Hello from Vietnam

Hello everyone!

I arrived in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) on the 11th of June. Sixteen days, two night buses and two day buses later, I'm in Hanoi, at the other end of the country, roughly 1000 miles north of where I started.

While Nepal, Cambodia and Thailand boast an impressive number of natural wonders, Vietnam boasts an impressive number of motorbikes. In Saigon and Hanoi every stop light looks like the start of the Boston Marathon, except every runner is mounted on his or her scooter. Collisions are frequent and spectacular. To cross the roads, one must slowly and deliberately "wade" out into traffic and expect the incoming blitzkrieg to swerve around. Surprisingly, and sometimes harrowingly, it works.

Motorbike jokes aside, Vietnam does have at least one natural wonder. Yesterday, I took a day trip out to Ha Long Bay. This area is a collection of over 3000 small islands that rise vertically out of the sea. Around these islands are fishing villages - clusters of floating houses in which locals live with attached fish pens for harvesting fish to sell in the markets. And, inside some of these islands are enormous caves with ceilings at least 100 feet high. The ceilings drip water from stalactites and the floors are covered with stalagmites. Some ceiling areas are smooth, apparently from sea erosion millions of years ago. The one I visited was only discovered in 1993 and was complete with colored fluorescent lighting to add to the effect, not that it was really needed. The tour guides, in their many trips through the caves have envisioned all sorts of shapes in the formations and in the shadows they create. The funniest part about it for me is that nearly every one had to do with a man pursuing a woman for love or an intimate encounter. They like to joke, too. For some reason, I was singled out by our tour guide to be the one most discouraged from touching the giant breast-shaped stalagmite.

Another funny thing about Vietnam are the pushy motorbike touts and friendly food stall cooks without a fantastic command of the English language.

Example one:
The motorbike touts are relentless here, and pulling out a guidebook or map streetside is like giving yourself a nasty cut in the middle of a pack of great white sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. Most of them don't speak any English, which makes it difficult for them to understand where you want to go in the first place. But, they try make up for it by memorizing a few key phrases.

Me: [Walking down a busy street.]
Motorbike tout: Hello. Motorbike, friend?
Me: [In Vietamese] Khong cam on. (No thanks.)
Motorbike tout: Where you go?
Me: [I point in the direction I'm walking and continue in that direction without answering]
Motorbike tout: Okay, cheap price for you. Marijuana?
Me: [Ten feet past the tout and not at all interested in either offer.]
Motorbike tout: [happily] Okay, let's go!

Example two:
The food here is delicious, but it's not always easy to get what you want.

Me: [At a food stall] Does this soup have meat?
Food stall cook: Yes.
Me: Is it beef?
Food stall cook: Yes.
Me: [Suspicious from the body language associated with the first answer]. Chicken?
Food stall cook: Yes.
Me: [Now, for fun] Dodo bird?
Food stall cook: Yes.
Me: [In Vietnamese] Chay (Vegetarian). Okay?
Food stall cook: Okay.

I then promptly learned the words for beef and chicken and enjoyed delicious pho (Vietnamese soup) happily and regularly. Did I get beef or chicken, or did I get something else less commonly consumed by westerners? I'll never know, but either way, it tasted great. The best food here was actually anything that came out of a clay pot. I have no idea how it was done, but I'm impressed.

Between Saigon and Hanoi, I stopped in Nha Trang, Hoi An, and Hue. Nha Trang has beaches, Hoi An has tailors, and Hue has...a river. All cities contained amazing local Vietnamese food specialties. And every place contained interesting things to see, but there is a reason why Saigon and Hanoi are the main tourist draws. And, incredibly friendly people are everywhere, despite the "American" War that happened so recently.

All in all, Vietnam was a great experience. Would I come back here next year? With so many other amazing places in the world to see, probably not. Am I glad I came? Absolutely.

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Cambodia

Hello!

The past 10 days have gone by incredibly quickly, and I feel like I've only scratched the surface here in Cambodia. There has been one surprise (and oddity) after another. In flipping through the brief description of the country in the guidebook on my way to the Thailand/Cambodia border, I studied a few important phrases. How odd that right next to the standard translations of "hello", "goodbye", and "thank you", was, to my surprise, "excuse me, but are there any land mines in this area?" Hmmmm... Needless to say, I didn't venture off the beaten path in this part of the world, but I did see some pretty cool stuff.

From Kathmandu, I flew to Bangkok, stayed a night, and then was off on a bus to the border where I payed for my Cambodian visa and for the compulsory racketeering fees the corrupt border officials demanded. Great start. After a little encouragement, I did manage to get one of them to write me an unofficial receipt, not that it would do any good monetarily, but it sure made me feel better to win one battle (but obviously not the war).

Twelve hours after leaving Bangkok, I was in Siem Reap and feeling surprisingly alert and rested. I did find, as I expected, that Cambodians (aside from the ones at the border) are incredibly friendly, hospitable people. Everyone smiles genuinely, says hello in English, and smiles some more.

Siem Reap is about 10 km away from Angkor Wat, which is, by far Cambodia's largest tourist draw. The city itself is tons of fun, too. While in the city, I spent most of my time eating...and sweating. It's oppressively hot and humid here, but instead of letting that stop me, I venture outside, sweat profusely and drink copious amounts of water. I'm slowly adjusting, although the weather here still feels very different from Nepal.

Wanting to utilize all the extra red blood cells my body had produced at high altitude, I elected to bicycle to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples...twice. I'd say I covered a good 30 miles on a rickety 1970s single speed over the course of two days and sweated at least 30,000 gallons. But not once was I out of breath! The 1000 year old temples around Angkor are stunning; many say they knock the pyramids' socks off.

After Siem Reap, I headed to the nation's capital Phnom Phen, and that's where I'm writing from now. This city is surprisingly modern, almost like a mini-Bangkok, but still a decade or so behind. I guess that after Nepal, any place with paved road feels pretty damn fancy pants. As I alluded to at the beginning of the email with the story about the land mines, this country hasn't been all that nice to it's citizens in the recent past. The Killing Fields of Choeng Ek are here, as well as S-21, a prison used to interrogate prisoners of the Khmer Rouge Regime under Pol Pot back in the '70s. There is some pretty gruesome stuff, although I'm glad that Cambodia has made these places memorials to those who were killed and is educating its citizens about what happened (the government-sanctioned genocide of about 1/4 of Cambodia's population). On the way back from seeing these places, my slightly absent-minded (or desensitized) moped driver asked me if I wanted to do something else tourists usually do...go to the shooting range. Considering the timing, and my disinterest in shooting things, I declined.

I spent today strolling around the city and sampling the food at the myriad markets. There's so much good food to eat here. On more than one occasion, I've eaten two dinners, back to back, at different places. At $2-$4 per delicious meal, it's very easy to ask myself "Why not?" and very difficult to come up with a good answer to the question.

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Vietnam. My, what an interesting place SE Asia is!

Pictures

Everest Base Camp Trek

Hello All,

I just wanted to drop a note with some pictures from the trek to Everest Base Camp (EBC) that I just completed yesterday. I'm now back in Kathmandu and have had my first hot shower and first non-rice or non-potato meal in nearly two weeks. Needless to say, I am pleased with being clean and well fed and more than pleased with the amazing experience I had trekking through the Solukhumbu region.

Let me say this: Although it is called the EBC trek, EBC was not the highlight of the trip, but it was pretty darn cool to see. I took a less traveled route heading from Lukla (2840 m) to Namche Bazar (3440 m) and north to Gokyo, which sits beside some beautiful turquoise lakes at 4790 m. Then, to the top of Gokyo Ri at 5350 m to see the sunrise over Everest, Makalu, and the Gokyo Lakes. After that, I headed east over the 5330 m Cho La (la means pass) and up to the top of Kala Patthar at 5550 m for more sunrise views of Everest and the Khumbu Icefall and Glacier. After that, it was a short trip to Everest Base Camp at 5364 m and then east again over the less used Kongma La at 5535 m to the town of Chhukhung at 4730 m. Finally south back through Thangboche with its famous monastary to Namche Bazar and then on to Lukla for the flight back to Kathmandu. This route avoided the throngs of group trekkers whose purpose is to make it to Everest Base Camp in the most direct and comfortable way possible. Us independent trekkers observe these groups with a quiet curiosity as they come in a variety of nationalities, generations, body mass indexes, and etiquette levels. The towns of Gokyo and Chhukhung are much less frequently visited and the passes of Cho and Kongma are infrequently crossed. Many days, while away from the main route, I'd see only a handful of people, mostly Nepali, and an abundance of amazing views. For me, the solitude I experienced in these less-traveled areas was one of the highlights of the trip. It was so quiet that when I stopped to rest, I could hear the faint ringing in my ears and the creaking of my pack straps on each breath. With yaks and glaciers and peaks and rock frozen in the distance, these are the moments that I'll never forget.

For those of you that want to convert units, there's 3.28 feet in a meter. The highest point I reached was Kala Patthar at 18,209 ft. At that height, there is only half as much oxygen in the air as there is at sea level, although one gains altitude slowly to properly acclimate. Some interesting physiological changes occur (my resting heart rate was about 90 bpm and my pulse oxcimetry was 73 percent at EBC, which is about normal for that altitude but significantly different than at sea level) and every step becomes quite a bit more difficult. Within a few days I felt fairly well adjusted. It's a good thing, as most of the 12 day trek (many people take several days longer) was spent at an elevation well above the tallest mountain in the continental United States.

I'm on a flight back to Bangkok tomorrow and then off to SE Asia for a while (India is way too hot this time of year, I've learned). We'll see what happens after that!

I hope all is well!

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