Only hours from home

Greetings from Tokyo, Japan. Steve reminds me that we're not technically in Japan, since we haven't cleared customs and are just here for a layover to catch our flight to Dallas which will eventually lead us back to Atlanta. We're coming home for Steve's brother's wedding, and the timing worked out so that we'll also be home for Thanksgiving and the Ga Tech vs. Univ. of Georgia football game (Go Jackets!) We left Bangkok at 10PM local time, have been traveling for about 12 hours now (including the layover), and have another 18 hours or so of travel to go before we get to ATL- if this message is a little jumbled, blame it on lack of sleep.

So, what have we been up to the last week? Well, we went "trekking" in Sapa in northern Vietnam. We started out with a trip on the overnight train, which was relatively uneventful except our two cabin mates were a giggly Vietnamese couple who shared one bunk all night (an impressive fete in itself, considering how small the beds were.) Once in Sapa, we were amazed at the beautiful scenery- rice paddies that were terraced into mountainous hillsides, foggy mist that rolled in so quickly you could go from complete visibility of the surrounding mountain ranges to barely seeing 20 feet away in a matter of a few minutes. We did a couple of days of trekking (which was basically hiking during the day, carrying light day packs, and we slept in a hotel at night so not as hard core as it may sound) but we got to meet indigenous people from several of the local tribes, Black H'Mong, Red Dzao, and Black Dzao to name a few. We visited their villages, got to observe how they live, including how they harvest rice and other crops, weave their own clothing, etc. They were all extremely friendly people-we only met the women, actually, the men were a little hard to come by- our guide explained that most of them go to the towns during the day to act as impromptu motorcycle taxi drivers because they can make a better living that way. The women had the most beautiful happy smiling faces (sounds cheesy, but it's true)- some of them spoke English and would just walk up to you and start a conversation- this is how they learned the language and how they practice/improve their vocabulary, they don't learn any of it in school. There was another couple that were on our tour that we really enjoyed getting to know- Gill and Pat live in New Jersey, he's a pediatrician and she's a professor at NYU, and they had kids around our age, so we had a great time chatting about family, work, traveling in Vietnam.

Back in Hanoi, we treated ourselves for $4 foot massages (FYI- after extensive research I would recommend Thai foot massages over Vietnamese, if you happen to be in the market.) We explored the city, hitting the highlights including Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum- just from the outside as it was closed, and Ho Chi Minh's body is actually currently sent out for yearly "maintenance", the National Museum which ended up being very confusing because very little was written in English (go figure) and we didn't feel motivated at the time to splurge on a guided tour, and the displays were based on symbolism which just didn't quite translate to our Western minds. Honestly, it was less of what you'd think of as a museum and more just pro-Ho Chi Minh exhibits (trans. propaganda.) Glad we went, but even more glad it was really cheap to get in. We tried to act like locals and took a motorcycle taxi across town- our driver went pretty slow which was nice and avoided squeezing between too many buses at stoplights, maybe because he wasn't used to having a couple of tall westerners on his bike with their long legs dangling to the sides so he figured he couldn't fit!

Our flight is getting ready to board, so I'll wrap this message up. On the afternoon we left Hanoi, it was a little bittersweet. We were excited to be going to Bangkok to have more time to explore there, but at the same time we'd come to really like the hustle bustle of Hanoi, and had learned how to deal with the many offers for motorcycle rides and ladies selling expensive bananas and photographs. We had some incredible food- literally every meal was like the best meal we'd had on the trip- delicious food, all at VERY reasonable prices. When we were getting into our taxi to go to the airport, one of the guys who'd offered us a motorcycle ride about 1,000 times over the last 11 days smiled from the sidewalk and said bye to us- in the end he was a really nice guy, just trying to make a living, so that was a nice way to end our time in Hanoi.

So we went back to Bangkok where we've been for the last 3 days, this time I was actually well enough to venture beyond our hotel room, and we did some sightseeing, went to the weekend market which is HUGE, and just took in all the love they have for their king displayed all around the city. It's his 80th birthday in a couple of weeks, and they're erecting all sorts of special displays around the city to commemorate. There is even a national sort of outfit that people wear to show their love for him- bright yellow polo shirt, embroidered with the king's emblem, some shirts even say "We love the king" or "Long live the king". We rode the subway on Monday and estimated that over 60% of the people were wearing yellow shirts to honor the king. It's pretty crazy. Hopefully we can get some photos loaded soon so you can understand the extent to which they really do love this guy.

OK, our flight really is boarding now. In just 14 hours we'll be back on US soil, we can't wait to see everyone when we get home!

Cheers,
Anna

Giving Vietnam Another Chance

OK, so maybe we got off on the wrong foot with Hanoi, Vietnam. Maybe it's the multiple scams we've run into, the most recent one being a woman carrying two baskets of bananas hanging from a wooden pole walks up to you, then very quickly puts the pole onto your shoulder, firmly "encourages" you to take a picture and then won't go away until you pay her for the photo. After being cornered by her and her other banana toting friends, we got away with 3 bananas and a photo for the equivalent of $3 USD. Considering a taxi ride across the city costs less than $2, that's not exactly a good deal..... or the fact that the air is so polluted that you can literally feel it every time you take a breath, or the constant beeping of horns at every hour of the day, or the fact that there are zero, count them zero, public trash cans and everyone throws their trash into the gutters where it eventually gets swept into little piles and then picked up hours later by the public works dept.

However, once you start to embrace all of this craziness, life gets a little bit easier. After a little while you learn how to cross the street while motorbikes whizz around you from all directions, and cleverly avoid the banana ladies that seem to appear out of nowhere, and politely turn down the many offers for cyclo rides, photocopied travel books, and the same t-shirt lady that seems to find us where ever we are in the city and ask us to buy her shirts.

There are 3.5 million people in the city of Hanoi, and 3 million motorbikes. There are wonderfully wide sidewalks on all of the streets, but they're actually used primarily for motorbike parking, their secondary use is for impromptu little cafes set up with squat stools and a can of hot coals where mysterious meat dishes are quickly cooked for all the people taking a break from riding their motorbikes. Mostly you just walk down the middle of the street, staring down the few cars and motorbikes that you're sharing the road with to avoid getting hit (although people drive really slow, because of all the crowds, so it wouldn't be catastrophic if you did get hit!)

We did just return from a trip to Halong Bay, which is a World Heritage Site known for its giant limestone karsts. We boarded a chinese junk along with 12 other people, where we spent the day cruising through brilliant green water and looking at all the different limestone formations- they basically look like hundreds of really tall/steep rocky islands with bright green vegetation. Vietnam is currently lobbying for this to be named one of the seven most beautiful areas in the world, and it really was amazing. Over the next couple of days we got to swim in the beautiful waters, eat amazing Vietnamese food that our crew prepared for us, and go kayaking. Kayaking was our favorite. At one point we had to paddle/walk our kayaks through a 200 meter long cave (only about 5-6 feet tall), which was pitch black except for our flashlights, and on the other side we arrived in this beautiful lagoon that had blue, purple, and green coral in the water as well as giant sea urchins and other marine life we hadn't seen before. We were trying to spot a langur- an endangered species of monkey that lives in the area, although we didn't have any luck the effort was still worth it. We made some great friends, and although they didn't speak English very well the Italians in our group (5 of them total) kept us laughing all day long with their laid-back no worries attitude.

So now we're back in Hanoi. Last night we had an AMAZING 3-course dinner at a restaurant operated by a school that trains street kids for the hospitality industry in hopes of helping them have a better life- the food was some of the best we've had on the trip, the waiters/students were very friendly and professional, and best of all the total bill was only $16 USD. Incredible. Tonight we're taking an overnight train to Sapa tonight, where we'll get to experience a local market where the indigenous tribes go to sell their various wares to other villagers and tourists (I think we could even buy a cow if we were feeling so motivated.) We'll also be trekking to some of the other villages to get an idea of what their lives are like on a day to day basis. It's a multi-night trip, and after that we'll return to Hanoi to do the sight-seeing we keep putting off, then we fly back to Bangkok for a couple of days.

Although we started off on the wrong foot, I think we're going to end up really loving the time we're spending in Vietnam.

Cheers,
Anna

Toto, we're not in Australia anymore!

Greetings from Hanoi, Vietnam. In about a week, we have more than doubled the number of countries we've visited since August. Here's what we've been up to: Last week we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where we met up with Tom White and Christina Nguyen. We spent a couple of days touring Angkor Wat and the rest of the Angkor temple complex (there are over a thousand temples, we walked around about 8!) When we landed in Siem Reap, it really felt like we were in a foreign world. As we were riding in the taxi to our hotel, we passed tuk tuks (basically a motorcycle with a cart attached to the back to carry ~4 passengers, except some of them had about 8 or 9 people in them), motorcycles carrying entire families, and lots of large cows just lying along the sides of the (dirt) roads. It was mass chaos everywhere- it made coming into Australia feel like a walk in the park! Touring the temple complexes was amazing- some are over a thousand years old and the level of detail they put into the carvings in the sandstone walls is unbelievable. We did a sunrise tour at Angkor Wat, which was very cool, since it's the quintessential image when you think of tourism in Cambodia. Our guide for both days was a local Cambodian guy, around our age, and was one of about 1,000 licensed tour guides for the area. It took a little while for us to understand each other, but after a while I think we got a pretty good system for interpretation down and really enjoyed learning about the history of the temples- and he was great at pointing out photo opportunities. One of the temples we visited (the name is escaping me right now) is where parts of the movie Tomb Raider were filmed. We ate some great food- very similar to Thai, with a bit more emphasis on the sweet / sour flavors, and successfully navigated the crazy streets without getting run over by a tuk tuk! After a few days in Cambodia the 4 of us flew back to Bangkok, where we used points and lived the really good life for a few days at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit. Free (amazing) buffet breakfast, 5-star service, free happy hour, amazing pool which made it feel like you were at a resort in the middle of a bustling city. Unfortunately for me I was cooped up in the room getting over the flu almost the whole time, but honestly if I were to pick a place to get sick that's where it'd be! I did make out out into civilization for one day, where we took a tour of the Grand Royal Palace, saw Thailand's largest reclining buddha (which was huge, 15 meters tall I think and completely covered in gold leaf.) It's their king's 80th birthday in a month, which is a HUGE deal and they're erecting all sorts of special displays around the city to honor him. Steve, Tom, and Christina went to a Thai Boxing match one night and said it was really cool.....so that's my version of our 5 days in Bangkok. The good news is that we'll be back there a couple of times so more time to explore. That brings us to the present day- we flew yesterday from Bangkok to Hanoi, Vietnam- the country's capital, in the north. Steve, my hero, successfully navigated us through multiple scams, because I was still loopy on my flu medicine and wasn't much help. First, the taxi driver in Bangkok didn't want to start the meter and when we insisted he tried to kick us out of the taxi instead of taking us to the airport. Steve negotiated a better rate and we didn't have to switch taxis. Then, after landing in Vietnam, the minibus driver's helper said it would be 100000 dong (about $6) for both of us to ride, then after he leaves the driver comes in and tries to charge us 150000, after some unhappy Vietnamese he decides to drop it and charge us the original rate. Then the driver drops us off in front of a hotel called "Star Hotel" where the proprietor runs out and tries to pull us in saying "we have room for you, room for you"- fortunately Steve was aware enough to realize this wasn't the hotel we had a booking at, we wanted "Stars Hotel", and after some firm discussions and much pointing at the map they realize that we were onto their scam, let us back in the minibus, and dropped us off in front of Stars Hotel. Right...... so we found a place and had a nice dinner thanks to our Lonely Planet recommendation, spent the night, then realized some really loud and crazy new yorker person was staying downstairs, decided to switch hotels and now we're sitting in the lobby waiting for them to clean our room. The good news is that there's free internet. Now we just have to figure out how to make it around this city without getting scammed too much! The adventure continues.....