Living the Dream

Singapore wins our (highly coveted…) best all-around city in the universe award. Like a real-life Asia Disneyland with monorails, cable cars, massive sparkling shopping centers, beautifully maintained temples, impeccably dressed residents, tons of great ethnic restaurants, and a subtle british-colonial-jungle-explorer feel, the city was just a 5 hour bus ride from our last stop in kuala lumpur, but seemed like it was on a completely different continent than the rest of s.e. asia. it was probably a little too perfect and orderly to warrant anything but a few day stop and we didn’t want to get too comfortable and accidentally spit in public, chew gum, drink water on the metro, or… urinate in an elevator – (yes, urination in an elevator is specifically forbidden by singapore law) – and wind up in jail with a caning sentence, but it was great place to spend the last few days of our round-the-world-in-150-days adventure. Next stop – Chipotles - Denver.

to us, malaysia was like a more tropical version of south korea in many ways... polluted, rife with quickly slapped up and half finished concrete apartment buildings, garbage strewn just about everywhere, a general lack of paint on everything, extensive construction and deforestation, and 'vacation' destinations that were tragic examples of overdevelopment and commercialization ruining locations that were probably not really that scenic to begin with.

however, malaysia differed from korea in one major way -- the food was amazing. the multiple ethnic groups living on the malaysian penninsula (indian, malay, chinese, and british) served up a wide variety of excellent cuisines, and we enjoyed tandoori chicken, chinese chicken-rice, satay, curries, even tea and scones, as we traveled south along the penninsula from penang, to the cameron highlands in the central mountains, and south through kuala lumpur to singapore, loving every single meal. we found the blend of so many distinct cultures in such close proximity fascinating - frequently visiting a buddhist temple, hindu temple, mosque, and church all within a few city blocks.

I hope loas (note: the 's' is silent...why? ask the french!) loved us as much as we loved this beautiful SE asian country. Every day we had a blast in this baclpacker's paradise.

Because everything was so incredibly cheap in laos, and we heard the phrase "same-same, but different" more often here than anywhere else (although we got it a lot everywhere we went in this part of the world), we finally bought our obligatory south east asia backpacker t-shirts. said by shopkeepers, guides, drivers, and hustlers alike… it basically means ‘even though you want this product / service / transportation, I’m going to give you this other one that is same-same… until you find out that it is lower quality / not available / more expensive / slower / leaves an hour later… and then I’ll clarify that it is really same-same… but different’.

But despite the transportation and bargaining shenanigans, Laos surprised and delighted us with beautifully preserved buddhist wats and resident monks who seemed genuinely interested in sharing their lives and practicing their english with us, an endless number of outdoor adventures including trekking, kayaking, tubing, climbing, and caving in the tropical forest, and cheaper prices for food, lodging, gifts, and everything else than anywhere we'd been on the trip.

We spent a few days visiting the temples and waterfalls in the ancient capital city of luang prabang, before heading out on a two day trek with our guide, Chuare, through 5 hmong and khmer hill tribe villages several hours north of the city. We hiked about 7 hours into the mountains passing through rice fields, fording 4ft deep rivers, tasting local herbs and produce grown in the fields (kirk enjoyed the sugarcane) and exploring villages all along the way.

Since it was just the two of us and Chuare, who spoke the various languages of the different peoples we visited had grown up in an isolated hmong village, himself, we were able to really interact with the local people more than we had at any other point on the trip. We played a soccer / volleyball variation with the kids, played cards and drank laos moonshine whisky with the old men, took a bath down at the river with the ladies, slept and ate on the floor of a single room smaller than our florida bedroom with 3 generations of local family – grandpa was quite the snorer -- and woke up at 3:30 in the morning with the roosters, pigs, chicken, goats and villagers getting ready for their day. we trekked and kayaked back to luang prabang the next day arriving dirty, exhausted, and very satisfied witih the adventure that was one of the most fascinating and authentic we've experienced. we rewarded ourselves by checking into a guesthouse with hot showers (a rarity) and got relaxing 3-dollar facials in town. we even had a tv in our room, but got a little taste of our lives back in the real world as we caught the final minutes of the movie apollo 13 and also watched the rockies win game 3 of the nlcs, reminding us that our amazing journey is coming to an end within the month and we'll be back to powerpoint before we know it.

After a dramatic 7 hr drive (dramatic both because of the amazing scenery and the speed at which the minibus passed trucks on blind curves at 60 kph) south to Vang Vieng, we felt like we’d arrived at a surreal backpacker summer camp. Nights were spent watching Friends reruns in our choice of about 9 restaurants that played them continuously (and all served the same mediocre, but very cheap, ‘western’ food) on the main road in town. Days were spent floating down the Nam Song river, stopping off to explore temples and caves (we went tubing through one) nestled in the surrounding limestone cliffs, and visiting one or more of about a dozen makeshift restaurant / bars constructed from boards and bamboo, packed full of backpackers playing volleyball, sunbathing, swimming, and watching each other jump off platforms and ropeswings extending 40 feet or so over the river. Everyone we met was staying longer than they’d planned, some extending a 2 day visit to 10 days or more -- sadly we could only stay 1 extra day without missing our flight back to Bangkok…

Still not sure of the literal translation, but this is the phrase we memorized as we paddled around the limestone islands off the coast of phuket, searching for fishermen to tow us back the hour or so back to shore… the 90 minute paddle out to the amazing islands of the ao phang-nga national park earlier in the day didn’t seem that taxing – and when we got to the islands we were met by incredibly clear blue water and bright white sand pristine beaches fringing the sheer 600 foot cliffs of the islands. there were caves, lagoons, and beaches to explore and so maybe we didn’t realize soon enough that the slight wind that had brought us to the islands had picked up substantially and we no longer could paddle against it (in our super-wide, super-heavy piece of plastic passed off to us as an actual kayak…pretty much the only one on the island where we were staying) when it was time to go home… a passing power boat towed us to the marine patrol station on one of the islands, but our hopes of getting back anytime soon were dashed when we finally worked out from the ‘ranger’ (a guy in a wife-beater t-shirt and shorts) through a ridiculous series of hand-signals that the ‘marine patrol’ boat was… not running right now. but we did get him to tell us the phrase we needed and point us in the direction of some other islands (even further from shore) where we might be able to pay some fishermen to take us back. So we paddled out, repeating ‘hi buy song, got yao noi’ (please take us to yao noi island… we think…) every 4 seconds or so so we wouldn’t forget it. It took quite a while of pointie-talkie with the fishermen, and then two liters of gasoline poured out of reused coke bottles and the equivalent of 3 us dollars, for them to load us and the kayak onto their tiny wooden long-tail boat and drive us the hour or so back to shore. but… the kayaking in Thailand was some of the best we have ever done so it was all worth it…

If you’ve ever tried something you’re really anxious about already and then had your instructor yell at you in the first 30 seconds of class (and be entirely wrong) and then every 30 seconds thereafter, then you know how we felt in our open water scuba certification class. we took our 4-day course with an extremely high strung german lady on the beautiful island of ko tao in the gulf of thailand… not super-relaxing but at least we now have our dive tables memorized forwards and backwards! we followed up the ‘academic’ portion of our trip with 3 very chill days on the nearby island of ko samui – stayed in an awesome ocean front bungalow, did some more kayaking and visited the islands’s water falls, hiking trails, and…we’re ashamed to admit, in order to satisfy our western chain restaurant fix... the island's mcdonalds and starbucks…

since our one year anniversary was celebrated via a webcam to korea and laura working a gps launch, before the trip, we agreed to celebreate our 2 year anniversary in a once in a lifetime place -- visiting ankgor wat in cambodia was perfect. we spent 4 days climbing around the intricately carved and absolutely massive temples, pyramids, and towers that make up the vast complex of ankor wat and the surrounding ancient city ruins and temples. we also stayed in a super super super fancy hotel, layed by the pool, took a bubble bath in our in-room hottub, ordered room service... and stole all the free soaps... we chuckled at how far we'd come since our business travel in the air force where air conditioning AND a tv were not considered ultimate luxury...