Sapa - The San Francisco of Rural Northern Vientam

Sapa is the small highland town outside of Hanoi- by 10 hours- that many people go to for the beautiful mountainside terraces and hillside minority villages. After the overnight train, we arrived early in the morning and set up shop in a great 10 dollar room overlooking the valley, they assured us. The fog was abundant in the morning and you couldn't see the next house, but we embarked on a well-deserved nap with the asperations of view. It delivered.

The town is kind of like San Francisco without the city or bay - lots of fog and hills. It is sprinkled liberally with elaborately dressed Hmong women selling hand-stitched crafts from their basket backpacks, who all recite the following script:
-What is your name? (Ahh, beautiful name!)
- Where you from? (Ahh, America!)
- How old you? (So young!)
- How many brother sister you have? (oh.)
- You buy from me? (Later you buy from me? very cheap. good price. you buy from me.)

Therefore, we wandered around town muttering over and over, "Kate...America...26...One...No, thank you." It was kind of hilarious, the predictability.

We went for a two day-one night trek into the hills, which was originally going to be with 5 people but the 3 frenchies decided on a separate French guide, so we headed down the trail with our Hmong guide, Mei, and her posse of 5 selling things ladies. Mei is 26, like us. She got married at 15 and has 2 kids and taught herself English when her father died and they needed money. She never went to school and cannot read, but speaks very good English, some french, fluent Hmong and Vietnamese. She is deathly afraid of the water but hikes mountains in plastic shower shoes. She made us feel very tall.

The first part of our trek included lots of questions about our (fictitious but amazingly handsome) boyfriends and the making of flower crowns by our guides for the amusement of the whities. The fog lifted and the steep terraced rice fields of the Sapa valley became visible as we marveled and the ladies giggled and tended to the babies strapped to their backs. We had lunch in a very popular little Hmong village and hiked on through the afternoon, passing water buffalo and shy children. We stopped for the night in our "homestay" - which was a local restaurant/bar/bunk house. We happened to catch the tide of pre-teens leaving school and spend a hilarious hour chatting with a bunch of 12 year old Hmong girls, who tried on our sunglasses and territorially laid claim to us as we entered the town.

We shared the bunkhouse with 5 French travelers, which made Kate the resident translator and allowed Kyle to use her three phrases of French ("Maitenant! Tout Les Temps! Avec Moi!"). For you Oregonians, we met the French Mad Dog (aka La Chien Foulles - Kyle is bilingual now) and watches as children were alternately scared and amazed by her Mohawk and many piercings. We were given some rice whiskey to try out, which after the 4th or 5th shot really grows on you. The chilly weather of Sapa made for great sleeping, and we awoke to banana crepes and godawful Russian instant coffee - and, appropriately, lots and lots of fog.

Mee's brother was getting married on our second day, so we opted to forego the traditional hike in favor of a visit to her family's house and a glimpse of the wedding. The wedding seemed to be about everyone packed into a small house, singing on a small PA system and eating a big lunch of roasted pig. Her brother and his wife-to-be (both 17) looked incredibly young to us but the people crowding the rafters and doorways of the small house didn't seem phased. Much talking in a language we had no chance of understanding was the main activity; there was also a lot of cooking and tea drinking.

We finished our hike through more rice fields and bamboo forest, returning to Sapa in a jeep that clearly had its origins in some war we all feel it is best to forget. Manual windshield wipers in a seriously rainy climate with hazardous road conditions are an exciting combination. We arrived in town just in time for showers before getting on the minibus to Lao Cai and the overnight train to Hanoi. Luckily for us, the trip back was uneventful, although the dozen or so people sleeping and smoking in the train corridor were new.

We are now camped out in a hotel (not a hostel!), awaiting the arrival of Kyle's parents, who will surely take this trip up a notch in the good eats and sleeps department (as well as conversation and knowledge of goings on in the outside world). This is us killing time. We walked around the lake in the old quarter and watched many people stretch in an 80s fitness trend type manner and play badminton with serious focus. Kate got a haircut and Kyle served as very knoweldgable hair consultant, with positive results.

Strangers on a Train

Let us preface this blog entry with the following disclaimer: We have many, many pleasant experiences with local people during our travels. Every day, we see smiles, have lively conversations, and are offered transport at extremely low prices. On one memorable occassion, a Malaysian couple pulled over to offer us (clearly confused Americans) directions, and pressed four tangerines into our hands. We are enjoying ourselves and the people we meet - its just that these experiences are not as interesting to write about for our large and varied readership as the less diserable ones. Such as the following:

To get from Hanoi to Sapa, one takes the overnight train, departing around 9pm. Approaching our designated train car, which contained our designated sleeping berths, we noticed a rather stumbley Vietnamese man in a dishelved business suit. A passing glance from a Jehova's Witness would have registered the gentleman's intoxication. Each of us sent up our silent wishes that this man was bound for any other bunk than the additional two in our cabin. Alas, our prayers went unanswered, or possibly deliberately defied, as we found our drunken bunkmate sprawled out on one of our bunks, chatting with two of the train employees. He appeared to be talking on one of their cell phones while his charged beside him.

Lazlo von Bellyslop, as we came to refer to him, was not quick to respond to the presence of two tired but well-meaning strangers in his cabin. It took much motioning to move him from our bunk to the adjacent berth to which he was assigned (regardless of the presence of the railway personnel). He then removed his shoes and dress socks and placed them in the middle of the floor. These cabins, by the way, are roughly half the size of a college single and sleep four, including luggage. We set ourselves up on the right half of the room as Lazlo yammered loudly on his (now apparently recharged) cell phone, dress shirt untucked. It was shocking that despite his total innebriation, he was exhibiting none of the charm, wit, and intoxicating attractiveness that we always exude when in a similar state.

We decided to make the most of our situation and play a quiet game of cards on the lower bed of our bunkbed. Moments into our game, L.V. Bellyslop teetered forward on his bed to poke Kate in the leg, pointing at our tevas stowed neatly below the bunk. He then stuck his index finger into his open mouth, as if to convey a message. "What? I can't understand you," said Kate in a restrained but icy tone. He continued to point at the shoes, huffed, and finally donned his own dress shoes (sans socks), presumably to stumble to the bathroom. Kate was convinced he was requesting a bite of her decade old tevas, while Kyle thought he was indicating that he had previously vomited where their shoes and luggage now resided. Some mysteries remain unsolved.

Returning from the bathroom, Mr. Von Bellyslop (now clad in unbottoned button down, revealing his namesake) smacked our slumbering fourth cabinmate, growled unintelligably, and turned out the lights, plunging the cabin into darkness. Kyle involuntarily blurted, "Umm, no!", because we were in the middle of a rather intense game of Spit and it was 9:15 pm. We turned on our bedside reading light and finished the game, smoldering in our mix of hatred and second-childish disdain for confrontation.

We thought perhaps the "lights out" incident meant quite sleeping time, but L.V.B. returned to his cell phone, interimittently chatting loudly, dropping it, and letting it ring to hear its pop-song ring tone. We employed ear plugs but they could not block out Lazzy V's nocturnal escapades, most specifically his continued retching into the cabin's wicker trashcan.

Kyle, in a display of misguided chivalry that will never be forgotten (but was appropriate given the challenges of Kate's day), had taken the bottom bunk, not three feet from the face and trashcan of L. V. Beezy. All night, despite our best intentions, sleep was kept at bay by the periodic puking, door slamming, throat clearing, and heavy breathing of what we now think of as The Most Revolting Man in Vietnam (And Possibly the Planet). Sometime in the middle of the night, Kyle became convinced that Laz was about to grab her nalgene, which was not only our sole source of water but also provided a necessary visual screen to the sweaty face of the M.R.M.I.V. Dispite the earplugs, she had a sixth sense about these things, and so was not surprised to sit up and see his grubby hand clutching her water bottle. "Stop! No! Mine! No Yours!" or some such words of pigeon english were spoken and she snatched the bottle back, secretely cursing everyone in the cabin including Kate on the top bunk, whole yards away from this evil, evil man.

Mercifully, the conductor rapped on our door to indicate we were at the Lao Cai station, where you depart for the minibus to Sapa. Lazlo V. Bellyslop stood up, belly gleaming in the flourescent hallway light, ricocheted off the upper bunks, flung his meager possessions around, failed to locate his discarded socks, and stalked off the train, hopefully never to be seen from again. Kyle laughed. Kate groaned. Our fourth bunkmate continued to pretend to be deaf, dumb, and without a sense of smell. Perhaps the best tactic in such a situation.

We're in 'Nam - There Are No Rules

Day one in Vietnam found us in Hanoi trying not to see anything interesting, lest we ruin the experience for when Kyle's parents join us on the 7th. So we spent the morning at the train station, bought some tickets, checked our luggage, and hit the drizzly streets with no particular destination in mind. While having coffee, we witnessed the following:

Small dining establishment with traditional low plastic tables and stools adorning the sidewalk suddenly becomes animated. Patrons are hustled inside, propreitors are grabbing chairs, chopsticks, and condiments with an urgency rarely seen in South East Asia. Equally determined in their pursuit are 6-8 uniformed military police officers (picture the bright green and red accents of the North Vietnamese in every movie you've ever seen - its exactly the same) on motorcycles. The police grab the remaining restaurant furnishings, which consist of two erected sidewalk umbrellas, which they struggle to retract with authority. Within seconds, a pickup truck with two other officials pulls up and the umbrellas are deposited in it, atop a motley pile of stools, tables, and other sidewalk dining implements. The truck speeds off, flanked by half a dozen motos with pairs of cops. The restauranteurs skulk in the doorway of their establishment, looking angry but saying nothing. The sidewalk is now relatively empty.

Moments later, the truck and moto procession speeds by in the opposite direction, having added a glass display case and surely numerous condiments to its pile of booty. Within one stoplight cycle, the tables reappear from the pilaged restaurants and patrons are reseated; tea cups and soup bowls are returned as al fresco dining as usual resumes.

What are the possible explanations? We've come up with the following:
1) Annual police picnic is coming up, and they require supplies for their family-oriented festivities. Later, they will raid the rice market for gear for the sack races.
2) Police cadets are undergoing rush week, which requires rigorous displays of authority and coordination.
3) Speed and agility of shopkeepers is tested regularly by the local police force to keep them fit for entry into some Hanoi-based reality TV slash game show of Japanese derivation.
You be the judge.

Palau Perhentian = Paradise?

We spent one uneventful night in Kuala Terengganu before embarking for the Perhentian Islands, off the North East shore of Malaysia. After a 3 hour bus ride, we got on a speed boat for the extra bumpy 20 kilometer ride out to the islands. Approaching the two islands of the Perhentians made us laugh because everything looks like a beach scene movie set - white beach inlets surrounded by thick jungle on one side and ridiculously blue water on the other. We opted for the smaller island, Kecil, getting of the boat in Coral Bay, a perfect beach with a couple of small hotels, cafes, and dive shops down the 200 meter beach. The beach faces west for those perfect island sunsets. What more could you want?

Nothing except cheap beer, which simply does not exist. Nor do bars. The east coast of Malaysia is much more homogeneously Malay Muslim than the more mixed west coast, and drinking as not at the top of their list of activities. Not one of the restaurants has alcohol on the menu, which is shocking. There is, however, a dude with a cooler of crappy but expensive beer cans -- we laughed pretty hard when he called out "Last call!" around 11 pm. All of the white tourists (mostly European) are as perplexed as we are, and its funny to watch people discover the island's teetotalling ways.

Yesterday we went on the long snorkeling trip, stopping at 5 spots around the two islands, in addition to a little place for lunch. Our boat driver/guide was great, hopping in the water with us at every spot to point out different corals and fish. We saw reef sharks, sea turtles, spotted rays, a whole bunch of different corals, and thousands of amazingly colorful fish. The three other girls on our boat were from Norway and actually had the names Helga, Uda, and unprouncable combination of vowel sounds. Whenever they saw something exciting or potentially scary, they would squeal loudly through their snorkels - it was hilarious. They were not fans of the sharks.

Today we played a little frisbee on the beach and walked through the jungle to the Long Beach on the other side of the island to internet and look around. We're trying to avoid the intense tropical sun after yesterday's boat trip and will be hiding in the shade, reading and relaxing. Tomorrow we head to Taman Negara, the jungley national park in the interior of the country.

Chatting about Cherating

East Coast Malaysian Peninsula is supposedly in monsoon season (or the wet part of the monsoon climate system, thank you Mr. Nagle), but Cherating has refused to comply, brazenly sporting blue skies and hot, hot sun. Cherating is a beachside town made popular by the first Club Med in Asia - which appears to have skipped town along with most of the tourists. There are a slew of beach bungalows and very few restaurants along the pristine stretch of sand we've been calling home for the last 3 days. Our days have been filled with beach strolls, swims in the South China Sea (words I never thought I would be writing), and sarong fort building on our porch to avoid the scorching late-afternoon sun.

We have also been spending a lot of time trying to avoid our friendly and talkative neighbor. His name is Joel (aka Joel the Creeper, Joel the guy with Aspergers, Joel the Conspiracy Theorist), he is about 60, from Massachusetts, and won't stop talking...about how the American navy is causing the 5 year drought in Australia; Ralph Nader is not an environmentalist because he condones native american whaling; while traveling in India, he carried and regularly used an electric stun gun to keep away beggars and generally get himself some much needed space (he went through 9 batteries in 3 months); Thai farmers should be shot to make enough room for the thai elephants to be freed from their slavery in the tourist industry and returned to the wild; every 6th grader should know how a nuclear bomb is put together; and finally, how he was sitting with this American girl in a bar in Bangkok and she was being heckled by this street seller guy (which is common enough) and she had just had enough so she whipped out a bottle of hairspray and a lighter, using them as a make shift flamethrower and LIT THE HECKLER ON FIRE. Most people where then looking at the man on fire, Joel reported, and they were able to skulk away.

We tried to do some horseback riding on the beach in honor of Kate's 26th Birthday (huzzah) but either the horses were sick or the instructors were too hungover - we don't speak Bahasa Malay. Instead, we played frisbee on the beach and immortalized our travels in snackfood diarama on our porch. Tomorrow we head to Kuala Terengannu for a night before a few days in the Perhentian Islands.

Malaysia

So, we're in Malaysia. We flew here on Friday the 13th, which freaked out fear-of-flying Kate but turned out to be just fine. Landing in Kuala Lumpur, we took the bus into KL Sentral Station and the light rail to our hostel in Chinatown. Oh, the wonders of a modern city with so much public transportation - subway, light rail, monorail, etc. Kind of overwhelming after so many backwater towns. After checking in, we wandered and stumbled and monorailed and sprinted to make it to the Vietnamese embassy before close on Friday, in order to get our visas for Vietnam (which are pricey!). We made it, and rewarded ourselves with a movie at the mall at the foot of the Petronas Towers.

You may not be aware of the melting pot that is Malaysia. It is a mix of Malay people (as in, people who are ethnically from the area), Chinese (who've been here for a couple hundred years), Indian (same story), and a sprinkling of Europeans over the centuries (Dutch, Portugese, British) - plus you have Singapore within spitting distance, with its eclectic mix. Oh, and its mostly muslim. And they speak what is basically Bahasa Indonesian (except its called Bahasa Malay) - in addition to all the other languages floating around. Even with all these different cultures, we still get a lot of stares (although it should be noted that people frequently think we're dutch or finish - and on one memorable occassion, asked Kyle if she was some kind of Asian. Uhhh...caucasian?).

So we left KL on Saturday morning for Melaka, as in the Straights of Melaka and all of the fun European pillaging of the spice trade in the Indies. Melakka is a microcosm of Malaysia's cultural mutt-ness; we are again staying in Chinatown, but also next to a masque and around the corner from a Hindu temple. The center of Melaka is an old dutch fort and several old churches. Weekenders from all over the peninsula seem to come here with their families to stroll along the river or the night market of Jonker street. The city has been working very hard to earn World Heritage status, and is clean and proud of its 500 years of battling colonial history. Its lovely though has little in the way of banging night life (NB: Malaysia, being Muslim, has little booze and that it does have is super expensive. Not scoring points here, Malaysia...). Also, the pedicab drivers are the most enthusiastic we've seen, decorating their two-person side cars with fake flowers and christmas lights and extremely loud pop music. The Chinese settlers here are known as Baba Nonya or Straits Born Chinese and have their own unique food style that combines some of the spicy indian/indonesian flavors with Chinese noodles and tofu. Yum.

Tomorrow we head across the peninsula and into the monsoon wet season for the beaches of Cherating.

An island in a lake on an island in an archepelago

Oh, Lake Toba. A mere 4 hour hop and skip from (supercrappy) Medan and you get to this giant freshwater lake in northern Sumatra - the largest lake in SE Asia. In the middle of the lake is lovely Samosir Island, which is lush and steep and has traditional Batak culture (which we learned about!). The main town on Samosir (at least as far as we can tell) is Tuktuk, on a little peninsula on the Eastern shore of the island. We arrived via ferry, which drops you at your desired lake front hotel in Tuktuk. Most hotels have swimming sections and black, white, and red Batak carvings around the fronts of the traditional buildings with thatch, saddle shaped roofs.

According to locals, tourism all over Sumatra has been down since the late nineties - and we were persistently questioned about why westerners we're coming there anymore. We maintain that it is simply far, far away from the U.S., but the truth is also that no one thinks of going to Sumatra on vacation. But you should! Its fantastic. There were very few tourists around, and we basically biked around the edge of the island, swam in the perfectly clear fresh water, read our books, and ate tasty food. We guess you can go to a waterfall or some hotsprings or something, but we didn't bother. It was awesome. Also, as a young man we met pointed out, the sleeping is excellent in Tuktuk because "Tuktuk no Wahwah" - meaning that there is no 5am call to prayer to wake you up. They are mostly Christian in fact.

The local people were also having a 4 day long wedding while we were there. There were giant woks full of food, dancing late into the night, flower arrangements, and fancily dressed people coming from both directions via motorbike (there's only one road around the island). The party straddled the main road, so you had no choice but to walk through it and soak up some of the party atmosphere and interesting traditions going on. After a couple of days, we were waiting to get our laundry from a spot near the festivities, watching a strange dance involving baskets balanced on people's heads and lots of hand waving. A young reveller from the village leaned over and asked if this was what funerals were like where we come from. "Oh, you mean weddings?" Kate responded. No, he said, this was a funeral. The woman had been 94 years old, so they were celebrating - with more than 150 family members in attendance. If it were a young person, it would not be so happy, but she was old so they have a four day long party. "So...this is a funeral?" We still could not believe it, but it did explain why we hadn't spotted the bride and groom yet.

Anyway, if you're anywhere close, go to Lake Toba. Its in the top 10. However, do your damnedest to avoid Medan, where we had to spend a night on either end of our Toba trip and generally wanted to kill ourselves. And there is much Wahwah when you stay between the giant masque and the karaoke bar in Medan.

The Duo in Solo

After the volcano (and realizing that it was an hour earlier than we thought - tricky Java!) we got on a minibus to return to sea level and perhaps a room larger than a roomy park bench. Once again, we found ourselves in the fun-to-say town of Probbolinggo, en route to somewhere. We hopped a bus to Surabaya, which we quickly realized was not the metropolis for us, and after zooming across town in a cab, hopped a train to Solo (which we managed to make thanks to Kate's still-unadjusted watch). By 8pm, we were safely ensonced in our new hostel, and again eating our first meal since before 8 am. You'd think we would have learned after 3 months on the road to pack some snacks...

Let's talk Java: Java is the main island in the Indonesian archipelago, home to more than half of Indonesia's population (which is a whopping 225 million people - 4th most populace nation after China, India, and the U.S.). A whole bunch of these people live in Jakarta (where we're not going), but immediately upon arrival anywhere on the island you can feel the density around you. Surabaya, for example, has 3 million people in it, and who has ever heard of Surabaya? So these are some big cities we're talking about. Oh, and most people are Muslim, although there's also a lot of Javanese culture that is more hinduism/buddhism/animist in nature. They meditate and make offerings like the Balinese, but wear head scarves and go to the masque. As if to emphasize the point, the call to prayer can currently be heard over the rain outside.

Solo is in central Java, about an hour or two from Yogyakarta. It is a strange urban mix of traffic and no restuarants, batik markets and eager pedicabs. We tried to go to the kraton (sultan's palace) today, but its closed on Fridays (!) so we settled for the King's palace, where the royal family is still in residence. A friendly guide told us about all sorts of royal objects (including male and female gold chastity belts which look painful - please note the male belt, which had spikes, was broken) and insisted we take many, many pictures. Tomorrow we are headed out on a bicycle tour of the surrounding villages, seeing Batik makers and tofu makers and arak (liquor) makers and gamelan makers and roof tile makers and Javan countryside.