Until next time...

It seems my trip has sadly come to an end. Tomorrow morning I leave Saigon for Tokyo and then on to Seattle. This will probably be my last blog of the trip, as I obviously have little left to share. My last few days in Cambodia were wonderful. I spent a lot of time volunteering with the orphanage and again at the dump. I also just spent time getting to know Phnom Penh. It's definitely not for everybody, but it's just right for me. I met some fantastic people and had a great time there.

View of the river front in Phnom Penh

Independence Monument (Phnom Penh) at night

Well folks, it seems that's it. I find myself with little more to say. It's been a great trip. I've made some fantastic new friends from all over the world. Safe travels to you all and I hope to see you all again someday. For those of you following me around from back home, I'll be seeing you very soon. We should do lunch, seeing as I won't have a pesky job to worry about for a little bit.

As I can't seem to find the words to wrap this up, I think I'll go the cheesy route and quote a song that has suddenly popped into my head:

Happy trails to you, until we meet again...

Thanks everyone, it's been fun!

Adventures in a Jeep, to Siem Reap and back

Saturday I headed north, bound for Siem Reap and all kinds of Indiana Jones/Lara Croft fun. Outside Siem Reap lies Angkor Vat in all its glory, along with many, many other exciting temples and ruins. Enough ruins to keep you going for days. Before we left, a friend made a comment along the lines of "How much do you like rocks?" He couldn't have been more right, but, as it turns out, I like rocks a lot! Except for the fact that the evil Nazi's didn't show up, temple demons didn't attack me, no booby traps made attempts at my life, and no awesome treasure was to be found, it was all I dreamed it could be.

Now, Indy never pulled up to those awesome temples in an air conditioned tourist bus, did he? No, of course not. So could I possibly conceive to do just that? Not a chance. I needed a sweet ride to carry me to my archaeological expedition. It just so happens that my new friend Isaac has that sweet ride, an old military Jeep complete with no doors, shovel bolted to one side, axe bolted to the other (until someone stole it), and gas can bolted to the back. He offered to take me to Siem Reap in it. I didn't even have to ask! This thing is so awesome that we caught Japanese tourists posing for pictures with it once.

We set out Saturday for what should have been 6 hours on the road. 9 hours later, we pulled into town. Why the extra three hours? Well, those would be courtesy of the two flat tires along the way. Even better, it was just one tire's inner tube that conveniently decided to pop twice, in different locations. Thank goodness for nice people on the side of the road, people who can patch tires in their back yards, and Isaac's fluent grasp of the Khmer language. I swear, I offered to help, but after being told it wasn't necessary, I documented instead.

Trying to change the first flat out for the spare.

Patching the first flat. This process was repeated shortly down the road.

After our adventure with tires on Saturday, I got a good night's sleep and was ready to tackle Angkor and all it could throw at me. I won't write much, as the pictures have much more to say than I do. I will say that it was an amazing, awe inspiring, impressive day. I had so much fun exploring hand etched hallways, crawling through tiny doorways and windows, scrambling over tons of upturned stone, discovering fantastic carvings, and simply marveling at what these ancient peoples were able to create oh so many years ago (we're talking the 1100's here folks.)

Angkor Vat (too bad about the restoration scaffolding)

Standing in one of the stone archways at Angkor.

Stone etching of a devote hindu. The temples were both Buddhist and Hindu, depending on who had won recently :-)

Angkor tower

Temple gate

A corridor in the 2nd temple of the day

Self portrait in that corridor

Temple 2 had these four faced towers all over it

3rd temple, long ago reclaimed by the jungle

Me in a destroyed hallway of temple 3

5th temple of the day. This is what happens when you neglect the yard work.

There, you have now seen just a few of the, ahem, nearly 275 pictures I took while there. Heh heh, couldn't be helped! I just realized that I forgot to load a shot of the 4th temple, which is too bad because it was equally impressive in it's own unique way. Also, if I can get the appropriate names of the above mentioned temples, I'll update the blog.

My awesome exploits concluded today with a fairly uneventful drive back to Phnom Penh. Thankfully, no more flat tires. Only one thing marked today as different from any other day of travel, and that's the fact that I drove! Yep, that's right folks, Kate was behind the wheel of the superbly awesome Jeep on the streets of Cambodia. Come on, it doesn't get much better than that.

The people of Cambodia

I found myself a nice cafe on the river that generously is providing me with free wifi this morning, so I thought I'd share some of my recent pictures. These are from my trip up the Mekong and from my volunteer trip to the dump. I've also started volunteering with a local orphanage, and will be working with them for the rest of the week. The children are beautiful, and I know I'm getting as much from them as they are from me.

Fish drying in the sun along the river

Woman washing in the river

Me, on the roof of my boat

Beautiful family

Farm fields outside of Phnom Penh

The old dump. Sadly, people live here.

This beautiful girl lives at the dump. She came to get food from us. One of the other volunteers gave her a jump rope.

Other dump inhabitants

While I happen to be in Cambodia, people everywhere in the world are living like this, even in the United States. There is always someone, somewhere who could use your help. If you can find even the smallest amount of time to donate to those in need, I strongly encourage you to do so. Ok, I'll step down off my soap box now. Later all.

Vietnam to Cambodia, or, going up the river

Well, I'm a bit delayed on my updates, and I'm not giving you any pictures today, either. Not because I don't want to, or because I don't have great ones to share, but because I don't have wifi at the moment so I'm writing from an internet cafe and the pictures are currently on my laptop.

Since I last wrote, I arrived in, enjoyed, and left Saigon. I spent just 2 days there, as I'll be back there for my flight home and can finish up then. I actually enjoyed Saigon. I arrived a little suspicious, as I expected a repeat of Hanoi, or worse. Instead I was pleasantly surprised to find a lovely city. Saigon is definitely still crazy but much calmer than Hanoi, in my opinion. While there, I toured the War museum, which documents the Vietnam War (or American War, as they call it) from the Vietnamese perspective. I could go into more detail about experiencing that, but it would hard. Suffice it to say, it was a hard day for me.

On Wednesday I started a 3 day tour of the Mekong Delta. In typical Vietnamese fashion, a good majority of it was cheap and touristy, but the third day more than made up for the first two. The third day was entirely transport up the Mekong River by slow boat to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The trip took the entire day and included about 8 hours on the boat. It was one of the best days I've had in quite a while. There are villages and farms all along the shores of this fantastic river, and all of the people seem to enjoy seeing the boats go by. Both children and adults alike come to the shores to shout hello and wave when they see us. It was an amazing opportunity to see what life is really like there, from their houses to their clothes (or lack thereof), to their farming and fishing practices.

At one point we were switched from the Vietnamese boat to a Cambodian one that would take us the rest of the way. This is when the trip really got good. Our captain had no problem allowing us to travel on the roof of the boat, so that is exactly where a bunch of us planted ourselves. We plugged an ipod into a speaker, got some good music going, and spent the next 3 hours waving to the beautiful children on the shorelines. Please, don't get me wrong. It was sobering to see the way some of these people live, but their exuberance was just so wonderful that you couldn't help but wave and call back.

I've now been in Phnom Penh for two full days. I can already say that I really like Cambodia and find it refreshing in comparison to some parts of Vietnam. This is a beautiful city full of beautiful people. The locals here are fantastically friendly and helpful and always seem to be smiling. This is amazing, considering what they've been through in the past 35 years. After the mass genocide of Pol Pot, Cambodia was left in ruins. Today, around 40% of the population is under 15. The Killing Fields, which I visited yesterday, stand testimony to the atrocities that occurred here. No words can really express the flood of emotion that occurs when viewing a tower filled with thousands of skulls, or the mass graves of women and babies. Yet with all this, the Cambodian people seem to have picked themselves up, dusted off, and bravely continued on with the business of life. You can't help but admire that.

Of course, not all is smiles. Poverty is a huge issue here. I saw this firsthand this morning, when I joined a group of volunteers and headed out to help the families and children who live at the local dump. Yes, the dump. Although the dump is now closed, the small community of scavengers that developed while it was open is still there. They have nothing, no jobs, no money, no education, and often no food. We bought 165 dollars worth of food, including 400 loaves of bread, apples, pineapples, sweet potatoes, and bananas, and handed it out. We also went with a medic and offered basic treatment to those in need.

I couldn't believe the filth. I couldn't believe the squalor. I also couldn't believe the smiles on these beautiful children who instantly reached out to hold my hand, ask me where I was from, and just be my new friend. They were often half or entirely naked, mostly walking around the garbage heaps with no shoes, and they seemed so happy to see us. I worked with the medic, helping to treat minor open wounds and address simple issues like scabies. Basic medicine, such as tetanus shots and multivitamins, mean so much to these people, yet only come in the form of the volunteers.

Nothing we did was complicated or expensive, but we left knowing that we'd made a big difference, at least for today, in the lives of those people, those children. I think it was that knowledge that has made me decide to stay in Phnom Pen for a bit. I'll be helping out with other organizations, just lending a hand where I can. I don't know with who or what yet, but I'll keep you posted. I feel like my trip has just found the purpose it was looking for, even if it did come just 2 weeks before I head home.

Easy riding, sorta

On Sunday I spent one day in Da Lat, a city on the edge of the Vietnamese Central Highlands. As it was just a one day stop over before heading to Saigon, Petra and I decided to take a motorcycle tour of all of the good things to see. (Jenny left our little group Sunday morning, as she was catching a flight to Kuala Lumpur.) We thought we were getting an "easy rider" tour, tours on the back of classic Honda motorcycles. Instead, we got little motorbikes. That's the way it goes in Vietnam, though. You never get exactly what you expect. In fact, should you actually get exactly what you expected, be thankful and tell the rest of us all about it.

Besides the style of bike, the tour itself was great. Our tour guide (my driver) spoke excellent English and taught us a lot about the progression of the Vietnamese economy over the past 35 years, from Communism to Socialism to their recent entrance into the World Trade Organization. Sadly, he also taught us a lot about the problems Vietnam has with racism, as he is of an ethnic minority here and has worked all his life trying to escape the prejudice imposed upon him. It saddens me that there seems to be no where in this world where people manage to just get along. At least, no where that I've found yet. Come on people, all we need is love.

Da Lat has fantastic climate and great soil (thankfully untouched by Agent Orange), making farming the thing there. Somewhat surprisingly, flowers are one of the big cash crops, although vegetables are also grown in abundance. The other huge crop is coffee. I haven't checked his facts, but the guide told me that Vietnam is number 2 in the world for coffee exportation. Around town, you see fields upon fields of coffee trees, every front yard is used for drying coffee beans, and the air is heavy with the fragrance of green coffee beans. The crops bring a lot of money into the area. So much money, in fact, that the huge, beautiful homes in the area all belong to the farmers.

Fields of lettuce

Fields of daisies

Coffee, still green on the tree

Coffee drying in the streets

After the farms we walked through a minority village, then got to see how rice wine is made. Pretty strong stuff, let me tell you. From there we moved on to a huge waterfall and a pagoda with the best happy Buddha that I've ever seen. A curious sight was that of other Buddha's with what we would consider a swastika emblazoned on their chests. It takes a moment to remember that Buddhism originated in what is now India, and that Hitler corrupted a symbol of luck and prosperity originally found in Sanskrit.

Vietnamese Buddha

Best happy Buddha ever

Our final stop of the day was the Crazy House, which is actually multiple fanciful buildings that twist, turn and grow like something out of Alice in Wonderland. It's not something you'd expect to find here, but it was quite fun to explore. All in all, a good day. I repeat myself, but seeing Vietnam from the back of a motorbike is just cool.

Climbing around the crazy house

We passed this guy, or he us, 4 times before I could get this shot.

On a side note, cute Christmas displays are popping up in some of the shops and hotels. That and the fact that Poinsettias grow wild here (and northern Thailand and Laos) and I've got my own little holiday spirit going on, all the way over here!

Poinsettias

Da Lat store front

Motorbikes, clothing, and market food

It's been a bit since I've been able to write. Traveling through the land of slow to no internet access will do that. Since my last update in Hanoi, I've covered quite a bit of ground. Vietnam is loooonnngggg, meaning too many uncomfortable 12 hour overnight bus trips. Thankfully, as I am now in Nha Trang and closer to Saigon, there will be no more of those.

After leaving Hanoi I stopped for just one day in the little town of Ninh Binh. Just after arriving I met two lovely girls, Jenny and Petra, who planned to see the same sights as I the next day. We hired two motorbikes for the trip. After my adventure on Koh Tao and having just come from Hanoi traffic, I wasn't sure if Ninh Binh was the right place for me to make another attempt at driving, so I hired a driver along with my bike. Although it turned out that I could have handled the drive, I really didn't mind having the driver. Not only did he take us through a bunch of local towns that we would never have found on our own, his driving allowed me to snap pictures from the back of the bike. In my opinion, seeing Vietnam from the back of a motorbike is definitely the way to go.

Limestone cliffs over rice paddies, shot from the bike.

Sweet old man who took me on a tour of a temple

Gateway in the ancient capital city of Hoa Lu

The three of us left Ninh Binh that night, after a bit of hassle with the bus company, and arrived in Hue the next morning. Sadly, bad weather struck at that point. Hue was cold, grey, and soggy with rain. We made one good hearted attempt to see the city, since Hue has a buffet of ancient attractions to take in, but turned back before long due to the miserable weather. We hunkered down in our hostel and were back on the bus by the next morning.

Awesome main gateway to the citadel, the ancient royal city (as seen through rain).

Petra and I trying to stay dry in our awesome polka dot ponchos

That bus took us to Hoi An, wonderful land of tailors and clothing made to measure. Most people can't help but do some shopping in Hoi An, despite best intentions not to. It's just too tempting, seeing beautiful dresses and coats on display, all custom made for you to your specifications, all at much better prices than you'd pay in the States. Men get suits and dress shirts, women pick up nice dresses and winter coats. I myself walked away with some new heft in my backpack. It couldn't be helped.

Beyond clothes, Hoi An is simply a lovely city. We stayed there for 4 and a half days, which was a well needed respite from constant movement. When you've been living out of a backpack for quite some time, it is amazingly nice to really spread your belongings out for a bit.

Anyway, back to Hoi An. The streets are lined with French colonial architecture, bright yellow paint, cobblestone side walks, and leafy green arbors. Although motorbikes are ever present, many more people choose the good old fashioned bicycle, adding a calm air to the streets. At night the river front restaurants emit a gentle glow from their many red and gold lanterns. There is a big central market, where you can buy anything from fish to fruit to home goods. Then there are the market food ladies. Oh, how they tempt me with their nameless, sometimes unidentifiable food! Yummy Vietnamese rice pancakes and sweet, sweet goo that can not be described (trust me, that's a good thing). To top it off, the sun came out on our last day, leading us directly to the most beautiful beach I've seen in a long time. Warm waves, seashelled sands, and good company.

Can you tell I really enjoyed that city?

 One of the many dress shops

Store front display of coats

Typical building, with a lovely green awning

The market

Colorful lanterns. I love, love lanterns and they were everywhere.

Jenny and I at the beach

We left Hoi An Tuesday night and arrived here in Nha Trang Wednesday morning. Nha Trang is a much larger city, but still very calm at the moment, since it is low season. Mainly a beach resort town, the city itself leaves much to be desired. If the sun comes out, as it is desperately trying to do, we'll be spending some well wanted time on the beach. Heck, we'll be on the beach, sun or no sun.

Yesterday included a rather fun trip to a mud bath and mineral spa. I've never done a mud bath before, but it was cool. It also helps when you've got good company. Tomorrow, on to Da Lat.

My muddy group, sans me, since I took the picture

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Dare I say it...

I actually had a great time in Hanoi today! Although I was lazy and spent the most of it watching movies, I decided that I should give Hanoi one more chance with the time I had left. In the afternoon I set out walking to the Literature temple, a place that is considered to be Vietnam's first university. Getting there was fun in itself, as I passed through the "normal" parts of the city where everyday life and commerce takes place, such as tire stores (gotta keep those motorbikes on the road!) and paint shops. I love seeing people going about their everyday lives. The women selling food, walking with huge baskets balanced on their heads. The men lounging on their motor bikes. The children walking hand in hand with grand or perhaps great grandparents. I like the fact that, while I'm obviously noticed, they allow me to blend in with the rest of the city, giving me the opportunity to step away from "tourist" and just be me again. I get a feel for the real Hanoi this way.

The museum itself was beautiful. This is the Asia I've always admired, with red lanterns and banners, dark woods, and beautiful architecture. Vietnam draws much of its influence down from China, so all of this is noticeably different from Laos and Thailand. Though official Vietnamese no longer uses a kanji type script, this older language is still visible at the temples, adding even more to the charm. I very much enjoyed what I saw there, if for no other reason than it was nice to see some age and history in this very modern city.

The walk home was perhaps my favorite part of the day. In places the stores have expanded past the sidewalks, forcing you to walk in the street with the motorbikes and cars for a bit. It was as I was walking there, becoming part of the crazy street traffic, that I realized that the insanity of Hanoi had somehow drawn me in and was actually becoming fun! I noticed that the horns honking were becoming background noise (still a loud, annoying background noise) and that somehow you instinctively hear only the horns that are actually directed at you. I found myself laughing as I stopped short, narrowly avoiding colliding with a motorbike that came flying out of an invisible alleyway. Crossing the street has become a bit of a dance which begins the moment I step off the curb. The bikes and cars become my dance partners; we whirl and twirled carefully and complexly around each other until I am safely on the other side. Around me, others are also participating in this dance, and I have yet to see anyone miss a step.

To top off the night, I stopped into a small Italian style Gelateria and Cafe for dinner before catching my bus to Ninh Binh. I had delicious seafood cream soup with french baguette and an iced Vietnamese coffee. The food was delicious, the service so incredibly polite. I couldn't help but grin my entire way home, often prompting smiles in return from those around me. I was undeniably happy.

So Hanoi, perhaps I was hasty in my judgment of you. You've redeemed yourself a bit today. Good for you. Still, I look forward to what the smaller towns have to offer. No offense.

Flower vendor's bicycle

Sidewalk - place to walk, place to park

Temple structure

Traditional musicians

Pretty little girl with Dad (Grandpa?). Wish I had the camera up in time to catch her from the front.