Here are photos from the southern half of Vietnam....
My South-East Asia adventure has come to an end; tonight I fly back to Australia to figure out what comes next and Tomer will continue his trip in Asia before going home to Israel. Enjoy the photos and Chag Sameach again to those doing Passover...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Warning: Longest Blog Entry Ever Because It Hasn't Been Updated in Almost a Month
So I haven’t written on this thingy in a really long time….In an attempt to catch up, I’ve copied and pasted bits of emails that I’ve sent in the last month to describe where I’ve been. Forgive the horrendous typing, and read until you get bored…..Love Mara
March 12—Chiang Mai, Thailand
“…..i have SO many mosquito bites....i guess i should start wearing deet....:( SO here i am in chiang mai! today i was actually supposed to go help out at this school that the ngo i contacted is refurbishing but i oculdn't find it. the woman told me what street it was on but i couldn't find anything. i asked this old dude who turns out to be an old hippie from chicago if he knew where it was, so he pointed out their building (locked) and told me the place is run by aging hippies like himself. oh, aging hippies. Anyhoos, thats kind of sad so i'm just writing an email to her to maybe meet up again? hm.
so anyways, despite my awkward antisocial tendencies, i actually made friends yesterday. the first two days i was here i actually didn't want to talk to anyone, i was really enjoying being alone. then yesterday, i was like, okay i'm bored. there were two north american dudes about my age eating at the guesthouse, so i went up to them and was just like, mind if i join you? they turned out to be from right outside toronto so we had stuff to talk about, then two female friends of theirs randomly showed up at the guesthouse. so i persuaded the two boys to come to a museum with me, and the four of us went out to a bar last night. arent you proud of me? i'm proud of myself for talking to strangers.”
(Note: I never managed to get in touch with the woman, I scheduled a visit to volunteer at a dog shelter outside Chiang Mai, but the day before I burnt my leg when I brushed up against a still hot motorbike exhaust pipe. It turned into a pus bubble and I didn’t want to risk infection by being around dogs....so in the end I never actually volunteered! But being on my own was enough an experience, I always thought I would hate traveling alone but I learned that I can totally do it and it’s even enjoyable.)
March 21—Bangkok, Thailand
“i'm back at the red sons inn, cozy, air-conditioned and with rubber sheets. I took the night bus from chiang mai into bangkok on thursday night and when we got to bangkok, they dropped us off a few streets over from ko san road and tried to trick us poor sleepy backpackers that we were kilometers away and we'd have to take a tuk tuk. I almost did, but i met this hippie girl who went to nyu and now lives in la, and she knew where we were and we walked, then we split a room to crash in….”
(The next day I met up with the two Israelis that I did the Great Ocean Road Trip with in Melbourne. David headed off north to Chiang Mai with some other Israelis and Tomer became my new travel buddy for my last few weeks in Asia.)
March 31—Pakse, Laos
“it's me! i'm in pakse at the moment, in southern laos. so the update: after a few days in bangkok hanging on khao san, eating at the israeli restaurant, and seeing ayutthaya, tomer and i headed for the border and crossed into laos. we spent a couple of nights in pakse and did a tour of this area then we spent two nights in the four thousand islands, on one of the islands that seems popular with the tourists. its still quite undeveloped, i think outside of pakse, which is a proper town, this is the most rural and least developed place i have ever been too. the island has no electricity, save for some generators to refrigerate food, and we got a bungalow that had generator power from 6-10 pm. so no fan, no air-con. yikes. i never realized what a westernized lady i was....it would have been fun if it werent sweltering hot. we went swimming in the mekong to cool off and i was trying to avoid putting my face in the water in a perhaps misguided attempt to avoid any water parasites that i'm scared of...but then discovered that the shower water was pumped directly from the river anyways so it didn't matter. We rented bicycles one day and biked to a waterfall, all in all it was really nice but almost unbearably hot and humid.”
April 2—Hue, Vietnam
“…then we took a bus from pakse across the border into vietnam. we went for the local bus option because we wanted to go at ni9ght, and the local bus i took in laos the first time wasn't too bad. that, however was only four hours. the bus to vietnam was like a 17 hour ordeal with women transporting baby birds, abouta thousand pounds of rice stuffed in sacks under every seat, random hour long stops that seemed to serve no purpose other than to let the bus driver watch an episode of who wants to be a millionaire at a roadside restaurant......mostly it wasn't too bad, but tomer realized after we arrived in the city of hue that someone on the bus had stolen his camera and cellphone....bad news. but we survived, and i'm currently in hue right now, it's a lovely city. tomorrow we'll head south and seder will be in ho chi minh city.”
So now April 7, Today! I’m in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and we’ve been making our way south. In Hue, (pronounced Hoo-way) we went to see the citadel, where it used to be the royal center of Vietnam. I really loved it, I mentioned before the architecture and art in Vietnam is so different from the rest of Southeast Asia, because of their historical closeness with China. We also saw a pagoda and a tomb of one of the former emperors, all with beautiful architecture. From Hue we went to my favorite city so far—Hoi An. Sigh…. Hoi An. So lovely. Hoi An is well known amongst tourists because it was in its time a major trading port and its status as a World Heritage site has kept the old part of the city intact; the style is a mixture of Vietnamese/Chinese old homes and French colonial architecture. At night, the whole place is lit up with tons of Chinese lanterns, and it’s seriously magical. Hoi An is also famous for their tailors, you can’t walk two feet without someone trying to entice you into their shop. I bought a winter peacoat and pair of nice black pants from a very convincing woman named Emma…I love her. I spent a day exploring some of the sites in the old town on my own (apparently not everyone is excited by a place called “the museum of trade ceramics”) and it cemented my love of Hoi An. Now we’re in Nha Trang, a beach town where we took a tour boat out to the islands off the coast today, with sunburn to prove it; tonight we take the night bus to Saigon. Time flies….
March 12—Chiang Mai, Thailand
“…..i have SO many mosquito bites....i guess i should start wearing deet....:( SO here i am in chiang mai! today i was actually supposed to go help out at this school that the ngo i contacted is refurbishing but i oculdn't find it. the woman told me what street it was on but i couldn't find anything. i asked this old dude who turns out to be an old hippie from chicago if he knew where it was, so he pointed out their building (locked) and told me the place is run by aging hippies like himself. oh, aging hippies. Anyhoos, thats kind of sad so i'm just writing an email to her to maybe meet up again? hm.
so anyways, despite my awkward antisocial tendencies, i actually made friends yesterday. the first two days i was here i actually didn't want to talk to anyone, i was really enjoying being alone. then yesterday, i was like, okay i'm bored. there were two north american dudes about my age eating at the guesthouse, so i went up to them and was just like, mind if i join you? they turned out to be from right outside toronto so we had stuff to talk about, then two female friends of theirs randomly showed up at the guesthouse. so i persuaded the two boys to come to a museum with me, and the four of us went out to a bar last night. arent you proud of me? i'm proud of myself for talking to strangers.”
(Note: I never managed to get in touch with the woman, I scheduled a visit to volunteer at a dog shelter outside Chiang Mai, but the day before I burnt my leg when I brushed up against a still hot motorbike exhaust pipe. It turned into a pus bubble and I didn’t want to risk infection by being around dogs....so in the end I never actually volunteered! But being on my own was enough an experience, I always thought I would hate traveling alone but I learned that I can totally do it and it’s even enjoyable.)
March 21—Bangkok, Thailand
“i'm back at the red sons inn, cozy, air-conditioned and with rubber sheets. I took the night bus from chiang mai into bangkok on thursday night and when we got to bangkok, they dropped us off a few streets over from ko san road and tried to trick us poor sleepy backpackers that we were kilometers away and we'd have to take a tuk tuk. I almost did, but i met this hippie girl who went to nyu and now lives in la, and she knew where we were and we walked, then we split a room to crash in….”
(The next day I met up with the two Israelis that I did the Great Ocean Road Trip with in Melbourne. David headed off north to Chiang Mai with some other Israelis and Tomer became my new travel buddy for my last few weeks in Asia.)
March 31—Pakse, Laos
“it's me! i'm in pakse at the moment, in southern laos. so the update: after a few days in bangkok hanging on khao san, eating at the israeli restaurant, and seeing ayutthaya, tomer and i headed for the border and crossed into laos. we spent a couple of nights in pakse and did a tour of this area then we spent two nights in the four thousand islands, on one of the islands that seems popular with the tourists. its still quite undeveloped, i think outside of pakse, which is a proper town, this is the most rural and least developed place i have ever been too. the island has no electricity, save for some generators to refrigerate food, and we got a bungalow that had generator power from 6-10 pm. so no fan, no air-con. yikes. i never realized what a westernized lady i was....it would have been fun if it werent sweltering hot. we went swimming in the mekong to cool off and i was trying to avoid putting my face in the water in a perhaps misguided attempt to avoid any water parasites that i'm scared of...but then discovered that the shower water was pumped directly from the river anyways so it didn't matter. We rented bicycles one day and biked to a waterfall, all in all it was really nice but almost unbearably hot and humid.”
April 2—Hue, Vietnam
“…then we took a bus from pakse across the border into vietnam. we went for the local bus option because we wanted to go at ni9ght, and the local bus i took in laos the first time wasn't too bad. that, however was only four hours. the bus to vietnam was like a 17 hour ordeal with women transporting baby birds, abouta thousand pounds of rice stuffed in sacks under every seat, random hour long stops that seemed to serve no purpose other than to let the bus driver watch an episode of who wants to be a millionaire at a roadside restaurant......mostly it wasn't too bad, but tomer realized after we arrived in the city of hue that someone on the bus had stolen his camera and cellphone....bad news. but we survived, and i'm currently in hue right now, it's a lovely city. tomorrow we'll head south and seder will be in ho chi minh city.”
So now April 7, Today! I’m in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and we’ve been making our way south. In Hue, (pronounced Hoo-way) we went to see the citadel, where it used to be the royal center of Vietnam. I really loved it, I mentioned before the architecture and art in Vietnam is so different from the rest of Southeast Asia, because of their historical closeness with China. We also saw a pagoda and a tomb of one of the former emperors, all with beautiful architecture. From Hue we went to my favorite city so far—Hoi An. Sigh…. Hoi An. So lovely. Hoi An is well known amongst tourists because it was in its time a major trading port and its status as a World Heritage site has kept the old part of the city intact; the style is a mixture of Vietnamese/Chinese old homes and French colonial architecture. At night, the whole place is lit up with tons of Chinese lanterns, and it’s seriously magical. Hoi An is also famous for their tailors, you can’t walk two feet without someone trying to entice you into their shop. I bought a winter peacoat and pair of nice black pants from a very convincing woman named Emma…I love her. I spent a day exploring some of the sites in the old town on my own (apparently not everyone is excited by a place called “the museum of trade ceramics”) and it cemented my love of Hoi An. Now we’re in Nha Trang, a beach town where we took a tour boat out to the islands off the coast today, with sunburn to prove it; tonight we take the night bus to Saigon. Time flies….
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Now where the hell is she?
So it's been almost an entire month since I've written anything on this blog...that's nuts. I just updated my journal today which was exactly a month behind. So I'm here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city in the northern part of the country. Its been a busy few weeks, with a double dose of Laurens, so I don't even know where to begin....
The last time I wrote anything I was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We stayed in a super swanky guesthouse that came with the tour, but unfortunately it was in the middle of nowhere. Lauren and I ventured out for dinner with our guidebook handy to point out the Khmer language version of the sentence "I'm a vegetarian." Unfortunately, this was met with much laughter, and we ended up eating at a strange casino recommended by some Aussies at the guesthouse. We moved into the backpacker neighborhood and spent one sleepless night plagued by weird noises in the wall that sounded something like a duck might sound like if it were coming to kill you....So we upgraded to a guesthouse near the river with no killer animals. Phnom Penh is a strange city...its very poor (as is the rest of the country) and it has a strange mix of elements. On the one hand, there are wonderful cultural institutions to visit, like the National Museum and the Royal Palace; on the other, most tourists come to view the Killing Fields, sight of most of the Pol Pot regime's executions, and Tuol Sleng, the high school that was converted into a prison for the same regime. We viewed both of the latter in one day which was incredibly overwhelming, not only for what happened, but the fact that I knew so little about what happened. It was a terrible awakening and one that I still haven't really come to terms with. In Cambodia, their history is evident everywhere. The genocide was so recent, and there likely isn't a person anywhere who isn't affected by what happened. Around 1/4 of the entire population was lost and Cambodia is now stuck trying to rebuild itself amid crushing poverty and the trauma of its people. The regime ended in 1979 but it's estimated it will take several generations to recover. Being there, especially in the Killing Fields and seeing children begging and landmine victims--the tangible remnants of the regime--has made me reevalute my place as a tourist in this part of the world. I felt a bit strange before, but even more so now. I'm not sure how to reconcile my desire to see more of the world without contributing something to the places I visit other than tourist dollars. I feel guilt at having so much but haven't yet figured out how to turn the guilt into something productive. And I'm not even sure I'm explaining myself properly, but these are the beginnings of the thoughts....
From Phnom Penh we traveled north to Siem Reap, site of a much prouder period in Cambodian history: Angkor Wat and the temples surrounding it. We were able to meet up with Lauren Clarke, our English buddy we met in NZ. She was meant to meet us in Phnom Penh but sprained her ankle in Bangkok! But she was a major trooper and managed not only to get to Siem Reap but spend 3 days exploring temples with a bad foot. Angkor Wat is the most famous of the temples, which were built in the period of roughly 800's-1400's. We saw it the first day and the second day we saw the Bayon, built by the last of the major Angkor kings; I thought it was amazing, and you can see the pictures I've already put up. I'm afraid I'll butcher the historical information, so if you want more you can check it out here. We also ate at a restaurant that is rumoured to be owned by Angelina Jolie (she filmed parts of the Tomb Raider movies in Angkor) but I think she maybe just visited it. Cambodia had really good food...amazing coconut veggie curry and a dish called amok--fish wrapped in banana leaves and steamed with coconut milk. Yum.
So on from Siem Reap we took a bus to Bangkok (it was a loooooong day of waiting at borders) and were there for two nights. We had heard it's easier to enter Laos from Thailand, and it gave Lauren K a chance to see Bangkok, when we weren't originally planning to go. Bangkok is a crazy city, so busy. It was nice to enjoy some of the finer things in life that Thailand has to offer...like 7/11. Then we took another overnight bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Vientiane is a sleepy little city, not anything you would imagine a capital to be. We tried to find a restaurant listed in our book that was a bit of a walk, but couldn't find it (I have a habit of insisting on going to places that turn out to be closed or non-existant) and we ended up at a vegetarian restaurant in a residential area, where no one spoke english and they gave us a menu made up of pictures. We each picked a dish, then were told there were only two available. So we picked again and the guy indicated we should all pick the same thing, presumably to make the cooking easier. It was a kind of soup that looked like it had chunks of pork in it, though the restaurant's English sign said vegetarian. It turned out to be the most convincing fake meat I've ever had and was delicious. The next day we saw That Luang, a giant gold temple of sorts that is the national symbol of Laos, it was pretty cool. We intended to take a night bus that night up to the town of Luang Prabang, but then it was cancelled for unknown reasons. The woman who sold us the ticket offered to put us up in her guesthouse for free that night, which seemed a nice offer until we went to sleep in the sketchy dorms on bunkbeds paranoid about bedbugs. And not to mention there was a fellow traveller who kept us up all night with his screaming. Actual screams, like of horror. At first I nearly pooped myself, but I think he just had night terrors. Well, hopefully he had night terrors and wasn't slowly being murdered or something. I'll never know.
Phew....I'll keep going....Luang Prabang is a beautiful little town high in the mountains (the bus ride there is rather nauseating). Its a World Heritage site and is sometimes described as the most beautiful city in Asia. I can't be sure of that, but it was lovely. One day we did a little trek through the countryside to see Kuang Si waterfall, a major attraction that is pretty beautiful. There is also a small bear sanctuary there that takes in bears that were being traded illegally. Luang Prabang also had a amazing night market that we visited, well, every night. On March 2, Lauren K left for Vientiane to start her long trip home; Lauren C and I went down through Vang Vieng to go tubing on the Nam Song river. And play with puppies and a kitten. They find me, I swear! Then we took a another rough bus ride back to Vientiane (a little Lao girl vomited on my foot) and our last night together. The next day I headed for Chiang Mai, and Lauren went down to Bangkok, where she is leaving for the UK tonight.
So now it's just meeeee....alooooone. Well, only for a little while. I'll be going back to Bangkok as well in 10 days to meet up with the Israelis. For now I'm actually enjoying being alone and finding lots to do in Chiang Mai, and looking for some volunteer work if I can. So thats where I am and whats going on! Sorry for the failure to write for so long....Lots and lots of love from Thailand....
Mara
The last time I wrote anything I was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We stayed in a super swanky guesthouse that came with the tour, but unfortunately it was in the middle of nowhere. Lauren and I ventured out for dinner with our guidebook handy to point out the Khmer language version of the sentence "I'm a vegetarian." Unfortunately, this was met with much laughter, and we ended up eating at a strange casino recommended by some Aussies at the guesthouse. We moved into the backpacker neighborhood and spent one sleepless night plagued by weird noises in the wall that sounded something like a duck might sound like if it were coming to kill you....So we upgraded to a guesthouse near the river with no killer animals. Phnom Penh is a strange city...its very poor (as is the rest of the country) and it has a strange mix of elements. On the one hand, there are wonderful cultural institutions to visit, like the National Museum and the Royal Palace; on the other, most tourists come to view the Killing Fields, sight of most of the Pol Pot regime's executions, and Tuol Sleng, the high school that was converted into a prison for the same regime. We viewed both of the latter in one day which was incredibly overwhelming, not only for what happened, but the fact that I knew so little about what happened. It was a terrible awakening and one that I still haven't really come to terms with. In Cambodia, their history is evident everywhere. The genocide was so recent, and there likely isn't a person anywhere who isn't affected by what happened. Around 1/4 of the entire population was lost and Cambodia is now stuck trying to rebuild itself amid crushing poverty and the trauma of its people. The regime ended in 1979 but it's estimated it will take several generations to recover. Being there, especially in the Killing Fields and seeing children begging and landmine victims--the tangible remnants of the regime--has made me reevalute my place as a tourist in this part of the world. I felt a bit strange before, but even more so now. I'm not sure how to reconcile my desire to see more of the world without contributing something to the places I visit other than tourist dollars. I feel guilt at having so much but haven't yet figured out how to turn the guilt into something productive. And I'm not even sure I'm explaining myself properly, but these are the beginnings of the thoughts....
From Phnom Penh we traveled north to Siem Reap, site of a much prouder period in Cambodian history: Angkor Wat and the temples surrounding it. We were able to meet up with Lauren Clarke, our English buddy we met in NZ. She was meant to meet us in Phnom Penh but sprained her ankle in Bangkok! But she was a major trooper and managed not only to get to Siem Reap but spend 3 days exploring temples with a bad foot. Angkor Wat is the most famous of the temples, which were built in the period of roughly 800's-1400's. We saw it the first day and the second day we saw the Bayon, built by the last of the major Angkor kings; I thought it was amazing, and you can see the pictures I've already put up. I'm afraid I'll butcher the historical information, so if you want more you can check it out here. We also ate at a restaurant that is rumoured to be owned by Angelina Jolie (she filmed parts of the Tomb Raider movies in Angkor) but I think she maybe just visited it. Cambodia had really good food...amazing coconut veggie curry and a dish called amok--fish wrapped in banana leaves and steamed with coconut milk. Yum.
So on from Siem Reap we took a bus to Bangkok (it was a loooooong day of waiting at borders) and were there for two nights. We had heard it's easier to enter Laos from Thailand, and it gave Lauren K a chance to see Bangkok, when we weren't originally planning to go. Bangkok is a crazy city, so busy. It was nice to enjoy some of the finer things in life that Thailand has to offer...like 7/11. Then we took another overnight bus to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Vientiane is a sleepy little city, not anything you would imagine a capital to be. We tried to find a restaurant listed in our book that was a bit of a walk, but couldn't find it (I have a habit of insisting on going to places that turn out to be closed or non-existant) and we ended up at a vegetarian restaurant in a residential area, where no one spoke english and they gave us a menu made up of pictures. We each picked a dish, then were told there were only two available. So we picked again and the guy indicated we should all pick the same thing, presumably to make the cooking easier. It was a kind of soup that looked like it had chunks of pork in it, though the restaurant's English sign said vegetarian. It turned out to be the most convincing fake meat I've ever had and was delicious. The next day we saw That Luang, a giant gold temple of sorts that is the national symbol of Laos, it was pretty cool. We intended to take a night bus that night up to the town of Luang Prabang, but then it was cancelled for unknown reasons. The woman who sold us the ticket offered to put us up in her guesthouse for free that night, which seemed a nice offer until we went to sleep in the sketchy dorms on bunkbeds paranoid about bedbugs. And not to mention there was a fellow traveller who kept us up all night with his screaming. Actual screams, like of horror. At first I nearly pooped myself, but I think he just had night terrors. Well, hopefully he had night terrors and wasn't slowly being murdered or something. I'll never know.
Phew....I'll keep going....Luang Prabang is a beautiful little town high in the mountains (the bus ride there is rather nauseating). Its a World Heritage site and is sometimes described as the most beautiful city in Asia. I can't be sure of that, but it was lovely. One day we did a little trek through the countryside to see Kuang Si waterfall, a major attraction that is pretty beautiful. There is also a small bear sanctuary there that takes in bears that were being traded illegally. Luang Prabang also had a amazing night market that we visited, well, every night. On March 2, Lauren K left for Vientiane to start her long trip home; Lauren C and I went down through Vang Vieng to go tubing on the Nam Song river. And play with puppies and a kitten. They find me, I swear! Then we took a another rough bus ride back to Vientiane (a little Lao girl vomited on my foot) and our last night together. The next day I headed for Chiang Mai, and Lauren went down to Bangkok, where she is leaving for the UK tonight.
So now it's just meeeee....alooooone. Well, only for a little while. I'll be going back to Bangkok as well in 10 days to meet up with the Israelis. For now I'm actually enjoying being alone and finding lots to do in Chiang Mai, and looking for some volunteer work if I can. So thats where I am and whats going on! Sorry for the failure to write for so long....Lots and lots of love from Thailand....
Mara
Monday, February 16, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
No, seriously, Where's Mara???
She's in Cambodia! Lauren and I just spent a week in and around Saigon, Vietnam (or Ho Chi Minh City if you want to be official about it). We left Darwin, Aus. on February the 6th, and yesterday we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Saigon was a nutty city, so busy, with a total population of 8 million people, and 6 million motorbikes. Needless to say, crossing the streets (I think we saw maybe two traffic lights) was a death defying stunt. The locals just walk right across but tourists aren't used to it. They can usually be spotted holding hands, running and dodging and loudly squealing. (Okay, that was me.) We saw some of the main sites, the Reunification Palace which has had several different names, this one marking the reunification of North and South Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, the main man. My knowledge of the Vietnam War (or, the American war as they call it locally) is shockingly inadequate, so I learned a lot, yet I feel I only scratched the surface of both the history and the country itself. The War Remnants Museum was particularly moving, it had loads of photographs of the war and its victims, and information on people who are still feeling the effects today from the use of chemical defoliants. The museum opened in 1975 as "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam". They changed the name once Vietnam and the Us normalized relations, however they don't attempt to be unbiased and it's been really interesting to hear the story of the war told by the other side. Beyond all the learning, mostly we did a lot of eating. Vietnamese food is amazing and cheap. I don't think I ever had a meal that wasn't delicious, and the best part of being in Asia foodwise is fresh fruit smoothies....mmmm.
After a few days in HCMC we hopped a tour to the Mekong Delta, the heart of Vietnam's rice production, and slept in a town along the Mekong. The next morning we saw the floating village nearby, which is made up of wooden and corrugated iron houses out on the lake. Many people live in them because they can't afford to buy property on land and so live on the water and make their living by raising fish. The rest of the day was spent on a series of boats and buses, making our way to the Cambodian border, and then onto Phnom Penh, the capital. Its also very busy here, lots of motorbikes and tuk-tuks, but the architecture is different. Because Vietnam was ruled by China for so long, the aesthetic is very Chinese, in the decorations and traditions. Cambodia was historically more under the influence of India and China, and there are more elaborate Thai-style temples here. So that's the news from here, I'll update again soon and post some photos once I remember to bring my camera cord with me. Today we saw about 5 monkeys hanging out on the telephone lines, then they came down and were eating food off the street. One of them found a half empty soda bottle, unscrewed it and dranak the rest of it! These monkeys were street savvy. And cute. And probably rabid, so I kept my distance, don't worry. I took lots of photos. Anyways, lots of love from Asia!
Mara
After a few days in HCMC we hopped a tour to the Mekong Delta, the heart of Vietnam's rice production, and slept in a town along the Mekong. The next morning we saw the floating village nearby, which is made up of wooden and corrugated iron houses out on the lake. Many people live in them because they can't afford to buy property on land and so live on the water and make their living by raising fish. The rest of the day was spent on a series of boats and buses, making our way to the Cambodian border, and then onto Phnom Penh, the capital. Its also very busy here, lots of motorbikes and tuk-tuks, but the architecture is different. Because Vietnam was ruled by China for so long, the aesthetic is very Chinese, in the decorations and traditions. Cambodia was historically more under the influence of India and China, and there are more elaborate Thai-style temples here. So that's the news from here, I'll update again soon and post some photos once I remember to bring my camera cord with me. Today we saw about 5 monkeys hanging out on the telephone lines, then they came down and were eating food off the street. One of them found a half empty soda bottle, unscrewed it and dranak the rest of it! These monkeys were street savvy. And cute. And probably rabid, so I kept my distance, don't worry. I took lots of photos. Anyways, lots of love from Asia!
Mara
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