Photos from our SE Asia trip

We decided that if Google really is taking over the world, we better be on their side. We put some of our better pictures from our bicycle-touring trip to Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam online at Picasa. Check them out when you can!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mat.glaser

Adventures in Babysitting

The first two weeks back in the states after returning from SE Asia was complete hecticness. Before we were even over our jetlag we helped throw a bachelor/ette party, drove down and back to LA, participated in and helped with a wedding, and babysat Mo's sister's three children for 7 days while they went to Hawaii.

What? You might be thinking "Did you lose some kind of bet?" Believe it or not, the answer is the same as the one Mat gave the high-school clerk at Rite-Aid when asked the identical question in regards to why his beard was a bit more grown-out than usual. No, we didn't lose a bet, but instead graciously volunteered to watch Andre and Matthew, our 15 month and 6 1/2 year old nephews, along with Jordan, our 4 year old niece and a newly-adopted stray dog Calvin so that Maureen's sister and husband could take a much overdue (10 years!) vacation to Hawaii. Perhaps it was a way to ease some guilt on our part for being able to fly to Asia on a whim, perhaps it was a bit of temporary insanity, or perhaps we just wanted to spend some quality time with the kiddos.

Three kids and a dog! It was quite an experience. With three kids it's pretty much a guarantee that one of them didn't sleep the whole night, which kept us up and kept them cranky the next day. Add on to that a nasty cold that they kept passing around between themselves and we were definitely in for some adventure. Luckily their schedule was packed and we spent the majority of the time shuttling them from school to storybook cottage to swim practice back home and stuffing their faces with snacks in between.

After a few trying days and long nights of boundary testing, we all settled into the routine and Mat started making the morning coffee a wee bit stronger to counteract the sleepless nights. Matthew got major points one morning after we kicked him out of our bed and told him to "go play with your Legos" and he returned with special "Breakfast in Bed"; toast (actually made in the toaster - scary), brie cheese complete with a knife, some tangerines, and "Tea" made out of hot water from the tap. With kids this cute, how can you really get mad at them?

By the end of the week we were regular Supermom and Superdad, chillin' with the Moms and Dads at the school Jogathon event, comparing notes on strollers and Mac & Cheese brands, and sleeping when we could get it, which was usually during their naps or "quiet" playtime. We waged daily battles for the small assignments; Mo got stuck with reading "The New Dog" book every single night to Jordan, while Mat got to delve into a new chapter of Harry Potter instead. In return, he got to get up early and make the kids breakfast while Mo caught a few more minutes of shuteye.

Yes, we managed fine, and actually did a pretty darn good job. We got a little scared about the prospect of having children when we realized that we both had no work to go to and absolutely nothing on our schedule, but were still so exhausted we could barely move at the end of the week. Mat alikened it to Substitute Teaching; when you walk into someone else's routines, patterns, and schedules, it really takes a lot of energy to figure it out and keep the kids under control until you do. When you are teaching in your own classroom, you get to set the rules and habits from the first day, and hopefully can be a little more efficient with day-to-day happenings. Every time we held the little guy in our arms we wanted a kid right away, and every time the two older ones went berserk (which wasn't often, but enough) it made us think twice. In the end, we had a blast with our niece and nephews, and found ourselves having to repeatedly answer their question of "When are you guys going to have kids??? We want cousins!!!!"

Our tour of duty ended just in time to avoid the stomach flu that took over the kindergarten class and the projectile vomiting that ensued in the mini-van. Whew!

A Final Run Through Laos

We were so relieved to be back in Laos that we didn't even let two days of unpaved road bother us. In truth, we were expecting much worse, as an American couple on a tandem had warned us that this stretch was "not even a road, just huge boulders and steep drops down a jungle ravine on the side." It turned out to be a beautiful, semi-graded dirt road with occasional softball-sized rocks that wound its way up and down through dense, thick, and unpopulated Laos jungle. The two day stretch after the border was definitely the most remote area we had encountered so far, and we deliberately took it nice and easy after realizing that it would be a really bad idea to crash out here. We only saw two or three vehicles each day, one of them being the bus that ran three times a week to the border with Vietnam. So we took our time, enjoyed the light rain and river crossings, and found ourselves sleeping in some villages that probably won't see another falang for a few months or longer.

After two days and about 100km on the dirt road we came to the village of Muong Khoua, situated on the scenic Nam Ou river. Our circle was becoming complete as this was the same river that shared its confluence with the Mekong in Luang Prabang, where we were almost a month earlier. We briefly toyed with the idea of pushing on from Muong Khoua that afternoon, but made it to a small cafe just in time for a huge thundershower and instead decided to push on through a few cups of Laos coffee and enjoy the busy river scenery. We met a Basque couple also traveling by bike, and they gave us the good news that the next 100km to Oudamxay was on a beautifully paved road and not too difficult. By this point our butts couldn't have ridden much more off road so this was a welcome relief.

The ride the next day to Oudamxay was near perfect and definitely one of the top three days of our trip. It followed the river the entire day, gradually gaining elevation through sometimes steep, never-ending rollers. There was near zero traffic and the pavement was ideal. For lunch we had one of our first truly authentic Laos meals of sticky rice and various grilled animals; jungle deer, water buffalo, and river fish. Rats and small birds were available as well, but we shied away from those. We were excited to get to Oudamxay as one of the Laos guides that worked with the American tour group we met up with lived there. We went straight to his shop and chatted a bit before making plans for dinner at 7pm. He would come by our guesthouse with his wife, and we would go to one of his favorite local restaurants.

After exploring the town a bit, we rushed home to make it back by 7 in time for Boonyang to meet us. As we sat on the front porch, our stomachs turning and legs exhausted, the time kept ticking by. 7:30....8:00....8:20....8:30... finally Mo insisted that Mat call him up. We dug up his cell phone number and found a phone, and Boonyang answered right away. Mat explained that we were tired and going to bed - Boonyang didn't seem to mind, and wasn't apologetic or didn't even acknowledge the fact that it was an hour and a half past our meeting time. He wasn't being rude - it was just another example of how relaxed and foreign Laos time can seem to our hectic western minds.

Mat was laid out sick for a day after some potentially sketchy street food that we munched on the night before. Mo used this day to make friends with the local teenagers at the restaurant next to our guesthouse and help them practice their English. When one of them was packing up to leave the restaurant, Mo inquired as to his destination, and was invited to go to their "Finance School" and sit in on the English class. Instead of sitting in she took over the whole class of students, some of which had only had three days of English lessons thus far. She was offered a Beerlao immediately on arrival, which she professionally declined, and the students were able to practice their English such as "What is your favorite Lao food?" and "What is your good name?". On her way out, they asked her if she could come back and be their teacher everyday.

Mat made a quick recovery and we headed out of Oudamxay bound for Luang Prabang. We were expecting two days and a bit more than 200km of riding through some big mountains, but were feeling strong and motivated to get back from Bangkok. As we rode out of Oudamxay and down some gradual descents we wondered if we felt especially good, or if the road was not as rigorous as we expected. After consulting a map we realized that we had missed our turn to Luang Prabang and were instead headed down the Nam Beng river to the Mekong much further north. Not willing to turn around and backtrack again, and enjoying the easy, descending rollers, we decided to change our plan and head to the town of Pak Beng, the previous site of our one-night stayover on the slow boat to Luang Prabang.

It turned out that this choice was a good one - there was hardly any traffic on the road, and we rode through some tiny weaving villages full of local colors and flavors. Mo found a few excellent shopping opportunities at markets along the way and stocked up on the beautiful local textiles, and we met two other falang (in the true sense of the word) from France that were doing a similar route on a motorcycle. We took two days to get to Pak Beng and they were incredibly enjoyable, with gorgeous scenery, easy riding, and lots of friendly people. We rolled into Pak Beng in the early afternoon, hours before the tourist boat got in, and were able to appreciate the small village for what it was without the nightly influx of Westerners clammoring for hotel rooms and food.

Our time in Asia was coming to an end and we had to get back to Bangkok. There was only one real way out from Pak Beng, and that was the slow boat on the Mekong. We hopped on and headed upriver for our third full day on the mother river, this time in a boat with only about 10 other people. The extra room was much appreciated and we actually enjoyed the scenery and the lazy trip up to Huay Xai.

We only a few days to get back to Bangkok and catch our flight, so even though we wanted to hang out in Laos some more we had to start moving back. We crossed the river back into Thailand the next day and took a bus to the city of Chiang Mai - Thailand's second largest city and a popular tourist destination that we had never quite made it to. In Chiang Mai we splurged a bit on a nice hotel with a swimming pool and enjoyed a couple of relaxing days of shopping, eating, and drinking coffee before hopping on an overnight train (another Thailand first!) back to Bangkok. A final hectic morning in BKK found us packing up our bikes, doing some last minute shopping, and then taking a cab to the airport for our flight back home.

Return to the Full Taste of Happiness

The Golden Tortoise got us successfully way out of Hanoi, but unfortunately it forgot to pave the 200 kms of road leading into our destination of Dien Bien Phu. We were semi-warned in the universal language of sign language as we checked out of our guesthouse in Son La that the road was "very bad and very bumpy". Like anything that we had experienced in Asia so far, we had to check it out for ourselves.... the road was terrible the second we got out of the city limits and continued that way for the next two days all the way into Dien Bien Phu.

The road was under some kind of "construction", although in reality all they had done was completely ripped up and destroyed any semblance of a paved road. The conditions varied anywhere from inches of wet, sticky mud, to stripped pavement with marble sized pebbles on top (the worst to ride on!) to about .01% of the surface that was actually resealed and was like riding on a cloud to heaven. Needless to say, the riding was difficult, but thankfully Mo impeccably timed the acquisition of some trendy dust masks with the conclusion of the paved road. We rode most of the way with our dust masks on, as the dust from passing trucks and vehicles was too thick to breathe without the masks on. To top it all off, we had two of the hardest climbs of our trip, and upward progress was slowed even more as we fought to keep traction and keep ourselves upright. The combination of steep road and SPDs toppled Mo over once and drew some blood on her chain ring, but she recovered quickly and kept on trucking like a pro. While we were collecting ourselves on the side of the road, a kind Vietnamese motorcyclist stopped to check on us and offered us the international gesture of peace - a cigarette. I respectfully declined but really did appreciate the offer; we would probably be doing a lot better in Vietnam if we were smokers. :)

We met an American couple cycling the other way on a beautiful Comotion mountain bike tandem and stopped to swap information and tips. They had come in from Laos over the border that we were headed to, which was very good news as they were the first real-life people we had met that had come across the border. Supposedly it was open for foreign travelers, but the opening was so recent that none of the guidebooks mentioned it and no one really knew for sure. They assured us that they had no problem crossing, although still didn't know if we would be able to procure visas on arrival. We mentally psyched them out when we told them that the next 150km were just as bad as the 50km they had just crossed, and were glad that we were at least nearing the end of the rough section.

We took a rest day in Dien Bien Phu, one of the larger cities in Western Vietnam and the site of a famous decisive French military routing by the Vietnamese. The local museum had a very interesting display of wartime relics and memorabilia, and we spent part of the day chatting with a group of four US marines that had come back to Vietnam to relive and rehash their experiences in the 60s. Hearing them talk about how they had found their old combat positions in the middle of destroyed battlegrounds made us just begin to contemplate how intense the situation really was some 30+ years ago.

We left DPB and headed towards the border of Laos, really not knowing what to expect... we were way off anything that was in a guidebook at this point, and were a little nervous about what to expect at the border crossing into Laos. The climb up to the border was a 18km monster and, while the road was finally sealed, we were getting into some super remote jungle. As we climbed for a couple of hours we barely saw any cars, and began to worry that the border wasn't actually open. Finally we arrived at the Vietnamese exit post and tried to figure out if we could get a visa-on-arrival in Laos. No one that new anything spoke any English, so we processed our visas, checked out of Vietnam, and headed into no man's land.

The 1km ride between the border posts was a bit nerve racking as we began to contemplate what we would do if we were stuck in international limbo in the middle of no where. The best that Mo came up with was to bushwack our way through the jungle a few hundred meters away from the border post, sneak in, hopefully not get shot, and deal with it when we had to leave the country. Confident that we at least had a plan B we were pleasantly surprised that the Laos border post had recently been awarded the "most laid-back landlocked border crossing in the universe" award - yes, they had visas on arrival, and while it took us about one hour to get through (see: Laostime) they let us in for just a few dollars extra in baksheesh (hey, it was Sunday). A wave of relief immediately swept over us - not only did we firmly have both wheels in a country, we were back in Laos... no traffic, no hurry, no problems.

With the Luck of the Golden Tortoise

We tried, we really did.... we tried to motivate and keep riding through the rain, leaving our palatial estate in Hoa Binh and climbing, climbing, climbing into the mountains of Vietnam... Perhaps the rain would clear, the sun would come out, we would get out of this infernal mud, and the road would finally dry off. Perhaps...

Or maybe not. About 100km outside of Hanoi we turned around and headed back for the city, the first time we had backtracked on our whole entire trip. It was a tough and trying decision, but we were tired of being wet, and a bit tired in general after a flurry of traveling and few too many nights without a good sleep. This time we caught a bus from Hoa Binh, opting not to ride the crazy stretch of road again, and navigated our way through the Hanoi motorbike frenzy once more, to a nice, quiet, and peaceful guesthouse in the old quarter.

It was here that we recharged our batteries for a few nights, getting good sleep, finding some good food, and enjoying the quite charming Northern Vietnamese city. One night we spent a few hours walking around the central lake, which felt eerily similar to Lake Merrit but was the location of one of Hanoi's most famous folktales. Legend has it that magical golden tortoises live deep within the lake, ancestors of the O.G. tortoise that took the sacred sword from the king long ago and returned it to its rightful owner. We had vague ideas of what this legend was about, and were completing our second lap of Qi Dong walking and arm exercises when we saw mass hysteria at the far end of the lake. Motos were driving off the road and into the park area, which is strictly verboten in normal times, cars were parking up on the sidewalk, and people were running en masse to the edge of the lake. At first we thought they were enjoying the sunset, but unless they knew something we didn't, there was much too much excitement for an everyday occurrence. Police began impounding motos left and right and no one cared - they couldn't tear themselves away from the water. Realizing that we were of course in Asia, we did what any good soul would find themselves doing upon seeing such a huge crowd - we ran over and joined in. Peering in the water the excitement was contagious, even though we had no idea what we were looking for. And then, we saw it - the golden tortoise surfacing for air, and then promptly plunging under, startled by the deafening cacophony of gasps and moans from the anxious onlookers. People were almost falling in the water at this point, as they tried desperately to snap a photo with whatever electronic device they had. We asked one of the hundreds of onlookers whether it was good luck, as the mob ran clockwise around the lake, following a feint trail of bubbles beneath the surface. "I hope so!" she said, as she took off to follow the crowd, and perhaps grab more of that lucky turtle power.

We felt incredibly fortunate being able to see this amazing occurrence and not have any of our personal possessions impounded by the police. We only hoped that all the citizens who had a long walk home (and a lot of explaining to do to someone) would remember what a lucky event they witnessed. Feeling rejuvenated, we went to the 6:30 performance of the water Puppet Theater, which while incredibly touristy and packed with Westerners, dong-for-dong one of the best entertainment values in the whole world. It was a puppet and live music event, and the puppeteers did it all in a murky pond of water up to their waists. Jim Henson would have been proud.

With images of the Golden Tortoise in our minds we set out again, still determined to take the back road into Laos and start working our way back to Bangkok. We rode out of central Hanoi for the third time, finally starting to feel a bit comfortable in the traffic, and jumped into the madness of the bus station. Mo dusted off her incredible bargaining skills and got ourselves and our bikes on a bus headed West for a very reasonable price, only a bit more than the actual charges. This was quite a scene as the driver started almost triple what it should have cost, and the falang with bicycles bargaining immediately drew a crowd of Vietnamese, all looking for some good entertainment. After a full day on the bus, complete with locals absolutely fascinated by Mat's arm and leg hair (to the point of stroking it, pulling up his pants leg, and inviting people from all over the bus to check it out) we made it to the picturesque town of Son La, a few hundred kilometers out of Hanoi and well on the way to our final Vietnam destination of Dien Bien Phu.

Stuck in Hanoi with the Luang Prabeng Blues Again

After a few days of rest in Hue and some antibiotics (thanks Jennifer and Scott!!!) Mo was back in full force and we jumped on an overnight "sleeper" bus North to Hanoi. The seats were not normal seats, but rather some space-age pods that fully reclined while allowing your legs to extend to some degree. We managed to get a bit of sleep, more so than a regular bus but definitely less than your average room in a guest house. At 5:30 AM we awoke to being dropped off in the rain, in the middle of nowhere, outside the city center of Hanoi. Conveniently, there was a queue of taxis awaiting the bus, friends with the bus driver, who were waiting to take the passengers to a wonderful guest house nearby, for a hefty fee. Argh. Of course we couldn't load our bikes in the small cabs, and we weren't planning on staying in Hanoi anyway. We pulled a janky photocopied partial map of Hanoi and set to it, navigating the streets of the huge metropolitan city, on our bikes, in the rain.

At this point we realized why The Amazing Race didn't select us for their show - we would have demolished all other teams involved. Somehow we found our way to a hotel for breakfast, found the central part of town, and then got directions to the bus station that would take us to the start of our next cycling leg: a journey west from Hanoi, over the mountains, and back into Laos.

Riding around in the rainy madness we realized what the one piece of gear we wished we had most was: fenders! Somehow we neglected to bring these from the states, and had to improvise some for our bikes out of duct tape and plastic water bottles. They worked decently well, however the Vietnamese have a remarkable ability to stay completely free of dirt and mud while riding their bikes and motos through the street. It seems that in the culture it is very important to keep your clothes clean, even with our plastic fenders after a few minutes of riding we looked like we had just finished Paris-Roubaix. We literally became the laughing stock of every corner we stopped at, with people pointing at us and making disgusted faces at how dirty we had allowed ourselves to become.

We headed out of Hanoi towards our bus station and began to get a hang of riding in all the traffic. Hanoi has a unique per-capita income that allows nearly ever inhabitant to be able to afford a motorcycle, but not a car. So the streets are literally filled with thousands of motorcycles, zipping back and forth like some futuristic arcade game. Our pace was somewhere in between the slow motos and the fast local cyclists, which resulted in quite a lot of passing and getting passed. We finally figured out one of the main traffic rules which helped things go a bit more smoothly - as a driver, you are responsible for all traffic in front of you, but none behind you. So motos, bikes, and vehicles routinely merge from the right hand lane without giving as much as a glance over their shoulder - as long as they are a fraction of an inch in front of you, they have right of way. Riding actually became easier once we discovered this rule, as we knew when to hit the breaks and let people in.

Mat had the great idea of riding right bast the bus stop 12km out of town and riding to our starting point, 70 km away. He was not operating super clearly due to lack of sleep and mud in his brain, but this is what we did. Accordingly, he had a breakdown about 30km into it when the hundredth person pointed and laughed at our mud covered bikes and butts. We got some Pho and managed to salvage enough motivation to but on, and about 40 km out of Hanoi the traffic lightened up a bit and the scenery became gorgeous. If only the rain would stop.

Unfortunately, it didn't. We spent a night at a terrible value guest house in Hoa Binh after after an interesting meal full of all sorts of things we couldn't identify. We even gleefully accepted a bottle of what we thought to be water but turned out to be incredibly strong moonshine to drink. The bottle itself would have killed a man, but we had a few shots at the risk of offending the local spirits and called it a night. At least we were out of Hanoi and on the road back to Laos.

The Insanity of National Highway 1

Last time we left you we had descended highway 9 in Vietnam to the coast, cutting across the DMZ and a beautiful, albeit misty, mountain descent. Our intention was to continue along the coast riding south on National Highway One, the highway running the length of Vietnam. Nevermind the warnings we had heard from other cyclists met along the way, nevermind the warnings from seasoned Vietnam travellers; we were going to try it ourselves. And besides, it's the flagship route of our out-of-print Lonely Planet Cycling Vietnam book - how bad could it be?

CRAZY BAD!!! Think I-5 in California, but a mere 8 meters wide with only a painted line separating the two "lanes" from each other. Now eliminate all the other roads running up the length of the state - force all traffic from 101, 1, etc. onto the highway. Eliminate all semblance of traffic rules, through in 8 million motorbikes, cyclists, pedestrians, add a few thousand trucks and buses that have guaranteed right-of-way because they're bigger than you, and you might start to get a sense of what it was like.

Up until now the riding has been hard at parts, but we never felt endangered by traffic. Hectic and chaotic yes, but endangered, no. When the fifth bus swerved head-on into our lane and we had to jump off the shoulder of the road in a millisecond to avoid it, we both knew that our plans would be changing soon.

We finally arrived at Hue, and Mo came down with a stomach bug that had been pestering her all day. She wins the gold star for pushing through the madness and pedalling on despite discomfort. We got a nice hotel room in Hue, complete with English TV (it's still amazing to us how comforting BBC is in the middle of Asia), and we strategized our next moves and recovered.