Jarrod and Sara’s Site

We have been cruising through central Vietnam on our way to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly and still known as Saigon). After the night train from Sapa back to Hanoi, we boarded another train in the afternoon taking us to Dong Ha in the Demilitarized Zone (for a total of 22 travel hours with a six hour break in the middle). We arrived there around 5am after sleeping on the train. This trip was not quite as comfortable as the sleeper train, too expensive to take a sleeper this time, and instead we had regular seats that weren’t bad for sitting but terrible to try and sleep in. We were the only Westerners in our car, and enjoyed the local people in their element… for the most part. One man chose to play music on his cell phone and held it high for all to hear, until late in the evening. Others just talked and smoked cigarettes in the air tight train. It was a long ride…

Once in Dong Ha we found a hotel to take a shower (the first since Sapa, after sleeping on trains for two nights, it was the best shower ever) and booked a bus tour of the area. The sites are too far apart and you really need a guide to explain all of the local history. We saw a bridge that was part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a former US Marine lookout called The Rockpile, and the Ben Hai River which served as the demarcation line between the North and the South with the 5km surrounding areas marking the DMZ. Most surreal was Khe San Combat base, it is really strange being at a place that such horrible things happened when it currently houses a museum and is incredibly peaceful now. The other most interesting place was the the Vinh Moc tunnels. These tunnels were built by local people to live in during the war while heavy bombing took place. They measure 2.8km and are three levels deep at 12 and 23 km. There was even a maternity ward where 17 babies were born. A total of about 500 people lived here for 5 years. Because they were built to live in and not for combat they were larger and I could stand up while Jarrod had to bend over. Still, they were dark and damp and I can’t even fathom living there for so long, or even for a night. It was certainly thought provoking, the sites besides the tunnels didn’t really have much to see, it was more just trying to imagine the things that happened where we were standing and hearing the accounts from the Vietnamese people. Really difficult to imagine what went on here, especially being here now.

That night we stayed on the tourist bus and went with them to the city of Hue. The main attraction here is The Citadel. Built in 1804 it is a 10km walled city that used to be the home of the emperor of Vietnam. It was the site of the Tet Offensive in 1968 and much of the inner areas have been rebuilt. It is really pretty with large brick walls with greens growing up them, bridges, Vietnam’s tallest flag, archways, and a moat around the perimeter. Inside is like any other city with shops, homes, and schools.

In Hue we found a great deal on a bus ticket to take us all of the way to Saigon stoping at Hoi An, Nha Trang, and Dalat for only $16. Hoi An is a really pretty town along a river, and the Old Town area is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a place where just walking around will keep you busy all day. It is known for its tailors and both Jarrod and I took advantage of this each having a jacket made and Jarod having a really nice suit made. All of these projects took less than 24 hours to make, even with fittings and alterations. If only there was more room in our backpacks, we would have gone crazy. The Old Town area also had that French Colonialism feel with lots of little allyways and backstreets. At night the shops along the river were lit with different colored paper lanterns and reflecting into the water, it was really pretty. I should mention that it was raining the whole time and not even the poor weather could take away from this city’s charm.

We found a great restaurant on the first day and booked a cooking class with the owner. We loved this restaurant because the food was delicious and the family was so so nice. It was much more low key than the class that we took in Thailand and just what we needed. We were able to choose our dishes and picked our new favorites; chili chicken with lemongrass, fresh springrolls, and grilled fish with fresh herbs. We were the only two students in the class that day and really enjoyed learning how to cook these dishes and eating the fruits of our labor. I definitely need more practice rolling out the spring rolls, I earned more than one chuckle with my poor technique. What a dinner party we will have when we get home!

From Hoi An we had a night bus ride to Nha Trang. Another interesting travel experience, what was supposed to be a ride from 7pm to 6am turned out to be a noontime arrival. There was some kind of accident on the road due to the rainy weather and traffic was at a dead stop on both sides for hours. The bus driver actually shut off the bus and slept on the floor in the middle of the night. We were really glad to finally get there but totally exhausted and had kind of a wasted day. Nha Trang is known for its beaches and is the premier scuba diving location, but since it was raining we bummed around for the day. It was kind of nice actually to have an excuse to be lazy and relax, we feel so much pressure to be out seeing all of the sites every day since we don’t know when we will back in Southeast Asia. We did go for a nice walk on the beach that night after the rain had died down. The sea was still pretty rough and the sound of the ocean was heaven. We left the next day for Dalat, I will leave for now and let Jarrod write that blog later.

Thanks for all of your blog responses. We are so glad you are all enjoying this, it is really fun to write it (when the internet connection is good). We miss you all tons and think of you everyday. Love, Sara and Jarrod

Back again… so after our Halong Bay trip, we headed directly to Sapa, a small town high in the mountains of Northwestern Vietnam near the Chinese border. To get there we took our first night train. It was much, much better than I had anticipated. We chose to do this because it saved time and money as we slept and traveled on the train which means we don’t lose a day of our trip and don’t have to pay for a guesthouse, and for the experience of a sleeper train. As I mentioned it was much nicer than I thought. We had a small room with two bunk style beds on each side of the room with a decent mattress and pillow and a decent amount of room, though someone much bigger than me may have had a tough time getting comfortable. The room has a locking door, so the only x-factor is who your bunkmates will be. Luckily, we shared the room with a retired Canadian who has been spending his retirement taking the coolest trips (safari in Africa, boat down the Amazon, Antarctica, Southeast Asia, etc.) and his guide. It was about a nine hour trip and after reading for a while we were actually able to sleep relatively well before arriving in a small town an hour outside of Sapa at 5:30 am. From here we jumped on the pre-arranged mini-bus for the final leg of the journey. This was intense. We were driving on incredibly winding mountain roads and the driver, for some unknown reason, was in a rush… he was driving how I would imagine a taxi driving when they have a woman in back about to give birth. Besides the winding roads, we were constantly passing other cars, which is very common and we’ve sort of become accustomed to but this was crazy passing, along with some motorbikes, pedestrians, and the occasional herd of water buffalo. We had to clutch the seat in front of us to keep from slamming back and forth into the people sitting next to us. We made it to Sapa though around 6:30 a.m. and decided that Lonely Planet’s recommendation to “avoid travel by night on the nation’s kamikazee bus fleet” was probably a good idea.

So, Sapa, situated on top of a mountain, high up in a huge mountain range, was absolutely gorgeous. Sara and I were dropped off at our hotel and walked to the outside porch/deck area to have breakfast and saw the view for the first time and it was just ridiculous. As you’ve probably noticed we’ve mentioned a lot about how much amazing scenery we’ve been seeing, and this was instantly our favorite. This is the worst time of year to be here (we’ve heard and read), as its usually cold (30-60 degrees), foggy, and occasionally rainy. We got so unbelievably lucky that we received the two most perfect days when we were there. 75 degrees with bright sun during the day, the bluest sky you can imagine, strong mountain breezes, just perfect, I can’t believe we got so lucky. We had breakfast overlooking this view and immediately hired a guide to go hiking…

This was one of, if not The best, hike we’ve ever been on. After a van drove us around to a lookout or two, it dropped off Sara and I, and our guide (Hie), at the side of the road, where we started our hike by crossing through a really cool farm built in to the side of the mountain that had terraced rice fields, a huge rose garden, and lots of various crops, spread over about three acres on the side of the mountain.

After descending the trail, we arrived in a Black Hmong village that was located in the valley, well off the main road and the easier hiking trails that many tourists path through. This was a highlight of our whole trip. We’ve been in a lot of villages so far and each are really different. We both agreed that this was the ”idealistic vision” that we had in our head before coming here of what a minority, mountain hilltribe village might look like. It was in an impossibly beautiful setting, with moutains surrounding it on all sides, and various parts of the village scattered among the small hills in the valley. The buildings and gardens were incredibly well cared for and clean, and you could just tell that they took great pride in where they lived. The people here all wore traditional clothes that were really unique and they all just seemed so happy. The village was similar to others we’d seen with basic huts (though more enclosed as it gets cold here), lots of animals roaming around (buffalo, cows, chickens, pigs, goats, and dogs), and various gardens everywhere on the hillside (rice fields and other vegetables that they ate and sold the surplus to buy things that they don’t produce themselves). While we were there, a wedding was just finishing and all the villagers were gathered near an open area where they had just finished feasting and were still partying. It was pretty hilarious because there were numerous men passed out all over the lawn area around where the rest of the people were hanging out and talking and laughing. Our guide laughed and said, “Look at all the happy men!” Which he meant were happy and real drunk from celebrating by drinking “happy water” (rice whiskey, i.e. moonshine) all day. Its really tough to describe the feeling of the place, but if you just think of a small, happy, healthy group of farmers living high in the mountains in an amazing setting, you probably can get the idea.

The next day we took a more common hike that is easy to start directly from town and it was a different type of experience. Basically there were a bunch of groups walking through the same three villages that had people coming through everyday, but they were actually still very chill, laid-back villages, that didn’t seem too affected by the traffic. The main difference on this trip was that we walked the entire time with a group of village kids who were walking home to their villages after spending the night in Sapa for schooling. They spoke English remarkably well, and though they definitely were young entrpreneurs, we were still able to just talk to them a lot while we were walking and it was a real nice addition to the hike.

That’s it for now, we hope everyone is doing well and we look forward to seeing everyone when we get home. Keep in touch.

 Jarrod and Sara 

 Hello everybody, sorry to not check in for a while, but we’re in Vietnam and have been real busy and not had much access to the Internet. I hope all of you are doing well and thanks for the emails, its nice to hear what’s going on at home. We are currently experiencing our very first rainy day (in 6 weeks- I’m sorry I know the weather at home has been brutal) at our guesthouse in Hue in Central Vietnam that has free Internet so we’re going to try and catch up on this blog now if we can…

So after our intense few days in Hanoi (Sara is writing about that now I think), we booked a three day/ 2 night tour of Halong Bay to enjoy one of the natural highlights of Vietnam and get out of the city for a while. The tour was really great. We usually try to do things on our own when we can (without a tour) but since we don’t have a boat or the money to charter one, we needed to do a tour here. We were really happy we did though as it was one of the better ones we’ve been on. We were on a boat (see pictures - hopefully) with only 4 other travelers, 1 guide, and the crew of 4. The boat was very large for that number of people, we all had our own room with shower, there was a large common room/dining room, and a large sundeck on top of the boat to enjoy the scenery. The guide we had (Dang) was excellent and was great to spend time with. One of the good things about doing a tour like this is definitely the guide (if you get a good one - which we have had great luck with really good guides on this whole trip) as its one of the best times to get to hang out with a local person who is happy to just talk to you and ask and answer questions without trying to sell you something. He was a great source of information about the area and great to talk to (excellent English). 

The first day was spent traveling into the bay to the spot where we would dock and sleep on the boat for the night. I know talking about the scenery isn’t all that interesting, so hopefully the pictures help, but that was the main activity, sitting up on the sundeck as the boat cruised through the thousands of limestone mountains/cliffs that make up the bay. After arriving at our spot for the night, we went kayaking around the cliffs and into a huge grotto. To get in we paddled through a small tunnel that is only accessible during low tide and emerged inside what is basically like a huge saltwater lake enclosed by the limestone mountains (if you looked from the top, which is open - not like a cave, it would look like a big circle of tall, steep cliffs with ocean inside).  After kayaking, we got back on the boat and had a delicious family style Vietnamese dinner (another great thing about a good tour) consisting of fresh fish, squid, prawns, vegetables, and, of course, rice. Then had a few beers with the guide and other travelers and turned in for a great sleep out on the ocean.

The next day after some more cruising and eating, we were dropped off in a little cove on Cat Ba Island to hike through a section of the National Park. It was a short, steep hike over a small mountain and back down into the valley. The landscape here was really different than on our recent hikes as it was more rainforest like jungle and very rocky. There were also a lot more birds and it was nice to hear the sound of them as on many places we’ve hiked have had no birds due to overhunting. When we got down to the valley we stopped at the one home in this area of the park, which is the small fish/vegetable farm of a sixty year old couple who have been living in this really remote area for about twenty years. They had set up a large net structure in a small lake where they raised/farmed fish to eat and occasionally to sell in town. They had a small orchard where they grew banana and a few other fruit trees. They had a garden where they grew all their vegetables and they had a chicken coupe with a small number of chickens. Their “house” was a really simple, but nice and clean, bamboo open-air hut, with raised levels for sleeping and storage, a table, and fireplace. There we sat and had a snack and tea and admired how simple, but seemingly happy the couple’s life was.

After hiking out of the park and getting back on the boat, we docked at a floating “seafood store” (see picture) for lunch and more kayaking. This place was interesting, basically a large (maybe one 1/3rd of the size of the football field that the undefeated NE Patriots play on, which I have not seen a single game while I’ve been away, and its absolutely killing me - last night our place had a TV station that aired the NFC title game (recorded) then played a montage of every other playoff game besides the Patriots and then instead of playing the recorded Patriots game as it seemed to be gearing up for, they switched to the Tonight Show with Jay Leno - I wasn’t mad at all) floating structure that had about 20 pens with nets that contained different kinds of fish swimming in them (think of the movie Waterworld). Restaurants would come to a place like this and buy the fish for their restaurant. Cool place, but the 4 men that worked there also lived there and only left to go to town about once a month… yikes.

That night we stayed in Cat Ba town at a nice hotel before heading back to land aboard a different boat the next morning. Overall, it was a really nice trip. The place is beautiful, but they don’t seem to be taking very good care of it at all as there are tons of diesel boats cruising around and they don’t seem too concerned with keeping litter and waste on the boats. Hopefully they’ll get it under control and not wreck the bay as its really a unique and amazing place.

After we arrived back in Hanoi, we had about three hours to kill before boarding the Night Train to Sapa… see Sapa blog.

Hope everyone is well.

Jarrod and Sara

 Hi everyone!  Sorry not to write for so long.  Jarrod and I have picked up the pace a lot since arriving in Vietnam.  We have a lot of ground to cover on our way from the north to the south.  We arrived in the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, January 4th after a quick one hour flight from the capitol of Laos, Vientiane.  It was quite a change going from Laos which was so quiet, not very developed, and so laid-back, to Hanoi, which is the complete opposite.  As soon as we got out of the shuttle and stepped onto the curb, it felt like I was hit in the face.  It is quite loud with horns from the trillion motorbikes zooming past at amazing speeds and people yelling over the noise.  There is a shop or noodle stand on every single centimeter of space on the sidewalks, so you have to walk single file in the street while avoiding motorbikes, bicycles, people, and a car every now and then.  No thoughts of romantic honeymoon strolls down the street here.  The people are more aggressive and constantly approach us to buy souvenirs, fruit, or asking for rides on their motorbike taxis, never settling on a no answer until told the fifth time in a rude way.  I had a hard time feeling like a walking pocketbook and that I had to be mean to people just to say no.  That only feels worse when you find someone who is genuinely being nice and helpful, but you just snapped at them to leave you alone.  I have realized that this is just not the city for me, however, Jarrod is much less sensitive than I (big surprise).

 We spent our first day enjoying rice noodle soup for breakfast.  Pho is a traditional breakfast food and although it doesn’t sound like it would be great for breakfast, it was so good on a chilly, dreary morning.  We tried Vietnamese coffee and found it really nice.  It is similar to coffee made with a French press, and drips into the glass right in front of you.  Served with a little sweetened condensed milk, delicious.  After a caffeine fix we headed into the busy Old Quarter to explore.  There are lots of little alleyways and streets thanks to old French colonization so it is really easy to get lost, but you eventually find your way to the lake in the middle as a landmark.  There are different streets for anything that you want to buy: shoes, clothes, yarn, toys, religious trinkets, silk, tin-boxes, gravestones, jewelry, and herbs.  The food market had the usual fresh fruits and vegetables, and tons of seafood such as eel, squid, crabs, fish, and even a turtle (which upset me I won’t lie) still squirming in plastic buckets.  In the afternoon we walked out of the Old Quarter into the central part of the city and visited The Temple of Literature dedicated to Confucius and scholars of literature.  It was a beautiful setting with lots of plants, ponds, and sculptures, and there was a pretty young couple having their wedding photos taken.  By this time we were exhausted and on sensory overload, so we headed to the local five story mall for some western familiarity and actually watched the movie ”American Gangster” on the big screen.

 The next day was more walking around and exploring.  We took a short break to rest our feet at the Water Puppet Theater in the afternoon.  In the past rice farmers used to put on shows when their rice fields had flooded, carving puppets out of fig trees and telling stories based on their daily lives and mythical creatures.  The shows are set to traditional Vietnamese music using about six instruments.  It is really different the way the puppets are danced on top of the water with sticks hidden underneath.  The puppeteers stand behind a curtain and are about waist deep in the water too.  The kids loved it.  We wished we could have understood what they were saying.

That evening we enjoyed some Bia Hoi before dinner.  Small plastic chairs are set up on street corners in front of shops, and women serve keg beer at unbelievable prices.  It cost 2500 dong per beer, which is about six beers for a dollar.  Needless to say Jarrod was very pleased and we enjoyed a few…  It was a nice way to sit and watch the city quickly pass by and I actually relaxed a little bit.  One little girl about five years old came with her parents.  I was really surprised when she approached two large European men also enjoying a few drinks and practiced her English a little saying “Hello, how are you?”  Then without pause, “I am fine thanks!”  It was really cute and I thought her quite brave to talk to the men who must appear so odd looking and so tall.

Jarrod and I hope you are all well!  Go Pats!  Love, Sara and Jarrod

What’s up everyone? Hope everyone had a great holiday and is excited to be back to work… we missed you all for the holidays.

Sara and I just spent about a week around New Year’s in Vang Vieng, a small town located across a nice river from some dramatic limestone mountain/cliffs. We had heard that this was a big party town and had lost its cool atmosphere due to the huge volume of backpackers that come through the place. In some ways this was true. I’m sure that before any travelers were coming here, it would have been that much more beautiful and mellow because there would have been no development, but this was still one of the more beautiful settings for a small, laid back town that we’ve seen.

You can tell the difference basically by looking at the two sides of the river; one side is vast rice fields and some small villages, the other side is packed with guesthouses, small hotels, bars, and restaurants. This separation, we think, has enabled the place to still have a great atmosphere, and tons of things to do. On the “nature” side, we spent two days, one riding mountain bikes down deserted dirt roads and over little streams and through villages to a huge cave that you could explore, all the while having the dramatic limestone cliffs as a backdrop. The other day we just went for a hike (we really liked that this was a place you could just go hike by yourself and not have to do with a group tour) and climbed to the top of this small, but steep mountain that was all rocky with some cool vegetation and “surprisingly” had a great view from the top. We followed that up by going to one of the many riverfront bamboo huts where you can sit in hammocks and relax as long as you want - one of the most relaxing spots we’ve been - while watching the boats go by on the river, eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, writing, or absolutely nothing. On the other side of the river, we did things like eat at a bunch of different restaurants, drink at a bunch of different restaurants, and sit at one of at least 5 bar/restaurants that, for some unknown reason, play the TV show, Friends, one season after the next, from open until close, everyday, and many people sit and drink and eat and watch… we did for a little while and really have no idea why, other than it was nice to watch TV. If it had been Seinfeld, or the Simpsons, I would have understood, but ??? Anyway, that side of the river is cool too, we met some nice people and had fun, but you could see why some travelers (especially the ones who complain about how travelers ruin places and how everywhere was better when they first went there 10 years ago…) would find this development of Vang Vieng depressing. I think most people that we saw there loved it and spent there days on one side of the river or the other, depending on what they wanted. We loved it, sorry, now I’m rambling…

Now that we’ve covered both sides of the river, we also spent two days ON the river, which was also quite an experience. The first day on the river was with a group kayaking tour. It was really nice, a couple of somewhat fast spots - we did flip over once, but for the most part very calm water that you could sit back and just take in the scenery. We stopped for lunch at one spot and went for a short hike to check out a really cool cave while lunch was being BBQ’ed. One of the coolest parts of the cave was the spider we saw - black with red design on body, the body was the size of a thumb, and the legs were ridiculously long and creepy, making the whole thing about the size of one huge hand. Another was when, about a 15 minutes walk in, we all blew out our candles and turned off flashlights, and didn’t talk for a minute - wow - your eyes can’t adjust, there’s no light to adjust to, so you can’t see your hand in front of your face and its totally silent, really eerie. And during the Vietnam war, a whole village lived inside this cave, can’t imagine. Very cool experience to check it out. After the cave, we went back and had the best “tour” lunch ever: shish kebab with buffalo meat, tomato, onion, and pepper, and fried rice with egg, and a baguette, and a banana - so good. Then I was able to jump into the river off a 30 foot wooden tower which got the adrenaline going for the rest of the day of kayaking. Great day.

The second day on the river (New Year’s Eve) was spent floating down the river on an inner tube…. this is one of the most popular backpacker activities in Southeast Asia, some people come here and do it every day for a week. Basically, you rent a tube in town and a small pickup crams as many people and tubes as they can into the truck and takes you up the river and drops you off. You then jump on the tube and float down the river back to town. Its super relaxing (if anything the river is too slow at this time of year) and you have the spectacular scenery that you eventually start to take for granted being in Laos. Due to the popularity of this, the enterprising locals have set up bars alongside the river. Some as simple as a woman sitting on a mat with a cooler full of beer and soft drinks, some as elaborate as the one shown in the picture we posted with this entry. Not sure if the picture does it justice, but basically on this 250 yard stretch of river, you are fished out of the river via a man throwing a bamboo stick to you and hauling you in. On the bank is a huge bamboo structure that has three levels high of small square decks overlooking the river, a huge bar, two volleyball nets, speakers blasting music like you were at an outdoor concert, and finally the huge bamboo tower that people climb up and swing from. The swing is like trapeze (no safety rope or anything remotely resembling one) far out over the river… and then back towards the shore… usually a few times before letting go into the water. This was amazing to watch, and I can’t lie if there wasn’t a huge line I probably would have done it, but also one of the craziest/dumbest things I’ve seen. As you are over the water (which is most of the time) the worst thing that could happen is you do a crazy belly or back flop… or land on a tuber or kayaker or motorized canoe, but as you swing back towards shore if you let go at the top accidentally you would land (after a 20 to 30 foot drop) on either a bamboo structure, rocks, or a tree. People couldn’t get enough and it was fascinating to watch. This is what attracts many people, the party all up and down the river, and I could see why some people would hate it. We certainly enjoyed it, but I think the sheer number of people and how much has popped up along the river is definitely overboard. The river is extremely long (don’t know how many thousands of kilometers) and this takes up about 3 kilometers and brings in a ton of money, so I’m not sure really what to think about it, but it was certainly quite an experience and a good way to spend New Year’s Eve. After arriving to town and taking a shower, we had a great dinner and went to a big party on the banks of the river with tons of cool people, bonfires, and music. Great way to end the year and it would have been about the best New Year’s party we’ve been to if all our friends and family were there as well…

Hope you all are doing well and had a great New Year’s. Please keep in touch.

Jarrod and Sara

Jarrod and I fell in love with the city of Luang Prabang, and ended up staying for about a week for a little mini-vacation for the Christmas holiday during our big vacation. Anyone traveling through here would fall in love with its mellow atmosphere with old French provincial architecture, cafe’s on every corner, and wonderful people watching. It is located where the mighty Mekong River meets the Nam Khan river, so waterfront restaurants perfect for a sunset meal or Beerlao are plentiful. It is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, so cars, trucks, and other large and noisy machines are not allowed, making for quite a peaceful atmosphere. There was also a great night food market where you could get anything from noodle soup to grilled fish to fried Mekong seaweed to laap to all you can eat vegetarian buffet (and lots of things that we couldn’t identify).

We did fit in some of the sights between Cafe Lattes and French baguettes (when looking back on our time here, I have noticed that everything revolved around what or where we ate that day). One morning we took in the Royal Palace Museum which was a residence to the royal family before the capitol moved to Vientiane, then climbed the few hundred stairs across the street up a large hill called Phu Si. There is a small temple at the top, but we were more interested with the spectacular views of the city, rivers, and mountains.

Luang Prabang has a big handicraft market selling common souvenirs such as T-shirts, photographs, and silver jewelry, but the main focus here is on textiles. One day we went to Xang Khong weaving village to hopefully find some deals outside of the market, but things were still too expensive. It was great to see the women dying their own thread with natural dyes and also weaving it on large looms. They sit on hard backless stools all day, but many bring portable looms down to the river to soak up the cool breeze and river life. Not a bad trade.

We found one small bookstore/swap/cafe place and fell in love. It had wood walls, floors, and paneling, and felt like a treehouse up on the second floor with a small balcony and great breeze. The best part for Jarrod was free nightly movies which they showed on a big screen and had lots of comfy pillows and mats on the floor to relax and lie down on. It was great to chill and watch a movie (3:10 to Yuma) while sipping fruit shakes and Beerlao.

My favorite experience was giving alms to the monks. Every morning the monks wake up early to collect food donations for the day from all of the local people. The day after Christmas we woke up at 5:45am to get ready. Our hotel provided us with sticky rice and some candies to give to the monks, and we waited outside for them to start filing by. From down the street saw a sea of orange robes as the young monks and novice monks quickly approached. They had a lot of ground to cover and were walking quite fast, giving just enough time to put some food into their bucket. Our sticky rice and candies didn’t last too long, then they were gone. The whole experience lasted about five minutes, but it was special to participate in one of the daily routines of the Lao people. No sleeping in for them!

There were many opportunities for more hiking, kayaking, and outdoor activities around Luang Prabang, but we decided to take a little break from the distant outdoors and instead went to a local waterfall for half a day. There was a small national park about thirty minutes away that we visited. It was very peaceful and pretty with three or four different pools on the way to the main waterfall for swimming. We headed to the main event and climbed a steep path to the top, stopping to swim on the way down. Jarrod even found a pool with a rope swing to play in for a while before we had to head back.

Happy New Year everyone! We wish you a great 2008. Thanks again for all of the posts and keeping us in our thoughts. Love, Sara and Jarrod.

Jarrod and I want to let you know that you are all in our thoughts and hearts during the holidays.  We are having a fun and relaxing Christmas together, but it is friends, family, cookies, special breakfast, and snow that really make the holidays complete.

Last night for Christmas Eve we went to a restaurant called Lao Lao Garden.  You sit at a table that has a hole in the middle filled with hot embers from the campfire sitting in the middle of the restaurant.  They bring this grill top thing that you fill with broth and cook glass noodles and vegetables to make soup, and cook strips of meat on the top dipped in a delicious sauce.  We had a great time at the traditional Lao style BBQ, and the 4 drinks plus the “Beer Bomb Bucket” helped ensure a good time too.  Yes, I was singing Christmas carols into my chopsticks.

Love you, Sara and Jarrod

Going to try and write this one now too, as I have a few cups of incredibly, incredibly strong coffee (think of a small glass that you fill with chocolate syrup half way to the top and then fill with water and mix, its honestly that thick) so sorry if I start rambling… but anyway after the Mekong trip and a day in Luang Prabang (more on this city later) we decided that we hadn’t taken enough public transportation lately so we boarded a public bus for a 9 hour ride to Luang Nam Ha, an extremely remote little “city” in northern Laos. The bus was similar to the boat in some ways: over-crowded - people sitting in the middle aisle on plastic deck chairs and sacks of rice, and stunningly beautiful again - 9 hours of non-stop mountains with a few rivers and villages to look at. This got old much faster as its not nearly as “romantic” or “exotic” and they don’t serve Beerlao, and they don’t have bathrooms (though we did go to the bathroom on the side of the road where the bus pulled over with much better views than the indoor bathrooms at home), and it just was in no way comfortable.

The reason we came here, however, was well, well worth it. We went on a three day trek through the mountain/jungle/farmland/village area of the Nam Ha NPA, which is similar to a national park except that village people live within it and they are allowed to farm some of the land.

The first day we met our two guides in the morning (Phet - main guide who spoke English well and Night - local guide who didn’t speak English but communicated well anyway) and found that we would only have two other people in our group (two middle-aged men from Switzerland who spoke a little English). This was a nice surprise after our 15 person convoy in Chiang Mai.

The trekking here was much more like the hiking we do at home, not as much stopping and a little more demanding terrain, and we really enjoyed being out in the woods in the middle of absolute nowhere. This trek was also much more authentic as far as food and shelter were concerned. The first day we stopped for lunch at a small waterfall, we knew it would be a little more “roughing it” than in Chiang Mai. When we arrived there they put down a few large bamboo leaves on the ground and arranged the meal that we would eat family style on top of it. The meal consisted of sticky rice (the staple of just about every single meal we’ve eaten here), fish that had been cut in half and grilled with herbs inside and then put back together so it just looked like a dead fish lying in front of us, a vegetable stir fry (the vegetables were recently hand picked and still had the flowers on some of them), and two dipping sauces - one unbelievably spicy chili paste and one salsa type sauce. Once we got used to eating with our hands and the flies and pulling apart the fish to get inside to the meat, it was really, really good. Totally different than anything we would normally eat and really tasty (the chili paste you basically dabbed a big chunk of rice with a tiny drop of it and you could feel the heat).

After another good stretch of hiking we arrived at our first camp pretty early (around 3:30). The camp consisted of one large bamboo hut that had one small room for storing food and things and one large room that had a bunch of small mattresses and mosquito nets that we set up our sleeping bags inside. It also had a smaller hut for cooking meals and two very small (especially if you are over about 5 foot 6) outhouses that had squat toilets in them (this could be a blog of its own, but basically a porcelain thing that you stand or squat on - depending on the task - with a hole in the middle), and a firepit and picnic type table.

That evening we had another great meal of similar foods, though no fish, while sitting at the table in front of the fire. This time we had the added benefit of sampling lao-lao, home-made rice whiskey, with our guide Night. Apparently is it a tradition to take a number of shots of whiskey from a bamboo shot glass throughout dinner, who was I to mess with tradition? It was actually pretty good stuff… especially the last few. After dinner, we learned a couple of interesting hill tribe game/puzzles that you play with a number of little sticks on the picnic table. It is pretty impossible to describe the games, but they were very fun after a few lao-lao’s and because the guide found it hilarious that we couldn’t figure out his puzzles. He spoke no English, but just sat back and laughed to himself that he continually stumped us. After that we sat by the fire for a while and were in bed by about 8:30, completely exhausted.

The second day was basically one long hike for about 6 hours with a few breaks in scenic spots. The landscape was just amazing (I’m sure I’ve been saying this a lot but thats what we kept thinking), we walked along high ridges with views of the mountains which went as far as you could see in every direction, crossed streams on fallen trees and some man-made bamboo bridges, and walked through the most dense, lush jungle we’ve seen. We didn’t see much wildlife to speak of except for two things. The first was what Sara had been longing to see since we started thinking about this trip, along one stretch of trail in the low bushes was a procession of literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of daddy-long legs all crawling in the same direction over and under and around each other in a mass so think you could barely see what was underneath them. Not very exotic, but nothing we had ever imagined seeing either. The second was later in the day as our guide was walking in front, he all of a sudden shrieked and jumped about two feet in the air and said something really fast in Lao and he motioned us not to move forward and we saw a long, skinny, bright green snake climb up into a bush right from where he had almost stepped. He looked at us and said, “Very poisonous.” and the other guide came up from the back of the group and put his hand on Phet’s chest and started laughing and motioning that his heart was beating out of his chest. Ocassionally, Sara and I had been walking in front of the group, but that stopped after this experience…

That night we arrived at our second night’s camp, and I will finish this blog later tonight or tomorrow morning as the coffee is starting to wear off (I think I just blinked for the first time in two hours)…. to be continued soon… alright, I’m back (this blog is real long, sorry if I’m rambling), anyway the second night’s camp was in the coolest place. It was, until about a year ago, a functioning Akha village, but they were forced to move due to the amount of slash and burn farming they had been doing and moved to an area a few hours away that was in a more sustainable terrain. We walked in to see overgrown wooden houses and open pastures with some cows that they kept there to graze, all perched on the side of a hill, high in the mountains. In the evening and the morning it was such a surreal place with the old overgrown village kind of covered in clouds… tough to describe but really cool place.

We also got the full experience of the Lao shower. This is where you take a towel or sarong down to the closest stream and wash yourself in the stream while trying to wear the towel or sarong. While you are boating down the Mekong or driving down any river, you see people doing this everywhere and they make it look real easy. While it was refreshing and fun, depending on the stream you are in, it can be real difficult to balance on a rock, hold soap and your towel on, and splash water on yourself and actually get clean (especially since the way in and out of this particular stream was wet, slippery mud), but we got it done and fortunately we weren’t in a public place like most of the people bathing in this manner.

While the setting of the camp was perfect, the accommodation there was a little suspect. Probably partly due to the fact that people only stayed there about twice a week and they probably didn’t clean the food area that well, in the middle of the night when I woke up in our mosquito nets, it sounded as if we were sleeping outside… with a number of visitors. I heard lots of flapping wings overhead (outside the net fortunately), as well as a lot of scurrying and squeaking elsewhere in the hut, as well as plenty of strange sounds outside. I’m sure part of this was due to the lao whiskey I had consumed earlier and the fact that I was half asleep and it was pitch black, but all I could imagine was if the lights suddenly went on, there would be a hundred bats flying in the small raised ceiling above our sleeping net and a pack of rats running wild all around us eating tomorrows lunch. I didn’t wake Sara and tell her… and hoped that neither of us woke up and had to leave the security of the net and find out what all the other noises were outside on the way to the outhouse.

After a peaceful night’s sleep we woke to a campfire breakfast with coffee and headed to our final stop of the trek, the new Akha village. This was an unbelievable experience (sorry, I’m running out of adjectives). The village again was in a beautiful location, surrounded by farmland and streams, the buildings were fairly new (but not at all modern - bamboo huts, no doors, dirt floor, no electricity, fireplace inside on the ground for cooking, and about the size of two dorm rooms put together into one big room that housed 8 to 10 people…) as they had just moved there a year ago, and there were people and animals everywhere. We saw people farming, fishing, weaving baskets, cooking, watching small children, chopping wood, and building a new hut, as well as kids EVERYWHERE (most families have 7 or playing games or just running around looking like they were having a blast. The kids especially liked when they saw us as they would constantly say hello (sabadee) and laugh when we said it back. And Sara got into a good game of tag with some of the real young ones, that they all seemed to really enjoy. This village only gets small groups like us once a week so its not as familiar for them as it is in Chiang Mai where they have a small handicraft auction outside your hut every night. Along with the people were dogs, cats, chickens, cows, and pigs running around the village freely. It was an amazing sight and pretty overwhelming but we felt very lucky to get to see the place and interact with some of the people. The highlight came when our guide was invited by the chief to have us have lunch in his house, which was a great honor and experience. We sat around a small table on little seats and had a really good meal of pork, fish, vegetables, chili, and of course rice and were able to talk to the chief a lot about the village through our guide who acted as interpreter. The chief seemed to be a really honorable, intelligent man and was really interesting to hear him tell us about the village. It was a great, unique experience.

So, that was the trek… hope I didn’t ramble too much, it was just a really unique, rewarding trip, hopefully we were able to give you an idea of what it was like.

We miss you all a ton, its hard to miss the holidays, but we wish you all a great Christmas and hope you are all doing well. Keep in touch.

Jarrod and Sara

  Hey everybody, we’ve re-entered civilization in Luang Prabang, Laos after a lot of travel and hiking days. Going to try and catch up on the blog right now…. hope everyone is doing well at home in the snow.

So after a long bus ride and a quick night in Chang Khong (Thailand), we crossed the Mekong River via a huge canoe type boat that I am amazed didn’t sink on the journey across… and landed in Huay Xai, an official border crossing city, and went through customs (very simple, pay them, and you get in).

Once across, we boarded a “slow boat” that would take us to Luang Prabang via the Mekong River. The boat was shaped sort of like a really long, skinny oversized row boat (pointed in front, flat in back) and it had wooden seats in rows of two along each side of the boat that would comfortably fit about 70 people (all in seats). When we boarded there were about 90 people on board and we (actually luckily) were told to sit in the very front on the floor with the bags. This actually wasn’t bad since you could move around a little and occasionally stretch out your legs or even lie down if the ten or so people in that section were positioned correctly… It was an interesting experience that would never ever have flown in the U.S.. There ended up being about 120 people scattered around every possible spot on the boat and if more people had turned up, I’m sure that they would have fit more people on.

This was a little aggravating at first as we had specifically heard, “the trip down the Mekong is gorgeous and really fun, as long as they don’t over crowd the boat, which they often do…” but as we got used to the seats and got underway, it wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as is sounds. What made the trip so worth it though was the view. It was just incredible. Basically for 8 straight hours we traveled through non-stop bright green lush mountain ranges on a beautiful river. It wasn’t mountains here or there, it was the entire time. The only time we weren’t seeing a beautiful mountain range was when we were seeing an amazing village propped on stilts on the edge of the river bank, or impossibly maintained farm lands on steep hills and river banks, or small fishing boats, or kids running up and down the banks and playing in the river.  Needless to say, by the end of they day while we were enjoying cold Beerlao (22 oz bottle - $1) coming into the first night stop on our two day trip, we really didn’t mind too much that we were cramped together and uncomfortable (Beerlao’s helped this) and had thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Our night in Pak Beng was fairly uneventful as we were pretty exhausted and sore from the trip. We took a quick walk through town (very, very small) that had a wild west feel to it for some reason (one long road with restaurants, bars, general stores and people milling about looking like they were up to no good) which was pretty cool. We had a really good dinner on this cool porch overlooking the river (I am convinced that there is not a single restaurant in Southeast Asia that is not mostly outside, its awesome) and went to bed hoping that many of the people on our boat had gotten lost and wouldn’t be joining us the next day.

No such luck. This time we got seats, which we decided were a little better since your space stayed the same and you didn’t have the constant mind game of how can I take over that person’s leg room and how can I go to the bathroom without losing my leg room. Today was more of the same (another 8 hours of stunning landscapes, villlages, etc. that our pictures cannot do justice but will hopefully give you an idea), but by the end of this one we were really, really happy to be done. Even with the most beautiful scenery and very good beer and weather, sitting on a wooden bench, crowded like cattle, for eight or nine hours…. it gets old. So we were really happy to pull into port at Luang Prabang and the end of the journey and check out the coolest city that we have been to so far (more of the city later).

Again, hope everyone’s doing great and please keep in touch. Sorry about not getting back to a lot of you in a while as we haven’t been around the internet in a while, but we’re going to try to catch up in the next couple of days. Hope everyone’s enjoying the holidays… very weird missing it, although some restaurants seemed to have adopt Christmas and are forcing their Laotian staff to dress in Santa hats (will try to get a picture of this as it is quite amusing).

May start writing now or later tonight about the trek we just got back from… talk to everyone soon.

Jarrod and Sara

We are so happy to hear about your engagement and hope that you enjoy every second of this very special time.  Sorry we are not there to celebrate, but promise to make up for it when we come home.  Love you both, Sara and Jarrod