Day 97-99: Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is surprisingly not very different from other metropolises around the world. The main difference is the labyrinth of alleyways that exist within the square block in which we are staying. When we booked the hotel, we booked a hotel close to where the bus drops us off. Trip Advisor indicated that the hotel could be hard to find. The instructions said: find the small blue sign that says 219, turn into the alley and then go straight, straight, right, and left. I’m so glad we found it! It is if an entire secret world exists just in the alleyways here. People’s homes, hotels, restaurants, shops, and hairdressers all lay next to narrow stone lanes filled with zipping scooters. It’s pretty amazing. I’m surprised James Bond or Jason Bourne haven’t had some sort of chase scene in these alleys.

The rest of the city is just alright. It’s much greener and has a much more relaxed vibe than Hanoi. We spend most of the day going to the Indian embassy so that Pallavi could get an Indian visa. That gave us a chance to walk right by the Reunification Palace, complete with the tank that ended the Vietnam conflict proudly parked in the lawn, and to go to the War Remnants Museum. The War Remnants Museum contains photos, artifacts, and exhibits focused on the American-Vietnam conflict. I particularly wanted to see this museum especially because I had heard that it is pretty graphic and relatively anti-American in sentiment.

The museum was incredibly powerful. Again, everything I learned about the Vietnam conflict, I learned from pop culture, primarily Forest Gump. Propaganda or not, the facts remain that we still dropped TONS of Agent Orange and committed massacres against the Vietnamese people. How horrible.  I’m really glad that we went and would highly recommend it to people.

The rest of the day we just took it easy, checked off our eating and shopping list from Vietnam, and just planned for the rest of our trip! We have to ‘kill’ a week before Pallavi’s visa comes back and then high-tail it over to Cambodia for a fast finish to our Southeast Asian adventure. 

Day 96: Transit to Ho Chi Minh

Technically, this journey started on Day 95. We need to get to Ho Chi Minh as our next stop. How far away is the it? Only a 24 hour bus ride! 24 hours. On a bus. Why oh why oh why!!!!! Nobody should have to be on a bus that long. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad; however, I can understand now why people say the roads in Vietnam are horrible.

As both of us attempted to sleep in our otherwise decently comfortable bus, the bus only drove on bad broken roads with tons of traffic. Slam brake, insert horn, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, bad gear shift, repeat. No continuous unbroken sleep for these two passengers. Apparently the roads from Hanoi in the north are good as are the roads from Ho Chi Minh in the south. The roads in the middle are crap!

We had to change buses after 12 hours, so we had a chance to get out and stretch our legs. Then frankly, we slept, listened to podcasts, or read for the rest of the journey. Thankfully our hotel in Ho Chi Minh was only a 3 minute walk away. With all of that sleep and travelling, it was only logical that we just wanted to keep sleeping!

Tomorrow, early morning for another embassy trip,

Day 94-95: Hoi An

Hoi An is such a lovely little artsy town just south of Hue. These long bus journeys really put things in perspective when you get excited about the 'short' the five hour bu ride. Hoi An is meant to be the seat of the Indian-influenced Chan empire. What did I see? Chinese influenced Vietnam everywhere! Ancient Chinese tea houses. Ancient Chinese Chinese trade houses. Ancient Japanese bridge (just to make sure the Japanese could connect with the Chinese in town). And tons and tons and tons of silk Chinese lanterns everywhere.

We enjoyed our lovely guesthouse, chilled inside during the daytime, and caught up on some movies, only venturing out on our bicycles towards the town at night. We didn't miss out on anything. Night is when the city picks up! It's absolutely lovely. The entire town is lit up by said Chinese lanterns everywhere. The whole town is filled with handmade boutiques. Beautiful embroidered paintings. Silk lanterns. Leather work. You name it, they have it.

We discovered later that you can have a custom made pair of leather ankle boots made for you for just $62 AUD. That is ridiculous! If only we had more time here (we need to get to get Ho Chi Minh City so we can get some visas processed), we definitely would have had boots made for ourselves!

As we rambled down the streets, we came to the river, where people were selling paper Chinese lanterns with a lit candle that you could lay in the water. Perfect place to just sit and people watch.

We then found what Anthony Bourdain claims to be the best bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwich) in Vietnam. Normally, I don't got for these celebrity chef picks, but we do love Vietnamese sandwiches, there wasn't a long line, and it didn't cost us an arm and a let. Were they the best in Vietnam? I don't think so, but I'm not an expert. Were they pretty darn good? You know it! We even took some for our bus ride to Ho Chi Minh. Have bahn mi, will travel.

We sadly didn't get to the beach that is just 2 kms away; we'll just have to make up for it in south Vietnam.

Day 91-93: Hue

I don't know what kind of travelers are in Vietnam, but after some of the transportation that Pallavi and I have taken, I'd say they are transportation pansies! We have had it with travelling through mountains. If we even hear 'mountain road,' we are looking for an alternative. That's why we didn't go and see the hill tribes in Vietnam. No more mountain roads! Well, that and overnight buses. I don't know why we are doing it to ourselves. Neither of us ever sleeps very well. We arrive at odd times in the morning. We end up spending the whole next day sleeping at wherever we are. Oh, and we are super crabby. You can only imagine the pleasantries or cold shouldered silence that occur after repetitive crabby, can't find the accommodation, why is it so far of a walk, where the hell is my coffee, god that bus was awful experiences. 

You can then understand our hesitation when, after lots of research and deciding to book our 15 hour bus to Hue, we saw all of the reviews about transportation by road, and specifically, transportation by the bus we had booked. If they were newspaper headlines, they'd read like this: "Danger ahead!" "Bus overcrowds and overbooks." "Don't say I didn't tell you so." "Never travel by road in Vietnam." And so on. 

I'd like to say that these people have no idea what they are talking about! We slept on the bus. Slept! For more than an hour. The bus had two drivers, so they weren't driving all night. The road was flat as a pancake and with minimum curves or traffic. The bus was a bit overcrowded, but nothing like we've seen. These people are backpacking pansies! 

We arrived in Hue (pronounced ha-weigh), dare I say, bright eyed and bushy tailed! We made it to our accommodation, run by this incredibly lovely limited-English speaking Vietnamese woman. We had made it south of the DMZ and we could tell! Finally, a friendly Vietnam. Everybody here was so incredibly helpful. Bicycle rickshaw drivers all helped us find our accommodation. They smile even when you say 'no thank you.' It almost makes you want to just buy from them anyway! 

Hue is a lovely town. It is a historic city with a 200 year old fortress square in the middle of it. 200 years ago, the Nguyen emperors decided they were going to make this their seat of power and build a kick ass fort. So they did. They build moat after moat after moat. Lake after lake after man-made lake. Then they build a palace with lots of layers and, to make it even better, called it 'The Forbidden Purple City.' If I was going to declare myself empress of Sarahtavia, I think I shall copy their style. I obviously have to also have a forbidden area. I guess 'No non-Empress Sarahs allowed' isn't cool enough. Only I've gotta top it off with some sort of nasty creature with a gentle soul in the moat. 

Unfortunately, in the American-Vietnam conflict, this place gotta pretty badly destroyed. Only 10 of the 60 original buildings have been restored. If the restoration is any indication, you can only imagine how amazing this place actually was. Pallavi couldn't stop taking pictures. To give you a feel for the scale, the place is 2 square kilometers big. It looks like nothing we've ever seen. 

To top it off, the people then use the palace grounds as their own personal park. Kites and roller blade rentals, hacky-sack players, and badminton and cricket matches replace tourists and photographers. Every water body has some sort of fisherman on it. Then you pass over the Perfume River, with its gorgeous mountain backdrop, and you just want to sit and lose yourself in the view for just a moment. 

This city is more our speed. We found the local coffee place where they serve the coffee to you in a cup over a tealight so you can heat it to your preference. We tried all sorts of new and interesting versions of rice noodles (did you know you could fry them like a pancake or turn them into a dumpling)? Well, you can! It was an absolutely lovely, easy, captivating, and amazing city. 

Day 89-90: Halong Bay

Halong Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site in Vietnam's northeast. It includes 1600 islands and islets, making it a sea maze of limestone pillars (called Karst). Thailand also has similar karst areas, but because of monsoon and our visa timeline, we hadn't gotten a chance to see them. Halong Bay is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places to visit in Vietnam.

We priced out doing it on our own versus going with the many popular two day, one night boat tours, and decided to go ahead and just book a tour. We booked with Golden Bay Cruises. There are many tours you can take, and we had been told you get what you pay for. We paid for the higher-end budget cruise. I know we get what we pay for but I thought a higher-end budget cruise would at least pick us up in a slightly more comfortable shuttle for our 5 hour drive up to Halong Bay.

We were 22 squished foreigners on the shuttle. No sooner did we get on the shuttle bus than I heard this American on the phone, saying "No, I just left it in the lobby while we went to breakfast and when I came back, it was gone. Please find whatever shuttle picked it up and took it to Halong Bay. I will give $50 to the person that finds my bag." He continues on and on and on for at least an hour into the squished up, cramped journey. After an hour, we met our Vietnamese tour guide who apologized for picking us up late. No apology from my countryman to the bus for making us late, since it was because of his bag that we all got late! We then had to do our introductions. We were all way too tired at 9:30 a.m. and too uncomfortable to really be that social and outgoing.

Finally, we made it to this crazy busy port filled with tourists. We board a small skip to take us towards our boat. It starts taking us to the one marked Golden Bay, until, suddenly, it turned. Wait! That's not Golden Bay. That's Halong Dragon Cruises. Yup. That's right. All of us booked with Golden Bay and got onboard Halong Dragon Cruises. Good thing it turned out alright.

We immediately segregated into our natural groups. We ended up with the slightly older Britishers & Kiwis that were the life of the party (in our heads). Then there were the college students, the Austrian game-playing loners, and the annoying Americans. The only time things went against the natural order was meal time, when all of the vegetarians had to sit segregated from the rest of us. Two Britishers from 'our group' ended up at that table (and one of them had faked being vegetarian just cause she was a bit afraid of getting sick from eating meat on the boat) and they got stuck with the annoying Americans. The annoying Americans ate nothing but fruit or something, so they told us. I'm so ashamed of my people!

The food was really good. It just kept coming and coming. Taro french fries, deep fried yummy Vietnamese chicken bites, spring rolls, tofu, fresh fish, fresh fruit, and more. Then came the keg of beer that we drank through in our attempt to keep up with the party boat. Seriously, there was a party cruise that was being sold for $100 per person. However, beer costs $0.30 here. How many beers would you have to drink to make up that cost difference? 300 is the amount we calculated. Not worth it.

We spent our keg of beer telling riddles and tongue twisters. We learned that East Londoners can't say the 'Betty Botter had some butter' tongue twister, as they can't pronounce their 't's properly.

The scenery really was beautiful. The boat slowly made it's way towards Cat Ba Island. As it carved it's path through the mist and the cloud, the karst scenery emerged like ghosts. We passed tons of small local fishing vessels and floating villages. It was absolutely beautiful.

The water was not! This area has had way too many tourists, in my opinion. There are at least 10 boats docked near Cat Ba island. That doesn't include the 6+ ferries per day, plus all of the other day trip cruises. We had a chance to get into the water and to go swimming. The water felt great. Nice and warm, but it was really mucky. We all just figured that it was just dirty water like you have in a lake. Pallavi had climbed out of the water to get her water camera, and when she came back in, she broke the news to us: there was black something all over my body when I got out of the water. That's right. Some sort of oil or dirt or whatever had covered our entire bodies. It was absolutely disgusting!

Once we finally cleaned up, disinfected our entire selves, we learned how to make spring rolls and came back in an even more crowded and cramped shuttle bus. We barely made it back to Hanoi in time for us to catch our overnight sleeper to Hue (pronounced hu-whey), but we finally made it!

I swear we must have fallen asleep as soon as the bus started moving. We are ready to be done with northern Vietnam. Next stop: Hue.

Day 88: Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh

When Ho Chi Minh died, his people did unto him as they had done to his fellow Communists Stalin and Lenin before him: they embalmed him and put his body on display in his mausoleum. It's basically modern mummification. What is there not to be fascinated by? I may be a while before I make it to Russia to see Stalin or Lenin, so I thought it'd be interesting to see Ho Chi Minh.

The catch is that his mausoleum is only open from 7:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m. I had also read that there usually is a long line, but that it moves fast. I got up early and got ready to go, but when it came time for Pallavi to get up, she decided that it wasn't worth it just to see only Ho Chi Minh. Off I went by my lonesome. As I walked, I realized that Hanoi is a morning city. Everything seems to be alive and buzzing with interesting things in the a.m. That I was out by 8:30 a.m. meant I was a bit late. I walked past the Army Museum, past the Hanoi citadel, until I finally arrived at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. I came at it from the front, took some pictures, saw the line, and went to go and find the back of it.

I swear the line was a minimum of 1 km long. It snaked around in various forms of being covered by wood, covered by tents, and uncovered. That's alright. I had my sun umbrella for the uncovered bits. I went ahead and got in it, passed security, and stood in the throng of Vietnamese people. I figured it would take 30 minutes to an hour.

I hadn't factored in the rain.

I may have been under cover, but that mattered not! People under the covering still opened their umbrellas to prevent water from dripping in on the sides. They didn't factor in that their umbrella then dripped on the people on the inside. However, the guards managing the lines don't let people in or they don't let the line move (cause of the uncovered bits, which option it is, I'm not sure), and the line stood still. The first rain passed after 15 minutes, and, relatively dry, the line moved. Perfect. I had started to look for an escape, only to realize that once you are in this line, there isn't really any escape. The line continued moving. By this point, it's been an hour, but I'm coming around the very last turn. Of course it was time for it to rain again. Only this time, my tent covering didn't save me. Swamp in my shoes! Soaking wet pants. Good thing I put a plastic bag around my stuff and had my poor abused sun umbrella to protect me.

It's at this point I realized that the Vietnamese are line cutters. So many people with ponchos started to cut the line. After watching 50 people cut, I decided it's my turn. I haven't been waiting in this line for an hour and a half only to let these people wait for less time than me!

Finally, 30 minutes later, I made it to the mausoleum for my 90 seconds with Ho Chi Minh. Impressions? He looks just like he does on the money. Except dead and not smiling. Other than that, it's pretty amazing how they've been able to preserve his body. Every finger nail and every piece of hair is kept in perfect place. Was it worth the 90 minute wait? Maybe not. But the experience definitely was.

Went back to the hotel and used the blow dryer on my shoes. After changing hotels, we explored a bit more around the city and started to arrange our next few days. Along the way, I made Pallavi stop so I could try 'egg coffee.' That's right - it's coffee with egg in it. It was like egg nog meets coffee. It was SO good. I really think Vietnamese coffee may be my favourite coffee in the world. It's so thick. It's so creamy. It's so deceptively strong. I loved it!

All things sorted, tomorrow we head for Halong Bay in the north. 

Day 87: Hanoi Old Quarter & Hoa Lo Prison

Hanoi is a captivating city, but I found it a bit too chaotic and slightly oppressive for my taste. The older people in Hanoi behave like how my mother describes Moscovites' behavior: hardened. These are a people who, for whatever your opinion of them, have toughed it out through a lot and they don't give a s*&t. We didn't get this attitude at all from people under 35 though. People under 35 are nice and lovely. After coming from Laos, where we swear some of the nicest people on earth live, this hardened f-off attitude if you don't buy something from me attitude came as a culture shock!

The city really is quite vibrant though. Hanoi's main pulse beats in its Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is lined with 36 different streets. Each street is named Hang <insert shop type name here>. One street for silk. One street for sweets. One street for metalwork. You name it. The lanes are quite narrow and filled with scooters everywhere. I had read that it isn't pedestrian friendly and you just need to embrace the chaos. I'd embrace the chaos more if I could figure out how the hell to cross the street. I asked Pallavi what city is more chaotic: Hanoi or Old Delhi? We both agreed that Hanoi is way more chaotic, and that's saying something!

Also, unlike in other cities, it feels like the villagers don't leave the village at home when they come into the city. They walk along carrying a long bamboo pole with two large woven baskets hanging from either end. They carry this pole on one shoulder, baskets filled with various sort of produce, wearing that typical conical Vietnamese hat, and walk from restaurant to restaurant to sell their wares. Normally, you don't see villagers like this in a capital city.

The people in Hanoi also seem to really relax when they sit down at various stalls, literally on small stools on the sidewalk, to have food or a smoke. It's refreshing to watch people not rush through a meal. They also smoke their own version of a shisha meets bong meets pipe sort of thing. Apparently, it's good to smoke any time of day, at any occasion, or any meal.

We spent the day exploring the Old Quarter & decided to head towards Hoa Lo Prison. Hoa Lo Prison held John McCain and other American POWs. They called it the Hanoi Hilton. I love a good prison. I realized I've gone to quite a few. The French built this particular prison in the early 19th century, and the prison itself focuses mostly on Vietnamese communist freedom comrades and their various prison conditions, torture, and escapes up until Vietnamese Independence in the 1950s. My personal favourite prison escape story occurs when 4 women managed to dress up as visitors and leave during visiting hours. The museum had only a very small section dedicated to American POWs. It has been a while since I saw foreign propaganda (I see American propoganda all of the time!) The Vietnamese story is that the American POWs had it pretty great. The museum displays videos of the American POWs playing basketball, smoking traditional Vietnamese pipes, and playing cards. Obviously we immediately looked up the other American side of the story when we got back and read all about them blinking 'torture' in a certain sort of 'morse-like code.' Was it the most interesting prison I've ever seen? Not in terms of set-up, but definitely in terms of questionable historical interpretation.

Hanoi certainly is different. Let's see what else the city has in store for us. 

Day 84-86: Leaving Phonsavan and Arriving in Hanoi

Go figure that the day when we needed the sun to be out so we could dry our shoes that it ended up raining most of the day. Thankfully both of our shoes are designed to be 'quick dry.' 36 hours later, after being perched on top of a television in order to get some of the wall-mounted, non-adjusted fan wind, we had dry shoes and we set off for Vietnam at 6:00 a.m.

Our crossing to Vietnam wasn't nearly as smooth as our crossing into Laos despite having a super comfortable 'sleeper bus.' Do you wonder what it was like? Obviously you do! Never fear. I'll answer all of the questions I'm sure you have on our mind:

• Was it a smooth journey?
• No! The road was really mountainous and at least 2 of the passengers grabbed the bus company-provided puke bags to empty out the contents of their stomachs. 
• Did we stop for breakfast while we were in Laos? 
• Nope. Okay, we'll power through until we get Vietnamese dong and get some food at the border or something. 
• When we finally arrived at the border crossing, did we see an orderly line to go through the Laos or Vietnam immigration? 
• No! It was mad chaos. Everybody just cut in front of each other and put their passport in a pile for somebody to look at at some point. 
• Was there an orderly bus ride from the Laos immigration border to the Vietnam arrival border (as we've had in all of our other border crossings)? 
• Nope! Just a nice little 700 meter walk between the two. 
• Was there an ATM at the border for us to withdraw Vietnamese dong? 
• Nope! Okay, no money for us and no food for us at the border. That's alright. We'll make it to the next lunch stop and use the ATM there. 
• Was there an ATM at the next lunch stop for us to withdraw Vietnamese dong? 
• Nope! Okay, now I'm starving. This is a serious problem. By this point, I'm contemplating eating the Ramen noodles we've been carrying around even though Pallavi says it'll give me an upset tummy. 
• Did we end up trading Laos kip for Vietnamese dong with the only Vietnamese guy on the bus who spoke English? 
• Yes! The sweet guy came up to us and asked why we weren't eating lunch. When we said 'no money,' he sweetly said he'd buy us lunch. However, he wasn't going to our destination so we wouldn't be able to pay him back. So, we traded him kip for dong and happily grabbed some packets of cookie to take with us until we reach the city of Vinh. 
• Was there an ATM when we finally arrived in Vinh, where we stopped to change to a bus to Hanoi? 
• Yes!!!! Thankfully, the ATM wasn't too far away. Finally, money!!!!! 
• Was there an English menu or a menu with pictures next to the name when we finally got to sit down and eat a proper non-cookie meal? 
• No!!!! We had to guess and gesture to select chicken and rice to eat. First experience with Vietnamese food = not bad, but not great either. 
• Was it easy to get a bus to Hanoi without haggling? 
• Not easy, but not hard. We knew the bus should cost about 150,000 dong. The guys at the ticket counter, who are supposed to be more reputable and honest, quoted us 250,000 dong! When we went to the bus drivers, they quoted us 200,000, which, in fairness, was the listed price on the bus. After some sweet talking, we got the bus tickets for 180,000.
• Did we get dropped off in Hanoi at 4:30 a.m. at a proper bus station? 
• We did.... however, it did seem a bit questionable. I figured we'd pull into the bus station, get off, and then wait 30 minutes for the public bus to where we needed to go. Standard bus station process. Did that happen? Well, we got dropped off at the side of the road and had to walk to said bus station. Thankfully we found some other foreigners to sit with. For some reason, I feel safer sitting with other foreigners. If we are going to get lost, then we are going to get lost together!
• Did we make it to the Hanoi Old Quarter, where we wanted to find accommodation, via the public bus! 
• Yes! 
• Did we find accommodation in our budget that would let us check in before 10 a.m.? 
• We must have walked at least three kilometers to find accommodation. One hotel we liked, but was too expensive. Many of the other hotels were full. When we finally made it to the other side of this particular area to a more affordable nice-looking hotel, the guy at reception told us that even though Booking.com showed availability at a certain price, that Booking.com was wrong and we'd need to book through him at a higher price. Umm.. no! <Insert pending negative Trip Advisor review here> 
• Did we end up back at the original hotel that we had liked but was a bit on the expensive side? 
• Yup.
• Did we sleep for 7 hours after we finally checked in to our room? 
• Obviously.

What we noticed in our first chaotic Vietnamese day is that Hanoi is an interesting spectacle for sure! It's filled with colorful character, carrying all sorts of interesting things. Tons of motorcycles and scooters everywhere. The Old Quarter's streets are narrow and winding, making it slightly confusing to walk around. There are people sitting outside and smoking out of what appear to be a Vietnamese bong everywhere. Not sure what they are smoking! 

When we made it out at night, we went to the infamous Beer Corner where Vietnamese beer is the cheapest in the world at less than 25 cents per beer. As we sat at Beer Corner, where people are spilled out on milk cartons into the street, suddenly, all of the people and milk cartons were pulled inside. What happened? Police check! No sooner had the police left than the hundreds of people who had been sitting on the milk cartons on the street before were back on the street. 

And the food here is SO GOOD. I think it's also potentially among the best cups of coffee I've ever had. I'm a little wary of that whole 'weasel coffee.' According to wiki: this refers to the seeds of coffee berries once they have been eaten and defecated by the Asia palm civet. They also have 'egg coffee' here, which I am curious about. 

It is hot as here, but hopefully won't be too exhausted by the time we venture out to explore the city tomorrow. 

Day 83: Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars

Just 10 kms outside of Phonsavan lay the 1st of some 60 odd sites that contain what is called The Plain of Jars. The Plain of Jars dates to 500 BC-500 AD. It is basically acres filled with mega stone jars. These jars range from 3 feet to 7 feet high and roughly 2 to 6 feet wide. These are the only such jars that have been uncovered in all of Southeast Asia. Researchers aren't 100% sure of their purpose. The research indicates that the jars played a part of some ancient burial process.

The Plain of Jars attracted us to this area, so we wanted to make sure we saw them. But how? We could take a day tour, but that would cost us about $50 per person. Okay, so no tour. 

What about a scooter? We already did that and it worked out well. We walked up and down the street searching for an automatic scooter. No luck! We only found semi-automatic scooters. Now, it's been years since Pallavi rode a semi-automatic scooter, so I can understand her slight anxiety of having to re-learn with a passenger on board. This also isn't the kind of town with empty roads you can practice on. However, a semi-automatic scooter with a re-learning driver a better option than taking a day tour. Alright, although slight anxious, this scooter is what we'll take. 

Just when we'd found the person with the best price, when we came back the next day, the early bird had got the worm.... and we weren't early! Now we only had expensive semi-automatic scooter options. Crappity, crap, crap, crap! Retreat, retreat! 

What else could we do? Suddenly Pallavi said, well, you did read that we could bicycle there in 45 minutes. I guess we could try that. Next thing we know, we've got our bicycles and our map and our bicycling our way to the Plain of Jars. 

I was having a ball. This wasn't Sukhothai! I had a good modern mountain bicycle. The road was mostly pretty easy. The clouds were out. The air felt great. Julia Roberts can eat her heart out! Here we are, bicycling in Laos past ride paddies filled with bullocks and cattle on the road. I'm living the dream! 

Pallavi was dying. She did so well for the 1st 4 kms of our journey and then exhaustion happened. My enthusiasm must have worn her out. I believe she said something on the order of 'what on my face indicates that I'm having fun? If you had asked me to ride 20 kms in Melbourne, I would have asked if you were crazy.' That's right. This was the face of a woman who, if she doesn't die here on the road, will kill me for this bicycle journey. She didn't give up, and, I'm sure fueled with thoughts of how she'd get me and my little dog too, we slowly but surely made it there. Thank God we didn't get lost on our way! I couldn't have been happier to make it to the Plain of Jars. 

It was really cool. Cows in the fields alongside the jars. We came across a cave, which researchers believe to be an ancient crematorium, where we ran into Vietnamese guys paying tribute to the Vietkongs who had died in those caves. Guess Americans were slightly right about Vietkongs being in Laos. 

The sky was turning really dark on all sides, so we went to finish our tour of the plain before it started to rain. All of a sudden, I hear rain coming from the cave. "Quick! Put everything into the plastic baggies in the backpack and hide under the tree!" No sooner did the zipper on the bag shut than the rain started. 

Pallavi noticed a bigger tree and suggested we take cover there. We run for it. No sooner do we make it under that tree than the passing sprinkle turns into a downpour. Quickly, I reached into my bag and pulled out Kim's handy-dandy sun umbrella! Pallavi said, "Sarah, I thought you didn't want to use the sun umbrella in the rain because it may lose it's anti-sun powers." Me, "I don't care! We need something now!" "Where my rain coat?" she asked. "Crap." Out came the sun umbrella. 

However, Pallavi doesn't think we picked the right tree. Pallavi noticed when we first ran for the bigger, and closest tree, that the cattle had gone for the next big tree over. Damn! If they've gone for that tree, it has to be the best tree. It's too late now for us to run for it! The rain is too strong. The thunder kicks in and the wind picks up. If only we'd stayed in the cave! If only I'd remembered the damn raincoat!!! 

Huddled under sun umbrella, the bag securely protected, we waited. First, we felt the swamp in our shoes. We could see the pools of mud building around us. Pallavi looked down and suggested we head up the tree roots to higher ground. Then, our entire backsides got the full brunt of the storm. We just stood there, under the tree, balanced on the top of its roots, in the middle of the Plain of Jars, in a thunderstorm for 30 minutes. 

It probably wouldn't have been quite so bad if we hadn't seen the go-kart from the Tourist Information Centre come and save the men who had been in the cave! We saw it. They had to have seen us! Yet, they were too far away for us to make it to them. Ahhh. That's what we get for telling off those other tourists earlier for being too loud! 

The rain finally stopped and, soaked, we made it back to the Information Centre, regrouped, and got back on our poor bikes and made it back to town (much easier this time). 

Guess we won't be leaving for Vietnam tomorrow! Instead, we'll be letting our shoes dry. 

Day 82: Phonsavan and the Secret War

Phonsavan has a very different feel to it than the other Laos towns we have visited. It has more of the mid-size industrial meets agricultural town about it. Lonely Planet describes it as the kind of town where you expect to see tumbleweeds rolling by. However, what Lonely Planet fails to mention is that you will actually see deactivated bombs and shell-casings all over. That's right. Today we learned all about The Secret War. During the American-Vietnam conflict, both American & Vietnam signed the Geneva accord, which declared Laos a neutral country. We both didn't respect that accord.

Americans dropped A LOT of bombs on Laos, particularly in this region. Define a lot? A lot equals two million tons of bombs. That's the equivalent to one bomb every eight minutes for nine years! That's more bombs than the Allied forces dropped on Germany & Japan combined in WWII. Sometimes we dropped them because we thought there were Vietkongs. Sometimes we dropped them just because we weren't able to drop them over Vietnam and didn't want to risk landing in our bases in Thailand with bombs on board. How crap are we? I had no idea!

We took it easy today and visited the MAG (Mines Advisory Group), which shows free documentaries on how the Laos are living with this legacy. I don't remember all of the stats, but this international group sweeps and clears roughly 500 cluster bombs (bombies) per week and 100,000 bombies per year from local fields. They anticipate it will still take decades before everything is cleared. The stats on the number of Laotians killed or wounded by bombies are equally as shocking.

The bombs and shell=casings around town are just a sample of the leftovers that have been cleared.

Learn more watching the documentary that we watched (clearly it's a slanted view, but it gives good information): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPH7grVHR0.

We're so happy we came here so that we could learn more about something Americans rarely (if ever) are taught. 

Day 81: Transit to Phonsavan

We rocked up to the bus station at 7:30 a.m. already dreading our 8 hour journey. We know it’s going to be a long bus ride through mountains. We are over long bus rides through mountains. It’s just a recipe for TBS and car sickness. What do you do when all you can do is look straight ahead? It makes it difficult to talk to each other. It makes it difficult to catch up on your research for the next place to which you are going. It makes it difficult to distract yourself from your TBS. The long and short of it is that it’s really boring and kind of horrible.

However, this route is our only option. There is just one bus per day that goes to Phonsavan. We show up and ask where the bus is. Now, we have specifically purchased tickets for a bus and not a minivan. We’ve read the minivan packs way too many people into it (and we know from experience, you end up sitting with your luggage squished in all areas around your sitting area). Needless to say, we expressed serious 1^st world discontent when they pointed us towards the minibus.

This couldn’t possibly be the bus we are supposed to take? We bought tickets for a bus, not a hybrid between mini-van and bus! Oh no This was our bus. We fortunately got our two seats in front. As we sat waiting for the bus to depart, we unhappily watched them:

• Load not just one, but two scooters onto the top of the bus
• Load bags of limes onto the bus (I’ll take citrus over shallots any day) and shove them on the floor under people’s seats
• Take every row of seats that could seat 4 people and seat 5 people in them
• Pull out a plastic chair next to us and seat one person on it so he was
• Depart and travel with the door open the whole time!
• Have the person who loads the luggage sitting on a 4x6 piece of cushion in the door

Maybe we should have taken that minivan.

Thank God for catching up on podcasts, keeping our eyes closed for hours, the road not being so bad, and knowledge that Vietnam has trains.

Day 78-80: Luang Prabang

Travelling in Laos are rough, literally and figuratively. We decided to leave our beloved Luang Namtha for Luang Prabang. We had two choices: day or night bus. Normally, we opt for night bus, but somewhere in hour 4 of: bumpity, bumpity, bump, bump, hard right, hard left, hard right, hard left, shift position 1, shift position 2, shift position 3, I believe I said, I don't know if this was the best life choice. We maybe slept for an hour or two max on the night bus. However, when we spoke with two Americans who we had met in Luang Namtha and with whom we had reconnected in Luang Prabang about their day bus journey, it sounded like we had made the right choice. Basically, the road just goes around a mountain with sheer dropoffs on all sides. It sounds like something that would make me both car sick and paranoid.

Luang Prabang is a lovely Buddhist city on the Mekong River, but it's not our Luang Namtha! We honestly didn't do much except enjoy the city where we could, hang out with these Americans Nat & Mary at night, and get our Vietnam visa. There is quite a lot to do. Luang Prabang was the seat of the Laos empire when Laos finally carved itself out as a kingdom of its own. It has waterfalls, caves filled with Buddhas, cliffs filled with Buddhas, and is a UNESCO world heritage site with its 25 temples.

However. but you can feel the slow change of commercialization and tourism in this town. It's filled with families of tourists. The Laos here really are struggling with knowing they can make more money off of you versus giving you the actual real price they want to give you. You see it at accommodations where the owner goes too quickly go from 120,000 Kip to 100,000 Kip without waiting a microsecond. The arts and crafts market feels like they are professionally produced crafts - not crafts made by the villagers themselves. The homemade Lao Lao whiskey, which supposedly sometimes is bottled with a bird inside, is on display bottled with all sorts of snakes, scorpions, scorpions & snakes, etc. It just is the Laos you know Laos is probably going to transition through over the next 10 years, but hope it doesn't.

We also made the decision when we started travelling in Laos that, as we had read the roads are rough, that we would only visit only Northern Laos and work our way to Hanoi. Thankfully, Luang Prabang has a Vietnam embassy. At 11:00 a.m. I realized that the embassy closes from 11:30-1:30 for lunch. Quickly, we hightailed it the 15 minute walk to the embassy, only to walk in at 11:15 and be told that the cashier was already gone, and, could we come back at 1:30. It was probably 100 degrees Fahrenheit plus humidity outside, so we killed time around the embassy for 2 hours. Finally, when 1:30 came, we re-entered the embassy only to wait for 30 more minutes for the cashier! Then, when the cashier finally came and we went to pay him, we had to give him 2 USD worth of Kip to make up the rest of the total owed for the visa. The total amount of Kip was 17,000. He told us we owed him 120,000 Kip! We walked him through the money and he realized his error. Cal me crazy, but perhaps if he can't get his accounting correct after a 2.75 hour break, maybe he is just ill-suited for his job!

Next stop: Phosavan

Day 77: Luang Namtha Black Tie Tribes

There are so many hill tribes just within a 10 kilometer radius of Luang Namtha. The one that is most prevalent is one called the Black Tie tribe. We figured today would be a great day to rent our trusted automatic scooter for a few hours and go and explore them. The route looked easy according to our not-to-scale map: 

1. Ride 6-8 kms south
2. Go through the next town, turn at the 2nd left
3. Drive 2 kms to the first Black Tie village and turn left
4. Drive 1 km to the next village
5. Keep going straight for a few kms and a few villages until you hit the highway
6. Turn left on the main road and voila, back home

Pallavi got ready to drive. I got ready to direct. Off we went. We drove happily down the highway, looking for our turn. I realized we had gone a bit too far, so we pulled over at this absolutely gorgeous rice field with cloud-covered mountain to ask some workers for directions to the Black Tie town (and take some pictures while we were at it). 

We had passed it. New directions in hand, we turned around and looked for what the worker had told us: turn right at the 1st intersection. Wait! What does the 1st intersection look like? These all look like side roads, not main proper road. We don't see stop signs. We don't see side roads with pavements. We took a gander and turned onto what turned out to be a dirt road. Crap! Not only was it dirt, but as it also had been raining during our highway drive, it was also complicated with muddy potholes. This couldn't possibly be our road! We asked a local. He tragically pointed straight ahead. Damn! This is our road. Double damn! Pallavi was none too thrilled. In fairness, the map did indicate that the road condition could change. We just didn't think it'd be quite this bad. 

It got worse! 

We made it to the first Black Tie village and asked directions to the next one. The directions matched our map, so Pallavi continued her excellent driving on our not nice road. We found more beautiful vistas and took more pictures.

We made it to the next village and ask for directions. Somehow, it sounded like we still haven't reached our intended village. In fact, we are supposed to be going straight. However, contrary to the map, the road splits and a villager tells us to go left. Alright, left it is. The road suddenly got more narrow. As Pallavi drove and drove and drove, the road got worse and worse and worse! Then the crops started to grow higher than our heads and closed in on the road. Where the heck are we? Driving through a corn field? This can't possibly be the route we were suppose to go. 

Again, we asked a villager, who directed us to continue on straight. This drive is officially crazier than when we rented a Hyundai Getz to drive through the outback. Here we are, two foreigners, on this little low powered automatic scooter, with our ill-fitting helmets, driving through some random road in the middle of nowhere! We look quite the sight. 

Pallavi does a great job driving, as we now are basically driving only through puddles and rocks. However, finally I say, "this is ridiculous. We must be on the wrong road. Let's turn around." So we turn around the scooter. Then Pallavi says, "no, this has to be the right road." So we turn back around the scooter and continue a few more meters. Then I say, "no, really, let's turn back." So we turn around the scooter. Then Pallavi says, after two minutes of looking at the map," no, it'll take longer if we go back now. Let's keep going." So we turn back around the scooter. Then we drive a few tens of more meters. Pallavi then caves and says, "alright, let's go back." Back to turning around the scooter. Then Pallavi hears something! "It must be the village. We're close!" Back around the scooter goes. Our scooter turned 360 degrees 3 times! 

We got to the village and ask directions and they tell us to go straight and left. Forward we go for 500 more meters and what do we hit? The highway! This isn't where we were suppose to be. Wait, if this isn't where we were suppose to be, then where the hell were we!! 

Farm. That's right. Once we looked at the map, we could see that we had clearly NOT gone on our intended road and had, indeed, driving on a "road" that went through an area on the map that was clearly labeled "Farm." 

To top the day off, when we made it back for Pallavi's well-deserved beer at the Night Market, we met some Akha tribeswomen who Pallavi had purchased several things from a few days prior. The women sat and chilled with us. Through Pallavi's gift of reading body language, we learned all about their headgear, their names, how many children they had, where they lived, their daily schedule, and more. They offered us opium. We refused. Another Akha woman who had been absent the day Pallavi made her purchases kept trying to get Pallavi to buy something. She even made up a whole song for Pallavi that went something like "Pallavi, so pretty, 10,000 kip, buy." It even had its own chorus! Now that's a hard sell (didn't work though, but she gets an A for effort). 

What a day! Tomorrow we'll take it easy, say our goodbyes, and make our way to Luang Prabang. 

Day 76: Luang Namtha to Muang Sing By Scooter

Pallavi has been looking for a chance to rent a scooter or motorcycle since we started this trip. We've never quite found the perfect spot or occasion for it. This town is perfect. There is a 58 km road that goes through the mountains and the Nam Ha National Protected Area up to the Laos/China border town of Muang Sing.

Muang Sing is at the epicenter of what was known as the Golden Triangle where Laos, Myanmar, and China meet. It also was the heart of the opium trade. I'd read that the Laos government has tried to stamp out opium, but hill tribe women will often try to just give it to you on the side of the road. So, it seemed like a really fascinating place to make a day trip.

After a few practice runs on the scooter (proving that riding a scooter is like riding a bike - you never forget), Pallavi was ready to take me on board as her passenger, and gave me all of the instructions I'd need for my first proper scooter passenger experience.

We set off. Now, throughout this trip, I've frequently cursed the journey, not the destination. Not today. We drove through one of the most beautiful, breathtaking landscapes I think I've seen. Freshly planted rice paddies in green plateaus, dotted with wood huts. Workers tilling the rice paddies with traditional plows. Tons of hill tribes folk walking along the road, often carrying woven baskets on their back filled with something. Tons of hill tribes folk walking off into the mountain to cut down some vegetable to eat and put into their woven basket. Green mountains with steam coming off of the road and clouds enveloping the mountain tops. Breathtaking.

We drove through the Nam Ha National Protected Area. This area is suppose to have tigers, elephants, clouded leopards, jaguars, and more. Supposedly, they are incredibly shy and almost impossible to spot as they have been heavily hunted in the past. However, nothing is stopping Eagle Eyes Pallavi from looking. If anybody can spot an animal or bird or worm in the jungle, it's her. In fact, as we were driving Pallavi mentions that she had read there are tons of beautiful insects everywhere you look in Laos and hadn't I noticed them everywhere. No! Of course I haven't noticed the insects on the side of the road. We're on a scooter. The only way I'll see an insect is if it unfortunately makes a bad life choice and eats up either inside of the car or on its windshield.

Then, there are the villagers and hill tribes folk! It's not just the people we passed en route. It's the people we saw in the villages. We stopped in one village and passed an older woman who was sitting on her porch, spinning cotton into thread using two spindles, smoking a pipe, with her breasts uncovered! National Geographic here we are! We stopped in Muang Sing, and a woman was grilling up some sort of rice-based naan covered in chili-bean marinara. We didn't see much in Muang Sing. We also didn't get offered opium off of the street (at this town, anyway!). but it was worth the adventure.

There were only 2 negatives to the day.

1) Jungle mystery food #2. We stopped at some popular side of the road place just shy of Muang Sing for lunch. It didn't have any menus, but it had lots of people and some French tourists we had met a few times along the way, so it seemed safe enough. We pointed at some dish on another table that looked tasty and waited. When the food came, we couldn't figure out what the heck it was! It was some sort of scaly round super bony meat. Definitely not fish - the shape wasn't right. Definitely not snake - snakes don't have a vertebrae. We went back and forth on what the heck it could be, and tragically, ended up leaving it. NOT because the flavour wasn't good and NOT because we are jungle food pansies. There were just too many bones for our eating pleasure. On our way out, Pallavi asked a basic English-speaking local what the heck the food was. The best Pallavi could understand was that it was like a snake with hands with a long neck that eats insects. We've narrowed it down to anteater or gecko. I think gecko. This experience combined with yesterday's day market experience leads me to believe that people in Laos eat anything. Waste not want not; however, no more mystery jungle food for us that isn't clearly vegetarian. We're still paranoid about accidentally eating a rat, and really hope they don't eat dog here! We also were still hungry, which is how Pallavi ended up eating that yummy grilled rice naan with chili marinara.

2) TBS (tired butt syndrome). It was suppose to take us 2 hours to get to Muang Sing. It took us 2.5 hours. However, I feel a bit thwarted. The reason why I dread riding a bicycle is because I don't want TBS. Every year in college, the first week back at school riding my bike to band practice all day resulted in TBS. There isn't anyway to avoid it. It's just the reality of breaking in your butt for riding a bike. I had no idea you could get it while riding a scooter! The 2.5 hour ride there was alright. Just a few TBS issues. The 2.5 hour ride back took FOREVER! The light was fading. We were running against the clock to get the scooter back. It took 5 minutes to get 1 km due to bad roads and mountainous conditions. It took 5 minutes from taking a butt break to reliving the TBS. By the time we made it all safely back to Luang Namtha, we could barely get off of the bike!

Totally worth it though. This place is absolutely breathtaking. 

Day 75: Luang Namtha

We got off to a later start today, but this town has such a great vibe that we don't feel any need to rush. We've been wanting small town Southeast Asian life and this certainly is a small town.

• It has a whopping 10,000 people.
• It recently got it's very first traffic light.
• It has one main street & a few side streets to make it a proper grid. 
• It has 3 markets (a morning market, a day market, and a night market - obviously).

Armed with our not-to-scale map, we set off to find the day market. We've read that it is quite the experience. Markets are abundant throughout Southeast Asia and they all have a similar structure. There is a dry area that is just for fruits & grains, a wet area that is for meats, and a few random stalls just to make it interesting. 

We came into the Luang Namtha day market ready for anything. First, the dry market. Pretty standard stuff. Lots of fruits I don't recognize. Lots of vegetables I don't recognize (sidenote: did you know that they have eggplant here that is the size of a golf ball?). Lots of interesting tribal people in traditional clothes. So far. So good. So Southeast Asia normal. 

Second, the wet market. It wasn't the pools filled with live fish that grossed me out. It wasn't the cages of poultry that grossed me out. It wasn't the bag of dead chicks that grossed me out. It wasn't the frogs that grossed me out. It wasn't the big ass insects that grossed me out. Oh no. It was the grilled RATS on skewers that grossed me out. Little grilled rats with their little incisors showing! Eew! My having to eat rats on the Amazing Race would be the thing that would make me yell, "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." I have met my food nemesis. Who eats rats?? They are carriers of the plague for Pete's sake!

Now Pallavi & I are a little concerned as to what exactly was the mystery jungle food we had eaten at the night market the previous night. It was some sort of green vegetable (we think ratten) and it had some sort of meat? One should never be guessing if a substance is mushroom or liver or lamb. The only questionable food in life should be baby food vegetable & meat blends. Nothing else! God we hope that mystery meat wasn't rat!

After the day market, we thought we'd go for a walk and see if we could get to the village that was marked out as within walking distance from the day market on the map. As we walked, almost immediately after we left town, we entered in a hill tribe village. Paved roads gave way to dirt ones. Stone houses gave way to wooden ones. Little boys rolled tires down the street using sticks. Fields freshly planted with rice all around. Who would have thought that after searching all over northern Thailand for villages and hill tribes that we could reach them just within a 10 minute walk from our hotel! 

That night - clearly identified chicken skewers for dinner! 

Day 74: Transit to Luang Namtha, Laos

We are already getting great vibes from Laos, and we just got here! We decided to just spend the extra money to get a bus that would take us directly from Chiang Rai to our next stop Luang Namtha in Laos. It just makes it easier to have the bus take you through the border crossing than having to do it yourself (which involves taking a bus from Chiang Rai to near the border, then a tuk tuk to the border, another bus between no-mans land in between borders, then a tuk tuk from the immigration crossing Laos to the closest bus station, then another bus from Laos to Luang Namtha). No thank you.

The border crossing was so much more relaxed than our previous ones. It felt like there were only 2 buses of people crossing into Laos on that day. Already, the transition between busy Thailand and Laos had begun.

Unlike between Thailand and Malaysia, where you couldn't really see much of a difference between one side of the border vs the other, you see the difference between Thailand and Laos almost immediately.

1. Welcome to driving back on the right side of the road! 
2. Hello, road lined with villages made of wooden huts
3. Look, there are lots of naked children bathing and swimming in that river
4. Oh my gosh, so much greenery. Tree covered mountains followed by rice-filled plateaus with small little wooden huts on top of them
5. Ooh, look a hill tribe person carrying wood on her back
6. Ooh, ooh, look, another hill tribe person wearing a turban and tending to the cattle
7. This is what we always imagined Southeast Asia to look like

Seriously - it's pretty breath-taking. As soon as we got to the town, we got a good vibe. Some Kiwis living here gave us the low-down on Laos. They are honest; albeit a bit lazy. You can leave your wallet in the middle of the road and nobody will take it. They are very friendly. They are content with life, i.e. they are poor, but happy to just have enough food for today.

We'll see how much we like Laos once we get to interacting with it a bit more, but we are loving what we've seen so far. 

Day 71-73: Chiang Rai

Being an ethical tourist really puts the kabosh on activities in Thailand. Well, actually Pallavi is the real ethical tourist. I totally would have done it if she hadn't told me better.

We went further north to the small town of Chiang Rai. It's surrounded by wildlife reserves, elephant conservation centres, tigers, and hill tribes. It's also two hours to the nearest border crossing with Laos. We thought it'd be the perfect last stop in Thailand. We'll go see some hill tribes and wildlife, get a Thai massage, and say our goodbyes.

The elephant conservation centers, which only allow tourists to act as temporary caretakers (feed, bathe, clean up crap) for semi-wild elephants, were booked out. Every other wildlife tour always involved some sort of 'circus' element.

Exhibit A: Take care of an elephant and then have an elephant ride/trek out to the wild. Uhh... doesn't sound like rehabilitation to me. I mean, I get it. It's a ride on an elephant. Pretty cool. However, that's not conservation. No elephants for us.

Exhibit B: Go and have your pic taken next to a tiger. I have friends who have done this activity, but I know what happened to Sigfield & Roy. We don't believe sitting next to a wild tiger is safe, and we don't believe in drugging the tiger to make sitting next to it safe. So no tigers for us.

Then there are the hill tribes. We started looking up where we could go to visit the 'long neck' tribe. We could not believe the number of articles that advised us not only to not visit the long neck, but also not to visit any of the hill tribes whatsoever. The hill tribes no longer really dress in traditional clothes unless it's for a special festival. The hill tribes you can go on tours to visit have 'signed up,' and put on the traditional clothes as part of the 'show.' Participants include the 'long neck' tribe, whose traditional clothes actually cause physical pain to its women. Not only that, but most of these tribes only get a fraction of the proceeds from the tour. There are NPOs trying to change that, having tribe people 'sign up,' but getting all of the proceeds from tourists who come to their village. However, it is still just a 'show.'

Let's say you decide to forget the tour agents and the NPO villages and then just try to find these hill tribes on your own. You might find a hill tribe living in a traditional way; however, most people would not be dressed traditionally. Not only that, but you've basically rocked up to their village without invitation as a spectator and the people don't profit from it. I know we use people for tourism all of the time - look at the Amish. However, Amish villages are usually near a town and has a store - which indicates the village is open to people visiting it. Plus, most people who visit the Amish at least go and buy some yummy baked good from their store, so the people get some income from it. Not the case with hill tribes. So no hill tribes for us.

Instead, we took it easy.One thing we love about Thailand is that it feels like no matter where you go or the size of the town, the culture is always on display. For example, in Krabi town, our hotel was right across from a night market with a stage that had hours of cultural performances (including one that we can't get out of our head). Even Chiang Rai's baby night market had 2 stages with multiple performers who performed every night!

We also went to Chiang Rai's White Temple. Going to Chiang Rai and not seeing this temple would be like going to Barcelona and not seeing anything by Gaudi. This temple is like Frozen meets Dante's Inferno meets Gaudi meets Buddhism. Seriously. The temple itself looks like it is dripping in icicles covered in frosting. It's much more modern than Gaudi, but has his same over-the-top architectural style. Only these artists really takes the demonification of consumerism and personal possession to a level I have not seen in Buddhism. You pass something that looks like the bad scene in Little Mermaid when Arial is going to see Ursula and she has to pass that whole bed of just hands reaching up in torment (in my head that's how I think it is) in order to cross the entrance bridge. Outside of the temple, there are hanging carved heads of movie characters like Gollum, Wolverine, Malificent, etc. Once you get into the temple, there is a beautiful scene that wraps the entire interior. You start at the back of the temple with images of Hollywood characters, 9/11, bombs, etc. all wrapped in flames going into the mouth of a Devil-like creature, except a few souls on various boat-like vessels who are floating towards the Buddha at the front of the temple. Heavy stuff, but super cool.

Finally, I got a Thai massage. It was like 4 months of stress got the crap massaged out of it. It made me wonder if I shouldn't just take a massage class sometime. I already give (might I say) decent back rubs. Why not make some money out of it? I'll contemplate a bit more. However, Thai massages are a full work out for the masseuse, what with using their feet and legs in addition to their hands. I loved it. I've gotta go find another country known for massages as we travel along so I can know when to look forward to my next one.

Tomorrow, Laos!