Two Weeks in Vietnam

I have been a little pensive over my blog.  It seems to have transitioned into more of a travel blog. Not that that's a bad thing, but it made me realize that life here in Cambodia has become normal in many ways. Many things I used to find different and intriguing have become common place and don't seem noteworthy enough for a blog.  I guess that's to be expected as I enter my third year here in Cambodia; all part of the process.  However, it's a bit disappointing to not see my surroundings with the wide-eyed wonder of the newly arrived.  To sum up, I'm in the country more than I'm out of it, and lots happens here everyday, even if you don't read about it.  So I will make it my goal this year to highlight more of the day-to-day events.


With that, enjoy a travel post from this summer! Becca and I spent two weeks in Vietnam directly after school let out.  Hope you enjoy perusing some photos and commentary...



As you know, Vietnam is Cambodia's neighbor to the East.  Phnom Penh is just a 6 hour bus ride to the border.  Our visas were easily obtained at the Embassy downtown (easy, but pricey).  We planned to spend two weeks in Vietnam, entering in the south, working our way up the country and flying out of the north. Here's a route of our journey:

Our bus dropped us off very close to our hotel, but as it was tucked away in this little alley way, it was a bit tricky to find at first.

We took our own walking tour of the city.  There were lots of things to see and do, with beautiful parks interspersed throughout the city.

This is the People's Committee Hall in the background with a statue of Uncle Ho in the foreground.

The city is full of beautiful French colonial architecture.  This is the opera house.

Large cathedrals seemed to be in every city we visited in Vietnam including the Notre-Dame cathedral here in Saigon.

These pop-up cards were for sale on the street, only 20,000 Dong or $1.

At the end of the day we were walking back to our hotel and decided to sit and watch the public aerobics in the park. (This seems to be a popular thing all over South East Asia).  As soon as we sat down a nice young girl sat next to us and chatted us up.  Then a few more young men came to chat.  Pretty soon we had a half circle around our bench.  I thought maybe we seemed super friendly or that our magnetic personalities were shining through, but no.  Come to find out that students and working adults hang out at the park to try and practice their English with native speakers.

The city is full of museums and historical sites.  One day we visited the War Remnants Museum.

There's lots of U.S. gear on display. And inside, lots of war-time ads and propaganda posters.

No explanation needed for this one.

That was definitely a heavy experience, but worth it.

Out on the streets again.  War-time propaganda poster or modern day billboard?  Hard to to tell, but the latter.

On a more light-hearted note.... We went to a water puppet show in the evening.

There were live musicians and the puppets told stories as they splashed around in the murky water.

Another day we took a tour to the Mekong delta which included a boat ride and a bicycle tour through a village.  

The bike tour was really hilarious.  Some folks didn't have brakes.  My bike was so rusty and I could barely steer the handle bars, which was dangerous because you had to dodge low hanging jack fruit and navigate narrow trails.  There were two complaining European girls that were pretty entertaining to watch.

I met this granny at the end of the tour.  What a beauty.

Our next stop: Na Trang, Vietnam's beach destination.

We took an overnight bus to Na Trang.  The bus definitely wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be.  

The beach was beautiful of course.

With Na Trang comes the story of the reoccurring Russian, the most memorable part of our stay there.

After we get off the night bus we start walking to our hotel.  We had heard that there were many Russians in Na Trang.  Walking through town the signs were in Russian, menus were in Russian, folks would stop to ask you questions in Russian.  You get the idea. 

 Well, it was too early to check in, but the staff were great and let us go up to the pool on the roof and use the showers there, etc.  We were lounging around for a while and other people and families came up to the pool area to hang about. A big guy dressed only in his furry pelt and his speedo trunks took the lounger next to Rebecca and had a snooze.

Mid-day rolls around.  We check in to our room, freshen up and get ready to explore the town.  Na Trang isn't very big and the main attraction is the beach.  When we return later on we see the same fellow laying on the couches in the hotel lobby, once again dressed only in his furry pelt and tiny speedo trunks. 

We were only in Na Trang a few days, but we saw this guy several times a day, always in his speedo trucks, sometimes dry, sometimes dripping wet.  Sometimes sitting on the couches, sometimes at the hotel desk.  The last day we were up at the pool again.  We had checked out and were just killing time until we caught the next night bus to Hoi An.  

Well guess who should appear again up at the pool?  You guessed it... the reoccurring Russian.  He took a dip in the pool and we didn't pay much attention to him.  That is until he came our way.

He spoke up in a deep voice and said something unintelligibly Russian.  I said, "Sorry... English?"  In very broken English he said, "This-eh hotel-eh, good-eh.  Internet-eh, good-eh."  I gave him a thumbs up (later hoping that a thumbs up wasn't offensive to Russians.) "Yes, good," I replied. He then approached closer and held out his hand. I offered mine which he shook, then slowly and deliberately turned my hand over and planted a thick kiss on it.  I could hear Rebecca across the table stammering, "um, ok."  Until he approached her, shook her hand and planted another kiss with his thick Russian lips.

You'd think that would have been the end, seeing as we were leaving town soon, but no.  Later that evening when collecting our bags, the R.R. appeared again in the lobby, and of course still only clad in his furry pelt and speedo trunks.  

While walking to the bus station I was considering the terrible seats we had booked.  It was tourist season so the only seats we could get were in the five communal seats in the back of the bus.  I told Rebecca she could have the seat next to the wall, I would take the stranger contact.  

As we were walking there, I voiced my concerns.  "Rebecca, if I roll over in the middle of the night and see the Russian lying next to me in his speedos, I'm going to scream!"

Hoi An: My favorite city in Vietnam

Hoi An is filled with ancient buildings and historic sites.  There are Chinese and Japanese influences in some of the architecture.  There are sellers of silk on every corner.

Yet another reason to love Hoi An... This regional dish called cao lau.  It has rustic noodles wading in broth. Urban legend has it that 'its unique taste and texture is achieved by using water from an undisclosed ancient Cham well, just outside of the town.' I don't know if my dish of cao lau was made with this special well water but it sure was tasty. It has an odd, yet very satisfying combination of greens, herbs, croutons and meat.  It was beautiful to behold and delicious to consume.

You can also get a quick snack on the street if you're a bit peckish from the day's sightseeing.  We bought these baguette sandwiches for $1.  Mmmm, so tasty.  

I like this picture because it shows the little cart we bought our sandwiches at, but notice the electric bicycle in front.

These are really great.  Quiet, non-polluting and if you run out of battery, just pedal home!  Someone should introduce these to Cambodia!

After three beautiful days in Hoi An, we made our way to the airport for a short flight to the nation's capital: Hanoi.


Hanoi is another delightful city once described as 'the grand ole dame of Asia'.  Once again there were museums, plenty of places of interest, city parks and my favorite... beautiful French colonial architecture. Not to mention the prolific coffee shops selling strong black coffee that when mixed with a little sweet milk almost tastes caramel-y. 

One day we visited a large complex that contained the presidential palace (below) as well as a mausoleum containing Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body.  Yes I saw it.  Eeerie.  Why is that a thing with communist leaders?

Here is the opera house in Hanoi.

A peddler pedaling petals down the street.

We tried this delightfully refreshing dessert called che.  It's a mixture of local fruit with a drizzle of sweet milk, a splash of coconut milk all covered with crushed ice.  I'm telling you, this is the thing to have on a hot summer's evening, which is pretty much every night in Vietnam.



While in Hanoi we took a few tours.  One was a must; an overnight cruise in Ha Long Bay.

Ha Long is a beautiful sea green bay filled with limestone formations.

The Vietnamese have stories about battles and dragons to explain how all these rock formations were formed.

The bay in evening shadows.

We also got to tour an enormous cave while in the bay.

Ha Long Bay is a must see for anyone traveling to Vietnam.

Another day we took a day trip to Ninh Binh.  Boat drivers paddle you down a river in between verdant rice paddies and limestone hills draped in greenery.

Our boats coasted through caves.

I love tours that include all sorts of transportation; buses, boats, bikes, etc.  This one was just that.  We took bikes through the countryside.  Vietnam is a phenomenally beautiful country.

I wish I could have snapped a photo of the grandpa biking down the trail in his pajamas while smoking a cigarette, but I couldn't get it.

On the way home from the tour we asked our guide if he knew a place where we could get egg coffee we had read about.  Talk about service, the bus dropped us off right in front of the cafe.  And as if that wasn't enough... to find the cafe you had to walk back through tiny passageways, alleys and staircases.  I'm certain that we wouldn't have found it if our guide hadn't got off the bus and led us directly there.  (One more reason to visit folks!)

I know it's not a great picture, but let me describe it to you.  The coffee is actually made with an egg yolk that is whipped up with sweet milk then scalded with hot coffee.  That whipped creamy delight tops your cup of thick black coffee to make what has been describe as the 'tiramisu of coffees'.  Vietnam has some of the best coffee I've ever tasted (only second to Brazil in my opinion, but then I still have a lot of places to discover.)  As the story goes... back in the day a bartender tried to replicate a cappuccino and in the process, this is what he came up with.  It was delightful.  I'll have to make if for you at home sometime.



Believe it or not, it was cheaper to fly back to Phnom Penh through KL, Malaysia even though Vietnam and Cambodia are next door neighbors.  We took full advantage of this, of course, and spent three days in Kuala Lumpur.


KL is a great city because many things are in walking distance, but they also have great public transport which is nice for travelers to get around.

No visit would be complete without a visit to the Petronas Towers.  They are especially beautiful at night.

We also paid a visit to Batu Caves.  The insides held monkeys and Hindu shrines.

Jalan Alor is a great place to get Malaysian street food.

I had the best satay I've ever had in my whole entire life.  At this was a moment I was glad my traveling buddy was a vegetarian.

What better way to finish up an evening than getting a fish massage.  Those are my feet getting nibbled by little fishes.  My traveling feet were in such a state that I could have used three times as many fish that were three times as big.  

If you're ticklish at all, it would be a challenge to sit through 30 minutes of this, but you get used to it after a bit.  



From here Rebecca flew out to Laos for another week of traveling before heading back to the U.S. to start grad school.  We parted ways in the airport and I made my way back to Phnom Penh to a summer filled with domestic pursuits.

In the year to come, I'm not sure what the traveling opportunities will look like.  My two best travel buddies returned to the U.S. 'sniff'.  I've got some biggies on my bucket list and some extensive goals to achieve in the year to come.  But for more on that you'll have to stay tuned for a post called '40 for 40'.

  
Till then, tam biet or good bye.

More Deep Thoughts from the Boiler Room

I have really enjoyed my second year teaching here in Cambodia. It has been a year of blessing in many ways for me, yet not free of challenges, of course. We have wrapped up the school year.  There were several tears on the last day, but I know that when they meet their new teacher next year, grade 2 with Miss Carson will become a distant memory.

June is here and with it the beginning of the rainy season.  Even though April and May are the hot, hot months, June through October won't seem much cooler, just more rain thrown into the mix.  How hot is hot?  How about high 90's with high humidity.  It's hot enough that a few weeks ago the temperature dropped to 93 and it felt like a crisp cool day.  This is the land of perpetual summer.  This last 'winter' (and by winter I simply mean it was the month of January) I watched several Christmas episodes of cooking shows.  It made my insides ache to see the beautiful kitchens decorated with fairy lights, with cakes coming out of the oven and warm spicy dishes bubbling on the stove. And of course the Christmas music in the background brought it all home. When you play Christmas music here and it's 95 outside and 90 in your house, there's something that's just not quite the same about it.  So I watched those Christmas episodes about three times over and my insides were stirred because I really love that. Beautiful homes, warm kitchens, dinner for guests, laughing voices around the table, etc.  I love to hostess.  I like to cook, but it's not really the cooking itself that I love; the stirring, the chopping, the mixing... It's offering the fruits of my kitchen to others.  One of my deepest forms of happiness is having people enjoy my cooking, and leave my home feeling full, warm and happy. It's my way of bringing beauty into the world.

We were sitting in a cafe the other night, staying out late because school's out and now the teachers can play.  During the course of conversation we were wondering out loud how big Cambodia is compared to the United States.  I came across this fun site called, If It Were My Home, http://www.ifitweremyhome.com/  There were some interesting statistics, such as, if Cambodia were my home instead of the U.S. I would make 95% less money and have 82% more babies.

While clicking around on this site, the opening paragraph on the homepage grabbed my attention immediately.  It stated, "The lottery of birth is responsible for much of who we are.  If you were not born in the country you were, what would your life be like?  Would you be the same person?"  It caused me to ask myself, if I were born in a different place, which parts of me would remain the same? Essentially, who am I in the deepest parts of my soul and being?

I have to admit, I was stumped.  Would my favorite color still be green if I hadn't swum in the sea green beaches of Sihanoukville?  If I had been born in Asia instead of America would I still laugh as loud as I do? Because, you know, nice Asian girls don't laugh loud and cover their mouth when they do.  Would I still love to hostess? Would I still be an introvert with occasional gregarious flare ups?  Would I still be a homebody with an adventuresome spirit?

Nature vs. nurture.  Take out the nurture and what would be left? I know there is no way to separate a person completely from the effects of their environment. But I was in deep thought.  It really made me think... What are the core aspects of my God-given soul, my uniquely formed genetics?  Which parts of me would remain the same if I were born in any other place or time? WHO AM I?

On Facebook tonight a quiz popped up on my feed right after this long discussion with my housemate, Hilly.  Guess what it said?  Can we guess who you are in 10 questions? Of course I had to take the quiz.  I was hoping the quiz would tell me that I have the gift of hospitality, and confirm my recent ruminations. 

To my disappointment, but not to my surprise, it pegged me as a male in my 20's with a flashy, gorgeous smile.  How do they come up with that because I chose chicken over beef?

Hilly is a twin, and we've had some insightful discussions on this matter.  I'll share some of my humorous musings with you...

Since hostessing is one of my deepest passions, what might this look like if I had been birthed in a different time and culture? Let's imagine for a moment...

If I were born into a nomadic people group, maybe I would invite folks into my tent for some roasted lamb and sautéed desert weeds.

If I were born and raised in rural Russia, I might offer my best bowl of borscht made from beets freshly plucked from my kitchen garden.

What about Cambodia?  I might specialize in serving up a dish of piping hot fried tarantulas or offer you dessert wrapped in banana leaves. 

All humor aside, it's been fun and interesting to toss the idea around.  So here's my question for you... WHO ARE YOU?

Borneo: Rain forests and islands

I've been falling down on my blogging job.  Not that things haven't been happening around here. We've traveled to Mondulkiri, went to a festival of Khmer cuisine and attended a Khmer wedding.  Maybe I'll get around to writing about those things, but today is all about our recent trip to Borneo.

We had a week off from teaching due to Khmer New Year.  We had planned this trip more than a year in advance due to a fabulous deal on plane tickets.

Borneo is a large island just southeast of Cambodia.  Three different countries make up the island of Borneo: Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.  We visited Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.

Here's a map of our travel route:

Kuching is the capital of Sarawak.  The name Kuching is thought to derive from a word in Malay that means cat.  There are numerous kitschy cat statues around town.

This is a fun city to walk around.  There is a promenade that runs around the waterfront.  One of the first things you notice is the large legislative building across the river.

Figuring out how to get around and see things yourself was a lot cheaper than going with a tour.  We found a bus station and headed for a nearby orangutan sanctuary.

Okay, that's not the bus we took. Ours was more modern and air conditioned, but there were plenty of these around!

At the Semengoh Orangutan Rehab Center, these guys are slowly being introduced back into the wild.

Here comes a big fella.

They go through orangutan kindergarten and primary until they graduate and are ready to be released.

It's so entertaining to watch them climb and swing.

One of the things I really liked about Kuching is it's old colonial architecture, of which I have become a big fan.

This is the courthouse complex.

 This building housed the textile museum.

Many shops had interesting shutters or doors on the upper level.

Other things to see around town include a few Chinese temples,

A pink and gold mosque,

and Jackie Chan strolling around the riverfront mingling with the locals.

Another day we went to Bako National Park.  You had to take a boat to get there.

We didn't know it was a such a dangerous place...

Can you see the surprise underneath? We saw this little one on the way in, and on our way out we saw the behind end of a proboscis monkey.

We hiked through steamy jungles.  There's a nice path here, but much of the trail was tangled roots.

Pitcher plants were everywhere along the trail.

Here's an enormous one!

And we have come to the end of the trail: a beach and the South China Sea awaits us.

They said no swimming because there were crocs, rays and jellyfish.  But after a hot sweaty hike, who could resist?  Definitely not us!

The shoreline was stunning from above.

The dip in the ocean made the hike back a little easier to bear under the hot equatorial sun.

On the bus ride home we made friends with some young rambunctious girls at one of the stops.

Of course we visited a local market while in Kuching.  I love posting market pictures for the folks back home.  This reminds me of synchronized swimming in a grotesque sort of way.

Lots of cookies at the baker's stall.

What a super smile.  He's frying up fish fingers.  Malaysians are so friendly and kind.

Layer cake is sold everywhere in Sarawak.  We made sure we had a supply every morning to enjoy with our coffee.  Mmm, I miss it already.

The city was full of cute little nooks and crannies.

One last sunset on the river before we headed up to Kota Kinabalu.

Our next stop was Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian state of Sabah.  I'm sad to say that we flew right over Brunei without stopping in for a visit.  I would have loved to have seen the Sultan's palace.

One of the first things we did was go island hopping.  There are several islands not very far off the main island.

I guess the boat drivers need some entertainment after doing this day after day.  We had a boat race.  Notice who's ahead...

The water was incredibly beautiful and teeming with fish.

 Manukan was the first island we visited.  Small and beautiful.  This fish swim all around you and one even nibbled my fingers.

Sapi was my favorite island.  To see and swim in water like this does something to your soul.

We walked around the island to find a more private stretch of beach...

 ..and came upon a monitor lizard (a smaller cousin to the Komodo.)  I looked it up later and found out that they are only partially venomous.  We didn't stick around to find out.  The aquamarine waters were summoning us.

I was a bit toasty pink at the end of the day in spite of several applications of super-strength sunblock.  I did the math at the end of the day:  

white girl + equator = sunburn

This day we visited Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in Boreo.

We didn't climb the peak ourselves, but hiked around the base,

and took some guided walks to learn about the local flora.  We didn't see it on our trip, but Borneo is also home to the rafflesia flower, an enormous stinky flower.  It can grow up to one meter across and smells like rotting flesh.  Yummy.

This is the only picture of my travel buddy and I together.

The peak is shrouded in clouds.  It was wondrously, gloriously cool up here.

The sunsets in Borneo were spectacular.

I really enjoyed Borneo.  It was safe, clean and beautiful and Malaysians were so kind and friendly.  Borneo is home to all kinds of unique flora and fauna, so if you're a nature enthusiast, it's a must for you.  For me, island hopping was the highlight.  That sea green water, aquamarine lagoons clear as crystal... mmm.  Need I say more?

Teaching in southeast Asia definitely has it's benefits, and awesome travel destinations a short flight away is definitely one of them.

Next on the bucket list.... Vietnam, maybe Laos and at the very top.... the Maldives.