Sapa - Trekking to Hilltribe Villages

Our three days trekking in Sapa in Vietnam's northern border with China has been one of the coolest things I have done on this trip yet, and definitely in Vietnam. Siem Reap edges it out by a nose. There are 50 indigenous tribes in Vietnam that are not Vietnamese - they account for about 11% of the population and tend to be in the hilly areas in the North and mid-West. We opted for the 4 night, 3 day option that included a homestay at a village. We took the night sleeper train the first night and arrived at 5am - then hopped on a minibus which drove through the dawn the remaining 35 km to Sapa, an old French outpost town. After breakfast, we gathered in the hotel lobby for our guide and saw this group of Hmong women and girls outside. How darned friendly, we thought.

The second you walk out the door, a convoy (I kept hearing the 70's song in my head) of these women and girls attach themselves to your group, at a ratio of about 3 native to each Westerner. We stopped right before we hit the muddy descending trail to buy bamboo hiking sticks... oh boy were they needed. John was inundated with kids trying to sell him a stick for 5000 dong, or about 30 cents. John bought a stick, his mom did not and later when we realized how slippery and muddy it was, and when he would offer his stick to his mom, our guide kept offering to slap him.

It had been really cold in the mountains - we heard that 800 water buffalo had died and reports of older folks and kids were heard , too. In fact, we saw buffalo in wooden huts since they were trying to keep them somewhat protected. It had warmed a bit when we got there - very misty and foggy but I was warm as long as I was moving. Here is one of our first glances of the valley with a river below and terraces of rice.

This picture can't begin to do justice to how muddy and slick these trails were. I would never look at them on my own and say Yeah! But I had little ladies to help me. The first part of the trail I was pretty independent, especially since I had a stick. However, the Wall from Hell changed that and I occasionally grabbed the hands of two older ladies that had glommed on to me.

Here is one of our escorts with a few water buffalo. She was a tough cookie - wouldn't let you take a picture later in the day without buying something.

We stopped for lunch after a couple of hours of sliding down the valley. There was a crowd of ladies outside the lunch place - its obvious that they can't come in so they hover outside.... in wait, like spiders.... and if you glance at them, its all over but the crying.... ( "you buy from me! Cheap cheap!". Note the pig wandering among the group - these black pigs were everywhere.

Our guide was a Black Hmong 17 year old girl named Tsai - and she was AWESOME! So assured for 17 - her English was pretty good and self taught,and she was tough! Here she is on the left, with the two women that held my hands the first day. After lunch, when the ladies are leaving you since the trail is easier, you are expected to buy from them if they truly helped you (this is a debate since some escorts that didn't ever touch you ask for something too). I bought a cool blue embroidered (called Brocade here) purse from the lady on the right. I think I overpaid even with some bargaining. We were warned that they prices were realllllllly high on the trail since they think they got you emotionally - so just bought the minimum after bargaining and bought more at the market in Sapa. George always gets the pretty girls.

Tsai took us through her village and to her own house - that was very special of her. Here is a shot of her little sister (center) with a baby, not a sibling, probably a neighbor, sitting in front of the family hearth. These houses tended to heat with fire and cook with fire but also had electricity - for the DVD player and TV - how sad!

Here is Tsai and about half the village kids watching TV in her house.

Despite the TV, some girls kept busy making hemp string that will be used for weaving the gorgeous Hmong textiles for sale to tourists.

Here is Tsai in front of her primary school - she is a beautiful girl. She is wearing the national uniform of Hmong guides - her native black clothes with leggings, and umbrella and Wellington boots. We all wore Wellies, actually, and a good thing since several times I went up to my knee in mud - but you can feel every stone! Tsai said that most girls stopped school after primary and only boys went on to high school - rats! We didn't see many boys , they were probably in Sapa at school.

We stayed the night in a Red Dzao village - this is a different tribe from the Hmong and has a different language. The house was two stories with a dorm upstatirs for us with mats and blankets about 4 inches thick. The first floor was concrete and had a TV . The kitchen, shown below, was a bamboo room attached to the house - probably to keep fire risk to a minimum. All food was cooked over this "two burner" bamboo fire with the little black cat about 2 inches from the fire - she was fearless - and loud! She parked herself in front of one of the girls cutting up meat and meowed incessantly till she got something. That dog , Crabby Dog, was ... crabby.Poor guy was old and moved slow (except for a brief frantic play time with another dog that night). He growled all the time if you got near him. I got up at 2am to pee and had to walk through the kitchen to get to the bathroom - and in the pitch dark that damned dog started growling at me!

This is Grandma to the family - I am scrunching down to be at her height. Sure, she looks cute and all, but the next morning when my bamboo stick went missing, guess who had it!

We had another group staying at the house and both our guide and their guide (name unknown but also a firecracker!) helped cook dinner - here she is towards the end of dinner prep. All of those dishes were cooked over the fire and were damned good! We started with fried sticky rice in paddies - yum. And then they made french fries in a huge wok and when they were served, we realized that they were garlic fries. Double yum !! There was a guy from San Francisco there and we were joking it was like Gordon Biersch fries at AT&T park! For breakfast, crepes. Amazing. Though everything I brought smelled like smoke for days.

After dinner, the family put on a Vietnamese Karaoke soap opera... it was on ongoing story about a guy getting dumped by his wife for a rich guy - lots of sobbing, from him. With Karaoke lyrics on the bottom so you could join in. Here we are sitting around a brazier trying to stay warm - our guides were transfixed by the video - and Aileen got sucked in . We were joking that we needed to pick her up a DVD to take home... or was it a joke? The home stay was great! Hung out with our guides alot, and the family a bit. In fact, the San Fran guy introduced them to Uno and got the mom hooked - she ended up betting her husband over who had to cook crepes in the morning over Uno hands - and she lost.The next morning we were greeted by the usual crowd of women waiting for the howlies to start sliding around - this meant more treachorous mud trails! Many of them trekked with babies tied to their back - and were helping us! Two girls tagging along for the walk with the valley in the background. The girl on the left had dark round bruises on her forehead - we saw that alot - and it turns out they are permanent scars from a traditional headache cure involving the heated end of a newly killed buffalo horn. Said to see that they were permanent scars.

Trying to capture how slick it was - here is the group crossing a river. You got used to sloshing through water - it was the slick red steep mud that was the problem - thank god for little Hmong ladies.

We got a great big convoy!!

Here are my Day 2 ladies - don't look happy , do they? I teased the lady on the right about not smiling and her friend said she was self conscious about not having upper teeth. And she was tough when it came time for buying... had to hold firm on the price for a pair of earrings from each lady. I asked a Red Dzao lady at lunch how much for a cool cloth necklace with metal decorations - I swear she said $50. I bought one for 50,000 Dong ,or $3, in the market. The amount of in your face price gouging and selling is a bit obnoxious and alot sad... but I guess one of the few routes to money for women that aren't allowed an education past grade school. I just wish I could hire them into high tech sales teams !

Thought this Black Hmong girl was beautiful.

The lunch crowd on Day 2 - that little lady in the middle was shy about pictures - she is a Red Dzao.

That baby was a cutie!

You read that there will be a waterfall around lunch time - and there was this stunner with our lunch place at the bottom. However, I was more interested in taking a picture of the trail that we slid down to get there - on the right side - with a few people on it to give you perspective.

Different group of stalkers after lunch. This lady on the left followed me pretty closely... her name began with "N" and she was also 44 years old. Separated at birth??? Her daughter is behind her with a baby strapped to her back - she looked about 14. Girls start to marry at 13 .

Back in Sapa for a night and day before catching our sleeper train back to Hanoi. I loved this sign... you have to understand that heat is an option, not a given, in Sapa. For example, we were promised a free fireplace in our hotel rooms - well, fireplace translated to a portable electric heater and you better believe we wanted it - there was no heat in the room until the night when these funky pipes under the bed got warm water circulating. It was funny to watch the people all bundled up to eat in our hotel restaurant - including seeing their breath inside. We huddled over our soup - but it was sooooo worth the cold. At the home stay I actually had to strip off some layers in the night... like from 6 to 4!

Did some short day hikes the last day and saw these ladies walking by.

We had the option of taking a moto back up the hill and I took it! I had hurt my ankle slip-sliding down the trails the day before and thought I would give it a break. I was nervous at first - here we are starting and I am reaching out to grab my camera from John. Within a few seconds I felt comfortable enough to take pictures as we drove. I've taken a few rides in Hanoi since then which frankly feels more dangerous - other bikes or cars or buses could hit you since traffic is free form. But it was fun. Took a ride to the Temple of Literature today and the driver tried to get me to pay more as we drove there - no way! The driver on the way back was much nicer - and both had helmets for me, so it felt pretty safe. I would take a moto on places like Siem Reap if I had to do it again - you are very much part of the scene rather than removed in a car that way.
Red Zdao ladies sewing textiles in the market in Sapa.

Dresses for sale near the river that feeds a French-era power plant.

Cute kids in Sapa - but a second after I snapped this pic they were on me like locusts!!!

We took a van down the hill to the train at the end of our third day - and wondered why they were picking us up 3 hours before the train. Well, part of that time is spent stopping so that the driver can shop for fresh water buffalo meat on the side of the road. One guy hung a piece of meat on his moto to drive with.... ick!

One last shot. We went into a restaurant called Baguettes et Chocolate - another training cafe to get kids off the street - more charity from us - such givers! I had to have a shot of John - notice anything weird, besides John's face????? Hollister..... Southern California??? Not! I love mistakes like this - I can imagine that some Vietnamese entrepreneur deciding to make these sweatshirts thinking, "Sure, Hollister is in Northern California but Southern sounds so much cooler!"

Northern Vietnam- Now This is What I'm Talking About

Using Hanoi as your base is the way to travel north Vietnam. There are tour offices everywhere - you never need to plan ahead - just show up and shop around for the right package and price. We did several trips out of Hanoi - one being Halong Bay. About 3 hours East of Hanoi, Halong Bay is a collection of 3,000 limestone islands in a fairly dense area off of the coast. We boarded a junk and cruised the bay before stopping for exploring a cave and kayaking - and you then sleep on the boat. This area is another Phang Nga Bay in Thailand, which is where James Bond Island is (Man with the Golden Gun was shot there) which had similar geography - but the scale of this was much larger. And so there were boats.... probably 200 of them. Above is the mooring where we got out to climb up into a large cave - over a km walk through the cave. Below - the scene on the top of the boat - there were lots of "oh my gods" spoken. The legend is that a dragon (big in Vietnamese myth) ran from Hanoi to the sea - and as he ran, his tail carved valleys in the land, leaving mountains. The sea filled in these valleys, and thus Halong Bay was born. I believe as much as Intelligent Design, just more charming.

Aileen and I on the top deck enjoying the first sun in Halong Bay in a month! She is not wearing her J-Lo sunglasses (bought in HCMC for $4) but I am wearing mine - and they broke shortly afterwards... a little tear was in my eye.

Went kayaking through some caves and caught the sunset on the way back to our boat.

Overall, Halong Bay was lovely and a nice gentle break from our trekking in Sapa the days before. We had one full day before Aileen had to leave - so we chose to go to the Perfume Pagoda. We knew it was the most sacred Buddhist site in Vietnam, and included a hike 3.5km up to a cave to the pagoda, after an hour row down a river lined with mountains that looked suspiciously like Halong Bay, but on a river. Since the three of us have Buddhist bents, and since we knew that it was the time of year that Vietnamese Buddhists travel there to make offerings and pray for the New Year, we thought that it would be a peaceful and spiritual thing to do.

OH MY GOD WE WERE SO WRONG!!! We should have known when our hotel staff tried several times to get us to go another day, not on the weekend (not an option since Aileen was leaving the next day). The two hour van ride there was okay .... until our driver clipped a dog. My heart just stopped. He ran away with one leg up so I desparately hope it wasn't broken. Our driver was introduced as someone with 20 years of safe driving - but he would drive sooooo fast down these narrow roads with kids and dogs and elderly folks.. and tourists ... wandering around.

The river trip was amazing... we had a girl rowing our boat. Many people in other boats were carrying food and golden flowers and would wave and say "HELLO" to us...... our guide explained that many of the folks were from the country and would never have seen a westerner. We were the exotics at that point - so Aileen did her best royal (remember...Queen of Cambodia) wave. Later people were petting her... well more like touching her arms either because she is pale or pink from the sun. There were TONS of boats on the river heading to the cave.

I can't even describe how brutal it was to step off the peaceful boat into this riot of people. I am guessing there were 10,000 people there. Our guide disagreed but I swear I brushed against a good 1,000 myself. Here is the view from our lunch table - which was interesting. We had passed many types of carcasses hanging outside the restaurants - because this is the ONE time of year that people from all over Vietnam come to the pagoda, the restaurants offer stuff for the country folk, like deer, and dog, and cat. We even saw a cage of cats and one of porcupines. It was enough to put me off my food so rice and fish for me. We decided to take the cable cars up and walk down to save time. Uh huh.

This is as close to the Black Hole of Calcutta that I hope I ever get. We stood in this queue for 75 minutes before we got on the cable car. It was okay (eesh) when we were in the parts with metal dividing the crowd. But there were parts where you were simply in a mosh pit of people - and you had to push and be pushed. Here is a shot inside the building - the stairs were sign of heaven - until we got to the second floor. Many Vietnemese were grinning their heads off - it was all big fun, the pushing. I stood there and thought to myself, "Do I really want to go to to China where this will be more common?".

Here is Aileen in the cable car.... she LOVED the view as you can see! The funny thing... all that waiting meant it would have been faster to walk up.

After another 30 minutes or so, after morphing into a simple head being transported by a thousand legged body (that is what it felt like), we got into the cave! Here is the first room - tons of people milling about, many carrying their offerings on plates (like chickens) and boxes and flowers. We went further into the cave and found the main alter - all light up with incense in the air. People wouldn't leave all offerings - some they would take back to their home shrines, I suppose - so they hauled stuff 3.5km up the hill through crowds and then back down.

We got separated in the cave (I was shocked we stayed together as long as we did - at one point I was gripping John's T-shirt) so we walked down the hill separately. Now, the experience had already been disgusting and amazing at the same time, and the walk down added a new element. The whole 3.5km walk down, a mix of stairs and boulders, was lined with stalls and restaurants, selling sugar cane juice and crawling army men and videos of prepubescent Vietnamese boys singing pop songs. So, I thought, how does this play with the precepts of Buddhism. Classic Buddhism teaches that this life is temporary and one of many on the way to the ultimate truth. It also teaches that you should not be possessive of things or people since they are temporary. So this blatant and LOUD display of commercialism was depressing.... but in a way, the perfect way to illustrate how I see Vietnam. Here are some stalls on the way down.

Mystery meat - there are chickens, cats and dogs here.

Some friendly guys on a neighboring boat.

So, this day that we hoped would be a peaceful spiritual trek instead turned into one of the more bizarre and visceral days of my life - its up there with the "crawling through bat guana and over bamboo bridges in the Burmese sea gypsy bird nests cave experience". The ride back was through the same village that we had come before - and was a fascinating peek up close at what struck me about Vietnam. Sometimes on trips like this I realize that I have grown used to things around me and I don't notice them anymore - but they all add to the texture of the country. So here are a few random thoughts on my almost 3 weeks in Vietnam.

Most of the people live near HCMC, Hanoi or the coast. However even 20 miles away from a large city like Hanoi, you see how close the people are to their agrarian and spiritual roots. There were rice paddy fields within 10 km of Hanoi - being worked by hand at 6pm as the sun was setting. In the communist times, people starved. When the economy was opened up to allow private ownership (capitalism) and foreign investment in 1990, within 3 years Vietnam was exporting rice. However, there are still big gaps between poor and rich.

In the rice fields, there are frequently shrines like shown below - we think that they are holding the ashes of the ancestors of the people still farming that land. Its peaceful.

Life is still pretty cheap, I suspect. Drivers all around the country drive fast and aggressively. The national anthem of Vietnam should be car, van and moto horns since the standard way to drive is on the wrong side of the road as you pass others, or on someones butt (usually a moto) as a warning to move over. The experience of hitting that dog made me guess that they are going fast to save money - the faster they get these tourists back to their hotels, the more trips we can do with the van. So the fact that we didn't see any accidents with humans doesn't convince me that they frequently are hurt by speeding vehicles. I do know the Vietnam recently imposed a helmet law for motorcycles as a way to save medical costs - so there must be a bunch of accidents happening.

Its noisy - damned noisy. Constant honking, constant music playing loudly. Not alot of privacy. Speaking of privacy - people seem to live on the sidewalk , I suspect since their homes or apartments are tiny. You will be walking by a hotel in the evening or early morning - and there will be people sleeping all over the lobby of the hotel - and there will usually be a few motorcyles pulled up into the lobby for safety.

Vietnam has seemingly only had an open economy since 1990.However, these folks are some of the most brutal capitalists that I have even seen - so I suspect that throughout the socialist economic times, there were huge gray markets going on. Vietnam is far more touristy than I had imagined - and the people are in-your-face-aggressive about buying their wares or taking a moto or rickshaw ride. You just have to say No and move on. I have only seen the tourist economy in action - but I suspect other industries would be as spirited and competitive.

Food is an interesting topic. I know that I have tended to be in touristy spots - but there are a ton of restaurants, including informal cafes with miniature plastic chairs thrown out for locals to eat at. Also - not alot of stores to by groceries... people seem to buy fresh meat and veg and fruit daily to cook with . Like Romania, in fact. Makes all those stores full of processed food in the US seem... overkill. Here is a typical sidewalk cafe in Hanoi.

Hanoi is a very interesting city. We didn't read it anywhere but figured out that there are neighborhoods, or sometimes just a block, dedicated to a specific good. For example, below is a cobbler in the shoe area on the Northeast side of the lake. After a while , you could navigate by type of store - We're in the candy area! Here are the types of goods that we have seen so far - makes for a long day if you have a variety of things to buy.

* Candy

* Shoes

* Underwear Alley

* Eyeglasses

* Towels

* Kids clothes

* Furniture

* Backpacks/luggage

* Jewelry

* And the weirdest - gravestones. And they display samples. I was walking by this one today and did a double take - its both funny and perhaps prophetic - but I think they stuck a young Brittany Spears on one tombstone. We saw two funerals in Hanoi.One was a van parked in the street with the coffin in it and the family members crying at the back of it. The second was more like a wake for an elderly woman just down the street from our hotel. They had flowers and incense music (reminded me of a New Orleans Jazz funeral) and a picture of her on the sidewalk, and there were people sitting nearby dressed in filmy white robes...

Hoan Kiem Lake is the center of the Old Quarter - we strolled it our first day and saw old men like this enjoying their weekend by the lake. In the distance is the famous Tortoise Tower in the middle of the lake, frequently used on advertising for Hanoi.

We walked through a food market and I was fascinated by these fish. They had been live minutes before, but even with their heads cut off they continued to gasp for several minutes. Probably all muscle memory but fascinating.

One of our last nights in Hanoi we ate on the street (so we got to sit on those groovy mini plastic seats). We grilled beef and vegetables on a hotplate ourselves and ate it with hot chili sauce and baguette. YUMMMM. Here are John and I and our Tiger beers.

So - Aileen left last night for Scotland, and John is off to HCMC today. I will really miss her - she's a great travel mate with a great sense of adventure and humor. And she's gonna be a queen so you gotta like that. We ran pretty hard for the last month - so before I fly to Laos on Wednesday, I am staying in Hanoi for a few low key days of catching up my blog. I moved to a hotel with CNN specifically to vedge with. Total bonus - I found the Academy Awards on several Vietnamese stations - so you know when they say Billions are watching, its true. They didn't mention , however, that a nasally Vietnamese interpreter would be repeating what everyone says! Here is Flat George offering Real George encouragement just as they were announcing the Best Actor winner. His smile turned upside down when Daniel Day Lewis won instead.

Walked around and saw some cool French architecture in Hanoi.

If I were to coach someone who wanted to experience Vietnam, I would nudge them towards the north of Vietnam. There are amazing natural wonders, big and small cities and some history.
I will be going to the Hanoi Hilton tomorrow before heading to Laos the next day but wanted to get this blog out when I had fast internet (rare here).

(I will not ) Miss Saigon!

Hello All from Vietnam!!!

First of all, I must apologize to the country of Cambodia - they are NOT the only nation of nosepickers.

I have the benefit of writing this after two weeks here -and can contrast and see the different parts and dynamics of Vietnam with hindsight. Its a very interesting country - not the least of which is how it combines a legacy of communism with an economy now that is staggering in its capitalistic bent. Here is a little cutie decked out for New Years right across the alley from our hotel entrance.

We've been in Vietnam about 2.5 weeks - its a huge country, stretching over a 1,000 miles from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in the south to Hanoi in the north. The train linking the two cities, the Reunification Express, takes over 40 hours on a normal train to connect the two cities, and 30 hours for a speed train direct.

We arrived in HCMC's backpacker area the day after Tet (Lunar New Years) - but , of course, didn't avoid the ongoing increased cost and service charges for "New Years". The skank element in HCMC was much lower in the backpacker area than Bangkok, we were happy to discover. We walked around a bit looking for a hotel recommended by a couple we met in Siem Reap - and a little lady in green ran over , took us by the arm and helped us find our hotel, and another one with available rooms when our first choice was booked. She hung around a bit - don't know if she expected a tip or not. Here is a shot of a typical street near our hotel in HCMC. Lots of motorbikes - HCMC has 5.5 million people and 3 million motorbikes.

One thing that consistently delighted me was how many of the restaurants are organized. We stayed at a hotel on an alley with many restaurants nearby. The restaurant's seating area would be on one side of the alley and their kitchen would be across the alley - and the extensive menus (usually Vietnamese selections along with Italian, American and other choices for travellers) would be prepared in a room like the one below - not alot bigger than my kitchen, which is teeny, and with a gazillion options covered in the way of supplies. The next pic is from our balcony. We had a 5th floor room so 6 stories up. Vietnamese buildings tend to be very tall and skinny- there are 85 million people and limited land near the coast and cities to build on (the rest is water ,rivers or mountains). These red flags are everywhere.

We probably didn't do HCMC justice and only got out of our hotel area to head out to the Cu Chi tunnels 50 KM northwest of town. This complex have over 200 km of tunnels linked together, along with connected meeting rooms, hospitals, cooking areas and manufacturing areas for weapons and clothing. Though so close to the American occupied Saigon during the "American War", the Vietcong using these tunnels inflicted major damage to local American troops ; they could steal out in the night for covert ops against US troops, then drop into multiple tunnel entrances when pursued. In fact, US troops would throw grenades into the tunnel holes when they saw a Vietcong soldier drop in, but by the time the grenade went off, the north vietnamese would be long gone to another part of the connected tunnels. Before touring the area, we saw a brief movie on them. I have to say, I was quite moved to be hearing the Vietnamese side of the war and to hear the Americans described as American Imperialists. And to top it off, I have the benefit of comparing it to "my war", the Iraq war - and its spooky, frankly. For example, it was chilling to see the various bamboo booby traps that were laid to kill and injure US soldiers - holes in the ground with a variety of sharpened bamboo sticks and metal spikes that US soldiers would fall into or walk into. Ingenious, simple and brutal. I couldn't help but think of how surprised we were in Iraq when we started to lose soldiers in ways outside Rummy's plana - to explosive devices hidden in holes in the road, or dead animals, by the Iraq insurgents. Ingenious, simple and brutal.

The tunnels themselves have been expanded - so its an amazing effort to walk them . I went about 100 yards underground, bent over at the waist and crouching the whole way, with an occasional crawl or butt slide. Its pitch black in them between exits, and hotter than hell as well as small. Aileen walked them above ground and said that every 20 yards or so there would be an exit stairway ,and people from our group would stagger out, sweaty and green-faced. She said that I was one of the few women to walk the whole way through.

There was an American tank parked in the area - and some folks, including young US backpackers, climbed on it for a grinning picture - kinda made me sick since I realized that some US soldiers probably died so that that tank was abandoned. An interesting fact was that most of the Vietcong that used these tunnels were actually women from the local village - most of the men would be more mobile and would be fighting in tactical battles or engagements in a broader geo-area - but the women needed to be closer to home to take care of family. Also - the Vietcong wore specific black rubber sandals so that they could identify each other - and they killed any villagers that wore the same sandals that were not official Vietcong - I supposed to protect them from infiltrators. Here is a guy showing how they would enter a typical tunnel entrance and then cover it up. Teeny tiny.

Walking hunched over in the tunnelsl- here is the guy in front of me (I took random pictures in the darkness since I couldn't see) as he drops a level in the tunnel through a hole... you always wondered how high the drop was but it was usually no more than 2-3 feet - amazing that people running quickly through didn't snap ankles.

We popped out in the hospital room - a half buried room with very rudimentary medical capabilities.

Afterwards, we stopped at the War Remnants Museum - it focuses on both the wars against the French and the Americans. Again, you are seeing the other side of what you have heard about for 30 years. There was a very moving exhibit on the 30 or more journalists and photographers that were killed in Vietnam and Cambodia. Also , there was information on how the US worked with the French before the French punted the war to the US - and how the US assisted the South Vietnamese government as it fought the North Vietnamese army under Ho. Don't get me wrong, I feel very patriotic as an American and was off kilter hearing the propaganda against the US - but why is it (in hindsight) we so often pick a side that either turns against us or inflicts intolerable cruelty. Simple answer is it all indirectly benefits the US interests - but when you read that the South Vietnamese government imprisoned, tortured and killed 50,000 of its own people that they accused of aiding the communist insurgents, you gotta wonder what to believe.

The final rooms were pictures and stories of the collateral damage done to Vietnamese citizens - death and disfigurement from napalm, Agent Orange, carpet bombing. Very moving, very humbling, very depressing. I remember thinking," There will be a museum like this in Bagdad in 20 years, I wish that I could drag Bush, Cheney, Rummey, Wolfie, Condi and the rest of the team here to see what a mis-executed war results in." It didn't help that I was reading "Bushworld" by the NY Times writer Maureen Dowd at the same time - Aileen thought I was talking to her when really I was swearing about what I read our current government did leading up to the Iraq invasion and afterwards.

So, glad to have witnessed these things - and really glad to get the hell out of there!

We took a night sleeper bus to Nha Trang (see above), a beach town about 10 hours drive. Its a new concept here - instead of taking a night sleeper train with beds (impossible to get with Lunar New Years tying everything up), or instead of taking a bus with situp seats, these buses carry fewer people but each person has a sleeping pod - a reclined seat/bed. The first bus beds were vinyl, came with a vinyl pillow and a blanket washed sometime in the last year. And, to make it really fun, the driver .... kind of a sadist. I think he thought if he had to be up, we all would be! So he had Vietnamese TV playing really loud in speakers all over the bus until at least 10pm. He then played music till almost 11. I finally went up to ask he turn the music off and he at first shook me off and said "No". I was dumbfounded! He finally turned it down and off at 11 - must have been the official rule. We pulled over a few times for people to get off or potty stops. At 2:30 am, we pulled over, 1/2 the people got out to use the pit toilets and then got back on the bus - and watched the bus crew order and eat a small meal. Now its okay to give the guy a break to keep him chipper, but tell us so we can also be eating soup at 2:30 am.

We got dropped in downtown Nha Trang at 6am - it was a little after sunrise, and I gotta tell you, its trippy to be walking around a town with a few hundred other backpackers looking for a room. The good thing is that these towns know that there are buses arriving, and hotels and restaurants are open. Plus - the Vietnamese are up really really early.

So Aileen and I walked to the beach area hoping to score a hotel on the beach strip - the guy who directed us there said that there were no hotel rooms in town, that 4,000 people slept on the beach the night before. A slight exaggeration. We stopped in a few nicer looking places and found them booked. A guy with a bicyle rickshaw asked us if he could drive us to hotels - we looked at the single rickshaw seat, our two butts and luggage, and his typical skinny thighs, and said "huh?". He whipped out this wooden seat that allowed us both to cram on the seat , I held my suitcase and he had Aileen's backpack in the back. It was quite the sight of us slow-mow'ing along the road - hoping to avoid red lights since starting up. At one point around 7am, the national anthemn played. What was odd was that in Bangkok when that happened in a bus station, people stopped in their tracks out of respect. In Vietnam, it didn't even cause people to pause , which surprised me given they are still a socialist centrally controlled country.

Nha Trang.... not so nice. Its a cheesy beach town that in the gray weather we had, didn't offer alot of charm. There were a few things - like this barber on the sidewalk. And on the beach there were several seafood stations where you could get lobster or shrimp. I did two morning dives on the sunniest of the days - I am glad that I went but it was very sad - even though we were diving in a national maritime park, there were very few fish, it was mostly coral. The highlight was a huge cuttlefish - about 18 inches long. George went diving, too.

After a few days, we took another night sleeper bus to Hoi An to rejoin Aileen's son, John. This bus was MUCH better - had real sheets and pillows on the bed. At one of the stops, a guy from the vinyl type of bus (smells like feet) stepped into our bus and said he would buy any of our beds for a kidney!

Hoi An is a charming city halfway up the coast - and Hoi An'ners would be pissed to know that I am lumping them in with South Vietnam. It is a Unesco World Heritage site for its mixed French/Chinese/Vietnamese architecture. Its pretty crumbly, which surprised me, but also a shoppers dream. Here is a shot of the old town from across the river. Most of the classic buildings are painted yellow. This was a few days after Tet so many lanterns were still up - plus there are many shops selling these pretty silk lanterns. Lots of dogs, including one taking a breather in one of those mini-chairs.
Oh, the food in Hoi An. The food so far in Vietnam was pretty mediocre - in part due to us being in HCMC and NhaTrang near touristy spots - most choices that weren't European were fried noodle or fried rice. But Hoi On has a few specialities that were terrific - here are the White Rose Dumplings, which are rice noodle dumplings filled with shrimp in a garlicy light fish sauce. We went back twice in 3 days!

Took a cooking class at the Red Bridge cooking school - very nice!~ First thing was to wander the market with a guide. This market was possibly the best I have been in - it was fresh food (veg, fruit, spice, meat, fish)and clothes and trinkets and flowers. Here is a lady selling fresh French Baguettes (all over the place as a legacy of France colonizing Indochina) out of the back of her motorbike.

Then we got on boats and went upriver about 20 minutes to the school. Had about 90 minutes of watching our teacher cook and then we tried a few things at our own cooking stations. I was in a mood - tried three times to burn down the cooking hut , which thankfully was right on the river if things got out of control. Haven't caught a towel on fire in many a year using it as a pot holder on a gas stove!

Various shots around town. Lots of bikers. Also we made a point of ducking into the many alleys to see how the non-touristy areas looked, and sometimes walked into deadends that were the front doors of peoples houses.

Hoi An is also known for making clothing on demand. You see about 200 of these shops below - out front they have all these clothes and inside racks of silk and cotton and books of fashion, including western style. They will make you anything, to your specific measurements, overnight. We laughed since it got progressively colder as we were there and they started putting out jacket examples right in front,and it sure worked. They also make shoes. So, I had no intention of buying clothes. Aileen wanted to check it out and maybe get a special dress made for an upcoming wedding - so $130 later we both had several outfits/tops in silk. Very beautiful and fun to do - hope I wear them. When we were walking in the alleys, we stumbled upon some of the shops actually doing the sewing. I assumed that there were factories on the edge of town, which there probably are - but there are also small shops, (shall we say sweat shops?) in these alleys where people are hand sewing or sewing on foot pedal sewing machines (ie. not electric). We asked if they worked all night and they said no - I am guessing that since they take orders at night and have you come in after lunch, that they get up early and start working at 5am.

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Hoi An was definitely an improvement over southern Vietnam . We decided to save time and fly to Hanoi.

Imagine..... Cambodia

We flew to Siem Reap , Cambodia rather than take a 12 hour bus - and boy were we glad of our decision! Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat -and about 99 other temples of the Angkor period 10th through 15th century.. The town itself is great - we walked to the old market area and had to wade through a sea of motos like above carrying 1-5 people, with just a suggestion of traffic signals and control.





On our first full day, we hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day. Here is a boy filling our gastank on the side of the road - very typical to see stands of liter pop bottles that are filled with gas for the motos. Most people think of Angkor Wat as a single temple to see - we found out that the Khmer Ankgor kings built around 100 temples in the area.... and they are magnificant.

One of our first temples was the vast Angkor Thomm - a walled complex 12 km around - with many temples in the middle. Check out the face (probably of a king building the temple) in the gate.

The pic below is the approach to Bayan... my fave temple - its up several steep flights of stairs - and has 200 faces in it. We were watchng the Discovery channel here in Vietnam last night and they had a special on Bayan - all of the faces are of the king building it - in a close eyed meditative pose.

The women carvings are typically of cuort dancing girls. When the Thai overran the Angkor people in the 15th century, they took many of the dancing aspects back to Thailand with them.

There is a strong Hindu influence on these buddhist temples. And keep in mind that 1,000,000 people built and lived in these temple areas when London was only 30,000 people. Enjoy!

Sorry for the sideways shot - many of the temples have deteriorated - and trees have sprung up within the walls - very atmospheric. One temple was used in the Tomb Raider movie - its as if Angelina was with us there.

We totally scored our second night there. There was a festival going on... Angkor Nights - and we got tickets to see the Fine Arts Dept of Cambodia perform Khmer dances on a stage right in front of a lit-up Ankor Wat. This led to the first use of "Imagine" that I use in my title. When Aileen and I were in the Amazon rainforest, our friend Kirsten sat at breakfast watching a huge blue butterfly float by. She turned to us and said, "Can you imagine, sitting at breakfast watching a big blue butterfly fly by?". Since we had just witnessed it, and didn't need to imagine it, we cracked up. So when Aileen and I have a magic, unimagined moment on this trip, liked watching dance in front of a spotlit 800 year old Wonder of the World, we say, "Imagine?!"

One day we went farther afield... to a river about 35 km out of town that had 1000 year old carvings in the riverbed - which was not only great, but really special since my friend Clifton had been there also - and I didn't realize it was the same place until about halfway through our walk.

Many of the images are of a reclining Vishnu. And there were many symbols of fertility - especially penises - everywhere! Below - a pic of a three headed figure. And later - reclining Vishnu in the water.

Khmer ladies on the side of the road on the way back from the riverbed - it was a remote site on a dirt road.

We stopped on the road to see how a local family boiled down palmtree fruit to a sugary thick liquid. Here are some of the kids in the family I love how the little baby is looking at George.

Oh my god - we saw this several times - a guy on a moto with three LIVE pigs trussed on their back - with their faces pure confusion on their dilemma.

I love this little lady- she is holding a bird in her hand. We learned that all of these carved women were unique - and there were hundreds per temple.

A huge temple complex - was a buddhist university.

Cambodian kids learn English in the following order.

1. One dollar !( strangely enough the US dollar is used in Cambodia, even at the ATMs)

2. Oh madam, I can't discount to that - no profit!

3. You remember me (when we come back down from the temples - they would hang around the temples and pester pester - here is Aileen getting a deal on some Khmer scarves

4. Beautiful ladies.... well, Aileen and I decided that was spontaneous and not with an agenda when directed our way.

On our last day, we headed to Tonle Sap Lake to see the floating villages - they were very interesting - people live on floating rafts with houses, or in boats. They have floating churches and floating pig pens and floating schools. And it was very depressing - very very poor. Here are some houses on the way to the port to catch our boat.

Aileen is a big softie - she is giving our leftover food to the 10 or so kids who hung on the side of our floating restarant and begged. Its very sad how poor it is that kids and their mothers have few options.

These kids also hung around - but not in a boat - in a tin bowl that they paddled in. The boy had one arm.

Caught this girl washing her hair on her back porch.

Rice fields - this area is under water half the year during teh rainy season when the lake expands - and used for rice farming the other half. Some of the temples used to have water access to them for the same reason.

Snake anyone?????


















After three days in Siem Reap, we took a boat to Phnom Penh, the capital. It was a 6 hour boat ride over the lake and up the Tonle Sap river. Our bus pickup was really late and I was stressing out.... and then our van showed up. It was a regular van PACKED with people, including, we were guessing the drivers family in the front seat, and a bunch of dumbfounded tourists in the back- really had to schwoosh in. We didn't know how lucky we were until we passed an open wagon being pulled by a motorcyle - and filled with even more dumbfounded tourists. I believe one woman yelled at our van "this could be you!". The amazing thing is everyone made it on the boat - it took off an hour after the announced time. The ride was mellow - we sat inside on seats for most of the lake section. There were 50 people lying and sitting on the roof - not comfy. I sat outside on the river portion and watched villages and boats drift by. The picture below is of the wooden plank ramp we had to walk up to get on the boat. When our van stopped, it was thronged by guys who carried your bag up that ramp for a dollar - glad to have them since I would have fallen in with my bag.

Here are the folks on the roof.

When we discovered that the Cambodian king was single and 50, we decided that Aileen would make a splendid queen - and that became the joke with our driver in Siem Reap. He had arranged for a driver to meet us at the dock in Phnom Penh - and here he is - can you read the sign?

Here is Aileen infront of her future home, the royal palace of Cambodia. I asked her to work on several things when she became queen,including getting the Cambodians to stop picking their noses blatantly in public.

Also got to watch Super Tuesday returns on CNN in PP - Aileen is gonna think she is American soon from what she is learning about the American political process and parties. GO BARACK!!

Our first day in Phnom Penh, we walked around and decided to check out the central buddhist temple of Camobdia- it was right at the end of our street. We started talking to a monk who offered to give us a tour, including sitting inside a small temple with one of the oldest buddhas in Cambodia. He then asked if we wanted to see his home - so we walked to his dorm . Each major region of Cambodia has a house on campus for the monks studying there and visitors from the region. We ended up sitting in their common room for 30 minutes chatting with several monks, including the head monk of this house,who was sipping a Coke. They were really open and liked talking English - more approachable than monks in Thailand. And when we were leaving, they asked for our email addresses - so we will keep in touch. It was a highlight for me for Phnom Penh. Here are our charming monk friends below.

After chatting with them, we headed over a great restaurant called Friends - its a non-profit raising money to get street kids off the street and trained for restaurant jobs. So , again, being givers, we ate for charity sakes... and it was good.

Phnom Penh was a tough city - not the least of which was our visits to the genocide sites. We first went to S21 - its the prison in PP used by the Khmer Rouge to house and torture prisoners before they were sent to the killing fields outside of town. It was a former high school used as a prison. Its in its original state. Some rooms were bricked up into individual cells - small and crampled. Some rooms were large and housed hundreds of people shackled at the ankle to a common bar. There were rooms that housed only a bare bed, no mattress, with the shackles still attached - and a picture of a prisoner from that room . The exhibits were great and very moving. Stories of people talking about their lost family members. Stories from former guards or fighters in the field, who talked about how they worked in the Khmer Rouge to survive. Some quotes"I was afraid of suffering, I wasn't afraid of dying." "To save our lives, we had to do what we were told to do. I didn't believe what they taught me. There was nothing I could do." What struck me is how the KR went out of their way to keep people in the prison for months torturing them before they confessed to fake things like giving secrets to the enemies like the Vietnamese. I was at Aushwitz last year and this so reminded me of this. I just didn't understand the need to perpetuate their politics on people they considered against the state . An evil group. They were forced out by the Vietnamese in 1979 after 4 years. We then went out to the Killing Fields. Its out on the edge of town and is a fairly small area. There were pits that had been excavated - about 8000 bodies were taken out. There is another area as big that remains unexcavated. They suspect as many bodies. There is a large white stupa as you enter the area - its filled with shelves of skulls like these. Of the 20,000 people at S21, only 7 survived the Killing Fields. We found out in Siem Reap that our driver, Chu, lost his dad to the Khmer Rouge.

This is the second use of "Imagine" for me - I thought of the movie the Killing Fields and that amazing scene when the two men are reunited at the end with John Lennon's Imagine playing in the background... always makes me cry.

Back in town - needed a break. At lunch, our waiting tuk-tuk driver totally crashed in the back of our tuktuk.

We walked back from our massage done by blind people (again, what we won't do for charity). Walked through this market as it was closing up.This wasn't a market full of tourist chochkies - it was a real market for local people. And it was full of trash that people had thrown into the street. Kinda nasty. There was a guy walking in front of us, big guy, and I cracked up when at one point he bacame so overwhelmed by the mass of people and smells and garbage that he just said "Jesus Christ!!!"

We were in Cambodia for Chinese Lunar New Year - and in PP for the day itself. We collected fun facts about what that meant for tourists.

* The Russian Market is closed - Chinese New Year.

* No French Toast - Chinese New Year (no bread)

* Hotel rooms - 50-100% more

* Buses - 20% more

The only people in SEA not affected by Chinese new year are the chinese! Not alot of fun stuff like fireworks - alot of decorations up. Here are some folks burning pots on the sidewalk - I suspect something about new years.

Took a bus to Saigon - about 6 hours - not bad. We had a stop as we waited for a ferry to come - and were attacked by vendors pitching their wares - including this lady selling yummy friend bugs. We loved them!

Have I Mentioned I Went to Thailand.... AGAIN!

Some of you gentle readers teased me a bit about my constant jabbering about my perfect trip to Thailand and Burma in 2005....well, I'M BACK!!!



I have to admit.... after a comfy 4 months at home on the couch with Atty, I was a bit hesitant about this trip.....the half life on my travel confidence is about 1 month - meaning all that confidence I got in Europe has been eroding. I sat on the couch smooching Atty madly at 7:30 as the SuperShuttle guy was waiting outside. I am thinking " I wish I knew how to quit you"(in an ode to Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, who had just died) and Atty is thinking "They've come to kill us all - and that guy already stole your suitcase. I'll be right behind you".



But - all was good as I glided west and reread Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia. In fact, one day in Cambodia when Aileen was expressing some lingering concern about the safety of riding in a tuk-tuk with the crazy moto traffic- I realized I was perfectly relaxed.....

First stop Bangkok - landed at midnight after 21 hours in flight. I went to the guest house that I had reserved.... to have the receptionist tell me at 1:30am,"oh Nancy, my friend gave away your room. " I ended up convincing them to put me in a triple room for the cost of a single since I had 6 nights booked later in the week - night bargaining power.

I went to Ayatthaya first - before Aileen and her son John, and his galpal Preiya arrived. Ayatthaya was the royal capital of Thailand for centuries until the Burmese eventually ran it over around 1800 (maybe???). Getting there was half the fun.... I took a cab to the Train station (60 Baht), paid 15 baht for a ticket 3rd class for a 90 minute ride, paid an astounding 4 baht to have a ferry take me across the river.... and walked a block to a great guest house on the river. 79 baht..... that is about 3 bucks! I LOVE Southeast Asia - its so cheap compared to Europe last year.

I met some lovely ladies the first night - Karin and Jen - they were in their third month of a 3 month trip to NZ, Australia and Thailand. They liked George very much.

Here is a shot of the ferry that I took for 4 baht (about 10 cents) - I am sitting on the porch of my guesthouse. My room was on the river and I heard this boat start running around 6am. Note the three boys "skitching" off the back of the boat.

Lovely, isn't she? I mean the Buddha, of course, though technically he is a guy. This famous image is at one of the temples. I rented a bike for the day and biked to 5 temples - a nicer way to explore than a cab or tuk-tuk. Was bloody hot, as you can tell by my "glow". There were guards watching to make sure you kept your head down low in respect to the Buddha so it was a challenge to slide in without showing George - I didn't want them to think I was being disrespectful. Note what George is looking at with a grin!

Many of the buddhas were headless - the Burmese stole many of the heads... as well as subsequent looters.

A BIG reclining buddha - this represents the moment when Buddha reaches Nirvana. This bad boy was 35 meters long and dressed to kill. Note the person in black at the face area - gives you perspective. His head was reasting on a big lotus flower.

Aileen and team arrived after a few days. I met her in Peru on the Inca trail and we have kept in touch since. Her son John was going to backpack SEA so she wanted to join me and hook into his trip. Our first night in Bangkok we went to a restaurant named Condoms and Cabbages - its a non-profit that raised money for Aids awareness. Thus begun our ongong "eating and shopping for charity". Here we are with Captain Condom... a superhero. George is jealous. Oh, the whole restaurant was decorated with condoms and birthcontrol pills - very festive.

We were having a drink on the street when this girl tried to con John out of some baht with thumb-wrestling - it was a non-starter but she was pretty tenacious. Problem in Thailand - people are out to get your dollar at the more touristy spots. Its irritating - just gotta walk on.

AHHHHH a Thai massage. For those that haven't had one, its a very physical massage where these little 90 pound ladies use their bodies and twist you in all different ways. Its like one on one wrestling - and they always win. Here is Preiya in the foreground and Aileen in the back, just before the ladies climbed on our backs! Lots of bone cracking but it feels great afterwards.

Spent the afternoon at the royal palace and grand temple complex - here we spotted our first monk/umbrella combo admiring the three wat (temple) roofs). The next wat was Wat Arun - its a simpler complex covered with ceramics - most from Chinese sailors a hundred years ago.
These kids sat in front of me on the train from Ayatthaya - very cute. The little boy would not look at me - very shy.

Back to Ayatthaya - here is sunset at one of the more impressive temple ruins. There are two buddhas sitting on the left in golden robes - see 'em?

Same temple complex from the other side - there was a wedding reception being set up in front of it - nice digs! I took a boat tour to visit 3 temples at sunset which made for a unique experience - got to approach the temples from the water. Also got to see some of the stilt houses lining the canals around the city (three rivers converge here). And spotted a lizard that was at least 3 feet long in the canal - still haven't figured out what that was!

This shot cracks me up. At one of the temples, people were paying to buy a golden robe nicely folded up on a tray. I think the point was to "buy" Buddha a robe as a donation to the temple. After they prayed over the robe, this guy on the bottom would take your tray and whip it over his shoulder, without looking, so that the robe was flung to the guys catching on the second level - they would then drape the huge buddha statue. You can see one of the yellow-orange robes in flight.

A view from Way Arun in Bangkok on the main river - you can see boats on the river - TONS OF THEM - and the royal temple/palace complex across the river. It was less than a month since the death of the sister of the king - very revered - so there were lots of Thais in black mourning clothes visiting the temples.

We stayed just off the backpacker area (Khao San road) - STAY AWAY ITS NASTY - but our hood was nice. We had dinner at a street cafe for about $2 each for drink and noodles.

One day we took a bus (public!) to a floating market 100 KM out of town... it was about 10 % locals shopping, 40% tourists and 50% people selling to the tourists. As your boat came down the canals, ladies manning the stalls would grab your boat! We also had to negotiate the price - started at 700 baht and we ended up paying 300 baht - kinda fun to negotiate but also reminds you how often they start high and people just pay it not knowing the price for non-tourists. This lady below was cooking in her boat.

More shots from the market.

We spent a few days as a foursome - then John and Preiya headed south. John will join Aileen and I in Vietnam in a week or so. I was ready to go - like Bangkok for a few days but its big and noisy - and I am soooo tired of seeing older white men with young Thai women...yuck! On to Cambodia next!