bangkok floods

the worst floods thailand has seen in 50 years are at their peak and the amount of water that's covering bangkok and its suburbs is astounding. these photos are unbelievable. we're an hour south of the city on dry land, but the city will likely be inundated for a long time to come. 

if you want to donate, i believe the thai red cross is accepting online donations. if anyone else has recommendations for other organizations that use funds wisely and are reputable, please leave a comment.

vietnam to laos to thailand

photo extravaganza! i'm slapping this together in haste since we have to catch a bus to chiang mai in a few minutes but if US magazine has taught us anything, it's that people really just want photos with captions anyway. am i wrong?

 we took a boat and went rock climbing on this island in halong bay in the north of vietnam. the name of the island escapes me now but the beach is called tiger beach. holy smokes.

 i am endlessly obsessed with the sea shells. those stripes!

never in my life have i been as sweaty as i was when this picture was taken. i had to take a rest on this ledge and marvel at the new levels of stink i'd achieved.

 waiting for the bus on cat ba island. we then spent the next 36 hours on buses to get from vietnam to laos.

 fortunately we had a stop in hanoi where bia hoi (translates to "fresh beer") helped ease the pain of the journey. a glass of it is 4,000 dong, or about 20 cents and everyone sits on teeny tiny stools streetside to drink. they even sometimes bring you ice cubes to put in it. i've been saying it for years: ice in (already watery) beer is a beautiful thing.

 we made it to laos. vang vieng was our first stop.

in search of a waterfall/swimming hole, we trudged through rice paddies and found some very rickety bridges but no swimming. 

 redemption! awesome waterfalls complete with a rope swing near luang prabang.

 our buddies from singapore. we all went climbing then took our sore arms to the local bowling alley (bowling in laos? who knew?!) for some good fun.

we left laos on a slow boat up the mekong river. it took 2 days on a boat that looks like this one. what you can't see are the seats, which were actual car seats, ripped out of the vehicle and bolted to wooden planks on the floor of the boat. it was incredible.

i love that someone thought "y'know, let's not enclose the giant deafening diesel engine on this boat or prevent anyone from losing an arm in its wildly spinning gears, but some curtains would really liven the place up."

we're off to more adventures with lax safety standards and beautiful views in chiang mai. more pictures coming soon.

halfway through; lessons learned

we celebrated the halfway mark of the trip two days ago. four weeks down, four to go. fortunately, our 36-hour journey from cat ba island in vietnam to vang vieng, laos gave us lots of time to reflect on some things. the first lesson: no matter who wins or loses in fashion (i brought home a landslide victory in the "accuracy" poncho category, for the record), most important is that no one really gives a crap about voting on your travel blog. i respect that, people.

the second lesson: just because 12-year-old girls ride motorbikes in asia while talking on their cell phones, doesn't mean those little machines are easy to drive. we rented a scooter on cat ba island and i got pretty pumped to be driving it, so i hopped a curb to park on the sidewalk, and although i thought i had a good hold on the brakes, i managed to crash directly into a cafe. a total disaster at 1 mph! luckily no one was hurt, no damage done, and the cafe owner hardly batted an eye.

someone take that thing away from her.

the third lesson: bugs grow to terrifying proportions in warm climates. this isn't really news to anyone, but still. it doesn't cease to be freaky. this spider was in our room in cambodia. i put the soda can there for scale, took the picture and ran. i think i heard him crack it open on our way out. we also saw a praying mantis in vietnam that was as long as my entire hand and craned its neck to focus its creepy bug eyes on us and watch us walk by. and huge tarantulas for sale by street food vendors in cambodia. yikes.

the fourth lesson: nothing on this green earth is cuter than a baby duck. we turned our motorbike right around when we passed them to get a closer look. face it, you are powerless against this little yellow tractor beam.

fifth lesson: pictures take forever to upload. i'm losing my patience, so until we have a better internet connection, i leave you with the duckling. enjoy!

america's next top poncho (vote here!) (vote now!)

someone once said that in fashion, either you're in or you're out. and ponchos are unfortunately in because it's been raining steadily since we arrived here in hoi an, vietnam several days ago. so just before we got a serious case of stir-crazyness indoors, we decided a contest was in order and hit the streets for our very own international photo shoot. in true haute couture style we chose inspirational themes for each photo, and then improvised our poses in the moments before the picture was taken. 

this isn't just for fun, people. this is for glory. and a lifetime supply of maybelline lip gloss. take a look at each of the photos and cast your vote below. in case you can't tell, josey is wearing the orange poncho and i'm in yellow. results coming soon! (pending the inevitable recount) here goes:

"dawn on the mekong"

 

"flowing white rose"

"entire family on moped"

"close up"

  

please submit your most honest opinions here:

  

say wat: thailand to cambodia

(the rain and our unhappy stomachs have us holed up indoors in cambodia, so this post is a bit wordier than the last few. the good thing is you can just look at the pictures.)

we left railay at low tide, which meant josey and i, along with some other travelers and a local fire-throwing troupe, piled into the back of a tractor. it drove us out through sandy mangroves to waist-deep water where we could then pile into a waiting longtail boat. the longtail boat trip took just a few minutes, just enough to take us to even deeper water where the ferry boat to phuket was waiting. slightly dilapidated but totally charming, the ferry boat had a static-y tv playing asian women's volleyball, free tea and cookies (be still my heart), and the coming storm only rained -- poured -- for a few minutes so we could stand on the deck and marvel at the clouds.


longtail boats and storm clouds in railay.

the ferry to phuket. i was hepped up on free cookies at this point and this scene was very exciting.

storms!

the cheapest flight we could find into cambodia left from phuket had an overnight layover in singapore, which is very out of the way, but worth it to save some dough. we got off the boat in phuket and headed straight for the airport, where we hated ourselves a little bit for eating subway in the airport, hated ourselves a little bit more for totally loving it, and landed in singapore, where kelly was kind enough to put us up for the night. singapore is almost eerily clean and very expensive (they wanted $7.25 for a toothbrush! not a chance!) which was a shock, but it also has some of the best couches i've ever slept on. kelly, you and your sofa are heroes in my book.

we landed in phnom penh on sunday morning, then took a 6-hour bus ride to siem reap. the bus was equipped with a (barely) working dvd player, generating great personal excitement that was quickly extinguished when it became clear the only programming was very odd, very loud cambodian vaudeville variety shows. the monsoons have been causing a lot of flooding in cambodia lately and the road was a rather relaxing combination of deep potholes and giant puddles, but we made it to siem reap around 2:30am where a brave and lovely tuk tuk driver took us to a guesthouse for some sleep.

we waded out to dinner in siem reap.


neither rain nor floods nor weird stuff floating down the street stays this flower-seller from the old market.

next up was angkor wat and the other temples in the area, a short drive from siem reap. they're enormous and in various states of repair and disrepair. angkor wat is the largest and the best-preserved, while others have been almost totally overrun by the jungle. they were built in the 12th century and were first used by hindus, then by theravada buddhists. then apparently they filmed tomb raider there. by far the most phenomenal sites are the strangler fig and silk cotton trees growing through the stone.


inside angkor wat.


so much of the temples' surface area is carved with amazing detail. oh the things people did before tv!

the jungle taketh over.

rather than being cleared of the overgrowth, this temple, ta prohm, was left pretty much as it was found in the early 20th century, as a "concession to the general taste for the picturesque." someone french made that call, obvi.

artsy!

tomorrow we explore phnom penh and friday we head to vietnam. for now, we are exploring the world as we recuperate by watching the discovery channel (read: america's next top model) in our hostel and eating lots of pepto bismol. fingers crossed.

bangkok to railay

before we left bangkok on sunday night, kelly came up from singapore to hang with us in bangkok for the weekend. she got introduced to thai mosquitoes. apparently they spray some sort of insecticide all over singapore to kill the mosquitoes so she had been bite-free for a while, but that might explain her slurred speech and lack of balance. or maybe it was the beers on friday night.

i, for one, had a changover.

saturday we took a city bus to chatuchak market, open only on the weekend, where you can buy quite literally anything. vintage levi's (among a ton of vintage americana merchandise, t-shirts being immensely popular), housewares, foodstuffs, pets, and a trip to the bathroom (costs 2 bhat to use the can).

 costumed bunnies for sale.

also for sale: "cialis"

we set off for chinatown the next day, beating the traffic by taking a commuter boat. there are lots of them that go up and down the river, like a city bus on water, and they pull up to the dock and get people on and off with lightning speed. the whole process takes maybe a minute and a half. an overbearing german tourist tried to steer us in the wrong direction but we held strong to our plan and made it.

 pork buns are delicious the world over.

 those fish are somewhat alive.

 these flower charms are very common. again, i had to stop myself from buying flowers.

 chinatown!

 greenish yellow pomegranates.

 i love these two.

 boat ride so fun.

 and so cheap. 20 bhat!

 i was very taken with the orange and yellow motif.

that evening we set off for railay in the south of thailand. sleeper train! so fun! the food was actually awesome and after dinner this sweet dude comes around to make your bed for you. i slept like a baby.

 a veritable feast.

 the dude in bunk 39 caught my eye.

 good thing i looked so awesome. he bought me coffee in the morning.

after 22 hours of travel via train, bus, pickup truck and boat, we arrived in railay, explored some awesome beaches, met a dude who has a pet sea otter, climbed some rocks and swam to our hearts' content. we're heading out tomorrow for cambodia and i'm sad to say goodbye to this joint.

 the crabs make little sand balls for reasons yet unknown.

 then they organize their sand balls into awesome patterns.

 i think it's some sort of tourist gimmick.

 i set up shop on phra nang beach but no one was buying.

 got a little obsessed with the shells.

josey is an expert climber and very studious to boot.

 

we did some deep water solo climbing, where you just fall in the water if you eff up. our guide luang was one cool, sweet man.he gave me a seashell ring he found on the beach and advised me to take it off while i was climbing lest i break it.

until internet access becomes available again--