Keith and Lacey

I had a flashback today about Ko Phi Phi.  It came into my head while listening to a new song called “Swim” by Jack’s Mannequin.  The lyric, “I found a tidal wave begging to tear down the dawn,” triggered my memory of Ko Phi Phi.  This island was devastated by a tsunami on December 26, 2004, about 8 months before I showed up.  So I had this random thought about Ko Phi Phi and Googled it to look at pictures or whatever and ended up on Wikipedia where I read this:

As of 2009, Phi-phi Islands are under investigation after two tourists, one American girl, Jill St. Onge and one Norwegian Tourist, Julie Michelle Berghiem mysteriously died while staying at the Laleena Guesthouse. Their cause of death is unknown, however alcohol, drugs, and food poisoning have been all ruled out of the case. Tourists are strongly urged against traveling to Phi-phi Islands without knowledge of the potential dangers.

Whoa, what?  Apparently, they developed a cough, along with their roommates (Jill’s roommate being her fiance, Ryan Kells) and were dead within 12 hours.  This site is tracking progress, or lack or progress, on the investigation.  If you want to experience something haunting, read her last blog and the comments following it.

When I was there, I was taught how to scuba dive from an instructor named Cole Mansfield of Barakuda Dive Center.  (There’s some pictures of Barakuda along with the owner soon after the tsunami about 2/3 of the way down the page here; I was told he’s the most amazing diver cuz he’s like a seal.. ha).  I found another haunting link, which looks like a list of survivors that was posted right after the tsunami.  Notice Cole is listed.

Strange and tragic.

I guess the only picture I have of Cole is his bare back.

The owner of Barakuda (”the seal”) taking a nap.

The water level reached in this cafe.

The strip that was devastated.

I was in the middle of reading about request scope in Dependecy Injection, a software developer nerdbook, when this flashback entered my brain and now I’ve spent most of my morning reading and thinking about these Ko Phi Phi tragedies.  It’s hard to go back and concentrate on work after bumping the emotion button.

Well, I’m already back in the Singapore airport blogging from the same Pacific Coffee Company computer that I did a month ago. A month? It feels like it’s been a single day but two years at the same time. I remember riding the 10 baht slow train in Bangkok like it was yesterday but I remember Tonle Sap and the 3 dollar room on the river lake at Phnom Penh like it was years ago.

Sadly, we had to leave the beautiful water, coral, and fishes of Phi Phi behind. It was not near as sad for me as another bloke we met though. Originally from England but living in Spain for 7 years, he’d now been traveling and scuba diving for 7 months. He fell in love with a blond girl who was also traveling and they’d been together for the last 3 months. We met them the night before departing and he said he’d see us on the boat the next day as he was leaving too. As we boarded the next morning, he said, “this one’s gonna be a tear jerker.” They held each other up until the last second and from then on the tears freely flowed. Total heart break. When Danica asked him when he’d see her again, he turned his head and said, “Never.”

The hour and a half boat ride from Phi Phi is a sad one even after only being there for a week. It gives you all this time to sit and think and watch the islands fade away. Danica let her mp3 player soak her ears and, since I don’t have portable music, I softly sang every song I could think of to pass the time and memories. The van ride in Phuket to the airport was not suicidal this time so we safely made it there and caught our flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Another passport stamp! At the KL airport we taxied to the distant bus station and barely caught a bus to Johor Bahru. It was the nicest bus yet! Only a few horn honks! Ahhhhhh, much more peaceful. Along the way, we stopped at a hawker-style restaurant area and I ate some much needed food, teriyaki chicken, fish cakes with sweet chili sauce, a no-meat hot bun roll thing, some tapioca crackers, a Milo candy bar, and a Vanilla Coke. Danica called Mr. Chua, the gracious and hospitable man who she and her parents spent a bunch of time with on the first half of her trip. A poor phone connection led Mr. Chua to think we were already in Johor Bahru but luckily they waited and searched for us at the bus station for an hour or two until we actually arrived.

To our delight, he put us up at his brother’s incredible resort, Pulai Springs, home to a 5-star Chinese Restaurant and a world-renowned golf course. I felt U.S. clean for the first time since leaving; I didn’t even bother to use hand sanitizer. The rooms we stayed in are $250 a night rooms with beautiful dark wood walls and floors in the main room and marble floors and lots of mirrors in the bathroom. The bathroom reminded me of the old Chavez residence. I slept in until 10 am this morning and then breakfast’d at Glen Eagles, the other awesome restaurant at Pulai Springs Resort, with Mr. and Mrs. Chua and some friends of theirs. One of their friends is a Malaysian man who used to have a part in the kingdom. Apparently, in the city he lives all the friends lost out some years ago and there hasn’t been meetings there since. He told us this morning how he misses the meetings and has never felt anything like them in other churches he has visited. I think if there was a meeting where he lives, he would go. I hope he has an opportunity to revive his committment. As for the food, we had nasi lemak, the traditional Malaysian breakfast, “carrot cake,” and an omelet. I don’t want to try and describe nasi lemak or carrot cake but I bet Danica did in her blog about a month and a half ago if you’re interested. I’ll just say nasi lemak is not breakfast like we think of and carrot cake is not cake.

The rest of the day I spent lounging by the pools, sitting in a steam room, lifting weights, watching The Interpreter in the resort’s Cineplex, eating chicken satay with peanut sauce and chocolate banana cake and drinking Milo, hanging out listening to The Rubatos and watching English football (soccer), and finally eating another traditional Malaysian dish, some of Danica’s lasagna, some cheesecake, and a Tutti Frutti Ice Cream bowl.

Three pools sit right next to each other. One has a waterslide built into rock, one is an Olympic size or close lap pool, and the other has large boulers lying about. Upstairs in the Sports Centre you have your choice of a good-sized weight room, the spa area complete with 2 jacuzzis, 2 saunas, 2 steam rooms, and a bunch of rinse-off showers. A therapy healing massage area lives upstairs as well which Danica partook in. The locker room downstairs is the nicest locker room I’ve ever been in. Also reminiscent of the former Aunt Debbie abode, it has shiny black floor tiling, healthy dark wood doors, and a large entrance area with comfy chairs. It felt really nice to lift weights for some reason; maybe a taste of home and normalcy? I tried some I’ve always found awkward, the hip/butt ones where you sit normal but your legs start spread and you squeeze them together, and the opposite of that too. That probably doesn’t make sense but it’s probably enough for me to remember and that’s the main reason for this blog anyway.

I haven’t watched too much futbol/soccer but the few times I have I’ve gotten to like it much more and enjoyed it this afternoon, especially while listening to The Rubatos. They’re a five-peop cover band from the Phillipines with a guy on synth keyboard, a guy on guitar, and 3 ladies in black respectable black fish-net singing. They covered everything from sappy Classy 99.9 to Englebert Humperdink to Backstreet Boys to Tom Petty, all performed in their synthie smooth jazzy Phillipino glory. As for the Cineplex, I pretty much had my own private theater. The wide screen I saw upon entering made me think I’d be seeing a wide screen version like in the U.S. but they stuck with the Asian style of motion pictures, copied illegal versions. I’m pretty sure every single CD and DVD they sell in Asia is an illegal copy. This version was especially sweet with Malaysian subtitles, a time counter at the top, and it wasn’t even the final polished edition. It was raw scene cuts like you see on deleted scenes on DVDs. So even though I was out the third world developing country environment and in a nice fancy resort, I was assured that I wasn’t back home.

After all 3 giant meals of wonderful food today courteous to Mr. Chua, he still had sandwiches made up for us and Cokes so we’d have food for our overnight airport stay here in Singapore! He and his wife are so generous! It’s almost 3 am now, only an hour until we can check in, but I’m still totally packed full. I did just finish a tall Cafe Mocha, which even though we’re in a developed country like U.S. tastes nothing like Starbucks and lovely PAML Cafe mochas I’m used to. Earlier I joked with the D that our Pulai Springs care package may be our Thursday morning convention breakfast but it’s looking more to me like my joke may become true. As much I was foodless when I blogged from here at the start of the journey, I am now foodmuch’d.

I guess I’m out of words at the moment and we’re leaving to check in very shortly so I’ll stop and call it good. This is it, my last words from the other side of Earth. Kinda sad that any more words on this blog will come from home. But I’m definitely ready for a little home-time. I’m sure a week will be enough though! I’ve learned massive heaps on this trip and plan to use it on future ones! Thanks to all who have read my bloggage (rhymes with cloggage, hmm) and I hope it wasn’t too boring and I didn’t repeat the word “awesome” too much. I do plan on editing and refining the blog off and on, hopefully removing some of the awesomes and making it perhaps more readable. In any case, it will get filled with appropriate photos to supplement the words so watch for that! I’m sure the photos will do way more in describing my experiences than my words can. BUT, as Danica likes to quote, “A picture is worth a thousand words but being there is worth a million.” So don’t just live vicariously through me, get out and do it yourself! (Those who are able of course). Don’t you wish I had something thoughtful and moving to leave you with as a final Asia Tour statement? Well I don’t, so how about: I have to go catch a plane ride home.

Keith

p.s. Is home where it was when I left? If home is where your heart is, where is my heart? Is it in Cambodia? Is it in Viet Nam? Is it in Thailand? Is it in Spokane? To be shallow and literal, my heart is in my chest. Is my home in my chest? What chest am I talking about? The chest on my body or my hope chest? But I don’t have a hope chest. So I must be talking about the chest on my body. So my home is in my chest on my body where my heart is. Doesn’t that mean my home is wherever I am? Doesn’t that mean my home is right here right now, in the moment? I think so, my home is in this moment. This small instant digital sample of life. The moment.

I’m feeling great after 2 dives and a 5 dollar one hour Thai massage. I am officially certified to dive to 30 meters now. It’s no big deal really, you just have to make sure you conservatively follow the RDP (Recreational Dive Planner) and do a 5 meter safety stop. The RDP is a chart you use to plan your dive times to make the risk of running out of air or getting decompression sickness (the bends, basically) very low. The 5 meter safety stop is another tool to make the risk very low. You just keep yourself at 5 meters below the surface for 3 minutes before surfacing. No big deal, just remember to do it and make sure you have enough air in your tank to do it.

We looked for leopard sharks, which sit at the bottom and have no teeth, but the visibility was a little low so we didn’t see any. We did see lionfish (spiky and gnarly), trumpetfish (long and pipelike), yellowtail clownfish (black with 2 white vertical stripes and yellow fins), a moray eel (not electric) opening and closing its mouth as they do, and a nice cluster of 4 or 5 lobster hiding out under some coral. It’s cool going down to 30 meters because as you start to ascend the colors of everything becomes more pronounced and vivid. All of a sudden the fish are bright blue and yellow and the coral is green and purple and orange cream.

Another cool thing we saw is maybe a distant relative of starfish. If you cut them in half you get 2 instead of killing. The shape is kind of sun-like with 50 or more points, it’s black on the outside and bright purple in the middle, and hundreds of sharp spikes stick out on the top of it for protection. According to my instructor, Dennis from Switzerland, it eats and destroys the coral and the spikes that stick out of it are quite poisonous. Someone he knows pricked a finger accidentally once and he couldn’t bend it for 3 days. Since they destroy the coral, Dennis said divers often stab them with a stick, rip them off the coral, and stake them into the sand to die. Weeds of the sea I guess. Very pretty nonetheless. Pretty but dangerous, like the world.

I could try to describe the underwater world more but it’s probably better to find pictures of undersea near Phi Phi and look at them. The diving experience is what it’s all about though. Each dive gets better. The first dive I was concentrating so much on technique and gear that I didn’t get to enjoy the view too much. With each new dive, the technical aspects become more and more subconscious that I can concentrate on seeing and trying to remember what I see. And simply enjoying the quiet dream-like state. Your breathing becomes more natural, deep and slow breaths, your bouyancy becomes more neutral (you don’t sink or float up), and your movement becomes more efficient and natural. All those things allow you to stay underwater longer because you conserve air. I kept myself real calm on the 30 meter dive and we were able to stay down for 40 minutes. We only went down to 18 meters max the second dive and were able to stay for 50 minutes. Diving is such a rad activity because you leave at a reasonable time, 8:30-9 am, do a dive, eat lunch, doa dive, and get back around 2 pm. Then you have the rest of the day to muck around and get gnarly Thai massages and watch Fire Dances.

I watched a Fire Dance last night and got chills down my spine. The performers generally have a rope in each hand with a ball of fire on the end or a staff with fire on the ends and they twirl them around their body in time with rythmic music, mostly techno-type solid beats because it works well. One of my favorites was to “Breathe” by Prodigy. You have to have a little Prodigy. But my favorite was to a heavy rock song where the chorus hit really hard and made you feel like head-banging, so every time the chorus hit the kid amped it up, spinning the fireballs in a massive frenzy and turning himself into a torrential hurricane fireball.

I think I may stay here and turn into a diver.

We’re still in Koh Phi Phi, we’re both certified as Open Water Divers (18 meters), and tomorrow I’m diving to 30 meters to get a Deep Dive certificate, so I’ll be certified to dive anywhere in the world down to 30 meters, or about 99 foots. Sweet eh? During the dives today, I kept thinking, “I wonder what’s down a little further?” Back at Barakuda Dive Shop after the two 18 meter dives we did today, I was thinking maybe I’d go fun diving tomorrow. But with a little discussion I found I could do a 30 meter dive for an extra 10 bucks and get a Deep Dive certificate.

Today we went to the west side of Phi Phi Ley, Maya Bay, which is the exact location used in The Beach. It would be spectacular without the tourist boats lining the beach. Apparently we were really lucky today though because during monsoon the water is only calm enough to dive in that location three or four times, so this time was one of those few! During lunch, we anchored inside Maya Bay and I snorkeled over to another beach within the “lagoon” that was deserted. It’s smaller than “the beach” but more protected and, uh, cozier? The beach itself was stunning but the water right inside the cove is absolutely littered with floating debris from tourists. Quite gross really. The problem with the cove and “the beach” is that the debris gets stuck in there because water doesn’t flow out very well due to the shape of the island. But beautifully colored fish swim about on the bottom anyway and I searched for a shark someone had spotted a bit earlier while doing the same snorkel route but I didn’t see him.

However, we did see him on our second dive. Shortly into it a swift menacing shape appeared on our left and flitted past in front of us. It was quick so I didn’t get a real great look at him and I kept looking to our right to see if he was still around but I never saw him again. Hopefully I’ve frightened you with my shark story but now I’ll say that yes we saw a shark but it’s a harmless blacktip reef shark. It’s a decent size and has a menacing look but they are totally shy and scared of divers so there’s no worries. Later in the dive we also came across a big Hawksbill sea turtle. He was sitting on the coral happily munching away. Big, maybe a foot in diameter? And of course we saw lots of purty coral and colorful fishies.

Only a few days left now, time’s running out. Due to rain and time considerations, we decided to stay in Phi Phi instead of trucking for Hat Rei Ley near Krabi, which is a big climbers area. We would have wasted time traveling, may not have been able to catch a longtail to Rai Ley which is the only way, and may not have been able to climb anyway because of rain. So I’m finishing out my time by diving and enjoying the slow island life. Oh, and I got a shave again today plus a new hairdo…

3000 out of 10,000 people in Koh Phi Phi were killed this last December by the tsunami. That’s almost a third of the population. The wreckage is still strewn about and buildings with blown out windows still stand around waiting for repair or replacement. Before the tsunami, this island was packed full of highly expensive ritzy hotels, not a shoestringer destination. But now the island is trying to rebuild and most are starting from scratch so it’s a great backpacker-type place.

Cole, our scuba diving instructor, was high enough in his bungalow on one of the hills to escape. After the waves tore through at least 2 stories of the lowland, he came down to find pale, bloated, dead bodies lying awkwardly and crumpled up all over the place. He pointed out one small area where he said at least 25 bodies lay along with hundreds of rotting, stinking fish. Fish of all sorts, he said, many being fish he’d never seen or heard of. He saw one man trying to pick up his obviously dead wife with her legs wrapped around behind her head. Awful. But as the resilient species of humans generally do, the people aren’t moping and drowning in sorrow and sadness but are recovering with a new sense of community. We ate at the Papaya Restaurant last night (I had some excellent Phad Thai) and Cole told us the story of the owner/cook. Since the storm, he has spent most of his day volunteering to help rebuild. Before his restaurant was built, he would work on it after the volunteering. Now his restaurant (and probably his home) is built so he cooks in the evening. Cole said he stills helps clean and rebuild starting at 7 or 8 am until early evening when he starts serving food. And then the restaurant is open until 3 am. Wow.

I casually mentioned that Cole is our scuba diving instructor. Yep, yesterday afternoon we decided on a whim to do a day and a half introductory/fun course. After learning the required skills last night (plus a bunch more because a German girl was with us who is doing the full 3 days for Open Water certification), Cole explained how little we had left to do to go ahead and become Scuba Diver certified. Scuba Diver certification means you can dive to 12 meters and Open Water certification means you can dive to 18 meters. Open Water is the major step you have to take, from there you can do specialty things like rescue or photo-taking or something. Anyway, at the last minute Cole convinced us to go ahead with Scuba Diver certification because all it really requires is a little book learning and some tests and some more money. We’d be doing the same dives either way so it’d kind of be a waste not to get certified. We did our dives today, the first one I was concentrating more on the gear aspect of it but the second dive was awesome! It’s called Table Top and there’s all kinds of fascinating colored coral and pretty fish. I especially like this bright green coral stuff and the bright blue fish, but of course the clownfish mucking around in their anemones were sweet too. Well, of course, with a bit more money, a couple more tests, and 2 more dives tomorrow we can get our Open Water certification. Once you have that, you never have to do it again and you can dive anywhere in the world up to 18 meters! So we’re doing it! Duh! The other big draw to doing it here is that it’s one of the cheapest place in the world to get certified. Hawaii would be at least 3 times the price we’re told. So tomorrow we’re diving two more times in beautiful, calm, clear, green sea right by the picturesque island, Phi Phi Ley, where The Beach was filmed. Ah yeah.

Internet is expensive here and I’ve already been on too long, I may or may not have a chance to blog over in the Krabi area where we plan to be tomorrow night. If not, see ya’ll back home! Hasta.

Alas, I arrive in Phuket, Thailand, unfortunately in the city and not on a beach yet. But tomorrow we plan on heading to Krabi and beyond to a beach area with active things to do.

We are lucky to make it from the Phuket Airport into town. It was the wildest ride I’ve had yet. The driver was acting like he was hopped up on something and going 130 km/h down the busy freeway. Weaving in and out of cars and gunning it. Riding bumpers by a couple feet literally until he could squeak around. Fast and furious.

Tonight we ended up at a hotel used in a movie called The Beach. In the movie, it’s supposedly in Bangkok but it’s actually here in Phuket. Even though it was in the movie it has not become commercialized at all, there are no signs advertising that it was in an American movie, still dirt cheap, and still squatter toilets instead of sit-down. I’m thinking of the cafe in San Diego that was in Top Gun that has big signs all over it advertising it but this hotel has no indication whatsoever. It seems like people in the countries I’ve been to either don’t care that much about Americans and their culture or they are too poor to even consider traveling there. From the sounds of Danica’s experience in the Phillipines, they are obsessed with U.S. culture, but that hasn’t been my experience in Thailand, Kampuchea, or Viet Nam. Maybe they don’t know much about U.S. culture since hardly any Americans visit; I think they probably know more of European culture. This morning we booked a taxi through the Royal Hotel in Ha Noi and the Vietnamese guy at the desk spoke English with a strong Australian accent. I look forward to being surrounded by people with my own drab “accent.” I’m sure once I get back I’ll want to back here though with the non English speaking or heavy accented English speaking folk.

Enjoying a moto ride with a friend.

Kids playing at Tonle Sap.

I just ate a large amount of plain M&M’s and 200ml of Vinamilk.

This morning we recruited our fellow trekker, Englishman Julian, to join us on a day trip to Cocly Market, a remote village market occurring only on Tuesdays and primarily for different tribes to trade amongst themselves. We witnessed a new tribe there today, the Flower H’mong, who dress in really bright colors. We were syked to find out that Tuyen, our previous guide, would be accompanying us on this tour as our guide as well.

The market was cool and I bought a few items but the real meat of the trip was the jeep ride and the boat ride. The jeep ride was bouncy and rugged and muddy in spots, sometimes reminiscent of the minibus ride to Siem Reap. The jeeps are sweet, old dark green military beasts from Russia. This particular truck, which the driver owns, had a hard time starting every time he turned it off. A couple times he honked the horn to make sure there was even power because turning the key did nothing. But eventually it would turn over and rumble to life. After only 20 minutes from the start of our downhill journey we could smell brake miasma. Sure enough about an hour in, he stopped and checked fluids, and then once we were dropped off at the market (a 3 hour drive) he immediately started working on replacing the brake pads or something. He was a good driver but even I flinched a few times at how close we came to large oncoming trucks. One part of the road had some major construction going on and a section was super muddy and rutty and looked impassible to me but he waited for the old ladies pushing their bicycles loaded with fruit, plants, clothes, you name it, to clear out and then he made a run for it. We made it no problem but it’s a 4-wheel drive Russia jeep so it better.

The construction we went through was incredible. Everything is dirty and muddy and chaotic. The workers are out there building the road basically by hand! Seriously, guys are picking up large rocks and carrying them over to their spot and dropping them where they want them. The heat is beating down on them are slowly trudging away and random activities. Some are doing the rock thing on the edge of the road, some are building a barrier in the middle of the road with short concrete slabs, some are lounging under blue-tarp lean-tos, some are kicked back in steamrollers flattening down new pavement, some are shoveling. There is organization, don’t get me wrong, there are different crews working on different sections of road but I had to look pretty hard to see it. Hey, if it works, it works.

We didn’t get to splash any tourists today but our driver did get one Vietnamese guy on a motorbike. He was carrying a big load and almost out of the waterfall puddle but our driver went anyway and got him pretty good. I think the truck drivers love to soak people. The Vietnamese man didn’t react in fierce anger like the tourists though, he just looked at himself and back at us a few times. Vietnamese seem to have a lot of patience and calmness. It’s the reason their traffic system works. We discussed why it works with a Canadian guy during the 3-day trek and he was adamant that it works solely on survival, that the people are in fact angry at each other on the road but in order to not kill themselves they let others ahead of themselves. His adamant stand is simply false though. You can tell simply by looking at their faces that they are calm and patient and really don’t care if they get ahead of someone or if someone gets ahead of them. It’s not a competition. Sorry to tangent off into motorbike street talk again but I love it. An analytical note – Tuyen told us today that Vietnamese can get their motocycle license at 18 and their car license at 21. To be a moto driver, one who drives others for a fee, you have to be 21.

After the Cocly Market experience, we had a boat ride down the Chai River for a couple hours. Tuyen said he likes to make his tours special, so instead of eating lunch at the market, we stopped off at an expansive cave on the side of the river. So I ate lunch in a cave on the side of a very jungly river in Northern Viet Nam today. Yea it was sweet. Like I just said, the side of the river is really jungly and green. I can’t imagine there not being scary animals within the dense shrubbery. One interesting moment was seeing a man’s chest and head floating down the river. He was riding a submerged log. Oh, the river is a river, large and swift. This ain’t you’re grandma’s river. The boat was a rusty pile of metal with a rickety wooden canopy frame and a tarp roof. I’ve never seen a motor like this one before, super long, perhaps 15 feet long. So we puttered down the river enjoying the wind in our hair and the spectacular jungle mountains surrounding us. At the end, we disembarked to the standard mass-sweat-inducing heat and a sticky jeep ride home to Sa Pa.

I see I missed wishing my parents Happy Birthday so I’m doing it now. I’m glad you’re one year older because that means you’re still alive and truckin! Happy Birthday Mom! Happy Birthday Dad!

I could not stop taking pictures. I put a fresh 512mb memory card (439 pictures) in my camera before this trek and I now have about 60 left. It’s my last memory card so I need to burn a card or two to CD and try to upload and store a bunch on my website. That doesn’t mean you can see the photos though, only that they’ll be dumped and stored. So many pictures but they won’t even begin to capture the experience.

I think I’ve met 3 Americans total my entire trip. Americans don’t travel. Tons of Frenchies, lots of Spaniardes, a fair amount of Englishers, some Canadians, and a mishmash of other foreigners. But no Americans. Obviously by Americans I mean United States. At first when I was asked where I was from I’d say United States but they generally don’t understand because they understand America to be the U.S. Once you say America then a lot of them say “California?” You try to say no but very close in a state called Washington but they often just say “California?” again. I should specify and say that the California thing has mostly been here in Sa Pa, not so much in the other areas.

The Black H’mong are the primary villagers in Sa Pa and the immediate surrounding countryside. In fact, there are 3 girls next to me in the Internet place right now, probably about 12. I just read an email the girl next to me had gotten from some foreign boy professing his admiration. And now she keeps asking me how to spell stuff for her return letter. Ha. I’m tempted to describe the clothes they wear because it’s very unique, and different between males and females, but pictures will easily tell the story and save me time. One thing though is that the girls wear a wrap around the lower half of their legs. I think they’re really cool and they’re nice and warm. Hmm, I know they are nice and warm because I wanted some even though I suspected they weren’t for men (I didn’t know yet). I started asking around at the market and some of the women and girls started giggling when I said I wanted some. But one lady who had some nice ones, as in the embroidery was male/female neutral in colors, wanted to sell and get money so she wouldn’t tell me if they were for women or not. She put them on me and I was stoked. While she was away getting change I conned the girl in the stall next to her, who spoke English very well, to tell me for sure. I didn’t care at that point though because I knew they’d keep my legs warm from the rain. I didn’t make it too far though and I felt bad because one guy looked at me very strangely and I felt like I may be disrespecting him. A few ladies simply giggled but I didn’t want to cause a stir, in San Francisco or Broadway Street in Seattle I’da fit right in!

The blog started about the trek but quickly tangented. It’s important I let myself tangent at this point though because I have all these thoughts and stories and I can’t always write everything down and keep it chronological.

The best way to talk about this trek is through pictures so that’s why I started talking about pictures and I don’t plan to say too much about the hike itself. It was definitely the raddest hike I’ve ever done. Jungle, mountains, terraced rice fields, terraced corn fields, terraced gardens, gnarly and rocky and muddy “fooot-path,” rain/drizzle the first day, extremely HOT the second and third days, 30% grade or more in quite a few spots. Danica was actually quite close to passing out yesterday from heat exhaustion. We ran out of water during the most brutal part of the trail.

Our guide was totally sweet, 25-year old Tuyen. He spoke English really well, in fact he graduated University with English teaching degree and taught secondary for a while but gave it up for more money in tourism as a guide. As a teacher, the government paid him 780,000 dong per month, $48.75. With that, he had to pay for rent and food, transportation, his teacher books, and all the school supplies for the kids, including chalk, pencils, etc. As a guide, the hotel he works for (Mountain View, the one we’re at) gives him a free room and food, pays him a daily trek salary depending on the difficulty of the trek, and I imagine usually gets tips from his trekkers. Especially this guy because he rocks. He treks 20-25 days a month so he’s got some pretty good stamina and sure-footedness. He wore some uncomfortable rubber boots the first two days and then swapped for some of the local white single-strap sandals they have around here. So on the brutally steep climb out of the village this morning he was wearing sandals that I find hard just to keep on my feet because there’s nothing between the big toe and second toe.

Tuyen is one of the few guides willing to take a harder, more gnarly route, which we totally went for. Instead of taking the main path and road that most peop’s use, we chose the narrow, rugged footpath. We couldn’t have done it if the rain had continued from the first day. The rain and mud reminds me of the first day when Danica was holding her camera in one hand, lens cap in the other, attempted manuveuring a few steps over some rocks, and immediately lost her foot to the will of the mud and ate it. Instinctively to protect her fall, she put the lens cap in the mud on her left side and the camera in the mud on her right side. Say bye-bye to that lens. She says she may find “arty” uses for the scarred lens however.

After the super-hot climb where Danica was close to passing out, we were chilling in the shade of a rest stop (where you can get water, soda, etc, sometimes cold, sometimes warm) and a man in a sharp, perfectly clean suit, an umbrella to shade him from the sun, and spotless bright white sandals came strolling by on the rocky, muddy road. It was amazing. It’s funny how often I’ve seen strange things like that though. The people will be living or working in areas where it’s dirty and muddy but they’re dressed far better and cleaner than any American.

By saying Danica was close to passing out I do not at all mean to imply a weakness. She’s a total trooper and does far better with less complaining than most guys from the U.S. would do. “I am sure.” I think the only difference was I was lucky enough to be hydrated a little more via Camelbak water pouch. I should mention we had another trekker with us, Julian from England. He’s probably close to 50 and a geography teacher for secondary school, which is 7th grade to 10th grade in England. He and Danica both held their own quite well with Tuyen and I, both strapping young 25-year old men. Ha.

I was wondering why water buffalo never moo or make a sound. In fact, they are really gentle compared to cows, you can pet them and kids ride them to herd them around and stuff. Apparently, the back of the tongue is where they “speak” from but it’s a delicacy in Viet Nam so when they reach a certain age, the tongue is cut out. Alas, no mooing or speaking. I hope you just believed that story because it’s the same false story Danica made me with again. Chalk up two, the monks posing as orange construction cones and now this one. Danica: 2. Keith: 0.

Now to tell one on Danica. Our guide explained to us that there used to be tigers, elephants, snakes, and many other scary dangerous animals that roamed and ruled this area but ever since the jungle was farmed they moved away. I’m sure there are still snakes around but we didn’t see any. As we walked down the path something rustled up in the bushes just ahead of us. With a very serious and convincing face, Tuyen turned and said, “Could be tiger.” “Really?” Danica questioned. “Yeah, I think tiger.” He actually turned quickly and started backward and Danica began to bolt. But then he laughed. It was just a dog. Shortly after, he tried to convince us that this dog that was standing on a path checking us out was a wolf. He never convinced us of that though. From then on, he joked a lot and was constantly trying to scare or mislead Danica. He’d tell us we had about 4 hours left to hike but we’d be only a half hour.

The first night was in an area with Black H’mong so we got hounded a bit by them trying to sell us stuff, which of course gets annoying. But the second night was completely absent of “You buy from me? You want blanket? Bracelet? Why you no buy from me?!” Ahhh, it was beautiful. The place was so peaceful and beautiful. Since we’d taken the harder, longer route, we got in too late to take a soak in the swimming hole so I had to console my hot, sweaty, sticky, stinky flesh with a “shower.” In the countryside, showers are done with a large red scoop. They have 2 blue plastic buckets, one for filling with fresh water from a spicket and one for mixing with soap or laundry detergent. To take a shower, you let water flow into the fresh water bucket, scoop water out with the large red scoop and pour it over you. Most often places have hand soap to use but the place last night did not. No big deal since I keep a small one I kept from a hotel a couple weeks ago.

This morning after another banana pancake with sugar and chocolate breakfast (if you don’t remember, banana pancakes here are crepe style with sliced bananas wrapped inside: sugar, Vinamilk chocolate, and fresh limes were provided too so you douse the bananas in sugary loveliness, fold the crepe in two, and use a fork and knife to cut and consume it) like the morning before, we tromped up and over for 10 minutes to a beautiful swimming hole by an awesome and powerful waterfall. The waterfall isn’t too high but has a lot of force behind it. If you actually got under the waterfall you’d be roiled and beaten to death on the huge rock it pounds into. But don’t worry, Mom, you can’t swim that close to it. The current in the middle is swift but if you swim hard enough you can beat it. There were several nice boulders on the side and in the middle of the water you could swim to and climb up on and chill. The best part was finding a nice place to jump off, maybe fifteen feet high. I had Danica snap a pic but I’m already in the water in the photo because Danica was freaking out I was gonna die and she’d have to jump in and rescue me. I was fine except for slipping and cracking my head open on and bouncing down the rocks into the swift current that swept me off another waterfall I hadn’t seen earlier. I’m actually blogging from a Ha Noi hospital and they’re operating on my brain right now. Um no, I was fine and still am. I’ve fallen in love with cliff jumping and want to work my way up to 40-feet. Woo hoo!

“Falling in love” with cliff-jumping are extreme words for my feelings on cliff jumping actually. But it is fun.

Following a very hot and grueling hour or so climb this morning after swimming and per-lunch, we lunched (obviously) on noodle soup made by our guide, and then put our lives into the hands of a Vietnamese jeep driver. The jeeps don’t have near the character as the Phillipines jeeps described by the D but they are cool nonetheless, military style for sure. Dark green and rugged. One of the funniest things this entire trip occurred in the jeep this afternoon. The driver was charging along, we were bouncing along, and I was trying to keep my head situated between 2 metal bars on the ceiling so that if we bounced high I would hit the canvas roof instead of the bars, when we came around a corner and there was a late-20’s foreign trekker, his girlfriend or wife, and their guide standing on the side of a giant puddle in the road. There are several “puddles” along the road, which are actually just part of waterfalls. So these 3 innocent bystanders are on the side of this puddle looking at something but the guy was almost in the middle of the road. Since drivers here don’t stop for things like that but just honk instead he just kept charging and went to the far left of the road to squeak by the guy. At the last second, the guy looks over and sees this big jeep coming almost right at him. His eyes got huge, he yelled, and jumped out of the way grabbing his girlfriend. The jeep nailed the puddle and completely doused all three of them. All of us in the jeep erupted in laughter, including the driver, who had done it completely on purpose. We laughed so hard. We looked back at them while bent over laughing and the backpackers were giving us unfriendly hand gestures. Haha, they must have been soaked from head to foot! All in all, they couldn’t have minded too much though because it was scorching hot so I’m sure they dried within a half hour. Makes us feel less mean to think that anyway…

I’m off to grab some Friendly Restaurant goodness. Keep it real while I do.