Vientiane, an intro to Laos

From Hanoi you have 2 popular options of travel to Vientiane - 1) a 26 hour bus ride or 2) a 2 hour plane. We opted for the plane. This may not be what many backpackers do but screw that I'm not wasting a day on buses and messing with boarder guards and we couldn't afford another Cambodia/Vietnam boarder issue. Our plane trip was uneventful and our trip through the immigration line was about 30 seconds. I've never seen it that fast anywhere. Then when arranging for transport from the airport to town an American couple asked if we wanted to share a cab. Turns out they are from Hartford, CT and were also on an extended honeymoon of 11 months. Small world we live in. Vientiane is the capital of Laos but based on what you see on the ride to town you would never know it. The trip is only a few kilometers but seemed to take a while. As we later rented a motorbike we learned that this is because there are some dirt roads in town and many of the other roads are in mediocre condition at best. The city is small and relatively undeveloped when compared to the cities we visited in Vietnam. Allow me to put this in perspective, the country of Laos is approximately the size of Utah but it has a population smaller than that of Manhattan (approx 7 million people). The entire country's GDP is about $2.4 Billion ($13.4 Billion GDP purchase power parity) which is smaller than half the deals I've worked on in the last 2 years. As we explored the town we began to like it. The Mekong river is the boarder between Laos and Thailand in this area and Vientiane is right on the Mekong. There are dozens of street vendors that have built makeshift little decks on which they serve their customers dinner overlooking the river. Also, there was a noticeable absence of overly pushy vendors which was a great change from Vietnam. It was really nice. We ended up meeting our new CT friends, Eric and Rachel, for dinner one night and went out for beers on St. Patrick's day which was great.

They were a refreshing change from many of the English speaking traveler's we've met. So many of the US, UK, Aussie and Kiwi travelers we meet are only interested in talking about the lighter parts of life and of travel rather than what they really saw or experienced, good and bad on their trip. Rachel and Eric are both really smart and well spoken about issues facing the US at home and internationally. What a great change! Another great time we had was taking the motorbike out to this Wat which has afternoon mediation classes and next to the Wat is an outdoor sauna and massage place. We decided we would head out for some time sweating the dirt out of our pores, get a massage and then go to the meditation class. Well, we had so much fun hanging out in nothing but a sarong with about 10 other travelers chatting about the lighter side of travel that we missed the mediation class. We ended up spending about 3-4 hours there and loved it all. If you saw the place you might not think anything of it but the funny Lao lady who runs the place just makes a great atmosphere for travelers. One afternoon we had the bright idea to ride the motorbike 35km to this waterfall. We are so bright. It's the end of dry season. Here is what the waterfall looked like...

Anyhow, we're happy and healthy and taking a bus to Luang Prabang soon so we'll catch you later.

The cool Hanoi

I mean literally - we are back to wearing socks! After over a month of super sunny, hot, and dry weather, Hanoi welcomed us with cool temperatures, drizzle and rain. Still carying our shnazzy matching red rain jackets :) we were ready for it. We strolled the streets trying to see as much as possible but not stress ourselves too much as the sightseeing was starting to get very tiresome.

James' top interest was going to the "Hanoi Hilton" where local political prisoners and shot down American pilots were held. Not surprisigly the propaganda did not escape this place either. You got to see the brand new yellow sweater and shiny leather shoes that supposedy the pilots were given while imprisoned there. You saw pictures of them playing cards - looked more like a fun dorm than a prison. The American pilot stories heard back in America were quite different... There is no such thing as one history... My favorite place was the Museum of Ethnology. In this great place they have collected exhibits showing different local cutures with their clothing, some ceremonial artifacts and super interesting recreated huts on the outside ground of the museum. It was neat to be able to walk in, sit down and have some tea at the different style huts. We were also lucky to go there during the weekend when they had a special weaving exhibit where people form different countries from around the Mekong River were showing their local weaving specialties. My favorite were the fishing traps. So many different types! Forget fishing rods or nets - wicker "traps" are the Mekong specialty!

James really liked the exhibit about food coupons during tough times in Vietnam. For me it was a weird reminder of the Polish rationing days. So far yet so similar...

One night we attended the traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. Basically puppets are performing over water with the operators standing knee deep in water behind the background. The show was about the different everyday activities on the mekong River with some dragon legends intertwined. Accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music it was cute but since it was all in Vietnamese we were not getting the full show.

Fresh beer (unfiltered and untreated) was another local activity we absolutely could not miss. Imagine an intersection in a middle of old town, lots of plastic stools, and kegs around (some people too :) . A glass of beer 12.5 cents. Doner Kebab about 70 cents. That comes to a light dinner for 2 people for about 3 bucks! The beer is not great (as judged by beer drikers) - a bit on the light side but with this price you cannot complain. I (non- beer drinker tolerating Rolling Rocks and such, with hot wings) enjoyed the lightness with the bit spicy kebab.

More in Hanoi - if you look closely at the first picture in this entry - James and I are taking a picutre of ourselves in front of the Haonoi Opera House where we went to see/hear the local symphony performance. It was stunning (both the music and the place).

Diving in Nha Trang

Hey boys & girls. Sorry for being such bad friends and not keeping the blog up to date. Thought I'd fill you in on life a bit. We recently finished our time in Nha Trang which is billed as on of Vietnam's best diving locations. We came to this town with one thing in mind, diving! After checking out the local dive shops we chose one and signed up for a night dive. Ok smartass, we use flashlights so we can see. This really adds to the freak you out factor as you can easily loose track of which way is up, even if only for a moment. The night dive was great, that is after I got over my initial panic attack. Having never dove at night before I really screwed up some simple things on the decent. While we descended, I needed to add a little bit of air to my BCD (the vest the tank is attached to and that you wear to keep you buoyant) to keep from hitting the bottom. Well, I managed to shine my flashlight in my eye and then overinflated the BCD and sent myself flying back to the surface 20 feet above me and right into the bottom of the boat (I'm ok) before sinking like a rock when I finally got the air out of the BCD. This is beginner mistakes that I don't usually do and it hurt at the time but I can laugh about it now. The company that took us diving managed to persuade us to sign up for the PADI Advanced Open Water course and we spent 2 of the next three days completing this course. What does it mean to be certified? Nothing really. We are allowed to dive deeper now and it has helped us become better and more confident divers. It's also step towards becoming dive masters for our active/early retirement plan of running charter cruises with diving and gourmet food.

The other big news from Nha Trang is that after 3 1/2-months of travel we were robbed for the first time ever. I guess our luck just ran out. We were robbed in the pre-dawn hours while sleeping in our hotel room. Our room had 2 rooms, one we slept in and another room where we left our bags. It was a warm night so we had the fans on and the windows open. The hotel owner had told us to close the windows while we slept but we never thought about why and she never said. The windows had bars over them and the building had a big gate with nice metal spikes on top so we thought we were pretty safe. While we slept, someone crawled onto our second floor balcony which wrapped around the two rooms and using a 7 foot pole with a hook on it (pics below), reached in and lifted my shorts, Ewa's shorts and Ewa's daypack to the window, emptied both of our shorts of cash and anything interesting and took Ewa's backpack with our little camera with 2 days of pictures on it. We will be reimbursed by our insurance company so life goes on. It's just that getting robbed shakes you a bit. Everyone we've discussed it with is amazed we weren't robbed already after spending 3 1/2-months on the road, and especially after 2-months in South America, so I guess we've been lucky. (You can see the pole they used in the first photo on the lower left corner - bastards!)

Off to Hanoi to see the "Pickled Ho". Believe it or not they for some twisted reason they actually preserved Ho Chi Mihn after his death and you can see him on display. Really twisted but how can you resist!?!

Saigon

We arrived in Ho Chi Mihn City, better known as Saigon to us in the West, after nightfall and almost immediately found ourselves comfortable here. Ewa took a rest and had some Pho - Vietnamese beef, noodle soup - while I looked for a place to stay. While trying to find a recommended hotel I couldn't figure it out until I realized that these little tiny alleyways were actually marked streets. It was a bit freaky at first to walk down this dimly lit alleyway with not a tourist in sight but I was soon walking past people watching TV on the floor of their homes. This put me at ease but I never did find the recommended hotel down this little maze. Picture a city block but dissected by a network of alleys, some of which intersect and others that are dead ends. This may be what NYC is like but I don't believe many of my friends spend much time in alleys in NYC. After a good nights rest in a nice little shop house - guesthouse we spent the day touring some of Saigon's markets. This is really Ewa's thing. She loves to go see what the locals buy and also loves to see what stuff she can buy there for about 1/10th the price of the US. She's sooo cheap but hey, I still love her. We enter the first market by walking past some knock off clothing places selling Nike and Adidas shirts only to be assaulted by these 4 foot tall Vietnamese ladies. Ok so maybe assaulted is a bit strong and they were probably 5 feet tall but they were by far the most aggressive salespeople we have ever encountered. Later in the market, one lady started giving me a hand massage just to keep me in front of her shop. Too bad for her that I rarely ever buy anything and this time was no exception. Several people we had talked to had told us to have a drink on top of the Rex hotel. It's a nice hotel with a decent bar on top overlooking one of the nicer corners in the old quarter of Saigon. What was funny to us is that we had dinner - both of us - for less than the price of one drink at the Rex. We took a city tour - something we have rarely done - and were quickly reminded of why we normally avoid the packaged tours. The first stop was a handy crafts factory. On the positive side, these places often hire a lot of Vietnamese people who were victims of Agent Orange or other toxic defoliates used by our Military during the Vietnam War and our dollars go to them. The bad news is normally that it is an unscheduled stop that takes up a lot of your tour's time. Ewa bought a pair of sandals there that I expect to see once. They were pretty cool but not the most practical - they were black lacquered with cool painting on them. Saigon was a fun and now we are off to do some diving in Nha Trang! Later