Lots of Pictures and One Animal Cruelty Video

Here are some pictures from the last few days of the trip. I arrived in Hoi An today after and overnight train ride and it is pouring rain so I decided to get some uploading done. Also included at the bottom is a video of a cockfight Winnie and I saw in central Hanoi about a week ago. Photos are in chronological order, starting with the oldest.

Seth and commies all love Man U. Great victory for Villa the other day!

Bun Cha. So good

Umbrella roof at some random cafe in Hanoi

The Carnivore™ angry that I was documenting her heading down the road to ruin

School near Sapa

Terraced rice paddies

Waterfall near Sapa

Central lake in Sapa

Another view of the lake

Some government building

Mountainside being cut away to make a dam

Wider view of dam making activity

Ducks in paddy

Pig

Pigs being fattened up for slaughter for the Tet new year celebration

A batch of indigo dye made by the H'mong

Water buffalo in the mist in Sapa

Our guide Ban cooking over an open fire

Ban frying an egg. Ban was a great guide, but not the world's greatest cook. I guess that is why she works and her husband stays home and takes care of the kids

Me with our guides, and Ron and Deb

The Carnivore™ with guides and homestay friends

Flower vendor in Hanoi

The first commie flag of Vietnam

Rock on Buddah

Shiva/Buddha or who the hell knows. Cool looking though

The Hanoi Hilton! From the stories I'd heard, I expected it to be a much grimmer place...

Another view of the Hanoi Hilton

And another

Super-hot model girl posing in front of the Hanoi Hilton Cafe

Super-hot model girl again. Cause she was really hot

Tasty carambola

Catfish that kept brawling with each other

Stir-fried buffalo with carambola. Not the greatest thing ever, but I'd never had carambola in a savory dish

Hotel room in Hoi An

Cockfighting!!!!! I'm betting this violates Blogger's terms of use. Pretty tame though. I expected something more

Getting Woken Up By Commies

What could be more obnoxious than being woken up every morning by communist propaganda being blasted from loudspeaker? Not much I'd imagine. This morning was the first time I've been awoken by it and even though I didn't understand a word of it it was still pretty obnoxious.

The hotel I was previously at was far enough away from one of the scratchy-sounding loudspeakers that I slept through the broadcast and had no idea what Winnie was talking about when she mentioned being awoken by them. This moring I found out. Not knowing what was being said during the broadcasts, I did a little research and discovered that they are propaganda broadcasts and patriotic songs. There is a movmenet underway to ban the broadcasts:

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/scotland-on-sunday-edinburgh/mi_7924/is_2009_May_24/clamour-grows-silence-communist-propaganda/ai_n35476298/

If I lived near a loudspeaker here, I would be up in arms. Not necessarily because of the content, but because I really like my sleep.

Along with the propaganda broadcasts, Facebook has mysteriously been unavailable for the last few days. Apparently this is due to a blackout by ISP's, enforced by the government because anti-government movements were using the site to organize. The block is pretty easy to get around, but is effective because a social networking site's usefulness is eliminated if most people can't get it to.

These two things brought home to me the differences at the margin living in a one-party communist state means.

Phu Quoc and More Pictures

I haven't posted in a while and have a lot to tell. Going back to Sunday, here is what I've been up to...

Last Sunday I departed Phnom Phen on a mosquito filled bus for a 7 hour bus ride to Saigon. It thankfully was less honk-filled than previous ones. I had to get to the airport for a 2 pm flight, and we got in a bit late. I caught a cab, drove to several ATM's looking for one that worked (ended up having to exchange some USD I had on me) and ended up barely making my flight after getting scammed by the cab driver and his rigged meter. Let's just say I was not enjoying Vietnam as my flight departed.

I flew into Phu Quoc, an island right of the Vietnam/Cambodia border, and was planing on staying at this place called Beach House that Eric had recommended to me but it was full. Lucky for me, there was a place that had just opened next to it called Paris Beach. It is a converted house that has a few bungalows next to it run by this Vietnamese-French lady. It ended up being a very good thing that my first choice was taken.

Paris Beach was awesome. It was cheap($15/night), had a great staff and awesome food. Which was also cheap. The room was so-so, but I could live with that. There I ate: a great squid curry, the best pho I have ever had (nearly every breakfast), steak frites with the first decent fried I've had since being in Asia, claypot fish, pate, ect. The seafood was super fresh and everything was cooked extremely well. I was very impressed by the food and execution, and if you know me at all I am generally pretty hard to please when it comes to things like that. I ended up eating most of my meals at the hotel looking out over the ocean. It was rough.

The owner of the hotel is Vietnamese, married to a Frenchman and has lived in Paris for the last 18 years after moving there from Hanoi. A former marketing professor, she just opened up this hotel on the beach 3 months ago. From what she told me, you aren't really allowed to build anymore right on the beach on Phu Quoc, but she was able to renovate a house she already owned there into a hotel.

During my stay on Phu Quoc I drove around most of the island on a little motorbike. I even managed to crash the motorbike going too fast on a rutted dirt road. I somehow managed to bail and stay on my feet doing 20km/hr, but the bike got a little banged up. Luckily my 150cc hog still ran fine.

Phu Quoc is a pretty big place with quite a varied terrain - you've got the beach, jungle, and forested mountains. During my motorbike treks I saw some cool little fishing villages, pepper plantations, a Vietnamese Navy base, ran into some random sights and ate some really good street food. My favorite was this sandwich of deep-fried pork belly with onions, carrots, cucumbers, sauce and chili. I don't think I've ever had deep fried pork belly before but it was a revelation. The outside is very crunchy and then you get into the creamy, fatty interior. It's quite a contrast, and heart healthy to boot! The sandwich was so good I had to get a second. I ended up getting sick that night, likely from the sandwiches but I think if given the choice again I would still eat them. They were that good. The island is famous for their fish sauce factories which manufacture some of the most sought-after fish sauce in Vietnam. I was going to tour one of them but the day I planned to do that was the day after I got sick and was unable to do much beyond lay on the beach and read.

Also of note was the market. It had amazing looking seafood (half of it still alive) and some great looking veggies. With raw materials like that, you can't help but make good food. Wandering through there I wished everywhere I ever live had a daily market like that. One stand had six different kind of eggs, all what in the US would be call free-range pastured organic or some such crap and cost $9 a dozen. And I'm not kidding, places at the Ferry Building Market sell them for that much. I really wanted to make some fresh pasta with a shrimp sauce or something, but unfortunately lacked kitchen facilities.

Did a little snorkeling (pictures below) and got a nice tan/sunburn. All in all a great few days. I was a little sad leaving as there are a TON of new resorts going up on the island and I figured if I make it back in 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 years the place will be unrecognizable. No more motorbiking on dirt roads or sand pits for me. If you can get here in the near future I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I flew out and headed to Hanoi. More about Hanoi later once I've had a bit more time to digest it all.

Pretty self explanatory

Some fish and cool tentacle things

Brain coral

18 different kind of eggs.

Cool looking bull

Loads 'O Pictures

I was going to write a big post to go along with all these pictures, but while uploading them some people staying at the hotel here on Phu Quoc invited me to dinner. So no stories, just lots of pictures.

Me and my buddy the python
Sunset on the hella big lake in Cambodia

Sunset from the other angle. I REALLY like my panorama feature, as you will see.

The sweet chopper/tractor things I mentioned in a prior post

An amzing sandwich. Also kept me up all night with "stomach issues." I think it was worth it.

Commie sign out front of the Navy base. I was going to ask the guard to check it out as lots of people were going in but thought better of it.

My leopard-print bike having a rest on the dock

SUPERDONG!

Local seafood and fried noodles. Delicious!

About to depart. The bike was later laid down on this day.

A meant vendor in Phu Quoc

Carambolas. They ain't got nothing on the ones my grandpa used to grow!

Good looking verggies, with the notable exception of the tomatos.

Squash blossoms

Some sort of cool looking shelfish

Frogs!!!!

My lunch from today. Quite tasty!

The main town here on Phu Quoc

Nazi Buddah. A German couple ownes the resort this was at....

Don't think I've ever seen cows grazing on a beach.

The flooating village in Cambodia

Heading out to the floating village

The Carnivore smoking shisha

Me smoking shisha

Hella Wongs

Honking and Sweeping

We've arrived in Phnom Phen several hours ago after a bus ride that included about 100,000 horn honks by our bus driver. So far as I can tell, these are the times that Cambodian bus drivers will honk their horns:

• When stopped, to make sure people don't miss the enormous green and orange bus on the side of the road and run into it
• When passing a single bicyclist on a otherwise deserted road to make extra-sure they know the very noisy bus is there. Bonus points for waiting till the last second to do this or starting early and giving frequent honks at .5 second intervals. I'm guessing most Cambodians are nearly deaf which is the only way they could miss the racket of the bus bearing down on them. Presumably they are deaf from getting horns honked in their ears. Which just seems like a vicious cycle
  
• When trying to pass into other oncoming buses also furiously honking their horns, from what I can tell the one who has the loudest and/or frequent honks gets to make the pass
• When passing a mixed group of any of the following - pedestrians, cyclists, ox-drawn carts, tractor hybrid things, motorbikers and cars, so they know you are there. Even of they are already on the median of the road and looked back and clearly saw you hundreds of feet away
• When not playing chicken trying to pass other buses, to greet other bus drivers
• When stopped at a red light, to voice your displeasure
• When passing through a small village, to let the naked children playing in the road to watch out. This one seems justified to me
  
• Random times, just for fun

At one point during the ride I was staring at the back of the drivers head, fantasizing about the ways I would like to kill him.

Next to honking, the favored activity in Cambodia seems to be sweeping. I have seen more sweeping here than I have the rest of my life combined. Sweeping of steps, sweeping of patios, sweeping of leaves on a good 5k portion of 15 km loop around Angkor Wat, sweeping of streets. All this sweeping is done with some sort of twig brooms that don't look like they are very effective. While I appreciate the lack of dust all this sweeping contributes too, I do wonder why some of the energy used sweeping isn't instead directed at cleaning up the huge number of pieces of garbage blowing everywhere? I'm considering forming a NGO called LSMGP (Less Sweeping, More Garbage Pickup). I think it could make a huge impact.

Onto less weighty matters. Had a great last couple days in Siem Reap. Hung out by the pool one day, got a sunburn, visited Tonlé Sap Lake and the floating villages there, toured this NGO called PEPY Ride/Tours (www.pepyride.org), went out a couple nights and on one of them smoked the first very good Cuban cigar I've ever had. I've had a couple before but they have been crap, either fakes or just bad ones. This little coronito was smooth, complex and had an excellent draw. Apparently there is something to the Commie hype. Met some crazy expats who were going to take me dirt biking but chickened out thinking of the injuries/robberies that could befall me in the Cambodian countryside.

Just had a great bowl of noodle salad that included the following: Rice noodles, lettuce, basil, mystery herb, beef (i think?), pork belly, sweet and savory peanut sauce and fried spring rolls. Delicious! Now off to this art gallery and then to get my last meal in Cambodia. I leave tomorrow at 6 am to travel to Saigon so I can get my 2 pm flight to Phu Quoc Island. Everywhere on the island I've tried to book so far has been full so I'm either sleeping on the beach or in a roach motel. Should be fun either way.

What A Day....

After my trip to Koh Chang I was looking forward to Angkor and meeting back up with WWWW. Little did I know what Angkor had in store for us. But first, a few observations about Cambodia.

I didn't realize it was going to be so much poorer than Thailand. Not knowing much about the country beyond a viewing of The Killing Fields about a decade ago and a few random articles I had read about the prosecution or lack thereof of various Khmer Rouge figures, I had just sort of figured it was a ways behind Thailand development-wise but in the same league. I was very wrong. The level of poverty here is something I haven't really seen before. In hindsight I should have realized the killing of something like 1/4 the population in the fairly recent past would lead to some pretty terrible poverty.

The bus ride to Siem Reap was a very scenic one through the countryside of rice paddies and the odd village. There were lots of small houses lining the roadside that all seemed to follow the same general layout - murky pond in the front (many with kids splashing around, it was right around time when school would have gotten off), house on stilts with livestock behind the pond and then the rice paddies in the back. Some of the houses looked pretty nice surrounded by palm trees and seemed like good places to live, as far as poor rural areas go. The other main thing I noticed on the ride in was these really cool vehicles the bus would speed by. They were basically big rototillers that looked just like the one my dad has, only they were attached to long platforms with two wheels in the back. The things were steered by long chopper-like handles that were used to direct the vehicles. I tried to get a picture of one but none came out in the fading light.

After the marathon ride from Koh Chang to Angkor I though I was going to get mugged at one point trying to find the hotel to meet Winnie and Wendy but arrived in one piece around 9 on Monday night. The next day was one to remember....

We awoke at 4:30 am and got bikes at the hotel. We rode to Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise. It was well worth dragging myself out of bed for. After exploring Angkor Wat we started biking from temple to temple in the complex. It was one of the most impressive places I've ever been. Amazing temples surrounded by forests combined to make it a very memorable experience.

As we went from temple to temple on bike, the crowds thinned more and more and we semi-intentionally ended up circling the entire Angkor area on bike. People generally do this by taxi or tour-bus and towards the end of our ride we were encountering cows in the road, schoolkids on their way home and no other tourists on bikes. To top it all off we ended up getting lost trying to exit the temple area and ended up going towards the Siem Reap airport instead of town. All in all we rode about 25-30 km on rickety old bikes through some pretty amazing places. Once we finally figured out the way back to our hotel I spotted a gelato place by the side of the road where we stopped. If you want to make gelato taste like the best thing you have ever eaten, try biking for about 10 hours on hot, dusty roads inhaling motorbike and truck exhaust and only eat a small breakfast of noodles around 8 a.m. Needless to say, it was a lifesaver.

We finally arrived back at our hotel around 3 or 4, nearly 12 hours after we had set out. Cold showers were had by all, and I ended up taking a 2 hour nap before we all headed out to dinner. Even though Wendy and I had a weird craving for fish and chips which ended up leading to the worst meal I have had here, nothing could ruin the great mood I was in after an amazing day.

We have just been bumming around today, but are going back to the temples this evening. I'm looking forward to it. Special thanks to Eco, whose recommendation was the main reason I decided to come to Cambodia.

2 final things in what has been a lengthy post - first, thanks to all the commentators! Initially I was a little incredulous that anyone would read my ramblings, but it's been a great feeling hearing from people that I miss back home. Second, I think I am coming back earlier than expected. I was originally planning on going to Bali for several weeks in January, but instead I think I am going to head home after Vietnam. My capacity for laying on beaches is less than I expected, so I think I'm going to fly out of Vietnam near when my visa expires and head back to the states for a month or two. After recharging my batteries, I'm planning on heading down to South and Central America to check that part of the world out. I really want to put my Spanish to use and communicate with some of the locals. I've really missed out in only being able to talk to people in English over here as there have been multiple situations where I could only communicate in a rudimentary way with people that seemed quite interesting. My desire to go to South America was reinforced by the Mexican honeymooners who were sitting with me at this fish massage place today with whom I jabbered away in Spanish for 30 minutes. Below are more pictures...

View from the docks in Bang Bao

Sunset in Bang Bao

The bungalo complex in Bang Bao

Bang Bao lighthouse

Looking down at Bang Bao from one of the new developments

Angkor Wat at sunrise

A main temple gate

Me on the bridge

Me in a temple

Winnie on her bike - I took this while riding along and nearly crashed

Wendy and Winnie coming through a gate

Kid hearding cows, who then proceeded to hit me up for money

Winnie, symmetrical sweat stains, and life-saving gelato