The Roaming Unemployed

Taiwan: Taipei, Just OK

We practice our usual routine; get on our plane, plan our way into the city, determine what neighborhood has what we want (cheap room in a good location.) We've gotten good at this.  In the beginning of the trip we analyzed every little step but now we know that any specific plan will be adjusted so we just determine the broad strokes in advance.

First things first, we find out a taxi from the airport is out of the question.  It would be about $100 US. A bus on the other hand will get us in for about $2 US each. As you may imagine, not a difficult choice. We locate the bus quickly and it's a little over an hour before we hit the city center. Bill and I are the last two on board and as a result we are in separate rows. While I sat beside a quiet little old lady, Bill sat next to a young woman holding a baby– the fact the she never sat still was one thing, but her hitting the baby when it did not cooperate was infuriating!

We hadn't pre booked our room a few day ahead as we've been finding better deals everywhere in person.  This would prove not to be true in Taipei. With heavy bags we looked for those ubiquitous touts that are normally without end but could not find a single one – I never thought I'd miss seeing them. We saw a YMCA and asked about price -they wanted over $100 a night. No. In Hong Kong our room was $27 a night and Taiwan is supposed to be cheaper!!

We headed to a few more of the hard-to-find hostels and they were all full. Finally it was time to hit the Internet. We found an Internet cafe underground and overflowing with gamers and we searched for rooms online. We found one of the cheapest we could and wrote down the long instructions to get there. The directions were clear so we jumped on the subway and got right to the correct neighborhood. We had a building number that seemed to not correspond to anything... We asked some local shop keepers for directions and they simply gave us blank stares. There were no hostels in the area and when we finally found one it was not interested in giving us a price. After asking at the 7-11 (which according to the directions was supposed to be near the hostel) no one had a clue where the address was – and we were just exhausted! Was it the language? Was it us? Were we just not understanding? On the sidewalk I looked up to see this small little number that was the address we were looking for. The sign for the Hostel consisted of a business card taped to a fount door.

As we would discover the hostel was not bad at all; clean, mostly comfortable, but we only had a bathroom down the hall. We couldn't help compare Taiwan to Hong Kong--it was now costing us more with less amenities and as the guide book described, not a whole lot to do.

We head out in our little neighborhood for something to eat. Now I have learned on this trip not to be picky.  If it looks edible and it's cheap enough I'm going to eat it. Bill has always had this attitude so by now we're always looking for the same thing, “cheap and easy”. We pass many street vendors which I've come to like but they are all selling things that, let us just say, are not making me hungry unless chicken foot soup or my personal favorite stinky tofu in fried pig's blood sounds appetizing. The smell even now makes me want to throw up--how anyone could eat this I have no idea. We find a steakhouse (I'm not kidding) that served traditional Taiwanese food. Bill and I both had the pork which came over noodles and with a raw egg on top...

 

We yet again would be here for a few days with James and Nao and plan to meet up to see the Taipei 101.  After our brilliant time in Hong Kong we were excited to see another big city, this one home to the world's (current) tallest building, The Taipei 101. Most of Taipei is not skyscrapers or walls of glass so the 101 can be seen from just about anywhere. It's designed to resemble a bamboo pole symbolizing the strength and flexibility of the Taiwanese people. It is, as the name will tell you, 101 stories tall and until the Burj in Dubai is complete, the world's tallest building. We went to the top in the world's fastest elevator which goes from the ground floor to the 91st in a screeching 27 seconds. We checked it out and Bill seemed to not have been affected by the height so we headed up a few more floors to the observation deck which has fantastic panoramic views! It was there that I saw the sign, "No Jumping," – what!? They need a sign for this, really? That's a bit unsettling.

 View from the top of Taipei 101.
 

James, Nao, Bill and Adam at the top of the Taipei 101

Sign at top of Taipei 101

Later that night we went to a famous night market that was alright, not great but not bad. They had a local favorite – fried cheesy squid balls with mayonnaise (of course) and some really delicious dumplings! Other than that it was endless video arcades filled with games to win prizes that were flashing, beeping, and jumping out at us. We dove in, I threw some beanbags at cans filled with sand that never moved and then Bill shot pellets at balloons hitting every one of them, winning a Chinese fan that he gave to Nao -it was a blast! After that we stumbled onto a pet shop where we all picked out the puppies we wanted but sadly had to leave without.

James trying to win

Squid Cheeseballs

Squid on a stick

Later one of James' friends Joe met up with us and we went looking for a bar to have a beer when we found the infamous Modern Toilet restaurant.  That's right, it's a restaurant with a toilet theme. The chairs are actual toilets and the decor is all very bathroom like. The Taiwanese think of things we can't even imagine -or wouldn't...

 
Joe, Nao, James and Bill

After a beer we were all beat so we headed home after having an easy but fun day. Now what do we do? We check our guide and it's clear that the tower is the main event and most everything else is not really all that interesting. We spend a day checking out the local scene but are just not impressed with the people, place, or food. The best food I had in Taipei was sushi! We had stumbled onto a great restaurant that wasn't expensive and we both had plenty of sushi and a beer for $6 each. I know it will be too expensive in Tokyo so I'm trying to get my fix now.

The sushi bar

We spent the remainder of our time in book stores, walking through the parks and working on the blog as the weather was rainy almost the entire time we were there. With Hong Kong having been such a great build up of excitement and intrigue, Taipei was lackluster at best.  If we'd known there wasn't much there there we would have spent less time. It's the only city so far I frankly would just as easily have skipped. Next and final stop outside the States is Tokyo: both Bill and I are VERY excited and the only problem is the cold weather--we need scarfs!

As seen on a metro platform

Macau, Casinos, and the Infamous “Wine Buffet”

One of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan is the Macau Trading Company, a sister restaurant to one of our other favorites, Employees Only. Macau Trading Company revives the feel of late 19^th Century colonialism in exotic and foreign places, reminiscent of the days of steamer ships and eccentric explorers. It's great fun. And they make an amazing cocktail.

Because of the restaurant in Manhattan, ads for the island of Macau plastered across seatbacks on Air Asia flights definitely sparked our interest. How cool to go to the real Macau? Adam was game so he spent some time checking flights in and out and were perplexed by the over-the-top expensive results. We'd all but given up on a trip there when friends, Chuck and Brian, posted some of their travel photos of Macau on FaceBook. Adam emailed them to figure out if the destination was worth the expensive flight when they explained that Macau, being located so close to Hong Kong, was just a boat ride away. No flights necessary! Oh! Macau is a day trip excursion! Who knew? Perfect.

When we told James and Nao about our plan to visit Macau they were game to join us for the day. We showed up at the boat terminal in Hong Kong (after some hit or miss finding it in Kowloon … it's near the Star Ferry terminal but not the same building) and managed to buy tickets for about $35 US round trip each. Cheaper than a flight! With no schedule in hand, we ran to catch the soonest-leaving ferry, Nao in her high heels clicking double-time to keep up with our longer strides as we raced to catch the ferry before it departed without us. Laughing and out of breath we just made our ride, a modern, enclosed, nicely upholstered ship with a small concession stand. Beers all around! It would be an hour-and-a-half sail to Macau.

Our guidebook conveniently combined Hong Kong and Macau into one edition, Lonely Planet's Hong Kong and Macacu. Brilliant. Paging through the section on Macau, a lot of print seemed to be dedicated to casinos. I hadn't known it but Macau is essentially the Las Vegas of Asia, renown for its casinos and entertainment, gambling and nightlife.

We arrived on the island of Macau a little after one in the afternoon and were famished. Unfortunately, there was nothing to eat at the ferry terminal so a bit of a walk ensued to find the nearest grouping of buildings overlooking the ocean, Macau Fisherman's Wharf, a collection of casinos and restaurants jutting out over the ocean on a man-made peninsula. We passed casinos in the shape of a volcano and another emulating an ancient Chinese fort. Funny. Like Disneyland for adults. Before diving into all of the chaos we had a lovely lunch on a beautiful day overlooking the ocean.

Adam and Nao at lunch, Fisherman's Wharf, Macau.

Lunch in Macau. The Island even brews its own beer.

There was one non-gambling, non-night life sight I wanted to see in the afternoon, the Ruins of St. Paul. It's the remains of a Jesuit-built cathedral dating back to 1582. The main building was destroyed by fire in the 19^th Century but the intricately-carved facade remains. The facade, set on a picturesque set of stone steps in what feels like an ancient town center, was very cool. We took a cab and after 15 minutes of traffic our Chinese-speaking driver insisted we were as close as he could get us. He gestured to a narrow set of paver-stone steps winding into a neighborhood of small shops and boutique-y restaurants. Very touristy, but well laid out and unique.

We just followed the signs to the Ruins of St. Paul, turned a corner, and there it was.

We climbed the steps, took photos, and from behind the facade were able to climb another series of catwalk stairs to the second level and peer about. Nice, but really it's all about the ghost-like view of the see-through building's classical face, so stark and lonely, that's memorable.

We wandered back down the winding pedestrian paths and, as tourists do, looked in the windows and stepped into some of the souvenir shops. Adam and I bought tee shirts and postcards. By now, all four of us were ready to try out the casinos.

On the ferry, Adam told us that what is considered one of the ugliest buildings ever created was located in Macau. This we had to see. It turned out to be not hard to find—opened in 2007, the 58-floor skyscraper Grand Lisboa casino and hotel stands taller than any other on its block in the main downtown strip and is lit up like a technicolor neon carnival as the sun dims over Macau. I don't know about ugly but it sure is unique.

We hit the casinos, played the unfamiliar games, spun the slots, did our best to make sense out of the rules (written in Kanji) and lost money while having a good time. The drinks at the bar were strangely overpriced for a casino (don't they realize that the more you drink, the more you gamble?!?) but the floor show, in the center of the busy casino, showcased scantily-clad Caucasian women putting on a helluva show. We laughed, drank our overly expensive drinks, and soaked it all in.

We headed out of the Grand Lisboa and across the street to the original, classic Lisboa Casino. In dire need of a face lift, this patriarch of the Macau casino scene has a long history of dazzling nightlife in its heyday onto itself. But shortly after arriving, the dark halls, the low ceilings, the lack of a decent bar and the inability to bring a drink into the casino proper (again, is the relationship between drinking and gambling lost on these people?) we made a quick escape into the warm night and headed to The Sands. Now, this was familiar territory.

After a bit more gambling and sightseeing within the building itself, we headed up to the bar on a high floor overlooking the casino strip. We tried to take photos of the dark neon view but the photos never did capture the moment.

At some point in the evening it was time for dinner and no casino would ever let us leave hungry. We found a modest food hall at The Sands and were sold by the promise of an all-you-can-drink “Wine Buffet.” For we hungry tourists on a budget, that sounded just right to us!

This is where the night begins to get hazy. What I can tell you for certain is that we ate, we drank, the staff kept bringing more and more bottles to our table of four, and we laughed and laughed. We told stories, drank wine, and reminisced, already!, about the parts of our trip that were sadly over—but made grand plans for the parts we would still get to enjoy together, the four of us.

And the wine continued to flow and we were all in wonderful spirits before we realized we didn't dare miss the last ferry back to Hong Kong, around 10:30 at night. Together, arm in arm, we made our way daringly out of the Wine Buffet and The Sands and down the strip to the ferry terminal. We had a hard time catching a cab but ultimately were able to snag one. We all poured in, smelling collectively like a mad winery, and hazily made our way back to the ferry terminal where our day in Macacu had begun 8 or 9 hours earlier.

We missed our ferry. Awe, crap. But, the gate agent assured me, we could change our ticket for a minimal fee of about $5 US each and catch the next one which would take us back to the big island of Hong Kong city proper rather than Kowloon, across Victoria Harbor, and where we were all staying. We paid up.

The hour and a half ferry ride is a bit of a blur. James and Nao disappeared on Adam and I—they weren't feeling so swell after the wine buffet and were huddling together in one of the ferry's rest rooms. Adam took a bit of a nap and I stayed up going through everyone's passports to fill out the customs and immigrations forms that were required when re-entering Hong Kong, even after just having taken a ferry day trip out of the city/SAR. The ferry docked in Hong Kong and we herded everyone out through Customs and Immigration, often holding each other up, passing out immigration forms and making our way through.

Something tells me that the C&I officers in Hong Kong receiving passengers from Macau late on a Friday night have seen it all. We were probably not even a blip of a spectacle. But we felt like rock stars long after we should have retired for the evening. Or, those of us who remember it do!

I was all for taking the absolutely TERRIFIC subway to Kowloon from where the ferry docked in HK proper but I was quickly out voted. This crowd was ready for a cab and bed and public transportation was not going to cut it. With no trouble at all, the four of us hailed a cab and headed home to our respective hotels and hostels.

I'd gotten my wish—we'd made it to Macau and the gang back at one of my favorite restaurants in NYC would be proud. I saved them a coin from Macau and stories of a devilishly crazy night of drinking and gambling with some of the best friends we would make on this trip.

Hong Kong Highs

Leaving Southeast Asia was bittersweet; we had such an amazing time but we were excited to move forward. Hong Kong has always been high on my list of places to see. Learning about the British control that was to end in 1999 fascinated me. Hong Kong is what is referred to as a SAR or Special Administrative Region of China. The small island is home to millions of people with more than 75% of the islands part of a park with no buildings. The population is housed in a staggering amount of very high apartment buildings -and this is coming from someone who lives in New York City.
Arriving Hong Kong was exciting, a super-modern airport and an hour long bus ride into Kowloon which is the large area on the other side of Victoria Harbor where many live and work. We had once again used our Lonely Planet to find Mirador Mansion, a massive office style building that houses one guest house after the next all at the lowest prices in Hong Kong. I have become somewhat good at haggling despite my disdain for it. We go to several places and get the woman on the fifth floor at Mei Lam Guest house to $22 a night. All the rooms look the same: cramped and rickety.
Planning our trip to Hong Kong we once again aligned schedules to meet up with James and Nao. They had been in Hong Kong a few days before us and knew of some of the things to do. We met up with them the next afternoon and went to the harbor only a ten-minute walk away. The day was bright and warm –absolutely perfect!

Bill and I had wanted to take the famous Star Ferry across the harbor to Hong Kong City, you can more easily take the metro under the harbor but we wanted to see what the ferry was like. After buying a ticket we waited for the next one and hopped aboard. It's a quick ride but the views are spectacular!
Hong Kong is very easy to navigate, most signs are subtitled in English and the only difficulty is the endless touts trying to sell you a custom suit or fake watch. I've been to Zürich and Geneva and thought I had seen the center of the watch world, but I was mistaken, Hong Kong had watch store after watch store--it's ridiculous how many and selling fine watches that go for hundreds of thousands of dollars.We read about the area of the city called SoHo and of course we wanted to see it. It's not really all that interesting except you ride a series of outdoor escalators up and up until you reach a peak. They only go up so you must walk down and that turned out to be more fun as we stumbled on to a local street market.

Bill on the escalator.Adam at the Street Market.
In Hong Kong City you see the massive infrastructure, skyscrapers bearing familiar names, cars, subway, bikes and even cable cars! Riding the subway was fast and easy one of the best laid out systems I've seen. Adam in the subway
That night we went to see the light show on the harbor that James and Nao told us about – they liked it so much they went with us to see it again. It starts at 8pm and you watch as they play music to the buildings' lights that dance to it, awesome! Afterwards we went to the Night Market to buy some souvenirs, check out the local flavor and put my haggling skills to use once again.

Bill and Nao at the Night Market
Another day while walking through Kowloon's central park we spot a bunch of Pink Flamingos and other birds, it's almost like a zoo.
One of the big attractions in Hong Kong is “The Peak” which essentially is a Mall but it's located at one of the highest peaks on the island so you get unbelievable views. You take a trolley that takes you practically strait up. The whole thing had a very Disneyland feel but the view are completely worth it. We buy some post cards and sit and write them overlooking all of Hong Kong – remarkable.

Ngong Ping Cable car was something the book told us about that sounded great. You take the metro out almost to the airport just past Disney – Yes, Hong Kong has a Disneyland, we even contemplated going but it's about $50 each and the reviews were dismaland. We get to the right stop and walk a bit and buy tickets for the cable car that takes you 30 minutes up into the mountains to see one of the worlds largest Buddhas. You can take a regular gondola or one with a glass bottom.  Given Bill's newly acquired fear of heights we opted for the regular one--besides it was cheaper. I loved the ride, it's like a big ski lift but Bill on the other hand didn't.


Once at the top we walked through the outside mall and climbed the endless steps to the top of the Buddha, the views were terrific!

On our last day in Hong Kong we wanted to go to a local dim sum restaurant. We searched and searched until we found the perfect place, no English anywhere and just a hole in the wall. We chose several of the bamboo steam boxes and were delighted at the flavors and felt like we were doing something very authentic. Turns out, the prices were great as well.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

After the lows of Phnom Penh, faced with all that human misery and genocide, I was particularly looking forward to heading farther north to Siem Reap, home of one of the wonders of the world, the Angkor complex.

Once again, our trusty guidebook recommended a clean and cheap place to stay in Siem Reap proper, about a 15-minute drive from where our bus dropped us so after our long bus ride we knew where we were heading in town. As usual, the tout who climbed into our tuk tuk with us spent a few minutes trying with all his might to detour us to a “much better place” that he could recommend. Failing that, he was insistent on selling us tours of the Angkor Wat complex. We shut him down on both counts. After a long harrowing bus ride I was in no mood to be badgered by some local kid to change plans and I was annoyed that he had arranged, through the bus company, to accompany tourists in their tuk tuks to their final destinations.

Having given up on selling us anything he hopped out of the cab in front of a lonely looking homestay outside of town, unsuccessful at having convinced us to come with him, and our tuk tuk driver took us to where we wanted to go, a clean western-friendly place in the center of town. Once again our guidebook had promised us cheaper rates than what we found upon arriving but Adam and I, playing good cop bad cop, were as usual able to haggle the manager down a few bucks less a night. We ended up in a nice clean room with a private bath and AC for around $13/night. Perfect.

We stopped for a dust-erasing drink at the hotel's bar where I almost sat on a fresh kitten napping in the well of my chair. I typically avoid touching strays … but this one was just too damned cute.
Bill and the Cambodian kitten.

We hadn't much time in Siem Reap … our guidebook suggested one might need a week or more to visit the main temples of the Angkor complex, visiting some of them multiple times and at different times of day to truly appreciate them in changing light.

Uh, Adam and I are not those guys. We had planned one full day to sightsee the temples. Plenty in our opinion. Cambodia was a nice enough place but we couldn't muster any reason to stay longer in any one city more than a day or two. I suppose if one was a student or a religious observant, a week or a month might be a more appropriate amount of time to study the more than a thousand temples scattered throughout the region. But for we casual travelers a day stomping around in the jungles and the heat through ancient temples was just right.

The town of Siem Reap itself is not much to look at. As the town is the main jumping off place to the largest tourist draw of Cambodia, there are plenty of hotels (at all price levels) and strips of tourist ghettos—restaurants catering to tourists piled on top of one another next to postcard vendors, tee shirt markets, that sort of thing. There are two main long roads that run parallel to each other and form the backbone of the town and neither of them are in very good shape. The one we were on looked like it was perpetually under repair, as though it had been jackhammered up and never re-paved. Dust and dirt would blind us and our tuk tuk drivers as we navigated the pothole-strewn sort-of-street, and we would feel the grit in our teeth and hair whenever we rode or crossed it.

We are used to a lack of infrastructure. But I remain surprised that the main road leading to the complex a few miles away, the road that ultimately hosts 95% of the two million tourists who come to Cambodia to see the temples, the road that accesses hundreds of nicely appointed hotels and polished restaurants that clearly are doing a brisk business, can't be so much as paved …

Unpaved streets of Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Anyway. Our buddy James, having already “done” Siem Reap with Nao, had suggested a fun dinner place on one of the main drags back when we had last seen him. Named Koulen, it was a large dinner hall with an enormous all-you-can-eat buffet and a stage where local live performances would take place. Cambodian Dinner theater! Cool. Oh, it was a bit more than we would have normally spent but we hadn't eaten all day and the idea of an all-you-can-eat buffet sounded about right.

We went, we ate, and we paid passing attention to the stage (mostly local dance set to a plodding live drum beat telling traditional stories of fishermen falling in love with lovely maidens). Weird and fun.

 Dinner theater in Cambodia.

We were to bed early as we intended a full day of temples. It had been recommended that we get up at 4 a.m. so that we may be one of the first at some of the more remote temples and in prime position to view the sunrise … but once again, Adam and I are not those guys. We got up at 9 and found a tuk tuk who agreed to take us to the temples and chauffeur us all day for about $6 US. More than we'd intended to pay but he was the third or fourth tuk tuk driver we'd talked to and we weren't getting a better deal, so we hired him.

A little background: The Angkor Complex is perhaps most famous for the specific Angkor Wat temple, but the whole Angkor region is awash with temples that served as the heart of the Khmer Empire which flourished from around the ninth century to the thirteenth. The remaining ruins are scattered through farmland, rice paddies, and jungle and exist in various forms of disrepair.

To visit Angkor, you need to go to the visitor's ticket center where they snap your photo and present you with a day pass for $20 each. Ouch! $40 for a day's sightseeing could practically break our bank. You have to remember that our solid hotel only costs $13/night! There are other multi-day pass options which get more and more expensive but may be a better fit for those spending more time. I was wishing they had a 6-hour pass for a quarter of the day-long pass. No such luck. Geez, at $20 (minimum) each and over 2 million visitors a year … you'd think the corrupt CPP (Cambodian People's Party and the reigning political power) could afford to pave a 6 mile stretch of road ...

Tickets procured and back on our tuk tuk, there were only three temples that we wanted to see, three excellent examples of what is out there, previously lost in the jungles of Cambodia. The first would be Ta Prohm, a mid-size Buddhist temple that had intentionally been only partially cleared of undergrowth. Massive fig trees and silk-cotton trees grow through the rocks and towers of the temple giving the whole place a Tomb Raider feel. Awesome.

Bill at the temple of Ta Prohm.

After an hour or so, our handy tuk tuk driver met us on the far side of Ta Prohm and took us to our next stop, Bayon. Agreeing to meet us again at the far side of the temple where lines of food vendors await hungry, heat-exhausted tourists, Adam and I explored Bayon.
Bayon's most distinctive feature is the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak. From afar we watched a tourist scaling one of the steep, cracked temple walls to the upper most tier of a lesser temple nearby and instantly wanted to do the same. Clad in cargo shorts and flip flops, Adam and I took turns climbing the steep temple walls to enjoy the view from the top.
Bill scales a temple wall.

After walking around the extensive grounds of Bayon and seeing many of the smaller temples lost in the jungle growth nearby, we headed back to the meeting point for our tuk tuk driver and had lunch at one of the hundreds of small food stall restaurants.

Last stop, the most famous of all Angkor temples, Angkor Wat. Said to be the world's largest single religious monument, it is the symbol of Cambodia, appears on their flag, and is the country's prime attraction to anyone going to Angkor.

It's truly amazing.Bill and Adam at Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

We spent over an hour wandering through the temple itself, the long stone corridors, the spectacular stone courtyards over which spiney towers cast long shadows in the bright mid-day heat. I admire the miles of intricate carvings covering every surface, pedestal, wall, and ceiling. I hadn't expected to be so impressed with the temple but it truly is on par with the wonder and grandeur of the pyramids we saw in Egypt. Just awesome. 
Adam at Angkor.

We love it and take our time seeing it. Once we're satisfied we've had our fill we head back to the meeting place for our tuk tuk, dodging long paths of vendors but stopping to pick up a tee shirt each and a trinket or two—our part to stimulate the local economy—and head back to our hotel. We tip our tuk tuk driver an extra buck or two for all the time he spent sitting around waiting for us and go off in search of dinner in the tourist ghetto.

We find an excellent Indian food restaurant called, funnily enough, The Kama Sutra. The food is so good it makes us think we're back in India. After dinner we check out some more of the tee shirt huts in the area, picking up one or two for friends, buy postcards, and look forward to our flight in the morning.

Cambodia was an experience, whether it was the sadness of Phnom Penh or the spiritual uplift of Siem Reap. The last of our time in Cambodia marks the end of our time in South East Asia. We've been backpacking throughout the region for many months and we have loved every minute of our time there and are sad to be leaving. But we have something pretty major to be excited about, a new destination that we have long been looking forward to, our next stop: Hong Kong.

The Sadness of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Getting to Phnom Penh, Cambodia wasn't going to be easy we soon found out. We had priced some flights to Phnom Penh from Ho Chi Minh a few days before we were due to leave, then as we went to book a flight there was an unexplainable price jump from about $60 to $180 each. We were not happy about the prospect of taking a bus in a country known for very bad bus trips, countless breakdowns, and long delays but we no longer had a choice – it was too expensive to fly. The bus was to take 6 hours and that always means longer. Not thrilled, we bought our bus tickets for $12 and would leave the next day.

The next morning we check out of our hostel and head to the ticket office where we were to meet our bus. We were met by two guys on motor scooters and told to get on... We had huge backpacks and they wanted us to hop on the back of a little motor scooter?? We did and thankfully they took us only a few short blocks where we boarded our bus. I was not happy about clinging onto the back of that little bike while a man half my size zipped though crazy Vietnamese traffic.

Boarding the bus we were pleasantly surprised to find the seats were big and the bus looked clean and comfortable – not our usual experience. We knew we had a whole day on this so we tried to make the most of it.

After about an hour we came to the Cambodian boarder were we all had to leave the bus go through Vietnam immigrations and reboard the bus, drive a minute and get back off the bus to enter Cambodian immigrations, then reboard the bus. All and all not a difficult process.

Border Crossing

After almost exactly 6 hours we had arrived in the center of Phnom Penh, outstanding! I cannot remember any bus on this trip that actually arrived on time.

As usual we used our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook and located a guest house. On our way to it we found City Star Guesthouse so we checked the rate and we could get a nice room with A/C and a cable TV for $15 a night – Sold.

We dropped our bags and headed out to find some dinner somewhere. We find a nice outdoor place that is full of locals and decide to try. The waiter was very helpful and tried to understand English but as we soon found out two large beers translated to two pitchers of beer... Somehow we managed to make it work.

We had come to Phnom Penh really more on our way to Siem Reap where the Angkor Wat complex is. Phnom Penh was not somewhere we had really wanted to go. On this trip I have tried to read books that are relevant to the places we are. Just another way to better understand the culture. Before coming to Cambodia I had read The Killing Fields and First They Killed My Father, both excellent books on the atrocities that occurred in Cambodia some 30 years ago. I had known a little of the Khmer Rouge and the murderous Pol Pot but to read first hand accounts of people who survived one of the world's greatest crimes against humanity was profound. To be in the place where not too long ago genocide took place was hard, and to realize this did not happen a hundred years ago, it happened in our lifetimes.

As much as we have had countless fun times on the trip, we have also recognized the importance of truly learning about where we are, the people and its culture and it is impossible not to confront the truth of what happened. So we decided to visit the two main memorials of Phnom Penh; The Genocide museum and The Killing Fields. Knowing this was going to be a hard day we decided to do both back to back and be done.

First was the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum also known as S21 (security prison 21.) Formerly a school, the prison held some 17,000 people over the 4 years the Khmer Rouge was in power. Only 12 people survived the torture conducted there. The museum consists of the actual prison and within the cells are a few items and a photo on the wall of a victim in that very room. It was hard to see, hard to know this happened and the world knew and did nothing. The brutalities conducted there are indescribable and more horrific than I had thought.

I don't think it is appropriate to show pictures of what we saw there, I don't think it is a tourist site, it is a memorial to the victims and physical proof to what would later be denied by the Khmer Rouge. An estimated 7.1 million people died at the hand of the brutal regime. Today the people of Cambodia have survived but even today most of the population is under the age of 20 due to the entire generation of people killed and how no children were born until after the Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge. The single part of the museum that hit me the hardest was the way they showed the victims. Photos had been taken, mugshots of every prisoner that now fill large rooms. It is said when you put a face on a crime it becomes more real, it was true that day. I think this one picture is worth showing.

One of the many bulletin boards covered with the victims mugshots

Bill in our Tuk-Tuk

Our second part of our day was Choeung Ek, also known as The Killing Fields. We hired a tuk-tuk to take us the 15 minutes to the sight. I took one picture at Choeung Ek of the outside gate, inside I took none. The Killing fields are the grave site of most the prisoners of Toul Sleng. Shallow pits were dug to contain the bodies. Today many have been exhumed due to the heavy rains that have exposed the graves. There are a few buildings that document the atrocities and a large Buddhist Stupa to commemorate the dead. After seeing this we walked along the parameter of the fields themselves. It was powerful to see the sheer size of it. Everything I had read about was all to real as I was physically there.

Outside th Choeung Ek with the Buddhist Stupa in the background 

The following day we had been recommend by our friend Jackie to go to the the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) and have a drink while overlooking the convergence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers -very nice view and great cocktails!

Sunset Cocktails at the FCC

Cambodia is known for it's “Happy Pizza” so for dinner we went and had some Cambodian “Happy Pizza” Tasted like pizza anywhere else.

"Happy Pizza"

The next day it was up early to catch the next bus to Siam Reap. This one was to be 4 hours and if it was anything like the last bus we would be happy. Turns out, no such luck. The bus was nowhere near as comfortable and what was supposed to be 4 hours slowly dragged into over 7 including a flat tire breakdown. Halfway through we stopped at a market where they had children selling fruit and some of the local delights such as fried spiders and other insects. I saw a young girl walking around with a tray of fried spiders and noticed one pinned to her shirt, as if the tray full of them would miss someone's notice, then it moved! Yes, the dead spider I thought I saw was a huge live one crawling on her shirt -AHHHH

Fixing the flat tire

After a VERY long day, we arrived in Siam Reap.

Goodnight Saigon

Oh, Saigon. You may be Ho Chi Minh City now, the largest city in Vietnam, but almost no one acknowledges the name change. Even the locals still call you Saigon.

With James in tow, we arrived in Saigon and found a bus out of our Lonely Planet that got us to the tourist ghetto in Saigon for about $3US each. There, a local tout chatted us up steps from the bus and insisted she had cheap rooms for us. Adam spoke with her and dismissed her offer as too expensive—Adam has learned to dismiss every first offer as too expensive. In no time at all the room rate had plummeted to something we could afford and we were off, down a narrow street packed with restaurants and hotels. The first hotel our tout took us to had no vacancy but in a blink she lead us further down the block to an almost-identical hotel for the same low rate. It's a rarity but sometimes the touts do actually provide a service.

I didn't have much I wanted to DO in Saigon. I didn't particularly care for Hanoi. The dense traffic, the ceaseless mopeds blaring in front of, behind, and over us was wearing. The few locals we had chance to meet were obsessed with finding new ways to extort money from us, there was no respect for personal space as strangers regularly leaned out to grab at me to get my attention (so they could attempt to sell me something I didn't want), and other than one or two people working in the hotels we stayed at, I would be happy to forget them all—the lying touts, the corrupt bus drivers, the rude sales people, the crazed moped drivers—all of it.

So my expectations for Saigon were pretty low. They remained that way.

On our first full day in Saigon, we set out on foot to hit a few of the sites, the “Reunification Palace” first, the home and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War and the site of the official handover of power after the fall of Saigon in 1975. The building itself looks a lot less like a palace than it does an administrative complex with tanks parked out front.

Considering the dark past of Vietnamese and American relations, Adam and I were surprised that we didn't feel glared at as we walked down the street. However, I did find myself biased and unimpressed with all of the supposed grandeur of Vietnamese supremacy. After thirty minutes at the palace I'd had enough of ornate seating areas, wide desks, and proclamations of the wisdom of Vietnamese socialist and communistic ideals. We took some photos of the tanks parked on the front lawn and got out. I had had enough. On the streets, we stopped occasionally for a photo op:

… and headed to the War Remnants Museum, originally named, “The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government [of South Vietnam].” You can tell straight off that this is going to be a good time. Here, we got to appreciate even more carnage and up-close photography of the atrocities of war as written by the prevailing North Vietnamese. Fun. There was no mention, of course, of the atrocities the North Vietnamese perpetrated on their own population for over a decade after the war … but let's not ask too many questions when in Vietnam, shall we?

After endless nauseating black and white photos of disfigured people, it was time for us to head back to the relative safety of our tourist ghetto and find a drink. After the day we had, it was time for tequila.

James and the margaritas.

While hanging out anywhere in the tourist ghetto, whether it's a restaurant, a bar, a travel agency, or just walking down the street, you will be endlessly accosted by men and women demanding to sell you items. We are used to this but I give these Vietnamese women credit for hauling the heaviest load:

We had a few more days of soaking up the local … uh … color. We attempted a walk down by the river, thinking it might be lovely, or charming, or something equally pleasant compared to the chaos of the inner city … only to find endless unfinished construction projects bordering a crowded highway and a garbage-strewn river. We had trouble picking our way around the mess and left the river at the first available intersection. Sigh.

There are some pleasant and manicured parks about and our friend James spent an afternoon attempting to read his book and catch up on some writing while relaxing on a park bench and watching the locals play badminton. Three or four times during his afternoon, local Vietnamese would approach him, interrupt his reading, and engage him in conversation usually under the guise of “practicing their English.” This is, as our guidebook warned us, a classic come on—you'll be invited to have a drink or a meal with your “student” at the end of which you'll be stuck with the bill (or worse). Those were exactly the offers that James received and he shortly stopped entertaining his would-be students and remained glued to his book instead.

It wasn't all a disappointment … we had some really great inexpensive meals while in Saigon.

And then, happily, it was time to go. I'd originally thought we'd spend a couple of weeks in Vietnam but I was thrilled to be leaving after only a week. It was plenty. James would be staying behind to catch up on his reading and writing, but we'd be reconnecting with he and Nao in Hong Kong in just a week or so. Saying goodbye, we boarded a bus and headed to Cambodia.

Hanoi to Halong Bay, Vietnam

With all the hassle over our Vietnamese Visas it was going to be a rough start arriving Hanoi. I still couldn't believe we were going to Vietnam. As luck would have it, James would be in Hanoi when we arrived. We got his hotel name and arranged a time to meet after we arrived. As budget backpackers getting transportation is one of our largest expenses. Getting to and from the airport affordably is often a challenge. Once again our Lonely Planet guide proves worth the cost – it tells us we can take a shared bus from the airport for $2 each. We like the sound of that – knowing the airport is about an hour drive to where we're going.

We locate the shared bus beyond the taxis and jump in; it would take a half hour before the bus would be full enough to actually leave. We take the long ride into Hanoi and things seem fine. Prior to leaving, the bus driver tells us for a dollar more each he will take us to our hotel... We, like everyone else on the bus, pay. They ask us the name of our hotel and we tell them the place James is staying. After several people are dropped off we are weaving in and out of the hellish traffic that congests Hanoi.

Typical Hanoi traffic

Tired from our day of traveling we finally hear our hotel name called. We grab our packs and are confronted by a man with a business card with the name of our hotel asking about our reservation. We actual had given the driver the name of the more-known hotel next to James' so that they could find it--we didn't have a reservation at that man's hotel. While looking next door we come to realize it's a scam. In Hanoi they name hotels after successful ones as to confuse and trick you into thinking you are at the one recommended by your guide. If not for James actually being at the hotel we may not have figured it out so fast. We use our guidebook to find that the real one is a bit of a walk away and when you cross a street in Vietnam you get a lesson in safety or complete lack there of. Cars and motor scooters are everywhere and they simply go around you rather than stopping. It can really grate on your nerves. After our harrowing walk to the Especen Hotel we reunite with James and find he has reserved a room for us as they have sold out – Thank you James!

Our hotel

James is with a young German woman named Anja whom he met by happenstance on his way into the city from the airport.  She is very friendly. We all decide to go get a beer at Le Pub across the street. Soon Anja has to leave to catch her 10-hour bus to Sapa so it's just James, Bill and I.

The next day the three of us set out to see the city. We walk for awhile and decide to have lunch at a restaurant specializing in spring rolls and I do LOVE spring rolls! It takes us a while to find it considering Hanoi is not exactly well organized. The skies open up and we are now searching in the rain until after a few backtracks we find it! We all order our spring rolls from the never-ending menu. We all agree the food was worth the hunt!

Spring rolls

That night we all wanted to try Cha Ca La Vong, a special restaurant that only has one item on the menu, a fish. We find it with ease although yet again, across the street is a different restaurant with the same name trying to scam people and thankfully James figured it out fast. We wait a bit for a table but ordering was fast, there is only one choice.

Fish cooking at our table

The fish is delicious and we think no matter how many people you have at your table, they bring the same portion. While we loved the fish, we all left hungry, but we remedied that later by sharing a pizza.

While walking through the crazy streets one of the banana sellers lets us use her yolk and baskets to take some photos – for a charge of course.

On another day in Hanoi we saw the lake, walked the city and searched for a voltage converter. Ours had broken a few weeks before and the one we bought in Vientiane actually exploded a few nights before. You would be surprised in cities that survive on tourism how difficult it is to explain what it is let alone find a voltage converter.

Adam and Bill by the lake

When telling people our plans to visit Vietnam it seemed everyone said, “sleep on a Junk Boat” so even before arriving we had planned to. James was on the same page so we shopped around and found a good price ($30) on an overnight Junk Boat in Halong Bay – it's about a two hour drive. When we get to Halong Bay we see the large Junk Boats and think we all thought they'd be smaller.

First things first, we board the boat and have lunch. We find a table and are joined by two Dutch women name Carolijn and Nicolien, sisters traveling together. We all get along great and are surprised by the fish lunch they serve - can't say it was my favorite.

Fish lunch

First stop is the Dong Thien Cung caves. We dock at the cave entrance and are guided through. As much as Bill likes caves and it is the largest we've seen on this trip, it's lit up like Disneyland with all sorts of colors and fake fountains inside. We all agree it would be more appropriate to just have it natural.

After leaving the caves we see the dock and realize it is completely lopsided and falling into the water.

Back on the Junk Boat, after getting our room, we head up to see the truly breathtaking scenery. Halong Bay is surrounded by countless limestone mini islands that hold an amazing tranquility of their own.

 

Sunset in Halong Bay, Vietnam

Later after the sun sets we have dinner and make new friends. James has bunked with an Australian named Daniel and along with Carolijn and Nicolien we all have dinner and drinks after with some card games – so much fun!

Bill, Adam, James and Mike

Daniel, Nicolien, and Carolijn

The next morning some people get up at 6am for some kayaking but Bill and I pass. Later we sail back to the docks and re board the bus to head back to Hanoi. Despite the promise of swimming that was never fulfilled we loved it!

Adam, James and Bill on our Junk Boat

James was planning to fly to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and had asked us when we wanted to go. We wanted to go about the same time James did, however, we were thinking we would take the bus. That is until we found out the bus takes more than 32 hours. We quickly decided to fly. Unknowing we had decided to go with him, we went to the same travel agency as James and booked the same flight. It wasn't until he said he had to stop by the agency and pick up his ticket that the woman behind the desk handed all three of them over and we told him we were going with him – We got him!

Common fruit seller

When we returned from Halong Bay we found our hotel was full as were most in the area - some sort of event was happening. The woman at the desk offered us rooms at their sister hotel on the other side of town.  We had an early wake up for the airport anyway so fine with us. We liked the other hotel but it was not located in a tourist area so ATMs and restaurants were not easily located. After a long hunt for an ATM we finally found one. Then it was time to find a place for dinner. We found many street places with impromptu tables set up on the makeshift sidewalk crammed with people but they looked less than safe so we looked for something more substantial, grilling raw meat on the sidewalk is not for me. We found a restaurant and climbed the three floors to be seated and after seeing the menu (fortunately with English subtitles) we realize the place serves goat only. It had every kind of goat product including goat blood soup and far more revolting dishes – we quickly found the exit. After a little more searching we did find a place that as James and Bill will tell you had the best spring rolls ever!

Afterwards we returned to our hotel and called it a night – the next morning we were off to Ho Chi Minh City! Despite all the craziness of Hanoi I enjoyed it and the Junk Boat in Halong Bay will remain one of the highlights of the entire trip!

Kayaking to Vientiane, Laos

Our new-found friends, Sven and Jacy, that we met in Vang Vieng, Laos were traveling on a schedule a few days ahead of our own but to the same destinations. Over drinks, Jacy told me that she and Sven were kayaking the journey from Vang Vieng, our current city, to Vientiane in the south. Kayaking as a mode of transportation and not just for recreation sounded awesome! I wasn't sure if Adam would be into it but Jacy promised to FaceBook me after she and Sven had done it to let me know if it was worth doing.

The next night, sure enough, I got an email from Jacy urging us to give it a shot. Adam was game so we signed up with a river tour company across the street from our hostel in Vang Vieng and arranged to get picked up first thing the following morning. Waving goodbye to Vang Vieng and all the craziness of tubing, we boarded an open-air tuk tuk with a small crew of others early in the morning and drove an hour to the river.

While our luggage drove on to meet us far down the river, we piled into our kayaks. With three river guides and minimal instruction we shoved off into the river in helmets and life jackets but I was still nervous about the rapids to come.

It was far more serene than our white water rafting adventure in Bali, and a lot more work paddling along the slow-moving river. But it was a beautiful day and the scenery was gorgeous. After about 20 minutes paddling down the river we encountered our first rapids. They didn't LOOK like much compared to what we'd seen rafting but in a small, lightweight, rigid kayak, we felt them a lot more strongly and they continued on far down the river. Adam and I paddled like crazy to push through but I lurched one way, Adam the other, and the rapids yet another, and over we went.

On dry ground our guide had given us, in halting and hard-to-understand English, basic instructions on what to do if you get dumped headlong into the rapids. Almost at once Adam and I had thrown ourselves across the top of the overturned kayak as we continued swiftly down the river, sputtering river water, and on the count of three we flipped it back over and took turns clamoring in. I was proud of how quickly we got back in—just seconds after capsizing. Others were not so lucky—two French guys who kept mostly to themselves navigated most of the first set of rapids clinging to the sides of their overturned kayak, swinging helplessly with their oars as they got knocked about. Hah! Good wet fun!

And before we knew it, after only 40 minutes on the river, it was time for lunch. Paddling manically to reach the same resting point as the others, we climbed out of our kayak soaking while two girls from England laughed at us—they were the only ones to survive the rapids unscathed and bone dry. I planned to splash them thoroughly when we got back onto the river.

One of the guides gave a shout—he was paddling his kayak alone and his kayak capsized as he came in for a landing. The other guides hooted and laughed at him as he shouted and spun away from us down the river trying to catch up to his speeding kayak. One of the other guides leapt into a nearby kayak and helped fish him back in but he had bad news: our water supply had been in the first kayak and had been swept away. 5 kilos of shrink-wrapped water bottles do not float.

Our lunch spot was a long smooth flat boulder on the river. We climbed out of our wet gear, found some shade, and talked to our other kayakers while our three guides readied lunch. I was expecting a boxed lunch affair, maybe saran-wrapped sandwiches or something simple and passingly edible. Instead, our guides set to making a fire there on the boulder on the river and broke out chicken and vegetables that had been marinating in sealed plastic bags. They got the coals hot and, using spare rocks from around, built a little barbecue and laid out skewers of chicken. From out of thin air they produced styrofoam clamshells filled with steaming fried rice—I can only assume they'd kept it insulated, maybe hot in the sun somehow, but it was as hot as if it'd just came out of the kitchen.

It took awhile to get all of the food prepared and then cooked on their makeshift campfire, during which we chatted with Mike, an Irishman who was traveling alone and carried all the scrapes and broken-skin bruises of someone who'd spent a few days tubing in Vang Vien. He was a funny, interesting guy who taught English in South Korea just like our friend James, and he was easy to spend time with. To cool off I wandered down to the river's edge and soaked my feet while talking to the two English girls, one of whom was on a year-long assignment in Bangkok and had lots of colorful stories.
We spent almost two hours hanging out on the rock wiling away the afternoon over food and conversation. I started to wonder if we'd ever get back to kayaking! Finally, the last of the leftovers stowed away with one of the guides, we clamored back aboard and headed into the river.

There were a few more sets of rapids—Adam and I stayed afloat—and the English girls continued to show their kayaking prowess by refusing to capsize even once. The rest of us, guides and tourists alike, were soaked.

The time went by too quickly and we were docking again. A toothless local woman was bathing and doing laundry at the same time and she cackled and spoke in Laotian to our river guides while clearly getting a kick out of we soaked westerners, probably looking ridiculous in our helmets and jackets, clumsily climbing back onto dry land. We grinned back at her and watched the guides re-mount the kayaks on the roof of our tuk tuk and off we went to a nearby rest-stop which had showers and changing rooms and, thank goodness, water! After hours in the hot sun we were all dying of thirst with our bottled water at the bottom of the river.

Another two hours in a minivan and at long last we arrived in Vientiane. Oh, a direct bus would have gotten us there in three hours flat rather than the 6 or 7 we spent paddling part of the way there in kayaks, but who cares? It was an awesome experience.

With quick goodbyes to our rafting friends, Adam and I headed out into the dusk of Vientiane, a more urban-feeling city than Luang Prabang to the north, perhaps a bit more modern. As usual we had an area in mind where we knew we'd find a place to crash and after wandering a nearby side street and checking in at two or three hostels, we found decent digs at the Samesenthai Hotel.

Vientiane is a nice, easy city. It lacks the photogenic charisma that Luang Prabang has, as well as its colonial charm, but it makes up for it in modern conveniences and perhaps more polish. We were to have only one full day in Vientiane and there are a few “must sees.”

But on our first night we took it easy. Once again, my former boss Eve had a great recommendation for dinner, a restaurant called Makphet not far from where we were staying. It is a not-for-profit restaurant serving up excellent contemporary Laotian fare while all the wait and kitchen staff were young adults bettering themselves through the restaurant and the programs your meal helps support. Awesome! It's not as cheap as we'd normally manage but the mission—as well as the menu posted out front—sounded terrific to us.

The restaurant was simple and casual but lovely, the kids working as waiters attentive and eager, and the food fantastic, just as promised!

The next day we were up and running. With but one full day in Vientiane, we had a few things to see. First stop, Pha That Luang. It's the most famous temple in Laos, built in the 16^th Century, the pride of the nation, and it appears in their national seal and on their currency. For just a couple of bucks we took a tuk tuk there and our driver waited for us while we negotiated the crowds and the crowing vendors (selling everything from locally-made trinkets to brightly-colored blond dolls in frilly Gone with the Wind outfits—weird!) and took photos.

As usual, I can't get enough of the golden Buddhas in all their forms. I want one for my backyard someday.

Next stop: The Patuxay Arch, essentially an Arch de Triomphe but in Laos. Lovely from afar. What they don't tell you is that it is an enormous concrete blob. Their own signage detailing the history of the Arch admits that from afar it has a certain amount of stately grace but the closer you get to this hulking behemoth the more monstrous it appears. Hah! Apparently it was made in 1962 with concrete donated from the US government to help build an airport. They took it and made this national monument instead. Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen …

Last stop: the morning market for a bit of shopping. Our 110/220 power converted had blown up on us, quite literally, in Vang Vieng, so we were still on the hunt for a replacement to power all of our doodads. We found one in rustic shrink-wrap, dusty, at the bottom of a forgotten glass cabinet in one of the concrete stalls of the morning market. A little haggling and we got it for $8 US.

Okay! Mission accomplished! Time for a drink and a bite at a local western-style cafe back in town just a few blocks from our hotel. At the bar, we met Doug, a 40ish American traveling alone through Laos. He is a lawyer for the Department of Justice back home—cool!—and he racked up three months of vacation time over the years to go on an adventure. He was a very well traveled guy and a scuba diver himself so we had lots to talk about.

And that was our time in Vientiane. The next morning, visas and airplane tickets in hand, we took a tuk tuk a $4 ride to the airport and checked in for our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam!

…

Except, at check in for our morning flight, we discovered that the visas we painstakingly arranged for back in NYC before leaving the US back in May, the visas we'd paid $120 for each, the visas we'd secreted away someplace safe the last five months of travel so they'd be ready for THIS VERY MINUTE … had already expired.

WHAT?

Neither Adam nor I had any recollection of having specified what exact month we would be in Vietnam when signing up for the visas, and we hadn't looked at them twice in all that time, but our visas expired October 1^st. It was now early November. ARGH. We couldn't board a flight to Vietnam without our visas in hand—unlike other countries, you must have your Vietnamese visa before arriving and they will not issue you one at the airport, not even for a fee (as in most of the countries we visit).

We scrambled. We had about two hours before our flight so we made a mad $10 dash in another tuk tuk to the Vietnamese embassy in Vientiane, only to discover that they were all out to lunch. I don't mean the visa people at the embassy … I mean everyone. The whole embassy shuts down for two hours every afternoon save for a lone guard in a small guardhouse out front of the gated embassy who has no phone nor idea.

Pacing, counting down the minutes to our flight, we wait in the shade of large trees on the sidewalk outside of the embassy hoping that the embassy folks will come back soon. Finally, one at a time, the employees trickle in and Adam and I are let into a waiting room before being ushered into the visa area where an obsequious Vietnamese bureaucrat refused to help us. He just kept repeating that our visas had expired, over and over and over. We had hoped that, since they were unused, already paid for, pictures already submitted, security done, that for a fee (of course) they could add an extension. No. The bureaucrat didn't even bother to shrug at us—we were coldly dismissed.

Oh, I was so mad. Getting the visas back in NYC had been a massive headache and the most expensive payment to visit a country yet. The bureaucrat back at the embassy in NYC almost cost us our passports as well by insisting we didn't need to rush our visas because they'd be ready before we left—until I slowly and (not too patiently) worked the days of the week of the calendar with him to show that it would not be ready unless we expedited. There was so much hassle I almost scratched Vietnam from our itinerary right there, but Adam's cooler head prevailed and we got those now-useless visas back in the states.

Once again, I was ready to say forget it. The Vietnamese had already gotten too much of my time and money and I hadn't even visited yet. Did I really want to give them more of both if they were making it so difficult to spend tourist money in their country?

Regardless, visas could not be procured before our flight (of course not, it would take a day or two on Vietnamese time to accomplish what other countries manage in about 45 seconds at an airport). Defeated, we went back to the airport to see what we could do about the expensive airline tickets we bought and could now not use.

Some planning at the airport, talking to a travel agent, and then back to the airline desk, we managed to push back our flight for two days at no cost and arrange through a travel agent to get two new visas for a mere $55 US each. ARGH. At least doing it through the agency I would not have to go back to the embassy where I was bound to get arrested screaming at the bureaucrat through the glass partition about his miserable demeanor and my utter lack of interest in his country from this point forward.

Sigh.

So … two more days in Vientiane, Laos. A nice enough place … but we'd done everything there was to do in a day. What now?

Bowling, of course. Our guidebook somewhat randomly mentioned a bowling alley in northern Vientiane. It would be a minor hike to get there but we could bowl and have a cold beer and wile away an hour or two. Why not?

So bowling in Laos we went. The alley itself was like stepping back into 1978 with the smell of stale cigarette smoke, chipped Formica, unwieldy black-and-white scoring machines mounted heavily over the lanes, and a dot matrix printer behind reception. Awesome. Adam and I don't even bowl which made our low scores (Adam won easily both games) more understandable. We laughed all the way through, and at the end I bought a bright orange rayon “Lao Bowling Center” jersey to remember the event.

We went back to Makphet for another outrageously great meal, even splurging on a glass of wine each. Wine is prohibitively expensive in all of the countries we've visited and one of the things I look forward to back in the states is inexpensive and good red wine, but Makphet had a reasonably priced by-the-glass menu so we splurged. I ordered their famed buffalo beef stew, mmmmmmmmm, and Adam and I shared more of their intoxicating fresh spring rolls. Fantastic! And for a good cause to boot …

We killed time at an air conditioned Internet cafe with WiFi and updated our website, emailed friends and family, sent postcards, watched some DVDs (we've gotten hooked during travel down-time on back seasons of 24, a show neither of us watched prior). We had the hostel do our laundry for just a couple of bucks. We went and had a drink down on the Mekong …

And just hung out. I didn't mind and it gave me time to relax about our issues with the Vietnamese and enter into Hanoi with a less-annoyed outlook.

Take two: Two days later we once again hopped a tuk tuk to the airport, got our new visas from the travel agent after scraping together our very few last dollars, and managed to board a plane successfully.

Hanoi, for better or for worse, here we come—at last.

Tubing in the Vang Vieng

We must have been in Bangkok only a few hours before I first saw the tee shirts, “Tubing in Laos” and wanted to know what that was about.  We were planning to go to Laos so surly we'd need to go tubing! It became almost laughable just how many of the tubing tee shirts we saw throughout Southeast Asia. After we had met James we all agreed it was high on our lists. Although James and Nao had a different itinerary we would try to meet up with them in Laos for some tubing.

We read up in our Lonely Planet guide and find Vang Vieng is the city in Laos for tubing. It's a 6 hour bus ride south of Luang Prabang and we know from past experience that 6 hours means 8 or more. Despite that we agree we want to--besides there is no train or flight. We board our jumbo bus and hope for the best, the guidebook warns of common and frequent breakdowns – Uagh. The bus takes off right on time and seems comfortable enough. The suspension is such that you are constantly bobbing along which for more than a few became sickening. We never made a straight road, it's just one curve after another as we weave up and down the Laos mountainside.

 
After three hours we stopped for lunch which was included with our ticket. Usually they include a box lunch, the hardboiled egg with ants on it and pineapple juice we were given in Egypt comes to mind, but this time we stop at a restaurant for a delicious lunch. We were overlooking the gorgeous mountain range and enjoyed a traditional Laos soup.

 
Traditional Laos Soup

After a half hour we re-boarded the bus and headed to Vang Vieng. We arrived 6 hours after we left Luang Prabang almost on the dot, I was amazed! We quickly found inexpensive Dokkhoun Guesthouse ($8/night) dropped our bags and took a long walk through the town – after 6 hours of sitting we needed a good walk. Vang Vieng was and in some ways still is a backwater where only a few years ago there had been little but the river running through it. Now, it's a tubing mecca with construction of guest houses everywhere. We saw the tee shirts I'd seen before along with restaurants that play episodes of Friends and Family Guy to grungy beat-up looking tubers – some with assorted bruises and scrapes.

Street in Vang Vieng

 
We had been trying to coordinate with James and Nao to meet up in Vang Vieng as they had just arrived in Luang Prabang from Cambodia. James was resolved to tube with us so he took the bus (his ended up taking over 8 hours) to tube, stay the night and bus back to Luang Prabang the next day. Bill and I were impressed but thought if it were us, we don't know we would have made as much an effort. Nao wasn't interested in tubing so she remained in Luang Prabang and we missed seeing her. It was great to see James again.

How it works is you rent a tube which costs 50,000 kip or $5 and you leave a $5 deposit plus a few dollars for the tuk-tuk that drives you up the river and drops you off and then it's time to get wet.

Adam, James and Bill

We had rented a dry-bag for a dollar that didn't keep anything dry, fortunately our camera was in a ziplock inside the dry bag, our tee shirts on the other hand were soaked. We got in the water and were instantly laughing as the current pulled us right along.

 
We saw along the banks of the river on both sides countless bars that not only sell beer but have ropes for you to swing out and jump into the river. We saw endless drunken twenty-somethings dancing and having a good time, wet and covered in mud. We only made it a little ways down the river before people were throwing lines to drag us into the bars so we did some jumps and met countless tubers from around the world.
Adam on the river swing

Then you grab your tube and head down the river to the next one. We saw an immense water slide at the next one and all gave it a try. You have to buy a drink or they won't let you on the slide – safety standards are very different here in Laos – and then you climb up and they tell you when to go. You are launched off the slide into the river at a considerable height. Bill hits the water and gets the wind knocked out of him and gains a bruise on his leg, James lands head first and I smack the water fairly hard myself. We all agree the slide isn't for us so we did more of the rope swings--they even have a zipline you ride out then let go... Bill, BILL LET GO!

Waterslide into the river

Before we know it it's getting dark and the bars close – it's not safe to be in the river at night. We looked around for our tubes and they were nowhere to be found. We quickly learn people steal them so you lose your deposit and they get a few bucks for returning them – Bill is less than amused. James and I chalk it up to a good time and the whole thing cost $12. We had to get back to the main town so we go looking for a tuk-tuk with a bunch of other tubers and haggle with them as they cram the tuk-tuk so full we were actually hanging onto the back of it. It's not too far when the driver has me sit up front with him to help off set the weight in the back. As we were riding along with a bunch of drunken tubers someone started singing and before we knew it the entire tuk-tuk was singing and the driver honked along with his horn--a memory I won't soon forget.

We got back to the main town and immediately bought our tee shirts – we had waited until we actually did it. We showered and changed and met up for some dinner with Patrick who we met just before at our guest house. He's a middle-aged American man traveling by himself and after some conversation we invite him to join us for dinner. We all had a good time and afterwards went to a bar where a couple James met on his bus ride were going to be. They were Sven and Jacy, a married couple from Germany who are doing volunteer work at their NGO (Non Government Organizations). They were fascinating and were on a similar route as Bill and I. They told us they were planning to kayak to Vientiane the following day. We didn't know this was an option and we would be going to Vientiane in two days. So we decide to kayak instead of taking the bus.

James, Jacy, Sven, Bill and Adam

Sadly the next day James left in the morning to go back to Laung Prabang. We wanted to do the “other thing” in Vang Vieng – the caves. We found out you can easily rent a motorbike ($3 a day) and about a 25km drive later you are at the caves. We had wanted to rent scooters a few times on the trip but it never really fit--this time it was perfect. Bill had never driven one and I only a few times so we kept a slow pace the whole way, besides the roads are rocky anyway. We saw a spectacular part of the countryside and have to be careful about all the cows along the way.

 
 
Some of the many cows

We followed the signs and before long we were at the Tham Phu Kham Cave. We paid a few diminutive tolls for crossing a bridge and entering the cave. We read in our guide that the last 200 meters are treacherous but what they should say is that you are practically mountain climbing.  It is a steep climb straight up makeshift rock stairs. As we climb up I realize it may have been a mistake to wear flip-flops. The guide book tells of the blue lagoon you can swim in so we wore swim trunks and flip-flops--not such a good idea for the climb up or the wet dark cave, oops.

Bill climbing to the cave

We reached the entrance to the cave and are impressed; it looks deep and daunting. We climb in and I was convinced I was going to slip and hurt myself in the flimsy flip-flops I was wearing. We went a little ways in and I decided that this was far enough for me. Bill continues on through a passage and enters a main cavern where I can see him from above through an opening. It was beautiful and tranquil with the sound of water dripping from the stalactite ceiling. What was in the middle of the cavern? What else but a Buddha – they really are everywhere!

 
Bill in the lower right corner

Lovely Luang Prabang, Laos

While traveling through India, Adam and I met tens of people coming from Nepal and raving about that jewel of a country. They assured us we'd love it and they were right—we did. Nepal was an unexpected highlight for us.

Throughout Thailand, people have been telling us how wonderful Laos is. “It's like Thailand before the tourists,” was the prevailing sentiment. On FaceBook I reconnected with a boss of mine from a decade ago, Eve, who coincidentally spent the summer traveling through Laos and Vietnam herself. After reading her blog I was even more excited about going to “The Land of Four Thousand Islands.” The food alone seemed worth the trip.

Our first stop would be in the small city of Luang Prabang in the north, a world heritage site, a short hour-long flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand, on Lao Airlines. We got cheap tickets and, while Lao Airlines has a questionable—and undisclosed—flight and safety record, our flight on the small twin prop plane was quite nice.

How traveling has changed me. I'm a project manager professionally so I must always have a plan. I've joked that I manage a significant portion of my personal life in Excel spreadsheets (it's sadly true). The idea of getting on a plane to some destination that we haven't had the chance to research yet, with no accommodations booked, just “winging it,” is the polar opposite of how we started this trip. Now it's the norm and neither Adam nor I break a sweat about it. We read up on the next destination on the plane, figure out what part of town to head to in order to begin the search for housing, and just get going. It's been working.

We arrived on a beautiful, sunny—and hot!—afternoon in Luang Prabang, our small twin-engine prop plane swinging in low over the Mekong River to drop us on a bare concrete runway, the “airport” a simple short wide building with a parking lot. Same routine: immigration, customs, baggage claim, and outside to get talked into a tuk tuk. We head to the center of Luang Prabang.

We have a longer hike than usual to find a hostel—the first place we check, on a wide, relaxed block north of the Mekong and where our tuk tuk dropped us, wants $35 US a night from us. Hah! Only mildly dismayed, we continue walking, stopping at another guest house, and then another. Everything is a bit pricey, but the places are also too-nice looking. We reach a traffic intersection, another wide two-lane road with tuk tuks and mopeds speeding past in both directions, and survey our location. Which way has the cheapest hostel, doyathink? I'm just about ready to sit down at an adjacent cafe and have a Beer Lao, put our heavy bags down, and spend more time with the guidebook to search for a hostel recommendation but Adam wants to push on, so we do. Another block and we find slightly less fancy hostels, and the first one we find offers us an aircon room for under $10 US a night. Score.

Our new digs, Bounchaleurn Guesthouse & Cafe, is right next to a middle school, essentially two long rows of ramshackle buildings on stilts surrounding a wide field and muddy courtyard where maybe more than a hundred boys and girls in blue and white school uniforms study, dance, and play. Cool. They're a noisy bunch and our small room's window faces their field but we don't mind. It's so nice to see all these kids in school.

We wander about the small town, essentially a peninsula surrounded by the Mekong and Khan Rivers. The French had colonized Laos through it's long history and the enduring effects are evident in the wide paved boulevards, clean sidewalks, French colonial architecture, and bakeries selling the most wonderful baguettes flanking the streets. There are Buddhist stupas and orange-robed monks everywhere, often very young men as most Lao males spend at least a few years as a monk before being considered, “ripe,” or so says our guidebook.

Monks on the streets of Luang Prabang, Laos.

We sample some of the local Laos cuisine, everything from mild-to-spicy curries, a lot of red meat (sorry Adam), rice and noodle dishes, all of it delicious.

We grab a beer at a small restaurant on a bank overlooking the Mekong …

Adam on the Mekong.

… rent bikes and tool around town, soaking up the easy-going and relaxed pace of the place, meeting smiling locals, and practicing our broken Laotian phrases, “Saibadeeee,” and “Kawp jai!” Hello and thank you will take you far in most any country.

We visit the night market, expecting more of the same that we've become used to, generally food carts, loud music, and tables set up selling everything from baby furniture and toys to kitchen goods, maybe off-brand electronics, that sort of thing. We are surprised to find something far more touristy but also far nicer—a long city block packed with vendors spread out on blankets selling all manner of beautiful and interesting things, from the more prosaic tee shirts at $2 or less a pop to silk scarves, carved soapstone boxes, beautiful fabrics, and other bizarre but interesting brik-a-brac.

A Night Market stall.

Adam and I haggle hard and pick up some simple small souvenirs for friends and family back home as well as a tee shirt or two for ourselves to keep our international collection growing.

One of the main activities in Luang Prabang is to go to the Pak Ou caves, a boat ride down the river which takes you to a series of caves filled with aging Buddha statues. We shop around for the best price ($12 US each) and the next morning a tuk tuk is waiting for us in front of our hotel to take us the short distance to the boat launch point. There, we board a long narrow slow boat for what is SUPPOSED to be a 35 minute ride down the Mekong to the Pak Ou caves.

Slow boats on the Mekong.

After over an hour trundling slowly up the Mekong, we stop at a local village for 15 minutes to see their local stupa and, more importantly, shop the stalls staffed by locals for even more silk scarves and locally-made whiskey bottled with scorpions and cobras inside.

Local whiskey bottled with snakes and scorpions.

Bill in front of a village temple.

Warily, we climb back aboard our ever-slower slow boat for another 35 minutes before finally arriving at the Pak Ou caves.

Approaching the Pak Ou caves.

Inside Pak Ou.

Adam is not impressed—he'd pictured something much grander and deeper. I like all the statues of Buddha in various levels of disrepair occupying every available surface of the cave.

There is another level, one higher up, so we climb (and climb and climb) up and are rewarded with a much deeper, darker cave. It's so deep and so dark we have to flash the camera just to see where we are going, and are rewarded with brief glimpses of the uneven cave floor and small shrines featuring even more Buddhas and spent incense sticks.

Inside the upper cave.

Adam at the mouth of the upper Pak Ou cave.

After an hour of exploring the caves it's back on the slow boat. Adam and I are getting used to being lied to—no trip is ever how long they tell us, but how can one mistake a 30-minute sail down the river for one more than two hours long? We get back to Luang Prabang with some great photos of the passing countryside from the river, but uncertain whether or not we would recommend the trip to friends otherwise.

The view from our slow boat on the Mekong.

Another great activity in Luang Prabang, an absolute must, is a trip to the Kouang Si Waterfalls. I've been on a search for The Perfect Waterfall ™ since the trip began, that deep pool in the secluded jungle, with plenty of room to swim and dive, surrounded by towering cascades of water pouring from pristine mountain tops, that sort of thing. We've been to a few now and they've been nice but nothing that's even in the running for The Perfect Waterfall ™.

We haggle hard with a tuk tuk driver to take us to Kouang Si, about 25-30 KM north of Luang Prabang proper, up into the nearby hills and craggy mountains, occasionally giving us fantastic glimpses of the small provincial city spread out below and surrounded by rivers. We arrive at a big parking lot surrounded by food stalls and tee shirt vendors, pay a $2 US entry fee each, and with our tuk tuk driver chatting away pleasantly with other drivers in the parking lot and waiting for us, we follow the dirt path into the woods, the sound of crashing water building.

To our mutual surprise we are first greeted with a bear sanctuary in the middle of the woods.

There are quite a few of them behind chain link in what looks like a giant bear playground. Cool. Unlike our lions and tigers, these bears are active, playing and climbing and swinging. Though I am anxious to splash in a cold waterfall—it's hot out!—we spend a few minutes taking pics of our unexpected bears.

We continue onward, the path turns, and we step out of the shade of the jungle into a large oasis. It's The Perfect Waterfall ™.

The main pool itself is larger than a suburban swimming pool. Along the back wall are various waterfalls crashing and feeding the main pool. Off to one side, someone has hung a rope swing on a curved tree hanging over the water and tourists and locals alike are clamoring up the slippery tree in bare feet and bathing suits and seeing who can swing the farthest into the deep pool. I kick off my shirt and flip flops and climb into the water, swimming far out to see how deep it gets.

The water is cold. Whoosh! It feels amazing against the heat of the jungle. It's opalescent, a milky, mineral-heavy color that seems to glow from below. Atop the falls people are shouting and jumping from a few meters above. It's fantastic.

Adam quickly joins me but rather than just hopping in opts for the tree swing instead. Awesome!

Adam swings!

We both take turns climbing to the top of the waterfall and jumping in. It doesn't LOOK all that high up, but it's just high enough for your stomach to leap a moment before you strike the water. Terrific!

Adam jumps!

The cold mountain water is less astonishing as we get used to it and we spend hours swimming and laughing and jumping, watching all the adults acting like kids while swinging from the tree, trying to do back flips or mid-air spins, challenging each other to jump from the high point of the falls. For a few hours it felt less like a waterfall and more like a fountain of youth.

The shadows grew longer and, sitting atop the falls surveying the area from high up, we begin to grow cold. We do another jump or two and then find our flip flops and clothes and ascend higher up the path to see what else these falls have to offer.

The falls continue on and upward quite a ways. We've spent most of our time in the best pool but there are many other swimming areas, natural shady and grassy areas for people to picnic, little kids and families to have birthday parties along side the water, that sort of thing. It's idyllic. We climb higher and higher until we find the start of the falls, the highest point.

It's like nothing I've ever seen before.

Our tuk tuk driver is hanging out with his friends and waves us down when we re-appear from the jungle. He takes us back, and we are glowing and happy (and much cooler!) after our day in the jungle. We tip him a thank you (or Kawp Jai!) for having waited all that time for us, though apparently that's the way it works.

There's one more thing we must do in Luang Prabang before we venture farther south into Laos. At the center of the city is Phousi Hill, atop which sits Phousi Stupa, the most famous Buddhist stupa in Luang Prabang. It's a long hike to the top and I'd been putting it off but now it's time to go.

The hike wasn't as bad as I expected it to be—we've climbed considerably higher like the Swayamanbunth Temple in Nepal—and the views from above were terrific.

Bill at the top of Phousi Hill, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Adam's turn.  We really need someone to take pictures of us together.

There are various statues of Buddha in his many guises along the path as well and I can't get enough of them.

There is a cave up there, too, and of course we had to check it out:

Bill is too tall for Laos.

The shrine inside the cave at Phousi.  For a moment, in the dark, I thought he was real!

And then it was time to come on back down, have dinner, a cold Beer Lao or two, and book our exit from Luang Prabang.

The folks we met along the way certainly were right thus far—Laos is terrific! Luang Prabang, with its wide avenues, laughing children, smiling and polite locals, earnest monks, and terrific food, has been more than we expected. It is such a beautiful, photogenic city. We are excited to see more of Laos and are ready to head to our next highly-anticipated stop, Vang Vieng, Laos!