Through Exhaustion and Tomfoolery

While we try to write entries that will entertain family and friends, this blog is also functioning as our mutual travel diary. Therefore, the following may not make much sense or be that entertaining for those following the blog.

We are both pretty goofy people to begin with, but some of the stuff that comes out of our mouths when we are exhausted and/or excited and/or disoriented have become instant catchphrases, family classics, and sources of hilarity. We have been writing down some of the funniest lines and interactions on our trip, and we would like to take this opportunity to document them. Most of them require some context, but a few may seem amusing on their own. But you kinda had to be there for most of them...be there and be super tired/jolly/disoriented.

- "I didn't know buses were allowed to drive off ramps here, in the middle of the night!" 
> yelped by a groggy Alex during a sleeper bus trip from Saigon to Nha Trang, after the bus hit a huge pothole, sending all the sleeping backpackers one foot into the air


- "No, Al! Either I'm going by myself or you're going by myself!"
> Kate yelling at Alex when he tried to get her to come with him to ask a shopowner for directions late one night in Vietnam, somewhere


- "OH MY GOD...You ARE Chicken Little!!!" 
> exclaimed Kate after Alex had just shaved his beard, spiked his faux-hawk, and made a chicken face for the camera


- "Whatever Kate, if I lived here, I would call it Timothy Hensen's House and I would give away...free silk helmets. That's what I would do." 
> Alex creating a nonsensical argument to try to irritate Kate at Jim Thompson's House in Bangkok


- Al: "Which is my banana?"
  K8: "That's what she said!"
> Interaction that took place while sharing a banana split in Bangkok...and this would make no sense whatsoever were we in any other city


- "But was the race a dead heat?"
> Alex upon hearing that the horse Dad bet on in a Seattle race died on the track

South Coast Roadtripping

The past week has been hectic. We landed in Sydney and spent two days there with our cousin J.Ho who is currently helping to engineer a malting factory outside of the city. We were there over a weekend, so he had some time to show us around the harbour. The city reminded us of Vancouver, and we repeated this obvious comparison ad nauseam, much to J.Ho's irritation. We finally realised that we were not in BC when we went for a walk through the botanical gardens to feed the cockatoos instead of the Canadian geese.

Kate and I took a train to Melbourne after our time in sunny Sydney came to an end (yes, it was sunny and warm despite it being late winter). The differences between the rivaling cities were immediately apparent. Melbourne is shorter, funkier, and super artsy. Also, it seems as though there are two-to-three cafes on every block, which instantly made the city more attractive. We stayed in a sweet, old, quiet guesthouse on St Kilda, south of the city, and enjoyed the walk into town through the Alexandra Gardens everyday. We have yet to visit a city with such a thorough and generous Tourist Information Centre. The city offers a free circle tram around the city, a free hop-on-hop-off bus, free state museum entry, and a plethora of free walking tours/maps/guides. The first time we walked into the main Tourist Information Centre we asked this small Asian lady if they offered any sort of free walking tour and she laughed in our faces..."Free walking tour? We have TONS of free walking tours!" she cackled. Highlights of our four days in Melbourne included meeting up with Kate's friend Dan for dumplings and beers in Chinatown, shopping at Queen Victoria Market, and hitting up some of the city's uber trendy lanes (DeGraves and The Causeway) for coffee.

Victoria Market Snacks

Dan, Al, Kate - Post Dumplings in Melbourne

J.Ho flew to Melbourne on our fourth day and rented a car in preparation for our roadtrip along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide the following day. Our primary goal in travelling this famous scenic route was to view the Twelve Apostles. After a leisurely afternoon of driving, stopping at lookouts, eating coastal fish n' chips, and goofing around, we realised that we may not make it to the Twelve Apostles before sundown. This freaked J.Ho out and he put the pedal to the metal...as hard as one can on a super-super-curvy two-lane road. Not only did we arrive before twilight, the clouds parted to reveal a dramatic, mentally orange sunset. We spent the night in Mount Gambier, and ended up eating Dominos pizza for dinner at 11:30pm, which was the only business open in this small South Australian town.   

Blue Lake Jumping Outside of Mount Gambier

Twelve Apostles Sunset on the GOR

Adelaide Approaches!

Our second day of driving (and by "our" second day I mean "Jamie's" second day because Kate and I are developmentally challenged when it comes to the operating of motor vehicles) took us through the Coorong, a large National Park that is known for its sand dunes and unique ecosystem. We only saw one or two cars along this remote stretch of road, but we did see four dead wombats. Poor little, fat, slow, roadkilled wombats. We arrived into Adelaide by 5pm, just in time for dinner with our aunt and uncle. Show us what you got, Adelaide!

SEA ----> OZ

Kate and I are sitting in a Bangkok internet cafe right now, just two hours away from flying to Sydney. We have slightly different feelings about leaving. I feel that the last two months have been a great intro to Asia, but that it is time to move on. Kate would like to stay a bit longer. I have had my fill of cheap beer, awesome food, thick pollution, crazy traffic, pagodas and touts. Kate, on the other hand, loves the shopping, the warmth, and the cheeky/friendly attitude of most of the poeple here, and how everything is so cheap.

We squeezed in an overnight trip to Ha Long Bay before leaving Vietnam. Ha Long Bay was otherworldly, and we had a great time, but the cruise was *almost* too fancy. We were on an Asian-style junk with 14 other travelers, and the junk had been classified as a four-star accommodation, so we were stuck with mushy couples and a few chichi families for the trip. While we thoroughly enjoyed the eight-course dinner and two lunches - as well as the excessive two-to-one, staff-to-guest ratio - we felt a bit out of place, having been roughing it on the road for the previous four months. Highlights of the trip included kayaking around the Cong Do islands in Bai Tu Bay and watching the sunset behind the hundreds of karsts with some cold brewskies in hand. After the kayaking, Kate and I swam for a bit. While Kate made do with wading, I decided to breast-stroke out a bit further. "Don't go too far, Al! You aren't the best swimmer!" jeered Kate. I laughed this faux warning off, but a minute later I felt this burning pain across the backs of my legs. "WTF! Something just bit me!" I shouted. After doggie-paddling back to shore, the source of this pain became apparent: jellyfish! The stings did hurt, but the staff gave me some lemons to rub on my lashings once we were back on the boat, and the aspirin took care of the rest.

It may be a week or so before our next entry because we will be on the road, travelling between Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Cheers, Mates :)

Ha Long's Lady Humps

Yes, People Still Fish Like This

     

HILLTRIBES: Cao Son, Bac Ha, Sa Pa, Coc Ly

To end our time in Vietnam, we booked a four-day tour into the north of the country, to see how the country's ethnic minorities live. We booked with an adventure company called Handspan, and they place an emphasis on cultural and outdoorsy activities. The trip was a-maz-ing for many reasons, but the fact that we were the only two on the tour really made it "special". 

Day One: Hanoi to Lao Cai to Bac Ha

We took an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai on July 30th and hit the highland ground running. Bleary-eyed, we were picked up at the Lao Cai train station by our guide, Quy (pronounced k-way). He explained that we were heading straight to the exotic Bac Ha Sunday Market after breakfast, and that we should get ready to see some weird stuff, such as Hmông Offal Soup, bunches of hanging kittens for sale, and bright purple rice. We were quickly jolted out of our sleepy states as the Handspan minivan began climbing hundreds and hundreds of feet into the lush, wild mountains of north Vietnam. With rice terraces covering all surfaces of the steep hillsides and water buffalo creating tense obstacles on the single-lane highway up to Bac Ha, the trip was (literally) breathtaking in and of itself. We arrived into Bac Ha very early, at 8AM, and the market had barely started up...so we checked into our small hotel and had a shower. After some much needed refreshing, our guide took us around the large market and explained some of the more unusual sites and products. He was also really helpful in describing the hilltribe groups that were selling at the market: the Hmông, the Tay, and the Dao. Kate bought some engraved Hmông earrings. Nice! After lunch, we went for a trek into the surrounding hills, and we were invited into a Hmông family's house. This was one of the highlights of the tour: we were invited to sit with the family's grandmother, we sampled some of their household corn wine (every family makes this sweet moonshine, to both drink themselves and sell at the market), and we bought a small purse that Granny had embroidered. Soooooo different from the rest of Vietnam.

 Drab Dress When Compared to the Hilltribe Women!

 

The Hills Surrounding Bac Ha 

In a Hmong House - With Granny in the Background 

Day Two: Bac Ha to Muong Khuong to Cao Son  

We began our second day mountain biking down the Hmon-gous road that we had driven up the day before. Have you ever driven up/down a road and thought to yourself "Man...this would be so so so much fun to bike or skateboard or go-kart down!" Well, this was one of those roads. The bike ride not only allowed us to soak-up the scenery, it also enabled us to glide for 40 minutes without peddling once. The minivan was waiting for us at the bottom, and we headed for the town of Muong Khuong for lunch. We only stopped here briefly, but is was memorable because Kate asked to buy some of the house "happy water" from the proprietor. Our guide thought this request was pretty funny, but it was no problem for him to snag an Aquafina waterbottle full of the restaurant's own corn wine. After lunch we headed to the remote village of Cao Son, population 2,000. Surrounded by tiny hills covered in corn and rice, our lodging was a simple bamboo house, complete with dirt floor, Hmong hosts, and stone fireplace. After dropping our bags, we went for a two-hour trek...or what we thought would be a two-hour trek. The hike began well, on a dirt road with blue skies, but the dirt road quickly turned into a narrow path, and the blue skies disappeared behind dark rain clouds. We brought ponchos with us, but the torrential rains that developed an hour into the trek were just too much for these thin plastic body condoms. The heavy rain and the first few slips onto our butts were funny and exciting at first, but we both began to worry after our guide stated that he was having trouble finding the last part of the path back home. With the sun beginning to set, the rain continuing to fall, and our guide frantically calling people for directions, we began to wonder whether we would be spending the night in a water buffalo shack in the mountains. Eventually, Quy came to the conclusion that it would be best to just return the way we came, thus turning our light two-hour trek into a crazy, wet, four-hour adventure. Hot showers never felt so good!   

Smooth Sailing for More than 40 Minutes 

 Ya...We Are Smiling Now...Just Wait

Drive-By Hilltribe Shot 

Day Three: Cao Son to Coc Ly Market to Sa Pa 

We woke up again at 7am after a sketchy sleep in our little hut to begin our bikeride down Cao Son mountain. This time the bike trail was a bit narrower, a tad bumpier and alot more adventurous (yes, this is a list but no, Alex is not writing this section). The sun soon turned into cloud and we were quickly descending into what seemed to be white oblivion for a matter of miles before we reached half way down the summit and took a break so I could pet a brand new baby horse and Al could take off his sweaty shirt. It took us about 3 hours but we reached Coc Ly at about mid-day after a sweat filled, uphill battle beside the Coc Ly Dam. Coc Ly was nice but not even close to the size of Bac Ha market and I managed to pick up an authentic Black Hmong scarf for my travels. After the short visit it was back in the van and heading to Sa Pa, our final, most relaxing stop yet. Our view from the hotel was killer! Surrounded by mountains and villages, it was by far the nicest place we've stayed on our travels so far. Even though it was a bit more touristy than we were used to in the Hills, it was still absolutely beautiful. We wandered down the 5km Sa Pa mountain to the cute village of Cat Cat and took some pictures of the waterfall and corn fields and gave two Hmong children our recently purchased plastic ball. They were totally obsessing over it. After a walk and a beer by the lake, it was time to depart from the Hill Tribes and head back into Hanoi for a much needed shower and laundry sesh.

Al sportin the cheese with Sa Pa in the background

We gave them our ball, oh yes, we gave them our ball.

The Home of Uncle Ho

Upon arriving into Hanoi, we quickly compared it to Saigon: psycho scooters everywhere, cosmopolitan restaurants, highrises, and lots of whities. However, after we checked-in to our hotel and spent a day exploring the city, the differences between these two capital cities began to emerge.

We spent four days in both Hanoi and Saigon, and we did "do" more in Saigon. This was probably due to the fact that Saigon really caters to tourists and has made the tourist experience very straightforward, but it was also due to the heat and distances between sites in Hanoi. We both dislike it when people complain about heat - because everyone knows that SEA is hot and because heat should never deter one from sightseeing and having fun - but it was 35C while we were in Hanoi, and this felt like 41C-46C with the humidity! One day, we decided to visit the Ho Chi Minh Complex in the northwest of the city. Little did we know, Uncle Ho's Mausoleum is only open between the random times of  7am-10am, Tuesday through Thursday and on weekends. After we had ventured out to the complex, had been rejected from seeing Uncle Ho's embalmed body and checked out the city's famed One Pillar Pagoda, we were so hot, sweaty, and disappointed that we returned to our hotel by 2pm and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking cold beer from our mini fridge and watching 'Wayne's World 2'. Zhang! 

But enough of this complaining...we did some really cool things in this city. From drinking at a local bia hoi north of the Old Quarter to attending a traditional water puppet performance at the National Water Puppet Theatre, we discovered why so many people consider Hanoi to be a sophisticated and complex capital. We will also remember Hanoi as the first Asian city in which we got scammed by a taxi. Hot and tired, we foolishly got into one of the city's unofficial cabs one day. After a few minutes, Kate noticed that the meter was running freakishly fast. "Dude! I think your meter's broken!" exclaimed Kate. The driver faked like this was the case and reset it. This lowered our anxiety, and we began to relax and look out the window, but the next time we looked at the meter it stated that we owed 492,000 VND! This is like $25CAD, and a cab ride rarely costs more than $3CAD in SEA. I told him to pull over right away, and Kate assertively stated that there is no way on Buddha's green earth we were paying the fee, and then the yelling began. Frazzled and exhausted, we threw 100,000 VND at the irate driver and made a run for it. It was intense...but this taught us to never let our guard down  when language barriers and poverty are a part of one's travels. 

 

Do Ya THINK There is Enough Crap Piled on That Scooter?

 

ATTN: Cissy. Hanoi Classic Dish: Cha Ca Fish with Peanuts and Fried Garlic 

 

We like Hanoi more than Saigon, overall, and would recommend that visitors spend at least 3 days there. By the way, we did finally get to see the creepy preserved body of Ho Chi Minh. Yay! 

Saigon                          Hanoi                           

- Business                                                   - Culture                                              

- Accommodating                                       - Standoffish                                      

- Pro-Western                                            - Communist                                         

- Concrete Jungle                                      - Lakes and Parks                                

- Light Pho                                                  - Dark Pho