Jen & Clare Flee the Western Hemisphere

Jen and Clare sadly depart from the Eastern Hemisphere

hopperq — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:46:00 GMT

We're in Tokyo and have 3 minutes to post this before the internet dies on us. It's been fun but we're glad to be coming home. Hopefully the 12 hour flight back to Chicago will fly by (pun intended).

Hail to the King

hopperq — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:25:00 GMT

Country number 5! We have decided not to be too ambitious in Thailand because we're both worn out. We took yesterday and today to explore Bangkok, and we will spend the next 3 days on the beach. Bangkok is a refreshing change from Phnom Penh: we watched Harry Potter in a large, stadium-seating cineplex! The Pad Thai is delicious. Real cabs instead of tuk-tuks, and a mass transit system that we have put to good use! One funny note about the movie is that after the previews but before the show started, we all had to stand up for an on-screen tribute to the King. Today we saw a few last wats (temples) next to the Royal Palace (closed), and are looking forward to a break from temple hopping for a while.

It's hard to believe six weeks is almost up. We will try to post one more time from the beach, and we fly back to the United States on Friday night!

The other side of Cambodia

hopperq — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:23:00 GMT

After our Tour de Angkor we spent 2 nights in Phnom Penh. Overall, it was a depressing experience. We visited the Genocide Museum, or Killing fields, which is the site of many mass graves from the Khmer Rouge regime. From there, we went straight to the Tuon Sleng Prison, which is where the Khmer Rouge held and tortured people before transfering them to places where they would be executed. The prison was at one time a school, so all the classrooms are either transformed into cells or they now hold mugshot upon mugshot of the people who were detained there. We learned a lot about the takeover of Phnom Penh in 1975 and Pol Pot.

Other activities in Phnom Penh were the National Museum, which houses many artifacts that were removed from Angkor for preservation, the Royal Palace, and the Russian Market. To be honest, we got out of the Russian Market as quickly as we could. It was dark, claustrophobic, smelly, and dirty. We'll leave it at that. One highlight of our time in Phnom Penh was finding a restaurant called "Friends" which had the most delicious and fresh food. It is run by an NGO which trains former street children for jobs in the service industry. We ate there twice!

We probably wouldn't have minded our time in Phnom Penh too much if it weren't for the totally frustrating experience of having to fend off tuk-tuk drivers at every corner. These are little carriages pulled by motorbikes, and the drivers seem desperate for business. They tend not to listen when you tell them you don't need a ride anywhere. Being people that like to walk around and get the lay of the land on foot, we rarely needed tuk-tuks and the constant barrage of solicitations put both of us on edge.

Tour du Angkor

hopperq — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:27:00 GMT

In our effort to see as much of Angkor as possible in three days, we hopped on bikes and, like Lance, pedaled hard through the wind, rain, sun, and hordes of small children. Angkor is actually the name of a huge complex of temples (over 50) spread out over miles and miles and built at different times (but generally in and around 900-1200 AD). We began our tour with Angkor Wat, where we were trapped by a torrential rain storm that knocked down a full-size palm tree while we were watching. Luckily every outer wall of Angkor Wat is covered by detailed bas reliefs that depict mythological battles, Hindu gods, and the king who built Angkor Wat with his generals. The Indian influence is evident throughout Angkor, where Hinduism and Buddhism intermingle in carvings on every temple. After Angkor Wat, we proceeded to Angkor Thom which contains Bayon, possibly the most interesting temple if we had to pick one. Every spire has 4 faces on it, one on each side, so the entire building is covered with over 50 identical faces, all with a creepy, knowing smile. We rounded out day one of our tour with quick stops at the rest of Angkor Thom including climbing to top of a pyramid shaped temple that looks rather like Mesoamerican pyramids. The steps on all these temples are incredibly shallow making climbing a four-limbed endeavor. When you look down from the top, you begin to question your sanity in climbing up to begin with.

Day 2 of our Tour du Angkor was a 25 mile tour du force in which we visited 9 temples, not including ones we just biked by but didn't actually dismount to see (out of sheer exhaustion -- we had rusty old single speed bikes). The highlight of the day was probably Ta Phrom which is the only temple intentionally left unrestored so you can see what the temples looked like when the French originally "discovered" them. This is the classic Angkor temple with trees growing out of it and stones covered in moss and lying strewn across the grounds. The temples are all covered in intricate carvings. You can't tell from distant photos, but the lintels, pediments, moldings, walls -- nearly every surface -- is covered in bas reliefs, Sanskrit inscriptions, and other decorations.

On day 3 we put aside the bikes for power and performance: we hired a tuk-tuk. We saw Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre which are further afield (over 25 km away from Angkor Wat) and have lots of well-preserved carvings. Along the way we stopped at the Landmine Museum which describes the devastation inflicted by landmines in Cambodia and how landmines are removed and deactivated. People really do search for landmines by hand, probing the ground very carefully with sharp sticks. The museum also acts as a school and home for as well as a moving tribute to children injured by landmines.

And so concludes our time in Siem Reap. We are templed out, we love amok (a Khmer coconut curry dish), we took a cooking class and learned to cook amok, spring rolls, and banana flower salad, we conducted a conversation with three guys on a motorcycle while biking, we love Cambodians' friendliness, and now we're off to Phnom Penh.

Gallery: Cambodia

hopperq — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:41:00 GMT

1001 Wats

hopperq — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:42:00 GMT

We've only been Luang Prabang for two full days but we've already come to love it. It's small, quiet, easy-going, beautiful, tasty, and it has so many temples that we've lost count of how many we've visited. All those iconic photos you see of monks in orange robes amongst golden temples are accurate. Nearly every temple (wat) is tended by monks, who are often quite young (kids and teenagers). Unlike the temples in China and Vietnam, these are painted in gold and gleam in the sun. The Buddhas, boddhisatvas, and temple artwork also look different: they remind us more of India than China. Rather than try to remember all the wats we visited, we'll just list a few highlights. 1. Being led by two monks, one of which spoke English, down into a cave to see a wat. He gets up at 4 am everyday to pray. 2. Quiet. A very nice change of pace from Hanoi. Plus you can cross the streets without getting run over. 3. Fresh fruit smoothies for 5000 kip (60 cents or so). 4. Crossing the Mekong to see a few wats on the other side. There were no other tourists! 5. Food with lots of herbs and spices. 6. A decrepit old wat on the other side of the Mekong that was on the top of a hill and provided great views of the river and the city. 7. Bright orange robes everywhere. If not on monks then hanging out to dry. 8. Sticky rice with ice cream. 9. Snails everywhere. But not for eating. 10. A huge night market with beautiful goods and much less aggressive vendors. Our time is running out at the internet cafe so that's all for now folks.

Gallery: Laos

hopperq — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:59:00 GMT

China and Vietnam: A Comparison

hopperq — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:22:00 GMT

We've been talking and thinking a lot about how China and Vietnam are different from one another. Here are some (we hope) interesting notes on that:

1. More Vietnamese people speak a little English, so it's easier to get around without knowing the local language

2. In China there are many more signs and menus with English translations

3. The people in both countries are very friendly towards foreigners, but in different ways. For example, in China people came up to us all the time wanting to chat in English. That hasn't happened to us in Vietnam. But the people at our hotel have gone way out of their way to accomodate us and make us feel at home.

4. China seems to have a booming domestic tourism industry, while Vietnam's is not as prominent.

5. Chinese vendors are much more aggressive, whereas Vietnamese vendors will listen to you if you say you're not interested.

6. Almost no one wants our picture in Vietnam dispite the fact that we still stick out here.

7. Fake rip-off products seem to be a bigger industry in Vietnam. We see Vietnamese people wearing rip-off Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana with blatant spelling mistakes.

8. China has indoor shopping malls and a much bigger consumer culture. Most products in Vietnam appear to be sold in small independent stores or stalls.

9. Vietnam has mostly sit-down toilets (with toilet paper included), whereas China has mostly squat-a-pots and you must bring your own paper.

10. Vietnam has many, many mopeds and motorbikes. China has these too, but they are mixed in with a higher number of cars and bicycles.

11. Both China and Vietnam have large populations of rural poor. But, China has a wealthier and more noticeable upper class.

We've only spent 3 weeks in a fraction of the cities in China, and 1 week in only 1 city in Vietnam, so it's quite possible that our observations are inaccurate. We just wanted to comment on what we've noticed, but please don't take it as the absolute truth.

Aquabigsea

hopperq — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Rip-off brands are tricky sometimes. I didn't even notice that my water was "Aquabigsea" and not "Aquafina" til I was almost done drinking it. Another sidenote, winter melon tea is delicious!

We took a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda on Thursday. Guided tours seem to be the only way to visit the places we want to see, so we went with it. The poorly air-conditioned van was tolerable, but we felt even worse about the lady who rowed us and 3 other adults down the river for over an hour to get to the pagoda. The temperature was 38 degrees celcius.

The Perfume Pagoda is the name used to refer to a group of over 15 buddhist temples that are built near a town. At some point outsiders translated the first word of the town's name as "Perfume", which is where the name comes from. We were only able to visit 2 of the temples because of time and heat. One was in a cave that looks like the mouth of a dragon. The other was a pagoda where a prayer service was being held while we visited. Our guide said that Perfume Pagoda is one of the holiest buddhist temples in Vietnam and that 3.5 million people visit every year during a 3 month long festival. There are up to 30,000 people visiting each day during the week, and 60,000 on the weekends. Since it was not festival season, we enjoyed relative peace and quiet.

Cruising on the Canh Bum 02 (Pronounced Can boom)

hopperq — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 21:22:00 GMT

We bit the bullet and joined another tour. It's pretty much the only way to get on a boat in Halong Bay. The 3 hour drive wasn't bad, and thankfully our guide wasn't partial to long-winded multi-lingual speeches. We had been told by our hotel and by the driver that there would be 14 people on the boat. We found out, after-the-fact, that this meant 14 people sleeping on the boat. 20 other Asian tourists joined us for the day, including a group of Vietnamese Karaoke singers. This was broadcasted over the speakers for the first hour and was less than entertaining. Bad singing in a language you don't understand, and LOUD, well, we won't continue to complain...highlights of the day included:

1. Enjoying the spectacular views. Halong Bay is a body of water filled with tons of tiny karst mountain islands. You boat among these islands and watch the sun set. Really sublime.

2. A jaunt inside the "Surprise Cave." Or, as we thought, our guide was saying, the "Amazing Sublime Cave." He walked us through the cave and pointed out lots of rock formations, asking us to guess what they were. We would, of course, guess wrong and then he would tell us the story behind the elephant, the happy buddha, the lucky buddha, the sea lion, the dragon (does anyone know the difference between a European dragon and an Asian dragon?) or whatever it was. He had a sense of humor, too:

Yap (our guide): Does anyone know what this is?

Dutch guy: It looks like a turtle.

Yap: Yes, it is a turtle. Is it male or female?

Dutch guy: I think male.

Jen: I think it's a female.

Yap: It isn't a male or female turtle. It is a rock.

Hahaha, Yap! From then on when he asked what the formations were we simply said they were rocks.

3. Kayaking around one of the islands

4. Clare jumping in the water from the top deck of the boat and not getting stung by any jelly fish

5. Chatting with Yap about his aspirations for a better job

6. The other characters on our boat -- here's the line-up:

1 lone Irish traveler

2 Canadian ditzes (they didn't know why their kayak wasn't moving forward....yeah, it was still tied to the dock)

3 young goofy/talkative British college boys who are motorbiking through Vietnam

2 older Dutch women eager to coax the British boys into diving into the water naked (awkward)

1 Dutch couple who really hated the karaoke and learned on the boat that Oreos were delicious cookies and not made of licorice

1 French couple who we couldn't communicate with

4 or 5 crew members who took copious notes on our beverage consumption so they could charge us later

7. Row boat ladies who rowed up to our boat on numerous occasions to sell cookies (Oreos and others), Pringles, beer, wine, etc.

We had a comfortable night in our air-conditioned cabin. Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise (we were told it would be at 6 but that was false), but we enjoyed coasting on the boat until noon when we disembarked and headed back to Hanoi.

Tomorrow we're going to see the Perfume Pagoda, and on Friday we fly from Hanoi to Luang Prabang, Laos.

How to cross the street in Hanoi and other words of wisdom

hopperq — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:24:00 GMT

1. Don't worry about the Vietnamese hating you because you're American. They're friendly, welcoming, and don't hold any grudges.

2. Do pay attention to the ladies carrying entire fruit markets on their shoulders and bikes. For some reason, only women seem to carry the heavy loads...

3. Don't expect traffic to obey lights or signs, or to show you any mercy.

4. Do enjoy the exchange rate, but bring a calculator.

5. Don't try to ask for anything other than a trip to Halong Bay at the front desk. When you say you want to see more of the "real" Vietnam and get away from the tourists, you get blank stares.

6. Do look both ways before crossing the street. Then look again. You'll have missed at least a couple zooming motorcycles, but just walk forward with confidence and have faith in their swerving abilities.

7. Don't be worried if you don't know Vietnamese. People here know more English than in China.

8. Do try Vietnamese hot pot. Other than the chewy tentacles, the unidentifiable seafood is delicious.

9. Don't leave home without an umbrella in the rainy season.

10. Do drink ginger tea (in China too). It's delicious.

11. Don't expect to walk on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are for driving and parking motorcycles, restaurant seating, street vendors, and generally everything except walking.

12. Do notice the mix of brand new fancy buildings and decaying old ones. Hanoi is changing before your eyes.

13. Don't expect one-stop shopping. There's a dedicated store, if not an entire street, to each individual item (i.e. shoes, water coolers, rice-cookers, moped repair).

Hanoi in 48 hours

hopperq — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:21:00 GMT

Give us a city and we'll see all the major sites in 2 days. Day one of our whirlwind tour of Hanoi included 3 museums and was heavy on the American War (what they call the Vietnam War here). The Women's Museum is a tribute to the bravery and courage of Vietnamese women during the war. Imagine picking your child up at the underground nursery in the tunnels after having manned artillery all day. Hoa Lo Prison (the "Hanoi Hilton") is most famous for being where American pilots including John McCain were held during the war but was actually built by the French to house Vietnamese prisoners during the colonial era. It's interesting to compare the American and Vietnamese accounts of the war. According to Vietnam, American POWs played basketball and cooked Christmas dinner while in prison while the US sent women and children to concentration camps. But our American history classes certainly sugar-coated US behavior at times. I suppose the truth is somewhere in the middle. Lastly, after being ripped off by multiple taxis with rigged meters, we made our way to the Ethnography Museum which documents the remarkable number of indigenous peoples residing in Vietnam. In addition to the Viet, there are the Hmong, Muong, Black Thai, White Thai, Tay, Lao, Han, Yao, just to name a very few. Day two began with Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (which is closed on Mondays but having seen a preserved Mao, we get the idea...) and museum. The museum lacked facts, which was frustrating for those of us not raised in Uncle Ho's shadow, but was big on symbolism. A deconstructed version of Picasso's Guerrnica was used to represent the struggle of the 1930s and one sign said Ho's cave hideout was "represented here by a human brain" (we never did figure that one out). After the museum, we toured the rest of the Ho Chi Minh complex including the One Pillar Pagoda and Ho's Stilt House. Then it was off to the Temple of Literature ("Van Mieu"), Vietnam's imperial college modeled off the Chinese exam system. We then worked our way east to Hoan Kiem Lake in the heart of the Old Quarter and visited the Ngoc Son Temple which is on an island in the lake and houses a preserved giant tortoise. The story goes that a tortoise took the sword that a 15th century king used to drive out the Chinese from Vietnam to the bottom of the lake, making the lake and the tortoises that call it home holy.

Gallery: Vietnam

hopperq — Sun, 5 Jul 2009 00:40:00 GMT

Welcome to the Golden Sun

hopperq — Sun, 5 Jul 2009 00:19:00 GMT

First of all: we have lots of new pictures posted due to a fabulous internet connection (see below for explanation). Check out the Guilin, Yangshuo, Lijiang, and Funny Stuff galleries for new pics.

On to business. Happy fourth of July to everyone! It's the end of the day here but festivities should just be beginning at home. We safely arrived in Hanoi. We prearranged to have the hostel pick us up from the airport, which was good because it was quite a ways and would have been an expensive cab ride anyways. By the way, the exchange rate is 17,801 dong to 1 US dollar. We are gonna have to dig up our old division skills. Anyways, we arrived at the Hanoi Guesthouse and were told they just opened a new, nicer hotel 2 days ago. They offered us a room there, the Golden Sun, for the same price as the room we reserved. So we took them up on it, and that's why I am sitting IN our private room at a brand new computer with internet while we watch Arnold Schwarzenneger in True Lies on our flat screen tv. This place is so clean, new, and luxurious. For $8/night/per person. We are very happy with our accomodations! Gonna get some rest so we can go out and explore Hanoi tomorrow. We left to eat dinner (yummy) but that's all we've done so far.

Enjoy the fireworks and parades and pool parties!

Jennifer

PS - the time difference is now 12hrs instead of 13 if that matters to anyone (for Chicago). 11hr time diff for the east coast

Au Revoir Hong Kong

hopperq — Sun, 5 Jul 2009 00:13:00 GMT

Food in Hong Kong was great. Fresh juice and smoothies, fresh salads for lunch, and fresh (though we made sure it wasn't TOO fresh) seafood for dinner. On our one full day in Hong Kong we took the bus across the island to Stanley and checked out the market there. Crossing back over, we then walked through numerous nice shopping malls (these comprise much of Hong Kong) to the pier where we caught a ferry to Lamma Island. We enjoyed a nice hike across that island and met back up with Laura in Kowloon where we had a beautiful view of the HK skyline from the Intercontinental Hotel. Before leaving Hong Kong on Friday we grabbed coffee from Pacific Coffee and shopped a little at the Jade Market. Goodbye Hong Kong! Hello Vietnam!

Gallery: Shenzhen

hopperq — Sat, 4 Jul 2009 23:46:00 GMT

Gallery: Hong Kong

hopperq — Sat, 4 Jul 2009 23:28:00 GMT

Hong Kong

hopperq — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 13:00:00 GMT

Where to start? We ate authentic Indian and Middle Eastern food on the same day. There's toilet paper and soap in the public restrooms. The streets glow with neon and skyscrapers dominate the skyline. It's quite a change from mainland China -- you have to go through immigration and customs to get here -- but a nice break before Vietnam.

We met up with our friend Andrea in Shenzhen who kindly put us up Wednesday night, showed us around Shenzhen, and got us oriented in Hong Kong. Then Jen's friend, Laura, met us in Hong Kong for dinner. Many thanks to both of them for being awesome tour guides, giving great tips, and engaging in fluent American English conversations.

We went to the top of Victoria's Peak yesterday, took the Star Ferry, and walked the Avenue of Stars. We're writing from a food court restaurant with free internet (!) so we can't upload any pictures and we'll keep this short. Happy 4th of July!

Things we forgot

hopperq — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:28:00 GMT

In our previous posts about Yangshuo we forgot a number of details. Since today was spent mostly eating, shopping for souvenirs, and sweating, we will skip over that and talk about the other forgotten stuff.

On Saturday night we went to a show called "Impressions" by Liu Sanjie. He is the guy who choreographed the opening ceremony for the Olympics here. Cool, right? It's in an outdoor theater situated on the edge of an inlet surrounded by the karst peaks. It's a beautiful spot. Most of the show takes place in the water with hundreds of people doing stuff in sync with each other on boats. There was also a lot of singing, dancing, and stuff with lights. The end was really awesome with probably about 300 girls lined up in the dark in formation. They each had an outfit on that had lights which would flash on and off. Ok, the show is really hard to describe but it was very, very cool. The choreography together with the gorgeous location made it a really mesmerizing experience (for me, at least, this is Jennifer speaking). Clare thought it was more fascinating than entertaining. I bought the DVD if anyone (mom, i know you'll want to) wants to see it.

Another thing we forgot to mention was this British guy who literally turned around on his bike and pedalled back to us so he could talk to us. He struck up a conversation and pretty much carried it on by himself for a good 45 minutes. I think we know this guy's life story (he loves James Taylor and John Mayor, his wife divorced him after 33 years, he now has a chinese girlfriend half his age, he thinks the fajitas at the Rock'n grill in Yangshuo are out of this world, etc., the list goes on). Some people just like to talk.

Tonight we're taking an overnight bus. They apparently have little beds in them that are very narrow and uncomfortable. We sprang for the most expensive option with the hope that we'll actually fit in the beds. We bumped into the other 4 people we rafted here with and all 3 groups of us payed different amounts for what we think will be the same bus tonight. We'll see.

Clare apologies for mis-spelling buoyant and Gollum yesterday. How dare she.

That's all for now, folks! Thanks for all your comments! We're glad people are reading and we both say hi to you!

Photos are on the right

hopperq — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Under "Photo Galleries." Uploading is slow over here but we're trying.