Malaysia, Truly Asia

Maybe it was the people. Maybe the food, or the wildlife. Or maybe it was the damn CNN commercials that played incessantly while we were in Korea. Someway or another, I really liked Malaysia. In our 3 2.5 weeks there (thanks Air Asia) we saw orangutans, went on an amazing jungle trip, did 15 dives each at one of the worlds best dive sites, AND (although this really shouldn't be the highlight, it was really cool) spent a night on Pulau Tiga: Survivor Island. Since 90% of you will be sick of our stories in about 120 hours from now, I'll just put a few pictures up for now.

Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary

Orangutan! Although the homo sapiens here outnumbered other primates 5 to 1, it was really cool to get this close to them in the wild.

Uncle Tan's Wildlife Tours

Pretty good digs for being in the jungle. The meals weren't bad either, so long as we could collect enough ferns and catch enough fish and ...

...prawns. Otherwise, it was noodles.

Lots of wildlife to see: wild cats and pigs...

...snakes, scorpions, and spiders...

...crocodiles, skinks, and monitor lizards...

... luckily they gave us these large knives to protect ourselves. The Korean Immigration police were kind enough to let us know these weren't allowed into the Republic of Korea.

Back at base camp. Had a simply awesome experience at Uncle Tan's.

Scuba Diving Pulau Sipidan with Scuba Junkie
www.scuba-junkie.com
Diving, diving, diving. Diving was awesome. No diving pictures right now, maybe later. If you want to see what we saw, do a google search for "sipidan pictures". Note the abundance of sharks/turtles.

Spending a night on Pulau Tiga: Survivor Island

One of the deadliest snakes in the world. No antidote. I also saw a bigger one while doing a night dive. The dive master said: "If you get bit there is only one thing to do: take a deep breath and wave good-bye." Fortunately, they are the calmest snakes in the world.

Most surprisingly awesome thing I have done: swam in a mud volcano. Way better than it looked on TV.And she gets mad at the little bits of dirt I sometime track in on my shoes...

For when SPF50 just isn't enough... shot taken on Pagong beach.

Our last day in Bangkok. Ended up spending a LOT more time there than planned.

Anyway, back in Korea now. Feels really good to be back here, all the familiar food/buildings/accents/etc although at the same time strange because there is no familiar job/apartment/faces. Really going to miss this place. Not sure when we'll ever be back again, but who knows what will happen in the next few years.

Anyway, Tara is working on a post to sum up the jungle trip. We'll be home soon, see you then!

In the Jungle (A-weema-weh, A-weema-weh....)

Hey Everyone!

As I'm writing this we have less than 5 days until we're back on Canadian soil. It's unbelievable how fast the last 11 months have gone, and especially the last 4. This year has lived up to what we hoped it would be and more. However, in saying that, we're absolutely dying to get back to friends, family, familiar smells, our mom's cooking, and to stop living out of our backpacks (which are in need of a professional cleaning!).

So, I thought I would update you all on our jungle trip in Borneo. We spent 6 days wrestling giant lizards, fighting off scorpions, and at war with an invading tribe. Okay... not quite. The trip, however, was nothing short of an adventure, and definitely something we'll never forget.

Day 0:

After a 3 hour flight from Bangkok we caught a night bus to Sandakan. We had heard horror stories about bus rides in Malaysia being packed, freezing (they love their air), and ridiculously fast on very dangerous/curvy roads. The ride definitely lived up to it's reputation. We spent 5 hours being tossed from side-to-side as the bus wound around mountains. I got up to use the toilet at one point and ended up sitting in a local man's lap. I don't know if he was more surprised or I was! Needless to say, after about hour 4, Andrew and I were both pretty sick.

We got dropped off at the side of the road and told (most people in Malaysia speak perfect English) to walk towards a dimly-lit building in the distance. We grabbed our bags and walked towards the building about 100 meters before about a dozen dogs (or more) started barking and walking towards us. Scary! We were about to start walking (running!) away when we heard "hello?" Luckily someone at the hostel was sitting outside and waiting for us - with his large pack of dogs, apparently!

Day 1:

After a great sleep at the hostel and a really good breakfast, Andrew and I headed to The Sepiloc Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Borneo is one of the only places in the world with a healthy population of Orangutans. The problem is, however, that logging and plantations have ruined their natural habitat. There's also a problem with people (usually farmers) stealing baby Orangutans or trying to take care of them after their mothers have been killed. Obviously the animals can not be domesticated and end up having serious mental and physical problems. The Rehabilitation Centre basically rescues the babies and puts them in a "natural" environment while slowly training them to be able to survive in the wild alone. Anyway, it's actually a really neat program and you can really see that the animals are benefiting from it. Andrew and I spent the morning watching about 12 orangutans (and lots of monkeys as well) playing, eating, and socializing. I know everyone says this, but it's really amazing how human-like they are. Even their facial expressions are so familiar. I think they knew we were watching though because some of them were showing off a bit. One little guy did about 30 somersaults around a platform for no apparent reason. It was pretty cute. Anyway, the whole experience was definitely positive and eye-opening.

After lunch we took a 1 1/2 hour bus ride, and then a 1 hour boat ride to get to Base Camp. The camp was more-or-less a camping area for people wanting to get out and see nature. The camp had toilets, running-ish water from 2 big tanks that you could use to flush toilets or bathe, and about 5 or 6 cabins that housed about 8 people each. Everything was pretty rustic but for some reason it didn't matter since we were in the middle of the jungle. The staff at the camp was really helpful and knowledgeable. We didn't see too much wildlife in camp besides a few wild pigs, a monitor lizard, and a community of Macaque monkeys that were obsessed with invading camp and stealing stuff from the cabins. They would seriously plan an ambush every couple of hours. Andrew and I thought it was pretty funny until they stole our peanuts - which, by the way, were stuffed in the side of my backpack with about 5 other things.

We got to bed early on the first night since we were leaving pretty early in the morning to go on the 2nd part of our jungle trip.

Day 2 - Day 4

After breakfast we loaded up our "gear" (drinking water, rope, first aid, a change of clothes, mosquito spray, some pots, some rice, etc.) and headed out into the jungle with a guide and another couple from the UK. We followed the edge of a lake about a kilometer or so, until we found a good camping area. After finding all our necessary "equipment" we started building our shelter. After about 3 hours of pounding sticks, tying ropes, and wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into, we finished! The shelter was actually pretty cozy. There were 5 separate "stretchers" each fitted with their own mosquito nets, and a big tarp to protect us from the rain. It felt like such an accomplishment to get it built!

After we finished our shelter we were all pretty hungry and ready for lunch. When we signed up for the camping trip we were told that there would be no "frills" and we would be in charge of catching, collecting, and cooking all of our meals. I think we all sort of went into it thinking they were just trying to scare us and that we'd end up getting pretty good food. Well, we were definitely wrong! After a lunch and dinner of instant noodles we decided that the next day we were going to find some real food!

We basically spent the next 3 days learning to fish like the locals do. We would first catch bait or shrimp using a big fishing net that you have to throw while standing in the middle of the lake with mud up to our knees! Then we would tie the bait to the end of a string attached to a 2 L pop bottle and throw it out into the lake and hope that something would bite. It was the most exhausting thing in the world!

The first day that we went fishing we all decided to walk about 2 kilometers to a channel where our guide said we could get a lot of fish. We spent most of the day walking, fishing, and walking some more. We only caught around 2-3 small fish and a few shrimp! As difficult as it was, and as tired as we were, we had an absolute blast! I spent most of my time screaming actually, but hey, it was still fun. The couple we were with were absolutely hilarious and such fun.

So, we didn't really eat more than rice, a few small fish, shrimp, and some ferns for the first 2 days, but on the last day I caught a HUGE catfish. Andrew thinks he caught it - but I'm almost positive it was my 2 L pop bottle. Anyway, I'll give Andrew the credit for going out into the water and actually picking it up!

Doesn't look like Tara is going to finish this, so I'll take over here. I DID catch the fish. I walked across the waist high mud lake to get a bottle that was swimming around. One of the worst things I have had to do on this trip. Anyway, it was delicious. We stuffed ourselves with food that day, as the guide had caught some large prawns as well.

The next morning we had to head back to camp. However much fun we had, it was definitely one of those places that you were more than ready to leave. The normal package just does 2 nights in the base camp. We did those, plus 3 nights in a jungle camp. When I asked the guide what is the longest anyone stays in the jungle he said 3 nights. I asked him if many people do that... he said "No, you are the first." Apparently a lot of people leave after the first night.

Back at base camp we spent the day relaxing and talking with other people there. I played a game of soccer with the guides in the pouring rain; Tara played some cards with some other travelers. We met some really nice people there, including a few couples that were also going to be diving with us the next week.

One thing Tara didn't touch on was the massive amount of monkeys in the area. We saw three types of monkeys and in total we probably saw over 200 monkeys. They were everywhere: on the shores of the lake, the river, and around the base camp. Sometimes a little to close for comfort.

At one point when we were fishing, I was walking around the lake to retrieve a bottle. I heard something rustling in the trees so I crouched down to get a better look. I then saw a long tail walking along the jungle floor, and I first thought it was some kind of cat. As they got closer I saw that they were long-tail macaques. For some reason, no one bothered to tell us that they were aggressive. Anyway, one of them saw me and they all ran back through the trees. Or so I thought. Faster than I could realize what was happening, two macaques bounded out towards me, their hair standing on end, chests puffed out, and teeth bared.

One was quite small, but the other was a full grown macaque. From my years of elk ranching/black bear guiding/wilderness survival training I thought the best thing to do would be to try to look really big, yell, and charge at the monkey... then maybe try to hit it with something. It worked with larger animals... Unfortunately the yelling didn't work and the larger monkey charged me, stopping only about two meters away. I thought it was going to jump on me or something... was going through in my head all the things Tara was telling me you could catch from a monkey. I did some more yelling, slowly retreating, and was feeling the ground to try to find a stick. I got about 6 meters back and the monkey charged again, this time stopping only one meter in front of me. Either my yelling finally worked, or the monkey thought he had proved his point, and allowed me to retreat back further this time. I walked back to the camp from there, and Tara ran up to me thinking I had been bit by a snake or something. So, if anyone should be stuck in this situation... actually just stay away from the macaques. Or carry a stick around to hit them with.

So, to sum up, this is all the cool stuff we saw/did in the jungle:

Saw:
long-tail macaques
proboscis monkeys
silver leaf monkeys
crocodiles
water monitors
wild pigs
a civet cat
black scorpions
numerous spiders/tarantulas
kingfishers
centipedes and millipedes
two types of snakes
bats

Did:
Caught fish using a net and also with pop bottle floats
Collected jungle plants to eat
Drank water from a vine
Bathed/Swam in murky and muddy lakes which at some points of the year contain crocodiles
Saw the most amazingly starry night I have ever seen
Attempted to Tarzan across a small and very dirty stream... didn't go so well, but we got it on video.
Went on numerous treks/boat rides to find wildlife


Needless to say, it was a really great time and one of the best parts of the trip. Tara now thinks she might be ready to go on Survivor. This might just be the last post until we get home, but you never know. Take care everyone,

-Andrew and Tara

Re: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Travel Quiz - fill it out, add some, and send it back!

On 7/25/07, *Andrew Donovan* <acd333@gmail.com > wrote:

If you don't send this back within 1 day you will have bad luck
shopping
for the rest of the trip!

What was your favorite country, overall? Laos both for the people
and the sights.

Malaysia has been pretty awesome.

What was your least favorite country, overall? Vietnam both for
the people and the sights.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that one.

What was your favorite city, overall? HoChiMinh or Bangkok

I also liked Bangkok.

What was your least favorite city, overall? Vientiene

Sapa, Vietnam

Which country had the best food? Vietnam

No way! Korea!

Which country had the worst food? China

No way! Vietnam (except Hoi An)!

Which country had the nicest people? Laos or Malaysia

Malaysia Truly Asia.

Which country had the most unfriendly people? Vietnam

Vietnam. Although we did meet some really great people there.

Which country was the cheapest? Laos

China was quite cheap for a lot of stuff too.

Which country was the most expensive? Thailand - due to us shopping

Or Malaysia, with all the diving.

Which country would you most like to go back to? China

China

Which country will you never go back to? None of them.

I think it will be a while before I head back to Vietnam.

What are your top 5 experiences in Asia? 1.Korea - Taekkyon 2.China - Great Wall
3. Cambodia - swimming in Crater lake 4. Laos - Biking on the Bolaven Plateau OR swimming in the waterfall near Luang Prabang 5.Malaysia - waking up in the jungle with a two foot long monitor lizard under my hammock OR catching that big
catfish.

1. Uncle Tan's jungle trip (www.uncletan.com)
2. Taekkyon
3. Tubing/rope swings in Vang Vieng
4. Scootering around the Bolaven Plateau
5. Scuba diving Sipadan

What are your worst 5 experiences in Asia? 1.China - booking train
tickets, AND 2. When that crazy lady accosted us by that temple in Chengdu. 3.Vietnam - hearing 'hello moto?' every 2 seconds 4.Cambodia - skidding across
gravel after we crashed our motorbike 5.Bangkok - realizing we'de
spent nearly 4000 dollars in a week.

1. Arriving in Sapa, realizing I was nearly robbed by a hill-tribe lady
2. Nearly running over a small Cambodian girl
3. Nearly every time we got in a tuk-tuk or taxi in Vietnam
4. Watching a hill-tribe lady in Sapa try to sell me drugs when her kid is right beside her
5. Walking through the mud/water/sludge in the jungle to get dinner

Name 3 things that you never would have pictured yourself doing a
year ago. Sharing a bathroom with a tarantula, swimming in
brown muddy water and finding it 'refreshing', eating tarantulas,
crickets, grasshoppers, and frogs.

1. See #5 above
2. An amazing belly-flop
3. Eating goat udder.

Worst bus ride? China - when we were in the back of a rusty bus on
a bumpy, curvy, gravel road for 10 hours and there was a guy eating
a chicken and throwing the bones on the floor, which ironically was
next to the cage that housed the live chickens.

Definitely from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan... Tara was throwing up, I had my head between my knees... things weren't so good.

Best use of money? Chinese spa and Thai massages

Our 1$ accommodation in Don Det, Laos.

Biggest waste of money? Halong Bay

I second that. Although there were a few hair salon appointments that cost more....

Best tour? The Mekong Delta from HoChiMinh to Cambodia

Tubing in Vang Vieng.

Worst tour? Halong Bay

I'd go with the great wall 'tour'. Getting a tour guide who only spoke enough English to tell us to pay the road tolls and lie to us and say the vehicle needed to be inspected so we had to wait in this jade store....

Which tourist attraction overwhelmed you the most? The Killing
Fields in Phnom Penh.

Buddha caves, Datong, China

Which tourist attraction was the most disappointing? The Forbidden
Palace in Beijing.

Yeah...

When were you the most tired? In China.

Yesterday night, after 10 dives in 3 days.

When were you the most hungry? In China

Most of Thailand...

What do you regret doing the most? Nothing

Well... a better trip would have included more China, less Vietnam.

What do you regret missing the most? Dalat in Vietnam

Climbing in China.

What is the most important thing you learned on this trip? That I
have the best travel companion in the world!

If I let Tara spend money on her hair, she thinks I'm great.
But seriously: communism just doesn't work, and a lot of bad stuff happened over here during the Japanese occupation, Vietnam war, and Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandakan_Death_Marches

How many times did you wish you were back at home? Only a handful
of times... =p

Hmmm....

How many times did you wish you were back in Korea? Whenever I think about Taekkyon and all the friends we made.

Every time I think of kimchi or bibimbap.

What is the first thing you want to eat when you get home?
Tarantulas... oh we can't get them there can we? Okay, then, good
bread, cheese, and blueberries!

Brown bread, red wine, golden olive oil, and pink salmon. And my own cooking.

To the nearest hundred, how many people said 'hello' to you? About
3,500

Counting every annyong-haseyo/ni hao/sabaydee/sawatdee/etc I'd say closer to 3600, about 30 a day.

Out of the 120 or so nights spent in various forms of
accommodation, how
many would my mom have deemed acceptable? nice? luxurious?
Acceptable - 50%, Nice - 20%, Luxurious - 0.0083%

10% - 5% - 0%

What was your favorite dish? Green Mango Salad or Vietnamese
Spring Rolls

Cao Lao, in Hoi An.

What was your least favorite dish? Chinese vegetables sitting in 2 inches of oil.

Rice noodle soup just doesn't do it for me.

What part of the trip changed you the most? Experiencing how
people with virtually nothing can be so happy.

Definitely the teaching in Korea. Nice to feel like you make a difference.

To the nearest ten, how many times did you (Tara) drop/break/step
on/spill/lose
something? no comment... Andrew.

To be fair, it was probably about 30 times.

To the nearest ten, how many times did I (Andrew) wake up
yelling/sleepwalking/talking/etc? Probably once a week. I only slept walked once in our hostel in Bangkok. I woke up standing out in the hall wondering why Andrew was making such a big deal about me being out there!

I didn't, however, wake any other people up on this trip.

What were the three most interesting animals you saw in the wild?
Orangutan, Monitor Lizard, Leopard Shark

The monitor lizards were awesome, as was the civet cat, and the scorpions.

Just finished up our diving here in Semporna, Malaysia. Absolutely amazing... we saw just about everything there was to see underwater. Definitely would recommend Scuba Junkie (http://www.scuba-junkie.com/) to anyone else who is planning on diving Sipadan.
Well, days are getting short now. I think we are under two weeks till we are home. Hope all is well with everyone and we will see you soon. I will also try to get some pictures up from the jungle.
-Andrew

Thailand, "The Land of Smiles"

To sum up our time in Thailand, north, central, and west: we shopped. When we finally crossed the Mekong into Thailand 2 weeks ago among the first things we saw were a 7-11 and an ATM. It was then that our trip ceased to be a backpacking-across-Asia-adventure and became basically a two week Visa-fueled shopping bender. I'm not exaggerating either. We justify doubling, tripling, or quadrupling our 50$ a day budget by saying things like "Well, I need it anyway and it would cost 'x' times as much at home".

Our first stop was Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. Among other things, we met up with one of Tara's high school friends for a couple of days, took in a dinner show, 'learned' to cook Thai food, and shopped. Our shopping consisted of: one MAJOR department store, one weekend market, and two trips to the night market. We had to 'save' some more money by getting our teeth cleaned in Thailand (15$! cheap!) to make up for what we spent.

One of the coolest things we did there was went to the Chiang Mai Night Safari. It is basically a massive zoo with three parts: a walking trail around a beautiful lake, a Savannah safari, and a predator safari. It is probably the closest thing I have seen to a humane zoo (especially compared to anything in Asia!... except maybe the panda place). The first part, walking around the lake, was amazing. Just enclosure after enclosure of exotic animals, from chimpanzees to hippos. The best part was there were no other tourists so all the animals were out of hiding and near the walkway. For the safaris we got on a tram car and drove past countless larger animals.

We stayed in Chiang Mai for about a week before heading to Bangkok. We spent another week in Bangkok, half of it wandering the city from guest house to guest house, and the other half in one place to rest up. Our last resting day consisted of: 20 minute walk to the canal to catch a boat/10 minute boat ride/sky-train to the weekend market/wandering the weekend market for a few hours/sky-train to another shopping district/lots of shopping/running down Silom Road in the pouring rain to catch.../one last 20 minutes boat ride to get us back to our guest house.

Here is a quick list of 'sites' we saw in Bangkok:
1. An old Thai house
2. The Grand Palace
3. And that is about it.

Here is a list of the malls/markets we have been to:
1. MBK: 7 stories of shopping stalls plus a department store
2. Paragon: 5 stories of high-priced stuff
3. Chidlom Center: See #2
4. Center Mall: See #2
5. Siam Discovery: See #2
6. Chatuchak Weekend Market: Largest flea market in the world, connected to a great (cheap) mall.
7. Khao San Road: Largest backpacker ghetto in the world... lots of shopping.
8. China Town: Nice and cheap... found two cheap department stores here.
9. Silom Road: A road chock full of gem shops, and high priced clothing stores.
10. Night Bazaar: Another HUGE market, with tons of shops selling to tourists.
11. I could go on.

The way I see it, all of these nice places will be there when we head back to Thailand in 10 or 20 years. The shopping will never again be this good. And after being exposed to Asian prices we definitely won't want to buy anything once we get back to Canada.

Bangkok has definitely been expensive. We got out yesterday (thought we'd save some money), to spend two days in Kanchanaburi, the site of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai. It is really nice here. Yesterday we arrived to little huts connected by a wooden walkway, 6$ Thai massages, and even cheaper shopping. Today we managed to blow our budget again... although I definitely won't need any more khakis for a long time.

It seems we can't really go anywhere without buying stuff, so to finish our trip up we are heading to Borneo. Our itinerary there: hack our way through the jungle for a week, scuba dive for a week, then climb the tallest mountain in S.E. Asia. Hopefully that will help escape the shopping. We'll head back to Bangkok tomorrow for one more day, then fly to Kota Kinabalu. Three weeks in Borneo, then heading to Korea for 5-6 days then home.

Anyway, we should be home in about a month. We're going to be flat broke so bring us some fruits and vegetables (don't even want to think about how much they cost in Canada) and we'll trade you for Asian souvenirs. But you'll have to look at a lot of pictures as well.

Oh, and to explain the title: we have definitely been putting smiles on the faces of a lot of shop keepers.

Hope all is well!
-Andrew and Tara

2 weeks of Sundays

Hey Everyone,

Well there is no question that we are dedicated bloggers because we are currently sitting in one of the best/cheapest malls we've both ever been in and we're blogging! Thanks for the posts, every one of them makes our day! We miss you all so much!

Our experience in Laos was nothing short of amazing. The people were incredibly warm and inviting and always had a smile or something nice to say (even if it was just "hello!"). It was really humbling to see people who according to our "western" standards have next to nothing but seem to be some of the happiest and satisfied people we've ever seen. Most of the people living in the countryside live in tiny straw shacks on stilts, drink rain water, raise and kill their own livestock, and for the most part live pretty similar to how life was 100 or so years ago. Elephants are still used for transport, people walk rather than drive, there's no electricity in some places, kids play with straw soccer balls, and everyone wears traditional clothes. There's definitely an emphasis placed on family and friends rather than higher education and wealth. The guidebook says that Laos people actually feel sorry for those who "have to think too hard." With all that said, you get really laid-back and content people. We often walked into markets or small stores and people would be just sleeping or reading magazines rather than yelling at us to buy something. All-in-all Laos was incredibly refreshing and a great place to soak up the atmosphere and recharge our batteries. Oh, and the food was fabulous!

Vientiene

After our unsuccessful (but fun, nonetheless) coffee search, we headed up to Vientiene. Besides being a pretty nice, laid back city, Vientiene lived up to its name of being one of the most boring cities in South East Asia. There just wasn't a whole lot to do there. We spent most of the day reading books and eating carrot cake (there was, however, a great bakery there!).

Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng, on the other hand, was fantastic! It is a little backpacker town that is surrounded by Karst mountains and beautiful scenery. We went on a caving tour one day to 3 different caves. One of the caves was inhabited by around 250 people during the war. They lived in the cave for around 3 months and basically caught and ate anything that happened to go into it (snakes, dogs, spiders, etc.). Fortunately, most of them survived, but they left their names written on the roof of the cave in smoke. Very eerie.We also went into a "water cave" which basically involved attaching a battery-operated light to our heads (safe? Glad there was an electrical engineer on hand) and paddling through the cave on a tube. There were spiders and webs all over the roof, and at times if we leaned all the way back on the tube the roof was literally touching our noses. At one point we got off our tubes and crawled (slithered) through some really small cracks in the stalactite. Definitely not a tour for the claustrophobic!

After the cave tour we did something that pretty much every tourist who comes to Vang Vieng does - we tubed down the Mekong for a few hours and drank some Beer Lao. It was a blast! There were bars every 1/2 kilometer or so where you could dock your tube, get more drinks, and go on giant rope swings.
It was one of my highlights of the trip. You start about 10m up and you swing quite a ways. I'll put a video up on YouTube once we are out of Thailand.

Andrew, of course, took advantage of the swinging (someone else was taking advantage of the $0.60 drinks!)
and ended up doing the world's worst belly flop! He was literally black and blue for a few days. Ouch!
See, Tara got it all wrong. This was the best belly flop ever. It was a little scary the next day when the other side of my stomach started turning yellow, but I regret nothing.

We had a fantastic time though, and it was an amazing experience floating down the Mekong and taking in all of the beautiful scenery.

Luang Prabang

After all the drinking, tubing, and belly-flopping fun we decided to make our way to the ancient capital, Luang Prabang. There are around 33 ancient temples in the city which are still inhabited by the monks. We went and checked out a few of the temples and walked up the "sacred mountain" called Phousi. The monks in Laos wear these bright orange robes (the colors range from almost yellow to rust, depending on rank) and look really striking next to the gold temples. Apparently every Loatian male is expected to spend some time in a monastery during his life. It is quite strange to see these 8 or 10 year old boys walking around wearing bright orange robes.


We relaxed a bit more in Luang Prabang (we needed it!), but ended up climbing up a waterfall one day (no, Andrew didn't practice his gymnastics this time!).
The waterfalls were absolutely gorgeous.
We walked up about half an hour or so and there were little pools all the way up. The water was crystal-clear and sooo inviting after the sweaty climb up the fall. We ended up sharing one of the pools with about 20 Lao kids who were swinging from vines by the water. They were adorable and incredibly brave. They would start out swinging from the highest branches, flip around mid-air, and then somersault into the water! Scary!

After Laos we went on a 3 day boat/bus trip into Thailand. I'll leave it to Andrew to fill you in on all the details tomorrow. Our shopping trip is getting a little out of control, so we haven't been updating as much as we had planned.

We're missing you all and hope everyone is doing well. We have just a little over a month until we're back - can't wait!

Love,

Tara & Andrew
XOXO

Long time no see!

Hey everyone,

Well we survived Laos and Northern Thailand and are now in Bangkok. We're about to embark on a 2-3 (or more?) day shopping trek around Bangkok. So we should have some downtime between malls to update our blog! Our plan is to walk about a kilometer from here, take a boat down a canal about 5km to the 'big' shopping district (basically a kilometer of massive stores). We will find a hotel there to leave our stuff and then head north about 10km to a massive weekend market. Once we are too tired to walk anymore we will head back to the shopping district and check out the sales for tomorrow. I never saw Tara get ready as fast as she did today.

In the meantime, I'll fill you guys in on part of our Laos experience. As we said last, we headed out for 3 days on a scooter to tour the coffee region of Laos. It is called the Bolaven Plateau and it produces some of the 'best' coffee in the world (Asia seems to be full of superlatives). As well there are some amazing waterfalls there.

We spent the first day traveling with a Brazilian guy who is traveling around the world, by bicycle, as part of a social project. The first waterfall we visited it was just the three of us. Tara left her bathing suit on the bike so she had the prestigious job of photographer. That small white speck to the left of the waterfall was me. It took me 5 minutes to get Tara's attention to take the picture. I couldn't whistle because of the wind from the falls.

The next waterfall was a little more inaccessible. We made it down as far as we could to take some pictures. The drop is apparently 120m.

The third waterfall that day was more like the first, but with more people. I was in a bit too much of a hurry on the way to the bottom and slipped on the rocks. After bouncing off rocks in 4 places and falling about 10 feet I landed on my feet, covered in mud and blood.

Just flesh wounds, but kind of scary considering how far we were away from medical care.

We arrived at our first stop about 30 minutes later. We had been going the whole day and really needed... some nice coffee. It was actually pretty awesome so we were excited to go to the market the next day to buy some beans to take home. We parted ways with our Brazilian friend here and had an amazing sleep.

The next day was a lot less eventful. We wandered the market and couldn't find a single coffee bean: only ground stuff. We drove around town trying to find coffee beans (it was supposed to be the coffee capital of Asia!!) but had no luck. So we set off again determined to keep our eyes open for anything that could be coffee.

By the end of the day we had visited 4 markets, 2 coffee shops, and countless villages in search of coffee beans. It was all to no avail. The Java gods were against us.

We stopped for some lunch in the shade of a bamboo grove. When we stopped an old lady walked up to us. She was wearing only a black bra and a long skirt. She said something in Lao, laughed, and then walked into the field beside us. About 10 minutes later she emerged with some mushrooms wrapped in a banana leaf. I'm not sure if she was trying to sell us them, give us them, or explain the unique chemical properties of the mushrooms but we had a 5 minute conversation with her without understanding a single word.

We arrived at the final waterfall of our trip: Tad Lo. There, we booked an elephant ride and got an awesome deal on accommodation.

We had a large bungalow, fully modern, built with beautiful wood. And it was only 10$ a night. And it was right on the edge of the waterfall.

The next day was again spent traveling and searching for coffee. We even followed some signs that pointed to a coffee plantation (13km from the main road - about 25 minutes on the scooter). No beans. We ended up where we started, back in Pakse at the coffee place and we bought some beans there.

This is Tara, quite angry about the lack of coffee beans.

That night we jumped on a bus for Vientiene, still frustrated about the lack of coffee beans.

Tomorrow (I hope!) we will post about Northern Laos and our (painful) adventures there.

Loads of Pictures!

Well, we are now in Laos. And it is HOT here. You just sweat constantly. All day, all night. We are going to head a bit higher to coffee country for the next few days to try to escape the heat.

And yeah, maybe we haven't put up pictures in a while. But this should make up for it. I tried to follow Tara's last post but there is some random stuff in here as well.

Hoi An: At the tailors. This lady was amazing.

Hoi An: Also an amazing lady - Ty taught us to cook some Vietnamese food.

Saigon: Touring the Viet-Cong tunnels

Saigon: Just me, some army dude, and an AK-47...

Saigon: They had to widen these tunnels substantially for foreigners... but there was still no way I was going down there.

Mekong Delta: I left for 20 minutes and some snake was putting the moves on Tara

Mekong Delta: This is the dinner with the Icelandic couple... "udder"ly disgusting?

Good times in Phnom Penh

Sad times in Phnom Penh

There was a pagoda filled with thousands of skulls, all victims of just one Khmer Rouge death camp.

And some happier times:

Angkor Temples: So many massive temples... so few tourists

Some of the temples were being reclaimed by the jungle

Kratie: We had arranged to be driven to the next town in a pickup truck. We bought the whole front of the cab in advance so we'd have enough space (ordinarily they would put 6 people in 4 seats). This is what we found when they picked us up.

Ban Lung: It was so hot here we went swimming in an old volcano to cool off.

Welcome to Laos!

Don Det: Our first stop in Laos. 1 room on stilts + 2 hammocks + 1 gas lamp = 1$

Well, we are off for a few days to coffee country, supposedly the best in the world is grown in this region.

Hope everyone is doing well.

A BIG UPDATE!

Hey Guys!

Hope that title got everyone's attention! We were just thinking that it's been such a long time since we posted, but actually I think it's just that a lot has happened since we last did. Anyway... I will warn you in advance that this is going to be a long one!


Hoi An

We went to Hoi An planning to only spend a night or two but ended up staying 7 days! It's the longest we've stayed in any place since we started traveling, so it was a really nice break. The city had such a good atmosphere, the food was great (seafood galore!), and accommodation was really cheap. Best of all though was that there were tailors every 2 or 3 steps that design and custom-make clothes for really cheap. There were also shoemakers that did the same. Needless to say, we ended up sending a 13 kg package home that included (among other things!):


- silk-lined cashmere suit
- 5 pairs of pants
- 2 jackets
- 6 shirts
- 2 pairs of shoes


Even Andrew was excited about the shopping, and that says a lot!


I also decided to do my scuba diving course. It ended up being fantastic and I even got my own personal diving instructor (AND he spoke English!). We did 4 open water dives and Andrew came along for the last two. It was a lot of fun and I managed to not do any emergency surfacing (as I unfortunately did a lot when I was practicing in the pool). We didn't get to see a whole lot of big fish, but the coral was really beautiful. We're looking forward to doing some diving in Thailand later on... although I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to spotting any sharks. I have a bit of an overactive imagination and had nightmares of shark attacks all the way up to my open water dives! I'm definitely my mom's daughter!


Mui Ne


We caught a 14 hour bus to Mui Ne hoping to spend some time on the beach. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized how hot and humid it was, so beaching-it wasn't really appealing. We booked ourselves into a tour right away to go see a stream and some sand dunes. We waded 500 meters through the stream to go see a tiny little waterfall. It was neat to see all of the local kids playing in the water, but the stream itself wasn't so interesting. The sand dunes, on the other hand, were amazing! We went first to the white sand dunes, where we had a scorching walk to the top (it felt like we were in a desert!) and then sledded down (or rolled down, in my case!) on some crazy carpets. Then we went to a red canyon which was much easier (and cooler) to walk up. The sun was going down when we were at the top so we got some really good pictures. We decided to hit the beach at night and spent an hour or so wandering around and seeing what the tide left behind. We only spent one night in a small bungalow beside the ocean (without air-con!), and headed out first thing in the morning to Saigon.


Saigon


We read that Saigon was crazy busy and we weren't let down. It was an adventure even crossing the street. Motorbikes would be flying towards you and you couldn't do much more than put on your game face, head down, and make a steady jaunt across the road. At times we'd be stuck in the middle of the street not able to go in any direction.

We didn't do much in Saigon either than shopping in the main market and visiting and the War Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels were used by the Viet Cong army against the American army during the war. The tunnels are this massive network of tiny paths underground where soldiers would live and fight. We were shocked at how small the entrances were to the tunnel (Andrew just fit!) and even more shocked at how tiny the actual tunnels were. I crawled through (Andrew declined) about 100 m and had to literally squeeze through some parts. And these tunnels had been made substantially larger to accommodate tourists. It was pitch black too, which didn't make the situation any better! It's amazing that people lived, had babies, and fought a war in those tiny little spaces. Makes me think I shouldn't be complaining about lack of air conditioning!


Mekong Delta


In Saigon we met up with some people and booked a 3 day tour through the Mekong Delta to get into Cambodia. The tour itself was really interesting and we got to see some really amazing scenery. The first day we went to a coconut candy factory (does it get any better than that?!) and a floating market.

The third day we woke up at 6 am and headed out to a big floating market. It was huge and there was pretty much anything you could ever think of buying available. The people live on the boats, which was different than the other market that we went to. Andrew actually hopped on another boat and watched a woman prepare some pineapples (which were delicious). After the boat ride we took the boat a bit further until we hit another village. We had some lunch and Andrew went for a bike ride. I stayed back and ended up holding a 30 kg Anaconda snake! It was pretty cool actually until it started drooling (I handed it off and backed away slowly!). That evening we we jumped onto a bigger boat, had some dinner, watched the kids playing in the water, the fisherman rounding up their nets, and the sunset. Absolutely beautiful...

The third day we stopped in a small village that has mostly Cham minority people living in it. We checked out a mosque and handicrafts, but mostly just wandered around and talked with the people. It was very sad actually because some of the children in the village are physically or mentally disabled from inbreeding. The community was really poor as well, which makes the situation so much worse. The afternoon was spent mostly travelling in order to get to the Cambodian border before it closed.

We had a really interesting time getting to Phnom Penh. First of all, a motorbike randomly started on fire (Andrew - it was REALLY on fire) on the Cambodian side of the border. Everyone ran out to help (those that were through the border anyway) and it got put out in a minute or so. After that, we were told to go check our bags through a security belt. We waited at the belt for nearly 20 minutes and no one showed up. Finally someone came around the corner and said that they didn't want to do it today. Um... okay?! Guess we're not in North America anymore! After we crossed the border (which was no problem) we got shoved in the belly of a boat for 2 1/2 hours. There was absolutely no air flow so it was scorching. We both ended up with heat rash! Anyway, just when it started cooling off, a really bad storm hit. The windows that were previously too tight were suddenly too loose and letting in way too much water! Needless to say, we will always remember our trip through the Mekong Delta!

Phnom Penh

Every traveler we've met so far has told us to get in and out of Phnom Penh as quickly as possible because it's dirty, dangerous, and hot. We found it pretty much the opposite, besides the hot part. We ended up hooking up with a bunch of people from England and Iceland and had a really good time.

We went to the Killing Fields and the War Museum on the first day. The Killing Fields were really enlightening but absolutely heartbreaking at the same time. It's unreal how many people were actually killed, but yet it's not as publicized as the Vietnamese war or WWII. The fields themselves were little more than open spaces and dozens of holes where they dug up the bodies. The only thing that showed that you were standing on ground that was once used for one of the most massive genocide sites in history was that there were pieces of clothing sticking up out of the soil everywhere. I guess people still find bones and teeth that come up after the rains. So sad. They actually erected a tower filled with about 8000 skulls from the mass graves that they excavated. You can stare up the tower and all you see is skull after skull. It takes a minute to actually internalize everything and realize what it is you're looking at.

After the War Museum we headed to the S-21 Prison. This is where the Khmer Rouge tortured and imprisoned most of the political "criminals." The beds and the rooms are exactly how they were found, and there's a picture in every room showing the state of the last victim that was murdered there. Also, there was a room filled with mugshots from all of the prisoners that were held and killed there. I'm not sure exactly how many pictures there were, but there were 2 big buildings filled with the pictures. There were photos of babies all the way up to old men. There was an old lady and a monk wandering through the rows of photos and it looked as though they were looking for someone. It was so unbelievably sad. I just kept on thinking all day how incredibly lucky we are to come from such a stable country where we our safety and freedom aren't ever compromised.

Siem Reap

We decided to head to Siem Reap a little earlier than we initially thought so we could go explore Angkor Wat. Angkor is this massive site that has over 1000 temples and most of them are close to 1000 years old. One of the temples, Angkor Wat, is the largest religious monument on Earth. We spent 3 days there and only went to about 15 temples. A lot of the temples have been really destroyed (pretty much piles of rocks), but some of them have been really well preserved. You can still see some of the engravings and statues in and on the temples. Andrew and I are sort of "templed out" (as bad as that sounds) from Korea/China, but we were really wowed by Angkor. The best moment for me was walking into one of the temples at 7 am and we were the only people in there. We had literally about a kilometer radius of temple all to ourselves! It was nice to not feel like we weren't part of the tourist mob for an hour or so. Speaking of tourists... there were a lot! We ran into about a million Koreans, which was nice. In all of our conversations we ended up talking about food (good thing Angela wasn't with us!)

Speaking of food... today we had no tour or anything to do for once so we decided to take a cooking class. We went to the market and bought all of our goodies and then went back to the "studio"and cooked up a bunch of yummy dishes. We made two salads, two main courses, and two desserts. The food wasn't especially spicy but has a lot of flavor..mmm! We will be cooking up a storm when we get home I'm sure, so if you're game for some "Amok Curry," let us know!

Again, speaking of food.... we've eaten a fair amount of things in Cambodia so far with legs (gasp!) and more than 2. We ate some goat udder in the Mekong Delta. It was more of a dare than anything, and Andrew almost ate the most out of 4 people (Andrew - Seriously, we were out with another couple and we went for the strangest thing on the menu - the other choice was fried field mouse. We asked for 1 plate but they brought us a plate EACH). It didn't taste bad really, but the thought that I was eating goat udder just didn't sit right with me! I ended up eating only one piece. In Phnom Penh we went to a night market and ate tarantula and frog (Andrew wimped out on the tarantula!) Then in Siem Reap we had a snack of grasshoppers. I thought they were actually kind of tasty. They do eat bugs here, and we've discovered that they're not shy about it. It's the wet season right now, so there are lots of crickets and cockroaches. The other day we were in a store and there were cockroaches flying around and hitting us in the face and legs (not nice). I was sort of skipping around and trying to use Andrew for cover when one of the employees came over to me and said something along the lines of "we just eat them if they're bugging us!"

Anyway, we're heading out to Kampong Cham tomorrow and are hoping to see a little bit of the countryside before we get to Laos. I'm sure there will be lots of good stories coming so keep tuned!

We miss you all so much! Send us an e-mail or a post if you can. Hope all is well...

Only 2 months + 1 week until we're back on Canadian soil!

Love, Tara & Andrew
XOXO

Ps. We'll post some pictures (we've got some good ones!) as soon as we get a chance.

Beautiful Vietnam...

Hey Guys!

Thanks so much for all the posts! It's so nice to to know that people are reading this and we always get so excited whenever someone leaves us a post, so keep em' coming!

We're just sitting in a little cafe in Hanoi waiting for a bus to take us to Hue tonight. It's an overnight bus that takes 12 hours, so hopefully tomorrow morning comes quickly! Anyway, I thought I'd update since, well, there's lots to talk about!

So... we left off at Sapa last time:

We ended up just staying for another 2 nights, even though we had planned to stay for another 3 or 4. Sapa was absolutely gorgeous, but we kept looking at our timetable and all of the bazillion things we want to see and do and just decided to keep moving. We didn't do too much in Sapa except check out a few markets and went motorbiking for a day to check out the countryside.



We ended up making our way to a small traditional village and a little town. In the little town we decided to have some lunch and ended up sharing our meal with some hilltribes ladies (they didn't know the culprit who picked Andrew's lock). We had a yummy meal of vegetable Pho (noodle soup) with some tofu and other good stuff. Also, we tried corn wine for the first time which was the most potent thing we've both ever tried. They poured us about 1/2 an ounce (I was thinking it was a little measly!) and we could barely finish it.


After Sapa we took the night train to Hanoi. We didn't get much sleep since the train was hot and there was a really (and I mean really) loud snorer in our berth. Also, I ended up on the top bunk (there are 3 beds to a bunk) and ended up with less than a foot of room between my nose and the roof! Definitely not the best sleeping arrangements for anyone who's claustrophobic. Also, the Vietnamese were playing a very famous and sneaky game with us that we learned in China: Each bunk in the berths have different prices with the bottom being the most expensive and the top being the least (for obvious reasons). The game has three steps. First, the person will try to steal the bottom bunk by pretending to be sleeping in it when you come into the room. Think, stretched out with the shoes off and everything! If you make enough noise though you can push the game onto step 2. Step 2 is what I like to call "oblivion." Basically the person will "set up shop" by putting his/her bags on the bed and acting almost like it is you who is invading the sleeping quarters. The last step is a little tricky to get to, but if you achieve it you will actually win the game. You have to first befriend the person (the phrasebook is key!) and then after a while act really sleepy and do the international "I'm tired" signal. Usually this works, and a few smiles and laughs are exchanged. The game is won fair and square. Anyway, we're getting really good at this game and ended up playing it for a little while on our trip to Hanoi. We won the bottom bunk, but Andrew ended up winning it from me.

Hanoi was/has been the craziest and busiest city we've ever been in. The population is only 4 million (maybe not only) but there are 2 million motorbikes! That, combined with the fact that the streets are exceptionally narrow makes for a really chaotic atmosphere. We stayed in the Old Quarter in Hanoi which has all the same (or mostly the same) french architecture and city set up that was present 800 years ago. It's one of the few cities that remained untouched (or nearly) during the war. It's almost like stepping back in time, despite the motorbikes. The streets are all really narrow and the buildings are called "tube houses" because the citizens were once charged taxes based on how much property was facing the roads (not on square footage). The buildings were also prohibited from being over 2 stories tall. So, yes, the buildings look like tubes! Another really interesting thing is that each of the streets used to manufacture or provide a specific product. So, there's a street called Grass Mat street(in Vietnamese though!), Shoe street, and various others. It's was really neat to explore around and guess the names of the streets. We even found Tombstone street!


We also visited Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum one morning. For those of you who don't know, Ho Chi Minh started the Communist Party in Vietnam and is regarded as a hero here. We went to the Mausoleum first thing in the morning hoping that we'd be one of the first. Well we were wrong, and we ended up in a line that was about 300 meters long. The whole process of getting in and through the building was incredibly regulated. We went through 2 security checks and had to drop off our backpack and our cameras at each one. They then made everyone go into a theatre to watch a movie about Ho Chi Minh's life. Of course, it was in Vietnamese, so Andrew and I thought we'd go outside and look around a bit. As soon as we stepped out of the building two different people told us to "please go back inside." Yikes! After the movie we had to walk about 500 meters or so in double file to a warehouse-type building. Entering the building was almost as strange as seeing the body itself. There were guards every 5 strides or so with knives and bayonets. Seeing the body was pretty much how I imagined it to be, but I spent most of the time watching how the Vietnamese were reacting. They were all so solemn and you could just see the admiration and respect in their faces. It was really a surreal experience.

After that experience we were feeling slightly out of place, so we decided to go where else, but the Canadian Consulate! We spent a good 20 minutes or so reading pamphlets and relaxing in the air conditioned room. Ah... almost like home. We tried to go outside and snap a picture but the Vietnamese guard wouldn't have any of it! Guess were not quite home yet...

We also went to the Water Puppet show one night in Hanoi. It sounds like something we would have enjoyed in Kindergarten, right? Well we were actually some of the youngest people in the crowd. The puppet show works by people standing behind a giant bamboo screen so the puppets look like they're dancing on water. It sounds silly, but it was actually really entertaining. The music was live and they had really neat traditional instruments.

We left the next day to on a tour to Halong Bay which is about 3 hours East of Hanoi. We booked a 3 day/2 night tour thinking that it would be nice to just relax on the boat for a few days. Well, we were right! Even despite the weather (rainy and cloudy) it was completely enjoyable and relaxing. Halong Bay is famous in Vietnam for it's Karst formations. Karst formations are mountains made of some strange rock (I forget the name) that were eroded down to smooth rocks during the last ice age. The rocks/mountains sort of jut out of the sea at all different angles. It's really breathtaking to see it actually. Also cool was the fact that there are a bunch of caves in the mountains. It's strange to think that there were fish swimming in there at one point in time!


So the first day in Halong Bay we just relaxed on the boat (since it was raining) and went and explored a cave. The cave was really artificial (neon lights everywhere!), but really beautiful. We met a really nice Israeli couple that were in our tour, so we hung out with them most of the time. They taught us an awesome card game called "Yaniv," which we ended up playing both nights until pretty late. We didn't get much sleep the first night on the boat because there were rats alllll over. They weren't in our room (luckily) but they were running all through the walls. They were squeaking, chewing, and having a bit of a rat party I think. At one point in the night we both woke up and were like "they're in here!." I don't think the saying "as quiet as a mouse" makes any sense! Also, on top of the rat problem, the roof to our cabin was leaking from the rain so all night we heard "drip, squeak, drip, drip, chew." As you can imagine, we got a great sleep the first night!

The second day we went trekking and went and visited a traditional house/bee farm (yay!!). Actually it was a lot of fun (despite the humidity being almost 85%!) and really neat to see the countryside. We drank some honey and some honey wine as well which was delicious! After that we went kayaking for a while. It was pretty cold out so we pretty much had the sea/beaches to ourselves. It was really nice!


That night we got to sleep in hotel and we slept really well. All-in-all Halong Bay was definitely worth it and a lot of fun to see. It was pretty touristy, but I think everything in Vietnam will be. Actually there was a couple from Belgium on our boat who tried to find some "untouched" areas in Vietnam via motorbike and ended up being basically escorted back onto the tourist trail by someone from the military! Guess we'll have to save exploring for Laos or Cambodia.

Anyway, that's all for now. We're off to Hoi An to get some clothes made and to go check out some temples.

We want to wish all the Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day(!). Especially, we want to say hi to our Mom's and Grandma's - we love you lots and wish we could be home to treat you today! Hugs all the way from Vietnam...

Miss you all!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XOXO

Ps. We're going to post some pictures tomorrow, so check back later!