eastern regions of Cambodia until then.



April 13,

I'm still in Ban Lung (Ratanakiri Province), Cambodia. Yesterday, we got back from a two-day, one night trek in the jungle.

After I wrote the other day, Darren and I went to the town fair in the evening where we watched thousands of local people gambling (playing a number guessing game, roulette wheels, bingo, and dart balloon popping games), eating all sorts of boiled eggs with crunchy duck chicks in them, Noodle soups, meat dumplings, and various different meats and insects skewered and grilled on sticks. The fair also had different games and rides for kids such as: different types of merry-go-rounds for small kids, an inflatable castle Jungle gym, a creaky rollercoaster, and bumper cars. I had to try the bumper cars, and so I jumped in one of the small cars with a local boy and we spun around wildly crashing into other bumper cars while laughing it up. For a while, I was watching the small kids going around and around on the merry-go-round. One tiny girl was wailing the entire time she was riding. Another little girl looked very calm with a tiny, stoic smile on her face, and a boy and a girl sitting together kept waving to me and laughing every time they passed me.


Photos of the town fair:







Roller coaster.








































Me and a friend racing wildly on the bumper cars.












Gambling.




























A sign in the fair. Perhaps a public health message about STD's??
(who reads Khmer?)

























When Darren and I sat down to have a noodle soup, a couple of Belgian guys passed by and asked if they could sit with us. It turns out they had just arrived in town and were also looking to do a trek. They were really nice, mellow guys and so we decided to do a trek together with them. The next day we found a nice trekking guide at their hotel. He showed us on a map where we would go and gave us a very reasonable price, US$15 a day per person (including everything; food, drop off and pick up, and an indigenous jungle guide).

We were off the next morning. After we got a motorcycle ride to the jungle guide's village, we went straight into the jungle, at first following small trails. Soon the trails mostly disappeared and we were kind of bushwhacking through the jungle. Luckily, this is the dry season and so the jungle was not as thick with vegetation. Also, the dry season meant no leaches, practically no mosquitoes (although there were plenty of other noisy flies and biting insects, including small bees with a nasty bite, and the infamous red ants who can swarm you in seconds if you land in the wrong place). The down side of the dry season of course, is that the jungle is not as green as it can be, and that there is less water in the rivers and streams. We walked through the hilly jungle for about six hours passing many tall trees with gnarled roots and twisted vines, long wild bamboo vines, thick leafy brush, and water streams and small pools. At one point, our guide showed us how you can find water in one of the hanging jungle vines. You cut a piece of the vine on both ends and hold one end the vine just above your mouth, letting the released vine water drip into your mouth. This water actually tastes nice and is surprisingly cool.




























































As we neared our campsite for the night, we passed several sections of the jungle that had recently been burned by wild brush fires. Our campsite in the jungle was situated right next to a group of fresh water streams and pools. As we walked into our campsite, our guide, Mr. Sney, yelled, "oh look, fire, fire!!” We looked to the other side of the water pools and saw an area of the jungle in small flames. There was also a fallen tree trunk that was engulfed in flames and smoke was flying everywhere. Our guide immediately dropped his things and grabbed his Wok (the one he used to cook our meals), dipped it in the water pools, and tossed the water on the burning area. All of us followed him, grabbing our empty water bottles, filling them with water, and tossing the water on the flames. I also grabbed a broken tree branch and started to beat the flames on the ground. We fought the fire for about an hour, until all of the flames were extinguished. The problem was that a lot of the areas that had been burned were still full of red-hot embers that could easily reignite and so we couldn't be sure that the flames wouldn't start up again. Mr. Sney told us that these wild brush fires were very common during the dry season and that there was really nothing that could be done about it. By the time we finished putting out the fire, we were all exhausted and quite sweaty. Mr. Sney led us to a large and deep-water pool directly behind our campsite and I immediately took my cloths off and jumped in (feeling as if I was a flame that had just been watered). Ah, the water felt so nice. All the other guys jumped in there and we were there for a while, cooling off. Later, we tied our hammocks (provided to us by Mr. Sney to be used as our beds for the night), and ate the delicious beef, vegetables, and rice dinner cooked by Mr. Sney and Mr. Nice (the translated name of the indigenous guide). We also drank three bottles of Whiskey and really enjoyed each other’s company, laughing and conversing about all sorts of things. As the night progressed one of the trees on the other side of the water pools caught on fire again, and this time it was burning at both ends (at the bottom of the tree and at the top of the tree. This was quite a spectacle to watch in the deep dark of the jungle. We were not worried about the flames since there was water between the burning tree and us and the smoke was not reaching us.























































































































































The next morning, after eating a noodles and vegetables breakfast, we hiked for about another six hours through the jungle. At one point we passed an indigenous family catching small fish in a small pool of water. Mr. Nice started helping them, when suddenly he caught a fresh water Eel, which of course we ended up eating for lunch. I would say the Eel was not the best thing I have ever tasted.







Indigenous family.














Mr. Nice and the fresh water Eel he caught.










By the time we got back to Mr. Nice's village, we were thoroughly exhausted. When we got back from the trek to Ban Lung, I showered and went out for dinner. I walked by a really loud restaurant and saw the two Belgian guys there (along with an American dude). They told me to join them. The food at the place was a serve yourself all you can eat meal and after I filled my plate with tons of Khmer food, a man came to our table and said to all of us, "you eat free…you guest". Apparently, we had accidentally walked into a birthday party for a three-year-old boy, and the people there invited us to be their guests. They kept serving us with beer after beer after beer. As soon as we were half way through our beer bottles, they brought more bottles. Different people at the party kept coming up to our table wanting to cling their glasses with ours, saying, "YO!!" (Cheers!), and then drinking their entire glass in one swig. Again, the hospitality of the people here really amazes me. At some point, someone called us over to the main table where the three different, huge, decorated birthday cakes stood and the birthday boy and all the guests were huddled together. Everyone was given sparklers (those things you light up and the sparkles fly everywhere). They lit up everybody's sparklers and we all started singing the Happy Birthday song (in English), while everybody swung their sparklers around and used them to pop the balloons that were hanging above. I was a pretty wild and chaotic scene. After receiving the birthday cake and fresh fruit for desert, we were asked to join in for some traditional Khmer dancing. At this point the alcohol was starting to kick in and me and the two Belgian guys (Bart and Roel) were spinning around a table, moving our hands around mimicking Khmer dances that were being shown on the TV in the restaurant (Khmer music DVDs).


















At one point, Roel was doing a funny breakdance spin on the floor, proving he is a real "cracker". While all this was going on, kids from the street were sneaking into the private party grabbing food from our table (which was near the entrance) and smearing birthday cake all over each other. I have to say, this was a really wild evening. I was so exhausted, that I ended up sleeping until noon today.

The Khmer New Year starts today and ends on the 17th of April. There should be a lot of crazy parties happening as this is the biggest holiday of the year serving as a kind of New Year, Christmas, and big birthday party (for all Cambodians who don't know their birth date either because their parents died in the wars or there were no records of their birth). Happy Khmer New Year!!!!



April 18,

Khmer New Year has come and gone and I have finally left Ratanakiri Province. I am still in Cambodia, in a small town named Kratie (pronounced Krachy). This town sits on the Mekong River. Some travelers come here to see the practically extinct freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins, which inhabit the waters of the Mekong about 15km from here. I arrived here yesterday at around noon with Darren and we immediately went to see the dolphins in the afternoon. We paid to have a boat take us to the area where the dolphins come up for air every few minutes. There are supposedly only 50-75 of these dolphins still alive in this place and maybe a few dozen more in the rivers of Laos and Myanmar. In the hour we were on the river, we probably had about 20 sightings of the dolphins. They seem to be very shy. They are actually very different from salt-water dolphins as their heads are very round, kind of like the head of a Dugong. In fact they really do kind of look like Dugongs. It was very difficult to actually photograph them, but I did manage to get a couple of photos (not too close) of their bodies on the surface of the water.














2 Irrawaddy Dolphins are swimming on the surface of the water in the middle of this photo
(sort of like the famous photo of the Lochness Monster).

















(The above photo of an Irrawaddy Dolphin was taken in the wall of the guest house).


I enjoyed the serenity of the river, along with the breathy noises of the dolphins coming up for air while gliding along the top of the river water for a few seconds. The sun was going down as we watched the dolphins.

This morning Darren and I parted ways, as he got on a 9 hour bus back to Siem Reap, so that he could try to see and photograph Ankor Wat at sunrise (something we never did while we were there). I decided not to join him since I didn't really want to do an extra 9 hour bus journey and I felt satisfied with what I had seen of the Ankor temples. At this point, it looks like Darren and I will not continue to travel together, as he has only about six weeks left on his entire trip and he really wants to travel through Vietnam very quickly so that he’ll have enough time to also travel in Laos. I may be able to travel a bit with one of the Belgian guys I met in Ban Lung (his name is Roel and he is a really nice guy) since he is starting his Vietnam journey on April 21 (the day before me) and will travel there for a few weeks. I've really had a nice time with Darren, as we both have a bit of a similar traveling energy (doing things slowly and enjoying observing and meeting people and photography). We also had a nice humorous banter going back and forth between us, kind of making fun of each others little quirks and funny habits, as by now we know each other fairly well. He has a great sense of humor but also a very serious philosophical side to him. He comes from a kind of working class background (his parents worked in Pubs in the midlands of England) and so he is really into sports (soccer, cricket, rugby) and has a very down to earth, friendly approach to people with a dry, tongue-in-cheek English sense of humor. I'll definitely miss him, but I think it will also be nice to hopefully meet some new and interesting people. It isn't always easy to meet people that you mesh with personality wise, but it is really fun when it happens. We haven’t really had any real tension type moments but there was a couple of times where he disappeared without communicating anything which kind of irritated me. I'm sure I've irritated him a few times, as there are definitely moments where he is kind of a loner, but overall, we've gotten along nicely. It seems like he may try to settle down and find a job in New Zealand after he ends his trip.

Our last few days in Ban Lung were overall pretty active and fun. One day I spent revisiting the 2 great waterfalls in the area and spending time swimming in their refreshingly cool water pools and swinging Tarzan-like on natural jungle vines and jumping into these pools.




































































I also went back to the crater lake several times, hanging out there, and sitting there in a kind of meditative way. During the days of the Khmer New Year, the lake was crowded with thousands of Cambodians from the area and also many visiting their families from Phnom Penh. You could immediately tell who the Phnom Penhers were, as they were the ones walking around with digital and video cameras, and fancy cell phones. It was a genuine carnival atmosphere at the lake with hundreds of food stalls, games, and entire families picnicking, swimming, and drinking, with their little kids running around throwing eggs and water at each other. The place was really chaotic but a ton of fun.















The funny thing is that all the Cambodians who come to the lake all congregate in the entrance area to the lake where there is a big wooden dock for people to jump in the water and swim. All the action is concentrated here and nobody bothers to walk around to the other quiet side of the lake. In fact many Cambodians thought it was very funny that the Western tourists (like me) liked to walk around the lake. They couldn't really grasp the concept of why anybody would walk all the way around the lake (only a 2 km walk).

Two days ago we did another fascinating scooter trip to a region located about 50 km from Ban Lung. After riding the scooters for about 35 km we reached a village called Voen Sai, there we took a motor boat on the river for about an hour to a tompuon tribe village on the river.









































We walked through the village and into the jungle, and there in the jungle right near the village was the really beautiful cemetery of the village. Our guide for the day was the same 16-year-old boy, Phirim, who took us around to villages on our second day in the region. The graves in the cemetery were really interesting. Each grave had two statues made of either wood or clay and painted in decorative colors and patterns. The statues were always of a man and a woman and were considered to be guardians of the grave. One of the statues was usually a representation of the person who died.





























































































In two gravesites, there were statues of pregnant women. In both cases, a pregnant woman had gotten sick and died, along with her fetus. Phirim explained to us that Tompuon people believed that the spirit of a freshly dead person could leave their dead bodies and come to the village trying to take a life with it back to the world of the dead. Whenever someone gets severely ill in the village, the people believe that a spirit from the cemetery or from the jungle has come to take that person with them back to world of the dead, and so at that point they will call in the medicine man, who brings medicinal herbs to the sick person, and also organizes a ceremony where a cow or buffalo must be sacrificed with its skull hung on the front of the grave of the dead person whose spirit is believed to be the culprit. Other than the two statues (effigies), the grave will also have an open frame of a little house with a small, ornate and colorful pagoda-like roof that stands over the actual gravestone. Underneath the Pagoda and next to gravestone, you find clothing of the dead person, plants, flowers, and food, and incense sticks. In the back of the pagoda open frame house there are carved wooden elephant tusks which are also supposed to keep the spirit happy. Each one of the grave sites has its own unique style and charm and looks quite eerie within the confines of the wild jungle vegetation.














































When we returned to Voen Sai towards the end of the day, we visited the Chinese and Lao community villages in Voen Sai and talked to some of the people there.




















When I got to Kratie yesterday, I checked into a room with a small cable tv (only US$3.00) and watched CNN. Weird shit with that Virginia Tech Massacre (Gun Control baby!!). I couldn't stop watching TV but after about 15 minutes I was starting to feel sick and brain dead. The media machine loves this crap. They kept saying on CNN "we will all remember for years to come where we were when we heard about the Virginia Tech massacre"….what a load of crap. The writing on the bottom of the screen kept flashing "the student who commited the murders was of Asian descent …… (next sentence on screen) Officials from China are saddened by this act of violence and condemn this violent act" (what does China have to do with the fact that this guy is of Asian descent…..again, what a load of crap).


April 18,

In Cambodia, people basically eat just about anything. On the street, you can pretty much find insects, roaches, rodents, many different birds, and just about anything you can cook. This is a remnant of the war years when people were desperate for food and cooked and fried just about anything


April 20,

I'm now in Phnom Penh again. I arrived here yesterday from Kratie. I'm staying in a different area than I was before. In my first round in Phnom Penh, I stayed near the river front area, but this time I'm staying in a guesthouse in the lake district. My guesthouse sits right on the lake. The lake is fairly large, filled with green water plants (different kinds of water lilies and other floating green weeds) and surrounded by creaky old wooden houses on stilts. A lot of the houses surrounding the lake are really dilapidated, old, slummy shacks. The guesthouse I'm staying in is one of several backpacker guesthouses sitting right on the lake. This lake is really a kind of urban body of water with trash and pollution in it, and so it is not really swim-able, but it is really pretty here in a kind of unique way, especially during sunset. There are comfy chairs and hammocks to lounge in right next to the water, overlooking the entire lake.




























This area of guest houses is basically set up for backpackers and so there is a bit of a druggy, hippy scene here, but the atmosphere here is really mellow and nice. During the afternoons of yesterday and today, I've been sitting in a comfy chair above the lake sipping on an ice coffee. Weed (along with other stronger drugs) is readily available everywhere here. Everyone and their grandmother on the street sells big bags of it, and practically every guest house and restaurant has it on their menu in the form of "happy" pizzas and shakes. People in the guest houses and nearby streets freely smoke joints in the open. It's a bit of a little Amsterdam here. I can smell weed right now as I'm writing. Last night I met the Belgian guys (Roel and Bart) for dinner and had an extremely "happy" chocolate shake along with my chicken Parmesan dinner. The shake was full of pieces of grass that I slurped right up. The rest of the evening was spent laughing it up with Belgian guys on the lake deck of my guest house. At some point the Belgian guys left (Bart left for Bangkok the next day as his trip is nearing its end), and I was left on the loungy couch straddling the line between enjoying the pleasant breeze, staring at the lights of the other decks, enjoying the mellow rhythmic music playing, watching other drugged out people interacting with each other, and occasionally falling into a peaceful sleep only to be woken up by mosquitoes biting me. Today, I'm planning on going out to my favorite pizza place on the river, Happy Herb Pizza, for a happy pizza dinner. No worry, I'm not becoming a druggy, I promise. I'm not trying anything else, and I'm only doing the "happy" foods in safe, established places. Also, "happy" herb is not at all addicting. I'm just using it as my alcohol of the moment whenever I'm relaxing

Currently, I'm perfectly content not doing any touring, and just relaxing. It's been a pretty actively hectic month for me here in Cambodia and I can use a little bit of vegging out time before moving onto Vietnam.


April 21,

I leave for Vietnam tomorrow. I'm gonna take a boat ride on the Mekong from Phnom Penh to a Vietnamese town in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta near the Cambodia border. The name of the town is Chau Doc and it is supposed to be a nice fishing region with rice fields and houses on stilts (above the water). The boat ride should take about 5 to 6 hours.

Happy Herb Pizza was fun yesterday. Another mellow night was spent on the deck overlooking the lake, with a yummy fruit and chocolate pancake at around 2am when the munchies kicked in.


April 24,

I just got into Vietnam two days ago. I'm currently in a city called Can Tho, located in the Southern Vietnam Mekong Delta, surrounded by rivers, canals, and rice fields. I'm going to try to do a home stay with a Vietnamese family on the river tomorrow day and night, and so I'll probably arrive in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on Thursday.






April 24,

Xin Chao (pronounced sin Jow) from Vietnam,

I've been traveling in boats and buses throughout the last three days (from Phnom Penh into the Vietnam Mekong Delta area). I actually ended up taking a boat from Phnom Penh through a section of the Mekong River to a Vietnamese town, named Chau Doc, near the Cambodia border on a tributary of the Mekong River. I met a couple of Canadian Women on the boat and did some touring around Chau Doc with them yesterday (Monday) and then continued onto another town in the Mekong Delta today called Can Tho, where I may see some floating markets on a boat ride on the river early tomorrow morning (from about 6am to 11am). I'm still traveling with one of the Canadian women, but she is a bit of a "Debbie Downer" and she slightly irritates me and so I think our ways will part in a day or two (once we get to Saigon). After the boat tour tomorrow I'm gonna try to get to another town on the Mekong Delta and try to arrange a home stay (for one night) with a Vietnamese family on one of the Mekong River islands (apparently this is fairly easy to arrange - I hope - and can be quite a fun way to get to know a family living and working on the river). "Debbie Downer" may also want to do this and so we'll probably end up doing this together. I think the day after tomorrow, I'll end up arriving at Saigon (Ho Chi Minh), but Roel (the Belgian guy) may already be gone from there by then, but maybe I'll meet some other cool people.

So far, in two days in Vietnam, I've noticed that in general, Vietnamese people are much more friendly and outgoing than Cambodians (who are for the most part quite reserved, shy, and less talkative). It seems like everywhere I walk, everyone smiles, laughs, and greets me with a "HALO" yell or a tap on my shoulder (and even on my stomach a couple of times; maybe they like my tire). Kids are especially friendly always smiling and asking "Wat is your name???" Of course, getting all this positive attention can feel quite wonderful, but also can be quite exhausting (I think I'll be doing some Beach bumming for a while when I start to feel really tired). This Mekong Delta area is very pretty with winding rivers and canals, rice paddies everywhere, a few small mountains and hills (in Chau Doc area), with lots of boats and fishing nets and houses on stilts and people and children swimming and playing in the rivers. Apparently, the Mekong Delta is where most of Vietnam's rice is grown and Vietnam is one of the top exporters of rice in the world (they export much more rice than China). Last night for dinner I had Water Buffalo, Eel, squid, and fish for dinner and drank locally brewed banana wine (quite strong) after dinner.






Sunset over rice fields at Mekong Delta.





















































Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) Statue in Mekong Delta town.






























Sunrise in Mekong Delta.








April 26,

I just arrived in Ho Chi Minh City after the whirlwind of traveling
action/adventures of the last two days. The next morning, after I last wrote, I went on the Boat tour through the Mekong River and canals to 2 different floating markets. I did share the boat ride with Canadian "debbie downer". The boat ride lasted just over 6 hours and went through the 2 floating markets, with merchants on small boats selling/buying/trading mostly produce to each other and to other buyers on boats. It is quite fascinating to watch these happening on the river. Many of the merchants and buyers are women, most of who are wearing those cool conical yellow straw hats you always see in Vietnam photos (to protect themselves from the super hot sun).











































































































We also floated through some small canals and tributaries of the Mekong River, stopping shortly at a place where rice sheets for cooking are made. The tributaries were especially beautiful and peaceful, surrounded by small houses and farms with fruit gardens and small foot (and motorcycle) bridges.
























































On the way back through one of the floating markets, some merchants on a boat, waived us over and gave us a couple of free watermelons. We also ate sweet fresh pineapple at one of the markets. It was a really fun boat ride.















When we returned to the guest house, “Debbie” was in a serious hurry to take a bus to the next town (where you try to find a home stay), and I wanted to eat and relax first, so of course this was the perfect opportunity to ditch her (or in more polite language "to part ways"). She is a bit of a high-strung, stress ball and it was really starting to annoy me, and so goodbye “Debbie”. I took a 2:30 minibus and arrived an hour and a half later at Vinh Long (the place to catch the short ferry to the Mekong River Islands). At the tourist office, they tried to sell me a tour with a home stay, and I politely said no, and asked how could I do a home stay on my own. They suggested to take the ferry to the island and told me to go to a particular house there for information. As I got on the ferry, a woman with a small girl, speaking a little bit of English, asked me if I need a family to stay with, and I said yes. She told me I can stay with her friend’s family for $10.00 for the night and when we arrived on the island (just 10 minutes across the river), she found her friend’s husband, who took me to his family's house (lugging all of my heavy bags on his small scooter). The guys name is Chin, he's 48 years old and he lives with his wife, 23 year old daughter and her 4 kids (2 nursery age girls, and 2 twin 1 year old boys). I really loved Chin and his lovely family. He (and his family) barely spoke English, so communicating was really tough, but I pulled out the handy Vietnamese phrasebook that Laura’s parents gave me for Christmas, and did what I could to have a conversation. The two little girls kept coming up to me saying "Halo" and telling me their names, and the identical twin boys were running around naked, looking at me as if I was a creature from outer space. Chin's wife cooked me an amazing fish and vegetables dinner, with cut up watermelon for desert, and noodles the next morning. It was really nice to be with the family.




































































































Their fairly large concrete open house (with room spaces and no real doorways) is surrounded by a fruit orchard of banana, papaya, longan (like lychee), and jack fruit trees on all sides and little pools and thin water canals to help water the fruit trees.
































Out-house in the back of Chin's house









As a matter of fact, all three islands are full of lush fruit orchards, which is the main industry of the people living on them. Chin took me on a 2-hour scooter tour this morning through all three islands on small motorbike roads winding through the fruit orchards and water canals.





Bonsai trees at a farm on one of the Mekong Islands.






















April 27,

I'm currently in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This is a massive city of somewhere between 6 and 10 million people (I think the entire metropolitan Saigon region has around 30 million people). So far, I'm slightly surprised at how modern and clean the city is (in some ways like Bangkok). The traffic of motorcycles, bicycles, cars, and buses is quite intense here.





One of the quieter streets in Saigon.




























French architecture in Saigon with another Uncle Ho statue.







Right now, its very hot and humid here, but I'll be heading over to a beach area within a few days, and I also have an air conditioned hotel room with cable tv in Saigon (for scary sum of US$7.00 per night) so I can always get away from the heat.


April 27,

Yesterday, I had a little experience that sort of makes me think of my love for Laura. When I got on the minibus from Vinh Long to Saigon yesterday (about a three hour ride), there was a young Vietnamese man (22 years old) who spoke just a few words of English. He was trying to help me communicate with the minibus people and asked me a few questions about myself. He had a very sweet and gentle face. When we stopped to eat at a food stall, he helped me order my meal and insisted on paying for it (he wouldn't take no for an answer) while we were eating he said to me in very broken English "Before you get on minibus, I no talk (he pointed to his mouth) because I very very sad". I asked him "why are you sad?". He answered "I have girl and I say goodbye to girl. Girl go to America to live. I not go to America cause no money. Girl leave, I sad". He then showed me a cute photo of him and his girlfriend together and he said "I love girl, but she go live America. I very sad". He lit up a cigarette and I could see tears in his eyes. My eyes welled up and I did my best to hold back the tears. His sadness made me feel so sad. I said to him "maybe some day you will see her again". I then took out the little goodbye book Laura made me (right before I left Boston), showed him Laura’s photo in the book, and told him that she is my wife and that I too really miss her a lot. It was a kind of genuine momentary connection that just happens sometimes when people share some emotion together.


April 28,

I'm now in my Saigon hotel room watching a show about Capetown, South Africa on one of the cable travel channels. They are showing the street market I visited in Capetown last December. Weird.

I had a fun dinner with Roel (my Belgian friend from Cambodia who I reunited with in Saigon). After dinner we went out for drinks. We were sitting on a table on the street drinking, when a young Vietnamese boy (probably around 10 years old) walked up to us and offered to us (in fairly perfect English) cigarettes. We both politely declined. He then asked "Would you like to buy Marijuana". We both looked at him in a kind of shock and I asked him "are you really selling Marijuana??? (he nodded yes) aren't you a bit young to be selling Marijuana???(he smiled) What else do you sell??" He answered "I sell everything...you want prostitute, she good looking". We declined and he then walked away. Roel and I looked at each other. We were quite appalled. This was very disturbing. There are young kids everywhere here trying to sell candy, books, and cigarettes to tourists. Some of the kids look like they are three or four years old. I spoke to a Vietnamese guy from America yesterday (he grew up in Vietnam but has lived in Philadelphia for the last 13 years and he is currently visiting Saigon) and he said sometimes these kids’ parents sell them to people who use them as young street merchants. These kids can be fairly pushy, walking right into a restaurant and going up to people at every table. It's all kind of sad, but not much can be done (at least not by us; me and Roel).


April 29,

I'm up really late again after hanging out with Roel again for the evening. We ate some really great Vietnamese food, had chocolate cake and coffee at a cafe, and drank a couple of beers. I'm now watching the Red Sox-Yankees game live on ESPN. We are currently losing 3-0. Earlier today, I also watched the last two innings of the Red Sox-Yankees game from yesterday (the Red Sox won that game 11-4). Its kind of fun being in Asia and watching the Red Sox.

I’ve been thinking about this boy from last night who said he sells everything. If all the tourists here didn't buy things from these kids, these kids might not be sent out to the street, but of course there in lies the problem. A lot of these tourists feel sorry for these little cute, adorable kids and they do end up buying stuff from them. I watched tonight as a tiny girl (really cute; possibly 3 years old) kept being sent over with little boxes of candy to our table by a young woman standing on the sidewalk about 10 feet away from us. This happened 6 or 7 times consecutively and Roel and I kept saying no and nodding no with our heads. Every time the little girl turned around and walked back to the woman, the woman would immediately send her back to our table. Finally, two women sitting in the table next to us (I think they were American) pulled out their wallets to pay for their drinks and immediately at that moment the women picked up the little girl and whispered something into her ear, then put her down, and the little girl ran to the table of the two women. She smiled at them and said something cute and the women (who were counting the bills to pay for their drinks) looked at her and said "ok cutee, how much is your candy?" They gave her money for the candy and played with her for a couple of minutes. I almost said something to them, but just stopped short. I don't think it’s my job to educate people or to tell them what to do. So it’s really hard to stop this kid selling stuff thing from happening.

On a lighter note about street kids trying to get money, tonight, while Roel and I were sitting on a sidewalk table drinking a beer and being aggressively pursued by Vietnamese prostitutes who we kept politely declining (this happens a lot here in Saigon), a teenage boy wearing a leotard type, colorful costume stood in front of our table and started doing a fire eating show. Not so impressive (I’ve seen it before). When he finished the show, he put the metal fire sticks away and reached into his bag and pulled out a very thin green snake. Yes, a live snake. He proceeded to stick the thin snake into his left nostril, opened his mouth, and the snake came slithering out of his mouth. I almost fell off my chair in laughter. I couldn't stop laughing. When this kid finished his show, he put out a hat for money. I was still rolling with laughter, and when I gained my composure, I decided that I will give him something since I was so entertained. I gave him the equivalent of 30 cents and Roel gave him about a dollar. Sticking to our principles and not paying, probably would have been the right move, but he made us laugh so hard, we just had to give him something. So these situations are kind of tricky.

About the prostitutes here, I think most of them are probably between the ages of 20 and 30. I didn't see any prostitutes who I thought were teens (or younger) but I'm sure there are some that are that young. I'm not sure if this pattern started during the Vietnam war, but it is possible it did, or maybe became more common at that time because of the needs of the soldiers for prostitutes.

Yesterday, I visited the harrowing War Remnants Museum. The museum displays the horrors of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese people. Photos and descriptions of the different kinds of chemical bombs and weapons used by the Americans are shown and are quite graphic and disturbing. Adults and kids faces melted and burned by Agent Orange and phosphorous bombs, dozens of bodies of school kids killed by American bombs in Hanoi, vicious massacres of entire villages, Americans using numerous methods of violent torture, and American soldiers displaying and holding up blown up bodies and heads of Viet Cong soldiers.



















































It's all very gruesome and really makes you sick to your stomach to think how we destroyed, killed, and dehumanized the people here and the entire country itself (land, forests, and people). Outside the building, American warplanes, helicopters, bombs, tanks, and artillery used in the war are on display.





























Of course the museum is very one sided and propaganda-ish, not mentioning the casualties and suffering of the American soldiers and depicting the Americans as evil beast imperialists, but it is strictly a museum that documents the war crimes and death the Americans committed and caused during the war, and it does a powerful job doing that. The face of war is so ugly and disgusting and obviously the lessons of this war were never learned by our politicians (I can't understand how someone like John Kerry voted for the Iraq war). I think all American politicians should be forced to see this museum and the documents of horror that it displays.


Below are photos from the Cuchi Tunnels area (a rural place outside Saigon) where Viet Cong soldiers dug up tunnels in the ground to hide from the Americans during the Vietnam War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_tunnels
































An American tank that was captured by the Viet Cong near the Cuchi Tunnels during the war.













Below are photos from the Cao Dai Religious Temple and daily service (in a rural area outside of Saigon). One of the saints in Cao Dai Religion is Victor Hugo (I'm not kidding, Victor Hugo).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Dai











































































Victor Hugo is the figure in the middle of the painting this devotee is bowing to.





































May 2,

I'm in Mui Ne in a guesthouse right near the beach. I saw something horrific from my bus window today on the way to Mui Ne from Saigon (about a four hour trip). While the bus was driving, I was innocently listening to my ipod and looking out the window, when (right on the outskirts of Saigon) I saw, on the side of the highway, a crashed motorcycle with a body of a dead man next to it. His body was flopped on the road like a rag doll, his eyes were frozen wide open and his head was split open with a part of the inside of his head spilling out of it (possibly his brain). It was such a surreal and disturbing image and scene. I didn't see any people or other cars standing around near the accident scene, and only one cop was standing a few feet from the body and crashed motorcycle, directing traffic around the accident scene. The body was not covered (unfortunately for me and for the other unlucky people in the bus who saw it). The accident must of happened a few minutes before, and an ambulance was probably on the way. It was hard because I kept replaying that moment over and over in my mind for part of the day (I couldn't get that image out of my head). Eventually, I was able to somewhat forget it, and try to enjoy my time on the beach.

Roel and I went swimming in the South China Sea in Mui Ne at sunset. It was quite beautiful with the old fishing boats in the water and coconut trees on the beach and sand dunes and hills in the distance. Yes, this area has sand dunes in it (its the driest area of Vietnam). Some of the sandunes are white and some are red (Similar to Namibia except many of the dunes have green bushes on them and the beaches are more similar to Mozambique beaches with very warm water). As the sun went down, I saw a Vietnamese man and his daughter digging for clams in the shallow water near the beach. The man was holding a basket made out of net material with two wooden sticks coming out of it. He was dragging the sticks on the floor of the beach and overturning the mud on the floor, helping him and his daughter to find the clams. I helped them for a few minutes and found a few clams myself. I gave a clam to the little girl and she gave me a live hermit crab inside a shell in return. I also watched several of the local fisherman pulling in their nets out of the water and onto the beach. They caught many small fish, crabs, and jellyfish (the jellyfish were thrown back)





































































May 4,

Today, me, Roel, Manish (a nice Canadian born Indian guy), and Tom (a cool English guy), took a jeep tour to the white sand dunes and Lotus Lake, the Red Canyon, and the Red Sand dunes of Mui Ne at sunset. We even did a little sand sledding at the red dunes. The red sand dunes reminded me a bit of Namibia's sand dunes. The dunes here are not nearly as large as the ones in Namibia, but they are quite beautiful.




































































































































































Yesterday, Roel and I walked through a very cool, bizarre and beautiful place here called the Fairy Stream (sounds a bit gayish huh?). The Fairy Stream is a thin stream of fresh water that runs through a small canyon of white and red hard sand formations (all sorts of shapes and crevices) and through banana fields, coconut trees, rice paddies, and vegetable gardens. The walk was really peaceful and beautiful and we talked to a few Vietnamese farmers and kids along the way. There were even a couple of little waterfalls where we could get a bit of a back massage along the way. While we were walking through the fields and Rice paddies, a Vietnamese farmer pointed out to us a plant that you touch and all its leaves react to the touch by contracting inwards. That was really cool. It’s almost as if the plant is a moving animal. I've never seen anything like it. This area is quite beautiful.































































































































































At sundown, I swam in the ocean again and watched the sunset.















I was definitely affected by the dead guy I saw the other day on the road, so I will think twice about getting on a motorbike again. So far on my trip I have only ridden small motorbikes on small dirt roads where you can't go very fast (a bit like riding a bicycle with a motor) and I never ride on big roads or highways. I'm really trying hard to stay as safe as possible, not doing any extreme things. Some of the motorbike drivers here are really crazy, zigzagging through seriously heavy traffic in an insane way, and never using their brakes (only using their horns). I don’t really understand this mentality, but it’s certainly annoying and unsafe.

May 9,

I'm in Nha Trang, which is a big town on the coast near some rocky, hilly islands.
I'm still hanging out with Roel, Tom, and Manish. We spent the last three days in the Central Highland’s mountainous area in and around the town of Dalat. There, we went to see a nice waterfall and hiked around some cool mountain trails for about three hours. The Central mountains of Vietnam are really beautiful, with pine trees and vegetable garden terraces everywhere. Even coffee is grown in that region.


Below are photos of "Crazy House" Guest House in Dalat.
http://www.traveladventures.org/continents/asia/crazyhouse.shtml








































































































The Eiffel cell phone tower in Dalat.









I'll probably spend the next couple of days in Nha Trang before heading off to the next destination. Not sure what the next destination will be (other than the fact that it will be north of Nha Trang).





Nha Trang Beach.










May 12,

I'm now in Hoi An, a really great town with an old city section that has small streets and old, beautiful, quaint houses, some of which are about two hundred years old. The old town sits on a nice quiet river, and there’s a really cool market near the river. China beach (yes, the famous one) is also nearby. I really love this place. I'll do some exploring of the town and surrounding region tomorrow. I think I'll be here for at least two days. The overnight bus journey from Nha Trang sucked as I couldn't sleep at all and my cold started getting worse, but I feel better today after I got some sleep in the morning and walked around the lovely old city.














































































































































Photos of China Beach.








































May 15,

Today, our tour to My Son (the old Cham Temples) was completely covered with heavy rain and we could barely see the beautiful mountains and jungles around the temples. I had a rain cover on, but it was still a drenched affair. It was still a lot of fun though.
















In the afternoon, when we returned, I had some Vietnamese coffee and delicious Chocolate Mousse at an amazing pastry shop and then played soccer with three Vietnamese boys in a little park in the old city of Hoi An. When the soccer ball flew in the river, I went in (without getting wet) and rescued it to the applause of the kids. It was a really fun and tiring day. Today I take a bus with the guys to Hue.






Little park where I played soccer in Hoi An.





















Photo of landscape on the way from Hoi An to Hue.



May 16,

I'm in Hue, Vietnam (in the central Vietnam coast just north of Danang). Today I visited the old Vietnamese Royal palace (Vietnam's Imperial Forbidden City, which is supposedly similar in its layout to Beijing, China's Forbidden City). It's a really cool place with lots of pagodas, colorful lanterns, grass and gardens, and water canals with water lillies. The entire old city is surrounded by a long wall and Citadell which was partially destroyed in the French and American wars. The old city here is also quite lovely with houses with bonsai trees, fish pools, and green gardens. The old cities in Hoi An and Hue are both really charming and very peaceful. We (me and the boys) will probably visit the countryside around Hue tomorrow and probably head onto Hanoi on either Friday or Saturday. I should be Hanoi for my birthday on Monday (I'll probably get my Vietnam Visa extention on that day). I'll also go to the Hanoi GPO Poste Restante (either Saturday or Monday) to hopefully find some mail from Laura there.

































































































































































A bus load of western tourists being wheeled around on cyclos in Hue.











May 17,

I had a great but very tiring day today, visiting three different places in the countryside around Hue (Royal tomb and gardens, a tall pagoda and monestary overlooking the Perfume river and its surrounding hills, and Ho Chi Minh's house when he was a kids and the small rural village its located in; really lovely with Rice fields and people picking rice).




































This is the original front frame of the car standing behind the burning monk in the very famous "burning monk self-immolation in Saigon" photo taken in 1963. The monk lived in this monastery in Hue before he came to Saigon to set himself on fire.
http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/burning-monk-the-self-immolation-1963.html








People in Ho Chi Minh's childhood village cleaning and storing newly harvested rice from the rice fields.











The boys in action.













Tom, Roel, Maneesh, and me.









In the evening, a German friend of ours (Lex) invited us to a house and family of a Vietnamese man he befriended on the street. They were great hosts and they served us a Vietnamese Hotpot with squid, shrimps, beef, pork, and vegetables and beer (we just paid for the beer). We were hanging out with about 6 men and seven women. The guy Lex befriended (the host) is a High School teacher. The men all drank beers and the women all drank Pepsis. I tried to rouse things up by suggesting the women should also drink beers, but that just got a bunch of laughs. At some point one Vietnamese friend of the host who is also a teacher, put the host's son (who is about 3 or 4 years old) on his lap and told him (jokingly) to suck on his bare nipple (as if his nipple would squirt milk). The little boy proceeded to suck on the man's nipple and everybody laughed wildly (the women didn't seem to care and the little boy was smiling).



The nipple guy is the bare chested guy with a cigarette in his mouth, the little boy is on the couch, and Lex (my German friend) is the guy with the curly hair who is pointing. Next to Lex is the Vietnamese high school teacher.



May 18,

I'm taking the sleeper bus to Hanoi tonight (bus with bunk beds supposedly) and should arrive in Hanoi at 6am Saturday morning.


May 19,

The overnight bus trip went ok but I'm still kind of exhausted even though there were sort of bunks on the bus, but I still couldn't really sleep because of the
constant rocking and shaking and braking of the bus. After finding a hotel room this morning in Hanoi (which was a bit of a pain), I slept a bit, but I still feel really tired. The good news is that my room gets a strong Wifi signal.


May 19,

I just got back from the Hanoi general post office, where I was really excited to find 14 letters, packages, birthday cards, and postcards sent to me from Laura and from other friends and family in America, all for my upcoming birthday in two days. I was really touched by all the love coming my way so far from home. I thank everyone who sent me something from the bottom of my heart. And of course, Laura is really amazing for organizing all of this.



My sweet traveling buddies in Vietnam also organized a birthday celebration for me. They gave me amazing gifts like the green, jumping rubber frog I'm holding in my hand, Air Supply and Kenny G CD's (very popular in Vietnam), and a Vietnamese Barbie-like doll. These gifts have all since been donated to Vietnamese kids (except for the Air Supply Cd; I love Air Supply).



May 22,

Yesterday, on my 41st birthday, I walked around Hanoi old City, checking out the colorful street market full of people selling all kinds of fresh meat, seafood, vegetables, and fruits, and ended up sitting next to the city lake watching people fishing, doing Tai Chi, and walking by.







Market in Hanoi's Old Quarter.


























































The lake near Hanoi's Old Quarter.



































At some point, a Vietnamese merchant boy selling fried dough (he was probably about 12) sat next to me trying to convince me to buy some Vietnamese donuts. I made it pretty clear to him that I'm not interested in buying a donut, but he wouldn't leave. At that point, I thought I would try and make him laugh, so I pulled one of my long white chest hairs out of my chest and showed it to him. I then took the springy white hair and put it against my nose nostril as if it was growing out of my nose. I got a smile out of him. I then put the single white chest hair against the top of my bald head (my newly cleanly shaven bald head), and again he smiled. This continued for a bit, until he decided to start up the buy the donuts shpeel all over again. These merchant kids are very persistent, as persistence usually works for them. I did end up standing my ground and not buying the donut to the boy’s disappointment. In the evening I went out with the boys to eat Pork Kebabs (a kind of yummy Shawarma-like kebabs they sell cheaply, 60 cents, on the streets here in Hanoi). It was a nice birthday. I'm still trying to figure out my next move, which may be going on a Halong Bay tour, and to the Northwestern mountain area of Sapa sometime in the next couple of days.






Check out the name of this restaurant. It sounds like it could be a bad joke from the 80's film "Sixteen Candles".








May 24,

I've been walking around in Hanoi, drinking fruit shakes, eating kebabs, and people watching. I'm a bit tired of the motorcycle beeping noises. The motorcycle riders constantly beep as they drive, trying to get everyone and everything out of their way so that they don't have to use their breaks. It's a bit annoying.




Insane night traffic in Hanoi


May 31,

I'm in Sapa in the Northwest of Vietnam (near the China border). Its quite beautiful here. The mountains are gorgeous whenever they appear behind the fog and clouds. Today is actually quite sunny and I took a walk to an Hmong Ethnic Minority village called Cat Cat, with a waterfall, and amazing views on the way. The rice terraces that are cut into the mountains here are quite impressive, and the Hmong women work in the fields dressed in their traditional clothing. The highest mountain in Vietnam is only 15km from here. It's called Fansipan. I call it Fancy Pants. The air is is so fresh and crystal clear that I can feel my lungs smiling. Last night, I sat on the balcony of my hotel watching the full moon over the mountains. All I heard was silence. It was very peaceful.





























































































































































































































Sapa Market














As Dave recently said so elegantly "KFC....
Kentucky Fried Chihuahua" ; also a delicacy in parts of Vietnam.




























































Poor Roel is sick. He has a bit of a fever and feels like shit. He's been mostly sleeping in the hotel room, missing Sapa and its surrounding area altogether. There are at least 10 Vietnamese youths (ages 7 to 15) all around me in this internet place in Sapa. They are all energetically and loudly playing video games on their computers. It is quite funny actually.


June 3,

Today, our group of travelers officially disbands (after about a month of traveling together through Vietnam), as everyone except for me is heading to Laos and I stay in Vietnam for about another week and a half and then I head to China (I just got my Visa to China). Maneesh and Roel are flying to Laos today and the others are already there. I'm gonna miss these guys, but maybe it's about time I do some traveling alone.


June 4,

Several days ago, in an Hanoi restaurant, I met a cool Swedish traveler named Leandro and he is interested in traveling with me to the less toured northern part of Halong Bay. I also met a German woman (Sophie) and a Swiss woman (Giulia), in my Sapa trip, who are also interested in doing this more ambitious journey to the Northern Halong Bay islands. We all leave Hanoi together today. So I guess I'm not traveling alone yet. Its very easy to meet travelers in Vietnam.



June 7,

I just spent the last four days in the Northern Islands of Halong Bay. It was a truly fabulous and beautiful adventure. Halong Bay is so massive that its really hard to comprehend. Our group of four first took two local busses to the Northern Von Don Island and ended up at a hotel at a boat pier there. The view from our hotel balcony was incredible. You could see large, limestone, karst cliff islands all around the bay we were at (Ba Tu Long Bay; which is a part of Halong Bay). Some of these rocky, cliff-like mini islands were really near us and some were in the distance. There are literally thousands of these incredible islands and at sunset, the affect of the red sun light (magic hour) on the tall and rocky cliffs felt as if we were inside some kind of a magical Asian fairytale. You could see the fishermen coming back in their boats and hear their voices as they got off their boats.











































Leandro, Sophie, and Guilia were really fun to hang out with. They are all around twenty (they could be my kids; ouch!!), but they are all very mature, intelligent, mellow (going with flow with wherever the journey was taking us), and had a great sense of humor. We laughed a lot because in all the places we went to, practically no one spoke English, and communicating and being understood was such a challenge that we just had to laugh about it.











































Basically, practically no tourists go to the Halong Bay area on their own. Tourists and travelers in Vietnam take two or three day boat tours to Halong Bay (from Hanoi Tour companies). I did one of these tours in Halong Bay with my traveling buddies a week and a half ago and we had a lot of fun, but I felt I needed to come back to Halong Bay on my own (without a tour). All these tours go to the same places in Halong Bay and basically do all the same things (with their really non flexible itineraries).



Photos from my tour company organized group boat tour in Halong Bay (I did this tour when Maneesh, Roel, and Lex were still traveling with me):
































































































































One of the giant caves in Halong Bay.






























































































Photos from Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay:




























































Cat Ba Island fishing village in Halong Bay.








More photos from Boat tour in Halong Bay:

































Our boat tour group. A really great group of people from all over the world.





























































































That's me diving from the boat into the bay.


























Going to Halong Bay on your own (without a tour) really opens up another world, as you see parts of Halong Bay that most people never see (other than locals). The second day, we got on a local ferry that took us to through the beautiful islands of Ba Tu Long Bay to Quan Lan Island. It was a beautiful three hour journey through the calm waters of the bay to Quan Lan Island. Quan Lan is one of the outer islands of Halong Bay, and really faces the open Gulf of Tomkin and China Sea.

































Gang of Four.













I'm trying some disgusting jello-like Vietnamese candy.


























Our ferry was carrying some strange blue rectangles.....












.....and then these blue things were dropped off at a fisherman's hut in the middle of the bay.





































After a bit of confusion and a search of about an hour and a half, we found the beautiful secluded beach we were looking for and found a really great bungalow place there with a super nice staff (who spoke no English). There are only two bungalow places in this entire beach (about 2 km long) and the beach is practically empty. There was a nice older German couple staying at our bungalow place, but us and them were the only tourists on the entire island. I did a lot of swimming and relaxing and reading (first time in a while) on the beach and the people there cooked us some amazingly delicious dinners.








Quan Lan Island Beach.













Goat roast on Quan Lan Island Beach.


















































Quan Lan Island.





















Today (our fourth day of the trip), we took an early morning ferry from Quan Lan Island (ferry left at 6 am) back to Halong City (on the southern side of Halong Bay), cutting through the middle of Halong Bay and seeing more spectacular scenery. For most of this 5 hour ferry, I was laying on the top deck of the boat watching this world of magical islands floating by, and listening to great music on my iPod. I really felt happy.















Of course, as nothing is ever perfect, the ferry ride had to end on a bit of a sour note, as there was a controversy related to a communication and language misunderstanding about the payment of the ferry. After some annoying arguments with the people from the ferry, things worked out in the end. These are the consequences for traveling in places where there are no tourists and no one speaks English.



June 10,

The last three days in the countryside surrounding Ninh Binh have probably been the highlight of my Vietnam trip so far. If you close your eyes and sort of imagine in your mind what you may classically think Vietnam might look like; A kind of amalgam of open rice fields with rivers snaking through them and rocky, cone-like, limestone cliffs, hills, and mountains surrounding the rice fields (a la "Painted Vail" China landscape) with farmers in conical Vietnamese hats working in the rice fields with their legs knee deep in mud. This image is exactly what you see in real-life in the surrounding countryside of Ninh Binh, except here the dream image is real and more beautiful than anything that could be imagined. It is really hard to describe the beauty of this region in words. Yesterday, as I was sitting on the back of a motorbike riding on an empty dirt road through this magical landscape as the sun was going down, I just smiled. I heard kids yelling hello and waving to me as they were jumping into the river. I saw women farmers carrying large stacks of cut rice plants tied together over their backs. The limestone, karst, cliffs and mountains were jetting out of this landscape like the shadows of some large creatures in a Forest.



































































































Pineapple fields.

























Machine that separates rice kernels from the green stalk of the plant.









































































Earlier yesterday, the guide/motorbike driver (from the hotel I stayed at) took me to Cuc Phuong National Park. The national park has a similar landscape, except here you are moving within the mountains, through real jungle vegetation that has been preserved for a long time. I did hikes through two well marked trails in the park jungle. I was with my guide/driver and a German guy from my hotel (who had his own driver) and during the hikes in the jungle we also visited two very deep and dark caves (one of which had been occupied by prehistoric humans 7500 years ago). Both caves were quite cool, as you could go deep into them and explore their big chambers (with my Petzel). Earlier that day, we went into the Endangered Primate Rescue Center. In this center, monkeys from the region that are practically extinct (like certain types of Langurs and Gibbons) are rescued from the hands of hunters in the region (they are hunted to be sold in China because some people use their blood and body parts in certain Chinese medicines) and then rehabilitated and bred (in large cages) so that their population increases, and then they are put into a large fenced off open jungle area where they can learn to be in the wild again. Once they are healthy and fully used to life in the wild, they are released into the national park. We saw the different types of primates in the cages with several babies which were recently born, and also some Black Langurs and Yellow Gibbons playing in the thick trees in the open fenced off jungle area. Both these monkeys are really cute and funny looking. Langurs have a funny mop top haircut and a super long tail, and the Gibbons have long, lanky arms and no tail at all. Their facial expressions are very human. The hikes through the jungle were really lovely, with huge old trees surrounded by gnarly roots coming down from the thick branches from above. There were hundreds of colorful butterflys around us as we were walking through the jungle. The trail was a bit funny, as it was paved for about half the way through the jungle. I think in this encourages Vietnamese tourists to walk through the jungle (as if they are walking on a sidewalk).













































































1000 year old tree.































Guide, German guy, and me at Cuc Phuong National Park.












Yellow Gibbon at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center Jungle area.












































Here I am in a deep, dark cave full of bats at Cuc Phuong National Park.








The previous day, I was touring through this rice fields and rocky cliffs landscape on a row boat, by foot , and by motorbike at three separate places near Ninh Binh called Tam Coc (where you row through 3 caves under the limestone cliffs), a mountaintop with a dragon statue and a buddah pagoda overlooking the river, rice fields, and surrounding mountains, and a town called Hoa Lu (where the rice fields are again surrounded by these cliffs and mountains).


Photos of Tam Coc, Dragon Statue Mountaintop, and Hoa Lu Village:







Tam Coc Area.


















































































































































































































































Dragon Statue Mountaintop photos.








































Hoa Lu Village photos.


























































































































In the town of Hoa Lu, I walked around (with this young English guy yesterday) through the small alleyways and we were followed by a few cute local kids. Some of the kids kept putting out their hands to ask for money. Two of the girls doing this were really tiny (maybe two or three) and were really just copying the other kids they saw without knowing what it means. When the little girls put out their hands, I took my hand and slapped them a five gently. They laughed, and then I taught them to slap me a five. Pretty soon, I was playing the slap-me-a-five game with them and they loved it. I think as they grow up and see more tourists and more of the kids and adults around them begging from the tourists, they will unfortunately learn what holding the hand out really means, but for now, hopefully they'll just think it means the slap-me-a-five game. Interestingly enough, as we rode our motorbikes and stopped through most of the farming countryside where tourists don't visit, not one child or adult asked us for money. In many touristy places in Vietnam, I sometimes end up feeling like a walking dollar sign, as merchants aggressively try to sell you things, motorcycle and taxi drivers constantly offer you their vehicle services, and some business owners attempt to seriously overcharge you, believing you should pay more for everything just because you are a westerner. The accumulation of this hassling had really started getting to me lately. This was not the case with the people in these farming villages. They all just greeted us in a warm and friendly way and just smiled (happy we were visiting their place). These last few days have been really special. I think I’m now really ready to leave Vietnam. Next destination - South and Southwest China.
















June 15,

Today is my last day in Vietnam. I’m in Hanoi again. Tomorrow I get on a bus that will take me to Nanning, China and from there it’ll be onto Yangshou, China.

Two days ago, I met a sixty five year old Vietnamese man (he actually looked like he was in his late thirties) who has lived in America (California) since 1975. He ran away from Vietnam in 1975 because he had been a South Vietnam Army high rank commander. During the Vietnam War, he fought alongside the American troops against the Northern Vietnamese (Viet Cong). When the war ended and Vietnam was reunified in April 1975 (the Northern Vietnamese officially took control of Saigon and South Vietnam), he had to run away for fear of being put in prison or being executed. He has lived with his wife and kids in California for over thirty years now, and had not visited Vietnam during that time. This year he decided it was time for him to visit. His perspective on Vietnam was fascinating, and since his English was perfect, I could ask him a lot of questions. One of the things I’ve wondered the entire time I’ve spent in Vietnam is whether the people here, especially the older generation, still harbor any feelings of hatred towards Americans. Personally, I didn’t sense any hatred or anger when I told people I was American, but of course sometimes people (especially people in Southeast Asia) can mask their emotions very well, and you can’t actually tell what they are feeling. On several dduring my time here, I’ve tried asking Vietnamese people how they felt about the war and generally about Americans, but I could never really get a clear answer other than “America good” or “no problem”. I could never figure out whether it was a language/communication problem or an attempt at politeness or a preference not to talk about it because of the painful memories it may bring up or just a general sense of “the wart is in the past, and we have moved on”. When I asked this guy about it, his answer was interesting. He said that the majority of Vietnamese people (whether from the south or the north) do not dislike or hate Americans. He said that people here make a strong distinction between the American people themselves (especially the ones who visit Vietnam) and the American government and its decisions and policies. But interestingly, he said many people of North Vietnamese origin still harbor ill feelings toward him for fighting with the South Vietnamese army. He said he doesn’t think this will disappear until his generation dies out. He also told me he recently went to revisit some of the sites of the vicious battles he had fought in during the war. He had an empty feeling at these sites. He said the pain of the past still haunts him at times, but he acknowledges that although he (the south) had lost the war, a unified and healthy Vietnam (socially, politically, and economically) will bring positive things to the people here in the future. The country has already made quite an amazing recovery from all the misery, poverty, and suffering of the war years and the 15 years that followed the war. Officially, Vietnam is still Communist/Socialist, but the Communism here is more of a symbol of the past, rather than an actual functioning political system. Communism in Vietnam today seems to be much more a mix of a few socialist policies and a definite push towards free enterprise and Capitalism (with the Communist flags and symbols still flying everywhere to help keep the people somewhat in fear of the police and the government).











































Finally, before I finish this blog post, I want to mention a couple of other things I recently learned in Vietnam. I had noticed throughout my time in Vietnam that almost all Vietnamese women who ride motorbikes and walk in the steaming heat outdoors always cover their faces with a cloth (a kind of handkerchief), wear a big hat, and cover the skin on their arms and legs with long sleeves (many times the sleeves of their shirts extend over their hands in order to cover them; the shirts are manufactured this way). At first I thought, they were doing this in order to protect themselves from dust and pollution. It made me wonder though why this is only done by women. Did it have something to do with religion? Recently, A Vietnamese man who spoke English well explained to me the specific reasons for this. As it turns out, the lighter the skin of a Vietnamese woman is, the more attractive she is considered. Women here (and in certain other Southeastern Asian countries like Thailand) work really hard at keeping their skin very light. They cover their bodies outdoors and use whitening creams on a regular basis. Apparently, the darker skin look is associated more with manual outdoor labor (farming) and light skin has a connotation of education and higher economic status. Of course, in the western world most women always want their skin to be tan. For white women, tan skin can be considered a symbol of health and higher economic status (I guess the idea might be that a women who has a tan, can afford the time to get a tan at a beach or at a tanning salon). Its all kind of funny to me, but very sociologically interesting.

The other thing I recently learned, is the reason why some Vietnamese people who meet me or walk by me on the street, touch my stomach (sometimes squeezing it) while smiling and laughing. Although, I have probably lost around 20 pounds in the last year and a half and I'm the lightest I've been since my 20's, I'm still a bit of a chunker by Southeast Asian standards. Most people here are fairly small and skinny and I really stick out in a crowd. Recently, when this Vietnamese guy walked by me and squeezed my stomach, he laughed and said "fat, happy Buddha". One of the Buddha symbols you see everywhere in Vietnam (statues, drawings, and wood carvings) is of the fat smiling Buddha, with his blubbery stomach and round bald head . A few weeks ago, a Hanoi prostitute trying to conjure up some business, walked up to me on the street and said "you fat, handsome, happy Buddha". I guess it's a compliment. I thanked her for the compliment and declined her offer. So after this incident, my traveler friends started calling me "fat, handsome, happy Buddha".

So here I'll end this post. As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, my last two and a half months of traveling through Cambodia and Vietnam have been less of an internal and philosophical journey than the first month in Thailand was, partially as a result of constantly being with other people and a faster pace of moving from place to place with less time to reflect inwards. During this time, Laura and I have discovered Skype and are now trying to communicate practically for free through Skype conversations at least once a week. We can now have conversations of an hour or two (when the internet connection is good) and so this has really helped us stay connected, but it still doesn't really bridge the physical distance between us. I miss Laura a ton and think about her all the time. I look forward to us reuniting, but I still feel like I have some traveling left in me. Right now, my travel plans are still scheduled to potentially last until sometime in the fall (late fall at the latest). So for now, China is next and probably Laos after that.

I hope all of you out there are doing well in your own journeys.

As they say in Vietnam, Peace, Health, and Prosperity to everyone.
Inbal