The modern pool at Rasanandra. The benches on the side had buttons that turned on jets.

Upon arrival, we received the typical coconut-milk welcome drinks (western culture really needs to adopt this custom), and were led to our room. The room was amazing — modern in design, clean, it included a small private pool (as all rooms at this hotel do), and oddly — free alcohol. We had a selection of gin, rum, and whiskey, which we were informed would be refilled daily. Strangely, the mixers (tonic, cola, etc.) were in the mini-bar for a charge. Still a pretty good deal. As the cheapskates we are, we bought tonic from the local store down the street and mixed some drinks.

Free booze

The hotel was amazing. From the pool, to the excellent restaurant, to the complimentary beach snacks (courtesy of the chef), this place was top-notch. Over the course of four days, we were continually asked by the hotel and restaurant managers if there was anything they could do better. There wasn’t.

The beach was great too. Many Thai beach areas are over-developed:

Parts of Chewang Beach are not so relaxing. Careful with those power lines!

Or underdeveloped (no services). This strip was perfect. There was a selection of good local restaurants and bars at the other guesthouses along the beach, along with a couple convenience stores, an ATM, and laundry services. The sand was white and pure, and extended far out into the water (no rocks). We were in heaven.

Looking north from our hotel

The beach in front of our hotel

The palm tree that we sat beneath in front of our hotel one afternoon

The one last thing worth mentioning during a trip to Ko Phangan are the infamous “full moon parties”. Our little beach was way too chill for serious ravers, and the moon wasn’t full while we were there, but we still got a taste of the action. The “Beach Club” bar down the beach had a fire dancing show (free for anyone to watch) one of the nights we were there. Abby and I had no idea what to expect, but were mesmerized when it started and stayed for a full hour. We will always associate this scene with the Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face”. Definitely worth seeing, even if, like us, you’re not into the rave scene.

Fire dancing

This is not an easy blog post for us to write, but we wanted to share our news with all of you right away. It is with mixed emotions that we are writing to let you know that we will not be returning home to Seattle from Koh Phangan. The resort that we have called home for the past two nights is simply too wonderful for us to ever leave, so we have decided not to. This is not a decision we made with haste. We treasure our family and friends and the time that we get to spend with all of you. That is why we hope you will all come visit us in our Sea-View Villa at the Santhiya Resort. It has a separate sitting room with a daybed (where we are sitting right now) that would make very comfortable guest quarters. Although we hear it is currently 100 degrees in Seattle, we all know how gray the winter months can be — and that would be the perfect time for you to come visit us on Koh Phangan.

These wooden buggies transport visitors from their villas to the main lodge/pool area.


The daybed in our villa, with walkway connecting to bedroom area.


Interior of our villa, with outdoor bathroom visible through windows behind Abby.

Upon arrival at our new home, you will be treated to a welcome massage and can arrange for a 1.5 hour Thai massage that will cost you a mere US $45. We indulged in such a massage yesterday and cannot remember a time when we felt more relaxed. The lovely ladies who stretched, kneaded, and pulled our muscles chuckled at us at the end of our massage as we lay on our beds underneath the open windows, arms outstretched and unable to move right away after such a luxurious experience. We know you will enjoy this as well when you come to visit us.

Although best known for its epic Full Moon Parties, which involve all sorts of hallucinogenic drugs and “fire dancing,” Koh Phagnan also boasts a beautiful and secluded set of beaches called Ao Thong Nai Pan Yai & Noi. This is where our new home is located on the island. After an almost one-hour journey from the public ferry pier that took us over mountainous dirt roads, with portions so steep that our driver had to turn off the A/C before powering up the craggy rocks, you will arrive at our most lovely resort home with villas tucked away into the jungle. You may also choose to take the resort’s power speedboat directly from the pier, but we recommend the van ride because it really makes you feel like you have embarked upon a daring journey and earned your welcome drink upon arrival at this remote destination.

Upper eating area at main lodge building.

After dropping off your bags in our villa, we will take you down to the lovely beach for a Beer Chang on one of their tables in the sand. You may remark, like Dan did, that you feel like you are in a James Bond movie. We predict that you will sit for a few moments without even speaking and share the feeling we had of being so extremely lucky in life to be in such a beautiful place with someone you love.

Beach bar & restaurant area.

And finally, we will reserve a table on the beach for the dinner we will all share during your visit. This is truly an experience you won’t forget. How many times have you sat at a table IN the sand with your shoes off and a torch by your side?

Dinner on the beach on our second and final night at Santhiya.

Although we will miss Seattle and everyday contact with all of you, we know that our visits together will be even more special in the future because we can share the experience of our new home with you. We have not yet figured out the financial logistics of our decision, but we are hoping that the hotel will let us trade gardening time for permanent residency. If not, we will be collecting donations from our loyal readers. We can’t wait to welcome you to our new home in Koh Phangan!

Love, Abby & Dan

Taiwanese airport food

Once we landed on the island, we took a taxi from the tiny airport (complete with an open-air luggage carousel) to our hotel just north of Chaweng beach. Here, we were upgraded to an ocean-facing villa, specially decked out for our honeymoon.

What a way to start the trip! The hotel (Nora Beach Resort) is wonderful, and despite some overcast skies up in Bangkok, there’s no sign of any monsoon down here, but I won’t go on about that since I don’t want to jinx us. We did a little exploring on foot that first night, walking down to Chaweng beach for dinner. Jet-lag quickly set in though, making it an early night for us.

Jet-lag does have its upside, as we woke up first thing Monday morning in time to enjoy a beautiful sunrise on the beach with a cup of coffee.

The view from our hotel room. We got a great deal on Hotwire.

The Salt Lake Tabernacle

A reflection pool near the church. Note the man proposing to his girlfriend on the left.

Downtown

A storm in the distance

A view point on I-80 near Park City on our drive out of town

Our trip commenced at about 8:00a.m. and after stops in Yakima, Wash., and Pendleton, Ore., we pulled into Boise around 5:30p.m. It was a very scenic drive and showcased the differences between mountainous/green Western Washington and low-lying/dry Eastern Washington. The weather posed no problems for us and we’re hoping it continues to cooperate for the rest of our drive. To top off our evening, Dan had secretly researched Boise restaurants prior to our departure, so we easily located and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Le Cafe de Paris in downtown Boise.

Abby taking photos at a viewpoint on I-82 north of Yakima

Another shot from the viewpoint on I-82 north of Yakima

Abby posing in front of the diner where we ate lunch in Pendleton, Oregon

I-84, East of Pendleton

I-84, driving out of a mountain range

I-84 rest stop

After breakfast and some late-morning Christmas shopping on our last day in Kyoto, we made our way to the south side of the train station where the Shinkansen high-speed bullet trains depart for Tokyo. We paid a small premium to take the super-fast Nozomi service on the new N700 series train. This bullet train is capable of traveling 270 km/h (170 mph) and does the 476 km (296 mile) trip to Tokyo in 2 hours 20 minutes. It was fast.

N700 Series Train, Kyoto Station

We got there in the late afternoon, and navigated the subway system to the Hanzomon station, just west of the Imperial Palace, and right in front of the Hotel Monterey Hanzomon. The hotel was great, and became our home in Tokyo for the next six nights.

Our first mission after arriving in Tokyo was to find a good bowl of ramen. Remembering an experience I had in Shibuya on a work trip a couple years ago where I struggled to use a vending machine for payment but was rewarded by a tasty bowl, I talked Abby into trying to find the same place. We took the subway to Shibuya, wandered the crowded side streets for a while, and finally stumbled across Kamakura Ramen. Yum!

Kamakura Ramen

We spent the remainder of our time in Tokyo wandering through what Lonely Planet listed as one of the 10 weirdest cities in the world. During our time we saw washlets (the future of toilet technology), a sumo wrestling stadium, umbrella cover applicator machines, banks of vending machines, karaoke bars, and even a cartoon video of a singing pea in Kiddy Land. Great stuff!

At the same time, we did a lot of shopping, since Christmas was quickly approaching:

Abby posing in front of the Prada Building. We didn’t buy anything here.

Shoppers in Ginza. We didn’t buy anything here either.

And of course spent a lot of time wandering Tokyo’s various neighborhoods.

Shinjuku

One neighborhood we spent a lot of our time in was the up-and-coming neighborhood of “Marunouchi”, which we read about in a recent article in the New York Times. The neighborhood was a short subway ride away from our hotel, and had a great range of food options, as well as the store where I bought Abby her official temporary engagement ring.

Marunouchi

Abby with ring

And finally, here is a short video taken while crossing the street in the heart of Shibuya. We were amazed by the number of people in this area and had to capture some of the action on video to give you just a taste of Tokyo’s energy.

Once we were dropped off at Fourth & University, the new challenge became finding a bus up Capitol Hill. Typically this is an easy task, but the buses were not running on a typical schedule and we were carrying more than our typical load. Eventually we caught a #10 up to Broadway and then walked the remaining six blocks up the hill to our apartment. It was quite the adventure, but worked out just fine and we both felt it was a fitting conclusion to our four-month adventure. If we weren’t ready to be contestants on the Amazing Race before that leg of our journey, we certainly are now!

It was wonderful to finally walk into our cozy apartment that had been well tended by Allison while we were away and decorated beautifully for Christmas by Dan’s parents just before our arrival. As I write this, my backpack still sits in my bedroom untouched since we got home. It will take some time before I am ready to even look at its contents again. While the snow in Seattle has created some roadblocks to seeing friends and family, we were successful in driving down to Portland with Dan’s parents to celebrate an early Christmas at his sister Karen’s house. After three nights in Portland, we caught a window of good weather yesterday, headed back north on I-5, and are now safely back in our apartment in Seattle.

Rocking out to Rock Band with Karen and John in Portland

Thank you to everyone who followed our blog and for all of your good wishes and greetings. We loved hearing from all of you while we were away and can’t wait to see many of you in person very soon. We wish you the happiest and warmest of holidays!

While staying in Kyoto, we took a day trip to the town of Nara, a former capital city of Japan. We were strongly encouraged by several friends to include Nara on our Japan itinerary and we are very glad we did. The town is full of temples and has a very chill vibe. We visited several beautiful temples and had a great time wandering the streets of old-town Nara. This is also where we saw the yomogo mochi machine that was featured in in the latest round of What is it??.

Here are some photo highlights from our visit:

The five-story pagoda of Kofuku-ji is seen in the background of an object that we actually can’t identify.

One of the many deer that wander the temple grounds in Nara. They seem to be fearless of humans and wandered right up to us.

This main hall of the Todai-ji temple complex is the world’s largest wooden building. This place was one of the most impressive sights of our entire trip.

A huge Buddha — and Japan’s largest bronze statue — sits within the building pictured above.

Lanterns along the large wooden terrace of Nigatsu-do.

More lanterns lining a wall of Kasuga Taisha.

These moss-covered stone lanterns lined the paths leading up to and away from the Kasuga Taisha temple. The paths were very quiet and beautiful.

Video showing 360-view of lantern-lined path.

We knew things were off to a good start when we walked out of the doors of the Kyoto train station and were greeted by a group of about ten 9- to 10-year-olds with clipboards (clearly on a school assignment) and big smiles. “Excuse me,” they all said at once in English. They then asked us if we had a minute to answer a few questions. They took turns asking us questions like where we were coming from (Osaka), what we were excited to do in Kyoto (visit temples, eat local food), and what our names were. One of my favorite moments was when they asked us where we were from. First we said “the United States.” Confused stares. Then “America,” and they understood. Then we said “Seattle – Ichiro,” and they erupted in smiles and cheers. After that, they very officially shook our hands and gave each of us a calligraphy drawing. We walked away smiling and excited to experience more of this welcoming city.

Posing with our new friends at the Kyoto train station

After checking into our fabulous hostel and enjoying a great bowl of ramen from a local shop where we were the only westerners, we began our quest to explore as many of Kyoto’s myriad temples as we could in two and a half days. Our first visit was to Kinkaku-ji, which the school kids told us was their favorite sight-seeing stop in Kyoto. This spot is famous for its golden pavilion, reflecting pond, and strolling gardens — and was definitely a beautiful sight.

Kinkaku-ji’s golden pavilion

Next up was a visit to Ryoan-ji, which is most famous for its dry landscape rock garden, which is a very simple and abstract Zen garden that proved quite relaxing and thought-provoking even to a complete newbie like myself. In spite of the beauty of that garden, our favorite part of this temple visit was definitely a walk through one of the gardens behind a smaller temple on the grounds. We were just wandering and found a garden area that was completely deserted. We were the only people walking this path and the combination of colors and quiet was just stunning.

Our private peaceful path in Ryoan-ji

Now … on to Day Two. Get ready for some photos. And between Dan and myself, we have about 150 more from this day that didn’t make the blog. Today we would head to East Kyoto, where the temples are packed in and fairly easy to walk between. Our first stop was Fushimi-inari, which is the head shrine of the Inari cult and dedicated to their god of rice and sake. What makes this temple spectacular is its network of orange gates that snake up Inari-san mountain along various paths. It is truly a striking sight and there were stretches where it was just the two of us wandering this maze of bright orange gates on a mountain hillside in the fresh, cold air.

A view down one stretch of Fushimi-inari’s orange gates

Our next stop, Shoren-in, was not part of our original plan as it was barely even mentioned in our guidebook. We decided to pop in since we walked right by its gates and it looked promising from the outside. We ended up spending at least an hour in this peaceful spot that is a former residence of the imperial family. There were many tatami-floored rooms with open floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a pond and beautiful hillside garden. We sat and admired the view (again, completely by ourselves in the quiet) before exploring the entire maze of rooms. We then walked through the gardens and basked in the Zen of it all.

Tatami-floored rooms in Shoren-in’s main residence

Shoren-in’s garden

View of bamboo trees at Shoren-in

We also spent some time wandering through old-town Kyoto’s side streets, where we ran into several geishas in full traditional garb. We’re pretty sure, however, that the woman in the photo below is not a real geisha. We read that many tourists pay to be dressed up in the full geisha costume and then walk the streets of old-town Kyoto. After we saw this woman pose for her boyfriend while pretending to push a button on a beer vending machine, we had our doubts.

“Geisha” in old-town Kyoto

Our final temple visit of the day was to Kiyomizu-dera, which is built on wooden stilts and spans the expanse of a valley. It was also quite beautiful, but very crowded with tourists and school groups, which detracted from the experience somewhat. Or perhaps it was my exhausted legs and feet … not sure. But we did see a beautiful sunset here before walking back down the hill to catch a train back to our hostel.

Wooden prayer tiles at Kiyomizu-dera

All in all, it was a very full two days. Full of walking, full of Zen, full of quiet, full of cold air, and full of total beauty. (It was also full of great food, but we’ll hold ourselves back on the food front for this post at least.)

With our tight schedule, we only had one full day to explore Osaka, our first stop in Japan. We began our day by visiting the ever-popular “Mr. Donuts” chain for a quick donut, but decided to save our yen by skipping the restaurant’s three dollar coffee, and buying a one dollar hot canned coffee from a street-side vending machine instead. More on these later…

Typical Osaka side-street

Now caffeinated, we took the subway to Osaka-jo, the famous castle in the middle of the city and Japan’s most visited sight. Here we wandered the grounds with a few other tourists and school groups.

Osaka-jo

However, before we knew it, the US military police had stormed in with a recruiting bus.

Wait… what’s going on here?

After talking to one of the personnel, we learned that a TV drama was being filmed here. Too bad they didn’t need any extras!

After the castle, we wandered along the river and then went to “City Mall”, a large shopping mall nearby and headed for the restaurant floor at the top of the building. Here we found a nice sushi restaurant with a good lunch deal that included sushi, miso soup, and tempura.

After a brief break back at the hostel, we headed out to Dotombori, a popular entertainment district in Osaka. This neighborhood is packed with restaurants, bars, shops, and most strikingly, large neon signs:

Abby in front of the famous neon Glico sign

In this neighborhood, we headed to Dotombori Gokuraku Shotengai, (also known as the Osaka Food Theme Park) a restaurant complex recommended by our guidebook. This food center occupies the top three floors of a building in the center of the neighborhood, with an early-1900′s theme and over fifty restaurants, many featuring Osaka specialties. Here we found a restaurant serving okonomiyaki, one of these specialties, which is a large grilled meat and vegetables pancake. First cooked by the chef, it was then transferred to a grill in the middle of our table where we further cooked it to our liking.

By the time we finished the okonomiyaki, we were beat. We wandered the streets a little more, then headed back to our cozy hostel.

Also note that this machine represents a huge advancement in the production of Yomogi Mochi, and is far safer and less tiring than the traditional method:

Courtesy of japanvisitor.com

P.S. We are purposely not revealing our current location to make things a bit trickier.

While our time in Hong Kong was limited to a single day (cut down from the four we had planned before the PAD protests), we thoroughly enjoyed it and left feeling that it was a city we could happily live in. We didn’t have any preconceptions of the city, but found it to be a very clean, modern, and welcoming place. Its compact nature makes it quite walkable, but a convenient system of trains, ferries, and even outdoor escalators makes it a breeze to get around. With some help from my friend Joanna and some other tips from our guidebook, we were able to devise a one-day itinerary that allowed us to get a great taste of the city.

View of Hong Kong skyline from the top of the peak

The taste we had been most looking forward to was that of dim sum, which we enjoyed at the famous Maxim’s Palace City Hall restaurant. We had researched its hours, so we arrived at 11:00am on the dot (its opening time) in order to beat the Saturday morning rush that we had heard is a given. It was a good thing we did, because while we had our pick of tables, the entire place was packed within ten minutes with a line forming down the hallway. The food was fantastic. For the uninitiated, dim sum is a Cantonese specialty that features many small dishes that you share with your table. Rather than ordering food off a menu ahead of time, you simply wait for the carts of food to come by and indicate your interest in given dishes. The wait staff keeps tally of how many dishes you’ve had, and you pay accordingly at the end of the meal. This means that you can keep trying lots of small dishes until you’re completely stuffed, which is exactly what we did. Our meal included shrimp dumplings, sticky rice, chicken, yellow pork/shrimp dumplings, and lots of tea. Delicious!

After dim-sum, we took a tram to the top of “the peak” (Hong Kong Island’s highest point), where we got a great view of the city, and even ran into Bruce Lee:

Afterward, we headed back down, then checked out Hong Kong Park, filled with people escaping the crowds of the city, and with many, many couples posing for wedding photographs. The park itself was beautifully landscaped, with fountains, paths, gardens, a designated Tai-Chi area, and even an enclosed aviary. We spent quite a while wandering the elevated wooden walkways of the aviary pondering how cool it was to be in this sanctuary while surrounded by glass and steel skyscrapers.

Resident Bali Mynah voicing his opinion

We spent the next few hours checking out Kowloon, the district across the water from Hong Kong Island. Here we wandered some very busy shopping streets with offerings that ranged from Vivienne Westwood (Abby tells me this) to the infamous Chungking Mansions filled with fake watch and purse touts, and tailors of questionable suits. One of the more interesting areas was around Temple Street Market, pictured below:

Around dusk, we boarded the Star Ferry back to Hong Kong Island and got a good look at the beautiful skyline lit up at night:

After that, we got dinner and a drink in the Long Kwai Fong district, which is a popular and lively neon-lit nightlife area. At this point, we decided it was our mission to see the worlds longest outdoor people-mover, a short walk away. Unbeknownst to us before we visited Hong Kong, this city boasts an 800m long system of covered escalators and moving walkways that serves as a common mode of public transit from the downtown offices to the Mid-Levels residential neighborhood. Many people even make a daily commute to work on this system, which runs in reverse (downhill) during the morning rush. We rode just about all 800m.

As I read back over this, it’s hard to believe we covered all of this ground in one day. I guess the people movers helped. We know we’ll need to come back some day to experience it in full.

Our flight out of Thailand departed five weeks after we first landed in Bangkok. During this time, we traveled in and out of the country to visit Vietnam and Cambodia, but Thailand — and especially Bangkok — had come to feel like home by the time we left. It is an easy country to love, with its friendly people, delicious food, very affordable prices, and beautiful weather. We were sad to bid farewell to Thailand, but at the same time, we left feeling certain that we will return and excited for the next stop on our itinerary.

We’re still not sure how we got so lucky, but we were re-booked on a flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong on Friday, December 5, the same day that Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport resumed full operation (read more here) and only two days after our originally scheduled flight. The only signs of the the previous week’s shut-down were a line-up of security officers on the road leading into the terminal, a dance group performing next to signs thanking tourists for their patience, and many flights showing a status of “Canceled” on the boards within the terminal. Based on what we read and saw on TV, in addition to a few conversations with other travelers on our flight, we were very lucky to have faced as little inconvenience as we did.

Sign in Suvarnabhumi airport on its first full day of post-protest operation

During our final few days in Bangkok, we spent time hanging out with Dan’s friend Bill, who has lived in Bangkok for the past four years and was a tremendous host to us during our stay. We also took a final tuk-tuk ride and revisited some of our favorite restaurants where you can get a fantastic entree for US $2. We already miss all of the amazing food in Thailand, particularly the abundant and always delicious street carts. You can get everything from pre-cut & bagged fresh fruit (US 50 cents) to coconut & red-bean pancakes (US 60 cents) to grilled pork skewers (US 60 cents). But our favorite vendor has to be someone we spotted in Koh Chang, whom we affectionately refer to as the Banana Man. You couldn’t miss his rockin’ music — and his production speed was truly awesome. We can also vouch for his excellent product: banana crepe with chocolate sauce.

Koh Chang’s Banana Man in action

Due to the shutdown of the airports, the streets around our guesthouse in Bangkok felt quite a bit more empty than they did at the beginning of our stay. We are very hopeful that the tourism industry will bounce back quickly, but there is no doubt that the country has been dealt a big blow. We also saw the effects of the shutdown when we visited Wat Arun on our very last day in Bangkok, where we practically had the beautiful temple to ourselves. From a very selfish perspective, it was quite an experience to wander up the steps and around the top platform of the amazing structure virtually on our own.

View of Wat Arun

View from the top of Wat Arun

Our very last stop on our very last day in Bangkok was at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for a cocktail. It was a beautiful setting that we won’t soon forget (never mind that the bill for our two cocktails and fizzy water amounted to more than one night’s stay in our guesthouse). Until next time, Bangkok!

A taste of the good life at Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel

As we described in our last post, the PAD protesters’ occupation of the airports forced us to abandon our plans of flying down to the famous beaches in the south of Thailand, leading us to instead choose an overland trip to Koh Chang. This island is a five hour bus ride from Bangkok, followed by a 45 minute ferry ride. We left late morning, and were there by dusk.

View from the ferry to Koh Chang

We arrived without accommodation, but knew that we wanted to stay somewhere along White Sand Beach on the west coast of the island. After taking a songthew to the center of the hotel strip along the beach and walking door-to-door checking out places, we finally settled on this beach-front spot:

White Sands Beach in front of our hotel

We spent the next four days relaxing. Each morning, we settled down on two beach chairs right between the hotel pool and the beach, and spent the rest of the day reading and taking dips in the water. Around dusk, we continued our South African tradition of enjoying a sundowner cocktail.

Sundowner, White Sands Beach

Our second night in Koh Chang happened to fall on Thanksgiving and also became one of the most memorable nights of our trip. After a beachside sundowner (photo above), I decided it was the right moment to ask Abby a rather serious question. After getting our bill, we walked out onto a small island that had formed as the tidal waters receded. It was here that I asked her to marry me and was delighted when she said “yes”.

Two people that just got engaged on the beach!

We went out for a celebratory (and Thanksgiving) dinner at Ton Sai, which is a fantastic restaurant perched up in a banyan tree. We had yellow curry, phad thai, and minced pork cakes while we thought about all that we are thankful for and how excited we are for the future.

We spent the rest of our trip relaxing, only leaving White Sand Beach once to visit “Lonely Beach,” which is a less developed part of the island further south. This area has more of a backpacker feel with a bunch of cheap bungalows, bars, and restaurants.

Lonely Beach

Another highlight of our excursion to Lonely Beach was this sighting of a mother and daughter monkey pair traversing the power lines:

We returned to Bangkok from Phnom Penh on a flight that arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport around 6p.m. on November 24. Little did we know that approximately 24 hours later, that airport would be overwhelmed by protesters and shut down entirely to inbound and outbound flights. (Read more here.) Had we returned one day later, we would have been caught in the craziness of the airport takeover. Two days later and we would have been stuck in Phnom Penh. So when we first heard the news, we were feeling pretty lucky about the timing of our travel arrangements. The only remaining problem: we had already purchased round-trip tickets to Krabi in and out of Bangkok that departed on the 26th.

We soon realized there was no way we would be flying to Krabi (which was to be our jumping-off point to the island of Ko Phi Phi), so we channeled Tim Gunn and set about making it work. After consulting our guidebooks and the recommendations of an old friend, we picked Koh Chang as our alternate beach destination. Koh Chang is a beautiful island on the Eastern Gulf Coast of Thailand, and most important, is accessible by ferry from a town that is accessible by bus from Bangkok. So, one five-hour bus ride, 45-minute ferry ride, and 30-minute songthiew ride later, we settled into our beach-front hotel and never looked back. (More on Koh Chang to follow in our next blog entry.)

Koh Chang

When we first restructured our beach plans, we thought there was no way the protest would still be underway one week later when we were scheduled to fly to Hong Kong. How could Bangkok’s main transit hub possibly be out of commission for that long? Slowly but surely, however, we realized the protest showed no sign of ending and we needed to figure out a back-up plan for leaving Thailand. So that’s what we did yesterday. Luckily we were booked on Thai Airways and they have been doing everything they can to accommodate inconvenienced travelers. After a visit to the downtown Thai Airways office, we left with stand-by bookings on three different “evacuation” flights that were departing from a naval airport about 90 miles from Bangkok, as well as confirmed seats on a December 6 flight that was departing from BKK’s main airport. By the end of the day, a constitutional court had ruled that Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years, which appeased the protesting PAD party and led to their announcement that they would leave the airports by Wednesday, December 3.

So, long story short, we have confirmed seats on a December 6 flight to Hong Kong and it appears that we will be able to fly out of the main international airport. Our time in Hong Kong is thereby shortened from four days to one day, but we’re determined to make it dim-sum-packed! We feel quite lucky compared to all of the other travelers who have been struggling to return to jobs or families back home, as well as all of the Thai merchants and businesses that rely so heavily on the tourism industry. We will be sad to leave Bangkok and Thailand as a whole. We’ve had a wonderful time here and would recommend a visit to anyone.

Although our time in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia’s capital and largest city, was limited to 24 hours, it was one of the most moving and thought-provoking visits of our entire trip. Phnom Penh is a city that is very much shaped by its relatively recent history. It possesses great architectural and metropolitan beauty, as well as warm and engaging people, but is still recovering (along with the whole country) from the brutal policies of the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled Cambodia for four years starting in April 1975.

On the architectural front, evidence of colonial times is present everywhere, from the city’s broad, open, French-inspired avenues, to some of the old buildings that still manage to stand upright after years of neglect.

French colonial building, 1918

Sadly, evidence of the Khmer Rouge is also quite visible. In April 1975, Communist Party leader Pol Pot implemented a radical scheme to turn the country into an agrarian collective, leaving the cities mostly empty from forced relocations, imprisonment, and executions. The entire population of Phnom Penh was ordered to leave the city and take on new lives as working peasants in the countryside. Additionally, under Pol Pot’s directive, the Khmer Rouge tortured and executed nearly all educated people, including teachers, doctors, writers, and their entire families. Many more Cambodians died due to malnutrition or starvation. By the end of the Khmer Rouge’s four-year rule, between one million and three million Cambodians lost their lives. We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former Khmer Rouge prison, which is quite depressing, but also houses exhibits that provide very thorough historical context.

The city of Phnom Penh is still recovering from the loss of so many lives and from the lasting blow to its economy. As a result, the streets don’t seem as crowded as they do in other main SE Asian cities, and the population is noticeably poorer. Tuk-tuk drivers aggressively pursued us (for legitimate business), and once delivering us to our destination, they would often insist on waiting for us in the hope of guaranteed business in the form of a return trip, which we soon realized may be one of their only chances of additional business for the night with tourism having taken a recent downturn. Children selling postcards and photocopied books were omnipresent on the street — as well as at every Angkor temple we visited — and somewhat heartbreaking, though it was encouraging that they often did so in their school uniforms. Amazingly, despite their recent hardships and ongoing recovery, the Cambodian people were warm and welcoming.

Despite the heaviness of what its population has been through and survived, Phnom Penh today is actually quite a pleasant place to visit. The royal palace in the center of town was beautiful:

There was also a fascinating market, with concrete architecture and a wide variety of things for sale, from shirts, to shoes, to fake watches, to fried critters (a popular snack food).

Phnom Penh is very easy to get around as well, since there was no shortage of tuk-tuk and cyclo drivers to show us around:

Cyclo tour

After our eight-day tour of Vietnam, we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, which serves as the launching point for day-trips to the magnificent temples of Angkor. We had been looking forward to this visit ever since reading about the temples while researching our trip, but especially after meeting and hearing stories from other travelers doing the SE Asia circuit.

The temples of Angkor were built by successive kings of the Khmer empire between the 9th and 15th centuries. They served as monuments both to the king and to the gods, and are absolutely stunning in their structural perfection and decorative intricacy. The best-known and largest of the temples is Angkor Wat, which is the world’s largest religious building. When the Khmer empire fell to the Siamese army in the 15th century, the entire complex of some 100 temples was abandoned and eventually completely overgrown by jungle. It remained this way until the mid-1800′s when they were rediscovered by a French botanist, which led to years of restoration work.

We spent two full days exploring the temples with the help of a fantastic guide who taught us a lot about the temples and their history, as well as more recent Cambodian history and ongoing national issues.

Highlights included:

Angkor Thom — This walled city was one of the last building efforts of the Angkor era and was enclosed by four defensive walls, as well as a moat. To enter the complex, you cross one of five causeways lined on one side with god images and on the other side with demons. The main temple within Angkor Thom is called Bayon and was one of our favorite sights. Each main tower has four smiling images — one at each compass point — that are possibly in the king’s likeness. They are huge and impressive, even in their somewhat crumbling state. These towers are surrounded by an outer wall that is chock-full of incredibly intricate bas-relief carving. Our guide explained many of the different carvings, which show aspects of daily life in the Angkor empire, as well as stories of warfare and battle.

Towers with smiling faces on all four sides

Descending one of the stairways in the Angkor Thom complex

Angkor Wat — This is one of those places where you arrive and can’t really believe that you are seeing through your camera’s view-finder the same image that you have seen in so many travel guides or coffee-table books. Walking down the causeway toward Angkor Wat gives you a first glimpse of the stunning temple, and we were more and more blown away by its scale and beauty the closer we got. Like at Angkor Thom, there is beautiful, intricate, and symbolically complex bas-relief carving on the main lower walls of the temple. We were glad to have our guide with us because he was able to explain the religious stories depicted in the carvings, and also give us background information such as how in the early ’90s an Indian restoration crew used a chemical for cleaning that ended up causing visible decay of the stone towers. Since the Angkor complex became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, apparently there are new and more regulated policies in that arena.

Standing in front of the Angkor Wat vista

Ta Phrom — This temple was not completely cleared of its jungle covering, so there are still trees growing from the tops of walls, as well as roots that completely penetrate and snake out of the temple walls and roofs. It is a very cool sight and also served as one of the filming locations for Tomb Raider.

The temple doorway that was featured in Tomb Raider

Benteay Srei — Some 30 kilometers from the heart of the Angkor temple complex, this tenth-century temple is well-known for its incredible intricacy and state of preservation.

One example of the amazing carvings

Floating Village — During the afternoon of our second day in Siem Reap, we drove out of town to visit a floating village located on one of the river branches leading to the huge Tonle Sap Lake. We took a two-hour boat ride through the fully functioning village and saw floating restaurants, stores, battery generators, fish nurseries, and even a floating basketball court.

Floating store pulled up next to home in the floating village

Finally, on our last night in Siem Reap, we met up again with our new German friends Joe and Bine, whom we originally met in Hanoi. We had been following a very similar route as they had been, so we ended up meeting for dinner in three different cities: Hue, Hoi An, and Siem Reap. (Hi, Joe & Bine!)

We spent less than 24 hours in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), but thought it was still worth sharing a few pictures from our experience:

8:54pm – Motorbikes whiz by “Allez Boo” restaurant

9:53am – Typical Ho Chi Minh City street

9:57am – Motorbikes avoiding traffic by using the sidewalk

12:20pm – Cong Vien Van Hoa Park

12:39pm – Abby enjoying Pho at a fancy (i.e. indoor) restaurant

After our brief visit in Hue, we reboarded the Reunification Express and headed south along the beaches and through the mountain range separating Da Nang from the north. Upon arrival in Da Nang, we took a taxi to Hoi An, the next stop on our journey.

Thu Bon River, central Hoi An

Hoi An is a beautiful town that feels as if it is stuck in a bygone era. French colonial buildings and preserved 19th century houses, many with strong Chinese and Japanese influences, are scattered about. Silk lanterns and wooden & silk crafts are for sale at many of the local shops that line the narrow streets joined by even narrower alleys. There is also a river that runs through the heart of the city’s old town, so there is a wide selection of river-front cafés, as well as atmospheric footbridges and walkways. Between the bicycle, motorbike, and pedestrian filled streets are narrow alleys that wind between buildings, often just a few feet wide.

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street

Tan Ky House

Silk lanterns for sale

Aside from its wonderful atmosphere, many people come to this town for the many tailors that line the streets. As you walk through town, touts frequently approach you asking if you’d like any clothing made. After some research online (as these places vary widely in quality), Abby and I decided to have some clothing made at A Dong Silk, one of the more reputable places in town. We picked out styles and fabrics, got measured carefully, and came back for several fittings. In the end, I ended up with a new suit and dress shirt, and Abby got a shirt-dress and trench coat. All of these fit and look great, and cost significantly less than even the non-tailored versions back home. All-in-all a great experience.

The only unfortunate part of our visit in Hoi An was our encounter with Noul a tropical storm / depression that wandered into town for the last two days of our stay. On the day that we were scheduled to visit the nearby My Son ruins, we woke to a torrential downpour that unfortunately led us to cancel the day-trip. Instead, we outfitted ourselves in heavy-duty raingear and ventured into town for more sight-seeing and coffee-shop-visiting. By the end of the day, the passageway underneath the river’s main bridge had been reduced to a few inches and the surrounding streets were flooded. This is apparently not too unusual in Hoi An, however, and none of the shop-owners seemed particularly fazed. Fortunately, it had no impact on our flight out of there, which brought us to much drier weather.

Noul

We learned a lot about our readers this round as we saw guesses roll in related to gangs, “professional women,” and illegal business. It’s not that these activities do not occur, but they are advertised in different ways.

Crispy like a broken bubble – This is how the menu at our hole-in-the-wall lunch spot in Hue described the dish on the bottom left, part of an elaborate Hue-style meal:

We’ve had some amazing food here in Vietnam, ranging from the ever-popular Phở (very popular in Seattle these days as well), to tasty regional dishes like the ones above that we had not experienced before. We were directed to Hang Me, the restaurant listed above, after asking our hotel staff for tips on a good neighborhood eatery. The waitress did not speak any English, but understood that we wanted to sample some local specialties. She brought out a laminated pamphlet that looked like it may have been part of a travel guide, and pointed to the food we were about to eat. The first dish consisted of 10 shallow saucers, each lined with a little bit of rice noodle and topped with some dried shrimp and some sort of crouton. We were instructed to pour sauce on them, and then use a spoon to scoop each bundle out into a single bite. Delicious! Four more courses of food followed, each being something new for us. Meanwhile, a woman in back was preparing more food, in this case putting meat onto a rice noodle to be wrapped in a banana leaf:

Many restaurants in Vietnam are quite different from what we’re used to in the United States. Rather than being enclosed air-conditioned store fronts with bound menus and a kitchen in back, they’re often open-air eateries that spill out onto the street. Here’s an example of such a restaurant in Hanoi. The plastic tables and chairs, as well as the outdoor cooking, are all very common in this country. Note the woman preparing chicken feet.

Another difference is that some restaurants only serve one dish. For example, when we walked into Bun Bo Nam Bo in Hanoi, we sat down at two of the few open seats, and within minutes were served the following dish without any questions asked:

It was great — a finely crafted bowl of Abby’s all-time favorite dish!

And other restaurants take on a completely different form… In Hoi An, we went to an outdoor restaurant near the river and noticed that the waitstaff was very aggressive. One waiter would tell you to sit down at a table on one side of the restaurant, while another would be trying to steer you towards their table. It turned out that this place, which had about ten tables, was actually a bunch of separate restaurants, with each owner running two tables. No wonder they were fighting over customers! We decided to eat at Mr. Rin’s fine two-table establishment:

One last thing I feel obligated to mention. Vietnam is one of the few places where you can still buy a beer for less than 25 cents. Mr. Rin’s was only 4,000 dong, and was ISO 9001 certified to boot! What a wonderful country!

Here’s a short video that Abby took from an intersection in Hanoi. We both think it’s a great example of the crazy street traffic in Hanoi, since it captures so many elements:

• There’s a man crossing the street. Since traffic in Hanoi rarely stops, his method is the only way to do it — slow and steady.
• A short parade of cyclos drives by. This is a common way for tourists to get around, however it can be a little nerve wracking given the lack of driving rules.
• Near the end of the video, a woman walks by carrying baskets of fruit hanging from a wooden beam strung across her shoulder. Again, very typical.
• You can hear bike bells ringing in the background. Many of these are from cyclo drivers offering us rides.

Well, the train actually left Hanoi at 7p.m., but it was overnight and how could I pass up that title for the blog post? Anyway… Dan and I decided to take the train from Hanoi to Hué, which took about 12 hours in total. We had no real idea of what to expect, but had heard that food was hard to come by on the train, so we boarded with a bag of vanilla wafer cookies, two bottles of water, and four cans of Bia Ha Noi.

We found our assigned sleeper car with no trouble at all, and were very pleased with how clean and cozy it was. The only trouble: we had the two top bunks, but there were already three people occupying the two lower bunks. On one bunk, a man was lying down and reading the newspaper. On the other bunk, a man and a woman were seated and the woman seemed to be crying. We had no idea what was going on, but felt a bit uncomfortable barging into the tiny room with our packs. But that’s exactly what we had to do in order to get ourselves situated for the night. We never did find out what the deal was with the couple, but they both slept in the lower bunk for the night and then the woman was gone when we woke up in the morning. Who knows…

Somehow we lucked out in our cabin assignment, because we’re pretty sure we were in a first-class car although we had paid a standard ticket price. It was much better appointed (complete with fake wood paneling) and less stuffy than the other cars that we walked through, and they served us tea upon departure and provided toothbrushes and combs. There were also “western toilets” in the bathrooms and small sinks to boot. Although we did use our handy hostel sleep-sheets on the bed, it was really a very comfortable sleeping experience.

We knew about the decor of the other train cars because we had shared a taxi from our hotel to the train station with a German couple, and we visited them in their car for a beer about a half-hour after the train left Hanoi. All of the cabins in their car seemed to be full of tour groups, and the whole car had much more of a party atmosphere than our quiet and composed car. We had a great time hanging out with them, and made plans to meet up again when we arrived in Hué.

Later, Dan and I returned to our less festive cabin, brushed teeth, and got in bed to read at about 9p.m. Our cabin-mates were already asleep, so we ended up turning out the lights at 9:30 and going right to sleep. We woke up again around 6:30a.m., had some coffee, packed up our stuff, and were on the ground in Hué before 8:30a.m. All in all, a great experience and an efficient way to travel.

After two nights in Hanoi, Dan and I headed out of the city for one night on a boat in Ha Long Bay — an area famous for its limestone rock formations that jut straight up out of the sea. The bay is absolutely beautiful, but it is not exactly undiscovered by tourists and the one drawback of our visit was the lack of solitude.

The trip to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi takes about three hours by car and gave us a more comprehensive view of the madness that is Vietnamese driving. It is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, with no real recognition of lights or lanes or right of way. The rules seem to be: bigger vehicle always wins, keep a steady speed when passing, and make ample use of the horn. It is pretty wild, but we made it in one piece and bonded with our fellow tour-group members along the way.

We boarded a “junk” boat along with nine others just before noon and were immediately treated to a delicious seafood lunch that gave us our first taste of how well we would eat on this trip. After lunch, we settled into lounge chairs on the upper deck to enjoy the ride out into the bay. The boats move very slowly and with a quiet engine, so it’s very peaceful to glide through the limestone carsts. There were also several floating villages that we passed along the way that reminded me a bit of Seattle’s houseboat communities.

We were lucky to have a great group of people along with us for the overnight tour, so it was a lot of fun socially as well. After one first lunch at separate tables, we ate all of the rest of our meals at a long communal table and enjoyed discussions about international politics, our respective cities, jobs, and adventures in travel. All of our meals were excellent, with lots of seafood and traditional Vietnamese dishes.

In addition to riding through the bay on our junk boat, we were able to explore some of the smaller lagoons in a motorized bamboo boat that they carried onboard. We also bamboo-boated over to an island that has a viewing spot at its top-top peak, which provided spectacular views of the bay. And the following morning we visited one of the many caves that are hidden within the bay’s islands. The one we visited is called Surprising Cave, and is named for a rock formation (not pictured here) inside that looks like a man who is “very happy,” as our guide put it.

All of these spots were totally beautiful, but I was a bit taken aback by the number of other tour boats in the area and the number of other people in the spots we visited. Dan and I read this morning that 2.3 million people have visited Ha Long Bay already this year and that marks a 49% increase over last year. We couldn’t believe the number of junk boats in the harbor that we left from and were a bit disappointed to moor for the night with at least 20 other boats in sight. But… other than the crowds, it was an magnificent sight and we enjoyed it thoroughly.