#69 Easy Rider trip, then on my own where no english is spoken, but general love is. dropping some dinero

This is the kind of hotel that I NEVER stay in,
however, this IS the kind of hotel that I would
go and use their pool and take advantage of any
other amenities that I could get away with.
(this isn't a bad thing is it?)


I left Da Lat on my easyrider trip for a couple of days. My driver was a veteran from the war and knew about the areas along with history of the war including areas that were crucial strategic areas for both sides. I knew and still know very little about the war, but it was very interesting to hear it from someone who saw it first hand. This is a perfect entry to write in the entry #69 spot because Mr. Hien, my driver would talk about how at first the simple people who were fighting with the americans didn't want to listen and were reserved about dealing with them. That is of course, until the americans offered them cigarettes, playboy magazines and told them about there favorite game called 69. Mr Hien couldn't tell these specific stories enough, I had to hear them in some form or another every few hours. It was great to be on the back of a motorbike and go through the central highlands which were absolutely beautiful. We spent the days passing through the mountains past rivers, waterfalls, farms, and seeing the bare hills that after 30 years still can't grow anything due to the agent orange dropped there.

One stop was a little place called Lake Lak which we saw a local minority tribe who when they buried their dead, they put a feeding hole in the coffin from the persons mouth to the top of the coffin so that people can feed them through this feeding hole for two years once they were buried.
Another highlight of the trip was stopping at this park with multiple waterfalls and one of them we could walk behind and go to stand under it which felt like a massage. I can't get pictures up on this computer, which is why you have to deal with the two I took off google.

When my easy rider man dropped me off I took a bus to a town in the middle of the country called Kon Tum. Here, no one spoke english and I didn't see another tourist while I was there. I played some ping pong and got my butt kicked by these older men. I thought I may have calmed down on some of my competitiveness during this trip, but that is not the case; I hate losing and it put me in a mood; I wanted to break something. (those who know me well, can picture this I'm sure) After my time pointing to things and battling to ask a few questions I took a bus the next day to Hoi Ann.
These two bus rides were in mini buses (we would call them big vans). Nobody in these spoke a lick of english, but that didn't stop them from talking to me. The vietnamese words would flow, they knew I didn't understand, they just didn't care. On one of the rides I had a tiny little old man sitting in front of me who wore a top hat. He had a big smile and would turn around and hold my hand (which amounted to about an hour of handholding) and talk to me. At one point he offered me a sugar cube, how could I refuse.
I am now in Hoi Ann, which is a beautiful city on the coast. I spent my first day in tailor shops ordering clothes (yeah, doesn't sound like me; I felt like Bracken if you know who she is). I spent what's a lot of money for me, but got some cool stuff. (those of you who are about my size and can wear my stuff will want to borrow some of it), I walked all around town, then biked around town and hung out at my hotel pool (I'm in a dorm for $5 and get to use the pool) a bit talking to an 89 year old guy who would wants to live here if he could get his sports channels and CNN to watch Larry King. He also told me I was a neat person (not in the way of eating or cleanliness).


This is a jack fruit, I've eaten quite a bit of it. Fresh, it's a bit sweet, so you can't eat too many at one sitting, but dried and crunchy.....get in my belly!!!! a little about them:
The fruit is huge, seldom less than about 25 cm in diameter. Even a relatively thin tree (circa 10 cm) can have huge fruits hanging on it. The fruits can reach 36 kg in weight and up to 90 cm long and 50 cm in diameter. The jackfruit is the largest tree borne fruit in the world.
The sweet yellow sheaths around the seeds are about 3-5 mm thick and have a taste similar to pineapple but milder and less juicy.
The English name jackfruit derives from Portuguese jaca, which is derived from Malayalam chakka.

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." ~Daniel J. Boorstin

#68 Saigon, windy beaches, flower capital of vietnam in the mountains, and always; cheap eats!!

The guy to the front left was my cyclo driver, the darker toned
guy plays soccer in Saigon I think, he's from Nigeria. The other
two including the one with his arm around me have been drinking
for hours and are quite drunk. This is the place to get cheap beer,
you sit along the wall and next to the curb; only the finest!!!!!


Alright, I've got a lot to try to remember and tell you. I spent my second day in Saigon on a cyclo. "What is a cyclo?" you are probably asking yourself. Let me tell you. I sit in the front of this bike in a comfortable seat while this old man is standing behind me, peddling this 3 wheeled bicycle. During the Vietnam/American war the southern Vietnamese fought with the Americans and when the war was over many of these soldiers who at one time may have been teachers, lawyers, doctors or had other accomplished careers, weren't allowed their licenses back or allowed to ever own property, so many of them are in the big city and drive cyclos.

My first stop was to a market that sold lots of old war stuff, cantenes, pictures, dog tags, jackets and such. It was like going to a museum at the same time. It was a strange feeling being an american and going into this place for obvious reasons. I then saw many other parts of the city and learned what locals pay for certain things like meals, water and basic things that in the touristy part of the city prices are upped. I got the feeling very quickly that Vietnamese love money. The world likes money granted, but the vietnamese love money like Trick Daddy loves sugar. I spend the rest of the day walking around all the different areas of the city and checking out the locals spots. As I sat in the evening on the curb with locals who spoke no english and drank the cheapest beer in town with them I really felt like an accomplished traveler. I then had dinner on another curb with a bunch of construction workers and then taught me the names of the local foods that filled me and cost me less than 1/2 a dollar.

The next morning, Adam (the bug guy) and I headed north to Da Lat which is up in the mountains and is the place that many Vietnamese go for their honeymoons. It really was a beautiful area with a lake in the center that has a 7km path around it. There is a central market that has many of fresh vegetables and any thing else you'd want. (this area specializes in vegetables so I had a vegetable dinner, it was great!!) The following day after walking around the lake and town it rained all day so we rested up and took it easy only going out for meals.

This was the group that did the 140 km trip from Da Lat to Mui Ne, Mountains to Beach.

The following day Adam, myself, and another 3 people we met did a mountain bike trip from the mountains to Mui Ne beach. We were transfered the first 30 km out of town to a not so busy road in the mountains. From there we road downhill for a good 25-30 km which was awesome as well as dangerous if you down hit the breaks before the 162 degree turn around the edges of the mountain. As we road down we could see far off at the moutains and valleys below. We then hit flat ground and road for another 45-50 km before getting transported the final 30 to our destination at the beach.

In Mui Ne I woke up to see the sunrise and we all walked

the beach to see the sunset, this was our group for sunset.

In Mui Ne we took it pretty easy. The first day I got a massage on the beach (first one in Vietnam), layed in the sun, swam in the ocean (a new body of water for me to swim in), found a good restaurant, met some cool kiwis, and read some of my book before calling it a day. I rented a guy on a motorcyle to drive me around the next day to the famous sand dunes of the area (red and white), and to see all the fishing boats in the fishing village (imagine that), and the red canyon (very small, but very red)

This is the white sand dunes outside of Mui Ne,

beautiful huh? and my driver got it on the first try!!

I got back to Mui Ne to see Adam (who at this point I had traveled for 5 days with and we got along great) off as we went seperate ways. I headed back to Da Lat on a five hour trip on the back of a motorcycle with an easy rider. (my ass was sore!!!)

From Da Lat I went on a two and a half day trip with the easy rider which I will tell you in the next blog.

"If it's free, I'll have three!!" Adam told me this quote.

#67 Will we ever learn? Dark tour and farewell to Dave (papaya man)

No matter how much I complain about my transportation, it's never gotten this bad; and this isn't a one time thing, you see this everyday and for long journeys.

Dave and I left the beach and Alberto and headed north to Phnom Penh, our bus was normal full and had no air, so we were sweating Mrs. Balls (those on the Africa bus trip will get that). When we got there we found a nice backpacker right on the lake (there is a lake smack in the middle of town). I managed to try every food in the surrounding vicinity, my favorite (and probably the most unhealthy thing around) was the deep fried bananas; yummmmmm. That's basically all I did that day, well that and set up our busy touring next day, and oh yeah we watched a movie called "300" about spartans fighting a huge army of persians. It was entertaining, but a horrible ending in my opinion. In the evening, Dave and I sat on the deck of the guesthouse listening to music, sipping on a drink and watched the sun go down.

This was a plack (sp?) at the killing field, not sure if

you can read it, but if so, it's worth the read.

The following day, Dave and I got a tuk tuk for the day and headed to tour. Our first stop was the S-21 Museum which is where during the Khmer Communist genocide they would bring people to be tortured and jailed to get information about others. To see how they systematically tortured these people just made me sick to my stomach. After jail and being tortured they would be transported to the killing field (which was our next destination) where they were executed and put in mass graves. We found at that 17,000 were killed at this killing field before we found out that this was one of 400 killing fields around the country where somewhere around 2,000,000 in total were executed. They killed all the minorities, intellectuals, government people and all of their wifes, children and close family members worried that they would want revenge later. The executioners were normally between the ages of 12-16 because they were easier to brainwash.

The monument in the middle of the killing fields has all the skulls of victims that were dug up in this killing field. You can see in the skull holes and cracks that show where they were beaten to death. Towards the end of the khmer regime they wanted to save money on bullets so would club them over the head with bamboo sticks, clubs, hoes or butts of guns.

It amazes me that this happened not so long ago. It finished in 1979 when the Vietnamese came into Cambodia to put a stop to it. The worse part is to think that things like this still go on today in parts of the world; if only Cambodia and other countries had oil in their soil huh?

Seeing all the skulls and hearing the story made me think a couple of things. Obviously, just disgusted sick that this could happen, but also looking at all the skulls and bones make me think that in the end that's really all we are; worm food. With this, it made me more happy to be living my life how I want and reconfirmed the feeling of getting the most out of everyday and our short lived lives.

Now, what was possibly even worse than all of this was that when we left the killing field and were pretty speechless, our driver asked us if we wanted to go to a shooting range. (The last thing I want to do it hold a gun after that). "You can shoot ducks, or dogs or chickens if you want". What tourists would go and see and learn about a horrible genocide with millions of innocent people dying and then want to go and shoot helpless animals; their really, truly are some f*&^ed up people out there. "No thanks!!" was all we could muster. We then headed into the heart of Phnom Penh and drove along the riverside before checking out the two biggest markets in the city. At one we found a guy, Adam, from Hawaii who was looking at all the bugs you could eat. He wouldn't try one but really wanted to see someone eat them. Dave and I agreed that if he bought them, we'd eat them. Adam was so excited and reasoned that at home he pays $8 for a movie and here it's much more entertaining and live for a couple of bucks.

Here is with a Cockroach or something of that nature half way in the mouth. Really they all tasted like fried something or another.

(they've got nothing on my friend bananas though!!!)

We headed back to our guesthouse to relax and contemplate the day while relaxing on the deck again doing the same as the night before.

This morning I left Dave and headed to Vietnam on a nice 44 person bus. When I got on and found out that there were only 12 people on the bus, it was like winning the lottery. I sat in 8 different seats during the journey just because I could. I am now in Saigon (Ho Chi Mihn City) and saw Adam (bug guy) and he and a swiss guy on the bus and I got a great room to split.

My days our numbered... in Vietnam and this trip that is, not in my life because I'm going to live forever, not forever ever, but forever being a long time.

Seeing in not having eyes, it's having vision. -a line from a faithless song.

Martin Luther King: Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

#66 Ankor Wat, Orphanage, back to the beaches, stoned dream, eating till I burst.

I'm on a role with jumping pictures huh? This will never make sense but will make more sense when you see the rest of the pictures.

It seems that so much has happened since the last blog. The rash is still there.
After going to Ankor Wat for the sunset I got back and made plans to go and see all the different temples the following day with 3 Israelis that I had met up with; a guy who I shared a room with and a deaf couple. A full day with the nicest couple in the world who happened to be deaf. 1) It is very hard to be whitty with deaf people, by the time you try to show them the joke you were making, it's not funny.
2) Besides sign language for "I love you" I can't do much more and therefor felt left out of a wordless conversation most of the time.
3) They never tell me that I sound funny or don't enunciate my words which I liked.

So back to Ankor Wat. This place is up there with the pyramids and the Taj Mahal, it really is a sight to see. We woke up at 4:30 AM to get there in time to see the sunrise, after which we spent the next 10 hours on a temple tour and as nice and amazing as they all were by the time I got out of there I didn't want to see another temple.
The highlights for me were two of the temples and of course I don't remember the names of them right now. The first one is the one of the picture that has faces carved out of the stone all over the temple; this place felt alive. So alive in fact that it inspired me to wear this ridiculous outfit that I have no idea what it is supposed to be, but I did wear it and got a few great pictures out of it.


This is the temple with the faces, I don't know if you can really see them in this picture, but like always, pictures don't do justice.
The top picture is me in the outfit that is some sort of flying dragon or something.




The other temple that I really enjoyed was one that had all of these huge trees growing out of the sides of the temples and right up in the middle of it. (I know I'm not telling you all that much or anything too exciting but there were a lot of temples and they aren't the easiest thing to describe)
My final day in Siem Reap I ate 4 pineapples (and since that day I've averaged 3 a day) and walked all around town, through the old markets, down the busy streets, along the nastiest river I've ever seen and booked my ticket for the following day. I also made it to this orphanage called the green gecko which was started by a local guy and his australian wife. They help to educate street kids who are out begging for money or selling crap as the sole money makers in their families (most of these kids being younger than 12 years old). It was interesting to see and to hear about all the different kids and their family situations. The Israeli that I was rooming with and I met up with a couple of other guys we had traveled on the bus with and went out for a couple of beers. After 3 beers and a drink this roomate of mine was hammered and so we went home and as I was drifting off to sleep I heard him tripping over my bags heading to the bathroom which is where he stayed for over 3 hours passed out on the toilet (talk about a lightweight).
The following day I headed on another full day bus trip to the south of Cambodia to the beaches.
On the bus I met Dave, a chilled out, quiet english guy who had just started his trip. He and I got along well and after chatting for some hours decided to save a few bucks and split a room when we got to the beaches. We were wiped out when we got there the first night so we just went and grabbed some fresh baracuda before getting a full nights rest to do nothing on the beach the next day.
Don't trust the sunscreen here!!!! The next day Dave and I went to the beach where we didn't move for a few hours. After feeling a little warm we decided to go under the beach umbrellas. 3 days later at this point Dave is blistering and bright red; he spent half the day covered in blended papaya because the locals said that helps sunburns; I think they just wanted to sell papayas.
During this day though while we were looking at the menus of the local restaurant we saw something funny.

The first pizza is called happy pizza and the first shake on the other page is called happy shake. We like happy.







That night I had a dream: Dave and I went out in the afternoon and got a happy shake-mixed fruit we asked for. What is the green fruit they put in this blend that doesn't tasted very fruity? We sipped them for a while just to be cautious. This is when Alberto, and Italian that was on the bus with us came and sat down along with a weird Swiss guy that we never found out his name. This is when I began to get quiet and feel a little spaced out and different. I found that as they were talking I couldn't focus on anything they were saying, I'd hear a couple of words and then be completely lost. The confusion shortly turned into laughter and the laughter continued for the duration of the night, maybe another 4-5 hours which caused my stomach and many other muscles to cramp up from laughing so hard. While Dave was getting quieter in his corner (the only words I think he said all night was when I was laughing and would make eye contact with him, he would say "what are you laughing at" and that was it) and Alberto was drinking his happy shake I tried to explain to Alberto in a couple words at a time that were interupted by mad laughter until I could catch my breath again that when I talk to him and then turn my head away and then turn back to talk to him that I had no idea of time. I don't mean that I don't know what time it was, I mean that I don't know how much time elapsed between when I spoke to him and when I was speaking to him again; it could have been a second or it could have been 10 minutes. We also made a rule that if anyone had any deep thoughts that couldn't express it in more than 3 words because nobody could continue focused on conversations longer than that. Mix the time thing up with the fact that I didn't know if I said the words outloud that I was thinking of saying or if I just thought them. Because of this latest problem I found myself repeating words or sentences and then just gut laughing again. Some girls came by at one point and told them I helped them get a cheap taxi in a different city. I didn't remember them and could barely talk and tried to explain to them that I was like the character in "Memento" which none of them had seen so it meant nothing. This is basically how the rest of the night continued until I went to bed only to wake up and barely be able to walk straight to the bathroom. The next day I could barely function and didn't leave my bed while Dave didn't leave the bed due to his horrible burns. Strange dream huh? Has anyone ever had a dream like that?

I spent the rest of my days lying on the beach getting massages on the beach chair and waiting for the procession of food vendors to come by. I would at least every hour eat a)a pineapple, b)mangos, c)fresh grilled squid, d)lobster, e)spring rolls, or f)dried up fruit before either a)going for a swim, b)reading a book, c) listening to music, d) watching Alberto pay too much for anything (when I say too much I mean like $1 for a whole cut up pineapple when the going rate is half a dollar) or e) looking over at dave, trying not to laugh at his pain while he could barely move and every ounce of his energy was to pull every inch of his body under the umbrella into the shade.

This is the first place I've stayed in to have a TV in so long, there really is crap on TV. Room with fan, TV and private bathroom $6 split between two.

I head north tomorrow to Phnom Phen to finish my Cambodia tour.
In Khmer which is the lanuage here: Solsadie is a greeting like hello and al cone is thank you.


If I had to show a picture to fit in the dream, this one would be it.







I just thought these quotes were funny.


"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza."
Dave Barry.

"What I like to drink most are drinks that belongs to others."
Diogenes.