Monday, Jan 22nd, 2007
Categories: travels
Live update:
Hi Loved Ones,
Greetings from Varanasi, India. “world’s oldest living city”. India is intense and dense (as Isaiah tells me). Every country we’ve visited has prepared us well for India. It’s electric here. cows walking free in the streets, monkeys on the rooftops, and everyone bathing in the ganges river, purfiying themselves and washing their clothes. gorgeous and majestic and extremely polluted, open sewer water running into the river and bodies being cremated, just a few meters away from soul cleansing bathers. its a study in contrasts. God really does live here and you can see it in everyone’s faces and their actions and the goats and the cows. Varanasi is almost indescribable. a city full to the brim with spiritual pilgrims making offerings. God is everywhere and everything, here. The food is excellant, the driving is crap, the streets are tiny and the cow shit is everywhere. and we are in love with Varanasi or Benares or Kashi or whatever name they call it.
Marcia and I have been taking it easy, in anticipation of India and our last three days in Vietnam were spent hanging out, eating and very little else. The malaria medication has been giving me some pretty heavy side-effects: acute depression, violent dreams and general tiredness. I’d stop taking it, but the mosquitos here are pretty intense. all the rest and relaxation has paid off and w’ere both fully energized for India. our pace is more relaxed here, so we’re not pushing ourselves as hard and getting plenty of naps in.
We’re in Varanasi for the next few days and then we move on to Bodhgaya, the place where the Buddha attained enlightment, while sitting under a bodhi tree. We stay there for a few days and then back to Varanasi for a day and then on to Rajasthan. We feel like we’re in the homestretch now (just over 2 weeks remaining) and we’re having dreams of sleeping in our own bed, cooking in our kitchen, loving our animals and getting back to normal life.
We miss you all terribly.
much love,
// mundo y masha
Wednesday, Jan 17th, 2007
Categories: travels
Spotty internet access as usual. i have no idea how people actually live blog from indochine. Marcia and I are a little homesick and feeling a bit zapped for energy as we head in to our last few weeks, we leave for India on Saturday. We arrived in Saigon today, from Hoi An and here’s an email from a few days back:
Greetings from Vietnam. So we’re in a small coastal town, half way down the coast between Hanoi and Saigon. It’s called Hoi An and the town is known for it’s gorgeous center full of 200-300 year old buildings and it’s amazing array of tailors. The guide books warn you, that when you arrive you can’t survive a trip here without purchasing a new wardrobe and they were right! I had a button down shirt that i’ve worn to death and so I had them make two new versions of it (for $15). Marcia and I both got jackets made and sneakers too (in chinese silk!). Hoi An is a shopper’s dream, it’s like one big giant mall, but every store has something THAT YOU MUST BUY!
It’s really a gorgeous town too, today we rented a motorbike and took off into the surrounding towns, to get out of the shopping mindframe We came across a bunch of older ladies picking through the rice fields. They were very nice and loved the attention this blue-eyed blonde-haired foreigner was lavishing on them.
Everyone in Vietnam is in love with Marcia, the guys and the girls as well. all the girls remark how beautiful she is and they wonder if she’s japanese or chinese, they love her skin color (and of course her spotless complection). i love watching all the girls give marcia attention. she secretly loves it, although she’d never admit to it. Of course I stick out like a sore thumb and Marcia has begged me to cut my hair on several occassions (from getting a bit too much unwanted attention).
Hanoi was amazing, but large and smokey. 10 gazillion motorbikes and and old quarter that was essentially one giant market, with each item being sold on it’s concurrent street: hat street, backpack street wooden bowls street, sweater street, christmas tree light stree, fishing pole street, etc… It made Phnom Penh look like Puerto Vallarta.
After Hanoi, we took the night train to Hue, an old imperial city with a huge citadel and tombs of several emporers. Hue is known for it’s cuisine and I tried everything I could find. It was cold and rainy and humid. At one point I woke up on the train to see frost on the ground outside. We then took a bus from Hue through Denang and on to Hoi An. These areas are seperated by a huge mountain range that essentially makes the weather systems completely different. Here in Hoi An it’s been rainy, but when the sun comes out it gets hot and it’s on the ocean, so we went to the beach today to find people sunbathing. such a change.
The vietnamese countryside is insanely beautiful, and if there was ever a part of our trip i’d love to do by motorcycle, this is it. Vietnam is nothing like I had expected. It’s quite mountainous. rice fields everywhere and then abrupt mountains shooting into the clouds. there is tons of history here and the underlying culture is much more chinese-influenced then I had imagined. Pagodas, temples and towns right out of something you’d see in a movie like “crouching tiger, hidden dragon”. the people are a little hard to deal with. we do find sweet people here and there, but mostly people are very pushy and in your face. it’s most definitely a cultural thing, but i wouldn’t use “relaxed”, as an adjective to describe the vietnamese. daily life is hectic and everyone wants something from you. it can wear you down, for sure.
On wednesday we move on to Saigon and then saturday we are off to India. Time is flying by now. and I can’t believe we have another month of traveling. we’re definitely getting a little tired. we’re gonna need a vacation from our vacation.
we love you all and miss you. we have a million and one stories to tell…
love you,
// mundo y masha
Tuesday, Jan 9th, 2007
Categories: travels
The past few days:
We’re at the Siem Reap airport, awaiting our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam.
We’ve spent the past 3 days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. The 6 hour bus ride through the country was butt-numbing, but so beautiful. Rural cambodia is beyond poor, poorer than anything Marcia or I have ever seen. But the people are so sweet and funny and all smiles. When the bus stopped for a pee break, all the folks on the bus wanted to have their picture taken with me, in front of the bus. so sweet.
Phnom Penh was beautiful but hectic. It was kind of like chinatown on steroids, set in a crumbling post-french colonial city. a million whirring motorbikes, cars, trucks and cyclos (tall french bikes that push a one person passenger seat). broad sidewalks filled with markets, food stalls and parked cars. no one walks in Phnom Penh, so sidewalks have developed into open air businesses. There are very few services here, so the french architecture is offset by trash and dust and remains of the morning markets in the streets. Even still, the city is very charming, if a bit chaotic. sprawling, living markets every few blocks, where everyone does their business for the day, selling food and motorbike parts, buying vegetables and meats, spices etc… This is urban Cambodia at it’s fever pitch.
We’re at the half-way point in our trip now and we’re both so happy we’ve chosen the trip to be so long but we’re both having a tinge of homesickness and could use a day or two off. After Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phenom Penh all being fairly large cities, Marcia and I could use a little down time in a sleepy little -beach town. Hopefully, in Vietnam, we’ll be able to travel down to the middle section of the country, to where there is a good mix of culture and beaches. The more I read about Vientam in our guide book, the more I think we’re going to like it, it sounds like such a wonderful place.
Sunday, Jan 7th, 2007
Categories: travels
I’m still having problems logging in to wordpress, so… here’s the semi-latest, written a few days ago:
so, we decided to go to cambodia, last minute, all the flights to Laos
were fully booked. a shame. But Cambodia is incredible: the people,
the food, the culture. the temples at Ankor Wat are indescribably
beautiful and immense. something like 100 different temples, some as
large as 1km squared. it takes 3 days to view most of them. a week to
view them all (that’s if you spend all day, every day). intense. and
the architecture of the temples is amazing. Siem Reap is such a
beautiful town, once a french colony, so fresh baguettes on the
streets in the morning and french colonial architecture everywhere.
it’s really nice to be out of the cities and Siem Reap is really our
style. very laid back and the food…
I think Marcia and I are really hitting our stride, here in Cambodia.
We’re finally used to moving every 3-4 days and we love the $10/night
little guesthouses (as long as they’re clean). I wish I had a full
month in Cambodia to explore. It really is a magical place, you must
all get here, soon. In Siem Reap, there is so much hotel construction
going on, in 3-4 years this place will be unrecognizable. Ankor Wat is
going to a major destination on par with the vatican. i’m not kidding.
come, soon, before the charm wears off and the locals get over their
love for the tourists.
The people are so wonderful. smiles everywhere, everyone wants to
practice their english. lots of amputees (land mine victims) and victims of the war, but
the community has lots of ways for people to earn livings, guide books
and political books for sale everywhere musicians on the street and
lots of stores that carry craft goods made by amputees that go to
benefit various groups.
We love, love, love Cambodia.
ok, gotta go now, we’re having a hell of a time getting plane tickets.
since it’s the high season everything is full. shoulda booked in
advance, but how could i have known…
love youse,
// marcia y mundo
