Thanksgiving in the Thai Islands

Well, we have finally come to the much talked about tropical southern \islands of Thailand, and are on Ko Tao, in the Gulf of Thailand, just north of the more famous Ko Phagnan and Ko Samui. Ko tao is known most as a scuba diving spot, we learned that it has the second most certifications here in the whole world. Although its cheap by scuba standards, its a little out of our depleted budget, so we have happily settled for kayaking and snorkeling. And of course decent doses of nothing - reading, sitting on the beach and sleeping in. Needless to say, after two months of moving from town to town every 2 or 3 days, doing nothing is pretty nice. We are staying on a secluded beach which is semi-private, there are two small resorts and never more than 20 people on the sand at a time. Not by rule or anything, but thats how it works out. The closest town is a STEEP 25 minute walk over a big hill, and even in town there isnt a whole lot. A 7-11, some internet cafes and ATMs, and lots of dive resorts on a bay not half as nice as our little haven.
The international news has been crazy lately, but we wouldn't know about any of it, from the Mumbai attacks to the potential coup in Bangkok, if not for the news updates we get from Peter, a nice guy staying at our resort. When i say resort I should really qualify it: we are staying in a bungalow (a nice shack) with no A/C or hot water, on the side of a hill overlooking the bay. Location, location, location, but the little hut itself, although nicer than many we've stayed in, isn't luxury. Well, even though its been a while since ou last post, we don't have a ton to say . Tomorrow we leave for Rai Leh, a beach near Krabi, on the west coast of Thailand, closer to Malaysia. We will be there a few days and then continue to Kuala Lumpu, by way of Hat Yai, and then on to Singapore. Scary to think, but we have officially planned out the rest of our days. We will be back in the City in less than two weeks, so any of you that are needin a little vitamin D of J, hold out a little longer.

Gobble Gobble Gobble, Happy Thanksgiving to all,

Dave

Fist Fights and Private Hot Springs

After spending two nights in Chiang Mai and then another two in the hippy mountain town of Pai, we are now en route to Bangkok. We left Pai at 12:30 pm by mini-bus and are now enjoying a 3 hour layover here in Chiang Mai before embarking on 12 more hours of the VIP bus and wll be arriving in Bangkok tomorrow morning. Also.... just in case you hadn't noticed, Dave added PHOTOS not only to his last post but to all the old ones too, so you should definitely go back take and take a look at them.

We had a nice three days in Chiang Mai which is considered by Thais to be their cultural (and culinary!) gem. The old part of the city is surrounded by a moat and has all of these neat little sois (like an alley but nice) that you can use to get through the city while avoiding the traffic. The city is also home to over 300 wats (temples) that have a special architecture (called Lana)that is very ornate and specific to northern Thailand. We spen most of our time here just ambling around the city, eating and taking in some beautiful wats. We splurged and did a wonderful all day Thai cooking course. After getting a lecture on rice, we headed to the market with wicker baskets and got a lesson on all of the exotic fruits (so called because of their small size) and the bizare custard apple that looks something like an artichoke and tasted like a sweet mango. We then headed back to the kitchen where we were given aprons and kerchiefs and got to learn a total of six dishes. The Tom Yum soup with shrimp and Som Tam (papaya salad) where my two favorites, but it was all delicious and we can't wait to get home and cook some of it for you all!

After a couple of days in Chiang Mai, we were feeling totally watted out, so we decided to take an unscheduled detour to Pai, a hippy town in the mountains near the border of Burma. The drive their was gorgeous, although on a horribly curvy road. The town itself was very cool and laid back although we soon learned that had we been there a year ago it would have been a lot more tranquil as Jim the expat english bartender informed us that Pai had been featured in a popular Thai movie and ever since then bus loads of Thai toursists had begun invading the place on weekends. We also had the good fortune to show up on a Friday so the town was packed with most guesthouses filled up and prices bumped up because of the high demand. Despite the craziness, Pai still has pockets that emmanate the hippy town and as soon as you get of town there are great trails and waterfalls to explore. After arriving around noon in Pai and finding a funky very basic bungalow to call home, Dave and I headed off to Fluid, a beautiful lounge bar in the countryside complete with small work out center. We spent as much time as possible soaking up the sun before the clouds moved in and we got some light sprinkles. We had a great time walking around that evening and sampled oodles of incredible street food from delicious little pancakes to savory meat on a stick. While our attempt to go out and find a roudy night scene for some drinking initially failed (Jim the bartender and Matt from Chicago both very nice ended up being our only company) we were delighted to come back to our place to find a group of lively Thai guys who invited us to join them by their campfire. They turned out to be exactly our age and forced us to take too many shots of SangSom Rum from the bottle top. We could barely communicate with the guys (one of them did have an english phrasebook from which they pointed out "intended length of stay?") but we had a great time just hanging out and laughing and smiling with them. One of the guys had a guitar and amazingly (were not sure if this goes for all Thais or if they are a group of some sort) all them could sing REALLY well and so for the most part we just hung around and listened to them play and sing Thai songs. Their was only one song that had a chorus simple enough for us to join in on so that one got played alot and they also had some American hip-hop that they played for us from their cell phones.

For our one full day in Pai Dave and I decided to take another adventure aboard a motorbike. We took off and got a bit lost trying to find the first of two waterfalls on our itinarary. It was a really nice fall with lots of Thai kids swimming around and all was great and happy until suddenly everything went crazy. I just summoned up the courage to slide down one of the falls and was alone in one of the pools when suddenly these two guys tumbled into the water next to me. WhileI at first thought it was just fun and games I quickly realized it was anything but, as these guys meant business and were going for blood. As I struggled to get away (they were blocking the easy exit) they pummeled each other and soon another guy was in the water. I really think they wanted to kill this guy (NO idea why!) but they were strangling him, punching him in the head and then it all culminated when they smashed a glass seven-up bottle right on the guys temple. Lots of blood,meanwhile I was trying the scramble my way of the rocks and Dave who was above couldn't do a thing to help me. The bleeding guy then proceeded to try and escape by following me up the rocks which totally freaked me out. Fortunately his assailants decided to let him go and didn't follow up us the rocks but needless to say I was badly shaken. We decided to take off rather than hang around and took off for another waterfall which was very cool and in a cave and didn't hold any surprises. After a quick stop in town for a very late lunch we got a big beer and headed out to Pai Canyon where we watched to sunset. Then, thanks to Jim the bartender, we went in search of Spa Exotic which was the best advice we have received in Asia. Not only did it cost less then half the price of the regular hot springs most tourists are sent to but we had the place entirely to ourself and unlike the normal hot springs that are just twelve inches deep here we could swim! It was so so so nice and relaxing and was just what our tired traveling bodies needed! Ok must run!! Bus is here more later!!
Jess xoxoxo

Luang Namtha: Life & Nature

I know that was a cheezy title, but that is the official slogan of the town we spent the last few days in, Luang Namtha. Pretty far north and almost to China in Northern Laos, the biggest thing in Luang Namtha is the area around it, which is dense forest peppered with many ethnic groups. So obviously, as soon as we got there ( more on that in a bit), we looked into some trekking, which is the official name for hiking out here. We signed up for a two day trek, with an overnight stay in a small Akha tribal village, but Jess got quite sick, so we cancelled in favor of a staying home in our so so hotel. After a day of sleeping and not much else, she was feeling much better, so we went on a one day trek, which i will explain in a moment.

The most exciting party of Luang Namtha was definately our arrival. There is only one way to get there from Luang Prabang, the infamous local bus. They claim it takes 9 hours, but those are lao hours. With either a 9am or a 530pm departure from Luang Namtha, we called ahead to a guest house in Luang Namtha and headed out on the night bus, knowing we would arrive some time around 2am. The drive wasa really something, winding through the moonlight on curving, bumpy roads, people sitting in the aisles on plastic stools, and this rude couple sitting across from us that refused to let the woman in front of them open the window, even though she clearly was about to vomit. The night got really foggy as we went farther along, really reminded me of the sunset, almost Tower Market -esque. The driver couldnt have seen 40 feet in front of him but that didnt stop him from barreling on up the hills. When we finally arrived it past 3am, foggy as all hell, and freezing. All we had to do was get our stuff off the top of the bus (I climbed up and searched with a flashlight, wake up the only tuk-tuk driver, cruise on into hopping Luang Namtha (thats sarcasm, by the way) and find our guesthouse. We decided quickly that anywhere that we could find was good enough, and the third fence we rattled led to a 50,000 kip night of "what's crawling inside the walls". I thought maybe a rodent, but Jess assured me it was a bug and I should just go to sleep. It was nearing sunruse so I didn't argue.

For your sake, we'll skip over the find a trek day and the recovery day that followed. :ets just say Jess didn't eat anything all day and I have had enough noodle soup to last me a while ( 5 meals in 2 days if you're keeping track at hame). I love me some noodle soup, but it was the other boring options that drove me to it really. So our trek was really good. We huffed and puffed over two peaks through pretty dense jungle and then stopped for a lunch we'll call the Jungle-Q. Our guides chopped down some bamboo to make skewers to roast meat they bought that morning at the market in Luang Namtha, then cut down banana leaves to create a picnic blanket of sorts. We squatted around it and ate with our hands - grilled beef (almost jerky they cooked it so long), sticky rice, and various lao favorites, all spicy, including Laap - a minced pork salad sorta thing - bamboo shoots, a sauce made out of crabs and chillis, greens, and more. It was way too much food, and the beef would have been better if they took it off the fire about 10 minutes before they did, but it was all in all pretty cool. Bananas and Jujubees (thats really a fruit and not just a nasty candy) made dessert, and then we trekked out to visit the Khmu village. The Khmu peope make up 45% of the Lao population, and we got to sit around in our guide's house, as he was from the village, and just cruise around. Kids smiled and waved, and Jess and I got a puppy to follow us the whole time, so it was pretty cool. We piled back into the tuk-tuk and went to see another village, this one of the Black Thai ethnicity. They are calle dthe black thai because they wear these black robes all the time, and they emigrated from China not too long ago. They have their own language, and the writtn form uses Chinese characters, not the sanskrit letters of Lao, Thai and Khmer (Cambodian). That village, along with Luang Namtha, really made us feel close to china, as characters were all over the place.

We decided we had definately had our fill of Lao food, and although the country is beautiful and the people are nice, we left this morning for Thailand. Well, we're back in the land of smiles, so what have we done? So far, we ate Pad Thai twice, took a nap, and had wienerschnitzel for dinner. Ok, taht last one stands out, but the guy running the place was german so what the hey. We are in the border town of Chiang Kong, and leave tomorrow morning for Chiang Mai, the second largets city in Thailand and often called the cultural capital. It will be wierd to be back in a big city but the food should be great, and then its off to Bangkok (breifly) on the way to THE BEACH!!!It sounds crazy, but only a few weeks remain in our journey, so its almost time to get the relaxation we deserve on the beautiful white sand of the thai islands. Glod to see the Niners won their first game since we left, clearly they are getting ready to roll into the playoffs with my return. Well, maybe not, but it looks like the Yorks are ready for the Shaun Hill era to begin. I know i am. All for now,
Dave

Houseboats in Asia to World Heritage Sites

After just one night in Vientiene, Dave and I set off in another VIP bus to the much talked about backpacker haven of Vang Vieng. The big attraction in Vang Vieng is tubing down the Nam Song which is graced with 10 or so riverside bars that offer cold beers and various water slides, swings and jarring ziplines. For us, it felt a lot like houseboats in Asia, which is the annual memorial day weekend UC Davis tradition that takes place on Lake Shasta, only we were on a river, there were no kegs and it was full of Aussies and Europeans instead of drunk American college students. The setting for all of this debauchery was truly awesome and despite the hordes of young farang and blaring techno music it almost felt unspoiled. The river is set in a valley among these incredible jagged karst cliff that just stretch on as far as you can see and the natural beauty is really untouched as they seem to go a good job of containing the tourism and maintaining the natural splendor. We spent three nights in Vang Vieng which really only gave us two days. The whole "local scene" was pretty amusing with literraly an entire intersection filled with restaurants with lounge tables where you could kick back and watch re-runs of "Friends" and plenty of ladies catering to the packpacker munchies selling delicious bacon sandwhiches and pancakes (actually crepes) filled with chocolate bananas and other goodies. We spent one day in the tubes and another day kayaking and visiting caves. The coolest cave was one that you actually went into in a tube and use a rope to tow yourself and back into th cave about 50 meters where we disembarked and then crawled/swam even deeper! On our kayak/trekking trip we had some not so amusing japanese tourists along with us. The women came wearing high heels!! and refused to paddle, don't know what they were thinking when they signed up but anyways! The day in the tube was fun too, although Dave and I really couldn't get that into it. We had some beers and each went off an assortment of slides and swings but thought the whole thing would have been more fun if we had been traveling with more friends.

Now we are in beautiful Luang Prabang, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is a town that is filled with Wats (temples), monks wrapped in Saffron robes and lots of old french colonial buildings. Upon arrival we climbed up to the top of Wat Phousi to see an incredible sunset and views of the entire city. We spent the next day cruising around on bikes and visited a not so exciting market and saw many many temples. Today we accidentally slept all the way until 10 am (possible our latest yet!) and then hurried off to arrange a tuk-tuk ride to these incredible multi-tiered waterfalls with great swimming. We have been eating lots of tasty street food with highlights including pork on sticks, beef noodle soup and this vegetarian buffet where you get a heaping plate of noodles and salads for just 5,000 kip (about 50 cents!) We have also been perusing the incredible night market trying to decide what to buy (scarves, jewelery, pillows!) and tonight will be doing some actual purchasing. Now we are struggling to figure out where to go next but are thinking of heading off to the mountains to do some trekking and maybe even a village home stay. We will keep you posted though! We miss you all and love getting updates from everyone back home so please keep writing to us!
Jess

Goin North and Obama Opinions

Well, after what i will redundantly refer to as an historic election, which it was in so many ways, people in Asia have had one response: Great! From fellow travelers to locals (the ones we could talk to), everyone seems very happy. On election day, which was really the 5th here with the time difference, we left Pakse for a two day motorcycle ride through the Bolaven Plateau, where we spent the night in the village of Tadlo. Tadlo's most exciting offerings are waterfalls, as there are three within a few miles of the town, but no one there seemed to know one way or the other about the election. So we paid a ton for slow internet and were overwhelmed with happiness and american pride when we saw the NYTimes headline: OBAMA. The few other people at Tim's guesthouse in Tadlo were happy for Jess and I, but we failed to celebrate Obamarama with the traditional Lao moonshine, lao-lao, which accompanies all special occasions here. Probably for the better, since we had to ride about 100 km the next day on out motorcycle. People that we have run into more than once along the trail here had big smiles for us when we saw them, especially thos ethat were also watching the early returns come in with us in Pakse before we left for Tadlo. What was interesting was an article in the Bangkok Post, and english-language daily paper, which highlighted McCain's respectful and gracious remarks in conceding the election. To paraphrase, he said that he was ready to start working with Barack to get things back on track, and this writer felt that this was a great example of what Thai legislators need to do to heal long standing divisions, which have led to protests and some violence in Bangkok (at the same time we were there, actually). That was cool on a lot of levels I thought, and hopefully a sign of good bipartisan efforts to solve problems instead of bickering and mudslinging.
But enough abuot that, I'm sure all of you have heard just a little bit about the election. Back to our travels, since we are the important people on this blog. Like I said at th estart, we went from Pakse to the Bolaven plateau by motorcycle. Now, anyone that knows me would be surporsed to know that I had driven a motorcycle, much less for 2 straight days. The truth is, we had a moto-based daytrip on our last day in Pakse, so it was three days. And I had to shift gears, as there is nary an automatic motorcycle in Pakse. We went to Champasak to see some Angkor-esque ruins, called Wat Phu. They have not been maintained or refurbished as heavily as the Temples of Angkor, but what Wat Phu does have is serenity. There were no more than 20 people at the ruins when we were, and we were almost alone for parts of our exploration. The basic layout is like this: two large pools separated by a causeway (just like Davis!!), which was lined with hundreds of 4-foot tall Linga statues, hindu phallic symbols. After the pools, there are two former palaces, now pretty crumbled, and then steps up the side of a mountain leading to a temple complex. the steps have trees carefully planted along each side and the views over the Mekong river valley are truly stunning. Also, the temples contain a natural spring, which we saw a tour guide use to fill up a water bottle (but we weren't thinking about drinking from), a loarge rock carved like an Elephant, and another with a crocodile shape chiseled out about 5 inches deep. Pretty cool all in all, and even after 3 days of similar temples at Siem Reap still pretty fresh in our minds. We got some great photos with our remaining camera, and will put some up soon. So that was Wat Phu in Champasak.
Next was Tadlo and the waterfalls and road of the Bolaven Plateau, which rises out of the Mekong Valley. The biking was fun for a while, but any more than about 45 minutes at a time got to be pretty tough on our tender backsides. The roads were almost all paved, with minor exceptions totalling about 25 km and spread evenly ove rthe two days. Teh landscapes were beautiful, lush green in all directions, lots of coffee and tea plantations, but also small scale fruit farming and undisturbed jungles. The most common traffic we passed were kids riding bikes to school in the villages and a random smattering of livestock, mostly cows and pigs but goats too, and dogs, which run pretty loose and sometimes take naps in the road. We stopped at Tad Paxuam waterfall on the way up, and also visited a small village and saw these tree houses where people stay, right by the falls and set in the jungle. Would have been cool, but we had a schedule to keep. Our only mishap was a rear flat tire, which led to me pushing the bike up a hill to the next town and a new tube popped in for only 6 dollars (50,000 kip). Within a half hour we were back on the road. Our first day in tadlo was uneventful except for the big Obama news, as rain and muddy water kept us from swimming.
We slept in a bit and made up for lost time the next day. Following VERY lose directions, we rode out to a nearby village where 4 boys about 10 years old coralled us and led us up to som egreat pools right below a tall waterfall, maybe 100 feet or so. Worried about leaving the bike unattended, we still had a great time in the deep cool water, and paid the kids 18,000 kip (around 2 bucks) when we made it safely back to the cycle. We then drove up to the top of the same falls, which afforded wonderful views of the villages and land below, and some scenic (but shallow) wading/swimming holes. We were in a bit of a hurry, as you never know when it might rain and we had to cross a decent chunk of unpaved clay road before breathing easily. We made it across with no problems, and had a good time waving at all the school kids and other people we passed, who seemily happily surprised to see two Farang riding by them. We ha d aminor scare when our gas guage read empty and the only town on the map for 35 km was completely out of gas, but we got some bootleg petrol on the roadside and made it safely to the Shell station in Paksong, which is not exactly a booming metropolis. Tehn we were fighting the daylight as we stopped to see two more falls, both down very slippery roads which tested my copious riding experience (Jess walked so i wouldn't fall over for a few puddly stretches), and got some more good views of quickly moving water. Where was Nick Abrams when we needed him? Probably throwing himself over a waterfall in nepal i guess. We made it back to Pakse just after dark and had enough time for a hurried dinner before our overnight bus to Vientiane, the capitol of Laos. Vientaine is pretty but not real exciting, and with the not so lovely sleep on the bus, we've had a bit of a lazy day, although we did walk a bit. I got a good Lao massage, basically the sme as a Thai massage but in Laos instead, and Jess pampered herself with a mani-pedi and some other girly stuff. She did somehow skip the "Princess Treatment", which lasted several hours and cost 550,000 kip (which is really like 60 bucks, but sounds way better in kip). I was proud of her restraint, and so we had some good chinese dumplings andcame to check out the good ole internets, which gets you completely up to speed. Tomorrow we will head further north, to Vang Vieng and then either to Luang Prabang or possibly back down to Vientiane to see a Buddhist festival. Its all up in the air right now, but thats how the Farang Express rolls. Keep the responses coming, and thanks, Colin, for the idea. Hope you like dthe way it turned out.

Dave

Hello from Lazy Lao

So sorry for the lapse in communication, but we just now made it back to at least quasi-civilization. In both of the last two places we stayed we only had generator provided electricity between the hours of 6 and 9 pm so there definitely was not any reliable internet to be found. We arrived in Lao three days ago now and are now in Pakse, a rather backwater town in the very southern part of the country. Are forray into the Ratanakiri province of Cambodia was a bit of a mixed bag with some incredible highs and some rather serious lows. What we thought was going to be 12++ hours on a bus to get to Ban Lung, which is just south of the Lao border in the middle of nowhere jungle-land, turned out to be a mere 10 hours on a road that was paved for I would say 6 or 7 of those hours. We crammed into a mini-bus with 13 other very freindly Cambodians, most of whom turned out to be tourists themselves as we quickly realized that the local transport was atop trucks laden with other goods. The Ratanakiri province was breathtaking. So much green and rolling mountains covered with yellow wildflowers and relaxed "communes" of wooden houses on stilts. Upon our descent from the mini-bus we were ill-fatedly greeted by Nan a local "guide" who kindly helped us secure two moto drivers to take us on a very treacherous ride to the eco-lodge we had picked out in the lonely planet. The guys had no idea how to find the place and we to the lodge just as it was becoming pitch dark but not without a moto crash that left Dave with a rather beat up and bruised foot! Our eco-lodge turned out to be a little slice of heaven with a wonderful owner. It was a bit like camping (picture mather in the jungle) but it was far away from the rather gloomy town of Ban Lung and set amid awesome countryside and the local people. Our next day was really a perfect day. After sleeping in and causing a minor crisis (dave sort of tore the sink off the wall!!!) while doing some sink laundry (that never did fully dry in the humid weather) we went on a mini-trek on a trail that led us straight from our lodge into the hillside. We only briefly got lost and with some minor bickering soon found ourselves at the incredible Yaek Lom crater lake. Truly heaven on earth after walking through the Cambodian jungle. The water was so clear and there were tons of local kids diving precariously off trees into the water around us. I even had the chance to impress the local old guys there for an afternoon dip by swimming from one dock across the lake to the dock where they had taken up residency. There was a lot of laughing and muttering about the "barang" and I got a couple of thumbs up.

When the sink finally dislodged itself from bathroom wall (we hard told the manager who claimed that he had resolved the problem while we were at the lake) and came crashing down the next morning while I was still in bed, we should have realized we were in for a bad day. After managing to turn off the water source and switching to a room that wasn't flooded, we made the TERRIBLE mistake of letting Nan take us on what ended up being an $80 tour for private car and boat (an estra $20 not originally discussed) to the Voen Sai district where people had told us you could see interesting tribes living along side of a river. After our moto-rides from hell to the hotel, we had decided that it would be better and safer to spring for a jeep ($30 more) rather than spend a harrowing two hour ride on motos. In short the road was unbelievably bad, as the wet season had not been kind to it, and we spent more time on the miserable road then we did actually visiting the villages. Our guide Nan, while knowing nothing about the local people we saw, had an inifinite number of stories to tell us about his female escapades and jacking off (which he called the american airplane). Our favotite moment perhaps was when he told us that after he dated a girl for two months he would ask her "you boom-boom me?" and if she said no well then that was the end of that. The villages (Chinese, Lao and Chunchiet) probably woul have been really interesting had we the guide to tell us more about them but without the instruction they really just looked like all of the villages scattered around a lodge and we were bemoaning the fact that we were not just spending another day at the lake. The most interesting part of the tour was a little cemetary with graves adorned with wooden sculptures of the deceased. The cherry on top of the fabulous day was realizing that we had left Dave's camera in the jeep. We called both the guide and driver the next morning but they ofcourse declined having ever seen it. It was a very sad and distressing end to our time in Cambodia but we are moving on and still having a great time. Fortunately, we did have picturest through halfway down Vietnam backed up and the few that are on the blog so all is not lost and we have my camera to document the rest of the trip for y'all.

We made our way through the unofficial border crossing into Laos having only to pay $4 in bribes ($1 for each of us to both sets of border officials). We were then chauffeured by another mini-bus to a water ferry to take us into Si Phan Don, or the four thousand islands of Laos which are formed by a widening of the mekong river. We spent two nights in Don Det, a very laid back and peaceful island that provided some much needed respite from our trouble in Cambodia. We spent our two days there biking around on it and the neighboring island Don Khon connected by an old railway bridge that was a relic from when the french had attempted to connect China to the ports of Saigon. The rodes were VERY bumpy and Dave's bike chain must have fallen off about 15 times but we had a great time biking through rice paddies and tryig to avoid water buffaloes and even got to see a dramatic waterfall. Now we are in Pakse where there isn't muh to do except catch up on e-mail and eat good food (we had incredible Korean BBQ for dinner last nigh where got some much needed help from a couple of Laos guys).

Having finally realized that we always seem to have a much better time when sightseeing solo we have decided to try and forgo all future tours and just discover things on our own whenever possible while saving a bundle of money at the same time. Today we again tested our fate by renting a moto to ride to Champasak, which was about a 45 km ride plus rickety ferry across the Mekong. After a brief lesson on how to use the manual moto, we were set lose and I must say Dave did an excellent job navigating the Lao countryside as we never even took one wrong turn. The day was really fabulous, as we got to see so much and felt so much more in control of our selves and not once did we feel like we were getting cheated! In addition to beautiful green landscapes and rice paddies we got to visit Wat Phu, which are Angkor era ruins set in an incredible hillside. While not to the scale of Angkor, the ruins held an incredible magic in that there was almost no once else around. We climbed up these incredibly steep steps into the hillside that were lined with Jacaranda trees to the sacred temples set within the cliffs. Because our moto excursion went so well today we are going to continue are adventure by heading off into the Bolaven Plateau tomorrow for a couple of nights in a town called Tad Lo where there are supposed to be interesting tribes and great waterfalls for swimming. Ok...that ended up being a really long one, but it had been a while since we had written. Go Obama and happy belated Halloween and happy birthday Amanda Morgan!

Abrazos

Jess

"Fast" boat to Phnom Penh, or, Cambodia Revisited

Well, continuing our streak of picking the best days to do outdoor activities, we woke up on the day of our Mekong Delta boat trip to pouring rain. It lasted the whole busride out to the Delta, but once we got on a boat it calmed down a bit, and it was all pretty cool. At what muct be one of its widest points, the Mekong was huge, brown, and full of life. People live right on the river, and we went to a floating market where you could haggle for bananas, bread, or even old boats. It was all really cool, even in the damp weather, and we even managed to make some friends (I know, pretty cool huh?). Just as Asia had told us, all but one of the Americans we have met have been from San Francisco, and on our delta tour we met one more, Daniel. He had a pretty swollen ankle, but still hobbled along through our walks on the islands and confusing transportation changeovers, and we shared an exotic looking lunch - a whole fried "elephant ear" fish. It came out on a stand, so it was vertical (pictures pending), and we cut off chunks and rolled them up with greens and cucumbers into spring rolls. I was lucky enough to have a "Sars" soda (picture pending), and we thoroughly enjoyed our Mekong specialty. Rainy weather cancelled our trip to the Coconut Candy factory, which we later heard was a bit of a yawn, and so we left by bus/ferry/bus to reach our overnite destination, Chau Doc. Petty much a border town, we saw little of it, but had a great nite on a floating hotel, right on the Mekong. The other people from our tour all went there too, so we just relaxed and chatted until an economic development and globalization debate broke out between a canadian and a german from london. It wasn't looking like it would end, so Jess and I turned in for the night.
The next day we got on the "fast boat" we had been told so much about by the tour company, and found out that it wasnt exactly lightning on the water. We stopped to see a fish farm, which wasn't incredibly exciting, and then a Cham village. The Cham are an ethnic minotrity that live mainly in the MEkong Delta, and are mainly muslim. As such, we went to a mosque and a madrasah, and it definately seemed wierd to hear arabic in vietnam. Their village was interesting also, built hanging out over the river along a small island. We got back on the boat and headed for the Cambodian border, and after some interesting (unfair) money exchanges right on the boat, paid our guide for our visas, which he set up while we waited at a border station. Cambodia seemed to be hotter even 100 feet away from Vietnam, but out language skills are marginally better here, so I was able to get a grin out of the customs agent when i greeted him (Sua sdei) and thanked him (au khon tran) in Khmer. There were a ton of puppies running around, so Jess was happye even in the heat, and we were soon on a new, slightly faster, Cambodian boat for the rest of the trip to Phnom Penh. The scenery was spectacular along the river - lush green fields and dense jungles broken by riverbank villages every so often. The best part though, was the people on the banks. Every time we passed children, they lit up with ear to ear smiles and waved like their arms would fall off, so happy just to see people go by. It really made everyone forget about the difficulties in the travel to that point, and made for a great hour and a half on the boat.
We landed, took a short bus ride, and were dropped smack dab in the middle of zany, dusty Phnom Penh. Motor scooters and tuk-tuks honking constantly, the traffic is as stifling as the noon heat, and really takes some patience. Aside from that, Phnom Penh has its charms, beautiful wats along the river and friendly people, but is truly a city of stark contrasts. We spent a rainy morning visiting the Choeng Ek "killing fields" - site of mass graves and executions perpetrated by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge from 1976-79, and then S-21, a former highschool turned detention/torture/interrogation center. Words cannot describe the utter horror the Khmer Rouge created, killing anyone they feared may have opposed or hindered their agrarian revolution, even displaced peasants forced into the capitol city were executed en masse for being city dwelling elite. Anyone with eyeglasses, advanced education, or a foreign upbringing was deemed a danger to the state, and in the 4 year span of Khmer Rouge control 1/4 of the population of Cambodia had been killed by an army made up mainly of branwashed adolescents. Searching for a "why" while walking through the sites of such atrocities is truly staggering, and Jess and I barely spoke that morning. Sorry for the downer, but the truth must be told, especially to Americans, as I personally never heard anything about this in any school.
Needing a change, Jess and I headed south for the beach town of Sihanoukville. A fun if strange town, it seemed more like San Diego than asia, with bar/grills right on the sand and almost all tourists. The beach was beutiful though, so we spent a day doing what we set out to do - absolutely nothing. We lounged, we swam, we ate fresh grilled barracuda, and we stayed no more than 50 feet from the waves. After a two day mini vacation from the real asia, we came back to Phnom Penh today and went out for a big late lunch. We went to Friends, a restaurant run by an NGO that offers job training to street children and former juvenile delinquints, and everything was great. Sadly, after enjoying our leisurely meal, we were just barely too late to go tour the Royal Palace, but still snuck some nice shots of the wats and pagodas from outside the walls. We settled for a stroll along the river, complete with an elephant sighting and a drink at the Foreign Correspondents' Club, a relic of a bygone era still busy with travelling journalists and plain olde' travellers like ourselves. Now exhausted, we are looking forward to a quiet evening before hitting the road tomorrow for the Rattanakiri province, near the Lao border. We are getting on a bus at 7am, and the lady at the travel agency didnt even offer a guess as to when we'd arrive. After seeing cambodian roads at their finest, we are not expecting a smooth ride. But hey, the reward is in the journey right? Well, something like that. INternet could be sparse or non existant until we hit Pakse, in southern Laos, but i know you will survive without us for a few days. Read the paper, there must be news with the election, world series and Don Nelson's contract extension all happening at once. Well, that was quite a post, hope you liked it, and (I've never been able to say this before), we'll contact you from Laos.

Dave