The main cities (or towns really) of Laos are often described as “sleepy” and immediately upon arriving, we could understand why. There was no need for drivers to weave through traffic because there was only a couple of other cars in sight. The roads and sidewalks were wide, but they were almost empty. Coming from “megacities” like Delhi and Bangkok, the scarcity of people was striking. But it’s easy to understand why—there’s just not that many people. In all of Laos there are about as many people as living in all of Laos than in Bangkok alone (6 million).

And while I’m sure there are stressed out people in a hurry somewhere in Laos, we sure didn’t see any. The construction workers we saw always seemed to be on a tea break. The tents of the night market, laid out on the banks of the Mekong, were spread wide apart and the owners chatted jovially among themselves rather than haranguing tourists—a quiet reflection of those hectic events in Thailand. In an effort to realize my dream of owning a huge rip-off DVD collection I bought a rip of the Hunger Games. It didn’t work. At least that is constant throughout Southeast Asia. 

To be honest, Vientiane did not make much of an impression on me (us?). It was quiet, for a city, and sprawling, with lots of new construction. To be good sports, wefollowed most of the walking tour laid out in the LP guide and saw many temples and the main monuments. The Buddhist temples were old and impressively decorated and the Pha That Luang (big gold stupa) was very impressive. But Laos is in a state of change and expansion, figuring out where it belongs in the Southeast Asian ecosystem and the world. signs of an ancient culture in flux. The Patuxai monument, modeled after the Arc de Triomphe but covered in Buddhist mythological creatures, is a strange thing to see amongst the majestic temples built 400 years earlier (it was started in 1957 as a dedication to those who fought in the independence war with France). Construction sites also dotted the city, promising modernity, even if the country isn’t quite sure what to do with it yet. 

I must also mention that it was very hot, a constant theme throughout our travels this summer. I learned quickly that if I kept explaining to Jason what I thought of the weather (it was hot) with the urgency with which I felt it (it was hot all the time) then we would talk of nothing else. So I tried to bear it in silence. Somewhat successfully. 

Well, since this is my blog and you don’t have a choice on which one is first, I’ll give you the bad news.

The bad news is that something is wrong with my computer (yes dad,I know how terrible you think Apple products are). It won’t even boot up to the Apple start screen where the glowing Apple seems to reveal a glimpse into Apple heaven and the startup noise announces like a host of angels that wonderful things await within.

No, it won’t even give me that.

In between bouts of crippling grief, I search for the ubiquitous silver lining and luckily have found some. The first is that the problem seems to be so low level that the hard drive and therefore all of my pictures should be intact (although it certainly slows down my editing process…).

The second is that we are living for two weeks basically in paradise. You probably haven’t heard of Gümüşlük, Turkey (neither had we) and by looking at the name you might not think it’s that great of a place. But it is.

We are watching the house and pets of some lovely retired Brits and they have the most beautiful cottage ten minutes walk from the shore. There is a sort of brushy cliff overlooking the ocean where there is a perfect view of the sunset and lots of rocks to climb on and loads of interesting new plant types (yep, I’m a nerd) (including one that branches at 120°angles and looks like CHEMISTRY). The weather is perfect in the morning and evening and it won’t rain until September. Everyone we’ve met is so friendly.

It is so wonderful to be in this quiet town in a quiet house (of our own!) with some lovely pets again. We really needed this rest.

These pictures I’ve taken around the town. I also just downloaded instagram so…forgive me for that. Most pictures are self explanatory but the dog is our delinquent four-month-old ward Molly, and the collection of random stuff is fragments of old pottery and glass that have washed up on the nearby shores (except the one with fish painted on it). Which, according to our archaeologist hosts are likely from the Greek or Roman era, making them over 2000 years old. How many people have 2000 year old artifacts on their mantles? AMAZING! (for bigger picture sizes, click on one and use your arrow keys to switch photos)

It’s not always fun

Well, Jason and I have finally settled down for longer than 3 days and so I’m going through kajillions of photos and reading through my notes trying to compose new stories out of quickly fading memories. 

After Thailand, our first stop was Vientiane in Laos. But our arrival in Laos was not a happy one. 

The overnight train was perfectly fine, and was made more amusing by the waitress insisting that we order beers, us both ordering one even though I don’t like beer, and finding out the beers are about 1L. Jason took it upon himself to drink both and then decided another one was a fantastic idea. At one point the waitress said “cha-cha” which we, given our ballroom dancing background, thought a particularly hilarious thing to say, and started us fancifully imagining that perhaps she was a ballroom enthusiast as well, only to days later find out that it meant “wait 5 minutes”. 

In the morning we arrived in the Thai border town and shuffled sleepily around trying to sort out where to by the tickets to the shuttle train into Laos. We found it—they were USD 4. Fantastic. 

We waited in the immigration line for a while so we could enter that weird in-between area where you’ve exited one country but you haven’t entered the next, and when we got the the desk…

We learned that our visa expired the day before. Not even a day before, 8 hours before. (This is the fault of the leap year and certainly not any oversight on my part.)

So we were escorted from the line by the guard in an official uniform and told we would not be able to get a visa on arrival into Laos with an expired Thai visa over the train crossing, only the road crossing. He hailed a tuk-tuk for us and off we went. I, not expecting any complications did not read much about the process, just that “it was really easy to get a visa on arrival”. What I should have read before we left was the part that you should never get in a tuk-tuk at the Thai border train station because it will almost always end in a giant scam. 

We were shuttled around, made to pay over twice the normal amount for a visa (which I accepted because I thought it had something to do with the expired visa penalty (It didn’t. We had to pay $15 each for that at the actual border)) then taken to the border where other people were paying the normal amount. Our chaperone did fill out the forms for us and somehow enabled us to skip the line for immigration, AND the price included a taxi from the border to our hotel, but it was a bitter feeling knowing we were taken advantage of, and it was only multiplied by the exhaustion that only overnight trains can cause (actually mostly I was bitter. Jason seemed ok). 

We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Except I had made the reservation for the week before. Even though I’m really sure the hotel was entirely empty, the bumbling desk boy (this sounds mean, but based on our interactions with him for 2 days, bumbling is the nicest possible word for it) would not transfer the money I already paid to the current week so we had to make new reservations and pay again. Since I was the primary planner, I felt responsible for the huge breach of budget that occurred and started sobbing in the lobby. 

We got to the room and it was….not as good as I had hoped. The decoration on the peeling yellow walls consisted of a brown handprint behind the door, the window didn’t close, didn’t have a latch, and didn’t have a screen, and there were dead beetles on the floor on one side of the bed. The beetles turned out to be gecko poop (presumably from when they climbed in through the open window) (confused because my eyes were too full of tears to look closely) but it really put me over the top and I just broke down crying. Jason, such a dear, didn’t hold any of it against me and did his best to cheer me up. But I, ever the helpful one, refused to be comforted and fell asleep for several hours. 

On awaking I felt a little better and was eventually convinced to go out and seek some dinner.

On the way, as is the case with all the Asian cities we’ve been to, there were lots of surprises. The first was public aerobics classes on the river front. 

The second was the dry river. Children were playing on the riverbed and the Mekong was nowhere to be seen. Ok, maybe you can see a little of it in the distance. 

So, a few things I learned from this day:

-Like anything else you do all the time, travel is not always fun.

-Sleep affects my mood a LOT. 

-Jason is so wonderful. I am so lucky he is my travel partner. 

-Do your homework.

The rest of our time in Laos was really wonderful, so stay tuned…

Songkran

It all started with a trip to the hospital. 

Jason was feverish again (now, over one month fever free! cross your fingers!) and so we went to a Bangkok hospital (over here, hospitals are where the general populous go to get medical attention. I don’t think there are PCPs) to try and get it sorted out again. By the time we left the hospital, and coincidentally coinciding with our visit to Au Bon Pan in the lobby, he was miraculously feeling much better and we decided we would walk back to the nearby train station. 

We had seen, from afar, cabals of teenagers roaming in the back of pick-ups, yelling at passerbys and indiscriminately attacking pedestrians (with water). We had heard rumors of similar unrest throughout the city but we hoped to avoid it—assuming the tumult would be contained to the locals. We never expected it to get so out of hand.  

At 4:39 PM on April 13, 2012 Jason was struck with three bucketloads of water (you can see the perpetrators in the background). We did not immediately take defensive action, but hoped that by allowing this incident one time, we would be exempt from further altercations. 

That night, we were proven otherwise. It was time to take matters into our own hands. 

The next day we headed to the “ammunition” store where every possible means of throwing water on other people was for sale. Despite the impressive display, it was clear that most of the merchandise had been rifled through, tested and sold already. 

We deliberated carefully over which leftover weapon to purchase. Would a huge super-soaker be best? A turtle backpack reservoir for backup water? Neon green, orange, yellow? In the end, we both chose stealthier (read: small and cheap) weapons. Jason opted for a powerful combination with a pistol for each hand and I chose a clever gun which, like those moths that look like eyes or whatever, was designed to intimidate and confuse attackers with an aggressive weird blue cat. 

With that we put on our game faces (we are very serious) and headed into the action to get our revenge.

As we stepped off the train and surveyed the station, we were greeted by the sound of distant screams and a pervasive wet smell. There was none of the regular milling about on the train platform. Everyone was single-mindedly heading down to the street with the same purpose: making people wet. 

We stopped to survey the scene from the safety of the overpass.   What we saw was massive chaos.

(might want to turn the volume down)

Vendors lined the street selling ammunition (water and pricier ice water) for those in the brutal battle and cold beer as a sort of energy elixir for exhausted combatants. Observing the crowd from above, an unknown variable was discovered.  Many people had buckets of white chalk water which was generously applied to faces, local and foreigner alike (Especially foreigners with really white skin. I definitely got more than Jason did. (Ha ha! Joke’s on them, my face is so white you can’t see white chalk!)). Oh well, an unavoidable hazard. And in the middle of it all, a solid wall of people marched in slow motion with no destination in mind, only soaking and being soaked. And sometimes applying chalk to strangers’ faces. 

Within seconds of entering the churning mass of people, we were soaked through. Any idea about where we were headed was washed away (hah) and we were absorbed into the dripping hive-mind that gripped the entire city that weekend. We marched on, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other Bangkok-ites, smiling and being continually showered; our tiny, cheap guns no match for the mass of better equipped locals and their sheer numbers. The city had even brought in the fire department to try and control the crowd. But it only got everyone more wet.

After no more than an hour of overwhelming wetness, we admitted defeat and hightailed it (slowly) to the sidelines. Even escaping the center of the crazy didn’t exempt us from attacks. All the slow way back to the train platform we were barraged from all sides. At the top we surveyed the damage. 

Black was a poor choice. 

Useful travel websites and apps

In light of one of my favorite friends possibly coming to visit us in November, AND because I am in Myanmar and I am unable to access Flickr to post pictures, here are some helpful websites and phone apps I’ve found to assist in the copious amount of planning that goes into traveling long term. 

For flights: 

Skyscanner.net

This lets you find cheap flights on airlines you’ve never heard of and also allows you to find the cheapest flight to “everywhere” which is pretty awesome. 

Hipmunk.com

This site is pretty useful for major airlines and multi-leg trips. Sorts possible itineraries by price and “agony” so plans with lots of layovers or bad times are pushed to the bottom.

Discount Airlines

Discount airlines may have a terrible website and airport experience (coughJetStarcough) but they sure are cheap. And they get get you there. 

Read More

Food in Bangkok

So, I’m not sure if I have written/shown a proportional amount of content on the blog to reflect how much time we spend thinking and tracking down food in these cities. 

It’s a lot.

And the food in Bangkok has been, by far, our favorite. Not only is it readily available everywhere (that was the case in India too), there is lots more variety (not everything has turmeric), and normally the food is more trustworthy. Jason and I didn’t get seriously ill once from food in Thailand. 

So here is a collection of some awesome food we had. Also the number of pictures of food I took increased drastically after I got a new Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens that is way sharper and generally better than my clunky Tamron zoom lens. 

We happened upon these the first time in a tiny alley behind our first apartment. We stopped to get iced coffee (the coffee situation in Thailand was also greatly improved over that of India) and the barista was also making these things in a mould. We shyly asked what they were and she said with the cutest accent, “corn pop” (hers had corn in the middle instead of chives) and gave us two to try. 

MMMmmMMMMM so good!

I guess the Thai name is Khanom Krog but in any case, this confection of rice flour, coconut cream, and sugar is just divine. Crispy on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside with a little tang of corn or chives. Just delicious. 

We were pretty hooked after she gave us the first two so we asked for two more by pointing and holding up 2 fingers with the intent of paying. She agreed and started filling two whole boxes with these treats. Oh well, apparently the serving size is an entire box. We eventually explained we just wanted two more single ones and then we all had a laugh and she gave us two more for free! 

Another time, we went to the night market by the nearest train station which had loads of food stalls. We actually had a hard time finding something recognizable and unsketchy looking, but eventually settled on the very safe pad see you and pad thai. 

Always an excellent choice. Even though Jason looks…intense.

That same night we (I?) were jonesing for something sweet after dinner. With no corn pops in sight we had to improvise. We spotted an ice cream cart attached to a motorcycle but as we threaded our way through the food stalls, it zoomed away! No! 

Luckily, this guy had set up his cart right there and he was making banana crepes.

This guy was amazing. He made the flour from scratch right in front of us, then kneaded it and tossed it in the air to thin it out. Then bright orange “butter” (????) was applied to the grill and all over the crepe and a banana was expertly sliced and laid on the crepe with sweet icing. After the perfect amount of time, it was precisely folded, dripped with more icing, dusted with powdered sugar, and laid perfectly onto the paper carton. Oh, you can’t even imagine how wonderful it tasted, the gooey bananas and crispy crepe, all mixing with the icing. Way better than ice cream.

Finally, on one of our last nights, we met up with the inspiring Kyle and Bessie who were visiting Bangkok on their way home to Chicago after spending a year in public outreach in Myanmar. They generously invited us to spend the day with them as they met up with other friends, visited Chatuchak market (over 9000 stalls!), an art gallery, a big mall, and the famous “duck guy” who apparently had the best duck in Bangkok (all after spending all of the previous night on an overnight bus! What stamina!). The duck guy was out that night, but there were plenty of other food stalls and so everyone ordered. I was the difficult one and decided to get another pad thai at the stall highly recommended on the corner. Not only did our group think highly of it, the locals did too, as there was a line of about 15 people. I (think I) explained what I wanted and they said they would bring it to me when it was done. 

All the ingredients from the popular stall were laid out on this cart. And then the same guy cooked all night at this wok, taking all his ingredients from the cart. Everyone else was done with their food by the time mine came, but it was probably the best pad thai I’ve had, so I’ll say it was worth the wait!

More sunsets

Near the end of our time in Bangkok, we decided to check out the Sky Bar. It’s famous and is on the 63 floor and they filmed Hangover 2 there, so really, how could we not? 

We planned our visit for sunset so we could watch the sun slowly disappear behind a spectacular wall of big-Asian-city haze. 

At first the actual Sky Bar was closed so we were shepherded out to a terrace on the other side of the building. At the repeated insistence of every staff member, we each ordered a cocktail for about $15. They were pretty good (mine had “molecular cucumber balls”, whatever that is) but $15 is ridiculous in the US, much less Bangkok, where you can buy 15 awesome dinners (with a small chance of food poisoning) for the same price. 

Unlike the drink prices and staff attitudes, the views were, of course, thrilling, and the sun looked great shining off the buildings and I definitely wanted to take some pictures. But the way the seating was arranged on the terrace blocked any clear views of the scenery by the guard rails.

Thanks to my newfound confidence, I decided that this was really ridiculous and decided that standing on the (very wide so there was no chance of me falling off. And also it wasn’t like there was a straight drop-off to the ground, there was another balcony like 5 feet down) concrete bench was the only way to get an awesome photo (it was) and that even if I got in trouble, what worse thing would happen than they would tell me to get down?

So I respectfully took off my shoes and stood on the bench to take pictures. About 5 seconds later, I was brusquely told to get down: it is not safe, is not allowed. ”Ok, ok, sorry, sorry”, I fake-sheepishly replied. But I got the shot:

Another one from the other side of the building. Taken through the window. No interesting story.

Eventually we were let in to the actual Sky Bar. It was quite nice at the top, contemplating the hectic, beautiful, foreign city transform from day to night.

A series of 3 photos I thought were interesting in the flat, dull light of dusk. 

We stayed up for awhile and watched the lights come on over the city. The bar got very crowded quickly, so we didn’t linger too long. 

If you’re in Bangkok and are interested in getting a great view, it’s definitely worth a visit. But just be ready to spend lots of money on expensive drinks and for it to be very crowded. 

BAG DRINKS (part 1)

Umm, hello, this is a BRILLANT idea. Every other country I’ve ever been to, you are way behind. If you put your drink in a drink sized bag, you can keep your other fingers free to carry other things AND the ice condensation doesn’t drip all over you (super handy on the train, especially in Bangkok when you’re not allowed to have drinks. Oh well).

Also, when we were at Au Bon Pain in Bangkok (I know, boring, but we were at the hospital and there were limited choices) I ordered 2 coffees—one to take back to Jason— and they put them in a DIVIDED plastic bag. Like one of those cardboard drink holders you get at fast food restaurants but way better because it had handles! 

Way to go Thailand. You are way ahead in cutting edge drink carrying technology.

Okay and in case you missed it, this is only part ONE of bag drinks. There is another amazing bag drink concept coming.

Can you stand the suspense?!

Update

Well, right now we’re in Joma Cafe (Chocolate croissant and lemon mint smoothie highly recommended) in Hanoi, Vietnam taking a much needed computer/veg break from hectic traveling and touring. Since I’ve last updated we’ve accidentally overstayed a visa, gotten ripped off at the border, had maggots in our soup, fallen out of a kayak, found a restaurant serving deer feces, taken a 24 hour bus ride, and both gotten the same cold. But, you know, it’s been exciting. We’ve also seen amazing temples, explored ancient stone ruins, hiked over deserted hills surrounded by mountains, met wonderful people and eaten super tasty food (Sans feces. And maggots. As far as we know.).

So I’ll be working on wrapping up some pictures from Bangkok and then working through Laos and Vietnam. 

This weekend we’re heading to Halong Bay for a cruise which is pretty appealing. There should be a lot of relaxing and tons of spectacular photos from that. Then on to Cambodia and Angkor Wat, then to Myanmar where who knows what we’ll find. 

ONWARD, HO!