How to receive this blog via e-mail

I find it to be a pain to have to check people's blogs to see if there have been new posts. I would much rather just have their posts e-mailed to me as they are created. As such, I have set things up so that anyone can get this blog via e-mail. If you would like to receive e-mails containing each new post as it is published, you can subscribe by simply sending an e-mail to the following address:

outboundflight-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The subject and contents of the message sent to this address can be empty--they are ignored. You will receive an e-mail that will ask you to confirm your subscription by clicking on a link.

If you later decide that you don't want to get these e-mails, you can unsubscribe by sending an e-mail (from the same e-mail address used to subscribe) to the following address:

outboundflight-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

For those worried about spam, your e-mail address will be added to a list that is only visible to me. Likewise, only I can send to the list.

Sidney

Around the World #25 (10/08/03-10/10/03, The voyage home)

As you know, my 'round the world trip is over, and I am back in California. The portion of the trip since my last travelogue was pretty negligible--just the trip from Slovakia to home, essentially. But, here is the writeup for completeness. :)

Wednesday, 10/08/03

I took the electric train from Stary Smokovec to Poprad, and then took a train from Poprad out of Slovakia back to Prague. I went back to the same hotel as before, but had to deal with the night guy, who I remember from before as being a bit of a jerk. He certainly was this time.

After dinner and using the net downtown, I came back and went to sleep. At 1 AM, the jerks in the room next to mine came back shouting, laughing, and singing for the next hour. Jeez, I don't know how many people they stuffed in there. Not being able to sleep as a result, I had some time to think. It occurred to me that if I caught the bus to Paris the next day and changed my flight date, I could just make my plane to San Francisco and be home that evening. This would get me home on a Friday night and give me all weekend to take care of stuff that required interacting with my friends--like getting my car and laptop, etc. I was getting a bit tired of running around Europe, so I decided to try it. It would mean over 30 hours of traveling in one shot.

Thursday, 10/09/03

I got on the overnight bus to Paris at about 6pm. At the Czech/German border, we were held for an hour and a quarter. Every non-white person on the bus was called in for face-to-face identification.

This delay had me worried. I needed to arrive in Paris on time if I was to catch my flight.

I slept a few hours.

Friday, 10/10/03

We arrived in Paris right on time. I immediately hopped on the metro train to the airport and arrived almost precisely two hours before departure. My transit from bus to airport could not have worked out better.

When I got to the airport, things were not so perfect. The line for American was long, and I waited 15-20 minutes before getting to a counter. Then the guy gave me the 3rd degree about where I had been. He actually demanded proof of all of the flights I had taken since I left the US! Fortunately, I had the boarding passes, but I had to dig them out of my rucksack. I dumped about 20 boarding passes on him. Then he started asking for hotel receipts. I did not have all of those, but after I produced a few, he gave in and let me through.

The flight to New York was quite tolerable. Even after the all-night bus ride, I did not get fatigued or bored. On the San Francisco flight, I chatted with the guy next to me.

And then I was home. Except I didn't have a home. I made arrangements to stay with my friend Kent, but when David picked me up from the airport (after a few unsuccessful phone calls and a mixup as to which terminal I was at) and took me to his house to get my car, we discovered that the battery was dead. Not wanting to drive far late at night with a car in that state, I ended up making hasty arrangements to stay elsewhere.

The next couple of days were spent getting my car in shape, finding a rental car (which is really not easy on a Saturday afternoon), getting a new cell phone provider (Sprint screwed me over), collecting a garbage bag full of mail that arrived for me while I was gone, reinstating my car insurance, finding a temporary place to live, reconnecting with friends, etc.

And so ends my trip around the world.

Around the World #24 (09/27/03-10/07/03, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, the High Tatras of eastern Slovakia)

When I last wrote, I was in Prague. After that I moved on to Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, and the mountains of Slovakia.

I had originally planned on going to Venice and Geneva after Budapest, but I'm getting tired of struggling with the tourist hords. Slovakia seemed like it would be the road less travelled, and to my delight, it has been. Plus, I figure I will be back in Europe, and I'll probably be with people. The odds of them saying "Hey, let's go to Venice" are much greater than "Hey, let's go to the Carpathian mountains in eastern Slovakia."

As in Asia, I am trying to sample the local cuisine. Grease is the word. These people love fat. But all in all, the food hasn't been bad--from goulash to smoked pork to Wienerschnitzel. And I've been having the local beers with dinner. Yes, that's right--me voluntarily drinking beer. I figured if I can drink wine with meals in France, I can choke down a few beers in eastern Europe.

Saturday, 09/27/03

I went to the Prague train station and bought my ticket to Vienna. On my way to the town center, the metro ticket checker asked me for my ticket. I handed her my pass. She pointed out the time stamp. It had expired half an hour earlier--after I had started my trip. I paid the 400czk fine (about $15). I had to dig out my money belt to do it. How embarrassing. Busted, right in front of everyone. I was pissed at myself for not realizing that the pass was expiring. I stopped by the American Airlines office to change my flight home and they were closed. This was not turning out to be a good day.

The day improved when I started walking. There is a big hill with an abbey on it which gives great views. I hiked up, then walked around the little streets near the castle, and through a park in an area of town I hadn't seen.

While having dinner, I heard this girl who sounded exactly like my neice Julie. The voice, the inflections, the fact that every third word was "like". It was uncanny.

Sunday, 9/28/03

I took the train to Vienna. When I arrived in Vienna, I had difficulty finding the metro station. In the metro station, I tried to buy a snickers bar from a vending machine. It got stuck. I figured I would buy another and they would both fall. The first one fell, the second stuck. I was pissed. 1.80 euro for a damned snickers bar.

I took the train to near the pension where I was staying. I got turned around several times before finding the street. Not a good thing carrying my backpack. When I found the address, there was no pension there. I was frustrated. I found a payphone nearby that actually took coins and called the pension. The address was Brauergasse and I was looking a block away on Otto Bauergasse. He gave me directions and I hung up. The phone did not give change. I spent 2 euro on a 30 second call. I was pissed. My first day in Vienna was going really badly. To top it off, I went the wrong direction and spent another 15 minutes wandering around trying to find the pension.

When I go to the pension, the owner was very nice. I got an upgrade because a single was not available. Finally, something good. I liked the room. It is a very nice place with a pretty good location.

I took the subway into the town center and walked around. I took a few sunset shots. At first I was not impressed--and given how my day had been going, I was probably not in the best mood to be experiencing a new city. After a while, after seeing many beautiful buildings, I started being more impressed, but I knew that I probably shouldn't spoil the city by seeing it in my still somewhat foul mood.

Monday, 9/29/03

It was cold and drizzly all day. I tried to change my flight back home, but both American Airlines and Cathay Pacific said they couldn't change it. (It was an American Airlines flight booked on a Cathay Pacific ticket.) After mildly arguing with the American guy and sitting on hold for several minutes (not cheap on a payphone) I finally got it changed.

In the process of running errands and finding places to eat, I saw a pretty good chunk of Vienna.

Tuesday, 9/30/03

It was sunny and a little cool today. I decided to see the Danube. I wandered around, saw the big ferris wheel from "The Third Man" and then the green Danube. I don't know what river Strauss was talking about because the Danube is certainly not blue.

Since I was in Vienna, I figured I had to try the signature dish. So, for dinner I had Wienerschnitzel mit sauerkraut. Not bad, but schnitzel with noodles will never make my list of favorite things.

Wednesday, 10/01/03

I took a train from Vienna to Budapest. On the train, I decided that I did not want to deal with the inevitable headaches (primarily lodging) in Venice, and decided to go to Slovakia instead. I would spend a couuple of days in Bratislava and then head to the mountains.

When I got to Budapest, I immediately felt disappointed--even before I got out of the train/subway station. It just didn't feel right. No sense of charm like Prague or Vienna.

Getting out of the subway and taking the bus to the hotel, I felt no better. Graffiti everywhere. The neighborhood of the hotel did not seem that good. Not that convenient to public transit either--not near a subway station. I did not like the guy at the front desk, although he didn't actually do anything wrong. My room was below ground level. The window was eye-level with the street. People could look down from the sidewalk, and I could see wheels of cars and the tram go by. For the most expensive hotel I've had on this trip (42 euro a night) it sucked. Ok, the room was very tidy, and everything was quite crisp, and I probably would have loved it for half the price.

I was in kind of a foul mood. I walked across the bridge (the hotel was a block from the Danube) and through town. There was some beautiful architecture, but the place just seemed tatty. Vienna plus entropy and despair. I walked down one of the main thoroughfares to the city park. This cheered me up immensely. The musems there are beautiful buildings.

Walking back to my hotel over the bridge at night, the Danube with the castle and palace on the hills on one side and the parliament and basilica on the other, all lit up, was very beautiful. Walking on the street with the hotel, wondering about its safety, the thought went through my head: "What the hell am I doing wandering around Budapest in the middle of the night?" Just one of those weird jolts of perspective, like waking up in India and realizing that everyone you know is on the other side of the planet.

Budapest just rubbed me the wrong way. I don't see any real reason for disliking the city, but I already wanted to leave.

Thursday, 10/2/03

I walked up to the castle. Beautiful views of the city. I walked from the castle to the palace, which had even better views. I wanted to take a picture of myself with Budapest in the background, but the batteries chose that moment to go dead.

I had lunch at a pizza place called Fantasy. After sitting there, I began to wonder if it was trying to be Hooters. The pizza was fine, but the waitress ripped me off. And she short-changed me good. When I got the change, something seemed wrong, so I counted it hurriedly. It added up, but still seemed wrong. It wasn't until several hours later at home when I realized that I was almost out of money that I figured out that she had slipped a decimal place on me--either on the whole amount of change or just giving me a 500 instead of a 5000. I got ripped off over $20. I was so pissed and I was mad at myself for letting it happen. In India, everyone tried to short-change me, but I always caught it. I got very good at scrutinizing change. Since I tally up my expenses each day, I can tell if if something doesn't add up, and this bitch was the first to get away with it.

Before I left the restaurant, I decided to use the cheap internet upstairs. The computers had naked women as backgrounds. This place was so sleazy. But the net connection was good and about 1/3 the price of everywhere else.

Friday, 10/3/03

I wanted to go bathe at the Gellert Baths. Budpest has several thermal spas, and this one is supposed to be like bathing in a cathedral. But after errands, the day was wearing on, and I didn't want to bother.

The other thing I wanted to do was go up to the citadel, which I did. The weather was dreary by then--a contrast to the great weather earlier in the day and on the previous days.

I had bought new batteries that morning, but after the first picture, the low battery indicator was flashing. After about 5 pictures, the camera stopped working. I guess I won't have any pictures of me in Budapest.

Saturday, 10/4/03

I took the train from Budapest to Bratislava. The gloomy weather from last night carried over and it started to drizzle just before boarding the train. It was drizzly and overcast until we got near Bratislava, and then it cleared up.

We arrived at 12:30. The weather was quite nice, if slightly chilly. It was clear that it had been raining. I went to Hotel Spirit because it was right by the train station. They had one single left, but with no bath. I took it. This place is just weird. The outside looks like it was architected by Picasso and painted by Mondrian. It is wildly colorful and bizarrely shaped. My room is in the shape of a pyramid. The apex of the pyramid is made of glass and functions as a skylight. Through the center of this is a PVC pipe containing a light bulb which is the main lighting for the room. Set into the walls at floor level are several holes of different shapes with backings of different colored glass. Lights mounted behind the glass makes it glow when the switch is turned on. In the center of the room is an inverted pyramid whose top is a platform that can be reached by a small ladder mounted to one side. The platform is about 6' by 6'. Against 3 of the walls are 12 chairs of 2 differnt styles (6 of each) and several colors. The door of the room has an angle 2/3 of the way down because the pyramid shape of the room starts a couple of feet off the floor. It does not so much swing shut as slide into place. It, of course, is many different bright colors. The bed--stuck in a corner as an afterthought--is a fold-out sofa bed. I don't know what this room was designed for, but it doesn't look like it was meant to be a bedroom. Maybe moonlight human sacrifices.

Obviously, the focus of all the pyramid power in the room was at the platform in the center. It would have been a shame to waste all of that mystical energy (yeah, right), so I put the mattress on it and slept there.

And the books in the room: aside from a couple of children's books, there was "The Politics of Pregnancy", "Man Enough--Fathers, Sons, and the Search for Masculinity", "Mink", and "Models for European and World Integration'

To show you just how weird this hotel is, the computers used for (free) net access are running linux instead of windows! (The non-technogeeks on this mailing list can ignore this remark.)

I walked around Bratislava. Every place that did not sell food or drink was closed--on a Saturday! There were people in old town, but not what you would call a crowd. I walked up to the castle (a short walk) with a pleasant view. I walked down and had lunch . I had the Hungarian goulash that I didn't get in Hungary.

I like Bratislava. It is kind of dead, but very pleasant. It has a few interesting buildings, but nothing like Prague, Vienna, or Budapest. But Bratislava made me happy in exactly the same way that Budapest didn't.

Sunday, 10/05/03

I took the train from Bratislava to Poprad. The scenery was OK, but nothing to write home about. At Poprad, I had to catch the electric train to Stary Smokovec. If the train had arrived on time, I would have had 20 minutes to get to the electric train. The train was 15 minutes late. I ran to find and get to the train. I got there just as it was about time to leave. The conductor did not sell tickets and told me I had to go back downstairs and buy a ticket. In the two minutes it took to run down, get a ticket, and run back, the train was gone. I had to wait an hour for the next one. I was so pissed.

I checked into a hotel and walked around town a little. (Given the size of the town, a little walking is all you can do.) It is a tourist town--gift shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. In the winter, this is ski country. In the summer, hiking is the thing. It is the off season now, so very few people are around. Just what I was looking for.

I decided that when I leave here, I just want to head back to Paris and catch my flight home. If I hit some new places in between, fine. If not, fine. Europe is a lot more tiring than Asia was. Presumably, this is due to tighter time limits and tighter budgets.

Monday, 10/06/03

The plan for the day was to take the train to Tatranska Lomnica, catch the gondola to Skalnate Pleso, catch the cable car from there to the peak of Lomniky Stit and back, then hike from Skalnate Pleso to Hrebienok for a couple of hours where I would catch the funicular railway back down to Stary Smokovec. This plan failed miserably. After spending about an hour and a half getting to the gondola station (waiting for the train, taking the train, walking to the gondola station) I discovered that it was closed due to wind.

As an alternate plan, I hiked to Hrebienok. It was a pleasant hike, but nothing fantastic. All I could see was trees for the most part. It got better when I hit the stream with the waterfalls, which again, were not fantastic, but pleasant enough. At that point is was snowing lightly. All I had was my fleece jacket, which did surprisingly well. When I got to Hrebienok, there was a very nice view of the peaks. But just one view. The rest was blocked by trees. Rather than take the funicular back to town, I just hiked it since it was only half an hour.

The day wasn't what I had planned, but I got my hiking in, so I'm fine with it.

Tuesday, 10/7/03

Did some more hiking today. The lifts were again closed due to wind, so all the uphills on foot again. The portion below the treeline was not to great, but once I got above the treeline, there were some good views. The peaks were pretty much obscured by fog and snow, but oh well. I made it up to a lake with a small waterfall feeding into it before heading back down.

Now to arrange my exit from Slovakia.

Later,

Sidney

Around the World #23 (09/12/03-09/26/03, Bangkok, Paris, Prague)

Since I last wrote, I have wrapped up my Asian travels and moved on to Europe. It is very different. In Asia, I'm rich. In Europe, I'm poor. From now on, all of my vacations are going to be in third world countries.

My first stop in Europe was Paris. Paris is indeed as grand and beautiful as all the hype suggests. It is, alas, ridiculously expensive. The weather was beautiful and warm for the first few days, but started to get chillier at the end.

Many of you know Jim. He happened to be in Paris at the same time, along with his friend Eli and our friend Earl from Columbus. Until we met in Paris, I had not seen Jim in well over a year. I also got to see Laurence, who lives in Paris. I met Laurence through Adam (whom many of you know) when they were dating. It had been years since I had seen Laurence, back when she lived in Barcelona.

After Paris, I moved on to Prague. Prague is another beautiful city, and it is much cheaper than Paris (although accomodation tends to be expensive.) In both Paris and Prague, you will find the streets lined with shop windows full of delicious pastries and sweets. I attribute it to Paris's love of fine things and Prague's love of fat. Either way, they're great. The difference is, in Prague, you can actually afford them.

The weather in Prague was a bit chilly, but somehow, I can't picture Prague being warm.

Friday, 9/12/03

Still in Bangkok. Tonight's excursions were decidedly more upscale than my previous forays into Bangkok night life. It started off with drinks at The Diplomat Bar next to the American embassy. The people I was having drinks with included an editor for a fashion magazine, a writer for a travel magazine, and a guy who developes advertisements. (For those in Bangkok, he put together some of the "sharing" ads for Orange.) We were also joined by a guy from the US who works in law enforcement for US customs. (For those in California, he was part of the team that nailed the silicon valley executive for having child pornography on his computer.)

After having our fill of lavish surroundings and overpriced drinks, we moved on to 89--the dance club for the money crowd. (The cover was US$20, but we got in free. It's amazing how many people I know who can get me into clubs for free.) The crowd had a lot of white people. A total poser bar. These people danced as badly as I do. I actually found myself laughing at the corniness of it. Thankfully, our visit there was mercifully brief.

From there, we moved to a more proliteriate bar in the Silom area (where I usually hang out.) Tapas was a small place, but pretty appealing. I was tired and left before closing.

Saturday, 9/23/03

Being my last weekend in town, I wanted to see people one last time. I met several people for drinks that night and some of us moved on for dancing. I started talking to Ray, whom I had not met before, and he told me about an after-hours place. We ended up going together to meet some of his friends. When the after hours place closed, we went to another after hours place until it closed. By this time, the sun was coming up, so we had breakfast and I went home to sleep.

Sunday, 9/14/03

All the previous night, I kept saying that I had had enough to drink--I didn't want to get sick. And all night, I ended uup with another drink in my hand in spite o my objections. So, not surprisingly, a couple of hours after going to bed, I was up with a hangover--my second one ever. I got a migraine and puked, and then felt much better as always happens when I get migraines.

Ray, the person who got me in that state, was required to bring me dinner since I was too sick to go out.

At one point, a friend called and opened the conversation with "Hi, cowboy." He had seen me the night before wearing someone's cowboy hat. (It was Thai sized and way too small.)

My last weekend in Bangkok and I spent a day of it sick in bed.

Monday, 9/15/03

Ray and I ended up hitting the clubs again, but not so hard. I stayed with water all night. When the place closed, Ray stopped to buy some fried grasshoppers from a street vendor. The cart also had roaches, grubs, and some things I couldn't even make out. He munched his grasshoppers as we rode across town in a taxi, and I probably would have tried one had we not been in a taxi--I was afraid of puking in the car. The crunching sounded good, and the spices on the insects had an appealing smell.

Tuesday, 9/16/03

This was my last full day in Bangkok. It was a very fitting end to my stay in that city. It was a day filled with happiness, unhappiness, scandal, shock, confusion, uncertainty, and frustration . I won't bore you with the details, but for all the turmoil, in the end, it felt like a good day.

I met a lot of people today to say goodbye. Between dinner and clubbing, there was a thunderstorm. This was the loudest thunder storm I had seen on this trip. It seemed like a fitting ending to my stay in Bangkok. The symbolism was unmistakable. It was tumultous, really cool, dramatic, and a bit frightening. I stood out on the balcony to watch the storm. Lightning flashed constantly, but most of it was hidden from view by the buildings. The thunder was loud. It felt good.

Wednesday, 9/17/03

Before heading to the airport, I ate at a street stall in the alley right outside of the hotel. It was great. Probably one of the best meals I've had in Bangkok.

I was heading to Paris via Hong Kong. I couldn't see much of Hong Kong when we flew in, but the silouette of the mountain before the glow of the city and the lights of an invisible street snaking up a hillside like a suspended lightening bolt were nonetheless very pleasing.

After a brief stop in the Hong Kong airport, I got on another plane to Paris, slept a little bit, and landed in Paris.

I was on the plane leaving Asia at midnight. Like Cinderalla after the ball, I was transformed. I went from being the rich American visiting Asia to being the poor backpacker slob traveling around Europe. I went from living like a king for next to nothing to living like a pauper while spending a fortune. At least the plane didn't turn into a pumpkin. If anyone finds a glass hiking boot in Bangkok, it's mine.

Thursday, 9/18/03

I landed in Paris in the morning and spent most of the day trying to find a place to sleep. I had not made reservations because I wasn't sure my flight date wouldn't change and I knew I could always stay at a hostel on the outskirts of town as a last resort.

I also got my metro pass, a SIM card for my phone, and a Paris guidebook.

I met Jim and Earl at their hotel just as Earl was getting a cab to head to the airport. A few minutes later and I would have missed him. I ate lunch with Jim and we got caught up on what's been happening in the past year.

I found a hotel by going to the Paris tourism department. The only place available was only available for one night, which meant going through the whole ordeal again tomorrow. I had intended to go out tonight, but after getting to my room, I immediately fell asleep.

Friday, 9/19/03

I went searching for a hostel bed, and after many failures (including one incredible place that is in an old mansion) I found one with vacancies.

I did my lodging swap and met Jim and Eli at their hotel lobby. We chatted and Jim and I went to lunch. Afterwards, Jim, Eli, and I went to the Princess Diana memorial (which Eli just had to see), Montmarte, Moulan Rouge, and then just walking around aimlessly. We ended up walking down a street with the most hilariously ridiculous hookers.

By the end I was tired and went back to my hostel. I had just lay down for a nap when my dorm mate Ricardo (from the Phillipines, living in LA) came in. We introduced ourselves, he invited me to dinner and we walked to Bastille for Chinese food. By the time we got back, I did not have time for a nap before meeting Jim and Eli to go out. I showered and left.

Jim, Eli, and I hit several bars. I was not terribly impressed. The dance bar was particularly disappointing. When we walked in, they were line dancing. 'Nuff said.

I got tired quickly and left just before 2am. I walked home, which took about 20-25 minutes.

Saturday, 9/20/03

It was a leisurely day--I walked over by Jim's hotel and bought a sandwich for lunch. I went over to Notre Dame because my hostel-mate said there was a good bookstore there. I bought the Lonely Planet guide to Prague. After walking a bit, I went back to the hostel.

While sitting at the tables outside the hostel typing my journals, a guy started talking to me, asking a few questions about the hostel. He saw my Sun T-shirt and asked if I worked for Sun. I said yes, he asked where, and I said Menlo Park, California. He was blown away by this--he lived 2 blocks from me. I told him I no longer had a place, and he told me that he rents rooms in his 3 bedroom house, and he has one available. I took his info in case I need it.

Laurence and I met (the first time since Barcelona, several years ago) and walked around chatting. Jim called and we decided to go to his place and go to a cafe. After drinks in the cafe, we walked to dinner. I suggested fondue, so we went and to a place near the Pantheon (a big mausoleum) and had cheese fondue. We walked a bit aftewards and parted ways. Jim flies home tomorrow.

Laurence invited me to stay at her place when I come back. It is far out, near Versaille. I may do that when I get back from Prague.

Sunday, 9/21/03

My only goal for the day was to arrange my trip to Prague.

After a long, scenic search for an internet shop, I found one and used it for a couple of hours. the keyboards had a different layout, which was frustrating.

I wasted a bunch of time looking at discount airfares, but in the end decided on the bus. Unfortunately, the bus for the next day was full.

I wandered around by the Louvre and back to the Marais, then went home and typed up my journals.

Monday, 9/22/03

I spent most of my day on the net trying to plan my Prague trip. Lodging on such short notice was tricky, so I decided to handle it when I got to Prague.

Since my metro pass had expired, I walked everywhere. It was very nice. Paris is wonderful to walk through. Running errands just gives a direction for where to walk. I walked to the bus ticket office and bought my ticket to Prague.

Tuesday, 9/23/03

After checking out of the hostel, I decided to walk south today. I went through Parc de Bercy, which is very large and very nice.

I got tied up in highways and industrial land, but eventually made my way to Bois de Vincennes. This park is not as nice. And I was getting weak with hunger. I did not go all the way to the Chateau de Vincennes because I was too tired and not in the mood. I headed back and found a crepe stand. I had a delicious (although a little too salty) ham and gruyere crepe. This made me feel much better. My somewhat low spirits disipated and I was basking in the charm of Paris--even though it had started to drizzle now, and it was quite chilly.

Eventually, I headed to the bus station, checked in, and got on my bus to Prague. It left at 6pm.

Wednesday, 9/24/03

I actually managed to sleep on the bus, though not well. Crossing into Germany, the border guard didn't like my passport (with its frayed edge and opening around the picture) and took it along with 3 others for further scrutiny. In the end, all was well.

We arrived in Prague around 9am. I checked my luggage at the bus station and started my room search. Things were looking bad. After hours of searching, none of the affordable places had single rooms, and even most of the hostel dorms were full. I happened to pass Extoll Inn--one of the Hostelling International places. The web had said it was booked, but I decided to try anyway. I'm glad I did. I got a great room to myself with a bathroom shared with one other room. The room is immaculate and the cost is less than a dorm bed in the center of town--450 czk (~US$15) with my HI discount. Excellent! OK, so I spent almost my whole day looking for a place. It is in a working class neighborhood about 10 minutes from the metro.

After a nap and a much needed shower, I headed downtown for dinner.

Central Prague at night is wonderful. It feels like walking through a Dickens or Dostoyevski novel. (Fortunately, not a Kafka novel. Kafka is one of Pragues favorite sons.) I ate and used the net. Food is fairly cheap here. I had a big pizza and OJ for about $4. I had eaten a bunch of cookies and pastries earlier. I basically bought them to get change for the metro.

Thursday, 9/25/03

After breakfast, I took the metro to the town center and did a walk recommended in Lonely Planet. It took me through old town square, across the Charles bridge, with all of its statues (and tourists), over to a great, hilly, wooded park around a monestary. This park was very serene and had a great view of the city. Then I walked to Prague castle. I walked around the grounds and through the church, but did not bother with the stuff that required a ticket or guide.

I walked back to old town square, stoppping for lunch on the way.

In the morning, I had decided that it would be foolish of me to not visit more of Europe while I have the time. I feel a pull to go home, but think I should make the most of my time here. Looks like I'm delaying my return yet again--probably for two weeks.

I walked around a bit and saw some great night scenes, including the castle from across the river. I had dinner at a restuarant where the service pissed me off.

Friday, 9/26/03

Today was for errands. I went to the open air market near my hotel for some toiletries. The market is not as chaotic as the ones in Asia. It did have that classic Eastern Europe feel, though.

By the way, Prague is thoroughly modern. The city looks like it belongs to a different century, but it has all the conveniences of the 21st.

I dropped off my laundry, bought a guidebook for my further travels, did some travel planning on the net, and crashed at home. I feel like I should go out, but just don't want to.

I intend to leave Prague on Sunday. I'm planning on spending 3 days in each of the cities I go to from now on, and wind up in Paris for my flight home.

'Til next time.

Sid

Around the World #22 (09/06/03-09/11/03, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat, Bangkok)

When I last wrote, I was in Phnom Penh, Cambodia getting ready to go to Siem Reap to see the ancient ruined city of Angkor Wat. The Angkor ruins are one of those things that are so built up that I expected to be a bit disappointed when I got there. I have to say, they are quite impressive. The ruins are very extensive, covering many miles. Some are in remarkable shape, some are piles of rubble. Many have full-grown trees growing on, out of, and around them. Of course, being THE tourist attraction in Cambodia, you get innundated by "Wanna buy a cold drink?", "Film?", "Postcards?", every time you walk out of a ruin. Nonetheless, a really cool place.

I'm back in Bangkok now, winding down my tour of Asia. Next week, I head to Europe.

Saturday, 9/6/03

Thien and I got up early and hopped on the bus to Siem Reap. This was a full-size bus with working air conditioning, so we didn't get covered with dirt. For stretches of the road, it was pretty rough. Thien almost got to the point of throwing up and was half dead when we got there.

The landscape on the ride was pretty much what we had seen on the previous drive--lots of big expanses of wetlands planted with rice and trees dotted throughout. Stands of forest. Stilt houses scattered about.

It started raining just as we got to Siem Reap. We checked out the guesthouse that the bus brought us to, but did not like it. When the rain subsided, we went down the street to another. This guesthouse was quite nice, the family running it was friendly, but the noise from the music being played across the street was very annoying.

We walked around Siem Reap just before sundown. It was a pleasant place except for the fact that everyone looked at us like fresh meat for the fleecing. The taxi drivers were relentless. Lots of beggars.

Siem Reap has a lot of large, old trees and a river going through town. There are some decent colonial buildings. It is aesthetically pretty pleasant.

We went back to the hotel, and I actually wanted to watch TV (which I really haven't done since leaving India.) I watched Hannibal (which apparently had the really gorey stuff cut out) and my first episode of Six Feet Under.

The air-conditioner controls were written Japanese, so we had some difficulty getting it to work right. We froze that night.

Sunday, 9/7/03

The blaring music next door woke me up at 5:30. Eventually, I managed to fall back to sleep, in spite of the noise and frigid air conditioning.

We went to Angkor Wat in the late afternoon (you get in free after 5pm if you are buying a pass for the next day.) We took a remorque-moto--a motorcycle with a little two-wheeled carriage towed behind it.

We went through Angkor Wat itself. (The Wat is just a small portion of the ancient city.) It is huge and impressive. I used my failing camera to take a few pictures, removing the batteries after each shot so the camera would not eat them. You couldn't really get any good sunset shots due to the way Angkor Wat faces, and the fact that they kick you out before the sun actually sets.

Monday, 9/8/03

Today was spent in Angkor Wat. We intended to get up early, but because the shutters were closed and we could not see the sun come up, it was almost 10 before we got up.

We got our driver, got some pastries, and headed to the Angkor Wat complex. We skipped Angkor Wat itself, having seen it the night before and went straight to the walled city of Angkor Thom and the Bayon inside it. This is the one with all the faces, and was pretty cool. We tried walking to the Western Baray, realized it was too far, turned back and went by the pyramid of The Baphuon, which was under heavy reconstruction. Here we met two boys who "helpfully" told us about the reclining buddha behind. Obviously, these boys wanted to be tour guides for tips. Mine was actually pretty good.

We went from site to site all day. It was quite cool. I could easily see just spending a day walking around, picnicking, or reading at these sites.

It had been a beautiful day--not terribly hot, and no rain. We ended the day at the hilltop where Phnom Bekang is located. This is the definitive sunset spot. It was quite an impressive view of the surrounding landscape. In view, there was a big lake, lots of jungle, and you could see Angkor Wat from above (although it was too small to get good pictures.) I wanted to wait for sunset, but it was just too long until then, so we decided to leave. The sun set on the drive back, and it looked like it probably wasn't that impressive anyway.

Once home, we ran around trying to arrange my bus to Bangkok and Thien's flight to Saigon. Fortunately, we got them both arranged before places closed.

Tuesday, 9/9/03

I got on my bus to Bangkok. The roads were, of course, mostly bad dirt roads. I talked a lot with the guy next to me.

We hit a traffic jam after lunch for about an hour. A trailer had fallen off on a bridge. When the trailer had been cleared, the traffic on either side prevented anyone from going across. (The left lanes were clogged with people trying to pass the people in the right lane, in order to get to the bridge. Thus, anyone getting across the bridge had nowhere to go when they got across.)

When we got to Poipet, we went through immigration, etc. and our bus company did not tell us where to catch the bus on the other side. Fortunately, I found some of the other passengers milling around.

Nui called while I was on the bus. He was visiting in Bangkok with some friends from Chiang Mai.

Wednesday, 9/10/03

Nui called and we met for lunch. Then we walked over to Pratunam market and shopped for lack of anything else to do. We were shopping for me, but I found nothing. The clothes that I would have bought were not available in my size. Nui, who did not want to buy anything, bought three things.

I met Nui and a friend of his that night for drinks. They flew back home the next day.

Thursday, 9/11/03

I didn't do much today--pretty much just used the net and read. I uploaded my Cambodia pictures and did a little travel planning for Europe. I downloaded the "missing" chapters of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which I did not know existed, and loaded them on my PDA. If you like that series of books, check them out. (They explain how the dolphins got the earth back and several other things.)

I'll be spending the next several days in Bangkok, planning for Europe and preparing to go home. Hopefully, it will be relaxing, but being Bangkok, it could be very un-relaxing. :) So far, people have been quite amused by my "new look".

Later,

Sid

Around the World #21 (09/01/03-09/05/03, Saigon, Phnom Penh)

I'm now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Thien decided to come along from Saigon, so he is here, too. We were both pleasantly surprised with Phnom Penh. We both expected overwhelming poverty and not much that was aestheticly pleasing. As it turns out, it is a very pleasant city, with a lot of nice restaurants, an attractive riverfront, several nice green park areas scattered around town, and friendly people. Yes, there are beggars, but not as many as several of the other cities. And yes, there are the occasional people with legs blown off by land mines. And there are certainly the annoying motorcycle taxi drivers who ask you every 10 feet if you need a ride. And restaurants are surprisingly expensive (but cheaper than the US.) But all-in-all, quite a pleasant city.

When I wrote last, I was still in Saigon...

Sunday, 8/31/03

I had brunch with several of the Saigon crowd and then we went shopping. One of the guys is so small that he was trying on children's clothes.

Monday, 9/1/03

Thien and I went to the Cambodian embassy in Saigon and got our visas.

I got another case of traveller's diarrhea, but not too bad.

Went out dancing to the same place I went the first night I got in Saigon months ago. I was the only white person there, and once again, I could see over the top of the crowd on the dance floor.

Thien was also getting sick by the time we got home, so we decided to delay our departure to Cambodia by a day.

Tuesday, 9/2/03

It was a holiday in Vietnam, so everyone had the day off. We basically just hung out and relaxed until late in the afternoon. We stayed out too late at Phuc's house and ended up packing until 1:00am. We had to get up at 6am the next day.

Wednesday, 9/3/03

Thien and I took a bus to Cambodia. There was a pair of French guys who did nothing but have a heated argument from the moment they got on the bus. Before we were out of Saigon, one of them asked to be let off the bus. He ended up getting back on again before we pulled away, but demanded to be let off again later. Fortunately, the driver took off before there was any other chance for him to change his mind.

The ride on the Vietnam side was fine. We went through the usual immigrations/customs tedium at the border. They just waved me right on by through customs and the border check. Thien had to pay at customs and at the border check. I have no doubt it was because of the nationality on his passport--the only other person who had to pay anything was also Vietnamese.

After waiting at a little restaurant on the Cambodian side of the border for an hour and a half, we got on the new bus. The inside was covered in dirt. When the bus started moving, we found out why. For the first hour, the road was dirt, with a top layer like talcum powder. Within five minutes, we were all covered in dirt. Several of us were laughing at the ridiculousness of the cloud of dirt inside the bus. No one seemed too upset. Fortunately, I still had a surgical mask from a SARS-era flight, and I used this to keep the dust out of my mouth.

The road was crossed with ditches, and had plenty of holes. They were in the process of building a big highway, and the bus would switch from what will be the east-bound and west-bound lanes, depending on which was better. By the end of the 4.5 hour trip, Thien was really sick from the motion.

We stayed at the guesthouse where the bus dropped us. We were tired, filthy, it was getting dark, and the rooms were only $3, so we took one. Judging from the rooms, they put the place up in about 10 minutes. But the deck was VERY nice. The guesthouse is built out over the lake in Phnom Penh. The view and the breeze is really serene. However, the other side of the guesthouse leads to a series of muddy alleyways. It appears to be in backpacker central.

Thursday, 9/4/03

In spite of the fact that you could hear conversations in the next room, I slept really well. Although sound travelled, there wasn't much sound to travel. The only thing that disturbed my sleep was Thien saying that a mouse just ran down his arm.

We walked around Phnom Penh, and had a very pleasant day. We walked down the riverfront and had lunch while chatting with the waiter. We went to the park by the Independence Monument and rested a while. We went through the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. Thien is a big lover of diamonds, and the Silver Pagoda has a statue of Buddha covered in diamonds, the largest of which is 25 carats. We walked through the cental market, housed mainly in a big domed building. While here, we got to see big spiders sold as food. One was still alive. Then through Wat Phnom on the only hill in town, and back to the guesthouse. We decided not to bother changing lodgings.

Dinner was at a really good Indian restaurant near our guesthouse. Phnom Penh appears to have a good selection of restaurants.

Friday, 9/5/03

Thien wasn't feeling well enough to leave Phnom Penh, so we just spent the day relaxing around the guesthouse. It was just as well, since it was quite rainy most of the day. The movie playing in the common area? Why "The Killing Fields" of course. If it hadn't been for rain and sickness, we probably would have gone to see the killing fields today.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, another bus trip on the fun-filled roads of Cambodia. Off to Siem Riep and the ancient city of Ankor Wat--the main reason anyone comes to tour Cambodia.

Later,

Sid

Around the World #20 (08/20/03-08/31/03, Bangkok, Saigon)

My last travelogue was sent from Bangkok, just after my birthday. Since then I have moved on to Saigon in preparation for a trip across Cambodia.

Wednesday, 8/20/03 - Monday, 8/25/03

Hung out in Bangkok. I decided that I would extend my trip by a couple of weeks and go to Cambodia. Apparently, going by land from Thailand is a pain--the border town in Cambodia is run by criminals and they screw you at every opportunity (overcharge you for the visa and transport, make sure that your transport takes all day so you get stuck at their hotel, have "breakdowns" that benefit them, etc.) As a result, I decided to fly to Saigon and go across Cambodia from that direction.

As a result, I needed to get another Vietnam visa. While walking to the embassy, some "helpful" guy asked me where I was going, and when I told him, he gave me this line of "Oh, really? I work right behind it. You know, they are really unfriendly and take several days. If you go to this visa agency, they can get it for you in 3 days." Although he pulled off the role of helpful-guy-not-at-all-trying-to-screw-you pretty well, the touting scenario was obvious enough. I told him I was in no hurry, went to the embassy myself, was out in 5 minutes, and had my visa in hand the next day. Further reinforcement that no one on this planet walks up to you on the street and starts talking to you unless they are trying to get something from you. As if that lesson needed reinforcing. (Ok, ok, there was one woman in Bangkok who asked if she could help and pointed me to the restaurant I was looking for, and there is Prathish in Cochin who started talking to me and showed me around out of curiousity and ennui. But 99.9% of the time, anyone who comes up to you in the street just wants to screw you.)

This lesson was again reinforced later that day, when I was in the tourist-ghetto part of Bangkok shopping for used books. I was wearing a Solaris T-shirt, and the guy commented on it as I walked by. I wasn't doing anything, so I decided to see what his deal was. He gave me a line about having a sister about to go to school at UCLA. We chatted a bit, and he didn't seem to be getting to the point, so I asked him what his sales pitch was. Of course, he would never dream of chatting with me for any reason other than personal enrichment. Gee, would I mind talking to his sister--she had never been to America before and was a bit nervous about moving there. After having spent all this time talking to the guy, I wanted to know what his game was. (I had a lot of fun fake shopping with the tout in Delhi and finding out all about the touting business. I wanted to get a similar education out of this guy.) So, I said "Sure", expecting him to walk me across the street to some shop and try to get me to buy something. Instead, he went to a cab! I said "No way in hell am I getting into a cab with you. I'll go along with your scam on foot in a busy shopping area, but I am not putting myself in a situation where I can't walk away." Of course, as I walked away from him, he feigned innocence, but this guy so reeked of a scam he might as well have been wearing a sign.

But, surprisingly, I've gotten very little of this crap in Bangkok. That last guy was in the backpacker ghetto, which is naturally crawling with scam artists.

Most of the week was just spent hanging out with friends, relaxing, and seeing a couple of movies. I finally got around to burning my photos to CD and sent a copy home so I don't have to worry about losing them.

Tuesday, 8/26/03

Packed my bags, headed to the airport where I wrote some postcards, and flew to Saigon. Thien was there to meet me, along with his cousin Anh and his friend Phuc. (That's pronounced "Fook"--get your mind out of the gutter.) I hung around with them the last time I was in Saigon. We had coffee before heading home. Later, we met a bunch of people for dinner and went out for drinks. Since Lost in Saigon was closed by the cops, the new home for the group I hang out with is Guns 'n' Roses. Yes, an unfortunate theme.

Wednesday, 8/27/03

Went to one of Thien's friends' hair salon for a trim. Came out with the sides and back buzzed off and the top blond. What the hell--it was suggested and I was looking for a change anyway.

A group of us went dancing at Apocalype, which was once again dismal. That place is the most popular club in town, and the only bar in Asia that I actively dislike. They charge US$4.50 for a drink and don't put any liquor in it. In a third world country, that is just criminal. And the music isn't that good. And it feels so..."popular". Yuck. Afterwards, back to Guns 'N' Roses.

Thursday, 8/28/03

A bunch of us went to the International Club. I guess you would call this a gym or a spa. Pool, sauna, "oxygen room" (tv room), weight room, various kinds of massage. Legit--nothing funny.

Then off to a really good dinner (Vietnamese cuisine is fantastic) and off to Guns 'N' Roses yet again. And, no, it isn't that great of a bar--it's just where this particular group hangs out.

Friday, 8/29/03

After a simple dinner at a little rooftop restaurant, Thien and I did a little shopping. It was the first time that I have been in a department store in Vietnam. Pretty much like any upscale US department store.

After shopping, we went to the top of the Prudential building for ice cream on the rooftop cafe. It was a pleasantly cool evening and the night view of the city from the open-air cafe was great. The ice cream wasn't all that, in spite of its price, but that wasn't why we were there.

We went to Apocalypse again, which I hope never happens again. Neither Thien nor I like it, so I don't think it will.

We went to Guns 'n' Roses yet again. While Thien and I were playing pool, I noticed the cops outside. It was 12:20am--liquor is only legal until midnight. For some reason I don't quite understand, they don't actually close the bar--they just ask to see the registration on all of the bikes parked outside. If you don't have your registration, your bike gets impounded. Thien had his registration, but Phuc did not. Thien asked me to go get Phuc's bike, hoping that as a tourist who couldn't speak Vietnamese, they would let me go. (They don't like to raise a stink with tourists.) No such luck. Phuc took Thien's bike and raced home to get his registration before the impound truck arrived. They had just loaded his bike on the hydraulic platform on the truck when Phuc arrived with the registration. Talk about cutting it close. So the cops gave me "my" bike and we were off. We parked the bikes in a lot about half a block away and went to another bar for the rest of the night. So ended my first run-in with the Vietnamese police.

Saturday, 8/31/03

A few of us were going to go to the beach town of Vung Tau for the weekend, but the weather report was not favorable.

I bought a pair of glasses to go with the new hair. ($25 for frames and lenses.) I think I'm going to have to wait until I get to Bangkok for the new clothes. :)

I'll be heading to Cambodia early this week. Thien may or may not be coming along--he hasn't decided yet.

Later,

Sid

Around the World #19 (08/10/03-08/19/03, Vientaine, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Chiang Mai, Bangkok)

When I last wrote, I had just arrived in Laos and was in the capital city of Vientiane. Since then, I have completed my whirlwind tour of Laos, consisting of lots of relaxation and finishing with a less-than-relaxing speed boat ride up the Mekong. I am now back in Bangkok, after going through Chiang Mai on my way back from Laos.

Sunday, 8/10/03

I woke up in the middle of the night, very groggy and confused. My first thought was "Where am I?" Once I remembered that I was in Vientaine, my second thought was "Where is the guy I'm travelling with?" After realizing that there was no such person, I settled back in to sleep. However, I couldn't, because I had the eerie feeling that there was someone else in the room. I looked around, but there was no one there. Yet I couldn't get over the feeling that there was someone--or something--between me and the bathroom door. Oooooooooo. Spoooooky. Mind you, I was still half asleep, and the thought that went through my mind was "The more attention you give it, the more real it becomes." So I rolled over and went back to sleep. Yeah, I'm not that superstitious and can recognize a sleep-induced delusion when I have one. :)

I caught a bus out of Vientiane to Vang Vieng--a small city halfway to Luang Prabang. The ride was very nice. It started flat, with little towns and dirt roads leading off the main one. Then it got hilly and twisty. Little clusters of thatched houses dotted the roadway (one or two with satellite dishes.) It was pleasantly scenic, and--like pretty much all of Loas--very green.

I did not expect much from Vang Vieng, but was pleasantly surprised. It sits on a river and on the opposite banks are karst formations. These jutting tree-covered stone hills made a really cool backdrop to the river--particularly as the sun set and in the morning when they were covered with mist. There were some caves in the area that I had planned on hiking to if I had gotten there earlier in the day, but it was too late to do that.

The town of Vang Vieng is quite small. Other then the main highway through town, all of the roads were one lane. It did have plenty of restaurants and hotels. All-in-all, I think I liked Vang Vieng better than Vientiane or Luang Prabang.

Monday, 8/11/03

When I woke up, I decided to forgo cave exploration in favor of moving on to Luang Prabang, which was the reason I came to Laos in the first place. Again, the bus ride was very scenic--mountains, jungles, half-naked kids running and playing everywhere, thatched and wooden houses, rivers. The places we passed are the kinds of towns that they promise you when they sell you tours to hill tribe villages. (In reality, these tours end up taking you to gift shops that used to be hill tribe villages before tour groups started coming.) Laos has not had enough tourism to spoil it yet. (I've heard Myanmar [Burma] is even more unspoiled.)

It was a very talkative group on the bus, so there was a lot of conversation. I spent most of the time talking to Hoon--the Korean sculpture student sitting next to me.

When I got to Luang Prabang, I was a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it is a great little city and I would recommend it. It is nestled at the confluence of the Mekong and another river. It is chock full of temples, which is why it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site. It is sedate, quiet, relaxed, easy-going, and attractive. I guess I was expecting something more like Ayuthya, Thailand where walking through town I was just bowled over by the overwhelming and abundant temple ruins. The temples in Luang Prabang are not as grand. Again, I liked Luang Prabang, and would recommend it, but my expectations were set pretty high by talking to people who had been there. To listen to them, you would think they had an orgasm as soon as the entered town.

I spent the remainder of the day wandering around Luang Prabang, talking to travel agents, using the net, and having dinner in a really nice French restaurant. (Laos seems to have some pretty good ones.)

Tuesday, 8/12/03

I booked travel out of town for the next day. I decided that I would go back to Thailand by continuing north rather than backtracking through Vientiane. This way, I could go back to Chiang Mai and surprise Nui on his birthday, which is Thursday or Friday depending on whether you go by the date on his birth certificate or not.

I just hung out, walked around, wrote some postcards sitting next to the river. (This is the river that is not the Mekong. The Mekong is not very scenic--wide and muddy. Kinda like the Mississippi.) It was starting to rain, so I went back to my hotel and finished reading the book I had borrowed from the hotel in Bangkok. (The book is called "Important Things That Don't Matter". It's pretty good--especially if you are nostalgic about the 80's.)

In the evening, I walked around to find a restaurant. On the way, a little boy (maybe 3 or 4 years old) trotted by, said "sabba dii" ("hello"), I said "sabba dii" back, and he kept on his way. He didn't stop and ask for anything, or get annoying--he just said "hello" and went on. Laos is cool like that.

I chose a restaurant near the river. I was the first person there, so I chose a prime spot on the veranda overlooking the river. It was a very nice--but not too expensive--restaurant. The staff were very friendly. Even wearing a sweaty T-shirt, dirty khakis, and a plastic calculator watch, I managed to get a feeling of sophistication. :) Dusk over the river turned to night with a light shower and a few flashes of lightning to illuminate the river. A very good, laid-back meal.

Wednesday, 8/13/03

I got up at 6am, packed and went to the speed boat pier to catch the boat to take me to the Thai border. When I got there, someone said "Hello" to me. It was Hoon, from the bus ride to Luang Prabang. He ended up traveling with me all day. The boat was supposed to leave at 8am, but we didn't leave until after 9am. The speedboats are just like the longtail boats in Bangkok. They are small, long and narrow, and not terribly comfortable. But they really move. According to Lonely Planet, they go 80 km/h (about 50 miles per hour.) They are extremely loud. (My ears were ringing after.) They can also be very dangerous. Hitting submerged objects or standing waves can cause them to capsize and seriously injur or kill the passengers. Each passenger got a crash helmet along with his life jacket. The ride was pretty cool, but a bit tense. The scenery was very green--the banks were fairly high most of the way, so I couldn't see very far except for the mountains in the background.

The thing that ruined the boat trip was the scam that the drivers pulled. A couple in another boat bought 4 tickets so they could have more room. Each boat holds 6 people, so with their extra tickets, they had 4 people in their boat. The driver of their boat removed a local person from their boat for no apparent reason before leaving, so the boat left with 3 people. The boat I was in also left with 3 people, which puzzled me. I knew there was no way they would make the whole trip with the boat half empty, so I figured we would pick up other passengers at another pier along the way. Nope. The boat with the couple that bought the extra tickets had "engine trouble" 5 minutes after we left. And what a lucky coincidence that our driver was looking behind him when the other boat pulled over to the river bank. And wasn't it just a miracle that both boats happened to be exactly half full so that we could stuff them into our boat and continue? So, this couple got screwed out of $50 worth of tickets. A brain damaged 5-year-old could see that this was a scam, and we all made the boat drivers perfectly aware that no one was idiot enough to believe it was anything else. But they would not take the couple back, and they would not continue until everything was moved into one boat. The couple was pissed, but once they realized there was nothing to be done, they settled in and decided to take action when we got where we were going. Even though I didn't get screwed, it just really pissed me off for the rest of the trip. Plus, it made me realize just how vulnerable we were. Our driver could just stop anywhere, with nothing for miles but jungle and river, and demand anything he wanted. Of course, if it came to that, we could easily pound the shit out of him and steal his boat until we got to the next dock, but that would embroil us in a big legal battle for days.

Half an hour before reaching our destination (it was a 6-hour trip) the engine on our boat started cutting out. The driver worked on the engine for the better part of an hour. We were all wondering if we were getting screwed over again--that is, was this engine trouble induced to scam us again. In the end, we went back downstream a little way, hiked up the bank to a little village, where we had to take a pickup truck the rest of the way to our destination. The boat driver tried to get us to pay for this taxi truck, but I made it clear that we paid him to get us there, and he was going to pay for this taxi, which eventually he did. I suspect he was in cahoots with the driver, and I was not going to fall for another scam if I could help it. On the ride there, I talked with the couple about how they were going to handle the rip-off. They were going to try to find the tourist police (which exist in these countries for just such situations) and report the boat drivers and see if they could get their money back. And more importantly, keep these assholes from pulling this kind of shit with other tourists. I gave them my phone number and e-mail in case they needed another witness.

Hoon and I took the ferry over to Thailand and caught a minibus. He took it as far as Chiang Rai and I went all the way to Chiang Mai. After arriving, checking in and showering, I walked over to the bar where Nui works, getting there just after midnight, to surprise him and

wish him a happy birthday. Having been up since 6am, riding in boats, bus, and pickup trucks, and getting scammed, I was extremely tired and crashed early.

Thursday, 08/14/03

Hung out and went bowling. I averaged over 150 which is pretty good for me. :) Hung out at Nui's bar and went dancing afterwards.

Friday, 08/15/03

I celebrated Nui's birthday at the bar with the rest of the bartenders. Later, we all went dancing again. Chiang Mai has much better dance bars than the ones I've seen in Bangkok.

Saturday, 08/16/03

Flew from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. I had only about 2 hours of sleep, so I crashed when I got there.

Sunday, 08/17/03

I went to the weekend market in Bangkok to look for used books. (No luck.) I met my friend Maan there and we had lunch together.

I was still a bit tired so I read most of the afternoon and went out for a late dinner. I was going to go out and meet some friends, but it was raining, so no one was out.

Monday, 08/18/03

I finally got a new PDA. I bought it online and had David C. in California ship it to me. I had to go to the post office to pick it up and pay duties/taxes. I paid $80 for the PDA and another $40 to get it to Thailand. It was still cheaper than buying a new one here.

I ended up getting sick again. Nothing major--just diarrhea again and a bit of whooziness. However, it took 2 doses of cipro to get rid of it this time. By the end of the day, I was fine. I had coffee and dinner with Jake. At midnight he wished me happy birthday and gave me a card.

Tuesday, 08/19/03

I turned 35 today. I spent all day hanging out with friends in Bangkok. I had lunch with Jake, coffee, dinner, and drinks with Komsan, more drinks with Maan, and dancing with Beer and Komsan. It was after 3am when I got home. All-in-all, a pretty good entry to midlife. :)

So, now I have to figure out where to go from here.

Oh, I forgot to mention in my last travelogue that before I left Bangkok for Laos, I had drinks with a famous Thai supermodel/actress. I was having drinks with friends in Bangkok and she knew one of them and joined us. I, of course, had no idea who she was until I was told later. A different friend had pointed her out the previous time I was in Bangkok, but I didn't recognize her.

Till next time.

Sid

Around the World #18 (08/01/03-08/09/03, Bangkok, Vientaine)

I have finally left Bangkok and gone on to the next country--Laos. Laos was not originally on my itinerary, but so many people I met have said good things about it, I decided to go. It is easy to get there from Bangkok, and I needed to get out of Thailand because my visa is running out. (When I go back to Thailand, I automatically get another 30-day visa.) Plus, I was getting a bit stressed out by things going on in Bangkok, and Laos is definitely a low-stress place.

Friday, 8/1 to 8/7

I hung out in Bangkok for this period. Nui came down from Chiang Mai on the first and left Bangkok on the 7th. We hung out most of the time. He used to live in Bangkok, but I actually took him to some places he had never been before. Another friend of his was in Bangkok for a few days as well, so we hung out with him.

I got a couple of calls from people in the states this week--Vikram and David C. in California. By the way, my cell phone won't work until I get back to Thailand. Not much point in trying to get a new number for Lao, since I don't plan on being here very long.

Hanging out with Nui, I discovered kamikazis. The bar we go to sells them by the pitcher pretty cheap. The first night we had a couple of pitchers, we ended up at an underground club with some friends of his. (He knows almost no one in Bangkok, but almost everyone in Chiang Mai. Lot's of Chiang Mai people make it to Bangkok.) It wasn't a great club, but it was an interesting thing to do once. Since the place servers liquor after hours illegally, it is a very clandestine affair. You walk down an alley, knock on a dark, locked, gated door, and an old woman lets you in. You go into the belly of this huge building to a large room with no windows, so no one can hear the music or see the lights (not that there was much light.) When we left, we had to wait for the owners to make sure the coast was clear. They had a set of surveilance cameras set up to watch for cops, and we could see the monitors as we waited to leave. We exited to another alley where there were people setting up for the morning market. (It as about 5am.)

The next night, we went through 3 pitchers of kamikazis. That was a very strange night of unusual places and hide and seek through the sidestreets of Bangkok.

Nui had intended to go with me to Lao, but when he discovered that the road would be twisty (he gets motion sick) and that the flights were more expensive than we thought, that didn't happen. After searching for discount airfares, we got in a canal bus (much to Nui's dismay.) The canal stank, and we had to pull up a tarp on the side of the boat to keep the smelly water from splashing on us. I thought it was like a hilarious amusement park ride. I think Nui was amused in spite of himself. Afterwards, we went to Swensen's to have an earthquake, which I had promised him in Chiang Mai but could never manage.

It turns out that Nui and his friend Jack know my friend Randy--you may remember him from the Milford Sound portion of my New Zealand travelgue. Randy was in Chaing Mai several weeks ago and hung out at the bar where they work. Randy went to Saigon, so I sent him to Lost in Saigon to find Thien, but I found out the bar had been closed down, and Randy got kicked out of the country after his first day in Saigon due to a visa snafu. He went back to Bangkok and got there the day after I left. Doh!

Friday, 8/8/03

I decided in the morning that I needed to get the hell out of Bangkok for a while, so I bought a train ticket to the Lao boarder and got on the night train.

Saturday, 8/9/03

I arrived at the Loa boarder, went over the bridge to Vientiane, going through all of the visa/customs/immigration beurocracy.

Vientaine is a pleasant, sleepy, small town. I can't believe it is the capital of a country.

I walked around Vientaine (it is small enough that you can do that.) A pleasant stroll along the Mekong and through the central area. For you Illinoisans, Belleville looks like a big city compared to Vientaine.

I had dinner at a very nice French restaurant. Very cheap, very good.

In about an hour I take a bus to Vang Vieng further north in Lao.

Later,

Sid

Around the World #17 (07/11/03-07/31/03, Bangkok, Chang Mai, Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan)

Hi, all.

My last travelogue went out 3 weeks ago, so be prepared for a very long update. But, you're in luck. I smashed my pda recently, and since it contained my journals, I have to describe the first two weeks from memory, so not so much detail. :) Fortunately, I backed up my pda right before it got destroyed.

When I last wrote, I was in Bangkok and had started exploring Thailand.

Friday, 7/11

Hung out with friends in Bangkok.

Saturday, 7/12 to Monday, 7/14

This was a 3-day weekend in Bangkok. I stuck around Bangkok to hang around with friends. Unfortunately, everything went wrong this weekend. Plans fell through, people became unavailable, and I spent the whole weekend bored. Bored in Bangkok. That was a first. Towards the end, I was so frustrated I just decided to go out to the bars and meet some people there. Foiled again--all the bars were closed for the holidays. I did end up meeting some people in the end, so at least Monday night went well.

Tuesday, 7/15

Komsan showed me around some of the places I had not yet seen in Bangkok. Wat Arun (which was very cool), a little park by the river, a simple little restaurant on a pier on the river. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Wednesday, 7/16

I took the train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai--the biggest city in the north of Thailand. When I got checked in to a hotel, I met Nui--someone I met online. He works as a bartender, so his days are free.

Thursday, 7/17 to Sunday, 7/20

Nui took me around Chiang Mai and some of the surrounding area on his motorbike. We went to some lakes where we had lunch in little bamboo pavilions, where we sat on mats while eating. On one of these trips we met some of his friends and ate, swam, and generally goofed around. We even had chicken fights in the water, which I hadn't done since childhood. (For those not familiar with this sport, it involves pairs of people fighting against each other in the water. In each pair, one sits on the other's shoulders. the job of the guy on top is to knock the other guy down. In our case each pair consisted of a white guy carrying a Thai guy, since David and I were much larger than Nui and Wha. Of course, Nui and I kicked their asses.) When we were having lunch, Nui asked me what I wanted. I made the mistake of saying "surprise me". (For those on this list for whom English is a second language, this phrase means "you choose for me--anything is fine".) Well, I was surprised. When the lid was taken off the first dish, it jumped out of the bowl. It was a shrimp salad where the little shrimp were still alive and jumping. It didn't taste bad. I was more grossed out by the fact that the shrimp were whole than than they were alive. Then next dish was pig liver, which wasn't too bad for liver. The fish was a bit more normal--head, scales and all.

We ended up dancing at a couple of different places over the weekend: Bubble which was a rather formulaic dance club catering to tourists and Nice Illusions which was a much louder, hipper club with a much harder edge. The DJ was OK, but the live band was great. If you didn't have to scream directly into people's ears to be heard, it would have been great.

I even ended up bowling--twice.

Monday, 7/21

I signed up for a tour to do all of the obligatory Chiang Mai activities--hill tribe village, elephant ride, and bamboo rafting. It was agony going with other tourists. The were pissed that this trek actually involved hiking up a hill. They were all told that it didn't, and that they should wear sandals for the rafting portion.

The hill tribe villages were, of course, nothing but gift shops.

When we got to the elephant riding portion, I was the only one who actually sat on the elephant rather than the seat on its back. It was a bit hard to hold on. I bought my first souvenir--a picture of me on the elephant. It was a pretty good picture.

Side note: I decided early on not to buy souvenirs on this trip, so don't be pissed when you don't get anything when I get back.

We went to a pretty cool waterfall, where I slipped on a rock and landed on my PDA, smashing the LCD. Since we were there for a while, I took everything out of my pockets and played under the waterfall and used the slippery rocks as a waterslide. Very cool. Nobody else seemed interested--even those who put on bathing suits. A really dead group of people.

On the bamboo rafting portion of the trip, I got to be the punter in the back of the raft. Going through some rapids, water came over, the raft twisted, and I fell off. I whacked my knee on a rock--I felt that for a few days. I was the only person who fell off a raft.

When I got back, Nui and I went PDA shopping (no luck) and had dinner at a nice restaurant by the river.

Tuesday, 7/22

Hung out with Nui before heading to the train station to go back to Bangkok. We relaxed by the lake. It was a mad dash to the train station, as another bout of travellers' diarrhea kicked in. One cipro and it was gone. The night train was quite nice.

Wednesday, 7/23

Hung out with Komsan and planned to go to Ko Samui with him. We saw the movie 28 Days Later. $2.50 to see a movie--and you get to choose your seat when you buy the ticket.

Thursday, 7/24

Hung out for friends and packed for the trip.

Friday, 7/25

Komsan and I took the train, bus, and ferry to Ko Samui. We got there after 9:00, which made finding lodging difficult. We were not in good spirits when we finally got to sleep.

Saturday, 7/26

Komsan and I found a new bungalow off the beach, hung out on the beach, swam, and had dinner on the beach.

We decided to explore the Samui night life. Man, was that depressing. The dance clubs were dead, so we ended up at a drag show, or as they are called in Thailand, a "caberet". That was the most lackluster drag show I have ever seen. It looked like it was trying to be Vegas. It succeeded in being plastic, but not in being glamorous. It was obviously packaged for a straight audience, which was pretty much all that was there. Before the show started, it looked like a strip club, but none of the performers where really women. I had never seen THAT before, and I hope I never do again.

I got bored there, so we went back to a dance club. Picture a large dance floor full of tourists who can't dance. Now I know how I must look when I dance. Scary. The music sucked, and the atmosphere was pretty lame. We didn't stay there long. Not much else to do in Samui, so we went to the bungalow and fell asleep to the pounding techno bass line.

I should mention that on Ko Samui, almost no one there is Thai. All the tourists are white. I was not the one that stood out--Komsan was.

Sunday, 7/27

We decided Ko Samui was lame and headed to the neighboring island of Ko Pha Ngan. We were told there was going to be a full moon party the next night. The island is famous world wide for it. It is a big beach party rave, generally full of drug heads. If we had an almanac, we could have seen that the full moon was not for two weeks.

We stayed at a quiet beach in a little cove. Our bungalow was very nice ($5 US) and sat on a cliff over the ocean and overlooked the beach. I thought it was great, but Komsan thought it was too quiet. We decided to head to the distant island of Phuket the next day.

We went snorkelling, which although not great, was quite fun. We watched the sun set from a rocky outcropping and had dinner on the beach. Afterwards, we got a bottle of rum and drank it on the porch of our bungalow, alternating between who got to sit in the hammock. We just sat and talked all night. A great night.

Monday, 7/28

We were going to take the 9:30 taxi to the ferry pier for the 10:00 ferry to the mainland. The taxi was 10 minutes late--we got to the pier just after they finished boarding. We missed it by a minute. I was SO pissed. The next boat was in 3 hours. That meant getting to Phuket late at night. Sadly, it was decided that we would stay on Ko Pha Ngan another night and then head back to Bangkok the next day. I was depressed.

We went to the main beach on the island and found another bungalow in the hills overlooking the beach. We played games in the sand--tic tac toe, connect four, othello. (Othello was tricky in sand.) It was surprisingly fun and brought up our spirits. We went snorkelling, but saw nothing.

Once again, we spent the evening drinking a bottle of rum on the porch. There was a rain storm going on at the time, which was pretty cool. A REALLY loud thunder clap startled me so bad that my chair leg slipped through the boards and I fell over. We laughed over that for quite a while.

We went for dinner where I introduced Komsan to lamb chops and Long Island iced tea. I also tried my first B52--pretty good.

The beach front bars laid down mats on the beach around fire pits for the "Black Moon Party"--not the Full Moon Party. It was ok, but not real lively.

Tuesday, 7/29

We took the ferry off the island, and a bus to the train station. We had 3 hours to kill before our night train left. We had a liesurely dinner in a little restaurant chosen because the clientel was Asian and not white. (For a restuarant in Asia a purely white clientel is a bad sign.) I had black eggs for the first time. Kind of odd, but not bad. Eggs pickled until the yolk becomes black and the whites are a translucent black.

After dinner, we got yet another bottle of rum and drank it at a street side cafe. I got a deck of cards for the train ride.

At the last minute I decided that we would go first class. We had a little compartment to ourselves, which was pretty cool. We played cards all night. When he commented on my shuffling skills, I joknigly asked if he had been a dealer in a casino. He had. He taught me the game he dealt, which I had never seen before. I taught him black jack, which he had never seen before. He won all of my pocket change before we quit. It was a hilariously fun night of cards. The rum didn't hurt.

Wednesday, 7/30

We woke up and got off the train in Bangkok, taking separate taxis home. Mine tried to rip me off.

I hung out with Jak and saw the new Tomb Raider movie. Wait for the DVD.

Thursday, 7/31

While having lunch, I got a call from Thien in Vietnam. It was great to hear from him again.

I went to the internet and chatted with a bunch of people. Seemed like everyone I knew in India was online today.

I met several groups of friends at a bar in Bangkok and we all ended up in a dance club later.

And today, my friend Nui is coming down from Chiang Mai to visit in Bangkok.

Well, that about wraps it up. Tune in next time and find out which country I visit next. It's a surprise! It was not on my original itinerary.

Best wishes,

Sidney

Around the World #16 (07/03/03-07/10/03, Saigon, Bangkok, Ayutthaya)

Hi, all.

I'm back in Bangkok, getting ready to explore Thailand. Man, I love this city.

When we last left our story, I was still in Saigon...

Thursday, 7/3/03

My last night in Vietnam. Went out and played pool.

Friday, 7/4/03

I flew to Bangkok and found a hotel in the heart of town for $10 a night. Quiet, close to everything, nothing fancy, but plenty for me. Once again, getting to Bangkok feels like going home. I met Dew for dinner and was going to meet some other friends for dancing later, but I needed a nap and couldn't wake up afterwards. Seems like a waste of my first night back in Bangkok.

Saturday, 7/5/03

I decided to get a GSM mobile phone so I could have a phone wherever I go. For those who aren't familiar, you can buy a phone that takes SIM cards. When you go to a new country, you buy a new SIM card which has a phone number and some minutes, which can be increased as needed. So, with one phone, you have as many phone numbers in as many countries as you need. And its cheaper than renting a phone. (My tri-band phone [covers pretty much everywhere] cost about US$90 including the $12 for SIM card and talk time.)

Krit and I went phone shopping at the mall across from my hotel. There is an entire floor that is pretty much just mobile phones. I am basically staying in a block of malls. They are pretty amazing. They are like a cross between an Asian market and a regular mall on steroids. I couldn't decide on a phone and decided to research the topic some more.

After a brief nap before dinner, Komsan called and said he was at the mall next door, so I briefly had coffee with him before heading to dinner with Siam and his friend. We went to a restaurant by the river before heading to a sidewalk cafe for drinks where I met Beer and his friends, whom I went dancing with after Siam went home. As you can see, I developed quite a circle of friends in my one week in Bangkok last time. :)

Sunday, 7/6/03

Spent the day meeting people for coffee, dinner, and dancing.

Monday, 7/7/03

I got sick today. The usual--diarrhea, stomach upset, tiredness. At least I didn't puke. I took cipro and things subsided by the end of the day. I went shopping and bought my cell phone.

Tuesday, 7/8/03

I still wasn't feeling well enough to be making day trips out of Bangkok, so I walked around Bangkok instead. I found the train station and went through the market streets of Chinatown. I finally found a pharmacy that carried my malaria drug, which I had run out of a week earlier.

Wednesday, 7/9/03

Today I took the train from Bangkok to Ayutthaya, which is an hour and a half away by train. The city used to be the capital of Thailand centuries ago and has an incredible assortment of temple ruins of various styles. There are at least a dozen ruins all within walking distance. Pretty amazing stuff.

Thursday, 7/10/03

I ran errands today--had my laundry done and got a haircut. I talked to Komsan-- who is from Ayutthaya--and he told me that he had sent me an SMS message that he had yesterday off. He could have gone with me to Ayutthaya if I had received the message. Doh!

I had intended to do a bunch of day trips from Bangkok this week, but my plans got screwed up by my illness. I want to hang around with friends in Bangkok this weekend, which is a 3 day weekend for them. (Although no one has been able to tell me just what the occasion is.)

So far, Thailand is great. We'll see how I fare outside of the Bangkok area.

Later,

Sid

Around the World #15 (06/20/03-07/03/03, Sapa, Hanoi, Tam Coc, Halong Bay, Cat Ba, Saigon, Mekong delta)

Get ready for another long one! I've finished touring Vietnam and am just chilling out in Saigon for a few days before moving on to the next country. Vietnam has been a great place to visit--my favorite on this trip so far. (I'm not counting Thailand since I've only seen Bangkok.) It is very scenic, clean, decent tourism infrastructure, the people are decent, it's cheap, safe, and the food is great. I would heartily recommend a visit.

There is a lot of detail in this e-mail, partly because a few people have told me that they will be in Vietnam shortly and are interested in hearing about it. If anyone wants the names of hotels and such, let me know.

Friday, 6/20/03

After sending my last journal, Thien and I went back to the hotel to get our bags and wait for our ride to the train to Sapa. While waiting in the lobby, what should happen to be playing but "Apocalypse Now". It's an odd feeling to be watching that movie as the only American in a room full of Vietnamese. When it got to the scene where the helicopters storm the beach blaring Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" and the villagers were getting blasted, the picture suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a test pattern. The English language soundtrack was still playing, but no picture. I asked Thien if this was intentional censorship, he didn't really know.

In my last journal, I mentioned that Thien and I were reluctantly taking a package tour to Sapa. Boy, did we regret it. Sapa is great--my favorite place in Vietnam--but the package sucked, as you will see.

The guy from the tour company picked us up half an hour late and put us on a train that left half an hour later than our expected train. This would not have been a problem, but it would have been nice to know this ahead of time. Our train car (a 4-person soft sleeper) was not air-conditioned, which it was supposed to be. Fortunately, it was not very hot, but it was very humid.

Riding out of Hanoi, the train passed within a few feet of the flat concrete facades of people's homes. Looking out the window, I got a brief glimpse inside as we went by. People having dinner, watching TV, sleeping on the floor, a little statue of Buddha in the red glow of incense in his little nook.

Saturday, 6/21/03

We didn't get much sleep on the train--maybe 4 hours. We arrived at Lao Cai (the nearest station to Sapa) in the very early morning. We got a jeep with a French couple for the 2-hour ride to Sapa. (The tour operators wanted to stuff us into a van which was already packed, but fortunately, there was no way my backpack would fit.) The road to Sapa is great mountain scenery, with lots of terraced rice fields.

When we got to the hotel, we were really disappointed. The view was great, but the floor badly needed to be swept (cigarette butts, for God's sake), the bathroom floor clearly hadn't been cleaned, the trash can was full, the promised TV and phone did not exist, and other than the beds, there was not furniture other than a nightstand that when opened, released 4 roaches. No place to put our clothes, no place to sit. The place was also quite noisy, with people making noise very early and very late. The view was great though--although the kids around the hotel seemed to think the view into our room was better than the view out of it.

Clearly, the hotel knew we were package tourist who had already paid for the room and did not give a shit.

We had breakfast on the terrace of the hotel restaurant. The food at this hotel (meals were included in the package) was definitely package tour food--edible, but not what you would eat if you had a choice. The restaurant terrace had such a great view, that I didn't really care that much about the mediocre food.

We met out tour guide for our first hike. Our tour group consisted of just me and Tien. The hike was nice--a paved look passing a waterfall and going up and down the side of on of the mountains. A nice hike, but one that certainly does not need a guide. Lots of dragonflies and butterflies. Near the end of the hike, we ended up sitting over a flowing ditch, kicking back and talking, which was much more pleasant than it sounds.

Sunday, 6/22/03

We met our guide for another hike. It was drizzly and foggy, so we didn't see much for the first hour. The conversation was all in Vietnamese, so I didn't participate much. After stopping in a cafe with a great view of the valley, we proceded down the muddy path to the river in the valley floor. It was very slippery, but I found it easier to walk quickly and let momentum do the work rather than get a firm foothold for each step. As a result, I got way ahead of the others, which was good, because I much more in the mood to hike by myself that day.

After crossing the footbridge over the river, we went through rice paddies and through a couple of villages populated by some of the hill tribes in the area. (There are 5 minority people around Sapa.) It was really very cool, with fantastic scenery. For this hike, the guide came in handy, because it was not a normal, marked track. But I suspect any path we took would have been fantastic.

We took a jeep back to town after the hike.

Monday, 6/23/03

It was a foggy, rainy day, and Thien slept very late. Our guide stopped by, and I asked him what time the train left. When he said I could just look at the tickets, I told him I couldn't because we were never given them. He checked a bit and told us that they would be waiting for us in Lao Cai. Foreshadowing.

The guide invited us for coffee in the afternoon, which we did. We had coffee on a deck overlooking the valley, which was alternately filled with fog, rain, and clear sky, changing every 10 minutes. Most of our conversation was in Vietnamese again, but in the English part, I found out that our guide wanted to spend a few years in an English speaking country to improve his English which would also improve his job prospects.

After this point, our day turned to crap. You know those pictures from the 60's of people trying to see how many people they could stuff into a VW Beetle? Replace the VW with a van and set it in motion down a twisty, bumpy, half-paved mountain road and you have a pretty good image of our two-hour ride from Sapa to the Lao Cai train station. The van had 14 people and luggage stuffed into it. One of the 3 girls next to the driver was throwing up into barf bags, although discretely enough that most people didn't even notice.

When we got to Lao Cai, the dropped us at a cafe where we found the guy with our tickets. We were told that we got a 6-person compartment instead of the 4-person that we paid for. Then we found out that it was on a train that left 2 hours earlier than our scheduled train. This rushed us, since my order at the cafe (a baguette and a block of cream cheese) took 40 minutes and several prompts to get. (As if this wasn't bad enough, I had ordered a grilled cheese sandwich.)

When we got on the train, we discovered that it was not only a 6-person compartment, but it was also not air-conditioned and it was a hard-sleeper instead of a soft-sleeper. I was getting more and more pissed with each discovery. It wasn't that these accommodations were that bad--they were ok--but they were not what we paid for, and the tour company didn't even bother to tell us any of these things. We would have been happy to wait in Sapa for another day if we knew that our accommodations were so screwed up, but since they never told us, we didn't have the choice.

Things seemed to be taking a turn for the better when we left the station with only us in the compartment, but SURPRISE! the train was not an express (which we had paid for) and ended up stopping several times, and in the middle of the night, people came into our compartment and got off a few hours later, waking us up each time.

Tuesday, 6/24/03

We arrived at the Hanoi station at 4:30am, and had to rush off because the stop had not been announced. In the rush, Thien's jacket got left behind.

After a bit of searching for a new hotel, we went back to our old hotel, bathed, had some breakfast and slept.

Later in the day, we went to the travel company to complain about the trip and try to get a partial refund. For those of you going to Vietnam soon (a few are on this mailing list) the company was ODC (Old Darling Cafe). They first tried to tell us that shitty accomodations were the norm for Sapa (which is absolutely not true--most hotels were clearly nice, and other travelers concurred that we got screwed.) We stated our case, called them on their bullshit, pointed out where many things promised in the brochure were not delivered, and in the end all that we could get was the price difference between 4-person AC soft-sleeper and 6-person non-AC hard-sleeper--$6 of the $140 that we paid. I told them I would have to get satifaction elsewhere--like posting our experience on the internet as well as sharing our experience with people in thier cafe. (There was only one guy there, who had heard part of the conversation, so I gladly filled him in on the rest.) I still have to post my gripe to the Lonely Planet thorn tree, but I have it written up.

Even though we didn't get much compensation, I felt better for calling them on their shit.

Wednesday, 6/25/03

We took a day trip from Hanoi to Tam Coc on a bus. Tam Coc is pretty interesting--jagged rock hills jutting straight up out of the flat ground. We toured a temple in a cave on one of these hills. Then took a row boat through the wetlands between the hills. The "river" went through three caves before reaching the point where the valley was closed off by a wall of hills. Pretty cool.

Thursday, 6/26/03

Just relaxed and made some travel arrangements.

Friday, 6/27/03

We started a package tour to Halong Bay, in spite of our previous package tour experience to Sapa. There were a lot of boat legs to the trip, so we just took the easy way out and got a package. It was actually fine except for the hotel.

We rode 4 hours from Hanoi to Halong city, where we caught a large boat for the several-hour ride to Cat Ba Island where we were staying. Halong Bay is impressive, with thousands of little islands that jut straight up right out of the water. It is just like Tam Coc, only under water. And MUCH more touristed. I have never seen such a fleet of tour boats. On the way to the island, we stopped on one of the little islands to tour a couple of caves.

Cat Ba city is a tourist hole that consists of nothing but hotels. It is not actually bad, just not interesting and not very sophisticated. It is clear that the town would not exist were it not for tourists. Our hotel was very noisy--you could clearly hear the conversation in the next room (as well as smell their cigarette smoke.) There was a rock quarry out our window, which was better than the construction in front. The whole town appears to be under construction, with even more hotels going up.

Saturday, 6/28/03

We took a bus to Cat Ba National Park. On the way there, the road was blocked by boulders which had fallen off the hillside. The three boulders had fallen in the perfect position to make a wall across the road. After failing to budge the boulders in the road, some of the smaller ones off to the side of the road were moved so the bus could go around the blockage.

We took an 11 kilometer hike through the park. It took all day and was quite arduous because a large part of it was up and down hillsides walking on slippery rocks. The sun was not out, and we were in the shade, but it was incredibly humid and I was wringing the sweat out of my shirt along the way. It wasn't the most scenic hike, and it got to be a bit long with all of the slow rock climbing, but it was decent. The scenery was pretty much just trees, with not vistas from the hill tops. There was a pretty cool swampy lake on the way called Frog Lake. Some of us were a bit startled by what sounded like a dog barking from a "cave" between some boulders and trees. It turns out that it was a frog. We also saw several poisonous spiders on the way. I had a real National Geographic moment when an insect leapt into a web and the spider rushed in and killed it.

The hiking trip really got enjoyable when we finished the forested part and got to the little village. It was in a scenic valley formed by sheer rock walls covered with greenery. We walked through a rice paddy to a little eating place where we had a lazy lunch. The road out of the village was carved out of the woods, with trees overhanging. When we got closer to the boat pier, we were on a half constructed road, which was clearly going to be very attractive when it was finished. From the looks, there were intentions to make this place into a mass tourist attraction which, of course, would completely ruin it.

The road wound along a beautiful little bay hemmed in by rock mountains. The water was unspoiled and very green in color. No buildings existed on the bay, except for one small house.

When we got to the boat pier, our boat had not yet arrived. The 50-year-old Danish guy that Thien and I had been hanging around with decided to go for a swim, and all of the rest of us except Thien followed. (He's shy. ;) ) There was no one else around.

Our boat was a small wooded craft with a putt-putt engine. Rather than sit on the benches under the roof, we all sat on the bow of the boat with our legs over the side. I dangled my feet in the water the whole way back to the town--except where it was polluted. Very scenic, very relaxing, with the sun setting behind the islands.

When we got back to the hotel, our Danish friend discovered that everything had been taken from his hotel room and moved to the one next door. Not surprisingly, he was pissed.

Sunday, 6/29/03

We took the boat and bus back to Hanoi. We then flew from Hanoi back to Saigon and stayed at Thien's place.

Monday, 6/30/03

Just lazed around, ate, hung out in Thien's favorite bar (Lost in Saigon), and booked a Mekong Delta tour for the next day.

Tuesday, 7/1/03

Thien dropped me off at the tour office so I could take the Mekong Delta tour. (He had taken it before.) The tour was OK, but having already taken other, more interesting boat rides in Vietnam, I don't know if it was worth the bother. Oh, well--I can say that I did it. We did get to see coconut candy being made and play with pythons.

Back in Saigon, just eating and playing pool at Lost in Saigon.

Wednesday, 7/2/03

Slept late, read travel books in bed, wrote postcards, and used the internet.

Later,

Sid