No camel, no cry; no chapati, no chai!

No, I didn't make up that tag line, wish I could take credit for it. It actually came from the camel driver on my camel safari, but I think it is hilarious. He had a lot of others. Here's a few:

-Camel college, so much knowledge

-1,2,3 India is free, 4,5,6 nothing is fixed, 7,8,9 India is super fine!

-I'm a camel man, in the bloody saaand, imagination, life is your creation, come on camel, let's go party, ah ah ah ah.
-full power, 24 hour

So, India has grown on me a bit. Last weekend, I met up with Joanna and some of her friends in this town called Udaipur. Then I took an overnight bus to Jaisalmer where I did the camel safari. Last night I took a 20 hour train journey back to Delhi, tomorrow night I head back to

the United States. I am so ready to go home, but I'm sure that as soon as regular life sets in I'll wish I was off on an exciting adventure. I feel exhausted. This is beyond a physical or even emotional tired, it is an existential exhaustion. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic, but there's a part of my character that I've never seen before. Just kind of letting the world pass me by.

Since my last India post was not so positive, I figured I should give some of the highlights from the past week or so.

Udaipur--has the reputation for being the most romantic city on Earth. I'm not sure I would go that far, but when sitting on the roof having breakfast overlooking the lake, it certainly makes it to the top 10 or 20 places. I had a good time with the crew there. The shopping was fantastic, lots of original work by artists, but getting around the streets without getting hit by a motorcycle was less pleasant. Life was better on the roof, enjoying the view.

We did a hike up to the Monsoon Palace, which was more like a walk up a paved road where you had to watch out for careening motorbikes. Actually, come to think of it, that's kind of a constant in Rajistan. There is something about Indian Machismo that really gets fulfilled on a motorbike. Up there we saw a

whole bunch of monkeys that came out around sunset. To be honest though, monkeys in Asia are almost as common as dogs. But, I got a few good shots of them.

We also did

a day at this Brittish guy's guesthouse, where we went on another "hike," this time it was mostly on trail, but barely wilderness. We ended up at a cave temple. The dude was pretty cool. He had adopted three Nepali children after their father died and is moving back to Nepal so that the kids can be closer to their family. We weren't clear if the dad had been his partner or had worked for him. He had built this incredible house out in the country. Somehow when you walk in, it was like ahhh, peace. He must have

had a feng shui expert because every angle of the house was interesting. There was a sign as you walk in that said, 'The concept: freedom of body mind and spirit. The goal: Harmony, tranquility, love and friendship.' I think he attained it pretty well. Here's a picture of the little girl he adopted. I thought she was so cute!

After Udaipur I took an overnight bus to Jaisalmer. It was something of an epic journey. While my first train ride was, let's say, a stretch for my comfort zone, more on the train experience later, the bus was not so bad, at first. I had my own little sleeper compartment where I could pull the window shut. I drugged myself with a bit of dramamine, and off I went to sleep. Although it didn't feel the cleanest, at least I was in my own space and felt like my stuff was safe. I had been warned that the first few hours of the trip would be very bumpy, and they were but after a while things were paved and that was good. At 4 am, someone from the bus company came to wake me up to tell me to switch buses. I was actually pretty amazed that they wake you up, because on the train you just have to keep asking people if this is your stop, and they always say yes, even when its not! But I digress. So, it is myself and this couple from New Zealand, thank goodness I have someone else with me. I had imagined I'd be changing at a bus station. No, this is a deserted street, but the other bus was waiting there as the travel agent had promised. We get our bags and bring them over to the other bus. The guy says, '10 rupees'. We're like, what? '10 rupees, luggage charge.' We're like, no, there's no luggage charge. There wasn't on the other bus. Now, to put things in perspective, 10 rupees is about 25 cents. It isn't the money. It is more that he's trying to extort money out of us in the middle of the night. So, after a few back and forths, he claims its because we don't have a sleeper compartment on this one. Finally, I'm like, let's just pay it. It is certainly not worth losing our bags over. And honestly, he could have said any amount and we would have paid it, right? 100 rupees. Which, in the grand scheme of things is also not much money, but sounds like a lot in the middle of the night.
Then, he tells us to get on the bus. We ask, can we use the toilet first. He points to the street urinal. Now, if you haven't been to India, you have no idea how disgusting these things are. All over India, men are publicly urinating. Either it is just on the street, in a corner or against a wall, or it is in these public urinals. They are basically a tall, recatangular prism with walls on three sides. I don't know why, when I walked in there, I was expecting to see some type of squatter. Oh no, just an opening between the floor and the back wall where they pee into. So, I walk past the Kiwi girl and shes like, 'I don't think these are made for girls.' No, no there not. So, I squat down and pee on the floor there, imagining it will flow back to the opening. To top it off, a number of Indian men from the bus company are watching us. Awesome. I don't actually care, but it is definitely not okay in India for women to be that, let's say, revealed.
Next, we get on the bus, and miraculously my other bus was early rather than late, so we're early for this connection. We're the only ones on the bus and we try to sit up front to feel less of the bumps. Oh no, the luggage tax man comes on and makes us move to the back. We're annoyed that we can't have sleeper compartments, but soon enough, we're glad that we have any seat. Within about 20 minutes, the bus fills to capacity and beyond. He starts sticking people together in the sleeper compartments, making the back row move over and add another. Soon, a fight breaks out because there are way more people than seat. It is all in Hindi, but the thing about Hindi is that it is such an old language that there are lots of words that don't exist, so they just say them in English, especially a lot of nouns. So what I hear is blah blah blah blah, sleeper, blah blah blah. Thus, you kind of know what is going on. Anyway, people are angry that they aren't getting the seat they paid for. And, I can't really blame them, but at the same time, there's clearly way more people than seats so just sit down on the ground so we can go. I put my pashmina over my head so I didn't make eye contact and thus my seat couldn't get taken away. At one point, a woman rang the police. It was crazy. I can't remember if they came because I was kind of in and out of consciousness.
Finally, we get to Jaisalmer, the golden city, which really is quite golden, with a sand castle-looking fort that makes up most of the city. We fight our way through touts and find the guy from the guest house that I had reserved. The Kiwi gal tried to ask the luggage man his name and all of a sudden it was, 'no English.' Funny, you had a lot of English last night. But, we let it go and moved on to the guest house.
While in Jaisalmer I did my final touristy-ness. Bought some more Indian cheap stuff, toured the fort, went on a camel safari and read a lot. The weather was lovely, clear blue skies every day, which was such a treat. I haven't really had non-smoggy or non-foggy skies in a really long time. I met a few other tourists, but didn't end up spending much time with them. Even my camel safari group was pretty quiet and kind of kept to themselves, which made the whole thing kind of boring, but what can you do? The desert was, well, deserted. Very barren and kind of looked them same as far as the eye could see. We did spend our night at these sand dunes, which were pretty incredible. There was really no one around, incredibly peaceful.

We stopped at different villages of untouchables, I guess the lowest caste in India. There we saw a bunch of children who seemed dirty but generally happy. Apparently they can touch dead camels, which I guess other Hindus cannot. So they find dead animals, skin them, and then sell to the towns where shops make bags, journals, wallets, etc, out of the hide. The kids did beg us for money, fruit, pens, etc, but when they didn't get it, they eventually stopped asking. It makes me sad that tourism has turned them into beggars. But at the same time, we are tromping through their villages. I'd rather my tour company actually support the village and do something to help them than just give a kid a pen. But, no matter what, in India, it is hard not to feel pity and guilt. Poverty is everywhere you look. We're all really lucky for all that we have, our ability to travel freely, our safety nets, etc. I don't say that to sound preachy. I've just seen so many disturbing things in the past two weeks, and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

After a 20 hour train ride, I think the longest overland travel I've ever done, I made it back to Delhi to spend one more day hanging out with Joanna and some of her friends that I now kind of consider my friends. Sadly, one of her best friends here, Mohit, had to go to a work thing and thus isn't around this weekend. But, we're off today to do some final India shopping. We had thought about getting Henna done, but once we found out it takes 6 hours to dry, we decided against it. Then tonight I head back to the States. Weird how 15 weeks has flown by. When I think about all that I've done and seen, all of the people I've met, and all of the different modes of transportation I've experienced, it feels quite full and I'm satisfied. Of course, there's always more places to see, but there just wasn't time. In some ways it feels like it is still summer, and the last four months kind of didn't happen. People keep asking me what I'm going to do when I get home. I'm thinking, Thanksgiving dinner is high on my list of priorities. No, just kidding, I really don't know, so if anyone has any leads to some job in education or otherwise, send 'em on. I'll be in Chicago Sun-Tues, and then Seattle Tues-Sat. I'll be back in the Bay Area next Saturday night, and I'm excited to see those of you that live out there.

I think this may be it from the travel blog, but perhaps I'll feel moved to write about adventures in the homeland. We'll see. Thanks to all my dedicated readers out there!

Cheers,
Dina

honk, honk, honk honk honk

That pretty much sums it up. So far, I can't manage to get out of crazy cities. Hopefully tomorrow, but really, I'm dubious that it can be a peaceful country. I know nice places must exist, but I haven't been to them yet. Basically, so far, I spend my days witnessing craziness, seeing old forts and palaces, and buying cheap stuff. India is pretty much what I imagined, as I explained in my last post. The streets are crazy, I get overcharged for everything, the food is pretty good and the men are jerks. Okay, not all of them, not the people I know, but most of them on the streets--the shout things at you, touts lie to you on a regular basis, and people are completely unhelpful when you ask them where something is. I've stopped trying to negotiate for taxis bc I have to reserve my energy just to do things like find an internet cafe (took an hour, a taxi, a stomp through garbage, enduring catcalling, and asking about 15 people. Meanwhile, I get here, these are the oldest computers on the planet, there's skype but no headphones, and you have to sign in with your passport # and an address); buy a train ticket (wait in line for an hour, scream at people to wait in line, get to the front there's no sleeper car left, pay an exhorbitant price for a chair car for an overnight trip) or find a restaurant (mostly just sticking to the guide book bc I'm wigged out by people's stories of being sick, which i know, is kind of lame).

Anyway, here's a couple examples of India at it's most classic.
The metro: for those of you who have been to Buenos Aires or Mexico city and taken the subway there, it is somewhat similar. However, this is even more crazy. First, you wait in line forever to get a token. The lines are extremely slow and as soon as peole are about arm's length away, they start trying to push past the people in front of them and shove their money under the window. Why they don't have machines for buying the tokens, I don't know. The tokens are actually these non-wasteful things that get reused, pretty cool. Plus, the escalator only starts moving when someone walks past the sensor. Places that developed later certainly have more thought toward green energy, etc. Then you go down stairs and there are nice lines for each door. There's police there with sticks pushing people into single file. However, as soon as the sign says 2 minutes, the lines start to inch forward. Then as the train is coming in people start shoving forward. The line goes to hell and it is a bumrush toward the train. Basically, you have to take your shoulder and push into some large Indian man's potbelly until you manage to get onto the train. If you are with someone else, you grab them and pull as hard as you can. But, at the same time this is happening people are pushing their way out in the same manner. Chaos ensues and you're lucky if you are where you are trying to go. Mind you, I saw this on a Sunday, I truly have no desire to see what it looks like during rush hour. H0wever, I would say all of this is preferable to being in rush hour traffic where you see your life flash before your eyes on a regular basis and the honking never stops. I've taken to plugging my ears. I'm consdering starting to wear ear plugs.

The regular train:
You get there, there's no sign telling you what platform, you have to fight your way to an 'enquiry' desk and ask. He says it through a mic so if you are lucky, some other tourist is asking about your same train and you don't have to fight through the throngs of pushy Indian men.
Find the train, it comes, often very late. Climb onto the sleeper car. Character building. I wouldn't use the words clean or modern to describe it. No one checks your ticket as you get on. They come through after a few hours and only check the tickets of the tourists. Couldn't anyone just get on the train without a ticket? I'm befuddled by that one. They don't announce the stops, you just have to ask people and also know about how long it takes to get to your destination. Get off the train, there are touts there try to take you to commission hotels, and next to them, police men threatening them with sticks if they get too agressive with the tourists.

Well, that's enough of a rant for now. I've had some good food, seen the Taj Mahal, done some shopping and seen a lot of tourist attractions. Sorry no photos now, bc the computers are the pc equivalent of apple IIe. I'm pretty sure this is where computers from Western nations come when we throw them out. Probably will have to wait until I get home for them. Which is in 10 days.

Wish me sanity and strength.
namaste
Dina

India- A whole 'nother world

Yes, it is really true. India is very different. And exhausting. And polluted. And loud. And crazy. But, also fascinating and so far, I've been really just laughing at some of the insanity. Plus, I've had Joanna (my friend from college0 and a bunch of her expat friends to help me, so the past two days have been really easy for me. They negotiate the taxis and tell them where to go. I'm staying in Joanna's second bedroom. She's got a french press and Peet's coffee, not to mention cable, a wii, dvr, washing machine, internet and a computer I can use. Overall, this is the best I've had it in months.
But, I'm heading off tomorrow to the Taj Mahal and then I think out to Jaisalmer where you can ride a camel and sleep in the desert.

So, here's how my first two days went. First off, Air India may possibly be the most classicaly Indian Airline in the world. About two weeks ago I get a message that they have changed my flight schedule instead of leaving Bangkok at 9:40am, laying over in Bombay and getting to Delhi that evening, oh they changed it to leave Bangkok at 6:30pm, lay over in Bombay over night and then fly to Delhi in the morning. Just getting in touch with them and communicating what was happening was a nightmare in itself of buying credit for my phone, trying to call chicago during business hours and being put on hold forever as I think of my credit ticking away. So, even though I fought with them, they wouldn't give me a different itinerary. Thus, I did enjoy a number of hours in the Bombay airport between 2-6am whereby I couldn't find an ATM and they only took Rupees so I was so parched my lips were drying out. I mean, they have these kiosks with information about the airport, the weather, news headlines, even games you can play while you are waiting, but no ATM. This is an international airport. And yes they have money exchange booths, but not open at that hour. For sake of brevity, here is the list of how my flight with Air India went.
-5:00pm bus to BKK airport
-6:30pm arrive at airport, check in, asked where my flight printout is, well they never emailed me a new one, so that was impossible to have, three different people have to work on pulling up my flight info since for some reason, my passport isn't enough for an e-ticket
-7:30 go through security
-8:00 board the plane-apparently the idea of calling by rows doesn't exist in Asia, they just sort of all bumrush. I was one of three non-indian people on my plane. Everyone else seemed to be on some sort of corporate retreat or something with matching bags. They were constantly taking pictures of each other in the airport and on the plane until the flight attendant announced they weren't allowed to do that.
Get on the plane, they are all switching seats without waiting to see if someone is in that seat and the flight attendant is getting angry. He keeps telling them to go back to their seats.
Plane starts to take off, this woman decides, oh there's a middle seat next to her friend in my row, clearly she should move there. So she just walks over and starts climbing over me. No discussion or excuse me or anything. I'm like hold on, I'll move across the way.
Fly to Mumbai, it is all fine until we get there and have to circle the airport for a full hour.
12:30 am-land, everyone hops up and starts clamoring to get off. Guy behind me hits my butt to get me to move out of the way! Excuse me. Oh, since we were so late, we have to wait for stairs to attach to the plane and busses to come get us.
1:00am-I'm not kidding, half an hour later, we can get off. Take a bus for 20 minutes to the terminal! Seriously.
1:20am-go through immigration, oh but first you have to go through this ridiculous line where you hand over your swine flu card stating that you don't have it. It gets stamped and then you bring it with you to immigration. All these Indian men are trying to jump the line.
2:00am-collect luggage, go to a domestic connection waiting area. Show my flight info to a guy behind an Air India counter, another guy standing next to him, plus the guy who showed me over to him.
Guy #1: Where are you going?
Me:Delhi
Guy #1: Looks at my paper, searches the computer.
Guy #2Where are you going?
Me:Delhi
Guy #1: searches the computer some more, speaks in Hindi to guy #2.
Guy #3: Where are you going?
Me: Dehi
What is wrong with these people?
Guy #1: Finds the reservation, okay have a seat wait for the bus. There are about 10-15 other people also in this little lounge.
2:30-bus comes, 25 min ride to the domestic terminal. I sit down next to another foreigner and start talking to her. Ask her where she's going, Hydrabad to do a mission. Quite typical actually, a lot of mission groups travel to places like that. She asks about my trip, wow, she thinks that four months on my own so brave, blah blah. Then she asks about my favorite place, whether I've brought electronics with me and whether I've found my faith on this trip. Oh boy. Then she starts spouting on about Jesus being her savior and how she just knows that her son who is into drugs is going to find Jesus for himself and on and on and on. I'm trying to be polite, but I've been traveling for like 10 hours at this point, it is the middle of the night and I'm really just not into being saved right now. Thankfully Air India is announced and I can hop off the bus.
3:00-enter domestic terminal, it is not obvious how to get to departures, go in a sketchy elevator with a weird Indian man.
3:30-Air India opens the check-in counter, go through security.
6:00-My flight is announced, hand over my boarding pass, get on a bus for another 25 minutes! Clearly, where your plane is has nothing to do with what gate they send you to. I'm looking around, does anyone else find this bus ride ridiculous. No, not really. Mostly on this flight were business people who looked like they were going to meetings in Delhi and stuff. Less of a bumrush situation all around.
8:30-flight lands, get my luggage, go outside to find Joanna, she's not there, not sure what to do. I have her number, but there aren't any phones, I don't have any rupees, etc. Finally find an exchange desk, get some money, ask a taxi stand guy if I can use his phone, I pay him 100 rupees, probably more than he's seen in a month, but I didn't care, I needed to find her. She finally comes, apparently Air India has sent her to the International terminal and basically she's been on a wild goose chase for an hour. Finally she finds me, all is well, and we head back to her place.

Phewsh, what a night.

The streets of Delhi are pretty much exactly what I imagined. We take autos (tuk-tuk for my south east asian traveler buddies) everywhere, so we are exposed to the air constantly. After just one day it was black when I blew my nose. There is the honking and general traffic patterns of Vietnam, mixed with the poverty of Cambodia, plus the just general insanity of Asian roads. Cars going the wrong way; trucks, busses, autos, cars, bikes, rikshaws all on the same streets; saw a guy pushing a cart of potato chips open topped on the highway yesterday. I mean, just complete and utter insanity. We've had a few auto drivers who are arguing with other people or just complete maniac drivers, but I'm told this is not the norm. Shantytowns with "houses"made of cardboard, children begging on teh street, garbage everywhere. But also, we went out to one of her Indian friends parents house. Oh my goodness, this might be the nicest house I've ever seen in my life. With probably half a football field as their yard, a pool, amazing rooms, really classy. Incridble place and then her dad sits down and starts chatting us up. It was so funny. It is really normal for Indian 20-somethings to live with their parents, I think until they get married. Which is not that different from a lot of countries actually. But to me, of course, it seems really foreign and strange that they are always talking about family obligations, parents being upset about a broken mirror on the car, etc.

The nice thing about visiting Joanna is that she's got lots of expat friends, most of whom are ethnically Indian and either grew up here and then lived abroad for a while and now are back, or actually grew up abroad and are now here, lots of different situations. But, many of them speak Hindi and of course, understand the culture. So, it has just been a wealth of information and help to meet all of them. Plus, they are great and it is so fun to have a group of friends to hang out with. Yesterday we hung out and watched three episodes of Californiacation, went to brunch, ordered dinner, went to the bookstore, etc. They've all been really welcoming to me and it is nice to see Joanna having such wonderful people to hang out with. I imagine they've all made it bearable for her to be here, because living in Delhi is no cake walk.

Last night we went to a Halloween party at another expat apartment. Yes, a week late, but a lot of people really got into the spirit. We didn't but it was fun to see others dressed up. One of the hosts worked really hard on making an auto out of cardboard to wear. Here's a photo of me and Joanna inside it. Was a fun night, but started to unravel when some creepy Indian guy that no one knew was walking around slapping women's butts and had to be escorted out of the party, but not before he peed all over the floor of the bathroom. Then some other really drunk guy decided to chuck and empty bottle off the fourth story balcony and could have killed someone, thankfully it just hit the ground. However, the security guys claimed a windsheild was broken, which it wasn't, I think they were trying to get money. I don't know, it went on for a while, finally we told Sam the host to just go back inside and forget about it. It wasn't really that insane of a party, but somehow weird things were going on.

Well, that's about all that's happened so far. I've had some incredible food and generally am basically living in the lap of luxury here. I find it funny that many apartments have marble floors throughout but long florescent bulbs like they have in schools. I think there are a lot of odd juxtapositions like that. I'm sure I'll find more as the weeks wear on.

Alright, that's it for now. Namascar.
Dina

Taking stock

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been down on the islands of Thailand where internet is ridiculously expensive so I've had to postpone my blogging for a bit. I'm now back in bangkok and tonight I'm headed to India. I'm excited for new adventures but a bit nervous as well as I've heard some horror stories. But I'm just going to try to relax into the insanity. Plus, I've got the added benefit that Joanna will be there, at least at the beginning to help me get my India legs.

So, let's see, a lot and not a lot has happened to me in the past week and a half. First, I endured about four days of over-land travel to get from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh to Bangkok to Krabi. It was a series of busses, trains and squishy mini-bus. My bus from Phnom Penh to Bangkok was supposed to take 10 hours and it took 14. I paid extra for the "first class bus" but if that was first class, I don't want to see last. More likely, I got taken. Anyway, at the border I had to switch to a mini-bus, which would have been fine, but the driver made about 10 stops, dropping off the cheap cigarettes he bought at the Cambodian border, going to McDonalds 20 minutes outside of Bangkok, picking up and dropping off passengers, the list goes on. I was losing my mind, wishing I'd flown.

After a day at the weekend market in Bangkok, I took the train down to Krabi. Again, I should have just flown, but well, I was trying to save money. And by the time I realized that I wanted to buy a train ticket, well, there was only fan left. So, I figured, it'll be at night, no problem. Well, yes, it wasn't actually that hot. But it was buggy because the windows were open, loud and stuffy.

On top of that, I had these Thai ladies across from me who were very interested in everything I

looking that great by the end no matter what.did, I think because foreigners aren't usually in the fan car. They were kind of strange, kept fixing their make-up and stuff. Seemed

a bit prissy. And then, all of a sudden, a tree kind of whipped one of them in the face, (because the window was open) which knocked the chips out of her hand. She kind of jumps and then quickly grabs her make-up and starts fixing up her face again. Now, mind you, we're on an overnight train. In a fan car. Can't really be

Anyway, I managed to get to Krabi through a series buses and trains, however, I felt I had won a victory because I bought my bus ticket when I got off the train instead of in Bangkok, thus saving myself 120 Baht (about 4 dollars.) Ah yes, it is the little things. I beat them at their own game. Krabi was an odd little town. There was some sort of festival going on, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was for. Lots of people all in white, sort of seeming like they were doing

capoiera or something. Anyway, didn't love Krabi, but I did manage to go kayaking there, which is what I went there for. It was pretty incredible. Kayaked through these caves, saw some cave paintings, saw a set of lizard-type things that I guess have been around since pre-historic times. It fills its cheeks with water and then lives on land for while using the stored water. I got a few photos, but of course, I didn't have the big lens on at the time. Also saw a king fisher bird, which I guess is pretty rare. Ruth, Dad, other birdwatchers, you know about that one? Similar to the lizard problem, camouflaged and small lens. So don't be too excited about the photos. The guide was pretty good. He wouldn't let us use flash inside the cave because it ruins the paintings, picked up cigarette butts, etc. I felt good that hopefully I was giving my money to a company that is doing something to help the environment of Thailand. The guide was also quite knowledgeable, so for once I felt like I was getting my money's worth. Sadly I was with two fat Indian guys who live in Dubai who were a bit lazy on the kayaking, so it was a short stint of actually doing anything. Anyway, was a nice day.

Next I moved on to Railay, some of the best climbing in South East Asia. Well, as you may have guessed, I haven't done much of well, any exercise in the past four months. So here I am ready to do 2 days of climbing on 80m walls. Yes, was a bit painful, but also amazing. You have these views of the clearest green water and white sandy beaches. Just so thrilling. I had to re-get over my fear of heights and try to remember some of my climbing skill, like turn my body, but overall, was fantastic. By the end of the two days my legs were ridiculously bruised, my muscles ached and I had ripped up my hands. But it was all worth it. Here's a photo of my instructor, Tik. He was pretty awesome. Called everything lovely. Which is pretty funny coming from a Thai guy.

Railay was an interesting mix. There are three areas where you could stay. I chose to stay at the more budget area which felt a bit cramped. There were resorts built on every possible inch of the place. When I first got there I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to find a guest house. I walked from the boat with this other single traveler named Ana. We thought maybe we could bargain for two rooms. So we find one place, we talk to the guy, bargain him down to 300 baht for a fan room. Walk all the way up the hill, oh they don't have any fan rooms. Go to another place, it is beautiful, bargain down to 400 baht for each room, go see the rooms, they are like

dankest, nastiest rooms on the island. The rest of the place was awesome but I guess they were showing me the bottom of the barrel. Go to about 3 other places, all around the area, it is hot, carrying my backpack, etc. Finally end up back at the first place! I just give in and pay the 500 baht for air/con, hot water. Oh, and then my hot water doesn't work. I go down to the reception, talk to the woman about it. She says, do you want to change rooms. Yes, please. Someone else comes in, what is the problem, I explain. Okay, follow this woman. So I follow a worker there who doesn't speak any English. She goes about 5 steps towards my room, sees her friend and goes the other direction. I'm like, am I supposed to follow you? She looks at me like, who are you? So I get her to go back to reception, where they speak English. Explain for the third time. They are like, okay, follow her (again, same girl). This time she goes to my room. Checks it, yup, doesn't work. We go back to reception. They talk a bunch in Thai. Do you want to change rooms? I'm ready to lose. Yes...please. Ok, but the room isn't ready. Wait 10 minutes for them to clean it. Ahhh. Okay, well it gets worked out in the end. But there are so many times where I think we've communicated when clearly, we haven't. Ah well.

Had a funny experience eating a papaya salad in Krabi as well. I've really developed my spice-ability, or so I thought. I got a papaya salad from this woman who runs and internet cafe/tailor shop/restaurant/travel agency/whatever else you need. Anyway, figured it would be pretty good since those are the best places. She asks me how many chilis. I say, mmm, 2? Oh my buddha. My eyes were watering. My nose running. My pulse quickened, I was sweating. But it was so good I couldn't stop. My esauphogus was burning. The women were laughing at me. They just looking over being like, you okay? I'm trying to look half-way normal, fine fine. Finally the daughter comes up and offers me some sticky rice. Clearly I should have ordered some to go with my meal, eh? It was hilarious.

Let's see, what else. Well, I love it when the locals try to look out for you. I went in to a pharmacy yesterday to buy some sunblock and a new toothbrush. The woman is like, oh toothbrush, do you also need toothpaste. I'm like, no thanks I have some. Then I get some sunblock. She's like, be sure to reapply every 2 hours. Funny. Then I had a guy who works at a restaurant whose job it is to bring in people. He's kind of an older guy. Anyway, finds out I'm traveling alone and can't really understand that. He's like, oh there's an Austrian woman traveling alone, maybe you can travel together. Then I come back later, oh these kids are going out to the halloween party, maybe you can go with them. On and on. Just very worried I might be alone.

The south of Thailand was interesting. First of all, it is mostly Muslim which is really different from the Buddhist north. So you've got women in Burkas driving motos, fabric flying behind them. Also, in general, tons of fat Thai people. Super strange, haven't seen that anywhere else in Asia. I had a nice time in Koh Lanta, an island near Railay but it was pretty quiet. I'm not sure if everyone was at the full moon party in Ko Phagnan or what, but there was just no one around. A few families and couples. Luckily, a german couple and these two Irish guys that I had met in Railay also ended up in Koh Lanta, so I sometimes had people to have dinner with. But mostly it was a chill solitary time. Rode a moto out to a cave, laid on the beach, went snorkeling, general beach time experience. It was nice and just what I was looking for before India, but I did start to get a bit antsy by the end. Oh, the full moon, where I thought there would be a party, was quite tame. But they do set off these cool flare things that work under the principles of hot air balloons. There is a silk bag thing that goes around wax that you light and when it gets hot enough it flies up into the sky. Quite pretty, I think it happens across South East Asia on November full moon. Supposed to be for good luck. Joe, one of the Irish guys had bought three, so we each set one off. Sadly, they were the small kind and they never really got off the ground. So, I don't think my wish will come true. Ah well.

Well, I think that's about it for now. Am going to get a thai massage, eat some curry and possibly hit up a movie today before my flight tonight. I considered doing something touristy, but well, I guess I'm lazy. And I think India will be a re-start on that side of things, so I'm mostly just enjoying my last time in Thailand. Alright, 2.5 weeks until I go home.

Cheers,

Dina

Oh the people and places you'll see

There is a part of me that really wants to write a rant-ridden blog. I could go on and on about tourists and the clothes they wear, Cambodians and their seemingly odd montone way of trying to sell you things, the ubiquitous nature of air freshener scent on things like napkins, or the way that children always seem to be in-transit between school and home rather than actually in school. However, I've decided to take a different tack and consider some of the interesting people I've met. Plus, as always an update of my recent activities. I imagine some of those little digs will be in this post and probably some in the future.

Cambodia has been absolutely amazing and interesting. First off, it is gorgeous. Because it is quite flat, you can look out for miles on bright green rice fields, stilt houses, and palm trees. I'm continually amazed by the scenery. In my two short weeks of being in the country I've gotten a very different feel from the people and the way things work than I did in the other South East Asian nations. Of course, if I stayed here a few years I would probably have a much fuller understanding of the culture, but I'm also getting this from expats and locals I've met. Here's my theory: these people have been through so much crap over the years and have just been shat on by their own government time and again, they are all kind of like screw you. For instance, in both Vietnam and Cambodia there is a helmet law for moto drivers. In Vietnam, absolutely everyone wears a helmet. Even moto taxis have an extra one for you, and they really will not drive off until it is buckled under you chin. Here, they only wear helmets when there are cops around. To the point where they signal to each other, cops up ahead, and guys stop and put on their helmets. In a country with so many traffic accidents, why wouldn't you wear your helmet? Because they want to buck the system. No, I'm not following your stupid rules, I'm going to ride without as long as I can. Even if it means having the cops almost yank you off your bike to get you to stop. Yes, cops are extremely corrupt here, so why give them a reason to pull you over? Odd to me. It is just a theory, but Cambodia/Vietnam kind of seems like the New Hampshire/Vermont divide. Neighboring places with similar topography, but Cambodia seems to have the "Live free or Die" vibe to it, while Vietnam is out to develop and become the next Thailand.

So there are many things which I find particularly fascinating about this Country. For instance, when there's an accident, the two parties settle it before moving on. And if you have white skin or are assumed to be rich, you are paying for their bills. According to Simon, a Brit who ran my guest house in Kampot, if you see an accident, make a break for it. If you've caused an accident, make a break for it. Even if you've killed someone. And, get this, if a cow comes into the road and hits you, the cow gets arrested. I'm absolutely not kidding. I guess the idea is that the cow will be sold and that money will be used to pay your medical bills. Kind of a good way of doing things, but hilarious, they take the cow to the station.

The Khmer people are beautiful as a whole, I think they are the most beautiful in south east asia, that I've seen. And actually, many people speak a lot of English, much more than in Vietnam. However, there is a way in which I just don't get the culture. Unlike in Vietnam, the tuk-tuk drivers in Phnom Penh have absolutely no idea where they are going. So I've learned a new trick (this also came from Simon) ask, "are you wearing green socks today?" after each place you tell them that you want to go. If they say yes, find someone else. They just say yes, yes, even if they have no idea what you are saying. If they keep saying yes, move on. I used this trick but actually it didn't totally work when I got a guy to take me to the India Embassy. I asked about his socks, and he registered it was weird question and seemed to know what I was saying. First he tells me that he knows where it is. Then he goes about half a block and turns to look back at me, which way? I tell him, just follow this street, but he doesn't, he turns and gets us so lost he has to stop and ask like 3 other drivers. Then, of course I get there and the Embassy only accepts visa applications from 9-11am and gives back passports from 4-5pm. Of course, it is 3:30 and it is raining, so I wait in the tuk tuk. This guy's got nowhere to be, he's absolutely unfazed. Thankfully, I've got my book (Bryce Courtenay, the Power of One, anyone ever read it? Great book!) Anyhoo, of course I need like copies and all kinds of stuff so I have to go back the next day even if they would have accepted it, which I assure they wouldn't have, the embassy guy was a real intense dude and a rule follower.

I've also had some interesting encounters with kids who are selling me things. By and large this is quite annoying. Especially at the temples, where they scream out in a montone, all one word type of phrase, "hellomadaaaam, colddrinkforyoooouuuu? Pinneapplebananaaaaa? Ifyoubuy, youbuyfromme, okaaaaaymadaaaam? Maybelaterrrrrrr?" On and on and on. It doesn't mattter if you say no thank you, ignore them, copy them, etc. Nothing works, they do not let up. However, sometimes the kids are really funny. For instance on my bus trip from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap we stopped at this market. Other tourists get off the bus and I hear the typical, "ifyoubuy, youbuyfromme, okaaaayy?" and I thought I do not want to get off this bus. But, I did and these were the cutest kids ever. So chill, wanted me to buy, but when I didn't, took a different tack. This one little kid asks me, how old are you? I am a bit taken aback, so I say how old are you. "8, how old are you?" So I tell him, 30. You should have seen his face. Shock registers. "Why you look so young if you so very old?" I crack up. "30 is old?" "Yes, very old, but you look very young." I was dying. He had conned me with his cuteness, I had to buy 50 cent pinneapple from him.

Then I spent the rest of the time taking photos of these beautiful girls, who also wanted me to buy from them, but weren't whiny about it the way many of the child sellers are. Instead, they try to appeal to your sensibilites. "You can save for later, you will be hungry" etc. This one little girl was like, "banana? pinneapple? spider?" I'm like, spider? She turns and shows me her shoulder with this giant hairy thing crawling on it. I kind of pull back in horror. She thinks this is so funny and all her friends start to gather round. I'm like, "you like that?" "Oh yes, very tasty." Soon after it was time to go and all my little friends bid farewell and wish me good luck and happiness. Adorable. Oh, and all the girls are wearing the classic Asian female outfit of matching pajama sets. Hilarious. I think the thing is to get outfits made of the same material top and bottom, that looks smart, but if you can't have that, then you wear pajamas, bc they match.

Today at the temples I had another funny one. She spoke in the typical monotone, but also tried to move away from the basic script. She's trying to sell us postcards and i'm so tired I take the approach of just looking at her and shaking my head no. So she keeps going, "If I tell you the president, the vice president, the capital and the population of the united states, you buy from me?" I didn't, but we started quizzing her, she knew France's president and population, Vietnam, Korea, the list went on. All in this glassy-eyed monotone, but somehow it was fascinating to me that she knew it. She must have some incredible memory. Yes, she does this all day, but population of Korea? Anyway, probably should have given her something, but I didn't.

Lot's of people warned me about Cambodia, saying it feels really poor, they don't leave you alone. Which is true, but somehow it feels really cool when you find those interesting kids or guides with whom, however fleeting, you kind connect with. And in a way, it is a lot more contact than I had in other countries with locals. That's looking on the bright side, and if I had been writing this yesterday, after a day of humid temple-climbing and people hawking stuff, and my tuk tuk driver not going where I wanted, it would have been a different story. However, after a nap and some food I'm able to think a bit more globally about the whole experience.

In terms of tourist friends, I've spent the past week with Bjorn, the Belgian from the last post, and Justin, a typical agro new yorker. It has been quite a change of pace as Bjorn is quiet and somewhat introspective and Justin is ADD and sorta spazy. Justin and I went to the sunrise at the temples this morning. It was cool, sadly the colors weren't as awesome as I would have liked, but I'm glad I managed to get out of bed for it. Being around Justin is something of reminder of why I live on the West Coast. He's fun and will say pretty much anything to get a reaction, but he also voted for Bush and makes racist comments and is rude to the locals. We had some good times but I was ready to move on and be on my own for a bit.

So, I've moved on from Siem Reap, after two full days of viewing temples. They were pretty amazing, but I was pretty much ready to register with the temple burnout foundation of cambodia by the end of the second day. I know people warned me to get a guide but I didn't so I pretty much just took a lot of photos and climbed around for two days.

While on the bus today, I began to think about the many parts of this culture that I do not understand (I guess here comes the ranty-ness).
-The number systems--simply put, things do not go in order. For instance the streets in Phnom Penh, I was all excited thta they are numbered. You know, like New York or Chicago. Oh no, there is no rhyme or reason to the way they are numbered, you might be at street 187 and the next one is 156 and then after that 195. And they don't all go the same direction either. Same thing with the restaurants near Angkor Wat. They're numbered, but they don't go in order.
-the use of headphones doesn't seem to have caught on. A number of locals have music on their phones, but none of them have headphones, so they just play it out. And not quietly either.
-the way every child's voice sounds exactly the same when they are trying to sell you things.
-karaoke on busses--why oh why is that what they play? I mean, so loud and just the most budget cheesy videos that go with them. Like women in traditional clothes with socks and shoes on (pretty much all asian people are in some sort of a flip flop or heel at all times) dancing in a circle. I couldn't tell if watching the videos was giving me some insight into the culture or not. Like, is that what Cambodian weddings look like? They sometimes even have poor children jumping into streams, a very common occurence here.
-The incessant asking you if you want a tuk-tuk. I literally told a guy today that even if I needed one, I wouldn't go with him bc he was following me and pestering me.
-knowing when I am understood and not understood. As I mentioned above, Simon taught me the green socks trick. However, other times I'll really think we're on the same page and boy am I wrong. So Bjorn had never really had street food. It can be a bit intimidating when you first venture into the world of dirty floors of a restaurant, stalls outside, unidentifiable foods. So, I tell him, I'll show you, its easy. You look for a place where others are eating and you get what they get by pointing. Well, we didn't totally follow those rules. I saw a little restaurant that was really someone''s front of their house, pretty typical. It is breakfast, I figure we'll get some eggs and rice. So through a great deal of pointing and acting out a chicken, I ask for coffee, no sugar, no milk, and eggs. She seems to get it, brings us over the best coffee I've had in Cambodia. I'm feeling pretty good. See, local spots are the best. Then she points to noodles, you want that. I'm like, okay, eggs on noodles, why not? Literally, she had pointed to the eggs at the beginning. She goes away and brings us back this oily reddish meat stew thing on top of noodles. I was stunned. I really thought she and I had connected. We ate a bit of it and then went to pay. She shows me her index fingers both up, okay 11,000, a little under $3 for both of us. I gesutre, for one or for both? She shows 5 for me, 6 for him for the extra coffee. So we give her the money and she kind of looks at me, nods and smiles and points back and forth to me and herself, a gesture which I assume means, wow we really understand each other. Oh yeah, crystal clear lady.


So that's the update for now. I'm headed to Bangkok by bus tomorrow as the flight was too expensive. Then I'll be there for a day or so and take the train down to Krabi, the south of Thailand for some snorkeling, sea kayaking, rock climbing and possibly diving. After a mini-cation from all my hard sightseeing and challenging life, I''ll venture to India in 2 weeks. All bets are off on that one...

xoxo,
Dina

p.s. sorry it took me a couple days to actually publish this post because I need to upload some photos. This one over here just cracked me up. It should say Rabbit Hut Bungalows. For all my Jewish and jew-aware goys out there...

Living large in Kampot

When I embarked upon this trip I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. I knew I was going to escape the norm, learn something about the world and people, and have some fun. Interestingly, and I guess not that surprisingly, mostly what I've learned and discovered seems to be within me. For instance, I've learned to read. Yes, I actually knew how to read before I came, in fact, I taught children how to do it. But I couldn't really do it. I couldn't sit down for an hour or two and really read. And think about the characters and find new meanings in books that relate to my situation. And now I can. And I do. I've read so many books sometimes it can even be a challenge to get new ones if I'm not in a super touristy spot. Perhaps that is more about a general sense of slowing down and relaxing that is much easier to have when your daily obligations are finding a place to sleep and eat and take photos of something cool.

In a way this whole trip feels quite self-serving. Like I see these Cambodian women who will thread your legs, massage you, paint your toe nails. I mean, they'll do absolutely anything to make money for their families. And there are the tourists, sitting there like kings and queens just absorbing or taking it all. Yes, we're contributing to their economy and hopefully we aren't breaking too many cultural norms, but there's something about it that feels somewhere between human zoo and personal spa.

However, it has been an incredible experience, and hanging out with my new friend Bjorn that has reopened my eyes to the fact that I'm in Asia. I kind of have to remind myself of that every week or so. Take photos of everyday life that I've just gotten really used to: people eating at stalls on the street, the architecture, the motos with tons of people on them, the little stores and restaurants. I'm not going to be here forever (only a little over 5 more weeks) and it is a little like, wake up Dina, look around you, you don't see this every day.

This trip is about living and experiencing. With that, I finally conquered my fear of moto bikes that I've had since I tried to ride one in Cuba about 5 years ago. For those who don't know, I didn't make it out of the parking lot that day. Couple that with my bad bike accident right before I left and you can imagine I was a little nervous. But after 10 weeks of riding on the backs of them, I finally decided, how hard could it be? Well, let me back up. I'm in this cute and sleepy river town of Kampot, Cambodia. It is something of an expat mecca--almost every guesthouse is owned by a mixed couple of foreigner married to a local. There are good restuarants and just a generally chilled out atmosphere. There is little traffic and it was a beautiful sunny day. I woke up on Wednesday with absolutely no plan for what I was going to do that day. I wasn't sure if I was staying in town or not. I met a guy named Bjorn from Belgium as I walked out of the guesthouse to look for coffee and breakfast. He told me he was in search of good coffee and we became fast friends. So after I skyped with Matt and Marissa, I was in this great mood and Bjorn comes back and says, ''I think it is a good day to ride motos to Kep'' a seaside town about 20 km from here. He also didn't know how to ride a moto, so it was a bit of an adventure. I was hoping to find someone who did know how to ride to help me, but hey, here was my opportunity, time to seize it.

My first ride down the street was frightening. My hands were shaking, I didn't want to give it too much gas so I was kind of moving in short spurts. I tried to stop and I wobbled and quickly put my feet down. I looked back, ''I don't think I can do this.'' Bjorn's just smiling, ''just go slow, you can do it.'' So I turned around, tried again, still shaking. Mind over matter, I can do this. By my third circle my body relaxed and I was like, okay, this is easy. So off we went, down the countryside, my max speed was about 25 km/hr, but it was thrilling. The bright green rice paddies, the children screaming hello, the farmers working their fields, riding the buffalo, bicyclists carrying massive amounts of grass, vegetables, etc. There was just so much to see and at the same time, I was a driving a moto!

We reach Kep, took us about an hour, as I said, I was going 25, and hey, it was 20 km away, so you do the math. But we got there, found some shacks that served up amazingly cheap crab, and other seafood. We ordered a bunch and sat back to enjoy the view of the ocean. Our trip home was just as amazing, I even managed to go about 40 km/hr! I have a new found joy and pasttime. I mean, you just can't come to Asia and not learn to drive a moto. It is such a part of the culture here, I'd really be missing out.

Other than that I've had some other great experiences here in Kampot. Yesterday we headed out to this cave and we had this child as our tour guide. This is actually quite common. You show up to a place, a some child walks you in and out and expects a tip. But this was different. This was one of the best guides I've had on my whole trip. He knew all about the cave, knew how to hold the flashlight so we could see where to step, showed you where to mind your head, just so professional. He said he was in grade 7. It was amazing. We happily gave him and his crew a couple of bucks upon leaving.

That's it for now. I also have done a few not very exciting but chill little river boat rides, hiked pretty much straight up Bokor mountain and back down and had a massage by a blind person. Overall Kampot is one of my favorite places on my trip but I am ready to move on. I'm headed out to a small island called rabbit island for a day or so before I head back to Phnom Penh to get my visa for India.

Hope all is well with all of you. I enjoy hearing from all of you, even the everyday details of your lives, but I know everyone is busy. Lot's of photos up at on picasa.

xoxo
Dina

Delta delta delta, can I help ya help ya help ya?

Whaaa, sorry to any of you who may have just received a blank post--hit the wrong button there.
Okay, deep breath. Sometimes it is so hard to start a new post because it is just so overwhelming, but here I go. First off thanks to all of you who have written or commented on my blog. It is really good to hear from people. I may seem busy, but mail from home is always great.

So, on to my exploits. Well, when I last left off I was in Saigon. I had a nice, if somewhat tame, time there. Had a funny experience when I wandered down a side street and found a new street food option. I gave the woman a look like, what is it? She points to a sign in english--fried rice flour. So, I thought, okay, why not? So she has me sit down, beaming, she's so excited that I want to eat her food. She offers me fruit while I wait. Then the rice flour comes out. It is in 3 cm rectangles, looks kind of like tofu, but wonderfully fried. on top is an egg and it is served with some lime and a special sauce. Omg, it is delicious. I can't remember when I've had anythigng so good. The best part though, was that she kept telling this kid to tell me things. Like that I should scoop it up with the spoon, not the mini oyster fork thing that I have, that's just for putting it on your spoon apparently. She just sits there the whole time I'm eating, just beaming. I keep telling her, so good, I take a picture, she's just so happy. As I''m ready to leave she hands me a whole bunch of fruit to take with me. I don't really want it, but I think it would be rude not to take it, so I take it and search for some poor child to give it to.
Speaking of food, while in Saigon I also ate what they call a kabob sandwich, which we would call a gyro. Oh, heaven again. the meat was succulent, and the veggies fresh, the bread hot and the sauce to die for. Mmm, my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. Those are the main new foods I've had in the past week.

The delta tour was fun. It wasn't a ton of biking, more like ride for an hour, have some coffee and fruit, ride for an hour, take a boat ride, etc. But it was really great to see life on the delta and I think I saw more than I would have just being on a big boat. Our guide was really good and the group was fun-an Irish couple in their thirties and a Danish couple in their forties. Strangely, the two 65 year old Danish women that I thought I was going with weren't there. Anyway, we saw a lot of people washing clothes, cooking, working on their houses, etc. We also saw a brick factory where we were able to see the whole process from beginning to end. The delta with so much in the way of natural resources and that coupled with access to many parts of Asia via the river makes it kind of a bees nest of activity at all times. We also saw the floating markets which is basically a bunch of boats on the river with whatever they are selling advertised via a large stick that shoots up vertically waving their product i.e. pineapple, potatoes, clothing.

At the end of the trip we asked our tour guide about getting a massage. Ahh, I had just written this whole story and then the power went out and I lost it. So, I'll try again but I don't know how good it will be. So, we asked our guide about massage. He points out a hotel we should go to. We wind about 10 minutes through the streets of the not very exciting town of Can Tho. We enter into this hotel, seems pretty fancy. Bellhops in some serious old school uniforms. We are led up stairs and my eyebrows raise. The floor is a bit dingy, there's kind of an odd blue light and there's a sign for karaoke (for those of you that read my last blog post, you catch my drift). But, there's still a really nice pool and well, we've been sent by our guides, so okay, whatever. We negotiate down the price to $8 since there's so many of us, stilla bit expensive but I've got Vietnam Dong to burn as I'm leaving the country in a day, so I figure, why not? I decide to do body massage along with this older dutch couple who were on a different tour with our same company. Sioban and Simone, two women from my tour opt for foot massage. So, I'm waiting for the body massage room bc, as the guy tells us, the clients need to get dressed. Eyebrows raise again. Then, out of each room comes a girl in a short pink mini-skirt with an asian guy hanging on to her, arm around her shoulders, looking extremely smug. There are about seven of them, they just keep coming. I'm like, oh no, I'm outta here, I'm switching to foot massage. The manager/john, oh no madam, no problem, you have your own room. I was like, no, I'm switching. So I go running into the foot massage room, which at least looks like a normal room and is in the open so there's safety in numbers. Simone and Sioban are like, what's wrong? I tell them, which completely horrifies Simone. A few minutes later, the Dutch couple come in to our room. I guess the girls kept winking and beckoning the guy. They were disgusted. Anyway, we all get subpar foot massages and after a forced tipping find out that the girls don't get paid at all, only tips. Simone's like, well, what are we paying $8 for, he's like, for me, I'm the manager. Oh, that was pretty much the icing on the cake for her. She was so pissed. It is all pretty sad, disturbing and disgusting.

Anyway, we recovered from that and the next day I moved on to Chau Doc, along with David and Sioban so that we could take the speed boat to Phnom Penh. The boat ride was long, about 7hrs, I thought it was meant to be 5. Frustrating beacuse I had to pay $60 to get out of Vietnam as a bribe bc i overstayed my visa. Before you tsk tsk me, just listen. Everyone I talked to told me it should be no big deal, maybe $2 a day, and I should be able to negotiate with them. This was from vietnamese people and ex-pats and even my tour company. So, I believed it. But unfortunately, I couldn't even talk to the official bc there was some middle man from the boat who was doing it all for us. So irritating, as I'm sure he got his part of the action as well. Anyway, I eventually paid it, after trying every angle. Apparently, my other option was to go back to Saigon (at this point, I'm in the middle of the Mekong river, hours and hours from Saigon) wait 5 days for an extension and pay the fee of 2million dong (about 100 dollars). I tried arguing it, but the guy just kept saying, the law the law. Yeah, I'll bet we're really adhering to the law here. Anyway, it is just money, but now I've got 60 less.
And, we had one scare where the boat screeched to a halt. All of these Australian people start screaming, what happened, what happend? The boat driver runs to the back of the boat, and so does 2/3 of the passengers. I'm like, would everyone just relax and balance the boat. What a shock, the staff of the boat tell them to move to the other side, we're stuck in some reeds. The boat crew tear off their clothes and hop in the water to free the boat. They were under there for quite some time but eventually got us free. It was a bit freaky, but even more so for Sioban who can't swim. We just talked about my vampire book and kept her mind off it and all was fine.

Next, I spent a day in Phnom Penh. That city is a bizarre mix of really poor people begging on the street and really rich people driving around in giant suvs with the name of the make plastered on the side just in case you missed that it was a lexus. The streets are really big enough for suvs, cars, motos and tuk tuks, so it is a bit of mess. It is quite a bit quieter than Vietnamese cities and the people are a bit more chill. However, it kind of smells like gabage and it is really dirty. I actually stayed a little away from the touristy area, which was odd bc i was in the midst of car dealerships and printing places, but it was nice to see that there's a middle class which you don't see in the tourist section. I spent one night and decided to head to Sihanoukville, the beach and come back during the week to apply for my India visa. I'd like to spend as little time there as possible.

Finally, Sihanoukville, has been a strange time as well. Met three Finnish guys and hung out with them last night. Today I tried to sit on the beach, but the kids with bracelets, and ladies offering pedicure, manicure, massage and threading (a form of waxing) was a bit too much. I got a moto to take me to another beach but there were still people hawking things there. Plus it rained, but at this point, that's not news. It is too bad, bc this town could be really lovely. I started to lose my patience by the end of today and might have even been downright rude when I told a woman she was interrupting--I'm trying to read my book. But there's only so much one can take. Tomorrow I'm off to another town called Kampot. I'm not totally clear on what's there but I think I can get to a national park and do a bit of trekking before I head back to Phnom Penh.
Alright, I've been here forever, I must go rejoin the world. You can look at some photos on picasa if you wish.

xoxo
dina

Mui Ne-muy bueno

Hello followers,

I am nearing the end of my time in Vietnam. I'm currently in Saigon, leaving for a biking trip of the Mekong Delta tomorrow morning and then into Cambodia from there. Vietnam is an interesting mix of extreme development (especially when you consider this country was at war about 40 years ago) together with strong spirit that clearly has fought through challenges. I had a pretty hard time in the North and now I'm realizing that's because they don't really like foreigners that much in the north. After having spent a few weeks in the south, I now see that the whole country isn't that pushy. Saigon is actually a more chill city than Hanoi. Everyone warned me it would be crazier, but I don't think anything will compare with the oppressive heat and humidity coupled with the claustrophobia of Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh is like the more organized and fun younger brother of Hanoi. Anyway, I'm not sure if it is because I've had four glorious days in a beach to recharge, but I'm loving Saigon. They have baricades in the middle of the street so motobikes can't go the wrong way. There are stop lights. The stores can fit more than two peole in them. No one is really hawking much on the street. And best of all, there is amazing street food so cheap! I'm in heaven, I see why so many ex-pats choose this city--I've met quite a few.

Working backwards, I've managed to see many of the sights that I wanted to while in Saigon. I didn't get it together last night to sign up for a Cu Chi tunnels tour so I ended up taking a moto out there. It was an hour and a half away, boy was my patuti (sp?) sore. But, I had a great time. I've finally learned to relax and stop looking at the traffic that it seems like we're going to hit. Instead I look around and you are really out there experiencing more. So that was fun. Sadly, the tour guide that they give you out there is extremely bored with his job, so although I saw the tunnels, that's about all I can say about them. Basically, around 2000 vietnamese lived in these tunnels for years during the war, hiding from americans. In fact, in some places the tunnels were right under where the americans had bases set up and they never knew. They have doubled the size of them for tourists, and boy were they small today, so I can only imagine what they were like back then. The tunnels were complete with hidden doors, booby traps, etc. They were pretty ingenious though, their kitchens were smoke-free, sending the smoke out about 10 feet away in small bits and they only used the stove in the morning so it would look like fog. The whole thing was kind of a testament to the human spirit and perils of war.

Then, I hit up the war remnants museum. Also pretty intense and doesn't make you too proud to be an american. Tons of photos of disfigured children from either landmines or Agent orange. Clearly, the museum curators are still pretty angry with americans and the writing shows that. I learned a good amount about how the ward began and ended and really how terrible the American soldiers were to civilians of vietnam. Anyway, after about an hour I'd had enough and made my way back to my tourist enclave over here.

Prior to Saigon, I spent four days in Mui Ne, a small beach town that is quickly changing with the onslaught of large resorts. However, Mui Ne is still quite charming and the tour that we did there was one of my favorite of my whole trip. It began at 7 am with a trip to the fishing village (to get a real sense of it check out my photos at picasa). I'm pretty sure this morning routine has not changed for centuries. Hundreds of people--bringing in fish from the boats, loading up motos and bicycles, buying, selling, sorting, deshelling--basically if there is anything to do with getting fish from the ocean to the rest of the town/city/country, it is happening. Not surprisingly, this town makes a ton of fish sauce, so there is kind of that smell throughout the non-touristy areas. For awhile I was trying to place the scent and then when a local (well, local ex-pat) told me about it, the whole thing made sense (no pun intended). I couldn't figure out what they were doing with so many little fish.

From the fishing village it was on to the white sand dunes. No, this isn't the Sahara desert, but it was pretty beautiful. A local kid comes up to the dunes with you and rents you a "sandboard"--think cheap sled, somewhere around the quality of sliding down Foss hill on a Mocon cafeteria tray. But the kid packs it with sand for you and you can slide down as many times in as many ways as you want. The best was on my stomach. None were quite that fast, but it was still fun. It is a bit of trek to get back up the dune, I felt like I was getting a real workout. Don't laugh, that passes for exercise these days. Sadly, Ryan has those photos and claimed he gave them to me, but I don't have them on my card. I'll have to work on getting a link for those.

Next up we went to see the red sand dunes, smaller dunes that we chose not to slide down bc well, it wasn't that incredible on the white ones and these were even smaller. But we hiked up and you can get a view of the South China Sea, which was pretty nice.

Finally, we went to the Fairy Stream--a river that is only abourt 2 in deep because the sand from the walls slides into it. There's white sand at the bottom and red sand on top. I don't really know the geological history of it, but it was really amazing to see. You take off your shoes and just walk along this as far as you want. A natural wonder, really.

So that was our tour day. The rest of the time I mostly hung out on the beach. The crazy thing about the beach was that the sea was completely different every day. When we first got there the waves were crazy from the Typhoon--it didn't hit there but at another part of the sea. The next few days were nice sized waves. One day it was filled with garbage and plastic bags. My last day it was pristine and extremely calm. So I spent my days squating on the chairs from a resort under the shade structure reading The Alchemist. I had one random day where this Caribbean ex-pat brought me into the big town on his moto and showed me around. That was pretty fun.

My nights were mostly spent at this new bar called Sankara-a $2.5million establishment complete with a swimming pool, two beautful bars and of course, it is right on the ocean. We met the chef, bar manager, and a few others. Since it is low season, most of the people hanging out at the bar are ex-pats--this is a big kite surfing spot in high season, so think surfer type with a more extreme twist. Anyway, the nights were a bit debaucherous and it was just across the street from our guest house so that was convenient.

I can't quite convey why I had such a good time in Mui Ne. It was really chill, I had lots of time to read, I always had people to hang out with and well, I guess I just needed a break from the budget traveler scene.

I had one totally silly night. I come back to my room from a bizarre day of exploring Phan Thiet and playing guitar hero with some Americans. Something catches my eye in the corner of my room. It is the biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. The legs are huge and fat. I don't know what to do. After ten minutes of trying to catch it in a plastic bag, I finally run out to get one of the girls who work there to help me. This drunk French/swiss guy says, I will help you. So he runs back to my room with me (it is raining cats and dogs mind you) and with one wack kills it with a plastic bag. Howẻver, no damsel in distress gets away that easily. He decides he's now found a freind and begins to tell me that I should not be scared of spiders in Vietnam. Yes, in Arizon they are much bigger, but Vietnam now. He punctuates every sentence by puckering his lips, mnaking a bizaree frowny face with his eyebrows and pointing a finger into the air. So, I thank him for his help and hope he'll go away. He continues to talk for a while, repeating his same sentences. Finally, he gets the message and goes back to the bar/restaurant area of the hotel. Well, at this point I don't know where any of my crew is, so I just decidẻ to eat at the guest house. Boy was that a mistake. Mister spider saver guy decides he needs to sit with me, even though I'm clearly trying to read my book. He will not leave me alone, keeps invading my personal space by poking me in the arm. Asks me dumb questions like, do you like salty or sweet better? What is your favorite country? Blah blah. On and on. I was losing my mind. Finally I remember that I have Ryan's cell phone number and ask one of the hotel girls if I can use her phone. I manage to contact them through text message, find out where they are and phewsh, I'm outta there. I race through knee high water that has flooded the street to meet up with them.

The strangeness continues as we try to go to Karaoke with some other travelers. There are four women and Ryan, the same guy from the last post. We ask the taxi to take us to karaoke, and pantomime singing. He says yes, I know. Takes us to this place down the road. We look over, it is a long dark alley with no sign. We send Ryan as a scout. Apparently, it is a dodgy looking spot with about 4 beds and two burnt looking guys. The driver came out and followed Ryan and he's like, no no no. We're looking for karaoke, where you sing...Karaoke can have a number of meanings in Asia. But what did the driver think with four foreigner women in the car. We wanted to be the prostitutes? I guess there was possibly another spot in the next town over, phan tiet, but considering no one spoke vietnamese in the car, we decided to call it a night with the karaoke and just go to a regular bar. Ended up back at Sankara where the owner went nutty and started spraying everyone with alcohol and smashing the bottles into the sink. She's a bit ofa crazy, I think. The gay waiter started dancing on the bar and the insanity just continued from there. I just watched most of it, but I did have to endure alcohol in my eye which stings like crazy. Here's a photo of the bathroom, if it wasn't a five it was pretty darn close!

Well, this post is extremely long, so I think I need to sign off. I'm sure I'll have lots more after my 3-day bike trip in the delta with two 65 year old Dutch women. I'm hoping it is a good time.

Amazingly, I'm over half-way through my trip already. It is really flying by.

xoxo

Dina

Misadventures in Dalat

Well, it has been a little while since I've updated and a lot has happened. I feel overwhelmed even beginning this post, but I'll just see how far I can get. Let's see, when last we left off, I had shopped my way through Hoi An. I've now got a crammed full pack, including leather knee-high boots. I'm a little crazy to be carrying them around Asia, but actually got some use out of them in Dalat, which I'll get to in a bit.

From Hoi An I took a night sleeper bus to Nha Trang,

a beach city--think Rio minus the bustle, crime, and well okay, minus everything. But, it does have a pretty nice beach right there, which is pretty cool. The night bus was quite an experience. You have this coffin type thing that is basically a seat on the floor that leans forward and back. I thought it wasn't going to be

comfortable at all, but actually it wasn't bad (thank you dramamine for helping me make it

through that night.)

The city was actually a bit of a relief from Hoi An, because the only thing people are hawking is motorbike rides and that was pretty easy to dodge. The city is actually quite calm and unless

you are on one of the few main streets or it is rush hour, there's barely any traffic. So, I spent a couple days there, hanging out on the beach and I did a tour to the "monkey island." The other option was to go on a "booze cruise" type deal and island hop, but I didn't totally think that would be my speed. I'd say the average age of tourists there was about 24, kind of a party town. However, the rain and the

incoming typhoon, plus the general low season/economic crisis actually made the place quite tame. The monkey island thing was odd. Let's see, first of all, on the tour are about 40

Vietnamese tourists, including a good number of children, two Russian couples that didn't speak a lick of English, a British couple and me. Thankfully, the Brits turned out to be cool. The guide would go on for about 15 minutes in vietnamese, then he'd look at us and say, 'lobster

boats', and then go back to speaking vietnamese. It was funny at

first, and then it got kind of annoying. So, the first stop was to feed Ostriches and deer. O-d-d odd.

Then, the second stop I actually rode and ostrich and hiked up to a small waterfall. The Ostrich was so fun, you climb up a fence and get on this saddle and all of a sudden it takes off. Like riding a

horse but pokey-er with their feathers and they only follow the commands of

the trainers. So it takes off for a bit and then comes to almost a complete stop and turns around and you think, it's gonna peck me. Their necks are so long. Anyway, it was good fun. Swam on the beach a bit, had lunch, was a nice time.

Finally, the creme de la creme, was monkey island. You first go and there's a dog and monkey show. The dogs "answer math questions" by barking the number. The monkeys were dressed up in silk outfits and led around to do tricks like jump through hoops, walk a tight rope, and oh

yes, ride bicycles. It was hilarious. But also disturbing and I was like, what am I doing?

Then, you move on to the "wild monkeys" where you can buy food to feed them. But man are they aggressive. You put your hand out and about 15 of them jump on you. It is crazy. Oh, and certainly don't try to open any chips or anything, bc they are sneaky little

buggers. I was kind of freaked out by the crazy monkeys and took some photos but actually

wasn't that into them. However, I did pay to drive four laps on a go kart track. It was really fun, but boy were these cars dodgy.

They would never pass inspection in America.

So, Nha Trang was a good time, hung out with a bunch of other travelers both nights, ate a great burger, and went to this place called the Sailing Club, a bougie little spot, a nice change from the usual bars I've been hanging out it in. I even got a custom bathing suit made while I was there. Sadly, I missed some of the sights like a big white buddha and some other stuff, bc all of a sudden I realized I was running short on time before my Vietnam visa ran out. However, now I think its not that big a deal to overstay by a day or two, or so I've heard, so I think I'm cool.

Next, I moved on to Dalat, a town in the mountains that was supposed to be quite nice and also cool. Actually, since it has been raining like crazy, I haven't actually been that hot, but I was excited for this town. I had heard from this Austrian guy that the Easy Rider tour, guys on motorcycles who take you around the area, are awesome. So I took the bus there. It was a bumpy and windy ride. The air con didn't seem to be working on the bus and the bus driver kept smoking. I was really not feeling happy at that moment at all. I get to town, get something to eat and go find out about the tour. Well, I contemplated doing a four day tour to Saigon,

but I wasn't sure if I wanted to miss Mui Ne. Also, the weather's been crappy, not the best time to be on a moto for four days. Another option was to take a two day tour to Mui Ne, but there's really not much to see that direction. The final option was just a one day tour where you see stuff around the town. I was really torn also because of the cost and the idea of being with some random vietnamese man by myself for a number of days. Started talking to another traveler, Ryan, who is possibly more scared of motorbikes than I am, and he convinced me a 4 day tour was a bad idea. So that was out. Then he said he was going trekking the next day, thus I decided not to decide yet, and go trekking.

Well, the trek was pretty intense. Straight up a mountain, straight down a mountain, repeat. We got some nice views, but it was pretty overcast and I imagine it would have been nicer if it were a clearer day. Our guide was maybe 19 years old and had a ton of energy. Whenever we would rest, he would jump up and start singing and dancing. He also had a friend or an intern or something with him, so there were two guides and the two of us. I was pretty beat by the end, when we made it to the waterfall that we were supposed to see, that you couldn't even

swim in. The scariest part of the day was traversing these insane swinging cable monkey bridge. I was so scared I thought I was going to cry about half way through. The intern guy thought it was funny to jump on the bridge behind me, and I thought I might kill him.

That night we ate dinner at Tu Ann's place. She's this zany chef who loves food. Her eyes just light up when she talks about what she's gonna make for that night. One time I was in there for breakfast and she showed me the cut of meat she was going to use for that nights dinner. " look Dina, very beautiful meat." On the cover of the menu it says, 'subject to the chef's mood swings.' She cracked us up. She learns your name and does not forget it. She told us how the peace cafe stole her menu and her name and tried to shut her down (her place is called the peace restaurant), then the cops came and she showed them the lonely planet page where they talk about her, and they finally left her alone. She speaks amazing English (something unusual for this town) but really fast, so it can be hard to understand her sometimes. "They vedy craazy,

these people. Come to my place, turn off electricity." Her food was delicious, I had chile con carne. She went to cooking school in France, I believe, and has cook books from all over.

Anyway, she was so sweet. I went in to ask her about a doctor because I have an infected sore on my side (don't worry, no big deal). First she asked, "Is Ryan okay" and I said yeah, actually it is me, and I show her my sore. She said, come back tomorrow at 10 am, I'll take you on my motorbike, the doctors, they don't speak English. I couldn't believe it, I think she's the nicest Vietnamese I've met.

Ryan and I did decide to do a Easy Rider one day tour, but thought, lets go in a car since the weather's been crap. So we get a card from a random guy on a street for an easy rider, mistake #1. We bargain him down to $30 for the two of us, he comes to get us and I ask, where are we going to go. He says, 'all in my head' so we believe him, mistake #2. His English name is 'Buddha', he says because he has such a kind heart and doesn't cheat people.

We end up going to the silk worm factory, the crazy house (a guadi type insanity) and a waterfall with a big female buddha. Then he says tour is over. We're like, what? So short, what about is pagoda, this rice wine factory. He's like no. So that was the end of that. We paid him but felt like we got a raw deal. Later on I found out that the rice wine factory was really just a place where they get pigs drunk so that they won't move much and get really fat. Didn't miss much there. But I do think we missed a couple things. What can you do?

So Dalat was a bit of a bust. Just kind of dark and gloomy and we were getting weather from the typhoon that hit the Philippines and then Hue, Vietnam. It was cold and I actually wore my boots and my puff ball jacket much of the time, even inside. In fact, my first hotel room there had a leaky ceiling and one morning I woke up with water all over my floor. The second place seemed better, but in the morning I found about 10 cockroaches crawling around the room. It is possible there is one in my backpack right now. Gross!

One last nice part of Dalat. We found this place called the Stop and Go cafe. It is this crazy poet guy who writes sort of cliches on these vertical papers. Super calm guy who has a long beard,

wears a beret and plays the guitar for you. The walls are filled with his "poetry" and portraits of him. He makes his own wine, which was so-so, but you just hang out and chill and it is this oasis from this bizarre little town.

So, today, I moved on from Dalat, thank goodness, to a quiet little beach town called Mui Ne. The icing on the cake was when I got on the bus this morning and a father and son got on after me. As soon as he gets on, the tout gives him a bag. Sadly the dad didn't quite get the bag around his mouth and bam, there was throw up on the floor, across from my seat. I sort of saw it happen in slow motion. The father's method of cleaning it up? Putting a few tissues on top of it. I'm not kidding, we all breathed in his throw up for four hours. It was disgusting. I think there are different norms for hygiene in this country. We even stopped about half an hour later, a perfect time for the father to pick up the dirty tissues and try to clean the floor. Oh no, the kid puke again instead. I swear, the perfect book-end to my time in Dalat.

So my time in Vietnam is almost up. I'm going to hang out at this chill guest house for a few days, go sandboarding on the dunes, see a fishing village and get in a bit of beach time, although there's quite a bit of surf here-more for surfing than for swimming. Next up is Saigon, so I really need to prep myself for the insanity. Am excited to see the delta and do a boat tour there. I woke up today feeling like I had busted through my traveler fatigue and ready for the next adventure. Ryan and I ended up on the same bus to Mui Ne and picked up another friend named Ana from Columbia. And the adventures continue...