Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Bitter End

Hello again,

So this will be my last post of my travels; I've come a very long way and had the most amazing experience of my life. I've had highs and lows, times of reckless abandon and times of contemplation, and it's all been incredible and life-changing. I'm sad that it's come to and end, but overjoyed with my experience, and ready to move on into life with confidence. But, before I get to deep on the life stuff, I'll fill you in on the rest of my travel stuff.

I last left you in Edinburgh after having taken the free tour. After I blogged to yall I headed up to catch the last scoth tour of the day at the "Scotch Whiskey Experience" (not as impressive as EMP, but much tastier) on the Royal Mile which stretches fom the castle to the parliment. I learned a lot about scotch, albeit from a pretty silly production, and got to taste quite a few as well. So I left a little bit tipsy and naturally my next stop was the cathedral just down the way. Although the cathedral was pretty unassuming compared to many that I've seen along my way, it was one of the most beautiful on the inside tat I've seen. Inside I bumped into a friend that I had made while on the tour who is a pretty rad artista from Rhode Island and we went to go get some food. As is my custom while traveling, we went looking for food that is unique to the area, and we decided that it would be a great idea to try something that you can't really find anywhere else: deep fried pizza and mars bars. I know what your thinking, "that sounds like a healthy and delicious and reasonable meal", and let me tell you, it really was. Well, not healthy or reasonable, but it actually was really really delicious. There's really no way to explain it, you just have to try it for yourself.

Anyway, that night we went to a hilltop just on the edge of the city and clicked some pictures of the night skyline and then it was off to London the next day. I had booked a bus, which was the cheapest option I could find, but I had a 10 hour haul in front of me. It was a good amount of time to reflect as the countryside rolled by, and I got in some really good thinking. I also wrote what may be the most important thing I'll have written in my life. It had dawned on me that the end of my trip was nigh and that there was still so much I wanted to accomplish personally, so I took thetime and made it happen. I was blessed to be able to have searched out my epiphanies which aren't meant for sharing quite yet, but I did want to share with you that I had them. It was a bus ride of incredible growth haha. I arrived in London's Victoria station and I took the opportunity to stretch my legs and walk across the city to my hostel near the London bridge. I had some nice beers and conversation with the bar tender at The Blue Eyed Maid around the corner and fell asleep content.

The next couple days involved a lot of walking and sight seeing. I saw the London Bridge, the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge (they are incredible creative with names, I know), the design museum, Queens walk on the south bank of the Thames, the OXO tower, Tate modern, the eye of London, Whitehall and Trafalgar square, Covent Garden (where there is no garden), Camden Town, Brick Lane Road and Old Street in Shoreditch, and a lot of walking inbetween (a one way ticket on the metro is 4 pounds, basically $8). I also managed to drink my fair share of English ales, cornish ales, IPAs and Bitters (the last two of which are suprisingly not bitter at all and have lower abv than normal ales (which is wierd if you didn't know)), and eat an english breakfast, shepards pie, and fish and chips. My flight out of London to DC was at 750 in the morning, so I wanted to get there by 550, but the first metro was at 530 and takes an hour so I packed early and took the last metro the night before at half twelve (which is the local and silly way of saying 12:30). I knew that I was going to be going 6 hours back so I stayed up the whole night and made friends with the workers of the 24 coffee shop in the airport.

Then I was in DC! Ah, the mixed emotions of seeing the American flag flying high outside of the airport. I went to go meet up with my childhood and lifelong friend Laura at her work at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. Sound familiar? Yes, it's only three blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, aka the White House. Washington DC is incredible, there are all of these historical and powerful places that you've seen a million times in movies and in the news and in history books, and they are all right there in front of you. Just standing in the streets I felt that there was a massive amount of power in the air. The people who run our country and change the world are all around you. They exist, they are real, and they are in Washington. Crazy. I made the most of my sightseeing hours and blitzed aroun the city. I saw the White House, Washington monument, WWII memorial, Reflecting pool and Lincoln memorial, Vietnam memorial, the Supreme Court, the Library of congress, the Capitol, the National Archives (including The Decleration of Independance, Constitution, and Bill of Rights), the air and space musuem, and the Jefferson memorial. And we drank a lot and talked about politics (unavoidable here, everyone is involved in some way). It's been a great stay.

So right now it is noon on Sunday and I fly home to Seattle tonight at 550. I get into Seatac at 8 or so pm and then tomorrow morning at 8 am I have orientation for graduate school. The adventure continues =). So that's it from me as far as my travels go. I wrote a lot and left out even more, but thanks for following along. I hope that life's adventures find us all, and when they don't, we find them. Much love,
-Jon

Monday, September 8, 2008

Double Time

Wow, it's been ten days since my last post, and I feel like it was just yesterday. When I last left you guys I had just gotten into Paris. I ended up extending my stay in Paris from a planned 4 nights to a full 8 nights, and I am extremely pleased that I did. From there I took an excruciatingly slow train to Barcelona where I spent 2 nights, and last night I arrived by air in Edinburgh where I am today (and the internet is 2£/hr so I'm going to type as fast as possible, excuse the poor editing!).

My story about Paris actually begins last summer in Seattle. One night of good fortune, I made my way down to King's Hardware with a great friend of mine, Chris Cushingham, and Chris' friend Anne had met us there as well. At the time, Anne was hosting a cute couple from Paris by the names of Julien and Chloe who were CouchSurfing (.com) their way across Canada and the states. We had a good night of drinking and conversation, and they said if I were ever in Paris to look them up, which I did a while before I arrived. Julien graciously made his couch available to me and I arrived late on a Thursday night after traveling by train from Brussels. As it was a bit late and there was not much going on we ended up spending the night just enjoying some beers, listening to each others music collections, and some online Mario Kart on his Wii. I'm a simple man with simple pleasures, and this way of kicking back I greatly enjoyed; which is great because this soon became our nightly ritual for the rest of my stay. The next day, after Julien had to wake up and be out of the house at a punishing 8:30, I took a nice long sleep in and set about walking the city by foot. I headed up Avenue Kleber to the Arc de Triumph and continued down the Champs-Elysee. Though its a beautiful street, it also has some incredibly expensive restaurants. (Actually, there are about a hundred different districts all smashed together that all have incredibly expensive restaurants. For the entire rest of my visit, I heard several different variations in different places of Julien saying (in his hilariously animated and french way) "this place is so expensive, it is 'orrible, look at that junk, its trash, 700€ shoes? Nooo WAAaaayy! It's so poshy a district, 'orrible.") So I took a side street and tried my best to find some local food of the main way. I happened across a small deli and somehow managed to order some ratatouille (i think I just murdered that spelling, sorry) with ground beef in a to-go box. I sat down in a small park and enjoyed myself immensely. From there I continued down and saw the Grand Palace and the Pettite Palace, the Lourve (from the outside) and the Pyrimide Inversee, and continued down to the Sant Michelle fountain and the Notre Dame.

After the day of light hiking when the sun had gone down, I met up with Julien and his better half Chloe at Odeon (Platz?) where we walked down to the Seine and we sat across from the east side of the beautifully lit Notre Dam and enjoyed a few beers and chatted as more 'orrible and expensive touristy dinner boats cruised by. From there we moved on to Chez Karl for some incredible french food to the lovely melodies of the Beastie Boys. I had an amazing cheese appetizer called Camembert and then I had the beef tartare for my entree. Julien and I returned to his flat and got in a couple more beers and races before crashing again.

The next days involved a bit of the city life around Montmarte, a walking tour of the city, the Orsay, a cute wine bar with a romantic atmosphere and an owner wearing a t-shirt and flip flops, Baguettes and cheese and meats and wine and beers and bourbon and champagne and France v. Austria on the tube, a three and a half hour stab at the inside of the Lourve, Chloe's amazing house and family, sushi, the parisien Pantheon and surrounding environs, and of course the Eiffel tower by night with views of the entire city. By this time, I had already decided to stay a few more nights and cut Nice out of my travel plans. Also, Chloe's friend Sophie from Montreal came into town so I had a sight seeing buddy while Julien and Chloe were at work. We went to the Orangerie museum and saw Monet's water lillies and the Rodin musuem (which was my favorite museum), the basilica on Montmarte and the Montmarte museum, and then finally on my last night, we all got together and went the the France v. Serbia soccer match in the world cup qualifying rounds (Henry and Anelka both put in goals for the 2-1 win).

I had an incredible time in Paris, Sophie was a perfect sightseeing mate and we had great conversation. Chloe is truly a sweetheart, kind and gracious and charming. Julien was an awesome host and friend and is a one of the most animated and hilarious people I know. (love you guys and miss you already, well have to get together again soon!) So I was a bit sad to go, but alast the road awaited me. I hopped a train to barcelona that was supposed to be 8 hours, but turned out to be more like 11. We were stopped for a while near half way because someone had committed suicide on the tracks which was incredibly sobering. Then we we late to the bordercrossing station where we had to wait for a new engine to push us (something about the rails being different in Spain). Eventually I made it to Barcelona though safe and sound.

The first night in I just found a couple beers around the corner from my hostel, and got a good nights rest for my next day of touring. In Barcelona, most of the major sights are buildings by the Barcelonian (?) architect Gaudi. So I started along my way in the morning going from building to building of his... but I hated them. Pretty much all of them. I don't really get it at all, the concepts are very fluid and round and unconventional, but it all came off to me as extremely gaudy (go figure), colorful ceramic tiles were unceremoniously plastered in strange mosaics that had no logic or asthetic. The main cathedral of his is still under construction and will be until 2026, but the 8 euro tour allowed passage to the inner construction site. Awful. Some strange alien looking pillars and strange blobby spires with tacky words protruding from the sides (sancti sancti sancti sancti, Jesus Mary Joseph). Anyhoo, I then made my way to what I thought was the site of my brothers infamous mountain pilgramage (a much longer story that you'll have to ask about if you don't know) on Montjuic. I took the cables to the top and was unimpressed. I made it to a computer and found that he had sent me the name which was actually Montserrat. Dang. After that I found some Paella (Mom, yours is better) and showered up before meeting some young Belgians who invited me to tag along with them and go out.

The next morning, I got up and ready to go to the airport so that I would be there two and a half hours before my flight, but I ended up taking the wrong train which was an express to a beach city an hour to the south. It was pretty horrible, every minute I went south, i knew it was also another minute I had to travel back, so time was moving doubly fast to my deadline. I ended up on a non-express back to the city and missed my flight. Boo. So I basically spent the whole day in the airport before it all got straightened out and I flew to Edinburgh which was last night. When I got in, I helped a nice girl from Minnesota with her massive bags who was in the same dorm room, and after we wandered the streets of Edinbugh and found some cool bars. We finished the night in a the Jazz Club and heard some decent live music to some good local brews. This morning I took the free city tour that is offered through the hostel which is the fourth that I've done so far (Munich, Berlin, Paris, and this one) and they've all been really good. So now I just got back from the tour and finding a sim card for my phone, and I am going to try and get in contact of a friend of a friend for a night of scotch tasting!
Whew!

So from here, tomorrow morning I catch a bus through the countryside to London where I have three nights, then catch a flight to DC where I have three nights, and then back to Seattle! I think the timing of this trip has worked out well, I'm just about ready to head back, so english speaking UK and DC will be a good transition. Alright yall, I've spent a good amount of time here, and the city awaits, so Cheers! Much love,
-Jon

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Far Gone

Hello everyone, sorry for the big breqk ze hqd there. (Oh boy, the keyboards in France are wacky. the first two keys are az instead of qw, the m is to the right of the l... this is going to be a hard post) When I last left you I think I had just spent my first night in Berlin. Since then I did 2 more days there, about 4 hours in Cologne on my way to Amsterdam where I did 3 nights, 2 days in Brussels, and I just got into Paris last night. Its been a bit of a whirlwind, and Paris awaits me, so I'll give you a summary.

Berlin was amazing. The next day I took the walking tour through the city to see the major sights and to get a good dose of history. We saw several monuments, the place where WWII ended, Brandenburg Tor, the Berlin wall, buildings still riddled with bullet holes, the parliment building, etc. It was all great to see and very powerful. I met a few people on the tour and we all got together to go out that evening; Rick, Kaisa, and Steven (spelt that way too). We heard of a cool place from our guide so we went to check it out. It turned out that the building had been abandoned in the cold war and had been squatted by artists who are now the legal squatters in the building. It was about 6 stories high and every inch of the hallways was covered in graffiti. We climbed to the top floor of the building where there is a gallery space, and every day a different artist shows an exhibition. Then there was a terrace bar lit by backlight and playing hip hop that overlooked the city. It was an awesome night (even after I had to pull young Steven over my shoulders to carry him to bed). The next day as I was wandering the city I came across the Sony Center which is a massive domed enclosure and business park. They had a large cinema there, and I decided if they were showing The Dark Night in english without subtitles and it strarted in less than twenty minutes, then it would be a sign that I should take a break from walking and see a movie. Really oddly enough, that was exactly what the next show was. I am really glad I went though because I also got the German movie experience. Popcorn ("salty or sweet?") with no butter ("wouldn't that make your fingers sticky?), a half liter of weissbeir in a bottle (cheaper than the popcorn), and assigned seats (extremely overly comfortable).

The next day I took the train to Amsterdam and I stopped in Cologne to see the cathedral and chocolate museum on the way. Cologne was lively and fun and I wish I had more time there. Amsterdam was Amsterdam. Very unique to say the least. I was able to see some cooler aspects of the city thanks to my amazing friend Coco who gave me a deck called Amsterdam- 50 walking tours. I then made my way over to Brussels which I immediately fell in love with. It is a bit dirty and a bit ugly in places, but they like it that way. It actually reminded me a lot of Seattle, with a bit of grit to it (plus it was gray and rainy while I was there). It also has the Delirium Bar, which holds the Guiness World Record for most beers available at 2004 (they actually have nearly 2500, but only guarantee having 2004 in stock at all times). They even played classic rock. Needless to say I was in heaven. Then last night I hopped a train to Paris where I am staying with a friend I met whilst he was couchsurfing through Seattle last year, Julien. He lives right off the Champs-Elysées where I am going to begin my sight seeing for they day right now! Take care everyone, I'll try to get back to you a bit sooner next time.
-Jon

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Like a King with 12 Crown

Hello there!
I've found myself in front of a computer less and less these days, time is precious over here. Right now I am sitting down at an internet cafe in Berlin which is more like an internet mini mart. Good for me, they sell beers from a cooler instead of coffee! I went with the Warsteiner Premium Verum. Ah German beer, how do I love thee... So I guess you may be wondering how I got here. Where did I leave off...

Ah yes, I had just gotten into Munich and had a good meal, then took the day to rest... well, not so much. I signed off the blog and went to the hostel bar for a night cap. The hostel I was staying in is called Wombats. A right proper hostel (I've been spending a lot of time with brits). They did a really good job with the place and they had a nice bar there, clean with cheap beers and good music. I grabbed a half liter of Augustiner Helles and sat down at a table and struck up a conversation with a few guys from Bristol. It turned out that it was their last night of travelling and they were headed out so they invited me to tag along. We found a really really cool bar in the city, low lit with vitage couches and a just a taste of that run down feeling. After a few we headed to another club and eventually ended up back at Wombats where one of the guys Simon and I held the pool table for a while (I had a really mean cut on the 8 my first game that impressed and boosted my confidence). I ended up crashing sometime in the wee hours and woke up just in time to stumble downstairs for the free walking tour that the hostel offered at 11. The tour was actually impressively good.

Munich is a rather odd city when you first see it. Everything is very clean and new but is designed like it is old. It turns out that there were only four buildings in the entire city that were left standing after the second war. However, before the war started someone had the idea that it might be smart to document the city very thouroughly, so when it was rebuilt after, they recreated it almost to a T. So nearly the entire city is under 60 years old, but it has the history of a much older time. For instance, the Hofbrau Haus was first built in the 1500's and has since been the staple beer hall in all of bavaria. Today it is the largest beer hall in the world, at capacity it holds 3500 leiderhosen sporting beer drinkers (and yes the still wear them today. I saw plenty on people and I even saw one of those fashion posing mannequins in a store window sporting a pair). So naturally I went for sausages and beer after the tour. Sausages, kraut, and mashed potatoes. Oh yea, and a Hofbrau Dunkle maß (liter). It really makes you appreciate getting your veggies, eating in bavaria.

On the tour I met a girl named Ruth who was heading out that night with some people and she invited me to tag along. We gathered the group that night and walked all the bloody way across the city to find a small blues club. We had tall dunkelweiss' served by a woman who looked like Bridgette Nielsen in Rocky IV and listened to some New Orleans style jams. Afterwords we found another beerhall before finding some doner kebab and calling it quits. (Doner Kebab is what they use to refer to middle eastern gyros style joints which you can find all across europe at really cheap prices.)

My last day in Munich I went to the Englisher Garten, the largest urban park in the world (twice the size of central park) and saw the local some local nudists (a few of which were playing soccer... interesting) and got a liter with Hendle (half a chicken) and a pretzle (about the size of a small child). I also made it to the BMW museum which was incredible. I have some killer pictures that will do it better justice. I also spent a lot of time staring longingly at some intricate custom steins that I oh so desired to buy and bring back to my favorite bar in Seattle, the Prost. Unfortunately the liter size steins started at about 125 € and the one I wanted was 150 €... so I exercised restraint. I also did some clothes shopping as I lost a shirt in Florence I think brining me down to 3. I only made it out with one shirt (I'm somewhat of a picky shopper) but it is a good mesh nike athletic shirt that was meant to take some abuse and will wash and dry easily. At night, guess what I did! Yup, went to the Augustiner Beirgarten and back to the Hofbrau Haus for more liters, met some crazy french (Bon Jour!), and crashed late.

The next day I booked it to Prague. The train through the countryside was so beautiful, so bohemian... oh yea, I was in Bohemia! I had two nights in Prague, which I think turned out to be just enough. I stayed in a ultra chic hostel called the Czech Inn and toured the city with a couple I met from Glasgow. Having been conditioned to drink beers with lunch, I grabbed a beer and a sandwich while the people I was with opted for water. The Czech Crown (or koruna) converts to about 23 per us dollar. The waters went for 25 crown; a half liter of the local pilz- 12 crown. Oh the joy. Not only that, but pilsners taste so different in Czech. I really feel now that you haven't had a proper pilsner until you get one there. In the states, they take on a sour and metallic note which was blissfully absent from every one that I had while I was there. Pretty much all the beer I had there was fantastic including the original, and aggresively unrelated, Budweiser and Budvar dark. The sights were decent in the city, but they had all been sandwiched into small areas by newer and uglier buildings.

Which brings me to today. I hopped a train to Berlin and found my way to my hostel (stopping at the world sand carving competition along the way... not as exciting as it sounds, but impressive nonetheless. I checked in and wandered around for a bit before finding a good looking bar. I met some nice german fellows who bought me a beer and we talked about genetics, but there was a book reading there in German, so as it began I made my goodbyes before wandering across the street to where I am now.

So, I have three days in Berlin which I am really excited about before moving on to Amsterdam. I think I have the rest of my trip planned out, I just have to cement down the dates and then book everything out; I think I've got some great stuff ahead of me so stay tuned and I'll keep ya up to date. Thanks for reading everyone, much love.


Here's another small sampler of pictures, enjoy!
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2310005&l=a58e7&id=10700716


Trav: So for the rest of the trip, I am thinking a day trip in Cologne, 3 days for Amsterdam, 2 days for Marsielle, 3 days for Barcelona, 3 for Paris, 3 for Edinburgh, and 3 for London. Then 3 in D.C. before bouncing home. I may have to juggle the order a bit according to travel costs, etc., but I think I can make it work.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Bavar-i-am

My goodness, long time no post. When I last left you I was in Sienna, so much has happened since then, it would be impossible to detail and I dont have a whole lot of time, so I think I´m going to lay this one out lecture note style (which will be much to the joy of all of you who have been asking for abbreviated versions).



Monday
-In Florence, note to museum goers, almost everything is closed on mondays in Florence!
-Santa Maria Novella
-Went to see Brunelleschi´s Crucifixion, it was the one portion undergoing restoration
-Saw some cool sun dials and an incredible chalk artist outside
-Piazzele Michealangelo
-View of the city at sunset with a beer and some olives (so cheap and amaying). There were guitarists there that were amazing. The sold more beers too, stayed for hours and got drunk and awed. Someone proposed , people clapped.

Tuesday
-Ponte Vecchio bridge
-2.5 hour line for Ufizzi gallery
-Birth of venus among other greats. DiVinci, Raphael, Brunellischi, etc.
-Accedemia
-Michealangelo´s David and other rather ingored art.
-Train to Rome
-Broke down, left emergency exit door and walked a small bit on gravel to next station, met some gals from UK

Wednesday\Thursday (can´t find the backslash key, also the z and y keys are switched positions in germany)
-Rome sightseeing that I missed
-I took a forbidden picture of the sistene chapel ceiling
-Drank cheap wine (1 L, 1.43 euro) with friends in square in public (I love Italy!)
-Got tipsy, wandered to see the colosseum at night, got lost, ended up in a field with a circle of people playing guitar and singing in italian to candle light and passing around joints. Score!
-Hungover sightseeing next day.
-Caught overnight train to Munich

Friday
-Decided to take day to relax and rest my legs, did a lot of walking in Rome
-Got one of best meal experiences ever. Lunch of Schweinshaxen mit Kartoffelsalat (half of a leg of a pig, dry rubbed and roasted with Bavarian potato salad) and a liter of Augustiner in a biergarten (more gardeny and beery than youd even think). I was so happy after cleaning my pig femur and downing my liter that I was laughing aloud (the alcohol helped that too).
-Cleaned and groomed myself!
-Caught up on internet.
-Signed off blog. See you next time!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Under the Tuscan Care

So whilst in Ko Pha Ngan with the old man, I was doing some research for the europe leg of my trip. I discovered that I would be in Italy near the same time as Il Palio and my guide book said that I should book a place more than a month ahead. Well, I only had about 8 days. Looking all over the internet, the only place with any availability was a place called Borgo Antico about a 10 km bus ride away and for 50 euro a night with a minimum of three nights stay. A pretty steep price to pay, but this is a once in a lifetime event. So two days ago I found my way to the hotel. The stop button on my bus didn't work, so when I passed the hotel on the side of the road, I had to go to the front and ask the driver to stop. I probably was only 400 m past the hotel, but just that distance dropped me on a road with a field of sunflowers on one side, and rolling hills of grass on the other, almost as far as the eye could see. As I walked back up to the hotel I passed a small vineyard, so naturally I jumped off the side of the road and snagged a couple grapes. Oh yea, real grapes have seeds. Other than that, they were pretty much just grapes haha (I half expected them to burst with wine into my mouth). The hotel is incredible, rustic brick with vines lining the courtyard; right in the heart of true tuscany. I was showed my room which was small, but incredibly lavish compared to anywhere I've stayed in recent memory. I have a window that has metalwork latches and swings open to a beautiful view of a authentic and quaint courtyard nextdoor. I was thinking of going elsewhere to find dinner, as I knew the price tag at the restaurant would be pretty big, but than I remembered the last piece of advise I got frome my friend Sofia in Rome that she read from a Coelho book: "Don't spend your money buying just "things" when you travel, buy nice dinners and drinks and experiences". So, seeing this as a sign (which I am learning to trust and follow), I went down and asked to be seated for dinner. I was walked to the dinning area which was gorgeous. It was a long hall with an arched brick ceiling that gave the feeling of sitting in a wine cellar. There was rich oak cabinets along the wall and well spaced tables with white table cloths. A cute and friendly waitress came to show me the menu fixe to ask if it was ok: it sure sounded amazing. Four courses with wine, coffee, and water (which I thought was an odd thing to list as included until I saw it come out) for 25 euro. What followed was, what I can say with confidence, the best meal of my life.

-First, I was brought a basket of fresh bread, a half liter of the house red, a tall glass genie bottle looking container of spring water, and glasses to match. This was quickly followed by a plate with four different cured meats, and a healthy slice of cheese. Salami, cheese, bread, and wine? I was very quickly a happy man. The 2 kinds of salami were rich with fat and flavor, the other meats that I didn't recognize had a texture closer to raw than cured, but bold and delicious. The wine was incredibly smooth and simple, perfect for lasting through 4 different courses. I cleaned my plate.
-Next came the primi, a full plate of two different pastas. The first was ribbon-like with wild boar and what looked like large capers cooked in red sauce. The flavor was very familiar and simple, but was completented well with the capers which snapped with a tone of pine. The second pasta was hands down the best pasta I've ever eaten. The noodles were very thick strings that were cooked perfectly evenly through. It was cooked with a pork and veal mixture in a mushroom and truffle sauce. I was writing in my journal at the table and this is what I said, "If you could put the earth and the wind into a pasta dish, this would be the product. Light and fresh and savory and rich all at the same time. Beautiful." Call me corny, but I still stand by it. I cleaned my plate again, wondering how I would make it through two more courses, but they were making it easy for me.
-The secondi was pork loin steaks accompanied with potatoes. The pork had a blackened crust of herbs and was topped with a creamy mustard sauce. I ate the pork and left the potatoes to save room for desert. As I sipped on my wine, curiosity set in and I took a stab at one of the golden cubes. My eyes went wide open. The perfectly even golden brown potatoes had been pan fried in an herb rich olive oil that made for a tasty morsel that made me feel like this was my new home. I ate as much as I could before resigning. I was stuffed, but I had a feeling that somehow I'd be able to eat dessert.
-The final dish was a small white "cake" that had the consistency of flan but had the flavor of just heavy whipping cream before being whipped. It was standing ankle deep in a chocolate sauce, and the whole plate was liberally showered with chocolate that looked like it had gone through the coarsest side of a cheese grater. Decadent. I somehow ate the whole thing on the verge of laughing aloud the whole way through. I sat back and sipped on the petite esspresso that was freshly made and accompanied with a no nonsense packet of sugar; this was no time to hold back, the whole thing went in. The waitstaff was overly kind the whole meal, and I think enjoyed how much I enjoyed the meal I promised I would return (which I'm doing tonight (yes!)) and went to the front courtyard. There was a lazy pattering of rain drops on the tree I stood under while surrounded by the brick and vine as I enjoyed a cigarette in the night air. I had indulged myself far to much that evening, but when I was finished, I lit up another.

Next stop the Palio! I made my way into town in the morning and walked among the beautiful stone streets and stone buildings of Siena. I got a slice of mushroom and whole olive pizza that was about the size of a small keyboard and sat on the steps of the gorgeous cathedral to enjoy it. I made my way into the piazza to get a good spot for the palio. After several hours of pagentry the madness of the race went by in three quick laps around the square. Afterwords the streets were lined with supporters of the winning team as they played drums and sang and carried the jockey on their shoulders all the way around the city. I had a couple of 5 euro beers and went back to the hotel and slept heavily. This morning I woke without an alarm for the first time in a while and felt extremely refreshed. I still have to stave tonight at Borgo Antico, so I came into Siena again to see some more sights in what may be the most beautiful city I've seen. The streets wind through the valleys of exclusively old buildings in a way that only makes medieval sense, I love it. While happily lost, I stumbled upon this internet shop, appropriately named Happy World. Now I am going to go to a restaurant in my book that serves Tagliatelle al ragu di coniglio, pasta with rabbit sauce. Tomorrow I head to Firenze (Florence).
I'm having the time of my life and wish you could all be here with me. Thanks for reading and I'll see you when I see you.



Jenkins: Thanks for the advice, I'll definately do that. The book I have says that the tickets are the same, so they probably still are. Cheers!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The short of it

Wow, the past three or four days have been a bit of a blur and a roller coaster. I am in Rome right now and I don't have a whole lot of time because I need to eat shower and get ready to go to an opera tonight in the city! Yea, i'm pretty happy about it too. So, I'm going to rattle this off pretty quick bullet style and if you guys want details about something in particular shoot me a comment or and email or superpoke, whatever.
(Another note on typing errors, the Italian keyboards have all the puncuation keys in wierd places, so im going to just omit the hard to find ones, sorry)

Athens,
-Got in, found hostel, saw acropolis (not that great), the agora (better than expectations), and a lot of shitty monstrous sunglasses on overdressed girls with attitudes. Decided Athens just isnt my city.
-Found an event on couchsurfing, people getting together for dinner and drinks. Met a cool girl named Vanessa who was hosting a couple Turkish dudes. Cool guys who also were going to Rome the same route same day, so we ended up travelling together the next day. Had some decent drinks, met some cool people, took late bus back to hostel.
-Had train connection trouble which led to much learning about patience and calm and going with the flow. Everything ended working out for the best.
-Took overnight ferry from Patras to Bari. Deck tickets. Took a picture of a big painted circle on the deck that said "winch only" while sitting on and covering up the w (there's the play on words in the blog title) Met two more turkish dudes. Played a lot of cards, taught them "Asshole" and they had a blast making novelty english asshole jokes for several hours. Slept on the metal deck in sleeping bag in the open air, woke to sunrise over mediterannian.

Rome
-Got into rome, had trouble booking hostel, but eventually found a good one and made a friend with a girl named Sophie. We met up with another group of couchsurfers and went to a bar.
-We went to vatican (incredible!) this morning and Sophie left to meet with family friends. I explored rome solo and fell in love with the city. Trevi fountain, Berninis four fountains, Piazza of Popolo, Spanish steps, Pantheon (incredible!). Paninis and gelato and cappucinos.
-I booked tickets to Siena tomorrow to go see Il Palio for the next couple days, decided that Im going to go to florence for a day or two then come back to rome for unspecified number of days more to catch all that i missed and eat much more and drink much more.

Sorry to make it short, but I've got so much o do and not enough time. About to hit the 1000 picture mark, just bought a new 4 gig memory card for camera, try to get some up when I get a chance. Much love to all, Ciao!
-Jon

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The desert is ecksiting

Hey there,
So today I left Thailand on my way to Athens. The flight has a massive 10 hour layover in Bahrain so the airline actually put us up into a hotel in the city; naturally I set down my bags and set out ecksploring. With me is a German named Frederic, since we were both travelling alone they put us into a room together. We made our way wandering aimlessly and changed some money so that we could sit down in an internet shop where I am now. The keyboard here is in bad shape with buttons that stick pretty well, so you'll have to eckscuse typo's (the letter "x" is especially bad so I'm trying to avoid it haha).
So I owe you guys some time from Bangkok where I spent the last few days with my pops. After making the haul back from Ko Pha Ngan (which was much better as we were able to secure some sleepers; which were a lot like prison bunks, but air conditioned and bug free at least) our pace slowed a little bit. We checked into the Sivalai Place Apartments which were recommended to us by our tecksan friends and they turned out to be great accomidations. We were within walking distance to several sights which we took advantage of, as well as a neighborhood which was lined with street meat vendors, which you know we took advantage of. In order to not keep good Frederic too long, I'll try and bang out the highlights bullet style

Day 1
-We set out walking late in the day around lunch time, so we decided to get lunch at a local corner "restaurant". We sat down at a plastic table amidst a hundered or so locals grabbing a bite. The "waitress" dropped a piece of paper on our table for our order like we knew what we were doing. Once she realized we didn't, she sent over someone who "spoke english". The communication didn't go very smoothly, and at one point my old man tucked his hands into his armpits and flapped his elbows to pantamime his desire for chicken in his soup. Hilarious, but rather ineffective. I think she made a decision for us and we ended up with a very satisfactory bowl of beef noodle soup.
-Wat Arun-Temple of the Dawn. A beautiful sight from afar, this temple had what must have been 70 degree stairs that we climbed to a nice vantage of the city. The walls were covered in ceramics that were broken and plastered on into various designs. At the time I think I described it as a massive second graders' project.
-Wat Po- Ah good old Wat Po, there was a massive 100 meter long reclining buddah there gilded in gold, and then there was the Wat Po school of massage. This was our first visit there, I got an hour body massage, and dad opted for the foot massage. It was a bit formulaic, which is to be eckspected of students, but it was great nonetheless.
-Street Meat- After a forgettable bowl of Rad Na (I don't think it was a noodle shop, but rad na was the only words that we eckchanged with understanding, so they obliged) I got an incredible beef skewer from a street side barbeque: tender, juicy morsels that were rich with maybe a soy/vinegar/pepper/gingery marinade. The last piece skewered? A cube of flavor packed fat.

Day 2
-Royal Palace- Walking around the walls to get to the enterance, we were approached by a really nice fellow who informed us that the palace was closed for prayer until late in the afternoon. He even offered to wave down a tuk tuk for very cheap to take us to a big lucky buddah, but we felt like walking around, so we refused. Another man approched us a little later and ran a suspiciously similar speach and really tried to usher us into a tuk tuk, again we refused. When we rounded the corner we could se people filtering into the palace and we passed a woman who was getting out of a tuk tuk and yelling about getting scammed. Those guys almost got us. As we headed towards the enterance, I felt a bit proud about having avoided the scam. I looked around and found my dad talking to another scammer who was a woman. "Dad. No. No dad. No" "I was disarmed, she was a woman" hahaha. Inside we saw signs that said "don't trust strangers who offer tuk tuks and lucky buddahs". We also saw the most holy buddah in Thailand, the emerald buddah, in a massive hall atop a mountainous gold pyramid.
-Wat Po- another massage, this time with the herb option which involved hot towels soaked in a refreshing herbal blend. Again, amazing!
-Holy shit soup- This is the unofficial name for the soup I ordered that night at a corner shop as we watched the opening ceremony of the olympics. I think it was billed as spicy sour soup with seafood. It had such strong flavors, sour and savory with unknown spices that left me intruiged and wanting more, probably the best soup base I've ever tasted. The catch was that it was by far and away the spiciest soup I've ever had also. I could stand taking about 5 good bites before retreating to water and rice to douse the flames in my mouth, then going back at it. The fact that it was also about 90 degrees in the open air restaurant also meant that by the time I finished (which I was sad and relieved about at the same time) I looked like I had jumped in a pool.

Day 3
-National Museum- A decent collection of relics followed a shitty grade school acount of Thai history complete with dioramas that dad fell in love with.
-Jim Thompson's House- You guessed it, he was a white guy. But he did manage to revive the thai silk trade and make good preservation of traditional thai architecture in the house that he assembled from 6 seperate thai houses from different places in the country. We ate an early fancy "eckspensive" dinner at about 300 baht per (~9 USD). We tried to rush back to Wat Po for one last massage, but the traffic left us high and dry. Dejected we returned to the apartments to make ourselves prepared to catch planes the next day.
-Beer, Olympics and Laundry- Sounds like a recipe for success for one last relacksing night, and it almost went off without a hitch, just that one pen that slipped in with our laundry load. Dang. Both my pairs of shorts bore the brunt of the damage, with minimal damage to my prana pants and one of my shirts (other two are black, phew). Well, I have some shopping to do in Europe then. If I come back looking like Eurotrash, blame my old man. =)

Getting to the airport, I came to the last stage with my dad. We said our goodbyes and I made the leap through the gates into the great yonder alone. It was a bit emotional, my dad and I had a great trip together and we made for good travelling partners, with a great micks of adventurism and levelheadedness. Going through security, I felt as though I was going through a mini rite of passage. So far so good, I'll keep you updated as I go. Right now though, Frederic is waiting, so I bid you farewell. I'll see you in Athens.
Much love,
-Jon



Christine: I miss you too, you still owe me dinner when I get back, don't think I'll forget =)

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The food is O so good

Ah, the past few days have been good ones =)

I think when I last left you we were headed to do some light Bangkok tourism before jumping on a train, so I guess that's where we'll pick up. We decided to go to Thailand's biggest market, Chatachuk. We hopped a taxi which dropped us off at an obscure entrance at the north end. As we confusedly wandered around, the market slowly began to unfold. The first area we came across was where the merchants were selling wildlife. We were surrounded by fish tanks and small cages holding birds (little chirpy things up to peackocks), rabbits (wearing little bitty dresses), puppies (Travis: Leslie should never, ever come here; unless you want to raise a dog farm. Even I could hardly resist buying one of the hundreds of little fuzzy bouncy bundles with big sad puppy eyes just waiting to be freed from their oppresive cages), and many unidentifiable little creatures to the untrained eye. From there we began our long march south which revealed thousands upon thousands of vendors selling anything you could imagine. We spent about 3 hours wandering through endless ailes and estimated that we had seen between 5-10 percent of what was there. Exercizing great restraint, we left with only one bag of goods before returning to the hotel to grab our luggage and head to the train.

The seats we had booked were the best available, second class reclining with fan (no a/c). This was a gamble, as the train ride was scheduled to last from 7pm to 7am, but after toughing the bus through Cambodia, we were up for it. The seats didn't turn out to be too bad from first glance; we had plenty of leg space and a little table that reclined from the seat in front of us. The fans that rotated at the top of the cabin circulated the air decently, but keeping the windows down was still a necessity. We had grabbed some humbow and shumai from a street vendor in Bangkok's chinatown (score!) so we had full stomachs for the journey. As we got settled, the task at hand became getting to sleep, which turned out to be much more difficult than you'd think. The bright flourescent lights stayed on throughout the night, and as we were cruising through the country side, insects were getting drawn in through the windows (the entire cabin was open, again, out of necessity). After applying massive amounts of bug repellant, we still had to battle with the wildlife. At one point a dragonfly, which was more dragon than fly with a 3.5+ inch body (my Dad can attest), crash landed right onto my stomach. In a half fear stricken paralysis I managed to push my belly up close enough to the window to recruit my dad to swat it out the window. This is how beastly this dragon fly was: after my dad flicked it out the window, we watched it get swept back by the wind as the train was going about 40-50 mph. The dragon fly then flew against the wind, back into the same window from which it was flung. I shit you not. Luckily, it chose not to seek fire breathing revenge on us, but instead left to terrorize someone else. After constantly swatting more meager mosquitos for a while, I gave in and just tried to pass out, hoping that if I wasn't looking that they wouldnt be there.

We eventually made our way to the ferry that would take us to the islands. Over the course of the night we made the decision to go the Ko Pha Ngan; a lesser traveled and lesser touristy island, just another hour past Ko Samui. Along the way we gave into a resort salesman who showed us pictures of his place and arranged for us to get there for free. When we eventually got there, it wasn't so bad. The relatively new buildings made for a good bungalow and everything we needed, but the beach was made of rocks and we were a long ways out from much of anything. We decided to rent some motos and go looking for another place to stay. Down the beach a ways we found Mac's Bay Resort where we stopped for a beer to check it out. I couple of minutes later, two tall, blonde, blue-eyed beauties from Holland sat down at the table next to us and we stuck up a nice conversation. I got some good advice for my trip through that portion of the world, and we decided that Mac's was the place for us. As we headed back to our place, we made a stop at a place that had caught my eye earlier, Wat Pho- a temple with an herbal sauna. I made my way in while pops sat outside (maybe in his right mind as it was already 80+ ouside after the sun was down). I sat down on a cement bench with a provided cloth around my waist in almost pitch darkness. The whole room was about 8'x5' with a low arched ceiling and was about "fuckin' shit this is hot" degrees celcius. I punished myself for a certain time that didn't mean a whole lot to me as perception is a bit different in there. When I came out I used a bowl to pour fresh cold water over myself from a stone basin outside of the door. As I looked over to the old man with a look that said "that was amazing but I am spent", he says "aren't you going to go back in?" As I stupidly almost never back down from challenges, especially from the old man, I went back in for round two. Afterwords I was in a trancelike state as we drove the moto's back to where I slept. Really well.

The next day we gathered our things and made our way down to Mac's. The sun out the most it had been our entire trip so we slipped on some shorts and got into the ocean. The water where we were at varied between 1 and three feet for about 75 yards until there was a reef (note this section of the blog for later reference) that broke the surface and the small waves. We wandered out into it and were pleased to find the water a really pleasant 90 something degrees from being baked by the sun in the shallows. We sat down and just floated in the bath of the ocean and enjoyed the sights of distant islands, palms on the beach, and lazy puffs of clouds drifting above. Incredible. We were so content we just sat staring and floating for a couple hours; not noticing the burn setting in. Although we got charred a bit, it was totally worth it. For dinner we made our way just down the street to a really nice restaurant called Baan Thai. I ordered some Pad See Ew and two bottles of water to rehydrate. The food came out beautifully plated. a wide white dish with fresh noodles bordered by bright orange shredded carrots, crisp sprouts, and juicy green slices of lime. The flavor was even better, the rich and savory noodles weren't greasy at all, and the crisp veggies gave a perfect texture complement. We struck up our conversation with our chef named O, a beautiful thai woman who looked like she could have been a yoga instructer with a charming smile and accent. She was an incredibly gracious host with really positive energy. That, combined with the fact that she cooked us the best food we've had in Thailand, left me enchanted and so we resolved to return for dinner again.

We awoke the next morning fully rested and ready to go, though we were a bit tender on our shoulders. We took our time and cruised the island on our motos and over the course of the day we ran several small errands. At one point we stopped at an internet cafe to catch up on emails and blogging, and about half way through (at the note I mentioned) the power went out. Apparently this is a pretty common occurance judging by the reaction of the shop owners, who couldn't give that great of an explanation through the language barrier. We returned back to the resort where the power was also out (still don't know why), so we decided to head out again on the motos down to Haad Rin: home to what they claim to be the original Full Moon Party. The half mile stretch of beach was lined with 20 somethings laying out and swiming in front of a wall of solid reserts and bars blaring music. We gathered that the night scene at this beach is rather infamous for being quite a ruckous affair. Eventually we cruised back to Mac's so that we could stroll back out into the water and catch the sunset. What an unbelievable experience. Really comfortably warm water set our environs as ever changing pastel yellows and reds lit up the streaking clouds over the near perfectly calm ocean. An amazing sunset followed by, you guessed it, another amazing dinner at Baan Thai. We returned again to order some spring rolls to start and I took O's suggestion of the green curry with seafood for the main course. The spring rolls were unlike any I've ever had. The fresh, hot, and crisp wrappings held light vermicelli noodles and vegitables. Again, there was hardly any excess grease which made for a perfect appetizer for the upcoming meal. The curry was probably the best I've ever had. The flavors were clean and distinct, as opposed to the often muddy type of blend I am accostomed to, and it had just the right amount of heat that brought out the flavors without making it difficult to endure. Again, O was the perfect host and chef without breaking a sweat. After one last dip in our perfectly warm sun-heated pool in the perfectly warm evening air, we fall asleep content.

And here is where I find myself, typing away this last note before I run to grab my bags so we can embark on the ferry away from paradise. How I will miss it so, but the rest of the world can't wait forever, so here I come.


Here is a link to some more pictures, http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=10700716&k=Y5DUY6TYV22M5FEGP1Z5QP
Thanks for tuning in everyone and thanks for the comments, it's great to hear from each of you, I'll see you back in Bangkok.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

River of 1000 Dicks (no, seriously)

The past two days have been very temple heavy, I've failed to blog the last two nights from plain and simple exhaustion. Today the old man and I have elected to take a day of respite and planning before we embark out to Bangkok tomorrow morning on a 9 hour bus.
So, Ankgor! What an incredible time. For our first day we hired a tuk tuk driver for the day as well as a guide to tell us about what we were about to see. We set out at 8 to make our first stop at Angkor Thom, the largest of the temples built. We entered the grounds by a bridge that spanned the 50 meter or so moat that had 54 statues on either side. The statues on the left represented good with evil on the right. Both rows of statues were carrying a long snake (Naga! Naga!) whose symbol is intertwined with the story of the Churning of the Sea of Milk; giants and gods playing tug of war with snakes and the prize in the middle being the fountain of youth created from the churning of the sea of milk (as best I can explain it in one sentence). At the end of the bridge we passed through a gate flanked by 8 meter walls that surrounded the complex. The main temple contained 54 stone spires (54 representing the 54 Khmer states) each with 4 massive faces pointing in the cardinal directions. The stone work of the ancients is impressive to say the least. The temples rise in a tiered fashion that give them such a mass that they are referred to as mountain temples. Words won't do these places to much justice, so I'll keep it brief until I find a way to post some pictures. We continued on our way to Ta Prohm but stopped along the way when I saw a sign that read TA KEO (Takeo being our incredible host on our recent visit to Kyoto. Much love to you Takeo, Chie, Ellia, Maika and Mike!). Keo means crystal so Ta Keo refers to the crystal temple, so named for the fine quality of stone used there. Unfortunately the temple was never finished because in a storm it was struck by lightning, so they decided to make it into a prison haha. We continued on to the "jungle temple", Ta Prohm. This temple has preserved its beautiful overtake by the indiginous trees. These particular trees pour out branches and roots that envelope everything in their path including the temple. This makes for an incredible symbiotic relationship between the wood and stone. Roots have grown into and around the blocks and even slowly knocked over sections. Ta Prohm is not a "mountain" temple so it stays relatively low to the ground with spires that reach around 20 feet. One particular spire is famous for its acoustic characteristics. If you lean against one wall on the inside and pound your chest, the bass reverberates off the walls as if you had just beat a 20 foot drum. In old times people would come from all around the country to do this and release the demons that caused illness of the respiratory tract. We continued on and our driver took us to a restaurant at the side of a massive man made lake outside Angkor Wat. They brought us menus that were written in english only (bad news) with really high prices (4-6 dollars, which is a fortune out here). We ordered some noodles which turned out to be basically instant noodles with vegtables and meat. Tourist trap. It seems to be a fairly common practice that the tuk tuk drivers strike deals with local tourist traps to take a cut of the bill. When we returned to the tuk tuk, I began to channel my friend Sammy in my mind. I was thinking in his voice, "Come on bro, don't do that to us. That's garbage man. You know it, you know better than that. We'll pay for good food and we'll tip well, but don't pull that stuff on us bro" (love you Sammy, coulda used you out here man). Alas, we just told him how bad the food was and decided that we wouldn't be hiring him again. We continued on to the magnificent Angkor Wat. A 15 foot wide stone bridge led us across a 200 meter moat to get to the outer wall. Kodak moments everywhere. Ankor wat is the largest religious monument in the world, and they used enough stone from Phnom Kulen (50 km away) to build one of the great pyramids. Inside the outer wall we had another 300 or so meters to walk up to the inner wall that houses 5 great spires. The inner wall has a covered walkway around the perimeter that is lined in bas relief carvings the entire way around with the story of the hindu based religion that they had at the time of building. As Cambodia (Cambuchia here) is between India and East Asia, they have gone through different periods of religious blends and beliefs. In some temples that were built during times of Buddhist beliefs, all of the Buddhas have been chisled away from the walls long ago. We finally made our way in to the innermost tier and saw the 5 spires from the inside. The space holds a lot of energy, you could go on forever trying to imagine just what a real ceremony on the grounds would be like in ancient times, pretty special I'd say. What wasn't so special though, was when we continued our tour along four pools that were built inside the main entrance among several tourists, an old sweaty man lugging camera equipment let out one of the most comically long drawn out farts that was loud enough for everyone within 30 yards to hear. I was between this guy and my dad, who turned thinking it was me, and said just as audibly "Daaaaang man!" As he looked over after some confusion, he and everyone around realized he had just reprimanded some stranger. We had nothing to do but continue on in silence. Hahaha, classic. After Angkor Wat we made our way back to the hotel and wandered out to find some food. We settled on another Khmer restaurant in a little bit of a touristy alley which displayed a menu with some tantalizing pictures of spicy beef and also some eggplant with pork. It was at this restaurant that I had my first notable drink. I had originally ordered another Angkor beer, but as I started flipping through the drink menu, something caught my eye: Khmer Whiskey. I rushed up to the bar to cancel my beer order and place one for the whiskey neat. I got a chance to peek at the bottle while I was up there. A very plain looking bottle adorned with a slightly filigreed red label. The words on the label could have been produced by typewriter, or just printed in plain 16 font Times New Roman:
Mekong
31%
Exciting. It came out with a light golden color and looked a bit syrupy after a good swirl. I took a whiff, light and slightly floral, and took a swig. It went down like butter, incredibly smooth with a strong hazelnut up front and a slow burn to finish. Pretty dang good, though I questioned if it even made 31%. I topped it off with some bottled water and enjoyed the rest with my meal. We had arranged a mountain tour the next day that we had to be ready for by 6:30, and after a long day of temple tromping on top of that, I hit the hay pretty hard.
Groggily we managed a small breakfast of eggs and bread before jumping into a mini van that would be our ride for the day. We started out about 60 clicks north at Kbal Spean. A really nice 1 mile light hike up a mountain gave us some good views of the lush rolling hillsides around us that were dashed with white boulders protruding from the trees and grass. At the end of our hike, we found ourselves and the River of 1000 Lingas (phallus'). About 1200 years ago at the beginning of the mighty Khmer civilization, a bunch of monks made their way up this mountain to get some privacy and carve some dicks in the rocks under water, and now it's a national monument. Well, I guess there is some more to it. These guys were paying homage to Shiva the Destroyer (and to his powerful wang) by carving symbolic units in the flowing waters that would bless and "fertilize" the waters that would eventually flow down to their rice farms below. They also carved other deities and such in impossible places. We continued on (after my camera's battery ran out! I'll have to steal that day from my pops) to Phnom Kulen where we walked a ways into an impoverished mountain community to a temple which housed a huge ~40 foot carving of a buddha at the top of a tall rock outcrop at the mountains pinnacle. As we came down, the sky opened up and dumped torrential rains on us so we scrambled into a nearby hut that was barbequeing chicken. Now these were real chickens. Small and scrawny, you could find then wondering through the dirt streets which had just transformed to rivers of mud. The chicked was splayed out and held between two bamboo pieces that were strapped together. Though the meat was a bit scarce, the flavor was abundant and it turned out to be one of our best meals. After the rain subsided we continued on to see some more linga in another river which led to a waterfall that is a local place to swim. Maybe it was the time of week and time of day that we got there, but as we arrived to the bottom of this 70 foot waterfall which ended in a shallow sandy lagoon surrounded by lush green forest, we were the only people there; save two maybe 8 year old local girls chatting on a large rock overlooking the pool. The scene was a picture perfect postcard for Cambodia. Fortunately I came prepared with some shorts, so a got in for a swim. The water couldn't have been more than a few degrees cooler than the 85 degree air. I felt like I was in a strange and magical dream as I floated in serenity and climbed on the rocks below the cascading waterfall. Incredible. Eventually we had to leave, though the mild euphoria lingered with me. We made our way down the mountain to Bantay Sray, a small temple by comparison to the rest, but the artistry was unsurpassed. The main temple was about 40x40 meters reaching about 20 feet into the air, but quite literally every single inch of the rich pink sandstone was covered in carvings and filigree. Again the rains came and hastened our return home. Though we were finished with seeing temples we decided to take the next day to relax and catch up on travel planning and blogging (me: fail). After sleeping a good 11 hours, we got up and moved nextdoor to a hotel with a swimming pool and decided that a lazy trip to the museum would be a good days activity, which it turned out to be. Afterwords I got a little time in on the internet, before we went to dinner with some friends we had made on the bus over from HCMC. Yohan and Dolina are a couple who have spent the last year travelling the world and it was great to hear their stories and get great advice (liberals from Texas too! What a rare breed) and we spent most the evening over some Khmer and Amok food that included duck, mushrooms, fish, and pumpkin. The next day we booked a bus trip to bangkok (tickets that go for 10$) that we were informed was a 9 hour shot. The first 7 hours of the trip to reach the Thai border was hellish. I say that with hesitation, having seen the travel accomidations of the locals, but this trip took some endurance. First, to road was all dirt the entire way that was plagued by massive potholes keeping our top speed below 40 and very ofter forcing a crawl at 5 or less. Second, the bus was in really bad shape. We were crammed into seats where I couldn't even put my feet flat on the floor without the seat in front of me digging into my shins. The pleather seats almost seamed heated as they caused the sweat to pour off you at any point of contact. The only form of circulating air was the front door of the bus remaining open throughout the trek, which made for a steady stream of dust from the road to fall upon us all. I turned my music up and tried to go to another place. When we finally crossed into thailand, the change of scenery was immediate. The bus we climbed into was a plush double decker with a disney themed paint job, a/c, reclinings seats and movies to watch for the ride. Every road in Thailand is well paved with major highways in all directions. We cruised along at great speed, though our journey took about 13 hours when it was all said and done. We rushed to the train station to try and catch the overnight train to our take off point to Ko Samui, but it was sold out. So we grabbed a tuk tuk (which in Thailand have full size engines and zoom around at motorcycle speeds), and after a bit of a back alley scare, eventually made it to a good hotel where we crashed from exhaustion. Now we are booking hotels in Ko Samui and catching up on e-mails and such before we do some light tourism and then we jump onto a 6:30 train heading south.
Phew.
So, sorry to get this blog out a bit late and a bit hurried, but there it is. I'll catch you in Ko Samui for a little more cultural insight and more adventures. Thanks for tuning in and for the comments, it's great to hear from you all =)
Much love,
-Jon


Jenkins: Yea I suppose I should have clarified that a bit. What I meant to say is that the pace of life is just a bit slower and that everything being 5 minutes late is not a surprise. The big clock at Wat Phnom was 5 mins behind the clocks everywhere else in Phnom Penh, but no one really bothered to correct it. Hence the custom seems to be to not worry about time so much, as opposed to everyone putting their clocks back. I usually try to read over my writings but It always seems to be late when I'm doing it and my writing suffers from that. Thanks, for reading, it's good to hear from you! Hope all is well

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Drop Nets, Not Bombs

2 Days in Siem Reap...
We hopped a bus from Phnom Penh at around 9 in the morning on our way to Siem Reap, the city closest to Angkor Wat. I mostly slept to some sweet jams provided to me by my dearest friend Coco prior to my departure. (Thanks and love!) We stopped for lunch at a small market pretty much in the middle of nowhere. There were several buses and vans stopped here as a midway point and some modes of transportation made us feel very thankful for our air conditioned bus. There were a bunch of normal size minivans that probably had seats for 8 tops that were crammed with more like 15 inside with the rear hatches burgeoning out with luggage and what looked like bags of rice. Not only that, but the tops of the vans were rigged with 6 inch rails that lined the perimeter that precariously seated another 8-10 passengers on top. We grabbed some garlic and ginger marinated beef over rice for 1 usd and I gave in to a young girl's pouty face and bought a bag of fresh cut pineapple slices for another dollar (I did get a smile out of her though). We arrived in SR at around 4 pm which was too late to make it to any temples so were arranged a ride on a boat down a small river to the rising lake Tonle Sap. We really had no idea what to expect, but what we found was a whole community of people who lived in impoverished floating houses. Our boat guides (3 18 year old boys who were from the community) pushed us out in a long and skinny government subsidized tour boat that had 6 comfortable chairs and space on the bow for them to sit. What we saw was amazing, the people were forced to live on the river as they could not afford any land, and their only means of living is provided by the water. We drove to the end of the river where it met the great lake. Endless brown water as far as they eye could see. we pulled into a floating tourist stop to see their alligator farm, catfish farm, and freshwater fish exhibit that was all built into the deck. We climbed some stairs to the roof and watched the river for a while as the sun was dropping behind some cloud cover. One thing that stood out to us was how your the children had to start work. We watched a father on the bow of a 15 foot canoe like boat throwing his net into the river as his maybe 6 year old daughter sat on the stern with an oar twice her length and guided them out and around. The maybe 4 year old son sat in the middle watching and learning and holding the bucket which caught the small 6 inch fish that were getting snagged in the net. We bought 2 beers and a can of pringles for 9 dollars, which is an exorbitant price by this areas standards, but we felt ok with it judging by the quality of life we had witnessed (the community was also dependent on the crude motors that powered their boats, and gasoline is not any cheaper for them than it is for you or I). On our way back into the city we stopped at a Khmer soup restaurant, I'll try to omit the word amazing, but it'll be difficult. We knew this restaurant was going to be good when we saw that there was no english on the menu. As the waiter tried to explain what each menu item was, we took a peak behind us to see what the locals were eating, and were happy to copy. They brought out a small burner and placed on it a dome shaped grill with slits that opened from convex bumps in the metal. the perimeter of the grill was raised up so that a trough rounded the edge to catch the drippings of the meat. Out came a plate of raw beef cut thin and marinated in a sesame based sauce with an egg cracked on top. Then came a basket of fresh vegetables and a cube of fat. Our waiter turned the burner on and put the fat on the top center of the grill so that it's drippings covered the rest of the surface, and from a tea kettle he poured a soup broth into the trough. He then explained that we were to place the vegetables into the soup broth to cook and to grill the meat in the center where the drippings would enrich the soup. Hells. Yes. We devoured that thing like it was our job. Topped it off with a pitcher of cold beer, heavenly. As we were nearing the end, our waiter said that their restaurant was famous for something like Cambodian country soup and that we could order a small bowl. We weren't even really hungry, but that guy could have sold us anything at that point. Off went the grill and on came a clay pot filled with a new broth and new vegetables that we brought to a boil. Then came the meat that we were to put in to cook in the stew. More beef cuts, and a plate of whitish gray gelatinous curls that we were informed was cow brain. Done and done. Pops shied away mumbling "mad cow" and I hesitantly dipped in. Once we were sure everything was cooked through I went for it. Not bad at all, mostly flavorless really with the texture of soft tofu (chew softly, for you chew on my dreams). We finally get back to the hotel where I fell face first into the pillow and didn't move until morning.

Well, right now it is about 10:30pm over here and tomorrow morning we have to be ready at 6am t head up to see three temples outside the city in the mountains: pink sandstone carvings, carvings that were made underwater in a shallow flowing river, and waterfalls where the Khmer kingdom was born. Next blog I'll add those to the temples that we saw today including Angkor Wat and Ankgor Thom, but for now, I've gotta pass out.
Love and peace,
-Jon


M,S,Lolo: Yea, the perspective is astonishing, I've truly redefined what it means to conserve resources and gained insight into the relationship we have with our government. Stuff that is easy to take for granted in such a wonderful city like Seattle.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Khmer and check this

And the hits keep comin. Today was another incredible day I have to say. In order to give you some context as you read the rest of this blog, here's where I am right now: about 3 beers deep after a great meal at 10:30pm after a solid day of exploring since 7am. In other words, I'm happy and sleepy =)

So Phnom Penh, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
This morning we were torn between jumping a bus to Siem Reap/Angkor Wat or staying another day. We left it up to the travel agency gods as we headed out into the town to see what was available. The gods treated us well methinks, the first bus available out of town was tomorrow morning at 9:30; Phnom Penh, round 2, here we come. After making arrangments to get out of town tomorrow, the old man and I hired a tuk tuk driver to give us a tour of the city for the day (for those of you that are unfamiliar, at tuk tuk is a little 50-100cc scooter with a double benched improve carriage in tow). Today was a special day in Cambodia however, it was election day. Everywhere we went people were sporting dark blue right pointer fingers signifying that they had had their rint taken in order to vote. It also meant that a significant portion of stores and historical sights were closed for the day. It was surprisingly really nice, albeit somewhat inconvenient. Even though we weren't able to make it into the city's biggest tourist attractions (the Silver Pagoda, National Museum, the Russian market, etc.), the holiday made for a unique experience of the city. The pace was much slower, most people were indoors watching the news for the results of the election or just taking a day off. We started by going to the main city market. While the main domed buildng was closed for the day, a select few vendors stayed open around the perimeter in a series of wooden stalls that created narrow alleyways roofed with tarps. I was recruited several times by my pops to do his haggling for him. Even though he wanted me to do the negotiating to save him money, it seemed as though he were working against me. Several times I would be taking a defensive stance and making low offers on goods that would be going incredibly (sp? again I am lacking red squigely line technology, bear with me) cheap to locals, and dad would say something like "well, you know this is a really good deal" and then after the deals were done say something like "Man, I thought you were going to save me some more money!" On the day I talked down 35 usd off 130 which I thought was a decent percentage considering that I was working against tourist hardened bargainers and my dad. Anyway, after the market we made our way up to Wat Phnom, a tall shrine-like structure atop a hill in the middle of the city. On the side of the hill was a massive clock, maybe 60 feet across that even had a second hand that spun at a good speed out at the radius. As it seems to be the custom in Cambodia, the clock was 5 minutes slow. Afterwards we sat down to lunch at a Khmer restaurant on the Sap river. I had this incredible shrimp dish whose name escaped me shortly ofter leaving the restaurant, but the descriptor on the menu went something like "simmered in brown sauce". A small pile of shrimp waded in a rich brown sauce laden with finely chopped garlic and green onions, which was bordered with scalloped cucumbers, that rolled of the back of the tongue with a nice balance of salt and pepper that reminded me of home. As a pick-me-up I also ordered a 3000 riel Red Bull that had nothing to do with what we get in the states. Flat syrup in a short and stubby can. As we looked out onto the river scene before us, there laid a simple four post structure that had collapsed on one side and come to rest with half of the roof submerged. A few men were working around the structure as we sat down, and before we knew it, one of them had gotten into the water wielding a tube connected to a gas powered pump that was steadily and rapidly supplying air. The man, with no shoes, flippers or goggles, dove under the water to go to work on god knows what in the murky brown waters. We could see the stream of bubbles surfacing from where he was under the surface, but even after we finished our lunch, he remained submerged; 20 minutes at least before we left the restaurant with him still under. Our tour continued on to the city's Genocide Museum (the details of which I'll leave out), and on to a nice drive over the Japanese bridge and back to the hotel. Now, all trip long, I've been talking about how freaking cool the scooters everyone drives around here and about how bad I really want one back in Seattle. Well, I knew of a place (from pre-trip research) which rented them out for 4 usd per day which turned out to be one block from our hotel. I really had no intention of driving any of them in this part of the world, mainly on account of how really fucking scary the drivers are around here, but when the old man suggested we rent a couple, there was no turning back. (cush: you would be in heaven here) So we grabbed a couple ~50-100 cc manual shift, automatic clutch scooters and cruised around town for an hour and a half. (mi amo, mi amo mi nuevo bicicleta) Pure joy. Cruising through 75 degree streets with the breeze through your hair with nowhere to be but exactly where you are: amazing. I took the lead cruising through the city wherever the streets took us. Before long I had gotten myself disoriented with about 10 minutes to return the bikes before the shop closed. Leisurely cruising turned into 2-semi-fast, 2 furious racing through the streets to find our destination. It was a perfect amount of adrenaline and speeding for the evening as we snuck into the shop with no time to spare. We came down from excitement by returning to a site that we had stumbled upon earlier while cruising, a strip of street in which the locals had set up several half-steel drum barbeques where they grilled the day's market meats on the curb. I know! It was amazing! We started off with some incredible sausages that had the locals piling up in line for. Mmmm, light meat with complimentary spices, cooked to perfection with a nice even char that was only interupted by the meat snapping through right before being served to us piping hot. That was only the beginning. We crossed the street to the next barrel of coals releasing smoke that carried a smell that could only be made by dripping fat. We grabbed a strip of meat that dad hypothesized was pork belly. Oh. my. gato. The thick strip was about 12" by 2" and was divided longwise with an inch of tender juicy white meat on one side and a solid sizzling inch strip of fat on the other. When on the street, eat as the grillers do. We finished up the meal with some the wings of some chicken that definitley did chickens everywhere justice. Heading out of the street we grabbed a tuk tuk home and ducked into the restaurant next door to the hotel for a couple tall (640 ml) Angkor beers. So far the beers of Vietnam and Cambodia have been somewhat forgettable, dry lagers that carry a coppery finish, but it was a great way to round off our day. We drank and went over pictures and talked of travels. I'm really really appreciative that I am on this leg of my trip with my dad. I have learned a ton about the practicalities and necessities of traveling from him, but even greater than that, from the standpoint of getting mentally prepared for wandering off into the rest of the world solo, what better day to lose your training wheels than to have your dad give you a push start on your first two wheel ride. So now it's 11:37, and again I have blogged past my bedtime. See you in Angkor Wat!
Much love,
-Jon

Chris: sorry about bringin the hunger pains again in tonights blog, remember, it's all in your head
Erik: Thanks, it's better than good and the best is yet to come, stay tuned
Jenni: Haha, yea this is also doubling as my diary so the mo the betta for keepsake... sake
Trav: Thanks for looking out for my butt, luckily last night's alley chicken and sugar can(e) adventure ended safely.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Todays Phnom pen

What an incredible day, I am so honored to have such incredible experiences all packed together in this trip. Everything I've encountered has been new and challenging and amazing and I can honestly say I will cherish it forever. Today we had our first experiences of Cambodia. Cambodia. And I love it. Love it forever.

I'll get to that in a moment, first I wanted to jot down a few things that I remembered after having posted my Vietnam segment, so here they are in no particular logical fashion to save time on transitions:

-We had the most hilarious cab driver on our way to a pagoda just outside the city the other day. He spoke english well and was quirky and energetic. He played his favorite cd's for us, Pink Floyd, Santana, and Dire Straights haha. While we were in the cab, he began to set up a joke by saying, "what religion are you?" To which I replied "Christian". This actually derailed him from his joke for a minute, and he said "what's that? you mean no god?". It struck me that someone in a major metropolis could have never heard of Christianity, I tried to say "kind of like Catholic, you know, protestant?" Nothing. Right then it was cool to feel a moment in which a small door in my mind opened to new perspectives. He continued, "well I've been thinking about joining Islam, you know why? 4 wives."

-At a small temple outside the city zoo a woman was guiding us around in an effort to build ethos and sell us some postcards and she pointed at my ever scruffier goatee and said "Ho Chi Minh! Ho Chi Minh chin!" That made me smile. She said I should grow it out long, your wish is my command Vietnam.

-After leaving the War reminants museum we were walking towards the post office through a park. Throughout the streets of the city there are older men and women carrying goods in baskets suspended from the ends of a wooden plank across their shoulder, mostly coconuts and bottled water and the like. At this particularmoment we notices that there were about 15 of them running scattered in every dirrection with their beachball size baskets swinging vigorously with each stride. Moments later, two policemen came screaming in on their moto's and one jumped off the back in persuit. It was just like a lion singling out and picking off a gazelle in the wild. Even as the officer got close, there was no quitting from the vendor, he squeezed between cars and cut left and right. We all know who win's that race though; I don't know the fate of the vendor, as much as I wanted to jump in and tell him to give the guy a break, fucking with the po in a communist country is a bad idea- so I hear.

-I mentioned the whole crossing the street aspect in my last post but there was a quick story I wanted to share. Crossing the street is a serious skill in the big city. It takes some getting used to, but I think in the end I got it figured out. It takes walking right into the middle of traffic with your chest up and chin high with confidence and making eye contact with the moto's about to run you down, and never missing a step. Once you establish that you are moving at a set pace, then you have made the decision, and all the drivers have to do is follow it; speeding in front or slipping behind. Getting used to this was a ball clenching task though. Early on the first day as i took a deep breath and hardened my brow just about to take my first step, I got upstaged by a woman who had to be at least 75 who just strolled on in. I fell into rank just beside and behind her and checked my ego at the curb. An old lady walked me across the street. And I was so thankful.

-At the travel agency when we were booking our bus tickets i was watching a woman at work on a computer putting together a spreadsheet on Excell. It took her about 15 minutes trying to format an equation in one cell before she gave up. We are blessed to have our educations... and if you are in Vietnam, double check the math.

Ok, now that that is out of the way I can get on to the good stuff, Cambodia! What an amazing day (sorry to say it again, but it is true!). We got down to the travel agency this morning at 8:30 to be crammed into a 10 seater van with 11 other people which proceeded to drive us literally a block and a half to the main bus that would take us across the border. Everyone inside was laughing as we had all walked farther to get there than it had drove us. The bus took about 3 hours to get to the border which came and went without incident. I did however get a chance to sharpen my haggling prowess. In line at the border, women were walking around offering their under the table money changing service. I had read in our guide bok that the conversion rate is about 4200 riel to the dollar, but practically it is about 4000. All the suckers in front of me paid about 10-20 percent overfor the charge, and a lot more if they didn't count the money that was handed to them in exchange. I traded 400,000 dong (24 dollars) for 92,000 riel (which I talked up from 88) and counted the money to catch the 10k short change she tried to pass. Small victories i know, but I felt great about it. Once into Cambodia, you immediately can see the difference from one to the other. The roads went from un-cared for asphalt to un-cared for asphalt underneath a layer of dirt and silt. Cambodia seems to be a much more poverty stricken area, yet it feels much more care free. We haven't gotten the feeling almost at all that anyone is trying to take advantage of us which has relieved a psychological burden that we had already become accustomed to. We stopped for lunch in a large garage-like space in which a couple was running a food cart. The wife was hilarious! if you have seen Kung Fu Hustle at all, she was exactly like the land lady in pig sty alley. She was screaming at her husband while dishing out some dope ass beef and vegtables in a red, light on grease, yet savory and satisfying sauce, over rice. 8000 riel (2 bucks). Our bus continued on to a stop where we waited to get onto a ferry. Just outside the bus a happy woman was selling whole unknown birds about the size of a folded out baseball from her grill-top cart. I took one whiff and jumped out of the bus to buy one; yup, amazing. Even with the charred head staring me down, it was finger licking good, and as a bonush, they prepared it with its feet tied to one of it's eggs, ate that; yup, amazing. We crossed the river and hit a solid wall of traffic trying to get on the ferry the other way, so our massive bus took a turn down a dirt road that began an adventure. We rolled past hand made houses on stilts with naked children waving and chasing after us, a crude "water tower" that consisted of big pots up un a platform suspended by trees, a local gathering place where a woman was selling fish from a hand held scale, and after barely squeeking through a 90 degree turn that almost didn't happen we continued on past a beautiful hand built stone monestary with young monks clad in maroon robes. Journey on. We arrived in Phnom Phen hungry and eager to explore. As I mentioned before, walking the streets was much more relaxing. It truly actually reminded me of the laid back feel of SoCal, everyone is outside enjoying the heat, cruising on the endless supply of scooters in this part of the world, with a nice breeze that rustled the leaves on the trees. The only difference is the trash in the street and stray dogs that bark at your heels and run down buildings that should be abandoned, but aren't. We passed so much good food on grill carts and eventually settled on one that was way off the beaten path. We got a lot of looks like "what the hell are you doing here" from the locals sitting and eating, but it was more curious than aggresive. We didn't even know what we had signed up for when the one english speaking host placed us in small plastic stools at a leantoo table in the sketch ass alley adjacent to the cart , but we had a feeling it would be good. Out came some food, marinated grilled chicken wing tips on skewers. Pretty bone heavy, but you guessed it: amazing. We followed the lead of the people around us and threw the available spices and kim chi-like garlic slices into a dish with some lime and dipped our wing tips before devouring them. I thought I had ordered a soda to come with it, but to my trepidation and surprise came the juice from fresh squeezed sugar can in a glass with ice. As a general rule, ice/water/uncooked vegitation is a no no in this region, but after tasting how good it was I downed it all with a smile. I hate to say it again, but it is what it is, amazing. As we got ready to go we were informed the bill was 6000 riel. Anywhere near the main city it would have been three times that, we left 10k overly satisfied. We finished the night off with a nice walk and found a spa in a hotel around the corner which gave 1 hour massage for 6 usd. Though it was in a lazy boy style chair, and the massage was a bit unconventional by standard western/sweedish standards, I can honestly say it was one of the top 5 I've ever gotten. So we returned to the hotel and here I am now in the lobby sending away another incredible chapter. Euphoria. And I've still got another 50+ days to go... hahahahaha, what did I do to deserve this? =)
Much love,
-Jon

Friday, July 25, 2008

Phostache

Wow, the past three days have been an incredible blur of awe. I have so much to tell and unfortunately not too much brain power to tell it at this juncture, we have been going non stop by foot for two long days straight after a longer day of travel and currently it is 10:51 pm here. Tomorrow morning we also have to gather our things and check out to catch a bus to Phnom Phen at 8:30. That being said, you'll have to excuse my inability to wield the English language; I guess we'll see how I do...

Getting to Saigon was a feat of endurance. I left my front door at 5 am in Issaquah and after 27 hours and 3 layovers, we arrived at our hotel in Vietnam which was about 10pm local time. We decided to rest well and save exploring for when we could keep our eyes open. The next morning we arose around 6 to a very alive Ho Chi Minh City. It is truly an incredible town, bustling with almost every extreme of life. When we stepped out of our hotel, it took about 10 seconds to learn several lessons. As we opened our guide book to get our bearings, one by one people started to come to us for various stated reasons, but ultimitely for money. One man wanted to bike us to wherever we wanted to go on his modified rickshaw, a woman wanted to sell us some maps, and a little girl just came with her hands cupped in front of her with a look of sadness that could only have been sincere... or finely crafted. Nearly every interaction we have had in this city has been driven by the desire for our money in one way or another, and these people are great at it. Some people guilt you, some bully, some beg, and some just nice it out of you. Whatever the tactic, you definitely get the impression that they know what they are doing and they know exactly how much they can get. I want to make it clear though, that I don't hold this against anyone at all, it's just the way of life here which is new and challenging and fun. And it's not only just the citizens, it's the museums and restaurants and everything in between. We stopped at one museum which sold is tickets for 15,000 dong (17000 dong = 1 usd) which was stated clearly on the ticket, and right behind us came in a couple locals who chatted with the clerk and slid across 1000 each for theirs. In one restaurant we stepped into the waiter must have mistaken us for locals when he brought us menus because the door man who had spoken into us in english rushed in and reprimanded him. Then as we were looking through the menus the staff came and switched them out for basically the same menus with higher prices! =) there's not much you can do about it but laugh it off. In the end our meal for two, at a sit down joint with beers, was about 10 dollars. You can find food cheap here though, in fact we just finished a big bowl of Pho from a street vendor for 20,000 dong a piece; and it was amazing! Now those of you who have eaten with me before know how sometimes I can be a bit particular with eating cleanly (2 fingers, not 4 Travis) which, with my newly sprouted mustache, has had to go out the window. There is just no possible way not to wolf down these massive bowls of Pho at a blistering pace. Of the many times we've eaten pho in the short time we've been here, two were very notable. The First was Pho 2000 which is proudly commemorated with plenty of photos as the Pho restaurant which was visited by Bill Clinton 8 years ago. Another is Pho Hoa on Pasteur street which is listed in the book "1000 places to see before you die" as possibly the best Pho on the planet, and I am not arguing one bit. So getting used to a Phostache has been one of a few things that I have been dealing with. There are some other things that I have learned about myself in the short time that I have been here. First, I am pretty self concious about being invasive, and when I start snapping pictures of people during their daily lives, I feel like I am making a spectacle of them. At the same time, I am a tourist here (and being a tourist bugs me also) and in the end I'll really want to have captured this trip. I am also not very big on doing touristy activities. One shocking fact about this city is that there are 9 million people here and 5 million scooters/motorcycles. Watching the traffic here is almost identicle to schools of fish swarming the streets. They are everywhere. There are also friendly citizens selling rides on them (our cabby from the airport told us that in Ho Chi Minh City there are 40 deaths a day in traffic accidents), so when I heard my dad negotiating with someone for a ride, I was nervous and excited at the same time; I was ready for an awesome HCMC experience. To my dismay, he was talking to a couple of the dillapidated rickshaw guys whose only clientel are fat whiteys who probably whistle that stupid tune in their head the whole way (dee-dee-dee-dee dee-dee dee-dee dee). This was exactly one of the stupid touristy things that I hate doing, but in the end, it turned out to be a pretty cool thing. Not for the fact that sitting in a seat while a guy behind you pedals at a snails pace while you sit like a gomer for all to see (because that definitely happened), but because these rickshaw deals turned out to be even more dangerous than the motorcycles. These guys peddled us at 8mph, tops, right into the middle of death traffic central! Motorcycles and cars where whizzing by and honking while we cut through them all to meander in the general direction we were headed. We even made a wrong turn and the guys jumped off and pulled the rickshaws backwards into one way traffic to the correct the mistake. I think I got some good pictures and tested my quick drying underwear. Our destination was the HCMC Vietnam War Reminents museum, which was an stunning, moving, and shocking display of awful humanity. The presentation was made further incredible in that the presentation of events was from an entirely different political bias. It really was poignant to have heard both sides of the political picture, yet the pictures don't change. The war was still an absolute disregard for human life no matter what spin was put on it. When I get a chance, I'll post some of the pictures I took, but beware as some are not for the feint of heart. Right now we are at the end of our full second day dedicated to exploring this city. We have seen so much and become so familiar that we have started to feel like part of the neighborhood. When we got here, crossing the street was absolutely literally risking our lives, and now we step into the middle of a fleet of motorcycles with the confidence and fluidity you have to have to survive. We've started to get the hang of bargaining, which you can and should do with nearly everyone and everything. Dad is still pretty horrible, but we've got a sort of good cop, bad cop thing going on =) I ventured solo and bought a pho (faux) Diesel messanger bag as a day pack. I talked the vendor down from 250,000 dong to 190,000 and 10,000 for a pack of gum from her daughter who was tugging at my shirt. Not a huge victory, but a ego boost at least (I still got robbed at only around 12$). So one thing outside of our control has been the weather, and we got the whole gammit. The first day it hit about 90 with almost no clouds, then about 4 hours ago the lightning cracked open a flood from the sky. I've never seen so much water falling through the air at one time in my life. We were driven back to the hotel and nearly drown on our way in the door. You could easily fill a cup with rain in as much time as it would take to do something that didn't take very long. Yea, I guess that means it's time for me to go to bed. I apologize if this post has lacked structure and is riddled with spelling errors, this particular computer hasn't hit the red squiggly line technology era yet. Anyhoo, I promise these'll get better =) Goodnight America, I'll see you in Cambodia
Much love,
-Jon

Monday, July 21, 2008

Conversation Piece

Hello Everyone! This is the first post of many in which I will attempt to chronicle and capture the ridiculousness of my upcoming adventure. Tomorrow morning I will step on to a series of planes which will take me from Seattle to San Francisco to Hong Kong, and finally to Ho Chi Minh City (yay cheap tickets with crazy layovers!). Today I got up and made my final additions to my backpack and made some last minute arrangements before gathering my things and heading to my parents' house in Issaquah. It was only when I had my back pack on after I locked the front door (mantown: count it!) and began to walk to my car that the reality of this whole situation really hit me. For the next two months, I won't be returning to my house and all I will have to survive with are my wits (cush: as I chuckle to myself) and the junk in my bag. "It's interesting because" for the past couple months my mental associations with this trip have mostly been to it's functionality as a conversation piece. I have talked about it so much, for so long, to so many people, that the trip had become just that to me: talk. In that moment though it became real. It will probably be hitting me several more times in bigger and awesomer ways as I go along; but for now, this adventure has now effectively removed its glove and daintily slapped me across the face in a challenge to a duel. Oh, it's on now.

More to come, stay posted...