Little Jewel

One of the joys of traveling for 10 months is the ability to be spontaneous and alter ones plans at the last minute... and so we did. Laos is a quiet little jewel in the middle of southeast Asia. Although only there for a week the gentle nature of the people was quite refreshing, the landscape surprisingly mountainous and the food, influenced by the French, was "magnific".

Each morning in Luang Prabang, while it is still dark, you are awakened to the rhythmic beat of drums and peaceful chanting that comes from one of the many Wats that adorn the city. As the sun slowly rises, old and young line the streets with baskets of steaming sticky rice and pink & white flowers, awaiting the procession of orange robes. No words are exchanged as this daily ritual unfolds, barefoot monks collecting their alms before returning to the temple for study and prayer. What a lovely way to begin the day!

After a 7 hour, harrowing bus ride twisting and turning through villages dotted along the mountains edge we arrived in Vang Vieng. This town appears to be Laos' little Cancun, with out a beach, but plenty of partying just the same. Every backpacker under thirty comes here to tube and partake in drinking massive amounts of alcohol served up by the many bars situated on the rivers edge. Not meeting the above criteria we decided to spend our day kayaking and enjoying the beautiful scenery. Things seemed to be going along quite nicely until the second set of rapids, at least we like to think they were rapids, and a strong side current and Carin was under the kayak trying to lift it off her head and Mike wasn't far behind both floating down stream. As Carin always says, every time she's in a boat with Mike we end up in the water, no exception here.

One last bus trip to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. A few more Wats to see and we were off to Bangkok, 12 hours on the sleeper train to meet up with our girls. Can't wait!

Two days later we will have a small party of nine travelers including An, Ed, Nicole and Sue & Dani. Looking forward to spending time with them in this wonderful part of the world.

One heartfelt shoutout wishing all our family and friends a joyful holiday and peace in 2010.

Tam Biet Vietnam

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they really are."
Samuel Johnson


Ha Noi, Halong Bay, Sapa


There's an endearing phrase used by the Vietnamese people that we found to be most apropos, "Same same...but different". Although the north and the south like to think that they are very different we found...

Both love their Pho and each region thinks theirs is the best, we think they're both yummy. Same same......

Each area has their local specialties but they all use rice to make just about everything. Same same....

Up north in Halong Bay people live on the water just like they do in the south on the Mekong. Same same....

Sapa and Hoi An are both charming villages where women make clothes, one sews and the other embroideries. Same same....

Rice is grown all over Vietnam, on flat land in the south and mountain sides in the north. Same same....

It's hot in the south and cooler in the north but humid in both. Same same...


Both have their own beer with very creative names to match. "Saigon" is king of beer in the south and "Hanoi" rules in the north. Same same...

There are more motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh and more cars in Ha Noi but incessant honking and traffic in both. same, same but not different.

We had an excellent time exploring the north part of Vietnam. In Hanoi, the capital city, we spent the majority of our time wandering through the old quarter. We toured the "Hanoi Hilton" where John McCain spent most of his time as a POW. Carin managed to get hit by a motor bike, don't worry the bike was fine. We sat with the locals on the little red kiddie stools enjoying the street food and ended each day at Fanny's the local ice cream parlor. Never got to see Ho Chi Minh, rumor had it he was in Russia with Mao. Needing a break from the city noise we boarded a Chinese Junk for a relaxing few days cruising, kayaking and caving on Halong Bay. Spectacular! Sapa, our final destination is where we visited the minority hill tribes. We took a two day trek with a our local 20 year old Black Hmong guide up through the rice terraces that cover the mountain side, did a home stay with a local family where we played Uno and did many shots of home made rice wine with our host, yes Carin too, and can't remember the rest. Before heading back we spent the morning at the incredible Bac Ha market, unlike any market we have been to so far.... At this market you could purchase a live water buffalo, pig, chicken, fighting rooster, puppy (we think for a pet, not sure) and the usual or in this case unusual food stuff. This is where the young girls from the surrounding hill tribes, dressed in the most stunning attire come each Sunday to, as we say, Hook Up. They seem to be pretty successful as most of the women have babies strapped to their backs. We would have loved to shown you this and all of Sapa's amazing color, but due to a technical glitch our pictures are locked on the memory card. Help!


Shoutouts

- Erik The food is even more delicious than it looks. Save your money and you can come here and try it for yourself.
- Mom Keep the comments coming. Maybe Skyping is in our future.
- Ricky & Liz Now that your seasoned travelers it's time to try Asia. No worries Liz the food is basically gluten free.
- Mike D If your getting a little itchy to do some more traveling Asia is the place to go. We think it might be less expensive than Mexico with a lot more young travelers. All look like their having a blast sharing adventures.
- Marcia We're at a loss, you didn't have Laos in your travel notes.
- An, Ed, Nicole, Sue & Dani, our soon to be traveling companions. Leave your worries behind and let the adventure begin.
- J&H our arms are ready, can't wait to have them filled.

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

Our journey has taken us back to Asia and the wonderfuld world of Vietnam. Saigon is alive, crazy, hectic, and bursting with people, cars, motor scooters & bicycles. Ask any traveler and they will tell you that a hi-light in Ho Chi Min City is crossing the road. As Carin says, "if it wasn't for Mike, I would still be standing in front of our hotel on the same side of the street." It really can be a life threatening experience until you learn the ropes. There are a number of strategies you can try. Mikes favorite is to push Carin off the curb and see what happens. Just kidding. Carin's favorites are to walk up and down the street waiting for the traffic to clear (which it never does) or to find one of the 5 stop lights in the whole city and wait for the little green walking person. Only problem being no one obeys the signals and the sidewalks offer no refuge for pedestrians. Another good one is to look for the 85 year old Vietnamese woman carrying pots of soup hanging from a bamboo pole perched on her shoulder and follow closely behind as she crosses with ease. The real key is to gird up your loins, look straight ahead (in Carin's case grab onto Mike) and walk... until you reach the other side. We loved our time wondering through the city, checking out the sights, visiting the US embassy twice (long story), and especially the fabulous dinner with Ryan, our friend Ellen's son from Boulder and his fiancée Thi. They took us to their favorite place, Quan An Ngon. Thi, who grew up in HCMC, volunteered to do all the ordering and it was absolutely "delicious", which turns out to be the english translation of the restaurants name. The food was so good we braved our way back for lunch the next day. From the city we took a trip to the Cao Dai Great Temple and Cu Chi Tunnels, pronounced Gucci, which unfortunately Mike couldn't fit into, more about that later. The elaborate network of tunnels were used by the VC for sneak attacks on American forces.

Just a few hours south west of Saigon is the mighty Mekong Delta. This river begins in Tibet and flows into the China Sea, and is used for everything. We took a 3 day tour including bus, boat and bicycle to explore the area. What we saw was amazing, people literaly living on the water. There were floating markets, stilted houses on the river banks and fish farms right in the middle of the floating houses. The tour included a home stay with a local Vietnamese family, a visit to Chau Doc and a short trip across the river to a Muslim minority Cham community.

Continuing north along the coast we stopped for a little R & R at the beaches of Mui Ne and
Nha Trang. Although the beaches were wonderful we really loved skyping with the family on Thanksgiving and meeting Charlie from Buffalo, proud owner of the Texas Steak House & Barbecue who served us an authentic turkey day dinner with all the trimmings, yum yum, a nice change from rice & noodles.

Central Vietnam is home to the lovely, historic city of Hoi An, one of the few places untouched during the war. The old towns architecture is charming, the streets are motorbike free for part of the day and there are 267 tailors. The reason we mention tailors is because Carin decided to go with the flow and have a few pieces custom made. This is when the fun really began. Carin was trying to replace a pair of pants and add a pair of shorts to her collection. While looking through the five million bolts of fabric and trying to explain what she wanted, Carin noticed Mike who was supposed to be helping with the decision making, was fully engaged with one of the adorable young sales girls. She had him wearing a long sleeved Nehru shirt complete with chinese buttons and was asking if he would like a pair of matching pants. Out came the tape measure and and then the comments. You have to understand, the Vietnamese are very small boned, thin people. When measuring Mike's waist the girl looked up at him, patted his belly and said " Oh,very nice, happy buddha" . When Carin asked, whether she should have flaps sewn on the rear pockets, the girl started laughing and said "excuse me madam, but you have little bit of big bum so flaps not so good". It's okay Carin wasn't to insulted because the next thing we knew all the girls in the shop were talking and giggling about their little tushies and saying how they would love to have some. After multiple refits, mostly to let the clothes out, we hit the streets with our new duds. We took a cooking class (ha, ha) learned how to make fresh rice paper and then used it to make the best spring rolls, if we do say so ourselves. We also took a bike ride through neighboring villages on our way to the beach, took part in the full moon celebration and rode a motorbike along China Beach to Marble Mountain, where we saw beautiful Pagodas and Buddhist shrines inside natural caves. During the "American" war one of the larger caves was used by the VC as a field hospital.

By now you've probably figured out Vietnam is a very long country and we're only half way through. Our last stop before heading north was Hue, pronouned "Hway". It rained and rained and rained.

Time for a few shoutouts

-Gerri our dear sister-in-law, you know we love you babe. Thanks for making the drama queens trip to NYC so special.
-Mia, tell us what you're studying and we'll take some pictures of it.
-Ivi you never fail to crack us up, have you thought about writing for Letterman?
-N.I.C.E. very creative who ever you are. Can't wait to see what you write next!
-Sue F. you're quite the travel agent, we're glad to give you a little break from packing.
-Curry Lee maybe you and Sue can team up!
-Doug send some Chicken-E-Licken
- Jess and Hannah, eighteen days and counting. Good luck with finals !!
-Michele, we think some travel is in your future.
- Sue S. let us know if you will be lecturing any where close by Asia..S Africa..India..Egypt....
- Jan, glad you had a great trip to Guatemala, welcome home

-All, Thanks for the feedback on the video. We loved hearing from so many of you!!!