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Published: December 1st 2007
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So my life switched back from fine wine and 4 hour spa trips instantly after the girls left. In fact that evening I found myself eating at a small Vietnamese restaurant down a back alley (delicious!) and attending a bad movie (I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry) at the theatre while sipping on beers from a street market. My buddy Ryan had returned to entertain me, make me feel like I was 23 again (ha ha), make sure I ate street food, and keep me company during what turned out to be a long road/water trip. We left the next morning to go ‘exploring’ the Mekong Delta… not so much exploring really but going where the Sinh Café tour bus would take us. I hadn’t really looked at a map and truly discovered the distances we would cover but it turns out 3 days in the Delta meant at least 3 hours in a boat each day and 5 hours of driving in a bus. It was worth it though. The scenery was fantastic - long channels of water, little women or families selling vegetables out of their long boats, palm trees everywhere you turn - everything I expected Vietnam
Soy Worms
Ryan trying out a Soy treat for the camera to look like. I few of my images are of the women - tiny high heels on the pedals of motorbikes, matching pant suits of crazy prints, and the school girls biking home (or to school at 6:30am!) holding one side of their long dresses (slitted up the sides) on the opposite handle of their bike.
The food was great too. It helped I started to read a book by Antony Bourdain- he’s a food author who also wrote the Kitchen Confidential… which is the only book that I have ever listened to on tape - weird, I know, but it was cool to read his second book and hear him talking to me. He traveled in Cambodia and Vietnam and his stories reflect a lot of what I liked (or didn’t like) about the food in both countries… but written better than what I offer you - so I suggest reading it. It’s called a Cook’s Tour. Another book I finished was Wild Swans (it’s the book that made Jennifer from Vancouver want to do the trip in China) and it gave me a new appreciation of the Chinese - people and culture (although I still don’t get
Floating Market
This would be the squash boat the whole spitting thing!). The book is actually banned in China b/c it doesn’t reflect a prefect image of Mao. And after reading it, I can’t believe I really knew nothing of the man before going to China.
I said goodbye to Ryan and left Vietnam on the 27th glad to have seen a few more places without any rain. It was a great country but not so much a vacation - more chance for reflection than relaxation. Enter South Thailand… hello resort holiday! The islands are here solely for the relaxation of foreigners (mostly Swedes) - tanning (yes, it’s coming along after the initial Nam burn), kayaking (I spent a beautiful day off Krabi going through Mangroves and caves, diving (soon to come) and beach hopping. I have realized that if I was going to Mexico I wouldn’t try to ‘see’ each of the beaches in the country… so why do it here for the sake of traveling? I may not make it the East side unless I hear that the weather is guaranteed sunshine 😊 I met two girls my second night in Krabi - one from Grande Prairie and one from Belgium. We’ve been hanging out
in Ko Lanta since I got here and they are lots of fun. It’s always great to hang out with a Canadian and make stupid jokes and know that they are appreciated! We decided to go to Ko Lanta for a few days to get in on the backpackers beach scene. It’s been fun - good beaches, funky bars playing laid back music and we even busted into a private party last night with a free BBQ! Fun - we met a few Finnish guys, one of which claims to hang out with Miikka Kiprusoff in the summer and played with Fleury during the 94/95 year hockey strike… seems a little doubtful 😊
We are off to another BBQ tonight - some expat's bday at the Irish pub, then heading to Ko Phi Phi tomorrow. Hope to do a dive in Phi Phi and see the bay from The Beach. Hope everyone is enjoying December 1 - how cold can it be? ha ha ha... Sweet, sweet Thailand 😊
love Steph
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