Blogs from Asia - page 14738

We found out a few interesting things about Vietnamese and SE Asian life and culture in general during our games and dinner with Rote. Lets just say it can be very easy to offend the locals if you stick to doing things western-style! - The way we motion 'come here' with our fingers and palms pointing up is reserved for animals only in Asia, so if you want someone to come close without making them out to be a pig wave to them with the palm and fingers pointing down. - While a gentle pat on the head may be endearing and complimentary in the western world its traditionally only done to slaves in Asia. So avoid that head-top ruffling of someones else's hair - its very rude! - In Vietnam girls don't smoke. Only prostitutes ... read more

A day out at Ko Phi Phi: We hired a long tail boat (+ driver=1200 baht) & headed for Ko Phi Phi Lea (national park) and Maya bay (the circular bay that the movie the beach" was filmed at). We snorkeled around & explored "the beach" then we cruised round the other side of the Is to another nice little bay for some more snorkeling & exploring. " Then back to Ko Phi Phi don (where we stayed) for some cliff jumping (climbing up jagged rocks, sharing a pair of flip flops between 3 to a overhanging tree then jumpin seaward, good fun) So after a few jumps we went to monkey beach. The beach was only accessible by boat with a colony of monkeys living there ( big angry males, cheeky young 1's & tiny ... read more

We spent the weekend of May 5-7 in Tokyo. Jim had business travel in Japan that week so on Friday the boys and I hopped on a plane and met him there. It was SO cold compared to Thailand....probably in the 50's and we have definitely acclimated to the tropical heat. It also rained most of the weekend. Brrrr. We saw some of the major sites: Sony Center (which did NOT have any video games to play with BTW), Pokemon Museum (much to the boys' delight), Ginza (the high end shopping district), the HUGE electronics stores, the Asakusa shrines (a must see and definitely my favorite part of the trip), and we spent lots of time on the subway getting from here to there. Here are some pics: ... read more

Sunday, May 7: I went shopping by myself on Petaling Street and got lost many times. Everyone thinks I am either Malaysian or Chinese, so it works out that I don't look that foreign. But, the moment I open my mouth, the first thing they say is, "Where are you from?" Everything here is very fresh, cooked right in front of you. I ate some fresh tofu fa. Yummy...oh, and I tried this brown drink called Barumbak, or something like that, which had longans in it. It was very refreshing. They have a tendency to pack their drinks in plastic bags and tie up a little corner of the bag for your straw... I guess it would save money. There are a lot of stray, emancipated stray cats here, similar to Dubai. Poor little kitties; I ... read more

So. The train to Varanassi (the "Ganga Express"... serious) was an interesting experience. It was a packed train, with a 600 person waiting list! Finding our bunks was a bit of an annoying experience... try walking through several packed train cars with giant backpacks and bags, with everyone else trying to get through, too... in the heaaaat. aaah! The ride was 16 hours, and we got the top bunks. Luckily, we shared an area with an Australian... she frequently visits India, and helped us out a bit. Almost everyone who visits India has some sort of train horror story... we were a bit afraid of getting robbed, as soooo many people do. Crafty theives, here! Anyways, the rise wasn't that bad... we had some Quebecer come sleep on our floorspace (he couldn't book a bed), and ... read more