A cat is coming!

There's probably some quote out there talking about how an experience should be felt, and not retold. It's because when you retell an experience, certain qualities get lost through words. That's why I cannot tell you how wonderful my journey has been hugging all these mangy puppies! Many with fleas, a few with mud and feces. But I don't care, love is love. You dont abstain from loving a child just because it's covered in poop.

While we were in Dalat, we went to see a fortune teller who told us a lot of general information in combination with things we already know about ourselves. She also refuses to recognize that we are a couple even though the evidences were clear from her tellings and our demeanors. She did say that we are both in a very loving relationships (separate of each other) and that we balance our partners out very well. Also that weddings bells will sound next year for both of us. Hopefully its with each other. One of what she foretold was of an accident on motorbikes, that we should be cautious and not even drive one. Yea, the next week we were pretty cautious and did not rent a motorbike. But here in Laos, we are defiant. And let me say before we get scolded, It was the best decision we have made! And yes, we wear our helmets even though it messes up our hair and the law doesnt even require them.

In Luang Prabang, we evaded the $35pp tour that they were charging to bring us to Kuang Si water fall. Instead, we spent $15 for a motorbike and $2 worth of gas and we were on our own adventure. Thank you apple iPhone for the technology of a Map, we have found our ways everywhere....well maybe most of everywhere. We saw the waterfall, took scenic routes home, explored some unpaved roads, and just lose ourselves in the city and unmarked roads. We really put that bike to work!

Our next location was Vang Vieng, a location known for its party scene. We were forewarned, not by the fortune teller but from guide books and those that have been. When we got there, it was exactly like the first week of college. Frat boys...and girls hoot'in and holler'in, all dressed very scantily in beach gears and with stupid body paint. Our dinner options were to sit in a restaurants (more like a bar/shack thing on a beach) with either Friends or Family Guy playing on the jumbo screens. It was such a weird experience that I cannot capture here. All these kids (yes, very condescending of me) were chillaxin' from their exhausting day of tubing, kayaking, etc., and now they're just lounging around watching American tv, and really, the only TWO options were Friends and Family Guy. Of course, we chose the restaurant...and once again, it's more like a shack on a beach....with Friends.

In the morning, we once again rented a motorbike, this time for much cheaper than Luang Prabang, only about $5. We found the "Must sees" in Vang Vieng and saw them. And oh my god, what an amazing sigh we saw! First, we hiked for a good 25 mins up a vertical slope (and I mean VERTICAL!) to the top where there is a shack overlooking the beautiful landscapes. Out of breath and Jamie complaining about the heat, we sat for awhile to enjoy a view and later played a game of cards. We were the only two people there and once you get over your fear of height and the possibility of the wobbly shack giving out, you begin to see the wonders around you and gain an application of life. My thought at the moment was how wonderful my life is. I appreciated the people I have in my life, my accomplishments, my future accomplishments. I also gained insights for my new life back in the states while letting go of old stressors and general negative thoughts.

The next site in our path was some sort of cave which again we had to trek up a vertical slope. Luckily for us, it was only a 5 mins trek. Being the slightly fragile person that I can be, I was weary of the cave. You know, bugs, weird cave animals, and the general scaries of caves. It was said that you'd need a guide and the cave was going to be slippery and DARK! Being the cheapies that we were, we refused the $1 headlight offered and instead I used a small bike light, and Jamie with his iPhone. Again, I cannot describe to you how amazing, and sometimes scary this cave was. There were points of pitch darkness where all you could hear we're drips of water and Jamie making stupid clicking noises with his mouth. I swear, a homicide could happen there and the body would find a perfect place to hide. Eventually we could no longer see the red arrows directing us, for the laos locals cannot afford neon lighted arrows, and we were lost. I wasn't afraid one bit, but I can't say the same for Jamie. And still he was making stupid clicking noises, I don't know for what. The cave wasn't humongous, and with a bit of patience, we found saw natural light.

After the cave was the "blue lagoon" that was actually blue...well more turquoise to me. Maybe it's also a lagoon too, but I don't know exactly what a "lagoon" is. The water was clear and Jamie said it was very refreshing to swim in. I took his words for it and sat on the sideline cheering him on as he swung and plunged with the Germans. There were fish in this lagoon and they were all cornered nicely off to a corner for us to swim and play. Very polite fish they were. We then got lost on our way home, but eventually found it. Yes we get lost VERY often, but they're the funest part!

They don't really have road signs here, and when there are, they're written in squigglies. A lot of the roads are still dirt roads with lots of bumps and holes. The worst is when a big truck or any vehicle for that matter, passes by with you riding behind it in a dirt storm. You get use to breathing in the dirt and the orange tint on your hair, skin, and clothes become very flattering at the end of the day. Not so good for my allergy.

Current location: the capital of Laos, Vientiane. We can see Thailand from here!
Current mood: hung over from a wild night of partying and drinking where we made Laos friends!!! One of them was a mute "lady-boy."
Most memorable quote from last night: a cat is coming!
Happy thanksgiving lovelies we wish we are there to enjoy the food and festivities with you.

Voyage back to the Mekong

There are a few different options to consider when planning a trip from Northern Vietnam to Central Lao. You could take a flight directly from Hanoi to Luang Prabang and enjoy the 45 minutes in the air and then a quick 10 minute taxi to your guest house in the quant little French colonial village... You could... Or...

Assuming you don't want to spend $175 for each ticket and also the logic that says, hey, we'd have to ride back 8 hours to Hanoi and then take the flight in the same direction we just rode from! We are already soooo close to the border, let's take the bus!

Why yes, close to the border we were and the bus path would only cost us about $20 each...No brainier right? Even after reading the horror stories that are found online within seconds of searching for other peoples experience, we thought it would be an AWESOME idea. And it was!

Now what path do we take? What is the first bus's path? We assumed finding a night bus that would bring us a good ways along the path was a given. Though after asking around, the reality of what we were about to embark on became much more clear.

Day one started with jumping into our mini bus at 7:30 AM. We had chosen a shit hole guest house to stay the night in Sapa just so it would be directly across the street from the bus station. Thinking ahead as usual! After some minor confusion we found our mini bus and had our seats.

Now the fun part begins... As we should have already known from prior experience, the van actually goes back into town to pick up other customer directly at their hotels. So much for our planning ahead, and now this is adding on an extra 45 minutes and we have not even left town. Why they can't have everyone meet at the bus station to save an hour is beyond me, but that is a whole other blog in itself!

Finally the van was full. 18 seats, 16 people, nice. Two more seats remain, who would get them? We pull over once again to grab our last couple. Wait, they have four people! Four, we can't fit four says our driver, "pick a boy and a girl and let's go!". Yea right, the group and the van guide argued for a good 15 minutes before we finally left. Now we know why we got to the bus station early on! We actually received our seats that we paid for! Later, a couple on our van told us the same had happened to them the day before. They were offered a free nights stay and a ride the next day. This works out fine if you are not on a planned trip with limited time only! Luckily, we had neither issue. We were on our way to Lao (here they do not have an "s" at the end)!

Obviously we had been naive about the smooth and simple plan to do most of the traveling overnight. The roads were insane! Crazy curves through the mountains, dirt roads to rock roads, to paved and back to dirt! 50 foot drop offs with no guard rails, speeds that shouldn't be used on a finished straight road, oh it was good. On top of it, you couldn't even fit a normal bus on this road and you CERTAINLY would not want to be driving at night. The beauty of it all made it worth it. The endless mountain ranges, beautiful blue skies, all breathtaking, especially when being flung from side to side around the curves!

Day 1 ended in Dien Bien, on the border. We're not in Lao yet? Turns out there is a 5:30 am bus in the morning that will cross the border. Good thing we made friends on the bus. It looks like we will be very close friends before the end of this...

Day two began very early. We had spent the prior night walking around the dinky border town and eating some decent Pho. We had a nasty, but dirt cheap room with the rest of our van mates across from the bus station. We boarded the bus rested and ready at 5:15 AM. Our buddies had already found their seats, no one was taking any chances.

The bus was beat up and full of goods being transported over the border. We sat squished, but comfortable for the 8 hour ride. The scenery was amazing as day one, and the breeze through the windows made us feel like we where in a luxury van, not a beat stinky one. We were moving along now.

After a smooth, but hour long process of going through customs at the border, we reinterred our vehicle. This was easy, just need to be patient with time and we will be there safely and comfortably for sure. Our guide (I use the word loosely, there is always another guy or two in these kinds of vans to collect money and tell people what to do. They are not there for your convenience, they are there for their own transport and to be sure everyone behaves and pays) tells us it will only be 2 more hours. Two more hours to Muang Khua and the prospect of a later bus or boat to our first location! We were optimistic...

After town hours the van stopped abruptly at a river crossing. There was a ferry there, but it seemed that the van was not driving on the ferry. The guide opens the door and says, "GET OUT". All of us puzzled, slowly get out of the van. We gathered our things and trying to look like tough and solid travelers all asked what was next.

A long boat will ferry us across, "Luang Prabang", says a man as he points across the river. Only 2,000 kip? That's only 20 cents, and we have change from the border crossing. There will be in ATM in the town I assured Ngoc confidently. So we got on the long boat (2 feet wide and 20 feet long powered by a weak stinky engine that sounds like a helicopter). Took a total of 30 seconds to get us across and we were back on land. So we're was everyone pointing? Why are they loading up the goods from the boat on to trucks (tuktuks)? Again, "Luang Prabang", that said and pointed further in the same direction as before. The bus station must be in town further up. Keep in mind we are n Lao now, no more Vietnamese, no more communication skills!

The tuktuk... How do I even describe this? Think of the front end of a motorcycle with the back end of a pickup truck connected behind it. Then cover the back and add benches. Don't forget to load 500 lbs of packs and goods on top in a very precarious way. Then charge 5000 kip a person (70 cents) even though we just paid your friend to take us across the river. Fine, we have no choice and now let me share also that we have about 20 kip left between the two of us. We got on...

We expected a quick ride and then to see a some what urban environment after being so harshly dropped at the edge of a river. Not so fast, "Bus station" they say. What!? This is a grass patch with a tiny van parked on the side. We have nearly 20 people! Yes one singular van...and no ATM. Of course they have a ticketing window though, they must get paid!

Ticket cost, wait one minute. Where does the bus go? Not Luang Prabang, but to
Muang Khua, we haven't made it there yet? What about all the pointing? Price is 35,000 kip each? We only have 20,000! No time for weighing other options, the sun is going down and we are the middle of no where. What to do??

Ngoc begged and pleaded with multiple people before someone agreed to buy 100,000 of our Vietnamese dong. Ok, we are nearly there, 15,000 more. Two of our travel mates loaned us the money and we got the tickets! Yes, we are back on track! Wait, the bus is filling, where will we sit?

We thought the last van trip I wrote about was bad, ohhhh no. This van had 2 seats next to each other on the left side of the bus and single seats on the right. In the aisle there were small plastic seats sitting one in from of the other to fit more. In the tiny space left were goods for transport and Ngoc and I sitting on our packs. Squished like sardines next to our travel mates of more than 24 hours straight now. There were people stacked in the front like bags of rice (on the bags of rice ironically) and about 6 men standing squished against one another next to the side door. There was not an inch to move. Once you find your self laying between a strangers legs (a grown man) on a bus in the middle of Lao, bracing your arm on a local girls back and the the arm around a young boys shoulders just to sit straight...it's just laughable. This is all we could do, laugh, and we did the entire 3 hour ride to the city!

Well, not quite... 2 hours and 45 minutes in, the van breaks down! We are literally on a deserted road with a few shacks next to us. The sun is gong down and we have no money! The bus is actually breaking down!

Leave it to Ngoc to find the positive. He walks up to one of the shacks and befriends the 6 puppies and little kids playing. We spend the next 30 minutes in utter disbelief about what was happening and praying we were not about to walk 8 km to town. Luckily for us, a man arrived with some new gas, some tinkering in the engine, and we were off again. No hiking tonight!

We made it to the town finally. Exhausted beyond belief and now very sure that wed be staying another night before making it to our actual first location. We found the energy to walk into town and find a hotel. We found an ATM after some searching and a minor freak out when the first wouldn't accept my card, but the second ATM down the street worked just fine and we now had money! A nice place to stay with wifi and English tv, yes!

Day three began with the knowledge that things could not really get worse. With this in mind we walked down to the bus station and purchased our tickets. On the bus we met a few of our travel partners from the previous days and sat comfortably in a full sized bus not even half full. This was too good to be true?

About half way through the very comfortable ride we stopped to pick up a few more passengers. They were from a local village and looked the part. Men, women, and children boarded the bus will baskets full of who knows what. The children were covered in ripped and dirty clothing and many were elderly women. This was fine, they smiled and found their seats. But why do they all have odd white paper bandages on their face, necks, and arms?

15 minutes in and we knew... A remedy for motion sickness! They must have never been on a bus before! One by one, they all began to vomit... loudly. The guide knew this detail ahead of time and had given them all plastic bags, now we knew what those were for! All around us you could hear and smell the aroma. Behind us sitting next to a friend an elderly lady was having a rough time. She insisted on holding on to her bag even it it was nearly full of whatever she had eaten that morning. She tied it to the back of the seat ahead of her just in case more was to come. The bag swayed back and forth as Ngoc and I did our best not to look back and worry about our packs sitting just a few feet away from the swinging bag on the floor. Would it leak? Would it fall? We didn't want to get involved...

Ngoc had to though, even after wrapping his hoodie around his face as a filter (I had a scarf on already to protect from the dust) he couldn't stop thinking about the swaying bag of vomit...he stood up, grabbed all of the bags from where the guide had placed them and offered them to the lady. She tossed hers over our friend and out the window. Catastrophe averted, all thanks to the amazing Ngoc, the care taker of elderly native Lao women on futuristic transportation.

This all went on and on for about another hour until we hit a rest stop. There we all ran off the bus and got some fresh air. I personally kept my scarf over my face for safety sake, but ngoc felt relieved enough to walk into yet another strangers house to go kiss and cuddle their puppies. The day was looking up.

We boarded the bus again (while one woman still had her head out of the window vomiting on the street), but together exhaled a HUGE sigh of relieve when the entire village exited the bus about 15 minutes later. Now all we needed to deal with was the lingering offensive scent. Nothing the scarf couldn't handle.

We sat comfortably and listened to our music for the next hour or so until FINALLY arriving our actual first destination in Lao, Luang Prabang. A short and cheap ride on another tuktuk lead us to the center of this beautiful French colonial town on the Mekong.

Three days of travel offered us an experience that no 45 minute flight could ever. New friends, beautiful scenery, worry for the safety of our life's, and worry that some major illness was circling the country side leading to mass vomiting was just the beginning of what we gained. In the end we would have changed nothing. This was the way to do it and now we are ready for Lao. A new country for the second month of this wonderful journey. We can only hope for such great stories to tell when we attempt to go from Lao to Cambodia in a few weeks!

Below you will see the view when crossing the border with the clouds below us in the valleys, the sun set our first night in Luang Prabang, me on a Mekong riverboat, and these amazing and adorable boys playing as a pack along the rivers cliffs. They made their way into the water looking more like Antelope than young boys. Why didn't I grow up doing that?

Next up is Ngoc's story of us going against clear warnings of a fortune teller in Vietnam. What did we do?

More from Sapa!

Sapa was "sup-pah"

Our night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (then a car ride to Sapa) will be one to go into our book of "worst travel rides." We got to the train station early and got a really good dinner at a random spot we saw people crowd at. When we walked to our track and saw the train, Jamie got a little worried seeing the wooden benches. We were told that our seats were sleeping beds for the 9hr ride. Luckily they were when we got to our car.

Our cabin housed 6 beds and both Jamie and I got the top bunk. The unrecognizable stench was the least of our worry. The thin mattresses and beddings provided felt and smelled like they belonged to a hobo. A cockroach was also caught by a friend we met as we waited for the train to leave. As we were settling down to drift to sleep and away from reality, we realized the AC was on full blast and we were shivering. Jamie and I felt it out for we were on the 3rd bunk literally 5inches away from the AC duct. I wrapped my clothes around my exposed skin and threw the provided blanket over me.

The tossing and turning wasn't ideal for a night's rest. The train conductor doesn't believe in a slow, smooth stop. I could deal with the movement, but I kept awaken by the stuffiness and Heat, yes heat, in the cabin! It turned out, they have shut off the AC and the heat created in the cabin was unbearable with the cabin door closed! Also from what I remembered from science class, heat rises! Eventually, we opened the cabin door for some airflow, and the airflow that we got were from the bathroom. Ahhh!!!! The both of us probably got 4hrs sleep, top.

The 1hr ride to Sapa was better. The view was nice and we started seeing ethnic minorities. We met our tour guide and discussed pricing and we were off on our hike. "Lai" Let us store our bags at his small studio. Don't let the word "studio" give you any false impression of its luxury. "lai" is a Vietnamese Hmong and so communication was fairly easy. He was very nice and knowledgable about Sapa and the different villages he took us around. The sights around the mountains and different villages were amazing that we regret our photography skills cannot capture. There were plenty of dogs and farm animals to pet and hold. I got my hands on so many mangy puppies that I cannot count. I took pictures with most of them, so later I could start a collection of me holding puppies. Jamie stated his mantra of holding a piglet, and he got to. The mother pig started being aggressive and squealed as her pig was being touched, and our brave tour guide had to fend her back with his water bottle. I did not witness this because I was distracted by the many puppies. 

The trek probably took us 7-8hrs. We had a wonderful moment where we sat on a waterfall overlooking downward to the rice patties below. There's a video of it on Jamie's Facebook, as well as his piglet photo. We're now making our long trek toward Laos and typing has proven difficult on this very bumpy road. The scene outside our window is amazing as well, but seeing that there no guardrails frightens us a little. We just don't look down. We miss everyone and whenever you comment or write to us, it helps a lot. Oh and please don't judge us so harshly on our informal writing as we write these entries in transit and when tired

Sent from my iPad

The new 7th wonder of the world!

Halong Bay, what an amazing place!

We decided to let the experts organize this trip, and booked a 2 day and 1 night excursion. For what we experienced the $57 was nothing! Even if this is more than 3x the cost we have become accustomed to thus far.

The first day began by making our way from Hanoi by bus for 3 hours to the bay. From there we boarded our ship with about 15 other folks and set off into the bay. Lunch was ready for us as soon as the boat began moving and consisted of simple but tasty vietnamese food, mostly seafood.

Kayaking, exploring a large cave, and watching the thousands of islands all around us was just the tip of the fun for the day. I even got to jump off the top of the boat into the water! Ngoc was to much of a baby to try, but he enjoyed watching me.

That night we had a great dinner and spent time sharing stories with the other guests on the boat. After a few beers we headed back to our room. We played cards and listened the the water and boats playing music around us. It was a peaceful night and we slept like babies!

The next morning we woke up the the beautiful surroundings and almost compete silence. The day was spent on the deck of the boat soaking in the sun and enjoying the views. We had a quick ride with a smaller boat that took us through caves and to more secluded areas not accessible by the larger boats.

Day 2 was not quite as fun filled as the first, but we had time to relax and soak it all in. Our guides took us back to shore and we had the squished and painful ride back to smoggy Hanoi. In the end we were glad we made the trip out, but glad to be back on the road, ready for our next destination!

Sorry for the lack of detail on this one, we just wanted to get the last details of Vietnam out before we hit Laos. Ngoc will be posting photos of our journey to and in Sapa today. Yet another beautiful trek to add to our memories.

Time to hit the road!

My freaking feet are always wet whenever I use the bathroom!

Wrapping our last week here in vietnam, Jamie and I are doing Ha Long bay and Sapa. With no pressure on time, we decided to do a 2-day 1-night cruise on Ha long bay which includes kayaking and cave exploration. This is our first organized tour and of course, we are surrounded with English speakers. The rest stops they bring us to are filled with handmade artworks and not only are the art beautiful, the prices are also beautiful. $2 for a bar of Snickers.

Life for us in Vietnam has been simple and near stress free. Here, Jamie is everyone's friend and as a "friend" they want him to buy cigarette lighters and ride on their motorbike. He's very popular with the locals and constantly get waves and "hello's" from kids. For me, the sun rays has found a familiar skin texture to exposure and by the 2nd week, im as dark as a local. Paired with a pair of sandals, tourists started taking pictures of me and touch my hair. The locals here constantly ask me either if I'm a Vietnamese tutor, or where I go to school for language, or if I'm a tour guide for Jamie. Now I have started saying "hello" to tourists and offer them tour plans.

On a serious note, it doesn't seem like Vietnamese people travel as much here as Americans travel in the States. Maybe they just don't have the money or that they take for granted what they have in their backyard. What I've appreciated most here is the how creative and simple the children are. It reminds me of when I was living here and how it was so exciting just to play outside. A good day is when chained dogs have been harassed and general havoc have been created throughout the neighborhood. If You want to go fishing, collect a few branches and ask the the lady down the street for a piece of mesh and you got a fishing net! Give us a can and we'd be happy playing "slap the can" with our worn out slippers. The only tv that was available was at our neighbor down the street. With no invitation, my siblings and i would crowd in their house to watch Russian tv shows with Vietnamese subs. Oh, we were dirty dirty kids! I still see the same excitement and dirt on these kids and that's one thing I'm glad haven't changed about Vietnam.

The Pictures are of Hue and some details of the Imperial Palace. The last two are taken in Hanoi. A Water puppet show that Jamie had a hard time staying awake for and a cute alley with Vietnam next top model. Next stop, Sapa and then out of Vietnam to Laos. I am a lil hesitant about the language,'so hopefully some sign language will be useful. What I miss most about America: a bathtub and shower unit where the whole bathroom floor isn't wet after someone showers.

From Ha Noi on foot

Fast forward 4 days...We've found our way back to a somewhat normal lifestyle from the ups and downs of the road. This is much thanks to Ngoc's connections here, which have brought us a beautiful free apartment to live in for as long as we wish!

We arrived last Saturday night from Hue by plane. Quickly we made our way to a reasonably priced hotel. This got us through the night and the next before our new accommodations were available.

The apartment is a room in a wonderful 4 story house. There is a dual covered roof deck where one side is used as a laundry room and the other for plants and a leisure area with couches and such. In the house lives 1 Australian guy, 1 British woman, 1 French woman, a fellow New Yorker, and Ngoc's friend of a friend who is Vietnamese.

The house is gigantic with each person paying only $200 a month for a room. Keep in mind the rooms are about the size of our entire apartment in NYC. Another plus is that it is located out of the center of the city off of many small side streets. We wake up to the birds chirping and I'm not talking about the usual rooster crowing that we have grown used to! Its only after the peace and quiet we see the down side to the location...

Hanoi is a bustling urban city with over 6.5 million people. It is a bit more developed than Saigon, but there are similarities all around. Dirt, smog, trash, and standing water are just a normal part of life here, but infrastructure seems a bit more together. Motor bikes clog the tight streets and there never seems to be a direct path to any single location.

We've taken these challenges in stride however. For example, our home location. A silent boycott on the potential for multiple $5 cab rides has been agreed to by both Ngoc and I. Instead, we take the 25 cent public bus. We feel no shame in the fact that 99% of the people on these buses are under 16 years old and going to school or elderly. For this price why aren't others choosing this option? A few reasons really, but we don't mind waiting for 20 minutes to save $4.50 each way, or mind enduring a mad crowd physically fighting their way on and off the bus, or having to chase after countless busses that don't seem to think they are a a bus stop. We experience this every day in New York! No... We are getting the deal of the century! Another plus is that in nearly a week we have not witnessed even one other white person on the busses. This makes it even more fun for me when receiving smiles and laughs from the patrons when I asked for our 2 tickets in Vietnamese... Hai ve...

The city is a challenging one to walk, but we've shown it that with training in NYC, it can't beat us. From Ho Chi Minh's tomb to the numerous lakes in and around the city center, we have walked all of it. No cabs, no huggie bikes , no xi chlo...just our tired and sore feet!

This is how we've spent our days n Hanoi so far. Roaming around, finding a nice place for food, roaming further, eating more, shopping, looking for dogs, checking out boys. Much like New York really, and we even went to a mall and saw a Vietnamese gay film. Is been nice, but we are getting too comfortable. We must move on!

Tomorrow we have one more day to catch our breath before hitting the road. Friday morning we leave bright and early for Halong Bay where we will kayak in the bay, explore the limestone caves, and sleep on a boat (in a bed and private room of course). After our previous flop attempting to organize our own boat adventure, we went to a tour group to put it all together for us.

We arrive back to Hanoi Saturday night and will have one last night night in the apartment before heading west to Sapa in the Northern mountains. From there we will move west to LAOS! Wish us luck!

I'm sure there will be more posts before Laos so keep an eye out. Halong will offer us possibly the best photos yet, just wait!

Extra credit #3

Sunset in Nha Trang on our first night there. This is a glimpse of the mountain that has been undeveloped with resorts. We asked a taxi driver if there was a way for us to hike up there and he thought we were crazy and suggested that we visit the nearby water park.

Still in nha trang, we boycotted the organized tour groups offered everywhere we went. Instead we woke up early to go down to the pier to haggle. This was Jamie's idea to find a "some guy with a boat" to take us on a private tour. The smarty was right and we found a man with a boat. We were let down after we realized we couldn't dock into any of the 4 private islands without paying a fee. We were offered to jump into the ocean to wade around but we refused after seeing floating plastic bags and other unidentifable objects.

The last two are of Hoi An. It's a city known for its tailorshops, shoemaking, and handmade lanterns. After sunset, the laterns are lit along the canal. This would've been a great place to sit if it weren't for the solicitors.

No, I will not ride in your boat

Yes, we did give in and splurge for a resort in Nha Trang. It wasn't because we couldn't deal with not having shower curtain or even the sanitary condition of these other places. When we arrived in Nha TrAng, we realized how commercialized the place has gotten and got frustrated that we couldn't sit on a nice beach without paying. The beaches and islands have been taken over and privatized to cater to foreign travellers and that frustrated us.

It didn't take much convincing for me to agree to the resort. Jamie said it'd be my birthday gift and when else are we going to be able to afford something this nice? We had our own bungalow with a front porch, an outdoor shower/jacuzzi, two swimming pools, and a private beach to lay on! Yes, we do realize our hypocrisy as we basked in our luxury!

We were sad to leave our resort but were excited to head to Hoi An; which were said to be a "heritage site." It was an 11hr overnight ride where about half of the passengers on board were white. It was entertaining to be someone who could understand everything that were being said while watching the charade unfolding in front of me. The ride was pretty crazy and I feared that our bus would flip every time it turned. The only thing that got me through it was my need to sleep.

Hoi An was disappointing as well. It was filled with a lot of tourist and everything that was sold were cliche touristy things. All the vendor spoke some sort of English and we were constantly harassed to buy some lanterns or ride in someone's boat. We felt like we were walking through new york chinatown, and that wasnt the experience we wanted.

We are now en-route to Hue and the rain set in. Just one day in Hue and we will fly to Hanoi where we has one connection. Hopefully the next few places we go will be more interesting. During these past four days, Jamie has picked up the Vietnamese card game of "tieng ten" most commonly played during "nhau" sessions. Pictures of nha trang n hoi an in next post

Birthday nhau-ing part one

Let me start by apologizing for taking such a long time to post. I was so taken aback by Ngoc's recent post that I was quiet sure I would not be able to capture our times as he did. Luckily for all, he has harassed me enough to write a post while we travel by bus from Hoi An to Hue whether I want took not.

The photos above are from Ngoc's birthday night in Dalat last weekend. Somehow we didn't post these with the previous posts from Dalat! The night was spent with family in their living room. Ngoc and I were both quiet excited to be having a REAL nhau in Vietnam.

During the day we were sent off by the two eldest women of the house hold so they cold gather food and prepare dinner for everyone. We took the kids to see some waterfalls in the mountains. When we arrived back there was only a few simple tasks that I let ngoc assist with. I was more concerned about making sure the beer was cooled in time and that I would not have to drink my beer with ice again!

The night went perfectly. The floor was cleared and cleaned, news paper put down to sit on,many plates and utensils brought out. Course by course we ate, and drank, and ate, and ate, and drank, and laughed, and ate....you get the idea

The dishes were simple and traditional snacks for this kind of event, but the seafood was purchased special for ngoc. Dalat is in the middle of the mountains far from the sea, so you can imagine this was truly a special treat.

We had spring rolls that we rolled by hand with beef, green papaya salad, and other veggies. Fried egg rolls, steamed crabs, and giant prawns. The men washed this down with about 6 beers each, mmmMmmMMM....

I was prepared for this kind of night after the many times with Ngoc's family in Oakland. I've seen this Vietnamese pastime in its extremes and it's not always pretty, but with the right crowd, a loving family, and great food it makes for evenings that are not soon forgotten.

Actually, all of these factors are not even necessary for a great nhau. Hell, just last night we only had great food and each other on plastic chairs on the sidewalk and it was a great time. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that bring us such happiness. Whether it is spending my high school years in jen's garage doing nothing but acting goofy and making up stories, the times in Philly with Or and Sum playing with the cats and listening to music, or taking a long walk through the city on any random Sunday night for no particular reason. These are the moments in my life I've learned to cherish.

Ngoc will sharing next with part two of his birthday extravaganza. We decided to go to the other extreme and stay at a fancy resort for one night after arriving in Nha Trang...so much for the money saved by traveling on a shoe string! Just wait for the photos!

Love to all