Elyse and I are back from what I think have been the best few days of our trip. We made our way up to Luang Nam Tha to do some trekking in Nam Ha, which was Laos' first national park when it was founded in 1993. We arrived here at 9pm on Saturday, after a long day on the bus from Luang Pra Bang. This gave us a whole hour to organize a trek beginning the next morning, find a place to stay, and find something to eat before we collapsed.

The next morning we met our guide Pone and set off on a tuk-tuk ride to start our hike. The rain which has followed us through Laos decided now was as good a time as any to really pick up the pace, so we began what would be a very muddy two days in the jungle. Our destination was an Akha village that would take us about six hours to reach through rice paddies, dense jungle, and once we neared the Akha village, endless slopes of rice planted where the jungle had been recently cut down and burned. This slash and burn agriculture is a traditional use for the three tribes that call the national park home, and it's hard to fault someone who is practicing subsistence agriculture for destroying something that I might value in its untouched state. Recently, Chinese companies have started to pay villagers to farm rubber trees in the park. The companies pay the Lao government as well, and everyone is happy except the forests and the ecotourism industry. The villagers now have money to add meat and vegetables to their diet and to pay for the small solar arrays that a company is installing in the village. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The beauty of this trip was that we were the only gringos we saw for two days, as we walked with Pone and experienced the conflict and confluence between development and conservation. We also experienced the extraordinary hospitality of the Akha people, who were having a merry time when we arrived. It was a day off, a goat had just been slaughtered for the spirits, and the lao lao (rice whiskey) was flowing. We spent some time in the village but stayed in a hut with our guide a couple hundred meters outside the village. This was a really nice setup, because we ate dinner with a few people and got a chance to wander around, but we didn't feel like we were intruders so much as funnylooking houseguests. The food was really fantastic, and I've posted a picture of lunch below. Note the banana leaves that serve as placemats and tupperware:


Just as we arrived a small child carrying his even smaller baby sister on his back came up to us and offered us the berries he was munching on. He hung out with us for a while, as we traded words in English and Lao and I tended to my somewhat battered feet - the mud and leeches had taken their toll; Elyse's somehow came out fairly spry. Our friend, whose name was Pa Tu, is now a sales and brand representative for K.C., and can be seen in the village sporting the sweet apparel that Elyse is modeling below (picture taken with village in the background):


Our walk back the next day was longer and sunnier, and we did our mitzvah for the day by tending to a rather nasty machete cut on a villager's hand. My duct tape magic is probably still keeping that bandage on his palm.

Beautiful wildlife abounds in the jungle:


The walk home through rice paddy mazes:


Wet and having fun in the jungle:


We're now in Vientiane, where we've secured visas for Cambodia and learned the secrets of Lao cookery. We're off to Southern Laos this evening as we continue our long journey following the Mekong.

Orange in Laos

From an internet cafe in Luang Prabrang, I am writing as monks clad in bright orange robes and backpackers donning much less are strolling by outside. The town is sandwiched between the mighty Mekong and a much smaller river, and has the appearance of a place that was immensely peaceful before travelers from all corners of the world added it to their list. (Still a very peaceful place, but I imagine with a very different ambiance 10 years ago.)

We arrived here on Wednesday, needing some peace and quiet after our adventures in northern Viet Nam. Thrilled to be able to sleep in after many days of rising by 5:30, we were slightly exasperated when the family whose guesthouse we are staying at told us that something interesting was going on at, yes, 5:30 the next morning. But as most things that happen at 5:30 am, this was well worth another early wake-up.

Families from around the town lined up along the side of the road, each having prepared a small edible treat to share with the Buddhist monks. Resting on their haunches, family members doled out a sweet rice treat wrapped in banana leaf or a sesame cookie to each of the monks that came passing by in a procession, on their way to a wat (temple) where they will spend the next (rainy) months studying, meditating, etc. Each monk, shoeless and wearing only his long orange robe, carried a metal container that was filled up by these families, presumably with food that would help them get through the next months -- a kind of alms-giving for local families. But others lined up along the street, mostly young, slightly dirtier boys, had empty baskets themselves, and some of the monks would take from their containers and help fill these boys' empty baskets. Though no one explained this to us, it appeared to be some small redistribution on the part of the monks, making sure that those less fortunate had something to eat as well. The child in me couldn't stop thinking of trick-or-treating, but it was clear that we were witnessing a very solemn act of great spiritual importance to these families. It was an honor to watch the procession and see a glimpse of the relationship between the monks scattered throughout the country's wats and the local community.

Exploring the old royal palace and some of Luang Prabang's environs today before heading further north tomorrow.

To Ha Long Bay and Back Again

After a morning spent organizing Lao visas (delayed success) and Lao transportation (definite success, no hungry or angry women) we put our research to the test and headed off the guidebook path towards Luang Yen bus station. A bike rickshaw got us and our packs there relatively quickly, though it would have been faster if I had used the bike pump that Elyse was unable to convince me to bring on our trip. My mistake.

Once finished sweating through the bus ticket negotiation, we went in search of breakfast, which turned out to be a bowl of pho at a small roadside stand. Delicious. We watched the proprietors dump a cow skull into the pot for the next batch of broth. Elyse was unimpressed, but remained more or less unperturbed.

On the bus (which left half an hour early, unaccountably, and was thus probably not exactly our scheduled bus) we bopped along to the blaring and soppy Vietnamese pop, munched lychees, and tried not to be too curious about the woman across the aisle holding the heel of a baguette over her nose. All of a sudden we were told to get off the bus in the middle of Haiphong, at a room containing a desk, a table, and an unhelpful clerk, right next to a store selling light fixtures and bathtubs.

At this point we began to learn an important lesson about traveling in Vietnam. At least in our limited experience, the people we've met haven't been out to take advantage of us. But they also haven't been too keen on explaining anything to us either, even taking into account the rather large language barrier. So we've found that the best we can do is to stay calm (as anyone reading this knows, that is not really a strength for either of us), ask questions, try not to let anyone take our tickets too soon, and try to figure out what too soon means. This lesson really saved us down the road in Sa Pa.

It turned out we had another bus ride to get us to our boat, and eventually that bus turned up to deliver us to a small boat waiting along the coast amidst rice paddies and large shipping facilities. By 4pm we were ensconced in a tent on a hut on the beach near Cat Ba Town. Not too shabby, especially considering that Cat Ba Town is packed with Vietnamese tourists on the weekend and lodging is at a premium.

The sunrise from our tent:


We had traveled here to see the cliffs of Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site situated at the north end of the Gulf of Tonkin. We puttered around the next day on a small junk, stopping to see caves and kayaking through waters protected by the hundreds of islands that dot the bay. Amidst these cliffs are small floating fishing villages constructed out of bamboo, wood, and large styrofoam blocks. Amazing. We stopped at one for some tea and discovered that under the decks were nets filled with fish - aquaculture at its most basic.

A fishing village nestled against the cliffs:


The next morning our tent was of limited use in a torrential downpour that woke us up at 5 in the morning and sent us to huddle in a nearby cafe with the rest of the wet tent dwellers. Ah, monsoon season.

We departed in the rain for the return trip to Hanoi, where I ate the contents of the following picture. You do not want to know the details, and when I learned the details, after having consumed it with relish, I did not want to know them either. I'll leave it at that.

Hot in Hanoi

Apparently we are in SE Asia. This morning it is warm. Or rather, it is hot and humid at 9am. Elyse assures me that it will not get any hotter today. This assurance is hot air, so to speak.
On our first day we relearned how to cross the street. Rather than look left, then right, you look left then right then left then right then left. Anyhow, we've got it down to a science.

The highlight of the day was our trip to the Museum of Ethnography. We hopped on the #14 bus headed west - I am sure we would've paid the 20 cent fare for the A/C alone. After help from the bus driver, a guy on the street, the fruit seller, and a woman on the street, we found our museum. The displays on many of the ethnic groups in Vietnam, the Hmong among them, were captivating, but the real treat lay behind. Here, nestled right up to tenements and shops on the other side of a bamboo fence, were tribal houses from five villages rebuilt in the middle of Hanoi. The best by far was a communal building used by the Bahran people, which was easily 70 feet high and built without a screw or a nail. Pictures to come.


The rest of our adventures today included a failed trip to the Laos embassy (we will more or less fail again tomorrow - stay tuned!) and a conversation with a woman selling plane tickets to Laos, who was either "hungry" for our business or thought we'd be "angry" if we didn't buy her tickets and the flight sold out (this will be the least of our communication difficulties - stay tuned!).

We braved an afternoon downpour to purchase tickets for the water puppet show, which we took turns sleeping through later that evening, despite firecrackers going off, splashing water puppets, and loud traditional Vietnamese music. At least we can say we were there, even if we don't have much in the way of an opinion about the show. Not loud enough, maybe.

Next stop, Ha Long Bay.

With love from Hanoi

This is my first attempt at blogging, so I ask that you bear with me. I (that's Elyse) am writing from Hanoi on a sweaty Sunday afternoon. Josh and I arrived in Viet Nam last Wednesday. To our surprise, even confusion, our trip from airport to hotel room went exactly as planned, despite the late hour and unhelpful minibus driver.

On Thursday we explored Hanoi (more on this from Josh, below). I had read and heard countless times about the challenges that crossing the street can present in Viet Nam's major cities (and, as it turns out, even in smaller ones). I was still surprised at how long it took me to figure out how to make my way from one corner to the other -- the first day, each crossing was cause for a small celebration. For the first couple hours, we found it useful to partner with pregnant women and people pushing babies in strollers. The public buses were another useful discovery as they minimize the need to cross streets and to haggle with any taxi/motorbike drivers (don't worry mom, I am staying off the motorbikes).

More from me soon.