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Published: July 10th 2009
This blog post is more than just a test to see how to upload pictures, where our blogs will be posted, and
how to
format
our
words, this blog post will to start with our emails to my dad from last summer when we traveled for a month in Vietnam and Cambodia:
Sunday, July 27, 2008 at 10:04am
24 hours of screaming babies later and having soaked our clothes through with sweat my mom and i can safely say that we have begun to settle ourselves in Vietnam!! Well in Ha Noi at least. Though we can not say we are struck by the beauty, we are enchanted by the Asian exoticness there is to see.
We arrived without trouble around ten to our hotel to stumble upon a introductory briefing by our tour guide Krista where we met some of our fellow tourers. When our room was ready we dropped our stuff off, changed our clothes, washed up and began walking around, trying not to sleep walk. We had arrived to a deluge but since we started carrying our raincoats we have only been soaked with sweat. Our biggest challenge was figuring out how to handle the many
zeros in the $Dong. Thirty thousand dongs seems like an awful lot for an hour long Cyclo (i included a pic from google in case you didn't know what a cyclo was) ride but in fact it is only two us dollars.
Our first stop was the Ha Noi Hilton which is not a luxurious hotel like you might think but so named by the American POWs who were in this prison during the American war. The Prison showed pictures of John McCain getting surgery and smiling American prisoners playing basketball, chess, receiving souvenirs from their prison guards, contrary to the impression we've had of the harsh conditions and brutal treatment they suffered. From there we went to the Woman's Museum followed by a walk around the Hoankiem Lake, an oasis in the chaotic city. The five minute walk to our hotel only took an hour due to our amazing, instinctual navigational skills. We had a surprisingly tasty dinner with our tour group before we did a face plant into bed!!
Today we had the best breakfast ever (mom of course made it a five course meal to last her all day - hey, it was free!!). When
Warning at first homestay
"If you're traveling to have sex with children, everyone will be watching"i could finally drag her away we took a luxurious Cyclo to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where we were hustled in line with all the over-eager Vietnamese in the hot sun. Uncle Ho's Madam Tussaud-looking body was calmly waxful and still has hairs and sports a very nice western suit.
From there we went to the Ho Chi Minh museum which we were very impressed with and thought was creatively done though we wished we would have had more time to see but were rushed out by the unexpected early closing time. I got to hold Mr. Ho's hand with one hand and make a peace sign with the other as i posed next to all the other Vietnamese visitors and mom took a picture, and another, and another until she got it right. maybe.
Then we went to the One Pillar Pagoda built in the 11th centaury and the house where the Ho lived. We also miraculously found our way to the Temple of Literature, a Confusion sanctuary and Ha Noi's first university. After asking a multitude of people for directions to the Fine Arts Museum which was around the corner we leisurely walked in the empty AC galleries.
They take their art very seriously here. Our favorite part were the (un)happy faced Buddha's. We had lunch on the lake, mom creamed me in cards, and i had a tuna salad (strangely no lettuce...) and then we went to see the water puppets with live music in the background. Although the stories were in Vietnamese they were still very entertaining
Tomorrow we embark on our trek in the highlands, slip sliding in the mud and the sweat, sleeping in tribal villages for two nights.
Stay tuned!!!
Friday, August 1, 2008 at 11:24am
We got back from Ha Long Bay today around 4 and have since walked around Hai Noi in search of shopping for toe rings/rings/wallets....but to no avail.
The trek was three days, and we spent both nights in local homes. The first day was only 3 hours of walking on a pretty much paved road up hill - compared to the Inca trail it was not nearly as hard but we had to carry our own bags so it was still a challenge. For hours at a time we found ourselves walking in pure full length puddles. luckily our clothes that
Adventurous Eating
Maggots, Rat, Duck Feet...the list goes on we packed stayed dry underneath our ponchos. that night we had a traditional Vietnamese dinner full of fried spring rolls and rice and all that good stuff (that we've had for every meal since then pretty much...) when we woke up we saw the owner nailing up a sign warning travelers not to have sex with minors because apparently there are a lot of tourists who come to Vietnam for this purpose. 😞 it was evident by two blonde half white babies that we noticed along the trek and at that home.
the second day of the trek was the hardest one but still nothing compared to the Inca trail which seems to be engraved in our minds as the hardest thing EVER. it was mostly downhill and very rocky and slippery at times and took about 6 and a half hours. we met a lot of very nice old traditional Vietnamese woman with red mouths from the beetle nuts they ate. when we stopped for lunch a wild "rat" (it was about twice as big as a rat but they didn't have a specific name for it and it was in the rat family...) went by and was
caught. as the adventurous people that we are we decided to buy it and have the cook that came along with us prepare it for dinner. this was one of the most interesting dinners of my life (if you want to know the details that i cant type on facebook just ask me haha)!!! for dinner that day (after everyone got to take a nice refreshing and much needed shower) we had fried spring rolls (which mom and i prepared ourselves!!!), sauteed rat, duck brains, maggots, and rat blood mixed with rice wine. I KNOW!!!! and i am proud to say that i tried all of it!!! and mom got to take pictures of me trying it instead of her trying it herself and thats cool. that house that we stayed in was a house on stilts which was a really interesting experience. we slept in one long line of mats that lied along the floor made of bamboo. every time someone turned over we all bounced as a result. we slept to the sounds of the cows bamboo bells, roosters and crickets.
the third day was only two hours of walking but very very hot!!! we drove back
to Ha Noi and then went out to dinner to celebrate the birthday of one of our group members, we were treated to western food and a chocolate cake!!! 😊 we made it an early night though because we were tired.
yesterday we drove in the morning to Ha Long Bay where we boarded our boat and made ourselves at home. - our boat looked like this but a little smaller:
http://bigplace.org.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/halong1.jpg.
we took kayaks out to a pagoda where we climbed to the top to explore the lookout view. then we kayaked and wandered into one of the caves in the bay: http://hsc.csu.edu.au/geography/ecosystems/case_studies/2475/images/caventr.jpg
we spent the rest of the day relaxing. I even jumped off the top of the boat into the water and made a terrific scream as i went flailing down haha it was great. Mom joined me for a short swim but we got scared of touching the poisonous jellyfish and there were threats of a heat/electrical storm which ended up lasting all night.
today we climbed around a really cool cave that unfortunately our local guide didnt do a very good job of talking to us about but it was pretty Awesome to
be in and see:
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Travel/Asia/SurpriseCaveWideAngle.jpg
overall the trip is going better then i expected and im a happy camper, -
we both are
Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 9:10am
Sat aug 2: we took a day trip up the perfume river and unsurprisingly as soon as we dispatched from the bus it started to rain so we all hurriedly bought ponchos and put them on when of course it stopped raining 😊 We hiked up to the pagoda drenched, this time in sweat. we bought our first souvenirs, Buddha leaves and a fan. then we had dinner at the lake. mom went for a run at 5: 30 in the morning and saw all the tichi exercisers. That night we took an overnight train happily uneventfully to Hue. on sunday we went on a tour of the Citadel and watched the monks pray, eat and sing. the mini monks have a lock of hair while the major monks are bold so that they wont be distracted by vanity of hair grooming. The king color is yellow so way back when no one was allowed to wear yellow or get within 5 meters of the king, or look him
in the eye, or say the name of the late queen (flower) which proved to be a great inconvience seeing as it is such a popularly used word for them. then we walked around the market and had ice cream, got lost, and explored. on monday we took a day trip to the tombs and pagodas. Many years ago, one the kings designed his tomb very traditionally which took him 3 years, and after he died his 500 concubines had to devote the rest of their lives to the taking care of it. the other tomb held a gay king who spent 11 years making his much more flamboyent and french styled tomb. he also spent 6 hours a day when he was alive putting on make up and dressing up as a girl, and his wife concieved a son with another man who was not king and died 11 years ago in france. for lunch mom and i went with our tour guide to a local dog street joint where i had dog for the first time - it was surprisingly REALLY GOOD!! it was a little disturbing having actual dogs putter around where we were eating and knawing
on dog bones and eating out of pots but.... - we were the only females there. and then i took a well needed 3 hour nap back at the hotel.
we took a 4 hour bus to Hoi An, through Danang (ugly) and stopped at lan cone beach which set the bar for whale island. Hoi An is a really nice town with lots of shops and old buildings along a river sourounded by beautiful cafes and glowing lanterns. the following day we had a really nice bike ride to the beach where we actually went in the water and then spent mucho time shopping and bargaining though in the end we didnt actually get that much.
there is a long line of people waiting to use the comp so we will end it here for now - please send this to shaun and tell him we really miss him a lot and think about him all the time and think that he would really enjoy the trip too! 😊
lots of love, Sasha and Penny
Sent aug9:
Hue: is a small village preserved in the historical way of the old Chinese style. There are many shops
in town that have their merchandise spilling out onto the street, its a perfect place to get hand made clothes designed and made for y ou. I got a pair of black flip-flops made for me - 5 dollars, though we paid two more for delivery because we were worried that with our AMAZING sense of direction we wouldnt be able to find the store again. then we paid 30,000 dong (like 2 dollars) to have them fixed at a shoe repair man because they kept sliding off. but they look great now and i love them. that night for dinner we had a cooking class which turned out to be more like a cooking demonstration, we made fish and banana leaves, spring rolls (we were pros this time), and squid salad with green papaya. I "helped" an old woman carry her baskets on a balance beam like pole, my shoulder as the fulcrum. i drove a rick-shaw for a short period of time , the steering was the hardest part. we went to a monastery where i helped the woman monks package the home-made incence, they were very friendly. the bike-ride to the beach through the rice fields and
in the midst of all the other cyclists and motor-bikers, was the highlight. the ocean was very refreshing and surprisingly enjoyable, we needed a good rest day. mom got up at 5am to see the fish market and let me sleep! she said i didnt miss anything. for dinner our second night we ate at a street market on the river's edge. it is truly a beautiful town, very calm, safe and colorful.
after a ten and a half hour bus ride we arrived at Whale Island by moonlight. There is one resort on the island and the beach is the center of our day, which we of course felt right at home on. we snorkeled - though it didnt compare to the Galapagos - and i went sailing, though the sail mechanisms broke down when we were out there, thanks to very careful maneuvering we made it back safe and happy with our adventure. - daddy we missed you lots. i tried fishing in the small round weaved boats very unsuccessfully but spinning around like in the tea pot ride at six flags was a lot of fun.
soon we leave for N'trang where we'll stay one night...
hope all is going well, miss you lots!!!!
sent aug 14:
Sailing in Whale Island: the eldest in our group, John, organized for the 6 of us who wanted to, to rent 2 sail boat-wind jammers. we had wanted to go the day before on whale island but the second boat hadn't been fixed yet and was broken. I went out with John and this other guy Mitch on one of the boats and the three other guys went out on the other, the idea was we'd be able to race each other. John, Mitch and i went out first, and went really fast for about 15 min, where i was very content with flattening myself against the "deck" and being a splash board and they maneuvered the sails/ropes. all of a sudden there was a snap and the boat that had supposedly been fixed had a wire break. we then spent the next half hour trying to get ourselves back to shore while the sail boat fell apart around us. by the time we got back no only were we pushing the boat by hand, but the sails had pretty much became disconnected and were falling apart. Nevertheless
it was a lot of fun. since i was already in the water i borrowed this woman Clair's snorkel equipment and searched around - but the snorkeling didn't compare to the Galapagos or Hawaii. in the process i kicked a sea urchin and my left foot's toes have little holes in them. at first it hurt a lot and i could hardly move my toes, but now its just like a pressure point that hurts like hell every once and a while. after lunch we took the boat off the island and the bus to Nha trang. the road is surrounded by the huge sand dunes, quite bizarre!
Nha Trang is a beach town, a mini Miami, with a huge esplanade and not much else besides bars. we had dinner alone and tried to go out to meet the rest of the group but the party doesn't really start until 2am. Sunday morning we went to the cham temples (Hindu 3rd century). there was a small 3 man native band playing Hindu music as they made a party out of cleaning and scrubbing the temples thoroughly. A monk had a booth where he drew calligraphy and explained it to us
in incomprehensible English. from there we walk around town and ended up at the beach, palm fringed and great swimming! we got good karma points from buying gum from a vendor, a mother of 7 kids. Our big find in the town shops was finding anklets, we bought several (and bargained hard!) for dinner we added to our culinary list of new exotic food we've eaten - turtle! we picked it out live and they grilled it. fatty and tough, i wouldn't recommend it. - Shaun we thought of you and your pet turtle. then we took an overnight train to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon.
we arrived at 5am Monday morning, had breakfast in a market stall, banana pancakes, and then went to the Cu chi tunnels!! I was proud to be able to fit into the original tunnels that the Viet cong used and then as a group we crawled through the longer one. they make air holes camouflaged as wasp nests and for cooking they made a fire whose smoke funneled meters away from the tunnel. we saw how they made sandals out of tires. we saw the demonstrations of all the traps they had hidden in the
forest and watched a propaganda video about how the "evil devil Americans" ruthlessly hunted the peace-loving Vietnamese villagers. we then went to the shooting range on the premises and i got to fire an AK 47!!! the kick back was nothing, what hurt most was the loud noise that was made every time someone shot the M 16 that was right next to me, i had to concentrate very hard not to jump every time it blasted, especially when i was literally trigger fingered! the most disconcerting part was how easy it was to shoot, like a toy gun but with real consequences that went over our head because it felt like such a game...we went shopping on our return to Ho Chi Minh city in the market, one could easily get lost there for days. we had dinner alone after spending torturing hours trying to figure out our Cambodia flight/bus reservations.
on tues we were off to the Mekong Delta where we did a home stay and got a tour around the brick factory, we had lunch with a family who raised crocodiles in their back yard which we got to feed and watch them leap for the meat.
we tried cobra rice wine and adorned ourselves with a 12 foot 120lb HUGE snake. It was beautiful walking around the canals. then during a boat ride i managed NOT to fall in while getting to the back of the boat to try (successfully!) to row the sampan. We tried lots of exotic fruits like jack fruit, logan - a red prickly spidery type of lichy, bananas and coconuts, tapioca... and then we went to the home-stay. It was a colonial French mansion, Vietnamese style. complete with ducks, pigs and chickens out back. we slept under mosquito nets.
yesterday we went to the floating market where house boats and sampans mingled and sold/bought all types of fruits and vegetables. i drove the boat, coconut in hand. Then we stopped at the coconut candy factory which was better then Hershey Park! they dont waste anything! they use the rice husk for making the fire, the river silt to cook it, - and the best part was seeing how they made rice crispys and caramels - AMAZING!! I helped ground the rice and make the rice papers, which is harder then it looks! they make 48 dollars a month - puts things
in perspective! Then we came back to Ho Chi Minh, stopping at the cao dai temple, a new religion the includes Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. its a colorful building straight from Disney Land. Back in the city we once again tried to master map reading and crossing the street. it is a very communal affair, many locals helped us across in the beginning and by the end of the day we were helping them, high fiving in victory when we made it to the other side. we went to the art museam and got lost going to the zoo and the Jade Emperor Pagoda where we watched them burn fake 100 dollar bills for good luck. we caught a cyclo back and we were so squished that our legs fell asleep and had to hobble worse than the cyclo driver when we dismounted. BBQ was the meal for dinner, which we got to prepare ourselves on our table: Wild Boar is fatty and not to be recommended.
As of now we are officially on our own!!! - Next stop, Cambodia!
sent today:
Thurs: 8/14 - We moved to our new hotel in the morning, 20 dollars a night
as opposed to 50 😊 We did the grand walking tour of the Rex Hotel, Saigon Center, tagged along on a tour of the reunification palace and watched another propaganda movie, then we went to the War Remnants museum and the effects of agent orange (including Siamese twin fetuses in a glass case), devastating! then we came back to our hotel on Groovy De Tham St, we are where the action is!
Fri: 8/15 - 6am bus to Phenom Phem, where we sat next to our ex group, a bit awkward. but we chatted and it wasnt too bad. Krista our ex-tour guide comforted mom at the border when we got separated saying she'd look after me 😊 but it didn't end up being a problem. We arrived around 1 oclock, and promptly got a Tuk Tuk to our next hotel (12 dollars a night), perfectly located. We went directly to the killing fields where they have a tower of skulls and we made an offering of flowers and incense, hard to imagine the numbers of bodies buried there. From there we went to Wat Pom where we bumped into our old group again and tasted lotus seeds. We
looked for Sambo the elephant that was supposed to be there but we saw a lot of monkeys instead. The Wat had a lot of amputees that turned out to only be the first of many we would see in Cambodia. Its mind boggling to imagine how these people are able to manage to survive their whole lives limbless. As we strolled home the skies opened up to what ended up becoming a 18 inch deluge. Needless to say we were totally drenched. Luckily, cause it was hard to see and we were lost, we ran into one of the guys who worked at the hostel we were staying at and he was able to point us home (1 block away). We had dinner at the hotel while water flooded the streets (and the floor of our restaurant), and naked children happily played in the flood. Not to be deterred we took a tuk tuk to a shadow puppet/dance performance. Because of the rain induced delays we got to listen to the traditional music for the first half hour (which mom was not a fan of).
Sat: 8/16 - we took a private tour of the art museum and
marveled at the multitude of Buddhas: Happy, Sad and Scary. Then we took another guided tour (in the rain), of the Kings Palace and the Silver Pagoda. We saw a life sized solid 25K gold Buddha in a room whose floor was entirely made of Silver. Our guide took us to a fortune teller who gave me a book to put to my forehead and then i stuck a needle in one of the pages randomly while i concentrated on my wish (to do well in school), and then he deciphered the page i had picked and told me i was going to do "really really ok" and that i have to study hard 😊 unfortunately the guide was less successful as she always seems to fall in love with married men. From there we went to the Russian Market where drugs and AK 47s are no longer sold so i settled on a new ring instead. Then we went to the genocide museum and we saw the result of Pol Pots (Potential Politician, a name given to him by the Chinese) reign of terror. We had lunch at a riverside cafe and went to a meditation class given by
a monk at Wat Lanka. Mom thought the benevolent Buddha smiling down on us was the prefect setting while i happily chanted my Jewish songs in my head. We brought home many pamphlets for you to read if you'd like... We hit the teen scene for dinner accidentally as our tuk tuk driver got lost and mom had to direct him how to get back (good thing she noticed he was driving out of town!) We sat on mats and had fried prawns and spring rolls (all together 4 dollars). However my stomach is not as good as the Cambodian's and i spent all of sunday sick and throwing up. We were able to get some cool masks at the night market.
Sun: 8/17 - we took the bus to Siem Reap. we were pretty much the only Westerners on the Japanese filled bus. I felt like shit but we found a really nice hotel that "looks really expensive but is not", completely made of Mahogany wood. We got a tuk tuk to Ankor Wat (Wat Phon) and i was able to get my picture taken for the ticket only seconds before regurgitating. Then we climbed up the pyramid
like ruins to see the sunset, mom cursing all the way about how she hates going to see these things, and we decided to come down early in an effort to try and escape the hoards of tourists all climbing down in the dark on the very small steep steps. i conked out right after that at 7 oclock and mom went out to pub street to check out the scene for me for mon.
Mon: 8/18 - 8am with our private guide (see how much mom has learned?!) we toured the five main different sites at Angkor Wat. The first was covered in jungle like trees that had planted themselves right on top of the temples (Wat Ta). Then we went to the Bayonne, famous for its mysteriously beautiful womans heads. Then we went to Wat Thom and had lunch. Then we went to Angkor Wat and took a zillion pictures before going to the land mine museum. I was particularly interested as the Model UN Committee i led at Lab MUNC was about the land mines in Vietnam and Cambodia. We ended the day the sandstone Wat featuring very detailed engravings. It was amazing having our own
private guide for an entire day, able to ask and discuss with him anything. In the evening we went to dinner and a movie in the night market about how Pol Pot came to power.
Tues: Mom as usual got up at 5:30 for her walk and made friends with the Monks at Wat Bo giving them much appreciated English lessons and exchanging emails. Then we took a private boat to Tonle Sap lake and saw the stilt houses and floating homes, and had lunch on a boat. In the afternoon we visited Dr. Feet and had an hour long reflexology massage (6 dollars).
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Amir Har-Gil
non-member comment
You are great
I can see your big hart Amir