Recap!

5 weeks. 6 countries. 13 cities. 3 medical facilities. 8 means of transport (planes, buses, trains, cars, boats, bikes, cyclos, tuk-tuks, and feet). +4 star to -4 star hotels. 2 girls. 0 fights. :)

Here are some memorable snapshots from our trip.

Festive bus in Seul

Mandatory photo with Pokemon

Chirping in Hong Kong

Boating in Ha Long Bay

Drinking wine on train tracks in Hanoi

Sunshine in Hoi An

Evening in Nha Trang

Crazy night in Ho Chi Minh

Mekong crossing into Cambodia

Feeling tiny in Angkor Wat

Out of our element in Vang Vieng

With Linzy in Vientiane

Thanks for following our trip!

EK and MN

End of This Road

Feb. 10, BANGKOK

E and I had a hectic day. It was our fault; we left the hotel at noon. I personally blame the relaxed Lao attitude we'd become accustomed to. We saw the huge reclining Buddha, we went to a mega-mall that still managed to feel like an Asian market, ate $1 Phad Thai, and I visited the Jim Thompson house, former residence of an American architect/GI who disappeared in Malaysia.

And now we're saying our goodbyes! I'll be back in Seattle in 36 hours, and she's off to Singapore. *cry*

This will be our last post from the road, but stay tuned for our Failed Photo Blowout and a recap of the past few days in Vientiane and Bangkok!

MN and EK

Vang Vieng Recap

Feb. 6, VANG VIENG

Here was the party scene in Vang Vieng - debauched, drunken, and pasty-white.

The most common way to experience Vang Vieng is to rent a tube, get driven up river, and float down through a veritable Scylla and Charybdis of bars blasting Akon and Lady GaGa.

The bars reel you in by tossing you a rope, and ply you with free shots of Lao rice whisky in hopes that you will purchase a bucket of vodka/redbull. After you're lubricated, you can jump off insanely tall platforms or ziplines operated by 9-year-old local boys while sober onlookers like me pray that the river is deep enough where you land.

We stayed in the party area for 30 min, enough to take an obligatory free shot, and escaped via bicycle for calmer waters.

6km of riding brought us to Blue Lagoon, straight out of Avatar.

And we made friends on the way.

MN

Local Motion

Feb. 5, VANG VIENG

Despite prominent mention in the Lonely Planet, neither E nor I noticed the section on local bus travel that mentioned the Lao people are notoriously prone to motion sickness.

Our "VIP" bus (read: has AC and sometimes a toilet) was half-full of Westerners when it departed the Luang Prabang bus station. By the time we'd been driving for an hour, the bus operator had filled the rest of the seats with locals who'd been waiting at various intervals by the side of the road.

The next warning was the small plastic bags distributed by the bus operator - only to Lao passengers. I wondered why until we hit our first hairpin turn. Barf city. And the man directly in front of us was the worst of the lot. He puked every 10 minutes for 4 hours without fail. When he ran out of material, the noises got worse. "Brrrrr-GAK-GAK-rrr-HOCK!" It was truly incredible. People were staring but he paid them no attention.

After all of the curves and hills and bumps, when the roads flattened out, his stop magically appeared, and he hopped off the bus looking no worse for the wear.

To add a bit of insult to injury, the town we arrived in is a shameless spring break type of town and I can't wait to leave tomorrow. I'm off to float down the river with the rest of the revelers and not enjoy myself at all. ;)

MN

Slow life in the LP

We've spent the last 4 days in Luang Prabang... if you know LP, you'll know why we're behind on this blog. The motto around here seems to be "relax, take it easy. " And so we did. Total relaxation, in a half-hypnotized, happy-go-lucky, whatever happens will happen state of being.

Luang Prabang is enchanting. The town is now a Unesco Heritage site and is located in a narrow peninsula at the intersection of the Mekong and Mae Kok rivers.



Our main activities have been lounging, eating, reading and some light biking on the riversides and temples around the village.





Many hours spent at Utopia, my favorite hangout there.



On day 3, we took a break from relaxing and rented mountain bikes to check out Kuang Si Falls. It was an epic 37km trek, through steep hills and lovely scenery, and one which left me in near collapse from dehydration at the end. No photos are available of this trip - we were too tired to think.

The falls were pretty, but the best part were the swimming pools at the bottom. I conquered my fear of swinging from trees and jumping into water.



And Morgan conquered her fear of jumping from waterfalls.



One last sunset in Luang Prabang from a hill-top temple before we hit the road again.



EK

Angkor Wat

Jan. 30-31, SIEM REAP

We explored the Eighth Wonder of the World, Angkor Wat, at sunset.

A guard basically asked us to bribe him for access to the highest part of the temple. He worked hard for the $6, racing from spot to spot taking iconic pictures for us. Here's one:

The next day, we borrowed a pair of truly antiquated bikes from our hotel that we rode through the site. Mine made an alarming rattling noise but made it through the day!

The Bayon temple has over 200 sculptures of giant faces built into the architecture.

Ta Prohm is where Tombraider was shot, known for its immense trees. We had two Angelina Jolie sightings. For some reason she wanted to borrow our clothes for the pictures. Clever girl.

MN

War Post II: Phnom Penh

Jan 29, Phnom Penh

One of the most impressionable days on this trip has been the one we spent in Phnom Penh. We arrived late afternoon on the 28th and were picked up by a tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Borith, who patiently took us to a few hotels until we found a reasonably-priced one. His personality warmed us and we hired him the next day for a city tour.

The next morning we spent visiting the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields memorial, sites of the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot.

S-21. A former secondary school turned to Security Center (prison) in 1975 after the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. Classrooms were converted into prison cells and interrogation rooms. Graphic photos of the prisoners held and tortured here - mostly former doctors, teachers, intellectuals - now hang on the walls.

The Killing Fields. 8000+ people were tortured, killed and buried here in heaps on mass graves. Often entire families, elderly and children. In memoriam, their clothes and bones have been placed in a Buddhist shrine in the compound.

For more info:

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia

What made the day particularly emotional was hearing a first-hand account from Mr. Borith, now the sole survivor of his entire family. In 1975, his father, a professor, his mother, a clerk, his older brother, an electrician, his sister, a university student were separated and sent to different camps. Their traces disappeared among the estimated 1.2 million people who lost their lives during the Khmer Rouge.

Mr. Borith is now married, has 2 kids and drives a tuk-tuk for a living. His story humbled us.

If you ever go to Phnom Penh and need a guide, you can reach him by e-mail:borith1964@yahoo.com

EK

War Post: Vietnam

Jan. 26-29, SAIGON/HCMC

We've been having a great time on this trip, but we also wanted to address what we've seen of wars that ravaged both Vietnam and Cambodia not so long ago.

In Saigon, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which houses American military vehicles, weapons, and most importantly photographs from during and after the war of the devastation in Vietnam. We didn't take pictures of the photographs because they were too disturbing, but they went a long way to illuminate the brutal realities of war.

The next day, I visited the Cu Chi tunnels, outside of Saigon. To avoid American forces during the war, the Viet Cong and the peasants would hide in an enormous underground system of tunnels that had been dug by hand. Some lived in the tunnels for years, facing malaria, and lack of air and water, not to mention food.

Here, a Vietnamese man re-enacts entering a tunnel. The entry was as wide as a tall man's foot.

The circumference of the tunnels were also extremely small, though some have been widened for Western tourists' "big bodies" (as my tour guide delicately put it).

I got the sense that the Vietnamese still take enormous pride in their resilience, even as they sustained huge losses of life, and that the Cu Chi tunnels are a symbolic of resistance.

As for me, I feel extremely fortunate to have never experienced armed war near my home. Coming to a country where the effects of war are still visible on the land and people has reinforced my opinion that war must be avoided at all costs.

MN

Mekong Delta Cruise

Jan. 27-28, SOMEWHERE IN THE MEKONG

The next morning after our Saigon festivities, we were punished swiftly and promptly by a 7am wake-up call. We were leaving on a 2-day Mekong Delta cruise that would lead us out of Vietnam to Cambodia via the mighty river.

Day 1: No pictures of us exist from the first day. We did not look cute and we had to save our strength for getting out of the bus and into the right boat.

Still, I took a pic or two of life on the river; the white circles are spring roll noodles drying in the sun, and you can see how people live in boats and buildings on the Mekong.

Day 2: Sleep did us good!

Rowers picked us up at the dock early in the am.

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They rowed us for about an hour along the Mekong, and then took us to a Cham (a Vietnamese/Muslim minority group) village where we met some of the kids.

The rest of the day we were on a "cruise" - aka a ride on the noisiest, jankiest boat ever.

Yes, we were quite shiny on the boat.

We disembarked for a few minutes to officially cross into Cambodia. Festive border crossing alert!

Our border agent kept on looking over his shoulder at the movie playing behind him, so we entered Cambodia without hassle. On to Phnom Penh!

Saigon Part II: Blood of Snake

Jan. 26, Ho Chi Minh

It was supposed to be a quiet evening of recovery after Saigon, Saigon bar the night before. 10 o'clock we would be home, max.

When Morgan threw out the idea of joining Miro, our new found Croatian friend, and some of his local friends for a 'wild meat' dinner, my excitement levels were lifted by a notch or two. I have been talking and wanting to go to such a restaurant ever since we set foot in Asia. We decided to go. Morgan is a good friend.

I shot an e-mail to Jenny & Jason who we had plans with, rushed to get some last minute passport photos for our Cambodia crossing the next day and off we were in a taxi to Duyen Hai restaurant, a congested ride away from our hotel in tourist area District 1.

The restaurant had all the trappings a 'wild meat' restaurant ought to have, cages of live bats, porcupines and wild birds, big jars jars of pickled cobras suspended in yellow liquid, and cases of Saigons (beer) scattered on the restaurant floor.

Our senses a bit overwhelmed, we let our local host Cindy do all the ordering. First dish up, cocoons served on delicate butter lettuce with a side of lemon juice, salt and pepper mix.

Next some tasty, and not overly dramatic, dishes of curried wild pig and barbequed wild rabbit.

Lastly, our main course. A hand-picked cobra, drained and gutted in front of us that would later be used in 3 different dishes and vodka snake blood shots. (Video clip coming soon)

"YO!!!!! (Vietnamese for cheers.) To Health and Potency"

From left to right: Miro, Jenny & Jason, the American couple we met in Nha Trang, Cindy & Helen, Miro's friends and our local hosts.

Dish 1: Stewed guts with mushroom sauce.

Dish 2: Sautéed snake bits with fried rice pancakes.

Dish 3: The finale. Snake and lemongrass soup with side noodles.

How do you follow that dinner? First with a stop at Seventeen Bar where cowboy clad young men and women led us to an upstairs karaoke bar. I tried my hand at a tambourine while Morgan sang a line or two of some unknown song.

Perhaps feeling the potency of snake blood, we carried on to Apocalypse Now, a well-known dance club. Our first real night out, and dance we did!

(Thanks to Miro for some of the photos used in this post).

Goodbye, Saigon. It was memorable!

EK & MN

Editor's note: Eastern Europeans love house music. Americans prefer mid-90's rap.

Editor's note 2: Avoid vodka laced with snake's blood the night before intensive land travel.