bangladesh bound

We got the plane tickets and visas last week, so it's official . . . we fly to Dhaka, Bangladesh on Sunday! I'm really excited. Bangladesh has been the most tentative part of our trip and I think it's because I was afraid of being too disapointed if it didn't work out. In many ways, this is the most looked-forward-to part of the trip as well. My dad worked in Bangladesh for two years in the 70's and it's the combination of growing up on his slideshows from there and my mom's stories from South America that that have been my primary inspiration for travel. While we're there, we're hooking up with the organization that he used to work with (called HEED for Health, Education, Economic, Development . . . see their website for more info). They're going to show us around a bit, particularly in the area where my dad lived and where they continue to work on various projects. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time, so I'm pretty happy it's all working out!

pathetic

My blog, that is. I left Vietnam two months ago and have been to three more countries since, yet haven't posted a thing. It's a combination of sporadic/expensive/not-always-very-good internet access . . . and pure laziness. But I still have some photos and stories I'd love to share, so I'm going to keep adding them as I can. I'm in Bangkok for the next few days, so hopefully I can get a little more caught up.

cambodia catch-up

In the spirit of catching up, here are some photo highlights of Cambodia, where we spent three weeks in April.

One of the biggest highlights for us was visiting Angkor Wat and the other ancient temples in the area of Siem Reap. We spent three days there riding in a tuk tuk from sight to sight and doing a lot of climbing around and picture-taking. Most of the temples were built from the 10th-12th centuries and while many are amazingly well-preserved and restored, others have been overtaken by the jungle. Both scenarios make for picturesque scenes.

Angkor Wat . . . the big one.

One of many huge faces carved in the walls of Bayon.

An out of the way, overgrown temple called Beng Melea.

Ta Prohm, famous for its jungle roots (and now, for scenes in the movie Tomb Raider).

Carvings at Banteay Srei, a small beautiful pink stone structure.

We also really enjoyed our time in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Some of the Khmer architecture in the city was really beautiful.

The National Museum, a beautiful building filled with beautiful, ancient sculpture.

The vibrant throne hall at the royal palace.

On our way north to Laos, we visited the dusty town of Ban Lung in the Northeast of Cambodia. We rented a motorbike and drove to several waterfalls in the area, as well as a crater lake. We also spend a lot of time at our family-run guesthouse, where we were the only guests, chatting with the mom and eating her delicious meals.

Town of Ban Lung.

A little boy standing under one of the waterfalls.

Jesse beside another waterfall.

vietnam count

32 days
16 hotels
34 motorbikes
18 buses
5 cars
12 boats
3 broken down vehicles
100 (at least) spring rolls

i love boats and factories

Rather than taking a bus from Saigon, Vietnam, to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we decided to go on a three-day tour through Vietnam's Mekong Delta that would take us, mostly by boat, into Cambodia. It was a good choce for me, as we were on at least seven different boats and visited three factories....two of my favorite things. :)

This picture is from a rice noodle factory where the noodles are made entirely by hand. I think it would be fun to try it out for a week or so...I am sure it must get tedious eventually.

We visited a big floating market, where the "big boats" show up with their produce (the long rod with vegetables tied to it is a kind of sign . . ."this is what we've got" sort of thing) and the "little boats" pull up alongside and purchase what they want, possibly for use, or possibly to be taken down smaller canals and re-sold.

This was the cheesy Disneyland-ish part of the tour. But we were on a boat with a couple from Japan, who live in a city near ours! We were only too happy to pratcice Japanese with them.

And another boat . . .

Our last night in Vietnam we spent the evening with a lady we met at the post office, and her family. It was really great to be in their home, talking about their lives, and even loking at their wedding pictures. The woman's father was a South Vietnamese soldier and it was really interesting to hear his perspective. Although he hasn't been able to work professionally since then, due to government restrictions, he is so happy for the peace and safety for his family.

On our way out of Vietnam we saw a wedding procession in a Muslim Cham minority village.



Riding up the Mekong River to Cambodia, we got to see lots of people living, working, and playing along the river's edge.

ho chi minh city (saigon)

I'm reading a travel memoir from the 1950's right now (A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis) and this is what he says shortly after arriving in Saigon: "It was clear from the first moment . . . that the lives of the people of the Far East are lived in public. . . . The street is the extension of the house and there is no sharp dividing line between the two." Many things have changed in the past fifty years, but this is one thing that still seems to be true, at least in some parts of Saigon. In the neighborhood where we stayed (in the upper level of someone's home/guesthouse), the streets formed a maze of narrow alleys. During the day, the homes were wide open to the streets and you could easily look in and see the living areas, sometimes not much bigger than a closet, with tiled floors and a small red-lit alar and a stairway or even ladder leading to the upper levels. The houses were so close together that one night a neighbor was watching TV and we kept trying to turn the volume down on our TV, because it didn't seem possible that the sound was coming from another house. We saw a lot of interesting buildings in Saigon, many of them beautiful old colonial-era buildings. The building pictured below (built in the 60's) is the Reunification Palace, the former home of the South Vietnamese president and where the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates on the day Saigon "fell" or "was liberated," depending on perspective. We took a tour of the palace and saw the bunker and offices from which the president directed the war. In Saigon, more than in other cities in Vietnam, we noticed a strong official message regarding the war and specifically America's role in it. No one ever said anything to us personally. . . this was only the case during official scripted tours. What saddened me most about this is that many South Vietnamese suffered due to the war as well, but their message cannot be heard. Former S. Vietnamese soldiers, to this day, cannot have official residency in Saigon and therefore cannot own property or have professional jobs. We were told that many of the cyclo and motorbike drivers are former teachers, doctors, etc.

We took a day trip from Saigon and one of the stops was the head Cao Dai cathedral. Cao Daism is a religion unique to Vietnam. I believe that it is a kind of mix of Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, and maybe Islam. We were at the cathedral in time for one of the daily masses. Altough we couldn't understand anything, the building was a sight to behold. :)

Another stop was at Cu Chi Tunnels, an amazing network of tunnels built by the North Vietnamese soldiers and the community in this area and used during the war. The tunnels have supposedly been doubled in size for tourists to try them out. I can't imagine them being any smaller. This is me trying not to let claustrophobia take over. Can you see the fear in my eyes? :)

hanoi to ho chi minh city in two and a half weeks

After enjoying our time in Vietnam's northern capital of Hanoi, we made our way to the southern metropolis formerly (and mostly still) known as Saigon, stopping along the way in various towns and cities. It was interesting to watch the landscape and atmosphere change as we made our way south. It got a lot hotter, the rice was taller, the houses were a different style, and the focus on the American War became more and more intense as we entered regions where most of the fighting took place. We pushed ourselves to go to interesting places and see and learn as much as possible. Then we hit the beach and took a vacation. :) Here are some photos from our journey to the south of Vietnam:

First up was Hue, the former capital of Vietnam with lots of history. We visited royal tombs, the citadel, and other important monuments from the age of the Nguyen emperors. Some of these also had connections with the war, as Hue is not far from the former demilitarized zone that separated the north and south. Jesse took a DMZ tour with a former South Vietnamese officer, and saw a lot of the important war sites.


Next we detoured inland to Bach Ma National Park, where we hiked around, swam in cool mountain pools, gazed at beautiful waterfalls, and picked up a leech or two.

Hoi An was just a little bit south, famous for its tailor shops and old preserved buildings. We enjoyed both of these very much. But as someone said to us, “In Hoi An, the Vietnamese are the minority.” Not exactly what we were looking on this trip.


So we went even further inland and off the tourist trail, this time taking a 12-hour public bus to a dusty town in the central highlands called Kontum. For the first time, we actually had to learn some Vietnamese phrases to get by. As Vietnam is home to 54 different ethnic groups (the Viet people making up 84%) we were especially interested in learning about some of the ethnic minorities in the area. We visited several villages with a local guide and even spent the night in one of them, in their central town hall-type building.

Time was going quickly and we planned to spend one night in the beach town of Nha Trang before rushing on to Ho Chi Minh City and then to Cambodia before our visas expired. But after spending a couple hours on the beach looking out at blue, blue water and enjoying inexpensive full-body massages on the beach, we decided to get our visas extended and finish our time in Vietnam a little more leisurely.

Our final stop on the way to Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Ne, was one of our favorites. We stayed at a nice little resort right on the beach for only $6/a night. The best part was that there was also great scenery around. We rented a motorbike and rode out to a red canyon, some sand dunes, and a place called the "Fairy Stream,"which was, actually, quite enchanting.


And that brought us to Ho Chi Minh City!

mishaps, involving leeches

Jesse and I brought a first aid kit with us on the trip, but I honestly didn't think we'd ever use it. How wrong I was. We've actually run out of bandaids. We've both been burnt by motorbike exhaust pipes (Jesse twice). Not surprisingly, we've also had our fair share of welt-like bug bites, sunburn, and poison ivy (or something like it).

But by far the most interesting of all our mishaps was the one that occurred while we were staying in a national park in central Vietnam, hiking to some waterfalls. Towards the end of the day, I was sitting down admiring a really beautiful waterfall. When I stood up, I noticed a large amount of blood covering the front of my pants! I didn't feel any pain so couldn't figure out what it might be. I finally found a tiny spot on my leg that all the blood was coming from. And then I remembered that I had read that there were a lot of leeches in the park, and figured that must be it. We tried to stop the blood with layers and layers of gauze, but hours later, it was still bleeding as hard as ever!

At dinner, I asked one of the park tour guides about it and he said, no problem, he'd get me something to stop the bleeding. Jesse and I waited for him to come back with a tube of ointment, but instead, he showed up with a tree stump that was covered in orange hairy moss and started pulling some off. When I got back to the room, I covered the spots with the moss and within minutes the bleeding slowed down and then stopped. WIERD!

halong bay

We took a three-day trip from Hanoi to Halong Bay and it was beautiful! Large limestone karsts (whatever that means) jutting out of blue-green water. We went to a cave, went kayaking and spent the night on a boat. We also met a really nice couple from Sweden and another from Australia, two French guys, and our silly tour guide Doan . . . who all made the trip especially enjoyable.

hanoi streets (for rachel:)

My friend Rachel lived in Hanoi a while back, and when I knew I was going there, it was fun to find out from her what she had enjoyed about the city. I found myself doing all the things she mentioned were nice and enjoying all the things she said she had enjoyed . . . especially the food, bikes, and people. I thought Hanoi had great atmosphere. I loved the tiny street stalls with little plastic tables and little plastic stools where we could buy spring rolls and other treats. I loved the ladies selling fruit from baskets hung from a bamboo rod on their shoulder, bouncing with every step. I loved the conical hats, motorbikes, cafes, yellow plaster-peeling walls, leftover French architecture, and the smiles of the people we met. It was a really great introduction to Vietnam. Here are some pictures:

china highlights

Jesse and I spent a couple of days in Shenzhen, China, a place with not much to do. But we still enjoyed our time there. We ate a lot of great (cheap) food. We felt like true travelers as we couldn't communicate with anyone (as an untouristed town, there was very little English). And I learned a valuable lesson: children doing cute little tricks on the street are not doing them for fun. After I paused to admire the talents of a little girl doing this cool thing with a board, cylinder and cooking pot, her little sister chased me down and wrapped her arms around my leg until I gave them some money for the pleasure of watching them.

We spent a lot of time on the train in China. We inadvertantly bought tickets for a night train on the Chinese New Year's Eve, so we missed any celebration there might have been. But we shared a compartment with a little Chinese girl and her parents, and we played together all evening (while the parents sat off to the side eating BBQ chicken feet). On another train, we were in the party car. We were surrounded by a crazy family of 15-20 adults and kids. They were verrrrrry happy to be traveling together and the whole six hours was a mess of laughing, talking, card-playing, noodle-sloshing, musical chairs. We cycled the whole family through dinner time by moving from seat to seat to make room at the little table. We couldn't communicate easily, but we got lots of snacks and made a little small-talk with the couple who originally sat across from us.

The highlight of our time in China was the scenery in the Guilin area, the main "sight" we were stopping to see while crossing overland from Hong Kong to Vietnam. The best part was renting bicycles to ride around the countryside, then taking a bamboo raft back down the river for two hours. It was dusk and we were the only ones on the river for most of the two hours. Here's a picture:

slow start

We've officially been on our Asia trip for over a week now, but we're off to a slow start. We didn't expect to stay in Hong Kong so long, but by the time we were able to get our Chinese and Vietnamese visas, it had already been a week. In the meantime, we got travel vaccinations, I sent off one last grad school application, and we did some final shopping for our trip. In some ways, we were still preparing for the trip, not really on it. On another level, it didn't even feel like we were traveling, since Hong Kong seems to be more Westernized than Japan. We watched American TV almost every night, we ate at Pizza Hut, and we enjoyed being able to speak English everywhere. It was actually a good transition time.

Now, we've had a bit of a hold-up. Yesterday, we crossed the border into China, hoping to catch an overnight bus to a place called Guilin. But after a couple hours walking from bus station to bus station, we think we found out that there were no seats available until the 21st. The Chinese New Year is in a couple days. When we found out we would be here for that, we were pretty excited...but we didn't know how much it would affect our plans. We eventually got train tickets for tomorrow, so we are just spending a few days in Shenzhen while we wait. We are half expecting that to happen a couple more times before we leave China. Oh well. It's keeping us relaxed anyway. :)

in hong kong...

We decided to fly to Hong Kong for a few reasons: we got good tickets and we knew we could get visas and travel vaccinations there. Other than that, we knew little else.

The first day there, we went to the tourist information office and a couple hours later, we were on a free boat tour around Victoria Harbor to view a "360 degree skyline." It was pretty amazing. That evening, we took a tram up to the peak to overlook the harbor. It wasn't hard to find things to enjoy about the city. Over the next few days, we took a guided architecture walk, visited one of the outlying islands, went to the goldfish and flower markets, and walked around a lot. Of course, we also got poked in the arm and sat in line at embassies. But we really enjoyed our time there. Here are a few things we especially enjoyed about Hong Kong:

...the amazing harbor.
...an 800-meter outdoor escalator running downhill in the morning and uphill the rest of the day.
...bamboo used as scaffolding.
...learning that much of the land (including the airport) has been "reclaimed" (i.e., the sea filled in) AND that almost all of the land is government-owned, most of it on 99-year leases.
...diversity (especially compared to Japan).
...the beautiful outlying islands.
...seeing Jesse's cousin who lives in Hong Kong.
...the ferry you can take across the harbor for 25 cents.
...the public service announcements (everything from cover your mouth when you cough to keep your windows in good repair so they don't fall to the street).

Here are a few pictures:

An old boat in the harbor.

The harbor lights viewed from Victoria Peak.

The outdoor escalator.

A fishing village on Lamma Island.

A fruit stand.

sayonara japan

Since the fall, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on grad school applications, planning our trip around Asia, and preparing to leave Japan. While the former two items were really important (especially applications) it is the latter that has really been the focus of almost all my thoughts. The two years I spent in Japan were really special in so many ways. I went there knowing next to nothing about Japan, and started out not knowing how much I’d like it. After a few months, I started seeing things that I really liked, and by the end of the year, I was enjoying my time there a lot. But I think it was the second year that my love for the place really grew. We made good friends. I started learning the language a little better. Things became more and more accessible as I understood more about the culture. I grew really attached to Japanese style, and appreciated it every day in many ways. I became really comfortable with the daily interactions.

Which is what makes leaving so sad.

BUT. I want to be closer to my U.S. friends and family. I want to go to graduate school. I want to get settled in somewhere where I know I’ll stay for a while. And because of that, I have had a stronger and stronger sense that it was time to move on. The last few weeks in Japan, Jesse and I kept saying how satisfied we were with our time there. It was fantastic, really. But because it had been so great, we both felt like we could leave and be happy. It was hard in many ways. Some sad goodbyes. Lots of “lasts.” And a bit of a panic when they took away my resident card at the airport. I have loved being a foreign resident, and it was sad to let that go. But overall, I have a really warm feeling when I think about the past two years.

MY FRIEND'S ON JEOPARDY!

Watch Nate Metcalf on January 31st!! This is the guy who came to my wedding in a white pin-stripe suit and told everyone that he was my Uncle Nate! That personality combined with a another snazzy suit he's said to be wearing (purple this time!) are going to make for an awesome show! Nate and I worked together for a couple years in St. Paul at NBC General Contractors, and he definitely did have a load of trivia stored in his brain, which we enjoyed over Grand Shanghai and Acme Deli lunches. If you go to the Jeopardy website, you'll find him in this week's contestants! GO NATE!!

two sides of tokyo

We were in Tokyo last week to get some vaccinations for our upcoming trip and stopped by a couple other places while we were there . . . one familiar and one new. They were quite different from each other, but both were lots of fun.

Place #1: Tsukiji Fish Market (a 1st for us)
We were definitely in the way at this market, which is mainly a commercial market for restaurant owners and such, although it's open to the public. Lots of people, carts, buckets of water being thrown around, and, or course, loads of fish and other sea life. One of the highlights is being able to see all the big tuna that end up as sushi all over Tokyo (and probably elsewhere). When we got there around 9:30am, most of the tuna were in pieces, but there were still lots of cool things to see.

Frozen tuna on a cart.
(Jesse had the camera that day and a disproportionate number of pictures are of fish heads and eyes . . . I'll spare you.)

Place #2: Harajuku and Aoyama
Although places we've been over and over, we always see new things to enjoy. These are modern fashion districts with lots of great buildings and good people-watching.


We've really come to enjoy hanging out in Tokyo, especially just wandering around back streets. I love the interesting shops, the edgy architecture, the hidden restaurants . . . and I just love the combination of traditional and modern. Spending the day wandering around the city will be something I miss. I'm still hoping to go back one more time before we leave in February, but when we got on the train to head home that day, we both knew it might be our last time . . . for now anyway.