Vietnam--To the beach?

From Phnom Penh, we got a bus direct to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. We are being very restless travelers this trip, and so after walking around a bit, we decide to leave early the next moning for Mui Ne, "Vietnam's best all around beach". We got in and found the place deserted. Apparently it's low season. This may be due to the fact that the tide is in so far that there technically is no beach, just huge breakers that touch the steps leading down to where the beach would be. The plus side of down season is that we got a killer room for cheap, where this is the view outside our massive plate glass windows:

Luckily, Mui Ne has some interesting surrounding attractions. It is also known as "the Sahara of Vietnam" because there are some massive sand dunes a few km outside of town. Yesterday we rented motorbikes and headed out there. There are two main dunes, the red and the white.

You could rent "sleds" from the kids patrolling the white dunes and go for a ride down the slopes. It's not quite as fast as a good running jump down a snow hill, and it's a bit grittier, but it was fun. Walking up the sand was harder than walking up snow, I think, although it's been a while since I've sledded and it always seems like it takes forever to get back up the hill.

We headed back to the red dunes (closer to town, less distance to cover at night with questionable headlights and even more questionable road etiquette). Sterling ran out of gas, since it wouldn't be a motorbike trip without that added excitement. I didn't, so I went and picked some up from a local shop. She put it in a plastic bag to go.

Driving home was exhilarating. It's a two lane road. Generally, the trucks, cars, taxis, and buses move faster than the motos, so the rule is that motos stay toward the edges, and when a larger vehicle is coming through, they blare the horn and then steam on through. This is terrifying. I almost got sucked into a bus as it stormed past me. But all in all, we made it back alive, if not absolutely covered in sand.

We are leaving today on a 17 hour bus ride up to Hoi An. Turns out I have to leave a week early so I can make it to a training event in the states for a job I got. Sad times, I only have a week left. I guess this sort of justifies our restless, rushed trip so far.

Cambod--

Sterling got in to Bangkok at 11am on the 14th. Took us until about 1am to get bags, get back to the hotel, get some snacks, and get to bed. We had a 8am bus the next morning to Cambodia. You don't have jet lag, right Sterling? Good.

Headed out to Siem Reap to go see Angkor Wat. The site was cool, the city was bizarre. Really, the whole country is bizarre. Angkor Wat is one of those "must do" places in SE Asia, so everybody does it. Driving into the city we passed the highest concentration of high class hotels that I had seen to date. Who is staying in all these places? There must have been at least 20 really nice looking ones, then a lot of a little less nice looking ones, and even more cheapies. So many.

Couldn't get over the feeling that everybody in Cambodia was trying to rip us off. Promises that weren't met, tuk tuk drivers who would drop you off at their buddy's place no matter where you said you wanted to go, "services" being offered...it was a rather cynical approach but it was hard to shake. Couldn't walk more than one block without someone yelling "Hey lady! Where you go! Tuk Tuk!". Now granted, that is all of SE Asia, but it seemed more desperate here. It was unsettling. So we went to Angkor Wat (by tuk tuk), ran around (and climbed on) the temples, then pretty well fled. Things will be better in Pnohm Penh? Maybe it's just because Siem Reap exists (apparently) solely to serve (profit from) the tourists drawn in by Angkor Wat.

Things weren't all that much better in Phnom Penh. We didn't really like the feeling in Camodia, so we left the next day for Vietnam. It feels narrow minded to give up on a country after two days (two cities), but we don't have that much time. We spent our time in Phnom Penh visiting S21, the Khmer Rouge "reeducation center" (torture prison). It was really sad. Learned a lot about recent (shockingly recent) Khmer history, got depressed, and didn't take any pictures. On to Vietnam!

What civil war?

I asked a travel agent if it's possible to get from Mae Hong Son to Mae Sot in one day, and he said yes, but it's a "very long day on very local transport". Now, I've ridden a bus or two in my day, and so naturally I scoffed. Bring your local transit, Thailand. Turns out he was right. It was a long day. Started off at 530, tuk-tuk to the bus station for the 6am local bus to Mae Sairang (4.5 hours, hard, small seat but not crowded so it was fine). Arrive in Mae Sairang, have 10 minutes before we leave for Mae Hong Son by sangtaew. A sangtaew is a pickup truck with two hard benches in the back and a little canopy over the bed area. Mostly open. Very windy. 6 hours. Up some mountains, into cold/mist, and then down some mountains, very fast (85mph, I chekced). In the rain. Using both lanes around blind turns. I was concerned. Eventually we made it down and didn't die, and it got warmer and stopped raining. But yes, it was a long day, and very local. It got especially local when about 10 locals plus me and Rudi and our packs were jammed in there.

That night in Mae Sot, I was sitting in the common area and started talking to the leader of a tour group that was staying there. I said I was going to Burma tomorrow. He said the border is closed. I said ...say what?? I had asked two or three Thai people (travel agents, etc) and they all said it was open. Nope, closed. Civil war. That completely blew my plans out of the water. Now I had far too much time to kill in far too small of a town and I didn't want to rush back to Bangkok either and what was I going to do??? Naturally, I decided to mope around for the day I was supposed to be in Burma. Lay on the sundeck. Read. As I was about to go do this, the tour leader showed up again and asked if I was just going to hang around the hostel all day. It sounded like an okay plan to me, until he said it out loud, then I realized it was maybe less than ideal. Ever helpful, he suggested I rent a motorbike and go see some waterfalls. Even knew where to rent them and how much they cost.

So I went and rented a motorbike (more of a scooter, it had no clutch besides having 4 gears) for $3. I've heard of people getting ripped off by motorbike rental places who will make up damages and then charge you for them when you turn the bike in, so I made a big deal of inspecting the bike before taking it, hoping to discourage them. The first helmet she gave me was too big, the second one looked like a batting helmet. I took the first one. I had to hold it down with one hand so it wouldn't blow back, but who needs two hands anyway?

At one point as I was heading out of the city, there was a truck coming straight at me. What is this idiot doing in my lane? OH! Thailand is left side drive!! And then I came to a roundabout. Go...left... A couple more times I caught myself crusing on the right, but luckily most of the busy intersections had other people for me to follow. It'd be quite a pickle to pick the wrong side of a divided highway...

The waterfalls were dry, and the hot spring was ugly and too hot to swim in. However, I did enjoy just cruising around the rice paddies and seeing different little villages. At one point while I was looking for a cave I never found, I saw sign, sign, then no sign. Knew I had passed it, but saw the curvy road ahead sign and couldn't help myself. The scooter was no GSXR, but it was still fun whipping around the curves. All the loose gravel added some excitement.

On my way back I ran out of gas. I was a little suspicious of the gauge...hanging out on half a tank for so long (what good gas milage!). Luckily, I was in a little village and not 5km out in the middle of some fields. Extra lucky, I pushed my bike for 20 feet before a nice old Thai couple asked something that seemed to be "what's wrong with your bike?". I pointed to the gas gauge, and they pointed to a gas vending machine (no other way to describe it) literally 50 feet away. Super lucky. On top of it, there was another nice Thai lady around to show me a) where the gas tank was and b) how to use the vending machine. Disaster averted, $1.30 of gas later.
Took the night bus to Bangkok. Hanging out until tomorrow night when Sterling gets in. Trip is winding down fast...

Jungle Trek

Turns out we didn't miss the bus from Chiang Mai. We arrived at 230 for the departure of the last bus at...230. It turned out to be a minibus, and it was full (very tight). After a decently uncomfortable 6 hours, we arrived in Mae Hong Son. It was already late, and in order for Morten to be able to do a 3 day trek and make it in time for his bus to Bangkok, we needed to leave the next day. Rudi had heard of a good tour guide, so we decided to find her. By shear luck, she had a poster up in our guest house. We called her, and arranged to leave the next morning.

The hiking was heavy. The guide was a jungle expert, and the trail was pretty sparsely used (which was why she had to cut through a lot of it with a machete). I think the trail was used sometimes by the hill tribe people, and nobody else. We spent a lot of time crawling over, under, or around bamboo trees, and splashing up the river. For the first 30 minutes of the trek we tried to keep our feet dry. This was funny, because after we gave up and just got our shoes wet, we spent maybe 85% of our time hiking up the river, in the river. A lot of the time the ground cover came up over our heads, and there was quite a bit of communing with nature (bugs included).

The first day we hiked about 6 hours to a cave where we stayed the night. It was just the 3 of us and the guide, and she didn't bring any pots or pans, plates, utensils, anything. We cooked everything inside bamboo. When we got to the cave, we went out and collected some dead bamboo for firewood and she cut down some green bamboo. She made everything from those bamboo trees and her machete. The bands you see on the outside of the tree are places where it's actually solid through, the rest of it is hollow. You can use the segments to hold water (or rice and water, plugged with a banana tree leaf). She made plates by cutting a section and splitting it axially down the middle. She also made cups and a little scooper/spoon thing. Then we made a lot of rice and three different soups, as well as some tea from the skin of a vine she cut during the hike. This took a while, but I felt like survivor man. Well, I felt like I was on a trek with survivor (wo)man as my guide. It was impressive. We covered the floor of the cave with banana leaves and hunkered down with our sleeping bags. I was tired. I actually slept pretty well, for being in a cave. The next morning was eggs and toast, again cooked in bamboo. We ended up drinking a lot of river water, and no one got giardia! (yet)

The cave where we slept

The next day we hiked another 6 hours. It was sunny all morning, then shortly after some thunder rumbles, it started absolutely downpouring (just to prove it was an honest to goodness rain forest?). Luckily, we had ponchos with us that kept our sleeping bags mostly dry. Everything else had already been soaked from sweating and river splashing.

We finally arrived at her brother's house on a rice farm. After dinner, breakfast, and lunch cooked in bamboo, I was pretty excited to see that they had a real pot for cooking (no matter how cool the bamboo trick is). We slept upstairs on a deck type area. The whole house was made of bamboo. I think these people could build a space ship out of bamboo.

Since we were "fast walkers", we finished the last day of hiking in 3 hours. Got back into town at 130, just in time for Morten to shower and catch his 3:00 bus. Rudi and I went and ate cheeseburgers. And fries. It was delicious.

The snake vine she cut to make the tea

Rudi, Me, Morten

Tomorrow I try my luck at getting to the border town of Mae Sot. I'd like to go to Burma for a day.

Buses, Boats, Trains, and Planes: To Bangkok!

After leaving Koh Tao, I took a boat to the mainland tiny town of Chumphon. From there, I took a sleeper train to Bangkok. I am traveling with a Danish friend I met in Koh Tao. It's nice to have a travel buddy. In Bangkok, we went on a day tour out to see the floating market and the Tiger Temple.

The floating market was pretty much a tourist trap, but it was cool. Lots of people wearing funny hats and selling things out of their boats. We spent most of our time wandering around the surrounding neighborhood, the houses are all built on stilts and line the canals. People have boats in their "garages".

The Tiger Temple was also a tourist trap. I guess I should just accept that I am a tourist, and this is the feeling you get when you go on tours. But the tiger temple was cool too, they had a bunch of tigers that you could pet. The tigers didn't look all that excited about it, but I don't think they had much choice. The temple was started by 7 wild tigers that were abandoned by their owners, and the monks took them in (I guess in Thailand if you don't want an animal you can just drop it off with the nearest monk and they will take care of it). The 7 wild tigers bred into 96 tigers, most of which were born in captivity. They are fed boiled chicken, and so haven't had the taste of blood. I guess that means they won't be released into the wild any time soon... The monks use the money people pay to take pictures with them to feed them. Don't know how I feel about the whole thing, but I guess I have some pretty cool pictures now? And the tigers looked happy enough...

Cat nap

The next day we did a proper sight seeing day.
Went to see the reclining Buddha.
And some other Buddhas. Had to get the disrespectful imitation photo...I am a tourist.
Then ventured across the river to the less touristy part of Bangkok. We were headed to a medical museum, which was awesome. It was in a medical school campus, and it was graduation day, so we got to sort of take part in the festivities. Or at least, watch people take millions of photographs and sweat in their robes and hats. The museum was way cooler than I expected. It had a bunch of pathological specimens in jars in formaldehyde (smoker's lungs, ruptured spleens, brains with various things wrong, lots of stillborn babies with birth defects...). It was a little gruesome (very gruesome) but also very informative (the parts that were in english, there was a lot of thai writing). There were cases and cases of skulls of people that had died by gun shot wound, blunt force trauma, sharp object trauma... All very interesting. There was also a series of photos of gun shot wound victims. It's a good way to encourage gun safety. They didn't let us take pictures, but that's probably to the blog's benefit. I might find this stuff fascinating but maybe not everyone would agree?

After the museum we wandered out into a thai market. And by that I mean we were the only foreigners. Sat down in a food stall area to get food only to realize everything was in thai. Can't even start to guess what things were. Some nice old lady ordered us some noodle soup and rice and chicken. Pretty delicious.
Since then, a French Canadian friend I met in Malaysia has met up with me and Morten, so now we are 3. We headed out to Chiang Mai. Stayed here one night, and are looking to head out again this afternoon (although I think we missed the bus). We saw only two things in Chiang Mai before deciding to head out: the night market and the "town's best mojito" (hence missing the bus). Going up north to a town called Mae Hong Son for some trekking.

Koh Tao: Diving and Boxing

From one island to another, except with a very different pace of life. I left the Perhentians and made my way to Koh Tao, Thailand via Kuala Lumpur and Koh Samui (roundabout to avoid a "dangerous border crossing"). Koh Tao is known for diving, and that is what I did. Checked into a dive resort, and started off by doing a refresher course for my open water certification (which I left at home...deja vu, Belize...). Luckily they could look up my certification online. Good work, NAUI.

I did the refresher dive and then two more fun dives. There were fish, and some coral, it was cool. But my favorite dive was the last one I did, in a site called Laem Thian Caves. There were a bunch of narrow caves and swimthroughs to negotiate, I felt like Indiana Jones swimming into a dark cave 15m below the surface with no flashlight. It was also good practice controlling my buoyancy, trying not to smack my head, tank, and hands on the rocks and coral.

Turns out I don't have the dive mentality. Seems like lots of people come for a week and end up staying months (or years). Every time the boat went out there would be two dives. I liked doing one dive (which was frowned upon by the people running the show) and just hanging out on the boat during the second dive with my dive buddy. On one of the dives I spent above water, they saw a turtle and a yellow boxfish. The divemaster was so excited...screaming excited. I didn't feel that sad about "missing it", although some people seemed to be disappointed in me for not having seen it. It was weird. Anyway, I enjoyed the diving I did, and was pretty well done after the 3 days.

Dive buddy Ben (had an underwater camera)

While I spent my afternoons diving, I spent my mornings doing Muay Thai Boxing. I loved it. Come in 8am, warm up, then an hour or so spent in a solo lesson. Just me, and a padded instructor for about $8/day. We'd do around 3 minute intervals where he'd hold for various punch/kick combos. At the end of each 3 minutes I was dying. Short break, correct my form, start again. The strikes and kicks were pretty similar to what I do in Krav Maga in Austin, so I picked up quick.

After 4 days of the fight/dive cycle, I was pretty exhausted. In some ways I understand how people get sucked into months or years of diving. I probably could have spent a couple weeks doing the Muay Thai training.

My instructor Jem

Time spent not diving on the dive boat.

Sairee Beach, where I was staying