Saturday, April 25, 2009
I have some stories that go back to Cambodia. Hopefully they are not repeats.
"You said maybe later."
We took a bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap to go see Angkor Wat and the other temples. The drive was a long 6 or 7 hours and I think that we stopped maybe 2hours into the trip at a bus stop swarming with tourists on other buses bound for Siem Reap and then locals trying to sell anything and everything. Pat and I got off the bus to use the bathroom and as soon as we set foot on the ground we were nearly attacked by small children selling cut pineapples, magoes and bananas. They tried to bargain with us, but bargaining was not necessary because we were not hungry and did not want any fruit. Trying not to be negative or mean while attempting to get the kids to move on Pat said that he would maybe buy something later. As soon as we left the toilets the kids found us again instantly. One girl with a strange British accent says, "But you said maybe later." They tried hard to make their sell, but we were not interested. We talked with them and they claimed it cost $2 a day to go to school and the same girl with the British accent repeats, "But you said maybe later" and continues with "Now I going to cry." She did not end up crying, it was just part of her hard selling act. Now when Pat tries to send off sellers with "Maybe later" we think of the little girl with the British accent.
"But Sir you are not Vietnamese"
After our first night in DaNang, we were set on switching hotels because of the location across the river and the extremely hard and small bed. We took a taxi across the bridge and went into a couple of hotels to see rooms and ask about prices. We went into one hotel and looked at a room and then we were talking about the cost at the reception desk. The woman informed us of the price and pointed at a price list on the counter for the different types of rooms. The price list had two columns, one in Vietnamese Dong and one is US dollars. She told us the price is dollars, but we did not have any USD left so we asked if we could pay in Dong noticing that the Dong prices and USD prices were not equal. Pat asked if we could pay the price listed in Dong and the woman responded, "But Sir you are not Vietnamese." Really? We learned that in Vietnam there are prices for Vietnamese and prices for tourists that are not equal.
Standing in Line in Vietnam and Planes
As Pat mentioned in an earlier post, flights are very cheap in Vietnam, so we have opted to fly from HCMC to DaNang and then Hue to Hanoi (the two longest legs of our trip). When we landed in DaNang as the plane was pulling up to its parking place, not when it stopped, everyone shot out of the seats grabbing their bags and mostly all stood in the isle. It was unbelievable! I usually enjoy taking my time because I know that by rushing to get into the isle does not mean that I will get off the plane first or even get my luggage first at baggage claim. I would save very little time by rushing to stand in the isle and pushing to get off the plane. But sure enough nearly everyone was standing in the isle and pushing to get off the plane. In the States and elsewhere the passengers leave the plane based on where they are sitting. The first row goes then the second and people generally let people who are sitting in front of them get off in front. This was not the case. People did not let you out of your row. Once in the airport if you decide to use the toilet you will run into the same situation in the bathroom. Southeast Asian bathroom lines are individual for each stall there is not just one line where the first person goes to the open stall. So if you happen to choose the wrong stall, you are out of luck. And if you try to form just one line, the local women will push ahead and try to form individual stall lines.
Yesterday we flew from Hue to Hanoi. Hue was a small airport claiming to be international, but I only saw two gates and not much more, so I am not sure where they actually fly other than Hanoi and HCMC that makes it international. Our flight starting boarding at 12:30, so we walked down the stairs to the gate where we loaded (like sardines) an airport bus that drove us probably at most 50 feet. I am not kidding! We could have easily walked and thus saved gas for the two airport buses! The plane was just outside the door of the gate. There was no reason that the airport should have had an airport bus much less two or three and why in the world could we not walk to the plane???
Turning Heads
Soccer/Football is huge in Southeast Asia and they love to follow the European leagues. For Christmas Pat was given a Barcelona jersey with MESSI on the back and a Liverpool TORRES jersey both of which he wears on a regular basis. Every time he wears the jerseys he gets thumbs up with people saying "Barcelona!" "Liverpool!" and then getting excited when they see that it is MESSI or TORRES. Pat can not go anywhere wearing the jerseys without getting some sort of commentary. While we were in Hue, Pat wore his MESSI jersey to dinner one night. We walked across the bridge and as he walked he was turning heads of all the guys sitting on the side of the bridge with friends or their girlfriends. It was as if he were some beautiful, blonde girl with a short skirt. All the guys were staring him down and turning their heads to follow him with their eyes. As we passed they would say something about Barcelona or Messi and continue to stare.
Hue, Vietnam
After several days in Hoi An having clothes made, we took a three hour bus to Hue where we spent three nights. We had reserved the "Penthouse" room at a hotel a couple days before we arrived. The room was great! We had the 6th floor of the hotel to ourselves with a wrap around balcony that overlooked the city where we had our breakfast brought to us the first morning. We had the usual air-con, hot water along with a computer and internet in our room. It was a pretty sweet set-up for only $30 a night. Our first day we visited the Citadel where the Emperor lived in the 1800s. The next day we did a motorbike tour that took us to some sites outside the city including a Japanese covered bridge, an emporer's tomb, some French bunkers with a great view of the river and a Pagoda where we were able to watch a group of monks sing. The tour was really good, the motorbike being the best part. We drove through huge rice paddies and through pine forest. The scenery was beautiful and we have found that motorbikes are a really good way to see a city.
Hanoi, Vietnam
So now we are in Hanoi in the Northern part of Vietnam. (We have a little over a week left before we head to Bangkok for a few days and then fly to California.) We had a hotel booked for last night and the room was good except that the water was not working and the computer was also not working. We switched rooms but the room was not very good, so we ended up switching to a nicer and less expensive hotel down the road. We found a cool restaurant a couple doors down from our new hotel where there is a grill on each table and you cook your own food. We had beef steak and vegetables with a delicious dipping sauce. The food was really good and it was fun to cook it in front of us!
For the next couple of days we will do the touristy things around Hanoi. On Monday we head to Halong Bay for a three-day, two-night tour of the bay, which looks beautiful and like a lot of fun.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Pocahontas Party in Vietnam
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Our two-day, one-night tour of the Mekong Delta was touristy but pretty good. We took a 3-hr boat ride down the Saigon River early the first morning and started the activities off with Unicorn Island where we tasted local honey, banana wine, tropical fruits and listened to traditional Vietnamese music. We enjoyed rowing in row boats down a skinny canal wearing the pointed cone hats that you imagine of when you think about Vietnam. We went to Ben Tre to look at fruit orchards, watch the making of coconut candy and taste it, and ride bikes through the town. We took a few different boats to Can Tho where we stayed for the night, which is the 5th biggest city in Vietnam. The following morning we took a boat to the biggest floating market in the area where they hang the available produce from poles high in the sky. If a boat was selling pineapples, a pineapple would be hanging from a tall pole as advertising. Our final stop was a risk husking factory where we learned about rice and its many forms.
We returned to Ho Chi Minh City in the evening of the second day only to find that our hotel (where we had stayed for 6 days) did not reserve a room that we had asked for. They took us to a different hotel, but the room was smelly and the shower was no good. We walked around and eventually found a place that had really comfortable beds and was perfect for the night. The following day we flew to DaNang in central Vietnam.
We found DaNang to be cute but fairly boring. Our first night in the city as we walked along the river in search of dinner memories of our first weeks in Trang haunted us. Everyone was starring at us and yelling hello with no follow up. A man with a small child in his arms ran up to us to give his kid a closer look. At the restaurant we found, we struggled to order. The waitstaff knew no English and we had no Vietnamese to offer. Overall in DaNang we struggled to find good food. The places that would have the best local food likely did not have a menu and we had no idea what to order.
We met up with a friend at the local bar Seventeen Saloon, which was very much a cowboy and indians kind of place. The band was Filipino and sang some wonderful American hits. We were planning on heading out of DaNang the following day, but after learning there would be a Pocahontas Party the next night we decided we had to stay and check it out. After our first night at Seventeen Saloon, we went out for some late night food, fresh seafood on the beach. We had clams, steamed squid, frog and fish lettuce wraps. The food was incredibly fresh and delicious. We also had some locals with us who knew where to eat and what to order.
The Pocahontas Party was simply stunning. When we arrived there was a bonfire and a teepee at the front door. Inside we found that all the staff were wearing Indian costumes. The men were shirtless with their chests painted and the women where wearing little burlap and pleather outfits with their faces painted. Even the band was decked out with Indian garb. The night included some themed activities and competitions: face painting, fish spearing and a raffle drawing. I was volunteered for the face painting competition, so I painted a 40-year old Vietnamese guy's face. We ended up winning the contest and I now have a black tshirt with a horse on the front and the back! It is quite a terrible shirt. Patrick tried out the fish spearing and we had no luck with the raffle. At one point 4 of the waitresses did a dance routine in their outfits to Shakira (which is not quite Indian music). The whole night was quite amusing! We do have pictures, but I will not be able to post those until we get back to the States.
We are currently in Hoi An, a city 45 minutes South of DaNang. It is a World Heritage Site and it is known for its tailor and shoemaking shops. We are having a few things made. Pat designed a pair of UNC hightop basketball shoes that should be ready this morning and we are also having some clothes made (shorts, pants, and a dress). We will let you know how those turn out. The center part of Hoi An is the "ancient" city and no motorbikes or cars are allowed to drive through, so it is really peaceful to walk through. The ancient city is very quaint and the shops are very cute. I think today we will spend some time at the beach because it is really hot and the beach is only 3 km away.
Our two-day, one-night tour of the Mekong Delta was touristy but pretty good. We took a 3-hr boat ride down the Saigon River early the first morning and started the activities off with Unicorn Island where we tasted local honey, banana wine, tropical fruits and listened to traditional Vietnamese music. We enjoyed rowing in row boats down a skinny canal wearing the pointed cone hats that you imagine of when you think about Vietnam. We went to Ben Tre to look at fruit orchards, watch the making of coconut candy and taste it, and ride bikes through the town. We took a few different boats to Can Tho where we stayed for the night, which is the 5th biggest city in Vietnam. The following morning we took a boat to the biggest floating market in the area where they hang the available produce from poles high in the sky. If a boat was selling pineapples, a pineapple would be hanging from a tall pole as advertising. Our final stop was a risk husking factory where we learned about rice and its many forms.
We returned to Ho Chi Minh City in the evening of the second day only to find that our hotel (where we had stayed for 6 days) did not reserve a room that we had asked for. They took us to a different hotel, but the room was smelly and the shower was no good. We walked around and eventually found a place that had really comfortable beds and was perfect for the night. The following day we flew to DaNang in central Vietnam.
We found DaNang to be cute but fairly boring. Our first night in the city as we walked along the river in search of dinner memories of our first weeks in Trang haunted us. Everyone was starring at us and yelling hello with no follow up. A man with a small child in his arms ran up to us to give his kid a closer look. At the restaurant we found, we struggled to order. The waitstaff knew no English and we had no Vietnamese to offer. Overall in DaNang we struggled to find good food. The places that would have the best local food likely did not have a menu and we had no idea what to order.
We met up with a friend at the local bar Seventeen Saloon, which was very much a cowboy and indians kind of place. The band was Filipino and sang some wonderful American hits. We were planning on heading out of DaNang the following day, but after learning there would be a Pocahontas Party the next night we decided we had to stay and check it out. After our first night at Seventeen Saloon, we went out for some late night food, fresh seafood on the beach. We had clams, steamed squid, frog and fish lettuce wraps. The food was incredibly fresh and delicious. We also had some locals with us who knew where to eat and what to order.
The Pocahontas Party was simply stunning. When we arrived there was a bonfire and a teepee at the front door. Inside we found that all the staff were wearing Indian costumes. The men were shirtless with their chests painted and the women where wearing little burlap and pleather outfits with their faces painted. Even the band was decked out with Indian garb. The night included some themed activities and competitions: face painting, fish spearing and a raffle drawing. I was volunteered for the face painting competition, so I painted a 40-year old Vietnamese guy's face. We ended up winning the contest and I now have a black tshirt with a horse on the front and the back! It is quite a terrible shirt. Patrick tried out the fish spearing and we had no luck with the raffle. At one point 4 of the waitresses did a dance routine in their outfits to Shakira (which is not quite Indian music). The whole night was quite amusing! We do have pictures, but I will not be able to post those until we get back to the States.
We are currently in Hoi An, a city 45 minutes South of DaNang. It is a World Heritage Site and it is known for its tailor and shoemaking shops. We are having a few things made. Pat designed a pair of UNC hightop basketball shoes that should be ready this morning and we are also having some clothes made (shorts, pants, and a dress). We will let you know how those turn out. The center part of Hoi An is the "ancient" city and no motorbikes or cars are allowed to drive through, so it is really peaceful to walk through. The ancient city is very quaint and the shops are very cute. I think today we will spend some time at the beach because it is really hot and the beach is only 3 km away.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Its been a while
So it has been quite a while since I have written anything about my time here in Southeast Asia. I think it has been around 4 months or something like that. In the span of that time a lot of stuff has happened and I feel like I need to write some of it down while it is somewhat fresh in my mind or I'll lose it forever. One of the first things I wanted to talk about was to make a list of things that I will and won't miss about Trang. I think I'll start with the things I won't miss first.
1. Having people just shout hello at me while I ride by on a motorbike. If your gonna yell at someone at least have a follow up to hello.
2. I won't miss the general confusion that comes from a huge language barrier. While that can be kind of interesting sometimes, and it is all part of living in another place, a lot of times it just gets frustrating.
I'm sure I could think of others but it is a lot more fun to think about the things you will miss. So I'll go ahead and list those.
I think I'll ditch the number format for this one and just go off the top of my head.
I'm going to miss seeing the kids that I taught. Its very strange to go from seeing them everyday to knowing that you will never see any of them again. I'll miss some of the staff at Wichienmatu, not many but there are a few people that I will miss. Being able to eat lunch for 50 cents a day will also be dearly missed. I'll miss when my dinner bill is over a dollar and I think that is expensive. I'll miss being able to ride my motor bike around and park it right in front of wherever I want to go. Being able to fill it up for the week and only spend two dollars will also be missed. I'll miss the good food and being able to eat from a street stall. I'll miss the friends I made, especially Joe and Hok those guys were awesome. And especially I will miss being one of the better basketball players in the city that I live in. Its back to being perhaps slightly above average when I get back home. But I digress. I think I will mainly miss the experience of living and working in a foreign place where English is not the main spoken language. I know I was complaining about it earlier but that made the experience challenging and difficult and in the end that was what made it rewarding. It will be strange to go from being a novelty to look at in Thailand to being just another white person in the United States. Its gonna be a tough transition and I'm not sure how I will handle it but we will find out in about a month.
Here I would like to take some time to congratulate the UNC basketball team. I know many on the team are regular readers, so congratulations boys you earned it. Its funny Keats and I were in Phnom Penh, its the capital of Cambodia in case you don't know, and we were hanging out with my buddy Sam who lives and works there. We were walking around just talking and we passed by a sports bar and he told me if I wanted to watch the championship game live there we would be able to. I though he was just being a jackass and messing around with me because he went to Duke. And we all know that people who went to Duke love being jackasses. But lo and behold he was not and I decided we had to stay an extra day in the city to watch the game. It ended up not being very exciting but I'll take a beatdown in the national championship as opposed to a thrilling loss any day. I hope Franklin Street was crazy and I'm sorry I missed it, but I think it was a worthwhile trade.
Our travels so far have been a lot of fun. We had some great times in Bangkok with my brother. Who knew a dirty disgusting city could look so great 57 stories up. Laos was fun, we stayed in one city a bit to long but it was still a good time. Cambodia was a bit of a dump. Angkor Wat was truly amazing but everything else about the country was a bit depressing and very dirty. But that will happen when the smartest people in your country are systematically murdered. But at least they had the championship game for me to watch. You will be remembered fondly for that Cambodia don't you worry. We are in Vietnam now and it has been a really good and interesting place. I have never been in a country that my country was formerly at war with. It is extremely sad to walk around and see a man with no arms or legs or a badly burnt face and know that your country probably had a great deal to do with why his life sucks so bad. I think we view war in the US differently than other countries because we pretty much always get to pack up and leave a war zone, whereas the other country has to stay and rebuild there way of life. The physical damage done to the land that is evidenced here is something that cannot be forgotten quickly because it simply cannot go away. People die or grow up but for the most part bomb craters stay where they are.
Tomorrow Keats and I are heading to the Mekong Delta, an area to the South of Saigon. I am really looking forward to that. After that we are heading to Danang. We found out it was either a 19 hour bus ride there or a 34 dollar flight. The decision pretty much made itself. I will try to write a bit more in the next few weeks just to get my thoughts down somewhere before they get lost. Anyway let me end this the only fitting way I see.
GO HEELS.
1. Having people just shout hello at me while I ride by on a motorbike. If your gonna yell at someone at least have a follow up to hello.
2. I won't miss the general confusion that comes from a huge language barrier. While that can be kind of interesting sometimes, and it is all part of living in another place, a lot of times it just gets frustrating.
I'm sure I could think of others but it is a lot more fun to think about the things you will miss. So I'll go ahead and list those.
I think I'll ditch the number format for this one and just go off the top of my head.
I'm going to miss seeing the kids that I taught. Its very strange to go from seeing them everyday to knowing that you will never see any of them again. I'll miss some of the staff at Wichienmatu, not many but there are a few people that I will miss. Being able to eat lunch for 50 cents a day will also be dearly missed. I'll miss when my dinner bill is over a dollar and I think that is expensive. I'll miss being able to ride my motor bike around and park it right in front of wherever I want to go. Being able to fill it up for the week and only spend two dollars will also be missed. I'll miss the good food and being able to eat from a street stall. I'll miss the friends I made, especially Joe and Hok those guys were awesome. And especially I will miss being one of the better basketball players in the city that I live in. Its back to being perhaps slightly above average when I get back home. But I digress. I think I will mainly miss the experience of living and working in a foreign place where English is not the main spoken language. I know I was complaining about it earlier but that made the experience challenging and difficult and in the end that was what made it rewarding. It will be strange to go from being a novelty to look at in Thailand to being just another white person in the United States. Its gonna be a tough transition and I'm not sure how I will handle it but we will find out in about a month.
Here I would like to take some time to congratulate the UNC basketball team. I know many on the team are regular readers, so congratulations boys you earned it. Its funny Keats and I were in Phnom Penh, its the capital of Cambodia in case you don't know, and we were hanging out with my buddy Sam who lives and works there. We were walking around just talking and we passed by a sports bar and he told me if I wanted to watch the championship game live there we would be able to. I though he was just being a jackass and messing around with me because he went to Duke. And we all know that people who went to Duke love being jackasses. But lo and behold he was not and I decided we had to stay an extra day in the city to watch the game. It ended up not being very exciting but I'll take a beatdown in the national championship as opposed to a thrilling loss any day. I hope Franklin Street was crazy and I'm sorry I missed it, but I think it was a worthwhile trade.
Our travels so far have been a lot of fun. We had some great times in Bangkok with my brother. Who knew a dirty disgusting city could look so great 57 stories up. Laos was fun, we stayed in one city a bit to long but it was still a good time. Cambodia was a bit of a dump. Angkor Wat was truly amazing but everything else about the country was a bit depressing and very dirty. But that will happen when the smartest people in your country are systematically murdered. But at least they had the championship game for me to watch. You will be remembered fondly for that Cambodia don't you worry. We are in Vietnam now and it has been a really good and interesting place. I have never been in a country that my country was formerly at war with. It is extremely sad to walk around and see a man with no arms or legs or a badly burnt face and know that your country probably had a great deal to do with why his life sucks so bad. I think we view war in the US differently than other countries because we pretty much always get to pack up and leave a war zone, whereas the other country has to stay and rebuild there way of life. The physical damage done to the land that is evidenced here is something that cannot be forgotten quickly because it simply cannot go away. People die or grow up but for the most part bomb craters stay where they are.
Tomorrow Keats and I are heading to the Mekong Delta, an area to the South of Saigon. I am really looking forward to that. After that we are heading to Danang. We found out it was either a 19 hour bus ride there or a 34 dollar flight. The decision pretty much made itself. I will try to write a bit more in the next few weeks just to get my thoughts down somewhere before they get lost. Anyway let me end this the only fitting way I see.
GO HEELS.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Ho Chi Minh City--Vietnam
Thursday, April 10, 2009
Since our last post...
We stayed in Luang Prabang a few days too long, but our stay was relaxing and restful. On March 30 we flew to Bangkok and spent one night in the city and then the following day flew to Phnom Penh (PP), Cambodia a city that falls lower than Bangkok on my list of places I would rather not spend much time in. Our plan was to take a taxi to a hotel that we had found in our guidebook and look at a room. If the room was not what we wanted we would walk and check out a couple of other options that I thought were nearby. Well the hotel was not what we wanted and they were asking way more than we wanted to pay, so we walked around the area realizing there was not much else around and that we were likely not in the best part of the city. Directly across from the hotel was S21 the interrogation prison during the Khmer Rouge reign that was previously a secondary school. Something like 20,000 Cambodians passed through the prison before being taken to be murdered at the Killing Fields outside of the city. We were not to keen about spending our days across the street from the prison. We quickly found another option in our guide books, the River View Hotel, and asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us there. As we drove we realized that there were definitely some nicer parts of the city and that the area near the river was significantly nicer than where we started. Strangely our driver turned away from the river and drove us in the opposite direction stopping in front of a hotel. We asked a guy working at the hotel if it was the River View Hotel. He said that it was so we went in checked out a room and agreed to stay for the night. Only later in the evening when I was taking a card with the hotel's name and address did I realize that we were actually staying at Her Royal Highness Hotel. I was extremely angry and ready to move our things in the morning, but in the morning we had too much to accomplish and ended up staying at Her Royal Highness a second night before taking a bus to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and the other ancient temples. During our full day in PP we found out that we could get our Vietnam Visa in a day, so we tried to accomplish everything that we wanted to in one day so as to minimize our time in the city. We went to the Killing Fields to see the mass graves from the Khmer Rouge. We went to S21 to see the classrooms that had been converted to torture chambers and holding cells and that housed portraits of prisoners that had been murdered. The reign of the Khmer Rouge is terrifying and that it only happened 30 years ago is unbelievable. After the museum we went to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda leaving us exhausted.
A quick complaint about our bathroom set up in two hotels in PP. At Her Royal Highness, we had hot water and even a bath tub. At first sight the bath tub was impressive, but if you looked a bit closer...there was no water fixture for the actual tub and the shower head was placed halfway between the tub and the toilet. So do you shower over the toilet and not have to hold the shower head or do you shower over the tub and hold the shower head? We thought this strange, but did not think too much about it. When we returned to PP and stayed in a different hotel, there was the same set up. Why in the world? I would love any explanation that any one has about this because it simply baffles me.
We took a bus to Siem Reap and bought a three-day pass to see the temples. We spent two full days of wandering the incredible temples. The temples are hard to describe. They were incredible. We went to Angkor Wat first which is the best known temple and it was enormous and beautiful and we were in awe of how it could have been built. The next temple we went to was the Bayon in Angkor Thom and it was our favorite of all the temples that we saw. There were large carved faces all over the structure. The more that you looked at the temple the more faces that you saw. Some of the temples you could climb to the top and walk all around them while others were a bit more restricted. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for both days and he drove us from temple to temple since the entire area is huge. After seeing Angkor Wat and the Bayon, we wanted to know more about the temples and the history, so we talked with our driver about hiring a guide. He said he knew of someone and that his English was good and he was offering a price $5 less than the hotel. We agreed, but the next morning when we picked up the guide, we knew we had made a mistake. The guide struggled to introduce himself and the first thing he pointed out was a souvenir shop. Yes, he pointed to a souvenir shop and said, "That is a souvenir shop." As we drove onto the grounds, we struggled to understand the guide's English, but we decided to give him a chance with Angkor Wat. We were hoping maybe his English would improve and that he would have some interesting facts to offer. We were wrong. He spoke very little and what little he had to offer was usually obvious. He explained that a wall of bas-reliefs was of a war. Well there were definitely soldiers with weapons, so I would have guessed that there was a war being fought. It was painful and would be waste of time for him and for us. Pat and I decided that we would pay him for the morning and then explain that we would continue on without him. We played "rock paper scissors" to see who would have the honors, and I lost and I was the one to fire our guide. At first he did not understand, but we eventually conveyed our point and he headed home. We felt really bad, but we were relieved when we were able to enjoy the rest of our day exploring the temples and reading about them in a guidebook.
After three nights in Siem Reap, we took the bus back to PP and planned on leaving the following day for Vietnam. The bus ride was painful as was the bus to Siem Reap. The roads of Cambodia are not great and the 6-7 hour ride was spent jolting from side to side and bumping up and down. And the road we took between Siem Reap and PP is one of the main highways in the country. I cannot imagine the secondary and tertiary roads.
Back in Phnom Penh we met up with one of Pat's friends, Sam, from Durham and looked forward to heading to Vietnam. As we wandered the streets with Sam, we past a sportsbar where he claimed that he was able to watch the UNC Final Four game. At first we did not believe him because ESPN Asia does not cover basketball especially not college basketball, but sure enough he did get the Final Four game and he was going to get the NCAA Finals. So we postponed our trip to Vietnam for a day so that we could watch the UNC v. Michigan State game. While the game was not too exciting, it was great to watch and the whole thing made Pat especially happy.
We are now in Ho Chi Minh City and have been for the past three nights. We visited the War Remnants Museum from the Vietnam War (which is called the American War here) and we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and waged war from an intricate system of underground tunnels. We are really enjoying HCMC and think that it totally trumps PP. The streets are clean here whereas in PP they were littered with trash piles. Some of the main roads in PP branched off to dirt roads (in the city!) while the roads here are well paved. Here in HCMC there are a whole lot of motorbikes!! There are some intersections with traffic lights while others the traffic just goes and pedestrians just walk. As a pedestrian you have to walk across the streets at a constant pace and not stop and then the motorbikes will go around you. If you stop, you confuse the drivers and you are likely to be hit. We have been able to walk around a lot and we have found some really nice parts of town with ice cream shops, little restaurants and boutique shops. Our hotel is simple but comfortable. We get a bagette with jam and coffee in the mornings and pho noodles and spring rolls for dinner, and the staff has been incredible helpful and kind. We will probably stay for a few more nights and do one or two nights in the Mekong Delta before heading to Central Vietnam.
Sorry for the long and somewhat boring blog post. I just felt like I needed to catch everyone up on where we are and what we are up to.
Since our last post...
We stayed in Luang Prabang a few days too long, but our stay was relaxing and restful. On March 30 we flew to Bangkok and spent one night in the city and then the following day flew to Phnom Penh (PP), Cambodia a city that falls lower than Bangkok on my list of places I would rather not spend much time in. Our plan was to take a taxi to a hotel that we had found in our guidebook and look at a room. If the room was not what we wanted we would walk and check out a couple of other options that I thought were nearby. Well the hotel was not what we wanted and they were asking way more than we wanted to pay, so we walked around the area realizing there was not much else around and that we were likely not in the best part of the city. Directly across from the hotel was S21 the interrogation prison during the Khmer Rouge reign that was previously a secondary school. Something like 20,000 Cambodians passed through the prison before being taken to be murdered at the Killing Fields outside of the city. We were not to keen about spending our days across the street from the prison. We quickly found another option in our guide books, the River View Hotel, and asked a tuk-tuk driver to take us there. As we drove we realized that there were definitely some nicer parts of the city and that the area near the river was significantly nicer than where we started. Strangely our driver turned away from the river and drove us in the opposite direction stopping in front of a hotel. We asked a guy working at the hotel if it was the River View Hotel. He said that it was so we went in checked out a room and agreed to stay for the night. Only later in the evening when I was taking a card with the hotel's name and address did I realize that we were actually staying at Her Royal Highness Hotel. I was extremely angry and ready to move our things in the morning, but in the morning we had too much to accomplish and ended up staying at Her Royal Highness a second night before taking a bus to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and the other ancient temples. During our full day in PP we found out that we could get our Vietnam Visa in a day, so we tried to accomplish everything that we wanted to in one day so as to minimize our time in the city. We went to the Killing Fields to see the mass graves from the Khmer Rouge. We went to S21 to see the classrooms that had been converted to torture chambers and holding cells and that housed portraits of prisoners that had been murdered. The reign of the Khmer Rouge is terrifying and that it only happened 30 years ago is unbelievable. After the museum we went to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda leaving us exhausted.
A quick complaint about our bathroom set up in two hotels in PP. At Her Royal Highness, we had hot water and even a bath tub. At first sight the bath tub was impressive, but if you looked a bit closer...there was no water fixture for the actual tub and the shower head was placed halfway between the tub and the toilet. So do you shower over the toilet and not have to hold the shower head or do you shower over the tub and hold the shower head? We thought this strange, but did not think too much about it. When we returned to PP and stayed in a different hotel, there was the same set up. Why in the world? I would love any explanation that any one has about this because it simply baffles me.
We took a bus to Siem Reap and bought a three-day pass to see the temples. We spent two full days of wandering the incredible temples. The temples are hard to describe. They were incredible. We went to Angkor Wat first which is the best known temple and it was enormous and beautiful and we were in awe of how it could have been built. The next temple we went to was the Bayon in Angkor Thom and it was our favorite of all the temples that we saw. There were large carved faces all over the structure. The more that you looked at the temple the more faces that you saw. Some of the temples you could climb to the top and walk all around them while others were a bit more restricted. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for both days and he drove us from temple to temple since the entire area is huge. After seeing Angkor Wat and the Bayon, we wanted to know more about the temples and the history, so we talked with our driver about hiring a guide. He said he knew of someone and that his English was good and he was offering a price $5 less than the hotel. We agreed, but the next morning when we picked up the guide, we knew we had made a mistake. The guide struggled to introduce himself and the first thing he pointed out was a souvenir shop. Yes, he pointed to a souvenir shop and said, "That is a souvenir shop." As we drove onto the grounds, we struggled to understand the guide's English, but we decided to give him a chance with Angkor Wat. We were hoping maybe his English would improve and that he would have some interesting facts to offer. We were wrong. He spoke very little and what little he had to offer was usually obvious. He explained that a wall of bas-reliefs was of a war. Well there were definitely soldiers with weapons, so I would have guessed that there was a war being fought. It was painful and would be waste of time for him and for us. Pat and I decided that we would pay him for the morning and then explain that we would continue on without him. We played "rock paper scissors" to see who would have the honors, and I lost and I was the one to fire our guide. At first he did not understand, but we eventually conveyed our point and he headed home. We felt really bad, but we were relieved when we were able to enjoy the rest of our day exploring the temples and reading about them in a guidebook.
After three nights in Siem Reap, we took the bus back to PP and planned on leaving the following day for Vietnam. The bus ride was painful as was the bus to Siem Reap. The roads of Cambodia are not great and the 6-7 hour ride was spent jolting from side to side and bumping up and down. And the road we took between Siem Reap and PP is one of the main highways in the country. I cannot imagine the secondary and tertiary roads.
Back in Phnom Penh we met up with one of Pat's friends, Sam, from Durham and looked forward to heading to Vietnam. As we wandered the streets with Sam, we past a sportsbar where he claimed that he was able to watch the UNC Final Four game. At first we did not believe him because ESPN Asia does not cover basketball especially not college basketball, but sure enough he did get the Final Four game and he was going to get the NCAA Finals. So we postponed our trip to Vietnam for a day so that we could watch the UNC v. Michigan State game. While the game was not too exciting, it was great to watch and the whole thing made Pat especially happy.
We are now in Ho Chi Minh City and have been for the past three nights. We visited the War Remnants Museum from the Vietnam War (which is called the American War here) and we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong lived and waged war from an intricate system of underground tunnels. We are really enjoying HCMC and think that it totally trumps PP. The streets are clean here whereas in PP they were littered with trash piles. Some of the main roads in PP branched off to dirt roads (in the city!) while the roads here are well paved. Here in HCMC there are a whole lot of motorbikes!! There are some intersections with traffic lights while others the traffic just goes and pedestrians just walk. As a pedestrian you have to walk across the streets at a constant pace and not stop and then the motorbikes will go around you. If you stop, you confuse the drivers and you are likely to be hit. We have been able to walk around a lot and we have found some really nice parts of town with ice cream shops, little restaurants and boutique shops. Our hotel is simple but comfortable. We get a bagette with jam and coffee in the mornings and pho noodles and spring rolls for dinner, and the staff has been incredible helpful and kind. We will probably stay for a few more nights and do one or two nights in the Mekong Delta before heading to Central Vietnam.
Sorry for the long and somewhat boring blog post. I just felt like I needed to catch everyone up on where we are and what we are up to.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Stories to Be Told
Sunday, March 29, 2009
I know that yesterday I posted a long post, but there are some stories that need to be told from the past couple of weeks starting with Bangkok...
On Rod's first day in town, we headed to the Gourmet Market in the nicest mall that Pat and I have ever been in. We were in search of limes, tonic water (no where to be found near our hotel) and pastries for the morning. We found what we needed and headed to the curb to hail a taxi. We were motioned to get in the taxi line, so we waited behind a couple of other people. We got into the first cab verifying they had a meter and asked to be taken to our hotel. He drove up a bit and said that he would not take us there. The traffic was bad, but there were plenty of taxis. We hopped out and tried another. Again after getting into the taxi and driving a little bit, we were told that the driver would not take us there. We were baffled by the drivers as you would expect them to drive you where you wanted to go as it is their job. Even if the traffic is bad or the hotel is across town, that means that they make more money, right? In another taxi attempt, the guy explained to us that the fare would be 20 baht, but that we needed to stop by a store first. Red Flags!! Absolutely not!! We had read about similar scams in the guidebooks, but had not yet experienced them so that was a first. After trying out several taxis and only making it a few feet at a time, we found a taker. The traffic was bad and it took quite a while, but we made it back to our hotel.
As a side note...Traffic in Bangkok is TERRIBLE!!! It can be 10am or 10pm and there is rush hour traffic! As you ride through the city in the taxi or walking on the streets, you wonder why anyone would be driving their personal car yet you see plenty of non-commercial vehicles. What are they thinking?!?! Pat recently read in a book that a family that lives in Bangkok now carries around a chemical toilet when they take family trips because they got caught in traffic for 17 hours and only moved something like 3 miles. So traffic is bad, but it also makes no sense. As we have likely mentioned before, in Thailand you can not turn across traffic. In Thailand you drive on the left side of the road, so that means that you cannot make a right turn (in most situations--at some intersections you can turn right). Instead of being able to make a right turn, you have to drive past where you want to go and make a U-turn and then turn left where you originally wanted to turn right. This is not too terrible in a place like Trang, only inconvenient. In Bangkok it means sitting terrible traffic then making a U-turn to sit in more traffic!! What were they thinking when they made the road rules!
So now we return to Laos and Luang Prabang. When we arrived on Monday, Pat and I went to go exchange a bit of Thai baht for some Laos kip. We exchanged about 4,000 baht each, which gave us just short of 1 million kip. Yes, that is right, we were almost millionaires in Laos!!! The exchange rate is around 8,000 kip to $1, but many of the restaurants, stores and hotels accept baht, kip and dollars. Supposedly, the kip has no value outside of Laos, so if you happened to have some kip left over after leaving the country, you would not be able to exchange it to anything. You would be stuck with some strange looking bills that all look strangely similar to each other. So do not take any kip outside of Laos, but if you want to be a millionaire, Laos is the place to be.
While we were staying with Rod at the riverside bungalows, we would take the hotel minivan into town inviting the driver and another staff member (who we will call Ta) to have a drink or a bit of food with us. The first night we learned that the driver, who was 30 years old at the most, had been married three times already and had "cancelled" the first two. Yes, he referred to the first two marriages as being cancelled, but his current wife is pregnant so I am thinking he is happy and not cancelling her. We also learned that Ta had just been married the previous week and was around 23 years old. The second night after a couple of beers we learned that Ta had another very beautiful woman in his life who did not know that he was married. He said that she had not been beautiful or nice, but that he saw her this year and that she was so beautiful (emphasis on so) and sometimes he cried. I am not sure if he cried about her being beautiful or...I'm not real sure, but he said sometimes he cried. We asked when he would tell this beautiful girl that he was married. He said something along the lines of "When she knows alone, she knows." So basically when she finds our on her own. The situation is not so comical, but the way that it was presented and explained was priceless.
On a different note, this morning I opted to wake up early to watch the alms ceremony when the monks accept food offerings at dawn. Rod had passed on this opportunity while he was in town and 6am is too early for Pat (as many of us know). I woke up this morning around 5:45am with my camera backpack strapped to my back, ready to conquer the streets. The left side of the street was lined with people giving offerings of mostly cooked rice and bananas. The other side of the street was lined with minibuses from different hotels. Vendors were selling rice and bananas to tourists to give to the monks, but I opted not to based on information passed on to me. Rod had told me that in the past monks had been given bad food by tourists and become sick. They had not wanted to continue the early morning tradition, but the government would hear none of that. The government said that the monks must continue for the tourists or that they would be replaced by actors. I had imagined sitting on the curb with my camera taking pictures of the "ceremony" inconspicuously, but tourists were lining the streets with point-and-shot cameras and video cameras blocking what view I may have had from the opposite curb. I took some pictures from a distance, but also knelt beside the curb (so as to be below the monks) to get some closer images. The whole ceremony was a bit bizarre. There were maybe 100 monks walking in a line collecting food from offerers. Instead of giving the monks a package of rice, each monk received a small fist full in their baskets. So in the end the monks received a pile of plain rice that each lump had been touched by a different strangers hand. None of the monks looked to excited about this prospect, but instead looked blankly as they completed a daily task. It was very interesting.
I know that yesterday I posted a long post, but there are some stories that need to be told from the past couple of weeks starting with Bangkok...
On Rod's first day in town, we headed to the Gourmet Market in the nicest mall that Pat and I have ever been in. We were in search of limes, tonic water (no where to be found near our hotel) and pastries for the morning. We found what we needed and headed to the curb to hail a taxi. We were motioned to get in the taxi line, so we waited behind a couple of other people. We got into the first cab verifying they had a meter and asked to be taken to our hotel. He drove up a bit and said that he would not take us there. The traffic was bad, but there were plenty of taxis. We hopped out and tried another. Again after getting into the taxi and driving a little bit, we were told that the driver would not take us there. We were baffled by the drivers as you would expect them to drive you where you wanted to go as it is their job. Even if the traffic is bad or the hotel is across town, that means that they make more money, right? In another taxi attempt, the guy explained to us that the fare would be 20 baht, but that we needed to stop by a store first. Red Flags!! Absolutely not!! We had read about similar scams in the guidebooks, but had not yet experienced them so that was a first. After trying out several taxis and only making it a few feet at a time, we found a taker. The traffic was bad and it took quite a while, but we made it back to our hotel.
As a side note...Traffic in Bangkok is TERRIBLE!!! It can be 10am or 10pm and there is rush hour traffic! As you ride through the city in the taxi or walking on the streets, you wonder why anyone would be driving their personal car yet you see plenty of non-commercial vehicles. What are they thinking?!?! Pat recently read in a book that a family that lives in Bangkok now carries around a chemical toilet when they take family trips because they got caught in traffic for 17 hours and only moved something like 3 miles. So traffic is bad, but it also makes no sense. As we have likely mentioned before, in Thailand you can not turn across traffic. In Thailand you drive on the left side of the road, so that means that you cannot make a right turn (in most situations--at some intersections you can turn right). Instead of being able to make a right turn, you have to drive past where you want to go and make a U-turn and then turn left where you originally wanted to turn right. This is not too terrible in a place like Trang, only inconvenient. In Bangkok it means sitting terrible traffic then making a U-turn to sit in more traffic!! What were they thinking when they made the road rules!
So now we return to Laos and Luang Prabang. When we arrived on Monday, Pat and I went to go exchange a bit of Thai baht for some Laos kip. We exchanged about 4,000 baht each, which gave us just short of 1 million kip. Yes, that is right, we were almost millionaires in Laos!!! The exchange rate is around 8,000 kip to $1, but many of the restaurants, stores and hotels accept baht, kip and dollars. Supposedly, the kip has no value outside of Laos, so if you happened to have some kip left over after leaving the country, you would not be able to exchange it to anything. You would be stuck with some strange looking bills that all look strangely similar to each other. So do not take any kip outside of Laos, but if you want to be a millionaire, Laos is the place to be.
While we were staying with Rod at the riverside bungalows, we would take the hotel minivan into town inviting the driver and another staff member (who we will call Ta) to have a drink or a bit of food with us. The first night we learned that the driver, who was 30 years old at the most, had been married three times already and had "cancelled" the first two. Yes, he referred to the first two marriages as being cancelled, but his current wife is pregnant so I am thinking he is happy and not cancelling her. We also learned that Ta had just been married the previous week and was around 23 years old. The second night after a couple of beers we learned that Ta had another very beautiful woman in his life who did not know that he was married. He said that she had not been beautiful or nice, but that he saw her this year and that she was so beautiful (emphasis on so) and sometimes he cried. I am not sure if he cried about her being beautiful or...I'm not real sure, but he said sometimes he cried. We asked when he would tell this beautiful girl that he was married. He said something along the lines of "When she knows alone, she knows." So basically when she finds our on her own. The situation is not so comical, but the way that it was presented and explained was priceless.
On a different note, this morning I opted to wake up early to watch the alms ceremony when the monks accept food offerings at dawn. Rod had passed on this opportunity while he was in town and 6am is too early for Pat (as many of us know). I woke up this morning around 5:45am with my camera backpack strapped to my back, ready to conquer the streets. The left side of the street was lined with people giving offerings of mostly cooked rice and bananas. The other side of the street was lined with minibuses from different hotels. Vendors were selling rice and bananas to tourists to give to the monks, but I opted not to based on information passed on to me. Rod had told me that in the past monks had been given bad food by tourists and become sick. They had not wanted to continue the early morning tradition, but the government would hear none of that. The government said that the monks must continue for the tourists or that they would be replaced by actors. I had imagined sitting on the curb with my camera taking pictures of the "ceremony" inconspicuously, but tourists were lining the streets with point-and-shot cameras and video cameras blocking what view I may have had from the opposite curb. I took some pictures from a distance, but also knelt beside the curb (so as to be below the monks) to get some closer images. The whole ceremony was a bit bizarre. There were maybe 100 monks walking in a line collecting food from offerers. Instead of giving the monks a package of rice, each monk received a small fist full in their baskets. So in the end the monks received a pile of plain rice that each lump had been touched by a different strangers hand. None of the monks looked to excited about this prospect, but instead looked blankly as they completed a daily task. It was very interesting.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Living Like Rock Stars
Saturday, March 28, 2009
We successfully moved out of our apartment in Trang thanks to the help of our friends Hok and Joe. On Wednesday Joe and Hok spent the day with us taking us to lunch, helping us get rid of the stuff we no longer wanted and Hok picked us up in his pick up truck to take our suitcases and backpacks to the train station. Our night train to Bangkok was okay. We had a little compartment with a Russian couple which was quieter and more private than our previous train adventures. The air-con was extremely cold which is expected as someone running the trains does not understand moderation. Around 7:30am we were awaken by our Russian compartment-mates who informed us that the train was broken and that we had 5 minutes to switch trains. We scrambled to get our belongings together and we hopped on the neighboring train. Unfortunately our large luggage (2 suitcases and 2 hiking backpacks) was in the luggage car and did not make it on to the second train. We ended up riding the second train for 2.5hrs in the luggage car with a rooster, some motorbikes, lots of moving boxes and a few other people. When we arrived in Bangkok we were informed that our luggage would arrive in the afternoon. We took a taxi to our hotel (which took a while because our taxi driver got lost even after speaking with our hotel). We stayed at the Atlanta hotel, which is the oldest unchanged hotel in Bangkok. It is about 60 years old. The lobby was very interesting looking, but the rooms were very minimal. Walls throughout the hotel were plastered with rules which included no complaining ("not at these prices"), no sex tourist (which is fine, but at the same time does a sign in the front need to say in huge bold type "SEX TOURIST NOT WELCOME") and something like 10 more rules. These rules were in the lobby and posted on all the rest of the floors. Interesting...After trying to recover from the night train and early morning, we headed back to the train station to find our bags. We asked a couple of people who seemed a bit confused about the broken train, but we found one person who knew exactly what we were talking about and led us directly to our bags. We took our suitcases to storage where they will stay for 6 weeks and took our backpacks with us.
Rod, Pat's older brother, met us in Bangkok Friday. He had booked rooms for us at a lovely hotel, the Banyan Tree, where we had rooms with a view on the 45th floor. Rod, knowing what we had been missing, brought red wine, gin, sausage and cheese, and rosemary crackers for a little snack and drink before dinner on the rooftop restaurant. The view was incredible!! A 360 degree view of the lights of Bangkok!!! Dinner was good but it was wonderful to be with Rod and have such a priceless view of the city. We had no agenda for our time in Bangkok, so we checked out the weekend market, introduced Rod to some of our favorite dishes and Rod and Pat went to a Muay Thai fight. We were supposed to fly out on Sunday to head to Luang Prabang, Laos, but we had thought the flight was later than it was. We arrived at the airport 45 minutes before our flight left and the check-in counter would not let us through. We had a chance to actually make the flight, but as soon as the woman said "no" there was no hope. We tried to talking our way onto the plane, but after 15 minutes at the counter there was no chance. We changed our tickets to the same flight the following day and found a hotel online for one more night in Bangkok. We ended up staying in a 57th floor suite in the Lebua Hotel with a balcony overlooking the city and the river!!! I found that I really liked Bangkok from the 45th or 57th floor of a nice hotel.
After checking into the hotel we went exploring around the area. A man in a striped shirt approached us saying that he worked at the Embassy and was off for the day. He asked where we were going and we told him that we were looking for some food and wanted to head towards an area called Silom. He crossed the street with us and led us to a tuk-tuk. He had written "Silom" on a piece of paper for Pat in English and Thai. He told us we could take the tuk-tuk for 30baht. We told him that we preferred to walk, but he insisted that it was too far (3km). We continued to walk and he yelled "You do not believe me!" and tore up the piece of paper. He continued toyell at us as we walked off. It was a very bizarre situation.
From our 57th floor suite balcony, we drank red wine and gin and tonics watching the sunset and the lights illuminate the city. We had seen a Mexican restaurant earlier during our stay so we took a taxi to the restaurant. The driver was playing "If You Are Going to San Francisco." After we explained that Rod was from San Francisco, he turned up the volume and restarted the song. It was classic!! Pat has been craving Mexican food probably since we left the burrito restaurant in Chiang Mai in early January, so we enjoyed chips and salsa and burritos. The waitresses were wearing jeans and short denim shirts with cowboy hats.
On Monday we made our flight with no problems. The flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang was only about 2 hours. We landed at a very small airport with only one other plane parked. We walked off the plane, across the "parking lot" and into the basically one-room airport. For the four nights that Rod was with us in Luang Prabang we stayed at a Bungalow beside the river outside of the actual town. Our bungalows had porches with great views of the river. There were one-speed bikes that we could ride into town and also the hotel's minivan could drive us into town.
Luang Prabang is a very quiet and quaint town. Laos is definitely a developing country based on roads and infrastructure, but Luang Prabang is not so. The streets are lined with boutique hotels, small guest houses and really cute shops selling local crafts especially silk woven products. All the bathrooms seem to have flushing toilets with toilet paper and soap (very surprising after our stay in Thailand), which is not usually the case in developing countries. There is a great art scene with art galleries and shops all around. The tourists seem to be either young backpackers or older tourists.
We spent most of our time walking around the town, peaking into different shops and trying different foods. One day we took a slow boat (let me emphasize slow) down the Mekong River to see the Buddha Caves (Pak Ou Caves). Local laotian people would take unused Buddhas to the caves, whether they were broken or had been replaced, and the caves were supposedly full of Buddha images. The caves were not as cool as the guidebooks had said. The boat ride was very nice, but also very slow.
Rod left on Friday to head back home and we moved on to a guest house in town. It was sad to say to see him go as we had had a wonderful time traveling and hanging out with him. We will stay in Luang Prabang until Monday when we fly back to Bangkok. Tuesday we will fly from Bangkok to Cambodia to go check out the temples in Siem Reap including Angkor Wat and work on getting our visas for Vietnam.
We successfully moved out of our apartment in Trang thanks to the help of our friends Hok and Joe. On Wednesday Joe and Hok spent the day with us taking us to lunch, helping us get rid of the stuff we no longer wanted and Hok picked us up in his pick up truck to take our suitcases and backpacks to the train station. Our night train to Bangkok was okay. We had a little compartment with a Russian couple which was quieter and more private than our previous train adventures. The air-con was extremely cold which is expected as someone running the trains does not understand moderation. Around 7:30am we were awaken by our Russian compartment-mates who informed us that the train was broken and that we had 5 minutes to switch trains. We scrambled to get our belongings together and we hopped on the neighboring train. Unfortunately our large luggage (2 suitcases and 2 hiking backpacks) was in the luggage car and did not make it on to the second train. We ended up riding the second train for 2.5hrs in the luggage car with a rooster, some motorbikes, lots of moving boxes and a few other people. When we arrived in Bangkok we were informed that our luggage would arrive in the afternoon. We took a taxi to our hotel (which took a while because our taxi driver got lost even after speaking with our hotel). We stayed at the Atlanta hotel, which is the oldest unchanged hotel in Bangkok. It is about 60 years old. The lobby was very interesting looking, but the rooms were very minimal. Walls throughout the hotel were plastered with rules which included no complaining ("not at these prices"), no sex tourist (which is fine, but at the same time does a sign in the front need to say in huge bold type "SEX TOURIST NOT WELCOME") and something like 10 more rules. These rules were in the lobby and posted on all the rest of the floors. Interesting...After trying to recover from the night train and early morning, we headed back to the train station to find our bags. We asked a couple of people who seemed a bit confused about the broken train, but we found one person who knew exactly what we were talking about and led us directly to our bags. We took our suitcases to storage where they will stay for 6 weeks and took our backpacks with us.
Rod, Pat's older brother, met us in Bangkok Friday. He had booked rooms for us at a lovely hotel, the Banyan Tree, where we had rooms with a view on the 45th floor. Rod, knowing what we had been missing, brought red wine, gin, sausage and cheese, and rosemary crackers for a little snack and drink before dinner on the rooftop restaurant. The view was incredible!! A 360 degree view of the lights of Bangkok!!! Dinner was good but it was wonderful to be with Rod and have such a priceless view of the city. We had no agenda for our time in Bangkok, so we checked out the weekend market, introduced Rod to some of our favorite dishes and Rod and Pat went to a Muay Thai fight. We were supposed to fly out on Sunday to head to Luang Prabang, Laos, but we had thought the flight was later than it was. We arrived at the airport 45 minutes before our flight left and the check-in counter would not let us through. We had a chance to actually make the flight, but as soon as the woman said "no" there was no hope. We tried to talking our way onto the plane, but after 15 minutes at the counter there was no chance. We changed our tickets to the same flight the following day and found a hotel online for one more night in Bangkok. We ended up staying in a 57th floor suite in the Lebua Hotel with a balcony overlooking the city and the river!!! I found that I really liked Bangkok from the 45th or 57th floor of a nice hotel.
After checking into the hotel we went exploring around the area. A man in a striped shirt approached us saying that he worked at the Embassy and was off for the day. He asked where we were going and we told him that we were looking for some food and wanted to head towards an area called Silom. He crossed the street with us and led us to a tuk-tuk. He had written "Silom" on a piece of paper for Pat in English and Thai. He told us we could take the tuk-tuk for 30baht. We told him that we preferred to walk, but he insisted that it was too far (3km). We continued to walk and he yelled "You do not believe me!" and tore up the piece of paper. He continued toyell at us as we walked off. It was a very bizarre situation.
From our 57th floor suite balcony, we drank red wine and gin and tonics watching the sunset and the lights illuminate the city. We had seen a Mexican restaurant earlier during our stay so we took a taxi to the restaurant. The driver was playing "If You Are Going to San Francisco." After we explained that Rod was from San Francisco, he turned up the volume and restarted the song. It was classic!! Pat has been craving Mexican food probably since we left the burrito restaurant in Chiang Mai in early January, so we enjoyed chips and salsa and burritos. The waitresses were wearing jeans and short denim shirts with cowboy hats.
On Monday we made our flight with no problems. The flight from Bangkok to Luang Prabang was only about 2 hours. We landed at a very small airport with only one other plane parked. We walked off the plane, across the "parking lot" and into the basically one-room airport. For the four nights that Rod was with us in Luang Prabang we stayed at a Bungalow beside the river outside of the actual town. Our bungalows had porches with great views of the river. There were one-speed bikes that we could ride into town and also the hotel's minivan could drive us into town.
Luang Prabang is a very quiet and quaint town. Laos is definitely a developing country based on roads and infrastructure, but Luang Prabang is not so. The streets are lined with boutique hotels, small guest houses and really cute shops selling local crafts especially silk woven products. All the bathrooms seem to have flushing toilets with toilet paper and soap (very surprising after our stay in Thailand), which is not usually the case in developing countries. There is a great art scene with art galleries and shops all around. The tourists seem to be either young backpackers or older tourists.
We spent most of our time walking around the town, peaking into different shops and trying different foods. One day we took a slow boat (let me emphasize slow) down the Mekong River to see the Buddha Caves (Pak Ou Caves). Local laotian people would take unused Buddhas to the caves, whether they were broken or had been replaced, and the caves were supposedly full of Buddha images. The caves were not as cool as the guidebooks had said. The boat ride was very nice, but also very slow.
Rod left on Friday to head back home and we moved on to a guest house in town. It was sad to say to see him go as we had had a wonderful time traveling and hanging out with him. We will stay in Luang Prabang until Monday when we fly back to Bangkok. Tuesday we will fly from Bangkok to Cambodia to go check out the temples in Siem Reap including Angkor Wat and work on getting our visas for Vietnam.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Moving Out and Moving On
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009
Life in Southern Thailand has become quite hectic now that we are finished teaching. Two weeks ago, after Pat turned in his final grades, we headed to our favorite island, Koh Lanta, for some relaxation and sun. From Wednesday until Monday, we spent plenty of time reading, enjoying the sun and sleeping. Our friend Niamh joined us for a couple of nights, and she was heavily pursued by two of the Thai hotel staff fighting for her attention and heart with tropical drinks decorated with heart-shaped pineapple pieces and conversations of broken English. She broke both of their hearts when she left with us Monday morning. One of her pursuers left a hand-written, hand-drawn note with Pat which we later passed on to Niamh. Monday morning was the Carolina v. Duke game. We intentionally stayed longer at the beach because a friend of ours on the staff allowed us to borrow the keys to the internet room to watch the game. We stayed up until 3:00am and watched the game on the glowing computer screen in the dark internet room, Pat pounding his fists in the air and jumping up with shouts. Luckily Carolina won and we were able to sleep well at 5:30am. Go HEELS!!
We spent a couple of days in Trang packing our suitcases in preparation of our move March 18th, hanging out with friends and eating at our favorite restaurants. Last Wednesday we took the 5 hour bus to Phuket in order to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. We arrived in Phuket Town after dark and found a guesthouse within walking distance of the bus station that had everything we needed: air conditioning, hot water, cable TV (with English chanels) and an inexpensive price (around $15). Thursday morning we caught a shuttle to the airport and flew to Kuala Lumpur to meet one of Pat's high school friends for a long weekend. We were on a budget so we decided to take the bus from the airport to our hotel in the city, which ended up taking 2 hours!! Towards the end of the ride when everyone else on the bus had been dropped off, Pat's boredom got the best of him and he spent the rest of the ride messing with me as I tried to read.
Our hotel was in an area known as Chow Kit (known for its market), which ended up not being touristy at all. We saw maybe one other tourist in the area the whole time, which is kind of nice. The hotel was okay, but we ended up moving to the hotel nextdoor, which was much nicer and only a few dollars more a night (and we could see the Petronas Towers from our window and they were filming a movie in the lobby and on our floor). Our first night in KL we tried walking the 5km to the Petronas Towers (the tallest towers in the world until 2004), but ended up at a dead end at an elevated highway. We took the subway the remaining distance and found ourselves in a massive and nice shopping mall that is between the towers (where we spent a lot of our long weekend.) On Friday we slept late and ate lunch at a Curry House near our hotel and enjoyed the Indian influence on Malay food. There are a couple of main influences of Malaysian culture. There are Indian Malays, Chinese Malays and Malaysia Malays. So we found that the food includes a lot of Indian and Chinese foods. Malaysia is predominantly Muslim (we could hear the call to prayer from our hotel) and it was a British colony, so a lot of people speak extremely good English.
On Friday we went back to the shopping mall to watch "Watchmen," which Pat had been anticipating since it came out on March 8th. We explored China Town, which resembled the knock-off markets that we have found in Thailand with pushy vendors and lots of bootleg DVDs and fake Channel handbags. We tried to find Little India, but we headed back at the Curry House for a dinner of fresh naan and curried chicken. Saturday morning we switched hotels and waited for Pat's friend, Becca, to arrive from the airport. After catching up over lunch at the Curry House, the three of us headed to the Lake Gardens and then to the Kuala Lumpur Tower to look over the city from the observation deck. We spent time in the shopping mall at the Petronas Towers chatting over coffee at Starbucks. We avoided the afternoon rain in our hotel and then watched the Liverpool soccer game at a bar in China Town. On Sunday we woke up to Pat's computer not working so we spent the morning trying to fix it and then we took a taxi to Little India for an amazing lunch. Little India was a bit disappointing as all of the shops were selling tacky silk fabrics, headscarves and carpets, but our lunch was well worth the trip. Becca had to catch her plane Sunday evening and our flight was not until Monday morning. Pat and I enjoyed a trip up to the Sky Bridge on the 40th floor of the Petronas Towers as the sun started to set. We had a good weekend and enjoyed seeing and hanging out with Becca, but there is not a whole lot to do in KL.
Lessons learned from Kuala Lumpur:
-Always insist on taxi drivers using the meter. All the taxis have meters in Kuala Lumpur, but for some reason a majority refuse to use it. Often you tell the driver where you want to go and they name a price between 10 and 20 ringit. If you want you can try to bargain the price. On one ride we bargained for 10 ringit to go from the Kuala Lumpur Tower to the Petronas Towers. The driver had left the meter on and when we arrived at the Petronas Towers we saw that it should have cost no more than 2 ringit. From that point on we asked all the drivers if they had a meter. Most of the time they said they did not have a meter even though one was clearly in sight or they said it did not work. A couple of times we would ask nearly 10 drivers before we found one willing to use his meter.
-Do not take the blue taxis (especially if you are on a budget). On a very rainy afternoon we found a driver willing to use his meter to take us from the Petronas Towers to our hotel (about 5 km). As soon as we got in the driver informed us that his meter started at 6 ringit. We had already asked several drivers about using their meter and it was raining a lot, so we stayed in the taxi. As we drove through the rain and traffic, the price on the meter quickly rose much faster than most taxis. We learned that our taxi was a blue taxi which is an "executive" taxi and therefore cost more and went at a quicker rate. The ride was very pricey and the driver took us to the wrong hotel.
-Make sure your alarm is set to the local time. Our flight was at 7:10 on Monday morning, so we set our alarm for 4:30am and had the hotel call a taxi for us for 5am. Early in the morning our phone rang and the voice informed me that our taxi was waiting. I tried to explain that it was 4:20am and that we did not need a taxi until 5am. The voice corrected me said that it was already 5:20am. Our cell phone was still on Thailand time and we had oversleeped!! We rushed to pack our bags and were in the taxi by 5:35am. The ride ended up taking a full hour even though there was absolutely no traffic. The airport was surprisingly busy! We begged to have our bags checked and we fidgeted in the line for passport control before asking to get in front of eveyone since our flight was leaving in 20 minutes. We ran to the gate and pleaded to be let on the flight only to find that the flight to Phuket had not boarded. We caught our flight and our bags made it to Phuket and by 1pm on Monday we were back in Trang.
Yesterday and today, Pat and I have been trying to pack, clean and get everything ready to move out tomorrow. We head to Bangkok by train tomorrow evening where we will meet Rod, Pat's older brother. This morning we sold our washing machine (which we used only twice) and our fridge for quite a deal for the buyers (because we were getting a little desperate). In the afternoon we sold our motorbike back to the dealership for less than they had promised. We are slowly packing everything up and cleaning out our apartment. It is surprising that we have already spent close to 5 months in Thailand. We are excited about traveling in Southeast Asia, but at the same time we are a bit sad to leave Trang and our friends here. It is very strange to be packing our bags.
Life in Southern Thailand has become quite hectic now that we are finished teaching. Two weeks ago, after Pat turned in his final grades, we headed to our favorite island, Koh Lanta, for some relaxation and sun. From Wednesday until Monday, we spent plenty of time reading, enjoying the sun and sleeping. Our friend Niamh joined us for a couple of nights, and she was heavily pursued by two of the Thai hotel staff fighting for her attention and heart with tropical drinks decorated with heart-shaped pineapple pieces and conversations of broken English. She broke both of their hearts when she left with us Monday morning. One of her pursuers left a hand-written, hand-drawn note with Pat which we later passed on to Niamh. Monday morning was the Carolina v. Duke game. We intentionally stayed longer at the beach because a friend of ours on the staff allowed us to borrow the keys to the internet room to watch the game. We stayed up until 3:00am and watched the game on the glowing computer screen in the dark internet room, Pat pounding his fists in the air and jumping up with shouts. Luckily Carolina won and we were able to sleep well at 5:30am. Go HEELS!!
We spent a couple of days in Trang packing our suitcases in preparation of our move March 18th, hanging out with friends and eating at our favorite restaurants. Last Wednesday we took the 5 hour bus to Phuket in order to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. We arrived in Phuket Town after dark and found a guesthouse within walking distance of the bus station that had everything we needed: air conditioning, hot water, cable TV (with English chanels) and an inexpensive price (around $15). Thursday morning we caught a shuttle to the airport and flew to Kuala Lumpur to meet one of Pat's high school friends for a long weekend. We were on a budget so we decided to take the bus from the airport to our hotel in the city, which ended up taking 2 hours!! Towards the end of the ride when everyone else on the bus had been dropped off, Pat's boredom got the best of him and he spent the rest of the ride messing with me as I tried to read.
Our hotel was in an area known as Chow Kit (known for its market), which ended up not being touristy at all. We saw maybe one other tourist in the area the whole time, which is kind of nice. The hotel was okay, but we ended up moving to the hotel nextdoor, which was much nicer and only a few dollars more a night (and we could see the Petronas Towers from our window and they were filming a movie in the lobby and on our floor). Our first night in KL we tried walking the 5km to the Petronas Towers (the tallest towers in the world until 2004), but ended up at a dead end at an elevated highway. We took the subway the remaining distance and found ourselves in a massive and nice shopping mall that is between the towers (where we spent a lot of our long weekend.) On Friday we slept late and ate lunch at a Curry House near our hotel and enjoyed the Indian influence on Malay food. There are a couple of main influences of Malaysian culture. There are Indian Malays, Chinese Malays and Malaysia Malays. So we found that the food includes a lot of Indian and Chinese foods. Malaysia is predominantly Muslim (we could hear the call to prayer from our hotel) and it was a British colony, so a lot of people speak extremely good English.
On Friday we went back to the shopping mall to watch "Watchmen," which Pat had been anticipating since it came out on March 8th. We explored China Town, which resembled the knock-off markets that we have found in Thailand with pushy vendors and lots of bootleg DVDs and fake Channel handbags. We tried to find Little India, but we headed back at the Curry House for a dinner of fresh naan and curried chicken. Saturday morning we switched hotels and waited for Pat's friend, Becca, to arrive from the airport. After catching up over lunch at the Curry House, the three of us headed to the Lake Gardens and then to the Kuala Lumpur Tower to look over the city from the observation deck. We spent time in the shopping mall at the Petronas Towers chatting over coffee at Starbucks. We avoided the afternoon rain in our hotel and then watched the Liverpool soccer game at a bar in China Town. On Sunday we woke up to Pat's computer not working so we spent the morning trying to fix it and then we took a taxi to Little India for an amazing lunch. Little India was a bit disappointing as all of the shops were selling tacky silk fabrics, headscarves and carpets, but our lunch was well worth the trip. Becca had to catch her plane Sunday evening and our flight was not until Monday morning. Pat and I enjoyed a trip up to the Sky Bridge on the 40th floor of the Petronas Towers as the sun started to set. We had a good weekend and enjoyed seeing and hanging out with Becca, but there is not a whole lot to do in KL.
Lessons learned from Kuala Lumpur:
-Always insist on taxi drivers using the meter. All the taxis have meters in Kuala Lumpur, but for some reason a majority refuse to use it. Often you tell the driver where you want to go and they name a price between 10 and 20 ringit. If you want you can try to bargain the price. On one ride we bargained for 10 ringit to go from the Kuala Lumpur Tower to the Petronas Towers. The driver had left the meter on and when we arrived at the Petronas Towers we saw that it should have cost no more than 2 ringit. From that point on we asked all the drivers if they had a meter. Most of the time they said they did not have a meter even though one was clearly in sight or they said it did not work. A couple of times we would ask nearly 10 drivers before we found one willing to use his meter.
-Do not take the blue taxis (especially if you are on a budget). On a very rainy afternoon we found a driver willing to use his meter to take us from the Petronas Towers to our hotel (about 5 km). As soon as we got in the driver informed us that his meter started at 6 ringit. We had already asked several drivers about using their meter and it was raining a lot, so we stayed in the taxi. As we drove through the rain and traffic, the price on the meter quickly rose much faster than most taxis. We learned that our taxi was a blue taxi which is an "executive" taxi and therefore cost more and went at a quicker rate. The ride was very pricey and the driver took us to the wrong hotel.
-Make sure your alarm is set to the local time. Our flight was at 7:10 on Monday morning, so we set our alarm for 4:30am and had the hotel call a taxi for us for 5am. Early in the morning our phone rang and the voice informed me that our taxi was waiting. I tried to explain that it was 4:20am and that we did not need a taxi until 5am. The voice corrected me said that it was already 5:20am. Our cell phone was still on Thailand time and we had oversleeped!! We rushed to pack our bags and were in the taxi by 5:35am. The ride ended up taking a full hour even though there was absolutely no traffic. The airport was surprisingly busy! We begged to have our bags checked and we fidgeted in the line for passport control before asking to get in front of eveyone since our flight was leaving in 20 minutes. We ran to the gate and pleaded to be let on the flight only to find that the flight to Phuket had not boarded. We caught our flight and our bags made it to Phuket and by 1pm on Monday we were back in Trang.
Yesterday and today, Pat and I have been trying to pack, clean and get everything ready to move out tomorrow. We head to Bangkok by train tomorrow evening where we will meet Rod, Pat's older brother. This morning we sold our washing machine (which we used only twice) and our fridge for quite a deal for the buyers (because we were getting a little desperate). In the afternoon we sold our motorbike back to the dealership for less than they had promised. We are slowly packing everything up and cleaning out our apartment. It is surprising that we have already spent close to 5 months in Thailand. We are excited about traveling in Southeast Asia, but at the same time we are a bit sad to leave Trang and our friends here. It is very strange to be packing our bags.
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