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Published: February 9th 2008
I suppose we have made you'll wait long enough... I guess it's time to fill you in on our travels!! To pick up where we left off, we finished our last day at the temples as a newly engaged couple. I think the temples of Angkor are so far one of the highlights of our trip. What an amazing place!! We arrived back into town a little early so decided to go shopping in the market. We decided to look at some backpacks and Bri was looking at A GIANT 100 liter north face pack, as we were walking away the vendor started yelling out prices to get our attention 50$, 47$, 40$, 35$,…20$!!!! That was enough to stop us and turn around so now Bri is the proud owner of the BIGGEST backpack in Southeast Asia!!!! (It’s so funny to watch the Asian guys try to lift it)… Sorry Enahs, your pack didn’t make it.
The next morning we took the expensive but worthwhile and entertaining boat trip on Tonle sap (great lake) to see the floating village. The waters in the lake fluctuate 30-40ft. between dry and wet seasons which is pretty amazing in its own right, but
then to have an entire aquatic community built on it as well made it one of the highlights of Siam Reap. Along with huts on stilts and kids rowing pots and wash buckets around it also had floating schools, restaurants, stores and a hospital and even a basketball court built on old barges!! We got a kick out of one of the floating markets that sat about150 feet off shore because it held tanks with catfish and a pen with live pigs. It even had crocodiles for sale 20 feet away from the sign saying they were an endangered species!!!
Once we got back to shore we went for dinner and signed up for a cooking coarse for the next days activity. We cooked at a little restaurant called “Le Tigre de Papier” which is located on the infamous bar street. In the morning we took a look at the menu and chose an appetizer and a main course to cook. Then we got to take a tour in the locals market to purchase the ingredients for our meals. While touring the market we came across the “meat department” just in time to catch a lady about to hack
a giant, snail-eating turtle. Knowing Brian, I’m sure most of you can suspect what happened next. He bartered with the woman to sell us the whole turtle.. “How much”, she said with the clever up in the air… “no, no, no, the entire turtle…LIVE!!” She sold it to us for $15 as all the women giggled as they watched us walk away with our newest family member! “Tiger” the turtle lived with us for the next 2 ½ weeks until we found a safe place to release him… but we’ll get back to him later! The cooking course was tons of fun. Brian learned how to make mango salad and ginger chicken and I made spicy shrimp salad and cashew chicken, which hopefully you all get to try when we get home! The food was delicious but there was so much food that we donated most of it to the starving kids on the street, who of course, accepted graciously!
After that we lounged around for a couple days at our guest house. We started to really get to know some of the staff, especially the upstairs bartender Sayoung!! One morning Bri got up for a morning Beer
Brian eating a Cricket
yummm... taste like chickenand found our new friend pretty ill. With a wage of a dollar a day he refused to go to the doctor so we convinced him to take a half a day off and we took him ourselves. He comes from a very poor family and lives in a smaller village outside of Siam Reap. He could not afford to buy himself medication so we took him and bought his medication for him at a total cost of $2.50. After a few days he was back on his feet again and he was so grateful of our generosity that he invited us to visit where he lives. In the evening after he got off work, he took us to his village. When we arrived we realized that we were a huge spectacle and most of the children and people had never seen foreigners in the village before. The chief of the village even came to meet us and said that we were the first visitors in the 15 years that he had been chief!! What an honour for us! While we visited with the children we got to see how the children learn English. Seyoung’s older sister taught a group
Cooking course
With the newest family member "Tiger" the turtle of 20-25 children at the side of the house in an outdoor classroom. In the evening Sayoung cooked up a feast! Along with noodles and vegetables, dried shrimps and random meat, we got to sample Cambodian wine. Cambodian wine is made from fermented rice and tap water and tasted a little like tangy, bunghole!! Yummm! In order not to be rude (or something like that) Bri drank both our shares of the wine and got completely tanked, which helped him communicate and laugh with all the locals that we could barely understand.
A few days later we decided that we should finally leave Siam Reap, so we carefully put “tiger” in our day pack and headed off to Kratie. Kratie is on the bank of the Mekong River. It is a very small town with not much to it. The first evening we went for dinner at 9:30 to find that EVERYTHING shuts down very early. The next morning we went on a tour to visit the endangered Irrawaddy river dolphins. This has been a dream of Brian’s since he was a wee boy and once told his dad that he was going to be a marine biologist so
that he could save all the dolphins. What an amazing sight. The dolphins congregate in the deep pools during the dry season so they are very easy to find and watch. With just the two of us on the boat, it made for a very serene morning. Within minutes of being in the water, we were able to see groups of 6 or 7 dolphins at a time. Some of them even came within 25 feet of our boat! That was pretty much all to do in Kratie, so the 3 of us (with Tiger, of course) left Kratie and headed up the long, CRAZY dirt highway to Banlung, Rattanakiri.
Once in Banlung we found ourselves in a guesthouse that was once the house of the Governor of Rattanakiri. Directly across from our guesthouse was a beautiful lake that seemed to have no fisherman… a great place for Tiger to call his new home! The next morning we went on our free-Tiger mission. Brian decided we would wade to the edge of the lake through the sloughy reeds on the perimeter to let Tiger go. When I told him I wasn’t gonna go swamping he laughed and called me
Bri's practing for parenthood???!
The children loved Bri! We had tons of fun with the camera a wimp! I took stand on the side and watched Brian take one step in and plunged to his waist line. He laughed and it was fine and took one more step and sunk to his neck…. That’s where we decided that that spot would be Tiger’s new home!! There were tears in our eyes as we watched Tiger swim away.. (tears of sadness or laughter… I can’t remember).
For the next week or so, we rented a moto so that we did not have to join into tour groups. We visited many waterfalls in the area but fell in love most with Crater Lake. Crater lake is a perfectly round, underground, spring fed lake surrounded by lush rain forest. It is thought that at one time an actual meteor hit to form the perfect circle, but the locals have more superstitious beliefs. The lake is crystal clear, with visibility up to 10-15 meters and the middle is said to be 70 meters deep. We spend many days floating on inner tubes which we could rent from the kids for just a dollar a day.
After spending almost a month in Cambodian, we decided it was time to
With our friends
Drunk on Cambodian wine try out another country and we headed to Vietnam. The 70 kilometer ride to the Cambodian-Vietnam border was definitely one to remember. We took a Toyota Camry up a road a dusty-unpaved road, which is FAR worse than the road to Harrison hot springs, including 2 river crossing where the water came half way up the door… we would have got photos but we were to scared to let go of the “holy-shit handles”.
Upon arrival into Vietnam I (Brian) Was NOT happy besides a half an hour fight with the minibus drivers to not rip us off, we went from beautiful Cambodian rain forest to a completely baron deforested waste land that put me to tears.(you woulda cried too Stacie). Somehow Da managed to sleep on the mini bus as we veered head on into other busses and trucks with the horn blaring only to swerve away at the last minute. Once almost flipping and to prove I’m not exaggerating even the locals on the bus were scared and when it comes to driving they’ve got kahoonahs of steel!!! It seems in Vietnam size matters and anything goes as long as your lights are flashin’ and the horns
a honkin’. But as someone once said if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all so I will let Da finish Vietnam for all of you.
Our first stop in Vietnam was in a small town half way up the coast in Qui Nhan. The beaches were beautiful, but we found it weird that apart from us there was absolutely no one on them. We luckily had picked up a Vietnamese phrase book along the way because communication was a challenge and no one at all seemed to speak English. Our first meal we sat down for we thought we were ordering chicken Pho, but got served beef noodles and chicken wings!! We also quickly discovered Vietnamese coffee and spent our first night wired and awake until 3:30 am. The next morning we had a train ticket very early to Hanoi. We awoke at 5 am and caught a 24 hour train up north to Hanoi. Along the way Bri befriended a group of priests-in-training and drank beers and smoked with them the whole way to Hanoi (Vietnamese priests are cool!!)
When we arrived in Hanoi we realized we took the train straight
Rare Irrawaddy river dolphins
They're checking out what the strange lookin' creatures are on the boat outta summer and we were suddenly faced with 5 degree weather… I know that is not much to all you back at home, but for us, it was bloody cold!! We fell in love with Hanoi right away with its crazy streets and friendly people and fantastic street-Pho EVERYWHERE! Hanoi is said to be known famous for noodles and we have definitely enjoyed squatting on the street, slurping back noodles with the locals.
Our first visit to Hanoi was brief because we were scheduled to meet up with the Kimura cruisers in just a few days, so we booked a bus and boat tour to Halong Bay for the next day. We booked a two day, one night tour on a boat which sleeps 32 people but when we arrived we found out that we were 2 of only 6 passengers!! The boat that we stayed on was amazing! We ate like kings and queens with fresh seafood and amazing local cuisine. The other guests on the boat were a young couple from San Francisco and his parents who live in Hong Kong. We very muchly enjoyed our time with them and spent the evening drinking whiskey and cokes.
The next morning we docked and decided to splurge and got a beautiful hotel. For $25/ day we had a huge room with a balcony that overlooked the entire bay! I quickly found the night market and purchased as much as we could before dad arrived and we could pawn it off to him to take home!!
On February 6th, we woke up very early, extremely excited to see the family! We waited at the docks, banner in hands. A group of Vietnamese tour guides glared at us while we waited thinking we were stealing their business!! When the family arrived I was so excited I could hardly contain myself! It was so great to finally see people from back home. Until now, I didn’t even know that I was homesick! Plus with all family time and the gifts of sandwiches, peanut butter, tooth paste and knives, it was like the Christmas that we didn’t have!
When everyone arrived, uncle Loren haggled and found us a boat trip around the Bay for 4-hours including lunch and a visit to the caves. We first stopped at the floating fishing village and got to see many holding nets filled
Finally freeing "Tiger"
After 3 weeks living in our bathrooms and backpack, Tiger was finally realised in the lake in Banlung with crabs, fish, cuttlefish and prawns. Then we embarked and docked at one of the many caves in the bay. They were huge and amazing and not like anything I have ever seen before. A fisherman who followed a group of monkeys along the island discovered the first of the caves. When the monkeys disappeared into the side of the rock, he proceeded to follow them and discovered a massive cave with more than one entrance and standing several hundred feet high with stalactites and stalagmites that reach floor to ceiling, it was more than impressive to see. And WHAT an experience to be able to visit this with dad and the fam!!
On the second day with the family we visited the non-touristy side of Halong Bay and some of us went shopping in the market and we got to see the sights. Brian and Garry went for a walk along a village on the rock face and we also got the chance to ride in the basket-like row boats and tour around.
Unfortunately after that the cruisers had to return to the ship and head towards Hong Kong. Thank you to the cruisers for spoiling us
Operation Waterbuffolo
Untangling the rope holding this poor buffolo by his nose rotten with your company (& pounds of peanut butter) and for being the first who help us celebrate our engagement and this very exciting time for us!
After the excitement of the family time we went to bed early and was awoken by sounds of explosions! We quickly realized that the Lunar New Year celebration was in full force! With fireworks being set off just on the shore of the Bay, our balcony was the perfect vantage point to see the show!
We have now made our way back to Hanoi and will be leaving tomorrow evening to head back to Qui Nhan… oh yeah, we forgot to mention that when we woke up at 5:00 in the morning to catch the train here last time we forgot Brian’s passport at the hotel. We are now on passport-retrieval rescue mission and then planning to head over to Laos! (Brian says that the ONLY bad thing about Hanoi is that it is part of Vietnam).
We have now been sitting in this cold lobby for 3 hours trying to catch you all up, so I think we will sign out for now! We love you all and hope
Crater Lake
Naked kids playing in the lake.. surprising us in this photo to hear from you soon!
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Stacie
non-member comment
Sounds like a dream...
Hey you two! It sounds like you two are having an amazing time...from eating crickets, to saving turtles from a meat market (thank you by the way...i got the biggest smile when I read that..), and visiting towns that have never seen a foreigner; it sounds dream-like and something out of an episode of lonely planet!! :-) I am truly and genuinely happy for the both of you - congratulations by the way!! Maybe "Tiger" won't be the only new addition to your family?!? :-) I hope you continue to have fun, and cherish every moment you have together on your life changing journey. I wish you both the best, and can't wait to see you and hear about the rest of your travels. Stay safe. Love Stacie