Luang Prabang, Laos

Oh yeah, I am sooooooooooooo coming back here. By far my favorite place on the trip. This village in northern Laos is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is sleepy and laid back and absolutely perfect. I’ll let the pictures do the talking….

Siem Reap Cambodia - Angkor Wat

So we picked up a new “boy” in Siem Reap. Sam is Tan’s business partner in the Kingdomof Cambodia and will be joining us on the rest of our trip. Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat…and all I can say is…wow. I used to say, “you’ve seen one wat, you’ve seen them all”…not so much with this one. We only had the chance to spend the afternoon, but really - could easily have spent a few days around the grounds. Pretty impressive.

After going on two weeks of “the boys” watching over me - clucking like a bunch of hens, I was feeling pretty restless. So when the boys asked me if I wanted to go “have tea with the King” (translates to go drink with their buddies), I kindly passed to take a dip in the pool and yes, get another massage. Those darn knots in my shoulders - I can’t seem to get rid of them!

When they came to pick me up for dinner, I again begged off to go walk around the night market in Siem Reap. Tan started clucking, and Sam came to my rescue “Tan, she has traveled a lot. She will be fine. I think she is like the lion that wants to escape from the zoo for awhile”. EXACTLY!! So, after supporting the local economy a bit, I took a tuk-tuk back and all is well!

I think I’ll need to check myself into rehab when I get home to kick myself of my lemongrass tea habit. It’s going to be tough going cold turkey if I can’t find it at home.

"Cambodia smells better than Vietnam"...

"Tan, perhaps that's because you're standing under a giant Jasmine tree"....ah yes, we reached Cambodia today!

We left "the boys" at the border - they're driving the van back to Hanoi, so Tan and I left this morning and took a speedboat up the Mekong to Phnom Penh. It's a 5 hour trip - probably about 45 minutes of which were a couple of stops for immigration. But hey, take your sweet ol' time with my passport buddy, I'll just sit here in the nice breeze and smell the jasmine tree.

Taking a boat of the Mekong struck me kind of like a train going from Italy to Switzerland - when you got on in Italy, it was late and dirty and somehow, magically, when you crossed the border it was clean and on time. Same goes for the banks of the Mekong - Vietnam side was full of houses/shacks/etc - the minute we crossed over to Cambodia the banks were full of beautiful green fields and agriculture...

We spent the afternoon touring the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda and a few other sites around the city, after which I got dropped at "Lucky Foot Massage" while Tan went and did business things. Now, for those of you that are already in the gutter on the "Lucky" part of Foot Massage - after all, we are in Cambodia - it wasn't lucky, but it was fabulous and a whopping $7 for an hour. Tan is going to hook me up for an even better deal when we reach Siem Reap tomorrow - home of the Angkor Wat.

Hope all's well at home....xoxo dmt

More most excellent day photos

Dawn's Most Excellent Day

So, we left the hustle and bustle of Saigon to go down to the Mekong Delta - the very jungle -like region most people think of when they think of Vietnam. Our destination was a Homestay in Vinh Long.

A long drive got us into Vinh Long at about 11:00 p.m. and getting to the people’s home where we were staying was tons of fun. We parked the van, packed an overnight bag and headed to the ferry dock, where a river taxi took us across the Mekong River. A few of the men from the place were there to take us, so a quick point at me and gesture toward gentleman #1 had my keester on the back of a moto as we headed into the jungle down winding dirt paths. It was a beautiful night - clear sky, almost full moon, river inlets surrounding the path (and very narrow bridges - but hey, if I go, he goes - so just enjoy the ride I say).

We arrived, made the greetings, had tea and went to bed - the accommodations were almost identical to those we found on the trekking trails in Nepal. And sleep was lovely - we exchanged the honks of Saigon city traffic to crickets and oh yea, that coconut that fell on my tin roof in the middle of the night and scared the beejeebers out of me! My mosquito net kept the bugs out and I slept like a baby.

This morning I got to “help” our home stay lady, Mai, with her market errands, so at about 6:00 am we packed up the limes she had picked and were going to sell to one of the sellers at the market and we set off to the “bus stop”, which was basically a little dock a bit down the path. A little boat came and picked us up and brought us to the middle part of the river where we had to “transfer” to a bigger bus - this one was carrying other ladies on the way to the market with their goods - a big basket of ginger, some nummy looking plums, tomatoes, etc. They all killed themselves laughing with delight as I got on with Mai. We crossed the river and landed at the “wholesalers” side of the market - and got out. We bought some prawns, fish and some vegetables for lunch and also made our lime sale with an absolutely beautiful lady running a corner fruit and vegetable stand.

Mai headed back, and I wandered around the market and met up with the boys for coffee. After a bit, we caught a river taxi back and helped make lunch. Wow, quite the spread. One of the guys made amazing river boats out of cucumbers - I now am unworthy even to try to make radish roses - and a couple of women who work with Tan in the Mekong came and gave me a lesson in fried spring rolls. We had a blast, although some things are best left for the professionals!

The afternoon took us on a leisurely boat ride along the Mekong and eventually back to the dock where our van was waiting. An absolutely lovely day. Now off to Chao Doc on the border of Cambodia. I think we’re off to Phnom Penh tomorrow.

xoxo - and hope all is well with you. Wish you were here.

PS: Magic Food Find: Avocado Shakes - I know! Go figure - but delicious. I’ll try to recreate them when I get home and whip them up for anyone who is game!

DMZ

DMZ

First off, I should say that other than Tan, the boys don’t speak much English - so the majority of the discussion is in Vietnamese. Sometimes I know why I’m getting out of the van, and sometimes I don’t. It’s kind of good humor. Anyway, one day on our way down the coast, there was much talking and then we quickly pulled over, Nghia jumped out and bought a bottle of booze and a extra large pack of incense and jumped back in the car. Humm, I thought, I wonder what that’s all about? Is Nghia a meditation booze-hound? We carried on.

In a bit we came to the 17th parallel - aka the DMZ or former dividing line between North and South Korea. We stopped at the bridge - it had arches on both ends . As soon as we got out, a very stern voice came out of these massive bullhorns attached to a government looking building. Basically they were saying “Send us your leader and state your business”. We promptly dispatched Nghia and continued on with our picture taking.

Back in the van and further down the road, again, much conversation and a quick pull over next to some village ladies. This time Chao jumps out of the van, talks, gestures, jumps back in and proceeds to tell Hiep to get on down the road, so we do.

A short time and many conversations and gestures later, we pull over to a cemetery. Now, we had passed many along the way, so I wasn’t really sure what was going on, and when we got out of the van, along with the booze and incense, the mystery became too much and I asked Tan about it.

One of Chao’s relatives died in the war and his remains were recently identified. He is buried in this cemetery so we were stopping to pay homage.

We went to the main part of the cemetery and lit the whole pack of incense, said some prayers and then split up the incense. Chao and Nghia went off to find the grave, Tan started putting a stick of incense on each tombstone.

Giving them some privacy, I wandered around the cemetery and thought it was curious that all of the tombstones were exactly the same. Other cemeteries we had passed looked much like ours. Different shaped headstones, some mausoleums, etc. Hummm. Walking around, I quickly realized… 1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972...1972.…every…single…one. As tears were streaming down my eyes Tan came up and was telling me that this area was the site of some of the worst fighting in the war, with rivers turned red with blood and farmers still unearthing remains to this day. It is customary to light an incense stick on the grave and pour some liquor symbolizing that we are buying the young men a drink.

It immediately brought back the feelings I had as I’ve paid homage to other places of great tragedy and loss of life in this world like the beaches of Normandy and Auschwitz. This place wasn’t majestic - these cemeteries aren’t national monuments, they are so much more humble in what they speak. These are simple, community cemeteries that are found along side the roads and outside of villages, the same places our cemeteries are found, marking the loss of family and friends. In some ways I’m so glad we stopped, in others I hate that there are these places on the planet. All political viewpoints aside, this must have been a heart wrenchingly horrible place to be in 1972.

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