As promised, in a much better mood now. I'm better prepared for my chilly office. I put winter tights on under my jeans, and super warm fuzzy socks on too. Thermal undershirt under my sweater which is under my winter coat. And I brought my sheepskin slippers (from Egli's Sheep Farm back home) and a big jar of Citron tea to school, I think I'm on mug number 4. Also, brought my MP3 player to school, so I've been chillin to some fantastic music: Fleet Foxes, the Weakerthans, Great Lake Swimmers, Sandi Thom, etc.
Now, imagine my shock and surprise when I scanned back through recent posts to the blog and discovered my last narrative entry, as far as the "life of Lisa" goes, left off at Halloween! Sorry guys!
The good news is, November wasn't nearly as busy as September and October.
The first weekend is probably the only one really worth blogging about - Amanda Ammon and I headed to Gyeongju (Korea's ancient Capital during the 3 kingdom's period)located north of Busan, to tour the ancient sites and do our first Buddhist temple stay. Gyeongju is one of those places in South Korea that I think every expat should go see. Once it was a royal city filled with Palaces and Shrines, now it is a small tourist town built around the remains. About the only things still intact are the enormous royal tombs that rise out of the ground like the small perfectly circular hills you would see in the background of a Mario Bros game on a Super Nintendo. We toured much of the sights on foot, beginning at the Gyeongju National Museum, then walking over to Anapji Pond. From there we walked past the first of the royal tombs (Daereungwon tombs), and the remains of Royal Palace - only stumps of stone left in the ground - Cheomseongdae Observatory (the oldest standing Astronomy tower in Asia) and onto the Royal Tomb park. One of the royal tombs has been opened to visitors as a sort of "walk in" museum, where visitors can see how the tomb was designed and how the body and artifacts would have been laid out! We learned that when a King died, his queen and many servants would also be sacrificed and buried with him, the intent being that they would continue to serve the King in the next life.
After pounding all that pavement, I felt relieved when we met up with our friends from Suncheon who would also join us for a temple stay at Golgulsa, a mountain-side temple outside the city. We were dropped off at a highway junction by a rural bus and walked about 20 minutes following signs. I didn't mind. Fall in Korea is spectacular and we were walking down a winding road than ran through a small industrial town settled in the valley of a mountain range. I loved feeling 'away' from the city. We huffed and puffed our way up the short by steep pathway to the temple office for check-in. We then learned that our accomodations were at the bottom of the hill we'd just climbed, and thus we'd be making that trek many times in the next 24 hours. According to the Buddhist tradition, we ate a vegetarian supper and finished everything on our plates (Buddhists try to not to waste anything, particularly food as it sustains our bodies). Golgulsa is a famous temple in Korea because its monks practice Sunmudo, a rare and ancient meditative martial art. Not designed for combat, Sunmudo requires the practitioner to have complete control over their mind and body in order to perform the difficult, almost dancelike moves. So though most of us came prepared to meditate, we were quite suprised to find ourselves sweating and straining through a Sunmudo training session. We had a short lesson in meditative technique and then were treated to a remarkable Sunmudo demonstration that had been put together for a group of Korean visitors to the temple (lucky us).
Soon after that it was time for bed - we had a 4 am wake up call to meet! We slept as most Koreans do, on a hot ondol floor with blankets to serve as mattress and cover. Our pre-dawn alarm clock was a junior monk tapping a wooden bell and chanting outside our building. (Punishment for sleeping in was 1080 bows to Buddha, and no one dared risk finding out how strictly this policy was enforced!) After doing some morning bows and a walking meditation, we met with the monks in the dining hall to participate in the Balwoo-gongyang for breakfast around 6 AM. The Balwoo-gongyang is a meditative meal practiced by Buddhists designed to focus the mind on the food that sustains us: where it came from, the earth it gained its nutrients from, the farmer who cared for and harvest the food to the cook who prepared the meal. Nothing is wasted. The dinnerware consists of a placemat, chopsticks, a spoon and four bowls - one of which is filled with hot water for washing the other three bowls with at the end, so that you begin and end the meal with 4 clean bowls. Done properly, nothing is wasted except maybe a half a cup of water. It was one of my favourite experiences at Golgulsa, not to mention a technique I can adapt the next time I go camping.
After breakfast was finished, I hiked up the side of the mountain to see the Maya Tathagata Buddha (a big Stone Buddha cut in relief into the side of the mountain)and take in a breaktaking view of the mountain valley and forest as the sun rose. I visited the cave shrine for a little bit of meditation. We had some free time in the morning in which you could go on a tour of some local sites, which I opted out of to take the most glorious nap this girl has ever taken. To finish up the stay we ate lunch and then participated in a special tea ceremony with a student monk (He was one of the few who could speak English) who answered our questions regarding Buddhism and the Buddhist lifestyle.
Before heading back into Gyeongju to catch a bus home, Amanda and I decided we wanted to take in one more historic site: Bolguksa Temple, a temple so big and beautiful they made into a UNESCO site. It was raining pretty heavily by the time we got there, so I bought a bright green poncho to try to protect my pack. Despite the rain, the temple and its grounds were stunning, particularly the pond outside which made the brilliant japanese maple trees nearby seem to glow. We were in a bit of a hurry, so as not to miss the last bus back to Suncheon, and in my haste I managed to forget my wallet inside the main Shrine hall, and naturally didn't notice until we were all the way at the bus stop. It was quite a jog to get all the way back up the hill and inside the grounds! Thankfully the ticket guys didn't make me pay again, and of course, this is Korea, my wallet had been put behind the counter for safekeeping, money and cards just as I had left them. I also bought a really pretty souvenir bell similar to the Emile bell we saw at the National Museum from a vendor who happily accepted my money and then stuffed the trinket in a box proclaiming "Made In China". Yeesh.
Here's the photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2273036&id=122614903&l=711a8a0481
I was low on cash and energy after all that had happened in the last 5 weeks, so the rest of the month was pretty low key. Lots of social events of course, but I stayed in Suncheon, and we did a few fun photo shoots with Amanda Gale's fancy new DSLR camera. Photoshoot #1 - Kate, Lindsey C and I dressed up as Marionettes (ala my design for my Halloween Costume); Amanda G dressed up as an Angel and Lindsey V dressed up as death. Photoshoot #2 - at the end of November I put up my Christmas tree and Amanda Gale patiently took about 600 pictures over two days until Mokah decided she was ready to sit pretty in front of the tree for my Christmas Photo Cards I sent out. But we did have a lot of fun with it and Amanda and Kate both got some holiday shots to send home out of it too!
Will try to quickly write up a summary of December and the New Year before I head off on Vacation - Tomorrow I'm flying to Kota Kinabalus Malaysia!!!
I'll leave you on this note: I discovered that of all things, the toilet seats in the teacher's bathroom are heated! I have seriously been considering bringing my laptop to school and setting up shop in the lavatory. :P
Showing posts with label bad luck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad luck. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Saturday, May 23, 2009
SE Asia Chapter 6: Vietnam. Fin.
Well here it is finally, the last chapter of my trip across Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. For those of you just tuning in, I haven't been travelling for the last 4 months, it's just taken me this long to write up the trip in blog form (*insert sigh of frustration and self-loathing*). The trip actually finished on February 26th, 2009. Here's how the last week of it went:
Vietnam
Mui NE
We could feel the end of the trip around the corner and with itchy feet we got on a bus to the Cambodian/Vietnam border. We were on our way to Mui Ne, a coastal fishing town about 3.5 hours away from Ho Chi Minh city, where we would need to end up in a week to catch our flight back to Seoul. We felt gunshy about the journey because of all the hassles we'd gone through to get from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Thankfully, the journey was a smooth one. We had a bit of a wait at the border, but other than that we rode on a comfortable airconditioned bus into Ho Chi Minh, which dropped us off close to a travel office where we booked the next bus to Mui Ne (and it happened to swing by and pick us up within 10 minutes of getting off the previous bus).
When we rolled into Mui Ne, we had no sleeping arrangements and after the recommended guest house was found to be full we hopped on the back of some moto-taxis and stayed at family owned guest house a couple miles down the road with cute, clean rooms. Although it had been a long day of travelling, but we were all too excited to have made it to the beach to go to sleep. Especially in my case; it would be my first time on a saltwater beach. The matron of the place gave us a huge light to take with us to explore the beach that lay just beyond the backyard full of palm trees. And not only did it light our way, but it also warned all the crabs we were coming, so nobody stepped on one as we wandered down the beach to the closest beachside restaurant named cowboys. Their lasagna wasn't great, but it was sure better than the baked kimchi and ddok in red pepper sauce my school sometimes makes as a cruel joke. We toasted our fruit shakes and mohitos over the sound of waves rolling to shore: we'd covered a lot of miles and we'd earned a few days of unscheduled, unstructured bliss.
The next morning we were up pretty early and on bicycles searching for some bungalows on the beach. We stopped at a lot of places, but naturally our first stop turned out to be the best bang for our buck. We stayed at Nhat Quang for $13 bucks a night. Not quite the bamboo huts we were hoping for, but the bungalows were very nice with white linens and mosquito nets. Also, the grounds at this guesthouse were absolutely beautiful, and acted as a buffer against the constant honking of motorists on the road (in Vietnam, it's a law to honk when you pass someone, which motorists have taken to include passing not only autos and motorcycles but bicycles and pedestrians, so it's A LOT of honking). We were also far enough off the road that it also camoflagued the strange organic, musky smell that was inescapable on the main road (and was also present in a big way at our first guesthouse).
side note: The mystery smell turned out to be the scent of Mui Ne's famous fermented fish sauce, which most of the homes and restaurants keep in big clay pots on the roof or in the backyard. We suspected this, and it was confirmed during the first week of school when my school cafeteria served fish in a sauce that instantly brought back waves of memories of Mui Ne.
The next few days are probably better described by pictures than my narrative, so here's the highlights:
- hour long oil massages on the beach for $6
- fantastic sunsets
- watching the cattle be driven across the beach daily
- watching the fishing boats leave the village in the late morning and return in the evening
- hammock naps
- tasty eats like: thin crust pizza, bananna pancakes for breakfast, jackfruit and mango smoothies, panini's, Vietnamese soup
- chasing a cockroach out of Jen's room at night
- getting dressed up for tropical drinks and fire dancers at Wax
- not a single full night's rest, thanks to my summertime insomnia making an early reappearance
Now I had mentioned back in Chapter 2 that I broke my camera at Elephant Nature Park and that it was not the only camera to meet its demise on this trip. Of the five camera's brought with us to SE ASIA, only two made it out alive. Here are the stories of how cameras #2 and #3 bit the dust.
Camera #2 Jennifer's Camera - "If you can't take the heat, stay away from the tail pipe!"
On our 3rd day, Jennifer and I felt adventurous and decided to take our rented bikes for a trip down the highway to see if we could find the red or white sand dunes all the tourist offices boasted about. At a Y intersection of two main roads about a 1/2 hour north of Mui Ne we found a place to rent ATV (4 wheelers) on the sand dunes. We were sold. It was pricey, but we couldn't think of a better way to see the dunes and knew we would we regret it if we didn't do it. After giving us a very quick explanation of where the brakes and gas controls were located, the manager sent us off with our guides, smiling "Don't be afraid, you can't tip them. Go fast, they won't roll over!" Hey buddy, you don't have to tell me twice! Jen and I took to ATVing quite differently. I found myself exuberantly bounding up and over steep dunes blindly following my guide over the edge, while Jen found her herself often stuck in the sand and needing rescue from her guide. She was cautious, you know like a complete newbie should be. It should be noted that after taking a few pictures, Jennifer handed me her camera for safekeeping in my little sling bag. She was ready to call it quits after 10 minutes while I pretended not to hear her and followed my guide down the next dune. He told me in broken English he was impressed with my driving abilities and continued to take me up progressively steeper hills. I even caught air a couple of times. As we travelled down the side of one dune, my guide cut to the left to travel in the ravine of two dunes. I followed his lead, but I cut the corner alittle short and the two left wheels of my ATV caught a ridge of hard ground hidden in the sand. Suddenly I was launched into the air sideways, and braced myself for a broken leg, certain it would be crushed under the ATV that was going to land on me. I landed in the sand, head and right shoulder first like a rag doll, stunned. First, stunned to see my glasses laying only a few feet from me in the sand. Second, stunned that I felt no broken bones. In fact I felt no pain at all! I rolled over and saw the ATV turned on it's side about 5 feet away. I rolled my eyes forward in time to see my guide looked over his shoulder, shout out a shocked "Oh my God!" and make an immediate u-turn. I quickly stood up and started wiping the sand off the right side of my body. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" the guide kept saying. I assured him I was ok, also surprised to find my self completely scatch free. He righted my ATV to find the front fender had sustained a significant crack, but otherwise was still running fine. From here on out, Jen and I experienced a role reversal of sorts. Jennifer found her confidence increasing and began having the time of her life on the dunes. I on the other hand found, after the adrenaline rush passed, that my nerves were completely shredded by the fall, and though I continued to follow my guide, felt terrified everytime we bounded blindly over another dune. Now it was Jennifer hooting as she ascended another cliff of sand and me who was ready to call it quits. For the last 10 minutes of our rented time, one of the guides decided to take me on the ride of my life. He hopped on my machine and I held on for dear life as what was left of my nerves abandoned me completely. As we pulled into the overhang and I got off the ATV on clumsy legs made of jelly, I felt a stab of heat. My small sling bag, which had been hanging safely at my side, had fallen behind the back of the ATV for the duration of my "joyride" with my guide, directly infront of the exhaust pipe. The heat had burned through my bag and melted Jen's camera cover to it. The camera came out like a hot potato - too hot to handle. Jen pulled into the overhang to see us all huddled over her camera. The prognosis grim. The camera was totally melted. I was really upset having destroyed yet another camera, especially one that didn't belong to me. But Jennifer was really wonderful about it. Thankfully, camera wizards in Korea were able to recover the pics on her memory card.
Camera #3 Susan's Camera - The Camera I Did NOT Break
I believe it was our 4th day in Mui Ne when the 5 of us took a walk up the "fairy stream", a gorgeous fresh water stream that met the ocean close to Nhat Quang. We politely refused the children who offered to "guide" us to the waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful: the red sand, the green foliage and the bright blue sky seemed almost too saturated with colour. Again, I'll let the pictures do the talking. We took turns splashing under the small waterfall and then headed back towards our guesthouse. About 2/3rds the way back, Suze realized she didn't have her camera. In fact, none of us did. She and Ali headed back down the stream to look for it. Jen, Amanda and I tried to assure ourselves, "There is no way we can lose 3 cameras on this trip!" Suze and Ali ran into a couple of little "tour guides" who responded excitedly when Suze mimed that she was looking for a camera. Sure enough one of the boys held up a water-logged, grim-looking camera. Filled with relief, Suze generously offered the boys some money as a reward for finding the camera. Ever the opportunists, the boys held on to the camera and tried to extort Suze for more money to get back her broken camera. Thankfully, Suze has good training in handling youngsters as a teacher and was able to get the camera back without being ripped off by some very ballsy 8-year olds.
I spent the last couple of days in Mui Ne relaxing as much as possible. While I didn't break any bones in my ATV accident, I found myself very stiff and sore for the next few days. I also took a gamble and got a $3 dollar haircut at a beauty shop. Let's say, you get what you pay for. (Krissy, you'll find out what I mean when I get back to Dryden in July.) Reluctantly, I got on a bus to Ho Chi Minh after 5 wonderful days in Mui Ne. Exciting and relaxing, it was the perfect way to end a long trip of constant movement.
Ho Chi Minh
Amanda and Suze had gone to HCMC earlier than Jen, Ali and I. Those ambitious gals had plans to some more historical sight-seeing around old Saigon. The idealist in me gave the old lady in me guilt trips about staying on the beach alittle longer. But let's be honest: I was out of steam. I was ready to get on a plane and I was not anxious to be back in the middle of a bustling metropolis, which is exactly what HCMC is. About 80% of its motorists are on motorbikes, and rush hour traffic was like watching densely packed schools of fish travel. Unfortunately for us pedestrians, there are no crosswalks. You just walk very slowly out into traffic and the motos drive around you (I guess one benefit of traffic that dense is that it rarely gets moving over 40 km/h). We reunited with the history buffs at a cafe and got settled into our guesthouse. HCMC is alittle like Bangkok but friendlier, cleaner and the vendors are a lot less pushy.I slept in nice and late the next day. Jennifer and I decided to hit up a local waterpark (her first time at one!) instead of touring the Musuem of American Atrocities. The idealist in me didn't like that decision either, but I assuaged her with a promise to return to HCMC one day and see it properly. Jen and I ran around the waterpark like the rest of the 13 year old's there and had a great time. We had dinner at the fantastic vegetarian restaurant we ate almost all of our meals at while in HCMC and then the five of us met up to see a Vietnamese Water Puppet show. It was really cool to see and, being in the front row, we got a little wet. After the puppet show, it was time to head to the airport and catch our midnight flight back to Korea and back to semi-normal life.
I felt bittersweet boarding the plane. I was ready to go back. I missed my cat. But I felt overwhelming gratitude for having the oppportunity to take a trip like this. I felt stretched and expanded as a person, and more grounded. I felt I was taking so much with me from SE Asia, so many positive things to keep in my life and was leaving behind so much of my own negativity.
Pictures here (minus ATV pics, I'll post them next): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2236674&id=122614903&l=0ebc4c8a8c
Vietnam
Mui NE
We could feel the end of the trip around the corner and with itchy feet we got on a bus to the Cambodian/Vietnam border. We were on our way to Mui Ne, a coastal fishing town about 3.5 hours away from Ho Chi Minh city, where we would need to end up in a week to catch our flight back to Seoul. We felt gunshy about the journey because of all the hassles we'd gone through to get from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Thankfully, the journey was a smooth one. We had a bit of a wait at the border, but other than that we rode on a comfortable airconditioned bus into Ho Chi Minh, which dropped us off close to a travel office where we booked the next bus to Mui Ne (and it happened to swing by and pick us up within 10 minutes of getting off the previous bus).
When we rolled into Mui Ne, we had no sleeping arrangements and after the recommended guest house was found to be full we hopped on the back of some moto-taxis and stayed at family owned guest house a couple miles down the road with cute, clean rooms. Although it had been a long day of travelling, but we were all too excited to have made it to the beach to go to sleep. Especially in my case; it would be my first time on a saltwater beach. The matron of the place gave us a huge light to take with us to explore the beach that lay just beyond the backyard full of palm trees. And not only did it light our way, but it also warned all the crabs we were coming, so nobody stepped on one as we wandered down the beach to the closest beachside restaurant named cowboys. Their lasagna wasn't great, but it was sure better than the baked kimchi and ddok in red pepper sauce my school sometimes makes as a cruel joke. We toasted our fruit shakes and mohitos over the sound of waves rolling to shore: we'd covered a lot of miles and we'd earned a few days of unscheduled, unstructured bliss.
The next morning we were up pretty early and on bicycles searching for some bungalows on the beach. We stopped at a lot of places, but naturally our first stop turned out to be the best bang for our buck. We stayed at Nhat Quang for $13 bucks a night. Not quite the bamboo huts we were hoping for, but the bungalows were very nice with white linens and mosquito nets. Also, the grounds at this guesthouse were absolutely beautiful, and acted as a buffer against the constant honking of motorists on the road (in Vietnam, it's a law to honk when you pass someone, which motorists have taken to include passing not only autos and motorcycles but bicycles and pedestrians, so it's A LOT of honking). We were also far enough off the road that it also camoflagued the strange organic, musky smell that was inescapable on the main road (and was also present in a big way at our first guesthouse).
side note: The mystery smell turned out to be the scent of Mui Ne's famous fermented fish sauce, which most of the homes and restaurants keep in big clay pots on the roof or in the backyard. We suspected this, and it was confirmed during the first week of school when my school cafeteria served fish in a sauce that instantly brought back waves of memories of Mui Ne.
The next few days are probably better described by pictures than my narrative, so here's the highlights:
- hour long oil massages on the beach for $6
- fantastic sunsets
- watching the cattle be driven across the beach daily
- watching the fishing boats leave the village in the late morning and return in the evening
- hammock naps
- tasty eats like: thin crust pizza, bananna pancakes for breakfast, jackfruit and mango smoothies, panini's, Vietnamese soup
- chasing a cockroach out of Jen's room at night
- getting dressed up for tropical drinks and fire dancers at Wax
- not a single full night's rest, thanks to my summertime insomnia making an early reappearance
Now I had mentioned back in Chapter 2 that I broke my camera at Elephant Nature Park and that it was not the only camera to meet its demise on this trip. Of the five camera's brought with us to SE ASIA, only two made it out alive. Here are the stories of how cameras #2 and #3 bit the dust.
Camera #2 Jennifer's Camera - "If you can't take the heat, stay away from the tail pipe!"
On our 3rd day, Jennifer and I felt adventurous and decided to take our rented bikes for a trip down the highway to see if we could find the red or white sand dunes all the tourist offices boasted about. At a Y intersection of two main roads about a 1/2 hour north of Mui Ne we found a place to rent ATV (4 wheelers) on the sand dunes. We were sold. It was pricey, but we couldn't think of a better way to see the dunes and knew we would we regret it if we didn't do it. After giving us a very quick explanation of where the brakes and gas controls were located, the manager sent us off with our guides, smiling "Don't be afraid, you can't tip them. Go fast, they won't roll over!" Hey buddy, you don't have to tell me twice! Jen and I took to ATVing quite differently. I found myself exuberantly bounding up and over steep dunes blindly following my guide over the edge, while Jen found her herself often stuck in the sand and needing rescue from her guide. She was cautious, you know like a complete newbie should be. It should be noted that after taking a few pictures, Jennifer handed me her camera for safekeeping in my little sling bag. She was ready to call it quits after 10 minutes while I pretended not to hear her and followed my guide down the next dune. He told me in broken English he was impressed with my driving abilities and continued to take me up progressively steeper hills. I even caught air a couple of times. As we travelled down the side of one dune, my guide cut to the left to travel in the ravine of two dunes. I followed his lead, but I cut the corner alittle short and the two left wheels of my ATV caught a ridge of hard ground hidden in the sand. Suddenly I was launched into the air sideways, and braced myself for a broken leg, certain it would be crushed under the ATV that was going to land on me. I landed in the sand, head and right shoulder first like a rag doll, stunned. First, stunned to see my glasses laying only a few feet from me in the sand. Second, stunned that I felt no broken bones. In fact I felt no pain at all! I rolled over and saw the ATV turned on it's side about 5 feet away. I rolled my eyes forward in time to see my guide looked over his shoulder, shout out a shocked "Oh my God!" and make an immediate u-turn. I quickly stood up and started wiping the sand off the right side of my body. "Oh my God! Oh my God!" the guide kept saying. I assured him I was ok, also surprised to find my self completely scatch free. He righted my ATV to find the front fender had sustained a significant crack, but otherwise was still running fine. From here on out, Jen and I experienced a role reversal of sorts. Jennifer found her confidence increasing and began having the time of her life on the dunes. I on the other hand found, after the adrenaline rush passed, that my nerves were completely shredded by the fall, and though I continued to follow my guide, felt terrified everytime we bounded blindly over another dune. Now it was Jennifer hooting as she ascended another cliff of sand and me who was ready to call it quits. For the last 10 minutes of our rented time, one of the guides decided to take me on the ride of my life. He hopped on my machine and I held on for dear life as what was left of my nerves abandoned me completely. As we pulled into the overhang and I got off the ATV on clumsy legs made of jelly, I felt a stab of heat. My small sling bag, which had been hanging safely at my side, had fallen behind the back of the ATV for the duration of my "joyride" with my guide, directly infront of the exhaust pipe. The heat had burned through my bag and melted Jen's camera cover to it. The camera came out like a hot potato - too hot to handle. Jen pulled into the overhang to see us all huddled over her camera. The prognosis grim. The camera was totally melted. I was really upset having destroyed yet another camera, especially one that didn't belong to me. But Jennifer was really wonderful about it. Thankfully, camera wizards in Korea were able to recover the pics on her memory card.
Camera #3 Susan's Camera - The Camera I Did NOT Break
I believe it was our 4th day in Mui Ne when the 5 of us took a walk up the "fairy stream", a gorgeous fresh water stream that met the ocean close to Nhat Quang. We politely refused the children who offered to "guide" us to the waterfall. It was absolutely beautiful: the red sand, the green foliage and the bright blue sky seemed almost too saturated with colour. Again, I'll let the pictures do the talking. We took turns splashing under the small waterfall and then headed back towards our guesthouse. About 2/3rds the way back, Suze realized she didn't have her camera. In fact, none of us did. She and Ali headed back down the stream to look for it. Jen, Amanda and I tried to assure ourselves, "There is no way we can lose 3 cameras on this trip!" Suze and Ali ran into a couple of little "tour guides" who responded excitedly when Suze mimed that she was looking for a camera. Sure enough one of the boys held up a water-logged, grim-looking camera. Filled with relief, Suze generously offered the boys some money as a reward for finding the camera. Ever the opportunists, the boys held on to the camera and tried to extort Suze for more money to get back her broken camera. Thankfully, Suze has good training in handling youngsters as a teacher and was able to get the camera back without being ripped off by some very ballsy 8-year olds.
I spent the last couple of days in Mui Ne relaxing as much as possible. While I didn't break any bones in my ATV accident, I found myself very stiff and sore for the next few days. I also took a gamble and got a $3 dollar haircut at a beauty shop. Let's say, you get what you pay for. (Krissy, you'll find out what I mean when I get back to Dryden in July.) Reluctantly, I got on a bus to Ho Chi Minh after 5 wonderful days in Mui Ne. Exciting and relaxing, it was the perfect way to end a long trip of constant movement.
Ho Chi Minh
Amanda and Suze had gone to HCMC earlier than Jen, Ali and I. Those ambitious gals had plans to some more historical sight-seeing around old Saigon. The idealist in me gave the old lady in me guilt trips about staying on the beach alittle longer. But let's be honest: I was out of steam. I was ready to get on a plane and I was not anxious to be back in the middle of a bustling metropolis, which is exactly what HCMC is. About 80% of its motorists are on motorbikes, and rush hour traffic was like watching densely packed schools of fish travel. Unfortunately for us pedestrians, there are no crosswalks. You just walk very slowly out into traffic and the motos drive around you (I guess one benefit of traffic that dense is that it rarely gets moving over 40 km/h). We reunited with the history buffs at a cafe and got settled into our guesthouse. HCMC is alittle like Bangkok but friendlier, cleaner and the vendors are a lot less pushy.I slept in nice and late the next day. Jennifer and I decided to hit up a local waterpark (her first time at one!) instead of touring the Musuem of American Atrocities. The idealist in me didn't like that decision either, but I assuaged her with a promise to return to HCMC one day and see it properly. Jen and I ran around the waterpark like the rest of the 13 year old's there and had a great time. We had dinner at the fantastic vegetarian restaurant we ate almost all of our meals at while in HCMC and then the five of us met up to see a Vietnamese Water Puppet show. It was really cool to see and, being in the front row, we got a little wet. After the puppet show, it was time to head to the airport and catch our midnight flight back to Korea and back to semi-normal life.
I felt bittersweet boarding the plane. I was ready to go back. I missed my cat. But I felt overwhelming gratitude for having the oppportunity to take a trip like this. I felt stretched and expanded as a person, and more grounded. I felt I was taking so much with me from SE Asia, so many positive things to keep in my life and was leaving behind so much of my own negativity.
Pictures here (minus ATV pics, I'll post them next): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2236674&id=122614903&l=0ebc4c8a8c
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Mishaps and Minor Injuries
Well it's been an interesting week and I hope it's not setting a tone for my month of travelling in SE Asia.
It started in the Holmes' kitchen. One night I decided to make Jodie's famous one-bowl brownies while we enjoyed the 1970's wonderfest "The Apple". In attempting to get eggs out of the fridge I manage to smash one egg on the floor, and then dump a container of stirfry leftovers on the floor on my second attempt. I was thus banned from the refrigerator.
Two days later I returned to the Holmes' home to watch horror movies and enjoy fruit smoothies the Lady Holmes. We created a delicious batch of smoothie: kiwi, strawberries, bananas, yogurt and orange juice. I attempted to remove the pitcher from the blender base so we could enjoy our fruit concoction, but unfortunately I failed to notice that I was twisting the pitcher off of its bottom, not just off of the blender base. You guessed it, I pulled up and 1.5 liters of smoothie went all over the counter and the floor. Wee! And to just to spice things up a bit, I didn't unplug the blender and set those blades a-wirring while wiping it down. Thankfully no one's fingers were in the way. I was thus banned from the Holmes' kitchen and electric kitchen appliances in general.
Two days later I was enjoying some friendly banter with Kate and Will outside a social get together. Will and I were having fun accusing eachother of being racist and I meant to give him a friendly jab in the stomach. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had in that same hand the cheese grater that I had left at Amanda's the night before. Will moved to block my jab and got his hand grated. There was a little blood, just a little. I was thus banned from all objects with sharp edges.
This morning as we got into our cab to head to the bus station for our first leg of the journey to SE Asia, I jammed my thumb putting my backpack in the trunk. I have a cute little purple bruise under the nail. Can a person be banned from trunks?
Oh well, we arrrived at Incheon International Airport (where I am currently writing this blog)with time to spare and decided to get a decent meal while we waited. Unfortunately, the waitress knocked a big fancy fruit drink all over my backpack and purse when delivering items to our table. Now that was definitely not my fault! Maybe it's not exactly a change of luck, but hopefully I'll stop being the cause of the trouble. So now I get to smell like fruit smoothie all the way to Thailand or maybe a compost heap depending on when the orange juice starts fermenting.
Better luck next week! ....right?
(As a side note: the staff was very apologetic and helpful with cleaning it up and gave me a free drink. I think we had about 5 different waitresses apologize...)
It started in the Holmes' kitchen. One night I decided to make Jodie's famous one-bowl brownies while we enjoyed the 1970's wonderfest "The Apple". In attempting to get eggs out of the fridge I manage to smash one egg on the floor, and then dump a container of stirfry leftovers on the floor on my second attempt. I was thus banned from the refrigerator.
Two days later I returned to the Holmes' home to watch horror movies and enjoy fruit smoothies the Lady Holmes. We created a delicious batch of smoothie: kiwi, strawberries, bananas, yogurt and orange juice. I attempted to remove the pitcher from the blender base so we could enjoy our fruit concoction, but unfortunately I failed to notice that I was twisting the pitcher off of its bottom, not just off of the blender base. You guessed it, I pulled up and 1.5 liters of smoothie went all over the counter and the floor. Wee! And to just to spice things up a bit, I didn't unplug the blender and set those blades a-wirring while wiping it down. Thankfully no one's fingers were in the way. I was thus banned from the Holmes' kitchen and electric kitchen appliances in general.
Two days later I was enjoying some friendly banter with Kate and Will outside a social get together. Will and I were having fun accusing eachother of being racist and I meant to give him a friendly jab in the stomach. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had in that same hand the cheese grater that I had left at Amanda's the night before. Will moved to block my jab and got his hand grated. There was a little blood, just a little. I was thus banned from all objects with sharp edges.
This morning as we got into our cab to head to the bus station for our first leg of the journey to SE Asia, I jammed my thumb putting my backpack in the trunk. I have a cute little purple bruise under the nail. Can a person be banned from trunks?
Oh well, we arrrived at Incheon International Airport (where I am currently writing this blog)with time to spare and decided to get a decent meal while we waited. Unfortunately, the waitress knocked a big fancy fruit drink all over my backpack and purse when delivering items to our table. Now that was definitely not my fault! Maybe it's not exactly a change of luck, but hopefully I'll stop being the cause of the trouble. So now I get to smell like fruit smoothie all the way to Thailand or maybe a compost heap depending on when the orange juice starts fermenting.
Better luck next week! ....right?
(As a side note: the staff was very apologetic and helpful with cleaning it up and gave me a free drink. I think we had about 5 different waitresses apologize...)
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