"Well, that was..... interesting."

Back at CIMI, we grew tired of hearing 12 year old girls shriek "eewww gross" when dissecting squid. To prevent having to hear this, we informed students beforehand that instead of saying eewww and gross, they were to pause, think like a scientist, scratch their chin (if their hands weren't covered in squid guts), and thoughtfully remark "....interesting." Thus the squid were no longer disgusting and slimy but instead something new, different and interesting. While in Asia, I have tried to apply this concept of interesting to the cultural situations that I have encountered. I see a man scrubbing his sidewalk with soapy water and I pause, have an open mind, appreciate that that sidewalk will remain clean for about two minutes before the nearest mangy dog dumps out the nearest uncovered garbage can all over it, and I say "well, that was interesting." A woman holds her baby over the sewer while it poops, and I pause and say "well, that was interesting."

China is a place full of "well, that was interesting." From the moment that we crossed the border, we have been uttering that phrase. We wander around not knowing what is going on about 95% of the time, but that may be because our China guidebook was confiscated at the border for having a map that didn't include Taiwan as part of China. Maybe it's because we don't speak a word of Chinese. Whatever the reason, we are in the dark in China and cannot find the light switch. Sometimes we are permitted to do things, and sometimes we are denied. I am sure that people tell us the reasons behind these things, but we have no hope of understanding them. The first night was interesting since we took our first sleeper bus and I thought that I might die. Picture the night bus from Harry Potter, but with three rows of bunk beds that don't move and picture me on the top middle bunk. Basically, there was nothing for me to hold onto and I was expected to sleep in that position while the bus careened around corners on narrow dirt roads while motorbikes whizzed past in the other direction. I coped by practicing meditation. Breathe in, breathe out. I knew that meditation would come in handy someday.
Toilets in China are interesting. If you are lucky, it's a squatter, but it likely wont' be clean. The smell of urine radiates from the "toilets." If you are unlucky, there is simply a channel that you squat over with very short cement dividers (or maybe none at all) so that you can watch everyone else doing their business also. If you are in one of those, whatever you do, don't look down because the channel may not get washed out very much. If you are a small child, then everywhere can be a toilet, including the nearest farmer's field. That is right, human feces = fertilizer in China.

Since we always seem to things the interesting way, we thought going overland wasn't enough. Perhaps it would make a better story if we say... rode a water buffalo overland to Korea. Then we thought about how much you would have to feed a water buffalo and what you would likely smell like after the experience and we decided against it. Our next plan came in Lijiang when we decided to rent bikes to explore the town. We were about to head off on some rusty mountain bikes when we spotted a tandem. We have always wanted to ride a tandem, so we quickly traded in our two single bikes for one very long and heavy and unstable tandem. Maybe we could ride a tandem across China we thought. It sounded like a really good idea until we tried to actually ride the tandem down a hill. Somehow we managed to ride around, get lost and find cute little villages, which was really fun. Ok, so no water buffalo and no tandem bike. Anyone have any brilliant ideas of how to make traveling overland fun?

In Lijiang, we stayed at an amazing guesthouse recommended by our British friends who inspired the trip to China. The owner is the wonderful Chinese woman who directs you around and talks loudly and makes you eat way too much food. You get to call her Mama, and that is exactly what she is like. From Lijiang, we visited the Snow Jade Mountains and rode on a gondola. We made the mistake of not having Mama arrange it for us, and so it was much more confusing than anything in life ever should be. Our efforts were rewarded with a very cold and cloudy view of some beautiful snowy peaks, and it was worth it. The next day, we had Mama send us off to Tiger Leaping Gorge. TLG is this amazingly huge gorge (I think it's one of the biggest in the world, but our guidebook got taken from us so I am not sure), and you get to hike for a couple of says to see it. Along the way, we stayed at pictuesque guesthouses in the mountains and drank lots of tea. I highly recommend Tiger Leaping Gorge if you like to hike and are ever in China.

Now we are in a small town called Dali, where cute old women in the streets ask you if you want to buy ganja. There are tons of yummy places to eat and we are resting up here for the long train ride to Beijing. Ok, I am stopping now because I think that the people who own the hotel want to go to sleep and I think I am in their bedroom. They are hovering so I must go.

Hoi An

We had clothes made. Lots of them. So many that we had to ship them to Korea. We were measured in any and every way you can possily imagine. We liked our tailor so much that we took her out for drinks afterwards. I wish that we could take Quyen home with us. Oh yeah, we like pointy hats that they wear in Vietnam. I am even carrying one around to send home to Max (but it is getting a little smashed...). Ok, too many things have happened since then so I can't think of anything else to write here.

Vietnam

It's funny how different cultures work. We do things one way and other people do them some other way. Sometimes you look at something and think to yourself wow, that is a great idea. why don't we do things like that? And sometimes you look at something and think what the hell were they thinking? that is completely illogical. And then there are times when something is just different, not better or worse, just different. Like garbage pick up in Vietnam. The garbage trucks here drive around blaring music like the ice cream man but louder and more annoying. When the truck stops, people rush out, rubbish bins in hand, and throw it into the truck. Then the person on the back picks out the recyclable items like bottles and cans. We watched all of this go down yesterday morning at breakfast and we suddenly realized why we could never find garbage cans on the street. They just bring it out when the ice cream man, wait no I mean the garbage man, comes around. That way the mangy dogs don't get into the garbage like they constantly did in Thailand (a simple closing lid would solve that problem but maybe they wanted the dogs to spread the garbage out on the sidewalk- that is the thing about culture, I may be missing the whole point by wanting lids on the garbage).

Ok, so we made it to Vietnam, where tourism is much like herding cattle or sheep. They get you onto tour buses and just shuttle you around from one place to the next. They are really nice about it. They tell jokes and sing to you, but the whole experience feels a lot like Disneyland and not traveling. It's like we are on the Jungle Cruise and we can't get off. We went to Saigon and went on our first organized tour to tunnels the Viet Cong used during the Vietnam War. Once again, I felt like a total asshole for being from the US, but it was very educational. There is this strange phenomenon here (and in Cambodia also) of going to sites where loads of people were killed and having a shooting range where tourists can throw a grenade or shoot a rocket launcher. I don't understand how people can walk around and see the devastation and destruction that those very weapons did to actual people, and then want to go fire one off. It's bizarre. The next day we went on the next, and also our last, organized tour where we went on a boat to visit some islands. The snorkeling was phenomenal with amazing corals, interesting fish Ihave never seen before and warm water. Paco and I enjoyed the snorkeling while the rest of our boat got drunk. I don't think that organized tours are a good idea for us...

Now we are in Hoi An having clothes and shoes made, which will need to be a new blog so I will save that one for later.

Cambodia
First of all, I would like everyone to congratulate Paco for finally putting something up on our blog. Nice work, Pacster!!
Ok, so after trials and tribulations we made it to Cambodia. Upon arrival, we were forced to pay more for our visa than we were supposed to, and then forced onto a free bus to take us to the bus station, except the bus says on it "tourist shuttle"and the bus station is labeled "tourist lounge." It was all a bit dodgey. Then we spent the next two hours negotiating with people to get a minibus ride to Siem Reap, which is where Angkor Wat is located. Our reward for that: a six hour ride on the worst road ever. Seriously, the worst road I have ever been on. Asia Airlines paid off the government to not fix the notoriously bad road, which inspires people to buy plane tickets. On the way, our driver stopped to get drunk. Seriously. We stopped and he downed about four beers (at 8% each) before continuing on the worst road ever. Somehow, we made it to Siem Reap.
We rode bikes around Angkor Wat the next day. There are all of these amazing ruins and lots and lots of tourists. It was a pleasant day biking around, getting lost, and watching tourists do stupid things- like taking posing for pictures with a sword on a horse. My favorite part was watching the eight year old girls selling things mob Paco. I don't know why she claims that she doesn't really like kids, because the is the biggest sucker for them and they know it. They practically attack her when she walks by. I walk by and nothing happens. Paco walks by and it's a mosh pit. They try and sell you all sorts of things, and they are scary. Seriously.
After the ruins, we traveled to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to visit some Australian friends from our TEFL course who are teaching there. They have been showing us around the city and giving us all sorts of useful information. One night we went to this amazing bar that looks like a tropical resort with a pool. It was pretty sick dog (that's right Chris, it's sick dog not bird). Last night we went to a place where you cook your food in a pot or a barbaque at the table, which was interesting as well. Yesterday we saw a very depressing side of Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. In case you don't know about it, in the mid-1970's, Pol Pot wanted to make Cambodia a communist nation and so he decided to exterminate all of the intellectuals and their families (about two million of them). We went to the Killing Fields where they brought people to execute and bury in mass graves. While walking around, you stumble across torn shreds of clothing poking out of the ground, and then you realize that there is a human bone inside that clothing. then we went to Toul Sleng (S-21), which is an old school where they detained and tortured people. It was not an uplifting day.
Now that I have written all of this, I realize that I may not have painted the best picture of Cambodia so I need to inform everyone of how much I love this place. Sure the city is dirty, and the taxi drivers are pushy and constantly harrass you, and the sidewalks are not for walking on, and I was inches away from being run over by a motorbike the other day, but this country is amazing. People are so friendly and wonderful. The guy who owns our guesthouse drinks beer with us and tries to use as much slang as he can, which makes us giggle our Wilma and Betty giggle. We really do love it here, but tomorrow we are headed to Vietnam.

What is going on with all of the sepia pictures? I don't really know. For some reason both of us started taking them quite frequently. I can't explain it.