Some Pics from Abroad

Ko Phi Phi at Sunset

Monk in Luang Prabang

Maya Beach, Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

Chillin. On a fallen tree trunk. In a waterfall. In Laos.

Angkor Wat at Sunrise

Above are a few pics. I'd love to post more but as you might imagine, the connection in Ko Phi Phi isn't exactly fast. Quick story...I finally got a massage, a PG13 one, and I've been putting it off for no other reason than I'm ticklish and don't particularly care for massages. But my back was scarlet and my dogs were barking and I needed some TLC. So I'm in this room by myself getting an aloe massage and I quickly find myself flanked by several Irish girls who walk in and are now getting a massage as well. Oh, and I'm in my underoos. I'm just thinking to myself, just don't laugh. And this lady is getting all up in my joints and pressure points and I'm just trying not to laugh. She flips me around on my back and is now massaging my arms and chest with aloe and it feels pretty damn awesome. And then for whatever reason she takes the aloe and makes a mohawk with my chest hair and starts dying of laughter. So then of course I'm laughing now too because I have a 50 year old Thai woman straddling me making a mohawk with my chest hair while a bunch of Irish girls are watching a giggling as well. I felt like a million bucks afterwards though and $10 for an hour wasn't too bad either.

Great Things Happen and the Opposite Can Too

So I made it to Thailand. And in the process, for the first time in my life, went up to a counter at an airport and said, "I'd like to purchase a ticket", and was on a plane 40 minutes later. I just don't think that happens in the USA. We were saying, when, if ever, will someone go up to the counter at Delta and say "yeah, when's the next flight out to Pensacola because I'd like to buy a ticket". Oh you want to fly right away, one way, and you're going to pay with cash, and you're not checking bags? Wait a minute right here, I think there's someone who is going to want to ask you a few questions.

Laos continued to impress since my last post and our trip to the Kwang Si Waterfalls was in my opinion nothing short of amazing. Only pictures would do it justice, but being in the jungle, sitting under a waterfall in the middle of a torrential downpour, and hiking to the top of the falls isn't something you'll do on any given Sunday, or Monday or whenever it was. Yeah, we could have probably stayed for another day in Laos, but we were ready to move on.

Something I've been thinking about here as we move from city to city and trek to trek, is everything that can go right, and conversely everything that can go wrong. Henri Mouhot was a Frenchman, and an explorer, and is credited with the rediscovery of Angkor Wat. Mouhot was based in Bangkok in the late 1850s and his schtick was making treks into the jungles of northern Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Apparently Mouhot had a hunch that there was something "big" in Cambodia. Some lost city or something. So he set out into the jungle with a couple elephants, a bunch of ramen noodles, and flashlight, and found Angkor Wat. Not too shabby. I imagine he got back to his base in Bangkok and was like "Ok, guys, I'm like pretty sure I found something and I'm pretty sure you're going to want to come with me and check it out". His rediscovery of Angkor Wat...a great thing that happened. The prevalence of lady-boys in Thailand...the opposite of a great thing. Everybody come play the Lady-Boy game with me. It goes like this. Walk down the street and try to pick 'em. Lady...lady...boy...lady...boy...boy. Truly scary stuff. When I left my room to get breakfast this morning I saw all of these old white dudes with Thai women eating breakfast. Either these guys met these Thai women years ago and the Matzah Ball and courted them like normal folks, or they met them last night, paid for their company and are now doing some community service in the way of supporting their favorite charity "Buy a Pro Some Pancakes". It's sooo shady and of all those guys looking for love in all the wrong places, I have to imagine that one of them got fooled last night. And this brings me to another issue that we've been talking about over here for a few days, which is who the hell are these dudes?

At what point do you decide to live in Thailand (or Phenom Penh or where ever), telling the rest of the world to kiss it, while you basically decide to live the rest of your life trying to have sex with locals but not pay for it but that's what it is. At what point do you make that your life. Is it when you are divorced, and your kids want nothing to do with you, and your job at the factory is as painful as ever, and you just can't deal anymore. I need to know what the tipping point is for these gentlemen, because there are so many of them over here it's shocking. Or maybe it shouldn't be shocking and I'm just naive. Probably a combination of both. If anyone has insight let me know. I'm off to dinner.

The Long Arm of the Lao

I'm here in Luang Prabang, Laos and this spot seems worlds away from any other city or town we've been to. It's expensive to get here relative to the other flights we've taken, but it's certainly worth it and the folks who are here just seem like different travelers, like "children of the earth" travelers. More tatoos, more dreds, more earthy clothes, fewer teeth. You know what I mean. Anyway, I kind of got a feeling this place might be different when after we arrived we sat at a cafe which had cloth napkins, served us water in wine glasses, and had Sinatra playing in the background. After a watermelon shake the size of 40oz and a delicious chicken with lime I just took a deep breath and realized that this is in fact not same same, but different. And I don't just mean because they serve chicken with lime. But the food, oh the food. It's been heavenly. It's so lush here and you have to believe that those little adorable Lao raindrops get all up in those fruits and veggies so when those fruits and veggies get cut open and served it must be the way Mr. Buddha intended it to be. Last night we decided to try water buffalo sausage and while it was not kosher, it was most definitely awesome. And while I'm thinking about kosher, I was walking on the street the first day and we walked by these four girls who looked like they could be members of the tribe. Turns out they are staying in the room next to us and just graduated from Penn. Moral of the story, never travel to Laos without your Longchamps bag. Ever.

The French influence here is very evident. Even the little street urchins have a little je ne sais quoi. And there are the dogs, which are not mangy like in Cambodia and Vietnam, but almost regal. Whenever I see one of these regal beagles walking by I say "what's up Lunch" because let's not get it twisted here...those dogs could end up on a dinner plate as fast as you can say "sabaidee", which means "hello" in Lao. The pace is slower, the meals are longer, cafes are more prevalent, people less likely to rip you off, and it's just quiet, oh, and smoke free according to UNESCO.

I just got back from a day river kayaking on the Nam Ou River which was something straight out of a brochure or the Discovery Channel. We stopped for lunch on a riverbank inhabited by some local Khmou children. The Khmou are one of the ethnic minorities here. The guides flipped over a few kayaks, went into the jungle and got some banana leaves and then laid out meats and veggies with on the leaves and gave each one of us a handful of sticky rice to use as a spoon of sorts to mop up the food and shovel it into our faces. Amazing views and a solid day all around.

I now understand why people call Laos the "itinerary buster" of SE Asia. There's just so much to do in the way of treks if you choose and even if you don't want to channel your inner Bear Grylls all the time there are plenty of activities, and a lot involve the water which is always a plus in my book. The only negative is that there's a curfew here and most places shut down by 11pm or midnight, but then, and I swear to you, the one spot that is the go-to for after hours is Bao Ling, a bastardized spelling of our beloved American Bowling. They have six lanes and a crazy bar that goes until you decide to stop. Bowling...in Laos...come on, really? Yes really.

Here for a few more days then off to Thailand. Likely no more blogs until then. Happy Father's Day out there to all the Baby Daddies.

Same Same, But Different

Same Same, But Different is what EVERY merchant, bartender, and waitress says, all the time. Sometimes it is completely out of context, but sometimes it makes sense. If you are walking down in the night market and there are a couple hundred food stalls you are going to get all these stall owners coming up to you shoving menus in your face. The menus are basically exactly the same, so why their stall versus another stall? No reason. So I guess all they can really say is Same Same, but Different.

There are also street urchins who are as cute as a button and even at the age of 6 and 7 they can yuk it up with Americans. We surmise that if you put a Cambodian and an American 6 year old in the same room the Cambodia would run circles around the American in terms of sociability. But these urchins aren't rapping with us just to rap with us. They want dollar dollar bills. So this is how it goes.

Urchin: You buy my book. One Dollar.
Me: No thank you.
Urch: Whyyyy you no buy my book. One dollar.
Me: No, I'm not buying anything.
Urch: You no buy. Cost you three dollar to no buy.
Me: No.
Urch: You buy for your girlfriend.
Me: I don't have a girlfriend.
Urch: You know why you no have a girlfriend?
Me: No?
Urch: Because you no buy her my book.

It's also interesting because they all have the same tone and cadence when they speak to us. I guess that's just passed down from generation to generation. They'll try to pull all kinds of facts out hoping you will buy. ''Obama is President" "Joe Biden is Vice President", "You buy my book if I tell you capital of Burkina Faso?". It's kind of funny at first, less funny at 10am when it's hot and you are hung over, and exponentially less funny at around 4pm when you've sweat through every single article of clothing and you've had this conversation one hundred times already. At this point when I get hassled and they say where are you from my answer is ''I'm from Burkina Faso and I don't have a girlfriend because I don't buy your books" and they laugh because we know their game, and they know we know, and it's cute and funny.

Lastly before I sign out I just want to briefly mention the tuk-tuk drivers. The tuk tuks are motorbikes that have a little carriage hitched to the back. There are a million of these guys and they are yearning for business but almost always there is no reason to use them because everything is so close. We paid a tuk tuk driver to let us drive ourselves home in a tuk tuk last night which was actually quite amusing. But anyway, our standard response to "Sir, tuk tuk?" has been "No, walk walk", which inevitably leads to the follow up question, "You want massage boom boom". I'm very ticklish, so I'm not even so keen on massages, although I will get one at some point because they are brutally inexpensive, but I'm not trying to have some random Cambodian boom boom. If by "massage boom boom" they meant a massage followed up by an ice cream sundae, then yeah, let's talk about that, but sadly they are talking about strange Cambodian boom boom with chicks that may or may not be lady-boys. I don't know what their success rate is with this, but I imagine it's pretty low. What I did pay $3 for, surprisingly, was to put my feet in a little tub and have these mini-pirhanas nibble at my feet for 15 minutes. They were actually garra rufa fish and they did a phenomenal job of making my feet smooth and silky again. It tickled and it was weird and a little creepy and definitely gross, and suffice to say I'm not doing that again.

Heading to Laos in a few hours which I hope is in no way Same Same but Different than Cambodia.

From Cambodia

Blogging live from Siem Reap, Cambodia. It's felt like a long long time since my last post and that's because we've been hustling all over the place. My Tho, Can Tho, and Chau Doc in Vietnam. Phenom Penh is Cambodia and now here in Siem Reap. It's just nice to finally stay at a hotel for more than one night. The internet is tricky here so I'm going to keep this relatively short but we've seen a ton. Going up through the Mekong was an interesting experience. The tour ended up being a godsend because there's no chance we would've seen as much in such a short period. The Mekong River is south Vietnam's lifeblood and affords people the opportunity to eke out a living, although people don't seem too stressed about things as sitting in hammocks and playing checkers and chess (not the US versions) seems like a 24/7 activity. People seem content with what little they have. On the day we arrived in Chau Doc we'd been traveling all day in brutally hot and humid weather. We decided to walk through the Chau Doc market at around closing time which meant extra garbage and waste on the floor, fish and meat that had been out all day, and that's just added to being sweaty and nasty, which I've actually grown accustomed to. We passed by this hotel which seemed out of place as it was actually really nice and decided to go in. There was nobody there but they had this sweet balcony overlooking the river with a pool. We asked if we could go in the pool, half-joking, because we weren't staying there, and the waiter said that since we were drinking there we could use the pool. Jumping in and washing off whatever nastiness stuck to us during the day was unreal, and since we also decided to take advantage of the pool table and A/C and had a good time.

The next morning we took a 5 hour "fast boat" which we paid an extra $17 to do and crossed into Cambodia via boat. The slow boat would've taken 9 hours by the way. A $17 well spent as you can imagine. We stayed in Phenom Penh's "backpacker ghetto" and it was kind of quiet there. On our only real night out there we went to the largest club and stayed up about 20 hours past our bedtime which made the next day kind of a wash, but we flew into Siem Reap in the evening, got to bed early, got up the next morning at 5am to catch the sun rise over Ankgor Wat. This morning was the first morning we actually slept in, and we were up at 9am, so I don't know if that's even considered sleeping in.

We've been on quite a pace for this past week, and I'm not quite sure why I was worried about not having enough time on the beaches in Thailand. It's looking like we'll be there for around 2 weeks, which I am looking forward to. But first Laos, specifically Luang Prabang. I've heard great things so I'm hoping LP will provide us with enough reason to stay 4 days or so. Maybe even more.

From what I've read this morning I need to take some fly swatting tips from President Obama, but the bugs haven't been an issue. It's just hot and humid and I'm going to take a rinse. Until next time.

Admiral Kurtz, Where are You?

Yeah, hi there. This is the furthest I've ever blogged from home. I'm looking out the window of my hotel in Saigon and there's an incessant flow of motorcycles, bikes, cabs, women hawking DVDs and cigarettes and books and glasses and drugs and massages, and it's about 2.5 million degrees, celsius. It sounds horrible, but it isn't. When the sun goes down the vibe of the city changes and roadside tables appear by the thousands and cooks stand over their hotpots and cauldrons and chopping blocks and turn grime and chaos into grime and chaos plus fabulous food and fun and partying. So like a vampire I kind of bide my time during the day doing the "tourist thing" and wait for nightfall.

It's been fun here, although I'm ready to move on, which I'll be doing tomorrow morning as I head into the heart of the Mekong Delta to My Tho, Can Tho, Chau Doc, and finally onto Phenon Penh on Monday afternoon. I've been reading up and planning and strategizing about how to "do the mekong" but at the end of the day we have opted for an organized tour. We all want to be Magellan and discover the the undiscovered, but by doing a tour you kind of just eliminate the uncertainty, the headaches, and the hassle of always planning two steps ahead sans internet and phones. Now I can just sit back, get nice with my camera, and enjoy the ride.

Today we (myself, Kris and Jamil) went to the Chinatown and got lost for a little. It was dirty and crazy and to finally escaped the craziness we ducked into a little shop for lunch and I'm willing to venture that we were the first non-Vietnamese or Chinese to ever venture into this particular place. Probably the last as well. Ordering of course was comical, with us trying to order using the most efficient means possible...moo-ing like a cow for beef, sqwauking like a chicken for chicken, and we ended up getting a noodle dish with squid, tongue, and fishballs, so I'm not quite sure how that came to be, but I assure you we did not pantomime either of those three things. It was a great meal plus 2 beers each and it ran us about $4 each.

Anyway, I doubt there will be an internet cafe at any place we go to in the next few days so I just wanted to log one in before I go out looking for that crazy Admiral Kurtz. Or is he crazy? I'll find out tonight because we're hitting up a bar called Apocalypse Now. Oh and last night I celebrated Phillipene Independence Day...at a country bar, obviously. When we arrived we sat at the bar and they tried to get us to buy 5 bottles of Johnny Walker Black for about $200, which was weird and laughable. Nothing really makes much sense here, but after everything that's gone down in the last 50 or so years here, I'm not surprised.

That is all. Enjoy the weekend.

Are there Any Mines Here?

Or as they say in Khmer "mee-un meen dtay?"

I'm about to disappear in a cloud of smoke and then resurface on the other side of the world, Keyser Soze style. I've come to grips with the fact that the t-shirts I've packed will likely not come back, but will end up on the backs of little Laotian boys and girls as I slowly empty the American contents of my bag to make room for SE Asia goodies such as turmeric, gunpowder, and native headwear. Who am I to deprive a Laotian child from wearing a Chelsea Piers basketball league tshirt anyway? I've packed extremely lightly and carefully and I still believe I've overpacked. Only one way to find out and that's actually to do the damn thing.

I've received some poignant advice about traveling to SE Asia and I'm going to share some of best advice, which has come from a variety of sources. In no particular order of poignancy...

1. Stay away from the Thai prostitutes. (From my sister)
Consider it done. The Vietnamese prostitutes, clearly a different story.

2. Don't drink the water. (Every jewish woman I've encountered over the age of 40)
But I'm just a stones throw from the artesian springs of Fiji Water. Artesian! Springs! How bad can the water really be.

3. Get yourself some custom clothing. (Peers)
Yes and ma'am. I think this might be a good activity once I get off the plane. Low impact, not a lot of walking, and jetlag won't play much of a factor.

4. Be careful of thieves on motorbikes. (Guidebooks)
No worries, I'm planning on picking up a pair of nunchucks from Ho Chi Minh's Chinatown.

5. "Motivation can be physical as well as completely awesome" - Leroy Smith
You have to watch these, especially if you like Charlie Murphy.

So yeah, there you have it. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, here I come, in that particular order. No set agenda, no set plans. I'll get to the blog every once in a while I suppose. Maybe I'll post some pics of me helping a yak give birth or of me eating a tarantula. You never know, you really just never know.