The weakest ink is greater than the strongest memory

Ho Chi Minh City

vladimir — Sun, 5 Sep 2010 14:24:00 GMT

At the moment I'm sitting in a little internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh city, formerly Saigon trying to find the words to describe the adventures which took place since my last entry.

After writing from Van Tieng I boarded an overnight 12 hour bus to the 4000 islands. The bus ride and the bus itself was something out of this world. First of all, the bus was a sleeper bus. I have never seen anything quite like it. The whole bus was transformed into double bunk beds spanning the length of the bus. Really awesome for those long overnight rides you would say, which is exactly what I thought when I boarded the bus. The only catch was this. The beds are designed for the local people, who are a foot shorter then your average traveler and each bed is "supposed" to fit two people in it. I had the pleasure of spooning with my new friend David from Berlin. Lets just say it took us a minute to figure out the right way to be comfortable :) 12 or 15 hours later we arrived to the 4000 islands. I can't remember the town in which we were dropped off but we walked to a little pier almost immediately, boarded a small boat, and took off for the island of Dondet. The stay was something that I can not describe in words and even pictures (no way of putting them up right now) would not do justice to the place. Just imagine this, you have a bungalow on the Mekong, a hammock stretched on the balcony, being the rainy season its still hot but the sun is not always out, you sway in the hammock all day long reading your book occasionally switching your attention to a loud boat struggling against the strong current going up the river or to look at the amazing cloud formation that you notice out of the corner of your eye. Once or twice a day it pours buckets of rain on you, but you don't mind it one bit. Everything cools down a tad and the rain never lasts more then 20 minutes. Watching the drops pound the gray waters of the Mekong is both hypnotic and relaxing, then you avert your eyes to your book and the only reminder of the rain its the rhythmic pounding on the roof of bungalow. When I tired of the book or laying in the hammock all day long I would take a stroll down the island or go for a walk to the local village or sit and observe the rice farmers work in the fields. Initially I was planning on staying on the island for two nights, but only managed to drag myself out of there after a week of doing what I described above. The stay would not be the same without the people whom I met there, the most amazing collection of the most interesting and fun guys and girls that I had the pleasure to meet.

After leaving Dondet I headed to the Laos and Cambodia border with the intention of heading to Siam Rieb and visiting the Anchor temples while there. The border was somewhat of a joke. A small wooden house with serious looking officials asking for money and gluing a visa into your passport the second they received their dollars. Nothing was inspected, no questions were asked.

I've met three French girls from Paris who have just got their MD's and were traveling for a few weeks after completing an internship in a hospital in Van Tieng. We arrived in Siam Rieb in the evening and were immediately accosted by a group of tuk tuk drivers all vying for our business. We got into one of the tuk tuks, the driver of which was the most pushy and let him drive us to a guest house which he fervently advertised to us. I have to admit that I have never been pushed this hard to accept something and I say this after spending almost 8 years in Israel. The reason I mentioned the French doctors, besides them being cool as hell, is that I have a fun story associated with them. I think of the third night of us staying in Siam Rieb we are sitting at the local market having dinner. The markets have cheap food which is much more fun and tasty than the westerner oriented restaurants that are scattered all over the touristy center. We just finished eating and are sitting trying to decide what we want to do next when we hear a hair raising shriek and a bang which sounded as if someone clapped their hands really hard next to your ear. Suddenly we see everyone run in the direction of the intersection where evidently an accident just occurred. Me being me, I don't even move, I know there is nothing I can do but get in the way so why be another nosy tourist. The girls on the other hand jump up from their seats and sprint in the direction of the noise. It took me a second to realize that they are doctors and than they have a duty to help in situations like this. So I joined them and ran trying my best not to loose anyone in the crowd and at the same time help them get to the injured person(s). When we get thee I see a tuk tuk lying on its side and people pulling out a bloodied woman out of the cabin. The girls immediately rush to her pushing people aside, they help her sit down and start examining her making sure that she didn't break anything. Long story short everything turned out to be fine and the woman just had some minor bruises and cuts. The whole ordeal was something out of the movies though. I can't describe the feeling that I had while standing in the middle of the crowd watching the girls do their job. Afterwords, when we all were having a few drinks the girls were saying what a crazy adrenaline rush situations like this are. On the one hand you know that you have to do your best to help, you hope to all the gods that you can think at that moment that you will remember what you learned in school and at the same time you are painfully aware that there is very little you can do on the scene without any equipment on your hands. Wow, never have I thought it to be like that.

After parting from the girls in Siam Rieb I took a 6 hour bus to Phenom Pen, the capital of Cambodia. I visited the Cambodian genocide museum and the killing fields. Don't want to write about it here but I would love to share my thoughts over a drink when I come home if anyone is interested.

On one of the days I ran into a few people from Dondet and we all went out to the local market. A few beers and an interesting conversation about different foods I managed to work up the courage to eat the following local delicacies: A snake, a grasshopper, a larva bug, and a tarantula. To my surprise they all tasted more or less the same but the grasshopper and the snake were my favorite :)

As I mentioned earlier I am currently in Saigon. I think I'll spend a few more days here exploring the city and then head up and make my way to Hanoi stopping at different cities along the way. If anyone remembers the scene from dumb and dummer where Harry and Loyd get their yellow and orange suits. I'm seriously considering getting myself one in Hoi an. Hehe. Can't pass on an opportunity like that.

This is a very short version of what went on for the last couple of weeks. Hope everything is great back home, I miss everyone and I'll see you all in October.

Laos

vladimir — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:29:00 GMT

At the moment I'm sitting in Van Tieng, the capital of Laos, after spending the whole day walking around the to get to the Vietnameese embassy. It is so incredibly hot outside that, I believe, I sweated my own weight in water in the few hours outside. It literally feels like you are i a sauna. But I digress. So much happened in the last week its hard to pick what to write about exactly. A brief summary of the last week and some impressions on the place would have to do.

I took a night bus ride to the border of Thailand and Laos from Pai. Grueling ride in a very uncomfortable seat but I did manage to get a few hours of sleep on my shoulder despite the constant turning and bumping. It was definitely worth it at the end. The place where we stopped before crossing the border was right in front of the Thai - Laos friendship bridge and we saw the sun come over it as we were getting our coffee with our Visas. From there I headed up to Van Vieng.

Van Vieng was both insane and serene at the same time. The biggest attraction there is the Tubing and travelers from all over the world end up there to partake in that experience. To summarize in a few words what this is. You get an old truck tire and get dropped off a few miles up the Mekong river from the city. You get into the water on this tube and start, well tubing. Right as you go in you see bars and bars and bars on the banks of the river. Workers of these bars literally fish for you and pull you in. Inside of every bar is a huge party coupled with buckets of alcohol and beer and jumping into the river from huge swinges which are easily 20 feet high. Can you see something dangersous in all of what I just described? Neither can I. Great people, great times. I hooked up with a big group of people comprising of some Brittish, Cannadian and Australian people and folks and we all partied until the night came down. In the evening do you think we would go home and rest, well, of course not. We went out until 5am in the morning dancing under the open skies with buckets of rain coming down on us. In other words, absolutely amazing.I stayed there for four nights. Doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that but mostly partying, meeting new people and relaxing in lounging bars all day long watching Family guy and Friends.

Yesterday I got on the bus and came to Van Tieng. Like I already mentioned I'm planning on going to Vietnam, hence the enbassy today. First I'm planning on going to the south of Laos to the 4000 islands and then bus is over to Vietnam. Hit up Cambodia after that and head on down to south Thailand for the September full moon party and some scuba diving.

Latest adventures in the North

vladimir — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:21:00 GMT

Like I mentioned in my last entry lots have happened since that faithful train ride to Chaing Mai. I have parted ways with my British friends and headed over to this resort called Thana which is THE destination place to stay in for all Israelis traveling to Chaing Mai. The place was suggested to me by my friend whom I mentioned before. He kept talking about this amazing 4x4 three day trip that comes out of that guest house. So upon arriving to the city I went and signed up to the trip. When signing up the lady who was taking my money told me very carefully "Just so that you are not surprised, most of the people on this trip are from Israel" to which I replied that I did not mind one bit. And indeed I took the itinerary from her in which she wrote my name in and the only country of origin besides Israel was USA, under my name. After going though the names and counting 47 girl names out of the total of 70 people I figured that I doubly don't mind being in Israeli company for 3 full days :)

The next day when I got to the pick up place I got assigned into a car with 5 other girls. Like I already said, I wasn't complaining. The trip itself was amazing, I couldn't have asked for more. The girls were super fun and we sang and laughed for the majority of the drive from place to place to place. Our driver was this Thai guy who introduced himself as Potato (he did look a bit like a potato, something that I choose to keep to myself) after some talking he turned out to have another job as a cab driver in Bangkok. I will leave it up to you to imagine how much fun the drive itself was. A little bit about the activities that we undertook. On the first day we went to a snake farm where we saw this guy take on two cobras and then milk one of them right in front of us. There were a few other poisonous snakes but the cobras made the biggest impression on me. I will post some pictures later as I have no way of connecting my camera right now. Afterward we did the elephant show and riding, then visited the Kayan Hill tribe, that's the long neck women with the gold rings around their necks. Very cool stuff, just not much to say about it as you have to see the pictures. After that we went to do some white water rafting. It wasn't very exciting compared to the 5 level rapids that we do back home but because the guys I was with in a boat were messing around I got pretty scared for a second or two when we stopped on a rock with the prospect of flipping over and ending up finishing the rafting on my own not very appealing. In the end everything ended rather peaceful. I will let the pictures talk for them selves. At night I was assigned rooms with one other guy who was traveling by himself. What are the odds that he would turn out to be Russia, well not too low but still. Great guy who just finished an EE degree from the Technion in Haifa. He actually left for Thailand right after his last test, how fun must it be for him. We sat down with a bunch of other girls and guys in a circle in this cafeteria got a few beers and sang Israeli songs until the wee hours of the night. I could only join in once or twice since most of the songs they were singing were not familiar to me but I felt really proud of myself none the less, having not spoken Hebrew in a consistent manner for over 10 years I kept up with the singing and the conversation rather well. The next day I got to feed some peanuts to some monkeys. Those are the most adorable creatures I have met so far but scary as all hell once they get even a little bit irritated, even the smallest ones. The guides had really long bamboo sticks to drive the aggressive ones away. It was really funny to watch one of them after I gave him the whole basket of peanuts that I had sit there and very methodically pick out the good ones from the bad ones. I really saw an imagine of myself in a cubicle doing a very similar job ;) Next was a visit to the golden triangle. For those of you who don't know what it is that is the place where Burma, Thailand and Laos intersect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Triangle_(Southeast_Asia)) We took a quick boat ride to Laos for a few hours to go shopping at a market. I honestly don't think anyone but tourists visits that market but it was very fun, and private, and really really cheap. Oh, and something else that I found very peculiar. They had a bear cub locked in a cage behind the market bungalows. No idea why or what and I figured it would be best to keep my questions to myself. The day afterward was one of the highlights of the trip, we took the beasts that we were so far riding on paved road on, the Jeeps I mean, off road. As some of you already know this is the rainy season in Thailand right now and they don't call it rainy for nothing. It rains pretty much every day, something that is extremely annoying if you want to get a tan but very conductive to getting your car stuck and dirty in knee high mud. Which was exactly what we would have done if not for our amazing driver potato. All the rough driving in Bangkok definitely paid off when he had to take us through the jungle.

Sorry for the obnoxiously long paragraph but I was trying to summarize a week long of activities in as few sentences as possible. Right now I'm sitting in an internet coffee in Pai, which is a small city 3 hours north of Chaing Mai. I stayed here for two nights at this little bungalow on the river. The river flooded both nights and I had to track through knee high water only to get to the bridge to cross the rest of the river. Pretty disturbing/disgusting experience considering the clarity of the water. But an experience none the less. Lets just say I have marked off another thing of my bucket list. While I was here I met a bunch of Dutch people from Amsterdam and we all rented scooters to drive around. Went to see some water falls and the country side.

I have booked a bus ride to Luang Prabang which is a city in Laos. The ride is supposed to take over 12 hours. Dreading the prospect of it already. What I am looking forward to is getting a job there for a few days; something that the people that I've met, who have been there, suggested. Just as a side note - these malaria pills are the freaking devil. I've been having crazy ass nightmares.

Well that's about it for now. I gota run to the buss station right now. Hope everyone is doing great back home!!

Chiang Mai

vladimir — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:59:00 GMT

Haven't been able to get online in the last couple of days as I have been out of town. But of this later. First I want to write a little bit about the most fun I have had on a train, well, ever.

My ticket to Chiang Mai was at 22:00 as I wanted to go overnight in order not to miss a day so I left my friends place in Bangkok at around 8pm. As I came out of his place onto the main street I was greeted by a bumper to bumper traffic. After "thinking" a little bit I hollered a taxi bike and got on it with my big bag. If any of you know how big my backpack is you can imagine what that looked like. Lets just say it was one of those thing that you mark of as done and never do again. I would compare it to the rush that I got from jumping from an air plane, well almost. On the flip side I got to the train station in record breaking time.

I got on the train around 21:30. To describe it in as few words as possible would be to say it was an old ass, beat up, with the toilets being glorified holes in the bottom the the cart, something build sometimes in the 70's. I didn't count how many carts there were, but no more then 10. I did have a sleeper one with A/C, I believe it was first class. Big balla :) Because I got my ticket kind of late I could only get the the top bunk. Which is a small compartment that drops down from the ceiling. It sounds worse then it was, surprisingly it was pretty comfortable and the blinds gave plenty of privacy. Now to the ride itself. I've met the funnest most wonderful group of people on it. First there was this guy from London, he introduced himself as Dips. There were two girls from Manchester, Seanna and Danielle, two brothers from Whales, Robert and Jason - one of them an REF sniper - two guys from Bern, Dennis and Tice and two other couples whose names escape me. I believe they were from Holland. Everybody was super cool and inviting. I arrived on the train and sat down underneath my bank, Dips and I started talking about all kinds of things. The the two girls somehow joined in on the conversation and before I realized Sheanna pulled out a bottle of Rum and two cans of Coke. And this is where the craziness began. We sang, told stories, argued and tried to climb on top of the train to figure out how it is that James Bond does it so easily, but after getting yelled at by the train conductor quit that attempt. After being told by different people that we are going to get kicked out of the train and that they have called the police we figured it was a good time to go to sleep. Not before an older Brittish gentleman promised us to return the favor by singing really loudly at 6am, which is when he was planning on getting up. On other words it was a really fun ride. It all concluded on our arrival at Chiang Mai at 13:30 the next day.

On the day that we arrived to Chiang Mai we all went out again. First went to see some Thai Boxing. Nothing fancy like we see on TV. This was a rugged high school gym with a big boxing ring set up in the middle. The locals were coming in for free, we all, of course, had to pay. The fights varied in quality and the most intense fight was between these two 8 or 9 year old kids, who were beating the living crap out of each other. I can only imagine how good they are going to be when they grow up. Afterward we went to this place which was full of bars the name of the place that we sat down was called... wait for it...
"Marina Lady Boy Bar", one word, WOW. Some were pretty obvious but some, I have to admit, I would have never in a million years guessed that those were not women if I would just met one of them on the street back home in SF. Needless to say we got pretty tossed and ended up staying out until 4. I got to learn the changing out the guards ceremony from Rob, the REF sniper who gets to do it relatively often. Super interesting.

The next day the guys and I parted ways. They had something planned and I wanted to go explore the city a little bit. In the morning I rented a little 125cc moped and set out with a map to explore the area. It was more then I expected, seeing the stark contrast between the wealthy neighborhoods, and the people, who live not much worse then we do, perhaps even better in some sense and then not too far people living out of a two story cardboard houses really makes you think. After driving around for a little while i decided I needed to go get this Jeep excursion that my friend was heatedly advertising to me in BKK. The only problem was that in my musings I lost track of where I was going and I realized I had no idea where I was and couldn't locate the names of the streets on the map either. The signs, which many shops had written in English, disappeared and only Thai writing could be seen. Whoops! Luckily the next street that I looked up I found on the map and I was able to find my way back pretty fast.To sum it all up; Getting lost in Chain Main - check!

I'll write more later. My time online is running out and I'm tired of writing. Hope everyone is good back home!

First coupla days

vladimir — Thu, 5 Aug 2010 12:38:00 GMT

It has been a few days since I arrived in Bangkok and the time is literally flying. The flight over here was as gruesome as 16 hours in the air might sound. Not going to bore you with the details but one thing that I've learned from two shady sales men in Tokyo airport, with whom I've had the pleasure of sharing some stories over a few beers, is that apparently Hawaii has the most corrupt police force known to man. Good to know! :)

The place that I am staying at is called the Rompo Mansion. I couldn't make out at first who is staying there as I did not see any tourists at all. After meeting a few of the residents I think that this is where people who travel for work to Thailand and stay for an extended period of time take their residence. The weather is strange, one the one hand its extremely hot and humid and I sweat pounds of water on the other hand it rained so hard yesterday that it flooded the lobby.

Traffic here is something legendary, not in a good way. You really have to be a skilled/courageous/missing a few bolts type of driver to take on the road here. Being a pedestrian is even more exciting. If any of you remember the old game frogger, it has definitely took on a new meaning in the last couple of days. Been experiencing with the different modes of transportation taxis, subway, train, bus, tuk tuks (three wheeled motor bikes) and my favorite bike taxis. Those are the scariest things to ride as there is nothing to protect you from the "skilled" drivers that I described above but if you want to get somewhere in rush hour, these guys are the way to go.

Been getting massages every day so far. Wow, what a great way to unwind, I'm finally starting to relax and taking it easy. On the first night I went to Kawa san road, this is where all the tourist stay. It was tons of fun but I'm really glad that I'm not staying there, it felt like I was back home, the only locals there were the people who were catering to the tourists.

Yesterday I went to the grand palace. When I arrived at the palace and got out of the taxi I was immediately greeted by a very attractive young woman and told that the palace is closed today and that I should go check out this tour that she is advertising. I would have totally fallen for it if I wouldn't have read about this scam earlier. Wooahaha, I felt so proud of myself; thank you lonely planet tour guide. At the palace I got myself a tour guide who showed me around and then showed me how to get on the local bus to go this other place that my ticket to the palace got me (forgot the name). When I found the buss I came up to the lady who handles the ticketing. Who by the way sits there next to the driver and comes up to every new person who gets on to take their money, has a really serious uniform and a stern face. The money goes into this tube shape hello kitty bad, I found the contrast to be hilarious. So yeah, riding the buss and being the only falang (foreigner) on there really made my day. Not going to describe the tour afterwards as it was rather uneventful.

Today I have checked out of my "hotel" and I'm going to get on a over night train to Chiang Mai, a city 14 hour to the north of Bangkok. Have to admit that I'm dreading the long ride already, but I have a feeling that its going to be a fun experience as everything here has been so far.

This is it for now, I think I'm going to go and get my daily massage right now. Stay tuned for more. Oh, almost forgot to mention this one thing. Ping pong show - totally overrated ;)

First Entry

vladimir — Sun, 1 Aug 2010 19:31:00 GMT

Well here it is, my first entry. I've been talking so much about how I'm going to start this travel blog whenever anyone would tell me to keep in touch that now I can't not do it. It's about 3am in the morning before my departure and I am finally setting this up. Have to admit that I am a bit nervous about what lies ahead being it so that I did not plan anything in particular. Just a rough draft of what I want to do and nothing more. My flight leaves tomorrow early afternoon a short layover in Tokyo and I will be in Bangkok at around 11pm local time. My friend Ilya, who is a professional Thai boxer, who lives and trains in Bangkok promised to pick me up from the airport and take me to my first place of residence. Can't wait to get on the road already :) Right now thought it'll be probably a good idea to go to sleep. I will keep this updated as much as possible.

Photos: My Profile photo

vladimir — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:39:00 GMT

Self explanatory