still Luang Prabang

In the morning we got up before 6 am and went outside the hotel to see the procession. We are at the beginning of the route so only monks from one temple participate at this point. As they go, monks from other temples join in. They walk in a single row, silently in their orange robes and stop to collect rice that people put out for them. The rule is that you cannot be higher than the months so people leave the rice and then sit on little chairs or on the curb. Then we took a “slow” boat up the Mekong river for an hour to go to the caves that local people have been using for worship. The trip was actually more interesting than the caves. It was very scenic with mountains and hills on both banks of this very wide river. There were 6 people on our boat. The caves were disappointing. One had hundreds of Buddha images of different sizes and shapes brought in by worshippers, and the other, some hundreds steps higher was so dark that you could not see anything at all.
Back in town we visited some temples and silk galleries and had dinner in a great small restaurant that serves contemporary Lao food. The owners come and explain what each food is and how to eat it. The restaurant also has a nonprofit organization that supports local farming and a cooking school where people can learn about Lao foods and spices.
Next day we took a trip to Kwang Si waterfalls in a minivan. The falls are about 25 km from Luang Prabang. It was terribly hot in town when we were leaving, but by the waterfalls, it was pleasantly cool. There are three designated “pools” there where people can go in and try to swim. The water is cold and the current strong, not to mention that the ground is muddy and slippery so swimming is a stretch, but dipping in was surely very nice. The waterfalls themselves are immense and very impressive On the way back we stopped in a Hmong village – shabby looking wooden houses, but color TVs inside.As we’ve done every evening, we went to the night market where we met a group of young people from Poland. They came to LP by boat from Thailand. After a bit of shopping, we had a delicious dinner of Lao food in the second best hotel in town, a former palace of prince Souvannaphoum. The food was fantastic, the service impeccable, the setting beautiful and the bill was less than $20 – including drinks, service and tax.

Luang Prabang

In the morning, we took a two-engine propeller plane from Hanoi to Luang Prabang. When we got off the plane it was pouring and the airport personnel waited for us on the airfield with a bunch of umbrellas. It poured and poured all day and all night.
Luang Prabang is an amazing little town, a former capital of Laos established in the 14th century, it has about 30 temples with hundreds of monks who continue the same ancient traditions. The town also has a lot of lovely colonial buildings. It is set between two rivers and surrounded by mountains.
We walked around in the rain, had some excellent Lao beer and soup, and then went to the night market, which is huge and amazing. Supposedly it’s one of the best crafts markets in southeast Asia. You see women dressed in their ethnic costumes selling crafts from their villages – mostly silk (some hand woven) and cotton. Some stuff is quite beautiful. There is also a lot of silver --- designs that I have not seen anywhere else, hand made bamboo paper products and lots of “Beer Lao” T-shirts which are a real hit among tourists. It’s hard to resist the shopping frenzy, but you have to bargain hard to get a good deal.
This morning, we missed the daily monk procession at 6 am because it was still pouring, but after breakfast the sun came out and we walked along the Mekong and then took a tuk tuk to a day market about 1.5 km out of town. The market was disappointing. The most interesting part was the fruit and vegetable market with all the exotic stuff that we couldn’t even name. Then we visited a local ethnography museum and learned about local minority groups and their costumes, customs and crafts. Al really got into it… We also went to a store/gallery operated by the local weavers’ cooperative and admired their beautiful silk creations.

Ha Tay day two

A typhoon hit the area. It poured overnight but the brunt hit Ha Long (1 ½ days after we left).
We have become accustomed to the crazy drive and no longer get nervous about all the people we almost kill. Bo made a presentation to 50 students and faculty. They first sang to us. They are extremely polite and appreciative. We were informed that lunch would be on campus. A small room with the 5 of us at one table. Strange food. The local hootch this time was a liter bottle of Vietnamese vodka. After 10 rounds it appeared we would stop but they said one last. Then they said the guest should pour the last. I filled all glasses to the lip, killing the liter bottle. The 3 college officers were incoherent, but I was OK. Of course I ate 3 times the amount of food I normally would to absorb all the alcohol.
The ride back (the driver does not join us for lunch) included a stop in a city/village that contained hundreds of silk shops (selling and manufacturing). The guild system appears to be extant. Streets and areas seem to specialize. The 4 blocks around our hotel contain about 500 shoe shops. Other streets are also specialized – streets with lots of electronics; streets with one large appliance store after another, etc. They dropped us off at 3:30 and said they would pick us up at 4:45 for dinner. The drive to dinner took an hour through Hanoi traffic. A shortcut through dark small alleys was spooky. Dinner was in a restaurant with a dedicated room for us. There were 20 from the college. Heads of each department. They each wanted to drink a toast with me individually (NO WAY). Strange food. First was small bird (fist size ) with head and feet, then tofu, then morning glory, then small beef and cold French fries, then fried corn kernels, then pickled greens, then fried shrimp, then soup, and finally they brought rice and French bread with butter and sugar. Dessert was logans.Overall, a great visit. People are great and very eager to collaborate with ECC.

Ha Tay College

Highlight of the trip so far. We visited Ha Tay community college. We were picked up at the hotel at 7 am in a real sedan. The drive to the college was 1 hour (40 km) and the traffic is unbelievable. Thousands of motorbikes and bicycles fighting with hundreds of cars for space on the road. Beautiful campus on 70 hectares. They have 3000 students. We were greeted with 2 enormous floral arrangements. Met with 6 senior officers. At the meeting they served us coffee so strong that one sip almost killed us. Then we toured the campus. We visited an English class. Everything is high tech. Classes all have computers and overhead projectors.
After touring the campus in 95 degree heat and 100% humidity, we were driven to a neighboring town for lunch. It was a real cultural experience.
The setting was a gazebo in the pretty back garden. Included in the lunch was sticky rice cooked and served inside a bamboo shaft. You peel the bamboo to get at the rice. Also fried small birds including head and feet. Also bamboo, morning glory, some kind of meat (sometimes it’s better not to ask), sticky rice inside a fried shell (looked like an egg roll), peanuts, boiled chicken (rubber tough), a dish of mixed green herbs that were supposed to have medicinal properties (one tasted like fish), and a green vegetable that looked like honey dew wedges but had no taste but interesting texture. They offered me “local wine”. I originally passed but they said it is traditional to get the guest drunk. It was local moonshine (from plastic bottles) but not bad. It was served in shot glasses and I kept up with them (about 8 shots). Dessert was papaya and strong tea which was undrinkable. All things considered, it was a nice lunch (the Heineken was good).
After lunch they took us back to the school, put us in a room and told us to take a nap. We didn’t. At 2 pm, Bo made a presentation to the students and teachers about Global Education Through Technology. They may become a partner next semester.
The drive back to the hotel was just as harrowing as the other direction. The number of near collisions is amazing.

Ha Long Bay

We took a 3 hour bus to Halong city then onto an old Chinese Junk (actually built 3 years ago). There were 9 cabins – we had one with twin beds. Halong bay is the most amazing geological formations I have ever seen. And it has become quite a tourist attraction. In addition to our 9 cabin sleeper there were 499 others like it – and countless day boats. The harbor was densely packed with ships. However, the bay is so large, once out of the harbor there is little traffic. We cruised for an hour then went kayaking. Dinner on the ship.
Next day we changed boats and then then cruised to Cat Ba island. The plan was to bike 3 miles each way and hike in the forest in between, but Bo and I motorbiked instead. It was a bit scary at first because the road was narrow, up and down and very uneven and shifting gears took some practice. On the road we came across a herd of mountain goats. They posed for a picture. Then, back on the boat and around the island. We anchored near a tiny island called Monkey Island with a small secluded beach and went swimming off the ship to the beach. It was spectacular. After the swim, we cruised into Cat Ba town and checked into our air conditioned hotel. We were all exhausted from the heat and humidity.
Cat Ba town is a little resort town, which was very quiet at the moment. Not many tourists there. It is a nice option for staying on the beach for a few days because hotels are inexpensive, beaches are beautiful and there is Cat Ba national park right there to explore. We discovered that there are high speed boats from Haiphong linked to buses to/from Hanoi. The whole trip takes 4 hours and only costs 200,000 dong (about $14). It’s a good option instead taking an organized cruise.
After walking up and down the town and a good dinner with three German and one French cruisemates, we enjoyed our air conditioned room.
In the morning, a bus took us across the island to another harbor, from which we took yet another boat to Ha Long city and then back to crazy Hanoi. We got lucky at the hotel because they gave us a huge room this time so we’ve got lots of space to spread out our stuff for the next 3 days.

Hanoi

Flew from Hue to Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines. Very nice airline. Efficient and on time. Hanoi is very different from other places we’ve been. We are in ‘old quarter’ which is jammed with people. Really jammed – very narrow streets packed with motorbikes, occasional cars and crowds of people trying to walk in between all the traffic because the sidewalks are either blocked with parked motorbikes or makeshift “restaurants” with plastic tables and chairs. There are many street vendors walking around trying to sell fruit, books, postcards and other souvenir items. This must be shoppers’ paradise because there is store after store with all kinds of Vietnamese stuff – silk, lacquer, wicker, silver, etc. Actually, every street in the old quarter was owned by some guild and only their items were sold there so streets still “specialize”. Our hotel has no elevator and we are on the fifth floor. We walked around the lake. Walking here is much easier than Saigon.This morning we took a walk through the French quarter – wide boulevards, beautiful buildings, huge trees making the streets nice and shady in this relentless heat. We also visited the famous Hoa Lo prison built by the French. Saw John McCain’s pictures there. He was captured somewhere not far from it.

Hue again

During our evening walk we passed a large colonial-style building complex and inquired as to its nature. A young lady said it was a high school. Then she invited us to her office and explained that she was running a language school and advising center for students who want to study abroad. Bo gave her card to her and mentioned the hotel we were staying at. At 8pm the phone in the room rang and the young lady was adamant about meeting us for breakfast. We passed on the breakfast but she said she would pick us up at the hotel at 8. We had a very productive meeting with her and 3 colleagues from the private school/business. They are very interested in growing.

Hue Forbidden City

We finally got a nice breakfast this morning: omelets, fresh fruit, fresh breads and good coffee. Then off to the royal palace – the Forbidden City. It’s not nearly as old as the Beijing’s. It was built at the beginning of the 19th century, and much of it was destroyed in the 60s during the war. It’s still quite impressive and beautiful with all its decay. It’s big too – 6 square kilometers. Pictures describe it better. It’s as big as my home city, Villa Park. The morning sun and heat are brutal.

Train to Hue

This morning we packed all our belongings yet again and went to the Danang train station to take the train to Hue. We managed to buy two "reserved" seat tickets for a "soft seat" car –for $3 a piece. Immediately after we got to the station some old guy, a porter grabbed our suitcases, put them on a little cart and positioned them together with us in the waiting room until it was time to get on the train. Once the train was announced, he grabbed the cart and us and ran to the right carriage, dragged both heavy suitcases into the car and onto the rack. How a tiny little old guy could do this all by himself, OK with a little help from Al…
The train must have been quite nice in its heyday, but now quite faded. Again, we were the only foreigners on the train, which was even printed on our $3 ticket. The ride was very scenic, beautiful view of the coast almost all the way. During the three hour ride to Hue, a woman with a huge pot full of hard boiled eggs came twice and another one selling coffee and other drinks also came twice. It should be mentioned that our ticket included a free bottle of water.
We checked into our lovely hotel, which we booked through Expedia. It appears to be an unbelievable bargain – a 4-start hotel with great amenities for $47/night.

Danang Again

We went to dinner in town. Walked through the local market. They sell everything imaginable. Lots of fabric and tailors. When we want an alternative to Vietnamese food we get pizza. So far we have had 3 pizzas and they were all excellent. Walking through Danang we saw several stunning modern buildings, and many others that were just being started. In a few years this city will be unrecognizable. It’ll look just like Shanghai or Rio. Gone will be the hundreds of makeshift little "restaurants" that get set up on street corners every evening with little plastic tables and chairs that look like kindergarten chairs and portable wood burning grills. An Australian couple we befriended in our ghastly hotel told us that that they saw a lot of rats lurking just inches from the food. Luckily, we didn’t look close enough so we didn’t see any.
China Beach comes alive in the evening. Lots of people swimming, playing ball, couples necking. We discovered hundreds of shower stalls by the beach where people come to clean up after work. Most fishermen here use small round boats made of wicker (like big baskets) and sealed with tar.

China Beach

Today was a sunny day so after a trip to Vietnamese airlines to buy a ticket from Hue to Hanoi, and the train station to buy a ticket from Danang to Hue, we decided to go to the beach. This area (China Beach) is a very strange place. It’s like somebody started developing it and never finished. There is a beautiful 4-lane divided road that goes straight to the beach, the beach promenade is gorgeous – paved with pretty stones, with green grass lawns, palm trees, etc. The beach is spectacular --- white, clean sand, mountains on each side, warm clear South China sea … and that’s it. No people, no beach services other than a few dilapidated umbrellas rented by a bunch of young boys. We were the only people on the beach as far as the eye can see (for miles). After a few relaxing hours under a beach umbrella, we went to lunch to one of the fish restaurants. Again --- a beautiful place, ocean view and we were the only ones there. China Beach is the opposite of Hoi An, for sure.

Lying on the beach, we saw this amazing thing in the sky: the sun encircled by a rainbow. It was astonishing. We googled it when we got back to the hotel. It’s called a 22 degree halo.

Hoi An

We took the free shuttle to Hoi An since there were only 5 Furama residents on the bus – a Japanese family and a young Scandinavian couple. It was about a 25-minute ride along the coast. We were shocked by the number and size of the hotels/resorts in construction along the way. Clearly, they plan to convert this piece of coast into a prime tourist location. Hoi An is a small former fishing village where old (mostly 16th-17th century) merchant houses and tea rooms were converted to gift stores and restaurants. The town has a feel of a touristy beach community without the beach. It’s like a Vietnamese showcase for foreigners. The guidebook says that it’s like a Vietnamese pavilion in Disneyworld and it’s quite an accurate description. The most interesting part are the 5 Chinese assembly halls and the Japanese covered bridge. It was 100 degrees and no air conditioning anywhere. We wilted in the heat.

Danang day 1

This must rank as one of the most bizarre experiences we’ve had so far. We asked Bach where we should stay on central coast --- Hoi An, Danang or Hue. Without a second hesitation, he recommended Danang and the Sandy Beach hotel. Unfortunately it was fully booked so he recommended another one --- the Golden Sea hotel and that’s how we ended up in hotel from hell.
The hotel entrance is a flight of steps from the street and one has to carry luggage up the steps (no help or ramp). The room is nice, but that’s it. We went to the restaurant in the evening – it was dark and we were the only one there. A girl appeared and turned on the lights and brought us a menu. We left. Breakfast buffet was bad. The only edible was peanut butter and jelly and Wonderbread toast. We went to dinner at a seafood restaurant on the beach. Bo ordered shrimp for one person holding up one finger. We think their response was one shrimp. After much hand waving someone said 200 grams (about 7 oz.) and we agreed. She got one shrimp the size of a large German sausage. Largest shrimp we have ever seen.
September 14 is lunar festival (full moon) so there were groups of kids going around dressed in traditional costumes. They had big drums making lots of noise. One of these groups performed right in front of our hotel.
We also went to the most expensive beach resort (Furama) 2 miles away. They have a shuttle to Hoi An. We asked if non guests could pay to go. They replied “no” but if there is room you can go free.

Cambodia Summary

Lots of surprises. Right at the border from Vietnam there are about 10 big beautiful Las Vegas style hotel-casinos. One was named Las Vegas. The countryside shows the agrarian economy with rice fields and cattle. There was so much water everywhere – houses standing in water, cattle grazing in water, people walking in mud… We don’t know if it’s always this way or only during the rainy season. Their rainy season is long and it rains a lot. In Phnom Penh more people speak understandable English than in Saigon, not to mention other places in Vietnam where you can’t communicate at all. Everywhere we went, people were kind and helpful, and even when you refused to buy anything from them, they joked and smiled. The cities (we only visited 2) are nice. Wide streets and nowhere near as crowded as Saigon. Long distance busses stop for food about every 2 hours even though people have bags of food when they get on the bus.

The town of Siem Reap

A few years ago, it must have been a small, sleepy town, but now this town is growing at an astonishing rate. Angkor Wat has become a huge tourist attraction particularly for tourists from all over Asia. The number of hotels is unbelievable and still more enormous, opulent hotels are being built. This is probably the last moment to see Angkor Wat without being put through a tourist circus. The driver who took us to the airport said that during the height of the season, in November and December, all the hotels are fully booked and people without a prior reservation are roaming the streets trying to find a place for the night. The town itself is quite pretty and has many attractive restaurants and cafes. One of them, called the Red Piano was frequented by Angelina Jolie when they filmed Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider in Angkor Wat. They still serve a cocktail named after her and have her picture in the menu. Outside of town is typical Cambodian countryside-- lots of wetlands and poor living conditions. In town and even more so in the archaeological site, there are hords of kids trying to sell postcards, books, scarves and other local stuff. They are pretty good at that. They latch on to you and will talk you to death until you give in and buy. One young girl had diamond ring. Another produced tears which they said was caused by not purchasing anything. One child asked Bo where she was from and when Bo replied Poland the girl quickly said “capital Warsaw”. Another child insisted that if I buy the item, my wife will love me forever. Another child challenged us to name a country and if she did know the capital we would buy something. Cambodian (Khmer) women are very lovely, with beautiful faces and graceful bodies. The main means of local transportation both in Phnom Penh and in Siem Reap is the tuk tuk, there are no taxis.

Angkor Wat

We got a day tour of Angkor Wat with another couple from New York and an “English-speaking” guide. We guess he was speaking English even though we could understand very little of what he was saying. We learned more by reading the guide book… Anyway, the place is amazing. It is the largest religious site in the world, build in the 10th and 11th centuries it is remarkably well preserved. You walk and drive among these monumental buildings and see the nature slowly reclaiming them with trees growing out of the stones. Even with the crowds coming in, we were almost alone in parts of it. There is no point in describing it --- pictures don’t really tell the whole story either. It just needs to be experienced. Extreme heat and 150% humidity doesn’t help, but it’s worth the effort.

Bus Ride

The bus ride through Cambodia
We didn’t realize what we got ourselves into when we booked a tour from Saigon to Angkor Wat which included a bus ride from Saigon to Phnom Penh and then from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The first leg was nice and we had a nice stay in Phnom Penh. The second leg was bizarre. We were the only non-locals on the bus and this should have told us something. Strange experiences started right after we left or even before. Because the bus was full and they wanted to accommodate everybody, they just added plastic chairs in the aisle. Then we heard this constant ringing noise for about an hour that turned out to be somebody’s alarm clock that they didn’t know how to operate. The driver finally turned it off himself. On top of that, what was supposed to be a direct bus included two stops for food in roadside shacks/restaurants and one additional “restroom” stop – only there was no restroom so everybody just got off and did their business right on the side of the bus. As we got closer to Siem Reap, we also stopped several times to let passengers out, which involved opening the bus luggage compartment and sometimes emptying it to get to that passenger’s sacks and then loading it all back. All this took excruciatingly long, but we eventually got to Siem Reap and a very nice hotel.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh, Cambodia is like two cities in one --- the tropical colonial city with wide boulevards, glorious though faded buildings, lovely streets with mansions hidden behind walls covered by thick and lush tropical vegetation. There are beautiful and very sophisticated restaurants and bars with distinctly European (mostly French) flavor. The other Phnom Penh is like Saigon, but poorer, dirtier, with piles of garbage on the sidewalks and mud everywhere. When we were there, there was a downpour so streets became flooded and sidewalks impassable. The area around the royal palace is beautiful, the dominant color is orange/gold with the golden palace roofs, orangey bricks of the square in front of the palace and the orange robes of the many, many Buddhist monks that walk the streets from the Buddhist university and numerous wats and temples.

Saigon summary

Population of Saigon is 8 million and there are 5 million motor bikes and motor scooters (No motor cycles over 150cc). They are packed densely everywhere. They drive the wrong way on one way streets and on the sidewalks. Crossing the street anywhere is an adventure since there are no breaks in the traffic flow. Bo and I lock arms and she looks one way and I look the other and we thread the needle through the motorbikes. It appears that the whole city lives outside. The sidewalks are always jammed with people sitting - either selling, eating, talking or playing. There are many very good restaurants and hotels. This city never quits --- days, nights, weekdays, weekends--- there is almost no difference in the level of activity. Even before a day market closes, a night market opens right by it in the streets and the trading goes on. Food is being cooked in the streets and served right there on plastic tables/chairs set up and dismantled every evening. There are English schools everywhere. English is huge business all over Asia. Everybody wants to learn English and people are willing to pay for it even if they are poor.

Day 7 Monday 9/8

Meeting with Hung in SAMEO RETRAC --- Teaching English is a big industry in Southeast Asia. SAMEO is a large organization in 11 countries. He took us to lunch at a regional Vietnamese restaurant serving Hue style food. A lot of strange stuff – double and triple wrapped in banana leaves

Here is Bo incognito trying to get the non tourist local prices.

Houses here are very bizarre. They are tall and very narrow even if there is tons of land around. Maybe they are taxed by how wide the house is. We have to ask. The answer is that land frontage is very expensive.

Here is Al earning money to allow us to continue our trip.

Mekong Delta

All day tour on the Mekong. Traveled by bus, motor boat, donkey cart, row boat. Big brown river. Visited honey manufacture, coconut candy manufacture. We saw “local people” (that’s what our guide kept saying) making rice paper and singing local songs. At some point we wandered away from the group and ended up in a little hut with two old people having a Sunday siesta – in their one room house with a dirt floor. Their teeth were black from smoking. We befriended a young couple from Toledo Spain who spoke almost no English and of course no Vietnamese… only Spanish. Gutsy…they were traveling in Vietnam and Cambodia on their own.

The motorbike ride was actually very nice. Both Bach and Chung are very experienced riders so it wasn’t scary at all. We first went to a large fair--- arts and crafts, bonsai… and a booth for Bach’s school with a huge sign “El Camino College”. Then, we rode to an all you can eat lobster dinner at a hotel downtown. We ate a ton of lobster, shrimp, lox, lamb, steak, scallops … and hundreds of desserts.

Hong Kong and Saigon

Day 3


There was no day 2, we crossed the international date line. An 8 hour layover in Hong Kong was exhausting. The buildings are spectacular. The airport shuttle was efficient and terminated in a very large shopping mall, the Elements Plaza. It is in the bottom floors of the red towers (picture) . Walked till we dropped. After 33 hours of travel we arrived at our first hotel. Saigon is an insanely busy city. The traffic is unbelievable. Hundreds of cars and thousands of motorbikes. Unregulated chaos, but it works. The motor bikes drive the wrong way on one way streets and on the sidewalks.


Nowhere in world is like this. Still pictures cannot capture it. Pictures cannot describe the traffic chaos. Watch youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dqibvh96Og
Bach, the director of American Preparatory Institute and his girlfriend took us to dinner, real Vietnamese food. Lots of dishes we have not had at home. I am getting proficient with chopsticks.

Day 4 Friday 9/5
The Market is immense and packed with vendors and people. We bought all kinds of fruits –mangosteens, rambutans, lychees and dragon fruit. The hotel breakfast is a real adventure, too. NO COFFEE! Pho soup or eggs… We had to buy a coffemaker at the market so we can have coffee when we wake up. We bargained it down to about half of the starting price.
Went to lunch in a place recommended by guide book. It was wonderful. The food here is outstanding.
Went to the University of Economics and Finance and met with the director and assistant director. It is a start up organization (2 years) in old French colonial buildings.
Went to dinner in same great restaurant. The menu is so varied and they have separate cooking areas it is as if it is many different places. And very inexpensive. And mobbed. Long lines to get in if you arrive after 6 pm.

Day 5 Sat. 9/6
Had a morning tour of HCMC arranged by Dr. Hung. Saw parts of the city we would never find ourselves. Went to an exclusive neighborhood that looked like La Jolla. 5000 sq. ft. mansions. There is no indication of Communism here.

We booked 2 tours with Sinh Café travel agency. The first is a 4 day trip to Ankor Wat; the second is a one day trip on the Mekong river. Booked a flight on JetStar airlines to DaNang. A new Aussie start up with cheap fares. Went to Highland coffee for the second time. Nice place. Had a meeting at National University of Vietnam. We missed the afternoon downpour – again. Yesterday we were in the Market, today in a cab to NUV. Now on to a motorbike ride with Bach and Chung. Hopefully, we’ll survive. Check back to see if this is updated!!