Bangkok - Koh Phangan

Welcome to Thailand - We arrived to Bangkok during the water festival. Anyone who stepped outside during the water festival was fair game to get drenched in water with super soakers, hoses, or buckets or water. I was too scared (smart) to take my camera to the main part of the festival - should have bought the waterproof camera. I also saw an elephant in the middle of the street.





Haad Rin - After 2 months of city after city travel, Andrew and I were relieved to make it to a beach. Ahhhh












The viewpoint from bottle beach - After a few days at the crowded beach, we moved to the most secluded beach the island. The"road" to this beach (and I use that word loosely) has 2 foot trenches on super steep hills, making it difficult to get to. Instead, tuk-tuk drivers take you to a neighboring beach and from there you get a boat in.






Fresh Desert - On the way up to the viewpoint there was a pineapple field. I brought a few back for desert for the people staying at the bungalow.












Hot Entertainment - At the Half moon party, they had Thailand #1 reggae band, Job 2 Do, and lots of fire spinners. Great party.
















The famous full moon party - 20,000 people on the beach. As the sun comes up, there are about 100 passed out people on the sand. Instead of 1 massive sound system like the half moon, every bar on the beach has their own system, so there are 10 different types of music playing.








Diving - Some of the best diving Ive ever done at Sail Rock, near Koh Tau. The coral was incredibly live and vibrant, and we swam into many schools of fish. Also, there is a chimney, or a vertical tunnel, where you enter at 18 meters, and swim up to daylight, and exit at 6 meters. Amazing.

Shanghai - Hong Kong

Parks - Overall, Shanghai is a very livable city. There are all kinds of parks with locals sipping on boba and playing badminton in the grass. Also, they spend a lot more time designing their parks. I didn't see a flat area for sports and picnics, but zen gardens, ponds with fish and ducks, bamboo forests, etc.







Above the Clouds -Pudong, the financial center of Shanghai has the tallest buildings Ive ever seen. I went up to the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor of the Jinmao building (the tallest bar in the world). China is the only country in the world right now that has the ability to keep building. Shanghai is all under construction, every sidewalk is being uprooted. They are giving the whole city a face lift as they prepare for the 2010 World Expo. Like the Olympics, when China has the opportunity to go all out, they do, and they are using this as an opportunity to revamp a city like they did for Beijing with the Olympics.

The bar scene is China is quite odd. The whole staff is female while the customers are male. When Andrew and I stopped in for a beer, a guy next to us bought a bottle of Absolute, and poured himself a drink, and one for each of the staff so they would pay attention to him and play dice games. The staff looked bored.







Buildings as Art - Even the train station in Shanghai is an architectural gem. The architects must have a filed day in China.











From the station, we took an 18 hour train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong, is the most western city in Asia, and is full of fast food chains and expensive western clothing shops. I couldn't believe how commerical it was.

Chungking mansions - There are probably over 1000 dingy rooms in this place.This is where we stayed in Hong Kong. Our room had no windows, and didn't smell too nice. I heard there are live animals living in this building. I would not want to be in this place in case of any natural disaster. This place is definitely not up to US fire code, luckily for them, there is no fire code in Asia.






I don't have a picture, but the fountain in the middle of Hong Kong was one of the funniest sites I've ever seen. All the Persians in Hong Kong came out to have a giant flirt session around this fountain. Everyone looked like they were on their way to an A-list club - leather shoes, designer jeans, too much make up. Except it was 3PM.

Xian-Pingyao-Beijing

Terra Cotta - To protect himself in the afterlife, a Chinese emperor built an army of over 7000 terra cotta warriors. To the current world, they were unknown until 30 years ago, when a farmer unearthed them digging a well. Since all the warriors were smashed and burned when Emperor Qin was conquered, they are still restoring the clay army. Its like the worlds biggest game of humpty-dumpty






Hot Springs - For Andrew's bday we
stayed at a condo with a hot spring. It was amazing to have our personal 25 foot sulfur bath. When we closed the vents, the room got so steamy you couldn't see across. Louise and I walked around trying looking for a cake for Andrew. We found a cake decorator (with the help of our local guide, a college student who guided us around the city all day to improve her English) who spent an hour decorating our cake. I'd never seen such precision with frosting. It came to $3









City Walls - Andrew and I walked the city walls of Xian, it took us 4 hours. Now the city has sprawled outside the walls, but it was cool to imagine a whole self sustaining city protecting itself from invaders. Pingyao is also a walled city, but much smaller. Xian has high rises inside the walls where Pingyao kept the same architecture from hundreds of years ago







Great Wall - The size and scope of the great wall is hard to grasp. 4000 miles of wall, wide enough to have 4 horsemen riding side by side. Guarded posts as close as every 500 meters. I guess if anyone had enough manpower to guard the wall, it was China.








Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square- The enormity of these 2 sites is unbelievable. The Forbidden City is over a kilometer wide, lined with gold and the most expensive gems. Its a microcosm of China to see beggars and poor outside these "over the top" palaces

China Part1 Nanning-Chengdu

Compared to Vietnam, China is extremely commericalized, and yes, the whole world agrees that Kobe is the best basketball player in the world. Every city has these giant mega malls, with tons of neon lights.

Tea is served at every meal. Also, the Chinese spend whole afternoons at teahouses. The tea house give you loose leaf tea, and a jug of water. The tea leaves lasts for 20 cups of tea, which means that the 1st 5 cups of tea are going to be undrinkably strong

Yes, It is that part of the world

From Guilin, we went to Yungshou, a small town surrounded in all directions by the karst mountains. Renting a bike and exploring the scenery along the river was relaxing.

At our cooking class, we made garlic eggplant, sweet and sour pork and handrolled beef dumplings. When I get back, don't keep your expectations too high, but I am pretty sure I can make it better than Panda Express.

We are like celebrities here - It seems like almost daily that we get asked to pose for a picture with a stranger. Also, 5 times a day little kids run up to us and say "Hello, where are you from"

People say that temples are the same as cathedrals, once you've seen one, you've seen all of them. However, I have found temples much more relaxing. Temples have people meditating in the gardens or relaxing by the pond.

At the panda center in Chengdu, we saw red pandas and adult pandas at feeding time. I tried ripping through bamboo with my hands and it didn't work out to well for me. Those pandas have quite strong claws.

Everything is fake here - Some of the Swooshes on logos are laughable. Most Adidas or Nike clothing also has the brand of the company that manufatured it. This guy conned us into stayed at his hostel in Yungshou by telling us it was "HI" (or "hosteling international"). They even made a fake HI placard.

This is the result of traditional chinese medicine- After putting cups on your back, they light them on fire to create a vacuum. They basically pull the underlying tissue up to try to get rid of all the toxins. I look like I have been bean bag gun shooting practice.

Hanoi-Halong Bay-Sapa

Snake Village - When we got to Hanoi, we met up with Jaycie and spent an afternoon at Snake Village. They took a live snake, slit its throat, and put a still beating snake heart in a shot glass, which we got to eat.


Then they turned the snake into a 6 course meal, and gave us unlimited snake wine







Uncle Ho Forever - Like the Pope, the Vietnamese have embalmed Ho Chi Minh's body and put it on display for everyone to see. (No cameras were allowed)










A foggy dream – Ha Long Bay has 2000 karst islands darting through the bay surface, surreally masked by the intense fog. It was unlike anything else I had experienced.













The water was quite cold but kayaking around the islands was a highlight. We stopped to spelunk at an island with a cave. Jaycie and I stayed an extra day because we didn't want to leave this unreal place. On our extra day we had a hike with the unbelievably lush plant growth. We heard monkeys but could not see them. At the top of our hike, there was a rickety water tower about 100 feet high. Every step that everyone took shook the tower. Also, the last step was missing so we had to jump over a gap to get onto the top platform. Definitely not built to US quality control standards.


Eastern "Medicine" - Our guide bought this bottle for his father. Inside are 6 fermenting geckos and 4 fermenting sea horses. Apparently this drink is "very good for old man" "Makes him sooo strong"














So how do I drive this thing? - Jaycie and I rented a motorcycle for a few days to explore the small villages in Sapa, the jungle region. The road to the villages was carved into the side of a steep mountain, with gigantic drops (and breathtaking views of endless rice paddies) - not the best place to learn how to ride a bike. Just as I was getting a feeling as to how to handle the bike, a stream interrupted the road. I stopped about 20 feet before the start of the stream, which I could see was 6-8 inches deep, and rocky. There was no easy way around the water so I cautiously eased in, with no momentum. As we hit the deep part of the stream my front tire hit a rock and we felt our bike tipping over to the right. I hit the gas as hard as I could and my front tire lifted out of the water. As we came out the other side, I sent Jaycie air born. He miraculously landed in his seat, and I sorted the steering out. Needless to say, we both started screaming in elation. When the driver of the bike is screaming expletives, its not so fun to be the passenger.


Not as scary as they look - Water buffalo have big horns. Which made me a bit wary about getting too close. But later I was little village kids riding them like horses. I did muster up the courage to pet one walking in the middle of the road. However, I was prepared to set my personal record in the 40 yard dash






Ban Ho Minority Village Homestay – After a few hours of cliffside riding, Jaycie and I spent a night at a local village. Everyone was really nice, and family that we stayed with spoke English and wanted to know more about California.








The calming sounds of a nose flute - On our train back from the jungle region, this guy sat next to us, played Beethoven's 9^th Symphony with a wooden flute through his nose. For our 11 hour bus ride we bought the $4 hard seat tickets that mainly the locals ride. They never sell out of train seats. If all the seats fill up, they start selling B-tickets. Ticket 22B means you have to stand or sit on the grimy floor near seat 22.

Other crazy things I've seen on a bike – over 1,000 bananas, a pony, 30 chicken in 2 crates, a family of 5, 14 20-liter (about 5 gallons) bottles of water.










Girl Possessed - This girl followed me around for 10 solid minutes trying to get me to buy a hand woven cell phone holder/purse. I didn't have money on me but I couldn't translate that to her. And I couldn't outrun outmaneuver her on the rocky muddy trail. I had to use Jaycie as a human shield, until she got distracted by another tourist. Serious persistence!







Matching Ladies – There are a ton of fabric stores around here. I only presume that every lady pics out a pattern and says “tailor me a matching jump suit”

Nha Trang-Hoi An

Hey guys, sorry for taking so long to but this blog up. I wrote it about 2 weeks ago, but I have not had the time to upload the pics and finalize it.

Boat Cruisin' - Nha Trang was big backpacker destination. One of the main draws is a day long cruise to 4 islands with snorkeling, a nice beach and a Vietnamese feast. I went on the cruise with Sarah, the English girl we traveled with through 3 cities, and met quite a few other backpackers. When we went out to a bar at night with the people I met on the day cruise, I ran into a few Aussies I met in Mui Ne. Somewhere between walking drunk people back to their guest houses between 4 and 5 AM, I decided to set my alarm for 8AM and join the Aussies as they were doing the cruise the next day. 2 days of boat cruising made me pretty tired.

It was nice how Nha Trang accommodated Westerners, but there were all kinds of people out to get your money. A bar worker took a full drink off our table, and made us buy another drink. When we begrudgingly did this, they tried to keep our change. Also, there was a band of pickpockets that the police looked the other way about. The further north we got, the more crime there seemed to be.




Easy Riders– From Nha Trang, Andrew and I took a 3 day motorcycle tour through the central highlands. One of our guides was an ex-South Vietnamese soldier in the US-Vietnam war. He had an amazing life story. After the south lost the war, he was sent up to the north for 4 years of “re-education” camp to learn how to be a good communist. Afterwards he took his family on a tiny canoe, and tried to escape Vietnam. He got caught and was “re-educated” for another 4 years. He had a very different view of the US war effort. He thought that we were in there for the right reason, we were just hesitant and unorganized. He thinks that if the war had been popular back at home, history would be written differently.

All the pics except for the last 2 were on our easy rider tour:


The real back country -Some of the views on the passes were incredible. This ride really changed my view of Vietnam. There is so much untouched land. It was dry season, so there weren't as many swampy areas as I thought. Also, the government has spent a lot of resources replanting trees since 1975 because whole groves have been wiped out with Napalm

Hook and Line -For the amount of resources given to them, the Vietnamese are extremely clever. In America everything that can be automated is. In Vietnam, labor and cost of living are so cheap, many more things are done by hand. Also, they don't have the infrastructure to handle or create the mass production that we have in the states. Boats go out for up to 45 days at a time, but they do not have refrigeration. Instead, they load the boats up with 2000 pounds of ice to keep the catch cold until they get back to land. Obviously, the boats that go out for a month are on the left of the pic, not the right.


Buddha – Our guide told us this Buddha was smiling because he was bathing in the river and he saw a beautiful girl on the other side of the river so he cut off his “snake” and threw it at her. It fell in the water and now he has 7 mermaid kids. He could then spend the rest of his life being celibate and have less distractions as he searched for answers.

It was only a 50 foot drop- This bridge was made out of bamboo and rope. Some planks were missing. It swayed in all direction as we crossed it. It seemed like I could build something like this in my back yard.










Minority Village – The minority villages in Vietnam were treated similar to the Native Americans in the states. they were put on a land with very little help from the government. The houses were built in this fashion so tigers couldn't come into the houses. Instead the tiger would steal a (more easily replaceable) chicken or boar and head back into the jungle.






The scariest thing since passing semi-trucks on windy roads on motorcycles a few hours before - Andrew and I also did an elephant ride in the village. At this point our toes were in the water as the elephant crossed the deep part of the lake. We both thought our cameras were toast as the elephant stumbled on the lake floor. Elephants are such prehistoric creatures.



















I almost got a fang shaped memory of this trip– One of the guide's friends owned a python, so we stopped by. After I took this picture, I took a closeup of the snake's face. I left the flash on and the snake lunged at me and tried to sink it's teeth into my arm. I don't like snakes much. I also assume Andrew was a little freaked out with an angry snake on him.






Guess what they were out of that day? - Instead we ordered Hedgehog. Other things I have eaten/been offered: snake heart, bat on a stick*, cubed chicken**, sea urchin soup

*They killed a bat, ripped off its wings, and put it on a skewer, skin and all.

** We thought that they were going to cube the meat, but they cubed the bird. We got a beak, neck slices, 2 feet, and who knows what else.

After the easy riders, we went to Hoi An. The touristy part is about a 1km x 1km, and there are over 200 custom tailored suit shops. For cheap, I got 2 nice suits. As long as I don't put on 20 pounds, they will still fit.