Shopaholics Anonymous

I know it's rather quick for another post... but I just had to share my experiences in Hoi An. Hoi An is a short 4 hour bus ride away from Hue. (well, probably three if we left on time and didn't make a super long pit stop where we could spend lots of money...) But it's a nice little town - another UNESCO heritage site. After this post, I'm going to go check out the town before we leave at noon today. I haven't really had time in the last few days b/c I've been busy shopping.

Ladies and gentlemen... Hoi An is the shopping mecca of Vietnam. This small little town is jam packed w/ tailor shops all eager to make ANYTHING you want. So about $160 USD later... and 8 shirts, 2 cords, slacks, shoes.... Damn, I look good in my new clothes, esp. after 9.5 weeks of wearing Dri-fit clothing. I am officially sick of wearing the same clothes every day and I can't wait to wear my new stuff in Australia. We're posting it all to Phil's home b/c we can't carry it all. I don't think Phil could even tell you how much money he's spent in total here in Hoi An. A whole bunch of us were sitting on the patio of a restaurant bar last night and at various points during the evening, people would get up for their fittings or go to buy more clothes impulsively. Even Phil had to hold me back from buying another shirt...

It's a perfect town. Very pretty. You get up, have breakfast, go shopping and pick out your fabrics, have lunch, head to the beach for a few hours, come back into town, do your fittings, have dinner, and drink at a bar w/ Happy Hour. Life really doesn't get much better than this. Especially since I heard that it snowed in Vancouver. Can't wait to post some pictures of the beach here. And it's a really nice beach - apparently Southern Thailand is way better, but I won't be getting there on this trip. So I'll take blue skies, white sands, waves, palm trees, and vendors selling fresh fruit - thank you very much.

We've been meeting lots and lots of awesome people along the way. And our group keeps getting bigger as we head south. Tomorrow, we're all headed to Nha Trang - a sort of Vietnamese Phuket I imagine to celebrate a girl's birthday on an island hopping boat tour- aka "booze cruise."

Food in Hoi An is great as well. THey have lots of local specialities that you can't get anywhere else in Vietnam. And the local beer here - "Larue" is the best beer that I've had in SE Asia. It tastes more like a North American beer.

Not too many days left in Vietnam. I leave for Cambodia on Monday for my last country on my SE Asia trip (2006 trip, that is).

December 1- this Friday - is World AIDS Day. I'll be sitting on some beach in Vietnam drinking beer... but I will remember. In fact, I need to get my hands on a red ribbon somewhere. I hope that you guys will take some time to remember World AIDS Day this year. Wear a red ribbon, make a donation to an AIDS organization or something. Wish I was back in Vancouver to commemorate the day. It's interesting to note that there are signs and banners w/ red ribbons and the words "HIV/AIDS" even here in Vietnam so I wonder if there will be any events going on. Feel free to visit my website www.onedayforaids.com and/or pass it along to a friend.

This city is "Hue" cool

Greetings from Hue, Vietnam. That's pronounced "huay" in case you didn't get the title of this post. It's a really laid back little city, esp. in comparison to Hanoi. As much as I like the craziness of Hanoi, it is a nice change. We are staying in the most amazing guesthouse here in Hue. It's a bit out of the city, but it's beautiful. It's literally someone's house and the family that lives here and runs the guesthouse are phenomenal. (For once, I don't feel like I'm being scammed...) Yesterday was perfect. They picked us up from the train station, and upon arrival at the guesthouse, they gave us wet towels and tea. Later, Phil and I, and a friend that we made on the train (Shane from Atlanta, GA) joined us on our little private boat up the river. Hue is not a major attraction based city but the river cruise was nice. We explored a mausoleum area, and the Citadel - also called the Imperial Purple Forbidden City. It's similar to China except that most of it has been bombed to oblivion during the "American" war in Vietnam and it's much more dilapidated and most of it was made of wood. At least there aren't hordes of tourists around. It's just so laid back here. Last night we tried to find a taxi back to our guesthouse. This bicycle rickshaw driver kept asking us to let him take us home. We're like - "the three of us? Are you kidding?" He wasn't kidding. So we piled into one rickshaw - sitting like a totem pole on this thing and the guy biked us all the way back to our guesthouse for a whopping $3 USD. We got lots of stares, and smiles from people passing us on the road. It couldn't have been safe and at one point, he was pushing us... It was crazy but a barrel of laughs. After I'm done posting, I"ll go sit on the balcony and read my new book that I just picked up in Hanoi.

I'd seen fake purses and fake clothes before, but I've never seen fake books. Apparently, you can get a fake photocopied version of the Lonely Planet's Vietnam here. It's rather amusing. I picked up a fake copy of a book called 'The Girl in the Picture." Not sure if you've guys have ever seen the picture of a naked little Vietnamese girl running, burning from a napalm attack. It's quite a horrific picture that conveys the brutality of war. Anyway, it's a book about the girl (Kim Phuc), her family, the photographer, the vietnam war, etc. It's really, really good. Heartwrenching but also informative. It's rather enlightening to read particularly as I travel through Vietnam. i look forward to visiting the Cu Chi tunnels in Saigon at the end of this week.

Going back a few days - we went to Halong Bay for 2 nights, which was beautiful. Just like all the pictures. I sent out a batch of postcards yesterday. P.S. - if anyone wants postcards - you need to email me your mailing address.

We got to kayak in the area a bit. We slept one night on a boat. And we met lots of cool people. It was a bit of a gong show though as they obviously had overbooked the boat. Some people who were suppose to sleep one night on the boat were fed a blatant lie. "sorry, there's a typhoon coming and no boats are going out onto the sea tonight." It was a pretty good lie considering that a typhoon really did blow through a few days before and killed 17 people in Halong Bay apparently including 2 tourists. You'll be all happy to know that I'm alive. But some of the tour group members called his bluff. It was funny though b/c the tour guide continued to give us fabricated excuses for the tour company's gaffs and mistakes. It's all part of what I like to call the 'Asian No' - they never say "NO" to you so they either give you wrong information or some lame ass excuse. It can get tiring... in either case, the beautiful views and the awesome people that we met made it a great experience. I'd highly recommend it to anyone. Just be sure to leave your expectations about the tour company, guide and boat on shore when you leave. ;)

alright, that's it from me for now. My balcony and book awaits.... Btw, it feels like 30 degrees here today.... I'm guessing it's a bit cooler in Vancouver... hahaha..... sorry....

Picture Update from Laos & Vietnam

Description of pictures
1) The rice fields of Sapa - gorgeous!
2) Local tribal people at the Bac Ha Sunday market
3) Water puppet show in Hanoi
4) Hanoi street
5) Resting on a platform overlooking the Nam Song river - one of many bars along the river where you tube.
6) Wats & Monks in Luang Prabang
7) Giving alms to the monks in Luang Prabang
8) The "really slow" boat to Luang Prabang. They tried to fit over 100 ppl on that boat at their luggage.

Impressions of Vietnam

So I did go tubing again that day in Vang Vieng. No worries, I wasn't too drunk. ;) It was great. Thank you for all the concerns including my lifeguard friend, Teresa. ;)

The next morning, we caught the bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. There wasn't a whole lot to see there so I'm glad that we didn't spend the previous night there. We did have some tex-mex food. It doesn't have anything on the mexican food that I get in Vancouver or anywhere else in North America, but it did fill the craving.

Later that night, we caught a flight to Hanoi. It was probably the smallest airport that I had ever been through. A total of 12 flights arrive and depart, I think per day. It was a short one hour flight to Hanoi and it was totally worth it instead of a 20-30 hour bus ride from Vientiane to Hanoi.

First impressions of Vietnam??? Very positive. I liked Vietnam right away. It's hard to put into words, but I had good impressions right away. The day that we got in was also leading up to the APEC summit so I don't know if Hanoi was cleaned up better than usual.

There are SO MANY motorbikes in Hanoi. The trick apparently is to walk across streets slowly so that motorbike drivers can swervve around you. If you run, that can be very dangerous. It's quite daunting at first, when you just start walking across a street and there are tons of motorbikes coming at you. Some intersections seem like chaos to me, but somehow it works.

The building style is very interesting in Hanoi. A lot of tall skinny buildings in the French colonial style - with little balconies, and a lot of them are painted bright colours. We stayed in the Old Quarter of Hanoi and I really liked it. I think I liked Vietnam b/c it felt more real. Whereas towns like Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang seemed to exist primarily for tourists, Hanoi was a real breathing city w/ millions of people. I love people watching in Hanoi.

Women in big straw hats carry around their produce everywhere. Its like a moving market. There are lots of people eating on the streets. Motorbikes are parked haphazardly everywhere. The streets are narrow so Phil felt a bit claustrophobic in the Old Quarter. There's lots of great shopping - the endless parade of fake imitation clothes. But yeah, I really loved it. At this point, I think I like Vietnam more than Thailand and Laos.

The next day, we walked around the Hoah Kiem Lake (sp?) and took in a water puppet show. Water puppetry in Vietnam is based on an art form from the 10th or 11th century and was created by the rice farmers. They float water puppets in the rice paddies. So we went to a theatre and watched a water puppet show with traditional Vietnamese music.

The next day we went on a city tour. We lucked out and apparently that was the first day of the reopening of Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. It's closed for 3 months every year for "repairs" but I imagine that they probably got all the work done in time for the APEC summit. So we got to see Ho Chi MInh's body - frankly, I found it sort of creepy. A cold dead body inside of a glass box. I don't envy the four soliders that stand at each corner of the box. Yikes! We saw Uncle Ho's living quarters, etc. Then we saw a whole bunch of pagodas and temples that sort of blur together. Not particuarly exciting as by lunch time, half the group took off to go shopping.

That night we caught an overnight train to Lao Cai - high into the mountains of North Vietnam. The trains in Vietnam are not particularly nice. In fact, Ifind the trains in 2nd class in China to be cleaner than the 1st class trains in Vietnam. Thailand is by far the best. I fell asleep pretty quicly so it didn't matter that much.

The next day, we visited the Sunday market in Bac Ha where we saw lots of women in their traditional tribal garb selling goods. It really was something. (WE also stopped brtiefly at the border to China and I started feeling very emotional for some odd reason. I totally miss CHina.) Then we bussed to Sapa, which at first impression reminds me of a Vietnamese switzerland.

The hotel we stayed at was so swank and more than made up for the crappy overnight train. Sapa is BEAUTIFUL. Have you seen the pics of the multi tiered rice terraces? I'd post pics, but I don't have my USB cable with me. Yesterday, the weather was crap and I was sliding down the muddy hills, but when it stopped raining, and the ever present mist cleared away, we got some stunning views.

Imagine lush green mountains, rice paddies, livestock running around, little huts dotting the landscape, and adorable little Hmong girls running ahead of us and talking to us in perfect English, pushing their goods and wares on us. They were sort of pushy but I didn't mind. They put some little cloth bracelets on me so I felt obligated to give some money. What a lifestyle though. But it's so beautiful. The weather changes here every 5 minutes and by the end of the day, I was drenched and caked in mud, but it was amazing and totally worth it.

Last night, we went to do karaoke with some locals and some other people from the tour... it was an "interesting" evening..... As you know, Karaoke isn't fun w/out a bit of booze.... All I'll say is that I was helping people this morning piece together the events from last night.... ;)

We went on a short trek this morning, and tonight, we head back to Hanoi.

I love Vietnam. I like the food. The scenery is spectacular. Their pop music is way better than Thai music. And frankly, I think Vietnamese people are the most beautiful people of SE Asia. That's just my opinion though.... ;)

I hope you all are doing well. It's sort of nice also not being overwhelmed w/ Christmas stuff as I imagine it is in North America currently. Although for some reason at lunch on our city tour, they were playing Christmas music.... I'm not even sure if they know what it is that they're playing. Happy Thanks giving to the Americans reading the blog. Is it just me or does it feel like forever since I left home?

Love you all lots.

Still in Laos

Hey folks,
I'm still in Laos. Phil and I headed down to a little backpacker's haven called Vang Vieng. But first off, a few more stories and thoughts from Luang Prabang.

I really did enjoy my stay in Luang Prabang, it's such a peaceful little town. I didn't do much during the rest of my days there. I just walked around and checked out a lot of Wats. There's a lot of wats in LP, and apparently over 500 monks. THey're really friendly as each time I went by, they would wave me to come over for a chat.

I got to hear a lot of interesting stories. Some of the monks are there by their own choice. Some are there because their families can't afford to send them to school so at the wat they can get a free education. Some of them have big dreams of going onto university and/or leaving Laos. One guy is VERY DESPERATE to get married. He says that he has extreme difficulty following the "no touching girls" rules. Guys are guys, eh? - no matter the culture. There's a lot of poverty in Laos. You really don't see much of it though. I didn't really see it, but I sort of knew it was there from what the monks were sharing with me. So that was a neat experience.

The next day, I also went to a very beautiful waterfall (Kuang Si falls). I got to swim in the run off a bit downstream. So overall, a great stay in LP.

Now we're in Vang Vieng. Like I said, it's a backpacker's town. It's totally catered to foreigners. You can tube down the Nam Song river. It's absolutely gorgeous. The river is lined w/ limestone mountains on one side. And as you tube down the river, there are lots of stops - little bars-meet-waterparks line the river where you stop in for Beerlao (big long neck bottles for only $1 USD). There are swings and all sorts of jumps into the river. There's crazy techno music blaring. So it takes a few hours to drift down the river in the tube as you stop in at the various "bars." It was a pretty sweet time yesterday and by the end of it - you're prettty smashed....

I also walked around yesterday in the morning to explore the countryside a bit. I decided that it'd be a death wish to explore a cave by myself so I passed on that. I decided to take what I thought was a shortcut back to the hostel. Needless to say, I got scraped up pretty bad trekking around in rice fields. at the very end, I thought this big bull was gonna charge me but I kept my distance.

Anywho.... Laos is great. I like it better than Thailand just b/c it's so laid back and not as busy as Thailand. It's cool how Laos totally caters to the tourists but it also takes away from the authenticity. Amidst all the partying and drinking, you can sometimes forget what country you're actually in. The locals just become service people to you. I dunno - it's hard to find that balance... between being a traveler and a tourist. So I'm off to Vietnam tomorrow night.

I think I'll go tubing again today.........................

Sabaidee.....

Sabaidee is hello in Lao and Thai. Thai and Lao are actually linguistically very close. The local said yesterday that about 80% of the language is the same. Whether that's true, I don't know. So I last left you in Chiangrai in Thailand. Thank you for all your well wishes, I am doing much better now. In fact, I wouldn't been fine if I hadn't had a bit of a relapse last night after drinking a lot of "lao lao" = rice whisky. It was Happy Hour and it was 2 for 1 drinks... No worries, I wasn't drunk, I just had a rough time on the toilet again last night. :(

A good night's sleep did wonders for me b/c Phil and I did make it to the Lao border that day. I was actually quite anxious about leaving Thailand for Laos as my impression is that Laos is quite undeveloped. That's only partially true. Luang Prabang - where I am now - feels like a tourist haven. There's an airport nearby and little minibuses w/ older white tourists being bussed around inside of them, stopping at beautiful picturesque restaurants everywhere. You don't need to speak a work of Lao here, which is almost a bad thing in a way.

FYI - did you know that Canadians have to pay the most for a visa into Laos. Everyone else is in the $30-$35 US range and Canadians have to pay $42 USD. I didn't have exact change (apparently they don't give change.... right.....) so they gave me a "great" exchage on my Thai baht. Needless to say, I felt ripped off from the moment I stepped foot in Laos. The good thing is that being ripped off is the equivalent of maybe $1 CND when you do the exchange.

We had dinner on this restaurant deck overlooking the Mekong, and watched the sunset. It was quite beautiful except that I was freakin' out about being in Laos and dealing w/ stomach cramps. The next day, we began our 2 day journey by slow boat down the Mekong towards Luang Prabang.

We couldn't round up enough people for a private boat so we were all ushered into a public boat that "apparently" can seat up over 100 people. There were no locals on the boat - (do they know something we don't know?) and it was jammed w/ "falangs" (foreigners). There was somewhat of a mutiny as we refused to take on more than 100 people. It really did seem unsafe. Word was that a slow boat had sunk the week before or something. I thought - surely this is it! I'm going to drown on the Mekong. I grabbed all my USD and passport on my person and was prepared to jump and swim to shore if the boat went down.

The ferrymen finally consented to taking two boats after much complaining and borderline shouting. Then we were on our way. We stayed in a basic guesthouse in Pakbeng that night. And then the next day - we repeated the same game. We fought to have 2 boats to Luang Prabang. They said that we could all fit on one boat, we protested and pretended to get off the boat and just wait on shore. After about 1-2 hours of "negotiations" we were on our way again. What I"d like to know is whether or not they do this every day w/ tourists.

I met lots of cool people on the boat. And we've gone out to dinner together and we're getting together again tonight. The cruise down the Mekong is actually quite picturesque and calming. There's the option of a "fast boat" taht only takes 6 hours instead of 2 days, but apparently it's a bit dangerous during the dry season. The people passing us by "speed boat" were all wearing helmets... hmmm......

We arrived in Luang Prabang last night and Phil is kindly splurging for us to stay a pretty swank place. It's beautiful. It's amazing what hot water and big fluffy towels will do for you. It's a pretty little town. We went out to a bar last night and met some locals who took us to a nearby dance club. And this is definitely my kind of town - the clubs close at 12pm. Works for me! I'm not much of a night person.

Luang Prabang has lots of Wats (temples) and beautiful small French colonial buildings (pretty little shutters, etc.). So far, good impressions of Laos. I like it b/c the towns and cities are smaller and I'm not taking in as much diesel fumes from the traffic. I see why people like Laos. And it's freakin' cheap!!!!! Where else can you get a full meal for $2 USD.

This morning, I got up at 6am to see the monks receive their alms. Locals (and foreigners) give sticky rice and candies to the monks that walk by every morning. It's quite an interesting ritual to observe - a long line of monks in their beautiful orange robes. I'll try to post some pictures soon.

That's it for now.

Pictures from Thailand

Description of pictures:
1) The local children in the village (white karen group) sung us songs by the campfire
2) Phil and I in front of our jungle hut - the 2nd night's accomod.
3) the view of the countryside from our first night accomod. check out the rice fields in the background. if you look and see the shack in the far left of the photo - that was where i had my first bucket wash
4) riding around on elephants - we met an awesome couple from England on their honeymoon
5) Lighting up lanterns. The whole sky above Chiangmai was full of these lanterns.

So I'm writing this from Chiangrai. I was supposed to visit the Golden Triangle yesterday but never made it. Yesterday was my first day on doxycycline (anti malarials medication in preparation for Laos) and i think due to a combination factors, I ended up throwing up on myself on the bus ride from Chiangmai. It was a "lovely" experience and I felt sorry for all the people on the bus. Phil went on to visit the Golden Triangle but I checked into a hotel early and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and on the toilet. It was a very ROUGH day and I'm still feeling a bit dodgy right now. I think we're going to still try to make it to Laos today.

Getting sick offered some perspective though. It gave me a chance to just slow down and appreciate things like good health that I often take for granted. I don't ever recall feeling so weak when I had to psych myself up for about 5 minutes just to find the strength to go brush my teeth or turn off a light.

Oddly enough, it reminded me of what AIDS patients must feel like. A lot of times - antiretrovirals for them have a multitude of side effects, including nausea and diarrhea, and vomitting. I felt so "untouchable" yesterday. I totally appreciated it when Phil came back and gave me a back rub. I felt infinitely better. And yesterday reminded me of my previous convictions and desires to do something to help people living w/ HIV/AIDS. So that's my little random rant for today.

Anywho.... I took my doxycycline today and so far so good. Hope all of you are doing well. This is hopefully my last post from Thailand. Cheers.

Trekking in Thailand

A quick update before we leave Chiang Mai tomorrow morning. Then we're headed to Chiangrai and the Golden Triangle. We'll have an opportunity to cross briefly in to Burma ( Myanmar ). I don't care much for a passport stamp but I think Phil will do it. And then we're headed to Laos . So I thought I would try to get in an update b/c I'm not sure what to expect internet-wise in Laos .

On Thursday night, we ended up having dinner at Phil's Dad's friend who has lived in Thailand for the last 7 years or so. He works for a Christian organization and we had dinner w/ his family. We got a cool introduction to Lao food. And then after dinner, we set off a bunch of fireworks. So firecrackers and fireworks are all legal here in Thailand and people are constantly setting them off - especially with the "Katong" (sp?) festival going on. People light up these giant lanterns taht float into the air and then you attach firecrackers to the bottom of it. In the past, these lanterns have fallen burning out of the sky onto houses - I'm surprised more houses aren't burnt down. But it's pretty amazing b/c you look into the sky and all you see are dozens of little orange dots. It's like a whole new constellation. That and it sounds like gun fire is going off regularly. The "katong" festival is some sort of Buddhist festival. I got to check out the night parade here which was absolutley beautiful - big elaborate buddhist themed floats, lots of music and dancing. People throwing firecrackers everywhere (gosh, it's like being stuck in a cross fire or something. - I particularl hate it when little punks throw the firecrackers near your feet). A firecracker just went off outside - I think I"ve lost my hearing again briefly.....

And another one just went off... good grief....

Anyway, so Phil and I went trekking for 3 days. I heard that everyone goes trekking in Chiangmai so I figured we had to do it. Essentially - we went camping int he Thai countryside for 3 days. It was pretty awesome.

Highlights -

1st day we had a bucket bath - yep, I threw buckets of cold water onto myself. the 2nd day - we took a bath in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall - so that was cool

Riding elephants. Our elephant was quite hungry and went through two bags of bananas very quickly.

Sleeping in wooden huts. One big dormitory the first night and then our own little private jungle huts the second night. It was very cold and hard.

I was so hungry on the 2nd day and they weren't giving us enough meat to eat (actually, they gave us no meat to eat - except fish balls and BBQ frogs, which aren't particularly filling) - I started looking at the village dogs very hungrily.....

On the first night, they had children from a small minority village come sing to us, which was cool. Then we had to sing back to them. I goofed up and forgot some of the words to "O Canada." Yes, I'm very embarrassed.

Walking around in the villages made me think that I was in some sort of World Vision promo video. It was interesting seeing people living in wooden shacks, pigs, dogs, and chickens running around. Women carrying babies in baskets and people living off of subsistent farming (rice fields, etc.).

It was an awesome trek. And I'm so proud of myself for doing it and surviving. I actually find traveling through SE Asia quite mentally draining. Part of it has to do w/ the fact that I feel like I'm being scammed by every person that I meet. I find that there's a lot of distrust w/in mysef of anyone and everyone. I was paranoid that during our trek - either our guesthouse would rob us blindly of the stuff we left in their storage, or perhaps the trekking guides would take us out into the woods and rob us there. So that's been sort of a hindrance and has made it more difficult for me to travel. It was different in China when I was able to communicate and get around quite easily. But I'm finding Thailand difficult and am not sure what to expect next in Laos - which is even less developed. Phil keeps me in good spirits as he's super laid back and easy going. He puts up w/ my complaining and moaning. There's a lot of scams out there. It's interesting comparing stories (and esp. prices) with other travelers. But I guess you have to start taking things in stride. The good thing about being ripped off in SE Asia is that when you do the currency exchange - you haven't been ripped off too much in CND dollars.

One really cool highlight from today -

I took a Thai cooking class, which was AWESOME. We got to make all sorts of Thai food and then eat it. Pad Thai, spring rolls, green curry.... YUMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!!

Alright, I'm exhausted. After a long day of cooking and eating, I need some rest. ;)

Pictures from Thailand

Description of pictures
1) Floating market
2) Phil and Me at Wat Phra Kaew (Wat = temple)
3) Wat Phra Kaew
4) Another floating market picture
5) Phil and our tuk tuk driver
6) Living it up at the Montien Hotel near Patpong (*wink, wink* if you know what that means)

So we're now in Chiangmai. We took the overnight train from Bangkok last night. The overnight train experience was much more pleasant in Thailand, than in China. We just had our first Thai massage, which was great. A whole 150 baht for 1.5 hours (which is like $5 CND). And we're headed trekking tomorrow.

Later,
John (and Phil who has now hijacked my blog)