Saturday, October 31, 2009

Halong Bay

Monday, October 26 through Wednesday, October 28:
The Halong Bay tour is probably the priciest thing I will do on my wanderings in SE Asia. I ended up with a real good crew of maybe 25 people and was quite pleased with the whole experience.

Our boat, "The Jolly Rogers" was very nice; everything was clean, the rooms were spacious enough and air conditioned to boot. Food was tasty and plentiful. Jumping off the three story vessel was a blast. Kayaking to the caves was short-lived, coming in at maybe 45 minutes each way. The cave was stunning and opened up at on point to a small lake cradled by the walls of the karst that contained it. That night, shortly after the drinking started, six of us paid the boat man to take us out onto the waters in the smaller transit boat. We had him take us for one hour to various other vessels looking for other party-people. We boarded several vessels without permission, but the passengers seemed endlessly amused by the boldness of it. After visiting more than a dozen vessels and passing many quieter looking ones by entirely, we came to the realization that we had the hippest boat in Halong Bay, and so upon our return the drinking games ensued.

It was a short night and the next morning came far too soon. Rare is the morning that I wake up drunk, but such was the nature of this morning. All fatigue was forgotten though as we pulled up to "Castaway Island" which is owned or at least leased out by the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel who I booked with. There we had free reign over snorkeling gear, and kayaks. I swam about in the cove, played a few games of beach volleyball, ate lunch, passed out, and proceeded to take to the bay. Along with a girl from the Philippines I kayaked out for an hour before coming to the realization that I was lost. it took the better part of another hour to find our beach.











Hanoi

On the bus to Hanoi, 7 hours were spent waiting for the closed border to open. It took 24 hours in total and I arrived in Hanoi at 8:00pm Saturday night, October 24th. It was an intense experience and made Bangkok traffic look like child's play. Here the traffic was thick like water, and flowed like a raging waterfall. At intersections all motorists collide and trickle through slamming to a halt at blockages and following the path of least resistance, meandering to and fro until once again they rejoin and flow together with relative ease.

Here are many pictures taken while walking the streets of this vibrant and buzzing city. There are bird vendors, newly-weds on the lakeside, elated locals, the best cup of coffee I have ever had, and also a picture from the Ho Chi Minh Museum and another of Woo, who I wandered with for a morning, being prepared for a photo op by a fruit vendor. Of course the fruit vendor demanded that we absolutely must buy her fruit after taking the photo, one of regular tricks that fruit vendors in Hanoi play, and one that apparently must work very well. You learn to thank them and simply to walk away.

A note on the first picture: It was noon on Friday when motorcycles began to pour onto the sidewalks as they found the paths of least resistance and made their ways around the stagnant car/truck traffic. This all seemed to happen so quickly and I took this picture in an attempt to capture the insanity that ensued. I had not realized until afterward that I caught a man dropping his cargo off the back of his motorcycle creating a major jam. These massive bags are not of uncommon size. Cyclists will also carry multiple live pigs on the back of their bikes, or washing machines, or industrial sized fans -- no big deal.









Vientiane






















I spent way too much time in one place again. I arrived in Vientiane on Friday night after the Vietnam Embassy had closed. Thus I was not able to apply for my visa till Monday morning. I applied for the cheapest one which takes 3 days to process. While I was pretty much satisfied with my stay by Sunday, I couldn't leave for Hanoi until Friday.

The first picture is of me in the mouth of a large statue/structure at Buddha Park about 45 minutes outside of Vientiane. The second picture is of That Luang, a must for all visitors to the city, but a monument that I thought was less impressive than it is made out to be. The third picture was taken at sunset as I passed by Victory Monument, otherwise known as "The Vertical Runway." It was built using donated U.S. Concrete for the construction of a runway.

The last picture was my sad attempt at capturing the incredible beauty of the mountain ranges jutting up out of the mists while whipping around high mountain passes at breakneck speed on the road from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. By the end of the drive even several locals had taken vomit bags.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Luang Prabang

Well I lost all my photos up till yesterday and am one memory card down due to a trojan virus. I went along around Luang Prabang and enjoyed my time... enough said. I'll be going down to Vientiane tomorrow.







Friday, October 9, 2009

Chiang Rai







































































































































































































































































I arrived in Chiang Rai feeling on top of the world, this being the first day of true recovery! I ate acidic fruit again, I consumed dairy products again, hell -- I even ate spicy food and I added additional peppers! Horrible idea. I was sick again for 3 days after that, but without blood filling my toilets, I didn't much care. Mostly I was disappointed in spending 4 days eating nothing but bananas, peanuts, and steamed rice.

Finally, having mostly re-recovered, I rented a motorbike and drove about 130 km around Chiang Rai province and it was exhilarating. The first three photos you see were at the end of my day driving up and down the Mae Kok River, as well as several dirt roads branching off from the "main" road.

Next you will see three images taken in the middle of my motorcycle ride. Here I visited the White Temple. As in many temples, photography within the temple itself was strictly forbidden and I was therefor unable to post images of the vast mural of demons and vices on the back wall. In this mural the main demons eyes enshrine the images of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden for their disregard for innocent life. This is still a work in progress, but you can see that the side walls will contain images of Buddhist devotees and kind souls praying and being wafted on wisps of wind towards the great Buddha that sits at the front of all Wats. Sitting in front of the Buddha image you will often see followers of Buddha in meditation. And in this case there was also an actual elderly monk in meditation in front of this.

Three photos that follow the temple are of Khun Korn National Park and the waterfall with its namesake... or perhaps it is the park with the namesake of the falls. It was pretty 1400 m walk to the falls. The waterfall was not as thunderous as some, but the force of the water as it hit the shallow pond below was enough to send tornadoes of mist shooting off here and there. The mist encompassed and drenched everything within perhaps 100 meters. I attempted to approach the the base but found myself unable to see of breath due to its intensity. I walked back to my motorcycle positively drenched from the attempt.

Lastly you will see me eating some sort of insect in the Chiang Rai Night Bizarre, a leaf that caught my eye while walking up to the falls, and an alley within the Wat Phra Kaew complex. This temple had more strays than perhaps any other Wat I had been to thus far. Generally you will see 3 or 4 dogs in a given temple complex that roam around most of the day. Here there were closer to 20.