A Global Mary Poppins

i am in love. not with julian, my temporary travel buddy (though he’s pretty cool) but with the fabulous country of indonesia. i feel so happy and at peace here, particularly in yogyakarta. i was walking around the other day, and i noticed my cheeks hurt. this puzzled me for a moment, until i realized that i’d had a smile plastered on my face for the better part of two hours. let me try to explain why:

early in our trip in southeast asia, cate introduced me to the “ooh, shiny!” rule. this principle is a necessity when traveling: if you see something that peaks your interest, even for a second, you must explore it. this rule has pretty much summed up my experience in southeast asia, and has provided me with unquantifiable joy.

on thursday, julian and i woke up from our prison-like beds in jakarta and made our way to the train station. we took a pleasant, eight-hour train ride from jakarta to yogyakarta, with me alternating between sleeping (and having trippy dreams about white robot dogs with red eyes) and chatting with julian while looking at the lush green landscape outside. the seats were amazing, it was air-conditioned, and indonesian men bought julian coffee and swapped cigarettes with him in the dining car. to make things even better, there was no awful music piped through the train.

shiny moment: a connection from home. upon arriving in yogya around 4:30 (30 minutes earlier than we were supposed to), we quickly found the backpacker area. here, we were greeted almost instantly with a “hello, where are you from?” when we responded that we were from australia and america, the man said “oh! i have cousin who lives in chapel hill! morrisville!” though these are definitely not the same place, i was so excited to meet someone who’s first thought of america is chapel hill, and we followed him around quaint alleys looking for a place to stay. we expected that he’d want a tip, but no. instead, he wanted to show us to a festival to benefit street children. there was actually no such festival, but rather a batik gallery where we saw some amazing, if overpriced, batiks. this is a fairly common set-up in yogya, but it’s so non-invasive that it’s worth it to accept someone’s help (and perhaps make new friends) if it means seeing their art. we left, walked around, drank beers and ate two dinners, and ended up at a bar called “lucifer’s” with an amazing band and mostly local audience.

shiny moment: a search for booze in a muslim country. the next day started slowly, as we had a crappy night of sleep: the mattress was too soft, the electricity (and thus fan) cut out around 4 a.m., and the owner’s baby was crying from around 5:30 on. it was around noon by the time i got myself out of bed: too late to move to a new guesthouse, but we were able to change to a room with more reliable electricity and a firmer mattress. after a delicious breakfast at bedhot resto (avocado, tomato, egg, onion, and cheese in an australian version of the panini called the jaffle), julian decided he wanted to hunt down vodka or local whiskey, as he has to go to the bathroom about twice per beer and apparently they don’t have the concept of not breaking “the seal” in australia. this proved to be quite difficult, as indonesia is a muslim country, though beer is totally ok. we managed to find a guy who knew a guy, and were told to wait in a restaurant for him. 20 minutes later he showed up with a small bottle of whiskey, for which julian paid 150,000 rupiah (about 17 dollars).  we decided to roam around, this time meeting random strangers who told us about a local carnival and a big, free concert that would be happening later that evening. we walked down to the carnival, snacking on satay chicken and amazing tofu along the way. the carnival itself was awesome to observe: so many people smiling and laughing and playing games, all without alcohol involved (this would be pretty much unheard of in the rest of southeast asia, and in many parts of the world). and the people are so diverse, including women and tiny little girls in headscarves and modest dress, girls in shorts and tank tops holding hands with boyfriends, and lots of tattoed young kids in punk outfits with piercings and crazy hairstyles. we did end up going back for the concert later: it was good, though all in indonesian.

shiny moment: trying new food. julian and i decided that we’d had enough of indonesia’s national dish, nasi goreng, which is pretty much fried rice (with no vegetables) and a fried egg on top. we don’t quite get it. noodle soup sounded amazing, so we found an enthusiastic street-vendor and some of the most amazing soup i have ever eaten. when we walked past him several times that evening, he greeted us with a huge wave and smile, sometimes accompanied by a “see you tomorrow!” i was in love. eventually, we ended up back at lucifer’s, where we listened to more great music and were treated to a couple of beers (our whiskey having been consumed earlier in the evening and afternoon) by an indonesian drummer named joe.

shiny moment: going along with a masseur’s need for pampering. the next morning, we decided to switch hotels and invest in air conditioning for a bit. the baby had continued to be a nuisance (the mother or grandmother walked it up and down the hallway outside our room to quiet it down, which seems like the stupidest idea ever). we moved guesthouses, and then julian decided that we needed manicures, pedicures, and massages. he’s spent a lot of time in southeast asia over the past few years, and as a masseur, enjoys getting thai massages (not the dirty kind) on a daily basis. he whined almost constantly about not getting these massages, so i was happy to accompany him in his quest. first, we stopped to get cheap manicures and pedicures (about $8.50 total), which i’ve been in need of for about 7 weeks. it was pretty amazing, though the woman did end up mauling one of my calves. i decided i didn’t really need a massage (julian had demonstrated his skill for me the day before: amazing!), so he went off to find an old toothless man that we’d met the day before.

shiny moment: attempting the ridiculous in search of local flavor. then we returned to our favorite restaurant (bedhot), where we had jaffles and met a canadian-indian cop, harman, who introduced us to the restaurant’s fried ice cream. the three of us set-off on foot for a bird market that harman had heard about, though soon we decided it would be fun for us to take a transport, the indonesian bicycle rickshaws. these rickshaws are designed for two asians. julian and harman are both really muscular, and i am by no means as small as most asian women. eventually, we found a driver who was about 110 lbs and willing to take us, and off we went to the amazement of all the surrounding drivers and pretty much every person we drove past. he took us to the location of the old bird market, which has been demolished, and didn’t know where the new bird market was, so we got out and decided to walk around. almost immediately, an indonesian man came up to us and started talking to us about the bird market and the area around it. he walked us through it, and soon we stumbled upon the water castle, whose roof was destroyed in an earthquake in 2006.

shiny moment: pursuing a new friendship when plans don’t pan out. inside the water castle was a group of local musicians: two guitars, a violin, an upright bass, and a woman with a beautiful voice that resonated excellently inside the castle walls. soon they invited one of the onlookers, who was pretty much the indonesian version of bob marley (long dreads) to join them. without moving, he started singing a few bob marley songs, including the most beautiful version of “no woman, no cry,” that i’ve ever heard. we stayed there and enjoyed the music for a while, then explored the castle and chatted with some students learning english, which is a frequent occurrence in yogya. our new friend agus took us to his family’s batik gallery (recognize this story?), where both julian and harman bough batiks and i bought a few hand-made cards. we made plans to meet agus the next day to go to the new bird market, returned to our soup guy for dinner and bedhot then lucifer’s for drinks before turning in quite early.

shiny moment: revisiting earlier plans. the next morning, my stomach was not quite happy with me and i was exhausted because julian’s snoring and the cold air conditioner had kept me awake throughout the night. julian had had similar stomach issues the day before: we decided that the common denominator was our overzealous soup guy, and vowed never to return despite his friendliness. he went off to meet harman, and i slept before meeting up with them and agus at the water castle, for more live music. the four of us ventured in transports (this time only two in each one) to the new bird market, which is really just an outdoor pet shop. we saw birds of all sizes, giant geckos, rabbits, puppies, cats, lizards, GIANT fruit bats, and a lot of disgusting vermin that’s used for food. we stopped for tea and a snack and a conversation with some teenage girls who are learning english, then headed to agus’  house for the afternoon.

shiny moment: playing and cooking with locals. this afternoon is where i knew i was in love with indonesia. agus’ wife anti fried bananas for us, we ate chicken’s feet at a neighbor’s house, and then harman and julian played a game of pick-up volleyball with a bunch of guys. while they were playing, i interacted with about 20 children who had gathered to watch the game and stare at the foreigners. we counted together in english, then they taught me to count to ten in indonesian. for some reason, 7,8, and 9 are really difficult for me, but i’ll get there. we returned to agus’ yard, and soon harman left to meet a dutch girl for dinner. julian and i went with agus and his brother in law on motorbikes to buy vegetables and fish for dinner. it had been raining on and off all afternoon, and on the return trip it began pouring; though not the safest moment i’ve had in southeast asia, it was definitely one of the most memorable to be speeding through narrow streets on a motorbike, holding a bag full of vegetables and getting drenched. agus, julian, and i spent the next couple of hours peeling and chopping vegetables, then barbecuing the fish, which was delicious, albeit incredibly bony and messy to eat. around midnight, we went back to our hotel, putting a cap on a glorious day in yogyakarta.

today has been much calmer. julian left to go back to jakarta around 3:30, so we had important errands to do: buy a lot of indonesian clove cigarettes, send them back to australia, find the most ridiculous pair of batik shorts that we could in yogyakarta (for me because somehow i neglected pajama shorts, which are kind of a necessity in hostels), and move me into a cheaper guesthouse. we accomplished all of these, and i’m especially excited about the last one: my room has sheets that have definitely been laundered recently, lavender walls, free soap, a clean towel, a TV, and one of the most amazing fans i’ve experienced in southeast asia. we met agus for lunch and then he helped julian pick out a basalt mortar and pestle, before we exchanged contact information and parted ways with our new friend. soon julian left for the airport, leaving me without the new friends who’ve become a staple of my indonesia experience. but such is traveling. i might see agus again (i’m in yogya for at least two more nights), and i know i’ll definitely call him up the next time i’m in yogya. realistically, i’m not likely to see julian again, though he’s been a fun travel buddy and an excellent person with whom to share these shiny moments. i have no idea what’s in store for the next three weeks of my travels, though i know i’ll continue to pursuit the same glitter that’s provided me with joy in this past week.

a few days ago, cate and i parted ways and i began my solo journey in indonesia. from the minute i left my hostel in phuket, i knew this was going to be an exciting adventure, and i have not been disappointed.

around 5:20 in the morning, i got on the bus to the airport in phuket. i was soon joined by an american guy who had two beers in hand and reeked of alcohol. he was probably about sixty years old, retired army, now living in thailand with his “wife,” who is not actually his wife. he was going on a quick visa run to singapore; he does this each month, and finances his trips by smuggling in watches to thailand and selling them for  double what he paid. by the end of the 50-minute bus ride, he had finished both beers. he headed straight for the pub to await his flight’s departure.

while taking the bus from the terminal to the airplane, an australian guy turned to me and asked, “so, do you know anything about indonesia?” he was quite attractive, a bit older than i, but also smelled quite heavily of alcohol. it turns out that he, too, was going on a visa run. i began to feel like i had a sign on my back that said, “if you’re an older alcoholic leaving thailand temporarily, please, come talk to me.”

when we got to indonesia, i had to get a visa. stupidly, i had left most of my cash in my checked baggage (this is stupid on multiple levels, even though my baggage was locked). i didn’t have the $25 i needed to buy the visa, except in cambodian riel, which no one will take. but the only atm’s were outside of passport control, which i couldn’t go through without a visa. this older australian businessman behind me nicely loaned me the money to buy the visa, and i proceeded to wait in line for over an hour to get stamped. while waiting, i found $80 i had hidden in my bag about a month ago. i felt like an idiot. after making it through the passport control,  i promptly went to an atm, got the money to repay the businessman, but then couldn’t find him. i felt really awful, though i guess this means i’ll just have to pay it forward to someone else.

i went outside to figure out how to get into jakarta, and here i ran into julian, the australian from earlier who no longer smelled like alcohol (it turns out that he’d been out late the evening before and never really went to sleep). we shared a cab into jakarta and ended up finding a cheap room with two incredibly uncomfortable beds, and julian became my new travel buddy. sometime that evening, he met an indonesian chick who was going to be singing at a concert later that evening, and she invited us to come along. never being one to turn down free live music, i went: this girl is phenomenal. she sang “i will always love you,” and i swear that the girl sang better than whitney. the concert itself was in an awesome location: huge stage, right on the beach, surrounded by resorts, with fireworks exploding against the black sky lit only by the full moon. so cool.

we took a cab back to jl jaksa (the backpacker area of sorts in jakarta), and when we got out, there was a huge group of indonesians hanging out at this bar near our hotel, playing and listening to music. quickly the music stopped, as they were watching a soccer game. so julian and i ended up talking to one of the band members for about 45 minutes. this is an approximate transcript of the conversation:

indonesian guy (to julian): how old are you?

julian: 28 (note that he’s actually 41, but looks really young and is quite built).

me: 24

indonesian guy: ahh, good. good enough. you are perfect match. i can see it in your eyes. your eyes tell your soul.

julian and me: silence and laughter.

indonesian guy (to julian): you look good. very strong. (to me) is it ok for me to feel your stomach? (feels my stomach) oh…i am sorry, you need to do 200 sit-ups a day. you are still match, but…

i avoid looking too offended, but i am.

indonesian guy (to julian): she is good. without the pimples, and with 200 sit-ups, you are matched.

again, i avoid looking too offended. he proceeds to spend the next 45 minutes explaining how julian and i are perfectly matched, which he can tell by looking at our eyes, though we are not physically matched. i take a minor break to go give myself a “you are not fat or ugly” pep-talk in the bathroom, then reappear.

later, julian went to the bathroom, and some guy came up to me and asked me what team i was rooting for. i guess i said the right one, because i ended up winning a heineken umbrella. while this is obviously not the easiest thing to carry in my backpack, it is awesome. i love this country.

warning: the following post is slightly graphic. if you prefer to imagine a world in which i have never had stomach troubles , do not read this post.

there comes a time in one’s travels where it becomes impossible to stave off illness. usually, this comes in the form of a minor or massive attack on one’s digestive system. since most travelers, especially in the developing world, encounter unfamiliar microbes, it becomes pretty common to share stories while traveling.

my first experience with this was in non kiew, laos, with an overly-tattooed french man who was on my boat. i ran into him a few days later, and when i asked him how he was he said, “oh, not good. my stomach is no good. all morning, just water, phh!” and he gestured to his ass.

the good thing about traveling with an old friend is that it doesn’t feel that weird to be updating each other as to the condition of your bowels. so, when i ate a salad in nha trang that went through me in a matter of minutes, cate completely understood when i said i couldn’t go out that night.  and, when cate got sick in saigon, i could ask her intimate details about the frequency and consistency of her crap in order to ascertain which antibiotic to give her.

when we were in siem reap, i began to feel achey and feverish. i spent most of one night convincing myself that i had either malaria or dengue fever. but, because i was not shitting myself (and my fever broke), i was able to get over that bout of hypochondria fairly quickly.

on our last morning in siem reap, ben awoke not feeling great: mostly cold/flu-like symptoms. cate and i kind of attributed this to his aversion to travel, as ben does not like to move often. we made it across the border and to bangkok with minimal difficulty, but upon arriving at our hostel, ben pretty much collapsed.  cate and i went to get food, thinking that ben would join us soon. when we came back an hour later, ben was not in a good state. he was in and out of the bathroom several times within the hour, vomiting and diarrheaing (is that a word?) we decided that if he vomited again,  we’d go to the emergency room.

around 10 o’clock, we went to the emergency room. this was the most efficient emergency room i’ve ever seen: before i had finished filling out the paper work, ben was seen by a doctor and they were preparing medicine.  initially, it looked like they were going to give him medicine and send him home, but then ben started throwing up in the emergency room, so they admitted  him. all together, the admittance into the hospital took about 45 minutes and three pieces of paper to fill out. AMAZING.

ben stayed in the hospital for three nights, with the nurses and doctors frequently asking him how many times he had gone “poo poo” in that day and cheering when he said “none!”

either the food in bangkok or ben’s sickness kind of set me and cate off.  for the past week, our stomachs have been in various states of unrest, resulting in the consumption of a lot of plain rice, toast, sprite, and gatorade, and a lot of conversations about crap. we’ve made travel plans around whether or not we could afford to be away from a toilet.  i spent a good amount of time today balancing over a squat toilet, my backpack in one arm and my baggy pants in the other, trying to avoid shitting on myself, my pants, or the floor. let’s just say i was successful, to a degree.

as much as i love traveling, i’m looking forward to being home and not worrying that every meal is going to send me running straight into the bathroom.

we arrived in siem reap and found the guesthouse where we had arranged to meet ben. unfortunately, there was only one room there, so ben had gone to another guesthouse across town to find a room for me. we left a note, then went to meet ben. we got to that guesthouse, only to discover that ben had left (via bicycle) to find us at the other guesthouse. so i checked in, we left a note, then we went BACK to the other guesthouse. ben had just left. we gave up and went to get dinner.

we went back to the guesthouse to wait for ben and were sitting in cate and ben’s oven of a room. cate decided to take a shower to cool off, and then i took one, and then we alternated between taking cool showers and sitting in front of the fan for about 45 minutes. once our brains were cooled off, cate got the BRILLIANT idea to use the guesthouse owner’s phone to call over to the other guesthouse. we finally got a hold of ben, met up with him at a bar, and then retreated to our respective guesthouses. when i got to my guesthouse, the electricity was out, which meant that the fan and air conditioning i had paid for weren’t working. i took about 4 cold showers, and eventually fell asleep. fortunately, the air came on in the middle of the night, and i was much happier.

the next day was spent mostly just hanging out: i got a massage, found an amazing air-conditioned bakery with beds to sit on, and read. we talked about going to see angkor wat, then decided it was too hot already and we’d go the next day. that evening, we went with some other people from our guesthouse (cate and ben had moved over to mine) to a quiz night at a local bar. it was pretty fun, as cate, ben, and i are pretty damn smart and kind of own that kind of thing. we came in third, which we were pretty happy with. then we decided to head down to pub street.

as soon as we got to pub street, the electricity went out. we met a random american dude who was carrying sparklers for just such an occasion. i highly recommend doing purchasing and carrying sparklers, as it’s a great way to meet people. so we played with sparklers on the street, got some buckets at angkor what?, and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy khmer new year.

around 1 a.m., angkor what? closed, so we started to move home. except along the way, we encountered a group of tourists and cambodians hanging out and listening to music in the street. one of our friends started dancing pretty crazily, and a spontaneous, multi-cultural, multi-generational (there were street children selling flowers) dance party started. it was fantastic. around 3, we started playing musical chairs. i went home happy and in love with cambodia.

the next day was spent pretty much like the one before: chilling, hanging out in an air-conditioned bakery, talking about going to angkor wat and realizing it was too hot so we’d go the next day, and at a quiz night that evening. the quiz was really difficult and we were not enjoying ourselves, so we left before they read the answers. we found out the next day that, despite our mediocre performance, we won the quiz, but by not being there we forfeited our prize ($20 in free drinks).

finally, the next day, we went to angkor wat. we woke up early and toured the world’s largest religious monument. it was pretty cool – pictures say more than words can. honestly, after egypt, jordan, israel, and india, i’m pretty templed out. it is pretty cool to see indian myths appear in southeast asia, and some of the carving is awesome. and a couple of the temples are being taken over by trees, which is amazing and kind of poetic. ok, so in reflection, i’m glad i went to angkor wat. i’d recommend it.

after getting several e-mails/messages from friends and family who think i’m still in vietnam (i’m in thailand), i realized i needed a bit of an update.

after cate’s day of total illness in saigon, we were able to leave the following day on a two-day tour of the mekong delta. cate was still a bit under the weather, and our tour group was possibly the most boring group of people i’ve ever met. there were several russians, who drank LOTS of beer, including one at 7 in the morning. i think the highlight of this tour was going to a fish/meat market: so many fresh animals! i got a lot of quality pictures from that one.

on day two of our tour, we crossed the border into cambodia. i don’t know if i’ve communicated how nerve-wracking it is to cross a border with cate. she’d run out of pages in her passport, which means that there’s nowhere to put a visa or stamp. in laos, they were content to just put a visa over other stamps, but this wasn’t the case in vietnam. it also was not the case in cambodia: cate ended up having to pay $60 extra to get them to put the visa in. we decided we would go to the embassy in phnom penh as soon as possible to get extra pages sewn into her passport.

that afternoon, we checked into a pretty chill guesthouse. cate wasn’t feeling too well, but i convinced her to come out and see our old friend tom (max power). we went to his guesthouse to meet him, but he had just left. his guesthouse owners told us to wait for him. we waited for an hour, then decided that we were tired of waiting, so we left him a note and walked out. cate realized that we hadn’t put a time on the note, so i went back to write it, and who did we see coming through the sea of motorbikes but – MAX POWER! the three of us went off in search of some bar he had found the other night, couldn’t find it, and ended up settling at another bar. five minutes later, who should walk by but our friend chris (who we were supposed to do the mekong tour with) and ugly chilean parrot guy (from the hugh-heffneresque party in Hoi An) and his chilean friends! cate, chris, and the chileans ended up going home pretty early, but tom and i walked around for a while and watched cambodian people dancing and playing in the streets (celebrating khmer new year). we also stopped and got a few drinks, with tom trying the girliest drinks possible.

in case this didn’t come through in my earlier post celebrating the ridiculousness of max power, i really liked tom a lot when we were in vang vieng, and he liked me, too. hanging out with his slightly more muted alter-ego in phnom penh was really fun, and i spent the whole evening giggling like a girl and becoming more and more smitten.

the next day, cate and i chilled in the morning so we could go to the embassy in the afternoon (we read on the website that it had walk-in hours in the afternoons). when we got to the embassy, it turned out that they had switched their walk-in hours to the morning and were closed for the afternoon (and the next five days) because of khmer new year. shit. cate thought about it and realized she only needed stamps out of cambodia and into thailand, and she could probably find room. so we headed over to tuol sleng (the khmer rouge genocide museum).

the khmer rouge stuff really deserves its own post. i’m still processing it, and i’ll write more about it later. i think all of this was complicated by the fact that i was pretty much on cloud nine after the night before, and it’s difficult to alternate between feeling happy and feeling completely depressed by genocide. i don’t recommend it.

that evening, we met up again with tom and his canadian friend brittany. we went off in search of this vietnam vet, dan, that tom had met in siem reap. when we finally found his guesthouse, dan had passed out in a hammock and tom didn’t want to wake him up. so we went off to a glorious air-conditioned bar called heart of darkness. at first, the bar was pretty empty, but within an hour it was full, mostly with cambodian men. you guessed it: we had stumbled across the local gay bar. at one point in the evening, this old white dude jumped up on the stage and did the same awful dance move OVER and OVER again. it consisted of him squatting, then moving his arms back and forth as if he was skiing. just when you thought it was over, he would do it again. this, along, with dudes checking tom out in the bathroom, provided some entertainment, but not enough to keep us there.

so we left, and i was expecting that we’d get to spend more time with tom. it seemed pretty clear that he liked me a lot, too, and while i knew that we would be parting ways the next day (cate and me to siem reap, him to vietnam), i was looking forward to more time with him. but alas, he said he had to get up early, and he left. i was sad.

the next morning, we went to the killing fields (again, not a place to visit when you’ve got other things on your mind), then got on a six hour bus ride to siem reap. we were pretty much the only foreigners on this bus, and we were seated at the back, along with about 30 children and their parents. the bus kept stopping to pick up more and more people, and it was quite crowded and hot. around hour four of this trip, the little girl sitting on the stool in the aisle next to me suddenly opened her mouth and vomited the sour-cream-and-onion chips she had kind of inhaled earlier in the trip. it was disgusting. it reminded me of the times when i was a teacher and kids puked in my classroom and i had no idea what to do. dealing with other people’s vomit is one of the only things about being a grown-up that i dislike.

Thoughts on tropical heat, with help from my good friend Nelly

I was like, good gracious, ass is bodacious
Uh, flirtatcious, tryin to show patience
Lookin’ for the right time to shoot my steam (you know)
Waitin’ for the right time to flash them keys
Then I’m leavin’, please believin’
Me and the rest of my heathens
Check it, got it locked at the top of the four seasons
Penthouse, roof top, birds are feedin’

The heat here is intense. So intense that when it comes to picking guesthouses, you test every room’s fan to make sure that it operates at sufficient speed and is pointed at the right angle. If it’s a rotating fan, you usually figure out that it’s cooler if you stop the fan from rotating and just point it at your bed. This is problematic if there are two beds and only one fan: do you point it at the center? Do you let it rotate, thus ensuring that neither of you will receive about 50% of the fan’s air?

You learn that rooms on higher floors are worth the sweat to climb the stairs: they’re often breezier. You spend five minutes debating whether the gecko in your room is enough mosquito protection so you can forgo the mosquito net and maximize the amount of air actually hitting your body. Of course, you switch which end of the bed your head is at so that more of the air hits your face (unless you’re one of those weird people that likes to have cold feet when you sleep).

And sometimes, when the fan just isn’t enough, you splurge the extra $2-$4 per night and invest in air conditioning. This can be an especially amazing blessing, as it allows you to actually sleep under sheets or gasp! a blanket! Oh the glory of having weight on your body as you sleep!

No deceivin’, nothin up my sleeve and, no teasin’
I need you to get up up on the dance floor
Give that man what he askin’ for
Cuz I feel like bustin’ loose and I feel like touchin’ you

And can’t nobody stop the juice so baby tell me whats the use

It’s gettin’ hot in here (so hot)
So take off all your clothes

No, you don’t strip in public. But you do invest in a new pair of custom-made $8 shorts, and you spend an exorbitant sum to send home your fleece, long-sleeved shirts, and jeans that you didn’t realize you loved so much but haven’t worn a bit while in this inferno. This makes room in your bag for more tank tops and shorts, so basically you’ve spent money in order to be able to spend more money, but you justify it in the name of comfort.

Granted, all of your clothes are worn several times before being laundered. An Israeli guy introduces you to the two-day rule: if you leave it alone for two-days, it’s clean. This justifies the slight aura that seems to hang around you and every other traveler in these parts, and it makes laundry day all the more thrilling.

Why you at the bar if you ain’t poppin’ the bottles?

When you first arrive in the tropics, you realize that you’re going to need to increase your water budget by about 300%, as nearly every liter you consume sweats out almost immediately. You discover cheap places to fill up on filtered water and revel to the degree that Columbus must have upon discovering the new world.

And while the beer here is almost exclusively cheap watered-down lagers, the idea of something thicker and more substantial is incredibly unappealing.  After drinking with locals, you adapt the practice of asking for ice with your beer. If they have no ice, you have a difficult quandary: do you order a big bottle (about 27 oz) and risk it going warm before you finish it, or a cold bottle and spend more money? This is why buckets are so popular: they are about 1/2 ice, which makes them thirst-quenching for the drinkers and profitable for the bar. A good time is had by all!

 
What good is all the fame if you ain’t f***in’ the models?
I see you drivin’, sportscar, ain’t hittin’ the throttle
And I be down, and do a hundred, top down and goggles
Get off the freeway, exit 106 and parked it
Ash tray, think its time to spark it,
Gucci collar for dollar, got out and walked it
I spit game cuz baby I can’t talk it
Warm, sweatin’ its hot up in this joint
VOKAL tanktop, on at this point
You’re with a winner so baby you can’t loose
I got secrets can’t leave Cancun

One night, while waiting for a friend to show up, you and your travel buddy can’t take it any longer. “THIS ROOM IS A SAUNA!” she exclaims, and you agree. She decides to take a shower to cool off: nothing weird about this, as you often take cold showers several times a day for their cooling and sweat-rinsing powers. She gets out and sits by the fan, you hop into the shower; again, nothing weird. Except about five minutes after you get out, she hops in again, and you alternate a few more times. This proves to be the best cooling off trick the two of you have discovered, though not yet repeated (or shared, until now).

Speaking of showers, most of the water tanks are on the roofs of buildings, or at least on the outside. This means that the “cold” water is often hot, or at least room temperature. You seriously consider investing in research and development for a shower water cooler, to be marketed exclusively in hotter climates. You do not understand why there are some guesthouses that actually charge for hot water here: why is ANYONE taking a hot shower? Of course, on the days that you have air conditioning, this all makes sense, but it’s nearly impossible to maintain perspective in this heat.

Even if the water is cool when it hits your head, it is warm by the time it leaves your growing mass of uncontrollable hair. This is kind of the most disgusting feeling ever. And for the first time in your life, you HATE the feeling of a warm towel when you get out of the shower. You’d rather air dry than let that blanket touch you.

So take it off like you’re home alone

After spending nights in hostels where guys sleep in underwear smaller than you’d wear as a bathing suit, you lose all sense of sleeping propriety. Tank top and undies in hostels, as little as possible when you have the luxury of your own room (hey, you’ve paid for it, right?)

You know dance in front your mirror while you’re on the phone
Checkin’ your reflection and tellin’ your best friend,
like “girl I think my butt gettin’ big”

Stop pacin’, time wastin’
I gotta a friend with a pole in the basement (What?)
I’m just kiddin’ like Jason (Oh)
Unless you gon’ do it
Extra, extra eh, spread the news (check it)
Nelly took a trip from the Lou to Neptunes
Came back with somethin’ thicker than fittin’ in sasoons
Say she like to think about cuttin’ in restrooms

Yeah, this last line’s just gross. Sometimes even Nelly fails. The point is, it’s really hot in herre. And I have been so hot that yes, I have taken my clothes off.

the last week has been more sightseeing-dense than most of our trip. as such, i figured i should devote a post just to those sights.

sites 1 and 2. in nha trang, cate and i decided to get off our butts and see some local flavor. so, with the help of a guy at our hostel, we arranged to take motorbikes to a local temple and giant buddhas. the temple was a cham (hindu minority) temple to the mother goddess. it was the most interesting temple i’ve visited in asia: small inside, tall roof, VERY HOT with intense gonging. it’s the closest i’ve felt to a spiritual moment in a long time, and i probably could’ve stayed there longer had i not felt like i would collapse from the heat. the giant buddhas were cool, too: one buddha was sleeping, the other was a happy buddha. the pagoda underneath the happy buddha was really modern, depicting various scenes in the buddha’s life in brass and wood carving, and some of it was three-dimensional. photos will go up when i get home.

after nha trang, we decided to go to dalat, which sounded like a picturesque, mountain version of hoi an. after a long, sweaty, winding bus ride, we got there, and it was not anything like the book described: busy, dirty, and pretty uninteresting. plus one of the things that had sold me on dalat was the fact that we could go on swan-shaped paddle boats in the middle of the lake. i know this is stupid, but i was kind of disappointed to discover that the lake has been emptied in order to dredge it.

site 3. so, that afternoon cate and i decided to make the most of our time in dalat and go to the crazy house. no surprises here: it was, in fact, crazy. this russian-educated vietnamese woman designed a building/hotel out of wire, concrete, and brick that’s supposed to look like trees. i felt kind of as if i had stepped into the berenstein bears’ home. there were random hotel rooms, all with oddly shaped beds with mirrors on the ceilings. you can stay there, but i’m glad we didn’t, as some of the rooms had creepy fake animals with red eyes.

sites 4-13. the next day, i convinced cate to go on a motorbike tour of the area surrounding dalat with local tour guides called “easy riders.” cate was a bit apprehensive, as motorbikes are a big killer of western tourists in asia, and we’ve met several people who have been in nasty motorbike accidents. i pointed out that in most of these cases, it was a westerner driving, not a local who knows how to drive a motorbike and knows how traffic works. so, we booked the tour, and left early the next morning. our stops included a pagoda, a few stops for photo-ops, a flower farm (many of the flowers in vietnam are grown here, since it’s more temperate), a coffee farm, a silk-weaving factory, a waterfall, a pagoda with a giant happy buddha, lunch, rice-wine tasting, and a palace. by far, my favorite was the silk-weaving factory: i was fascinated by the process of turning a coccoon into thread. and the looms were so cool! they had a string of cards, almost like those in a player piano, which changed the strings on the loom to change the pattern. cate and i agreed that it felt like a complete throwback to the industrial revolution.

lunch was hilarious. it involved a lot of our talking with our tour guides (both young guys in their twenties) about vietnamese culture and american culture, and ended with the comment, “vietnamese man no like banana, like chili. small but hot.” as cate and i exchanged surprised looks with each other, chan grinned slyly and said, “i think you know what i mean?” ridiculous. i’ve since been informed that he didn’t come up with this joke (thanks, ben), but i’m going to hold onto the memory of him saying it.

the palace was the ugliest palace i’ve ever been to. apparently, it was built in the ’30s or ’40s, and the architecture and decor would have been avant garde then but look kind of like an outdated house of my parents’ generation. there were all these vietnamese tourists taking pictures of EVERYTHING, and it was so unremarkable. the tile was gross and dirty, and there was this broken chair in one of the bathrooms. definitely weird.

we left nha trang that afternoon and got to ho chi minh city/saigon late that night. on the bus, we met a man who had been an interpreter for the americans during the war. he was great to talk to, and frankly described how difficult things had been in the years right after the war, but how much better they are now. he talked about how he’s tried, many times, to contact the american soldiers he became friends with, to no avail. he mentioned that he had tried to go to the u.s., but couldn’t, and how little the u.s. had done for the non-commissioned vietnamese who fought in the south. aside from a few mentions here and there, this was our first real taste of war history in south vietnam, and i’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to talk to him.

site 14. the war remnants museum. this is why i came to vietnam – to see this place that for my parents and many in their generation was in the news on a regular basis, and to understand more about the war. over half of the museum is devoted to pictures of victims of agent orange. as i moved through the museum, i became angrier and angrier that so little has been done in the way of reparations, both to victims of the war’s violence and agent orange and to people like the interpreter, who worked for the americans yet were given no preferential considerations for citizenship should they choose to immigrate to the u.s.

cate and i have talked about how weird it is that we’re traveling in a country that our parents couldn’t have 30-40 years ago; could our children one day visit iraq? afghanistan? the museum got me worrying so much about what legacy we’re leaving in those places and the others in which we’ve supported or orchestrated regime changes, and what, if anything, our government will do for the people whose lives we destroy via various military, economic, and social policies. in the past 6 or so years, i’ve become more ambivalent about the wars than i had been at first: it seems incredibly complicated to talk about withdrawal, and i feel ill-equipped to have an opinion on foreign policy when i know so little about the nuances of military strategy and nation-building. there’s a part of me that wants to know more, and a part that feels so overwhelmed and helpless when i think about it.  but i can hope that the “operations” in the middle east end sooner rather than later and that when they do, we’ll have set-up some systems that attempt to rectify the disasters we’ve created.

site 15. the cu chi tunnels. cate and i, along with our british friend chris and a random israeli chick that we met, visited these tunnels west of saigon where members of the viet cong hid from american/south vietnames soldiers during the war. all in all, the day was ridiculous, for several reasons.

first, the israeli chick was really flighty. she was late for the bus, so we left her; she ended up getting a motorbike to meet the bus. then she kept getting separated from the group because she was taking pictures.

second, our tour guide was a nut. he was incredibly serious, very dramatic, and repeated everything about seven times, seven different ways. for example, “this bomb was not exploded. the american bomb did not explode. no explosion.” of course, this made for amazing retention: i know that the dirt removed from the tunnel was used to fill in b-52 craters, or scattered on rice paddies, or transported to the saigon river. but it also meant that the tour took about 4 times the length that it needed to.

third, the site itself is a total tourist trap. groups are hearded from one stop to the next, and each group gets the same speech. they have mannequins at various sites, posed in the positions of viet cong soldiers. at one place, you can turn on a switch and the mannequins move. there are photo-ops all over the place, including a giant tank. and throughout the visit, you hear gunshots, as there’s a shooting range on the site (the only place in vietnam where you can shoot a gun). the tunnels themselves were unremarkable, though i can’t imagine living down there.

fourth, there was a tiny asian woman on our tour who was wearing high heels and booty shorts. she didn’t really listen to our guide, instead just wandering around or sitting as she pleased. she was with an older western guy, which is a pretty typical occurrence in SE Asia, but her clothing and general demeanor were definitely extreme.

fifth, it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well that i still have a sixth grade sense of humor. as such, the words “cu chi” alone made me giggle; “cu chi tunnel” was even more challenging to hear. my favorite quote of the day: “if you go to the cu chi and do not visit the tunnel, you have not visited the cu chi.” needless to say, cate and i were almost in fits, and we repeated this through much of the day.

we’ve taken a brief respite from sight-seeing, chiefly because cate’s really sick and we couldn’t make our mekong delta tour this morning. we might try to do the tour tomorrow, though the company wants to charge us 50% of our ticket price (because it’s the weekend?), so we’ll see if that happens. if not, it’ll be straight to cambodia, where we’ll (hopefully) reunite with Max Power and our friend Ben.

Where we last left off, Cate, Joe, and i were roaming from happy hour to happy hour in Hoi An, filling ourselves on Beer Saigon and other cheap Southeast Asian beer.  We had some deep conversations (an enlightening one on family beliefs towards money) and not-so-deep conversations (a hilariously uncomfortable one about the relative endowment of Asian men), and had moved off the porch into the main bar, when we saw a rat dart across the bar. Either this or the music playing inspired me to ask the bartender if there was anywhere to go dancing in Hoi An.  He had no idea, but a Norwegian girl next to me did: “Go to ‘Before and Now’ at midnight, and take the free shuttle to Beach Bar! It’s where everyone goes!’” So, we followed her there, got a drink at Before and Now, then went outside to take the shuttle. Unfortunately, there were too many people, so like 10 of us squeezed into a taxi for the 15-minute ride there.

On the surface, Beach Bar lived up to my expectations: it was on the beach. But it was so much more. When we walked in, the room seemed infested with young Western Men clad in shorts and silk bathrobes, many with phrases or names embroidered on the back. I think I saw Hugh Heffner at one point. Cate and I went to dip our feet in the ocean, and when we came back, we couldn’t find Joe. So, we decided to get a bucket (Red Bull, Vodka or Rum, Orange Juice, some other undetectable ingredients) and soak in this experience. It. was. ridiculous. Men were dancing on tables. There was a naked dude. I danced with possibly the ugliest guy I have ever seen (I think he was Chilean?), then Cate and I continued to dance by ourselves for much of the evening. We went home around 3, and in our shuttle were these obnoxious British guys who were McCain supporters and successfully pulled me into an argument about politics.

The next day, Cate and I spent a good chunk of the day recovering in various cafes. We ran into Joe again, who was this time with Sean, and made plans to meet up with them for dinner later. The rest of that evening was fun, though relatively uneventful. We decided not to go back to the Beach Bar (though we encouraged Sean to), because we were off on an 8 a.m. bus to Nha Trang.

This bus ride was the best bus ride ever. We were in a sleeper bus, but had plenty of room to stretch out.  I dozed,  I read (and finished) a book about Cambodia under Pol Pot (which got me really excited to go there), and I made friends with a Vietnamese guy who edits a magazine in Saigon. He gave me the rest of his peanut brittle when he left. We found easy accomodations at a hostel in the center of the backpackers area of Nha Trang, then went out to get Indian food. The food was good, but wasn’t sitting well with Cate, so we decided we wouldn’t go out. Around 11, though, she got a second wave, so we went out to a bar called “Why Not?”

Why Not? is your typical SE Asian backpacker club: buckets, beer, dancing, pool, and the same playlist playing over and over and over (MGMT, the Killers, Black Eyed Peas, Kesha, Spice Girls, Akon). Cate and I each had a bucket, then decided we were ready for the dance floor. We danced with an old Vietnamese dude and later line-danced to “YMCA” with an enthusiastic guy wearing a black tank-top. We each had a second bucket, and we went outside to enjoy them. This is where the rest of the evening gets a bit fuzzy for me, but for some reason, Cate and I decided to record the events both on my camera (as video) and on her iPhone (recording the ridiculous things I said in the notes section).  This is what I have pieced together (Mom, you don’t have to read this next paragraph):

For some reason, I decide to get a third bucket. I think a guy who is sitting outside is really cute and want to talk to him.  I make Cate go outside,  there were no chairs near them, so we play pool for a while. Miraculously, I get two balls in (though one is Cate’s), she doesn’t get any in, so we sit down.  I proceed to complain about how I shouldn’t have gotten that third bucket about seventeen different times, with lots of expletives.  Cate, who wisely chose not to get the third bucket, reminds me that I have choices.  I am unable to convince Cate to go over to talk to the guys, though I do suggest (rather convincingly) that we offer the rest of my bucket as a peace offering of I don’t know what.  I stand up, fall over, then go get sick in the bathroom for what seemed like an endless amount of time. Finally, I’m well enough to walk, so I stop by the bar and grab water before Cate and I walk back to the hostel and I proceed to hang out by the toilet for the next few hours. When I came out of the bathroom, there was a random guy in my bed, and I angrily told him to get out. (I found out the next morning that the hostel had told both of us it was our bed, and fortunately there was an empty bed right above for him).

We spent the next day (Easter Sunday) nursing my hangover on the beach, leaving only to get awful food.  In the late afternoon, Cate was swimming when she noticed that the area around her seemed somewhat deserted. She saw a fin poking out of the water – SHARK! Except it wasn’t a shark, but rather a large, disgusting, dead fish. Some Vietnamese dudes went into the water and pulled it out, to the delighted/disgusted squeals of the Vietnamese children who had gathered on the shore. It smelled AWFUL. Every time the waves washed over the fish on the shore, a kid would initiate the squealing, and some would run away with theirs noses pinched, only to return a few minutes later to continue staring at it.  It’s comforting to know that kids in Vietnam react to disgusting things in the same way as American kids.

That night, we went back out with some English people we met at the bar outside of our hostel, as well as three American guys who graduated from UF in 2007.  They had gone out earlier in the evening to eat dog, and Cate and I were already a little weirded out by them. Things only got weirder when we spent like 5 hours with them and realized that one of the guys NEVER smiled, and another couldn’t grasp the concept of counting to two in a simple drinking game (he kept counting to three). We went back to Why Not (no buckets for me, though), and proceeded to have the least fun I’ve had in a night out here.  So we went back to the hostel, waking relatively early for an amazing day, to be described in the next post.

Epilogue: We just re-met the ugly Chilean guy and his Spanish friend. It turns out that he’s not the ugliest guy I’ve ever seen, but pretty darn close. And, the dudes in the robes were Australians at a bachelor party.

after the epic bus ride, i was hoping vietnam would knock my socks off and prove to be worth the journey. at the beginning, though, it wasn’t. hanoi is loud and the people there are generally unfriendly. the worst part for me is definitely the traffic: crossing the street is pretty much like playing a game of frogger, with motorbikes coming from every direction. after about a day, i was a pro at following a vietnamese person, or just bravely crossing on my own.  still, it’s hectic and noisy and not fun.

we went to hoa lo prison, which was where the french kept vietnamese political prisoners and later where american pilots, like john mccain, were imprisoned. the exhibits tell of the brutalities committed by the french, then explain how nicely the american prisoners were treated: they had christmas parties! they got presents when they left! everyone was happy! by the end of this propaganda-fest, cate and i were both pretty incensed. we did a bit more site seeing in hanoi and had AMAZING vegetarian food, but i think both of us were ready to get out of there.

so the next day, we left on a three-day tour of hailong bay. it was nice (got to sleep one night on a boat), but pretty touristy until the end of the second day, when we arrived at a private island. our friends lindsay and rachel (from the epic bus journey) were randomly on this tour, as was sean, and we made a few new friends, most notably joe. joe’s really interesting: he has his masters in something like southeast asian studies, joined the army around 2001 basically because he needed a job, served in iraq, and now is in the foreign service in manila. i think he’s the first iraq vet i’ve spent much time talking with, and it was enlightening to hear his perspective on how/why things changed in the time he was there. and he’s nice and funny and picks up trash when he hikes, so he’s fun to be around.

after hailong bay, we took a bus to ninh binh, which we were hoping would be nicer and more relaxing than the rest of vietnam had felt.  it wasn’t, so the next morning we boarded a 14-hour train to danang.  the first four hours of the train ride were amazing. cate and i played cards, we had room to stretch out, and we were happy. then two women and a little girl joined us in our booth, and things became MUCH more crowded, with one of the women sitting on the floor between our feet for a while so the girl could stretch out. speaking of feet, southeast asians are supposed to be really offended by feet. vietnamese people, however, are not so bothered: for a good chunk of the ride, i had old vietnamese lady feet next to me, and one dude’s feet were resting on my leg for a while. it was gross. to top this off, there was a group of teenage girls across the aisle from us just staring at us for what seemed like hours at a time, then talking and laughing while looking at us. towards the end of the trip, they were taking pictures of us on their phones, and despite our yelling at them to stop, they continued.

we stayed that night in danang, then headed out the next morning to hoi an. ahh…a breath of fresh air immediately filled our lungs. there are no cars in the old city, only motorbikes and bikes. classical music is piped through the town, people are friendly, the architecture is a charming blend of chinese, french, and vietnamese, and you can get clothes made in almost any shop in town. we stayed in a really pleasant antique house with only four rooms, and i got a pair of ridiculously comfortable shorts made. later that evening, cate and i roamed the town looking for happy hour specials (pretty much everywhere has them), and we ran into our friend joe. we continued to happy hour hop, and the story continues in the next post…

how many times do you think that phrase has been used in a letter, e-mail, or blog post from vietnam?

after 30+ hours on a bus, cate and i finally made it to hanoi. but the journey was far from easy. it involved several legs, which i will describe below.

leg 1: van from travel agency to bus. we arrived early, and were promptly harassed by the van driver: “come on, let’s go! you want to go to vientiane today or tomorrow?!” so, we had to say a quick goodbye to ben and get on the road.

leg 2: bus from luang prabang to vientiane. this ride was, for the most part, very pleasant. cate and i spent the majority of the trip recounting ridiculous stories from the past week, including some that were a bit…personal. only after about an hour did we realize that the guy across the aisle from us was laughing at our stories. note that the same guy will reappear later. at one point, i was laughing at an old story about cate (jessie and julia: think carnie), and i coughed on the water i was drinking, and almost spewed it across the entire bus. yep, i’m that girl.

leg 3: tourist agency to vientiane bus station. around 5:30, our bus pulled up to a random tourist agency in vientiane. we were told to wait 10 minutes for a tuk-tuk to take us from the agency to the bus station, and our bus was supposed to be leaving at 6. at this point, we realized that the guy who was across the aisle from us and had overheard our conversations was going to be on our bus for the next 24 hours. his name is sean (or shaun?), he’s from cork, ireland (where my sister just studied abroad), and he’s pretty nice/quiet, but it was still a little awkward. the tuk-tuk arrived around 6, and we got to the bus station around 6:20. we had to trade our tickets for new yellow tickets, and then we had time to go get some noodle soup before getting on the bus.

leg 4: vientiane bus station to lao/vietnam border. although we arrived later than our expected departure, we were fine: apparently, there’s only one bus, which leaves at 7, even though others had been promised departures of 5 and 6, also. while waiting in line to board the bus, we looked at our yellow tickets and discovered that others had rows and numbers written in the space where it said “seat number,” whereas cate and i had something written in lao or vietnamese. this caused me to be a bit concerned, and rightfully so: when we got on the bus, it turned out that cate and i did not have beds, but rather cushions in the aisles. we both tried to sit in empty beds, but then were yelled at by this total ass of a bus attendant to get out so that lao people could sit in our seats. while some of these lao people were legit, there were others who we saw slip the bus attendant money at various points. so, i ended up with a cushion on the top bunk between a british couple (jordan, who was covered in tattoos, and rochelle, who was all made-up, wearing diamond earrings, and reading twilight), and cate ended up on the cushion below me. the bus finally left around 7:45, and we headed towards the border.

around 11, the bus stopped for a few hours. it started back up around 2 ish, then stopped again until 6 a.m. to wait to cross the border. during the sleeping time, i found myself mostly grateful that i had a cushion instead of a bed: i could recline fully, whereas others couldn’t. and cate and i both remarked that the cushions were the most comfortable beds we’ve slept on in southeast asia. still, i’m slightly bitter that i paid for a bed, but oh well. anyway, at 6 a.m., we drove a short distance to the border…

leg 5: The Border. this experience can only be described as the biggest logistical clusterfuck. cate and i had somehow misplaced our laos departure cards, so our bus attendant gave us some. after filling them out, he told us that they were $1, then got mad and ripped them out of our hands when we told him we wouldn’t pay for them. while we waited to get legit (free) departure cards, we talked with our irish friend sean and these two canadian girls (lindsay and rachel) who have been teaching in korea and were really nice. the five of us bonded together, and started keeping out the slew of asians (and some western tourists from our bus) who were trying to skip us in line. when we noticed that the asians were getting their passports stamped by presenting them in large stacks to the border officers, we put ours in a giant stack and were finally seen. during this process, a lao man stepped on rachel’s foot, and she called him out on it; later, we watched a border guard chase him down and smack him on the head.

finally, our passports were stamped and we were free to leave laos. while walking the 1/2 mile or so to the vietnam border, we saw a group of about 5 people sneaking through a path in the woods, then hide in some shrubbery. we wanted to stay and see how this panned out, but we also didn’t want to draw attention to them or delay getting through the border.

things seemed more cheerful and efficient on the vietnam side, until the official refused to accept our entrance cards until we paid him a dollar each. then the electricity was out, so they couldn’t scan our passports. after about 30 minutes, it came back on, and i got my passport relatively quickly. however, cate’s got put to the side for some reason, and we waited another 30 or so minutes before she was able to locate her passport behind the desk and convince him that her bus was leaving and they needed to stamp it now.

leg 6: the border to hanoi. The rest of this trip was relatively smooth and involved lots of sleep mixed with chaotic driving and awful movies/music playing in the background. for some reason, the first movie (some jackie chan movie with claire forlani) was muted until the outtakes at the end, which played for about 20 minutes. the next movie was the same five-minute loop playing over and over again of vietnamese soldiers falling in love with a group of female soldiers, braiding their hair, holding red flags, moving rocks from one place to another, and then both groups being blown up. there was clearly singing going on in the video, and there was singing over the sound system, but the two did not match up. i went to sleep just to avoid watching the movie.

leg 7: hanoi bus station to hostel. we arrived in hanoi around 7:30 p.m. (for those of you keeping track, this meant we’d been moving for over 30 hours), and were promptly accosted by a slew of taxi drivers, none of whom seemed to speak english. cate and i joined up with sean and two 18-year-old british girls to get a taxi, and it took about 30 minutes to find a taxi driver that understood us and would take us to an ATM then the old quarter. we loaded up his car, then he proceeded to sit around and have a cigarette for a while. we got our bags and started to walk away, at which point another guy came, put our bags in his car, and drove us to our destination. now we’re settled in hanoi for two nights, with me and cate sharing a room with sean and the british girls across the hall.

tomorrow we’ll head off for a three-day boat trip in halong bay, and i am very much looking forward to not being on a bus.