Farewell to Brazil

Well folks, I'm back in the good ol' US of A now. But before I get too caught up in the swing of things, I'd probably better finish my Brasil chronicles. But first, let's go to Viewer Mail: Question #1: Paraag, you're my idol. But something is troubling me. Was Spongebob Squarepants on TV in Spanish or Portuguese? Please let me know how I can be as cool as you. - AV, New York Answer #1: Ahh... yes. Good question indeed. The problem is that they were speaking so fast that I couldn't tell if which language it was, though I suspect that it was indeed Portuguese. I did happen to catch the opening line though - "Ohhhhhhhhhhh, Quien vives en la pina de bajo del mar? SpongeRoberto SquarePantalones!" (okay I made that last part up) Question #2: What is a sasquatch anyway, a type of squash? I adore the ground you walk on. The next kid I have named Paraag will be named after you! - SL, California Answer #2: No. A sasquatch is a very hairy creature from the depths of the jungle or arctic or other fully unexplored area - kinda similar to a Yeti or Bigfoot. Question #3: Did you get a passport stamp when you went to Argentina? I wish my brother were as cool as you. - NGM, California Answer #3: I tried to get a passport stamp, but instead the Argentinian mounted police (well okay, the border patrol folks) decided to put a cheesy stamp with a toucan on it saying "Recuerdo Argentina Cataratas Iguassu", which means "Remember the Argentina Iguassu Falls". I think I should sue them for ruining an otherwise rather spectacular passport, if I do say so myself. And I do. Sunday, November 23rd Woke up early this morning to hop on a bus for a supposedly 12 hour bus ride to the town of Curitiba. I spent my waking hours on this bus trying unsuccessfully to go to sleep. Even though I was prepared this time for the shock of super-duper air-conditioning, I could have still used a sweater. Fortunately, I had my mp3 player with me to help pass the time by - about 3-4 hours of pretty darn good music, if I do say so myself (I just did). I'm thinking that perhaps I should add Radio DJ to my list of potential careers. After the Great Perfume Fiasco of 2004 occurs, I might be on the street looking for a new career path. Who knows? Somewhere along the way, we were stopped by the Brazilian Highway Patrol, who went through all the luggage and pulled a couple off of the bus to further inspect their luggage. Two hours later, the couple re-boarded the bus with a far lighter load. From what I could gather (from watching and wildly guessing), these folks brought some stuff over from Paraguay (where goods are less expensive) and were trying to smuggle them through and sell at a higher price elsewhere in Brazil. It was all confiscated. But at least I did get to watch a really bad Japanese film with Portuguese subtitles at an unnecessarily high volume level. That's always a recipe for a good time. In Curitiba, I walked into my hotel and was pleasantly surprised at just how beautiful and elegant the place looked. Which probably explains the look of shock on the receptionist's face when she saw me walk in with my backpack, baseball cap and sandals. The room was really amazing (comparatively speaking) - I wish I had more nights here just for this! It even had 4 movie channels (2 HBO, 2 Showtime) on the TV! Monday, November 24th By now you're all wondering why the heck I'm in Curitiba. Well, I'm not going to tell you. Okay, I'll tell you, but you have to let go of my arm first. There's a highly-lauded 4 hour train ride from Curitiba, which sits high up in the mountains, to the town of Paranagua, which is a small city on the coast - a 4 hour train ride, a 4 hour train ride (think Gilligan's Island). The reason for the lauds to be high is that the track was constructed many many years ago (late 1800s) when the equipment didn't exist to carve up the mountainside for a direct path and the technology didn't exist to build very long stretches of bridge. The result? A train that weaves in and out along the incredibly steep mountains through the jungle. While beautiful and spectacular, it actually just reminded me of My Old Kentucky Home, and the Appalachians therein. Though I suspect that these mountains were a tad taller. Well, the Paranagua train station is being rehabbed, so all the train passangers had to get off halfway at the town of Morretes instead. Many passangers simply turned around and took the train back to Curitiba. Not me. That would have been kinda drab. So, I took a public bus (with a bunch of other random backpackers) down to the coastal Paranagua. Since all those backpackers were headed down along with the locals, the bus was packed like peanuts in a Snickers bar. Simply maneuvering my arm to reach a distant handrail with which to brace myself was an adventure in itself. I was just thankful that no one had any rampant out-of-control B.O. issues. Paranagua was a small little town that had that distinct coastal smell and feel to it. It was a rustic town - I don't know what that really means, but trust me. Rustic. After spending a few hours walking around the town and then randomly ordering and eating some lunch (I have no idea what the waitress was saying!), I found a shady perch next to the mostly uninhabited little beach where I just sat and read a book and wrote in my journal for about 2-3 hours. Very simple pleasures. I returned to Curitiba and spent the late afternoon walking all around this city - it's a pretty good size city with lots of young people in it due to a few universities. I had a nice time people-watching and window-shopping along a 6-7 block pedestrian mall and a few small city parks. It's a very clean and developed city as well - it felt like any other small Western city might feel. They even had a McDonalds kiosk solely dedicated to ice cream. Alas the time had come to board an overnight bus to Rio. This really sucked, since I had been in the sun (the sweaty sticky sun) all day and didn't have a hotel room where I could shower and feel Zestfully clean again. A wet-wipe would have to do. In case you've never tried it before, it doesn't really work too well. But it works better than nothing. It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't do well booking a comfortable bus for the overnight journey. This one was your standard bus - no extra legroom and no lower leg-rest pad. And, as expected, it was freezing. Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well. And it didn't take long to get sick of my mp3 collection - there's only so many times you can listen to Coolio's "1,2,3,4" and that Apache Indian song "Boomshakalak" (theme song to Dumb and Dumber). Well, okay, you can only really listen to those 2 songs once without getting sick of them. Then you realize how little song-writing capability Humpty had with his "Humpty Dance" song, and suddenly your DJing aspirations have vanished. I guess I had better make sure that the Great Perfume Fiasco of 2004 never materializes. Tuesday, November 25th I returned to Newton's Rooftop Hostel this morning to finish out my stay in Rio. I entertained the idea of going to a proper hotel with the standard amenities, but was leery of spending my last few evenings by my lonesome (try not to cry too much). After cleaning up and settling back in a bit, I went on a tour of the other major tourist trap in the city - the Cristo Redentor statue (or Christ the Redeemer). This is a huge 100+ ft tall statue that sits atop one of the prominent mountaintops in the area, and is visible from most areas in the city - it's by far the Empire State Building of NYC, or the Gateway Arch of St. Louis, or the crackpipes of Detroit, or the ummm... we don't really have a defining edifice in Cincinnati, do we? Before making our way to the statue, the tour van took our small group to a favela tour. Favela is the Portuguese term for slum. There's plenty of little shacks and shanties covering the mountainsides. After all of the available land was taken to build these shanties upon, the residents built upwards, adding another shanty level to their shanty. This new level most often looks nothing like the level below and the transitions are far from seamless. The result? It looks pretty darn shanty. It was still neat to see though - they all still had electricity and water and the basic amenities. But it's really hard to describe without showing pictures. After stopping a few times on the ride up the mountain for some beautiful postcard picture views, we were at the top of the mountain at the statue. As expected, it was swamped with tourists. And all the tourists (myself included) were taking their turns in front of the statue doing the Cristo Redentor pose. Oh yeah - let's see, the Cristo Redentor pose is similar to a tightrope walker with arms outstretched. There was one little boy from somewhere in the States who refused to do this pose because he didn't want to look like a bird, instead he opted for a Statue of Liberty pose. Kids. Once again, there was a storm brewing in the distance and we had to leave or get soaked. The rain was accompanied by some very strong winds - several of us had to get out of the van at one point to help move a large fallen tree out of the way so that we could get down the hill. Good thing I'd been working out. When I got back to the hostel, I quickly realized that there were only a handful of people staying there at the time, and only one person was to be found anywhere. Though I was hoping to go hit the bars and check out the local scene, it was not to be this evening. Wednesday, November 26th After catching on my sleep, I took the subway and a local bus to the entrance of the the Tijuca Forest, which is an impressive National Park right in the middle of Rio. The object for today - see a bit of nature by way of hiking. Before I go too far, I must say that the subway ride was surprisingly comfortable and enjoyable (as far as public transportation goes). The trains were very frequent, spacious, clean, quiet, and hobo-free. Another neato-keato aspect was that the floor was covered in a rubber mat material, which allows a rider to not have to hold on to a handrail as the train is starting or stopping. This fascinated me, perhaps more than it should have. One of the primary rules of hiking is to not do it alone, especially in an area where you have no cell phone, can't speak the language, and have no one who will look for you if you don't show up. But I was still determined to see a bit of nature, so I pressed forward. After getting a trail map, I selected a trail that was relatively close to the road in it's entirety - the major attraction on this route were several grottos (rock formations of some sort). The forest was gorgeous, though I was continually focusing on evading insects and anything that sounded like a snake. Had I come to a Rio a few months later, I am told that the forest would be full of very colorful butterflies and flowers. But, as you know, I was here now. About 30 minutes into this trail, I walked into a clearing next to a pretty steep cliff. I would have sat down and relaxed and soaked it all in for a bit, but there were some teenagers making out and I was ruining their lack of adequate parental supervision. Problem was that I couldn't figure out where the trail went from here, and helping me out was clearly not in the forefront of the teenagers' minds. I spotted a trail and took it. It followed the rock cliffs around quite a ways and then seemingly disappeared. I had no idea where I was, and so I was tempted to turn around and make my way back, but there were a few rather challenging stretches of mountainside that were easier to climb up then get back down. Finally, I heard a stream and a small waterfall, spotted it on my map, and just headed in that direction. From there, I still couldn't find the trail, but I stumbled upon a few locals who gladly offered to lead me back to the road. I was fortunate in that one of them spoke English - she was a ex-ballerina/stage actress who had spent several years in Ft. Lauderdale developing her second career as a "healer" (using crystals and stuff like that). She had recently returned to Rio and was working on opening her business here. The world is full of interesting people. After making it back to the roadway, I decided to stop giving my dear old mother heart attacks and stick to simple trails from here on out. There was a 5 hour trail that I wanted to do, but I was a little too worried about getting lost, especially since I had forgotten to bring my headlamp along. When I returned to the hostel, I was fortunate in that there were new travellers who had joined. I was unfortunate in that they were all lame and didn't want to go out. And it was raining, so it was hard to argue with them. So a small group of us sat around and drank beer - me, Fernando from Peru, and two Swedes. Unfortunately, the Swedes were not members of the bikini team, nor were they female. Actually, those fellas told me that they had never heard of the Swedish Bikini Team. I refuse to believe that the SBT is a figment of American imagination. Hold strong. So this just means that I'll have to come back someday to partake in the almost-legendary club scene in Rio. Thursday, November 27th My last day here! I spent the morning packing up, and then headed out to the beach with Tamara, a girl from Holland who had just come into the city. We walked along the Copa, Copacabana beach, and then went over to the Ipanema beach right around the corner and plopped down to enjoy the beach. Since I am not in much of a need of a suntan, I decided to brave the ocean a bit and try my hand at bodysurfing since the waves were a pretty good size. I caught a few good ones, and had my shorts almost ripped off by a few others. The sky was cloudy and overcast, but it was still shockingly bright and hot outside - I could feel my skin burning. So after a few hours, we walked back to the hostel. My original intent was to go hang-gliding this morning. Rio is awesome for hang-gliding because there are mountains so close to the beach, and so you can launch off from high off of a mountain and land on the beach. This is exactly the type of activity that you know I live for. But, they shut the site down due to high winds. The bastards. I wasn't able to go with Option #2 either - scuba diving, since there was not much available in the area. Argh! I did get my heart rate up for the departing flight though. After a taxi scheduling fiasco at the hostel, I finally got into a cab 2 hours before flight time with a 30 minute average taxi ride to the airport. But there was un-average traffic on the road - I ended up reaching the airport 45 minutes before flight time for an international flight. In the States, I wouldn't have been permitted on the plane. Fortunately, the standards are not as strict in Brasil, though they were very close to closing the United counter. So, does that count as an extreme sport? Tidbits: 1. Getting food at a restaurant in Brasil for one person is difficult - the portions are huge and enough for two. So, there is a proliferance of "by the kilo" self service type places, which are pretty good. For my final meal in Brasil, I had a good-sized filet and lots of tuna sushi for about 4 bucks. 2. By the numbers: # nights spent away from home = 11. 4 of those were in a hostel with no air-conditioning. 3 were spent in a proper hotel room. 2 were spent in a bus. 2 were spent in an airplane. Net? I'm a idiot. Okay, that's all for now. I hope you've enjoyed the latest installment of my chronicles. I'll be headed back down to South America next year for a few more weeks, hopefully, to do some hiking in Peru on the Macchu Picchu trail. If anyone's interested... -Paraag

Greetings from Brazil

So, as I´m sure you´ve figured out from the subject header by now, I´m in Brazil. Why Brazil? Because United egged me into it by having a great last minute airfare deal, and I still needed to get a South American passport stamp. That´s a good enough reason, right? And since so many of you enjoyed these weekly updates last summer, I figured I´d capture my travels with an encore presentation (I hope I'm not being too presumptuous here). But alas, I´m only here for 10 days, so it won´t last very long. Monday, November 17th Went to work for a half-day this morning (though my co-workers would claim that it wasn´t really work), and headed down to Philly in the afternoon where my overnight journey to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil would begin. Actually, I should be spelling the country as Brasil. How in the world did we manage to mini-butcher the country´s name by substituting a ´z´? Regardless, Brasil has a nice ring to it. Which got me thinking... what the heck does United States mean anyway? Aren´t most countries a group of states that are united? Perhaps it meant something 227 years ago before we were a country that the individual states were united against the British oppression (damn Brits!), but now it doesn´t make all that much sense anymore. I mean look at Canada, even they have a real name (sorry if you were expecting a Canadian joke there, but my new boss is from that village, eh?). In any case, my point is that nothing happened today. The whole country-name thing was simply filler material. Oh wait - I did meet the most obnoxiously rude airline hostess that I've ever encountered in my life. Tuesday, November 18th I actually landed in Sau Paulo first, which is the world´s third most populous city in the world. The view from above confirmed this. I couldn´t spot a park or futbol field anywhere to save my life - the whole landscape was just covered with rooftops, even up and down hills. Really strange. After catching the connecting flight to Rio, I decided to take the city bus to my hotel. I´m always a little leary as to how to get to my hotel in any new country, because I know that there are a ton of airport scams. And since I had absolutely no clue where I was in relation to my accomodation or how much it should cost, and I couldn´t really converse with any of the natives to figure it out (everyone speaks Portuguese), I took my chances with the $0.75 city bus, which would also give me a nice tour of the city in the meantime. Well, at least, that´s what I thought. I got a good tour of traffic jams. It took about 2 hours, I think. Since I don´t wear a watch, keeping track of time has been a minor recurring issue this entire trip. So Rio is pretty darn hot. I got off the city bus in the Copa, Copacabana area (yes, the same one of Barry Manilow fame) and walked about 6 blocks in the oppressive heat to my hostel. By the way, before I forget, oppressive is the word of the day, so every time you read it, you must scream as loud as you can, as if I were Pee Wee Herman and this were my Playhouse. Yes, I stayed in a hostel in Rio. Since I´m traveling alone, I had no idea how I´d meet up with anyone unless I did this. It was a good choice. Everyone there spoke English and was really really friendly. The place is called Newton´s Rooftop Hostel, and ran me a whopping $8 per night. It´s pretty neatly decorated and has a deck on the rooftop where all of the backpackers hung out at night, speaking English and drinking beer. I even had dinner with them up there - we ordered out for some Domino's! Let me tell you - Domino's makes a mean margherita pizza down here with fresh basil leaves. By the time I got here, it was already late in the day and it was crazy hot. So I just stayed here and chatted with the other backpackers. Yes, that was lame and very un-Paraag like. However, I chalked it up to my required "adjustment period". The rooms didn´t have air-conditioning, so I didn´t sleep very well. Neither did my three hottie female roommates (2 Austrians, 1 Hollandaise?). Because of the heat, okay? Because of the heat. The oppressive heat. Wednesday, November 19th After waking up in the morning and peeling out of bed - it was sweaty-sticky, you know, from the heat. Really, from the heat. I mean seriously folks, get your minds out of the collective gutter. Can I continue here? As I was saying, after I got up and had a shower and a basic breakfast, I wandered over to a few travel agencies to set up the remainder of my itinerary. I really had nothing planned at all when I left and tried to figure it out on the plane. Unfortunately, there was no way I could really do any hiking in the Amazon - it´s too far away. And besides, I didn´t get a yellow-fever injection or the remainder of my Hepatitis injections from last year. Bad Paraag. One of the things that I booked was a half day tour in Rio today. We saw the Maracaña Stadium, which is the largest futból stadium in the world, holding close to 200,000 people in it. That´s pretty large. But the highlight of the trip was the double cable car journey up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain (Pao do Açucar). From there, you can see the entire city and realize what an odd selection of locations this is to have a city. There are mountains everywhere, and the city pretty much exists in all of the valleys. So, some of the areas are only connected by a few tunnels here and there. Kinda neat. While I was up there, I saw some dark clouds coming in from the horizon and tried in vain to catch a bolt of lightning in a picture. Of course, then the thunderstorms hit us on the mountain and we were stuck for about an hour. But the rain was a welcome addition after the oppressive heat (are you yelling yet?). I met a guy from New York during this trip - he was wearing an NYPD shirt similar to the one my brother owns (as well and millions of others), but this guy was actually NYPD. And he added another example to back my long-held theory - most policemen are arrogant, egotistical jerks. Perhaps they have to be, though. The only policeman I've met personally who wasn't a jerk was one of my techs (ex-police) in Cape Girardeau, MO. But then again, I was his boss... In the evening, a few of us from the hostel went out to a restaurant to get some of the local food. Most meals here in Brazil are pretty darn large and are recommended for two people. That really sucks for me since I´m traveling alone. But in this situation, it worked out well - two of us split a filet mignon platter. So, I was expecting something like 10 oz for each of us or something like that. Rather, it looked like each of us got about 24 oz of beef - a filet, no less. It was even better than Outback Steakhouse. I had a hard enough time finishing off the beef than to even begin worrying about the creamed rice that came with it (eww...). And it was gooooood (like Jimmy Dean). After our marathon meal, we strolled over to the Copa, Copacabana waterfront at one of many small stalls set up there and had a few rounds of the local favorite, caipirinhas. It had a few different liquors in it, so it kinda resembled a long island ice tea. Except that a small glass was all of 3 Reals (= $1 USD). That´s almost as cheap as New York City bars. But hanging out on the beach, sipping some drinks, and chatting with other English-speaking people was really awesome. Thursday, October 20th Peeled myself out of bed this morning and headed down to the Copa, Copacabana beach. It´s pretty long. Around the corner from the Copa, Copacabana beach´s end is the Ipanema beach (as in that song "The Girl from Ipanema"), but I didn´t get that far. I simply strolled around, enjoying the cloud cover and medium heat, people-watching, and making sure that I wasn´t being robbed by the "accidental bump" move. There were plenty of people playing beach volleyball - but not normal beach volleyball. This futból crazed place was playing with futból rules - no hands or arms, including the service. It was pretty darn cool. I thought to myself, "I can´t do that". I also had the pleasure of seeing the sasquatch himself cruise down the beach on a bike. Twice. After a few hours of strolling, I headed out on my first adventure. An 18 hour bus ride to Foz do Iguaçu. Or at least my travel agent said it was 18 hours. The good book (a.k.a. Lonely Planet travel guide) claimed that it was a 21 hour ride. There were no flights available for a few more days, and they were pretty darn expensive anyway. Surprisingly enough, the bus was really really comfy - much better than any bus I´ve seen in the US in fact. Attached to the back of the seat in front of you is a pull down cushioned pad to bridge the gap between the edge of the seat and your footrest. And the seats reclined a ton too. It was like having a Barc-o-lounger in the bus. You remember the oppressive heat I was complaining about? Well, the Brazilians go all out with the air-conditioning. Before long, I couldn´t go to sleep because my knee-caps were frozen (really). It took a while to muster up the courage to charade my way into explaining to the driver that I was freezing my knee-caps off and needed to get into my bag to get some cloths of warmth. Friday, November 21st So I'm still in that gosh darn bus. Until 2pm or so - that ended up being 23 hours. I was in a great mood. Fortunately, I had purchased a package tour that included a tour of the Brazilian falls and 2 nights at a hotel - a real hotel. After a wonderfully refreshing shower, the tour guide took me on my own personal tour of the Brazilian Iguacu Falls - the Falls are split between Argentina and Brazil. But before seeing the nice birds-eye view of the falls, I took a different 2 hour tour that culminated in a boat ride into the spray of the falls. It was incredible - we got absolutely soaked from the spray of the waterfalls. It was so intense that you couldn't even open your eyes to see the falls. So as I was saying, the falls are split between Brazil and Argentina. But much like Niagara falls, this split is not even. Most of the falls are on the Argentinian side, but Brazil has a nice overview of the entire thing - they built a walkway out on top of the river to the tip of the falls to give some nice close-up views. Regardless, the Niagara Falls (and even the Victoria Falls in Africa) pale in comparison. These falls are much much taller and 10 times wider. Simply breath-taking. No amount of time would have been enough to let it soak in - it was that amazing. I'm really at a loss for words to describe it - I'm just glad that the imagery is still fresh in my mind! Saturday, November 22nd Today, I took a full day tour of the Argentinian side of the Falls with my hotel tour guide and a few others. We had a few hikes to get to some amazing vista points of the Argentinian side - spectacular. It's kind of like how the Canadian Horseshoe Falls are so much more impressive than the US Niagara Falls, and then multiply that by 10. And I guess that I really can't call it a hike so much - all the walkways were comfortably paved so that anyone could do it. This was good for my tour group, since the others in the group were all over 60 years of age. But similar to the Brazilian side, these paved roadway did extend out to the edge of the falls. Regardless, I was a bit bummed since I was hoping to do some real hikes and see some of the wildlife as well. I came away with the realization that any time I go and see a natural wonder like this in the future, I should do it on my own terms if possible such that I can sit and stare for any amount of time I want. But, I did see a toucan. I named him Sam. He's my very bestest friend. For dinner that evening, I did something that I probably should have regretted. I had sushi in a third-world country. Probably not the best idea I've had so far, but then again, considering the lack of pure adventure on this trip thus far, perhaps it was necessary. Though it's well past Saturday, I'll split this up into two e-mails and finish the rest later when I get home. As I've said already, this trip has been very much Kix-like: mom-approved. There's been no rolling down hills in large inflated plastic balloons, no go-carting steep slopes sans railings, no jumping off of cable cars with a rubber band around the ankles, no riding on top of a truck (no seatbelt!) through curvy roads, and no near death experiences by scooter. I'll try to change that by the next e-mail. Tidbits: 1. Pregnant women here walk around with their bellies hanging out. Not that this is wrong or anything, it's just something I'm not used to seeing. I suppose it's seen as a natural stage in life that doesn't need to be hidden. In fact, one of the very attractive Brasilian MTV VJ's was very noticeably pregnant. I don't think this would fly very well in the US. 2. Now I'm as much a Telemundo fan as the next person (just ask my new roomie Steve of Brit-land), but some shows were just not intended to be dubbed over in Spanish. Like Spongebob Squarepants. 3. Lastly, if anyone wants a soccer jersey, let me know soon and I'll try and get you one. They look pretty darn authentic down here, and there's a multitude to choose from. Let me know if you have a specific team that you want and I'll see if I can find it tomorrow. My guess is that they are running less than $20 (probably $15). 4. Brits and Aussies (and perhaps all Europeans) go to the store and buy a slab of beer. A slab is pretty much a 12 pack. So, the conversion factor in use here is 2 slabs = 1 case, or 1 slab = 0.5 cases. Let me know if you need more time. - Paraag

Trip Update #14 - En Finito

Yeah, okay. So I'm a tad bit late with this one. Just withhold your payment - that'll show me. If you do have service complaints, please register them at www.biteme.com. Have a nice day! :-) Alas, this will be the final update. I leave in about 40 hours. My mother is so happy. I think she has one of those digital countdown clocks on the wall. You know, like those clocks that were all over the place a few years back counting down to the new millennium? Hmmm... New Years 2000 was probably the single largest event in mankind that rendered the most clocks unusable. What a waste. So, do they go to clock heaven or something? I think it's sad that they come to such an abrupt meaningless fate. I know I wouldn't want to be a millennium countdown clock, would you? All right, enough babble. To the "Where's Paraaldo?" verses: Monday, August 12th Woke up in severe pain. Last night was the single worst night of sleep I've had in a decade. Something hit me hard. Must have been the pizza. A little too happy for my tastes. Damn that Herb. I'm sure the beer had nothing to do with it. Nooooooooo. Somewhere around noon (I think), I crawled onto the backseat of a motor scooter for a tour of the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. First stop: The Killing Fields of Choeng Ek. Those of you who have seen the movie called "The Killing Fields" will already know that Pol Pot's regime in the late 70's (I think) exterminated 2-3 million Cambodians for being educated or for being suspected dissidents. About 10,000 people were buried in mass graves at Choeng Ek. One of the memorials gives you a real hard gut check - it's a bunch of glass-door cabinets filled with stacked exhumed human skulls. If that doesn't make it hit home, nothing will. Next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This place was a high school turned prison camp turned museum, where Pol Pot sent the educated people and suspected dissidents prior to sending them to their execution and mass burial at Choeng Ek. Unbelievably depressing. Last stop was the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. Due to my late start, I only had about 30 minutes to spend here. I would've liked to spend 3-4 hours - mainly to have somewhere a little more cheerful to recuperate from my rough night and not so perky early afternoon travels. This place was gorgeous. I think it's even nicer than the Royal Palace in Bangkok. If you remember, I commented on the Bangkok Royal Palace that it was so beautiful that I didn't even know what to take a picture of. I almost felt like I was doing a disservice to a building or structure if I didn't photograph it. Well ditto that here. Times two. Tuesday, August 13th Took a boat up the Mekong River to Siem Reap today. At least I think it was the Mekong River. I've done so much travelling on the Mekong River so far, that I'm gonna stick with it. I've already made the Mekong - Yukong joke, haven't I? Anywho, this boat wasn't a normal looking boat. Oh no. It resembled a submarine that didn't quite submerge, or perhaps something out of Jacques Cousteau, but only 0.0 leagues under the sea. In any case, it was fast, so I was there by noon. After fighting the huge crowd of hawkers trying to get me to go to their guesthouse on the back of their scooter, I hopped onto the back of a scooter of a guy who somehow had my name written on a piece of paper. The element of familiarity goes a long way when you're surrounded. Oh yeah - so you're probably wondering what the heck is in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Nothing really. But it is abnormally close to the single greatest Ancient Wonder of the World. I speak of course of The Temples of Angkor (insert dramatic sound clip here), of course of course. These are a collection of temples built by the Khmer kings over a span of 600 years beginning in the 11th century, the crown jewel of the lot being the tremendous Angkor Wat. Sorry - can't really describe it. So for dramatic effect, just imagine something so beautiful it's inconceivable, and then nod your head (much like Stifler and little bro gazing at the computer screen) and smile. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. The only thing I saw today was one temple, called Phnom Bakheng, which is perched on top of a hill. After climbing the steep slope of the mountain, and then the steep steps of the temple, I sat around for about an hour or two waiting for the sun to go down with a bunch of strangers. Actually, I take that back - several people that I had met on my Vietnam Mekong trip were there too. Anyways, we didn't know when the sun actually set because there were too many clouds in the way. But we imagined how nice it would be to watch the sun set. And there was much rejoicing. Wednesday, August 14th Went Wat-watching all day today. From seeing the sunrise at Angkor Wat at 6 am to seeing the sunset at Angkor Wat at 6pm. Wat after Wat after Wat after Wat. But here's the condensed play-by-play in between the Angkor Wat visits: The Bayon, The Baphuon, Phimeankas, Terrace of the Leper King, Terrace of Elephants, Ta Keo, Ta Proehm, Bantaey Kdei, Preah Rup, Bantaey Srei, East Mebon, Ta Som, and Preah Khan. Some were very very large, some were quite small. Some have been fully restored, others are in the middle of restoration, and still others are left untouched. Since they were built over a 600 year span, there area a vast array of religious and architectural differences among them. In all cases though, the level of stone carvings was just exquisite. And seeing these ruins in the thick of the jungle, in some cases it was the jungle literally in the ruins, was unreal. I spent the last three hours or so of my sightseeing exploring Angkor Wat. This alone was worth the trip into Cambodia. Infinitely better than Borobudur and Prambanan in Indonesia. For the last hour, I sat perched outside the Northwest Stupa of Angkor Wat listening to music on my MP3 player, staring out into the distance in the general direction of the sun, which was unfortunately still playing peek-a-boo behind the clouds. You just don't get to do that every day. Thursday, August 14th Started the long painful journey back to Bangkok today, courtesy of A/C minibus. The first leg of this journey to the Cambodian border was by far the more interesting. Cambodian roads have not been touched since the 60's. In fact, it was hard to tell if there was really any pavement at all - the roads were dirt for the most part, with severe potholes and tire trenches. We were limited to about 15 kmh for about 7 hours. Some of the other silly tourists in the minibus thought it'd be a good idea to try and sleep through it. All they got was a hard smack in the head from the window as the bus shimmied from side to side. Dummies. Along the way, we passed a few vehicles that were broken down due to simple mechanical issues such as total axle failure or the pansy left-front-wheel-snappage-offage. And a few other vehicles that had simply driven over the wrong spot on the wooden bridge, and subsequently partially falling through. In each of these cases, we just drove around them. At 15 kmh or less. In one instance, we were diverted through a few farms to avert a truck-stuck-in-bridge scenario. The farmers had all set up makeshift tollbooths for the rerouting. Something tells me that they were in on the bridge failure. Friday, August 16th I think the digestive system should have a reset button or a purge button or something like that. I've had some issues over the past few days. Thankfully, today was the end of it. I was waiting till I got in Thailand because I didn't quite trust the quality of medication available in Cambodia. Wow. Those are words that I never thought I'd utter. I spent the day shopping for the most part. I would tell you what I bought, but then I'd have to kill you. Okay I'm lying. I can't kill you. I'm in frickin' Thailand. The only other thing of note is that I went to see Men In Black 2 today in the movie theatres. Not bad at all. And they didn't even play that accursed song. As in New Zealand, seats were assigned. Just before the movie, everyone was required to stand up "to pay your respects to the King", while a national anthem of some sort was played over the sound system. Immediately following the movie, all the teenage girls were chatting on their cell phones. Saturday, August 17th - Thursday, August 22nd Left for the island of Ko Samet on Saturday, where I'll cap off this extensive and extremely-tiring journey. I'm just wiped out completely. I haven't stayed in one spot for more than two days in three and a half months (with the exception of Sydney). Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't trade the experience I've had for anything. I'm just really really tired. To the point that I don't think I enjoyed Angkor Wat as much as it deserved to be enjoyed. So Ko Samet is supposed to be the relaxation therapy. I didn't do a damn thing the whole time. My room was a shanty bungalow with a full-size bed in it (with mosquito net, thank goodness). The roof was made of tin. The walls were made of something resembling basket thatch. I just sat around. Read a few books - for those of you keeping track, I've finished Naked by David Sedaris, Masquerade by William Kienzle, The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coehlo, and I'm almost done with The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (no relation to Patrick). Began a morning jogging routine. Even tried my hand at body surfing. Watched some movies, including Blade II, Men in Black II (again), The Matrix, and Meet the Parents. The weather has been perfect. Perfect for me that is - overcast the whole time. I'm too tanned as it is, so this allowed me to venture where I wanted to without concern. The bar at the place I stayed at was pretty cool. From 10pm to midnight every night, they have this thing called Toss-Up. You flip a coin to determine whether or not you pay for your drink. I won four out of five - so I paid a total of $1.50 for five gin and tonics. Can't beat it. Today (Thursday), I got on a boat to come back to Bangkok. This gives me a day and a half in Bangkok before catching my early Saturday morning flight back home. Which gives me plenty of time to partake in Bangkok's bustling trade of... umm... on second thought, let me change the subject. Have you seen my baseball? Yes mom, I'm being good. I promise. I won't be engaging in any activities that could result in body parts falling off. Really. I promise. So that's it. The end. Over. Kaput. Zoinks. Jeepers. Bif! Zok! Whap! If you're expecting some grand essay on "things I've learned" or "the meaning of life", I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I'm working on it. But I'll leave you with a few thoughts. (Bill N. - please skip to the bottom. This is the sappy stuff that you will undoubtedly give me grief over!) - No matter where you go, people are inherently the same. There is no such thing as a country full of evil people. There are just some really bad governments. Sometimes, it's not even a bad government - just a government that we don't agree with. - Religion is for the most part the same everywhere too – just in a different color wrapper. Everywhere people are looking for guidance in a mysterious world that seems uncontrollable at times. And everywhere, the basic tenets of all religions can be summed up to the golden rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". It's a shame that most wars are attributed to religious differences. - It's really a shame that we as people revere money as much as we do. Knowledge and understanding are worth far more, but not given as much credit. As a result, I think as a society, we have our values way out of whack. As the adage goes, money can't buy happiness (and Weird Al adds "I guess I'll have to rent it"). - Nothing humans will build will ever be as spectacular as that which has already be created. Nature is by far the most spectacular thing I've seen on this trip. And it's free (or at least it should be). - A trip to a third world country really puts some things in perspective. Why is it that a child with (what we consider in the West to be) absolutely nothing in a third world country can be perfectly happy kicking a ball of twine around, and a child in a "developed" country will yell, kick, and scream about not having a Playstation 2? Simplicity has some benefits that we've lost the ability to see. I'm not, by any means, advocating a move to the 500 years ago. I just think it might be helpful to sit back and think about what I think I need and what I really need every once in a while. I guess I did have an essay in me after all. If you don't agree with me on some of these thoughts, that's cool too – they are somewhat personal thoughts anyway. We'll just agree to disagree. I'm not really looking for a debate here, but I'm more than open to a discussion at some point with any takers. Over a good bottle of wine. Or Franzia. So long. Farewell. I hate to say goodbye. Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you. Those of you in Cincinnati, stop by and see me sometime. I'd love to catch-up. I'll be back on late Saturday night. Those of you not in Cincinnati, drop me a line. I've disconnected my cell phone, so just use my home phone - 513-871-5830. -Paraag Tidbits: 1. Cell phone coverage in Asia is far superior to the U.S. Everywhere I've gone, the tour guides, bus operators, boat driver, etc. has relied extensively on the cell phone for last minute changes and whatnot. Everywhere. 2. There's a bar in Siem Reap called Angkor What? Guess someone beat me to that joke. Dammit! 3. When in Asia, always remember to have plenty of bottled water handy. It's not a good feeling to get up thirsty in the middle of the night only to realize that you can't drink out of the tap. 4. Following on #3, but the locals must drink out of the tap. And they're A-Ok. Amazing how our privileged lifestyle in the West has also made us more susceptible and prone to sickness. Kind of counter-intuitive. 5. Just remembered one that I meant to write way back in Australia. Rayman can definitely appreciate this one. If you're lactose intolerant, don't drink a glass of milk in the morning without taking the proper medication. Even if you think you can "muscle" your way through it. P.S. A sincere thanks to the countless people who have e-mailed me compliments and such. I'm going to miss writing these as much as or more than you'll miss reading them. And from what I can tell, there's a whole group of people that I don't even know who are getting forwarded these from other people. Feel free to drop me a line or e-mail - I'm kind of curious to see where it ends.

Trip Update #13

I'm in trouble - it's the accursed 13th update. Or perhaps it's a good sign, since I've survived the 13th week. Hmmm... Monday, August 5th On the road again this morning - this time to a town called Hoi An. Hoi An is a picturesque little town situated about 5 km from the beach and boasts a fabulously untouched "Old Town" area for the romantics in all of us. See? I really could be a travel guide writer. After finding a room acceptable enough for me (i.e. cheap), I headed out to take part in Hoi An's favorite pastime - shopping. This area is famous for getting custom-tailored clothes at bargain basement prices. Who am I to buck a trend? So, I checked it out. Having no idea what I was looking for, I walked into a shop and stood there rather cluelessly. This reminds me of a rule that I learned at work that I clearly paid no regard: Have a plan. I had no idea what I wanted to get made at all, and no idea how much I wanted to spend on it. Sensing correctly that my mind was blank slate to be manipulated, the salesladies did rather well - convincing me to order 2 pants and 5 shirts that evening. Total: $60. They would be ready tomorrow at 11 am. I can't even get pants hemmed that quick or for that cheap in the States. Next item on the agenda was squaring away travel plans for the next few days. Like any sane person, I went to see Mr. Phuc (pronounced "fook"). Normally I don't comment on making travel plans - it's a given that happens at every city I've visited. But I couldn't not tell you about my new friend Mr. Phuc (pronounced "fook") now, could I? That Mr. Phuc (pronounced "fook"), he's a good guy. Tuesday, August 6th Agenda for today - nothing major. Just relax. Since I've been pretty much non-stop since getting into Vietnam (well, probably since Bangkok, actually), I figured I'd just relax for a day and have nothing specific on the agenda. Except for shopping. So I swung by the tailor shop to check out the clothes. I didn't know clothes were actually supposed to fit like this. It's amazing. I can never find my size in pants - it's virtually impossible. So I usually have to buy pants and have them hemmed for an additional charge. This also results in the pants being a bit baggier than necessary. But not these pants. I would have to get some more. And these shirts! Apparently, I have long arms for my torso size. So, to get long-sleeve shirts that fit my arms, I end up having a whole lot of shirt leftover to tuck into my pants. But not these shirts. I would have to get some more. In a few short minutes (or about an hour), I had ordered 3 more pants, 1 more shirt, a 3-piece black tuxedo, and a ¾ length gray Cashmere jacket - all for $110 more. Not bad. And I thought that this stuff was cheap in Bangkok (sorry Rayman!). And to top it all off, all of this stuff would be ready this very evening. I'm not making this up. There's also a bunch of art galleries here. So I perused and browsed to my heart's content. I picked, bargained, and purchased three pieces. And, of course, I'll end up spending a heck of a lot more on getting them framed in the States than I spent on the actual piece of art. Surely this isn't the way it's supposed to happen. After spending 2 hours and $50 in the post office to send 7 kg of clothes home (ETA Winter 2002), I was pooped. So much for a day to relax. And I didn't even get to hit the beach. I was so pooped that dinner consisted of the water and Pringles that the tailor shop gave me as parting gifts (see? Pringles are universal). Wednesday, August 7th Got a cab to the airport in Danang this morning to catch a flight to Saigon. I wasn't feeling in such top shape – the evidence points at my gourmet dinner from the previous evening. So, when I got to Saigon, I found a room and then crashed for a few hours before walking around. Saigon is a bit of a misnomer - it's actually Ho Chi Minh City, which has 16 districts in it. District 1 is the concentrated downtown area, which is called Saigon. The older generation still calls the entire city Saigon though. All of the buildings around here are very very narrow and long. So is my hotel. My room is on the 4th floor - #402. Somehow, this translates to having to climb 5 sets of stairs. Haven't quite figured out the math on this one yet. Thursday, August 8th Still not feeling too great, so I slept in this morning before heading out to see the Saigon sights in the afternoon. First stop - Emperor of Jade Pagoda. But I couldn't see any jade anywhere, and there certainly wasn't an Emperor hanging out there, so I was confused. This time a little more than the standard level of confusion typically lingering in my head. But there were a whole lot of turtles in a shallow pool at the entrance. Does that count for anything? Next stop - the Notre Dame Cathedral. It's just smaller than the one in Paris, that's all. And a tad bit out of place. But it's all good. Lunch was spectacular - sushi platter for $6. Hit the spot. While $6 for a meal in Vietnam is actually more than I've had to spend so far, I needed some sushi badly. Cooler heads prevailed. After lunch, I headed over to the War Remnants Museum, which has on display loads of stuff leftover from the American War - bombs, planes, tanks, bullets, other weapons. Everything. It used to be called the American War Crimes Museum, and then they changed the name because they were worried about upsetting American tourists. I wonder why? The exhibitions were a bit eye-popping and unnerving. Clearly they were only showing one side of the story, but it was still rather compelling stuff, which left me in a strange state of questioning and gloom. So my next stop was actually a nice one to make - the Mariamman Hindu temple. After having seen so many Buddhist pagodas and wats over the past month, it was nice to step foot into a Hindu establishment again. Even if the interior of the temple was completely painted in tacky pastel colors not befitting a temple in any way, shape, or form. Later on that evening, I purchased a pirated copy of a book by Robert McNamara (U.S. Secretary of Defense during the first half of the war) called: In Retrospect - the Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. It's pretty good actually. He does an excellent job of explaining why decisions were made going into the war and how our involvement slowly escalated much further than anticipated. If wars are your thing, this is a good book to get. Friday, August 9th Took a full day tour today to go see the Cao Dai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. More on each of these shortly. But now, a word from our sponsors. Please spend the next 3.0 minutes singing "Nod Your Head" by Will Smith to yourself as part of the Men In Black 2 commercial. I've even seen these commercials here. This song is ridiculous. Isn't 'Nod Your Head" a line in the Hokie Pokie or something? What's next? "Pick Your Nose"? "Lick Your Palms"? "Scratch the Small of Your Back"? "Walk Like an Egyptian"? So Cao Dai is this religion that this Vietnamese guy founded in the early 1900s. Or I should say, he had some visions and then established a forum within which to convey this vision. In a nutshell, it's very dark and rather cramped. The religion, on the other hand, is a combination of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Strangely enough, it also reveres Victor Hugo as a saint or prophet (I forget which). In any case, we saw this huge complex north of Saigon which used to be wholly owned and operated by the CaoDaists. And we watched the noon prayer service. Then we got back in the bus. The Cu Chi tunnels (not to be confused with the Cu Chi Cu Chi Cu tunnels - which are 2.5 times better) are an underground network of tunnels in the predominantly Communist village of Cu Chi, which the Vietcong used to thwart the American and South Vietnamese army during the war. We saw all sorts of pain-inflicting booby-traps, often involving multiple metal spikes or nails being lodged somewhere in the victims body. They didn't do any live demonstrations unfortunately. I would have paid another dollar for this. The tunnels themselves were where the Cu Chi villagers lived to survive the intense air bombing campaigns from the US planes. They were Vietnamese sized too. They doubled the height of a 60m stretch of tunnels for us tourist types. Even then, I was fully squatted down and had to waddle like a penguin to keep from crawling on all fours. My hairless head did not provide any cushioning from bumping into the hard ceiling every once in a while. Your hairy people take this for granted. Saturday, August 10th Said Sayonara Saigon this morning (yes, if I had left in the evening, it would have been Goodnight Saigon) and embarked on a 2-day trip to the Mekong Delta region, ending up in Cambodia somehow. And what a trip it ended up being. Other than being in the guesthouse overnight, the group of us on this tour were in some mode of transportation virtually non-stop. As you can guess, I didn't really see much of the Mekong Delta region which produces vast quantities of rice in Vietnam. But I did cruise down the river for 5 hours, constantly trying to wave back at each and every single local kid who yelled and screamed with their arms waving in the air. Pretty neat. There really isn't too much to report from this trip. The guide didn't tell us a damn thing about the area. But I made some new friends on the trip, so I guess that's worth something. But the guide sucked, and the food sucked - i.e., the mind and the body were left in a most unstimulated fashion. Sunday, August 11th After getting some breakfast, our main task for the day was to go to Cambodia. But first, we were loaded onto small little canoe boats for a little boat ride through a floating village. Each of these small boats was powered by a small Vietnamese lady rowing from the back. Probably not the last time that I'll be pushed around by a woman... ;-) (you see - there's my mom, and then, oh yeah, my boss is female...) Next, I hopped onto a speedboat for a 3-hour cruise to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Along the way, we had to stop at the Vietnamese and Cambodian border crossings for the passport validations and visas and all that. The Cambodians gave me a bit of a hassle - they seemed interested in the fact that I carried an Ohio driver's license, whereas it says New York in my passport (since I was born there). Amazingly enough, the only other people in our tour group that were hassled just happened to be the only other two non-whites. Hmmmm. Now I'm not a math major, but... At Phnom Penh, we were greeted by a hoard of fans. Or actually a hoard of hawkers trying to get us to go to their guesthouse. This is kinda cool actually - you can bargain with them right there and try to get a cheaper price. But how can you really bargain down a $3 room? So I picked one and went with it. I was bored, so I walked around. And then it happened – a torrential rainstorm came down. So I did what any other hungry person would do. I went into a gas station mart to get some good food and wait out the rain. Had some instant Ramen noodles and an Ice Nescafe. Yum Yum. The rain was brief, but it wreaked absolute havoc on the roadways - apparently the drainage system is ill equipped for anything more than a light tinkle. A few of us who were on the Mekong Delta trip decided to go out for some drinks. So we hit the Foreign Correspondent's Club and had beer draughts for $1.20 (which is actually expensive!). After a few, we decided to get some pizza at Happy Herb's Pizzeria down the street. The waiter was happy, and the customers were happy as well. Can't get enough Happy Herb. Joy. For a nightcap, we hit a nightclub where the beer was even more expensive. But this place looked really neat - it was decorated such that it could have easily passed for a nightclub/bar in any major city in the States. But it was in Cambodia. Played some pool. I tend to do much better in pool when I'm not focusing on what I'm trying to do. If I think too much, I end up botching the shot. All right, that's enough for today. Even though I'm a few days delayed in sending this. Oh well. By the way, this is your second notice that your subscription is running out. Only two more issues to go, and then you'll have to get your own travel stories. See you soon. -Paraag Tidbits: 1. There is one indisputable fact about this entire region - Asians like body hair. No idea why. But not a day goes by where there isn't someone marveling at my arm hair or my chest hair. I've even had random strangers come up to me and pinch a tuft of chest hair from behind my T-shirt. Unsettling actually. It's been hard to restrain myself from shoving them away and yelling. 2. The dresses that Vietnamese flight attendants wear are hot. They just are. You should check one out someday. 3. The unit of currency in Cambodia is the riel, as in get riel. But most people just use US Dollars, and then use riel for change smaller than 1 dollar. This makes it very very hard to bargain down prices, since the numbers being discussed are very low to begin with - going down a dollar represents a significant percentage change.

Trip Update #12

As I briefly mentioned in my last correspondence, I left out a key piece of info in my previous update - namely the shaving of the head. Seeing as though I had another month to go before I get back home, it was clear to me that this may be the last chance at hair experimentation I would have without having to suffer the consequences of a disastrous outcome in front of friends and family. So, I had them set the razor to 1 and clip off anything they could find - which admittedly was not much to begin with. And all this for the equivalent of $1.33 - almost as cheap as what I pay Marcus to cut my hair. Those of you with short hair have experienced the ticklish sensation that you get when you run your hand across the freshly clipped hair. So, I've found myself at random times unconsciously playing with myself... err... running my hand across my head... err... well just forget it. So, ummm, yeah. How 'bout them Mets? Sunday, July 28th Went with 10 other random people strategically summoned from around the globe to Halong Bay for a 3 day/2 night adventure, including two who were very fine eye candy indeed. As my brother would say, rrrrrrrr... So the breakdown of peoples: an older couple from New Zealand, 5 Caucasians on vacation from jobs teaching English in South Korea, 2 female medical students from England, and a Taiwanese-American girl who just finished 2 years of teaching English in Japan. And me. You know me. Halong Bay (insert your own "Halong ago did you go to Halong Bay?" joke here) contains over 3000 islands. And these aren't your everyday normal J.C. Penney catalog islands either - they're special. The only way I can think to describe it is to imagine a flat piece of shale. Now imagine 3000 of them sticking out vertically from the sea. Defies imagination? Damn skippy. I spent the entire trip waiting for Judge Gravity to knock 'em down. The first stop on the boat cruise was a very large grotto. I don't know whether it was a grotto or not - looked like a cave to me. But I suppose they can call it whatever they want to, so grotto it is. It was nice, but it was packed with tourists and, of course, naturally occurring paved walkways and neon fluorescent lighting. The sooner we got away from the crowds, the better. The other passengers agreed. We anchored for a little while for a brief swim. I preferred diving to swimming though. Actually, I should say that I attempted to complete dives off the second level of the boat - back flips, front flips, pikes, triple axles, you name it. The dive usually ended with comments approximating "That had to hurt" from the audience that was cheering me on. We had dinner served on the boat, and it was excellent – it wasn't chicken fried rice! Our hotel for the evening was this very same boat. A number of people slept up top. By the time I got up there, all the spots were taken so I slept below. Monday, July 29th Though the dinner was fantastic, we had a ho-hum breakfast. A baguette and some scrambled eggs. I have never eaten so many darn eggs in my life. That's pretty much all they'll serve at any establishment for breakfast. And I am now thoroughly sick of them. I want my oatmeal. We headed to Cat Ba island (a few of us sang "Rock the CatBa"), where we deboated and had a nice long hike up a mountain to get a different view of Halong Bay and the islands contained therein. Nice hike. Very hot. Lots of sweat. But a beautiful view. I think you all may be sick of me talking about beautiful views. After another rousing exhibition of incomplete dives (which resulted in severe calf cramps as well as some "pain in the ass"), we deboated again on the other side of Cat Ba to go to our hotel for the evening. There is a ton of construction going on here to help support tourism - apparently Vietnam is very new to the tourist circuit. We all hit a nightclub tonight, which was an excellent peek into the Vietnamese pop culture. First, we got to witness several karaoke acts of Vietnamese songs. Then, we were treated to Michael Jackson's "History" video montage (which felt eerily right at home in Communist Vietnam). Finally, there was dance music. Normal dance music. But nothing else was quite normal. Let's see... there was the one big screen showing music videos that had nothing to do with the dance music being played, there was another big video screen showing old Tom & Jerry cartoons (my favorite part), there was a long repeated sound clip of cheering fans being played alongside said dance music non-stop, and to cap it all off there was the occasional sound of a horse neighing (over the sound system). The horse was the clincher by far. Never saw it coming. Tuesday, July 30th It rained all night long, and this continued all day today. After we boarded the boat to head back to the mainland, the wind picked up as well. Soon, it was difficult to see anything outside, and there was a rumour of a typhoon in the area. I started singing the "Gilligan's Island" theme song. But, we got to the harbor just fine. Everything was soaked in the brief walk from the boat pier to the bus though, and we were treated to a very wet and crammed 3 hour drive back to Hanoi. Back in Hanoi, I did a lot of nothing for three hours before heading on my next trip - an overnight train to Sapa, not to be confused with Napa, which is similar but very different. Wait... most of you probably didn't get that joke - a common phrase that everyone hears in the broken English from locals in Southeast Asia is "same, same, but different". I have decided to make this phrase part of my daily vernacular when I get back to the States. I urge you to consider the same. Anyway, there was only one other person on this trip with me - Valerie from France who works in marketing/sales for, strangely enough, Kimberly Clark. So I thrashed her and told her that P&G is king and that we take no prisoners. Okay, I didn't. And I didn't ask her for a job either. Wednesday, July 31st Arrived in the Lao Cai train station of northern Vietnam (right on the Chinese border) at 6:00 am. From there, we had another short and cramped minibus ride to Sapa. I quickly learned that all the travel agencies in Hanoi prettymuch sell their Sapa area tours to a hotel in Sapa, who then figures out who just came and for what tour and attempts to organize it all at the last second. Since I paid a budget price, I don't really have any room to complain. But it's pure unbridled chaos. This Sapa tour is kinda like the Chiang Mai tour I did in Thailand. Same, same, but different. And better. Though not little and yellow as well - that would be Nuprin. It's supposed to be a trek in the middle of nowhere to see the ethnic minority villages in the hills. So this was to be educational as well as adventurous. The countryside is very hilly - yet these villages still manage to somehow grow rice on the mountainside. Impossible you say? Ludicrous? Flabbergasting? I dare say not. Not. What they do is carve out steppes (that's British for steps) in the mountainside so as to have many many level surfaces to retain water for the rice crop. Yes, the retaining water phrase does have potential for a joke, but I would fear for my life upon my return if I made such a wisecrack. But I digress... So we headed off with our guide Trang down into the valley to check out some of the hill tribes. The first village we came across was a Black Hmong village. This tribe is especially adept at training the very pretty little girls to be very skilled salespeople of their woven goods. You can't imagine how hard it is to turn these children away. If you buy something from one, the rest try to give you a guilt trip by saying "But you didn't buy something from meeeeeeee." All of these kids speak very good English too - after all, they have been peddling these wares every day since they could walk to English speaking strangers. Needless to say, these hill tribes were far from untouched by civilization. Our first night was spent at the home of a family in the Giay tribe. Trang cooked us an expansive meal - six dishes plus soup and rice. Unbelievable. And very stomach expanding as well. Our beverage of choice during the dinner? Shots of rice wine, which were eerily reminiscent of the lao lao rice whiskey that I had consumed in Huie Xay, Laos. This was not all though - Trang and I shared three very large bottles of Chinese beer to cap it all off. I slept well that night. Other than having to get up to use the facilities. Thursday, August 1st Happy 28 and 1 month birthday to me! It rained nonstop last night. And it had been raining virtually nonstop yesterday as well (even during our trekking). This made for very muddy ground and overflowing streams. On more than one occasion, our hike forced us to walk shin-deep in water thus thoroughly soaking my non-waterproof sneakers. I spent the rest of the day making squishy sounds with my feet. Nonetheless, the trek was still really nice. Just soaked up the scenery and visited a few more tourist-overriden ethnic minority villages. Even so, I was happy to end the trek and get back to the hotel where a shower happily awaited me. And my feet were happy to be out of the wet shoes and into some wet sandals. Friday, August 2nd Today was low key. The rains stopped, so the heat became overbearing again. Thankfully, I only had a short 3 hour hike on the menu this morning. Saw some waterfalls and then soaked in the scenery a little more. Same, same. But different. Late in the afternoon, a minibus took a bunch of us tourist types back to Lao Cai to catch our train. There was still over an hour to pass before the train left, so a few of us decided to eat at the "Friendly Cafe" - not to be confused with the misspeled "Frendly Cafe" across the street. This restaurant/cafe/eatery-of-some-sort had a dish listed and then a price under a column labeled "Good" and another price under a column labeled "Better". In other words, you could pay a little more for a little extra something-something. But this something-something was at the sole discretion of the restaurant and the menu gave no hint as to what the difference was – you had to ask. In some cases, the better version would have skin-off chicken, or you'd get mushrooms in the dish as well or something like that. It was just different. Not same same at all. Shared a cabin with three Frenchies on the train. There's a whole lot of Frenchies visiting Vietnam - an inordinate number. I've met very few French travelers prior to arriving in 'Nam, but now it seems over half of the travelers are from there. Saturday, August 3rd Arrived in Hanoi early this morning. Since I had scheduled a night bus to the town of Hue (without the News) later that evening, I had all day to wander and roam the city. So, I went shopping. Shopping in Hanoi is interesting. Stores selling similar wares are often clustered around one another. So you end up with a street with nothing other than stores selling electronics, and another street selling metal cabinets, and even a street (Al Bundy's own personal nightmare) selling women's shoes. I didn't buy much... just wandered around. Got a fake adidas fishing hat for a little more than a dollar - the acclaimed black Puffs hat (donated by one Edmund J. Miller) that can be seen in many of the photos posted online was alas stolen by pirates in Chiang Mai. That, or I left it on the bus - I forget which. Before hopping on the bus to Hue, the tour agency guys asked me to join them for dinner. So, I got to eat what Vietnamese people actually eat for dinner after all. Pretty tasty stuff - presented in a Tupperware container too. Sunday, August 4th Got into Hue early this morning and checked into a dorm room at a hotel for $2.50 a night. Can't beat it. I just think it's kinda neat that so many places quote prices in US Dollars. Well, perhaps neat isn't the correct word - how about freaky? After settling in for all of 1.5 seconds, I hit the town. Hue was an old capital site for Vietnam back in the day (a phrase which means "I don't know when"). So, one of the big ticket tourist traps is to go check out the ruins of the old capital. I tried to do this as best I could without suffering from heat exhaustion. For the afternoon, I joined a 5 hour motorbike tour of the surrounding areas arranged by a lady named Thu. There were 8 tourists and only 6 brothers of Thu to drive the motorbikes, so I got to drive my own. This proved to be a pretty risky proposition, but for Mom's sake, I'll spare the details. The bike tour was neat - saw more ancient ruins, and tombs, and pagodas, a Buddhist monastery, and a Japanese covered bridge. You know, all the standard stuff. And no, there were not Japanese people covering the bridge - the bridge is both covered and in Japanese style. Took a very well needed shower, and unfortunately the weather is so hot here that there is no cold water coming out of the tap. It sucks. Can't even count on a shower to cool you down. Kicked off what was certain to be a banner evening by watching a really really bad movie on Cinemax (no idea how they get Cinemax here), and then a Will Smith concert on MTV. You can imagine my ecstasy. 7 of the 8 of us from the bike tour met up at Thu's cafe for drinks - we ended up hanging out here till midnight or so, when Thu's brother threw us out. So we decided to wander the streets. Immediately, tons of bicycle rickshaws offered their transportation services, which we promptly declined. Then someone got the bright idea that it might be fun to drive one of these things. Before I knew it, we had commandeered 4 bicycle rickshaws, loaded our group (which now was about 11 people) plus the rickshaw drivers on them, and began racing up and down the empty streets. I didn't win, but I did have 4 passengers on mine, so at least I have an excuse. I have a vague recollection of racing someone on foot over a bridge... and somehow we ended up at a makeshift bar (it was a bunch of plastic chairs under a tarp) and ordered a round of beers for everyone - rickshaw drivers included. Finally, I decided to stumble back to the room because I had yet another bus to catch in the morning. As luck would have it, my opinion of where the hotel was located was incorrect, so I wandered around the streets aimlessly for about 30 minutes before figuring it out. But by then I was hungry, so (being the smart guy I am) I decided to get some food at this shady nighttime roadside restaurant operation - consisting of large pots with food, undersized plastic furniture, and a what amounted to a Sterno can. I think I had some sort of chicken soup - with a quarter of a chicken (it was cooked). I haven't had any digestive problems yet, so I think I got lucky this time (that's twice today!). Okay, this is pretty dern long. I'll leave you be now. Hey - only two more updates before I'm home to write the last one. I'm sure that my mother is very happy to know this. Love you too Mom. -Paraag Tidbits: 1. The unit of currency of Vietnam is the dong, which offers up all sorts of crude typical male jokes like "How much dong do you have on you?" and the like. Sheesh... men. Can't live with 'em... can't kill 'em. 2. A whole lot of travelers from other nations ask me who I voted for. When I reply Gore, they tell me that every American that they have met has replied similarly, and so they cannot understand how Bush won. And in case you haven't guessed, our faithful leader is not all that popular outside of the States. And two interesting items courtesy of the 5 teachers from Korea: 3. Kids in Korea begin going to school from roughly the age of 3 or 4. Many children go to private schools at night in addition to public schooling during the day. And they literally spend all their free time studying - often till 1am. Then they wake up at 6am and begin the cycle again for 6 days a week. 4. When President Bush's proclaimed that North Korea is part of the "Axis of Evil" during his State of the Union address is extremely negative, South Koreans were pretty upset. Public sentiment there is that there is even now only one Korea, that unification was just around the corner, and that Bush's comments set them back 5 years. No word on what governmental sentiment is.

Trip Update #11

Since I've booked the next 6 days solid and I'm not sure if I'll have access to the Internet, I figured I'd send this one out a little early. Hope ya don't mind... Before we continue, I have a correction I need to make: C&C Music Factory sang "Things that make you go Hmmm" and "Gonna make you sweat". "Pump Up the Jam" was sung by Technotronic. Now that you are thoroughly maxxed out on useless information... Monday, July 22nd From the sleepy little border town of Huie Xay in Laos, there are two ways to get to Luang Prabang, where there's actually people living: a slow boat or a fast boat down the Mekong River (opposite of the Yukon). In true Paraagian fashion, I took the fast boat. The fast boat takes 6 hours to complete the journey. Remember the longtail boat I described a few weeks back? This boat is very similar, except that the boat itself looks like it was meant for racing. And definitely not meant for comfort. We each had an area of about 2 ft x 2 ft to sit in, meaning that we were inhaling our knees for the entire trip. It's like an upright fetal position in fact. It would have been nice if it took six hours. But it didn't. The boat kept breaking down - I have a picture of this guy working on the motor with a machete, a hammer, and an iron spike. This is engine mechanics at its finest, folks. Take notes. After changing boats twice, and changing the propeller twice, we finally made it to Luang Prabang. The Mekong River itself is a funny river. To begin with, there had been heavy rains the last 2-3 days in the region and the river was already high because of rainy season - so this river was moving fast. But it was chaotic too - there were whirlpools everywhere, along with completely random waves coming out of nowhere. And the weirdest thing was that the river seemed to change level at it's own whim - my understanding was that gravity was a universal law and would dictate that the level be flat or descending. Perhaps I'm in some alternate universe. Tuesday, July 23rd I rented a motor scooter to drive around all day today. This was great fun, especially since I've never really ridden a motor scooter much in my life, let alone one that is manual shift. Thankfully, I didn't hit anyone. Or at least, not on purpose. Luang Prabang is famous for its Buddhist temples. Go figure. So I went temple watching for a good portion of the day. Temples are known as "wats" here and in Thailand. My favorite temple names so far: Wat That, Wat May, and Wat Pho. If I were to establish some temples, I'd add Wat Dahey, Wat chostep, and Wat Yoolookinat. I could go on forever here... Doesn't take much to amuse me, does it? In the afternoon, I rode 30km one way to the Kwang Xi waterfalls. It being rainy season and all, there was a boatload of water tumbling down the mountain - just awemazing (I'm getting tired of using the same old adjectives to describe things, so I'm going to start making words up). But I think I liked the scooter ride just as much as the waterfall itself, especially since the vast majority of the road was unpaved dirt road, where I had to maneuver around potholes and water puddles. Overall, Laos is much greener and less developed than Thailand - that's the alluring part of this country. As such, you won't find top-notch accommodation or anything fancy around here. It's a nature enthusiast's paradise - just so untouched. And the Internet connections are slow as all heck out here. Wednesday, July 24th Rode in the back row of a bus for 7 hours with my knees to my chest, heading south for a town called Vang Vieng. This town is pretty much a small tourist industry and that's it - no real town or village. Really quite a shame. But why? Because this area has some wowtacular mountainsides and caves. In fact, the number one activity for people to do here is rent an inner tube and float down the Nam Song River just to take it all in. So, I did that. Beauty. The mountains are just holeymoleyiscious - looks like a crazy large piece of shale just jutting out of the ground, and a layer could just flake off at any given moment. But it doesn't. Had a really interesting snack from an Indian street vendor - a roti filled with bananas and chocolate (rich chocolate Ovaltine in fact). Mmm, mmm, good. By the way, I leave for home in exactly one month. Terrifying. Thursday, July 25th First off, happy birthday to my big brudder Neeraj. Did a full-day kayaking/spelunking trip today with 13 other fine individuals - by the way, spelunking is the fancy-pants term for cave exploring. This was incredipendous. I got to have my own kayak too, though it wasn't complete with spray skirt and all - so I couldn't practice rolls or anything. But it was still a lot of fun to tool around a bit. The thing that made today a hit though was the spelunking. The second cave we went into was waterlogged, so we had to swim into it in the complete dark. Only the guides had lights, so we were just kinda feeling around to make our way through. Finally, we reached dry land inside, though it was not so dry. We were pretty much walking on mud. This cave served as a home to the locals for 4 months while the U.S. was carpet-bombing the area during the Vietnam War to keep the North Vietnamese from using Laos as a land crossing to the south. There was even a toilet (big hole in the cave), a kitchen area (room with a vented roof), and a large sleeping area. We continued through the cave for another hour or so, none of us knowing in the least what to expect since the guides didn't bother telling us about all this before. I was totally fine with this, but a few others were really disappointed and upset, which I can completely understand. We were scrambling up steep muddy banks several times - no doubt a slip had the potential to fall for quite a ways in the darkness and potentially hit a rock and break something. We even got to slide down a mud-chute into a water pool - I enjoyed this so much that I climbed back up and went again! After squeezing through a very narrow crevice (I could barely fit through it!), I was outside at last. Free at last, free at last. But now where to? And walking in the forest with no shoes? Not only the forest, but also ankle-deep in mud... or at least I thought it was mud until a distinct smell arose. Needless to say, many of us spent some time in the muddy river trying to clean off said "mud". And a nice long shower was in order when I got back to the guesthouse. Friday, July 26th Rode for four hours in the back of a pick-up truck to Vientiane (capital of Laos) this morning. After finally reaching the backpacker area, I did something I should have done before - read the guidebook. After realizing that Vientiane is kinda like Jakarta in having a lack of things to see or do, I went to a travel agent. Fortunately for me, there was still a flight left this afternoon for Hanoi, Vietnam. So, I took it. At the airport, I bumped into an American fellow (Rob) who I had met in Luang Prabang. So we hung out the rest of the evening around Hanoi and just chatted. It was really nice to just talk with someone who's from the same country - it'd been a while. Especially since we could compare notes about our observations and such about everything. I think this is the first Communist country I've ever been in. There seems to be an abundance of red flags everywhere, and plenty of people dressed in a military-looking uniform. But otherwise, Hanoi seems like a normal city. In fact, some have apparently termed it the "Paris of the Orient", a fitting description since Vietnam was under French rule until independence some 55 years ago. There are still many French remnants left in the landscape, architecture, and even food (baguettes are quite common to see on the streets). Saturday, July 27th Spent the morning booking up trips for the next 5-6 days. Then the afternoon was left to explore the city. First stop - Ho Chi Minh Museum. This place is weird - don't even know how to describe it. But they had a room with a bunch of Picasso stuff in it - made no sense at all. UNESCO has designated Ho Chi Minh as being a great leader, and this is the guy we were fighting against in the Vietnam War. Of course, you won't see the U.S. side of the story here. In any case, it's clear that I need to brush up on my history a bit. The rest of the day, I just wandered around the city, checked out a few pagodas, strolled by some lakes, etc. This city has a strong potential to be a really romantic place to spend some time. I've definitely had my fill though. Since I'm not much of a city person, I'm pretty happy that I leave tomorrow morning. By the way, it's frickin’ hot out here. Till next week, -Paraag Tidbits: 1. Pringles are everywhere. I mean absolutely everywhere – even in a small itty-bitty village along the Mekong River between Huie Xay and Luang Prabang. It appears as though they are a bigger hit outside of the U.S. than in the U.S. 2. Red Bull apparently was created in Thailand. It is sold in this area in glass containers that resemble medicine bottles. And it's cheap. Really strange to see. 3. In Laos, the highest denomination bill is 5000 kip, which is equivalent to roughly 50 cents. So, people pretty much walk around with a stack of bills. Larger purchases are made with Thai bahts or US Dollars. 4. Laos and Vietnam both drive on the right side of the road. So, what happens at the land crossings between Thailand (left side) and Laos? Does the road do a twist? Or are there just a bunch of head on collisions?

Trip Update #10

Well, I'm getting closer and closer to being back on schedule... Monday, July 15th Woke up after a second night in paradise - a floating guesthouse on the lake in the middle of nowhere, Thailand. This is the last day of my three day excursion with C&C Jungle Tours (not to be confused with C&C Music Factory - remember "Pump Up the Jam"?). The first item today was to take a rather uninteresting jungle walk over a mildly barren hill and along a paved roadway for about an hour with a guide who didn't speak English. Not quite sure what I was supposed to get out of this, so I just smiled and said thank you. This is an essential tool to survival in a foreign land - the smile and thank you. Learn it well, my young apprentice. The next item was a much better jungle walk, for which I was joined by 6 other people on random trips with this C&C Jungle Tour company. After about an hour's journey, we reached a cave - and a very unlit cave at that. Another non-English speaking guide-type person proceeded to light up an oil lamp and motioned for us to follow him. Somehow it escaped this whole crew that having one lamp for seven people through narrow entrance passages on rocky and slippery terrain won't quite cut it. So four of the other tourists backed out, leaving me, the guide, and one other person as the lone spelunkers. And of course, I was last, so I couldn't see a damn thing. It was fun bumping into very hard rocks with my head and knees and toes and shins and all that. Really it was. Trust me. It was worth it though - the feeling of venturing into a cavern barely able to maneuver through narrow crevices only to find yourself in a huge room is kinda cool. The last item on the agenda was to ride the railway over the actual Bridge over River Kwai, but some other girl got really really really sick and had to be rushed back into town. Somehow, this meant that I couldn't be dropped at the train station, but being in the situation I was without being able to communicate effectively, I simply smiled and said thank you. Almost forgot - the mountains in Thailand are rather peculiar looking. The silhouette of the mountains against the horizon is very random. Imagine a 5 year old's scribble or doodle of one continuous line across a page; this is what the mountains look like. Tuesday, July 16th Not feeling very well today. Tough luck. I had already booked a day trip to Ayuthaya, which was one of the previous capitals of Thailand. The first capital was Sukothai, then Ayuthaya, and now Bangkok. In each case, the new capital was established after the Burmese took over the existing capital and ruined and pillaged it. Needless to say, Thais are not generally fond of Burmese people. Ayuthaya was neat - bunch of old buildings made of brick with Buddhas everywhere. I think Mojo Nixon should rewrite his song "Elvis is Everywhere" to "The Buddha is Everywhere". Though the place was interesting, there's only so much of ruined buildings that I can take - they all start looking the same after the first 15 minutes, regardless of the function of the structure in its previous life. So, I was quite ready to go by the end of the day. Back in Bangkok, I boarded an overnight bus to Chiang Mai, which is way up north in Thailand. Thanks to my comfy down-feather travel pillow (recommended my Scott), I was able to catch some zzzzzzz's. Wednesday, July 17th Arrived in Chiang Mai at 6am. After wandering around a bit to check out hotel prices and trekking prices, I settled on a place called "Nice Place". This is a rather apt name, since it says it all in one phrase. You know that it's not a crappy place or a wonderful place, it tells you right in the name. Life would be so much simpler if everything were so named - KFC could be "overpriced fast food" and Taco Bell could be "drunk/hungover food" and White Castle could be "dain bramaged food". Chiang Mai is Buddhist temple central. There are over 200 temples in this town. So, I spent some time looking around and checking out a few temples. It's just really neat to walk along what appears to be a normal everyday street by most people's definitions, and then all of a sudden be confronted by this beautifully constructed and adorned multiple-level golden A-frame roofed temple every few blocks. Just strange. And kinda cool. At 6pm, I met a bunch of people that I would be stuck with over the next few days on a trekking expedition in the mountains of northern Thailand. We were given an overview of the expedition and what we needed to bring. Then we were let loose. To get better acquainted, a few of us went out and grabbed some dinner and drinks - nothing major. Another relatively low-key day. Thursday, July 18th Began the trek this morning. After having a Nice Shower, checking in my bag and my valuables at the Nice Safety Deposit Box, and getting some Nice Breakfast, we were on our way. There were 13 of us: 5 Brits, 3 Dutch, 3 Americans, and 2 Kiwis. The split was 7 guys, 6 women - not bad at all. We were headed to an area called Pai, which was a good 4-hour drive away. So, we packed into a songtaew (the pick-up truck with a canopy) with our 3 guides and the driver and off we went. Since there was not nearly enough room for us all to sit, two of the guides stood on the tailgate and held on to the roof. Slowly, we started trading places with them for a change of pace. Then, one of the guides hopped onto the roof. Not to be outdone, I hopped up there and joined him. Don't worry - we were wearing our seatbelts! :-) I've been known in the past to drive my car on cruise control and standing up so my head is through the open sunroof - this was a similar sensation. (From the audience, a collective "you idiot!") After our 4-hour drive, we arrived at a Lisu hill tribe village. One chief guide Chan explained the Lisu traditions and conventions, and then we were on our way for a 2-hour hike through the jungle to the next village, where we would stay the night. The path was extremely slippery, so it didn't take long before people were falling. Soon, we even devised a scoring system for falls - 1 point for minor falls and 3 points for major falls. By the end of the two hours, we had lost count because one of the British girls apparently had Teflon for shoes and kept us laughing the whole way. At the Lahu village, we played a little soccer (I was goalie, as usual). My team lost, but not until I was replaced at goal and moved to forward, where I scored two goals. Yes, they were off two very good assists, but hey - I scored! No, I didn't take off my shirt a la Brandi Chastain since I wasn't wearing a shirt. We all had dinner soon afterwards - a homecooked Thai meal, family style with all of us sitting in a big circle. After dinner, the village kids came and sang along with the guitar for us - incredibly adorable. You know how kids sing - with no regard for pitch, volume, rhythm... brought tears to our eyes. Our sleeping quarters were one huge room with a bunch of mattresses on the floor - very communal. The shower was a tap flowing into a bucket. And the bathrooms were umm... squatters. Many of you know what squatters are, and many do not. Those who do not, please ask me some other time for a description. So we sat around, sang songs, drank beer, smoked cigarettes (mostly), and just got to know one another. Really a wonderful day. Friday, July 19th Woke up late this morning and didn't get out of the village until 11:00 or so - a full two hours behind schedule, or so they told us. It had rained all night, so the points were sure to rack up today on the slip-o-meter. But, we were all given walking sticks to use. Apparently, this was the missing link - we recorded a very low number of falls. Oh well. We stopped by a waterfall after a two hour hike to rinse off the thick layer of sweat, sunscreen, and bug spray. Very refreshing. After lunch, we hiked another hour or so before mounting up for an hour long elephant ride. This was incredible - the scenery was gorgeous untouched jungle, and we were riding on elephants. The pictures are sure to be stunning. Of course, just riding on elephants wasn't enough, so we got a hold of a few slingshots and tried to pelt each other with balled up leaves. When am I ever going to get a chance to do that again? After another brief hike, we arrived at a Karen tribe village, where our head guide Chan was from. Same type of setup as the night before. This evening's activity was a local game, which was eerily like a drinking game, except whenever someone messed up, they were the recipient of a char smear on their face from the underbelly of a cooking pot. Different. Saturday, July 20th Our last day on this trek - boo hoo! The major activity today was a 2-hour bamboo raft trip. The raft is as follows – a bunch of bamboo stalks tied together. Then three of us plus a guide are placed on each raft. Each of us has another bamboo stalk to push against the stream bottom to propel us along. This quickly became competitive as we were trying to steal the sticks from other rafts, tip them over, or any number of crazy ludicrous things. But it was definitely good fun. My boat won, which ironically had all three Americans on it. The other American fellow wasted no time in chanting "U.S.A." repeatedly, to the groans of everyone else present. Apparently, it's a commonly held belief that Americans are very arrogant. This fellow was not helping the cause (through the chanting and other conversations that he had with folks). I'm sure that people from other countries to an extent are hearing what they want to hear, but I can see some truth behind these allegations. Most people also claimed that I am very different from the typical American that they meet. So I don't quite know what to believe. But, I guess whether we like it or not, we are all ambassadors of our respective countries and we just need to remember that. This 3 day trek may have been the highlight of my trip so far -it's difficult to say. I just had an incredible time in an incredibly beautiful area. It was simply perfect. Sunday, July 21st Hopped on a government bus for a 6 hour ride to Chiang Khong. This was a luxury bus, fully equipped with A/C. Unfortunately, the A/C was too strong and I froze my tail off. Oh well. Chiang Khong is a border town from which I crossed the Mekong river to get into Laos. Laos is a country - really, it is. Go look on the map. In fact, Hank Hill's neighbor Hanh is from Laos. So I spent the night in this sleepy little town on the Laos side called Huie Xay, not to be confused with the neighboring towns of Louie Xay and Dewey Xay. My room was the most basic possible - a full bed with four walls and not much more. In fact the four walls weren't really finished walls - my side of the wall had the beams exposed. But there were some friendly spiders that were sharing the room with me. Bumped into a guy that was on the bus from Chiang Mai with me at a restaurant and I ended up hanging out with the group he was with for the rest of the evening. They were enjoying a few bottles of the local rice whiskey. Before I myself partook, I figured that I should examine the bottle. It read "1999 Bordeaux". Oh well, bottoms up! After finishing this bottle, the waitress told us that they were out. I think she was secretly trying to get rid of us, since one person in our party was busy feeding his dinner to the shrubberies. Till next week, -Paraag Tidbits: 1. It's rainy season here. This means that it's impossible for clothes to dry, so my bag smells like umm... wet underwear. Yecch! 2. The humidity also causes it to not take much to begin sweating. And sweating is like "breaking the seal" - once you start, it's difficult to stop. 3. The unit of currency in Thailand is the baht. To pronounce this word, imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger saying "Baht I don't want fries with that" and there you have it. 4. I've had a strikingly small amount of satay in Thailand. But I've had enough chicken fried rice to last me a lifetime. This is the "fish and chips" or "cheeseburger and fries" of Southeast Asia without a doubt.