Singapore - By Brian

We spent two days in Singapore before visiting Borneo, and two days after coming back. We visited the Botanical Gardens and the National Orchid Garden, which is absolutely amazing. They have 1000 species of orchids and another 2000 hybrids. We also visited the bird park which is bird overload! Saw the shoebill we didn't see in Uganda. Later that night we went to the night safari at the Singapore Zoo. It's basically a zoo, but for nocturnal animals; very cool. And we ate some more good food.

Big thanks to James and Kari for hosting us in Singapore. And to Ronny and Anie for helping us with logistics.

Silly photo a the night safari

World's highest man-made waterfall. It's in one of the aviaries at the bird park.

I have a buddy. He just hopped on as I was walking through an aviary.

Guess where.

One of the many, many spots at the orchid garden.

Hybrid developed at the National Orchid Garden.

HUGE!

This is what $40 USD in drinks looks like. The Singapore Sling was invented at the Long Bar at the Raffles hotel in, you guessed it, Singapore. Had to do it. Got a bunch of free peanuts and live music out of the deal. So it wasn't as painful.

South Vietnam (Hue, Hoi An, Siagon) - By Brian

After Hanoi, we spent a couple of days in Hue. We spent a day riding around on the back of motorbikes touring the beautiful countryside and seeing some of the great sites around the area. Two of these that were really cool were the tomb of emperor Tu Duc. There are several tombs around Hue, but this one is suppose to be the biggest and grandest. It was completed before his death in 1883 and must be at least 100 acres. There are some 50 buildings, a couple lakes, streams, gardens, you name it. A bit lavish.

For those of you that are my age, or really hip older folks, have you ever looked at the Rage Against the Machine album cover with the man on fire and wondered if it was real? It was, and we visited the monastery were that monk lived prior to driving to Saigon on June 11, 1963. They have the car that he drove to Saigon that day. There is also a large tomb were he is buried. His name was Thich Quang Duc and he was protesting the government's repression of Buddhists.

We then made our way to Hoi An for three days of wondering around and eating some of the best food I've ever had. Hoi An is a great town, but we really didn't do a whole lot. We just relaxed and ate. And were very happy with that.

Then on to Saigon. We made the obligatory stop at the War Remembrance Museum. To say it's a bit one sided would be an understatement. The entire first floor was all about all the awful things the US did during the war (I am not saying we didn't do bad things, but we weren't the only ones). It's really so bad that it discredits the information. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see it from a different perspective. Later that night we had a great conversation with a local woman that works for the UN Development Program in Saigon. Just sitting on the sidewalk on plastic chairs drinking beer and talking world policy, stereotypes, etc. That was the best part of the visit to Saigon.

No idea who these kids were. They came into the store in Hoi An and asked to take a picture with us. It wasn't a challenge to the kid that came and talked to us, I asked. Only thing I can think is that they though we were famous. It was pretty strange.

Sticky rice vendor. Not too bad, not the best.

Leafy dragon, Saigon.

War Remembrance Museum

Pho. Beef flavored broth with noodles and beef. Real tasty.

Thought this sign in the War Museum was a bit out of place.

Hoi An

Hoi An

Thich Quang Duc's car. Over the car and in the windshield you can see the famous photo.

Thich Quang Duc's tomb

Crossing a bridge in Hue on the back of a motorbike. A few seconds after this, when I wasn't looking ahead, but behind, my driver locked 'em up and I ended up munching his hair. All was good.

Tu Duc's tomb

Tu Duc's tomb

Tu Duc's tomb

Herding ducks to market.

North Vietnam (Hanoi and Halong Bay) - By Brian

When we elected to extend our trip in Nepal, we also decided to visit Vietnam, which wasn't on our original itinerary. Marisa had visited Vietnam when she traveled SE Asia back in 2001, but I had never been there and it's always been high on my list of places to visit. We planned to spend 10 days there, and work our way from Hanoi in the north down to Saigon in the south.

We arrived in Hanoi on a Lao Airways plane from Luang Prabang. After sorting our way through immigration, grabbing our bags and getting some dong (yup, that's what they call their money) from the ATM we hopped in a taxi with another couple and a single woman. When we arrived at our destination I had concluded that we'd owe 120,000 dong (17,800 dong to the dollar) and I grabbed three "50,000" dong bills. When we started handing our driver the money he realized my error in grabbing three 500,000 dong bills and snapped them up. I didn't realize this till later. My fault, but I was still pretty POed he made off with about $80.

We had heard and read that Vietnam, but Hanoi in particular, has many scams. Clearly we had found out the hard way. This, however, would be a valuable lesson. The next morning we took a cyclo (a cycle rickshaw where you ride in front of the driver) to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. After negotiating a good price, which involved walking away several times, our driver tried to have us get out and "walk just one minute over there". We weren't falling for it. He got a bit closer and tried it again. I said great, but I am not paying till I am there. So I walked around the corner to find out the Mausoleum was about 4 blocks away. Back in the cyclo, our driver tried to explain by saying he thought we said "mu-see-um, not ma-soo-lee-um". OK, buddy! Finally we got there.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant called Highway 4. It's in all the guide books, has 4 locations, nice menus, etc. When we asked for our bill we were presented with a handwritten bill. This isn't that strange, but then I noticed the prices were off. They were all inflated. Our seemingly friendly waiters had padded the bill. When we called them out on it they miraculously presented a printed bill with the right prices. Amazing! They also had tried this on the table next to us. So within about 30 hours we had three scams pulled on us. Great intro.

At this point you are likely thinking "jeez, I am never going to Vietnam"; think again partner. These three instances aside, we had a brilliant time in Vietnam. I was quite bummed to be leaving after 10 days, will definitely go back, and would highly recommend it to anyone that wants to visit SE Asia.

On to the goods bits...

First off, the food. It's amazing. While we were in Hanoi we enjoyed the single best food item of the trip: roll your own fresh summer rolls with hot caramelized beef, noodles, fresh mint, cilantro, basil, pineapple and a spicy fish sauce. Could have eaten about a hundred of these. Good thing you had to do some work to eat them versus just stuffing your face.

On a side note, just in case you are heading out for some Asian food, fresh rolls are Vietnamese, not Thai. You can't find fresh rolls in Thailand, so you shouldn't expect them in a Thai restaurant at home. Spring rolls are always fried, summer rolls are always fresh.

Also had dinner at a school were they teach poor youth from Vietnam how to cook and serve in restaurants. All the food is prepared and served by students. I had a fantastic duck in tamarind sauce here. Yum! More on the food in futures posts.

As I mentioned we visited Ho Chi Minh; well preserved and resting a la Lenin in his very communist looking Mausoleum. The funny part about this is that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread about the country. To visit HCM you have to cue for about 45 min, go through security, and then quietly walk past his body resting in a glass box inside a huge granite room. Now, you might think this sounds strange. Well, it is, but I have to say I thought it was pretty cool. Don't know why, just did.

We also visited the HCM museum were they point out many highlights from HCM's life. Not surprisingly the perspective is a bit one sided and fails to mention several key things. Like, when and why did his name change to HCM? Or how did he die?

After two days in Hanoi we headed up to Halong Bay for an overnight cruise on a boat. Halong Bay is a large area of the sea that is dotted with 1,969 limestone islands. It's a pretty spectacular place even if we didn't have the best weather. We did a little sea kayaking and visited a huge cave on one of the islands.

We then made our way back to Hanoi, spent the following day strolling around the city and the jumped an overnight train to Hue.

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum where "The glorious leader" rests in peace

Water puppet show in Hanoi with traditional musicians; this is a famous art form in Vietnam and well worth a look (even for me)

Viewpoint overlooking Halong Bay - we didn't exactly have sunny weather

A typical "junk" boat; ours was very similar to this

Views inside the "Amazing Cave" in Halong Bay; for perspective, note the two people in the right side of the picture

The cave was ENORMOUS

Just outside the cave

Traffic in Hanoi includes bicycles, motorbikes carrying families, and cars...when you cross the street you just keep a constant speed and hope nobody hits you

Laos - By Marisa

I'll just start this blog by saying that of all the countries we've visited, my opinions of Laos are probably the most biased. Laos is a sleepy little country that is landlocked by Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Cambodia. The country's name, Laos, is pronounced with the "s", but if you are referring to the culture, you pronounce it as Lao. The country has lush green jungles coating huge rolling hills in the north, which are home to a variety of different hill tribe groups. The south tends to look flatter and drier, and the main transportation links were, until recently, centered mainly around the rivers. In particular, the Mekong cuts right through the heart of the country.

The phrase "laid back" hardly begins to describe the Lao people. According to our guidebook, Lao people believe that too much work can hurt the brain, and that frankly if what you are doing doesn't have some component of fun involved-well, then it's probably not worth doing. They just sort of work on a different time frame...buses leave when they are full, your meals may come an hour after you have ordered, and if you happen to go by an open shop at 11 am but its closed at 11:30-then they've probably decided to take a 2 hour lunch break.

Yet, there are other things in Laos that are practiced diligently and in a timely manner such as alms giving in Luang Prabang, but I'll expand on that later....

We began our adventure into Laos by taking a wooden boat from Thailand across the Mekong into the bordertown of Houay Xai (sort of sounds like 'west side'). Even climbing into boat, you could feel we were entering another country. I had to push in front of a little Lao woman who kept grabbing me and trying to push me aside....for the record, personal space in Laos is very very small. Don't be surprised if you feel a hand pushing you along in line or a drunk old man resting his head on your shoulder on a busride...as long as you take it with a little humor it can be quite entertaining. The Lao people also like to celebrate...change that to really like to celebrate with full bottles of alcohol and karoke in tow. One restaurant was blaring karoke so loudly in Houay Xai that Brian and I actually couldn't talk to one another across the street at the ATM. The Lao know how to have a good time.

Upon arriving in Houay Xai, we were greeted by a very boisterous and loud hotel owner who was ready to book any kind of trip you could want. She was quite funny because she had some sort of system that none of the backpackers could figure out, and she had no sense of time or urgency. So, if you ordered breakfast at 8 am and had a bus to catch at 9 am....well, good luck. She also tended to forget who had paid her and who hadn't or whether she owed you money from earlier.

Regardless, she was very nice and we did manage to catch our bus and eat breakfast. And to no one's surprise, halfway through our minibus ride to Nam Tha the driver and passenger decided it was time to get some soup and try some homemade rice whiskey at a roadside stop....because why wouldn't you be eating noodle soup and drinking homemade whiskey in the middle of the day while en route?

A short busride later, we arrived safely in Nam Tha. We had decided to head north to Nam Tha to do some hilltribe trekking and do a homestay in one of the more remote villages. And after some debate decided that just one night stay would be sufficient. The first day we hiked into the jungle it was hot, humid and filled with bugs. I got stung by some sort of bee twice, swatted at flies an enumerable amount of time, chuckled when our guide got driven out of his bed by ants, and stopped every 5 minutes to check for leeches while hiking. But the villagers were quite kind. A daughter and her mother cooked our dinner (pulling the feathers out of the chicken right in front of us) while the girl roasted eggplants on a bonfire. She also taught us how to use leaves to make sounds like popping bubble gum. But overall, it was a very slow time since we didn't realize we'd reach the village by 2pm and we both neglected to bring books to read or cards to play.

On a day two, we picked up another local villager , who was carrying what looked like a bag of salted small fish to sell in the market to buy medicine for his son who was in the hospital. About an hour into the hike, we were basically clambering up a stream with no trail, and by the time we found a trail the skies had opened up and it was downpouring. The rain didn't matter much to us since we were already drenching wet from the humidity, but the trails went from packed red clay to silky mud slicked death traps. Both Brian and I wiped out numerous times trying to go down the trail. Brian landed smack on his bum one time, and I managed to slip and jam a sharp stick between my toes and slice myself. But, to make a long story short.....perhaps hill tribes are better visited in other areas (Thailand/Vietnam) or with more experienced guides. We wouldn't do it again.

From Nam Tha, we took a 10 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang. It was an interesting bus ride (stopping to observe other bus accidents, picking up drunk old men), but I'll spare you the details. We finally arrived in Luang Prabang, which is a city with french colonial roots that is surrounded by two rivers, and it is breathtaking....

At 4 am you will hear the sound of deep bells waking the monks for their morning chants, and at 5:45 you will hear drums beating to let the monks know its time to fill their alms bowls. In Luang Prabang, 400 monks will line up, and walk down the sidewalk to collect rice from the community. Women get up early to make rice EVERY day to give to the monks, so that they will have sustenance for the day. Some of the traditions that you must follow when giving rice to the monks:
a) you must sit so that you are lower than them as they pass as a sign of respect
b) you must kneel so that your feet are not pointed at the monks, as that would be rude
c) women are not allowed to touch a monk
d) and monks can never ask or take from anything from anyone-thus, all food and rice must be gifted to them.

After they walk the street collecting the rice in their alms bowls the monks return to their Wats (temples) to eat. After noon, they are no longer allowed to eat until the next day. Nearly every boy in Laos spends two years in the monkhood. So, you will see monks everywhere...you may even see them at the waterfalls outside of Luang Prabang cooling off on a hot summer day.

The city of Luang Prabang has loads of beautiful gold trimmed temples, beautifully restored colonial wood buildings, and lovely sidewalk cafes serving delicious french and Lao food. It's a great little place to rent a bike for the day or take a day trip to the waterfalls where you can go swimming in milky blue waters. This is probably one of my favorite (if not THE FAVORITE) southeast asian city to visit....highly recommended. Loas maintains its cultural backbone without catering too much to tourist influences...it's amazing.

The beginning of our trek in Nam Tha region

Okay, not only is this elder woman hauling bamboo in the jungle wearing longsleeves, but she also does it with a silver pipe hanging from her mouth...kudos

Village girl and her dog cooking eggplant over the fire for dinner

Morning time in the Kumbu village

Hmong village that came out to greet us and sell some of their wares

Trekking through the jungle...hot, muggy, and full of leeches

Brian on a bike ride in picturesque Luang Prabang

View from the city of Luang Prabang out to the countryside

Cleaning the streets as the sun goes down.

Palace museum of Luang Prabang had received an interesting gift from the U.S. In the display case was a small Laos flag that had been brought to the moon on Apollo 11, courtesy of president Richard Nixon.

Beautiful old cars lined the streets in this french colonial town (LP)

Buddhist temple

Waterfalls outside LP...a local boy shows us how its done.

Brian taking a go of the ropeswing...check out the monk watching in the background

Quaint streetside cafe (LP)

Handwoven silk tapestries at the night market

Morning alms collection for the 400 monks at the temples..view from our hotel

Local woman showing proper etiquette

Chaing Mai Songkron - by Brian

We had heard from several sources that if you are in Thailand during Songkron, around mid April, you should try to make it to Chiang Mai, in the north. Songkron celebrates Thai New Year. It also happens to occur around the beginning of the monsoon season. And it's wicked hot; generally around 95-100 and dripping wet humid. So, what better way to celebrate the New Year and coming monsoon than with a water fight. Now we are not just talking about a few squirt guns and a couple of random hoses. No, we're talking all out, no holds barred water fight. And everyone participates. I mean everyone, tens of thousands.

We arrived in Chaing Mai one day before Songkron was suppose to begin. Figured we'd rent a motorbike and head out to the botanical gardens outside the city. On the way there we found out some folks (i.e., kids) like to get an early start on the festivities. By the time we made it to the gardens we were soaked. Kids of all ages stand by the side of the road and chuck buckets of water at each victim that drives by. And who can blame them. If I had a free pass to hurl water at people driving down my street when I was 10, damn right I would have.

The following three days we joined the party, as there was no way to go outside the hotel without getting nailed with water. The first day we rented a tuk-tuk (see pic below) and drove around tossing ice water on people. Ya, you read that right...ice water. We had a 30 gallon garbage bin fill of water and a big block of ice. Let me tell you the look of shock you get from people when you toss freezing cold water on them is priceless. My favorite moment was when I hopped out of the tuk-tuk and snuck up behind an 8 (or so) year old boy, dumping a bucket of ice water down his back. The look on his face was fantastic!

Day 2 and 3 was more of the same with a few beers and a site or two tossed in.

If you ever have the chance to visit Thailand during Songkron, do it. They celebrate all over the country but Chaing Mai is the epicenter. I guarantee you will love it.

Typical scene. People just take over the streets. Folks drive around in trucks with waterfighters in the back. Chaos.

These three kids waited outside the restaurant we ate lunch at. They pounced on any and all. I got into an all out battle with them when we finished lunch. Not sure who won...

And some even wear costumes.

There is a parade. Yeah!

Marisa in the tuk-tuk, leaning on the bucket of ice water. We filled that thing up 4 times in a couple hours.