Hello all, one last post before we come home tomorrow!
Dinner Service in the Delta
A few dinners have been pretty ridiculous in the Mekong delta. When you walk into a restaurant and you're the only westerner they serve all month, they make it their mission to tend to your every dining need, as if we were royalty or something. Can't they see we've only done laundry 3 times this trip? Of course, they speak either no English or poor English, which may be worse. Several times, our dinner has turned into a them micro-managing our dinner table, making our dinner both hilarious at how over-the-top their food service is, and annoying because I can barely drink my beer.
Here's how it goes: we arrive, and the staff jumps into a flurry of action, finding a place for us to sit, getting us menus (which only sometimes have some english words), rearranging the table so there are the right number of plates, napkins (wet and frozen, to be more refreshing?), chop sticks, etc, which usually takes a team of 4 waiters. It' like they're being timed or something, like one of those race car teams that change the tires. wow. First we try to order two beers, usually Tiger. They say ok, then expect us to have our order ready. I usually take a little time to read a menu before ordering, but usually you can't get them to leave until you've made a full order. Some things are easy to mime (anybody want to play Cherades when we get home? we're well practiced) but 'give me a minute to think about the menu' doesn't seem to work for them. So we end up making a quick decision of what to eat, and soon we have two beers, which they put in a glass with ice. While other waiters are tending to other people, we usually have one dedicated to us, just kind of leering maybe 10 feet away, waiting to take care of us if we show the slightest need. If you're beer is more that 1/4 of the way down, the waiter will rush in and fill it up for you. Then, every 10 minutes or so, he/she will come in, pick out the big ice cube in your beer, and replace it with a new big ice cube. Where's the logic in that?? All the ice is the same temperatue! Food comes, and probably 65% of the time it's what you thought you ordered. If your plates aren't arranged in the correct fashion while you're eating, they'll come in and fix it for you. Sometimes, we think everything is cool, they'll just come by for a little rearranging session and 'fix' things, maybe for better Fung Shui or something. If you place your spoon on the table cloth, they'll probably come by and place it resting on your plate. At one point, we had a waiter come by, see the two plates of food in the middle of the table, which we were sharing, and simply switch their places, as if the other way was better. Really???? All of this kind of makes me want to scream. And, when you look around, nobody else gets this treatment- the locals get what I would call normal service.
Sorry for the rant, but it's been a recuring theme lately, on the border between funny and ridiculous.
Conclusions
So, here we are, in Saigon, leaving tomorrow for home. Not to get too philosophical, but of course this is the time when you think of the trip as a whole. Did we really just bike 1660 miles through Asia? Aside from all the culture, sights, and people met, I think the biggest conclusion to take away from this trip is that you don't really know what you can do until you push yourself to do things like this. I had this idea 2 years ago, but didn't really want to tell people for fear of committing myself to something I wasn't ready for. I had this crazy idea, tenatively planned to do it, then we found ourselves getting on a plane with our old mountain bikes after graduation, not knowing really what was in store for us. It seemed kind of surreal leaving on an adventure like this, not really knowing what you're getting into, but you're sure it's going to be interesting whatever the outcome. Some people when they heard our plan thought it sounded scary- land mines, jungles, crazy animals, traffic, people who were once in a war with America, and riding around on a bike that's worth a year's salary. But what we found, especially when 'off the beaten track', was quite the opposite. People are almost always nice. I didn't feel threatened once, even when walking around at night in the cities. Not once did I feel any anti-American attitudes. Usually they were surprised and exctited to just talk to us, and ask and share about life in other countries. Even when we shared absolutely no words with the locals, you can still share some laughs, and maybe a drink- the farther out there you get, the more interesting you are to each other. They are still people, curious about other people, just like us.
After all of this, I have to say that if you've got a crazy plan, don't be scared to put yourself out there and try it. If you rely on the friendly locals, you're flexible, you can figure things out on the fly, traveling off the beaten track is an interesting way to see places. Just smile a lot and people will like you.
What's next? We've talked a lot about what could be the next big adventure, so I'm sure you'll hear about it when it happens. Anybody have a good idea??
If you followed this blog all the way through, thanks for reading as we try to write down some of the things we experience. We especially enjoyed reading comments left on our blog, as notes from friends at home are always nice to hear when traveling.
What now?
Now, I plan on going home and eating a lot of blueberry pie.
Take care,
Evan
Saturday, August 8, 2009
"The Gay Clueless Bicycling Brothers" are coming home!
Even before we started this crazy escapade, we were tying to come up with a rad name for our adventure, or bike tour, or bike team, or whatever this thing is that we've been doing. Failing to come up with a good name on our own, Vietnam has seen fit to provide us with one, hence the title of this post. We got to thinking that whatever we call ourselves is ultimately unimportant, because everybody we meet is going to come up with thier own moniker (and it clearly won't involve our names, because I've met about three people on this whole trip who can say "Miles"--not that I can handle their names any better). So with a little imagination, we decided that they probably refer to us somthing along the lines of "The Gay Clueless Bicycling Brothers." Let me break it down...
Gay: So its usually a couple bucks cheaper to get a room witha double bed than two twins, so being brothers and (more importantly) cheapskates, this is what we always do. In Lao and Cambodia, nobody even seemed to take notice, but we've definetly raised eyebrows in Vietnam on multiple occasions. We usually have to be a little insistent on a double bed, and it usually winds up with them giving us a look that says "OK......whatever you want." Also, the spandex bike shorts probably dont help our cause.
Clueless: I could write pages on the silly shit we've done, not to mention all the ways we've probably offended people without even knowing. But in the Delta in Vietnam, for some reason we got the "you're an idiot" look on a fairly regular basis, usually followed by a smile and a laugh. The main contributors to this were our infantile use of chopsticks (we actually had them taken away from us at one restaraunt) and the fact that we speak NO vietnamese. For some reason, people in the Delta had a hard time grasping that one. People of all ages would continue speaking to us in Vietnamese for minutes and minutes, clearly not geting thier point across, but not seeming to comprehend that we couldnt speak any of thier language. It was interesting, and I dont know if they finally got the picture or just wrote us off as idiots.
Bicycling: This is pretty self explanitory, but Ill just add that we often had a really hard time getting the point across (even to folks who spoke english well) that we had bicycled all the way from Lao to wherever we were. I mean, we were obviously on bikes, but people didnt really seem to grasp the possibility of riding that far on a bike (although I couldnt ride most of the old rusty bikes they had there for more than a few miles, either). And when it finally sunk in, they were pretty amazed, but also kinda like: "what in the hell is wrong with you? why in the world would you do that? cant you see this country is full of perfectly good motorbikes that cost less than your bicycles?" (This was also a contributor to the "Clueless" catagory). It was always pretty entertaining to see it dawn on someone that we we actually talking about biking across SE asia, let alone 130 km to the next town.
Brothers: Generally speaking, people here didnt pick us out as brothers or as being related. A couple of times people told us "all falang (white folks) look alike to us" but I think that is simplifying things too much. When we met families here--people's brothers and sisters--I wouldnt have had a clue that they were related just by looking at them at first glance either. What I think is going on is that when you live in SE asia and dont see many white people (or live in the PNW and dont see tons of asian folks all the time), its just not as easy to pick up on the subtleties of body and facial shape that clue us in to folks being related. Which is not really important, except to say that it usually takes them a while to figgure out that we are in fact BROTHERS, which has led to a couple of pretty funny "Ah ha!" moments from folks who work in the hotels we've stayed at in Vietnam. You can really see the light go on in thier heads, when they realize that us sleeping in the same bed is not exactly what they thought it might be.
So there you have it, the trip named itself in the end, as it should. Maybe not as flatteringly as we had imagined, but it was out of our hands. The last few days in Saigon have been pretty sweet, lots of wandering around, a little shopping (they tell me I might need some nice clothes if Im gonna be a lawyer--everythings real cheap here), and a whole lot of eating.
Yesterday, we also checked out the "War Remnants Museum", a muesum deticated to the memory and lingering effects of our war with Vietnam. Unfortunately, most of the artifacts, picures, and stories displayed here came from the American side--I guess I was hoping for a closer look at the North Vietneamese war effort, but maybe they had more pressing things to do than take pictures and document exactly what was going on out in the field. Or maybe they didnt have a free press, or maybe the Vietnamese Communist party (which was clearly very much involved with the presentation and content of this museum) doesnt want those images and stories to a appear alongside thier re-telling of all the low points and attrocities of the American military machine.
The most forcefull part of the museum was an extensive exhibit and photo essay on the effects of dioxins (i.e. Agent Orange) on the environment and human body, especially regarding their ability to cause deformities and birth defects. I realize that war will always bring forth the very worst that humans are capable of and that it is impossible to fight a war without civilian casualties. Im not to judge weather we or the NVA were more vicious (I think that both sides being human, it was probably equal), but it seems we both fought as ruthlessly as we knew how. By luck, our side had the technology (coupled with some willfull ignorance of its lasting effects), and we used chemicals like Agent Orange, and the legacy is truely ghastly. The photographs of Vietnamese children of this current generation born so severely deformed is devastating, and then to walk through the streets of Saigon and see people with identical or similar deformities...I cant even really process it all. Where do we draw the line? Where do we say that no ideal, no amount of oil or other resource is worth this? We must never make war like this again for any reason.
But the point of this post was not to be my usual cynical, negative self regarding American foriegn policy. The point is that this is a wonderful part of the world, full of natural beauty and friendly, generous, and kind people. People who wanted to get to know us, who have pride in thier countries, and are happy that we came to visit and to understand thier lives and cultures. And the point is that this is all the more amazing becuase for a lot of the last half of the century, Lao, Cambodia, and Vietnam were amongst the most violent, horrible places in the world.
Riding through the tranquil and picturesque Cambodian rice fields one day, Evan and I passed an old man. We both judged his age at mid to upper 60's, he was shirtless and you could see every vein and muscle group in his upper body. He was so strong he looked as though he could have ripped the frame of my bike apart with his bare hands. Several hours afterwards, Evan and I realized that the sight of this old man had given us both the same thought: what must he have seen in his life? Being 60 years old in Cambodia would have given you a front seat to 5 or 6 seperate wars, and one of the most evil and horrific periods of humanity the world has ever seen. Its a miricale for someone to live that long in good health, but more of a miricale that he should have a smile and a wave for two wealthy white children vacationing in his homeland.
This experience is the crux of what I find so amazing and inspiring about this part of the world. Despite the devistation and the lasting legacy of these wars (land mines and un-exploded bombs still injure and kill thousands every year in SE asia, not to mention the lasting effects of dioxin poisoning) and the fact that a healthy portion of the responsiblity can be laid at the feet of the USA, people here are happy to meet Americans, they are excited to help themselves and thier countries move forward, even when the past seems reluctant to stay buried. In all my time here, I never felt pysically threatend (except in traffic), never felt scammed or taken advantage of (you always gotta shop around for bus tickets), and scarcely if ever felt resented or un-welcome (even when we lost a game of "is-this-a-house-or-a-restaraunt?"). With evey reason to resent me and my presence here, people in these wonderful countries welcomed me not only as a tourist but in many cases as a friend. The spirit of forgiveness, of making the best of the present and moving forward in friendship, of healing and rebuilding, of learning from past mistakes and being vigilant so as not to repeat them is inspiring. Im sure that people here look back at the past 50 years in anger and sadness (how could they not?), but the feeling in these countries now is forward looking and hopefull. I am greatly impressed by the strength, determination, and the faith in one's self and one's countrymen that this positive outlook must require on a daily basis and in light of the continuing hardships that people in these nations face.
Thanks for tuning in y'all. I'll see you real soon.
Peace, Miles
Gay: So its usually a couple bucks cheaper to get a room witha double bed than two twins, so being brothers and (more importantly) cheapskates, this is what we always do. In Lao and Cambodia, nobody even seemed to take notice, but we've definetly raised eyebrows in Vietnam on multiple occasions. We usually have to be a little insistent on a double bed, and it usually winds up with them giving us a look that says "OK......whatever you want." Also, the spandex bike shorts probably dont help our cause.
Clueless: I could write pages on the silly shit we've done, not to mention all the ways we've probably offended people without even knowing. But in the Delta in Vietnam, for some reason we got the "you're an idiot" look on a fairly regular basis, usually followed by a smile and a laugh. The main contributors to this were our infantile use of chopsticks (we actually had them taken away from us at one restaraunt) and the fact that we speak NO vietnamese. For some reason, people in the Delta had a hard time grasping that one. People of all ages would continue speaking to us in Vietnamese for minutes and minutes, clearly not geting thier point across, but not seeming to comprehend that we couldnt speak any of thier language. It was interesting, and I dont know if they finally got the picture or just wrote us off as idiots.
Bicycling: This is pretty self explanitory, but Ill just add that we often had a really hard time getting the point across (even to folks who spoke english well) that we had bicycled all the way from Lao to wherever we were. I mean, we were obviously on bikes, but people didnt really seem to grasp the possibility of riding that far on a bike (although I couldnt ride most of the old rusty bikes they had there for more than a few miles, either). And when it finally sunk in, they were pretty amazed, but also kinda like: "what in the hell is wrong with you? why in the world would you do that? cant you see this country is full of perfectly good motorbikes that cost less than your bicycles?" (This was also a contributor to the "Clueless" catagory). It was always pretty entertaining to see it dawn on someone that we we actually talking about biking across SE asia, let alone 130 km to the next town.
Brothers: Generally speaking, people here didnt pick us out as brothers or as being related. A couple of times people told us "all falang (white folks) look alike to us" but I think that is simplifying things too much. When we met families here--people's brothers and sisters--I wouldnt have had a clue that they were related just by looking at them at first glance either. What I think is going on is that when you live in SE asia and dont see many white people (or live in the PNW and dont see tons of asian folks all the time), its just not as easy to pick up on the subtleties of body and facial shape that clue us in to folks being related. Which is not really important, except to say that it usually takes them a while to figgure out that we are in fact BROTHERS, which has led to a couple of pretty funny "Ah ha!" moments from folks who work in the hotels we've stayed at in Vietnam. You can really see the light go on in thier heads, when they realize that us sleeping in the same bed is not exactly what they thought it might be.
So there you have it, the trip named itself in the end, as it should. Maybe not as flatteringly as we had imagined, but it was out of our hands. The last few days in Saigon have been pretty sweet, lots of wandering around, a little shopping (they tell me I might need some nice clothes if Im gonna be a lawyer--everythings real cheap here), and a whole lot of eating.
Yesterday, we also checked out the "War Remnants Museum", a muesum deticated to the memory and lingering effects of our war with Vietnam. Unfortunately, most of the artifacts, picures, and stories displayed here came from the American side--I guess I was hoping for a closer look at the North Vietneamese war effort, but maybe they had more pressing things to do than take pictures and document exactly what was going on out in the field. Or maybe they didnt have a free press, or maybe the Vietnamese Communist party (which was clearly very much involved with the presentation and content of this museum) doesnt want those images and stories to a appear alongside thier re-telling of all the low points and attrocities of the American military machine.
The most forcefull part of the museum was an extensive exhibit and photo essay on the effects of dioxins (i.e. Agent Orange) on the environment and human body, especially regarding their ability to cause deformities and birth defects. I realize that war will always bring forth the very worst that humans are capable of and that it is impossible to fight a war without civilian casualties. Im not to judge weather we or the NVA were more vicious (I think that both sides being human, it was probably equal), but it seems we both fought as ruthlessly as we knew how. By luck, our side had the technology (coupled with some willfull ignorance of its lasting effects), and we used chemicals like Agent Orange, and the legacy is truely ghastly. The photographs of Vietnamese children of this current generation born so severely deformed is devastating, and then to walk through the streets of Saigon and see people with identical or similar deformities...I cant even really process it all. Where do we draw the line? Where do we say that no ideal, no amount of oil or other resource is worth this? We must never make war like this again for any reason.
But the point of this post was not to be my usual cynical, negative self regarding American foriegn policy. The point is that this is a wonderful part of the world, full of natural beauty and friendly, generous, and kind people. People who wanted to get to know us, who have pride in thier countries, and are happy that we came to visit and to understand thier lives and cultures. And the point is that this is all the more amazing becuase for a lot of the last half of the century, Lao, Cambodia, and Vietnam were amongst the most violent, horrible places in the world.
Riding through the tranquil and picturesque Cambodian rice fields one day, Evan and I passed an old man. We both judged his age at mid to upper 60's, he was shirtless and you could see every vein and muscle group in his upper body. He was so strong he looked as though he could have ripped the frame of my bike apart with his bare hands. Several hours afterwards, Evan and I realized that the sight of this old man had given us both the same thought: what must he have seen in his life? Being 60 years old in Cambodia would have given you a front seat to 5 or 6 seperate wars, and one of the most evil and horrific periods of humanity the world has ever seen. Its a miricale for someone to live that long in good health, but more of a miricale that he should have a smile and a wave for two wealthy white children vacationing in his homeland.
This experience is the crux of what I find so amazing and inspiring about this part of the world. Despite the devistation and the lasting legacy of these wars (land mines and un-exploded bombs still injure and kill thousands every year in SE asia, not to mention the lasting effects of dioxin poisoning) and the fact that a healthy portion of the responsiblity can be laid at the feet of the USA, people here are happy to meet Americans, they are excited to help themselves and thier countries move forward, even when the past seems reluctant to stay buried. In all my time here, I never felt pysically threatend (except in traffic), never felt scammed or taken advantage of (you always gotta shop around for bus tickets), and scarcely if ever felt resented or un-welcome (even when we lost a game of "is-this-a-house-or-a-restaraunt?"). With evey reason to resent me and my presence here, people in these wonderful countries welcomed me not only as a tourist but in many cases as a friend. The spirit of forgiveness, of making the best of the present and moving forward in friendship, of healing and rebuilding, of learning from past mistakes and being vigilant so as not to repeat them is inspiring. Im sure that people here look back at the past 50 years in anger and sadness (how could they not?), but the feeling in these countries now is forward looking and hopefull. I am greatly impressed by the strength, determination, and the faith in one's self and one's countrymen that this positive outlook must require on a daily basis and in light of the continuing hardships that people in these nations face.
Thanks for tuning in y'all. I'll see you real soon.
Peace, Miles
Friday, August 7, 2009
Pictures of Delta & Saigon
We've been doing a little splurging lately. I think anybody who rides 1660 miles deserves to have a cake.
Enjoying some fine dining in Saigon, at an Indian place. It's kind of fun after eating predominantly street food for most of the trip.
Saigon traffic. Crossing streets is kind of like crossing a river- you can't just wait till it's clear, you have to wade out into it until you work your way across.
Saigon, por la noche.
With only a quick look, we thought this was honeycomb, which would get us jazzed up for the last ride into Saigon. Upon closer inspection, these are actually live honey bee larve, not so sweet. Life is like a box of chocolates, right?
Enjoying some fine dining in Saigon, at an Indian place. It's kind of fun after eating predominantly street food for most of the trip.
Saigon traffic. Crossing streets is kind of like crossing a river- you can't just wait till it's clear, you have to wade out into it until you work your way across.
Saigon, por la noche.
With only a quick look, we thought this was honeycomb, which would get us jazzed up for the last ride into Saigon. Upon closer inspection, these are actually live honey bee larve, not so sweet. Life is like a box of chocolates, right?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Its gotta be a sign!!!
Today, we ran out of lube for the bike chains. Shouldnt be a problem as we've only got 40 miles left to ride to Saigon tommorow, but Im taking it as a sign that this crazy journey is winding down. If we'de run out of Chammios Butter, we woulda had real problems.
Last night we made it to another bustling Mekong city; Ving Long. It was probably my favorite city in the delta so far, parlty because people seemed super friendly, but mostly because they have a CRAZY market. Ive probably already described the produce markets here--pretty much every variety of fruit, veggie, and herb you can imagine plus many more that I just have no idea what they are. The Ving Long market probably sprawled 5 or 6 city blocks, but its really hard to tell where these things begin and end--its more like a maze than an actual location. So besides the produce there were a couple huge warehouses full of hardware (anybody need a buncha tools/power tools...I bet they're dirt cheap), dry goods, bulk foods (mostly about a dozen different varieties of rice, but also many types of beans (which people must eat but you never see in a restaraunt or in streetfood), noodles, sauces--esp. fish sauce, dried seafood--many types of fish, squid, and shrimp), you name it. In addition to this, they had the normal meat market with pretty much all parts of the chicken, pig, and cow for sale (apparently, refrigeration is completely over-rated because all this is just sitting out on the counter in the 80- degree heat and 90% humidity--a lot of it still looks really tasty, though). As always, theres tons of fish for sale-most popular are catfish (big, small, a million differnt kinds), eels, and tilapia. All these freshwater fish are kept (mostly) alive in shallow tubs or on ice. From the ocean you can almost always find little makeral and bonito, along with squid and cuttlefish and shrimp. Shrimp (mostly big prawn type guys) are sometimes kept live, but all the other seafood is kept on ice. And theresa million other species, from freshwater minnows, to kingfish, to deep sea angler-type fish. Basically if it swims and you can catch it, its going in the pot.
But you can mostly find all this stuf at any Delta market; what really set Ving Long apart was what, for the lack of a better word, Ill call the "livestock market". Walking down a kinda dark alley off the main street, the first thing you hear is the squealing of pigs. They've got piglets by the basketfull and full grown hogs trussed up live and stuffed in wicker cages, just waiting to be thrown on the back of somebodys motor-scooter (no joke, see it all the time) and driven off to a new home or a BBQ. A little farther in, you see the poultry; chickens and ducks (with feet tied togeather to hobble them) sitting in rows on the ground. And then the clencher: the amphibs and reptiles. Actually, frogs and toads are nothing new; we've been seeing those in markets since Cambodia, but there were quite a lot of them here. Also, this was the first time weve seen turtles for sale; mostly just small-ish guys, look like the Red-Eared Sliders and pond turtles back home. But also some big ones that might be called Terrapins in the States--look like they spend most of their time in the water, long flippers and necks with long noses for breathing at the surface. Next to these are the snakes: Ive heard of folks in Vietnam eating snakes, but this was the firt time we've seen them for sale. I hear they use some parts for traditional medicine, or just cut out the heart and drop it in a shot of whiskey for a traditional treat! Several tanks, probably 3 ft long on each side and a foot deep were FULL of live snakes. All differnt kinds and sizes. Kinda wierded me out a little, I dont exactly know why. Cant imagine what you'ld need that many snakes for. It would be quite a scene if someone left the lid off one day--I remember very clearly from when I was a little kid that snakes can get out of damn near anything. All in all, quite an interesting and fun place. Maybe not the spot for a serious animal-rights activist (or maybe its where theyd be most useful...?).
Anyway, by 6am this morning we were stepping on another boat, only slightly more reliable-looking than the last one. We cruised though a whole mess of islands out in the Mekong and stopped to see some traditional (if now tourist-oriented) activities: bonzai garden (pretty cool), coconut candy making opperation (take coconut meat and palm sugar (kinda like our brown sugar) and heat them in a big bowl over a charcoal fire, mixing until it all carmelizes togeather--tasty!), and rice popping (take undried, unhusked rice and pop it like pop-corn in a huge skillet, then sift out the chaff and husks. tastes like puffed rice. good for cereal and rice crispy treats, which they make here with peanuts and pineapple, plus palm sugar to hold it all togeather).
After that we cruised across another huge arm of the Mekong. There are about nine main channels spread across the lower delta, each one about the width of the lower Columbia. We went through another floating market, cool but not as extensive as the first. Boat traffic is only a little less chaotic than driving on the road, but we eventually disimbarked (with our bikes) in the city of Cai Be--cutting about 10 miles off today's ride. We roade a fast 20 miles to the bustling city of My Tho and checked into a hotel overlooking the river--which is kinda a joke because the river is EVERYWHERE here. Think of Venice, but the whole of southern Vietnam. IM sure there are many more miles of river and cannal than road (and they prolly get just as much traffic). But it will be our last night on the river, an amazing, diverse, and powerful river we've followed since the very beggining of our journey. This river is so important to this region in so many ways, its quite amazing. Im looking forward to one more night of enjoying the river the way we've spent so many good nights on this trip; cold beer in hand, just watching the river slip on past.
If you sat through all that, congrads. Ill blather on more later.
Peace, and see you soon.
Miles
Last night we made it to another bustling Mekong city; Ving Long. It was probably my favorite city in the delta so far, parlty because people seemed super friendly, but mostly because they have a CRAZY market. Ive probably already described the produce markets here--pretty much every variety of fruit, veggie, and herb you can imagine plus many more that I just have no idea what they are. The Ving Long market probably sprawled 5 or 6 city blocks, but its really hard to tell where these things begin and end--its more like a maze than an actual location. So besides the produce there were a couple huge warehouses full of hardware (anybody need a buncha tools/power tools...I bet they're dirt cheap), dry goods, bulk foods (mostly about a dozen different varieties of rice, but also many types of beans (which people must eat but you never see in a restaraunt or in streetfood), noodles, sauces--esp. fish sauce, dried seafood--many types of fish, squid, and shrimp), you name it. In addition to this, they had the normal meat market with pretty much all parts of the chicken, pig, and cow for sale (apparently, refrigeration is completely over-rated because all this is just sitting out on the counter in the 80- degree heat and 90% humidity--a lot of it still looks really tasty, though). As always, theres tons of fish for sale-most popular are catfish (big, small, a million differnt kinds), eels, and tilapia. All these freshwater fish are kept (mostly) alive in shallow tubs or on ice. From the ocean you can almost always find little makeral and bonito, along with squid and cuttlefish and shrimp. Shrimp (mostly big prawn type guys) are sometimes kept live, but all the other seafood is kept on ice. And theresa million other species, from freshwater minnows, to kingfish, to deep sea angler-type fish. Basically if it swims and you can catch it, its going in the pot.
But you can mostly find all this stuf at any Delta market; what really set Ving Long apart was what, for the lack of a better word, Ill call the "livestock market". Walking down a kinda dark alley off the main street, the first thing you hear is the squealing of pigs. They've got piglets by the basketfull and full grown hogs trussed up live and stuffed in wicker cages, just waiting to be thrown on the back of somebodys motor-scooter (no joke, see it all the time) and driven off to a new home or a BBQ. A little farther in, you see the poultry; chickens and ducks (with feet tied togeather to hobble them) sitting in rows on the ground. And then the clencher: the amphibs and reptiles. Actually, frogs and toads are nothing new; we've been seeing those in markets since Cambodia, but there were quite a lot of them here. Also, this was the first time weve seen turtles for sale; mostly just small-ish guys, look like the Red-Eared Sliders and pond turtles back home. But also some big ones that might be called Terrapins in the States--look like they spend most of their time in the water, long flippers and necks with long noses for breathing at the surface. Next to these are the snakes: Ive heard of folks in Vietnam eating snakes, but this was the firt time we've seen them for sale. I hear they use some parts for traditional medicine, or just cut out the heart and drop it in a shot of whiskey for a traditional treat! Several tanks, probably 3 ft long on each side and a foot deep were FULL of live snakes. All differnt kinds and sizes. Kinda wierded me out a little, I dont exactly know why. Cant imagine what you'ld need that many snakes for. It would be quite a scene if someone left the lid off one day--I remember very clearly from when I was a little kid that snakes can get out of damn near anything. All in all, quite an interesting and fun place. Maybe not the spot for a serious animal-rights activist (or maybe its where theyd be most useful...?).
Anyway, by 6am this morning we were stepping on another boat, only slightly more reliable-looking than the last one. We cruised though a whole mess of islands out in the Mekong and stopped to see some traditional (if now tourist-oriented) activities: bonzai garden (pretty cool), coconut candy making opperation (take coconut meat and palm sugar (kinda like our brown sugar) and heat them in a big bowl over a charcoal fire, mixing until it all carmelizes togeather--tasty!), and rice popping (take undried, unhusked rice and pop it like pop-corn in a huge skillet, then sift out the chaff and husks. tastes like puffed rice. good for cereal and rice crispy treats, which they make here with peanuts and pineapple, plus palm sugar to hold it all togeather).
After that we cruised across another huge arm of the Mekong. There are about nine main channels spread across the lower delta, each one about the width of the lower Columbia. We went through another floating market, cool but not as extensive as the first. Boat traffic is only a little less chaotic than driving on the road, but we eventually disimbarked (with our bikes) in the city of Cai Be--cutting about 10 miles off today's ride. We roade a fast 20 miles to the bustling city of My Tho and checked into a hotel overlooking the river--which is kinda a joke because the river is EVERYWHERE here. Think of Venice, but the whole of southern Vietnam. IM sure there are many more miles of river and cannal than road (and they prolly get just as much traffic). But it will be our last night on the river, an amazing, diverse, and powerful river we've followed since the very beggining of our journey. This river is so important to this region in so many ways, its quite amazing. Im looking forward to one more night of enjoying the river the way we've spent so many good nights on this trip; cold beer in hand, just watching the river slip on past.
If you sat through all that, congrads. Ill blather on more later.
Peace, and see you soon.
Miles
Pictures of the Delta
Crossing to border into Vietnam, they made quite a big entrance station. Wierd, as the road coming from Cambodia was muddy and very out of the way, so I can't imagine it got that much traffic.
Miles with the floating market in the background.
Snakes at the market! Loads of them!
This has been breakfast or lunch a lot of the time- grilled or fried pork chop or chicken, over a bed of rice, with chili and fish sauce. It's handy that you can order it by pointing to it, and about 75 cents later you have a delicious meal. How can you turn down a fried pork chop for breakfast?!
Floating markets and the Mekong Delta
Hello again from the Mekong delta!
Yesterday we saw the Cai Rang floating market, the largest one in the delta. I think we were a little late to see the best of market, as we didn't get out very early due to a rain storm. Not knowing where we were going, like usual, we eventually rode around until we found somebody to take us out in a little wooden boat to the market. The boat looked like it should have sunk long ago, but it stayed afloat for at least one more trip. The market was an interesting place: each vendor or family had a boat heaping with their product to sell, mostly things like pineapple, dragon fruit, or cabbage. The market was basically a location in the river where boats were putting around, buyers on their boats tying up to a vendor's boat to make a purchase. The boats are almost all big motor boats (not the quiet rowboat or canoe kind of place I was picturing) that are usually loaded down with waaaay too much stuff to the point where they look like they're about to sink. River water here is of course just filthy, but that doesn't stop the locals from taking a dip every once in a while. Life really happens on the water here- there are several main branches of the Mekong, where ferries connect the major roads and boats provide transporation for people and goods. Apart from the mekong, canals go absolutely everywhere. It seems like next to every major road is a canal, and they cut straight through all the cities.
The cities- they're crazy. Traffic is just nuts. Motorcycles dominate the traffic scene, so lanes basically don't matter, and people are careless when making turns. One thing that's really annoying is the "4-lane" highway- you have the main traffic with people driving on the right like normal, but then people think it's ok to ride in the opposite direction if you're to the far right, which is also the bicycle lane. So it's kind of like riding up a one way street sometimes with people coming at you. You have to be alert in your riding all the time, but I think we're starting to get used to it.
Cities here are loud and busy, but everyone seems to take some time out of their day for coffee. They love it. There seems to be a big cafe scene in all of these places- people any time of the day just hanging out drinking iced coffee with their friends or family. The cafes are usually outdoors but covered, with seats for a ton of people, maybe twice the size of a normal restaurant. It's quite a scene, especially after work. The actual seats are always plastic deck style chairs- but they're the size of chairs used by probably 3rd graders in the US!
As for the biking, we've been doing a little at a time lately, but I think our total is up to 1581 miles now, and less than 100 to go till we make it to Saigon, which we're pretty stoked about.
take care all,
Evan
Yesterday we saw the Cai Rang floating market, the largest one in the delta. I think we were a little late to see the best of market, as we didn't get out very early due to a rain storm. Not knowing where we were going, like usual, we eventually rode around until we found somebody to take us out in a little wooden boat to the market. The boat looked like it should have sunk long ago, but it stayed afloat for at least one more trip. The market was an interesting place: each vendor or family had a boat heaping with their product to sell, mostly things like pineapple, dragon fruit, or cabbage. The market was basically a location in the river where boats were putting around, buyers on their boats tying up to a vendor's boat to make a purchase. The boats are almost all big motor boats (not the quiet rowboat or canoe kind of place I was picturing) that are usually loaded down with waaaay too much stuff to the point where they look like they're about to sink. River water here is of course just filthy, but that doesn't stop the locals from taking a dip every once in a while. Life really happens on the water here- there are several main branches of the Mekong, where ferries connect the major roads and boats provide transporation for people and goods. Apart from the mekong, canals go absolutely everywhere. It seems like next to every major road is a canal, and they cut straight through all the cities.
The cities- they're crazy. Traffic is just nuts. Motorcycles dominate the traffic scene, so lanes basically don't matter, and people are careless when making turns. One thing that's really annoying is the "4-lane" highway- you have the main traffic with people driving on the right like normal, but then people think it's ok to ride in the opposite direction if you're to the far right, which is also the bicycle lane. So it's kind of like riding up a one way street sometimes with people coming at you. You have to be alert in your riding all the time, but I think we're starting to get used to it.
Cities here are loud and busy, but everyone seems to take some time out of their day for coffee. They love it. There seems to be a big cafe scene in all of these places- people any time of the day just hanging out drinking iced coffee with their friends or family. The cafes are usually outdoors but covered, with seats for a ton of people, maybe twice the size of a normal restaurant. It's quite a scene, especially after work. The actual seats are always plastic deck style chairs- but they're the size of chairs used by probably 3rd graders in the US!
As for the biking, we've been doing a little at a time lately, but I think our total is up to 1581 miles now, and less than 100 to go till we make it to Saigon, which we're pretty stoked about.
take care all,
Evan
Friday, July 31, 2009
GOOOODMOOORNING VIETNAAAAAAM!!!
This post concerns the time since we've been in Vietnam, so make sure to read miles' entry on the last days of Cambodia too, which should be posted below.
Yesterday we crossed the border from Cambodia into Vietnam, on an old road that left us caked in red mud. I think the border people thought twice about letting two such filthy people into their country, but after taking my temperature and multiple pictures of us at the border, they did indeed let us in. As soon as we crossed into Vietnam, roads were paved, and there were even street signs telling us where to go sometimes, something that Cambodia hasn't figured out yet.
Soon we arrived in Ha Tien, which is quite possibly the friendliest border town anywhere- nobody trying to hastle you or make you buy a way over-priced bus ticket to somewhere you don't want to go. Situated on both a river and the ocean, Ha Tien is a fishing town. There must be a law in this part of the world that you must paint your fishing boat turquoise, because that's about the only color of fishing boat you see. Wierd. At night, all the vendors set up stalls along the waterfront, selling trinkets, clothing, and food (most interesting sandwich: baugette with spicy bbq pork, pineapple, heaped with basil and some other veggies). So far, I would say that Vietnam seems busy- everyone is out doing their thing, selling their palm juice, selling their pate-baugette sandwitches, playing soccer on concrete parking lots, or relaxing on the riverfront with a beer (which can be done even for breakfast, evidently. But then again their beer, especially over ice like they do, is pretty much like drinking water). Yes, in a few words, I would describe Vietnam as both busy and fishy. Fishy, because everything you eat has fish sauce or shrimp in it, and -no joke- it smelled like fish about the entire 60 mile ride today. That may be because we paralelled one of the many canals in the region for most of the ride. Another interesting tidbit was lunch- evidently if you order Foe here that means trip soup with part of a pig's foot.
Yesterday we crossed the border from Cambodia into Vietnam, on an old road that left us caked in red mud. I think the border people thought twice about letting two such filthy people into their country, but after taking my temperature and multiple pictures of us at the border, they did indeed let us in. As soon as we crossed into Vietnam, roads were paved, and there were even street signs telling us where to go sometimes, something that Cambodia hasn't figured out yet.
Soon we arrived in Ha Tien, which is quite possibly the friendliest border town anywhere- nobody trying to hastle you or make you buy a way over-priced bus ticket to somewhere you don't want to go. Situated on both a river and the ocean, Ha Tien is a fishing town. There must be a law in this part of the world that you must paint your fishing boat turquoise, because that's about the only color of fishing boat you see. Wierd. At night, all the vendors set up stalls along the waterfront, selling trinkets, clothing, and food (most interesting sandwich: baugette with spicy bbq pork, pineapple, heaped with basil and some other veggies). So far, I would say that Vietnam seems busy- everyone is out doing their thing, selling their palm juice, selling their pate-baugette sandwitches, playing soccer on concrete parking lots, or relaxing on the riverfront with a beer (which can be done even for breakfast, evidently. But then again their beer, especially over ice like they do, is pretty much like drinking water). Yes, in a few words, I would describe Vietnam as both busy and fishy. Fishy, because everything you eat has fish sauce or shrimp in it, and -no joke- it smelled like fish about the entire 60 mile ride today. That may be because we paralelled one of the many canals in the region for most of the ride. Another interesting tidbit was lunch- evidently if you order Foe here that means trip soup with part of a pig's foot.
We're now in Rach Gia, a fairly large city that's loud and chaotic, so i can only imagine what Saigon will be like. Vietnamese people so far seem pretty friendly. We hear you get hastled a little more here than in the other countries, but we'll see. The nice part about riding bikes is that we don't have to deal with many logistics- just point in the right direction, pedal for 5 hours, and you're magically there! Only about 4 or 5 days riding left till the big city and the end of this bike ride. I hear a marching band outside, so that's probably a sign it's time to go check out whatever there is in this city.
All the best to everybody at home,
Evan
Back in the saddle again....
For those of you still with us, I'll try and pick up more or less where we left off, which was recoveing from the flu in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. After spending the morning of the 27th runing around trying to get a Vietnamese Visa (for some reason known only to Vietnamese bureacrats, they dont issue tourist visas at the border, only at the embasy), we decided not to see Ream National Park, because it was on our route for the next day and mostly because we didnt feel like riding 20 miles that afternoon. Instead we went back to the beach, which was really excellent--the kind of beach experience we'de miss out on a little in Thailand--white sand, blue sky, not too many tour-ons once you walked a little ways down the beach. We walked and layed around on the beach most of the afternoon, then finished it off with a couple beers at sunset, along with some BBQd squid and "lobster" (looks more like Mantis Shrimp to me, but it was still hella tasty)--it was pretty idyllic. They really know how to do seafood here and its all very fresh; I think Ive eaten several schools of squid so far on this trip.
I think both Ev and I finally found the "beach time" we were looking for, so much so that we contemplated staying longer, but feeling a little pressed for time and eager to get back on the bikes, we rolled on the next day...
Getting back on the bikes felt good, we were well-rested and felt strong. A little saddle-sore after a couple weeks off, but good all in all. We rolled about 15 miles to Ream National Park early on the morning of the 28th, and got a guide for a short hike up to a waterfall. Nothing too spectacular, but we climbed up on a fairly good hill and could see out over a lot of Cambodian coastline and islands. The big thing with this national park is the mangrove forest, and we both regretted not having the several hours neccesary to explore them by boat---but we still had about 65 miles to go that day and it was already noon. The rest of the ride was really nice; mostly flat and on a good paved road through lots of little fishing villages. The route took us SE right along the coast through lots of mangove forest and tide marshes. Very pretty with lotsa super friendly people. We got to our destination, the city of Kep, at sunset, just in time for a beer overlooking the ocean and the whole coastline we had ridden that day. Found a nice hotel near the beach, had an AMAZING piazza at this restaraunt run by a crazy old Hungarian dude and passed out.
We were both pretty gassed from the big ride the day before, so the next day we slept in late, then checked out the beach town of Kep. Kep seems to be where the Cambodians come on beach holiday, and this time of year (the rainy, off-season) it was pretty sleepy, which was just fine with us. We stuffed our faces with amazing cheap seafood (BBQd fish, fried noodles with shrimp, etc), explored the small (but developing) town and lounged on the mostly empty beach. Unfortunately, the wind blows all the time here this time of year; not enough to be unpleasent when you're chillin on the sand, but enough to get the ocean kicked up and a little turbid so that snorkling is not very good. Both of us were jonesing for some pretty corals and reef fish, but I think we'll have to come back at a different time of year for that one. We are definetly planning our return already.
Allright, Ill leave you in Evan's capable hands for the next installment.
See you soon!
Miles
I think both Ev and I finally found the "beach time" we were looking for, so much so that we contemplated staying longer, but feeling a little pressed for time and eager to get back on the bikes, we rolled on the next day...
Getting back on the bikes felt good, we were well-rested and felt strong. A little saddle-sore after a couple weeks off, but good all in all. We rolled about 15 miles to Ream National Park early on the morning of the 28th, and got a guide for a short hike up to a waterfall. Nothing too spectacular, but we climbed up on a fairly good hill and could see out over a lot of Cambodian coastline and islands. The big thing with this national park is the mangrove forest, and we both regretted not having the several hours neccesary to explore them by boat---but we still had about 65 miles to go that day and it was already noon. The rest of the ride was really nice; mostly flat and on a good paved road through lots of little fishing villages. The route took us SE right along the coast through lots of mangove forest and tide marshes. Very pretty with lotsa super friendly people. We got to our destination, the city of Kep, at sunset, just in time for a beer overlooking the ocean and the whole coastline we had ridden that day. Found a nice hotel near the beach, had an AMAZING piazza at this restaraunt run by a crazy old Hungarian dude and passed out.
We were both pretty gassed from the big ride the day before, so the next day we slept in late, then checked out the beach town of Kep. Kep seems to be where the Cambodians come on beach holiday, and this time of year (the rainy, off-season) it was pretty sleepy, which was just fine with us. We stuffed our faces with amazing cheap seafood (BBQd fish, fried noodles with shrimp, etc), explored the small (but developing) town and lounged on the mostly empty beach. Unfortunately, the wind blows all the time here this time of year; not enough to be unpleasent when you're chillin on the sand, but enough to get the ocean kicked up and a little turbid so that snorkling is not very good. Both of us were jonesing for some pretty corals and reef fish, but I think we'll have to come back at a different time of year for that one. We are definetly planning our return already.
Allright, Ill leave you in Evan's capable hands for the next installment.
See you soon!
Miles
Sunday, July 26, 2009
In Sickness and in Health....
For the amount of random and questionalble stuff we've been easting, we were bound to get sick at somepoint, and we finally did this past week. Evan's birthday-- arival on the Island of Koh Chang, Thailand, complete with Elephant riding, swiming in the ocean, sunshine, Tori Stannard, and some fru-fru drinks went wonderfully, but after that things were a little less awesome. I got ultra-sick for about 24 hours, followed by Evan, then I relapsed, then he relapsed. Basically we were a mess for about 4 days straight. And it rained damn near the whole time (monsoon season on the coast--go figgure). We left Koh Chang (which we both figgured would be a pretty nice place if it were sunny and we felt halfway decent), and made it back to mainland Thailand where a doctor told us we were basically fine, to drink more water and stop being such wusses. It was not much fun, but I consider us lucky that this was our first (and hopefully) only major health issue of the trip. Not counting the 15 species of parasites I prolly have crawling around in me. But we feel good now, so we'll just continue on our merry way as much as our bodies will handle. It will be interesting to see how we respond to a hard ride after more than a week off.
Anyway, we made it back into Cambodia yesterday, where they drive on the Right side of the road (Thai is Left), or anywhere they damn well please, but they will smile and wave and be genuinely happy to see you as they come at you at 40 miles an hour in the wrong lane. We've made it to Sihanoukville today (capital of the beach-bum backpacker scene in Cambodia) and plan to explore Ream National Park (mangroves, rainforests, monkeys, etc.) tomorow before heading east along the coast to Kampot on Tuesday. This will be the start of the last leg of our trip (where in the heck has the time gone?) in which we'll mosey north east across the Mekong Delta towards Saigon. Both of us were gald to have a little down time (albiet enforced by th flu-bug) but I can tell we're both ansy to get on the bikes, roll down the road less traveled, and leave the beach resorts behind.
Hope this finds you all well and happy, looking forward to seeing yall soon,
Miles
Anyway, we made it back into Cambodia yesterday, where they drive on the Right side of the road (Thai is Left), or anywhere they damn well please, but they will smile and wave and be genuinely happy to see you as they come at you at 40 miles an hour in the wrong lane. We've made it to Sihanoukville today (capital of the beach-bum backpacker scene in Cambodia) and plan to explore Ream National Park (mangroves, rainforests, monkeys, etc.) tomorow before heading east along the coast to Kampot on Tuesday. This will be the start of the last leg of our trip (where in the heck has the time gone?) in which we'll mosey north east across the Mekong Delta towards Saigon. Both of us were gald to have a little down time (albiet enforced by th flu-bug) but I can tell we're both ansy to get on the bikes, roll down the road less traveled, and leave the beach resorts behind.
Hope this finds you all well and happy, looking forward to seeing yall soon,
Miles
Monday, July 20, 2009
Islands in Thailand, plus lots of pictures
Finally made it to the beach! We're now in Ko Chang, Thailand. It's a nice change from the trip so far- just hang out on the beach, drink some tropical drinks, go swim, etc. We met up with Tori and her friend Alissa, who happen to be on vacation from their peace corps jobs for a couple weeks. What a coincidence! Always great to see old friends.
Yesterday was my birthday, so I think this goes down as one of the best ever. This is Tori and me drinking a "bucket" of pina colada on the beach, just after swimming in the ocean. 
Elephant riding yesterday as well! They are really cool animals- it was wonderful to see one up close and get a ride through the jungle from atop one of these guys. They like bananas maybe even more than I do!
Sharing a bucket of mojito! Loving the relaxation after all that riding! Phew!
Our meal at the cooking class- Amok (the national dish of Cambodia) which is a coconut milk type curry, steamed in a bananna leaf cup! They have so much fresh stuff available... we made the curry taste from fresh roots and herbs, ground up in a mortar and pestle, no curry powder involved! It was pretty dynomite. The ginger chicken in the middle was delicious too- a couple breasts of chicken and two heaping handfulls of ginger. No messing around with ginger here!
These were the spring rolls as apatizers, with the sweet/sour/hot/peanut sauce.
Mr. Miles the Chef!
At Angkor wat, in front of the main temple.
This was one of the temples at Sambor Prei Kuk, which has been taken over by a strangler fig, or something like it. Most of the temples were free from the jungle so you could actually walk in into them.
Miles is crossing a muddy bridge of sorts, which doubled as the local swimming hole. 
We met these monks along the way, who came out to talk to us for a while, and helped us locate ourselves on the map.
Cows pulling a cart! cool...
The local market in Stung Treng, shopping for breakfast.Thursday, July 16, 2009
Kampong Cham to Angkor Wat to Phnom Pehn
Sorry folks, feels like Im getting behind on these postings...I'll try to pick up where Ev left off. After our epick ride from Kratie to Kampong Cham, we woke up the next morning feeling pretty drained, but decided to grind out the 60 miles to Kampong Thom anyway. Seems like 60 miles in a day doesnt sound like much anymore, but like Ev said "you still gotta pedal every single mile". Not a super eventful ride, but we saw for the first time the enourmous rubber tree plantations that are very important to Cambodia's economy. we rode through miles and miles the trees (all differnt sizes--they stop produing after about 50 years, so the plantations are always cutting some and planting others to keep supy up) each one with a little cup attached to it to collect the sap. A nice change from rice fields--pretty, and they also provide shade on the road and block the wind (awesome).
Anyway, we made it to Kampong Thom (kinda a nothing crossroads town) and found a cheap guest house, a coupla beers and a whole lota food. I dont know if the food here is not as complex (rice, rice noddles, etc) as the food Im used too or if my metabolism is in hyper-drive from riding over 1100 miles in 4 weeks, but I cant stop eating. 4 or 5 meals a day, no joke. Fortunately, food here is cheap, plentiful and tasty! Still seem to be loosing some weight, though.
The next day, we rode about 20 miles out to temple in the forest called Sambor Prei Kuhk. Being fairly out of the way and the off-season for tourist, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Three temple complexes originating in the 7th century were dedicated to the Hindu pantheaon-Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. These temples remained active places of worship into the Angkorian period (10th - 12th centuries), although some of the art and focus shifted to Buddhism as Therevada Buddhism replaced Hinduism in Khmer culture (khmer=dominant ethnic group in cambodia). Unfortunately, much of the artwork associated with these temples was destroyed or looted during the Vietnam War(...-1975), the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979), the Cambodian war with Vietnam ('79-80), and the following Cambodian Civil war (1980-1989). Nevertheess, many of the brick and sandstone temples still stand, more beautiful for the jungle that engulfs them, and enough of the original stonework survives to give a glimps of what must have been an incredible work of arcitecture.
That afternoon, we hightailed it through a massive rainstorm back to town and threw our muddy bikes and muddier selves on a bus to Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. Felt like kinda a cop-out, but it saved us a whole day (90 miles), and time is starting to seem a little more real to us---I cant believe this crazy trip is more than halfway over!! Anyway, we hit Angkor Wat yester, and it did not dissapoint. I wont try to desccribe it all cause I could write a book and still not get the message across. Anyway, we spent all day on bikes and foot cruising around to different temples and didnt see half of what was there. It just goes on forever, each temple is huge--mostly carved sandstone blocks--and so ornately carved that it seems that you could look at one temple all day and keep finding new and amazing sculpture. An interesting collision of Hindu and Buddism, with many temples honoring both sets of gods, it was constructed by the Khmer Angkor civilization at the hight of thier power (10th-13th century) when they dominated most of mainland SE asia. Its an amazing place, and we finished teh day at sunset drinking a beer on top of a temple looking out over the jungle. Then it pissed rain on us for 10 miles back to town--it can REALLY rain here, but after a while you just get into it and its just like jumping in puddles like when we were little kids. Some things never change.
Today, we bused it to the capitol city, Phnom Pehn. Its a crazy alive city, without feeling dangerous (except the traffic). We hit up the National Museum this afternoon where they keep a lot of the statues and artifacts that were recovered from places like Angkor Wat and Sambor Prei Kuhk--sadly, those things have a way of dissapearing when left in thier original places. Tommorow, we've signed up for an all-day cooking class: we'll start with a trip to the market for ingredients, then we'll spend most of the day whiping up traditional Khmer food!!! Sweet! Get ready for some serious curry action when we get home!
On Deck: Next few day should find us heading south to the Cambodian and Thai coast. We may swing into Thailand for a couple of days of beach time and hopefully rendezvous with the long lost Ms. Victoria Stannard, who is currently on vacation from saving the world in Yap. Still ironing out the details, but it sounds like a go.
Alright, I love you all and hope this finds you well.
Miles
p.s. Steve, Im wicked jealous of you catching all those Tuna!!!!!
Anyway, we made it to Kampong Thom (kinda a nothing crossroads town) and found a cheap guest house, a coupla beers and a whole lota food. I dont know if the food here is not as complex (rice, rice noddles, etc) as the food Im used too or if my metabolism is in hyper-drive from riding over 1100 miles in 4 weeks, but I cant stop eating. 4 or 5 meals a day, no joke. Fortunately, food here is cheap, plentiful and tasty! Still seem to be loosing some weight, though.
The next day, we rode about 20 miles out to temple in the forest called Sambor Prei Kuhk. Being fairly out of the way and the off-season for tourist, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Three temple complexes originating in the 7th century were dedicated to the Hindu pantheaon-Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. These temples remained active places of worship into the Angkorian period (10th - 12th centuries), although some of the art and focus shifted to Buddhism as Therevada Buddhism replaced Hinduism in Khmer culture (khmer=dominant ethnic group in cambodia). Unfortunately, much of the artwork associated with these temples was destroyed or looted during the Vietnam War(...-1975), the Khmer Rouge era (1975-1979), the Cambodian war with Vietnam ('79-80), and the following Cambodian Civil war (1980-1989). Nevertheess, many of the brick and sandstone temples still stand, more beautiful for the jungle that engulfs them, and enough of the original stonework survives to give a glimps of what must have been an incredible work of arcitecture.
That afternoon, we hightailed it through a massive rainstorm back to town and threw our muddy bikes and muddier selves on a bus to Siem Reap, the home of Angkor Wat. Felt like kinda a cop-out, but it saved us a whole day (90 miles), and time is starting to seem a little more real to us---I cant believe this crazy trip is more than halfway over!! Anyway, we hit Angkor Wat yester, and it did not dissapoint. I wont try to desccribe it all cause I could write a book and still not get the message across. Anyway, we spent all day on bikes and foot cruising around to different temples and didnt see half of what was there. It just goes on forever, each temple is huge--mostly carved sandstone blocks--and so ornately carved that it seems that you could look at one temple all day and keep finding new and amazing sculpture. An interesting collision of Hindu and Buddism, with many temples honoring both sets of gods, it was constructed by the Khmer Angkor civilization at the hight of thier power (10th-13th century) when they dominated most of mainland SE asia. Its an amazing place, and we finished teh day at sunset drinking a beer on top of a temple looking out over the jungle. Then it pissed rain on us for 10 miles back to town--it can REALLY rain here, but after a while you just get into it and its just like jumping in puddles like when we were little kids. Some things never change.
Today, we bused it to the capitol city, Phnom Pehn. Its a crazy alive city, without feeling dangerous (except the traffic). We hit up the National Museum this afternoon where they keep a lot of the statues and artifacts that were recovered from places like Angkor Wat and Sambor Prei Kuhk--sadly, those things have a way of dissapearing when left in thier original places. Tommorow, we've signed up for an all-day cooking class: we'll start with a trip to the market for ingredients, then we'll spend most of the day whiping up traditional Khmer food!!! Sweet! Get ready for some serious curry action when we get home!
On Deck: Next few day should find us heading south to the Cambodian and Thai coast. We may swing into Thailand for a couple of days of beach time and hopefully rendezvous with the long lost Ms. Victoria Stannard, who is currently on vacation from saving the world in Yap. Still ironing out the details, but it sounds like a go.
Alright, I love you all and hope this finds you well.
Miles
p.s. Steve, Im wicked jealous of you catching all those Tuna!!!!!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Mekong maddness and beyond!
Hi all-
So much has happened in the last several days I can hardly recall it all, but we'll do our best. First we rode the (extremely) rural route from Kratie to Kampong Cham along the Mekong, then we saw a temple complex near Kampong Thom, and today was spend visiting Anchor Wat and the myriad of surrounding temples.
Total biking distance so far.... about 1100 miles.
Kratie to Kampong Cham
This was one of the coolest rides, and possibly even days traveling, that we have ever had. Leaving Kratie, we knew there was a long day ahead of us, as we heard the road south following the river was dirt and very rural. In reality, the road quality ranged from dirt to mud-pit. Many different things culminated on this ride to make it an unforgettable day- from scenery, to people and their culture, and a fun bike ride to boot.
About 2 hours into the ride, we hit the first of a series of Muslim villages. Ringing out over the jungle and little town a call to prayer could be heard (we're assuming that's what it was, never having actually heard one before), and many people congregating in several spots in town. We didn't see the praying, so maybe we weren't there at exactly the right time. These muslim villages were very interesting to ride through, as their culture is very different from the Buddhist villages found everywhere else. I'll break things up into several categories-
The Reactions
What planet did you come from? We get this sometimes from kids, classified by the unblinking stare as we go bye.
How you doin? Not surprisingly, we get a lot of attention from girls, especially teenagers.
The laugh. Sometimes people just laugh at us, kids and grown ups. I think we must look funny.
The knowing elder. Old men and women will greet us with a knowing "hello", and then a lot of times they laugh.
People and clothing
In general, you are supposed to cover most of your skin in these countries. People say wearing no shirt is a bad thing. (damn!) That may be true in the cities, but in the rural areas we've been in, that rule certainly does not apply. Even today, going through both Muslim and Buddhist villages, you see a lot of guys wearing only the typical red and white checkered scarf you see everywhere, but they wear it around their waist. It's kind of like guys wearing only boxers, and evidently that's acceptable even for grown guys to wear all day.
In some muslum villages, the guys would wear loose-fitting clothing, many times white but sometimes colorful, and the little shallow hats. Even the little kids were dressed in the colorful robes sometimes, so cute!
Women generally wear brilliant colored robes or dresses, with flowers or designs on them. Many wore some kind of headscarf, but we saw only two women wearing the entire black headscarf with nothing showing but the eyes. That must be hot!!!
Animals
This area has the tallest cows we've ever seen! They're huge... I proably look them straight in the eye. They're the white ones with a big hump behind the neck. They use them to haul around carts, plow their fields, and of course eating.
As big as the cows were, the horses were small! We've seen not a single horse so far on this trip, till this day when there were all these miniature horses everywhere pulling carts.
Dogs here are nice! Only one dog-bike chase scene yet. I think mostly they're too lazy.
Fun Locals and the crazy finish
A little before lunch, we stopped at a Buddhist wat to see where we were on the map, and a couple of monks came out to chat with us. They were eager to practice their english and of course were very curious as to what we were doing out in the boonies in cambodia.
Back on the road, we found a local guy also riding his bike, who spoke a little english, and soon we were following him to the market to eat some lunch- rice plus dried then fried beef. It's always fun to meet local people as they show you how it's really done. And, it can be kind of awkward trying to order food when you speak almost no Khamer.
A little later on, it was time for a water stop. No sooner had we stopped than about 15 men materialized and were soon trying on our helmets and sunglasses and trying to ride our bikes. The seats are usually about a foot too high for the locals, so watching them try to ride our bikes is always entertaining, both for them and us. After that, a pitcher of palm wine came out. Local custom is to take a shot (believe it or not, palm wine is no Cabernet...) of the alcohol, and then you chase it with a piece of pickled herring! What a shot! I think we need to introduce this into the states. It seems like a lot of times you find a bunch of men in the afternoon just sitting around bullshitting and drinking... i wonder how they get anything done.
Though the whole ride was pretty rural, there were houses along most of the road- the houses are along the road and all the fields are behind the houses. This means we pass a whole lot of families, and in every family there are about 5 cambodian children, cute as can be. In Lao, they all yelled "Subaidee"to us, but in Cambodia eveyone knows and shouts "Hello" to us. Every little kid is just thrilled to see you, and will wave excitedly and shout to you until you say hello back. We must look crazy to them- on bicycles, covered in dust and mud, bags on our bikes, way out in the middle of nowhere. The parents will show us to their children and make them wave to us.
As the day wore on, the weather started to turn. First came the wind, then the rain and a little lightning. Soaked to the bone, there's nothing to do but keep riding through it, with dark a few hours away. The road turned from dirt into mud, and the riding became slow and slippery. In the last 15 miles before Kampong Cham, our road dissappeared entirely, replaced by a maze of winding singletrack paths leading through pastures, bamboo groves, and little villages. Knowing that Kampong Cham was south of us and on the Mekong, we knew if we just headed south on all these paths, we'd eventually run into a highway that would take us to the town. Any time our spirits sunk low, some bunch of little kids would run out of a house and then people would be yelling for us, saying hello and cheering us on. It felt as if we were one the last leg of a race, and these were our fans, propelling us to the finish.
Somewhere between the intense rain and wind, being covered in mud, seeing the crazy animals, meeting monks, drinking palm wine, saying at least 500 'hellos', and whitnessing the interesting blend of both Muslim and Buddhist cultures, I realized that this day was one of the best ever. I guess you could say we were high on life.
So much has happened in the last several days I can hardly recall it all, but we'll do our best. First we rode the (extremely) rural route from Kratie to Kampong Cham along the Mekong, then we saw a temple complex near Kampong Thom, and today was spend visiting Anchor Wat and the myriad of surrounding temples.
Total biking distance so far.... about 1100 miles.
Kratie to Kampong Cham
This was one of the coolest rides, and possibly even days traveling, that we have ever had. Leaving Kratie, we knew there was a long day ahead of us, as we heard the road south following the river was dirt and very rural. In reality, the road quality ranged from dirt to mud-pit. Many different things culminated on this ride to make it an unforgettable day- from scenery, to people and their culture, and a fun bike ride to boot.
About 2 hours into the ride, we hit the first of a series of Muslim villages. Ringing out over the jungle and little town a call to prayer could be heard (we're assuming that's what it was, never having actually heard one before), and many people congregating in several spots in town. We didn't see the praying, so maybe we weren't there at exactly the right time. These muslim villages were very interesting to ride through, as their culture is very different from the Buddhist villages found everywhere else. I'll break things up into several categories-
The Reactions
What planet did you come from? We get this sometimes from kids, classified by the unblinking stare as we go bye.
How you doin? Not surprisingly, we get a lot of attention from girls, especially teenagers.
The laugh. Sometimes people just laugh at us, kids and grown ups. I think we must look funny.
The knowing elder. Old men and women will greet us with a knowing "hello", and then a lot of times they laugh.
People and clothing
In general, you are supposed to cover most of your skin in these countries. People say wearing no shirt is a bad thing. (damn!) That may be true in the cities, but in the rural areas we've been in, that rule certainly does not apply. Even today, going through both Muslim and Buddhist villages, you see a lot of guys wearing only the typical red and white checkered scarf you see everywhere, but they wear it around their waist. It's kind of like guys wearing only boxers, and evidently that's acceptable even for grown guys to wear all day.
In some muslum villages, the guys would wear loose-fitting clothing, many times white but sometimes colorful, and the little shallow hats. Even the little kids were dressed in the colorful robes sometimes, so cute!
Women generally wear brilliant colored robes or dresses, with flowers or designs on them. Many wore some kind of headscarf, but we saw only two women wearing the entire black headscarf with nothing showing but the eyes. That must be hot!!!
Animals
This area has the tallest cows we've ever seen! They're huge... I proably look them straight in the eye. They're the white ones with a big hump behind the neck. They use them to haul around carts, plow their fields, and of course eating.
As big as the cows were, the horses were small! We've seen not a single horse so far on this trip, till this day when there were all these miniature horses everywhere pulling carts.
Dogs here are nice! Only one dog-bike chase scene yet. I think mostly they're too lazy.
Fun Locals and the crazy finish
A little before lunch, we stopped at a Buddhist wat to see where we were on the map, and a couple of monks came out to chat with us. They were eager to practice their english and of course were very curious as to what we were doing out in the boonies in cambodia.
Back on the road, we found a local guy also riding his bike, who spoke a little english, and soon we were following him to the market to eat some lunch- rice plus dried then fried beef. It's always fun to meet local people as they show you how it's really done. And, it can be kind of awkward trying to order food when you speak almost no Khamer.
A little later on, it was time for a water stop. No sooner had we stopped than about 15 men materialized and were soon trying on our helmets and sunglasses and trying to ride our bikes. The seats are usually about a foot too high for the locals, so watching them try to ride our bikes is always entertaining, both for them and us. After that, a pitcher of palm wine came out. Local custom is to take a shot (believe it or not, palm wine is no Cabernet...) of the alcohol, and then you chase it with a piece of pickled herring! What a shot! I think we need to introduce this into the states. It seems like a lot of times you find a bunch of men in the afternoon just sitting around bullshitting and drinking... i wonder how they get anything done.
Though the whole ride was pretty rural, there were houses along most of the road- the houses are along the road and all the fields are behind the houses. This means we pass a whole lot of families, and in every family there are about 5 cambodian children, cute as can be. In Lao, they all yelled "Subaidee"to us, but in Cambodia eveyone knows and shouts "Hello" to us. Every little kid is just thrilled to see you, and will wave excitedly and shout to you until you say hello back. We must look crazy to them- on bicycles, covered in dust and mud, bags on our bikes, way out in the middle of nowhere. The parents will show us to their children and make them wave to us.
As the day wore on, the weather started to turn. First came the wind, then the rain and a little lightning. Soaked to the bone, there's nothing to do but keep riding through it, with dark a few hours away. The road turned from dirt into mud, and the riding became slow and slippery. In the last 15 miles before Kampong Cham, our road dissappeared entirely, replaced by a maze of winding singletrack paths leading through pastures, bamboo groves, and little villages. Knowing that Kampong Cham was south of us and on the Mekong, we knew if we just headed south on all these paths, we'd eventually run into a highway that would take us to the town. Any time our spirits sunk low, some bunch of little kids would run out of a house and then people would be yelling for us, saying hello and cheering us on. It felt as if we were one the last leg of a race, and these were our fans, propelling us to the finish.
Somewhere between the intense rain and wind, being covered in mud, seeing the crazy animals, meeting monks, drinking palm wine, saying at least 500 'hellos', and whitnessing the interesting blend of both Muslim and Buddhist cultures, I realized that this day was one of the best ever. I guess you could say we were high on life.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
More Pictures
Miles relaxing in Don Det (4000 islands)
Our friend Say (on the right holding up a baggie of Lao's finest whiskey, "Lao Lao")
And me gilnetting for catfish on the Mekong in Say's boat.
And me gilnetting for catfish on the Mekong in Say's boat.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Champasak, 4000 islands, and into Cambodia
Hello! The last 4 days have been pretty interesting and very nice. After the last post, we continued riding another 20 miles to Champasak, another Mekong river town. The last 25 km down a dirt road along the Mekong through rice fields at sunse was stunnig. Here we stayed over a day to see the Wat Phu Champasak, and old Hindu temple built near the river. The temple complex was built to impress someone approaching from the river- as you come from river side, the pillars, temples, and stone carvings become more and more impressive, culminating in the main temple which is situated part way up the mountain, so the king would have had a pretty sweet view. That day was the first of several days festival that marked the begining of the new year, and the sart of a period (kinda like Lent) where some Buddhist folks give up alcohol and killing animals for a period of 3 months. So everybody was out to have a good time, with a lot of folks coming to this important temple from all over Lao, Cambodia and Thailand.
The next day, we rode about 85 miles south to an area called 4000 Islands. We stayed at a particular island called Don Det--very pretty spot in the middle of the Mekong, and also very much a backpacker hangout. We arived in time to watch a spectactular sunset/lightning storm over the Mekong from the hammocks on our bungalow's porch. Nice. The next day we bycicled around the island, saw a really spectacular waterfall (the Whole Mekong drops over a big series of Falls/rapids), and then got some old dude and his son to take us fishing in the afternoon. We didnt exactly rope (I had one fish on the whole time), but we still had a sweet riverside BBQ--Catfish, rice, vegies, and Lao Lao--with our guide, who tuned out to be a pretty interesting and funny old dude. It was a good typical Lao meal--eaten sitting on the ground around a comunal bowl of food and bottle of whisky--and a good way to leave this wonderful country.
The next day we headed south again, towards the Cambodian border. We met up with a dude (Abrahim) from Turkey who was also biking south that day. We rode with him about 50 miles through the border and to Sung Treng, and it makes a big diference to have three folks pulling instead of two. First impressions of Cambodia: some dude at the border tried to tell us that we couldnt ride our bikes through the border and had to get a bus istead. We pretty much just laughed at him, but it was a reality check because I dont feel like anybody tried to scam us even once in our three weeks in Lao. But border crossings and border towns are just like that, though. Sung Treng was nothing special, and we decided to bus the (reportedly) hot flat and boring 90 miles to Kratie. Feels like kinda a cop-out, but its nice to have a good rest day, and Kratie is actually pretty cool--big crazy market, nice riverfront, etc. Seems more laid-back than Sung Treng, and if there's one thing I like, its being laid-back. Reportedly, you can see the endangered Irrawaday river dolphins here, so we might try to hire a boat for a couple hours this evening. And its always cool just to get out on the HUGE river.
Alright, Im off to forage for some lunch. Apparently, they have eally good curry here. Tommorow, were headed off on a long ride to Campong Cham--on a little road that runs right along the Mekong. Not sure about the quality of the road, but were going to see about 100 km of it. Should get us off the main line and into some smaller towns, which yall know is more to my taste than big cities.
Alright, thanks for tuning in. Miss yall, we'll post as soon as we can.
The next day, we rode about 85 miles south to an area called 4000 Islands. We stayed at a particular island called Don Det--very pretty spot in the middle of the Mekong, and also very much a backpacker hangout. We arived in time to watch a spectactular sunset/lightning storm over the Mekong from the hammocks on our bungalow's porch. Nice. The next day we bycicled around the island, saw a really spectacular waterfall (the Whole Mekong drops over a big series of Falls/rapids), and then got some old dude and his son to take us fishing in the afternoon. We didnt exactly rope (I had one fish on the whole time), but we still had a sweet riverside BBQ--Catfish, rice, vegies, and Lao Lao--with our guide, who tuned out to be a pretty interesting and funny old dude. It was a good typical Lao meal--eaten sitting on the ground around a comunal bowl of food and bottle of whisky--and a good way to leave this wonderful country.
The next day we headed south again, towards the Cambodian border. We met up with a dude (Abrahim) from Turkey who was also biking south that day. We rode with him about 50 miles through the border and to Sung Treng, and it makes a big diference to have three folks pulling instead of two. First impressions of Cambodia: some dude at the border tried to tell us that we couldnt ride our bikes through the border and had to get a bus istead. We pretty much just laughed at him, but it was a reality check because I dont feel like anybody tried to scam us even once in our three weeks in Lao. But border crossings and border towns are just like that, though. Sung Treng was nothing special, and we decided to bus the (reportedly) hot flat and boring 90 miles to Kratie. Feels like kinda a cop-out, but its nice to have a good rest day, and Kratie is actually pretty cool--big crazy market, nice riverfront, etc. Seems more laid-back than Sung Treng, and if there's one thing I like, its being laid-back. Reportedly, you can see the endangered Irrawaday river dolphins here, so we might try to hire a boat for a couple hours this evening. And its always cool just to get out on the HUGE river.
Alright, Im off to forage for some lunch. Apparently, they have eally good curry here. Tommorow, were headed off on a long ride to Campong Cham--on a little road that runs right along the Mekong. Not sure about the quality of the road, but were going to see about 100 km of it. Should get us off the main line and into some smaller towns, which yall know is more to my taste than big cities.
Alright, thanks for tuning in. Miss yall, we'll post as soon as we can.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Savannakhet to 4000 Islands... and lots of chicken
Phew! We've been hitting the road pretty hard lately, to have 700 miles behind us by the end of the day. Leaving Savannakhet, we headed to a little roadside town called Paxsong. Not a whole lot to see, but more typical Lao small town feel: Houses on stilts to keep from flooding, markets with every kind of meat and fruit (I did see whole squirrels at a meat stall), goats and water buffalo roaming the streets, and people zipping every which-way on motor bikes. Most towns have their own Wat, with Buddist statues, intricately decorated buildings covered in gold paint, and monks everywhere in their bright orange robes. Local restaurants here are an interesting thing- in america there is a definite distinction between restaurant and house. Here, there is a spectrum of places- every restaurant owned by a family also has a house attached to it, so it's hard to know how much of a restaurant and how much of a residence it is. We usually go by the rule- if it looks more than 50% restaurant, we'll go for it. The other problem in these little towns is we can't read a menu, since we can't read the Lao script. That, and we can't even say them right if they're written phonetically in English. So we end up getting Foe (pronounced like "Fuu", with a very throaty "ugh" sound, as I was corrected yesterday at lunch. Evidently it's hilarious if you say Foe and don't use a throaty sound) and fried rice. In Paxsong, tired of both of these dishes, we successfully mimed our waiter to make us some fried chicken (I do a good chicken impersonation.... ask me for it sometime) which hit the spot.
Yesterday's ride, from Paksong to Khon Xe Dong was a thilling ride. First stop was the market- let me recound our breakfast: Fried chicken, 4 doughnuts each, some unidentified tropical fruit, poundcake, and dumplings filled with eggs, sausage and possibly pate. As we hit the road, Miles proclaimed it was going to be a hot one.... and consequently it dumped buckets of water on us all day! 70 miles through a downpoar/lightning storm! First I was a little unthrilled, but once we accepted the fact that we would be completely soaked for the next 5 hours of riding, we had a great time. Arriving at Khon Xe Dong, we found out this place is (locally) famous for it's grilled chicken, which we devoured, sopping wet, in a roadside stand. After retreating to a guestouse for a few hours, we came back and each ate another whole chicken each. A girl name Noy worked at the chicken restaurant, and she turned out to speak english pretty well. She was pretty cool, about our age, and we ended up hanging out talking long after the restaurant finished serving. We're always happy when we meet Lao people our age who we can actually communicate with, so we can learn about Lao and their culture.
We're in Pakse now, on our way to Champasak, where we hear the Wat Phu Chapasak is a pretty cool old Wat from way back. The terrain lately has been still in the Mekong river valley. Rice fields are everywhere, and being the start of the rainy season the patties are all filling up with water and everyone is planting the rice.
bye 4 now!
Yesterday's ride, from Paksong to Khon Xe Dong was a thilling ride. First stop was the market- let me recound our breakfast: Fried chicken, 4 doughnuts each, some unidentified tropical fruit, poundcake, and dumplings filled with eggs, sausage and possibly pate. As we hit the road, Miles proclaimed it was going to be a hot one.... and consequently it dumped buckets of water on us all day! 70 miles through a downpoar/lightning storm! First I was a little unthrilled, but once we accepted the fact that we would be completely soaked for the next 5 hours of riding, we had a great time. Arriving at Khon Xe Dong, we found out this place is (locally) famous for it's grilled chicken, which we devoured, sopping wet, in a roadside stand. After retreating to a guestouse for a few hours, we came back and each ate another whole chicken each. A girl name Noy worked at the chicken restaurant, and she turned out to speak english pretty well. She was pretty cool, about our age, and we ended up hanging out talking long after the restaurant finished serving. We're always happy when we meet Lao people our age who we can actually communicate with, so we can learn about Lao and their culture.
We're in Pakse now, on our way to Champasak, where we hear the Wat Phu Chapasak is a pretty cool old Wat from way back. The terrain lately has been still in the Mekong river valley. Rice fields are everywhere, and being the start of the rainy season the patties are all filling up with water and everyone is planting the rice.
bye 4 now!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Trekking!!!!
Alright, so this is definetly out of order. This post concerns June 30 and July 1st. On the 30th, we set out for our trekking/homestay adventure in Nam Thuen National Park. We left our bikes at the Tuk-tuk (taxi) driver's house (sketchy? little bit, but everything feels so safe here) and set out with our guide/interpreter Say for a very bumpy taxi ride to the trail head. We took just the essentials, plus food: several pounds of rice, veggies, various meat products and several live catfish in a plastic bag full of water. We hiked a couple muddy kilometers to a small village were we met up with a local guide and headed off through the jungle. It has been raining pretty good here for a couple weeks, so it was pretty wet and all the rivers were up and muddy. We waded several swamps, crossed multiple jungle rivers in canoes of extreemly questionable integrity and forded a one river up to chest deep. SO AWSOME!! We stopped for lunch: Dried BBQed beef, some kind of garlic/pork sausage thing that was cured (not cooked) by aging it for several months in bannana leaves, BBQd pork skins and pork liver, steamed mustard greens, and sticky rice. All layed out on Bannana leaves on the jungle floor and eaten with your bare hands. So tasty. Dont forget the whole raw Thai chillies that you eat strait; it wouldnt be a Lao meal if your face wasnt on fire afterwards. Continuing through the jungle, we came to a cave entrance where a rive flowed full-fledged from the limestone cave mouth, and later to a large cave that we had to canoe through in a boat that leaked almost as fast as you could bail. On the other side of the cave, we went swimming and started collecting the large water-snails that were everywhere in the flooded fields we were walking through. After another 5km or so, we arived at the village we would spend the night at, with about 2 lbs of snails in a plastic bag. These we took over to one of Say's friends house and cooked them up--steamed and dipped in a mix of fresh chillies, cilantro and fish sause (about as spicy as the surface of the sun), they were really quite good..along with a couple of Beer Lao and sticky rice to put out the fire. Then we went back to our home-stay place where they cooked up the catfish we had been packing around all day. I dont know how they did it, but it involved a lot of garlic and lemon grass and it was the best catfish Ive ever had bar none. Several guys from the village, Say, Evan and I, all sat around cross-legged on the floor and ate with our hands out of a couple communal pots of catfish, steamed veggies, sticky rice. So legit. After that, we went over to another person's house (it turned out that he would be our local guide the next day) and sat on his porch and passed around a bottle of Lao Lao (Lao moonshine--about as smooth as warm Old Crow). People there were eating micelaneous water buffaloe entrails cooked in a sauce that incorporated the juice you get from squeezing the contents of the ruemen (basically water-buffalo dung). Even if we hadnt already eaten two huge and delicious dinners, Im not sure I would have partaken because it smelled--not surprisingly--like cow shit.
The next day we woke up around 7, had a huge bowl of (basically) top ramen for breakfast served with (you guessed it) sticky rice. We then set off through the jungle again, climbing steadily for about15 km. It was interesting to see the change from lowland floodplain forest (pretty open with lots of big hardwood trees) to the thick bamboo jungle at slightly higher elevation. Not much in the way of birds or critters--even though its a national park, I think the local villages hunt this area pretty hard and pretty much anything is fair game for the stew-pot. As we walked through a small village, we saw several guys with rifles and our guide explained that they were hunters. They were packing AKs and other automatic rifles, but I guess you make do with what you have.
In the afternoon, we went swimming in a huge spring. It a couple hundred yards across during the wet season, a spot wherea big river flows straight up to the surface out of a limestone tube. Very neat. After that, we jumped a ride on a rickety old tractor/rice cultivator and bumped and choked on diesle fumes for about 10 km till the road became too steep and deeply rutted. We hiked about 3km more, and made it to the main road where a tuk-tuk was waiting to take us back to Thakek. It was a great experience all around--we'de been hoping to get out into the jungle but not able to do it on our own what with things like landmines, and geting lost, etc. It was just Evan and I on the trek, and our guides were all about our age and very friendly and knowlegeable about the area. Super fun.
Take care, yall. We'll be in touch as much as possible.
The next day we woke up around 7, had a huge bowl of (basically) top ramen for breakfast served with (you guessed it) sticky rice. We then set off through the jungle again, climbing steadily for about15 km. It was interesting to see the change from lowland floodplain forest (pretty open with lots of big hardwood trees) to the thick bamboo jungle at slightly higher elevation. Not much in the way of birds or critters--even though its a national park, I think the local villages hunt this area pretty hard and pretty much anything is fair game for the stew-pot. As we walked through a small village, we saw several guys with rifles and our guide explained that they were hunters. They were packing AKs and other automatic rifles, but I guess you make do with what you have.
In the afternoon, we went swimming in a huge spring. It a couple hundred yards across during the wet season, a spot wherea big river flows straight up to the surface out of a limestone tube. Very neat. After that, we jumped a ride on a rickety old tractor/rice cultivator and bumped and choked on diesle fumes for about 10 km till the road became too steep and deeply rutted. We hiked about 3km more, and made it to the main road where a tuk-tuk was waiting to take us back to Thakek. It was a great experience all around--we'de been hoping to get out into the jungle but not able to do it on our own what with things like landmines, and geting lost, etc. It was just Evan and I on the trek, and our guides were all about our age and very friendly and knowlegeable about the area. Super fun.
Take care, yall. We'll be in touch as much as possible.
Hey Friends!!! Thanks for tuning in again! These post may be a little out of order, but this one concerns July 2nd and 3rd.
Yesterday was pretty much awsome. We ran into this young Lao dude named Say (pronounced "sigh") at the tourism office in Thakek. A really nice guy who spoke pretty good english and we really hit it off. As mentioned before, we went on a great trekking adventure with him and in the course of hiking like 40 km through the jungle with this guy it came up that he works in the tourism office part time and fishes comercially on the Mekong the rest of the time. Long story short, he invited him to come fishing with him yesterday and Evan and I being who we are naturally jumped at the chance.
We fished out of his motorized canoe for most of the morning, first pulling a small trawl net allong the bottom (caught a bunch of small catfish and ciprinids (minnows)) and then we set his gill-net....all 1.5 km of it. Basically, we motored all the way to the Thailand side of the river, and then Say simultaineously rowed and payed out the gill-net all the way back to the Lao side. We didnt anchor the net, just kinda drifted down the river, fishing probably 3/4 of the channel. We drifed down about half a mile, then pulled the net, but only got one catfish that was about 15 inches. There we many other boats doing the same thing, plus other people fishing in just about any way you could imagine (trot lines, traps, pots, wiers, hook and line, castnet, etc)--to say this river gets some fishing pressure would be putting it mildly. The diversity of catfish is amazing, we caught 7-10 differnt species in a couple of net sets. After that we sat on the bank with a bunch of Say's friends and family (some of who actually speak english pretty well) and BBQed all the fish (even down to the minnows) and ate them with chilli sause and sticky rice, and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Beer Lao and Lao Lao (Lao moonshine whiskey--not for wimps) on the bank of the Mekong. Pretty much a perfect day in my book.
Today we rode 85 miles from Thakek to Savannaket. That puts us around 520 miles total for the trip. Fortunately, we were well rested after a few days off our bikes and it was a good and mostly flat road. Still, it was a hot day and kind of a push. But we arrived in good shape and went out for an exellent meal of sweet and sour chicken, spicy green papaya salad, and fried frog in red curry topped off with a couple of beers and a bannana split (the bannanas here are excellent). Savannahket is the bigest city we've been in since Vientiane--it was the capital of southern Lao during French rule and you can tell theres still a lot of $$ in this town (relative to other places we've been) along with a lot of run-down French architecture. I think we'll head south again tomorrow towards the city of Pakxe--its about 150 milesaway so it may take us 2 or even 3 days to get there, but we have it on the authority of the folks in the tourism office in Savannaket that there are plenty of guest-houses between here and there. They better not be screwing me around either because I spent half an our helping them re-write an ecotourism grant proposal this afternoon. You get some odd requests when you are one of the few native english speakers in town...
Yesterday was pretty much awsome. We ran into this young Lao dude named Say (pronounced "sigh") at the tourism office in Thakek. A really nice guy who spoke pretty good english and we really hit it off. As mentioned before, we went on a great trekking adventure with him and in the course of hiking like 40 km through the jungle with this guy it came up that he works in the tourism office part time and fishes comercially on the Mekong the rest of the time. Long story short, he invited him to come fishing with him yesterday and Evan and I being who we are naturally jumped at the chance.
We fished out of his motorized canoe for most of the morning, first pulling a small trawl net allong the bottom (caught a bunch of small catfish and ciprinids (minnows)) and then we set his gill-net....all 1.5 km of it. Basically, we motored all the way to the Thailand side of the river, and then Say simultaineously rowed and payed out the gill-net all the way back to the Lao side. We didnt anchor the net, just kinda drifted down the river, fishing probably 3/4 of the channel. We drifed down about half a mile, then pulled the net, but only got one catfish that was about 15 inches. There we many other boats doing the same thing, plus other people fishing in just about any way you could imagine (trot lines, traps, pots, wiers, hook and line, castnet, etc)--to say this river gets some fishing pressure would be putting it mildly. The diversity of catfish is amazing, we caught 7-10 differnt species in a couple of net sets. After that we sat on the bank with a bunch of Say's friends and family (some of who actually speak english pretty well) and BBQed all the fish (even down to the minnows) and ate them with chilli sause and sticky rice, and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Beer Lao and Lao Lao (Lao moonshine whiskey--not for wimps) on the bank of the Mekong. Pretty much a perfect day in my book.
Today we rode 85 miles from Thakek to Savannaket. That puts us around 520 miles total for the trip. Fortunately, we were well rested after a few days off our bikes and it was a good and mostly flat road. Still, it was a hot day and kind of a push. But we arrived in good shape and went out for an exellent meal of sweet and sour chicken, spicy green papaya salad, and fried frog in red curry topped off with a couple of beers and a bannana split (the bannanas here are excellent). Savannahket is the bigest city we've been in since Vientiane--it was the capital of southern Lao during French rule and you can tell theres still a lot of $$ in this town (relative to other places we've been) along with a lot of run-down French architecture. I think we'll head south again tomorrow towards the city of Pakxe--its about 150 milesaway so it may take us 2 or even 3 days to get there, but we have it on the authority of the folks in the tourism office in Savannaket that there are plenty of guest-houses between here and there. They better not be screwing me around either because I spent half an our helping them re-write an ecotourism grant proposal this afternoon. You get some odd requests when you are one of the few native english speakers in town...
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Off the beaten track in Lao PDR...
For all those of you out there who havent given us up for dead at this point, thanks for tuning in. Internet connections are few and far between here in Lao, especially once you get out of the major cities, but we'll continue to do our best to keep yall posted.
Since we left the capital city of Vientiane we've put about 380 miles on our bikes, usually doing something between 30 and 60 miles a day. We're both feeling pretty good, aside from the normal aches and pains of spending several hours a day in the saddle. From Vientiane, we headed down the main road paralleling the Mekong R. (Route 13 South) for a couple of days, with one foray up into a national park in search of some waterfall action--it was very hot and a longer, gnarlyer road than we'd imagined but we did find a sweet swiming hole in a jungle river in the middle of pretty much nowhere.
We left the Mekong (along with the easy, flat road) at the town of Viang Kham and headed NE into the mountains. Riding all morning up the first real climbs of the trip was a little rough, but we rolled through one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen: the Nam Phong Valley is a postcard perfect river valley full of rice patties, waterbuffalo, traditional Lao houses all set up on stilts (when it rains here, everything floods) and the friendliest Lao children you can imagine framed by amazing Karst mountains overgrown by rainforst. We finished our ride at Ban Na Hin at aound 11 am, and by noon we'd met up with an Aussie dude and a couple of English chicks and we all set off to go see a place called Kong Lo cave. Kong Lo cave is basically a river that carved its way underneath a huge Karst mountain--and when you get there you hire some dudes in a long canoe-like boat with an outboard motor that looks like a weed-eater (only it has a prop instead of a string--the prop is on a long arm that sticks way out behind the boat) who run you all the way to the other cave intrance for about an hour and a half. Needless to say, this was pretty sweet and definetly a high point so far. The cave was HUGE, and we got to walk around and see cool cave formations, etc.
The next couple days we rode through more mountainous country, including one 60 mile day over very rough unpaved road. I cant do the scenery justice in words (pictures are not great either--its just too expansive) but the mointains are very rocky and wild and the jungle is very thick--much moreso than places ive been in S. America. These last few days up in the mountains, we've felt very much "out there"--I get the sense that few foreniers pass this way, and those who do generally do so in an air-con bus. Being on bikes, we have much more contact with folks in the small towns where other tourists dont stop, and we've got the flexability to stop just about anywhere. Its difficult not knowing any Lao, but the few english speakers we've met have been extreemly friendly--I feel like if I could speak Lao I'd pretty much be freinds with half the country by now.
Today, we droped back down to the Mekong at a town called Thakek. Its a nice place--real laid back (even for Lao where the national sport seems to be watching other people play Bocci ball--it a VERY relaxed country) with a nice waterfront. Our next move may be treking for a few days (might be a god break from the bikes), but we'll see what we can put togeather.
So far, we are having a great time, riding hard, relaxing quite abit, and enjoying some great food. Lao food is usually some variation of fried meat and veggies with rice, but they use lots of fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, mint, lemongrass, etc. The street food is also amazing--you can get any part of the pig or chicken on a stick, and it all tastes amazing marinaded in chilli sauce.
I'll wrap up my ramble now, sufice to say we are happy, healthy, enjoying life and hoping this finds you all doing the same.
Since we left the capital city of Vientiane we've put about 380 miles on our bikes, usually doing something between 30 and 60 miles a day. We're both feeling pretty good, aside from the normal aches and pains of spending several hours a day in the saddle. From Vientiane, we headed down the main road paralleling the Mekong R. (Route 13 South) for a couple of days, with one foray up into a national park in search of some waterfall action--it was very hot and a longer, gnarlyer road than we'd imagined but we did find a sweet swiming hole in a jungle river in the middle of pretty much nowhere.
We left the Mekong (along with the easy, flat road) at the town of Viang Kham and headed NE into the mountains. Riding all morning up the first real climbs of the trip was a little rough, but we rolled through one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen: the Nam Phong Valley is a postcard perfect river valley full of rice patties, waterbuffalo, traditional Lao houses all set up on stilts (when it rains here, everything floods) and the friendliest Lao children you can imagine framed by amazing Karst mountains overgrown by rainforst. We finished our ride at Ban Na Hin at aound 11 am, and by noon we'd met up with an Aussie dude and a couple of English chicks and we all set off to go see a place called Kong Lo cave. Kong Lo cave is basically a river that carved its way underneath a huge Karst mountain--and when you get there you hire some dudes in a long canoe-like boat with an outboard motor that looks like a weed-eater (only it has a prop instead of a string--the prop is on a long arm that sticks way out behind the boat) who run you all the way to the other cave intrance for about an hour and a half. Needless to say, this was pretty sweet and definetly a high point so far. The cave was HUGE, and we got to walk around and see cool cave formations, etc.
The next couple days we rode through more mountainous country, including one 60 mile day over very rough unpaved road. I cant do the scenery justice in words (pictures are not great either--its just too expansive) but the mointains are very rocky and wild and the jungle is very thick--much moreso than places ive been in S. America. These last few days up in the mountains, we've felt very much "out there"--I get the sense that few foreniers pass this way, and those who do generally do so in an air-con bus. Being on bikes, we have much more contact with folks in the small towns where other tourists dont stop, and we've got the flexability to stop just about anywhere. Its difficult not knowing any Lao, but the few english speakers we've met have been extreemly friendly--I feel like if I could speak Lao I'd pretty much be freinds with half the country by now.
Today, we droped back down to the Mekong at a town called Thakek. Its a nice place--real laid back (even for Lao where the national sport seems to be watching other people play Bocci ball--it a VERY relaxed country) with a nice waterfront. Our next move may be treking for a few days (might be a god break from the bikes), but we'll see what we can put togeather.
So far, we are having a great time, riding hard, relaxing quite abit, and enjoying some great food. Lao food is usually some variation of fried meat and veggies with rice, but they use lots of fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, mint, lemongrass, etc. The street food is also amazing--you can get any part of the pig or chicken on a stick, and it all tastes amazing marinaded in chilli sauce.
I'll wrap up my ramble now, sufice to say we are happy, healthy, enjoying life and hoping this finds you all doing the same.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Arrived, phew
Hello from Laos! (It's actually said without the S, by the way)
After a marathon day of airplane rides, Miles and I arrived in Lao last night. We decided our first night to splurge a little, and split a $25 hotel room, complete with a courtyard filled with tropical plants. After reaching our hotel, we of course went out for a Beer Lao, which was pretty tasty. I'm sure after 8 weeks of light beer it will probably be a little less tasty. The city at night felt fairly safe, and people are generally friendly.
Vientiane (pronounced "wain tchein") is the capitol city of around 300,000. Tourists have definitely found the city, by no means is it over-run with them. Due to the tourists, enough people speak enough english to get by fine most of the time. That's lucky, because we're finding the lao language to be pretty difficult, being a 'tonal' language where there are 6 main tones or voice inflections- they are important to get right or the word will mean something completely different.
Tomorrow we're going to start this bike ride we've been waiting for. We'll head from Vientiane to Paxse, which is either 88 km or 88 miles, we're not sure. I'm sure we'll find out tomorrow though.
Evan
After a marathon day of airplane rides, Miles and I arrived in Lao last night. We decided our first night to splurge a little, and split a $25 hotel room, complete with a courtyard filled with tropical plants. After reaching our hotel, we of course went out for a Beer Lao, which was pretty tasty. I'm sure after 8 weeks of light beer it will probably be a little less tasty. The city at night felt fairly safe, and people are generally friendly.
Vientiane (pronounced "wain tchein") is the capitol city of around 300,000. Tourists have definitely found the city, by no means is it over-run with them. Due to the tourists, enough people speak enough english to get by fine most of the time. That's lucky, because we're finding the lao language to be pretty difficult, being a 'tonal' language where there are 6 main tones or voice inflections- they are important to get right or the word will mean something completely different.
Tomorrow we're going to start this bike ride we've been waiting for. We'll head from Vientiane to Paxse, which is either 88 km or 88 miles, we're not sure. I'm sure we'll find out tomorrow though.
Evan
Saturday, June 6, 2009
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