After two full months on the move, we are starting to experience serious travelers’ fatigue. When a purported five-hour boat ride turning into ten hours parked next to the open engine fumes no longer seems charming but simply migraine-inducing, when at the end of each day the dust which coats your clothing, shoes and skin could house an entire termite colony, when facing incessant swarm of taxi drivers, their mindless, parrot-like refrain “Tuk-Tuk? Tuk-Tuk, Laay-Dee?? Sir, Tuk-Tuk?” requires gulping restraint to suppress hell-hath-no -fury-Sean Penn-swings-at-tabloid-hordes [View Full Entry]

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No time to write about Angkor yet, but here are some pictures! [View Full Entry]

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Christmas for us: we were on Si Phan Don, 4,000 Islands on the ever -widening Mekong for Xmas eve, and we walked around past little Thai riverside restuarants filled with Westerners in Santa hats and shiny trimmings having piggie bbqs. We hung out with some drunk Thai and Japanese kids for a while who sold us some books. The next morning we got up surly and went to the tip of the island to board longtails to the mainland to begin our minivan pilgramage to Cambodia. We both agree that waking up riding in the wind and sun on the [View Full Entry]

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We loved our time on Don Det, one of the 4,000 islands near the Lao/Cambodian border. We had little electricity but lots of time. Lots of puppies, kittens, children, baby chicks, buffalo calfs- every form of life possible seemed to be hatching, scurrying across sandy bike paths (only roads on the islands), and napping in the bushes underfoot. Saw roaring rapids and melted into hammocks. Played Scrabble and read a lot of books borrowed from the island library after shaking the cockroaches off their bindings. Hopefully more soon. Check back. [View Full Entry]

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We took an overnight sleeper bus from Vientiane to Pakse, a dusty (again) town in Champasak, a southern Lao province. A sleeper bus! This was such a luxury, albeit one that probably defies most modern safety regulations. Not that that's any different from most travel here. The bus had wide bed berths on either side. You climbed into bed, under your provided blankets and pillows and snuggled in for the ride. We were given sausage and vegetable dumplings for dinner, and I fell asleep watching the moon cast slim columns on the asphalt and listening to Terry Gross interviewing Tina Fey. [View Full Entry]

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I’ve always felt pity for people puking in public, but it sure felt good. I felt a momentary pang of guilt regarding the negative publicity I was unleashing on the café’s terrace, but those potted ferns sang to me of bilious liberation and I didn’t care who saw. Half an hour later, the cool tiles of the bathroom floor felt almost as delicious. The majority of our time in Vientiane was spent on our backs on an only-in-Asia stiff mattress, holed up and playing host to said nasty stomach virus. Nevertheless, Ely valiantly braved the mean streets to procure our Cambodian [View Full Entry]

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We decided to come up for air for a bit from our torrid love affair with the river and venture further out into the countryside. We rented mountain bikes and bumped our way over gravelly, potholed roads through beautiful karst scenery. We went to Tham Phu Kham, a cave hollowed out of the limestone karst 1,000s of years ago, and met some travelers and cave-philes from Austin, Texas who gave us some lessons about cave evolution. The cave wound deep into the karst through narrow tunnels that eventually opened up into expansive caverns slicked with astounding mineral deposits. Going was slow [View Full Entry]

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We’ve stayed in Vang Vieng longer than anywhere else besides Ko Chang, and with good reason! We live in a bamboo-thatched cottage, perched on stilts. Our windows’ plain wooden shutters open outward, and through the diamonds of iron latticework, the garden explodes, its lushness tempered by natty stone paths. Flaming blossoms and burgundy hastas lord over the meandering stream, frequented by young hunters with rolled pants and slingshots. Beyond the stream, angular plots of yellow rice dry in the sun, hastily plastered down like a schoolboy’s quiff. Beyond the second plot, the [View Full Entry]

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After a day of wandering around Luang Prabang, we took an overgrown path at the end of the peninsula that led down to the Nam Khan (Nam means water in Lao and Thai, or river, so saying the Nam Khan is like saying the Khan River). The mud on the banks was cracked like honeycomb and there was much activity on the river: men and children on the opposite banks fishing with nets, small boats chugging home after fishing expeditions, and young monks building the beginnings of a bridge. The piers made to support the bridge had already been constructed, and [View Full Entry]

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Long ago, two great gourds grew at Meuang Thaeng (now Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam). As the gourds grew in size, sounds could be heard from inside their thick rinds. Khun, divine rulers, pierced the skin of one of the gourds with a red-hot poker, and out of the charred hole poured the dark-skinned Lao Thoeng (Upland Lao). The khun employed a knife to slice a hole in the other gourd, through which marched the lighter-skinned Tai-Lao (Lowland Lao). The gods sent Khun Borom to rule over both peoples, during which time he had seven sons. Khun Borom sent these sons [View Full Entry]

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