The Ultimate Trip - Has ended

Bangkok has still got us! We are finding more and more things to do every day, and now that we are staying in a real home, it is getting even harder to leave. Yesterday, we visited the Chatuchak weekend market. Yes, we know that it wasn't quite the weekend, but Diane suggested that Friday afternoon would be less crowded and many of the shops would be open. She was right, and we had an interesting afternoon navigating the maze of stalls in this covered market. You can really buy anything there, from fresh foods to flowers to pets to textiles to souvenirs to used clothing. In fact, it seems that there is a huge market in used clothing from the U.S.! We spent a good amount of time browsing the second hand T-shirts, shoes and polyester clothes that had been shipped over. How did we know they came from the U.S.? Well, Thais seem to love T-shirts with the name of any U.S. town, university, city or U.S affiliated organization. They even sell those stupid "party" T-shirts that college fraternities give away. A particularly funny shirt we found was a T-shirt, turned into a wife-beater, from some high school prom with the date of the prom and a list of all the class members. Now you know where all those donated clothes are really going.

I cannot convey how lucky we are to be staying with Gene and Diane! They have offered us a place to stay, allowed us to use their kitchen and their food, and even invited us eat dinner with them. Truely above and beyond what a person expects from fellow travelers. On top of all this, their apartment is right in the heart of Bangkok with an amazing view of the city. Now you understand why we are still here.

We have now been in Bangkok for a few days, and have been absolutely loving it! What a great city. Bangkok has all the conveniences and luxuries of any Western city, but at a fraction of the cost. We are able to stay in a fairly decent hotel room for $10, eat meals on the street for $1 each, see The Lord of the Rings in a new theater with comfy seats for $5 each and ride the public bus for 9 cents. We have shopped at Boots and 7-11 and even had pretty decent sushi ($12 to stuff both of us, including sake). With this kind of luxury, we might get used to living the high life and never want to return home. Even though Bangkok is a big city with lots of pollution, it seems pretty laid back and we love it!

There is not as much of the push to sell that we saw in other Asian countries. However, tuk tuk, and other, schemes abound. The most common one, and the one that we knowingly fell prey to, is for the driver to offer a very cheap ride in exchange for stopping at one of his "sponsors". This is a store, usually a jewlery, tailor, or souvenir shop, who will pay for his gas money if you look at their goods for 10 minutes. He will also get a commission if you buy anything. Usually, the driver will tell you it is OK if you don't buy anything, you just need to stop there. But, since you are only paying 50 cents for a 1-4 hour ride, they are obviously banking on you buying something. When you leave empty handed they try to push you to stop at ANOTHER shop and so on. It gets tiring arguing with the drivers about where you are going, so we have decided, after trying to use this scheme to our advantage, it is easier to pay the normal price for a ride, or better yet, take the bus.

Thai people are incredibly friendly and kind. When we have looked lost, standing on the sidewalk with our map upside down, local people nearly always stop to help. It is exactly what I would expect in many rural areas of SE Asia, but surely not in such a cosmopolitan city. But it really never fails. Today we met a friendly man who stopped us to chat in English for a few minutes. We ended up spending an hour sitting at a table with him, while he talked about the places in Thailand that he loves the most and gave us some ideas for touring around Bangkok. It was great to get a little insiders information. And to all you skeptics, he never asked for money or anything else!

As in the rest of SE Asia, the fruit in Thailand is phenomenal. On every street corner there are stands with ripe cut fruit sitting on top of chipped ice and others with the sweetest fresh squeezed orange juice. Both are cheap and so tempting on a hot, muggy Bangkok day. The juice is squeezed from funny little oranges that are about the same size as a lime with green skin. I think we have been averaging at least 1 juice per day - no chance of scurvy for us.

Tomorrow we are moving in to the home of a couple we met in Vietnam. They graciously offered to host us for a couple of nights, and we are looking forward to staying in a home for a change.

Our plans for the next few weeks seem to change daily. We are currently trying to decide between heading to the southern islands first, to get our SCUBA certificates, or to head north to the mountains. Once our Thai visa expires (on the 23rd of Feb) we will be heading for Burma. If there is anyone who would like to join us on a Thai beach, either in mid Feb or mid March, let us know ASAP and we will adjust our schedules accordingly.

Everything seems to be going by so fast these days and I can't keep track of what day it is. Yes, I've finally gotten to the point where I never have any idea what day of the week it is, and even when somebody tells me I can only remember for about 2 minutes. I wonder, does the day really matter anyway?
We have decided our time is up in Cambodia and are traveling to Bangkok tomorrow by bus. Although we have been told how bad the roads are from Siem Reap to the border, traveling by road is the only economical choice for us as a flight costs 15 times the bus ticket price.
I definitely do not feel that we have experienced any of the real Cambodia. Yes, most of the people are friendly and the children are always smiling and playing. But, mostly people are just looking at us like we are cash machines. Everybody wants our money and asks for it. It really is hard to say no to the young man with the amputated leg, who gets no support from the government and has no means to earn a living. But, we just can't give to everyone. Even when we have "donated" by buying postcards from the man who was trying out a merchant's life instead of begging, he still persues us every time we see him. I understand that in their eyes we are rich, and maybe we are, but I would love to be able to walk down the street unmolested sometime.
Perhaps the worst part, however, is that when we pay our $25 each for the boat trip, or the $40 each for entrance into Ankor, we get the distinct feeling that the money doesn't go to the people working on the boat or the people who are the legacy of Ankor. These prices may be typical for a western country, but here, where many people earn $40 or less a month, I feel that maybe my money is better spent somewhere it can actually help people.
Maybe because we feel helpless to do anything to improve things here, or maybe because we are a bit homesick, we have decided to leave Cambodia for now. I hope that someday we will return when we can dig deeper into what this country is really about.

The Killing Fields were actually a bit underwhelming. It was bascially a plot of land with a bunch of pits that had been dug up. Grass was growing everywhere, so they were more like depressions in the earth and each had a sign saying how many remains were found there. The history is horrible, but the sight just didn't bring a whole lot of emotion from me. The most emotionally powerful structure at the killing fields was the memorial tower containing the skulls found at the sight. Much more impressive was the photo exhibit at the Khmer Rouge prision showing prisioners and guards during the Khmer Rouge regime and then today, along with their stories. Most of the guards were conscripted into service for the Khmer Rouge and were not believers of the government. They chose to follow the orders of Pol Pot to save their own lives, and in many cases, the lives of their families. There were also gruesome photos showing how imprisoned people died, mostly by being beaten to death while their arms and/or legs were chained, which were pretty horrible. Once again we were made to wonder how people can be so amazingly cruel.

We are now in the midst of visiting Angkor (including Angkor Wat) near Siem Reap (see www.angkorwat.org/). These huge temples, from the height of the Khmer civilization, date back as far as the 8th century and were used for Hindu and Buddist worship. They are really quite spectacular, especially the ruins that still have the jungle grown up around them (Ta Prohm especially). Many of the temples have been restored, but in some cases the fast growing ficus trees have become a part of the structures. You can hardly imagine how these places stand without the trees to support them.
Ankor Wat is, of course, a shining glory. I'm not sure that my explanation of the temple would do it justice, but you can always check out the website above for information. We climbed to the top yesterday (no small feat as the steps are VERY steep and about 6 inches wide) to watch the sunset. We almost made it, but after sitting around with the other hundreds of tourists waiting for the sun to go down, we decided that we were too warm and tired to bother. Too bad, because the sunset was spectacular.
Today was our second day of a three-day pass to the temples and we set out early to beat the other tourists and the midday heat. We are being driven around in a Touk Touk by a quite Khmer named Nam. This is really the way to travel, because you can sit back and enjoy the view while having a nice breeze blow in your face!Yesterday was a long day of temple watching (almost 10 hours) followed by an evening traditional Khmer dance. We were fully expecting today to be the same, however by midday we realized just how templed out we were. After seeing the scheduled temples, we had to just enough energy to return to town for the afternoon. I think that our driver was a bit surprised. We did make one important stop on the way back, at the Unofficial Landmine Museum (see www.landmine-museum.com). This is a must see for any Westerner visiting Siem Reap and I am sure much more interesting than the government sponsored one. The guy who started it used to lay land mines for the Khmer Rouge as a 10-year old boy (he was conscripted, as usual), and now spends his time removing them from Cambodian land (he has placed and cleared about 20,000 mines). Apparently, Cambodia has the most landmines per capita in the world. Pretty depressing, especially when you realize that people are being injured by them every day here. Of course the government will not take responsibility and either clear the landmines or give aid to the people who are hurt (and, of course, they should do both).

We are still having a hard time connecting with Cambodia. Most likely this is because we haven't gotten out of the touristed areas yet. It is really hard to handle people constantly trying to sell you stuff. I'm again feeling like the snotty foreigner who won't acknowledge the locals, just like in Vietnam. We just haven't figured out a better way, because as soon as you say anything, even no, they latch on to you for minutes trying to push you into buying. Of course, there have been some very friendly Khmers who just want to talk and most Khmers are always willing to smile. I just hope that we can find a place to see the Khmer people without their tourist industry faces.

We have now been in Cambodia for 2 full days, but are still not sure what to make of it. On our first morning here, Patrick became ill, so I ended up walking around a bit on my own. I was a little nervous, both because it was a new city in a new country and because of all the warnings people have given me about Phnom Pehn. Mostly, people are pretty nice and want to be helpful. However, I noticed that all of the people hanging out on the street corners were men peddling moto rides, and there were very few women about. I'm not sure why this is. Few of the streets have been maintained, which means that the pavement is torn up and the sidewalks a mess. These are the neighborhoods that, in a U.S. city, would be considered poor and maybe dangerous. I don't know how dangerous it really is here, but it is definitely poor. As far as I can tell, these are still the vestiges of the wars here.
There are many more homeless people on the streets here than we saw in Vietnam. There is an obvious divide between the rich and the poor here and there are so many poor. Everyone on the street is asking for money, even the monks. The young people who can speak English talk all the time about how little progress is being made here. Nobody has any hope that the economic situation will get better in their lifetime. We haven't yet seen any of the real war sights, and we still find it a depressing city.
Tomorrow we go to the Killing Fields and to the war museum, which use to be the prison used by the Khmer Rouge. Should be a thrilling day, but we really feel that we need to see these things to have any comprehension of what happened. We know the history of the area, but the real impact of what happened doesn't seem to hit until you see the ruins and speak with survivors.

Here we are in Phnom Pehn, after 4 wonderful days traveling in the Mekong Delta with our guides Sinh and Phillip. We had so much fun with them it was incredibly sad to see them go. In fact, we almost felt lost without them! We were so lucky because Phillip is from the Mekong, so he knew places for us to stay and things to see that most other travelers pass by.
But let me back up....
Our first afternoon in Saigon was spent at the War Remnants museum, which was once called the Museum of U.S. and Chinese War Attrocities. What an awful and depressing place. It was interesting to see all the military effects that the U.S. left behind. So many of them have been used by Vietnamese people to make things like engines for farming. They just cut apart the spent bombs or trucks or whatever and then use the metal in other ways. Pretty resourceful people.
It was also interesting, and scary, to see all the photos taken by the world journalists during the war. They show what was truely happening, and it was none too pretty. But, the part of the museum that was really bad was all the propaganda. Everything was written as though the American are truely horrendous monsters who caused all the suffering in Vietnam. I would never argue that the U.S. had a right to be in the war, but they make it sound like every Vietnamese should hate Americans. It was very scary. There was one whole room dedicated to anti-land mines, showing even the most recent casualties from Vietnames mines. I think it is great that there is awareness of the problem and that they are supporting land mine dearmerment. However, every bit of written information basically said that all the landmines in Vietnam were placed by the Americans which we know is just not true! Later, at the Cu Chi tunnels, we watched a flim which showed the North Vietnamese placing land mines! What a contradiction. I think we basically came away from there wondering how it is that any Vietnamese is even civil to an American.
The next morning, after running around trying to get all our errands done, we headed off to the Cu Chi tunnels. This is quite an interesting area where the Viet Cong tunneled underground to escape from the American forces. Most of the tunnels that we saw were at least partially recreated, but it definitely gave us an idea of what they were like. I couldn't actually go through the tunnels, just a bit too clausterphobic, but Patrick made it just fine. He also shot some interesting guns, but I'm sure he will tell you about that himself.
Afterward we sped off for the Mekong, with many stops along the way to see Vietnamese at work or just to relax in a road-side hammock. We ended up in Ben Tre, at a lovely fruit orchard. It was sort of a home stay, although they were renting a number of rooms, but it was way out of town in its own little village of winding alleys and canals. The cooks of the house were fantastic, and we had some real Mekong specialties including fish fresh out of their canal! People in the Mekong are extreamly friendly and generous, and we were constantly being given food right out of people's fields. At every farm we stopped, the owners wanted to share their crops with the foriegners. Sinh kept calling it the VIP treatment. So different from Saigon, where some people even told Phillip he was stupid for asking directions.
We had a lovely private canal boat tour in Ben Tre for one afternoon, where we wound along palm tree- and water coconut-lined canals for hours. Our stay in that town was extreamly relaxing.
The next stop Can Tho, famous for its floating markets. Of couse, we took the obligatory boat trip to the market, but it was, as the Vietnamese like to say, same, same, but different. Phillip and Sinh arranged a private boat trip for us again and we were able to wind our way through the farm boats selling their wares as we liked. Then, we motored up one of the smaller canals and found it much different from those in Ben Tre. I hope that our pictures will show how different the areas are. We stopped along the way to watch people making utensils from palm tree wood and coconut husk and then happened upon a beautiful local farm. The daughter of the owner walked us around the farm to see all the different fruit trees, fish ponds, and, of course, rice fields. She took us over Monkey bridges, bridges of just a single skinny tree where you need to walk like a monkey, and ballance well, to cross. In the end, we ate some of the fruit from her trees, including a fruit called "mother's milk" in Vietnamese. She was a lovely girl, although I think she was attracted to Patrick, because she kept dropping hints that she was still single.
Our final day with Sinh and Phillip seemed short, because we were so used to having them around all the time. They drove us to Chau Doc and along the way we saw a heron farm, an insense making village, and a snake farm. We also stopped for lunch in one of the houses on stilts above the river. It was hard to say goodbye in the end, both to our guides and to Vietnam, but we are hopeful that we will return to Vietnam to visit the Central Highlands, which we missed on this trip.
Our Vietnam visas expired today, so we took the fast boat from Chau Doc to Phnom Pehn in Cambodia. The boat is an interesting little tin can, but at least it was speedy!
Tomorrow is another day, and new adventures await us in a new country.

Just landed in Saigon today, after 4 days on the road from Dalat with our EasyRiders Sinh and Phillip. I can't say enough about how great these two guys are - as guides, as drivers, as just plain cool people. We have learned more from them about Vietnam in the past few days than in our whole previous month here. It took us a long time to come around to the idea of taking a motorbike trip from Dalat to Saigon. The major problem was the expense; they charge $30 per day for their services. We hemmed and hawed about spending the money but finally decided that we needed to get off the tourist buses. I am so glad that we did, because it has been the best spent money yet. Our trip started by visiting some of the sights around Dalat, like the Crazy House and Chicken Village. Both are pretty big tourist spots so we didn't stay too long. As soon as we left the area, though, we started to visit the small farms, factories and homes of all the local people. We saw so many different things: how rice paper is made, a silkworm farm, coffee and tea plantations, tapioca flour production, a silk factory, a tea factory, a crocodile farm and a rubber tree plantation. We stopped in a remote village where few tourists ever visit, and chatted with the village elder who was 120 years old! Phillip and Sinh spent time in each place describing what we were seeing, giving us a history of each place, and even telling us the legends describing special events.
Along the way Sinh's alternater broke, so we even were able to watch bike repair in this country where everything is done in the open and out on the street. While we waited for the fix, I chatted with some local girls who wanted to practice their English. We talked about Vietnam and their families and a little about America. At the end of our converstation, one of the girls kissed me on the cheek! I have never felt so much warmth from a couple of strangers.
Our first night was spent beside a waterfall in a hotel where the four of us were the only guests. It was so peaceful - some of the quietest moments we have spent in Vietnam. The following morning we were able to wake early and visit the waterfall alone, long before the first bus arrived bringing tourists.
The following two nights were spent in Cat Tien National Park. Again, there were very few tourists in the park giving us the feeling of having the place to ourselves. It is a beautiful park, with interesting jungle forests. However, the entrance fee only buys you permission to enter and the cost of the lodging and food is higher than we normally like. There are only a couple of short walks close to the lodging and you must spend quite a lot of money to see the rest of the park. Needless to say, we didn't stray too far.
We did go for a walk through the forest with our guide Sinh, where we encountered monkeys (we only heard them), large birds and lots of leeches. But, the most interesting part of the walk was having the time to talk with Sinh about his life, Vietnamese people, and the American War and its ramifications. I couldn't possibly try to reconstruct what he told us, it would take pages. But, it was the first time that I really felt as though I was hearing what truely happened here.
At night, Phillip, Sinh, Patrick and I ate dinner together and played cards for toothpicks. We learned that instead of saying "bon appitite" the Vietnamese say "attack!" before the eat. They also taught us the "VC" game, which is like A-hole on steriods. There are so many rules to this game, you almost need a book. Phillip seems to be the card shark of the bunch, and could win almost without trying. We did manage, however, to cause his "pig to die in the cage" a few times (basically, he was the last person to go out and was still holding a 2).
Today we are in Saigon, after yet another interesting day on the road. The worst part has been just coming into Saigon, which is a crazy city - worse than Hanoi. The traffic is horrendous, but, thankfully, Sinh and Phillip are very careful and skilled drivers.
In fact, we have had such a great time on our trip, that we decided to extend it for another 4 days to go to the Mekong Delta! Tomorrow, we leave bright and early again and start off at the Cu Chi tunnels, where Patrick will try his had using an AK-47. Then, it is down to the Mekong with our guides. They will drop us off at the Cambodia border on the 15th for our boat ride up the Mekong river to our next destination.
If you are coming to Vietnam, I highly recommend using the EasyRiders for a tour. You will not regret the money spent and you will see parts of Vietnam that you could never get to otherwise! Contact Sinh at dalat_adventure@hotmail.com or Phillip at philliptan2001@yahoo.com

Here we are in Dalat, a wonderful town in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The weather here is perfect - dry, sunny and not too warm. I guess the beaches on the coast could only hold our interest for so long.
We had hoped to spend many days here, but our visa in Vietnam is quickly running out. Although we had though to get a visa extension, it seems impossible to do from here. So we will just have to come back to Vietnam again sometime to see all the places we missed.
Arrived yesterday afternoon and managed to book a biking trip right away. So, today we were up early and heading out for the mountain biking trip that Patrick has been longing for. We left directly from the town and biked to a nearby lake, mostly on rough dirt roads and single track. Wow, it was so great to be out huffing and puffing again. Around the lake before lunch - about 4 hours of riding in all. The worst part was the dirt road, which is terribly chewed up and hard to ride on without either going slow to ballance or falling over a bunch. Needless to say, Patrick and I both fell :-)
After lunch by the lake, we had a nice uphill climb to a lookout point with a great view of the town. I must admit that I am very out of shape, and had to push my bike up most of the way. My friends from Salt Lake would be embarrassed (as I was). I even hit that point where my legs just wouldn't make the peddles go! Never had that happen before and I thought I was just going to collapse. Really can't wait to get back to a place where I can work on getting back in shape.
All in all, we rode about 35 kilometers today, most of that on dirt roads and single track! Not too bad for having done practically nothing for the past few months.
Tomorrow we leave Dalat for Saigon. We are taking a kind of tour with the "Easy Riders" for 4 days. These are a group of motorcycle drivers who speak excellent English (and French) and offer to take you to places that are a bit off the beaten path - i.e. not on the toursit trail! They are well known and highly recommended, so we thought we'd give it a go. They can even carry all our bags on the back of the bikes! I can't wait to see how it all fits and will definitely take pictures so you all can see too.
So, we will take in the sights around Dalat, then head south to the tallest waterfall in Vietnam for an overnight. Then we will spend two nights in Cat Tien National Park for some hiking and wildlife spotting and make it to Saigon on the 11th of January.
I am so exited to travel a bit on our own (sort of). We will let you know how it went when we get to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).

I hate the "tourist trail", and it seems difficult to get off of it in Vietnam. In Vietnam, there are so many tourist companies peddling all sorts of cheap trips, it is hard as a backpacker to pass them up. And so few backpackers do, that the tours are generally filled to capacity, whether that means 10 or 40. This means that you get to visit all the attractions and interesting towns with hundreds of your closest foreign friends (since there are usually many tours to the same place in a single day). Most of the major attractions in Vietnam are easy to get to by the "Open Tour" tourist buses, but there seems to be a real lack of public transportation to these same areas. I know that can't be entirely true, since the local people must travel between towns on public transport, but it is fairly unclear how we as foreigners can do the same. There is always the possibility of hiring motorbikes (car hire without a driver is still unheard of here), but I think you have to be born here to understand the rules of the road. So that leaves the tourist buses and organized tours - and really, when they are selling bus tickets from Hanoi to Saigon for $17 one way, with as many stop-overs as you like, it is really hard to say no!
But, lets stop for a moment and see what that $6 boat trip to the islands around Nha Trang really got you.
We arrived at the harbor with about 300 other tourists, anxious to get out and enjoy another marvelous day on the water. Luckily, there were plenty of identical boats ready to take about 40 people a piece, out on the same identical tour. As soon as we borded, our "guide" turned on the PA system (with reverb) to announce the days events - 4 islands, lunch, and a floating bar. So, we cruised to the first island, where we could snorkel with equipment in the shape you would expect for a tour that takes 40 people out every day. The water was nice, but we really didn't see much of the island. Then it was on to the second island, where we ate a lunch (pretty good, actually), and then listened to the tour guides makeshift band play western music. Afterward, he threw out the "floating bar" which consisted of an inner tube that he sat it and a few bottles of some pretty harsh wine. Yeah, it was OK to go into the water for a drink, and after about 20 minutes the bar was closed.
Then we sped off to the 3rd island, which was really just a obligatory government stop. We had to pay to get on the island where we could pay some more to go jet skiing or wind surfing or just to use a beach chair. Needless to say, we sat on the beach reading for the hour we were there. The final island was not really an island, just a fishing community. Actually, it is very interesting to see how the Vietnamese farm fish, but again, we had to pay to get off the boat. Since we had already seen a family fish farm on our trip to Ha Long Bay, we just stayed on the boat for the 15 minutes we were there. Then it was back to Nha Trang for us.
I guess what I am saying is that we spent the whole day with a bunch of other Western tourists, on a tour that somebody decided we wanted, and really didn't get to see much. I could have done without all the "lets get ready to party" bit, and done with a little more culture. But, that is what we get for signing up for that kind of trip.
Yeah, yeah, I know we could do it differently, say, ride our bikes around Vietnam or hire a car and driver. But it would be so great if we could just figure out how the locals do it. Maybe another month here would open our eyes a bit.
And so, we were off on the tourist trail yet again, to the city of Dalat. How could we pass up the $6 bus tickets?

We have finally made it into the land of sunny warm weather! After wishing for it for so long, it doesn't even seem possible. But, yes, we had such nice weather today that we spent it on the beach.
Arrived in Nha Trang, on the coast of South Vietnam, last night and was met by the driver for our new hotel in their old U.S. army jeep Willy. These cars are real collectors items, and our friends in Iceland would be jealous. We decided to reserve a room this time because we are so sick of the touts at the train station. Although we are spending a little more than normal ($7.50 each, instead of the $2.50 we spent in Hoi An), we were pleasantly surprised by our new digs! Mr. Bu owns the La Paloma hotel just outside of central Nha Trang (mentioned in Lonely Planet), which means the streets are quite and less touristed. The hotel is beautifully kept, Mr. Bu is a great host, and there is even a local beach only a 2 minute walk away. And it is absolutely quite in our room, meaning we can actually get a good night sleep again. Our room price includes breakfast and dinner, jeep rides to and from town whenever we like, coffee and tea, and most importantly, a very lovely and relaxed place to stay. For our friends who may come to Nha Trang soon, you really should try this place, even for a night! Email Bu at datle@dng.vnn.vn.

Nha Trang seems to be nothing more than a place to relax for a few days, but we will try to make the most of it. Tomorrow we try for a boat trip to the islands nearby and maybe the following day we will tour the champa ruins.

We have been here in Hoi An for the past few days, mostly just lazing around. Hoi An is a coastal town in the Southern part of Vietnam, just past the range where the climate changes to tropical. We are really enjoying the heat! Our time has been spent eating good food, lying on the beach and having custom clothing made to order - basically, all the normal tourist duties. Yup, I've had just about a complete new wardrobe made - shirts, skirts, pants, bathing suit, and even a wool coat. It is so ridiculous how little I paid for it all, that I won't horrify you by telling. But, anyone who knows Vietnam, knows that this is the reason most tourists visit Hoi An. Sure, the beach is nice, but it is so much fun being fitted for clothing that you could never afford in the U.S.. We did have to have a few items made at different tailors around town before we found a good one, but that was part of the fun too.
This morning we hired a car and driver to take us out to My Son, some ancient Champa ruins about 45 km from Hoi An. Patrick and I were the first tourists of 2004 to visit the site! He picked us up at 6:00am, so that we could be there before all the bus loads arrived. Usually, people take these very cheap tours to get to the site - $3 gets you a bus ride there, lunch and a boat ride back to town. Sounds pretty good, until you realize that about 500 other people will be joining you. Lucky for us, we were wise to the deal, and put up a little more money to visit My Son when we had the place to ourselves. Today was the nicest day we have had so far - cool in the morning until the sun was high in the sky. At about 9am, the temperature started rising to about 85 degrees, just the time when we were leaving the site and all the hoards were arriving.
The site is absolutely enchanting! The Champa were builders much like the Romans, using bricks and large stones to build impressive large temples. After the construction, they apparently set about to decorate, carving animals, humans and mystical creatures into the stone. They seem so far advanced compared to the construction used in modern Vietnam, with their thatched roof bamboo houses.
To be totally honest, I also found the site awfully depressing. It was fairly completely ruined during the war when Americans decided to bomb it to pieces. Looking at the remains of this ancient site makes you realize how far reaching the devistation of war is. Here was this amazing historical site dating back to the 5th century A.D., that had, for the most part, withstood the ravages of time. Until some spiteful foreigners decided to ruin as much of this country as they could. We even came across what looked to be the overgrown crater from a dropped bomb. Pretty awful. It really is hard to visit this country without being hit by evidence of the war all the time. The most amazing thing, though, is how little animosity the Vietnamese hold toward Americans. In fact, they are truely welcoming of Americans in particular and are always excited to meet us. I am having a hard time making sense of it all.
I don't think we would fair too well at the Son My memorial. If you have no idea what I am talking about you should look it up.
Tomorrow is our last day in Hoi An, and we plan to spend it doing nothing! The next morning we head off for Nha Trang to the south. Perhaps we will be able to do a little snorkeling, if the weather isn't too bad.