The Yonderers

Kathmandu – the beauty, the dirt, the kindness.

My feelings towards this capital city are all jumbled about. Arriving at the Kathmandu airport and heading into the tourist area of the city, Kirk and I felt more welcome than we did in possibly any other city we’ve visited. People were kind. We didn’t feel hassled. Though we were solicited to buy things, people accepted our no and even thanked us as we walked on. The colors on the wardrobes of the people, hanging on the flags, painted on the walls, and beaming through the store windows shone bright against the coat of dust that envelops every inch of this city. Amidst the tall concrete buildings and million and a half people sharing, essentially, single lane roads with crazy amounts of traffic, you find yourself having to actively remind yourself that somehow, you are in the Himalayas, next to 7 or 8 of the world’s tallest mountains.

Kathmandu, amidst all the beauty, pollution reigns heavy. Before arriving in this part of Asia we met several people who used the word “dirty” to describe what they had experienced. Honestly, part of me judged and cringed as this word appeared over and over, but now having visited, I can’t deny what we encountered.

I am certain that Kirk and I have inhaled more fumes, pollution, smoke, and dirt on this trip than we have at any other time in our lives, but somehow, none of it got to us exactly like it did during our time in Kathmandu (though, to be fair, the cigarette smoke in Vietnam was also a pretty big problem). In Nepal, we finally joined the chorus of masked individuals, purchasing surgical masks in hopes of shielding ourselves from some of what we were inhaling as we walked down the street. Within one day of returning from the trail and arriving in Kathmandu, we had both developed some type of sinus/respiratory infections and anytime we stepped out of our sealed room, it was a sure sentencing of a cough. I’m not sure what about Kathmandu made this aspect of it particularly worse than other places we’ve been, but as you read on, I think you’ll get a few clues into what life looks like in one of the poorer countries in the world. Dusty roads, open cremations on the nearby river, frequent landslides, and a constant state of repair from the earthquakes over the years – yet even with all that in mind, we loved our time in Nepal and it is at the top of our list of countries to return to. The food, the people, the mountains -we’d highly recommend it to anyone.

As far as photos, we’ll start with a few pictures of the city.

The bright Buddhist prayer flags hang all over the city creating a beautiful ceiling over the dusty roads. Here in the tourist district, stores are filled with beautiful tapestries, hand stitched bags, raw cut jewelry, and high quality trekking gear for unbelievable prices. Nepal had my favorite souvenirs I’ve seen so far.

A panoramic view from the rooftop terrace of our hotel where we had breakfast every morning. We stayed at Hotel Family Home and can highly recommend it as an excellent budget option for anyone visiting! Great location, helpful and friendly staff, huge rooms with a/c, included breakfast, and in low season, it was only $12 a night!

Another view of the city on a rainy day.

A main road in the tourist district of town that we walked down everyday to get to our hotel. We were told that they recently broke up the road to be able to reach some pipes underneath. In this condition, it was not easy to walk or ride on. On dry days, dust kicked up everywhere. On wet days, the street became a mud pit.

One day we decided to leave the tourist area hoping too find an area commonly referred to as “Monkey Temple.” The actual name of the temple is Swayambhunath and it is a Buddhist temple located on a hill in the middle of the city. It offers great views and yes, there are lots of monkeys there.

We set out on foot in hopes of saving a little money and avoiding the ever fluctuating prices given to tourists by taxis. Not knowing exactly where we were headed, it ended up being quite an experience as we casually wandered through eye opening areas of the city. Long stretches of dirt roads covered in trash with enormous tarp covered buildings rising up from the rubble beside us. Evidence of the 2015 earthquake that shook large parts of the country stood crumbled as families emerged from the doorways still living out everyday life in the buildings that are somehow still stable enough to support them. We passed a solid elementary school surrounded by a gate with small children running around outside. We smiled and waved, but as we turned and walked away we watched our steps carefully knowing what little protection our flip flops offered from the scatterings of trash beneath us. Our careful steps paid off as in my next five strides I passed three of the things you hope not to find – a razor, a syringe, and a used condom. Looking up I watched a toddler ahead of us wearing a red backpack with cat ears hop down the street holding her mom’s hand. She was so joyful in the middle of a place in which I found myself a little frightened to be. It made me smile, reminding me of the strength and joy to be seen in every situation when we shift our focus. This city had certainly seen a lot of hardships, but there was clearly a lot of love and life here too.

We eventually made it to the stairs leading up to the stupa, though we stopped about halfway up when we realized there is a fee at the top. Below are a couple of pictures from our short journey up.

The bottom of the stairs with Buddhist statues on either side.

The stairs leading up. We saw several monkeys on the stairs, but they were too fast to snap a picture!

The most fascinating place we visited in Kathmandu is a Hindu temple called Pashupatinath. I’ll describe more about it in a moment, but first I’ll give the back story on how we ended up there to prepare you for how interesting of a place this is.

As Kirk and I had been working to plan out which cities in India we would soon be visiting after Kathmandu, a place called Varnanasi caught our eye. Many travel bloggers describe this city as the most fascinating place they’ve ever visited. It’s filled with bright colors, one of the dirtiest rivers in the world, extreme culture, and death, lots of death. In fact, it’s filled with so much dying and death that it’s often referred to as “the city of the dead.”

However, this title is not by accident. For many in the Hindu religion, Varanasi is the most holy place in the world. It’s a place of pilgrimage, a term with which most of us are pretty familiar, but what’s different about pilgrimaging to Varanasi is that a large number of people make the pilgrimage when they are on their death bed. Many Hindus believe that their soul will be released from the cycle of reincarnation if they are cremated in the most holy Hindu city in the world, by the most holy Hindu river in the world (the Ganges).

In light of this belief system, Varanasi is supposed to be a fascinating place. There are many hotels designated only for people who have 15 or fewer days left to live. Hindu “gurus” sit near the rivers edge in bright orange clothes with their faces covered in white ash. Believing that the Ganges holds power, children play in it, people bath in it, and individuals come from near and far to drink in the waters – all while bodies burn at the rivers edge, the cremations coming to a close when the ashes are swept into the river below. Visitors can book a tour down the river on boats, floating down the waters past the flames and smoke of what was a life less than 24 hours ago, as Hindus cremate their loved ones on the day they perish.

As it turns out, between the cremations, untreated sewage run off, and pollution from the cities connected to the Ganges, the wildlife in the water has not been able to keep up with the breaking down of what is left for the river to digest. In terms of bacteria, the Ganges ranks in the top five most polluted rivers in the world – all while serving as the water lifeline to 500 million individuals. It’s unbelievable.

As far as how all this connects to our time in Kathmandu, as it turns out, Kathmandu is the home to Pashupatinath, the temple of Shiva (the main god of a large sect of Hinduism). Pashupatinath sits on the river Bagmati (another river considered holy within Hinduism that later flows into the Ganges) and is such an important temple that people come from all over the world to worship there, including some pretty influential people, like the prime minister of India. Though the entire city of Kathmandu does not compare to Varanasi in terms of being a city for the dead, in a big way, Pashupatinath and the land on which it sits function in a similar way to the city of Varanasi. Open cremations by the river side, a hospice located right next to the temple for those coming to die, gurus in orange dancing by the river, and tours available for those unsure of exactly what is going on around them. When we learned that because of visa trouble we wouldn’t be able to make it to Varanasi, we immediately opted in for a tour of Pashupatinath. It was fascinating.

Walking up to the temple, there are 100’s of small stalls selling flowers, trinkets, incenses, prayer beads, and items used for offerings in the Hindu tradition. Passing through the long street of stalls, you eventually reach a gate and monkeys came into view – a lot of monkeys. In this area, monkeys sit on fences, climb on power lines, take food from anyone nearby – they are everywhere and in to everything. We later learned from our tour guide that Pashupatinath, the name of the temple, actually means “master of animals,” referring to Shiva, the god for whom the temple is built. Because of this, animals are welcome on the grounds. Cows, dogs, cats, monkeys – they all hang out on the temple grounds – but don’t be fooled. The monkeys in particular are anything, but tame.

As I began snapping pictures of a few monkeys that were nearby, I made eye contact with one of the babies across the lawn a little too long and, without notice, mama monkey came gallivanting towards me! Terrified, I ran behind Kirk, just as she reached the waist high wall next to us! She stopped at the edge, arms extended down, gripping the point closest to us as she leaned over, bearing her teeth. I quickly broke eye contact and backed away slowly, constantly looking back to make sure she wasn’t going to lunge. It was terrifying!

In spite of that, I got a few pictures.

One of the first monkeys we saw, enjoying a banana.

No monkeys, here, but it is an example of the waist high wall mama monkey leaned over to scare me off.

Monkeys and pigeons, baby monkeys in the middle.

After snapping some pictures of the surrounding area, we paid an entrance fee for the temple area and a guide joined us. We were a little concerned about taking pictures of the actual temple since this is a sacred place for other visitors there, but our guide assured us that is was no problem. As we walked up towards the front of the actual temple, we saw he was right – everyone was taking pictures. Because this is a main temple in the Hindu religion, pretty much everyone visiting wanted pictures to capture the memory of having been there. Because we aren’t Hindu, we weren’t allowed inside the main temple, but the guide encouraged us to take pictures from outside. Even from the doorway we could see the backside of a giant golden cow. It’s still a little unclear to us, but our guide told us that cows are scared in Hinduism because it’s what their god Shiva rode in on. I’m unsure of the rest of the story, or if that is a belief held by most Hindu people, but that’s at least one aspect as to why cows are considered so sacred by Hindu communities.

The front of the temple with everyone taking pictures.

Peeking through the door into the temple where you can see the golden cow’s backside.

Speaking of Hindu beliefs, I’ll take a moment here to explain some of what we’ve learned before continuing in the story in order to give a better context for what follows. We’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the exact belief system of this religion we found ourselves surrounded by, but the stories explaining the history and importance of particular places or beliefs are limitless – much like Greek mythology (but with many more gods). We had so many people tell us so many different stories about what things mean and why they are meaningful that we eventually just turned to google. What we’ve ultimately found on the world wide web is that the focus on Hinduism as a whole isn’t really on a particular belief system as far as gods or history goes (which explains why so many beliefs we heard are different). There are millions of gods people worship within Hinduism (though Shiva is one of the most common), but from what we can tell, the main belief system centers more around the way one lives their life, not on right belief. This allows Hinduism to live alongside other religions easily, because they are accepting of all gods.

Perhaps in the simplest form, Hindus believe that if a soul lives a good enough life, at death, the soul is freed from the body to be with Brahman (their name for the universe as a whole). If a soul doesn’t live a good enough life, after death of the body, the soul will be reincarnated accordingly into it’s next body (so, for example, if you lived a really bad life, your soul would go on to be reincarnated into the body of something despicable – on my list, that could be a mosquito. If you live a pretty good life, but not good enough to achieve “moksha” (their word for the point where your soul is freed from reincarnation to be one with the universe) you’d become something better in your next life – maybe a human again or a cow). Ultimately, the process of reincarnation continues until a soul lives a good enough life to be freed – and that freedom into the universe (moksha) is the ultimate goal in Hinduism.

I think that’s enough to help with understanding this blog for now. There are a few other tidbits of info throughout this post to help explain other things we saw though.

Now, back to our visit to Shiva’s temple:

Kirk and I in front of the temple. If you are curious, Shiva is the blue god up top and the elephant and statue on the right are his sons. His wife is also worshipped. One person told us that all Hindu gods are considered reincarnations of these initial four gods, but (much like the story telling I mentioned earlier) I’m still uncertain if that is a commonly held belief or a personal belief of that individual.

After viewing the front of the main temple, our guide showed us around the temple grounds. He brought us to a place where he informed us human sacrifices used to be made. Interestingly, this small temple is decorated with karma sutra carvings and though I don’t remember what year he said it was built, it’s quite old. He called it Kali’s temple. Human sacrifices were made here until 1780 when the government made it illegal.

The human sacrifice temple

The inside of the human sacrifice temple.

We then headed over to the banks of the river. Next to the river stood a statue that represents the god of the monkeys. We’ve seen this god represented in several ways throughout the country, but this was pretty interesting looking.

The monkey god usually resembles a monkey in someway.

Next, we had our first look at the cremations. As we peered over the railing, we saw a body nearly finished burning just a few slabs away from us. We learned that the slabs we were looking at were designated for people on the lower end of the caste system. If you’ve never heard of the caste system, it’s basically a system of class within Hinduism. Just as Hindus believe that the former life a soul lived led them to be reincarnated into the being in which they currently are (mosquito versus human), they also believe that whatever “caste” (or class) a person is born into is based on their former life. If you were good in your last life, you are born into a family of high caste. If you were bad, you are born into a family of low caste. So, basically, in a majority Hindu country, like Nepal, the family you are born into dictates how people view you – and since the family you are born into is believed to be based on your former life, it’s not something from which you can move up. This can create hardship for those born into lower caste families.

Thankfully newer generations are questioning this system of class more as time goes by. As long as it’s still in place, those on the bottom have few options for moving up in life.

Below are the slabs of concrete designated for families on the low end of the caste system.

Interestingly, individual families cremate their loved ones. It’s not done by a professional. The cremation happens in open air at the river side, tourists and Hindu worshippers alike watching as families say their final goodbyes.

We watched as this cremation came to an end. If you look closely you can see a man with a stick pushing the remaining ashes and embers into the river below.

Just on the other side of a walkway were the slabs of concrete designated for higher caste individuals. To my eyes, they look exactly like the other slabs, they were just located farther up the river. There was also a body on one of those slabs not quite as far along in the cremation process as the one we’d just seen pushed into the river.

The decorations also show that this was a family of a higher caste. Interestingly, on the other side of the river is a group of people I’ll be telling more about soon. They gather every Monday evening to celebrate life.

A view of the cremation from the other side of the river, the temple behind it on the right with the gold roof.

As we continued our tour we passed by fertility temples where women make sacrifices in hopes of becoming pregnant. Next to each small temple a small version of the giant cow seen in the Pashupatinath temple looks inward.

The backside of the cow looking in.

The fertility temples all in a row.

We continued up the stairs seen in the pictures above for a better view of the city and river.

Kirk and our guide viewing the city from above at twilight.

A view of the temple, river, and cremation (by the river on the left). The building directly in front of the temple is the hospice care. It’s pretty crazy that you can go into hospice care and look out your window to watch the cremations of others who were just there with you. In many ways, life in Nepal is not as private as life in the U.S. Death is certainly no exception.

A more straight-on view of the temple from up high, the people below us are the group gathered to celebrate life.

The final place we went on our tour was back to the other side of the river bank to be onlookers at the celebration of life about to occur. Monday’s are considered Shiva’s day, and every Monday evening, worshippers gather at the river side to celebrate life and Shiva.

As the music began, we found ourselves captivated. First of all, the idea of a celebration of life happening directly across from embers still burning with death was a notion we’d never considered could happen. Second, this was a completely new experience and we were fascinated to see what happened next.

Music began playing and everyone stood. At first only a man sang. The music was slow and drawn out like a chant at a monastery or a Muslim call to prayer, but as it continued on, the beat grew faster, people joined in singing and clapping, dancing broke out, and handheld chandeliers were lit with fire as three men in the front waved them around in syncopation. We stayed for several songs, watching the different movements the leaders made with the chandeliers, unsure exactly what they meant. To our left a Hindu “guru” dressed in all orange who was incredibly high, danced around close to the water’s edge. Another guru lay in the middle of the concrete on the other side of the river, arms and legs spread wide, completely unaware of everything going on around him. (This is another aspect of hinduism we were confused about. The gurus of the faith are allowed to use marijuana freely. We were told many young men become gurus for this reason. Marijuana is illegal in Nepal except for the gurus and single day festival that happens once a year in which anyone can got o the temple and get high legally. Fascinating right?) All the while, fellow groups of tourists were beside us, some of us trying to figure out exactly what was going while others sang and cheered along.

Kirk and I stood to the side whispering confusion and enthrallment – we’d never seen anything quite like this and we couldn’t take our eyes off of it. Dancing and celebration of life in front of us, the smell of burning body around us, the sound of cheer and joy in our ears, and the flames of death beside us as a very high guru danced feet away from us.

Our view of the celebration

After a few songs we decided to leave before the crowd was released from the service. We hopped in a cab and spent the rest of the evening discussing everything we’d seen. You can learn about other religions in a textbook, but witnessing parts of them in action is a completely different experience. I couldn’t help but wonder what someone from that celebration of life would think of a modern day church service in the states. It would probably be just as foreign to them as this was to us. It was certainly worth the experience!

Finally, on to the food :). I’ve never seen or eaten at a Nepalese restaurant at home, so as we entered the country, I was unsure what to expect. As it turns out, the food is similar to Indian food with a variety of curries and rice dishes available, though because the country is majority Hindu and Hindus believe cows are sacred, beef is nearly not found in the city. Instead, a choice of chicken or water buffalo meat is served at all non vegetarian restaurants. Buffalo is the cheapest meat on the menu and though it’s a bit gamier than beef, it’s a nice substitute.

My favorite food we discovered was a type of dumpling called Momos. I don’t know how there aren’t momo stands all over the U.S. (surely they’ve caught on in some of our bigger cities?). These dumplings come steamed, pan fried, stirred in a chili paste, served in a soup, or dropped in a bowl of thin flavorful sauce. The inside comes with a variety of mixtures of meat, veggies, and paneer (a very common lightly flavored cheese in Nepal and India). I ate different momo’s nearly everyday and was not once disappointed. They are cheap (around $1 for 10) and the outside texture is al-dente noodle like – so yummy!

Not a great picture, but these are the first momos we had. Buffalo stuffed “chilly” momos. They came panfried in the chili sauce with bell pepper and onion. If you have a chance to try them, do it!

Another type of buffalo momo that we had served in a soup-like thin spicy sauce. We had these on our last day in Nepal and they were some of my favorites.

Steamed momos with dipping sauces.

A common noodle soup n Nepal called “Thupa.” I didn’t love it as much as our Vietnamese and Thai noodle soups, but it’s still worth trying.

“Thali” an unending tray with multiple samplings. This seems to be the most common meal in Nepal. The soup on the left is “Dal Bhat” a curry lentil soup that has become famous for trekkers because of it’s price, filling powers, and protein. On the trails in the Himalayas, you can order this meal and they will refill your plate until you are full. The other two larger bowls have different types of curried veggies, though these are all very light, easy to eat curries. The darker small bowl is a dipping sauce and the white one is yogurt/curds – the yogurt is very helpful in eliminating the heat if the dish is too spicy.

One day while walking down the street we noticed a sign for a rice festival the next day. Though we are still unsure about the purpose of it, apparently on that particular day everyone has the rice dish below – beaten rice with bananas and yogurt. The beaten rice is crunchy and granola like. We’d made some friends by going to the same restaurant everyday and they offered this to us at no charge to get a taste of their culture.

It was tasty enough – not so different than yogurt and granola back home.

Another thin tasty curry with some of their traditional bread.

Another day while walking down the street around lunch time we passed some interesting looking street food and opted to take a chance. It looked so strange, but was so delicious, and after being certain than it didn’t make us sick, we returned again.

The man would take a bowl and crush fried bread in the bottom along with a couple of those orange looking patties. Then he’d dip out some of that orange soup and top it all with onion and cilantro.

The final product:

It turned out to be a spicy chickpea/potato curry soup. The look kind of grossed me out because I kept thinking about egg yolks 😂, but the mix of flavors won me over on the first bite. We also got some spicy samosa with a sweet dipping sauce on the side. Afterward we headed over to a lassi stand for dry fruit topped yogurt drink. Yogurt is so good after a spicy curry!

The next dish is not particularly Nepal related, but I certainly want to remember it. After being blown away by the Chinese noodle soups we had in Hong Kong, we were pleasantly surprised to find three Chinese noodle places next to our hotel in Kathmandu. Spicy, brothy, and noodley, with a crazy mix of herbed, spicy, and pickled flavors. I’m sure it looks weird, but all I think of when I see the picture are the flavors engrained in my memory :)!

And speaking of memories, one night while we were eating our noodle soups we watched as everyone else in the restaurant (nearly all Chinese individuals) gathered around a television there to watch wrestling… and not just any wrestling, WWE wrestling 😂. I knew plenty of people love it in the States, but I had no idea it had made it to other parts of the world! They were so into it, screaming at exciting points and imitating certain moves they liked… then, as it often does, the power shut off on the whole block! They all scrambled to get a laptop and hotspot together and soon had it back on as they all gathered around a tiny screen to watch. It was pretty fantastic to witness 😊.

I thought this one was worth posting because it has buffalo meat in it- that was certainly different than soups we had in Hong Kong! We also had a spicy ginger wonton soup that was fantastic!

Our final day in Nepal we made sure to go back to what had turned into our favorite restaurant during our time there. It’s called “R3 Brothers Motherland Restaurant” and it is run by three brothers whom we now call friends. They taught us a lot about life in their city and gave us great tastes of local food :). We stopped by right before we were leaving for the airport for morning tea and caught them in the middle of their morning rituals. After blessing each other they walked over and put a tikka (the red dot) on each of our foreheads, saying it would grant us safe travels. They actually did this on another occasion as well, after they shared the rice festival dish with us. We accepted it as a gift that they wanted to give us and took a group selfie before we left. These freely offered gifts of rice, tea, and blessings were emblematic of the hospitality and generosity we felt throughout the country. Combined with the beauty of the mountains and hiking opportunities, there are plenty of reasons we look forward to returning to Nepal in the future.

Such kind folks!

I leave you with a picture of the day we gave in and bought surgical masks (which happened to be the other day they gave us a tika).

Next up, India.

On June 19th we flew into Kathmandu, Nepal ready to hike in the Himalayas. Though we were hoping to be on the trail within two days of arriving, we flew in without a plan, still somewhat uncertain which of the many treks around the Himalayas we’d choose. Prior to arriving we had high hopes of doing a longer 8-10 day hike, but after having problems obtaining our visas for India, we knew we would need to spend more time in the capitol to sort those problems out with the embassy, and less time on the trail.

Upon arrival, we prepaid for a taxi to our hotel and as we hoped in the back, a man from a tourist agency jumped in the front. After being hassled all over the world to buy things, we were pleasantly surprised when he didn’t bring any sales points up until we asked. Somehow, in spite of him hopping into our car without asking, it made us feel welcome. After deciding to stop by his office and chatting for a while, we decided on a trek and agreed on a better price than we thought we could get (it being low season for hiking helped more than we knew it could – we’d planned on needing to piece the hike together ourselves) thus sealing our hopes of getting on the trail sooner than later. We spent one day in the capitol before hopping on a bus to Pokhara where we caught a second bus onto Nayapool to begin our hike.

Hiking in Nepal is incredibly different than hiking in Patagonia. On the W trek we hiked in Patagonia, everything is highly monitored and very expensive. Because camping is only allowed in designated areas, even carrying a tent with you and setting up on a platform in the park can have a hefty price (there actually are a couple of free designated areas, but they book out in advance). To stay in one of the hostels along the trail will currently cost $110 a night (and that’s for a single bed, not a room). To get a room with your spouse/friend with a shared bathroom and meals costs $250 a person per night. That’s $500 a night for a couple to be able to sleep in real beds and not have to carry food on the trail. (For this reason we carried everything except a tent with us, only having to pay for the platform/tent while there).

Nepal, on the other hand, is unbelieveably affordable. Because the hikes in the Himalayas are through villages that have been there for ages, the local people have been able to set up businesses that help hikers and their own economy. “Tea houses” can be found in abundance along the trail where you can find lodging for 2 for $5-$8 a night ($5 for a private room/shared bath an $8 for a private room/private bath) and meals for $2-$8 ($2 for something like an omelette or vegetarian meal, $4 for something like a rice and meat meal, or $8 for something like a yak steak with fries – yes, YAK steak 🙂 ). The tea houses all include bedding and showers, though a towel and toilet paper are things you need to provide yourself – so ultimately, just about the only things you need on the trail are a water bottle, clothes, snacks, toilet paper, and a towel.

Shockingly in Nepal, even with needing a much smaller amount of things on the trail than on W Trek, another common service provided by locals is a “porter” service. For around $15 a day you can pay someone to carry your bags up the mountain while you hike – and even hiking far above sea level, they can carry several bags at a time – it’s unbelievable. For $20-$25 a day you can hire a certified porter/guide who will both carry your bag and ensure you are going the correct direction on the trail (it’s definitively doable on your own, but there are significantly more turns in the Himalayas than on the W Trek simply because of the many villages).

So basically, for the cost of one night lodging in a hostel on the W trek, you can do a multi day hike in the Himalayas without having to carry a single thing (and since you are hiking at atleast 10,000 ft above sea level at some point on pretty much all the trails, that porter can come in handy even for a small bag!)

Having said all that, I’ll return to telling about our hike – we picked the Poon Hill trek, which is one of the easiest multi day treks in the region. You don’t get a view of Everest or a hike in the snow (as you do with many others!), but you still end up hiking in the heart of the Himalayas with awesome views of several of the other humongous snow capped peaks, the tallest in that area being the Annapurna. The Poon Hill trek can take as little as 3 days, but we opted for 5 to put the least amount of strain on our bodies (really, my body) and to spend the most time we could in the mountains. Alongside the several illnesses I’ve caught in the last 7 months of traveling, I’ve also been having lower back problems for the last few months (possibly because of my pack? The stresses of travel have certainly affected my body more than Kirks!) so included in our “hike” package through the agency was a porter/guide to carry my things.

Below are (a lot of) photos from our hike 🙂

As I mentioned before, we first took a bus to Pokhara (the second largest city in Nepal) before traveling to our starting point for the hike. We spent one night there next to the lake before heading on.

The lake beside our hotel

Exploring the area nearby the lake in Pokhara. Cows openly roam the streets all throughout Nepal as they are considered sacred to the Hindu religion, and the majority of Nepal is Hindu.

After one night in Pokhara we caught an early morning bus to Nayapool to begin our hike. This turned out to be a super interesting drive. First, road work on the main road forced us to take a detour – our large bus veered off the road and headed up the rushing riverbed until the road was clear again 😂.

Second, a landslide that had covered a large section of the road forced us to detour up a tiny mountain road that put us constantly passing by oncoming traffic on essentially a single lane road in which the “shoulder” was the edge of a cliff. It’s interesting because I’d experienced roads like this during my time in Peru 11 years ago with no fear. At the time, it felt more like a roller coaster ride – something exhilarating that you know people have done millions of time without problem. When you’re 19 the world is full of possibilities and future, but one of those possibilities in your mind is not usually death. Age and life change a few things. As Kirk and I sat looking out the window, unable to see the edge of the road beneath us because the shoulder was so thin, we began to discuss get away plans. Perhaps we’ve watched too many action films or perhaps my faith in Kirk’s athletic ability is reliable, but we decided that having seats adjacent to the open door made us the most likely to be able to jump out towards the road if we felt the slightest movement downward towards the cliff on our other side.

Thankfully we didn’t have to test that theory, but we were pretty disappointed when we didn’t end up next to the door on the way back 😂.

Driving up the riverbed- I didn’t get any photos of the cliff edge drive.

Once we safely arrived in Nayapool we began our hike. We paused on a bridge while our guide walked ahead and completed our paperwork for us. They have several checkpoints along the trail to keep track of visitors, which is good – because if you get lost, they eventually know it.

These colorful Buddhist prayers flags hang throughout the country, brightening the scenery and giving a taste of the culture and everyday life around you.

Kirk, carrying his own pack 🙂

We started our hike going up for a couple hours before stopping for lunch.

The view out the window of the tea house at which we stopped for our first meal on the trail.

After lunch we continued walking up for about an hour before our guide turned to us and said, “and now, we go up!” 😂

Having already walked mostly uphill for several hours, it was ironic, but he wasn’t kidding. We’d read the the Poon Hill trek has one day in which you walk up around 3,000 consecutive stairs – and the start of those stairs was then (to the left in the photo below).

Resting before we began our long hike up the stairs. Our guide, Shrawan, next to Kirk.

Continuing up through a village

Crossing over a bridge to connect to more stairs.

Somehow, the stairs were not as hard as I had imagined they would be. I went at a snails pace, reminding myself not to move my feet too quickly, which helped keep my breath steady. I’ve heard of people who make it through difficult parts of hikes by telling themselves they only have a few steps to go – this does not work on me. If you are ever hiking with me and tell me I only have 100 steps to go when there are really 1000, I will realize when we’ve passed 100 and my morale will drop to an unhelpful level. If, however, you lie to me in the opposite direction – tell me there are 2,000 ahead of me, I will mentally prepare for the worst, which helps keep me going.

This time in particular, the highest estimated number of stairs I’d read were potentially on this single uphill walk was 4,000, so every step I took I kept telling myself, 4,000 more steps. We’d been walking up stairs for an hour and I kept telling myself – 4,000 more steps. 2 hours – 4,000 more steps. Nearing three hours – 4,000 more…and our guide announced we’d made it to the village we were sleeping in. I was pleasantly surprised and in a great mood 😂!

Walking into the first village in which we were sleeping, Ulleri.

The guest house we stayed in. It did have a nice view, but I didn’t wake up in time to see the clouds clear to see the really nice view.

Day 2: The next day we got up and continued walking up stairs towards our next destination, Ghorepani.

Kirk walking up the stairs, full of greenery.

A waterfall we passed on the trail.

Me crossing over the river/waterfall with Shrawan in front, carrying mine and his bag. Even with two bags, he could far out pace me! Kirk can always outpace me too, but usually stays in the back to look out for me :).

Much of what we walked through was jungle and it was beautiful!

After hiking for around 5 hours, we made it to Ghorepani where the main attraction of the trail is located, Poon Hill. Poon Hill is the tallest point of this trek and has the best view of the surrounding mountains. Traditionally, people make it to Ghorepani, sleep there for the night, and then wake up in the wee morning hours to hike up Poon Hill and see the view with the sunrise. We followed suit and did just that.

Us at the entrance into Ghorepani.

The original view from out window, though by morning the clouds cleared and there were peaks all around us!

Our hotel, Hotel Hilltop, the hotel nearest the stairs that lead up to Poon Hill.

Day 3: The next morning we set an alarm for 3:45am in order to be on the trail to see the sunrise by 4:15am. We slowly ventured out into the dark and made our way towards the stairs that we would climb for the next hour in order to reach the top. Nearly as soon as we arrived at the stairs, it began to rain. Tired and wet I got grumpier with every step, certain that when we arrived at the top no good view would be in sight.

When we finally arrived, I was beyond delighted to find that I was completely wrong. The rain had stopped and cleared off the clouds, leaving a mesmerizing view in front of us.

One of our first views from the top – it may not look like much in the picture, but those peaks you can kind of see here were grandiose as they stood before us in real life. Looking at those mountains from around the 10,000 feet above sea level mark to which we had hiked, we recognized that they still towered above us by an additional 15,000 feet, able to be seen even though we were miles away. It was unbelievable and breathtaking to consider and see.

We grabbed some coffee and plopped ourselvess on a bench to watch the view. That’s Kirk on the bench to the right. You can see some of the snow capping the peaks if you look close. In the pictures the clouds blend into the mountains, tainting the view, but in real life, they added depth, layering between these enormous swells and showing how far away and apart they truly are.

Our guide offered to snap some pictures while we looked on.

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Coffee is so good on a chilly mountain top, especially after waking up that early, and especially with that view!

Gradually the clouds began to roll back in from below.

They were so fast you could watch them move!

Within a couple of minutes, this was our view…

Kirk, now standing in front of the bench he was sitting on in one of the previous pictures, only clouds in view!

We decided it was time to head back down. We snapped a final picture with our guide, marking the heights we’d hiked that morning.

On the way down we passed people heading to the top. I hope it cleared again for them when they arrived!

Back down at the hotel, waiting for breakfast to be ready with our new friends on the trail from Spain, Alicia and Jorge.

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then got back on the trail to head to our next village.

Day three was filled with ups and downs. If you haven’t done a lot of mountain hiking, just know, down gets worse than up. You can pace yourself on the up to help catch your breath and not overwork your muscles, but going down for extended amounts of time works your knees hard!

After a bunch of stairs we came to a meadow in a cloud.

It was around this time that we realized we were in leech country. We’d read blogs of people warning about leeches on the trails in rainy season, but we didn’t realize we’d encounter so many! By the end of this day, we’d found two on my ankle and too many to count crawling up Kirk’s shoes and legs. They latch on even when you don’t brush against the plants, though we likely would have had more had we walked off the trail!

If you’ve never seen a leech, one is pictured above. They reach out when they sense something near them.

At one point on the trail we came across a herd of water buffalo drinking water out of the river with piles of stacked rocks all around. I have no idea what these mean, but I have a feeling it just became a trend amongst hikers.

We arrived at Tada Pani in the early afternoon with this cloudy view…

By evening the mountain called “fishtail” was peaking out…

See why they call it fishtail?

Day four: By the next morning when we woke up, the skies had again mostly cleared and we had another view of the grandeur around us.

Looking out from the balcony in front of our room

The view from downstairs where we had mostly only seen clouds the evening before.

After breakfast we started out towards our final destination, Ghandruk. Day four was a very easy hike, mostly flat and a little bit down hill.

Walking through the vibrant green, moss covered forest, Shrawan leading the way.

At one point on the trail we heard a man nearby making monkey noises. Shrawan paused and told us to look in the trees. We saw several places where branches were moving and eventually they came near enough for us to have a good view – we’ve seen lots of brown monkeys in our travels, but these were grey with black faces and a white mane. They were beautiful, but hard to get a good picture of! Below is the best we got.

🙂

The final path into the village

After settling in at Shangri-la Guesthouse, Shrawan took us by a local museum and on a tour of the town. The museum ended up being a single room filled with everyday items that the Garong people (one of the people groups in the mountains) use – baskets, pots, plates, instruments, etc. (Most of which we’d already seen throughout the trail, in use.) The tour of village itself was pretty fantastic. It’s hard to beat the views you get when walking around a small village built mostly out of stone, situated on the side of a mountain.

Inside the single room museum. Most of these are different types of baskets they weave and use, though, unlike everyday life, in the museum they are covered in lacquer to help preserve them.

Buildings by the museum.

Kirk checking out how these stones are put together (they are simply stacked with mud between them). On older walls, plants were often growing in the mud between the stones, as seen on the left.

Another part of the village.

Back at the guesthouse, Kirk taking in the view while we waited for dinner.

Like many of our previous views, the evening view was nearly all clouds, but when morning came, it was a different place.

The view that evening, only green shorter mountains in sight.

The morning view with the snow caps peaking throug

This final morning, day five, turned out to be the clearest morning we had. Below was our view while eating breakfast.

Unbelievable.

Shrawan offered to take our picture, and we didn’t mind 🙂

I’m sad the camera wasn’t good enough to pick both us and the mountains up, but it’s good enough for a memory :).

We set out early for our shortest hike yet – to a bus on the side of the mountain right outside town. Ghandruk is the last village accessible by vehicle in this section of the mountains.

Last views while leaving town.

Those views!

We passed several trails of these guys carrying concrete up the mountain. The bells on their necks jingle as they pass by and they are always beautifully decorated!

Entering “open defication free zone” 😂 It only lasted about 100 steps, but they were the only 100 steps of the trail without horse/cow/donkey manure nearby!

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More mules.

Exiting town.

Soon the bus was in sight, parked right where the road ended – at a huge landslide. We crossed over landslide to reach our ride.

Kirk crossing over

Me behind him.

We boarded the bus and began a long, slow ride back down to the village in which we started.

When we got on we quickly realized we were on a local bus. The more villages we passed through, the more people got on. By the end we were packed in beyond belief 😂!

That poor little guy could hardly move, packed in between his mom’s purse and Kirk’s arm 😂.

At one point a woman got tired of standing and sat right on top of Kirk’s foot and didn’t move for probably a half hour! We were on this bus for 7-8 hours. We were lucky to catch it at the top, or we would have been standing!

I snapped a picture of our tough mountain bus when we stopped for a bathroom break.

On the way back down we had a two hour delay because of a landslide. Traffic was backed up for miles. As we sat at a standstill someone came by to let us know that we were about 22 kilometers from the actual landslide. Because this mountain road is the only main road through, everyone on both sides was stuck. We were lucky they started clearing it long before we arrived. We’d heard of people getting stuck with 15 hour delays! If you ever visit Nepal, make sure you factor in time for travel delays. We hear few people get out of the country without encountering them.

We passed a second landslide on our way back that we were able to go around off road.

We stopped for a gas break before getting back to Pokhara. I snapped a picture of the “fire” buckets in the back.

Those buckets are at all the stations here! Personally, if there is a fire at the gas station, I’m not reaching for tiny buckets – I’m running.

We made it back to Pokhara and spent the evening hanging out with friends from the trail. We ate roasted corn by the lake side and had a few drinks. It was beautiful being there as the sunset.

After staying the night in Pokhara, we got back on a bus to Kathmandu where we stayed nearly a week. Our time in the capital city is the subject of the next blog.

Our time in Thailand was pretty uneventful, which was quite nice. We planned on doing a silent meditation retreat in North Thailand that I was sure was going to be fascinating to tell everyone about, but after reading some negative reviews the day before going, we backed out and ended up just hanging out in Chiangmai. Chiangmai introduced us to the foods of Thailand, but besides a short hike, most of the time we hung out in the room, avoiding the heat and trying to figure out the next legs of our trip.

After a little less than a week in Chiangmai we headed south to an island off the coast of Thailand called Koh Chang. Our time on the island ended up falling right in the middle of monsoon season, which meant that we got incredible deals on ocean front rooms, while having the beach nearly to ourselves in between the storms. It was fantastic, even the rain. It’s beautiful to watch a storm roll in over the ocean.

Our last week in Thailand we headed to Bangkok. We did some sightseeing and shopping while trying to figure out visas for the countries we are visiting next (as a side note, India is the country for which we’ve had the hardest time applying for a visa, so be sure to allow extra time to get that done if any of you plan on visiting! Many countries give visas on arrival, but India is not one of them for U.S. citizens). We spent a week in Bangkok before flying out to Nepal.

Since there isn’t as much to talk about in each of these cities as some of our previous posts, I’ve included our entire time in Thailand in this single blog :). Below are pictures and extra descriptions from each of the cities.

First, Chiangmai

Though we didn’t do the silent retreat in Chiangmai, we did research more about some meditation practices that we could start on our own. I’ve been pretty fascinated with the idea of meditation since reading a book called “10% Happier” by Dan Harris. “10% Happier” tells the journey of the author, a stressed out, over worked news reporter who reluctantly turned to meditation as a means of calm. After a lot of trial in spite of skepticism, he concludes that though he can’t scientifically prove it, he estimates that meditating has made him 10% happier.

I originally picked up his book because in my readings for social work I’d learned that the research on meditation is showing a shocking number of benefits. There are now meditation courses that people can take to reduce stress and increase happiness, and it’s not just some quirky gimmick, there are numbers to back it. Being somewhat of a skeptic myself, “10% Happier” helped normalize my thinking towards meditation. I heard the word “meditation” growing up in church, but I still mostly associated it with Eastern religions which I had not encountered much until traveling. It made meditation always seem a little mysterious to me, but as it turns out, meditation is basically just choosing to focus on the present – and there are some pretty concrete ways that you can go about doing that.

With all that in mind, since we skipped out on the retreat in Chiangmai, we recently started a 8 week online course on meditation that I’m super fascinated by so far. It has videos that teach you about why meditation is effective and audio clips that walk you through the actual meditation segments. The meditation segments themselves have you focus on something in the present – the sensations in your body, your breathing, actually tasting your food…So far the biggest difference I’ve noticed in myself is that I’ve gotten a little better at living in the moment. It seems that for me, forcing myself to focus on “in the moment” things (like breathing) for a small amount of time each day has helped me remember to do that same when I’m not meditating. For example, while sitting at the beach I remembered to listen to the waves, smell the salty air, and feel the ocean breeze as it wisped against my skin. It’s like, I never realized my mind spent so much time on the past (reminiscing) and future (planning what we need to do) until it was forced to see otherwise!

Anyway, I wouldn’t say meditation has been life changing yet, but I can clearly now see how it could be beneficial enough that I thought I’d mention it. I think the political climate in the States right now is just heavy enough that we could all use a little stress reduction 😂.

If any of that perks your interest and you want to be along for that journey with us, here is a link of the site/course we are using. (https://palousemindfulness.com) It’s free and the videos are interesting (and no one told me to say that). I’ll also add, that even as interested as I’ve been in it all, I’ve found meditating itself to be a little slow and painful. I usually find myself feeling restless and constantly wondering how much time is left 😂, but it’s been shocking to me how many benefits I’ve felt even in my restlessness 🤷‍♀️.

And now, back to Chiangmai – though I associate Chiangmai with meditation because we originally went there for that, these are pics of what we actually did/tried :):

Three Kings Monument – symbolizing an alliance of three kings and marking the center point for where the palaces used to stand.

The old city wall with tons of tourists taking photos. I actually took this to point out the girl with pigeons on her head. Every time we walked by someone was doing this 😂. Below is a zoomed in version 😂.

😂

One of the many temples. I never found out which one this was, but we walked by it nearly everyday.

Chaingmai has a night market open everyday of the week with souvenirs, clothes, and food, but on Sundays it becomes an enormous affair. I can’t tell you how many blocks it stretched because we got tired before we reached the end! In the food section we could get plates of pad Thai for 30 baht (less then $1), kebabs of peppers, onions, pineapple, and chicken for 10 baht (30 cents!), and fresh tropical fruit smoothies for just over $1. We snacked so much!

Duck noodle I got one night at the regular night market. Not as good as the famous duck we had in Hong Kong, but still delicious!

Performance at the regular night market.

Our passion fruit/mango fruit shake! We LOVE this mix!

Lantern booth at the Sunday Night Market

Trying to get a photo of the crowd. We were touching elbows most of the time!

Isn’t this wood beautiful? They said it was mango wood.

One day we took a hike up Doi Suthep, a small mountain near the local zoo with several Buddhist temples and lookout points. For this hike in particular we took a shared taxi halfway up the mountain and then hiked the rest of the way to the top. On the way back we hiked a little farther down than from where we started to catch another shared ride. In total we walked about ten miles. There were some beautiful views!

The view from the first look out – not too far from where we started. There are several villages located on the mountain.

Kirk, exploring around the lookout.

The path up to the second lookout.

View from the top.

Kirk beside/coming down from the lookout

After hiking to that viewpoint, we saw a sign pointing toward the highest point on the hike. Assuming it was also a viewpoint we headed up, only to find a sign marking the highest point 😂.

Much of the hike was on a road used by cars, but eventually we came to a place where cars were no longer allowed. The green moss and amber pine needles carpeting the asphalt continued all the way to the top. It was beautiful!

Most of the end of the hike looked like a jungle! The vines and trees were so big!

We eventually made it back down to one of the towns where we could catch a car back down. In that town was a temple with two very large Buddhas.

This one was particularly large.

And now, some Chiangmai foods 🙂

Chiangmai curry noodle (Kao soi) SO yummy! The sauce is thick and the toppings are fried – definitely too rich to eat a lot of it, but worth having if you find it on a menu! It comes with picked toppings on side which add an interesting flair 🤗.

Nam tuk, a noodle soup with a tasty broth – one of Kirk’s favorites.

Massaman curry, my new favorite curry, in a soupy form (it also comes stir fried)

Onto Koh Chang

When we arrived in Koh Chang, we had no hotel reserved. In low season, and especially when you are staying for an extended amount of time, you can often bargain for better deals than you can get online. We took a train, bus, taxi, ferry, and second taxi all the way from Chiangmai hoping this was true. Since we arrived late, our first night we booked a hotel nearest to where we were dropped off, but as luck would have it, the room we ended up staying in for the rest of our first week was just across the street, an apartment overlooking the sea at a hotel called Koh Chang Huts. Though we weren’t right on the water, the resort was built on cliffs that overlooked the sea, so we could watch the waves from our balcony and wonder down the several flights of stairs to a small rocky/cliff beach below.

About a half mile away from our hotel was “White Sand Beach” a beach with long stretches of white sand and plenty of beachfront restaurants where you have to “splurge” on dinner – about $6 per person (which really is splurging next to what we’ve been spending on meals!). This area is also where the night food market began, so we were in the perfect place to snatch up a container packed full of Thai food for around $1.50 and take it back to our room to binge watch Netflix (something we haven’t done since we left home!). At home, Thai restaurants are probably our most frequented eating places, so getting the real deal every night for so cheap was lovely!

Our second week in Koh Chang we decided we wanted to be closer to the actual water, so one day we rented a motorbike (for $5) and cruised around the island to see what we could find. Unknowingly, a tropical storm was nearby this day and we ended up getting drenched. Trying to make the most of our rental, we continued cruising around and came to a place called “Paradise Palms” that we’d read about online. It’s beachfront and owned by an Englishman named Mike who traveled the world for ten years with no money before eventually settling in Koh Chang with his now wife, Tara. He has some fascinating stories!

Below are some pictures from our time on Koh Chang.

Arriving on our ferry at Koh Chang Pier.

The balcony at our first room with an ocean view.

We saw some amazing things from this balcony!

One of the many sunsets we saw

One morning we woke up to a double rainbow! (Though the top of the double disappeared before I got a photo)

The very next morning we woke up to two water spouts over the sea! We watched as they appeared and disappeared several times.

Watching the rain come our way

Exploring the island we saw tons of beautiful beaches.

The cliff beach beside our first hotel

The beach in front of Maha Guesthouse – a place we almost stayed.

White Sand Beach

More of White Sand Beach

Walking back over a rocky beach with groceries to our second hotel.

A different day on White Sand Beach. This log washed up with these guys attached. You can’t tell from the picture, but they were still alive and opened and closed over and over as we watched.

A view out over the ocean we found during our motorcycle ride around the island. Not pictured: the incredibly loud frogs croaking all around.

The porch of our ocean front room at Paradise Palms

Standing on the porch looking to the left.

View to the right at sunset

View to the front during the day. The color of the water constantly changed with the sun/clouds.

The second time we rented a bike we spent a half day seeing the second half of the island. We saw lots of greenery and crops, as it was the less touristy side of the island. At one point we passed a sign pointing towards mangroves so we decided to go check them out.

The pictures don’t give a full description of what we drove up on. Here you see Kirk walking down what appears to be a stable platform overlooking the murky waters. In reality we pulled up to what appeared to be an abondoned tourist destination. Ransacked buildings filled with trash that were once ticket or information booths and bathrooms. Parts of the planking over the water was solid, but other parts were caved in and cracked. We walked carefully over small sections of it, but turned back before making to the part that, according to a graffitied sign, viewed out over the ocean.

It certainly still had a beauty about it! Those roots 😍!

A view we passed on the way back to the hotel.

One of our last nights on the island we decided to splurge on one of those $6 per person sunset beach dinners. It was gorgeous and tasty!

😍 It was even better in reality! They doubled stacked our chairs so that we didn’t sink too far in the sand :).

A view down the beach. All the restaurants put out beach tables at night.

It tasted better than it looks – I got a soft shell crab curry.

Kirk got what he’d been dreaming about – steamed sea bass with a lime chili herb sauce. That fish was huge!

Other foods we had on the island:

Tom Yum noodle soup. I love this stuff. It tastes different at every restaurant, sometimes creamy, sometimes brothy, sometimes limey, a bit spicy, but always tasty!

My true favorite. Egg noodle soup with pork. This broth was simple and delicious and the noodles were served just barely done- the perfect texture. Many things we’ve eaten on this trip are too rich to be everyday kind of dishes, but that one was light and delicious enough that I got it for lunch everyday for a solid week (then we switched hotels and it was no longer walking distance ☹️). A simple, delicious broth is hard to come by, but that side of the road booth with no name had it down pat!

If you find this cheese, buy it! Our first time we had it was in New Zealand when we got “adult lunchables” (fancy cheese, salami and whole grain crackers) to hike the Alpine Crossing. We picked the cheapest cheese they had available at the grocery store (seen above – comparable in price to Kraft cheese back home) and it beat some of the best fancy cheeses we’ve had at home. Sharp and crumbly is a legit description. We were stoked to find it again in Koh Chang and I leave a picture here so I don’t forget it in the future :)!

Finally, Bangkok

We stayed in Bangkok a week hoping to do a little site seeing and jewelry shopping. We’d heard that Bangkok is one of the most known places in the world for its jewelry, and I’m a pretty big fan of rustic looking silver pieces, so we scooped out quite a few places while there. As it turns out, Bangkok is most known for it’s wholesale silver shopping, it’s perfectly cut shimmering stones, and the gold shops in Chinatown. I don’t wear a lot of shiny pieces or gold, and when I say wholesale silver shops, I mean genuine wholesale – super cheap priced silver pieces in stores in which you have to buy very large quantities for them to even be willing to talk to you. If you want to open a jewelry shop or if you have very fine taste in jewelry, Bangkok is a perfect partner for you. If you just want a few silver pieces, you’ll likely have better luck elsewhere.

Even so, we still had a nice time in Bangkok walking around the city and eating. We ended up seeing some pretty large chunks of the city in our attempts to apply for Indian visas and as we sought out potential places to have Kirk’s phone fixed (FYI, from our experience, you cannot get a Motorola fixed in Asia. When Motorolas exist in a country here (which, in many countries, they don’t), the parts used here are not compatible with US phones 😬). Below are some photos of our timein Bangkok.

The “G” shaped building. No idea what this is used for, but I couldn’t help but admire it every time we passed by. Bangkok is humongous with plenty of fancy buildings, but this one certainly catches the eye!

View from the front

A canal near where we stayed

My favorite thing we experienced in Bangkok happened as we were exploring Chinatown in search of jewelry. We wandered down to a small jewelry shop next to the canal seen below, but as we neared the edge of the concrete we both noticed something humongous moving in the water. We stared and stared trying to make sense of it – “A gator in the city? No way, that doesn’t make any sense – but it moves like a gator.”

As it came closer the image became clear. It was a lizard, a kimono dragon to be exact, and she was about five feet long. We watched as she swam up the canal and crawled out of the water underneath the bridge where bones of her previous dinners awaited her. She was huge. The same size as one’s I’d seen at zoos, but I never realized I could possibly see one in the “wild” – the middle of an enormous city. We asked a local nearby about it and he informed us that there was also a baby living under there with her. They liked that she stayed around because she keeps the rat population down. Two construction men were napping under the bridge on the opposite side of the canal, clearly unconcerned. Personally I wouldn’t want any reptile of that size crawling by as I napped (if that tail hit me my brain would for sure translate it as “snake”), but she seemed well integrated into her home and community! We were intrigued!

The canal we watch her swim up

A pano of the bridge she crawled under. You can’t see either, but the construction men are sleeping on the left and she is on the right.

The best photo we got. Under the bridge with some of her previous kills in sight.

Right in the middle of the city. This is the bridge she was under.

I’m actually unsure what these next few photos are of, but they are monuments and represent some of the more traditional architecture you see around Thailand.

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Beautiful

Onto foods 🙂

Bangkok is the second place in our travels we’ve encountered a Dairy Queen, but it’s the first place we actually stopped for a treat. In Thailand, Dairy Queens have a soft serve flavor called Thai Milk Tea. It’s SO delicious that we went back a second time!

All over Thailand you find street carts serving “roti,” basically a type of bread/pancake stuffed with various fruits and sauces. We finally gave in and got a honey banana one. It was tasty!

I have no picture of the actual food, but these were some of my favorite burgers ever. Flavorful with fresh cooked buns! We got the Laab and Satay. Fusion dishes aren’t always done well, but these were pulled off perfectly enough that we wanted a photo to try to remake then when we get home :)! Go by “Streats” to have the originals :)!

A final picture of another canal with a reminder of the crazy powerlines we see everywhere.

Somehow not pictured in this blog is the crazy amount of Pad Thai we had during our month here – and Tom Kha (sour coconut milk soup 🙂 )! Must haves if you visit :)!

Next up, Nepal!

We went to Siep Reap for the sole purpose of visiting Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes. If you don’t know much about it, Angkor Wat is the largest religious temple complex in the world and is the symbol in the center of the Cambodian flag. The entire walled complex covers about 500 acres, the moat surrounding it is 200 meters across, and the tallest tower reaches 213 feet. It’s huge.

The basic history behind it is that it was built in the early 1100’s by King Suryavarman II who overthrew the last successor. At the time, Kings were consider to be god-like (like, demi-gods), and so to prove his right to the throne (to show that he was more of a Demi god than the king he overthrew), he made a plan to have this humongous temple constructed to the Hindu god Vishnu (their god of war). The temple was completed in around 30 years, which might sound like a long time, but after watching a video of a rock mason describing how he didn’t understand how it was possible that they completed it so quickly, I found myself pretty impressed.

Perhaps what’s most fascinating is the design of it. Some people call it a “floating temple” because though it isn’t actually floating, it is sitting on water. From what I’ve read, the switch between monsoon and dry season in Cambodia changes the land so much that it would be difficult to support a temple like this. Since the rocks are stacked (not cemented together, or at least not in the way we cement today) every time the rainy season came and left, they would shift without some other type of foundation under them. For this reason, they built the temple with what my understanding can only describe as a water support system. The enormous moat around the complex keeps a steady amount of water in the soil underneath the temple through rainy and dry season, ensuring that the stones always have the same foundation. It’s pretty brilliant and fascinating.

Around Angkor Wat are the temples built by the many kings before and after Suryavarman II. All of them were built under the reign of the Khmer Empire (also called Angkor Empire), which was actually a huge world power during it’s time. There are so many temples that Kirk and I just picked a few of the most known ones to go see (our tuk-tuk driver dropped us by a few others he thought we would like too 🙂 ). If you are planning a trip yourself and are interested in what we did, we took the “small circle” backwards, hitting Bayon and Angkor Wat right around lunch time as to avoid the massive tour groups (which worked out incredibly well!)

As a side note, the cost to visit these temples has jumped immensely in the last couple of years for foreigners. Kirk and I have been paying $1-$2 to visit historical sites and museums around Asia – the most being $5 each, but a one day pass to this temple area is now $37 person – and that doesn’t include a tour guide or ride there. We thought we were looking at a tour price the first time we saw the number, but $37 each is the base price. They put your picture on your ticket to ensure it’s only you using it.

My ticket – that photo 😂

Though none of the other temples compare in size to Angkor Wat, there were certainly others that I enjoyed walking through more. Here are some photos of the temples in the order we saw them (Angkor Wat being last).

First, Banteay Kdei ( I think).

This is the first temple our driver dropped us at – though we still aren’t entirely sure which one it is, but based on the map, this is our best guess 😂. I have little to tell you about it except that it’s bigger than it looks and that the carvings are super intricate.

A view from the front

Buddha, just inside the front.

To the right is Kirk – I was trying to show how tall this place actually is.

Y’all, imagine the tools they used to carve those details. That had to take forever!

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A view from the back, which shows more of it’s size.

Our next stop was Ta Prohm, one of the more famous of the temples, built just before 13th century (around 1186). This temple is unrestored (other than the visitor path going through it) and still has beautiful humongous trees growing on and around it. The light brown roots of the trees descend down the sides of the walls and wrap around the dark grey stones. It was one of my personal favorites because of the raw beauty. Nature has a way of taking back over that which we’ve taken from it – even these enormous rocks couldn’t keep the trees out. It’s quite a sight.

If any of it looks familiar, it might be because Tomb Raider was filmed here.

The front of Ta Prohm. It’s hard to tell from these pictures, but those giant trees have grown over a heavy stone path leading to the front entrance. The tree seen growing right in the middle of the building is the same one in the next picture.

The first of the giant roots we saw. I don’t understand it, but that tree was growing on top of the building, and it was huge!

Same tree, different view. The roots followed the walls down, avoiding the window.

Same tree. Those roots are so big!

I spend so much time trying to keep other tourists out of my photos, but I’ve found that sometimes they are quite helpful in showing size. That’s still the same tree, from farther away.

A view of the whole tree.

The backside of the building, the stones, for the most part, how they found them.

A different tree that they’ve put supports under. I still can’t get over how big they are!

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A close up of the tree above

How the roofs look from inside – they are literally just stacked stones. it’s amazing how long they’ve stayed!

Banyon tree – it’s actually a parasitic tree that gradually takes over it’s host tree, but as the roots grow down it’s so beautiful! These grow to be extra huge.

Our final tree/wall sighting.

A picture inside Ta Prohm without any roots – this also shows how lucky we got with the weather!

The exit gate to Ta Prohm

As we walked back and hopped in our tuk-tuk, we saw a line of other drivers with homemade hammocks napping in their tuk-tuks as they waited for their riders to finish looking around. There’s no telling how many days a week they do this.

As a side note, a tuk-tuk is kind of a cart with seats pulled by a motorcycle. They are cheaper than taxis and an easy way to get around.

Next, Ta Keo

This complex is also much larger than it looks. While the other temples we visited were ground level with towers that were tall, this temple is several stories tall with towers on top – so, extra tall. You notice it immediately as you drive by because it’s above the tree line. We climbed to the top and started talking to a guy who told us about the temple. Apparently a king ordered this temple be built, it was finished, and they began adding decorations to the stones. However, before they even finished one side of the building, lightening struck it and the king called the lightening a bad omen. He told the people to leave it as is. It’s remained largely unused and unfinished ever since.

A view of the whole thing.

On the first level – look at how precisely these stones are put together!

Pictures taken from the second level of the temple of the stairs going to the top (with me in the pink and black walking up them – note how large those steps are! The stair is nearly at my knee!) 🙂

On the top level where you can then climb to the top of the towers. Kirk is to the right (for size reference)

Looking down from inside the top tower – those stairs were so steep!

Going back down, Kirk in front.

After visiting Ta Keo, our driver asked if we wanted to go to one of the less visited unrestored temples that the tourist companies don’t go to because it’s in the middle of the woods (buses don’t fit). Excitedly, we said yes.

It’s called, Ta Nei. I don’t know much about it, but you find it by taking a small bumpy road into the woods. Other than a few support beams to keep it from caving, it’s completely unrestored.

View of the front.

You can really see how perfectly they shaped and stacked the stones on this one. The whole building is a giant puzzle – even the roof!

The parts that have fallen in.

Our next stop turned out to be my favorite. Like, favorite favorite – favorite ruins I’ve seen in the world so far (though there are still plenty to be seen!). I’d seen pictures of it prior to arriving, but actually walking up on this place is something entirely different. It’s known as Bayon, but is also referred to as the temple of faces. This large temple has 54 peaks and is decorated with over 200 large chiseled out faces. The solemn faces perched high on the towers view out of the temple on all sides, greeting you as you approach from every direction. Though there is no gold there, something about this place felt different, as if I were walking up on El Dorado, a place of mystery that you didn’t know existed.

Below: Bayon, built late 12th/early 13 century

The gates entering into the city. Though the temple is the most impressive part of Bayon, much of the old city is still intact too. This gate was similar to others we walked through, but was large enough to drive through. Kirk and I both pulled out our cameras as we approached as the size was strikingly different than any gate we’d seen so far.

Walking up amidst the tourists.

Pictures don’t do it justice. Those towers are much farther back and much higher up than a photo shows!

The front entrance with Buddha statues. From far away I kept wondering the significance behind the many “thumbs up” statues. It was only upon a closer look that I realized they were headless Buddha statues 😬. Boy did I feel dumb when we got close 😂. In nearly all the statues we saw in these temples Buddha was depicted sitting on these “layers” (what appeared to be fingers of the thumbs up hand from afar).

Check out the intricate pattern on these columns! That was all done by hand!

Closer to the faces.

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The lens on Kirk’s phone shattered and has made many photos look as if they have some kind of filter on them, like above. A new phone is now on the way to us though via my parents who are meeting us in India 🤗!

Faces everywhere. Kirk in the middle as a size reference.

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We climbed one of the towers and were greeted by faces in the doorways and windows.

Around the sides of the temple, a history of the people is carved – intricate and beautiful!

A final shot of Bayon.

After Bayon, we headed to our last destination, Angkor Wat.

Walking to the official entrance of Angkor Wat, we walked under this art awning. I loved the way the shadows hit the concrete. It looked like an abstract music page :). We took a picture to send to my sister who is a piano teacher, but forgot to send it by the time we had internet again, so, Amy, this is for you 😉.

The edge of the moat around Angkor Wat with the entrance gate behind it.

Walking in the entrance gate, we saw this guy hiding behind a column. There are tons of monkeys in the jungle surrounding these temples.

The front entrance, which is still quite a walk from the actual temple.

The famous towers in the background, this picture was taken about halfway down the path between the entrance and the part of Angkor Wat depicted on Cambodia’s flag. In Orange are two young monks. It’s pretty common in Thailand for young and older men to be a monk for a short time before heading back to normal life again. You see them in their brightly colored robes all over the cities.

The front of the famous temple.

Though I’m lacking pictures of it, Angkor Wat, like many of the other temples, is highly decorated. Nearly every surface of the walls and columns has designs on it, and like Bayon, the outside wall of Angkor Wat has an extensive history carved in it. Unfortunately, Kirk’s phone quit working entirely before I got all the photos off of it, but hopefully these give you a peek into what you could see if you visit!

One of our first glimpses inside the temple. Everything about this temple is significantly larger than the others. Look at that ceiling height!

To the left of Kirk is what would have been a large bath in the temple. It was larger than many modern day swimming pools and there were two right next to each other!

Surrounded by jungle.

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One of those famous peaks.

A view from one of the upper towers.

A complete version of one of the Buddha statues. Nearly all were missing their heads.

Exploring the tallest level. If you look close, you can see some if the intricate carvings around the doorway. Some stand out more than others, for example…

not the best picture of us, but above us is the top of one of the door frames like above. There are far more details than you can see from far away (there is also still a lot of original paint still present)!

Though the temple has been converted to a Buddhist temple for sometime now, it was originally a Hindu temple. Above is the original statue of the Hindu god “Vishnu” to which the temple was originally built. It was the final thing we happened upon on our way back out.

On a final note, I forgot to mention it in the last blog, but Cambodia is the second country we’ve visited on this trip that uses USD as it’s main form of currency. It comes out of the ATMs and prices are written in USD, though “small change” (coins) are given back to you in local currency. Below is a bill we were given as change after our lunch in the temple complexes.

I don’t remember the last time I got a $2 bill as change!

The rest of our time in Siem Reap was spent doing a little souvenir shopping and laying at the pool. Because it was low season when we went, we got a fantastic deal on a room at a place called Villa Wat Damnak. Their staff is incredibly kind, the salt water pool is humongous, and a huge breakfast buffet was included with the room. Basically, we loved it enough that I want to remember the name of the hotel for the future, so it’s now written down for you too :). It’s one of the nicest places we’ve stayed our entire trip and we only paid $15 a night! I’m positive it’s much higher at other times in the year though!

Next blog: Thailand

Leaving Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam we hopped on a bus and made the relatively short trip over to Cambodia, ultimately settling in Phnom Penh. Like many of the previous countries in Asia we’ve been in, this was my first time there, but Kirk visited Cambodia 12 years ago on his way back from the Peace Corps. Prior to leaving the States back in December, Kirk shared with me about what he had learned during his previous visit to Cambodia. Shocked by what I was hearing, it took no convincing to add Phnom Penh to our list of places to go. If you are as unaware as I was, Phnom Penh is the capitol of Cambodia and home to the most known “killings fields” and prison from their last civil war.

If you’ve been following along and were surprised by some of the history I shared about Vietnam, keep reading, because somehow the events that have occurred in Cambodia also slipped through the pages of my school history books. I’d heard of the killing fields before coming to Cambodia and even watched a few movies about what happened, but nothing impacts you like learning history behind the history, visiting the location of mass genocide, and meeting the peoples who lived through such an atrocity.

First, a little back history to get us all on the same page. It gets a little complicated, but try to hang in with me! I’ve learned from this trip that it’s only through a larger view of history that we can see how things came to be rather than simply what is or was. Although, if you’d rather just read about the genocide, instead of how the genocide came to be, skip down to the line that starts “That’s the back history.” Otherwise, we’ll start around WWII.

Like Vietnam, when the start of WWII came around, Cambodia was under French rule. During WWII, the Japanese came into Cambodia and ran the French out, but after WWII the French wanted to again have control over Cambodia. Unlike Vietnam, in 1946, France and Cambodia ended up coming to a compromise in which the newly appointed Cambodian King Sihanouk maintained rule, but France held some oversight in the country while also providing military protection. However, after a few years, Cambodia decided that they didn’t want to be under French rule at all. King Sihanouk worked to renegotiate terms, and since the French were already battling Vietnamese rebels in Vietnam by this point, in 1953, the Cambodians were fully given power of their country as the French gave up their hold to avoid opening a second war front.

With independence and democracy came the creation of several political parties. Notable among these groups were “Sangkum,” the people’s socialist party of which Sihanouk was apart; the Khmer Rouge, a communist group led by a man named Pol Pot; and what was eventually named the Social Republican Party, a more conservative, anti communist group led by Nol Lon. By the late 60’s the conservative group had grown immensely and in 1966, Nol Lon was elected Prime Minister and worked right under his socialist counterpart who was still Head of State, Sihanouk.

While all this change and inevitable political tension was happening in Cambodia, Cambodia’s neighbor, Vietnam, was engaged in a civil war between the North and South (in case your timeline is confused, this was the Vietnam War that the U.S. ended up taking part in). Cambodia was considered “neutral” in the Vietnam war at this time, but while saying they were neutral, the head of state, Sihanouk, left the borders open, ultimately allowing the North Vietnamese (communists) to funnel weapons and troops through their country into South Vietnam. While Sihanouk was allowing this, there were many anti-communism Cambodians who wanted the borders to be closed, including Nol Lon, the newly elected Cambodian Prime Minister.

This led to a coup. In 1970, when Sihanouk, Cambodia’s Head of State, was out of the country, a group of anti communists led by a U.S. supported Prime Minister Nol Lon, overthrew the capital of Cambodia and shut down the borders. Nol Lon then also appointed himself president over Cambodia.

In the midst of everything happening in the last three paragraphs, sometime in the 60’s news made it to the U.S. about the North Vietnamese trail of weapons and soldiers being snuck into South Vietnam via Cambodia/Laos. In 1965, prior to Nol Lon overthrowing the government, the U.S. began to carry out “secret” bombings all over east Cambodia in attempts to destroy the trail. Over a period of eight years, the U.S. dropped over 2.7 million tons of bombs on Cambodia (more than the entirety of bombs used by the allies in WWII). Hundreds of thousands of Cambodian civilians died and those who survived were left with no home to return to.

But that’s not all that was going on in this time period – in the midst of everything happening in the last four paragraphs, the earlier mentioned communist political party led by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, slowly began a series of attacks on the Cambodian government in 1967. As the U.S. continued to show support for Nol Lon (who, as a reminder for you, was president of Cambodia by 1970) the U.S. was also continuing to carpet bomb the eastern half of Cambodia. The communist party in Cambodia saw this contradiction of the U.S. supporting the man in power while bombing his people as a way to win the Cambodian people over to their side. The Khmer Rouge presented themselves as a peaceful party and used the hurt, anger, and fear felt by villagers from the bombings as a way to convince people to turn away from both the U.S. and their own government, turning them towards the Khmer Rouge – towards communism – or at least a skewed view of it.

That’s the back history. What follows is the genocide.

From 1970-1975 Cambodia found itself in a civil war – the Khmer Rouge party against the U.S. backed Cambodian Government. The U.S. “pulled out” of Cambodia in 1973 (though most of our support had been done quietly and with very few troops to begin with) and two years later, the Khmer Rouge won. On April 17th, 1975 the Khmer Rouge rolled into the capital and declared this a new beginning for Cambodia. They named April 17th, 1975 the start of a new calendar, year 0, for their people. Many people cheered, welcoming the soldiers, thankful that the killing and war must be coming to an end. Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of the terror to come.

Within days of entering the capital city, the Khmer Rouge announced an immediate evacuation of the whole city. Some inhabitants were told to leave the city for three days while the Khmer Rouge prepared the city for its new life. Others were told to leave because the U.S. was about to bomb the area. In the end, it was all lies, but anyone who refused to leave was shot on the spot.

Though Phnom Penh was once a city of around 600,000 people, the U.S. bombings in east Cambodia from the years before had forced many villagers to move to the city and by 1975, it had a booming population of well over 2 million. In less than a week’s time, the 2 million inhabitants of Phnom Penh walked away from everything they had and headed to the countryside. By the time Pol Pot himself entered the city on April 23th, the entire place was empty – even the hospitals.

The Khmer Rouge believed in a very extreme version of something called Maoist Communism. While believing that society should be classless, they also elevated the status of peasant and farmer above everything else. They believed that “new people,” or educated society, were the problem in the world and that their country needed to restart at a very basic level of “old people” or, basically, peasants and farmers to be pure. The Khmer Rouge closed their borders and convinced the international community that they were helping their country recover from corrupt capitalism, and for the most part, the rest of the world believed them.

All the while, inside Cambodia, as they gradually emptied out all the cities in the country, new villages and labor camps were set up. Many “city people” were forced into labor camps where a lack of food, abuse, and harsh conditions persisted.

The Khmer Rouge prohibited all formal schooling and started up “education” programs of their own where they taught things like, “there are no diplomas, only diplomas one can visualize. If you wish to get a Baccalaureate, you have to get it at dams or canals” (quoted from a museum we went to). Children were taken from their families, made to labor long hours in the fields, and many were forced to join the troops. Troops of child soldiers were trained up and taught allegiance to the Khmer Rouge over everything, including family. Former schools were turned into prisons and warehouses. Children were considered “pure” and were used as “detectors.” They would often have children go into a village and point out “traitors” (people who had actually done nothing wrong) who were then executed.

Anyone who had worked for or supported the previous government was a traitor. Anyone who was educated was considered a threat. Intellectuals, the rich, the religious – all targets of this new regime. Many “traitors” were killed on the spot, thousands of others were imprisoned, tortured, and executed.

The Khmer Rouge openly taught that they believed it was better to kill an innocent than to have a traitor among you (Their leader, Pol Pot is quoted to say, “Better to kill and innocent by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake”), so any suspicion of broken allegiance or questioning of the Khmer Rouge merited death. Though former government workers and educated “new people” (doctors, teachers, nurses) were targeted first, eventually, as paranoia grew, so did the death toll. By the end, no one was safe from accusation, even high ranking members in the Khmer Rouge.

Between 1975 and 1979 (y’all, this was not the long ago), the Khmer Rouge managed to essentially “secretly” kill somewhere around 1.7 million people (some estimates are as high as 3 million, the actual number is still unknown) – somewhere around a fourth of Cambodia’s population (let that sink in, approximately 1 in 4 people living in Cambodia died under the Khmer Rouge). I say secretly, because most of it was hidden from the world. People escaping from Cambodia tried to tell what was happening, but many in the international community had been led astray by the Khmer Rouge to the point that the accusations fell on deaf ears.

In 1979, the killing only stopped because, while tormenting their own people, the Khmer Rouge also had a battlefront going on with the Vietnamese. The Khmer Rouge were in a land battle with the Vietnamese and launched and attack against them in 1977. The Vietnamese counter attacked in 1978 and after eventually deciding that they definitely did not want the Khmer Rouge in power, in 1979, the Vietnamese occupied the Cambodian capital. The Khmer Rouge retreated West, and continued living in the Thai border region as they still occasionally engaged in guerrilla warfare.

The international community, still largely unaware of what had actually been happening in Cambodia, wasn’t willing to recognize the Vietnamese control in Cambodia, and appointed a member of the Khmer Rouge to the UN to represent the nation (Yes, not understanding the magnitude of what had happened, the UN appointed a member of the party responsible for millions of deaths as a representative for the country, after the Khmer Rouge was no longer in power).

Within Cambodia itself, the Vietnamese placed a man by the name of Hun Sen in power. Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge battalion commander who had fled to Vietnam two years prior to the Vietnamese take over. He fought with the Vietnamese to take back Cambodia.

Gradually and eventually, the world began to realize and accept the truth of what had happened, but to this day, justice has never fully been served. Unbelievably, Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, who is responsible for the death of 2 million people, never went to jail. When he and his men fled to the west, he just kept living his life, still controlling the loyal Khmer Rouge members. Eventually, his group had a conflict, and in 1997, after he had his right hand man assassinated, some of his own members threatened to turn him over to the US. Not long after the threat, in 1998, he was found dead. His wife said it was a heart attack and had him cremated before his body was examined, but the accepted theory is that it was actually suicide by poison.

1999 is considered the official end of the Khmer Rouge.

In 1997, Cambodia asked the UN to help create a court to carry out cases against the leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In 2007, the court became operational. In 2010, a lower ranking member of the Khmer Rouge was convicted and sentenced 19 years in prison. In 2014, two higher ranking officers were convicted and sentenced life in prison.

That’s it. Three elderly people (one of which is now 91) are in jail for a Genocide, and it took 30 years for them to get there.

(As a side note, the man who was convicted in 2010, called “Duch,” has a fascinating story himself. In the Khmer Rouge he oversaw the deaths of around 20,000 people, afterwards eventually become a Christian, and, under a fake name, was working closely with World Vision when he was found out. He went willingly with authorities and plead guilty at the trial, confessing everything he’d done)

What’s even crazier than the lack of convictions is that the man the Vietnamese put in power, Hun Sen, who was once apart of the Khmer Rouge – is still in power. If you heard the news a couple of weeks ago that the US has recently sanctioned Cambodia (this announcement actually came the day before we were leaving Cambodia, and we were glad to be getting out 😬) – it’s because of this man. Though mass genocide is no longer on his list, he is still known to kill people who oppose him and he recently eliminated the only other opposition party in the country. If you speak out against him or question what he’s done, they will arrest you.

Anyway, if you hung in there through that long explanation, way to go! I found myself shocked all over again as I wrote it. There is so much we don’t hear about at home and it’s crazy because even we when we do hear about it – it’s on the other side of the world, so it tends to not hit us as hard. But when you find yourself sitting in a taxi with a man who tells you that he is lucky his father was a farmer, and look around and realize that you see very few grey haired individuals walking the streets around you, you begin to realize just what was lost and how many people were affected.

As far as what we actually saw and did in Phnom Penh – the first place we visited was Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum is a former high school that was turned into the most secret of the 196 prison/execution sites of the Khmer Rouge after the schools were shut down. It was also known as S-21, and somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 individuals passed through this prison, of which there are only seven known survivors (though the estimated number of survivors is around 200).

When an individual was brought to Tuol Sleng, it was because they had been accused of something. Often the prisoner didn’t know what they had been accused of as it was all fictitious, but they were expected to confess. Upon arrival, their picture was taken and they were interrogated. If the Khmer Rouge couldn’t find anything in the interrogation to link them to a crime, they would torture it out of the person. It is said that the only doctors available at the prison were there to keep people alive for more torture. A person was tortured until the Khmer Rouge had a documented confession for which the person could be executed – or until they named other traitors – after which they were still executed. Based on what we learned in Cambodia, Wikipedia has a pretty accurate description of what torture and everyday life looked like at the prison if you want to know more – it’s horrifying. Below are pictures of what we saw.

A view from the top story of one of the buildings. The building seen here was used to torture and house prisoners. The stand with pots underneath was once used to hang ropes that the high schoolers climbed during PE courses. Once the school became a prison, the pots were placed underneath to torture individuals, dipping their heads in water as they hung from above. To the right you can see one of the 14 white graves on the property. These caskets house the corpses of the last 14 victims of this prison. Their bodies were discovered by the opposing troops after the Khmer Rouge fled.

I mentioned the the Khmer Rouge took pictures of all their prisoners as they entered the prison. The walls of this now museum are lined with the faces of those who lost their lives at the hands of the keepers of this site.

These are the 10 rules prisoners were told when they arrived at the prison.

Multiple classroom turned torture rooms are still set up. The beds that people were shackled to sit in the middle of an empty room with a single gruesome picture of an actual person who was tortured there hanging behind it.

Old classroom chalkboards still hang in many rooms.

One of the buildings is wrapped in barbed wire, that, when prisoners were still housed here, was electrified. This building contained classrooms that had been converted into make shift single cells for prisoners.

Cinderblock single cells

Brick single cells and a view of the sections of classroom walls that were cut out to create doorways between the rooms filled with single cells.

Single cells with doors

A view from behind the barbed wire

This is just a stairway in the old school building. I loved how the light shone through the holes.

The final exhibit we visited at the museum is one that changes pretty often. This time the focus was on the children affected by the Khmer Rouge reign. It talked about how the children became soldiers and worked in the fields – what it was like for them to attend these new “education systems” focused on brainwashing them into the Khmer Rouge mindset. At the end of the exhibit, they had interviews posted of questions they had asked survivors of this time period. One woman was asked, “What is your message to the young generation?” The short of her answer? She wants young people to avoid scapegoating and seek solidarity.

Sometimes enemies only become enemies because we are looking for someone to blame. I couldn’t help but think, that’s probably something that all sides of the aisle in the U.S. need to consider right now.

As we began to walk out of the museum, we passed this guy.

Isn’t he beautiful? I’m not sure why his home is on the museum grounds, but I don’t recall seeing a peacock quite like him before. The yellow on his face was so vibrant!

I’ll take a brief pause here and show you around the city of Phnom Penh some before going on to the next place we visited, as it was quite heavy too.

Independence monument, celebrating their independence from France.

You can’t see him well, but this is a statue of King Sihanouk, who led Cambodia to independence. Independence monument is in the background.

A better view than the previous blog of some of the crazy power lines we’ve seen all over Asia!

Cambodia Vietnam Friendship Memorial – built in the 1970’s as a thank you to Vietnam for freeing the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge.

A statue near the palace – I wanted a picture of the front, but felt weird taking it with the guys laying under it. This day the city was celebrating the King’s birthday and most patches of shade were packed with people!

An entrance to the palace grounds, we didn’t go in because of the cost and crowds, but it looked beautiful from outside the gates!

And now we move to the second eye opening, historical place we visited in Phnom Penh, the Killing Fields.

The term “Killing Fields” actually encompasses more than 20,000 mass graves sites scattered through Cambodia where an estimated 1.3 million of the victims of the Khmer Rouge are buried. Though initially many individuals were killed and carried to the sites, the Khmer Rouge eventually realized that it would be more efficient to have people take themselves to the sites before killing them. They often had people dig their own graves or kill others there before eventually being killed themselves. Because the Khmer Rouge wanted to save bullets, many people were beaten to death with a variety of tools. Their skulls that remain bear witness to what happened.

Right outside Phnom Penh is one of the well known mass grave sites called Choeung Ek where many of the victims of the S-21 prison were killed and buried. Many of the bodies in this area have been exhumed, examined, and are now in a memorial at the site, but 49 of the 129 mass graves remain untouched. As you walk around the gravesites, a few pieces of clothing and bones can be seen emerging from the dirt. The keepers of the site regularly pick up and place unearthed pieces in glass boxes around the site, but the rains inevitably raise up these pieces of the past, remembrances of what happened.

Below are a few pictures from the site.

There are several areas fenced off that mark where the now exhumed bodies once lay. Most of the fence poles are lined with bracelets left by visitors in remembrance of those who died. This grave in particular once held more than 100 women and children, most of whom, unlike the many other graves in the area, were buried naked. The tree next to the grave is where many children were killed. The audio tour we listened to said that babies were held by their feet and banged against the tree until lifeless. It’s so unimaginable that it’s difficult to believe, but it’s not just story – when this site was discovered, brains were found on the tree and former members of the Khmer Rouge have admitted this is what happened. It’s sickening.

Some of the grave sites. Though you can’t tell what we are standing on from the picture, they have built wooden platforms around the graves so that visitors are not walking directly on the sites.

One of the victim clothes, gradually coming unearthed.

The memorial that was built that houses the bones of over 5,000 individuals exhumed from these grounds. Inside, the bones are on display.

The skulls of the victims are displayed in the bottom layers of the memorial.

The skulls have been examined, sorted by age group, and marked with a sticker indicating how the person was murdered.

Even in death, they attest to what happened. It’s painful to look at the holes in these skulls and consider how they got there.

At the very end of our visit we stopped by the small museum they have on site at the killing fields. Housed in cases were examples of the weapons used to kill thousands of people at this site. They also had copies of paperwork of some of the victims from S-21 prison on display. It’s shocking how long it took the world to catch on with so much evidence on hand.

Paperwork from the S-21 prison with victims photos.

In all, reflecting back, perhaps what speaks as loud as the sights we saw is the way in which the information was presented. In Vietnam, most of the museums felt like propaganda – a way for Vietnam to tell the story they wanted to have heard. Cambodia was the opposite. Their museums and historical sites felt like a plea.

“Please look, see, here is the evidence of what happened. This actually happened. Here are the skulls, here are the torture weapons, here are photos, here are mass graves. Here is what scientists found by looking at all these items. Here are the confessions.”

The proof and pleas are undeniable and heartbreaking. It’s shocking how long we stay blind to our neighbors and scary to consider what we may be blind to now. As I mentioned before, even now in Cambodia, the current leader is setting himself up as the sole power. He’s silenced the free media and disbanded other political parties. I fear the terror may not yet be over for the people there.

If anyone is interested in learning more, there are two movies we’ve watched that tell the stories of people who were actually there. A 1984 film entitled “The Killing Fields” tells the true story of two journalists who were in Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. It was certainly one of the earlier looks into the atrocities and give a different perspective than the other film we watched.

The second movie we watched is a 2017 film called “First They Killed My Father” based on a book of the same title, written by a woman who was a child during the genocide.

This was a long and heavy blog, but I think it’s a story that needs to be told.

The next blog will also be about Cambodia, but will be much lighter and mostly pictures. Our next destination was Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat 🙂

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, was our final stop in Vietnam before heading into Cambodia. Prior to the Vietnam War, Saigon was the capital of south Vietnam. During the war it housed the headquarters of the U.S. Generals and at the end of the war it was the final place from where the South Vietnamese fighters saw U.S. helicopters fly away.

Today, Ho Chi Minh city is known more as a manufacturing capital in Vietnam. Plenty of US companies have large factories in the area and cheap, often well made knock-offs, as well as some of what are possibly stolen or second rate goods (bags that didn’t make the first cut and often end up sold in bulk to a buyer who then sells them in country) from the companies, can be purchased all throughout the city – NorthFace, Jack Wolfskin, Deuter – all kinds of camping clothes and bags can be found here.

18 years ago when Kirk was in Ho Chi Minh, he bought a large and small “Jack Wolfskin” bag – both of which are the bags he carried with him on this trip as well as throughout his 2 year Peace Corps service. However, right before we got to Vietnam, it’s as if Kirk’s bags knew they were coming home. Small holes began to form in them both that were gradually spreading and one zipper on the small bag quit functioning. They held out until we made it to Ho Chi Minh and have now been replaced. We’ll see if these last as long as those! You can test quality by looking at the seams, zippers, and buckles, but you never actually know what you bought 😬! We’re also hoping it’s one of the “seconds” – (that’s what we were told they are) that would be the most ethical of the options. Either way, Kirk got two bags for $55 – at home the single large bag runs around $200. His old bags fell apart at the right time!

Aside from cheap goods, a second thing Ho Chi Minh City is known for is painters. Much like the tailors in Hoi an, Ho Chi Minh is home to a large amount of painters who can replicate or create master pieces in about 24 hours. Give them a picture, they’ll paint it. Want 2 photos combined? They can do that too. Want your own Mona Lisa? They can replicate it so exactly that your average person couldn’t see the differences.

Knowing this, Kirk and I decided that we wanted to have something made to remember our trip by. We thought it’d be pretty cool to have a picture from one part of our trip painted in a different part of our trip – it’s like two memories in one! We decided that our trek in Patagonia is where our most beautiful photos are from, but the problem was that we didn’t have any good ones of both of us with a beautiful scene behind us. We ended up picking a selfie we took our last day on the trail and brought several pictures of beautiful scenes with us in hope that they could be combined.

Our first night in Ho Chi Minh, we went out looking for dinner and along the way, spotted beautiful modern art pieces at a shop nearby. We’d seen plenty of art shops full of replicas, but this guy clearly displayed his own work. We went in and talked with him and were quite impressed by his kindness and humility. We spent the whole next day walking by shops to see if any others caught our eye, but it was easily clear we’d already found our artist. That evening we took him our pictures, told him a general idea of what we wanted, and in the end said, whatever you think is best. He got so excited and replied, “Yes, I am the artist, let me decide!” The celebration in his voice made me wonder if he often gets asked to paint things exactly as a person wants them, without any of his own flair. We left, unsure of how it would turn out, and when we came back the next day we could not have been more pleased.

How talented is this guy? He chose the mountains from the Frances Valley on the W Trek and painted us in a modern style. Here are close ups of our faces:

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Y’all, he did that in 24 hours! We were also pretty excited that he left the backpacks in the picture. They were certainly apart of the journey! Our task when we return home will be framing… we are currently carrying it along with us rolled up in a tube!

As with the other cities we visited in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh also had a food scene all it’s on. Below are some of our favorites.

Bun Cha Gio – rice noodles, herbs, lettuce, a few shredded veggies (carrots, cucumber) bean sprouts, spicy vinegar sauce, peanuts, and fried spring rolls.

We have no picture of the actual soups, but we found our favorite Pho place that also happened to serve a delicious “beef stew pho.” It was all the comforts of home mixed with an Asian flair and is actually a common meal here, not just a fusion dish. The picture above is of another one of our favorite herbs that they would bring with the soups, but we still have no idea what it is. It has a strong lemon flavor – anybody know?

Perhaps the most surprising delicious meal(s) we had in Ho Chi Minh were at a place called “Pizza 4Ps.” While on our tour in Ha Long Bay we met a Spaniard who raved about this place. Pizzas in countries that aren’t known for pizza rarely are good enough to even satisfy a pizza craving, but we decided to give this place a chance. We looked up the reviews on it and found that of 1000s of reviews on trip advisor, nearly all were 5 stars. Many called it the best pizza in the world. As it turns out, even with a mix of some interesting flavors, it actually is some of the best pizza in the world – or at least the parts we’ve been to. I wish we had this place back home!

Look up the menu online to see all the interesting combinations. There were so many we wanted to try that we were delighted to learn that we could get pizza made 1/2 one and 1/2 another. Ginger pork, fresh burrata Parma ham, salmon miso cream, salmon sashimi, 3-5 cheese pizza (all housemade cheeses), Camembert and ham mushroom sauce, and for dessert, raspberry and kiwi or apple cinnamon raisin both with vanilla ice cream. Don’t judge us, but that’s just the list of the ones we ended up trying 😬😍.

The pizzas are thin crust, 10-12 inches, and cook in a stone oven for 90 seconds before coming out perfectly speckled and crisp. My must haves if we go back again are the burrata, the salmon sashimi, and the Camembert and ham, though all the ones we had absolutely delicious. The burrata is like a fresh take on a pizza: a cold ball of heavy, mozzarella like cheese topping a cool, crisp salad (tomatoes, basil, leafy green) and fragrant ham on a warm crust – I love the mixing of the hot and cold! The salmon sashimi didn’t taste like pizza – more like an appetizer at a fancy event, but it was so yummy! Raw cold salmon on a warm, herbed, fresh creamy cheese, all a top a crispy speckled crust (you know it’s a good crust when it has speckles from the fire 😍). The Camembert ham is the one I would dub – possible best pizza in the world. It tastes more like a normal pizza at home, but with significantly higher quality ingredients. It’s hard to describe how much it tasted like a normal pizza, while remaining far outside the realm of normal pizza. If you were only getting one pizza, I’d get half the burrata half Camembert ham.

Kirk’s favorites were the Camembert ham and the four cheese. The 4 cheese came with a hint of blu cheese and a side of honey to drizzle on each slice. That honey made it extra special!

Anyway, I’ll stop describing pizza and just say, they now have multiple locations around Vietnam, so if you find yourself in the country, look for them.

Salmon sashimi and ginger pork – the salmon comes out on a separate iced plate for food safety – also, look at that crust!

The only other pizza I remembered to take a picture of before digging in, salmon miso and Camembert ham. Those “dry” looking squares of cheese on the ham melt in your mouth!

Another food we (finally) had in Ho Chi Minh was a hot pot. Hot pots are all around Vietnam (and various parts of Asia) and come with a variety of ingredients. They are basically a soup served with noodles or rice on the side and are large enough to be shared family style.

This one was a “sour” chicken soup (think sweet and sour, but less sweet). I was skeptical, but it turned out super tasty!

Onto a few pictures from around the city. First, here is a picture of an example of one of the many electric poles throughout the country..

😬 How crazy is that?

Next, a view of traffic…

Also pretty crazy! There are SO many motorbikes! It’s the main mode of transportation and it’s amazing how much they can carry/fit on those things! On more than one occasion we saw five people on one bike!

A few important/historical places:

City Hall

Directly in front of city hall – a monument and statue of Ho Chi Minh facing out towards the river.

An old church

Rex Hotel, where the U.S. Generals were stationed during the Vietnam War.

Reunification Palace – home of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam war. On April 30, 1975 tanks from the North crashed through the gate of this complex, signifying the end of the war.

I post this picture because it’s a good example of how many people carry things around Vietnam – it’s a balancing act! This picture doesn’t show it well, but there is a second basket/dish/cooler on the back side balancing the front. I mentioned how there are many “sidewalk restaurants” where people will carry their kitchen with them and set up their stands on the street. This is how many carry their kitchens – you often see a grill with a pot on top of it on one side and serving dishes/additional ingredients on the back side. Pretty efficient! I tried taking one step with it and couldn’t keep balanced!

The real story to this picture is that the owner of this carrier was pretty tricky! He saw we were trying to look up directions on the phone and offered help. After some friendly banter he put his “balancer” on Kirk as a joke, told us to take a picture, and once we started walking, grabbed one of the coconuts, cut it open and gave it to us to drink. We thought it was pretty kind (while holding an air of suspicion) – then he asked for money (insisting we give him over double what we’d paid at other places…). It was frustrating, but part of me appreciates the hustle. We often feel exhausted by the amount that we’ve felt taken advantage of on this trip (y’all, it’s a daily battle), but for most of the people we’ve felt cornered by – that’s how they are barely getting by. It creates a lot of mixed emotions.

On the topic of heavy thoughts – I saved our final glimpses into the Vietnam war for last. While in Ho Chi Minh we signed up for a day tour of the Cu-Chi tunnels. During their war against the French, the Vietnamese began digging out a system of tunnels in which to transport goods and hide. Over a period of 25 years (in which they were fighting various people) these tunnels became a very extensive 155 mile long system that they lived in and traveled through – eventually right underneath US and south Vietnamese soldiers. It was really dangerous being under ground – aside from the obvious chance of the tunnels caving in, from what I’ve read, most of the men were ill due to poor ventilation, poisonous insects, and mosquito borne disease, but staying in the tunnels by day and counter attacking at night were some of the villagers best defense against peoples with far greater weapon defenses. The Vietnamese definitely weren’t completely defenseless though. Their creative strategies are pretty fascinating.

It was raining the day we went, which in some ways added to the experience (it really makes you wonder how they survived underground in rainy season!), but it made for some pretty terrible pictures!

This is a model of some of the tunnels – they were crazy extensive! They hid their ventilation holes by having them come out under bushes. They had wells dug in their tunnels both for water to drink and to drain water when it rained. They also had a system for cooking (because they cooked by fire) by having multiple small rooms for the smoke to rise through before it reached above ground. This made the actual stream of smoke coming out above ground so thin that it wasn’t easily noticeable. They were also incredibly good at hiding their entrances and also protected themselves by creating traps, like the one below.

Clearly this isn’t exactly what they did (it’s covered in Astro turf 😂), but it is an example of the types of traps they set up throughout the jungle. They created many different styles of traps that were hidden until you stepped on them. In case it’s hard to see, those are large spikes in the bottom. The door would revolve when you stepped on it, sending you down into a pit full of spikes. Last time Kirk visited Cu Chi they told him that they often covered the spikes with human feces in hopes of causing infection to those who fell in. Interestingly enough, this time when we visited the area had been made significantly more touristy (it was basically still a jungle filled with holes and traps when Kirk came before). Now the area is set up more like an outdoor museum and they told us that these traps were used only to arrest people, never to kill…

I don’t know why the government has decided that’s the message that needs to be spread, but it’s fascinating to be a witness to. They proudly claim kills in certain areas of the war, but hide others.

This is one of the many craters made by a US bomb. It’s significantly larger than this picture makes it appear. Towards the end of the war the US bombed the area in hopes of caving in some of the tunnels.

This is an example of an “entrance” into the tunnels. One small guy in our tour group volunteered to demonstrate.

Our tour guide to the left, telling us how they covered the top of the door with leaves prior to closing it.

Down…

Down…

And he’s in – Seriously, I’d have no way of finding this door unless I knew exactly where it is. It’s not like anyone would want to scrape around looking for these doors – especially with traps set up everywhere too. It was a pretty brilliant strategy.

A US tank that had the tracks blown off. Kirk said last time he was here this was just sitting in the middle of the jungle. They’ve since built a platform for it and put a covering up.

More examples of traps, all with different types of spikes to fall into.

To the left are actual shards from a bomb that exploded. They would gather pieces of bombs and form them into new weapons. They would also gather bombs that didn’t explode and mine them for the gun powder to create their own land mines. They were exceptionally good at using the resources they had available.

As a side note, I never realized how many bombs don’t explode in war. It’s tons. Literal tons, and many are still being dug up. It’s crazy.

This is also crazy…

You can pay to shoot an AK 47 or M30 at this site. It costs per bullet and there is a shooting range, but y’all. I am baffled by how this idea ever came about. I actually just finished reading the blog of someone who was siked to go to Vietnam and visit the Cu Chi tunnels because this was their only opportunity to shoot these guns legally – which, fair enough – their government is allowing it and if that’s your dream, a shooting range is your best option, but man. I couldn’t stop thinking – how many people died in this area I’m walking through? For how many people were these guns a thing to fear, not something fun to try? How many people used an AK 47 here because they were fearing for their own lives? Really just, how does a former war zone turn into a shooting range?

I mean, just imagine, if you were Vietnamese, and someone in your family had died in that area by being shot (of which many many people did), would you want there to be a possibility of citizens of the country who killed your family coming and shooting guns there for fun? There would be an outrage in the States.

But the truth is that I probably only have those opinions because I grew up in a free and developed country. There are still many thoughts and ideas that people in communists countries aren’t allowed to question, and honestly, when you are in great need of money, you come up with solutions to fill that need – including setting up a shooting range at, what seems to me, an unconventional space. It’s amazing how much of our thinking is dictated by our location of upbringing

Back to the Cu Chi tunnels.

After passing through the shooting range you have an opportunity to go down in some of the safely replicated tunnels. They’ve made them a little larger for tourists (you can squat as you walk instead of crawling) and they’ve been reinforced so they won’t cave in on you. It’s still pretty crazy to realize that people lived in these!

Having crawled through the tunnels before, Kirk didn’t want that experience again, so he stayed behind while I went through with a few from the group.

The path ahead of me in the tunnel

The path (and man) behind me in the tunnel. This probably gives a better idea of the height of the tunnel, though, again, these were much larger than the ones they actually used!

A few days after visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels, we went to our final museum for the trip, the War Remnants Museum. It was maddening and heartbreaking. Incredibly biased while also telling a truthful terrible story.

The first 3/4 of the museum is the story of the war, as written by the Vietnamese government. Some of it is truthful, some if it is simply pictures labeled in such a way to tell the story they want to. The final story of the building is currently an exhibit put together by photographers of the war from around the world – these photos are captioned by the photographers who took them and tell a completely different story than many of the other stories of the building. It’s still heartbreaking – we (America) did a lot of terrible things, but not all the things we were accused of in the lower stories of the building (and alongside that, the lower half of the building also didn’t mention any of the atrocities committed by the north Vietnamese.)

Perhaps the hardest thing for me to learn about on this trip was the US’s use of Agent Orange in the war. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s worth looking up. A brief explanation is that Agent Orange was a chemical sprayed by the US all over various parts of Vietnam to kill crops and forest cover of the enemy. It apparently wasn’t throughly tested before it was used though, and it’s caused a tons of health problems for both Vietnamese people and US veterans. Vietnam is now on their fourth generation of babies since the war and large amounts of children are still being born with extreme deformities. The museum has a whole room dedicated to photos and stories of people affected by the agent orange and those are definitely not fabricated. It’s heart breaking and not enough aid has been given. There are plenty of veterans back home unable to afford the medical help they need after being exposed to this chemical and very few resources are available to people here affected by it.

On many street corners around the cities in Vietnam, you find individuals affected by agent orange trying their hardest to survive by begging or doing the only work they are able. We’ve encountered numerous individuals who are unable to walk or see who keep a small box of something called “tiger balm” (an essential oil infused balm that is used throughout Asia for healing various ailments) in their laps as they scream out “tiger balm” every few seconds in hopes that someone will buy some. They can’t see who they are selling to or chase someone if they were to be robbed, but they’ve learned to count money by the feel of it and faithfully sit on those corners daily. They shouldn’t have to do that, but it’s amazing that they do.

I wasn’t willing to take pictures of the individuals pictured at the museum, but below are some of the plaques they had posted about agent orange. I haven’t looked up the accuracy of these, but the effects of this chemical are visible without me needing to know the exact amount sprayed or the exact number of people affected. It was a lot, it is a lot. The same phrase keeps running through my brain – War just shouldn’t last this long. Not for our veterans, not for Vietnamese children – not for anyone.

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Our final memory in Vietnam was on a bus we caught from Ho Chi Minh into Penom Penh. Driving out of the city we heard loud clunk. Our driver stopped the bus, crawled underneath to check, came back in, and dumped out these nuts and bolts in the floor. He found the size he needed, went back out and reattached whatever it was. We were back on the road in five minutes 😂. Who knows? It’s always an adventure!

Next blog, Cambodia:)!

Dalat is in the highlands of the Vietnam and is home to crops of all kinds. Driving throughout the countryside there is a cascade of greens, and even in the cities, crops fill in every open space between concrete and asphalt. I already mentioned that Vietnam is the #1 rice producer in the world, and you might be interested to know that it is also the #2 producer of coffee (behind Brazil and in front of Colombia). These highlands are where most of that coffee is grown.

While coffee grown in Vietnam is shipped all over the world, drinking coffee in Vietnam is an experience all on it’s own. Traditionally, Vietnamese coffee is brewed extra extra strong and mixed with condensed milk. It’s thick, creamy, sweet, and actually delicious – especially iced on a particularly hot day (and that’s coming from two black coffee drinkers!). You can order your coffee black, but in many places in Vietnam if you order “black” coffee, they bring you a highly sweetened cup of coffee with no milk. They seem to see the “black” as opposed to “white” (milky), with sugar being in a completely separate category – generally assuming it’s something everyone would want.

Of all the experiences I’ve had with actual black, no sugar coffee in Vietnam, I must admit – I’ve often had to water it down. Kirk and I both appreciate a bold cup of coffee and are fond of sipping on a shot of espresso, but the coffee here is brewed so thick that it’s nearly a syrup. It drips off the spoon slowly and has a strong flavor of chocolate. If you order a cup of black (sugared or not) coffee, they bring out an approximately 8 oz cup that is about a third of the way full. We’ve become accustomed to ordering the coffee iced. It’s exceptionally hot in most of Vietnam right now and this way, they bring out a bucket of ice alongside the third a cup of coffee, so you can water it down and cool it off as much as you need to. The strong chocolate flavor stays even after the ice is added, so it turns out to be a pretty tasty drink. Below is a picture of how they brew coffee.

They use a filter that is two parts – the cup on top has exceptionally tiny holes in the bottom and is placed on a plate with exceptionally small holes. What you get is a filter that does out one slow drop at a time, giving the coffee a long time to soak in the flavor – hence that extra strong. Kirk waited about 20 minutes for it to finish!

Here’s a picture of some coffee plants we drove by on one of our excursions.

The tree on the left is not coffee, though I’m unsure what it is (we thought maybe avocado?) You can also see rows of crops growing behind. This area was so green!

Coffee aside, we actually went to Dalat to do some hiking in the cooler temperature mountains – we ended up not doing this, but to call our trip eventful might be an understatement.

The trip to Dalat was an event in and of itself. We booked an overnight bus and if you follow us on Facebook or Instagram you’ve already seen a video of this experience. 13 hours on a bus where foreigners weren’t particularly welcome (we watched as a German mother and daughter were asked to move to the back of the bus from their assigned seats because the “front is reserved for Vietnamese” and as bottled water was intentionally only handed out to Vietnamese individuals). 13 hours on a bus with blaring music through the night (often Vietnamese techno music). 13 hours on a bus with an inattentive, rude, and careless driver (he watched television while driving, took the mountains curves at alarming speeds, and worst of all – smoked cigarettes the entire ride on a bus where the windows were sealed shut). We slept little and arrived in Dalat ready to nap. Even with that, the bus ride pales in comparison to our next experience in Dalat.

We only had two full days in the city, and the first ended up being a coffee and milk tea drinking/blog writing day due to bad weather. We planned on getting up early the morning of the second day to go visit some waterfalls in the area before the rain came again.

We got in bed and went to sleep, but at some point in the night I woke up and realized we hadn’t set an alarm for the morning. I told myself it would be fine (because I didn’t want to have to find my phone and set it) and drifted back to sleep. As I should have realized, not setting alarm only made me anxious, so I ended up waking up constantly through the night, my body always thinking it must be morning. After waking up more times than I can count, I decided it must be close to morning and opened my eyes to check the time.

I was laying on my side facing in towards Kirk so as I opened my eyes I had a clear shot to the end of the bed where two of our backpacks were located. I opened my eyes, and saw something move. I felt confused – am I so tired that I think my bag is moving? I tried harder to focus and the picture slowly came together. There was a man at the end of our bed.

It’s amazing how fast and slow your thoughts move when you’ve just woken up. In the next two seconds I had a stream of crazy confused thoughts – the effects of just having come out of dream world.

“Why are the cleaning people here so early? Why did they come in without knocking? Wait, it’s still dark outside – they wouldn’t be here. Is there some kind of event going on. Fire drill? No. Did we forget we were supposed to be somewhere and they’ve come to get us? Wait, we didn’t tell anyone we were planning on going early. That is a man isn’t it? It is. But how could he have gotten in if he doesn’t work here? The door is closed. I’m the one who locked it, I know I did. He has on a hood. He has a “pollution mask” over his mouth and nose – it’s like he’s hiding his face. He’s in all black. Wait, we left the window open. Wait, is he robbing us? He is hunched over. He is digging through our bags. There is a man in our room digging through our bags. I have to tell Kirk.”

The next five seconds were a blur that Kirk helped fill in the details about later. Suddenly terrified I touched Kirk, who was in a dead sleep, and loudly said, “Kirk, there is a man in our room digging through our bags.” (I’m still shocked at how articulate I was in that moment! I didn’t realize exactly what I has said until I asked Kirk later!) As soon as the words came out of my mouth the man’s face turned towards mine and looked me in the eye – his eyes being the only part of his body you could see. I immediately turned my attention back to Kirk to make sure he had heard me, and saw that he had lifted his head and had the strangest expression on his face – a mix of confusion and determination. The next thing I remember was the sound of a loud thump, as I saw Kirk’s feet following his body out the window. I later learned that that first thing Kirk had seen when he lifted his head was the man going out the window (the man was so fast I never saw him leave!). Instinctively Kirk lunged at him, diving through the open window onto the balcony of our second floor room. I heard movement and Kirk screaming for brief moment before Kirk crawled back inside and went straight downstairs to tell the person on duty.

The guy on night shift spoke no English, but came up with Kirk to try and figure out what he was saying. I pulled out my phone, looked down at my hands, and realized how intensely I was shaking. It took some time, but I got google translate pulled up and typed in “We woke up and a man was in our room digging through our things.” The guy looked concerned and followed as Kirk took him out onto the balcony and showed him the man’s path. Eventually the guy went back downstairs and came back up with bandaids and a phone with a person from the hotel on the line who spoke English. It was at this moment I realized that Kirk was bleeding. He’d gotten pretty scraped up from forcing his body out the window – a six inch scrape down his arm, what later turned out to be an enormous welp on his leg, and a small cut on his thumb. Kirk took the phone from the man explained what had happened to the person on the line before our helper went back downstairs. As Kirk started to doctor his wounds we began our debriefing session. I was shocked at how quickly Kirk had responded to my waking him and asked how he connected things so quickly. It felt like it took my brain forever to catch up to what was happening.

The arm scrape

Kirk replied that 2 hours earlier, at 2 am, he’d woken up to go to the bathroom and had the thought that it would be possible for someone to break in through our window because of the balcony. He almost closed the window then, but ultimately decided not to (we didn’t have a/c, so it was our source of cool). At that same time he had moved his iPad from his backpack (the one the man was digging through) to next to the bed so that he could use it in the morning. (Though we weren’t sure until much later, it turns out that nothing was taken – I’m not sure that would have been the case if the iPad hadn’t have been moved). Kirk said that when I woke him up it was already on his mind, so it clicked easily. Kirk instinctively followed the guy.

Kirk went on to tell me that as he lunged towards the window, he touched the guys jacket, but just missed him. From the balcony Kirk watched as this tiny fast ninja man slithered from one balcony to the next, over a building, and down a sign attached to the other side of the building (that might as well have been a ladder). Kirk said he came so close to following the man that Kirk found himself standing on the banister of the balcony before fully waking up and realizing everything that had just happened, including the fact that man was uncatchable by that point – the guy had clearly done this many times.

I remembered Kirk screaming and asked – “What was it you screamed at him?”

Kirk laughed and replied, “I think I said, ‘I will beat your a**!'”

Suddenly the distinct memory of my pacifist’s husband voice screaming at the top of his lungs, “I will beat your a**!” came flooding back to my mind. We both laughed. You never know how you will react in a situation like that until you are there.

We stayed up for a while discussing as new and somewhat terrifying realizations came to mind.

“Wait. our bed is 6 inches from the window and blocks the whole thing. He climbed over us without waking us to get in.”

“Here are footprints on the bed”

Footprints on the bed

“Here are footprints on the window seal”

“This room is tiny. He was so close I could have kicked him”

“He had to have watched us sleep, he didn’t come in without first looking. He sat in that window and watched…”

“He knew exactly what he was doing. This was not his first time.”

“How did he not take anything? My purse and your wallet are in plain view. He must have just gotten here when I woke up.”

“What if he had been armed?”

“Think he had a knife?”

The possibilities and probabilities swirled around in our minds until we were exhausted. We were so lucky to be safe and have nothing taken, but our vulnerability had been revealed. It’s hard to describe how terrifying it is to realize that a person tried to take advantage of you in such a vulnerable state – a vulnerable state that you enter into every day.

We now take extra precautions to stay safe – for example, double checking the windows and leaning an umbrella against a door so that it falls loudly upon opening. In the end, we are pretty lucky to have some new knowledge of how to protect ourselves while also having somehow maintained all our belongings.

The hotel was wildly apologetic. They told us this was the first time that had happened, and though at first we were unsure if this was true, it became easier to believe them as we witnessed as employees would come on shift and soon after, head outside full of curiosity. We watched several of them stand outside our window trying to trace a path to our balcony from nearby buildings. They were clearly surprised.

Our balcony marked by an x.

The arrow is pointing at the sign he climbed to the top of the cafe. He then climbed from that roof over to the balcony next door to ours.

Kirk and I ended up “napping” after our 4 am adventure, getting a (now much needed) later start to our day than we originally intended. When we finally started the day, it turned out to be wonderful. The hotel let us rent a motorbike for free (due to our misfortune) and we were able to go visit some famous waterfalls nearby. Unlike our morning, both the waterfalls and the journey to them were beautiful and (mostly) peaceful – a much needed getaway.

Here are a few pictures from our journey:

I mentioned in the last blog that many people wear the straw hats while working in the fields – here’s a picture of a group we passed working hard in their hats.

At one point we came up on slow moving traffic. As it turned out, a motorbike with crates full of live fish had fallen over into the road. I’m not sure this was an appropriate thing to laugh at, but we couldn’t help but chuckle as a group of people chased these slippery flopping fish around. The laugh was a good relief to the tension we still felt from our stressful morning.

We soon came to another road block – this time, water buffalo. It’s a little intimidating to drive into a herd of these guys with horns, but we made it safely!

We were so close to them!

Eventually we made it to the first falls – Pongour Falls. There are two pretty iconic statues at the entrance to these falls.

The first statue has something to do with the name of the falls. There’s an old folk story that I don’t quite understand of a girl who lead an army into battle as she rode a rhino. They saved the village and somehow out of that the falls were formed.

The second statue, Happy Buddha. Dalat is actually home to a humongous 50 foot tall Happy Buddha, but this smaller version is the only one we made it to see. Even this one was pretty big, but nothing compared to a 50 foot one!

A panoramic of the falls 🙂

Us 🙂

A man fishing near the falls :). The water was pretty clear! Also, in rainy season there is significantly more water coming down these falls.

Side view

My attempt to show how large the falls are. They ended up being much taller than I had imagined based on the pictures.

Leaving the falls we drove alongside the river thats flows to form them:

This area is full of lush greens!

We also passed plenty of more green crops, including one I’d never seen before: vanilla beans

We are pretty sure the vines growing up the trees are vanilla bean vines. We saw several pods hanging 🙂

Before heading to the next waterfall we paused at a restaurant on the river for lunch. I order Pho and was greeted with a new herb. We still don’t know what it is, but we really like it! Anyone know?

After lunch we headed on to Elephant Falls. The view from the top wasn’t so great, so we started down the many many stairs towards the bottom.

I’d call this the easy section. After a while the stairs disappeared and you were just climbing on those giant rocks.

Nearing the bottom! This waterfall was much larger than the last, but didn’t have the same beauty. The brown waters don’t draw you in the same way clear water does.

At the bottom

The lines in the rocks reminded me of wood. From the top it looked like enormous logs were at the bottom. The girl fixing her hair just happened to end up in the picture 🤷‍♀️.

After seeing the waterfalls we headed back into town to visit the Dalat Flower Garden. Dalat is known as the “City of Flowers” and their flower garden is quite beautiful

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So many colors!

Dalat itself has some character of it’s own. Below are a few pictures from around the city.

Traffic around one of the main roundabouts.

City Park

Concrete creek that runs through the middle of town

Popular fountain with “vehicle bushes” that are very popular with tourists. At any point in the day you see tons of people on these, which is funny, because it’s located in the middle of a busy roundabout, so it’s a bit dangerous to get to!

Kirk humored me while I tried the car out 🙂

Xuân Huong lake is in the center of Dalat. Here you can rent paddle boats or enjoy dinner by the water side.

And finally, some food we had in Dalat.

We took this picture at a restaurant that basically served one dish – wonton soup. While we had this dish in other places, at this particular restaurant they had a special sauce that you could add in. We unfortunately still have no idea what all was in the sauce, but ginger and hot chili’s were definitely two ingredients. Adding the sauce took the broth from salty savory to complex delicious :). Also, this is basically the whole kitchen. It’s amazing what little space they need to set up a kitchen and restaurant. Many people carry their “restaurants” and set up on the side walk.

“Banh Can” – rice cakes made in small earthen pots without oil. They are served with a meatball broth with green onions. These rice cakes in particular had egg yolk in the middle of the rice cake, and it wasn’t our favorite, though the broth and meatballs were nice.

Finally, I thought you guys might be interested to see our breakfast while in Dalat. This hotel in particular served a buffet, and we made the most of it :). We made the meatball soup into sandwiches (using the broth as a dipping sauce) and ate them alongside noodle soup, stir fried noodles, and watermelon :). Very different than home, but we’ve gotten used to some new breakfast foods since we left!

The final blog for Vietnam is next, Ho Chi Minh City :).

Hoi An is a city of lanterns and a city for artists – or at least creative minds. If you can dream up a creation, it can likely be made there. Custom tailors, cobblers, leather workers, jewelry makers, painters- they have it all. Sketch what you want or find something in a catalog and they can copy it exactly. It’s fascinating… and cheap.

Perhaps what Hoi An is best known for is its custom tailors. People from all over the world come to Hoi An for custom suits and when Kirk visited here previously (18 years ago) a entire custom suit could be made for $50. Though the prices have now increased, you can still find a perfectly form fitting creation for $70-$120. And ladies, you can get a dress made not just for your body type, but fitting exactly to your body for $25-$100 depending on the type of fabric and intricate details wanted. It’s no clearance rack, but for the fit and quality and timing, it’s shockingly cheap. The stores have your pieces ready for a fitting less than 24 hours after you order them. Even as a pretty extreme bargain shopper, I couldn’t resist the lure of these handmade goods!

Prior to arriving in Hoi An, we spent some time reading blogs about the best tailors and cobblers in town. We hoped it would help us narrow down our selection from the several hundred shops from which to choose. Unfortunately, several of the best reviewed shops were also the highest priced shops, so for some of our pieces we ended up settling for shops that we hoped would be great. As it turns out, you should probably stick to the best…

The first thing we got made was a suit for Kirk. Kirk isn’t a big suit wearer, but we figured he will need an interview suit for when we get back, and where better to have it made than from the same company who made a suit for him 18 years ago, A Dong Silk :). Fortunately for Kirk, this highly recommended company, who has since expanded to have several stores around town, still has a pretty special price for suits – one the of the cheapest we were quoted – $70 for a custom made jacket and pants (the prices got higher as the fabric got nicer, but even the lowest tier was pretty wonderful!) We picked out the style of the suit on Pinterest, the color from their fabric rolls, the lining from their swatches, and they began their measurements.

We were in and out in less than 30 minutes and asked to return the next day. The next afternoon we showed up and everything was ready for the first fitting…

Fitting number one. The jacket and pants fit perfectly. Kirk only asked that they widen the bottom of the pant leg a bit to fall better over shoes (don’t judge by those shoes though, they are the generic pair everyone tries on and they were a bit small for Kirk!)

In less than 48 hours total, the finished product :). I can’t tell you how wonderful the service and staff at A Dong Silk are. They are experts in their field, and make the process so easy! (Which is good, because Kirk doesn’t enjoy shopping!) Unfortunately the starting price for their dresses are $75 (more than a suit!) so I didn’t even consider tailoring here for myself. We highly recommend them though!

This picture is not the best at showing the grays, but the lining we picked is striped 😍

The next place we went was Buffalo Leather. I’m a sucker for affordable, long lasting products, and since I had so much trouble finding boots that fit over my calves, we decided this could be a good investment. Buffalo had high reviews, and had given us mid range prices on their products, so we went for it. I gave them a picture of the boots I wanted and picked out the leather from a stack nearby. They gave me a choice of soles and asked about what type of heel I wanted, how high I wanted the boot to come, and how much cushion I wanted. They then traced my foot on a piece of paper and took measurements around the toes, the middle of my foot, and my calf.

Getting measured

This is general picture of the boots I wanted, though I picked a slightly different color and height. 24 hours after getting the measurements the boots were ready for a fitting! I found a couple of places in which the shoe was ill fitting (the part around the ankle was a little wide, my heel was slipping, and it was a little tight on my big toe) but after a few adjustments we got the finished product…

I love these boots!

Also, it’s around 95 degrees here most days, so I just brought my pants along instead of wearing them 😂. I had to make sure the boots fit over them! The ladies at the store thought it was hilarious and asked to take my picture too 😂. If you ever visit, let me know if I made the “customer wall”!

The suit and boots were our best experiences by far – very far. We took a chance and tried to get leather sandals and a purse made at one of the cheaper leather workers/cobblers and it didn’t go well. The products we were presented ended up not being real leather in some places and were already coming apart by the time we got our first glance at them. Thankfully they let us cancel and refunded our deposit (the shop worker wasn’t the actual leather worker/cobbler and I think he could see how bad it was). We felt bad for canceling, but we weren’t willing to pay for products already coming apart.

We had a similar experience at a tailor where we tried to order dresses for me. It went pretty terribly, so we ended up at another tailor who did a pretty good job. The final product wasn’t exactly what I wanted, and after 3 fittings, it’s still not a perfect fit, but for the price we paid I’m happy enough.

Here’s a somewhat blurry photo of me accessorizing my floral cotton wrap dress once we got back to the hotel room.

We were laughing at my standing on the stool 😂. The only mirror we had was a small one above the sink in the bathroom!

It’s really strange – it seemed several of the tailors really struggled with my body type/size, but I guess that shouldn’t be so surprising. You might be interested to know that while at home I am an 8-10 “medium” shirt size, here I am a size 3x-4x. From what I’ve seen, many Asian women just have much smaller frames than that majority of people back home. At 5’2″ I’ve been shocked by the number of people whose heads I could see over. That’s a new experience for sure :)!

If we go back, I think I’d get a dress made at Mr. Xe. We heard really good things about him and his prices on dresses are more reasonable than A Dong Silk (though A Dong’s prices on something like a wedding dress are also quite reasonable, it’s just the everyday wear that is a bit high). That ‘s also a suggestion if any of you are looking for a tailor in the area 🙂

A final thing I got made is a swimsuit. After some interesting measuring, the fit turned out surprisingly great – which could be a story all on it’s own, but it’s not the main story here by far.

The swimsuit 🙂

The woman who owns the swimsuit shop is probably best described as a bit of a spitfire. Running circles around you, stating her opinions bluntly, getting things done, and hustling to get the most money out of every swimsuit she could (and who could blame her). She worked hard to convince you of what she decided you needed, and sometimes it wasn’t bad advice, but sometimes you had to stubbornly stand your ground. After already having come in for a measuring and a fitting and encountering the woman described above, one day we arrived for my second fitting and found her laying on the floor, staring at her phone, with her arm over her head. She moved very little as we entered, slowly pointing to my swimsuit, ready to try on in the corner. I noticed she seemed different, but dismissed it as tiredness and went behind the curtain hung up in the back of the room and began investigating the swimsuit to see if they had changed what we had agreed on.

When I eventually started to try on the swimsuit, I overheard as the woman began talking to Kirk. She was talking quietly, but I heard her say, “He hit me.” I didn’t know it at the time, but she was pointing towards her husband who had just dropped off a different swimsuit that was ready to be tried on. It was strange because when I first heard her say this, I initially found myself a bit defensive. I’d already felt a bit swindled by this shop (and was putting on a swimsuit that still wasn’t close to what we had agreed on) and my mind initially jumped to the conclusion that this was another ploy as to why it still wasn’t ready. That thought was thankfully quickly dismissed (it’s amazing how our personal situation and feelings can blind so much of our view to the world!) as I continued changing clothes and tried to listen to Kirk asking her questions.

“What happened?”

The sound was muffled, but my mind slowly put together all the pieces – her laying on the ground, not moving much – she was hurting. By the time I walked out in my suit, there was a large visible bruise on her forehead, though the part of her head she was holding was a bit farther back, hidden by her hair. She explained to Kirk that her husband had hit her several times because he didn’t like something she did – we realized that this incident had actually just happened, not long before our arrival.

We ended up talking with her for some time – she had moved with him to the city away from family and friends and she and the man had a small girl together (who came in from preschool while we were talking with her). She was the shop owner (he actually worked for her), this was her only income, and she didn’t have any connections around town. She said she didn’t talk to anyone else about it and that this was not a first time occurrence, though she seemed to be more afraid this time than in situations she described in the past. The conversation ended when he came back. Kirk and I both felt pretty furious towards him, but kept our cool in hopes of him not realizing what she had just told us – we didn’t want him to take it out on her further.

We spent the rest of the afternoon researching resources for domestic violence in Vietnam. Would you believe – a 2015 study found that 58% of married women in Vietnam have been victims of domestic violence (58 percent!), yet we were unable to locate any type of shelter or resources to even tell this woman about. There are organizations in the area working to educate the public about domestic violence, but there are very few resources for anyone who might be wanting to get out of that situation (or atleast no webpages that could be found/translated to English by google).

It was particularly strange for me to try to sort out all I was learning because based on what we’ve seen, women seem to have a very strong role in society in Vietnam. In the museums there are pictures of women who led Vietnamese troops years and years ago (long before women were fighting alongside men in the US). Women can be seen throughout Vietnam working alongside men in equal numbers farming, doing road work, running shops, and working as city “garbage men” (I’ve never seen a female garbage “person” in the states, though I’m sure they exist somewhere). And that’s not to say that having a strong role in society means abuse doesn’t happen – the US is a patriarchal society and men are still abused, though the numbers are lower – 1 in 4 women compared to 1 in 7 men (though contemplate those numbers for a minute as well – they too are high), but something about what we were seeing in the Vietnamese public and hearing about this abuse in Vietnamese private lives just wasn’t computing in my western brain.

Confused, I did some research. I learned that Vietnam was actually a matriarchal society until the Chinese took them over (around 43 A.D.) and ruled over them for 1000 years (remember me mentioning in the last blog how badly the Vietnamese wanted independence? They really have been ruled over a lot!). Prior to the Chinese taking over there are stories of strong women led armies who kept the Chinese out for a long time. Families took the name of the mother and women made decisions for the family. Following the Chinese take over there are stories of the Chinese taunting the Vietnamese men, saying how weak they are compared to Vietnamese women. Here we are over 1000 years later, and the effects of all of this (both the effects of a once matriarchal society and the effects of a patriarchal society coming in) are heavily evident. History teaches us so much!

Anyway, back to the original story –

We went back to check on the swimsuit shop woman the next day and she acted like nothing had happened. I don’t know if it was due to fear of him or acceptance of life as it is (since statistically over half the women she encounters are having a similar experience), but I was reminded of working at a domestic violence shelter in college when someone once said something to the effect of, “it’s easier to stay and know what’s going to happen, than to step out into the unknown and face change.”

I don’t know that that’s what had happened with her, but man, do I think that’s true of a lot of situations in life. Traveling brings so many good reminders.

As for the rest of our time in Hoi An, when we weren’t traveling store to store for yet another fitting, we hopped on the bikes provided by our hotel and took ourselves to the beach. The nearest beach was filled with restaurants set up for tourists, and for the price of a meal or a drink ($1-2) you could plop yourself in their lounge chairs under an umbrella and stay all day. It was lovely.

Upon arriving at the beach you first walk up on these woven boats. The story goes that when the French were in power, they paced a tax on boat ownership. Wanting to outsmart being taxed, local people began weaving large baskets to be used as boats, but that could easily be disguised when tax time came around. They wove them from palm leaves and sealed them with natural balms (like coconut oil). After the Vietnam war, people from the south tried to escape to the Philippines in these boats, but many died trying.

My favorite food on the beach – Mango Salad with chicken (and I had them add noodles 😍). Finely sliced green mango with onion, fresh herbs, carrots, lettuce, peanuts, cucumber, a light vinegar based sweet sauce, and garlic – it tastes so fresh! Kirk had a pretty delicious fresh fish 🙂

I cannot tell you the amount of ridiculous pictures we’ve seen being taken 😂. This picture is a mild version of the lengths that people are willing to go to to take a good picture for their friend or significant other. These days life is more about social media than enjoying the moment, and we’ve seen more evidence of that in various parts of Asia than anywhere else so far. It’s hilarious, shocking, a bit obnoxious, and sometimes I’m embarrassingly guilty of it myself (though certainly not to the extreme)!

I mentioned at the beginning that Hoi An is known as the city of lanterns. As you walk down the street, it’s quite a magical place. Above you hang brightly colored balls, lining the path. Beside you are tapestries of light in every color imaginable. You can purchase silk, fabric, wooden, or paper lanterns to take along for your journey home, all of them perfectly packable, able to disassemble and reassemble with very little effort.

“Tapestries of light” – cloth lanterns for sale at the night market.

Lanterns on the bridge crossing over the river that runs through the middle of the “old city” part of town.

Street lanterns by day

Street lanterns by night

Those are the everyday lights, but on the full moon of each month they have a festival in which they turn off all fluorescent lights in the city and float brightly colored paper lanterns down the river in the middle of town (this actually contributes to a ton of litter than ends up on the bottom of the river 😬, but it is beautiful). Though traditionally these floating lanterns were a type of ancestor worship or symbols of well wishes and happiness, it’s now more of a tourist trap than anything, though some locals do still participate. For $1 you can purchase a paper lantern, write a wish on the inside of it, and send it floating down the river.

We happened to be there for a festival and though we didn’t buy a lantern (because we didn’t want to add to the paper on the bottom of the river), we tried to snap a few pictures. I don’t have a fancy camera, but maybe this will give you an idea of what it’s like.

Ladies selling paper lanterns next to the river.

Lanterns in the river, their colors reflecting off the water top.

The fluorescent lights weren’t yet off when I took these, but I think you can get an idea of how many lanterns are in the water in the distance! Kirk and I had a fun time guessing which ones wouldn’t make it. There are plenty of boats in the water knocking them around, so you can see as some catch fire or topple over from the large row boats hitting them.

And finally, a few pictures from around town.

The river and wooden boats by day. At night you can rent these to take a journey between the floating lanterns. Though the festival lends to the largest amount of lanterns in the water, they are for sale and seen floating in the river every evening.

Local art by the river.

In the tourist district. To the right is a common touristy attraction – tour by cyclos. We often passed large groups of these tall tricycles with a chair on the front as they learned about the city. These cyclos are also often a form of transportation. They sit on street corners like taxis, and you can hire them to take you anywhere around town.

Eating at a restaurant in front of the river. The ladies walking by in front of our table are in traditional Vietnamese clothes called Ao Dai. Though most people now usually only wear them for special occasions, you certainly still see them are you wander around town as certain jobs require them as the uniform (teachers, for example, have to wear them). They are form fitting and beautiful, often made from silk or chiffon. From the front they look like a floor length dress, but on the sides are long slits that come up to your waist. Underneath loose silky pants are worn, which, when contrasted well, create a bright color pop from the sides as you walk.

Also, the hats on the ladies in the above picture are worn by everyone – locals and tourists alike. They protect from the sun well, especially when working in the field. As so many paintings and pictures of Vietnam convey, the fields are where you see them most.

Lastly, this is a caterpillar who joined us for breakfast one morning.

I thought he looked like a tiny dragon (or at least like the costumes they use here to represent dragons) 😊

Next blog, Dalat. Dalat held our most terrifying experience yet, so stay tuned for that!

Hue was our next stop in our Vietnam travels.

Hue is home of the old Imperial City, the national capital of Vietnam under the Nguyen Dynasty from 1802-1945. We visited Hue to tour what remains of this stone city, which is actually quite a large area to tour. Totaling nearly 90 acres, this remaining large, walled complex, surrounded by multiple moats, was once the heart of the city, home to the emperors and center of political affairs. Though large parts of the city were destroyed in the French and American Wars, they’ve gradually been restoring it to it’s original grandiosity. It’s pretty cool to be able to see the remains of what once was next to the reconstructed buildings – it gives a glimpse into what was alongside a view of what time and war have left.

The Imperial City is a humongous complex to explore, and most of the pictures I took were of things I thought were beautiful – it got too hard to keep up with what structure was used for which purpose during our hours of wandering through the complex. Below are some of those pictures labeled with parts I was able to keep up with 🙂

This is a photo of the outer city wall/gate/moat that encompass a significantly larger area than the inner moat surrounding the palace. This moat and gate are right in the middle of the current city of Hue, surrounded by modern structures on the inside and out. To pass through this gate is free – and no, that water is not reflecting green, it is green.

Rules for visiting the inner palace. The wording of #4 was our favorite. You see so many misspelled and grammatically incorrect English signs while traveling that you quit taking note after a while, but once and again you find a new one that stands out :). Something about this one sounds so southern!

The last inner moat before entering the imperial city, though several of the buildings inside have moats around them as well. This would not have been an easy place to invade on foot!

The outside of what I believe was the throne room – you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but I loved how decorative the columns outside were!

Window

The replicated throne in a separate building that you could pay to take a picture on.

I loved the ceilings and lights in so many of the buildings! So much detail!

Intricate doors leading to one of the courtyard areas

Part of the city that hasn’t been restored yet.

One of the buildings with a moat of it’s own.

A view of one of the larger reconstructed gates through one of the original unrestored gates. Not only did the city itself have walls and gates, but most of the invividual housing sections had them as well.

I love the details of the roofs – this dragon was one of my favorites we saw – with the colored stones lining his details.

I’m unsure if this gate was partly restored or not, but it was beautiful and Kirk kind of matched it ;).

This day Kirk and I accidentally ended up matching 😂

Gate

The final section we visited that was surrounded by the moat below.

Seriously, they certainly protected themselves well!

A view of the outer city gate we exited – look at how thick those walls are!

We spent the rest of our time in Hue eating and exploring. If you are looking for a cheap place to travel, Vietnam has it all. I mentioned food prices in our last post, but it’s also worth mentioning that in Hue, our guesthouse cost $8 a night and the cost to rent a motor bike ran $4-5 per day!

On two days we rented a motorbike from the guesthouse in which we were staying to see some of the surrounding views. Being home of the Imperial city, there are plenty of other ruins around, including older temples and entertainment venues, and within about an hour and a half, there is a nice beach on which to lounge.

On the motorbike day one! Driving in Vietnam is crazy! I’m not sure that there is a single law that is always (or even usually) followed. It’s more like, “every man for himself.” People run red lights, pass people who are passing people who are passing people, drive on whatever side of the road they want, pull out into traffic without looking to see if someone is coming… On several occasions we saw tourists covered in bandages, who had clearly wiped out on motorbikes. I definitely couldn’t have done it on my own, but Kirk has great instincts and kept us safe!

Phuoc Duyen Tower at the Pagoda of the Celestial Lady – originally built in 1601, though the tower seen here was added on in 1844. Seven stories high and octagonal in shape, it’s the most iconic image of the Pagoda.

A view from the side

After visiting the pagoda we set off looking for an arena that Kirk read about on a blog. We’d read that this arena in particular was used by the Nguyen dynasty to fight tigers and elephants against each other. It initially sounded like the emperors were putting on a show for their subjects, but as it turns out, it was more like political propaganda. In this dynasty, elephants represented the monarchy, so to ensure that the “monarchy” always won, they would injure the tigers prior to a fight.

We set off expecting to find a mostly dilapidated arena, but were surprised to drive up on a small coliseum in the process of being restored. The construction workers wouldn’t allow us inside, but we did get to sneak a peak.

The outside. It looks as if the bottom bricks are all original, they’ve just rebuilt some of the stairs and fixed the concrete “standing” area on top.

Having visited the coliseum in Rome, this place was pretty small, and not even close to as intricate, but impressive none the less! It’s always cool to happen upon something before it’s become the touristy thing to do – we were really lucky to find the blogger who had discovered it in his travels. This thing is located in the middle of a working village just outside the city- an old piece of history just sitting there while everyone lives their lives around it. You’d currently never happen upon it without already knowing about it, but with the restorations in progress, I have a feeling that is about to change.

A peek between the doors blocking the entrance through which the elephants used to be brought in. Directly across is the tiger entrance, and the top is from where onlookers watched the fights.

Having found the arena, we were also on the lookout for an elephant graveyard that we heard was nearby. Since the elephants represented the monarchy, they were buried with care. We drove around the village aimlessly until a man, without prompting, pointed down a road. We turned and soon saw graves at the end of it. We followed the road, got off the bike, and began wandering around, unsure of what exactly we were looking for. We noticed some huge graves mixed in with smaller graves (that were for sure for people), but we saw no markings indicating that anything might have been an ancient elephant grave. Before long a village man appeared from the nearby buildings and began walking towards us. I feared that we might be about to get in trouble and braced myself for what he might say – after all, we still weren’t entirely sure where we were or if we were supposed to be there.

This older man, who had a little trouble walking, approached us slowly and stopped right in front of us. We told him we were looking for elephants, but he didn’t speak any English. We turned instead to the universal language of interruptive body movements, making our arms into trunks to show that we were looking for elephants. He nodded and waved his arm for us to follow as he walked past us. He took us to one of the huge graves nearby and nodded towards it. We still saw no markings indicating that elephants lay beneath us, but assumed this must be it. We snapped a few pictures before he indicated for us to follow him again.

The first grave at which we stopped.

We followed him down the path, taking in our surroundings. The graves looked so different than home. There was a lot of trash scared throughout the graveyard and animals grazed all around. Many graves looked more like pods, small circles that a person would have to be in the fetal position in which to fit. It made me wonder about their burial practices, so I later looked them up – I tell you about those in a little bit though :).

We continued down the path and eventually stopped at another large grave, but this time the man pointed to the grave and then brought his hands to his chest. Kirk pointed at him and said “Your family?” The man nodded. He motioned for us to follow, and we did as he gradually led us around the many tombs, pausing at each one that was family of his. Eventually he led us to a road at the back of the cemetery and motioned to give us directions. Using google maps, we later realized that what he had told us was a shortcut back to the city. We eventually followed that road home, processing our time with him as we passed by his family’s graves. What a lovely interaction with a complete stranger which was, for the most part, via silence.

Following the man down the path, passing one of the grazing cows along the trail.

Some of the other graves we saw.

A picture of the “pod” type graves we saw.

What I later learned about burial practices in Vietnam is that the location of the grave is more important than the up keep of the grave. They base where they bury family on religious practices that indicate where a family member might be happily buried. Customarily this was in the middle of a field of the family, though new laws now prevent people from being buried amongst crops.

Alongside that, they also have a common practice of burying a person in a regular casket, leaving them in the ground for 3 years, then exhuming the body (which, by then, are bones). They then have a specialist in this practice clean the bones, and later, rebury the bones in a much smaller coffin. I never found it written explicitly, but I assume that’s what these circle mounds are. Whether the mound is large and intricate (like the first pictures), a concrete pod (like above), or a mound of dirt with a stone (like below) depends upon the wealth of your family.

You may not be able to tell from the picture, but even these mounds of dirt were small circles, not full body length mounds.

Another picture of some of the larger graves with one of the cows grazing next to it.

Preparing to leave

Once we realized that what the man had shown us was likely all family graves, we decided to take one more try at finding the elephant graveyard. As it turns out, luck was on our side.

Driving around in the village we came to a place where a lake was on one side of the road and a very old looking entrance was on the other. It looked just old enough to cause us to stop. We walked up the stairs to the gate…

The concrete siding is new, but those brick stairs are not!

…and were greeted by an old script (Vietnam has since switched from characters to alphabet, so when you see the old characters on something, you know it’s older.)

The characters are on the top of the gate.

We walked through the gate…

A photo of the back side of the gate, looking out into the lake below.

…and had a look around. We noticed that half of the area was restored and half wasn’t, but no graves were in site.

The unrestored half.

The restored half.

It was then that Kirk had the idea to peek over the fence – it was clear even from afar that some type of construction was happening on the other side. As it turns out, they were working on restoring the grave site itself 🙂

It’s hard to see in the picture, but the smaller doghouse looking monument has a large elephant statue inside. There were two of these, marking where the elephants lay.

I think it’s the inner child in me hearing the voice of Simba, “An elephant what? Whoa!” That made this place extra interesting. It turned out to be nothing like the elephant graveyard in “The Lion King,” but it was certainly an adventure finding it!

We later learned that the lake in front of the entrance is where they used to let the elephants cool off. It’s kind of crazy to think about how many generations before us have used the same water and water sources we use today!

Before we left I took a picture under the side gate – like so many other places we’ve been, everything here is “Tiffany sized” 😂🤗. Not only do I not have to duck to get under the ancient doorways, but for the first time in my life, my feet have reached the floor in every chair I’ve sat in! Kirk’s knees are often to his chest 😂.

As we left the elephant graveyard we traveled towards our final destination for the day – Vong Canh Hill.

Some beautiful bunches of incense we passed on the way to the hill.

Vong Canh Hill is known for it’s magnificent view of the Perfume River. This hill, located right outside the main city is both where Kings used to come for rest and relaxation and where war bunkers were set up by either the French or US while fighting in Vietnam. Kirk and I arrived on the hill right before sunset, so it was quite a site.

One of our first sights was a couple getting wedding pictures taken 🙂

Cameras never show exactly what your eyes see – it was quite a lookout with the mountains peeking out from behind the river!

The view in the other direction

The whole bend in the river

One of the old bunkers with the river behind

Another bunker

The bunkers were locked up, but we took a peek inside

They were pretty empty. We did find one with an open door, but the amount of spider webs in the entrance were more than enough to keep anyone out 😬!

The bunkers ended our first day on the bikes. The second day we rented a motor bike, we went to the beach. Google maps suggested a route to us that was supposed to take that hour and a half I mentioned earlier. Being the adventurers we are, we decided to ignore google and take a route that followed alongside the river in hopes of catching some beautiful views on the way. We figured it would only take about a half hour more – boy were we wrong. We started on a journey that ended up running alongside a river just out of our view – through small villages, along bumpy roads – and four hours later we arrived at the beach 😂. It was a nice day anyway. Below are some of the views we saw along the way as well as a few beach pictures.

I mentioned in the first Vietnam blog that the country as a whole is a green, water filled land – here is an example of that. Water filled rice field.

Rice field

Water buffalo next to a rice field :). We saw tons of these!

The beach!

Coconut water on the beach :). The coconuts here are much larger than the ones we had in Vanuatu!

The view on the other side of our beach seats. Mountains beside the ocean!

That’s it for our adventures in Hue. I leave you with a few of the local dishes there that we enjoyed :).

Nem Lui Hue – Ground pork (sometimes beef) grilled on lemongrass stalks. To eat it, you pull the meat off the lemongrass skewer and wrap it in rice paper with fresh herbs. The dipping sauce is flavored with peanuts :).

Bun Thit Nuong- Grilled pork noodle salad with a lemongrass and peanut sauce.

Bun Bo Hue – beef noodle soup with served with fresh herbs. Often spicy with a heavy lemongrass flavor. It also often comes with what I can only describe as crab “meatballs” – interesting texture, but tasty.

Tomorrow Kirk and I leave Cambodia and head to Thailand. Hopefully I’ll have some time to catch up on the blog on the bus/train because once we hit Thailand, we’ll be off the map for a bit doing a silent retreat :). More to come!

Towards the end of our stay in Hanoi, Vietnam, we booked a three day, two night tour of Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is well known for it’s beautiful limestone islands scattered throughout the turquoise bay. This largely uninhabited area has been the focal point of many a movie scenes – my first view of the islands was actually via the most recent “King Kong” (Kong: Skull Island) that has shown on an English station at some point on every continent we’ve visited so far 😂. The grey stones surrounded by the blue waters, covered in the emerald greens – it’s quite a sight!

We originally were planning to book the tour through one of the hundreds of tourist companies in the area, but lucked up and found a deal online for significantly cheaper. Though we thought we were booking a tour in which we would spend one night on a boat in the middle of the bay and a second night on Cat Ba Island (one of the larger islands in the bay), both nights ended up being on the island, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

The company we booked with, Fantasea Cruises, sent a bus to pick us up in Hanoi and we traveled to Ha Long alongside a jam packed bus of fellow tourists. We assumed the rest of our days would look similar to this, but as it turned out, Kirk and I were the only two people who had booked with Fantasea for this day. When they dropped us off at the dock, we boarded a small cruiser where the two person staff catered only to us for the rest of the day – pretty fantastic!

We lounged on the Astro turf covered boat deck, talking and laughing, sipping on tea while snapping pictures of the beauty around us.

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The cloud cover made the sea breeze feel especially chilly on this 70 degree day!

Taken on the upper deck of the boat

A view around the lower deck/inside of our empty boat 🙂

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Many of our first views of the bay were filled with brightly colored communities! Though most of the tiny limestone islands have little to offer other than beautiful views, these fish filled waters have several communities of colorful houseboats with pearl/oyster farmers throughout. If you look close you can see restaurants, markets, and laundry hanging out to dry. They live their lives on the water.

Houseboats

One of us together 🙂

It was beautiful how the water had eroded the bottom of many of the islands over time.

Many of the islands look as if they are floating due to the erosion on the bottom.

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They served us a mini buffet for lunch! It was so lovely to sit and eat with those beautiful views outside the window!

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Because Kirk and I were the only two on our boat, we were able to have greater input in what our day entailed. We opted for the kayaking in the “caves” and a visit to Monkey Island. First, kayaking.

We hopped in the kayak and began paddling towards the caves, but after experiencing my first timer steering skills, Kirk said he would just paddle for us 😂. (I did eventually help again towards the end, and I think it was better! 😂)

As we were paddling we took note of the immense amount of trash around us – we’d seen a lot from the big boat, but it’s even more noticeable when it’s right next to you! It’s so sad that this beautiful area isn’t being better taken care of!

—The first “cave.” There wasn’t much to them, but they were still beautiful to kayak through.

Because we only took the water camera with us (and it doesn’t take great quality pictures), this is the only picture of the inside of the caves that turned out. The video below gives a pretty good view though!

There is not picture to describe it, but as we came out on the other side of the cave we found ourselves enveloped in silence. We had entered into a protected bay where the hum of the boats disappeared, and only the occasional bird overhead could be heard. We floated in the kayak listening to nothing and taking in the beauty around us for several minutes before kayakers on the other side of the cave came into view. It was a beautiful moment!

A second view of one of the caves

My sturdy paddler 🙂

The second activity we chose was a stop on Monkey Island. We’d been told there was some hiking here alongside a chance to see monkeys, and that sounded like more fun than swimming since we knew we’d soon have other opportunities for that. As soon as we stepped off the boat onto the sandy shore, the monkeys came into view. We hesitated to approach them (monkeys can be quite mean!), but our boat host handed us each a pack of nuts and told us to feed them, so we went for it.

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It was a strange experience feeding monkeys. I think I first felt strange because I am so used to seeing signs that say, “Don’t Feed the Animals,” that I couldn’t help but wonder if these nuts were actually good for them. Alongside that thought, I was also readily aware that monkeys are wild animals and will do what they want (including running into the patio of the restaurant next to us, sneaking up behind a woman eating mango, snatching the mango out of her hand right before it got to her mouth, and running away abruptly). Finally, and perhaps the strangest feeling of all, I felt the monkey’s hand. You hear people talk about how similar to humans monkeys are, but there was a moment when one of the larger monkeys grabbed my hand to get the food, and it was so human like that it freaked me out a bit. The monkey had hand the size of a small child, but the grip of a grown man, and though a bit calloused, the skin on his hands felt more like my hands than (my only comparision) the pads on the paws of a cat or dog. If anything I would have expected his hands to feel more like my feet – a bit calloused from walking around in flip flops, but his hands were actually quite smooth. I don’t know why this surprised me so much, but for that brief moment, I was taken aback.

This is a picture of the monkey that grabbed me – who was also the monkey who stole mango from the woman at the restaurant 😂

After feeding the monkeys we headed towards the hiking area. As it turned out, it was a hike nearly straight up! I thought we’d gone nearly straight up at points in our Patagonia hike, but this put that to shame. There were several places that if I weren’t holding on with my hands, I would have fallen straight back because there was no ledge for our feet, only small grooves to get you to the top of the next rock. My little legs didn’t make it as far as Kirk, but we still got a great view!

The highest point I made it to 🙂

The same look out, but without us in it. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the tops of the islands layered on forever!

The view from the top, where Kirk made it to!

A picture of me at my highest point, taken by Kirk from the top 🙂

This was some of the easier part of the climb – it was more like big stairs! And yes, since we thought this would be a leisurely walk, we only had our flip flops! Mine ended up pretty chopped up on the bottom from the rocks in the picture below and above this one.

This isn’t the path we took, but it is the type of rocks we climbed on. Our flip flops and hands gripped pretty easily onto these gnarly rocks, shaped by rain, but yeah, I tried not to think about what would happen if we slipped! In spite of that, aren’t they beautiful??

Us towards the bottom of the trail.

Back on the beach, about to board this boat to take us to our larger boat.

Monkey Island beach – the rocks we climbed up were on that hill.

Back on the boat, going back through the house boat community. I don’t know what the metal thing Kirk is holding is for, but I think it looks like he’s going to play tennis :). The sun finally greeted us at the end of the day!

When we arrived back at the dock they took us to our hotel, which ended up being one of the nicest places we’ve stayed – king sized bed, huge room, private balcony, and all meals included. I don’t know what the rooms on the boat would have been like, but we were very happy to be in this one for two nights. We were also able to explore Cat Ba island a bit, which we also appreciated.

A picture from the “boardwalk”/park near the pier on Cat Ba.

A close up of a boat seen from the boardwalk – note the laundry drying!

We went to the local market and saw all kinds of interesting foods – dried fish, dried starfish (not like a collectible “shell” starfish, but dehydrated, ready to eat), above is a bag of dried snake!

At night, restaurants on the water lit up. You had to take a small boat from the dock to reach them.

Our second day of the tour they took us to the local national park for some hiking. This hike was also mostly up (all with stairs), but ended up having a beautiful view of the hills on Cat Ba Island. They ended up mixing us with a larger group of tourists this day, which turned out to be a good thing, because the other people in the group were the only things between us and our middle aged male tour guide, who was clearly interested in Kirk 😂. With very little English, not caring I was there, this man flirted shamelessly the entire hike – fanning Kirk as he walked, touching Kirk’s arms and tummy, and at one point, taking the opportunity to rub a balm on Kirk’s legs after I got stung by a bee (the balm was for bee stings, and he rubbed it on Kirk first!). In the picture below, I’m cracking up about it – Kirk was less amused :). There were several other guys on the tour, but the guide ignored them!

The next day, we ended up hearing numerous stories of other tourists being hit on throughout Vietnam. Apparently it’s a pretty common occurrence, especially amongst “stockier” men!

Us at the highest point we reached! Look at those layers of mountains!!

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I love how the mountains here peak! It’s so different than other places we’ve been. There is no single peak, but many rolling and pointy peaks throughout the spread of the land. It creates a unique landscape as the differently shaped peaks layer behind each other.

We spent the rest of the day exploring more around town and buying some souvenirs. I got myself some pearls :). Our final day they put us back on a boat where we saw our final views of the island. They put us on a bus and 4 hours later, we were back in Hanoi. We spent one night there (and ate our last bowl of our favorite Bun Cha) before heading to Hue, home of the old Imperial City. That’s the topic of the next blog 🙂