Itchy Feet

Click here to view photos from Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta, and Muine, Vietnam... Or continue reading!

Vietnam was a beautiful country with a whole lot more to see and do than we could have possibly fit into a month. We flew from KL to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south and traveled north to Hanoi, totaling about 56 hours in buses and cars over the course of four weeks. Most of what we saw and did was really interesting, and we were in constant awe of the breathtaking landscape. Unfortunately, our interactions with the people did not contribute to our excitement about the country. Although there were exceptions (and we did meet a few genuinely kind people), in the best moments, we were treated with indifference, and in the worst, we were confronted with racism, lying, cheating, and stealing. We know these behaviors were directed at foreigners, and we have tried to analyze and understand why, but without much success. The xenophobia we experienced was especially disappointing for Leah, who, as anyone who knows her knows, has waited most of her adult life to travel in Vietnam and believes that the only way to truly experience a country and its culture is through fellowship with its people. Nevertheless, although we remained largely on the outside looking in, we did our best to try to understand and appreciate the culture. Below is a breakdown of what we saw and did in Vietnam, as well as some commentary on its culture.

Ho Chi Minh, like most cities, is large, noisy, dirty, and chaotic. There are about ten times as many motorbikes on the streets as other Asian countries where motorbikes are the main mode of transport (with the possible exception of Phnom Penh, Cambodia), making it nearly impossible to cross at busier intersections. Nevertheless, we did our best to experience the city on foot, navigating our way through a maze of streets that didn't seem to reflect the map, stopping constantly to ask for directions. The architecture was somewhat interesting, far more beautiful lit up at night, save the newly-built Bitexco Financial Tower, which is a bit of an eyesore towering over an otherwise low city. We were most impressed by the numerous beautifully-manicured parks and public art everywhere.

We spent an afternoon in the War Remnants Museum, which was of course fascinating and heart wrenching. Leah appreciated that the first exhibit in the museum is a wall of photos, letters, news clippings, and the like reflecting American dissent about the war. This seemed to suggest that Vietnam recognizes that not all Americans were in support of the atrocities committed during the war, which are reflected throughout the museum (unlike, for example, the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki, Japan, which Leah remembers as seeming to hold all Americans in a negative light).

Additionally, in HCMC, we made some new friends, went to an art show opening about motorbike culture in Vietnam, and ate some delicious foods.

Our next stop was a tour of the Mekong Delta. We generally try to avoid tours, since we don't like to be packed into mini buses, herded like cattle through a bunch of boring side trips, then rushed through the interesting main attractions, but we thought this might be the easiest way to visit the river. We signed up for a 2-day, 1-night tour, since this was the only option for visiting a floating market, which we were both the most excited about.

The tour got off to a rocky start when the guide decided that he didn't like Leah, who has developed a mild claustrophobia from being packed with 40 other people into too many buses designed for 12, for requesting to sit in a front seat. Although we had made prior seating arrangements with the tour company and even shown up an hour early to secure the seats, the tour guide handed out his own arbitrary seating assignments and was furious to have them challenged. Although it would have been a simple matter of switching two seats, the guide didn't know how to handle the request and decided instead to start yelling and threaten to leave us behind. Although this inability to think outside the box prevails throughout Asia (and we say this not with prejudice but with almost five years experience living here), we have noticed that the Vietnamese people in particular aren't good with handling special requests. Colin suspects this comes from generations of living under communism, where basically you get what you get, and the people have learned not to challenge this.

Many of our conversations have gone something like this...

Leah (trying her best to sound sweet and non-confrontational) : Excuse me, ma'am, but it says on the menu that the salad comes with cheese, but there's no cheese on my salad.

Server (in a western tourist restaurant): Salad change. No cheese.

Leah: You changed the salad?

Server: Yes, no cheese.

Leah: But it doesn't say that on the menu. And you didn't tell me when I ordered it.

Server: Okay, but no cheese.

Leah: But I ordered the salad because I wanted cheese.

Server: Yes, but salad change. No cheese.

Leah: Well, do you have cheese?

Server: Yes, we have.

Leah: Well, can I have some?

Server: No. Salad has no cheese.

Leah: Yes, but it doesn't say that on the menu. So can I have some cheese, please?

Server: No. Salad has no cheese.

You get the point. (We will have more to say on this and similar issues regarding our interactions with the people in our next post about Vietnam.)

The first day of our Mekong tour was up and down. We had a couple of silly, but somewhat interesting side-trips to coconut candy and rice noodle factories, and we got to put our fingers into a beehive to retrieve honey. We heard some traditional music, which was quite lovely. We were fascinated by the unique instruments. We saw a temple with two massive stone Buddhas. We had a motor-powered boat tour of a large stretch of the river, where we passed numerous, colorful boats of various sizes and purposes. The highlight of our day was a more leisurely rowboat ride down a smaller portion of the river. We settled for the night in a small riverside town that specializes in frog and field mice delicacies, but we opted for the pizza (at this point in our journey we were craving normal, western food).

The next morning we set out on a boat to see the floating market, which was the part of the tour that most intrigued us. It certainly made every effort at getting there worthwhile, and easily remains one of the best experiences we had in Vietnam. Early in the morning, farmers and citizens from nearby villages gather together to exchange goods, mostly produce, that is shipped in along the river. Although it has the same excitement and energy of any Asian market, it is entirely on water, which enhances the experience. Larger boats, sometimes houseboats, with massive stacks of fruits and vegetables on the decks are anchored in the water, as people come through on smaller boats to observe the wares. To make purchases, the smaller boats attach themselves to the larger boats, or the people simply toss the produce and money from one boat to the next. Several small boats that function as floating convenience stores, rowed alongside our tourist boat, while women and children attempted to sell us anything from coffee to potato chips to bananas. The floating market was a truly unique and exciting experience.

On our way back to HCMC following the Mekong Delta tour, we had one more kitschy touristy stop, which turned out to be a really interesting experience: a tropical fruit farm! We saw at least a dozen varieties of fruit, many of which we had never seen before (and will likely never see again). Although Leah took photos of all of them, we won't bore you... However, if you've never seen how a pineapple grows, you might be surprised!

After the fruit farm, we returned to HCMC, picked up our bags, and boarded an evening bus to Muine, a small beach town five hours northeast. After taking mostly local buses in Indonesia and Malaysia, this was the first large tourist coach bus we'd booked and, even though it was packed full of locals, not tourists, we settled in comfortably and unfortunately, lazily, with our defenses down. This bus, we suspect, is where our money was stolen, although we didn't notice until three days later. At one point during the journey, however, Leah thought she saw the boy behind her pulling her bag from under the seat. Though she was not entirely sure this was the case, he did look startled and guilty when she caught him. She checked her bag, but, not wanting to draw attention to the money, didn't open the wallet. However, everything in the bag seemed to be in-tact. In hindsight, the boy was probably putting the bag back after taking the money. We can never know for sure. When we did discover the money was missing, we were both really angry at ourselves for not taking better precautions, which we know to do after having traveled for so many years. This will surely never happen again.

Not discovering the missing money right away was fortunate because it didn't ruin our mini-holiday. Muine was great! We were lucky to find a quiet little $10 guesthouse with a pool on the best stretch of white sand beach the area had to offer. We settled in for a few days to catch up on phone calls, emails, blog updates, and photos, detox from the dirty cities of KL and HCMC, and recover from the fatigue of so many weeks of constantly moving and fighting our way through SE Asia. Our guesthouse offered a quiet respite, and was conveniently located just across the street from the Fairy Stream and Red Canyon, a beautiful river walk through towering red sandstone cliffs. We were also close to the fishermen's village, which added to our experience of Vietnam on water and provided an excellent dinner of fresh fish.

Please click here to view our photos from HCMC, Mekong, and Muine, and check back soon for the rest of our stories and photos from Vietnam.

For some reason our photos from Malaysia uploaded in reverse order and we can't seem to correct the problem. It might be helpful to read the blog to understand the photos. However, if you'd prefer to just view them, click here.

ALL THINGS MALAYSIA...

Malaysia was a somewhat interesting developing country, though it had very little to offer in terms of natural or cultural stimulation, and in hindsight, we should've booked our trip for one, not two weeks. Though the countryside was beautiful, it had nothing on Indonesia (or for that matter, Korea), and most of the sightseeing was very kitschy and touristy. Our largest enjoyment, therefore, was our interactions with the people, who were for the most part very kind and accommodating. We even saved ourselves a few bucks by hitchhiking a lot of places since we were always guaranteed to be picked up.

Malaysians consist of the native Malay people, as well as Indians and Chinese, who were brought by the British when they colonized the country. The cities and towns were largely segregated with obvious districts such as Chinatown and Little India; however, we did observe some cross-cultural interactions. As usual, it was the game of football (soccer, for our American readers) that inspired the largest mix of races, and Colin had the experience of enjoying a game with several locals in a small town restaurant.

We also really enjoyed the food, indulging daily on curries and samosas and tandoori mutton. The alcohol was really expensive, averaging about $9 for a bottle of beer, so we washed down our grub with 50 cent freshly-squeezed fruit juices from street vendor stalls. (On a side note, while we happily refrained from drinking for several weeks in Indonesia and Malaysia, we are now in Vietnam where 50 cents is the price of a beer, so we're likewise happily indulging again.)

With two weeks to wander the country, we managed to find several things to do. Some were more interesting than others and most were a bit anti-climactic, but we had fun nevertheless.

We began our trip in Penang, which is a small island off the coast of peninsular Malaysia; we flew there from Sumatra. We spent a day wandering the main city of Georgetown, which promised to charm us with its old colonial buildings and ornate Chinese temples. Though we weren't wowed by anything in particular, we enjoyed the walk. The highlight was seeing a temple bustling with religious observers, praying and chanting, and lighting bundles of incense. There were several sticks of massive fiery incense outside that were 8 feet or more tall.

The next day we crossed the 13 km stretch of sea by ferry to a town called Buttersworth, where we went to a bird park. Although this qualifies as one of those kitschy and touristy things I mentioned, we actually found it really exciting. There were so many beautiful tropical birds we've never seen before and will likely never see again, and many of them were roaming freely throughout the park. (Leah especially loved the birds, so be forewarned that they dominate the photos.)

When we returned to Penang, we packed up our bags and took the bus to Teluk Bahang, which was meant to be a quaint, charming fishing village. This turned out not to be the case, as the town was actually just a rundown, dirtier extension of the larger Georgetown. (This was the last time we followed Internet leads to places which promised to be "charming.") Regardless, we had a nice two-day visit. We went to a tropical spice garden, and learned about all the medicinal and culinary uses for various herbs and spices. We also went on a nice hike through the tropical Penang National Park, which led to a small, quiet strip of beach where we saw two women in full burka on a jet ski. This was the highlight of the trip for Leah, who had never seen a Muslim beach bunny before.

When we finally left Penang, we traveled across peninsular Malaysia to the Cameron Highlands, where we stayed in a nice mountain village surrounded by jungles and gorgeous tea fields. We visited the Boh tea plantation while we were there, which was the highlight of our travels in Malaysia. It was stunning. We also went to a butterfly farm, which was more of a break from the heat of the afternoon sun than an enticing tourist experience. Regardless, we saw some interesting butterflies and other species of insects, reptiles, and amphibians. Our final experience in the Highlands was a jungle trek to see the "world's largest flower." We had been looking forward to this, but had to travel to see it as a part of a tour, which made the experience slightly less enjoyable. We also found out after the fact that it was not the world's largest flower, but the world's third largest mushroom; we were more amused than disappointed by this deception.

The rest of our time in Malaysia was divided between Kuala Lampur and a small town, Selangor, nearby. Selangor is famous for its mangrove trees that attract a species of fireflies. We took a boat tour at dusk to watch as the fireflies lit up strangely in unison creating the illusion of Christmas lights on the trees (Leah was convinced they were) along the river. We had planned to camp in the Selangor National Park, but the campsite was under renovation and we were rained out anyway. Regardless, we had a nice walk through the park, which is a famous bird-watching site. We saw many interesting animals there. Back in Kuala Lampur, we killed the remaining days walking through the city, though sites of interest were limited. We also met up with a friend of ours from Korea, who made the bustling city a more enjoyable place to pass the time. Overall, Malaysia was worth the stopover on our around-the-world trek, but would probably not be our first recommendation for a half-month holiday.

To view all the photos, click here.

Here are photos of our jungle trek in Sumatra, as well as Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world. Upon leaving Bukit Lawang, where we did our 3-day trek, we took a ferry to Samosir, a large island (the size of Singapore) in the middle of Lake Toba. We spent 5 days and nights relaxing in a little lakeside cottage, swimming, and walking/cycling around the stunning island. Enjoy the photos!

We are currently in Malaysia and will upload stories and photos of our adventures here ASAP!

Jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang, Sumatra was easily one of the best of our travel experiences; it was amazing. We were lucky enough to join a three-day trek, and were paired up with three great guys, Peter from Norway, 48, Connor from Canada, 18, who was nicknamed "Justin Bieber" because apparently he resembles the pop star, and Peter from Russia, 28. We could not have been assigned a better guide. 25-year-old Yansen was so jovial, always cracking jokes and keeping us entertained with stories and games even in the evenings in the tent. He was also very knowledgeable about the jungle, and we saw a lot of animals and learned about many different trees and plants and their uses. Yansen's porter was Andre, a tiny, older man, who did a little bit of everything (cooking, cleaning, carrying the supplies, building the tent, saving Leah from the river rapids, assisting Leah down the cliff side, etc.), and never ceased to amaze us with his abilities; he even seemed to possess superhuman strength. Together we were quite the motley crew. Yansen labeled us the "mosquito group" because he said we were "small but dangerous."

Our adventure began at 8 on Monday morning. We met the other members of our group and went into the jungle where, a short time later, we happened upon a beautiful, massive bird called the Great Argus Pheasant. This was a rare and lucky sighting.

Not too long after, we came upon the big daddy of orangutans. He was sitting not 3 meters away on a vine, looking almost bored as we snapped photos. When he'd finally had enough of our shutter clicks, he turned his back to us, and we moved on.

We spent most of the rest of the morning moving through the thick jungle, going up and down hills and in some cases, steep cliffs, chasing after the orangutans. We saw several mother/baby pairs high in the trees. We also saw a large chameleon. We stopped for an amazing lunch of rice, vegetables, and fruit, which the guides had prepared ahead of time. Everywhere there were giant ants, which we learned secrete a foul-smelling urine to deter their enemies. Apparently, however, the orangutans suck out the urine because it relieves indigestion. Our guide demonstrated how to do this, and later on some members of our group tried it as well; the urine is reportedly very sour tasting. Unfortunately, it started raining in the mid-afternoon, so we quickly made our way to a small river, which grew massive as it continued to rain, to set up camp for the night. Andre had gone ahead earlier in the day, so the large tent, made from a bamboo frame covered with plastic, which we all shared, was already up, and water for coffee was boiling in the cooking tent nearby. We spent the rest of the day sitting in the tent, watching the rain. We were visited by two animals, a poisonous water snake, which our hero, Andre, quickly chased into the river, and the tiniest, most adorable frog, about the size of a pinky fingernail. That evening we had another fantastic meal with several different Indonesian dishes, and swapped stories and played games by candlelight in the tent.

We awoke early the next morning after a restless night, and had a breakfast of pineapple pancakes. To our amusement, several Long tail monkeys emerged from the jungle and tried with varying degrees of stealthiness to steal our food. At one point, when unfortunately no one was looking, one monkey managed to steal a bit of pineapple. Our guides did not look amused.

After breakfast, Yansen asked us if we wanted to go straight into the jungle or walk along the river for awhile. We opted for the river. To our surprise, we didn't walk along the river so much as in it. Trudging through the water sometimes waist-deep on wet rocks proved to be very difficult but was a lot of fun. After a leisurely swim by a small waterfall, we went into the mountains again. This time we basically had to hoist ourselves up a cliff side using hands and feet. Leah trekked in socks for awhile since, after the river walk, her shoes were too slippery to make it up the rocky mountain. Our hiking continued with varying degrees of difficulty well into the afternoon, and then the most amazing thing happened. We came upon an orangutan and her baby. She was hanging in the trees but froze when she saw us. She studied us for awhile looking very intrigued, then she came down out of the trees and walked right up to us. Russian Peter was at the front of our line and she approached him and took his hand. Yanseninstructed him to remain still and he did. In fact, we all stood frozen in fear and amazement for several minutes while the orangutan clutched onto Peter. Then, all of a sudden, she began to climb him. She put her arms around his shoulders and hung with her legs wrapped around his waist. Her baby stayed on her back. The rest of us were instructed to move some feet away so the guides could attempt to separate the orangutan from Peter. They did this by tempting her with fruit, but she didn't seem interested. The baby, however, tried several times to detach itself from its mother to grab at the fruit. It was funny to watch her pull it back each time it tried to move away. Peter, burdened by the weight of this massive creature, had to kneel down. Eventually, the guides were able to separate the orangutan from Peter, and we parted company with her in opposite directions in total awe and slightly jealous of Peter's experience.

Jackie's Story:
We later learned that the mother orangutan is named Jackie, and this is not unusual behavior for her. Apparently, her mother died when she was quite young (orangutans usually spend about 6-8 years with their mothers), so one of the park rangers "adopted" her. He used to carry her around on his back, so she has very fond memories of humans and still craves that attention to some extent. According to Yansen, she almost always latches onto humans she encounters in the jungle, sometimes holding hands but mostly always climbing them, and she prefers men to women. For us, however, it felt like a one in a million experience.

At the end of a second day of trekking (13 km in total), we came to a different, much larger river. We spent awhile swimming before a massive water monitor emerged from the river making us second guess the idea. We wound up seeing monitors on six different occasions.

The guides set about building a new tent out of bamboo and cooking, and the monkeys emerged from the forest. Several monkeys ventured close enough to camp to steal bits of food out of a fire pit left by earlier campers. Watching them creep out of the trees and up the hill, and rummage through the pit, shifty eyes darting about, kept us amused for much of the afternoon. We had another delicious dinner complete with a jungle greens salad scavenged by Yansen himself, and went to sleep early.

Our third day in the jungle was easily the most adventurous. We decided to do a short trek despite the pain in our bodies. This trek proved to be the most difficult, and culminated with us literally climbing down the side of a very, very steep cliff, at times with only vines to hold and very small breaks in the cliff face to put our feet in. It was terrifying and we moved in deadly silence, as, on several occasions, Leah's slippery shoes (good for hiking, not for climbing on wet rock) gave out and she clung to the cliff until she regained her footing. We had joked about "jungle skiing" during the previous days' hikes, but now sliding down the mountain had potentially lethal consequences. Down and down we went, until finally we came to a beautiful waterfall where we swam away the physical and mental pain, congratulating ourselves for surviving the trek.

So we wouldn't have to backtrack, we had to cross the big river again to return to our camp, so this meant we had to take what Yansen called a "jungle taxi." Andre, who had not accompanied us on this final trek, appeared out of nowhere at the river's edge with two giant tubes. (We had crossed the river previously on foot, but the rapids at this new spot were much too strong.) The Peters and Connor got into one tube and Andre guided it to the other side of the river. Then he crossed waist-deep on foot through the rushing rapids (this guy was unbelievably strong) to where Colin and Leah waited. We got into the tube and started to cross when Colin decided to readjust his position, sending the tube over on top of Andre. We toppled into the water and off we went, caught up in the rapids. Leah went under, but Andre pulled her to the surface. Colin then grabbed onto Andre. There we were in the river, Colin and Andre pulling Leah from the rapids until she had found solid ground. The tube took off and Andre went after it, retrieving it safely.

We made it back to camp finally and safely, but the adventure with tubes had only just begun. We packed up our things, wrapped our gear in plastic, and nestled into 5 tubes that had been bound together making one long raft. With Yansen in the front and Andre in the back, they guided us with long bamboo poles through the rapids and down the river back to our guesthouse. At times the ride was smooth, and we sat in awe at the beauty surrounding us. We remarked at how incredible it was to see the jungle that we had trekked and conquered from the outside and on both sides of the river as we lazily floated along. At times, however, the rapids picked up and twice Yansen's bamboo pole broke, which he admitted later had never happened before. At one point, because he had no pole and was not able to guide us, we got stuck on several large stones. The guides jumped out of the raft and attempted to pull us free. When the raft finally dislodged, it got swept into the rapid and headed toward a massive rocky cliff wall. Although we would've been okay had we hit it, Yansen Super Guide, came running after us over the sharp rocks and lunged toward the raft, stopping it before it hit the wall. For a moment we thought he was hurt as he dangled from the raft with his head in the water, but then he reemerged, hopped into the boat, cackled in his now famous, lovable way, and we were off. Andre passed forward a new pole (not entirely sure where it came from), and we continued. Tubing down the river was a "small but dangerous" end to an amazing three days in the jungle for the mosquito group.

After proper bathing and some early evening resting, we reunited for a barbecue dinner and some tropical cocktails to swap tales of our jungle experiences and enjoy a final night together. Everyone was definitely in agreement that our jungle trek was pretty awesome.

To view all the photos from Java, click here.

The following is a brief summary of the four major attractions we visited in Java:

Ijen Crater
Though technically closed due to "poisonous gas," we were able to arrange a tour to Ijen Crater. Ijen is a massive crater filled with sulphuric acid near Banyuwangi in Java. When conditions permit, miners dig out the sulphur and carry it down the mountain, sometimes making two trips a day, with bundles weighing 80-90 kg. For their work, they receive 690 IDR per kilogram, which is about 7 US pennies.
The "tour," which was a bit pricey (400,000 IDR) despite our best efforts at negotiation, consisted of a 4 a.m. jeep ride into the mountains and a guide, who accompanied us on the 3 km hike to the crater even though his presence was completely unnecessary due to the somewhat straightforward and easy nature of the trek. He was a really nice guy, however. We had to pay a small park entrance fee, which felt more like a payoff so the park ranger would turn a blind eye. On our way to the top, we encountered two friendly miners, and watched them descend into the mine; they were the only ones left to maintain the water pipe, while all other miners were temporarily suspended due to poor conditions (at this point, we started to wonder if it really was okay to be there). Overall, Ijen offered stunning views, and was definitely worth the hassle of getting there.

Mt. Bromo
Our next stop in Java was Mt. Bromo, an active volcano, which is nestled in the mountainous Tengger-Semeru National Park. Mt. Bromo rises some 500 meters from the center of a vast crater. We awoke early for a jeep ride/1 km hike (in the dark, with no flashlights) up the edge of the crater to view Mt. Bromo and the neighboring mountains at sunrise. This turned out to be fairly anti-climactic since Bromo is not in the east and therefore the sun did not rise behind it as we'd imagined it would. However, it was beneficial to see the park early since the rain started at 9 a.m. and lasted all day. Following the sunrise, we drove down into the crater, which we then opted to cross on foot (others rode horses), and climbed the 240 steps up to the edge of the Bromo volcano. Seeing the volcano was a great experience, and the views have been labeled everything from "scary" to "interesting" to "awe-inspiring," but was decidedly not very beautiful. Overall, however, the trip to Bromo and the two nights we spent in the mountainous park were well worth the trip.

Prambanan
Our next stop in Java was Prambanan, the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia; it was built in the 9th century. While it was originally comprised of 237 temples, most have crumbled and really only 6 remain. We were offered a lovely tour free of charge from some high school girls completing an assignment. They walked us through the temples, explaining about their rich history and translating the tales of the reliefs. It really is a spectacular sight.
After that, we crossed the grounds to a Buddhist temple about a kilometer east of Prambanan. It was equally as fascinating, and also interesting to see two major temples from two different religions in such close proximity to each other (apparently a Hindu prince built the second temple for his Buddhist fiancé).

Borobudur
The next day, we went to to see the world's largest Buddhist temple, Borobudur. It was equally as impressive, if not more so, than Prambanan, though structurally very different. It as also built in the 9th century. We had a lovely day exploring the temple and surrounding park grounds. We even got to spend some time with elephants and deer.

Our week in Java was adventurous and stimulating, and really could not have been more exciting.

To view all the photos from Java, click here.