OK, one more post. Maybe I need to go to Japan next year. I'm currently sitting in the ANA lounge during my layover on the way home and marveling at just how mechanized, automated, efficient, spotlessly clean, and well, just how damn Japanese the Tokyo Narita airport is. There's a fancy machine for dispensing everything from fresh ground coffee to beer on tap. All the doors are automated. All the escalators slow down when people aren't on them to save energy. And there isn't a single speck of dirt in the entire place. It looks like you could eat off the damn floors here, including the ones in the bathroom. And speaking of the bathrooms, I've never seen so much technology go into a toilette. When I fired up my wifi, there were about 15 wifi networks in range, and every single one of them showed a full 5 bars strength. How is that even possible? Surely one of those hotspots is a ways away. I'm now convinced that Japan is magic.
Anyways, I'm going to go help myself to the sake bar. Later.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Bangkok and Finish
So I'm done with my five days in Bangkok. It was a blast. I was able to catch up my second night here with a friend of a friend (thanks Disco!) that took me out and showed me the town a bit. He was out of town the next few days so after that I was on my own. In terms of sights there isn't a particularly large amount to see. The Royal Palace, Wat Pho with the huge reclining Buddha (why doesn't that lazy bastard get off his ass anyways?), and a couple other temples and minor sights are about all that's worth seeing as far as specific sights go. After that I just did a lot of wandering around and exploring the different neighborhoods. It does take a while to knock all the sights off, though, as the town is a complete pain in the balls to get around. The sky train and metro system there is great, but unfortunately it doesn't cover the parts of the city where the major tourist attractions are. Go figure. And traffic is a nightmare. There were several occasions where I got into a cab and asked them to take me somewhere and the cabbie told me to get out of the cab because he wasn't even willing to try getting me there. It's a pretty difficult city to navigate by foot, too, and I spent quite a bit of time searching around for the places I was trying to go. Some of this could maybe have been alleviated by catching more tuk-tuks. However, I had sworn off tuk-tuks within 24 hours of arriving in Bangkok, as I quickly became convinced that every tuk-tuk drive the city is a hustler and I grew pretty weary of dealing with all their bullshit.
That being said, the city is really great. It's got a great energy and there's always something going on. It's very modern, too. Well, parts of it are, at least. One of the highlights was hanging out at Bar Vertigo on the roof of the 59-story Banyan Vines hotel. The skyline view there was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me and I only got some half-ass snaps with my cell phone. I also enjoyed the bar as it was one of only about 4 places I’ve been to on this entire trip that had even half-decent service of wine by the glass. I had to pay out the nose for it, though. My single pour of a humble German QbA Riesling cost me a whopping $19 US. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around long enough to require a second drink.
I also went to the famous Damnoen Saduak floating market. Yes, I guess it is more of a tourist attraction than an actual working market any longer, but it still was an interesting stop and I got some great photos. I took a taxi there at 5:30 in the morning so as to beat the crush of tourists in the tour groups, and it allowed me to have the place pretty much to myself and the locals for about an hour or so.
The most interesting thing I did in Bangkok was catch a Thai boxing match. It was pretty fascinating to watch a couple guys do the traditional dance together before the fight and then beat the living hell out of each other 3 minutes later. It was a pretty colorful spectacle. It was also much humbler place than I anticipated. The stadium I went to was the premier fighting arena in the country, so I figured it would be relatively modern and polished. It’s actually pretty small and modest place. I would guess it only seats about 1500 people, has a corrugated metal ceiling, and hardly any permanent seats. It also doesn’t appear to have dressing rooms for the fighters. I stepped out to go to the bathroom, and as I walked to the back arena saw an open area under the stands with the concession stands to the left, the men’s bathroom to the right, and the fighters and the trainers for the next fights sitting or warming up right in the middle with all the spectators milling around them. You could smell all the menthol on the guys when you walked by. The other really entertaining thing was watching the action in the mezzanine and upper tiers of seating in between rounds. These are the areas where most of the locals sit, with well over half the people in the stadium being seated in the upper level. By sit, I actually mean stand as I don’t think there are any seats provided in the upper level and it’s just plain concrete steps. There was a gambling frenzy going on up there in between rounds, particularly on the good fights. You’d see literally hundreds of guys screaming and frantically flashing hand signals to one another between each round. I didn’t see that much passing of actually cash, but you could definitely tell that there was a lot of money changing hands.
Probably the best thing about the boxing stadium was the food outside. I grabbed some of the best chow I’ve had on this vacation from the street vendors right outside the main gate of the arena. The one thing that was particularly good was the black rice which was cooked in a hollow bamboo log. There must have been some kind of sweetener in it since it almost tasted like a dessert. Kick ass. I’ve generally done much better with food here in Bangkok than I did in Chiang Mai, and I’ve had some really great stuff. Yesterday I got this mushroom soup that had wood ear, enoki, shitake, and straw mushrooms in it that absolutely rocked. In the past few days I’ve also gotten some killer phad thai, some roast duck with sweet soy sauce, some of the best grilled chicken I’ve ever had, I a few other things which I really couldn’t identify but tasted great. I’ve done better with the restaurant food, too. On Tuesday I had a stir-fried whole crab with a spicy-sweet sauce which was out of this world. The other restaurant stuff I’ve had has generally been pretty good, if not fantastic.
I also took another cooking course. 5 full days in Bangkok was a little more time then I really needed, even at the leisurely pace I was taking it (I was staying up late and sleeping in a lot) so I filled the last afternoon with another cooking course. The only cooking school which had an opening was a pretty fancy place and was awfully expensive by local standards, but I’m glad I went. I got some good experience and was able to fill some gaps on my knowledge of Thai cooking and learn some knew techniques. The food which we made as this restaurant was really fantastic, as well. This was also one of the few places with a decent wine list, and I was able to try a couple Thai wines which they were pouring by the glass. They weren’t exactly complex or well-balanced, as they were super-rich and jammy, almost tasting like some kind of a dry dessert wine. However, they were nevertheless drinkable and I thought went well with the food.
So that wraps up my trip. I’m actually writing this during my flight from Bangkok to Tokyo. Hopefully I can wrap up this post soon while I’m still coherent. I’ve got a business class flight with free wine, and the ANA flight I’m on has 1 sparkling wine, 2 whites, 2 reds, 2 sakes, 1 Japanese whisky, and a plum wine on offer. Since they’re free and since I’m hoping to sleep all the way from Tokyo to Chicago, I’ll need to try every one of them on this segment. So I’ll be pretty bombed in short order here.
It will be nice to be back home, but I’m definitely going to miss:
- Being able to get a reliably good if not downright phenomenal meal for $2 US
- The coconut shakes
- The cheap massages
That being said, there are a few things which I definitely won’t miss, including:
- The pollution and the dirt
- The incessant heat and humidity
- The difficulty in getting a decent glass of wine, and when you can find it having to pay 2-3 times what you would in the states for something of similar quality
- The appearance that everything going on around me is some sort of scam to separate me from my money.
All said and done, it was a great trip. I haven’t run the numbers yet, but I’ve got the feeling that I’ve blown the budget for the trip pretty badly. I hadn’t really factored in a private driver and tour guide for Siem Reap, 80-km taxi drive to the floating market and back, $450 in custom-tailored clothing, and $180 bucks in cooking classes into my original estimates. I think I really started to fall off the wagon the last few days in Bangkok, as too much free time on my hands equals too much time spent at the spa getting a massage which relatively speaking isn’t as cheap in the big city. It also didn’t help that the garbage Lonely Planet guidebook I was using was reliably low on costs for just about everything, particularly for accommodations where is many cases it was egregiously low. It was still much cheaper than another trip to Europe would have been, though. But I think I’ll hit another continent before I go back to Asia. Maybe I’ll do Central and South America or Europe again next year. We’ll have to see. I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back to Thailand and Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia were great, but I think I’ve covered all the things I was really interested in doing in those countries on this trip. I’d love to be able to do the mountainous north of Vietnam some other time, and I also think a trip to the islands and beaches in Thailand is a must-do at some point.
This will be my last post for this trip. Thanks for checking in. Hope to hear from everybody soon.
Ryan
That being said, the city is really great. It's got a great energy and there's always something going on. It's very modern, too. Well, parts of it are, at least. One of the highlights was hanging out at Bar Vertigo on the roof of the 59-story Banyan Vines hotel. The skyline view there was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera on me and I only got some half-ass snaps with my cell phone. I also enjoyed the bar as it was one of only about 4 places I’ve been to on this entire trip that had even half-decent service of wine by the glass. I had to pay out the nose for it, though. My single pour of a humble German QbA Riesling cost me a whopping $19 US. Needless to say, I didn’t stick around long enough to require a second drink.
I also went to the famous Damnoen Saduak floating market. Yes, I guess it is more of a tourist attraction than an actual working market any longer, but it still was an interesting stop and I got some great photos. I took a taxi there at 5:30 in the morning so as to beat the crush of tourists in the tour groups, and it allowed me to have the place pretty much to myself and the locals for about an hour or so.
The most interesting thing I did in Bangkok was catch a Thai boxing match. It was pretty fascinating to watch a couple guys do the traditional dance together before the fight and then beat the living hell out of each other 3 minutes later. It was a pretty colorful spectacle. It was also much humbler place than I anticipated. The stadium I went to was the premier fighting arena in the country, so I figured it would be relatively modern and polished. It’s actually pretty small and modest place. I would guess it only seats about 1500 people, has a corrugated metal ceiling, and hardly any permanent seats. It also doesn’t appear to have dressing rooms for the fighters. I stepped out to go to the bathroom, and as I walked to the back arena saw an open area under the stands with the concession stands to the left, the men’s bathroom to the right, and the fighters and the trainers for the next fights sitting or warming up right in the middle with all the spectators milling around them. You could smell all the menthol on the guys when you walked by. The other really entertaining thing was watching the action in the mezzanine and upper tiers of seating in between rounds. These are the areas where most of the locals sit, with well over half the people in the stadium being seated in the upper level. By sit, I actually mean stand as I don’t think there are any seats provided in the upper level and it’s just plain concrete steps. There was a gambling frenzy going on up there in between rounds, particularly on the good fights. You’d see literally hundreds of guys screaming and frantically flashing hand signals to one another between each round. I didn’t see that much passing of actually cash, but you could definitely tell that there was a lot of money changing hands.
Probably the best thing about the boxing stadium was the food outside. I grabbed some of the best chow I’ve had on this vacation from the street vendors right outside the main gate of the arena. The one thing that was particularly good was the black rice which was cooked in a hollow bamboo log. There must have been some kind of sweetener in it since it almost tasted like a dessert. Kick ass. I’ve generally done much better with food here in Bangkok than I did in Chiang Mai, and I’ve had some really great stuff. Yesterday I got this mushroom soup that had wood ear, enoki, shitake, and straw mushrooms in it that absolutely rocked. In the past few days I’ve also gotten some killer phad thai, some roast duck with sweet soy sauce, some of the best grilled chicken I’ve ever had, I a few other things which I really couldn’t identify but tasted great. I’ve done better with the restaurant food, too. On Tuesday I had a stir-fried whole crab with a spicy-sweet sauce which was out of this world. The other restaurant stuff I’ve had has generally been pretty good, if not fantastic.
I also took another cooking course. 5 full days in Bangkok was a little more time then I really needed, even at the leisurely pace I was taking it (I was staying up late and sleeping in a lot) so I filled the last afternoon with another cooking course. The only cooking school which had an opening was a pretty fancy place and was awfully expensive by local standards, but I’m glad I went. I got some good experience and was able to fill some gaps on my knowledge of Thai cooking and learn some knew techniques. The food which we made as this restaurant was really fantastic, as well. This was also one of the few places with a decent wine list, and I was able to try a couple Thai wines which they were pouring by the glass. They weren’t exactly complex or well-balanced, as they were super-rich and jammy, almost tasting like some kind of a dry dessert wine. However, they were nevertheless drinkable and I thought went well with the food.
So that wraps up my trip. I’m actually writing this during my flight from Bangkok to Tokyo. Hopefully I can wrap up this post soon while I’m still coherent. I’ve got a business class flight with free wine, and the ANA flight I’m on has 1 sparkling wine, 2 whites, 2 reds, 2 sakes, 1 Japanese whisky, and a plum wine on offer. Since they’re free and since I’m hoping to sleep all the way from Tokyo to Chicago, I’ll need to try every one of them on this segment. So I’ll be pretty bombed in short order here.
It will be nice to be back home, but I’m definitely going to miss:
- Being able to get a reliably good if not downright phenomenal meal for $2 US
- The coconut shakes
- The cheap massages
That being said, there are a few things which I definitely won’t miss, including:
- The pollution and the dirt
- The incessant heat and humidity
- The difficulty in getting a decent glass of wine, and when you can find it having to pay 2-3 times what you would in the states for something of similar quality
- The appearance that everything going on around me is some sort of scam to separate me from my money.
All said and done, it was a great trip. I haven’t run the numbers yet, but I’ve got the feeling that I’ve blown the budget for the trip pretty badly. I hadn’t really factored in a private driver and tour guide for Siem Reap, 80-km taxi drive to the floating market and back, $450 in custom-tailored clothing, and $180 bucks in cooking classes into my original estimates. I think I really started to fall off the wagon the last few days in Bangkok, as too much free time on my hands equals too much time spent at the spa getting a massage which relatively speaking isn’t as cheap in the big city. It also didn’t help that the garbage Lonely Planet guidebook I was using was reliably low on costs for just about everything, particularly for accommodations where is many cases it was egregiously low. It was still much cheaper than another trip to Europe would have been, though. But I think I’ll hit another continent before I go back to Asia. Maybe I’ll do Central and South America or Europe again next year. We’ll have to see. I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back to Thailand and Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia were great, but I think I’ve covered all the things I was really interested in doing in those countries on this trip. I’d love to be able to do the mountainous north of Vietnam some other time, and I also think a trip to the islands and beaches in Thailand is a must-do at some point.
This will be my last post for this trip. Thanks for checking in. Hope to hear from everybody soon.
Ryan
Monday, March 2, 2009
Chiang Mai and Sukhothai
So I've hit my first couple spots in Thailand. Chiang Mai was pretty cool. After a while, I was getting templed out, but the markets were interesting and there was a really good cooking school that I took a couple of classes as. I also took a long day tour of the Golden Triangle area where Thailand, Lao, and Myanmar all meet. During the tour we stopped at a couple ethnic villages, although that was pretty commercialized. It's obvious that these villages now see tourism as their primary way of living instead of agriculture. A bunch of the villagers were dressed up in their traditional dress as if it was Halloween and when you took a photo of them they'd come up to you and say "5 baht, money, 5 baht". A bunch of the kids came begging for money, too. And of course there were little shops and stands selling tourist trinkets everywhere. This included not just things made in the village, but a lot of items purchased in the Chiang Rai market for re-sell. I'm glad I was able to see some more genuine small ethnic villages in Laos where tourism has not played such a corrupting influence on the daily lives of people there.
Other than that, Chiang Mai is about what you'd expect for Thailand. Lots of prostitues. Lots of massage parlors. I've found it's pretty hard to distinguish between the legit places and the spots where you get what I call the massage-plus treatment. I walked by a place on my second day there that was inside a big fancy high-rise hotel that marketed itself as a spa and also provided facials and body wraps and such, and also charged about double what most places do. So I figured that's a place where you can just get a really good massage (a massage-minus). So I go in, and about two thirds of the way through I'm being asked "Do you want extra special massage?". Hhhhmmmn, let me think about it.
More disturbingly, there are lots of she-males here. On a couple of occasions I'd be thinking to myself "Hey, that's a nice piece of....WHOA HOLD ON A SECOND THAT'S A DUDE!". I’d then go home and take a shower to symbolically cleanse myself of my thought crime.
I ended up getting some bespoke-tailored clothing in Chiang Mai. I was a little leery of custom tailoring after my experience in Hoi An. I was cruising around temples with some ex investment banker from NY I met (this was the 3rd newly unemployed investment banker that is now traveling the world for an extended period that I met on this trip), and we started a conversation with this guy from Singapore. He had flown in with his wife to visit this one particular tailor, which he said he does every 6 months or so. According to this dude, Chiang Mai has supplanted Bangkok as the custom-tailoring capital of Asia. He was the second guy that day that told me to go there, we figured we might as well check it out. We go, and it seems like they really know what they are talking about, so I order up a sport coat. The next day I go back in for my first fitting, and he's got the base of the jacket laid out with no arms and unfinished lapels, and aside from needing just a tad more space in the arm holes it feels perfect. I come back in on day 2 and the thing fits like a glove, and looks great. So I ended up having him put together an overcoat for me, too. I'm pretty happy with how both turned out. I do regret my choice in fabric on the sport coat a little, though. I was hoping I would get something that would be good for both work and casual, but I think it's not going to be that versatile. It will still be a nice item to have, though. I think that's probably the one limitation of the whole process, is that you have to pick your own fabrics and they have pretty standard suit materials on-hand that don’t work as well for casual clothing. If you want just basic stuff, that's fine, but if you want something more fashion-forward I think you'll need to show up with your own cloth.
Sukhothai was pretty nice. The historic park was really interesting. I rented a bike and tooled around for about 4 hours, in which I was able to cover about everything worth seeing. It worked out well as I was able to get an early start, get back to the hotel and clean up, and catch a long bus ride to Bangkok, which I'm on right now (and being subjected to a painfully bad Thai movie, by the way). This will give me just shy of 5 full days in Bangkok before I have to catch my flight home on Saturday night. This is probably 1 more than I need, but I suppose it will give me ample time to explore the night life and give me some incentive to hook up with some other travelers I can party with.
The food has been good here in Thailand, but it hasn't blown my mind. I've actually preferred much of the Thai food that I've had at home. Maybe that means I'm used to more Americanized stuff. Some of the stuff has been a bit hard on my stomach, too. It's not been uncommon for me to have a mild stomach ache after eating at nice restaurants. I think that it's just the ingredients, not the fact that the food has made me ill. Don't get me wrong, that's happened too. I've spent another few days crapping my guts out and I'm on my second Z-pack and box of immodium for this trip. It's the cost of doing business, as far as I'm concerned. As with Vietnam and Laos, all the best stuff I've had has been street food. To skip out on street food would defeat the point of coming here. Sukhothai has a really vibrant night market, so I hit that last night. I got some unidenfitied pork thing with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and some stir-fried frog with garlic and pepper. Alas, the frog was not as tasty as the ribbit dished I had in Cambodia, but the pork was pretty good. And dessert was off the hook. I went to this little Thai-style crepe stand where they were making sweet crepes with condensed milk drizzled all over it. Killer.
However, there are definitely some things I won't touch. Since I didn't see the deep-fried hairy spiders that are supposedly so common in Cambodia, Thailand appears to be the winner for wierdest food I've seen. Check out the photo of all the deep-fried worms for sale. Eewww.
Other than that, Chiang Mai is about what you'd expect for Thailand. Lots of prostitues. Lots of massage parlors. I've found it's pretty hard to distinguish between the legit places and the spots where you get what I call the massage-plus treatment. I walked by a place on my second day there that was inside a big fancy high-rise hotel that marketed itself as a spa and also provided facials and body wraps and such, and also charged about double what most places do. So I figured that's a place where you can just get a really good massage (a massage-minus). So I go in, and about two thirds of the way through I'm being asked "Do you want extra special massage?". Hhhhmmmn, let me think about it.
More disturbingly, there are lots of she-males here. On a couple of occasions I'd be thinking to myself "Hey, that's a nice piece of....WHOA HOLD ON A SECOND THAT'S A DUDE!". I’d then go home and take a shower to symbolically cleanse myself of my thought crime.
I ended up getting some bespoke-tailored clothing in Chiang Mai. I was a little leery of custom tailoring after my experience in Hoi An. I was cruising around temples with some ex investment banker from NY I met (this was the 3rd newly unemployed investment banker that is now traveling the world for an extended period that I met on this trip), and we started a conversation with this guy from Singapore. He had flown in with his wife to visit this one particular tailor, which he said he does every 6 months or so. According to this dude, Chiang Mai has supplanted Bangkok as the custom-tailoring capital of Asia. He was the second guy that day that told me to go there, we figured we might as well check it out. We go, and it seems like they really know what they are talking about, so I order up a sport coat. The next day I go back in for my first fitting, and he's got the base of the jacket laid out with no arms and unfinished lapels, and aside from needing just a tad more space in the arm holes it feels perfect. I come back in on day 2 and the thing fits like a glove, and looks great. So I ended up having him put together an overcoat for me, too. I'm pretty happy with how both turned out. I do regret my choice in fabric on the sport coat a little, though. I was hoping I would get something that would be good for both work and casual, but I think it's not going to be that versatile. It will still be a nice item to have, though. I think that's probably the one limitation of the whole process, is that you have to pick your own fabrics and they have pretty standard suit materials on-hand that don’t work as well for casual clothing. If you want just basic stuff, that's fine, but if you want something more fashion-forward I think you'll need to show up with your own cloth.
Sukhothai was pretty nice. The historic park was really interesting. I rented a bike and tooled around for about 4 hours, in which I was able to cover about everything worth seeing. It worked out well as I was able to get an early start, get back to the hotel and clean up, and catch a long bus ride to Bangkok, which I'm on right now (and being subjected to a painfully bad Thai movie, by the way). This will give me just shy of 5 full days in Bangkok before I have to catch my flight home on Saturday night. This is probably 1 more than I need, but I suppose it will give me ample time to explore the night life and give me some incentive to hook up with some other travelers I can party with.
The food has been good here in Thailand, but it hasn't blown my mind. I've actually preferred much of the Thai food that I've had at home. Maybe that means I'm used to more Americanized stuff. Some of the stuff has been a bit hard on my stomach, too. It's not been uncommon for me to have a mild stomach ache after eating at nice restaurants. I think that it's just the ingredients, not the fact that the food has made me ill. Don't get me wrong, that's happened too. I've spent another few days crapping my guts out and I'm on my second Z-pack and box of immodium for this trip. It's the cost of doing business, as far as I'm concerned. As with Vietnam and Laos, all the best stuff I've had has been street food. To skip out on street food would defeat the point of coming here. Sukhothai has a really vibrant night market, so I hit that last night. I got some unidenfitied pork thing with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and some stir-fried frog with garlic and pepper. Alas, the frog was not as tasty as the ribbit dished I had in Cambodia, but the pork was pretty good. And dessert was off the hook. I went to this little Thai-style crepe stand where they were making sweet crepes with condensed milk drizzled all over it. Killer.
However, there are definitely some things I won't touch. Since I didn't see the deep-fried hairy spiders that are supposedly so common in Cambodia, Thailand appears to be the winner for wierdest food I've seen. Check out the photo of all the deep-fried worms for sale. Eewww.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thailand Photos
Thailand Photos are going up here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Thailand
Laos Photos
Pictures are syncing now. You can check out Laos photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Laos
Laos
Laos was pretty cool. I spent a day in Vientiane, which was pretty laid-back. There wasn’t a whole lot to see, but I really liked the vibe there. It was great to finally be in a country where somebody isn’t constantly trying to sell me something. If you walk down a busy street in Vietnam or Cambodia about every 15 seconds somebody will try to sell you something. The constant barrage of “Motobike, motobike, you need ride? Where you going?” and “We have best food, you eat here!” and my personal favorite “You need majuana? You want party? You need lady? I have nice lady for you!” really starts to grate on your nerves after a while. Thankfully, there’s none of that in Laos. Every once in a while a guy will offer you a tuk-tuk ride, but you can politely say “no thanks” and they leave you alone rather than following you down the street thinking that if they annoy you enough that you’ll change your mind.
I actually was considering starting a chain of T-shirt stores in Vietnam and Cambodia. I would only sell one shirt in various colors and sizes. Every thing one of them would say in both English and the local language “If I want a room/ a ride/to eat/to buy something/drugs/to pay for sex, I’ll let you know. Now fuck off!!!”. I’d make a killing.
As you can tell I’ve found Laos to be much more relaxing. And while Vientiane was just a pleasant day stop, Luang Prabang was pretty cool. There’s tons of outdoor stuff to do in the surrounding area, as well. I took a long 7-hour hike the second day we were there, visiting a couple small hill-tribe villages on the way. Those were pretty nice as I feel our stops to the villages weren’t staged at all. I’ve gotten the impression from other travelers that similar village stops in more developed and touristy countries like Thailand can be very staged, even to the point of the villages being completely fake Epcott-esque constructions set up to parade tourists through. So I think doing this stuff in Laos was a good call.
Another day I was here I spent the day (well, supposedly I was going to spend the day, in actuality I spent about 3 hours with another 3 hours of waiting around) riding elephants. I signed up for the more hard-core (and expensive) program where you ride the elephants bare-back instead of sitting in a chair they’re saddled with or using some kind of harness. I also some time learning how to mount and dismount the things and steer them. Finally, I went down with all the professional elephant handlers at this sanctuary to give the elephants a bath in the river, which was a blast. Check out the photos as there are lots of nice shots of me giving my elephant a scrub-down. Given the amount of time I was on the elephants the program was pretty expensive, but well worth it. It was without a doubt one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
The food in Laos was just decent. The whole 6 days I was here I never had anything in a restaurant which really impressed me that much. However, there is some really great street-food. I had a couple of great meals in the stands set up on the river in Vientiane, and also had some quite good stuff I picked up on the street with all the night-food stalls in Luang Prabang. In particular, all the grilled stuff is really good. They’ve got lots of whole grilled fish, grilled chickens, little grilled birds with the heads and claws and everything, pork ribs, you name it. And it’s all pretty good. However, my luck unfortunately ran out regarding street food during my stay in Luang Prabang. The second night I was here I ended up crapping my guts out all evening after chowing down on some fruit shakes, some unidentifiable meat thing, and some cold sausages that were very tasty but I think had been sitting out a little too long. I suppose that given all the down-market places without running water in the facility that I’ve been eating at it was bound to happen sooner or later.
I’m on my way to Chiang Mai now. Hopefully, I’ll get my pictures uploaded while I sleep tonight. It’s been a week since I’ve been in a hotel with internet access, so I haven’t had much opportunity to synchronize all my photos. There should be a fair amount of places in Thailand with wifi, so hopefully all the Laos pictures will be up soon.
I actually was considering starting a chain of T-shirt stores in Vietnam and Cambodia. I would only sell one shirt in various colors and sizes. Every thing one of them would say in both English and the local language “If I want a room/ a ride/to eat/to buy something/drugs/to pay for sex, I’ll let you know. Now fuck off!!!”. I’d make a killing.
As you can tell I’ve found Laos to be much more relaxing. And while Vientiane was just a pleasant day stop, Luang Prabang was pretty cool. There’s tons of outdoor stuff to do in the surrounding area, as well. I took a long 7-hour hike the second day we were there, visiting a couple small hill-tribe villages on the way. Those were pretty nice as I feel our stops to the villages weren’t staged at all. I’ve gotten the impression from other travelers that similar village stops in more developed and touristy countries like Thailand can be very staged, even to the point of the villages being completely fake Epcott-esque constructions set up to parade tourists through. So I think doing this stuff in Laos was a good call.
Another day I was here I spent the day (well, supposedly I was going to spend the day, in actuality I spent about 3 hours with another 3 hours of waiting around) riding elephants. I signed up for the more hard-core (and expensive) program where you ride the elephants bare-back instead of sitting in a chair they’re saddled with or using some kind of harness. I also some time learning how to mount and dismount the things and steer them. Finally, I went down with all the professional elephant handlers at this sanctuary to give the elephants a bath in the river, which was a blast. Check out the photos as there are lots of nice shots of me giving my elephant a scrub-down. Given the amount of time I was on the elephants the program was pretty expensive, but well worth it. It was without a doubt one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
The food in Laos was just decent. The whole 6 days I was here I never had anything in a restaurant which really impressed me that much. However, there is some really great street-food. I had a couple of great meals in the stands set up on the river in Vientiane, and also had some quite good stuff I picked up on the street with all the night-food stalls in Luang Prabang. In particular, all the grilled stuff is really good. They’ve got lots of whole grilled fish, grilled chickens, little grilled birds with the heads and claws and everything, pork ribs, you name it. And it’s all pretty good. However, my luck unfortunately ran out regarding street food during my stay in Luang Prabang. The second night I was here I ended up crapping my guts out all evening after chowing down on some fruit shakes, some unidentifiable meat thing, and some cold sausages that were very tasty but I think had been sitting out a little too long. I suppose that given all the down-market places without running water in the facility that I’ve been eating at it was bound to happen sooner or later.
I’m on my way to Chiang Mai now. Hopefully, I’ll get my pictures uploaded while I sleep tonight. It’s been a week since I’ve been in a hotel with internet access, so I haven’t had much opportunity to synchronize all my photos. There should be a fair amount of places in Thailand with wifi, so hopefully all the Laos pictures will be up soon.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Finished with Cambodia
So my time in Cambodia has come and gone. Not including my travel time, I spent a little over a full day in Phnom Penh and 3 and a half days in Siem Reap. The most interesting part of the Phnom Penh was the Royal Palace. I take that back, the most interesting part of Phnom Penh was the fact that it had by far the hottest women I've yet to see on this trip, but after that it was the Royal Palace. The Killing Fields were interesting to see but not all that impactful. They weren't presented with any information that I didn't already know and I didn't have a decent guide to put things into context. It was still definitely worth the trip just to see, though.
All the Angkor temple ruins were pretty fascinating. I hired a private guide and a driver so I could cover as much as possible in the 3 days I had. Even then I thought the guide was holding me back. I can apparently hike a lot faster than he can. Still we got pretty far afield and were able to cover just about everything worth seeing within 50 Km of Siem Reap in the 3 days. I did get gouged a bit by the travel company I arranged this through. When I bought the guide and driver I was given the impression I could extensively customize the tour and wouldn't have to pay that much more to add in additional places. I ended up having to cough up another 70 bucks to see a couple of the things I wanted to that weren't on the standard tour, which pissed me off a bit. The other disadvantage to the private driver was all kids selling souvenirs and other crap converged on me like a swarm of bees when I got out of the car. I can't really blame them. They see a lone guy show up at a temple in a minivan with a driver and a private guide looking like a fucking Maharaja (or Tom Daschle??) and they probably figure (incorrectly) that he's got money to burn.
The Cambodian food is pretty good. It wasn't quite up to Vietnam's standards, but still quite tasty. You can definitely get some wackier stuff there. In the 6 days I was around, I ate some barbequed snake, crocodile, and frogs 3 different times. You can probably tell I liked the frogs. I particularly liked the ribbity soup I had that was filled up with little frog legs, frog bodies, and lemony broth. Yum! They've got tons of seafood. There's a massive lake in the middle of the country that is one of the most productive fresh-water fisheries in the world, so fish is a big part of the diet. It's a good thing, too, since the cows here are so damn skinny.
The one thing I'll be happy to get away from is the dirt. You get expectedly dirty going to the temples, but aside from the ritzy parts right on the river Siem Reap itself is a big dust bowl. And there is trash absolutely EVERYWHERE in Cambodia. I'm not sure if it's because they can't afford proper waste disposal or if it's just a cultural thing, but there was litter all over the place. The people were great and I enjoyed my time, but it will be nice to get somewhere where I don't feel like I need to hose myself down after walking down the street for 20 minutes. I'm on the plane from Siem Reap to Vientiane as I write this, so we'll see if Laos is any better in that regard.
All the Angkor temple ruins were pretty fascinating. I hired a private guide and a driver so I could cover as much as possible in the 3 days I had. Even then I thought the guide was holding me back. I can apparently hike a lot faster than he can. Still we got pretty far afield and were able to cover just about everything worth seeing within 50 Km of Siem Reap in the 3 days. I did get gouged a bit by the travel company I arranged this through. When I bought the guide and driver I was given the impression I could extensively customize the tour and wouldn't have to pay that much more to add in additional places. I ended up having to cough up another 70 bucks to see a couple of the things I wanted to that weren't on the standard tour, which pissed me off a bit. The other disadvantage to the private driver was all kids selling souvenirs and other crap converged on me like a swarm of bees when I got out of the car. I can't really blame them. They see a lone guy show up at a temple in a minivan with a driver and a private guide looking like a fucking Maharaja (or Tom Daschle??) and they probably figure (incorrectly) that he's got money to burn.
The Cambodian food is pretty good. It wasn't quite up to Vietnam's standards, but still quite tasty. You can definitely get some wackier stuff there. In the 6 days I was around, I ate some barbequed snake, crocodile, and frogs 3 different times. You can probably tell I liked the frogs. I particularly liked the ribbity soup I had that was filled up with little frog legs, frog bodies, and lemony broth. Yum! They've got tons of seafood. There's a massive lake in the middle of the country that is one of the most productive fresh-water fisheries in the world, so fish is a big part of the diet. It's a good thing, too, since the cows here are so damn skinny.
The one thing I'll be happy to get away from is the dirt. You get expectedly dirty going to the temples, but aside from the ritzy parts right on the river Siem Reap itself is a big dust bowl. And there is trash absolutely EVERYWHERE in Cambodia. I'm not sure if it's because they can't afford proper waste disposal or if it's just a cultural thing, but there was litter all over the place. The people were great and I enjoyed my time, but it will be nice to get somewhere where I don't feel like I need to hose myself down after walking down the street for 20 minutes. I'm on the plane from Siem Reap to Vientiane as I write this, so we'll see if Laos is any better in that regard.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Cambodia Photos
Hey gang. I've got a new web album where I'm dumping photos from Cambodia. You can access it here: http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Cambodia
I know that none of the pics I've uploaded have descriptions yet. I've got a long bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap tomorrow, and if the road is sufficiently flat to type on my computer while driving I'll try to fill out all the descriptions for botht the Vietnam and Cambodia albums then.
I know that none of the pics I've uploaded have descriptions yet. I've got a long bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap tomorrow, and if the road is sufficiently flat to type on my computer while driving I'll try to fill out all the descriptions for botht the Vietnam and Cambodia albums then.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Wrapping Up Vietnam
So I just spent another few days in Vietnam. The last day in Hanoi was uneventful until the evening. I got out for dinner a bit late, and couldn’t find the restaurant I was planning on eating at. By the time I gave up on trying to find it, I realized almost every other place was closed as well. This is probably my biggest peeve with Vietnam: all the restaurants close so damn early. Even in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, you’re pretty much SOL if you want some good authentic Vietnamese food after 10:00 PM, even on the weekend.
So I started wandering around aimlessly looking for any place were I could get fed something other than pizza and spaghetti (the bullshit tourist places tend to be open later). I saw one place that had a bunch of people in it and the lights were still on (at this point it was around 10:30), and popped in. I asked if they were still open for dinner, and after some guy from the big group of Vietnamese dudes that was filling up the place jumped in to translate I found out that the kitchen was closed. However, the translator guy asked if I’d like to join them. They had a bunch of leftover grub (water buffalo and pork, kick-ass!) and I ended up socializing with them for about an hour and a half. They even ended up picking up the whole tab for the meal over my objections, which I felt particularly bad about since I likely make more money than all eight of those guys put together. It was a really great experience.
After Hanoi, I went to Hue, a medium-sized town on the coast in the middle of the country. They had some tombs from the Vietnamese emperors, and a couple interesting pagodas, but not much else. It was definitely worth the day though, as I went to this dive-y little hole-in-the-wall where I got these lemongrass skewers make out of some kind of pork paste that were served with all the standard Vietnamese accoutrements (rice paper wrappers, sliced unripened baby plantains, bamboo shoots, herbs, and the ubiquitous sweet-sour-spicy dipping sauce). Killer.
I had a tour guide driving me around the city on scooter. This was really essential, as the tombs were 10-15 kilometers outside the city and I had a fair amount to see and had to do it all in just one afternoon. He was a pretty friendly young guy that spoke respectable English so it was a nice time. At around 5:00 I offered to take us both out for a 2nd lunch (well, might have been his first but it was my second). We had a soup cooked with a whole fish (just gutted) with all kinds of great crap like woodear, pineapple, chilis, yadda yadda. After that the guy spent some more time driving me around, doing things like dropping me off and picking me up from a massage, asking me if I’d like to be introduced to any of is Vietnamese lady friends, etc. He actually got a little clingy, so much so that it started to creep me out a little bit, and I ended up ditching out on him in the evening.
After Hue I spent a day and a half in Hoi An, a picturesque old trading port a couple hours to the south. I rented a scooter and went to the beach, but when I tried to part some Vietnamese guys started yelling at me. I never found the right place to park, and after driving around for another 20 minutes the sun went away and it got really windy, so I just drove back to town. I didn’t really want sand up my butt crack anyways, and it was sufficient just to take a scenic scooter ride and check out the beach.
Hoi An is renowned for all the custom tailoring and cobbler work. I spent some time checking out suit and overcoat options, but just ended up ordering a shirt and a pair of custom-made shoes. After the initial sizing and 2 separate fittings the shirt came out pretty good, although in regards to the quality it’s nothing special. If nothing else it will be a good travel shirt (i.e. a shirt that fits really well and looks decent yet I don’t care if it gets trashed) and will come in handy the next 3 weeks.
The shoes were a different story. When I went if for the fitting I saw what he had put together and it wasn’t impressing me very much. I told him I wouldn’t be keeping the shoes and to just keep my 50% down and not bother making any adjustments.
After Hoi An I caught a flight to Saigon. It didn’t impress me all that much. It’s quite metropolitan, and doesn’t have the charm of any of the other places I’ve visited. I took a day tour of the Mekong delta, and that was a bit of a snooze as well. The best part of the tour occurred when the bus was delayed for 90 minutes and we had to kill time in town. I spent it shopping for dress shoes (I brought the wrong dress shoes to wear out at night and was able to get a more appropriate pair for a paltry $15) and skarfing down street-food. I was a little concerned that the street food would give me traveler’s diarrhea and I’d be crapping my guts out during the 6-hour ride bus ride I had the next day, but so far so good.
During the Delta tour I met a guy from Sweden that was also travelling alone. We ended up grabbing dinner and hitting the Saigon bar scene. Unfortunately the normally pervasive Australian backpacker girls weren’t out in force (not the cute ones at any rate), so it ended up being just him and I getting boozy all evening.
Because it wasn’t all that exciting and because I wasn’t able to arrange a half-day cooking class, instead of spending 4 nights/3 days as planned in Saigon I just stuck around for 3 nights and 2 ½ days. Which brings me to where I’m writing the post on the bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh. I should be crossing the border into Cambodia at any time now. It’s probably a good thing, as I already spent 1 more day than I was planning in Vietnam. I should be able to make that day up in Cambodia or Laos so I won’t cut into my Thailand time, though. I’ll let everybody know what the deal is with Cambodia in a few days. I’ll probably just be in Phnom Penh for 1 day and 2 nights, after which I’ll have a long ride to Siem Reap, so it may be pretty soon assuming my hotel in Siem Reap has WiFi.
Now that I’m leaving Vietnam my temporary cell number will no longer work. If you need to get a hold of me urgently, call me on my regular cell number.
So I started wandering around aimlessly looking for any place were I could get fed something other than pizza and spaghetti (the bullshit tourist places tend to be open later). I saw one place that had a bunch of people in it and the lights were still on (at this point it was around 10:30), and popped in. I asked if they were still open for dinner, and after some guy from the big group of Vietnamese dudes that was filling up the place jumped in to translate I found out that the kitchen was closed. However, the translator guy asked if I’d like to join them. They had a bunch of leftover grub (water buffalo and pork, kick-ass!) and I ended up socializing with them for about an hour and a half. They even ended up picking up the whole tab for the meal over my objections, which I felt particularly bad about since I likely make more money than all eight of those guys put together. It was a really great experience.
After Hanoi, I went to Hue, a medium-sized town on the coast in the middle of the country. They had some tombs from the Vietnamese emperors, and a couple interesting pagodas, but not much else. It was definitely worth the day though, as I went to this dive-y little hole-in-the-wall where I got these lemongrass skewers make out of some kind of pork paste that were served with all the standard Vietnamese accoutrements (rice paper wrappers, sliced unripened baby plantains, bamboo shoots, herbs, and the ubiquitous sweet-sour-spicy dipping sauce). Killer.
I had a tour guide driving me around the city on scooter. This was really essential, as the tombs were 10-15 kilometers outside the city and I had a fair amount to see and had to do it all in just one afternoon. He was a pretty friendly young guy that spoke respectable English so it was a nice time. At around 5:00 I offered to take us both out for a 2nd lunch (well, might have been his first but it was my second). We had a soup cooked with a whole fish (just gutted) with all kinds of great crap like woodear, pineapple, chilis, yadda yadda. After that the guy spent some more time driving me around, doing things like dropping me off and picking me up from a massage, asking me if I’d like to be introduced to any of is Vietnamese lady friends, etc. He actually got a little clingy, so much so that it started to creep me out a little bit, and I ended up ditching out on him in the evening.
After Hue I spent a day and a half in Hoi An, a picturesque old trading port a couple hours to the south. I rented a scooter and went to the beach, but when I tried to part some Vietnamese guys started yelling at me. I never found the right place to park, and after driving around for another 20 minutes the sun went away and it got really windy, so I just drove back to town. I didn’t really want sand up my butt crack anyways, and it was sufficient just to take a scenic scooter ride and check out the beach.
Hoi An is renowned for all the custom tailoring and cobbler work. I spent some time checking out suit and overcoat options, but just ended up ordering a shirt and a pair of custom-made shoes. After the initial sizing and 2 separate fittings the shirt came out pretty good, although in regards to the quality it’s nothing special. If nothing else it will be a good travel shirt (i.e. a shirt that fits really well and looks decent yet I don’t care if it gets trashed) and will come in handy the next 3 weeks.
The shoes were a different story. When I went if for the fitting I saw what he had put together and it wasn’t impressing me very much. I told him I wouldn’t be keeping the shoes and to just keep my 50% down and not bother making any adjustments.
After Hoi An I caught a flight to Saigon. It didn’t impress me all that much. It’s quite metropolitan, and doesn’t have the charm of any of the other places I’ve visited. I took a day tour of the Mekong delta, and that was a bit of a snooze as well. The best part of the tour occurred when the bus was delayed for 90 minutes and we had to kill time in town. I spent it shopping for dress shoes (I brought the wrong dress shoes to wear out at night and was able to get a more appropriate pair for a paltry $15) and skarfing down street-food. I was a little concerned that the street food would give me traveler’s diarrhea and I’d be crapping my guts out during the 6-hour ride bus ride I had the next day, but so far so good.
During the Delta tour I met a guy from Sweden that was also travelling alone. We ended up grabbing dinner and hitting the Saigon bar scene. Unfortunately the normally pervasive Australian backpacker girls weren’t out in force (not the cute ones at any rate), so it ended up being just him and I getting boozy all evening.
Because it wasn’t all that exciting and because I wasn’t able to arrange a half-day cooking class, instead of spending 4 nights/3 days as planned in Saigon I just stuck around for 3 nights and 2 ½ days. Which brings me to where I’m writing the post on the bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh. I should be crossing the border into Cambodia at any time now. It’s probably a good thing, as I already spent 1 more day than I was planning in Vietnam. I should be able to make that day up in Cambodia or Laos so I won’t cut into my Thailand time, though. I’ll let everybody know what the deal is with Cambodia in a few days. I’ll probably just be in Phnom Penh for 1 day and 2 nights, after which I’ll have a long ride to Siem Reap, so it may be pretty soon assuming my hotel in Siem Reap has WiFi.
Now that I’m leaving Vietnam my temporary cell number will no longer work. If you need to get a hold of me urgently, call me on my regular cell number.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Hanoi and Halong Bay
Sorry for the delay in getting a first post up here. We were experiencing some technical difficulties on the other side of the planet.
Vietnam kicks ass. Spent the first day in Hanoi checking out a lot of the major sites: the Old Quarter, Haon Kiem Lake, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, blah, blah, blah. The shopping here is killer and outrageously cheap. It's too bad this is the first stop on my trip. I've found all kinds of stash I'd love to buy, but can't schlep all the stuff around with me for another month in my backpack. I also grabbed a nice 60-minute massage that cost me all of $14.
So enough with all the unimportant crap, on to the food. I had the best $18 meal of my life for lunch the fist day here. I had some soup that was made with rice noodles, egg dumplings, whole plantains with the skin still on, and snails. I never would have guessed that skin-on unripe bananas would complement escargots, but I guess that shows you what I know. I also had some spring-roll like things with some sugar-roasted pork, fresh herbs, bamboo shoots, and other veggies. To top it off I had a whole bottle of Vietnamese wine. I know what you're thinking, and yes, it's actual grape wine. Even more surprisingly, it was good! Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't ever mistake it for a Grand Cru white Burgundy, but it was quite pleasant and went fantastically well with all the food. I also got to sample a couple other things. A couple young Vietnamese women were seated across the table from me, and I was chatting them up while eating. I think the saw me eyeballing the food they got and asked if I'd like to try any. Out of politeness I said "Thank you, but I couldn't", and unfortunately they took me literally. So I spent the next half hour forlornly eyeballing the beef stir-fry-like thingy they were hardly touching and hoping they'd offer again. When it became apparent that they were done eating and weren't going to ask again I sheepishly muttered "Um, is that offer to try that still available?". It was. I ate it. It kicked ass.
I spent the next day a half cruising Halong Bay. Words would really not do the place justice, so if you want the low-down on that, just check out the photos. I’ve already got a bunch up at http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Vietnam, so feel free to check them out. We spent a lot of time cruising around, took a brief swim (at least I did, everybody else stayed on board), and visited a floating fishing village in the bay.
Did more kicking around last night, got another massage, and through a course of events that I won’t bother getting into ended up eating water buffalo at this little dive mom-and-pop restaurant with a half dozen Vietnamese guys. I took a cooking class this morning, and will knock around a bit more before heading down to Hue this evening.
BTW - I got a local SIM card for my cell phone. So I'm not currently reachable at my regular number. If anyone needs to text me or call I can be reached at +84 166 6 256 950.
Vietnam kicks ass. Spent the first day in Hanoi checking out a lot of the major sites: the Old Quarter, Haon Kiem Lake, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, blah, blah, blah. The shopping here is killer and outrageously cheap. It's too bad this is the first stop on my trip. I've found all kinds of stash I'd love to buy, but can't schlep all the stuff around with me for another month in my backpack. I also grabbed a nice 60-minute massage that cost me all of $14.
So enough with all the unimportant crap, on to the food. I had the best $18 meal of my life for lunch the fist day here. I had some soup that was made with rice noodles, egg dumplings, whole plantains with the skin still on, and snails. I never would have guessed that skin-on unripe bananas would complement escargots, but I guess that shows you what I know. I also had some spring-roll like things with some sugar-roasted pork, fresh herbs, bamboo shoots, and other veggies. To top it off I had a whole bottle of Vietnamese wine. I know what you're thinking, and yes, it's actual grape wine. Even more surprisingly, it was good! Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't ever mistake it for a Grand Cru white Burgundy, but it was quite pleasant and went fantastically well with all the food. I also got to sample a couple other things. A couple young Vietnamese women were seated across the table from me, and I was chatting them up while eating. I think the saw me eyeballing the food they got and asked if I'd like to try any. Out of politeness I said "Thank you, but I couldn't", and unfortunately they took me literally. So I spent the next half hour forlornly eyeballing the beef stir-fry-like thingy they were hardly touching and hoping they'd offer again. When it became apparent that they were done eating and weren't going to ask again I sheepishly muttered "Um, is that offer to try that still available?". It was. I ate it. It kicked ass.
I spent the next day a half cruising Halong Bay. Words would really not do the place justice, so if you want the low-down on that, just check out the photos. I’ve already got a bunch up at http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Vietnam, so feel free to check them out. We spent a lot of time cruising around, took a brief swim (at least I did, everybody else stayed on board), and visited a floating fishing village in the bay.
Did more kicking around last night, got another massage, and through a course of events that I won’t bother getting into ended up eating water buffalo at this little dive mom-and-pop restaurant with a half dozen Vietnamese guys. I took a cooking class this morning, and will knock around a bit more before heading down to Hue this evening.
BTW - I got a local SIM card for my cell phone. So I'm not currently reachable at my regular number. If anyone needs to text me or call I can be reached at +84 166 6 256 950.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
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