Czech Countryside and sad goodbye to Prague

7/19
Martin took the day off work and wanted to show me some other things of the czech republic other than the city. It finally cooled down (20C) So he drove me about 100km's outside of the city to some geologic park with some pretty cool rock formations in the forest. We took a 5 ot 6 mile hike around there, checking out the rocks, walking through the forest (much wetter forest than colorado, maybe like the mccall area of idaho with mosses and ferns, or even a bit like bellingham, wa), and feasting on all the wild blueberries. After the hike he took me to a small tourist type village where we walked around a bit and then had some beer and traditional czech goulash and soup. Well actually martin just had a non alcoholic beer b/c in czech they legal limit for driving and drinking is 0.0. That's really not a problem though b/c everyone seems to walk and use the trams and metro everywhere. Martin only has a car b/c his sister works for ford and he got a sweet deal and wanted to take weekend trips to places like budapest and munich and such. We then visited a castle and did some more hiking in the forest around the castle.
When we got back to prague, we went and saw a movie (Martin had some free movie tickets and was also feeling a bit tired). Movie was in english, but with czech subtitles. Most young people in the CR can speak english though. After that we met up with his sister to go hit some pubs and hang out.

7/20 Today I am relaxing a bit at martin's flat while he goes to work. Catching up on some things with the email and writing the blog. I'm eventually going to take the metro down to the city center and then meet up with marting and his friends as they are taking me out to get real italian pizza (not that american "junk") on the hill at prague that has the view of the city and then throwing me a goodbye party.

tomorrow i leave around noon for a flight to stockholm where I will be for a night and 2 days before taking the bus up to sundsvall where Kimmy and Clare are picking me up at the station. I also hope to see frida and caroline there as well. I think kim and clare have a computer so i will likely be updating from sundsvall again.

Roadtrip to Budapest

7/16 Martin and I picked up Shimon, one of Martin's friends from his hometown, to go on our roadtrip to Budapest, Hungary. Shimon was a foreign exchange student just outside of Sand Point Idaho. So he had lots of jokes about how Idaho was. You know like how everyone had a gun in their pick up truck, etc. Our first stop was Brno (Czech) to eat at IKEA. This is that big swedish furniture giant. Well, they also have cheap foods (cheese and potato meal for 1 dollar and 2 hotdogs and a drink for 1 dollar). So i was properly introduced to IKEA. The next stop was a castle in Valtice, Czech Rep. and then for some very good gelato. We then crossed into Slovakia and stopped at Shimon's cousin's tea shop outside of Bratislavia where she gave us some cold tea. We then stopped in Golanta where Shimon's grandma gave us a huge and very tasty traditional hungarian meal. She spoke no czech even though she lived in slovakia b/c she is hungarian and after the war since the austrian-hungarian empire was one of the bad guys, they took away a lot of their land, but the culture didn't change. Shimon speaks hungarian and czech and english, so he could translate for us. She was in incredibly sweet woman and kept wanting to give us food. She gave us some wine from her son's winery as well.
We arrived in Budapest around 10pm, where we dropped of our stuff at a flat that martin's friend Zoltan had arranged for us in the center of the city. Martin met zoltan when he did a car trip called the B2B which goes from budapest through europe then crosses into morocco and eventually ends in bamako, mali. Zoltan had us over for cheese, bread, and wine at his flat before we headed out. He took us on a pub tour drinking lots of beers (he was almost always treating although we succeeded here and there to buy a few rounds). He also bought us his favorite hungarian shots and spirits. It was really hot that day and the next (40 degrees = 104F) and didn't cool off much at night, so most of the bars were open aired. We went to this cool outdoor bar in the square and then to some concert they were having in some underground area below the park. We ended the night in the courtyard of a giant cathedral where people were drinking, hanging out, and some people were throwing the frisbee. I joined in and they were so impressed with my forehand throw (they only did backhand) that they were also so interested to learn, so I spent a while trying to show drunk hungarians (and i'm drunk too) how to throw a frisbee forehand. I know martin and zoltan and simon got quite a kick out of for sure. Martin and Shimon wanted me to help them pick up girls and thought that being an American could help them. So I went out with my map to ask directions and get talking to girls so that then they could come in and we would have broken the ice. We had a lot of fun with that, but then in pure genius, i pulled out my freshly bought toothbrush (I had forgotten my toothbrush in prague so just bought a new one for the weekend) and said we were filming an oral-b commerical for americans of people around europe. They loved this. We'd have them sing a traditional song and then say they love oral-b or america or whatnot. We have some hilarious video from this and had quite a fun time. We eventually stumbled back to the flat for the night.
funniest sight of the day: male construction workers on the road wearing only their bright orange vest and the european bakini bottoms...total euro style. Perhaps b/c it was so hot or b/c that is how it's done in europe bud even walking around the city lots of guys were just walking around in their underwear and girls in their underwear or bakinis. pretty crazy.

7/17 Zoltan toured us around Budapest. We first went to the top of a hill to look down on budapest (it's actually two cities Buda and Pest divided by a river) and have some traditional hungarian type apple streudal. We then visited the parliement building and took a tour inside. After that we walked along the city. Budapest is very nice. Old as well. And it has sort of a bit of a decaying feeling, except in the modern areas. The buildings aren't as nice as in prague. Almost has a bit of that feel of how you think of communist cities. Of course it is alive and well with capitalism now and some areas are quite modern. We walked along the danube river and then walked across the famous lion bridge and up to Buda castle with great views of the river, the parliament building, and the city. Zoltan then took us to a fancy (though not too expensive) outdoor restaurant in some hidden nook in the city, where we had some traditional hungarian foods. And started the party. We visited several clubs. One was what they call a ruin pub...a pub in the ruins of some building, either form the war or just falling a apart. They restore it a bit, but it's sort of has this outdoor feel and just a cool setting in the ruined building. Then we went to a couple rooftop clubs and bars where of course zoltan was having us try his favorite beers and sprits. We eventually went back to the church square for more frisbee and ended the night in a popular modern club that played 70's and 80's american music! whoop whoop, I like it so much better than the euro trance and house music. We eventually made our way back home around 5am afer stopping at a few places to get beers for the road.
funny thing of the day: we were walking by this computer lab with two rows of all empty computers, except one old guy and he was sitting at the computer visible from the window and he was watching porn and some porn webcams. We all died laughing after seeing that. We figured if he had to do that he should choose a different computer!

7/18 Zoltan took us to a small village along the river to eat some Langosak (incredibly tasty fried dough thing with garlic, sour cream and cheese) and crepes. When we arrive back in budapest, Shimon and martin decided we needed to go to a fancy turkish spa to removed all the toxins from the weekend and to relax. The spa was pretty cool. Like 6 different pools ranging from 28 degrees to 40 degrees. So you soak in those and then you go to a pool that is 10 degree, jump in real quick and then go to the sauna which is 74 degrees (165F) and sit there sweating and uncomfortable for 10 minutes before going back, dumping a bucket of cold water on you and then jumping into the cold 10 degree pool. Then you soak some more and repeat this 3 times or so.
We left around 5 to head back to prague. It doesn't take to long b/c even though the highways in slovakia and czech are not unlimited speeds like the german autobahn and have a speed limit of 13okm/hr, martin would still drive 200km/hr (125mph) b/c they don't have police on the road really. We also of course stopped at IKEA for the cheap food. When we got back to martin's flat, he commented that this would be the first night that we would be going to sleep without being drunk. That tells you a little about how eastern europe parties...

Budapest was of course great, and again, Zoltan was an amazing tour guide and oh so generous. I hope some day these guys come to the West so that I can treat them to a good time and show them all our water beers like coors and keystone and bud and pbr haha. No, it would be microbrews for them. Though they probably wouldn't believe that bars in boise do last call at 1:30 am, that liquor stores in idaho close at 5pm, that you can only buy 3.2 beer in colorado at grocery stores and that estes park is dead by 7pm in the winter and 10pm in the summers.

Prague is a Party

7/12-13 Left early from Estes Park to Denver. Flew to toronto where I had an 11 hour layover. Found a quiet place in the airport to lie down and I slept and read. Thankfully I had some leftover pasta from the Dunraven going away dinner and some very very tasty deserts thanks to Lisa Foster! Then had a flight to Frankfurt where I just had a 3 or 4 hour layover before flying on to prague. Martin, who I met in indonesia climbing volcanoes, picked me up at the airport and drove me through prague to get a quick peek. It was about 5pm Prague time. We arrived at his flat on the outskirts of prague where he proceeded to hand me his favorite czech beer pilsner urquell. This would be the first of many times of Martin handing me beers...that night..and this week. He had planned a bbq for my arrival party with his sister annetta, his roommate jitka, and about 10 other friends (2 other martins, mark, joseph, peter, roman, tsuzank...most gave me their international english names). He grilled ups some brats and pork and we had quite a feast. And of course there was plenty of beer and wine to go around. Martin had said that his friends would be shy until they had some beer and then they would start with their english. This was true. They were all very nice and would talk to me in english when talking directly to me, but then talk in czech when talking in general, but by the end of the night it was english being spoken exclusively. It was interesting b/c several of his friends had been living in the US for work or school at some point. One gal had gone to high school in Idaho for a year, in a place where her nearest neighbors were 15 minutes away. She thought this was so crazy. Another guy was an exchange student in chicago and luck of the draw had it that his host family was the kellogs (of the kellog cereal company), so they had a 15 million dollar mansion in steamboat springs that he was often flown to on their private jet for ski weekends! Not bad! He was also a big libertarian and loved glenn beck. I think the first euro like that I had ever met. But had quite a fun time with all of them and learned a lot about czech rep. They were all so curious about what I thought about it already and were all really hoping that I already liked it and that the people were friendly. So far, so good. They were all excited to hear about my travels. Several of them had travelled through se asia as well and also to India and Nepal so it was exciting to hear about the future places I would be. One of the things they thought was most unique about America was how hard we worked. They all work only 7 hours per day, 5 days a week, and they get a minimum starting vacation of 40 days, plus 10 sick days. And in czech, a sick day doesn't necessarily mean you have the flu, it means you partied too hard the night before and need a day of relaxing. that's pretty sweet. Martin works for DHL, his sister for Ford, and Jitka for ING bank. We partied until about 2 or 3am and then the whole crowd all headed for the metro to go home.

7/14 Woke up early as Martin was going off to work. I took the metro into central prague and explored around it. Had some tasty, tasty bread at a couple places. European bread is always so tasty! Prague is a GORGEOUS city along the vltava river with very old buildings and all red roofs. I explored the big national monument, went to a couple giant cathedrals. Went into the old town with its narrow winding streets and large open plazas with cool buildings. In the old town square there is a cool clock that has a little show everytime the hour chimes. Climbed to the top of the clock tower there for a view of prague. Had a very tasty brat on the streets. I then walked across the charles bridge, a very famous old stone bridge with statues on it, to the other side of the vltava. From here I walked up to the Prague Castle and explored its grounds and some of its gardens and enjoyed the sweet view back down to old prague and the river and all of prague's cool bridges. Entered into the castle square and climbed the giant steeple of the giant cathedral inside the castle grounds for an even better view of prague. From there you could look out everywhere, and you could even see the huge American embassy from there. Quite a fancy embassy with an orchard, a lookout tower and then the building with the big american flag flying. I thought that was kind of interesting. From there I took some back streets up to the top of this hill with a park and trees and all that. They have a mini type eiffel tower there (can't remember the name) Hung out at the park for a bit doing some reading and watching the sun set over prague from the top of the hill. After this I walked some more through the park and eventually down to the national theatre where I was meeting martin and his sister. I really enjoyed exploring around prague b/c it really is an incredibly scenic city with an old feel, yet fresh and clean. Martin took me to some restaurant/pub where we met another whole crowd of friends (of which I can only remember the name of Frantisek b/c they all gave me their czech names and I would have quite a bit of alcohol). Martin ordered some traditional czech dumplings with cheese inside for me and we quickly drank 4 or 5 beers b/c we were so hot. It was about 35 degrees there that day (95 or so) and they don't have air con b/c it is very unusual, so we were all sweating a lot. After dinner we just hung out at the restaurant...and the beers kept coming. I'd be 3/4 through my beer, and then all of a sudden another huge beer would show up. And these are big beers...and quite tasty i might add. Then they were all buying me their favorite czech shots, and all quite strong for sure. The czechs were quite the partiers. We finally had had enough of the restaurant and went to stroll along the river. And all of a sudden we all found ourselves with a bottle of wine in hand. I have no idea how that happened. We did some more wandering around the streets with our wine, but the rest of it is kind of a blur. But somehow we made it back to Martin's flat for some sleep so we could do it all again the next day. The czechs are so generous and hospitable (and later I would find the hungarians to be the same) and always buying drinks. When I would finally get a chance to buy a round, I was very surprised to find that drinks here are quite cheap. A very pleasant surprise compared to western europe. About 1.5 to 2 bucks for a big beer and a pub and 1 to 1.5 in a grocery store. Food also isn't too bad. traditional czech food for 5 bucks or street food like brats for 1-2 bucks.

7/15 Up early again with Martin as he worked again of course. Explored some more of prague. Visited this weird and tall famous building of prague and explored around a park. Did some more reading in the park. That evening I met martin on the other side of the river (and Tsuzanka and Jitka) for dinner at one of their favorite local places. Had a traditional meal (duck, pork, and beef with a side of dumplings). Of course there was plenty of czech beer to wash it all down with. After we were feeling quite good we explored the city and the prague castle a bit at night before taking the metro home late that night.

I really had a fun time in Prague. Such a great city and Martin was such a great host and his friends so nice as well. They really took care of me

SW Desert Trip and Telluride Blue grass festival

Did a month long Desert trip with my brother leaving May 15th through June 15th. Met up with him and Ryan and Greg in Zion NP. Did some slot canyons there. Did some biking on gooseberry mesa near hurricane and some other trails out of hurricane. Hurt my shoulder quite bad on one ride on slickrock, so I took the next day off from slot canyons and explored zion on foot and hiked up angel's landing. Ran into the Dutch couple that I had trekked with in Borneo! Crazy, what are the odds?
After about a week in Zion we headed towards the glen canyon area and did some slot canyons there. On the way stopped at red canyon (near bryce canyon np) and did some biking. Celebrated my birthday swimming (and bathing) at lake powell. Then drove onto Moab where we did a better job of partying for my birthday. Met up with Drew, Yogg, Christina, and Amanda in Moab and drove to Mexican Hat where we put into the san juan for a 5 day awesome raft and float trip. Some cool side hikes up canyons, to the rim, and swimming holes. Even did some kayaking.

After the float trip, said goodbye to everyone except Yogg and bro. We drove towards escalante where we did a mtn bike ride up on boulder pass and did a bad mtn bike ride in Escalante. In escalante we went into escalante/grand staircase national monument and did a two day overnight, very wet slot canyon called neon that ended in a cool repel into the cathedral and pool. Totally awesome slot canyon. Took a scenic route to get to cedar city where we did a cool mtn bike ride. From there drove on to Zion again where we did some more biking around Hurricane. Blew out the tire in my car in a bad way and they said it couldn't be fixed, so we figured we had to drive to vegas to get the warranty on my tire. Another shop was able to fix it however. We said goodbye to dave, swam in an amazingly beautiful reservoir and watched robin hood in st. george as it was so hot. That evening we did a mtn bike ride in st. george. Since we were excited about vegas we decided to head there anyways. Got into vegas a bit before midnight and partied until 7 am. We toured around vegas the next day and went and got costumes for the next night. Triggers drove out from LA and we partied the night away with him and 4 gals from Iowa. The next day we hit the pool and then went up mtn biking at Red Rock Canyon park. Stayed the night up there in blue diamond and then did a long bike ride that day. Made it back in time for a buffet dinner and hypnotist. Drove through the night to moab, then I said a sad goodbye to bro and I drove on to estes. Picked up some cool hippy hitch hikers in jct and took them to frisco. Stayed with cousin Kendra and Dan in Evergreen where we saw a monstrous black bear.
The next day met up with heather in EP. The following day we took a scenic route to telluride going over trail ridge, following the colorado river through kremmling biking the bike path in the glenwood canyon, taking a hike at the maroon bells in aspen and then hot springing in Redstone area before going over maclure pass to get to montrose to stay with Carleen. The next 4 days were filled with awesome telluride blue grass festival activities. Music, dancing, drinking, etc. A highlight had to be front and center row, 2 feet from josh ritter during his night grass concert in the fly me to the moon saloon. Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeroes, yonder mtn stringband, amelda may, leftover salmon and others were all great fun

The rest of Israel and Jordan

So I ended up never having a chance to use the internet the rest of the trip, but I just wanted to quickly right down the places we went and what we saw, mainly for me so that I don't forget it.

3/10. We flew to Eilat in Israel and then crossed the border into Jordan to the city of Aqaba. Again, both getting on the flight in TLV and leaving Israel I had lots of difficulties with security and letting me through. They are very, very cautious in Israel and with my long hair that looks nothing like my passport picture and my beat up heavily used passport I was a red flag.

We took a tour and hiked around Petra. It was simply amazing. One of the highlights of the whole trip. Cool slot canyons ending up at the Treasury building, carved out of stone and just awe inspiring. But we also hiked around to lots of the other buildings carved out of stone. Coming back across the border we came in right after the border was supposed to be closed (8pm) but we were able to get through and they luckily held the plane for us in Eilat so that we were able to make it back to TLV to meet up with the rest of our group.

3/11 Make our way to Haiffa. Stop at Ceasaria (old greco-roman city), Megiddo (several temples including one of solomon's temples, archaeological digs, reportedly the site of the future armaggedon); Nazareteh Church where assumption of Mary supposedly occurred. Went out for some drinks with Trish, Liz, Sara, Dianne, and Dad at the 3 bears pub. Fun night

3/12 Bahai gardens from bahai relgion. Zippori ruins with nice mosaics. Akko, a fortified crusader capitol. Visit Rosh Hanikra on border with Lebanon where there are some cool sea grottoes. Overnight at Kibbutz on sea of galilea

3/13 Tel hazor--anciet city being excavated. Visit Caesarea philippi which is at the head of the jordan river. Grottoes there and pagan temples, and Paul apparently walked by there. Also where Peter acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah. Drove around the Golan Heights (used to be syria and lebanon) and visited an old syrian bunker. Visited the top of a volcano and israeli fortification. Visited Tabgha, the traditional site of the multiplication of loaves of bread and fish.

3/14 Visit a 2000 year old fishing boat removed from the mud of the sea of galilee. Visited Capernaum, the town of Jesus and where Peter's house had been. Visited the mount of the beatitudes where the believe the sermon on the mount was given. Had some fresh fish on the shores of the galilee. Visit spot where it is possible Jesus told men to throw their nets to the right side of the boat. Boat ride across the sea of galilee. Went up some hill (don't remember the significance) where there was a church on top.

3/15 Baptized dad at Yardenit along the Jordan river in a very touching ceremony complete with great singing by Scott and company. Visited Bet Shean, a roman type sin city. Went to the Jordan Desert and visited Qumran, where the dead sea scrolls were found in caves. Visited a factory that makes dead sea skin products and bought some stuff for mom. Drove by Ein Gedi, but didn't get to hike there sadly b/c the sandstorm (shiraz (sp?)) was to intense. Hotel on beach of dead see, in sandstorm. The lowest point on earth and saltiest lake. Floated in the indoor spa. Karaoke/dance/dj night w/ local israelis. Tons of fun!! Think wedding crashers/big fat greek wedding type dancing. Liz and I stayed out late and then Arya, our tour guide, took us out for beers

3/16 Floating in dead sea. Such an AWESOME feeling. Like defying gravity on the moon or something. Tour of Masada, the stronghold of Jewish zealots who were the last to fall to the roman legions and was also where herod the great's palace was. Palace is up on this huge, high mesa. On hike down we some some Ibex (mountain goat type thing). Overnight in Arad City.

3/17 Visited ruins of Arad where Canaanite citw as 3000BC and solomon 1000bc. Visit Bedouin culture center and have tea in a Bedouin tent. Through west bank into Jerusalem where we got a view of temple mount and the old city. Visited a museum to see model of the ancient city. Freezing!

3/18 Whole day touring jerusalem. Sick to my stomach a bit. First drove around entire walled city. Visited western and southern wall. Walked through jewish quarter. Did an Aliyah at S. wall by micvah "blvd" Visited the burned house and 4-story 7000 sq ft. house buried underground that was build during Jesus' time. Visited temple mount.

3/19 Visited Holocaust museum and cool children's memorial (mirrors and candles) Visit St. Peter's chruch which is where Jesus was held prisoner at Caiaphas' palace. Climbed steps Jesus would have climbed. Had a communion service in some tomb area. Visited a street market and walked through a Hassidic Jewish neighborhood

3/20 Trip to west bank and Bethlehem. Visit shepherd's field and church of the nativity. Back in Jerusalem, walk the top of the wall. Attend mass at Holy Sepulchre church. Crazy route to get to the church. It was just myself, my dad, and the Finks that went. The experience getting there was fun. Nice service as well. Attended a traditional Jewish dance performance, and of course I went on stage to dance. Party night on the town with Liz and Diane. Saw the end of UNI beating Kansas in the big dance!!

3/21 Visit Church of the holy sepulchre which is on the place Jesus was likely crucified at gogotha and where his tomb was likely to be. Shopping in Muslim quarter. Visit temple institute which is where Jews are preparing stuff for if they can build a new temple on the temple mount. Visit old city of David. Went in under ground tunnels and then walked through Hezekiah's tunnel in the dark and water, which was lots of fun.

3/22 Prayed at the wailing wall. Some more touring of Jerusalem. Night tour under the wall, which was quite awesome. History of the city all came together. Went out partying with the crowd (Craig, Liz, Dianne, Dad, Scott, Lou, Trish, Sara, and Arya). Eventually all the remained was me, liz, dad, and arya, then just me and liz and Arya and then just me and Liz. We stayed up all night and arrived back at the hotel around 9am.

3/23 Relaxing day in Jerusalem. Nice lunch. Drive to Tel Aviv and then fly back to Denver. Several people on the trip got a nasty stomach bug that passed quickly through our group. Luckily I didn't get it! My theory was that since all the people out partying that night didn't get it but everyone else did, that the copious amounts of alcohol in our stomachs killed it. Although we were out till the next morning and should have been run down and been the ones to get sick, all the OH killed the bug. Arrived in Denver and Estes Park to almost 2 feet of snow!

Petra!

I need a haircut!

Got up bright and early to catch a fligt from TLV to Eilat in the very south of israel. Again israel security was intense and again, they had much trouble believing the person on my passport was me! and everyone had to wait a while for me. Then on top of all that, they pull everyone aside, look deep in your eyes and ask you a barage of questions. It feels like ho I would assume it would feel like getting questioned by the CIA or one of those NCIS type shows on television. Really crazy.

Boarded our uneventful flight on a tiny plane down to eilat where we were transferred to the border with Jordan. This border was really not like any other border I had been at before I thnk. Thoug I don't really remember African borders too much. There's a long strip of no man's land between the two countries, in the middle of a desert wasteland that you walk through with barbed wire fences on all sides, millitary men with ak-47's and hummers about.

The Holy Land

3-9-10
Shalom,

Arrived in Tel Aviv, Israel today. I'm on a trip with my dad and his church to the middle east. My dad has always wanted to go and had wanted to take my mom, but she decided that if she was going to take time off from work, she'd rather sip pina coladas on a beach than take a sort of high intensity course. Well, she didn't end up on the beach, but is instead sipping martinis with her mom, sisters, and brothers in Tucson. B/c of that I was invited by my dad to come on this trip. This trip is going to be a complete 180 from my SE asia trip. It's in a group and very organized and quite fancy. It was a huge difference today arriving in Tel Aviv all tired from the the long flights and just following a group to a private bus and then to a fancy hotel (and by fancy I'm not talking running water and warm showers that I talked about in Asia, but fancy as in state of the art fitness centre, business centre with fancy snacks and drinks for the taking, hi speed computers, flat screen tvs, and the beatles are currently blaring on the sound system) and then having a fancy meal. Instead of having to figure out how to get public transport to the backpacker area and then trying to find a cheap room and then walking the streets for a meal. Much, much different.

So we started the day yesterday, early in the morning leaving Estes for DIA and then onto Philly. I had hoped to meet up with Sara Bates in Philly b/c we had a decent layover, but it just didn't work out. Arrived in TLV about 3:30pm today. The Israelis have tight security for obvious reasons, and I had a bit of trouble getting into the country. Right of the plane they just do a check of passports and the guy that checked mine didn't quite believe me that my passport was mine, so he had to quiz me on everything, but let me through. At immigration where they stamp your passport, the women did not believe at all that the person on my passport was me. She kept looking at me and looking back at it and said she saw no resemblance. Of course I was much younger and now have very long hair instead of a carol cut, but still. So she asked for a second ID. Gave her my drivers license which has a picture taken of me after Lucas and I had stayed up 2 straight nights in a row cramming for our commercial driver's license, so I look terrible, and again, no resemblance she said. She asked for more, so I pulled out my ACI ID. Again, she didn't believe it. It had been about 15 minutes by now (my dad in front of me took about 20 seconds), but I was finally able to convince her with credit cards, Scuba PADI ID, my brochure for travel with the gate1 group, with reciting everything from my passport for her, and giving her a detailed itinerary of my trip to let me in.

TLV was pretty nasty today in terms of weather. It looked like a really terrible smog in LA or inversion in Boise. We're told it's not pollution but dust and sand in the air from a big sand storm in Saudi Arabia. TLV looks just like any modern east coast city to me, or at least what we saw of it which was the highways and the area around our fancy hotel.

We had a really tasty middle eastern type family style meal. Tomer, who I met in the Philippines, came over for dinner and to visit. He's such a nice guy and dad really enjoyed talking with him b/c he knows the old testament well and is big into musicals.

Tomorrow we are heading to Petra, Jordan. This is kinda an interesting story and my father and I may have been cited as rebels on the trip a bit for it. The trip, way back when, had mentioned having a day extension to go to Petra. That didn't pan out b/c Arlene, the group leader, had thought the day would be to rough and long. Now what is considered rough and long for the retired folk of Estes Park would be considered an easy day in my books according to my travel in SE asia. Well, dad really wanted to go, so I did some research on it, and found out it would be still possible to do a 1 day trip to Petra from TLV. So we approached, pretty much last minute, Arlene about it. She wasn't too thrilled about it, but agreed we could do it and just miss the normal tour of TLV with the rest of the group. Before we left, 2 other people had decided to join us. After meeting at DIA, another 2 had joined the group. So now we have 6 going tomorrow on our rebel rousing trip. It should be great though b/c Petra is one of the wonders of the architectual world and a definite highlight of the region. We leave tomorrow by airplane about 6:00am from TLV flying to Eilat. We then cross the border and head up to Petra. We return back to TLV around 10. Both my dad and I are really looking forward to it.

From Southeast Asia to Cold Colorado

Got a couple hours of sleep on my favorite bench in the Saigon airport before it was time to check in. Luckily b/c of my job at sapidyne where I got to fly all the time for work, I am a 1k star gold member on united and the star alliance, which means you get to hang out and enjoy the 1st class business lounges while you wait for flights. These always include good free food and unlimited free beer, cocktails, and spirits. So I made sure to indulge at the star alliance lounge in saigon.

From Saigon I had a short 2.5 hour flight to Hong Kong where I had a decent layover. I first checked out the united red carpet club there and stocked up on some american food and beer before heading out to the Thai airways (smooth as silk) royal orchid lounge. Thai is a member of star alliance and I know that the thais have a tendancy to spoil people. And I was right. The other lounges are all fancy and luxurious, but this was beyond that. Had some good thai food (and some cereal!) the got a massage from the massage chair, did a bit of a work out on the elliptical machine, and then took a nice hot shower before relaxing in a comfy chair and doing some internetting with a thai cocktail.

My next flight was from Hong Kong to San Fran and took 11 hours. I sat next to a middle aged business man from san diego who was just blown away by the fact I had been in se asia for a year. He said he wished he had done that and just kept exclaiming how amazing it was. He suggested I do at least one more before going to the real world (my sentiments exactly) though also told me an all to true joke: What do you call a person with a bachelor's degree in biology? Unemployed. Though apparently I'm easy to pick out as a biologist. For those of you who have been abroad, you undoubtedly remember the customs form that you have to fill out. With all the questions that you usually answer no to: are carrying any disease agents, any fruits or vegetables, currency greater than US 10,000, any drugs, etc. Well there are the two questions that ask if you have been on a farm or in close contact with livestock. B/c there is no way of knowing, I think most people just answer no to those so they can speed through customs, not really understanding that all those questions are set up to protect us in the US and not just to cause hassle in the airport. Well knowing the biological consequences of bringing diseases into our country (wiping out crops or animals) or ecological damages (those in boulder county are all too aware of the havoc that new zealand mud snails are doing on the creeks in the area), I checked yes on those. So it did mean I had to go to some special line where they disinfected my shoes (gave them a nice shine) and anything else I had that may have touched dirt or mud. They were all very nice and appreciated me being honest and checking those. They asked if was a biologic science major b/c they said it is usually only those that voluntarily check yes on those forms.

In San Fran I settled into the red carpet club before my 3ish hour long flight to Denver. I slept pretty hard so I don't really know how long it was, but I was woken up with a jolt when the pilot came on the intercom as we were preparing to land and said that the current temperature at DIA was a balmy -7F.

I was easy to pick out by my mom b/c I was the only one in the area code wearing shorts and also had an asian cone hat on. Had a happy greeting with my mom and then rolled outside to the parking lot full of blowing snow, subarus, and below zero temps. I guess the low that day at been to -16F. The low in Saigon had been 85F. The high in Denver -2F, the High in Saigon 97F with 99% humidity.

On the way through Estes Park, mom treated me to Taco Bell. Mmmm! It was good to be back home, if not cold! Gave the papa bear a big hug and then went downstairs after some more food to watch jay leno and some sportscenter.

Recouperated and tried to stay warm for a couple days. Got more into the swing of things today and went out with mom to cut ourselves a Christmas tree. Drove out into a snowy road into the national forest and then traped through the snow before we finally found a nice one we liked. Tonight after some pizza (very difficult to eat with chopstix let me tell ya) we sat down to watch the snow village and listen to a concert a la Reg. Tomorrow heading down to Denver for a big Christmas concert at the buell theatre and then a fancy dinner in LoDo.

Vietnamese Sahara

12/7 Took a late flight from Hanoi to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)where I arrived around 12:30. Slept at the airport and then took a bus in the morning to Mui Ne for a day trip. I met a really nice security guard at the bus station who went around showing me all his favorite things to eat for breakfast and helping me find my bus. When he found out I was American he was all excited saying how great a country the USA is. He asked me, "did you know we were once enemies? Not anymore now. I talk to many americans!" This was actually the first vietnamese that had brought up the American war (as it's known everywhere outside of n. america) without me asking something about it And as I had come to find, still no one with hard feelings. The interesting thing about vietnam is that although we may have lost the war, it appears as though we won overall. Everywhere you look are American products, chains, movies, tv, freedoms, and ideas. Vietnam appears to be full steam capitalist with only communism as a name. Everyone is out trying to make a buck, or a dong...or as many millions of dongs as they can (1 USD= 20,000 dong). Hung, my motorbike guide was saving up to start his own business, something I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find in a communist society.

The book had said that the trip from Saigon to Mui Ne was supposed to take 2.5 hours, but it took 5! But I still had plenty of time b/c check in wasn't until 4am the next morning. So I rented a motorbike (a sweet fully manual old bmw), and took off to explore the area which is known for its fish sauce plant and sand dunes. My first stop was a fishing village where I scratched my head at the completely circular boats that they had. Seemed like not the best boat design to decrease water drag. But I guess it's been working for thousands of years.

Rode on to the red sand dunes, which you got it, are some dunes made of red sand. Climbed up to the top and then went back to the bike to ride the 30k's to the white sand dunes. The drive along the coast was very scenic, though blustery with sand blowing around. The desolate, hot, and dusty landscape made me think of how I imagined the dust bowl to be, especially after having passed a huge cemetary just placed in the middle of nowhere amongst plants that looked like sage. But then I saw the towering white sand dunes in the distance, glowing out of the stark landscape with a shimmering lake below them. These dunes were much larger and more spectacular. It was a bit of a rough and 4wd road to get to them. I spent a couple hours hiking around them and up to the tallest one. Once back at my bike, 3 of the boys who work there renting sleds to slide down the dunes with asked if I could give them a ride back to their village. Why not? I put one up against the handlebars up front and two behind me (plus I still had my pack on). It was just like the typical asian soccer mom van that you see all around: a mom driving (always talking on the phone, with a baby on the front and 2 kids on the back, and perhaps a live chicken strapped on for dinner. I put on my asian face mask (to keep out the sand and dust) and took off. A little ways down the road some tourists had crashed on the wild road. People were there helping them, so I continued past them. All the bystanders gave me quite the quizzical look. A white guy, with four vietnamese children crammed on, wearing a face mask, and driving an old school bike (most of the tourists rent the typical scooter or semi automatic motorbike). It was like I was asian, and after 364 days, I sure as heck should have looked and acted like one.

On the way back I stopped at the red sand dunes to watch the sunset where I met Safrie a nice indonesian who had gone to the savannah college of art and design, a big CofI swimming rival.

Back at Mui Ne at 6pm, I found out that the last bus to Saigon had left at 5pm. Well there was one that left at 2am, but it arrived at 6am to saigon, and I needed to be at the airport by 4am for check in. Everyone said that there were no more busses. But this is Asia, and I certainly didn't believe this. I told them that there must be busses running along the major highway that starts in hanoi, goes through Da Nang and Nha Trang. They said probably so. So I took a motorbike out to the highway and also took with me a sing with Saigon written on it in case I had to hitch hike b/c I am sure there would be plenty of traffic on the highway. After a few minutes, the first public bus came by. It was 8pm, which meant I had 7 hours plus 1 hour allowed for a taxi to the airport to get to saigon. Considering the direct bus had taken 7 hours but had lots of traffic, I would make it. But I got on the bus and it was terribly slow. Every asian bus I have been in has a driver that drives like crazy. But not this one. featherfoot. Add that to stopping for bathroom breaks, a meal, and picking up and dropping off people, and I was getting quite worried that I would make it. Believe me, I was timing how fast we were doing 25km segments (it was exactly 200km (124miles) from mue ni to saigon. It was starting to look like it would be very close. I didn't want to risk it, so at one of the food breaks, I stood by the highway and flagged down a fast moving minivan. It had room for me and was glad to take some dong to take me, actually neary the airport. Ended up getting dropped off around midnight at some random point in saigon and with plenty of time. So I sat down for my last meal in South East Asia!! Had two bowls of Pho and 2 bottles of saigon brew.

Motorbike touring through northern Nam to China

12/2 After my walk around hanoi in the morning, I met my motorbike guide, Hung, and the owner of mototours asia. We sat down for some green tea before taking off. This was to be a for real motorbike tour. Not one of those wimpy ones on a scooter or a semi-automatic bike. No, this one was on an old soviet minske bike. Fully manual, no gauges like odometer, fuel, etc. We got decked out in motorbike pants and a motorbike jacket, loaded up saddle bags and headed off. It took us an hour to get out of hanoi, and it was one of the most exciting and nervewracking thing I have done. You remember in a previous blog me describing how crazy the traffic was. Well I went into it headon. Good thing Lucas had taught, way back in the Philippines when he burned his leg, me how to drive a manual or I could have been in trouble. Of course the good news is that the other drivers are so skilled it didn't matter if I didn't know the rules (or the unrules) of the road. But before long I was weaving in and out with no problem.
The first day was mainly just driving on flat roads through the red river valley. We passed lots of countryside and agriculture and women working in the field sporting the infamous conical vietnamese hat. Just like the vietnam that you always think of. For lunch we had dog bbq. Yep, that's right, DOG bbq! I asked the name of the dog, and it was little Fluffy. Just kidding! They actually have farms for dogs, just like we have for chickens or cows or pigs. Crazy as it was, it was one of the best meat dishes I had eaten in Asia. Truth is, in all liklihood,I had eaten dog before in asia b/c it's a common food and lots of times when ordering things from pots set out by street vendors, you just point and then eat it. You try and figure out what it is, but usually they don't know english, and our english sounds for farm animals (moo, quack, oink, baa-a, ruff) aren't the same in their language. So you just eat it. Probably have eaten horse, snake, lizards, and other such things as well.
This motorbike trip was actually one of the best tours I had done in Asia. And one of the great things was the food. For lunch Hung always took me out to a local joint and ordered a plethora of things. Instead of the attempt at "western" asian food (what I mean by this is asian food that guides always assume is the only thing we can eat like fried rice or noodles and beef or the like), he ordered very vietnamese food, and not just the food they had out for display, but ones only a vietnamese would know how to order. Also had some other unusual things like chicken feet, fish poppers, duck embryos. Also at every lunch we had other people in the restaurant come up and offer to buy me beers and rice wine. We'd usually accept a couple, but then as we had to drive, we'd decline the rest. The locals were always so interested in me and they'd come up to talk (translating through hung with his excellent english)...and just so friendly. I of course had worried a bit about hard feelings towards me as an american visiting a country they we fought, bombed the heck out of, and is still suffering the effects of agent orange. But this was pointless worry. They loved americans and were so happy to meet me, shake my hands, share some rice wine with. SOme of the homestay people had maps and wanted me to show them all the nice places of america. (my version of the nice places of american probably differs just somewhat from most: Estes Park, Stanley Idaho, Jackson hole and the geysers, the grand canyon, the big trees of california, moab, aspen, etc). You could just see in their friendly eyes their true interest and enjoyment with talking to me. And always offering me rice wine, beer, and green tea (which is their social after meal drink that is drunk at a different table than where the meal is. It's also a welcome drink at homes and a drink to share when you meet new people). And Hung was really great b/c he would do a great job of translating and when we'd meet teachers or other educated people, he wouldn't let them speak in vietnamese for basic english conversation. On this trip I really felt like I got to know a lot of the people. But even on my little bit of independent travel I did get to do while in vietnam, I found the locals so nice. Always willing to help me out or just go out of their way to try and offer me the better spot (for my long legs) on the bus, or get me to the right bus, etc.

Each night we stayed at the home of a hill tribe minority group. The ethnicity of vietnamese makes up 90% of the population of vietnam. The rest of the 10% is made up of westerners and the minority tribes in the north such as the tay, white tay, black tay, and hmong. They each have very distinct dress, languages, and houses. The homestays were great. They would cook an amazing meal and we'd have an unlimited amount of rice wine. As is tradition, you first get out the rice wine, where you take little shots and saying jesuquay before taking it. In the Tay minority they'd also shake hands after each shot and say howmaydo (thankyou in Tay). You'd take several shots of the rice wine before it was time to start eating and then continue while eating and then after eating until it was time for the green tea. With the first family they brought out a 1.5L old coke bottle of rice wine. I was really feeling it when we finally finished it, and I was quite relieved, but then, the father went back and brought out a whole other bottle! At first I thought the rice wine stuff was only being done for me as the tourist, but he said they always do it, and it's true that I would notice everyone in the restaurants with their bottle of rice wine. One of the really great things about this trip and the homestays was that the family would eat dinner with us and then attempt to talk to us via hung the interpreter. And I was actually staying right in their house, so with them all the time. I have done quite a lot of homestays on this trip and with most of them you stay in some specially built shack for tourists or on their deck. Rarely inside the actual home. And also usually the family doesn't eat with you, and neither does the guide b/c they instead eat their everyday local food and give the tourists that western asian food I was talking about. So I really felt like I got attached to the family and got to know them.

The first night we stayed in a little village called Ton Tra with a white tay minority family who were farmers. They lived in stilted houses that could be open to the air in the summer or closed up in the winter (which it was now) for warmth. That night the vietnam soccer team was playing thailand in their first pool game of the SEA games. The South East Asian equivalent of the olypmics. They're the two best teams in SEA, so it was a tough match with plenty of rice wine that ended in a 1-1 draw. We woudl also along the trip watch the next 3 games as the vietnamese were really into their soccer. Amazingly Conrad and Whitney who were flying out of Vientiane, Laos where the SEA games were being held attended the Vietnam/Thai game and I'm assuming were rooting for vietnam as well since in their pictuers they were wearing red shirts with big yellow stars.

On day 2 we headed out on a small dirt single track to check out a lake. We then continued further north through more rural areas and some hills. This was the start, but definitely not the end of endless children running out to wave and shout hello. They loved to come bounding out to shout hello. But even all the women endlessly walking or pushing bicycles on the road carrying loads of agricultural stuff would smile and wave. And all the highschoolers on bicycles going back and forth from class (it always seemed like they were going back and forth from class) would come say a bold hello and then run back away shy and giggling to their friends. And of course the men sitting drinking beer or just hanging about would wave and smile. You'd hear shouts from high up on the hills or high up on buildings as you'd go by. And anyone passing you on a motorbike would slow down to wave and smile. I just loved all that. I don't think they get many westerners in the area b/c it's far of the tourist track. In the whole 6 days on the trip I didn't see a single westerner. Mix all the friendly locals with the great scenery and the unique little agricultural fields and villages and it was just great riding. That night we stayed in a Hmong minority house on the shores of Ba Be lake. Of course had a great meal and plenty of rice wine.

On day 3 we did a couple hour boat ride on Ba Be lake in Ba Be national park checking out the mountain and jungle scenery and watching monkeys along the lake shore. Today was a day of riding over big mountain passes with amazing scenery in order to get to the town of Cao Bang. From Cao Bang it was a short ride over another pass and into a magical land of towering limestone karsts and rice paddies and little villages. Of course this unique landscape came with so many smiling and waving people. It was like travelling back in time to days gone by. There was absolutely not machines save for a few passing motorbikes on the road. Water buffalo were used to plow the field, all the harvested crops (along with anything else imaginable) was carted off on bicycles or on shoulder yokes carried by the women. All the fields were being handwatered by people carrying large buckets on shoulder yokes. Definitely no irrigation here. And no tractors to help harvest the various things. Just huge groups of people. The students coming in on their bicycle would soon join the group working out in the fields. Old women were in the little huts cooking on fires. It really looked like something out of the middle ages or 16th century china or something. I just really loved riding through here b/c it was so unique and the karst scenery so absolutely amazing. If you've heard of the famous guilin tourist destination in china, this is what that is like. Something else unique about this area was that being winter and farther north and up in elevation a bit, it was cold. So everyone was out in coats and wool hats and gloves. I hadn't seen that in Asia yet of course. I figure the cold (not that cold maybe 50's to 60's as the lows) helped me to begin my acclimitization towards the cold colorado winter I would be returning to. That night we stayed in Quang Uyen with a Nung An minority family that had the funniest and happiest grandma I had seen and a cute little daughter, who was 3 or 4, who was always so happy to share her fruit and water with me.

Day 4 was an amazing amazing day of scenery. Add the scenery to the sunny mild day, the cool little farming villages, all the happy, waving people, and the great food and homestay, and the day definitely made it into my top 10 days overall best days in asia. I can't even imagine how incredible it would have been had we been there during the wet season when the rice paddies shimmered green instead of being harvested and brown now.

We drove for several hours through the amazing karst scenery up little passes between farming valleys. The woman at the gas station accidentally didn't mix the oil with the gas, which is what needs to be done for minske bikes, so we had some engine issues, which was the only slight damper on the day. But after a while Hung with the help of other guys on the road was able to get them going again. We took back roads arriving all the way at the chinese border in the north. The border is a river, with a beautiful and very wide waterfall at one point. The falls are called Ban Gioc. Once there, we took a bamboo raft along the river to get right up to the spray of the falls. I had crossed borders on this trip about every way imaginable: boat, plane, train, automobile, walking, but I hadn't swum across yet. So I wanted to do this. But Hung told me that one of the signs written in vietnames said no crossing over to the border. Had Hung not been with me, I probably would have done it, b/c a. I couldn't read the sign, b. there weren't any police or anything around, just women selling wares and men poling bamboo rafts, and c. I could have dove deep and held my breath the whole way across so they wouldn't have seen me anyways. But I decided to not get hung in trouble so I didn't do it. But it was kind of funny b/c on our side were the vietnamese tourists (no westerners) and on the other side were chinese tourists. We could wave at each other, but not go across to the other side. In fact a chinese tourist through me a chinese apple from his boat to my boat. Delicious! I was able to get the boatman close enough to the chinese side that I was able to quickly jump onto a rock on that side and jump back, and can now say I've been in china. I would of course end up in Hong Kong later via airplane, so it didn't really matter. I don't know if you've ever noticed at chinese or vietnamese restaurants (or maybe it's only the ones i've been to) but the paintings and drawings of the steep mountains (limestone karsts) and waterfalls flowing onto rice paddies. Well, that's basically what this was. Wow! So beautiful. On the way back to Quang Uyen we took a different way and just as scenic. At one point we took a steep dirt road up to the top of a mountain (where they were currently erecting a monument to the unknown soldiers who had died in the american war) that had great views down to the river and across all the mountains.

Day 5 we started off early, but about an hour into it my bike broke down most likely due to residual problems with the unmixed fuel. I had to get a tow back to the town which meant that Hung drove his motorbike with one leg extended while he pushed me. After several hours, it had appeared they had fixed the bike, so we continued on. Up over a really scenic, sweet and rough dirt pass. At the very top my motorbike died. Luckily I was able to coast the next 12km to the town at the bottom (no different than mountain biking really.). Another couple hours later the bike was fixed (and this time for good). We had obviously made poor time that day, so we wouldn't be making it to the destination and homestay we were supposed to and would instead have to take a shortcut, or at least faster and easier way. Hung still wanted to get a bit closer to Hanoi, so we drove on into the night. Now with all the fixing of my bike going on, the headlight had lost power. So Hung bought me a flashlight and I just followed behind him, which was fine. An hour later we arrived in That Khe where we stayed at a guesthouse

Day 6 We continued on to Hanoi through Lang Son and more nice scenery before arriving in the crazed traffic of hanoi. Since we still had day light left, Hung showed me some sights in Hanoi like where John McCain's jet had crashed and he'd been captured, the wreckage of a B52 bomber shot down, and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. We later sat down for some sugar cane juice and to wait for his wife so that I could meet her. She was all excited to practice her english with me.

But wow! what a great tour and an amazing way to see the beauty and friendly people of north vietnam.

Sailing through the descending dragon on an old junk

11/29 Joined a three day tour to the famous world heritage halong bay, which means dragon descending into the ocean. We first drove to halong city where we boarded an old (chinese?) junk. It was quite fancy and luxurious really. We spent the first day sailing around halong bay. Spectacular! Halong bay is a bay in the gulf of Tonkin where giant limestone karsts jut out of water producing huge sheer cliffs that rise straight from the water up to the top of the mtn. In the afternoon we explored a very intricate cave on one of the islands and then kayaked around some of the islands and watched the sunset. At night we had a nice dinner and then sat up on the deck of the junk and watched the stars.

The next day we did more touring of the gorgeous bay before stopping on one of the bigger islands to do some biking through nice scenery to a small village. After the biking we continued on the junk through halong bay where we stopped for lunch at a beach and did some more kayaking. After that we reboarded the junk to sail onto cat ba town on cat ba island. On the way we passed lots of cool floating fishing villages. When we checked into the hotel, most of the people went to take naps, but I hiked up a hill just outside of town to get a nice view of the bay and the sunset over the bay. On top of the hill there were some old ruins, that definitely looked like some old fort b/c the windows had the narrow slit design used to protect from arrows or bullets or whatever. Not sure how old they were.

The next day we made our way back to halong city, of course going through amazing scenery. We arrived back to hanoi in the late afternoon, so I got to explore hanoi a bit for the first time in daylight. I continued to really like this alive city. Walked to some lake with some temples in the middle and to an old cathedral and just enjoyed walking around looking at all the goings on of the city. At night I sat down for some pho and bia hoi and watched my last full moon in asia =(

12/2 I had a motorbike tour booked to leave today, so I got up really early to continue my walking around hanoi in daylight hours. Of course the city was quite active even at 6am. My favorite was walking around the same lake with the temples. Lots and lots of people were running around it, but the best were huge groups all around doing yoga, tai chi, and dancing to music. People of all ages out there doing exercises and dancing. Pretty funny and entertaining. And on one side there were even whole free weight sets where guys were working out. I hadn't experienced anywhere else in asia yet where there was such an exercise conscious society.

Good morning Vietnam (and wild hanoi)

11/27 Flew from Luang Prabang, Laos to Hanoi Vietnam, a city that turns 1000 in 2010. Checked into a really sweet hostel in the Old Quarter and then walked around Hanoi. Hanoi is a crazy and awesome city. Perhaps my favorite in Asia thus far. It's very alive and happening and has felt the most "asian" of the places I've been. Maybe b/c hollywood is always doing vietnam or chinese (n. vietnam has a large chinese influence) movies so that's what we think of. But all the ladies in the street are walking around wearing the conical hats and carrying their wares over their shoulder on bamboo poles with straw baskets. There are locals out on all the steet courners eating noodles (pho) and bia hoi (pints of on tap beer hanoi for the huge sum of 15 cents). The streets were filled with people walking, cyclos (the 3 wheeled push bikes used to cart people around), old chinese bicycles, and of course hordes of motorbikes. One of the things I really liked about the city was that there was not a so-called tourist ghetto like khao san in bangkok. Here the tourist stuff was intermingled with the everyday lives of the local vietnamese. Whereas in bangkok you had to walk a bit to get to a place that wasn't entirely there b/c of tourists, in Hanoi it was right outside your hostel. And the city was so alive and happening and abuzz, which was a huge contrast from Cambodia and Laos. And it wasn't some giant nasty city either, it was sort of cute with nice boulevards, lots of lakes and parks, and tree-lined narrow streets.
The traffic in the city was purely insane. They say saigon is worse, though I didn't have much time to experience it there. But anyways, there are about 7 million people in Hanoi and somewhere around 5 million motorbikes. As someone said, hanoians eat, sleep, and dream on motorbikes. There's not really any road rules and the roads are so packed with motorbikes, people, and bicycles that it's a wonder that the traffic moves, but it does of course. Traffic supposedly drives on the right side of the road in vietnam, but in the city, it doesn't matter what side you drive on. Motorbikes are on the right side, in the middle, on the left side, using the sidewalk, anywhere. At 4-way intersections, there's really no stopping or traffic lights. Instead all 4 sides just go into it. They dodge, swerve, and ultimately find their way through to the other side. You've seen those movies that show the mess of pedestrians on sidewalks in downtown NYC where they are bumping into each other, swerving out of the way, etc. Well this was how the roads in hanoi were except with motorbikes, bicycles, and pedestrians (lots of sidewalks are so crammed with motorbike parking that you just have to walk in the road). The amazing thing though is that the motorbike drivers are so skilled and adept at swerving around and through traffic that I never once witnessed an accident. Some near misses, well everything appeared to be a near miss, but no accidents. The other thing that's interesting is that they seem to have unlimited patience with each other. They never get upset if they have to do a hard swerve or sudden break, or at anyone going the wrong direction. The only time that they get angry is that if they are at a rare stoplight that is obeyed and someone isn't already moving into the intersection before the light turns green. In hanoi they have the stoplights with the countdowns that tell you how long until the next green or red light. So when it's a red light and the countdown is down to 4, you better be going, which means of course, the other side still has about 3 seconds left of green. But again no accidents.
Another fun, and at first scary experience is crossing the roads in hanoi. There are crosswalks, but they are just a waste of paint. You can't wait until there is a break in traffic b/c that definitely won't happen until perhaps at 3 in the morning. So what you do is just start walking into the street, sort of blindly. Taylor the canadian I had travelled with in burma told me that you just have to go and if you hesitate, then that is when you'll be hit b/c they are trying to predict your moves. Now I had a leg up on most tourists here b/c I had been dealing with asian traffic and street crossing for a year now. It is usually does involved walking into the road with the traffic going, just going one lane at time. When one lane clears, you cross it, then stand on the divider line as traffic whizzes by until the next lane clears up, and then you go across. But hanoi was even more intense b/c instead of 4 lanes with 4 lines of traffic to cross, you had 4 lanes with 20 motorbikes across, swerving, going the wrong direction, etc. But it's true, you just walk out there slowly and keep moving, and they swerve around you. It's crazy to see the little kids (like 5 years old) doing this, or the women with the long bamboo poles taking up a much greater width doing it, or the old grannies that can hardly walk in the first place. I loved watching the traffic there. It was so crazy. When I was eating noodles at an intersection ones, I watched a western couple attempt to cross the street. It took them 20 minutes to attempt to cross the street before they ended up hiring a motorbike to take them across. But you just got to go and they'll miss you.

11/28 With my shortened time left before my trip ended and in an attempt to see as much as possible I would be doing a couple of tours out of hanoi. I usually try to avoid these, b/c they are never as good as doing it by yourself on your own time, but I was short on time, so I needed the quick day type tours instead of arranging going to the place myself, sleeping there and then touring it. So instead of going to Ninh Bin to visit Tom Coc I would just do the day trip, and instead of going to Cat Ba island to tour halong bay from there, I would be doing a 3 day trip out of hanoi that made a stop there.
So today I took a day trip to Tom Coc, known as Halong Bay on rice paddies. On the way we stopped at a few temples back from the time when China controlled vietnam. Once we arrived in the Tom Coc area we took a couple hour bike through a cool canyon. Then we boarded a little boat that fits two people rowed by a vietnamese woman and were rowed for several hours through a cool limestone canyon on a little river that included going through 4 cave tunnels. Very gorgeous and serene ride.

Thanksgiving in Laos and a sad goodbye to the Franks

11/25-26 Took the crazy nightbus to luang prabang. The bus driver and conductors both had ak-47 machine guns with them b/c apparently the night bus in this region can often get raided.

11/26 Thanksgiving! We arrived bright and early into Luang Prabang in time to see the huge procession of brightly orange clad monks collecting their food alms in the morning. Luang Prabang is a world heritage city for its well preserved french era architecture and plethora of temples. It's at the confluence of the mekong and some other river. It's a really nice city with the rivers, perfect weather and temps, clean and quiet streets, and laid back feel. A bit boring, but in a good way. A place my parents would really like with its chic cafes, great bakeries, good french and european food, art galleries, tourist markets, and just sort of classy vibe. Most of the tourists seemed to be affluent and of middle age or older. We just walked around and saw a bit of the city in the morning and got our baguettes and fruit shakes. In the afternoon we took a tuk tuk up to Tat Kuangsi Waterfall, which was a multi tiered fall of incredibly beauty similar to erawan falls in thailand. A couple huge falls and then lots of small cascades and sweet pools made even better by the cool blue milky color of the water. We hiked up to the top of the falls and then came back down to swim in the pools and do some waterfall jumping. I'll never get over how sweet the little pools and falls in limestone karsts areas are. Just like a disneyland fairies' wonderland.

Back in town that evening we had the task of trying to put together a thanksgiving feast. Conrad and I had walked around the town in the morning looking for an american expat throwing a party while whitney recovered from the bus ride. We did find one american expat who owned the lao lao garden bar, but this was the first year of his 5 years he wasn't throwing a party b/c of the lack of americans travelling this year. So we just went to the night food market and pieced together our thanksgiving dinner. The holiday is really about family, friends, and being thankful, which we had, so it didn't really matter what we had. We avoided the snails, toads, chicken toes, cow intestine, and other uknown things and settled for a vegetable and noodle buffet. 80 cents to fill a plate as high as you could with noodles, vegetables (including potatoes and pumpkin!). We were quite successful with our stacking and managed to stuff ourselves in good thanksgiving fashion. But don't worry America, we didn't let you down and have only vegetables, we stuffed ourselves even further by getting a whole fish and some chicken (hey it's poultry) legs and of course beer laos. We had also found a very good, but extremely overpriced bakery that had pumpkin pie. We bit the bullet in honor of thanksgiving and got a slice of pumpkin, apple, and in honor of SE asia, mango pie. We finished the night with some tiger beers by a fire at the american lao lao garden bar. Not a bad thanksgiving at all! We got kicked out of the bar at 11pm as laos has an 11pm curfew (unless of your you're chinese and own a chinese bar or bowling alley, b/c then, well, your country gives so much money to laos, you can do whatever you please), so grabbed some beer laos roadies and went back to our place to finish the pies.

The next morning we walked the town a bit, had some last baguettes together and then had fruitshakes in the shade by the mekong river. We all got our last beer laos together as I waited for the tuk tuk to take me to the airport. It was a sad sad goodbye as I had so much fun with conrad and whitney. They are so fun, good and adventurous, and great travellers. I always love being with them, and now I know travelling with them is great as well. Thanks Conrad and Whitney!!! It was great. Love ya and miss ya both!

I had hoped to bus to hanoi, vietnam, but apparently there are some decent mountains and crappy roads in between so the route would take 2+ days, which would have been fine if I had the time, but time is running low so I opted for the 40 minutes flight into hanoi and the 2 hour drive in crazy traffic from the airport to the old quarter.

Vang Vieng: The partyer's disneyland

11/23 We arrived in the late morning into Vang Vieng, a small and cute town situated along a scenic river with karst mountains everywhere. Amongst backpackers, vang vieng is known for its tubing. Now this isn't like tubing in the boise river or boulder creek. This is tubing on lao lao whiskey and beerlao! You rent a tube and a tuk tuk takes you up to the start. The tubing part of the river is 4km. But all the bars are located in the first 800m. We started about 1:30 and figured we'd have plenty of time to make it all the way back to vang vieng before dark. Boy were we wrong. Anyways, there are maybe 8 bars in the stretch. You start at the first bar with a beer and a free shot of lao lao whiskey. It has an incredibly sweet rope swing at least 25 or 30 feet high above the river. Quite scary the first time, but then great everytime after that. Especially with a few tall boy beer laos in us. Eventually it was time to move onto the next bar. As you're floating downriver. Laos guys throw ropes out to you to pull you in. When you get pulled in they quickly poor laos laos into your mouth and welcome you aboard. The bars, without the toys of the swings, ropes, and zip lines are sweet in themselves. Just a bunch of people from everywhere having fun, dancing, and good music. Throw in the water stuff, the Franks, and it's amazing!! Of course there were other things going on (read lots of drugs) and supposedly even mushroom shakes, though we steered clear even though a couple american girls were really wanting me to roll some joints for them since they had bought some maryjane and were completely sure that everyperson in colorado could roll a good joint with their eyes closed. By the time it got dark we hadn't even made it to the last bar, let alone the 3km's past that. So instead of tubing that part in our drunket state, we took a tuk tuk back to town where we feasted on baguettes. On a side note, the baguettes in laos are amazing. Thank God for the French influence there. It's so nice to have some good bread finally. We definitely got more than our fair share of the big 3 (beer laos, mango shakes ,and baguettes) in laos since they were all so incredibly cheap. We crashed early that night...around 9pm, but that's what happens when you start at 1.
The touristy part of vang vieng is interesting b/c it a bunch of people recuperating and watching reruns of friends and family guy and also lots of people in arm slings and foot bandages most likely from drunken river accidents (thought he one gal I did ask had broken her hand punching her boyfriend for cheating on her)
The rest of our days in vang vieng weren't so crazy, though of course they did involve plenty of beer laos
Our 2nd day we took a tour that first involved a boring buddha cave but then a sweet tubing trip inside a cave. You jump on this tube and then paddle into this cave that i only really accessible via floating inner tube. So that was a cool experience. After that we kayaked 12 km's of the river along the gorgeous mountains including the last 4 km's that we had missed on the tubing. We of course did stop at a bar when we got to the tubing area. It was the slide bar that we had missed before and featured a giant slide that shot you straight out and slightly up over the river. Very scary and very fast, even after having done it a couple time, but so much fun. That night we went out for beer laos and a fancy steak dinner for whitney's american birthday. (3.50 for steak, salad, french fries, fruit shake, and garlic bread on a baguette)
Our last day we rented bikes and toured the vang vieng rural countryside a bit, which was great. We stopped at a big cave and then did some swimming and rope swinging at a great little swimming hole called the blue lagoon. That night we rolled up to a bar with hammocks overlooking the river and watched the sunset over the karst mountains and river while sipping on beer laos and reflecting on how sweet laos is. One of the things we love about laos is how the family just lives in the store or hotel or business that they work at. This may happen in the other countries, but it's so noticeable here. You roll up to a conveniance store and the baby is just walking around chasing marbles on the floor. grandpa is leaning up against a case of beers, grandma is knitting on the floor and you can see the mattresses stored away to be brought out at night (and most of the day as well). Pretty nice really. Means you can live and work at the same place with no commuting and lots of sleeping. That night we got a massage and the usual chicken baguettes and fruitshakes before catching the incredibly windy and bumpy night bus to the world heritage city of luang prabang.

Floating Away in Laos

11-19-09 We met up with our guide Seng and took a sawngthaew to Ban Khoun Kham from where we hiked up to a nice waterfall called tat namsanam for a very, very cold swim in phu hin bun national park. Saw some elephant poo, but no elephants.

The next morning we drove to the river to set off on our kayak trip. The river was initially a bit too low, but as we sat there getting the stuff ready, the river started rising pretty quickly. This is b/c the chinese own a dam up above and begin releasing more water in the morning. The chinese are heavily invested in laos. laos doesn't have enough money to construch huge projects like dams, but china will build it for them, bring the electricity to china and then sell it for 3 times as much. Pretty crazy. But hydropower dams are being built all over laos. We kayaked all day, going through small villages, past lots of water buffaloes, and people just hanging out by the river bank. Towards the end of the day we reached phu hin bun (we were kayaking on the nam hin bun river) which was more jungle clad and had lots of big karst mountains around making the scenery quite stunning. When we reached the national park we just put the kayaks together and floated. Less than 1km from our final destination we came upon a large fallen tree in the water that we didn't see until the last minute. Conrad and Whitney's kayak was on the outside so they narrowly escaped, but Seng and I had to wait for them to get out of the way. We were able to duck the first branch but were flipped by a small branch sticking up. I was able to grab almost everything from the kayak except for our fish and meat for the night which quickly sunk. Shortly after we arrived at the village. It was a cool little village only accessible by foot or river float. Obviously no electricity or anything like that. The thing that we thought was the funniest and most interesting was how many farm animals were just running through the villages, and especially babies. It was bookoo babies: pigs, chickens, cows, waterbuffalo, dogs, cats, ducks, and humans! Babies everywhere. It was really windy and quite cold, so we huddled by a fire before curling up on blankets to sleep on the deck of the village leaders house. And by deck I mean open aired living/cooking/etc space.

Our 3rd day we kayaked most of the day to another similar village. From here though we dropped off our stuff, crossed the big river and then hiked a bit to a cave, or more like tunnel cave. It had a little stream running through it. We walked through the cave, partway in water, for 2 km's to reach the other side. The other side was a completely isolated valley surrounded on all sides by huge, towering, sharp, and completely vertical karsts. So the only way into the valley was by the tunnel. And guess what? There were some ancient angkor wat era ruins being strangled out by the jungle. AND a villege of about 6 to 8 houses. Complete with...yes, babies of all types. The cows and waterbuffalo and pigs and logs for the houses, and everything had to be carried through the cave and then the couple more kilometers through the dense jungle to the village. Pretty crazy. At that point we were feeling quite remote. Here we were in Laos, a country already quite remote with our kayaks parked at a village only accessible by two day boat ride or a very long walk, and on top of that in some hidden valley only accessible by a dark, watery 2km long cave. Of course the locals used torches to see in the cave. The village, which is in the national park had a porcupine caged up (which would shoot quills at you if you got too close apparently). This was sad to see considering it was a national park. That night was even colder and windier (conrad later referred to it as a gusthouse as opposed to the traditional guesthouse)than before, so we went to bed early and had to spoon to stay warm.

On the 4th day (Whitney's Laos Birthday!) we were to take a longtail boat 4 hours down the river to a small town that busses went through. It ended up taking quite a bit longer b/c of a cultural experience we were given...a very expensive one. Halfway down on our trip, we stopped along the river bank to pee. The dry bag with our cameras (and memory cards) was left on a little fence. We remembered we had left it about 5 mintues later. The boat had quite a small motor and had to go upstream, so 15 minutes after that we arrived at the bag had been left at. It was gone! Considering the remoteness of the village, it was quite obvious it couldn't be far. There had been one man with a little baby in a boat right there when we peed and figured he had picked it up. There were also some boys loading rice on that side of the river that may have possibly gotten it. We asked them (through Seng's interpretation) and they didn't have it, nor had they seen anyone other than the man. So we went to the other side of the river where the village was to ask if someone had picked it up. Now you have to realize we're really freaking out b/c not only are our cameras quite expensive, but also all our priceless pictures were there too. But I just knew it had to be there or in the area. But, in typical laos fashion (the full name of Laos is Lao PDR for people democratic republic or in other words lao people don't rush) seng was so frustratingly slow at asking people if they had it or had seen it. It seemed like he was just sitting and shooting the breeze and hardly trying. The man with the baby was nowhere to be found, and some people said he had gone out to tend his buffalo. This seemed a bit suspicious considering lao people don't rush and it was hard to beleive that in 15 minutes, during lunchtime no less, he would have crossed the river, put the baby away and gone rushing out to his buffalo. The village wasn't very large and we had soon asked everybody with no luck. Buffalo man's wife came home from the fields and she looked in their house and couldn't find it. We were really freaking out now, thinking the longer we waited, the less chance of getting it back we had. We sent conrad down stream with the boat driver just in case it had accidently fallen into the river and was going downstream. Whitney and I feared the buffalo man had taken it, run off towards a town to try and sell it. The nearest town with a road was 8 km away. I was ready to go try and track down buffalo man, but strangely, no one in the village knew where his heard was or where he might have gone. It was decided that whitney would stay at the village in case it showed up there and I would take a tractor towards town to try and hedge him off before he could sell the cameras if that was the case. Deep down inside I didn't think that would happen b/c first I had faith in just little village people that they would just be kind and also knew that used cameras don't fetch a whole lot in the laos markets. But before I left, we decided to put out a reward to anyone that could find the dry bag. We did this b/c the entire village was just sitting there watching us, doing nothing, but just watching the poor white people fret, and we hoped that by offering a reward, they would jump up (especially the kids) and try and find it. We asked Seng, and he said to offer 50 bucks (the equivalent of 10,000 dollars to us if you consider their average wage). Still no one really moved. A few minutes later, on the monks' loudspeaker, we heard them announce something in laos. I asked seng what they said and he said they had just talked about the reward. As soon as seng finished answering the question who do you think walked right into the village? Buffalo man with a huge smile on his face. As soon as I realized he had it, I gave him and whitney a big hug. He took us to his little grain barn and burried in the grain was the dry bag. Hmmm... Mighty suspicious if you ask me. It's hard to know if it was coincidence or not, but buffalo man seemed to appear out of the bushes at quite the right opportunity to receive the reward. So now we were in a bit of a sticky situation b/c we had offered 50 bucks to whoever found the bag, and he hadn't exactly found the bag as it had been with him the whole time. We were giving out the reward more to someone already there to go out and find it. Of course we had promised the reward, so we would honor it, but we really hated paying this guy so much money in front of all those people, especially the kids b/c what lesson did it teach them? Grab a white man's stuff and get lots and lots of money in reward! But we had no option really. We had hoped the guy would say no to the reward (as I feel any one of our neighbors would do if we offered up a reward for a lost cat or something), but he definitely wasn't going to do that, which made his whole thing even more suspicious. In the end we couldn't really be sure as to if he had just picked it up and would have given it to us or if he was waiting for a reward or how deep the whole thing went. Maybe all the villagers were involved. Even seng could have been involved. Who's to know, especially when all the conversation was in Laos. What I would have given to know laos then! But in the end we were thankful as we had retrieved everything. B/c of that fiasco and Seng being picky about what bus we took We didn't arrive into vientiane (the capital of laos) until around 1am. We were originally supposed to be in around 6 to catch the 8pm night bus to vang vieng. But while waiting for the bus to vientiane we had some beers to celebrate whitney's laos birthday.
So we spent a short night in vientiane before catching the early bus to vang vieng

Chillaxin in Southern Laos

11/12

Took a bus from Kratie to the Cambodia/Laos border. The border was pretty hilarious. It was just two random delapidated stilted wooden buildings. One to leave cambodia where there was a 1 dollar "fee", then a 100 meter walk to the one to enter Laos where the guy there decided to charge a 2 dollar "fee". Which I guess makes sense b/c we had to wake the poor guy up. There was no video security or anything like that, but one guy was there with a digital camera taking photos of all the white people crossing the border. Maybe for his own fun, but maybe for something official. The healthcare checkpoint was only guarded by a rooster, so we breezed through that, wary of catching bird flu from the inspector.

We then hopped on some big old passenger truck and took a short ride on an extremely pot-holed rode to the riverside of the mekong. It was now completely dark, but we hopped into a little longtail boat and headed off to Don Dhet, one of the islands in Si Phan Don (the 4000 islands). We checked into a place and then had fruitshakes and our first drink of the infamous beer lao. There is no electricity there from 10pm to 4pm, so it was definitely a sweaty night in our bungalows without a fan.

The next morning we got up early to take advantage of the slightly "cooler" morning air to ride bicycles to Don Khon Island. To get between the islands you cross a bridge that housed the only rail line ever built by the french in laos. From there we continued to bike until we came to the otherside and there is a powerful waterful as part of the mekong tumbles through some cataracts. The waterfall wasn't very tall or anything, but still very impressive with the huge amount of water of the mekong tumbling down and creating all that force. The ride there and back was scenic, through some rice fields and quiet villages. The 4000 islands are known as being the most relaxed place in Laos, a country that is known as one of the most relaxed places in the world. And we found that to be true. Almost everyone was just sitting in their hammocks or sleeping under a tree or in their store. And just very quiet and peaceful. So slow moving.

After our bike ride, we broke laos tradition and instead of spending the rest of the day in hammocks along the river sleeping and reading, we took the Happy Boat Tour which was a party barge type thing. We were on it with 2 germans (burndt and Anya), an Irishwoman (danielle, who was a covert bbc reporter paid to just chill in asia until some sort of story came up, but most recently she had been doing undercover reporting in Burma where the bbc is prohibited), and 2 aussie gals. The tour involved motoring to some island, swimming in the mekong all day to stay cool with beer lao bottles and buckets of lao whiskey and coke. At some point we had a fish bbq and then moved back to the river for more buckets and swimming. Then a mud fight of course! Eventually we got out tubes, tied them to the boat and took off back towards don dhet, all drunk and having a good time.

11/14 Took the boat then bus to Pakse and then another bus to Paksong, high up on the Bolaven Plateau where the air was magically and refreshingly cool. We celebrated the cool air with a thai bbq. The Bolaven plateau is noted for its cool air, waterfalls, and coffee plantations.

11/15 Rented motor bikes and drove 55km to Namtok Katamatok, the supposed largest waterfall in SE Asia. It's 120m tall (400ft) and truly impressive. You can't get down to the base of it, but even from a distance it's incredible as it tumbles off of the jungly plateau. The sound alone is crazy loud and then just watching the water crash onto the rocks and make all that mist. A most awesome waterfall indeed. The 55k there was an adventure as well. The first 10 km was on the "good" road according to the guy we rented from, but it was a paved road pockmarked with giant motorcycle swallowing potholes. So we had to get our swerve on and basically play mario kart with our real life scooters dodging potholes, oncoming traffic, chickens, water buffalo, cows, dogs, pigs, little kids, etc. After the paved pothole madness it was just a bumpy dirt road. On the way back we stopped at two other impressive waterfalls and swam at the top of one. It also poured and poured rain on the back. Brought me back a little to my sumatra motor biked days being on a cold and high plateau in pouring rain. I luckily had my rain coat with me, so I didn't get too wet and cold. But conrad and whitney just had their shorts and t-shirts, so they were icicles (whitney a shaking icicle) when we got back to our guesthouse. We were very thankful (for the first time) to have piping hot noodle soup to eat.

That night we went out to some carnival thing. There was this came with coffee beans where you put money on how many beans you thought were under the cup. It was fairly easy to see how many beans were under the cup, yet the two laotians playing were guessing wrong half the time. All of our eyes lit up with the thought of how much kip (laos money) we could make off this came, b/c it just seemed so simple. But after a short time we had all lost about 2 bucks and were done betting (2 bucks = two large beer lao's). But we were determined to figure out how we were losing, b/c it was so easy to see how many beans were under the cup. So we stayed some more and watched and realized that the guy with the beans had two co horts that were also betting and winning and losing money (which of course didn't matter b/c they were all together). These guys were used to draw you into betting b/c they would lay down stupid bets and lose. Say you saw that there were 2 beans under the cup, they'd bet 3 or 1 and lose, and we'd think how easy it was since it was obviously 2. But as soon as we bet, when it was obviously 2, it would become 3. So we figured out that the bean man would add or subtract beans magician style at the last moment after you had bet, so that you couldn't win and the to players in with him were just used to build up your confidence. There was also some weird cheat thing that would go on to draw you in as well. But we became quite intrigued with the game and went around to lots of different dealers where we could immediately spot the two helpers, and we were entertained watching them suck other people in. We of course could get really into it and talk english to each other, b/c no one else could understand. We were frustrated at our stupidness for being scammed and losing 2 bucks on the game, but of course it was 2 bucks for a whole night of good entertainment.

11/16 We walked to three other waterfalls on the plateau. First we went to Tad Champee which was an incredibly scenic and secluded falls that we enjoyed a nice dip in the very refreshing water. Next we went to Tad Fan, which is a twin falls dropping 100 meters off of the plateau. It was breathtaking, but only a bit more breathtaking than the ledge you had to stand out on to get a view of the falls. The last falls was, of course, another beautiful one called Tad Yuang. After we got done hiking to the falls, we hitch hiked a ride back to Pakse, where we got some good indian food (and some roti canais!) and then caught a night bus headed for vientiene, the capital city. The bus was super sweet as it was a sleeper bus, which meant we each had beds. We were only going as far as Tha Kaek though, so we got off at 1 am there. We hitched a ride towards town. We got picked up by an employee of one of the guest houses, so we were dropped there. The available rooms there smelled terrible, so we turned it down and walked the 1km to the next recommended guesthouse. It, and the ones nearby were all full, so we walked the next km to downtown where we finally found a guesthouse and went to bed a bit after 3am. A crazy night for sure.

11/17 Today our main job was to do laundry, buy toothpaste, and book a tour to the national park we wanted to go to. Only the toothpaste proved easy. The tour company we wanted to go through has no office here yet, even though that's what we had thought originally. But the branch in pakse said it would be easy to find other companies here. Well, there were definitely no other companies here and the tourist info office was closed for some reason (perhaps public holiday). We finally were able to get a hold of a guy to let us into the tourist office and get some info, but there wasn't anything good. So we called the company we wanted to go with originally and who is based in vientienne. They said they had nothing and couldn't, so we were kind of bumming and not knowing what to do. But as is my asian moto of nothing is impossible, don't believe anything from anyone, and be persistant, we tried another number from the same company and were able to book a tour, and only 1 day later then we hoped. With the Laundry conrad and whitney gave someone our clothes who asked for 2 dollars and they assumed would wash it. This is yet to be determined. But we are psyched for our tour in Phin Hun Bun national park.

Tonight we have a date to sip beer lao along the cool breezes of the mekong as the sun sets across the river over thailand.
Tomorrow we plan to just hang out in Tha Kaek, do some reading, perhaps a massage, and anything else there is to do here before our trip that takes off on the 19th and goes until the 22nd.

11/18 Didn't do much except head to the tha kaek market where Conrad made sure to buy the highly endangered pengalin to bbq up that night. j/k. But yes, it was one of the more crazy markets I have been to in asia yet with plenty of frogs, snails, snakes, rats, squirrels, and giant flying squirrels to be had. As well as some even more sketchy animals like the pangolins and beavers