Oh Joy! Hanoi (and Halong Bay)

A bit of success from the wilds of Vietnam (or how it felt after buying a new digital camera)!

Never in my life did I think the safest way to cross the street would be to walk directly into oncoming traffic, but that's just the way you do it in Hanoi. We estimated that the motorbike to car ratio must hover around 10 to 1, and the only way to make it throughout the city is to hold your breath, stare confidently at the street corner you're aiming for and walk.

Amazingly enough, you won't get hit!

Once we got the hang of crossing the streets, we set out to paint the town red. One of the best parts of Vietnam are the numerous bia hoi joints: a keg of beer on the sidewalk, surrounded by small plastic chairs and tables. With beer at only 4000 Dong a cup (or about 30 cents), we drank more than our fair share.

We also were quite excited to eat as much delicious food as possible in Anthony Bourdain's favorite country. We'd met travelers along the way who said the food was bland, or didn't meet expectations. We're happy to report, we completely disagree. Some highlights:

Pineapple! Sold everywhere, either cut up into chunks or with ridges sliced into it, to be eaten like a popsicle.

Steak and frites, served with a baguette on the side.

A delicious skillet filled with protein (read: scrapple of unknown origin, with a healthy serving of steak and eggs) and onions, to scooped into a baguette and eaten like a sandwich. Bun cha- a delicious savory broth, filled with barbequed slices of pork, to which you add rice noodles and greens.

Our favorite place was cooked in an alley and run by two squirrely sisters.

Banh xeo- a crepelike outter shell filled with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts, that's rolled up in rice paper with greens, dipped into fish sauce, and eaten like a spring roll.

Although it may look like we spent all of our time eating, we actually spent much time wandering around Hanoi, visiting the famous "Hanoi Hilton," Ho Chi Minh museum and taking in several new movies at the local mall (thank goodness for air conditioning). We also went on a three day excursion to Halong Bay, via junk boat.

We spent one night on the boat and one day in Cat Ba harbor, and while we were there we went kayaking and for a hike up to the top of the mountain in Cat Ba National Park.

The hike was absurd-- far too many people all going in the same direction, with a large portion of them being Asian women in stilletos and high platform shoes. Luckily the view from the top was worth it:

Vietnam has been really fantastic so far and we're looking forward to continuing south and getting some serious beach time in.

A Bit of Bad Luck

Dear Faithful Readers,

Hello from humid Hanoi! We made it here after an arduous 24 hours of travel, which included a night bus from Kunming to the China/Vietnam border and then a 12 hour train ride to Hanoi. Along the way, we unfortunately had a bit of bad luck. While I was sleeping, our camera and the laptop were stolen out of my purse. The good news is-- nothing more important (like passports/debit cards) was taken and neither of us was hurt. The bad news is-- all of our photos are gone and China and Laos won't be able to be documented the way we'd hoped they would be.

We've bought a new camera, but are unsure if the blog will be able to continue. If possible, we'll definitely post, but it's a little touch and go for the time being.

Thanks for all the kind words and support about the blog thus far. We hope to be up and running as soon as possible. And if that doesn't work, we'll see you all this summer (start fare watching tickets to Chicago, now please)! We've got lots of stories to tell and will have delicious food to cook for you.

Take care,
Gillie and Morgan

China ... Grrr!

Dear Faithful Readers,

We arrived in China yesterday to discover that facebook and blogspot have been blocked by the government. We now have access (it took a little bit of doing... thanks ben), but it's limited and not very fast.

Moving forward, then, we will be posting on a very limited schedule for the next month or so. Once we hit Vietnam, regularly scheduled programming will return, full of backlogged posts from Laos and new stories from China.


Take Care,

Gillie and Morgan

Postcard from Vang Vieng

We arrived in Laos, about a week ago, via the Friendship bridge at the Laos-Thailand border. We spent a few days in the capital city, Vientiane, soaking up the French influenced food (baguettes and espresso for breakfast) and drinking our first Beerlaos alongside the Mekong river. But it was hard to ignore the rampant numbers of the tubing t-shirts, seemingly worn by every other tourist we passed on the street:

Known among backpackers as a rite of passage, we were curious to see what it was actually like to go tubing in Vang Vieng, and set off on a 4 hour bus ride to find out. Having exploded over the past few years, the Nam Song river is lined with bars:

and rope swings and zip lines:

 
Although the jams were decent and there were drinks in great abundance, it was still quite jarring to see large packs of backpackers cruising down the river alongside young Laotian children

and Laos trying to cross the river in long tails, while dodging tubes floating downstream

Luckily, there’s definitely more to do in Vang Vieng than just tube. The area is stunning, surrounded by limestone karst, which jaggedly cut the sky.

We spent the better part of one day exploring caves, like the elephant cave, which are filled with Buddhas and rocks carved to look like elephants:

 

We continued, tubing with headlights through a long, dark cave

and kayaked 8 km down the Nam Song river. We passed a number of water buffalo and cows along the way

And arrived back in town, just as the sun was beginning to set over the cliffs

Motorcycle Diaries: Northern Thailand

Gillie, my dad and I motored up to the Golden Triangle last week.  After spending hours combing Chiang Mai for the right bike (a manual 125cc Honda Wave with disc brakes... enough engine to get the two of us up the hills, and the brakes to get us down), we were ready to go.

 
We spent half of the first day getting out of Chiang Mai and away from the four lane highway.  Riding a glorified scooter, with a passenger, through the thick of Thai morning traffic - gets a little hectic.

We took a break at the first elephant camp we saw. 

It was neat, but sort of sad at the same time.  The elephants were clearly captive, and didn't look all that happy.

At least we got to feed them some bananas:

 

About an hour out of the elephant camp, the pungent aroma of garlic filled the air.  We rounded a corner to see two or three flat beds truck piled high with heads of garlic - several thousand to a truck. 

Just outside of Fang, we stopped by this temple.

 

Thailand is just littered with these things.

The next morning we departed for Mae Salong. It's way up in the mountains of the Golden Triangle, about 80 km from Fang.

When communism swept through China, a bunch of nationalists fled here.  It's kind of like Taiwan, except much smaller, more mountainous, and with many more trinket sellers per capita.  Here are some pictures:

 

Next up was a 120km ride to Mae Saeau. The ride was gorgeous, up and down twisty hills, past several fields of rice paddies.

We even passed through a herd of cattle that had wondered onto a mountain road,
 
and scootered past a little wild fire blazing through the roadside forest. 

If you find yourself in Northern Thailand, here's a word of advice: don't go to Mae Saeau.  A more fitting name for this little hamlet: "The Town that Food Forgot".  Gillie and I went to three different restaurants that all claimed to be closed.  We ended up gorging ourselves on a collection of snacks cobbled from the odd food vendors scattered around town - chicken satay, corn fritters and fried bananas. The most excitement in Mae Saeau was watching the artfully tied baskets on this truck pass by:

After four days on the road, we were happy to get back to Chiang Mai, and onwards to Laos. 
 

I'll close with a short video we shot; please note the police officer* to the left of the screen. (*He's actually a mannequin.)

Zip a dee do dah!

We continued our travels with Morgan’s dad north to Chiang Mai, to explore the historic city and to rent motorbikes for our upcoming road trip (more on this soon). While father and son spent the morning checking out bike shops, I had some time to myself. So what’s a girl to do? Thai massage? Mani pedi? Nah, I decided I’d go zip lining instead.

I was picked up promptly at 6:45 am, for a full day of zip lining, rappelling and a waterfall hike, all courtesy of Flight of the Gibbon. My group, an odd mixture of 3 high school girls, a very tall Australian couple and an older Finnish couple, were greeted by the following sign:

Momentarily scared, we quickly learned how to hook onto the lines and set out for the course, which consisted of:

Two sky bridges

Rappelling down three different ropes, the longest being 40 odd meters

And zipping on 12 lines of various lengths, throughout the jungle.

A better idea of what that was actually like:

Needless to say, it was a great way to spend a day, and one I would happily do again. (Thank you older Finnish couple for taking my photo in front of the “scenic waterfall.”)

Mae Sot We Like You A Lot

Before we left for our travels, we spent a lot of time researching various volunteer opportunities, but had a hard time finding a program that felt like a good fit for our interests, our budget, and the amount of time we would be able to donate. Thus, we were very excited when we spoke with Morgan’s dad, who was already in northern Thailand, and he had a solution.

We traveled to Mae Sot, a town on the Thai-Burmese border with a large number of Burmese refugees. One way to distinguish the Burmese from the Thai is by the way they paint their faces with Thanakha, which is done to help prevent sunburn, amongst other maladies. They commonly spread large circles on their cheeks and put lines down their noses and on their foreheads, like so:

The reason we specifically went to Mae Sot was to join Morgan’s dad in helping out with an organization called FTUK. They are a trade union that supports workers in the Karen region of Burma. They needed help updating their computer systems and software (cue: MWS) and translating letters from broken English into better English (cue: GNK), to be part of a larger report being sent to the International Labor Organization.

A typical afternoon looked something like this:

Arriving at the office, with Morgan’s dad.

Researching and editing for the proposal.

Lunch from a roadside chicken rotisserie (side note: the baby pink bike in the foreground, was our chariot for our stay)

Pumping iron in the backyard… just kidding.

But in all seriousness, we’re very thankful we had this opportunity to help FTUK and wish them good luck in all of their future endeavors.