Mandalay Update

We arrived in Mandalay late on Thursday evening. Our flight had been originally scheduled for 4:15, was “re-timed,” as they call it, to 6:15 and didn’t actually leave until 7:00PM. We flew in an Air Mandalay AR-24, a twin prop, 50 seater, that has probably served at least 2 other airlines before arriving in Myanmar. Our landing in Mandalay was the second worst I have ever been a part of, bested only by the time I took out a runway light at San Marcos. But, we landed safely and once we stepped inside there was a man holding a paper with our names on it ready to help us get through immigration—we decided to pay a premium to get our visas on arrival instead of spending a full day at the Myanmar Embassy in Bangkok. The guy swept us into a small “office” where there were about 4 Burmese drinking tea and doing paperwork. Apparently, everything had been set up properly because they took our passports, stamped in our visas, and we were out of there in 10 minutes. Some other people from our flight also came in, without handlers, and also got visas by stuffing an unknown amount of cash in their passports. I wonder which way is cheaper.

After an hour long, very bumpy car ride from the airport we arrived at our hotel. They too had everything ready and showed us to our room. A nice, if unremarkable, place with a TV that doesn’t work but air conditioning and hot water that does.

After a full night sleep, we spent our first day getting money changed and walking around the city. Although we were stared at by everyone that we passed, no one could immediately discern that we were American, even after talking to us for a minute or two. Most guessed we were German or French. In fact, they are actually amazed when we tell them we are from the USA. One guy asked us if that was in North or South America and most only know about the state of California so we have resigned to telling people that is where we are from. One guy told us he knew “our” governor and liked his Terminator movies.

For lunch we decided to have authentic Myanmar food and headed to Too Too Restaurant which was packed with locals. I now understand my family’s fears that we would starve to death on this trip. The drill is to go to the back of the restaurant where everything is presented in cafeteria style. Luckily, there was an English speaking waiter who knew enough to at least tell us which meat was in which dish, and also pointed out the dish made from mutton brain. I am not sure what mutton is but I do know what brain is and so we decided on chicken and catfish. Honestly, it wasn’t bad, in fact the flavors were pretty good but the chicken was served on the bone and the catfish in small cubes with all the bones still intact. There are no knives, just forks, which they use like a knife, and spoons, which they use like a fork. So it turned out that our meal consisted of a little fish, a little chicken, and a lot of rice. But, the whole thing only cost $2.75 so the price was right. For dinner we decided to have Chinese.

Yesterday, our second full day, we decided to go to a few pagodas and a monastery before climbing up Mandalay Hill. Mandalay is completely flat, except for one hill 230 meters high in the Northwest corner of town. It’s a 40 minute hike up about a million stairs to get to the top, only made more uncomfortable by the fact that you cannot wear shoes for the entire climb and lets just say the ground isn’t mopped once a week—or even once a month. The view from the top is pretty cool though and you can see for about 3 km in each direction until the smog and haze gets too bad (talk about global warming).

We had another authentic Myanmar lunch, but this time we made sure to order dishes that were already de-boned. We also had a pretty good dinner at a little chapatti stand that serves piping hot chapattis right off the grill that you dip in your curry and a spicy potato dish.

At the chapatti stand we also met an older couple from Canada that has been traveling for 4 months and has 2 more to go. They were amused by the fact that our parents were concerned about the possibility of not hearing from us for 10 days while we are in Burma. Their daughters, who are our age, were also distraught about not hearing from their parents for the 28 days they are here. Complete role reversal.

Anyway it turns out the Canadians had the same plans as we did for the night, to go to the Moustache Brothers comedy show. The Moustache Brothers show is basically a Myanmar traditional folk opera (a vaudeville show with dance, music, jokes, and silly walks). What makes it so interesting though is the fact that they continue to joke in a country where a joke can get you jailed—or worse.

Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw, two of the three ‘brothers’, were seized by police in 1996 after telling politically tinged jokes about Myanmar generals at an Independence Day celebration in Yangon. They were sentenced to 7 years and forced to work with violent criminals, breaking rocks for roads and digging ditches. In 1997 several Hollywood comedians, including Rob Reiner and Bill Maher wrote to the government in protest. The third brother Lu Maw continued to perform from his home in Mandalay.

After serving 5 years of their sentence Par Par Lay and Lu Zaw were released in 2002. The Moustache Brothers were “blacklisted” from playing at outside events and cannot be legally hired by locals; however the brothers continued to perform at home with a series of performances attended—inevitably—by government agents with video cameras.

The regional commander summoned Par Par Lay and told him not to perform at home any more, but when he got home that evening some Westerners had already gathered for the night’s performance. The Brothers decided to perform that night without costumes or makeup and the show went on for the tourist and some government officials (the KGB as Lu Maw calls them). They explained they were merely ‘demonstrating’ a performance since they couldn’t do a ‘real’ one without costumes. Since then they have been generally left alone doing nightly shows at their home. The costumes have slowly come back too.

Sorry for the long history but I thought it was pretty amazing and the show was really funny. We bought a DVD of the show and will post some clips when we get out of Myanmar and anyone who wants to watch the whole hilarious hour can when we get home.

This afternoon we are headed to Inle Lake on another Air Mandalay flight that has already been “re-timed” 30 minutes later. Hopefully, the landing in Mandalay was an exception, not the rule.

Who knows if we will have internet access in Inle. After that we head to Bagan and then Yangon, the capital that will definitely have internet access. Again March 5th is the key date. If you haven’t heard from us then, send someone looking.

PS. Dallas, TX just made the CNN International weather with pictures of dust storms that apparently happened this weekend. Hope everyone is OK.

We're Here

We have arrived in Mandalay and are both OK. Email is blocked so we will try to post again with our whereabouts soon.

Today We Venture into the Wild

This afternoon we will be heading to Myanmar and will most likely not be able to update the blog for some time. Rumor has it government censorship is tighter than in Vietnam and its pretty well enforced because the government owns the only service providers.

We hope that we will be able to let everyone know that we are OK and what is going by posting from email, but we are not even sure we will be able to access that. Check back regularly and if we haven't posted again by March 5th when we arrive in Phuket send someone looking for us.

Elephant Trekking

As you can all see from the picture below Will and I went on an elephant trek here in Chiang Mai. The amazing thing about this city is it's pretty much surrounded by jungle. It is a semi-big city, but if you drive about 30km out of town you'll be in the jungle. I was so excited about coming here because I was really ready for some new scenery. We arrived around 6:30 on Monday night and were welcomed by the sweet staff at our hotel/guest house. We are staying in a 136 year old original style Thai house that has been converted into an 8 bedroom, 1 suite, hotel. It's also right on the River Ping which is really nice. We were shown to our standard room and it was nice, but very small, with an incredible arched ceiling. We headed back down to the restaurant area where we were given our welcome packet and welcome smoothie. As we both looked around and realized it was us and the staff, we assumed that we were probably the only ones staying here. The owner, Esther, then showed up and started talking to us about all of the cool treks to do, and about the hotel, and just about Chiang Mai. She is absolute great. Her English is some of the best we've encountered and she's full of personality, not to forget that every time we thank her she say "KAH", and then keeps repeating it. "KAH, KAH, KAH". Not really sure what it means but she loves to say it. So as we headed back to our room she insisted on taking us there and then she headed to a different door and told us that she had upgraded us to the suite because she really liked us. Again I think she thinks we are on our honeymoon, but hey we keep getting upgraded so what's not to like.

The River Ping Palace, and our suite.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning we were up bright and early for our day trek in the jungle. We had to take about an hour mini-bus ride to the Elephant Camp where we would embark on our adventure. Before you head off on your Elephant Trek, some of the Elephants perform a show for all of the guests. They show you how they used to work in the fields, followed by demonstrating all of the ways someone can get on, then some other basic stuff, followed by them dancing as a group, playing music, playing soccer and basketball, painting, and some other pretty goofy stuff. They were SO cute and Will and I laughed the whole time at how cute and funny they looked.

An elephant playing soccer.

After the show you had the opportunity to feed them before hopping on and heading into the jungle. Will and I got on what seemed to be a pretty big Elephant that was driven to be in the front of the pack. When we got on the guy we were almost at the end and watching him pass up everyone in the water and on the trails was quite remarkable. It was also so cute to watch this baby elephant follow his mom across the water and on the trek. Will thinks that he's being trained, but I just assumed he didn't want to leave his mom. After riding elephants for about an hour you get off and into an ox cart that takes you to your lunch destination. We had an incredible buffet lunch looking over the beautiful river and amazing mountains. Pretty awesome. From there you get one a bamboo raft, that seems could sink at any moment, and head down the river. Our driver, I guess that's what you'd call him, was nice enough to let Will try the job out. Lets see... the river and its surroundings were incredible. You'd pass small little villages and you could see bamboo huts up high in the mountains. It was a great way to see a different part of Thailand. I'm hoping we'll get to do more stuff like this in Burma.

Riding elephants, riding in ox carts, and rafting down the river.

When we were done rafting we got back into our mini-bus and headed to a butterfly and orchid farm. I have never seen so many beautiful orchids. Chrit, you would have LOVED it. They also
have an area where they grow all of the butterflies and it was pretty cool too.

Will with his favorite kind of butterfly

We got back to our hotel around 4:30 and were completely wiped out. I laid around and watched Grey's while Will blogged and did some stuff on the computer for a few hours. Will actually became OBSESSED with killing every mosquito in the area. The hotel let him use this electric zapper and he sat around for about an hour killing as many as he could find. Not that it was that hard because they are everywhere. We then headed out to night bizarre,which was just another night market. Instead of hoping in a tuk-tuk we decided to take one of these trucks that the bed has been converted into a covered seating area. These trucks are red and they drive around town and you can just hope on and off for 10 batt. The night market was really cool and the food there was incredible. I'm finally able to handle the spicy flavors of Thai food.

Will killing mosquitos and me in the back of the red truck taxi.

We are up this morning and headed out to explore the town and possibly take a cooking class this afternoon. I really am loving it here and this is a must see place if you ever come to Thailand. Alright well more from Chiang Mai later!!!

F.Y.I. (Read Will's post first)

I would like to say two things:

1. I did not willingly head into the ping pong show excited about what I was going to experience. Curious, yes, but excited... I wouldn't say that. I decided to check the place out after considerable research and recommendations. Will had been told by an older couple he met in the admirals club to check it out, and that is was must, as well as every guide book says it is a must see experience. So from hearing that and doing research on the area I would like to let everyone know that I didn't just follow Will in without a fight. Also the street that it's on as turned into a very touristy area with a night market down the middle of the street, so we weren't in some dangerous, sketchy area. We are being safe and aware of our surroundings. You can ask Will I was very skeptical that we were going to head into one of the places and get everything stolen from us, but that was farthest from the case. And after seeing it, I would say that if you are in Bangkok and want to see something that will completely AMAZE you check it out.

2. (For the girls): I just finished watching Grey's Anatomy and I'm pretty sure I'm caught up with everyone and I mean what the heck!!! Please send me emails about what you think is going to happen next week. I need a girl to talk to about this. I'm in complete SHOCK about Meredith and Will has absolutely NO idea what's going on. So Anna and Louisa, and Mom of course, be prepared for phone calls, but I would also love to hear from any one else. Thanks and sorry this was SO dumb.

We are about to head out to the night bizarre, but we had an AWESOME day riding elephants and doing other cool stuff. It was great being out of the city and in the wild. Will update tomorrow with pics. Love and miss you all.

WARNING: Some Content May Not Be Suitable For Children Under The Age of 18--Parental Discretion Is Advised

Now that I have gotten every one's attention with the title I will let you know that the racy stuff isn't till the end. I will warn you again if you don't care to read.

Bangkok, what a city. We arrived at the Holiday Inn that I had booked on Priceline for $80 a night ($30 a night higher than our budget) because I thought that by this point in the trip we would need a real hotel with a real shower, and hot water that lasts longer than 5 minutes. Kendall had been mad at me since I booked it because she thought it was too expensive, but I think it was the best idea of the trip, if I can say so myself. I think the reception thought we were on our honeymoon because they immediately upgraded us to a Deluxe room (probably worth $300/night) with a sitting area and extra large bathroom. So we ended up getting an even better deal than I had originally expected. Enough about the hotel thought lets get to the good stuff.

Our first day we decided to knock out the "must see" stuff which was mostly some wats and the Grand Palace where the King hangs out every once and a while. Pretty much more of the same, but I will include some pictures for anyone who is interested.

Kendall and me in front of the largest reclining Buda in Thailand, The grounds of Wat Pho

That night we went to a traditional Thai dinner and then went to an Irish Pub that had one of the best Beatles cover bands I have ever heard--no kidding. The pub was on the edge of the Red Light District and although we were offered to be taken to some shows we declined as we were not carrying a lot of cash.

The next day, Saturday, we went to Siam Square for lunch and then headed to Chatuchak Weekend Market, the mother of all markets. We stayed for about 2 or 3 hours without buying anything before heading back to the hotel for some rest. That night we went to a Chinese New Year celebration held in a park in the center of town. It was fun to see the dancing lions, dragons, and phoenix.

At the end they had a grand finale with some fireworks. Here is a quick video of the action. Keep a close eye on the kid swinging around on top of the pole. He is literally tied to the top of this thing and there are 20 guys on the ground swinging the pole around. When it is time to come down they just slowly lean the pole and the guys catch it as it comes down. It looks like something straight out of a SAE build.

It should also be noted that these fireworks were going off only yards from where a crowd of about 150 - 200 people were standing. The ashes and embers dropped on peoples heads and in their eyes. It was pretty amusing to watch a bunch of Thais breathe through their handkerchiefs and rub their eyes for 2o minutes after it ended.

Kendall was upset that we went to the mother of all markets without making a purchase so we decided to make the half hour trek again on Sunday morning to explore some more and return to a few places that she had seen the day before. Once she starts, she can't stop though and we didn't leave until we had three bags full of stuff.

Moms, Dads, Grandparents and others who may be offended should stop reading now.

Kendall owed me for the second market run so Sunday night we ventured back towards the Red Light District to have dinner at a place listed in Lonely Planet as a "best place to brag about in backpacker circles." Turns out it is right smack dab in the middle of Patpong street, surrounded on all sides by "go-go bars." We were really experiencing Bangkok now. Inside the restaurant we met two Australian gun dealers who travel to Bangkok 5 times a year and after talking to them through dinner I finally worked up the nerve to ask them about the "ping pong shows" everyone was offering us outside. They told us "everyone has to do it at least once in their lives" and walked us to one of their favorite bars just down the street.

The "shows" that went on inside this "bar" were like nothing I have ever seen. I couldn't stop thinking how lame Ricks in New Orleans is in comparison. I won't go into great detail here but will go ahead and list the names of the shows we saw. If you want more info, feel free to shoot me an email.

1. Coke bottle show
2. Razor blade show
3. Neon string show
4. Candle wax show
5. Motorcycle show
6. Bottle opener show
7. Writing show

I went ahead and purchased a souvenir for myself after the writing show. The following picture is of the poster I bought. There were no hands, feet, or mouths involved in the writing.

That pretty much sums up Bangkok. More from Chang Mai soon.

Happy New Year

Well it is late here and we just got back to the hotel after going to a Chinese New Year celebration and then to dinnner but I thought I would post some pictures and video of what we have been up to for all of our loyal TTWAM viewers out there.

As you probably know, before arriving in Bangkok we were in Siem Reap, Cambodia--home to the Angkor Temples. What can I say, they were absolutely amazing. It really is incredible how enormous and intricate the temples were, given that they were built without any modern equipment. We spent two full days touring the temples which was pretty gruling in the near 100 degree heat (keep in mind you have to wear long pants too), but well worth it.

I won't bore you with a ton of details but instead just post some of the pictures we took along the way. If you want to know more about the temples I have made each into a link to Wikipedia so you can read its history. Here they are, in the order we visited:

Day One
1. Bayon

2. Baphuon

3. Phimeanakas

4. Terrace of the Leper King

5. Terrace of the Elephants

6. Ta Prohm

7. Angkor Wat

8. Preah Khan

9. Phnom Bakheng

Day Two
1. Pre Rup

2. Banteay Srei

3. West Mebon

4. Ta Som

5. Neak Pean

One Month Down

We have arrived safely in Bangkok and are officially one month into the trip--one and a half months to go. I am uploading videos from our tour of the Angkor Temples in Siem Reap and will post those soon.

WLC Out.

Suprised and then disappointed

We arrived in Phnom Penh and I was very surprised at how underdeveloped it was. Lots of the side streets were dirt roads and most places you turned you saw shacks. The main roads were different of course, but I was surprised when we pulled up to our hotel to see the kind of street it was on. I’m not gonna lie, I was a little nervous when I envisioned what our place would be like, but I was completely wrong! Our hotel, The Billabong, was surrounded by a large cement wall and once you passed by the guard you entered a small paradise. There was a lush garden surrounding the walk way to the reception area and once there you could see the amazing pool. From the landscaping of this place you would never have known you were in Phnom Penh. It was however evident what surrounded you when you headed to your room. Most of the rooms over looked the pool but to get to these you rooms you had to enter on the backside and looking out that way was no paradise. It looked like a war zone with small shacks and trash everywhere. It was hard to believe what a difference each side made. Our room was wonderful a very comfortable bed and a balcony overlooking the pool. My only complaint was the bathroom. The shower head was just in the middle of the bathroom so you literally showered standing next to the toilet in the middle of the bathroom. It was very bizarre but we dealt with it.

We went out and explored a little that afternoon and then took a swim before heading out to dinner. I thought walking would be great so we could see some more of the city, but Will really protested the idea since he had read that armed robbery is a MAJOR problem in Cambodia, but I convinced him to walk and we headed to the riverside where most of the restaurants are. We tried our first bit of Khmer food which was similar to Vietnamese in that it was rice and noodles, but the spices were very different. After that we headed over to a pub before deciding, with some reluctance on my part, to check out the supposedly world renowned night club, The Heart of Darkness. I was pretty tired but went along with it for the experience. We had read in our lonely planet that this was the place where all of the rich Cambodians hung out with their entourages and body guards. Will was a little nervous about that because if some guys did start talking to me and didn’t want Will around they could send their bodyguards to kick him out. Luckily nothing like that happened. So we walk up to The Heart, as the locals call it, and were immediately frisked. I was even frisked which I thought was a little strange. Then I was questioned about who Will was and how I knew him. Alright so frisked and then interrogated, definitely a place I want to hang out… We went in and anyone who has been to a night club in Mexico could picture what this place was like. It reminded me SO much of a club in San Miguel and it was just funny seeing all of these Asian “Working Girls” trying to pick up all of the white guys. Needless to say, the bar had great music and dancing. After, let’s just say, one too many drinks, Will started getting really protective and claiming that I was his responsibility and it was ready to leave because he was too worried that something was going to happen to me. So I attempted to argue but just dealt with his pleas and we headed home. Yes Dr. Sue you have a great son and yes mom I know what you’re thinking.

Alright so our day in Phnom Penh started late. We were a bit, you could say, under the weather, so we had decided no walking today. We hailed a tuk tuk, a small covered carriage pulled by a moto, to take us around the city. Our first spot, Wat Phnom, was very cool, and my favorite part was this area of grass where all of these wild monkeys lived. They weren’t protected by cages or anything and they were just hanging out in the middle of the city. From there was just more sights but while we were out we had decided to make appointments for massages by this company called Seeing Hands. The deal is the masseuses are blind and all of the money they make goes to helping them get surgeries to cure the blindness. So we headed into this small little place for our massages, feeling major inside hot, were handed clothes to put on and were told to climb the small later to the second floor and go to room 2. We went in and were greeted by 2 blind Cambodian men. They asked us to change, which seemed odd since they just stood in the room with you. Nothing like massages in the states. We laid down and our massages began. My major problem with this experience was there was no soothing music or good smells or anything to relax you, and on top of not having any of that, the men talked almost the whole time. Very difficult to relax but all in all the massage was quite good and for $4 to help their cause it was well worth it. That night we took it easy and decided to go to a local restaurant. I guess this was a good idea, but, with my lead, we decided to be adventurous and ordered this local soup dish. They bring you all of the ingredients and you cook your soup in front of you. So doesn’t sound to bad right?? Well what we didn’t know was in our little crock pot there were already ingredients and truthfully we never figured out what they were. Some looked like squid, others maybe fish, and one I swear was an eyeball. So I had just a little to eat while being laughed at by all of the locals about how dumb we looked.

We were up early the next morning to catch the bus to Sihanoukville. This was not originally on our itinerary but was recommended by two guys we had met in Hue. They had also recommended this supposedly great little hotel, House of Malibu, on the beach with the best food ever. We had called from Hue and made a reservation in their new bungalows, Malibu Bungalows, and were extremely excited for a relaxing trip to the beach. Well were we wrong. First off the bus was pretty miserable. It was 4 hours of being crammed next to Will who was extremely crammed since his legs are too long for any seats over here. Besides that our “in ride hostess” talked pretty much the whole ride. She would give this long spiel in Cambodian and then follow it with the same spiel in American. She just would not shut up and truthfully I don’t think there were any Cambodians on our bus and her English was so hard to understand that it sounded like she was speaking complete jibberish. We arrived by noon and hopped on two motos to our bungalows. We were greeted with confusion since they had some how lost our reservation. Just great. So they showed us one of the bungalows that was available that had a view of some tress and a building and that’s when we were told that none of the bungalows had A/C or hot water. Really, just great. They did however have a room at the House of Malibu with A/C and we were told hot water, the only problem he told us was it was very noisy. So Will headed down and checked it out and it was 10 feet from the sand looking at the waves, and we both decided that A/C was more important to us than noise. So all excited we entered the room to find out there was no hot water. The manager had told us that we would be moved to a quieter room the next day so we figured we could deal for one night. I headed to the beach, while Will set out to find a scuba place for a dive trip the next day. When he got back to our hotel he decided to shower and he was in there for less than a minute. When he came out he said the water was so cold it took his breath away. He then went to make sure that our room for the next day would have hot water and that’s when we were told none of the rooms had hot water. Again really. So we set out looking for another hotel for the next and found one 2 doors down. They made our reservation and it seemed like everything was going to be great. Will was going to go diving and I was going to stay, hang out at the beach and move us into our new hotel.

Everything seemed great until we tried to go to bed. The problem with our room at this place was it looked directly into this thatched fence with a bar and restaurant on the other side. At about 10 pm this place turns into a disco and the music was so loud that I felt like I was trying to fall asleep in the middle of a club in Cancun. The bass was turned up so much that at times the walls were vibrating. This continued until about 3 am and poor Will had to be up at 6:30 to get ready for diving. With all of that said we made it through the night, for me thanks to Benadryl again, and I successfully moved us into our new place. We are now at Coaster’s and it’s just fine. I hung out yesterday by the beach just reading and loving it. Will and I were both pretty exhausted last night from the lack of sleep the night before so we hung out at the bar here at our hotel before calling it a night. And now you are caught up to today which was very nice for me but horrible for Will. He woke up about 5 am with a stomach thing and hasn’t really felt right all day. So again I sat on the beach and read. We are up now and Will is feeling almost 100%. Must have been some 24 hour thing, anyway we are out of here today headed to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and I can’t wait. Until then… Also sorry there are no pictures, the internet here is REALLY slow so we will try and post in Siem Reap.

Vietnam, Final Words

I really don't have that much to update about Saigon. It is a pretty cool city and we did a walking tour all day to see the sights, but really just more of the same so I won't bore you.. In case you are wondering there are no McDonald's in Vietnam although KFC looks like it is starting to take root--we saw about 5 in Saigon.

A little slice of Heaven

Alright I’m back, and not really sure how I feel about the “lucky you” comment from Will but oh well. I thought that since beaches and my thing and scuba is Will’s that I would be the perfect person to write about Mui Ne. So as Will said we took a short train from Nha Trang to Mui Ne and of course that morning I woke up not feeling quite right. It was the first time I’d actually felt pretty sick on this whole trip. I ended up sleeping the whole train ride with a horrible stomach ache. When we arrived at our hotel in Mui Ne I was trying my hardest to feel better because we were at the beach but it just wasn’t working. After a quick dinner I went back to sleep to try and get rid of this stomach bug. Poor Will seemed so annoyed with me because he really wasn’t in the mood to take care of someone after our long day of traveling.

The next morning I woke up and felt a lot better but still a little weird so we headed to breakfast and then the beach. This place was absolutely beautiful. From the beach you looked out at amazing blue waters and to the left you saw tons of fishing boats and then to the right tons of kite boarders and wind surfers. Supposedly Mui Ne is the best place in Vietnam is for these kinds of water sports. As many of you know I could have laid on that beach all day, completely happy, but Will, like many other boys, was getting stir crazy and wanted to do an activity. We rented bikes and rode into town to have some lunch, which I can’t remember the last time I got on a bike, so I was a bit wobbly at first but then fine. After lunch Will was still determined to keep me away from the beach so we decided that we were going to go about 15km out of town and see the famous sand dunes. Thinking about riding my bike that far made me nauseous so Will had the, what he thought was genius, idea for us to rent a motorbike and have him drive us there. Alright as many of you have seen the videos about how people drive around here I shot the idea down immediately. I was in NO mood to be killed or seriously injured. I tried to reason with Will that maybe we could just hire two guys to drive us there, but at this point his mind was made and there was no turning back. I debated and debated (argued and argued) about how I thought it was a horrible idea, but in the end Will assured me that it would be fine. He kept claiming that he and Brandon rented motorbikes in San Miguel and that he knew what he was doing. So finally, I bravely hopped on the back of the motorbike and prayed for my safety.

Views of the beach from the moto

When we got on I could tell that Will seemed a little uneasy with this thing. He was looking around like he had no idea how to drive it and that’s when I asked again, “are you sure you’ve done this before” and then he confessed, “actually no”. Annoyed at this point but committed I dealt with it and held on for my life when we first took off and almost tumped over. Will gained control but the problem now was we were headed in the absolute wrong direction and we were both pretty nervous about turning around. I sat on the back completely mad at myself for being so dumb and going along with Will’s plan. We finally made it down a little ways and Will was ready to turn around. I thought no way am I going to be on this when he crashes, so I jumped off and walked across the street. He tried to turn and it was one of the most humorous things I’ve seen. He took a huge turn and still didn’t make it around all of the way. It was actually pretty great to watch. He made it back over to me, without getting hit by any on coming traffic, and we were off again to the sand dunes. Of course the only directions we knew were to go straight towards the end of the beach, so that’s where we headed. On our way there these cute little boys on a motorbike, with their dad/older brother/some guy, started talking to us and they ended up leading us to the sand dunes. Our near death/injury experience happened on our first main turn. We were following the little kids, and I mean all of the motorbikes here make turning look SO easy. So Will, following everyone else, started to make the turn but was going way to fast and we started losing control and were headed right for this sidewalk and rocks and we just went flying into it. We really are so lucky that nothing happened to us or the rented motorbike. Will’s face after this happened was priceless. He looked back at me like he was shocked we weren’t hurt. I gave him a punch in the back and told him to please not kill me and then we were off again. The little boys had slowed down a bit for us to catch up and their faces were in shock as well. They were both giggling and saying that they were worried about us. Then they started coaching Will on how to drive the thing. Slow on the turns the kept saying and our next two turns we took it so slow we’re lucky we didn’t stall out.

We got the dunes and the little boys jumped out with these long pieces of plastic that they explained were for sand sledding. Looking up on the mountains of dunes and realizing I was in flip-flops, shorts, and a tank top, I immediately said I wasn’t sledding. Will on the other hand was very eager to try it out, so we trekked to the top with 3 little boys around the age of 11. You could tell we were getting some looks right and left since we were the only white people around and the only people over about 15 heading to the top. There were so many kids on these things. The dunes stretched for miles and there were tons of kids playing all over them. It was like their parents just drop them off there and pick them up a few hours later. What a great babysitter. Anyway we got to the top and one of the boys demonstrated how to use the sled. They had to dig in the sand and find some wet sand to put on the sled to weigh it down for speed. I couldn’t help but laugh watching these little guys dig. Sand was flying all around and they looked like little dogs trying to dig up its bone.

After a demonstration it was Will’s turn and watching this made me laugh as well. Will didn’t really fit on their sled and all three of them had to push him to make him go. It was great!!! He loved it of course and trekked even higher to another point where he tried it again. We then headed back down and this was when they wanted to be paid. We realized then that you can’t even go and play with some kids here, it’s all about them getting money. As Will handed them each a little bit they kept asking for more and it just completely broke my heart. I would have given them everything we had if I had been holding the money. They finally took what he offered and it was back on the motorbike. We made it home alive, Will ended up being a good driver, and at this point we had used up our whole day.

The next morning I got to relax some more on the beach before heading to Saigon. The bus ride was about 4 ½ hours which wasn’t that bad. We’re here in Saigon now and just got home from walking around all day. We’re pretty beat and we’re out of here again tomorrow morning to Cambodia. I’m sure Will has some stuff to say about today and if not then you’ll be hearing from us in Cambodia.

Super Monday

Well, we certainly have a lot to catch up on so, as I watch a replay of the Super Bowl in Saigon on this Monday evening, I figured I would start to fill you in on what we have been up to.

Kendall has already updated you on our rough ride from Hanoi to Hue so I will pick up where she left off.

After getting settled into our hotel we decided to have some lunch. We found a spot just down the road from our hotel that looked good and was full so we decided to give it a try. Turns out it was a little café that also did motorbike tours of the town and the guide came by to introduce himself. He was a middle-aged guy that spoke English pretty well and had been a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army. He was pretty interesting so we decided to take a tour for the afternoon.

Kendall and me in front of Tiger Stadium during our moto tour

Half way through we stopped at a house that makes incense—again the commission system—and Kendall even got to try her hand at it.

The next day, we went on an all day boat tour of the tombs (actually temple complexes) of the kings of the Nguyen dynasty that are scattered along the Perfume River near Hue. The first two were pretty interesting but after a while they got kind of old so we ended up just hanging out and reading in front of the tombs instead of paying the 110,000 dong entrance fee.

Our boat

One of the tombs

Me with a Mandarin statue at a tomb

After two days in Hue we woke up early the next morning to take the 13 ½ hour train to Nha Trang, a small beach town further south.

I made the following videos on our way…

In Nha Trang we spent the first day hanging out at the beach and exploring the town. Kendall laid out to get some sun and I decided to get a massage under some shade on the beach. On day two we went on a half day dive trip. Nha Tang is said to have the best diving in Vietnam with normal visability of 15-30 meters but they have been having unseasonably cool weather with strong winds and our visibility was less than 5 meters and the water was still pretty cold. Kendall did the first dive but after lunch decided that she would rather sit on the roof of the boat and sun bathe so I did the second dive alone with our dive master.

We took another short train from Nha Trang to Mui Ne which was not on our original itinerary but we decided to add after talking to some other travelers on our Hue boat tour.

Kendall wants to update you on Mui Ne--lucky you--so I will sign off, until next time.

My First Tears

Alright sorry again that it has been so long. Believe me we have been getting emails from parents, friends, etc. making sure we are still alive and we are. So here it goes with my first tears of the trip.

Our last post was right before we headed to the overnight train to Hue. As many of you know I haven’t had the best experiences on trains so I was already nervous about this, but I was prepared to just put everything behind me, take some benadryl and pass out.

The first slight drama happened when we got in a taxi from our hotel headed to the train. We left our hotel around 10:10 which we thought was plenty of time to make it to the train station about 5 minutes from our hotel. So we got in the cab and the driver told us it was going to cost $5 even though he had a meter in his car. We had read and heard from some people we had met that if they don’t turn on the meter than you’re being ripped off so Will immediately demanded that the meter be turned on. After arguing with this guy who was trying to tell us that his engine light was the meter we threatened to get out of the car, and when he heard that he said alright and turned the meter on. At this point they guy seemed pissed off that we made him do it and of course Will commented “I’m finally learning how to deal with these people”. Which was probably the statement that jinxed us because the guy pulled up to a train station but we could tell that it wasn’t the right one. When we told him this was the wrong place he pretended like he had no idea what we were talking about and started taking our bags out of his car. So we got out and were immediately swarmed by all of these guys wanting us to ride on their motos with them to the right train station. And this is when I got a little angry. I headed back out to the main road to find a cab while all of these guys were fallowing us, trying to tell us that we wouldn’t be able to find a cab. We found one luckily and the guy was so nice he drove us to the station immediately and then when Will tried to tip him he was confused and was trying to find him change. The first honest taxi/moto/cyclo driver we had met.

We entered the train station and this is when the real drama began. A few days earlier Will and I had gone to the train station to buy our tickets because we had read that you get the best deal at the train station. When we were there it was a complete madhouse to buy tickets. People cutting in line and poor Will was just swarmed around all of these people. He eventually was able to make it to the front and we were so relieved to have our tickets. When we arrived at the train station we showed our tickets to this kind of creepy little guy who was supposed to escort you to your cabin. He took us on to one of the coaches and Will and I immediately looked around and we were the ONLY white people around. He took us to our cabin and to our surprise there were 6 beds which were pretty much made out of an inch pad. Will started to get flustered and explained to this guy that this was not where we were supposed to be sitting; that we actually have soft-sleeper tickets. When Will walked off this guy lost it. He started screaming at Will to come back and go in our cabin. Will refused and tried to get off the train because we were positive we were in the wrong place. Well after about 10 minutes of arguing with this guy and going to the main booking office we realized that we had booked the wrong tickets and we couldn’t upgrade because the train was completely full. This is when the tears came. We were headed back onto the same coach, where we had already made a huge scene, and we put back in our cabin. Then this creepy man started holding his hand out for his tip and when we gave him all we had he pointed to Will’s pockets, then my purse, and then he started looking at our bags like he was going to try and open them. I kind of freaked. He finally left and I just laid down on what was supposed to be my bed for the night, closed my eyes and shed some tears. I looked over at poor Will who I could tell felt horrible so I did what I could to suck it up. We ended up watching a 24 and then taking some benadryl and falling asleep. I ended up sleeping till about 8:30 which was GREAT because we got in at 10:00 so I was fine and it all ended up fine. We had our first major drama/fight and got over it. All I can say is thanks to benadryl and Will’s laptop for getting me through that crisis.

Government Internet Censorship

Sorry that is has been so long since our last post. Although we have had Internet connections at each of our destinations so far, we recently found out that the Vietnamese government censors access to most blogs--including Blogger--in order to keep anti-communist groups from expressing their views. It appears that this censorship is fairly widespread, about 9 out of 10 ISPs comply; however, the provider here at the Dynasty Resort must be one of the few that does not because we are able to access the site again.

We just wanted to let everyone know that we are alive and well, and now that we are at a beach resort it is unlikely that you will hear from Kendall--you know what she is like when there is a tan to be had. But, one of us will be sure to update you on our recent happenings soon.