Pai

Pai

3 hours and 700 curves outside of Chiang mai sits a paradise named Pai. The tiny town, ran by Thai Rastas , hippies and back to the earth happy folk is surrounded by idyllic rice patties who's bright green color blends to forest in the surrounding mountains. We rent a scooter and Adam very safely winds us along tiny un trafficked roads where I feel like I am flying, riding the back of a bird. We land at amazing water falls, view points and hot springs, climb stairs to a giant Buddha on the hill, and stop to find tropical birds that I spot from the back. 

To stay we have found a place in the rice patties owned by a couple of Thai hippies. The woman is passionate about cooking and makes us amazing breakfasts centered around fresh fruit and an assortment of home made seeds and dried vegetables. It is Thai health food at its best! The man is passionate about fish. So passionate that he has three giant fish tanks, a fish pond, and two separate small lakes that are stocked with fish if all types and sizes. Our little cabin is built right on the side of one of the lakes and, when Adam asked if he could swim the owner said "well you can get in but you might not get out! There are fish as big as you in there!" He even has a small pool to breed his own fish and will rent guests fishing poles but they cannot eat the fish-they have to release them back after catching them.

As the last major destination on our trip Pai serves as the location for us to envision integrating back into normal working society again. We feel both sad that our trip is ending and excited to see friends and family again and contribute back to the world through our work. We have now shared an experience as partners and travelers together which has brought us closer, cementing the beginning of our marriage together with a strong and beautiful bond. Our gratitude for all of our community that have supported us making this journey with funds and/or love is overflowing. And now the travel fire is lit-we are planning our next adventure already.

Chiang Mai, city of memories

Chiang Mai, City of memories, we explore her busy streets finding foods, businesses, and words that I pull up from my experience living here almost ten years ago when I studied abroad in college. The city is so easy to be in and get around through and we stayed about one week, having a multitude of experiences in and around town where we dug deeper into life here. we loved filling our bellies with delectable Thai food, and took a cooking course with a passionate chef who truly schooled us on how to make Thai food on our own. We also discovered the live music scene and Adam made friends with an incredible beat boxer from Chicago and ended up free styling with him in a packed bar. We were immediately drawn to the ornate and sacred Buddhist temples and decided to do a two day intro to meditation course where we donned all white in complete silence and sat with a monk and other foriegners . We learned about Thai Buddhism, how to pray, and how to bring mindfulness to many different practices. We also spent our time visiting vibrant street markets, riding an elephant, and learning about northern Thai culture. And I ate a LOT of mango and sticky rice. 

Hanoi Hustle

Hanoi Hustle 

Remember the old school Atari and the game frogger? We stood on the corner of a street in the bustling alley like maze of Hanoi's old quarter, feeling much like that green digital frog and wondering how the heck we were supposed to cross a street with no lights and no break in the swarms of motor bikes the rule the road. How does it work? Well it's a lot like frogger except instead of getting squished, the bikes weave around you. That doesn't change the fact that we felt like every street crossing was worthy of a gold medal.

Motor bikes aside, the old quarter is fascinating - bamboo, locks, traditional medicine, toys, flip flops, trinkets, kitchen sinks, flowers, jewelry - you name it - every street had something it was known for selling. Mixed in were delicious street food vendors that each specialized in one fabulous thing (pho, mixed noodles, pork buns, hot pot, sugar cane juice, jelly shakes etc). The little fried donut balls would put Dunkin donuts and Krispy Kreme out of business in no time. At night we drank copious amounts of bia Hoi, a cheap beer (20 cents a glass) popular with locals and tourists alike. To escape the hustle, we enjoyed two lovely city lakes, water puppets and a few museums. We made friends with the owner of our hotel/homestay, talking Buddhism while drinking beers and listening to Vivaldi on his old phonograph. The place was the queen garden hotel and we dug it. We met up with some fellow travelers we'd run into a few other places for beers and shared meals. Though Hanoi has its hustle (and fair share of scams, which we were warned of ahead of time) there's a vibrant fun to its fast pace urbanity. Elisa Was happy when on our last city day we walked to a large lake and escaped the mayhem. Happier still when we left the "big city" for gorgeous natural scenery in both Halong Bay and Sapa.

Sapa mountains, vietnam

Here I met my Black Hmong sister Kerr, our guide. Same age same positive disposition we giggled through the mountains, looking at plants, comparing love traditions, and admiring beauty. As she led us through her scenic mountains gorgeous rice patty under looming mountains opened upon each other.

It is a place of simplicity, recognized from some of my previous travels where traditions are honored and people live close to the land and each other and far away from everything else. The floor of your house is compacted dirt, you cook on a fire, and the jungle a bit up from your rice patty serves as a place to collect food (adam ate skinned bees that the 14 year old boy collected for dinner), where to get wood and fronds for building your house, the medicine cabinet and a bathroom. Each piece of clothing takes almost a year to make so the value of your five piece wardrobe is completely different.

We leave our three day track soar, muddy and a bit soggy but with the insight of having walked through a world so different from ours, but also in many ways the same.

Elisa

Phong Nha-Ke Bang: Adventures In Middle Earth

Rice patties, distant mountains, and cow traffic jams describe this town above ground. But under the karst formations is what has caught international attention. We spent two days climbing down into the depths of the earth, moving past jaw dropping intricate gaudi-like formations of stalactites and stalagmites. On the first day we We  entered the ridiculously immense paradise cave, our jaws dropping at the breath and scope of the lunar formations that make Carlsbad caverns look tiny. Passing throngs of chatty tourists, our group of 12 walked to the end of the brightly lit boardwalk where a guard opened a tiny gate for us to walk through with our guides. Into the darkness and the silence. 3 miles of underground cave systems with headlamps and ours was the only group ad they allow only 12 people a day past the gate. We swam through pools of cave water, and climbed over and under immense rock walls. We slid through under ground mud rivers, a group of adults giggling like small children as we all got stuck in the mud or fell and got covered. At one point our guide pecked at the stalagmites with his fingers and to Adam's surprise and joy, each one played a clear bell like sound! Different pitches for each and everyone tried their hand at this awesome natural instrument. Our guide even offered up a rendition of jingle bells, miles under the earth. After hours of underground adventure we emerged in a light shaft where an underground river rushed by that came all the way from Laos and continued on for kilometers more. This was an epic adventure and the next day we enjoyed phong na cave with a beautiful boat ride through the grottos of a lunar landscape.

A Vietnamese-British couple that lived in the area predicted the popularity of the cave system and started a farm stay where we stayed for two nights. It was the perfect blend of the two cultures, providing the comfort of home that a easy to communicate with staff, cold beer, and a movie night and band provide with a very kind and fun staff. We biked the beautiful country side and enjoyed good morning Vietnam on lounge chairs and pool time after long and lovely cave sojourns.

With our clothes muddy and our hearts full of joy we boarded the overnight train to Hanoi.

Love at first light (and bite)

We left Cambodia with mixed feelings about our experience on the bike trip and looking forward to a truly wonderful experience in our next stop. This was also the end of the portion of our trip that we had, for the most part, pre booked. Now the travel training wheels were off and we were freewheelin' Bob Dylan style. Having bought the ticket to ho chi Minh city with the intention of traveling on to Hanoi one day, we woke up the next and decided to visit Hoi An first since, among other things, it has beautiful beaches and we got rained out in Sihanoukville. 

We got picked up at the airport in Danang and immediately noticed that the roads were much better than in Cambodia and the scenery...jaw dropping. Lush green mountain after mountain rolled like nesting serpents behind green fields, river ways and then the ocean.

The village of Hoi an started as a small fishing village and grew into an international trading location. There we explored beautiful old wooden buildings built using the traditional architecture of multiple cultures that still, keeping their traditions, sold bright colored wares through the front downstairs. 

We enjoyed riding bikes through the calm city and out into the rice patties and palm filled waterways, all the way to the beach. There we felt like we were in paradise, swimming the bath like calm waters and walking the white sand beaches. Elisa also discovered the glory of freshly fried coconut filled doughnuts. And in town Adam was lured by the local tailors and, much to Elisa's pleasure, had a suit made that fits him perfectly.

The food was crazy good especially the local cau lau noodles made only from the bale well water and an amazing restaurant named after the well. We rolled in and asked for a menu but there was none - thru just bring you a big 'ol pile of goodness: pork satay, spring rolls, Vietnamese pancakes, pickled veggies, herbs and rice paper to roll it all up in. Yum!

All these aspects of Hoi an won our hearts on their own but the most magical celebration happened the first night, putting the icing on the cake. When we had planned our trip to Hoi an we had planed it to catch a lantern festival that happens once a month, but, since we were now there at a different time we figured that we were going to miss it. As it turns out though, we made it just in time for a lunar  lantern festival instead. 

When we went into town that first night it was magical. The businesses turned down their regular lights and turned on grorgeous cloth lanterns that bathed the streets in color. Beyond that people also floated hundreds of small candles down the river in colorful paper rafts for good luck. Everyone was out to enjoy the festivities, walking the street with friends, drinking coffee and eating snacks seated on the street in little plastic chairs, or enjoying the theatrical lottery that took place in the town square. We both lit candles with wishes for out like bed ones and set them afloat down the river.

All in all Hoi an was amazing and probably our favorite spot on our entire trip up to that point. 

Cambodia is a land of rice patties, bumpy roads, delicate gilded monestaries, amazing ancient temples, and an extremely resilient people who are still in the process of rebuilding their country and families after a civil war and extremely oppressive regime only 30 years ago. 

We explored Cambodia on bicycle and van and, in Adams words, painted a landscape of the country and its people in our brains as we rode. 

The first two days we rode through Angkor watt. Our jaws dropped as we gaped at the amazingly intricate, meaningful and ancient temples rising out of the jungle.

Then we bumped through the countryside where rice farming takes up a bulk of the countries space and the people's livelihood. Unfortunately Cambodian government is extremely corrupt and don't seem to do much in terms of road maintenance so when I say bumped I really mean bumped. The soil here is red and the days very hot and humid so while we peddled past squares of rice patties, skinny white cows and traditional Khmer houses, thatched roof, on stilts with the cooking and hanging out area underneath, we also moved past our physical limits. We summed up our persistence, positivity, and flexibility as our guides changed our plans and I discovered my inner water buffalo as I stuburmly and often slowly pushed on. We felt lucky to have a van with cold drinks and a guide to show us the back roads along the way.

In the middle of our journey we stayed in phenom penn, a bustling capital city full of people, noise, and stacked three story buildings with balconies that are surrounded by rickety looking power and telephone lines. We stopped at teul sleng museum-a former school turned detention center by the Khmer rogue. There we stood in the rooms where they sistematically tortured and then killed all the intellectuals, artists, dissenters, and former government workers during their reign in the 70s. They then emptied the cities, sending everyone to work in the country in forced labor camps. Every single person in this country was affected by this history and everyone that we have talked to knows brothers and sisters who died as children from disease, aunts and uncles who died of starvation or parents friends who were tortured and killed. We see older folks still using the red and white checkered scarf that was issued as uniform during that time as sun protection when working in the fields. People share their stories in a matter of fact way and when you watch strangers interact you get a sense of comerodity-people have made it through together. In the museum they have pictures of each deetanie and some images of the same people after they died, imaciated and beaten. The pictures line the walls of two or three rooms and I have never seen such anger, betrayal, and distain so evident in pictures. After seeing those rooms i sat down and cried.

On the rest of our journey to the coast we saw Cambodia building. We saw an environmentalist mission building when we hiked to a waterfall, people building houses and farms along the way, a opposition political party building momentum and Cambodian music and dance building a pop scene. lWhen we got to the beach in Sihanoukville we saw the tourism and export industries building as well. We also saw lots of people building families with lots of love and very cute children.

On the coast we were met with the monsoon head on. Rain coats did little to keep us dry since when we wore them we got just as wet from sweat as we would have from rain. It was fun to bike through the tropical rain forests, tall trees and stringy vines  covered with red mud with giant warm raindrops soaking us. When we ended at the ocean the waves roared and crashed tumultuously. We spent one day here but, because of the rain cut off our plans to stay on the Cambodian islands and headed back to Penom Penh for an amazing dinner at Malis, the best Khmer restaurant in the capital, in celebration of Adam's birthday. We are headed now to Hoi AnVietnam. The beauty of spontaneous travel is that one plan skipped opens a myriad of opportunities for future adventures added on. So...onward to Vietnam we go!