Halloween in November

The last time I knocked on a door while wearing a costume I was 12 years old and they were giving me candy. There's usually something wrong if you're 24 and running around at night doing the same thing. But Tuesday night, that's exactly what I was doing, complete with a full body bear suit. Granted, I wasn't exactly in my right mind, due to a marathon journey from southern Vietnam through Bangkok and back to Portland. As such I hadn't really slept in three days, and even now my brain is still somewhere over Hong Kong.

That is still no excuse for standing on my own doorstep dressed like Smokey's little brother. Eventually my dad answered the doorbell and I lumbered in, peering through the mesh eye holes and trying to string together coherent sentences in a disguised voice. My mother sized up this costumed intruder in gleeful disbelief. As Bernie the Bear launched into his singing telegram, serenading my mother with a version of "Happy Birthday", she happened to glance down at the dancing feet. The suit didn't quite cover my toes and my mother somehow recognized them, as only a mother can. I removed the mask at the end of my song and squeezed my mom as she leaped into my arms, screaming with joy for a good 10 minutes, rendered ecstatically speechless by the appearance of her wandering daughter, garbed in a bear suit, showing up a week early, and on her birthday no less.

Thanks to my dad's amazing brainstorm I made a quality entrance back to the United States, and that means that yes, I'm back. I'll respond to emails, answer the phone to share stories, and probably show up on your doorstep if you're in the Portland area. It has been an amazing adventure to say the least. I'm still getting used to wandering down the grocery aisles full of strange and familiar products, and I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not in Asia any more as I drive around town.

Thank you all for reading my rants of the last six months - it's been a fun experiment. If you want to hear more I can deliver it all in person. For those of you in Montana, I'll see you soon. For those of you elsewhere, best of luck on wherever your adventures take you.

I Survived Saigon

I'm a couple hours away from successfully exiting this teeming city, but it's not Saigon itself that will kill you, it's the getting there part. I left my guesthouse on Phu Quoc Island at 6:30 Sunday morning. One of the young women running the guesthouse came out in her pajamas, saddled up her motor bike, and gave me a lift down the bumpy red dirt road into town. There I was loaded onto a mini-bus with several other passengers for the 20 km drive down to the boat pier at the island's southern tip.

The ferry ride began with some Ben and Jerry cartoons, with techno music thumping on the sound system. Then we got to watch not only "The Gods Must Be Crazy" but "The Gods Must Be Crazy, Part II", dubbed and subtitled in Vietnamese. The seas were rough enough that the attendants were handing out plastic bags but thankfully I didn't see, or hear, anyone using them.

At the pier in Rach Gia, back on the mainland, it was a short scooter ride to the bus station, which turned out to be a small kiosk tucked between two local eateries. I partook in the common hobby of sitting on the sidewalk in a low plastic chair, sipping strong coffee, and watching the traffic fly by. The rest of the men sitting around greatly enjoyed my tattoo and spent a good while staring and giggling. People came by selling sun glasses, lottery tickets, fresh fruit, and we kept waiting.

20 minutes after the appointed time the mini-van rolled up. The puppy in its carrier was stowed under the back seat with the bags of potatoes, passengers were assigned seats, and luggage was pile in whatever voids were left to be filled. The sliding door required some strong persuasion to stay shut, and threatened to fly off throughout the journey. Every single road seemed to be under construction, trucks came flying past a hair's breath away, and there were motor scooters zipping any and every direction they liked. Men emerged dripping from setting fishing nets in the murky roadside ponds and canals. Rain showers came and went. All in all, a typical Vietnamese road trip.

Even after navigating the impending Saigon traffic to the Mien Thay bus station, the journey wasn't over yet. That station happens to be a good 10 km from the city center, and the moto taxis enjoy levelling exorbitant rates to get you there. Somehow, though, I managed to sneak aboard a city bus that eventually stopped somewhere familiar, and got away with a 25 cent ride. A short hike and some enquiries later, by 8:00 I had a windowless cell in which to spend the night and a butt entirely numb from the twelve hour journey. It's more stubborness than endurance that's gotten me this far.

In other news, my dad's been at it again. If you're interested, or just wasting time online, you can flip through all my adventures with Nathan in Thailand by clicking here, or you can see what I got up to in Vietnam before my mother arrived by clicking here. I preface this with the statement that these photos have not been edited beyond their orientation, so proceed at your own risk.

Notes from Vietnam

I was sitting in an internet cafe full of Vietnamese kids plăying computer games when I read the final election results. It was one of the few times I fervently wished for the presence of a fellow American, someone with whom I could share my excitment. Obama won and my mother made it safe back to the States - life is good.

One of the things my mother carried in her expertly packed bags was a memory card from my camera, containing all the pictures of our adventures. So if you're bored and want to check out rice paddies, food art, and flattering pictures of yours truly, click here. Thank you, Dad, for getting all those online!

The past couple days have been funny, both in the ha-ha and the boo-hoo sense of the word. After my mother's departure I made a break for the Mekong Delta and discovered that in this country trying to get off the tourist trail instantly makes your life ten times more difficult. Fewer people speak English, public transport drops you in mysterious and inconvenient spots, and if you hesitate in your confusion, you're lost. Still, it's still fairly entertaining to be the only white person in town and see the look on a street vendor's face when you tell them (in sign language) that you'd like some food. It's even more entertaining trying to guess what all those parts floating around in the soup are.

I've decided to while away my last couple days in Vietnam on the island of Phu Quoc, so far southwest that it's almost Cambodia. There are white sand beaches, blue water, and palm trees for sipping fruit shakes under. The trick is finding a place that serves something other than steak and pizza (apparently the only thing tourists like to eat). On the 9th I road trip back to Ho Chi Minh City, and fly to Bangkok on the 10th to get out of the country before my visa expires.

Hurts So Good

It's amazing how far a 45 minute plane flight can get you. After the fifteen hour bus journey from Hoi An to Dalat, Mom opted to spend the next leg in the air. We left behind the lush hills and valleys of the central highlands and landed smack dab in the middle of hazy, humid, crazy Saigon. Officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, the name still depends on where you're from and how communist you are. Either way, people will know you're talking about a place with 8 million people and 3 million motorbikes.

Crossing the street feels a little like swimming through a school of tiger sharks - as long as you keep moving calmly and sedately, avoiding any thrashing or sudden movements, you'll come out on the other side in one piece. We had plenty of chances to practice this skill as we made our way across the city, as the streets are much wider and the blocks much longer than Hanoi. From the backpacker area we wandered past the old market, stopped for some passion fruit ice cream that had Mother swooning, visited a Vietnamese quilt shop (selling finished products only, to Mother's dismay), and finally washed up on the doorstep of the Golden Lotus Foot Massage Club.

Although the name suggests a bad Chinese restaurant by day and a seedy dance club by night, the place was actually more than nice enough for my mother. The card claims to have the "Facilties of a 5 Star Hotel At a price That is much less expensive Than anticipated and Easy access" and we're inclined to believe them. For $15 dollars we first sipped lotus tea to soothing music, then were ushered upstairs to a cadre of giggling young women who proceeded to massage and manipulate our bodies for the next 90 minutes. Rose water foot bath, cucumber face mask, more methods for spine cracking than I've ever encountered, we got it all. I believe I still have a footprint-shaped bruise between my shoulder blades from when the gal did the cha-cha on my back.

Spines realigned and muscles melted, we emerged back into the thrum of the city as darkness was settling. Today we explored some other dark corners in the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace before making a good effort at spending the last of my mother's dong. She's sitting beside me as I write, watching a Chinese soap opera dubbed into Vietnamese and waiting for the taxi that will take her to the airport. Since she hasn't disowned me yet I can only imagine that she enjoyed her short stay. It will be a bit lonely without her - safe travels, mummy dearest!

Vietnam Mafia

An essential part of the tourist trail in Vietnam is escaping said tourist trail on the back of an Easy Rider's motorcycle in Dalat. These blue-garbed guides have gained such popularity throughout the years that they are now plagued with imitators, and as such have a vested interest in getting to the tourists first. After a five hour bus ride chugging up a twisty, windy mountain road, through acres of vegetable fields and stands of pine trees, we were greeted at our arrival point by two Easy Riders offering their services. We thanked them kindly, accepted their card, and headed off in the direction they indicated for our hotel. "Goodbye!" they waved cheerfully.

At the next intersection 20 feet down the road, we paused briefly to get our bearings, and heard a voice over our shoulder directing us to the left. We turned, and there was the short elfin guide, grinning under his helmet. "Goodbye!" he said, and zoomed off. Around the next corner we found the tall mustachioed guide waiting, pointing us across the road before gunning his bike and disappearing. It was like wandering through Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with helpful little oompa loompas popping up at every turn. Sure enough, there they were in front of the hotel, and sure enough, they were still there when we came down from our siesta. We brushed them off to find food, having not eaten since a bowl of pho at 6:30 that morning, and were only moderately surprised to see the tall one pacing the pavement when we finished.

The persistent fellow's name was Sinh and we finally took up his offer of a day trip on the back of a bike to see the local sights. Once we had agreed he disappeared for good, at least until 8:30 this morning. Exiting our hotel we found Sinh and his diminuitive sidekick Hiu smoking on the sidewalk, awaiting our emergence. Helmets were adjusted, Mother's last-minutes jitters were brushed aside, and off we went.

Our journey covered at least 60 km, past pagodas and vegetable fields, through scorching sun and pelting rain (sometimes simultaneously), on dirt tracks and winding paved roads. Mother's favorite part was the silk factory, where we were shown the process from worm to finished fabric. The warehouse was hot and noisy from the rows of clattering machinery and vats of steaming water. From stacks of flat bamboo baskets the white silkworm cocoons were then boiled in water to loosen the fibers. Young women in aprons and rubber boots somehow connected the cocoons to a spinning machine that drew the thread apart from the cocoon, and then wound it together with other gossamer fibers to form thread. The next machine wound the thread onto large rounds, and from there it was further transferred to thick spools. The spools were then placed in huge weaving machines, with automated shuttles flying back and forth, and the pattern delineated by hole-punched cards cycling through near the ceiling. Seeing the whole mess in action was even more bewildering than the muddle I've just written.

Mother survived not only our two-wheeled flight around the countryside, but a slippery scramble down to a waterfall past a poisonous snake, a drenching downpour, and a wander through a certifiable crazy house (the bizarre architecture gave me vertigo just trying to navigate the stairways). Our adventures are somehow drawing to a close, with one more night in Dalat and then another in Saigon before she braves another marathon plane journey.

Girls' Week Out

A series of planes, trains and automobiles have brought us safe and sound to the confines of Hoi An, that ancient trading city that has shifted from merchant goods to tourists. It's a very feminine town, full of beautiful old houses to wander through, quaint little shops with trinkets to browse, and enough culture oozing from the woodwork to start your own batch of yogurt. Did I mention tailors? We figure by this point "Hoi An" actually means "tailor" in Vietnamese, just like "yum" means "horny" (so be careful what you say to that cute old man at the delicious restaurant). You can't swing a monkey in this town without knocking down a manequin dressed in some piece of custom fashion, guarded by iron-willed women ready to wrest your measurements at the slightest hint of eye contact. Even my mother and I were not immune to the allure of exotic fabrics, and we'll pick up the final results tomorrow so they can be transported home to sit in our closets.

There's no better way to while away a rainy day than to hole up in the kitchen and produce delicious food, or so my mother taught me. As the monsoons are still alive and kicking in central Vietnam we decided to stick with tradition and enroll in a cooking class. The rain poured down all night, and by this morning the river that had been lapping at the esplanade had now fully engulfed its embankments and was creeping up the road, swallowing the waterfront whole. Our cheerful Vietnamese guide braved the deluge to take us through the market, pointing out obscure vegetables, familiar fruits, and kitchen implements essential for carving carrots into flowers.

Since the river was too high to take a boat to the cooking school we were loaded into a minivan, although the experience of skimming along at water-level was pretty much the same. It's amazing how much water those country roads can hold. Our dripping entourage transferred to the classroom, a pristine space with rows of chairs facing a demonstration table, complete with an overhead mirror. When the chef had finished his mechanical demonstration we moved to our individual cooking stations, where silent, efficient women delivered the prepared ingredients and whisked away dirty dishes. Eggplant hot pot, fresh rice paper for spring rolls, shrimp pancakes in rice paper, artfully arranged cucumber and tomato, we produced them all, with varying degrees of success. My tomato rose turned out more like salsa, but luckily there's time to practice before entertaining the family at Thanksgiving.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. Heads, the weather's good and we wander the countryside on bicycles. Tails, the rain continues and we drink thick Vietnamese drip coffee while writing postcards until our hands are shaking from the caffeine and literary effort. Either way we end up on a night bus to Nha Trang, and from there to Dalat. Come heat or high water we're heading for the hills.

Soggy in Sapa

It felt weird to be wearing long sleeves and closed-toed shoes as we walked through the swirling mists of Sapa. The mountain town is so far north that it's almost China, and it's the coldest spot in Vietnam. They even had snow this year, the first time since 2000. There was no snow during our brief visit but my thinned blood and light clothing ensured that I had goosebumps for the first time since that snowstorm in Kyrgyzstan.

We arrived off the night train just as it was getting light (the thick clouds assured that there was no sunrise). Our room had an amazing view of verdant mountains and tiered fields, but after snoozing for a couple hours the scenery had disappeared entirely, replaced by a thick bank of fog. The mountain tops never returned.

One of the things Sapa is famous for, besides its miserable weather and luscious scenery, is the various hill tribes that live in the surrounding area. In all actuality you can't avoid them because in the short span of time that Sapa has been a tourist destination the locals have become well-versed in the industry. As soon as you step out of your hotel, groggy from the turbulent overnight train, you are surrounded by a flock of shoulder-high women and girls, decked out in their traditional costumes of indigo fabric and intricate embroidery, and pushing more of the same in your face. For all their miniature stature they possess the tenacity of a pit-bull, and you have to wade your way up the street to a chorus of "You buy from me? You buy from me?". They can all ask your name, your age, how many children you have, and refuse to take "no" for an answer.

Mother's hands are still blue from from the leaves of an indigo plant we were shown while walking through a village, and her bag is about 20 pounds heavier from her new collection of fabrics. We both survived the hectic bus ride back down the hill to the train station, and we continue our southward migration today.

Arrivatissima

Good golly, my mother's in Vietnam! She reminds me of this fact multiple times a day, battling through knots of speeding motorbikes, walking through a market where everything is still wiggling, or kayaking through sheer limestone cliffs on glassy-smooth ocean water. It's a far cry from previous vacations but I think she's enjoying it so far (she hasn't disowned me, at least).

Our one day of touring Hanoi has left us sated with the city - our itinerary requires at least one more trip through. Despite the noise and craziness it's much more accessible than Bangkok. The buildings are shorter, as are the blocks, giving the city a more human scale. Certain shops cluster together selling the same wares on appropriately named streets: Shoe Street, Watch Street, Flower Street, and apparently Eyeware Street. We visited the extensive courtyards of the Temple of Literature, walked past Ho Chi Minh's empty mausoleum to watch the changing of the guard, and sat through the colorfully cheesy, yet highly entertaining water puppet show with all the other tourists in town.

The traffic of Hanoi is as jarring as ever after an overnight trip to Halong Bay. Our boat was beautifully tripped out in dark wood and slept eight; only three of the cabins were actually occupied and we lucked out with the honey moon suite in the bow. Once we got done ogling the boat there was plenty of scenery to drool over. The limestone formations are similar to southern Thailand or Khao Sok National Park, except the rows of islands just kept disappearing into the blue horizon. Our path took us away from the more touristed areas, so for company we had a couple other junks, some floating fishing villages, and the sea eagles.

As we sat down for lunch we were unprepared for the 6 course bonanza that followed. The unexpected bounty left us even more vulnerable to the onslaught of dinner, where each course was presented with ornately carved fruits and vegetables. There were water buffalo made from potatoes, eagles carved from squash, and a glowing model of our boat from a watermelon, with wafer-thin slices of carrot for sails. Apparently the chef had a lot of time on his hands as we were cruising along the bay, rowing among floating houses, and kayaking past limestone cliffs.

Next step: the mountain town of Sapa, and hopefully some cooler climates. Bring on the train!

What Would Your Mother Think?

After three months of slow-paced living through Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, Vietnam comes like a soccer ball to the face. The horns are aggressive tools of war, the pace of traffic is furious, and the touts are out for blood. This morning I was mobbed at the bus station by a cloud of mini-van assistants, pulling me first one way, then the other, shouting at each other that they'd seen me first. The policeman on the corner whacked my bag with his baton to get me out of the way. During the ride the attendant got into a yelling match with a passenger over who-knows-what, although it settled down after a couple minutes. I haven't heard voices raised in anger since the traffic snarls of Delhi.

I arrived in Hanoi only yesterday morning but I motored to Ninh Binh today, leaving the big city to be explored with my mother. I haven't even seen the town because I rented a bike and pedaled 9 km in the rain with some French kids to a little place called Tam Coc. Along the way we stopped for some drinking water (as if the stuff dripping from our faces wasn't enough), and the elderly lady working the stall was horrified that I was biking through that weather without a rain poncho. She was joined by a handful of people sitting nearby, and to appease the mob I bought one for 20 cents. With decisive movements she tore open the package, unfolded the thing, scrunched it up so I could get my head through, and then proceeded to dress me in my new waterproof apparel. She wasn't satisfied until I was safely enclosed in clear blue plastic, and even then everyone insisted that I get another one (I'm unsure if this was out of concern for my well-being or simply to make a sale). I kindly declined and we continued down the road.

Tam Coc is a landscape reminiscent of northern Laos with sheer stone hills rising straight from rice paddies and flat water, all enveloped by mist. In this case, however, there is a waiting army of Vietnamese women in conical bamboo hats waiting to row you across the water. The river twists through some narrow spots and then seems to end entirely, until you get close enough to the rock face to realize that there's a low tunnel stretching all the way through the mountain. One the other side yet another panorama of green and grey unfolds before you, and this repeats itself four times until it's time to turn back the way you came.

Our guides chattered amiabley to each other the whole while, rowing steadily as other boats bearing other rain-ponchoed tourists floated by. A handful of people, including our ladies, used the familiar method of hands and arms to move the oars through the water. Everyone else looked just as comfortable using their feet. Somehow their roughened soles moved precisely to turn the oar flat against the water, and then back to slice through the air. One smiley old woman, anywhere from 45 to 85, accompanied us on the way back, talking with our guides as her feet cycled through the air.

I Heart Fast Internet

One of the beaches we visited from Railay, Krabi Province

Sunset on Railay Beach, when Nathan finally got to use that tripod he's been carting around all this time

Firecrackers exploding in Trang during the Vegetarian Festival

The local marching band passing by

The view from the pier at Chiew Lan Lake, Khao Sok National Park. After much useless questioning of travel agents and websites, we made our way to the entrance of the national park on a mission to find some floating bungalows. The numerous guest houses there all advertised the same trips so, lacking other options, we went along with a rotund little hobbit of a man on a two day trip out to the lake.

Love those long tail boat rides - after an hour those wooden planks get a little less quaint

At last, we found our floating bungalows, and they really were as cool as they look (the bathroom was across a barely-floating walking on the mainland, if you're wondering). Where else can you dive off your front porch into warm, clear, 75-foot deep water? There were even some plastic kayaks in which to wander around the lake.

Part of the excitement of our trip was a short walk (called a "jungle safari") through the nearby woods which was slightly slippery due to the torrential rains of the morning. We saw some long-tailed langurs and heard tons of gibbons, although they all seemed to be saying "it's the falang, run away, run away!"

From Khao Sok we hitched a ride up the eastern coast to Surattani, Chumpon, and then Prechuap Khiri Khaun. We hiked up 396 steps to a wat perched on a hill above the town where a couple monks were feeding bananas to the resident monkey troup. On the way back down we walked through a street festival, Thai style. That means frying everything from chicken legs to grubs and little birds, selling bathmats and tattoos (the permanent kind), and playing Thai pop music as loud as humanly possible.

The next afternoon Nathan and I headed 4 km from the city to the air force base that also serves as a popular weekend beach for the locals. It was pretty entertaining to cross the tarmac in a tuk-tuk, and then emerge into a bustling hub of Thai families cavorting in the ocean and lounging in chairs under the pine trees. Nothing like a little sand in your toes before a 5 hour bus ride to Bangkok.

Long Weekend Holiday

One of the wonderful things about Thailand is that, upon entry, people of most nationalities are granted a 30-day visa free of charge to romp around the country. One of the annoying things about Thailand is that you only get 30 days. With mine expiring on October 6, Nathan and I are enjoying a brief holiday in the wonderful country of Malaysia.

A Malaysian man I met in Laos couldn't figure out why more people don't come to his country. He informed me that it's cheap, it's beautiful, and everyone speaks English. So far that all seems to be true. Even though the ferry terminal on Pulau Langkawi happens to be right next to the yacht club, and the large resorts on the pristine beaches cost more than my 6 month budget, in between there are still rice paddies, green hills, and women in head scarves serving up plates of rice at little road side restaurants.

Somehow our timing today was such that as soon as we approached the beach the clouds rolled in and rain started pelting down, and the minute we left the sun returned. The extremes in weather rather reflected the variety of tourists strolling through town. For every tanned European filly falling out of her bikini there was a completely covered Muslim woman walking down the beach with her family. Wandering around the Underwater World (Malaysia's largest aquari, or so it claims) the people watching was just as fascinating as the rock hopping penguins and technicolor sea horses. Brochures were offered in Tamil, Arabic, and Chinese, in addition to Malay and English, and there were definitely more languages floating around the watery halls.

Sadly, this visit will remain brief as Nathan and I hop the ferry back to Thailand tomorrow morning to continue our grand adventures. We've got a week left before he flies back to Montana, and I continue on to Vietnam to await the arrival of my next travel buddy, who also happens to be my mother.

Is That A Weed Whacker In Your Face Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Despite its gentle-sounding name, the Vegetarian Festival of southern Thailand requires both nerves of steel and a strong stomach. We've been able to glean that the celebration is a kind of Lent for folks of Chinese descent, where for 10 days people give up meat, dress in white, make offerings at the temples and participate in various processions. The most famous part is the self-mortification, where in the process of purifying themselves people will slice their tongues with large knives or hack at their backs with axes, among other things (see below).

Nathan and I arrived in Trang on a Friday afternoon, which gave us time to sip real coffee in a coffee shop and sample the culinary wonders of the night market - any combination of deep fried, sweet, and savory. By pure chance it was also the day before the main procession in town, hence the yellow and red banners lining the streets. Restaurants were flying yellow flags to indicate that they were serving vegetarian food, and the clothing stores had racks of white togs, occasionally decorated with red Chinese characters or dragons.

Saturday morning we walked around the corner past tables set up with fruit, water, and incense to join the local throngs awaiting the parade. Nobody seemed to mind that we weren't wearing white. A couple falang in the midst drew little attention compared to the approaching excitement. First came the dignitaries with large red banners and megaphones, then some appropriately confused-looking children dressed up in Chinese costumes. They were followed by teams of young men hoisting pagoda-style shrines on their shoulders, and then the fireworks started going off. Part of the game seemed to be shaking the shrine directly below the explosions, and soon the street was a riotous war zone of smoke, noise, and fluttering red paper.

Then through the smoke I could make out another group of men, also with a shrine, except this one was supported by metal rods stuck through their mouths. I was suddenly very glad that I hadn't eaten breakfast yet. There were other teams like this, then individuals with rods, skewers, or spears through their cheeks. The bike tire was bad enough, but I nearly crawled out of my skin when the guy with the weed whacker threaded through his face walked by. He was followed by a musical trio: saxophone, trumpet, and tuba. I haven't a clue how they got them where they were, much less how they walked around like that for the hours the parade wound its way through the city.

The procession went on and on. Just when you thought it was done another team came around the corner, dripping blood and sweat, stopping at the tables of offerings to confer their blessings. When the women with brooms finally came through to sweep up the red paper littering the streets, Nathan turned to me and asked, "So, is it time to find fried rice yet?"

Thailand Photo Journal

Mae Ya Waterfall in Doi Inthanon National Park

Rocking my high fashion turtle helmet and movie star glasses to go with the puce vespa

Nuff said.

Nate-dogg, I don't think we're in Montana any more! Some of our new friends in Hell and at least they've got all their body parts

The view from the top more than made up for the heepie-jeebies we contracted below

Ko Tapoo, more popularly known as James Bond Island, in stormy Phang-nga Bay. This was used as the set for "The Man With The Golden Gun", which is on my to-view list for when I get back

Braving the 30 knot winds and driving winds on James Bond Island. All the dripping, miserable tourists in their wishful swimsuits made for some pretty entertaining people watching

Ko Panyee, home to a Muslim fishing village all built on stilts. The school kids here have the most amazing view ever, although low tide tends to get a bit pungent

Walking in a Buddhist Wonderland

Everyone we met today tried to convince us not to go to Phang-nga. "Why are you leaving Phuket? This is where everybody goes!" "Phang-nga? There's nothing there!" "Everyone goes to Krabi or Phi-Phi, what are you doing?" Stubborn, rock-headed Americans that we are, Nathan and I found ourselves a bus anyway and trundled 86 kilometers northeast from the glitz and the chaos of Phuket. Something about strolling between a Starbucks and a sprawling Club Med to a strip of white sand populated by scanty swimsuits just didn't have the same appeal as exploring towering islands in the middle of a national park.

Phang-nga itself is a pretty simple affair with a central street where all the signs are in Thai and there's not a Speedo in sight. From the simple tour office facing the bus station we received a hand-drawn map (definitely not to scale) of all local points of interest: 7 Eleven, the three guest houses, various small markets, and a whole list of caves. After dropping our bags and grabbing a quick bowl of noodle soup we set off in search of an adventure.

A mile or so down the road we decided to follow the directions of a helpful pointing statue and took a right turn towards the vertical hills ringing the town. Sure enough, there were more helpful pointing statues guiding us into one of the most bizarre religious complexes I've encountered yet. It started out innocently enough with a row of animals from the Chinese zodiac. Down a set of stairs, however, we found ourselves in hell - quite literally. Concrete figures covered in oozing sores, losing eyeballs from sockets and limbs from bodies, were being attacked by all manners of demons with saws, axes, giant screws, or spears, dripping with garish red paint that was surprisingly effective in eliciting a response. After I picked my jaw off the ground and repressed my gag reflex we made a hasty retreat up a set of stairs that led, disconcertingly enough, into the mouth of a huge cave.

My skin still crawling from the gory scenes below, the cavern seemed more menacing than tranquil, bats fluttering from dark recesses and frogs croaking at us from some gloomy place below. The little golden shrine, hidden in the midst of graceful stalactites and swooping limestone formations, couldn't quite hold our attention as we kept checking over our shoulders for eagle-headed demons. Only when we had escaped through a long winding tunnel in the form of a huge dragon did my heart actually start beating normally again.

Oh, but the adventure wasn't over yet! We'd been through Hell, and now we needed to visit Heaven. A helpful old monk directed us to a narrow staircase made of concrete disguised as wood. We climbed above the rocky jungle all the way up to a shrine perched on an outcropping. It had not one, not two, but three levels, and when we got to the top we forgot all about the bizarre happenings below. Up there we had an amazing view of the jutting green hills fading to blue, out to a flat expanse we could only assume was Phang-nga Bay. We watched kids playing basketball below us and the sun illuminating the cliff faces across the valley.

Thank goodness for those helpful pointing statues, because after all that my poor brain was in no shape to navigate us back to the main road of whizzing scooters and food vendors.

Lean Green Putzing Machine

Despite all its sparkling wats, tree-lined alleys, and delicious cuisine, Nathan and I decided to spend our last day in Chiang Mai outside the city. The best way to get there is by scooter, of course. They're cheap, gas-efficient, and even old ladies can drive them, with a bag of rice and three little kids along for the ride. The lady at the rental shop held Nathan's passport hostage, handed us two ill-fitting helmets, and pointed us to the last bike in the row. Not the shiny black ones, oh no, not even the purple one, but the bright, nearly puce-colored, green steed who would carry our soon-to-be-sorry butts all around the country side.

Getting out of the city was a process of wrapping our heads around driving on the left side of the road, and then hunting down a gas station with super special petrol 95, the only stuff we were allowed to put in the tank. It's amazing how far those little things get with the gas gauge on E. We passed through a couple progressively smaller towns until the landscape gradually opened up into bright green rice fields and darker green mountains rising in the background, our rear ends gradually realizing how uncomfortable the seats actually were.

The real fun started when we reached the turn-off for Doi Inthanon National Park (between 47 and 58 km from Chiang Mai, depending on which sign you believed). We decided to forgo the main park in favor of a closer waterfall, and the little signs directed us through the back alleys of a small town to a serpentine road, twisty and hilly yet surprisingly well maintained. We discovered why when we reached a national park gate another couple of kilometers on. The guard gave us an odd look as we puttered by, but we were too busy navigating curves and dodging cows and their pies to really notice.

Mae Ya waterfall turned out to be a jaw-dropping 280 meter tall cascade at the end of the road. All three parking lots were eerily empty, as was the small village of bamboo-thatched snack bars. The park employees couldn't even be bothered to put on shirts as we walked by. There was another couple already at the waterfall but they left before too long, leaving us to gape at the pounding water and soaring dragonflies dodging through the mist. Soon after we were joined by a group of monks in orange robes who seemed just as excited to get their pictures taken with the waterfall as we were.

On the way back we got caught in a rainstorm, complained of the pain in our cheeks (those seats were not ergonomically designed), and navigated the one-way streets of Chiang Mai in the dark. Three cheers for scooters, especially green ones.

Need to Kill Some Time?

If you're bored and need some inspiration, here are various piles of pictures to leaf through. My wonderful father was able to convince my camera card to talk to the computer, and then put all those pictures online. For flashbacks to Madagascar click here, while if you're more interested in Mauritius and things like rafting on the Ganges and the Taj Mahal, click here. To find out what Kyrgyzstan really looks like click over here. Our Thai cooking instructor told us that eventually pictures from our class will be online, so at some point you'll be able to see our cooking pictures on their website (www.asiascenic.com) - click on September 20.

You Go Market, Come Back

Such were our instructions our first night in Sukhothai. The smiling little woman guarding our guest house door was quite clear on how we should go about finding some food after the 6 hour bus ride from Bangkok. Based on her advice Nathan and I found various types of noodle soup (in restaurants and on the street), three different sizes of bananas, peanuts cooked with honey and sesame seeds, and some sort of peanut brittle with ginger and coconut. That woman was a genius.

We've left that town of old bricks and ruined temples behind for the bustle of Chiang Mai, another six hours north. Although it's the second largest city in Thailand (or so I've heard) the white kids almost outnumber the locals. The maze of alleys that make up the old city are full of restaurants selling sushi, falafel, and kangaroo burgers, massage parlors, guest houses, tour agencies, tattoo parlors, and shady wooden houses doubling as cooking schools. All the decisions make things a little overwhelming.

Nathan and I decided to start with a cooking class, which included a trip to the market and making our own curry pastes. Someday when I have a kitchen again I'll make the pad thai for you, or maybe the glass noodle salad, or even sweet sticky rice with mango. It was all good enough that Nathan is professing a new love for fish sauce.

All the bus rides and fantastic food made yesterday's adventure all the more challenging. This city is home to Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures, a place that runs courses, rents gear, and serves as a center for the climbing community in the north. Since I made Nathan schlep my harness and shoes halfway around the world, we thought we might as well put them to use.

Yesterday a handful of us piled into one of the little red trucks that ply the city and headed out to Crazy Horse Buttress. Along with another American gal named Jill, who carries around a bigger first aid kit than I do, Nathan and I spent the day watching our Thai guides monkey up the rock and then doing some monkey moves ourselves. After a lunch spent in the shade of bamboo shelters we hiked up to the top of the formation only to rappel into the heart of a huge cave. It was a pretty amazing feeling to dangle in midair, looking up at twisted stalactites and down at the floor 30 feet away. The whole thing was so much fun we may have to go back again.

Time Warp

Being back in the hustle, heat and noise of Bangkok it's hard to believe that 32 hours ago I was lazing on a white sand beach watching palm trees wave and pale Germans cavort in the clear water. It's funny how far you can get with a high-speed catamaran and an overnight bus.

My last day on Ko Tao the weather finally showed a glimpse of the tropical paradise it's cracked up to be. Dowsing rod that I am, I arrived with a front of dark clouds and rough seas, and it only got worse throughout my stay. Some of the older ferries couldn't get back to the mainland, the beaches were empty, and Ko Tao's famous diving sites were marred by silt that cut visibility to less than a meter. This didn't stop me from signing up for, and completing, an open water dive course. I'm stubborn enough to carry on regardless of the weather

We started the class off in a little swimming pool whose temperature had dropped dramatically after a couple cloudy days, leaving the Thai instructor, two other German students, and myself shivering despite our wet suits. The ocean turned out to be warmer, although much murkier. The weather was strong enough that even in our protected bay on the southeast side of the island we were getting seasick just bobbing on the surface.

Our final dive was like something out of "Deadliest Catch". The 40 foot boat trundled out of the cove and around to the lee of Shark Island, a small upcropping of rock a little ways off shore. It was just enough to protect us from the worse of the weather, and it's amazing how little you feel 30 knot winds and 6 foot seas when you're under the water, not on top of it. The coolest thing by far was looking up at the heaving surface of the water from underneath, watching the wind ruffle the huge waves and sheets of rain dimple the turbulent surface. That, and the giant pufferfish suspended above us in a fan club of darting silver fish.

Adverse conditions just make for better stories, and the opportunity to come back and be blown away by everything I missed the first time around.

Things Seen On Marathon Cambodian Bus Rides

-Mini-buses exploding with cargo from every possible opening, back door tied down, roof rack filled, people piled on top and hanging out the windows

-Endless green rice paddies spotted with palm trees

-Fuel stations consisting of a hand-operated pump or just plastic bottles full of petrol

-An elephant lumbering down the side of the road

-Herds of cows and water buffalo who obviously have the right of way

-Bicycles invisible under their loads of woven bamboo baskets

-Muslim villages where the women wear pastel head scarves and long sleeves, while the men wander around wrapped only a krama (the checked scarf used for everything by the Khmer)

-Trucks piled twice their height with cords of firewood

-Tasty snacks at rest stops: duck eggs, marinated frogs, fried spiders that are 3 inches long (the frying process sometimes isn't rigorous enough to remove the hair from their legs)

-Channel after channel of the huge Mekong River, spreading wide with all the water from the nightly thunderstorms

-Hammocks, hammocks, everywhere: under houses, between trees on the side of the road, in the back of tuk-tuks

-People under the age of 18 (after all, they make up over half the total population)

Here Be Dolphins

The city of Kratie is a small, dusty grid of streets along the Mekong River, 7 hours northeast of Phnom Penh. The woman at the ticket desk had been kind enough to give me a front row seat, which meant plenty of leg room and an unobstructed view of all the near disasters along the gently rolling road. My seat mate turned out to be an Australian gal named Elysha, the only other Westerner on the bus. She'd been volunteering in Phnom Penh for the past four weeks and was headed to Kratie to visit the friend of a friend. Social remora that I am, I invited myself along for the ride.

We're both glad that I did. At the bus stop her friend Sithy (pronounced "city") and his friend Taon (pronounced "town") met us with big grins and their motor bikes. After dropping our bags, we hopped on the back and zoomed 15 km upriver, past wooden houses on stilts and glimpses of the broad Mekong, to the official dolphin viewing site. Wonders of wonders, the Irrawaddy dolphin somehow managed to find its ecological niche in the turgid waters of this river, poking along just fine until the gill nets and pollution of their human neighbors began taking their toll. There are currently between 80 and 100 of the critters left, and this site near Kratie is one of their main protected areas. They look surprisingly like the porpoise on my arm, although they are light gray in color with rounder heads and longer bodies.

Elysha and I climbed aboard a little wooden boat with our 17-year-old skipper and motored upriver to join a couple other boats. It was the oddest thing to hear a dolphin blow in fresh water. They poke their bulbous heads out of the water first to exhale, then roll smoothly back under the thick brown water. How they see anything down there is entirely beyond me. Eventually the rest of the boats left, and we tied up to a submerged tree to revel in the quiet and watch the sun creep lower on the horizon. One solitary dolphin surfaced repeatedly right beside us, silhouetted against the evening sky. Eventually he moved on and so did we.

Paradoxical Phnom Penh

Cambodia has truly been through hell and back again. You wouldn't really know it as you walk down the waterfront, past the sleek bars and restaurants with full wine lists, to the sparkling Royal Palace and carefully tended park in front of it. Then a man with one leg tries to sell you photocopied books. A small girl wheels her father and his twisted body up to you on a wooden cart. Groups of dark, dusty kids jostle for the prize of your leftover snack or empty water bottle. A man with a horrifically burned face holds out his hat for whatever you'll give him. It's hard to justify the argument that giving to these people encourages their dependency when they're looking you in the face.

It's not all gloom and doom, fortunately. Many of those swanky coffee shops offer vocational training for such kids, and the profits go towards shelters or other programs. There are handicraft workshops for people with disabilities and I even received a wonderful massage from a blind woman. When she got to the knots in my neck she giggled and exclaimed "So much stress!", and I laughed because of all the people around I really have the least to worry about. It must be all that bike riding and bus sitting and email writing. My life is so hard.

In one such coffee shop I got up to pay for my drink and ended up deep in conversation with the gal behind the cash register, who had excellent English. She got out the guest book so I could write a comment, and while I was drawing her a map of where I'm from (thank goodness the states out west are big and relatively square) we were joined by a couple little kids with large crates of books slung over their shoulders. They claimed the pen and proceeded to sketch out the four of us, labeled with names and everything. There was much giggling at the size of my head or the height of the figures relative to one another. Despite the calluses on their feet and the holes in their clothes, kids are still kids.

Hookie in Sihanoukville

After three days of hot, dusty, tiring exploration in Angkor Wat, and before Anna-Lisa begins her stint in Phnom Penh, we took a couple days officially doing nothing in the beach town of Sihanoukville on Cambodia's southern coast. We arrived on the weekend to white sand beaches equally full of pink Western tourists in bikinis and wealthier Khmers frolicking fully clothed in the ocean.

Day one we hiked down the beach, where our solitude came at the price of a narrower beach lightly littered with trash. Day two we got lazy and chose a couple lounge chairs closer to all the bamboo restaurants. This luxury was a trade for a constant barrage of women offering to take the hair off your legs with a piece of string, children selling bracelets with their sad eyes, and lady boys demanding to give you a pedicure to make you more beautiful. It was an uncomfortable feeling, lazing in the sun and trying not to watch these people march up and down the beach eking out a living.

Day three we said heck with it, and booked a boat for Bamboo Island. A 45 minute ride took us across the gently swelling Gulf of Thailand to one of the islands sprinkled off the coast, host to a couple restaurants and a row of simple bungalows lined on the white beach. Even while the storm clouds gathered on the mainland and the sound of thunder rolled across the water, we lounged blissfully in the sun. Needless to say, our consciences rested easier with the lack of beggars. Denial can be a powerful thing.

All Roads Lead to Angkor

Hopefully you've got a lot of time on your hands, because after three days of wandering around the ruins of Angkor Wat, this one's going to be a doozy.

The 5 hour journey from the Thai border to Siem Reap, Cambodia was a long dusty ride through flat, flat lands. The red dirt roads were interrupted every mile or so by construction, and occasionally by foot-deep ruts left over from the last rain. It could have been much worse, though; on rain-slick roads the trip can take as long as 15 hours.


On our first morning in Siem Reap we tried to take a tuk-tuk into the center of town to look for a new guesthouse, only to have our way blocked by the Cambodian army, parading triumphantly home from the Thai border. It may not have made international news but there has been a small border scuffle between Thailand and Cambodia over an even smaller temple. No shots were fired, although both countries sent troops to put on a show. Seeing the rag-tag procession make its way through town, it's a good thing for Cambodia that the conflict didn't escalate any further - one of the army trucks was broken down at the end of the road, hood up and harried colonel on the phone.

The first day I toured around the outer temples with Anna-Lisa, my new Spanish roommate, and a Brit named Alistair, in a moto-drawn tuk-tuk. Angkor Wat is the main temple but the area of ruined temples, libraries, and universities sprawls for several miles. Even in the open-air chariot it was extremely hot, although clouds appeared from somewhere in the afternoon and proceeded to pour on us on the way home.

I've neglected to bring my list of temples with me to the internet cafe so I haven't a clue as to the name of this one. From the top you can see thick green jungle all around, which gives you an idea of what this place must have looked like before the French "rediscovered" it.

I do remember that this place as Bantay Srei, a further 15 km from the main area and a tiny temple full of intricate, beautifully preserved carvings. On the outside of the site the locals have set up a miniature village of stalls and restaurants. Like every site, as soon as you hop off your bike or out of your tuk-tuk you're swarmed by kids and young adults selling cold drinks, bracelets, post-cards, bamboo flutes, and sundry other souvenirs. The kids who are just on school vacation are quick to laugh and start asking questions in well-enunciated English; the true beggar children won't take "no" for an answer and follow you relentlessly with their sad faces.

The actual Angkor Wat is an enormous complex that's like a choose-your-own-adventure book. Well-intentioned signs show you the "way of visit", or indicate "no entry", but during the sweltering mid-day hours Anna-Lisa and I wandered freely wherever we chose. The outer corridor is covered in 600 meters of bas-relief carvings depicting Hindu and Buddhist mythology, staggering in its scale and precision. The inner chamber houses five towers representing the holy Mt. Meru and other minor peaks.

Fun-sized, nothing. Beware the midgetzilla!

Besides the wonder of Angkor Wat, Anna-Lisa and I have been adjusting to this country that is Cambodia. She's headed to Phnom Penh to teach English for three months and we've been closely bonded first by her illness, then by the brief disappearance of her passport (recovered a couple agonizing hours later), and finally by the 30 hour journey from Vientienne to Siem Reap. We're definitely not in Laos any more. The faces are darker and overwhelmingly young - look up the Khmer Rouge when you get a chance, although I'm sure I won't be able to avoid writing about it. Shop owners, tuk-tuk drivers, and restaurants press insistently for business. The land is flat and filled with rice paddies and palm trees. And, of course, there's a whole new exotic language to butcher.

Vientienne Photojournal

Young monks checking out the flooding along the waterfront

Sandbags and sunset along the Mekong

Good lord, it's hot when the sun comes out

Cheese factor at That Luang (the Golden Pagoda)

After spending almost a week loafing around the big city, riding a bike, walking the streets, and finishing an obscene number of books in trendy coffee shops, I've finally roused myself to move on. Due to the floods that are still rendering the southern roads impassable (or so all the travel agents claim), a friend and I have opted to simply avoid the problem by going around. This involves one overnight bus to Bangkok, and then another bus to Siem Riep, Cambodia. My passport is in the hands of the Cambodian embassy as we speak, in the hopes that having a tourist visa already in place will prevent overcharging at the border (one does hear stories). It's probably all wishful thinking. Wish me luck in the journey - on to Angkor Wat!

MIA in VNTN

Of all the places I've been, you'd think the cosmopolitan center of Vientienne would be the last place I'd get sick. Of course, that's just what happened. Maybe it was the sketchy meat-product sandwich from the stall across from the bus station, or maybe it was that odd tasting fruit shake, but whatever happened there's been a relatively low-key battle raging in my stomach for the past couple days. In the grand scheme of things it hasn't been that bad, and my lack of appetite has been the worst part by far.

Prior to my gastro-intestinal declaration of war I was able to walk around and explore the city a bit. The main downtown area is spread along the banks of Mekong and at night you can see the lights of Thailand blinking at you. This is where all the glossy coffee shops, upscale boutiques, and fancy restaurants are located, something of a shock after all the austere concrete of the east. In the middle of it all, though, you'll see an old Lao woman in a traditional bamboo hat balancing a load of food to peddle, and just as many local women are dressed in stylish sinh, the traditional tube skirt, as are sporting jeans. There are open-backed trucks carting around loads of monks, pale tourist kids in Beer Lao shirts wandering the streets, and business men with briefcases hurrying on their way.

The sun has come out after nearly a week straight of rain although who knows what's going on upstream. During the past couple days there have been small armies of people building walls of sandbags all along the waterfront as the swollen Mekong creeps closer. The muddy water has pushed all sorts of logs, trash, and pieces of bamboo huts up against the banks, and the news is filled with images of flooded villages, monks filling sandbags, and huge landslides covering the roads. Hooray for the monsoons!

I'm halfway through my trip and it seems as good a time as any to take a break, even if it is stomach-induced. Three more months of adventures to come - thanks for those of you who continue to read this!

Muddin'

The best part about Vang Vieng is getting out of town, away from the bars serving happy shakes and showing "Friends" reruns, the drunk kids coming back from tubing, the stores selling all the same Lao souvenirs. When the weather clears you get an idea of why people started coming to Vang Vieng in the first place. Tucked along the river, the town is nestled in the middle of a striking karst landscape: peaks that rear up suddenly from the valley floor, covered in deep green forest and riddled with caves. The muddy river that conveys inner tubes down the river and past bars is fed by streams that drip through limestone caverns and carve honeycombs of chambers in the mountains.

It wasn't raining when we rented our mountain bikes but it didn't take long to start. My friend Morgan, a French gentleman, and I were determined to leave the party kids behind and explore the surrounding area, regardless of the weather. We didn't see much for the first hour as the clouds hung low over the rice fields, but we were concentrating so hard on dodging the rocks and puddles that we hardly looked up anyway. The puddles were the trickiest part: you were never quite sure how deep they were until you were in the middle of one.

At one particularly soupy patch my front tire got horrifically bogged down, skittering out from under me. I put a foot down to catch myself, the only problem being the ankle-deep mud didn't offer much traction. Shloop! My foot flew out from underneath me and suddenly I found myself in a full butt-plant in the middle of the huge mud puddle. Tangled in the bike, floundering in the muck, I was laughing too hard to get myself upright and Morgan was too surprised to be of any help. Luckily there was a creek right there where I plopped myself down to rinse off the dirt. Not that it did much good - within ten minutes I was covered again from the spray off the wheel, my pants, shirt and face splattered like a Pollock painting. Vermont, your mud season ain't got nothin' on Laos.

The Rain in Phonsavan Stays Mainly in the Plain (of Jars)

What does one do in Phonsavan besides visiting the Plain of Jars? Once you're done discussing transportation conundrums and looking at all the remnants of UXO (unexploded ordnance) around town, not much. The Plain of Jars is the broad name used for sites spread throughout the surrounding countryside, consisting of these bizarre stone containers that sit on the tops of hills or in the middle of cow pastures. The are literally stone jars, from two feet tall to ten feet. There are several explanations: ancient people used them to store lao lao, the locally-brewed rice whiskey; or, said people used them for funerary purposes; or, the gods were having a big picnic and got so drunk they forgot to pick up their cups when they went back to heaven. I'm rather partial to the last one, although the first one could have made for some epic "jar stands".

Even though the sites we churned up to on muddy tracks (known as "roads" in the dry season) had all been specially cleared, this part of the country is still recovering from the heavy bombings of the Vietnam War. You see signs of it everywhere - bomb craters used as fish ponds, UXO shells used for school bells or flower pots, the places you pass along the road where they are clearing areas currently used as fields. There are still at least 1oo fatalities and just as many injuries every year from land mines, bombs, and other weapons of local destruction. Even here it's still a good idea to walk on the maintained trails.

All it took was an eight hour bus ride this morning and I'm a world away from the stark concrete streets of Phonsavan. Being in Vang Vieng is hardly like being in Laos at all. The streets are lined with chilled-out restaurants serving "hambergers" and showing "Friends" on TVs, places advertising tube trips down the river, bars servings buckets of some mystery alcohol, and internet places with shiny new computers for the outrageous price of 300 kip a minute. After travelling the north and east of Laos with very few other tourists, it's a shock to the system to be back in a place where everyone else looks like me, except more fashionable and better groomed.

The Cutest Little Thing

One of the tactical errors I made on this trip was bringing along sports bras that were already on their last legs. They're really one of those things that don't get better with age, and all the scrubbings in the sink and hot, sweaty, bumpy bus rides have just about finished them off. Having never shopped for undergarments in a foreign country before, despite seeing them hanging at nearly every roadside store and stall, I was a little puzzled as to how to go about obtaining one. Cleavage is one area in which this wanderer is less fun-sized than super-sized, especially in a land of small, slightly built people.

The clothes market in Sam Neua, eastern Laos, stretches on for stall after covered stall, featuring all variety of sinh (the beautiful embroidered tube skirt most Lao women wear), fashionable jeans, and neon colored shirts. And, of course, underwear. I stopped at one place and the matronly woman grabbed down a whole pile of frilly bras to lay out before me. Neither one of us could figure out what kind of size I needed. In a moment of inspiration I dashed off down the aisle to the stalls where women were embroidering brightly colored Hmong costumes and proceeded to confuse them first with my charades, and then with my drawings of a tape measure. They looked at each other, faces asking "Does she want a belt? A jacket? What is this crazy falang doing?"

Finally I spotted a measuring tape hanging on a nail, and amused the women to no end as I wrapped it around my chest and jotted down the relevant numbers. I returned triumphantly to the first woman, measurements in hand, and we proceeded to sort through the pile until we found the closest approximation she had. After some bartering with the help of a calculator, I am now the proud owner of the pinkest article of clothing I have ever come across, much less owned: a high quality lacy Lao brassiere for all of $2. We'll see how the delicate little thing puts up with life on the road; you may be reading a replay of all this in a couple weeks.

Not a Movie Star

A funny thing happened while I was finishing up my weaving class today on the outskirts of Luang Prabang. A woman came up to me in the open wooden building and asked if it would be okay if they filmed me for a Singapore TV documentary. I shrugged and agreed, forgetting for a moment my intense loathing of being captured on film, let alone on video. Then the television crew trooped in.

It all came back to me when they had me sitting on a box holding up my newly-finished scarf, one man dangling a huge microphone over my head and the other pointing the even bigger camera at my face. The woman held a large round reflector as she prompted me with questions such as "What have you learned about Lao culture from this class?" and "What do you like about Luang Prabang?" It didn't help that we had rehearsed the answers just moments before to make sure I would say something suitable. That goldfish brain of mine went even blanker than usual and by the third repetition (hold the scarf a little higher, say that bit about Luang Prabang again) my palms were sweaty and the fight or flight mechanism was kicking in.

It's all good though, or "bo penyang" (no problem in Lao), because they'll probably just edit me out anyway. My fellow student, another American gal, was much more eloquent as she sat behind her loom. We were both blown away by the class itself - throughout the course there was a Lao teacher holding each of our hands, watching the bewildering array of threads and strings and shuttles to make sure we didn't botch anything too badly. Those young women are truly amazing. At the ages of 19 and 21 they've been weaving since they were twelve, and it was incredible to watch the shuttle fly back and forth in their hands, feet working the bamboo pedals in perfect rhythm, and a beautifully patterned textile emerge centimeter by painstaking centimeter. I have a whole new appreciation for the people who do this as a living.

The Slow Boat, Indeed

This one time in Madagascar an older Aussie told me that the one thing I had to do in my travels was journey down the Mekong River, from the Thai border to the old Lao capital of Luang Prabang. It's recommended in the guide book, advertised by travel agencies, and talked about by freshly arrived tourists. Once upon a time the river was the main artery for commerce and transport in Laos, and a lot of the villages we saw are still only accessible by water. However, with the advent of paved roads going from point A to point B, the slow boat has gone the way of the toy train of Darjeeling and become a tourist cattle barge.

Somehow, no matter where or when we bought our tickets, all the tourists looking to make the journey ended up on the same long, low wooden boat waiting on the Lao side of the river. Granted, there were a couple locals who made abbreviated journeys, jumping off onto the thickly forested river bank, or jumping on at similar spots, but by and large we were a bunch of white kids watching the scenery go by. Which was beautiful, by the way: green jungled hills sliding by the brown water under a gray sky. There was the occasional cluster of thatched huts up on stilts, or boarding parties of children bearing plastic laundry baskets of Pringles and Oreos and Beer Lao, charging outrageously inflated prices, or water buffalo wallowing by the river.

My ipod and Love in the Time of Cholera were my best friends for the duration of this trip. The boat stops at the village of Pak Beng for the night, a single street along the river made up of guest houses, restaurants advertising English menus and blaring Backstreet Boys, and little shops selling identical stale snack foods. The tourists hop off the boat, double the town's population, hop back on in the morning and life goes on as usual. It brings to mind some of the cruise ship stops up in Alaska, only with palm trees. All in all, despite the wooden benches and long hours, it was totally worth it.

Photographic Evidence

The giant reclining buddha peeking out between some columns in Bangkok.

Standing guard outside the Golden Buddha with my new best friend.

Just some of the many offerings in the market in Ayutthaya. I believe those pink things are dragon fruit? When I try one I'll let you know.

One of numerous ruined wats around Ayutthaya. I think this was actually their ancient frisbee fields, and the losers also lost their heads, just like most of the buddhas here.

Look, an elusive buddha head!

That's a brief photographic synopsis of Thailand to date. I'm afraid my other camera chip with the past two months of my life on it is not working, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Please Put Your Shoes on the Lack

So said the sign outside one of the numerous wats I perused today. An Aussie guy and I had rented a couple bicycles, rusty rattletraps reminiscent of my Italian ride, and spent the day touring around the city of Ayutthaya. This place was the ancient capital of the kingdom of Siam, but was effectively destroyed by the Burmese in the late 1700s. Since then a modern city has grown up around the wats (temples), so that you'll turn a corner in town and suddenly be face to torso with a headless buddha or crumbling brick tower. Some have been renovated, patched up with concrete and decorated in gold leaf, while others are simply sprawling ruins in manicured lawns.

Midway through the morning huge black clouds rolled in and we snuck into a museum just as the heavens opened. After perusing the exhibits of golden icons and buddha heads (so that's where they all went), I had had my historical culture fix and headed to some of the markets to wake myself up. You can get pretty much anything you want from the street stalls (except peanut butter - 63 baht for a serving-size jar at a department store, ridiculous!), from hair ties to Abercrombie and Fitch shirts to jeweled nail clippers. I even found the corner where they keep buckets of live eels, toads, and turtles. I can't say I've extended my carnivorous tendencies that far, but there's still plenty of time.

It's still hot, still humid, and I've got a bus tonight north to Chiang Mai. I've heard it's cooler up there - maybe I can find another snowstorm.

Welcome to Thailand

It still amazes me how you can hop on a climate-controlled airplane, hang out in a seat for a couple hours, and emerge someplace completely different. From the arid mountains and sand dunes of central Asia the plane flew over open ocean to the lush green fields and canals of Thailand. The tourist infrastructure here is something of a shock to the system; there are English-speaking agents at the frequent information booths handing out free maps, most signs are in English as well as graceful Thai script, and everyone has a huge smile on their face. Plus, being in a big city is still a novelty for me. Public transportation? Four-lane highways? Jeezum crow!

About 5 seconds out of baggage claim I met a gal from Quebec who was headed to her hostel, so I tagged along with her onto the air conditioned bus and through the evening city. It's a western-style hostel with dorm rooms, communal kitchen, and bulletin boards full of a mind-boggling variety of information. After claiming a bed we walked down the street to find a little cafe for dinner, where we sat and watched them whip up our food at the little curb-side cart that served as the kitchen. I've fallen in love with Thai cuisine already; after two weeks of monti (boiled dumplings filled with meat), besh barmak (noodles topped with meat), shashleek (meat kabobs), and lagman (noodle soup with meat), all chased by copious amounts of bread and cream, we'll see how my system handles this switch to noodles and rice and veggies. Go, tummy, you can do it!

My plan is to spend the rest of the day getting my feet back underneath me, and then heading out of Bangkok as soon as possible. Cities, for me, are fun for about a day and a half.

From Point A to Point B

We didn't think the truck would actually stop. When Nora flagged down the semi roaring by, we figured it would just continue on and we'd wait for a more conventional vehicle to take pity on us as we sat by the side of the road at 7:30 in the morning, trying to get from Tamga back to Bishkek or Almaty, as the case may be. But not only did the truck stop, the Russian driver offered to get us to Bishkek for free. In central Asia, pretty much any car or van will serve as a taxi that you can flag down most anywhere, as people try to fill their empty seats for some extra cash en route to their destination. So the offer for a free ride was probably the most unusual part. Nora and I decided to give it a go, having never ridden in a semi before, but we took Jesse along with us for a little insurance. We hugged Lynne and Bruno goodbye, and climbed on in.

It turns out we took the scenic option. About ten minutes later a little sedan went flying past, with Lynne and Bruno waving from the backseat. They may have made it to Bishkek two hours before us, but they didn't get to chat with Yura the driver about his plans to move his family to Quebec, or eat fried fish with him, or duck into the back sleeper bench every time we passed a police checkpoint, where he'd have to hop out and give them a bribe. Yura dropped us off in the heat of Bishkek and continued on his drive to Moscow to deliver 650 boxes of apricots. Since he wouldn't accept any money from us for the ride, Nora and I stealthily slipped 200 som into his brief case, at least enough to cover the bribes for our portion of the journey.

Jesse was staying in Bishkek to finagle some more visas for his trip so Nora and I continued on to Almaty alone. We found a car going that direction and listened to the driver chat for nearly the entire 5 hour ride, not counting the hour it took to get the car through customs. The guy was a former linguistics professor at the university and had served as a translator in Africa during Soviet times. Since he was speaking mostly in Russian, I tuned out and and tried teaching myself to read Cyrillic as we sat in gridlocked Almaty traffic. At rush hour they do away with the traffic lights in favor of human officers, as it cuts down on accidents. Those lights are really more of a suggestion, anyway.

Nora and I rolled into the village of Janashar after about 14 hours of travel. Our arrival was heralded by an epic storm of howling winds and flashing lightning. The next morning we could see tin roofs ripped off and road side stands collapsed in the early dawn light. At 5:30 AM we found Nora's sister Evie waiting for us at the airport and we completed the handoff of our translator and tour guide. Thank you again, Nora, for the wonderful adventure, helping me muddle through and playing in the mountains with me. You're still as amazing as ever.