Hoi An

I think we will all say Hoi An is one of our favourite cities on the trip. It is a small city with old French influenced buildings built along a river- Vietnam's Banff or Jasper. There are lots of tourists here which means the city caters to them- a pleasure after some of the "roughing it" we've done in rural areas or large cities. We've had the best meals in Vietnam here and we've been loving the people. We've done a fair amount of shopping here- getting clothing tailored and finding souvenirs that are of a higher quality than we find at the huge markets. Dennis' sunglasses broke so he bought a pair of Raybans (imitation, no doubt), for less than 100,000 dong ($6 US). The picture of him in his new specs is attached.

Saigon- some images.

I've taken nearly 100 pictures of Saigon, but I'll send along only a few street scenes of traffic, market scenes, Dennis with the coffee we've grown to love and one great photo of him buying a newspaper from one of the papers sellers we meet in the morning as we drink our coffee.

Phu Quoc

Okay, I've left out nearly 4 weeks of photos, but I have a collection here of us in Phu Quoc. It is the largest island in Vietnam and the Vietnamese say it is their island paradise. It certainly was paradise for us. We stayed in a concrete hut with a thatch roof that withstood huge deluges of rain on a couple of nights we were there. The days were hot and sunny and the evening didn't cool until about 4 in the morning. We were happy we had electricity and fans. Our bungalow was at the cost of $25/night and it had a hot shower (most of the time) and a flush toilet. It was a lovely place- The Beach Club, it's called. The government is building an international airport on Phu Quoc that will enable huge planes to land (currently on twin props make it here) and you can see construction happening all over the place. The current accommodation levels on Long Beach (now 25 mostly small and medium resorts) will likely double and then triple. This paradise will become a bit more crowded within five years!

But, here's what we discovered:

More pictures! Siem Reap

Here are more photos from Siem Reap. One is of the line-up of people at the children's hospital that is sponsored 90 % by private donation. Taking your children here is absolutely free for Cambodian people, all people must are treated the same regardless of their wealth or poverty, and there are only two of over 2100 staff that are foreigners.

The hospital, one of 5 in Cambodia, trains Cambodian doctors and nurses and pays them a decent wage. Even the cleaning staff earn reasonable wages of $250 per month. That is in stark contrast to the teachers we met who had a starting wage of about $40 per month increasing to almost $60 per month after 20 years of teaching. It is impossible to be cheap in this country when $1 here and $1 there makes such a difference in the lives of the impoverished. We have been very humbled.

The other pictures are of temples and our tuk-tuk driver and things we saw. They are a few of hundreds, but they will suffice for the purposes of letting you all know some of the things we've seen.

Cambodia.

These pictures are a selection from Siem Reap. The notes I've added aren't about Siem Reap, exactly, since we're now in Phnom Penh. I will post more pictures and notes as I am able. The pictures are of the Apsara dancing (only seen in Siem Reap) and of the three of us in one of a dozen temples we visited in Siem Reap. Amazing temples. Amazing. Well worth a trip around the world to see!



I can't describe Cambodia adequately. Regular power outages occur in the capital city, phnom penh, yet shopping here would lead you to believe that the locals have lots of money to spend (in relative terms to the rural Cambodians). We spent five nights in Siem Reap touring the temples and staying in a lovely guest house there with a pool and a great restaurant. We spread our $1 US bills to plenty of children outside of each temple and in exchange we have cheap bracelets, scarves and dozens of empty water bottles. It's here that we have found ourselves most reflective about what it must really be like to be a citizen of the third world.

I, personally, have discovered stories to tell that will boost my fiction output for years to come. The people here are poor and generous in spirit or poor and greedy in spirit- looking to scam the barangs (foreigners). Fortunately we have met more of the former and few in the latter category and we are able (what a departure from my post in Thailand about being taken!) to let go the ill feelings of being taken advantage of; we've accepted that our skin color and our ability to travel affords us priviledges that will mean we pay more.

Okay...I'm still nervous every time we change locations. Tomorrow we travel by speed boat (3 hours) to Chau Doc. We don't know what we'll do with our luggage, we don't have any vietnamese dong (we tried to get some here and failed) and we are hopeful that the hotel we booked will still have rooms for us when we arrive. The worst part about arriving at a new place is negotiating the transport, you are swarmed by tuk-tuk drivers and you never know who you're going to get or how it will turn out. So far we've had pretty good luck, although yesterday the driver who found us at the bus station attempted to get us to another hotel first by asking if we'd been there before (the implication was that it was bad or out of business) and then asking if they knew we were coming (the implication that if we didn't have a reservation we'd be out of luck) and then, even after we arrived and I said repeatedly that we had a reservation, the driver told Dennis and then me that the hotel was full. "I know," I said. "And we are some of the people who are filling the rooms!" I paid him $3 which I negotiated from the start when he said he wanted $4 and then as we were walking away, he tried to get Dennis to give him another $1. And, he overcharged us anyway! We are still laughing about this, but we wonder how many tourists he's scammed along the way.

Wonder and Elephants.

This is Ben outside our guesthouse. We stayed here for two nights, trekked for two nights and slept here after the trek for two nights. Basically a bed and breakfast with 30 rooms or so it was clean with great air conditioning (a must during the day only) and a lovely riverside restaurant. The restaurant served a complete American breakfast for $3.50 per person and dinner never ran more than $13.00 for all of us, including the large beer we split.



On our trekking near Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son and Pai and hilltribe villages in between, we met some lovely Americans. All from California, all with a unique story and several that made me tear up. People are people everythwere you go and they carry their stories of grief and joy and resiliency just like the rest of us. I felt so lucky to have learned from them: Connie, Tammi, Brenda and Bob. Our driver and chef of Thai cooking, Pytoon, is with us.

Also, I've added a picture of Ben and the Elephant. Poon Yang. He spent a day in Mahout Training (with Jam Ras as his head Mahout) and was on the elephant for hours. His favourite part was bathing/swimming with the elephant!! This was an expensive day- 3500 bhat (nearly 125 US and Ben was the only rider, but it included lunch and Dennis and I got to tag along as special behind-the-scenes guests. Of course there are many observations which I will get to over the course of a few weeks.

We are all safe and happy and navigating this country with relative ease. We find that a smile and our attempts at Thank You and Hello are often what we need to get help and a firm no, thank you in Thai and a shake of the head is what we use to keep the inevitable offers for tours at bay.

Thailand Part 3.

Here are some photos from Chiang Mai. I am several days behind in posting photos because we were trekking for three days and today we were gone all day to the Elephant Training Center. Here is the photo information:

First photo: A family outing on a Sunday afternoon. You see families on motorcycles EVERYWHERE! In the hilltribe villages and in the cities and everywhere in between. Few people wear helmets, we haven't seen one accident and thai drivers do not honk their horns. It's one of the most polite cultures I've observed. The Thai people are quick to smile. They reserve wais (bows of their heads with hands in prayer position) for deference to someone older than they are and for situations where they are very grateful. I like to wai everyone- even the people who are doing the human gravel and rock mining along the Pai River. I have mastered hello and thank you in Thai and I'm working on Your Welcome and Where is the toilet? I don't need any Thai words really because most people understand some English, but it is, to me, the least I can do. Plus I love to play with words– even if they are unfamiliar, or maybe, especially if they are new to me.

Second Photo: Dennis with his very large beer! We figured out on day 2 that one very large beer was 70 Baht (about 2.00) or two small beers were 45 baht each. Now you know why Dennis is drinking a very large beer!!

Third Photo: We have dozens of photos of wats– these are temples. We traveled to many of them in Chiang Mai and were fascinated by so many of the features- the animal sculptures (particularly dragon and elephant), the gold and jewels, the massive bhuddas and the monks. This photo is of Dennis and Ben walking through a small gate.

Fourth Photo: We are approached often from people who would like us to go for a tuk-tuk ride (not recommended), buy some souvenirs, go to a tailors, and in this case, release five birds from a small bamboo cage for good luck. We said yes this time, mostly because the woman was very old and it all seemed a bit lovely at the time. And it was. It was 150 bhat to do this. We could have had two large beers, instead we let 5 little birds flit about until an old lady caught them again!

Fifth Photo: Ben is eating many new things. Here is a bowl of soup that he picked the noodles out of and drank most of the broth. We have eaten rice at nearly every meal and we do not seem to be tiring of it. Ben would love pizza, but we haven't found a good place yet. He's had french fries for dinner twice. But...he's not complaining.

More photos as we go. We feel very safe here in Thailand and confident. It's terrific. The weather is, of course, gorgeous. We have cool evenings here in the north and the days are HOT. We have no complaints. More later.