Watch Out World!

2010-10-14T09:16:00.000-06:00

And all good things must pass...

Thanks to all of our faithful readers over the years, we've appreciated everyone of you, but themuths.blogspot.com will soon no longer be updated...

Thankfully, for all news Muth, there is now THEMUTHS.COM!

Our new site is definitely still under construction, but we're moving to Wordpress (like many a former blogspotter, we're enabling our site to be much more functional) which means other writings, musical creations, etc. will soon be featured, and permanently located. We've greatly appreciated how easy-to-use Blogger has been, however it's time to keep up with the times :-)

There's a new post up, featuring plenty of food photos, and more to come soon.

Thanks for everything, and hope you enjoy THEMUTHS.COM!

Peace
A&E

2010-10-01T17:19:00.004-06:00

Having Some Drinks With Our Housemate Jerry

Somehow our week of Spanish lessons has evaporated before our eyes, though moreso before our feet since we've spent plenty of our waking (but non-studying) hours exploring Queretaro. The city is really nice, and generally very easy to get around. We've found a few movie theaters, plenty of beautiful old squares, and even some Asian restaurants (mostly in a modern mall) should we need a dramatic change from the delicious Mexican food:

A Thin-Cut Mexican Steak + Una Cerveza Negra


Anderson Enjoys a "Comidas Corridas" - A Prepared Set Meal for Lunch

Segundo Comidas Corridas

A Late-Night Food Stand Just Down the Street

Yep, pretty much wherever we go to eat es muy fantastico!

We have one more day of Spanish tomorrow, and are planning on going to a free concert by some famous Mexican musician whose name we keep forgetting... she plays guitar and it's supposed to be crazy-packed so it should be an interesting cultural experience. We caught an impressive (and musically much more our style) concert on Wednesday night - we wandered about for the afternoon, met some really nice college students at a local skate-park, had a tasty dinner, and as we emerged from the restaurant a concert literally began in the adjacent square!
No photos, you're going to have use your imagination: set to the b&w film Metropolis, which played on a building wall, three musicians dressed in white body suits played instrumental livetronica. A woman played drums, a steady beat that at times evaporated into the tension of the film, but mostly held together the other instrumentation tightly and confidently. Both the guitarist and bassist also used synthesizers, though their usage was linked to the film: synths were blipped, at times futuristic and bassy yet often subtle and melodic, while the machinery of Metropolis was efficiently trusted and then used in Frankensteinian fashion to resurrect a lost love. When emotion and humanity took over, primarily in the form of chaos and violence, then the organic instruments emerged, maintaining the almost-alien overtones of a future imagined by the past, while also increasing the strength of the low-end and the poignancy of a minor themes. It was a great performance, in a cool setting, and we felt quite lucky to have stumbled into it.
Yesterday we literally wandered ourselves into exhaustion and sore legs, but we saw some parts of the city that we hadn't yet, so our efforts were well worth it!
While we are missing the fantastic microbrews that Colorado spoils us with, there are at least a lot of beers to choose from here, though perhaps not of the widest variety. But pretty much every Mexican beer we're familiar with is available (Corona, Negra Modelo, Pacifico, Tecate, Sol, Dos Equis etc.), but the best new beer we've had is definitely Leon, similar to (and manufactured by) Negra Modelo, but supposedly brewed in the Munich style...

Right now we're just reading in our room, we've both got some Spanish homework and Anderson has vocab cards to make before we go grab some dinner - a typical day :-)

Peace
Anderson & Liz

PS - the Moment of Zen shall be returning shortly... don't think we've forgotten!

PSS - Our cousin Reannon has another India travel article out, this one about our stomach-churning ride from the hill-station of Shimla: #4 - Losing It

2010-09-28T11:16:00.004-06:00

Over the American SW

We've safely made it all the way to Queretaro, Mexico, and it's safe to say it's awesome!
Where to start... the city is clean, narrow stone roads keep traffic speeds low, the people are friendly, the food is delicious and mostly healthy, and it's actually a rather traditional Mexican town - domestic tourists come here but foreign ones do not. Our homestay, run by Conchita and her husband Adon, is wonderful: a nice big room that's cleaned daily, reliable warm water and electricity (though the free internet has yet to be worked out), fantastic breakfast cooked fresh at 7:30 each morning, a hilariously cute dog named Boss, and cute grandchildren that come by in the afternoon. We've met two other guests, one is studying Spanish at another institute while the other is a professor at a nearby university.

Inside Our Room

In the Courtyard

Yesterday was our first day of Spanish lessons, four hours per day for a week, which are included in our TEFL program as a freebie. Our instructor Monica is nice and helpful, teaching almost exclusively in Spanish, but we (well, mostly Anderson) have already learned a bunch of grammar, vocabulary, and useful verbs. For Liz it is the excellent brush-up that she needs, and so far she's been doing a great job at getting us around and communicating when more than "hola" or "si" or "gracias" or "muy bien" is required. There's one other student with us, a nice, older (than us) gentleman from Illinois named Bill, which is great since we didn't really want to be the ONLY ones in class!
Sunday we spent alternating between napping and wandering about the city, hitting up a main square for the final day of Queretaro's Bicentennial Celebration. The park was packed with people, bands played traditional (horn-based) Mexican music, while boys break-danced for donations, food and balloons were for sale, and the festive mood seemed all encompassing. For food we've been exploring the options, but cheap eats include gorditas, tortas (sandwiches), and other taco-esque products. From small shops they cost under $1, which is currently 13 pesos. We did treat ourselves to a lavish seafood meal when we arrived, but even that was only $6 each for either an enormous fish (Liz) or a heaping bowl of mixed seafood soup (Anderson). Beers cost about $2 from restaurants, but are a bit cheaper at corner-shops.

Some Seafood Soup

The ambience throughout town is calm and relaxing, and even during busy times people may be rushing about but they are still friendly and full of smiles.

A Square Downtown

Just a Few of the Churches...

Our journey to Queretaro, though time-consuming, was painless and quite easy - we left Denver Saturday morning, after a long night at Dry Dock Brewery with friends (thanks everyone who came, seriously, it meant a lot to get to see you all one final time before departing), and then had a short flight to LA. Anderson's aunt and uncle hosted us for the afternoon and evening - thanks Dudley and Eleanor - and we also got to see some of our cousins as well. We watched Jack's (our cousin Chad's 6 year-old son) soccer game, had a great Middle Eastern feast, and spent the remaining time in between relaxing, watching college football, and chatting, chatting, chatting. We departed from LAX minutes before midnight, which got us to Mexico City just before 6am, perfect timing for the first bus of the day to Queretaro at 6:30. Other than the bus ticket seller ripping us off for a few bucks - pretty normal really - the bus was great, actually first class as advertised since the seats were comfortable, the ride quiet and smooth, free waters and snacks, and in a drastic change from Asia the bus driver respectfully kept the television volume on mute instead of the usual blasting.
Our school had given us their driver's phone number, so we called him and in about 15 minutes he picked us up, drove us by the school so we knew where it was, and then delivered us to our homestay. It's near a train station so it's very easy to find, but thankfully the trains don't come through all that often so the noise isn't a real problem. Or maybe we're just proficient at sleeping through anything...
The rest of this week should be generally easy, since we are finished with Spanish class by 1pm, but starting next Monday our schedule will double as we'll be at school from 9am to 5pm (albeit with a 2-hour siesta). The class will be challenging for sure, however our instructor seems very nice, as does everyone else that we've met at the school so far.
Unfortunately today our Spanish teacher is sick, so we have the day off, but we're going to meet up with our fellow classmate Bill for lunch and then proceed to do some wandering... plenty of the city still left for us to see!
More news when it happens to us, but we're already eyeing up some Mexican wrestling for next week, and then the local futbol club (in Mexico's top division) will play the Saturday after that. We'll presumably do a bit of adventuring this weekend, since it'll be our only one without any homework, but we've thankfully got a few days to figure out what we'd like to go and do...

Peace
A&E

PS - the Moment of Zen is uploading extremely slowly, unlike the speed of the biting mosquitoes, so you'll just have to wait a bit on that....

2010-09-23T13:29:00.001-06:00

At the Garden of the Gods

At Korean BBQ

Hey hey!

So we're moving forward in Muth-land, as our departure from Denver this Saturday morning rapidly approaches! Today we actually just paid off the balance on our TEFL program, so in just five short days we'll be starting our free Spanish lessons, while in twelve days we will be beginning our TEFL certificate - should be a lot to learn, a good review of things we already know, plus a lot of in-class experience...
We are both done working now - Anderson finished up his job last Thursday, although Liz is still under the gun as she is wrapping up her Personal Trainer certification program before we depart.
We are still house-sitting, though we spent a decent chunk of time the past two days cleaning out Anderson's parents' storage center - good fun :-). That means we've got another two days of dog-sitting before we'll be pet-less for a good long while...

We just survived a busy-but-super-fun weekend, which started off with the Great American Beer Festival on Friday evening. Five hundred breweries, serving over 2000 beers... what more need be said? You should go next year if you can, impossible to regret it.
The GABF was actually only the first part of our evening, as we ended the night closing down a gay bar with all of our sweet dance moves :-)
Saturday was more insanity, in the form of roller derby thanks to the Denver Roller Dolls. It was also our 6th wedding anniversary, and you know how much we love fun! We'd gotten half-price tickets off of the internet beforehand, and once we'd figured out the sport we ended up having a great time cheering our favorite jammers on amidst big blocks and tough hip-checks. There's one more match in October, and our buddy Eric is for sure going since he won free tickets!
From there we checked out Denver's Oktoberfest, held in LoDo near Coors Field, which was a giant street party with over-priced beers and German polka-style music. No GABF, but still a good time...

Sunday we then went up to Mishawaka, an outdoor amphitheater near Fort Collins, to see JJ Grey & MOFRO - rocking southern funky soul music. The venue is beautiful, and might be closed for a while, so it seemed an appropriate moment to check it out - plus it was Joni's birthday so we had to celebrate in style! Style meant a mountain of Beau Jo's pizza afterward, which our bodies are still recovering from :-)
This week has been busy as well, doing chores/jobs for Anderson's parents (clearing out a storage center, gardening, etc.), packing up all of our stuff (OK, haven't really done much of that yet), plus hanging out with all of our friends while we still can. Went up to Boulder last night, fresh beer from Mountain Sun Brewery, and then this Friday we will be at our favorite/local brewery, Dry Dock in Aurora.

We're leaving for Mexico this coming Saturday, the 25th, though we'll spend most of the day enjoying a long layover in LA with Anderson's aunt and uncle - should be a fun final day in America before we fly to Mexico City around midnight... we'll spend Sunday morning riding the bus to Queretaro, meeting our host family, etc. Our free week of Spanish lessons begin on Monday, and then our TEFL course starts the next week, October 4th. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable ESL experience, but we shall see...

Here's your moment of zen, from the Great American Beer Festival:

Wondering about the GABF winners? Yeah, us too: RESULTS

More news soon, probably from south of the border,
Peace
Anderson & Liz

PS - Our cousin Reannon is writing a series of travel articles about her adventures with us in India a few years ago. She's doing a weekly column, of which there are three articles so far. Photos were all taken by Anderson, and she gives a great new perspective on our travels, so feel free to check them out - we'll post more links as she writes them:

#1 - Goodbye Big Apple, Hello Big Adventure
#2 - Overwhelmed and Overheated
#3 - Monkey Trouble

2010-09-03T18:04:00.000-06:00

Why hello there!

Hope you've had a fantastic summer, ours has been busy but very enjoyable, but now the fall is arriving we've only got a few more weeks in the States. That's right, we've actually figured out our plans!
Liz's job at the Census ended last week, and Anderson will be working a few more weeks until the 16th. That will give us a week to wrap things up here, since September 25th is when we're flying out of Denver. We'll be landing in Mexico City, via LAX, but our end destination is actually Queretaro. That's where the Teacher Training Center is, the school through which we'll be taking our one-month TEFL certification program. Just this week we've put down our deposit, so things are finally becoming official and "real." We've had this plan for a while, but if feels great to finally get to put it into action!
So we'll be studying to become more effective (and better accredited) ESL teachers from October 4th through the 29th, but for the week beforehand we also get free Spanish lessons - which is a totally awesome freebie!
After that the plans call for a week at the beach with some friends, probably somewhere near Puerto Vallarta, and then we'll travel across Mexico and then south into Belize. Liz's aunt and uncle have a house there, so we'll stay with them for a bit, around which we'll also be meeting up with our old friend Alan (from Cornell) whom we'll be traveling with. From there the plan is to go to Peru to find ESL work, however a side-trip through Nicaragua will hopefully happen if Anderson's cousin Reannon gets a job there... we shall see :-)
So that's our semi-immediate future... as for current events, lately we've gone to a few concerts: Chromeo, J. Roddy Walston & The Business, and our buddy ScMcD. We've also caught a few more Colorado Rapids soccer games, including a sweet 3-0 victory last weekend (tickets were also free, which never hurts!).
We went for a fun couples camping trip with Scott and Joni a few weeks ago, down to Great Sand Dunes National Park, which is simply amazing. We had a lot of fun, snagged a great campsite, and even the dog we're watching - Cyrus, we're house sitting for his owners - had a great time. Check out the photos - thanks Joni - they're pretty sweet:

Speaking of photos, we've finally gotten a new camera, since our trusty Kodak v610 finally gave out after four years of rough love and global travel. We settled on the Panasonic DMC-ZS5, which we've just received in the mail but haven't gotten to try out yet. If it does as well as its predecessor then we will be happy camera owners for sure... and from the demos/reviews, and its specs, it should take better photos along with HD-video.

Here's your moment of zen - Scott and Joni sand-sledding:

More news to come soon, things will be getting a lot more regular as we get back out on the road again!

Hope all's well,
Peace and much love as always,
A&E

2010-08-08T23:21:00.000-06:00

Alright, so we've been total slackers on the blog, and that basically means that Anderson's been being lazy - thankfully that will all be changing soon since there are going to be some major changes in the Land of The Muths. More details to come, but in the meantime here's a bit of an update:

We've both been keeping very busy with work, which at least partially explains the lack of posts. Liz's job with the US Census, doing admin work, has lasted much longer than initially anticipated - great for our upcoming travel plans! Anderson is still teaching tennis and golf to kids, and has also managed to survive three weeks of summer camp!
Otherwise we've been up to plenty! We've seen a few live shows lately (our friend Collin's band Lick It Ticket most recently, as well as Anderson's co-worker Matt's band The Saurus; we also went to a Brewgrass festival back in June. In the past few weeks we saw the Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum of Nature & Science, participated in a unusual cycling race - the Urban Assault Ride where we finished 21st in Co-Ed and 69th overall, and have been regularly participating in Tuesday night trivia at Legends - we win some sorta prize every third week so we are at least regular contenders!
Anderson has made two music mixes since May, first a reggae mix:

DJ Anderson - Stepping Between Reggae And Dub by DJ Anderson

and just this past week he finished an electro/French house mix:

DJ Anderson - Retro Electro by DJ Anderson

We've also participated in two surprise birthdays this summer: in June we traveled to Wisconsin for Liz's grandmother's 75th, and this past weekend we helped celebrate Anderson's mother's 65th at a local Italian restaurant. Both ladies were surprised, and both evenings were fantastic! While up in Wisconsin we managed to fit in some boating, which luckily also included some tubing:

Speaking of Wisconsin, here's your moment of zen, muskie-style, courtesy of Liz's father Brad:

More news soon, more regular posts, and once we've finalized them the info on our travel plans will be spilled as well... but we're thinking of leaving the US in mid/late September!

Peace
A&E

2010-05-12T23:09:00.001-06:00

Couple things real quick...

Anderson has his first article out on Suite101.com, a recipe for Raja Special, an Indian appetizer. It's pretty delicious, and goes great with beer. To learn more - and so you can hopefully make it yourself - please read the article!
Anderson's review of Metallica's latest album, which was once upon a time on the now defunct SmellsLikeMusic.net, is also now available for reading on Metronome.
For the final Anderson plug (for now at least :-), if you'd care to vote for his Funky Reggae Dub Jam mix he'd greatly appreciate it - 50 votes by next week and he qualifies to win some sweet gear...

Otherwise the work week is plodding along busily for both of us, it's currently snowing here, and we just finished watching the latest season of the Amazing Race.

Thanks for reading as always, somehow this is our 199th post - and we'll soon be at 10,000 visitors - so truly, thanks for spending your time with us,

PEACE
A&E

2010-05-08T19:02:00.000-06:00

Time keeps flying by, and though we "aren't that busy" we are clearly quite busy enough! Of late we've both been working a lot, though we've been doing plenty of fun things in and around Denver as well. When the weather's been nice we've gotten to do some cycling, and now Liz is actually riding to and from work most days as well. She has to take a combination of trails and suburban back-ways, but it's a mostly peaceful 4.5 mile ride. Anderson's been able to check out several of the metro area's disc golf courses, so far Beaver Ranch in Conifer has been the most exciting (whole course is pretty much on a mountaintop), though the local course Expo Park in Aurora isn't too bad at all.

We've also seen several visitors over the past weeks, including Brian (from Iowa), Alan (from Texas) - both of whom joined in on some frigid disc-golfing, and we also got to hang out with Scott's brother Jason and his girlfriend Nicki when they were here. The boys caught a Rockies game (they lost 12-11), while we all spent a night meandering around the 16th Street Mall in LoDo. We've visited a few breweries, including The Great Divide & The Wynkoop. There's one very near our house in Centennial, but we just need to make the time to visit it!

We've become regulars at a local Tuesday trivia night, thanks to Dan's long-time dedication before we arrived, and after weeks of trying hard we finally managed to capture 1st place! The $25 bar tab, already well-spent, was a most excellent and appreciated prize for all of our brain-bending hard-work.

We'll try and get some photos up on here in the near future, for real, though we tragically missed out on our chance to be with the NesQuick Bunny today when we went to the Cinco De Mayo Festival in Civic Park. The tacos were as tasty as anticipated, and we got bags full of free samples, so it was a nice afternoon diversion.

Anderson's going to be doing some miscellaneous article writing for some websites coming up in the very near future, more news and some links soon...

Hope all's going well for you as 2010 flies by - we're planning on the Denver life for at least the summer, but obviously more travel isn't too far off!

Peace
A&E

2010-03-29T17:46:00.000-06:00

So we've already broken our promise about regular blog updates, what horrible State-side bloggers we apparently are!
We are currently living and working in Centennial, Colorado, with Liz working for the US Census doing administrative work while Anderson teaches tennis and golf to children under 10. We plan on working here for a while until we save up enough money for more travel - we're still thinking S. America is next!
Some photos and a more thorough update will come soon, we have been rather busy over the past several weeks... but in the meantime here's some music to soothe your soul: Anderson's brand-new-but-long-overdue music mix!

The Funky Reggae Dub Jam by DJ Anderson

Hope you enjoy the music,
Peace
A&E

2010-02-02T14:46:00.013-07:00

February's struck, as January's disappeared all too quickly... this means our days in Wisconsin are almost finished, since we'll be leaving here this coming Thursday. We're taking the slow (but fun) route home in order to visit a bunch of friends in the MidWest. Our tour will take us through Milwaukee, Chicago, Iowa City, Des Moines and Omaha before we arrive back in Denver just after Valentine's Day. So be on the lookout for some wandering Muths in your neighborhood soon!
This past weekend we went to an indoor water park with Liz's brother and his girlfriend, as well as a bunch of kids of all ages, which was a nice break from the cold and snow. We thought we were only going to have to endure two snowstorms while we were here, but it's been snowing for the last 12 hours or so unfortunately...

We also took a day-trip up to Gordon, a small town where Liz's paternal great-grandfather built the Y-Go-By Bar. We went with both her grandparents, ran into a few other Peets (there's even a Peet Drive a road or two over), took advantage of the dollar beers, and had a grand time drinking the afternoon away:

(from L to R: Grandpa Peet, Great-Uncle Dean, Grandma's "long-term partner" Gary, Grandma)

We've both been focusing on our online education over the past few weeks, with Anderson having just completed his TEFL certificate a few days ago, and Liz about to finish her first class (of five) for her Personal Trainer certificate. Online work is much more flexible than being in the classroom, but it's still quite demanding, time-consuming, and challenging, but thankfully very informative as well.
Our future is still completely up in the air, since we have applied and had a phone interview for the summer resort jobs we want in Alaska, so now we are just waiting to hear back if we've made it to the next round of the hiring process. Regardless of that, we plan on going to South America to travel and teach ESL at some point during 2010, the question is just if it will be late spring/early summer, or not until the late fall. We're aiming to find some semblance of regular employment while out in Colorado, so if you know of something let us know!
There's also a couple of online updates:

Anderson's latest TravelFish article is available HERE called Tubing in the Vang Vieng. It's all about one of SE Asia's biggest - and certainly Laos' only - party spots!
The SE Asian Adventure movie is now streaming:

Other than that it's about time to start cooking some sweet potato pie :-)

Peace
A&E

Here's an old-but-good moment of zen, from the White Desert in Egypt (Oct. 2006):

2010-01-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

After too many hours of work, the movie about our cycling trip is now available for download. It's pretty big (600+ mb), clocks in around 55 minutes, and combines photos, videos, and music. You can download it here:
A SE Asian Adventure
We've also made a DVD, which has some bonus features and some super high-tech menus, but you'll probably have to wait until you see us in person for that!

If there's any downloading problems please let us know, and the file is best viewed using VLC, a free movie player.

Hope you all enjoy it!
Peace
A&E

2010-01-17T18:46:00.007-07:00

2010 - we made it!

We celebrated New Year's Eve outside Minneapolis with some friends, before heading back to Wisconsin on the 1st. We've been busy doing plenty of family things (Malikhi's birthday party, ice-fishing, four boys' basketball games, never-mind three full days of X-Mas festivities), working on our endless lists of things to do, while also trying to relax as much as possible. This past Saturday alone we went to three basketball games!

Last week we drove east to the Upper Peninsula (UP) in Michigan, to help our friend Emily move into a new place near where she's going to school. The UP was cold, windy, snowy, and icy, but overall it seems quite nice, plus we had a fun night out for Liz's 28th birthday - watched the Iowa Hawkeyes beat Georgia Tech, a good game and a big win for our former state of residence's best football team!

The last week or so we've been lounging around (but working hard): Liz has begun her Personal Trainer studies in earnest and is currently reading all about kinetics, while Anderson has finally completed the movie (and DVD) of our SE Asia trip. We'll have the DVD with us wherever we are (and we're ready to watch it plenty of times :-), or you'll soon to be able to download the movie and watch it by your impatient self!
Last night we had a fun couples' night out with Liz's brother Zach and his girlfriend Nikki - hit up a few Rice Lake bars and made the most of their evening without kids. Today we all went ice-fishing on Long Lake, about 30 minutes north-west of Rice Lake, so the kids had a blast getting sled-rides while we older folk fished and chatted the afternoon away. Guess who caught the only fish?

Anderson also has a new story up on TravelFish:

It's called Phonsavan and Luang Prabang and is all about those two Laotian cities, cycling around the Plain of Jars, and even features some late-night bowling... There are four more articles to go in the Cycle Asia series, so keep your eyes peeled for future installments.
More news soon, we've just interviewed for the summer jobs in Alaska we want but won't hear back for several weeks, and we'll have that movie link up here when it's done uploading!

Peace
A&E

Here's your moment of zen: baby Jaksen "shotgunning a beer" :-)

2009-12-24T10:36:00.007-07:00

We've made it all the way up to Wisconsin, 18 hours of driving total from Denver, although we did spend a delightful weekend in Iowa City along the way. Our finale in Colorado was quite fun as well - we met up with some friends and spent a night at the Ameristar Casino in Blackhawk, gambling and meandering until the early morning hours.
Good thing we got to Wisconsin when we did though, since the snow started last night and is reputed not to be finished until Saturday. Definitely going to be a white Christmas, and we'll probably be seeing the same snow until we leave here in late January!
Iowa City was great fun, saw some good friends and a fun show at the Blue Moose Taphouse - our friend Collin rocked it out solo and with his band Lick It Ticket - and ate an abundance of tasty food. Thanks for coming out to IC with us Kate, and thanks for driving over late Sasha, it was really wonderful to see both of you ladies! Special thanks for hosting us Joe & Hannah, perhaps someday we can actually return the favor!
Being home still feels a bit strange and blurry, like we are slightly disconnected from "normal American life" - which is certainly correct. It's hard to re-adjust to a new way of life (anywhere) in only a few weeks. For sure we were born here, speak the language, and have lived primarily in the US during our lives, but the short-term happenings, culture, music, movies, etc. we simply cannot relate to just yet. We're working hard, but we're still more adept at sign-language ordering food, haggling over prices, and riding a bicycle all day then we are at driving a car, buying goods at Western prices (with Western taxes), and understanding every one's conversations that you overhear. Really, we're so used to NOT understanding what people are saying that it feels truly bizarre to be at a restaurant and be able to eavesdrop on the surrounding tables!
Besides the snow, we've seen both Liz's brother and sister, as well as all of their children. Our baby nephew Jaksen is doing well, at 6 months he is already preparing to conquer the world with his cuteness! Our older, but no less cute, niece and nephews spent the night here yesterday, and we'll obviously be spending much more time together over the coming weeks.
We're just working hard on a seemingly endless list of "chores"... Liz is getting ready to start an Advanced Personal Fitness Trainer Certificate, an online course, which is not only a return-to-school test, but more importantly something she's very interested in that has short-term job potential. Part of the program is an internship in Denver once the online studies have been completed, so she's got some time pressure to finish in order to take advantage of the internship while we're still in the States!
Anderson is busy sorting/uploading/organizing photos to assemble a DVD of our trip, while also finishing his TravelFish articles and about a million other projects... plenty of work even when we're unemployed!

Hope everyone out there has a fantastic holiday season, whether your X-Mas is white or downright hot - after two weeks of cold we'd really prefer the latter :-)

Peace
A&E

Here's a five-eyed moment of ~~zen~~ cuteness from Denver:

2009-12-18T12:09:00.002-07:00

There's a new Travelfish article called The Road Less Traveled. It covers our six day ride from Hanoi, Vietnam to Sam Neua, Laos in extensive detail, so check it out when you've got a bit of spare time!

Otherwise we are wrapping things up here in Colorado, were supposed to leave for Iowa today but that's been postponed until tomorrow so that we can give Luke a ride as well. Yesterday was Anderson's parents' 43rd wedding anniversary, so we went out for a nice dinner at a place called The Perfect Landing. Located next to the Centennial Airport, it had a nice view of the incoming planes, as well as totally delicious (and from Tues - Thurs affordable) food. Where else can you dine fancily and enjoy a $10 steak dinner or a $10 bottle of wine?

Our time here has been too short, so our sincere apologies to those friends we haven't gotten a hold of - we'll be back in early February with much more time on our hands! But it's been great being back (despite the cold weather) and we're very glad that we'll be spending a decent amount of time in America in the upcoming future.

Tomorrow then we'll be doing the long-haul drive from Denver to Iowa City, about 12 hours assuming the weather holds up. Tonight we're going to a casino in Blackhawk, our friend Dan has a free room (!), so we'll be starting our journey to the Mid-West early in the morning from the mountains... should be fun!

Be seeing all you Iowa folks real soon, and then by the 22nd or 23rd of December we'll be up in Wisconsin for the holiday season (and several weeks afterward),
Peace
A&E

2009-12-12T16:47:00.007-07:00

We've made it back to America, and are now in the midst of adjusting to "life as normal!" Our three flights, all standby thanks to Anderson's aunt, went well enough, the best part being that we actually got seats on them in the first place. Our Bangkok -> Tokyo flight was super full, so we actually got some of the very last seats, but that was certainly better than missing the flight and having to try again the next morning.
Our last days and night in Bangkok were quite fun, first we got our money back from Fausto for our bicycles just fine, and then we immediately began shopping away! We needed some decent clothing for the airplane ride home, so we took care of that in the somewhat upscale Amarin Plaza, where the bike shop is. We somewhat reversed the typical Saturday and Sunday night agendas, as we chilled out at our hotel on Saturday, but partied it up on Khao San Road on Sunday.
Sunday was a full day, as we spent numerous hours shopping at the massive Chattuchak Market, and against all odds and amongst thousands of people, we somehow managed to meet up with both Blaise (& Eunjin) and Christine. We were all loaded down with shopping bags from our own afternoon of wandering, but we all met up in front of the market, and then had a good (enough) final dinner at some random restaurant. It was nice to catch up on everyone's last week in SE Asia, we all got to spend some time with Eunjin who we've heard so much about, and then we ended our trip in style drinking buckets while sitting on plastic chairs in the street!
Around 2am we headed back to our hotel, loaded up, and then caught a taxi to the airport to begin our 20 hour journey back home. Anderson's mom picked us up at the Denver airport, where it was freezing cold - quite the unfortunate change in weather for us, especially since we've managed to avoid the past three American winters...
Our first few days here in Colorado have been busy but very fun. Some highlights include an afternoon at the Science & History Museum for their Genghis Khan exhibit, seeing our good friend Scott perform at an open mic, and catching up on some videogaming by playing the Wii for an evening.

Yesterday we went up to Fort Collins with Scott & Joni to do a massive brewery tour. We fit in three breweries (New Belgium, Odell's, & Fort Collins), as well as one brewpub (CooperSmith's), in a long afternoon, and in doing so got to sample over twenty-five different beers!

Tonight we're going to check out former Iowans Euforquestra, who are opening up for Kyle Hollingsworth from String Cheese Incident - should be a fun night of good songs and jams (we hope :-)

We'll try not to let the blog nod off as it has before when we're not actually traversing the globe, so please keep checking back for updates (there should be a lot - more TravelFish articles, a DVD of our SE Asian trip, a new mix CD by Dj Anderson, trip photos finally available online, etc.)

Peace
A&E

2009-12-04T23:33:00.010-07:00

The FULL MOON PARTY was definitely a ridiculous over-the-top massive event...
We'll spare you the details :-), but there were thousands of people partying until dawn, pounding club/techno/electronica music until the rain came pouring down the next morning, and more buckets than is really believable. The crowd was a bit too young for its own good, but perhaps that just means we're getting more mature or something equally frightening...

Before the party itself we spent several days enjoying the beach (though there was hardly any sun over all), and each night there was a pre-party of ever increasing intensity. Our bungalow was fantastic, set in a garden setting for only 600 Baht per night. We feel like we really lucked out, other than the mosquitoes that plagued us at night, since many of the places were either over-priced due to the party or just rather dumpy. And we got perhaps the best massage in all of SE Asia from our hotel, for the low low price of only $6!

The beach itself was nice, not too big but not too small, especially when it wasn't littered with last night's bucket straws and glowstick-bracelets. The waves were perfect for body-surfing throughout the afternoon, there was ample room to play frisbee, so it really felt like a slice of paradise despite the rampant over-development that is all around Haad Rin Beach. The island, Ko Pha Ngan, has numerous beaches, but we stuck with the one we were staying at since it met our needs just fine. Plus with the cloudy weather it didn't seem like a good use of time to travel around the island by over-priced truck-taxi... or perhaps we were just delightfully lazy?

Right now we're back in Bangkok, having endured the 19-hour journey of: taxi, boat, bus, bus to get back here... laying low today, hopefully we'll make it to see Fausto and get the money from selling our bikes back to him, but exhaustion is definitely at the forefront for today...

We fly out early Monday morning, so this might be our last post from SE Asia :-(. If so, it's been a fantastic ride (literally, much of the time), thank you so much for reading all about our cycling adventure, and there will be more news posted soon!

Peace, and much love
Anderson & Liz

Here's you moment of Full Moon Party zen:

And here's the Full Moon itself, just to verify that it was all real:

It might have even looked that blurry at certain moments... :-)

2009-11-29T04:46:00.002-07:00

After a minor delay due to some technical difficulties, here's a fresh article on Travelfish, all about Halong Bay in Vietnam. Well-known for its karsts (limestone rock formations that rise majestically out of the ocean), it's quickly on its way to being known as a cycling destination!

Hope you enjoy the article, we just arrived on Ko Pha Ngan, the island in southern Thailand made famous by the Full Moon Party. As convenient coincidence would have it, such a party is fast approaching on December 2nd, so we will be beaching it to the maximum until Asia's most crazed night (and day) of partying arrives - wish us well :-)

Peace
AEL

2009-11-27T20:42:00.003-07:00

We've finally made it back to Bangkok!
After 3103.42 km, our epic cycling adventure has reached the end. Today we will sell our bicycles back to Bike Zone, and then we're heading off to the beach! It's been an amazing journey, both physically and mentally challenging, so a week of sand and sun is just what we deserve :-)
We ended up taking a bus for part of the way from Vientiane, since sections were too long to easily bike (200km, then 150km, for example), which means we 'bought' ourselves some additional travel time. So rather than going to the somewhat nearby Ko Chang, we've decided to head much further south to Ko Pha Ngan, the home of the infamous Full Moon Party.

Many more details on the journey from Vientiane to Bangkok soon, we promise,
Peace
A&E+L

2009-11-24T07:19:00.003-07:00

Just a quick post today, and no photos yet, sorry!
We left Laos this morning, and crossed over into Thailand by the Friendship Bridge. Easiest border-crossing ever, quite possibly, it was fast and efficient with no hassle
The sad news today is that our quintet has now become a trio... Blaise and Christine are currently (we hope) on an overnight bus to Bangkok, as they are skipping the final cycling leg of our journey so that they can partake in some additional traveling before going home - Blaise is heading to Trang and Christine is going to Ko Samet. That leaves us and Luke to cycle the 600+ kilometers to Bangkok (from Vientiane), of which we completed 80km today. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, 140km, but at least the terrain and road conditions are finally in our favor. The land is smooth, no hills really at all, and the road is well-paved, free of debris, and even has a bicycle/scooter lane. Quite the change from small, curvy and rough mountain roads, with animals all about and scooters around every bend...
Our days in Vientiane then were mostly spent relaxing, reminiscing, and enjoying our last days together. It's been a wild and crazy ride (literally), an epic adventure, and a challenging experience for all five of us, and definitely something we will all never forget. Really, how could we?! We did (finally) meet some other cyclists, a group of Chinese students riding from Singapore to Guangzhou, China. Guangzhou is the host of the 2010 Asian Games (a massive sporting event, like the Olympics but for Asian countries only), so while they are riding for fun, they are also working to promote that event, meeting with dignitaries, and while in Laos they were seeing the build-up to the 2009 SE Asian Games, which takes place in Vientiane next month. We showed them a wild night out :-), involving cosmic bowling and some late-night clubbing. It was very fun to meet some like-minded people from across the world, and we wish Edward, Wester, Maple, Won, and all of their teammates a fantastic journey back home - good luck with all the hills in northern Laos!
Vientiane itself wasn't very exciting, honestly the temples of Laos are the weakest of the region, and relaxing in coffee shops is only so exciting, so it worked out well that we had ample distractions to keep us busy while in a rather tame capitol city. That said, we had plenty of fun in Laos in general, it was an amazing country and we learned a lot about its people and history while we there.
So now we're just riding back to Bangkok, not really being tourists for the next week, just self-transporters, but that's fine with us since our days on the trip are numbered... we fly back to the States on Dec. 7th (thanks Aleda!), so less than two weeks remain on our epic odyssey. We should break 3000km tomorrow, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Thailand, which somehow seems very appropriate.

Much love to everyone out there, B & C we miss you already!
Peace
A&E+L

2009-11-18T21:29:00.004-07:00

There's a new Travelfish article called The Hills of Vietnam. It's all about our lengthy day of cycling from Dalat to Nha Trang...

We had another great day tubing yesterday, and will leave for Vientiane tomorrow, planning to make the 150+ km ride in two decent days of cycling, although the terrain will undoubtedly be much more favorable than what we've had to pedal recently.

Then we'll spend a few days in the Laotian capitol before beginning the ride to Bangkok on the 24th. Not sure exactly how long the ride to Bangkok will be, since it's about 500km, but we're hoping we can bang it out in only 5 days since the terrain and roads should both be nice.

Hope you enjoy the article,
Peace
A&E+3

AND ----> here's a much anticipated moment of zen, that has failed to upload several times, but is now finally available for your viewing pleasure:

2009-11-17T08:23:00.020-07:00

We've spent one delightful day tubing, and now two days resting. The first day off was voluntary, as we wanted to use the internet, relax our battered bodies, and spend some time with our friend Brian, another ESL teacher from Korea, who is also chilling in Laos right now. Today however, our non-tubing was forced by the weather, which has been cloudy all day and rainy most of the time as well. Not the best day to float down a somewhat chilly river. So we'll try again tomorrow, aiming to be in the water around noon at the latest. Which should give us plenty of time to enjoy the zip-lines, water slides, and mud volleyball on offer. The first 500 meters of the river are filled with bars, as Vang Vieng has become Laos' sacrificial tourist town. Tubing here is a well-established site on the tourist-trail, especially of the younger-and-partying type of tourist, but we are doing our best despite our old age :-).
First, a few promised pictures of Luang Prabang's many temples:

Plus a cheap vegetarian buffet:

And the local football game we watched:

And Kuang Si waterfall, of course:

The order and civility creates a nice dichotomy with our day spent tubing, doesn't it?

Well, actually, this one might be the most accurate :-)

We plan on spending one more day here, so we'll be going tubing rain or shine, and then riding south to Vientiane hopefully in two long days. While it's 180km, it is at least much more reasonable terrain than the mountains we've ridden through recently, so hopefully we can keep up a decent pace for out last two days of cycling all together. We'll all stay in Laos until November 24th, but that morning we'll split up, as Blaise and Christine are taking the train to Bangkok, while we ride there by bicycle with Luke. The time together has been fantastic, and we're all a bit sad about splitting up, but we have different priorities for how we're spending our last two weeks in SE Asia. We'll be doing five days of cycling, then a day or so in Bangkok to sell our bikes, before heading to Koh Chang, an island only a few hours away from Bangkok. The plan is to stay there for a few days, before returning to Bangkok for another day or two at the massive Chattuchak Market and then fly back home on December 7th.

Right now we're just chilling on our bungalow balcony, listening to some music, debating dinner choices...

Peace
A&E+LBC

Here's your moment of zen, not the intended video one since the connection keeps dropping while uploading, but substituting is the rare Laotian butter-bee:

2009-11-15T23:34:00.002-07:00

Anderson has a new article featured on a different website, ESL Daily, a web news resource for ESL Teachers. It's a "day in the life" article of sorts, about our arduous journey crossing the border from Cambodia into Vietnam. The full article is available at ESL Daily.
Perhaps we forgot to link it on here, but he had another article on ESL Daily last month, you can still read that one here, it's just a brief piece on our trip in general.
A proper post, with details and photos of our exploits here in Vang Vieng, should be appearing soon...

Peace
A&E+3

2009-11-14T21:43:00.004-07:00

We've made it to Vang Vieng, Laos, home of some rather infamous river tubing, amongst other things. This post is from a few days ago, in Luang Prabang. Sorry about the lack of photos, the internet connection is terrible here, but that just means there will be tons of photos next time - as well as a quite awesome moment of zen.

Since we last posted, we did hit the road again on our bicycles, but only briefly before caving to a new-found philosophy of cycle-a-little-less-and-see-a-lot-more. We decided to avoid cycling through another series of monstrous hills in order to spend some more time in Luang Prabang. A UNESCO World Heritage town, filled with active and well-preserved temples, it's definitely a fantastic place. Based on a balance of things to see, things to do, shopping, and variety of food, LP definitely has to rank amongst the top tourist towns we've visited on our journey, if the not the best so far.
From Phonsavan we rode our bicycles 48 km to the town of Ban Nong Tang, more just a collection of houses next to a lake than anything else. Having decided by then that expediting our travel to LP was our main priority, we waited outside a restaurant for about three hours before managing to secure a ride to the next town, Phu Khuon. For another three hours we then bounced around in the back of a large truckbed, at times freezing cold when we weren't in awe of the clear sky and bountiful stars above us.
Phu Khuon is little more than the crossroads for two of Laos' major highways, so other than eat and sleep there wasn't much to do. In the morning we had to change leftover Thai baht for Laos kip since we were essentially out of money, but fortunately that didn't prove to be too much of a problem despite being in a bank-less town. The ride to LP the next morning was pretty enjoyable, full of dazzling scenery and a plethora of mountain bikers. Kind of strange, having been the only people on the road for so long, but now we're on a stretch of road that's very well ridden. In some ways we felt a little inferior hitching a ride, in others we felt superior for having cycled so much terrain already that few others dare to do.
Luang Prabang is a very busy town compared to where we've been staying since Hanoi. So many white people, a multitude of restaurants, and a massive tourist market all seemed overwhelming at first. But 10,000 kip sandwiches, 5,000 kip fruit shakes, and 5,000 kip chocolate banana rotis (that's $2.50 total) are all filling us quite nicely, never-mind the scrumptious spring rolls, abundant baked goods, or the plenty of amazing Asian food available down by the river-side. Our first night we just walked the streets in awe of all the choices, indulged our neglected sweet teeth, and filled up at a cheap vegetarian buffet (5,000 kip).
For our second day here we did a walking tour of all the temples, which are completely integrated with the rest of the town's architecture. A block full of hotels and restaurants often holds a large unassuming temple within it as well, home to monks who turn musical at dusk as well as ornate paintings and statuary. The temples are all well-maintained, and surprisingly free of sellers and beggars – these are revered places of worship in the morning time, but they retain that atmosphere to a degree throughout the entire day. The evening was spent wandering around again, before engaging in a well-known local tradition: bowling. The government of Laos maintains a curfew, so the streets must be empty by midnight, and all businesses must be closed by 11:30 or 12:00 at the absolute latest. However, the bowling alley apparently pays off the local police, and since it is several kilometers outside of town, is allowed to stay open until 3am. So the late-night LP party scene exists solely at a noisy bowling alley, selling Beer Laos and microwave popcorn to a rowdy mix of tourists and locals, all bowling their best :-). We were actually terrible, no one even broke 100 in the first game, but we were there for the delightful change of pace more than anything – we go from spending days in a crazy city to spending weeks on the road in rural settings where the entire province shuts down within hours of the sun setting.
Yesterday involved checking out a local football game, enjoyable yet under-attended: we were the only fans present when the match started, but others came slowly drifting in. We also took care of a lot of “business” on the internet, figuring out the rest of our route and time schedule while in Laos, etc. Today we're going to hit up a waterfall about 35km outside of town, it's supposed to be pretty fantastically fun - we'll find out shortly!

More news when there's better net,
Peace
A&E+3 (for only a short while longer, we're splitting up in just over a week :-(

2009-11-07T06:39:00.018-07:00

From Sam Neua to Phonsavan, just another few days in Laos, eh?

In addition to some delicious Indian food, we found at least one other distraction in Sam Neua, since the temple and weaving/handicraft stores were both letdowns.

The temple was, well, lame, with cell-phone chatting monks and amateur paintings, and the shops were overpriced with somewhat generic goods. But at least the hot springs, 17km (and a $25 round-trip songthaew ride) outside of town, were therapeutic and relaxing – if not the most clean/pure. For 5,000 kip (under $1) we could hardly complain, and it seemed all and all that we were in a way foolish tourists for even bathing in the large outdoor tank – with a rock bottom and plenty of floating algae, it wasn't exactly paradise – since the indoor bathtubs had perfect clean water pumped into them for a more sanitary bathing experience! Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time amidst the rice fields greatly, got our soak on, and even shared our ride bank with a few thankful villagers.

The next morning we rode off, we as in the two of us, since everyone else opted to take the bus to Nam Neun (that's pronounced Nu-un), leaving before 7am since we had 100km of hills ahead of us. Sam Neua was chilly, as in almost frigid, when we left, with clouds sitting all about and dew quickly appearing upon our sleeves.

But the hills couldn't stop us, even as the clouds melted away in what all-too-quickly became the noon-time heat.

Kilometers passed, slowly and steadily, even when our friends flew by in a speeding bus.

Thankfully we'd bought snacks the night before, as we never saw a 'proper' restaurant the entire time, though 55km into the ride we at least stopped at a store that served us some plain ramen noodles. At least they were cheap at 3000 kip, even if they were far from appetizing or filling after the 5 hours on the bicycle that we'd already completed. If only we'd known the real adventure was just ahead of us, we might have ordered a second helping.

We'd read (thanks Lonely Planet), about a place called the Sin Huan Archeological Park, described as “better than it sounds,” which lay 6km off the main road. Compared to Stonehenge, and of the same time period as Phonsavan's famous Plain of Jars, it sounded intriguing and worth a look. As we set off on our cycles, the dirt road quickly gave way to rock, gravel, and an insane uphill, and our interest turned to despair. Thankfully we were able to grab a ride from a passing truck, which took us the remaining 4km up the rutted, bouncy, and un-cyclable path, before dropping us off at the ruins.

They were ruined, that's for sure, just a bunch of rocks sticking un-impressively out of the ground, jutting out at random angles in small groups.

Even taking strategic photos couldn't quite make them appear dazzling, and their close proximity to large circular burial 'covers' – like large rock manholes – did little too enliven the scene. A lost calf, mooing helplessly and too overcome by fear to let us get near it, proved more exciting, and almost more photogenic, than the stones left over from Laos' distant past. We're tolerant folks, but this was disappointing, and given the arduous journey it took to visit, quite a bit frustrated as well.

Fortunately luck was on our side, as approaching from the other side was a kindly English-speaking Laotian tourist, on a business trip with his wife but stopping by Sin Huan for a photo op. He gave us a ride back to the main road in the back of his pickup truck, ourselves and our bicycles both bouncing high the entire time, but at least we didn't waste TOO much of our afternoon trudging along the awful red-dirt roads of rural Laos in search of some ancient excitement that was nowhere to be found. Apparently the sites have been nominated for World Heritage status, but if anyone at UNESCO is reading this (we're sure most members are), there's more exciting stuff out there in the world, we promise!
Back on the road, all was well for a few more hours, as the hills went up and down along with our gear shifting. Then, as afternoon turned to evening, a monster hill appeared, one that simply would not end. We even stopped for our fourth snack of the day – Laughing Cow cheese, Larabars, and snack cakes are amazingly filling – and yet the road would not stop twisting ever skyward.

Finally we reached the top, as sunset turned the mountaintops crimson red, which meant we (once again) had to dutifully don our headlamps for a downhill wasted by darkness. Twelve kilometers later, after a stop in a village for water and to verify that the road actually kept going downwards, we finally ended up in Nam Neun, but what should have taken 15 minutes in the light ended up taking almost 45 as we had to grip our brakes tightly out of fear of going off of the road. But at least we made it, intact, our friends had a room ready for us, and unlike their dinner ours was actually delicious. Grilled boar meat, fresh foe (as in pho of Vietnamese fame), plus a warm milk carton filled us up right, in time to get back to our hotel with a few minutes to spare before they turned the generator off for the night.
Now we're in Phonsavan, to get here we opted to take a four hour songthaew ride instead of spend two hours cycling through even more relentless hills. So we sped over the mountains, while occasionally choking on exhaust fumes, to a more tourist-friendly town, or at least strip of hotels, restaurants, and shops. Yesterday, after eating some shoddy pizza, we watched a pair of documentaries about UXO and MAG – unexploded ordinance (as in bombs dropped by the USA during the secret war in Laos) and a fantastic charity respectively – before eating more food, drinking more Beer Lao, and then heading off to bed.

Today we cycled about 50km, on mostly flat ground – although plenty of that was on dusty dirt roads – and without any of our baggage, which was relatively easy and fun since it was interspersed with cool archeological remains of the large stone jar variety.

We saw two of the three major Plain of Jars sites, one can really only stare at so many large stone jars before redundancy and non-appreciation set in, both of which were pretty spectacular.

The origins and purpose of the massive containers, mostly intact despite a war being fought on the same plain in the 1970s, are essentially unknown.

Maybe they were funerary, or perhaps storage containers for either rice wine (lao lao) or water for travelers along an ancient trade route.

We just got back from eating some amazing, and amazingly spicy, Indian food, so the rest of the night will be spent relaxing in various forms before hitting the road again tomorrow morning. Currently we're relaxing in almost total darkness since the power has been out all day, but supposedly that situation should be changing in the near future...

More news when it's fit to print,
Peace
A&E+LBC

Here's a moment of zen courtesy of Luke:

And another from some rural Laotian women:

2009-11-06T08:03:00.002-07:00

After a week off, here's a fresh article on Travelfish, all about Saigon and some multiple aspects of 'cycling.' Hope you enjoy it, definitely has a bit more humor than usual...

Otherwise, we are in Phonsavan, Laos, home of the Plain of Jars. We'll be checking that out tomorrow, before getting back on our bicycles to head to Luang Prabang. Look for a 'real' post in the near future, until then...

Peace
A&E+3

2009-11-04T06:26:00.015-07:00

Been a while since we've blogged we know, but while we can easily blame the lack of available internet, the exhausting terrain that we've covered over the last week is equally responsible. Most nights of late we have simply eaten and then gone to bed, only to arise early the next morning and begin pedaling again.

Gone are the days of flat terrain and 20km+/hr, now we climb mountains up to 2000 meters, average about 14km/hr if we are lucky, and have to push our bodies to their outer limits to merely reach our intended destinations.

Our journey has taken us from Hanoi → Hoa Binh (75.81km), Hoa Binh → Mai Chau (65.35km), Mai Chau → Ba Thouc (62.74km), Ba Thouc → Na Meo (102.58km), and that was all just to get to the border of Laos! The quality and value of hotels has definitely decreased along the way, though the kindness of the people and the jaw-dropping-ness of the scenery has also significantly increased.

Only the first day of the four days of travel through north-western Vietnam was mostly flat, with the size and volume of massive hills increasing by the day.

By far the most draining, both mentally and physically, was the 100km+ journey to the border at Na Meo: we began cycling shortly after 8am and didn't finish until an hour after dark around 7pm. While our headlamps helped light the way somewhat, it was far from a triumphant finish. The day before, when we traveled to Ba Thouc, also ended in darkness, though that was at least somewhat our fault, as in choosing to follow a sign and local advice, rather than the major highway, we ended up on an extreme anti-shortcut.

That meant that for about 50km we were stuck truly mountain-biking on a rocky dirt-path, primarily used for bamboo logging, cutting through isolated villages in a hidden and majestic valley.

Downside was that the terrain took a definite toll on our bodies and bicycles, several of us had sore wrists from all the shaking, and Anderson's bicycle rack actually broke in three places from all the pressure.

It's still useable, but only after using a few zip-ties to reconnect everything! We've also managed to squeeze in a quick dip in a river, and spy on plenty of other river life as well...

Crossing the border (Na Meo in Vietnam/ Nam Xoi in Laos), besides being time-consuming (around 1.5 hours) and expensive ($40 for Americans, $42 for Canadians), was a hassle-free process. On the Vietnam side we did have to get our bags x-rayed, though at least they chose not to actually search through any of our belongings, and on the Laos side we had to pay 2000kip (about 25 cents) for a medical exam which consisted solely of a temperature scan of our heads. After much waiting, and filling numerous forms out, we at last received our Laos visas, and so long as we walked our bicycles across the border, we were at last able to enter Laos.

We'd exchanged US dollars (obtained at a bank in Hanoi) for stacks of kip in Na Meo before we left Vietnam, as Laos obviously does not accept Vietnamese dong. Everywhere dollars (and traveler's checks) are usable, and Thai baht is an acceptable currency as well – which is good since we have some of those left from Thailand – but while Laos does have ATMs they are relatively scarce outside of the major cities and charge a hefty surcharge as well. So we'll be mostly cashing our remaining traveler's checks, since paying $2 for every $70 we withdraw from an ATM is not exactly a good deal.

From the border we then proceeded up into the hills of Laos, which are not all that different from the hills of Vietnam (obviously). They are filled with high mountains, beautiful valleys full of farms and villages, and plenty of limestone karsts. Our first day in Laos, Na Meo → Vieng Xay (58.96km) involved the toughest mountain we have climbed yet, with several sections signposted at a 12% grade, which took what seemed like forever. Again yesterday, Vieng Xay → Sam Neua (30.36km) we had a massive hill, totaling around 3km of straight uphill travel, but at least the overall ride was short and relatively relaxing. The reality is that while the hills are gargantuan and time-consuming, they are almost more challenging mentally than physically, since with our bicycles dropped down to a very low gear (1-1 these days with our weary legs), the pedaling isn't really so challenging in itself, but the sheer amount of repetition, combined with the minimal ground covered per pedal, makes for quite the challenge. But the feeling of victory, short as it may be, when we reach the top is practically incomparable, though we can only rest so long before we start to get cold. But then there's a massive downhill reward, which is as exhilarating as the ascent is exhausting. Flying down mountains, with our hands on our brakes to maintain control, the kilometers pass by as quickly as our sweat disappears.
Laos is definitely, at least this far north and at such high elevation, quite chilly in the shade during the day, and cold everywhere at night. We've had to dig out out cold weather gear, stowed at the bottom of our bags until now, and the vast majority of the local people are wearing pants and hooded sweatshirts.
Today then, is a much needed day of relaxation and rest for our weary bodies, and then tomorrow we'll be back on the road, traveling to Nam Neun, about 100km away. Sounds fun...

Internet access, and the terrain, should be more favorable within a few days when we arrive in Phonsavan, home to the famous Plain of Jars. Until then,

Peace
A&E+3

And now for your moment of zen:

2009-10-27T00:59:00.023-06:00

This was written two short days ago, just didn't have internet to post it on our way back to Hanoi. Tonight we are celebrating Blaise's 23rd birthday (technically it starts at midnight), and are mentally preparing for our departure towards Laos.

We've made it to Halong Bay, or rather the Bai Chay district in Halong City, and are currently relaxing in our hotel. We've had a few varied days since the last post, starting off with the Thang Long Puppet Theatre and concluding most recently with a Halong Bay boat tour. As for the show, the entire performance took place in the water, with a wide variety of puppets – human, animal, and supernatural – all part of a traditional Vietnamese legend. To the side of the aquatic stage were a group of musicians and singers, who provided both the music and the characters' voices. Overall, despite it being their fifth performance of the day, the cast was quite enthusiastic and seemed genuine. There's plenty more information about the art form, and a photo of the theatre on that magical source of information Wikipedia.

Our final day in Hanoi was somewhat business-oriented, as our main priority was getting more pages put into our passports. The US Embassy offered the service for free, so the only cost was the moto rides we took through the city (we opted for non-bicycle transportation for ease and a change of pace). After picking up our passports we also did a little sight-seeing at both Van Mieu (Temple of Literature) and the One Pillar Pagoda (literally a photo-op).

We also got some much-needed chain lube delivered for our bicycles – here they only use motorcycle oil which it too thick and nasty for our sweet rides.

Speaking of our bikes, the two-day 160km ride from Hanoi to Halong City went by rather quickly since the road is smooth and slightly downhill. We had some minor difficulties actually getting out of the city, not only was it a bit complicated to find the road we wanted (ended up taking a parallel highway, so it all worked out), but we also had some bicycle issues to start the day. Just derailleur and brake issues, nothing major :-), and thankfully Blaise is a skilled mechanic!
Due to a lack of hotel options in Sau Do, the town roughly half-way through our journey, we had to stay at a somewhat sketchy place that also offered massage, but our room itself was more than reasonable. Everything in Sau Do was cheap, our dinner of pho and a Bia Ha Noi on ice was only 30,000 Dong, and our breakfast was such a good deal we had to have the seller write down the price so we could actually believe her. For 8 omelet-sandwiches (Liz eats hers without the egg, of course) and 5 coffees the total bill was 70,000 Dong, around $4 for all five us to get nice and full. At first we thought she meant 70,000 Dong each, with seemed ridiculously high, and we're obviously unsure what exactly she thought was going on inside our brains, but it all got sorted out with smiles all around. The fresh fruit – apples, pomegranates, and plums – were also delicious, completely one of our most well-rounded and tasty breakfasts yet. Our second day of riding, which ended up totaling 90km, was supposed to be about 12km shorter, but we took a bit of a wrong turn. We misread our map when we were quite close to Halong City, and took an island just off the shore, which was accessible by a bridge, as Cat Ba Island, home to a national park and a small town with hotels and tourist amenities.

Turned out, after we'd cycled across most of the island, failed to find anything even resembling an affordable hotel, and examined the port in detail, that we were actually on Tuan Chao Island!
That meant we got to arrive in Bai Chay, the tourist-side (with hotels and seafood restaurants) of Halong City, in the dark instead of before sunset. It seems we almost always arrive at a hotel either in the dark or soaking wet, so in general darkness is the preferable choice. There is an entire block, called Vuong Dao, of hotels here, which worked to our advantage as we were able to get nice, clean rooms for a low-price. At least there was still plenty of seafood waiting for us:

Today then, was a day of uber-touristing, since we only allotted ourselves two nights in Halong Bay. We ended up splitting up, with us and Blaise opting for an afternoon day tour, while Luke & Christine are staying overnight on a boat. We'll meet up again at noon tomorrow, and then cycle half the distance back to Hanoi. This is the only time we've had to retrace our path, but we all want to focus more on cycling, and are sick of having bicycle problems created by bus rides. The hills of Laos may prove tortuous, but until then we are still craving more riding days than bus-riding days. If all works out as we hope, we will not have to take any alternate transportation throughout Laos, but obviously we have no idea what may happen...

Halong Bay was simply amazing, seemingly infinite limestone karsts emerging from the blue-green water amidst a subtle fog.

Junks and other tourist boats were numerous, all lazing along through the water. We stopped at a floating village, where seafood was being farmed and girls were selling fresh fruit from boats.

Everywhere the scenery was impressively jaw-dropping, every angle was so interesting we didn't really know when to stop taking pictures!

We have obviously been fortunate enough to see many natural wonders of the world, but Halong Bay is certainly near the top of the list, well worthy of its UNESCO World Heritage status.

We negotiated a cheap ride on a boat that was dropping a group of tourists off at Cat Ba island, the place we'd incorrectly thought we were yesterday, so we ended up with the top deck to ourselves on the way to the island, and the entire boat to ourselves on the way back. We'd actually tried to book a private boat earlier in the day, but when we returned after lunch the guy we'd talked to had disappeared, but it all worked out as that was pretty much what we got.

And our crew were low-key and friendly, even sharing some of their banana moonshine with us.

Tonight is just relaxing, we're going to go out for a(nother) seafood dinner soon, and maybe watch a movie later, but in the meantime Nat Geo is providing sufficient entertainment/background noise...

Peace
A&E+3

And now for your moment of zen:

Yes, that is weasel coffee you see... eaten, digested, and excreted by 'special' Vietnamese weasels, which makes the coffee smoother and more deliciouser, or something.

2009-10-22T04:34:00.014-06:00

The newest article up on Travelfish is entitled Confessions Of A 'Cheating' Cyclist. It goes into some depth about all of the unexpected factors we've encountered while cycling.

We've bounced from Hue all the way up to Hanoi, and while we'll be here for at least another day or two, there's one final Vietnamese H-Town in our future: Halong Bay. The good news is that we should be done with bumpy buses, and are ready for tackling a massive leg of cycling. Thus far we've done about 1600km over the past 10 weeks, we'll cover the same distance in the next four. So the intensity is definitely getting cranked up a few notches!
Our cycling plans from Danang to Hue earlier in the week were actually psyched out by the gray and rainy skies. We'd done too much weather-oriented internet research the night before, and the forecast seemed to signal an inevitable downpour, so we thought we were being wise by cramming ourselves into a packed minibus rather than going for a long day of riding. Of course it didn't rain a drop until darkness fell in Hue! Plus the bus ride was tremendously bad, as were packed in tight in tiny seats with no leg room whatsoever for over three hours and our bikes were roughly manhandled. But hindsight aside, we thought we made the best decision we could and it turned out we were wrong.

Hue was at least a decent enough place to be, we spent a fun afternoon exploring its ancient citadel before getting rained on.

We posed for a few group photos, stared at some military equipment recovered from the American enemy, and checked out some pricy art galleries.

The two of us then went to a cultural performance, featuring traditional music and dance, which was short and sweet but pretty interesting. Highlights included a 'dance for the king' with Chinese dragons giving birth and a cheerleader-style pyramid formed in the dark except for strategically placed glowing lanterns. Pictures and a video will undoubtedly due more justice than that horrid description:

We also enjoyed an Imperial Dinner, a romantic multi-course feast that was elegant and delicious. While it wasn't quite up to par with a similar dinner we ate in Korea, it was also a fraction of the cost. And the Dalat wine we had nicely completed the meal.

Otherwise in Hue we were mostly just ready to move onwards, as we are feeling a bit of traveler's malaise at the current moment. It's hard being on the road for this long, and it's frustrating that we aren't able to cycle quite as much as we'd like. The sheer size of Vietnam has meant we've had to ride many more buses than desired, and there really isn't much we can do about that fact. Plus, to be honest, what we are seeing right now is generally a tad boring, and the gloomy weather certainly doesn't help. While we are still enjoying ourselves, we cannot wait for the focus to return to cycling, and our current somewhat aimless wandering to be replaced by more solid adventure. We don't really know what to expect in Laos, other than that we've heard great things from many people, but we are all ready for a change. At least Halong Bay should be enjoyable, as it is a beautiful and scenic location, but following that we will be beginning a stretch of about twelve days of hard cycling en route to Luang Prabang, Laos. We'll make a stop outside Phonsovan for a day to see the Plain of Jars, but other than it's a lot of time in the saddle.

Hanoi so far has been pretty nice, after arriving here via a more than reasonable overnight sleeper bus, we spent today walking through the Old Town.

Full of old buildings and an active populace, the tourist shops seemed balanced out by 'real' stores. We are also staying near a large lake and a nice park:

Tonight we are going to see a traditional Water Puppet Theater, which is supposed to be most impressive. We're ready to be impressed...

Tomorrow will be spent here again, and then presumably the next day we will ride for Halong Bay, a two-day journey.

More soon,
Peace
A&E+3

Here's your moment of zen, from Hue:

2009-10-16T05:42:00.014-06:00

New article up on Travelfish, all about exploring the ancient glories of Angkor by bicycle.

Karaoke and dragons, how could we forget?

There were some fantastic other performances as well (Liz doing “Hit Me Baby One More Time” for example), but the group finale was certainly a great highlight!

Back on our first night in Dalat, we ended up having perfect timing, as we arrived in town for the annual Full Moon Festival. Of course we didn't quite know that, so we literally stumbled into a massive celebration while wandering around after dinner, and were quite impressed with what we saw. Dragons en masse, with accompanying bands of percussion, though all children. It was definitely a night of fun for the entire community, so as just about the only foreigners around, we were just fortunate to watch it. For hours dragons shook their best, drums banging loudly behind them, with crowds packed in thick on all sides. Balloons were for sale, excitement was in the air, and at times the dragons even breathed fire. Enjoy all the videos, we definitely enjoyed watching them “in real life.”

Catching up to now, we've spent the past two nights in Hoi An. Before that our two day in Quy Nhon were enjoyable and relaxing, as was the ride there (well, it was also long, hot, and hilly).

Beach time was the main priority, though Anderson managed to fit in a brief tour of the town as well.

The bus ride, which we thought had to take us to Danang, resulted in us and our bicycles being dropped off at a random junction, literally in the middle of the road, 10km outside of Hoi An.

Renowned for its “Old Town,” there's also plenty of tourist crap available for sale in this town “that oozes charm” according to the guidebook. So even while wandering amongst 19th century buildings that somehow survived the Vietnam War, we're constantly offered $2 t-shirts, $10 custom-made pants, cheap shoes, or lacquered goods for varying prices. The buildings are indeed unique and interesting, and the shopping was also more exciting than usual, too – none of us managed to escape without spending more than a few Dong!

We stayed at a somewhat fancy hotel, complete with a swimming pool, free cocktail hour (more like adult-smoothies), and a breakfast buffet. All that for $10 each per night, yet for our budget that still counts as living it up :-). We have all reunited, although finding Blaise on Hoi An's endless main drag took us a bit of time, but it all worked out in the end.
Today actually ended up being a rather hilarious day, due to us being a bit overly assumptive. We planned on cycling from Hoi An north up to Hue, about 100km or so – a long day of riding for sure. We got a bit of a late start, due to both the desire to sleep in and needing to pick up some last-minute tailored clothes. Oh, and it kept pouring rain, so loud it awoke us even before the alarm went off. But the weather managed to cooperate, so around 11am we finally took off, riding along the coastal road as we were advised. The beaches between Hoi An and Danang were recently mangled by a storm, so they certainly didn't look very nice, with displaced sand, top-less palm-trees, and damaged buildings everywhere. But the ride was nice enough, and as we skirted Danang and headed up into the hills, an enormous Buddha statue, along with dark skies, beckoned us onwards.

There was lots of road construction, and the hills were steep, so after a while we stopped for some lunch, finding a nice restaurant down by the ocean. The seafood was great, and very affordable since it was not a Westernized place. Refueled, we continued to ride along the coast, curving along the hilly road. Then disaster struck: the road ended, amidst piles of rocks and trucks moving dirt...
Apparently we'd missed a turn just past Danang, which would have taken us back to the main highway and onward to Hue. But, given how late it had gotten, going any further was foolish, so we backtracked the 11km we'd ridden past Danang, thankfully now mostly downhill, though we weren't able to beat the down-pouring rain. Cycling through the entire area outside of town took a while in itself, and there ended up being a total lack of hotels. So we headed towards the city center, the big building towering over everything serving as an easy landmark. While riding across the Song Han bridge, the monsoon finally arrived in full force, conveniently within one kilometer of the main hotel district. So we got soaked, had a bit of a hassle finding an affordable hotel, but ended up at the funnily named Golden Gate II, dripping water all over their floors despite our best efforts.
Now we're just relaxing, in our fourth floor hotel room, the corner office with a view over some of the soggy streets, as the rain continues to pour down relentlessly. We'll try for Hue again tomorrow, should be about 60km now, and we'll make sure to ask for directions a bit more frequently this time around!

Hope you are less wet than we are,
Peace
A&E+3

Here's your moment of zen, the contents of Liz's fully loaded handlebar bag:

2009-10-11T02:47:00.022-06:00

It's been a few days, evidently, since there's oodles of things to update you all on.

We arrived in Dalat, a former French hill station town set up in Vietnam's Central Highlands, late in the day after numerous hours on the bus from Saigon. The cool air was a delightful contrast to the Asian heat we've grown oh-so-adjusted to over the past months, perhaps explaining our good mood despite the long ride. Dalat is a sprawling town, with rambling roads, so we were still adjusting our bearings when a hotel tout approached. Maybe it was because he was the only option and we weren't sure where we were going anyways, though his excellent English probably didn't hurt either, but we decided his $5/person rooms were at least worth a look. Thankfully, given the high hill we had to ascend, The Pink House proved quite nice indeed, and so that's where we spent the next few nights.
Our first day was pretty much a wash, literally, since our sleeping in combined with the monsoon rains to cover pretty much the whole day. But at least we managed to locate a tasty vegetarian restaurant, much to Luke's delight.

Take Two, the next morning, proved slightly more successful as we managed to see both Bao Dai's mansion and Hang Nga Crazy House.

Funny names for sure, but BD was a former Emperor, and the Crazy House, built by the daughter of a former president, was certainly aptly named. The highlight of the former was the regal costumes for rent – though why Anderson's was so short will be an eternal mystery.

The latter, also a functioning hotel, had plenty of gaudy kitsch and concrete to satisfy the apparent needs of domestic tourists while bewildering we foreign folk. Then the rain came again, pounding us into a nearby bakery for lunch.
A very nice thing about Vietnam is the abundant bakeries. Vietnamese food is a tad simple: rice, noodles, or noodle soup (the ubiquitous pho) are the mainstays, but thanks to baked goods being so common there are also sandwich shops on almost every street corner. We have the French to thank (about time that happened about something :-), since they brought baguettes and croissants here, amongst other tasty morsels. This particular bakery also had a full restaurant, including relative rarities such as 'macaroni & cheese' and a very small 'hamburger.'

Throw in some above-average fruit shakes, and we had a veritable culinary party despite (or rather because) of the bad weather.
That night, everyone but Anderson (we all lame out sometimes) went out to see our hotel manager sing at a local bar, before trying it ourselves at a local karaoke bar.

The next morning, after our third great breakfast at a local restaurant, we began the longest day of cycling we've ever attempted. From Dalat to Nha Trang is almost 140km, with plenty of hellish terrain along the way. We knew it was going to be a long and challenging day, but it exceeded our expectations by quite a bit. The first 60km were all uphill, grueling and relentless with very few downhills for respite. Four hours later, exhausted (but not sweating thanks to the cool air temperature) but elated, we'd managed to pedal our way up into the clouds. Literally, they flew by us on the road, moving briskly at such a high elevation - Dalat itself is 1500 meters, and we certainly went MUCH higher than that...
Then came the best part of our day, though it came and went all too quickly. Thirty kilometers, straight downhill, with our sight initially blocked by the clouds:

As we came around yet another curve, we finally looked out onto the vast expanse of hills, all lower than ourselves.

We continued to wind ourselves off the mountain, and though it took only 45 minutes of actual cycling (whizzing downwards at at least 35km/hr, twice our average speed), we stopped plenty of times to photograph the numerous waterfalls and other natural beauty.

Five hours after leaving Dalat we finally found a restaurant for lunch, though there had been a few stalls selling ancient beverages and other sketchy products, no proper food had actually been available. Despite a complicated ordering process, rice hadn't tasted so good in a while!
The third part of the epic journey proved arguably the most taxing, since our weary legs were once again exposed to uphill inclines, now smaller but numerous, and though we were on the “new road” it was apparently not yet completed since sections of it were under construction or just dirt. But, we fought onwards, and eleven hours after leaving Dalat we finally pulled up in Nha Trang, practically delirious, and not just with pride. Hotel and dinner were acquired quickly, as was sleep.

Nha Trang's sights were taken in quickly: the beach was alright but lacked waves, the water-park was closed until the weekend, the microbrewery's beer was all fruity and lacked full-bodied flavor, the 12th century Cham Towers were small but interesting (and in use, always a bonus when visiting a temple), the mud-bath was soothing but somewhat pricey ($5/person for 15-minutes in the mud and then 20 minutes soaking in hot water), and our snorkeling/party-boat was very fun and very cheap.
The in-water wine-party was over-the-top (and clearly enjoyable), lunch was tasty, the boat even had a band, and though the snorkeling equipment was shoddy the fish and coral were numerous and interesting. We even got to play volleyball on an island, after we paid the 10,000 Dong admission fee, of course.

After three nights in Nha Trang we were ready to leave, however Blaise had (wisely in his case) succumbed to temptation and decided to enroll in Octopus Diving's four-day PADI certification course. Can't blame the guy, great price for a great experience, with a professional company, just not what we wanted to do. Christine also decided to linger longer in Nha Trang, charmed by its beaches. So ourselves and Luke have set out on a mini cycling adventure, from Nha Trang to Quy Nhon. Since our two stops along the way, Van Gia and Chi Thanh, haven't had readily available internet access, this can't get posted until we actually reach our destination. Chi Thanh technically has internet, our hotel's wi-fi is just frustratingly unable to connect, and all the internet cafes were overflowing with adolescent gamers so there was no room for a bunch of old-timers like us who want to check their email.
It's fun being totally off the tourist trail, although it means that there is little to do other than ride as much as we can each day. Yesterday we attempted to locate some hot springs shown on our map, but after backtracking several kilometers, getting conflicting directions, and then finally being taken to a pipe “from a factory” squirting out scalding hot water, we'd had enough and continued on our journey, amazed at how tough a language barrier can be sometimes. Everyone seemed to know of the hot springs, just not where they actually were!
Continuing on, a long day of riding ended with us relaxing in a nice, quiet hotel, having completed our third 100km+ day on the trip. We had a great dinner at a family-run restaurant with two kindly owners, found some tasty packaged snacks at a general store, and then were escorted to our hotel by about 30 young boys on bicycles. All the boys were having fun, it was Saturday night after all, and this town probably doesn't get too many foreigners. They used their limited English on us, gave Liz a ride on the back-seat of one of their bicycles, and enthusiastically posed for photos with us. A nice ending to a long day!
Today we rode about 75 more kilometers to get to Quy Nhon, of which the second half had some beautiful beach scenery (though everything we've seen scenery-wise since we left Nha Trang has been nice and beachy), and our final destination supposedly has some Western food, which we're intrigued to try! We've found a nice hotel, though not quite in time since we got rained upon, but we've met back up with Christine and are all relaxing in our room, showering and catching up.

More news with less waiting soon, we promise, DRAGONS & KARAOKE videos and photos will be up soon - can only squeeze so much multimedia into one post :-)
Peace
A&E+L+C (B will meet up with us in Hoi An)

And now for your moments of zen, much-anticipated and much-deserved:

2009-10-06T23:56:00.003-06:00

Fresh article up on Travelfish, all about the town of Battambang, Cambodia, the bamboo train that runs there, and the effects of The Lonely Planet on cultural tourism.

Hope you like the article, will have a new post up soon about what all has happened over the past few days... here's a hint though: dragons and hills :-)

Peace
A&E+3

2009-10-03T11:46:00.027-06:00

We chose to extend our stay in HCMC/Saigon, and by doing so we've also decided to extend our Vietnam visas (at a later, and more convenient, date). Now with only 15 days left on our visa, 7 more places we want to visit, plus the desire to cycle a decent amount of the country (including some of the Ho Chi Minh trail), and extension is essentially mandatory. Nha Trang, Danang, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi, Halang Bay, and Sapa all sound too interesting to skip. Extending, probably for between a week and ten days (we'll get another 30 day visa but won't use it all), won't negatively effect our overall time schedule, it'll just push our Thailand entry date back a bit from the planned date of November 18th, though that assumes we spend our full month in Laos... and that is WAY too far off for us to figure out right now! Sorting out one country is complicated enough, never-mind two, but we've got to juggle everything to make sure we see and do all that we can, while not sacrificing riding time, but also keeping our focus to be back in Thailand “on time” so that we can get to the southern beaches for a little while before returning to America around December 10th.
Right now we're on a seven-hour (maybe?) bus ride to Dalat, a so-called hill station in the central highlands of Vietnam. Our stay there will be short, probably only a day, and then we'll take off through, and hopefully mostly down, the surrounding hills to get to Nha Trang on the coast. We're even with the clouds right now, though the pounding rain only lasted a little while. Unlike the heat of the Mekong Delta and surrounds, it's quite cool and comfortable here in the hills.

Back in HCMC, we wrapped our time there by retrieving our bicycles, fixed up quite nicely for only 100,000 Dong ($5), plus another 200,000 Dong for four new brake pads. We'll probably destroy these new brakes when we cycle out of the hills, but at least it'll be fun ruining them. As for our daytrip outside the city, both our destinations were pretty interesting.

The Cao Dai Holy See was a unique religious experience, combining traditional Vietnamese music and song with a mixture of eastern and western religions.

The architecture was colorful and gaudy, most everyone was dressed in white,

and a gallery upstairs was designated for the large amount of camera-clutching tourists, ourselves obviously included.

The ceremony was certainly the focus, the slight carnival atmosphere not quite interfering with the serious chants and prayer.

The Cu Chi Tunnels were also pretty unusual, the former Viet Cong stronghold from which Saigon was ultimately toppled. 200 km of tunnels lie underground, although only small sections are maintained for tourism. They are dark and small (though still enlarged for Western visitors), definitely claustrophobic, and at times painful to navigate since our bodies weren't exactly designed for awkward crouch-walking.
Around the tunnels are plenty of kitschy displays, some simply morbid traps, and even a somewhat pricey shooting range.

Luke was daring enough to explore an authentic and completely dark tunnel, while the rest of us were content with only the somewhat lighted and expanded main tunnel.

Those traps, numbering about ten, were gruesome and designed to maim and kill invading American soldiers.

It was strange being an American tourist in a place so plainly anti-American, yet the conflict of capitalism versus communism that provoked the Vietnam War seems almost hilarious when capitalist Western visitors make up the bulk of the tourists visiting the preserved tunnels of communist resistance fighters. Plus, of course, Vietnam is still technically a Socialist state, though it really appears that the average Vietnamese person is much more a capitalist than the government wants to concede. Presumably the north will be much more socialist than the south, we'll let you know when we get there...

But speaking of government propaganda and terrible atrocities, what of the War Remnants Museum? The ride there was certainly entertaining, though slow since we took cycle-shaws, and out front were plenty of captured American military equipment.

Inside were mostly photo galleries, dedicated to war victims and Agent Orange victims alike, making for a most sobering mood. Something about bloodied young soldiers and mutated even younger children puts a bit of a damper on things. But we be seekers of knowledge, even when learning it is unpleasant, and it was good to have a different perspective, from what we hurriedly learned back in high school, put on the Vietnam War.

Peace
A&E+3

Some moments of zen for ya:

2009-09-30T05:25:00.003-06:00

Anderson has a new article up on Travelfish:

Cycle Asia: Ko Samet Vs Pattaya.

In other news we just got back from the War Remnants Museum - will post some photos from there in the near future, but for now we're all getting our teeth cleaned at a nearby dentist (only $15), doing some shopping, and about to grab some dinner once the rain stops. Also managed to get our bikes to a repair shop this morning, so they should be good as new in another day or so, and it looks like the Cu Chi tunnels are next on the tourism agenda...

Peace for now,
A,E,B,C,L

2009-09-29T03:29:00.018-06:00

We have cycled across the Mekong Delta, and then bussed it from Can Tho to Saigon – to avoid the notorious traffic of National Highway 1. Per usual, that was your one-sentence up-to-date tease, and now comes the detailed journey through the last six days of our Vietnam adventure:

Last Thursday was quite a surprising day, full of more than our usual level of frustration – which actually ended up significantly altering our plans, though undoubtedly for the better. The day before was our last full day on Phu Quoc – we stayed for the late afternoon body-surfing, and though the waves weren't as ferocious as the day before, they were still definitely worth it. There's something magical about paddling with a crashing wave, and then hitting the “sweet spot” and getting rapidly propelled forward 10 or even 30 meters. You should try it, if somehow your life is lacking such an experience.

We paid our hotel at night, having to hit the ATM on our way to our final meal at Phu Quoc's night market, and then we awoke before 6am to get an early start – our ferry to Rach Gia left at 8am, and we had to cycle about 15km across the island first. Somehow we were actually ready on time, if not even early, and cruised across the island rapidly, against the flow of well-dressed students going to school. The uniforms showed their ages, though whomever picked pure white for the university girls wasn't quite thinking things through all the way...
We pulled up at the same ferry terminal we'd arrived from Ha Tien at five days before, and after perfunctorily verifying “Rach Gia,” we sat down to enjoy some breakfast – though the soy sauce equally perfunctorily dumped upon our eggs didn't quite improve the flavor at all. Soon it was past 7:30, and we pedaled down the lengthy pier, negotiated the fee to load all of our bikes (150,000 Dong, down from 300,000), got them and our luggage on the boat, and were just about to sit down, when disaster struck.
No, aliens didn't attack, nor did crazed Phu Quoc Island dogs (they all seemed far too cute for that), but we were on the wrong boat. And at the wrong pier. Ultimately it was our fault, but our hotel told us wrong, the people we asked at the dock didn't say anything, and how were we supposed to know that we needed to be saying “Super Dong” - the name of the boat company? So our tickets instantly became worthless, since the boat departed right on time, which meant instead of being in Rach Gia around noon, we had to sit at a shanty-town restaurant near the correct pier – 4km away – for almost five hours. Lunch was, as Liz astutely put it: “a feat of communication but not of culinary arts.” Our new tickets were even more expensive, since the boat was apparently better and faster, and the whole thing threw our entire schedule out of whack, since we'd planned on cycling at least 50km out of Rach Gia that day.
Instead the 1pm boat, which graciously only played silent Charlie Chaplin films amidst its bouncing amongst the waves, arrived on time at 3:30pm, so after we'd loaded up, gotten our bearings, and eaten some much-needed food, it was practically dark and therefore time to find a hotel. At least the hotel was decent, and we then had plenty of time to sort out our new simplified Mekong Delta route: head primarily due east through Vi Thanh en route to Can Tho, instead of our much lengthier initial plan of going much further south. By changing our path we saved 2-3 days, so with the one day “wasted” we were still in the positive, since due to Vietnam's enormous length, there is a definite sense of a time crunch at virtually all times. The 30 days on our visa our rapidly ticking away, and currently we only have about 20 of them left, with the vast majority of the country left to see. So we will be trying to cycle as much as we can, but will definitely have to use alternate transportation a few more times due to time constraints, and we are also weighing the possibility of even extending our visa so we can spend another week or ten days exploring the north. Don't have to decide on that quite yet, but it is certainly on our minds.
Riding through the Mekong, thankfully, was very enjoyable, and has improved our views and opinions on Vietnam in general – apparently the over-saturation of tourists has had a profound impact on the less-than-smiling island folk. But the chorus of “hello” returned amidst the rice patties and occasional water buffalo, and in two days we crossed the entire delta, along with its numerous bridges.

The second day, from Vi Thanh to Can Tho, was by far the best, as we rode through villages on a small single-lane paved roads, and since it is harvest time we got to see the rice crop first hand. It was all out drying on the road, in the varying stages of being processed, and the sights and sounds of real village life were a far cry from the tourism on either end.

A particular highlight was taking our bikes through a market, the path jammed with motorcycles coming the other way, such that we had ample time to enjoy the scenery:

Arriving in Can Tho, it took a literal eternity to make it the tourist quarter, right by the river, from which early the next morning we took a wooden boat trip out to a floating market. Our hotel was directly across from an enormous statue of Uncle Ho, as in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's Socialist/Communist hero and first leader.

We enjoyed some snake wine with dinner -

and though the canal part of our boat tour ended up being lengthy and boring, it was interesting to see all the boats bustling about, loaded up with fruit and other goods in massive quantities.

The boats displayed their wares on sticks, though as tourists coffee was the only thing we purchased – buying a lifetime supply of sweet potatoes seemed a bit presumptuous and wholly unnecessary.

After breakfast we called our friends back home in Iowa, who were all celebrating the wedding of Joe & Hannah outside Iowa City. We luckily got to speak with the bride and groom, as well as a few other of our friends, so for a few moments at least we didn't feel quite so far away from normal life and the people we love so much. The fact that Joe and Hannah are departing for Greece in a few days, to enjoy an amazing honeymoon, made even us globe-trotters quite jealous!
We then checked out of our hotel and cycled to the bus station, since four days of highway cycling didn't sound that appealing or sensible. Our bikes actually cost more than us to put on the bus (we were 50,000 Dong, they were 60,000 Dong, total of about $6/person+bike), and after a strange bus-stand lunch, and getting hassled by the bathroom's lady-boy attendant, we were on our way to Ho Chi Minh City.

It's probably worth noting that the entire city once known as Saigon, but renamed by the conquering Communists from the north after their deceased leader, is still usually called Saigon by its inhabitants, and the main District One is actually technically called Saigon itself. Un-digressing, our bus went about 1km before stopping and sitting in a line, for at least 20 minutes. Turned out the line was actually a queue for an enormous transport ferry that our bus and numerous others rolled onto.

It was pretty interesting viewing the last stretch of the Mekong from on-board a ferry, though even more interesting was how a man told us to stop taking pictures. His angst was explained to us by a kindly English-speaking engineer, who said that the man didn't want us to show the pictures back in our home country. Apparently he thought that the modern bus we were riding, with A/C and flat-screen TVs, never-mind the huge equally modern ferry and the relatively well-coordinated system of transit, was somehow embarrassingly inferior to whatever high-tech miracles must surely exist in the fantastic land of America. We quickly explained that America actually lacks most modern mass transportation, since everyone drives private cars, so the idea of a nice bus (sorry Greyhound) just doesn't really exist, and due to our bridges almost the entire country is devoid of ferries. While we're not sure our message was thoroughly conveyed to the man opposed to our photography, handshakes were at least exchanged as we returned back to our bus.
The remainder of the bus ride went well, though darkness and rain decided to simultaneously descend, scrapping our plans of cycling the 15km (or so) from the bus station to the main “tourist ghetto” of Pham Ngu Lao. Instead we stayed at a slightly rundown hotel/flophouse, down the street from the station, which provided a surprisingly comfortable night of sleep, for a low 170,000 Dong/Room. The next morning we awoke, and by asking directions at many an intersection, were able to pedal our way to touristic nirvana quite easily. Now we're staying in the land of travel agents, t-shirt boutiques, art galleries, internet cafes, guesthouses, international restaurants, eager moto drivers, book/sunglasses salespeople, etc.
We'll be here for a couple of more days, seeing some museums, doing some shopping, eating until our bellies hurt, and on one day taking a tour out to the Cu Chi tunnels. Our post-Saigon plans aren't totally determined, the choice seems to be either take a bus to Nha Trang, or cycle out of the city for a few days of riding on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Either way sounds awesome, just have to make up our minds...

Trying, and failing, to avoid eye-contact with a sunglasses/lighter salesman,
Peace
A&E+3

Here's your moment of zen, a rural roadside cock fight mosaic:

2009-09-23T03:42:00.017-06:00

(Anderson's latest Travelfish story is posted: Muay Thai Night)

Vietnam has arrived!

Or, perhaps more accurately, we've arrived in Vietnam – it's been here for a good while, after all. As indicated by the sidebar, it has yet to completely “wow” us, although yesterday was a very enjoyable day. But chronology, that cursed literary beast, must be obeyed, so let's rewind back to our Cambodian departure:
We left Kep rather late, partially due to our activities the night before, partially due to Luke unexpectedly feeling ill, and undoubtedly partially because we didn't really want to go. There's something magical about Cambodia; maybe its the rugged rawness, or the endless amazing places, though surely the delightful people and delicious food are also quite key. Whatever it may be, we miss it already, and urge you to go experience it for yourself, before the country changes even more than it already has. The government is literally selling the land away to foreign investors for development, so waiting a mere five years may make all the difference.
As for Vietnam, the road getting there alone was quite hellacious.

From Kep to Kampong Trach was paved and reasonable, but as we turned south towards the border (and then Ha Tien on the Vietnamese side), the disaster began. At times the road was merely full of enormous potholes, the type that slow even a bicycle down to a wobbly crawl, but more often than not what was supposed to be red-dirt road was actually a muddy sea.

With plenty of other traffic coming from both directions, avoiding the muck proved impossible, and as the 20km slowly passed by we only got dirtier and dirtier. By the time we finally reached the border, our bikes were virtually completely covered in mud, our packs were too, and we riders were filthy, especially our shoes.

The Cambodian border police were definitely amused, but after we were officially checked out they nicely showed us a water tank where we could clean ourselves off a bit. Only 'a bit' because without a pressure-washer cleanliness was only a fantasy, but at least our shoes were a color besides brown, and our brake-pads were able to make somewhat proper contact with our wheels once again.

Getting into Vietnam, despite having already obtained our visas, proved more time-consuming since the guard was initially off grocery shopping, and then we had to wait even longer as socialist bureaucracy apparently demanded a very lengthy check-in process.

At least there was a military volleyball game happening right across the road, so between that and our exhaustion we didn't mind sitting around for a while.
Our approach to Ha Tien, about 8km from the border, quickly became shrouded in darkness, but thankfully the road to the center of town was easy to find. After checking out a few hotels, we found a good deal, along with a friendly, helpful, and English-speaking owner. One big room, with three huge beds, cost 300,000 Dong, about $18. The initial change of currency is always confusing, and it doesn't help when the exchange rate is hard to calculate: about 18,000 Dong – yes, that's really what Vietnamese money is called – is $1, though since we get most of our money from ATMs we are never quite sure of the exact rate. The owner recommended a tasty nearby restaurant, where we were able to tiredly celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, still muddy since food decisively took precedence over showering.

One beer and a few toasts was all we could manage, but that's how life goes sometimes. At least all of our anniversaries have been more than exciting:

1st – Iowa City, IA, USA (saw a Shakespearean play)
2nd – Hamburg, Germany (partied it up on the Reeperbahn)
3rd – Kathmandu, Nepal (relaxing with our cousin Reannon)
4th – Busan, Korea (oddly enough, this is the one we can't quite remember)
5th – you have been reading this whole thing, right?

Anyways, after dinner we managed a brief walk about, during which we found some snacks and stumbled upon a crazy “adventure-land” for children, the highlight of which was a tiny skating rink, packed with talented youngsters doing all sorts of impressive moves. Made our previously exciting peanuts and chips seem rather tame. Showers and then bed ensued, an early boat-ride to Phu Quoc awaited us.
The boat ride, “local” because the high-speed boat was undergoing repairs, was affordable at $9/person (including bikes), and thanks to Liz's early morning initiative we not only got the last seats, but also managed to get our bikes cleaned to avoid being “those dirty foreigners” anymore than we already are.

Our bicycles were thrown on the roof of the deck, along with all sorts of other miscellaneous cargo, while we sat below on the uncomfortable benches with the twenty or so other passengers.

We later learned that most whities just fly into Phu Quoc, but at the time we were a bit surprised to be the only foreigners on the boat. The promised 4+ hour journey proved delightfully short at only 2.5 hours, though we then spent that remaining 90 minutes cycling across the island, in the mid-day heat, to get to our destination: Long Beach.
Yes, we'd already been to Long Beach (California) the day we left the States, but here on Phu Quoc the beach is much longer and very relaxed. At least right now in the off-season, when it borders on dead. For sure, there are a decent number of people around at all times, but in general things are quite empty. Based on the advice of a Vietnamese man on the side of the road, who later turned out to be a rather infamous Phu Quoc character named Tony – who operates a snorkeling company amongst other ventures (what a foreshadowing... :-) – we sought out a resort called Tropicana in the middle of Long Beach's hotel row. For $50/night total, we got a private family bungalow, complimentary breakfast, free wifi, as well as easy beach access and a 24-hour pool. Not as cheap as we usually roll, but in this case the amenities have well been worth the additional expense.
Truth be told, our love of the resort has been on a steady decrease since we arrived, something about rats in the room eating food left out, shoddy breakfasts and the food in general being pricey, plus the friendly cleaning staff waking us on several occasions all adding up to be a bit frustrating, though we are still happy to be here! The staff is nice and helpful, the pool is clean and warm, and the far-from-straight pool table is at least fun enough to play. When you're traveling, the bad comes with the good whether you want it to or not...
As for Phu Quoc, there's not much to do but relax, in the sun when it's around, or like today in the shade. So we've been reading a decent amount, and now that the moon is waxing, we've finally been able to do some great bodysurfing – it was so fun last night that it was the main motivator for us staying for another night. But we've bought boat tickets to Rach Gia for tomorrow morning, so we are definitely leaving in about 20 hours... what a sad countdown. Phu Quoc also has a great night market, with plenty of tasty and cheap food, plus an amazing smoothie stand, as well as some Western-style desserts that really hit the spot after barbequed shrimp, scallops, or boar – lots of variety on the grill here.
Yesterday was surely an island highlight, as we took an all-day snorkeling trip with Tony's Travel. His son, who has decided to choose the hilarious English name “Chicken,” was our guide for the expedition.

First up was a local pearl farm, which was interesting enough though most of the prices, especially when compared to the night market, were frighteningly high. But quality has a cost, even in Vietnam. After that we made our way to the dock, boarded our boat, and took off to the first of two snorkeling spots.

At first the water was murky, but as we swam away from the boats and closer to the rocks, a plethora of fish and coral emerged.

If only we had an underwater camera this part of the post would surely be much more interesting, but the undersea life was numerous and exotic. The first spot we snorkeled, Phu Bo, depressingly had too much bleached and dead coral, although the fish were still in abundance. The second spot, Shadow Island, seemed to have a healthier ecosystem, as the coral was so large and plentiful that seeing fish was actually more difficult because they had so many places to hide. The reality is that sustainable aquatic tourism is practically an impossibility, especially in a place where fourteen-year-old boys are allowed to freely catch sea urchins with hooks – though those at least tasted good, and are in more than one sense a scourge of the ocean.

Lunch was delicious, and oddly enough the low-light of the trip was our visit to another beach, the much-hyped Sao Beach, which was actually quite, boring, and full of small urchins in the water that pricked our feet. But that was the end of the day, so we were tired from snorkeling anyways. As we approached our hotel by road, the waves looked huge, and they indeed were – we spent the last hour or so until total darkness riding endless huge waves, the type that are so large you almost need a board to fully enjoy them... almost!
Today then, is lounging until the waves show up again in a couple more hours... wish us luck bodysurfing until exhaustion and darkness strike!

We don't know how much internet access will be available in the Mekong Delta, but we just got some assistance from Tony in sorting out our route, so we will (most likely) travel from Rach Gia → Tac Cau → Thu Ba → Thu Bay → Vinh Thuan → Ca Mau → Nam Can (maybe, but only as a daytrip) → Ca Mau → Bac Lieu → Soc Trang → Can Tho. From Can Tho we plan on taking a four-hour high-speed boat to Saigon, avoiding several days of cycling on the notorious Highway 1... which is not exactly meant for foreign cyclists since it is the main trucking route (from China) that runs the length of Vietnam.

If you're going to Joe & Hannah's wedding this weekend, have a wonderful time, our happiest thoughts are with them (and you), and we all wish we could be there to celebrate!

Peace & Much Love
Anderson, Liz, Luke, Christine, & Blaise

And now for your moment of zen, ducks in bags:

2009-09-17T11:32:00.007-06:00

We have now spent several idle days in seaside Kep, where though the rains have poured down, our enthusiasm for crab has not yet waned. Sleepy Kampot makes Kep look dead – there are hardly any other people here, at most a handful of other Western tourists, and since it isn't a weekend there aren't even very many Khmers here. Our hotel has only one other guest, and he is only staying here while he renovates and repairs his own house right next door. Thankfully, relaxation is the name of the game here regardless of business, so we're just doing what we're supposed to.
Tomorrow, however, our entire demeanor will change, as the 18th is when our Cambodian visa expires and our Vietnamese one becomes active. We plan on crossing the border at Ha Tien, Vietnam, and then taking a boat to Phu Quoc island for a short beach session before cycling towards Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). Just like here in Cambodia, we know we will experience time pressure to see and do all that we want to in the 30 days that we have, so although we'd love to spend a full week at the beach, it's simply not feasible.
For now though, it's just relaxing at our hotel, the garden-filled Botanica, playing pool and reading books, and then a bit later we'll take another ride around town. We've eaten crab everyday we've been here, and plan on keeping that streak alive tonight, since $4 for a tasty plate of Kampot Pepper Crab is simply unbeatable. The peppercorns are green and fresh, still on their slender stems, full of a robust flavor that lacks the sharpness of fully grown black pepper. To say it is delicious is practically an understatement.
Kep also has some other unique cuisine, particularly given how rural this area of Cambodia truly is. Yesterday we enjoyed some fresh bakery goods from the new Salt + Pepper Bakery, their chocolate cake and granola were particularly scrumptious, the former soft and gooey and full of flavor, the later baked well with seasonings and quite crunchy.

El Dorado, Cambodia's only Hungarian restaurant, is also serving up fine letcho and gnocchi stew, as well as wood-oven pizzas. We also found some great hammocks by the sea, perfect for lounging and drinking in the late afternoon. The town is known for its spectacular sunsets, of which weather has denied us all but one, though tonight's is shaping up to be pretty impressive given the current blistering heat.

---------------------------------

So now we've taken our sunset ride around town, and it was certainly quite successful:

We went on a dirt trail through the national park here, which gave us a great vantage point to photograph Mother Nature in action.

Now we're back to relaxing, after enjoying a fantastic Kampot Pepper Crab dinner (again), drinking a few Klangs and we're about to enjoy some tasty cheese and salami. Yum.

Next time it'll be from Vietnam,
Peace
A&E+3

2009-09-13T01:16:00.010-06:00

Most surprisingly, the monsoon actually cooperated with us, enabling us to leave Sihanoukville as planned early on Friday. We had a somewhat hilarious breakfast at a restaurant owned by an absent-minded and cantankerous French-Canadian, before departing in a cool breeze for a long day of cycling. The first 15km out of S-town were hilly, but our fresh legs and morning enthusiasm enabled us to conquer them with relative ease. We kept up a good pace, managing to arrive in Veal Renh for lunch just before the rain. For ten minutes a flood emerged from the sky, and then that was it – the day of monsoon (for us at least) was finished!
After lunch, once we'd switched from NH 4 to NH 3, we did see some rain in the distance, but it managed to outrun us, despite our best efforts to catch up to it and get soaked.

Riding through endless paddy fields was interesting, we saw boys on buffaloes and all too many dead snakes, but the lush cloud-filled hills looming over all the other scenery were definitely the most interesting.

Soon enough rice turned to water, as the mangrove-filled coastline appeared. Plenty of boats, out catching seafood, were visible from the road, and at times we saw mixed piles of crabs and shrimp laying out to dry.

We finally got to Kampot before sunrise, so our jaunt through town to find a hotel was blessed with a fantastic pink sky, as it appears every night here is. We looked at several sleeping options, but finally decided on a cheapie by the river, only $5/room, with a restaurant right on the water, and 4-foot-high flood marks on all the walls. The entire town apparently flooded earlier in the week, a dam up-river was opened up and a deluge of water followed. So things smell a bit of mildew, but we like the location and plan on leaving town tomorrow anyways.
The reality is there's not much to do in Kampot itself, other than the proverbial chillaxing, though there are several activities available outside the town. We've actually chosen to skip the main attraction, Bokor National Park, because the road is entirely closed, so we cannot cycle up it like we had planned on. We could've taken a pricey ($20 each) group tour, starting with hiking and then riding up the 2nd part of the mountain in a truck, but that's just not our style. Plus, after seeing the photos of the abandoned French hotel at the top (the main reason for going), we were a bit unimpressed to say the least. Maybe next time, when we can explore it on our own terms, but we don't feel like we're missing out on much. Blaise, Christine, & Luke did decide to book an alternate tour, a cycling/hiking trip to a nearby waterfall, but we Muths opted out in order to relax, read, write, and get a blind-massage. All over Cambodia there are blind massage parlors, we've just been putting it off until now, but Kampot is our last chance, and as verified yesterday by Luke & Christine, it's certainly an experience not to be missed.
Tomorrow then, the plan is to leisurely cycle the 25km to Kep, Cambodia's unofficial seafood capitol, and on the way visit one of Kampot's famed pepper fields and an ancient 7th century Funan cave temple. Just another day :-).
Right now we're relaxing in Blissful Guesthouse's restaurant, taking advantage of their $2 all-day internet. Safe to say we've been chilling here for a while, after enjoying some scrumptious food: a burrito and a salad ($4 each). Cambodia's food prices might not be as cheap as India's, but the diversity of dishes that is available more than makes up for the slightly steeper price tag.

Keep on keepin' on wherever you are,
Peace
A&E+3

Here's your moment of zen, our bikes getting loaded up last week into a shared van-taxi during the rain somewhere outside of Kirirom Nat'l Park:

2009-09-10T03:21:00.011-06:00

The monsoon has become more of a "monnow," which has definitely been dictating our travel plans over the past couple of days, to the point that we have even ended up in a city we weren't planning on visiting. While Sihanoukville does have decent beaches, and plenty of foreigner-friendly nightlife, due to its distance from the Vietnamese border, we had decided to cut it out of our travel plans and focus instead on spending time in Kampot and Kep. Kampot used to be known for its pepper, while Kep is arguably Cambodia's seafood capitol. Plus around each is the usual array of touristic endeavors (temples, national parks, etc.), so the remaining 9 days on our visa could be spent quite easily.
However, fate and Mother Nature united to make alternate plans for us, though the downside of that is we are now getting poured on further west then we had any real desire to be. So how'd we get to a place we didn't plan on seeing? Well, it all started from Kirirom National Park...
After leaving Kompong Speu, we began a 50+ km ride, primarily on National Highway 4. After a vegetarian lunch, served with delicious iced coffees, we then headed 11km off into the wilderness on a muddy and at times flooded dirt road. At the base of the national park we found one of the two available hotels, Kirirom Hillside Resort. We knew it would be a bit swanky by Khmer standards, but we'd read that it had tents available, which was a) more our style and b) more our price. Cycling into the massive compound, it was clear we were in some sort of nice Cambodian resort. In addition to a plethora of rooms, with prices up to $200/night, there was a swimming pool, sauna, zoo, zip-line, and all sorts of other accouterments. Of course their tents were gone for repair, and upon finding out that the next available hotel was 17km up a steep mountain, given that it was already 4pm we had to work something out.

Thankfully, the General Manager was most kind and understanding of tourists on a budget, and with some negotiations we worked out quite the deal: rather than paying $50/room/night, with us needing two rooms plus an extra cot ($17), which comes out to $117 night – about $100 more than we usually spend – we were graciously allowed to all pack in to only one room, with the additional mattress provided for free. And they dropped the price to $40, all five of us got the included breakfast, and we could use all the facilities as much as we wanted.

So for $8/person, we got to stay in deluxe but cramped accommodations, eat fantastic food (especially the wood-oven pizzas), drink $2 beers poolside, and enjoy a relaxing sauna in the evenings! Probably going to the best deal on lodging we'll ever find on this trip, so at least we got to enjoy it for two nights.
During the day, we rode up the intimidating mountain that makes up Kirirom, which meant we literally pedaled uphill for about four straight hours. The winds that were often against on the main highway were at least not a factor, but the rain oozing out of the heavy clouds certainly kept us chilly and focused.

But, without our heavy packs the ride really wasn't too bad, we found drinks at the top, and even got to talk with a friendly monk at one of the hilltop pagodas. We also found the other hotel, and at $20/room/night it was a grimy, moldy rip-off.

The park does offer trekking, however due to the rain and the length of our ride we opted to skip them, but we did find our way to a pretty decent waterfall where we were able to relax in solitude.

Afterward, as evening began to approach, we headed down the mountain – which ended up being absolutely fantastic. We certainly hit our top speed ever, flying downwards so fast that it caused our brakes to sizzle. All our hard work getting up was repaid by the scant 30 minutes it took us to return home, as the agonizing ascent turned into quite a joyride, and to top it off we were able to head directly to the waiting pool!

By total random chance a cycling tour group, foreigners traveling for one week in a somewhat pampered, if not completely pampered, fashion, were also descending the mountain when we were. Whether they actually rode up the mountain, or if their transport cars and trucks dropped them off at the top, was up for debate. Some of the group were at least reasonably nice, though many seemed rather angry at having their every whim catered to, bordering on rude and disrespectful to the hotel staff. The experience certainly puts a different perspective on how you can travel, what money really gets you, and overall made us very appreciative to be traveling our pace, our style, on our terms.
That idea segues nicely into our next day, which began fantastically at our hotel, with a morning dip in the pool following breakfast, a jaunt through the zoo to see the monkeys again, and then our complimentary zip-line ride. Except for Anderson and Blaise, both too big for the Khmer-sized harness, everyone had a blast cruising through the tree for a 30-second adrenaline rush. Departing at noon, with kilometers of cycling in our heads, we retraced our path out of the park area, and ate at the same restaurant we had two days before. This time the vegetarian cuisine was even more impressive, a cold salad nicely complimented the stir-fried main courses and rice.
Getting back on the road became rain-delayed, as the skies literally opened up as we ate. We waited patiently for about 30 minutes, but it soon became apparent that no end was in sight, but darkness is always approaching, a relentless enemy of the laid-back cyclist. So off we pedaled into the rain, in search of a guesthouse we'd read about on the internet, located around the 90km-signpost. Of course the guesthouse proved to be a phantom, and as the weather got worse no alternative presented themselves, until we finally sought shelter at a petrol station to try and sort things out. The facts became readily apparent: no guesthouses anywhere, perhaps a temple we could stay in, and not very much English could be spoken. We looked into getting a ride to a place to stay, but everyone said either Phnom Penh or Sihanoukville. Problem being, of course, we were coming from the former and had no desire to go to the latter, since it overshot our planned destination (after another day of riding) of Kampot by a good day of cycling. So, faced with waiting forever for the rain to cease, attempting to sleep while soaked at the temple, or heading to Sihanoukville, we picked the scruffy beach-town.
Liz managed to chase down a passing mini-bus, the main method of transportation in a country that has just been getting reliably paved roads over the past five years, and for only $25 total, the five of us and our bikes could ride the 125km. When the journey gets ridiculous, the wise traveler has to reconsider the options and make the best choice, even if is far from the original plan.
So here we are in S-town, near a garbage-strewn beach, where it is still raining much of the time, making it hard for our clothes to dry amongst other things. Today we're relaxing, getting some much-needed internet time in, and attempting to reconsider our remaining Cambodia schedule, but we will most likely be departing somewhat early tomorrow to get a move-on back east. We shall see, we shall see...

Peace
A&E&BCL

And now for your moment of zen:

2009-09-09T09:33:00.002-06:00

So the post below is all about Phnom Penh, and might be a tad depressing. It's worth reading though, have no doubts.

We are currently in Sihanoukville, which is something of a long story. Needless to say, we did spend some time in Kirirom National Park, about which we'll have a post up tomorrow. In the meantime, here's some fantastic news!

Anderson's series of writings is now being hosted by Travel Fish, the internet's premiere source for all SE Asia information! Due to the collapse of Holiday Fu, and Iain's greatly appreciated assistance, the series is now going to live on in an even larger capacity. Every Wednesday a new article will be posted, so it will be a ways behind this blog, but the articles will deal with many things not addressed here. The "crazy" side of travel, and what things are "really!" like will be prioritized :-).

This is a great opportunity, so without further adieu, here's the link to the first article: Cycle Asia: An Introduction.

Enjoy it, much more to come as always,
Peace & much love,
A&E&BCL

2009-09-09T08:41:00.017-06:00

This post was written a few days ago (as in Sunday 09-06-09), sorry about the delay, but internet has been unavailable until today:

In all fairness, you should be warned that today's post is about some pretty terrible things, but to fully understand and appreciate modern Cambodia, as well as what we are experiencing on our trip, you should obviously continue reading:

We thought that our recent time in Phnom Penh, witnessing the monuments to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, was the full extent of the deep contemplation that Cambodia requires. Having left the capitol city this morning, cycling south-west en route to national parks and beaches, even a rainstorm could barely dampen our enthusiasm to be back on the road again. However, the presence of the second dead body that we've passed on the road was extraordinarily sobering. Traffic was stopped, a crowd had gathered, the road was filled with glass and motorcycle shards, and on the side lay an unmoving man, mostly covered by a white sheet. People's shouts of “hello” made the scene even more surreal, as we feebly attempted to balance politeness with our own shock. It has been said that life is cheap here in Cambodia, but the price of death exacts quite a price on all those involved. While we undoubtedly feel verified in wearing our helmets, the reality is that the busy roads we ride on are just one mistake away from disaster, though that is obviously true no matter where you are in the world. What life gives must be appreciated always, since it can be cruelly taken away just as easily, as today's scene verified all too personally.
Since this post isn't attempting to be wholly depressing, let's touch on some of the recent more positive events. We spent four nights in Phnom Penh, which is a busy and mostly modern city, mostly recovered from the complete devastation it suffered in the mid-1970s when the Khmer Rouge came to power.

As mentioned before, we stayed by the lake at the ironically named Green Lake Guesthouse. The water was dark brown, and full of trash, but the rooms were cheap and the ambiance otherwise decent, so long as we weren't looking into the water!
Our primary objective was obtaining our Vietnamese visas, so our first real destination was the Vietnam consulate, located at the southern end of the city, far from our hotel. Blaise and Anderson dropped off their bikes at The Vicious Cycle for repairs (B) and a tune-up (A), which ended up costing $8 and $2 respectively. This meant we needed to traverse the city by tuk-tuk, a pleasant change from our usual methods of transit. Thirty-five dollars later we'd filed for our visas, which we picked up later in the week without too much hassle. Thankfully, as North Americans, obtaining visas is quite simple, involving payment and a simple one-page form that is primarily information copied from our passports. We did have to specify our date of arrival, so we will definitely be in Cambodia until September 18, when that visa expires and our Vietnamese one begins.
We also went to two of Phnom Penh's sprawling markets. First, we explored the dark corridors of the Russian Market, where good deals on name-brand merchandise “leaks” are everywhere. The low prices on high-quality Western backpacks are well known, and we found a great supposed Lowe-Alpine 55-liter pack for $15. The stitching and padding look great, and with future travel plans always on the horizon, it seemed foolish not to invest in a new pack given that those we took to India are thoroughly thrashed. The market also has piles of Khmer trinkets and knickknacks, plenty of well-bootlegged DVDs, music CDs, and software, as well as restaurants and food sellers. Needless to say, while interesting to peruse, it certainly didn't smell very good. We spent much less time at the enormous Central Market, where clothing “extras” are piled up everywhere on the perimeter, and then the interior market – beneath a massive golden dome – is home to endless jewelry shops.
That leaves one day remaining, which we spent traveling around Phnom Penh's most famous and notorious sights. They were emotionally draining and often provocative, after all some of the worst human atrocities in recent history occurred there. The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Museum (S-21) are certainly not light-hearted affairs, as the former contains mass graves of thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge, while the latter was Pol Pot's regime's main prison and torture center. In between was sandwiched the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, making the whole day somewhat of an introspective and emotional roller-coaster.

For the entire day we had a delightful character named Peter for our tuk-tuk driver, who explained some of the history of each place for us before we visited, and acted as our guide when we went to the palace. He certainly made the day more interesting, and definitely said some hilarious things as well – the complexities of our English language are definitely hard to master! Some of the prime comments included his warning that the “black market, I don't do that,” and his offer of “if you like I can do, if you not like I not do.”

Our lunch was definitely made more enjoyable by his presence, and as we enjoyed some fine Ratanakiri (Cambodia's far eastern province) coffee after our sobering Killing Fields visit, we could take some solace in the fact that we bought his lunch, too – Peter usually doesn't eat all day long despite working at least ten hours, if he even is fortunate enough to have a customer. But the harsh realities of Cambodia's tourist economy pale in comparison to the things we witnessed while doing our small part in contributing to it.

The first thing you see when entering the Killing Fields, is a large modern pagoda. Incense and flowers are sold out front, but inside there are only two things: clothes and skulls.

Both were dug up from the numerous mass graves all over the grounds, where around 20,000 Cambodians were killed, often with blunt objects or sharpened palm leaves, by their fellow countrymen. The Khmer Rouge brutally exterminated all enemies, including countless members of their own Communist Party, in its hell-bent determination to cleanse the Khmer people of all outside influences and “return” to a socialist agrarian culture. Money was abolished, the intelligentsia massacred, people forced from their homes and marched to forced labor (farming) camps, and rampant starvation, malnutrition, and violence were mainstays during the four years of Democratic Kampuchea governance.
Now, Cambodia has hundreds of Killing Fields, the one at Choeung Ek is merely the most famous, due to it's connection to S-21, and the documentation of exactly how horrible the atrocities that were committed there.

Babies were beaten to death against a tree – teeth still litter the ground around it – and although about a third of the 129 mass graves haven't been dug up, the entire landscape is still littered with large pits where people were one unceremoniously dumped as music blasted from a loudspeaker to mask the noises of death. Signs describe where buildings once were, as well as stomach-churning details like these about the chemical room:

There was also a one-room museum, full of information, including details about Duch, the leader of S-21 who is currently on trial for crimes against humanity. After thirty years, a Cambodian-based international court of justice is finally convening, hoping to bring some closure to the shattered lives of almost every Khmer old enough to remember the 1970s.

After our break at the Royal Palace, which was overpriced at $6, especially given that photos were not allowed within the home of the very underwhelming Silver Pagoda (the floor, while made of silver, is 90% covered by carpet; the pagoda is merely in the center of the room, with plenty of nice carved Buddhas surrounding it), we then went to Tuol Sleng, to complete the Khmer Rouge's cycle of death in reverse.

This former high school was where “suspected enemies” of Pol Pot's regime were brought to have confessions tortured out of them. Every prisoner was photographed, and then for days or months systematically tortured until a “biography” had been extracted, naming names of associates and connections to foreign governments – without a doubt almost always false. Of the thousands of people held here, only seven survived. When the Vietnamese finally took Phnom Penh in 1979, ending the Khmer Rouge's rule, fourteen final victims were left, chained to the bed or dumped on the floor where they were tortured to death. In the current museum, those rooms were left as found, with only steel bed frames and torture tools remaining, accompanied by a stark black and white photo of the room's condition.

Those unfortunate people, the last to suffer at S-21, are buried on the grounds beneath simple unadorned white memorials.

Throughout the remaining three buildings are a variety of displays; thousands of haunting photos of the victims fill one entire floor, putting a much-needed human perspective on the awful events that happened here, about three decades ago.

Men, women, and children all stare into the camera, some already beaten, and all showing despair as they entered a horrible place from which the only escape was death at Choeung Ek. Words cannot really describe the experience of so many faces staring out at you, it's a very depressing yet necessary series of connected rooms that show the entire nation that was destroyed – the Khmer Rouge killed an estimated 2 million people, around 25% of the Cambodian population at the time. The 1% of those that that died who went through S-21 are the tangible representatives to the world of the atrocities that cannot be forgotten, in the hope that they will not be repeated.

Tuol Sleng is also home to several interesting photography exhibits. One that is very insightful, and regretful, shows photos taken by a Swedish Communist visitor to Democratic Kampuchea, paired with his comments from both now and during the visit. His former youthful optimism about communism and Cambodia's successful revolution have been replaced by disgust at being used as a propaganda tool and of being tricked by the many certainly staged interactions with people that he documented. Other galleries include stories and photos of former guards and Khmer Rouge members, who were primarily young and ignorant as to what was happening all around them. Pol Pot and his government used fear and hatred to run their country, and even S-21's own guards were frequently killed for inane infractions, or under accusations of being an enemy under Vietnamese control (or something comparable).
The Khmer Rouge gained power through years of guerrilla warfare fought, mostly in the jungle, against an inept and corrupt military government that itself had seized power (from the king) in a coup. However, upon gaining power, they had no ability (and perhaps little real ambition) to run the country, but rather continued to focus on fighting and killing their enemies, all the while seeing the peasants whom they were supposedly representing die from hunger and disease.
Truly it was the worst of humanity, and these words from semi-informed outsiders hardly do any justice to what happened.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of seeing all of these places, being Americans, is that despite our government's bombing of Cambodia for a year, and then its sending in of troops as well, nothing was done to stop the slaughter. In fact, despite all of our country's anti-Communist efforts (as heinously misguided as they were), it was the Communist Vietnamese who finally freed the Khmer people because they were weary of being attacked by Khmer Rouge guerillas and disgusted by what was happening to their socialist “brothers.” It's easy to judge in hindsight, but certainly the international community directly contributed to the political climate that allowed the Khmer Rouge to thrive, and then chose to sit by and do nothing once they gained power, even though knowledge of what was being done within Cambodia, to Cambodians by Cambodians, was certainly known. In fact, the UN continued to recognize the exiled Khmer Rouge as the official government of Cambodia up until 1997 – almost 20 years after they lost power. Quite frankly, that's disgusting.

There are a multitude of excellent books available on the Khmer Rouge era in Cambodian history, and as most of them are available everywhere from children or crippled street-sellers, we have already read several. First They Killed My Father, by Loueng Ung, is particularly poignant, The Gate is written by the only Western survivor of the Khmer Rouge, and there are several accounts available of the goings on within S-21.

Currently we are in a town called Kompong Speu, about 50km away from Phnom Penh on NH 4. We spent our day riding first against the wind, and then later we got rained on! At least the warm water felt good, and all of our packs are waterproof, but even though we only cycled for about 3 hours, it was still a somewhat rough return to riding. After almost two weeks of not using our bikes as transportation, pulling all the extra weight was definitely a bit tougher than it was before. Nonetheless, it felt great to be back cruising on the dusty streets, completely in charge of our daily destiny. Well, as much as five sweaty pedaling whiteys, wearing bike helmets and strange clothes, can be. You never know what will happen, whether it be good or bad, but we are all excited for our upcoming visit to Kirirom National Park, where hopefully a day or two in nature will be good for our minds and bodies.

Here are some links if you'd like to educate yourself more about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge:

What was the Khmer Rouge?
Who was Pol Pot?
What was Democratic Kampuchea?
Who is Duch?
Want more on The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek?
Want more on S-21 / Tuol Sleng Museum?

Peace
ABCEL

2009-09-02T21:16:00.016-06:00

Right now we're in the midst of a somewhat hilarious journey with our bikes, on a bus. What? Why are we not cycling but instead riding another form of transportation?
The crux of the matter is the remaining time on our visa, steadily decreasing until we must leave Cambodia on the 18th of September, and the multitude of things we'd like to do in the remaining 16 days. Cycling the almost 300km to Phnom Penh would take, even with exhausting 80+km days of riding, four full days, never-mind that in cycling such a distance there ought to be some exciting cultural stops to consume even more time. But wait, there aren't really any exciting cultural stops along the way (National Highway 6), except for “yet another temple” in the form of Sambor Prei Kuk? Sad but true, unless we were to ride several additional days further, to add either Koh Ker's temples, Kratie's river dolphins, or another full week to get to Rattanakiri's indigenous tribes, for all our work and days spent pedaling, we would only visit one place. Now surely we'd see plenty of interesting things, and presumably meet some kindly people, but the unfortunate reality is that, especially with the time involved in cycling from the capitol to Cambodia's south-eastern coast, we are barely going to have time to squeeze in our currently-planned agenda. Instead then, we're taking a six-hour bus ride, with our bikes rather hilariously stuffed into their own seats in the back row. With our “gain” of three extra days, we plan on seeing Phnom Penh, before hitting the road again.

After the city we plan on visiting some national parks and beaches, probably spot more of these signs, see animals and eat sea animals, and of course cycle a few hundred kilometers on our way to Vietnam. While in Phnom Penh then, one of our primary concerns is visiting the Vietnamese consulate in order to obtain our visas, since they are currently not available at the border. That's both good and bad; it may be a bit of a hassle to go to the consulate's office, but on the other hand there is minimal headache at the actual border and the chance of previously-unknown “fees” being charged are much less likely.
Thus, we have left Siem Reap and the mighty glory of Angkor behind us, a bit sadly after eleven nights of fun in Cambodia's tourist headquarters. We spent six days of templing, and honestly we were too templed-out to attempt day seven, though the impression the ancient buildings made on us will not soon be forgotten. Angkor Wat, Bayan, Phnom Bok, Ta Prohm, Beng Mealea, Kbal Spean, Banteay Srei, and the multitude of other Angkorian sites we saw were impressive, dazzling, and generally and absolute joy to explore, the occasional crowd of foreigners or sales-children aside.
Yet we didn't even see a fraction of things, in one sense, since plenty of other temples lie in wait all across Cambodia, the majority of the places we did visit were simply too vast to thoroughly explore even when granted several hours of thoughtful wandering, and the research required to put ancient Khmer culture into context is no easy task.
Does that make us bad travelers, apparently failing to fully appreciate our exotic destinations? How can it, when the entire point of travel is to experience the unknown, the foreign, the confusing, the different, the frustrating, the fantastic, the uncomfortable, the insert your word here, and attempt to understand it and relate it to your own life. By bridging that gap, hopefully understanding can increase between people and cultures brought together by an interest in the world that is broader than their own daily life. If nothing else, by exploring the world, that which was once unimaginable becomes better understood, and everyone stands to benefit from that.
OK, OK, enough philosophical rants, time for awesome pictures from our final temple day. As previously mentioned we rented a van for the day, in order to see everything we wanted to, especially the isolated and overgrown temple of Beng Mealea.

First up was sunrise at Angkor Wat, somewhat diminished by clouds and the early hour, but still fantastic in the cool and calm morning air. Then the real driving began, as we headed to Banteay Srei.

We managed to beat both the crowds (not of children selling though) and the heat, which made the small temple's multitude of impressive carvings all that much more enjoyable.

It was a romantic setting for sure, so we did the best we could! After the first of two overpriced meals, we then drove to Kbal Spean, which was the easy part.

What followed was a 3km round-trip jungle hike, which was very enjoyable though hot. The carvings themselves, and the lingas as well, were impressively located directly in the river. Another round of $2 noodles (or rice) followed, conveniently at our driver's friend's restaurant.

Then we began the journey out to Beng Mealea, which for our part involved a lot of dozing amidst some intense downpours, and in one section a pretty intense road. The rain was pretty much over by the time we arrived, and as we walked down the long path to the temple itself, we could already tell that it was far more ruined than anything else we'd seen. Tragically, the presence of two supposed, unwanted, and ultimately unneeded police/guides somewhat marred the experience. Yes, the temple is literally collapsing, but the paths to go around are reasonably in place, and the whole purpose of journeying out so far was to be alone in an ancient collapsing temple, not be escorted about in one. Plus there are walkways, left over from the filming of the movie Two Brothers, throughout the center of the temple, so all-and-all it still felt rather touristic, even though only a few other people were there and the place looked amazing.
Stones lay everywhere, as massive trees have uprooted entire walls, and almost every doorway is destroyed by collapse. The trees are running wild in Beng Mealea, even though they are somewhat noticeably less photogenic than their counterparts at Ta Prohm. But the general sense of isolation, coupled with the somewhat forlorn feeling of the impending jungle takeover, made the temple very atmospheric, in some sort of post-post-apocalyptic way.

That ended up being our last real Angkor experience, as the sunset later at Phnom Bakong was pretty much a bust, much to the disappointment of the large crowd surrounding the highest point in the area. Nonetheless, from Angkor Wat on down, all the temples we were fortunate enough to visit were spectacular. If you're reading this, you owe it to yourself to come and visit Cambodia when you can – you won't be disappointed, unless you hate abandoned old stone buildings in the relative middle of nowhere.
By now we've made it to a guesthouse in Phnom Penh; it's called Green Lake, but the water is most definitely brown. We're staying in bungalows on the water, $6/night, but don't plan on being here for more than three or four days. Tomorrow, when this will hopefully get posted, should be a busy day full of … as yet undecided!

Just have to wait,
Peace
A&E+3

2009-08-30T08:46:00.012-06:00

We are taking one final relaxation day, in order to avoid temple overload, before our last two days of temple exploration. Our seven-day punch-card is nearing its end, sadly, but given that our time in Cambodia is almost half finished, we need to get a move on to go and see the rest of this amazing country. Tomorrow will be an early morning, with a sunrise at Angkor Wat preceding a full day of adventure by van, in order to see some outer-lying places. Banteay Srei, Kbal Spean, and the mighty Beng Mealea are hopefully going to blow our minds with their respective finest carvings, 1000 river lingas, and jungle overgrowth. We'll give you the well-splattered report once we've written it.
Since the last blog post, we've spent two more tiring but great days exploring, seeing some of the most impressive temples besides Angkor Wat itself. The first day was dedicated to Angkor Thom, a massive gated city with numerous buildings still standing, including the dazzling Bayon. Known for its hundreds of carved heads, staring out protectively in all directions, it also holds some very well preserved carvings of the life of its former inhabitants. The faces were everywhere, noses or ears poking out into the blue sky behind them, making the temple's rubble-strewn exterior easily forgotten. Like many temples Bayon is currently undergoing restoration, meaning it is as active a construction site as an archeological one, though presumably the magnitude of the location isn't even lost on the workers.
We spent a long time at Bayon, it was too amazing not to, but the other nearby highlights of Angkor Thom - once we'd eaten a nice fried rice lunch - were also impressive:

Baphuon is also being repaired, so much so that only its lengthy walkway is really currently open, but it was still interesting to see such an enormous salvage job in progress.

The Terrace of the Elephants stretches for over 300 meters, a seemingly endless carved wall full of elephants, with statues guarding either entrance.

Hidden behind the main road, lies Preah Palilay, a smaller temple that is slowly being overgrown. Trees emerged from all sides of the main temple, which looked as though it were on a hill from all the surrounding flora and greenery.

We then went through another gate, not as impressive as the main southern entrance from earlier in the day, but still imposing with faces looking in every cardinal direction and statues pulling an enormous naga on either side of the road.

The end of the day was spent at Preah Kahn, a sprawling temple partially collapsing and overgrown, despite extensive restoration efforts. Featuring an unusual two-story building that may have once held the king's sword, it was a peaceful ending to a tiring day.

We had initially planned on tacking the infamous Ta Prohm on at the end of the day, but time flies when you are seeing temples, and as we found out it was more than worthy of its own day of exploration. Ta Prohm has always been well-known since it has been partially conceded to the jungle, but its recent popularity is primarily due to it's featured role in the movie Tomb Raider.

To say the least, the trees were more exciting than the temple, and it was pretty intense. A massive complex, with the majority of outer walls still intact, and plenty of passages to wander about in search of carvings and great photo ops. However, tourism has taken its toll, primarily in the form of wooden walkways and roped-off sections. Those help in getting around easily, but really detract from the intended “wild” ambiance, as does the almost constant crowd. Classic photos can still be taken, but sometimes there's a wait for other tourists to clear out of the frame.

Nonetheless, the remainder of the day paled in comparison, though the heights of Ta Keo were frighteningly impressive to climb, and both Thommanon and Chau Say Tevoda were interesting despite ensuing twilight. We also squeezed in the Victory Gate, though it seemed virtually identical to the more intact (and therefore spectacular) South Gate that we'd cycled through the day before.

Another exciting feature of Angkor Thom, which was somehow almost forgotten is.... monkeys! Technically macaques, they are all over the grounds, especially near the primary entrance to the city. We saw them scurrying about, relaxing in trees, and playing in hammocks – how cute!

Now for some other news: as you may (or may not) have noticed, there have been a lack of recent Holiday Fu articles by Anderson. Our friend Iain, who runs the website, has been laid off, and consequently Anderson's series left in a state of limbo. That has just about resolved itself, and once things have been finalized there should be an exciting announcement. Just have to wait...

That's the news for now, off to book our van trip for tomorrow, and then do a little shopping before dinner: the traveler's life, ever so rough!

Peace
A&E+3

PS - more photos to come soon, uploading them isn't exactly speedy over here!

2009-08-27T06:35:00.015-06:00

We have entered the wild world of Angkorian temples, and thus far we are very glad to have the bicycles at our disposal. They've made getting to and from the temples quite simple, and besides the $60 week-long pass, quite cheap. Otherwise we'd be paying tuk-tuk or van drivers $20 or $30 per day to haul us around, but instead we can stay sweat-free so long as we are moving rapidly through the humid air. We are definitely undertaking our Angkorian odyssey slowly, we very intentionally got the seven day punch-card (rather than the continuous week pass), so that we could take things at our own pace. Today has been spent resting, recovering from Christine's birthday yesterday, and avoiding temple burnout. Seeing amazing sights doesn't matter so much if you are too frazzled to appreciate them!
We've spent three days at the temples, working our way from some lesser known and older temples up to Angkor Wat itself for the birthday celebration. Sunset there was simply an amazing experience, such that we hardly even cared that some street kid stole Liz's watch off of her bicycle!
Siem Reap, the town from which everyone accesses Angkor, is located 6km south of the ancient monument itself. For our first day, after buying our official tickets from the well-organized ticket booth, we headed due east of Siem Reap to a temple group called Roluous, that was actually built several hundred years before most of Angkor.

As you can see, it was a pretty relaxing spot, once we managed to ignore the horde of attacking beverage saleswomen. As with many of the temples we have seen, the Roluos Group was in differing states of ruin and repair, as almost everywhere is undergoing some sort of conservation.

Here we are (a bit blurrily) in front of a temple called Bakong. After a leisurely evening ride through the surrounding paddy fields, the obligatory "hello" of course being quite common, we ended our first day of temple glory.

Our next day involved much more cycling, 47km instead of the previous days' 32km, but also included several spectacular temples, ending with a great sunset at Phnom Bok. Along the way we cruised around Angkor Wat's massive moat (but avoided seeing it, in an attempt to save "the best for later" - we made it one more day), before stopping at several temples within the main cluster. There are temples literally all over the place, and our plan was to ride a ways out into the countryside, but we couldn't just ride past fascinating ruins without stopping at them!
So we stopped and saw:
Prasat Kravan - a few small chambers with some nice carvings, like the woman shown above.

Banteay Kdel - a seemingly endless series of hallways, with plenty of disrepair within its massively long complex, though the small serene pile of moss-covered remnants at the entrance were equally photogenic.

Sras Srang - now just a giant water tank, with only the temple's platform remaining, we relaxed here for a while to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Pre Rup - a large, climbable set of ruins, with plenty of towers of all sizes, and great jungle views to the north.
Banteay Samre - another large complex, with very intact walls and a proper entrance gate.

Phnom Bok - accessible by a serious stair climb, these ruins are well-renowned for the pair of trees growing out of the tops of two dilapidated buildings.

We rode back in the dark, no big deal on the smooth roads somewhat lit by our headlamps, but all the traffic drives slowly around here since there are plenty of other local cyclists that need to be watched out for. We were definitely exhausted from our long day - getting up the next morning was far from a priority - but we wanted to do something spectacular for Christine's birthday, and sunset at Angkor Wat certainly did not disappoint!
A photo collage is most certainly in order, and it will make an appearance soon, we promise!

More news from Angkor soon,
Peace
A&E&BCL

2009-08-23T00:51:00.015-06:00

Check out this delicious street food from Battambang...

Once you've enjoyed that, you can read this, which was written yesterday:

Our boat slowly cruises down the muddy river channel, fisherman's boats and raised houses on either side. The man at shoulder's length presumably cannot read what's being written, but if so then hopefully he enjoys this shout-out. The journey from Battambang to Siem Riep, by speedboat (make sure to thoroughly de-emphasize the 1st syllable), takes between 5 and 9 hours depending on water level, and also apparently if nets get caught in the motor (which already happened). As the heat of the day increases, the shade within the boat equally decreases, and for once we're rather pleased to have awoken before 6am. We have yet to smell the river, the overpowering stench of petrol is inescapable, and our headphones are serving more as earplugs than music-listening devices. That said, the scenery is beautiful, the fresh baguettes we bought this morning delicious, and the people are as friendly as always.
Cambodia, the land of “hello” and “goodbye,” puts Thailand's waving masses to shame. We have traveled from the border at Pong Nam Ron, to Pailin, and then onto Battambang, and everywhere we have been has been delightful. For sure, the dirt roads are brutal and dusty, and the fact that this was quite recently a war-zone is always apparent, but that hasn't managed to dampen anyone's mood, ours or the masses of smiling children of all ages we meet along the way. Something about five sweaty whiteys is pretty hilarious, no doubt, but the most common emotion we encounter is excitement.
Last night we enjoyed a fantastic authentic Khmer meal, with a tuk-tuk driver we met named (well, abreved) “T” and his extended family. His young wife (23 and the mother of two – 6 & 3 years old) prepared a multitude of delicious dishes; cooked vegetables, an egg and beef dish, a Khmer-style fish curry (sans coconut), as well as an interesting Cambodian cheese dish mixed with smelly fish and bacon, all dazzled us, as did the constant flow of whiskey and soda. We're already pretty confident it will be the best meal we eat here in Cambodia, and we've only been here for 3 full days now!
Truly, it was a fantastic evening, and by the end of the night we felt like old friends relaxing under the tin roof's protection from the rain. We learned so much about modern Cambodian life, and enjoyed an atmosphere – as well as a gaggle of children – that no restaurant can compete with. Not that we aren't looking forward to tonight's Happy Pizza mind you, but we travel to experience all aspects of a country's culture, not just the touristic.
So far we've biked around 135 km en route while in Cambodia, for a total of over 450 km, which doesn't count a 30+ km jaunt yesterday to see a bunch of sights around Battambang. What sights you ask? Patience, we're going to sort this all out chronologically....
From Pong Nam Ron, Thailand, we headed due east on Tuesday morning, getting hit by the rain showers mentioned in our previous post, before missing our turn to the border. Yes, we biked a few kilometers past, because there were no English signs indicating where the turnoff from the highway to the border was. Even though there were a plethora of English everywhere else, the actual border was apparently not deemed important enough to signpost! Thankfully some helpful ladies on a motor-scooter understood our gesturing, and were able to clear things up for us, though Blaise did have to grudgingly pedal back up a hill that he'd caught a free ride down by hanging onto a truck.
The border crossing itself was relatively smooth, the Thai side stamped us out without problem, and the overly complicated Cambodian side (three different booths for three different forms) worked out reasonably well also, after they realized we were going to only pay the correct amount of $20, and not 1200 Baht, or $22, or 800 Baht, or whatever. We did pay plenty in smiles though, and fortunately Agent 007 appreciated our James Bond-related humor.
After crossing over, we played the oh-so-appropriate, yet lyrically inappropriate Dead Kennedy's song “Holiday in Cambodia.” Yes, we really do cycle around while listening to an iHome stereo, that's just how we roll.

The change between Thailand and Cambodia was immediately apparent. Thailand's road was paved, and its air clean. Cambodia's road, as mentioned, was rocky and full of potholes, dust being kicked up constantly by all vehicles, while all alongside children shouted and waved. Thailand feels sanitized, Cambodia is real, like India is. The travel here is raw, the cold water more greatly appreciated, the currency so low in value and reliability that the Khmer people primarily deal in US dollars. That's right, we buy things in dollars and receive Camodian riel in change. Not that the riel is worthless mind you, everything has a price in riel as well – but that fluctuates between 3300 and 4200 per dollar, and at least in western Cambodia the Thai baht is also accepted as a valid and preferred currency. So in theory we could pay with our leftover baht, and then get dollars and a small amount of riel as our change. How normal.
Our boat is still cutting through the water, though now the river has opened up expansively, as we steadily approach Tonle Sap, Cambodia's largest lake, and the source of much of its agriculture might (be that as it may). As always, we're the only North Americans around, the rest of the boat is about half European and half Khmer, and even here there are plenty of children. Half of Cambodia's population is under the age of 16, which is great in that the country needs to revitalize its population following the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, but worrisome so far as the lack of contraception and HIV/AIDS awareness is concerned. So now we are almost stuck in the river's thick vegetation, tarps have been pulled down on the sides, and we are in a claustrophobic nightmare, stuck inching along the tight channel within a veritable river garden, albeit one that looks as poky as tangled rose bushes. The heat is also rapidly increasing, both from the passing time and the absence of wind, so we can only hope we emerge soon from this prickly prison. Luke's trying (and failing) to sleep on the floor, Anderson is channeling his inner (OK, by now it's outer) nerd, and Liz, Blaise & Christine are sitting as calmly as one can given the circumstances.
Back to the journey recap, the last 20-odd km to Pailin (NOT like the former governor – and hopefully former politician, it's pronounced PIE-Lynn) went by fast enough, and outside of town we found a very relaxed guesthouse called Bam Boo. A later cruise through town verified that it was the best accommodation available, by far. The food was great, too, we had a family-style dinner after Anderson & Luke returned from the house of a local man who wanted to use his limited English skills on some captive (feel free to interpret that word either way) foreigners.
After a decent night sleep, preceded by laundry and a few Angkor beers – though not for Blaise, his upset stomach was still wreaking havoc at the time, we ate a quick breakfast of omelets and iced coffee before departing at the (somehow-early-for-us) time of 9:30 am. The brutal heat and humidity, such a nasty and constant combination here, kicked in right away. It may be the rainy season, but it isn't raining like it usually does – in one month we've only seen a couple true rainstorms. Thankfully, even in rural Cambodia, there are small shops along the road selling water and other beverages. Refrigeration is, when available, provided by large ice blocks, which are also carved up into smaller hunks for resale. But after even an hour on the road, our bottles of water are practically boiling, so even room-temperature (shaded) water feels blessedly cool by comparison. Do we love what we are doing? Of course, but that doesn't mean that pouring liters of sweat out of every orifice constantly is always enjoyable. Just like the choking petrol fumes right now are much more nauseating than any semblance of fun.
The day of cycling to Battambang was quite possibly the most hellish yet, only the last 10km up into the hills of Thailand is at all comparable. The 85km proceeded slowly, the road actually worse than the day before, at times looking like land mines might have recently altered the landscape. Bridges were dubious at best, some held together by ragged pieces of wood, making us glad we weren't driving a truck or something equally weighty. The countryside was full of natural beauty, though the storm brewing on the horizon trumped all else, and by “hello” five-hundred our enthusiasm for waving was waning just a bit. But the kilos flew by, if only our weights would change so quickly, and by late afternoon we were at least almost to our destination. Putting aside thoughts of stopping early, we pedaled onwards, for about an hour directly racing the oncoming rain (we succeeded). Only an hour before dark we finally saw dirt change to pavement, and soon enough we found ourselves at the Spring Park Hotel.

Priced at $6/room/night, the price was right, though the place looked 20 years old, not its actual age of only four. Kindly staff, and at least our shower worked even if the drain didn't. The water was reddish-brown from dust, and our bikes themselves are eagerly awaiting a bath and tune-up in Siem Reap. Oh, and the hotel has an elevator, which we immediately got stuck in. Lights out and between floors – par for the course.
A pizza dinner and then a pass-out were all we could muster, but by noontime the next day we were grudgingly ready for a little adventuring. The town's museum was underwhelming; while some statues were nice most were just jumbled on the floor. Next on the agenda was the bamboo train, Battanbang's unusual claim-to-fame.

Basically a bamboo-raft laid on top of twin axles, with the wheels powered by a cheap motor and a thick rubber band, the “train” bumps down ancient French-laid tracks from a long-past era. Now it's almost exclusively a tourist trap, as our heated price negotiations proved, but once we were finally moving (at $2/person) the ride was nice, though the scenery was limited, at the only destination was a store selling beers at the “end of the line” 15 minutes away. Good work, Lonely Planet, on the hype job. Is stimulating the local economy, at the price of feigning a cultural experience, beneficial to Cambodia? Or beneficial to we tourists? Hmmm....

That night we ate some great fried beef-and-noodles at a local restaurant down the road, lathered in a slightly spicy red sauce they were fresh and delicious, all the while an apparently-important Cambodian kickboxing match blared on the television's long-shattered speakers. Later in the evening, we checked out the surprisingly classy Sky Club, which featured some sort of buy four beers and get one free deal, though the language barrier made the explanation of that quite complicated. The club had a sweet sound-system, thankfully since any sort of a lesser system would not have been able to handle the relentless bass that the weird mix of happy-hardcore techno and Khmer love-songs required. Plus the average clubber's age was no more than 18, giving the whole place some sort of weird high-school dance feel, though one where the BPMs fear no upper-limit. From the “We Will Rock You” remix when we entered, to the crooning slow-dances, it was a bizarre musical night to say the least. But the people were all friendly, and (we're pretty sure) due to their general wealth/class, they all spoke an amazingly high level of English. We met a guy from Siem Riep who works at a guesthouse there, so we've got a hookup for tonight's lodging, and we've discovered that Cambodia seems to be much more accepting of the idea of gayness, in the men-with-men sense, while Thailand was only thoroughly caught-up in the whole “lady-boy” phenomenon. Political borders really seem to mean a lot in this part of the world... in more ways than we could have initially imagined.
Yesterday, as in Friday, was spent doing a bit of a cycling circuit outside of Battambang, which meant we saw a lot of strange and different things. First up was getting our boat tickets for today, $20 + a $3 bicycle charge and that was easily taken care of, plus we met our now-friend “T” who was hanging out looking for customers. Next we checked out an abandoned Pepsi plant, left for ruin in the mid-70s when the Khmer Rouge ran amok in Cambodia. The buildings are still standing, apparently now the home for an elderly man, and plenty of vintage glass soda bottles were stacked up and strewn about. After a bit of an adventure through some dirt-path side-streets, we found our next destination: a completely unmarked crocodile farm, where about 100 of the beasts laid in the shade or hid in the water. The utter lack of safety was a touch frighteningly, but we managed not to fall into their lair – what would our insurance carrier have said about that one?!
Oddly enough, the entire trip was on the best-paved Cambodian road we've seen yet, so apparently our final destination, the ruined temple of Wat Ek Phrom, gets a decent amount of traffic. The setting was quite nice, a modern temple in front, a lotus-filled pond to the side, and crumbling rocks piled all about, with flags and flowers emerging out of the wreckage. Dating from the 10th century, now the inner sanctum is still in use as both a place of offering and a man's bedroom. A few children acted as impromptu guides, our beverage purchase price decreased by 50% when we switched from dollars to riel, and thanks to our fine negotiating skills we got the previously unknown cyclist-discount, of $2 off our total admission fee. We even managed to have a P-Funk dance party for a few minutes, before getting back on our cycles to return to Battambang.

That's that then, hopefully we'll be in Siem Reap shortly, though our boat is rather unusual in that a Canadian film crew, following a young Khmer girl's return to her ethnic homeland, is onboard and shooting extensive video footage, so perhaps we'll be inadvertently featured in their documentary! Or maybe they'll realize our story is equally interesting, and switch projects mid-way... yeah, right.

----------------------------------

So now we are actually in Siem Reap, settled into our rooms at Lee Phallean Guesthouse, conveniently located - for Luke - across the street from a "for men" steam room/gym/massage facility. Later today (Sunday) we will go out get our one-week passes to Angkor, though we plan on doing so after 5pm so that tonight will be free. Our next days will then be filled with extensive temple madness, some cycling to get to the closer temples, are probably one day of riding in a tuk-tuk in order to see the more outer-lying temples. Gonna be exhausting and fun, for both us and our cameras!

And now for your moment of zen, from Wat Ek Phrom temple outside of Battambang:

2009-08-19T08:53:00.014-06:00

This was written yesterday (Tuesday) morning, but a further update will appear very soon, we promise!
It's just been a touch difficult to find functioning internet over the past few days, but that's what happens when you're out in the Thai/Khmer boonies. But all is well, have no fear, other than tired legs and a bit more that you'll have to read about below, all is going fantastically.

We're currently beneath a yellow rain shelter, approximately 7 (or 8) km from the Cambodian border. Internet access isn't exactly available here, so the actual posting shall occur later, but given that the rain doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon, typing seems like a good way to pass some time.

If you're at all familiar with Thai geography, you're realizing that we're nowhere Ko Samet, and that's definitely true. We were delayed from departing the island first by our love of sand and sea, and then second by Blaise's recent illness of the liquid-out-both-ends variety. Thankfully he's being quite the trooper, despite our rather brutal cycling schedule over the past two days.
We (finally) left Ko Samet mid-morning on Sunday, hearts heavy as our adopted dog, Mama – 'ma' conveniently means 'dog' in Thai, so when we called her 'Mama dog' we were sorta calling her 'dog dog dog' – stood by the pier and watched our ferry depart. Unlike our arrival, our departure was smooth sailing as the waters were very calm. After breakfast in Ban Phae, and the acquisition of a reasonably cheap used Lonely Planet Cambodia, we then headed due east on the beach road, opting for better scenery and fewer cars for as long as we could. We eventually rejoined Highway 3 (Sukhumvit Road, still) in the town of Klaeng, but since it was only mid-afternoon we decided to soldier on for at least a few dozen more kilometers. As darkness began approaching, and no hotels were on the horizon, we stopped at a random gas station to inquire about a hotel.
Between our gestures for sleep, the word hotel, and some broken Thai phrases that Yan had written down for us the week before, we eventually made our request clear, but when the lengthy Thai explanation failed to be understood, a kindly woman on a scooter agreed to escort us to our lodging. A half kilo up was an intersection, called Na Yai Am, and then a further kilo off of the main road, essentially completely out in the countryside, was a nice modern (for Thailand) hotel, with A/C and a fridge, for 400 Baht/night. It was exactly what we needed, and without the woman's help we would never have found it. We imagine her directions, that we failed to comprehend, went something like this: go straight until you see a 7-11; at the next intersection turn left, then go straight for at least a kilometer; then turn right at the enormous poster of the King, go straight on that road until you see the panda bear statues and it's on the right. Duh.
Anyways, after showering everyone but Blaise (lounging in internal agony) went out to the night market for dinner – but only after the amazing lightning performance had pretty much concluded, and several bouts of rain had been waited out. Dinner was great, the cheapest food we've had yet, and quality was not sacrificed for price. Coming from a well-touristed island, 15 Baht pad thai was literally ¼ the price we had been paying! One beer was all we could handle with dinner, something about sweating out liters of liquid makes barley and hops a bit less appealing.
A decent night of sleep ensued, and the next morning came all too soon, but at least we'd bought breakfast provisions the night before (all hail the mighty 7-11) so we had pastries and coffee in addition to our usual Lara Bars. That's right Stacy, we really eat Lara Bars for breakfast :-). And they are delicious!
Little did we know that our most brutal day yet was beginning, for it felt quite low-key and easy cruising through the Thai lowlands on flat well-paved roads. We skirted around Chanthaburi, opting to keep a more direct route to head into the mountains rather than seeing an unnecessary city. To our female members' dismay we later learned C-Town is arguably one of the diamond capitols of the world, supposedly one-third of all the world's shiny see-through gems pass through the town en route to all the globe's jewelry stores.

Turning north on Highway 317, the countryside immediately changed, as cool, lush, and cloudy hills were visible on all sides of the still flat road. Pushing onwards, we set our goal for Khamen, a town we eventually realized was imaginary. On the map, but not on the road. To seek solace we checked out a beekeeping site, part of Thailand's apparently growing Agro-Tourism industry.

The beehives themselves were perhaps not the most exciting, but the lotions, shampoos, and lip balms made from honey – and priced for local Thais and not foreign tourists – were spectacular. We got to sample the two varieties of honey, as well as the uber-pricey and uber-healthy yet uber-nasty Royal Jelly.
Then the hills began. And they were rough.
Having already biked around 75km, the last ten proved excruciating and sweat-soaked.

The climate was at least cool (we'd waited out the now-daily monsoon at our lunchtime eatery: rice, egg, and spinach never tasted as good), though the incline was nasty. And lengthy. But we're hardcore, apparently (!), and we had no choice but to continue up the mountain to Pong Nam Ron, the last Thai town before the border at Ban Pakkard / Psar Phrom. Arriving energy-less, the 7-11 was a welcome and familiar neon glow. And then a miracle occurred – we met, in the rural mountains, the one local foreigner (from the UK) and his kindly Thai wife. We got helpful directions for the town's two hotel options – we opted for the cheaper bungalows, the satin sheets were a nice touch – and then ended up having a great dinner with them at a local restaurant where people go to 'eat street.' The food was super spicy, so much that the smoke from other people's food literally choked us. But it was also super tasty, so the trade-off was worth it.
He regaled us with stories of enormous spitting cobras, his dog that was stolen by Cambodian fruit pickers to eat for dinner, and the general joys and pains of running an almost self-sufficient fruit farm in Thailand. It was a quite enjoyable dinner for everyone, since he usually doesn't get to speak much English, and we were pleased to have some company so far off the beaten track.
Whoa, we just saw a car accident as I'm typing this. Car on truck, but both people are full of smiles as they sort it out. The damage seems minimal, though the car's grille is currently unattached, and the truck definitely has a huge dent in its side, but apparently all is well today in Thailand. Must be the rain chilling everyone out!

That's what was typed previously, there will be another post soon to get you all caught up – we've definitely covered a lot of ground, albeit bumpy ground, over the past 2 days, but you'll have to be patient to learn exactly where we are in the Kingdom of Cambodia!

Peace from Kampuchea,
AEBCL

2009-08-10T22:39:00.010-06:00

Posting blog entries is sorta a paradox – we want to write them all the time, but we have to actually have the time do so, which means there has to be a break from the daily awesomeness of such length that some diligent and self-retrospective thinking and typing can occur. Yes, Thailand is undergoing a bit of “awesomeness” right now, something about body-surfing between drink specials on the beautiful island of Ko Samet combined with having biked over 175km already is making us feel pretty grand.
Obviously there's a few days of insanity that you need to get the down-low on – so here we go.
Last thing you read we were going to bed, ready to arise early and begin our much-hyped cycling adventure. Well, we did it.
It may have taken us a bit longer than planned to eat breakfast, get all our bags strapped down, and take a few take-off photos, but by around 8am we were cruising through congested traffic, going south-east on Sukhumvit Road. Frankly, it was hot, all day long, which combined with the rampant noise and air pollution, was a bit much at times. Thankfully, a multitude of people honked, waved, and smiled their ways into our hearts the entire time. Seriously, almost everywhere we go we are greeted enthusiastically, despite our sweat, stench, and silliness – after all we are often biking on rather major roads, full of trucks and other large vehicles. Thais ride bicycles, but not across their country, so we definitely stand out at all times.

Disaster struck almost immediately, which was nice to 'get out of the way:' Christine blew a tire 90 minutes into our ride, rubber losing out to an invading nail. Blaise stepped up, despite a torrent of sweat upon his brow (and thus on the ground), doing an Indy 500-worthy job. Our current cycling schedule then emerged – ride for an hour or so, and then take a well-deserved break, which might involve beverages (almost always plural, we are sweating liters of water out so quickly that it's hard to earn a trip to the toilet that's not 'curry scurry' oriented), street food which is either rice or noodle based, or just pure standing satisfaction.
Right now we are averaging a bit over 16km/hr, which ought to be faster except we are carrying many kilos of stuff – Blaise's bike w/luggage weighs just under 30kg. His is the only weight we know, since so far no one else has bucked up the 1 Baht to weigh their ride. Perhaps soon.
Back in the heat, tire repaired and water consumed, we fearlessly rode onwards until hunger struck. Finding food proved to be a touch more difficult than craving it, as the first three places we stopped at were not able to provide any vegetarian food. Then a pad thai stand appeared, almost like a mirage (OK, that's a bit of exaggeration, but we were quite ravenous and drenched at the time), which ended up being the first in a series of unusual events.
Wading through the usual language barrier, we managed to sort out our order of two vegetarian meals and three non-vegetarian meals (chicken), and as much water as we could drink (!), before the whiskey-drunk-at-noon local man started asking us questions in Thai. Yep, he was already wasted, needed help opening another bottle, and wouldn't stop yammering even when we were eating. Thankfully, the karma police were keeping a lookout, as seated at the next table was an extremely helpful Thai man named Yan.

Yan spoke excellent English, wrote down a bunch of helpful Thai food phrases for us, and offered to meet up with us later in the evening, once we'd biked to our destination Chan Buri – which was located about 20km away. He gave us his business card to call him, and we figured we might as well since Chan Buri isn't exactly a tourist destination.
As luck would have it (well, when you're traveling you don't really want to concede it's luck, perhaps good fortune), his 1:30pm appointment was canceled, so perhaps 45 minutes later he drove back to the restaurant, where we were still relaxing in the shade, and offered us a ride onwards. With about 50km under our belts, and the afternoon sun still shining away recklessly, without much debate we loaded up his truck-bed with our bikes, and the truck-cab with our bodies. Despite the cramped conditions, the air-conditioning felt blessed, and the kilometers flew by in comparison to our usual pace. Without us really being aware Chon Buri flew right by (it was about 20km or so from where we had stopped for lunch), and soon we started seeing signs for Pattaya. It was there, about 80km later, on the outskirts of town at a petrol station, where we landed without much knowledge of our location.
Well, we certainly figured out quickly that we were in one of the sex capitols of Asia. Getting directions to the backpacker-friendly part of town (that means low prices, and perhaps equally low quality), we soon found ourselves on streets full of cat-calling and scantily-clad women, all at bars with cheap drink specials and flexible hours of operation. Our hotel, somewhat surprisingly, was rather upmarket for being only 400 Baht/night, especially since they let us pack three people in one room. They even changed our linens, and gave us new soap and shampoo – perhaps necessary given the usual clientele :-).
We spent one day relaxing on Pattaya's beach, which was, perhaps fittingly, a bit nasty. However, the sun felt great, Liz got a pedicure and a manicure beach-side for a mere 200 Baht, and our rented (30 Baht) beach-chairs provided good comfort for reading. As for the water itself, between the garbage, the glass, and the jellyfish (both dead and alive), we hardly spent anytime in it.
Being so Westernized, Pattaya had all sorts of chains, both restaurant and hotel. So Blaise got to eat some of his beloved Subway (could be the last time for a long while), and we got to see a scenic Holiday Inn looming over the skyline. On ground level the streets were full of bars, shops, and go-go bars.

“Comfort women” - if you will, were everywhere, and older white European men, rarely alone, were omnipresent. It was a strange environment, but we had fun with it, and all the workers (of all types) were friendly and polite to us, a few even recognizing us from our initial cycling about in search of lodging.
One night of partying late was plenty for us, though we could at least somewhat understand why most visitors stay for at least a month, so our second night ended around midnight so that we could start riding in the morning's cool. Things actually worked out well for us on our lengthy Saturday ride (Pattaya to Rayong = 70km and over four hours actually pedaling), as the sky overhead remained cloudy-yet-rainless the entire time. We kept a good pace, and the road (Hwy 3 primarily, which was still technically called Sukhumvit Road) was well-paved and flat, so the kilometers passed by. When we stopped for an early lunch, at 10:30am, we had already taken care of 50km. We ate at a fantastic place, owned by a Westerner and aimed at foreign tourists/golfers/businessmen, so the food was very well-prepared and yet the prices were wholly reasonable – most Thai dishes were 50 Baht, cheap considering that even out on the street they are thirty.
We took our time eating and drinking, and when the owner of the place recommended a non-touristy temple a turn up off the main road, we figured we'd check it out. Late last night this became Anderson's first collage project using Picasa, so hopefully it turned out to your liking!

We got to “relax” with blue Buddhas, and cute puppy dogs, too, before ascending a flight of steps through a bit of forest/jungle to get to the temple. We could see an enormous green Buddha towering on the hillside most of the way up – the hideous radio tower behind only became visible when we actually got to the temple. The entire temple was strange: everything seemed fake and cheesy, like leftovers from a Disneyland Buddha ride that never quite materialized. To add to the delirium, families were faithfully worshiping in our midst. What they thought of the herd of sweaty cyclists, in tight black shorts holding handkerchiefs, snapping photos and chugging water, we can only guess.
The final 20km or so went by quickly, though most of it was spent cruising though a series of adjacent towns, so we did take a pair of fast stops for more liquids. We got into Rayong just about dinner time, which means a little past 4pm, and after some city cycling and direction-asking, we found two great deals: 10 Baht/plate food at a corner store, and then the city's only real affordable hotel, the Star Apartments. Located in the shadow of the pricey Star Hotel, they were a bit dingy and ant-filled, but passable given the circumstances. Finding dinner was even a tad difficult, as our desire to actually sit down to eat turned a task into a chore. Blocks later we finally found a restaurant, only to have one of our meals forgotten (which has actually happened several times so far), but at least the eats were actually good.
We didn't realize internet was available at our hotel, else this would've been written/posted a few days ago, but so it goes. The night passed quickly enough, so quick we slept in a bit, so after we'd finished our rice breakfast, it was around 11am. But the 26km wasn't too big a deal at all, and after getting intentionally misled by a boat tout to an alternate pier, we found ourselves waiting for the public ferry. Cycling down the pier once the boat had arrived, we then had a bit of an ordeal getting our bikes actually on the roof of the boat. The only access point was a wooden plank walkway, so we had to take all the luggage off of our bikes, and then dangerously pass it over the open water while choppy seas swayed the boat every which way. Literary license aside, it was more intense than we'd expected – as was the actual ride, which really made Liz wish she'd taken some Dramamine.
We'd done some beach research about Ko Samet before arriving, so we were aiming for either the main Hat Sai Kaew (aka Diamond Beach), or Ao Hin Khok right next door. The former ended up being too upmarket for our needs, but the latter, after we'd finally found a way through the maze of shops near the beach, was just our style. Not too many people, good enough waves for body-surfing, and a nice white beach all awaited us, we just had to locate an affordable hotel. That proved difficult at first, as everyplace we checked out had prices double what we wanted to buy, but finally we found some dumpy bungalows for 300 Baht/room directly up the hill behind the beach. While not glamorous, Tok's Guesthouses are certainly functional, and with the fan blowing on us it actually feels quite cool in our rooms.
We arrived in the mid-afternoon, so we got several hours of immediate beach-time in. We also got numerous hours of dancing in that night at the Silver Sands Bar, where everyone drifts to for pounding dance music until 3am.

Monday was much more beach-time, sunning, swimming, and lots and lots of body-surfing. Plus plenty of eating, the food at our guesthouse is really quite amazing, and with a plethora of happy hour specials the drinks are also reasonably priced even if we weren't on an island.
We'll try again for internet usage on Tuesday - which as you can read has been successful, our attempt today (Monday) was met with “it's broken.” At least that's about as stressful as it gets here in paradise.

More blogging when there's news to blog about,
Peace
A&E&krew

2009-08-05T10:05:00.002-06:00

Just a quick post to say that we have gotten our bikes (!), survived the 10km bike ride through the hectic city streets to our guesthouse, and that we will officially be departing Bangkok tomorrow morning. If all goes to plan we'll be leaving in about 7 hours - that's why this post is so short, it's definitely bedtime - and be riding approximately 80km or so to Chonburi, Thailand. We may stop earlier if we get tired or whatnot, but given that it is our first day we really want to get in a good days worth of riding.
We also got our bikes all pimped out today at Bike Zone: new saddles, water bottle holders, mirrors, bike bags, etc. Together we've spent almost $2000 just on our bikes and basic accessories (not counting panniers and such), but all money well-spent as far as we are concerned. Our bikes look nice, they rode great today, and we're very excited to get a move on!
Brian also departed for America today, we know he's having a wonderful time in the air right now in business class - in his new suit! We definitely had a great time with him in Bangkok & Chiang Mai, and are wishing him the best of luck in his upcoming job search!

It's officially bedtime
Peace
A&E+BCL

2009-08-03T03:05:00.012-06:00

Picking up where we left off, Muay Thai ended up being quite interesting, and certainly authentic. We'll overlook the fact Liz passed out mid-evening, or that Anderson lost 50 baht gambling, since eight fights in a row is certainly a lot to endure without distractions arising :-). Many of the fighters were very young, there was one 30kg fight between literal boys, and plenty of other battles were in the 40-45kg range. The top fight, billed as Heavyweight, was between two 90kg warriors. However, all the fights were entertaining, and while foreigners outnumbered local fans, everyone was enthusiastic and, it seemed, at least somewhat intoxicated. Singha Beer was the official stadium sponsor, and Thai culture is certainly relaxed about drinking - like Korea it is literally available everywhere.

After the Muay Thai, Blaise and Anderson ended up wandering the streets for a while, which resulted in them witnessing a stopped tuk-tuk getting smashed into by a woman on a speeding motorbike. From about 10 feet away, it definitely was a bit of a shock, and ruined any chances of them getting a ride. Thankfully the woman appeared to be alright, although she probably wasn't going to be driving anywhere for a while...
Earlier in the day we'd wandered around, stopping at a few travel shops, looking to book a "Hill Tribe Tour." There are a plethora of options here in Chiang Mai, but we wanted a lot of bang for our buck, even if it meant being uber-touristic. The tour we wanted was a one-day trip, including two hill tribes (Karen & Hmong), plus a one-hour elephant ride and a one-hour bamboo raft ride. After some price shopping, we got it down to 600 Baht/person, with Mr. Whiskey Tours. So Saturday we awoke around 7:30, sleepily showering and downing breakfast in silence. After a short walk to the travel shop, and a water pickup (sorry, no whiskey) at 7-11 (they have the best deal, 1.5 liters for 12 Baht), we were ready to go when the minivan pulled up. Our guide was a man named Po, who not only spoke excellent English, but was very fun-loving and informative once we'd warmed up to each other. First on our busy agenda was our elephant ride, which is about the most awesome way to start a day. Elephants are spectacular, and even if you're riding around on an established track, with vendors along the way selling bags of bananas

and sugarcane (20 Baht), its still an incredible ride. Liz & Luke had the cutest driver, a boy of no more than 4 or 5, who nonetheless drove the elephant with sufficient skill. The elephants have become a bit

greedy - helps sell more fruit - but how can you refuse a trunk curling up needfully in your face? With plenty of photos taken, our next stop was our the Karen village, which was empty except for pigs, chickens, a spicy chili pepper plant, and one woman selling beautiful traditional woven handicrafts. We might have bought a few, its true...

From there we did a bit of jungle walking, it was impossible to call 30 minutes on a wide path 'trekking,' but we ended up at a very nice waterfall, where we got to go swimming for a while. The water felt great in contrast to the hot, humid air, so even our guide took a dip. The swimming hole was located right at the waterfall's base, so when we would jump in the current would immediately push us downstream - not much swimming was actually required.
Our next village stop, the Hmong people, was even more touristed-out, as all we saw was a row of houses next to a row of handicrafts for sale. Thankfully lunch was next, as our stomach's were in need of sustenance. The food was actually quite delicious, always a concern on any type of package tour, but we got a decent Massaman curry, plenty of fresh veggies with fried rice, and a variety of cold beverages were available as well. The grand finale was bamboo-rafting, which ended up being pretty awesome as the river we were on at least had some semblance of rapids, and the raft drivers were more than willing to make it a good time, engaging in water and fruit fights. Yep, we were picking up fruit from the river and throwing it at each other!
Saturday night we split up, LLC going out earlier, while ABB relaxed for a while before journeying out to find food and beers around midnight. LLC perhaps lucked out, getting to watch a real elephant dance around outside the bars, keeping beat surprising well, and making some new friends who gave them a motorbike ride to Spicy, one of the biggest clubs in town for late-night dancing. ABB ended up eating tasty fried mystery meat and an equally mysterious-but-tasty fruit and vegetable dish. At least the Beer Changs were without a veil of secrecy!
Sunday we had a different animal experience, as we all piled into a songthaew in the later afternoon to go to Tiger Kingdom. Basically its a place where you pay money to be able to touch real tigers - there's a perhaps more famous Tiger Temple outside of Bangkok, however this place, only 15 minutes (versus 3 hours) away, was much more convenient, and actually turned out to be less expensive, too. Liz and Brian chose the 520 Baht "Smallest" option, while the rest of us picked "Medium" for 200 fewer Baht. So that's $10 or $16 to spend 15 minutes with real, live tigers. Yeah, we know - it was a great deal. We got to pet and pose away, the tigers were definitely awake and not drugged, they were just relaxing as the heat of the day ended. Frankly, if the tiger's were any more excited, it might have been a bit scary. Looking into their eyes (briefly), we knew they were happy yet still wild. After our time was up, we then got to watch an employee play with a group of five juvenile tigers, who were more than happy to chase after a toy on a stick, wrestling with each other the whole time. They'd jump into a big pool of water, pull on each other's necks and tails, and do a multitude of other cute things. Getting to watch tigers at play from so close (10 feet, just separated by a chain-link fence) was arguably cooler than actually touching the tigers - a cat feels like a cat no matter how big it is.

Last night was then spent wandering about, and we ended up having a chance midnight meet-up (of our different wandering groups) at a fried insect stand outside the local gay bars. The infamous ABB combo was bold enough to try grasshoppers and frogs, with Blaise even downing a cricket. They were all without doubt nasty, however the fact that enormous roaches and other 'tree bugs' were also available meant we were actually being pretty tame. It's not like we're on 'Man Vs. Wild' or anything over here - our lunch today at Subway (daily special 6" sandwich = 59 Baht) was very satisfying! The gay bars were understandably lowkey on a Sunday night, though the pulsating electronic dance music and the lady-boy bartender made for quite the atmosphere. We were surprised to hear some of our own favorite songs, 'Dhoom Utchali' from India, as well as 'Tell Me' & 'Nobody' from Korea, blasting on the stereo - though the bar-staff swore they were Thai in origin. A song's still a song even if the name's wrong...
Today's been a day of relaxation, though Luke & Christine are currently at the Chiang Mai zoo, and we remaining boys made a ticket run to the train station, but we've mostly been reading, writing, and packing for our 9pm overnight train back to Bangkok. Unfortunately sleeper class wasn't available this time around, so we're just going to have to stay up most of the night - good thing we're oh so flexible! Tuesday will be spent doing final biking preparation, and then Brian will fly out Wednesday afternoon, so hopefully we can get a decent night of sleep Wednesday before our planned departure early Thursday morning. We want to leave early to beat both the heat and the traffic, almost half of our first day will be escaping metro-Bangkok - wish us luck on that, please!
For a different perspective on our travels, make sure to check out Blaise's blog: Keep On Keepin' On. It's been added to our link list for easy accessibility, just make sure to be ready to laugh while you read, since his writing is definitely quite hilarious!
There is also a new Holiday Fu article up, called 24 Hours in Bangkok, while a Chiang Mai/Muay Thai piece is also in production. To give fair warning, these articles are definitely much more gritty and 'real' than this blog, if you want to keep viewing our adventures through Disney-glasses, then you should probably stick to the blog only :-).

Peace A&E&posse

2009-07-31T02:09:00.001-06:00

On Tuesday we finally realized our dream of laying eyes on the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. Part of a massive temple complex, that looks like the set from the as-yet-unfilmed Candyland film, the statue itself is housed in an enormous building. Truly, the magnitude of this religious icon is done no justice by our photos - it is simply giant. Representing the moment when the Buddha obtained nirvana, the entire Wat is very peaceful and serene, despite the omnipresent camera flashes. The remainder of the temple complex, besides being a bit complex to navigate, was also impressive, full of brightly colored spires, devotional halls with Buddha statues, and plenty of gardens to relax, contemplate, or meditate.
We did manage to wander about a bit during the rest of the day, getting traditional Thai massages in the morning, and in the evening stopping at the massively modern MBK Building where we purchased some business cards; however, our evening plans of going out were waylaid by an UNO-filled evening and a relatively early pass out. Wednesday became a bit of a business day, with us dividing up be more productive. Anderson & Luke headed to the train station to purchase our overnight tickets to Chiang Mai, while Brian, Blaise & Liz did a little cycling and suit shopping. We all reconvened mid-afternoon, loaded up our packs, and journeyed across town for our 6pm train. The key problem with traveling right now is that all of our baggage is optimized for bicycle travel, not land travel, so currently we have to awkwardly carry panniers and dry sacks slung over our shoulders!
The train was waiting at the station when we arrived, so after purchasing some important provisions, like whiskey and chips, we got onboard. 2nd Class A/C was definitely quite nice, our benches handily converting into beds for sleeping. We got dinner, not too bad at a deal at 150 Baht if the taste of the generic curries could be ignored. Everyone on the train went to bed pretty early, as did we when exhaustion kicked in around 10pm. We awoke at 6am, the congested city of Bangkok having been exchanged for lush, green mountainsides. Breakfast arrived soon, tasting somewhat better than dinner, so far as a cheese, lettuce, and tomato sandwich can. Disembarking, we avoided a few hotel touts, before taking a Songthaew to a somewhat randomly selected lane outside of the main tourist ghetto. Without a destination, we just divided up and checked out several guesthouses before settling on Finlay Bed & Breakfast, which at 250 Baht/person including breakfast and A/C, was definitely in our price range.
Given that our train arrived only a little while after 7 am, we were excited to actually have a full day of adventure ahead of us. The tricky part was figuring out what to do! Chiang Mai is known for its temples, and for being more relaxed than Bangkok, but it is still a large city with over one million people. So at first we considered renting some bicycles, but after talking to another traveler who was staying at our hotel, we decided that scooters, or motorbikes as they are known here, would be a better bet. More fun, only slightly more cost, and the ability to travel well up into the surrounding hills clinched it for us.

After some bartering, we got four automatic scooters for 850 Baht, which included helmets, one liter of petrol, and insurance in case anything unfortunate were to arise. Not to ruin the end of this blog post, but we didn't need the insurance, thankfully. We'd heard that there was a fantastic temple 16km west of Chiang Mai that also would provide splendid city views. First, however, we spent time cruising around the city, getting used to being on the left-hand side of the road, and checking out a few other temples we'd read about in Lonely Planet. After a few wrong turns, and a bit of circling about, we found ourselves at Wat Phra Singh, an immense Wat full of impressive imagery and icons, as well as a large garden area with a plethora of Buddhist sayings in Thai and English.

We thought there were plenty of Buddhas about, but our next destination, Wat Chiang Man, was practically overflowing with statues of Buddha. We find it iconically ironic (or ironically iconic?) that Buddha didn't want himself worshipped as an idol, and yet Thai Buddhists did not get that memo apparently! But the statuary were all impressive, almost always at least flaked in gold, and in plenty of positions. Reclining, fasting, teaching, praying, etc. were all represented, sometimes in the same hall. Monks were usually about as well, so chanting could be heard as we walked and gawked.
Elephants played a predominate theme as well as other animals, but the former were stone while the latter were live cats and dogs.

In between those two temples we enjoyed a delicious Thai lunch, full of pad thai and some spicy local noodles. We also went overboard on beverages, our table full of 25 Baht smoothies and shakes. We gotta fight dehydration whenever we can, as the humidity here is infinitely more draining than you'd think. Next up on the agenda was the long ascent into the hills to Doi Suthep temple. The climb was slow, even on motorbike, as getting past 40km/hr proved difficult. The endless S-curves were quite enjoyable, though we were glad that the weather was clear as it definitely could've been dangerous otherwise.

We stopped briefly at a lookout point, for the prerequisite photos, as well as an icy lemon juice, before driving up the last few kilometers. At this point the clouds all around us startled to drizzle a bit, and we were more than happy to scurry up the temples 305 steps to shelter. Thirty Baht later we were walking about barefoot and amazed. Seriously, the number of collection boxes requesting donations practically outnumbered the Buddhas, and the Buddhas numbered in the thousands. Of all shapes and sizes, the coup de grace was the stunning Emerald Buddha.

For added effect, the skies literally opened up as we arrived in its presence, rain pouring all over the gold-encrusted and under-construction central pagoda nearby. Thankfully a respite came soon enough, and we were able to emerge only damp and hungry. A nearby noodle and rice restaurant recharged us for our descent down the mountain, and despite being splattered by raindrops we rode our way down. We pulled over about halfway, since we wanted to ride an extra 3km to see a signposted waterfall.

While pausing momentarily at the entrance gate, Mother Nature took control again, and the true monsoonal onslaught began. Monsoon rain might not always fall hard, but when it pours out from the sky it drenches everything in its path. You don't get wet when you walk around in it, you simply become soaked instantly.

Our plan of waiting out the rain failed, as darkness started to become an issue, so despite the downpour we drove deep into a valley, curving around on a small road. The waterfall paled in comparison to the journey, for riding out of the valley bordered on downright danger. Steep hills, both up and down, were slick beyond belief, and at times our shoes became additional brake pads. Thankfully we emerged unscathed, able to laugh at our predicament, but the relief when we finally reentered Chiang Mai, and conveniently simultaneously departed the storm, was palpable. Despite getting separated, we all managed to wind our way back to our hotel decently effectively. We did definitely get some looks, as foreigners on the roads at night are pretty rare.

Dinner was pizza, and we managed to find more of the doxycycline (for malaria) that we all need at the low, low price of three Baht/pill, so the night was a definite success, too. Drinking beers and listening to music at our hotel made a pleasant nightcap to a day full of Thai adventure. Today, Friday, the plan is to lay low in general, but tonight we're going to go to a Muay Thai fight. We're not exactly fight fans (but then, we're not necessarily all Ping-Pong fans but that didn't stop us from seeing the infamous show while in Bangkok), though the spectacle alone, plus the fact it's an authentic local experience, should definitely make it worth it.

More news soon for sure,
Peace
A&E&L&B&B&C

2009-07-28T00:10:00.011-06:00

While we laid low on Friday night, we've ended up having a couple of crazy Bangkok days and nights since. Without divulging TOO much information, our Saturday involved the interesting dichotomy of the large traditional Chatuchak Market during the day, and some late-night adult and club adventures at night. The market was sprawling and quite impressive, not only for the variety of goods available, but also for how friendly all the sellers were. The market was quite clean, mostly devoid of gross odors, and our lunch there was delicious. Anderson's written an article about our experiences, that obviously goes into much more detail, so hopefully that will be available on Holiday Fu shortly.
Since we stayed up until past 8am, the majority of Sunday was spent in slumber, not-so-easy given the heat and humidity, but we all managed to sleep pretty well nonetheless. Sunday night we headed back to the airport to pick up Blaise, and so by about midnight our entire team was officially assembled. Of course we (again) stayed up late, but that's pretty much our MO until the cycling begins.
Yesterday we were again up for the challenge of exploring Bangkok's sprawling sites. We rode the SkyTrain across the city to the Chao Phraya River, where we boarded a public boat.

For only 30 baht we rode up about a third of the river, disembarking quite near the infamous Khao San Road. Other than plenty of touts, and the typical tourist ghetto wares, there wasn't really much going on, so we hopped into some tuk-tuks to see some temples. We tolerantly agreed to endure some sales pitches at a tailor shop and a massive gem store, in exchange for a free ride. Our drivers were great young guys, so the whole experience was pretty fun, since we knew what we were getting ourselves into.
We saw the much-hyped "Big Buddha," at Wat Indravihan, although what we wanted to see was the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho - we're planning on heading there sometime soon.
After our temple tour, we decided that Blaise needed to experience the seedier side of Bangkok, so the tuk-tuk drivers dropped us off at a non-descript building in some random neighborhood. Inside was the infamous Ping-Pong Show. Use your imagination, and then some, and you'll get a rough idea of what was going on. Needless to say, it was at times very far from sexual, like a low-budget Cirque Du Soleil involving certain female body parts. Not exactly entertaining, but certainly intriguing. We summed it up as something your curiosity forces you to see once, but you'd definitely never go again. Definitely.

2009-07-24T07:36:00.008-06:00

Bangkok!

Thailand!

Let's see - it's cleaner, calmer, and cooler than initially expected. Maybe India has jaded our traveler's eyes, but when we think "developing world" we expect to see garbage, animals, and beggars everywhere in the streets. However, so far during our brief wanderings about the city we haven't seen much of any of them. Once jetlag has left us alone a bit more we plan on being touristic, and perhaps that will slightly alter our opinion, but today we did ride the SkyTrain to go and check out our bikes. We finally met Fausto, the owner of Bike Zone, where we are purchasing our bikes from. He's a great guy, our bikes look fantastic, and he's even nicely storing some of our stuff for us while we are traveling around for the next two weeks!

Everyone has arrived, except Blaise who will be showing up Sunday night. This means we've been to the airport three times already, which isn't so bad since we can catch a bus direct to the airport from nearby our hotel. We are staying at Sukhumvit On Nut Guesthouse - the goofy name is due to the two main nearby streets. Don't worry, we haven't quite gotten over the fact that we're staying "ON NUT" either :-).

All the food we've had so far has been spectacular, lots of fresh vegetables and spices in every dish. Luke, as a vegetarian, is having to work a bit to get his preferred style of food, but that's primarily due to our inability to read the restaurant menus. Thai is a pretty, curvy script, but that doesn't really help when we're trying to decipher what has meat and what doesn't. Thankfully pointing, looking helpless, and taking a gamble has been successful so far.

We'll post more soon, but despite having done a minimum of adventuring, we are definitely so exhausted that going out on a Friday night doesn't even sound appealing...

Peace
A&E

2009-07-23T05:51:00.007-06:00

Here's a post from earlier, you'll understand the delay once you read the first paragraph:

It's now Tuesday morning, and we're just settling into our full day of waiting at Beijing's airport. Big news here is that the government is quite actively blocking websites: we are stopped from accessing both Facebook and Blogger, and currently our attempts to get a proxy working are failing, so you may be reading this a while after its been written! Thankfully we depart for Bangkok this evening around 7pm, so we're only “censored” for a day – which is great except that we arrived here before 5am! Sometimes our thriftiness – in finding the cheapest voyage to Thailand - is only so beneficial...

Anyways, we just spent a fantastic weekend with the extended Muth clan, primarily hanging out in Redondo Beach, CA. We stayed at a Best Western only blocks from Hermosa Beach (where we spent a great morning body-surfing the waves), which was also about a mile from where our aunt & uncle live. Quality time was the top priority, since everyone only had the weekend to see each other, so we spent a lot of time chatting, eating, and drinking. Besides the beach visit, we also squeezed in a little hot-tub time, played an exciting game of family charades, and Liz even managed to hit up a yoga class. It was really nice to see everyone, aunts & uncles, cousins, and cousins' children alike :-).
We also visited our aunt & uncle on Anderson's mother's side, out in Northridge, so we ate some amazing Chinese food at the Mandarin Cafe and also petted their two Australian Shepherds, Renzo & Elle, as much as we possibly could.
Monday we spent cruising around LA with our friend Matt, having lunch at Venice Beach, exploring a bit of Long Beach (where he lives), and then returning to Redondo Beach for one last family get-together at Ruby's. After saying our final, final, final round of goodbyes, our cousin Reannon drove us the short distance to LAX, and to the beginning of our SE Asian Adventure...

2009-07-16T22:15:00.030-06:00

Petrified Forest National Park

It's been a busy few days of road-travel, as we work our way across the American Southwest. This is being typed en route, actually, so currently we're in the desert between Flagstaff, AZ and Barstow, CA. We'll be staying in Barstow this evening, which is exciting mostly because the hotel has a pool in addition to the wi-fi!
Today is going to primarily be a travel day, not only because we need to cover a lot of miles, but also because most of the destinations are too far off of I-40 to visit when you're in a rush. That means we've decided against the Grand Canyon - four hours of driving for a few photo ops isn't quite worth it when one travels with their parents :-). Thankfully, yesterday involved more than enough touristic activities to satisfy even us!
We started our day, departing from Grants, NM, by taking scenic by-way 53 so we could stop by a place nicknamed "Fire & Ice." The "Fire" comes from the ancient Bandera Volcano - which we climbed - and the "Ice" comes from a perma-frozen cave-lake at the edge of a collapsed lava tube.

As you can see from the photos, the landscape was definitely dynamic and diverse. The volcano was quite impressive because we could see the path of the lava flow during our walk to the edge of the crater, while the ice-cave was literally freezing - a nice break from the desert heat - as we descended down into the cavern. Definitely a lucrative tourist trap for the family that owns it, but overall it was very interesting.
Next up was nearby El Morro National Monument, which features not only an impressive bluff with native American housing remains on the top of it, but also has quite the historical graffiti collection. Hundreds of signatures and drawings have been carved into the soft sandstone rock, ranging from Spanish explorers, to gold seekers, to early American travelers. There is a deep pool of water located at the base of the bluff, which certainly explained the site's popularity!

After our best meal yet, at the roadside Stagecoach Cafe in Ramah, we then drove a while to finish our tourists' trifecta with... the Petrified Forest National Park. Located in eastern Arizona, the park combines spectacular views of the painted desert, along with a plethora of petrified wood in its natural setting, and then throws in a few native American petroglyphs for good measure. Perhaps you can tell, but all three were impressive and very photogenic!

We spent last night in Winslow, Arizona - which if you're an Eagles fan you've undoubtedly heard of - though virtually all of our time there was spent either eating to recover from starvation, or sleeping to recover from exhaustion. Thankfully those conditions, from our modern perspective, are nothing like what it must have been like for those intrepid adventurers whose footsteps we are so loosely following.
Coming up is a weekend of family fun in and around Redondo Beach, CA, which will undoubtedly involve a bit of touristing - currently we're contemplating the Getty Museum in LA, and hopefully a winery on the way into the city - we shall see.

Crazy that we'll be in Bangkok in less than a week, and riding our bikes in about three...

Peace
A&E

2009-07-09T17:16:00.034-06:00

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We've made it through a jam-packed two weeks, spending time in several states and driving well over 1,000 miles.Unfortunately our camera was getting repaired (thanks United Camera!), so there aren't really any photos. If we get some from some friends (hint, hint), we'll add them. Fortunately, however, we have our camera back now, and will be going to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona tomorrow, which we are quite sure will be very photogenic. Currently we are at a hotel, with Anderson's parents, in Grants, New Mexico, after the first day of our road-trip to California. We're headed there for a Muth family reunion, and we'll then be departing from LAX late Monday night.
Now for the rewind: after Luke's legendary birthday party :-), we headed back up to Wisconsin for about another week. For July 4th we spent the entire weekend camped next to the Chippewa River, on Liz's aunt and uncle's property. We sold stuff (literally, all sorts of stuff) at the nearby flea market with Liz's grandma, floated the river for several hours (with coolers of beer tethered to our inner tubes), and even got to eat deep-fat-fried turkey for the first time ever. And of course we spent time with all of our nieces and nephews, including the new baby, including a few crazy hours in a hotel pool.
From Wisconsin we headed back to Iowa, for a whirlwind extended weekend. Thursday night we dined in style at our friend Dustin's new place of work, The Chef's Table. It's French cuisine, made funky. Or "deconstructed" as our waitress was fond of saying. Regardless, it was stylish cuisine, delicately prepared, that tasted absolutely delicious. Afterward we went to our friend Collin's final (really?) show in Iowa City, which was a somewhat crazy jam session at Quentin's Bar.
Friday involved a lot of running around, shopping for some needed bicycling accessories, a brief relaxing bike ride, and then we split up for our respective bachelor and bachelorette parties. Anderson headed to northern Iowa, outside Cresco, for a full day of camping and canoeing to celebrate with our friend Joe; Liz headed to Des Moines, for a full night of an 80s theme, sushi dinner, and dancing with our friend Hannah. They are getting married in September, which means we obviously won't be able to attend the actual wedding, so at least we got to join them for an awesome weekend!
Anderson then caught a ride to Des Moines, part of an epic Sunday in the car, ending up with us in Colorado in the wee hours of the morning. We were lucky enough to stop by Blake & Sarah's house again in Omaha, NE, where we once again ate amazing food. Nothing like garden-fresh vegetables and garden-vegetable-patties to rejuvenate some weary road warriors.
After an anxious day of packing, including a trip to REI, and the much-better-priced Wilderness Exchange, we had a fun get-together with most of our Denver friends. Thanks to everyone that came over on such short notice, good to know that our bribe of pizza was effective enough!
We spent about 8 hours in the car (well, van) today, ate a delicious Mexican lunch in Trinidad, CO, at Mission At The Bell Restaurant - which apparently doesn't have a website, and an only average Chinese buffet for dinner... guess that's what we get for getting Asian food in New Mexico.
Tomorrow's going to be a long day, but so long as our next hotel has wi-fi we'll post photos at night...

Peace
A&E

PS - Special thanks to Steph for the stolen photo above, it was from our meal at The Chef's Table.

2009-06-30T22:07:00.007-06:00

We've just spent a busy weekend touring Minnesota - visiting friends in Chanhassan and New Ulm. But our last week in Wisconsin was quite action-packed as well, as we took our "auntly and uncley" duties to a whole new level and went camping with all four of our nieces and nephews. Our destination, well-chosen by Liz, was on Black Lake, a two-hour drive north of Rice Lake. For $12 a day we got a basic campsite, right down by da beach, with convenient bathroom and water access. With four children running around, you really need a handy bathroom! Ashaaylah (4), Malikhi (8, though he'll tell you he's 9), Isaiah (11), and Sarah (14), were all excellently behaved as we forced them to do such unbelievable things as: eat vegetarian food, not wake up before 9am, and hike 4 miles in the bug-infested woods. The insects were actually quite outrageous, both mosquitoes and biting flies wreaked havoc upon us the entire time we were there. Fortunately everyone persevered, we had 2 nights of fun by the campfire, swam our little hearts out everyday, and even squeezed in a game of flashlight tag.
We really want all the kids to enjoy camping and the great outdoors, so hearing comments like "I like camping now" (Sarah) and "this was the best camping place ever" (Isaiah) was pretty perfect, though the greatest compliment of all probably came from Ashaaylah, who was able to sleep in the kids' tent all night long without bothering us. All that having been said, 48 hours with 4 children was enough to guarantee we're not having any of our own in the near future!

Departing Wisconsin mid-day Friday we drove to the Twin Cities, to visit our friend Jen Hagen. We checked out a massive arboretum (so big two weddings were occurring separately), a farmer's market, and with a few other former Cameron Comets partied it up Maynard's style...
Yesterday, the 29th, was Anderson's 28th birthday, and we celebrated it, appropriately enough, with a little biking and a lot of beer. Our friend Steph, who has just come home from the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, lives near the Schell's Brewery. We actually stayed at her brother's house a bit outside of town, which was perfect as we biked about 25 miles, drank plenty of sample brews, before hitting up a local bar to sample a few more. Schell's actually makes several different labels of beer, including Lakemaid (for Rapala), Grain Belt's Premium, and Hauenstein, in addition to their own line of tasty products. Recommended by us is the Firebrick, Maifest, and Hefeweizen. Enjoyment is up to you.
Today we cruised down to Iowa, where we need to take care of a bit of business (getting traveler's checks, shopping for bags - Ortlieb hasn't shipped the ones we've ordered online, so we've got to do a little more shopping than planned, etc.), but primarily we're getting ready to party on Wednesday night when Luke celebrates his 27th birthday. Youngin'!

Still working on improving the blog, and also Anderson will be writing about our travels on a website run by our friend Iain, of Old World Wandering fame, called Holiday Fu - Like Kung Fu For Holidays. This blog will continue to contain all of life's minutae, as well as all those amazing revelations we drop on you, but the writings for Holiday Fu will be much more focused, hopefully even classifiable as real travel writing!

And now for your moment of zen:

Elephant Head-Bonk:

Peace
A&E

2009-06-17T17:45:00.015-06:00

Big news!
We've officially made the first step of our next adventure: purchasing a one-way ticket to Bangkok, Thailand on July 21. Thus begins our South-East Asian Bicycling Adventure!

Thankfully, we've got over a month to finish getting ready, since there are oodles of miscellaneous things to do, nevermind that we are as busy as always enjoying life. Of late we've been slowly purchasing necessary items, roughly planning our route, and have begun our bicycle training in earnest.

There will be much more information to come soon, but roughly speaking here is our trip itinerary:

July 21 - Fly to Bangkok from Los Angeles (we'll be there for a Muth family reunion)
where we'll travel around Thailand without our bikes until we get adjusted to the humidity (ha), and wait for the other members of our bike crew to arrive

Early August - Begin bicycling from Bangkok, heading towards Angkor Wat / Siem Riep, Cambodia... we'll then venture into southern Laos, see more Cambodia, cruise throughout Vietnam via Hwy 1, then meander across northern Laos en route back to Bangkok

mid-December - fly back to Denver, CO

Christmas - we'll be in Wisconsin with Liz's family

Perhaps you've got (at least) two questions already...
1. What bike crew?
2. Why no travel agenda - what are you going to DO?

1. Well, after 2.5 years of traveling/working abroad as a couple, we've managed to convince (quite easily, actually) three of our friends to join us on our next journey.

2. Just like our prior trip, we don't want to have an exact agenda. No plan is the best plan for long-term independent travel, because then you can be infinitely more flexible. If we like someplace, we have the luxury to stay there for a while, since we don't have pre-set times/places we need to be. That said, our time schedule on this trip will be significantly tighter than when we went to India: not only do we have a certain return-date, but because we are traveling by bicycle, the number of days spent traveling will be exponentially higher than if we were using more usual methods of transportation.

Guess that leads to questions:

3. Bicycles? Why? Can you even do that?

3. At home in America we are avid bikers, both as a method of transportation and for fun. Of course, we're avid lots of things, so we don't exactly live on our bikes, even though we do take them everywhere with us thanks to a handy bike rack.
But we wanted to do a bicycle trip as a new challenge, and at first we were thinking of doing so in America, either out west or in the southeast. Then we figured southeast ASIA would be cheaper and more our style...
We're going to be buying "Merida bikes Matt 5V model 2009" in Thailand, though we'll hopefully sell them back to the shop we buy them from if we haven't completely destroyed them after 4 months on the road. We think riding bikes will not only whip us into shape extremely quickly, but will also allow us to see the four countries from a perspective often missed when traveling by our more usual modes of transport.
While perhaps viewed as a bit unusual, bicycling in SE Asia is relatively common, particularly amongst Europeans. Presumably we're going to be covering more ground than a vacationing family, but that's pretty irrelevant, point is this is a somewhat beaten path we'll be treading on, so we know there will be adequate roads and hotels- which is all we really need anyway.

You can check out our complete equipment list (still being updated) here:

(to be added very soon :-)

but we will be wearing helmets to avoid brain-splatter, and carrying a tiny netbook to stay well-connected and waste less valuable daytime sitting around in internet cafes. We learned our lesson last time, spending hours updating this, checking emails, and uploading photos. Now we can waste that same amount of time and more in the evening :-)

So that's what we WILL be doing, here's what we've BEEN doing of late:

After our first run through the Colorado -:> Iowa -> Wisconsin loop, we found ourselves out in Utah to visit our friends Steph & Jeremy in Ogden. After five fun days with them, including some camping / hiking, disc golf, and cute puppy petting, we headed back to Colorado by way of Arches National Park. The park is mostly car accessible, although some of the stone arches require a small hike to get to the best viewpoints. It was definitely impressive, to say the least.
In Colorado we visited with lots of friends, including Emily up in Leadville (where we relaxed next to a mountain stream), Chris & Katie in Estes Park (where we fished in a stocked pond and went to Rocky Mountain National Park), and we caught some great music with Brooke & Dan.
From Colorado we drove to Illinois for the Summercamp Music Festival, over Memorial Day weekend, which was a bit underwhelming overall, although we did see some good musical performances (MSMW, Bassnectar, Umphrey's McGee, Girl Talk to name a few). En route we stopped to see Blake & Sarah in Omaha, which provided a relaxing break from the lengthy drive, as well as a peek into the professional lifestyle we have thus far avoided - thanks guys!
We then spent about a week RV-camping (thanks Luke) out at Sugarbottom State Park near Iowa City, biking, disc golfing, canoeing, and mountain biking - when it wasn't raining. Joni also graduated, and syringe shots in Monticello led to an awkward hot tub experience... you'd have to have been there :-)
Next up on our tour of northern-middle-America was the city of Chicago, for a weekend with our recently-married friends Jenn & Jake. We bummed around the city, caught a US Men's National Soccer Team match (2-1 over Honduras), celebrated Jenn's birthday, and visited the Bahai temple there.
From Chicago we went back to Iowa, where we met Luke & Christine in Guttenberg for some serious bike training sessions. We did two days of biking, 36 miles of hilly roads between Guttenberg and McGregor for the first day, and then 30 miles of trails outside Dyersville on the second day. Not really as hard as it sounds, after the first 20 minutes or so of bike-riding your legs loosen up and it becomes mostly and unconscious action, though we were definitely still exhausted after each day!
Now we are up in Wisconsin, and we've already had a jam-packed 5 days. The excitement of the summer so far has been the birth of Liz's brother, Zach, and his girlfriend Nikki's first child.

Jaksen Bradley Peet was born at 1:27pm (7lbs 10oz 19 3/4 in) on Friday, June 12, happy and healthy in Rice Lake, WI. We were in the hospital when it happened, but wisely avoided the placenta and such, showing up later for plenty of photos:
Other than the miracle of life, we've been catching some fish lately with our recently purchased annual WI fishing license - Anderson's 17-1/2" walleye is the highlight thus far, doing some biking (to Barron and back to see our nieces and nephews, and on the Tuscobia Trail), and we just spent the past weekend camping and fishing in the rain. It was still fun though, especially one the fire dried us out :-).
We're about to leave now to go see our nephew in a skateboarding competition, and then next week we're taking all the kids camping - should be an adventure!
_______

Yes, the blog's been revamped, and it now has pictures. Bout time we get with the program, eh?

Hope you like it, there'll be much more to come ........ !