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| Sunday, April 21,2007 Just a quick update to all of you readers around the world...I am no longer able to access Xanga from my present location. It is disappointing that I am unable to update you on my latest adventures! However, all is well with me here. I will be home for a few weeks this summer and look forward to posting some updated material at that time. | | |
| The trip to South East Asia is at an end and Ethan and are once again home in Beijing and gearing up for the coming semester. It looks to me like it will be another eventful time in my life and it'll be interesting to see what happens as the coming weeks progress.
The internet is also finally cooperating again in China so I am able to post photos on my site. It's been too long since my last picture, and in my mind it is almost just as boring to write a journal without having pictures as it is to read one. So for all of you out there who enjoyed paging through the encyclopedia as kid just to see the pictures...here's a short photo journal of the past 5 weeks.
Laos
A tiny alleyway in Luang Prabang, Laos. We spent our first week and a half in China and saw Shanghai, Guilin, and Kunming. Due to an unfortunate technical blunder however, the photos from China were lost. Accidents happen.
It was extremely great to at last get out of the cold climates and be in the presence of palm trees, tropical birds, bamboo huts, and friendly Lao people who served amazingly good Lao coffee.
 
Wat Xieng Thong. One of the most important Wats or temples in Laos. Monks wearing Saphron robes were a common site almost anywhere in S.E.A.
 Northern Laos is very mountainous and many times the easiest way to travel is by boat. It can still take several days to cover only a couple hundred miles if you travel by land.
 Luang Prabang, Laos
 This was the guesthouse that we stayed in while we were in Vientiene, the capital city of Laos. It was the first time our room had a television and conveniently the next morning the Super Bowl was on. A tiny taste of home.
For some reason Ethan had his own room at this place which was also the same room as the TV. Olaf and I shared the smaller of the two rooms and had neither television, nor much space. He looks comfortable right? Of course he does...
The Stupa That Luang, one of SEA's holiest buddist sites.
Every travel experience was unique. Before this trip I would have never thought it was possible to fit four grown men and three large backpacks on a small motorcyle and side carriage. I was wrong. Still all the trouble of travel was worth it after experiencing one gorgeous sunset after another along the Mekong.
The 4000 Islands Region: Southern Laos
 
The View from my bunglow ($2.00 a night). Included my own room, king size bed, mosquito net, and one amazing view of the river and the mountains of Cambodia. Still, we had no power on the island, so bedtime came pretty soon after dark. In the morning at least 2 dozen roosters, and 20 motorboats made sure that we were up and moving before 7.
Vietnam:
This is the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. On the way into Vietnam I had never experienced a more complicated visa process in my life if you included the official looking workers at the border who tried to take your customs papers from you so they could fill them out and then charge you money for the service that you are perfectly capable of doing yourself.
To make matters even worse, on the way back out of Vietnam my bus left me and several other passengers at the border because we decided to do our own visas again instead of paying them way to much to do it for us. Honestly, the simplest things can become so complicated in this part of the world.
While in Vietnam, Ethan and I got to crawl around in tunnels used during the war with France and the Vietnam war. This was a trap door in the middle of the jungle that opened up into passages below. The people who built these used them to hide from invading enemies, as well as protection against many of the bombs that were dropped during the wars.
Cambodia:
A brother and sister in Pnom Penh. It was a real blessing to meet John Benson and his wife. Amazing people, and a real encouragement to Ethan and I during our travels.
There's nothing else to say except wow...Angkor Wat was truly amazing. We woke up at 5 and rode our bikes to the park to see the sunrise over the temple. Pretty awesome.
There were of course many other temples we got to see that day. Favorites included the Bayon Temple (left), and Ta Prahm (right). Between the hundreds of mysteriously happy budda faces at Bayon, and the enormous jungle trees that conquered the temples at Ta Prahm, the day was defintely an experience I'll never forget.
Thailand:
By the 5th day in Thailand, Bangkok and I were becoming good friends. This is me with Bangkok. You have to be careful though. We learned quickly that anyone will bend over backwards to help you in this city....but there was always something they wanted out of it as well. Keeps you on your toes I suppose.
 The people weren't the only overly friendly residents of Thailand. If you have something valuable (whether money or even just a handful of corn), you quickly find out that you have more friends than you can deal with .
The flight home was the best anyone could ever ask for. To think that it took almost 4 weeks to travel as far south as we did, and then only a mere 4 and a half hours to fly back home. Much thanks goes to Egypt Air for a much needed lunch on the plane, and landing safely in the dense smog of Beijing.
It's nice to be back home where things once again make sense....sort of not really.
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| Has it really been this long since
writing things down? Sorry about that to all of you who may happen to
check from time to time. I'm still currently on the road. After
Vientiene we ventrured further south to Don Det where we spent for lazy
days in bungalos along the Mekong. At night we had candles so bedtime
always came around 9:30 and morning around 6:00 (thanks to the plethora
of roosters).
From there we travelled to Cambodia
and spent several days in the capital city Pnom Penh. Cambodia itself
has gone through so much in the past century and the toll it has taken
was clearly evident in the poverty all throughout this country. It
really breaks your heart to see so many suffer and at the same time be
so helpless. Much respect goes to countries and indiviuals who work
there to help those in need.
Several days ago we moved over into
Vietnam for a real short time (2 nights and 1 full day). It was much to
short, but it was great to be able to celebrate the chinese New Year in
so lively a city. After that, it was back to Pnom Penh. There wasn't
much left to see there so we left early the next day for Siemreap (the
location of Angkor Wat). Today we vistied the ruins there which was an
absoultely amazing experience...The Khmer really showed themselves on
that one.
Tomorrow Ethan and I leave for
Bangkok for we spend the remaining time laying low and preparing to get
back to Beijing. I promise again that pictures will eventually get on
here. Thats it for now. I'm running out of Cambodian riel so that means
no more internet. Chao...
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| So apologies are in order for not updating sooner. A lot has happened in the last week and a half and much ground has been covered as well. Guilin was a great experience which was soon followed by and excruciatingly long bus ride (26 hours) to Kunming, China where we met up with a teacher from Germany who is also at Ren Da. Together we toured parts of Kunming and then set off about a week ago to Luang Prabahng, Laos. The journey there was I'm sad to say even longer than the previous one. It was 30 hours of dark bumpy roads, mountain roads that go back and forth, and many opportunities for simply snacking and looking out the window. Laos is beautiful though and it is great to finally be among palm trees and warm weather. The culture here is also extremely laid back with is an enormous change from the busy bodied society of China. The past two days we have been in Vientiene, the capital city of Laos which borders with Thailand along the Mekong. For being a capital, the city is very small, dusty, and noticeably poor. It's been a good few days here though and I'm ready to move on. Tomorrow we leave by bus for a seven-hour trip to Savannaket and then continue on to Pakse till we reach the southern tip of Laos in order to explore the 4000 lakes region. Wish you all the best, and I'm sad for the Bears. I got to see the game but wished the outcome was different. Blame it on the rain. | | |
| Spending two days in Shanghai was good but I am glad to move on. The overnight train from Shanghai to Guilin (smaller town of 1.3 million people) took us 26 hours. We left Tuesday afternoon at 2 and did not pull into Guilin until 4 in the afternoon the next day. The trip wasn't near as difficult as I imagined. Ethan and I both had beds that were decently comfortable, and during the trip we met some other Americans who were also travelling in China. They are teachers in Korea and about the same age as us so there was much in common between us. After getting to Guilin, we ended up spending a lot of time together. The four of us did a lot of touring around the town which was really great. It's always good to share new experiences with lots of people. I'm hoping that more things like that will continue to happen. Guilin itself has been a great place to visit. The scenery around here is beautiful (lots of tall mountains and a river that runs through the city) and even though it is still a little chilly here, it is much better than the temperature in Beijing or Shanghai. I hope the warm weather trend will continue when we leave for Kunming Tomorrow. Here are a few strange things that have happened over the past week: 1. met a roomate at a hostel in Shanghai who was from Vietnam. He turned out to be a doctor/hotel owner in Saigon (where we are going) and offered us free housing and use of his motorbike in addition to showing us the many cases for which endoscopy treatment is used (graphic pictures hemmoraged body regions included) 2. met another guy from Toronto, Canada in Shanghai and again just saw him this morning in Guilin at the hostel we're staying at. Only in a country of 1.3 billion can you run into the same person twice 400 miles apart. 3. discovered that those little pearls in pearl milk tea make great projectiles by launching them through the oversized straw that comes with the drink. Est. distance: 50ft. Est.speed: 30-40mph. Cost for a good cup of milk tea pearls: $.30. You can imagine that this activity kept us pretty well occupied for some time. I'm sure more strange and unique experiences will come as time goes on. I really wish that I could post some pictures to make this more interesting, and I hope to do so further in the future. I'm still trying to figure out how to get my camera to upload pictures on to a computer that only displays Chinese...sometime soon. Also thank you for your thoughts....It looks like my portable hard drive works after all. It was most likely the equipment at the internet bar in Shanghai. | | |
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