A taste of Hong Kong (and now I want more!)

Gabe and I snuck out of the Pan-Pacific Manila at probably 4 AM. Jesse was still tossing and turning, but definitely asleep. We decided not to wake him, as he had a two day layover in Tokyo he'd likely want to be rested for.

For the first time on my trip, I forgot to tell the taxi guy to turn on the meter. We had to endure an overpriced cab ride with a driver who was annoyed we decided not to get to the airport three hours early. Whatever man.

We knew about the airport tax at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, so we passed through security and customs with no problem. Gabe had been moved up to business class, so when we got to the gate, he tried to get me moved up. As it turned out, business class was full. Or so we were told.

As I handed in my ticket to board the plane, the gate worker took my boarding pass, and then wrote a new seat number on it. 9E? wow that sounds like...BUSINESS CLASS!!!!!

So yes, I had gotten moved up after all. I got to enjoy another super comfortable seat, warm towels, and unlimited juice in the short flight from Manila over to HK. Definitely helped to get a little more rest before going nonstop for a day. There was "only" 12 hours or so between the landing at HK and when we had to be back for Gabe to catch his flight to San Francisco (his 2nd layover). :)

But Gabe knows the city well, so once we got off the train in the city, we were all set to have dim sum. At the train station - a joint called Tim Ho Wan. Yes, a Michellin-starred dim sum restaurant, at the train station.

10 AM. Dim sum. GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!!!!!

We had a bunch of classics, and they lived up to my every expectation. Granted that the majority of my Canada/stateside dim sum expeditions have been with Gabe, or James (another dim sum connoisseur), I shouldn't be surprised that the renditions I have had on this side of the Pacific have been fantastic. But even so, I was still blown away. I was equally entertained by the fact that the people eating on either side of us were Chinese tourists from Vancouver.

From there, we walked through the city. Strangely enough, the streets were only kinda overrun by people - "dead" by Gabe's standards. It felt a little bit San Francisco-y to me, except for the fact that it was clearly Hong Kong. And I was actually THERE!

Our walk led us to the ferry across the water to Kowloon. After a nausea inducing jaunt across said water, we made our way into Kowloon. We didn't have enough time to see everything, so at Gabe's request, I made the decision that we would focus on food. Gabe knew of a famous wonton [soup] place in the middle of tourist town, so we made our way there, along the way getting lost in the bajillions of Indian dudes trying to sell me Rolexes and suits. If I had more time, I may have gotten a suit, since they can be cheap - maybe next time.

Somehow we found our way to the place, Chee Kee, and sat down to enjoy what turned out to be the best wontons I've had. The nomming continued.

Afterwards, we walked back to the subway, and returned to HK proper. Gabe was on a mission to find egg tarts. We stumbled upon a bakery after walking past Occupy: Hong Kong (a bunch of people asleep in tents). Gabe had the last egg tarts in hand, ready to pay, when a man came out from the back with a piping hot tray full of fresh ones. Audible! Audible! I went for an onion roll, which I had previously tried in the Convoy district of San Diego. It was amazing. I almost got a second one, but I wanted to save room for more food.

I tried the egg tart, though - amazing.

At this point we had to start thinking about making our way to the tram up the mountain. We had a planned 5:00 PM meetup with Sandy and Joe, who were in Hong Kong for a few days. At this point it was after three. We decided to take the double-decker trolley back towards the center of the city. I started to nod off, until I saw this bus, which made me smile.

And as I looked around after we passed the bus, Gabe pointed out a place that served xialongbao. Long story short, we made a detour, and stopped in for xialongbao, and more dumplings. Pretty much the last essential food could now be crossed off my list. Okay there were probably more foods, but this was essential. The restaurant, Din Tai Fung, also Michellin-starred, exists stateside, too, but according to dim sum master Gabe, it's actually reall, really good in HK. Consider me sold. I'd like to note now that there is plenty of food porn from my brief excursion to Hong Kong on my facebook album for this final stop of the trip.

xialongbao!

That's four trips to eat now, if you've been counting, and three of them were quite large. I'd also eaten some breakfast on the plane. But by the time we'd finished, we were clearly late to meet Sandy and Joe. We scrambled around trying to find a cab, and finally jumped in one, to race to the trolley station.

When we got there, the line was huge. Instinctively, we wondered if we'd even be able to find Sandy and Joe. Yet somehow, as soon as we get out of the cab, there they are, also having recently arrived. Sometimes you do find needles in a haystack - immediately.

We agreed it made most sense to just cab it up the mountain. It was foggy, but by the time we'd paid and maneuvered our way up to the viewpoint, I was not disappointed.

The view of Hong Kong from the mountain truly is one of the most incredible urban views on the planet. I had planned on the view being the last big event on my trip, to sort of put everything in perspective (amazing views have a way of doing precisely this, for me), and sure enough, I felt a wave of clarity come over me. Somehow, everything made sense, everything was real. I went through with this trip, and I felt like an ever so slightly mature person.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any really good pictures, so I'll leave you with my best effort. Ultimately, the memory was what I wanted, and it seems probable I will return to HK again, likely with a camera that isn't six years old. So I didn't feel all that bad leaving without pictures. Kowloon and the mainland were a bit obscured by fog, but the experience felt just as magical.

Yeah, that's Gabe's camera. Look at what mine came up with:

Regrettably, I couldn't stare out at the city forever, and we had to make our way to the airport. We thought about having more food, but honestly, our stomachs just couldn't take any more.

Soon it was time for Gabe and I to part ways - he to catch his flight, me to go wait three hours for mine. Once I was settled in my seat at the gate, the emotions started to overtake me. I was incredibly excited to return home - five weeks on your first trip is quite a lot! And one of my best friends, a different Jesse, was meeting me at SFO to visit for a few days. But at the same time, the trip was over. I was ready to go home, but I wasn't ready for the adventure to end. I actually made this happen. 6 countries, 4 travel buddies, and many new friends later - I had undoubtedly the best five weeks of my life.

As I finally finish this blog, months later (yeah yeah, I got lazy), the travel bug is eating away at me on the inside. I'm dying to eat, drink, and backpack my way through Europe. I'm itching to become absorbed in China and Japan. To make my way through Peru and Brazil. New Zealand. Vietnam. Hell, anywhere.

I want to get back out there as soon as I can. I want to travel with friends again, as I struggle to decide if I could really backpack on my own. I want to see more of the world. And now I know it's possible.

I don't know what's next, but it will be something. I appreciate from the bottom of my heart those who traveled with me, the people I met, and even the people following along from home, wishing me well. This trip was more than I ever could have imagined, and I wish it never had to end.

That's all I got. I'll try to blog my next trip, whenever that is. Thanks again for following along, and if you ever want to travel with me, do not hesitate to ask :)

Love always,

dacrON

The thought-provoking "city" of Manila

Yeah yeah, I know, I failed to finish the blog. Aarrghh. Well here - I'm going to finish it now. I'm only what, three months late? Not bad! :)

We had added Manila to the trip when we realized we could extend the trip with doable flights by a couple days. The Philippines wasn't the top place on my list to visit, but when I found out we could add it in, I was pumped. It was cool to not know what to expect about a city, at all. It was only two days, but I got a good feel for the city in that time.

So if you'll recall, I was getting rather sick. But I wasn't about to let that slow me down. We had barely checked into our hotel at the Pan Pacific in Malate before we were off to go explore the town (okay fine, we took a swim first). We were all exhausted after having spend the previous night on a train from Vientiane to Bangkok, but we wanted to at least get a little exploring done, to have some ideas for the next two days.

We wandered around for awhile, before stumbling upon a local bar. We ordered some beer and "satays". Now, we were accustomed to SE Asian satays. We were not expecting what we got. Actually the chicken intestine turned out to be pretty good. The other pieces? Not so good - no idea what it was even, cartilage?

But the sickness was catching up with me. Even Gabe was feeling sick. Not to mention we were all exhausted.

I'll leave out the details, but I didn't sleep well that night, and had to break out the azithromycin. Thanks to Matt Canik for entertaining me during those painful early morning hours.

I knew Gabe and Jesse were excited to see the city, so I decided to buckle down and enjoy everything as best I could, given the condition of my body.

There was a nearby mall, so we stopped in to get lunch before heading out to explore. Manila was beginning to make an impression on me. Gone were the crazy malls of Bangkok. Yep - this mall felt like it was straight out of the states. And the restaurants at the food court? Well let's just say my stomach was relieved to have Sbarro over chicken intestine. It's totally cool to see stuff like Jollibee everywhere.

Gabe fulfilled a Krispy Kreme craving, and we then took a cab to the Intramuros (I guess I'd describe it as the Spanish Quarter?), and walked around, with no general direction in mind.

It was some point during this morning that I realized that despite the similarity to the US, it was going to take time to get used to seeing so many people armed with firearms.

We stumbled across Fort Santiago, and decided to walk through it. In a truly busy city, Fort Santiago is an extremely peaceful escape in the middle of it all. While there was a lot of walking involved, I did get to sit down and rest some, and get some nice pictures (didn't say high quality).

When we next went to search for a cab to go to Makati to meet Jesse's new friend Roxy for dinner, the drivers laughed at us. "You want us to take you from the Intramuros to Makati at rush hour? Yeah, right!"

Finally, an older gentleman volunteered to take us. He was uneasy about it, but could tell we were frustrated. Sure enough, the traffic was like nothing I have ever seen. NYC rush hour has nothing on Metro Manila. It took us two hours to get from the Intramuros to Makati, almost an hour late for dinner - a drive that wasn't more than a few miles. Our driver looked crestfallen that he'd agreed to a price that would've been fair during off-peak hours. He didn't have to ask - we paid him double, and even THAT felt like highway robbery (so I think we tipped him on top of it). But during the ride, we did get to talk with him about what it's like being a cab driver in the metro city. He said that with gas prices and traffic, it's sometimes hard to justify even taking passengers to some locations. I personally didn't see how he could profit, but he assured us he was working incredibly long days to support his family. But his chin was up, and I give him props for that. I also had mad respect when he started taking side-street shortcuts - driver after my own heart.

Thank the lord I didn't have to pee this entire time...seriously so thankful.

Roxy just laughed when we finally found her. We sat down to catch our breath and have a beer before going in search of dinner. We settled at a place called Fely J's. Unfortunately, I was still sick, so I didn't eat nearly as much as I would have liked - especially as Filipino cuisine is really adventurous, which any other day of the year would be fantastic.

I did get to at least try everything, though, and it was good, but my stomach was more interested in being totally lame. It was cool to talk to Roxy about growing up in the Philippines, as well as our common interest of Ultimate (she and Jesse had met at a tournament in Manila just two weeks before). Jesse also turned into Santa.

After dinner we found a bar to grab some beers and relax. Jesse ended up with a Happy Horse beer (google it). My stomach was screaming at me to go to bed, but with the trip so close to ending, I wanted to savor every last minute. It soon became apparent though that shennanigans were about to go down. And soon enough, Roxy procured two balut eggs. Again, Wikipedia it. Jesse had tried it before, and I couldn't believe he tried it again. Gabe also went for one full force, and can now wear the title of "FEATHERS" proudly. I already am not a big egg fan, and was still feeling sick. I just had to wimp out here, and I don't regret it one bit. And then Roxy had to have some. Best facial expressions ever!

Eventually, we decided to call it a night, and parted ways - Gabe, Jesse, and I taking a cab through a notorious red light district, hehe.

I went to bed that night praying I'd feel better the next day - I wanted to be able to gorge!

And somehow, that next morning, I felt better! It was a Manila Miracle!

Lunch (we slept in) was at the Filipino institution of Max's Restaurant. Being not a fan of bone-in chicken (lame, right?), I had a beef stew, which was very tasty. The chicken looked great too. We split a dessert sampler, which had all sorts of goodies, including, unsurprisingly, delicious flan.

Then we went to Goldilock's to go polvoron shopping. Polvoron is a Filipino shortbread cookie which is a popular food given as a gift. We stocked up to bring back to our friends at home - undoubtedly some of the people reading this got to try it. I know my best friend, Noah, went through his box in about two days.

Next it was time to go to the Imelda tour, at the Cultural Center, which we heard was supposed to be amazing. You can imagine how silly we felt holding 6 bags of polvoron throughout a two hour tour. Ah, well. Anyway, the tour turned out to be fantastic - the guide was engaging, intelligent on the subject matter, and hilarious. The subject matter is essentially the Marcos-era of the Philippines through the eyes of his wife Imelda Marcos (yeah, the lady with all the shoes). The take home message, said the tour guide, was to ask yourself if the Philippines really were better off without the dictatorship - with democracy instead. This question confirmed a lot of the feelings I had wrestled with over the past two days, and put a lot in perspective for me. Do I have an answer to this question? No - I don't know that much about the country, and would be trying to sum up an entire people through a two day excursion. That'd be wrong to do on so many levels, but that said, I do talk about some of my thoughts below.

But this tour was incredible - if you should find yourself in Manila, you must must must must sign up. I will remind you of this at the end of the entry.

Dinner that night was with Gabe's college buddy, Merrill. We left a bit more time on this evening, and didn't have too much trouble with traffic. We met at a mall in the seemingly wealthy Bonifacio Global City. The "mall" (it seemed never-ending) was extremely high end, like something out of Beverly Hills. The restaurant we ended up, Abe, at was a part of the same restaurant group as dinner the night before, coincidently.

Fortunately, I was ravenous this time. We gorged on dishes including the most DELICIOUS lengua (beef tongue) I have ever had. I think I had fifths, on it. Dessert included halo-halo, which is...uh, a conglomeration of tasty stuff (read: Wikipedia it - bottom left of dessert pr0n below). It's possibly the strangest dessert of the planet, but it sure is tasty! Not to mention more amazing flan...

After dinner, we had to catch a cab back to Malate as we all had to get up early the next morning for our flights - Gabe and I at 3:30 AM!

But there were a lot more people than there were cabs. We couldn't get a cab at the taxi stand, figuring we'd be able to hail one down more easily. 75 minutes later, we were half a mile from the mall, in a desserted, but clearly part of the same extremely wealthy neighborhood, on a street where a cab was a rare occurrence. We made irrational decision after irrational decision, but eventually got that cab. Should've stayed in the taxi stand - oops.

We settled in for the night, knowing the next day was going to be super long. One more day and one more city of the trip lay ahead.
___

Manila was the most thought-provoking part of my trip. I'd like to insist that I mean no offense by any of my following comments to my Filipino friends.

It felt to me that Manila (perhaps the entire country) is in the middle of an extended identity crisis. As Merrill explained to me, the population is somewhat segregated into 4 or so wealth classes. These classes are very distinctive - I was constantly being solicited by homeless people, yet dinner at the mall in felt like I was at Fashion Valley in SD, or third street in Santa Monica. There was no attempt to hide the disparity - it was undoubtedly there. It's not like this is a unique occurrence in the world, but it was my first experience dealing with it so blatantly.

Additionally, it was clear that the infrastructure was really old, and there were transportation issues that so clearly needed to be fixed. Also, reading about the corruption issues was telling. Not to mention the amount of armed security guards roaming the streets. And the hyper-capitalism everywhere.

This is the best way I can sum it up: Manila felt like the US without rules. On one hand, I'm not sure how safe I felt, but on the other hand, it was so much more lively and exciting than the states. Positives and negatives added together usually come out to a positive, and Manila is no exception. It was a whirlwind of an experience, and I have to say I'm really excited to see how the city develops as time goes on. I don't know if there is a city quite like it on this Earth, and I encourage anybody in the area to visit. If you don't leave feeling thoughtful, then you haven't had the Manila experience. And TAKE THE IMELDA TOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Best money I spent all trip.

Maybe I'll go back someday - Cebu Pacific Airlines offers cheap flights to and from Manila and many cities in Asia. I'm so glad I went, though. And if I did, I'd go beyond the city limits, even if the US government does tell me that's not such a good idea. C'mon, who doesn't want to go to Borracay?

P.S. is there a gene in Filipino people that enables them to make freaking amazing flan? Talk about a PhD thesis that needs to happen...

Vientiane: A Taste of Urban Laos

When we last left off, we had just arrived in Vientiane. We took a taxi to the hotel we hoped we were staying in. As it turned out, the only room they had was a loft suite, so we broke down and paid an extra $20 USD for what turned out to be a ridiculous room.

For some reason which I cannot remember, we decided to ask James for advice on where to go. James has never been to Laos, but of course he had a recommendation!

We were very hungry after our huge lunch at the Xiengkhouang airport just hours before (the wearing off buzz and the 45 minute flight made it seem like 8 hours, when really it was more like 2). So we set off for the Vientiane streets to try and find Makphet. I encourage you to visit the website and read about what they are doing. It's totally awesome.

We had no reservation for dinner, and didn't really expect to get a table, and after getting lost for twenty minutes, found out that there were in fact no tables available for the evening. But then the manager said, Well you can sit upstairs if you want, but we don't really have enough servers for you and you will not enjoy your experience.

He seemed so apologetic, but we rather had our hearts set on eating here. And looking around the room, it was clear that we had beaten the dinner reservations (it was only about 6:00 PM or so), so we decided to eat upstairs!

Not only was the service great, it was some of the most attentive service I have had at a restaurant, ever. Our food was served promptly, yet we were not at all rushed. And we had the entire loft upstairs to ourselves, which was nice - we could just spread out and relax. After the Phonsavan escapade, a nice meal was really all we wanted.

My favorite dish was the water buffalo stew. Really a step up from the low quality of beef in South East Asia.

The rest of the food porn from this meal can be found on my facebook page. This was truly a delightful meal, and exactly what I needed. So good.

This was our only night in Vientiane, so after dinner we walked over to the night market on the river. Te night market is clearly the happening place in Vientiane. Everybody was out on a Tuesday night with perfect weather. We walked down the steps getting closer to the Mekong, and I had one of those moments of reflection staring out across the river to the Thai side. I didn't have all that many chances to stop and think about the last month, but it dawned on me that I had arrived in Thailand a month ago, already, and that this trip was almost over. I was getting so used to the quirks as well as the friendliness of the Lao PDR, and heading back to Thailand, even if it was just passing through, already felt "normal", as if I was returning home...

...but the ambling through Vientiane was not yet over, as we walked up the riverwalk and saw the big statue dude:

It's basically a statue of a Laotian farmer holding his hand out to greet you, and honestly, I think it's a nice representation of the Lao locals we ran across in our 9 days here. Everyone was just so friendly.

Walking back to the market, we may have decided to be those nerdy tourists who went on the swing set and teeter-totter that just happened to be there. Photo evidence exists on a camera that isn't mine. We'll see when Jesse or Gabe posts pictures *nudge nudge*.

After that, it was bedtime. zzzzzzzzzzzz.

We woke up bright and early to go explore the city some more. We only had until about 3:30 PM until the journey back into Thailand began, so it was up and at 'em.

You have to keep in mind that Vientiane is the only "big city" in all of Laos, and really it's population is similar to San Francisco proper (JUST the city). But the "big city" vibe here is akin to what I'd feel the "big city" vibe is like in Fresno. Vientiane just isn't a very fast moving place. There's not a lot of big tall buildings, stuff is fairly spread out, and the pace of life isn't that quick.

Our research prior to the trip suggested there wasn't all that much to see in Vientiane, and in hindsight, there's probably some truth to these reviews. It's a really nice city, absolutely worth a stop if you're in the area, but unless you just love visiting wats, there's not too much to do in the capital city itself - the adventure lies in the country's interior, as I hope my blog has aptly described!

So for most of the morning we did in fact walk around and look at wats. Wats are really pretty, and Buddhism is a fascinating philosophy, but after awhile, the wats start to blend together into some sort of wattage.

Our aimless wandering happened to lead us in the right direction for touristing. After stopping in a market to buy a loaf of bread (which was promptly devoured), we walked up what was unmistakably the country's widest road, towards the Laotian Arc de Triumph.

But first, the other best sign of the trip:

Once we arrived at the structure, we walked up the stairs to get a view of the entire area. As I mentioned before, Vientiane is pretty spread out, so the city seemed to expand infinitely.

We had time for about one more tourist stop in order to save time for my one request in Vientiane, so we tuk tuk-ed over to the main tourist attraction, That Luang. I guess after going to Doisuthep in Chiangmai, That Luang wasn't quite as impressive as I'd hoped, but I suppose it's still pretty cool!

In all reality, I was starting to get rather hungry and dehydrated, and really wanted to make sure we had time for the final stop before we left Laos. That's right, we had to have lunch at Hungry Burger! And as it turned out, we did have enough time, since it was reasonably easy to find and close to our hotel. Feel free to read my review (yes that's right, I have a blog about cheeseburgers!) of this oddly Portlandesque food cart!

But after a taste of home, it was time to leave Laos. I'll spare a lot of the details, but it was another small fiasco filled with changing vehicles, language barriers, and overall general confusion. One moment of note was that we shared a songthaew with a bunch of Aussies who had clearly just come from Vang Vieng (the tourist party town 6 hours north of Vientiane). They asked us why we would ever skip Vang Vieng on a trip to Laos, and went on to explain that it was such a cool time - only 14 ODs in 2011! OK, so I admit, I did kind of want to spend a night in Vang Vieng, but we only had so much time, and I couldn't be happier with how we allotted that time.

Eventually, we took the only train in the entire country across the border into Nong Khai, Thailand. Here's a final view of the Mekong, denoting this part of the Thai-Lao border:

After crossing the border, we found a place with Pad Thai across the street from the train station, and we all chowed down before boarding the overnight train to Bangkok.

Actually, the overnight train was pretty nice. I took my first sleeping pill, and was comfortably sleepy the entire night. I actually quite enjoyed the experience, and would totally take a sleeper train in Thailand again, should I have more time than I did this time around :)

I'll throw in one more story here, since there is a bit of a travel day at this point in the trip. When we arrived at the Business Class lounge at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, we all took nice warm showers. I then promptly went in sandals, a t-shirt, and shorts to sit in the lounge which understandably had the AC blasted. Long story short, I gave myself the chills, and spiked a fever on the plane. Fortunately, I was pretty confident that I had self-inflicted myself with chills, so I didn't worry too much about the symptoms (except when the Manila Airport informed me of mandatory temperature checks - which never happened).

I also got my worst case of bad food at this point too. I can only assume it was that the tasty lounge food had been sitting out a bit too long, or wasn't cooked enough, as I felt quite sick the next couple of days. I was proud of myself for not freaking out too much, given the awkward timing (getting the chills/fever at a similar time to a case of food poisoning). Logic works, self! :)

But I won't leave out the free Thai massages that business class travelers receive. They hire the best of the best. What an absolute treat.

So that concludes the Laos portion of my trip. I still can't believe I went there, and I wonder if I'll ever have the opportunity to go back (and if so, who knows what it will be like!). The days were winding down, and it was almost time to come home. But first, a completely unexpected Manila experience!

Phonsavan: The Plain of Jars.

Note: there are so many pictures associated with this stop of the trip. Trying to post them here would not work, so I invite you to view the entire Facebook album. This was an awe-inspiring experience, and I hope you will take a minute to look at how beautiful it was. If you cannot access the album, please email me (conradbb@gmail.com) and I'll find a way to get the pictures visible to you (if we're Facebook friends, you should have no problems).

So when I last left off, we checked into our hotel in Phonsavan, and learned that it contained the only elevator in the entire province. We walked down the road to get some dinner, at which time we learned that Phonsavan is FREEZING. It was only fitting then that dinner was noodle soup for all. This was double-fitting, as it was the closest I got to Vietnam for the entire trip, so this was the closest I could get to a pho fix. When we got back, it was time for an early sleep, thanks to the nausea-inducing minibus ride, but not before Gabe booked us a tour guide and van for the Plain of Jars.

If you haven't heard of the Plain of Jars, read about it on Wikipedia.

We set out the next morning around 9:30 AM, after Jesse found his again-missing camera, and after I had to go back to the hotel to get batteries for my newly-dead-batteried camera. We met our guide, and he turned out to be a hilarious Lao dude, who had a passion for...Barry Manilow. Yes, he sand Barry Manilow all day, and we got to listen to it in the car all day. What country were we in, again?

As we arrived at the first Jar Site, I was disappointed to learn that there were many tourist (although this time, it was Lao and foreigners alike). The first site wasn't that memorable, despite being the largest site, and having the largest jar (which I will admit was pretty epic). It was clear that the site was catering to the war-torn recent history, and less towards the beauty of the land. We also walked up a hill to get a view of the jars, and of the valley.

It was a long drive to Jar Site 2, and of course the roads stopped being paved quickly. After stopping at a Whisky Village (locals make "LaoLao" - homemade whisky here), we made it to the second jar site, and had some lunch. I was thrilled to find that there were almost no tourists here - and as I would soon find, we were the only ones there at the time, and had the mystique to ourselves.

After lunch, we hiked up the hill. Jar Site 2 has two parts. The first part was cool, but it was the second part that blew my mind. Words can't really describe what it's like. If you've been to a wonder of the world, I suspect you can relate to how I felt, but I don't know how to describe it. It was only the fear of stepping on a mine that kept me from running down the hills into the endless pastures, and losing myself in it all.

It was a long drive on from there to the third site. We had to walk over the world's sketchiest bridge and then through a farm in order to get to the site.

The third site was unreal. It was like something out of a painting. Beautiful scenery with these mysterious jars, in a patch of trees, surrounded by hillside. I just can't believe how beautiful it was.

Again, to see my Plain of Jars pictures, please visit the Facebook link at the top of the entry. You will not be disappointed.

After we returned to the town, it was time for dinner. We picked another place on the main road, only to find that it had the exact same menu as the place the night before. No matter - we just had more noodle soup, and the world's largest plate of delicious $1 US fried rice.

We then visited the MAG center to learn more about the Secret War. Laos was heavily bombed by the US/CIA after we pulled out of the Vietnam War, and as a result, much of Laos is littered with unexploded ordnance. Phonsavan is one of the most bombed areas. MAG works to free the land of UXO and mines. If you see me wearing my MAG t-shirt, you'll know what it means now :). To put it in perspective, MAG has won a Nobel Peace Prize. Amazing.

An example of what was at one point UXO:

It was time to leave Phonsavan the next morning. But before heading out, we got to walk around town, see the morning food market. At lunch, I finally got to try the "other" Laotian beer - Namkhong. It was pretty good, not really better or worse than the ubiquitous BeerLao.

We caught our ride to the airport, and were dumbfounded by what we saw. The "terminal" was essentially a shack.

The security machine didn't work.

There was one flight out of the airport every three days or so.

With a couple hours to kill, we decided to walk to the food shack next door and have lunch - chicken flavored peanuts (surprisingly good) and BeerLao.

The next couple hours, including the plane flight to Vientiane are rather hazy, but many good laughs were had at the absurdity of this airport. We walked up to a gate to watch our plane land - but seriously, walking onto the tarmac would've been totally easy to do. And thus we traveled on to our last stop in Laos - the capital city of Vientiane.

Luang Prabang Part 2: Around Luang Prabang in half a day

Between the three of us, we slept a combined 35 hours or so after returning from Muang Ngoi. Fortunately we had all gone to bed by 10:00 PM, so this meant we were all set to go explore early in the day still! We walked north until hitting a random bamboo bridge, and crossed it. Some young monks ahead of us took a more hidden path, so we decided to follow them. Soon, we were on a dirt road that appeared to be a part of residential LP. It was clear that at least a few tourists did come this way, though, as there was the occasional fabric store.

After many twists and turns, we stumbled across another restaurant on a random swamp/pond, that looked like it would be a sweet dinner spot. Unfortunately they weren't open for lunch, so we turned around and kept walking. Soon we made it to a paved road, and realized it was the road from the airport to town. So we headed in the direction of town (which is much farther than it sounds). We kept walking for awhile along the side of the road. Jesse got some random street food, but lunch was on the mind. We ended up at a random beer garden on the side of the road. Delicious food was had, although I can't remember the Lao names of the dishes.

From lunch, we kept walking towards town. Gabe stopped to get some knockoff Pocky known as Hockey Sticks. This food is probably the worst thing I have ever eaten. It was like eating stale cardboard, with a hint of fake moldy strawberries. It now occurs to me that we didn't bring any Hockey Sticks with us back to the states for you all to try :)

After we confirmed we were not poisoned by the Hockey Sticks, we approached a car bridge, which appeared to have a pedestrian walkway along the edges. It didn't occur to me until I was a third of the way across the bridge just what exactly Lao bridgework consisted of:


Well, I'm still alive, so I'll consider it a success. Jesse then spent the rest of our money at a stand, so we had to take out some more on the way back to the hotel, which was about another mile down the road. After a bit of a rest, we decided to go backtrack a bit of our first day in LP to try and find Jesse's camera. When we got to our first lunch spot, the owner called her husband, who claimed he did, in fact, have Jesse's camera.

The lady informed us that her husband would be there fairly soon. Gabe and I, ravenous as always, headed over to the market to find a donut. We did in fact find donuts. They tasted like donuts. Craving fulfilled, we walked back to see Jesse OMG SPRING ROLL STAND AND I WALKED RIGHT PAST IT. Fortunately, Gabe noticed it, so we got some fried spring rolls on the way back to meet Jesse. Naturally, we had to go back for more soon after.

The guy arrived at the restaurant soon after we got back, and it was eventually made clear that he did in fact have the camera. I tell this story not to embarass Jesse, but rather to show another example of how incredibly friendly the people were to us in Lao.

Camera in tow, we looked around for a dinner spot. We settled on an upscale, well reviewed Lao place. We were not disappointed by the food, or the Khantoke-like show. The four Khmu (I think, from Southeast Asian music class in university) musicians looked as if they could possibly be four generations of the same family. The food consisted of fresh fruit shakes, a beef stew, laab, papaya salad, and the unequivocal favorite, a pumpkin curry:

Seriously, you will not ever go hungry in Lao. Lao food is phenominal.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. It seemed like the trip wouldn't be complete without seeing the Alms Ceremony.

Sure enough, Jesse and I got up at the crack of dawn to witness the tradition. Unfortunately, research suggests that the tradition is more forced in recent times. The monks are required to accept the alms given to them, even if a stupid tourist should decide to give them dirt. The government has threatened to replace monks with laypeople dressed as monks if they should decide to stop. You'll also note that the picture file I borrowed from Wikitravel says "bad tourists". Tourists literally walk up to the monks and take flash pictures. It seemed kind of insulting that what was probably once a wonderful tradition has been degraded into such a spectacle. For what it's worth, we just so happened to stand at almost the same spot from where the picture was taken. It was cool to see the locals give alms, as well as the monks to hand some off to children who were clearly from lesser-off backgrounds.

Jesse was unable to convince either of us to go meet a monk at one of the temples. I wanted a nice relaxing shower before the inevitable vomit-inducing minibus ride looming before us, and was afraid we'd be unable to meet the guy. As it turned out, Jesse may have went to the wrong monestary, as he was unable to locate the guy. I think he later got an email when we were in Manila asking what happened.

But Jesse did stumble upon a wonderful French bakery, and we enjoyed a wonderful baguette along with our breakfast. It was most unfortunate that we did not stumble upon the place sooner, but hey, better late than never, right?

After breakfast, it was time to catch the shuttle to the bus terminal. I was dreading the approaching ride, although I figured the scenery would be amazing. We made it to the terminal, and ended up being relegated to the back three seats of a filled-to-capacity minibus. The saving grace was that it was a slightly newer bus, so the seats were slightly more comfortable.

Armed with 6 baguettes, 3 packages of wafers, and about a gallon of water, we set off for Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars.

I won't say much about the minibus ride beyond the fact that it was in fact vomit-inducing, but was nonstop stunning views for the entire trip. The best picture I can paint is I80 from Auburn to Reno, except the Sierras are replaced by Lao villages (and there is no snow), and you're on a terribly paved two lane highway. Jesse and I actually got to throw a frisbee around at the first rest stop. There were no rest stops the rest of the way, so at one point we just pulled over on the side of the road for a little break, if you catch my drift. At this point we were out of the mountains, and the scenery looked oddly like coming out of the mountains heading North into Central Washington. Gabe concurred on this fact as we dove into some baguette (finally being relieved of carsickness for the moment).

Our bus arrived early into Phonsavan, but I will leave off here for now.

Muang Ngoi: Wait, you mean to tell me that maybe I've been somewhere Facebook hasn't?

So as the sketchiest vehicle ride of my life commenced, one of the most beautiful did, as well. You have to understand this fact about Laos though - the infrastructure outside of the few cities that do exist is severely limited. The major highways are sometimes barely paved, and felt through a completely outmoded minibus, was sure to leave us sore all over.

The ride continued on, as we stumbled through "real" Lao villages. It was impossible to avoid noticing the differences between Luang Prabang and the wood huts along the roadside. By far the most poverty I'd ever seen. But that said, and this was something I continued to notice throughout my stay in Laos, is that everybody seemed to be happy. Through all the crap Laos has gone through, and continues to go through, her people seem to be pretty happy, and seem to enjoy the happy parts of life. Pretty inspiring stuff. :)

So we finally stopped to take a pee break at the first even small town we had passed, two hours after leaving LP. Except we couldn't find a bathroom. Even a talk with the locals, in which I had to fake unzip my pants in order to get my point across the language barrier. Eventually one rider, Gabe, and I found a gueshouse, but it seemed deserted, so we walked around the back. Finally, we found a couple rooms open, and seized the moment. Then a guy came out from somewhere else and pointed Gabe, our watchman, in the direction of the actual bathroom, right after I had come out of what I soon found out to be this guy's room, and the girl was still inside the other room.

Bladders relieved, we got back into the car and drove off, but not before a picture of backpacker bb!

We finally saw a sign suggesting that Nong Khiaw was nearby, when all of a sudden the driver stopped by a crowd of school kids. We picked up from the hand motions, that the lady with her infant child was trying to convince the driver that we should pick up all these kids and take them to Nong Khiaw. This propopsition was of course perfectly ludicrous, since our minibus was already just about full. But it became obvious that an unknown amount of kids were going to join our bus...and then the lady and her infant get off the bus in the middle of the street to make room for some kids. Completely bewildered, we drive off, now completely squushed, but fortunately not very far from Nong Khiaw. We later found out that this lady was the driver's wife. I assume he picked her up later.

So now our bus looked like this, for the last few minutes into the small town of Nong Khiaw (yes, there is an empty seat, as one Lao girl had gotten off at her destination:

So we made it to Nong Khiaw with a little time to spare for the 2:00 boat to the small village of Muang Ngoi. After desparately searching for the dock as the minutes counted down, we found out the boat left at 2:30, and we settled down a bit. We tried to eat lunch, but kinda failed on time, and had to jump down to the boat, and Jesse got his rice to go.

I was less than thrilled to have to sit on a cramped wooden boat that looked like it would sink at any moment, especially with a bunch of people piled into it, but we knew the boat ride was in theory only about two hours long, so I figured I could tough it out. I mean seriously, how often do you get to take a boat ride through the Jungle of Laos? Also, Muang Ngoi is ONLY accessible by boat.

Other than the loud motor, though, the trip was fairly comfortable, as the boat wasn't entirely full (so we had some room to stretch out), and we were pretty much enthralled by the scenery. OK, well maybe Jesse had a little nap first:

No but really, check out the scenery:

There's more pictures, but I can't put them all here - look for them on Facebook someday soon, I hope :)

So anyway, after about 90 minutes, we approached the village of Muang Ngoi. But how to describe Muang Ngoi briefly? Muang Ngoi is a Lao village that became an actual tourist destination, and seemed to gain some wealth by in large part switching the village economy to promoting touristry, and becoming somewhat of a tourist town. But despite the obvious touristy-ness, it's still a Lao village two hundred miles from anywhere only accessible by boat.

Oh, and did I mention they only get electricity 3 hours a day? (6-9 PM)

We wanted to stay at a guesthouse overlooking the riverside, but they were all booked, so we ended up choosing some random place in some back alley away from the "main drag". And when I say main drag, I mean this:

And when I say back alley, I mean this:

And when I say some random place, crap, I forgot to take a picture of the room. Basically, it was very rustic, with a mosquito net (which had a hole, oops), and a rather old bed, and a bathroom with some very icy water. But hey, it cost us $7.50 for two rooms for a night. And after a quick walk through town, a short visit to the village wat, and a touristy dinner on the riverside, we got to hang out with two of the guesthouse's owner's family members, who went by J and V. J was quite the entrepreneur, who had picked up an amazing amount of English just from talking to tourists. He was upfront when he said he didn't go to university because his mom couldn't afford it, but did inform us that his younger brother (V), who didn't speak much English, was already accepted to university in Luang Prabang. V was in the same boat as so many of us in the states - when asked what he wanted to study, he sheepishly shrugged and said he had no idea.

So there we were drinking some Beerlao, and then J wanted to know if I had any American music. So in short order, I'd given him about 7 rock/metal songs, and we were blasting Japanese metal in a Laotian village.

J had really been trying to sell us on a trek, as trekking is one of the main activities to do in Northern Laos. As it turned out, our limited amount of time in the country precluded us from any such undertakings, but finally he convinced Jesse that we should wake up at the crack of dawn for a mini trek up to see the view of the village. Gabe and I were less than enthralled about waking up at 6, when the boat left for Nong Khiaw at 8 AM. But J assured us that there was another boat at 9:30. In the end he and Jesse convinced us. But what really clinched it was that it was only now that we learned the power went off at 9 PM. 9 PM bedtime, 6 AM wakeup...well that's plenty of sleep! Gabe and I actually played a game of Scrabble in the moonlight before heading off to bed.

And sleep did come. And fortunately, mosquitos did not. But we didn't count on another epic slayer of sleep. Or like hundreds of them. 3 AM...enter...THE ROOSTERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RARRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The roosters started crowing, and by God, they never shut up. It was a chorus of hundreds of roosters crowing for hours on end. It was almost kind of hilarious. Fortunately, I was tired enough that I managed to fall back asleep for a couple hours, before finally giving up hope at about 5:30 - which was fine, because I'd already gotten almost 8 hours of sleep, and quite frankly felt good.

So we met J outside and started out mini-trek. After weaving our way out of the village, we started up a path. And I use the word path very loosely, as the path seemed to soon go up more vertically than it did horizontally. Soon it was mostly stepping from boulder to boulder, with the occasional bamboo ladder to climb up, with nothing really to support you, except your own will to persevere. I'm actually vaguely surprised that I survived. But then we got to the view of the river, and it was all worth it.

And we journeyed a bit more to see the view of the village. And then it was another one of those moments of pure awesomeness. The whole village was spread out before us, flanked by the river, and surrounded by the mountains. It was a view I suspect few people ever get to see, completely one of a kind. It was one of my favorite moments of the trip.

But the hour was getting late - we're talking 8 AM here, folks. So we had to somehow get back down this same trail - an equally daunting task. Somehow we all remained intact, and hustled back to the guesthouse. Before we left, we asked J if he had facebook or anything, so we could keep in touch. And wouldn't you know it, he had never heard of Facebook. And his family did have some sort of internet access, as their guesthouse has an email address. No Facebook??? !!! ??? !!! It was sort of a reinforcing fact that we were almost as isolated as you could possible get - so far off the map, so hard to reach, that things are completely different here. We were in a rush, so I didn't have all that much time to think about it, but it sort of summed up the entire experience of visiting this village. And keep in mind, Muang Ngoi is a touristified village, so I can only imagine what other villages are like (unfortunately we had no time to visit any others).

Before running off to catch our boat, we took a picture with J. I bet he's gonna do just fine for himself - the savvy entrepreneur would just strut through town, and you could tell he was well respected around the village.

Back up at the viewpoint, J explained to us that Muang Ngoi would soon be getting a road. As we boarded the boat, we asked each other: what will be the fate of this town? what is it's future? I don't think I'll be back to Muang Ngoi anytime soon, but I will watch from the eyes of wikitravel what happens to this little village. I suspect it will be fascinating. And then, what village will be the next Muang Ngoi?

Anyway, we got back on the boat to head back to Nong Khiaw. This boat was much older, and much more crowded. I was honestly a bit spooked, but we made it back downriver to Nong Khiaw in an hour. I wasn't really looking forward to another minibus ride, but it was better than those damn wood panels. And before I know it, I'm sitting on another boat bound for Luang Prabang. 7 long aching hours away.

It was 7 hours of beautiful scenery, but it was 7 hours of stiffness, awkward positions, and sweat. As I was telling Gabe midway through the boat ride, it was totally painful then, but as soon as we made it back to LP, I knew I'd be glad I did it. And that's exactly how I feel. But I'm getting sore just thinking about it...oh wait no, that's because I just walked all over Hong Kong today, and am about to board my 12 hour flight home to SFO. moar motrin naoooo.

Fortunately we did get one break in the middle of the ride. There were too many rapids, so we all had to get out and walk along the riverbank until we could get back on the boat. And then we finished the remaining hours of soreness. But eventually we met up with the Mekong, and eventually Luang Prabang slowly crept into sight. Getting off that boat was, I won't lie, incredibly satisfying.

I actually don't have many pictures from this boat ride because my camera batteries ran out, but the scenery was much like the prior boat rides - breathtaking and awe inspiring. If you should ever find yourself in that part of the world, please do yourself a favor, and boat up to Muang Ngoi. One final offering of the scenery, for now:

We checked back into the guesthouse, and then ambled over to the main road. We were too tired to explore too much, so we went to a tourist place on the main road...and were pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. It was actually really good.

And then we went home. And went right to sleep. We'd though about leaving for Phonsavan the next day, but it was clear we needed to sleep in, and we had one extra day to spare in Laos, so we decided to allocate it to exploring Luang Prabang. And that is where the next entry will pick up.

Luang Prabang Part 1 - What to make of it?

Landing in Laos was the start of the last "main" part of the trip. It became obvious as soon as we landed that this was a very different country from anywhere else I'd been. Yet as we drove into the town, it seemed oddly...wealthy. This was a constant source of confusion for us, despite the knowledge that Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage City. My guess is that a fair amount of money is pumped into this city because of this status, and as a result, the country's widespread poverty is unseen in this tourist town.

We checked into our guesthouse, and went to look for some food. We ended up at a tourist restaurant overlooking the Mekong river. We ordered a bunch of dishes, and they were all solid, but not overwhelmingly awesome. Afterwards, we went back to the guesthouse to plot our next day, in which we hoped to overnight up north. Walking around town, we found out that the 100 Waterfalls tour was not only a ripoff, but took up way too much time, so we quashed that idea quickly. However a new idea surfaced, and you'll hear about that idea in the next entry. After we booked some transportation for the next day, we went to the main wat, in order to watch the sunset over the Mekong. Despite being overrun by tourists, we were treated to a magnificent sunset, and a fantastic view of Luang Prabang town. From here, we could see the "rest of the town"; that is, the part which wasn't all touristy. We vowed to explore it later.

From here, it became dinner time. We were all in agreement that we wanted to stay off the main drag, so we walked. We made a few turns. And then walked a few blocks. And then a few more. And it became less touristy, and more local. But we weren't finding anything. We were about to turn back, when all of a sudden we came across what appeared to be a hot pot restaurant on a swamp. Bingo! We figured this was it, so we sat down and ordered a huge heaping plate of meat. It wasn't traditional hot pot; rather, you put a cube of pork fat on the grill in the center, and then put broth around the side of the grill. You cooked veggies and noodles in the broth, and grilled meat on the grill.

This meal also marked the first liters of the Lao national pastime of drinking Beerlao. And I have to say, it wasn't all that bad. Now once I was made aware that the cmpany actually sanitizes and reuses empty Beerlao bottles, I was a bit sketched out, but beer is beer, and Laos is a communist country, so your options are limited. Jesse and I took down a bunch of Beerlao which led to superior picture taking skills like, and Gabe became the grill master.

So we finish this gigantic plate of food, and then Gabe wondered if we should get some more. Long story short, before an incredulous Jesse's eyes, Gabe and I proceeded to order a second gigantic plate of meats...and we devoured it.

It was definitely one of the besr meals of the trip because it was just one of those moments (er two hours) where everything was just in perfect harmony - at a local joint on a swamp on some random street in Northern Laos.

Afterwards, after inadvertantly getting ripped off by a tuktuk driver due to the launggae barrier for a grand total of like 25 cents, we walked through the market, basking in the glow of our surprising dinner success. I picked up a Beerlao t-shirt, and then we headed back to retire for the night. We were all exhausted (Jesse and I were still recovering from Causeway), and the next morning was to be an early one as we journeyed off still more north into the depths of what we would soon find to be a breathtakingly beautiful country.

I don't like buzzed pictures of myself much, so this mid tuk-tuk ride picture was actually a totally fine effort on my part.

And the next morning, we were picked up by a minibus already full of people going to our transfer point (Nong Khiaw), as well as Phonsavan, our future destination a few days down the road. And then more people got in. And then our baggage was moved to the roof because MORE PEOPLE GOT IN. And we couldn't figure out why we all were in the same minibus if we had different destinations...and then, an hour after getting into the minibus a mere three miles away, we showed up at the bus station. The journey hadn't even begun. Welcome to transportation in a country with almost no infrastructure...to be continued.