saigon/ho chi minh city.

the old capital of independent south vietnam and formerly saigon, ho chi minh city is the largest city in vietnam. when arriving from cambodia, it is frequently the first stop for travelers. for backpackers, this usually means heading to de tham in district 1, which has a feel very similar to that of my often frequented khaosan road in bangkok. most of the people here are able to communicate in english and streets are filled with cheap hotels/hostels, restaurants which offered both vietnamese and western dishes, and bars that advertise drink specials for almost every night.

being our first stop in vietnam, the one thing i noticed right away was all of the motorbikes. i thought there were a lot in bangkok, but was in no way prepared for what we were about to encounter as we hopped on some moto taxis and headed to the war remnants museum. (perhaps in numbers they were less than in bkk, but percentage wise, they dominated traffic.) halfway through the first ride, i yelled to meghan while at a stop that it was likely i would die while in this country if we continued to take motorbike taxis everywhere.

motorbikes.everywhere.

we went to a buddhist pagoda that was a good distance from the center of the city so it was an accomplishment that we were able to make it there alive. it was interesting to see the differences in the buddhist temples here compared to all of the ones ive seen in thailand. its a different type of buddhism they practice, more like what is common in china, and the buddhas are the fat kind, which is what most people think of then they think of buddha.

inside the temple.

following the pagoda we went to see the war remnants museum, one of the main things i wanted to see in ho chi minh. it wasnt as big as i thought it would be and there wasnt too much new information, but it was incredibly interesting to look at the war from the other side. obviously, in school we are taught from the american perspective and getting the back story and history from the other side was really cool. additionally, i was impressed with the fact that there was still representation about the movement in america and the rest of the world thatwas in opposition to the war. it was definitely one of my favorite parts.

really liked this quote in the museum.

what was suppose to be our last full day in saigon was our trip to the cu chi tunnels. (well, actually it was suppose to be the day before, but we overslept and the agency was nice enough to let us switch our ticket to the next day!) we combined the tour with a temple that is apparently the biggest of its kind in the country, and it was interesting but seemed more like a waste of time because it took us 3x as long to get there as we spent there. the tour of the tunnels was slightly disappointing as well, but the tunnels were still amazing. when they told us that entire communities lived underground for years without seeing sunlight, i was shocked. i had thought that the tunnels were just used by guerrillas. there was a section of the tunnels that were bigger than the rest and this is where we were allowed to climb through. it was super hot and really tight in some spaces, but out of our entire group, i was the only one to make it through to the end :P

the big temple.

meghan in a man hole.

inside the tunnel. cannot see how small and dark they really are!

when i finished the tunnels.

i suppose the other thing to mention about or time in this city was that we had a place we hung out at almost every night with the same people, ones we had actually met back in cambodia. we went to go2, one of the backpacker hot spots, every night for their happy hour on the roof. there were a few times we ventured out to try to find another place that maybe had some dancing, but apparently dancing and vietnam do not mix well. so, we spent most of our time learning 'international drinking rules' and other such games from the english boys. all in all, good times.

the result of some rule in some kind of drinking game....

a history lesson in phnom penh.

sorry, no inspirational music on this post. actually, its depressing to the max. cambodia is a country that has been plagued with hardship after hardship. speaking with the people on a daily basis, it is easy to forget this as they are absolutely one of the friendliest people around, but our one full day spent in phnom penh brought the facts of their history back to us, very clearly.

our first stop was choeung ek, one of the most famous of the killing fields in the entire country. basically, these places are sites of mass executions and consequently, many many mass graves of people who were killed by the khmer rouge, a group with a communist mindset run by pol pot, who were charged with killing millions of cambodians who threatened their power and their most brutal time period being between 1975 and 1978.

upon entering the site, it first comes off as quiet and rather peaceful. however, that impression soon vanishes when you come upon the tall, white, stupa which was built to commemorate the victims who were killed at the camp. shelves upon shelves of human skulls are the dominating feature here, and its surreal to see all of these together in one place. it really drives home the facts of how many people were not just killed, but tortured and brutally murdered, by the regime.

a walk around the fields showed us some of the mass graves that had been discovered and exhumed in 1980. a look through the museum gave a concise but decent explanation about who the khmer rouge was and what they wanted. many of the leaders have been, or are in the process, of being tried for their crimes.

from choeung ek, we headed to s21, the most famous of the security prisons that the khmer rouge ran and where prisoners were kept and interrogated before being sent to a killing field. the museum was once a high school, which was taken over an transformed by the khmer rouge and housed over 20,000 victims from 1975-1979. there was an eerie feeling throughout the entire place, which included 4 buildings which had been used as cells and torture rooms and a small graveyard for the last 14 victims killed here and discovered by the liberating forces. the buildings now house testimonies of the few survivors and former khmer rouge members, pictures of the victims, and some of the instruments used for torture.

its so grim, that meghan had to leave before the 3:00 showing of the video, and so i finished the day out on my own.

by the time i got back to the hostel, i was quite depressed. the most haunting thing is how recently in the past this had happened. its crazy to think that it was capable then, and then you start thinking about how similar things are still happening around the world in different areas today.

to get me out of the sad state, i played with these guys for a bit, because, as everyone knows, puppies never EVER fail to make me happy.

the magic of angkor.

before you start reading this post, i want you all to open this in a new window and listen to the song as you do.

ok. so now youre in the proper mindset to experience the magic that is angkor wat. ill start with some pictures to further inspire you:

our first full day in siem reap was spent at the temples.ta phrom, known as the 'tomb raider' temple, was our first stop. this one is well known because it is one of the only ones in which they left the jungle as it was, taking over the structures. the trees are gigantic and roots intertwine with all of the walls and constructions.

much foliage around the temple.

(sorry, ive never seen tomb raider so i couldnt act it out.)

overgrown roots.

next we climbed up the steep steps of a nearby temple of which i have forgotten the name, and got a nice view of the area from 50 meters up.

my big feet make it difficult to climb these tiny steps.

view from the top.

the best part of all of the temples was our next stop, the bayon temple inside of angkor thom, which was the walled city that served as the khmer capitol in the thirteenth century. the reason why this temple was so amazing was that it had hundreds, possibly and probably thousands, of these faces carved into it. apparently it is also interesting because the layout of the temple was an experimental design and so it is different than most others.

close up. of one of the faces.

carved faces at bayon.

for our second day at the temples, we got up early to go watch the sunrise over angkor wat. even though the entire site of all the temples is referred to by that name, the one wat that is most famous is actually called angkor. hundreds of people gather at angkor each day to watch this event, and once you see it, you understand why.

angkor wat at sunrise. picture not doing it justice.

this is one of the largest temples and so we blocked out a few hours here. it was nice because it was still early in the day and while it was still hot and we were still sweaty, it wasnt quite as bad as the day before. we came across one spot that said we could climb up and get a view from the top, but that it didnt open until 8am. it was just after 7 and so we decided to sit back, watch the japanese tourists for a bit (because even here in asia they are very humorous), and wait to be the first ones up. an hour later, as we are standing in line, we are told that what we are wearing (shorts and tank tops) is not appropriate to climb up in. obviously we were quite angry. we debated getting people to let us borrow their shorts to cover our knees, but this was not a likely possibility and so we trekked on to the back of the temple where we found some interesting characters who gave us some great last shots at the temples.

mama and baby sharing a tasty banana!

fascinated by the mirrors on the motorbike.

too much (or not enough?) monkeying around

at this point it was two weekends ago that steph tash and i headed up to the little town of lopburi. around thailand, it is known as the town to go to if you want to see monkeys. we knew we wanted to go at some point, and found out back in january that on this particular weekend, there would be a festival, and so it was the weekend we chose to head on up about 3 hours north of bangkok.

the journey seemed like it should have been easy enough. we opted to leave from the northern bus terminal which is pretty close to the last stop on the bts, mo chit. the three of us met up at that stop and then taxied over to the bus terminal. however, of course we arrived at the perfect time for rush hour and it took us a good half hour to get to the station. then when we get there, we get directed all over the place by multiple people before finding the stall to buy the tickets to our destination. so we get there and find out if we arent taking the immediate next bus, which was leaving in 10 minutes, (which we werent cause we needed to eat before our journey) then we couldnt book yet. ok. fine. head back to the other side of the station for dinner. then walk back to the booth to buy our tickets, all the while being pointed in still different directions by people thinking we have no clue whats going on.

finally, we get on our bus which is set to leave at 8:20. we are pulling out by 8:30, not to bad by thai time standards, so we figure we will be in lopburi by 11. but then the most obnoxious thing starts to happen. every 10 minutes or so, we start stopping on the side of the street. it is a normal occurrence to stop and pick up a few people a random spots along the way, but this was like...a new load of people getting on and off at every stop, almost as if using this bus as a mass transit, public bus.

not.cool.

i was already in a bad mood...or according to tasha and steph, a more than bad mood, and was not having it. so steph said something to the guy about how long it would take to get to the city, showing that we had a feeling something was up, and eventually the side stops stopped. but that wasnt the end of our debacle. nope. about an hour before we should have been arriving, the attendant started to ask us for 300 baht, or 100 baht each. when we would ask him for what, he would ramble on in thai for 5 minutes and we would just keep saying that he had ALREADY COLLECTED OUR TICKETS showing that we had already paid. this happened at least three times until we finally pulled into the bus station and could escape the bus. then he tried to point us in the direction of the city. we knew there were no cabs here, and so we started in the direction he showed us until we realized that we were heading away from the lights.

luckily (?) as we were walking and looking lost, a car pulled up next to us and asked where we were going. when we said into the city, he told us he was a taxi and was going there. despite the fact that he already had two thais in the car, we hesitantly got in. the entire ride, the driver and the two thais kept talking about us, but at this point, we didnt even really care. we got to the hotel we were planning on staying at and got out, ready to crash.

we had been told that lopburi isnt really a big tourist spot and that it would be easy to get a room. but nope. that was not the case. the first, and second, and third places we tried were all full. eventually, after wandering around the city for a bit, a nice thai man decided he would try to help us out. he took us to a few more spots, which were also full, and then he was about to start taking us to a few we had already gone to when i spoke up and said we had already been there. so he took us a different way and THANKFULLY they had one room available. it was just a fan room with no hot water (and no sink either) and with windows facing the street, but it was a place to sleep. and thats what we did.

the next morning when we got up and started searching the city to see what the festival had to offer. we decided to first eat, but the places we went to at first only had western (?!) food offered in the morning and we wanted thai. finally we found a place on the side of the road and had some breakfast/lunch, but it wasnt very good. it gave us enough energy to continue on though, and so we went to see king narai reigns castle. (the festival was for that king) almost immediately, while we were watching a performance, some thais called us over to join them in their festivities. they were a group of mostly men, with a few of their wives, who spoke some decent english. they started chatting with us and then had us sit with them and began to offer us food, alcohol, drinks, and then they even started fanning us! we sat with them for a while until we decided we needed to see more of the festival, so we told them we would be back later and headed on.

steph and tash with our lopburi friends.

the city is tiny but actually really cool, as it is built around ruins. there is one that is in the middle of a traffic circle, and even though its not the most modern city by any means, it was cool to see the contrast of that very old mixed in with the new. we kept walking around and seeing what there was to offer, but we got confused because we had yet to see any of these monkeys we had heard so much about. we asked someone and they told us that they congregate around a certain monument because thats where they get fed. so we headed over to that area and were waiting for meghan and emily to arrive when i started feeling really sick. sure enough, as soon as our friends got there, i was throwing up on the sidewalk, and the monkeys had come over to eat it, little scoundrels. so while everyone continued on, i went back to the room to lie down for a bit and try to feel better.

the ruins in the middle of the city.

a few hours later, they came back to get me and i was feeling fine again. we went out and bought some 'thai' outfits to wear that night, and then went back to get ready. then we went for food, which took hours, and following that meghan and emily left (o i didnt get to spend time with them in lopburi, boo). so it was just the three of us again and we headed out to see more of the festival, since we were told it was more of a night thing anyway. and it was. there were fireworks, and parades, and light displays, and shows. we walked around for a while, and had a lot of people asking us for pictures with them, haha. between that and the people fanning us earlier, we felt famous!

we actually asked her to take a pic with us! the lady who sold us the clothes, hehe

we went and saw some muy thai boxing, for free, and had an amazing time there. this time, it was a lot more aggressive than when we went in hua hin and we were actually in the crowd with the thais, who really get into it, cheering and such. but since they hadnt had a three hour nap like i had, they were tired, and so we called it an early night.

we got up early the next day, but i refused to leave without spending some time with the monkeys. so thats what we did for about a half hour.

more monkeys than people?

baby baby, right in front of me! no zoom!

monkeys all over me!

and even though it was a rough start, i left lopburi happy.

beaching it

the last time i saw the beach was in koh samui after the full moon party in koh phangan. that was a month ago. and since i am living in thailand, that is unacceptable.

it is true that being in bangkok now and not the southern paradise of phuket, it is more difficult to get to a beach, especially since i spend the week working. but there are beaches not too far from the city on the gulf, and it was one of those beaches, hua hin, which we (me, meghan, stephanie, and tasha, and on thursday amit had decided he would join us before going down to the islands) decided to venture off to this weekend.

we had heard that this was a place that was less geared to tourists and more of a beach where local thais would go to vacation. when we arrived on friday night around 11, we discovered that was not the case at all. the entire town was much older, white, mostly german tourists. we were slightly disappointed but would not let this ruin our weekend. afterall, we were at a beach again!

the first thing on the to-do list was find a place to stay. normally, it is pretty easy to find a simple, clean hotel or hostel that is affordable on our teacher salaries. we wandered around the town for a bit and most of the places we tried were out of our price range and/or only had one room available. then we found saw signs for the 21 guest house.

we followed a few signs and eventually turned down an alley and saw the place at the end. there was a sign on the gate that said to ring the bell, so meghan did. she did not see that the man was standing right on the other side. and he was not happy. but he didnt say anything so we opened the gate and walked in to inquire about rooms. he told us there was one room but we had a hard time understanding him when he said the price. we thought he said 300 baht and he was very angry when we tried to clarify, shouting back 600, but again in thai, so it was still slightly unclear. his attitude made some of us think we should just continue on, but some wanted to see the room, so we started walking back to see it.

i need to backtrack here and say that when we got onto the bus and took our seats, we were an odd number, so one person would be sitting with a stranger. there were five seats together with the middle row having one person already sitting. i took that seat. the man next to me asked me to put my backpack in the overhead compartment and not my lap (why im not sure, it wasnt touching him at all) but i told him it wouldnt fit, as the compartment is extremely small. he got furious at this and stormed off, cursing at me in a language i couldnt understand.

back to the 21 guesthouse. as we were being led back to the room, the very same man from the bus was standing in the hallway. i turned around then and there and decided this was absolutely not happening, and it turned out the room was something akin to that from the movie "hostel" we continued on.

eventually, we found a place right by the water with two rooms. one didnt have a bathroom, but they were right next door to each other so it wasnt an issue, and it was clean enough and definitely in our price range. we took the rooms and changed into our swimsuits, as we wanted to get to the beach as soon as possible after such a long absence, nevermind the fact that it was midnight.

we made it to the water and some of us swam for a bit. it was a full moon and the water was warm and i was just happy. we didnt stay out too late though since we had worked earlier that day and wanted to get up early to hit the beach the next day. which is what we did. and we stayed on the beach almost all day and then went to get another, proper, thai massage before showering and heading out for dinner and a muay thai fight.

muay thai is a special kind of traditional boxing that is huge here. tash had done research before we headed down to the beach and found out that there is a fight every saturday night. we were set on this, or some of us were, and steph amit and i had an absolute blast. there were 5 fights each consisting of 5 rounds. the fourth fight was actually to girls, and that was maybe the most interesting to watch because they were just going for it. around the stadium were pretty much all tourists, and of them, we were clearly the most into it. around the ring were the thais, probably trainers and friends of the fighters, and we have decided that we want to try to go to another fight and be with the locals because they were so into it.

after the fight, we wandered a bit but since theres not too much of a nightlife and it was already getting late, we decided to head back to the hotel to meet the others and call it a night so we could have another full beach day before us girls headed back to bangkok and amit continued his journey south to koh tao.

the whole weekend, these lyrics kept playing in my head:

"i dig my toes into the sand. the ocean looks likes a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. i lean against the wind, pretend that i am weightless, and in this moment i am happy."

and its great, because we decided were going to have ANOTHER beach trip next weekend and venture to koh sumhet. yay!

aint misbehaving.....

i was bad this week. i went out on a wednesday night for "ladies night" at coyote, which meant all you can drink, free margaritas, from 6-8. it was also to meet up with amit, who i went to college with and with whom i share many mutual friends. hes backpacking through southeast asia and arrived in bangkok the night before, so meeting there just seemed like the perfect combination of the two.

i went straight from tutoring, and anticipating such, i left my bag with my computer at school. i figured id be out and not at home so i wouldnt be needing it that night anyway, and it wouldnt be such a hassle that i would have to carry around.

because i went straight from tutoring, i got their a little early, but found tasha and we got a table. it was before 6, so all the waitresses were trying to get us to buy drinks while we were waiting, even though we all knew that wasnt happening and that we were there for the free drinks. the food isnt bad either, but hey, its a ploy to get people to come in, and it was working because it brought us in.

after just over two hours and two of our friends being asked to leave by the manager, it was time to head out. but i wasnt ready to go home. amit and i had just begun talking and catching up, and some other people were staying out, so we ventured down the streets of silom and ended up at patpong. if you care enough, you can google it. this is what i will say: by the time i was heading home, it was nearly 2.

needless to say, i was not planning on going to school the next day. it turned out that when i woke up, the cold that i have had off and on for the last three months was in full force once again anyway, and so i 'decided' then to take the day off.

this was a great day to do it. meghan had also taken off for personal reasons, and amit was in town. so the three of us met up back in silom and from there decided to head over to see the jim thompson house. meghan had already been twice, but was ecstatic to go again (actually it was her suggestion), and it was something i had been wanting to see but never gotten around to. jim thompson was an american who basically revitalized the thai silk industry and then mysteriously vanished at the age of 61, after a monk had predicted years before that great danger would come to him at that age. his house is an architectural dream to look at, and he was an antique collector, so it is now a tourist site.

from there, we were planning on going to lumpini park, something else i had yet to do, but it was getting really hot out and so we opted to introduce amit to thai massages. we were back in the silom/sukhumvit area and went into one of the cheaper places we saw. when we got there, we were told there were no female masseues available. ok. we didnt really think anything of it. but afterward, we were all just a little weary of the massage we had just gotten. meghan and i had to apologize for giving amit such an awful intro to one of our favorite things in thailand.

we finished off our night with a trip back to coyotes again so meghan and i could split some nachos. this time though, we did not consume any margaritas :P

biking through history

there is so much to see in thailand outside of the city. this past sunday stephanie and i went to see the ruins in ayutthaya. it is a city just a little over an hour north of bangkok and was the capital of the country before bangkok was, and before it got the name thailand, from the mid 1300s to the mid 1700s when it was burnt down the burmese. the religion of that time was still buddhism though, and so there are many temples and wats, or at least piece of them, still left to be seen.

we took a mini bus from pinklao and left around 10. it was pretty easy and we got there around 1130. we decided we were hungry and tried to find a place and beth and neil recommended from when they visited the week before, but apparently, soi 1 is extremely hard to come by. we settled for a nice little restaurant on the side of the street and got some thai food while we planned out our day.

the city itself isnt too big, but there is a lot to see. so we decided to take the popular option of renting bicycles for the day. this is what i was most excited about. i dont remember the last time i rode a bike, and considering how hot of a day it was (nevermind that this is suppose to be the 'cool' season, its all relative), riding was the only time we had to cool down because we actually got a breeze.

after we found some bikes, and a map which we could decipher, we went right down the street to our first stop, wat mahathat. its one of the most popular because it is home to one of the most famous images in thailand:

its a buddhas head amongst the roots of the tree. before getting there, we had seen this image on postcards and in pictures, and so seeing it was awesome. the best part of that way, and probably the day, was the puppies. when we went to walk up on part of the ruins, we were hesitant because no one else was and we thought it wasnt allowed. once we got up though, we noticed why no one was venturing up there. by the other set of stairs was a mother dog, quite literally guarding her litter of pups (there were 8!) and growling at anyone who came in her view and too close to her babies. steph and i were watching from above, and so eventually she stopped growling at us, and we named some of the puppies based on their personality and looks, like chubby (see picture), beached-whale, and fighter. we wanted to take them home.

reluctantly, we left the cuties and went to our next stop, just across the street, wat ratchaburana. this one was cool because we were actually able to climb in and around the remains, up through steps and stuff. it is the one that has been most restored, but the site is amazing.

from there, we had heard about the temple with three pillars, or wat phra si san phet. its built on the grounds of what was the grand palace back when ayutthaya was the capital, and the three pillars, or chedi as they are referred to in the buddhist culture, contain the ashes of three different kinds from that kingdom. it was at this point that i noticed that there was really something wrong with my camera, as every picture was overexposed, even on automatic setting, and whenever i tried to change a setting an error message would occur. in fact, i got really annoyed with it and most of these picture are awful, but im including them so that everyone can see what im talking about here.

past some elephants while biking

the last place we knew we wanted to see was the big lounging buddha, known as wat lokaya sutharam. however, our map was misleading, or rather, we were pretty bad at reading it, and wound up cycling through almost the entirety of the old city before we came upon it. needless to say, by the time we got there we were hot, sweaty, and feeling pretty gross.

we snapped some pictures because we were there, but neither of us were feeling up to it. besides, even though its impressive and there are not pillars blocking it, i had just seen wat pho, which was bigger and gold. so since we were tired and had seen the main things we had come to see, we decided to head back and return the bikes. we had plans to do a sunday roast back in bangkok, so we wanted to leave before too late. even though that didnt end up happening, leaving when we did was good....if only we had puppysnatched before doing so.....

seeing some more of bangkok.

after relaxing on saturday, i decided i wanted to do something on sunday. most people went out of town this past weekend though, so it was just me and meghan. she suggested going to wat pho, which is one of the most famous things here in bangkok and home to the largest reclining buddha. it was something neither of us had seen yet so it was a good deal.

after waiting for her for an hour, because of traffic and thai time, we finally met inside the wat and got to see just how gigantic this buddha is, and its massive.

there wasnt much else in the wat that we wanted to see though, so we were going to head over to see the un. we finally found a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go and got in. but after driving a few feet and heading into the main traffic, he told us that the un was closed because it was sunday, so we made him pull over and let us out.

after much discussion, we decided to head over to siam to go to a museum and see what was playing at the cinema and then jump on the bts two stops to have some mexican for dinner. however, the museum only had a few exhibits worth seeing and when we got to the theater and debated the times and shows that were available, nothing worked out, so we headed over to eat earlier than expected. this turned out to be good because we got there in time to catch the end of buy one get one free happy hour.

the wall paintings exhibit.

the exhibit called meghan buckman.

we ordered nachos to split and meghan ended up making friends with some guys in another booth who are teachers in korea and on vacation here. we chatted with them, first over the divider and then at our table for a bit and compared the conditions here to theirs there. they clearly have it up on us in almost all aspects....except that they are not by glorious beaches and have as much snow right now as those back home.

so when we tried to leave and head back home, we discovered that the main street was closed off for some kind of festival that we didnt know about, so we walked around that for a bit and saw some performances and food stands and vendors selling crafts before trying to get home.

a punk band playing in the street

meghan was taking the bts, so that was easy for her. i dont have that option though since the closest stop is a 140 baht cab ride away from my apartment. what i usually do is take a metered taxi, but they were hard to come by, and i was able to convince a motor bike to take me (which is what made me write this post). they usually dont do distances that far, but i suppose that the festival created an influx of people who needed transportation and they were taking advantage of it.