Dodging Leeches

I have another first on this trip. I got a leech during my jungle trek in Cat Tien National Park. These were not the leeches that were in "Stand by Me," they were much smaller, and they moved very fast on the ground. We got some video, so I can show you at some point.

We drove approx 3 hours to Cat Tien National Park with Long, our guide for the next four days. We crossed the large river in a boat that barely was above the water line, and then headed out on a 3.5 hour trek through the jungle. But, not before putting on out leech socks, and gobs of insect repellent. It turns out that leeches can feel your body warmth from very far away, and they make a bee line right for you. They'll actually climb up your clothing until they can find a way to get to your skin. That is what happened to me. It somehow made it all the way onto my stomach, and who knows how long it had been there before I took it off. It continued to bleed for a couple of hours because, like mosquitoes, they inject an anti-coagulant into you so that you provide a steady stream of blood.

The actual jungle trek was very interesting, and I've never seen so much life anywhere. We saw an amazing number of trees, flowers, insects, birds, and butterflies. The fauna was probably the most interesting. (Never thought I'd say that either.) The next morning we left Cat Tien early and headed up to Da Lat. On the way we stopped at Dambri and Elephant water falls. We also stopped at a silk manufacturing plant to see how silk is actually made. It is pretty incredible because entire towns are dedicated to making silk. One family will grow the mulberry plants to feel the worms. Once the worms form their cocoon, they are sold to someone else who soaks them in hot water and actually takes the silk and puts them onto spools. Another family creates the bamboo holders for all of the cocoons and finished silk. Yet another family then buys the dead worms and sells them on the open market as food. Pretty incredible.

Hello - Bye Bye

I can honestly say that Vietnam is filled with the nicest, most smiling people I've ever met. I say that after spending the past three days in small fishing villages and in Saigon.

Two nights ago we stayed at a homestay. I gather it is something akin to a family run B&B in the US. This family had 6 or so bungalows right on the river. Ryan and I arrived there at around 4pm in the afternoon after a boat ride of 20 minutes to get up the little canal. We were the only ones staying there at that time, so we just chilled out on the porch, drank a beer, and watched the various people paddle/motor down the river.

After an hour, we decided to head into the "village." We natually assumed that there was a central village as we headed off on the 5 foot wide foot/bike path along the canal. However, we quickly realized that that was the village. Vietnam's culture along the Mekong is a river culture, and everything is based on the water. So, not much exists if it is far away from a body of water. As we walked down the path, every child ran out of their house to say "hello" to us. In most cases, their parents and grandparents came along as well. Every person gave us a huge smile, and often shooed their barking dog away from us, and laughed it off.

Along the way people tried to speak to us in English, and we were asked numerous times to participate in games they were playing along the path. We stopped at one point and played some "hackysack" with a bunch of kids in their front yard.

Just to give you a sense of how excited everyone was to say hello to us, we had kids yelling from the other side of the river at us. These 5-7 year olds proceeded to climb over the monkey bridge just to give us a high five. In fact, if you've ever wanted to know what it is like to be famous, just visit this village, and you feel like the president.

What I found most amazing that we met both men and women who were living, and most likely served, during the American War (what the Vietnamese call the Vietnam War). Not one person showed any resentment towards us despite us being from the US. Everyone welcomed us with open arms, and people have continued to do that here in Saigon. Thus far, it seems like this country has completely forgiven us for the atrocities that we carried out during the war. Today we visited the War Remnants museum for, what I gather, was a much more realistic picture of the way the war went down, and how awful our country was during that time. If you have not yet visited this country, you should. Not only for the history, but I guarantee you that you will love the people, and the country itself.

Stay tuned as we head out tomorrow for Dalat, and the next 6 days will be comprised of trekking, mountain biking, canyoning, scuba diving, and drinking.

I have no dong

I never thought I'd say that. Yet, today, it came right out of my mouth at the border crossing into Vietnam today. We left Phnom Penh this afternoon at noon on a speed boat that took us two hours down the Mekong River. On the ride we met a bunch of foreigners travelling the region as well. There were a total of 8 of us on the boat. Here is how it broke down:

Couple from Melbourne
Couple from Switzerland (The woman works on the international convention on land mines)
One guy from Bangladesh living in London
One guy from Toronto

Everybody was amazingly nice and we bonded together as a group, not on the boat, but at the border crossing. Just to give some context, we exited Cambodia at their border crossing, and it took a total of 15 minutes. We then got back on the boat and travelled another 2 minutes at which point we hit the Vietnam border crossing. We exited the boat onto a steep river bank of mud, with partially carved stairs, where we immediately had to show our passports. We were then "greeted" by children with beer, soda, and snacky type things. Nobody bought anything because we didn't know what to expect.

We went into a very colorful intermiate room for a few minutes before we were shuttled off to a small outdoor type pagoda thingy. I had no idea that we would be there for the next two hours. The eight of us talked amongst each other and with the kids. (They have phenomenally good English.) The kids taunted us to buy food and drinks from them for the entire two hours. As we were leaving the kid made one final plea to me to buy something from him, to which I replied that I had no dong. (Yes, this is childish humor I know.) Finally our boat guy conductor person showed up and said we were all approved and we were ready to move on.

We arrived at Chau Doc about an hour later. We moved on to our hotel and settled into our room before heading to dinner. Our first dinner was composed of a beef salad with cucumber and mint, some sort of pork soup, pork and rice, some sort of mollusk thing, a very salty shrimp dish, and lastly lao ga ming dai (a fish soup that was similar to Pho, except that it is prepared at your table like a hotpot). [Mom, don't worry, I didn't eat any of the pork stuff. I am still a good jew.]

Wat Wat Wat?

If you don't get that title, then you don't know me all that well. You can ask me the next time I see you, and I'll be happy to explain.

Continuing on my adventure for the day, we headed out to Angkor Wat with our driver Mr. Looen (or Mr. Fast according to him). Although, I have to say that the tuk tuk had a top speed of about 25 mph, and we were practically being passed by kids on bicycles. When we arrived at Angkor Wat, we went right by it. What's going on? Why?

Well, it turns out that everyone goes to the Wat right next to Angkor Wat because it is on a hill perched above the temple of temples. This way me and Ryan got a good look at Angkor Wat with the 1000 other people seated high up on this other wat. (I can't remember its name, so I'll just keep calling it "the other wat.") Anyway, it started storming while we were up there, including thunder and lightning. I thought it odd that hundreds of people stayed on the highest land possible while a lighting storm moved through the area. It almost seemed cultish, not to mention stupid, that people sat up there. At one point, a bolt of lightning struck the forest not more than 1 kilometer from us.

We took off and headed back into town for dinner. We hit the Khmer House in the alley behind Bar St. Once again, the mean was outstanding, and I can honestly say that I'll be looking for Khmer food actively once I am back in the states. That night we had a chicken and pumpkin curry dish that was out of this world. Unfortunately, we were both still jet lagged and were falling asleep at dinner, so we hit the bed early that night.

The next morning we set out early (7am) for Angkor Wat. We had a tour guide for the entire day, and Mr. Fast to get us everywhere as slowly as possible. I really enjoyed Angkor Wat, although I did not find it as impressive as some other awe inspiring sites such as the Taj Mahal, or the Kailash temple in Ajanta.

Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm were equally impressive temples which are situated right next to Angkor Wat. Of the three, I think Ta Prohm was my favorite because it gives me hope that the earth can take back the Earth when given time. This temple was abandoned for centuries, and the trees actually broke down the temple quite easily with their massive roots. You can see a picture of Ryan and I there, and how green all of the rocks are from the moss that has overgrown.

We finished our tour late in the afternoon. I took my second shower of the day and we headed off to dinner. (A quick side note. I've never showered so much in my life. At a minimum, I shower three times per day, and usually four or five times.) Our last night we hit the Khmer kitchen for another fantastic night of food. We walked by several bars and thought about getting a drink, but then thought better of it considering we were both beyond exhausted. (Oh, and did I mention that Khmer's love their WWF wrestling? We walked by multiple bars with Khmer's just watching the old WWF.)

No Dengue, No Dengue, No Dengue (Said quickly)

We flew into Siem Reap, Cambodia very early on June 20. The air traffic is impressive in this area of the world. For example, our flight was scheduled to leave at 8am. We were in the air at 8:01am. How's that for on time departures?

We arrived in Siem Reap and went straight to our hotel. Our room was ready for us upon arrival at 9:15 am. (That would never happen in the states, even if a room was ready.) After freshening up we headed out into Siem Reap to see what the city had to offer. We walked through the various markets and spoke to countless locals. The Cambodiam people, or Khmer, are amazing friendly. They are always smiling, and have a keen interest in foreigners and practicing their English.

The markets looked, not surprisingly, like many markets I went through while living in India. At one point we found ourselves in the middle of a food market inside an extremely old building. The stench was awful, and when combined with the site of a few sliced and diced birds, we decided to make a run for the exit. Bird flu is definitely prevalent in this area of the world, so we are trying to keep our distance.

We then decided to move on to lunch, and found a restaurant named "Amok." Amok is a traditional Khmer dish that is very similar to a curry, except that it contains come type of fish paste, and is generally server in a banana leaf. We were very impressed with the dish, and we washed it down with a cold Angkor beer. If you haven't heard, Angkor Wat is the pride and joy of Cambodia, and so the national beer is even named after the historic temple.

Oh, something interesting to note is the deal with currency in Cambodia. The traditional Cambodian currency is the Riel. The current exchange rate is 4000 riel to the dollar. To give you perspective, a 2 liter bottle of filtered water costs about $.13, or 500 riel. However, what is interesting is that all prices inCambodia are listed in USD. Every menu, every hotel, even the entrance fees to Angkor Wat are listed in dollars, and you are expected to pay in USD. Dollars even come out of the ATMs in this country.

I've always thought that currency is somewhat of a source of national pride. Definitely not true in Cambdia. At one point, I went into a little supermarket to buy a bottle of water for $.25. When I offered the woman 1000 riel, she actually frowned. I never thought I'd see someone so bummed to accept their own form of currency in their own country. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting.

Lumpinee

Today is June 22nd. Ryan and I have been in Southeast Asia for the past four days. Since this is the first chance I've had to blog, I am going to start in chronological order. We started in Bangkok for one day and managed to see a Muay Thai kickboxing fight at Lumpinee Stadium. We bought the cheapest seats available to foreigners; a wopping $30. The cheap seats are the best in my opinion, because that is where all of the locals stand.



The incredible thing about these matches is that there is an incredible amount of betting that takes place. Even more impressive is that one is able to switch their bet at anytime during the fight. So, when one fighter obtained an advantage, a flury of men, with a cigarette in one hand looked like a third base coach telling a runner to steal second with his other. It was extremely cryptic and I could not figure out for the life of me what the different types of bets were.



The next morning