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