Phnom Penh

Finally getting out of Vietnam. This only required a 8 hour bus ride during which about 2 hours were taken up crossing the Vietnam/Cambodia border. Again, another huge fancy building in the middle of nowhere. As with all of our border crossings to date the difference in cultures and resources is pretty apparent from the moment you cross the border. Cambodia looks much more like Laos with the poverty and more people living in tiny shacks. There is also a much more desperate feeling here among the people. It was impossible to get off the bus without being surrounded by a crowd of women and children selling snacks, drinks, and requesting money. It's quite overwhelming and takes a bit of getting used to. At the same time Cambodians are incredibly friendly and kind, which is a nice change from the somewhat more aggressive atmosphere of Vietnam.





With the bus we were back to misery. At the peak of the afternoon the bus was about 101 degrees AND we were not allowed to open the windows. It was a horrendous ride as it felt like being baked in an oven with your clothes just dripping and sticking to you in every imaginable and unimaginable place.

After finding a guesthouse and having a good night's sleep we had a day of depressing sightseeing. We took a motorbike (3 of us on one bike) about 10 miles out of town to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Seventeen thousand people, mostly Cambodians, were killed here from 1975 to 1978. In 1980 about half of these bodies were exhumed from mass graves.



The Memorial Stupa is filled with many of the skulls taken from the graves. It's a very simple yet quite powerful place.





Around the site there are many children wanting you to take their picture which seems to "cost" anywhere from 10 cents to 1 dollar. I spent a while with one of these boys and when I finally convinced him that I had no money (which was true as Michael had all our money) he was able to chat with me about his school, girlfriends, and sing me the English alphabet. Cambodia appears to be a hard place to be a child.





Part 2 of the depressing sites of Phnom Penh was the Tuol Sleng Museum, also known as Security Prison 21 - S 21. This was the largest detention and torture center in the country during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. S-21 was formerly a high school and is a series of run down 3 story buildings. With the exception of seven people, everyone detained here was either killed on site or transported and executed at the Killing Fields.







After the challenging day of learning some of the hard history of Cambodia we went back to our guesthouse, took showers, and napped - just about all you can do in this heat.

Next - dinner!

Saigon

Another 10 hour bus ride - Vietnam is an incredibly long country. In keeping with our plan to get the hell out of dodge/Vietnam we decided to do only one day in Saigon and then head to Cambodia.

Similar to Hanoi, Saigon is very crowded and noisy. The houses and hotels are packed incredibly close together. From our balcony I could see clearly into our neighbor's room, see them watch tv and do their laundry. There is no privacy in this city.





We visited the War Remnants Museum - formerly known as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes. We spent the afternoon viewing photographs of atrocities and birth defects caused by Agent Orange. This place is not for those with a weak stomach - it was pretty hard to take. Out front there were many US armored vehicles left over from the war.





Also out front was my cousin Mandy! She and her friend Anna are traveling throughout SE Asia, New Zealand and Australia for 2 months. We have been following the same path in Vietnam - we're just going at a much slower pace. We finally caught up with each other in Saigon and were able to share a meal together before we all headed out of town in different directions. It was great to see a familiar face and catch up. It appears unlikely that we'll cross paths again so I'm glad we were able to connect.



I also read my first newspaper since leaving the states. My favorite bits - the crossword puzzle and the article ripping into the lack of fashion sense of Olympic figure skaters. I couldn't agree more.



Vendors are everywhere selling illegal copies of books. It seems to be a contest to see how many you can carry at once.

Nha Trang

Another bus ride - this time 12 hours. But again a good one. I was able to stretch out over the entire 5 seats in the back. No one was throwing up, the air conditioning was working, there was no bad Vietnamese music blasting over the speakers - oh happy day.

Nha Trang reminded me of Atlantic City - a town built around a beach but in this case just a much more beautiful beach. We spent 2 days just chilling out under our big umbrella sipping drinks, reading and swimming.







Michael had a haircut in a rather interesting place. The place was very tiny but held about 6 employees, 3 hair chairs, and 4 dogs. What was somewhat confusing is what the employees were employed to do? Only one seemed to cut hair while the rest either napped, applied make-up, or played rocks, paper, scissors. Later we saw a man come out from behind a beaded curtain and slip a girl some money, which brought us to the conclusion that Michael was getting his hair cut in a whore house. Probably not the last time that will happen here. My favorite part was the dog eating some meat scraps under the hairdresser's feet during the hair cut. Unfortunately the dog can't be seen here....but it's right under her feet.



Nha Trang also offers some "electronic arouse" services. Unclear exactly what this is but I thought it worth a picture.



We also did the traditional booze cruise as it's the only way to see any of the islands around here. The snorkeling and swimming was not great as it was pretty choppy out. What was good was the onboard entertainment - the self-proclaimed boat "boy band." In truth they were more like a man band as I think everyone was over 30. They sang a number of tunes, and had a guitar player who wore a motorcycle helmet during the entire trip.





My experience on these types of trips is that it's usually the frat boy types who are the most out of control. Not so here - it was the 2 Dutch women (see one in photo below) in their 50's who were dancing around in bikinis, drank everyone else under the table...and even danced on the table. They were the main entertainment.



After a pretty good and plentiful lunch we all jumped in the drink to have a drink - red wine with pineapple. The wine was awful and how anyone finished even a single glass is beyond me.







Other excitement in Nha Trang - a 4 inch cockroach in our room. This was bewildering as the hotel is very new and clean and was actually quite nice. I saw the cockroach on day 1 as it was trying to climb into Michael's bag. I screamed, we/Michael chased it for a while, and then we lost it. Needless to say it was a long night for me as I kept imagining the cockroach climbing on my face. Michael, however, seemed to sleep fine. The next day upon returning from the beach I found him, the cockroach, trying to climb into my bag. After screaming again it climbed into Michael's laundry bag where we trapped it, took it outside, and that was that.

Nha Trang is a very stylish town as noted by these bathroom tiles that I found not only in our hotel room but also in a fancy restaurant in town - classy.

Hoi An

Next stop was the sleepy little river town of Hoi An. We had what was our first pleasant bus trip - probably the fact that the bus was only half full, the ride was only 3 hours long, and we had plenty of food both before and during the ride.





As noted on Michael's blog Hoi An is a town of tailors - there must be over 100 shops lining the streets that will make you pretty much whatever you want. They have books of patterns, bolts of fabric, and you have the freedom to mix and match. Given that the prices are incredibly cheap you can see how easy it would be to get carried away. We met many folks who were lugging HUGE bags to clothes getting ready to ship home. We came out pretty light with just 3 kilos of clothes that we mailed home slowboat style.



The dining experiences in Hoi An I think were the worst the date. At one meal we sat next to an American woman who spent 10 minutes trying to explain to the waiter who spoke no English that she wanted "the salad dressing on the side." He had no idea what she was talking about, and you would think at some point she would give up, but no - "dressing on the side." It was embarrassing.

Next, the meal with a rat and cockroach on the side. Sitting in a nice outdoor cafe Michael felt something scurry across his feet. Turned out it was a rat trying to catch a cockroach for his dinner. While this was entertaining it was also gross and we determined that it would be too difficult for me to eat dinner with my legs up on the chair so we moved and watched the chase from another table. The before mentioned rat can be seen in front of motorcycle in both pictures below.





Finally a meal where the food was bad and a tied up dog 10 feet away barked throughout the entire 45 minute dinner while its owners did nothing. Clearly this is just part of how things work here. I could not get out of there fast enough.

Hoi An was also the land of touts. While Vietnam in general has been filled with people asking if you wanted motorbike rides, cyclos, etc., this was by far the worst. In one 8 minute walk we were approached by 12 (and this rate is about average) people basically all with the same shtick.

* Hello
* Where you from?
* What's your name?
* Where you come from?
* Where you going?
* Can you (fill in the blank): come see my store?; rent a motorbike?: eat at this restaurant?; etc.

Finally in Hoi An I met the Vietnamese incarnation of my aunt Lissanne. And while they don't really look alike it was like talking to a Lissanne-clone with a Vietnamese accent and very tiny feet. Was good to have a little reminder of home.

Easy Rider (Part 2)

Part of the pleasure of having no schedule is having the ability to change that lack of schedule whenever you want. When we returned from the motorbike tour Michael went out drinking with our guides. Upon his return 2 hours (and 5 shared beers later) there was new thought given to the DMZ tour. After discussion we decided to stay another night and spend our Valentine's Day on the backs of motorbikes for 140 miles roundtrip going up and back to the DMZ.
After getting an early start we stopped for "breakfast" about 45 minutes into our journey. Noodle soup seems to be the breakfast of champions here and if you're hungry enough, which I was, you'll eat almost anything (minus rats, dog, the usual suspects). Our meal was prepared in the most local of establishments. This restaurant is one of the many roadside shacks that serves up meals - there are no menus and subsequently no known prices. There also seems to be limited hygienic standards. The pictures that follow depict the "restaurant," the woman in the red pantsuit cooking our soup, and the dog wandering around eating scraps.







This is what almost all restaurants look like here. What you can't see are the many flies and the television in the corner playing Korean soap operas dubbed into Vietnamese with one person reading all the parts. Makes the love scenes very interesting especially as the lines are read with the passion of reporting the 6 o'clock news.

After about 2.5 hours on the bike we made it to the Vinh Moc Tunnels. An entire village built an elaborate system of interconnecting tunnels where they lived for five years during the American War (as they call it here). There are 2.8 kilometers of tunnels open to the public. The tunnels are incredibly sophisticated and even have a conference room that holds up to 300 people. Seventeen babies were born in the tunnels. The little room that Michael is crouching in is a Family Room - each family had one. It's probably about 2 feet wide and 4 feet deep.







Saw this amazing toilet set up on our way back to Hue. The toilet itself is pretty standard (remember, I've been here a while now) but about 1 foot to the left of the stall was the enormous pig and her eight babies, squealing the entire time. Never know what you're going to find when searching for the bathroom.







After a long day of riding around we were just glad to be in one piece. We jumped on our bikes (we did have helmets this time), leaving the water buffalo behind, and headed back to Hue to celebrate Valentine's Day in a more western way - nice French dinner and a glass of wine. Next, off to Hoi An.

Easy Rider (Part 1)

So instead of the DMZ tour we decided to cruise around town with guides on motorbikes. We each have our own driver and the day is spent being driven around on the back of a bike (without helmets I hate to add - no one wears helmets here) to different historical sites around Hue.



Our first stop was the Thanh Toan Bridge, a Japanese-styled bridge that we're told is used mostly by local villagers to take naps throughout the day. The drive there was the best part - through small villages, rice patties, and lots of tight, windy roads.



Next was the Thien Mu Pagoda. I think this might be the most beautiful place I've seen in Vietnam to date - it is hands down the quietest place I've been in Vietnam. This pagoda is also a working monastery and we arrived just in time for morning meditation and prayers. The youngest monks, or monks-in-training, I'm not sure, seem to wear white robes while others wear the traditional saffron robes. Their ability to pray and meditate while everyone around them is taking pictures is rather remarkable. As you can see from one of the pictures below, some folks just get right in there and snap away.













Next - the incense stand. At this small roadside stand there was a woman making incense. She sits at a small school desk and she works what looks like a big piece of brown bread dough. To be honest, it really looks like a huge turd - imagine elephant family. She cuts a bit off the turd, adds some scent - in this case cinnamon - and then rolls it on a stick, sort of like rolling out a pie crust. The sticks are then left out to dry along side of the road. I'll never look at incense the same way again. While hanging out at the stand Michael was getting a bit worried because I kept saying in my not so soft voice, "doesn't that look like a big turd?" This lead to a discussion of whether "turd" was an internationally recognized word, like McDonalds or Coca Cola.





The Tomb of Tu Duc was next. These folks really have a nice take on the whole tomb thing. Set on a pretty big chunk of land surrounded by big pine and frangipani trees, the grounds are absolutely stunning. We read that the enormous expense and slave labor needed to build the tomb from 1864 to 1867 resulted in an attempted coup in 1866. Another interesting fact - Tu Duc, who had the longest reign of any Nguyen monarch(from 1848-1883) had 103 wives and more concubines but no children. It is thought that he may have become sterile after a bout of smallpox.



Right at the entrance there is a dumpy temple (as compared to the others) which is dedicated to his "minor wives." Clearly it paid to work your way up the wife ladder least you be remembered in a not very attractive small temple with no view of the lily pond.



The Christmas Munchkin (from Michael's niece Alice) also made the journey with us to the Tu Duc Tomb.





Our guides took us to a very local joint for lunch. No menus, no foreigners (ferang), no English spoken. We had seafood hot pot which had some crazy pieces of fish floating around. In Asia, the shrimp come fully loaded - head, legs, shells - so they're always looking at you. The hot pot also included something I took to calling the "blood pattie." From a distance it looked like chocolate (wishful thinking) but closer up it had the consistency of tofu but was made of animal blood. Even though Michael had tried this before (in California of all places) and didn't like it, he was game and a good guest and tried some more. I plead upset stomach and just ate the broth and had an ice cream cone later in the day.

Most of the afternoon was spent at the Imperial Enclosure within the Citadel. As might be expected in anything called the Imperial Enclosure, there were many amazing palaces, temples, etc. A large part of the Enclosure was bombed during the war so there are many bits where you have to imagine what used to be there. Upon entering I saw this elephant just wandering across the lawn. I saw a few more during our time there, just chilling and eating grass.

Heading South

After about a week in and around Hanoi it's time to head south. We bought tickets on the overnight train to Hue. We had the whole day to kill with lots of errands - post office (where I mailed a small package that will take 2 months to arrive), bank, book exchange, grocery store (to not repeat the 14 hours with no food debacle), etc.

One nagging item on the to-do list was to exchange what was left of our Laos kip - about $20 worth. The problem is no one will take or exchange kip and if it can't happen in a big city like Hanoi it's not going to happen. After going to a small bank and being told, "no kip exchange" we were approached by a woman on the sidewalk who was willing to exchange our kip. She was offering a horrible exchange rate - essentially 35% commission. Even I who hate all this haggling stuff knew this sucked and said no thanks. After some discussion we finally agreed on a price and that's when it started to get funny. She took our money and then she and her strange little helper started handing us money, taking it away, handing us more, taking that away, and so forth. It was like one of those games on the streets of New York where you never quite know where your money is and what you are owed. It's a weird scene because you're both doing something you're not supposed to do, and you probably have no proof of what has transpired, and no one wants to call attention to the situation. In the end we got what we agreed upon but you could totally see how easy it was to get ripped off.

I was very excited to get on the night train - one to get out of the big, bad city, and two to get to sleep on the train, especially after the recent bad bus rides. Our cabin had 4 bunks - 2 top and 2 bottom. You get a little bag with sheets and a blanket and a thermos of hot water. That's it, and that's considered luxury.

Our cabin mates were Dave and Carol. Dave was an interesting sort. He is American but has been living in Thailand for the past year. Turns out he lives in this resort town about 3 hours east of Bangkok which is known pretty much only for sex tourism. He was pretty cagey when I asked him what brought him to Thailand, etc..and now it all makes sense. He also had a bumper sticker on his backpack that read, "Nana Hotel," which is the big sex tourism place to stay in Bangkok. It's the equivalent of having a "Bunny Ranch" or "Playboy Mansion" sticker on your car -classy. Anyway, he was a weird dude but since he didn't snore or steal anything he was ok.

We arrived in Hue this am pretty tired as sleeping on the sleeper train isn't all that easy. We wandered around a bit on our own trying to find a place to stay. This is an experience within itself. While you walk the streets you're stalked, yes stalked, by locals on minibikes, taxis, on foot, trying to get you to come to their guest house. When you go in another guesthouse they'll wait for you to come out and follow you to the next, talking to you the whole time. On the receiving end the emotions transpire as follows: feeling overwhelmed, to maybe being interested in the information, to being amused, to being annoyed. In the end we found this cute place mostly on our own.




The plan is to go to the DMZ tomorrow but many reports claim that the trip is long and boring and very touristy....so we may change our plans.

Another discovery - Leonardo Dicaprio and Colin Farrell both appear to get their hair cut in Hue, as evidenced by this awning.

Halong Bay

It took a few days to get used to the fast pace of Vietnam in general and specifically Hanoi. Very loud, very fast, and very dirty - all very different from Thailand and Laos. After settling in at a fairly new guesthouse we ventured out to explore the Old Quarter, where most of the traveler amenities are located.

The excitement of the city brought with it lots of treats - good spaghetti (which is a valuable commodity when you're getting a little tired of rice), good ice cream, good shopping, and lots and lots of people watching. These good things come at a price of course - mainly the price of your life as you try to cross the street to get from one treat to another. For good ice cream, however, it's all worth it.

We next decided to take a 3 day/2 night tour of Halong Bay and Cat Ba island. Halong Bay, pretty much due east of Hanoi, consists of about 3000 limestone islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. According to legend, the islands were created when a dragon that lived in the mountains flailed its tail around creating valleys and crevasses which were later surrounded by water, leaving little islands scattered all about.

To reach these islands you board a boat where we also slept the first night. Our tour group was small - started with 12 and by the time we finished there were only 7 of us as people got on and off, switching boats, etc. Our cabin was also amazingly small but it had a quaint view.

To board your boat you go to the boat, the boat does not come to you. This means climbing over however many boats are docked in front of your boat and hoping you don't fall in along the way. There were probably about 70 plus boats waiting to pick up travelers when we arrived so climbing over only 2 seemed pretty reasonable.

We visited an amazing cave - Hang Sung Sot. It has 3 huge chambers and probably takes about 20 minutes to walk through from one end to another. The view coming out the other side is pretty amazing.


To feed the foreigners small rowboats come along side the big boats to sell all kinds of goodies - oreos, beer, bbq-flavored cheetos (not so good), etc. This must be a really hard and boring way to make a living.

What is not always as pleasant is the food. Rice is huge here and comes with everything. That's fine. What's a bit more unclear is all the stuff that comes with it. More than once on this trip we've been served something that inspires lengthy discussion about whether the main ingredient of the dish is actually meat or not. Sometimes this debate can't be settled until someone (usually Michael because I'm not as adventurous) bites into a yucky piece of meat-based grizzle. Pass the veggies please.

Day 2 we ventured to Cat Ba national park where we did a very steep one hour hand over hand climb to a great lookout tower. My favorite part of the national park was the little museum at the end where they had preserved in little jars examples of all the species of critters found in the park. These jars looked like no one had touched them in about 30 years.

Our day finished with some kayaking around the islands and an evening in a hotel where the bedspread read, "Happy everyday" and there were two plastic swans acting as a bedside lamp. Very romantic indeed. Actually this "happy" theme is very prevalent throughout Vietnam. You see "everybody happy" and "be happiness" on everything from shopping bags to garbage cans.

Now to figure out where to go next.

Hello Hanoi

I was grateful to finally arrive in Hanoi. We're staying in the old quarter which is very charming with all its little shops and cramped streets. The stores remind me of little New York boutiques in that they are so tiny you can barely turn around in them.



Our guesthouse is new so there are nice hot showers, comfy beds, tv, and free internet. In fact we were able to watch the Superbowl this morning in bed at 8 am.

The streets here are hard to describe. There are no rules on the road, there are thousands of motorcycles and few cars, and very few street lights. The best strategy for walking and probably driving is to just keep a steady and even course and just plow through. If you think too much about it you'll never leave the sidewalk. The noise is deafening - so much honking all the time. The sidewalks are also this interesting phenomena of sidewalk, parking lot, extended kitchen and living room, restaurant, garbage can, and showroom. All this leaves very little room for actual walking so you're usually on the street.

From Bad to Worse

I was a little worried about going to Vietnam. Everything I had heard from other travelers suggested a somewhat aggressive and hectic scene. And my first few days in Vietnam have pretty much bore this out.

Crossing the border was pretty uneventful so at least we had a good start. We had heard a story the day before about a woman being turned away because her visa was a little smudged. As this border had only opened to westerners in the last 10 months I had the feeling anything was possible. The border crossing is pretty ominous. You get off the bus and walk down this long dirt road toward a very imposing looking structure in the absolute middle of nowhere. Everyone entering the country has their information processed by hand so for an entire busload of people this takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. This gave us time to change money with unsavory characters and check out the restroom situation.



Now this bathroom might not look so bad - toilet paper, seat, no little hose. But what you need to check out are the feet prints ON the seat. So even if you wanted to sit down you really can't because the seat is so caked with mud from people standing on it. It was quite a disappointment and a bad omen for the rest of the journey.



The next bad news was the realization that there were no stores or restaurants open because of the continuing New Year's/Tet holiday. Translation - no food for us for the 13.5 hour busride. Some students took pity on us and gave us half a loaf of stale white bread and some sticky rice. When they offered us pidgeon on a stick I pretended I was a vegetarian - it was really gross looking.

Speaking of gross I did see something that registered really high on the gross meter during this trip. The woman sitting across from us got sick at one point. Granted she was pregnant and the ride is very bouncy. And I'll give her credit for having a plastic bag (which had probably contained her lunch.....both times). After wretching (very loudly) into the bag she casually tossed it out the window - not tied up or anything - into a pretty busy street. Ugh - totally gross. For a brief moment I was thankful to not have any food.

Immediately upon crossing into Vietnam you could tell you were in a different place. For almost the first time since I left Thailand I saw paved roads, electicity, irrigation systems - essentially infrastructure. While parts of Vietnam are surely poor they are nothing compared to Laos.

We arrived exhausted in Vinh at about 9 pm. This was our changing point for a bus to Hanoi that left in the am. Vihn is nothing to write home about and I'll leave it at that.

After the cramped experience of the bus the day before we decided to take a nicer bus for the 5-8 hour (depending on who you believe) trip to Hanoi. Unfortunately all did not work out as planned and we ended up on a regular, cramped, local bus headed north. It was particularly bad timing as the Tet holiday was ending and many folks were returning to Hanoi after a week of vacation.

In theory our minibus should seat 23 people. This is 23 without any aisle mind you. 5 rows of 4, a driver and a few left over here and there. At our most full we had 32 people. There is nothing delicate about this experience. You are shoved and pushed into a seat, your luggage becomes part of the floor, and your knees are by your ears. The horn is contantly on and the conductor spends him time leaning out the open door pulling people off the street onto the bus. Everytime you think no one else can get on....someone else gets on.



I know understand why the Vietnamese are so tiny. It's not a matter of diet, attractiveness or anything like that. It's all about survival and portability. You cannot travel anywhere if you weight over 140 lbs. Michael and I are simply enormous by comparison. While cramped on this crappy ride I was quite jealous of the three young students sitting to my left with their legs dangling off the seat with about 6 inches of legroom while Michael and I were negotiating about whose legs could go where.

Getting off the bus is an adventure in itself. When your "stop" (there are no real stops) is approaching you crawl over the people and seats in front of you while the bus is continuing along at normal speed. Remember, there is no aisle here. When you get to your stop the door opens, the bus slows down, and you jump out. This is not for the meek.

King Kong

Our next stop was Phonsavan, about eight hours north of Vang Vieng. We took the public bus which is always entertaining. About 30 minutes into the ride I look out the window and see a pair of legs dangling from the roof. It seems one of the young men working on the bus had been arranging luggage up top and was now wanting to get back inside. There is no stopping or even slowing down for this activity. Not only did this young man have to get back in the bus, he had to find an open window which necessitated shimming down the side of the bus while traveling 35 mph looking for an opening. No one blinked an eye except me of course - this was standard operating procedure.

At one of our stops while in search of a bathroom I was stopped by two Australians who pointed out to me a woman making lunch. I didn't understand why this would be of interest except, upon closer inspection, when I realized it was RATS she was preparing. They were skinned and she had a big cleaver ready to start chopping. I quickly renewed my vow to become a vegetarian and hopped back on the bus.

Our arrival in Phonsavan was the first time we've really been mobbed since our arrival in SE Asia. About 10 men immediately surrounded Michael as he got off the bus and started pushing cards and pictures of guesthouses in his hands. I just tried to lay low and gather our bags.

We ended up at what has been my favorite guesthouse to date. It's called Kong Keo, named after its proprieter affectionately known as Mr. Kong. We secured a cute little bungalow off a garden path. Beverages, etc. are all done on the honor system so you can just help yourself. Mr. Kong is a golf nut and has built a little 3 par pitch and putt in the front yard. Mr. Kong is an interesting character - 32 years old, twice married, gold-chain wearing dude. He claims the only woman he now trusts is his mother since all others are only out for his money. He has an interesting history that involves catching a $10,000 butterfly and having a guard dog trained in Vietnam that ONLY attacks Laos people. He is quite a character and brings some real color to the guesthouse.





Next to the putting green is an outdoor fireplace contained in a large bomb casing. Actually bomb casings make up much of the decor in this part of Laos - key chains, firepits, garden planters, etc. You can check out Michael's blog to learn about the secret war in Laos during the late 60's and early 70's. In brief, the result is thousands of undetonated cluster bombs, known as bombies, lying all over Laos.







The next day we took a tour of the area with five other guests and our guide Toby. Our first stop was a field of bomb craters. In this crater there was an unexploded bomb just sitting there in the dust. You can easily imagine how someone would just pick this up - I even wanted to pick it up. The bombs are often bright yellow and red in color and look like some local fruits - this creates an extra problem as children are tempted to pick them up to bring home.





Our next stop was Toby's home village. He is a local celebrity as he is the only person to have left the village to work in town. This village was by far the poorest place we've seen to date. Since it's pretty uncommon for folks to ever leave the village Westerners are somewhat of a novelty. Your feel somewhat like the Pied Piper as you walk around with 10 children following your every move. Bomb decor is also quite popular here.











There are pigs running around everywhere. Adult pigs are known as "crazy pigs" as they wear a triangle made of wood to keep them from eating veggies in the garden. When one of our tour compainions needed to use the bathroom, Toby pointed her up the hill and gave her a long stick that she was instructed to swing back and forth while in the field....to ward off the pig. We were all a bit worried as Charlotte wandered off into the field with a crazy pig in hot pursuit. While she seemed to be gone for an unusually long time she returned in one piece and there was no sign of the pig - guess Charlotte won that round.



As one would expect at 11 am we then played a drinking game. We sat in a hut in a circle, listened to some lengthy rules which made no sense, and then passed around some rice wine and drank, drank, drank. It was unclear to me what the "game" was...other than having westerners drinking local wine.

Next, a hike to the waterfall. A very steep descent that was rewarded with lunch. Most meals in Laos consist of taking a ball of sticky rice and dipping it in a variety of meat or vegetable concoctions. Everthing is purchased in plastic bags, there are no utensils or napkins, and there is no hesitation about scratching, coughing, and dipping all with the same hand. For anyone concerned about public health issues it's a bit hard to take.





Our last stop on the tour was the Plain of Jars - really the only thing Phonsavan is known for. Again, you can see Michael's blog for the real explaination but in short it's just what you think it would be, a big plain full of jars. The largest one is about 9 feet high. It's thought that these jars were used as burial vessels. I suggested to Toby that perhaps they were space pods used by aliens during one of their many visits to earth. He wasn't convinced but at least I got him thinking.





Well our time in Laos was done....literally. According to our visas we had to leave the next day. We packed up, after a little sleeping through the alarm fiasco, and headed to Vietnam.